skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was laid off once as the startup I was working for was shedding some payroll in order to be bought. I had heard about it coming and talked to my VP to offer myself up as I was getting a little bored of the work and didn't envision myself being there more than another 6 months (in order for all of my shares to vest). Luckily he was very good about it and the severance was substantial plus all my shares vested immediately. I had a new job agreed to and signed within two hours of the conversation with my VP (with someone I used to work with at a company I was very familiar with). No interviews, no anything- I just said that I was available. It really helps to be someone people want to work with. It doesn't mean you're the best at what you do, but that you can be counted on and aren't so 'bristly' that people don't mind having to spend a lot of time with you.

The biggest turn in my career was the time I probably should've been fired but wasn't- but left within weeks anyway. I had just come out of a weeklong stay out of the hospital (received multiple blood transfusions) and was getting pressured as we had a huge client engagement I _needed_ to be on site for. I literally went from the hospital on a Monday to all day meetings with a client team and their other potential vendors on Tuesday through Thursday. Needless to say, I felt AWFUL. Was pretty damn tired, stressed out, and also having my phone explode with emails from the week and change of work I'd missed while in the hospital. I also looked like shit. There was nothing I could do that didn't have me looking like I just got out of the hospital, no matter how now my suit looked. After Thursday the potential client called up our sales partner and told him they wouldn't be moving forward with us as I seemed inattentive, distant, and that I checked my phone too frequently during the meetings. This of course caused a storm at the office and it was made plainly clear that not only was that my last and only chance, but I pretty much wouldn't be working on that sales partner's accounts anymore. We found out later there was funny business between the client and one of the vendors and we were never really going to win it anyway but that didn't help my cause. At the end of the day I should've said that I flat out couldn't make it or have been able to summon some super human powers to not look like how I felt. I wound up taking a job shortly after with the best company I've ever worked for and found a million more opportunities because of that new company than I ever would've had if I stuck around with the smaller company so it did all work out in the end- but it still galls me to think that there is a former employer who probably only remembers me for one monumental eff up that had nothing to do with my actual abilities or my client relationship skills.
It's somewhat obvious, but when you lose your job, you're unemployed.

I got dropped about two months ago. They didn't handle it well; failed to provide a written notice of any kind or immediately provide my final wages.

Since then, I've had an offer that fell through and several interviews. My time in the office has been traded for phone calls with recruiters and filling out forms. There's also a fair amount of leisure time, which I'm starting to divert toward projects.

I'll probably put more effort into my off-hours projects going forward, as I don't want the current stresses of my life to rise in the future.
I was laid off once as the startup I was working for was shedding some payroll in order to be bought. I had heard about it coming and talked to my VP to offer myself up as I was getting a little bored of the work and didn't envision myself being there more than another 6 months (in order for all of my shares to vest). Luckily he was very good about it and the severance was substantial plus all my shares vested immediately. I had a new job agreed to and signed within two hours of the conversation with my VP (with someone I used to work with at a company I was very familiar with). No interviews, no anything- I just said that I was available. It really helps to be someone people want to work with. It doesn't mean you're the best at what you do, but that you can be counted on and aren't so 'bristly' that people don't mind having to spend a lot of time with you.

The biggest turn in my career was the time I probably should've been fired but wasn't- but left within weeks anyway. I had just come out of a weeklong stay out of the hospital (received multiple blood transfusions) and was getting pressured as we had a huge client engagement I _needed_ to be on site for. I literally went from the hospital on a Monday to all day meetings with a client team and their other potential vendors on Tuesday through Thursday. Needless to say, I felt AWFUL. Was pretty damn tired, stressed out, and also having my phone explode with emails from the week and change of work I'd missed while in the hospital. I also looked like shit. There was nothing I could do that didn't have me looking like I just got out of the hospital, no matter how great my suit looked.

After Thursday the potential client called up our sales partner and told him they wouldn't be moving forward with us as I seemed inattentive, distant, and that I checked my phone too frequently during the meetings. This of course caused a storm at the office and it was made plainly clear that not only was that my last and only chance, but I pretty much wouldn't be working on that sales partner's accounts anymore. We found out later there was funny business between the client and one of the vendors and we were never really going to win it anyway but that didn't help my cause. At the end of the day I should've said that I flat out couldn't make it or have been able to summon some super human powers to not look like how I felt.

I wound up taking a job shortly after with the best company I've ever worked for and found a million more opportunities because of that new company than I ever would've had if I stuck around with the smaller company so it did all work out in the end- but it still galls me to think that there is a former employer who probably only remembers me for one monumental eff up that had nothing to do with my actual abilities or my client relationship skills.
No, your comment was down voted because it doesn't add anything to the discussion, other than ranting about Microsoft and closed source. Do you trust not only the Linux kernel, but the people who developed your sister of choice, along with the source you downloaded it from? Did you verify that the version you downloaded and installed was the same as the version you have source access to? Did you do the same thing for all of the third party software such as your web browser, video drivers, etc. did you do the same for your mobile phone?

Also, is everything on your machine open source? Are you using open drivers, firmware, boot loaders, BIOS?

Assuming you've done all of the above, how many people do you know of that you trust to read the code and verify the above is true for them? How many people do you know that have vetted the source code of the distro you're using. Just because someone can, doesn't mean someone has, especially if everyone else thinks someone else will verify it for them.
If you're wondering why we still use lead-acid batteries in cars, it's because they don't have a memory effect and a high power to weight ratio.
> web developer community

What makes you say this is the only community on HN? I personally wouldn't say there's one specific community HN caters to beyond "technology people". There's all sorts of topics posted daily on here, and only a select few cater to web devs. Honestly, if it's something done by one of the big companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc), it'll most likely get on HN because there is no one particular focus.
I think it's because the thin rounded rectangle is the base model and then almost everybody gets a case to customize it to their needs. There's a half dozen options at every point on the ruggedness, battery life (I'm thinking of things like the Morphie power case), water resistance and price spectrum.
You can get a Xiaomi 10400mAh powerbank for $22.22, free shipping from Aliexpress. I'm not saying it's a better deal, but you can already get this raw spec for a lower price. Getting a dumbphone for that extra $3 is quite nice though.
Natural counting isn't 1-indexed. You usually count things after you tally them, not before. (You don't start counting beans by saying "one bean" and then waiting for that bean to arrive.)

Besides, it is not all that clear if someone just says "Jan 1 marks year one" whether it marks the end of the first year or the beginning. With dates, it usually marks the beginning. That's why it is 1-indexed. We hardly count anything else that way, so why would you assume it is 'natural counting'?
YouTube's video playback problems might have nothing to do with the web. Despite having an iPad app that is otherwise mostly great, their iPad video player itself is abysmal. It's just flat-out broken, and they're presumably not going to fix it. If you start playing a video, the timeline at the bottom will start turning grey from left to right to indicate the part of the video that is buffered. But if you scrub to a position in the timeline that is buffered, the video player will spin for a rather long time, and sometimes just spin forever until you scrub to a new spot or manually change the video quality. Bizarrely, if you scrub to a position in the timeline beyond the buffer, the video will load nearly instantly like one would expect. Somehow the buffered video loads slowly, while unbuffered video loads quickly. It's a huge bug, it's been in the iPad app for as long as I can remember.
If the hyperloop delivers on the promise of being substantially faster than air travel for its route, then presumably that makes a terminals-only approach more viable than it would be for HSR. (Which isn't to fully argue against your post).
I was clearly referring to a world where being skeptical makes one a troll. Yet again you've given a contrived, useless reply that completely misses the point or the context of the discussion, all so you can stand and triumphantly herald your great conquest. That is, I have learned, your thing, and a lot of people don't pay enough attention that you can get away with it.

and you should (again) stop doing it.

You should stop using Hacker News as your personal sales vehicle. This site and its community don't exist in the service of you.
Exactly. How can you do an IPO without any earnings? NYSE requires at least $10 mil over 3 years before they even list a company - I'm assuming other exchanges are similar. And if they don't list it on a major exchange, I doubt they can raise that amount of money...
When I was 30 I worked for one of the largest media companies in the world (household name globally). I was struggling with alcoholism throughout my tenure there and finally decided to get help and turn things around (it was really deep depression underneath). I did that and worked for about a year with things going very well, however I had a relapse and in that process it led to me ultimately getting fired. It was a huge crush to my ego and at the time I thought that was it, I was screwed.

Fast forward a year (sober!) and I am the lead developer at a startup making 50% more than I did there and starting my own venture on the side with two very solid co-founders.

The moral of my story is never give up, life isn't always easy and sometimes you have to really hit low points to find reasons to change. Things will ALWAYS get better with jobs and with life. Always have faith in yourself and know that others have struggled and made it through.

Technology wise, the core language I use (python) was highly transferrable but I had been using for instance backbone.js in a large SPA. My current role uses ember.js and I had to learn that on the fly (just like I had learned backbone on the fly). Always just take what you learned and the process for how you learned it and communicate that you can do the same if needed in a new role.

Cheers.
They do have valuables. Their own cash, maybe tips, the cellphone, etc. Robbers go for the easy targets.
So, rather than a way to sync with your phone or setup stuff like calendar, contacts, photos or music sharing, they have just made a thing telling you to install Microsoft's cloud apps?

Disappointing.

Apple has a great iOS/OS X experience because the integration is deeper than just "install Apple's apps on your iPhone".
This is a repost, original article here: https://medium.com/product-notes/the-mystery-of-the-power-ba...
I am as well.

Funny how so many people with verifiable backgrounds, who are clearly not related to Patrick except through HN, vouch for him, yet we are apparently "shills".

Not sure what needs to happen for us to not be taken that way.
This is like saying food makes us fat, ban food! Nonsensical
So... PPT really just needs a new design interface?
A lot of train systems have dedicated quiet cars.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I don't think you are remembering properly how loud trains were before cell phones. If anything, trains are quieter now, because people aren't conversing all the time. Yes, some people have loud conversations on the phone, and some people don't use headphones, but those are relatively rare.
In the late 90s I worked for a software company that kept buying small (15-30 employee) companies in the same field, and doing it with borrowed money. That worked until it didn't, and in 2001 the banks stopped being tolerant of late loan repayments from the company.

We were "emergency sold" to a large company in the field in a deal that took something like two weeks to arrange. I think the top brass ended up losing all their paper riches. Oh well, it was their decisions that got the company there anyway.

Anyway, the big company wanted to cut staff, so they laid off literally half the purchased company. They did it by seniority, but even after 5 years I was the newest person on my team. I got a great deal though. Four months pay for severance, and an extra two months bonus to stay on for two months and finish my current project (bonus on top of paying me to work for two months). So six months total. Living frugally, it was plenty enough for at least a year.

I used the money to move to Los Angeles, where I floundered for a while because I didn't have a network to tap into. Plus, you know, dot com crash and 9/11. I ended up freelancing on work through people back where I came from and built from there.

I'd been doing C++ server side work (not web). Over time my new work became more and more web oriented, and learning the stack was something new and fun. But a lot to learn.

Eventually the big company hired back a lot of the laid off people. One guy just took a six month vacation and then was hired back at a higher salary and a signing bonus. A manager went to work for a competitor for a year at a higher salary, and then came back to an even higher one at the original company, also with a hefty signing bonus. If I'd stayed in town I probably would have too. I did do some freelance for them at one point, supporting a west coast customer on software I'd written, at a much higher rate than I'd made at the company.

Big companies work in mysterious ways sometimes.
There is 0 information about the tool. Couldn't even find any slides or recording from the Percona conf.
What exactly is it analyzing? How can I determine if it is even useful?
Whatever your feelings about Powerpoint, and mine personally fall close to the "Powerpoint makes us stupid" line, you can't help but admire that Gettysburg Address slide.
I'm just a dumb 20 year old with no business experience, but my opinion is that Snapchat is going to die a very miserable death.

For lack of a better analogy, I think that young Americans with smartphones have embraced a sort of unix philosophy with regards to their social networking, which is to say, they want a service that does one thing and does it well.

They have linkedin profiles for humblebragging about their long term professional life. They have facebook for humblebragging about their long term personal aspirations and achievements. They have twitter for sharing unnoteworthy small thoughts. They have instagram for sharing noteworthy moments that aren't necessarily major life events, and they have snapchat for showing what they're doing right now.

They really don't want something that merges these in any way. The reason being, for any given user publishing content on any of these networks, they all are publishing to different audiences. I want my parents to see my linkedin and to see my facebook. I don't want them to see my twitter necessarily. I don't want them to see my snapchat. (FWIW, in reality I don't have facebook, twitter, linkedin, or snapchat, but this is just an example of how 18-24 y/os think.)

Google had a fix for the issue of audience with g+ and circles, but they fell short on implementation, I think. There weren't enough different ways to share content and shape your profile, pretty much just posts. If they had made better ways to publish temporary posts, static info (like resume and work experience), and to organize views of the site by circles rather than merging them all together, I think they'd have succeeded.

The idea that snapchat can pivot to be anything other than an extension on MMS is ridiculous to me. (It doesn't even do that now, by the way. No group snapchats. The stupid filters like speed you're traveling and the current time look absolutely terrible.)

I think users of snapchat like it for what it is, quick pictures shared to a few people that you think might enjoy it. Nothing you want permanently on the web. Maybe it can become something like periscope or meerkat. I think there's also a market for advertising in the 'featured stories' part of the app, and from the article, it sounds like where they're headed.

But their moves like snapcash, and any aspirations that are separate from sharing temporary moments? Completely bewildering to me. I fear they're trying to become something their users don't want snapchat to be.

One thing I will say, Spiegel seems like a really cool guy with a heart in the right place and is probably a genius. I will not be surprised to see him completely prove me wrong.
Mistakes you apparently just have to make yourself
You've now written over 2,700 words today arguing about a stranger who in your view might a liar, but might not be.

Other people on this thread continue to take you seriously, and answer your weird accusations in good faith. I won't. You're a troll.
Note that one of the answers there is based on the GRG data used in OP. Different graph but same conclusion - average tenure has dropped, Calment was a monster.
Why are you worried about reducing equity when all that amounts to right now is a bigger slice of zero? And if everything works out dreamily, the difference is whether you spend your days rolling around on a 12" stack of money or a 10" stack?

The reason not to bring in a third cofounder is that you don't have access to the right person...a cofounder is like your spouse only there's more money at stake and you spend more time together.

Finally, if you find the right cofounder, you can bootstrap, generate revenue and have better control over the terms at which others may be offered the opportunity to invest in your company. Having investors is not a goal, it is a means to an end, just like bringing in technical talent.

Good luck.
Now combine Hyperloop with self driven cars that you can take at your convenience in both ends to arrive to your destination and most of the problems you stated seem easy to overcome.

Probably in a few years, when the hyperloops are ready, owning a car won't be as usual as now, but you'll be able to pick a self driven one paying per mile or a fixed per monthly quota.
https://packagecontrol.io/packages/TodoReview
No, I'm right. I didn't think of James Strachan. (He by the way stopped contributing to Kotlin around October 2012. You're welcome.)
It seems to be related to how startups are suddenly valuated at billions without much of a moat or intrinsic value. Just for having "users".
> there's no longer the super strange "hot corners" that were the only way to access the shutdown menu

I'm not a fan of the hot corners. If you use a keyboard, you can use the following shortcut to shutdown your PC

WIN KEY + X, U, U
"He’s also incredibly secretive about his business plans and an unknown (and arguably underestimated) figure in the intersecting gossip circles of Silicon Valley and Hollywood. "

He's not "secretive". He doesn't have one. His plan (or lack of) was to get as many people using the app as possible and then scramble to try to monetize it.

The issue, like every other person with a company like this, is that if there is even a hint of commercialization, the users will jump to the next "cool" thing.

Reddit is having the same problem. The original founders were lucky in that it was bought out and they got their payout.
> how about http://some.storage.service.tld/path/to/video.mkv or even rtmp://some.streaming.service.tld/path/to/stream ?

Well, if I click on the first link, a video doesn't play (that would be the case even if the link were to an actual MKV video). The second URL isn't even a hyperlink on news.ycombinator.com. But if I click on a valid YouTube link, a video plays nearly immediately.
I like a lot of what I'm seeing and hearing, but unless I can find a good replacement for Media Center on the desktop I might still be using Windows 7 for a few more years.
Snapchat vs Meerkat/Periscope is an apples and oranges conparison. The latter apps are primarily used for broadcasting to the public, while the former is primarily used for communicating privately between friends. They can co-exist, however based on the app charts, Meerkat is already dead.
I don't think anyone thinks of Patrick as a god.

But a lot of people rightly view him very highly personally, and view his advice as very good advice.

Some people in this thread are calling it into question, and a few of us are trying to get across the fact that we've known him online for many years, lots of people around here have known him in person for many years, and the accusations that his claims are exaggerated is wrong.

Also, his advice is very good - I speak as a former consultant.
Not sure about Android, but I doubt Apple provides a way to sync stuff to a desktop app. iTunes is heavily locked down and there have been cases in the past where they deliberately broke compatibility with sync apps.
This is great! definitely going to use this in the future.
Try XBMC.
Article is actually just an Evan Spiegel humpathon. There is little to no information about Snapchat becoming a "real" business.
I've seen this type of article come up at least once a year for the last five years now, but banning PowerPoint will not happen in the short-to-medium term in most large (and small, even) companies . Why? Because it's a default app installed on most office machines and because PowerPoint is the language managers speak. If you don't have a PowerPoint or email that managers can physically take to meetings with their managers, it's hard to understand what you're working on. I don't say this cynically; I say it truthfully, because it's human nature.

Tufte suggests banning Powerpoint and giving people handouts to read at meetings; I don't see this getting a lot of traction in most places, simply because people have a lot of other stuff going on.

What I do see as a possible are classes on visual design at both the grade school and college level. Even just one a year can make younger people better at presenting information and will eventually trickle up.