skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Issuing 10,000 options and not telling you how many options are outstanding is very very common for startups, unfortunately. I don't know how many times I've joined companies that listed 10,000 options and I was too dumb to question it.

In many cases, it's because they don't want non-executive employees to be able to know certain financial details, including the valuation of the company. I wish this wasn't the case, but the reasons for it seem logical and in fact fair - it's just that many people assume this is a lot when it probably isn't.

The downside is many people are apt to accept, thinking 10,000 in options is a "lot", and I've made that mistake in the past. In an A round startup, this number could easily be in the several millions of shares outstanding, and likely is. If it's gone through several funding rounds, it's likely even less. 10,000 in a C round is significantly less if they have divided the stock by 10x or more in the previous rounds.

Executives could be pulling in whole percentages of the company, or multiples thereof, and one of the first few members of technical staff could basically be looking at a year's salary or less in payout if the company would sell in 5-8 years.

The percentage of the companys that make it is also a factor. While the article focused on needing to stay at a company, it's fair to consider that the great majority of startups are going to fail or be very small acquisitions (asset deals, acqui-hiring, etc). In these positions, the VCs will get paid first, and there may not be much if anything left.

Another possibility is the company is sold for small prices but the CEO could secure a very very nice deal to join the new company (plus bonuses), which has happened on more than one occasion.

A VC only needs a small fraction of his portfolio to do big exits, so they make lots of bets.

Stock is a huge gamble. I don't recommend "no stock, just cash", but don't ever let someone underpay you on hopes the stock event will happen.

Stock is being used as a retention tool, and that's the design of it, unfortunately.

I'd be much more in favor of equitable profit sharing as a retention tool - suppose a company decides to give away X% of it's profits back to employees forever, and this is done in a way where it isn't the CEO/leaders making all the money. Instead say in a 50 person company, 10% of the profits always go back to the people, and each person gets 1/50th.

This also eliminates sales commission on large deals and makes everyone part of the deal (the whole company) profits - also no quarterly targets, personal bonus tiers, executive bonuses, or anything like that.
As the company becomes more efficient, those numbers go up, and it keeps things simple.
You've been spending too much time on the command line ;)

Is there a niche genre you'll be focusing on? I tried to set something up like that for zombie-horror films about 10 years ago, but once I had started college it became too much work to get and create enough content for me to stay motivated.

The only thing I did get around to doing was setting up a store with affiliate links. Go figure.
> What prevents a member of the domestic government from being a terrorist, or having ties to terrorists?

Mostly semantics (depending on how one defines "terrorist" and "ties").
A few months ago I took a position as a Team Lead. For the first time in my career I am responsible for the work of others. My focus is going to be on making it as easy as possible for the folks on my team to do their jobs with minimal interruptions or annoyances. I know that means I'll have Outlook and Word open at least as much or more than my IDE, which will be a big change.

I'd like to learn a JS framework as well. I don't know any and it's probably getting to the point where that's going to start holding me back professionally soon.
A bit businessy and vague, but charge our readers/audience for things rather than entirely relying on advertising/sponsorships (which is working well, don't get me wrong)? So.. diversification, perhaps :-)
Was it the Chad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_79BtELxB2k
Coindesk: The Top Cryptocurrency Research Papers of 2015
This year I want to get my first SaaS app out the door. Just started working on making a tool with my friend for documenting and testing apis.

Tangentially related, I've been reading a book called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal that has a lot of good ideas that apply to making changes in behavior if you have trouble (as I often do) getting things done.
Cannot log into Twitter
All queries return 200, but you get a big blue page with:

"Something is technically wrong."
> It is your assumption that a text is literal unless proven otherwise which is recent and anachronistic.

Nope! My assumption is that the text is allegorical, and so please decide what the allegories are about and commit to an interpretation. Or else stop claiming that any of it is true, or the word of god, etc. You can't say, "these words are from god and they are true, and their meaning is [insert my subjective interpretation out of thin air]". I mean, if it were the were the word of god, how dare you even substitute your paraphrase? Oh right, you have divine inspiration---pardon me! God appeared to you one night and said, "here is what I really meant behind this paragraph".

Secondly, Christians literally believe the bulk of the New Testament: that Jesus really lived, was really the result of a virgin birth with God as the father, that he walked on water and so on. If you don't believe that material literally, you're a heretic. The latitude for allegoric interpretation is confined to the Old Testament. Literal belief in a large section of the Bible is not anachronistic at all; it is perfectly current.
A bit meta, but I want to finish the section of my homepage that lists which projects I'm working on.

Once that's done, maybe I'll start writing a book. Or my PhD thesis. One of those for sure.
The author of the original post, John Cochrane, is a leading economist[1], and he is complaining that "much research in economics and finance uses secret data."

How's that for evidence? Did you read his post?

In case it wasn't obvious, I agree with him!

--

[1] http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/
Yea not to mention the sarbanes oxley act, post-enron, that makes public company regulations obscenely difficult.
amen... 18 months and climbing...
I think he has all the right to criticize the new film. However I would disagree. I think many star wars fans enjoyed the retro style. I personally was disappointed with episodes 1-3 (midi-chlorians?). Many people asked for more X-wing and tie-fighter sound.
Excellent point, but equally important is the fact that even if you purchase your < 1% of shared, if you are a regular middle class person, you will probably have no real legal recourse to sue if you get screwed. The investors who are most likely behind it will cover their asses and so far outgun you legally that it is probably hopeless to try to fight even if you have the means.

This is where the GGGP (davidwihl) is both right and wrong—knowledge of the cap table at signing won't guarantee anything, but that combined with a good judgement of character is the best you can do. In the end you can get screwed either way, but if there is any caginess up front then run don't walk away.
I've already started mine - a personal dashboard app that combines all my most-used features of various other apps/sites into one place that I control.

So far it handles note-taking and task management, as well as showing me all issues and pull requests assigned to me.
Ask HN: What new tech are you looking forward to in 2016?
There certainly are more opportunities to learn than ever before, but learning requires effort.

If you want to learn something that _really_ matters you have to give it full attention. That means total focus, not "continuous partial attention", not facebooking on another tab. Whether you use an ipad, a book, or sit across from a table from a professor, learning really does require undivided attention-- when has this ever changed?
Microsoft Hololens. I really wonder what its going to be like to build VR apps. Don't know much about it, but in 2016, I want to get started.
David Carr on Email Newsletters (2014)
Prioritize my list of projects for a change. I'm far too guilty of "chasing the shiny new object." I work on a project, realize how much work will be needed, resignedly go on with it, something new comes along...you get the idea. Recently found out about the Pomodoro technique, which will be helpful for new stuff and the HabitBull app for ongoing projects.

http://pomodorotechnique.com/

http://www.habitbull.com/
If they are using them as part of their official duties, then yes, special privileges can be reasonable. But then logically surveillance is one of the things they can't really object to; if they are only doing the business of government, then why shouldn't government know what they're up to?
good luck! After six months as cto, I have to tell you, ohhh boy I HATE IT!
I will do swift (2d games and ios apps) :)
One problem is that they're trying to use a single parameter (interest rates) to control many things. First it was inflation, then they added economic growth, employment, and now there is competition/interaction with other economies. You can't control all those things independently by pulling one lever. There used to be other levers, but tariffs (which were another know) have been disallowed in the name of free trade (that's actually fixing the lever in a certain position). War is off the table with first world countries (we've gotten too good at it). So what levers are left?
> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

Yeah sure. I think I heard that quote before... just about a million times?

People expect regex to be an easy-to-use tool. Well it's not, and it's a foot gun if you don't take your time to learn it right. But no, people hack up some expressions, hit their feet and blame... the tool of course, not themselves.

Just learn it right, it's a great tool if you know how to make it work for you :)
Thanks for the link. That is a pretty long paper!
Have you seen the movie "13th Warrior" with Antonio Banderas?. In the movie he keeps trying to understand what the other warriors are saying and concentrating until one Day he started talking just like them.

To be fair this method doesn't work for everyone. Just like learning a programming language, some people find it easier to follow a course while others just start coding for a small project.

You do need to have at least the basics of the language and grammar. But no more than that. I remember when I learned English 7 years ago, I started by watching the TV show "24". In the first season I couldn't understand anything Jack Bauer was saying. I remember saying to myself: "what the hell does he mean by saying "copy that". I only understood what the show was about. Then in the second season I started subconsciously memorizing sentences and understanding their meaning. Just like a baby would learn a language without using a dictionary. Similarly I started not only understanding English but also talking and writing in it.

I used this technique for French, German and English. Not sure how complicated Japanese is though.

Edit: Just to add, that with this method you need to watch a lot and I mean a lot of TV shows/Movies/Radio/Youtube to get the full benefit.
lol >>> smugglers have been diverting their hoardes across the border into Mexico or Canada.

Yup. With a literal bucket full of cash, the safest place in the world is an international boarder crossing.
This doesn't seem to be a requirement with esofund
I agree it's not a compelling argument. The reverse sounds a bit better, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Ultimately, airport security does something. More security does more of something. But security also costs a lot - in money, material, man hours and various secondary effects like deaths from more people opting out of flying and going for cars, etc. Ultimately, it's always about costs and benefits. The costs are huge, and yet they don't seem to buy us much.
Web tech year in review: 2015
What you are saying is perfectly correct until no one on the market is actually paying their part. Why should other company follow to give themselves an disadvantage?
Yes, please. I thought you were joking at first, before I realized this piece is literally speculative fiction.
Elected officials represent the will of the people in a democratic government. Their policies are the legitimate policies of the government. The security and defense wings of the government are strictly subservient to the policies of elected officials, or it's no longer a democratic government.
Letting go of self-hatred and excessive self-criticism.

Yes, I planned to write another article for my website today. Or the last two weeks. I still haven't done it. Does it matter?

Yes, I have "wasted" some hours winning Civilization V with the Shoshone. Is that really a problem?
Red programming language version 1.0

Better batteries and cheaper/more powerful solar power
I made an upload tool that needed to handle very large files, and I used WebSockets to do it.

The strategy I used was to parse the MOV/MP4 locally, consider between 2-60 frames of data, hash it, then stream up the hashes to the server. Any hash the server didn't have got a reply to push those bytes.

The two-way nature of this dialog made WebSockets a good fit, although it certainly could have been emulated using other methods, it would have been much more code.
> The "target market" here consists mostly of people who, as a group, have no understanding whatsoever of what is being offered

So you deny the poor autonomy since they're poor? Poor != uniformed. They're not subjects of the state due to their circumstances.

Because I love quotes:

'Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.' - Abraham Lincoln, letter to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859.

> Mind you, that so far none of the "India's top tech institutes, startups, entrepreneurs & other eminent people" are forcing general population to reject the offer. They're just explaining what the costs and the long-term consequences are. Who, if not them, is supposed to do that?

I have no objection to that. They can advocate that it should not be used. I am only opposed to banning this service.
I'm going to continue to get out of the way of my team who do an awesome job running http://www.staffsquared.com which we started three years ago.

Using the time this frees up I'll be launching http://www.thingsclick.com and doing some consultancy bits for various companies helping with their digital marketing.
Righto, and asking a lot of demands/questions means the company is not going to like you as much and will influence your relationship after the offer is accepted. The info you get will be standard and there is certain info they are not going to want to share.

Basically a casual ask for "can you share how many options are outstanding?" is about as good as you are going to get. Totally good. Non-stand demands? Not so good.

If the VC has preferential shares (they do) just realize that's ok - and probably fair. Don't join the company if you don't think it can exit above it's funding amounts if you are in for the stock - but hopefully you're in it because you really will love the position and the stock is just a bonus if it makes it.

That's the most important thing :) You don't want to be in a job you don't like just because it's profitable IMHO.
Sometimes I click it in order to get a raw URL to a resource that's otherwise hidden or not presented to me easily.
Open world VR games!
Thanks!

Unfortunately I think it's the only one of its kind! It's quite strange looking at the other side of the world all the time, especially since it is night time there. I have thought about adding a 12 hour offset to the bot so that I get to see daytime when it's day in UK.
This is a good article, albeit a bit long-winded. In my experience, whether or not WS can be beneficial essentially comes down to whether or not you truly need low latency duplex communication. A chat application, which seems to be the canonical WS example, probably doesn't; a twitch-style multiplayer game, probably does.

Server-sent events are a great tool for streaming server-to-client data where other more specific media types (i.e. audio/video) doesn't fit the bill.
It's what most employers do.
I got offered a job 4 years ago at a very early stage company with really generous stock options. I didn't know what options meant, I didn't know that I had to exercise. That was pretty silly on my part but in my defense I was getting my visa, moving across the world, and working as the first employee trying to keep up with insane growth.

When the time came to raise our second round, I got intrested in how it would affect my shares and sat down to understand this whole shares thing. And to my dismay it turns out I have to pay for my compensation! I was pretty disappointed, even felt a little bit of resentment that no one took the time to explain things to me. But the reality is that your employer is not obliged to explain how your compensation works -- after all it's all in the contract (except it's written in awful legalese).

2 years later when I quit my job I was broke and barely had enough money to get by until my next paying job. Anyways I hustled to borrow money and exercise my options, all the while I still haven't understood the tax implications (I still don't!). My CPA told me that I can delay paying taxes on this until a liquidation event, and my coworkers who quit at the same time got similar advice. Now and after talking to others who exercised their options, that advice seems out of place and flat out wrong. I'm now trying to figure out what to do next, most likely getting a new CPA or a tax attorney. The whole thing is really stressful and I feel like startups can do better by their employees. At the very least substantially extending the exercise time and making it a standard in SV.
The visa is valid. If travelling to the US keep both, the valid passport and the valid visa. Whatever you do do not cut out the visa and try and glue it into the new passport.

/fromexperience
The easiest thing to do is find out what the current strike price is and compare it to the strike price of your options. This will tell you ONE key metric for determining the stock's value and will help assist in estimating your tax liability.

The same is true at time of negotiation. You don't really need to know how many shares are outstanding if you have the strike price and an estimate for the company's growth. That is, you're investing $X dollars and expect it to raise by a multiple of Y.
>> When I was a kid, maybe I built the instruction thing once, but after that, the actual fun started: modification and building new thing!

They still do that. Here's what me and my 5 year old built, from the instructions, and then what he turned it into.

http://imgur.com/a/OvwWU

Talking to them while they're doing it is fun. Those recycle blocks are there for a reason - "because these, they RECYCLE YOU" (in a the most threatening voice a 5 year old can muster). The clear-orange bits on the wing are lava bombs.

(If people don't know lego: those orange ski bits are a tool sold with some sets.)
Massive group video chat => WebRTC, phoenix/elixir :)
Best place for gig or contract work for web dev?
Or, can you give a previous thread to reference?
It hit me very hard yesterday when I heard he passed as he was one of the really big contributors to the technology we are using now.

Even harder when I first read of the dubious circumstances regarding his twitter account.[0] Arstechnica started an Inquiry.[1]

[0]http://archive.is/OPlI7
[1]http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-mu...
A polyfill is not required: Code for MSIE et al works fine on other browsers, but some padding is required on the server for the same effect: 2k of padding for MSIE < 10 and Chrome < 13, 4k of padding for Android.

Disconnects are difficult to detect as well, so many people recommend sending a message every 15-30 seconds so that you get TCP to notify you, but I recommend just terminating every 15 seconds, and if the client is still there have them reconnect: It wastes a packet, but it means much less load and complexity on the server.
What a convenient question.
I wonder how these mutations and the research being done around DNA of Neanderthals might correspond. http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/how-neanderthal-dn...

Seems we have a lot of our history yet to be discovered. Exciting times!
Agreed. I didn't see the black thick line on HN yesterday evening, but I was really expecting it to be there today. Its absence genuinely makes me sad.
IF anyone is curious, doing this in java is only possible if the resulting java file is no bigger than 65kb and does not include more than 65k literals / constants
The 10 Strangest Animal discoveries of 2015
^^ At least in that case you would see in 2 weeks what your actual salary is ;)
I didn't always agree with Ian, but he was one of those people for whom that would be a clue to revisit and reevaluate my own point of view. No nonsense, and the the wheels were always turning. Five levels deep and six steps ahead. Deep respect. RIP.
This historical wisdom is very interesting. I'd be happy to hear more about the arguments in favor of it.

But also, keep in mind there is no precedent for one factor that is perhaps critical to today's and tomorrow's power dynamics: information technology.

The intelligence community today has radically expanded its powers, for better and for worse, because of its ability to monitor and consider (i.e. A.I.) so much more.

This is actually one of the most concerning factors for me, because historically we know humans can be absolutely brutal to each other, and perhaps inevitably so, given bad contexts.

Hence, the 4th Amendment to the Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

(Just imagine replacing the word "papers" for "data".)

I would be pleased to see better oversight by Congress of the intelligence community, just as the opposite is also happening.
Looking for Dark Forces custom levels was my gateway drug to the QMODEM, BBS, and news groups back in 1995. Similar to Doom's wad files, dark forces had gobs. Eventually a dos base editor, DFUSE, was released, but I remember one level creator (dons3d, I think) that came out with a level created without any gui based tools. He plotted out all the X, Y, Z coordinates for the vertices, calculated texture stitching offets, enemy locations, etc by hand. It was amazing. Just the act of adding a door that slid open involved a special scripting language, coordinate geometries, texture lining, etc.

That man was my hero. I learned so many technical and spacial skills by trying and failing to make a good custom dark forces level.

Good times.
I don't think machines will ever achieve human like intelligence in the current paradigm. A very basic property of the human intelligence is that there's just one program (learning algorithm, if you please) that is capable of learning all activities, such as playing chess, playing the guitar, solving math problems etc. We are born with this program and our life is a learning experience. On the other hand, computers have separate programs for different activities. A chess playing computer can only play chess. A machine capable of verbal reasoning (as in this article) is capable of only verbal reasoning. I do not think human like intelligence can be achieved by simply assembling these separate programs together, but this is just my humble opinion or intuition.