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Obama Drops Syria Training Plan, Shifts to Equipping Fighters - cryoshon http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-09/obama-revamping-syria-rebel-strategy-amid-challenge-from-russia ====== cryoshon "General Lloyd Austin, the head of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate hearing last month that only “four or five” of about 50 U.S.-trained rebels were in the fight against Islamic State at that point. Lawmakers of both parties called the program a failure. “So we’re counting on our fingers and toes at this point,when we had envisioned 5,400 by the end of the year,” Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat said. Congress appropriated $500 million for the training effort in this fiscal year. Of that, $300 million has been obligated so far, with $42 million under contract as of May, the most recent data available. The program is separate from a classified training effort run by the Central Intelligence Agency." That's a fuck ton of cash to train 4 or 5 guys. I am betting most of this money went directly to the black budget.

Ask HN: Do you think VueJS will surpass React? - TaizWeb Considering boarding the Vue hype train but I'm left wondering: will it be worth it, or am I just wasting my time? React already has a firm hold in the industry it seems, and I'm just not sure if Vue would be able to top it. I'm curious if anyone really involved in the industry would be able to tell me their thoughts on the rise of Vue and if it'll be able to persist like React has. ====== BjoernKW You'll definitely not be wasting time. Vue.js has some serious traction already. It really doesn't matter if it'll surpass React. There's plenty of space for both and it's not a winner-takes-all situation. Besides, it's hard to predict if either will be still widely used for new projects say 5 years from now. So, becoming a one-trick (or rather one- framework) pony probably isn't the wisest path in the long run. Rather try to take in general best practices, design patterns and approaches and become someone that can work comfortably with both React and Vue.js or in fact any other new JavaScript framework that might come along. ~~~ Can_Not > There's plenty of space for both and it's not a winner-takes-all situation. That's a misconception a lot of outsiders make about the JavaScript community. There's not even close to one winner. It's not "WWW World Champion React vs upcoming Challenger: VueJS". There's probably about 10-20 (possibly even more!) production ready frameworks you could be using that have strong community backing and ecosystems. VueJS and React are merely approaching the pinnacle of what a full stack isomorphic framework can be. The others will follow. ------ cocktailpeanuts Let me share a "contrarian" view. People think react can't be beat because they have Facebook behind them and tons of people are working on it with tons of funding. But I think that may be the reason why it may go down one day. Facebook is not doing this for complete charity. At the moment their interest is aligned with react being open source but you never know when that will change. And when that happens, the artificial illusion of support will go away. I'm not just pulling this out of nowhere, I actually use both react and vue, and think react ecosystem is too convoluted. It's a matter of opinion but I don't think it's just me who feels that way. ~~~ jayajay I agree, this is the sole reason why I am no longer using React for anything serious. Facebook is bad news, no pun intended. Thankfully, there are other solutions that don't have any strings attached. ~~~ swah May I ask what alternatives you feel are usable right now? ------ owebmaster Nope because although VueJS is simpler than angular2, it but makes a lot more assumptions (and thus lockins) to the user than React. The way best practices evolves in React doesn't happen so easily in vuejs ecossystem, even less in the angular2. ------ yanilkr Vuejs just wants to be a web frontend framework. Reactjs wants to be a common way of building apps across Web, Android and iphone. Both have different goals targeting different usecases. Vuejs might do well for webapps due to its simplicity alone. ~~~ Hanks10100 Vue.js is not alone. Weex has already support Vue.js. Developers now can use Vue.js to write mobile apps. [1] [http://weex.apache.org](http://weex.apache.org) [2] [https://github.com/alibaba/weex/releases/tag/v0.10.0](https://github.com/alibaba/weex/releases/tag/v0.10.0) ------ feistypharit Vue has some annoying issues as you grow. For example, if you start simple from the script tag and later want to move to npm and webpack, all sorts of things break. It's not just the difference in build types that they note. (With or without runtime compiler). Ultimately, I think the winning framework will be one that compiles. Something like svelte[1]. It's how most other software is made for good reasons. [https://svelte.technology/](https://svelte.technology/) ------ Pishky VueJS does not have the backing of Facebook and cannot compete on that issue alone. ~~~ cocktailpeanuts How does that matter? There are countless historical examples where larger organizations with plenty of funding lost to smaller opponent. ~~~ TaizWeb Ah, like how babel was able to compete with typescript despite typescript being funded by Microsoft and babel by community efforts ~~~ onurozkan I choose Babel over Typescript, because Babel implements default Ecmascript (afaik). Typescript is mostly type-safe and welcoming for non-js (c#, maybe java) coders. ------ ewrcoffee To my understanding, react allows writing more type safe code. So no. ------ antons_ghost I am no expert, but I chose React. It has a massive following, and will probably live much longer than the code that I write today.

Sprint Using Screenshots from Apple.com - jonkratz https://www.sprint.com/landings/iphone/?INTCID=AB:HERO:091412:iPhone5:LearnMore:960x320 ====== jaysonjphillips This is probably directed by Apple, seeing as how verizon[1] and att[2] appear to do the same. [1] <http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/splash/iphone.jsp> [2] [http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/apple/iphone/5-16gb...](http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/apple/iphone/5-16gb- white.html) ------ whalesalad Verizon is doing the same thing. I think that is the windows rendering of Apple's page ... using Lucida Sans Unicode.

Harvard Professor Matt Welsh: Working for Google - rxin http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-for-google.html ====== chadaustin [academia : toy boats in bathtubs :: industry : aircraft carriers] is the most memorable distinction between academia and industry I've heard. In the end, your slice of the pie will be as big as you can handle, but the overall size of the pie (and thus your percentage of control) determines whether you choose academia or startups or established companies. ~~~ ryanwaggoner At the risk of looking stupid, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that [academia : industry :: toy boats in bathtubs : aircraft carriers] ? I would read this aloud as: "academia is to industry as toy boats in bathtubs is to aircraft carriers", which seems to make more sense to me as an analogy. So do I have it right, do I not understand analogies, or do I not understand the notation you're using? ~~~ ehsanul I read it as "if academia were toy boats, industry would be aircraft carriers." Edit - the blog post clears this up: _The way I think of it, being in academia is a lot like building toy boats and playing with them in your bathtub. ... Whereas being at Google is like working on an aircraft carrier at sea._ ~~~ shadowfox Now I can see why mathematics is so formal ------ vibhavs As you can tell by the date, it's about a month old. He has a follow up blog post titled "First week at Google": [http://matt- welsh.blogspot.com/2010/07/first-week-at-google....](http://matt- welsh.blogspot.com/2010/07/first-week-at-google.html). ~~~ ardit33 "There are few people over 40 wandering the halls. " -- Oh yeah. I wonder what happens to an engineer at google when he turns 40. Does he go to Valhalla or something? ~~~ nostrademons He invents one of: a.) A programming language. b.) A distributed database. ------ gaius There are no portholes on the poop deck! Every sailor knows that :-) ------ Jun8 What! And I was kinda angry with Google that after all my degrees they still consider me for "software engineering" position. This prof gets the same title. Hmm. ~~~ pgbovine iirc, almost every technical person there who does coding is a 'software engineer' ... even ken thompson, rob pike, guido, etc. EDIT: k nevermind about ken thompson and rob pike ... but there must be other big-shot hackers whose title is still 'software engineer' ~~~ Jun8 Yep. It's like calling Michelangelo a painter. It's true, but... AFAIK, their SW engineer positions have five levels, so not everybody's equal really. ~~~ ramchip Well, if Michelangelo had a business card, I think he'd write "painter" or "artist" on it. There isn't much else to say. What should they be using besides "software engineer"? ~~~ ciupicri Senior Software Engineer, Team Lead, Architect, CTO and many other buzzwords.

US computer science grads outperforming those in other key nations - furcyd https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/us-computer-science-grads-outperforming-those-in-other-key-nations/ ====== detaro duplicate, please check before submitting: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19430880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19430880) ------ raphaelj No European? I'd expect elite US schools to beat EU schools, but non-elite EU school to perform better compared to their US counterparts.

Mao Kun Map - Thevet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Kun_map ====== peteretep > Of interest is the inclusion of what are interpreted as Paracel Islands, > Macclesfield Bank or Spratly Islands – the names Shitang (石塘), Wansheng > Shitangyu (萬生石塘嶼), and Shixing Shitang (石星石塘) are noted on the map, although > identification of these islands may vary with different authors. Ahh, _that’s_ what this is about ~~~ trianglem What do you mean? Are those the names of those disputed islands in the South China Sea? Are you implying this is Chinese propaganda? If the above is true then it certainly looks like it. ~~~ skrebbel Africa is also on the map and that doesn't give China a claim over parts of Africa either. I don't think anybody thinks that a place being on a map means the country where the map maker is from gets to control that place. ~~~ 9nGQluzmnq3M Oh yes they do... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liancourt_Rocks_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liancourt_Rocks_dispute) ~~~ 082349872349872 > "North Korean authorities were less keen on emphasizing the principle of > effective possession (a keystone of the South Korean standpoint), for this > would have recognized the Republic of Korea as a legitimate state entity." For reference, according to [https://dprktoday.com/assets/img/top- bg4.png](https://dprktoday.com/assets/img/top-bg4.png) korean unification (modulo some minor bothersome separatists somewhere out in the provinces) is already a thing. I think Alexander the Great was probably in a more descriptive than prescriptive mood when he was asked upon his deathbed who would inherit his empire. His reply: "the strongest". (if conflicts are never ended there are no treaties documenting known agreements between conflicting parties. _cough_ cyprus _cough_ ) ------ yorwba I guess a linear map of the coastline would be intuitive to a trader used to sailing along the coast, but it was pretty disorienting to try and match it to modern maps. I think the big island at the end (i.e. leftmost in the gallery) labeled 忽魯謨斯 ( _Hūlŭmósī_ in modern Mandarin pronunciation) is supposed to be Hormuz, but I'd never have guessed that if it hadn't been mentioned in the article. (TIL there's not just a Strait of Hormuz but also an island.) ------ nightcracker As a Path of Exile player this title was interesting to see. ~~~ bloopernova Yes, my first thought was "did grinding gear games write something new and technologically interesting?" How have people been finding the Harvest league in PoE? I'm loving the easier crafting, but dislike the seeds/garden layout/management aspect. ~~~ throwaway8451 I like even though I'm getting only mediocre crafting options so far because I never took the time to arrange the garden in a way that would allow growing higher tier seeds. It's a pity that they do not come with an auto-arrange feature that does the annoying placements. ~~~ eatingCake I'm hoping if it goes core they will allow importing the layout just like hideouts. ~~~ throwaway8451 Great idea. Highlighting connections of storage tanks and pylons would also be helpful. ------ walrus01 As a coastal trading location, Mogadishu is a very old city. It would be fascinating to have a time machine and see some of the first interactions and trade between the Chinese fleets and locals in Mogadishu. ------ microcolonel The scanned items may be downloaded as glorious 100+MiB TIFF files, if you're interested. [https://www.loc.gov/item/2004633695/](https://www.loc.gov/item/2004633695/)

Show HN: InvoiceAtOnce – Easy Invoice Creation - NubeDeArroz http://invoiceatonce.com ====== sabalaba If you would rather do this using json and a command line tool: [https://github.com/lambdal/envois](https://github.com/lambdal/envois) That's a FOSS utility I've been working on for the past two years. I use it for all of my invoices. You can create your invoices like this: ./scripts/envois < scripts/invoice.json > output.html ~~~ j_s Can you share a screenshot/sample of the output? I think that would help promote your project immensely. ~~~ sabalaba Sure, I just added a screenshot in the README. ------ NubeDeArroz Hi, I would like to have some feedback on the website I've created. It's called Invoice At Once. It is a small service for users who need to create and print an invoice in an easy way. I think it would be useful for freelancers or any independent worker. Any feedback or fresh ideas for improvements would be great. Thanks... ~~~ Gys Possible additions for registered users: \- keep all company info entered for my next visit (maybe it does, did not check) \- every invoice needs a unique incremental number so a list of previous created invoices by number would be useful - also for ease of use \- registration should still be just an option - giving extra features Expand your market: \- other languages - because its not very nice to send my clients an invoice in English \- VAT (in Europe normally added on a separate line below the total and then another final total) \- 'make all checks payable' = interesting, in Europe we normally transfer by bank as much as possible - so add option for bank account (IBAN in case of Europe) ~~~ NubeDeArroz Great Feedback !!! Thanks for the interest and the time you took to analyse the site... I keed al the information in the localstorage so next time you enter you don t have to enter again all the data you entered last time.. Registration as an option is a great idea... I ll think about it for the future... Charges, discounts and others you can do it with the little green + in the right... Other languages, currency, etc is going to be the next update... Really appreciate your feedback... ------ Jemaclus This looks fantastic. I love how easy it is to jump in and just start creating without having to log in or do anything else to get started. Very well done. I love the PDF export. So obvious, yet so many people miss it. I have to wonder, sometimes, though. It seems like every other week there's a new invoice app out there. It's like a slightly more advanced version of the To-Do list tutorial app. I get that invoicing is a problem, but given the vast number of alternatives out there, aren't there more interesting problems to solve than Yet-Another-Invoice-App? (Granted, here I am, typing away at Hacker News and working my day job and not creating anything useful for anyone other than my employer, but... a man can dream...) ~~~ Kluny Hey, everyone has to start with something, right? ~~~ NubeDeArroz Yes.. rsrs... I am starting with this service and planning to improve it and be a better solution on each update... The idea was to start with a simple and nice solution... ------ iwaffles Seems pretty neat, like what you're doing here, NubeDeArroz! I like how simple you've kept it. I built a similar service a few years ago to send invoices to clients directly: [http://betterinvoices.com](http://betterinvoices.com) – we were one of the first partners with Stripe. You can hook up your stripe account and accept credit cards – free :) Looks like one of the philosophies that we both share is not needing to log in before doing anything. I think this is very powerful – especially for people who just want to get things done. But if you're a bit OCD, you can still log in and get more. Keep up the good work! ~~~ shanecleveland That's a great looking service. While so many options already exist out there, there is always the opportunity to tweak something just a little to make it the BEST option for a certain segment. In particular, some people actually want fewer features, not more. Both of these are great examples of that. ------ notduncansmith Looks like we flooded their site. Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FHG04zc...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FHG04zc1UmoJ:invoiceatonce.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) Invoiceto.me is a similar service that I can vouch for: [http://invoiceto.me/](http://invoiceto.me/) ~~~ percept HNDoS. Seems to be better now, though (at least for me). ~~~ NubeDeArroz Glad you liked it !!! ------ andrewljohnson Do you think you should add time tracking - who is the target audience here? For me, the invoicing is almost a nice to have (both when I freelanced and as a business owner), and now I've come to expect to be able to press a button and generate an invoice. The info about the client, who the invoice gets sent to within a company, and other things only get set up per project/client. And you can do history and reports. I've used www.GetHarvest.com, which besides invoicing, does time tracking. I think any serious business money software ends up being more than one feature and requiring lots of integrations. Harvest is one of the best business software suites I've ever seen actually. ------ zacharycohn Very nice. That being said - is CREATING invoices really the problem in the invoicing world? I can google for "free invoice generator" and get 800 different webapps that do the same thing (Granted, this is the nicest one I've seen). To me, the bigger problem is always remembering to send them, then managing the accounts receivable system, and knowing/finding out when the client is late in paying. ------ SriniK I use google docs template: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V59ZXYjeAHCCQLVxJIhhJi7A...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V59ZXYjeAHCCQLVxJIhhJi7AnMugmYMWZo2c2an0icE/pub) Works great for me. Can do pdf or share with team. ------ shanecleveland edit: Apparently down-voted for including my website that already has features others are saying would be good to add. I have removed my website name. Sorry if I offended more so than others also listing their sites. This is a great looking option. I've made a similar one with a few additional features: •Save inputed data for future use (cached for 1 year - no registration) •Add your own logo •Generate PDF OR optimized for print. ------ sensecall This is awesome. Would love to know how more about how the PDF generation works – it's something I've been struggling with! ~~~ andrewryno PhantomJS can generate PDFs. It's pretty easy to use. [http://phantomjs.org/](http://phantomjs.org/) ------ vnglst Well done! I've meaning to create this myself. I see you also used Angular. What did you use for the PDF creation? ~~~ NubeDeArroz Thanks !!! I used Angular, Bootstrap and PHP with TCPDF for the PDF creation. ------ BorisMelnik This is nifty - I can think of at least 10 scenarios in the last year where I could have used this. Great idea! ------ KhalPanda Now _that_ is a UX-oriented landing page. Jump straight in and use the product. ------ micah63 Love it! Being able to add our company's logo would be super cool too! ------ hudo Only $ ? Please add edit field on currency also. ~~~ NubeDeArroz Next update is going to be that for sure... thanks for the feedback... ------ slig Is there something like this, but for CVs? ~~~ christiangenco Here's a project that was on HN a while ago you may be interested in: [http://jsonresume.org/](http://jsonresume.org/) ------ menriquez any chance of sharing the repos? I like slig's idea of making a CV version of this... ------ aladine This app use HTML5 quite good.

Google Adds Pirate Bay Domains to Censorship List - mtgx http://torrentfreak.com/google-adds-pirate-bay-domains-to-censorship-list-120910/ ====== AlexCP I think censorship is a bit of a strong word.

Arduino team presents genuino starter kit - kevinaloys https://blog.arduino.cc/2015/10/07/arduino-team-presents-genuino-starter-kit/ ====== lsaferite So, are these the good Arduino guys or the bad Arduino guys? I can never keep them straight. ~~~ quesera Yes, it's a nightmare. Arduino LLC and arduino.cc are the original group. Genuino is a new trademark intended to be more clear, but they have an uphill marketing battle, to say the least. Arduino SRL and arduino.org are the former member who independently (and without knowledge of the group) registered the Arduino trademark in Italy. He then refused to transfer it to the group, and was pushed out. The story gets worse from there. I'm not a fan of blacklists, but I make a point of clarifying the .cc vs .org distinction to whomever will listen. .cc is Completely Correct.

When journalists try to take down startups - williswee https://www.techinasia.com/journalists-startups ====== duxup >with skepticism that’s usually fed by anonymously sourced information Most of the time, or the vast majority, when I see skepticism directed at start up it is: "Where is the profit going to come from?" And just by the nature of start ups, they're not wrong...

Ask HN: Questions to ask during a phone interview - anonitopo This morning I had a call with a recruiter for a senior position at apple, after we talk he said to send him the CV and he then talked with the manager that is hiring at apple. He said that this manager wants to have an introductory interview at the phone tomorrow and he recommended to prepare some questions so I could look more interesting.<p>The problem is that Apple is a big company and is full of information about the working environment on glassdoor, so I&#x27;m not sure what I could ask that I will not find online ====== cimmanom Well, what sorts of things would affect whether you’d be interested in the position? Some examples might be a description of the team (size, composition); examples of projects you’d be working on; the manager’s personal philosophy; growth opportunities. ------ itamarst Different teams can be different in large companies. [https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-queries](https://www.keyvalues.com/culture- queries) has a bunch of good questions. ------ DanBC What are your 30, 60, 90 day priorities for me in this role? ~~~ matt_the_bass That’s a good start. I’d expand it to be: 1 month, 6 month, 12 month, 24 month.

How much is a gold medal really worth? - mirz http://blog.swagsy.com/how-much-is-a-gold-medal-really-worth/ ====== patrickmclaren Was all-caps really necessary for the title? ~~~ mirz Sorry, I copied from the blog template.

How to pitch reporters via email - pdenya http://blog.pressfriendly.com/ ====== andy_campanella this is good advice, but I'd also include a "teaser deck" as an attachment. I've had great luck with ours - it basically boils your entire company down to a story that you convey with no more than 5 slides. Each slide has an image and no more than one sentence/thought. Most people don't read more than a few sentences of text in an email, and the ultimate reductionism required to get to a good teaser deck is great practice for refining your own thoughts. Use the teaser deck to get the follow up meeting or call, and that's where you can dig in and explain.

Did StumbleUpon just pass Facebook for social media traffic? - barredo http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/01/03/did-stumbleupon-just-pass-facebook-for-social-media-traffic/ ====== joshklein It's easy to understand both the reason this could be true, and the reason not to care. When someone visits your website from SU, they just clicked the stumble button. How many pages have they viewed in that session? How many of them bounce immediately? How many of them read a page and - while in their stumble mode - stumble along to the next page? And when someone visits your website from FB, they probably just clicked on a link a friend shared with them (implicitly endorsing you), or came from your FB page, where they have been pre-qualified as interested. As other commenters have pointed out, pageviews aren't the best way to measure the efficacy of your digital promotions. Try your best to find metrics that align with your actual business goals. Conversions to sales would be a good one, but something like time spent on site or pages viewed per session are fair indicators that you're doing something right. I'm not trying to decry SU as worthless or this article as baseless; not by any means. I just want to encourage a healthy skepticism of metrics that don't necessarily mean anything. If "that which gets measured, gets managed", then optimizing for page views could mean you find yourself in the deadpool soon. ------ meterplech While this is a pretty cool story, I share the author's reservations about what this actually means. First, Stumbleupon could get more traffic, but less actual interaction. As an example, my personal blog posts recently got about the same number of page views from a post on HN and from a status on Facebook. But, the HN users were on my site for an average of 42 seconds, as opposed to 3.5 minutes for Facebook. Second, the type of traffic could be different. I have no personal example of this- but it may be that Stumbleupon has more generalist viral content and Facebook could have more tailored content, possibly better for small businesses to monetize. Either way, really cool for Stumbleupon, I totally did not realize how huge it was. ~~~ BorisBomega I have the same experience but then with pageviews and Twitter VS Facebook: Twitter users check an average of 1.2 pages on my website. Facebook users do 4.2. That means 1000 visitors from Facebook generate the same number of pageviews as 4000 from twitter. ~~~ BahUnfair The increased interest from facebook might be due to a kind of social obligation. Whereas when you use HN or Twitter to find links you have no obligation and less reward to stay on the page an actually read the content. Someone who is reading a link that a friend has sent them is expected to read it, otherwise the friend may be unimpressed or you might not have anything to talk about. Plus, there is the added incentive of impressing or gaining a connect to the friend or appearing interested in your crush/gf's interests. On HN and reddit, my only interest is whether I want to learn something or make myself laugh. ------ alanh I posted the actual data last night: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2062502> ------ dloft The headline misses the key point that this only covers social media traffic to websites that have the statcounter web tracker installed. Is this likely to be a representative sample of all social media traffic? I don't think so, and would love to sanity-check the underlying numbers against some other sources, but they only provide the percentages.

Clubhouse voice chat leads a wave of spontaneous social apps - elsewhen https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/18/clubhouse-app-chat-rooms/ ====== TomMarius The article gives me trouble understanding if this is Clubhouse.io or not

1and1.com and Collection agency - soho33 We were hosting 2 dedicated servers with 1and1 for a few years paying around $600 a month for both. however in the past two months due to some increase traffic between the two servers tehmselves (web server &#38; databse server) the bandwidth spiked so they billed us $7500 each month. so now we owe $15000.<p>When creating the account i made the mistake of putting my own name (canadian resident) but used our business (registered in the states) visa card. the address used is also a states address (my partners old home address).<p>so now 1and1 is sending the amount to collection agency. Is there anyway they can link this account back to me just based on my name? even though the visa is a comapny visa and the address is an US address when i live in canada.<p>the collection agency is NCO. can we usually sort out a deal with them to meet half way or something? i just dont want this to ruin my credit history. ====== jason_slack Have you verified that you actually owe them $15,000. I mean double checked the billing, invoices, etc? I mean $600 -> $7500 seems like a very high increase all of the sudden. Get everything in writing. After that, offer to make payments. They will complain at this, but hold firm. Dont be afraid to play hardball. Collection agencies are out for the easy win and expect you to bend over and give in. They will threaten legal action. This is hogwash mostly, a scare tactic. It will take them a very long while to go this route because it costs them way more than they ever admit to.

Starting a real business - alexkon https://stripe.com/atlas/guide ====== markdog12 Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180312) ------ astraelraen This is a really bad idea from a tax and legal perspective. As a CPA, I don't deal with silicon valley startups. However, I do deal with people who want to start small businesses fairly frequently as well as their needs for legal advice (which varies). For most of America, a Delaware C-Corp is a horrible idea for any person starting a business. Paying Delaware state fees (which are likely not necessary) at best are just another administrative and cost burden to a new startup and at worse, are just another function you have to hire out to an advisor, which will then cost you even more money. Fun story, I had a client starting a new business (whom I had partially advised) take a few extra steps we had not discussed. One being going down to a bank to open a checking account. The client was attempting to do step 5 before step 2 (proverbially speaking) The client did not have an EIN yet and the bank of course, could not open the business a checking account without an EIN. The BANK applied for the client's EIN at the branch and effectively advised the client on entity structure by choosing their entity type for them during the EIN selection process. I'm sure the bank has some sort of BS policy where they can disclaim liability in that they made the client chose the entity type. I can tell you with 100% certainty, this client did not have any idea what the entity type was. And to top it all off, after the bank account was setup. The bank provided no documents letting the client know what entity choice "the client" (ha!) had chosen. Business is complex, I understand people are hesitant to pay (what seem to be) exorbitant fees to start a business. However, I've found that (nearly) 100% of the time when you start a business and ask the wrong questions you will always get the wrong answer, which is always more expensive to fix at a later date (if its possibly without severe tax or legal issues). ~~~ Bluestrike2 Ouch. The bank's actions seem kind of ridiculous. The guide doesn't seem to push Delaware C-corp status on its readers, but the specificity might give them that impression anyhow. Personally, I'd split that section into two: C corps in general, and Delaware in particular. I'd also add a paragraph or two that discuss why people might choose _not_ to incorporate Delaware in favor of another state. That way, it would avoid unconsciously guiding readers towards a choice that may not be much benefit to them. Reincorporating elsewhere might be more difficult later on, but it could help you avoid immediately incurring some additional costs in the interim: additional reporting requirements, franchise taxes, registered agent, etc. ------ neom This is awesome! Some of the partners they have selected are pretty intense for the starting a business stage. We use a boutique law firm (aka one dude and a desk) and we use a small CFO as a service consultancy here in Manhattan ($250/mth-ish) for the financial/book keeping. Justworks seems fine for HR stuff. ------ ploggingdev This guide is a very good introduction to get an idea of what running a business involves. Great job patio11. Since running a business is incredibly complicated and involves so much that founders generally would like to outsource, is there any startup that takes care of all book keeping, taxes, contracts, insurance and filing for IP,trademarks? This will resonate with the early tech startups (among others), who want to spend all their time building a product and talking to users. ~~~ bpicolo Stripe is definitely aiming to be all of the above it seems, though much of it is through their partnerships atm. (Though they haven't dipped into insurance /IP afaik). It would be pretty hard for one small startup to have all of those things packaged, they're all huge tasks on their own. ------ quickConclusion >Services, on the other hand, almost always are governed by contracts, and the contracts get very extensive. I try to have extremely light contracts. I'd rather have the payment structure reflect the work and the value over time. If we don't agree, we part ways, this is cheaper than arguing with lawyers. Also: trust & repeat clients. Little need for contracts anymore. Then yes, I can get screwed, but that's the cost of doing business, and they can only screw me once, protecting my downside. Still cheaper than lawyers. ------ _lex I particularly like the discussion of LOIs in [https://stripe.com/atlas/guide#transactions-and- agreements](https://stripe.com/atlas/guide#transactions-and-agreements). Should be very useful to new companies, and is rarely discussed. ------ BrentOzar Once you read the Shatner's Seat post, you'll look at the Stripe Atlas logo a little differently. ~~~ chatmasta For anyone else who has no idea what this is referencing... [https://www.quora.com/I-always-see-this-small-black- triangle...](https://www.quora.com/I-always-see-this-small-black-triangle-on- the-inside-of-airplane-walls-What-does-it-mean-or-do?share=1) (I still don't get it) ------ alexkon It looks like this PDF is the Orrick Legal Guide that is available to Stripe Atlas members: [https://stripe.com/files/atlas/orrick-legal- guide.pdf](https://stripe.com/files/atlas/orrick-legal-guide.pdf). ------ ptrptr [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13284879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13284879) \- previous discussion with insight regarding creation of this guide. ------ ijafri what CMS they are using or theme for their blog? custom? ~~~ patio11 We spell CMS "erb." ------ tuyguntn I am always amazed by @patio11 writings, how did you become so good at writing and explaining things with so much detail? ------ _lex This should have been a series of posts, compiled into a guide. It should be easy to cut this up into digestible pieces, but it's sort of a massive throw up right now. (edit) Ah - now i see- it is a guide. But it's a single page layout, with navigation on the right. So I guess it just violated a few of my assumptions. I think I also assumed it was a blog post since the h1 title doesn't call it a guide (though the html title does).

IntelliJ IDEA 2016.3 GA: Java 8 and ES6, Debugger and UI improvements, more - andrey_cheptsov https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2016/11/intellij-idea-2016-3-ga-java-8-and-es6-debugger-and-ui-improvements-and-a-ton-more/ ====== lars_francke One thing that IntelliJ does not support is working on multiple branches of a product without having to reindex. I work with a lot of Open Source tools (e.g. Hadoop, Kafka) with complex build setups. It often takes 10+ minutes for IntelliJ to load a project. If I now switch to a different branch it starts all over again. I wish it'd keep a cache of multiple index versions around. ~~~ chikei I use git worktree as a workaround for this case. ~~~ pavel_lishin Can you go into more detail about that? ~~~ zimbu668 I assume he means he uses git worktree to create a directory structure like so: src/my_project_master/ src/my_project_develop/ src/my_project_new_feature/ Each with it's own IntelliJ project. If he needs to switch branches it's relatively fast to open a different existing project rather than git checkout branch, which can cause IntelliJ to become unresponsive as it reindexes everything. Not tried this, but I experience this quite often and will have to give this a shot. ------ Rezo The recent WebStorm 2016.3 is really great as well: Flow support, convert to ES6 quick actions, React Native, debug Node apps inside Docker containers, ESLint quick fixes, etc. If your editor doesn't offer basic productivity accelerators like React property autocompletion, or a Go-to-Definition that works across ES6 modules, or refactoring support in JS, you should really look into a proper IDE like WebStorm. Yes, it costs actual money, but it's a no-brainer for professionals. I've tried VS Code, Atom and others but keep coming back to WS for the pure productivity aspects. ------ andy_ppp 400% CPU on PyCharm for me... I am super impressed with the features of this IDE; for me personally the jetbrains ones are my favourite, but whatever the setup on this Mac they are too slow for me to use. Since moving to VSCode my laptop battery lasts a couple of hours longer :-/ ~~~ LoneWolf I find it surprising that some people complain about performance, here even with two large Java projects I only get that kind of CPU % when building indexes (only after importing a project or dependency adjustments) and its only for a few minutes. Maybe a specific Python project thing? ~~~ nogridbag As someone else mentioned, if you switch branches, IntelliJ will need reindex everything. I switch branches several times per day on some projects and it's annoying enough where I considered switching over to light weight editor. ------ staticelf What about font rendering on linux, any better? As of now, it's so horrible I can't use the product. Font rendering in Atom or Sublime is so much better.From what I understand this is because of their usage of java swing. But looking at fonts is what we do all day and I can't have them to look like shit. ~~~ noir_lord [http://i.imgur.com/vkEq2qP.png](http://i.imgur.com/vkEq2qP.png) Left is Intellij, Right is VS Code, same font same size. Using the latest x64 jdk release on bintray, it's remarkably close for a swing based app. ~~~ malkia It's hard to judge though, since the image has compression artifacts. Also hinted anti-aliasing may look well on one monitor, and bad on another (RGB horizontally vs vertically, or other arrangement). But ignoring this, the outlines look very nice in both. And having said that, I actually prefer fixed non-anti-aliased, in fact very pixelish "Anonymous Pro 8" everywhere. ------ cmrdporcupine I really wish they'd roll the CLion C++ support into their IDEA releases, so I could just use one tool for multiple languages. ~~~ anastasiak2512 We do plan it in some future ([https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/CPP-4141](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/CPP-4141)). However, due to historical and some technical reasons, it's not that quick, so postponed for now until we find some resources for this task. ~~~ pswenson you should at least get the makefile support from C++ in there.. people use makefiles for bootstrapping docker all the time. [https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5173](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5173) ------ evenh The Java 8 refactorings looks awesome! ~~~ andrey_cheptsov Similar quick-fixes are now available for Kotlin as well: [https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/whatsnew/img/2016.3/idea_2016...](https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/whatsnew/img/2016.3/idea_2016_3_kotlin_loop_to_lambda.png) ------ danieljoonlee does intellij idea not update itself on mac if i have the previous version? it's sending me to a new download link for 500mb+ ~~~ tf2manu994 You can fix this using the intellij toolbox

Does self promotion cause heart disease? - nate http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2010/04/does-self-promotion-cause-heart-disease.html ====== secretasiandan Like most Gladwell related information, there's an anecdotal relationship between a town that doesn't have much heart disease and a subjective observation about its inhabitants' lifestyle. However, I would suspect that self promotion is correlated with heart disease in general because people who have to self promote are under stressful conditions. They're trying to change things which they really have little control over: other people's minds. I try to avoid that stress by looking for ways to succeed that don't require much self promotion. Part of that involves finding areas where you have enough edge that the benefit of other parties working with you is obvious. Admittedly not a very generalizable route, but I believe I'd be happy just trying as long as I don't have to bend to others' whims. ~~~ nate Very true about Gladwell. But I've picked up the original research too by Wolf and his book. It was Wolf's observation about what made Roseto like it is. Gladwell just restated it. [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships- Dis...](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships- Disease/dp/1560000430/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270750637&sr=8-2) And as for the heart disease premise, you are totally right about there being a correlation that way. Which makes me curious though what would happen if we all just all stopped self promoting like you are trying to do. Would we all be just so much happier. On the blog right now someone brought up the example of Warren Buffet and how he doesn't do much self promotion. His results speak for themselves. And his website remains very stark. I also thought of <http://instapaper.com>. A very popular and useful tool, and I can't find a review or testimonial on the entire stark, grey site. People just find out they need this tool and sign up. Even the itunes sales page - <http://www.instapaper.com/iphone> has nothing on it. No "Techcrunch calls it the best thing ever". ~~~ discipline I use <http://toread.cc/> for the same purpose, plus I can always search in Gmail for my articles. ~~~ nate Funny. I went there and found this: "Sounds very handy - Lifehacker.com This is much quicker and cleaner - Hawk Wings I came across toread.cc and I immediately fell in love with it - Winston's Attic" Again, totally admitting we do this too. But this is so interesting to me that instapaper gets away without having to do this, and still commands quite an audience. ------ carbocation With 25,000 towns in the US, is there any surprise that you can find one with an unexpectedly {low,high} incidence of {heart disease,cancer} by pure chance? This was particularly telling: "... But also leads to stress, ills, and unhappiness that didn't exist in Roseto. Well, until Roseto became just like every other town years later." Ignoring this, let's look at the structure of this "case/control" setup. The "cases" with unexpectedly low heart disease are all from the same geographic region and environment. Many are related (up to 3 generations living in the same town). The controls are... well, the rest of America, dispersed across hundreds of millions of acres in diverse environments and with a more diverse genetic background. In other words, they inadequately controlled this experiment, so any assertions about the results are suspect. ~~~ bmason What you say about the experiment results is true. I don't know if this one is any better, but the guy who gave this TED talk found similar results when looking for communities having people with the longest life spans: [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100....](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html) One of the places with a lot of centenarians was a place near Okinawa, Japan, where people form life long friendships. They also eat healthy and I'm sure other variables are different. I find the correlations interesting even if they are not conclusive. ------ bmason Maybe focus on what you're doing instead of what you've done. Be nice to people and find ways to help them out with their problems. Instead of listing out your credentials express your willingness to help. This seems to be the approach that Richard Feynman took. He says in the BBC series "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" that he hates the concept of awards, and he did things for the pleasure of doing it and having it used by others, not to earn some sort of recognition. ------ jjs _People cooking for neighbors. Everyone chatting with everyone else on the street. 3 generations of family living under one roof. And an "egalitarian ethos"._ With 3 generations living together and everyone taking turns cooking for each other on an egalitarian basis, I'd expect to see more people eating home- cooked meals and less fast food and processed food products.

Bitfinex fails to perform promised audits - wslh https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/bitfinex-fails-to-perform-promised-audits-instead-they-have-a-shareholder-tell-everyone-its-all-965ae7037b5d ====== tlrobinson USDT/USD dipping below $1.00 for the first time in awhile: [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/#charts](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/#charts) ~~~ granaldo Not first time, click all-time chart or check max timeline here [https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/tether/usd](https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/tether/usd) and you will see occasional dips. Its been +/\- from $1 ~~~ joosters The last time seems to have been in May 2017, when there were 'only' $60 million tethers floating around, compared to the $2.2 billion in existence now... ------ dillondoyle If there really is such a strong need for this 1:1 USD type service why not create a legit, fully transparent, US based company to compete. Use the float to generate income. Even 1 or 2% on 100s of millions adds up. ~~~ bufferoverflow Because you need a bank that would agree to something like that. And that's what Tether has a problem with - all the banks dropped them. ~~~ JumpCrisscross > _Because you need a bank that would agree to something like that_ And since the pitch is “we want anonymous international depositors to open and close accounts with you,” with extra steps added, no bank will agree. ~~~ cesarb Does it even need that? ETFs can keep their price stable with as few as five or ten entities being allowed to trade the underlying basket of assets for the ETF. Those who aren't allowed to directly exchange the assets for the ETF can instead trade with those who are allowed, or trade with someone who can trade with them. There's no need for everyone to be able to deal directly with the ETF issuer, and the same should apply to USDT. ~~~ JumpCrisscross > _There 's no need for everyone to be able to deal directly with the ETF > issuer_ But there is the need for everyone to trust the ETF manager. Authorised participants (APs) must trust they can redeem ETF units for a basket of the underlying shares and vice versa. Other market participants, in turn, must trust that process to manage tracking risk. ETF managers earn that trust by contractually guaranteeing APs' creation/redemption rights, being regularly audited like normal companies, being regulated like securities companies, and having their holdings vouched for by other market participants, _e.g._ banks, clearing and settlement services, _et cetera_. Literally none of the preceding apply to Bitfinex nor Tether. More broadly, a structure like Tether is inherently incompatible with anti- money laundering. No jurisdiction will let a bank say "these $2 billion are held by unknown beneficial owners." If we wanted that, we'd just re-authorise numbered, _i.e._ anonymous, bank accounts. ------ Animats If Bitfinex was publicly held, they'd have to file an "auditor changed" statement with the SEC, and the auditor also has to file a statement about what happened. That's to prevent companies from switching auditors when they don't like the audit findings. But Bitfinex is private, and the SEC is about protecting shareholders, which Tether holders are not. Tether will probably collapse in the next big downturn. That's when Bitfinex has to spend real money to buy Tether units back to prop up the price. Tether, like a Ponzi scheme, seems to work as long as net inflow of money exceeds net outflow. When it doesn't... ~~~ ThrustVectoring The point of Tether, afaict, is to make a bunch of people bagholders while the folks running it walk away with both the cryptocurrencies and whatever bank account balances they managed to acquire. ------ aviv Never ever keep coins at an exchange. You have been warned. It's insane to let them hold it. ~~~ BadassFractal What is the best practice then? Mind sharing? ~~~ yla92 I am not sure about the "best". One way is getting a hardware wallet like Leger Nano S[0]. It doesn't support "all" coins but popular coins like BTC, ETH, BCH, XLM, LTC, NEO etc are supported.[1]. I use it and it's convenient, so far. [0]: [https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger- nano-s](https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s) [1]: [https://www.ledgerwallet.com/cryptocurrencies](https://www.ledgerwallet.com/cryptocurrencies) ~~~ Fnoord Or a Trezor [1]. Funny how the price of both products has gone up. I purchased a Ledger Nano S (unused as of now) for about 70 EUR. Now its 95 EUR, with "Shipping is scheduled from March 26". This chart on Amazon (regarding Trezor) is also telling [2]. I guess people wanna join the hype bandwagon. On the official website the Trezor is 89 EUR "without VAT". Which is illegal to advertise in NL unless you're specifically targeting businesses (who prefer to not have VAT mentioned). A disadvantage of the Ledger Nano S is that in order to use it, it requires Chrome [3]. I'm not sure that's true for Trezor. It also has a Chrome extension but iI seems it can function with just the "bridge" [4] [1] [https://trezor.io](https://trezor.io) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Trezor-bitcoin-wallet- Black/dp/B00R6M...](https://www.amazon.com/Trezor-bitcoin-wallet- Black/dp/B00R6MKDDE) [3] [https://www.ledgerwallet.com/apps/manager](https://www.ledgerwallet.com/apps/manager) [4] [https://wallet.trezor.io/#/](https://wallet.trezor.io/#/) ~~~ erentz I was a bit put off by the Chrome Apps too, but it hasn't been a problem in my actual use. Also they're writing non-Chrome apps now because of Google end of life-ing Chrome Apps. I'd love to get a Trezor as well but they want me to pay an extra 20 EUR to get one or wait until after February. Also for the hardware hackers there is the Coldcard being developed by these guys with a pre-order now: [http://blog.opendime.com/coldcard- annoucement/](http://blog.opendime.com/coldcard-annoucement/) ------ ajaimk Considering the reactionary nature of most casual traders, how much of this dip is caused due to panic based on blogposts such as these? There is no reliable source of truth here and just random blog posts which mostly read as opinion pieces. ------ douglashyde Really unsure about bitfinex, I feel like it's got no real value, just piggybacking of the tech of ether - its like creating value out of thin air, something like these - [https://www.starregister.org](https://www.starregister.org) (not real obviously) ------ BadassFractal What do people think of Binance? More likely to stand the test of time? ~~~ aviv Once a huge exchanger like Bitfinex fails, there will be a run on exchangers. Nowhere is safe. Never keep coins with an exchange, even if your uncle is the CEO. ~~~ cperciva Serious question (I wasn't paying attention at the time): What happened to other exchanges after MtGox collapsed? Did they also see "bank runs"? ~~~ hisabness Depends on your perspective. Prices dropped significantly because people started to prefer dollars to some extent. Several of the large exchanges that existed back then are still around, however, and others were acquired. Examples of those still around: Coinbase, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Kraken. Sure I'm missing others. I mention the above only to say it didn't feel like a true bank run to me at the time. People were still able to get in and out, but prices were certainly depressed. And several of the exchanges survived. ------ roh26it Which is a safe and friendly exchange according you people? ~~~ dom96 The only exchange I've been able to get verified on successfully (and I've tried Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, Bitstamp and probably others that I am forgetting) was Luno[1]. While it was relatively easy to get verified on Luno, their "instant sale" prices are quite high and I see no way to place bid/ask orders directly. I'm also interested in other recommendations. 1 - [https://www.luno.com/invite/XHBQ6](https://www.luno.com/invite/XHBQ6) (Note, there is an invite code in this URL, feel free to remove). ~~~ irond13 At the moment you can only trade (place bids/asks) on Luno with the following currency pairs: BTC/IDR, BTC/MYR, BTC/NGN, BTC/ZAR (largest volume) and ETH/BTC. I think they started out as a South African only exchange a few years back. ------ naveen99 If bitfinex doesn't have dollars to give for usdt, all they have to do is give an equivalent amount of bitcoin based on a bitcoin index like the one cme, cboe, and bitmex use. I just wish binance, kraken, poloniex would support bitusd also. Two of them support bitshares already, so atleast there is a path to bitusd. unfortunately bitusd float is nowhere as big as usdt. Edit: disclaimer: own some bitshares. Edit2: would be interesting if bitmex converted or pegged some of their swap products into decentralized currencies that you could trade on other exchanges. ~~~ goldenkey That is beyond silly. They used the fake tethers (USDT) to buy up bitcoins increasing the price. And you think that it is okay for them to pay their debts in the very currency they manipulated? ~~~ naveen99 Silly maybe, but its reality on bitmex. [https://www.bitmex.com/app/perpetualContractsGuideExamples](https://www.bitmex.com/app/perpetualContractsGuideExamples) ~~~ goldenkey Ah, the lovely world of yesteryear, reminiscent of 2008s synthetic instruments. At least this time these people are actually greedy POS looking for money in a zero sum game. With 2008 ordinary people got hurt badly for just having 401ks. Here you simply have greed overpowering logic. Oh my. ~~~ naveen99 > greed overpowering logic Isn't that the best kind of greed ? Greedy logical people make more money than illogical non greedy people. ~~~ goldenkey Greed is anticorrelated with logic as it is usually a vice that causes poor decisions made by overweighing possible gains and minimizing possible losses. It is a non rational mode of human weakness, and can even be correlated with evil ie. Nestle and formula / water fiasco, Microchip companies hushing fab workers with birth abnormalities/ health issues ~~~ naveen99 There are greedy algorithms in computing that make sense sometimes. ~~~ goldenkey We are referring to monetary greed here. Depending on what the resource's value is (cheap CPU cycles), yes, greed can make sense.

Show HN: GitHub Code Review with Emacs - lc2817 https://blog.laurentcharignon.com/post/code-review-in-emacs/ ====== snazz Thank you! I couldn’t manage to do GitHub stuff within eww too effectively (and eww is at best a hack). ------ lkurusa Awesome! Plugins like this make me want to make the switch to emacs from vim sooner than ever.

Munch On Me (YC S11) Is A Groupon For Food, Done Right - jwang815 http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/27/munch-on-me-is-a-groupon-for-food-done-right/ ====== yid Interesting, but I wonder how merchants will put up with strong, Groupon-like demand for a single item. Also, this stood out for me: _"Banking on the fact that restaurants can’t take stellar pictures of their own food (food pics are a big deal), it sends out a professional photographer to get the job done."_ Professional food photographers can make Wendys look delicious -- what happens when I pay for a delicious looking Kung Pao chicken on the web, and the restaurant delivers a more "everyday" experience, possibly made worse by the increased strain of preparing the same dish over and over again? I'd tend to feel a little ripped off by the site that sold me the deal, not necessarily the restaurant. Bookmarked to check back in six months... ~~~ maxwell In restaurants, top sellers, specials, and comps usually go out the best, unless it's the last one in stock, or they're in the shit and they're rushing them out a la minute. The random dish that sells 3 times a week has more of a tendency to come out subpar. Places will probably weigh the marketing of these deals, and, if anything, they'll out better than an everyday item. ~~~ Gunther Agreed, also the ingredients used for the top sellers should be fresher since they are being consumed at a greater pace. This reminds me of how Krispy Kreme has one item that they are known for, the glazed donut, which brings in customers who they are able to sell milk, coffee, and other assorted donuts. ------ muppetman You have to wonder how saturated this market can get before it's just not viable anymore. ~~~ pg It's like search was in 1998: there's always room for something new if it's better than what existed previously. ~~~ ztan While I think it's a clever spin. I don't see why Groupon can't do the same in an instant if it proves to be effective. If that happens these guys just become another Groupon clone competing on lower rates for merchants. ~~~ pg This is structurally quite different from Groupon. Which means Groupon would have to change their model significantly to do it. Which means it's probably not among the most likely things they'd do. ~~~ ansy Maybe I'm missing something. But I don't see what's so different other than the deals are generally more restrictive. Isn't that just part of the wording of the deal? Couldn't $10 for $20 worth of food just as easily be $1 for a $2 cup of coffee instead? I even see a deal on Groupon Now which is $5 for a $9 sandwich. [http://www.groupon.com/now/deals/5-for-9-at-nyc-bagel- deli-2...](http://www.groupon.com/now/deals/5-for-9-at-nyc-bagel-deli-27) That said, I fully agree it doesn't necessarily mean anything that Groupon can do it, too. There's plenty of room for competition. ~~~ hydrazine Great question. The differences are subtle yet definitely worth noting. To users, $20 worth of food doesn't tell them anything about what they're actually going to buy when they arrive at the venue, whereas $1 for a $2 cup of coffee specifies exactly what they'll get. You might also only spend $18.50 of your $20 credit and can't find something worth ~$1.50 to buy, which can leave a bad aftertaste for some people. Also, this allows merchants to prepare much more effectively by overstocking on the items being featured. Or they could discount an already overstocked item just to get rid of it. All in all, people visit restaurants for specific (signature) dishes, not for the restaurants themselves, so it all fits together. ------ dilap The name seems a bit...canabalistic. ~~~ 100k I thought Grub With Us was a bad name, but this takes the cake. ------ Kilimanjaro Hey guys, I want some honest feedback on a project I abandoned about the same concept of local deals. Here is the url with some sample deals: <http://www.deel.co/deals/city/nassau> You know, I had the idea of posting all deals from big chains like cheesecake factory, longhorns, roadhouse, mortons, houstons, etc. in the sense that they post their weekly offers (like in print) and people get to know what to eat when they go there. Nothing for free, just a billboard. People would use the service as a help when deciding where to eat everyday, and chains would benefit from their traffic (again, like in print). No stupid games like being a major of nowhere or silly prizes like one free beer on the 31st of february at 8am only. I was going be the most happy user since I would be using it every day going for lunch with my coworkers, everytime the same question arises, where to go today? tgi fridays? ruby tuesdays? To make the story short (too late, I guess) we ran out of runway (a very short runway indeed) and my cofounder and I decided to abandon the project for now, with the hope of someday pick it up again when better times came. As I said, I love the idea. Groupon et all don't tell me what's new at panera bread or even mcdonalds and I really want to know (there is a real need) Am I crazy? out of touch with reality? pipe dreaming? Or is that a project worth pursuing to its fullest? I learned a lot about geolocation and lots of stuff, can't deny that, but I dream on having my own business some day. Advice? ------ BasilAwad Why would Munch On Me take publicity so early in the game when they don't even have the volume to defend against copycats? ~~~ jwang815 There will always be copycats. We haven't found any yet, but I will assume that an identical copycat will have to start from scratch. As mentioned above, there is a small chance that Groupon or another clone will change its entire business model. Taking publicity when we're in 3 regions will not only help us gain momentum when we entire new markets, but also gain new traction in current markets.

Hologram Tupac Was Inevitable - llambda http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/hologram-tupac-was-inevitable/255990/ ====== loso I don't know what to think of this article. It reads as if it was written by someone who may have heard of Tupac but definitely wasn't a fan. I can't say that a fan of hip hop music would consider Kurupt to just be the answer of a trivia question. If you are a hip hop fan Tupac's death is more along the lines of Bob Marley, not Elvis. People chose sides during that stupid time in hip hop but mostly everyone who was a real fan in that era respect both Biggies and Tupacs music now that all of the smoke has cleared. While I agree that after death, Tupac image has been "manipulated", but it is the fans doing it more than anyone else. They remember their version of 2Pac and casually dismiss his life contradictions. 2Pac made a lot stupid decisions but also had moments of genius. He was the image of youth rebelliousness but too often crossed the cavern of casual disregard of others. That is a thin line and at times he walked it poorly. And now that I am ten years older than when he died I can see why. At 25 years old you do a lot of dumb shit. I think a lot of fans reacted as they did to that hologram because 2Pac has never really had a proper public memorial. Biggie had the big MTV awards spectacle with Puff, a gospel chorus, and Sting. He had big budget movies made of his life, tribute albums and a whole host of other tributes. Basically a lot of chances for his fan to mourn his passing while also celebrating his life. 2Pac has had a couple of tribute albums and a few really low budget documentaries. Nowhere near even especially considering how even they were in stature in both the hip hop and the music community as a whole. Even though I was aware of the tech behind the "hologram" and hated a lot of what 2Pac became towards the end of his life I was still amped up and moved by the show. I wouldn't want to see it again because then I would feel his image really was being exploited. But as a DJ and fan of hip hop for about 29 years, I was glad to see it. ------ evan_ Can we stop saying "hologram"? It was no more a hologram than a movie shown at a theater is a hologram. The word "Hologram" has a very specific meaning; this isn't it. It's exceedingly silly that people are freaking out about this, Elvis impersonators have been a cultural cliche for decades and I'm sure there are Tupac impersonators. ------ victork2 Being relatively young, I don't know if what I am going to describe is new or not. I am under the impression that the advent of a globalized internet culture has fostered the nostalgic phenomenon. If you are a regular reader of any social websites where people can publish content you can see the extent of this among people from "Generation Y": clothes, old games ( Prince of Persia on Apple 2 anyone ?), actors, movies, music, etc... It doesn't even have to be good, it will be put on a pedestal anyway. What enables us today is that these old things which use to be forgotten by previous generations can now be accessed at will: old videos are put on Youtube, old pictures are backed up everywhere, memories are slowly becoming immortal. I am absolutely not a nostalgic person myself so I don't feel the impulsive to think about oldies but I think it's a very interesting thing to analyze, maybe it's even a bit worrying: Could these fond memories hold us back? ~~~ gaius In the 90s, tho', everyone looked to the future. Some anecdata, all my friends were cybergoths back then. Now they wish they lived in the '30s... The 1930s. It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times. ~~~ kalleboo > It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an > uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times. I have to call you out on this. What the heck are you talking about? ~~~ gaius The Cold War had ended, the "new economy" was in full swing, the future looked golden. Historians like Francis Fukushima called it "the end of history". Then the world was plunged back into social, economic and geopolitical uncertainty. People look to the past for comfort. ------ WyattHook I thought that article was pretty ridiculous. "Hologram Tupac is an inheritance of arena-rock one-upsmanship, the latest step in rap's forced march on Spinal Tap-ism." This, to me, just screams that this writer knows nothing of rap/hip-hop and it's current trends. Sure, people who don't actually pay attention to the music may see it that way because of artists and performances like Kanye and Jay-Z's "Watch The Throne" tour but currently hip-hop is coming back to the point it was at in the mid-90s, with thought-provoking poetry on one side and money/cars/girls anthems on the other. "Over the past 16 years, a lot of Tupac's music has been gradually sullied by all that's followed. "Dear Mama" is held up to make him a sensitive feminist, which he wasn't, while "Hit 'Em Up" is held up to make him a hyper-violent gangsta, which he wasn't either. " What does this writer know of Tupac's actual life or his reasons for writing and performing those songs? Hip-Hop is a way to express not only one's own opinions, but also the viewpoints and stories of others that we wouldn't normally see in our lives. I understand where the article is coming from but it seems like a lot of over- analysing. It seems unnecessary and a grab at a few reads just because this whole "hologram" is currently trending. Hip-Hop is and will always be a large part of my life and I just don't think this guy really gets it, just my two cents. ------ geoffw8 I saw a hologram of will.i.am at DLD in Munich alongside Cheryl Cole roughly 3 years ago. I don't see what the fanfare is about? It seems like _we_ have just discovered it, but its by no means nothing new. ~~~ rollypolly Indeed. Here's a 2009 video presenting the same technology: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSICZ_7hpho> ~~~ forza Richard Branson from 2006: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicaK7NTHQI> Edit: I also remember the pinball game "Revenge from Mars" from 1999. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA7Cgzk-y1U> ------ sbarre Japan has a fully virtual pop star that does "live" performances as a hologram (although this was never a real person so it's somewhat different): [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/18/hatsune- mik...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/18/hatsune-miku-japan-s- hologram-pop-idol.html) I think it's interesting to see this as a technology and it has cool uses (like above I suppose), but are we, as a society, prepared for something that takes this to the next level? I'm thinking something like "The Nirvana 2015 Reunion Tour" with a holographic CGI Kurt Cobain.. I'm not sure that would be as well received.. ------ stcredzero _In 1981, Rolling Stone famously slapped a photo of Jim Morrison on its cover to go with the headline: "He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead."_ Digital recreations of the dead have been with us for awhile. And art of this nature has been around for much of human history. I wonder how different this will be from the Renaissance technology of painting? Perhaps the difference will be that, with the help of computer technology, such recreations will be able to pass the Turing Test, at first in limited contexts, then more generally. I think digital Tupac fell into an Uncanny Valley of a different sort. His appearance was almost flawless, but the context was still unsettling to many of the audience. I wonder how long it will be before we have the first "Digital Resurrection" cult? How about a novel where a terminally ill iconic business leader and entrepreneur, instead of faking his death, fakes his continued life? Everyone just assumes that he's never seen mingling with the public because he's gotten Howard Hughes eccentric in his infirmity. By the time humanoid robots are ready for him to "meet" people and shake hands, his age and frailty make it easier for the technology to pull off the performance. ------ sp332 I really like the way this article is written, but it's really too easy to say something is "inevitable" _after_ it's happened. ------ sunkencity So does this mean Hologram Jobs is inevitable at WWDC?

Cross-Platform Web Development with ASP.NET Core, Node.js and Webpack - koistya https://twitter.com/koistya/status/738322129591095296 ====== koistya [https://github.com/kriasoft/aspnet-starter- kit](https://github.com/kriasoft/aspnet-starter-kit) — ASP.NET Core Starter Kit

Stanford Facebook Class Produces Impressive Results - shayan http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/12/stanford-facebook-class-produces-impressive-results/ ====== aston _"If you could teach a class on building "Web 2.0 sites" and produce the same type of results, you could charge any price for the class."_ Facebook is not the internet. And these apps are not businesses. ~~~ nkohari You mean "sending hotness" is not a sustainable business model? :)

SYNQ: Upload, Store, Transcode and Deliver Videos with Simple API Calls - indescions_2017 https://www.synq.fm/ ====== ericcholis Slightly unrelated, but is there a service that offers RTMP streaming, transcoding and automatic uploads to platforms like Youtube? I know Ustream offers this as a feature for their main streaming offering. ------ jchw Cool, but I'm curious: how does this compare with other solutions out there like Wistia and Video Cloud? I've only had experience with Wistia before, but this offering does sound somewhat similar. ~~~ halvardos Looks to be a lot more developer focused at first glance. ------ chrisweekly This looks like a decent offering at 1st glance. Haven't done any price comparisons but it seems reasonable, esp at the entry level.

Getting a startup idea: Part 1, Choosing a topic - cturitzin https://medium.com/@turitzin/how-i-chose-healthcare-66f5ed82feed ====== krambs This is a great (the only?) way to start. One thing I think is also really important is to be a domain expert in the field of your idea, or be ready to find co-founders who are. Obviously domain expertise isn't totally applicable for something like having a great idea for a new spin on a social network, but where you are getting into a vertical (like healthcare) it is probably essential. Otherwise you won't know how to make a product that the professionals in that market truly want.

Forcing a subscription model resulted in 2500 1-star reviews in 2 weeks - andrei_says_ Flexibits, the makers of Fantastical announced a new version and a subscription plan on January 29.<p>At the time of this change they had thousands of mostly 5-star reviews on the App store.<p>Two weeks later, they have over 2500 1-star reviews, many from existing paid customers who were forced into a slew of non-consensual changes. (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;app&#x2F;fantastical-calendar-tasks&#x2F;id718043190#see-all&#x2F;reviews)<p>Their new version changed a few things:<p>* it now required everyone to have a flexibits account just to make the app work, with no additional functionality apart from un-breaking the app.<p>* while it allowed some extra features for previous paid users of the app, it still littered the UI with affordances which only work in the $40-year subscription version<p>* the upgrade happened automatically for everyone who had their app store set to autoupdate<p>* in a later update, flexibits (I think) removed the flexibits account creation requirement.<p>* flexibits wrote a blog post about how they need to switch to subscription model because they need money. (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flexibits.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;)<p>In their app update notes flexibits insists that version 3 has all version 2 features unlocked for customers who paid for v.2.<p>But, 1. there&#x27;s no feature list comparison anywhere, and 2., there&#x27;s no way to remove the UI pollution caused by listing locked-out features of the subscription-only app even for paid users of v.2 who were forced in the upgrade. A nag-free interface is a <i>feature</i> of the paid app which has been taken away.<p>This is a textbook example of how not to handle such a transition. It is so sad to see an otherwise brilliant team exercising such a tone-deaf execution and alienating their existing customer base.<p>It is even sadder that they continue to pretend that this is OK in the face of frustrated reviews and twitter responses from existing, paying customers. (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;flexibits&#x2F;status&#x2F;1225134145178931200). ====== mistermackle I really hate these dark patterns but it seems par for the course for this industry. At what point do people realize good relationships with long term customers matters more than the incremental dollar? ~~~ andrei_says_ I don't think it's a zero sum game. Just from the top of my mind, how about \- offer bug updates for v.2 existing customers with no additional feature development \- offer a paid upgrade with lower subscription for existing customers \- offer more affordable iphone-only or ipad-only subscriptions (currently it's $40/year for a suite of iphone, desktop, ipad apps) \- offer an _ad-free_ v.3 upgrade locked to v.2 features to existing customers \- offer a v.3 upgrade requiring existing customer to make an informed choice vs. forcing it as an upgrade replacing their their current, paid for app with another one nagging them for subscription. I spent 1 minute on these options, as an amateur in the field, and they all sound like viable possibilities for increasing revenue while retaining respectful trusting relationship with existing paying customers. ------ buffaloo The Mac mindset is to overpay for perceived top quality hardware and keep it a long time, consistent with purchased software (even at a premium price). Subscription model is ill-suited to the Mac crowd.

Measuring What Matters: Diversity at Uber - Aqua_Geek https://newsroom.uber.com/diversity-report/ ====== nscalf Does anyone else find the trend to push diversity into everything disturbing? The incentives around programs like these seem misaligned. No company discusses why there are clear gender divides in jobs, i.e. more women in nursing, more men in tech. Or the reason minority groups fall into the career breakdowns they do. Why are we trying to do anything other than giving all people the opportunity to do whatever they want? Growing up, I had a small group (3 white males) of extremely close friends, they all grew up to be good people. Going into college, that group grew into 6 people, the 3 new additions were a mix of gender and ethnicity. You know what noticeably changed? Some of the people I spent most of my time with were now female or a different ethnicity. Everyone had a different background, everyone had different experiences. Everyone contributed differently. But everything wasn't suddenly remarkably better because there was diversity. Diversity doesn't inherently make you better. Hire good people. You want credit for diversity? Work on making sure people who come from poor homes have access to learn difficult topics (STEM fields) without having to deal with the stress of paying for school, housing, food, having a part time job to makes ends meet, getting into massive debt, etc. and work on figuring out why these groups aren't likely to go into tech---why aren't they getting their degrees in tech fields? Until then, I'm going to argue the quotas for diversity that seem to be prevalent in tech are disturbing. I didn't write this initially, but I know it say's they're donating $3 million a year towards select groups. While that's good, I still find forcing inorganic diversity (meaning the amount of people of an ethnicity in the field being way lower than the ratio you're trying to hire) to be a counter intuitive, random PR shot in the dark approach to trying to be better. ~~~ test001only Pushing for diversity and making sure people from poor homes have access to learn difficult topics are mutually exclusive. Your quote on figuring out "why these groups aren't likely to go into tech" needs to be applied to people who are underrepresented in the tech field. Example : Why are women underrepresented in tech? Is it because they are feeling unwelcome here? Are we as a society unconsciously typecasting women and men into different job profile? What if a man wants to be nurse? I think pushing for diversity in this respect is required. ~~~ nscalf I feel like that's chasing symptoms though. If you push a bunch of women into tech and women aren't treated well in tech, you haven't solved the problem of women being treated poorly in tech, instead you've made more people be treated poorly. ------ evangelista I used to be a huge supporter of diversity initiatives in tech. That has changed. Over the years, I noticed more and more that diversity as a topic in high tech had morphed from something positive into a witch hunt against white men and against people who were generally friendly towards the idea of diversity yet did not practice sufficient rigor in enforcing a very specific idea of diversity at their events. A great example is Nodevember kicking out Douglas Crockford because he made a couple relatively non-offensive jokes using secret accusations against him. Another great example is the ongoing attempts by social justice warriors to force the Drupal community to discriminate against a relatively harmless follower of the Gorean movement for his private life. Still other examples include unsubstantiated accusations of sexual harassment at OSCON by an anonymous blog. I have been to OSCON and saw absolutely nothing like what was being complained about in that blog post. Yet another example is the continuing efforts to pressure the organizers of Lambda Conf to ban people who privately have non-politically correct views. Instead of diversity being a "positive thing," it became "if you don't do diversity, if you don't invite 50% female speakers, if you don't have a code of conduct...you are racist." I also noticed Meetup organizers and conference organizers coming under continuous direct public shaming pressure by screaming mobs online when they didn't have a precisely calibrated gender balance amongst speakers despite a numerical discrepancy in submitted talks. On top of that, I frequently see female engineers now actually _complaining_ about being asked to talk about diversity at conferences too frequently because they are in a minority who are able to fill these gaps. Finally, and most boring, diversity-related content has creeped into many Meetups, conferences and other events to the point where formerly content- filled events are now 30% diversity-related content by weight. Instead of interesting information about Python, we get 7 talks about how Python programmers can be more diverse and what it is like being a female Python programmer. I find these changes disturbing. I find conduct codes to be sinister and a form of creeping control by the Left to attempt to extend safe spaces into industry and other places they don't belong. We have a code of conduct in the United States, it is called the law. The constitution is the code of conduct we need to be concerned with now. ------ DarkKomunalec Proportion of whites in the US: 63.7% (down from 87.7% in 1970) Proportion of whites at Uber: 49.8% Ars Technica: "Uber's labor force—in particular its tech staff—is overwhelmingly male and largely white." ( [https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/new-diversity- repor...](https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/new-diversity-report- shows-85-of-ubers-tech-workforce-is-male/) ) So whites are under-represented at Uber, even a minority, yet we're told that's still too many. Will they be happy when there's only 40% of them? Or 10%? ------ sudosteph I wonder how different racial diversity numbers would be at these big tech companies if they had decided to open their HQ in Atlanta instead of San Francisco. I imagine the number of black employees would be much higher. Now, I'm aware that African Americans are only one under-represented minority in tech, but they're still an important one. Latest numbers show that educated, middle-class black Americans are choosing to move to southern cities (especially Atlanta) at high rates. Some of them are moving for job opportunities, to be closer to family, to afford a higher standard of living, to escape winter weather in the North, or just because they like the city and culture there. I work at a place with large office in ATL, and we've had a positive experience hiring very talented people from many different backgrounds. The ATL office is far more diverse than west coast offices and every bit as good at their jobs. I think it's time to acknowledge that trying to "import" diversity into SV is not a real strategy for making tech more diverse. It's not fair to expect minorities to exchange their preferred community for a predominantly white one (with a far higher cost of living) just to have a chance of cashing in some sweet startup equity. I wonder how diversity numbers at tech companies doing all-remote (like Zapier) compare to SV-centric tech companies. ~~~ nscalf I don't think this has anything to do with diversity, and I don't know of any way this could be measured, but I'd love to see the difference in the level of passion for the average engineer hired in SF vs ATL. I moved across the country to SF to work in tech because this is perceived to be the land of opportunity for tech. I'd imagine a lot of people passionate about what they do come here, and if you're less passionate you may be less willing to do that move. But that's total speculation, and I don't think diversity has anything to do with that. Just something your comment made me think of. ------ mrkgnao The colorscheme on the "US Race and Ethnicity" ... ring? ... chart seems purposefully difficult to decipher. On a phone, the colors seem to blend into each other.

Ask HN: Best way to learn spanish - neeleshs I tried learning spanish using duolingo and other such apps. I&#x27;ve come to the conclusion that this experience is not for me. I&#x27;m more of learn the alphabet, grammar, write, read and then speak kind of person. Any suggestions&#x2F;books&#x2F;material on this mode of learning? ====== gus_massa [Hi from Argentina!] I had the reverse problem with my daughter. She has some formal education but we also got for her many movies with the sound and subtitle both in English and Spanish. My recommendation for you is to see the movie a few times: 1) In Spanish with the subtitles in English: So you can cheat when you don't understand what is happening 2) In Spanish with the subtitles in Spanish: It's easier to understand the written form. 3) In Spanish without subtitles. Perhaps try seen a few movies in mode 1 and 2, and when it's too easy switch to mode 2 and 3, or just mode 3. Don't expect word by word translations/subtitles. They help but they are not literal. Later, it would be good to find some movies where the original sound is in Spanish (again, pick a DVD with the sound and subtitles in both languages). Be aware that each country has a different accent, so changing the country the movie is from will make a big difference that may be interesting. [Also, try to get some formal knowledge about grammar and orthography from other sources.] ~~~ neeleshs Thanks! ------ onion2k The best way to learn Spanish is to live in Spain for a while.

Free Printed Copies of "Version Control by Example" - rw140 http://www.ericsink.com/entries/vcbe_print_edition_free.html ====== wmat What a great idea. Will future updates be available as well? Perhaps in a DVCS for easy access? I'd be a happy man if ALL tech books lived in a DVCS. Users could fork it, push updates, fixes, etc. and the author could integrate changes as they see fit. No more searching for errata URLs, simply update your repository. I'd even pay for this. A great example of where this idea could be really useful is with Linux books like 'Linux Device Drivers', or 'Understanding the Linux Kernel'. These books are often out of date at the time they're published. I'd happily pay for access to them in a repository somewhere. This is not unlike how the Pragmatic Bookshelf (<http://pragprog.com/)works> today with the exception that you have to wait for new book versions to become available, then regenerate them in your e-version format of choice. It'd be much more useful if the community of users could contribute back to the book source repository at their leisure. ~~~ dsr_ There are these things called wikis... some books are even published that way. ------ prestia I'd love to request a copy, but the District of Columbia is not an option in the state field. I know we're not technically a state, but we're still people! I actually have this problem more often than I should. It is especially painful when I'm trying to _pay_ for a product. Tip to all web developers: Make sure DC is an option in your signup/order forms. ~~~ ericsink I just wanted to make sure none of those crooks in Congress got a free copy of my book, but I keep forgetting that other people live there too. :-) Seriously, sorry for the oversight. We'll fix this. ~~~ drieddust Why you are not offering a paid eBook format? I am sure people would like to pay you for the eBook version. ------ shabda > Heck, people often pay more per click on AdWords than it costs to print and > ship a book. Wow. Such a great way to spend money, and I think it would get them some great ROI. (They are launching their new SCM veracity.) ~~~ dspillett I certainly didn't know it existed until now (though I was aware of the book in no-trees-were-harmed form) and we are currently assessing our ongoing needs regarding version control (it works, but we _really_ need to move onto something more modern at some point soon), so they've at least bought a little mindshare here, and I doubt we are at all unique in that regard. It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them if we get a follow-up article further down the line. ------ antonp Would be great if you guys would report back with a ROI type report on this pr stunt. Wish you all the best! ------ vimalg2 I reside in India. My request went through without a hitch (Opera11.50/Linux). I think this is great idea for a version control book. I work in a dual-vcs environment (Hg, git - Work, personal) ------ epicureanideal Really great idea. I checked out the ToC before ordering and I like the way it offers a comparison of the major existing version control systems and then includes in the comparison at the end the new version control system. So basically it's useful to anyone who is thinking about moving to a new VCS and "happens to mention" the author's VCS. I'd pay for that any day, but instead I'll just recommend the book to everybody I know... which is probably what they want... ------ presto8 I picked up a copy of this book at OSCON a few weeks ago. It's well-written, humorous, and a great overview of Mercurial and Git and a good introduction to Veracity. If you have been using Mercurial or Git for a while, there won't be much new in here, but it is an enjoyable and quick read. And it could come in handy for converting those holdouts on your team still using Subversion (or, like a few people I work with, no version control at all!). ------ barnaby Fantastic! Thanks for doing this because some of our devs barely use SVN in my office and it would be great if they became more aware of the benefits of version control. I've used git on previous projects and love the distributed model, hopefully having this as a good reading option in our office will help improve us all. ------ pseale Smart Bear does the same thing: <http://smartbear.com/best-kept-secrets-of- peer-code-review/> \- I received a free (paper) book after attending a session about peer code review. I still haven't read the book, but that's a whole different discussion. ------ john2x My request went through (Philippines) :) I hope it comes. I'd like to show my workmates the beauty of version control and what they're missing. There's a free online version (also PDF) <http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/index.html> ------ pholbrook It's worth mentioning that you can also read the book for free online: <http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/index.html> Take a look and decide if it's something you like to have in paper form. ------ ck2 Since I cannot control-F a book, I'll save a tree and stick with the PDF. ------ kleer0 Looks like an interesting book. Were you taken to another page when clicking "Request a book"? For me, the page was reloaded and my answers to questions 1-8 were deselected. ~~~ corin_ I got taken to a page saying: _"Thank you for requesting a copy of "Version Control by Example". "Before your request can be processed, you will need to verify your email address. You will be receiving an email from us shortly with instructions to verify your request."_ ~~~ kailashbadu Was that surprising ? ~~~ corin_ Well the person who I replied to said he got no confirmation and the form just reloaded, so I told him that he should see a confirmation page and showed him what to expect. Did you not bother reading the comment I was replying to? ------ cfn I submitted twice using different browsers and both times the form came back empty except for the address. No sign of any error or missing fields. The PDF will be then. ~~~ ericsink Apologies to folks having difficulty. Book requests are still coming in, so the system is definitely operational. We'll be investigating the problems this morning. For now, my only guess is that it is related to the load, so I suggest you keep trying. ~~~ pasbesoin Also, under question 2), one has to double-click the textbox following the "Other" choice, in order to give the textbox focus and gain a working insertion point. You should give the form a good going over. It starts to, erm, not be confidence inspiring. Nonetheless, looking forward to having a look. I decided to request a dead- tree version as sometimes having one at hand allows me to pay attention at times I otherwise wouldn't. ------ bhamnav Doesn't seem to work, no matter which browser I use. Maybe it doesn't like UK addresses? ~~~ dspillett It didn't seem to complain with my (UK) address, and I got the "confirm your email address" mail through and that link worked fine. This was one or two hours ago though, so there may be a new bug or the page (or the DB behind it) may be under sudden load if the link has hit high volume sites like slashdot. I'd report it to them if I were you, though _please_ make the bug report much more detailed than "it didn't work"... ~~~ bhamnav Don't worry, I filed an extensive bug report, like a true-hacker-style. ~~~ dspillett There is no "hacker style" to filing a good bug report. But I have a bee in my bonnet about bad ones - I often get the equivalent of dropping a car off at the garage for repair with just a note that "it makes a noise". ~~~ bhamnav HAHA! ------ superchink The form seems to be failing to load. Did we break it? ------ mrgoldenbrown firefox on XP here, and I couldn't submit the form either. ------ MostAwesomeDude The author donated an entire box (!) of this book to our students. The book itself is well-written, which is surprising considering that it appears aimed at selling people on Veracity. But, to be fair, after comparing Veracity to Perforce, I am sold on Veracity too. :3 Even if you don't care about enterprisy VCS, this book covers three established community-based VCSes in a really great way. Get a copy, put it on your shelf, give it a read. ------ raju Awesome! Just ordered a copy.

U.S. could face second recession next year - dreamz http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5308HW20090402 ====== tjic Personally, I expect that the current recession will not end before then. Wall Street is up a bit (and by "up a bit" I mean "it's still way way down, but from time to time it's up a few points"), but the fundamentals are as bad as they've ever been. I've got an acquaintance who works in energy demand forecasting, and she can see the aggregate expectations of growth 6, 9, 12 months out by looking at energy future prices, and she says that it shows all the classic signs of a "Japanese style" "L-shaped" recession. I also think that most people are waiting for the other show to drop - inflation, further huge government deficits, further layoffs (I note that the job figures released by ADP yesterday were worse than expected). ------ biohacker42 The whole current commotion is an attempt to avoid a horrific depression. Those efforts will hopefully succeed, but I don't know anyone who doesn't think success == slow or slightly negative growth for a very long time, much like Japan. ------ dsil In other news, US could see large anti-recession next year. The press has no idea what the market is going to do.

Arrington : "You’re Welcome, You Bastards" - whyleym http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/youre-welcome-you-bastards/ ====== nopal This sounds like someone at Fortune trying to do something industrious and then getting smacked by the higher-ups. I wonder how many good ideas are quashed simply because of policy. ~~~ billclerico a better technique would probably have been to apologize to techcrunch for telling them the wrong thing, and then asking to take it down. as opposed to telling arrington that he misunderstood. ~~~ megablast That would be admitting you are wrong. You can never admit you are wrong, it makes you look weak. If you look weak, you will not get anywhere. This is really how some people think. ~~~ hitonagashi If you admit you are wrong in paper/email, isn't it entirely possible that you can then be quoted on it later in an accusation of negligence? In this specific instance for example, wouldn't admitting you are wrong in an email to Arrington immediately give him a solid case to defend himself with in the event he chose not to take it down? ~~~ holygoat Quite possibly… but which course of action is the most likely to succeed in getting the post quietly pulled? "Hey Michael, sorry about this, but some wires got crossed on our end. My bad. Apparently…" or "Hey Michael, you screwed up. You better pull that post or else." ? ------ WestCoastJustin Personally, I like that he is standing up for himself. Playing chicken with Arrington might not be the best idea. From what I've seen in the past (posts like this) he is more than open about what people say in (assumed) private e-mails/phone calls. My guess is they back off shortly. No one likes having their dirty laundry airing to the public. Thought they could push him around behind closed doors. ~~~ abalashov He's rather open with things that are assumed public but also assumed to likely stay within the relatively small communities whence they germinated. Not technically a violation of anything, but morally inconsiderate without asking first. I'll make no secret of my own grudge with Arrington. Back in December, I wrote this comment - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=998318> \- on Hacker News, rather critical of loud web acquisitions by Russian investors. Without so much as a heads up, to say nothing of a polite request for permission, this earned me a TechCrunch post: [http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/20/are-hot-u-s-startups- the-ne...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/20/are-hot-u-s-startups-the-new- bling-for-rich-russians/) ... Perhaps obviously but perhaps not, as a native Russian, and given what I had to say in that comment, I am not particularly interested in the kind of magnified exposure or attention that being linked on TechCrunch provides. It was a genuine statement of opinion that I more or less intended for the general HN audience. I don't really need it rubbed in the faces of these barons' hit-men that I, uh, slandered them. Sure, it's part and parcel of posting something to the public Internet, and, certainly, anyone searching Google can find my comment easily -- fine. But a little bit of consideration from Arrington's yellow journalism machine might have been helpful. ------ yosho I'm going to side on Arrington on this one, even though sometimes, he likes to make a big deal out of something small like removing a few words from his post. ~~~ maukdaddy Why? All he had to do was select a few sentences from the excerpts and edit his post. There's greater reward in the long run from acting like an adult, working well with others, and not being a complete douche. ~~~ gte910h Actually, I think you're wrong on both accounts. Fortune is jerking him around. Calling them on it is not a bad thing, because a working relationship on those terms will likely cost more than it will benefit. Additionally, bloggers (and others in Attention Media) often make more from douchebaggery than from evenhandedness. (And I honestly don't think Arrington is being a douche here. ~~~ neilc _Fortune is jerking him around._ I don't see how: at least in the emails posted, Fortune never authorizes Arrington to post the full excerpt: they talk about writing a post "on the book excerpts". In any case, I think it is more likely to be a simple miscommunication. It would be more mature for Arrington to simply concede that -- the excerpts are their copyrighted material, and they have the right to control its distribution. Getting all peeved about being woken up at 6:30 AM is silly. ~~~ ig1 Why is neilc's post getting downvoted ? - it seems a perfectly valid contribution to the discussion. ~~~ danudey On the one hand, yes, he has a valid point, but I'd guess the downvotes are from people who feel that being unclear in your communication, then calling repeatedly over and over to have you take down a post full of glowing praise and preorder links on a hugely popular blog, then, when you refuse to edit what is probably the best PR the book's had so far, threatening to sue you to have you take it down. Fortune could have said 'Sorry, we miscommunicated, could you trim down your excerpts? Here are some example quotes you might want to include instead.' They could have called him, and when they didn't get an answer, e-mailed him instead. They could have asked nicely, or even looked on the bright side of this amazing PR. Instead, they're being the biggest assholes they can be. So yeah, there's a point to be made there, but I think Fortune's dickery is overshadowing it. ~~~ jimbokun 'Sorry, we miscommunicated, could you trim down your excerpts? Here are some example quotes you might want to include instead.' Didn't they do that, minus the example quotes? I'm honestly confused here. ~~~ ZachPruckowski Expecting immediate action at six AM is a bit silly, as is calling three times at that hour especially when you know the guy was up as late as 2 AM. I realize it's a priority, but expecting 24-7 service when someone's doing you a favor is a bit unreasonable. ------ mhartl I don't support everything Michael Arrington does, but I love how he's never afraid of a fight. People who think they pwn you just because they have a couple of lawyers on retainer need to have threats like this shoved back in their faces. Whether it's a bluff or not, kudos to Arrington for calling it. ------ huntero "I’d love to chat with you about FORTUNE’s exclusive excerpt of David Kirkpatrick’s book on Facebook" "note that the story stems from an exclusive excerpt in FORTUNE of David Kirkpatrick’s new book The Facebook Effect." "once you’ve read the excerpts, please let me know if you choose not to post on one and not the other or both" The use of the words "exclusive" and "on" seem to make it pretty clear that he was supposed to post ABOUT the excerpts. Their intent may be antiquated, but I think it was clearly communicated. ~~~ megablast Ask yourself, could they have been clearer? I mean, the fact that you are looking for clues like certain words suggests that they certainly could have written those emails better. I don't enjoy trying to ascertain what someone is trying to say, I guess I am not a fan of mysteries. Say it plainly and clearly, and these sort of mistakes do not go on. ------ staunch Arrington has a law degree, millions of dollars, and a massively popular platform. He don't scare easy. ~~~ jimbokun "Arrington has a law degree, millions of dollars, and a massively popular platform." It's just sad that is what it takes to be able to stand up to legal bullying. (Not sure that legal bullying is happening here, but certainly Arrington can stand up to it, and most people can't.) ------ petercooper I've always felt that Arrington is a pragmatist and rationalist working in a field made up of antiquated policies, back-stabbing PR people, and bizarre ethics that it would take a lifetime to learn. As a pro-blogger, of sorts, I can certainly sympathize. ------ mikecane That Simon & Schuster got involved says something. Fortune probably paid to run the excerpt -- a subsidiary right in the original book contract -- and then goofed in asking for free pimping from Arrington in the manner that they did. In other words, from the publisher's point of view, Arrington was getting a free ride that S&S believed he should have paid for. Fortune's mistake. ------ invisible The huge problem here is that they provided him all of this content and neglected to say, "Slim this down and use no more than 115 words." They neglected to give him a guideline to follow - and better yet, they should have just given him what he needed to create the post and nothing more. If someone comes to me and says, "Create a post based on all of this content," I am not going to take the time to pick and choose selectively what the reader sees. Why should he take the time to inconvenience his readers? ------ SkyMarshal Sometimes shit just happens. Let it go, move on. The mistake here wasn't a miscommunication, it was in not realizing the cat was out of the bag and just cutting your losses. Just like you can't get unpregnant, you can't retract stuff once it's posted on one of the web's top blogs. Fortune's type A control freak lawyers still need to learn that it seems. The correct response from Fortune: "Oops, that's not what we intended, but oh well, lesson learned - next time be more specific. Fuck it dude, lets go bowling." ~~~ JabavuAdams > Just like you can't get unpregnant Um. There are several legal and safe-enough ways to get "unpregnant". ~~~ antipaganda Yes, but often there's no way to entirely remove the effects thereof from your life thereafter. ------ RuadhanMc It's a douche-douche situation. ------ mike463 Actually, all this hoopla got me to _read_ the excerpts, and I'm thinking about getting the book (when it comes out). so... then I wonder... Is this -- all of this -- clever advertising? ------ techiferous This looks like a routine miscommunication that happens all the time in business. Usually you just patch up the misunderstanding and move on. I think Arrington loves to fight, so he escalated it. So what? Why is this on Hacker News? ~~~ billswift He didn't escalate it, he was just stubborn. The S&S lawyer escalated with threats of a lawsuit. Then he countered by making the disagreement public. ~~~ techiferous He escalated it by refusing to comply with a simple request to shorten the original excerpts. Sure, it was not his fault that he would have had to fix the blog post, but that would've been the civil and practical thing to do, in my opinion. ------ acqq Arrington is clearly wrong. It's clear that nobody told him to copy paste the whole content, or gave him the permission. He just trolls now for more hits. But he'd just lose if he'd come to court. ~~~ sjsivak Maybe I misread the article, but it looks like the Fortune PR person never, ever states that TechCrunch is only supposed to post portions of the excerpts. This is the closest I could find: > And if you don’t mind, once you’ve read the excerpts, please let me know if > you choose not to post on one and not the other or both, which of course we > would love. Now, IANAL but nowhere in there does it say to not post the excerpts. ~~~ devinj Copyright is reserved unless explicitly given. That is, what you have said may be perfectly true, and Arrington could still be in the wrong. All they have to have done is to not give him explicit permission. ~~~ MichaelSalib Practically speaking, he is not in the wrong at all. What exactly do you think Simon&Schuster can do, sue him? Can you imagine going up to a federal judge and seeking an injunction for infringement for a guy who posted excerpts of a book that were already online? What exactly are the damages? ------ abalashov Arrington's just being Arrington. Nothing to be done about that. Characteristically, he is ebulliently and abrasively assertive--indeed, at times belligerent--of his right to publish whatever he feels like publishing that day, and often frames it as a freedom of speech issue in a commercial context. This is a trait of, on the one hand, some of the world's most venerable investigative journalists and insightful commentators, but, on the other hand, also of the sleazy yellow press and fraternal unprincipled viewership/readership/ratings whores with more ignoble motives. As far as I can tell, TechCrunch is a slightly less toxic kind of Daily Mail. It should not be controversial to any reasonable person that there is merit to both sides of the issue insofar as lack of initial explicit prohibition on publication of whole excerpts does not necessarily mean it was categorically acceptable, nor does it mean that any demands for retroactive remedies from Fortune are irrelevant. On the other hand, they are obviously both trying to bully him and do something quite stupid. ------ edw519 I once had a friend who never forgot a birthday or holiday. I always got a card from him. The problem was that it was always a card _that someone else had sent him_. He scribbled over their message and wrote his own, then added a lame message, "I'm doing my part by recycling." This went on for years and I hated it. It wasn't funny anymore and I didn't want to read what others had written to him. Then it hit me... Who was reading all the cards I had sent him? Michael Arrington is like that friend. I will probably never send him an email because I don't want anyone else (much less the whole world) reading it. ~~~ swombat That's a nice anecdote, but apart from the slanted attack on Michael Arrington (which is obviously proving popular, looking at how many upvotes you got), I'm not sure what it's got to do with the article at hand. Michael Arrington might act like a douche sometimes (maybe even lots of the time), but that's no reason not to treat this story on its merits, rather than responding with a cute character attack. ~~~ edw519 _slanted attack on Michael Arrington_ _cute character attack_ Not an attack, just an observation. And not of his character (which I am hardly qualified to judge), just of his behavior in this particular post. I dunno, posting word for word emails from someone else in a blog just seems a little over the top to me, regardless of the reason. I don't know the merits of this case, nor do I care. The antecdote was to make a point (as antecdotes are usually meant to do). It's the same as the office gossip. If he's saying/doing that to someone else, what's he saying/doing about me? ~~~ danh Thank you for introducing me to "antecdote". Brilliant word! I suppose it is half anecdote, half antidote, which must be highly useful. Or is it maybe an ante-anecdote, an amusing story in advance (a.k.a. prophecy)? Not surprisingly, such a useful word is in widespread use, apparently. 33,200 uses to be exact, according to Google. But no clear definition, according to antecdotal evidence. ~~~ mst ITYM "the available antecdata" (the plural of anecdote is anecdata, doncha know ...) ------ tkeller Yeah, this seems like an unbiased account. I bet there's NO information he left out of this story... Michael Arrington would never shade the truth. ------ ck2 Er, that's not an excerpt, that's like 4 (book) pages of text there. Someone screwed up at Fortune and tried to backpedal. ------ FluidDjango "today the book’s publisher Simon & Shuster got involved and is threatening legal action." Thanks. I needed a little more juice for my "death to the publishing industry" mission. grrrr ------ scottshapiro The reality is that TC posts 30+ articles per day. Articles from may 6 are now part of a very, very long tail of TC articles that will barely dribble in pageviews. ------ adolph I'd bet that F O R T U N E wasn't legally in a position to offer the excerpts for republishing. ------ stanleydrew Reminds me of the kinds of posts we saw after the whole CrunchPad/JooJoo thing fell apart. ~~~ rbanffy Those were ugly in comparison. And also ruined what could have been a very nice tablet platform. ~~~ danudey A lack of quality control certainly didn't help. ~~~ rbanffy I believe it became harder to secure funding after what Arrington published. ------ u48998 He has clearly quoted a lot of material, and so what if they made a mistake. This is not how a blog post should be composed from the contents which are not yours. I say TC is in error again and is just whining. ------ Amanjeev Whatever you say, Arrignton has a point in this one. Web publishing is NOT the same as Paper publishing. No wonder News papers are dying; they refuse to merge and be innovative. Last cry always is 'copyright, copyright'! ------ TotlolRon There was a copy write problem with the excerpts of the excerpts. Easy. ------ misuba Reprints are contractual matters. Draw one up. This goes double if you're calling yourself a publisher and you're working with major print entities. ~~~ jjs _Reprints are contractual matters. Draw one up._ Email is wonderful because people don't understand that an agreement _in writing_ doesn't have to mean _ink on paper_. ------ kyro This really shouldn't have 80+ votes. Someone please tell me why this is interesting. ------ xiaoma It really does appear that no good deed goes unpunished. ------ hapless This is kind of a pissy, spiteful post. Why would anyone ever take this kind of conflict public ? What does Arrington have to gain by going around jamming his thumb in "old media" eyes ? ~~~ MikeCapone > What does Arrington have to gain by going around jamming his thumb in "old > media" eyes ? Pageviews? ~~~ noarchy This. Arrington plays the game every bit as much as the rest of them. But he's willing to expose how it works, from time to time, in order to make money for himself. I find it entertaining, which is the point. ------ duairc This has such a linkbait headline. This is some completely uninteresting drama about, at least to me. But the headline is such that my impulse is to click on it. I guess that makes me weak. But why do people upvote shit like this in the first place? Do people really care about some squabble TechCrunch are having with some other crowd? Is this really actually interesting to hackers? I really hate when I come here and I see headlines like this on the front page. This is not what I come here for. ~~~ alain94040 Although you are at -2, I'll answer you anyway. It's interesting to me because it shows me how things really work inside. Deconstructing stuff to find out how it works is part of hacking. Now I understand better how Forture gets an exclusive and how they go around and ask blogs to cover and promote it, and how bloggers think when they receive such offers. ~~~ duairc Well, thank you for responding anyway. I knew I was going to get downvoted for that comment, I just felt I needed to say it. To be honest I have no idea who Fortune are or what any of this is about really, so I was never in a position to comment on whether or not this is interesting. Fair enough if it is actually something interesting. I just find linkbait headlines like that in really bad taste and it disappoints me when I see a lot of them on the frontpage. ------ gluejar Arrington's post with excerpts is exploitative of Fortune. Once you've read the TechCrunch post, there's no value left in reading the Fortune articles. Sure, it great for selling the book, but the magazine is screwed. On the fortune side, they were not clear about whether they're promoting the book or the magazine, since their editor is the author, so Arrington has a legitimate excuse by arguing that he's just not very smart and was confused by the distinctions.

US explores possibility that coronavirus started in Chinese lab - drocer88 https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics/us-intelligence-virus-started-chinese-lab/index.html ====== sahin-boydas Misinformation of course. (I want to believe that this will be not be true) China will never do that. And this is real virus from bats it is proven by respectful scientists and also WHO is supporting the idea that it cannot be labmade... Upsss? If this misinformation,racists, conspiracy theory true, then what? I sort don't want this to true otherwise so many respectful organzition and scientists will be wrong. Then many people will have no place to believe. HN people can be smart, read and go deeper but 90% of the people dont want to research, they just want to believe. If we don't trust Mr President (his truth changes weekly basis), government, we dont trust scientists, WHO, CNN or other outlets then what? ~~~ malandrew It's entirely possible that it's 100% naturally occurring or selected for in a lab, and still escaped from the lab. ~~~ sahin-boydas Maybe ~~~ sahin-boydas That will be a good one but if it is case , they must know and find and prove this easily. Then one possible result from this apporach, some group of people might hide this, another group of people like WHO got misinformed. It is still bad result and damaging the trust & reputation of some Chinese government officals and WHO.

Docker Hub Is Down - l0b0 https://www.dockerheart.com ====== bifrost Interesting, they're 404'ing. They're going through Cloudflare which pops up a "this is why this site is down" message usually. Maybe they fell victim to some faulty CD?

Ask HN:What Learning Management System or Policy Acknowledgment SaaS do you use? - Looter I'm looking for an LMS (Learning Management System) and Policy Acknowledgement tracking SaaS or software. Can you recommend any? ====== Looter Not a big response. Bump, cough..

Predicting one of 2 characters you will randomly press - aram https://github.com/elsehow/aaronson-oracle ====== sctb Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824164) ------ throwaway2016a For me it is pretty consistently 50% +/\- 5 even after a minute. It doesn't seem to work well if you repeat the same key a lot (i.e don't flip to often). ~~~ oneeyedpigeon I got 52% after a good lot of keypresses (not sure exactly how many). I chose to not look at the screen at all during that time - I think that probably helps. ~~~ Forge36 Mine started at 25% and worked it's way up to 54%. Which also involved me holding down keys for a few seconds. I'm not sure if it works or if Hacker New's user base is skewed towards people who are slightly better at being random. (or if that's cause by self reporting, would someone whose best was 80% want to come forward?) Edit: Interesting tidbit: I pre-seeded at 100% by holding down F and it trended down to ~68% before I decided I shouldn't spend too much time on this. Maybe we didn't use it long enough? ------ andrezsanchez I did something like this a long time ago in a little competition for beating others' rock paper scissors programs, except I used the other players' moves relative to my own (e.g. my program could catch on to the other player choosing the move that would beat my last move) as well as their current pattern of winning or losing. ------ vorotato It works if you're trying to be random, however if you're trying to react and respond to its patterns you can win. ------ rohanprabhu So, I tried a simple python one-liner: [os.urandom(1)[0] < 128 for x in xrange(0, 100)] and typed 'd' for True and 'f' for False in the array, bringing the accuracy of the predictor down to 53%. Theoretically, I'm guessing doing it for large enough numbers should make it exactly 50%. ~~~ mikeash If it _doesn 't_ come down to 50% for sufficiently large numbers, you've found a break in your OS's urandom and someone is about to be famous! ------ dzdt Doesn't work from my smartphone. Sounds like a fun challenge though, would like to try. ~~~ amake I'm on OS X with Firefox 47.0.1 and it doesn't work for me either :( ~~~ justinsaccount I'm on OS X with Firefox 47.0.1 and it works fine. It doesn't display anything until the 6th keypress. ~~~ mikeash Doesn't work in Safari for me, but it does work in Chrome (after pressing keys six times). ~~~ justinsaccount Yeah, it uses this style function definition (ES6?) in a few places: document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => { Safari doesn't support that. ------ js8 Is there, for a given k, an easy to remember sequence (easy to remember algorithm with little state) that has all the k-grams with the same frequency? For k=1: 01 repeating For k=2: 0011 repeating For k=3: 00010111 repeating ~~~ justinpombrio They're called De Bruijn sequences[1], and there's an algorithm for constructing them. I'm not sure how easy it is to run in your head, though. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence#Algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence#Algorithm) ------ tokenizerrr Very cool. Am getting ~50% accuracy so I'm glad to see my free will is still intact! ------ andrewclunn 40%? Lame.

Founder came back after 8 years to rewrite Flash photo editor in Canvas/WebGL - poniko http://pixlr.com/e ====== poniko The service was grown to over 60 million users back in ~2012 and got aquired by Autodesk. After some years most, if not all people working with the product was reassigned and or left. Still with millions of weekly users but no one that cared. Autodesk sold it for near to nothing and the new owners contacted me (org founder) and asked me if I wanted to get involved somehow. So we build a new product from scratch since the original app was 100% Flash and we are just month away from a completely browser block :) ~~~ chii it'd be interesting to know about the tech behind this rewrite. E.g., what language/stack, how did you do it (or any frameworks of interest used), and what, if any, did you learn from the flash version that helped in this rewrite? ~~~ poniko Its 99% Typescript and we don't use any premade js frameworks, everything was written from scratch (except for some font loader and zip), ui, rendering, webgl filters etc etc. All the knowledge of how Photo Editing works came out of building the original products back in the day, there is more information about the field today to be found written online but much is still secrets kept at a few companies. The browsers is really a shitty environment to be writing this kind of apps in, performances is a struggle in every step :) ~~~ nojvek I’ve spent years building Flash and Flex apps. Some really complex ones. Adobe had this big bets in RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). Turns out RIAs are simply SPA (Single Page Applications) now. Typescript is really nice and close to Actionscript3. I’m glad Flash died. The new open ecosystem with tc39 and wc3 is pretty awesome. ------ rahuldottech Context for those who don't know what going on: Pixlr was (well, still is) a flash-based webapp that allows you to edit images in your browsers, and apparently had ~60 Million users back in 2012. It was sold to Autodesk, they didn't do much with it. Then Autodesk sold it to new owners, who invited the original founder to come and work on it, and as a result, this canvas/WebGL version was launched. ------ IvanK_net Hi, I am the creator of [https://www.Photopea.com](https://www.Photopea.com) and I am a bit sad, that you did not start to work on it earlier. Wish you good luck! :) ~~~ poniko Thanks Ivan, still lots of fun to move pixels around :) ~~~ IvanK_net You are welcome :) BTW. you can open Pixlr PXD files in Photopea (including text layers, layer styles, save them as PSD, etc) Actually, it is the 19th most frequent format of files opened in Photopea :) [https://twitter.com/photopeacom/status/1172183966125871105](https://twitter.com/photopeacom/status/1172183966125871105) ------ chatmasta Can anybody name a successful autodesk acquisition? Their record seems quite embarrassing, filled with lots of acquisitions of unrelated tech for inflated prices that they ultimately shut down. (No offense meant to the companies being acquired, they’re usually great. Autodesk is the one who seems to screw everything up.) ~~~ m463 It's extremely hard for large companies acquiring smaller ones to do it well. Kind of interesting to look through these and wonder what (if anything) survived: * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL) * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle) * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft) * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_IBM) * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems) * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts) ~~~ skrebbel I'm still impressed that Java appears to be getting better faster under Oracle than it did in the Sun days. I mean, Oracle! How? ~~~ pjmlp Something that many keep forgeting with their Oracle hate, is that Oracle has been part of the Java eco-system since the early days. They did the NC Java station alongside Sun, were the first RDMS to support Java stored procedures, ported their installers and GUI tooling to Java, created their own JVM, later bought BEA, and created their own JEE implementation, among other Java frameworks. ------ rstuart4133 Far out. A javascript photo editor running in a browser that feels faster than a native application like the Gimp. What an extraordinary achievement. But it's not just the underlying speed. It's GUI interface design is simply beautiful. It's also intuitive, and discoverable. God how I wish other young designers would follow this example. I suspect you are going to struggle commercially against "free" from the likes of Gimp unless you can survive on advertising revenue, but you've done well so far - bought out, run into the ground, sold back for pennies. It doesn't get much better than that. Given the quality of this product who knows, it may happen again. I wish you and your product the best of luck - you deserve it. ------ bwang29 I'm the founder of Polarr , [https://photoeditor.polarr.co](https://photoeditor.polarr.co) , if anyone wants to hack Canvas/WebGL based photo editor with a full team of Canvas/WebGL hackers, DM me! ------ throwawaySG Is there a good vector graphic version of this that folks might recommend? I'm thinking in particular of when you need to do some quick work on (data- related) graphs. ~~~ artursapek I worked on this toy project for a while, but it's not nearly as complete as these photo editors [https://ballpoint.io/about](https://ballpoint.io/about) ------ kjaftaedi I was randomly just looking for a site to do online photoshop yesterday and abandoned this one due to the flash requirement. ~~~ bennyp101 In case you are still looking, I use [https://www.photopea.com/](https://www.photopea.com/) from time to time for stuff ~~~ oblib This one is awesome too! Thank you for sharing this! ------ knolax I forgot about Pixlr. I have many fond memories of making bad pixel art on it. It really was a step above all the other photo-editing webapps available at the time. ------ jstsch Editor looks great, very performant! Is there a way to integrate this in an existing webapp? E.g. open pixlr in a new window, do some edits, get the asset back? ~~~ poniko Thanks! Yes it support the same api as the old ones, will update the site with more info when we leave beta in January. Simple load and post with the image asset. ~~~ jstsch Super neat, will check it out, thanks! ------ amelius How are the fast pixel-wise operations (color transformations, alpha composition, etc) coded? Is this something that WebGL or Canvas supports? ~~~ ZenPsycho 1\. Adobe is/was on the standards groups and stnadardised all the photoshop blend modes into browsers a long long time ago. 2\. Alpha composition? Are you sure that's what you mean? we've had that universally in browsers since IE7. I am continually stunned at how little most developers know of what browsers are capable of. ~~~ amelius > I am continually stunned at how little most developers know of what browsers > are capable of. I guess it's because developers don't always need to know everything. The browser platform has turned native computational capabilities into a "hodge podge" of functionalities that a developer needs to pick from, so programming becomes more like shopping than like building things. Not every developer likes that mindset. ~~~ ZenPsycho Really? the only place you wouldn't find that is in Assembly language on baremetal. Even C has platform libraries and system calls. I haven't seen a more dithered and inconsistent "hodge podge" than when trying to get something as simple as a timer working consistently across all the Unix-likes. Browsers are just a platform like any other, you work with the platform capabilities the OS or platform gives you. what alternative do you think there is? ------ londons_explore Can you tell us how much effort it was to build this? Either in hours or dollars? ~~~ poniko It's been better part of a year for two people team (me and my brother) to build this product. We released one product first we called x with a subset of features to get code out the door. ------ londons_explore Looking at the javascript file... Why are all variable names hex strings like _0x56fb578a ? Is this some debug mode of a minifier? Is it supposed to make reverse engineering harder? (it seems to make it easier to me IMO) ~~~ jmull3n It's obfuscated to protect their source code. [https://github.com/javascript- obfuscator/javascript-obfuscat...](https://github.com/javascript- obfuscator/javascript-obfuscator) ------ vishnuharidas Extremely curious to see a blog post explaining the story behind rewriting the editor in Canvas/GL. ------ westurner And it works on my phone now?! ~~~ poniko It's just the beta for desktop, phone ui will be released in a few weeks. A dedicated version is made for smaller screens and touch. ------ missingstack @poniko How did you convert typescript into some hex strings js file? ------ overgard This is great! Any plans for apple pencil or wacom support? ------ oblib Wow! That's just awesome! ------ harrisreynolds Would be awesome if there was more of a story behind this. Clicking the link just leaves me scratching my head. Even with the comments it isn't clear what the story is (at least at time of 15 comments) ------ rahuldottech @mods: Perhaps rename the submission to "Pixlr founder returns after 8 years to rewrite web-based photo editor interface in canvas/WebGL" to avoid confusion. ~~~ dang I replaced "photoshop" with "photo editor" above. I don't see anything wrong with the title otherwise. The project creator wrote it, so it isn't editorializing. ~~~ jdsully This was one of the few times I was genuinely confused by a link on HN. I didn’t realize there was an author exception to the title rules and I’m not sure there should be. Its not the end of the world but one of the things I like best about HN is trustworthy titles. This erodes that. Just my 2 Canadian cents. ~~~ dang I don't see what's untrustworthy about the title here. If it were misleading we'd change it, but it doesn't seem misleading to me. It's important that HN's front page not be completely predictable, so we allow variations sometimes. The rules here are called guidelines for that reason. HN is a spirit of the law place, not a letter of the law place, and the spirit is curiosity. ~~~ jdsully I don’t think its misleading in a malicious way. But it is misleading in the sense that the title did not at all describe the ultimate content. I would not have clicked if I knew where it lead. The confused comments here show I'm not the only one. The actual story behind this is quite interesting. I wish there was a blog post with more details. Perhaps if they were forced to use proper titles we might have got that. I don’t argue with your authority to vary the rules. I just wanted to provide feedback. ~~~ dang Appreciated! And you make a great point that a blog post with the story would be better. At least the author did include a bit of that in the thread here. ------ andrewstuart Can someone give context to this please? It leads to an image editor but no explanation of how a founder is coming back to rewrite flash. ~~~ tylerhou The title is confusing. The image editor was previously written in Flash; the founder rewrote it in WebGL/Canvas. ~~~ andrewstuart OK I thought someone had implemented Flash in WebGL. ~~~ cosmotic Someone did; that someone is Adobe. Adobe Animate (previously known as Flash) can export JS code that uses a canvas to draw the animation. It has been this way for years.

Ask HN: Why is code documentation such a painful process? - Kesava1312 ====== cborenstein In my experience, code documentation is painful because people often try to maintain perfectly comprehensive formal docs and the expectation is too high. Aiming for perfection instead of iterative improvements can feel intimidating and painful. I recently wrote this blog post on how you can use lightweight daily habits in git and [https://bytebase.io](https://bytebase.io) (I'm one of the creators) to avoid the dreaded "Docs Overhaul" that seems to happen every couple of months. Blog Post: [https://medium.com/better-programming/daily-habits-to- turn-y...](https://medium.com/better-programming/daily-habits-to-turn-your- git-history-into-valuable-documentation-15113e1bf312) The main idea is to capture small chunks of context as part of your regular coding routine. This can be in a git commit message if it closely relates to code or in an external knowledge sharing tool if it is higher level context. ------ afarrell Writing feels fluid to me when I think I know what I am talking about and I can imagine someone what parts of my writing someone wants to pay attention to. When writing documentation, you often either: 1) Know the system very well -- So it is hard to know what the reader needs to know. 2) Don't know the system well at all -- so WTF do you write? Documentation is better written as a pair between an engineer familiar with the system and an engineer who has self-confidence, passing familiarity with the languages, and no knowledge of the system. Product idea: As two engineers pair-writing documentation, I want to turn on a product that records what we say and where the senior engineer navigates in the codebase into a very-rough first draft of documentation. Look at the Otter.ai API. ------ thereyougo I actually read a great answer on Stack Exchange about it recently: >In my opinion, any system that is used productively and is supposed to be maintained by people, should have documentation at reach of those people who are responsible for its support. The reason is, simply because: Not all developers have the same IQ - You want every one to get it not only smart John. Not all code is obvious, complex algorithms are not quite readable by all. Business rules, while may be readable, may not alone show why they are there. Take for example this line in a reporting application: if (lastname>="ZZ") then goto loop it is somewhat clear to the reader what is happening but not why this is the case? Finding out details take long time, it is a waste of business money. Dependency between pieces of the system may not always be obvious. Especially in batch processes where each job looks like an independent program but the execution sequence is a package that must be processed according to certain rules (like monthly runs, etc.). Documentation should help you understand logs and whether the results are correct or not. When you understand the function of each component you can answer business questions. Say Suzan calls from accounting and asks why are we missing 5 checks this month? Some programmers may respond, well, I ran the job and gave me no error - This can't help Suzan. If you know which part of the system does the data extraction for processing the checks and then know what are business rules applied to qualify a check to be printed you can provide an useful answer - Assuming there were no bugs. Remember that documentation go way beyond the comments that are inserted in code. They include ERD, Business Requirements documents, Design documents, etc. In short: good documentation gives the developers the necessary control to maintain a system. source: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1217...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/121775/why- should-you-document-code) ------ Vesuvium Because writing documentation after the implementation is hard and error- prone. I've found that writing the documentation before and using it as guide for developers works best. ------ type0 It gets outdated fast, it becomes messy and it's difficult to explain all concepts with words etc ~~~ bluestreak I totally agree with this. Good codebase evolves all the time thru constant refactoring. Looking after code documentation in this context is a pain. Complex algos should be covered by tests and not so much by comprehensive documentation. Code documentation works well on external API, which is meant to be relatively static.

The Hidden Costs of Apple’s Push Notification Service - sant0sk1 http://www.mobileorchard.com/the-hidden-costs-of-apples-push-notification-service/ ====== flashgordon Damn. This also means back end for iphone apps running on google appengine will have a much much harder time... Sure you could have a cron job that triggers a request handler on the appengine to open and close connections to apple periodically. But this cron job would have to be not too close to each other, so as to not be treated as DOS requests.. aaaaaaaaaah... damn it when will we see real background processing on app engine (or on the iphone, if at all)...

Git Large File Storage (LFS) or Rsync for Media Files - AJAlabs Now that Git Large File Storage (LFS) has been announced. What is the general opinion on large file storage syncing best practices? Do you use Git LFS or sync with rsync?<p>Reference: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;1986-announcing-git-large-file-storage-lfs ====== detaro Depends on what you want to do. Do you just want to sync in one direction? Between two locations? Or the full git-like randomly between multiple repos thing? There are other options like git-annex as well.

Show HN: Prototyp – FramerJS based free prototyping - chinchang http://prototyp.in/ ====== nstart On the output side for the demo, this is all I see <body><script src="../framer.js"></script><script>var imageLayer; imageLayer = new Layer({ x: 0, y: 0, width: 128, height: 128, backgroundColor: 'lightgreen' }); imageLayer.center(); imageLayer.states.add({ second: { scaleX: 1.4, scaleY: 0.6 }, third: { y: 430, scaleX: 0.4, scaleY: 2 }, fourth: { y: 200, scaleY: 1.2 } }); imageLayer.states.animationOptions = { curve: 'spring(500,20,0)' }; imageLayer.on(Events.Click, function() { imageLayer.states.next(); });</script></body> that can't be right can it? ~~~ chinchang Can you please let me know your browser version? ------ chinchang Unlike FramerStudio, Prototyp works on pure JavaScript.

New article series at catonmat: Detailed Summary of MIT's Linear Algebra - pkrumins http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-linear-algebra-part-one/ ====== amichail Why do you care that this introductory course is taught at MIT? For a course at that level, the professor's teaching skills matter more than his/her research skills. A professor from a lower-ranked institution that focuses more on teaching might do a better job for such a course. I guess the real reason there is interest in the MIT course is because it is presented to top students and hence is more likely to be advanced and rigorous. ~~~ tjr The article seems to answer the question: _I had already had two terms of linear algebra when I studied physics back in 2004. But it was not enough for a curious mind like mine. I wanted to see how it was taught at the world’s best university._ ...and... _The course is taught by no other than Gilbert Strang. He’s the world’s leading expert in linear algebra and its applications and has helped the development of Matlab mathematics software._ ~~~ liquidben Your first point is good, but the second point is problematic. Just because someone is an expert and helped build software, doesn't necessarily translate to that same person being able to teach it. Teaching is a skill in and of itself. Luckily other posters here vouch for Strang's ability as a teacher. ~~~ chrischen Someone who has a better understanding of the subject matter will usually have an advantage in teaching it. ------ pbz <http://videolectures.net/mit1806s05_linear_algebra/> ------ danh Also available in iTunes: [http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu....](http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu.1299892995.01299892999) ------ pkrumins Btw, I started using twitter today! If you enjoy my catonmat blog, you should follow me on twitter here: <http://twitter.com/pkrumins>

Latest perk on Google buses: security guards - vellum http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/us-techbuses-security-idINBREA0F1O320140116 ====== yetanotherphd Good for Google for doing this. I like this a lot better than making concessions to the thugs that threaten Google employees or Google's property.

Show HN: Not BASIC – though strongly inspired by it - teacher_cs https://nbasic.net/ide/ ====== pmarreck This is cool! I’d love an immutable/functional version of this (I believe it can be about as simple). Also, could work better on mobile... ~~~ teacher_cs Thanks. Functional/immutable - that would not be BASIC like anymore. Mobile and programming - a challenging thing.

Show HN: Leadbox – Web Development Lead Generation Service - wprapido http://leadbox.co.nz ====== sharemywin Are you using robo-calling? ~~~ wprapido No. We don't do calls at all ~~~ sharemywin So your service goes out to the web and finds small businesses that have crappy websites so they can be offered mobile friendly design services? ~~~ wprapido Exactly!

Ask HN: In what ways do non-developers waste money not knowing how to code? - castig ====== mrfusion There are probably a lot of use cases for version control in the non programming world where people could benefit. I'm guessing people waste time copying and versioning files, and emailing updates back and forth, losing old changes, etc. ------ lsiebert Taking data in one system or format that is already in a computer, and manually performing one of, or a combination ofm transformations, filtering, aggregating, moving to another system, etc. Like I have gone through voter mailing data for a political candidate and filtered it, removed individuals who's addresses were outside the area or who hadn't voted in the last election, combined individuals with the same last name and the same address, then transformed it into a format suitable for address printing. All that is pretty easy to do with code. If you wanted to go through several thousand by hand though in an unsorted list, that would be a pain. Businesses will have similar requirements... like taking sales data that is already entered and formatting it for a report. Where non developers waste money is doing a repetitive time consuming rules based task on a computer without automating it. Ancedotally, non developers also tend to undervalue their and their employee's time. If you are paying an employee to do a task, if it's not absolutely essential or doesn't have a ROI that's higher then money you are paying the employee per hour to handle it, it's time to consider how important that task is. Finally, again ancedotally, non developers often won't invest in maintenance costs, and instead end up paying for time sensitive repairs or fixes, because they are easier to reason about. A coder is more likely to expect things to break, code to rot, etc. This can be in objects, services or in underpaying trained individuals so that their is a high turn over rate, where better pay might reduce that. Costco for example makes money despite it's higher pay because they have to train employees less. I think high pay also tends to reduce employee pilferage. ~~~ allendoerfer I would second that and add, that there are two groups of people: Members of the first group, generally a bit older and less tech savvy, see these problems as actual skilled work, which needs explanation. "Then you got to move your mouse over here and click, when this pops up you need to …" People from the second group realize, that they are doing dumb work and either do not care or realize, that a computer should do this. If they have seen a solution in the past, they use it. For example using Doodle instead of e-mail to schedule an event or using Dropbox or Google Docs to collaborate. They might even come up with a process, which removes the need for the manual work, for example by putting the data in the right format in the first place. What they often can not see is, that you could hire somebody to connect the systems let alone use some Unix piping magic on their own. Also they do not consider the implications of using a consumer solution in a business setting like security concerns, fragmentation etc. ------ mrfusion How about knowing what things are easy or hard [1]. I'm guessing a lot of business owners might dismiss good ideas as being too difficult/expensive when they're actually easy to program. [1] [http://xkcd.com/1425/](http://xkcd.com/1425/) ~~~ LarryMade2 I think the other bit is not realizing what is possible. Many non-developers only see as far as what paper accomplishments they have already created with their projects. Programmers, on the other hand, see further possibilities in data entry, management, and reporting, also methods to reduce the amount of work that could be done. Sometimes that also leads to that XKCD cartoon, where non-programmers think the computers can do anything, or think that an automated X is the way to go. Seasoned developers can offer valuable insight on what might or might not be a good idea and provide wisdom on why. ------ castig My first suggestion here is: having to pay your developer to make even the smallest changes (like a spelling mistake between a <h1> that if you knew the tiniest bit of code you could potentially fix by yourself).

Investment Thesis for a University Incubator - paulorlando http://startupsunplugged.com/startup-programs/investment-thesis-university-incubator/ ====== j4pe What's the level of demand for spots in the incubator? It seems that a university-specific community would be small enough that optimizing for just one of the factors mentioned (teams, for instance) is enough to winnow the applicant pool to a reasonable size, if applied stringently enough. It's only when you get up to a YC level of demand where you need additional judgement criteria. Or maybe the USC community is just huge? ~~~ paulorlando The USC community is big, but of course smaller than what other non-university programs can take (the world). It's not really a problem of winnowing the applicant pool, it's more of a problem of creating something that makes sense for the participants. One piece of that is not only looking at tech businesses. While YC and other accelerators have to think of financial returns, a university program that is not taking equity can think of other benefits.

Carpooling Service Expands Across Europe - prostoalex http://www.wsj.com/articles/carpooling-service-expands-across-europe-1419538372 ====== personlurking Pretty good service. I very recently took it. 3 pax @ $30 (€25) each for a 5.5h trip, or 250 mi (400km). On top of it, the driver paid for gas and tolls using an alt route to save money and time. Tolls and gas = $67 (€54). The main route would have cost him $90 (€75), meaning the cost to the pax. It's great if there's not a lot of "bla-bla-bla" always going on (which happened once, as a driver wouldn't stop talking). Another complaint (on the driver's side) is that the company has started to request commission in some countries, and this is causing some drivers to seek out alternative service. ~~~ AndrewDucker Pax? ~~~ personlurking sorry, force of habit. In the transport industry 'pax' is shorthand for 'passengers'. ------ lleims Blablacar's growth in Europe has been incredible to watch. Hard work pays off: they started building the service in 2006. It's become the main transportation service for most of my friends (tech savvy or not) when traveling from one city to another within Spain. It's crossed the 'mainstream' line. A lot of young people think first about Blablacar, then flying, taking the train, etc. ~~~ personlurking I heard the bus services are lowering their fares in response to Blabla, though AVE (et al) are still expensive.

Ask HN: How do you read programming books? - pvsukale3 How do you read a programming book? By programming books, I mean books which teach a language&#x2F;framework&#x2F;tool.<p>Do you read it in one go and later try examples or go through entire book by trying all examples?<p>Do you read the entire book or just the part to get the job done?<p>What methods&#x2F;techniques have you found useful while reading such books? ====== oceanghost I'm going to give away the secret of autodidactic learning here. I developed this technique in college. Although there was no such thing as YouTube back then, iTunes etc. I get at least two, preferably three data sources on the same subject. Read them all in Parallel and take notes. Getting multiple perspectives is critical. What works for me is two well-made textbooks and a Youtube series, iTunes university, etc course. ““In almost all textbooks, even the best, this principle is presented so that it is impossible to understand.” (K. Jacobi, Lectures on Dynamics, 1842-1843). I have not chosen to break with tradition.” –V. I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics [5], footnote, p. 246 ~~~ aj7 Exactly how I aced high school. And got into MIT. Much less useful to me in college. Even less useful now. I must have 100 programming books in Google drive. The only way to learn something (and certainly programming) at a high level is to force yourself to write down a well- defined, closed-end problem, and then sit down and solve the motherf_____r. You learn what you need to learn, build, and invent along the way, and that survives longer than the original problem. ~~~ scoggs Right. I think learning this way forces yourself to solve the problem by teaching the discipline to yourself. It's always said that you don't truly understand something until you are able to teach it to another so in that sense you a sort of "tricking" yourself into teaching it to yourself as you learn it. It's a round about way of thinking / doing things but those mental gymnastics feel necessary to me to absorb such unnatural and abstract (to me) topics. ------ jasode 1) Make sure you're reading a quality book. Sturgeon's Law[1] is true -- 90% of everything is crap including programming books. Check amazon reviews, forum recommendations for consensus of quality books. (E.g. many of OReilly "Head First" series of books have cute cartoons but they actually don't have quality content.) 2) Most programming authors do not write about _tradeoffs_. They write about language syntax or library features and end up being (inadvertent) evangelists. All languages have warts and problems that books don't talk about. To supplement book reading with a dose of real-world realities, always corroborate with forum discussions, stackoverflow, etc. 3) Instead of reading 1 book, go through 2 in parallel from different authors. E.g. read about monads chapter in 1 book and find the same topic in another book. Different authors explain concepts in different ways which can help reinforce the learning [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law) ~~~ andrewstellman Head First book author here -- I wrote Head First C#, Head First PMP, and Head First Agile (and three other, non-Head First O'Reilly books) -- and I wanted to push back on your first point. We work really, really hard to include quality content. But I understand why people sometimes make the point that you made; I did the same thing myself at first. It's easy to dismiss one of our Head First books as less-than-serious if you're not used to the format. There are a lot of pictures. There's a LOT of whitespace. There's redundancy; we'll say the same thing more than once. And most of all, when we do our job right they're not boring -- which, to many people, reads as non-serious. But we find that when people approach Head First books with an open mind, they find that it's actually a really effective way to get a lot of information into your brain quickly and easily. We also know that while a lot of people love the informal and highly visual format, some people just can't stand it. There are some people who just want a dense, concise, terse book that they can absorb all at once. Readers like that just won't like Head First books. That's why every Head First book starts with an introduction that says who the book is for and who it's not for. Coincidentally, my coauthor, Jenny Greene, and I just did an interview on Dave Prior's "Drunken PM" podcast, and the first question he asks us is about this "Who this book isn't for" section: [https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog- post/34188/Head-First...](https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog- post/34188/Head-First-Agile-with-Andrew-Stellman-and-Jenny-Greene) Short, shameful confession: I had a similar reaction to yours when I first saw Head First Design Patterns; I dismissed it out of hand, ostensibly because there were some less-common design patterns from GoF that it didn't cover, but really because I just didn't "get" the format. A year later, when our editor at O'Reilly floated the idea of writing Head First PMP, I went back to it and _really_ read it, this time with a much more open mind (for example, I actually _did_ all of the code exercises instead of just reading them). I realized why I'd made my earlier mistake in dismissing the book -- and gained a lot of respect for how much work Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Robson, Kathy Sierra, and Burt Bates had put into it. They were really careful about what they chose to cover, and covered those topics really thoroughly. They give you several different chances to "get" each concept, showing it to you from different angles so that you really absorb the full context. They put a lot of care into managing the pace of the book so it's a steady stream of learning and not a flood. They repeated things that needed repeating. And it all works. Really, really well. I thought I'd understood design patterns pretty well before I _really_ read Head First Design Patterns. afterwards, I was actually better at using them in code in real life. When I'm not writing books or training teams, I'm writing code both professionally with teams and as outside of work. The incredible quality of the content in their book helped me understand design patterns better. Jenny and I strive to bring the same care to our Head First books. I think we've done a pretty good job of including quality content that's worth our readers' time; I hope they agree. ~~~ jasode _> There are a lot of pictures. [...] highly visual format, _ Thank you for your response. To clarify, I'm not an elitist that rejects cartoons and informal style. For example, I think the _" Calculus for Dummies"_[1] with the cartoons is a good math book. I'm also not really not talking about the visual "clutter" that others complain about either. Cartoons are fine but I prefer that the drawings/illustrations really _impart knowledge or insight_ rather than "decorate" a book's page like wallpaper. For example, I looked at "Head First Networking"[2]. Using Amazon's _" Look inside"_ feature to browse some pages: \- page 1: the clipart of the man and woman and the thought bubbles do not reward the user with quality knowledge in relation to the space they take up \- page 19: the clipart of the tourist with the arrows and thought bubble does not actually teach a networking concept My point is: just _because_ a book has cartoons & unserious style doesn't mean it has good presentation of teaching. It might be a suboptimal book that just happened to use cartoons. Another way to put it: Comics can be a very powerful way to illustrate concepts but their power is _underutilized_ in the Head First books. The cartoons are often "jokes" instead of teaching. _> which, to many people, reads as non-serious_ Similar to cartoons, I have similar complaints about "conversational style" that many authors think helps with pedagogy but it really doesn't. (You can explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and likewise, explain things clearly with a serious tone.) I'll save that criticism of that for another essay. [1] [https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Dummies-Lifestyle-Mark- Ryan/...](https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Dummies-Lifestyle-Mark- Ryan/dp/1119293499/) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Networking-Brain- Friendly-...](https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Networking-Brain-Friendly- Guide/dp/0596521553/) ~~~ BeetleB >Similar to cartoons, I have similar complaints about "conversational style" that many authors think helps with pedagogy but it really doesn't. (You can explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and likewise, explain things clearly without a serious tone.) I'll save that criticism of that for another essay. If "you can explain things terribly while using a conversational tone, and likewise, explain things clearly without a serious tone", then does it not suggest the tone is not a good signal for quality? David Griffith's Intro to EM book is written in conversational style. And is by far the best book I've seen on introductory EM (and I've read a bunch). ~~~ jasode _> , then does it not suggest the tone is not a good signal for quality?_ You highlighted my spelling mistake and I updated the post to correct it. My examples were meant to be opposites. There are many bad books out there with a conversational style. There are good ones too. The problem is that readers are mislead by the easy-going tone of the first few pages and therefore lulled into thinking it's a quality book _because_ of its chattiness and informality. Likewise, many authors writing in a conversational style think they wrote an easy-to-understand book _because it 's conversational._ That cause & effect isn't true. One can write a beginner book that has clear teaching with or without a conversational style. ------ jonstewart There are two kinds of programming books. Some are technical references covering a specific technology (usually a tool, library, or framework); I generally find these to have a short shelf-life and to be lower in quality. New versions of software can quickly result in their obsolescence, and sometimes the examples and precise details are not accurate even when published. However, I have found such books to be _essential_ when learning an emerging technology, where maybe there's API documentation but very little (or very poorly written) conceptual/overview documentation. Often the book's author is elbows-deep in the implementation of the technology and can explain some of the essential concepts. I typically buy these kinds of references only when I know I need to come up to speed on something, often a new fresh open source hell with its own jargon (looking at you, Angular), and then I make a dedicated attempt to power through the book and the examples. You can go broke if you buy this sort of book and don't put in the effort for an immediate return; also, you can skip whole chapters that aren't applicable to your situation. The second kind of programming book covers a broader topic and/or more mature technology. They can vary from an academic orientation to almost a sly anti- intellectual style (e.g., the Camel Book). Here you learn core concepts that will be more-or-less evergreen. These are books you will want to read cover to cover and then return to again and again, for years in the future. These books vary in their tone, some serious, some silly, but they all should be fun to read due to the clarity of their prose and presentation of essential concepts. The ultimate example is TAOCP. ~~~ Ace17 Spot on ; we might need a name for this second category of books ("technology- agnostic"?). These are the books I want to search for in a bookstore ... without getting polluted by the unlimited variations of "Teach Yourself <SomeShortLivedTechnology> in 7 days" or "Learn <SomeUsefulTechnique> with <SomeBloatedFramework>". ~~~ jonstewart Well, I'm not sure I'd say "technology agnostic". I would include Programming Perl or Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language in the second category. Parts of both are now dated, the accidental noise of APIs and so on, but the essential concepts are explained so fundamentally that you'd have no problem adapting to current APIs. Sometimes, though, you just really need help coming up to speed on a bunch of accidental syntax and incantations to get the job done. ------ MilnerRoute I've heard studying "sinks in" when you're recalling what you learned earlier. So I spread out the reading of the book, trying to remember the next day what I'd read the previous day (before checking in the book to see how well I've remembered it). I've also heard people say that you have to learn by doing. So I try to play around with whatever I've learned from the book. Doing the examples is good, but dreaming up your own fun variations can be even better. Someone once suggested that re-typing the examples is actually really helpful too. Your whole brain is engaged -- fingers moving, keypads being chosen -- and whatever patterns there are in the language start to emerge. I think the most important thing is just "be gentle with yourself." It's possible to push too hard to learn something big and complicated all at once. It wouldn't hurt to Google up a few online discussions, just to get a little extra context for what you're reading in the book -- and a supportive community. ~~~ mailx Did you take "Learning How to Learn" by Barbara Oakley? ------ itamarst Build a mental map of where to find things, and then refer back for details as needed: 1\. Skim the whole book. The goal here is to learn basic concepts, keywords, and the structure of the book. 2\. Start coding, refer back to the book as I encounter things I don't understand. This works better with paper books, because it's easier to remember where I saw something ("upper corner of left-hand page next to diagram, towards the end of chapter 10"). ~~~ walterbell More on skimming: Start with table of contents (topology) then index (vocabulary) if present. Read summary of each chapter, starting at back of the book, working to front of book. Based on that survey, deep dive into new/interesting (to you!) chapters in order of priority. Reference earlier chapters as needed. ~~~ awa OT: The book "How to read a book" drives home the importance of skimming a book and how to do it well. ------ Scarblac I learn something first by using it, applying tidbits from blogs, online tutorials, Stack Overflow and just trying to figure out how to get it to do what I want. _Then_ I read a book on it, cover to cover. It's much easier to get everything to "click" when you've already tried to solve the relevant problems yourself. Then continue working with it, and every now and then read another book cover to cover, for important things. ~~~ RGS1811 I agree with this approach. My experience has been that having a primitive mental framework in place really helps with retention (and interest) when you're doing in-depth reading on a topic (which you probably are if you're reading a book). Start superficial, mess around, and then things not only make more sense, but are also more exciting and easier to remember, when you really dive in. ------ fpisfun Lately I've been just reading and reading and reading without actually trying any coding. Mainly I've been reading about functional programming, languages I haven't used before, etc. The way I got into programming was through constantly trying to build things, without much formal education. I think once you have a certain amount of real word experience it's important to sometimes take a step back and just try to learn about new things without the distraction or pressure of trying to build something right away. This all depends on a person's point in their career and goals though of course. ~~~ thedoops I'm in sort of the same place, I'm in a reading frenzy to build up a vocabulary and learn category theory, functional concepts, etc.. While this is good I know I ought to spend some time practicing algorithms or building toys to really make what I'm learning intuitive. ------ muzani I treat programming as a language. You understand it by going in hard and not trying to understand. If you learn it by trying to dictionary lookup every word, it's really slow. Instead, you try to understand the context of a sentence, and then the words back from there. So what I do is I read the table of contents and intro. Intro usually covers what makes the book different and has instructions on how to use it. You'll find a few pillars. Like if you're reading an algorithm book you'll see Big O notation mentioned a few times. Focus on those pillars. Spend more time on them. Maybe from Big O, it will give binary search as an example. Then skim the chapter on binary search and return to Big O until you master it. You'll transverse the more important parts of the book better this way. Many books are not strictly meant to be linear. I also recommend transversing content in this way as fast as possible once, in one go. Set aside about an hour to skim the entire book. You'll get the "skeleton" of the book, what holds it together. Then you focus on the pillars of the book. And once you're done with that, you can do the rest of the content you skipped. Once you read something, explain it to yourself differently to prove you've mastered the concept. This might involve doing an exercise on it. If you're familiar with it, just drawing a figure might be good enough. Also I agree with what the others have said: compare with other books on the topic and make sure it's a good one before you read anything. ------ fshaun For learning a new language, if I have enough time, I read through the entire book. This helps me learn the terminology and names for concepts. It's much easier to search for more information when you know the right jargon. Reading everything helps to gauge the scope of the language and map it to or from known concepts. This is how I read TC++PL and Ada as a Second Language, which I think worked because their of their breadth. Sometimes there's not enough time to do that, like when you're thrown into an unfamiliar code base or need to interface with a new API. Then I thoroughly read enough chapters to get the syntax and skim the start of other chapters, plus the index/glossary, again minly to learn terms. The required depth depends on what you're doing. If there's an unfamiliar concept heavily used in the code, of course read those sections more. I usually avoid exercises because I already have a project or goal, so I work up my own examples that advance those needs but still use the idea or technique of the exercises. I highly recommend trying out a new technique with a small test before applying it at large, or assuming its use as part of the software architecture. You don't want to discover late in the game that the way you planned to use Java generics or C# Pinvoke won't work. Sometimes the goal is to learn a new technique or dive deeper into the language. I've immensely enjoyed books by Meyers, Alexandrescu, and Sutter, that have more self-contained sections. I still find it useful to read the ToC or skim the chapter introductions, but my mindset is usually more "how can I apply this?", and reading everything straight through doesn't give me enough time to focus on specific things. ------ OliverJones I read a mess of these books. I subscribe to the Safari service put out by Tim O'Reilly and his krewe. I look at the table of contents carefully. I then read the whole book quickly to get oriented. At that point I make a judgement whether it's worth more time and effort. Still here? Then I reread any chapters that relate to performance, because those chapters usually give a clear view of interesting issues in the subject system. Then I do one or two of the problems / examples / demos. I do my best to avoid downloading and running them; rather I take the time to type them over; it helps me cognitively to understand what I'm doing. Then I evaluate whether the material I'm learning will help me solve current problems, or give me ideas about solving future problems, or not. I put the book in my Safari queue if it's relevant to either current or future problems. Then I go use what I've learned. I wish I could say I wrote a quick personal review of every book. But I don't. This works pretty well for me. Safari is a great way to read tons of books, because, well, "tons of books." They don't take up shelf space or have to be moved, or recycled if they turn out not to be useful. ------ kerneldeveloper I will read the first few chapters to learn the basic knowledge. In the meantime, I will try my best to understand every example and run it. And then I will do something interesting such as writing a more complex program. Practice is my motivation to learn advanced topics. If I only read the book, I will lose interest quickly because this is very boring, especially for some difficult chapters. After I think I have mastered the basic chapters, I will continue reading the subsequent contents. I won't try to understand everything in the advanced parts. Instead, I just read some useful content and treat other content as a technical dictionary so I can refer to it in the future. I like learning a language/tool as quickly as possible, and then try to use it more skilled. ------ smilesnd With a beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Typically I read the book a chapter or 2 at a time mattering how much information it covers. Mattering how technical it is I will write down every word I either don't know or second guess. I will read over the code examples fully. At the end of the chapter I will try to recall the code example in my head, and see if I can replicate it. Mattering how good or bad that goes I will then move on or write the code out. I keep notes the entire time I am reading. It helps keep me focus on the subject matter. My mind loves to wonder to much, and I have to beat it like a alien from the fourth dimension. Also the notes act as long term reference as well I can review them every night for roughly a month to make sure it all sticks. ------ TomJohnson70 I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh! Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power with access to the underlying computer via & and *. C++ appeared to fix many of C's short-comings and added many concepts (RAII). Eventually, C -> C++ -> Java. With GNU Project and Yet Another Compiler Compiler (YACC), languages proliferated. Without a CS degree, and all the new languages, I backed off programming and switched to medicine (MD). Years later and retired, I found that I really like sw. I realized that I had gone to, possibly, the only college in the US that did not have C/Unix. You folks that studied C/Unix are very fortunate, and I envy you. From 01 July 2013 to 30 June 2014, I read 3060 pages on sw. Soon after, a legacy OS company came out with a major change to their paradigm, so I switched to Linux Mint. I love C, Unix, Linux, Linux Mint, C++. This past summer, I had two (2) weeks to teach my 12yo grandson, my son's son, programming. We took an old laptop, installed a new 500gb hd, installed Linux Mint 17.3-64bit, and off we went. In 8 days, he was creating his directory structure, text editing, compiling (gcc name.c -g -o name), and debugging. It was great fun. I bought him a used copy or K&R and K&R2. Next summer I am teaching my other grandson, my daughter's son, the same stuff. I read K&R in 1983. In 2013 I reread K&R. I read K&R2 every year (4 times now). There are many ways to study, some more efficiently than others. Just do it. My technique is to read the entire book, highlight text, take notes, work examples, and write programs. My first short-term suggestion for a newbie is to buy and read "The C Programming Language", 2nd Edition, by Kernighan and Ritchie (K&R2). My second short-term suggestion is to download for free and install a free Linux distribution. I like Linux Mint. My third long-term suggestion is to pursue a degree in computer science (CS), or computer engineering from an accredited college. ~~~ copperx What do you mean by 'sw'? ~~~ jacquesm Software. ~~~ copperx Thanks. The initialism on this site is making me crazy. Please just type the full words, it's not hard. ~~~ jacquesm yw ;) ~~~ senorsmile Lol ------ Retric Just start reading the entire thing front to back. Remember, you gain little from a book sitting on your shelf. The goal is not to do specific exercises, but have an index of ideas I can refer back to. Focus on new ideas / benefits and think about how I could have used them in the past. This helps to add mental hooks to keep things interesting and aid recall. That said, I may skim sections that are less relevant to what I want to know. For completely new languages / API's I am going to need to do some coding, but 'exercises' seem to be their more so people will use books as textbooks than directly useful on their own. ------ fao_ Let's be honest: I don't. They sit on the shelf gathering dust until I eventually make a project needing some of the knowledge contained within. I then dust it off, scour the index for references to, say, "lock-free multithreaded programming", and read as many sections as I can about that, and as many supplementary chapters as are needed. A few years back, in my teenage years, I read a programming book about compilers cover to cover, I don't remember much about the contents, just one or two lexing techniques and something about directed acryllic graphs. ------ keithnz 99% of the time I don't anymore. I used to read a lot, now I just pull information from the net, I have feeds of information exposing me to new ideas. Most technical frameworks have a ton of information readily available. The only books I go to are Math and Algorithm books I have on my bookshelf when I know something obscure I want is in them. Learning falls into two categories for me - Things you don't know you don't know - Thing you know you don't know I also learn things well when I do active experimentation. First one is the trickiest as you need ways to be exposed to something you don't know and being able to recognize its importance amoungst the flood of things you are exposed to. Things like HN are helpful. Second one I keep notes on things I know I don't know. These often are things that I kind of have a fuzzy idea of what it does, but haven't really spent time on understanding exactly what it is. For instance, webpack is on my list, I use it a lot, I modify configs and get stuff done. I have a fuzzy idea of how works. But I haven't spent any time understanding it from the ground up and don't know how to set something up from scratch. But at some point webpack will bubble to the top of my things where I have knowledge gaps. So when I work on my chosen knowledge gap, I read a bunch of things, conduct a bunch of experiements, look on stackoverflow and look to answer questions, see how other people have solved existing problems. ~~~ jmnicolas > _Things you don 't know you don't know_ Is Donald Rumsfeld a parent of yours ? ;-) ------ jesperlang I try to avoid programming books. When reading I prefer being disconnected, laying down in a comfy sofa/bed with a hot beverage. Programming books doesn't work very well for me because they make me want to try out the things I read about, forcing me to be at the computer. Some of them even assume you are sitting at the computer, ready to run examples.. If the goal is to improve as a programmer and books being the medium I choose books that doesn't necessarily have an obvious link to programming but benefit my thinking around it. Books on design, architecture, media and education being my favourite. I don't follow any particular techniques but have grown into some habits (reading ~50 books a year). I read multiple books at the same time (~3-4), usually very different in style/topic, alternating between them. This way I never get bored. The new books I choose for reading has to spark some excitement/passion in me, otherwise I'm never going to finish it. It could be as simple as some concept in a book that triggers curiosity, then I just follow the reference/bibliography and further do some quick research (amazon/goodreads) to see whether it looks like a promising book. Reading about product design will make you a better software designer.. Reading about media will make you see how your application fits in a bigger picture.. ..and so on. ------ cdevs When I started out it took a couple of books "c,c++,java" to realize most started from scratch and taught you functions and loops over and over and walked you through a simple program but I needed to find my own way to challenge myself. Eventually I just decided I wanted to build things and fought my way through documentation and the internet to get it done learning the challenges and problem solving. These days I look for more books on theory and from people who solved large problems. ------ munificent Generally, cover to cover, going as quickly as I need to in order to avoid losing interest and abandoning it. This is probably not the most effective way to absorb the material. I would learn _more_ by doing the exercises, taking notes, etc. But when I've tried to do that, I usually don't get more than a couple of chapters in before I run out of willpower. So these days, I figure absorbing half of the whole book is better than absorbing all of only a small prefix of it. ------ danielvf I think I’ve followed the same method for decades. 1\. Read the whole book in one sitting, to get the big picture in my head, and build a mental model of the thing. 2\. Implement a toy project using the thing. Maybe an hour or two. Go back to the book for details as needed. 3\. Look up something once or twice when building my first real project. 4\. Never read the book again. In spite of the short time I spend with them, it’s so valuable to be able to read at high speed, on paper, a comprehensive bunch of code and concepts. ------ extrememacaroni With books that teach a _language_ or advanced stuff about a language, like, say, C# in Depth, I read from start to finish, without actually doing any exercises or really anything else. I trust my memory enough to rely on remembering that "C# in Depth was talking about this thing", when I run into something IRL. Then I go back to the book and see what it had to say. ------ acgIssues If the book is documentation, I only read as needed. > Do you read it in one go and later try examples or go through entire book by > trying all examples? I do a few of the examples until I learn and figure out how the <topic> works. I won't be doing all the examples, if they're just teaching the syntax or simply showing stuff that can be found at the documentation like functions parameters. > Do you read the entire book or just the part to get the job done? I only read the whole book if I'm completely naive and want to deeply learn about the <topic>. I usually jumps chapters which have content I've used before and is not difficult to me. > What methods/techniques have you found useful while reading such books? Write your own cheatsheet or take notes as you go. Also use the official documentation for functions definitions and similar stuff. ------ hugja 1\. Preview / Questions - Take a gander at the chapter by reading the introduction, headings, sub-headings, diagrams, images, example code, summary, exercises, questions, etc. Also, write down questions as I preview for myself to answer after step 2. 2\. Read / Recall - After previewing I start reading in full. During code examples I like to soak them in without running them. Then I'll close book and try to recall the code by typing. 3\. Teach / Explain - I follow up with pretending to teach / explain the code examples and my exercise solutions out loud. This helps me figure out what I didn't really understand. 4\. Project - I try and apply what I've learned from book to a personal project. ------ Clubber I have a bookshelf full of ones from the 90s and early 2000s, but I haven't read one in years. I mostly learn from internet articles now. Back then, when I would get a book on a subject I was familiar with, lets say C#, I would skip to the chapters I felt I needed more understanding of or what interested me at the time. (technique #1) If it's a brand new technology, I'll read the intro chapters that go over the basic stuff (technique #2) to help me get accustomed to the syntax and nuances of the technology, then apply technique #1 (which could be the rest of the book for new stuff). ------ potta_coffee I've never actually gotten through an entire programming book. I'm too hands on. I usually get to building stuff before the book is through. This is good and bad. I'm self-taught and I really want to get through this algorithms book, but I keep getting distracted. Books are great but many times, they spend so much time on information that I don't need instead of the practical stuff. ------ weego Skim the book making notes of key parts with pen and paper. The act of making the notes is usually enough for me to commit enough of it to memory to know what to look for when I need it so I get generally don't need the notes again. Then I get going on a simple project that is of relevance to me rather than the one in the book and use the book for reference as necessary. ------ antoaravinth I believe its important to interact or ask your doubts upfront instead of keeping it to yourself. I'm currently reading Haskell and I use freenode irc channel to ask my queries. The channel community is so helpful in clearing my doubts, in fact they could give much more easy / right approach for the problem than the text book solutions. ------ jimmaswell I've almost never used books to learn programming. I read a bit of SICP a few times but lost interest. Otherwise all I do is just follow whatever "x guide/tutorial/introduction" I find on google, or the language's official documentation if it serves as a good learning resource, like for Python and Microsoft properties. ------ narag Long time I haven't, but when I did, I usually read three or four first chapters in a row, then jumped to certain chapters that I specifically needed. Also most of the times, the intro and the very first chapters are optional, motivational. ------ literallycancer Choose a good book. Read a chapter or two before breakfast. Run all the code examples in your head (probably not needed, just my OCD -- same thing with being reluctant to trust calculations without redoing them myself). ------ akashpaul By not stopping at chapter 1. Depends on the framework to go all in or chapter by chapter. Also a GitHub repo for each book is an excellent idea. ------ ncfausti Check out How To Read A Book by Mortimer Adler. Great resource for techniques for understanding many different kinds of books. ------ chrisgd if you spent an hour each day, 40 mins is taking notes on a legal pad, reading, trying stuff, etc. The remaining 20 mins is writing in a notepad the key concepts, summarizing from the other 40 ------ cgag sometimes read it all and intend to go back and do exercises, sometimes read it all and actually do them on the way. Probably not all of them. ------ janci I don't.

Tell me what your company does - HappyKasper https://medium.com/@kasperkubica/for-the-love-of-god-please-tell-me-what-your-company-does-c2f0b835ab92 ====== nickstefan12 > the more expensive the service a B2B company provides, the more > incomprehensible its website > I think the big companies do it to get you on the phone — so they can > upsell. I was thinking these things, and then BOOM, he says what I'm thinking haha. These are sales oriented companies. By contrast, B2C is quantity oriented. They need more customers buying their mostly undifferentiated price tiers. Selling expensive pants vs regular pants isn't worth high touch sales. However, in B2B, selling "really really expensive enterprise plan" vs "regular enterprise plan" is definitely worth high touch sales. They want to do everything they can to get you "interested, but confused" and pick up the phone. ~~~ cerved It's an answer that provides a possibly logical reason for the behavior but I don't buy it. Firstly because inbound phone calls are incredibly rare. Maybe it's more common for people to pick up the phone in the states but in my three years selling B2B SaaS (enterprise and startup) I never received a hot inbound lead on the phone. It's a bit different if your market leader but most companies and products aren't so I don't think it's a valid strategy. Secondly because if you are doing a proper inbound strategy you need to entice people with content, product demonstrations or trials (ie showing the product). Finally, if you want to obfuscate your offering, you don't need to hide it behind a bunch of mumbo jumbo. People rarely understand exactly what your product does even if you give them full access to it for a month. I think the reason is simpler. A mixture of incompetence - B2B companies don't have the marketing savvy of FMCGs - and the fact competitors don't do a much better job. It's harder to write a clear, concise and enticing description of what you do than just generating buzzwordy corporate bs. It looks marketingy, so the copy is going to be signed off by everyone. Besides, everyone else in the industry is throwing around the same buzzwords, so you get this bubble of nonsense speak and everyone just rolls with it. ~~~ adambyrtek B2B startups don't rely on inbound phone calls, they want you to leave your email, phone number, and company size in order to "receive a case study", "book a product demo", or "subscribe to a newsletter", and that's when the real sales process starts. They put a lot of money and effort into sales and marketing, and you underestimate them by thinking that it's a sign of incompetence. ~~~ cerved Bro, read my comment. We're talking about why a lot of B2B tech companies have a lot buzzwordy nonsense instead of descriptions of what they can do for their customers (this is not unique to tech companies, I would say this goes for most B2B) and the theory put forward was that it's to get people to pickup the phone so they can understand what the fuck the product does. This is what I debunked. I literally worked as a salesrep at a fairly big B2B marketing startup and one of the largest enterprise software companies. What you refer to is content marketing to generate inbound leads. Those leads would then be put on a mailing list and and an outbound process would start. Except the "book a demo" (inbound lead) which I never recall leading to a good deal. If you are a small stage startup with a small sales team you can probably get by on inbound but you have to go outbound to saturate the market. Even then, having poor description is going to hurt your Google fu so I don't buy the strategy. If your the market leader, like salesforce in crm, you're going to see a lot of inbound but that's because people know your product and you're gartner quadrant status. Even then you'd still do maybe 50/50 inbound outbound. In either case, the "it's shit because it works" argument still doesn't really hold up. They put a lot of money into sales, they put a lot of money into going to conferences. They do not, however, seem to put really any money into a decent copywriter. ~~~ adambyrtek All very good points. I was just saying that in my opinion they might be intentionally abstract to make you feel like they can solve all your problems, and vague enough to convince you to leave your contact details to find out more, but the ultimate goal is to get you into the funnel. I think we agree on most points, I just think it's not necessarily a sign of incompetence. ~~~ cerved That might be the case but vagueness doesn't sell. I'm not saying the message should be an engineering manual of the ins and outs the product but it should be clear, concise and entice customers to give the product further attention. Consider seo description field of HubSpot >HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. Vs. Optimizely > Be brave, experiment everywhere, and transform your customer experience with > Optimizely. Seriously WTF ------ Retr0spectrum I came across this recently: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw) Don't waste your time watching it. It's a promo video for yet another a very scammy looking ICO. I watched through the entire 3 minute video, only because I found it increasingly amusing how long they were taking to "get to the point". As it turns out, this video is 3 minutes of stock videos of Dubai with a pseudo- inspirational voiceover about nothing in particular, followed by their logo being shown for a mere 10 seconds at the end. I couldn't believe that this wasn't a parody (at least, I don't think it is), it's exactly like something out of HBO's Silicon Valley show. ~~~ kaffeemitsahne "The First A.I. Big Data Marketing Cloud for BlockChain" This is pure comedy. ~~~ rdiddly OK granted it has AI, big data, cloud and blockchain, but is it social? That's what I wanna know. Never forget social, because that's what leads to viral. Also engine. We need an engine. If it was a viral AI bigdata social marketing cloud engine for blockchain, then you'd have something. ~~~ redler Call one of our solutioneers or successsmiths to arrange a Webex demo. ------ rsp1984 So much this. Another perfect example: [https://databricks.com](https://databricks.com) They just raised a $140m round of financing so apparently they have some good stuff going on. If you look at the website though: _The Unified Analytics Platform. Accelerate innovation by unifying data science, engineering, and business._ Sorry, what? Click on "learn more about the platform": _DATABRICKS IS A TRULY UNIFIED APPROACH TO DATA ANALYTICS AT SCALE. Founded by the team who created Apache Spark, Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering, and business._ I still have no clue what exactly TF the product is but I sure got my weekly dose of BS buzzwords. ~~~ avip This is hilarious! I'm a paying customer of databricks, a useful service that can, and should, be described in a single medium length sentence. ~~~ Illniyar How will you describe it? ~~~ Consultant32452 Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering, and business. ~~~ Terr_ ... username checks out. ------ jack9 The bait-sunk-cost approach = get em talking however you need to (including them asking what the hell you actually do) to tell you what they want and sell your solution as a possibility or the best approach. I hate this transparent attempt to trick (me) the customer. IBM has done this to me when I'm drilling down into technical requirements like I'm some middle manager who doesn't know the actual needs. I always suspected that IBMs bread and butter is to move the sunk cost of contact into an actual sunk cost of technical debt, but I have firsthand experience now. The sign of a bad culture and lazy marketing. ~~~ stuartaxelowen Holy crap, this totally explains MongoDB's success. ------ continuations My startup is focused on customer-oriented experiential personalized relationship-building solutions by leveraging distributed smart reactive coin offerings powered by unsupervised blockchain adversarial deep learning supported by containerized self-driving car clouds. Investors plz line up, take a number, and contact me thru PM. ~~~ christophilus So, I'm confused. Is it the Uber of Facebooks, or the Facebook of Ubers? ~~~ continuations It's the Uber of Initial Facebook Offering. I thought that was painfully clear. ------ a_d There are possibly a few things happening that explain this: 1\. Fear of not communicating "everything" that you do. The fear is of being perceived as a very narrow solution when it does a lot more. 2\. Advice that says "communicate the benefits" not "what you do". This advice could manifest itself in the wrong kind of (flowery) language. So instead of saying "export payroll reports for QuickBooks automatically" websites say "free up for time" [made up example] 3\. Internal decision-making by committee. 4\. Copying some website that you like - instead of thinking and reasoning from ground-up about 'what is it that I _really_ want to say'. 5\. Pretending to be a big/legit company when you are small 6\. Big company with so many features that it would rather just show you the entire sales deck - the website is just _there_ because it needs to be, but plays a tiny role in conversions. [why focus on something that doesn't add value - in this case, the website e.g. SAP.com] This is a good article. Everyone who is running an online would benefit from thinking hard about this. ~~~ scrollaway I suspect at least part of it is sites being sold to companies by contractors who use the same tricks as mediums: be generic, make vague statements that apply to anyone. Contractors are the least well positioned people to know how to describe what a company does. So when the company calls them and asks them for a rockstar ninja site, they get generic stuff and execs go "oh yeah, that's such a perfect description of what we do" with no regard for those that might not already know. ------ dyim Just to play devil's advocate: Whenever I'm seriously considering purchasing an enterprise B2B product, I mostly know what they do before visiting their website. I've heard of them already, either through word of mouth, or by explicitly asking friends for recommendations. I suspect that I'm not too different from most purchasers. If a company's targeting a landing page for someone like me, perhaps they shouldn't optimize for clarity; they should optimize for signaling reliability. So, the "Web 20.17 parallax-ed boots[t]rap-ed responsive home page" serves a purpose - it reminds me of all the other Web 20.17... B2B services I've happily used in the past. I'm probably ascribing way too much significance to the semiotics of B2B homepages [1]. But I find it tough to believe that (e.g.) Optimizely hasn't, well, optimized their homepage for _something_. [1] Also, take what I say with a huge grain of salt. My business' homepage needs a lot of work... ~~~ nicodjimenez Agreed. Probably for some B2B companies, getting people talking about your product and then having a vague but fancy landing page makes sense. Landing pages need to be optimized to create sequences of actions that lead to "buy" decisions. So maybe: 1) Developer at company X hears good things about Y from Hackernews 2) Cost of product for X is high enough that it needs to be approved by senior people at the company 3) These senior decision makers may not be engineers, and they may just look at the landing page as a marker of how well capitalized the company is / if they give the impression that if customization is required, company Y will be willing to step outside the bounds of "shrink wrapped software" to accommodate company X's needs. ------ rdtsc Maybe this is the equivalent of the scammers claiming they are from Nigeria even if they are not. That's how scammers filter out automatically all those who are smart enough to see through the bullshit and only get the suckers to respond. These companies filter out those who see through the bullshit and only get the suckers, too? Startup marketing is not necessarily geared for customers (end-users). They are just as much geared towards VCs who are courted and who are expected to bankroll the company. Some non-negligible number of startup founders jumped on the bandwagon with the goal not necessarily make a product, get customers, but really just to be CEOs and play "startup". That can be done by fooling a few angels. Depending on who these prospective VCs are the message and marketing can be adjusted to appeal to them. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn't mean they can't be fooled or taken advantage of. They probably hear and see all this startup activity, unicorns left and right so they are eager to play the game. And so they are matched up with just as eager "founders" who also want to play the startup game. The last paragraph was from experience. The person fooled some older wealthy guys to invest in their silly idea. They burnt though millions in a few years renting an office in SV, hiring lots of workers, going to conferences, rewriting their thing with the latest frameworks. And yes eventually it all failed, because they had 0 paying customers. But it also didn't fail, because now they speak at conferences and put ex-SV CEO and founder on their title and so on. The idea is, if you just dig a bit deeper, it is easy to see things a bit more clear. ------ orblivion I can understand avoiding clickbait, but it seems that HN has a policy of making sure titles are sufficiently boring. Originally this post's title matched the blog post's title: > For the love of God, please tell me what your company does Adds some flair. Expresses the sentiment of the article. Now it simply says: > Tell me what your company does On the other hand, HN is an impressively effective, open minded atmosphere for discussion. The bit of pruning that is done must be working. I wonder if this policy somehow leads to success overall. ~~~ jv22222 I've been wondering the same thing. It does, sometimes, seem to come across a bit like the thought police... ~~~ orblivion I've seen people earnestly discuss climate skepticism here, which is a pretty taboo opinion to have these days, at least (let's say) in tech circles. So I don't think it's thought police. More like fun police. ------ mhewett I've been trying for several years to determine the company size at which we will be forced to turn our understandable site into marketing buzzwords and incomprehensible sentences. 50 people? $5 million/year in revenue? What is the turning point and who drops by to force us into incomprehensibility? ~~~ pmiller2 I don't know, but there are phrases on my company's website that literally don't mean anything to me, and I work on the product it's supposed to be referencing. We have about 100 employees. ------ cperciva I want to see this guy review the Tarsnap website. For all that some people don't like my web design, I'd like to think that it's _very_ easy to figure out what Tarsnap is. ~~~ peacelilly The web design is indeed ugly, but at least it is functional. Here are some easy to implement design suggestions: You should change the title of the first heading so it's not the same as the banner. I think "What is Tarsnap?" is a good choice. Speaking of the banner, vectorize it. Finally, please remove the bars from the asides. Your product is good, so transferring a little attention to its web presence is worth the effort. ~~~ megous Ugly is subjective. I like it. It's actually readable and easy to navigate. On small width device the menu will be on the bottom, so there's no duplication. (website seems to be responsive) I like that the menu is on the bottom and not hidden behind a hamburger button. ~~~ cperciva Not just on small width devices! The navigation menu is at the bottom if you look at the website in lynx, too (with a link to it at the top). ------ csense Anytime I go onto a company's website and I either can't figure out what they do, or pricing information isn't available, I think "Right, their business model is to overcharge folks who have more money than sense" and I promptly leave. ~~~ cagenut I felt that way in my 20's too. I have since grown up and made a lot of money realizing I was wrong, but I still _feel_ that way. ~~~ Xcelerate So... why is he wrong? ~~~ mrhappyunhappy There are a number of reasons some websites do not list prices: 1\. Pricing sets the wrong expectation for the true price you may actually pay once you get all the features you need and may not be aware of thus making the sale more difficult. 2\. Pricing sets a transactional tone vs a mutually beneficial relationship 3\. Pricing anchors your mind set to how much something costs vs how much value / ROI you get out of that product or service. All of these do disservice to seeker and provider. ~~~ Aloha Yes - perhaps - but If I'm a small business looking for a thing that does X - I want to know if this is in the ballpark for me - or perhaps this is targeted at someone bigger. Price is a helpful way to determine that - because god knows, you can't figure that out from the marketing gobbledygook on the website anymore. The ROI doesn't matter if you can't afford the investment in the first place. ~~~ mrhappyunhappy Then those websites are not targeting you and could care less what your needs are. ------ sgustard My company squeezes juice out of bags. That was easy to explain, but didn't seem to help. Pretty sure we should have gone with "scalable antioxidant delivery systems." ~~~ samstave Socially connected Intelligent nutrient extraction at you fingertips ------ glandium Kind of related: Many sites have a footer with links like "About us", etc. which would seem like what people may want to check out right? Well, some of them also have infinite scroll, and the footer is not visible without scrolling, so you scroll down, see the footer for a brief moment, until more content is loaded and pushes the footer out of the view . Rince. Repeat. It's as if they don't want you to ever use that footer. ------ nathan_f77 This inspired me to redo the landing page for my side project: [https://formapi.io/](https://formapi.io/) Would appreciate some feedback. Is the purpose clear enough? I know it won't make sense unless you're a developer, but it's a tool for developers. It's just a rough draft, so it probably won't be that sparse when I launch. I need to add a proper pricing page, and a tab bar at the top. I'm also planning to add a demo API request that you can run, similar to mailgun.com. ~~~ pdimitar I would use a bigger font, and probably another font face as well -- maybe Avenir (although it's paid). I'd also make the 3 bullet points bigger since they are the only textual representation of how to use your product. Outside of that the website is pretty good and serves its purpose! ~~~ nathan_f77 Thanks for the feedback! I love Avenir, and was using it until I realized it wasn't free. I might switch to Lato from Google Fonts, which is pretty similar, and I'll make the text bigger. ------ Clubber I've thought it was because they needed to fill up a large blank area with copy (words), otherwise the page will look weird. It might be because the adage, "don't sell a product, sell an emotion," but taken to an inconceivable level. Or maybe it's like legalese, it's not necessary, but looks good if you are billing at $500 an hour. ------ Kiro I thought Meltwater's flagship product was media monitoring, which their slogan kind of captures: > Welcome to Outside Insight > Billions of online conversations, freshly filtered. The title of their landing page is even more to the point: > Media Intelligence, Media Monitoring, and Social Monitoring I thought Optimizely was an A/B testing tool, which makes their punchline OK: > Optimizely lets you experiment on everything—from design choices to > algorithms. That way the best ideas always win, and the best customer > experiences get even better. I suppose this only adds to his argument though, it's hard to tell what companies do. ~~~ HappyKasper You're right, Meltwater and Optimizely aren't as bad as it gets (84.51 definitely is). And after spending some time on those websites, you're able to get a pretty good sense for what they do. My main point is that it shouldn't ever be difficult for a potential customer to quickly get to that understanding, and I do believe these sites could do a far better job at quickly and clearly explaining their companies' function... just like you did. "Meltwater's flagship product is media monitoring". "Optimizely is a website A/B testing tool". Boom. ~~~ smelendez I think they want to be able to pivot and add new services without having to retract how they previously labeled themselves. For instance, Optimizely has a website A/B testing tool. They also support smartphone app A/B testing, and I think some backend/server-side testing. If smart watches or VR take off, they'll probably try to support those as well. They also recently added automated content generation: I know they can generate product and page recommendations, and there may be other options as well. They're a relatively young company and probably aren't ready to be typecast as "website A/B testing," in case another offering really takes off. ------ trgv I always assumed this is just the result of the people who design the site not knowing what the company does. ~~~ mrhappyunhappy Designers have nothing to do with it. Most designers unless specifically hired to also write copy, use placeholder text. It's usually the inhouse marketing person who has marketing language fatigued drilled down from their bosses that can't think straight to get the right words out. I don't blame those people, I feel sorry for them. ------ paultopia Also, PUT THE PRICES ON THERE. Even more infuriating than a company that won't tell you what they do is a company that tells you what they do and then demands you contact them to be salespersoned at before they'll tell you the price. Fuck you, no. ~~~ mrhappyunhappy You don't understand anything about business do you? ~~~ flukus I understand they aren't getting my business without prices listed. I don't get to make any multi-million dollar decisions (except maybe in the extreme long term) but several times I've been tasked with research problems where commercial software or external services may be part of the solution. The ones with no prices get taken out of the evaluation process because I can't evaluate if they're feasible or not. ~~~ mrhappyunhappy I feel sorry for your employer then. ------ nicolasehrhardt I blame A/B testing actually. Too many folks run experiments without choosing which metric to optimize carefully. Here, marketers probably monitor click- through rates of their main homepage buttons. And unfortunately, if you change the landing page text from a few actually descriptive sentences to the BS described in this article, you probably end up with higher click through rates on your buttons. ~~~ inthewoods Most of the B2B companies I've worked for don't have enough traffic to perform an A/B test in anything short of 6 months. ------ Micoloth [[pro tip- a lot of startup companies actually do not do anything]] ------ lou1306 This is some Silicon-Valley-the-HBO-show-grade stuff. I wonder whether the people designing these website still think they're being hip or they just have to cater to some blissfully unaware managers. ------ Frondo Yep, this is the end-game of "customers buy benefits, not features" marketing writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully on board with the idea of marketing your benefits, not features, but so very much of the marketing writing you see out there now takes the concept to this unhelpful extreme. I ride my bike past a shop every few days that's called something like "Shelter Solutions," but in smaller print they say "We rent equipment for commercial and residential roofing need". Boom, done, that's what I care about. Or some lady who gave me a fistful of business cards at a networking event (she apparently has five thriving gigs, eyeroll), one of which was "telecommunications solutions consultant"\--talking to her, she has some cell phone MLM program she's a part of. Customers buy benefits, but if you're not telling them what the features are, you've failed at writing clear copy. Most people do. ~~~ TeMPOraL I sometimes feel like I'm an alien on this planet. I can't imagine how "customers buy benefits, not features" could possibly work. What I mean is this - I'm not going to buy a product that I don't understand, period. Be it a piece of software (from kitten photo apps to CAD software) or an appliance, I only buy (and ever imagine buying) things for which I at least clearly understand what inputs and outputs are. I can use this software to upload JPGs to friends. I put dirty dishes in this appliance, add some consumables, and clean dishes pop out. Those are "features", not "benefits". On the other hand, when I see people selling on "benefits", I immediately assume they're dishonest and steer away. The listed benefits usually are, at best, a serious abuse of some cherry-picked words, and at worst outright lies. It's one of the strongest negative signals for me when evaluating companies (especially when I don't have third-party information on their actual products). Do most people really live their lives looking for something to buy that will make their lives "connected", or their company "full of streamlined cloud synergy" or something? ~~~ Retra Given how the sales and marketing people at my place of employment respond to corporate announcements... they'll probably do anything to arrange words and phrases into something that triggers a "sounds like a corporate executive" response from their superiors. ------ mrkurt There are two ways to tell people what a company does: 1\. Explain the value of what you do 2\. Explain how it's implemented The Optimizely example in this article is the former, though the headline is not great. The subhead is pretty decent. Optimizely could easily say "we're an application for testing different versions of your app", which is true and explains what they literally do. In my experience, if you care about conversions, "explain the value" wins. People who believe they need experimentation don't mind digging for implementation. But they want to know you'll make them more money, or do something else to improve their lives. This is weird for people like me, I'd usually rather read the README version of a product. But I'm not the one making buying decisions for Optimizely or an agency. ------ draaglom There's a good reason for this, and it's not (directly) to get you on the phone & up-sell you. These landing pages are optimised for conversion, which means they're targeted at the niche who are most likely to convert already - and for bigger, specialist firms, that niche quite likely already knows the essence of what the company does. Because these users are also likely evaluating competitors at the same time, the pressure is on the company to differentiate - and one way to do that is to tout your high level values. "We're not just an X, we are an X which _gets_ your need for Y unlike $competitor" All of this isn't to say that incomprehensible websites are good, of course. There are ways to express how you're way up maslow's heirarchy without being completely confusing. ------ Animats The amusing thing is when a web site for a company that does real stuff ends up looking like one of those. I mentioned Continental in a self-driving car discussion. Here's their web site.[1] Someone commented that it looked like a fake company. The rearing-horse logo, "The future in motion" as a slogan, and the vague name looked suspicious. The pictures look like clip art. The top of the home page rotates through four large banners - "Making Mobility a Great Place to Live", "Let your Ideas Shape the Future", "Continental Pledges Support in Response to Hurricane Harvey", and "First 48V drive for electric bikes". The last at least mentions a product. The entire initial screen does look vague. (Continental is one of the world's largest auto parts makers, over a century old, based in Germany, and with over 200,000 employees. They make everything from tires to self-driving car sensor integration units. Not a fly-by-night startup.) Look at General Electric.[2] Their home page has "The Digital Industry Company - Imagination at Work", clip art of some enormous piece of machinery, and a search box. Of course, GE probably made that enormous piece of machinery. But there's no indication of what they do. For that, you have to use the "GE Businesses" drop-down menu. It may take a while to find out that GE is prepared to sell you a jet engine or a locomotive. What seems to be happening is that startups are emulating big-company sites. Badly. [1] [https://www.continental-corporation.com/en](https://www.continental- corporation.com/en) [2] [https://www.ge.com/](https://www.ge.com/) ~~~ mrisoli When companies get this big they usually can't just say what they do on their website with two sentences, so IMO, this is the case where these artsy vague landing pages are passable. I mean, GE was formed by Thomas Edison himself, they have everything from jet engines to self-driving cars. I suppose if you are the person responsible for shopping around for jet engines for your company you are not going to ge.com for specs. Considering their size, I'd expect them to try to lure individuals(career and jobs) through their website instead of potential customers. ------ yodon Marketing is hard. Writing compelling advertising copy is hard. Figuring out what people want and need to know about your product is hard. Getting some designer with a great visual portfolio to make your website isn't the same thing as having a marketing plan or a marketing strategy, but it's a whole lot faster and cheaper and unfortunately most people don't know the difference. Oh, and as awesome as Simon Sinek's Ted talk[0] is, you're not Apple and potential customers actually do care whether your product is useful for people like them. [0] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA) ------ hough I think a pretty good example of how to describe what you do on your site is [http://verily.com](http://verily.com) (owned by Alphabet/Google). 'We create tools that put health data into action' hits you right in the face when you visit the page. Then you scroll down and see good descriptions of their products. As someone who visited their site after looking through similar sites filled with marketing crap, I found it a relief to see something so simple. Use this as a startup website template instead! ------ mrspeaker It reminds me of Gavin Volure (Steve Martin) on 30 Rock. After getting busted as a fraud he says "It's not a real company. You watch our commercials, we never actually say what we did." and then it cuts to this beautiful corporate- speak ad [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlymNLAAzUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlymNLAAzUM) I feel like I've hit that company 50-odd times in my life while searching for vendors. ------ dvdhsu I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-down, your deal size is larger, and your goal is to get a few high-paying customers. You want to maximize the # of people who you can talk to (and convince) over the phone, as well as extract the highest $ value out of. So you filter for the people who are a) serious about the problem, and b) can make the decision. As a developer or engineer, your discretionary budget probably isn't high enough for these companies to care about you. In fact, they probably don't even want to talk to you! So companies that mostly rely on top-down sales have very vague landing pages. Their goal is to find specifically the people who have so much pain that they're willing to take a 25-minute sales call. And if you're willing to spend 25 minutes, it probably means that you have the budget that they care about. [edit: removed stuff about my own startup] ~~~ jasonrhaas If I have to get on a "sales call" just to see what the product is or demo it, I am not interested. Let me try it for free, and tell me what it does... I really don't have time or patience for sales calls. ~~~ dvdhsu Then you're probably not the right customer for us! Do you have problems with internal tooling that you'd pay thousands of $ / month to have solved? For now, that's who we're looking for. And a "request a demo" is a pretty good way of finding exactly those people. ------ pillowkusis Some other reasons why B2B sites are incomprehensible, along with “get them on the phone at all costs”: \- What you do is totally opaque and requires a massive amount of context to explain. Yes, it’s 5 sentences, but only after both you and the user are in the same context trying to solve the same problem. Try to explain a randomly- selected B2B company’s model to your grandma. Impossible. Instead let’s focus on company branding and positive sounding platitudes. \- Once you’re selling to businesses, you’re selling to VPs and C-level executives. They don’t care about the problem you solve. You're solving some lower-level employee’s problem, or a systemic problem nobody experiences directly. Since the buyer (the VP) isn’t feeling any of the pain, the only way to justify the purchase is to focus exclusively on the high-level benefits of your service. They’re in charge of marketing. promise them perfect marketing. They’re in sales. Promise them better sales. Focus on the outcomes, not the “how”, at all costs. \- A lesser factor might be that companies love to align workers with an affirmation that the work these employees do 40+ hours a week is making the world better. B2B organizations have an especially hard time proving this because there’s no clear evidence their business does make the world better. No consumers who sing your praises or products that solve a problem the worker can empathize with. I suspect the large amount of mental gymnastics needed to justify “our company is a net good in the world” sometimes leaks into to marketing material which leads to weird-sounding empty affirmations that are more suited to internal employee “values” documents than actual marketing content. (“We make people’s lives easier”, for instance.) ------ hoodoof [http://camel.apache.org/](http://camel.apache.org/) Front page of the Camel website: Camel empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of domain-specific languages, including a Java-based Fluent API, Spring or Blueprint XML Configuration files, and a Scala DSL. This means you get smart completion of routing rules in your IDE, whether in a Java, Scala or XML editor. Apache Camel uses URIs to work directly with any kind of Transport or messaging model such as HTTP, ActiveMQ, JMS, JBI, SCA, MINA or CXF, as well as pluggable Components and Data Format options. Apache Camel is a small library with minimal dependencies for easy embedding in any Java application. Apache Camel lets you work with the same API regardless which kind of Transport is used - so learn the API once and you can interact with all the Components provided out-of-box. Apache Camel provides support for Bean Binding and seamless integration with popular frameworks such as CDI, Spring, Blueprint and Guice. Camel also has extensive support for unit testing your routes. ------ teabee89 Reminds me of "I am Pied Piper": [http://siliconcali.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/04/I_AM_PIED_...](http://siliconcali.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/04/I_AM_PIED_PIPER_Billboard_SiliconCali.jpg) ------ smb06 I have looked at this website for a long time, my colleagues have looked at it, friends have looked at it, and we still can't figure out what they do. [http://www.thit.com/](http://www.thit.com/) ~~~ Retr0spectrum From the sound of it, they don't know either: [https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/comments/11d8tt/can_som...](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialmedia/comments/11d8tt/can_someone_explain_to_me_what_thit_is_or_if_it/c6lsgam/) _" it is up to you to browse the site and create your own interpretation of it"_ ------ dredmorbius This also applies to far too many non-companies as well. Free software projects are notorious for this. For both I generally prefer Wikipedia to their own webssites. My own similar rant, as an HN comment, remains among my more popular contributions here. "Please forward to marketing". [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_forward_to_marketing_how_to_present_your/) ------ chiefalchemist If I visit a site and they can't manage to tell me - clearly - what they do, I presume they don't know either. I quicky move on. The whole "it's free to try" routine is tiring at best. It's your product...communicate to me why I should care. If you don't know why that might be, it's not my job to figure it out for you (or for me). The problem is, such tactics (artificially) inflate the new users KPI. Retention? Actually using the product? Ha! Who cares!! No one ever asks about that. ------ mbesto Ugh, here we go again... If you're complaining that the copy on a successful tech company is not speaking to you, then it's likely that you aren't the intended audience. ------ gwbas1c I suspect this happens when companies forget what they do! ------ eneveu This also applies to some open source projects, like Apache Karaf ( [http://karaf.apache.org/](http://karaf.apache.org/) ): _Upgrade to the Enterprise class platform. Karaf provides dual polymorphic container and application bootstrapping paradigms to the Enterprise. Focus on your business code and application, Karaf deals with the rest_ ------ rconti Anybody remember when the Infiniti car brand launched in the US, and all of their ads were nonsensical and had no apparent relation to cars? Best I can find: [http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-26/business/fi-897_1_ad-...](http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-26/business/fi-897_1_ad- campaign) ------ bluetwo If you want to learn how to do it better, I can't recommend this book enough, "So What?" by Mark Magnacca. [https://www.amazon.com/So-What-Communicate-Matters- Audience/...](https://www.amazon.com/So-What-Communicate-Matters- Audience/dp/0137158262/) Spend the $10 and become a better communicator. ------ dqv Websites like that are "websites for the record". There are certain markets who think it's weird that a company doesn't have a website, but don't really care about the content or how it looks. A lot of the text seems to be placeholder/written by a designer who asked about what the company wanted for the content and never got a response. ------ bjarneh > Yet for a few thousand dollars a year, Meltwater will give you reporters’ > emails and phone numbers It's quite hard to describe their business model without using the words "verified emails"; which is closely related to spam marketing I guess. A few thousand dollars a year also sounds very expensive for those email addresses/phone numbers ------ user5994461 Most websites don't sell anything directly. They don't need to be understandable. To take the previous examples, continentals and general electrics websites have nothing to sell to you whatsoever. The website is used to publish general company information online like: financial reports, global news, official contacts and addresses, job offers. ------ brongondwana Hrm... and checking out our brand new site: [https://www.topicbox.com/](https://www.topicbox.com/) We're pretty close, but there's nothing there saying "this is a mailing list product" as such. I'll go see what can be done about that without ruining the pretty story. ------ acomjean a coworker left my company to go work at pega-systems. They've been around for a while as a company but I visited their website to figure out what they do. Its a little better now, but... "Pegasystems Inc. is the leader in software for customer engagement and operational excellence. Pega’s adaptive, cloud-architected software – built on its unified Pega® Platform – empowers people to rapidly deploy, and easily extend and change applications to meet strategic business needs. Over its 30-year history, Pega has delivered award-winning capabilities in CRM and BPM, powered by advanced artificial intelligence and robotic automation, to help the world’s leading brands achieve breakthrough business results." [https://www.pega.com/about](https://www.pega.com/about) ~~~ jpatokal So, um, what do they actually do? The only words in that that make any sense are CRM (customer relationship management) and CPM (business process management), and those are also hopelessly waffly business bingo buzzwords. ~~~ acomjean I'm still not entirely sure. I think they just make business software for businesses. Seems like something abstracted way too much.. I once did an in house mobile timekeeping app that interfaced with a big company accounting system that we could only talk to with xml directly. (Javascript on blackberry oddly...) It should have been so simple, but we had to do a lot of weird things because the accounting system was very obtuse. Reminds me of that. ------ shurcooL Contrast that with a site like this: [https://gotools.org](https://gotools.org) It tells you exactly what it does in one sentence, and that sentence is the only one on the page. Despite that, it's probably not as popular as the vague sites being complained about here. ------ yalogin My take is these companies are elusive in their descriptions because they sell data and/or harvest data. So they are worried about privacy people getting on their backs. So they try to not be direct and to get their through word of mouth or through their sales channels. ------ crispinb SV/tech sector narcissism and associated managerial credulity is going to provide fodder for much epic and wonderful satire. Which is admittedly minor compensation for this vast waste of human and other resources at a time when we are facing so many genuine challenges. ------ karmakaze Another frustrating trend is landing pages without sign in links. Optimizing for the acquisition/activation funnel is fine, but at least put in this one element for existing paying customers. Tooo often I find myself googling for "<name> login" ------ echelon Off-topic: since when did Medium ask readers to "sign in to get the full experience" with a giant modal? Is anyone else getting this, or are they A/B testing? I hope they don't go down a route of blocking non-subscribers from reading their content like Quora. ~~~ fauigerzigerk I'm not getting it. ------ adora One-liners are hard. One problem is people trying to pack ALL the features and ideas into that summary. So in the pursuit of wanting everyone to get the entire vision, the "what you offer right now" is lost. As a company's product offerings expand into many, this gets even harder. ------ macawfish marketing is a god damned religion ------ yaseer This is typical of the "Enterprise" B2B sales approach, as apposed to selling to small and medium sized businesses and startups. Enterprise sales has developed its own absurd language and culture that is now indistinguishable from parody. ------ nunez I think that in the world of B2B, the website isn't meant to sell product; it's meant to start a conversation/look legitimate. Sounding like your competitors == legitimacy. All of the real sales and marketing is done offline ------ hoodoof My theory is that if you can possibly do it, have no "explainer page", instead just BOOM you are now using the software. Or maybe have an explainer page offered to the user as a dialogue when they first go to the website. ------ stevekinney Here is my take on what SendGrid does: Sending an email is pretty easy. Sending a metric butt ton is hard and so is hooking it into your app. So, we help you with that because screwing that up could be very bad. ------ CalChris Bezos was infamous for jealously controlling every pixel on the Amazon landing page. You could easily imagine a better design but at least you knew what to do. ------ Terr_ Confusopoly: [http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-11-21](http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-11-21) ------ hoodoof Strange how it can be so hard to briefly describe what a company does. It's often more obvious from the outside. ------ Korean Most nerds aren't good at communicating. ------ nether Here's a fun one, from our very own YCombinator: > The Flex group uses technology to improve the range and fluidity of human > expression. We invent new concepts and representations that amplify people’s > ability to create, connect, and understand. We create tools that blur the > line between using and creating, in order to provide a conversational medium > for thinking and doing. What they really do is make graphical programming tools. That's it. [https://harc.ycr.org/flex/](https://harc.ycr.org/flex/) ~~~ dang That's not a company, that's a research group. Is that different? I think so. They're supposed to push the visionary envelope while a company is supposed to make money. Instant-noodle accessibility is critical to the latter. (I love that you wrote "our very own YCombinator" though!) ~~~ duncanawoods > push the visionary envelope I smiled at that because "we push the visionary envelope" is destined to be someone's vapid b2b marketing tagline but then realised its been done: _Americus F. Callahan of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, received the first patent for a windowed envelope on 10 June 1902. Originally called the "outlook envelop", the patent initially anticipated using thin rice paper as the transparent material forming the window, though this material has since been replaced by clear plastics. The design has otherwise remained nearly unchanged._ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowed_envelope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowed_envelope) ------ fairpx I think the main problem is that people assume that in order to sell expensive products/services, the website needs to have 50 pages and feel like a complex entity. We sell a B2B UI Design service to web and mobile development companies, all we have is a simple one pager that doesn't do anything except explain in plain-english what the service is about. We have people buying/subscribing to our service sometimes as fast as a B2C product. I personally wouldn't want to be a slimly salesman on the phone, hide our prices and have complex copy on the website. The customers that do want that are not a fit for us. So the question is, what type of a customer are you trying to attract? ~~~ mrhappyunhappy It all depends on what kind of business you are running. Your 2k design package might be great for someone on a budget but a large number of businesses want value and don't focus on price. Ironically you are attracting a certain kind of client yourself. You post about attracting 300 clients but do you talk about the quality of life of your employees? Do hey work minimum wage? Outsourced to India? I have no idea what kind of quality of life you create for your employees at your rates. Not to mention you are selling a commodity not a specialized service so to say that people are blissfully unaware of affordable companies like yours might be better achieved on junk showcase sites like dribbble - spew out a bunch of garbage and see what sticks. ------ gt_ Is this one of those? [http://cameraiq.co/](http://cameraiq.co/)

C++ Lifetime profile v1.0 posted - nikbackm https://herbsutter.com/2018/09/20/lifetime-profile-v1-0-posted/ ====== Spartan-S63 I don’t know the real narrative driving so much investment in safe C++, but it does appear that Rust is really driving C++ in this respect. ~~~ steveklabnik This proposal and Rust's guarantees are different. For example: > We do not attempt to address all aliasing cases or make concurrency safety > guarantees. Programmers are still responsible for eliminating race > conditions. Some stuff is the same: > The analysis is local each to function (no whole program analysis), Some stuff is in the middle: > We do not currently attempt to check of the internals of Owner types, > including that we do not attempt to validate the correctness of pointer- > based data structures. (Often, pointer-based data structures in Rust are implemented with unsafe, which isn't checked. Rust's lifetimes also don't interact with owners, in a sense. But Rust's ownership system does, which is together as one thing in this paper. But all of this is possibly splitting hairs.) This is based on a CFG; Rust's historically has been based on lexical scope, but is moving to a CFG soon (NLL is slated for 1.31.) Regardless, I'm glad to see anything that makes C++ safer, regardless of motivations. It's all about making software better, not cheering on the home team and booing the away team. ~~~ duneroadrunner > This proposal and Rust's guarantees are different. A little different, but only in the sense of being, for the moment, less ambitious (than Rust) about the completeness of the checker's implementation. But I think it substantially demonstrates a straightforward path to achieving the same level of memory safety in C++ as Rust. > For example: > > We do not attempt to address all aliasing cases It seems to me that a main principle behind the design of the Rust language was to eliminate the aliasing issue, by imposing the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction, as a prerequisite to addressing the memory safety issue. And there was an implication (and sometimes more than that) that as long as C++ can't address the aliasing issue it can't address the memory safety issue (like Rust can). I think the key thing that the lifetime checker demonstrates is that this premise is not (quite) right. You don't need to completely eliminate the aliasing issue to achieve (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address it "enough". And that can be done for C++. Now, whether the complete elimination of the aliasing issue is, apart from the memory safety implications, a virtue that's worth the (flexibility) cost of the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction, is as far as I'm aware, still a matter of opinion. (Given the existence of the _RefCell_ wrapper in Rust, and the ease (if not elegance) of implementing an "anti-RefCell" wrapper in C++, I'm guessing it's mostly a wash.) > > or make concurrency safety guarantees. Programmers are still responsible > for eliminating race conditions. Data races are a separate issue, but relative to the (single-threaded) memory safety issue, I think there'd be less controversy that it can be addressed in C++ in vaguely similar fashion to Rust. [1] But both in the case of Rust and the C++ lifetime checker, I don't think that the cost of the imposed (compile-time) restrictions in terms of code/algorithmic flexibility is being adequately acknowledged. For example, say you have a list (or whatever container) of references to (pre-)existing objects. In both cases, the restrictions require that all the objects must (be known to) outlive the list container even if there is a reference to them in the list for only a short time [2]. Imo this is an impractical restriction. In C++, you could use run-time checked pointers[3][4] to alleviate the restriction without sacrificing memory safety [5]. It's not immediately obvious to me that Rust couldn't have such a run-time checked reference as well. But others would be more qualified to make that assessment. [1] shameless plug: [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#multithread...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#multithreading) [2] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul/implications%20of%20the%20lifetime%20checker%20restrictions.md#snippet-4) [3] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#registered-...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#registered- pointers) [4] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#norad- point...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#norad-pointers) [5] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/misc/blob/master/201/8/Jul/implications1.cpp#L92) ~~~ steveklabnik > I think it substantially demonstrates a straightforward path to achieving > the same level of memory safety in C++ as Rust. What path is that? It's not clear to me how this is possible without breaking backwards compatibility. This statement is directly at odds with > You don't need to completely eliminate the aliasing issue to achieve > (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address it "enough" Safe Rust isn't "enough" safe, it is 100% (proofs pending, of course) safe. A "safe enough" system is not equivalent. _Maybe_ if you mean that the existence of Unsafe Rust means that it's "enough", well fair. I still think it's substantially different; this proposal doesn't even get to being 100% safe. That said, as I said above, I very much welcome _any_ sort of incremental improvement here. ~~~ duneroadrunner > It's not clear to me how this is possible without breaking backwards > compatibility. What do you mean? Presumably most existing sizable codebases will not satisfy the requirements of the (eventual completed) lifetime checker, even if the code is actually safe. > > You don't need to completely eliminate the aliasing issue to achieve > (efficient) memory safety, you just need to address it "enough" > Safe Rust isn't "enough" safe, it is 100% (proofs pending, of course) safe. > A "safe enough" system is not equivalent. I'm asserting (perhaps mistakenly) that you don't need to address the aliasing issue as completely as (Safe) Rust does in order to achieve the same memory safety that (Safe) Rust does. Or maybe "completely" is not exactly the right word. I'm saying that the universal imposition of the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction is not a necessary prerequisite to (fully) achieving the same type of ("zero overhead") memory safety that (Safe) Rust does. I'm not that familiar with Rust, but for example, if you have a reference to an element in a dynamic container, like a vector, (Safe) Rust ensures that that element is not prematurely deallocated by ensuring that there is no simultaneously existing mutable reference to the container. I.e. the container is immutable while an (immutable) reference to one of its elements exists. Right? (I mean, assuming you didn't "split" it first.) And if the reference to the element is a mutable reference, then the container cannot be referenced at all, right? From a memory safety perspective, this is overkill. The container does not have to be immutable (or inaccessible) while a reference to an element exists, only its _structure_ needs to be immutable. The C++ lifetime checker imposes this lesser restriction. And for simple objects that do not have dynamic structure (or any indirect references), then the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction provides no memory safety benefit at all, right? As I said, even this lesser restriction will presumably break most existing C++ codebases, and you could (I think legitimately) argue that that makes this new "Safe" C++ a substantially different language than traditional C++. But the fact that the restrictions are much less severe than Rust's means that a lot fewer code modifications will be required than if a Rust-style universal "mutable references are exclusive" restriction had been adopted. Am I making sense here? Maybe I'm mistaken and these "lesser" restrictions are somehow inadequate, but I don't see it. ~~~ steveklabnik > I'm asserting (perhaps mistakenly) that you don't need to address the > aliasing issue as completely as (Safe) Rust does in order to achieve the > same memory safety that (Safe) Rust does. You need to address the aliasing, or address the mutability. They're two sides of the same coin. > only its structure I am not 100% sure what distinction you're making here, sorry. What's "the container" vs "its structure"? > From a memory safety perspective, this is overkill. Yes, in general, Rust takes a soundness-based approach. If you can't prove that it's safe, then it's not safe. This takes the other path, which is totally valid, mind you! But that means it will allow cases that are not safe. > And for simple objects that do not have dynamic structure (or any indirect > references), then the "mutable references are exclusive" restriction > provides no memory safety benefit at all, right? That's not right. You can have a data race to a plain old integer. ~~~ duneroadrunner > That's not right. You can have a data race to a plain old integer. Sure, if your language allows unprotected access to any object from any thread. Which, I guess traditional C++ essentially does, but presumably a "Safe" C++ would eventually have an "asynchronous sharing" checker that would require any shared objects to be appropriately "protected". > > only its structure > I am not 100% sure what distinction you're making here, sorry. What's "the > container" vs "its structure"? For example: std::vector<int> vec1 {1, 2}; { const auto& cref1 = vec1.at(0); auto& ref2 = vec1.at(1); ref2 = 3; auto& ref1 = vec1.at(0); std::cout << cref1; ref1 = 4; // co-existing const and non-const references are permitted and memory safe here std::cout << vec1.size(); vec1.at(0) = 5; vec1.clear(); // <---- Rejected by the lifetime checker // because the clear() call mutates the structure. // Mutating the data contained in the vector is permitted though. std::cout << cref1; } > Yes, in general, Rust takes a soundness-based approach. If you can't prove > that it's safe, then it's not safe. The approach is not that different. The lifetime checker applies (or will apply) basically the same sorts of restrictions that the Rust compiler does (and "break" backward compatibility in the process), but only when necessary to enforce memory safety. I mean, the way the lifetime checker works is that it basically keeps track, at compile-time, of the latest possible death-time of every reference and the earliest possible death-time of the target object (or potential target objects) that each reference points at, and complains anytime the former is later than the latter. ~~~ Jweb_Guru I think you will be disappointed if you expect an approach that doesn't do roughly what Rust does aliasing-wise, and doesn't do something very conservative on >1 word sized updates, to be memory safe in the presence of concurrency. People have been working on that problem for a _really_ long time and I frankly don't see _any_ approach that is going to work in a C++ environment other than Rust's. For the single threaded case, sure, you can probably get close with something much more relaxed. But the Rust core team is not stupid, they didn't insist on such stringent aliasing rules just so you could use restrict. ------ kvark > It aims to detect common local cases of dangling > pointers/iterators/string_views/spans/etc Hmm, a good tool to have, but wouldn't be quite enough to sleep well, since it's only for "common cases". ------ usefulcat "I love C++. I also love safe code and not having to worry about dangling pointers and iterators and views. So I’ve been doing some work to make my life less conflicted" I love the honesty there :) ------ IloveHN84 Good guy Herb!

Google's CEO's Mystery Visit to Pakistan - jaywalker http://www.thejaywalker.net/2012/06/googles-ceos-mystery-visit-to-pakistan.html ====== jaywalker I'm interested in knowing others viewpoint on this!

Designing for the 99% - cemregr http://jm90403.com/2012/01/16/designing-for-the-99/ ====== enjo All of those nuances really do matter. You may not be able to appreciate them, but subconsciously those decisions contribute to your sense of happiness, joy, or excitement about any given design. As a matter of fact, I'd argue that it's those very nuances that make all the difference. Watch a directors commentary about a movie you really love. The details that go into a particular shot (lighting, composition, etc..) even if that shot is only 1 second in length contribute directly to your experience. You may not appreciate (or even care) about those details, but without them you wouldn't enjoy that movie nearly as much. It's understanding that those differences matter, and understanding how to manipulate them to get your message across that makes design great. ~~~ manmal I agree - there is this album "Pornograffitti" from the band "Extreme" which made them world famous. It's a perfect blend of Funk & Rock, but that's not all there is to it - you can hear that it is "more" than the average band sound, and the sound is absolutely unique. After some digging, it can be found that there really is more to the tracks - they went to "extreme" lengths to add subtle details (overtones, inverse melodies, elaborate bass lines) which you cannot hear at first - only when you know, you start to hear those subtleties. My guitar teacher applied some of the concepts to one of the tracks on his band's first album, and it's the only track which really sounds like a hit - the details make it sound epic. ------ akg The ideas that last, the one's that stick around do have these subtle nuances that appeal to the senses. One may not understand, notice or even appreciate them at first, but in time as you learn more, you begin to see those same forms of art in a whole new different light. This is also why certain books revisited after a long absence have a deeper meaning. Same goes for music or any other creation that is built upon the passion of the engaged artisan. These are the qualities the make things long-lasting and ever-green, able to connect with novices and experts like. Good craft is the great equalizer playing on each patron's individual strength; getting as much out of it as they put in. It is never boring, never dull, and in many cases always refreshing. ------ peterhost Attention to detail is the basis of all art forms / crafts. In the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away". Perfection takes time, which takes money, which you might not have in infinite quantities... On the other hand, many a good idea is a refined hack. What one thinks _is_ lipstick might be the beginning of a new genuinely good idea. As a matter of fact, I believe that many a brilliant idea in human history was a side effect of digging a shaft in the wrong direction. ------ dfxm12 You can't design _for_ the 99%. There is no average user, so no matter what, you can't please everyone. Despite the title of this post, the author is actually arguing that we design for _ourselves_. Put a little of yourself into your design. That's a great way to ensure that you will put together quality & work into something. ------ andrewfelix The author has extrapolated a big argument out of a very particular anecdote. Needless to say, design is incredibly important. You might be able to chuck a few licks of paint over a leaky boat and people will enjoy the odd outing, but eventually that boat is going to sink. ------ tuacker The most important thing about design is making sure that it works. Onswipe does not work. The scrolling is broken when visiting the page with an iPad. I can't read the last two lines without 'holding' the page up. ------ blendergasket Gestalt.

SPI with a Blindfold On- speed up by letting go and trusting the machine - luu http://wp.josh.com/2015/09/29/bare-metal-fast-spi-on-avr/ ====== tonyarkles This reminds me of an unfortunate bug I was debugging the other day that had the same solution but a different problem on different hardware. Here's the setup: I have a weird SPI device that has two different CS lines: one for accessing the control registers, and one for accessing the data buffer. Because of this, I have to handle CS manually and can't just let the SPI peripheral handle it. Fair enough, not a big deal. So I pull CS low, stick some data into the output register, and wait for TX_BUSY to go to 0 (i.e. done transmitting). Unfortunately, TX_BUSY goes low after the rising edge of the last bit, but before the falling edge of the clock back to idle. Despite the device saying that it's active on the rising edge of the clock, it totally disregards input data if CS goes back to idle before the last falling edge of the clock. Solved by adding some nop cycles. Easy to count how many are necessary because the peripheral and CPU are deterministic as described in the article, but damn what a debugging nightmare. ------ sannee That's the cost one has to pay for using antiquated slow hardware which does not even have DMA. ~~~ tonyarkles DMA is nice, no doubt, but it's not the ultimate solution to every problem. Have a look at my problem above... DMA wouldn't have helped. In fact, I'd probably have ended up starting with a DMA implementation, reverted back to a non-DMA implementation while debugging, and then would have stuck a bunch of nops into the DMA interrupt to make sure that I waited enough cycles before de-asserting CS.

LOLwork - reality show based on Seattle's ICanHasCheezburger.com - jheitzeb https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/lolwork-season-1/id570085113 ====== chadrs I don't think it's a "reality" show. It's more like a mockumentary style sitcom. I watched the first episode yesterday (a high school classmate of mine is one of the stars). While I appreciate some of the deadpan delivery and spliced-in internet videos, it just feels like it's trying to hard to be The Office. ------ compay Cheers to them for all the publicity, I suppose. If I worked at a place that wanted to do this, I'd quit in a heartbeat though. ------ daryn I love the cheezburger guys, and think they do good work, but wow that was terrible. I need band-aids for my eyes. ------ minimaxir I don't think it's possible to have a worse name for a TV show about the internet. ~~~ AnthonyJoseph Wait until you hear it said in a commercial. It really makes you hate. ~~~ shitlord It will really rustle my jimmies. ------ nyar I'm not installing itunes to view a movie, I have a player I like. ~~~ chadrs <http://www.hulu.com/lolwork> ~~~ abrkn only in the u.s ------ scottporad +1, naturally. I work at Cheezburger. It's funny/weird to see my co-workers like this. It will be interesting to see what else they choose to show.

Tutorial: Create a Mobile HTML5 Farming Game with LimeJS - adambenayoun http://www.binpress.com/tutorial/create-a-farming-html5-game-for-beginners/4 ====== kevincennis It's awesome that people are writing articles on this stuff, but man -- some of the code in those examples is pretty rough. ~~~ WesleyJohnson Any specific examples you'd like to site? I always enjoy learning new things by seeing how people might re-factor or rewrite existing code samples. ~~~ kevincennis The block that starts with the comment `//shop items`: `var label` gets declared 3 times inside each loop iteration. Even if JS had block scope, which it doesn't, that would be pretty bad. ~~~ fariazz Thanks for noticing that kevincennis I've just corrected it. ------ dclowd9901 Glad to see some HTML5 game dev articles up. Since this thread is bound to attract devs involved in HTML5 game creation, is impact.js any good? I find Lime.js to be severely lacking in tools to create something like a platforming game (I'd really rather not write physics and collision code). ~~~ fariazz In LimeJS you can use the Box2D library to simulate physics, you don't have to write it yourself. For collision detection is pretty easy, as the Closure Library (which LimeJS is built around) comes with "bounding box" support to perform this very easily. ~~~ krapp Construct 2 uses Box2d and Easel.js I believe.. I've seen a number of html5 game tutorials on tutsplus for easel.js but they mostly seem to be "copy what the dev did step by step" as opposed to really explaining things well. Still this might be worth looking at. ------ cstrat Am I the only one worried about the 100x Farmville clones that will now be built by 15 year olds and spammed across the social sites. =) Great tute though. ~~~ krapp I'm worried about the other 99x if I decide to crank one out... ------ dlopez great tutorial! ------ thisiswei cooooool

Rendering an HTML link across Gmail, Outlook, and iCloud mail - dopeboy http://dopeboy.github.io/render-link-gmail-outlook-icloud/ ====== stephenr This isn't about iCloud/outlook being "picky" it's about gmail doing the wrong thing. A html href attribute without an absolute scheme (eg [http://](http://)) is meaningless to an email client. Guessing that it's either http or https is the bug here. ~~~ dopeboy Thanks for the reply stephenr. Why is it meaningless to an email client and why would the rules be different for an email client versus a traditional web page? ~~~ pdappollonio Originally when you don't add the protocol, the link should end up relative to the domain that's checking the email. Say you're checking your e-mail at: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/123456abcdef ... Then your link without protocol should end up being: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/example.com/building/show/123 ... which doesn't exist as a website (I removed everything including the # character since that's for SPAs). So Gmail is being a little bit smarty by assuming you did something wrong in your e-mail so the link should point to the url example.com/building/show/123 with the protocol included. IMHO iCloud and Outlook have the proper behavior by not recognizing the link as an actual link since it's missing the protocol. ~~~ dopeboy I thought the absence of the _domain_ resulted in that behavior. Checked it out in JSBin [0] and well I'll be damned. Thanks for the explanation. [0] - [http://jsbin.com/mowacanuwa/edit?html](http://jsbin.com/mowacanuwa/edit?html) ~~~ pdappollonio Yeah, not having protocol is the problem. Now, you can also create links without the protocol part up to the colon, and the browser will autocomplete based on if you're visiting the website with or without SSL (HTTPS). Here's a nice example (with a more complete explanation): [http://jsbin.com/cexaqoviso/edit?html,output](http://jsbin.com/cexaqoviso/edit?html,output)

A Day With an E-mail Scammer - dave1619 http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/a-day-with-an-e-mail-scammer/#more-3355 ====== pavel_lishin This probably wasted maybe 20 minutes out of their day. I was hoping to see them get counter-scammed, like has happened a few times. ~~~ timmaah And wasted 3 out of mine. Why is this remotely interesting to The Times? ~~~ fbea Why does it have to be remotely interesting to the Times? It's remotely interesting to me and that's what the Times cares about. ------ acangiano Wasting e-mail scammers' time is a hobby for many: <http://www.419eater.com/> ~~~ jamii I don't have as much spare time as some, so I automated it: <http://scattered- thoughts.net/one/1274/311469/319933> ~~~ acangiano Way to go. Google should make something like this available as a Gmail lab add-on. ~~~ gregschlom And then scammers will ask you to solve a CAPTCHA before they engage in further discussion. :) ~~~ jamii Thats fine. Their victims generally aren't tech savvy so the more hoops the scammers require them to jump through the more will get confused and give up. Even asking potential victims to reply to a different address than the originator of the email will affect the conversion rates. ------ Luyt David Pogue joining the ranks of <http://www.419eater.com/> ? Love it! ------ bl4k and to think, if the scammer had just bothered to write a poem he may have gotten the $2000

A New Look at the Little-Known Pyramids of Ancient Nubia - prismatic http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/meroe-pyramids-sudan-photography ====== robk It is truly a beautiful place. So vast and empty. Here are the pics I took [https://secure.flickr.com/photos/robk/sets/72157635153819347...](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/robk/sets/72157635153819347/) ~~~ gcb0 curious what the surrounds of this look like [https://m.flickr.com/deep/photos/54539963@N00/9557054418](https://m.flickr.com/deep/photos/54539963@N00/9557054418) or do watermelons grow in a desert? ~~~ vram22 Maybe somewhat counter-intuitively, vegetables & fruits like melons, watermelons, cucumbers, etc. (that contain a lot of water), often grow well in dry- _looking_ sandy soil. I think it may be partly because the soil is loose, so their roots can go deeper more easily, to reach the water below. As a result, I've often seen and heard of these plants growing or being grown near rivers and lakes, even somewhat far away from the water's edge, because there is water below, in the water table. Source: I did a lot of gardening in my teens and also read a lot about it. ------ Saad_M In the article it’s noted that the digital camera couldn’t handle the fine dust and sand of Sudan, whereas the film camera did. Are there digital cameras can handle such difficult environmental conditions? ~~~ _cereal If you use tropicalized lenses and cameras then yes, you can handle those conditions. ~~~ jacobroyquebec Fuji's has one of the best weather-sealing (dust & rain) in the mirrorless segment. No idea about the lens he used, but my X-Pro2 survived (rain & snow) storms, even with a non-tropicalized lens. I guess sandstorms must be harder for the camera? ~~~ _cereal I guess it too, it would be nice to have more info about what happened. ------ dkural Would've been nice to see more photos of the non-reconstructed pyramids. Most of the photos were either sand or reconstructed pyramids. ~~~ cooper12 They're not so photogenic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini#/media/File:S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini#/media/File:Sudan_Meroe_Pyramids_30sep2005_3.jpg) ------ red_hairing hmm...I wonder what kings ruled over these ancient kingdoms? ------ salimmadjd OT - factoid. The photos in this article were taken by my former CEO, Christopher Michel. A serial entrepreneur with two exits (Military.com & Affinity Labs). He then turned into a full time photographer, but still advises companies, invests in a few and sits on a few boards. ~~~ ludston A friendly titbit for you: factoids are untrue, unlike titbits. ~~~ ajkjk That's archaic and not true anymore. ------ juandazapata This photos look heavily photoshopped. ~~~ gcb0 no photographer today publishes without "post production". usually sharpening filters and messing up with saturation are the norm. source: worked with tons of A list art, fashion, news photographers. ~~~ jfindley There are a couple of moderately well known landscape pros that do. But yes. I'd also note that this is a MF camera, with (what looks like) drum scanned film. This tends to produce images with much better color rendition and improved sharpness and contrast than you'd typically see out of a "normal" camera. The photographer also appears to have used polarizing filters in at least one of the shots. Given all this, none of the images look significantly manipulated to me. ------ stefantalpalaru The Italian grave robber who destroyed more than 40 pyramids finally found his treasure, became rich by selling it in Germany and was buried in Bologna's monumental cemetery, among the city's most important people: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini)

Opensource spreadsheet as a service - fuad http://extentech.com/index.jsp ====== jmount Why not OpenOffice?

Navy prepares to take railgun to sea - Libertatea http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/navy-prepares-to-take-rail-gun-to-sea/ ====== bernardom How hard is it to penetrate reinforced concrete walls vs. going through a real warship?

Getting Press for Your Startup - craigcannon http://themacro.com/articles/2016/09/getting-press-for-your-startup/ ====== dtran Thanks for a great post Michael! Definitely agreed on Step four about setting up a constant cadence for company news and stories. In addition to the risk that your single, coordinated, monolithic launch could get buried by bigger stories that day, with the speed of media now, many people who would have loved to see your story simply might miss it in the feeds. P.S. Sent you an email, Michael! ------ bobbyflay How do you build a compelling story around the $100K MRR milestone mentioned? Why should people care? ~~~ mwseibel People care because its a pretty big early milestone for a company. Especially if it happens pretty quickly and you can talk about some customers. ------ tristam15 Is there some kind of strategy do get the reporters to come to us? Instead of doing biz dev on them? ------ venkynarayanan Is is worth spending time on PR when you know that your customers never read tech news. ~~~ mwseibel Yes - because investors, potential employees, potential partners read tech news ~~~ venkynarayanan My customers read newspapers who do cover startups in the city, in this case would it better for me to focus more on these outlets than the typical pure tech outlets. fyi : my location is Chennai,India. ------ hrgeek Thanks for sharing!

Ask HN: What adblocker do you use? - fratlas Before I get &quot;support small websites&quot;, I donate to anything I think is worth donating to (i.e. Flux). I used to use ABP but recently they allowed FB ads with no option to block them, frustrating to say the least. ====== francium_ ublock origin ~~~ fratlas Didn't block FB ads ~~~ joshschreuder It does for me (assuming you're talking about the sponsored sidebar). Of course, it's all dependent on the filter lists you use, and you could fairly easily write your own filter to hide whatever you wanted.

Why Central Banks Will Issue Digital Currency - mathiasrw https://medium.com/chain-inc/why-central-banks-will-issue-digital-currency-5fd9c1d3d8a2 ====== known You cease to exist as an Independent Nation if you can't print your own currency [http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1389](http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1389)

Big Landlord Blocks Deliveries After Deluge of Packages - larrys http://www.wsj.com/articles/package-gate-big-landlord-blocks-deliveries-after-deluge-of-parcels-1445333401 ====== larrys It would seem that if this becomes a trend that delivery companies would need and be in their right to assess a charge to any packages destined for certain residential addresses (they already do charge more at least at retail for residential deliveries) in order to compensate the buildings for the added labor needed to handle the packages. While it's reasonable to expect some package deliveries, it's not reasonable for a building to have to handle the volume that this article claims are currently delivered. Likewise the person placing the order shouldn't balk to much at having to pay a $1 to $2 charge for having their packages handled (per package) despite what rent they are paying except in the cases of true luxury buildings. ~~~ toomuchtodo How much are the fully loaded benefits for a full time mailroom/receiving employee at $15/hour? Seems reasonable for a complex over a certain size. ------ hudibras "Each package results in about 10 minutes of lost productivity, Camden executives estimated." I'm gonna have to take that estimate with a grain of salt.

Ask YC: Review my startup, exocloud.com - kylef14 Hi,<p>A few friends and I have been hard at work creating a set of products that help companies take advantage of cloud computing. The first of these products is a SaaS Cloud Management Console. This console allows you to quickly provision, manage, and monitor your virtual cloud resources across both Amazon EC2 and GoGrid.<p>We would love it if you could check it out and give us some feedback. Our plans are to offer the Management Console as a free service while in BETA and then move it to a Freemium model sometime in the future.<p>To use the ExoCloud Management Console you will need to already have an existing account with Amazon EC2 or GoGrid. After you signup for ExoCloud, you will be prompted for your cloud provider's credentials. Once you enter those we will go off and sync all of your information down into our system, including any currently running instances that you may have.<p>If you would like to contact me directly you can do so at [email protected]<p>We would love any feedback you may have.<p>Thanks ====== wmf Long term (i.e. a year from now) these features will be provided for free by all cloud providers. Also, this is the same thing that everyone else is working on. Aren't we up to 10 cloud management consoles now? You're going to have to do better than this. ~~~ kylef14 There are a number of other cloud management consoles currently popping up including Amazon's own free management console. However, I am only aware of one other management console that currently supports multiple cloud providers (RightScale). We realize though that management consoles are somewhat of a commodity and therefore there will be a number of options for users to choose from. Our mission is to try and bridge the enterprise data center and the cloud. The first step in this process is our SaaS Management Console. ------ siong1987 The screenshots are too small to see anything. Maybe a video tour of all the features is better. ~~~ clayf Hi, I'm one of the founders. Great input. We'll work on that. Thanks. ------ spoiledtechie What about Microsoft Cloud? You guys working on that? ~~~ kylef14 Not currently. We are mainly focusing on more Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings where Microsoft's offering is more of a platform that you can develop for. However we are planning to support Rackspace's Cloud Servers once they become available.

Five Memorable Books About Programming - shawndumas http://prog21.dadgum.com/19.html# ====== RodgerTheGreat "Scientific Forth" sounds like a fun read, but looks like the only copy on Amazon is over $700. Youch. Edit: here's a review- this book sounds awesome: <http://www.rigwit.co.uk/papers/review.html>

Show HN: Weekend Project, Clean stock charts for AAPL/GOOG/AMZN/IBM - showhndaily http://www.googlestockchart.com/ ====== showhndaily Closing out the 2012 year with a mini-project that was always on my mind. Spent some time this weekend to scratch my own itch. SITES 1\. <http://www.googlestockchart.com/> 2\. <http://www.applestockchart.com/> 3\. <http://www.amazonstockchart.com/> 4\. <http://www.ibmstockchart.com/> GOAL: Watch my fave stock quotes in my browser while I am at work/play. Just wanted minimal chart and stock price ... that's it. Don't need the rocket science portal charts on Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, etc. just to watch stock price. I can visit those when I need number overload for in-depth research as needed. Inspiration from <http://facebookstockvalue.com>. FEATURES 1\. PHP and Morris.js charts for clean, minimal graphs. 2\. Auto refresh every 30 seconds. 3\. Page title updates with stock quote. Can have multiple browser tabs open and just peek over at the latest stock prices. (see <http://imgur.com/uV1K5>) NOTES 1\. May work on a central tool to show same clean graph for ANY stock symbol. Thinking of a good domain name ... hmmm. 2\. Planning to add other graph timeframes (eg 3mo, 6mo, 12mo, YTD). ~~~ antidoh "1. May work on a central tool to show same clean graph for ANY stock symbol. Thinking of a good domain name ... hmmm." cleanstockcharts.com is available. For now. ~~~ showhndaily And ... registered. Thanks for suggestion.

Powering a Google search - peter123 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html ====== mseebach > Dr Wissner-Gross's study claims that two Google searches _on a desktop > computer_ produces 14g of CO2 .. it sounds a lot like NOT performing two Google searches on a desktop computer would produce between 13-14g of CO2. I read in another article that some other study tried to factor wether or not you would need to start your computer up or not .. and how far around the world the data would have to travel. I may just be cynical, but this sounds alot like an attempt to make ordinary people feel guilty about killing the planet, just by living -- in turn to make them turn to the whole buying indulgences for your climate sins (including Googling, apparently) trend. ------ bendtheblock I think this press release is a response to the research mentioned in this article: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7823387.stm>. Whether or not this type of statistic is relevant, it probably pales in comparison to the increase in global GDP as a result of this powerful search tool. Besides... a further question, would the internet be as usable without it? ------ invisible The doctor's report accounts for a) your computer viewing the page for X minutes, b) the overall searches per power used by google's datacenters, and c) some other random guessing I'm assuming. Google's figure accounts for usage of power the google search actually utilizes. Both of these are skewed figures, reflecting the agendas of the two. The doctor has a site he wants to promote, google has a "green" label they want to keep. ------ tlrobinson _Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches._ Honest question: is that correct grammar? ("as many greenhouse gasses") ~~~ jodrellblank It could be if it meant types of gas (CO2, methane, ...) but in this context discussing quantity of gas, it doesn't really fit. However, there is a meme of dodgy word endings in use at the moment, popularized by Jeremy Clarkson on top gear talking about cars having x many torques instead of x N/m of torque. This may be deliberately in that style.

Steve Wozniak: ‘I don’t believe anything Elon Musk or Tesla says’ - mudil http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/01/29/steve-wozniak-dont-believe-anything-elon-musk-tesla-says/ ====== joelrunyon Clickbait - here's the original sourced article - [http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/01/29/steve-wozniak-dont- bel...](http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/01/29/steve-wozniak-dont-believe- anything-elon-musk-tesla-says/) TLDR: He likes the car (2 of them), but not the hype. I think ~~~ api Elon's a funny animal. Most hype artists are full of shit and never deliver anything. Elon is full of shit but then ends up actually delivering something rather amazing-- but maybe not quite as amazing as promised and never as quickly. In /r/spacex they joke about "Elon time." Take "Elon years" and triple them. Of course this is typical for engineers and Elon is an engineer. I do it too. "Oh this will just take a few weeks" == months later... ~~~ Outpox > Of course this is typical for engineers and Elon is an engineer. He's not! This was discussed in the article comments and according to Wikipedia he have a BS in physics and another in economics. He started a PhD but quickly stopped. ~~~ greglindahl I know a lot of people in Silicon Valley who are called engineers and only have a physics background. They aren't certified professional engineers in the disciplines that have licensing, like civil engineers, but they're still engineers. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Used to be, a large segment of Silicon Valley 'engineers' were trained in music. Some weird overlap that worked early on, at least until the market got flooded with trained software types. ------ whack As a Tesla skeptic myself, I'm surprised at the visibility this "article" is getting. It reads like something you'd see in a celebrity gossip rag. _" You won't BELIEVE what Steve Wozniak just said about Elon!"_ There are far better articles making a bear case against Tesla, and it's unfortunate that this is the one picking up clicks. ------ nukeop Elon Musk is a very popular figure on sites like reddit that "like" technology and science but have very little understanding of it. Every week he says something that either shows what a "down to earth" guy he is, some doomsday prophecy, or announces some pipe dream technology that will never be worked on, and the masses start reposting his every word. He (or rather his PR team) is very good at creating that "image" and keeping himself popular on reddit, but he's terrible at the thing an enterpreneur is supposed to excel at - generating profits. ~~~ stinos _an enterpreneur is supposed to excel at_ Honest question, but isn't the whole point (or one of the points) that he doesn't care too much about generating profits for shareholders etc (which I'd applaud - why does everything always have to be held up in the light of economy first?) but rather wants to create products no matter what (even if they are delivered way too late)? At least, that is the image which seems to be created. From heresay. ~~~ nukeop Doesn't help much that he also sucks at delivering results. ------ workthrowaway27 It's odd how little skepticism any of Musk's claims are met with. I can't imagine the situation would be the same for anyone else. (Not to say he hasn't had many impressive accomplishments, but people seem to want to believe anything Musk says so much that they stop thinking critically). ------ ggregoire Not sure why this is getting upvoted. Does people actually upvote the "article" or just the title on HN? ~~~ MiscIdeaMaker99 What's the difference between the two? ~~~ ggregoire The title says ‘I don’t believe anything Elon Musk or Tesla says’. The article says ‘I don’t believe anything Elon Musk or Tesla says but I already have 2 Teslas and I'll probably buy the next one’. ------ surfmike Why do statements like this from Wozniak get any press? Steve Wozniak was a brilliant innovator early in the PC revolution days, but he hasn't been influential in the industry for many decades now. ~~~ greglindahl Once you get past the article fluff to what Woz actually said, it's usually pretty interesting. I prefer interesting content to statements from influential people. ------ rwc With respect to Woz, it seems he increasingly spouts these contrarian opinions simply to remain relevant. His contributions to discourse are sniping at large organizations from the outside. ~~~ raisedbyninjas His quote may be hyperbolic, but the article says he lost confidence after the conflict with their LIDAR provider. Which isn't an unreasonable view. Tesla may crack level 5 autonomous driving with their current hardware, but their solution requires also cracking problems in computer vision. An impediment none of the major competitors have. ~~~ greglindahl You're referring to the radar provider? Tesla doesn't use LIDAR except on a few test vehicles occasionally spotted near HQ. ------ ShermanSamuel This is just a puff piece. He's not saying anything. ------ jijojv Hype is fine but I don't how Tesla is legally getting away with selling it and not delivering on its vaporware (full self driving) ------ lolive I am sure he ordered the flamethrower anyway. ------ malmsteen Maybe he has trust issues since his story with Steve Jobs :|

One-stop performance analysis using atop - reader_1000 http://lwn.net/Articles/387202/ ====== cthalupa I love atop - and install it everywhere that I can. The in depth metrics + historical view is excellent. That being said, I wouldn't call it a one stop tool for performance analysis. Particularly due to the word 'analysis' \- it tells you what resource was used, and what was using it. It doesn't tell you anything about /why/ the process was using it. It doesn't help with hunting down regressions. It doesn't give you insight in to what these processes are actually doing. For that, you need to utilize strace/ltrace/ftrace/dtrace/ktap/systemtap/perf/sysdig/whatever (If interested in the actual analysis/engineering side of performance, I recommend following Bredan Gregg's blog and buying his systems performance book - [http://brendangregg.com/](http://brendangregg.com/) ) ------ sciurus Atop was absolutely my favorite tool when I was supporting lots of interactive systems and users complained to me that "foo is slow". Even better, the logging let me determine the cause after the fact when a user complained "foo was slow". The beauty of it is that it's using process accounting to gather the resource utilization of everything that was running on the system between two points in time. Compare that to a more standard metrics-gathering system like collectd, where I would have to know the names of the processes I want to monitor in advance ([http://collectd.org/documentation/manpages/collectd.conf.5.s...](http://collectd.org/documentation/manpages/collectd.conf.5.shtml#plugin_processes)). The case study at [http://www.atoptool.nl/download/case_leakage.pdf](http://www.atoptool.nl/download/case_leakage.pdf) is worth a read to get a feel for what it's like to use atop. ------ rdtsc Haven't tried atop yet. I am used to htop + dstat. Those two give me a quick overview of what is happening on the sytem. ------ bbunix atop is an awesome tool.... and the article is from 2010.

Ask HN: Place to sleep in San Francisco? - giologist Hi guys,<p>I&#x27;m currently in SF because I&#x27;m looking to move here. I just secured an apartment, but along with that I&#x27;ve basically paid around $5K in deposits and such, so I&#x27;m a bit strapped for cash. I&#x27;ve spent the night at the 24 hour Starbucks on California working on various things, but I&#x27;m really tired. Does anyone have a place I can crash at? At this point, I&#x27;ll sleep on the floor. I just need to get some sleep soon! Thanks everyone. ====== meerita [https://www.couchsurfing.org/](https://www.couchsurfing.org/) should work well.

Bitwig Studio – Professional DAW with Linux support - kitsune_ http://www.bitwig.com/en/bitwig-studio.html ====== MWil I'm used to using Native Instrument through Wine but I'm sure native Linux support would make it much easier

Why Free Can Be a Problem on the Internet - hvo http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/opinion/sunday/why-free-can-be-a-problem-on-the-internet.html?ref=opinion ====== null000 What I want to know is: Why is this suddenly a problem now? It was already done when T-mobile made Pandora/a few other music services not count against your data cap - everyone seemed happy about it then, and much of the press enthused over T-mobile's innovativeness and daring. It also bothers me that I haven't seen any arguments that explain why this is bad in light of the fact that it's supposed to be based on infrastructure requirements, rather than payments, company affiliation, or otherwise. Instead of being used to squeeze small guys out of the picture, it looks more like a platform for getting more exposure and traffic than you would otherwise. It doesn't really pose a threat (except in slippery slope-esque situations) to the things that net neutrality claim to be protecting. Can't we all just be happy that, in a world of data caps, there's a company trying to chip away at the things you have to choose between spending data on? Does everything REALLY have to be a direct threat to the internet? Admittedly, I'd much rather see "no data caps ever" (there are plans for that, and they are pretty cheap on t-mobile) but I'm generally against letting perfect get in the way of good. ~~~ rhino369 Net neutrality has always been a solution in search of a problem. The theory has always been that the big bad ISPs will destroy the internet for the little guy. Any FCC implementation of net neutrality should make sure customers are being harmed or some other anti-competitive actions are occuring. But telling Tmobile they can't allow free video on their network is an unwarranted intrusion into their business model. Should the government tell Google they have to charge for Gmail? ~~~ Dylan16807 "Free video" is not really a problem, as long as it applies to all video. But let me ask you something. Do you think the rules that force telephone companies to connect to everyone are a bad thing? I think the way that's been handled is good, and that forcing data caps to apply equally is pretty similar. ~~~ netneutralish The regulation that forced telephone companies to connect to everyone is good in my books. That is an accessibility concern. If you're going to use that as the analogy, I'd say the content accessibility concern over wireless networks (in this case, T-Mobile) is also being met. Data caps still apply to all T-Mobile wireless subscribers also, although I can see that the spirit of your argument is that carriers shouldn't try to exert influence over data endpoints (typically referred to as "content"). But, using your same POTS analogy, does this mean that 1-800 toll-free numbers should have been banned or regulated out of existence? The interesting point is that in this case, T-Mobile is working around the FCC Net Neutrality laws by making it clear that this is a free program for specific content partners to participate in; it's like "free toll-free" for content that might appeal the most to consumers (streaming audio and video). ~~~ Dylan16807 Good question about toll-free numbers. I think the difference is that a business pays their phone provider to do toll free service. It's closer to buying a better line to the internet than it is negotiating with individual consumer ISPs for preferred service. Competition rather than the ISP taking advantage of being the only path. ------ michaelchisari Cheap is better than free. If we had a way to seamlessly pay pennies for access, we'd never have to sell our data or suffer through ads. ~~~ mindslight After you've paid these pennies, what is the incentive to not _still_ show you ads or surveil you for commercial advantage? IMHO we're better off focusing on defeating the hostile behavior first. The Internet was a much nicer place before monetization via web spam. ~~~ tptacek It was? I don't remember it that way. There was definitely a lot less _web spam_ before web spam, and pages loaded faster, but we weren't more secure (we were less secure, for reasons having nothing to do with web spam), and we had fewer choices and less content. ~~~ idlewords Turn off ghostery and ad blocking for a few days and see if you still think things are better. I say this with sunken eyes and sepulchral voice, having had to surf the actual internet for a week in researching a talk. ~~~ tptacek I don't use ad-blockers or Ghostery; just out-of-the-box Chrome. ~~~ idlewords I'm frankly amazed. My laptop fan kept spinning and I had to keep religiously closing tabs. ~~~ tptacek Well, ok, look, yes, that happens to me several times a day, and I'm very well acquainted with the Chrome Task Manager window. I'm not sticking up for ad-tech! I just wouldn't trade the 2005 Internet for the one I have now. ------ xlayn Free is a problem per se: the thing is that it's a concept that represents an idea with no possible physical representation; you can't have something for nothing in short due to 1st law of thermodynamics. Things happen as a result of an effort, a work performed; and economy works on the basis of profitable actions, if you match those two you get a redefinition of free as a bobby trap: your info, your time, your attention or your freedom. ~~~ cgio In your redefinition of free as a bobby trap, and out of the options you give which may not be exhaustive, I see my giving my attention as a paramount expression of freedom. Therefore, free does not mean get something out of nothing, or get something for nothing. Free is not even an attribute of the good per se; it is an attribute of the relationship between good and "consumer". What you do with a good and the amount of energy you have to expend to make use of it is an expression of freedom rather than a price. Price is conditioning and not characterising the relationship between good and consumer but the relationship between "producer/owner" and "consumer", you have to pay it before getting any relationship with the good. How would you see the same definition with regards to free software? Of course, you may choose to spend time on contributing, but that does not mean that you have to, and obligation is one of the components of price. In the case of electronic content, the thermodynamics laws are respected perfectly as we can all see by the operation of the network/path that transfers something, no need for an additional layer of finance to have physics working. EDIT: changed my high level definition of free ~~~ xlayn "I see my giving my attention as a paramount expression of freedom" The thing is that the 5 secs you spent looking at an ad when you went to youtube to search for XYZ was not what you wanted but the price you paid for the free video service (because you didn't pay for XYZ video creation, nor for youtube infrastructure that serves that video, nor for google service behind to perform the search). "free software" -as in the use of the term "free" I might ask someone else to complete but I think is not referred to the cost of producing or delivering it to you but the access to the underlying source code and the ability to change it. ~~~ cgio I am not questioning the existence of monetisation models for things. That's why we have an economy. What I question is generalising the existence of monetisation models to say that there can be no free goods, especially when this is somehow argued with reference to natural laws and implying that free goods is an absurd or non-feasible concept. If we are to look into examples, what would you say with regards to reading Wikipedia, or Standord encyclopedia of philosophy. Are these ad-free channels defying a physical law? ~~~ eevilspock There is no free lunch. ------ massysett Better headline: "why 'Net Neutrality' and bureaucrats who think they know best can be a problem on the Internet". Because Tom Wheeler obviously should determine that mobile customers shouldn't get free Youtube. ------ zanny Its obviously against net neutrality completely to give fast lanes to netflix. Thats there is even a question about it is a sign of deep corruption in the FCC, that the move earlier this year about title 2 might have just been a feel good campaign with no substance if T-Mobile can get away with this bullshit. LTE had the potential to revolutionize digital communication by dramatically reducing the cost of last mile links. One cell tower could provide an entire suburb with 100MB/s Internet. Nothing about the design of the spec should mean you need caps. The only policy rule that matters is that when you have congestion on the line those who have used less so far get priority over those who have already gotten more. ~~~ caseysoftware This is not "giving fast lanes" to anyone, it's not counting that data against the users' data cap. It's not remotely the same though it can (and probably will) result in changing user behavior towards those services. The more subtle distinction here is that they're playing the customer in the best way possible. Get users used to "free" for some thing and if the FCC comes back to slap them, T-Mobile says "well, _we_ want to give you free data but the FCC wants us to charge you for it." And then people continue using more data and upgrades their plans (or pays for overages) making them more money or people throw a fit at the FCC. Either way, T-Mobile wins. ~~~ eli It's not the same thing, but I do think it's in the same ballpark: the ISP is favoring one type of traffic over another. And it's based on their business relationship with certain providers. Not a fastlane, but still counter to the spirit of net neutrality. ~~~ netneutralish _And it 's based on their business relationship with certain providers._ If the bar to establish the business relationship was onerous, I'd completely agree. T-Mobile is undermining the argument by stating (whether true or not remains to be seen) that a qualifying website need only sign up to participate. _Not a fastlane, but still counter to the spirit of net neutrality._ The purpose of the net neutrality regulations were to provide equitable treatment in favour of end users. I'm struggling to see how giving end consumers more of what they want for the same price (zero-rating with an option to opt-out) is counter to the initial spirit of the net neutrality regulation. I think that current net neutrality regulations settled into a position that network operators shouldn't unduly (or at all) influence or favour certain endpoints over others. However, by providing this type of optional zero- rating, T-Mobile is firing the first salvo to force pro-net neutrality groups to more sharply understand and define the true incentives driving their respective agendas. If pro-nn groups don't respond to this the right way, then similar to the way that zero-rated streaming audio was used as a precedent to bring in these optional zero-rated streaming video, precedent upon precedent will build upon each other. I'm not sure if this is simply a loss-leading tactic by T-Mobile to gain market share, or if this is part of a longer-term play to form a beachhead from which to dismantle the entire net neutrality Title II regulations. ~~~ eli > _T-Mobile is undermining the argument by stating (whether true or not > remains to be seen) that a qualifying website need only sign up to > participate._ Strongly disagree. T-Mobile already zero-rates major audio streaming services, but it doesn't have the indie Shoutcast station I've been listening to for over a decade. (It doesn't have any Shoutcast stations.) Will the video streaming exemption cover my home Plex server? Very doubtful. Why is it OK for an ISP to favor entrenched commercial services over homegrown indie ones? That's absolutely counter to the spirit of net neutrality. Even if T-Mobile could magically cover all audio and video services instantly, why are they allowed to favor one _type_ of service over another? Why am I charged differently for bytes going to Netflix than for bytes going to Skype? > _I 'm struggling to see how giving end consumers more of what they want for > the same price (zero-rating with an option to opt-out) is counter to the > initial spirit of the net neutrality regulation._ Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster? Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more. How about they just deliver my bytes equitably without regard to any business relationships they have with any providers? If T-Mobile thinks my data cap is too low, they should raise it and let me decide what services to use. ~~~ netneutralish When net neutrality's recent concrete lightning rod was around Netflix having to pay for their customers to have enhanced services, that was a clear case of favouring one type of service over another from a network QoS perspective. If a customer is paying for a service, they owe it to the customer to deliver those bytes equitably and with ideally the same level of service. This was not happening in Netflix's case, and the spirit of net neutrality absolutely applied there. * Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster?* I'm suggesting that we can't make the same argument about fast lanes because that specific concept involves applying different service levels (faster/slower) to specific content types. It's bad to give consumers specific types of data faster if carriers are intentionally crippling popular over-the- top (OTT) players and then forcing customers to pay for the "actual" speeds that they paid for in their [50Mbps|100Mbps|Gigabit] package. However, in this particular case, T-Mobile (supposedly) isn't changing anything related to your existing service level. All of your existing bytes counting towards your data cap are presumably still being delivered equitably, barring network congestion conditions. The only thing that has presumably changed is the way that those bytes are being billed (in this case, free) for certain content providers. A distinction needs to be made between delivery of bytes + resultant abhorrent actions (e.g. deliberately crippling a popular endpoint or content type and giving customers no choice but to pay for a service level they've already paid for = evil), and maintaining the same service delivery level while charging for them differently. * Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more.* I agree with you in principle, but that once strong argument centered around input costs and promotional offerings, which ultimately ends up in the "subsidies" bucket. Originally, the premise was that access to providers was selectively made more expensive and one often didn't have a say in the matter. You're correct that zero-rating (similar, but not quite the same, as the Internet.org debacle) influences consumer behaviour. However, T-Mobile is giving principled consumers a way out - by continuing to offer the same level of service today as they will tomorrow (or whenever it comes into effect) with zero-rating enabled, they're letting consumers speak with their wallets in both literal senses of the word (opt-out, or switch to another carrier). I can't speak to the indie stations issue like Shoutcast, but if it can be shown that T-Mobile's sign up process isn't as easy as they make it out to be then this may be the Achilles heel that the FCC can leverage. ~~~ zanny > different service levels (faster/slower) to specific content types. Major commercial video gets unlimited streaming, everyone else gets rated. It is literally the exact same tiering by another name, made worse because rather than being _slow_ you literally run out of data and cannot access the rest of the Internet at all.

IPhone 4S Camera Made by Sony « iFixit Blog - username3 http://www.ifixit.com/blog/blog/2011/10/14/iphone-4s-camera-made-by-sony/ ====== gigantor A surprise? A large chunk of the iPhone is made by Samsung, their most direct competitor: <http://www.economist.com/node/21525685> What would be exciting is if the lens were made by Nikon, Canon, Leica, or another high end lens specialist, which would truly mark the beginning of the end for point and shoots.

Visual problems besetting Android's Lollipop - edent https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/12/do-all-google-employees-have-perfect-eyesight/ ====== petval The contast point of the article is so true. The light gray text on white background which is so trendy nowadays is terribly uncomfortable, especially outside in brighter light. I really hate black on white, it has something to do with my eyes and white on black is much more comfortable. Desktop can be set, desktop browsers can be styled using userscripts or addons but mobile hardly. So I would love to have the option to render light text on dark backgrounds independently of the page CSS on mobile browsers and I don't mean the silly Chrome invert mode that inverts the images as well. Mobile apps would be better with this especially at night with lights off it is much more comfortable than the white background no matter how much dimming or redshifting you use. Some have dark themes but lot of them don't. ------ davidy123 This season, watching family members struggle with new devices, it struck me that even if empowered tech enhancers don't have poor vision (or other suboptimal abilities), they should at least identify with the struggles of their parents and people they know, and this will increasingly be reflected as cohorts grows older. My dad has always been involved in technology and he eagerly explores new features, but he's very often tripped up by poor usability choices. But in general with open competition things have been getting startlingly better each month. Worth mentioning Lasik doesn't help here, it only helps with far vision, it can actually make near vision worse because it can cause other visual aberrations. ~~~ yepguy After Lasik my preferred font size more than doubled and my tolerance for low contrast text went way down. ~~~ davidy123 That's my experience too, in addition to noticing "floaters" a lot (distractingly) more and also having moisture problems with my eyes. So clearly laser eye surgery is not helpful for typical tech workers. The rest of the article is great though. (= ------ diafygi Firefox also used to have text reflow when zooming, but they removed it for some reason[1][2]. This is the sole reason I use Opera on mobile. [1]: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=710298](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=710298) [2]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1mkqry/firefox_24_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1mkqry/firefox_24_released/cca7taf) ~~~ hawski Thanks! I just installed Opera and it's fantastic. ------ Eroica I wholeheartedly agree with the author here, but I also think Apple is even worse in some regards. Ever since iOS 7 I don't even trust their UI guidelines anymore. Look at this picture of the Music app on my iPhone: [http://imgur.com/6ADrt9U](http://imgur.com/6ADrt9U) What does the text on the bottom mean? Oh you can't read it? Yeah it's Chinese. These are the "buttons" for Repeat, Shuffle, etc. I have no idea what kind of designer thought it was wise to use text instead of icons there, especially since most icons in a music player are easily recognized most of the time. It all started with this "trend" to go flat, now I can't even see what are supposed to be buttons and what not. ~~~ blkhp19 I can't read it because I can't read Chinese. Since people speak mostly English on this website, why wouldn't you post a screenshot of the app running in English? I don't think people would have a hard time deciphering the text in their native language. Also, my parents (both new iPhone users) would have no idea what the shuffle and repeat icons mean. They're not tech-savvy at all and don't recognize those icons. However, they've seen play, pause, and skip buttons their entire lives on radios. I think Apple deliberately chose to make certain buttons text. Seriously, why would you use a Chinese screenshot as an example? I'm so confused as to what your thought process was... of course nobody can read it... ------ PaulHoule This Christmas they couldn't get the kids to watch Arthur on pbs because the little ones were running around with Nintendo 2dses and playing with smart phones. I saw my cousin tony who is a PlayStation enthusiast and asked him why he didn't buy a Vita and he said that close focusing wrecks your eyes. I learned to read at 3 1/2 and by the time I was in school I couldn't see the blackboard. I felt wearing glasses isolated me from people and made it harder to fit into school. At least I got good at reading so I put up good numbers in high school and college and went on to get a PhD. It is so ironic that mobile technology will make people's vision get worse except then all you know about is Mario and Yoshi. ~~~ janto Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think eyestrain has any long term effects. Mobile technology won't make people's vision worse. ~~~ PaulHoule My optometrist tells me the same thing as tony, although my opthalmologist never did. ------ on_and_off The contrast problem is indeed true in some screens. I don't know how much of it is due to the .0 version rush.. Many things are still rough around the edges in material and I expect the platform to really start to shine with the .1 version. The text wrap problem is pretty weak though. As far as I can see, this 'bug' report was well managed. It is not a bug, just somebody disagreeing with a change in the platform. It is well explained in the 4.4 release documentation, along with the reasons behind it. Unless the author explains why the Chrome team is mistaken, this is entirely pointless. ------ andrewfong After a brief stint on Windows Phone, I recently switched back to Android and was mildly amused that, thanks to the lack of word wrap, the browsing experience on mobile Chrome was somehow worse than mobile IE. ------ hga Similar bad design decisions prevent my father from using Chrome on Linux, at least as of when I set it up a year ago. I couldn't make the text in tabs bigger, something Firefox has no trouble with. ------ smrtinsert The zoom is why I have always used dolphin on android and probably always will. Can we call these set of bugs Mac Retina Blindness? ------ raldi My solution for this is to hold my phone in landscape mode. ~~~ pandeiro s/solution/workaround Text reflow was/is a killer feature of the original Android browser (which cyanogenmod still uses, fortunately). Reading the HN front page is a PITA without it. ------ javajosh It's a little _unsporting_ to whack Google over the head with it's own (very recently) released design guidelines[1], but hey, Google is a _corporation_ and so basically has the feelings of a psychopath, and compassion and empathy is wasted on it, right? :) Of course the OP is correct when he says those contrast ratios (nice tool[2] for calculating that, BTW) are way too low. [1] [http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introducti...](http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introduction.html) [2] [http://leaverou.github.io/contrast- ratio/#%23389088-on-%2300...](http://leaverou.github.io/contrast- ratio/#%23389088-on-%23007166) ~~~ yourad_io Like the author says, Google isn't a startup any more. Android is a huge ecosystem, and releasing something with these many problems, is not really up to standard. "Google started it", if you will, when they offered me this update OTA. Now my experience is severely downgraded.[1] I've been intending to do my own bugs&annoyances writeup - my overall experience with 5.0 and 5.0.1 has been bad enough that I'm dumping L for cyanogenmod 4.4. I tried to do it yesterday, in fact, but adb backup with the -shared option seems to hang forever with 5.0.1 :/ [1] I kinda see that I may be coming off as a whiny, change-resistant douche here, but I don't think that is the case: I was actually very excited about the 5.0 release - both for the material design update (i felt it looked great on paper) and for the new runtime. I was prepared for UI/X changes, obviously. I was prepared to forgive bugs as well, but not at this level. ("How excited?" \- "Manually-checking-for-updates-several-times-a-day-for-weeks excited. Plenty") ~~~ javajosh Heh, apparently the tone of my post wasn't clear - I don't normally use the word "unsporting", or smileys, in my post. :) I'm a big fan of complaining, actually. It's a good cost/benefit potential, the only downside is when the target becomes alienated. The _upside to psychopathy_ is that criticism is just data, and not alienating. I hope that, if and when I release some software into the world, I will be able to treat complaint as data. Cheers.

[2008] On The Flight to Old Text Editors - swah http://al3x.net/2008/10/22/on-flight-to-old-text-editors.html ====== forensic This reminds me of carpenters who use old hammers. Sometimes the old thing is really the best solution, and attempts to improve it are misguided and fail. Carpenters will give the newfangled tools an honest shot and then decide that the old tools had a certain _je ne sais quoi_ that made them better. It's not that you can't build a better hammer. Nailguns do exist. But still.. nailguns aren't hammers. A scaffolder can't use a nailgun to do his work, for instance. But I bet the guy who invented the nailgun claimed it would totally replace hammers and just forgot to consider the scaffolders. And now laymen on the outside ask, "What are those scaffolders doing carrying around hammers in 2011? That tech is like a million years old! Surely we can do better!?" ~~~ logermoore The difference is that in the case of hammer vs. nailgun, the old solution (the hammer) is the simple one, and the new solution (the nailgun) is the complex one. With editors it's the other way around. Old editors are in no way simple, quite the contrary. Emacs is complex, and Vim, while seemingly simple, is complex once you want to change its default mode of working. As in the case with the hammer, simple tools often work best - but in the world of editors, the new tools are often the simplest ones. ~~~ forensic It's not clear that nailguns are more complex than hammers. What is the measure of complexity? Nailguns are easier to use for a complete newbie, so a nailgun could be seen as a simpler tool. Becoming an expert hammer user takes literally years. There are many different ways to measure complexity. Learning curve, interface, potential for virtuosity, amount of time implementation took, etc. Nailguns are wayyyyy simpler to use than a hammer. ~~~ hsmyers As a one-time (long ago) silver smith, I can tell you that while there were more than 30 hammers on the wall, there was not one nail-gun. A brief tour of books on subjects from book-binding to leather engraving should demonstrate that there is not a one-size fits all replacement for a tool whose many forms have been developed over centuries (if I handed you a hammer used by a roman carpenter, you would know a.) what it was and b.) how to use it) is just silly. Try making the last finishing cut with a carving tool using a nailgun before you say anything about simplicity... ~~~ forensic I think you missed my point. What you're saying actually supports my opinion on this issue. ------ hvs There's an argument here struggling to get out. As an emacs user, I agree with some of the ideas he is attempting to express, but then it just sort of gets buried in "I don't like emacs or vim." and "too much customization bothers me." Maybe a better discussion than: "why are all these developers still using vim and emacs" is: "why haven't we come up with development tools in the past 30 years that are compelling enough to draw people away from vim and emacs?" ~~~ jerrya Yeah, I've never been able to stand eclipse. I get a big monitor and a fast computer, and eclipse ends up showing me code in a 20 row by 40 column window and jeez, I could see more code and faster using emacs in the first crts. But the article, titled "On The Flight to Old Text Editors" told me little about why people are moving back to vim or emacs. What is the value that longtime eclipse or textmate users are seeing in emacs or vim? Speed? Keyboards? What problems of modern text editors does emacs and vim solve? Mostly what I get from the article is that the flight to old school editors is a hipster thing. Oh yeah, gotta use the old school editors because we're hipsters. Eclipse is a sellout man. Textmate is for Lady Gaga. I edit it old school vim and emacs. ~~~ hvs Which is funny, because I remember a few years ago (circa 2007) when Rails was just starting to get big and Textmate was the hipster editor. All of which is idiotic, because anyone who chooses an editor based on image is most likely a terrible developer. That said, I think Textmate is a very good editor and one of the few capable contenders in the editor "wars". The biggest downside is that it is Mac-only. ~~~ mattgreenrocks Finally, a sane voice. The notion of an editor 'war' is laughable. I'm sure in five years or so someone will innovate in the graphical editor arena and the pendulum will swing back. And, lo and behold, all of the bloggers and Tweeters will gush about their "10x" productivity increases. I never seem to get those sorts of massive productivity gains, as the hard/slow parts of development take place in my mind. ------ forkandwait People forget that Unix itself is one big IDE. I use emacs to edit code, but in another terminal window I use make to compile or run tests, "find" and grep to look for stuff, tail to look at logs, custom shell scripts for lots of other things, etc etc. So emacs isn't an IDE, it is just a text editor, and the best one I know at that (I love vi for quick configuration tweaks, but not real coding). ------ dogriffiths I use Emacs for almost everything. I used to use IDEs but became tired of waiting for all of the extra features to load. When I first began using Emacs I struggled for probably 6 months. Now I really can't do without it. I don't use it for email. I don't use it for the web. But I _do_ use it for Twitter, I've written papers in it using org-mode and LateX and I'm currently writing my third book on it. Once your fingers get used to all of the bizarre key- presses the editor just seems to fade into the background and you can just get on with your work. ------ zwieback As a C/C++/C# developer I can't imagine giving up IDEs for vi. vi is my editor of choice for quickie edits on Linux but for project work it's Eclipse and VS. I've used IDEs since UCSD Pascal but really only recently got convinced they are a real productivity enhancer. If I ask myself why I use IDEs I can really only come up with Intellisense, if I worked in a language that doesn't allow a high degree of completion, browsing, etc. I could easily go with something simple. ~~~ DennisP I plugged viemu into VS, now I've got all the nice IDE stuff but with the vim editing model, which I'm completely addicted to now. ------ taeric I think the amusing thing here is the assumption that people could make something better without first understanding what they are replacing. How can you expect someone to make a better vim/emacs, without understanding what made it great in the first place? ~~~ swah And perhaps that's what made us stuck since folks that don't understand what makes it great can't make something better, and the ones that do understand it are satisfied with them like they are. ------ hsmyers My primary objection to both of the 'sacred' editors mentioned (not talking TextMate---I've no knowledge of it) is that they violate the original Unix tool rule: 'One task, done well...' All of the bolt-ons so the programmer could sit on his virtual dead ass without leaving his environment just make chalk-board-scrapping noise as far as I'm concerned. ------ dhotson Slightly off topic, but jEdit is an excellent editor on OSX. I'd highly recommend it. I wrote a little guide about my jEdit setup a while back: [http://dhotson.tumblr.com/post/443485667/making-jedit- awesom...](http://dhotson.tumblr.com/post/443485667/making-jedit-awesome-on- osx) ~~~ focusaurus I used jEdit for many years on linux and windows, but development has been stalled for a long time. Presumably moment dropped off quickly after the author Slava moved on to other projects. It's a shame. I'm trying <http://www.vicoapp.com/> instead these days. Not as good as jEdit, but at least people are actively maintaining the code. ~~~ dhotson I think you'd be surprised. It's picked up a bit over the last year or two. The jedit-users list is still reasonably active. ------ NY_USA_Hacker By far my most heavily used program is KEdit which is a PC version of the IBM VM/CMS editor XEDIT written by an IBM guy in Paris. In both cases, there is a macro language based on Mike Cowlishaw's Rexx which is elegant. Why such heavy use of KEdit? I am a heavy computer user, and, except for Web browsing, nearly all my computer input is via typing. So, the first issue has to be, what software to type into? Well, I don't want to type into just a standard graphical user interface (GUI) 'multi-line text box' 'control' because the functionality is meager. Yes, I'm a Windows user: So, in particular I don't want to type into Outlook or Visual Studio. Since my most important work is applied math, I use TeX for that and for all my high quality word whacking; so, I don't want to type into Word. I use SQL Server Management Studio for data base 'browsing' but won't type anything important into it. So, here's much of what I type into KEdit: (1) e-mail to send, (2) input to TeX for mathematical and high quality word whacking, (3) blog posts such as this one, (4) notes on everything I want to remember in programming, shopping, equipment repair, medical care, financial records, phone numbers, addresses, abstracts of Web pages -- everything, (5) software source code, including T-SQL for input to SQL Server, (6) most of my important program test input, (7) looking at program test output, and more. E.g., a little KEdit macro does my telephone dialing. Another little KEdit macro types mailing labels. More? I'm developing a Web site; it's my first serious HTML programming. Since I'm a Windows user, I'm using ASP.NET. Well, I want some good logging for the Web site. ASP.NET has some default logging, but I didn't like it. Well, .NET also has some lower level tools for logging; these tools do handle the important issues of multiple threads of multiple programs on multiple machines all writing to the same log at the same time. Good -- that's the crucial functionality I needed. So, now I have some good data logging. Since the log file is 'circular', the first thing to do when reading one is to sort it on, say time, date, and machine. And with multiple log files, there can be some duplicate lines. In using the log files it can be important to 'select' lines based on the user's IP address, the name of the Web page, the routine in the Web page that wrote the line to the log, the message number of the message within the routine, etc. Sure, all this can be done with relational data base, but for log files of reasonable size it can also all be done more easily just within KEdit, especially if write a few KEdit macros. So, I look at and do the first cut analysis of log files just within KEdit. To be clear, on the title of the article 'On The Flight to Old Text Editors', I never left my "old text" editor. I've been using KEdit or XEDIT since 1985 and was using good text editors before then. Alternatives? I see no good alternatives. Why? Well, the article lamented: "That a new generation of programmers flocking to these old tools is concerning, if for no reason more selfish than the desire for peers in my dissatisfaction. Without a consensus that we can do better, there’s no incentive, no motivation, no market for improvements. If as modest a step towards a better editor as TextMate is abandoned, what hope is there for a true leap forward?" Well, there's been no "true leap forward?" apparently mostly because of the overwhelming theme of the 'graphical user interface' (GUI) from the bean bag chairs and 'cognitive psychology' people at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and the use of GUI ideas by Apple, Microsoft, X-Windows, and now, with further development, smart phones. In particular an important special case has been the Web and Web browsers. The PARC goal was to make computer interaction easy for the pre-school children of the PARC employees for future Xerox office machines, and the approach was to have a user interface much like that on, say, a microwave oven. So, with GUIs what we've got is for pre-school children using microwave ovens, and that's not promising for a "true leap forward". So, the assumption in the computer industry has been that humans should interact with computers via a GUI, almost exclusively. For a user mostly just receiving information, maybe that assumption is okay, but, for a user generating information, no. The good text editors were designed by some of the best programmers ever for use by some of the best programmers ever. So, it's no surprise that good programmers prefer good text editors. Bluntly, for generating information, it is still very important to type, and so far for people doing a lot of typing a good text editor is by far the best software to type into, in particular, much, Much, MUCH better than any of the check boxes, radio buttons, text boxes, and multi-line text boxes of the GUI standards. In particular, for programming, I've been doing that for a long time. I've always found programming to be fast, fun, and easy giving the input just via a good text editor. I could count on one hand all the times I got any benefit from 'interactive debugging' tools. So, I tried Visual Studio. I saw a window with many 'panels', and I could never find what all the panels were for. Some of the panels were said to be 'dockable', and the intended meaning was obscure and not in my copy of Webster's. The one little window was cramped, and in strong contrast when I program I typically have a dozen or so windows open at once, using either KEdit or my favorite Web browser, for entering source code, for documentation, for earlier versions of the program, for other programs I can use as samples, for various notes, for program output, for searching for information on Google, etc. The one cramped window from Visual Studio is, in comparison, a bad joke. For just the typing, Visual Studio gives me just some little panel within the one window, and KEdit is MUCH better. It's easy to write powerful macros in KEdit, and I do, and I saw no promising way to write macros in Visual Studio. When I saw that with Visual Studio the work is to be a 'project' and even a project to report "Hello World" starts with 50 MB, I concluded that Visual Studio was from the far side of Xerox PARC in luna-land. For my present development I'm mostly using just Visual Basic .NET via a script program from command line text windows. I'm thrilled: The complier is fast, easy to invoke, gives good error messages, so far appears to be essentially free of bugs, and generates surprisingly small EXE files. Terrific. What's in the Visual Studio 50 MB has to be glop, gorp, and goop I very much don't want to have to work with when things go wrong, and with that much glop, gorp, and goop some things are very likely to go wrong. So, yes, I do a lot of typing and do my typing into the best text editor I know of, KEdit.

10 reasons to believe P != NP - arman0 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=122 ====== jaachan Article is about believing P != NP, entirely different title ~~~ zidar I was really confused before I realized that there's a "!" missing.

Show HN: Directory for kids with allergies - leonagano http://allergiesandkids.com ====== bernardhalas First of all - thank you for putting together the site with the aim to ease the pain and avoid the risk of loosing life that allergy might cause. I look at your website for like 10 seconds and I don't understand it. I see there are some categories (of information perhaps?). I'm curious to see what's under "Governments". Is this some conspiracy information? I click to find out. Ok, I see, there's a link to a UK agency that deals with allergies in some way. A similar confusion there is when looking at other categories. Is this some dictionary for allergic people? Are you aggregating news from the research of allergies? Is there some user forum for people who have allergies? There's a nice TED talk - What, Why and How you might want to look at: [https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...](https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action) On your website you revealed 'What' (you want to help by building the site), 'Why' (you suffer from allergy yourself), but to me it's not clear 'How' the site should help people. I don't want to sound negative. Please keep up the work, I guess there's a demand for the information you want to provide, but in order to increase the value of the site and increase its reach, please think about how to improve it. If you want feedback from more people, you can try [https://usability.testing.exchange](https://usability.testing.exchange) (disclaimer: I am associated with it). ~~~ leonagano Thank you very much for the feedback. I’m aggregating links that I personally find interesting and my idea is to help people find out new websites related to some allergies they have. Maybe one small description for each category can help. “How” the website will help is helping them find out new websites related to allergies they might have. Goong to nutfree for example, you’ll have links to blogs that have nutfree recipes. In shops, online shops that sell products “freefrom”.... Thank you again for your feedback and I’ll try to keep the website as clear as possible in orfer to help people with allergies. ~~~ bernardhalas The missing part from my perspective is an information about what to expect on your site, e.g. "this site aggregates information for people with allergies and organizes it into the following categories:..." ------ leonagano Suffering from shellfish allergy for more than 20 years, I know how difficult is to live a life with allergies. My baby has eczema and now I know babies and kids suffers even more than adults. Being inspired by another directories for startups, marketing and business related, I decided to create this one for kids and allergies and somehow try to help. I'd like to listen to some feedbacks on how to grow the number of users....I don't know, because I've just launched...

Technical Interviews aren't merely technical - nicolodavis https://nicolodavis.com/blog/interviewing/ ====== TrackerFF I honestly enjoy take-home assignments more, because they (well, at least the proper ones) mitigate many of the risks that are listed in the post. My experience is that the interviewer can pretty much make or break a technical interview. I've had interviewers that used them in like they should (get a feel how you solve problems and think, how you communicate, etc.), and I've had garbage interviewers that read a script, with problems they themselves didn't understand. I know the view on take-home assignments is very polarized, but you know what? The net time spent is usually far, far less than the prepping game for technical interviews. You see people grinding leetcode for hundreds of hours, memorizing problems and solutions, trying to get every edge-case they can - just in case the interviewer throws something obscure at them. At least with assignments you get a well-defined problem, where you get time to think and reflect, and can work/learn enough to have a meaningful discussion. ~~~ nicolodavis > My experience is that the interviewer can pretty much make or break a > technical interview Yep, that's exactly what I've tried to communicate here. I like the idea of take home assignments as well. Maybe the industry will get to a state where these can be done completely remotely (and even graded automatically) in order to determine whom to bring onsite, where you just have a general discussion. ------ rvz I agree with the points outlined here as both a former candidate and as an interviewer. They are not really technical but the questions I ask to candidates are relevant to the job and I always look for honest individuals that have substance in their experience. In my experience, as a former candidate, I have met bad interviewers who deliberately focus too much on syntax and like nitpicking candidates knowledge on libraries while they attempt to implement or solve a problem for which they openly admit afterwards that they do not use and go far to secretly record candidates struggling. I even met some 'engineers' claimimg that they are senior in C++ and I brought up LLVM in the conversation and they had no clue on what that was. Likewise for 'JavaScript experts' having no idea about JavaScript engines such as V8, JavaScriptCore and SpiderMonkey. I don't usually go technical in these interviews but only when asked and before that, I research their open-source contributions to ask relevant questions. Unfortunately, Most of these engineers had little to no open-source contributions or have only private (Obviously work related) which is very unfortunate. As an interviewer, I have ultimately done away with take-home projects unless candidates are expecting something out of it (I used to pay all second stage candidates for their projects) otherwise it becomes a waste of their time if they are not considered. Instead, I ask them about relevant open-source contributions to significant projects which is more or less a straight-forward free pass to a on-site interview and at the same time already eliminates beginner/intermediate level candidates. Which I go slightly technical on those patches as if I was conducting a code review. If the candidate is honest and everything matches up, I'll hire them on the spot and that is it. If I find that the candidate is suspiciously dishonest, That is the only time I will give a problem to solve without interrogating them. By doing this I don't even need to waste money on Hackerrank/Leetcode/Codility tests which are useless in finding competent software engineers.

Science Denial Won’t End Sexism - andrenth https://quillette.com/2019/03/11/science-denial-wont-end-sexism/ ====== YeGoblynQueenne >> Last week, Nature, one of the top scientific journals in the world, ran a review written by Lise Eliot of Gina Rippon’s new book, The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain For the record, I posted that article on HN 9 days ago. It was almost immediately flagged (going by the fact it collected 18 points). This one seems to have lasted at least twice as long - and I don't understand why. In terms of a controversy, an article in Nature is the definition of an uncontroversial, respected source, whereas Quillette is rather the exact opposite. If a serious debate can be had, it should be over an article on Nature, not an article on Quillette. I don't want to put this in words like "why was my article downvoted", which would sound too much as if I'm nursing some kind of petty grudge, but the same thing has happened to other articles I've posted previously on matters of gender equality in the sciences, while, for example, articles about James Damore are left alone. Is James Damore less controversial than Gina Rippon? I must say that I do get a strong feeling that one side of this issue is treated very differently than the other by a significant proportion of users on HN. ~~~ erentz A lot of articles on gender get the same flagging treatment. (FWIW Damore is far from uncontroversial here on HN.) I suspect sometimes the flagging treatment is because these articles can attract heated (often emotional) debate, and this might be why some flaggers flag them, to avoid that and just stick to tech stuff. That said I’m always interested in seeing these articles and debates myself, mostly because it’s a pretty important issue in tech and we won’t resolve it if we don’t talk about it. But it’s hard to do. This post may have survived this long just by luck, I wouldn’t read to much into it. But you can certainly talk about it here now since this article is in response to your article. (One question I might’ve asked about your original would be, if male and female brains are really the same then how come rates of certain mental illnesses vary so much between the sexes?) Edit: I realized I originally wrote “far from contoversial” it should be “uncontoversial” but I think that was understandabld from the context. ~~~ drilldrive >FWIW Damore is far from controversial here on HN. Just to be clear, in what way? Anti-Google pro-Damore I presume? ~~~ erentz From what I’ve seen (so it’s anecdotal) they seemed to attract emotional debate, and lots of downvotes, and flags, and people making throwaways before commenting, etc. In that way controversial. To my mind when you see lots of downvoted comments it’s a pretty good sign of a controversial topic because I never usually see that on purely tech topics ok HN. From which I infer on tech topics a bad comment doesn’t get upvoted and sinks because good comments rise. On non tech topics like gender comments (bad or good) can quickly be grayed out by downvotes. I suppose it might be an interesting hypothesis to test somehow if historical HN posts could be classified into topic and we had the voting and flagging data. ------ natchiketa To those who are put off by the article, it might help to understand that, while Dr. Soh has a PhD in psychology, she is also a political commentator, writes science articles, and is a podcast host. Like a lot of Intellectual Dark Web folks, it's best to check out a long-form discussion — like a lecture[0] or a podcast[1] — to get a better sense of the ideas they're trying to communicate. [0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BSb92OYA0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BSb92OYA0g) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zere8WRepGo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zere8WRepGo) EDIT: Add a second podcast link [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkhDZMwR9eQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkhDZMwR9eQ) ------ Eleopteryx Statements like "In a world where world-class scientists’ merit is now determined by their sex and skin color—with white men’s work being dismissed in the name of promoting women and minorities" have a heavy political bias and the article isn't even concerned with supporting that point, it's just dropped in there like it's a fact. ~~~ crowdpleaser I think I can provide evidence of this, but I'd like to use a double-crux and put both of our beliefs on the table. If I can show you criticism of a scientists' work in a natural / mathematical science field that emphasizes the (white or male) identity of the scientist in question, would you be prepared to concede that there is progressive scientific denialism and progressivism can be at odds with scientific inquiry? ------ deogeo "In a world where world-class scientists’ merit is now determined by their sex and skin color—with white men’s work being dismissed in the name of promoting women and minorities" A bit off-topic, but talking about 'minorities' when discussing world-wide topics such as science always seemed so bizarre to me. No single race/ethnicity represents over 50% of the world population, so isn't everyone a minority? Or does only the US count? ~~~ AnimalMuppet Let's call the country X. _In country X_ , the majority of scientists are of race Y. If scientists are viewed as having more merit because they are not of race Y, that's a problem, _no matter what the values of X and Y are_. ~~~ deogeo But the articles (not just this one, but very nearly all of them) don't talk about X and Y - they talk about "white people" and "minorities", and stubbornly pretend the two groups are distinct. A quick search (though I couldn't find any particularly authoritative sources) says white people are ~16% of the global population, behind both south and east asians. To keep calling everyone else 'minorities' is more than a little US/Eurocentric. Especially when they put phrases such as "In a _world_ where _world_ -class...", implying they're not limiting themselves to 'country X' ~~~ tathougies Oh stop it. Asian here. Discrimination happens in individual societies. The united states and Asian countries do not share societies. It is clear from the language and website of the article that it is targeted towards the USA ~~~ nkurz > It is clear from the language and website of the article that it is targeted > towards the USA Maybe, but since the author is Canadian, and the website is Australian, I'm surprised you would be so confident of this. ------ jonnybgood The more I read these kind of articles the more I realize that it really has nothing to do with science, or science denial. Nobody in these kinds of discussions really cares about the science. It’s all about politics and ideology. Why aren’t these same people who are talking about science denial never speak up and make a fuss about the denial of climate change by a huge swath of the US population including the elected (e.g. POTUS)? ~~~ erentz > Why aren’t these same people who are talking about science denial never > speak up and make a fuss about the denial of climate change by a huge swath > of the US population including the elected (e.g. POTUS)? 1\. Fallacy of relative privation? Nobody can talk about X because Y is worse. Nobody should fix X until everybody has fixed Y first. 2\. Fighting ideologically driven decision should be a good thing if you’re concerned about the ideologically driven decision making going on in our government. Don’t pick and choose. That’s hypocracy. (There’s at least one person sometimes unfortunately (mis?)labeled as being in the IDW who is terrible at this, a big gaping load of hypocracy shows up anytime religion or Israel comes into play. His name rhymes with Sen Bhapiro.) ------ cbanek "I don’t deny that sexism exists, but sexism today is not so severe that it stands in the way of a woman achieving a career in science—or any field—if she really wants to." Uh, source? Seems like the article just throws this out there without any citation, proof, or even argument. I'm not sure I can agree with such a statement. ~~~ natchiketa I took that as her speaking from her own personal experience. She's a doctor of psychology who specialized in sex research — her PhD thesis was titled "Functional and Structural Neuroimaging of Paraphilic Hypersexuality in Men". She worked in academia for about ten years until she became dissatisfied with the influence that political correctness had on her ability to fund her research. So you could say that she achieved a career in science, until she no longer wanted to. You could argue that she failed to account for the fact that readers of this article don't necessarily know who she is or what her own experience has been. ~~~ cbanek Or the fact that just because she did it doesn't mean that anyone can do it? I guess if you haven't, you just need to "want it more." ~~~ natchiketa Sure, that too. Standing on its own, it's purely anecdotal. ------ undoware I stopped reading at "social justice bandwagon". Without interacting with the central claims of this article, which seem to hark back to the breathless realm of nineties _Psychology Today_ grade neursci, I believe I can safely ignore any discussion about science that is basically just more culture war conturbations in sci-sauce. If your concern is that science is being polticized, don't lead with your politics. It's just a food fight at this point. ~~~ phonypc That phrase doesn't appear until nearly the end of the article. It read to me as not particularly political. ~~~ undoware I don't see how either how (a) where it occurs in the article body or (b) what flavours of politics are vivid to you, and which, in David Foster Wallace's memorable phrase, taste like the inside of your own mouth, would be relevant to whether this aricle constitutes unbiased scientific discourse on the matter at hand. I don't mean to be rude. ~~~ phonypc You said "don't lead with your politics." The author did not lead with their politics. (And IMO didn't include politics at all, other than to say politics don't belong in science.

RabbitMQ Highly Available Queues and Clustering using Amazon EC2 - karlgrz http://karlgrz.blogspot.com/2012/10/rabbitmq-highly-available-queues-and.html ====== forkproc1582 As I often have to repeat to people: don't use RabbitMQ unless you need durable messaging. That is to say, if losing a message is catastrophic, and in the event your broker goes down, you are guaranteed to still retain your messages, then I'd recommend RabbitMQ. For example, you do not want to lose a queued financial trade. Most people really don't need durable messaging. They are typically offloading asynchronous work jobs via messaging. This is where a broker-less technology like ZeroMQ makes sense. You can achieve the same high-availability architecture without having to worry about the availability of your RabbitMQ choke point separating you from your worker instances. ------ rdtsc As a side note, some of these features (multi-node synchronization, distributed configuration management, HA) are made possible because of Erlang, which RabbitMQ is written in. It is a classic case of 'the right tool for the right job' example in my book. ------ jjoergensen Do not forget about the netsplit scenarios. In the case you have two datacenters, and one has network problems, you will end up in a split-brain scenario. Both datacenters may believe they are available or down. A way to solve this, could be to use more boxes and majority voting, with something like apache zookeeper. But none of this comes out of the box. ------ oijaf888 Maybe I'm missing something but how does the client know what ip address/hostname to connect to? Does it just use some sort of multicast to find nodes? ------ elchief Does AWS count as highly available? ~~~ emillon When you design your application so that it's across several availability zones, yes.

Þ - shawndumas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) ====== ColinWright Speaking to your question asked in the now dead submission about the ligature (or whatever) - these are facts, and they are facts that are unknown to the vast majority of people. It may be that you are discovering them, and you find them interesting, and you wish to share them with the HN community. However, it's not clear that they are "deeply interesting." It's not clear they they contain material to make one think, to make one re-think. It's not clear that they are specifically of interest to the intellect of hackers, as opposed to the intellect and interests of intelligent people, not limited to hackers. I'm guilty of this, and frequently have to re-consider submitting items, because while they are of interest to me, they are not of _deep_ interest (to my understanding and interpretation of the term). Perhaps I don't refrain as often as I should. I have not flagged you here, I think I did flag one of the other submissions, I can't say for sure, but I thought I would give my viewpoint on why some people may feel these are inappropriate to HN. I don't have any special status, I'm just providing a viewpoint, perhaps for discussion, perhaps for disagreement, perhaps to be ignored. ~~~ shawndumas Now that was a helpful answer. But what do you make of the 14 up-votes though? ~~~ ColinWright Just as you thought it was an interesting fact in its own right, I have no doubt that among the extremely large HN audience, so did others. Many will have thought "That's interesting!" and up-voted it. And that's the behavior that is now emerging (or indeed, possibly has always been the case) that people up- or down-vote simply on preferences, rather than on whether something is "deeply interesting." This isn't a criticism, HN is what it is, and that is my personal observation. As I've discovered in a recent email exchange, not everyone agrees with me. So personally, I found it an interesting fact, and it led to some interesting reading on related facts. But I didn't up-vote it, and I seriously considered down-voting because of the "deep interest" question. But this is getting a bit meta (too late, it's actually _very_ meta already) so I'd be happy to hear from you via email me if you're interested in discussing it further. ------ shawndumas <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3084503>

Ask YC: What is J-Mango? We think "Mobile friendly web goodness for the masses". How about you? - hafeez-bana http://jmango.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/what-is-j-mango-you-tell-us/ ====== hafeez-bana Hi All, I thought I would share the video of the demo we submitted to YC. We have been frustrated by mobile development and decided to something about it. Please let us know what you think. hb

Reltron: a GUI for exploring relational databases - rtsao https://kevinlynagh.com/reltron/ ====== SOLAR_FIELDS I really enjoyed this and would have been great to have something like this recently. Just the other day a coworker was writing some code on top of a database I had designed. He and I were discussing some of the result sets of a couple more complex queries that he needed to operate on. Given that there were a few many-to-many joins represented by relation tables in the section of the database that we were discussing, it was difficult for us to quickly iterate on a solution even while I had the SQL command line up and was querying tables as we talked. While I am a fast SQL writer, having to munge and navigate the multiple relation tables during our fast-paced discussion was a little unwieldy. A tool like this to quickly jump between joins and look at the result sets while in the midst of a technical discussion as it evolves would have been perfect. ------ tobr Very nice. Great example of what a difference it makes when you can play around with something and get immediate feedback, instead of having to plan ahead, look up commands, and imagine abstract things you can't see. ~~~ nubslayer Maybe I missed something, but it seems like you still need to click around and look up commands in a list and figure out which to pick before clicking. ~~~ Jeff_Brown The SQL commands it would take to do what he did in a few seconds would I think have taken a decent coder half an hour. But even that underestimates the usefulness of this kind of GUI, because with the GUI you wouldn't have to know what you're trying to do in advance, whereas with code you do. The coding space is big, permitting lots of invalid state -- most of the programs you could write are not just wrong but gibberish. Using a GUI like this reduces the problem space enormously; the comparison feels akin to the one between grabbing a live fish and connecting Lego blocks. ~~~ nubslayer It's useful, but one still basically needs to plan ahead, look up commands, and imagine things. It would be more useful if it weren't an OSX-only closed source demo. ~~~ Jeff_Brown I agree about its availability. I think it's far more useful than you seem to, though. Reducing the problem space is huge. It's why macro programming (ala Lisp) is so dangerous. It's why I left Haskell for Python, and why I often wish I was using Idris[1], which pretty much reads your mind and writes what you meant. It's true of coding generally, but SQL programming especially, that there's a conceptually obvious, small space of reasonable programs, but because we're writing in text, we're free to roam over an enormous superspace of (occasionally) wrong or (usually) meaningless programs. [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOtKD7ml0NU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOtKD7ml0NU) ~~~ nubslayer I don't really have an OSX computer to use it on, so it's not that useful to me. I could probably make the same or better in a few hours. Not sure exactly what you mean by wrong or meaningless programs. (edit3) I'm not sure it's possible to write a meaningless SQL statement. Edit: it seems like the authors don't see it as that useful. I think the page said they are still looking for use-cases, or something. Have you contacted them? Edit2 (fta): "However, as of Jan 2019 we’re tabling the project until we have a concrete, motivating use case to inform further development." ------ zubairq Great job guys, I see reltron getting better every time i see it

Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else? - dvrajan What would you do? ====== david927 I currently work in a good environment where I'm appreciated and paid well. Not many people in the world can say that, so I have a lot to be thankful for. Programming has done good by me. But I don't love it. Alan Kay is right, it's like building "an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves". There's no elegance and no higher vision. It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless. I would prefer, if I could retire, to make short films and maybe to write plays. But I can't retire yet. So I'll push stones. It pays well. ~~~ cyberferret > It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless. Sorry, but I would have to disagree with you on this. I've been programming now for over 35 years, and really cannot see myself doing anything else. I find I can channel my creativity into programming in many ways, and writing a good piece of code gives me the same satisfaction as writing or recording apiece of music. Yes, I am a musician too, and while they are very different, I see a lot of similarities between them too. ANY job can become a task of 'piling bricks via brute force and slavery' at some point in time. Every good friend who has had a seemingly dream job has broken down and despaired at some of the drudgery involved over a beer. One of them does, in fact, write plays that do very well in the UK theatre scene and he also writes TV shows that do well locally - but he often speaks of the interminable problems dealing with promoters, agents, crew and transport. Another good friend tours the world as a physio with an international cricket team. First class flights and hotels everywhere, rubbing shoulders with celebrities. Many of us (thought we) would kill for such an opportunity, but he says he is tired of living out of a suitcase and having to check the local papers under the door every morning to remember which city he is in. It is all a matter of perspective. ~~~ amelius But at least those jobs don't have the stigma of being (in the words above) Asperger professions. This makes it difficult to share your problems with other people, and of course, also because people in general would, I suppose, find the problems that musicians or theatre writers have more interesting, and more approachable than the problems of a software developer. Also, this makes that a musician can be a "musician" in normal life. He or she doesn't need to change their identity. Developer culture does not blend with the normal world, and as a developer I believe you really have to switch between two worlds. That can be tiring. ~~~ terminalcommand As a law student, I experience this a lot. Computers and programming were/are my only passion and obsession. My life is dedicated to computers, but professionally I have to be a lawyer. I just had an interview at an IT Law Firm, and made a fool of myself. That's why I completely agree that, we as "people who are good at computers" need to keep seperate identities. Because if you go full Aspergers, you make yourself vulnerable. Once people realize you're "different", you get the "poor boy treatment" and that hurts. PS: I am still trying to get over the interview, sorry if I don't make any sense. ~~~ digler999 > and made a fool of myself. Good. you got out there and made mistakes. Now you can learn from them and you wont ever be that bad henceforth, hereunto. I made a total ass out of my self the first few programming interviews I went to. First one, recruiter called me (woke me up at ~10am) and I thought I'd show "initiative", I said "sure Ill be there in 2 hours". Went totally unprepared, didn't even bring a copy of my resume. They even lectured me about improving my interview skills. Second one, I made the mistake of asking my potential coworker "what college he went to", thinking anyone in an engineering profession went to college. The manager interjected that he was 'self taught', this wasn't a total faux-pas on my part, but it created an awkward moment where I didnt really know what to say. I further erased any possibility of getting the job by getting too relaxed/comfortable and blurted out that I'm really groggy in the morning (cringe). I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately got a job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew process. So dont take it out on your neck, pick yourself back up and make a list of things you can take away from your experience. you have no other direction to go than up. ~~~ Grishnakh >I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately got a job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew process. Bloomberg, where it's just one giant open noisy room? Doesn't sound like much of a reward to me. Personally, I wish I had never gone into programming. I wanted a profession where I could sit in peace and quiet and work on interesting intellectual problems on my own. Little did I know that programming would not be like that after the year 2010. If I had known this, I would have chosen a different profession, probably something involving medicine, since at least there's lots of women in those workplaces. ~~~ digler999 The point of my comment was not that bloomberg was an awesome reward. I only stayed a year, and yes it was noisy as hell. The floor sounded like a drum when people walked on it. My point was that I went from a blundering buffoon in an interview to passing a notoriously difficult software engineering interview in 8 years (with a few jobs in between). ~~~ Grishnakh Good point. Was turnover high there? Did you manage to find a place with a better working environment? ~~~ digler999 I think turnover is pretty high there. People dont want to get locked into BB's proprietary (or in some cases antiquated) technologies. However, there are tons of departments, many of them are modernized, and you can really learn a lot for your first few years out of school. If you stay and are faithful you can go up the ranks. I am doing fine. I went contractor, and currently in healthcare / imaging. I dont even sweat interviews anymore :) ------ clentaminator I think about leaving programming every day. I love programming, but I'm not sure I enjoy software development as a career. I enjoy coding and understanding how computer systems work, but I don't care for the constant changes in tools and techniques in certain domains of development. I'd rather practise with and improve my existing knowledge of a subject, instead of constantly playing catch-up with someone else's tools and workflow. I also don't care about waterfall, agile, scrum, kanban, scrumban or any other development methodology that I've missed. I hate that my job has me chained to a desk (sitting or standing) instead of being able to use my body. All of this makes me think that real-world software development doesn't really suit me. I'm about six weeks into a new job after leaving a company I worked at for just over five years. Amongst many other reasons for leaving, I thought that a new environment would change how I felt about continuing a career in software development, but I'm not sure that it has. I'm aware of how lucky programmers have it, but I can't help feeling like I just want something else. Grass is always greener, etc. What are the career options that allow one to work mostly by oneself in one- to-two week stretches without having to play the development workflow game with the daily standups and so on? Sadly I'm not sure what I'd do if not programming, but music is a big interest and I'd considered teaching music. tl;dr Woe is me ;) ~~~ m0nty > without having to play the development workflow game with the daily standups > and so on? It never used to be like this. I think management has reacted to the traits they _perceive_ in programmers - get distracted too easily, work on things that don't need doing, take too long, cannot provide work-time estimates, etc - by putting in place this micro-managing approach: "only do it if it's on the kanban and tell us each and every day what you have done and will be doing". I know agile, etc, weren't designed to do that, but that's what they've been used for whenever I've been subjected to them. Programming and dev-ops used to be fun, self-directed, creative work which kept me interested for a couple of decades. Now the pace of change (much of it unnecessary or over-sold) and the constant micro-management have me looking for other things to do. ~~~ Clubber I believe Agile (at least as thought of by management) is designed to make programmers interchangeable. If programmers are interchangeable, they are easily replaceable. We just started doing "by the book" Agile with daily stand ups. Now that you mention it, it does feel like I'm being micro managed. Put in your time every day so we can email everyone the burn down chart. Lets add some more pressure to the job if you are behind a day. There are no milestones, just an endless grind. I don't know why programmers don't push back against that stuff. ~~~ meddlepal Push back and you'll just be replaced by someone younger or more naive or willing. At the end of the day programmers are mostly just factory workers of the 21st century. The best ones are perhaps closer to the mechanics of the industrial revolution. ~~~ d0lph Except with amazing pay, serious benefits, and better working conditions. ~~~ Grishnakh Compared to factory workers of 50+ years ago? Certainly. Compared to programmers 25 years ago? Absolutely not. The pay is worse (inflation-adjusted), and the working conditions are far, far worse (see: open-plan offices). ~~~ mikestew _(My apologies for crappy formatting. All I wanted was a bulleted list. Wasn 't that doc'ed in the FAQ or something?)_ Let's see what I was doing 25 years ago: * Private office with a door that closed. * Status updates mail to $SOMEONE once a week that were mostly auto-generated from the tools we used. Took 30 seconds. * Sat down to a chunk of work uninterrupted for long periods of time because no one was micro-managing me or bugging me on Fashionable-Chat-App-of-the-Week. * Used development tools that had a half-life measured in years, not months. * Got to really, *really* know my tools because they weren't swapped out for the new hotness every six months. Man, the ways I used to abuse FoxPro bordered on criminal. I can't do that these days since the tools get swapped from under me so often. * Was paid well, and treated with professional respect. Sometimes a collared shirt was required, but I didn't mind when everyone else had to wear ties. * Was provided with good equipment, often without asking. "I have a quad-core server box with an assload of RAM for a...mikestew?" "That's me, but I didn't order it." Boss: "oh, thought you might need that for multithreaded testing." Thanks, boss! * Went in at 9:00, went home at 5:00. Every day. Today: * Today I'm sitting in a retasked storage room because I refuse to sit at the "hotel desks" (note that I'm currently a consultant, so it's not *as* egregious. But 20 years ago, clients that wanted me on-site provided a desk or sometimes an office.) My last full-time position was in an open office plan sitting next to people that literally (and I use that word literally) spent more time talking about the fucking Seahawks than they did working. * Daily stand-ups to justify my existence. * Treated like an interchangeable line worker. * Working on the cheapest Macbook Pro that Apple would sell the client. With a 120Gb drive, I spend at least a billable hour a week trying to free up space what with Android/iOS dev environments and the multi-gig simulator images. But, hey, at least they saved $100 on the cost of the machine! ------ themodelplumber Thought about it, and then tried it. I followed my dream and started a creative project that had been dogging me for a long time. EVERYBODY wanted me to do it. Family, friends, people on the street with whom I discussed it. I expected it to be a big moneymaker. And it didn't work out. Not only that, but it became very clear that it was a really poor fit for me on a fundamental level. I'm glad for the experience, though. Going back to programming, here's what I figured out: \- I was working on stuff I didn't enjoy, with people I didn't particularly care about. \- I was taking on new work projects without any particular selection criteria. \- I wasn't thinking about the kinds of work that got me excited about programming and chasing it down. So I recently nailed the first two back into place. I'm working closer to my values system rather than paychecks. In exchange, I'm just saving more money so I have more freedom. Anyway, burnout is real. I thought I was done for sure and that my interest in programming and computers was a thing of the past. But that was just the burnout talking. It helped to keep a journal during this time. Not a chronicle, but a thought- dump process in which I asked if my life was actually improving daily. That made it pretty quick to pinpoint my frustrations, as you can only write about the same pains a few times before you start to really zoom in on the causes and potential solutions. Good luck to you, however it turns out. ~~~ asmosoinio Care to elaborate on what kind of creative project? How long did you do it until you saw that there was no money in that? ------ JaumeGreen I left programming for dancing. I'd been working at the same job for about ten years, and I started to work on a different group that made the same product with a never technology. I hated that, I found it hard to work in that and I wasn't that productive. Also I had some burnout, some depression, and not much to look forward to... Except for dancing. I had begun some years prior and I became somewhat good, and I even began to teach. Then an offer came, resign from the job for money was offered to all, I accepted. For about two years I just gave classes and worked as staff. Unfortunately the money was not enough. Then I started helping on the dance school's webpage. The money wasn't enough yet. So I got a programming job and resigned from most of my job in the dance school. I just teach one hour a week. I really lost my dream job because of money and not being good enough earn enough to life with that. ~~~ truth_sentinell You could save money from your programming job and fund yourself a dancing academy. Or even better, find a way to mix the two. Never stop dreaming! ~~~ gcatalfamo I'm sorry but dancing is definitely not one of those professions where "if you believe you can do it". Depending on the specific dancing style there are strict body types and features that you need to have, and not all of them can be acquired by training. So yeah, nature is not fair but feel-good comedies don't always apply to real life. ~~~ JaumeGreen You have it right. Others have pointed to you that to dance you only need to be able to move, to that I agree. But between dancing and have a profession out of dancing there's a big difference. There are lots of reason why now I can't base my income in dancing, I'm telling them as to give a data point as to why it's not allways as easy as "if you want you can". First: I don't live alone anymore. Married with some obligations. My income needs have grown, even though there are two sources of income. Second: Physical activities require discipline, that I lack, and time, which is now spent on my "new" job, my partner and housework. Third: There are several possible incomes for dancing. None of them make the cut as a great source of income. * Payed exhibition dancing is usually done by younger and more talented people, also it's inconsistent income. Done a bit, enough not to find it feasible. * Competitions don't pay that much, lots of politics in there. * Teaching (which is what I love) doesn't pay much unless you have a name, with low salary you'd need lots of classes, but names teachers get most of them. * Staff work pays less than teaching, necessary for the school to function, but boring. Fourth: compatible schedules. Being with someone that lives in "the real world" means that working 15 to 23/24 is not seeing them (staff+classes+parties). That and money where the primary causes for my change of career. Priorities matter. Fifth: People tend to prefer tall, fit, young, handsome male dancers and short, fit, young, beatiful female dancers. Each point where you diverge it's a handicap, I have several. So yes, I could have kept on my dream job, but I would have to leave behind too many things that I need, like my SO, and would have to go back to living with flatmates. All that, in my early 40's, is not what I want of my life. "Never stop dreaming!", "if you believe you can do it" are nice phrases to throw at people, but you can cause them to lose their grounding in reality, where sometimes dreams have to be crushed for the greatest good. ~~~ marktangotango In the end, you gave it a shot, you chased the dream, and have good hard reasons why you gave it up. Be consoled with the knowledge that you tried, you would have never known if you had not tried! ------ WalterBright I did consider a career as a lion tamer, but the vocational guidance counselor said I was an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. So I decided to stick with programming. ~~~ kristianp Have you considered chartered accountancy? ~~~ chkywiz This is funny without even realising it's a Monty Python reference. ~~~ namaemuta For anyone wondering about this particular sketch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkFz1ZbXyU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkFz1ZbXyU) ------ JDiculous Yes, I want to do something more meaningful than build and maintain web CRUD apps. Despite the media perpetuating this notion that there's a shortage of engineers, I actually feel that this field, particularly the web space (where most of the actual jobs are), is starting to get really saturated. And from a job security perspective, the barriers to entry are fairly low. These days I'm most interested in economics and politics because I believe that our most important problems right now are in this realm (eg. poverty, job automation, healthcare costs, housing prices, college prices). The Javascript framework wars are laughably insignificant compared to these problems, yet unlike web development, there aren't enough logically-minded people really tackling these problems. Unfortunately there's probably no job out there that I could realistically obtain that would pay me to work on these problems, thus I'm just saving money for retirement and learning on the side. ~~~ ljw1001 This is an economic problem at heart. If you could find a way to make investing in, say, peace, or hunger, as tempting to investors as software we could solve the really important problems. ~~~ tim333 I'm kind of working on that stuff. Onwards... ------ oftenwrong Yes. I love programming, but I really dislike how inactive I must be to work as a programmer. I don't like sitting/standing all day, and being chained to the computer. Short activity breaks, and workouts in the morning and evening don't cut it. When I'm outdoors and active, I am so much happier. If I am on a multi-day outdoor trip to hike or rock climb, I feel like a completely different person. This is especially true on long trips that last more than a week. I have much less stress. I smile compulsively, instead of baring my usual strained expression. I have more energy. You might think at first that is simply because I am on vacation and I don't have to think about work obligations, but when I am on a normal (non-outdoor) type of vacation, I don't get the same feeling at all. I think it has more to do with the outdoor environment and physical activity. I recently met someone who works as a park ranger, and I became envious of her job. I would love to patrol the woods all day as a ranger, or to be a mail carrier walking from house to house. I make much more money as a programmer, but "money cannot buy happiness", and I wonder often if I should change course. ~~~ clentaminator I've considered both of those career switches (ranger and mail carrier) myself for those exact reasons. Deliveroo too, as the idea of being able to cycle around all day seems quite appealing. ------ SyneRyder I'm mostly happy with programming, but I often think I'd like to try working in a coffee shop, especially a Starbucks. I spend so much time in cafes as a customer, and I really appreciate the difference that a barista's smile or greeting can make to my day. I'm curious to experience that from the other side for a while. I also read books about retail businesses & brands & Starbucks & customer experience for enjoyment, but I'm sure practice is wildly different from theory, especially at ground level dealing with customers for long hours. But I've never tried applying, because I have no retail experience, and my work experience is mostly as a lone-wolf remote developer or indie developer (also I'm middle-aged now). Always thought I'd be laughed out of the interview. But I still think one day I'd like to try. ~~~ tantivy Barista-turned-programmer here. I was fond of it much of the time, and it was a good experience for me, and I think you would also like it based on what you've written. But keep in mind what you often don't notice from the outside is a lot of standard bullshit like mopping floors, keeping composure toward rude customers, worrying about food-handling/health provisions, etc. And, of many differences between the occupations, no longer being frequently treated like I'm dumb sticks out. Nonetheless, I say go for it. You would learn a ton and probably become the best kind of coffee snob, one who can back it up with chops ;) ~~~ tehwalrus I quite enjoyed working at Starbucks as a teenager, because it gave me a cool that a nerd like me hadn't had before. Careful about the drudge work though (especially cleaning floors/toilets at the end of the day), and if you're not used to spending all day on your feet you'll feel pretty sore at the end of the first few days! ------ karmajunkie I got kind of burned out after I got laid off at the tail end of the first dotcom implosion—I'd stayed in a really toxic environment for a couple of years too long because things were rough for a junior/early-mid-level developer back then, at least in my market. So I spent several months depressed and unemployed before deciding to go back to school which ultimately led me to preparations to go to med school. Ironically, I took a semester off and took a contract gig for a few months to pay off some bills and save up some cash, and that turned into a full time job writing software in the public health sector. I never did return to finish the undergrad, and have doubts I ever will, as my career in software has been about as good as medicine would have been when you balance the ten extra years of earnings against a slightly higher salary. The only reason I'd do it now would be to pursue a masters in something interesting. I think if I had it to do over again I'd have probably just stayed in the market a little longer and skipped out on the student loans. I loved biology and medicine but i'd love to not be paying off the student loans too. ------ sprocket I graduated with a degree in CPSC in the early 2000's and worked in the field for about 10 years before my wife and I moved to a more rural locale, bought a small herd of dairy goats, and started making cheese. It's a very different and difficult life, but on the whole is very rewarding. The money will never be the same as working in tech, and you'll almost certainly have to scale back your lifestyle expectations. I still do remote freelance work in slower periods to keep cash-flow flowing, and to fund farm expansion as we grow. Here's a fun video of my non-tech lifestyle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb0ur8cdOfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb0ur8cdOfY) More recently, I've been applying my past development experience to farming automation using Raspberry Pi's. I built an automated greenhouse controller last year and this year am working on a device to automatically mix and dispense milk replacer for all of the goat kids we have born each year. (You can of course purchase commercial versions of the projects, but it was a fun application of programming, while learning about the RPi and automation, which I'd never done before.) ~~~ digler999 random idea: why not open a hostel/retreat for programmers to come work on your farm for weeklong increments. Free room/board in exchange for 8hrs labor. Post videos of exactly what kind of work is awaiting them, and interviews of people who have tried it. You get free labor on your farm, and a passive "income" source, they get to step away from their burned-out, fluorescent-lit cubicles and actually get to try living as a farmer. A lot of people have this fantasy, so I suspect there would be a good-size market of people who would love to try it. ~~~ sprocket Honestly, I'd rather hire someone at a reasonable wage, train them, and turn them loose without my supervision, or spend 10k and automate part of my production, than have to supervise people. It's likely a bit different in dairying than it would be for something like vegetable production - I don't have lots of repetitive, low-skill tasks (sorry, vegetable farming people!) like weeding or harvesting that I could safely unleash untrained people upon. I have a hard enough time finding reliable paid help (and we're well above minimum wage); managing people with even less incentive to put in a day's work isn't that appealing. :) ------ abawany After a particularly terrible period at a large e-commerce company that comprised of endless and useless meetings, stupid product plans to nowhere, psychpaths galore, brutal waste of shareholder vale, and enough process to make Hell seem desirable, I decided that maybe I was not cut out for the original passion of my life, i.e. development. I started to take evening classes in accounting etc. with the aim of getting a CPA. I also left the above corporate Hades around that time and found a situation at a quirky startup, where I realized that software development is truly what I love, particularly when unencumbered by process feces. Off by the wayside went the CPA plan and I went on to learn more things in a year at that startup than I had in many years at other places. I also realized that leaving something that I have loved and lived since I was 13 is a little difficult and that the things that were causing my disillusionment were not related to my passion but to various unfortunate diseases that have come to afflict my industry. ------ pjmorris As we were driving to lunch one Friday, another programmer and I saw a backhoe in use, and started favorably comparing 'backhoe operator' to 'programmer': you get to work with heavy equipment, you can see the results of your work, when the day is done you go home and don't have to think about it. We laughed and cringed, as backhoe operator sounded like a better job by the time we were done. For me, I can't do anything else. I'm sure I could learn something else, and I certainly get burned out from time to time. However, I find the whole development process fascinating, I still get a kick out of solving the puzzles and making things work, I am deeply gratified to see something I made help someone else solve one of their problems, and code is affecting more and more of the population for better and worse. There's no place I'd rather be. There's a scene in 'Heat' where De Niro's criminal and Pacino's cop characters are talking about why they do what they do over a cup of coffee at a diner, and it turns out they're both compelled and couldn't do anything but what they do. I'm not sure what I'll do when the Butlerian jihadists or the twenty- something Angular developers come for me, and I have to go find something else to do, but I think I'll keep at it until then. ~~~ HeyLaughingBoy Wish I could remember where I saw it (reddit?) but just last week I read a comment from a backhoe operator that said basically, "it's fun for the first four or five hours then it's hours of tedium making sure you don't kill someone who's stupid enough to stand in the wrong spot." ~~~ mrfusion I'd love to create some kind of career swap service someday. Can you imagine signing up and trying all sorts of different jobs. ~~~ HeyLaughingBoy Gotta say that would be cool! ------ jamez1 Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business works, not just abstractions. Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on. ~~~ jxm262 Can I ask how you got started in the field? I actually began my career in Accounting (my undergrad is in it), and still find the world of finance pretty interesting. Somewhere along the line I ended up in Engineering and have been a Software Dev ever since. But I do still think about getting into trading at some point, but not sure how to transition. ~~~ CyberFonic How does an accountant end up in "engineering" without going back to Uni and doing an engineering degree? ~~~ herdrick The scare quotes are pretty condescending. How about removing them? ~~~ CyberFonic Condescending? Please explain why you see it like that. When you go to a doctor, you expect that they completed training and are certified to practice medicine. It is the same for the engineering profession. Would you want to work in a high rise building that was designed and built some self-titled engineers who have never been appropriately trained? ~~~ jchendy > It is the same for the engineering profession. In some countries it is that way. I know Canada is very strict about who can be called an engineer. In the US, it is not that way. AFAIK, there's no legal definition of an engineer, and anybody can call themselves an engineer. ~~~ jasonkester That's incorrect. In the US, you take the Engineer In Training (EIT) exam when you graduate university, then require 4 years of industry experience before you can sit the PE (Professional Engineer) exam. If you pass that, you can call yourself an Engineer. But that's only for actual Engineering disciplines. We in software don't need to take an "Engineer" test for the same reason we don't need to take a "Rock Star" test or "Ninja" test. We use the title as a courtesy, not an indication of qualification. ~~~ mbrock What would you call someone who's self-taught and mentored in the typical engineering practices (construction, repairs, engines, etc)? Why would some national laws about certifications prevent you from referring to such a person as an engineer? ~~~ jasonkester For four years, my business cards read "engineering". As in, does engineering work but cannot sign off on documents and thus is not an Engineer. I left for software before sitting the PE, so they'd read the same were I to return to doing Mechanical Engineering work. But of course it's silly to stand on principal on such things, so I've never taken offense to anybody calling themselves whatever they like. If the janitor can be an engineer, certainly anybody else can too. I imagine Architects feel the same way. And Cardiologists will as well, when we start appropriating their title. ~~~ Grishnakh You don't need a PE to call yourself an "engineer". Every working engineer calls himself an "engineer" on his resume. What you people are forgetting is the Industrial Exemption. Companies are allowed to call their employees engineers and use that word in their job titles because of the exemption. The PE thing really only applies to stuff like civil engineering projects. ------ mimming After years of software, I discovered that my favorite part of the job was teaching stuff to my peers. I started by dabbling in teaching: \- Mentored some high school robotics teams in the evenings \- Taught night school / weekend classes as adjunct faculty at local universities \- Shifted my day job from developer to developer advocate And then a few months ago I took the plunge... sort of. I went on sabbatical for a semester to teach CS 101 full time at a small university across the country. It's been a great experience, but it made me realize how much I miss programming. I really miss the intellectual growth that I get from working with professional software developers. I suspect I'll resolve the conflict by going part time in my day job, and picking up more classes as an adjunct. ~~~ tmsam For contrast, I went the other direction. I taught middle and high school math, then got an MS in math (really enjoyed TAing) and started programming. I really appreciate the intellectual stimulation; I love the fast pace with which ideas evolve in the community. But I miss being that teacher who helped someone "get" math. One of the coolest experiences I've had: one of my students managed to end up in my class for 6th, 7th and 8th grade math... Then 7 years later I hired her as an intern! She totally crushed the internship. Meaningful relationships with students like that, where they still check in occasionally and give me updates on how they are doing and tell me how I changed the way they see things... that is something I miss a lot. ~~~ paganel For what it's worth I still think pretty often of my high-school math teacher who helped me "get" Calculus, almost 20 years ago. I wouldn't have my current programmer job and interest in abstract things if it weren't for him. ------ Kiro No, I started my programming career late and have had many different jobs before that. Programming is the only job where I don't loathe being there and constantly watch the clock for the day to end. I think you should experience how horrible 99% of all other jobs are. Then you will truly appreciate what you have. ------ dbjacobs Was a programmer and researcher in AI and security for 20 years. 15 years ago was feeling burned out and started looking for a financial planner for my family. I fell down the rabbit hole learning everything about the field and with the birth of my third child 14 years ago, I quit my job and opened my own business as a financial planner. Programming and computer research went back to being a pure passion. And I haven't looked back since. ~~~ shostack How do you like it? Have a relative just starting in that field. Is it mostly sales because you are a service based business? And how does the fee structure work out? Better part than programming? ------ subinsebastien I have been mostly happy with programming in my early days. I’m now 28 years old, and been a programmer for the past 5 years. I mostly code Android apps, and sometimes server side code in Node/ExpressJS. For the past 1-2 years, I really want to change my career into more unique/niche fields of engineering. Programming, as I see it now, does not need a computer science degree or any degree at all, to do effectively. And people from other domains are getting into programming, and doing it a lot better than I do. I considered getting trained in Industrial Automation (PLC/SCADA/LABVIEW) and get into more mission critical domains, where I can work with lot of other Engineering domains as well. Another option I consider is to go for a masters in a niche engineering field. But as I analysed my thoughts, what I really (really) want is a unique engineering job, where the entry barrier for others is high. I don't have any idea if I could be a success in the new field. To conclude. - Programming is boring after a number of years - Programming is more of an art-form rather than engineering - Entry barrier for programming is low, so you don’t have to be an engineer to do programming - Your programming skills plateau after a certain age - Your engineering mindset will be lost if continued in certain type of programming jobs. ------ dcw303 About ten years ago I took a year off to teach English in Japan. Within a couple of months I was dying to go back to development. Trust me, even compared to other white collar jobs, you would _not believe_ how cushy we have it. ~~~ romanovcode Well to be honest teaching English in Japan is one of the worst careers you can choose. Competition is super stiff and pay is super low. I don't know what you was expecting. ~~~ dcw303 I never said career. But it pays better than other common working holiday jobs, like bartending. ------ gandolfinmyhead Sadly yes. It's been very frustrating at times. I thought of becoming an environment artist for videogames instead. Though OP hasn't asked for the following here goes, I feel the IT field has a lot of people wanting to change career paths, more than any other field because of the following: 1\. Programming is an art, if not done right and assuming the product is in continuous development, will come back to bite you in the rectum like there's no tomorrow. 2\. 99 percent of the industry is about shoving products out without any care for proper architecture or refactoring of any sort. Result -> feature addition/ bug fix times grow exponentially with time. 3\. The IT field has no concept of overtime pay 4\. 1 + 2 + 3 => loads of burnt out devs :-> people wanting to switch jobs regardless of how high paying programming can be ~~~ throwanem Points 1 and 2 can be a good thing, if you have the mental fortitude and cast- iron gullet to specialize in cleaning up other people's messes. There's a lot of money to be made that way. It doesn't tickle the artistic urge the same way greenfield development often can, but that's what creative hobbies are for - I write - and you can derive considerable satisfaction from the knowledge that you're bringing order from chaos, and being quite well paid and appreciated for it besides. ~~~ rfrey This is surprising and interesting... how do companies who do not value quality when the code is first written come to value quality later? I'd expect a pattern where the original thrower-of-spaghetti-against-the-wall has left, and management assumes the later devs - who can't go as fast, or get more bugs because of the holy mess of the codebase - are just not as good as the first guy. ~~~ throwanem > how do companies who do not value quality when the code is first written > come to value quality later? Not for nothing is it said that the burned hand teaches best. It also helps to avoid organizations where immediate management is nontechnical - not an absolute guarantee of sensible behavior, of course, but at the very least it's a good baseline to set. And it's hard for any manager, especially any manager accustomed to being on the hook and under the gun for the myriad problems with unmaintainable code, to get too upset when people start saying things like "wow, this is amazing, this never used to work before and now it does exactly what we need, thank you so much, you guys are awesome!" ------ cygned Call me crazy but I have always had this exit plan. If my business completely fails, I'd give away my stuff and live in buddhist temples, would visit Tibet, travel around and spend my days meditating and helping people. Sounds like an insane idea, but as a Buddhist that would be a fulfilled life for me. ~~~ awkward_yeti Me too, although I don't know how to go about doing this if need be, any tips ? ~~~ cygned I have a good five digit amount of cash prepared. That's enough to buy plane tickets and pay drivers to get where I want. I live in Europe and not far away from me is one of the largest European pagodas - even the Dalai Lama has been here. I'd just go there to start my journey. I could stay there for some time. Actually, I think it's like it is always with the Buddhism; the plan is not to have a plan. ------ segmondy A bit too late, but if I could do it all over again, I would have gone into health care. I have lot's of friend in the industry. Ask them about their day, they just saved lives - heart surgery, brain surgery, trauma stabilization in ER, just saw a toddler through cancer treatment, and so on and so forth. What did I do? Oh, I wrote code. ~~~ cloverich I came the other way -- I quit medicine (completed Medical school then did not do residency) for programming. I very much enjoyed the material and rigor but the day-to-day work ultimately left me feeling extremely bored and depressed. What I found in the field was it was incredibly bureaucratic, inefficient, and quite frequently unprofessional feeling. Depending on the hospital, many patients were sick because they outright didn't take care of themselves. Surgery is _much_ less precise than you'd imagine and depressingly impersonal. In the six week rotation I did in the pediatric ER, I saw extremely few cases where the treatment was actually urgent and made a difference (like I can count on one hand). I don't want to bash it too hard, because ultimately I just wasn't a good fit for it. It has its good parts and the social perception you get when you say "I'm a doctor" is real. But you are very much a cog and if you ever think you want to change (and you can, if you want) -- make sure you spend some real time shadowing the profession you think you'd go into. ~~~ digler999 I was interested in radiology after doing a contract development work for an X-Ray manufacturer. I thought "Hey, I'm young enough, lets check out the field and if its something that I really like, med school isnt completely out of the question", come to find out, the one slice of medicine that seemed appealing to me is among the top 5% of the most elite and selective practices to get into. Really disappointed me. Like, I get it, you have to be good enough to read films accurately so as not to kill anyone, but I disagree with the elitism. I mean, a bus driver also has hundreds of peoples' lives in his hands each day. ~~~ cloverich What's going on there has a lot to do with lifestyle. Some of the most challenging specialties (cardiovascular, neurosurgery) are understandably selective. But others (Radiology, Dermatology) have more to do with people wanting a good lifestyle. Those specialties which _may_ already have short hours, then strategically limit the amount of Doctors they let in to keep the supply low and the salaries high. Thus you get highly competitive specialties because of short hours and high pay. So if you've ever needed a Dermatologist, but struggled to get an appointment less than 6 months away... its not because nobody wants to do derm. Its because they don't _let_ many doctors do it. Its sad. ~~~ digler999 That is sad. So now the patient's $2000 MRI bill is at least partly due to Comcast-like monopolistic practices with both the equipment owner and the rads reading the films. And the dr's are incentivized to create their lucrative cartel to payback their $300k student-loans, which only cost that much because of...a cartel in medical schools (or at least certain residency specialties). I guess I wont feel too badly when Watson takes away all the rads'/ GP jobs (edit: GP's are good people, underpaid and overworked, I think it will be good when Watson liberates them to pursue more rewarding practices) ------ danaliv Constantly. I considered shepherding. (Seriously.) I spent some time on a farm during lambing season, which is busy, and I enjoyed it. But it's incredibly hard work, and you really have to be 100% dedicated to it. Plus I like traveling, and it's extremely difficult to leave a flock for any appreciable amount of time. I've thought about teaching (programming) too. My dad is a retired professor, and I entertain no delusions of present-day teaching careers being anything like those of his generation. Still, there's something appealing about even just teaching as an adjunct once I no longer really need the money. ------ Entangled Code is clay. What you do with it can make you a Michelangelo or a bricklayer. Sometimes it can make you good money, sometimes it becomes tedious in the wrong job. Still if you pursue other economic means of production, code is always a way to express your imagination, a nice hobby to have. ------ Jeaye I'm slowly working my way toward park ranger, though I've considered paramedic. Wood working also sounds interesting, and I'm great with my hands. Certainly, programming is my passion; having to do it under someone else's terms can spoil the deal though. ~~~ palerdot > having to do it under someone else's terms can spoil the deal though Exactly. This is my main gripe about programming. I will still be programming at some level as I age, but I don't see myself doing programming competitively after 35 considering the cut throat business needs of a 3rd person/entity for whom I will be programming. My best bet is to program for my own business, and then again money and profitability is a matter of concern and there is no better way to know than trying it out. ------ lucaspiller I like programming, but I don't really feel satisfied working as a programmer. While in college I worked in a supermarket, I found that a lot more satisfying that what I do now - I don't really know why, but I think I just like dealing with people (although I'm quite an introvert, I can do it if my job requires). As others have said programming is probably the lesser of all evils compared to other jobs though. I don't think there is any other profession where I could so easily get paid as much as I do, and work from pretty much anywhere on the planet. My mid-term goal is financial independence. I'm 28 and should achieve that in the next few years (I'll probably take short-term contracts and then a big break between rather than quitting completely). I don't really have any other hobbies, so I'm not sure what I'll do then though. I wouldn't mind going back to university to study physics. ------ amerkhalid I love programming especially solving difficult problems. But sometimes I fanatize about being a professional photographer or a writer. These 2 professions seem perfect to me. Perhaps because they provide freedom to work from anywhere, and be creative. When I was pursing these professions semi- seriously, almost everything around me was an inspiration or a creative idea; movies, driving, conversations, food, advertisements, etc. About a year ago, I started portrait photography semi-profesisonally. I really enjoy photography but didn't enjoy the business aspect of it. And it was hard to coordinate with clients when you have a fulltime job. A few years ago, I got serious about fiction writing, wrote a lot but could not write anything that I felt was good enough for anyone to see. Now I am just focused on programming and enjoy photogrpahy when I have free time. ------ stunthamsterio Writing. I love writing, I've published a couple of technical manuals and I'm currently submitting to various short story anthologies whilst working on another (Self published) manual. Writing leaves me happy and fulfilled and generally free of stress. Trouble is, it does not pay the bills. I'm currently working very hard to pay off all my debt and once that's done I'll be taking up writing full time and leaving the tech industry behind. ~~~ luxpir Share what you've written! Hats off to you. Can't quite make that kind of leap myself, but trying to get a body of work made up for business and pleasure. ~~~ stunthamsterio The two technical manuals are Puppet Reporting and Monitoring, and the DevOps automation cookbook. I had fun writing the puppet book, but the second was for various reasons not as fun to write. That being said, it was still more enjoyable than my day job! ------ santaclaus Mechanical Engineering -- I work through a different mechanics textbook once a year, or so, for fun. I think I enjoy the theory of how the physical world works more than the practice, which keeps me where I am. :) ~~~ akhaku I sort of went the other direction. Went to school for mechanical engineering, near the end of it I realized that software development was kind of fun too. As much fun as it is to work with free body diagrams and simulate control systems in Matlab (SimuLink), the development and iteration cycle with physical product is a lot longer, and you end up spending months designing eg a ball bearing. On the other hand, with software, you can get a lot further a lot faster, and it becomes a constant cycle of near-instant gratification. ------ manoj_venkat92 I love programming and am also part of a start-up developing a cutting-edge computer vision tech. I have learnt a lot of concepts by learning programming that can be applied to many real world problems as well. I desperately want to work in Renewable energy sector like Solar, Wind. And the best part, my idol, Elon Musky Musk has applied the concepts that we programmers deal with in day-to-day life to producing machines that produce machines that are currently some of the best solutions to the problems like Global Warming, Energy storage & Electric cars manufacturing etc. This part really gives me kicks. Even though, I think about leaving programming may be in 10 years(I'm currently 24), but the concepts I learnt are going to come in super-handy what ever Engineering things I'd like to do. ------ skykooler I'd like to do something that does not involve looking at screens all the time. As it is, I'm stuck with my one skill that's highly valued until I can finish paying off my loans. ~~~ pimlottc Yeah, this is a feeling I have as well. Unfortunately pretty much any professional career involves long hours in front of a screen these days. ------ iamthepieman Teaching. But the money difference is so ridiculous that I would have to go back in time and make every financial decision differently for the past ten years including having less children in order to afford it. Instead I have taken second jobs coaching at a gym, volunteered for hour of code and other programs at my local library and started teaching Sunday school at my church. ~~~ alphydan If you are willing to teach and relocate a few years there are international schools which pay 80k - $90k (Asia, Middle East, certain rich islands). Don't underestimate how demanding it is though. I've done both and coding is a breeze compared to teaching. ------ no_protocol Anything involving pragmatic problem solving. Keep the mind occupied with varied tasks and satisfied by frequently delivering solutions. Skip the intricacies and subtleties of dealing with software. There are so many people performing repetitive tasks who could benefit greatly from relatively small optimizations. I would be able to directly witness the impact of my work and make a difference on a personal level. It's hard to do this in software because the landscape changes so quickly. It would also be super fun to practice apprentice-style learning in multiple fields and document/share everything. ------ mindcrime A few years ago, I briefly considered going back to school, getting a degree in Exercise & Sports Science, and getting into athletic training. But in the end, I could never quite convince myself to do it, and the moment passed. I also flirted with the idea of becoming a private detective a couple of times in my life. I actually still find that idea somewhat interesting, but I doubt I'd ever make the money doing that, that I make in software. And here in NC the training requirements to become licensed are somewhat onerous, so I doubt I'll ever pursue it. ~~~ CyberFonic Private investigators with a good grasp of IT are very rare and white collar crimes, etc are rife. As for the training, much of it is common sense and not above the levels required to get a degree in any other field. ~~~ mindcrime _as for the training, much of it is common sense and not above the levels required to get a degree in any other field_ Arguably true, but at my age, it's more effort than I'd be willing to put in at this point. Had I done it when I was younger, it might have been a good thing, but I think the time for that has passed. Of course I could always move to a state that doesn't even require a license to be a PI. There are a couple of them out there. ------ stevekemp In moments of madness I've considered both locksmithing and plumbing. Both are jobs that cannot be outsourced, and which SEO can be useful for. That said I'm a sysadmin rather than a programmer, and I have no immediate plans to change. One thing I would not do is become a photographer; that's my hobby (well that and rock-climbing / gyming), and I've seen too many people be burned by trying to become professionals. I charge money to shoot old ladies, hookers, and pets. But having to make a living from it would change how I viewed the subject and not in a good way. ~~~ shostack Somehow I feel like locksmithing and plumbing are metaphors for aspects of programming. BTW, photography is a great hobby, but doing it for a living entails very different skills, mostly of the sales and marketing variety. ~~~ stevekemp Indeed that's exactly why I'd not want to do it full-time! I do it frequently enough to make me happy, and I'm lucky enough to get paid for it, in my small niches. But I've no interest in the rest of the stuff that I'd have to do if I needed to fund my life (rather just fund new camera- toys/lighting gear every month or two.) ------ uniclaude I believe a lot of us here on HN would consider leaving programming for doing business. A lot (including myself) already did. Programming being very often about solving business needs, sometime in your career, you might be in a position to realize that it could make sense to go higher up the chain and build a company. ~~~ dvrajan Indeed. Having started a business yourself. What do you think programmers should learn/know before make this feat. ~~~ uniclaude IMHO, that will depend on the type of business, but getting basic understanding of sales (like, actual deal closing), marketing, and hiring are crucial no matter what. Even if you plan to bring co-founders on board, understanding the basics of what they do goes a long way establishing trust. Another thing, which is not a skill, is to understand that techcrunch is not a fair representation of the tech world (& neither is HN), and that building a business is not about making the frontpage, it is about bringing solutions to problems so painful that people are willing to pay you for it. ------ gnclmorais Every day. I’m a bit jealous of all my friends with professions that don’t require any of their free time. They can have all kinds of hobbies and spend their free time doing whatever they want. ~~~ HelloYouPerson Seriously, change company. ------ j1vms Want to know really the _only_ thing all of us have in common today? We're all alive. Think about it. Tomorrow for at least one or more of us, that may not be the case. Despite many great comments from those in the profession or not, go with your gut instinct. When you get to the point where you are thinking of leaving what you do for something else, it doesn't matter whether or not other people got to the same point. Trust your gut and go with it. Usually, it knows what's best for you. ------ nathanvanfleet I always wanted to make films. Probably specifically small documentaries about people and sub cultures. But I never really saw that as a profession or much of an option. And ultimately I never really put a tonne of effort into it. I had talked to a few people who I thought were interesting subjects, but they backed out and I realized I didn't have the skills to try and rope them in and get them to do it (in a nice way). Maybe it's just because I don't have very many friends in that field that would support me. On top of that I think I'd like to own a cafe or roast coffee or something. But ultimately I got into development work because I was so motivated that the time it took to build experience on my own came easy. And doing the work day in and day out comes _pretty_ easy as well. Though of course sometimes your interest wanes a little. But I know that it's a lot more satisfying than any job I've ever had. And I haven't thought much about others that I hear about. In addition to that I just honestly don't think I'd make as much money anywhere else. So as long as I'm into it and it's the best place to make money, I don't see why I wouldn't keep at it. I just hope I can try to do my other interests in my off time, which over time has become a lot harder than it felt previously. ------ wanda I love programming. Even if I still had to use Perl I still wouldn't give it up. Admittedly that's because I _like_ Perl, but I also freely admit I'm more productive with full-stack JavaScript. That said, I wouldn't mind writing about programming, but I can't afford to stop my day job. I'd love to write an ebook on JavaScript, a spiritual successor to Marijn Haverbeke's _Eloquent JavaScript_ but using ES6/ES7. Maybe also a book effectively about making your own JavaScript framework — beginning as a way to build a simple website or MVP without jumping on a framework bandwagon. The book would later develop into a cautionary tale, warning against reinventing existing frameworks like Angular or Ember. All culminating in a sober recommendation to choose vanilla JavaScript and direct DOM manipulation for simple websites and MVPs; later upgrading to React and Redux for a large-scale, client-side applications, esp. if a team is involved. I'd also like to write an ebook about CSS and how to use it effectively — not as in "pure CSS solution to problem _x_ which is actually in JavaScript's domain" rather "CSS doesn't work like that, it works like this, see?" Maybe also a series of primers: CORS, React, ES6, CSS, 60fps animation/UI on the web, web accessibility... ~~~ weavie > That said, I wouldn't mind writing about programming, but I can't afford to > stop my day job. What's stopping you getting started in your spare time? Even an hour a day in the evenings will add up. You have a lot of good ideas, but they aren't going to write themselves! :-) ~~~ wanda I'm married. What spare time I do have is inevitably eroded by wanting to spend time with my partner. What remains is not easily used for writing a coherent book. ------ tobz I've thought about going back to school to get a Mechanical Engineering degree, or Chemical Engineering degree. I grew up with my father being a machinist, and eventually going on to being a QA specialist for a large defense contractor, so I've be lucky enough to be able to learn a lot when it comes to machining and designing. Spitting out a 3D design from a printer is really cool, but nothing beats slapping a chunk of steel into a Bridgeport and ending up with a precisely-milled widget. My wife is also an engineer at one of the largest (probably largest) physical testing companies in the world, and got her Chemical Engineering degree as well. There's constantly stuff she's telling me about, problems at work, custom things she's doing, and we get pretty deep into conversation sometimes about how to best solve the problems. The money just isn't there compared to being a software engineer, but like a lot of people have said in this thread, maybe this is just a "grass is greener" thing: these problems that I can't work on just seem that more tantalizing than being the person who is actually dealing with a backlog of them. Vacationing in other people's jobs is fun and easy, and ignores actually being that employee. ------ clarry I've had programming as a lifelong hobby, and in my teens I thought it'd be my profession. But then I realized I don't really care for what the industry is doing, figured I'd have a very hard time finding a software job I'd like.. so I went on to pick up a new skill. I became a machinist. In hindsight, I regret it, because most machining jobs are too simplistic and repetitive to satisfy my intellectual curiosity (simply doing the same thing over and over again fast and making few mistakes matters more) and the good ones are hard to get into. So now I'm looking to get into software, where even the average job will probably suck less for me. Problem is it's hard to sell myself to an employer with no degree, no job experience, no portfolio of projects done using the fashionable tech that is in high demand (and which I have no personal interest in). At this point I'm at a crossroads, but the best way forward seems to be to start building my own business. Of course, there are plenty of unknown intersections ahead in going that route, and I have no prior experience from running a business, so where I end up is one big question mark. ~~~ nogbit What exactly are you programming then? There must be something somewhere using the domain and language that you know. ------ Tiktaalik I definitely have. I enjoy programming and I think I'm pretty good at my job, but I can't help but think that maybe there's something out there. A lot of my most compelling business ideas I've ever come up with haven't been apps or anything I could start programming right away, but rather have been totally different brick and mortar retail businesses. Opening a retail business is something I've thought about doing for a while, but I looked into some of the details and was somewhat turned off by the extremely high startup costs. I simply wouldn't be able to afford it without some partners. One of my largest interests nowadays isn't software, but rather cities and urban planning. The idea of designing city features that would have a real, dramatic impact on people's every day lives is really compelling to me. I've thought about taking a break from software and working in this area, but at this point I really don't know if going back to school for this stuff is worth it at all. It's unfortunate that I hadn't discovered I was so interested in this topic when I was in highschool or early university. ~~~ Synroc I feel the same pull towards cities and urban planning. I've been thinking about how best to combine programming, data analysis and urban planning, but apart from data visualization of city data, it's quite difficult without being actually involved with the local government. I've thought about potentially starting a consultancy for cities, in which I could work with cities, by analyzing their data for insights and future projects. ------ dotdi I am in a similar position as david927, working in a good environment, good colleagues, good pay. I actually have a degree in molecular biology and have transitioned to computer science and an engineering degree, which I think was the right choice for me. I thoroughly enjoy being an engineer but lately I can't help but being drawn towards the arts - music in my case. I have been eye-balling a music academy that offers a state accredited professional guitar degree. According to their information material, their alums are quite sought after because of the hands-on approach, studio skills, etc. I looked at the requirements for admission and I am pretty sure I can get admitted with some preparation, having played on and off for quite a few years now. The catch here is that music industry is __actual shit __to work in, as I have heard on multiple occasions. And I cannot afford making less than a certain amount of $$ because I have to /want to provide for my wife and two kids. On the other hand I started having the (completely irrational) fear of being a complete failure if I don't become a professional guitarist. ------ tixocloud I started off as a software engineer for 2 years but began to explore the business side of things. I moved into designing/building systems for business analysis (i.e. data warehousing, reporting, analytics, etc.), did strategy consulting for insurance and financial services as well as studied for my MBA. I'm now in charge of leading the analytics initiatives for our credit card business. I'm still in touch with my programming side through my side projects but the experience I gained through my software development years have been extremely helpful both in dealing with business & technical audiences as well as in solving problems logically. The main point is that the programming skills you've learned can be useful in another setting. Starting off as a programmer doesn't mean that you will have to do it for the rest of your life. You have many different choices and it's up to you to shape your career the way you want it. ------ wkoszek It's interesting how many of you guys have other interests, but stick to programming since it solves a paycheck problem. ~~~ cycomachead On the whole, I think a lot of us really do enjoy coding and it's hard to overestimate how freeing financial security is. It's that security that enables other hobbies, too. I personally enjoy having at least some interests (mainly coffee and photography) that I can pursue without having to worry about costs. If I ever leave programming, I'd probably take one of those up, but I'm afraid the financial support requirements would diminish my enjoyment some. (Sometimes, I want to work on side projects but after programming for 40 hours a week, enough is enough...) I am though considering opening a coffee cart -- but not to make money. Opening a coffee cart sounds fun precisely because I wouldn't need to worry about profitability and I could just focus on providing something tasty and meeting people. ~~~ wkoszek Your coffee idea, I'm scared to admit, might be both a good business and fun project. Good coffee place across the street is next to my company. They have decent donuts. I go and spend $3.65 there, most of the working days. This is basically like getting $70/mo subscription service--the thing, the most of SaaS startups would kill for. And I now it's not wise monetarily, but I still go there. ------ fastcars I hate programming as a job. Spending all day sitting at a computer with little human interaction outside of the person next to me and having to concentrate for hours on hard problems is really bad for my mental health. Most programmers seem to either burn out, or spend their day trying to avoid programming by going to meetings and so on. There is also an extreme amount of micromanagement at my current job. I just get very specific issues and then resolve them. There is no autonomy. The project manager just sees me as a typewriter for his novel. Jobs where I have been physically active and interacted with a bunch of different people that I don't work with have been much better in terms of my mental and physical health. I am thinking of dropping down to part-time as I could manage 4 hours per day of programming, and maybe getting a physical job as the other 4 hours. ~~~ VLM My father never really retired, he just took longer breaks between shorter jobs. In between he toured national parks. Obviously for financial/economic system reasons this isn't open to people anymore, think of the cost of medical insurance or cost of real estate, it was much easier to be independently wealthy in the 80s/90s (for a small enough value of wealthy of course). But something similar could probably still be arranged today, somehow. Another thing to think about is not all programming jobs are excruciatingly boring. Boring jobs should pay a substantial premium to be staffed such that you can afford mental health vacations each weekend of arbitrary expense, to recover. Also in my starving student days I worked some physical labor jobs that were as excruciatingly boring as your description implies for programming. You feel physically better and more energized if you move more, but you'll be just as mentally bored. ------ JshWright I'm a part-time paramedic. I'd go full time in a heartbeat if it paid well enough to feed my family... ------ niclupien First time I quit programming, burned out, went working on a friend's farm. After some times, I felt much more valuable helping them with computers/website/payment processing problems. Didn't took long, I was back in programming. Second time, I took some time to execute on a non profit to help our local community. Being good with data really help organizing event people really liked so I tried to spin that into a startup and failed. Like other commenters said, I was doing stuff I didn't really like. I'm back to programming but I'm really glad I tried different things. Not everything was a failure, I eat fresh organic food from my friend's farm and I have an impact on my local community. ------ biztos I enjoy programming, and I count myself lucky to have a good, well-paying job in an industry that is unlikely to run out of work for the likes of me. However, I originally set out to become a visual artist. While I doubt I'd be able to pull that off as a career now, I would still much prefer to be doing something in that world rather than instructing machines for the Man. I often think about "transitioning" but so far I haven't found a path (you pretty much have to self-finance), and remain an "artist with a day career." If anybody is seriously thinking about another profession, and is under 30, I strongly encourage you to give it a shot. It gets exponentially harder once you pass 40. ------ aiokos Writing, honestly. I get absorbed into stringing words into entire worlds, complete with flowery descriptions and characters of my choosing. I find that I can write anywhere, be it on laptop or paper, so it affords me more movement than programming. It's not that I want something more creative than programming, I consider programming to be equal parts art and skill. I want something more flexible, not tied to a company that requires me to work in ways that I don't find productive (looking at you stand ups). However, for now I'll be following the money and writing on the side, although it does get draining to split most of my day's effort into two creative professions. ~~~ wkoszek I like to write too, but most of non-fiction authors don't really make $$$. ------ jimcsharp Every day of my working life. I am not sure that's not just my depression talking though - maybe I won't be happy in any job. ------ mgarfias If I could earn what I do building things with my hands, I would do It in a heartbeat ------ ninjaroar Yes. My goal is to reach $10 million net worth (so I am no longer dependant on income to survive - yes, I can live more cheaply, but my favorite cities happen to be the most expensive). Then, I would retire from the industry and focus on doing computer generated art and sculpture. That would let me stay in software, but let me be creative (I don't want 'creatives' to design thing, as if they were a different species - I'm creative myself!). No scrums (aka micromanagement), no testing, no bureaucratic processes or anything like that - I would just spend all my time creating. ~~~ jyriand $10 million sound a lot to me. How do you plan to reach you goal if you don't mind me asking? ------ iends I think about law school or an MBA at least once a week. The opportunity cost is extremely high though. It's pretty hard leaving six figures of income in a low cost of living (and the grass is always greener I'm sure). ~~~ ryandrake Did the MBA thing, didn't manage to land an MBA job so I'm back in tech, six figures poorer. It's not a slam dunk by any means, and yes the opportunity cost stings as much as the sticker price. ~~~ wkoszek Which MBA program did you do? ------ Delmania I think about this a lot. I truly enjoy coding, it's definitely a fun activity. What I don't enjoy the most is the belief that your work experience is secondary. If you can't pass a coding interview, you don't have an active Github account, and you don't blog regularly, some companies won't take a second look at you, even if you have a proven record of success. I personally admire what jwz did, turning his technically skills into something that supported a venue he really enjoys (DNAPizza and DNALounge). ------ jitix Back home in India I used to work for one of the big IT services company in a support/maintenance project. Due to the bureaucracy, lack of innovation and the general self-righteous attitude at the company I used to think that all software development jobs are like that. I wanted to get out of the entire industry once my two year bonded term was over. Once I left and ended up joining a small startup, I then realized that all programming jobs aren't like that and working on even enterprise software can be fun. Never looked back. ~~~ bjornlouser "I wanted to get out of the entire industry once my two year bonded term was over." Can you give any details about the terms of the contract you signed? IT in India is not 'at-will'? ------ geekster777 Yes! I'm graduating school in a month, and I've already considered this. I have a couple years of prior industry experience, though. I love the challenges, but I ultimately feel unfulfilled by writing code. It's something I can do happily for five, maybe ten years, but not for thirty-five. So recently I've been planning to fund a creative life by saving like a college kid for a decade. The prospect's actually led to a heavy side interest into finance. There are tons of resources on early retirement and financial independence floating around, as well as other ways to create passive income. Based on my starting salary, I'll likely be able to supplement a new career within a decade. As for what I would do, I'm looking into making music, writing books, and chemistry. Been keeping a journal of book ideas for a few months - challenged myself to write a new one every day - so that I can choose the best ones to practice writing once I get some downtime. I've been playing guitar for over ten years, and I love the production of music. It would likely be recreational, but I want the ability to produce professional quality songs. And chemistry is the moon I shoot for. It's what I've enjoyed learning most in school, so learning and understanding as much of it as I can will bring me great satisfaction. ~~~ oriel I recently flipped off my code-as-hobby switch and went into writing myself. It was a gradual thing, but after a few months of dumping ideas I moved to writing prompts (like those in /r/writingprompts). I challenged myself to write one a week. then two. Now I find myself participating in NaNoWriMo, which appeared out of nowhere, and the writing comes almost naturally. Best lesson I've take from it is to push through and finish something, starting with smaller bites (blurbs, then stories, then books :) ------ brighteyes If I could make a good living off my music, I'd seriously consider it. But that's unlikely. ~~~ julioneander I'm on the same boat. Music is my main passion, IT is my second passion. I simply had to start working with IT. My parents were unemployed at the time and things were rough. My first job offered good pay and allowed us to survive the storm. After my parents got re-employed, I continued working and advanced my career. With the money I bought a car (my other passion), built a home studio, and now I'm rebuilding the whole house. I guess I became too attached to having financial security and the nice things it brings. But I don't plan on letting my main passion die, I still have a rehearsal scheduled today after work! ------ Unbeliever69 I came from the complete opposite direction. I actually learned programming in BASIC on an Apple II computer in a community education course at my local middle school back in 1980. Programming was a big part of my life for the next 5-10 years, until I fell into other career and education opportunities. It went something like this... Drafter --> Teacher --> Education in Industrial Design --> Ux Designer --> Teacher --> Ux Designer --> Programmer. During this timeline of about 30 years I never stopped programming as a hobby. I HATED the politics of teaching (which I did for nearly 20 years) but it paid the bills. Ux...well, everywhere I designed, I felt expendable and, like education, it was highly political. For many decades I felt like there was a big hole in my life. I wasn't happy. Then...I decided "F it!" and dropped it all to pursue programming as a career. While it hasn't been bliss, I am much happier. I am not inclined to slave away as a hired gun. Programming has been a way to express my ideas in a way that I was never able before. At 47 years old I feel like I'm preparing for a trip to the base camp at Mt. Everest. I figure that by time I hit the summit I'll be ready to retire, but I WILL retire on such a high note. Maybe I'll die on the summit :) ------ manyxcxi If I could make a much money as I do now, I still don't think I'd choose something else. If I did it would probably be, in order: \- Robotics (more on the hardware side) \- Woodworking \- Custom motorcycle/classic car building and restoration The common theme for me is the creative problem solving, building things in general, and attention to detail/craftsmanship specifically that maintain my attention. As it is those are all hobbies of mine, so I still get to dabble while making a good living doing another thing I really love. ------ bbarn Like some dozen others here, if it weren't for the money.. sure, I'd run a bike shop, with a frame building shop in the back room. As careers go though, what we do is interesting, ever changing, and an exercise in learning almost every day. Oh, and the pay kicks ass. So, yeah, I've thought it. Lots of us think it all the time, but really, we've got a great job, so while the grass may be greener over there, it's pretty green here too. ~~~ dvrajan I agree. The grass is pretty damn green here. I think programming has taught us to think and solve problems. I cant wait to see a world where programmers apply their problem solving skills in other domains and make great leaps. ------ JeanSebTr I did not stop programming but I got a dramatically different job of what I had before. You didn't say why you're curious for that question, that might be like me simply for the need to change. Even with a gratifying job full of technical challenges, I feared I was becoming a 9to5 zombie. So, I got a new job a few weeks ago. I joined a non profit offering free WiFi in the city as the one man army tech guy. Instead of just software/web/mobile development, I also have kind of managerial type of responsibility and more public relation to do. It's something like a safe steady job with nearly startup mindset. There's still a bit of programming involved, but it's so different from what I know that it's a real professional challenge. And for that I had to accept a big salary downgrade. It really depends on what's your motivation. Is it salary, challenges that go in pair with your personal growth or simply working in a different context / mindset? That may be the tasks you do that aren't fulfilling? For some people, manual work is really gratifying. Last week I was setting new cables in a patch panel; there's nothing challenging about it but it's simple and you can be proud of a cleanly done job. ------ baccheion Not really, but it could easily be the case that most programming jobs suck. That is, it was clear to me from a young age that programming was my favorite thing to do, but the mundane, backward, pointless, political, and/or stupid nature of most jobs can make things unbearable. My solution was to eventually either become a consultant/freelancer, or create my own startup. When I then realized that a tech lead (Staff Software Engineer) spends about as much time doing manager-related tasks as they do developing software, and that a Senior Staff Software Engineer or Principal Engineer is essentially a manager (almost no coding), I knew my days dealing with corporate world BS were numbered. My plan didn't really fall into place, as I became a Targeted Individual (likely at the hand of one of the idiots managers I had to deal with) 2-3 years after graduating from college. That BS left me sitting in this room for the last 5-6 years being harassed all day long. After a few years of the torture, I was pretty much done working, as I was now unemployed for too long a period of time, my intelligence and reasoning ability were waning away, and the harassing/intrusive thoughts were still present and were still getting in the way. ~~~ NobleLie Would you mind explaining what you mean by targeted individual? Did you do something to attract someones attention in a really negative way? How did this come about through programming? ~~~ baccheion [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=targeted+indi...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=targeted+individual&defid=8477443) Most end up saying I have some sort mental illness (Paranoid Schizophrenia, usually) and am imagining everything. I'm not sure what was the cause of me being in this situation, but I had to deal with enough idiots and idiot managers along the way that I'm not entirely surprised. Based on information available online, it seems TIs are usually whistleblowers, activists, minorities, LGBT, women, and/or people with good morals. They are also usually smart. That is, it seems to be something done to people out of jealousy/envy, or because they seemed like a threat. At the end of the day I'm not sure what started it all, but I strongly suspect it was the idiot manager I had while at my first job out of school (the place was rated one of the 50 worst companies to work for by Glassdoor). The puzzling thing was that the workplace harassment portion continued at the next job. I don't know how anyone would be dumb enough to keep it going like that. ~~~ digler999 > the workplace harassment portion continued at the next job Occam's razor: Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. ------ robynsmith I'm a huge fan of this essay: Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Software ---> [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/) I prefer not to call myself a programmer, although it's a decent way of describing what I do. I create [value] and solve problems. I used to this by fixing hard datacenter problems as an IT/Ops person, and now I do it as a Full Stack Web Developer. The creating things / solving problems mindset is what is really important to me. Programming is just one interesting "medium" to do this in. I could see myself creating things and solving problems in other profession. One that I thought heavily about is medicine, law, and writing. I think there are many possible places you can do this in life - it's just a matter of picking a medium you enjoy. If you need to work on something else, then you can always pick it up as a side project or hobby. I used to find philosophy fascinating. I spent probably a decade of my life reading it as a hobby. Part of me wanted to go back to school or somehow figure out a way to learn it/do it professionally...but I honestly got what I needed out of the hobby. Now I've moved onto other things. ANYWAY. If programming made me miserable, I'd consider getting a second degree in psychology and perhaps doing a ph.d eventually. Or maybe go into management. Or maybe go into medicine. Go with the flow or something. ------ 20years Yes and did to some degree when I left a captive software dev position and started my own business. Still involves lots of programming but mixed with a ton of other things. I sometimes day dream though about doing something outside of software such as landscaping or remodeling houses. Something I can do away from the screen & keyboard. Something that still involves creating and being able to see the end results of your creation. ------ rurban I did it a couple of times and always came back. I started as programmer in school, but decided you don't need to study it. It's easier to learn it by your own. Then I became architect, but mostly automated my problems and solutions. After architecture became tiring, without enough pay, I went to more engineering jobs. Survey, civil engineering, city planning and finally stage design and film. This was all fun and got well paid, but I ended up as director of SW development soon after. After this was not fun anymore I went into hard core engineering, Formula 1 HW/SW simulation and support, but in the end I did more SW development than HW support. HW is always tricky and unreliable. SW is much more logical and reliable, much easier to analyze. And you are not that dependent on others. In SW it's easy to solve everything by yourself on 10x less time than waiting a year for someone else to approve something or until this piece is replaced. So I went to full time SW work again, even if I still do work a lot on movies also. This is just for fun, helping out, going to festivals and such. ------ danso I went into college for computer engineering but immediately double-majored in journalism (my first love in school) and didn't even bother looking for an engineering job after graduation (though I did fail a Microsoft interview). Today I do both but I'm _extremely_ thankful I stuck with programming. Not just as a useful job skill but as a different, powerful way to see the world. ------ kidmenot I thought about it so many times I lost count. My dream is writing for a living, and I'm currently writing the first draft of a novel. I'm about 1/5 of the way there, began a couple of weeks ago. I've tried a few other times, but couldn't get past the first few chapters. I'm now at 18k words and going strong, I hope this will be the one. ------ rmathew Jamie Zawinski[0] gave up professional programming[1] to manage a lounge[2]. 0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski) 1\. www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html 2\. www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/1998-1999.html Edit: jwz hates HN; made the links non-clickable. Thanks @Jtsummers. ~~~ Jtsummers Be aware, jwz.org used to (accidentally verified a month ago) have a rather NSFW image that it would redirect you to if you were linked to the site from HN. Copy/paste that link, don't click on it. ------ benjismith I always wanted to be a full-time fiction author. Eventually, a few years ago, I started a company to make software for fiction authors. Best of both worlds! ------ magpiefabric The thought flashes by every now and then. I haven't been doing this for very long (~2 years professionally) but I've already started to see little glimpses of burnout on the horizon and plan on working in a proper break from work at some point. I can't say for definite what I'd do. Music's always been a side passion and I'm attracted to the idea of getting back into music production. I studied it briefly back in college (UK, so I guess high school?) but I don't think my heart was really in anything back then so I let it slip through my fingers. For some reason I also sometimes get these day dreams of working in a market food stand. I can't see how i'd enjoy it considering how disdainful I was of my youth working in retail, but cooking is another little passion of mine so maybe i'd dig it, even if it felt a bit like an step down. ------ rifung Yes and I still do. Nowadays I mainly just want to do research in Math/Theoretical Computer Science, but before I also considered becoming a chef or piano teacher. I should have realized it back then but I enjoyed CS in college much more than software engineering in industry and I miss the difficulty and rigor of the problems. ------ hermitcrab No. I have been programming professionally for the last 30 years and I still enjoy it. I did get a bit fed of working for other people though. So I set up as an independent, selling my own software products ([http://www.perfecttableplan.com](http://www.perfecttableplan.com) and [http://www.hyperplan.com](http://www.hyperplan.com)) 11 years ago and never looked back. It was financially hard for the first 12 months, but now it pays better than I ever did in a permanent job. I probably spend about half my time programming now and the rest doing marketing and support. I don't have any meetings and no management BS. The biggest downside is having to take a laptop on holiday. But that seems a small price to pay for the freedom and lifestyle. ------ mellett68 I think about it often, but I assume it's some kind of burnout. None of my hobbies would translate into even my current pay level. There's that nagging idea of the 'real programmer' who is getting paid big money to solve interesting problems. Almost certainly a myth but still a frustrating idea. ~~~ biztos Depending on what you think big money is, and what problems you find interesting, I'd say that's probably not a myth. If that's what you aspire to I suggest getting involved in solving interesting problems -- there are a lot of them in the open-source world too -- and once you have a reputation in the interesting-problem world you stand a pretty good chance of getting offers from the big-money people. ------ porker I did [0], but after that I reassessed, relaxed, decided not to push so hard... and raised my rates. It's a job, and like any job it sucks (hugely) at times. It also provides money to keep my family, and I get to work on interesting, brain-teasing problems (sometimes! Damn web development). Frankly, I'm not good at thinking what I'd do until I'm doing it. If I did something else it'd be one of: Research scientist University lecturer R&D Psychologist Photographer I already had the option of a career as a photographer (back before the market tanked, which I saw coming) and classical musician. I'm (mostly) glad I chose neither. 0\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169937) ------ gressquel Yes, Yes and yes! I consider myself a quicklearner. I am 28, been working as .NET consultant but know the other languages such as javascript/node, php, swift, java. Paid well, but I cant help feeling like I was meant to do something else. I wish I could use my brain capacity to help other people. UNICEF, UN or other NGO. I believe technology can have massive impact on countries which lags behind the "western" standards. I wish I could be part of a program to help out people with the use of technology. This feeling is so intense, I wouldnt be surprised if I quit my job tomorrow. I am not scared of leaving my country (Norway) if there was a great opportunity to work abroad. Dont really know where to start when it comes to tech + UN. If someone knows please give me a pointer to start. ~~~ dasboth Just the other day I saw a data analyst position at UNICEF. Probably not the job you're after, just wanted to let you know those jobs are out there! ~~~ gressquel thanks, will try to find it. ~~~ dasboth I think it was this one: [https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6407065/senior- data-analyst...](https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6407065/senior-data- analyst/) ------ mataug I've considered it a couple of times. Being a chef or someone researching climate change are the two things that I've considered. I have no background in either (I can cook up a decent meal but nothing impressive) and the thought of having to start from scratch bothers me a lot. ~~~ piotrjurkiewicz > someone researching climate change are the two things that I've considered. > I have no background in either Don't worry. In case of so-called 'climate science' the most important is whether your results are 'in line with', your background and the way you obtained these results are secondary. ------ skypanther I almost did. I earned my black belt in karate and was teaching a few classes per week. I had frequent conversations with my sensei about working full time for him or starting a dojo of my own. We had a location picked out and everything. Martial arts can be incredibly fulfilling. I got to help people improve their physical and mental fitness, gain confidence, overcome anxieties and fears. There were constant opportunities for fun, new friendships, and doing good in the community. Plus it was really cool knowing I could do some of those Bruce Lee / Chuck Norris moves I'd see in the movies. At the time, I was the sole income for our family (wife & 3 kids). The income possibilities were just not there. We could not have made it work financially. Now, I'm an old out of shape desk jockey. ------ nickelbagz If I had the money I'd stop being a coder, but still use a computer for music composition and production. I'd play the piano and also write about social/political/historical things. I had this luxury once a while ago, and am now working hard again to get back there! ------ dver23 I took a year off in my 20's for spiritual pursuits and volunteer work. Best thing I ever did, it wasn't well planned and on a shoestring. If I could do over I would have done the finances differently. I cam back to software, but with a much different outlook and world view. ~~~ dvrajan Interesting, could you share how your views have changed after this experience please? ------ SFJulie I had a lot of fun being a mover: just be at embauche at 7:00am, no BS required, no love of the job, being outside, seeing awesome landscapes ... being tired at the end of the day, with your job let behind and able to enjoy a simple life. It was a simple life, but fun. And now season is over. So I look for a job in the IT. It really changed my life. I also learned doing bread, alcohol (wines and ciders), playing more music, and did some gardening, illegal picking of (common) plants in the wild ... brawling (movers are no angels) and winning. I grew a spine and a pair of balls. Don't be scared, life out of programming is quite awesome. In fact, life is amazing as long you don't feel like in a jail that sometimes is only in your head. I now live with my true colours ; I love to be dirty, mean and sweaty. Raaah. It feels good to finally be yourself. ------ Radeo After master and 3 years experience I was a trader in a prop firm for one year. And this was... Best experience in my life, I have learned a lot about myself and that world outside pure IT can be even more astonishing and challenging. Psychological leap I would say, advancing to new level. Despite my friends who couldn't understand with I sacrificed my top salary (yeah, I had it best among my programming friends). Though I failed (yeah, can admit that proudly, because I tried) and I am back in my profession, with even higher salary then before 1-year challenge I got much better perspective now. I try to widen my horizons more often and in different ways. Oh, and after few months break aiming to jump back into trading on my own account... Real fighters never surrender, right? ------ keithnz my thoughts of other work are often fanciful, I keep thinking cancer cures are taking too long and I'm sure my debugging experience would sort that field out. Nuclear Fusion power reactors are taking far too long to sort out, and I'd kind of like to get stuck into that problem. Then I sometimes wish I was a full time philosopher. Other times when I've moved between countries and thought I'd take a break from programming to refresh myself.... I end up thinking about ideas around coding and end up coding anyways. So I think I'm a lifer. Not quite sure what role I'll take if there is a zombie apocalypse though, however I have played through a lot of computer simulations of such events and I seem to be a kick ass warrior ... as I said, fanciful ideas of other jobs :) ------ Archenoth I love programming, though I have thought that if it didn't exist--I would probably go into archaeology. I have always enjoyed discovering things in subtleties, and learning the reasons behind strange things with research. There are still plenty of things that we have yet to figure out. However, regardless of whether I did archaeology or programming, I'm sure I would get burnt out every once in a while. That just happens, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. (Even if it is annoying...) It helps me to remember that this sort of thing passes as my inspiration swings back and forth, and that I don't actually dislike my profession. And until I am back into it, I just do things to force myself to be productive. ------ wheaties In general, when those thoughts crossed my mind it was when I was working a job I should have left already. There are good companies that value developers and/or give them a reasonably good balanced work environment. Generally the two go hand in hand. For places that don't, frustrations and poor practices tend to push us into less fulfilling lifestyles. But if pressed... Corporate pilot comes to mind. I've spend I don't know how much money on training and aircraft rental. Most piloting jobs for corporate clients have you working only 2 weeks out of the month. That is, you only fly about ~250hr a year. The rest of the time can be spent hacking or doing whatever else you'd like to do. ~~~ dvrajan oh wow! I have been on a Boeing 737 simulator once and it was a unforgettable experience. Hoping to earn enough money to fly real aircraft atleast once. Life experiences is what matters. ~~~ kobeya You could also enlist in the air force and get paid to do it. ------ dadro I bought a small commercial fishing boat and occasionally do that on the side. I make no money but love every minute of it. I'm working on getting my charter license so I can take folks out fishing and hope to do that p/t when I retire in 20 years. ~~~ bebop Sounds like a blast! What are you fishing for? ~~~ dadro I have commercial licenses for Striped Bass and Blue Fin Tuna. ------ biztos So nobody's interested in sales? It's a job that solves a lot of the problems people complain about in programming, like spending all day staring at the screen or not interacting with people or doing things that might be pointless. The downside of course is that you eat what you kill. ~~~ jkosinski I'm interested in sales, particularly enterprise software sales. As a software engineer, I find it alluring: generally a higher income potential than programming combined with the social aspect. Like the the other commenter, I'd be interested in hearing from those who work in sales. ------ nstr007 I love programming, I feel I can express my self threw code. However, I wish my wife and others could appreciate what I do like I do. If I could do it again, I think I'd like to be a carpenter or something that can be appreciated in the physical world. ~~~ VLM Work to live not live to work. You're at least the 4th programmer/woodworker on HN I know of. One thing I enjoy about programming is the pay and free time and lack of physical exhaustion such that my fine woodworking tools are proportionately cheap compared to most woodworkers. I've been doing this awhile and my first dovetail joint was pretty cool... but the hundredth is just sweaty labor, eh. My first whatever is always fun, but the dozenth or hundredth gets pretty boring. Be careful with the table saw. I'm not a big fan of binary comparisons but there's only two sets of people, those who are terrified of table saws and treat every use as some kind of lion tamer trick and those who have missing fingers. ------ galfarragem Enjoying doing something as an hobby is completely different than enjoying it as a career. What people like is the 'creative part' associated with a skill. When you do something as a career, most of your time will be used dealing with the 'boring part'. ------ FullMtlAlcoholc I absolutely want to be done with coding by the age of 40. Coding is a young man's game. It'll always be a passion and hobby of mine, but it wouldn't fulfill me to still be primarily writing code for someone else's company. I was an athlete in a former life that allowed himself to get woefully out of shape. I went on a health kick a couple of years ago, got into better shape than I was in college. Now I do personal training on the side, just finished my first triathlon, and am now training to compete in American Ninja Warrior. I really wish American Gladiators was still around though as I would've much rather preferred that. ------ pryelluw Not really. I use programming as a tool not as an end goal. I enjoy programming because it gives me the ability to do things I otherwise could not. I also like the deep technical side of it but there isn't much to do there for me. ------ baybreeze For 10 years programming has been my thing, but for a while now I have been getting the feeling that programming won't be big in 30 years. If all my eggs are in the programming basket and I can't keep a programming job in the future, I would be out of luck. (presumably because it's a blue collar profession by that point). With that fear in mind, becoming a M.D. actually seems like it would be a good decision. Even this late in the process, doctors have been well paid and relatively rare for thousands of years; a tried and true profession. Plus it will sate my curiosity about the function of the human body. ~~~ jdgiese I am curious as to why you don't think programming will be big in 30 years? One of my partners (we studied Biomedical Engineering together in undergrad) completed medical school, and then he decided it wasn't for him, and that he wanted to go back to technical work and in particular programming. A big part of his reasoning behind the transition was that he felt a large fraction of what doctors do is very repetitive and could be replaced by computers. I suspect he could give much more detailed reasoning than I can, but I can say that he felt strongly enough about this that he ate many many thousands of dollars of debt to go into programming instead of medicine. Anyway, I certainly don't mean to discourage your pursuit of becoming an MD--I am just very curious to know your reasoning. ~~~ baybreeze It will be big, but there will be so many other programmers that our worth will go down. It seems that our Silicon Valley salaries are extremely high compared to other professions, and only recently went up (what was a 90s programmer paid?). It seems like a flash in the pan, but on the order of decades. ------ herbst Yes. But honestly most jobs i think are interesting too would get boring pretty fast and are badly paid in comparison. The only reason i even thought about that is to have more joy in programking after work. I fixed it by quitting my job and going digital nomad. ------ Beltiras I can't imagine myself wanting to leave. We are defining the worlde for everyone else. The amount of power over the course of human affairs is staggering when you think about it. A fullstack can be toiling away on some CSS layout problem today and come up with a better design of some widget or other which leads to a breakthrough in UI/UX approach. Several months later nobody is using webpages in the same way. A novice can innovate things that an old hand would not think of and turn the whole world on it's side. The reach and breadth of computing makes it too exciting to forgo. ------ pinouchon Computational cognitive science. I'm in the process of going back to studying. My employer knows this, as well as most my friends and peers. I plan to spend the next two scholar years (starting in 2017) to take a master in cognitive science. I have worked for 3 years in web development since graduating and have enough money stashed to make the transition. I'll likely write a lot less code, and more maths and english. My primary motivation is that I believe that breakthroughs in AI and cognitive science at the computational Marr's level are going to have a huge impact, and I want to be a part of it. ~~~ raverbashing Too bad modern AI developments have absolutely nothing to do with "cognitive science" ~~~ rfrey Not true. Geoffrey Hinton is _only_ interested in cognitive science (he said in a speech I heard that he thinks it's delightful that there are practical applications that lead Google to pay for his research, but he doesn't care at all about them, only about understanding the brain), and Rich Sutton started there and continues to actively follow and think about cognition. ~~~ raverbashing To what it relates to neuroscience I agree, but in the end it's mostly mathematical models that don't connect much to (physical) reality ~~~ rfrey I guess my point is that to some of the top researchers, the current developments are a means to an end, and the end is understanding cognition. Totally agreed that if you're into the deep learning/CNN development, especially the practical side, the connection to brains is only through the "neural" analogy. ------ tluyben2 Tried retiring. Opened a brewery (beer & cider) and going to run a bar/restaurant; brewery runs well but I just like programming too much. Combining them works well and keeps me fit. ------ asteli I'm an electrical engineer via a nontraditional path. Like software dev, it still involves large swaths of time spent staring at screens while inside a box. I've been mulling over the possibility of some kind of work that would be more conducive to my long term sanity. My imagination has me developing and deploying instrumentation for environmental science. 1/3rd screen time 1/3rd workshop, 1/3rd fielding instruments. I'll figure something out. Probably when 12 hours of daily screentime becomes unbearable. ~~~ geomark Sounds a bit like my story, although I suspect I'm a bit older. I wanted to bail for several years and then one of the recessions led to my department being downsized. Took the opportunity to move abroad. Missed some of the tech work but having a hardware background made it hard to do much where I live. Then with the rise of MOOCs I was able to pick up software skills and do some projects. And now with so much cheap hardware and components coming out of China with free shipping to my location I can do all manner of hardware + software projects. Currently into creating robotics projects for young kids. ------ keviv Yep. I was working in a startup (which eventually went public) for close to 6 years. Life became monotonous there and I really felt burnt out. I finally decided to quit and wanted to do anything but programming. 2 week later, I started missing programming again but this time I decided to freelance. I'm getting paid decently while I can do a lot in my free time. I've started reading books and working on small side-projects which I wasn't able to while working full-time ------ partycoder Not all people like programming. Some people do it only for the money. I internally call them "paycheck zombies", and I try to just stay away from them since they're a bit draining at times, and rarely lead to learning something new. Some other people are more career oriented and seek professional growth. There are various lines of professional growth, in each stage of the SDLC. Even if someone is new to the industry, a good attitude will eventually lead to growth. ------ parr0t I've only been programming professionally for a year but can't see myself wanting to get out of it anytime soon, maybe ask me in 10 years to see if that view changes. But at the moment am thoroughly enjoying learning as much as I can - coming from a job I didn't enjoy as a full time baker to having my weekends back, normal social hours and just having more spring in my step by doing something I have a genuine passion for is a great feeling. ------ michakirschbaum I became a programmer to avoid being pigeon holed professionally. Programming has strengthened my critical thinking ability for other creative endeavors, and I could leave for actual engineering (e.g. electrical), applied mathematics, music, art, design, entrepreneurship.. basically I chose programming to leave the door open for any of these activities. I feel that this isn't a flexibility as easily afforded to say, physicians or lawyers. ------ SeriousM Yep, going to be a police officer. But I would get a lot less money and very bad work schedule / vacation policies. So I stay with developing awesome software. ------ du_bing NEVER, programming is best work ever, giving me much freedom. ------ ohstopitu One day....when I have enough to live comfortably, I want to get into gaming (Youtube and Twitch or whatever is the main medium for games then). I LOVE gaming (and transferring my skills learnt from programming & the startup world to the gaming/streaming world). Apart from that...I've wanted to try and be an investor/trader but I don't know if it's really something I'd get into given the commitment & resources they require. ------ _mikelcelestial I did this just recently. Before I went to a middle east country for an SEO job, I am a PHP dev for 7 yrs and my last work made me realize that I'm not growing or something and this new environment would make me do this change. Unfortunately, after working for only a few months, I was sent home due to health reasons and dev jobs are hunting me again which I think because of my qualifications in the past. ------ o2l I pretty much enjoy programming most of the time. But there are times when I feel, only if I could take a small break and do something else without worrying about money. I would like to \- Work at a General Store \- Be involved in a full movie / tv series making process ( Because movies have always had a deep impact on me, and I would love to contribute my ideas in that domain ) \- Invent new food recipes \- Research on Ancient History ------ mikelyons After nearly 10 years as a web developer I've left the field and moved to south east asia to be a SCUBA diving instructor. Nice change of pace. ------ skoczymroczny Not really. For me programming isn't something I do for money, but something I like to do, which just happens to make good money. I do semi-boring stuff for money, but do fun stuff (game development) at home. I don't see myself burning out any time soon and looking for something else. Also programming fits my personality type, allowing me to avoid too much contact with people :) ------ drivingmenuts All the time. I'd love to change to working in 3D, preferably with Rhino (which I have a license for). But, that's not what a career is made of and lacking any practical experience pretty much means I'm stuck. I'm not opposed to starting over at the bottom, as long as the work is engaging. Unfortunately, there's not much call for people with only minimal experience in Rhino3D, that I've found. ------ BWStearns Law has always interested me. Unfortunately the cover charge is such that I would only be willing to give it a go in the event of an equity lottery win or something similar. Another thing I've been toying with is prop trading. It's not entirely separate from programming, but the industry is pretty isolated in terms of expertise so it might be considered separate. ------ exabrial Quite often! But it pays well and my co-workers aren't terrible. Most efficient way to have job security and make a good bit of $. Id always be inventing -something- though, recently I got into designing and building high voltage distortion prone vacuum tube hybrid solid-state instrument signal drivers: aka guitar amplifiers :) analog electronics is a lost art! ------ vbezhenar I fell in love with programming, when I was about 13, and I love it now (29). Commercial programming (e.g. what I'm paid for) is rarely fun for me, but not bad either. And I have a lot of fun doing programming as my hobby, some experiments, etc, when I'm not constrained with anything. I don't think I would ever change my profession. ------ navs Oh lord yes, I've left it behind only to take the next job offered to me and becoming a Business Analyst. Not enjoying it so far. I'm putting more focus at the moment on exploring issues of Mental health in the IT industry as it's something I've dealt with and continue to deal with. That seems to give me a degree of fulfilment. Doesn't pay the bills though. ------ inopinatus I left it for ops and then management and then went back to development. Cycle normally repeats every few years. Currently doing all three at once because startup. ------ iopq I recently started playing a game that I haven't played in a long time. I miss the feeling of being engaged like this. Programming just doesn't do it for me. I want to love what I'm doing, but unfortunately there's few things that tickle my brain like this. What should I do, take ADHD meds and go to work, like everyone else? ~~~ ktRolster Mindfulness. ------ wineisfine Yeah I wonder what our dev skills be worth when we are 60. And still need some years do get to a pension. And meanwhile you have 21 year olds without a mortgage, kids or wife... with all the time in the world to work and learn new things. Take for example current js webdev, with a new hot tech every week. We can't all become IT managers (nor want to)... ------ gmac I thought I was leaving programming when I went back to school to do a Masters and then a PhD in environmental economics. I'm now a lecturer (assistant professor) ... but programming is so useful in academia, and such a rare skill, that I hardly do any less now than I did before. And I'm OK with that. :) ------ epynonymous i did actually leave programming (almost 10 years ago) for a job as a people manager (of programmers/test). it's a lot more fun to write code as opposed to dealing with all the nuances of personalities, politics, processes, etc. i do have a few side projects which have allowed me to stay as a pretty effective coder, but at the end of the day, i'm also doing a lot of non-development things on my side project like go to market definition, managing people, project management, and slideware. there are definitely very tedious things that programmers have to deal with like unmarshalling and marshalling data across backend to frontend components or test automation (think of having a multi-tier system with ios app, database, email service for forgotten password and having to automate all of that). but at the end of the day, the thing i like most about programming is the ability to see the things i create doing something useful. seeing the end result that's of high quality gives me a sense of pride. i'm definitely a maker, it's what i was born to do. but at the end of the day it's about risk/reward and opportunity cost, at this point there's just too much to give up, and the side project isnt panning out yet. on a slight tangent, i have an electrical/computer engineering background and was supposed to go into hardware like most of my classmates, but i ended up liking the fact that i had something tangible after hours of programming, even though it was virtual, and with hardware i'd have nothing to show for it, but a pic controller lighting up some led's, a breadboard with a bunch of mixed logic implementing some simple thing, or some vhdl state machine that effectively did something simple. no offense to all the engineers working on this type of thing, but it just wasnt as exciting to me. i find that there's some balance to it all, like getting paid well, but also having hobbies on the side that you can soak yourself into. but then again, i've heard many a story about people doing what they love and for lots of money. ------ emodendroket My original plan out of school was to become a Japanese translator and I still enjoy Japanese-language stuff. But honestly I couldn't deal with the vicissitudes of being a freelance translator while at the same time never making much money. I enjoy this too and it's much more stable. ------ gambiting I would try doing anything that doesn't involve sitting in an office. Fixing bikes and cars, I would love to have a garage and do things with my hands, there's something incredibly satisfying about getting an old car to work, comparable excitement with getting your program to work. ------ jmunsch fwiw, I graduated with a degree in painting. Got into an ecommerce shop. Figured out how to automate my position. And felt a big draw to programming. Went back to school via a bootcamp and have been a "developer" for the last two years. Mostly CRUD but recently ML and the tools to shuffle data around to input into the ML. I have been in a slump lately, decided to pick up doing part time bicycle messenger/delivery work on the weekends and for an hour or two after a few times a week. There is something satisfying peddling items around the city for people. Tangible and visceral with immediate feedback. I've found it helpful, it has rebalanced my priorities in a sense. Being out in the world, as opposed to continuosly being in an abstract space all the time. ------ SixSigma Yes. And I did. 30 years programming. Then I got certified in Autocad, got a qualification in Manufacturing Engineering at part-time school, used that to start a degree in Supply Chain Management in the UK. I'm now on an internship in Miami and I already did a semester on exchange in Finland. Worked out well so far. ------ telesilla I've been working for almost 2 decades and have recently rearranged life to study part-time. A combination of luck and good timing let it happen. It's done wonderful things for me in all aspects of my life, professionally and personally, and is opening new doors. ------ sanatgersappa Yup. Trading futures. ~~~ toomuchtodo Trading options! ------ d1ffuz0r Park Ranger in Alaska or Siberia. Will probably be enjoying more than my current engineering career ------ wingerlang The thought has crossed my mind, but only in the line of "What would I do?" to which I have no answer. I also love programming (since maybe 12/13 year old me read HTML books and Flash actionscript to make games) and I don't really want to do anything else anyway. ------ nickelbagz I would do what I love, which is playing the piano and writing about cultural and political things ------ BucketSort Yes, mathematics. After studying computer science problems for a while I fell in love with math. ~~~ mpfundstein functional programming then? if you are into javascript, check fantasy-land ~~~ pathsjs That has really little to do with mathematics... ~~~ mpfundstein I don't agree. Did you ever take a good look into FP? Start with Functors and Monads and wander deep down the path to category theory... But beware, you won't be able to function anymore in a JAVA OOP store :P ~~~ pathsjs Well, I am actually a mathematician. I knew cateogry theory well before I was even able to hack a web page with php and jquery. :-) And still, I find that most of the abstractions that appear, say, in Haskell have little mathematical content. Even less so their imitation in Javascript. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ------ pragone Did. Currently in medical school. ------ yitchelle I left programming to do ProjMan work so that I have more time doing my main project of giving my family the best life possible. I found that SW engineering is too taxing on my time at my stage of my life. My wife and I are mid 40s and the kids are growing fast. ------ boggydepot I'd go historian. After spending sometime reading/watching about Marxism, Ancient Greek Philosophers (Epicurus and Socrates) and Confucianism. History is probably something that will really give you context on a lot of things. Philosophy is great too. ------ stepvhen I got my undergrad in CS and am now pursuing pure math in grad school. Not exactly what you asked, but the time i did spend in the industry was enough to make me want to do something other than programming for money. ------ drvdevd I often fantasize about leaving programming for ... programming. It's amazing the sheer number of things that _aren 't_ programming a job in programming might entail (depending on where you end up). ------ AUmrysh I left programming to get into application security, and I love it. There is still some programming and a lot of reading code, but it's a million times more enjoyable than writing endless REST APIs for me. ~~~ aquadrop Seems to me you didn't actually left programming :) ------ snuxoll If it didn't require such a huge time commitment I'd consider becoming a PA or MD, but once you already have a family and bills it's practically impossible to get through the required schooling. ------ jtms I have been a professional dev for 12 years but have often considered other paths. Just a few: Placer gold miner (yep, like the TV shows), Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor, metal sculptor, mechanical engineer ------ reitanqild I actually have worked as a more or less pure system engineer for three years. It was interesting and a bit painful to not have access to source code and to be completely dependent on a slow process. ------ uptown It was some of the motivation behind this post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782151) ------ bebop I have always wanted to become a full time wookworker. The problem has mostly been the fact that programming pays much better, especially if I were to start as an apprentice. ------ Giosk Everyday I think about leaving my job, but then I figure out that the problem isn't being a programmer, but working for customers that have no idea of what they want. ------ cottonseed I left to get a PhD in math. Now I'm back, sort of. ~~~ dvrajan Just to follow up. How did your day to day work change after PhD? I am sure you would have gotten a chance to work on more interesting things. What are they? ------ Aitizazk Well the next best thing for me would be teaching programming. still couldnt forget the awesome feeling when I made a calculator in a cs101 course :D ~~~ jventura That's what I'll be doing in two weeks.. I started my working career as a teacher, but didn't like it that much as I was teaching smaller kids learning MS Word, Excel and similar tools. Eventually I worked as researcher, finished a PhD and start working as web developer. But doing crud apps all day got boring pretty fast, and I think my current expertise on web and mobile development will be great for my classes as I'll be teaching older students (MAster's degree). Since I have some freedom on the way I get to teach those students, I'm really looking forward to be really practical (teach them over the command line, etc.), instead of being highly theoretical. ~~~ Aitizazk That is exactly what we need in the Education sector I guess. teachers with experience in working on real world products. I completely agree CS overall is very practical field and too much theory should be avoided ------ JoshMnem I haven't thought about it yet. If I ever do something else, it would probably be another application of programming, like math or data science. ------ Jach Shoveling pig shit. The only other alternative I've considered is to teach English in foreign lands, but I'd probably still do programming on the side. ------ raverbashing Yes And in a way, leaving lower-level programming for the sake of it and focusing on nicer things more connected with the end user kind of feels like it ------ aethertron Academic computer science or mathematics. Or writing (about technology, videogames, and humans). These are stuff I do as hobbies now. ------ ohgh1ieD Actually yes, every day, I'm counting the days till med school. I'll probably write code as long as I am alive but not under those conditions, not CRUD apps, not to make someone else rich. I'd actually say that there are only 4 reasons to write code: \- To learn \- Temporary ( cash ) \- To create something which becomes eventually a company \- To solve your own problems Obv. I don't want to attack someone, that's just how I think about it. When I entered SE I already knew that I'm not going to do that for a long time, it's on my list, I had to learn it. It's time for the next topic. ------ SticksAndBreaks I actually thought about going into the alps mountains shepherding cows on a Alm. Its peacefull and less lonly then programming. ------ jalayir Either a chef or a lawyer. Maybe both. ~~~ alexhakawy Why chef? sounds interesting and fun ~~~ Matthias247 It might be fun and interesting. But for most persons it has not a good salary and really bad working hours. So it depends on what you are looking for. ------ sriram_iyengar hand-made board games ~~~ dvrajan interesting choice! ------ seanlane Picked up metalworking while in high school, always figured it could make a decent backup plan. ------ nnd Music. Maybe it's a burnout, but I find it difficult to use my creativity in programming. ~~~ meowface Same here. There is room for creativity in programming, but it's very constrained and there are always a lot of hurdles you have to jump over before you can express your creativity. With music, you have a lot more freedom and can dive right into it. ------ Lawstudent004 I'm 25, I finished my bachelor of laws last year (started in 2010) and I'm doing my master of laws atm (it's a 5 year programme where I live, bachelor is 3 years, master is 2). I've always wanted to do something in IT and lately Infosec has really started interesting me. Last year I took up some programming classes (java) and I actually liked it, however I kept convincing myself that despite that, I was going to finish law school. Mainly to keep my job prospects open, maybe even get a management position in an IT firm faster that way. But honestly, aside from the pragmatic things that law teaches you, it sucks. It really does. Everyone I know either aspires to pick up notary or fiscal law, just so they could satisfy their own prospects of a well paid, highly regarded profession. It's a fairly depressing field to study and to work in. I did a summer internship during summer vacation this year at a fairly prestigious firm. I hated that job, it consisted of looking up the latest jurisprudence about i.e. 'higher power', it made me read law books that were too boring to even want to comprehenend. I read an M&A template contract, which was interesting, but I couldn't imagine doing that for the rest of my life. All the lawyers there aged 27 and up were anything but living the dream. They worked their ass off from 8am to 10pm to bill enough hours per month just so they could keep their respective partners happy. The partners were well dressed, hardworking and very prestigious people. They were nice to be honest, they weren't assholes like you would expect. They actually made me, and the lawyers that worked there, aspire to become one of them. But then you hear the dark side of things. One of the partners had 2 kids she hardly saw, she actually had a babysitter/cleaning maid who took care of them all the time. Another one was divorced and spent his time harassing every hot secretary he met. Actually many of the male part ners thrived on exploiting their prestige to flirt with the fairer sex. Which I can't help but feel a bit jealous of, having such prestige must be awesome. Except that's all it is really, prestige. It's the main reason people study law, to my knowledge. As I'm writing this, I'm contemplating quitting my master's and enlisting in a bachelor of IT focused on cybersecurity. I'm aware that it won't give me the same prestige, or the nice suits (I really like suits), but maybe I'll stop feeling miserable. Just wanted to give you guys a view from another perspective, law school and law in general aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're miserable places to study and work. Just google the words law and depression in the same sentence. ~~~ marktangotango I've worked with a couple of JD holding developers over the years. So there is precedent from what I've seen. ------ Matachines Study history and/or industrial design even though I'm horrible in the latter. ------ theparanoid Physician Assistant. It pays well and doesn't have the youth skew of programming. ------ imode as a hobbyist, I don't think I would ever do anything else. as an employee/employer, become a technician. everybody needs repair work, and very few can call the result maintainable and sustainable. focusing on residential areas helps, too. ------ petewailes Not leaving, but augmenting, sure. I'm a programmer by day, and also a writer. ------ adultSwim Teacher (community college / high school) Therapist Commercial plant nursery ------ oe I'd like to drive a train. Train Simulator will have to do for now. ------ yoyobird I think automation will replace the need for SEs. Sites like weebly, jeenka, snapmobl eliminate the need for a programmer if you want to build your own website. If I were a programmer, I would start thinking about exit paths within the next 10 years ~~~ marktangotango FYI people have been saying this since the 50's. Symbolic assemblers were supposed to make 'programming' obsolete; there's a relavant quote by Richard Hamming I can't be arsed to look up. ------ neom Fun reading this as I very frequently wish I was a programmer. :) ~~~ noir_lord I wasn't a full time programmer til 2010, been programming since I was a kid in the 80's, didn't think I was good enough at programming to do it for a living (confidence issues) so I spent 8 years working for Staples and gradually mostly by accidents of the "I can build that for you" sort built up a customer base, one of those customers offered me a full time job as a programmer on double the salary I was on and I jumped and never looked back, these days I run my own business doing contract work for SME's and while it has its moments I generally love it, mostly the freedom of starting and stopping when I want. ~~~ ketpat I'm 34, only got into programming this year after completing a boot camp. Got my first full time job in July. I always wanted to be a programmer but also had confidence issues. When I changed my mindset from over thinking to not giving a fuck and going for it, my whole life changed for the better. ------ davidw Not really. I love solving problems with computers! ------ zappo2938 I regret trying to program for a living. ------ vladimir-y Piano player, in a brothel. ------ qazpot Yes, writing and painting. ------ shove Every. Day. ------ known Farming ------ s1gs3gv learn haskell ------ sean_patel Programming is a creative art, and when I say that to my non-programmer friends, they laugh it off, but if you think about it, it is true. Just like artists, the programmers, coders, developers all design and create new things that didn't exist before, and no 2 programs or applications or completely functioning code will be identical for anything other than a fizzbuzz type test. So it is natural for the creatives to experience burnout and falsely interpret that as having lost interest in our craft / art. I went through this too at a fairly young stage in my career as I had accomplished a lot in 5 short years. I had the pedigree and training -- internship at Magnum Photos in New York -- so I tried being a War photographer like my Grandpa and traveled to Iraq in 2008. 1 week in there and I came running back. It was a fairly freaky experience. You think you are there to document something big and consequential to the world and initially it is exhilarating leaving the cube and CRUD applications, but all it is for most part is an online newspaper or blog paying you a few $ per shot. Totally not work the risk. Plus the Radical Islamic Jihadis (ISIS) crossed a new line and started kidnapping and beheading journalists. I also realized I didn't truly have the stomach for it. Imagine actually being on the scene at 1 of these photographs, and having the courage to shoot, only to find out the media (AP, Reuters) won't publish it. => [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the- war-photo-no-one-would-publish/375762/) ( When Kenneth Jarecke photographed an Iraqi man burned alive, he thought it would change the way Americans saw the Gulf War. But the media wouldn’t run the picture.) Like someone else has stated here, we have it really cushy indeed. So don't get used to it and "itch" for something else. Just work on your side-projects, or learn a new language, or simply stop by to smell the roses and live a little. Your passion will soon come gushing back and you'll start to wonder why you ever thought of leaving this creative, immensely satisfying craft in the 1st place! ~~~ JDiculous Programming involves very little creativity compared to actual art, so to call it a "creative art" is a gross exaggeration. A programmer is given a very specific set of tasks (eg. send data from A to B, fix bug, implement X), and his problems are mostly technical. This doesn't even compare to the creativity involved in a real artistic endeavor like designing your own videogame, writing your own screenplay, or composing a song. The latter is totally open-ended, and chances are that whatever you create will be way more unique than the 10,000th CRUD app written in the hottest web stack (React/Redux/Sass, or whatever the cool kids are into these days). Lack of creativity is actually one of my biggest complaints with this field. ~~~ nostrademons Perhaps I've just been lucky with jobs, but my daily work hasn't been "send data from A to B, fix bug" since my first job before college (except for ramp- up time when I was just starting at Google, and even then my manager was like "Do you _really_ want to just be fixing unit tests?". It was "Give quants a development environment where they can quickly write algorithms that will run on our parallel-processing cluster", "Visualize violations of Reg NMS for the SEC", "Let teenagers build their own casual games through a WYSIWYG interface and share them with their friends", "Redesign the Google Search Results Page", "Figure out who wrote what on the Internet", "Make webapps perform as well as native ones", and "Fix unemployment" (along with some newer startup ideas I'm not ready to talk about yet). There's been plenty of creativity in all of them - sometimes too much, since with creativity comes risk and the possibility that it won't actually work as well as it did in your mind. ~~~ JDiculous I want to hear more about this "fix unemployment" thing ~~~ Kliment I'd be more interested in ideas on how to fix employment - job dependency is a huge problem. ------ berntb Regarding all discussion about creativity and programming, I heard a usability expert that had been painting for 30 years say this about GUI engineering: Usability as a subject is the opposite of art, it is kitsch. You actively try to make simple and obvious; to have just one possible meaning. She also said that art/painting was the best of hobbies, but would have been the worst possible of jobs. Too little money and too many interested people, so it was a rat race. Personally, I've found hundreds of subjects I love to learn about. But it seems only one thing I really love doing. So they'll have to break my cold fingers off the keyboard. I love to teach about subjects I love, but sadly lack all pedagogical talent. (Maybe I had liked art if I wasn't color blind or so unmusical that I can't clap hand to most of my favorite music. :-) ) ~~~ biinui it's interesting to see outputs of colorblind artists :) [https://www.google.com/search?q=colorblind+artist&ie=utf-8&o...](https://www.google.com/search?q=colorblind+artist&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox- b-ab) give it a shot perhaps? ------ dschiptsov Already did. I have switched to be a guide for Tibet tours (Lhasa, Kailash-Manasarovar) and high altitude trekking and motorcycle tours in Nepal, Sikkim and Ladakh. Customers enjoyed my guided tours in Jokhang and Potala. Better demand and much more tolerable life than in a coding sweatshop. For everything else there is literally no demand for anything except Joomla websites and Android apps outside the valley, which is already saturated. And, of course, I have zero interest in things like React or Node. The sad truth is that indie and small shop IT is already dead. Unless you are a _young_ CS major in US there is no demand for programming jobs. Otherwise there will be a market, not just a few brokers like Toptal. ------ amirbehzad I always wanted to be "the Nose", the professional that smells perfumes for a living. I have the talent, and high-end equipment for that. ------ gnipgnip Farming and/or studying philosophy. ~~~ randomdata I always figure that programming is the only thing that allows me to farm. ~~~ gnipgnip Eh ? Care to explain what you mean ? ~~~ randomdata I was referring to the capital intensive nature of the business. My fairly lucrative programming career is what keeps my farm operating. Being able to leave programming to farm is a long way off for me yet. If you have family willing to hand down the business or already independently wealthy, then maybe leaving programming to farm is more realistic. ~~~ gnipgnip Good point; farming definitely is not profitable these days (without the large holdings/mechanization ...). ~~~ randomdata I have noticed that the agriculture market has seemed to settle on an average of about 2-3% ROI. Meaning, for every $1 you invest in your farm business, you can expect to get 2-3¢ back each year profit-wise. On average. Some years you will make more, some years you will pay to get rid of your product. Right now is closer to the latter of those two. If you come to farming with $2-3M cash in hand, you will typically be in pretty good shape (~$60K average yearly income based on the above assumptions), assuming you have figured out the management aspects. But most don't have $3M lying around doing nothing, and that's the real challenge. The way forward seems to be to hold another job (programming in my case), and take all you can from that job and put it into the farming business until you have built up enough capital that the farm becomes self-sustaining. It's a long road, but hopefully worth it. As they say, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Health care law stands in U.S. - leothekim http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/live-coverage/scotus-healthcare ====== tzs Long term, we probably would have been better off if the individual mandate had been struck down but the rest left intact. That would have had a decent chance of forcing us toward a real national healthcare system. Consider the lesson of Washington State: [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017852301_i...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017852301_insurancemandate28m.html) In 1993, Washington passed a law that guaranteed access to health insurance, and required all residents to purchase insurance. Two years later, the Republicans gained control and set about repealing this. However, much of the law was extremely popular, such as the parts guaranteeing affordable access. The Republicans let those stand, but went ahead and repealed the mandate. Result: people dropped insurance until they got sick, then bought it, then dropped it when they were better. Insurance companies started losing a lot of money. That led insurance companies to pull out of the market, and it became virtually impossible as an individual to buy health insurance in Washington at any price. Around 2000, the law was changed again, allowing insurance companies to make people with preexisting conditions wait nine months before coverage starts, and allowing them to reject the sickest applicants. The state created a state run high risk pool to cover those people. Imagine if something like this happened nationally. The individual mandate goes, but the rest remains. I think a similar thing would happen nationally. Polls show that when people are asked about the various major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (but are not told that they are being asked about that Act, so that they aren't prejudiced by the ridiculous claims the Tea Party spread about it, such as the "death panel" fantasy) they are overwhelming in favor of everything except the mandate. No way would the Republicans be able to get repeal of those through without committing political suicide with the voters. That would leave us with the Washington situation--the insurance companies bearing increased costs, without the mandate to ensure that enough healthy people are paying premiums to cover this. We'd get a health care crisis similar to what happened in Washington. Congress would HAVE to act, and I think the outcome would be some sort of true national health care system, with a mix of private and government provided services, open to everyone. ~~~ cantastoria _I think a similar thing would happen nationally. Polls show that when people are asked about the various major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (but are not told that they are being asked about that Act, so that they aren't prejudiced by the ridiculous claims the Tea Party spread about it, such as the "death panel" fantasy) they are overwhelming in favor of everything except the mandate._ But the mandate is what makes everything else possible. This is like saying "we polled peopled about getting more services from the government and they were in favor of it except for the parts about taxes going up". Which, as of this morning, is essentially what's going on as the "mandate" is now going to have to be implemented as a tax penalty. So that polling just shows how clueless people are about how this whole scheme works. _No way would the Republicans be able to get repeal of those through without committing political suicide with the voters._ I think the more likely proposal would be to "put it all back the way it was before" instead of a full government takeover. At that point the current situation would be ,rightly, described as being caused by the government (i.e. ObamaCare). I'm not sure how easy a sell a full government take over would be.

The Inevitability of Physical Laws: Why the Higgs Has to Exist (2012) [video] - lisper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOEoffh6WTs ====== philipov ~2:35 > "In 2002, he moved to Harvard to become full professor there, and will remain there until he joins our faculty of the institute in 2008" I don't understand; when was this recorded? The Higgs Boson was discovered in 2012, and he refers to that event. Why is he referring to 2008 in the future tense? EDIT: It sounds like it is from the later part of 2012. ~~~ acchow I'm a native English speaker - I feel it's totally valid to talk about a past event in the future tense as used here. I can't explain why, but I've heard it been used before and doesn't seem ambiguous or incorrect. Edit: tho the past tense is preferable. ~~~ cormullion Inconsistently used here, but it's the historical present: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present) For some reason, I hear a old-style narration over a documentary film when I hear this tense. ------ contravariant Doe anyone know where I could find a more in-depth explanation of why there can only be 0, 1/2, 1, 3/2, 2 spin fundamental particles?? ~~~ miles7 If you're asking about why there's an upper limit to the spin, this Quora thread had some good info (Simmons-Duffin is a top notch expert on field theory): [https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-no-spin-3-2-or-higher- fu...](https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-no-spin-3-2-or-higher-fundamental- particles-in-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics) Short answer is that for too high a spin the theories become non-renormalizable and break down [i.e. require additional physics to enter] going to ever shorter length scales. If you're asking why it goes in steps of 1/2 it's a group representation theory thing (guessing you probably already know about that). ~~~ contravariant I was mostly referring to the point in the talk where he claims that just relativity and quantum mechanics is enough to imply that there are no spins higher than 2, he kind of skips over that part. In that view I'm not convinced renormalizability is a strong enough property, since the graviton is famously non-renormalizeable (or so it seems, anyway). But I'll have a closer look at the quora thread; maybe someone has a more 'fundamental' argument. ------ RachelF Good video, thank you!

The Future of UI design - adam1davis http://adamldavis.com/post/25846679843/the-future-of-ui-design ====== agracey I have not yet used Kinect; would it be possible to build this type of UI using the Kinect (or similar) Hardware? ------ WTPayne Love it!

Amazon unveils shopping cart that knows what you're buying - sizzle https://apnews.com/f2e83ab1261fd6fe3935cf51e976b4a5 ====== core-questions Can't wait to see homeless people pushing these around and throwing them into creeks like normal carts

An alternative argument for why women leave STEM - BerislavLopac https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 ====== thaumasiotes But this is an argument for why women leave academia, not an argument for why they leave STEM.

Merb Tips II - nickb http://railsontherun.com/2008/4/8/merb-tips-2 ====== jgamman you spelt MERP wrong.

Track impact on UK universities, EU funding and international collaboration - rifaqat https://wizdom.ai/dashboards/leave-or-remain-impact-on-uk-research ====== rifaqat [https://blog.colwiz.com/2016/06/23/leave-or-remain-impact- on...](https://blog.colwiz.com/2016/06/23/leave-or-remain-impact-on-uk- universities-eu-funding-and-international-collaboration/)

Time-wars - onosendai http://www.gonzocircus.com/xtrpgs/incubate-special-exclusive-essay-time-wars-by-mark-fisher/ ====== Mizza Great article - wish the title was better so more people would read it here, particularly this: > No doubt this chronic shortage of time goes some way to accounting for the > stalled and inertial quality of culture in recent years. The neoliberal > gambit was that the destruction of social security would have a dynamic > effect on culture and the economy, liberating an entrepreneurial spirit that > was inhibited by the red tape of bureaucratic social democratic > institutions. The reality, however, is that innovation requires certain > forms of stability. The disintegration of social democracy has had a > dampening, rather than a dynamic, effect on culture in highly neoliberalized > countries such as the UK. Fredric Jameson’s claims that late capitalist > culture would be given over to pastiche and retrospection have turned out to > be extraordinarily prophetic.

Millennium Falcon's SFX Demonstrated by Sound Designer Ben Burtt (1980) [video] - shawndumas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G6RChOLrTA ====== Adaptive My parents have mentioned the story of how, at an EAA convention, they asked a couple guys with mics and field recorders what they were doing, and they said they were recording audio for a movie called Star Wars. I'm betting that's the biplane. (I will now imagine that I can faintly hear the ambient sounds of breathless, curious hippies in the background of that millennium falcon shot) ~~~ enbrill you mean a movie called blue harvest ;) ~~~ teddyh That was _Return of the Jedi_. ------ zo1 Wow, this is the same guy that did the sound-effects for Wall-E. I mention that because I watched a documentary/interview a while back about the sounds used for that movie. Turns out, it's the same guy. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSf8Er2gV_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSf8Er2gV_Q) The nice thing about that interview is that it had a few "demonstrations" of Ben making sounds from mundane objects. E.g. a slinky making "pew pew" sounds. Or objects making sounds for some of the old Disney cartoons. It's quite amazing what they were able to accomplish with relatively small constructions/gadgets. ~~~ Gracana When I was a kid, I had a little device I bought from radioshack that consisted of an amplifier and a magnetic pickup that could be stuck to the back of a telephone handset to give you a speakerphone. I think I bought it because it was inexpensive and interesting, and boy how interesting it turned out to be! I discovered the pew-pew slinky sound and many others by playing around with that little thing. ------ bane It's often said that the Star Wars idea of a lived-in universe was a unique thing. And that from models to set design, everything had to look used. I think that this carries through to the SFX, which were assemblages and mixes of several _real_ sounds, banged together with analog equipment. The new trilogy never quite "felt" right, there was always this disconnect of the visuals and the sound effects. I remember seeing a video going over how they built up the sound effects for the pod racer scene and, while it was interesting, I never really felt like the sounds fit the film in the same way the sounds did with the original films. ------ ericcholis Passion of the craft is in full effect here. Having an ear to catch mundane sounds like the water pipes helped create a subtle but recognizable sound. ~~~ TeMPOraL Reminds me of a guy who was responsible for sound effects in a game we're writing for Global Game Jam few years ago; he basically showed up in the middle of the contest (AFAIR he had to stay at work - university radio station, btw.), took his recorder, went around the building recording some door hinges and water faucet sounds, and came back few hours later with a complete set of sounds effects for our surreal fantasy point&click game. I have a lot of respect for his skills. ------ js2 My favorite part may be watching Burtt operate the 35+ year old mixing console. ~~~ jevinskie I now "get" how multi-track tapes were mixed after watching the video. ~~~ joezydeco You should look up the "Classic Albums" series on YouTube or Netflix. The musicians and producers behind a number of iconic albums dissect their songs at the mixing board. It's really neat stuff. Here's an example from Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENU5dKJvVpY&54m08s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENU5dKJvVpY&54m08s) ------ codezero The biplane starter sound was instantly recognizable, pretty cool. ~~~ NittLion78 You might also recognize it from Temple of Doom when Indy goes to check the fuel level on Lao Che's plane and the engines shut down. ~~~ codezero Nice catch! I will have to make sure to listen for that the next time I watch :) ------ agumonkey I love how these guys built a canvas of space fantasy out of mundane sounds, it was so easy to make some cheesy sound, but they always found a way to make it fit in the universe. ------ shangxiao I was watching "Five Easy Pieces" the other day and instantly recognised the sound effect for the garbage compactor from episode IV. In this particular film it was the sound of the oil pump equipment in one of the scenes at the oil field! ~~~ at-fates-hands It's funny because I saw a documentary on all the weird places the sounds come from and have done the same thing were I associate a specific sound in the movie to something in real life, not the other way around. I did this with the Imperial Walkers sound. Strange how the brain works sometimes. ------ lechevalierd3on That is so awesome, thanks you for sharing this!

Worst company names - sharpshoot ====== webwright I'm sorry, but I win here. I had a project that kinda accidentally turned into a company. Never did ANY name research-- just grabbed the first thing that popped into my head... "Jobby" ( <http://www.gojobby.com> ). Turns out that Jobby (in Scotland), means "poop". Nonetheless, we were able to sell the company after about 6 months. :-) ------ rfrey This falls into the category of "someone should have told them..." Run by some new arrivals to the US, I think. Somebody, their lawyer, or accountant... somebody should have told them. I was cruising around an outdoor mall in Bellevue WA. There was a restaurant that... um... caught my eye. Looking in the window, I saw it was a perfectly ordinary BBQ place - bright lights, lots of people just having lunch, families, etc. Restaurant's name? The Flaming Porker. ------ ryantmulligan My friend keeps telling me that my company has a name that is too hard to spell. "www.campusassassins.com" What you think? ~~~ dfranke Just register a few likely typos and it shouldn't be _too_ bad. I'd aim for at least one fewer syllable though. ------ mojuba Invisible Hands ------ eli news.com.com ------ sharpshoot Brain Bakery ------ dawie Haliburtun ------ brlewis yahoo google del.icio.us

RadioShack Files for Bankruptcy - philip1209 http://www.wsj.com/articles/radioshack-files-for-bankruptcy-1423175389 ====== matheweis ... and nothing of value was lost. Seriously, I went down to Radio Shack about 6 months ago looking for a decent soldering iron, and came up empty handed at both of the local stores.

Prosecutors Are Reading Emails From Inmates to Lawyers - growlix http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/nyregion/us-is-reading-inmates-email-sent-to-lawyers.html ====== Teodolfo Bar associations should demand that lawyers allow clients encrypted email communication. The adoption problem for encrypted email (all encrypted controlled by the client machine using open source software so google or whoever doesn't also have access to the plaintext) is so hard because it takes BOTH parties to keep communication secure. If all lawyers had to do this, people would become much more aware and maybe demand their medical and tax information sent over email also be encrypted. ~~~ Fuxy Encryption should be mandatory for all sensitive data if it's not encrypted it's public. However judges allowing the emails to be read sounds really stupid to me it's obviously protected by the attorney-client privilege. Most obvious breaches in law are motivated by prosecutors as a lack of staff or convenience these days. I don't care how understaffed you are or how inconvenient it is that is the law and you have to follow it or at least that's how it should be but apparently judges can choose which laws they want to follow. PGP would be great in this situation, your attorney could give you a USB stick with the public and private keys encrypted by a password of your choice and you could use it to send messages to him. Even if the warden or guards were to confiscate the USB stick they still wouldn't be able to decrypt the messages without the password which is protected by law because it's something only you know. And because of how PGP works the messages sent by you to your attorney can only be decrypted by his private key. Once encrypted even you can't decrypt them anymore since you are using his public key to encrypt the message. ------ jroes I was listening to NPR recently and there was an interview with a former Clinton administration official [1] who mentioned almost in passing that prosecutors regularly infringe on the right to privileged conversation between a defendant and their lawyer. Specifically, he mentioned that the room you are given with your lawyer has paper thin walls that the police and prosecutor folks can hear through easily, and when in jail there is no way to have a real private conversation with your lawyer as well. [1] [http://wfae.org/post/webb-hubbell](http://wfae.org/post/webb-hubbell) ~~~ jpatokal I'd hope that's not admissible as evidence in court though, while in this case the emails would apparently be. ~~~ defilade Think of it this way: you're in jail and you're talking to your lawyer about what he thinks the prosecutor's strategy will be, and how he's going to defend you against it. That has nothing to do with evidence admissibility but could still be damaging to your case if the prosecutor finds out about it. ~~~ saraid216 That's roughly equivalent to discovering the identity of someone on the internet who you're arguing with and using it to "win" the argument. ~~~ withdavidli Why do you think this is roughly equivalent? It's not about knowing the identity of the person, it's knowing how they are going to proceed in arguing their case. Setting up an argument takes a lot of time, it's their strategy for winning a case / defending their client. Knowing this beforehand will put one side at an advantage in preparing their case and specifically aim at any faults in arguments. Also why is "win" in quotes? There's generally no winners in flame wars, but in a court of law decisions are made on who wins and loses unless there's a mistrial/deals being cut by both sides. So being able to concentrate efforts directly preparing against a known strategy that the opponent is using is a big advantage. ~~~ saraid216 > Also why is "win" in quotes? Because, > There's generally no winners in flame wars ------ YokoZar Wikipedia tells me that both of the judges that ruled emails are unprivileged were born in 1946. The judge who ruled against the government, however, was born in 1955. I don't think this is a coincidence. I'd be surprised if the former two judges even used email at all. ~~~ anigbrowl I really don't think that makes much difference. I'd be much more interested in the judges' political affiliations. The notion that attorney-client communications are privileged, regardless of medium, is not a new concept. ~~~ crdoconnor IIRC some judges consider email to be something like a postcard or talking in public. ~~~ rapala In a way an unencrypted email is like a postcard. Anyone who gets their hands on it can read it without "opening" anything. ~~~ e_proxus In the same way an unencrypted telephone call is also like a postcard (or posting a tape), but we still have laws protecting that information flow, like the client attorney privilege. What we are seeing now is just a power grab from governments and organizations to have "novel" forms of communication classed as less protected so they can reap the benefits of being able to intercept it. This is exactly how a legally protected and democratic society breaks down. There are only two ways to solve it. Either protect all forms of communication without discrimination, or use or invent technology to prevent it being possible in the first place (and not outlaw that technology). There are no other ways. ------ rtpg >She seemed to take particular offense at an argument by a prosecutor, F. Turner Buford, who suggested that prosecutors merely wanted to avoid the expense and hassle of having to separate attorney-client emails from other emails sent via Trulincs. Would it be that hard to specify one e-mail address as a "priviledged address" (with a signature from the lawyer about such) and filter out those? It's really surprising how people can go to court and argue such claims. ~~~ spacemanmatt That's why the judge felt insulted. ------ diafygi [http://youtu.be/WTPimUSIWbI](http://youtu.be/WTPimUSIWbI) Attorney client privilege is one of the biggest fallouts from mass surveillance. Earlier this year there was a legal hackathon at Mozilla where I tried to make a product to help that. ~~~ NickSharp Thanks for making that! Looks sweet, is it ready for use in the wild? (You mention making it user friendly with a link...) Are there other encryption-type solutions for this problem? Something usable by people locked up in jail who may not be computer savvy. I know a public defender who might be interested. ~~~ diafygi Definitely not ready for prime time, but it works with links now (see the example link in the video description). However, it probably wouldn't be very useful for people in prison because it requires each party to have a dropbox account. Another project that might be relevant is miniLock, but it's still a ways away from being ready. ------ Natsu > Especially since he is acting as a public defender in this case — meaning > the government pays him at $125 per hour — Mr. Fodeman argued that having to > arrange an in-person visit or unmonitored phone call for every small > question on the case was a waste of money and time. The juncture of these two factoids struck me as odd. ~~~ psutor The article expects you to know that $125/hr is way below the normal rate for a criminal defense attorney in a major city, which I would expect to start at about $300/hr. ~~~ enjo I'm a very well paid software engineer.. I apparently can't afford to hire a qualified defender if I find myself in need. I figure a defense is a minimum of 500 hours, so even at $300 that's $150,000. I have no idea where I get that type of money from. Our justice system is severely screwed. ~~~ rhizome A 500 hour billing for defense would be pretty serious, so if that's going to be a problem for you here's a heads-up to ixnay on the crime you're committing that's going to require brand-new Supreme Court-favorable legal theories for acquittal. That's over 3 months of 40-hour weeks dedicated to just your case. I know lawyers bill like crazy, but still. ~~~ mrkurt Avoiding crime isn't really an effective way to avoid needing a lawyer, unfortunately. ~~~ rhizome I wasn't trying to account for all crime everywhere, because after all there are cases of mistaken/misattributed identity that are very time-consuming to defend, but all in all it's a very good way to avoid 500 hours of lawyer. ------ pessimizer If inmates are allowed to email, and also allowed private communication with their lawyers, why wouldn't they be able to have a registered lawyers' email address not be monitored, or to be able to flag an email as privileged _exactly in the way they do with postal mail?_ >Prosecutors once had a “filter team” to set aside defendants’ emails to and from lawyers, but budget cuts no longer allow for that, they said. They seem to know that it's wrong, they're just becoming more confident that judges will let them do whatever they want. I'd accept that inmates shouldn't be allowed to use the internet at all before I'd accept that budget cuts have made it too expensive for prosecutors not to use privileged communications in court. ------ RexRollman I worry for this country. ~~~ venomsnake The executive, LE and intelligence have gone berserk, the congress is paralyzed, courts make corporations more people than actual people and still US is better place than anywhere on the earth. ~~~ noir_lord > and still US is better place than anywhere on the earth. Not really, this is a clear case of American Exceptionalism if unintentional. I'd take Germany, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland or the Netherlands over living in the US if I had the choice. ~~~ venomsnake I am not a US citizen and live currently in EU. Europe is not big on the whole freedom of speech stuff. ~~~ saraid216 The US has freedom of speech, yes. It doesn't bother making sure that you're alive to say it. It doesn't bother making sure that you're capable of saying something worthwhile. So, yes. You have freedom of speech. It's just that most American speech is pointless. ~~~ venomsnake Compared to the terrible crimes of denying holocaust or denying communist atrocities or drawing a swastika. Or the terrible - well pretty much every law in UK (libel, knife carry, mandatory decryption). I am an European, but we have a long way to go towards sanity. And with obesity declared a disability I feel like we are moving away from it. ~~~ saraid216 The thing is that freedom of speech isn't all that important in the long run. It's important, yes, but speech is the first, tiniest baby step in a very long process towards change. To focus on it to the exclusion of all else is to no different than silencing yourself. Indeed, having speech and naught else is like a vent that lets off steam, making change and better lives _harder_ to come by. It is the fool's prerogative to speak his mind, but at the end of the day, the king is still a king, and the fool is still a fool. ------ Canada "...budget cuts no longer allow for that, they said." Is the amount of money being spent on prisons in the United States really shrinking? Honestly, I have no idea. ~~~ anigbrowl I think it's more the amount of money bugeted for prosecutor's offices. Normally things like this would go past a review attorney whose job is is to separate privieleged communications from non-privileged and pass only the latter to the prosecutors, but those are the bottom-rung jobs and the first to go when there are budget cuts. Not many politicians are interested in the legal problems of federal prisoners, standing up on this sort of issue is a sure way to be labeled as 'soft on crooks' by your electoral opponents. Chances are that this won't get fixed until a sufficiently high-level court rules on it, at which point we'll hear a lot of whining about 'activist judges' and so on. What a revolting development. ------ xmstr In most circumstances I am all for attorney-client privilege. But if you are in jail or prison and provided a medium to communicate to the outside world and that medium requires you to accept a consent to monitoring agreement before each use, then you should have no expectation of privacy regardless of whom the communication is with. The prison system has proper ways to initiate secure attorney-client communication and these people failed to use it, that’s their problem. However, I do think the law needs to be updated to allow for secure email communication between the attorney and client, but until that occurs they need to live within the confines of the law. ------ bloggerbulk Surely I believe here ... and I think we should work out on this. [http://www.bloggerbulk.com](http://www.bloggerbulk.com)

Libretro/RetroArch – Hacker vandalised buildbot and GitHub organization - libretro https://www.libretro.com/index.php/hacker-vandalised-our-buildbot-and-github-organization/ ====== joemazerino Hate to ask but is there is an idea on attribution? Considering that the attack is called premeditated I doubt it would be marauding skiddies. ------ greatgib Just a reminder that such an issue of erased history would not have happened with SVN.. ~~~ f00zz Not really erased, maintainers must have a local copy of the history and can just force push