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firefox 39.0 released
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> disable use of rc4 except for temporarily whitelisted hoststhis is the one which has the greatest chance of giving people a headache. for instance, one of the biggest banks here still uses only rc4 for its online banking site. its top-level hostname and a few of its auxiliary hostnames are on the whitelist, but there's no guarantee that all the rc4-only auxiliary hostnames it might use for some of its functionality are on the whitelist.
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surprised by the inclusion of "css scroll snap points": <link> basically allows to do scroll hijacking [1] without any javascript, just like this: <link>[1]: <link>
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firefox 39.0 released
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surprised by the inclusion of "css scroll snap points": <link> basically allows to do scroll hijacking [1] without any javascript, just like this: <link>[1]: <link>
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i love that the fetch api is happening (has happened!): <link> fetch(url).then(data => ...)
not earth-shattering, but much more fun than xhr!
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firefox 39.0 released
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i love that the fetch api is happening (has happened!): <link> fetch(url).then(data => ...)
not earth-shattering, but much more fun than xhr!
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how much does project silk improves scrolling performance? can you "feel" it?scrolling/motion performance is the only thing that is keeping me away from ff at the moment - even dev tools are getting amazingly good.
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firefox 39.0 released
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how much does project silk improves scrolling performance? can you "feel" it?scrolling/motion performance is the only thing that is keeping me away from ff at the moment - even dev tools are getting amazingly good.
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if all your passwords are gone/not working in the password manager after the upgrade see this bug: <link>
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software bloat makes me sad
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i've previously decried bloat too, but i find that my rants against software bloat are based on emotion, not reason.so, looking at this rationally, consider your favorite lightweight window manager or desktop environment for linux. is it fully internationalized, including support for cjk input methods? is it fully accessible to users with disabilities, e.g. blind people and people with mobility impairments? does it auto-mount usb thumb drives? does it do all of the other things i'm not even aware of that are required for a fully usable desktop environment covering a wide variety of machines, users, and use cases? afaik, the only linux desktop environments that come close are gnome and unity.basically, the world is complicated, so real-world software has to be complicated too.it sounds like atom could still use some optimization though.
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>the usual counter to this is that the actual (as opposed to imagined) bottlenecks will only become apparent after intense usage.the usual counter is that "optimising" takes time. and all of the time that you're spending trying to optimise before release is time that no one is able to use your software at all.and the reality is that a lot of the bottlenecks can't be predicted in advance - who knows how may files the average user might want to load into your system, or whether your website is going to attract 100 or a million users a month? and many expected bottlenecks become largely irrelevant as technology moves on.take his ubuntu example - for what percentage of users does the fact that it doesn't fit on an actual cd really matter any more? is it worth spending weeks or months fine-tuning the distro to a point that it can be fitted onto a medium that most people probably aren't even using anymore?
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software bloat makes me sad
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>the usual counter to this is that the actual (as opposed to imagined) bottlenecks will only become apparent after intense usage.the usual counter is that "optimising" takes time. and all of the time that you're spending trying to optimise before release is time that no one is able to use your software at all.and the reality is that a lot of the bottlenecks can't be predicted in advance - who knows how may files the average user might want to load into your system, or whether your website is going to attract 100 or a million users a month? and many expected bottlenecks become largely irrelevant as technology moves on.take his ubuntu example - for what percentage of users does the fact that it doesn't fit on an actual cd really matter any more? is it worth spending weeks or months fine-tuning the distro to a point that it can be fitted onto a medium that most people probably aren't even using anymore?
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i'm not really convinced. leaving aside the argument about whether or not software is 'bloated' at all, or what 'bloat' actually means, this in particular stands out:“wouldn’t it have been easier not to create the problem in the first place?” it would seem obvious that the answer to this is indeed “yes”. it doesn't seem obvious at all, especially considering the implicit assumptions about whether or not bloat is actually a problem. there are three classic examples highlighted in the article of writing about this tradeoff: "make it work, make it right, make it fast", "premature optimization is the root of all evil", and "bloatware and the 80/20 myth" – but the argument about why these don't apply is a bit weak: "bloated software simply makes me sad".to be honest, i don't find we've got a problem, generally. my experience with my computer is that i can do many more things much faster than i could in the past. and i don't think that counts as bloat.
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software bloat makes me sad
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i'm not really convinced. leaving aside the argument about whether or not software is 'bloated' at all, or what 'bloat' actually means, this in particular stands out:“wouldn’t it have been easier not to create the problem in the first place?” it would seem obvious that the answer to this is indeed “yes”. it doesn't seem obvious at all, especially considering the implicit assumptions about whether or not bloat is actually a problem. there are three classic examples highlighted in the article of writing about this tradeoff: "make it work, make it right, make it fast", "premature optimization is the root of all evil", and "bloatware and the 80/20 myth" – but the argument about why these don't apply is a bit weak: "bloated software simply makes me sad".to be honest, i don't find we've got a problem, generally. my experience with my computer is that i can do many more things much faster than i could in the past. and i don't think that counts as bloat.
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there is another side of extra resource use that i don't really see addressed except in the mobile space: ecology.even though my computer can run all applications without a hitch, it is still very wasteful to constantly use cpu power because of technology choices or plain laziness. as an example, spotify and slack are two applications that seem to use most of my cpu after chrome. spotify and slack combined seems to hover around 5-15% of total cpu (a two year old i7). when there is a lot of traffic in slack i have seen it using 15-20% by itself, with multiple processes running and memory use going above 200 megs.both applications work smoothly, but should they really use that much resources? a chat application? a music player? with modern cpu's i would expect them to be at the bottom of the process list when sorted by cpu usage. i used irc on my pentium 75mhz and it ran fine. when simple applications are made so poorly that they use that much resources, what is the worldwide impact of that power use? and what about the users that don't have powerful and expensive cpu's?
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software bloat makes me sad
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there is another side of extra resource use that i don't really see addressed except in the mobile space: ecology.even though my computer can run all applications without a hitch, it is still very wasteful to constantly use cpu power because of technology choices or plain laziness. as an example, spotify and slack are two applications that seem to use most of my cpu after chrome. spotify and slack combined seems to hover around 5-15% of total cpu (a two year old i7). when there is a lot of traffic in slack i have seen it using 15-20% by itself, with multiple processes running and memory use going above 200 megs.both applications work smoothly, but should they really use that much resources? a chat application? a music player? with modern cpu's i would expect them to be at the bottom of the process list when sorted by cpu usage. i used irc on my pentium 75mhz and it ran fine. when simple applications are made so poorly that they use that much resources, what is the worldwide impact of that power use? and what about the users that don't have powerful and expensive cpu's?
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one thing that strikes me is the explosion in dependencies in most software. i'm guilty of this, too. i've seen plenty of examples where an entire library or framework is added to a project just for a couple of features. add a few libraries like that and suddenly you have a few megabytes of additional libraries, where maybe 90% or 95% of the features will never be used. a good article a while back looked at common unix utilities, comparing the size of commands like cp from the 1980's to the present. most of the bloat had to do with features that almost nobody ever uses. it wouldn't be so bad if everyone used the same set of libraries. for example, almost all applications have a dependency on certain core libraries like libc.but we often use different libraries that do essentially the same thing or different versions of the same library, so instead of 1 copy of libfoo.jar, i have 2 copies of libbar.jar and 4 copies of libfoo.jar that may all do essentially the same thing. then i have essentially the same functionality in c++ (some libraries that wrap collections), python (where maybe one of they python versions wraps one of the c++ libraries, but a different version). and of course i have a version installed in each ruby environment. add to that their dependencies, and the dependency's dependencies, and you have a perfect storm of craptastic. so libfoo.jar version 1.2.3 depends on libbaz.jar 2.3.4 which depends on libqux 1.5.7. let's say each one is 250k, and all i ever used was some list sorting utility in libfoo.but i don't know what we could really do about it. you can't force everyone to program in c++ or limit them to a set of blessed libraries. i think maybe developers could be more judicious about when they could add a few lines of code and when they actually need to bring in a hard dependency an an external library. and it happens with commercial software as well. maybe this is just the way the world will be.
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current draft of the art of computer programming pre-fascicle 6a [ps]
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for anyone curious, this section is on sat solving. it's section 7.2.2.2 of taocp, and is over 300 pages long. pretty thorough for a section of backtrack, within a section on generating all possibilities, within a full chapter on combinatorial searching.
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if this is art then i'll have to admit - after 20 years of learning and practicing programming, i'm still a mechanic (or craftsman), not an artist.i will not be able to read and understand this book fully and i probably won't even try, unless i'm locked in a cell with it.although i've helped build software used by millions, what i did was stitch together things that are too brilliant (or insane) for me to fully understand. and i assume that most of my colleagues did the same.there are pylons of brilliance on the shoulders of which everyone builds, and knuth must be one of the strongest.thank you mr knuth for holding so much weight on your shoulders.
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current draft of the art of computer programming pre-fascicle 6a [ps]
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if this is art then i'll have to admit - after 20 years of learning and practicing programming, i'm still a mechanic (or craftsman), not an artist.i will not be able to read and understand this book fully and i probably won't even try, unless i'm locked in a cell with it.although i've helped build software used by millions, what i did was stitch together things that are too brilliant (or insane) for me to fully understand. and i assume that most of my colleagues did the same.there are pylons of brilliance on the shoulders of which everyone builds, and knuth must be one of the strongest.thank you mr knuth for holding so much weight on your shoulders.
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if you don't want to dl the .gz just yet, and just want to read about it, see here: <link> note: i've always thought knuth looks delightfully like a resident of whoville. <link>
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current draft of the art of computer programming pre-fascicle 6a [ps]
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if you don't want to dl the .gz just yet, and just want to read about it, see here: <link> note: i've always thought knuth looks delightfully like a resident of whoville. <link>
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chapter 7 will eventually fill at least four volumes . . . assuming that i'm able to remain healthy.apparently taocp has a lot in common with the wheel of time.i have a ton of respect for these huge, decades-long, life-defining projects and the people who undertake them (robert caro's lbj biography is another example.) so the end of this project always receding further into the distance makes me wistful, even if the quality of what gets put out is still excellent.
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current draft of the art of computer programming pre-fascicle 6a [ps]
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chapter 7 will eventually fill at least four volumes . . . assuming that i'm able to remain healthy.apparently taocp has a lot in common with the wheel of time.i have a ton of respect for these huge, decades-long, life-defining projects and the people who undertake them (robert caro's lbj biography is another example.) so the end of this project always receding further into the distance makes me wistful, even if the quality of what gets put out is still excellent.
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i just picked up my father's old copy of vol. 1, fundamental algorithms. it's amazing that a book published in 1973 (second edition) can still be worth studying. i'd like to work from the copy i have, largely for sentimental reasons. my father passed away a few years ago, and it feels really good to work from the same book he studied decades ago.is it reasonable to study the second edition, or should i buy a copy of the third edition? i've been a hobbyist programmer for 20+ years, and i'd like to strengthen my understanding of basic data structures.
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platforms for freelancers to find the perfect work
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i'd argue that none of these are a way to get decent work. the best way to get the best kind of work is to find it locally. go to local meetups, do some talks, talk about the things you know about and have done and educate others on it. you'll soon get your name out there and be approached by people for help.do things, tell people.
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how is there 28 freelance websites and <link> wasn't mentioned? i would have thought that to be one of the more popular sources for freelance work.
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platforms for freelancers to find the perfect work
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how is there 28 freelance websites and <link> wasn't mentioned? i would have thought that to be one of the more popular sources for freelance work.
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sockpuppet rings will get your accounts and sites banned on hacker news.
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platforms for freelancers to find the perfect work
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sockpuppet rings will get your accounts and sites banned on hacker news.
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28 interminable profile forms to fill
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platforms for freelancers to find the perfect work
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28 interminable profile forms to fill
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28 places to find the worst freelance jobs.seriously, i've looked at all these over the past 3 months but all those sites provide me with is mild amusement and a growing library of screenshots of ridiculous projects.most recent but illustrative one: <link> — an airbnb clone in rails, payments in uk & india, "one small tweak" (oh, i love mystery!) and a project budget of $250-750
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are ev certificates worth it? a technical guide to ssl validation
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edit: here's an answer for zokier's excellent question (i'm rate limited right now):> does the ev certification process put any requirements on the ca, such as mandatory independent audits or some other overwatch mechanism?the ev requirements themselves do not.however google required since jan 1 2015 that all ev certificates have certificate transparency enabled. see the links in the article - i've tweaked it a little to directly address your point too.certificate transparency makes it much harder for a ca to issue a certificate for someone else's keypair in your name.------------original response below:hi there, author here. i hope you don't mind the foul language but i couldn't convey the general feeling towards cas at edgeconf much better.this is by no means a replacement for reading the ev requirements (and baseline requirements) but does capture the typical validation process for all the (around 30) ev certificates we've been involved in so far.
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that sounds all great and fancy, but one quite critical piece is missing: the ability to trust ca's. i'm frankly somewhat impressed at the level of diligence described in the article, if it is really what happens for each and every ev cert from every ca. but the cynic in me finds it it difficult to trust that that would be the case. does the ev certification process put any requirements on the ca, such as mandatory independent audits or some other overwatch mechanism?
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are ev certificates worth it? a technical guide to ssl validation
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that sounds all great and fancy, but one quite critical piece is missing: the ability to trust ca's. i'm frankly somewhat impressed at the level of diligence described in the article, if it is really what happens for each and every ev cert from every ca. but the cynic in me finds it it difficult to trust that that would be the case. does the ev certification process put any requirements on the ca, such as mandatory independent audits or some other overwatch mechanism?
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i'd be really curious to see some numbers on not the technical side, but the human side.in the past i've chosen not to buy ev certs not because the process is more involved, but because it just doesn't seem worth the extra cost - i've never heard of someone choosing not to do business because a site had the wrong kind of ssl certificate. most people would probably put their credit card details into a completely unencrypted website given half a chance.
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are ev certificates worth it? a technical guide to ssl validation
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i'd be really curious to see some numbers on not the technical side, but the human side.in the past i've chosen not to buy ev certs not because the process is more involved, but because it just doesn't seem worth the extra cost - i've never heard of someone choosing not to do business because a site had the wrong kind of ssl certificate. most people would probably put their credit card details into a completely unencrypted website given half a chance.
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suggestion to the author: i could really benefit from a short sentence that explains to me what dv means. i get from the context that ev likely means "extended validation".
then again, all i ever did was set up ssl on heroku and a bit of openssl magic to get github running - so maybe not the target for the article?edit for clarification: there is a short description of dv & ev, but it doesn't mention what dv/ev stands for. i'd love to know that (without googling, because lazy).
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are ev certificates worth it? a technical guide to ssl validation
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suggestion to the author: i could really benefit from a short sentence that explains to me what dv means. i get from the context that ev likely means "extended validation".
then again, all i ever did was set up ssl on heroku and a bit of openssl magic to get github running - so maybe not the target for the article?edit for clarification: there is a short description of dv & ev, but it doesn't mention what dv/ev stands for. i'd love to know that (without googling, because lazy).
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from the average user's pov: nothey won't know the difference between a lock and a green bar. i would bet a percentage of users don't even notice if they are browsing an site using ssl or even understand why http without ssl is bad. this was proven with tools like firesheep where people are more than happy to browse facebook on an open wifi connection without using ssl.i know i saw a discussion with the chrome team talking about showing an error-like page for all non https traffic. this is not the solution - the solution is to show some sort of message to the user that is non-blocking that says "hey your information is sent in the clear". also - change the self-signed ssl to not look like an error page. using self-signed ssl is more secure than not using ssl at all - even if the certificate isn't verified your data over the wire is encrypted.
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the aol chat room monitor revolt (2014)
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also - lets not forget that chat room monitors were willing to put up with the aol tos, hours and conditions for one good reason:that sweet feeling of power to kick and ban other people (and likely to brag about it to their buddies).
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>as described, reddit is an interesting example where people voluntarily fill the same community leader role that aol’s volunteers did, although they do so with fewer restrictions and more agency. //presumably the current reddit debacle is the stimulation for posting this now. the article mentions buzzfeed and youtube models too. quite interesting.
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the aol chat room monitor revolt (2014)
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>as described, reddit is an interesting example where people voluntarily fill the same community leader role that aol’s volunteers did, although they do so with fewer restrictions and more agency. //presumably the current reddit debacle is the stimulation for posting this now. the article mentions buzzfeed and youtube models too. quite interesting.
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given the market cap of facebook is $245 billion and it has 1.44 billion active users, then each user is $170 (170 == 245/1.44). if each user generates $1 for facebook each quarter, that's $4/yr which is an annual return of 2.3% (2.3 == 4/170).i'm not sure where i stand on calling users "sharecroppers". seems a little unreasonable. but the economics of it are interesting and concerning.
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the aol chat room monitor revolt (2014)
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given the market cap of facebook is $245 billion and it has 1.44 billion active users, then each user is $170 (170 == 245/1.44). if each user generates $1 for facebook each quarter, that's $4/yr which is an annual return of 2.3% (2.3 == 4/170).i'm not sure where i stand on calling users "sharecroppers". seems a little unreasonable. but the economics of it are interesting and concerning.
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i see a significant difference between aol and reddit. aol selected the monitors and had the power to remove their privileges. that's what made them essentially employees. reddit moderators are mostly self-regulated. even in the large subs new moderators are chosen by other moderators and rarely is a moderator of a sub involuntarily removed, except if they have abandoned the sub or violated the terms of service. i can see how reddit is not obligated to pay them because they volunteer by their own will and not at reddit's discretion.
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the aol chat room monitor revolt (2014)
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i see a significant difference between aol and reddit. aol selected the monitors and had the power to remove their privileges. that's what made them essentially employees. reddit moderators are mostly self-regulated. even in the large subs new moderators are chosen by other moderators and rarely is a moderator of a sub involuntarily removed, except if they have abandoned the sub or violated the terms of service. i can see how reddit is not obligated to pay them because they volunteer by their own will and not at reddit's discretion.
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this is partly what is happening. reading in out of the loop subreddit the trigger is victoria but the problem is different. the one i see as one of the biggest problems is. the unpaid volunteers aren't given the tools necessary to handle moderation of subreddits by reddit corporate. the tools moderators use comes from third parties and volunteers. [0] as an outsider i have understand why they are angry, trying to create safe spaces by sweeping(and inconsistent) bans of subreddits but not giving the tools to moderators to keep their subreddits clean.[0]<link>
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does atlassian really care about not “f8%k the customer”?
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absolutely terrible... atlassian has just lost my appreciation..look at digitalocean about how it should be done:
<link>
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if one of atlassian's competitors issues a promotional marketing offer for existing and new greek customers, this would likely influence atlassian and other competitive responses.
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does atlassian really care about not “f8%k the customer”?
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if one of atlassian's competitors issues a promotional marketing offer for existing and new greek customers, this would likely influence atlassian and other competitive responses.
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apologies for this. something got lost along the line here which we need to fix up. we pride ourselves on having scalable rules that work for everyone (one of the reasons we can keep our prices low), but in this case we should have made an exception.we'll be giving greek companies leeway to pay their bills.scott, ceo atlassian
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does atlassian really care about not “f8%k the customer”?
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apologies for this. something got lost along the line here which we need to fix up. we pride ourselves on having scalable rules that work for everyone (one of the reasons we can keep our prices low), but in this case we should have made an exception.we'll be giving greek companies leeway to pay their bills.scott, ceo atlassian
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scott this is a good move. btw here's a post with all the companies that are showing their support to the greek startup ecosystem (atlassian included) <link>
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does atlassian really care about not “f8%k the customer”?
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scott this is a good move. btw here's a post with all the companies that are showing their support to the greek startup ecosystem (atlassian included) <link>
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brilliant. they look almost as bad as reddit today.
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reactcss – bringing classes to inline styles
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can someone explain or lead me to a reason that this is a good idea? i understand that react is solving a problem, but i don't see how inlining your css like so contributes or improves the solution that react brings.
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what happened to a clear division between js and css? in my experience many developers want nothing to do with css, they want a designer who can code to handle that
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reactcss – bringing classes to inline styles
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what happened to a clear division between js and css? in my experience many developers want nothing to do with css, they want a designer who can code to handle that
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impressive, but to me, as a front-end developper that has been breathing css for the best part of my adult life, this solve an issue that shouldn't be an issue.yes, you can end up with unmanageable css. yes, it is very easy to end up with a website that is hell to maintain if you have no idea what you are doing.the real solution is to hire someone who is an expert at managing css in enormous websites.you don't see people saying "oh? oop programming? that's too hard! write all your code with this insert unconventional project instead!".that being said, this project is impressive, and i love that people are working toward making css better.
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reactcss – bringing classes to inline styles
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impressive, but to me, as a front-end developper that has been breathing css for the best part of my adult life, this solve an issue that shouldn't be an issue.yes, you can end up with unmanageable css. yes, it is very easy to end up with a website that is hell to maintain if you have no idea what you are doing.the real solution is to hire someone who is an expert at managing css in enormous websites.you don't see people saying "oh? oop programming? that's too hard! write all your code with this insert unconventional project instead!".that being said, this project is impressive, and i love that people are working toward making css better.
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for anyone experimenting with inline styles, there are a couple of things you'll still need a stylesheet for.inline styles can't modify psuedo-elements or psuedo-styles. you'll need to define styles for :before, :focus, :active, etc. in a stylesheet. these selectors are really important if you want to make appealing forms, e.g. <link> prefixes are difficult to do with inline styles. if you're using a map to represent your styles, you can't define multiple values for the same key. for example, if you wanted to use flexbox, you'd need "display: flex" and "display: -webkit-flex". solving that with inline styles is going to get messy. it's much easier to use less's auto-prefixer plugin to do that for you.you need a stylesheet to define keyframe animations.there's probably more i've missed, but those were the problems i ran into when i experimented with inline styles. in the end, the vender prefixes problem made me move all of my styles to a stylesheet. the good news is that the problem could probably be solved by applying a runtime equivalent of less's auto-prefixer.
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reactcss – bringing classes to inline styles
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for anyone experimenting with inline styles, there are a couple of things you'll still need a stylesheet for.inline styles can't modify psuedo-elements or psuedo-styles. you'll need to define styles for :before, :focus, :active, etc. in a stylesheet. these selectors are really important if you want to make appealing forms, e.g. <link> prefixes are difficult to do with inline styles. if you're using a map to represent your styles, you can't define multiple values for the same key. for example, if you wanted to use flexbox, you'd need "display: flex" and "display: -webkit-flex". solving that with inline styles is going to get messy. it's much easier to use less's auto-prefixer plugin to do that for you.you need a stylesheet to define keyframe animations.there's probably more i've missed, but those were the problems i ran into when i experimented with inline styles. in the end, the vender prefixes problem made me move all of my styles to a stylesheet. the good news is that the problem could probably be solved by applying a runtime equivalent of less's auto-prefixer.
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webpack's css-loader is made pretty much for the same goals, but it has some differences. <link> difference between the two is that css-loader allows you to use normal css files with classes and selectors, while reactcss inlines all properties.for example, with css-loader, you can use much of your old toolchain for css. you can use sass, less, or newer tools like postcss, but you still get the benefit of local styles.here is a nice articles that touches on css-loader and postcss: <link>
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ask hn: how often do you google for answers while coding?
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all the time. many times per day. i've been programming for fifteen years, and i think my willingness to google things has only gone up over that time. there are a lot more things that i know off the top of my head now than when i started, but i've got way less tolerance for wasting time trying to figure out weird problems when there's already an answer online.
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a lot. some of my searches from yesterday: suppress stdout print ruby backticks
mechanize user agent alias list
git gc garbage collect source
there is no shame in googling. while i would heavily recommend reading and learning documentation, once you get a passing familiarity (not memorize it) you at least understand what you are using and googling it simply can save time. if you need specifics on the implementation the docs will always be there.there is a reason we have so and google is so great at finding things on it. have no shame :) it doesn't make you a poor programmer to be thinking things out enough you are googling alternatives, how the innards of something works, etc.obviously this is all just my opinion, though. i could be a moron and not know it.
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ask hn: how often do you google for answers while coding?
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a lot. some of my searches from yesterday: suppress stdout print ruby backticks
mechanize user agent alias list
git gc garbage collect source
there is no shame in googling. while i would heavily recommend reading and learning documentation, once you get a passing familiarity (not memorize it) you at least understand what you are using and googling it simply can save time. if you need specifics on the implementation the docs will always be there.there is a reason we have so and google is so great at finding things on it. have no shame :) it doesn't make you a poor programmer to be thinking things out enough you are googling alternatives, how the innards of something works, etc.obviously this is all just my opinion, though. i could be a moron and not know it.
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constantly. even when i know exactly what to code i like to view alternative examples to see if there is a better way to do it. even if i know my code is rock solid i like to also filter search results for the past year just to make sure there isn't a newer+better way to do something that used to be best.
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ask hn: how often do you google for answers while coding?
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constantly. even when i know exactly what to code i like to view alternative examples to see if there is a better way to do it. even if i know my code is rock solid i like to also filter search results for the past year just to make sure there isn't a newer+better way to do something that used to be best.
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i've about 7 years experience coding various software in python (data intensive, web apps, network app, etc). today when coding in python i mostly go to the official python and django doc directly, that i have installed locally.
i open it about 2 to 8 times a day (4-6 hours span) depending on how well i'm familiar with the library i'm dealing with.for more general questions not covered in the doc i google about twice to 4 times a day in average. i usually go to stackoverflow.com directly to search.when coding html/css/javascript i clearly lookup caniuse.com about 20 times a day to ensure consistent browser support and learn about corner cases.
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ask hn: how often do you google for answers while coding?
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i've about 7 years experience coding various software in python (data intensive, web apps, network app, etc). today when coding in python i mostly go to the official python and django doc directly, that i have installed locally.
i open it about 2 to 8 times a day (4-6 hours span) depending on how well i'm familiar with the library i'm dealing with.for more general questions not covered in the doc i google about twice to 4 times a day in average. i usually go to stackoverflow.com directly to search.when coding html/css/javascript i clearly lookup caniuse.com about 20 times a day to ensure consistent browser support and learn about corner cases.
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for me, depends on the level of experience i have with the language/platform/library, ranging from once a month to a dozen times in a day.
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startup sues a domain name owner to grab a 16-year-old url
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the guy's name is harsh, what other actions would you expect from him?but seriously, looking at the doc and not mentioned in the article. harsh apparently tried to negotiate, failed, then tried to "transfer" the domain. when kneen called him out on this, harsh suggested it was someone else, and that he wouldn't have done this since he found a suitable alternative.so i'm pretty sure harsh was being purposely manipulative in that situation. none of this makes any sense and is a waste of resources so i hope harsh loses badly.
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won't web searches about workbetter always point to news about this case now? sort of bad pr even before the new company gets started.an 'out of court' settlement would be better perhaps for both parties.
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startup sues a domain name owner to grab a 16-year-old url
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won't web searches about workbetter always point to news about this case now? sort of bad pr even before the new company gets started.an 'out of court' settlement would be better perhaps for both parties.
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the unfortunate thing about the case is that both parties are internet natives and, mehta especially, part of the startup ecosystem.what the fuck does this mean?
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startup sues a domain name owner to grab a 16-year-old url
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the unfortunate thing about the case is that both parties are internet natives and, mehta especially, part of the startup ecosystem.what the fuck does this mean?
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it doesn't look like he was cybersquatting to me. i hope it resolves in his favor. if the person bringing the suit should win it would set a bad precedent for all internet business.
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startup sues a domain name owner to grab a 16-year-old url
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it doesn't look like he was cybersquatting to me. i hope it resolves in his favor. if the person bringing the suit should win it would set a bad precedent for all internet business.
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i think many of us have been looking for an available domain for a site and found all of them registered years before and parked since then.the normal way to proceed is look for another name and try again. mehta is doing it wrong.however i don't like the general idea of squatting, also on domains. i'd be happy if there was an easy way to prevent it. somebody suggested incremental renewal fees for unused domains, but how to tell if a domain is unused? it won't be difficult to automate some "working" site for parked domains (think of those blogs that are populated with content automatically scraped from real sites.) other ideas?
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no one expects command execution
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i don't get it, it's not really unexpected if you pass the name of the executable (which just happens to be a script) via a flag... used explicitly for passing an executable to run.i mean, is it unexpected if `./my_command --execute-this-right-now=somescript.sh` executes somescript.sh?
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command execution is overrated. how about having tar download an arbitrary tar file over the network, from a server you control? <link>
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no one expects command execution
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command execution is overrated. how about having tar download an arbitrary tar file over the network, from a server you control? <link>
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this might be related to another article about ole execution, to cast a shadow of doubt that it is not an isolated habit. having outside stuff executed when not meaning to is always bad. i for one would be badly disappointed, if tar xvf unexpectedly run some code. luckily, that is not the case.unix got battle-hardened during its college years, the cases of unexpected execution are few and far between. one of them is post-install, never run dpkg -i unless you trust the packager.
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no one expects command execution
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this might be related to another article about ole execution, to cast a shadow of doubt that it is not an isolated habit. having outside stuff executed when not meaning to is always bad. i for one would be badly disappointed, if tar xvf unexpectedly run some code. luckily, that is not the case.unix got battle-hardened during its college years, the cases of unexpected execution are few and far between. one of them is post-install, never run dpkg -i unless you trust the packager.
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and yet another interesting gnu tar "feature", also noteworthy is remote tar:<link>; "if the archive file name includes a colon (`:'), then it is assumed to be a file on another machine. if the archive file is `user@host:file', then file is used on the host host. the remote host is accessed using [rsh]."and> "if you need to use a file whose name includes a colon, then the remote tape drive behavior can be inhibited by using the `--force-local' option."on many systems, rsh is aliased to ssh, so if you don't properly sanitize your archive names, gnu tar will make network connections.
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no one expects command execution
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and yet another interesting gnu tar "feature", also noteworthy is remote tar:<link>; "if the archive file name includes a colon (`:'), then it is assumed to be a file on another machine. if the archive file is `user@host:file', then file is used on the host host. the remote host is accessed using [rsh]."and> "if you need to use a file whose name includes a colon, then the remote tape drive behavior can be inhibited by using the `--force-local' option."on many systems, rsh is aliased to ssh, so if you don't properly sanitize your archive names, gnu tar will make network connections.
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if your ~/.bashrc is a symlink to a bash or sh script, bash will automatically execute that script on login.if you give rsync command a source or destination with an unescaped colon, it will read an environment variable to figure out a command to run to automatically connect to arbitrary network resources. if you have keys, it will even skip password entry, and with default kerberos, it will not only skip password, but make a network connections to a login server:port specified by a dns entry.seriously, who is this guy, and why is this trainwreck #1 on hn?
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a trading platform that outlaws what it sees as abusive practices
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if you have continuous trading, you are going to have complicated interactions (such as outlined in the article.)instead, an occasional crossing (once a day? once an hour?) would provide much more "fairness" since everything happens at once, at the expense of "timeliness".back when i worked in this industry (a decade ago) posit provided something a lot like thisyou can't have it both ways, though.
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in 2006, if i saw 100,000 shares of amd offered, and i wanted it, i could go out and buy it. it was a simple as that. in 2007, if i tried to buy 100,000 shares, i would get 80,000. then in 2008 i would get 60,000. the market is showing me a volume at a price that i can no longer buy or sell at. i can’t buy or sell what i see on my screen.another way to put this:"once upon a time, i was paid a fortune by a giant investment bank to move large blocks of stock on behalf of their spectacularly wealthy clients. as recently as 2006, if one of those clients needed me to move a block of 100,000 shares, i could do that at literally the click of a button. this despite the fact that i earned a commission on the trade; it must have been a very expensive button my bank owned! and this despite the fact that my 100,000 share order was bound to move the market, and so i was in effect acting on inside information. but that's just how this is supposed to work, right?"anyways, the markets evolved, and my giant investment bank could no longer earn massive commissions just by pushing a single button. even though i knew my giant hedge fund clients were going to dump vast numbers of shares on the market, depressing prices for all the other investors, the markets no longer allowed me to trivially profit from that information! my 100,000 share orders get broken into small numbers of lots just like everyone else's. no fair!""so i started a new exchange to rewind the markets back to the glorious, equitable, fair, transparent days of 2006."
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a trading platform that outlaws what it sees as abusive practices
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in 2006, if i saw 100,000 shares of amd offered, and i wanted it, i could go out and buy it. it was a simple as that. in 2007, if i tried to buy 100,000 shares, i would get 80,000. then in 2008 i would get 60,000. the market is showing me a volume at a price that i can no longer buy or sell at. i can’t buy or sell what i see on my screen.another way to put this:"once upon a time, i was paid a fortune by a giant investment bank to move large blocks of stock on behalf of their spectacularly wealthy clients. as recently as 2006, if one of those clients needed me to move a block of 100,000 shares, i could do that at literally the click of a button. this despite the fact that i earned a commission on the trade; it must have been a very expensive button my bank owned! and this despite the fact that my 100,000 share order was bound to move the market, and so i was in effect acting on inside information. but that's just how this is supposed to work, right?"anyways, the markets evolved, and my giant investment bank could no longer earn massive commissions just by pushing a single button. even though i knew my giant hedge fund clients were going to dump vast numbers of shares on the market, depressing prices for all the other investors, the markets no longer allowed me to trivially profit from that information! my 100,000 share orders get broken into small numbers of lots just like everyone else's. no fair!""so i started a new exchange to rewind the markets back to the glorious, equitable, fair, transparent days of 2006."
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'safe' markets are valuable even for insiders, because they attract more investors and volume. people naturally want to invest where they won't be cheated.that has been forgotten in the (largely manufactured, imho) anti-regulation outrage. even the big wall street firms should benefit from regulation that makes non-insider investors feel the market is safe enough to invest in.that said, i'm confused and my theory fails: despite the long run of incompetence and fraud on wall street, its reputation as the leading place to invest and for expertise seems to persist and it has resisted regulation to a great degree. you don't hear people say, 'don't invest in the stock market because you'll be cheated'; or 'don't hire (some major wall street firm) because look how they cheated these other people, and they demonstrated complete incomptence in events x and y'. their reputation seems immune.maybe there are no better options.
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a trading platform that outlaws what it sees as abusive practices
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'safe' markets are valuable even for insiders, because they attract more investors and volume. people naturally want to invest where they won't be cheated.that has been forgotten in the (largely manufactured, imho) anti-regulation outrage. even the big wall street firms should benefit from regulation that makes non-insider investors feel the market is safe enough to invest in.that said, i'm confused and my theory fails: despite the long run of incompetence and fraud on wall street, its reputation as the leading place to invest and for expertise seems to persist and it has resisted regulation to a great degree. you don't hear people say, 'don't invest in the stock market because you'll be cheated'; or 'don't hire (some major wall street firm) because look how they cheated these other people, and they demonstrated complete incomptence in events x and y'. their reputation seems immune.maybe there are no better options.
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it's pretty silly to describe iex as curbing "abusive" practices.what iex is attempting to do is build a platform where large traders can move lots of shares while their smaller counterparties are stuck absorbing the price impact. this is potentially useful for large traders (e.g. goldman, jp morgan and citi, as mentioned in the article) but bad for small traders.what's actually kind of "abusive" is iex's marketing - they are encouraging unsophisticated investors to direct liquidity to them rather than having brokers route for best execution.<link> letter directs your broker to route your trades to iex, rather than the best available venue. this means you may be stuck paying iex fees - which could be greater than other venue's fees - and of course, you are providing liquidity to sharks who want to make sure you absorb the price impact of their trades.
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a trading platform that outlaws what it sees as abusive practices
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it's pretty silly to describe iex as curbing "abusive" practices.what iex is attempting to do is build a platform where large traders can move lots of shares while their smaller counterparties are stuck absorbing the price impact. this is potentially useful for large traders (e.g. goldman, jp morgan and citi, as mentioned in the article) but bad for small traders.what's actually kind of "abusive" is iex's marketing - they are encouraging unsophisticated investors to direct liquidity to them rather than having brokers route for best execution.<link> letter directs your broker to route your trades to iex, rather than the best available venue. this means you may be stuck paying iex fees - which could be greater than other venue's fees - and of course, you are providing liquidity to sharks who want to make sure you absorb the price impact of their trades.
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> they could see my order at bats, race me to the next exchange, and cancel all their sell orders and buy whatever is left, buy everything up, then turn around and try and sell stock back to me at a higher price. so that was the game.this is the heart of the problem with iex's explanation of the markets, and why i think most people view hft as unfair. but its not how cross exchange market making actually works. the hfts are not rushing to buy up existing inventory from others who are selling it, in an attempt to screw others. they are the ones who are originally offering to sell it in the first place. they aren't rushing to buy, they are rushing to change the price of their inventory.the metaphor i like to use is that of a chain of gas stations running down a highway, owned by the same people. if a tanker truck pulls up at the first two and buys up all their gasoline, it would be perfectly reasonable for those first 2 to call ahead to the rest down the highway and tell them to raise their prices, as they clearly were being used to supply someone else's industry at lower prices than they should.that phone call is what iex prevents, so that their customers (guys with big tanker trucks) can buy gas without impacting the price of gasoline.
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es6 performance
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tldr, use babel in "loose" mode and you'll be fine for pretty much all the es6 syntax features (by which i exclude maps, sets, and generators). most of the features listed are zero-overhead when transpiled this way. as usual, the native implementations are much slower for some reason (probably because they aren't optimized yet).microbenchmarks and relative speeds are not super useful. i'm a performance nut and i love optimizing code -- back in the day i wrote a syntax-highlighting editor that was snappy in ie6's crappy jscript engine -- but i'm not going to worry that some syntax feature is 3x or even 10x slower than assigning to a local variable (which is what, one cpu instruction?). if you're that concerned, you should be avoiding object allocations ({}) like the plague, and that is just madness except in really performance-critical sections of code (and games).
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interesting data, poor presentation.the tables need some formatting and colors would be nice, too. instead of "slower" and "faster" it should be just a factor. so, 2x would mean that it takes twice as long and 0.5x would mean that it's twice as fast.also, what's the baseline? where does that 1x come from?
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es6 performance
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interesting data, poor presentation.the tables need some formatting and colors would be nice, too. instead of "slower" and "faster" it should be just a factor. so, 2x would mean that it takes twice as long and 0.5x would mean that it's twice as fast.also, what's the baseline? where does that 1x come from?
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the trouble with microbenchmarks like these is, js engines nowadays are often clever enough to simply eliminate the code being tested, or change its character enough that the results are no longer meaningful. vyacheslav egorov (a chrome v8 engineer) has written a bunch of very good blogs on this. e.g.<link> the tests here, the "default parameters" section shows some tests being 2000x faster than others, which sounds suspicious. here's an es5 test case: function fn(arg, other) {
arg = arg === undefined ? 1 : arg;
other = other === undefined ? 3 : other;
return other;
}
test(function() {
fn();
fn(2);
fn(2, 4);
});
sure enough, an arbitrarily smart vm could compile that code down to `test();`. how much this and other optimizations affect each test is anyone's guess, but i think it's likely that at least some of these results are dominated by coincidental features of how the tests are written.
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es6 performance
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the trouble with microbenchmarks like these is, js engines nowadays are often clever enough to simply eliminate the code being tested, or change its character enough that the results are no longer meaningful. vyacheslav egorov (a chrome v8 engineer) has written a bunch of very good blogs on this. e.g.<link> the tests here, the "default parameters" section shows some tests being 2000x faster than others, which sounds suspicious. here's an es5 test case: function fn(arg, other) {
arg = arg === undefined ? 1 : arg;
other = other === undefined ? 3 : other;
return other;
}
test(function() {
fn();
fn(2);
fn(2, 4);
});
sure enough, an arbitrarily smart vm could compile that code down to `test();`. how much this and other optimizations affect each test is anyone's guess, but i think it's likely that at least some of these results are dominated by coincidental features of how the tests are written.
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there might be some great information here but it's completely unreadable. add some borders on your table, it's impossible to read in it's current state.
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es6 performance
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there might be some great information here but it's completely unreadable. add some borders on your table, it's impossible to read in it's current state.
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promises - the assumption here is that native promises are fast - this is amusing. userland implementations like bluebird promises are significantly faster than native promises. not to mention the fact that converting an api to use promises is slow with native promises - a native `promisify` will have to be provided for node, it's being worked on.
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ask hn: are you working on a reddit replacement? what is it?
interested to see what the hn community is doing in response to the recent reddit events.<p>post the name, url, description, and what you'll copy from reddit, and what you will not.
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built <link> a few years ago so not related to the current issue. but i'll turn the database on for a few days if people want to try it out.the source code is at <link> idea behind it was that the passionate minority on sites like reddit, hn etc tend to drive the discussion on issues because the less passionate majority isn't as inclined to upvote / downvote.so say you've got a website where a small minority of the users are racists but the racists are very passionate and always upvote racist content. you'll tend to see a lot of racist posts on the site even if the site as a whole isn't racist. and over time the passionate racists will drive out the rest.wanted to see if i could solve the above without moderation, while keeping posts completely anonymous.probably doesn't work but the idea is that before users vote you divide them randomly into teams. and then when a user submits a post or a comment the team votes on it and only if certain percent of the team like it does it get an upvote. and the passionate racists would most likely end up on different teams so they'd be less likely to be able to get submissions into the public parts of the site.
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i really find it fascinating that people are scrambling to make reddit replacements. first off, a) there's no guarantee the community will ever abandon reddit, even if yours is better, and b) why are we mimicking what reddit did, and succeeded greatly at? of all places, i would think that hacker news, a community of start-ups, would recognize that you don't often succeed by simply trying to improve on what some other company did already. you succeed by doing something completely new, and filling a gap that wasn't previously recognized.facebook didn't replace myspace because they tried to do what myspace did, but better; they won because they took an entirely different concept, built it, and eventually evolved into the behemoth we have today. reddit didn't surpass digg in content aggregation intentionally; they had a different community, with a different focus, and an entirely different strategy that eventually succeeded.over the years, i've gone from getting my web content through aol portals --> blogs/geocities --> news sites --> stumbleupon --> digg --> reddit, and i've been on there for 5 years now. i'm definitely ready for something new.i guess what i'm trying to say here is... if you want to make "the next reddit", you won't do it by trying to be better than reddit. it's time for the next wave of content delivery, in whatever form that may be.
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ask hn: are you working on a reddit replacement? what is it?
interested to see what the hn community is doing in response to the recent reddit events.<p>post the name, url, description, and what you'll copy from reddit, and what you will not.
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i really find it fascinating that people are scrambling to make reddit replacements. first off, a) there's no guarantee the community will ever abandon reddit, even if yours is better, and b) why are we mimicking what reddit did, and succeeded greatly at? of all places, i would think that hacker news, a community of start-ups, would recognize that you don't often succeed by simply trying to improve on what some other company did already. you succeed by doing something completely new, and filling a gap that wasn't previously recognized.facebook didn't replace myspace because they tried to do what myspace did, but better; they won because they took an entirely different concept, built it, and eventually evolved into the behemoth we have today. reddit didn't surpass digg in content aggregation intentionally; they had a different community, with a different focus, and an entirely different strategy that eventually succeeded.over the years, i've gone from getting my web content through aol portals --> blogs/geocities --> news sites --> stumbleupon --> digg --> reddit, and i've been on there for 5 years now. i'm definitely ready for something new.i guess what i'm trying to say here is... if you want to make "the next reddit", you won't do it by trying to be better than reddit. it's time for the next wave of content delivery, in whatever form that may be.
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although it does seem to be very slow to respond, <link> seemed to have stepped in as a replacement at the last big upheaval. they seem to constantly have troubles staying up though.
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ask hn: are you working on a reddit replacement? what is it?
interested to see what the hn community is doing in response to the recent reddit events.<p>post the name, url, description, and what you'll copy from reddit, and what you will not.
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although it does seem to be very slow to respond, <link> seemed to have stepped in as a replacement at the last big upheaval. they seem to constantly have troubles staying up though.
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i'm speaking as a bit of an armchair developer here, but i'd be very interested in seeing a more decentralized alternative to reddit. a user of one reddit-like site could post on another's through some sort of protocol, perhaps much like email.it would certainly be more complicated than something centralized, but considering reddit's attitude towards user-generated communities and moderation, i could see it being a good fit. there could be a lot of opportunities for black/whitelisting, paid/ad-supported servers, etc.i'd be very keen to hear more discussion on the topic!
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ask hn: are you working on a reddit replacement? what is it?
interested to see what the hn community is doing in response to the recent reddit events.<p>post the name, url, description, and what you'll copy from reddit, and what you will not.
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i'm speaking as a bit of an armchair developer here, but i'd be very interested in seeing a more decentralized alternative to reddit. a user of one reddit-like site could post on another's through some sort of protocol, perhaps much like email.it would certainly be more complicated than something centralized, but considering reddit's attitude towards user-generated communities and moderation, i could see it being a good fit. there could be a lot of opportunities for black/whitelisting, paid/ad-supported servers, etc.i'd be very keen to hear more discussion on the topic!
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my reddit replacement is reddit, minus all the people who want to leave because of reddit closing r/jailbait, r/thefappening, and r/fatpeoplehate. it's a pretty cool site, you should check it out.
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ask hn: how do i land my first small-business client?
a few months ago i decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. i put up a website (<link>, started a twitter/facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a meetup, started attending meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.<p>i am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don't have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. i am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)<p>so, to appeal to small companies, i keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. this generates little to no attention.<p>in my experience, there are tons of companies who /need/ security/usability auditing but i don't know how to reach them. there are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but i don't know how to reach them. letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. so i can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.<p>if you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done? how can i get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn't necessarily looking for technical information? and ultimately, how do i get my first clients (who are not looking for a new wordpress site)?
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it's all about fixing their problems and/or filling a need or desire. in other words, start with the "why": why does a company need your services? what problems do they have and how would you solve them?when i go to your web page, it looks nice, but put yourself in my shoes, i'm a small company. why would i care about "sustainable software development"? i'm a small biz, and when i hear "software development", i think of a barrel of cash being thrown out the window.consulting is really no different from product development: you have to be finding the pain, talking to people about their pain, and then you can mention how you might be able to solve that pain. as an example: "has your company's systems been hacked? if you think the answer is no, think again. 83% [made up] of all companies have been hacked and don't even know it. we can do a basic security audit for you for [free/fixed-price] and if we can help you fix it, there's no charge."good luck and if you'd like to chat about docker, let me know -- i'm working on a docker sideline, but i try to focus on the pains it solves, e.g., the "it works on my machine" problem rather than, "hey, docker here!" ;).
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1. what you are interested in is only tangentially relevant at best. consultants are hired based on their clients' interests.2. you have discovered the difference between pretend work and real work. seo, blogging, branding, tweeting, etc. are pretend work. real work is identifying leads, qualifying prospects, and closing deals...then doing the work and actually getting paid. pretend work is easier because you can control it and nobody slams the door in your face when you tweet or goes with someone else because they were $5 cheaper or closes down with your invoices unpaid.for all the things you've mentioned, i don't see a value proposition. how does docker make someone money? more importantly how does docker make any specific business money? it's a long road to develop a consultancy with a backlog.good luck.
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ask hn: how do i land my first small-business client?
a few months ago i decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. i put up a website (<link>, started a twitter/facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a meetup, started attending meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.<p>i am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don't have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. i am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)<p>so, to appeal to small companies, i keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. this generates little to no attention.<p>in my experience, there are tons of companies who /need/ security/usability auditing but i don't know how to reach them. there are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but i don't know how to reach them. letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. so i can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.<p>if you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done? how can i get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn't necessarily looking for technical information? and ultimately, how do i get my first clients (who are not looking for a new wordpress site)?
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1. what you are interested in is only tangentially relevant at best. consultants are hired based on their clients' interests.2. you have discovered the difference between pretend work and real work. seo, blogging, branding, tweeting, etc. are pretend work. real work is identifying leads, qualifying prospects, and closing deals...then doing the work and actually getting paid. pretend work is easier because you can control it and nobody slams the door in your face when you tweet or goes with someone else because they were $5 cheaper or closes down with your invoices unpaid.for all the things you've mentioned, i don't see a value proposition. how does docker make someone money? more importantly how does docker make any specific business money? it's a long road to develop a consultancy with a backlog.good luck.
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how would you sell park & eaton's services to yourself? i sometimes get most creative when thinking about myself as the customer, particularly because i personally do not like buying things.it takes time to generate attention on social media without controversy or craziness. hang in there.you have a great logo (hooray for spaceships!). your website is also clean (not too overwhelming) and easy to navigate. i would recommend first selecting a few small businesses that you would like to have as clients. can they understand your website - your message? i ask this because there are some areas where the wording can be rephrased. especially with small businesses, you won't just be selling to technical people, but you will be selling to busy people.examples are powerful. these don't needed to be displayed publicly, but have something ready (and interesting!) to show potential clients what you can do. i don't see a problem with your two interests: security and usability auditing. some people may advise you to focus on one or the other, but this is imho.if you are willing to write blog articles, would you consider writing and submitting articles to other sites, like the huffingtonpost.com or medium.com? you want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online; it doesn't take much for a website to get lost.ultimately, to get your first clients, i'd recommend treating each one with a lot of personal attention, and showing them that you truly care about them and their businesses. when you initiate contact with them (try to get a meeting, invite them to lunch or coffee, offer a contest, etc.), present your services as accessible, valuable, and profitable - a direct way to help their bottom line (with metrics to back you up). even without client history, you can do this by doing old-school research and by being as prepared as possible for misinterpretations and specific concerns. good luck!
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ask hn: how do i land my first small-business client?
a few months ago i decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. i put up a website (<link>, started a twitter/facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a meetup, started attending meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.<p>i am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don't have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. i am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)<p>so, to appeal to small companies, i keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. this generates little to no attention.<p>in my experience, there are tons of companies who /need/ security/usability auditing but i don't know how to reach them. there are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but i don't know how to reach them. letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. so i can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.<p>if you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done? how can i get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn't necessarily looking for technical information? and ultimately, how do i get my first clients (who are not looking for a new wordpress site)?
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how would you sell park & eaton's services to yourself? i sometimes get most creative when thinking about myself as the customer, particularly because i personally do not like buying things.it takes time to generate attention on social media without controversy or craziness. hang in there.you have a great logo (hooray for spaceships!). your website is also clean (not too overwhelming) and easy to navigate. i would recommend first selecting a few small businesses that you would like to have as clients. can they understand your website - your message? i ask this because there are some areas where the wording can be rephrased. especially with small businesses, you won't just be selling to technical people, but you will be selling to busy people.examples are powerful. these don't needed to be displayed publicly, but have something ready (and interesting!) to show potential clients what you can do. i don't see a problem with your two interests: security and usability auditing. some people may advise you to focus on one or the other, but this is imho.if you are willing to write blog articles, would you consider writing and submitting articles to other sites, like the huffingtonpost.com or medium.com? you want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online; it doesn't take much for a website to get lost.ultimately, to get your first clients, i'd recommend treating each one with a lot of personal attention, and showing them that you truly care about them and their businesses. when you initiate contact with them (try to get a meeting, invite them to lunch or coffee, offer a contest, etc.), present your services as accessible, valuable, and profitable - a direct way to help their bottom line (with metrics to back you up). even without client history, you can do this by doing old-school research and by being as prepared as possible for misinterpretations and specific concerns. good luck!
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pick up the phone and start calling people. sell them your service. you get a lot of rejections to start with, but that's how you learn what to say to get further. eventually you'll start to get positives.there is literally no other way to build a consultancy business.
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ask hn: how do i land my first small-business client?
a few months ago i decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. i put up a website (<link>, started a twitter/facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a meetup, started attending meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.<p>i am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don't have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. i am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)<p>so, to appeal to small companies, i keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. this generates little to no attention.<p>in my experience, there are tons of companies who /need/ security/usability auditing but i don't know how to reach them. there are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but i don't know how to reach them. letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. so i can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.<p>if you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done? how can i get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn't necessarily looking for technical information? and ultimately, how do i get my first clients (who are not looking for a new wordpress site)?
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pick up the phone and start calling people. sell them your service. you get a lot of rejections to start with, but that's how you learn what to say to get further. eventually you'll start to get positives.there is literally no other way to build a consultancy business.
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i would suggest picking one field - either security or usability. while you may actually be an expert in both, it will be easier to position yourself as an expert in one. this will make your marketing more straightforward.then, you'll have to figure out how to educate your potential customers. if they don't know they have a problem, you'll have to teach them. where do they hang out (online and in person)? can you teach them why they would need your services and how you can help? perhaps with a presentation or a whitepaper?
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the harmful consequences of postel's maxim
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while this doesn't settle any of our debates, it's interesting to note that there's a real question about whether today's debates have anything to do with what postel originally meant: <link> robustness principle is so compressed that it invites the reader to project an interpretation onto it.
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i have a hard time not to be sarcastic about the author's naivete.he does acknowledge that postel's maxim might be essential to any widely deployed protocol that wants to be successful. he also acknowledges that his alternative is inaplicable to the early life of a protocol.the main two flaws in tghe reasoning is that incompatibility or bugs are not intentional and that success is contingent on something 'just working'. for a thousand-feet views, you want errors, whatever their source, to propagate as little as possible and affect as little of a network as possible. postel maxim provides that effect. being strict ensures that some process somewhere over which you have no control will affect your system.fortunately, it's being applied everywhere, notwistanding purists. your house electrical input gets filtered and aim to provide a standard volatge. your computer power supplies filters that and aims to provide a stable voltage and amps. your electronics are surrounded by capacitors... wand it goes up the stack. it's just good engineering.
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the harmful consequences of postel's maxim
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i have a hard time not to be sarcastic about the author's naivete.he does acknowledge that postel's maxim might be essential to any widely deployed protocol that wants to be successful. he also acknowledges that his alternative is inaplicable to the early life of a protocol.the main two flaws in tghe reasoning is that incompatibility or bugs are not intentional and that success is contingent on something 'just working'. for a thousand-feet views, you want errors, whatever their source, to propagate as little as possible and affect as little of a network as possible. postel maxim provides that effect. being strict ensures that some process somewhere over which you have no control will affect your system.fortunately, it's being applied everywhere, notwistanding purists. your house electrical input gets filtered and aim to provide a standard volatge. your computer power supplies filters that and aims to provide a stable voltage and amps. your electronics are surrounded by capacitors... wand it goes up the stack. it's just good engineering.
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i've argued in the past for an intermediate position, especially for html. browsers should be moderately tolerant of bad html. but rather than trying to handle errors invisibly, they should revert to a simplified rendering system intended to get the content across without the decorative effects. after the first error, a browser might stop processing further javascript, display a red band indicating defective html, and display all text in the default font. it might also report the error to the server in some way.read through the error-recovery specification for html5. it's many pages of defined tolerance for old bugs. then read the charset-guessing specification for html5, which is wildly ambiguous. (statistical analysis of the document to guess the charset is suggested.) the spec should have mandated a charset parameter in the header a decade ago. if there's no charset specification, documents should render in ascii with hex for values > 127.
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the harmful consequences of postel's maxim
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i've argued in the past for an intermediate position, especially for html. browsers should be moderately tolerant of bad html. but rather than trying to handle errors invisibly, they should revert to a simplified rendering system intended to get the content across without the decorative effects. after the first error, a browser might stop processing further javascript, display a red band indicating defective html, and display all text in the default font. it might also report the error to the server in some way.read through the error-recovery specification for html5. it's many pages of defined tolerance for old bugs. then read the charset-guessing specification for html5, which is wildly ambiguous. (statistical analysis of the document to guess the charset is suggested.) the spec should have mandated a charset parameter in the header a decade ago. if there's no charset specification, documents should render in ascii with hex for values > 127.
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groan…"fail early and hard, don't recover from errors" is a recipe for disaster.that principle applied to critical systems software engineering leads to humans getting killed. e.g. in aerospace the result is airplanes falling out of the sky. seriously. the airbus a400m that recently crashed in spain did so, because somewhere in the installation of the engine control software the control parameter files were rendered unusable. the result was, that the engine control software did fail hard, while this would have been a recoverable error (just have a set of default control parameters hardcoded into the software putting the engines into a fail safe operational regime); instead the engines shut off, because the engine control software failed hard.in mission and life critical systems there are usually several redundant core systems and sensors, based on different working principles, so that there's always a workable set of information available. failing hard renders this kind of redundancy futile.no, postel's maxim holds as strong as ever. the key point here is: "be conservative in what you send", i.e. your implementation should be strict in what it subjects other players to.also being string in what's expected can be easily exploited to dos a system (great firewall rst packets anyone?)
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the harmful consequences of postel's maxim
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groan…"fail early and hard, don't recover from errors" is a recipe for disaster.that principle applied to critical systems software engineering leads to humans getting killed. e.g. in aerospace the result is airplanes falling out of the sky. seriously. the airbus a400m that recently crashed in spain did so, because somewhere in the installation of the engine control software the control parameter files were rendered unusable. the result was, that the engine control software did fail hard, while this would have been a recoverable error (just have a set of default control parameters hardcoded into the software putting the engines into a fail safe operational regime); instead the engines shut off, because the engine control software failed hard.in mission and life critical systems there are usually several redundant core systems and sensors, based on different working principles, so that there's always a workable set of information available. failing hard renders this kind of redundancy futile.no, postel's maxim holds as strong as ever. the key point here is: "be conservative in what you send", i.e. your implementation should be strict in what it subjects other players to.also being string in what's expected can be easily exploited to dos a system (great firewall rst packets anyone?)
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i have always felt that postel's maxim combined with network effect leads to complications in long term while it promotes interoperability in the short term.it's game theoretically successful strategy to get your implementation to work with everyone. when you accept sloppy input, this allows sloppy implementations to become popular.eventually de facto protocol becomes unnecessarily complicated and you need to understand quirks in popular implementations.
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ask hn: what opportunities still exist in desktop software?
in the last few years, the software industry has moved to deliver stuff over the web or mobile, with the desktop slowly getting hollowed out.<p>reading the recent threads about sublime text and atom is making me wonder if there's a blind spot amongst us programmers: what kind of desktop software can one still build and expect to make a living? (it could be for the casual user or tailored for professional use cases).
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hey, there is more than that!lots of programming isn't very visible to outsiders, but it often provides wonderful opportunities. web and mobile are the trendy career alternatives to the desktop, but there is a whole world beyond that. you might think from hacker news that all the world is web and mobile, but no no no...think of the people writing software for air-to-air missiles. well ok, it is sort of "mobile", but not in the usual way. these people tend to get paid extra for any overtime and they often get to live in places where houses are affordable.think of the people writing software for industrial robots. sometimes they get to fire lasers. again, they get to live where houses are affordable.think of the people writing software for medical devices, engine controllers, satellite modems, printers (inside the printer), routers, telephone switches, spacecraft, uavs, hard drives (in the drive itself), commercial hvac, nsa tools, hospital billing, and so much more.
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dash <link> is an oft cited example.
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ask hn: what opportunities still exist in desktop software?
in the last few years, the software industry has moved to deliver stuff over the web or mobile, with the desktop slowly getting hollowed out.<p>reading the recent threads about sublime text and atom is making me wonder if there's a blind spot amongst us programmers: what kind of desktop software can one still build and expect to make a living? (it could be for the casual user or tailored for professional use cases).
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dash <link> is an oft cited example.
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managing a fleet of windows desktops to reliably deliver an office suite and web browser to ~35 clerical workers is a gapingly unsolved problem. seriously, it's hilariously, soul-crushingly painful.fix it. preferably for less money than buying macs.
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ask hn: what opportunities still exist in desktop software?
in the last few years, the software industry has moved to deliver stuff over the web or mobile, with the desktop slowly getting hollowed out.<p>reading the recent threads about sublime text and atom is making me wonder if there's a blind spot amongst us programmers: what kind of desktop software can one still build and expect to make a living? (it could be for the casual user or tailored for professional use cases).
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managing a fleet of windows desktops to reliably deliver an office suite and web browser to ~35 clerical workers is a gapingly unsolved problem. seriously, it's hilariously, soul-crushingly painful.fix it. preferably for less money than buying macs.
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it is good to start with the truth: currently making money selling desktop software is really hard and, in general, doesn't payoff the amount of work you need to be there. we have a lot of examples of companies doing herculian work beyond sublime text and atom which don't have enough revenue. part of this is related to the web and mobile trends but also the desktop software maturity. in microsoft windows you can find a lot of tools but very few assume that they need to pay for them, they can be very popular (look at the most downloaded desktop software) but the profits/users has a very low ratio. in general, the successful ones rely on a mature sales force or they are unicorns. i think it is a good start studying the current desktop ecosystem to see how hard it is.notwithstanding that, i recommend to think about a services/product business model more than in selling "millions of units" only. although a little old now, i recommend michael cusumano's work on this [1]. my small company uses (complex) desktop and server software products as a marketing tool for services and support.now the question is what is the minimum profit you will accept to make. is it $ 100k / year, $ 200k or $ 1mm ? from that picture you can deconstruct how many units of your app/service/support you need to sell to be there. as a thumb rule i will say that selling few units for a higher price will be much easier than selling a lot of units for a few dollars. if you want to try, i would recommend start selling to smb companies who have a budget for this.regarding finding ideas, talk to people who have real software problems in their companies.[1] <link>
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ask hn: what opportunities still exist in desktop software?
in the last few years, the software industry has moved to deliver stuff over the web or mobile, with the desktop slowly getting hollowed out.<p>reading the recent threads about sublime text and atom is making me wonder if there's a blind spot amongst us programmers: what kind of desktop software can one still build and expect to make a living? (it could be for the casual user or tailored for professional use cases).
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it is good to start with the truth: currently making money selling desktop software is really hard and, in general, doesn't payoff the amount of work you need to be there. we have a lot of examples of companies doing herculian work beyond sublime text and atom which don't have enough revenue. part of this is related to the web and mobile trends but also the desktop software maturity. in microsoft windows you can find a lot of tools but very few assume that they need to pay for them, they can be very popular (look at the most downloaded desktop software) but the profits/users has a very low ratio. in general, the successful ones rely on a mature sales force or they are unicorns. i think it is a good start studying the current desktop ecosystem to see how hard it is.notwithstanding that, i recommend to think about a services/product business model more than in selling "millions of units" only. although a little old now, i recommend michael cusumano's work on this [1]. my small company uses (complex) desktop and server software products as a marketing tool for services and support.now the question is what is the minimum profit you will accept to make. is it $ 100k / year, $ 200k or $ 1mm ? from that picture you can deconstruct how many units of your app/service/support you need to sell to be there. as a thumb rule i will say that selling few units for a higher price will be much easier than selling a lot of units for a few dollars. if you want to try, i would recommend start selling to smb companies who have a budget for this.regarding finding ideas, talk to people who have real software problems in their companies.[1] <link>
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i make a living from filesearchex ... the "best" desktop search experience for windows. granted ... it needs more features.
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fireside chat with paul graham [video]
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i really liked his idea that the users teach you about what you've made. that's a really great philosophical point.i think his comments about open source are interesting and how he's never seen anybody open source too much. i humbly disagree, i've definitely seen a few startups get nowhere because they ended up open sourcing their entire product, meaning nobody needed to pay them for anything.there needs to be a strategy for open sourcing your code...for example if dropbox open sourced their client, they'd still own the relationship to their storage back-end and act as the broker for that data. their client isn't really worth anything anyways...so it doesn't really matter.but let's say microsoft open sourced office and windows. okay, now where do they make their money? they're pretty much just left with services work, and services and support often only exist if the software has problems. anybody else can then come along and code away their services business by fixing bugs, making better interfaces etc.open sourcing needs to have a valid business strategy and it can't just be putting your company's investment up on github because that feels good.
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i've always thought that apple's horrific app store approval process was the single biggest threat to the apple empire. glad to hear someone else speak out about this. it's seriously absurd that there's an arbitrarily enforced stopgate that prevents you from deploying code. it's a complete disaster. if someone could make a way to instantly deploy code to mobile phones every developer would switch in a second.the apple app store approval process is like that one random weak spot on the death star. the only question is what replaces it?
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fireside chat with paul graham [video]
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i've always thought that apple's horrific app store approval process was the single biggest threat to the apple empire. glad to hear someone else speak out about this. it's seriously absurd that there's an arbitrarily enforced stopgate that prevents you from deploying code. it's a complete disaster. if someone could make a way to instantly deploy code to mobile phones every developer would switch in a second.the apple app store approval process is like that one random weak spot on the death star. the only question is what replaces it?
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for those interested, i have collected many of pg's interviews (as well as those of sam altman and jessica livingston): <link>
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fireside chat with paul graham [video]
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for those interested, i have collected many of pg's interviews (as well as those of sam altman and jessica livingston): <link>
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i really like the bits of historical interest that comes out in the interview, naval battles and archimedes- you get the sense that he just loves learning, even if it's not "useful" knowledge. what i like most is how that just comes out as supplementary asides, reinforcing a point or framing a metaphor.definitely the kind of guy you could just talk to for hours.
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fireside chat with paul graham [video]
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i really like the bits of historical interest that comes out in the interview, naval battles and archimedes- you get the sense that he just loves learning, even if it's not "useful" knowledge. what i like most is how that just comes out as supplementary asides, reinforcing a point or framing a metaphor.definitely the kind of guy you could just talk to for hours.
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i wish paul would give posting on hn another shot. i'm sure he's busy, but i always thought he had interesting perspectives even if i didn't always agree.
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ask hn: my mom is lonely and sick. what can she do to pass the time?
hi hn, throwaway here for privacy reasons.<p>my mom is ill. at home is my father who she hasn't exactly bonded with in 25 years, my sister who is about to go off to college, and my brother who is otherwise useless.<p>my mom loves to talk on the phone, smoke her cigarettes, and take her pain pills (don't get me started). she is very likeable but she's a suburban woman whose friends are all working during the day, and then in the evening they're at home with their families.<p>she is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent woman, with a brain unlike any other. she worked for the government before she became a housewife and stay-at-home mom. she hasn't worked in 22 years, but when she did, she was making six-figures (and earning it, despite the mostly-valid government job jokes.)<p>she isn't tech savvy but she's capable of looking up recipes, manipulating the google, answering emails, stuff like that.<p>what is something i can put in front of her to stimulate her?<p>i thought about something like mturk, but the idea of her time being worth pennies will only turn her off.<p>thanks :)
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maybe ask some girl gamers of something they think would appeal to your mom ?<link> ?
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i know a lot of older folks that are very active in second life, find a good community and you can find lots of folk to connect with. if you get a creative community there are in-world building and graphics classes, games, events, exploration, and other pass-times. one of the best communities sl i know of is raglan shire, tiny av community, no sex, violence stuff or anything like that, fun and very active. second life would take too much to explain, best to visit it raglan shire has a webpage it's http://www.raglanshire.comotherwise if you are in suburban area i bet there are a bunch of community groups, either to participate or volunteer in. the local senior centrer is a good start, either to work there or find out about other local groups... library too.
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ask hn: my mom is lonely and sick. what can she do to pass the time?
hi hn, throwaway here for privacy reasons.<p>my mom is ill. at home is my father who she hasn't exactly bonded with in 25 years, my sister who is about to go off to college, and my brother who is otherwise useless.<p>my mom loves to talk on the phone, smoke her cigarettes, and take her pain pills (don't get me started). she is very likeable but she's a suburban woman whose friends are all working during the day, and then in the evening they're at home with their families.<p>she is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent woman, with a brain unlike any other. she worked for the government before she became a housewife and stay-at-home mom. she hasn't worked in 22 years, but when she did, she was making six-figures (and earning it, despite the mostly-valid government job jokes.)<p>she isn't tech savvy but she's capable of looking up recipes, manipulating the google, answering emails, stuff like that.<p>what is something i can put in front of her to stimulate her?<p>i thought about something like mturk, but the idea of her time being worth pennies will only turn her off.<p>thanks :)
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i know a lot of older folks that are very active in second life, find a good community and you can find lots of folk to connect with. if you get a creative community there are in-world building and graphics classes, games, events, exploration, and other pass-times. one of the best communities sl i know of is raglan shire, tiny av community, no sex, violence stuff or anything like that, fun and very active. second life would take too much to explain, best to visit it raglan shire has a webpage it's http://www.raglanshire.comotherwise if you are in suburban area i bet there are a bunch of community groups, either to participate or volunteer in. the local senior centrer is a good start, either to work there or find out about other local groups... library too.
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would she be interested in volunteer work? i've found that volunteering and giving your time to help someone else really helps.
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ask hn: my mom is lonely and sick. what can she do to pass the time?
hi hn, throwaway here for privacy reasons.<p>my mom is ill. at home is my father who she hasn't exactly bonded with in 25 years, my sister who is about to go off to college, and my brother who is otherwise useless.<p>my mom loves to talk on the phone, smoke her cigarettes, and take her pain pills (don't get me started). she is very likeable but she's a suburban woman whose friends are all working during the day, and then in the evening they're at home with their families.<p>she is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent woman, with a brain unlike any other. she worked for the government before she became a housewife and stay-at-home mom. she hasn't worked in 22 years, but when she did, she was making six-figures (and earning it, despite the mostly-valid government job jokes.)<p>she isn't tech savvy but she's capable of looking up recipes, manipulating the google, answering emails, stuff like that.<p>what is something i can put in front of her to stimulate her?<p>i thought about something like mturk, but the idea of her time being worth pennies will only turn her off.<p>thanks :)
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would she be interested in volunteer work? i've found that volunteering and giving your time to help someone else really helps.
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my mom used to be alone when my brother and i grew up and started working toward our careers.she didn't like that so joined a community singing class and a yoga class . met new people in and around our vicinity who share her passion. they have regular meetups where everyone sings on the karaoke and works on self improving their singing. she's happy. more social than my brother and i now. really glad it worked out.
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ask hn: my mom is lonely and sick. what can she do to pass the time?
hi hn, throwaway here for privacy reasons.<p>my mom is ill. at home is my father who she hasn't exactly bonded with in 25 years, my sister who is about to go off to college, and my brother who is otherwise useless.<p>my mom loves to talk on the phone, smoke her cigarettes, and take her pain pills (don't get me started). she is very likeable but she's a suburban woman whose friends are all working during the day, and then in the evening they're at home with their families.<p>she is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent woman, with a brain unlike any other. she worked for the government before she became a housewife and stay-at-home mom. she hasn't worked in 22 years, but when she did, she was making six-figures (and earning it, despite the mostly-valid government job jokes.)<p>she isn't tech savvy but she's capable of looking up recipes, manipulating the google, answering emails, stuff like that.<p>what is something i can put in front of her to stimulate her?<p>i thought about something like mturk, but the idea of her time being worth pennies will only turn her off.<p>thanks :)
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my mom used to be alone when my brother and i grew up and started working toward our careers.she didn't like that so joined a community singing class and a yoga class . met new people in and around our vicinity who share her passion. they have regular meetups where everyone sings on the karaoke and works on self improving their singing. she's happy. more social than my brother and i now. really glad it worked out.
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while i don't have great advice to solve this, i'd like to point out a few things:1. don't project your desires on to her. you said she likes to talk on the phone, keeping in touch might be her favorite thing. whereas something you value like some game/tech/hobby means very little to her. talk openly with her about what she values in life and that's the best guide to what she can do for enjoyment.2. people have to want to get out there themselves, they can and should have help, but ultimately it should be their desire. i'd say have a frank talk about her if getting out and meeting people is something she even wants (if she's not too sick to do so). perhaps she's more interested in deepening her existing relationships.3. try various things, maybe it's hiking one week or for some months, maybe after that it's gardening or some classes. maybe it's caring for a pet, there's just no way to know without trying some things. finally it might be that a support group for her illness is best, perhaps it takes up most of her mental energy and sharing those concerns would lighten her up.4. talk to her. open frank communication might take time, but i have a feeling it'll get the best results.
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gemnote (yc s15) saves companies from cheesy gift baskets
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> the request is sent to the scribe who lives closest to the recipient to ensure that their card arrives within a couple of days. gemnote currently has about 20 to 25 scribes throughout the country, who are paid per card completed. many are stay-at-home mothers, teachers on break, or students who have excellent penmanship and want to pick up extra income.wasn't this joaquin phoenix's profession in her?except that in her, the handwritten-greeting-card-as-a-service was portrayed satirically as the disconnect between real compassion and artificial compassion.
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“our cards are opened at an almost 100 percent rate, but email is probably two percent or marked as spam. so there is a huge value proposition there, because sending out 500 cards might be more effective then sending out 2,000 emails,” says wong.except that email is free...
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gemnote (yc s15) saves companies from cheesy gift baskets
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“our cards are opened at an almost 100 percent rate, but email is probably two percent or marked as spam. so there is a huge value proposition there, because sending out 500 cards might be more effective then sending out 2,000 emails,” says wong.except that email is free...
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so do none of these gifts include actual food or alcohol?this all looks very nice and i would use this for clients if the cheese tray included cheese and the drinking set included alcohol.
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gemnote (yc s15) saves companies from cheesy gift baskets
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so do none of these gifts include actual food or alcohol?this all looks very nice and i would use this for clients if the cheese tray included cheese and the drinking set included alcohol.
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this is really smart. the number of companies that are sending out cards and gifts is huge, and it makes no sense for each of them to do it on their own. i love that this is consolidated in a service that still lets them keep the personal touch.
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gemnote (yc s15) saves companies from cheesy gift baskets
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this is really smart. the number of companies that are sending out cards and gifts is huge, and it makes no sense for each of them to do it on their own. i love that this is consolidated in a service that still lets them keep the personal touch.
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this is fantastic! i will definitely use it to send cards to my girlfriend.
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iceland makes blasphemy legal
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in germany we have this law: <link>
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meanwhile new zealand will put you in jail for offending someone on the internet:<link>;objecti...
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iceland makes blasphemy legal
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meanwhile new zealand will put you in jail for offending someone on the internet:<link>;objecti...
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kind of crazy that it wasn't already legal, to be honest
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iceland makes blasphemy legal
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kind of crazy that it wasn't already legal, to be honest
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shouldn't it be "iceland abolished blasphemy" ?
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iceland makes blasphemy legal
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shouldn't it be "iceland abolished blasphemy" ?
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in ireland blasphemy was made a crime in 2009! there was a provision in the constitution that mandated it be defined but politicians never got around to it which kind of left it an open ended question but decided it would be a good idea to follow through on the provision and define it.atheist ireland campaigned against it as ireland as it was being introduced as ireland was clearly becoming more secular and non religious and yet we were introducing religious laws and leaving its catholic past behind.it was controversial internationally because ireland is an advanced western country and then pakistan literally lifted the wording straight from irish law and implemented in their own law which granted the action some legitimacy.that said the law actually has no teeth and was challenged by michael nugent of ai who released 25 blasphemous statements to show that he'd never be convicted. <link> an interesting selection as jesus and mohammed, the pope and a slew of comedians, politicians and creatives are quoted.
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towns in massachusetts are building their own gigabit fiber network
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i lived in monterey, ma as a camp director for years. we had dial up forever and they were able to get 100 kbs in 2003 till today at almost $75 a month.there is no way i can tell you how rural it is. when we had a medical emergency we speed 90 mph + one time down the road to meet the ambulance half way to the hospital that was 45 minutes away. houses are about 1/2 mile away from each other on dirt roads that are not plowed during the winter. the center of town equals one general store and the post office and maybe 8 homes. the one saving grace for funding is that many rich and famous people have summer homes there. it would be great for these people to actually have
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cities in nc did this[1]. twc didn't like it, so they bought the state legislature and had it made illegal[2]. the fcc is trying to pull rank on nc, but nc is fighting back[3].1. <link> <link> <link>
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towns in massachusetts are building their own gigabit fiber network
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cities in nc did this[1]. twc didn't like it, so they bought the state legislature and had it made illegal[2]. the fcc is trying to pull rank on nc, but nc is fighting back[3].1. <link> <link> <link>
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great quote from a resident (in a press release linked from the op):“our family has lived in goshen for almost 30 years. over that time during town meeting, we’ve debated the costs of a fire truck, an ambulance, several highway trucks and police cruisers, capping our dump, a new elementary school, an addition to the high school and now the construction of a regional broadband network. never [before] in the history of goshen have we had to change the venue of the meeting because so many people turned out.” all 240 voters were unanimous in their support of the bond authorization.
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towns in massachusetts are building their own gigabit fiber network
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great quote from a resident (in a press release linked from the op):“our family has lived in goshen for almost 30 years. over that time during town meeting, we’ve debated the costs of a fire truck, an ambulance, several highway trucks and police cruisers, capping our dump, a new elementary school, an addition to the high school and now the construction of a regional broadband network. never [before] in the history of goshen have we had to change the venue of the meeting because so many people turned out.” all 240 voters were unanimous in their support of the bond authorization.
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that people are willing to spend huge amounts just to avoid the monopolist isp's says a lot.
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towns in massachusetts are building their own gigabit fiber network
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that people are willing to spend huge amounts just to avoid the monopolist isp's says a lot.
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$80 million for an area that has 20,000 households. if they get 40% uptake, that's $10,000 per household. twc's market cap per subscriber is less than half that. the economics of building fiber suck.
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der spiegel targeted by us intelligence
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any one else see all this news as;"misdirection. what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes."swordfish @ <link>
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interesting article.in the last several years i have been surprised how many der spiegal articles accurately (apparently) documented things that embarrassed the u.s. government.too bad u.s. news media does not do as thorough of a job with their reporting.
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der spiegel targeted by us intelligence
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interesting article.in the last several years i have been surprised how many der spiegal articles accurately (apparently) documented things that embarrassed the u.s. government.too bad u.s. news media does not do as thorough of a job with their reporting.
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>the fact that the cia and nsa were prepared to reveal an ongoing surveillance operation to the chancellery underlines the importance they attached to the leaks, say sources in washington. the nsa, the sources say, were aware that the german government would know from then on that the us was spying in berlin.i'm sure that the germans were shocked, shocked, to find that an intelligence agency was spying in berlin.
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der spiegel targeted by us intelligence
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>the fact that the cia and nsa were prepared to reveal an ongoing surveillance operation to the chancellery underlines the importance they attached to the leaks, say sources in washington. the nsa, the sources say, were aware that the german government would know from then on that the us was spying in berlin.i'm sure that the germans were shocked, shocked, to find that an intelligence agency was spying in berlin.
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the thing that i realized when reading this article title today is that my internal reaction was something like "ok, nothing new." whereas 10 or 15 years ago, my reaction would have been, "another tinfoil hat article."
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der spiegel targeted by us intelligence
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the thing that i realized when reading this article title today is that my internal reaction was something like "ok, nothing new." whereas 10 or 15 years ago, my reaction would have been, "another tinfoil hat article."
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it makes sense that us intelligence is spying on foreign entities -- that's their job. foreign entities are not protected by the us constitution and are not covered by the fourth amendment and have no right to privacy from the nsa, cia, etc.
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if hospitals were run like startups
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seriously, the tech startup model isn't always the best one. here are some more points:11. if hospitals were run like startups, 10% of emergency patients would be turned away ('not the target audience'), and any medical staff who complained would be labeled "insufficiently pragmatic".12. if hospitals were run like startups, 90% of them would close their doors within the first year of opening.13. if hospitals were run like startups, patients' medical information would be used to sell them ads. the databases storing this information would also be leaked within the first 10 years of opening, since details like security are rarely a priority in a startup.14. if hospitals were run like startups, junior medical staff would be overworked, underpaid, and burnt out. actually, this is already the norm (at least in canada).15. if hospitals were run like startups, patients who went in to have their appendix removed would find that their tonsils and wisdom teeth had also been removed, and an rfid chip with their patient id had been implanted "to serve them better". this would be ok because it would be covered by the blanket consent form referred to by the sign at the entrance that reads "by using this facility, you agree to its terms and conditions (available upon request; may change at any time)". patients who had read it would know that they could opt out.
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if hospitals were run like startups, they'd advertise free advanced medical procedures to draw people in, then the moment they'd find a buyer for the hospital they'd shut the power down and told dying people in mid-operation that they thank them for joining and being part of this great success.
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if hospitals were run like startups
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if hospitals were run like startups, they'd advertise free advanced medical procedures to draw people in, then the moment they'd find a buyer for the hospital they'd shut the power down and told dying people in mid-operation that they thank them for joining and being part of this great success.
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while i agree with many of the ideas in principle, i'm wondering if startups are really the best benchmark to compare with. much of what the article states might be closer to the ideals of lean-driven firms such as toyota. in fact, many successful attempts have already been made to bring these principles into healthcare. without questioning the effectiveness of startups, i doubt that all of their organizational principles are well suited for a context where shortcuts and experiments can lead to real harm.
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if hospitals were run like startups
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while i agree with many of the ideas in principle, i'm wondering if startups are really the best benchmark to compare with. much of what the article states might be closer to the ideals of lean-driven firms such as toyota. in fact, many successful attempts have already been made to bring these principles into healthcare. without questioning the effectiveness of startups, i doubt that all of their organizational principles are well suited for a context where shortcuts and experiments can lead to real harm.
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haha, i am a good friend of omar's and the referenced physician-coder in the story. while he made it sound as though i had avoided healthcare altogether since graduating, i really did put in the effort! part of me felt like i was obligated to put in some time given i spent half a decade in my 20's learning medicine. i worked for listrunner in the past year and had a lot of fun combining my software development talents and medical knowledge.
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if hospitals were run like startups
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haha, i am a good friend of omar's and the referenced physician-coder in the story. while he made it sound as though i had avoided healthcare altogether since graduating, i really did put in the effort! part of me felt like i was obligated to put in some time given i spent half a decade in my 20's learning medicine. i worked for listrunner in the past year and had a lot of fun combining my software development talents and medical knowledge.
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i expected an article that discussed the other side of the coin.
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datascript: immutable database and datalog query engine in clojurescript
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> what if creating a database would be as cheap as creating a hashmap?i wanted something like this for go recently, settled with sqlite :(
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i wonder when we are going to see an open source implementation of datomic's main ideas in the database space.
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datascript: immutable database and datalog query engine in clojurescript
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i wonder when we are going to see an open source implementation of datomic's main ideas in the database space.
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i've been thinking a lot about using a datascript database in place of a large mutable deeply nested hash map, or other non-regular chunk of data, to keep track of state using the amazing clojurescript library re-frame[1].there are some times when having a novel way to query could lead to simpler data.[1] <link>
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datascript: immutable database and datalog query engine in clojurescript
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i've been thinking a lot about using a datascript database in place of a large mutable deeply nested hash map, or other non-regular chunk of data, to keep track of state using the amazing clojurescript library re-frame[1].there are some times when having a novel way to query could lead to simpler data.[1] <link>
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this is a project i've kept a closer eye on, as i'm thoroughly fascinated with datomic, and the concept of using a similar system alongside functional approaches like react seems a good match.would love to hear comments from anyone who has given datascript a test drive - i'm guessing from the alpha state that no one is using it in production but hey, who knows... some people like to live dangerously.
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datascript: immutable database and datalog query engine in clojurescript
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this is a project i've kept a closer eye on, as i'm thoroughly fascinated with datomic, and the concept of using a similar system alongside functional approaches like react seems a good match.would love to hear comments from anyone who has given datascript a test drive - i'm guessing from the alpha state that no one is using it in production but hey, who knows... some people like to live dangerously.
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we're using it in production, but then, the author is on our team. we've been using datomic in production since jan 2013. it's as good as it says on the tin.i love living dangerously, if danger means using full-stack clojure and immutability -grin-
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