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The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead | I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. |
The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead | I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. |
The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead | I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. |
The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead | I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. |
The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead | I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.<p>It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. |
Amazon launches Part Finder, using technology acquired from Partpic in 2016 | I remember when Amazon bought CDNow ages ago. CDNow let me easily find specific CDs by artist and title AND they even had a great recommendation algorithm. I discovered some great new music that way.<p>In 2002 Amazon shut down CDNow with the idea that you'd just use Amazon.com. Unfortunately, search has been one of Amazon's weakest features. Sixteen years later and I still miss CDNow. Amazon rarely shows exactly what I've searched for and the filtering is almost entirely useless. I want to sort by price or filter by vendor without having to guess which one of the twenty different categories an item is in (often times it's in multiple categories). I want the price of the item to mach what you've shown in the search results (or an explanation why there's a significant difference). If you can't ship something to California or the USA I want know BEFORE I try to check out. It should go without saying I don't want ads in the search results either.<p>To me this "fancy" search by picture is not helpful (instead it's entirely useless). If I want a fastener, I want to be able search by its attributes (something Amazon is terrible about in general). Let's say I want a pretty common metric bolt (M8) in a standard thread pitch (1.25mm). I'll go search or "M8x1.25 bolt". I get a bunch of useless filters, including:<p>Fastener Material: Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel 304, Steel. Right. What sort of stainless steel is the first option?<p>System Of (sic) Measurement: Metric. Nice that this is unchecked and the only option.<p>Fastener Thread Size - Mating (eh?): No Thread Size Selected, M8-1.25. This one is a combo box with a "Go" button for some reason. I literally just entered the thread size and pitch I wanted in the search query. They can parse a picture but they can't figure out I've entered this information in already? Ugh.<p>Fastener Grade & Class: Class 10.9. Aside from the lack of selection, this is where the stainless classification SHOULD go.<p>Categories... well, you've got bolts, hex bolts, eyebolts... Powersports Wheel Spacers? AmazonFresh? WTF?<p>Meanwhile rather important filters are missing like: finish and length.<p>Edit: Contrast this with Grainger (whose site is good, but not great) or McMaster-Carr (the gold standard). |
You Don't Need Moment.js | If you are dealing with timestamps from the past (e.g. birthdays via a datepicker that constructs Date objects), then you should watch out for different browsers' inconsistent handling of Daylight Savings Time. Moment is really indispensable here, since it includes a database of past years' DST transition dates. I wrote a blog post about it here: <a href="https://illuminatedcomputing.com/posts/2017/11/javascript-timezones/" rel="nofollow">https://illuminatedcomputing.com/posts/2017/11/javascript-ti...</a> |
If Jeff Bezos wants to help low-income people why not just pay them better? | He has an ethical responsibility not to. This is a big problem I have with capitalism and publicly traded companies. It's a problem without an answer, since I don't intend on trying other forms of government. Ultimately, his responsibility is to the shareholders. If mistreating employees is legal, and is in the best interest of shareholders, he has a responsibility to mistreat them. Doing anything else is unethical. We can haggle about whether it actually helps shareholders, especially in the long run. We can even encourage more corporate responsibility. At the end of the day, this is a tough issue to get around. This is why we need regulations with teeth. |
XML, blockchains, and the strange shapes of progress | I agree with author prediction, however I propose another solution: Plan9. It's devs foreseen today's problem and start to solve them, far better than actual partial solutions.<p>Oh, of course, Plan9 imply user independence and sovereignty a bad things for today's "industry" so Plan9 solution rest buried in the past. |
Show HN: Simplified music notation | > Note length, tempo, velocity, progression and other stuff are minor worries in comparison. Those things can be felt, without learning.<p>Can it? How do you learn a piece for which you only have a sheet? I would go even further and say that the most I learned about music was from handwritten notes on musicians or conductors[1] sheets.<p>Yes, I can figure out a lot myself just because of my background knowledge but give me something of an obscure era/modernist fashion and I am completely lost. Furthermore, I played the flute, so tempo, for example, dictates how to start a note (lacking the English term here) because there is a huge difference of what I can do to a single note when played larghissimo in contrast to prestissimo.<p>And especially with lots of modern music, composers resort to their own, additional notation because classical notation is <i>not enough to express the music on paper</i>. |
Show HN: Simplified music notation | > Note length, tempo, velocity, progression and other stuff are minor worries in comparison. Those things can be felt, without learning.<p>Can it? How do you learn a piece for which you only have a sheet? I would go even further and say that the most I learned about music was from handwritten notes on musicians or conductors[1] sheets.<p>Yes, I can figure out a lot myself just because of my background knowledge but give me something of an obscure era/modernist fashion and I am completely lost. Furthermore, I played the flute, so tempo, for example, dictates how to start a note (lacking the English term here) because there is a huge difference of what I can do to a single note when played larghissimo in contrast to prestissimo.<p>And especially with lots of modern music, composers resort to their own, additional notation because classical notation is <i>not enough to express the music on paper</i>. |
Phishing Is the Internet’s Most Successful Con | A couple years ago at Inky we pivoted away from general improvements to email to focus on phishing prevention using ML and computer vision, and this has been tremendously successful. (This pivot was motivated primarily by Google Inbox, which of course just got shuttered -- but that's another post.)<p>One challenge with phishing is that virtually all the "best practice" pieces written by the press still follow this Atlantic article's "blame the user" approach to phishing prevention. I.e., train your end users to not click on stuff in bad emails.<p>Unfortunately, what we've seen over the last year or so is exactly what you'd expect: now that many companies are running simulated phishing training campaigns -- sending fake phishing emails to end users to try to train them to not click on "bad links" -- attackers are now sending brand forgery emails that are <i>essentially perfect looking.</i> The key insight here is that the attacker actually has a <i>labor-saving technique</i> that is <i>also</i> completely devastating to the approach of training users: "Save As HTML".<p>It's obvious in retrospect, but all the attacker has to do is take the exact HTML from a real transactional email (say, a DocuSign request), edit it to change one link, and resend it. (In security parlance this is a kind of "replay attack".) By definition, the body of this email will look identical to the original transactional mail, so you're left with training users to see the invisible. The hapless end user logs in "to DocuSign" and thereby gives the attacker his/her credentials.<p>In contrast, a machine learning system that is trained to recognize brand-indicative clues from emails can trivially verify DKIM, etc. on the mail to determine whether the mail really is from DocuSign or not. (It's actually not really trivial, because DocuSign might send mail through MailChimp or some random domain they never told you about, but that's a detail...) Software 1, Humans 0.<p>This leads me to personally believe that while phishing awareness training is important and a good practice, the future must be one where the machines do the vast majority of phishing email identification, blocking these emails before they reach end users. And it's a hard problem.<p>Of course, attackers can't precisely control the headers -- e.g., they can't easily send DKIM-signed mail from a domain named docusign.com --
so they can't literally replay a real DocuSign mail. But here again they use lots of clever tricks. One of my favorite (i.e., most evil) real-world phishing emails was a clone of an American Express "confirm card activity" email sent from domain aexp-ib.com. Most recipients would plausibly believe that that domain was some kind of internal Amex mail server or something, so it doesn't look at all weird. Even more devastatingly, this email came DKIM-signed -- with SPF and DMARC "alignment" -- by a very high reputation sender (Google), so it sailed right through mail protection systems based around traditional "good mail / bad mail" signals.<p>Why was it signed by Google? Because the attacker set up a G Suite account and sent the emails from there. This is another challenging phenomenon we're seeing: it's trivial for attackers to "inherit" the good reputation of a shared service like G Suite in this manner. Similarly, instead of hosting phishing sites on sketchy-looking URLs that can be detected with simple Bayesian models (good vs bad URL detection), attackers now host their stuff on Google Sites and on compromised web sites with high Alexa rankings. You can use simple heuristics like "don't trust mail from a domain set up in the last 3 days" but that's problematic too, because attackers can simply bank domains. (And, for that matter, real senders create new domains and send legitimate mail from them.)<p>According to the FBI, email-based phishing attacks have cost companies over $12B since 2013. If there's any silver lining to this scourge, it's that it makes for a really interesting technical challenge for the white hats that pretty much everyone understands the need for. (A completely different set of techniques is required to block impersonations of people -- "spear phishing" -- but I'll leave that for another day.) |
Phishing Is the Internet’s Most Successful Con | A couple years ago at Inky we pivoted away from general improvements to email to focus on phishing prevention using ML and computer vision, and this has been tremendously successful. (This pivot was motivated primarily by Google Inbox, which of course just got shuttered -- but that's another post.)<p>One challenge with phishing is that virtually all the "best practice" pieces written by the press still follow this Atlantic article's "blame the user" approach to phishing prevention. I.e., train your end users to not click on stuff in bad emails.<p>Unfortunately, what we've seen over the last year or so is exactly what you'd expect: now that many companies are running simulated phishing training campaigns -- sending fake phishing emails to end users to try to train them to not click on "bad links" -- attackers are now sending brand forgery emails that are <i>essentially perfect looking.</i> The key insight here is that the attacker actually has a <i>labor-saving technique</i> that is <i>also</i> completely devastating to the approach of training users: "Save As HTML".<p>It's obvious in retrospect, but all the attacker has to do is take the exact HTML from a real transactional email (say, a DocuSign request), edit it to change one link, and resend it. (In security parlance this is a kind of "replay attack".) By definition, the body of this email will look identical to the original transactional mail, so you're left with training users to see the invisible. The hapless end user logs in "to DocuSign" and thereby gives the attacker his/her credentials.<p>In contrast, a machine learning system that is trained to recognize brand-indicative clues from emails can trivially verify DKIM, etc. on the mail to determine whether the mail really is from DocuSign or not. (It's actually not really trivial, because DocuSign might send mail through MailChimp or some random domain they never told you about, but that's a detail...) Software 1, Humans 0.<p>This leads me to personally believe that while phishing awareness training is important and a good practice, the future must be one where the machines do the vast majority of phishing email identification, blocking these emails before they reach end users. And it's a hard problem.<p>Of course, attackers can't precisely control the headers -- e.g., they can't easily send DKIM-signed mail from a domain named docusign.com --
so they can't literally replay a real DocuSign mail. But here again they use lots of clever tricks. One of my favorite (i.e., most evil) real-world phishing emails was a clone of an American Express "confirm card activity" email sent from domain aexp-ib.com. Most recipients would plausibly believe that that domain was some kind of internal Amex mail server or something, so it doesn't look at all weird. Even more devastatingly, this email came DKIM-signed -- with SPF and DMARC "alignment" -- by a very high reputation sender (Google), so it sailed right through mail protection systems based around traditional "good mail / bad mail" signals.<p>Why was it signed by Google? Because the attacker set up a G Suite account and sent the emails from there. This is another challenging phenomenon we're seeing: it's trivial for attackers to "inherit" the good reputation of a shared service like G Suite in this manner. Similarly, instead of hosting phishing sites on sketchy-looking URLs that can be detected with simple Bayesian models (good vs bad URL detection), attackers now host their stuff on Google Sites and on compromised web sites with high Alexa rankings. You can use simple heuristics like "don't trust mail from a domain set up in the last 3 days" but that's problematic too, because attackers can simply bank domains. (And, for that matter, real senders create new domains and send legitimate mail from them.)<p>According to the FBI, email-based phishing attacks have cost companies over $12B since 2013. If there's any silver lining to this scourge, it's that it makes for a really interesting technical challenge for the white hats that pretty much everyone understands the need for. (A completely different set of techniques is required to block impersonations of people -- "spear phishing" -- but I'll leave that for another day.) |
Davy Crockett (nuclear device) | And some people still wonder why Germans have an aversion towards anything called "nuclear". |
SageMath – Open-Source Mathematical Software System | When I was in college, about six or so years ago, I used Sage for my physics classes. At some point I stopped using it because it didn't really stand up to Mathematica, which we got for free. My professor said, funnily enough, "sage has been taken over by mathematicians!" talking about how it has a lot of support for math uses but not as much for things like solving ODEs that is more of use for physicists and engineers. It's funny now seeing most of the comments here talking about crypto, which I read about in examples for Sage at the time (finite fields) whilst not knowing what it could be used for other than research.<p>These days I'm a computational scientist, so I end up using numeric tools anyway (numpy is my life). That said, it'd be great to have access to an open source symbolic tool for the times I need them. How has Sage improved for engineer/science types in the last few years? |
Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us? | “We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.”<p>This.<p>I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's his full time job) in my area. He raises specialty row crops and runs an agricultural co-op, the kind where you pay a certain amount a month and get a box of fresh vegetables every week. But hobby farmers can't feed the country. We can't even feed ourselves, if it comes to that.<p>The problem is that these vegetables, which don't have to be shipped any distance and don't have the overhead of a grocery store, are still more expensive than the equivalent groceries in the local Safeway. The economies of scale in agriculture have become so strong that there's no way to compete on price any other way. And people understandably don't want to double their grocery bills just to buy local.<p>I grew up on a 300 acre cattle farm. Fifty years ago a family could make a living on a 300 acre, well situated east coast farm. Not any more. You'd have trouble just paying for gas, groceries, and medical care. Forget paying down a mortgage or god forbid buying new farm equipment. The only way to even stay on the farm, is to either walk into a situation where everything - land, house, barn, equipment, everything - is already paid for. Or to get a full time job in town and farm on the weekends. That's what my dad did. And it's what my sister and brother-in-law do now.<p>We have a situation where we've harnessed economies of scale so much that we have only a small handful of corporations producing our food. They mainly want to grow exactly the same small number of crops, to keep supply chains simple. We've wrung all of the redundancy, both financial and biodiversity, out of the system.<p>So what happens if someone figures out how to weaponize that against us? What happens if Chinese investors own half the farm land and we go to war with China? Or what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat? This is not just a human tragedy. It's a huge national security issue, and it looks like nobody is paying attention. |
Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us? | “We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.”<p>This.<p>I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's his full time job) in my area. He raises specialty row crops and runs an agricultural co-op, the kind where you pay a certain amount a month and get a box of fresh vegetables every week. But hobby farmers can't feed the country. We can't even feed ourselves, if it comes to that.<p>The problem is that these vegetables, which don't have to be shipped any distance and don't have the overhead of a grocery store, are still more expensive than the equivalent groceries in the local Safeway. The economies of scale in agriculture have become so strong that there's no way to compete on price any other way. And people understandably don't want to double their grocery bills just to buy local.<p>I grew up on a 300 acre cattle farm. Fifty years ago a family could make a living on a 300 acre, well situated east coast farm. Not any more. You'd have trouble just paying for gas, groceries, and medical care. Forget paying down a mortgage or god forbid buying new farm equipment. The only way to even stay on the farm, is to either walk into a situation where everything - land, house, barn, equipment, everything - is already paid for. Or to get a full time job in town and farm on the weekends. That's what my dad did. And it's what my sister and brother-in-law do now.<p>We have a situation where we've harnessed economies of scale so much that we have only a small handful of corporations producing our food. They mainly want to grow exactly the same small number of crops, to keep supply chains simple. We've wrung all of the redundancy, both financial and biodiversity, out of the system.<p>So what happens if someone figures out how to weaponize that against us? What happens if Chinese investors own half the farm land and we go to war with China? Or what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat? This is not just a human tragedy. It's a huge national security issue, and it looks like nobody is paying attention. |
In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users | Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers.<p>It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers.<p>Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API.<p>The trust must be restored.<p>Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, that their (potential) customers for service Y (such as Google Compute Engine) become concerned that service Y will be shut down too.<p>To put a positive suggestion forward, Google could consider giving all services a "sunset guarantee".<p>A "sunset guarantee" is a commitment that the service will be shut down only with a minimum notice period of say for example 5 years. |
One DNA test said he was likely to get Alzheimer’s, the other said he wasn’t | > “It’s not about the issue being half-baked,” the doctor replied, “but what the heck do we do about it, once we know, other than create high anxiety?”<p>Loads. Are you seriously telling me that you can't think of <i>anything</i> useful to do with this knowledge? (What about if he wants to have kids?)<p>> The doctor referred Mr. Fender to a geneticist, but it turned out he did not see patients under 50 who were not symptomatic and had no family history of the disease.<p>> Mr. Fender then tracked down Jill Goldman, a genetic counselor specializing in dementia at the Taub Institute at Columbia University Medical Center, who described a multistep process of counseling and confirmatory testing that’s been the standard of care for 25 years. She typically serves people at high risk of inheriting a disease, and insurance usually covers both the consultations and the tests. But it was unlikely to cover the costs in the absence of family history. “It was like a chicken-and-egg thing,” Mr. Fender observes. “I needed a medical test to prove to them that it was real, but I couldn’t get a medical test until I could prove to them that it was real.”<p>> Meanwhile, he happened to see a holiday special — $69 — for Ancestry’s genetic risk test.<p>There are problems here, but they're not with 23andMe or Ancestry.com, I don't think. |
Amazon Investigates Employees Leaking Data for Bribes | That's how Costco survives and prospers in Amazon era.<p>By not exposing customers to shady vendors, misleading metrics and questionable product rankings based on fake reviews. |
Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off | Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today.<p>However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it's uncommon to find many people who are capable of being as tough as Linus without in some way alienating those around them, it's a fine line at times.<p>Anecdotally, one of the most effective engineers I worked with, who asked penetrating questions during code and design reviews, did come off as a bit of an asshole at times. Whether by genetics or through childhood, I'd bet people tend to cluster onto the line separating "agreeable and lax" and "rude but firm" (as a sweeping generality). We often label people who are all smiles while simultaneously extremely strict as passive agressive. Add to that the fact that many technical people are less socially adjusted than average and I can see why we have so many examples of mean but effective project leads. |
Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off | Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today.<p>However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it's uncommon to find many people who are capable of being as tough as Linus without in some way alienating those around them, it's a fine line at times.<p>Anecdotally, one of the most effective engineers I worked with, who asked penetrating questions during code and design reviews, did come off as a bit of an asshole at times. Whether by genetics or through childhood, I'd bet people tend to cluster onto the line separating "agreeable and lax" and "rude but firm" (as a sweeping generality). We often label people who are all smiles while simultaneously extremely strict as passive agressive. Add to that the fact that many technical people are less socially adjusted than average and I can see why we have so many examples of mean but effective project leads. |
Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off | I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude.<p>(to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion.<p>in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality. |
Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off | I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude.<p>(to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion.<p>in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality. |
Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off | > I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.<p>Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect.<p>Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Is the same piece of his personality that made him a truly unpleasant person also the one that made him super motivated?<p>That's the second BFDL stepping down (this one claims to go just for a while), after Guido. And note that this is one is also about psychology. |
In defense of a third way in open software licensing | The article spends a lot of words to obfuscate the truth that their "third way" is traditional proprietary software. Their online license store offers two products:<p>* "Parity Public License" is a poorly drafted and extremely aggressive alternative to the AGPL, requiring users to "Contribute all source code for software you develop, deploy, monitor, or run with this software".<p>* "Prosperity Public License" is a proprietary shareware license with a 32-day free trial. |
In defense of a third way in open software licensing | I have no problem with somebody deciding that a shareware or dual-licensing model are the best choice for their business. But it's incredibly toxic for the people pursuing those models to muddy and contort the accepted definition of "open" in order to misrepresent what they are doing.<p>It's deeply disingenuous for this blog post to use the word "bullying" to describe the community's rejection of software distributed under undesirable or ill-considered terms. You can ship your code under whatever terms you want, but don't act like users and contributors have an obligation to support you when you make choices that don't serve their interests. |
In defense of a third way in open software licensing | As an active maintainer of a popular 8.8K+ starred Open Source project, I can attest to how hard and difficult it is to run, fund, finance, etc.<p>But, at the end of the day, there is no excuse - we cannot sacrifice our ideals/values just because Open Source can be rough.<p>True Open Source is worth making the sacrifice for, but there are a <i></i>lot<i></i> of new/old licenses trying to evangelize themselves as "Open Source" but are secretly masked proprietary/cripple-ware. This needs to be stopped.<p>We had a good discussion about this on Twitter the other day: <a href="https://twitter.com/marknadal/status/1032763711008559104" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/marknadal/status/1032763711008559104</a> |
Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup? | People.<p>Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things, too.<p>The road to a "successful startup" can be paved with a lot of bullshit. Burnout, depression, stress, mistakes. Regret. Employees locked in their handcuffs, even though they hate their work and their lives. Taxes. Paying people to advise you on all of these things. Trying to do something bigger the next time. Trying to move up and forward, bigger and better. Recapturing the lightning in a bottle. Dealing with yourself, and your reactions to all of this. Feeling uncomfortable about those feelings. |
Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup? | People.<p>Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things, too.<p>The road to a "successful startup" can be paved with a lot of bullshit. Burnout, depression, stress, mistakes. Regret. Employees locked in their handcuffs, even though they hate their work and their lives. Taxes. Paying people to advise you on all of these things. Trying to do something bigger the next time. Trying to move up and forward, bigger and better. Recapturing the lightning in a bottle. Dealing with yourself, and your reactions to all of this. Feeling uncomfortable about those feelings. |
Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup? | People.<p>Success breeds some weird shit, especially if you were close to people, which happens a lot in startups with a high work ethic. Friends turn into strangers, friends turn into enemies. Some make more money than you — a lot more — and some make less than you — a lot less. Brews some weird undercurrent sometimes. Money changes things. Even if you don't make real money... the perception of success changes things, too.<p>The road to a "successful startup" can be paved with a lot of bullshit. Burnout, depression, stress, mistakes. Regret. Employees locked in their handcuffs, even though they hate their work and their lives. Taxes. Paying people to advise you on all of these things. Trying to do something bigger the next time. Trying to move up and forward, bigger and better. Recapturing the lightning in a bottle. Dealing with yourself, and your reactions to all of this. Feeling uncomfortable about those feelings. |
Ask HN: What is the dark side of working at a successful startup? | I have had two startups promise me the moon and the stars only to fire me shortly after the product was developed and viable.<p>One found a way to screw me out of all the equity as well, which would have made me a ten something millionaire.<p>Once people start smelling money things shift quickly. |
Nextspace – NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux | I imagine a world in which the F/OSS community chose to implement and innovate on GNUStep or some other OpenSTEP/NeXT/Cocoa compatible implementation. This project is exciting by way of providing a more complete nucleus of what that desktop might look like.<p>The KDE/Gnome schism really divided the mindshare of the open *nix desktop. If we’d gone this route, I like to imagine the differences between Mac and Linux or BSD would be small enough that<p>- Mac apps would be a recompile away from running on Linux<p>And<p>- Linux would be a viable developer environment to target macOS<p>Apple’s commitment to the desktop has waned and caused some longtime users like me to go back to Linux/BSD. Meanwhile, desktop facilities on Linux/BSD have lacked coherence and singularity of vision. A viable, modern post-OpenSTEP Linux and BSD desktop would have the capacity to keep Apple honest, while giving the Free community a benchmark for consistency.<p>I’d love to see something like this project blossom into a 3rd way GUI layer for Linux and BSD. |
Nextspace – NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux | I imagine a world in which the F/OSS community chose to implement and innovate on GNUStep or some other OpenSTEP/NeXT/Cocoa compatible implementation. This project is exciting by way of providing a more complete nucleus of what that desktop might look like.<p>The KDE/Gnome schism really divided the mindshare of the open *nix desktop. If we’d gone this route, I like to imagine the differences between Mac and Linux or BSD would be small enough that<p>- Mac apps would be a recompile away from running on Linux<p>And<p>- Linux would be a viable developer environment to target macOS<p>Apple’s commitment to the desktop has waned and caused some longtime users like me to go back to Linux/BSD. Meanwhile, desktop facilities on Linux/BSD have lacked coherence and singularity of vision. A viable, modern post-OpenSTEP Linux and BSD desktop would have the capacity to keep Apple honest, while giving the Free community a benchmark for consistency.<p>I’d love to see something like this project blossom into a 3rd way GUI layer for Linux and BSD. |
The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade? | Amazon shares have a lot of value, and Bezos is sitting on a pile of them. What should Bezos do with that currency -- hoard it? spend it?<p>This supermoney represents Bezos' capacity to incentivize his fellow humans to act in concert toward a goal that he can influence. If he hoards it, then it does nothing for society. Bezos doesn't need it for his personal enjoyment either. After he leases a couple jets, buys a few homes, and pays for his staff, I doubt that costs more than tens of millions per year. Not billions.<p>If he spends it, then he needs to find undertakings that can efficiently absorb billions of dollars in value and still advance a meaningful goal. Space exploration is one of those undertakings. Bezos said he has been spending I think a billion per year on space travel / rocket engineering. There are few other areas that could so easily use this kind of capital. I would think that homelessness is another difficult problem that can absorb large amounts of value.<p>Maybe this arrangement of accumulation and philanthropy is sub-optimal, and we should instead tax capital to allocate the surplus democratically rather than allow the person who accumulated it to make the decision. Well, we already do that to some degree, with mixed results. Perhaps a little of both is called for.<p>In any event, I for one am pleased to see this money going to address homelessness. I don't care who is making the endowment, as long as the funds are used well. This is a serious, difficult problem, and this charity seems meaningful to me, not a purchased indulgence like sponsoring a new museum wing for example. |
Molecule produced during fasting has anti-aging effect on vascular system | I'm on a day 4 of a water-only fast and have completed a two-week medically supervised fast as well as many other shorter fast.<p>As an anecdote, I can say water-only fasting in combination with a high nutrient density plant-based diet has helped me overcome some serious allergies and other health conditions. As an added bonus, I've lost 65 pounds from my peak weight over the last few years and my weight has been stable. It's not a panacea, but I've found it to be a net benefit.<p>For those interested in a deeper dive on the benefits of water-only fasting and diets that try to mimic its benefits, as well as time-restricted feeding, see:<p>Valter Longo, Ph.D. on Fasting-Mimicking Diet & Fasting for Longevity, Cancer & Multiple Sclerosis [1]<p>Dr. Valter Longo on Resetting Autoimmunity and Rejuvenating Systems with Prolonged Fasting & the FMD [2]<p>Dr. Satchin Panda on Time-Restricted Feeding and Its Effects on Obesity, Muscle Mass & Heart Health [3]<p>Dr. Satchin Panda on Practical Implementation of Time-Restricted Eating & Shift Work Strategies [4]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PyyatqJSE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PyyatqJSE</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGFWRXEzz8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGFWRXEzz8</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-eqJDQ2nU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-eqJDQ2nU</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iywhaz5z0qs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iywhaz5z0qs</a><p>[Edit to fix typos and formatting] |
America is pushing the labour market to its limits | It's frustrating reading about how hot the labor market is compared to my personal experience.<p>I worked in a technical field with a number of very skilled, very good people. These are guys you can tell "hey we need this fixed" and they're capable of learning what is needed to do the job with very little hand holding, and they're great teammates too. At their job they were highly valued people and well paid. An acquisition and layoff occurred and many had trouble finding jobs, everyone who did find a job is making less now.<p>You see tons of jobs out there on websites and even "desperate" listings, but the hiring process takes forever, and these guys just don't get hired. Something seems off.<p>These aren't guys with traditional backgrounds, mostly "tech school" types, but they've got decades of experience and are very capable. The folks I worked with were mostly hired under the idea that heir resume showed they were capable and could learn, but I don't hear anyone talk about that anymore.
The hiring process seems to demand only people with EXACTLY the skills listed no matter how absurd the list, and employers would rather gripe about not hiring anyone than actually hire someone. Nobody wants anyone to learn anymore or take the chance on someone having to learn.... even if the job would seem to require it. It's a nasty combo of the market changing quickly and seemingly the market demanding only exact qualifications.... you can't have both.<p>I decided to change careers and move into web development. Needless to say that was a pay cut but I was ok with it as I am changing careers (and I really enjoy the work). The process of looking for a job was brutal. It felt like there was an artificial filter of recruiters and HR whose job it was to delay hiring and filter out all but what they imagined was a perfect candidate... but they don't tell you who that is, and honestly those folks have no clue what the day to day job even IS. It's like they pick the worst people to initially filter candidates.<p>I remember when recruiters and HR were deferential to the actual hiring managers, now it seems more the other way where people who really don't know the job filter what the hiring managers see... and even in at least two cases canceled a hire because they didn't like something. That makes no sense.<p>In the meantime everyone wants a "senior" (I put that in quotes because everyone's idea was absurdly different) and nobody wants anyone who is learning.<p>I was fortunate and found a job, first person that I felt actually tested my skills via a take home project hired me. After being hired now I get a bunch of contacts from places I already applied, even was rejected, sometimes for the same jobs they didn't hire me for. I wasn't good enough now, but "oh man he got a job" is apparently enough to get my foot in. Meanwhile capable people aren't getting offers. It's absurd.<p>The news about hot job market, lack of rising wages, and wonky hiring systems all seem very weird, and to conflict as far as a narrative goes. |
Gell-Mann amnesia effect | I'm a bit skeptical about this one and wonder to what extent the effect is actually measurable for <i>newspapers</i>. The problem seems to me that not every topic is covered in the same way by journalists and that the journalists are usually also specializing in particular topics and don't just write anywhere.<p>A science journalist has usually studied some natural science but has to cover all of them and has to simplify a lot, so a trained expert will find a lot of inaccuracies. This is not true for the journalist who reports international events and affairs - these are based on much simpler facts such as "which government decided what" and "which spokesperson of some organisation said what when". It's much easier to get worldly facts like this right, which mostly come from multiple news agencies anyway, than describing news about theoretical physics to laymen in terms that are 100% accurate to a physicist.<p>In a nutshell, I'm not so sure that the effect really exists in any significant way.<p>Another issue is, of course, from where else you would get accurate news if not from journalists and press agencies. I've never heard of any reasonable and viable alternative from critics of traditional news media. Cell phone videos by citizen reporters with hysterical voice over can hardly count as a good substitute. Neither are copy&paste news aggregators or bloggers.<p>At some point you've got to trust your newspaper (or read a better one!) unless there is explicit counter-evidence from elsewhere against the story. Most botched reports get corrected very fast anyway. |
Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible | You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time?<p><i>Repairability</i>.<p>The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can't fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device. End user repairability has been utterly neglected. Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on.<p>Are other manufacturers better? They <i>used</i> to be. Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone.<p>Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! Just wonderful. How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S? Oh. I see. Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn't so practical then, is it?<p>Repairability. I'll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair. |
Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization | I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches.<p>Personally I'd love to support more websites through ads if two conditions could be met:<p>- A way to ensure that ads don't try to harm me by e.g. leading me to websites serving malware or abusing my computer's resources (e.g. miners)<p>- A way to keep my privacy and control what data is collected about me (and who has access to that data)<p>Currently I simply can't turn off the ad-blocker even if I wanted as most sites become completely unusable and outright obnoxious by showing large, blinking or content-hiding ads, videos, popups or fake overlays. That's why most people use ad-blockers (IMHO). If ads are decent, relevant and non-obtrusive I personally would be happy to see them.<p>Also, go to any large website these days (without ad-blocker enabled) and check how many third-party trackers they load. There are many sites that send my data to more than 50 (!) different ad networks and partners, which is just insane. |
Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization | I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches.<p>Personally I'd love to support more websites through ads if two conditions could be met:<p>- A way to ensure that ads don't try to harm me by e.g. leading me to websites serving malware or abusing my computer's resources (e.g. miners)<p>- A way to keep my privacy and control what data is collected about me (and who has access to that data)<p>Currently I simply can't turn off the ad-blocker even if I wanted as most sites become completely unusable and outright obnoxious by showing large, blinking or content-hiding ads, videos, popups or fake overlays. That's why most people use ad-blockers (IMHO). If ads are decent, relevant and non-obtrusive I personally would be happy to see them.<p>Also, go to any large website these days (without ad-blocker enabled) and check how many third-party trackers they load. There are many sites that send my data to more than 50 (!) different ad networks and partners, which is just insane. |
Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization | I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches.<p>Personally I'd love to support more websites through ads if two conditions could be met:<p>- A way to ensure that ads don't try to harm me by e.g. leading me to websites serving malware or abusing my computer's resources (e.g. miners)<p>- A way to keep my privacy and control what data is collected about me (and who has access to that data)<p>Currently I simply can't turn off the ad-blocker even if I wanted as most sites become completely unusable and outright obnoxious by showing large, blinking or content-hiding ads, videos, popups or fake overlays. That's why most people use ad-blockers (IMHO). If ads are decent, relevant and non-obtrusive I personally would be happy to see them.<p>Also, go to any large website these days (without ad-blocker enabled) and check how many third-party trackers they load. There are many sites that send my data to more than 50 (!) different ad networks and partners, which is just insane. |
Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization | I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches.<p>Personally I'd love to support more websites through ads if two conditions could be met:<p>- A way to ensure that ads don't try to harm me by e.g. leading me to websites serving malware or abusing my computer's resources (e.g. miners)<p>- A way to keep my privacy and control what data is collected about me (and who has access to that data)<p>Currently I simply can't turn off the ad-blocker even if I wanted as most sites become completely unusable and outright obnoxious by showing large, blinking or content-hiding ads, videos, popups or fake overlays. That's why most people use ad-blockers (IMHO). If ads are decent, relevant and non-obtrusive I personally would be happy to see them.<p>Also, go to any large website these days (without ad-blocker enabled) and check how many third-party trackers they load. There are many sites that send my data to more than 50 (!) different ad networks and partners, which is just insane. |
Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization | I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches.<p>Personally I'd love to support more websites through ads if two conditions could be met:<p>- A way to ensure that ads don't try to harm me by e.g. leading me to websites serving malware or abusing my computer's resources (e.g. miners)<p>- A way to keep my privacy and control what data is collected about me (and who has access to that data)<p>Currently I simply can't turn off the ad-blocker even if I wanted as most sites become completely unusable and outright obnoxious by showing large, blinking or content-hiding ads, videos, popups or fake overlays. That's why most people use ad-blockers (IMHO). If ads are decent, relevant and non-obtrusive I personally would be happy to see them.<p>Also, go to any large website these days (without ad-blocker enabled) and check how many third-party trackers they load. There are many sites that send my data to more than 50 (!) different ad networks and partners, which is just insane. |
I worked in an Amazon warehouse. Bernie Sanders is right to target them | A company as big as Amazon doesn't make as much as it does by treating workers fairly. They are the modern day version of old industrial factories. They take down and out people who they know they can exploit and push them to their limits. I've seen a few places in the poorer section of states where most of the locals are forced to work in a small number of factories/plants. Even in these cases though, they are at least treated like humans. The atmosphere at some of these Amazon warehouses serves to dehumanize the workers. You are not a person, you are an object that is expected to obey very strict rules like a dog. The management at these warehouses is even worse, because it's often very abusive people who wind up in those positions. |
iOS 12 released | “Apple believes privacy is a fundamental human right, which is why iOS has always been designed with built-in encryption, on-device intelligence, and other tools that let you share what you want on your terms.”<p>It isn’t often that you see any company the size of Apple take that strong of a stance. Privacy is their best feature and it seems like they are doubling down. |
IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Thousands | It seems that every large company is guilty of this to some extent. I used to work at Intel and they had this exact problem when they tried to shrink the work force. The dynamic goes like this: Managers find it easier to use the performance management tool to make everyone happy rather than to follow the policies and procedures in place. So you end up with lots of quirks on an individual level -- someone wants more pay and less stock so you stick them on a low stock grant and high pay increase. Or the work in a given team simply isn't that difficult and so as your traditional journeyman gains more experience they get more expensive but not more useful- so they become at risk.<p>Then HR comes in to do the mass headcount cut, look at performance reviews and just cut all the people with low performance reviews. Because it's done on a mass scale of 1,000s of people they really can't do it on a case by case basis. The problem is that to safely fire staff you need to have treated them fairly and that's where it all comes out of the woodwork. You put all the data together and it turns out you've fired way more people over 50 because the organisation is a pyramid and older workers aren't value for money at the bottom of the pyramid and there's not many places at the top.<p>Obviously it's also true that if you can fire 10 older engineers on high salaries lots of managers will choose to do that simply because it means they don't need to fire 20 younger engineers. It's the easy option.<p>Not to mention the fact that if you've been at a company a long time you've most likely had your salary rise during the good years and stay flat in the bad years, either way when you get to a bad cycle again suddenly you look very expensive to the organisation. |
IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Thousands | It seems that every large company is guilty of this to some extent. I used to work at Intel and they had this exact problem when they tried to shrink the work force. The dynamic goes like this: Managers find it easier to use the performance management tool to make everyone happy rather than to follow the policies and procedures in place. So you end up with lots of quirks on an individual level -- someone wants more pay and less stock so you stick them on a low stock grant and high pay increase. Or the work in a given team simply isn't that difficult and so as your traditional journeyman gains more experience they get more expensive but not more useful- so they become at risk.<p>Then HR comes in to do the mass headcount cut, look at performance reviews and just cut all the people with low performance reviews. Because it's done on a mass scale of 1,000s of people they really can't do it on a case by case basis. The problem is that to safely fire staff you need to have treated them fairly and that's where it all comes out of the woodwork. You put all the data together and it turns out you've fired way more people over 50 because the organisation is a pyramid and older workers aren't value for money at the bottom of the pyramid and there's not many places at the top.<p>Obviously it's also true that if you can fire 10 older engineers on high salaries lots of managers will choose to do that simply because it means they don't need to fire 20 younger engineers. It's the easy option.<p>Not to mention the fact that if you've been at a company a long time you've most likely had your salary rise during the good years and stay flat in the bad years, either way when you get to a bad cycle again suddenly you look very expensive to the organisation. |
IBM Is Being Sued for Age Discrimination After Firing Thousands | It seems that every large company is guilty of this to some extent. I used to work at Intel and they had this exact problem when they tried to shrink the work force. The dynamic goes like this: Managers find it easier to use the performance management tool to make everyone happy rather than to follow the policies and procedures in place. So you end up with lots of quirks on an individual level -- someone wants more pay and less stock so you stick them on a low stock grant and high pay increase. Or the work in a given team simply isn't that difficult and so as your traditional journeyman gains more experience they get more expensive but not more useful- so they become at risk.<p>Then HR comes in to do the mass headcount cut, look at performance reviews and just cut all the people with low performance reviews. Because it's done on a mass scale of 1,000s of people they really can't do it on a case by case basis. The problem is that to safely fire staff you need to have treated them fairly and that's where it all comes out of the woodwork. You put all the data together and it turns out you've fired way more people over 50 because the organisation is a pyramid and older workers aren't value for money at the bottom of the pyramid and there's not many places at the top.<p>Obviously it's also true that if you can fire 10 older engineers on high salaries lots of managers will choose to do that simply because it means they don't need to fire 20 younger engineers. It's the easy option.<p>Not to mention the fact that if you've been at a company a long time you've most likely had your salary rise during the good years and stay flat in the bad years, either way when you get to a bad cycle again suddenly you look very expensive to the organisation. |
David Patterson Says It’s Time for New Computer Architectures and Languages | Are there languages that have first-class support for representing/optimizing memory hierarchy characteristics? Optimizing C compilers, for example, may have extensions to force specific alignments:<p><a href="https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/coding-for-performance-data-alignment-and-structures" rel="nofollow">https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/coding-for-perform...</a><p>But I'm not aware of languages where e.g. declaring alignments is part of the base language. Awareness of L1, L2, L3 cache characteristics, plus NUMA nodes, is increasingly important to writing high performance code. Every language I've ever used exposes nothing of that hierarchy; it's all just "memory".<p>People who write performance-critical code are already aware of these issues and can measure/hint/optimize to work with the memory hierarchy in existing languages. But I feel like this could be better if we had languages that modeled these issues up front instead of only exposing the abstracted view. Maybe such languages already exist and I just haven't encountered them yet. |
Elon Musk sued by the cave rescue diver he called 'pedo guy' and 'child rapist' | Popehat has an interesting, if flawed analysis of the lawsuit. [<a href="https://www.popehat.com/2018/09/17/cave-diver-vernon-unsworth-sues-elon-musk/" rel="nofollow">https://www.popehat.com/2018/09/17/cave-diver-vernon-unswort...</a>]<p>In a nutshell, Popehat argues that the tweets are hyperbole but not defamatory, while the email to Buzzfeed "probably" is.<p>On the Twitter posts. Popehat argues that in the context of Twitter, the tweets are clearly just posturing and insults. This analysis is flawed, as Elon also uses Twitter as a means of communicating with shareholders of Tesla--and has already taken the legal position with the SEC that Twitter is one of the mediums through which he communicates truthful statements to the public. Moreover, while the first Tweet could (and probably would) be regarded as just hyperbole, the followup tweets change the context. Especially the tweet in which he challenges Unsworth to sue him if the first tweet isn't true. While individually the tweets may each fall below the threshold for defamation, in the aggregate they likely would be treated as defamatory, because the <i>pattern</i> of multiple tweets significantly changes the context in which the first tweet was made from mere hyperbole to a factual assertion.<p>On the Buzzfeed email. Popehat argues that the email is only possibly defamatory. I think he needs to crack open a textbook on California defamation law. Musk called him a "child rapist" and made factual statements claiming that Unsworth had married a 12 year (i.e., was a statutory rapist) and traveled to a city apparently known to Musk to be a haven for child sex trafficking for the purposes of engaging in child sex trafficking. All of these statements were intended to be factual, and under Cali law, are per se defamatory because they make allegations that are legally considered so damaging that the simple act of making the statement is considered harmful to the reputation of the victim, even if no immediate economic harm is suffered. There is no "possibly defamatory" nonsense here. Elon deliberately made specific false factual statements. He's fucked.<p>Importantly for the lawsuit, Unsworth is only alleging one count of defamation--he's bundling the tweets and email together into a single count, rather than alleging each individual tweet and email as its own count. This is important, because legally it means that the tweets are being offered as part of a pattern of defamatory publications, allowing Unsworth to avoid the question of whether any particular tweet is defamatory on its own.<p>Elon is fucked, and the sooner he settles the smaller the settlement will be. If this gets to trial, he's looking at an 8-figures. If Unsworth proves malice--and based on the email he likely can--treble punitive damages might apply. If he settles early, he might be lucky to get by with a high 7-figure settlement. Let's hope he listens to his lawyers on this one, because if he tries to fight this, it could financially destroy him. |
Transmission of cancer by a single multiorgan donor to 4 transplant recipients | The opposite problem is a compelling one as well. My transplant surgeon says that "Snow White isn't going to be your organ donor", meaning that patients must understand that every organ will have flaws and exposure to disease, exposure to imperfect lifestyles, etc.<p>None are perfect. But transplant recipients don't need a perfect organ. They just need one that will get them through their natural life. A "good enough" one.<p>This mindset is important for the moment when an organ becomes available. Many patients on the wait list for organs actually turn down donor offers because of some imperfection the doctor told them about. In fact, some people turn down an organ just because another patient previously turned it down - even though the reason might have nothing to do with the viability of the organ itself. The consequences of such a decision can be fatal.<p>Instead, my surgeon pioneered the idea of transplanting Hepatitis C infected livers into patients who needed transplant because of HepC-driven liver failure. His idea was that young people recently infected with HepC who die tragically are often in otherwise excellent health (HepC is a slowly progressing disease) and make good donors.<p>His work allowed him to clear out the backlog of patients awaiting liver transplant at his center, with success rates as good as any other hospital. And today, it's possible to kill HepC with anti-viral agents post-transplant.<p>(Minor edit for clarity.) |
Ask HN: Why did your startup fail and what did you learn? | CEO would disappear for months at a time, with the promise of returning with capital. We never really knew where he went, and he wouldn’t let anyone else talk to investors (including me, who was CTO). Eventually he stopped paying us, but promised that the money was just tied up in the parent company set up in the caymans.<p>After 2 months of not paying myself or any other employees, the COO and I drainked the remainder of the US account and paid out as much of what was owed as we could to the employees before helping them find jobs elsewhere. I didn’t get any of the money I was owed and was facing pretty bad debt, but the experience was enough of a resume boost that I didn’t have a problem making it up in my signing bonus.<p>What I learned is that a title doesn’t grant you any control, and that if someone can’t be transparent with their inner circle of friends and colleagues (in this case cofounders), then they have no business leading a company.<p>Also leaned to not fuck with the cartels. |
How to fail as a new engineering manager | I realize this isn't really the main point of the article, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently: Can someone explain to me why I should <i>want</i> to become good at management? I think most people on here (but sadly few company structures) would agree that engineering and engineering management are two nearly orthogonal skillsets, but for some reason we insist on "promoting" people who are good at the former into positions that require the latter.<p>As someone with about five years of experience as a professional software engineer, I'm really still looking to level up my IC chops, along with a healthy dose of mentorship (mentoring interns or new hires on my team) and what I'd call "tech leadership" (advising on engineering reviews, making technical decisions about how to best build things). I would basically worry about stunting my development as an engineer if I switched to focusing on management, and I'm not even convinced my role models for career development are really in primarily "managerial" roles (I'm thinking of both famously very good backend devs both at my company and at the big SV companies).<p>Separately, I have relatively little interest in being in a role where my output is judged as the output of a team of people who aren't me. I get that that's the best way to judge managers, and that managers do very valuable intangible things in unblocking their team, but I'm skeptical that I'd be able to feel satisfied by this. If anything, it kind of feels random: at an equivalent level of my unblocking the team and being a good manager, if I have an amazing 10x engineer on my team then the output is just going to be higher than if I have an average engineer. So in less clear-cut cases, how can I tell if I just did a good job at unblocking or if my engineers are really good? (This is not to say that I don't feel satisfied doing mentorship-style things or architectural advising-style things, but that feels separate to me. I think I prefer empowering other engineers by leveraging knowledge and writing good platforms/tools/APIs rather than doing the organizational empowering thing).<p>I write all these things, because it really seems like a foregone conclusion of both this article and the industry as a whole that an engineer will eventually become a manager. Is that what I most likely have to look forward to in my career if I wind up working at the well-established/mature companies?<p>EDIT: I'd also just appreciate being told if I'm thinking about everything entirely wrong or something here.<p>EDIT2: This also isn't to knock people who _do_ enjoy doing these things, but it's not for me and I imagine it's not definitionally for every good engineer.<p>-----<p>Unrelated to the above, point 8 feels a little bit in contradiction to point 1. How does one keep learning their craft without direct experience? |
Alex Garland’s cult novel The Beach, 20 years on | I read The Beach during a summer off from University after finding it on a relative's bookcase. I'd just seen the movie and I remember thinking how much better the book was than the movie (which I'd enjoyed, but that always seems the way). I spent the best part of a year backpacking about a year after that in the very early 00s - so still remembered the book well.<p>When I got to the Koh San Road (in particular) after about 6 months in Asia, I remember thinking how much it had changed from Richard's experiences in the book, and how much the other places I'd been to (Laos, Cambodia etc) probably felt more like the book.<p>I went to the Koh San Road a couple of years ago and really couldn't believe how much it had changed. The islands as well. In the early 00s, I was amazed at how connected Asia (Thailand in particular) was compared to the UK - I had a small web business, I could email pretty much every day (obviously phones weren't connected back then), there were Internet cafes _everywhere_. But now it was like a late 90s Ibiza - the chilled 'watch a pirated movie in the evening with a beer/smoothie' vibe had totally been replaced with music, booze and nitrous oxide balloons. 24 hour party.<p>I think even now the book would be a great read - particularly if you'd never holidayed in Asia. But times have changed, and Niven's comparisons at the end of the article are pretty apt. It'll be interesting to see how the further future looks back at stuff like this. Everything moves so quickly and periods like this are just so _fleeting_. Fitzgerald and Hemingway - it sort of seems like you can place them anywhere in a period of like a hundred years. But books like The Beach - you're thinking, "right, this is after Gameboy, but before mobile phones and Google..." Anyone younger than me read it and have thoughts? If you've been the Thailand or not?<p>I'm getting old. :-\ |
A new book about Nietzsche: tethering philosophy to the mess of daily experience | I've read two books by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre that deal with many of the issues Nietzsche was interested in and point out some flaws in Nietzsche's arguments. They are <i>After Virtue</i> and <i>Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity</i>. MacIntyre thinks that Nietzsche got a lot right, but overlooked some things and made some assumptions that put him down the wrong path. If you're going to use Nietzsche as a guide for how to live it's worth reading some criticism of him as well. |
Life in the Spanish city that banned cars | This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward.<p>Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense regions, but in modern cities other solutions have to be found. Mass transit, biking lanes, electro-scooters, (elevated)-footpaths are the way to go. Maybe even electric ridesharing.<p>But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society.<p>I know european cities are much more pedestrian friendly & that US cities in general are more oriented towards the car lifestyle, but as said previously, this needs to change. It is a big cultural and infrastructure change over a longer timespan, but it is achievable.<p>Of course change always requires some sacrifice, and I imagine the car-drivers in above mentioned article must have been plenty pissed at the beginning. But they paved over the streets, made the inner city pedestrian only, and now they are better for it. Of course this is a very small town and these changes do not scale up as easily as one would like, and much more complex projects will have to be designed for bigger cities. But it is doable (see initiatives in e.g. Madrid, Munich & most of the netherlands) and "only" requires some long-term commitment. But we all know how good politicians are at that (what's global warming??).<p>I want to finish this comment with a call to engage in democracy. Make your opinion heard, loudly, go to the voting polls, participate in your local council, actually engage in politics. Because if you do not, no significant change will be made any time soon. |
Life in the Spanish city that banned cars | This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward.<p>Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense regions, but in modern cities other solutions have to be found. Mass transit, biking lanes, electro-scooters, (elevated)-footpaths are the way to go. Maybe even electric ridesharing.<p>But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society.<p>I know european cities are much more pedestrian friendly & that US cities in general are more oriented towards the car lifestyle, but as said previously, this needs to change. It is a big cultural and infrastructure change over a longer timespan, but it is achievable.<p>Of course change always requires some sacrifice, and I imagine the car-drivers in above mentioned article must have been plenty pissed at the beginning. But they paved over the streets, made the inner city pedestrian only, and now they are better for it. Of course this is a very small town and these changes do not scale up as easily as one would like, and much more complex projects will have to be designed for bigger cities. But it is doable (see initiatives in e.g. Madrid, Munich & most of the netherlands) and "only" requires some long-term commitment. But we all know how good politicians are at that (what's global warming??).<p>I want to finish this comment with a call to engage in democracy. Make your opinion heard, loudly, go to the voting polls, participate in your local council, actually engage in politics. Because if you do not, no significant change will be made any time soon. |
Life in the Spanish city that banned cars | This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward.<p>Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense regions, but in modern cities other solutions have to be found. Mass transit, biking lanes, electro-scooters, (elevated)-footpaths are the way to go. Maybe even electric ridesharing.<p>But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society.<p>I know european cities are much more pedestrian friendly & that US cities in general are more oriented towards the car lifestyle, but as said previously, this needs to change. It is a big cultural and infrastructure change over a longer timespan, but it is achievable.<p>Of course change always requires some sacrifice, and I imagine the car-drivers in above mentioned article must have been plenty pissed at the beginning. But they paved over the streets, made the inner city pedestrian only, and now they are better for it. Of course this is a very small town and these changes do not scale up as easily as one would like, and much more complex projects will have to be designed for bigger cities. But it is doable (see initiatives in e.g. Madrid, Munich & most of the netherlands) and "only" requires some long-term commitment. But we all know how good politicians are at that (what's global warming??).<p>I want to finish this comment with a call to engage in democracy. Make your opinion heard, loudly, go to the voting polls, participate in your local council, actually engage in politics. Because if you do not, no significant change will be made any time soon. |
Steve Jobs licensed Amazon’s one-click patent for $1M in one phone call | It worked out well for both of them. I recall, at the time, when Apple did the deal for $1mm, that it provided a lot of validity to Amazon that their patent was for real, and any vendor that was directly competitive with Amazon would likely think, at least a little bit longer, before directly ignoring Amazon's patent on "one-click" purchasing. |
LDL-C Does Not Cause Cardiovascular Disease: A Comprehensive Review (2018) | Cardiovascular geneticist/statistician and physician-in-training here: This is a completely bogus and scientifically illiterate review. This small group of people in Sweden keep publishing crap like this and it's frankly kind of annoying.<p>It's hard to even know where to start with the overwhelming amount of evidence that elevated levels of LDL cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease.<p>Since I'm a geneticist, I'll point out just a handful of strong genetics-guided experiments:<p>1) Familial hypercholesterolemia - Mutations in the LDLR Gene causing basically only elevated LDL lead to 10x increased odds for coronary artery disease<p>2) PCSK9 inhibitors - essentially only reduce LDL concentration, dramatically reduce risk<p>3) Mendelian randomization techniques - statistical causal inference in massive datasets shows pretty conclusively LDL increases CVD<p>Yes, LDL cholesterol causes CVD. Yes, there are other factors as well (especially hemodynamics and chronic inflammation). |
Disclosure of autism at work holds risks and benefits | I'm having difficultly explaining my child has autism and need the time off all the time. Seriously people's expectations versus handling reality are very misaligned. Everyone constantly tells me I look sleepy and I've over heard from some that maybe I drink too much. They don't understand the time it takes to drive a kid to see 3 different specialists every other week, to drive to and from ABA therapy (which doesn't keep consistent hours or after care) they don't understand that she can't get into daycare (she's been kicked out by almost everywhere) and they definitely don't get why I'm like just a grain of sand away from losing it. |
Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements | The sad piece of karma in all of this is that Musk tweeted in an effort to destroy the shorts.<p>His tweet turned out to:<p>- give the shorts a big dip in his stock,<p>- an investigation by the SEC<p>- an investigation by the DOJ<p>- the backing off of a deep pocketed investor in the Saudis<p>- Him potentially being personally liable, which would mean having to step away from SpaceX and Tesla if he was found guilty of fraud.<p>This could be the biggest thing to come out of all of this. Imagine Elon getting a 2 year ban on begin an executive in a company. Or SpaceX not being able to bid on government contracts because their CEO is a felon.<p>There is going to be a lot of backroom dealing to do everything they can to prevent Elon from being charged.<p>- A lawsuit that is seeking class action status for anyone who was short at the time of his tweet.<p>- this is speculation, but it must have really strained his relationship with the board. I mean you can only fight so many battles at once, you'd think you'd want to have the board on your side<p>All to screw with the shorts, who really have no power what-so ever to hinder Telsa. If he had just not used twitter he and Tesla would be better off and the shorts would be worse off. |
Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements | The sad piece of karma in all of this is that Musk tweeted in an effort to destroy the shorts.<p>His tweet turned out to:<p>- give the shorts a big dip in his stock,<p>- an investigation by the SEC<p>- an investigation by the DOJ<p>- the backing off of a deep pocketed investor in the Saudis<p>- Him potentially being personally liable, which would mean having to step away from SpaceX and Tesla if he was found guilty of fraud.<p>This could be the biggest thing to come out of all of this. Imagine Elon getting a 2 year ban on begin an executive in a company. Or SpaceX not being able to bid on government contracts because their CEO is a felon.<p>There is going to be a lot of backroom dealing to do everything they can to prevent Elon from being charged.<p>- A lawsuit that is seeking class action status for anyone who was short at the time of his tweet.<p>- this is speculation, but it must have really strained his relationship with the board. I mean you can only fight so many battles at once, you'd think you'd want to have the board on your side<p>All to screw with the shorts, who really have no power what-so ever to hinder Telsa. If he had just not used twitter he and Tesla would be better off and the shorts would be worse off. |
China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling | Extremely one sided comments, with a US centric view. The world is not the US, and HN readers are not only US citizens, so let me express a different point of view.<p>Assumption: Trump wants fair trade. HN readers want fair trade.<p>What is needed: fair trading rules, fair IP rules, fair capital structures, and a fair currency.<p>Tackling some of the unfair trade practices does not address all those issues. In particular it does not address the services trade imbalances, the favouring of US IP holders (as incumbents and head starters), and the massive advantage that the dollar gives to the US economy.<p>And we have not yet started talking about the weaponizing of the dollar, which can be recently seen in the conflict with Iran.<p>All this to say that the US demands are not fair.<p>You can obviously pursue your interests, but you will not sell it as being a "fair" policy.<p>The Chinese, the Europeans, all countries have equally fair, if not fairer, demands, which must be respected.<p>The core of the problem is obviously that the initial assumption is false: Trump and HN do not want fairer trade, but trade one-sidedly beneffiting the US.<p>We will fight this policies, if needed at the personal level, by selectively consuming products according to country of manufacture. |
China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling | This actually looks like the start of the disentanglement between the US economy and the Chinese economy. What will likely happens next (my best guess) is<p>1.) 40-60 percent of a company’s supply chain moves out of China<p>2.) China restricting the movement of capital/equipments out of China (similar to what happened with Korean companies last year)<p>3.) China growing homebrew competitors to the foreign companies leaving, part of the ‘made in 2025 in China’ strategy, via state enterprises or state spendings in startups. China will also make US companies’ operation in China very hard, either with license restrictions, or increased local ownership.<p>4.) China will disincentivize Chinese consumers from purchasing US (or foreign) products, via propaganda, taxes, or control (similar to what happened with Japanese and Korean products last few years). This would be hard, as Chinese consumers prefer higher quality, higher brand value, and higher perceived value foreign products.<p>5.) China will have to target US farmers with tariffs, as there isn’t much US imports to tax otherwise. Plus, there is also face saving.<p>6.) US will increase the tariff coverage to all Chinese imports, either triggered by tariffs on US farmers, or threats to US companies.<p>7.) China local governments will try to seize US owned corporate assets, or prevent factories from shutting down by its owners. This will escalate the urgency for US companies to move out of China.<p>8.) 70-100% of company’s supply line will be out of China<p>9.) Eventually, most direct trades between both countries shrink down to less than $50B. Down to a significant level where it starts to effect GDP for both countries (China way more than US)<p>10.) China will have no choice but to embrace its lost decade, ala Japan. It will tighten controls on its citizens. It will try to contain high inflation and high unemployment rate. It will try to unwind its debt for the next 10-20 years. Its gdp growth will go towards 0 or negative. Its GDP will shrink 20-30%.<p>(posted this in another thread but didn't get any discussion) |
China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling | <i>Some hard-liners want a more aggressive stance. Lou Jiwei, who retired as finance minister in 2016 but is still the head of the country’s social security fund, suggested on Sunday that China could deliberately disrupt American companies’ supply chains by halting the export of crucial components mostly made in China. But Chinese trade experts dismiss that idea as impractical and not the government’s position.</i><p>If anything would play into the administration's hands, it would be that move. By taking themselves offline, the Chinese would be ceding market share to upstart competitors and encouraging further reshoring of mission-critical supply chain components. |
An open governance model for the AMP Project | This move is aimed to quell the critique based on a hypothetis that contributions to AMP that go against Google's vision would be rejected. It also is a move in good faith to transition the project's governance away from Google to a goal-oriented crew of many interested parties who can derive benefit from its solutions.<p>I've written about AMP on here a lot [1], and frequently include this disclaimer. My views on it have evolved as time went on, being more sympathetic to some of the critiques, but also to the efforts of the AMP team to address many of the complaints.<p>While a number of technical critiques to AMP remain, increasingly, the criticism is:<p>- ideological (e.g. "Google is trying to destroy the open web"),<p>- misinformed (e.g. "Google is stealing traffic from publishers"),<p>- nihilist (e.g. "everyone who uses AMP only does so because you need it to rank high in search"),<p>- full of naïve bravado (e.g. "all we need is clean HTML"),<p>- or related to the fact that Google's mobile search page has stealth-morphed into a captive newsreader that surfaces AMP-ified articles with Javascript without ever leaving the page.<p>Out of these, the lattermost is the only one that raises a true anticompetitive concern, which Google seems keen on ignoring. However, I'd say that's for the Google Search team, rather than the AMP team, to address.<p>[1] <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=niftich "AMP"&sort=byDate&type=comment" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=niftich "AMP"&sort=byDat...</a> |
GnuPG can now be used to perform notarial acts in the State of Washington | So I get the impression GnuPG is considered obsolete by the security community. I'm unclear for which of the many possible scenarios it can be used for.<p>Is there, right now, a better (security-wise and usability-wise) way to digitally authenticate a message (document/binary/payload)? |
French bookshops revolt after prize selects novel self-published on Amazon | Warning: raw personal opinion ahead. You're welcome to downvote, but I'd prefer it if you left a response so I can learn something.<p>Europe in general but France in particular seems <i>completely</i> unprepared for the changes technology and the web are still rolling out. The market seems to me to be a morass of entrenched, sclerotic industries that grew fat after decades of governmental protection. Naturally, in many cases the response is simple: more governmental protection.<p>As dominant as Amazon it, at least in the US is has a nascent rival in Walmart, a massive retail chain that's frantically piling onto the internet to try to catch up. The American system has produced a challenger to Amazon's mega-consolidation by seeing another champion of mega-consolidation attempt to pivot its business. Where is France's answer to Amazon? Does France not have large national retail chains? Why are we not seeing companies to buying one another up in order to form like Voltron against a large threat like Amazon?<p>My (admittedly uninformed) impression is: because the competitive and regulatory environment doesn't seem allow for it. Laws on hiring and firing workers. Laws limiting discounts on books. Laws governing corporate takeovers. Why else would industries whose very existence depends on cushy regulatory favors have no way of dealing with tech giants besides more regulatory favors (Article 13, Article 11, Right to be Forgotten, the entire charade of fines for "anti-competitive behavior")?<p>Instead of ripping off the bandaid and establishing a new and competitive economy by deregulating, taking the hit, and nurturing a new generation of cutthroat competition, France and the EU has protected its weakest and least-competitive industries, to the detriment of its people and the world at large. |
Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce | Evernote has almost 500 employees? How is that even possible? There must be at least 350 product managers. (Ok, that was a joke, but if you look at all their employees on linkedin like 2/3 have job titles that are in the 'overhead' bucket. Tons of 'People Ops', 'Brand and Communications', 'Marketing Manager', 'Product Designer', 'Producer'. 37 have a job title that includes 'marketing'.
391 appear to be non-engineering titles, out of 538 employees in the linkedin results. They have full time Agile coaches!!)<p>500+ employees with an annual revenue estimated to be below $10MM. That's $20k of <i>revenue</i> per employee! I mean I can just imagine what it's like there, insane meetings about metrics where 15 marketing managers show the powerpoint slides they spent the last week emailing back and forth to highlight the 2% growth last quarter, while they need to grow by 2000% in the next 48 months just to stay alive. Then in 3 months they have the same meeting.<p>Evernote has been severely mismanaged (I've been saying this since 2012, links below). I wonder how they feel about all the VC money they spent developing ports for WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391</a> |
Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce | Evernote has almost 500 employees? How is that even possible? There must be at least 350 product managers. (Ok, that was a joke, but if you look at all their employees on linkedin like 2/3 have job titles that are in the 'overhead' bucket. Tons of 'People Ops', 'Brand and Communications', 'Marketing Manager', 'Product Designer', 'Producer'. 37 have a job title that includes 'marketing'.
391 appear to be non-engineering titles, out of 538 employees in the linkedin results. They have full time Agile coaches!!)<p>500+ employees with an annual revenue estimated to be below $10MM. That's $20k of <i>revenue</i> per employee! I mean I can just imagine what it's like there, insane meetings about metrics where 15 marketing managers show the powerpoint slides they spent the last week emailing back and forth to highlight the 2% growth last quarter, while they need to grow by 2000% in the next 48 months just to stay alive. Then in 3 months they have the same meeting.<p>Evernote has been severely mismanaged (I've been saying this since 2012, links below). I wonder how they feel about all the VC money they spent developing ports for WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391</a> |
Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce | Evernote has almost 500 employees? How is that even possible? There must be at least 350 product managers. (Ok, that was a joke, but if you look at all their employees on linkedin like 2/3 have job titles that are in the 'overhead' bucket. Tons of 'People Ops', 'Brand and Communications', 'Marketing Manager', 'Product Designer', 'Producer'. 37 have a job title that includes 'marketing'.
391 appear to be non-engineering titles, out of 538 employees in the linkedin results. They have full time Agile coaches!!)<p>500+ employees with an annual revenue estimated to be below $10MM. That's $20k of <i>revenue</i> per employee! I mean I can just imagine what it's like there, insane meetings about metrics where 15 marketing managers show the powerpoint slides they spent the last week emailing back and forth to highlight the 2% growth last quarter, while they need to grow by 2000% in the next 48 months just to stay alive. Then in 3 months they have the same meeting.<p>Evernote has been severely mismanaged (I've been saying this since 2012, links below). I wonder how they feel about all the VC money they spent developing ports for WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391</a> |
Evernote just slashed 54 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce | Evernote has almost 500 employees? How is that even possible? There must be at least 350 product managers. (Ok, that was a joke, but if you look at all their employees on linkedin like 2/3 have job titles that are in the 'overhead' bucket. Tons of 'People Ops', 'Brand and Communications', 'Marketing Manager', 'Product Designer', 'Producer'. 37 have a job title that includes 'marketing'.
391 appear to be non-engineering titles, out of 538 employees in the linkedin results. They have full time Agile coaches!!)<p>500+ employees with an annual revenue estimated to be below $10MM. That's $20k of <i>revenue</i> per employee! I mean I can just imagine what it's like there, insane meetings about metrics where 15 marketing managers show the powerpoint slides they spent the last week emailing back and forth to highlight the 2% growth last quarter, while they need to grow by 2000% in the next 48 months just to stay alive. Then in 3 months they have the same meeting.<p>Evernote has been severely mismanaged (I've been saying this since 2012, links below). I wonder how they feel about all the VC money they spent developing ports for WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4855689</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859391</a> |
Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men | I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy?<p>Would this be different if, for example, Facebook was targeting people for job ads based on "people who like action movies" or "people who like romance novels" (I'm stereotyping here, but just assume you pick a category that ends up being a decent proxy for gender)? |
Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men | I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy?<p>Would this be different if, for example, Facebook was targeting people for job ads based on "people who like action movies" or "people who like romance novels" (I'm stereotyping here, but just assume you pick a category that ends up being a decent proxy for gender)? |
Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men | I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy?<p>Would this be different if, for example, Facebook was targeting people for job ads based on "people who like action movies" or "people who like romance novels" (I'm stereotyping here, but just assume you pick a category that ends up being a decent proxy for gender)? |
Facebook Is Letting Job Advertisers Target Only Men | I'm a bit mixed about this; it is clearly discriminatory to publish a job ad that says "women need not apply", but it doesn't feel inherently discriminatory to advertise a job in, say, "Men's Health" but not "Cosmopolitan" magazine. Or to advertise on a particular television channel or program (whose viewers may not match the population at large). That's just how advertising works. Is that crazy?<p>Would this be different if, for example, Facebook was targeting people for job ads based on "people who like action movies" or "people who like romance novels" (I'm stereotyping here, but just assume you pick a category that ends up being a decent proxy for gender)? |
Build Impossible Programs | Anyone know what Julia is using for those handwritten slides?<p>I absolutely love everything Julia writes. She writes in a way that makes absolutely zero assumptions about your level of technical competence. You could be a junior, mid, senior and still get <i>something</i> from most of her articles.<p>Anecdotally;
Almost every female engineer I work with writes and communicates in this fashion and I really bloody wish more of my male counterparts would speak with less jargon/acronyms for the sake of new starts/non-engineers. |
Whatever Happened to the Semantic Web? | I have some insight here because I did a postdoc working on anatomy ontologies in the UK. A big part of the problem with the semantic web is that lots of people in European academia use it as a collection of buzzwords for making grant proposals sexier, without understanding or caring what it actually means.<p>Instead of saying, "Give us money to build a webpage", they say, "Give us money to expose metadata annotations using a RESTful API on the semantic web."<p>I would prepare conference presentations where I was just filling slides up with BS to fill time.<p>Devs from other universities (gotta check that international research box!) understood the technology even less than our team did. We provided them a tool for storing RDF triples for their webpage so they could store triples about anatomical relationships. They wanted to use said RDF store as their backend database for storing things like usernames and passwords. <i>facepalm</i><p>So you have all these academics publishing all this extremely important sounding literature about the semantic web, but as soon as you pry one nanometer deep, it's nothing but a giant ball of crap. |
Whatever Happened to the Semantic Web? | I have some insight here because I did a postdoc working on anatomy ontologies in the UK. A big part of the problem with the semantic web is that lots of people in European academia use it as a collection of buzzwords for making grant proposals sexier, without understanding or caring what it actually means.<p>Instead of saying, "Give us money to build a webpage", they say, "Give us money to expose metadata annotations using a RESTful API on the semantic web."<p>I would prepare conference presentations where I was just filling slides up with BS to fill time.<p>Devs from other universities (gotta check that international research box!) understood the technology even less than our team did. We provided them a tool for storing RDF triples for their webpage so they could store triples about anatomical relationships. They wanted to use said RDF store as their backend database for storing things like usernames and passwords. <i>facepalm</i><p>So you have all these academics publishing all this extremely important sounding literature about the semantic web, but as soon as you pry one nanometer deep, it's nothing but a giant ball of crap. |
Whatever Happened to the Semantic Web? | I have some insight here because I did a postdoc working on anatomy ontologies in the UK. A big part of the problem with the semantic web is that lots of people in European academia use it as a collection of buzzwords for making grant proposals sexier, without understanding or caring what it actually means.<p>Instead of saying, "Give us money to build a webpage", they say, "Give us money to expose metadata annotations using a RESTful API on the semantic web."<p>I would prepare conference presentations where I was just filling slides up with BS to fill time.<p>Devs from other universities (gotta check that international research box!) understood the technology even less than our team did. We provided them a tool for storing RDF triples for their webpage so they could store triples about anatomical relationships. They wanted to use said RDF store as their backend database for storing things like usernames and passwords. <i>facepalm</i><p>So you have all these academics publishing all this extremely important sounding literature about the semantic web, but as soon as you pry one nanometer deep, it's nothing but a giant ball of crap. |
Whatever Happened to the Semantic Web? | I have some insight here because I did a postdoc working on anatomy ontologies in the UK. A big part of the problem with the semantic web is that lots of people in European academia use it as a collection of buzzwords for making grant proposals sexier, without understanding or caring what it actually means.<p>Instead of saying, "Give us money to build a webpage", they say, "Give us money to expose metadata annotations using a RESTful API on the semantic web."<p>I would prepare conference presentations where I was just filling slides up with BS to fill time.<p>Devs from other universities (gotta check that international research box!) understood the technology even less than our team did. We provided them a tool for storing RDF triples for their webpage so they could store triples about anatomical relationships. They wanted to use said RDF store as their backend database for storing things like usernames and passwords. <i>facepalm</i><p>So you have all these academics publishing all this extremely important sounding literature about the semantic web, but as soon as you pry one nanometer deep, it's nothing but a giant ball of crap. |
LLVM 7.0.0 released | Under "External Open Source Projects Using LLVM 7":<p>> Zig is an open-source programming language designed for robustness, optimality, and clarity. Zig is an alternative to C, providing high level features such as generics, compile time function execution, partial evaluation, and LLVM-based coroutines, while exposing low level LLVM IR features such as aliases and intrinsics. Zig uses Clang to provide automatic import of .h symbols - even inline functions and macros. Zig uses LLD combined with lazily building compiler-rt to provide out-of-the-box cross-compiling for all supported targets.<p>Nice shout out :) |
Code, conflict, and conduct | > One of the strongest criticisms against the old code of conflict is that it did not enumerate the types of behavior that are unwelcome. The new one cannot be criticized on that account.<p>Except that the list contains rules that are so general as to be completely subjective. The last rule forbids, "Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting."<p>The problem with such general rules is that you get selective enforcement. Node.js has the same code of conduct, and it has been used to try to evict Rod Vagg from the technical committee[1] for tweeting a link to a Quillette article on freedom of speech[2]. Rod's tweet got him in hot water, but one of his peers had plenty of blatantly sexist tweets and received no reports for CoC violations.[3]<p>1. <a href="https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165</a><p>2. <a href="https://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-speech/" rel="nofollow">https://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-sp...</a><p>3. Such as <a href="https://twitter.com/maybekatz/status/900414216888139776" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/maybekatz/status/900414216888139776</a> "Men are fragile, often incompetent babies with no sense of humor, and I like reminding them of their inferiority." |
FanDuel not honoring bet that would have paid over $82,000 due to line error | Yeah, a quick read of the relevant regs tells me Fanduel is gonna lose this one (Unless i've missed something)[1,2]<p>The law on this is pretty clear, and they can't unilaterally decide not to apply the gaming regulations of the state, or change them through their contracts.<p>(They can decide not to do business in states they don't like the regulations of course)<p>BTW, somewhat hilariously, the part they "..."'d is just 4 words.<p>[1] <a href="http://state.nj.us/lps/ge/docs/Regulations/CHAPTER69N.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://state.nj.us/lps/ge/docs/Regulations/CHAPTER69N.pdf</a><p>[2] (c) Upon accepting a wager pursuant to this chapter, a wagering cashier shall cause
the wagering system to generate a wagering ticket.<p>(IE them generating the ticket is acceptance)<p>(d) A wagering operator shall not unilaterally rescind any wager pursuant to this
chapter without the prior written approval of the Division.<p>(h) Winning wagering tickets shall be redeemed by a wagering cashier after
verifying the validity of the wagering ticket through the wagering system.<p>(IE they should have redeemed it because it was valid)<p>(k) No wagering ticket shall be voided after the start of the wagering event on which a wager has been placed<p>Another reason the could not have voided it.<p>Essentially the best argument they have is that it's a house rule under 13:69N2-2 .
This only works if their internal controls were approved by the division.
Even then, a reasonable court would likely find that clearly contrary to the written regulations (and thus, not a reasonable interpretation of the regulations by the commission). |
Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program | This is super sleezy and I think Ticketmaster is one of the most awful companies in the world. But given the ridiculous levels of scalping that goes on every day (including all the companies that attempt to normalize it, like StubHub), doesn't it all imply that the fair market price of a lot of tickets is way higher than what they sell for? Obviously demand is way outstripping supply or people wouldn't pay $500-$1000 for $100 tickets on a daily basis.<p>By making all event tickets available at exactly the same time for an effectively-lower-than-market price, of course professional scalpers are going to snap up almost all of them and normal people without scripts won't be able to compete. I wonder what would happen if tickets went on sale for a really high price (like $500 each) and then the prices kept dropping automatically every hour until they were all sold. That would kill a lot of advantage that the scalpers have.<p>I guess customers would hate it and promoters would hate it, but I wonder if there isn't some other kind of sales model that would make this kind of sleezy self-scalping less profitable. Because with market forces this strong, companies are going to do anything that is legal-ish to get a piece of it. If Ticketmaster doesn't figure out a way to get a piece of the massive resell market, they are essentially just giving away free money to StubHub (from their point of view). |
Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program | This is super sleezy and I think Ticketmaster is one of the most awful companies in the world. But given the ridiculous levels of scalping that goes on every day (including all the companies that attempt to normalize it, like StubHub), doesn't it all imply that the fair market price of a lot of tickets is way higher than what they sell for? Obviously demand is way outstripping supply or people wouldn't pay $500-$1000 for $100 tickets on a daily basis.<p>By making all event tickets available at exactly the same time for an effectively-lower-than-market price, of course professional scalpers are going to snap up almost all of them and normal people without scripts won't be able to compete. I wonder what would happen if tickets went on sale for a really high price (like $500 each) and then the prices kept dropping automatically every hour until they were all sold. That would kill a lot of advantage that the scalpers have.<p>I guess customers would hate it and promoters would hate it, but I wonder if there isn't some other kind of sales model that would make this kind of sleezy self-scalping less profitable. Because with market forces this strong, companies are going to do anything that is legal-ish to get a piece of it. If Ticketmaster doesn't figure out a way to get a piece of the massive resell market, they are essentially just giving away free money to StubHub (from their point of view). |
Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program | This is super sleezy and I think Ticketmaster is one of the most awful companies in the world. But given the ridiculous levels of scalping that goes on every day (including all the companies that attempt to normalize it, like StubHub), doesn't it all imply that the fair market price of a lot of tickets is way higher than what they sell for? Obviously demand is way outstripping supply or people wouldn't pay $500-$1000 for $100 tickets on a daily basis.<p>By making all event tickets available at exactly the same time for an effectively-lower-than-market price, of course professional scalpers are going to snap up almost all of them and normal people without scripts won't be able to compete. I wonder what would happen if tickets went on sale for a really high price (like $500 each) and then the prices kept dropping automatically every hour until they were all sold. That would kill a lot of advantage that the scalpers have.<p>I guess customers would hate it and promoters would hate it, but I wonder if there isn't some other kind of sales model that would make this kind of sleezy self-scalping less profitable. Because with market forces this strong, companies are going to do anything that is legal-ish to get a piece of it. If Ticketmaster doesn't figure out a way to get a piece of the massive resell market, they are essentially just giving away free money to StubHub (from their point of view). |
Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program | So, my problems with this article, as someone that works in the industry:<p>1. It's not a secret. It's Ticketmaster's secondary market division, TM+. They may not advertise where people out of the industry would see it, but that's nothing special. They may not want to draw attention to themselves, for reasons such as this article, where they are portrayed very unflatteringly and given little chance to provide their own context. Tradedesk, their new POS offering, is new, and has been somewhat buggy (most might be worked out now), so they've targeted known brokers, but it's a free tool, so they would probably be happy to have anyone that buys and sells more than 1-2 sets of tickets a month (there are a LOT of people that do this as a little extra income, or to pay for their concert habit).<p>2. Ticketmaster has multiple divisions. The division responsible for proving primary market tickets and the division for running Ticketmaster's secondary market are sometimes at cross purposes. I can tell you from experience though, Ticketmaster does a LOT to prevent the more egregious use of bots, to the point where it can bleed over to regular fans. Every few months there's some new site feature that makes bots harder to utilize. Recently it's a new queuing system and new purchase mechanism, where you select seats off the map (which they've had for a long time, but not during <i>sales</i>).<p>3. Distinguishing a broker account with 100 purchases on it and a corporate account for bonus gifts or a concierge service may not be as easy as it sounds. It's also not that hard for a broker to just use an account for a few purchases. If I was running a concierge service and Ticketmaster cancelled hundreds of purchases all of a sudden, I would be a bit peeved that they took my money (credit, most likely) for months and then basically killed my business because they incorrectly identified me as a broker account. Also, artists/venues/promoters may not actually want to you cancel tickets and put them back on the market. Being sold out has it's own benefits (and nobody wants to return cash they've already gotten).<p>4. One of Ticketmaster's main purposes is to offload anger about pricing from artists, promoters and venues to a separate entity. There's a reason why there are often over 50% additional fees per ticket (and they are higher for higher costing seats, how interesting...). It's because many of those are set and received by the artist, promoter and venue. It allows for pricier tickets which is hidden up-front, and the blame goes to Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster of course tacks on their own fees for this service.<p>5. I believe the secondary market provides a useful function (otherwise I would seek other employment). It helps artists, promoters and venues offload risk (up-front usable money <i>now</i>, instead of little by little as the tour goes on), it helps spread tickets to those that have more money than time (people that devote time still often get tickets, brokers very rarely get everything), and it allows fans to get tickets <i>well</i> below original cost in some (fairly common) cases, such as when a tour is overbought or demand lessens as it goes on. I could find any number of events with secondary market tickets under primary market cost at any moment.<p>In the end, it's a market. There are tried and true ways to alter it if that's what you want, but for the most part, I think most people are happy with how it works, and happy being able to complain about the time is doesn't as well. Fix and/or make an example of the market participants that are too greedy (such as the broker that got in trouble for buying ALL the Hamilton tickets), and it mostly functions in a way that people expect and find useful. I'll tell you this, getting rid of brokers (if you could) wouldn't result in much cheaper tickets. A lot of the money left on the table would just shift to other market participants, and I doubt it would be the fans. |
Putting This Blog on IPFS | "Even if my server goes down, as long as these files are pinned somewhere, anyone should be able to use that IPNS name at another gateway and see the blog."<p>This is also, in my opinion, the biggest objection to IPFS - that it really doesn't necessarily lead to <i>any</i> kind of true decentralized hosting unless someone else has decided to pin your files.<p>And why would they? I understand that IPFS is supposed to prioritize connections based on seed/leach ratio like a typical torrent service, but I only torrent a few files at any given time and it's pretty trivial to set them to seed or disable manually; there's no way I'm going to make seed vs. don't seed decisions on <i>every website I visit.</i> So unless for some reason I specifically think to help share some webpage or other, it'll just get auto-deleted from my machine when it cycles out of the cache, as the automated stuff is what'll be keeping track of maintaining my seed/leech ratio, total disk usage for other people's content, upload limits, not leaving if you're one of the only seeders left, etc. In theory, IPFS could be even <i>more</i> prone to link-rot than the vanilla Web, depending on how many people try and actually depend on the decentralized hosting and end up having their files vanish once it's been a long enough time that nobody's still hosting them.<p>And when there's so many different webpages, as opposed to just a few torrents, why would I think to pin any one thing in particular? Torrents can work based on charity and the need to maintain a particular seed/leech ratio; but I don't have the mental energy to bother deciding whether to be charitable about every dang website I visit.<p>So this ends up meaning that IPFS works for <i>popular, recent</i> content, where there's enough people who have downloaded the content themselves recently enough that it's still in their cache to meaningfully take the load off the original host in serving that content. But you're not going to get dedicated long-term seeders of any particular site the way you do with highly-desirable files like pirate torrents. But generically, you will always need your own centralized server for any content you want to upload and make sure stays online long-term.<p>As I understand it, this is sort of the problem Filecoin is trying to solve, but that has its own issues (it's hard to see how paying people to host your stuff on their own machines can ever be cost-competitive with paying AWS to do it). |
Putting This Blog on IPFS | "Even if my server goes down, as long as these files are pinned somewhere, anyone should be able to use that IPNS name at another gateway and see the blog."<p>This is also, in my opinion, the biggest objection to IPFS - that it really doesn't necessarily lead to <i>any</i> kind of true decentralized hosting unless someone else has decided to pin your files.<p>And why would they? I understand that IPFS is supposed to prioritize connections based on seed/leach ratio like a typical torrent service, but I only torrent a few files at any given time and it's pretty trivial to set them to seed or disable manually; there's no way I'm going to make seed vs. don't seed decisions on <i>every website I visit.</i> So unless for some reason I specifically think to help share some webpage or other, it'll just get auto-deleted from my machine when it cycles out of the cache, as the automated stuff is what'll be keeping track of maintaining my seed/leech ratio, total disk usage for other people's content, upload limits, not leaving if you're one of the only seeders left, etc. In theory, IPFS could be even <i>more</i> prone to link-rot than the vanilla Web, depending on how many people try and actually depend on the decentralized hosting and end up having their files vanish once it's been a long enough time that nobody's still hosting them.<p>And when there's so many different webpages, as opposed to just a few torrents, why would I think to pin any one thing in particular? Torrents can work based on charity and the need to maintain a particular seed/leech ratio; but I don't have the mental energy to bother deciding whether to be charitable about every dang website I visit.<p>So this ends up meaning that IPFS works for <i>popular, recent</i> content, where there's enough people who have downloaded the content themselves recently enough that it's still in their cache to meaningfully take the load off the original host in serving that content. But you're not going to get dedicated long-term seeders of any particular site the way you do with highly-desirable files like pirate torrents. But generically, you will always need your own centralized server for any content you want to upload and make sure stays online long-term.<p>As I understand it, this is sort of the problem Filecoin is trying to solve, but that has its own issues (it's hard to see how paying people to host your stuff on their own machines can ever be cost-competitive with paying AWS to do it). |
Senate passes copyright bill to end 140-year protection for old songs | I can't think of any good reason why music should even be copyrightable. |
Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups? | I did a Show HN on my side project, AutoMicroFarm, two years ago (although I have been working on it and posting to HN about it much longer than that).<p>Thanks to HN, I was able to get into the YC fellowship program. After launching and not getting any traction, I almost quit. However, I realized I did not know how to do marketing, sales, or customer dev (the "people want" part of "Make something people want"). It wouldn't be fair to the idea of AutoMicroFarm, or to myself, to quit without trying to learn marketing/sales/customer dev and applying it to AutoMicroFarm.<p>So this year, I hired a business coach (<a href="https://solacelessons.com/" rel="nofollow">https://solacelessons.com/</a>) and continued working on AutoMicroFarm. I can't claim it's successful in any meaning of the word yet, but I have a solid framework in place for my social media/email/blog outreach, I am talking to people to figure out what they want, and starting to make revenue--all while having a day job, a side gig (both related to web dev), and a family. I've been really happy to make this progress while keeping the hours spent on AutoMicroFarm to 5-10 hours per week. |
Alphabet Backs GitLab's Quest to Surpass Microsoft's GitHub | Gitlab _could_ be a brilliant SaaS product. It has many more features than github, Runner integration allows simple and easy building, instead of having to bust out to circleCI.<p>As a self hosted product, it is difficult to be beaten.<p>but as a Saas product, its just horribly unreliable.<p>In the last two months it has improved, but there are still outages every two weeks or so. (<a href="https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus</a>) I'm hoping that with this extra cash, they'll be hiring in some infrastructure people (people who will look at this in horror: <a href="https://about.gitlab.com/2016/12/11/proposed-server-purchase-for-gitlab-com/" rel="nofollow">https://about.gitlab.com/2016/12/11/proposed-server-purchase...</a> ) who actually know how to make a stable platform using _proven "boring"_ stuff, not sexy slow and supposedly HA stuff like Ceph and forcing it to serve NFS. |
Crippling DDoS vulnerability put the entire Bitcoin market at risk | I spend a lot of time looking for bugs in cryptocurrency code. In spite of this finding, I'd say that Bitcoin Core is among the safest cryptocurrency applications. The average random C/C++ open source project suffers from far more potential issues, for example [1].<p>Related, here's an unfixed btcd (Go Bitcoin client) DoS [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?q=imagemagick" rel="nofollow">https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?q=imagemagi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/issues/1287" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/issues/1287</a> |
Crippling DDoS vulnerability put the entire Bitcoin market at risk | I spend a lot of time looking for bugs in cryptocurrency code. In spite of this finding, I'd say that Bitcoin Core is among the safest cryptocurrency applications. The average random C/C++ open source project suffers from far more potential issues, for example [1].<p>Related, here's an unfixed btcd (Go Bitcoin client) DoS [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?q=imagemagick" rel="nofollow">https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?q=imagemagi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/issues/1287" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/issues/1287</a> |
People Like You More Than You Know | These are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging.<p>The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left.<p>A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around to her telling me how depressed she was about her life and loves. After maybe 10 minutes, she thanked me for being such a good listener and said something about I was just so charismatic. I almost fell out of my chair.<p>I taught electronics at a trade school to a morning class for a couple of years. There were hundreds of students, and I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't think the students thought once about me when they went home. On my last day of work, one of the guys asked me to give a special last lecture on a topic. As I walked into the room, I was followed by students from my class, the afternoon class and the evening class! They filled the room and presented me with a fairly expensive bottle of whiskey.<p>I've had a few girls tell me, after it was too late, that they always had a crush on me. Well, I was interested in them, too.<p>If someone would have just said something sooner, life, for me, would be totally different now. |
People Like You More Than You Know | These are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging.<p>The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left.<p>A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around to her telling me how depressed she was about her life and loves. After maybe 10 minutes, she thanked me for being such a good listener and said something about I was just so charismatic. I almost fell out of my chair.<p>I taught electronics at a trade school to a morning class for a couple of years. There were hundreds of students, and I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't think the students thought once about me when they went home. On my last day of work, one of the guys asked me to give a special last lecture on a topic. As I walked into the room, I was followed by students from my class, the afternoon class and the evening class! They filled the room and presented me with a fairly expensive bottle of whiskey.<p>I've had a few girls tell me, after it was too late, that they always had a crush on me. Well, I was interested in them, too.<p>If someone would have just said something sooner, life, for me, would be totally different now. |
People Like You More Than You Know | These are true stories. I don't wish to come across as bragging.<p>The last day of a job I had for seven years, the director of engineering told me I was the best engineer he ever knew. And he worked for some pretty well known engineering firms. If he had told me that before, I might not have left.<p>A woman came into my office--someone who didn't seem to want to give me the time of day--and the conversation got around to her telling me how depressed she was about her life and loves. After maybe 10 minutes, she thanked me for being such a good listener and said something about I was just so charismatic. I almost fell out of my chair.<p>I taught electronics at a trade school to a morning class for a couple of years. There were hundreds of students, and I knew I was a good teacher, but I didn't think the students thought once about me when they went home. On my last day of work, one of the guys asked me to give a special last lecture on a topic. As I walked into the room, I was followed by students from my class, the afternoon class and the evening class! They filled the room and presented me with a fairly expensive bottle of whiskey.<p>I've had a few girls tell me, after it was too late, that they always had a crush on me. Well, I was interested in them, too.<p>If someone would have just said something sooner, life, for me, would be totally different now. |
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