AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

Top comment by gregsadetsky

There's a bus station across from my studio / coworking space. I can see people waiting for the bus and doing either: 1) staring into the void 2) looking at their watches 3) desperately glancing in the direction where the bus is coming from.

I figured that it'd be nice to let people know when the bus is supposed to be there. So, I installed a 28" display on a monitor stand, installed the stand on my window frame, turned the monitor to face the bus station, and show the up-to-date arrival time in a very big font (the buses have GPS; the Pi gets the real time info from the local transit authority).

This is in Montreal. Some info here [0]. And a little video [1].

[0] https://greg.technology/#bus [1] https://youtu.be/pc16oPb5zW0

2. Ask HN: Can we create a new internet where search engines are irrelevant?

Top comment by adrianmonk

I think it would be helpful to remember to distinguish two separate search engine concepts here: indexing and ranking.

Indexing isn't the source of problems. You can index in an objective manner. A new architecture for the web doesn't need to eliminate indexing.

Ranking is where it gets controversial. When you rank, you pick winners and losers. Hopefully based on some useful metric, but the devil is in the details on that.

The thing is, I don't think you can eliminate ranking. Whatever kind of site(s) you're seeking, you are starting with some information that identifies the set of sites that might be what you're looking for. That set might contain 10,000 sites, so you need a way to push the "best" ones to the top of the list.

Even if you go with a different model than keywords, you still need ranking. Suppose you create a browsable hierarchy of categories instead. Within each category, there are still going to be multiple sites.

So it seems to me the key issue isn't ranking and indexing, it's who controls the ranking and how it's defined. Any improved system is going to need an answer for how to do it.

3. Ask HN: What’s the legality of web scraping?

Top comment by ddebernardy

The current state of the art is hiQ vs LinkedIn:

https://www.eff.org/cases/hiq-v-linkedin

Basically: if it's publicly visible, you can scrape it.

Caveat: the case is still making its way to the Supreme Court.

Edit: There's also Sandvig v. Sessions, which establishes that scraping publicly available data isn't a computer crime:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/dc-court-accessing-pub...

Edit2: Two extra common sense caveats:

- Don't hammer the site you're scraping, which is to say don't make it look like you're doing a denial of service attack.

- Don't sell or publish the data wholesale, as is -- that's basically guaranteed to attract copyright infringement lawsuits. Consume it, transform it, use it as training data, etc. instead.

4. Ask HN: Who is seeking a cofounder?

Top comment by mi100hael

These threads always interest me.

Who is really willing to bring on an absolute stranger to their early-stage startup and heap a bunch of responsibility (and equity) on them? It seems a random individual from the internet would be very likely worse than no partner at all, considering you're pretty well locked together and you have no idea how that person handles conflict or pressure or really anything.

And why would one be interested in joining a random early stage startup if the existing founder can't recruit a cofounder from their network? Doesn't that tell you something right there?

5. Ask HN: Resources for getting started with bare-metal coding?

Top comment by nabla9

If you want to be fluent in bare-metal, you must know the bare metal. Writing functions in bare metal provides performance boost over compilers only if know how to match the computation and data to the underlying architecture better than the compiler. Assembly is just a way to write it down.

There are two recently updated great books I recommend:

- Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach (2017) by Hennessy & Patterson

- Computer Organization and Design - RISC-V Edition (2017) by Hennessy & Patterson (I have the older MIPS edition)

You also need a book and documentation for the specific architecture (x86 or ARM), but the two books above teach generic stuff that is useful everywhere.

If you do numerical HPC programming, you usually write very little assembly. You might add some some inline Assembler tweaks inside (C/C++/Fortran) functions when needed. You must know to program in C, C++ or Fortran depending on what the code base you are working on uses and how to embed assembly code inside them.

EDIT: CUDA programming might be important to learn if you want to do low level numerical programming.

6. Ask HN: Do you use automated tools to create APIs, or do you code them manually?

Top comment by sunir

APIs are interfaces (it’s right in the name!) and should never be directly tied to implementation because:

1. the interfaces must remain stable to the outside world that relies on them

2. They select what underlying resources and functionality is accessible by outside users, and what is hidden. A lot of your internal implementation is either a mess, “temporary”, insecure or intentionally internal.

3. They control access to the internal application through authentication, authorization, security, and translating data in both directions.

4. When the internal representation changes, they map the new implementation to the old interface to ensure the system remains reliable to API consumers.

5. They offer migration paths when change is necessary

That being said...

Auto API generators are really useful for internal systems where you control the underlying system, the API, and all systems relying on the API.

They are also useful to build an initial API that you plan to fork.

7. Oracle Dyn DNS Services Shutting Down in 2020

Top comment by jpollock

As a lesson to anyone else hoping to do a shutdown with a migration to a different service with your company.

If you are going to treat me the same as any new subscriber, where I have to re-signup, re-add my payment method, export my settings and then import them again, you're asking me to buy all over again.

If you ask me to buy, then I get will reevaluate the relationship, and if it's just as easy to migrate to another supplier I will move.

Migrating internally should have been "push this button to accept the new terms and pricing, you don't even need to talk with your registrar."

I've been a Dyn customer for over a decade, and now I'm moving because it's just as easy to move as it is to stay, and I do not want to have to type in "oracle.com" to manage my service.

8. Ask HN: US government funds a lot of tech research, why don't startups use it?

Top comment by marcus_holmes

I don't know about the USA, but in Australia all these government programs come with so much paperwork and bullshit that it's not worth it.

The most successful program, Accelerating Commercialisation (or Commercialising Acceleration, or whatever this year's government is calling it) requires matching funding, only funds a specific project, and takes around 3-6 months to complete the application process. Very suitable for a existing small business trying to create a new product line, totally useless for a startup trying to iterate in a new market quickly.

The grant also comes with a case worker to follow progress, and the money is released in tranches according to achievement milestones. All sounds great on paper, but it completely ignores the fact that the original plan will definitely change in response to new information or market changes.

I've known a few people who've been through the process, and they all said that the money wasn't worth the hassle involved.

And that's the best, most successful government funding program. The others are worse, way worse.

The root cause is that the mindset needed to be a successful bureaucrat is so far away from the mindset needed to be a successful entrepreneur. There's no way any program that would actually be useful to entrepreneurs will be acceptable to the bureaucrats who administer it.

Also, the purpose of any funding program is complete the moment that a politician steps up to a TV camera to accept credit for creating it. Anything that happens after that is pointless/just a bonus. The point of all these programs is not to actually help new businesses, but to help political careers.

My advice to anyone looking to get government help for their business is to not bother, it's just a distraction from communicating with customers. And it'll be five times as time-consuming and painful as you expect, with one fifth the return you expect.

9. Ask HN: What do middle-level managers do?

Top comment by wjossey

> I’m just too scared to talk to them.

No reason to be! They’re just another human being trying to do their best for your company and team. Assume best intentions!

If you’re nervous because you have no idea what to say to broach the topic, here’s something you could try.

“Hi, I’m Charlie. I work for Susan over on the infrastructure team. As part of my own professional development, I’m trying to build out an understanding of how all of the people at our company move towards our common goal, as it’s not always obvious to me at my level. Do you have time for a quick one on one where you can share with me your roles and responsibilities, and what some of your challenges are here at our company?”

Basically, you don’t need to say something as blunt as “What exactly is it that you do here?” Instead, just come at it from a position of positive inquiry where you’re just genuinely trying to learn and grow.

I say all this because no answer here is going to really tell you what that person does. Everyone’s roles and responsibilities vary, regardless of their title. You won’t learn unless you learn how to ask!

10. Ask HN: How much do you work at your job?

Top comment by ziddoap

Well, I certainly get 100% of my work done, on time and done to a high standard.

But, I would say that my productive time is less than 50% of my work week. I'll do a 4 hour burst and get 90% of my weeks work done, and the rest of the week is touching up a few things and browsing HN/Reddit or whatever else.

I remember reading a short article that introduced (to me) the idea that something like 30% of corporate jobs aren't required by any means. It's just "job creation", all fluff work that could be automated or simply isn't needed. As time goes on and I get more looks "behind the curtain" so to speak, the more inclined I am to believe this. I'll look around for the article and edit it in if I find it. It articulates the idea much better than I.

--

Article for reference: https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Thanks wortelefant!