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when to stop reading a book
our tendency to keep reading even bad books is also (to some degree) a manifestation of the "endowment effect" documented in dan ariely's "predictable irrational": once you've forked over money for a book, you value it more simply because it's now yours. even if it sucks, you'll have an easier time convincing yourself that it is an important book.that said, i think there are cases where you should plow through a book you don't (at first) enjoy. e.g. when a book comes highly recommended by people you trust, or from an author who has delivered in the past. this is especially true for older books that were written for less attention-sapped audiences and have cultural gaps that take getting used to. i'm thinking of dostoevsky's "the brothers karamazov." it was highly reccomended by friends with good taste, and i had enjoyed some of his shorter works. still, it was incredibly slow getting started. but once i had ingested the multi-layered background and got a grip on russian peasant culture, was one of the more amazing books i've ever read. and could not have been otherwise if not for the investment required to get into it.
interesting ebook effect: having an e-book reader has made ms. wendell more ruthless. "i'm holding 100+ books on one device. if one isn't floating my boat, i can move on to something else by pressing one button," she points out.
when to stop reading a book
interesting ebook effect: having an e-book reader has made ms. wendell more ruthless. "i'm holding 100+ books on one device. if one isn't floating my boat, i can move on to something else by pressing one button," she points out.
i do this ruthlessly. i skim the first part of many articles, and do the same for books, which i have in almost constant supply from amazon.i wrote a system for myself (called mnemo) that i used to catalog and cross reference stuff. i can tag things, and search by author, keyword, whatever. this is useful not only for going back through a topic i'm interested in, but also because while i'm reading i can ask myself constantly: would i put this in mnemo or am i spinning my wheels?maybe i'll release mnemo and see if it works for other people.
when to stop reading a book
i do this ruthlessly. i skim the first part of many articles, and do the same for books, which i have in almost constant supply from amazon.i wrote a system for myself (called mnemo) that i used to catalog and cross reference stuff. i can tag things, and search by author, keyword, whatever. this is useful not only for going back through a topic i'm interested in, but also because while i'm reading i can ask myself constantly: would i put this in mnemo or am i spinning my wheels?maybe i'll release mnemo and see if it works for other people.
from boswell's _life of johnson_, entry for april 19, 1773 (courtesy of gutenberg.org):mr. elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked dr. johnson if he had read it. johnson. 'i have looked into it.' 'what (said elphinston,) have you not read it through?' johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, 'no, sir, do _you_ read books _through_?
when to stop reading a book
from boswell's _life of johnson_, entry for april 19, 1773 (courtesy of gutenberg.org):mr. elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked dr. johnson if he had read it. johnson. 'i have looked into it.' 'what (said elphinston,) have you not read it through?' johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, 'no, sir, do _you_ read books _through_?
what to do for the situation of actively liking a book, but getting bogged down because it's (for example) huge.with a series, you can take a break between installments. i read the first otherland book several months ago, and i'm just now feeling ready to pick up book 2. what about this situation in the middle of a book? put it back on the shelf to finish later, or cut your losses and move on?
my code made it to a hollywood movie
i suppose if you were feeling like annoying the movie industry you could send dmca takedown notices to anyone who trys to show the film. especially if they send you takedown notices for showing screen grabs on your blog.
the network scanner nmap has appeared in a lot of movies before. fyodor has a page on it: <link> . apparently it even made an appearance in a soft-porn movie...
my code made it to a hollywood movie
the network scanner nmap has appeared in a lot of movies before. fyodor has a page on it: <link> . apparently it even made an appearance in a soft-porn movie...
does including gpl code in your project (movie) makes this project (movie) gpl too and requires release of all movie source code? (i.e. 3d models, scenes, screenplay, etc.) and if yes, if someone will rebuild whole movie, will it be possible to download binary version of it compiled by some joe for free?
my code made it to a hollywood movie
does including gpl code in your project (movie) makes this project (movie) gpl too and requires release of all movie source code? (i.e. 3d models, scenes, screenplay, etc.) and if yes, if someone will rebuild whole movie, will it be possible to download binary version of it compiled by some joe for free?
previous submission (with 252 points and 91 comments): <link>
my code made it to a hollywood movie
previous submission (with 252 points and 91 comments): <link>
hmm, as far as i can tell most of the pointer casts i see there are unnecessary.- ifr_name is cast to char pointer. it's already a char array.- a few memcpy() calls cast their arguments to void pointer. this is just silly. all pointer types implicitly convert to that. this anti-pattern can create bugs with some 64-bit compilers if you fail to declare a function prototype (implicit `int` from undeclared function, cast into `void pointer` = bad times).- the file ends in `.c`, but the return type of `malloc` is cast to different pointer types. this is a big &quot;author has no idea what they're doing&quot; red flag to me. in c you can implicitly convert void pointer to any other pointer type. it's not the same as c++. this also happens to let you fall into the &quot;convert `int` to `void pointer` trap of the previous point.
i did what i loved and nearly destroyed myself
the ability to pursue your dreams is a luxury of the modern age. generations of people have lived and died working as poor farmers, doing what they needed to to support their families. (many hundreds of millions of poor people still live their lives doing so.) "do what you love" is overrated advice: "find a way to love what you do" is better.
there's plenty of people throughout history who can do exactly what they want and make money doing so. they have talent or are extremely lucky. likely both, though.sometimes you are just genetically gifted, like jon "bones" jones who just started fighting in mixed martial arts professionally two years ago and is now the light heavyweight champion at 23. or, singers like adele or amy winehouse: exceedingly young singers with booming, soulful voices that surpass gospel soloists who have practiced for their entire lives. or, writers like michael chabon who can win pulitzer prizes by their third novel and can write decidedly literary works that go on to become worldwide bestsellers.if you don't have any latent talent, you can't do whatever you want effortlessly.so, the first thing is, "be talented". since most of us aren't, we have to dig a little deeper and suffer a little more. so, we can't go and have sex with strangers all day and then boozily toss off a flawless chapter of the great american novel or whip up that instagr.am killer overnight.most of us aren't michael jordan; we're horace grant, or john paxson. we can't be the team, but we can be part of the greatness. only you can realize your strengths and limitations. but don't be fooled: if you don't have the talent, it takes alot of hustle to do exactly what you love.
i did what i loved and nearly destroyed myself
there's plenty of people throughout history who can do exactly what they want and make money doing so. they have talent or are extremely lucky. likely both, though.sometimes you are just genetically gifted, like jon "bones" jones who just started fighting in mixed martial arts professionally two years ago and is now the light heavyweight champion at 23. or, singers like adele or amy winehouse: exceedingly young singers with booming, soulful voices that surpass gospel soloists who have practiced for their entire lives. or, writers like michael chabon who can win pulitzer prizes by their third novel and can write decidedly literary works that go on to become worldwide bestsellers.if you don't have any latent talent, you can't do whatever you want effortlessly.so, the first thing is, "be talented". since most of us aren't, we have to dig a little deeper and suffer a little more. so, we can't go and have sex with strangers all day and then boozily toss off a flawless chapter of the great american novel or whip up that instagr.am killer overnight.most of us aren't michael jordan; we're horace grant, or john paxson. we can't be the team, but we can be part of the greatness. only you can realize your strengths and limitations. but don't be fooled: if you don't have the talent, it takes alot of hustle to do exactly what you love.
i think he's missing the point. "do what you love" does not mean "do whatever the fuck pleases you, not caring about consequences and reality."rather, it means: find a career and lifestyle that is intellectually and emotionally fulfilling and make the best of it.
i did what i loved and nearly destroyed myself
i think he's missing the point. "do what you love" does not mean "do whatever the fuck pleases you, not caring about consequences and reality."rather, it means: find a career and lifestyle that is intellectually and emotionally fulfilling and make the best of it.
i have a degree in philosophy. i spent my undergraduate learning complex rules of logic, heuristics, semiotics, and language. it fit directly into being a better programmer and a better entrepreneur.the ability to read dry treatises on moral or political theory is a good indicator that one is capable of dealing with the more complex aspects of development. (though i tended to ignore iterative structures initially thinking through the code far too much)in reading the op's account, i think he did not really love philosophy. he is a sophist. he loves exactly the idea of his idea of being a philosopher.some great people in business are philosophers (training in philosophy). one example is soros. so clearly, it is not philosophy that is keeping him down.but true philosophers have a love of ideas, not particularly a better life. the idea of a screwed up life but a vivid intellectual one is clearly the norm. though, true philosophers and poets do tend to be rich (showing that once needs are met, one has time to turn to richer thoughts).
i did what i loved and nearly destroyed myself
i have a degree in philosophy. i spent my undergraduate learning complex rules of logic, heuristics, semiotics, and language. it fit directly into being a better programmer and a better entrepreneur.the ability to read dry treatises on moral or political theory is a good indicator that one is capable of dealing with the more complex aspects of development. (though i tended to ignore iterative structures initially thinking through the code far too much)in reading the op's account, i think he did not really love philosophy. he is a sophist. he loves exactly the idea of his idea of being a philosopher.some great people in business are philosophers (training in philosophy). one example is soros. so clearly, it is not philosophy that is keeping him down.but true philosophers have a love of ideas, not particularly a better life. the idea of a screwed up life but a vivid intellectual one is clearly the norm. though, true philosophers and poets do tend to be rich (showing that once needs are met, one has time to turn to richer thoughts).
when i was a young kid, i remember that we used to ask each other "what's your favourite color?" a lot. at the time, this question used to panic me. i mean, red's pretty neat, but then so's blue. yellow's nice, and so on. it's only with the benefit of hindsight that one sees that it's an artificially narrow question. a child would make that mistake, but not an adult, right?well, that's how i see the "do what you love," argument manifesting here. the things that define your true passions aren't going to be the dreams that you dreamed as a child, or as a teenager. you are always developing as an individual, and the things that you love are capable of redefining themselves. one thing that i hear time and time again is that "x" is fun until you have to do it for a living; that's not doing what you love, that's clinging to a bad mistake. you can do what you love by finding something you enjoy and by applying love, there's no mystical "true love" of careers that is imposed from on high.hmm, what i just wrote was properly glib, wasn't it?
why i hate frameworks
i'm going to have a bit of fun here. i have known two types of developers. the ones practicing creation magic and the others, specializing in alteration.when creation mages see a problem, they create a solution. the power of their mind allows them to come up with the exact thing that needs to be created for the given problem. their creation skills are honed so well that they get incredibly fast. they don't need to look around much since there's no point in paying attention to what they have created before. their old creations already solved their problems, they work, they don't have to be disturbed again. of course creation mages are not stupid, they simply tend to focus on a direct path towards a solution. if some mana could be easily saved by using something already created, they certainly wouldn't pass it up. they would reuse what they've already built. there are just way too many things around them, and it's hard to determine if something fits. after all, they have to keep going without delays. a good creation mage has learned to keep things sufficiently neat. they frequently remember things that they could reuse here and there. however, when one observes any such mage at work, one often sees a lot of mess. some of the mess has occasional patterns, some things are interconnected, but for the most part it's a very complicated and disconnected system of various moving parts working autonomously to solve their individual problems.alteration mages work a bit differently. they are often slower than creation mages, especially in the beginning. that's because they spend quite a bit of time studying their surroundings. they take longer to solve a problem. the thing about alteration mages is, they can't handle mess. (they are accustomed to altering, not creating.) there is a certain compulsive quality to their mind, they simply can't relax in the presence of something unnecessary, when something could be altered instead. you'd often see such mage cleaning their workspace leaving it neat and stripped to bare minimum. they don't have many things in their possession, but spend a lot of time learning about potential things out there that they _could_ have if they wanted. alteration requires deep understanding of systems, something that can never be quite mastered due to such huge variety of abstract models. that's why alteration mages grab onto every opportunity to learn about a new sample system, a way things could be arranged, patterns, frameworks. when a problem arises, they don't simply create a solution, they build a system which naturally causes that solution to occur, along with keeping all the existing problems solved. in other words, if plants don't grow, alteration mages would try to augment their biosphere in a way that achieves harmony, while creationists would simply generate some water.both alteration and creation mages gain experience, level up, and become more valueable. however, they learn slightly different skills. creation mages learn to have high morale, learn to be calm, and treat solutions as black boxes. they learn to trust their own judgement. alteration mages on the other hand learn a pretty crappy lesson. they learn that most of their decisions turn out to be incorrect. they build out a system and suddenly get attacked with a problem which the system can't accommodate. it happens once in a while, and they struggle to have everything redesigned from scratch. they end up burnt out, because they can't give up their quest for minimalism and elegance. yet, it's not all that bad.you see, alteration mages have a very important advantage. they always tend to record their practices and principles. old and experienced mages would pass on their knowledge to the newbies. the newbies would build upon it to improve elegance of their systems. in essence, an alteration mage is never a lone warrior, they are always standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before them, which is what makes them strong. one of the first things a newbie alteration mage learns is that what they think is right will soon turn out to be wrong. they are too inexperienced to take the multitude of fairly common scenarios into account. at the same time, they quickly learn to be patient. when an elder passes down certain knowledge or framework upon a newbie, it will not be immediately obvious why things have to be the way they are. after some time they finally see that the knowledge of elders has already accounted for so much and in such an elegant manner that they don't need to worry about these problems any longer. they've already been solved by elder alteration mages in the cleanest ways possible, polished by generations of mages that came after them. some newbies would rebel, against the elders, but only a few lucky ones actually manage to contribute anything useful, albeit this drive of ambition, trial, and error is often what causes major advancements for the whole guild, akin to the evolution process. eventually, alteration mages manage to outperform their creation colleagues while leaving clean and elegant systems behind. they would sometimes cringe looking at poor creation mages gluing together half-baked solutions to things that are so deeply understood within alteration circles. their pools of mana are not nearly as deep as of these performant creation wizards, but mana pools are just a small part of their power. majority of it comes from the knowledge of frameworks. certainly, if a problem is completely out of ordinary, they may resort to some creation magic, but for the most part you can count on them walking that extra mile towards finding a well-integrated solution.
the most important statement in this article is near the beginning, and it's still relevant today:"i've done small woodworking projects before, and i think i have a pretty good idea of what i need: some wood and a few basic tools: a tape measure, a saw, a level, and a hammer."the reason i hate frameworks (even things like django which is very easy to get started with) is that, at some point, i'm asked to re-learn a different way of solving a problem that i've already solved in the past.i've been doing lots of thinking about this having written the great american php framework myself, and worked with other people's frameworks, and also worked a lot in the cms space and the biggest conclusion that i've come to is that the best tools are those that enable you to do things faster or more conveniently but don't actually provide any abstraction.for example, when deploying a website there are any number of tools to "abstract away" the html layer - templating engines, markups, markdowns etc. etc. but the best way to build html is using html and testing in a web browser, always.when you need to write some code in whatever web framework you're using to handle a post request, you want to be as close as possible to the http layer without a bunch of arcane systems in between you and what you and the underlying technology.sure it's handy to have tools which automate some repetitive aspects, but if you understand the underlying principles and you know the syntax of the language you're working with, you should at all times be able to just "get it done" however you know how without reading endless documentation and shoehorning your knowledge through a bunch of layers of abstraction.the same goes for orm - i want convenience of access to my data, and some automation to handle some of the more boring aspects of writing sql, but i need to be able to mix and match (yes i know most orms allow you to use raw sql, but it's always one or the other - the orm or the sql - i've never used a tool that has a simple method for me to extend the orm bits halfway through the query building process with some custom sql).this is my zeitgeist now and it pervades all the projects i'm working on.[1] <link>
why i hate frameworks
the most important statement in this article is near the beginning, and it's still relevant today:"i've done small woodworking projects before, and i think i have a pretty good idea of what i need: some wood and a few basic tools: a tape measure, a saw, a level, and a hammer."the reason i hate frameworks (even things like django which is very easy to get started with) is that, at some point, i'm asked to re-learn a different way of solving a problem that i've already solved in the past.i've been doing lots of thinking about this having written the great american php framework myself, and worked with other people's frameworks, and also worked a lot in the cms space and the biggest conclusion that i've come to is that the best tools are those that enable you to do things faster or more conveniently but don't actually provide any abstraction.for example, when deploying a website there are any number of tools to "abstract away" the html layer - templating engines, markups, markdowns etc. etc. but the best way to build html is using html and testing in a web browser, always.when you need to write some code in whatever web framework you're using to handle a post request, you want to be as close as possible to the http layer without a bunch of arcane systems in between you and what you and the underlying technology.sure it's handy to have tools which automate some repetitive aspects, but if you understand the underlying principles and you know the syntax of the language you're working with, you should at all times be able to just "get it done" however you know how without reading endless documentation and shoehorning your knowledge through a bunch of layers of abstraction.the same goes for orm - i want convenience of access to my data, and some automation to handle some of the more boring aspects of writing sql, but i need to be able to mix and match (yes i know most orms allow you to use raw sql, but it's always one or the other - the orm or the sql - i've never used a tool that has a simple method for me to extend the orm bits halfway through the query building process with some custom sql).this is my zeitgeist now and it pervades all the projects i'm working on.[1] <link>
this comment totally missed the point: a good framework is nothing more than your toolbox filled with a good selection of tools. some tools are very general purpose (standard claw hammer) while others are very specialized (roofing hammer). having them all available and knowing when to use them is half the battle. no, sir. that is a good library.
why i hate frameworks
this comment totally missed the point: a good framework is nothing more than your toolbox filled with a good selection of tools. some tools are very general purpose (standard claw hammer) while others are very specialized (roofing hammer). having them all available and knowing when to use them is half the battle. no, sir. that is a good library.
what was the state of "frameworks" in 2005, particularly in java-land. struts? spring? anything that didn't make you want to gouge your eyes out?even outside of java-land, rails had yet to hit 1.0, and django was just starting. the evolution of the framework has come a long way in 6 years, and frameworks have become less "one size fits all" and more task-appropriate.i think a more appropriate title for this post is: "why i hate circa-2005 java frameworks"
why i hate frameworks
what was the state of "frameworks" in 2005, particularly in java-land. struts? spring? anything that didn't make you want to gouge your eyes out?even outside of java-land, rails had yet to hit 1.0, and django was just starting. the evolution of the framework has come a long way in 6 years, and frameworks have become less "one size fits all" and more task-appropriate.i think a more appropriate title for this post is: "why i hate circa-2005 java frameworks"
i think it's hard to appreciate the post if you haven't worked in j2ee land back in that era (2005). just reading that gave me bad flashbacks. "frameworks", especially on the webstack side of things have gotten a lot saner over the years.i imagine if he had seen something like play!, he'd have a very different opinion.
new aws region coming soon: eu-central-1
honestly this is great news! as the article says, many german companies insist on their data being hosted in a data center in germany when buying saas (for whatever reason). so far, there haven't been any viable options when it comes to &quot;full-stack&quot; iaas service providers here (except profitbricks maybe, which doesn't even come close to aws in terms of functionality or pricing though), so i'm really excited to see amazon entering this market.of course the problem remains that amazon is a us company and thereby required to cooperate with us authorities and hand them over customer data if requested, so some businesses might still not want to host their data there. still, i'm excited that they're finally coming to germany !
note, a region is not a data center. a region is a collection of two or more availability zones (az). you can think of an az as a data center.<link>
new aws region coming soon: eu-central-1
note, a region is not a data center. a region is a collection of two or more availability zones (az). you can think of an az as a data center.<link>
i'll wait to see how this pans out first, thanks...<link>
new aws region coming soon: eu-central-1
i'll wait to see how this pans out first, thanks...<link>
i'm excited about the pricing, hopefully it's not more expensive than ireland... maybe even cheaper, although i won't get my hopes up with electricity prices in germany being so high.
new aws region coming soon: eu-central-1
i'm excited about the pricing, hopefully it's not more expensive than ireland... maybe even cheaper, although i won't get my hopes up with electricity prices in germany being so high.
i am happy that this is called central. i would like to see more recognition to central europe in geo-political world as current line between west and east europe do not make much more sense anymore. central europe culture and economy ties makes it strong candidate to new order - west europe central europe and east europe. i am thrilled to see what amazon will have to offer!
modern web development
disclaimer: i'm on the chrome team and specifically focus on the inspector/devtoolsmajd and i have talked a lot about tooling and the chrome devtools in particular. he ends up tweeting me a few requests or bugs a day that i'm routing to the engineering team. i love it.majd's writeup here is incredible. i hope to find a way to augment our existing documentation with this very thorough roundup. he's done a similar thing before ( <link> ) and the chrome team filed and fixed 33 bugs as a result. for the new article in particular, i expect us to iterate and improve based on the excellent feedback provided here.i would add that css selector profiling is mostly in the devtools so you can see how insignificant of a cost it is (in 99% of cases). but focusing on your network waterfall will pay performance dividends a few orders of magnitude bigger than optimizing selectors. :) that said, majd knows what he's talking about quite well.
this is a great resource and i'm glad majd wrote it. however, this is really the kind of content that should be coming out of google itself.google is in an interesting position. of all of the major silicon valley tech companies, i think google is the one most seen as the "web" company, and yet they've staked a lot of their future on android. android, instead of making the web a first-class citizen, has in fact set the mobile web back by years. while they should have worked to bring all of the strengths of the web to mobile devices, they decided to play the app game on apple's terms and, imo, have lost.surely someone at google realizes that killing the open web also kills the company's cash cow--search and related advertising--but based on their behavior it doesn't seem like it.my hope is that the android wakes up and decides to make the web a priority again. in league with the chrome team (some of the smartest people i've ever met), they could do wonders to make developing for the mobile web a joy instead of the disaster that it currently is. google needs focus, and it needs its focus to be on the mobile web. having great, unified documentation about building sophisticated web apps that competes with apple's developer centers is a good start to doing so.
modern web development
this is a great resource and i'm glad majd wrote it. however, this is really the kind of content that should be coming out of google itself.google is in an interesting position. of all of the major silicon valley tech companies, i think google is the one most seen as the "web" company, and yet they've staked a lot of their future on android. android, instead of making the web a first-class citizen, has in fact set the mobile web back by years. while they should have worked to bring all of the strengths of the web to mobile devices, they decided to play the app game on apple's terms and, imo, have lost.surely someone at google realizes that killing the open web also kills the company's cash cow--search and related advertising--but based on their behavior it doesn't seem like it.my hope is that the android wakes up and decides to make the web a priority again. in league with the chrome team (some of the smartest people i've ever met), they could do wonders to make developing for the mobile web a joy instead of the disaster that it currently is. google needs focus, and it needs its focus to be on the mobile web. having great, unified documentation about building sophisticated web apps that competes with apple's developer centers is a good start to doing so.
this is worth getting your head around just for the console.0this post is partially for those of you who are, like me, relatively new to javascript. if you're one of the demigods that works at twitter/facebook, go ahead and ignore this2i've been transitioning all of my projects from python cgi scripts (yuck), to shtml files, javascript clients, and apis that run on node.js.for somebody like me, that has been writing python+cgi for the last 5 years, diving into javascript was daunting. terrifying even.console made this a lot, lot, lot easier. in javascript, you can call console.log("thing") and it will print it out to the console (again, this is obvious if you're done any js development, i'm sure).but that isn't all...suppose that i'm working with an object called map_pins. in the javascript console, i can just type: map_pins; and it will print out the object for me in a tree that i can traverse by clicking the little sideways triangles.very, very nice.i can also interact with my javascript functions from the console. if i have a function called update_bounds(), i can force it to fire from the console by just typing: update_bounds() this is really, really nice. before i discovered this, my javacsript was full of alert("i made it to this without crashing");it was awful.if you're learning js and op's article looks over your head, at least take the console away from it.
modern web development
this is worth getting your head around just for the console.0this post is partially for those of you who are, like me, relatively new to javascript. if you're one of the demigods that works at twitter/facebook, go ahead and ignore this2i've been transitioning all of my projects from python cgi scripts (yuck), to shtml files, javascript clients, and apis that run on node.js.for somebody like me, that has been writing python+cgi for the last 5 years, diving into javascript was daunting. terrifying even.console made this a lot, lot, lot easier. in javascript, you can call console.log("thing") and it will print it out to the console (again, this is obvious if you're done any js development, i'm sure).but that isn't all...suppose that i'm working with an object called map_pins. in the javascript console, i can just type: map_pins; and it will print out the object for me in a tree that i can traverse by clicking the little sideways triangles.very, very nice.i can also interact with my javascript functions from the console. if i have a function called update_bounds(), i can force it to fire from the console by just typing: update_bounds() this is really, really nice. before i discovered this, my javacsript was full of alert("i made it to this without crashing");it was awful.if you're learning js and op's article looks over your head, at least take the console away from it.
"modern web development" does not mean "works in webkit", and it does a disservice to future/novice developers to reinforce that notion. what's dominant now was not in the not-too-distant past, and may not be in the not-too-distant future.
modern web development
"modern web development" does not mean "works in webkit", and it does a disservice to future/novice developers to reinforce that notion. what's dominant now was not in the not-too-distant past, and may not be in the not-too-distant future.
i'm not sure if docking to the right is really the best default; it really depends on your setup. on big, wide displays it's indeed a good way to do it. on small displays (notebooks) docking on the bottom is better. if you have multiple displays, detaching and moving the detached window to the other display works best. i think it's a good idea to assume the worst (tiny display) and dock to the bottom; the browser will remember your setting anyway so it's not like you'll need to do this all the time.
pneumatic tube network at stanford
as the article says, every hospital has these. without them, i have no idea how we would ever get medications to inpatient floors in a timely fashion.the tubes are also quite "smart"; all products (including blood products) are barcoded and scanned prior to being put into the tubes for routing to the appropriate destination.
i love these systems.the main branch of the new york public library had (still has?) a nice shiny brass system in the research room. you filled out a request on a little card and the librarian would put it into a metal canister and send it down to the stacks. i last used this in 1993 or so when i was a grad student in a literature department.then you would go to the big reading room and wait for your number to comeup on the big board. some wonderful books there ( i remember getting a version of vincente huidobro's altazor that looked like it had a dedication from the author.) and a beautiful old building to sit and read in.the pnuematic tubes added a nice 'steampunk' feel to the experience (although that word didn't exist yet). i would have been reading william gibson at the time i am sure though. i know that i read the "difference engine" about this time.it is so remarkable how these systems still exist in the 'older' modernist cities. i say older in reference to nyc because of the fact that it hasn't gone through a war so the intfrastructure is quite a bit older than the larger european or asian cities. it is different in other cities. when i was in seoul i would frequently visit a market that was near one of the old city gates. a freestanding market a few thousand years old. that's old - there is nothing in nyc that can touch that. the old stuff in nyc is a few hundred years old at most.in nyc, the subway is still switched by hand at some places. there is a steam heating system under the streets that, on cold days like this billows up and forms impromptu clouds. and the brass pnuematic tubing at the nypl.these systems - especially the older bridges, streets and the subways - are crumbling. and in some ways the "must have exposed brick in our apartment" nostalgia for an older verdegris patina-ed existence is a false desire for something that never ways.but you can't help but marvel when crossing something like the pulaski skyway in new jersey (think the soprano's opening shots) or taking the subway under one of the river tunnels or walking up over the brooklyn bridge - that so much was possible with relatively little.an idea that was beautifully expressed in some of the writing around the recent open-sourcing of the apollo lunar module code from the first moon landing.<link>
pneumatic tube network at stanford
i love these systems.the main branch of the new york public library had (still has?) a nice shiny brass system in the research room. you filled out a request on a little card and the librarian would put it into a metal canister and send it down to the stacks. i last used this in 1993 or so when i was a grad student in a literature department.then you would go to the big reading room and wait for your number to comeup on the big board. some wonderful books there ( i remember getting a version of vincente huidobro's altazor that looked like it had a dedication from the author.) and a beautiful old building to sit and read in.the pnuematic tubes added a nice 'steampunk' feel to the experience (although that word didn't exist yet). i would have been reading william gibson at the time i am sure though. i know that i read the "difference engine" about this time.it is so remarkable how these systems still exist in the 'older' modernist cities. i say older in reference to nyc because of the fact that it hasn't gone through a war so the intfrastructure is quite a bit older than the larger european or asian cities. it is different in other cities. when i was in seoul i would frequently visit a market that was near one of the old city gates. a freestanding market a few thousand years old. that's old - there is nothing in nyc that can touch that. the old stuff in nyc is a few hundred years old at most.in nyc, the subway is still switched by hand at some places. there is a steam heating system under the streets that, on cold days like this billows up and forms impromptu clouds. and the brass pnuematic tubing at the nypl.these systems - especially the older bridges, streets and the subways - are crumbling. and in some ways the "must have exposed brick in our apartment" nostalgia for an older verdegris patina-ed existence is a false desire for something that never ways.but you can't help but marvel when crossing something like the pulaski skyway in new jersey (think the soprano's opening shots) or taking the subway under one of the river tunnels or walking up over the brooklyn bridge - that so much was possible with relatively little.an idea that was beautifully expressed in some of the writing around the recent open-sourcing of the apollo lunar module code from the first moon landing.<link>
if these things we're built into new apartments, people would use less cars if groceries could be sendt by tube. groceries could even be sendt without packaging. catering could become cheaper and better.
pneumatic tube network at stanford
if these things we're built into new apartments, people would use less cars if groceries could be sendt by tube. groceries could even be sendt without packaging. catering could become cheaper and better.
i once imagine a tubes network for delivering beverages from the fridge that's located in an outside unit on the property.also, a serviceman come by every once and a while to fill up the fridge when it get empty. of course, security measures are there to prevent unauthorized people from filling the fridge with poisonous beverages or stealing them. the transaction are then already billed somewhere on the internet.all the programmer have to do is press a button or order from a fridge...and viola! a nice cold beverage is delivered via pneumatic tubes to his desk.with a little bit of programming, you could have it deliver beverages at regular interval.ultimate convenience!
pneumatic tube network at stanford
i once imagine a tubes network for delivering beverages from the fridge that's located in an outside unit on the property.also, a serviceman come by every once and a while to fill up the fridge when it get empty. of course, security measures are there to prevent unauthorized people from filling the fridge with poisonous beverages or stealing them. the transaction are then already billed somewhere on the internet.all the programmer have to do is press a button or order from a fridge...and viola! a nice cold beverage is delivered via pneumatic tubes to his desk.with a little bit of programming, you could have it deliver beverages at regular interval.ultimate convenience!
amazon needs to invest in more tube infrastructure.
ask hn: rate my ocw math curriculum for comp sci i've been programming professionally for 5 years - mostly java. the prospect of doing the same thing in 10 years is less than attractive and a pm position doesn't appeal to me. what i really want is to further my technical knowledge, dig deeper. machine learning is something that springs to mind, as i really enjoyed the coursera course. but above all i just want options.<p>i have no math above college level and i think this is my main achilles heel. i actually started with an algebra refresher via aleks and have now commenced calculus i on mit open course ware. two exams in and i'm actually performing well. this has removed a long standing irrational fear i had with math.<p>my emboldend plan is now to continue with the following courses (all on ocw) : <link><p>my questions are:<p>1) these are all mit courses, any graduates care to comment on the experience, perhaps weigh in on which are more and less useful in your day to day work.<p>2) am i overstating the importance of math in comp sci, will i be dissapointed?<p>3) any addendums or modifications to the plan are welcome.
i think it depends a lot on what you want to do.for any kind of machine learning or data processing, linear algebra is definitely a good thing to have. basic calculus is good too, but i'd say may be less important if you're applying methods and approaches as opposed to developing them too. differential equations, while providing an important set of mathematic tools which may open some doors you didn't even know existed, may not be the "highest yield" material from a programmers point of view.in my opinion, probability and statistics is a big yes for anything data related, doubly so for algorithms. i'd also consider some graph theory, as it's amazing how many problems can be projected as networks and then approached from that perspective.
i think combinatorics -- both enumerative and graph theory -- are likely to prove very useful, perhaps the most important thing you could study.i suspect that differential equations could be left out if you choose. imho the subject is boring, but naturally others disagree.i suspect it will be indirectly helpful to get practice writing proofs. i imagine some of these courses already involve proof-writing.finally, i also believe it will be helpful if you see some mathematical abstraction. i think the best place for this is abstract algebra (= "modern algebra"), and in particular group theory.here is one fact to convince you that group theory is cool. it turns out that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions into which you can manipulate a rubik's cube. but suppose that you are allowed to take apart the puzzle and then put the pieces back together any which way. then there are 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 positions - exactly 12 times as many.why is the ratio of these an integer? study group theory, and you will have a very good intuition for questions like that. probably not something you will need directly, but i imagine it will sharpen your mind in the direction you'd like to go in.good luck to you!
ask hn: rate my ocw math curriculum for comp sci i've been programming professionally for 5 years - mostly java. the prospect of doing the same thing in 10 years is less than attractive and a pm position doesn't appeal to me. what i really want is to further my technical knowledge, dig deeper. machine learning is something that springs to mind, as i really enjoyed the coursera course. but above all i just want options.<p>i have no math above college level and i think this is my main achilles heel. i actually started with an algebra refresher via aleks and have now commenced calculus i on mit open course ware. two exams in and i'm actually performing well. this has removed a long standing irrational fear i had with math.<p>my emboldend plan is now to continue with the following courses (all on ocw) : <link><p>my questions are:<p>1) these are all mit courses, any graduates care to comment on the experience, perhaps weigh in on which are more and less useful in your day to day work.<p>2) am i overstating the importance of math in comp sci, will i be dissapointed?<p>3) any addendums or modifications to the plan are welcome.
i think combinatorics -- both enumerative and graph theory -- are likely to prove very useful, perhaps the most important thing you could study.i suspect that differential equations could be left out if you choose. imho the subject is boring, but naturally others disagree.i suspect it will be indirectly helpful to get practice writing proofs. i imagine some of these courses already involve proof-writing.finally, i also believe it will be helpful if you see some mathematical abstraction. i think the best place for this is abstract algebra (= "modern algebra"), and in particular group theory.here is one fact to convince you that group theory is cool. it turns out that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions into which you can manipulate a rubik's cube. but suppose that you are allowed to take apart the puzzle and then put the pieces back together any which way. then there are 519,024,039,293,878,272,000 positions - exactly 12 times as many.why is the ratio of these an integer? study group theory, and you will have a very good intuition for questions like that. probably not something you will need directly, but i imagine it will sharpen your mind in the direction you'd like to go in.good luck to you!
i didn't go to mit. i think automata and combinatorics were two of the more interesting and relevant courses i've taken. calculus is enlightening but i've yet to find a use for it. i think probability is important too. "math for cs" aka discrete math is good. if you're into graphics i guess linear algebra is helpful but i've never use that.
ask hn: rate my ocw math curriculum for comp sci i've been programming professionally for 5 years - mostly java. the prospect of doing the same thing in 10 years is less than attractive and a pm position doesn't appeal to me. what i really want is to further my technical knowledge, dig deeper. machine learning is something that springs to mind, as i really enjoyed the coursera course. but above all i just want options.<p>i have no math above college level and i think this is my main achilles heel. i actually started with an algebra refresher via aleks and have now commenced calculus i on mit open course ware. two exams in and i'm actually performing well. this has removed a long standing irrational fear i had with math.<p>my emboldend plan is now to continue with the following courses (all on ocw) : <link><p>my questions are:<p>1) these are all mit courses, any graduates care to comment on the experience, perhaps weigh in on which are more and less useful in your day to day work.<p>2) am i overstating the importance of math in comp sci, will i be dissapointed?<p>3) any addendums or modifications to the plan are welcome.
i didn't go to mit. i think automata and combinatorics were two of the more interesting and relevant courses i've taken. calculus is enlightening but i've yet to find a use for it. i think probability is important too. "math for cs" aka discrete math is good. if you're into graphics i guess linear algebra is helpful but i've never use that.
do linear algebra and stats+prob before getting into multivariable calc. you can probably leave diffeq out entirely unless you're getting into modeling. math for computer science is a grab bag. graph theory comes up a lot but propositional logic never comes up.
ask hn: rate my ocw math curriculum for comp sci i've been programming professionally for 5 years - mostly java. the prospect of doing the same thing in 10 years is less than attractive and a pm position doesn't appeal to me. what i really want is to further my technical knowledge, dig deeper. machine learning is something that springs to mind, as i really enjoyed the coursera course. but above all i just want options.<p>i have no math above college level and i think this is my main achilles heel. i actually started with an algebra refresher via aleks and have now commenced calculus i on mit open course ware. two exams in and i'm actually performing well. this has removed a long standing irrational fear i had with math.<p>my emboldend plan is now to continue with the following courses (all on ocw) : <link><p>my questions are:<p>1) these are all mit courses, any graduates care to comment on the experience, perhaps weigh in on which are more and less useful in your day to day work.<p>2) am i overstating the importance of math in comp sci, will i be dissapointed?<p>3) any addendums or modifications to the plan are welcome.
do linear algebra and stats+prob before getting into multivariable calc. you can probably leave diffeq out entirely unless you're getting into modeling. math for computer science is a grab bag. graph theory comes up a lot but propositional logic never comes up.
clickable link for the plan : <link>
uk government betrayal of open standards confirmed
as a lib dem, i'm actually very embarrassed about this. especially since it was vince cable's department (bis) who seems to have led the charge against oss from within government. ridiculous.
this article is a little vague.personally as a uk taxpayer i don't really care whether the desktop pcs and downing street or whitehall run windows , linux or mac they could run haiku for all i care.what i am more concerned about as more government functions can be interfaced with online is whether this will be done using the most standard and open data formats etc possible.if i need to buy a specific piece of proprietary software to submit my tax information online or if all applications for public sector jobs are distributed in the latest ms word format that i can't open without buying a new version of windows and office then that is something i at least potentially care about.
uk government betrayal of open standards confirmed
this article is a little vague.personally as a uk taxpayer i don't really care whether the desktop pcs and downing street or whitehall run windows , linux or mac they could run haiku for all i care.what i am more concerned about as more government functions can be interfaced with online is whether this will be done using the most standard and open data formats etc possible.if i need to buy a specific piece of proprietary software to submit my tax information online or if all applications for public sector jobs are distributed in the latest ms word format that i can't open without buying a new version of windows and office then that is something i at least potentially care about.
just emailed 10 downing street asking for an explanation, if they have one. i encourage other people to do the same.
uk government betrayal of open standards confirmed
just emailed 10 downing street asking for an explanation, if they have one. i encourage other people to do the same.
considering how the previous government blew 12 billion pounds of the nation's money on the infamous nhs project (<link>, i'd have thought they should now be treading very, very carefully in matters of national it policy...
uk government betrayal of open standards confirmed
considering how the previous government blew 12 billion pounds of the nation's money on the infamous nhs project (<link>, i'd have thought they should now be treading very, very carefully in matters of national it policy...
the author certainly didn't make an attempt at being objective or hiding his allegiances. most humorous is his assertion that businesses should have no voice in the decisions of government because that is "interfering"
what i use instead of google services
&gt; &quot;like most people, i don't like to be tracked. i also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, duckduckgo.&quot;it pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being &quot;tracked&quot; as something &quot;bad&quot; a priori. while there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, i tend to think of most &quot;tracking&quot; not as &quot;stalking&quot; but as &quot;relationship building.&quot; let me explain...google is a service provider that i frequent, just like my coffee roaster or my stock broker or whatever. over time, service providers develop a relationship with their customers based on knowledge of that customer. this knowledge helps inform how they provide and improve their service. my coffee roaster knows what kinds of coffee i like and makes appropriate recommendations when new beans arrive. my stock broker knows what kinds of risks i like to take and gives appropriate investment direction.ok, so i don't really have a stock broker but... my point is: i appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when i search for &quot;hash salt&quot; i'm not talking about potatoes. ddg shows me recipes and first.the problem (as with most things that are hot-button issues) is that the most talked about thing - &quot;tracking&quot; - is a red herring. the real issue is accountability. true information lockdown rarely benefits anyone, but openness without accountability is useless and downright dangerous.suggesting people flee one provider's services and head to other providers who are not concretely more accountable (just because they &quot;say so&quot; doesn't make it true) is simply being petty. we should instead be spending out breath advocating for greater accountability in the system as a whole.
ok, there's some value in diversifying instead of using one provider for everything but mostly he just swapped apple, fastmail, or clicky in place of google. they can still track him, read his email, know his calendar... the benefit here is marginal.and how do those companies stack up against google when it comes to security? it's one thing to protect the data against snooping by the provider, it's anoter to protect it from everyone else. google is pretty solid, often on the cutting edge (pfs, certificate pinning).
what i use instead of google services
ok, there's some value in diversifying instead of using one provider for everything but mostly he just swapped apple, fastmail, or clicky in place of google. they can still track him, read his email, know his calendar... the benefit here is marginal.and how do those companies stack up against google when it comes to security? it's one thing to protect the data against snooping by the provider, it's anoter to protect it from everyone else. google is pretty solid, often on the cutting edge (pfs, certificate pinning).
browser: safari / ...maps: ... / apple for directions on mobilephone os: ioscalendar: icloudand then talks about data not given to one company.really, is it just a strange joke?
what i use instead of google services
browser: safari / ...maps: ... / apple for directions on mobilephone os: ioscalendar: icloudand then talks about data not given to one company.really, is it just a strange joke?
i switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. i tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before i got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs.but, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. if you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. it's not realistic. yes, you can be an idealist and try to run your own email server, etc. but it's really about balancing tradeoffs. i also use apple maps and icloud and dropbox and evernote and... many other services we should give just as much scrutiny to as google.i don't see my choices as being about riding a high-horse, it's about a diversified portfolio of services that helps me avoid total lock-in. the day that google heavily oversteps with the g+ product strategy or twitter completely goes to shit, i've got a series of alternative services that can pick up the slack.
what i use instead of google services
i switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. i tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before i got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs.but, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. if you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. it's not realistic. yes, you can be an idealist and try to run your own email server, etc. but it's really about balancing tradeoffs. i also use apple maps and icloud and dropbox and evernote and... many other services we should give just as much scrutiny to as google.i don't see my choices as being about riding a high-horse, it's about a diversified portfolio of services that helps me avoid total lock-in. the day that google heavily oversteps with the g+ product strategy or twitter completely goes to shit, i've got a series of alternative services that can pick up the slack.
where i shop instead of walmart: sams club
20-line python valentine's day gift from totalfinder
is this legit? it doesn't look like it -- it just hammers (20 parallel connections) binaryage's ecommerce provider's site searching for all permutations of coupon codes.
yeah, it looks like it goes through each possible permutation of coupon codes for the binaryage total finder online store [1]. these codes seem to be in the format thanksxxxx, where x is a random number/letter.it generates a set of possible codes and then queries the website for each one of those codes. when it finds a correct coupon code permutation it outputs the code to the screen and writes it to a file. (presumably so that the coupon can be reedemed for a free, illicit, copy of the program)[1] <link>
20-line python valentine's day gift from totalfinder
yeah, it looks like it goes through each possible permutation of coupon codes for the binaryage total finder online store [1]. these codes seem to be in the format thanksxxxx, where x is a random number/letter.it generates a set of possible codes and then queries the website for each one of those codes. when it finds a correct coupon code permutation it outputs the code to the screen and writes it to a file. (presumably so that the coupon can be reedemed for a free, illicit, copy of the program)[1] <link>
it created coupon codes for free licenses to totalfinder e.g.<link> does not look legit. there are 175,760 possible permutations of coupon codes, which looks to me they are trying to brute-force which coupon codes work. i'm not downloading a copy.
20-line python valentine's day gift from totalfinder
it created coupon codes for free licenses to totalfinder e.g.<link> does not look legit. there are 175,760 possible permutations of coupon codes, which looks to me they are trying to brute-force which coupon codes work. i'm not downloading a copy.
hi guys, totalfinder creator here :-) and yes, i did not create that script.first, big thanks to some hn guys to ping me so early. i had to shut down my coupon-based links for the time being.anyways i should thank those hackers, it looks someone did a promo action to my software here on hn ;-)
20-line python valentine's day gift from totalfinder
hi guys, totalfinder creator here :-) and yes, i did not create that script.first, big thanks to some hn guys to ping me so early. i had to shut down my coupon-based links for the time being.anyways i should thank those hackers, it looks someone did a promo action to my software here on hn ;-)
seems like this python code is generating "working free licenses" for totalfinder.
benefits of a git-backed blog
i'm just about to switch over from movabletype to github pages <link> . they use jekyll <link> to publish text, html or markdown. so far it's pretty awesome.the benefits of this particular setup include:* all articles are under version control* just do a `push` to publish* easily run a local jekyll server to preview articles* use a real programmer's text editor (not some web form)* markdown is the best for tech articles* write, preview and commit while offline* code syntax highlighting* integration of snippets (gists)* variable layouts for different page types* pages are static so are served fast* easy to add comments with disqus et al* easily port your content anywhere* keep images and other binary content alongside textwhich reminds me - dear $deity, when is hn going to support markdown?!
there is a simple rule of thumb about unix tools: when you are in need of a -f or --force parameter, most likely something is wrong and you should rethink what you are doing.even more so if the tool in question refuses to do anything unless -f is given.that said, i'm glad to see that the op took this as a learning experience and not as a reason for posting a long-winded rant about why git should be considered harmful
benefits of a git-backed blog
there is a simple rule of thumb about unix tools: when you are in need of a -f or --force parameter, most likely something is wrong and you should rethink what you are doing.even more so if the tool in question refuses to do anything unless -f is given.that said, i'm glad to see that the op took this as a learning experience and not as a reason for posting a long-winded rant about why git should be considered harmful
2 i started to get a feeling this wasn't right, and so i googled around for a way to undo the add.at that moment, the easiest way would have been to "rm -r .git". as git stores all its metadata in that hidden directory, this is a safe way to undo the creation of a repository.
benefits of a git-backed blog
2 i started to get a feeling this wasn't right, and so i googled around for a way to undo the add.at that moment, the easiest way would have been to "rm -r .git". as git stores all its metadata in that hidden directory, this is a safe way to undo the creation of a repository.
sorry, but you didn'tblist any benefits, other than teaching you git. what about versioning your articles, distributed backups etc?
benefits of a git-backed blog
sorry, but you didn'tblist any benefits, other than teaching you git. what about versioning your articles, distributed backups etc?
i wonder if this was posted more for the "how i blew away my home directory with git" anecdote than anything else.
ask hn: how do you get over the fear of launching? i seem to have a fear of launching to the public. i have been doing customer development and i am about to do a private beta. but the thought of going public really scares me. i've analysed this fear and it seems to me that its a combination of the following:<p>1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle.<p>2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster.<p>3. fear of the product not being polished enough.<p>4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site.<p>5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind.<p>6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site.<p>7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome.<p>how do i get over my fears?
realize how you can reduce your fears to nothing.21. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle.you pay your lawyer to figure that out. if you get a c8d figure out then what your solution is, don't pre-optimize.22. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster.then you just have to advertise. or, you'll realize you designed this in a bubble and you never had any users to begin with. at that point you've learned something.2 3. fear of the product not being polished enough.or it's so shiny right now that the glare is pretty bad. that's why it's called a minimum viable product. if you put another 100 hours into polish, why does that even matter if you end up iterating and tossing the existing ui. or you could have used those 100 hours to make the awesome new feature that all your users are clamoring for.2 4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site.a/b testing. you didn't design this in a bubble, right? there's obviously some value that you're looking for. and if those people bounce, don't spend too much effort because they're not your target customer. there's an argument for pushing higher conversions on a limited market segment rather than trying to convert a lower percentage of all visitors.2 5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind.learning opportunity! if they're unknown what are you afraid of? you don't know it, so how can you think of it to be afraid of it?2 6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site.backups solve that one. or you can get something like codeguard, which monitors your site for code modifications.2 7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome.why do you need an exhaustive list? have you at least thought of the most likely scenarios? if something comes out of the blue it's because of your #5, and you can't ever predict for something that you don't know is coming. but if you have the most likely scenarios covered you can plan for how to work with those results.
i know exactly what you mean. i'm going to assume you are a single founder - like me.there's a lot of pressure to succeed, that you feel before launch, but what i found useful is to look at what exactly do you mean by "launch". i discovered (more like realised) that launch can mean "opening up your site to the public", which i did. but then it struck me that even though it is available, you are never really launched until you start to market the thing. why? because - and here's the crucial bit - nobody knows it's there!so i just opened up the project, and guess what, all the fears went away. i'm not really sure why, but i think it's because if someone does stumble upon it it no longer matterswhat they think because i haven't formally started the promotion effort. sure if they give me feedback that's all good, but that's something else.now i think i understand the sentiment about iteration to make improvements and failing fast that were not clear to me before i opened it to the public.
ask hn: how do you get over the fear of launching? i seem to have a fear of launching to the public. i have been doing customer development and i am about to do a private beta. but the thought of going public really scares me. i've analysed this fear and it seems to me that its a combination of the following:<p>1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle.<p>2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster.<p>3. fear of the product not being polished enough.<p>4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site.<p>5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind.<p>6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site.<p>7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome.<p>how do i get over my fears?
i know exactly what you mean. i'm going to assume you are a single founder - like me.there's a lot of pressure to succeed, that you feel before launch, but what i found useful is to look at what exactly do you mean by "launch". i discovered (more like realised) that launch can mean "opening up your site to the public", which i did. but then it struck me that even though it is available, you are never really launched until you start to market the thing. why? because - and here's the crucial bit - nobody knows it's there!so i just opened up the project, and guess what, all the fears went away. i'm not really sure why, but i think it's because if someone does stumble upon it it no longer matterswhat they think because i haven't formally started the promotion effort. sure if they give me feedback that's all good, but that's something else.now i think i understand the sentiment about iteration to make improvements and failing fast that were not clear to me before i opened it to the public.
i have a product i have been working on off and on for 2 years, and have been working full time on for the last few months. i have asked myself many of these same questions. beta launch day has been delayed 3 times. why? mainly because i know that as many things as there are right with it, the clever people of hn will no doubt point out a dozen important things i should of done before launching but after reading all this you know what? screw it, i am launching. i'll figure out all the stuff i missed when people point fingers. expect to see a hn post sometime in the next week or so linking to a new type of search platform. ^_^
ask hn: how do you get over the fear of launching? i seem to have a fear of launching to the public. i have been doing customer development and i am about to do a private beta. but the thought of going public really scares me. i've analysed this fear and it seems to me that its a combination of the following:<p>1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle.<p>2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster.<p>3. fear of the product not being polished enough.<p>4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site.<p>5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind.<p>6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site.<p>7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome.<p>how do i get over my fears?
i have a product i have been working on off and on for 2 years, and have been working full time on for the last few months. i have asked myself many of these same questions. beta launch day has been delayed 3 times. why? mainly because i know that as many things as there are right with it, the clever people of hn will no doubt point out a dozen important things i should of done before launching but after reading all this you know what? screw it, i am launching. i'll figure out all the stuff i missed when people point fingers. expect to see a hn post sometime in the next week or so linking to a new type of search platform. ^_^
1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle. 2 unless you're doing something that could cause legal issues worry about this when and if site gets some traction. obviously, i don't know what your site does so take this answer w/ a grain of salt.2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster. 2 if nobody uses your service and someone comes along and does it better than no one will ever know you tried it first.3. fear of the product not being polished enough. 2 if you are passionate it will never be polished enough. just make sure it doesn't break if 10 users hit it up at the same time.4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site. 2 you can't please everyone. find and target your core audience.5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind. 2 this fear is just a part of launching something new.6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site. 2if you're site isn't known this probably won't happen.7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome. 2 its impossible to know every outcome. you will learn as you go.no matter what, its all about learning. you have nothing to lose. good luck.
ask hn: how do you get over the fear of launching? i seem to have a fear of launching to the public. i have been doing customer development and i am about to do a private beta. but the thought of going public really scares me. i've analysed this fear and it seems to me that its a combination of the following:<p>1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle.<p>2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster.<p>3. fear of the product not being polished enough.<p>4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site.<p>5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind.<p>6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site.<p>7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome.<p>how do i get over my fears?
1. fear of not having thought of ever legal angle. 2 unless you're doing something that could cause legal issues worry about this when and if site gets some traction. obviously, i don't know what your site does so take this answer w/ a grain of salt.2. fear of no one using my website. and then someone else coming along and beating me in this area and making me look stupid and like friendster. 2 if nobody uses your service and someone comes along and does it better than no one will ever know you tried it first.3. fear of the product not being polished enough. 2 if you are passionate it will never be polished enough. just make sure it doesn't break if 10 users hit it up at the same time.4. fear of rejection from lots of people at first look which leads to people never coming back to the site. 2 you can't please everyone. find and target your core audience.5. fear of knowing that there are unknown unknowns which will come at time of launch and bite me in the behind. 2 this fear is just a part of launching something new.6. a hacker or spammer will take down my site. 2if you're site isn't known this probably won't happen.7. fear of the fact that i havent thought of every possible outcome. 2 its impossible to know every outcome. you will learn as you go.no matter what, its all about learning. you have nothing to lose. good luck.
just launch. go along with what happens and if you fail, well, you've learned something, right? also, keep in mind that it took many, many startups weeks, months, or even years to gain traction. airbnb had been active for years and was just about to shut its doors when it suddenly exploded with activity and popularity. facebook wasn't the social networking giant it was years ago when it was just a school social network (only had students on it). stay positive and don't overstress yourself like i did.
sec moves toward allowing crowdfunding ipos
i'm really excited that we've made it to this point. the implementation of the full jobs act has been on the horizon for over a year and i think it has a lot of potential to do good.that said, i'm nervous about overzealous regulations. there are a few ways this can create severe enough adverse selection that healthy, high-caliber companies will avoid raising from the unaccredited crowd.i'm still reading the details in the 585 page pdf of proposed rules but some concerns come to mind: - capping the whole round to $1m - forcing unnecessary financial disclosures - inability to use a single purpose fund for aggregating small investors (forcing every unaccredited to be a direct investor) i believe these are all feel-good but destructive rules that will poison the unaccredited crowdinvesting ecosystem. at wefunder we've learned a lot about what it takes to get high caliber startups to use our platform and i'm pretty confident that those three things can each be deal breakers.if you're a part of the startup ecosystem i encourage you to pay attention to this law, get informed, and give the sec your feedback. these are only -proposed- rules and the sec will listen and adapt (at least, they have in the past). someday you may want to raise money or invest in a company!
to make a public comment: <link>;rul...
sec moves toward allowing crowdfunding ipos
to make a public comment: <link>;rul...
the whole limit on how much you can invest looks silly to me. when it comes to investing in high growth startups, government thinks : &quot;poor people are dumb and we need to protect them from their own mistakes&quot;.where was this rule when greedy banks sold them expensive mortgages ?
sec moves toward allowing crowdfunding ipos
the whole limit on how much you can invest looks silly to me. when it comes to investing in high growth startups, government thinks : &quot;poor people are dumb and we need to protect them from their own mistakes&quot;.where was this rule when greedy banks sold them expensive mortgages ?
but the sec won't allow ordinary americans to invest in much safer ftse flotations for example say the royal mail float that just happened.floated at £3.30 now £5.30 in not much more than a week.
sec moves toward allowing crowdfunding ipos
but the sec won't allow ordinary americans to invest in much safer ftse flotations for example say the royal mail float that just happened.floated at £3.30 now £5.30 in not much more than a week.
we've had equity crowdfunding in the uk for a while now. the two platforms i hear about most often are seedrs ($3.2m invested) and crowdcube ($23.3m).for example, pixelpin - <link> - raised $240k at a $2.4m valation: <link>
ask hn: competing with ebay and craigslist? i want to build a new marketplace which is like a combination of ebay and craigslist.<p>here's why: - everything on craigslist is anonymous which makes it difficult to trust the person that you're buying from. plus by removing anonymity it makes it easier to fight spam. (and a lot of other issues regarding user experience, etc.) for example, i believe a real time messaging system would really improve the way people use it and make it more like a real marketplace.<p>- i also think there are some innovation still left in the auctions. it might be a good idea to have a central auction system and build apps based on it for different kinds of categories, so you have different and adapted ui for different categories. also, it might be possible to make it free for buyers and sellers (without taking any cut from them like ebay) and use some ads that don't clutter the website.<p>i realize that it's probably impossible to compete with these 2 companies given the network effects and competing with them isn't justified by some extra features.<p>so i'm wondering if you have any suggestions to give me ? do you think it's worth doing this project ?<p>on a side note, let's say you were to build something similar, which kind of technology would you use ? would you consider scala/play or c#/mvc ?<p>thanks.
it's possible to compete, but to quote ben horowitz, you need to be not just better, but many times better, to avoid the inertia of people using the status quo. to that end, i suggest you consider going the etsy route and catering to a specialist market, building your product out, and then expanding. taking on ebay in a frontal attack is doomed to failure.i like the messaging idea - build that into your support side as well, possibly by crowdsourcing and rewarding loyal users. and i also like the ability to flag on craigslist which is seriously missing on ebay. user-driven tagging would be a boon; i trade synthesizers/audio gear fairly frequently on ebay and nothing is more irritating that searching for a synth and getting pages of accessories that mention that device in the headline or text. i loathe and despise seller spam.tech stack, i have no ideas.
for what it is worth i always had some thoughts on combining ebay (community driven consumer to consumer framework) with craigslist (emphasis on the "barter" section) with a little old school amazon vibe (focus on books, movies, music, ect...)1. a user would create an account and register book "a" and identify what they are willing to trade for, say, book "b" or movie "a".2. obviously, users could barter directly among themselves book "a" for book "b". however, with a large enough community you could have algorithms suggest trades on mass scale - now it is no longer user a trades book "a" with user b who has book "b", but now user a can get book "c" from user c and user c can get book "b" from user b and user b can get book "a" from a. the algorithm might conduct these large trades weekly or monthly.3. what if user "a" does not send book "a"? the ebay like community will encourage feed back and member rankings - allowing you to create settings to only accept trades from people with "x" ranking. or in the short term - have members put in a $10-$20 deposit that will be forfeited any user that does not receive the trade.
ask hn: competing with ebay and craigslist? i want to build a new marketplace which is like a combination of ebay and craigslist.<p>here's why: - everything on craigslist is anonymous which makes it difficult to trust the person that you're buying from. plus by removing anonymity it makes it easier to fight spam. (and a lot of other issues regarding user experience, etc.) for example, i believe a real time messaging system would really improve the way people use it and make it more like a real marketplace.<p>- i also think there are some innovation still left in the auctions. it might be a good idea to have a central auction system and build apps based on it for different kinds of categories, so you have different and adapted ui for different categories. also, it might be possible to make it free for buyers and sellers (without taking any cut from them like ebay) and use some ads that don't clutter the website.<p>i realize that it's probably impossible to compete with these 2 companies given the network effects and competing with them isn't justified by some extra features.<p>so i'm wondering if you have any suggestions to give me ? do you think it's worth doing this project ?<p>on a side note, let's say you were to build something similar, which kind of technology would you use ? would you consider scala/play or c#/mvc ?<p>thanks.
for what it is worth i always had some thoughts on combining ebay (community driven consumer to consumer framework) with craigslist (emphasis on the "barter" section) with a little old school amazon vibe (focus on books, movies, music, ect...)1. a user would create an account and register book "a" and identify what they are willing to trade for, say, book "b" or movie "a".2. obviously, users could barter directly among themselves book "a" for book "b". however, with a large enough community you could have algorithms suggest trades on mass scale - now it is no longer user a trades book "a" with user b who has book "b", but now user a can get book "c" from user c and user c can get book "b" from user b and user b can get book "a" from a. the algorithm might conduct these large trades weekly or monthly.3. what if user "a" does not send book "a"? the ebay like community will encourage feed back and member rankings - allowing you to create settings to only accept trades from people with "x" ranking. or in the short term - have members put in a $10-$20 deposit that will be forfeited any user that does not receive the trade.
shameless plug to my own version that i made. i tried to add some innovation to the auction process and a few other things. www.tradespring.net. you can read more on the about page. btw, if you are looking for a niche market, i suggest coin trading/collection. there are no real good solutions for them out there, although the were reluctant every time i tried to pitch tradespring
ask hn: competing with ebay and craigslist? i want to build a new marketplace which is like a combination of ebay and craigslist.<p>here's why: - everything on craigslist is anonymous which makes it difficult to trust the person that you're buying from. plus by removing anonymity it makes it easier to fight spam. (and a lot of other issues regarding user experience, etc.) for example, i believe a real time messaging system would really improve the way people use it and make it more like a real marketplace.<p>- i also think there are some innovation still left in the auctions. it might be a good idea to have a central auction system and build apps based on it for different kinds of categories, so you have different and adapted ui for different categories. also, it might be possible to make it free for buyers and sellers (without taking any cut from them like ebay) and use some ads that don't clutter the website.<p>i realize that it's probably impossible to compete with these 2 companies given the network effects and competing with them isn't justified by some extra features.<p>so i'm wondering if you have any suggestions to give me ? do you think it's worth doing this project ?<p>on a side note, let's say you were to build something similar, which kind of technology would you use ? would you consider scala/play or c#/mvc ?<p>thanks.
shameless plug to my own version that i made. i tried to add some innovation to the auction process and a few other things. www.tradespring.net. you can read more on the about page. btw, if you are looking for a niche market, i suggest coin trading/collection. there are no real good solutions for them out there, although the were reluctant every time i tried to pitch tradespring
i'm not convinced there's a real problem that you're trying to solve here. what's an example of something you were going to buy on craigslist but didn't because of trust issues ?a substantial part of the second-hand car market is done via anonymous classified, and they're probably the highest ticket item regularly sold on classifieds.the next tier down is probably electronics, bikes, etc. where a substantial part of the market is stolen goods, where for obvious reasons the sellers aren't going to want identification.
ask hn: competing with ebay and craigslist? i want to build a new marketplace which is like a combination of ebay and craigslist.<p>here's why: - everything on craigslist is anonymous which makes it difficult to trust the person that you're buying from. plus by removing anonymity it makes it easier to fight spam. (and a lot of other issues regarding user experience, etc.) for example, i believe a real time messaging system would really improve the way people use it and make it more like a real marketplace.<p>- i also think there are some innovation still left in the auctions. it might be a good idea to have a central auction system and build apps based on it for different kinds of categories, so you have different and adapted ui for different categories. also, it might be possible to make it free for buyers and sellers (without taking any cut from them like ebay) and use some ads that don't clutter the website.<p>i realize that it's probably impossible to compete with these 2 companies given the network effects and competing with them isn't justified by some extra features.<p>so i'm wondering if you have any suggestions to give me ? do you think it's worth doing this project ?<p>on a side note, let's say you were to build something similar, which kind of technology would you use ? would you consider scala/play or c#/mvc ?<p>thanks.
i'm not convinced there's a real problem that you're trying to solve here. what's an example of something you were going to buy on craigslist but didn't because of trust issues ?a substantial part of the second-hand car market is done via anonymous classified, and they're probably the highest ticket item regularly sold on classifieds.the next tier down is probably electronics, bikes, etc. where a substantial part of the market is stolen goods, where for obvious reasons the sellers aren't going to want identification.
the internet graveyard is full of the bodies of people making "craigslist killers." i'd really like to see one, but it is a much harder task than it seems
ask hn: i'm resigning soon, any suggestions what to build on my own? this summer i decided to take some time off - the last two weeks of august - and spend them at home doing nothing. the experience of freedom from office work was so wonderful that i want more of it!<p>this monday, immediately upon returning, i told my boss i'll be resigning in about three months. (that's a reasonable grace period because the job happens to be my all-time favorite - <link> - plus i happen to be the lead client-side dev, and the boss happens to be my schoolmate.) same day i told my landlord i'll be moving away in a month to find a cheaper apartment. there's some money stashed from previous odd jobs that will last me several months at least.<p>so freedom is ahead, now what? starting a startup would be the logical course of action... except i've never had a burning desire to make a lot of money, and business ideas don't pop into my head by themselves. so i'm turning to you for suggestions.<p>(personal background: the hn community may remember me from my project <link> that was discussed on hn a year ago or so. i know my math and can program passably well in most languages used in the industry and some exotic ones.)
i know exactly how you feel. i was recently laid off for 5 weeks and worked full-time on my startup. working from home was so awesome... <link> that said, here are my thoughts.first of all, you're lucky if you enjoy your job and work with friends. i would strongly suggest that you see if you can work part-time while you "do your own thing", with a possibility of coming back full-time, should you ever "come to your senses".with no plan, no idea, no help and no anything, i don't see how you can support yourself past "several months at least". one remedy is to find a fledgling startup to join. it's risky without knowing the other founders well, but it could be good experience.my #1 recommendation for you is to read the following links:<link>, the idea is to verify that your idea can actually make money before you write one line of code. since you're probably heavy on tech and light on customer development, use this time to learn and experiment. i'm not telling you this as a know-it-all, i'm telling you this as someone who wishes they would have done it years ago.good luck with whatever you choose to do.edit: spelling
here's a serious idea.an sms-based/ mobile app that will help me and my family encourage each other to work out.for example, when i come back for a run, i would text in "just ran 5 miles" and my parents and sister would get the text /email/ twitter update and perhaps be encouraged to exercise as well!some other functionality could be showing me trends of my workouts (think nike+ on iphones) vis a vis my other family members, or sms updates ("your son said you should go for a run!").the problem is that people in this country are getting fatter every day, and could use motivation to work out. support and ecouragement from family and friends might be the most effective source of motivation.thoughts?
ask hn: i'm resigning soon, any suggestions what to build on my own? this summer i decided to take some time off - the last two weeks of august - and spend them at home doing nothing. the experience of freedom from office work was so wonderful that i want more of it!<p>this monday, immediately upon returning, i told my boss i'll be resigning in about three months. (that's a reasonable grace period because the job happens to be my all-time favorite - <link> - plus i happen to be the lead client-side dev, and the boss happens to be my schoolmate.) same day i told my landlord i'll be moving away in a month to find a cheaper apartment. there's some money stashed from previous odd jobs that will last me several months at least.<p>so freedom is ahead, now what? starting a startup would be the logical course of action... except i've never had a burning desire to make a lot of money, and business ideas don't pop into my head by themselves. so i'm turning to you for suggestions.<p>(personal background: the hn community may remember me from my project <link> that was discussed on hn a year ago or so. i know my math and can program passably well in most languages used in the industry and some exotic ones.)
here's a serious idea.an sms-based/ mobile app that will help me and my family encourage each other to work out.for example, when i come back for a run, i would text in "just ran 5 miles" and my parents and sister would get the text /email/ twitter update and perhaps be encouraged to exercise as well!some other functionality could be showing me trends of my workouts (think nike+ on iphones) vis a vis my other family members, or sms updates ("your son said you should go for a run!").the problem is that people in this country are getting fatter every day, and could use motivation to work out. support and ecouragement from family and friends might be the most effective source of motivation.thoughts?
here's 30 ideas: <link>
ask hn: i'm resigning soon, any suggestions what to build on my own? this summer i decided to take some time off - the last two weeks of august - and spend them at home doing nothing. the experience of freedom from office work was so wonderful that i want more of it!<p>this monday, immediately upon returning, i told my boss i'll be resigning in about three months. (that's a reasonable grace period because the job happens to be my all-time favorite - <link> - plus i happen to be the lead client-side dev, and the boss happens to be my schoolmate.) same day i told my landlord i'll be moving away in a month to find a cheaper apartment. there's some money stashed from previous odd jobs that will last me several months at least.<p>so freedom is ahead, now what? starting a startup would be the logical course of action... except i've never had a burning desire to make a lot of money, and business ideas don't pop into my head by themselves. so i'm turning to you for suggestions.<p>(personal background: the hn community may remember me from my project <link> that was discussed on hn a year ago or so. i know my math and can program passably well in most languages used in the industry and some exotic ones.)
here's 30 ideas: <link>
having never done this myself, i have to ask: shouldn't the normal order of process be: 1) have an idea, 2) quit job to work on it full time, 3) profit! it seems to me like your #1 and #2 are swapped. that doesn't mean it won't work out for you, though. :)
ask hn: i'm resigning soon, any suggestions what to build on my own? this summer i decided to take some time off - the last two weeks of august - and spend them at home doing nothing. the experience of freedom from office work was so wonderful that i want more of it!<p>this monday, immediately upon returning, i told my boss i'll be resigning in about three months. (that's a reasonable grace period because the job happens to be my all-time favorite - <link> - plus i happen to be the lead client-side dev, and the boss happens to be my schoolmate.) same day i told my landlord i'll be moving away in a month to find a cheaper apartment. there's some money stashed from previous odd jobs that will last me several months at least.<p>so freedom is ahead, now what? starting a startup would be the logical course of action... except i've never had a burning desire to make a lot of money, and business ideas don't pop into my head by themselves. so i'm turning to you for suggestions.<p>(personal background: the hn community may remember me from my project <link> that was discussed on hn a year ago or so. i know my math and can program passably well in most languages used in the industry and some exotic ones.)
having never done this myself, i have to ask: shouldn't the normal order of process be: 1) have an idea, 2) quit job to work on it full time, 3) profit! it seems to me like your #1 and #2 are swapped. that doesn't mean it won't work out for you, though. :)
like others, i'm not really going to answer the question you asked, but instead offer unsolicited advice on the decision you've made.being at home doing nothing is fun, but realize that you'll be at home working your ass off. if it was the "doing nothing" part that was most interesting to you then a startup may not be as much fun as you're currently anticipating.also, i don't know what your financial situation is, but "several months" of savings doesn't sound like a whole lot if you're just starting from scratch now. it could likely take longer than that to get ramen profitable.just some background, i was in a somewhat similar situation last year. the new startup/project i quit my job for was something that i had been working on part-time for 3 years before that. even with that head start, my initial revenue was only about 10% of what i had projected/hoped for. it's still steadily growing and could be ramen profitable in the next year or two, but i just wanted to share my experience to let you know that financially it could be harder and longer than you think. it was for me.
php's ob_start() pre-allocates 40k memory per call
if i'm reading the php source correctly, in 5.4 this is changed to 16kb (this entire code block seems to have been rewritten):<link> #define php_output_handler_default_size 0x4000
i always treated output buffering/capturing like eval- if you have to use it, you need to question yourself carefully as to "why" and if there is a better way.
php's ob_start() pre-allocates 40k memory per call
i always treated output buffering/capturing like eval- if you have to use it, you need to question yourself carefully as to "why" and if there is a better way.
it would surely be great if the php docs would include such information right where the function is described.
php's ob_start() pre-allocates 40k memory per call
it would surely be great if the php docs would include such information right where the function is described.
why on earth are you trying to buffer 1-2k?
php's ob_start() pre-allocates 40k memory per call
why on earth are you trying to buffer 1-2k?
the more usual solution for growable buffers is to start small and just double each time you hit the limit, not grow it by a static amount. people have tried a lot of different strategies, but there don't seem to be any that work much better for general purpose use.
a public cloud taking a stand against government intrusion
again, we are not the police and not a court of law. authorities can and do require access to customer data from time to time in a way justified by local law; we comply with the law in those cases.really?! and what are you suggesting your principled stance is going to be when they shove a law in your face that violates and contradicts another law or an edict or the us constitution you grew up believing was sacrosanct?the problem is that they make any law they want to make, then keep it secret. then they enforce the law they just made, forcing you into a position where you either have to give them the middle finger or subject your business to the possibility of being shut down - legally. should you decide you want to challenge the enforcement of a law you believe is illegal, on behalf of one of your customers, you can't tell the press, you can't have an open proceeding in view of public scrutiny, and you can't inform your customer of the challenge. when the ruling eventually comes down (from a court who's sworn to as much secrecy as the agency you were fighting), you aren't even allowed to share that with anyone either.i applaud what you probably believe is a line in the sand. but we can't even get to the real debate of privacy until we are allowed to challenge the very instruments that lay claim to authority over us... in public. it's that simple.
excellent points. one other thing i'd like to see is a commitment to notify customers to the extent permitted by any court orders and to fight for additional notification rights (as twitter has done).we have set-up our corporate structure so that each cloud location is managed by a local company and therefore subject only to that jurisdiction (our holding company is swiss and unlike us holding companies it has no concept of extra-territorial jurisdiction, if that were to change, we'd change holding company, it is that simple).ianal, but this seems a very significant point. however, i wonder if the us claims jurisdiction on the parent company if there's a us-based subsidiary?
a public cloud taking a stand against government intrusion
excellent points. one other thing i'd like to see is a commitment to notify customers to the extent permitted by any court orders and to fight for additional notification rights (as twitter has done).we have set-up our corporate structure so that each cloud location is managed by a local company and therefore subject only to that jurisdiction (our holding company is swiss and unlike us holding companies it has no concept of extra-territorial jurisdiction, if that were to change, we'd change holding company, it is that simple).ianal, but this seems a very significant point. however, i wonder if the us claims jurisdiction on the parent company if there's a us-based subsidiary?
of course, the majority of these feature are shared by most or all of the very &quot;biggest competitor&quot; cloud providers they are comparing themselves with, and in many cases more effectively than this tiny company possibly can. so that's a bit misleading, to claim these as competitive advantages.the corporate structure point is interesting, but i'm skeptical about its legal efficacy.the part that's most interesting to me is the part of #1 where they say &quot;sole root/administrative access&quot; and &quot;we have no file system level access&quot;. is this actually technically possible, given that it's not just storage (obligatory props to tarsnap!), but actual computing? i mean, i know that there are encryption schemes that allow you to do certain particular kinds of transformation on the encrypted data without unencrypting it... but isn't it impossible to do what they say, run a generalized iaas/paas, without being able to see your data?in summary, is there a single competitive advantage here this is all of * actually a competitive difference, and * is actually possible, and * actually has any effect ?
a public cloud taking a stand against government intrusion
of course, the majority of these feature are shared by most or all of the very &quot;biggest competitor&quot; cloud providers they are comparing themselves with, and in many cases more effectively than this tiny company possibly can. so that's a bit misleading, to claim these as competitive advantages.the corporate structure point is interesting, but i'm skeptical about its legal efficacy.the part that's most interesting to me is the part of #1 where they say &quot;sole root/administrative access&quot; and &quot;we have no file system level access&quot;. is this actually technically possible, given that it's not just storage (obligatory props to tarsnap!), but actual computing? i mean, i know that there are encryption schemes that allow you to do certain particular kinds of transformation on the encrypted data without unencrypting it... but isn't it impossible to do what they say, run a generalized iaas/paas, without being able to see your data?in summary, is there a single competitive advantage here this is all of * actually a competitive difference, and * is actually possible, and * actually has any effect ?
the blog post claims that they only accept https on a page that is not served over https: <link>
a public cloud taking a stand against government intrusion
the blog post claims that they only accept https on a page that is not served over https: <link>
<link>
facebook removing option to be unsearchable by name
i feel like there is something bigger in play. all the various from state access to &quot;private&quot; communications, social networks becoming more public and all the different miscellaneous privacy issues are all different aspects or consequences of the thing.the move towards complete availability of all digital information seems to be a force of history. privacy advocates are beginning to sound like copyright advocates, demanding that the universe continue providing for them in the manner to which they have grown accustomed.like copyright/ip, privacy is more about use getting used to (and in some cases legislating) how things happen to be, not predesigned or derived from first principle rules or morality. if 99% of your existence occurs within a community of 150 people, very little is private. when you live in a 20th center city, you get a lot of anonymity. you can keep private life (even several of these) separate from your professional life. etc. those were just inevitable consequences of how those societies were structured.the internet was at first an anonymous place. pre-2000 most people seemed to share the feeling that if their real name found its way to the world wide web, serial killers would come. then 2000-2005 people started keeping online diaries, online photo libraries, online lots of personal information. facebook catalyzed this process with a semi private system of friends that matched what people were used to in their normal lives.the force of history that is 'all your data available to everyone everywhere' feels unstoppable. data is data. it doesn't care if it's an email, sms, baby photo or gps log. it doesn't get deleted.maybe &quot;information wants to be free&quot; was an understatement.i feel very awkward trying to describe this, a clear sign that i don't understand it. i wish pg joel spolsky, chris anderson (or ideally, douglas adams - i really wish we still had him) or someone else who's good at this sort of abstract thing would write a good piece on it.
that's cute. guess there's always one other option, for people that don't want to/can't let themselves be searchable by namedelete's facebook account
facebook removing option to be unsearchable by name
that's cute. guess there's always one other option, for people that don't want to/can't let themselves be searchable by namedelete's facebook account
i cannot wait until we get founders / decision makers at these social network companies that have to hide from an abusive spouse / ex so that safety of users might be somewhat of a priority.the &quot;well, don't use it&quot; response is utter crap given how many real life functions are being tied into these social networks.
facebook removing option to be unsearchable by name
i cannot wait until we get founders / decision makers at these social network companies that have to hide from an abusive spouse / ex so that safety of users might be somewhat of a priority.the &quot;well, don't use it&quot; response is utter crap given how many real life functions are being tied into these social networks.
many people are suggesting that we delete our profiles. don't, if you ask me. i will explain.1) because, certain information can be considered valuable - for example old comments from friends/family on relevant photos, semi-private get-togethers/events, etc. because all these can be considered as good memory/archives of your personal life and the stuff that reminds people of their relationship with you. for me i consider, these valuable, so it's a no no to delete my profile as i will end up losing these. i can technically take a back up if i want, but who opens their backed up index.html once a week, if not daily?however, leaving your profile undeleted means you lose a lot of privacy. so how am i going to hide my profile if it's publicly searchable?first, understand that your live profile is not only searchable, but also indexable by google.facebook also hands over the stuff you 'like' to search engines. so, you now like a famous pornstar's fan page/even her post? well, good luck getting it removed from google!all i need to do to find out what you've liked on facebook is search for your name in quotes: &quot;&lt;insert your name here&gt;&quot; or even: site:<link> &quot;&lt;insert name here&gt;&quot; while this heavily depends on the uniqueness of your name, it also means that it sucks if you are a professional seeking a job or in a similar situation and all google returns for querying your name is a list of pornstars you've liked on facebook. pornstars are probably an over-rated example, but in many cases it could really be awkward - your views against a particular ideology (feminism/masculism/atheism, for example) and sensitive stuff like that. because if you like something, it means you &quot;support it&quot;. that's how it's perceived, atleast.2) so, back to my point. deleting is too extreme. why? because deleting also makes you lose control of what's out there. if i am correct, i've observed in the past that even deleted profiles are not actually deleted, but are assigned an empty profile with just your name and the default profile picture and this stuff is still sent to search engines. so, if you delete your profile, you lose control over this.what i may suggest doing is temporarily deactivate your profile (there's an option for this.). this will actually make your profile totally invisible (from search and indexing) and also from my observations, temporarily un-index you from search engines. this is good because you still have control over your profile, you own your data and search engine visibility.so, what i technically do is, login into facebook to check what my friends are upto, say once or twice a month, and then deactivate it. for example, i like to keep additional family and friends separate and hence i maintain multiple additional profiles for them, distinctive from my main profile, instead of using facebook's unreliably stupid privacy system (circles). now, i wouldn't want my friends to discover my family profile and vice versa. then, there's the list of dudes whom i will never want to add me, ever. so, maintaining multiple profiles also, helps me maintain a fake presence on facebook, while also masking my search engine visibility of my real profile with the fake profiles. this works well for me, ymmv. so, just think twice before deleting your profile.cheers.
facebook removing option to be unsearchable by name
many people are suggesting that we delete our profiles. don't, if you ask me. i will explain.1) because, certain information can be considered valuable - for example old comments from friends/family on relevant photos, semi-private get-togethers/events, etc. because all these can be considered as good memory/archives of your personal life and the stuff that reminds people of their relationship with you. for me i consider, these valuable, so it's a no no to delete my profile as i will end up losing these. i can technically take a back up if i want, but who opens their backed up index.html once a week, if not daily?however, leaving your profile undeleted means you lose a lot of privacy. so how am i going to hide my profile if it's publicly searchable?first, understand that your live profile is not only searchable, but also indexable by google.facebook also hands over the stuff you 'like' to search engines. so, you now like a famous pornstar's fan page/even her post? well, good luck getting it removed from google!all i need to do to find out what you've liked on facebook is search for your name in quotes: &quot;&lt;insert your name here&gt;&quot; or even: site:<link> &quot;&lt;insert name here&gt;&quot; while this heavily depends on the uniqueness of your name, it also means that it sucks if you are a professional seeking a job or in a similar situation and all google returns for querying your name is a list of pornstars you've liked on facebook. pornstars are probably an over-rated example, but in many cases it could really be awkward - your views against a particular ideology (feminism/masculism/atheism, for example) and sensitive stuff like that. because if you like something, it means you &quot;support it&quot;. that's how it's perceived, atleast.2) so, back to my point. deleting is too extreme. why? because deleting also makes you lose control of what's out there. if i am correct, i've observed in the past that even deleted profiles are not actually deleted, but are assigned an empty profile with just your name and the default profile picture and this stuff is still sent to search engines. so, if you delete your profile, you lose control over this.what i may suggest doing is temporarily deactivate your profile (there's an option for this.). this will actually make your profile totally invisible (from search and indexing) and also from my observations, temporarily un-index you from search engines. this is good because you still have control over your profile, you own your data and search engine visibility.so, what i technically do is, login into facebook to check what my friends are upto, say once or twice a month, and then deactivate it. for example, i like to keep additional family and friends separate and hence i maintain multiple additional profiles for them, distinctive from my main profile, instead of using facebook's unreliably stupid privacy system (circles). now, i wouldn't want my friends to discover my family profile and vice versa. then, there's the list of dudes whom i will never want to add me, ever. so, maintaining multiple profiles also, helps me maintain a fake presence on facebook, while also masking my search engine visibility of my real profile with the fake profiles. this works well for me, ymmv. so, just think twice before deleting your profile.cheers.
i certainly support the argument that this type of option should be the users' choice, but i'm curious by how many people seem to want to subvert this so that they remain unsearchable.i use facebook so that i can connect with people i meet. if i don't exchange contact info with someone i meet, but they know my name, it's great for them to search and find me on facebook. i don't want my facebook connections to solely be people i choose to friend.i guess it boils down to how people use the service.real question: why do you have an account, but not want people to be able to find you?edit: thanks for the responses, some of them make a lot of sense that i didn't think of initially.
iphly, radio control with your iphone
i used to be into r/c everything. nitro cars, planes, helicopters. i can't imagine what would happen to my expensive toy if the app crashed while i was flying something and it took me a few seconds to get it back up... i would definitely use the buddy-box input.
flying manually is probably more fun and challenging but this opens the door to another world. consider if the rc device was better controlled by the software with auto correction like many commercial and military jets. this could allow for a much broader range of rc devices to be created that are much more difficult, if not impossible, to control.
iphly, radio control with your iphone
flying manually is probably more fun and challenging but this opens the door to another world. consider if the rc device was better controlled by the software with auto correction like many commercial and military jets. this could allow for a much broader range of rc devices to be created that are much more difficult, if not impossible, to control.
it's still kind of sad all of these homebrew projects need to use the serial-port-from-headphonejack hack to make it work.is there anyone out there that actually got a license from apple to use the dock api that can talk about it? there are development boards you can get from companies like cypress, but only if you're already in the program.
iphly, radio control with your iphone
it's still kind of sad all of these homebrew projects need to use the serial-port-from-headphonejack hack to make it work.is there anyone out there that actually got a license from apple to use the dock api that can talk about it? there are development boards you can get from companies like cypress, but only if you're already in the program.
considering how short the battery lifespan (or gas tank) of these rc devices are when in use, i don't think the battery consumption of the iphone is going to cause any problems. the only issue i'm seeing is control. i'm pretty sure it's harder to be accurate with an iphone than with a radio control, especially for such things as helicopters.
iphly, radio control with your iphone
considering how short the battery lifespan (or gas tank) of these rc devices are when in use, i don't think the battery consumption of the iphone is going to cause any problems. the only issue i'm seeing is control. i'm pretty sure it's harder to be accurate with an iphone than with a radio control, especially for such things as helicopters.
using the tilt sensor for flight control? one sneeze and an expensive model is destroyed. if i have experience with traditional rc flight transmitters, i have muscle memory in my thumbs for flying, and i can't use that here. no snark intended, best of luck to the op.
ask hn: what's the purpose of the resistor in this circuit? i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?<p>this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
it's a pull-down resistor.without it, when the temp sensor/thermistor was at infinite resistance, the arduino pin would essentially be floating, and you'd get erratic readings.a pull down resistor is usually proportionally very high resistance in relation to the sensor or other device that is the variable in the circuit.if it were tied to vcc, it would be a pull up resistor, but same concept.the idea behind it is that the pin is never just left "open". if there is no voltage coming through the sensor (temp sensor in this case), then the resistor pulls the pin to ground and you would get a reading of zero volts.you want the resistance of the pull-down (or pull-up) to be high, 10k-100k are typical values. voltage drops across all elements in a circuit, in proportion to that elements resistance in relation to the total circuit resistance.if the temp sensor ranged from 0k to 10k, and you used a 10k pull-down, then you would have a range of 5v-2.5v for readings at that pin. as you scale up the value of the pull-down resistor, you will get less voltage drop across that resistor, meaning that you have a wider voltage range at the input pin for the same temperature variance, which results in more precise readings.
as others have pointed out this is a voltage divider. but what's not been pointed out is that this type of voltage divider is not ideal because the load applied to the output voltage can alter the voltage itself. it's very important that the load applied draws very little current (i.e. has a high resistance/impedance) otherwise the voltage divider's output voltage changes.the best way around this is to use a voltage divider to produce a reference voltage and feed that into an op-amp that adds the reference voltage to the voltage coming from the device to be measured (in this case the thermistor).as an example of this see my blog posting on building a temperature probe for the olpc: <link>
ask hn: what's the purpose of the resistor in this circuit? i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?<p>this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
as others have pointed out this is a voltage divider. but what's not been pointed out is that this type of voltage divider is not ideal because the load applied to the output voltage can alter the voltage itself. it's very important that the load applied draws very little current (i.e. has a high resistance/impedance) otherwise the voltage divider's output voltage changes.the best way around this is to use a voltage divider to produce a reference voltage and feed that into an op-amp that adds the reference voltage to the voltage coming from the device to be measured (in this case the thermistor).as an example of this see my blog posting on building a temperature probe for the olpc: <link>
most simple answer i can give:if the resistor were replaced by a wire, the pin would always be connected to ground, rendering the thermistor irrelevant.if the resistor were removed and ground disconnected entirely, the pin would be connected, through the thermistor, to +5v, again rendering the thermistor mostly irrelevant.it needs to be part of a ratio of resistors in order to vary between 0 and +5v.
ask hn: what's the purpose of the resistor in this circuit? i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?<p>this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
most simple answer i can give:if the resistor were replaced by a wire, the pin would always be connected to ground, rendering the thermistor irrelevant.if the resistor were removed and ground disconnected entirely, the pin would be connected, through the thermistor, to +5v, again rendering the thermistor mostly irrelevant.it needs to be part of a ratio of resistors in order to vary between 0 and +5v.
i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
ask hn: what's the purpose of the resistor in this circuit? i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?<p>this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
i understand what circuits do a lot of times but i never understood why there's always a resistor even on simple circuits. and how do you decide when to use one, how do you know what resistance to use when designing a circuit?this really simple circuit illustrates my confusion.
i request you to look at it differently from all the other posts. this resistor is a constant current sink. albit a mediocre one. but its just a penny [a paisa in india] this thermister needs to sink a constant current in order to produce a temperature dependent voltage at its bottom leg. normally, about a milliamp does the trick.a resistor is a meiocre surrent sink because its own voltage drop is current dependent. these would be better choices [lot more expensive, but hugely more accurate] <link>, new delhi india
happypenguin.org: hard drive crash, a cautionary tale
for people who might check this link a few days/months later, here the text as of nov 8th:due to a hard drive failure which occurred at the same time as our backup system failed, the site is currently down. we expect to have full data recovery within the next few days. as of 9th oct 2010 the data recovery is still ongoing. we have been told to expect a result early next week, so crossed fingers, we are hoping to have service resumed on or around the 13th oct.as of 15th oct 2010 the data recovery is still ongoing. apparently the western digital hdd that died has corrupted itsown firmware, making it hard to extract the data from the disc. as such, we are beginning the process of backup recovery from our most recent tier 2 backups which are a few weeks out of date, but waiting on the tier 1 recovery is getting ridiculous. we plan on working over the weekend on this recovery, and hope to have more news for you shortly.as of 22nd oct 2010 data recovery is still ongoing. the western digital caviar green 2tb drive that failed has chemical degredation on the surface making the data recovery much slower and harder. all going well, we will have the older backups making sense soon, and will be back up to speed.as of nov 4th, we have been unable to bring the site back up yet, due to the discovery that the older backups bring brought online would end up with a number of users being unable to access their games due to copy protection issues. as such, rather than give any user a problem with their legally purchased game, we will be keeping the site down for the next few days while the final stages of data recovery are performed. all going well, we hope to be back up towards the start of next week.
the drive in question sounds like the 2tb bargain that new egg regularly offers deals on: (<link>'ve got three of these in a jbod server, running a couple of months without incident. they're cheap, quiet, and low-power. they're not high-performance, however, and not ideally suited to raid applications. also, given the new sector size you can get dreadful performance from them if you aren't careful in setting your partition boundaries.having suffered the consequences of ignoring data safety rules in the past, i now make a practice of having three copies of important data in at least two separate locations. i'm frankly astonished that there apparently wasn't a differential backup process at the company. i mean, a month's down time, wtf? these hard disks are pretty darn cheap backup media if you've got lots of data (e.g. video files), but after this item i'm wondering if biodiversity should be among my archive criteria.that the drives in question had "chemical degredation on the surface making the data recovery much slower and harder" is a puzzler to me. perhaps there's something about today's drive materials i'm unaware of, but my cya radar went off on that choice of words: someone screwed up during the recovery process would be my first suspicion.
happypenguin.org: hard drive crash, a cautionary tale
the drive in question sounds like the 2tb bargain that new egg regularly offers deals on: (<link>'ve got three of these in a jbod server, running a couple of months without incident. they're cheap, quiet, and low-power. they're not high-performance, however, and not ideally suited to raid applications. also, given the new sector size you can get dreadful performance from them if you aren't careful in setting your partition boundaries.having suffered the consequences of ignoring data safety rules in the past, i now make a practice of having three copies of important data in at least two separate locations. i'm frankly astonished that there apparently wasn't a differential backup process at the company. i mean, a month's down time, wtf? these hard disks are pretty darn cheap backup media if you've got lots of data (e.g. video files), but after this item i'm wondering if biodiversity should be among my archive criteria.that the drives in question had "chemical degredation on the surface making the data recovery much slower and harder" is a puzzler to me. perhaps there's something about today's drive materials i'm unaware of, but my cya radar went off on that choice of words: someone screwed up during the recovery process would be my first suspicion.
also: drm, a cautionary tale (unless i misunderstood what they mean by that - i don't know what did happypenguin.org actually offer):"older backups bring brought online would end up with a number of users being unable to access their games due to copy protection issues"
happypenguin.org: hard drive crash, a cautionary tale
also: drm, a cautionary tale (unless i misunderstood what they mean by that - i don't know what did happypenguin.org actually offer):"older backups bring brought online would end up with a number of users being unable to access their games due to copy protection issues"
ma.gnolia anyone? <link> our backups or replication fail i usually say we are at ma.gnolia threat level orange :)
happypenguin.org: hard drive crash, a cautionary tale
ma.gnolia anyone? <link> our backups or replication fail i usually say we are at ma.gnolia threat level orange :)
offsite backup services created by hners:<link> co-founded spideroak in 2006.)
is your site hsts enabled?
yes! and boy, it's not something you want to just enable without some thought.i enabled it on a site that works without host: inspection. http gets you site a, and https gets you site b. (different hostnames). this is obviously an odd arrangement, but it was working well for our little niche requirement.i enabled hsts in nginx while i was scrambling to do the heartbleed patch. i enabled all sorts of new age https options: hsts, cert stapling, heavier ciphersuites, et cetera.of course, the hsts started forcing all my http users on site a over to site b, and i looked quite the fool. (which is fair, because what i did was foolish and i deserved a little ridicule)it's a neat option and maybe even the base case allows for it, but think about it before you flip it on!
you almost never want to also include the subdomains, unless you have a wildcard ssl certificate.i made that mistake, couldn't reach any other subdomain of my site because only 1 was protected by ssl. clearing that hsts header information is not so easy..
is your site hsts enabled?
you almost never want to also include the subdomains, unless you have a wildcard ssl certificate.i made that mistake, couldn't reach any other subdomain of my site because only 1 was protected by ssl. clearing that hsts header information is not so easy..
sadly not, because i haven't yet understood the interaction of hsts and old plain-http urls.what happens when a browser goes to retrieve, say, an image at <link> but the server now enforces hsts and pulls-up tls?when i've tried this with a subsite the image fails to load, and i haven't yet had time to investigate why.perhaps i should just draw a line and let the old urls break.
is your site hsts enabled?
sadly not, because i haven't yet understood the interaction of hsts and old plain-http urls.what happens when a browser goes to retrieve, say, an image at <link> but the server now enforces hsts and pulls-up tls?when i've tried this with a subsite the image fails to load, and i haven't yet had time to investigate why.perhaps i should just draw a line and let the old urls break.
good to see the word is spreading about hsts. eff started pushing it earlier this month [1], with a perhaps fair claim that it's not widely known about by web developers.as the article shows it's pretty straightforward to setup; if you can add a response header to your app then you'll be able to figure out how to harden your app with hsts.for my fellow web developers who like to learn by video, i've tried to make an easily digested screencast and a page of sketch notes to help get the word out about hsts and explain what it protects against [2].[1] <link>[2] <link>
is your site hsts enabled?
good to see the word is spreading about hsts. eff started pushing it earlier this month [1], with a perhaps fair claim that it's not widely known about by web developers.as the article shows it's pretty straightforward to setup; if you can add a response header to your app then you'll be able to figure out how to harden your app with hsts.for my fellow web developers who like to learn by video, i've tried to make an easily digested screencast and a page of sketch notes to help get the word out about hsts and explain what it protects against [2].[1] <link>[2] <link>
these settings are giving me an a+ on ssllabs.com... # - apache 2.4 pfs &amp; beast attack safe /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ssl.conf sslprotocol -all +sslv3 +tlsv1 +tlsv1.1 +tlsv1.2 sslciphersuite ecdhe-rsa-aes256-gcm-sha384:ecdhe-rsa-aes256-sha384:ecdhe-rsa-aes128-gcm-sha256:ecdhe-rsa-aes128-sha256:ecdhe-rsa-aes256-sha:!rc4:high:!md5:!anull:!edh sslhonorcipherorder on sslcompression off # - hsts apache directive to force ssl (.htaccess or per site in control panel) header always set strict-transport-security &quot;max-age=15552000&quot; rewriteengine on rewritecond %{https} off rewriterule (.*) https://%{http_host}%{request_uri} [nc,r=301,l]
things i’ve learned from marc andreessen
marc said in an interview once, &quot;being ceo is basically a constant stream of bad news.&quot;i love that.
i'm a fan of ma, but i think people equate him with sainthood. he's not a saint. he's a pioneer that pushed the internet forward, made some mistakes, and now has some wisdom (and money) to dispense. i give his writing some credence, but nobody is perfect. i like that he has made post-browser mistakes. that gives credibility to his writing.
things i’ve learned from marc andreessen
i'm a fan of ma, but i think people equate him with sainthood. he's not a saint. he's a pioneer that pushed the internet forward, made some mistakes, and now has some wisdom (and money) to dispense. i give his writing some credence, but nobody is perfect. i like that he has made post-browser mistakes. that gives credibility to his writing.
thanks for the work that went into this post.
things i’ve learned from marc andreessen
thanks for the work that went into this post.
it is both possible and, really, with just a little inspection, really easy, just a wave of a hand, to see how to do much better at investing in information technology than described in the op. below i outline how. the crucial supporting background is just rock solid, so far essentially missed by vc but among the most solid in all of civilization -- no joke. that vc is missing out is just absurd.the op is yet another effort at 'understanding' venture capital investing. there's something strange here: at<link> is, vc fred wilson's blog, is some data that shows that on average in the us, information technology venture capital returns in one word suck, that is, are really poor, bad, low, etc.so, in trying to understand how venture capital investing works, at least on average we are trying to understand something that works poorly.below i explain how to do much better, but broadly that vcs struggle so much, as is clear in the op, is from incongruous to absurd.the op is awash in some really bad news that shows that the vcs admit that, really, they don't much know what the heck they are doing and, instead, are reading tea leaves and then shooting in the dark; such nonsense is unnecessary.let's consider some quotes from the op:&quot;even the top vcs write off half their deals.&quot;dumb. each year a vc gets 3000 deals, looks carefully at maybe 200, invests in maybe 20, and 10 flop. clearly something's seriously wrong here.&quot;and of course, you make all your money on successful and non-consensus.&quot;that the good deals should be so difficult to evaluate that there should be no &quot;consensus&quot; is absurd. sure, detecting the next snapchat is difficult, but largely we should set aside such deals -- based on, what, starting a fad of teenage girls having fun being 'improper'. instead it is possible to have plenty of deals that are fairly easy to evaluate.&quot;and let me translate ‘non-consensus’: in sort of practical terms, it translates to crazy. you are investing in things that look like they are just nuts.”e.g., another snapchat is that way, and that's why a vc should not take seriously such deals. e.g., someone comes out with a better version of the same basic idea, but maybe snapchat is hurt by their installed base that becomes dragging a big anchor to responding.but there are much better deals than snapchat where nothing looks &quot;crazy&quot; or &quot;nuts&quot;. putting up with deals that are crazy or nuts is, well, crazy and nuts.“the entire art of venture capital in our view is the big breakthrough for ideas. the nature of the big idea is that they are not that predictable.”yes, “the entire art ... is the big breakthrough for ideas&quot;; the problem is that, flatly, vc (1) is working with &quot;ideas&quot;, e.g., snapchat, that are based on fads, etc. and, thus, are essentially impossible to evaluate and (2) vc doesn't understand what really good, &quot;big breakthrough ... ideas&quot; are, where to find them, and how to evaluate them. for the good, big breakthrough ideas, accurate evaluation is quite doable, and there is little that is' not &quot;predictable”. vc doesn't understand (1) and (2), and i explain below.“most of the big breakthrough technologies/companies seem crazy at first: pcs, the internet, bitcoin, airbnb, uber, 140 characters.. it has to be a radical product. it has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, ‘i don’t get it, i don’t understand it. i think it’s too weird, i think it’s too unusual.’”“most of the big breakthrough technologies/companies seem crazy at first&quot; is only true because vc has been, to borrow from a movie, &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;.“you want to have as much ‘prepared mind’ as you possibly can. and learn as much as you can about as many things, as much as you can. you want to enter as close as you can to a zen-like blank slate of perfect humility at the beginning of the meeting saying ‘teach me’…. we try really hard to be educated by the best entrepreneurs.”sorry, i have a serious background in how to &quot;learn&quot;, and my experience is that vcs are quite poor at it and need to 'put on their game faces' and 'up their game' several notches from some very good sources, and some popular silicon valley coffee or sandwich shop is not such a source.“you want to tilt into the really radical ideas… but by their nature you can’t predict what they will be.” “there will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high percentage of people or businesses. but it’s really really hard to predict those. i don’t believe anyone can.”&quot;really radical&quot; is fine, maybe often necessary, but, of course, not nearly sufficient; but it is just crucial to have ideas that can be evaluated accurately and to do the evaluations. for &quot;really really hard to predict those&quot;, vcs are &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;. instead, with good &quot;breakthrough ideas&quot;, &quot;really radical&quot;, provocative, shocking, &quot;crazy&quot;, &quot;nuts&quot; that can be evaluated and that have a good evaluation, being able to &quot;predict&quot; is really, really easy.“we are looking for a magic combination of courage and genius&quot;looking for &quot;magic&quot;? looking for magic went out of style back in the &quot;age of the reason&quot;. looking for magic is wandering and shooting in the dark. as i explain below, there is a way to find the light switch, turn it on, and see what's happening (thank you a. wiles).“the thing all the venture firms have in common is they did not invest in most of the great successful technology companies.”there is a reason: vc has concentrated on deals, &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;, that are essentially impossible to evaluate. instead, concentrate on deals that can be evaluated and, then, evaluate them. what deals are those? i explain below.&quot;the challenge in the field is all of the great vcs over the last 50 years, the thing that they all have in common, is they all failed to invest in most of the big winners.&quot;again, the vcs were &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;. yes, even in that place sometimes there is some gold there, but that doesn't much help because the gold is in a form essentially impossible to recognize, that is, evaluate. so, dig in the right place where can recognize, evaluate, the gold that is there. the right place? i explain below.the theme of the andreessen remarks is wandering and shooting in the dark. but that is unnecessary.
things i’ve learned from marc andreessen
it is both possible and, really, with just a little inspection, really easy, just a wave of a hand, to see how to do much better at investing in information technology than described in the op. below i outline how. the crucial supporting background is just rock solid, so far essentially missed by vc but among the most solid in all of civilization -- no joke. that vc is missing out is just absurd.the op is yet another effort at 'understanding' venture capital investing. there's something strange here: at<link> is, vc fred wilson's blog, is some data that shows that on average in the us, information technology venture capital returns in one word suck, that is, are really poor, bad, low, etc.so, in trying to understand how venture capital investing works, at least on average we are trying to understand something that works poorly.below i explain how to do much better, but broadly that vcs struggle so much, as is clear in the op, is from incongruous to absurd.the op is awash in some really bad news that shows that the vcs admit that, really, they don't much know what the heck they are doing and, instead, are reading tea leaves and then shooting in the dark; such nonsense is unnecessary.let's consider some quotes from the op:&quot;even the top vcs write off half their deals.&quot;dumb. each year a vc gets 3000 deals, looks carefully at maybe 200, invests in maybe 20, and 10 flop. clearly something's seriously wrong here.&quot;and of course, you make all your money on successful and non-consensus.&quot;that the good deals should be so difficult to evaluate that there should be no &quot;consensus&quot; is absurd. sure, detecting the next snapchat is difficult, but largely we should set aside such deals -- based on, what, starting a fad of teenage girls having fun being 'improper'. instead it is possible to have plenty of deals that are fairly easy to evaluate.&quot;and let me translate ‘non-consensus’: in sort of practical terms, it translates to crazy. you are investing in things that look like they are just nuts.”e.g., another snapchat is that way, and that's why a vc should not take seriously such deals. e.g., someone comes out with a better version of the same basic idea, but maybe snapchat is hurt by their installed base that becomes dragging a big anchor to responding.but there are much better deals than snapchat where nothing looks &quot;crazy&quot; or &quot;nuts&quot;. putting up with deals that are crazy or nuts is, well, crazy and nuts.“the entire art of venture capital in our view is the big breakthrough for ideas. the nature of the big idea is that they are not that predictable.”yes, “the entire art ... is the big breakthrough for ideas&quot;; the problem is that, flatly, vc (1) is working with &quot;ideas&quot;, e.g., snapchat, that are based on fads, etc. and, thus, are essentially impossible to evaluate and (2) vc doesn't understand what really good, &quot;big breakthrough ... ideas&quot; are, where to find them, and how to evaluate them. for the good, big breakthrough ideas, accurate evaluation is quite doable, and there is little that is' not &quot;predictable”. vc doesn't understand (1) and (2), and i explain below.“most of the big breakthrough technologies/companies seem crazy at first: pcs, the internet, bitcoin, airbnb, uber, 140 characters.. it has to be a radical product. it has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, ‘i don’t get it, i don’t understand it. i think it’s too weird, i think it’s too unusual.’”“most of the big breakthrough technologies/companies seem crazy at first&quot; is only true because vc has been, to borrow from a movie, &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;.“you want to have as much ‘prepared mind’ as you possibly can. and learn as much as you can about as many things, as much as you can. you want to enter as close as you can to a zen-like blank slate of perfect humility at the beginning of the meeting saying ‘teach me’…. we try really hard to be educated by the best entrepreneurs.”sorry, i have a serious background in how to &quot;learn&quot;, and my experience is that vcs are quite poor at it and need to 'put on their game faces' and 'up their game' several notches from some very good sources, and some popular silicon valley coffee or sandwich shop is not such a source.“you want to tilt into the really radical ideas… but by their nature you can’t predict what they will be.” “there will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high percentage of people or businesses. but it’s really really hard to predict those. i don’t believe anyone can.”&quot;really radical&quot; is fine, maybe often necessary, but, of course, not nearly sufficient; but it is just crucial to have ideas that can be evaluated accurately and to do the evaluations. for &quot;really really hard to predict those&quot;, vcs are &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;. instead, with good &quot;breakthrough ideas&quot;, &quot;really radical&quot;, provocative, shocking, &quot;crazy&quot;, &quot;nuts&quot; that can be evaluated and that have a good evaluation, being able to &quot;predict&quot; is really, really easy.“we are looking for a magic combination of courage and genius&quot;looking for &quot;magic&quot;? looking for magic went out of style back in the &quot;age of the reason&quot;. looking for magic is wandering and shooting in the dark. as i explain below, there is a way to find the light switch, turn it on, and see what's happening (thank you a. wiles).“the thing all the venture firms have in common is they did not invest in most of the great successful technology companies.”there is a reason: vc has concentrated on deals, &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;, that are essentially impossible to evaluate. instead, concentrate on deals that can be evaluated and, then, evaluate them. what deals are those? i explain below.&quot;the challenge in the field is all of the great vcs over the last 50 years, the thing that they all have in common, is they all failed to invest in most of the big winners.&quot;again, the vcs were &quot;digging in the wrong place&quot;. yes, even in that place sometimes there is some gold there, but that doesn't much help because the gold is in a form essentially impossible to recognize, that is, evaluate. so, dig in the right place where can recognize, evaluate, the gold that is there. the right place? i explain below.the theme of the andreessen remarks is wandering and shooting in the dark. but that is unnecessary.
things i have learned from marc andreessen: he thinks snowden is a traitor. and blames snowden for causing problems for us companies to sell overseas.
wepay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors
every time i see wepay claiming to be an anti-paypal i let out such a sigh. instead of building a business (well, the marketing side) on what they offer, they're building it on how shitty a competitor is, except they're not a competitor.wepay is to paypal what... myspace is to facebook? i have no idea what to compare them to, but wepay offer 1/3rd the functionality of what paypal offer and are building their business on everyone "hating" paypal except they don't face the same challenges paypal do.even this comment is ridiculous, everyone is praising them for their "honesty" when this is exactly what companies like mastercard did, so because they're big businesses they're not allowed to make sensible decisions, but because they're a startup they are? <link>'s stupid. they mentioned paypal 17 times in their post, more than they mentioned their own business.
my favourite part:“quick question, though: did you or bill have any programming or web development experience before founding wepay? a buddy of mine (an investment banker) and i (ex-army officer, mba) throw around business ideas all the time while drinking at the pub, but we always are forced to bring ourselves back to earth when we realize we both have no programming experience whatsoever. is it even worth it to start something tech-related when both founders aren't your typical tech guys? how did you do it?2 i love this question. bill had a cs degree from bc, but he wasn't a talented web developer or anything like that. his background was helpful, though, since it was good to have least some technical knowledge before starting the company; we weren't operating completely in the dark. i had zero technical background. you could probably get to bill's pre-wepay level with a bunch of books, long conversations with your programmer friends (you can make some of these friends online - try hacker news), and persistence.22 if you are "relentlessly resourceful" you can find a way to build what you need to build (usually by finding the right person and convincing them that you and your idea are worth their time). it's definitely harder to start a tech/internet company without being technical, but it's not impossible. you just need to be a lot scrappier in the beginning. i have a ton of non-technical friends starting technical companies. some of them will succeed and some will fail. the smarter, more resourceful, harder working ones will have the best chance of succeeding.”<link>
wepay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors
my favourite part:“quick question, though: did you or bill have any programming or web development experience before founding wepay? a buddy of mine (an investment banker) and i (ex-army officer, mba) throw around business ideas all the time while drinking at the pub, but we always are forced to bring ourselves back to earth when we realize we both have no programming experience whatsoever. is it even worth it to start something tech-related when both founders aren't your typical tech guys? how did you do it?2 i love this question. bill had a cs degree from bc, but he wasn't a talented web developer or anything like that. his background was helpful, though, since it was good to have least some technical knowledge before starting the company; we weren't operating completely in the dark. i had zero technical background. you could probably get to bill's pre-wepay level with a bunch of books, long conversations with your programmer friends (you can make some of these friends online - try hacker news), and persistence.22 if you are "relentlessly resourceful" you can find a way to build what you need to build (usually by finding the right person and convincing them that you and your idea are worth their time). it's definitely harder to start a tech/internet company without being technical, but it's not impossible. you just need to be a lot scrappier in the beginning. i have a ton of non-technical friends starting technical companies. some of them will succeed and some will fail. the smarter, more resourceful, harder working ones will have the best chance of succeeding.”<link>
this is excellent. not only is this going to roll out a great feature, but they're tailoring it in a way that's going to get great press coverage. excellent job wepay guys, this was a wonderful move on their part.
wepay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors
this is excellent. not only is this going to roll out a great feature, but they're tailoring it in a way that's going to get great press coverage. excellent job wepay guys, this was a wonderful move on their part.
just noticed the awesome thread after my quick comment. pretty funny :) <link>
wepay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors
just noticed the awesome thread after my quick comment. pretty funny :) <link>
i like their energy in targeting paypal, but is there any statistics out there that shows how many % of paypal business users are actually unhappy ? i use paypal quite extensively for business and it seems pretty good.i suspect that we tend to read/hear the noisy disgruntled paypal users. my suspicion is that this portion is probably a small % of their user base.