jasondrowley

I can put things in a box that uses spooky electromagnetic waves to tickle water molecules to the point that they get hot and maybe boil off, given the chance? Sounds like magic to me

For the past 10 years I’ve been a volunteer organizer of [Startup Row](https://us.pycon.org/2026/attend/startup-row/) at PyCon US, and I wanted to let all the entrepreneurs and early-stage startup employees know that applications for free booth space at PyCon US close at the end of this weekend. (The webpage says this Friday, but I can assure you that the web form will stay up through the weekend.)

There’s a lot of information on the Startup Row page on the PyCon US website, and a post on the [PyCon blog](https://pycon.blogspot.com/2026/01/apply-for-pycon-startup-r...) if you’re interested. But I figured I’d summarize it all in the form of an FAQ.

*What is Startup Row at PyCon US?*

Since 2011 the Python Software Foundation and conference organizers have reserved booth space for early-stage startups at PyCon US. It is, in short, a row of booths for startups building cool things with Python. Companies can apply for booth space on Startup Row and recipients are selected through a competitive review process. The selection committee consists mostly of startup founders that have previously presented on Startup Row.

*How to I apply?*

The “[Submit your application here!](https://us.pycon.org/2026/applications/apply/startup-row/)” button at the bottom of the Startup Row page will take you to the application form.

There are a half-dozen questions that you’ve probably already answered if you’ve applied to any sort of incubator, accelerator, or startup competition.

You will need to create a PyCon US login first, but that takes only a minute.

*Deadline?*

Technically the webpage says applications close on Friday January 30th. The web form will remain active through this weekend.

Our goal is to give companies a final decision on their application status by mid-February, which is plenty of time to book your travel and sort out logistics.

*What does my company get if selected to be on Startup Row?*

At no cost to them, Startup Row companies receive:

- Two included conference passes, with additional passes available for your team at a discount. - Booth space in the Expo Hall on Startup Row for the Opening Reception on the evening of Thursday May 14th and for both days of the main conference, Friday May 15th and Saturday May 16th. - Optionally: A table at the PyCon US Job Fair on Sunday May 17th. (If you’re company is hiring Python talent, there is likely nowhere better than PyCon US for technical recruiting.) - Placement on the PyCon US 2026 website and a profile on the PyCon US blog (where you’re reading this post) - Eternal glory

Basically, getting a spot on Startup Row gives your company the same experience as a paying sponsor of PyCon at no cost. Teams are still responsible for flights, hotels, and whatever materials you bring for your booth.

*What are the eligibility requirements?*

Pretty simple: - You have to use Python somewhere in your stack, the more the better. - Company is less than 2.5 years old (either from founding or from public launch) - Has 25 or fewer employees - Has not already presented on Startup Row or sponsored PyCon US. (Founders who previously applied but weren’t selected are welcome to apply again.)

Up until recently I was editor at an AI company, and parts of this read exactly like some of the outputs I'd get out of GPT-4/ChatGPT Plus.

Many of the linked references are too recent to be in the training corpus (Llama 2, for example), so unless there's some web-search component to this it looks like an LLM wrote the first draft, and a human went through to edit, add links, and populate with images, etc.

It's even more insidious than the situation you presented.

If a company does not track PTO, it means that the company does not have to pay out accrued PTO to employees exiting the company.

While great in theory, the devil is in the details.

So far, every company I've worked for has an "unlimited" PTO policy. In practice, it means that folks end up taking little/no PTO, or folks end up abusing the policy with extensive breaks for personal travel, etc. (I 100% support taking vacations and carving out time for personal projects and family stuff... I just kinda look askance at the idea of taking the equivalent of a 1-month sabbatical only 6 months after joining a company.)

What I'd love to see is Unlimited PTO with a mandatory minimum. Even for the most die-hard workaholics, having some time away from work stuff is important. For everyone else, a PTO mandate would make taking personal time just another part of their work responsibilities.

Author of the article here. Yes, they are apparently hiring, or so suggests some of my internet research. One of the founders' linkedin profiles said they're mostly building in Haskell.

Author of the article here. If you look at the company's website, it is very, very plain.

The article said that "common" shareholders walk out with nothing.

Typically, founders and early employees are issued only common stock, while investors are issued "preferred" shares. Unless the founding team invested their own capital alongside the angels and professional VCs involved in their rounds, it's not likely that they were preferred shareholders.

Preferred shareholders are first in line to get cash payouts after liquidation. Common shareholders are able to access cash only after all of the preferred shareholders have been paid.

I wrote a series on the subject I could share if you're interested.

I wrote a few of those articles!

Say what you want about the company, product, and executive leadership, but for a time Mattermark was a fairly influential organization in the Valley and elsewhere.

Mattermark can probably serve as a case study of how good written content can really bolster a company's credibility and positioning in a market.

Author of the article here. Yes, there are plenty of different ways to wind up a company. But the primary goal of the series was to go over the most common legal terms in investor agreements, so I took this last piece as an opportunity to mostly cover seniority structures and liquidation preferences.

Author of the article here. I am legitimately surprised my editor let that one slide.

Same on Safari

I keep getting an error message when I load the page.

Can confirm... I use uBlock Origin as well and I don't see the message either.

I'm saying two things. First, I want to know whether these devices work a week or two from now after the internals would have had time to corrode... if they were going to corrode in the first place. (Again, I'm open to the idea that these devices really are water proof at shallow depths for indefinite periods of submersion, but I want to see these followup tests.)

The second thing is about water pressure, which you highlighted as the key factor in water resistance.

I've searched around for other videos and this appears to be the only one out there so far. I'd want to see this repeated (several) times and get a visual confirmation on the water damage indicators Apple has included in each of its iPhone models since generation 1.

I'd also want to see if those phones worked a week or two after the test to ensure that their insides didn't corrode after their submersion and subsequent exposure to air.

If this is indeed waterproof, I'd also want to know about how deep it can go.

Totally unrelated, but it's nice to find another J. Rowley out there!

It's curious that Optikey was posted today, because yesterday I wrote a post about the promise of iris scanning technology to deliver a seamless payments experience in VR headsets.

Unfortunately, none of the VR headsets shipping in the next six months have iris trackers (much less scanners). The only headset I found was Fove, which was successfully kickstarted and ships in 2016. Fove did a promotion with a Japanese school for wheelchair-bound children, in which a child played a piano using the iris tracking function of the headset.

There are some iris scanner-equipped phones shipping in the near future, but none with iris trackers as far as I could tell.

I can share the post link if people are interested.

As one of the co-authors of the piece, I just want you to know that it was done 98% tongue-in-cheek and maybe 2% self-loathing. It wasn't meant to be a serious at all, despite the fact that some "definitions" are more biting than others.

How will they let applicants know? Via email?

Keep killing it, David, Teng & Dafeng!

Facebook has apparently allowed married couples to announce expected children for over a year now.

http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/facebook-expecting-option/

Exactly.

Exactly. I've made the same comments re being the customer vs. the product regarding Facebook. Except with Facebook, there's a lot more than users' attention on offer to advertisers.

The real question is, would content quality improve if we paid for it directly, instead of indirectly through ads?

I like to think of the information I consume online as more than "inventory".

I've used icons from TNP in several projects. I really like the designs, and I'm very surprised someone hasn't submitted it yet.

It's really interesting to see people engage with an inanimate object as if it were a person. I think it's the adorable voice and the "face" (such as it is) which does it.

2 things:

1. As a socially-awkward smart dude, the last section of the post resonates with me, because I'm getting over a lot of my social awkwardness through interacting with women. And it's great.

2. I don't know what all the fuss coming from other HN-readers is about. As a man, I readily acknowledge that women sometimes see things completely differently than men, and while I could ram a lot of sociology theory down dissenting commenters' throats about women and minorities and how each non-male or non-white constituency develops a consciousness/worl-view particular to and shared with their respective cohorts, and that to males (white or otherwise) these world-views might be hard to parse... but I won't go into theory.

First off, I kind of feel bad for Tyler. I've had a similar experience with a web app I designed, and it sucked.

Second, I'm inclined to believe he (and I) ran into trouble because our apps were one-time-use or occasional-use tools. The freemium model isn't totally useless—it just doesn't translate well to one-time-use services/tools.

Happy New Year from Chicago!