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Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful
{ "score": 0, "text": "The purpose of Candyland is to play a game, without playing a game. It's for toddlers to learn to take turns, to accept negative or positive outcomes without stomping off in a huff, and to play a game with a level playing field between the adults and children... and at the level we are talking about, if there is a meaningful choice at all, then the child, or perhaps rather toddler, will simply lose. It's more than just \"following directions\", it's the whole set of skills necessary to play a game.This is why family games have a gradient to them, gradually trading chances for decisions, and gradually expanding the state space, until the game player is ready to join the adults fully with something like Scrabble in the early teens or so. The mentioned Connect 4, for instance, is relatively simple and can be effectively \"solved\" by an 8 or 9 year old, for instance, so a 8yo and an adult are still not separated by such a large gulf that the game is a joke. Children are actually pretty good at figuring out that they are being \"let\" win.If you replace Candyland with something that has any choices at all, you've replaced something other than Candyland.That said, I'm not saying the progression is optimal as it stands, but if you don't understand the reasons for the enduring popularity of the \"standard game loadout\", which hasn't seem to have hardly changed in 50 years, you're not going to improve on it properly. And I'd say most of the flaws are on the higher end and solved with things like Settlers of Catan and such, not the children's part of the progression." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "In `A Theory of Fun`, Raph Koster writes about games being learning and teaching tools. When my brother and I would play 'soldiers' growing up, we were safely simulating, and learning from, what it would be like to be a warrior (evolutionarily, a useful identity). I always like the idea that Candyland was a game game -- it's a game to teach kids how to play games. It's a really spectacular book; I learned a lot from it despite not being a game designer: http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1932..." }
Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful
{ "score": 1, "text": "In `A Theory of Fun`, Raph Koster writes about games being learning and teaching tools. When my brother and I would play 'soldiers' growing up, we were safely simulating, and learning from, what it would be like to be a warrior (evolutionarily, a useful identity). I always like the idea that Candyland was a game game -- it's a game to teach kids how to play games. It's a really spectacular book; I learned a lot from it despite not being a game designer: http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1932..." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Ah, but you can make decisions in these games.Years ago I was teaching English in Japan to a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 3-year-old. We were playing some utterly moronic game where the kids took turns drawing cards, having me read the letter of the alphabet they drew, and then moving their pawn as appropriate.It was really more for the younger kids, so the 6-year-old made a decision: he attempted to cheat! He simply moved his pawn forward ten squares or so when he guessed we weren't looking.Regrettably for him, we were indeed all looking at the board. He offered to move his pawn back the ten spaces, but no, it was back to the beginning for him." }
Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful
{ "score": 2, "text": "Ah, but you can make decisions in these games.Years ago I was teaching English in Japan to a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 3-year-old. We were playing some utterly moronic game where the kids took turns drawing cards, having me read the letter of the alphabet they drew, and then moving their pawn as appropriate.It was really more for the younger kids, so the 6-year-old made a decision: he attempted to cheat! He simply moved his pawn forward ten squares or so when he guessed we weren't looking.Regrettably for him, we were indeed all looking at the board. He offered to move his pawn back the ten spaces, but no, it was back to the beginning for him." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "I've got to say, I find even Monopoly to be a terrible game. My strategy for the game can be summed up as: \"buy the property if I can, otherwise pay rent if I have to\".I almost never stray from that strategy, and even when I do, it's not like those exceptions make the game any more interesting." }
Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful
{ "score": 3, "text": "I've got to say, I find even Monopoly to be a terrible game. My strategy for the game can be summed up as: \"buy the property if I can, otherwise pay rent if I have to\".I almost never stray from that strategy, and even when I do, it's not like those exceptions make the game any more interesting." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "This is off the topic of the actual post, but the concept of Kids Dungeon Adventure is just awesome. I'm getting this to play with a friend of mine and her 5 year old daughter -- we play games whenever I'm in town, but I've never felt they tapped into her (mindblowingly amazing) creativity and imagination. Great job, Ben; we need more of this!" }
Google tells how it conducts eye-tracking studies
{ "score": 0, "text": "There is an interesting difference how the pages scanned in this video. The eye movement on the one with mostly images were more random than on a text based." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I wonder where they get the equipment. Any ideas?Seems like a $30k deal: http://www.insideria.com/2008/04/is-eye-tracking-out-of-reac..." }
Google tells how it conducts eye-tracking studies
{ "score": 1, "text": "I wonder where they get the equipment. Any ideas?Seems like a $30k deal: http://www.insideria.com/2008/04/is-eye-tracking-out-of-reac..." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Official Google Blog entry with full writeup: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/eye-tracking-studies-..." }
Google tells how it conducts eye-tracking studies
{ "score": 2, "text": "Official Google Blog entry with full writeup: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/eye-tracking-studies-..." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Moral of the story: beg borrow and steal to get to the top of search results, if that traffic is valuable to you." }
Google tells how it conducts eye-tracking studies
{ "score": 3, "text": "Moral of the story: beg borrow and steal to get to the top of search results, if that traffic is valuable to you." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Clearly this is why they put the highlighted AdWords right at the top..." }
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
{ "score": 0, "text": "Really interesting read on how much interaction HN brings. There is a lot to be said for quality over quantity when it comes to page views.I believe you are wrong about dismissing that top comment in the other post as snarky, negative and useless. That comment has a lot of very useful information from someone who appears to have been doing the Thailand thing longer than you have.1) Thai law was brought up a number of times and you do appear to be violating it. This is probably something that needs to be said.2) You mention how cheap it is while he believes its more expensive, but you may have gotten a good deal or stayed in areas that others wouldn't want to. It's your experience vs his; I see no reason to dismiss him as 'snark'.3) He shares a number of anecdotes (sex workers, etc) that differ from your anecdotes. Thailand is a big place, you can both be right, and the more information the better." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Dear Pete's Mom,You really have no idea how much of a time sink HN really is. If I said it took a fair portion of my day, it would be the biggest understatement of the year.Love from everyone who reads Hacker News" }
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
{ "score": 1, "text": "Dear Pete's Mom,You really have no idea how much of a time sink HN really is. If I said it took a fair portion of my day, it would be the biggest understatement of the year.Love from everyone who reads Hacker News" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Next week: What happens when your follow-up to being #1 on Hacker News ends up being #1 on Hacker News." }
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
{ "score": 2, "text": "Next week: What happens when your follow-up to being #1 on Hacker News ends up being #1 on Hacker News." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Nobody has yet given feedback on your landing page for Tubelytics (1), where you said only one person signed up from the HN post.From my perspective there is simply nothing there(2), and 5 seconds looking at a static page is just not enough information for me to make a decision. That decision is not just to give you my email address, but to "sign-up", which is a huge step too far.At the very least I need a "find out more" option, and I'd need that without having to give you my email address or other details.You clearly write very well, so why not tell the Tubelytics story underneath the landing page. Let me scroll down and read the story, see the screenshots, hear about the use cases and experience the success stories.By the time people get to the end they should know what the product is, how awesome it will be for them to use it, how much it costs and whether or not they will buy.(Advanced) Ideally I could play with the product and even set it up with my youtube videos(3) without logging in, and once I experience the product then I can save the data by creating an account and, more likely, pay you.So rather than not getting an email, perhaps there is a better way to get a paid sign-up.(1) https://tubelytics.com\n(2) I'm OSX Safari with flash block on\n(3) I'm not a target customer" }
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
{ "score": 3, "text": "Nobody has yet given feedback on your landing page for Tubelytics (1), where you said only one person signed up from the HN post.From my perspective there is simply nothing there(2), and 5 seconds looking at a static page is just not enough information for me to make a decision. That decision is not just to give you my email address, but to "sign-up", which is a huge step too far.At the very least I need a "find out more" option, and I'd need that without having to give you my email address or other details.You clearly write very well, so why not tell the Tubelytics story underneath the landing page. Let me scroll down and read the story, see the screenshots, hear about the use cases and experience the success stories.By the time people get to the end they should know what the product is, how awesome it will be for them to use it, how much it costs and whether or not they will buy.(Advanced) Ideally I could play with the product and even set it up with my youtube videos(3) without logging in, and once I experience the product then I can save the data by creating an account and, more likely, pay you.So rather than not getting an email, perhaps there is a better way to get a paid sign-up.(1) https://tubelytics.com\n(2) I'm OSX Safari with flash block on\n(3) I'm not a target customer" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "For those of you who think you need a "good server" to be on the front page of hacker news, you're wrong. My blog hit #2 on HN and landed on the front page a few times in the last six months.I have a Rackspace 256mb ram slice hosting Wordpress. No caching at all, none.I also run, on the same server, a teamspeak server for a friend that still plays games.I peaked at 290 simultaneous people reading my post. Teamspeak server was still working fine." }
How to understand non-trivial declarations in C. (right-left rule) A big thanks to the best professor I had in undergrad for making this.
{ "score": 0, "text": "This website has helped me out on various occasions to figure out what was going on: http://cdecl.org/ (it won't say if something is illegal though or not)" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "FTA: First, symbols. Read\n\n *\t\tas \"pointer to\"\t\t\t- always on the left side\n [] \tas \"array of\"\t\t\t- always on the right side\n ()\t\tas \"function returning\"\t\t- always on the right side\n\nIf all of these type operators were on the right side, there would be no need for such a guide. Parenthesis would never be necessary for type declarations, and they could be read in one direction.It's unclear why C authors chose to have both prefix and postfix type operators.Similarly, the value-level dereference operator could be post-fix, avoiding the need for (->), and making it much easier to dereference and subscript array pointers. That would make it feasible to pass arrays by pointer-to-array, allowing to feasibly pass them by value and have simpler and more consistent language semantics." }
How to understand non-trivial declarations in C. (right-left rule) A big thanks to the best professor I had in undergrad for making this.
{ "score": 1, "text": "FTA: First, symbols. Read\n\n *\t\tas \"pointer to\"\t\t\t- always on the left side\n [] \tas \"array of\"\t\t\t- always on the right side\n ()\t\tas \"function returning\"\t\t- always on the right side\n\nIf all of these type operators were on the right side, there would be no need for such a guide. Parenthesis would never be necessary for type declarations, and they could be read in one direction.It's unclear why C authors chose to have both prefix and postfix type operators.Similarly, the value-level dereference operator could be post-fix, avoiding the need for (->), and making it much easier to dereference and subscript array pointers. That would make it feasible to pass arrays by pointer-to-array, allowing to feasibly pass them by value and have simpler and more consistent language semantics." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "I use the well-known \"clockwise spiral rule\" http://c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html" }
How to understand non-trivial declarations in C. (right-left rule) A big thanks to the best professor I had in undergrad for making this.
{ "score": 2, "text": "I use the well-known \"clockwise spiral rule\" http://c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Though I absolutely dislike the excessive use of typedefs (e.g. Windows with its use of DWORD_PTR instead of unsigned long * or uint32_t * ), I think it's appropriate to use a typedef or two to simplify declarations of function pointers which themselves accept or return function pointers." }
How to understand non-trivial declarations in C. (right-left rule) A big thanks to the best professor I had in undergrad for making this.
{ "score": 3, "text": "Though I absolutely dislike the excessive use of typedefs (e.g. Windows with its use of DWORD_PTR instead of unsigned long * or uint32_t * ), I think it's appropriate to use a typedef or two to simplify declarations of function pointers which themselves accept or return function pointers." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "An update that includes blocks would be nice." }
Ask HN: How Can I leave Syria now and get asylum in Europe (Germany) Guys, I am in Syria(specifically in Damascus). Seems war is rolling out. Most of the people are moving to border regions but I cant and I am a programmer worked as a remote dev for an Australian startup. But I am not sure how long I will be able to work living in Syria. I want move to Europe specially in Germany as the startup scene is booming in Berlin. So can you guys give me suggestion of legal way to move in Germany as an asylum and will I be able to work if I can move. I went through google but couldn't find much information. And I will be happy to have contact with startups that are hiring dev. I have couple of years backend development experience with Python(Django),LAMP,Node.js and some unix skill. Thanks in advance.
{ "score": 0, "text": "Skip Germany and go to Sweden or England, where people are more than happy to speak English, and there is already many Syrians in Sweden, especially in Sodertalje. Sweden will accept you based on your skills far more easily than Germany, all you need is to find a job, and right now the market is open for a guy of your skills - programmers are in high demand. Look around on various Sweden/Stockholm job posting sites, from there you get the visa and safety. The startup scene is also nice.As someone else mentioned in Germany as asylum seeker you arent allowed to work. You can come to Sweden and seek asylum and you'd be allowed to work, and when you do sign a contract then you can get a permit to stay and cancel the asylum request. PM me and Ill give you names of good companies that are on the lookout to hire.As others said, to be able to apply for asylum in EU country X, you have to first set foot in that country X and not in another one, so, go to Turkey or Israel and then fly to Sweden from there.Sweden is also more flexible, its a country where they look out for the best interest of you as a human (mostly), so if you come to Sweden and continue working for Australian company - it is enough to get a work permit, all you have to do is prove that you earn more than minimum amount, I believe around 1500usd and pay taxes, to be accepted.As a war refugee my self, I urge you strongly to leave Syria now, for the love of god no matter the price, buy those tickets and get the hell out of there and far away as possible, Sweden, Canada, Australia. (Not Germany, France, Italy, USA, Turkey they all suck.)Your life is all you got, dont waste it on that war. Take with your closest family if you can." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I'm a Syrian hacker myself, and I can suggest you a better option. Go to Dubai, it is easy to get a visit visa first, if you are in damascus you can go through Beirut Airport as the path is still safe between the cities (got many friends coming through that route). then you can try to find a job in Dubai (should be easier as the economy is growing and since you speak the language), I myself know many startups and companies and will try to help you as well.if you find a good job in Dubai you might give up the whole idea of moving to Europe as the standard of living is really high and the country is tax-free and amazing. but still you should be able to get a Schengen visit visa easily (especially if you work for a good company)." }
Ask HN: How Can I leave Syria now and get asylum in Europe (Germany) Guys, I am in Syria(specifically in Damascus). Seems war is rolling out. Most of the people are moving to border regions but I cant and I am a programmer worked as a remote dev for an Australian startup. But I am not sure how long I will be able to work living in Syria. I want move to Europe specially in Germany as the startup scene is booming in Berlin. So can you guys give me suggestion of legal way to move in Germany as an asylum and will I be able to work if I can move. I went through google but couldn't find much information. And I will be happy to have contact with startups that are hiring dev. I have couple of years backend development experience with Python(Django),LAMP,Node.js and some unix skill. Thanks in advance.
{ "score": 1, "text": "I'm a Syrian hacker myself, and I can suggest you a better option. Go to Dubai, it is easy to get a visit visa first, if you are in damascus you can go through Beirut Airport as the path is still safe between the cities (got many friends coming through that route). then you can try to find a job in Dubai (should be easier as the economy is growing and since you speak the language), I myself know many startups and companies and will try to help you as well.if you find a good job in Dubai you might give up the whole idea of moving to Europe as the standard of living is really high and the country is tax-free and amazing. but still you should be able to get a Schengen visit visa easily (especially if you work for a good company)." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "1. Keep your job with the Australian start up.\n2. Fly to Malaysia. You don't need visa to enter the country.\n3. Once you are in region in a safe place, you can figure out the next step. You will be in the most growing economic zone in the world. Don't go to Europe. Everybody's trying to get to Europe right now." }
Ask HN: How Can I leave Syria now and get asylum in Europe (Germany) Guys, I am in Syria(specifically in Damascus). Seems war is rolling out. Most of the people are moving to border regions but I cant and I am a programmer worked as a remote dev for an Australian startup. But I am not sure how long I will be able to work living in Syria. I want move to Europe specially in Germany as the startup scene is booming in Berlin. So can you guys give me suggestion of legal way to move in Germany as an asylum and will I be able to work if I can move. I went through google but couldn't find much information. And I will be happy to have contact with startups that are hiring dev. I have couple of years backend development experience with Python(Django),LAMP,Node.js and some unix skill. Thanks in advance.
{ "score": 2, "text": "1. Keep your job with the Australian start up.\n2. Fly to Malaysia. You don't need visa to enter the country.\n3. Once you are in region in a safe place, you can figure out the next step. You will be in the most growing economic zone in the world. Don't go to Europe. Everybody's trying to get to Europe right now." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Find a lawyer in Germany, and get advice from them before you go.My knowledge is both limited, 12+ years outdated, and restricted to the UK, but here is my tuppence-worth anyway:1. It is both a legal and a bureaucratic process.\n2. Apply for asylum at the first possible opportunity. At the border crossing-point or airport, if possible.\n3. Don't lie.\n4. Be prepared with documentary evidence to back up any statements that you are going to make.\n5. If possible, have documentary evidence that you are facing persecution, or that your life is in danger. (Sounds silly in the current situation, I know, but anyway...)\n6. Make sure that a friendly party (or your lawyer) has a copy of these documents.It might be easier, if the danger looks like it is going to be temporary, to reach out and try to get somebody to "host" you, and go on a visitor's visa." }
Ask HN: How Can I leave Syria now and get asylum in Europe (Germany) Guys, I am in Syria(specifically in Damascus). Seems war is rolling out. Most of the people are moving to border regions but I cant and I am a programmer worked as a remote dev for an Australian startup. But I am not sure how long I will be able to work living in Syria. I want move to Europe specially in Germany as the startup scene is booming in Berlin. So can you guys give me suggestion of legal way to move in Germany as an asylum and will I be able to work if I can move. I went through google but couldn't find much information. And I will be happy to have contact with startups that are hiring dev. I have couple of years backend development experience with Python(Django),LAMP,Node.js and some unix skill. Thanks in advance.
{ "score": 3, "text": "Find a lawyer in Germany, and get advice from them before you go.My knowledge is both limited, 12+ years outdated, and restricted to the UK, but here is my tuppence-worth anyway:1. It is both a legal and a bureaucratic process.\n2. Apply for asylum at the first possible opportunity. At the border crossing-point or airport, if possible.\n3. Don't lie.\n4. Be prepared with documentary evidence to back up any statements that you are going to make.\n5. If possible, have documentary evidence that you are facing persecution, or that your life is in danger. (Sounds silly in the current situation, I know, but anyway...)\n6. Make sure that a friendly party (or your lawyer) has a copy of these documents.It might be easier, if the danger looks like it is going to be temporary, to reach out and try to get somebody to "host" you, and go on a visitor's visa." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Sorry about your situation.Are you Syrian? It may be easier to get to a country that does not require you having a visa then you decide on what to do later. As a dev, you can work remotely and earn money.Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Syrian_ci....Best of luck man." }
TFS is destroying your development capacity
{ "score": 0, "text": "I have significant experience with CSV, SVN, Perforce, Source Depot (Microsoft's internal Perforce fork), Team Foundation Server, Mercurial, and Git. Roughly in that order of exposure.I safely say that TFS is easily the slowest, least scriptable, most confusing, obnoxious piece of crap software that I have ever had the displeasure of using. The Microsoft-internal hate for TFS was astonishing, but political pressures forced us to use \"dogfood\" it.Personally, I used to keep all of my source code at Microsoft in a local Mercurial repository (this was before Git had decent Windows support). I only interacted with TFS when I absolutely had to." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I'm sure there are lots of frustrating things in daily TFS workflow but some points in the article are quite wrong.> TFVC is a centralized-server model that requires constant and active communication between a client (read: developer) machine and the server. If, for example, the network goes down for 1 hour, development grinds to a halt. The reason here is that TFS will mark all files as read-only on the file system until you have asked the server to check them out for you.You can switch to offline mode, and it will sync when you're reconnecting to the server.> TFVC wants you to do everything inside of Visual Studio.Yes, but it's easily extendable, and there's a power tool integrating Tortoise like functionality to Explorer Shell. And there's always the command line tool, here's the syntax for \"add\", for example:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f9yw4ea0.aspx tf add itemspec [/lock:(none|checkin|checkout)] [/type:filetype] [/noprompt] [/recursive] [/login:username,[password]]\n\n> In order to create this bug work item, you need to use either Team Explorer (through Visual Studio, most likely) or the TFS 2010 Web Interface. The obvious problem for the first scenario is that developers are the only ones likely to have Visual Studio and are only one of several groups of people that could log a bug...and Excel and MS Project, by default. Web + Excel + MS Project should cover almost all \"several groups of people\". And there's always this api, available through libraries or web services.> TFS as Agile Project Management\n...All project and work item templates are customizable, either via XML definitions or through a power tools interface. And when you do, all the external interfaces display your customizations without any additional work, be it Excel or TFS Web Access or the others. And they're instantly reportable too.> TFS as Build System\n...It can build MSBuild scripts, Ant and Maven builds natively. Constructing builds is always hard, MSBuild or workflow style build introduced in 2010 are no different. Normally, any sln file governing the project can be built without any modifications. I find gated check-ins or nightly builds quite easy to setup, his mileage seams varying." }
TFS is destroying your development capacity
{ "score": 1, "text": "I'm sure there are lots of frustrating things in daily TFS workflow but some points in the article are quite wrong.> TFVC is a centralized-server model that requires constant and active communication between a client (read: developer) machine and the server. If, for example, the network goes down for 1 hour, development grinds to a halt. The reason here is that TFS will mark all files as read-only on the file system until you have asked the server to check them out for you.You can switch to offline mode, and it will sync when you're reconnecting to the server.> TFVC wants you to do everything inside of Visual Studio.Yes, but it's easily extendable, and there's a power tool integrating Tortoise like functionality to Explorer Shell. And there's always the command line tool, here's the syntax for \"add\", for example:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f9yw4ea0.aspx tf add itemspec [/lock:(none|checkin|checkout)] [/type:filetype] [/noprompt] [/recursive] [/login:username,[password]]\n\n> In order to create this bug work item, you need to use either Team Explorer (through Visual Studio, most likely) or the TFS 2010 Web Interface. The obvious problem for the first scenario is that developers are the only ones likely to have Visual Studio and are only one of several groups of people that could log a bug...and Excel and MS Project, by default. Web + Excel + MS Project should cover almost all \"several groups of people\". And there's always this api, available through libraries or web services.> TFS as Agile Project Management\n...All project and work item templates are customizable, either via XML definitions or through a power tools interface. And when you do, all the external interfaces display your customizations without any additional work, be it Excel or TFS Web Access or the others. And they're instantly reportable too.> TFS as Build System\n...It can build MSBuild scripts, Ant and Maven builds natively. Constructing builds is always hard, MSBuild or workflow style build introduced in 2010 are no different. Normally, any sln file governing the project can be built without any modifications. I find gated check-ins or nightly builds quite easy to setup, his mileage seams varying." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "TFS truly is awful.I am amazed that the cost is not mentioned in the article though.Forced to use it where I work, because management wanted the reporting capabilities that it provides and like the turnkey solution. My back of napkin calculations came up with that for the cost of TFS we could have kept our existing SVN/Jira/CruiseControl solution (or migrated to a hosted solution) and hired someone at 60k a year to just write reports for the existing system, or paid Atlassian to come up with them for us.Add in everything mentioned in the article, the cost and that basic functionality such as \"get latest\" doesn't and you have an impedance to developer productivity.These days I tend get the TFS code, check into mercurial/git and work that way." }
TFS is destroying your development capacity
{ "score": 2, "text": "TFS truly is awful.I am amazed that the cost is not mentioned in the article though.Forced to use it where I work, because management wanted the reporting capabilities that it provides and like the turnkey solution. My back of napkin calculations came up with that for the cost of TFS we could have kept our existing SVN/Jira/CruiseControl solution (or migrated to a hosted solution) and hired someone at 60k a year to just write reports for the existing system, or paid Atlassian to come up with them for us.Add in everything mentioned in the article, the cost and that basic functionality such as \"get latest\" doesn't and you have an impedance to developer productivity.These days I tend get the TFS code, check into mercurial/git and work that way." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "> TFVC is a centralized-server model that requires constant and active communication between a client (read: developer) machine and the server. If, for example, the network goes down for 1 hour, development grinds to a halt. The reason here is that TFS will mark all files as read-only on the filesystem until you have asked the server to check them out for you.Perforce works the same way, causing much frustration for me whenever I have to work with a slow and unreliable p4 server (and, despite Perforce marketing, those exist). You can override p4 and make writable the files you want to edit without telling the server. But when you want to check in a changeset, you have to tell the server you edited the files, otherwise they will get left out of the changeset. Worse yet, if you try to get too clever with your local copy's settings, the p4 utility might overwrite your changes with a newly checked-in version the next time you update your local copy.When I worked at Microsoft in the early part of the last decade, we used a Perforce fork called Source Depot. (Internet mentions of sd are rare, but here is one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/491295). I have no experience with TFS version control, but it looks to have taken a lot of inspiration from sd, which was a fresh breath after the previous revision control tool which didn't even support branches." }
TFS is destroying your development capacity
{ "score": 3, "text": "> TFVC is a centralized-server model that requires constant and active communication between a client (read: developer) machine and the server. If, for example, the network goes down for 1 hour, development grinds to a halt. The reason here is that TFS will mark all files as read-only on the filesystem until you have asked the server to check them out for you.Perforce works the same way, causing much frustration for me whenever I have to work with a slow and unreliable p4 server (and, despite Perforce marketing, those exist). You can override p4 and make writable the files you want to edit without telling the server. But when you want to check in a changeset, you have to tell the server you edited the files, otherwise they will get left out of the changeset. Worse yet, if you try to get too clever with your local copy's settings, the p4 utility might overwrite your changes with a newly checked-in version the next time you update your local copy.When I worked at Microsoft in the early part of the last decade, we used a Perforce fork called Source Depot. (Internet mentions of sd are rare, but here is one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/491295). I have no experience with TFS version control, but it looks to have taken a lot of inspiration from sd, which was a fresh breath after the previous revision control tool which didn't even support branches." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "I initially read this as \"Team Fortress is ruining your development capacity.\" and I agree. I play too many games." }
edw519 & rms Interview with Andrew Warner from Mixergy about Hacker News
{ "score": 0, "text": "An interesting dichotomy occurs when he mentions \"optimizing\" for digg versus how to optimize for hacker news. Ed (edw519, I presume) says.. no.. just... be yourself. Be sincere. Don't try to game the system.For a super-high traffic site like digg, it becomes absolutely paramount to get your hooks into people because you don't have alot of time to make an impact. An extra marketing once-over on the submission is virtually required (not to even mention going a step above to rigging the system with some quid pro quo or dummy accounts). It makes digg largely unappealing to me from a submissions stand-point because, first, the traffic is of low quality, and secondly, it seems... uhm... unsavory.For a lower traffic site like this with a super narrow focus, it's much easier to get noticed. And the traffic is of extremely high quality (presuming you are on topic...) You are in the new queue long enough that your story is going to live or die on its own much more than the magic title, etc." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Unless I'm missing something obvious - that is not an interview." }
edw519 & rms Interview with Andrew Warner from Mixergy about Hacker News
{ "score": 1, "text": "Unless I'm missing something obvious - that is not an interview." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Cool... nice that those silly karma points finally were useful for something." }
edw519 & rms Interview with Andrew Warner from Mixergy about Hacker News
{ "score": 2, "text": "Cool... nice that those silly karma points finally were useful for something." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Scroll down far enough and you will find my picture on a CD jacket. That picture and the quote from pg are both from this thread:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=202096" }
edw519 & rms Interview with Andrew Warner from Mixergy about Hacker News
{ "score": 3, "text": "Scroll down far enough and you will find my picture on a CD jacket. That picture and the quote from pg are both from this thread:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=202096" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "It is amazing how listening to people talk can then affect the way you read their comments. It is like you have a better/newfound understanding of the person they are based on their speech pattern, speed, accent, inflections etc." }
Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC
{ "score": 0, "text": "> Ready to help us get big money out of politics?Wolf-PAC [1] has the same declared goal (both focus on campaign finance reform, informally "getting money out of politics"), and the same means (~~both intend to call for a Constitutional Convention~~ [3]), I wonder if they might consider coordinating their efforts.Ah, alright, did a cursory comparison of the two. Wolf PAC/Uygur's plan is to overturn key SCOTUS rulings (e.g. Citizens United v. FEC, Buckley v. Valeo) whereas Mayday PAC/Lessig's goal is to "unseat five congresspersons who are on the 'wrong side of this issue'". [2][1] http://www.wolf-pac.com/[2] http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-har...[3] Edited to note that Lessig's PAC isn't planning on calling for a convention (Lessig himself has called for it in the past, I was making an assumption here.)" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I need more words and less marketing to convince me to send my cash to people who have far more cash than I do. I need a very specific and very concrete explanation of what they plan to do with it.Is there a deeper link to documents with more detailed adult explanations of what they plan to do, how they plan to do it, and the specific criteria for support for a candidate? One that doesn't assume that I'm ignorant of the current state of campaign finance, SuperPACs, and recent SCOTUS decisions? Maybe a few names? I assume something like this exists, but I can't find it.Or is this just LessigPAC, and I'm supposed to give money because I'm a fan or something?" }
Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC
{ "score": 1, "text": "I need more words and less marketing to convince me to send my cash to people who have far more cash than I do. I need a very specific and very concrete explanation of what they plan to do with it.Is there a deeper link to documents with more detailed adult explanations of what they plan to do, how they plan to do it, and the specific criteria for support for a candidate? One that doesn't assume that I'm ignorant of the current state of campaign finance, SuperPACs, and recent SCOTUS decisions? Maybe a few names? I assume something like this exists, but I can't find it.Or is this just LessigPAC, and I'm supposed to give money because I'm a fan or something?" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "I went through to donate and I have to be an American citizen to donate.. when big multi-nationals are pushing America (and by extension the planet) around then why should individuals from multiple-different-nations not be able to respond?" }
Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC
{ "score": 2, "text": "I went through to donate and I have to be an American citizen to donate.. when big multi-nationals are pushing America (and by extension the planet) around then why should individuals from multiple-different-nations not be able to respond?" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "They have a long way to go. I'm not sure they're going to make $5m. They only have $1.1m raised now, and only 2 weeks left." }
Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC
{ "score": 3, "text": "They have a long way to go. I'm not sure they're going to make $5m. They only have $1.1m raised now, and only 2 weeks left." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Does anyone know what the significance of the $5 million goal is? Did they look at the political landscape and decide that was how much money they needed to make an impact or is that just the amount they thought they could raise?" }
Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage
{ "score": 0, "text": "If there ever was a time to wait for version 1.1 of something, this would be it." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Interesting, though mostly because of our gut reactions, not because there's anything terribly complicated or new about the moral repercussions, etc.. It's not much different from normal organ donation in most respects.From the article:I have not addressed the ethical aspects of HEAVEN. In Thomas Mann's "'The Transposed Heads," two friends, the intellectual Shridaman and the earthy Nanda, behead themselves. Magically, their severed heads are restored - but to the wrong body, and Shridaman's wife, Sita, is unable to decide which combination represents her real husband. The story is further complicated by the fact that Sita happens to be in love with both men. This short story highlights the ethical dilemma that must be faced: The HEAVEN created "chimera" would carry the mind of the recipient but, should he or she reproduce, the offspring would carry the genetic inheritance of the donor.However, it is equally clear that horrible conditions without a hint of hope of improvement cannot be relegated to the dark corner of medicine. This paper lays out the groundwork for the first successful human head transplant." }
Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage
{ "score": 1, "text": "Interesting, though mostly because of our gut reactions, not because there's anything terribly complicated or new about the moral repercussions, etc.. It's not much different from normal organ donation in most respects.From the article:I have not addressed the ethical aspects of HEAVEN. In Thomas Mann's "'The Transposed Heads," two friends, the intellectual Shridaman and the earthy Nanda, behead themselves. Magically, their severed heads are restored - but to the wrong body, and Shridaman's wife, Sita, is unable to decide which combination represents her real husband. The story is further complicated by the fact that Sita happens to be in love with both men. This short story highlights the ethical dilemma that must be faced: The HEAVEN created "chimera" would carry the mind of the recipient but, should he or she reproduce, the offspring would carry the genetic inheritance of the donor.However, it is equally clear that horrible conditions without a hint of hope of improvement cannot be relegated to the dark corner of medicine. This paper lays out the groundwork for the first successful human head transplant." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "There's some research that shows our body "chooses" to do something before our mind tells it to.So, swapping the body seems like it could be exciting for this kind of stuff.I think it's fascinating that we can't keep a head alive on a machine (I wonder how much body can be removed and still, using machines, have a living brain / head?) but that we can transplant a head.The paper isn't loading for me at the moment, but what do they mean by "spinal linkage"? If we can transplant a head why can't we fix broken back injuries? (Or can we, and I just don't know?)" }
Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage
{ "score": 2, "text": "There's some research that shows our body "chooses" to do something before our mind tells it to.So, swapping the body seems like it could be exciting for this kind of stuff.I think it's fascinating that we can't keep a head alive on a machine (I wonder how much body can be removed and still, using machines, have a living brain / head?) but that we can transplant a head.The paper isn't loading for me at the moment, but what do they mean by "spinal linkage"? If we can transplant a head why can't we fix broken back injuries? (Or can we, and I just don't know?)" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Considering that a face transplant currently requires a lifetime regimine of immunosuppressives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_transplant#Ethics.2C_Surge...) in order to have post-op acceptance of the transplant by the host, I would expect nothing less in this more extreme form of surgery.I would hate to be the recipient of this procedure; then fin my body (their body?) rejecting the transplant!" }
Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage
{ "score": 3, "text": "Considering that a face transplant currently requires a lifetime regimine of immunosuppressives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_transplant#Ethics.2C_Surge...) in order to have post-op acceptance of the transplant by the host, I would expect nothing less in this more extreme form of surgery.I would hate to be the recipient of this procedure; then fin my body (their body?) rejecting the transplant!" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "I'm interested to know how does the anaesthetic work in this case. It wasn't mentioned in details (or maybe I missed it), but since most substances are transferred in blood stream how would they go about it? Wouldn't reconnection to another body completely mess up the process? Or maybe the temperature drop would be enough to keep the current state.Either way - in happy to hear how close we are to the world of yesterday's science fiction." }
Ask HN: Has anyone ever clicked on a tag cloud? I know tag clouds are more or less passé, but they are still pretty rampant. I have no idea why anyone would just click on a word because it's bigger than other words. Can someone explain why these became popular?
{ "score": 0, "text": "> I have no idea why anyone would just click on a word because it's bigger than other words.The point is that the size of a word means something. A large word is typically intended to indicate, "Here is something that his person is talking about, that a lot of other people are also talking about. Click here to see what others have to say."> Can someone explain why these became popular?I suppose this happened, in part, because they seemed to have some reasonable-sounding theory behind them (see above).The cool factor was probably more important, though. UI trends often ignore usability issues, after all, and tag clouds are an automatically generated example of the kind of "messy" art that became popular a decade or two ago." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Glancing at a tag cloud is a great way to figure out what someone's blog tends to write the most about (the biggest tags) and what they write the least about (the smallest tags). I've been known occasionally to arrive at someone's blog to read some article, glance at their tag cloud and see maybe some other interesting topics they've written about---especially if it's one of the bigger ones---which I do click on and sometimes discover more interesting content on their blog as a result.So yes, I've clicked on them. But not very often. But certainly "look at" more than I actually "click on", so there is still some value in these to some degree even if people don't click on them." }
Ask HN: Has anyone ever clicked on a tag cloud? I know tag clouds are more or less passé, but they are still pretty rampant. I have no idea why anyone would just click on a word because it's bigger than other words. Can someone explain why these became popular?
{ "score": 1, "text": "Glancing at a tag cloud is a great way to figure out what someone's blog tends to write the most about (the biggest tags) and what they write the least about (the smallest tags). I've been known occasionally to arrive at someone's blog to read some article, glance at their tag cloud and see maybe some other interesting topics they've written about---especially if it's one of the bigger ones---which I do click on and sometimes discover more interesting content on their blog as a result.So yes, I've clicked on them. But not very often. But certainly "look at" more than I actually "click on", so there is still some value in these to some degree even if people don't click on them." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Funny because everytime I see one, it seems dirty, spammy and UI gone wrong. I never click on those. Just doesn't feel right. But it could just be me. Not to mention that I almost feel I have dyslexia [0][0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia" }
Ask HN: Has anyone ever clicked on a tag cloud? I know tag clouds are more or less passé, but they are still pretty rampant. I have no idea why anyone would just click on a word because it's bigger than other words. Can someone explain why these became popular?
{ "score": 2, "text": "Funny because everytime I see one, it seems dirty, spammy and UI gone wrong. I never click on those. Just doesn't feel right. But it could just be me. Not to mention that I almost feel I have dyslexia [0][0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Yes, I have, but only because I was looking for items under a certain category. I would still have gotten the same usefulness if it were just a regular list of tags as opposed to a cloud.My opinion is that tag clouds are better served as art than as functional UI elements..." }
Ask HN: Has anyone ever clicked on a tag cloud? I know tag clouds are more or less passé, but they are still pretty rampant. I have no idea why anyone would just click on a word because it's bigger than other words. Can someone explain why these became popular?
{ "score": 3, "text": "Yes, I have, but only because I was looking for items under a certain category. I would still have gotten the same usefulness if it were just a regular list of tags as opposed to a cloud.My opinion is that tag clouds are better served as art than as functional UI elements..." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "I never click on them either. Come to think of it I never click on a typical archive either. I'm interested in the content, not that you have 17 posts back in October 2008." }
iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data
{ "score": 0, "text": "Sooo... the news here is that Apple's caching framework works and apps that don't care about connecting to the right remote service (aka apps that don't use SSL) can be hijacked with MITM. This is ... news?I mean, I'd love to see more apps capable not only of SSL but certificate pinning, binary data transfer, and more.Besides we all know in-app communication is low-hanging fruit for security researchers, even with otherwise secure apps. Twitter's hard-coded OAuth token with unlimited usage comes to mind, for example. It's not that the apps themselves aren't "secure enough" but that once you remove the restrictive nature of the browser as sandbox with an exposed address bar, apps can get up to some funny business seemingly out of sight.A useful reminder, to be sure, but it must be a slow news day for this to get so many up votes." }
{ "score": 1, "text": ""unencrypted TCP/IP connections are susceptible to man in the middle attacks"there, I just saved you from reading the article, and you probably learned more anyway." }
iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data
{ "score": 1, "text": ""unencrypted TCP/IP connections are susceptible to man in the middle attacks"there, I just saved you from reading the article, and you probably learned more anyway." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Man, what a spammy headline. This has very little to do with iOS in particular.I've seen this before from Goodin and Ars Technica. What a shame." }
iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data
{ "score": 2, "text": "Man, what a spammy headline. This has very little to do with iOS in particular.I've seen this before from Goodin and Ars Technica. What a shame." }
{ "score": 3, "text": " > The weakness, dubbed HTTP request hijacking (HRH), is \n > estimated to affect at least 10,000 titles in Apple's \n > App Store.\n\nI hate reading numbers like this. How did they arrive at 10,000? It's very easy to "estimate" by making up a number." }
iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data
{ "score": 3, "text": " > The weakness, dubbed HTTP request hijacking (HRH), is \n > estimated to affect at least 10,000 titles in Apple's \n > App Store.\n\nI hate reading numbers like this. How did they arrive at 10,000? It's very easy to "estimate" by making up a number." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Original headline: "Apps using unencrypted HTTP are insecure"Editor meeting: "Can you spin this into an Apple story. It will be great for clickthrough rates."New headline: "iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data"" }
Ask HN: I am sick and tired, help me. I will be honest, I am sick and tired of building stuff that "I think is cool and no one else does". I just don't "get" how people obtain feedback before building just yet; I have put up landing pages, gathered 50-100 emails for a project, launched, and then <i>crickets</i>.<p>I know my weaknesses (it's not tech, or launching, its validation and marketing), so I want to try an experiment:<p>1. Post an idea, with an estimated price to the consumer:<p>eg; online service that will photoshop a photo for 9.99$ (something I have tried fwiw)<p>2. Have it be webbased (no iphone/droid apps, currently in-between macs)<p>3. The first idea that gets 10 people to email me: [email protected], and say they will pay upon launch, I'll build it.<p>4. if you want to take an active marketing/bizdev role, and have a proven track 50/50 split.<p>5. If you want to take an active marketing role, and don't have a proven track record 75/25 split (my way).<p>6. If you don't want to take an active role 90/10 split (my way).<p>As the ideas are posted, if something pops up you would pay for, email the idea, and any tweaks you deem needed.
{ "score": 0, "text": "There's a huge step between collecting emails and launching - and that's talking to those potential customers. I suggest you read Running Lean by Ash Maurya. It contains actionable steps on how to get feedback from your customers so that when you launch it's something they love.But, mind you, you'll have to \"get out the building\", which most people (including me) tend to stray away from." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Another thing to maybe realize is people who really know their stuff, who have ideas they know will work and have thought through their idea thoroughly, won't likely be willing to do 51/49 split." }
Ask HN: I am sick and tired, help me. I will be honest, I am sick and tired of building stuff that "I think is cool and no one else does". I just don't "get" how people obtain feedback before building just yet; I have put up landing pages, gathered 50-100 emails for a project, launched, and then <i>crickets</i>.<p>I know my weaknesses (it's not tech, or launching, its validation and marketing), so I want to try an experiment:<p>1. Post an idea, with an estimated price to the consumer:<p>eg; online service that will photoshop a photo for 9.99$ (something I have tried fwiw)<p>2. Have it be webbased (no iphone/droid apps, currently in-between macs)<p>3. The first idea that gets 10 people to email me: [email protected], and say they will pay upon launch, I'll build it.<p>4. if you want to take an active marketing/bizdev role, and have a proven track 50/50 split.<p>5. If you want to take an active marketing role, and don't have a proven track record 75/25 split (my way).<p>6. If you don't want to take an active role 90/10 split (my way).<p>As the ideas are posted, if something pops up you would pay for, email the idea, and any tweaks you deem needed.
{ "score": 1, "text": "Another thing to maybe realize is people who really know their stuff, who have ideas they know will work and have thought through their idea thoroughly, won't likely be willing to do 51/49 split." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Build a digital replacement for annual reports with a print on demand option. Right now, companies pay a lot to have annual reports designed and then printed as lengthy documents or put up as unwieldy and bland PDFs. Build a format/system/engine for accommodating what they should/could be using instead. e.g., why aren't annual reports more like pitch decks?Sell it to graphic designers and encourage large companies to recommend it to their designers. Charge per instance (based on size) and take a cut from any POD.Make it less about the obligation of providing it and more about the opportunities it might create for these companies to deliver something more engaging to their shareholders." }
Ask HN: I am sick and tired, help me. I will be honest, I am sick and tired of building stuff that "I think is cool and no one else does". I just don't "get" how people obtain feedback before building just yet; I have put up landing pages, gathered 50-100 emails for a project, launched, and then <i>crickets</i>.<p>I know my weaknesses (it's not tech, or launching, its validation and marketing), so I want to try an experiment:<p>1. Post an idea, with an estimated price to the consumer:<p>eg; online service that will photoshop a photo for 9.99$ (something I have tried fwiw)<p>2. Have it be webbased (no iphone/droid apps, currently in-between macs)<p>3. The first idea that gets 10 people to email me: [email protected], and say they will pay upon launch, I'll build it.<p>4. if you want to take an active marketing/bizdev role, and have a proven track 50/50 split.<p>5. If you want to take an active marketing role, and don't have a proven track record 75/25 split (my way).<p>6. If you don't want to take an active role 90/10 split (my way).<p>As the ideas are posted, if something pops up you would pay for, email the idea, and any tweaks you deem needed.
{ "score": 2, "text": "Build a digital replacement for annual reports with a print on demand option. Right now, companies pay a lot to have annual reports designed and then printed as lengthy documents or put up as unwieldy and bland PDFs. Build a format/system/engine for accommodating what they should/could be using instead. e.g., why aren't annual reports more like pitch decks?Sell it to graphic designers and encourage large companies to recommend it to their designers. Charge per instance (based on size) and take a cut from any POD.Make it less about the obligation of providing it and more about the opportunities it might create for these companies to deliver something more engaging to their shareholders." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "\"Don't re-invent the wheel, make a wheel that's better\"\"Do what you know\" - e.g. Work on what you know, via life experience.What problems do you have and would like solutions for?Is it big enough and would provide enough value that you'd pay if it existed?I could go on ...And I do need some RoR work done (along with javascript/CSS) that I was about to hire 1 to 1.5 weeks worth of work for. Maybe we could talk more and figure something out where I can help guide you in a more specific direction?" }
Ask HN: I am sick and tired, help me. I will be honest, I am sick and tired of building stuff that "I think is cool and no one else does". I just don't "get" how people obtain feedback before building just yet; I have put up landing pages, gathered 50-100 emails for a project, launched, and then <i>crickets</i>.<p>I know my weaknesses (it's not tech, or launching, its validation and marketing), so I want to try an experiment:<p>1. Post an idea, with an estimated price to the consumer:<p>eg; online service that will photoshop a photo for 9.99$ (something I have tried fwiw)<p>2. Have it be webbased (no iphone/droid apps, currently in-between macs)<p>3. The first idea that gets 10 people to email me: [email protected], and say they will pay upon launch, I'll build it.<p>4. if you want to take an active marketing/bizdev role, and have a proven track 50/50 split.<p>5. If you want to take an active marketing role, and don't have a proven track record 75/25 split (my way).<p>6. If you don't want to take an active role 90/10 split (my way).<p>As the ideas are posted, if something pops up you would pay for, email the idea, and any tweaks you deem needed.
{ "score": 3, "text": "\"Don't re-invent the wheel, make a wheel that's better\"\"Do what you know\" - e.g. Work on what you know, via life experience.What problems do you have and would like solutions for?Is it big enough and would provide enough value that you'd pay if it existed?I could go on ...And I do need some RoR work done (along with javascript/CSS) that I was about to hire 1 to 1.5 weeks worth of work for. Maybe we could talk more and figure something out where I can help guide you in a more specific direction?" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Make an email client that doesn't suck and make it open source. Price whatever you decide. Obviously web based. Seriously current email tech is stuck in the 90s. Gmail really hasn't changed since then nor has Yahoo email or AOL. They all look the same and act the same. They are very programable and by that I mean I cannot control them. I want to control my email very precisely and yes gmail filters does sort of provide that but I want to be able to control more." }
How to get a 15-year-old started with coding? I have a nephew who has expressed interest in spending part of his summer learning more about computers and learning to code a bit.<p>I was thinking about inviting him to spend a few weeks at my dev shop where he can work largely in isolation but I'll be around and a couple of my guys can give him some guidance and help him learn.<p>Basically, my question is if you were trying to introduce a 15-year-old to coding, how would you go about it?<p>I was thinking about sticking a few books in front of him and challenging him to build a basic twitter or flickr clone just to give him a target. Maybe 2 days on HTML/CSS, 2 days on JQuery, 3-5 days in PHP or Ruby but I want to keep him away from frameworks, maybe another week with MySQL or SQL and trying to put it all together. I can build him the DB if needed.<p>It's been 16 years since I started so it's hard to put myself in his shoes. For some of you younger coders:<p>1) When you started coding, what did you start with? HTML/CSS, then basic scripting or JQuery, then DB stuff? What language would you start with today if you were just starting?<p>2) What resources did you use? Web sites/tutorials? Books? Any good entry level books you'd recommend I put in front of him?<p>3) Did you have specific things you were trying to build?<p>4) Did anyone help you or provide guidance? If so how/what?<p>5) What kind of guidance would have helped you?
{ "score": 0, "text": "1) I started with HTML in '96 and, TI calculator programming aside, it wasn't until 2000 (college) that I got into programming. Mostly because I asked around and nobody knew where to tell me to start (Java -&#62; Python -&#62; Javascript). If I were starting today and on a *nix environment, I'd start with javascript. Doing simple socket programming with node.js is dead simple and the browser provides an obvious gui progression path. I've also heard of a lot of people starting with Python and very recently with Obj-C/iphone development.2) Started with a teach-yourself HTML 3.2 book. For learning JS today, I think eloquentjavascript.net is good if a bit dry and I like Manning's jQuery in Action if going the jQuery route.3) I started out with the intent of making a WYSIWYG web editor that didn't suck...and I'm still planning on doing it at \"some point\".4) No guidance for me, unfortunately. Aside from having a professor in my first Java class say \"well don't worry about that, you don't need to understand it for a while\", which annoyed me enough that I went and learned Java myself through Thinking in Java. Otherwise I'm entirely self taught.5) Guidance on what to look at/what to understand would have been helpful. I'm very grateful to the mozilla project, since that's where I learned software engineering. Having someone point out version control earlier on would have been helpful." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "1) HTML/CSS -&#62; PHP/MySQL -&#62; Javascript -&#62; Python2) Random tutorials online and an O'Reilly PHP/MySQL book.3) Yes, and that was critical. I basically learned what I needed to get the next thing done4) A friend helped get me pointed in the right direction, and I took it from there.5) General best-practices. I started with just notepad and had horrible coding style. I think just having someone to answer questions and occasionally review code would have been a tremendous help.Although PHP pretty much sucks as a language, it was extremely gratifying to see my work progress quickly (\"Look, I made that dynamic list out of values in a database!\")." }
How to get a 15-year-old started with coding? I have a nephew who has expressed interest in spending part of his summer learning more about computers and learning to code a bit.<p>I was thinking about inviting him to spend a few weeks at my dev shop where he can work largely in isolation but I'll be around and a couple of my guys can give him some guidance and help him learn.<p>Basically, my question is if you were trying to introduce a 15-year-old to coding, how would you go about it?<p>I was thinking about sticking a few books in front of him and challenging him to build a basic twitter or flickr clone just to give him a target. Maybe 2 days on HTML/CSS, 2 days on JQuery, 3-5 days in PHP or Ruby but I want to keep him away from frameworks, maybe another week with MySQL or SQL and trying to put it all together. I can build him the DB if needed.<p>It's been 16 years since I started so it's hard to put myself in his shoes. For some of you younger coders:<p>1) When you started coding, what did you start with? HTML/CSS, then basic scripting or JQuery, then DB stuff? What language would you start with today if you were just starting?<p>2) What resources did you use? Web sites/tutorials? Books? Any good entry level books you'd recommend I put in front of him?<p>3) Did you have specific things you were trying to build?<p>4) Did anyone help you or provide guidance? If so how/what?<p>5) What kind of guidance would have helped you?
{ "score": 1, "text": "1) HTML/CSS -&#62; PHP/MySQL -&#62; Javascript -&#62; Python2) Random tutorials online and an O'Reilly PHP/MySQL book.3) Yes, and that was critical. I basically learned what I needed to get the next thing done4) A friend helped get me pointed in the right direction, and I took it from there.5) General best-practices. I started with just notepad and had horrible coding style. I think just having someone to answer questions and occasionally review code would have been a tremendous help.Although PHP pretty much sucks as a language, it was extremely gratifying to see my work progress quickly (\"Look, I made that dynamic list out of values in a database!\")." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "I tried to get into programming several times before it finally stuck. I ended up with a collection of c++ and java books that I never got further than a few chapters in. JavaScript of all things really got me into programming. I stuck with it long enough because I received nearly instantaneous gratification. I could actually make things happen on screen. Manipulating strings and tossing numbers around in a terminal window gets boring fast and the bar to entry for GUIs in java or c++ is tedious and frustrating. Once I understood the basics of programming, it wasn't much for me to pick up python, java, ruby, AS3, etc.. So, you're bang on with starting him building a web app. For so many reasons really...To answer your questions directly...1. I'd start with JavaScript because it's fun and useful (despite its warts) and either python or ruby.2. Stackoverflow.com, The Pragmatic Programmer3. I had a client/server computer science course that was making me build very small apps but it wasn't until I had an idea for something I really wanted to build that I started staying up all night learning. Before I had either my own \"itch to scratch\" or a professor requiring me to building something I floundered and got bored quickly. I needed a clearly defined goal to accomplish.4. Sadly, no. My professor wasn't really interested in his students. Google was my only friend.5. For someone to sit down and clearly explain fundamental concepts to me like OOP, MVC, etc. It's one thing to read about it but someone over my shoulder pointing at things and explaining why a block of code sucks or not would have really helped.Best of luck. If you nephew sticks with coding, he will really thank you later!" }
How to get a 15-year-old started with coding? I have a nephew who has expressed interest in spending part of his summer learning more about computers and learning to code a bit.<p>I was thinking about inviting him to spend a few weeks at my dev shop where he can work largely in isolation but I'll be around and a couple of my guys can give him some guidance and help him learn.<p>Basically, my question is if you were trying to introduce a 15-year-old to coding, how would you go about it?<p>I was thinking about sticking a few books in front of him and challenging him to build a basic twitter or flickr clone just to give him a target. Maybe 2 days on HTML/CSS, 2 days on JQuery, 3-5 days in PHP or Ruby but I want to keep him away from frameworks, maybe another week with MySQL or SQL and trying to put it all together. I can build him the DB if needed.<p>It's been 16 years since I started so it's hard to put myself in his shoes. For some of you younger coders:<p>1) When you started coding, what did you start with? HTML/CSS, then basic scripting or JQuery, then DB stuff? What language would you start with today if you were just starting?<p>2) What resources did you use? Web sites/tutorials? Books? Any good entry level books you'd recommend I put in front of him?<p>3) Did you have specific things you were trying to build?<p>4) Did anyone help you or provide guidance? If so how/what?<p>5) What kind of guidance would have helped you?
{ "score": 2, "text": "I tried to get into programming several times before it finally stuck. I ended up with a collection of c++ and java books that I never got further than a few chapters in. JavaScript of all things really got me into programming. I stuck with it long enough because I received nearly instantaneous gratification. I could actually make things happen on screen. Manipulating strings and tossing numbers around in a terminal window gets boring fast and the bar to entry for GUIs in java or c++ is tedious and frustrating. Once I understood the basics of programming, it wasn't much for me to pick up python, java, ruby, AS3, etc.. So, you're bang on with starting him building a web app. For so many reasons really...To answer your questions directly...1. I'd start with JavaScript because it's fun and useful (despite its warts) and either python or ruby.2. Stackoverflow.com, The Pragmatic Programmer3. I had a client/server computer science course that was making me build very small apps but it wasn't until I had an idea for something I really wanted to build that I started staying up all night learning. Before I had either my own \"itch to scratch\" or a professor requiring me to building something I floundered and got bored quickly. I needed a clearly defined goal to accomplish.4. Sadly, no. My professor wasn't really interested in his students. Google was my only friend.5. For someone to sit down and clearly explain fundamental concepts to me like OOP, MVC, etc. It's one thing to read about it but someone over my shoulder pointing at things and explaining why a block of code sucks or not would have really helped.Best of luck. If you nephew sticks with coding, he will really thank you later!" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "1. I started coding in QBASIC, then VB, then VB.NET, then HTML/CSS/JavaScript, then Java, then Ruby, then Python, then C#. If I was starting today, I would use Ruby or Python.2. Built-in documentation, college classes and web documentation. Generally I find documentation far more useful than tutorials. I would highly recommend checking out Zed Shaw's new book: Learn Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index).3. I don't think I've ever learned anything when I didn't have something specific to build. Just playing around trying to learn stuff never works for me. I need to have a reason to learn, a project that needs the technology I'm trying to learn.4. I've had very little direct guidance in learning to program. I had my professors, which helped me mostly by introducing me to the technologies and giving me things to build. I've had various people on StackOverflow help me with particular. Mostly, I am guided by inspiration, not direction interaction. People like Zed Shaw inspire me. People like why. Sometimes libraries inspire me. LINQ is incredibly inspiring. As is pyparsing. These people and libraries give me an idea of what I want my contributions to the programming world to look like.5. Best guidance in my mind is giving you a tool and then giving you something to build with it. I never would have found Ruby without one of my professors (or I would have found it a lot later). I may never have cared without Ruby Quiz and Rails inspiring me to build things. This is why I think you should check out Zed's python book. He teaches the language by giving you the tools and then asking you to do things with them." }
How to get a 15-year-old started with coding? I have a nephew who has expressed interest in spending part of his summer learning more about computers and learning to code a bit.<p>I was thinking about inviting him to spend a few weeks at my dev shop where he can work largely in isolation but I'll be around and a couple of my guys can give him some guidance and help him learn.<p>Basically, my question is if you were trying to introduce a 15-year-old to coding, how would you go about it?<p>I was thinking about sticking a few books in front of him and challenging him to build a basic twitter or flickr clone just to give him a target. Maybe 2 days on HTML/CSS, 2 days on JQuery, 3-5 days in PHP or Ruby but I want to keep him away from frameworks, maybe another week with MySQL or SQL and trying to put it all together. I can build him the DB if needed.<p>It's been 16 years since I started so it's hard to put myself in his shoes. For some of you younger coders:<p>1) When you started coding, what did you start with? HTML/CSS, then basic scripting or JQuery, then DB stuff? What language would you start with today if you were just starting?<p>2) What resources did you use? Web sites/tutorials? Books? Any good entry level books you'd recommend I put in front of him?<p>3) Did you have specific things you were trying to build?<p>4) Did anyone help you or provide guidance? If so how/what?<p>5) What kind of guidance would have helped you?
{ "score": 3, "text": "1. I started coding in QBASIC, then VB, then VB.NET, then HTML/CSS/JavaScript, then Java, then Ruby, then Python, then C#. If I was starting today, I would use Ruby or Python.2. Built-in documentation, college classes and web documentation. Generally I find documentation far more useful than tutorials. I would highly recommend checking out Zed Shaw's new book: Learn Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index).3. I don't think I've ever learned anything when I didn't have something specific to build. Just playing around trying to learn stuff never works for me. I need to have a reason to learn, a project that needs the technology I'm trying to learn.4. I've had very little direct guidance in learning to program. I had my professors, which helped me mostly by introducing me to the technologies and giving me things to build. I've had various people on StackOverflow help me with particular. Mostly, I am guided by inspiration, not direction interaction. People like Zed Shaw inspire me. People like why. Sometimes libraries inspire me. LINQ is incredibly inspiring. As is pyparsing. These people and libraries give me an idea of what I want my contributions to the programming world to look like.5. Best guidance in my mind is giving you a tool and then giving you something to build with it. I never would have found Ruby without one of my professors (or I would have found it a lot later). I may never have cared without Ruby Quiz and Rails inspiring me to build things. This is why I think you should check out Zed's python book. He teaches the language by giving you the tools and then asking you to do things with them." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "In reality, web development is quite a hostile environment, in my opinion. Too many different technologies. Better to keep him 'sandboxed' in a single environment, say, Ruby. The great thing about web development of course, is that it's easy to see what you can achieve. Hacking Ruby command line scripts not so much. When I started back in the 90'es it was Visual Basic 6. As horrible a language it was, the instant gratification of pointing a button to a certain method etc. was invaluable, in my opinion.Edit: O.K., I don't have any current ideas, sorry :)" }
Moj.io: Connect your car to the world around you
{ "score": 0, "text": "I don't understand why it was designed to fit nicely in your hand, and why it was made with bright colors.#1. This thing will be under your steering wheel 100% of the time, so being able to hold it ergonomically doesn't make a lick of sense.#2. If one of your advertised functionalities is for recovery after theft, the last thing you want is for the thief to be able to spot the dongle and remove it. If I bought one, the first thing I would do is obscure it with hockey tape, but I would be concerned that the wireless capabilities would be hindered." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I've recently done some work for a startup that is developing a highly comparable product.I strongly doubt their \"works on any car since 1995\" claim. While OBD-II has been an official standard for very long, not all cars support it equally well at all. We've had serious trouble getting it to work with A-brand cars made in e.g. 1999.Therefore, I believe that them making this claim can mean one of two things: - They're lying\n - Their \"prototype\" has seen little field testing at this point.\n\nThat said, honesty be told, we've been testing in Europe, where the OBD standard has been adopted later. My impression is that moj.io is a North-American only product. Maybe this makes all the difference.Additionally, however, \"Virtual Mechanic\" based on OBD-II alone is going to be a half-assed feature (to my understanding). OBD-II contains little more error reporting than that related to emission (i.e. your engine). If your airbag or your breaks malfunction, then this may only be reported through manufacturer-specific protocols. Most importantly, this would mean that a light in your dashboard may be lit, while the Moj.io app says \"Running Great!\" I highly doubt that they have implemented all manufacturer-specific protocols to a sufficient extent for this feature to work well. It is technically possible, but it needs either a lot of reverse engineering, or a lot of purchased IP.I really like the other features (FamilyConnect, etc), though, and how they're presented. Well done!Still, while I like this approach, and while I want this badly myself (and a lot of moj.io seems better planned, marketed and designed than what I've been involved in), based on the above I have strong doubts.Now, I understand that this may be hard criticism, and maybe I'm completely wrong about some aspects - I'm no real expert here. So if one of the founders reads this, feel free to correct me!" }
Moj.io: Connect your car to the world around you
{ "score": 1, "text": "I've recently done some work for a startup that is developing a highly comparable product.I strongly doubt their \"works on any car since 1995\" claim. While OBD-II has been an official standard for very long, not all cars support it equally well at all. We've had serious trouble getting it to work with A-brand cars made in e.g. 1999.Therefore, I believe that them making this claim can mean one of two things: - They're lying\n - Their \"prototype\" has seen little field testing at this point.\n\nThat said, honesty be told, we've been testing in Europe, where the OBD standard has been adopted later. My impression is that moj.io is a North-American only product. Maybe this makes all the difference.Additionally, however, \"Virtual Mechanic\" based on OBD-II alone is going to be a half-assed feature (to my understanding). OBD-II contains little more error reporting than that related to emission (i.e. your engine). If your airbag or your breaks malfunction, then this may only be reported through manufacturer-specific protocols. Most importantly, this would mean that a light in your dashboard may be lit, while the Moj.io app says \"Running Great!\" I highly doubt that they have implemented all manufacturer-specific protocols to a sufficient extent for this feature to work well. It is technically possible, but it needs either a lot of reverse engineering, or a lot of purchased IP.I really like the other features (FamilyConnect, etc), though, and how they're presented. Well done!Still, while I like this approach, and while I want this badly myself (and a lot of moj.io seems better planned, marketed and designed than what I've been involved in), based on the above I have strong doubts.Now, I understand that this may be hard criticism, and maybe I'm completely wrong about some aspects - I'm no real expert here. So if one of the founders reads this, feel free to correct me!" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Considering the possibilities, I'm very much surprised that Google hasn't entered this space to supplement their traffic intelligence. Just look at the possibilities of the Torque Android app and this Mojio dongle to see how powerful it is.If Google came out with a bluetooth OBD-II dongle, they could integrate it into Google Maps/Nav and Google Now, both on Android and iOS. And you don't need an expensive cellular connection for a lot of the functionality, driving down the cost.In the long term, this would have positive effects for them. They would have realtime analytics from the roads to vastly improve traffic analytics in Google Maps. Google Navigation would also be improved for the user by providing realtime information about speed and fuel, which would greatly improve the user experience (more accurate directions, heads up display of speed, and \"nearest gas station\" when you're running low).Best of all? It would be $20, and provide them with all the data they need to make their upcoming driverless cars navigate better as well as improving navigation for existing android users in normal cars. It would also tell them how inefficient people are using their vehicles, and use this real crowdsourced data to market the efficiency of their driverless vehicles." }
Moj.io: Connect your car to the world around you
{ "score": 2, "text": "Considering the possibilities, I'm very much surprised that Google hasn't entered this space to supplement their traffic intelligence. Just look at the possibilities of the Torque Android app and this Mojio dongle to see how powerful it is.If Google came out with a bluetooth OBD-II dongle, they could integrate it into Google Maps/Nav and Google Now, both on Android and iOS. And you don't need an expensive cellular connection for a lot of the functionality, driving down the cost.In the long term, this would have positive effects for them. They would have realtime analytics from the roads to vastly improve traffic analytics in Google Maps. Google Navigation would also be improved for the user by providing realtime information about speed and fuel, which would greatly improve the user experience (more accurate directions, heads up display of speed, and \"nearest gas station\" when you're running low).Best of all? It would be $20, and provide them with all the data they need to make their upcoming driverless cars navigate better as well as improving navigation for existing android users in normal cars. It would also tell them how inefficient people are using their vehicles, and use this real crowdsourced data to market the efficiency of their driverless vehicles." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Worth noting since we're all supposed to be hackers, the connector hasn't changed over the years since '96 OBD II in the US, but there are several protocols and many vendor-specific subsets of interaction. Early \"code readers\" may not work on later cars despite having the same plug because the underlying protocol is different. It's easy enough to find out what the protocols are on wikipedia if you're interested. What's available greatly depends on the specific vehicle manufacturer but there is a minimum set of data including DTC's (diagnostic trouble codes) for all.With manufacturer-specific details, there's an unbelievable amount of data and even commands and firmware download capability through that port. A decent PC-based system with specifics for your vehicle added-on is a worthy tool if you tend to do your own car repairs. Or at least you can go into the shop and tell them what part you need and know whether you're being quoted a reasonable price." }
Moj.io: Connect your car to the world around you
{ "score": 3, "text": "Worth noting since we're all supposed to be hackers, the connector hasn't changed over the years since '96 OBD II in the US, but there are several protocols and many vendor-specific subsets of interaction. Early \"code readers\" may not work on later cars despite having the same plug because the underlying protocol is different. It's easy enough to find out what the protocols are on wikipedia if you're interested. What's available greatly depends on the specific vehicle manufacturer but there is a minimum set of data including DTC's (diagnostic trouble codes) for all.With manufacturer-specific details, there's an unbelievable amount of data and even commands and firmware download capability through that port. A decent PC-based system with specifics for your vehicle added-on is a worthy tool if you tend to do your own car repairs. Or at least you can go into the shop and tell them what part you need and know whether you're being quoted a reasonable price." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Wow! A HUGE market that escaped everybody’s attention! There are a few comments that come to mind:First, this Modj.io company provides free testing ground for car companies to see if there is really a wide demand for such feedback mechanisms in public. At the first sight, I would say that there is, as they outlined in their sample use cases in the video.Second, the only chance that Modj.io has for survival is a quick ramp-up of user base, because this technology is a perfect example of what car companies will try to use for customer lock-in. Kind of like iTunes for your car, storing driving and tracking data in the cloud. I foresee that every car company will try to develop their own platform, SDK, and an app, with unique synergies coming from having access to their cars’ deep engineering knowledge. Additionally, this will give car companies real-time feedback about the performance of their cars down to the last part that failed. This will allow them to know things like that the left windshield wiper motor batch that fails more often that average was assembled on a Friday night by John Doe. That’s scary level of detail and feedback.Third, with such level of granularity, insurance companies will have a whole new set of market segmentation metrics, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see attempts in horizontal integration of car companies with such feedback information with insurance providers.Forth, when each car company starts promoting their own SDK, we will see an aggregator-type company that will produce an abstraction SDK that allows you to write an app once to work on all cars.Just my $0.02. I’d love to hear your projections as well, or comments on something I missed." }
Scheme illustrated
{ "score": 0, "text": "I went to college with the student who drew all these illustrations. The white boards in the computer science department were always covered with her awesome artwork. Since she graduated, the boards are much more boring.She also was the creative mind behind our year-long animation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCHivuaQhQY" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Thanks for this! I'm teaching Scheme to middle schoolers at the moment, and I make use of lots of visuals. I'm looking forward to trying out some of the ideas and drawings in this report." }
Scheme illustrated
{ "score": 1, "text": "Thanks for this! I'm teaching Scheme to middle schoolers at the moment, and I make use of lots of visuals. I'm looking forward to trying out some of the ideas and drawings in this report." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "I have a dream where you can code Lisp via diagrams, this is a nice aproximation of it.Anybody ever tought of that? First you draw diagrams of Lisp metaphors with Lisp, then you can code Lisp by creating diagrams and evaluating them. Thanks to the almighty powers of Lisp you could then draw or code meta-diagrams to guide diagram modelling. The biggest challenge, imhhho, is getting the Lisp diagram representation right to make it sound.I was thinking in joining a Lisp open-source project to get up with Lisp application coding pratices, any suggestion?" }
Scheme illustrated
{ "score": 2, "text": "I have a dream where you can code Lisp via diagrams, this is a nice aproximation of it.Anybody ever tought of that? First you draw diagrams of Lisp metaphors with Lisp, then you can code Lisp by creating diagrams and evaluating them. Thanks to the almighty powers of Lisp you could then draw or code meta-diagrams to guide diagram modelling. The biggest challenge, imhhho, is getting the Lisp diagram representation right to make it sound.I was thinking in joining a Lisp open-source project to get up with Lisp application coding pratices, any suggestion?" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Man, I would take almost any page of this as a poster for my room." }
Scheme illustrated
{ "score": 3, "text": "Man, I would take almost any page of this as a poster for my room." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "The drawings are almost too cute. More concepts should be explained in this manner!" }
Square vs VeriFone - Fees & Security
{ "score": 0, "text": "The Fee Fighters tool is great, but they don't take into account how much better of an experience Square is over Verifone. Go take a look at the screenshots of Verifone's Payware Mobile app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/payware-mobile/id347863505?mt... versus Square: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/square/id335393788?mt=8 – On top of that, Square's interface on iPad is just as beautiful.Square also offers other features like text message receipts that Verifone doesn't, like SMS receipts.While fees are definitely one of the most important things to consider, ignoring other aspects of payment systems is short-sighted. It's a shame that Fee Fighters seems to be using just the 'checklist features' model of comparison." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "The difference in the breakdown of fees is almost hilarious in its complexity on the Verifone side vs. that on the Square side." }
Square vs VeriFone - Fees & Security
{ "score": 1, "text": "The difference in the breakdown of fees is almost hilarious in its complexity on the Verifone side vs. that on the Square side." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Apparently for smaller and independent businesses Square is the way to go" }
Square vs VeriFone - Fees & Security
{ "score": 2, "text": "Apparently for smaller and independent businesses Square is the way to go" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Thanks for this article. I thought that Square only supported the iPhone, not Android; is this a new development?My brother and I are looking to sell some physical products (spice mixes / dry rubs) at farmer's markets. We were going to do Cash Only, but I just ordered my Square to handle the CC processing at the markets!" }
Square vs VeriFone - Fees & Security
{ "score": 3, "text": "Thanks for this article. I thought that Square only supported the iPhone, not Android; is this a new development?My brother and I are looking to sell some physical products (spice mixes / dry rubs) at farmer's markets. We were going to do Cash Only, but I just ordered my Square to handle the CC processing at the markets!" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Ironically, $40 (the price which is set initially) is the highest (average) price at which Square is cheaper than VeriFone." }
How WPEngine Is Failboating Your SEO and Leaking Your Information
{ "score": 0, "text": "This is the Founder of WP Engine.The main points in the article are factually incorrect, but some of it is in fact excellent feedback that we&#x27;re going to act on.First, on staging areas, it is incorrect that they are counted as duplicate content, because we force a &quot;deny robots everything&quot; robots.txt file on staging. Using the example from the article of our TorqueMag website: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;torque.staging.wpengine.com&#x2F;robots.txtIt&#x27;s true that some bots will ignore robots.txt, but all the major search engines that matter for SEO, which is the point of the article, do honor it. Some -- including Google! -- will scan it anyway, but it doesn&#x27;t count for duplicate content. Matt Cutts has been extremely clear on this point, publicly.Second, on duplicate content on the WP Engine domains (e.g. torque.wpengine.com), again what was stated is factually incorrect for Google but is a good point for some other search engines. Here&#x27;s why:Google maintains a set of root domains that they know are companies that do exactly what we and many other hosting companies do. Included in that list are WordPress.com, SquareSpace, and us. When they detect &quot;duplicate content&quot; on subdomains from that list, they know that&#x27;s not actually duplicate content. You can see it in Google Search, but it&#x27;s not counted against you.We have had a dialog directly with Matt Cutts on this point, so this is not conjecture, but fact.However, the suggestion from the article that it&#x27;s better to 301 that domain is still also very valid. Also, not all search engines are aware of this scenario, and thus one of the take-aways we have from this article is that we should auto-force robots.txt for the XYZ.wpengine.com domains just as we do for the staging domains, so that other search engines won&#x27;t be confused.So in the end, we came away with a good idea of how to improve. It&#x27;s a shame the point had to be made in the manner that it was, and intermixed with FUD." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "This seems like someone with an axe to grind.The SEO issues identified seem incredibly minor and the &quot;leaking personal information&quot; apparently refers to the fact that if you use WP-Engine to publish a prerelease version of your site on the internet... that means it&#x27;s published on the internet." }
How WPEngine Is Failboating Your SEO and Leaking Your Information
{ "score": 1, "text": "This seems like someone with an axe to grind.The SEO issues identified seem incredibly minor and the &quot;leaking personal information&quot; apparently refers to the fact that if you use WP-Engine to publish a prerelease version of your site on the internet... that means it&#x27;s published on the internet." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "&gt; To Google, these images aren’t on your site, they are on - wpengine.netdna-cdn.comI&#x27;m curious why the OP thinks that matters. The only thing I can think of is that you don&#x27;t necessarily benefit if another site links to or hotlinks a particular image of yours (though I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if Google recognizes where the image originally appeared and does give credit). And it seems like any minimally reputable site that wanted to use your image would download and rehost it themselves.&gt; The problem is you have effectively orphaned all of your images to a worthless subdomain on NetDNA-CDN.com, no bueno if you’re trying to get some image traffic from Google.How does that prevent you from getting traffic? If an image on your page comes up in image search, Google still shows your site&#x27;s domain and links to your page for everything except the &quot;View Image&quot; button, and if someone clicks that, they just want to download your image and presumably don&#x27;t care about your actual site at all." }
How WPEngine Is Failboating Your SEO and Leaking Your Information
{ "score": 2, "text": "&gt; To Google, these images aren’t on your site, they are on - wpengine.netdna-cdn.comI&#x27;m curious why the OP thinks that matters. The only thing I can think of is that you don&#x27;t necessarily benefit if another site links to or hotlinks a particular image of yours (though I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if Google recognizes where the image originally appeared and does give credit). And it seems like any minimally reputable site that wanted to use your image would download and rehost it themselves.&gt; The problem is you have effectively orphaned all of your images to a worthless subdomain on NetDNA-CDN.com, no bueno if you’re trying to get some image traffic from Google.How does that prevent you from getting traffic? If an image on your page comes up in image search, Google still shows your site&#x27;s domain and links to your page for everything except the &quot;View Image&quot; button, and if someone clicks that, they just want to download your image and presumably don&#x27;t care about your actual site at all." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "I&#x27;ve spoken to a former Googler that was on the search team, and he said the duplicate content isn&#x27;t as big of a deal as one would expect. They realize when it is and isn&#x27;t an issue. For example, blog reposts do not hurt you (in fact they may help you) even though they show up as duplicate content.Just my 2 cents. I&#x27;m not a fan of WPEngine anyway." }
How WPEngine Is Failboating Your SEO and Leaking Your Information
{ "score": 3, "text": "I&#x27;ve spoken to a former Googler that was on the search team, and he said the duplicate content isn&#x27;t as big of a deal as one would expect. They realize when it is and isn&#x27;t an issue. For example, blog reposts do not hurt you (in fact they may help you) even though they show up as duplicate content.Just my 2 cents. I&#x27;m not a fan of WPEngine anyway." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "I get that it&#x27;s easier to set up WPEngine, but this seems like one of those cases where you might be better off learning what to do - just set up a self-hosted VPS with nginx + varnish?At least if you&#x27;re gonna have multiple sites, this WPEngine is expensive stuff." }
SafeCurves: Choosing safe curves for elliptic-curve cryptography
{ "score": 0, "text": "Everything djb does is high quality, above anything else available in the field at the time.In the qmail days, his attitude drove people away (which is stupid, I think: Would you rather have to deal with djb&#x27;s attitude, or deal with compromise?), but now it seems he goes to greater length to accommodate users.You don&#x27;t have to go the whole djb way http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedjbway.b0llix.net&#x2F; - every small thing is useful.Personally, I preferred qmail+ezmlm to everything else when I ran my own servers (up until 2002), and I still prefer daemontools and redo to everything else." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "If you want to try this out yourself, be sure to check out https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;impl&#x2F;libcurvecpr for a solid implementation of djb&#x27;s CurveCP in an easy-to-implement &amp; understand pluggable library." }
SafeCurves: Choosing safe curves for elliptic-curve cryptography
{ "score": 1, "text": "If you want to try this out yourself, be sure to check out https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;impl&#x2F;libcurvecpr for a solid implementation of djb&#x27;s CurveCP in an easy-to-implement &amp; understand pluggable library." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "I&#x27;m no crypto expert, but I would like to learn a little more about ECC. Are there any books or websites in particular that I should look into? I have a copy of Applied Cryptography and plan on eventually reading through more of it.I only ask because it seems like there have been a lot of advancements in this field recently (from what I&#x27;ve seen on the internet)." }
SafeCurves: Choosing safe curves for elliptic-curve cryptography
{ "score": 2, "text": "I&#x27;m no crypto expert, but I would like to learn a little more about ECC. Are there any books or websites in particular that I should look into? I have a copy of Applied Cryptography and plan on eventually reading through more of it.I only ask because it seems like there have been a lot of advancements in this field recently (from what I&#x27;ve seen on the internet)." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Oh someone needs to get Qualys (ssllabs) to take a look at that." }
SafeCurves: Choosing safe curves for elliptic-curve cryptography
{ "score": 3, "text": "Oh someone needs to get Qualys (ssllabs) to take a look at that." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "The rigidity page calls schemes &quot;fully rigid&quot; when the scheme used to select their generator point is unspecified.This is unfortunate." }
Ask HN: Are you alone in San Francisco on Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<p>If you're in San Francisco and alone on this special day, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!<p>Twitter: @MattMireles Email: [email protected]<p>My girlfriend is making cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potatoes to go along with our gigantic turkey. GautamSivakumar (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gautamsivakumar) of MediSaS (who I first met through HN) will be joining us from England for his first ever American Thanksgiving.<p>I've been helped by strangers and friends and strangers who became friends. When I was 20, it was the people who picked me up on my cycling/hitchhiking mis-adventure down the California coast and let me stay in their homes on Xmas. When I was 25, it was the New Yorkers who welcomed me into a new city and taught me how to stay safe in my job as a paramedic. When I was 29, it was the entrepreneurs who introduced me to Silicon Valley and showed me how to get from Zero to 1.<p>And now, I feel compelled to return these favors in some way, small or large.<p>So...if you're in San Francisco and you need a place to call home for Thanksgiving, let me know. We saved you a seat at the table.<p>-Matt Mireles CEO, Swig!<p>SwigMe.com: The Liquor Store in Your Pocket. Get Beer, Wine &#38; Booze Delivered To Your Door in Under an Hour
{ "score": 0, "text": "Amazed by the turnout. What an awesome thanksgiving!http://instagr.am/p/SWvz6dOENk/" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "This is beautiful and shows one of the coolest parts of a great community like Silicon Valley. Thanks for giving back, Matt.I sincerely hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving!" }
Ask HN: Are you alone in San Francisco on Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<p>If you're in San Francisco and alone on this special day, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!<p>Twitter: @MattMireles Email: [email protected]<p>My girlfriend is making cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potatoes to go along with our gigantic turkey. GautamSivakumar (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gautamsivakumar) of MediSaS (who I first met through HN) will be joining us from England for his first ever American Thanksgiving.<p>I've been helped by strangers and friends and strangers who became friends. When I was 20, it was the people who picked me up on my cycling/hitchhiking mis-adventure down the California coast and let me stay in their homes on Xmas. When I was 25, it was the New Yorkers who welcomed me into a new city and taught me how to stay safe in my job as a paramedic. When I was 29, it was the entrepreneurs who introduced me to Silicon Valley and showed me how to get from Zero to 1.<p>And now, I feel compelled to return these favors in some way, small or large.<p>So...if you're in San Francisco and you need a place to call home for Thanksgiving, let me know. We saved you a seat at the table.<p>-Matt Mireles CEO, Swig!<p>SwigMe.com: The Liquor Store in Your Pocket. Get Beer, Wine &#38; Booze Delivered To Your Door in Under an Hour
{ "score": 1, "text": "This is beautiful and shows one of the coolest parts of a great community like Silicon Valley. Thanks for giving back, Matt.I sincerely hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving!" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Matt is one of the coolest people in the Bay Area and it is definitely worth spending the day with him if you're on your own today." }
Ask HN: Are you alone in San Francisco on Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<p>If you're in San Francisco and alone on this special day, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!<p>Twitter: @MattMireles Email: [email protected]<p>My girlfriend is making cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potatoes to go along with our gigantic turkey. GautamSivakumar (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gautamsivakumar) of MediSaS (who I first met through HN) will be joining us from England for his first ever American Thanksgiving.<p>I've been helped by strangers and friends and strangers who became friends. When I was 20, it was the people who picked me up on my cycling/hitchhiking mis-adventure down the California coast and let me stay in their homes on Xmas. When I was 25, it was the New Yorkers who welcomed me into a new city and taught me how to stay safe in my job as a paramedic. When I was 29, it was the entrepreneurs who introduced me to Silicon Valley and showed me how to get from Zero to 1.<p>And now, I feel compelled to return these favors in some way, small or large.<p>So...if you're in San Francisco and you need a place to call home for Thanksgiving, let me know. We saved you a seat at the table.<p>-Matt Mireles CEO, Swig!<p>SwigMe.com: The Liquor Store in Your Pocket. Get Beer, Wine &#38; Booze Delivered To Your Door in Under an Hour
{ "score": 2, "text": "Matt is one of the coolest people in the Bay Area and it is definitely worth spending the day with him if you're on your own today." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "I'm not in America, but would really like to know how many people actually asked to join you?Happy Thanksgiving!" }
Ask HN: Are you alone in San Francisco on Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<p>If you're in San Francisco and alone on this special day, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!<p>Twitter: @MattMireles Email: [email protected]<p>My girlfriend is making cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potatoes to go along with our gigantic turkey. GautamSivakumar (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gautamsivakumar) of MediSaS (who I first met through HN) will be joining us from England for his first ever American Thanksgiving.<p>I've been helped by strangers and friends and strangers who became friends. When I was 20, it was the people who picked me up on my cycling/hitchhiking mis-adventure down the California coast and let me stay in their homes on Xmas. When I was 25, it was the New Yorkers who welcomed me into a new city and taught me how to stay safe in my job as a paramedic. When I was 29, it was the entrepreneurs who introduced me to Silicon Valley and showed me how to get from Zero to 1.<p>And now, I feel compelled to return these favors in some way, small or large.<p>So...if you're in San Francisco and you need a place to call home for Thanksgiving, let me know. We saved you a seat at the table.<p>-Matt Mireles CEO, Swig!<p>SwigMe.com: The Liquor Store in Your Pocket. Get Beer, Wine &#38; Booze Delivered To Your Door in Under an Hour
{ "score": 3, "text": "I'm not in America, but would really like to know how many people actually asked to join you?Happy Thanksgiving!" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "It's only a 12 hour drive from Phoenix! I can make it!(I'm kidding, that would put me in SF around 1:00am -- hanging out in the hackerspace with my girlfriend making stuff instead :) )" }
Ask HN: start on my own or negotiate with the employer? As an employee I work for a small software company developing a SaaS product, and I see a lot of opportunities to make this product much better. After all we use it on a daily basis and we’ve got plenty of experience with it. I am not talking here about incremental improvements in usability or coming up with some new cool features (although these too). There seems to be a better way to solve the same problem which the product already does by changing the product’s philosophy, its core principles and building new features on top of it. As you may guess this would require a major overhaul, or even more – complete rewrite. If this would be not enough to you, I am not satisfied with the current development platform and thinking about changing it. I have been thinking really hard and evolving this idea for the last several months and very passionate about it. I haven’t noticed someone has already implemented it, but I’m sure, if done properly, it would become a hit. Now, what should I do with my idea? Do I have to start working on a new product on my own, or should I go to my employer and convince him there’s a better way to make the same product? There are pros and cons going both ways. If I work on it on my own, I am sure it won’t be stolen and I will have freedom to implement it in the way I see it. But I will have to start a new company from scratch and attract customers one by one. If I negotiate with my employer, I will have access to the already existing resources and customers, but the tricky part to me is how to negotiate properly. Can you please give some advice about what can I do in a situation like this?
{ "score": 0, "text": "Seems you have a few competing opinions here, but I think there are a few key themes that you need to consider\n1) Ethical\n2) Legal\n3) Financial\n4) Processes\n5) I'm sure their are othersFrom the sounds of the sounds of things, your boss is still in development. Has the product you have been working on been released into the wild yet?It is unethical to be working on a competing product while working for your employer. However, remember that Woz approached HP with his idea, and they said no so he went and built Apple.Legal commitments from non-compete are not always binding. You didn't say what country or state you are in, but you can check that out yourself. If you are happy ethically with leaving the company to start a competitor. \nNote that this happens all the time. Lots of ad agencies are started by former ad execs who jump ship and go out on their own, often stealing clients from their former employer.Do you really want to start your own business? if so, is this the business you want to start? or is it just that you like this product? A product does not make a business. So I'd consider that very carefully as well. Is your 'planned' product so much better than what your current employer that you can truly build a business around it?This might be an opportunity for you to learn a TON and get lots of experience and move up in the company you are working for. If the change is significant enough, you may be able to put yourself in a position where you are leading significant parts of the initiative.In the end, I don't think you can get very far without at least discussing some things with your current employer, so if the relationship is solid enough, maybe sit down with them and talk about it. You don't have to give them your entire product ideas, but let them know that you think they are going in the wrong direction and see how they take it.Their reaction could/should be a big eye-opener into what direction you want to take." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Fear of violating contracts isn't a valid reason for not pursuing great ideas. This is what Silicon Valley was built on. If you have investor backing, you'll have help in handling the legal issues.A much better reason to try to sell your idea within the company is the fantastic support you'll have. You're surrounded by people with deep knowledge of their domain, and it would be nearly impossible to find a co-founder with that level of experience.That being said, it's quite likely that the company leadership won't want to pursue your idea, even if they like it. Maybe they're in a profit making mode, and don't want to invest and grow. Maybe it would be difficult to get customers to adopt a totally new product (think of Coke or WordStar in the 1980s).It's also quite possible that some people love your idea, and others don't. If you demonstrate the value of your ideas, and people who agree with you see that you're not being taken seriously, you've just found some potential co-founders.Who knows, there may be some guy in sales who's figured out a better way to market the product, and is also thinking of striking out on his own." }
Ask HN: start on my own or negotiate with the employer? As an employee I work for a small software company developing a SaaS product, and I see a lot of opportunities to make this product much better. After all we use it on a daily basis and we’ve got plenty of experience with it. I am not talking here about incremental improvements in usability or coming up with some new cool features (although these too). There seems to be a better way to solve the same problem which the product already does by changing the product’s philosophy, its core principles and building new features on top of it. As you may guess this would require a major overhaul, or even more – complete rewrite. If this would be not enough to you, I am not satisfied with the current development platform and thinking about changing it. I have been thinking really hard and evolving this idea for the last several months and very passionate about it. I haven’t noticed someone has already implemented it, but I’m sure, if done properly, it would become a hit. Now, what should I do with my idea? Do I have to start working on a new product on my own, or should I go to my employer and convince him there’s a better way to make the same product? There are pros and cons going both ways. If I work on it on my own, I am sure it won’t be stolen and I will have freedom to implement it in the way I see it. But I will have to start a new company from scratch and attract customers one by one. If I negotiate with my employer, I will have access to the already existing resources and customers, but the tricky part to me is how to negotiate properly. Can you please give some advice about what can I do in a situation like this?
{ "score": 1, "text": "Fear of violating contracts isn't a valid reason for not pursuing great ideas. This is what Silicon Valley was built on. If you have investor backing, you'll have help in handling the legal issues.A much better reason to try to sell your idea within the company is the fantastic support you'll have. You're surrounded by people with deep knowledge of their domain, and it would be nearly impossible to find a co-founder with that level of experience.That being said, it's quite likely that the company leadership won't want to pursue your idea, even if they like it. Maybe they're in a profit making mode, and don't want to invest and grow. Maybe it would be difficult to get customers to adopt a totally new product (think of Coke or WordStar in the 1980s).It's also quite possible that some people love your idea, and others don't. If you demonstrate the value of your ideas, and people who agree with you see that you're not being taken seriously, you've just found some potential co-founders.Who knows, there may be some guy in sales who's figured out a better way to market the product, and is also thinking of striking out on his own." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Starting a closely related competing product is not something that can be reasonably considered ethical. Many contracts prevent you from doing that. Just because you're not in such a contract, doesn't make it right, though. I would suggest talking to your employer and remaining on good terms whether or not you decide to part ways." }
Ask HN: start on my own or negotiate with the employer? As an employee I work for a small software company developing a SaaS product, and I see a lot of opportunities to make this product much better. After all we use it on a daily basis and we’ve got plenty of experience with it. I am not talking here about incremental improvements in usability or coming up with some new cool features (although these too). There seems to be a better way to solve the same problem which the product already does by changing the product’s philosophy, its core principles and building new features on top of it. As you may guess this would require a major overhaul, or even more – complete rewrite. If this would be not enough to you, I am not satisfied with the current development platform and thinking about changing it. I have been thinking really hard and evolving this idea for the last several months and very passionate about it. I haven’t noticed someone has already implemented it, but I’m sure, if done properly, it would become a hit. Now, what should I do with my idea? Do I have to start working on a new product on my own, or should I go to my employer and convince him there’s a better way to make the same product? There are pros and cons going both ways. If I work on it on my own, I am sure it won’t be stolen and I will have freedom to implement it in the way I see it. But I will have to start a new company from scratch and attract customers one by one. If I negotiate with my employer, I will have access to the already existing resources and customers, but the tricky part to me is how to negotiate properly. Can you please give some advice about what can I do in a situation like this?
{ "score": 2, "text": "Starting a closely related competing product is not something that can be reasonably considered ethical. Many contracts prevent you from doing that. Just because you're not in such a contract, doesn't make it right, though. I would suggest talking to your employer and remaining on good terms whether or not you decide to part ways." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "First, read \"Things You Should Never Do\" by Joel Spolsky (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html) to understand why the suggestion \"lets rewrite this from scratch\" might not be well received.Second, I think that your employer is ethically entitled to first refusal on any ideas you come up with, and maybe even a second as well. If they turn you down then I don't see anything unethical with going off and doing it yourself. Of course there may be legal issues: talk to a lawyer if you think there might be some.Third, don't over-estimate your knowledge of the market and ability to sell to it. The world is littered with products which were technically better than the competition, but failed in the market place. You may be better staying put and trying to work your ideas into the existing product piecemeal." }
Ask HN: start on my own or negotiate with the employer? As an employee I work for a small software company developing a SaaS product, and I see a lot of opportunities to make this product much better. After all we use it on a daily basis and we’ve got plenty of experience with it. I am not talking here about incremental improvements in usability or coming up with some new cool features (although these too). There seems to be a better way to solve the same problem which the product already does by changing the product’s philosophy, its core principles and building new features on top of it. As you may guess this would require a major overhaul, or even more – complete rewrite. If this would be not enough to you, I am not satisfied with the current development platform and thinking about changing it. I have been thinking really hard and evolving this idea for the last several months and very passionate about it. I haven’t noticed someone has already implemented it, but I’m sure, if done properly, it would become a hit. Now, what should I do with my idea? Do I have to start working on a new product on my own, or should I go to my employer and convince him there’s a better way to make the same product? There are pros and cons going both ways. If I work on it on my own, I am sure it won’t be stolen and I will have freedom to implement it in the way I see it. But I will have to start a new company from scratch and attract customers one by one. If I negotiate with my employer, I will have access to the already existing resources and customers, but the tricky part to me is how to negotiate properly. Can you please give some advice about what can I do in a situation like this?
{ "score": 3, "text": "First, read \"Things You Should Never Do\" by Joel Spolsky (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html) to understand why the suggestion \"lets rewrite this from scratch\" might not be well received.Second, I think that your employer is ethically entitled to first refusal on any ideas you come up with, and maybe even a second as well. If they turn you down then I don't see anything unethical with going off and doing it yourself. Of course there may be legal issues: talk to a lawyer if you think there might be some.Third, don't over-estimate your knowledge of the market and ability to sell to it. The world is littered with products which were technically better than the competition, but failed in the market place. You may be better staying put and trying to work your ideas into the existing product piecemeal." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Life's too short (time our most precious commodity) so you have to evaluate what makes sense in terms of what you are prepared to live with and look back on - if it's been your ambition to launch a software product then this could be the perfect time, here's a few soundbites to help you think this through:Rule #1 Cover your arse - take note of what people say here but these issues are obstacles to overcome and if you work out the right strategy backed up by the right advice then things can play nice and life is great... otherwise you'll get fked. So work out how not to get fked and know what you can/can't do from a legal, financial and karma perspective etc. then find the way to cover yourself and move forwards.Rule #2 It's a lovely world we live in, all this openness, though it means competition is rife - don't be fooled into sharing a great idea and losing it, goes back to #1 about covering your arseRule #3 It's best to remember the adage (a) bullshit walks and money talks... don't faff around thinking about doing this - JFDI - i.e. go build that prototype in your bedroom that you can tear up/down to demo on an Amazon EC2 image with Mulesource middleware (for example it's easy to get a great demo running in the cloud that only costs you for the time it runs!) and prove this can be done because until you've actually got something to show, discuss and demonstrate it's a load of hot air or should I say vapour-ware. Adage (b) rings similar i.e. \"the proof is in the pudding\" so get baking and then re-visit the whole legal thing because....Rule #4 Ethics and co-opetition: you are in a weak position until you are able to influence the game i.e. people will benefit more with you than without you - so this also takes into account the rights/wrongs but before you give away a great opportunity to someone else, especially an employer, work out how to avoid doing that! See #5Rule #5 Read smart books: Innovator's Solution by Claytensen and Co-opetition by Nalebuff/Brandenburger tell you of real case studies on how the big boys do these deals and what's at stake - sometimes you make more money NOT doing things, now would be the time to learn your real value in this 'game' and you get to realise why game theory is so cool in the process. If you have time also read some Sun Tzu, my favourite.HTH." }
Bitcoinica hacked. ~$100k USD stolen. Bitcoinia's officially statement: http://bitcoinica.blogspot.com
{ "score": 0, "text": "This is now the 2nd, 3rd time that Bitcoinica has been hacked?People warned of this when it was first announced—a financial platform created by a lone teenager in China [1] is obvious going to be a target for high profile attacks. The site owner's comments [2] make it clear that he's not ready to do security on a large-scale financial system.The idea that they were holding even 100K of Bitcoins is mind-boggling.[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973301\n[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973732" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "To balance out the critique I would like to point out that this has nothing to do with an inherent insecurity or fault in the bitcoin currency, but with the way the current marketplaces handle their security.It is however a PR nightmare for an up and coming currency that the bitcoin 'user community' will have to handle better to have a chance to be mainstream recognized as a 'real' currency." }
Bitcoinica hacked. ~$100k USD stolen. Bitcoinia's officially statement: http://bitcoinica.blogspot.com
{ "score": 1, "text": "To balance out the critique I would like to point out that this has nothing to do with an inherent insecurity or fault in the bitcoin currency, but with the way the current marketplaces handle their security.It is however a PR nightmare for an up and coming currency that the bitcoin 'user community' will have to handle better to have a chance to be mainstream recognized as a 'real' currency." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Occasionally you'll see a story about a dramatic months long heist take place in Eve Online [1] - the in game currency of Eve is loosely convertible to real world USD currency and the amounts 'stolen' (this is a tricky point because it happens in game) are real world significant: tens of thousands of dollars.Bitcoin strikes me as similar, it has a weird quasi real feel to it, there are markets that trade between BC and USD and spot prices and everything, but I have a hard time thinking how/if a prosecution could occur with it.[1] - http://gamergaia.com/pc/1724-eve-online-space-heist-one-tril..." }
Bitcoinica hacked. ~$100k USD stolen. Bitcoinia's officially statement: http://bitcoinica.blogspot.com
{ "score": 2, "text": "Occasionally you'll see a story about a dramatic months long heist take place in Eve Online [1] - the in game currency of Eve is loosely convertible to real world USD currency and the amounts 'stolen' (this is a tricky point because it happens in game) are real world significant: tens of thousands of dollars.Bitcoin strikes me as similar, it has a weird quasi real feel to it, there are markets that trade between BC and USD and spot prices and everything, but I have a hard time thinking how/if a prosecution could occur with it.[1] - http://gamergaia.com/pc/1724-eve-online-space-heist-one-tril..." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "I hate to snark, but bitcoin seems to be turning into something of a bad joke. How long will it be before the net volume of bitcoins stolen exceeds that of those spent?" }
Bitcoinica hacked. ~$100k USD stolen. Bitcoinia's officially statement: http://bitcoinica.blogspot.com
{ "score": 3, "text": "I hate to snark, but bitcoin seems to be turning into something of a bad joke. How long will it be before the net volume of bitcoins stolen exceeds that of those spent?" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "the transaction in question: http://blockchain.info/tx-index/5416502/7a22917744aa9ed740fa...it's like having cctv access to a robbery but being able to do nothing about it" }
Why being a thinker takes quiet time
{ "score": 0, "text": "Necessary reading material: &quot;Solitude and Leadership&quot; [0], an address by William Deresiewicz to the United States Military Academy that discusses the importance of forming your own ideas through careful reflection. As important to the task of creating something of quality on a computer as to becoming an upstanding military officer.[0] http:&#x2F;&#x2F;theamericanscholar.org&#x2F;solitude-and-leadership&#x2F;" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "I&#x27;m a legs-up-on-table type of dreamer and thinker when I work. However, after working in corporate environments for many years I&#x27;m developing what can only been called a cognitive dissonance about this type of quiet thinking. The issue is that managers have always wanted me to track my time in 15-30 min increments, and there is never an expense category for &quot;quiet thinking and reflection&quot;. Thus I&#x27;ve started to feel like a time thief [1] and it weighs on my conscience even though I know, deep down, that my quiet reflections are being used to solve difficult problems.[1] http:&#x2F;&#x2F;timewellscheduled.com&#x2F;time-theft&#x2F;" }
Why being a thinker takes quiet time
{ "score": 1, "text": "I&#x27;m a legs-up-on-table type of dreamer and thinker when I work. However, after working in corporate environments for many years I&#x27;m developing what can only been called a cognitive dissonance about this type of quiet thinking. The issue is that managers have always wanted me to track my time in 15-30 min increments, and there is never an expense category for &quot;quiet thinking and reflection&quot;. Thus I&#x27;ve started to feel like a time thief [1] and it weighs on my conscience even though I know, deep down, that my quiet reflections are being used to solve difficult problems.[1] http:&#x2F;&#x2F;timewellscheduled.com&#x2F;time-theft&#x2F;" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Reminds me of Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc" }
Why being a thinker takes quiet time
{ "score": 2, "text": "Reminds me of Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc" }
{ "score": 3, "text": "Yes, yes, detach yourself from your smartphone and cable tv and twitter sometimes. But do that on your own time! When you&#x27;re on company time, let&#x27;s squeeze 50 of you into this cramped open office plan seating arrangement. But don&#x27;t worry, we&#x27;ll add an air hockey table and a couple of pinball machines in there too to increase the company culture!Oh technology industry, where did you go wrong?" }
Why being a thinker takes quiet time
{ "score": 3, "text": "Yes, yes, detach yourself from your smartphone and cable tv and twitter sometimes. But do that on your own time! When you&#x27;re on company time, let&#x27;s squeeze 50 of you into this cramped open office plan seating arrangement. But don&#x27;t worry, we&#x27;ll add an air hockey table and a couple of pinball machines in there too to increase the company culture!Oh technology industry, where did you go wrong?" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "What I HATE is that we now have this &quot;trend&quot; -- or a bit of press based upon it -- from THE SAME institutions that foisted &quot;veal pen&quot;, &quot;collaborative&quot; productivity upon us, for a couple of decades.From one person who &quot;saved the company&quot;, or certainly his department (and more), a couple of times, yet suffered mercilessly under a &quot;cost cutting motivated&quot;, one-size-fits-all HR &quot;best practices&quot; promulgated reign of... &quot;abuse&quot;, frankly:FUCK YOU.I can&#x27;t read these articles without become incensed, because I sense that behind many of them are the same idiots who made life miserable.AND... I suspect that &quot;quiet time&quot; will still remain the privilege and province of that minority of employee &quot;who counts&quot;.&#x2F;rant" }
Not Invented Here and New Programmers
{ "score": 0, "text": "there are 3 stages each programmer must go through.In stage 1 you program to prove to yourself you can. The results not about making something new or original, but rather making anything at all.In stage 2 you program to prove to others you can. This is the phase when using a library is anathema. Libraries are for people who can't do it themselves (or so you say...)In stage 3 there's no need to prove anything any more. Now you can concentrate on other goals, like economics (or, how to make a program profitable) or perhaps it's about solving some new problem.You can't skip a stage - the process is important - jumping to stage 3 is more like being at stage 0.That said I like programmers in stage 3, they're not trying to prove anything - not trying to compete with their team mates, and more keen to just get the job done, as best it can be done.As others have said before - those that ship, win." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "You assume a lot. What makes you think novel programmers don't get taught (either by teachers, professors, a book, or an online tutorial) the basics? A teaching institution that teaches their students how to use frameworks so as to put buzzwords on their CVs instead of the core concepts is an incredibly poor one.I certainly agree that, for want of a better term, the NIH syndrome is the best way to learn to program―you don't learn to run before you walk, neither do you learn the structure of sentences before you learn to spell.&#62; I wrote a PHP social network. [...] How would a newbie do that nowadays? They'd install cakePHP or Django or Rails, getting them a DBA layer, templating, MVC all written for them.They would? They could. At the same time, however, I wouldn't say it's that bad. Do you understand how your kernel handles networking for you? Memory management? There are a lot of abstractions that make programming simpler; complex is rarely better. Getting tangled up in all the small details hinders much more than it helps.Frameworks, eh. It wasn't long ago that all programming was done in assembly language..." }
Not Invented Here and New Programmers
{ "score": 1, "text": "You assume a lot. What makes you think novel programmers don't get taught (either by teachers, professors, a book, or an online tutorial) the basics? A teaching institution that teaches their students how to use frameworks so as to put buzzwords on their CVs instead of the core concepts is an incredibly poor one.I certainly agree that, for want of a better term, the NIH syndrome is the best way to learn to program―you don't learn to run before you walk, neither do you learn the structure of sentences before you learn to spell.&#62; I wrote a PHP social network. [...] How would a newbie do that nowadays? They'd install cakePHP or Django or Rails, getting them a DBA layer, templating, MVC all written for them.They would? They could. At the same time, however, I wouldn't say it's that bad. Do you understand how your kernel handles networking for you? Memory management? There are a lot of abstractions that make programming simpler; complex is rarely better. Getting tangled up in all the small details hinders much more than it helps.Frameworks, eh. It wasn't long ago that all programming was done in assembly language..." }
{ "score": 2, "text": "Yes! As a novice programmer, this is exactly the stuff that has driven me away from programming time and again. Glue code is usually very time consuming (since I'm not familiar with whatever framework/legacy system I'm gluing to), and yields very little in terms of learning experience. I can't say I know how to become a great programmer, but I sure know one way not to." }
Not Invented Here and New Programmers
{ "score": 2, "text": "Yes! As a novice programmer, this is exactly the stuff that has driven me away from programming time and again. Glue code is usually very time consuming (since I'm not familiar with whatever framework/legacy system I'm gluing to), and yields very little in terms of learning experience. I can't say I know how to become a great programmer, but I sure know one way not to." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "I firmly believe that to be a decent web programmer, you have to have gone through phase of writing your own web framework.In some ways, I don't think you truly appreciate the value of (and how best to use) any given framework until you've tried doing it yourself (whether through ignorance, hubris or curiosity)And judging by the number of (largely abandoned, or single-serving) web frameworks out there, many have come to the same conclusion..." }
Not Invented Here and New Programmers
{ "score": 3, "text": "I firmly believe that to be a decent web programmer, you have to have gone through phase of writing your own web framework.In some ways, I don't think you truly appreciate the value of (and how best to use) any given framework until you've tried doing it yourself (whether through ignorance, hubris or curiosity)And judging by the number of (largely abandoned, or single-serving) web frameworks out there, many have come to the same conclusion..." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "BS, all code is glue code, even assembly (what, you don't write your own hard drive controllers and NIC firmware?).It's ALWAYS been the case that if you want to go deep, generally, the best way isn't to write your own, shitty ORM, or HTTP Server, in a production/work environment (in your free time, go ahead, that's a great idea).I'd say, the best way is to work with those who know better. With OSS and things like github today this is easier than ever. And at a certain point, you might say \"I think I can write a better HTTP Server\", and you'll have the background to actual say that with some confidence." }
Increased performance ten-fold by switching to a superior language
{ "score": 0, "text": "Whenever I see someone that scoffs at Blub[1] because Blarb is 'so much better', I instantly think less of them as a developer.In my experience, people like this spend all their time screwing around with esoteric languages and abstract debates about semicolons, and don't spend any time building anything of value anyway.This isn't to say that you shouldn't learn Erlang, or Scala, or Haskell, or any number of oddball languages. Doing so makes you a better and more-rounded programmer. But the haughty attitude of 'Blub is better than Blarb' reeks of naïve fanboyism.Every language brings something to the table, despite their drawbacks. Ruby is beautiful and a joy to work with. Python is powerful and has amazing libraries. PHP is easy to pick up and has a huge community.Ignoring languages because they aren't 'purely functional', 'high performance', or 'mathematically correct' is hugely ignorant.[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html" }
{ "score": 1, "text": "Erlang isn't superior just because its VM is faster and well-designed for high throughput.It is superior because it is functional, which means, while it's possible, less state, less undefined behavior, less crashes, less bugs. Because it has efficient process-based execution model - easy scalable with less complication, less synchronization, less overhead.It is superior because it is less verbose and more readable which is really matters for a language, not its runtime.There are only two big problems with Erlang - there is no huge mediocre crowds with knowledge of language basics and some cowboy-coding experience gained from monkey-spaghetti-patching of some bunch of web-pages, and it has no hyped projects like adding libevent functionality to really good (no kidding!) in-browser VM. (hint: General purpose VM should be, at very least, SMP-aware).btw, Trolls of all countries, unite! ^_^" }
Increased performance ten-fold by switching to a superior language
{ "score": 1, "text": "Erlang isn't superior just because its VM is faster and well-designed for high throughput.It is superior because it is functional, which means, while it's possible, less state, less undefined behavior, less crashes, less bugs. Because it has efficient process-based execution model - easy scalable with less complication, less synchronization, less overhead.It is superior because it is less verbose and more readable which is really matters for a language, not its runtime.There are only two big problems with Erlang - there is no huge mediocre crowds with knowledge of language basics and some cowboy-coding experience gained from monkey-spaghetti-patching of some bunch of web-pages, and it has no hyped projects like adding libevent functionality to really good (no kidding!) in-browser VM. (hint: General purpose VM should be, at very least, SMP-aware).btw, Trolls of all countries, unite! ^_^" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "He's dismissed as a troll, but I find his commit quite interesting. It allows you to compare a real world working program written in Javascript (a language I know) to the same thing written in Erlang (a language I don't know, but find interesting). A bit like those textbooks with on one side of the page the original Latin text, and the English translation on the other side." }
Increased performance ten-fold by switching to a superior language
{ "score": 2, "text": "He's dismissed as a troll, but I find his commit quite interesting. It allows you to compare a real world working program written in Javascript (a language I know) to the same thing written in Erlang (a language I don't know, but find interesting). A bit like those textbooks with on one side of the page the original Latin text, and the English translation on the other side." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "The \"new\" code appears to be https://github.com/tonyg/erlang-smtp/blob/master/src/smtp_se... with the copyright notice changed." }
Increased performance ten-fold by switching to a superior language
{ "score": 3, "text": "The \"new\" code appears to be https://github.com/tonyg/erlang-smtp/blob/master/src/smtp_se... with the copyright notice changed." }
{ "score": 4, "text": "http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Send_emailBut then again, trolling is more fun than contributing to something.. Right?" }
Calico, Google’s Anti-Aging Company, Announces New Research Facility
{ "score": 0, "text": "The largest impact in the history of humankind will be made by those companies that work to extend human lifespan. Good to see how this whole race to increase lifespan can change Silicon Valley, moving it once again toward true innovation, truly changing the world, while other companies like Craig Ventor&#x27;s http:&#x2F;&#x2F;humanlongevity.com http:&#x2F;&#x2F;genopharmix.com http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sens.org and http:&#x2F;&#x2F;buckinstitute.org come into to play." }
{ "score": 1, "text": "This sounds like emperor Chin&#x27;s quest for immortality to me, e.g. pure hubris (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Qin_Shi_Huang#Elixir_of_Life). I&#x27;m really not looking forward to a world where a few rich and powerful old geezers are cementing their power through being virtually immortal (think of a mix of Kim Jon-un or Fidel Castro, but in a corporate setting like the russian oligarchs). The youth and new ideas will be subtly supressed by the &#x27;better arguments and wisdom&#x27; of the elder. It would make a good dystopian science-fiction book though ;)" }
Calico, Google’s Anti-Aging Company, Announces New Research Facility
{ "score": 1, "text": "This sounds like emperor Chin&#x27;s quest for immortality to me, e.g. pure hubris (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Qin_Shi_Huang#Elixir_of_Life). I&#x27;m really not looking forward to a world where a few rich and powerful old geezers are cementing their power through being virtually immortal (think of a mix of Kim Jon-un or Fidel Castro, but in a corporate setting like the russian oligarchs). The youth and new ideas will be subtly supressed by the &#x27;better arguments and wisdom&#x27; of the elder. It would make a good dystopian science-fiction book though ;)" }
{ "score": 2, "text": "This is another point of reinforcement for my view that this effort is going to look much like a mix of the Ellison Medical Foundation plus Sirtris: vastly expensive and with little other than knowledge to show for it once investors give up, because the researchers are from the outset trying to do something that is very hard, and which even if achieved will produce only small benefits. (Which is to say carry on trying to make drug candidates like Rapamycin do something useful enough to become a clinical treatment, bashing the square pegs at hand into the circular holes of regulation and clinical benefit).&quot;The AbbVie partnership seemingly makes it clear that Calico will be a drug discovery and development company, which is what many observers expected based on Mr. Levinson’s background in drug development.&quot;In the best scenario, five years of this will raise the water level enough for more meaningful approaches than calorie restriction mimetics, autophagy inducers, and other attempts at slow-aging drugs that have consumed billions to date with nothing to show for it, to raise significant funds themselves. In the worst scenario, it burns investors for a decade on the whole topic.It is a real time of choice and opportunity at the present. The lumbering monolith of mainstream research can continue to pursue things like Human Longevity Inc and rapamycin derivatives that are probably going to be profitable yet achieve next to no useful gain of human life span (because again they are doing hard things that can only achieve small benefits at best) or, hopefully, some form of disruption for a better path will overtake enough of the community to make a difference.It is clear that far from everyone in the research community thinks that old school drug discovery, farming the natural world to take potshots at restructuring metabolism so as to work slightly better when damaged by age (without in any way fixing the underlying damage!) is the smart way forward. There is SENS, there are the European researchers behind the Hallmarks of Aging manifesto, there are some of the Russian contingent with novel ideas. The near future doesn&#x27;t have to be an enormous waste of time and money that will go nowhere but to generate voluminous databases, entirely bypassing any realistic opportunity for achieving actual rejuvenation and repair of the causes of aging. But I fear that it will, based on what we&#x27;re seeing the big money do." }
Calico, Google’s Anti-Aging Company, Announces New Research Facility
{ "score": 2, "text": "This is another point of reinforcement for my view that this effort is going to look much like a mix of the Ellison Medical Foundation plus Sirtris: vastly expensive and with little other than knowledge to show for it once investors give up, because the researchers are from the outset trying to do something that is very hard, and which even if achieved will produce only small benefits. (Which is to say carry on trying to make drug candidates like Rapamycin do something useful enough to become a clinical treatment, bashing the square pegs at hand into the circular holes of regulation and clinical benefit).&quot;The AbbVie partnership seemingly makes it clear that Calico will be a drug discovery and development company, which is what many observers expected based on Mr. Levinson’s background in drug development.&quot;In the best scenario, five years of this will raise the water level enough for more meaningful approaches than calorie restriction mimetics, autophagy inducers, and other attempts at slow-aging drugs that have consumed billions to date with nothing to show for it, to raise significant funds themselves. In the worst scenario, it burns investors for a decade on the whole topic.It is a real time of choice and opportunity at the present. The lumbering monolith of mainstream research can continue to pursue things like Human Longevity Inc and rapamycin derivatives that are probably going to be profitable yet achieve next to no useful gain of human life span (because again they are doing hard things that can only achieve small benefits at best) or, hopefully, some form of disruption for a better path will overtake enough of the community to make a difference.It is clear that far from everyone in the research community thinks that old school drug discovery, farming the natural world to take potshots at restructuring metabolism so as to work slightly better when damaged by age (without in any way fixing the underlying damage!) is the smart way forward. There is SENS, there are the European researchers behind the Hallmarks of Aging manifesto, there are some of the Russian contingent with novel ideas. The near future doesn&#x27;t have to be an enormous waste of time and money that will go nowhere but to generate voluminous databases, entirely bypassing any realistic opportunity for achieving actual rejuvenation and repair of the causes of aging. But I fear that it will, based on what we&#x27;re seeing the big money do." }
{ "score": 3, "text": "In case some people are on the fence about the whole idea or have questions:The Anti-Deathist FAQ: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;carcinisation.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;13&#x2F;an-anti-deathist-f-a-q&#x2F;" }
Calico, Google’s Anti-Aging Company, Announces New Research Facility
{ "score": 3, "text": "In case some people are on the fence about the whole idea or have questions:The Anti-Deathist FAQ: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;carcinisation.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;13&#x2F;an-anti-deathist-f-a-q&#x2F;" }
{ "score": 4, "text": "Calico has done a good job of keeping out of the press, so I&#x27;m happy to see more details. I&#x27;m somewhat surprised by the partnership with Abbvie, who is widely known as an &quot;old school pharma company&quot;, not exactly a bastion of innovative thinking and risk taking.Also, the focus on age-related diseases is an interesting one. Originally Calico was sold as a &quot;fighting old age&quot; company. That&#x27;s vastly different than &quot;fighting diseases associated with old age&quot;. At the same time, targeting age-related diseases is much easier than fighting aging itself." }