skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you are self-employed and running a SaaS, the rate is actually 8.5% of revenue (PKWiU 58.29.40). Source: I am self-employed and running a SaaS. With my cost structure my (calculated for comparison) effective income tax rate is 13.5%, and that includes all social security and health insurance payments. It's unbelievably good, socially unjust, and I don't think it will last, but here we are.

Poland also happens to be a really nice place to live, although if you don't speak Polish (or don't have a friend/spouse who does), dealing with government institutions can be a pain.

Oh, we also have a terrible chaotic populist government and a bunch of other problems, but that seems to be the case everywhere these days, so.
We are subsidizing the product is also a lie by companies. They just want the recurring revenue by selling ads/cartridges etc.
Show HN: Evil Wordle
> May be there is a need of new Upwork. Shall we start a new platform given the fact that remote work is going to be the future.

Even if you make your own Upwork, how are you going to avoid those exact same problems?
Ask HN: Is there a business in providing cloud-host for an open source tool?
I found an open source tool that doesn't provide a cloud-host solution, you need to install on your own server.

I think it may be a good business idea to provide a service where people pay to use it without worrying about installation, mantainence, updates, scalability, etc.

My question is not only if there is a market for that, but what about rights/licenses/exposing the original open source tool? The documentation should be replicated for my customers in how to use it? What about languages libraries? I should fork them?

Thank you very much.
Most companies are dysfunctional. If you find a company that is able to take full advantage of you excitement, passion, enthusiasm and drive... you're lucky. Don't take this as a reflection on yourself, don't feel any obligation to suffer at a job you don't love, just keep looking for the right company. You might get lucky and find it quickly, you might get unlucky and spend years, but each time you get a job you'll hopefully learn more about what you need to look to avoid. A great privilege of technology is that job hopping isn't punished because technologists are in such high demand.
It sounds like you're a holistic or big picture type. I struggle with this too. I don't have all the answers but my advice would be to try and focus on a smaller thing and get a win with that. Don't propose several projects, propose one and give it enough attention and proof that it's hard to refuse. Are your proposals measurable? Are they valuable? Are they framed in business context?

If more is thrown at you, push back using phrases like "adding this initiative may put effort #1 at risk. I think we should concentrate on effort #1 a bit longer while #2 takes more shape"

Why are your PRs not being approved? Do you need more time pair programming so what you submit is more aligned with reviewer expectations? Have you asked for that pairing time?

Overall I hear two disconnects, one at a business/product level and one at the engineering level. Your expectations sound out of alignment with your peers. You might try and work on relationships, build trust, find the fun puzzle and try and enjoy any little bits you can.
I miss IRC. The simplicity in design is one thing. I think the other part I miss is the pseudonyms and having an identity not be directly attached is another.

I remember joining so many IRC channels to learn about everything in college. You'd get help and be humbled by the many regular names in each channel. There was more of a human element to it as most people simply acted as extensions of themselves.

You think about Slack, Discord, and Teams today and there's a whole corporate or personal identity attached behind each name. You can't always act like you would in IRC. You can't always be blunt and to the point. You can't call someone an idiot or to RTFM in the most sincere way possible.

When things were simple with a single pseudonym and a message, things were great. Now things are much more complex. Threads, DMs, notifications of mentions, bots, gifs, etc. It's definitely been changing quickly, but it was nice when everyone's attention was in one place instead of fragmented in each of these new apps that are just glorified IRC.
My guess? The system is being fed real-time data from other sensors (re: soil condition).

Everything else can have sensors on board, cars do this.
I agree. My partner is a script writer and there is actually a talent shortage on the writing side. No shortage of writers, of course; there never is! But it's hard to come up with actually coherent stories, on tight deadlines, that can be translated directly into a video shoot and assembled into a movie or series. Clearly Netflix is under-investing here, or perhaps relying on a cabal of existing creative "buddies" on the executive side to pump this stuff out to meet KPIs.
After a couple of decades in the field I have concluded that the hardest part in this job is not the technical one, but the dealing with yourself. Yet, through the process you get to develop virtues that eventually make you a better person. Don't give up :)
Is that a "No" to "Is Product Hunt worth it?" or a "No" to "it's a pyramidal echo chamber..."?
There are communities where the former is the norm. Check out the Mr Money Mustache forums.
> This attitude is a major reason why public education is so utterly messed up in the US. All of the social and mental work that should be done elsewhere is simply not done. Time after time, the schools (and police) are called on as the last line of defense for a failing society.

I completely agree. But we can't fix this in the next few weeks, so for now keeping schools open for those who need it is the thing to do.
Whenever I encounter advice in this vein, I can't help but feel it significantly undermines the inextricable relationship between productivity/caring and ego.

To be able to care just enough about something to genuinely commit to it and yet not care too much to not find yourself entangled with it is incredibly difficult, if not inherently paradoxical.

Something has to do the caring—that's the ego. We're frequently told to meditate the ego away, but if we do that effectively, an overwhelming equanimity emerges that is essentially a thermodynamic equilibrium and effectively the end of what we generally mean by productivity.
A few of my jobs have been at companies with >1000 engineers, which feels like they should be mature, but sometimes they just feel stagnant. They make lots of money but it's harder and harder to make progress and they still don't have good structure.
Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary has interstellar travel at 0.9c with induced coma for the crew.
Hold on I am also in Romania and pay 7%. Are you classed as PFA Consultant? If so then there's no programming "allowed" else it's the wrong category. Which tax code are you using so I can switch?
If you are into self-hosting, thelounge is a great web-based IRC client that works well on my iPhone. It does its magic by staying connected to servers on the backend, similar to a bouncer.
I'd love to see your code! My strategy[0] (not-yet-automated) doesn't aim to minimize in the worst case, but rather to minimize the expected size of the set of possible words.

[0] https://blog.scubbo.org/posts/cheating-at-word-games/
Looks very, very useful
Hi! I have alternated between contracting and standard employment a number of times over the years.

You should start with one person who's willing to hire you. This will likely be somebody you have worked with in the past, or some close associate of theirs. Ideally, would be a part-time gig so that you don't have to give up your day job. That will let you set up the necessary systems and habits and get a better sense of whether this is for you.

If you don't have that person already at hand, you can instead start work on your sales process, which will likely mainly be a networking process. Set up time to talk to trusted former colleagues. Tell them you're thinking of switching to contract work. Ask them about how they perceive you, and in particular what kind of work they think you'd be great at. Then ask them what kinds of contract work they're seeing happen now, or have heard about happening. Lastly, ask them if there's anybody they know you should talk to, including both contractors and the kinds of people who hire contractors. If you're lucky, they'll say, "Oh, yeah, let me introduce you to Jane."

If you keep this up, you will eventually find somebody who might want to hire you. Then you're into a negotiation and contracting process. There are plenty of books about this, and I'd encourage you to read a few of them, as it's not much like normal job hiring. (The only one I remember is "Getting to Yes", which is very helpful theory, but you'll also want stuff on the nuts and bolts of it.)

My big pieces of advice: 1) Both contract work and payments are much less reliable than jobs. Keep a big cash buffer. Right after the dot-com bust I would have made better money picking recycling out of trash cans than doing contract programming, but I got through because I had saved up. Later that saved me when a client tried to stiff me for $40k 2) For getting future work, it's important to leave everybody with a good impression of you. So do you best to be kind, warm, competent, professional, and polished. 3) Outsource the headache. Find yourself a good lawyer and tax accountant. Consider using a billing firm that just takes care of all the paperwork and pays you on a W2. Focus your energy on the three core things: doing the actual work, managing clients, and finding new work. 4) Don't expect to make more than with a job. You might! But non-billable activities can eat up a lot of your time, and many contractors do it because they like the freedom.

Good luck! Feel free to drop me a line if I can answer more questions for you.
> A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30.

Is this normal? It doesn't seem so normal to me.
> Though, I'm curious, how much is it?

I was buying just some bare minimum required insurance, and it was very low, less than 200 BGN per year.
(Author here) Thanks, that's fair criticism.

My frustration with the binary case specifically is that because there are only two options, and they should be easier to name for that reason. I didn't really explain that in the post, though, which is my fault.

Yes, these are a subset of unclear naming. I do think naming is such a broad topic that talking about specific subtypes of bad naming is useful, to sharpen our awareness around those specific pitfalls.

In colored functions, yeah, it's unfortunate that some readers continue to extend the (meaningless) colors metaphor, which helped remove preconceptions about sync/async to make a point. I wish people wouldn't do that. See also, the fictitious "Nacirema" https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Body_Ritual_among_the_Nacirem... .
I've used third party drums on HP (colour) and Brother (black and white) printers. The only issue I had was printing on transparencies on the HP: the toner would smear instead of adhering. No issues printing on paper.
After 14 failed quesses and only two letters revealed, I read your comment and guessed BOOBY, which left only one letter missing -- the correct answer was BOOZY.
> I did a bit of asking around last year and I found several opportunities where companies have small average quality engineering teams who need someone to lead an effort in something like a product manager and engineering architect role.

Interesting. It’s not exactly common for companies to want contractors to be in leadership roles. Leadership roles generally warrant full-time employees who can be more invested in the company.

Unless this was a company that tried to treat everyone as contractors while expecting them to behave as full-time employees. That’s not true contracting/freelancing. That’s just companies abusing labor laws.
The ENS DAO is responsible for changes to the protocol. There's a constitution, delegates, and proposals as tools for corrections.

More info on the ENS Governance page: https://docs.ens.domains/v/governance/process
You've inspired me to create this: https://github.com/xigoi/nimdenter/

>Whoever writes such code should be shot. There are newlines for a reason. And I am glad we have format-on-save these days. Less bikeshedding, exactly of the kind we're doing right now.

So do you use indentation or braces to read code? If the former, what are you complaining about? If the latter, why would you use a tool that adds indentation when you already have braces?
You could take a risk, and tell the truth to a coworker, ideally someone who sees themselves as a potential mentor. It's an act of trust, being vulnerable like that. But it doesn't sound like you have much to lose, and it's a risk that could actually put you in a much better position, personally and professionally. 2 months without a PR merge isn't the worst thing in the world, but yeah, it's time to do something.

Someone else gave some good practical advice, about getting into a rhythm of merging smaller PRs. That can be a good confidence booster. However, that's not without its risks either, as coworkers are sometimes not terribly fond of trivial PRs.
It's not assumed, that's the objective of state: To create a sustainable and consumer-oriented market through regulation and incentives.
It's not free, and it add hardware and software and bandwidth.
I Tried 4 To-Do List Methods. Here’s What Worked
Personally I didn't get that message amid all the cutesiness, and I don't see how anyone would get that message if they weren't coming to the comic with that belief already.

Preaching to the choir.
This is great! This is exactly what I've been waiting for someone to do. Google has done this on their "Google TV" device for some time, you search for a show and it shows you results across all of your streaming apps, it's not perfect but it knows where most things are, and I was wondering when I'd see an independent person release either an API or an App that does something similar. Good stuff!
In Flutter you need way less native code than RN in my opinion due to the fact that everything is rendered by the framework. I have around ~40k lines of dart in my app and only about 30 lines of native kotlin (and zero native lines on iOS, it's an android specific call). Flutter addressed my needs so in the future I could go back to zero.
The number of employees does not correlate to positive management function. In fact, it's usually the inverse. The faster and larger the company grows, the more dysfunctional it becomes by hiring into the organization culture mismatch, internal promotion of incompetent managers. The sheer number of decision makers causes indecision (ironic). The lack of direction comes from going too many directions at the same time.

Meanwhile, investors reward the company for "traction" and regardless investors both private and in the public markets reward growth at whatever expense and first-mover / big-mover advantages.

The sweet spot are those financially stable, slowth growth companies with enough employees so that people aren't worn too thin but not too many that the wheels are coming off. Often that's around 100-300 or so, could be less a bit more.
Fast Key-Value Stores: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone
Then the correct response should have been for experts to say they didn’t know, instead of saying the lockdowns were the solution. And then shouting for months that any failures were due to noncompliance.

And maybe offer a split deal. Anyone who wants to lock down, go ahead, here’s some protections. Don’t want to lock down? Your body your choice.
Unfortunately the horrible experience is much more normalized with the amount of bloatware and horrible ux software out there to the point that users will use it either way in many cases.
(tl;dr: crapshoot as to whether you get featured, but worth it if you do.)

my personal experience with it was positive.

I posted my site on PH over the summer (plug: https://avant.fm, a customizable feed of new releases from the best indie music labels).

After a couple weeks it was featured for a day. Not sure how that happened, but someone with some pull "hunted" it I guess. About 30 other sites were featured that day.

I eventually made it to #4 and got 1000 hits, roughly, with a very slowly decaying tail. I still get a couple referrals a day from PH.

Now the traffic was nice, though temporary.

But I also appreciated it as a an additional reason to get out there shout about my site. I had already announced it on twitter, but this gave the opportunity to spend another day hyping. I made a couple twitter posts as I climbed up, and then a final one when I had reached my peak and the day was over.

But I also reached out individually to many people via DM or email, asking them to upvote me. This was an unique opportunity because it's a less awkward ask than "check out my website and tell me what you think."

This created some nice networking moments and opportunities where I felt like the site got on the radar of a few people in a helpful way, hopefully paving the way for something in the future.
Only works for Netflix but unogs.com let's you search by language and subtitle availability.
Back end Olympics 2022 is now live
Honest question to those who've been there and don that. What's the right solution path for a very small (3-4 people) team to build a relatively polished mobile app? Options I see are:

1. Native iOS followed by Native Android

2. Flutter

3. React Native

4. Capacitor

5. Microsoft toolkit of the day

I may soon embark on such a task with such a small team. I am leaning towards #1.
Italian Song That Sounds Like English–But Is Just Nonsense (2018)
Sure, but that's actually been shown to be one of the better early pandemic choices. Three months of not gathering inside a church when there were no vaccines and treatments were so primitive and often completely ineffective.

As for not opening a car window, I'm obviously not informed about every city's policies, but if true, sounds dumb but irrelevant to your point. I assume used to paint restrictions in a ridiculous light?
I tried using it a few years ago to find new stuff to use and was turned off by the amount of meaningless, buzzword laden vaporware. I also didn’t like the weird long comment chains between the product’s founder/cofounders/CTO in an effort to make it look like the page was more active or something. It all felt shallow and like a shinier version of cork board of business cards by the Lowes bathroom
> in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life.

Or maybe not: the stock could have tanked for a zillion reasons. But hindsight is 20/20. If I had held to the BTC I mined back when it was still a toy I'd be bathing in money. Let it go.

> "Startup" is kind of a loose term

Lots of big co aren't strictly startups anymore but have some startup mentality, either carried over from their past or downright imported. The most nefarious ones do it purposely, pressing all the juice out of employees as if they were lemons, managing to entice them to do so voluntarily, and gaslighting them when they start to fail to produce the expected volume of lemonade.

But not all are like that, and in fact I did not really find a correlation with size.

Find and define both what you want and what you find unacceptable, and watch for red flags during interviews. Don't dismiss the red flags because something else looks rosy.
> PhD students should not be recruited with the expectation that they will do devops, software engineering, and graphic design work. Or, if that's the labor they're doing, universities should maybe start paying them a fair wage for their labor.

Fully agree with you there---and for me, that was never the point of the article.

> Building something like genenetwork.org in 1994 was exciting R&D for the time. Setting up a CI/CD pipeline or making a project logo in 2022 isn't.

Yes, at the same time, maybe setting up CI/CD is needed nonetheless in order to better manage a shared codebase. My point is that PIs should be aware of these things and also recognise this sort of 'foundational' work whenever it happens. Of course, if a lab needs complex DevOps, then of course they should hire someone _dedicated_ for the role.

My observations pertain to the kind of work that happens behind the scenes and is often unrewarded and unrecognised. As I said: academia is doing a disservice to the people that are willing to (to re-use the example you supplied) set up a CI pipeline for their project or teach others how to write code cleanly, etc. Of course, the best approach would be to have dedicated roles for dedicated tasks in research (and beyond).
As if I didn’t have enough reasons to love Mingus.

Thanks for the museum suggestion. I haven’t been to the towers since 1979 when I made my parents take me after they played in a tennis tournament at USC while I hung out at the Boys and Girls Club in the nearby park.
Absolutely. But I think that in the specific case -- if every firm in an entire market is abusing customers -- it implies that the abuse is profitable, and the market success shows consumers are abuse-tolerant. Really it's showing something about the demand side of the market.

To talk about ideological pipedreams the "perfect information" consumer is the other side of it.
That makes sense. Thanks. It was a question of mine just how much IR would be there to see.
There’s some work in this space, such as Nicolas Rougier’s promising notebook-mode[1]. I’m convinced there would be an audience for an OrgBook app that philosophically treated Emacs as an implementation detail. Give it more familiar keybindings, some out of the box nice looking themes, and configure the new context menu functionality as you suggest. Then package it up as something that can be run and installed with or without an existing Emacs.

It’s hard to imagine experienced Emacsers wanting to lead a project that solves a problem they don’t have, but the community is very friendly so whoever took it on would get plenty of help.

[1] https://github.com/rougier/notebook-mode
How many employees were there a year ago? If the answer isn't ~1000, it doesn't meet the definition of stable
This isn't something you can reasonably protect against and I don't even see this as a purely technical problem.

Even if you could verify Signal, what about the OS being compromised, the phone being lost or a shoulder surfer reading the message?

Even if I tell a friend a secret over dinner I can't 100% verify that they are not going to tell someone else. So some degree of trust in the other party is required.

If you can't trust the person to take the technical steps needed to secure the information, why do you trust them to not just share your secret the old fashioned way?
Depends on the auth mechanisms in use, the simplest ones are still still pretty straightforward. Nowadays you just use the TLS equivalent of telnet (openssl s_client).

POP3:

1. run openssl s_client -connect myserver.example.com:995
2. enter two commands: "user myusername" "pass mypassword"
3. profit

SMTP & AUTH PLAIN is only slightly more complicated but similarly just an additional protocol command, connecting with s_client. (You need to generate the auth string in another shell window with: echo -ne "\0username\0password"|openssl base64)
Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness
Impressive, I thought people from Melbourne were only capable of bragging about their coffee culture.
I am not "complaining" about anything. I am expressing preferences.

There were online examples where people don't indent Python code as they go and then saving the file invokes LSP's auto-format which severely botched the code logic (and it was hard to spot). Seeing one such occurrence immediately triggers my alarms: I want to write code and be productive and not squint at whether I am at the right indentation level all the time.