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how we used twitter ads to generate word-of-mouth hype

did this actually translate to people using your product or service?you can pay people in india and china to click your link 1,000,000 times, but that means nothing if you have 0 conversions at the end of the day.while i do think the ad was clever, and people would have looked into you due to curiosity, i doubt the general populace is interested in an analytics as a backend platform.while you've made a compelling argument that twitter ads can generate hype, you have not really shown whether that hype amounts to anything of value.

saul colt is amazing! he told us about how he used a cardboard banana stand (a la arrested development) as a conference booth and gave out free bananas to market one for one of his companies.

how we used twitter ads to generate word-of-mouth hype

saul colt is amazing! he told us about how he used a cardboard banana stand (a la arrested development) as a conference booth and gave out free bananas to market one for one of his companies.

i guess this blog post was one of those 100 ideas? (not trying to be cheeky; you seem to be doing great, and keen.io looks great)

how we used twitter ads to generate word-of-mouth hype

i guess this blog post was one of those 100 ideas? (not trying to be cheeky; you seem to be doing great, and keen.io looks great)

and now, with a front page hn post, that effective hype has probably more than doubled!

how we used twitter ads to generate word-of-mouth hype

and now, with a front page hn post, that effective hype has probably more than doubled!

did you get much / any negative sentiment?

show hn: real time updating gif countdown with automatic time zone detection.

the only issue is that the gif is streaming, which means the page is never 'ready'.also i didn't look into it, but wouldn't bandwidth be an issue if people left these running in backgrounded tabs?

this will help us a lot at deviantart in the community relations team, we organise many chat events etc. for a global community and if we can embed this in our announcements that would be extremely helpful. i'll share it with the rest of the team, thank you!small question about your ui, why is the image link so tiny? isn't it the main point of the page to get that link?it might also be easier for many people to get direct image html instead of the url that they'll have to figure out to use.

show hn: real time updating gif countdown with automatic time zone detection.

this will help us a lot at deviantart in the community relations team, we organise many chat events etc. for a global community and if we can embed this in our announcements that would be extremely helpful. i'll share it with the rest of the team, thank you!small question about your ui, why is the image link so tiny? isn't it the main point of the page to get that link?it might also be easier for many people to get direct image html instead of the url that they'll have to figure out to use.

i am confused, what is the actual advantage of having the countdown be a gif compared to html+javascript?for video and remote desktop there might be use for the kinds of gifs, but for a numeral countdown?

show hn: real time updating gif countdown with automatic time zone detection.

i am confused, what is the actual advantage of having the countdown be a gif compared to html+javascript?for video and remote desktop there might be use for the kinds of gifs, but for a numeral countdown?

it shows my timezone as australia in the preview? i'm in us/pacific time zone $ date sun may 26 12:10:52 pdt 2013

show hn: real time updating gif countdown with automatic time zone detection.

it shows my timezone as australia in the preview? i'm in us/pacific time zone $ date sun may 26 12:10:52 pdt 2013

bummer - ios 6 wants to load the whole file before switching to the second frame, so this won't work there.

comet is dead, long live websockets

i find articles like this annoyingly premature. sure, we're seeing the birth of a whole new way of communicating with the backend, which will only server to improve web apps in a positive manner.at the same time though, support for websockets in major browsers is woefully little, with only chrome currently supporting it in an active "release," and (i believe) support available in the firefox trunk for a later version. this still doesn't account for safari or internet explorer, the latter being the biggest impediment to adoption.additionally, i certainly don't think this is the beginning of the end for "ajax" — not in the least. ajax still has very strong grounds in pulling down data from the server that doesn't require some sort of long-running communication.yes, let's get excited, but a little bit of a sanity check should be done if you're ready to call ajax "dead" (or "dying").

nobody seems to mention this but you can have html5 websockets on legacy browsers today via orbited, <link>

comet is dead, long live websockets

nobody seems to mention this but you can have html5 websockets on legacy browsers today via orbited, <link>

i love websockets, and have been waiting for them for a long time, however i am severely disappointed that there is no way to elevate permissions from the same origin "security" model, this is a huge limitation on the way towards purely client side javascript applications.html5 introduced crossdomain requests for xhr because it already proved to restrictive, and flash introduced crossdomain.xml.i wish w3c stopped pretending that in order to stop people from doing nasty stuff, you have to stop everyone else from doing anything (also looking at you, clipboard)

comet is dead, long live websockets

i love websockets, and have been waiting for them for a long time, however i am severely disappointed that there is no way to elevate permissions from the same origin "security" model, this is a huge limitation on the way towards purely client side javascript applications.html5 introduced crossdomain requests for xhr because it already proved to restrictive, and flash introduced crossdomain.xml.i wish w3c stopped pretending that in order to stop people from doing nasty stuff, you have to stop everyone else from doing anything (also looking at you, clipboard)

i'm currently working on a google chrome extension that communicates with a web service to do some data saving and loading. since i'm targeting chrome, web sockets seem compelling vs ajax, however i have no idea on where to start implementing this server side.i'm using (puts on flame suit) iis7. are there any good tools or articles on getting web sockets running in iis7. i'm a somewhat competent .net developer, but i'm not a low level guy so something slightly above "for dummies" would probably work best.

comet is dead, long live websockets

i'm currently working on a google chrome extension that communicates with a web service to do some data saving and loading. since i'm targeting chrome, web sockets seem compelling vs ajax, however i have no idea on where to start implementing this server side.i'm using (puts on flame suit) iis7. are there any good tools or articles on getting web sockets running in iis7. i'm a somewhat competent .net developer, but i'm not a low level guy so something slightly above "for dummies" would probably work best.

i agree that websockets is definitely the way forward and that stuff like comet are merely hacks. however websockets is still premature: only chrome supports it right now and even the server protocol isn't finalized yet. and the biggest hurdle is of course ie...

cowards

there's a meme on reddit that revolves around 'so brave': basically calling people/posts/comments out for obvious pandering.this reads like a pastiche of keith olbermann, all bravado and empty gusto. arrington writes:what has these people, among the wealthiest on the planet, so scared that they find themselves engaging in these verbal gymnastics to avoid telling a simple truth?and then acknowledges that doing so, if it meant breaking fisa, is illegal.because their lawyers might be telling them what they are required to do. but their soul should be telling them what they must do.what the hell does this even mean?listen, i completely agree with the central premise that we need to have an actual conversation both about privacy in the age of facebook and the kafka-esque way the u.s. government has engineered these catch-22 gag orders. but given arrington's experience both with aol and with the overall notion of privacy, i'd expect something with a little more substance and perspective.

rather than calling anyone a coward, i will acknowledge that standing up for freedom is never easy. i know through direct personal acquaintance people who spent hard prison time during taiwan's transition from dictatorship to democracy, who were arrested after leading peaceful public protest demonstrations of the kind that happen every day here in the united states. i have seen what kind of sustained effort--and, yes, individual courage--it takes to move a society from a default condition of tyranny to a default condition of freedom and rule by the people.rather than name-calling, let's learn how to fight for freedom. i posted yesterday, to no upvotes,<link> link to the free online book from dictatorship to democracy: a conceptual framework for liberation by gene sharp,<link> experienced activist and supporter of people power democratic movements that originated under some of the world's toughest dictatorships. we can learn a lot more from him and his writings and those of his collaborators<link> we can learn from anyone on uncrunched or techcrunch or any high-tech publication about how to win freedom even while under intense pressure from dictators. try it. don't decry anyone else for lacking courage. build up your own courage. build up your own effective communication with other freedom fighters, so that the movement for freedom has solidarity, unity of purpose, and resilience. roll up your sleeves and get to work. (anyone can participate: as a foreign student in taiwan in the early 1980s, i was able to turn chinese-language speech contests for foreign students into opportunities to express dissent from the dictatorship in the hearing of government officials of the dictatorship. this just takes courage and preparation.)

cowards

rather than calling anyone a coward, i will acknowledge that standing up for freedom is never easy. i know through direct personal acquaintance people who spent hard prison time during taiwan's transition from dictatorship to democracy, who were arrested after leading peaceful public protest demonstrations of the kind that happen every day here in the united states. i have seen what kind of sustained effort--and, yes, individual courage--it takes to move a society from a default condition of tyranny to a default condition of freedom and rule by the people.rather than name-calling, let's learn how to fight for freedom. i posted yesterday, to no upvotes,<link> link to the free online book from dictatorship to democracy: a conceptual framework for liberation by gene sharp,<link> experienced activist and supporter of people power democratic movements that originated under some of the world's toughest dictatorships. we can learn a lot more from him and his writings and those of his collaborators<link> we can learn from anyone on uncrunched or techcrunch or any high-tech publication about how to win freedom even while under intense pressure from dictators. try it. don't decry anyone else for lacking courage. build up your own courage. build up your own effective communication with other freedom fighters, so that the movement for freedom has solidarity, unity of purpose, and resilience. roll up your sleeves and get to work. (anyone can participate: as a foreign student in taiwan in the early 1980s, i was able to turn chinese-language speech contests for foreign students into opportunities to express dissent from the dictatorship in the hearing of government officials of the dictatorship. this just takes courage and preparation.)

&quot;or to put it another way, who the hell needs “direct access” or “back doors” when companies are building “secure portals” for them instead?&quot;the extent of his confusion is breathtaking. apparently very few people get what this is all about. the real question is this:does the government (a) mine content and/or metadata in these service providers' databases for suspect activity, or (b) can it only access specific accounts after naming the account holder?what happened at verizon is (a). page and zuckerberg say it's not what happens at google and facebook.what page and zuckerberg meant when they were talking about &quot;scale&quot; is that the government cannot mine their databases for suspects. not directly, not indirectly, not through a secure portal or in any other way.the government can and does make requests (lots of them) to have specific accounts opened, and what google/facebook apparently do is to make that process technically more efficient via a secure portal.

cowards

&quot;or to put it another way, who the hell needs “direct access” or “back doors” when companies are building “secure portals” for them instead?&quot;the extent of his confusion is breathtaking. apparently very few people get what this is all about. the real question is this:does the government (a) mine content and/or metadata in these service providers' databases for suspect activity, or (b) can it only access specific accounts after naming the account holder?what happened at verizon is (a). page and zuckerberg say it's not what happens at google and facebook.what page and zuckerberg meant when they were talking about &quot;scale&quot; is that the government cannot mine their databases for suspects. not directly, not indirectly, not through a secure portal or in any other way.the government can and does make requests (lots of them) to have specific accounts opened, and what google/facebook apparently do is to make that process technically more efficient via a secure portal.

i love the guilty-until-proven-innocent angle of these personal attacks against ceos and companies.there is literally no evidence anyone could produce which would prove to anyone's satisfaction that (a) google, yahoo, facebook, etc don't hand over every last shred of data they have to the nsa, the kgb, and whatever china's equivalent is, or that (b) the ceos of the respective companies didn't personally sign off on every single violation of privacy while kicking puppies. corporations can't have alibis. mark zuckerberg can't say, &quot;oh, i was in cincinnati for the last 5 years, and i don't have cell coverage there, so i can't possibly have been involved.&quot;i usually avoid defending billionaires, because they can dry their tears on their giant stacks of money, but so far this is just a he-said-she-said, and if all of the tech companies are saying they're innocent, it's the responsibility of the accusers to pony up some evidence they're guilty. slide shows are one thing, but if you want to prove to me that the system does what you say it does, we need a document dump: millions of random emails, facebook messages, whatever that have been illegally accessed through this system, which could plausibly not have been accessed without the kind of far reaching access that the tech giants are being accused of having provided.

cowards

i love the guilty-until-proven-innocent angle of these personal attacks against ceos and companies.there is literally no evidence anyone could produce which would prove to anyone's satisfaction that (a) google, yahoo, facebook, etc don't hand over every last shred of data they have to the nsa, the kgb, and whatever china's equivalent is, or that (b) the ceos of the respective companies didn't personally sign off on every single violation of privacy while kicking puppies. corporations can't have alibis. mark zuckerberg can't say, &quot;oh, i was in cincinnati for the last 5 years, and i don't have cell coverage there, so i can't possibly have been involved.&quot;i usually avoid defending billionaires, because they can dry their tears on their giant stacks of money, but so far this is just a he-said-she-said, and if all of the tech companies are saying they're innocent, it's the responsibility of the accusers to pony up some evidence they're guilty. slide shows are one thing, but if you want to prove to me that the system does what you say it does, we need a document dump: millions of random emails, facebook messages, whatever that have been illegally accessed through this system, which could plausibly not have been accessed without the kind of far reaching access that the tech giants are being accused of having provided.

there are cowards and then there are people who willfully exaggerate. a backdoor implies unfettered access to data for batch collection and processing. that's what this story was about at the beginning - the government was indiscriminately collecting and possibly analyzing your private data using some sort of massive, sinister big data operation, the scale of which we can not even conceive, and these big web companies were essentially handing them the keys to their telecommunications networks and telling them to go wild. this has been downgraded again and again, now to a few websites constructing a &quot;secure mailbox.&quot; most of us, including arrington, know exactly what that means. a secure portal/mailbox is exactly what it sounds like: it is the equivalent of sending someone e-mail with a curated collection of data, except for instead of sending an e-mail you are posting it to a private web page accessible through some sort of authenticated login page. and if this data is only in response to a fisa warrant or subpoena and only regarding data posted by non-citizens, suddenly your outrage begins to look a little melodramatic, and what's happening begins to look a lot like what we already knew was happening for years. just because we've known about it for years doesn't make it right, but can we at least admit that the novelty of the original story is long gone?

inside a chinese bitcoin mine

is there any estimate of how much income this particular mine can produce, compared the the capital outlay and the ongoing costs?

quite interesting. what's to stop the bitcoin pool from consolidating into a few key players as difficulty to mine progresses? there's no way that the miners are spending &gt;250k/mo and pushing bitcoins back into the system. wouldn't this hypothetically consolidate wealth in the hands of those with enough capital to create monstrous factories like this?

inside a chinese bitcoin mine

quite interesting. what's to stop the bitcoin pool from consolidating into a few key players as difficulty to mine progresses? there's no way that the miners are spending &gt;250k/mo and pushing bitcoins back into the system. wouldn't this hypothetically consolidate wealth in the hands of those with enough capital to create monstrous factories like this?

i wonder about the effects of such establishments on the bitcoin ecosystem as a whole. in theory, they're supposed to strengthen the network by providing more hashing power. but what worries me is the onset of mega-pools composed of such factories that will gain &gt;51% of the network's computational power effectively gaining a monopoly on bitcoin.

inside a chinese bitcoin mine

i wonder about the effects of such establishments on the bitcoin ecosystem as a whole. in theory, they're supposed to strengthen the network by providing more hashing power. but what worries me is the onset of mega-pools composed of such factories that will gain &gt;51% of the network's computational power effectively gaining a monopoly on bitcoin.

i wonder how much effort they've put into optimisation? small gains (1-2% rather than order of magnitudes) for these guys obviously mean a lot more than for any bedroom operation.

inside a chinese bitcoin mine

i wonder how much effort they've put into optimisation? small gains (1-2% rather than order of magnitudes) for these guys obviously mean a lot more than for any bedroom operation.

what is their internet connection, fiber? surely they must have a special contract or multiple providers.

ask hn: what would you tell a new graduate on how to negotiate their salary?

just ask for a small percentage more than offered and plan on changing jobs after a couple years for your first real raise (20%+). most places will try the 'you've been super awesome so you get the full 3%' trick, which is basically just the inflation rate. don't expect miracles. don't try to use an offer to try and get a better one somewhere else. it's kind of unprofessional. just say 'i really need $x to accept your offer'.

your salary this year isn't nearly as important as it seems right now.

ask hn: what would you tell a new graduate on how to negotiate their salary?

your salary this year isn't nearly as important as it seems right now.

don't name a number first.do ask for more than their first offer.

ask hn: what would you tell a new graduate on how to negotiate their salary?

don't name a number first.do ask for more than their first offer.

the noel smith-wenkle salary negotiation method:<link>

ask hn: what would you tell a new graduate on how to negotiate their salary?

the noel smith-wenkle salary negotiation method:<link>

agree with not offering the first number. also tell them, 'money is important, but more important is the opportunity and the people i'd be working with.' if this fails and they offer you a low number, tell them, 'i'll have to think about any offer less that x, however, i'll accept right now if you can somehow offer x.'

startup banking’s looming leviathan

these blog posts miss the point of disruption: a disruptive bank does not look like a bank. if it looks like a bank, it's a sustaining innovation, and is subject to all the regulations, competitive pressures, incumbent advantages, etc. of the banking industry. a disruptive bank will at first appear to be an entirely different industry, and it's only when people start using it that it becomes apparent that it's really a bank in disguise.kickstarter is a disruptive bank. bitcoin is a disruptive bank. zidisha is a disruptive bank. github is a disruptive bank. most people will probably think i'm crazy for listing them, but they all serve the purpose of connecting people with productive ideas to those with capital to fund them, exactly what banking's purpose is.

as i think of the technology changes (hw &amp; sw) in my recent experience, i struggle to think how my personal banking (yes, business banking &amp; financial services is a nightmare) experience need to be disrupted. its a real question, not trying to be flippant - but what do you think are the top problems today (outside of commercial banks needing an api to their data, i've heard)?i use uber; before i used uber i constantly complained about getting a cab in nyc or having to schedule a black car only to find them late with a smelly car and no way to review a poor experience. that was something i actively knew needed to be changed, and uber did just that.contrarily, for banking it isn't as acute to me: i use usaa as my personal bank and i can't think of much i'd change to have a better experience. apps are good. technology is reliable and (assumed :-)) secure. my money has been safe and available when i need it. i can download transaction history to csv with a few clicks. everything is online, cant remember the last time i got post mail from them. yes, every once in a while i run into a situation where some regulation is in the way (mostly in brokerage services), but mostly its a smooth experience.similarly to other regulated industries, i'd like to see air travel disputed. flytenow, airpooler, and flighthike are trying to do this but will likely be crushed by faa regulation on air taxi and commercial operation rules. are the regs bad? not really, they are there for safety. are bank regs bad? not really, i think they are there for security of our financial system.

startup banking’s looming leviathan

as i think of the technology changes (hw &amp; sw) in my recent experience, i struggle to think how my personal banking (yes, business banking &amp; financial services is a nightmare) experience need to be disrupted. its a real question, not trying to be flippant - but what do you think are the top problems today (outside of commercial banks needing an api to their data, i've heard)?i use uber; before i used uber i constantly complained about getting a cab in nyc or having to schedule a black car only to find them late with a smelly car and no way to review a poor experience. that was something i actively knew needed to be changed, and uber did just that.contrarily, for banking it isn't as acute to me: i use usaa as my personal bank and i can't think of much i'd change to have a better experience. apps are good. technology is reliable and (assumed :-)) secure. my money has been safe and available when i need it. i can download transaction history to csv with a few clicks. everything is online, cant remember the last time i got post mail from them. yes, every once in a while i run into a situation where some regulation is in the way (mostly in brokerage services), but mostly its a smooth experience.similarly to other regulated industries, i'd like to see air travel disputed. flytenow, airpooler, and flighthike are trying to do this but will likely be crushed by faa regulation on air taxi and commercial operation rules. are the regs bad? not really, they are there for safety. are bank regs bad? not really, i think they are there for security of our financial system.

so i know this article is bs whining for two reasons:0. someone i met acquired the charter of a failing midwestern local regional bank in order to save a ton of cash on moving funds into the us. this person was under 30 at the time. and it was tax and banking legal considering the law firm.1. defensibility of a business model is your friend, not you enemy. look to how incumbents do it. what can you improve on? just remember that the harder it is for you the harder it is for everyone else. if it were easy, everyone would do it and the competition would be even more cutthroat elsewhere (patents, distribution, connections, etc.).to potential investors they probably signaled lack of hustle to find creative solutions to get past their current and all other future dilemmas. without an unique, defensible, competitive advantage there's really no for an investor to throw down on a venture.

startup banking’s looming leviathan

so i know this article is bs whining for two reasons:0. someone i met acquired the charter of a failing midwestern local regional bank in order to save a ton of cash on moving funds into the us. this person was under 30 at the time. and it was tax and banking legal considering the law firm.1. defensibility of a business model is your friend, not you enemy. look to how incumbents do it. what can you improve on? just remember that the harder it is for you the harder it is for everyone else. if it were easy, everyone would do it and the competition would be even more cutthroat elsewhere (patents, distribution, connections, etc.).to potential investors they probably signaled lack of hustle to find creative solutions to get past their current and all other future dilemmas. without an unique, defensible, competitive advantage there's really no for an investor to throw down on a venture.

in practice, us banks are most certainly able to grow at over 25% a year. this is most typically done via series of acquisitions rather thank organic growth. there is an undefined upper limit placed on inorganic growth by regulators, but this has more to do with ensuring the proper integration of acquisitions rather than a fear of growth in general. the reason one does not see banks grow organically much faster than 25% pa is because (i) owners can not put raise equity capital at a sufficient pace and (ii) rapid loan portfolio growth (on the asset side of the balance sheet) typically results in a deterioration of underwriting standards, this in turn requires additional capital and increased scrutiny from regulators.source: i've worked in bank-focused private equity for the past decade both in and out of the us.

startup banking’s looming leviathan

in practice, us banks are most certainly able to grow at over 25% a year. this is most typically done via series of acquisitions rather thank organic growth. there is an undefined upper limit placed on inorganic growth by regulators, but this has more to do with ensuring the proper integration of acquisitions rather than a fear of growth in general. the reason one does not see banks grow organically much faster than 25% pa is because (i) owners can not put raise equity capital at a sufficient pace and (ii) rapid loan portfolio growth (on the asset side of the balance sheet) typically results in a deterioration of underwriting standards, this in turn requires additional capital and increased scrutiny from regulators.source: i've worked in bank-focused private equity for the past decade both in and out of the us.

maybe you can't do it with a startup - or rather, not with one startup. maybe you need four, none of which look like a bank. one does payment processing, one's just a loan operation, etc. but when all four startups succeed, they together look like a bank. and they can each use each other to fill in the parts that they don't do. (that is, they each outsource to each other.)

as big investors emerge, bitcoin gets ready for its close-up

poor winklevoss twins keep taking the wrong decision at the wrong time..."this social network idea looks great, let's tell mark zuckerberg about it!""bitcoin has been rising so fast, we should sink a few million dollars into it!"

you'd be crazy to put serious money into bitcoins. not because it's fundamentally flawed as a currency (i don't have the expertise to know if that's true or not), but because if bitcoins ever become more than a sideshow governments around the world will make their use illegal (de facto if not de jure). people left holding the currency will be out of luck.controlling a currency is a politically easy route to tax everybody who uses it, and governments will not give up that privilege even if it means intrusive new controls on internet traffic.

as big investors emerge, bitcoin gets ready for its close-up

you'd be crazy to put serious money into bitcoins. not because it's fundamentally flawed as a currency (i don't have the expertise to know if that's true or not), but because if bitcoins ever become more than a sideshow governments around the world will make their use illegal (de facto if not de jure). people left holding the currency will be out of luck.controlling a currency is a politically easy route to tax everybody who uses it, and governments will not give up that privilege even if it means intrusive new controls on internet traffic.

2 “we have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” tyler winklevoss said.well, i don't even know what to say about that. bitcoin is pretty awesome tech but i don't think anything can take care of human error...

as big investors emerge, bitcoin gets ready for its close-up

2 “we have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” tyler winklevoss said.well, i don't even know what to say about that. bitcoin is pretty awesome tech but i don't think anything can take care of human error...

maybe this guy will get his wish if the winklevoss twins lose everything: <link> <link>

as big investors emerge, bitcoin gets ready for its close-up

maybe this guy will get his wish if the winklevoss twins lose everything: <link> <link>

i don't know how many times this will have to be pointed out before people get it...currencies don't have investors, they have users. sure, there are currency traders but the point is to be used.

hacker news: our tiny charity desperately needs your help

can you give a little more information regarding ad space donations, for example:- what countries do you need traffic from?- do you require "a spot" on a site, or could donors just give x impressions where x is whatever number can fit in around commercial banners?- i don't think i've ever come across 250x100 adverts before, why this size? and more importantly, why only this size, would you not be interested if people could offer you mpu, leaderboard or tower impressions?edit:regarding how you serve adverts, i wouldn't recommend creating your own platform. we've got an in-house system that works well for us, but if we hadn't put such a huge amount of time/money into it, it really wouldn't.google offer a free solution for small business with less than 90m pageviews (<link> and might well offer it for higher numbers for non-profits, i'm not sure. alternatively there are open source off-the-shelf solutions such as openx (<link> 2:you should also publish who your clients are, to give an idea of what charities you will actually be supporting.

for your third requirement, rather than get a developer to develop an ad serving system (which can get pretty complex), you can simply use the years of experience built into this: <link> -- it's open source and free (afaik) for you to use on your own servers.

hacker news: our tiny charity desperately needs your help

for your third requirement, rather than get a developer to develop an ad serving system (which can get pretty complex), you can simply use the years of experience built into this: <link> -- it's open source and free (afaik) for you to use on your own servers.

i like this; if you do it right, it could do an enormous amount of good. that said, i think you should be choosy about which charities you promote; rather than let charities seek you out, you should seek out the very best charities and promote them exclusively. the amount of good-per-dollar varies by multiple orders of magnitude, so the difference in impact between promoting only the best charities and promoting average charities can be enormous. i would suggest directing people to givewell's (<link> top charities list, or to one of the specific charities on it.

hacker news: our tiny charity desperately needs your help

i like this; if you do it right, it could do an enormous amount of good. that said, i think you should be choosy about which charities you promote; rather than let charities seek you out, you should seek out the very best charities and promote them exclusively. the amount of good-per-dollar varies by multiple orders of magnitude, so the difference in impact between promoting only the best charities and promoting average charities can be enormous. i would suggest directing people to givewell's (<link> top charities list, or to one of the specific charities on it.

can you clarify non-profit, non-profit nowadays means very little, icann is non-profit and is about to fuck up top-top level domains so their ceo can buy a helicopter. do you draw a salary and how much?

hacker news: our tiny charity desperately needs your help

can you clarify non-profit, non-profit nowadays means very little, icann is non-profit and is about to fuck up top-top level domains so their ceo can buy a helicopter. do you draw a salary and how much?

you really should add some information about who your team is in an "about us" page.by conspicuously leaving that information out, i don't trust anything about the website. unfortunately, in this day and age of scams, you need to legitimize yourself.

indescribable numbers: the theorem that made me fall in love with math

this is actually an information theory problem which follows directly from the existence of incompressible numbers.the simple explanation for incompressibility goes something like this: compression means reversibly mapping longer bitstrings to shorter bitstrings. for each bit you add to the length of a string, you multiply the number of values it can represent by two. that means you cannot uniquely (i.e. reversibly) represent each bitstring having n bits with a bitstring having m bits where n &gt; m, because you run out of unique values of the shorter bitstrings before you have a representation for each of the longer bitstrings. qed.now you just apply that to numbers with infinite precision. the number &quot;exactly 4.5&quot; is really 4.5000000… meaning &quot;4.5&quot; followed by an infinite number of zeros. that number, despite having infinite precision, is one we compress into less than infinite storage. various other numbers (like four and one third) are likewise. but as we just proved, there have to exist some numbers with infinite precision that we don't represent with anything less than an infinite number of symbols.the interesting thing about this is that you can never say that any specific number is incompressible and thus indescribable. you can take any bitstring (but not all bitstrings) of any length, including infinite, and assign a specific shorter (and finite) bitstring to represent it. you then have a finite encoding for that specific infinite sequence of symbols which can henceforth be used to describe it. you just can't do it for every infinite bitstring because you have insufficiently many finite bitstrings with which to represent them.

i like how the post reflects the excitement of discovering something for yourself, even if only to find out later that it's commonly known in certain domains. sometimes in this day and age with search engines it seems useless to sit and think about a problem when you can just search and see if and how someone has already solved it.for me, i like to wonder about the transition point in history where man went from not using numbers to using them. what prompted this? were numbers used first to indicate order (e.g. my first born son) or quantity? how did someone first teach the idea of numbers to another?i'm sure there are endless books and articles written on this topic, but i've never had the desire to see what others have to say on the subject. sometimes it's just nice to let my mind relax and drift to such questions; i sometimes recapture the feeling of wonder and exploration that i had originally...

indescribable numbers: the theorem that made me fall in love with math

i like how the post reflects the excitement of discovering something for yourself, even if only to find out later that it's commonly known in certain domains. sometimes in this day and age with search engines it seems useless to sit and think about a problem when you can just search and see if and how someone has already solved it.for me, i like to wonder about the transition point in history where man went from not using numbers to using them. what prompted this? were numbers used first to indicate order (e.g. my first born son) or quantity? how did someone first teach the idea of numbers to another?i'm sure there are endless books and articles written on this topic, but i've never had the desire to see what others have to say on the subject. sometimes it's just nice to let my mind relax and drift to such questions; i sometimes recapture the feeling of wonder and exploration that i had originally...

the interesting thing here is that it's much harder to put this problem properly into mathematical terms than it is to solve it. the whole insight here is that you a &quot;description&quot; of number is just some finite sequence of symbols from a finite alphabet. now, if you understand why cardinality of continuum is greater than aleph null, it's totally straightforward to show that there are only countably many descriptions, but continuum many reals, it's the kind of problem you give freshmen students on their first encounter with cardinalities. thus, the big achievement of this guy is to actually come up with idea of indescribable numbers by himself and interpreting this question mathematically. in other words, the questions are usually more important than answers.there's one minor, but nevertheless important mistake made by the author. author says :&gt;the infinity just a step bigger than [aleph null] is aleph one, the infinity of real numbers: the infinity of an impossibly dense line of numberswhile cardinality of reals is certainly larger than cardinality of integers, it is not true that it's just one step larger. funny thing is that it's not false either: it was proved by cantor and cohen that it's impossible to prove or disprove that aleph one is cardinality of continuum. this is the famous continuum hypothesis.

indescribable numbers: the theorem that made me fall in love with math

the interesting thing here is that it's much harder to put this problem properly into mathematical terms than it is to solve it. the whole insight here is that you a &quot;description&quot; of number is just some finite sequence of symbols from a finite alphabet. now, if you understand why cardinality of continuum is greater than aleph null, it's totally straightforward to show that there are only countably many descriptions, but continuum many reals, it's the kind of problem you give freshmen students on their first encounter with cardinalities. thus, the big achievement of this guy is to actually come up with idea of indescribable numbers by himself and interpreting this question mathematically. in other words, the questions are usually more important than answers.there's one minor, but nevertheless important mistake made by the author. author says :&gt;the infinity just a step bigger than [aleph null] is aleph one, the infinity of real numbers: the infinity of an impossibly dense line of numberswhile cardinality of reals is certainly larger than cardinality of integers, it is not true that it's just one step larger. funny thing is that it's not false either: it was proved by cantor and cohen that it's impossible to prove or disprove that aleph one is cardinality of continuum. this is the famous continuum hypothesis.

it is well proven that aleph one, which is the infinity of the real numbers, is undeniably bigger than the infinity of the natural numbers.the clause &quot;aleph one, which is the infinity of the real numbers&quot;, is known as the continuum hypothesis, and has a fascinating background in itself.first, the existence of aleph one in axiomatic zermelo-fraenkel set theory depends (surprisingly) on the axiom of choice. if you reject ac, we can't show that there exists a unique aleph one.it gets weirder. if you accept zfc (zf set theory, plus the axiom of choice), we can prove that both aleph one and the cardinality of the reals are greater than aleph nought. however, gödel proved in 1940 that aleph one cannot be proven to be equal to the cardinality of the reals, given zfc. in fact, none of the main zfc axioms constrain the continuum hypothesis--there are some proposed axioms, like constructability, which imply ch, but nobody is really sure whether we should accept them.this is very much a philosophical problem in mathematics: having proven we cannot decide on the basis of the axioms we widely accept, it's now up to us to choose which branch (or both) of mathematics is more useful or epistemologically satisfying--or find other axioms we can agree on that in turn constrain ch.[edit] derp, just read to the bottom, and it's comment #1. right then, carry on. :)

indescribable numbers: the theorem that made me fall in love with math

it is well proven that aleph one, which is the infinity of the real numbers, is undeniably bigger than the infinity of the natural numbers.the clause &quot;aleph one, which is the infinity of the real numbers&quot;, is known as the continuum hypothesis, and has a fascinating background in itself.first, the existence of aleph one in axiomatic zermelo-fraenkel set theory depends (surprisingly) on the axiom of choice. if you reject ac, we can't show that there exists a unique aleph one.it gets weirder. if you accept zfc (zf set theory, plus the axiom of choice), we can prove that both aleph one and the cardinality of the reals are greater than aleph nought. however, gödel proved in 1940 that aleph one cannot be proven to be equal to the cardinality of the reals, given zfc. in fact, none of the main zfc axioms constrain the continuum hypothesis--there are some proposed axioms, like constructability, which imply ch, but nobody is really sure whether we should accept them.this is very much a philosophical problem in mathematics: having proven we cannot decide on the basis of the axioms we widely accept, it's now up to us to choose which branch (or both) of mathematics is more useful or epistemologically satisfying--or find other axioms we can agree on that in turn constrain ch.[edit] derp, just read to the bottom, and it's comment #1. right then, carry on. :)

excellent article. if you like this sort of thing, you may enjoy busy beaver numbers, my favorite treatment of which is the essay &quot;who can name the bigger number?&quot;<link>

what do crypto & network pros think of lastpass, keepass, 1password, et al?

i can't "think of" them, because i have no experience with these services. here's why:* i generate random passwords 12 characters long unique to every site and write them down on business card stock which i keep in a reasonably secure place. they fit in my wallet with my money for example.* usually i don't even need to carry them around. since the plaintext password and login session cookie must be handled in the clear by the web browser anyway, i just use the browser's built-in password manager. mobile devices remember credentials too. if your browser is pwned, your login session is pwned, zeus has proven this.* i use a separate web browser in a separate os image for online banking and purchasing things online (anything involving money).this system works adequately for me. therefore, giving passwords to a third party appears to me to add an unnecessary risk.i fully admit that my system is unusual (i work for a multi-factor authentication company) and many people may be better off with a password management service.

for what it's worth, bruce schneier says use one: <link>

what do crypto & network pros think of lastpass, keepass, 1password, et al?

for what it's worth, bruce schneier says use one: <link>

there is an excellent podcast available where steve gibson (security expert) talks about lastpass and it's internals - audio and transcript are here: <link>

what do crypto & network pros think of lastpass, keepass, 1password, et al?

there is an excellent podcast available where steve gibson (security expert) talks about lastpass and it's internals - audio and transcript are here: <link>

8+ points for a question that hasn't been answered. odd.

what do crypto & network pros think of lastpass, keepass, 1password, et al?

8+ points for a question that hasn't been answered. odd.

i put the question on quora, since questions are what quora's for, but i really hope folks here will share their thoughts (tptacek, et al). i'm hoping to these questions help gather up what is known about these services' tactics, techniques, and procedures, and how those compare with best practices.

paul graham's personal website (circa 2000)

paul graham invited the entire internet to play pickup soccer in (presumably) cambridge? <link> would not work out well today...edit: there's also an older version of the rice and beans recipe from &quot;ramen profitable&quot;:<link> (compare: <link>'s a few other recipes as well. now that pg is retiring from leading yc and running hacker news, maybe he can write the &quot;ramen profitable cookbook&quot;?edit 2: i'm curious what this is meant to be a list of: <link>

<link> listed as being given in 2002.

paul graham's personal website (circa 2000)

<link> listed as being given in 2002.

the coke monkeys article is fascinating: <link>

paul graham's personal website (circa 2000)

the coke monkeys article is fascinating: <link>

one of the most interesting things about the site to me was the navigation system. there is an &quot;up&quot; button and a &quot;next&quot; button in the navigation panel on the pages. it is conceptually set up as a file directory--which has been replaced in navigation with the modern convention of &quot;forward&quot; and &quot;back&quot; buttons.

paul graham's personal website (circa 2000)

one of the most interesting things about the site to me was the navigation system. there is an &quot;up&quot; button and a &quot;next&quot; button in the navigation panel on the pages. it is conceptually set up as a file directory--which has been replaced in navigation with the modern convention of &quot;forward&quot; and &quot;back&quot; buttons.

woah. he was such a nerd! and i mean that in an endearing way - cars, drawings, quotes, books, family, events - all of the things that we used to nerd out about and then put on our websites.i guess now we tweet or fbook these things.careful, pg, it expires in november of this year!

in march, at the peak of facebook popularity, i quit.

the author reportedly quit facebook because his (her?) usage of it made him feel egotistical and/or narcissistic. after quitting, he wrote a lengthy article to make sure everyone knew his exact thought processes and feelings, and used some historical references to back up and legitimize his newly-found outlook on social networking. seems like he hasn't yet solved his problem.

...with four swift clicks of the mouse, i canceled my account. gone was the entire online persona i had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquiredmaybe! but all of those pictures, interests and activities, work history, and friends are still sitting there on facebook's database waiting to be made visible again with another 4 quick clicks of the mouse...

in march, at the peak of facebook popularity, i quit.

...with four swift clicks of the mouse, i canceled my account. gone was the entire online persona i had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquiredmaybe! but all of those pictures, interests and activities, work history, and friends are still sitting there on facebook's database waiting to be made visible again with another 4 quick clicks of the mouse...

hah! i thought he meant he quit the company! and then i realized it was his account.after the first sentence, at the peak of the article, i quit.i mean no disrespect; just lost interest. :)

in march, at the peak of facebook popularity, i quit.

hah! i thought he meant he quit the company! and then i realized it was his account.after the first sentence, at the peak of the article, i quit.i mean no disrespect; just lost interest. :)

some people always have to bail on something as soon as it becomes popular otherwise they don't feel cool any more.

in march, at the peak of facebook popularity, i quit.

some people always have to bail on something as soon as it becomes popular otherwise they don't feel cool any more.

what a great quote:“we are what we repeatedly do.” - aristotle

show hn: kondoot - watch live a day in the life of a startup

so what makes you guys different from justin/ustream/stickam?

the chatbox went too funny after two guys did the chair race <link> seem to be busy fixing the issues now - <link>

show hn: kondoot - watch live a day in the life of a startup

the chatbox went too funny after two guys did the chair race <link> seem to be busy fixing the issues now - <link>

using their tech to show us them building their tech. this works on so many levels. i'm waiting for the inception theme to start playing.

show hn: kondoot - watch live a day in the life of a startup

using their tech to show us them building their tech. this works on so many levels. i'm waiting for the inception theme to start playing.

ok guys, it's been an interesting day and now we are heading off to bed. thanks for zany chat antics over the course of the day ;-)

show hn: kondoot - watch live a day in the life of a startup

ok guys, it's been an interesting day and now we are heading off to bed. thanks for zany chat antics over the course of the day ;-)

we did something similar to this at tinychat a long time ago. lifecasting definitely isnt for me :)nice site, good luck with it.

shocked by san francisco, on my very first day

i understand the idea, but i still don't think this is the right way to go about it.... there are many well organized and already established charities that help out the homeless. if you feel the need to help less fortunate people out, i believe it would be better to donate to one of these charities. it also helps circumvent the potential for the beggar to go use it for alcohol/drugs/unnecessary purchases and it makes sure that only the people that truly are trying to get help out of their situation get the money....edit: playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't this be a way for some "pranksters" to harass the homeless easily as well? i certainly don't have enough faith in our fellow humans to expect this never to happen, especially since homeless already deal with enough assaults... between 1999-2010, 312 homeless people were reported dead from these assaults and over 800 injured [1].[1]<link>

please understand that san francisco has some of the most extensive programs for the homeless/poor in the country. there are homeless prenatal services, clinics, shelters, food programs, healthcare, job training programs, low income housing, mail services, free blankets, clothing, etc. heck, there is a program to give puppies from animal control to panhandlers and pay them a stipend for watching them.a good number of panhandlers aren't homeless. many suffer from mental illness and california hasn't done forced mental treatment since reagan. a large minority are addicted to drugs or alcohol.very few are actually hungry (in sf, food stamps come on a debit card that can be used not only at grocery stores, but at many restaurants and even farmer's markets). on top of that the san francisco food bank distributes 100,000 meals a day worth of food.what i'm trying to get at here is that even with all this stuff, the problem basically isn't going away. it is really complicated and giving someone your leftover food might make you feel better, but i doubt it'll solve the underlying problem.

shocked by san francisco, on my very first day

please understand that san francisco has some of the most extensive programs for the homeless/poor in the country. there are homeless prenatal services, clinics, shelters, food programs, healthcare, job training programs, low income housing, mail services, free blankets, clothing, etc. heck, there is a program to give puppies from animal control to panhandlers and pay them a stipend for watching them.a good number of panhandlers aren't homeless. many suffer from mental illness and california hasn't done forced mental treatment since reagan. a large minority are addicted to drugs or alcohol.very few are actually hungry (in sf, food stamps come on a debit card that can be used not only at grocery stores, but at many restaurants and even farmer's markets). on top of that the san francisco food bank distributes 100,000 meals a day worth of food.what i'm trying to get at here is that even with all this stuff, the problem basically isn't going away. it is really complicated and giving someone your leftover food might make you feel better, but i doubt it'll solve the underlying problem.

i couldn't help but chuckle a bit after reading this blog post. i am not sure if i should be cheerful about this app concept or hang my head in shame.22 find/geo-locate the closest beggar near youhow? homeless people are not static points-of-interest and to even consider them like that is a bit distasteful.22 know how safe it is to walk close to that beggar.again, how? people adding reviews for an individual homeless person?

shocked by san francisco, on my very first day

i couldn't help but chuckle a bit after reading this blog post. i am not sure if i should be cheerful about this app concept or hang my head in shame.22 find/geo-locate the closest beggar near youhow? homeless people are not static points-of-interest and to even consider them like that is a bit distasteful.22 know how safe it is to walk close to that beggar.again, how? people adding reviews for an individual homeless person?

first off, a close friend of mine did this a few years back. he called it hoboreview.com. he ended up shutting it down to to lack of public interest.secondly, the title of this post is "shocked by san francisco" and yet the article fails to explain what was so shocking. was it the fact that the hobo gave you a weird look? or that there were hobos at all? i can't imagine miami being a whole lot different.and finally, he needs our help with what? seems to me he's so excited about starting some sort of online collaboration / movement that he forgot to take the time to figure out what the movement actually is.plus, the dude is in san francisco for a week and decides to spend his time at an ing coffee shop? that's in poor taste.

shocked by san francisco, on my very first day

first off, a close friend of mine did this a few years back. he called it hoboreview.com. he ended up shutting it down to to lack of public interest.secondly, the title of this post is "shocked by san francisco" and yet the article fails to explain what was so shocking. was it the fact that the hobo gave you a weird look? or that there were hobos at all? i can't imagine miami being a whole lot different.and finally, he needs our help with what? seems to me he's so excited about starting some sort of online collaboration / movement that he forgot to take the time to figure out what the movement actually is.plus, the dude is in san francisco for a week and decides to spend his time at an ing coffee shop? that's in poor taste.

an application targeting a vulnerable demographic, that encourages people to put other people's personal information online, and offers a platform that is ripe for misuse and abuse.what could possibly go wrong?

the circle of fifths, part one

the code he wrote for showing how to generate is pretty ugly and left me confused. i think this shows much better the relation between the 12 notes and a scale: notes = ['c', 'c#', 'd', 'd#', 'e', 'f', 'f#', 'g', 'g#', 'a', 'a#', 'b'] # 2 is a whole step, 1 is a half step major_steps = [2,2,1,2,2,2,1] # returns the scale in the given key with the given steps def scale(key, steps) note = notes.index(key) step = 0 notes = [] while step 0 steps.length notes 00 notes[note % notes.length] note += steps[step] step += 1 end notes end scale('d', major_steps) #=2 ["d", "e", "f#", "g", "a", "b", "c#"] i think this shows how a scale is just a list of steps applied to the notes from a certain key :)

most musicians aren't aware of this, but an interesting corollary of the circle of fifths is the pythagorean comma: <link> generally treat gb and f# as the same note, but if you actually count perfect pythagorean fifths (frequency ratios of 3:2) in both directions from c, gb and f# don't actually perfectly meet in the middle!

the circle of fifths, part one

most musicians aren't aware of this, but an interesting corollary of the circle of fifths is the pythagorean comma: <link> generally treat gb and f# as the same note, but if you actually count perfect pythagorean fifths (frequency ratios of 3:2) in both directions from c, gb and f# don't actually perfectly meet in the middle!

er... something's terribly wrong in this explanation. because the essential forgotten fact is that, as much as f# is also gb, c is also b#, f is e#, b is cb and e is fb. so the g# scale exists and is perfectly valid, it readsg# a# b# c# d# e# f##and it is a very important point, because each scale on the circle of fifth has one more sharp than the previous one when turning in one direction, and one more flat in the other one.another point is that there is actually a comma between f# and gb, and between f## and g, because the chromatic semi-tone is one comma shorter than the diatonic semi-tone -- though of course the distinction isn't done on a tempered instrument such as a piano or a guitar.it is all actually quite simple, but not /that/ simple :)

the circle of fifths, part one

er... something's terribly wrong in this explanation. because the essential forgotten fact is that, as much as f# is also gb, c is also b#, f is e#, b is cb and e is fb. so the g# scale exists and is perfectly valid, it readsg# a# b# c# d# e# f##and it is a very important point, because each scale on the circle of fifth has one more sharp than the previous one when turning in one direction, and one more flat in the other one.another point is that there is actually a comma between f# and gb, and between f## and g, because the chromatic semi-tone is one comma shorter than the diatonic semi-tone -- though of course the distinction isn't done on a tempered instrument such as a piano or a guitar.it is all actually quite simple, but not /that/ simple :)

circle of fifths and circle of fourths allows one to algorithmically put together irish traditional tune sets that mostly work. (not exactly as stated, because irish trad is really modal, but close enough for trad.)basically, take the home chord of a tune and apply one of the following:if "major" then switch to the relative minor, or vice versa.go round the circle of fifths or the circle of fourths either direction, but stay on whichever side of "major/minor."go up or down the scale, staying on whichever side of "major/minor."so for example, a tune set with e minor, g major, a major should work. (again, not exactly it, but don't want to explain modes.)

the circle of fifths, part one

circle of fifths and circle of fourths allows one to algorithmically put together irish traditional tune sets that mostly work. (not exactly as stated, because irish trad is really modal, but close enough for trad.)basically, take the home chord of a tune and apply one of the following:if "major" then switch to the relative minor, or vice versa.go round the circle of fifths or the circle of fourths either direction, but stay on whichever side of "major/minor."go up or down the scale, staying on whichever side of "major/minor."so for example, a tune set with e minor, g major, a major should work. (again, not exactly it, but don't want to explain modes.)

i vaguely remember using this knowledge of the scales to "cheat" on the violin. if you move your hand into whatever position puts your first finger on the first note in the scale then you can always move the rest of the fingers in exactly the same manner - whole whole half, whole whole whole half. my music theory knowledge is crumbling but what i mean is if you move into 2nd position on the a string to play a b scale its much easier than starting in 1st position with the 2nd finger.i did this at a competition once when given some insane scales (like 3 flats in the clef) without having ever practiced the scale itself and got it right.

dvorak on microsoft: party over, msft distracted by shiny objects

in ms's defense, some of those past experiments paid off:- word and excel (which morphed into office)- xbox (which is now a success as the 360)ms has taken a lot of risks that most companies their size would never take; they don't like resting on their laurels

strangely enough, (consumer) operating systems and developer tools are still the areas where microsoft shines (or at least gets a passing grade). winvista was an utter failure, but win7 is a very nice os (i'm a mac fanboy, fyi). my tools of choice are usually vim + terminal (or xcode if i'm doing some cocoa), but i've used visual studio in the past and i liked it. slow, yes, but many of the features that make it slow are totally worth the 5-10 seconds i have to wait for the ide to start up. also, look at all the cool things ms research is doing.ms is a bungling giant and, even though i'll never choose windows as my platform of choice, i think they still do some things very well.

dvorak on microsoft: party over, msft distracted by shiny objects

strangely enough, (consumer) operating systems and developer tools are still the areas where microsoft shines (or at least gets a passing grade). winvista was an utter failure, but win7 is a very nice os (i'm a mac fanboy, fyi). my tools of choice are usually vim + terminal (or xcode if i'm doing some cocoa), but i've used visual studio in the past and i liked it. slow, yes, but many of the features that make it slow are totally worth the 5-10 seconds i have to wait for the ide to start up. also, look at all the cool things ms research is doing.ms is a bungling giant and, even though i'll never choose windows as my platform of choice, i think they still do some things very well.

what defunct hamburger chain is he speaking of? i assumed all the chains did that, let mcd's do the research then open up across the street (burger king, hardees, etc)

dvorak on microsoft: party over, msft distracted by shiny objects

what defunct hamburger chain is he speaking of? i assumed all the chains did that, let mcd's do the research then open up across the street (burger king, hardees, etc)

*sigh, doesn't it ever occur to anyone that a company that still makes billions in a deep recession, has the largest market cap of any it company, has a share of over 90% in its main revenue markets, was until recently led by the richest man in the world, and only hires the world's brightest people, might not be stupid?if a company wants to stay alive it needs to diversify and enter new markets. it shouldn't come as a surprise that microsoft doesn't try to create new markets. its core competency has never been innovation, it has always been outmuscling the competition in growth markets.many of the diversifications have been a success, with internet explorer being the flagship. netscape showed the web was going to be big, microsoft entered the browser market to make it so. internet explorer was for a large part the catalyst that put a windows computer (with office) into every home in the late 90's.the same thing happened when realplayer showed streaming video was going to be big. microsoft decided to give its wmp product a boost and made it so. the multimedia possibilities further catalyzed sales of windows pcs and media centers in particular.at this point ie and wmp are no longer important since there are plenty of widely available alternatives that other people are developing freely for microsoft. it is shifting its attention to other areas that could further fuel its software line. azureus will establish a firm presence of windows in the cloud, while acting as a catalyst for new features in their corporate products like office and exchange.visual studio, .net, directx, etc. have all been major catalysts for the development of the largest software legacy in history, which means windows will be in business for at least another 30 years.finally, microsoft has entered a number of markets in which the only "failure" is that it didn't become market leader. otherwise, many of these products are a success (bing, xbox 360, zune, game development, msn). the added value in terms of diversification and building new products and expertise is also notable. the msn/live expertise is what allowed them to build azureus, bing and office 2010.the only area in which microsoft really failed to win its battle is handhelds. apple outwitted them with religious marketing and some ui novelties, nokia/symbian always managed to keep a tight grip on the phone market, and google decided that the mobile os itself can be a catalyst for its web products. this is not only a missed opportunity, but may also come to threaten microsoft's dominance in other areas.overall. microsoft is not evil, stupid, at the end of the road, or sliding downhill. it's the #1 it company and very good at doing business.(no, i use linux about 90% of the time, use opera, vlc and gmail on all my machines and i don't own a copy of ms office. it's just that i learned not to ignore the business part of it.)

dvorak on microsoft: party over, msft distracted by shiny objects

*sigh, doesn't it ever occur to anyone that a company that still makes billions in a deep recession, has the largest market cap of any it company, has a share of over 90% in its main revenue markets, was until recently led by the richest man in the world, and only hires the world's brightest people, might not be stupid?if a company wants to stay alive it needs to diversify and enter new markets. it shouldn't come as a surprise that microsoft doesn't try to create new markets. its core competency has never been innovation, it has always been outmuscling the competition in growth markets.many of the diversifications have been a success, with internet explorer being the flagship. netscape showed the web was going to be big, microsoft entered the browser market to make it so. internet explorer was for a large part the catalyst that put a windows computer (with office) into every home in the late 90's.the same thing happened when realplayer showed streaming video was going to be big. microsoft decided to give its wmp product a boost and made it so. the multimedia possibilities further catalyzed sales of windows pcs and media centers in particular.at this point ie and wmp are no longer important since there are plenty of widely available alternatives that other people are developing freely for microsoft. it is shifting its attention to other areas that could further fuel its software line. azureus will establish a firm presence of windows in the cloud, while acting as a catalyst for new features in their corporate products like office and exchange.visual studio, .net, directx, etc. have all been major catalysts for the development of the largest software legacy in history, which means windows will be in business for at least another 30 years.finally, microsoft has entered a number of markets in which the only "failure" is that it didn't become market leader. otherwise, many of these products are a success (bing, xbox 360, zune, game development, msn). the added value in terms of diversification and building new products and expertise is also notable. the msn/live expertise is what allowed them to build azureus, bing and office 2010.the only area in which microsoft really failed to win its battle is handhelds. apple outwitted them with religious marketing and some ui novelties, nokia/symbian always managed to keep a tight grip on the phone market, and google decided that the mobile os itself can be a catalyst for its web products. this is not only a missed opportunity, but may also come to threaten microsoft's dominance in other areas.overall. microsoft is not evil, stupid, at the end of the road, or sliding downhill. it's the #1 it company and very good at doing business.(no, i use linux about 90% of the time, use opera, vlc and gmail on all my machines and i don't own a copy of ms office. it's just that i learned not to ignore the business part of it.)

why do people listen to dvorak?

rewriting from scratch

so i know re-writing a technical system from scratch is always consider a big no-no. a couple of observations to counter that argument:1. re-writing code is the innovator's solution to the innovator's dilemma.[0]2. mozilla wouldn't exist today if the netscape team didn't decide to rewrite their browser engine.[1]3. isn't basecamp new a rewrite?[2][0]<link> [1]<link> [2]<link>

&gt; our old dashboards were at a local maximum, making it hard to iterate. introducing elements of a variable direct debit interface would have added complexity, with no benefit until the whole new interface was ready.&gt; for a fundamental change in ui that lack of iteration wasn't acceptable. starting from scratch with an early beta let us to collect feedback on the new interface immediately. our speed of iteration was also increased as we didn't have to worry about breaking an existing interface.i would have said &quot;i've created an unmaintainable mess.&quot;, but from now on, i'll be using your nice euphemisms. &quot;local maximum&quot; ... yeah, sounds proactive and empowering. i'll have to work on delivering it with a straight face, though.

rewriting from scratch

&gt; our old dashboards were at a local maximum, making it hard to iterate. introducing elements of a variable direct debit interface would have added complexity, with no benefit until the whole new interface was ready.&gt; for a fundamental change in ui that lack of iteration wasn't acceptable. starting from scratch with an early beta let us to collect feedback on the new interface immediately. our speed of iteration was also increased as we didn't have to worry about breaking an existing interface.i would have said &quot;i've created an unmaintainable mess.&quot;, but from now on, i'll be using your nice euphemisms. &quot;local maximum&quot; ... yeah, sounds proactive and empowering. i'll have to work on delivering it with a straight face, though.

in my opinion, it's ok to rewrite, if you finish, on time, and it works as expected.you can see all kind of &quot;rewrites&quot; some with more luck, and others with worse. this one seems successful (i talk without numbers).i've a personal pet project i'm always rewriting (from scratch). but, it's the single project in my life i can't validate the result, i've try many approaches. there is a few corner cases, were the only exit is to use unclean workarounds by language limitation... and even after a few renames and even language evolution, i think i'll retire &quot;still rewriting from scratch&quot; if i feel it can be better, and i've the freedom/budget/time to do it.

rewriting from scratch

in my opinion, it's ok to rewrite, if you finish, on time, and it works as expected.you can see all kind of &quot;rewrites&quot; some with more luck, and others with worse. this one seems successful (i talk without numbers).i've a personal pet project i'm always rewriting (from scratch). but, it's the single project in my life i can't validate the result, i've try many approaches. there is a few corner cases, were the only exit is to use unclean workarounds by language limitation... and even after a few renames and even language evolution, i think i'll retire &quot;still rewriting from scratch&quot; if i feel it can be better, and i've the freedom/budget/time to do it.

consider the big ball of mud: <link> can be either a pattern or an antipattern, depending on your perspective. i tend to think of it as an antipattern. rewrites are often driven by difficulty in refactoring more than fundamental flaws, but the refactoring problems are caused by coupling between layers/systems.the problem with rewriting to avoid a refactoring is that you're most likely going to wind up with a shiny new ball of mud.

rewriting from scratch

consider the big ball of mud: <link> can be either a pattern or an antipattern, depending on your perspective. i tend to think of it as an antipattern. rewrites are often driven by difficulty in refactoring more than fundamental flaws, but the refactoring problems are caused by coupling between layers/systems.the problem with rewriting to avoid a refactoring is that you're most likely going to wind up with a shiny new ball of mud.

there is a huge body of experience out there that does state this is insane and generally crashes and burns and fails horribly. good on ya to go against the odds and win.

results from the heinlein score game (1739 questionnaires returned)

my impression is that people are overconfident in their ability to plan an invasion and under-confident in their ability to pitch manure. there are other examples, but in general there seems to be much less variation in results than there should be. some of the things listed are very easy, some are very hard.

i answered every question positively, because i thought in terms of 'if my life depended on that' or 'if there's no one else to do the job'. surely, the outcome wouldn't be the best possible. however, it's realistic that all sane and non-disabled people at least have an idea what is involved in those tasks and can come up with some results.

results from the heinlein score game (1739 questionnaires returned)

i answered every question positively, because i thought in terms of 'if my life depended on that' or 'if there's no one else to do the job'. surely, the outcome wouldn't be the best possible. however, it's realistic that all sane and non-disabled people at least have an idea what is involved in those tasks and can come up with some results.

since the criteria was having done the task at least once, i am quite impressed with all those who checked yes for died gallantly and were still able to fill out the survey.

results from the heinlein score game (1739 questionnaires returned)

since the criteria was having done the task at least once, i am quite impressed with all those who checked yes for died gallantly and were still able to fill out the survey.

who are these people who can't butcher a hog but can plan an invasion?in fact is there any 1 person in the world who could plan a modern invasion on their own?i imagine the process of going to war involves large committees.

results from the heinlein score game (1739 questionnaires returned)

who are these people who can't butcher a hog but can plan an invasion?in fact is there any 1 person in the world who could plan a modern invasion on their own?i imagine the process of going to war involves large committees.

i'm still not sure what "set a bone" means. is that something like picking the bones out of the ashes after a cremation at a japanese funeral?

a field guide to bullshit

"then they insist that there are special people who can see - if only dimly - through this veil."i have this pet theory (hey, maybe it's another intellectual black hole) that all religious, mystical, and irrational beliefs derive from this: we human brains have this property (either innate or easily acquired due to existing structure) that leads us to worship other individuals. by "worship" i mean trust without doubt and with unreasonable admiration. i think that the following phenomena are all manifestations of this same property: (1) religious thinking, (2) romantic love, (3) pop culture/culture of cool, (4) family ties. the third and the fourth one would be the most self-aware forms of this type of thinking, but the first two (the first one especially) can take on forms of the self-sustaining "black holes" mentioned in the post.tl;dr: our idols are within us.

did anyone else get a sense that this article provided no special insight? it mentioned repeated examples like "i just know" works for ted but not flying saucers. what is the difference between ted out the window and a saucer? i felt the author relies heavily on the audience sharing his sense of the obvious and absurd, but provides no argument to support his claims.

a field guide to bullshit

did anyone else get a sense that this article provided no special insight? it mentioned repeated examples like "i just know" works for ted but not flying saucers. what is the difference between ted out the window and a saucer? i felt the author relies heavily on the audience sharing his sense of the obvious and absurd, but provides no argument to support his claims.

a good example of applying reality tests to controversial ideas is the science-based medicine blog,<link> corrects quite a few mistaken ideas found in the popular press (and, thus, here on hn) about medical research.

a field guide to bullshit

a good example of applying reality tests to controversial ideas is the science-based medicine blog,<link> corrects quite a few mistaken ideas found in the popular press (and, thus, here on hn) about medical research.

i feel this article is guilty of exactly what it argues against. many of the views he writes off as ridiculous may be the results of countless thought processes working in any number of contexts. instead of accepting this, he simplified each view that contradicts his own down to an obviously ridiculous claim, then makes use of what is effectively a traditional straw man argument. sure, it's true that if your views are rationalized the way he expects them to be then you have no logical let to stand on. on the other hand should you have any sort of more complex and rational approach to the matter it appears that he will still gladly lump you with the lunatics.that said, i do agree that the issue he is trying to point out is of vital importance. the fact is that most of the people that believe in mysticism, religions, ufos, psychic powers, and other things to that effect are completely disconnected from the physical reality that they inhabit. however, i do not think the solution is to tell these people that their views are ridiculous, before quoting scientific facts the implications of which you might not even understand yourself. you would be better off establishing a rapport, and gradually introducing more and more facts that do not agree with their interpretation of the world. in the end you may both find some wisdom in the result.

a field guide to bullshit

i feel this article is guilty of exactly what it argues against. many of the views he writes off as ridiculous may be the results of countless thought processes working in any number of contexts. instead of accepting this, he simplified each view that contradicts his own down to an obviously ridiculous claim, then makes use of what is effectively a traditional straw man argument. sure, it's true that if your views are rationalized the way he expects them to be then you have no logical let to stand on. on the other hand should you have any sort of more complex and rational approach to the matter it appears that he will still gladly lump you with the lunatics.that said, i do agree that the issue he is trying to point out is of vital importance. the fact is that most of the people that believe in mysticism, religions, ufos, psychic powers, and other things to that effect are completely disconnected from the physical reality that they inhabit. however, i do not think the solution is to tell these people that their views are ridiculous, before quoting scientific facts the implications of which you might not even understand yourself. you would be better off establishing a rapport, and gradually introducing more and more facts that do not agree with their interpretation of the world. in the end you may both find some wisdom in the result.

this is somewhat tangential, but i get mildly irritated reading articles like this when they equate medicine with hard science. if the physics community operated like the pharmaceutical community, i think our knowledge of the universe would be less than it is today, to put it mildly. (as a reference, check hnsearch for "prozac" and "placebo".)

amnesty international on the detention of greenwald's partner

so, we seem to have yet again redefined &quot;terrorist&quot;. it now means: causes embarrassment to government. heh, well.. related to some one who causes embarrassment to government.mind you, just read another article(1) about an undercover policeman gathering dossier evidence on &quot;troublemakers&quot; for an employment agency black list. put that together with mass data collection, and hopefully mr nothing to hide will realize that, yes, he might well have something to hide.the troublemakers, you ask? oh yeah, the evil terrorist organisation known as: youth against racism... (yeah, that was sarcasm.)i see another really scary phrase there too: &quot;politically dangerous&quot;. if that doesn't say it all, i don't know what does any more.(1) <link>

just playing devils advocate here: greenwald did previously state that he was going to send leaked information to his partner. so his partner isn't just his &quot;loved one&quot; in this. he would be one of the leakers.

amnesty international on the detention of greenwald's partner

just playing devils advocate here: greenwald did previously state that he was going to send leaked information to his partner. so his partner isn't just his &quot;loved one&quot; in this. he would be one of the leakers.

it's interesting to me that this release refers to miranda as greenwald's husband, when everywhere else i'd seen the term &quot;partner&quot; used (including by greenwald himself). what's different here? the emphasis on the legal relation being used as a means to underscore the abuse? how might this be different if he was just his boyfriend?

amnesty international on the detention of greenwald's partner

it's interesting to me that this release refers to miranda as greenwald's husband, when everywhere else i'd seen the term &quot;partner&quot; used (including by greenwald himself). what's different here? the emphasis on the legal relation being used as a means to underscore the abuse? how might this be different if he was just his boyfriend?

i hope the lib dems move for a no confidence vote. at least that could cause an election about these absurdities in west.

amnesty international on the detention of greenwald's partner

i hope the lib dems move for a no confidence vote. at least that could cause an election about these absurdities in west.

while amnesty is doing the right thing here, the organization shouldn't be supported as a whole. they for example refuse[1] to defend historians who go to jail for politically incorrect opinions. therefore they don't advocate for freedom of speech but rather opinions that fit their own world view.1. <link>

goodbye google reader

wow. i use google reader every day, and i still can't quite figure out what i'm missing by not using all these other services. somehow, i'm able to share, read what others are posting, and keep up with threads.most importantly, google reader keeps continuity. it has a history, a context that i find missing from the jumble of posted links and "in medias res" comments i get on my social share streams.i don't see myself giving it up anytime soon. (like others have posted, i do miss bloglines...)

i used google reader for years and years as a central repository for all of the webcomics i read.i switched to newsblur this year and haven't looked back. it definitely has a better take on sharing.

goodbye google reader

i used google reader for years and years as a central repository for all of the webcomics i read.i switched to newsblur this year and haven't looked back. it definitely has a better take on sharing.

i continue to use greader more frequently than any other news app. it's lightweight, on all the devices i use, and addresses my reading needs at least sufficiently.my take on advertising likely differs from most here; i don't mind others paying the bills with my attention -- goog does a decent job of it, even. i understand and appreciate it goes deeper than text ads displayed contextually to the feeds' stories. retargeting, psychographics and inference are ok by me, too.i completely appreciate the wish to pay for a service in place of having one's contrail sold. believing your attention and behaviors don't get sold -- or wont get sold -- because you pay should not be a presupposition (c.f. cable tv and [your isp here]).from the post -- "and i certainly don’t buy products that aren’t in some way designed to be functional" -- i don't understand how this would be otherwise: would you buy something without intended function?there also seems to be no attention paid to chrome sync (yes, they're likely selling our contrails), delicious, and other services that've come and gone.i will provide my attention in return for services i find of value. greader's been such for several years. until there's a clearly compelling alternative, i'll stick with it.

goodbye google reader

i continue to use greader more frequently than any other news app. it's lightweight, on all the devices i use, and addresses my reading needs at least sufficiently.my take on advertising likely differs from most here; i don't mind others paying the bills with my attention -- goog does a decent job of it, even. i understand and appreciate it goes deeper than text ads displayed contextually to the feeds' stories. retargeting, psychographics and inference are ok by me, too.i completely appreciate the wish to pay for a service in place of having one's contrail sold. believing your attention and behaviors don't get sold -- or wont get sold -- because you pay should not be a presupposition (c.f. cable tv and [your isp here]).from the post -- "and i certainly don’t buy products that aren’t in some way designed to be functional" -- i don't understand how this would be otherwise: would you buy something without intended function?there also seems to be no attention paid to chrome sync (yes, they're likely selling our contrails), delicious, and other services that've come and gone.i will provide my attention in return for services i find of value. greader's been such for several years. until there's a clearly compelling alternative, i'll stick with it.

in case there's any confusion, the article's actual title is "goodbye ubiquitous digital service" and uses the phrase "most ubiquitous rss service of our time" as a euphemism for "google reader", hence the headline here.

goodbye google reader

in case there's any confusion, the article's actual title is "goodbye ubiquitous digital service" and uses the phrase "most ubiquitous rss service of our time" as a euphemism for "google reader", hence the headline here.

i miss bloglines, honestly. i switched to greader after bloglines started having db problems several years ago, but never really liked the ui - seemed too bloated and slow. i switched to using reeder as a frontend, but in an effort to switch to local services i started using fever + sunstroke (ios app). my main beef with fever is that if you're reading an article and it does a feed refresh it will refresh the view and take away the article you were reading (since it was marked as read).

ask hn: tips about vcs and angels i am new to the startup thing and i am just starting to form some ideas and working on them.<p>if i succeed i am very likely to need funding and i dont know the best way to approach it.<p>googling and clicking on the first link works obviosuly but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?<p>what kind of deals should i demand/expect?<p>at what stage is good to start seeking vc?<p>or shouldn't i seek but let the vcs find me(i.e. launch product and if it is good people will come and vcs will come)?<p>what is normal, vcs approaching startups or startups approaching vcs?<p>are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?<p>what else to think about?

first read up on this: <link> "the startup company bible", a book that is particularly useful on explaining the mechanics of raising vc rounds, should you decide to go that route.as for your specific questions:"googling and clicking on nr1 works obv but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?"get to know other entrepreneurs, angel investors, and other members of the startup community and ask them about their experiences raising money, and when you are ready to raise money than try to get one of them to introduce you to a firm. getting introduced to a vc via a connection, even a very casual connection, is virtually the only way that you will have the opportunity for a first meeting, unless your site is already well-known."what kind of deals should i demand/expect?"depends a lot on how much you have to show. if you already have a product and users, your valuation will be higher and you can get a better deal."at what stage is good to start seeking vc?"when your company absolutely needs the money and/or connections to succeed. for some ideas (probably not most web application ideas though), this may be before you even start building the product. for other ideas, this may never happen at all. people get somewhat religious in this particular debate, and i won't try to defend one particular side except to say you shouldn't be opposed to vc funding on principle because some ideas absolutely need it, but many web companies don't. you should take a long and serious look at your company to determine which category it falls under."or shouldnt i seek but let the vcs find me(ie laucnh product and if it is good people will come and vcs will come)?if launching your product and looking to get users before raising money is an option, you should take that option. there are many reasons for this, and not just "so the vc's will come to you." the most serious is that when you raise a large sum of money to execute on a certain idea, you lose flexibility in being able to change your idea. if you don't have any users yet, changes are good that your idea will need to change. if you've raised vc money, it can be difficult (but by no means impossible) to sell them on your new direction."what is normal, vcs approaching startups or startups approaching vcs?"i would say that a startup approaching a vc is many orders of magnitude more common, but a vc approaching a startup certainly happens and is much more likely to result in a deal being made."are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?"i think you mean a "sinister shark", as an unsinister shark wouldn't be anything to worry about, now would it! (plus, the alliteration is spoiled!). but sure, there are slimy people in any business, but especially in businesses that have the opportunity to make people rich. get to know enough people and you should be able to identify who these people are."what else to think about?"your product! making sure people want it, building it, growing it. this should be your primary focus.also, and not to be too impolite about it, you should also think about using proper grammar and spelling on this site if you want people to have a good impression of you.

don't worry about investors yet. focus on product development and value (making something people want and ideally will be passionate about).build a prototype and go as far as you can before getting (bogged down in acquiring) investment. this will not only make it easier for you to pitch/demo something, but will clarify and refine your ideas and give others something to work with in terms of financing values etc.

ask hn: tips about vcs and angels i am new to the startup thing and i am just starting to form some ideas and working on them.<p>if i succeed i am very likely to need funding and i dont know the best way to approach it.<p>googling and clicking on the first link works obviosuly but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?<p>what kind of deals should i demand/expect?<p>at what stage is good to start seeking vc?<p>or shouldn't i seek but let the vcs find me(i.e. launch product and if it is good people will come and vcs will come)?<p>what is normal, vcs approaching startups or startups approaching vcs?<p>are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?<p>what else to think about?

don't worry about investors yet. focus on product development and value (making something people want and ideally will be passionate about).build a prototype and go as far as you can before getting (bogged down in acquiring) investment. this will not only make it easier for you to pitch/demo something, but will clarify and refine your ideas and give others something to work with in terms of financing values etc.

think about building your product, illustrating market potential, and how you are meeting an unmet need. once you do this, you can worry about where to get funding and vc interaction. at such an early stage, you've got a better chance getting a small amount of money from an angel investor or group of angels than a large vc. angels also enable you to retain more control and equity. good luck.

ask hn: tips about vcs and angels i am new to the startup thing and i am just starting to form some ideas and working on them.<p>if i succeed i am very likely to need funding and i dont know the best way to approach it.<p>googling and clicking on the first link works obviosuly but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?<p>what kind of deals should i demand/expect?<p>at what stage is good to start seeking vc?<p>or shouldn't i seek but let the vcs find me(i.e. launch product and if it is good people will come and vcs will come)?<p>what is normal, vcs approaching startups or startups approaching vcs?<p>are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?<p>what else to think about?

think about building your product, illustrating market potential, and how you are meeting an unmet need. once you do this, you can worry about where to get funding and vc interaction. at such an early stage, you've got a better chance getting a small amount of money from an angel investor or group of angels than a large vc. angels also enable you to retain more control and equity. good luck.

perceptions are very important. i perceive this post as uneducated and immature, just because of spelling and grammar. it may be completely inaccurate, but remember you are giving anyone a polaroid shot of everything about you.it is a good question, but it has been addressed a few times on here.

ask hn: tips about vcs and angels i am new to the startup thing and i am just starting to form some ideas and working on them.<p>if i succeed i am very likely to need funding and i dont know the best way to approach it.<p>googling and clicking on the first link works obviosuly but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?<p>what kind of deals should i demand/expect?<p>at what stage is good to start seeking vc?<p>or shouldn't i seek but let the vcs find me(i.e. launch product and if it is good people will come and vcs will come)?<p>what is normal, vcs approaching startups or startups approaching vcs?<p>are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?<p>what else to think about?

perceptions are very important. i perceive this post as uneducated and immature, just because of spelling and grammar. it may be completely inaccurate, but remember you are giving anyone a polaroid shot of everything about you.it is a good question, but it has been addressed a few times on here.

obv i will build my product first and then worry about investments, im just curious.

unpacking my knapsack: the privileges of a hispanic male in tech

i live in the same town you were born. conditions are still hard. unemployment is through the roof. the few programming jobs available pay around $10/hr. and they are mostly doing maintenance on old c#/visual basic systems.but that's better than what most of the population gets. minimum wage is the norm. people make around 12k per year, and have to deal with very high costs of living. plus the shitty infrastructure.i had it rough, too. grew up in a barrio. where most of my childhood friends are either dead, in jail, or crackheads. few ever managed to make it into college (i did not). i'm the only one who has actually made something out of himself. but not without a lot of hardships. not long ago (less than 5 years ago) i was completely broke, no transportation, no job, nothing. but somehow i kept moving forward. throwing punches whenever i could. like you, i was lucky. my parents got me a computer ( a c64) early on. no one else in a radius of 5 sq. miles had a computer. it was the best thing to ever happen to me. it gave something for me to hold on to when all my friends were busy learning how to sell drugs. it kept me safe at home when drive-by-shootings started to happen. it also helped me not get a young lady pregnant (which was the norm).nowdays, i am an accomplished engineer, marketing consultant, and entrepreneur. i work remotely, with a great team, building a very tough system (that has me writing code like crazy in different languages). also help great people build their businesses into powerhouses. best of all, i get to build my own businesses, which i find extremely fun (to the point of even doing some as a hobby). who knows what would have happened to me had i not discovered my love for code? i know that i would not be able to say how proud i am of reading about a fellow puertorican who has made it. good luck, and let me know if you ever visit. i know a place who makes great frituras.

i think your post lays out a clear case that it comes down to parenting, hard work, and access to the usa. and as an american (puerto rican) you had access to the only one ordinary people can't control.but i feel your article gets derailed with too many anecdotal stories. some rub me the wrong way, but maybe i'm just reading it wrong...i was also born in puerto rico and grew up in caguas (bairoa). but that wasn't a bad thing...i have a horrible accent (which seems will never disappear) and would probably not pass the texas state trooper test. but that has not impacted my career...my family was religious, but the first person i met who believed the world was only a few thousand years old was in florida. i find it irritating that you would insinuate puerto ricans don't believe in science...i don't think being or not being hispanic has anything to do with it. there are plenty of people, minorities or not, stuck in crappy areas. with good parenting, they can at least ensure their kids have a chance at hard work. it's what helped you, and what helped me. i was also the first person in my family with a six figure salary.we should chat though, boricuas in tech has to be a very small group ;).

unpacking my knapsack: the privileges of a hispanic male in tech

i think your post lays out a clear case that it comes down to parenting, hard work, and access to the usa. and as an american (puerto rican) you had access to the only one ordinary people can't control.but i feel your article gets derailed with too many anecdotal stories. some rub me the wrong way, but maybe i'm just reading it wrong...i was also born in puerto rico and grew up in caguas (bairoa). but that wasn't a bad thing...i have a horrible accent (which seems will never disappear) and would probably not pass the texas state trooper test. but that has not impacted my career...my family was religious, but the first person i met who believed the world was only a few thousand years old was in florida. i find it irritating that you would insinuate puerto ricans don't believe in science...i don't think being or not being hispanic has anything to do with it. there are plenty of people, minorities or not, stuck in crappy areas. with good parenting, they can at least ensure their kids have a chance at hard work. it's what helped you, and what helped me. i was also the first person in my family with a six figure salary.we should chat though, boricuas in tech has to be a very small group ;).

it's amazing how far back, and how complicated a chain of events can be that lead to a specific outcome. similarly, i look back in awe at the luck and good fortune i've had.i owe my entire life-path of technology to my grandfather on my fathers side. he was an electrical engineer, far ahead of his time, and when he was done playing with something he sent it to us. i was privileged to receive a ti-99 at age 5, a c64 at age 6, and an 8088 after that. i was hooked from the start, and computers have been the single most important constant in my life ever since.

unpacking my knapsack: the privileges of a hispanic male in tech

it's amazing how far back, and how complicated a chain of events can be that lead to a specific outcome. similarly, i look back in awe at the luck and good fortune i've had.i owe my entire life-path of technology to my grandfather on my fathers side. he was an electrical engineer, far ahead of his time, and when he was done playing with something he sent it to us. i was privileged to receive a ti-99 at age 5, a c64 at age 6, and an 8088 after that. i was hooked from the start, and computers have been the single most important constant in my life ever since.

2 i know with certainty that having access to america – the mainland, the honest-to-god us of a – was the most crucial part of my privilege.simply being an american, even if from a non-state, was your biggest advantage and privilege.i was an illegal immigrant living in texas until i turned 19 or so, when nicaraguans were granted amnesty. since then, my quality of life has only gone up and up.

unpacking my knapsack: the privileges of a hispanic male in tech

2 i know with certainty that having access to america – the mainland, the honest-to-god us of a – was the most crucial part of my privilege.simply being an american, even if from a non-state, was your biggest advantage and privilege.i was an illegal immigrant living in texas until i turned 19 or so, when nicaraguans were granted amnesty. since then, my quality of life has only gone up and up.

i love how you articulate the privileges you've had in your life, which buoyed your career. it's a rare exercise and one that i encourage people to do. all too often, we take for granted these "invisible stepping-stones" that brought us to where we are now (i recently wrote about these invisible privileges for the huffington post: <link> also was an immigrant to the us, and it sounds like we have a similar immigration story. i wonder what it would be like to be born in a low-income community in the us where social mobility is difficult. do you think you would be where you are now if you grew up in that kind of environment?

show hn: my 6 weeks project, multiplayerchess.com

very nice. it looks great and seems really easy and intuitive to use.a few suggestions:1. when playing against the ai (on chrome/vista) after a move the piece briefly stays where i put it (not centred on the square; and with two pieces visible if i capture the opponent's piece). it only properly completes the move once the ai has moved.2. when i promote a pawn it asks me to choose from a set of pieces which are black, even though i'm playing white. might be nice to use piece icons of the same colour as the player.3. are there any open source ai players you could use? i'd be tempted to come back if there were some reasonable ones, but the current ai player is no challenge, even for a real amateur player like me.

how on earth did you get the domain? i'm shocked that it wasn't already taken :)

show hn: my 6 weeks project, multiplayerchess.com

how on earth did you get the domain? i'm shocked that it wasn't already taken :)

do you want a job? :)

show hn: my 6 weeks project, multiplayerchess.com

do you want a job? :)

<link>

show hn: my 6 weeks project, multiplayerchess.com

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nice. the single-player mode is a bit slow, though (client-side - ff seems pretty busy.)[edit: also, the ai tries a bit too hard to lose.]