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Don’t believe the Silicon Valley hype - mdhayes
http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/20/dont-believe-the-hype-silicon-valley-is-not-the-be-all-end-all-for-tech-companies/
======
KirinDave
Am I the only person who reads articles like these and gets the suspicion that
this is less about how great Austin is (and it is a great city with some top-
notch hackers living there), but basically a thinly veiled advertising
opportunity for a software company that is trying to link its success to a
larger (and largely disconnected) issue?
I'm not even sure who the audience of this is. Investors? I doubt any savvy
VB-reading investors are unaware that there are great technology companies in
Austin, New York, Portland, Chicago, and many other cities. In fact, the
author appears a little out of the loop by talking about "The Valley" when
businesses have been heading north to the Peninsula for years now.
~~~
ChuckMcM
It isn't all that thinly veiled is it? Its a recruiting pitch, the message is:
'cost of living is lower', 'opportunities are plentiful', 'traffic is better',
and 'there is hip culture here too'. It is targeted at folks who are working
in the Bay area and hate the commute and high cost of living but feel trapped
because it is the 'place to be.' The goal being to get those people to
consider working outside the Bay Area.
The bottom line is that there are lots of places to work, they aren't all like
the Bay Area but they don't have to be.
~~~
chiph
Austin dweller here -- I assure you the traffic is NOT better here. Ranked 8th
worst in the nation.
> If you are not aligned with one of the fashionable templates, your mojo in
> the Valley can quickly whither.
I observed this at SXSW last year. It was Elevator Pitch Bingo, with every
presentation being some combination of Social, Mobile, Coupon, Local, and
"your friends". Very few of the pitches strayed outside that subset.
~~~
wh-uws
Austin resident from Atlanta who has lived in San Francisco.
Yes it it is.
In Austin if there is a jam you can go a few blocks over and avoid it.
In SF or Atlanta alot of times you're fucked because this is the only road
that goes where you want :/
~~~
pbiggar
On the other hand, in SF you can commute by bike. I'm told that's not viable
in Austin.
~~~
wh-uws
If you live and work downtown or near UT's campus it is.
If not then you are quite right its not.
~~~
a5seo
i live 2 mi west of ut/downtown, and i disagree. i gave up cycling when i
moved here from the Valley. :/
------
billirvine
> I feel it’s actually a competitive advantage > to build startups outside of
> Silicon Valley
In some ways this is true. We're in Scottsdale, AZ and have lured two senior
people _from_ SV. Granted, they admitted to some irritation with the SV
culture, it wasn't really hard. But the incredibly lower cost of having a
business here means were capable of offering fair market salaries, not typical
low salaries + equity of most SV startups.
While the talent pool is smaller, the competition for that talent is almost
nonexistent... so hiring was easier to some degree.
And if you play golf... well...
------
dotBen
_guess-post=puff-piece-for-his-company_ issue aside, the article is kinda just
stating the obvious... which is that you should geographically place your
startup where it makes most based on the type of company you are building.
Many folks are already living in SF/Bay Area and start their company without
thinking that maybe it would be better to do it elsewhere.
I live in SF yet my own startup, WP Engine, is based in Austin because we're
very operations and server orientated. I wouldn't start that kind of company
in the Bay Area as there's just no advantage. We now have some Marketing and
Strategy presence here, but operations remains firmly in Austin.
Equally, I personally wouldn't put a heavily social-orientated company in
Austin as there are many important partners you need to get chummy with to
succeed who are based in SF/Bay Area.
It's just about weighing up what labor and partners you need, and putting your
company where it needs to be. Not everyone can do that (family ties, visas,
etc) but if you're already in the Bay Area it does make sense to consider
whether moving out would benefit your startup.
~~~
kkowalczyk
"as there's just no advantage".
So, orders of magnitude more top notch engineers is not an advantage?
An order of magnitude more VC firms is not an advantage?
The existence of YC is not an advantage?
Order of magnitude more tech oriented events and meetups is not an advantage?
Maybe you meant "for me, personally, for my very specific business, there's no
advantage" but maybe you shouldn't make sweeping statements based on what
seems like a strongly held opinion and not a reasoned position.
To be clear: I'm not saying that Bay Area is the only place to start a
successful startup. Clearly, it isn't.
But just as clearly Bay Area is an epicenter of startups that generates
disproportionately large number of successes, both gigantic (which Austin tech
company is on the list of 500 biggest US companies, next to Google, Apple,
Oracle, Yahoo?) and small.
So either we have some unexplained phenomena that distorts the probability of
success here or there are very real advantages to being here.
~~~
dotBen
Well, you chopped off half of what I said and miss-quoted me in the process. I
said there was no real advantage to starting an operations/infrastructure-
focused company in SF Bay Area. I pointed out that for social, in particular,
SF/SV is totally high value.
But, back to operations-orientated (eg infrastructure, etc) startups:
_So, orders of magnitude more top notch engineers is not an advantage?_
Nope, because such companies have a greater reliance on sysadmins, devops and
tech support folks. And there is more talent on that front in Austin (for
reasons explained in the OP) than in SF/SV. Also there's no point having an
order of magnitude of engineers in SF/SV if you can't afford to hire them. I'm
not going to reveal our wage levels but like-for-like they're probably 50-66%
that of Bay Area and still highly skilled.
_An order of magnitude more VC firms is not an advantage?_
Nope, cos Sand Hill Road will still invest in Austin based companies.
_The existence of YC is not an advantage?_
Nope, YC is nothing to me. I'll never participate as I'm a 31 year old with
going on 14 years experience of the industry and been involved in several
exits. I'm not a candidate YC entrepreneur.
_Order of magnitude more tech oriented events and meetups is not an
advantage?_
Well, I live in SF so I go all the awesome events and still benefit from being
in Austin. What they don't tell you is once your company takes off and you
have $MM revenue and a huge team of employees you end up going to less events
and start focusing internally.
_Maybe you meant "for me, personally, for my very specific business, there's
no advantage" but maybe you shouldn't make sweeping statements based on what
seems like a strongly held opinion and not a reasoned position._
No, I'm saying for most non-social, non-software-pure-plays, it's a big
advantage to get out of Bay Area. I'm sure Austinites would argue further than
that. It's not just for me.
_which Austin tech company is on the list of 500 biggest US companies, next
to Google, Apple, Oracle, Yahoo?_
Not sure about Yahoo! (and couldn't care less about Yahoo either) but all of
them and Facebook have significant presences in Austin. To answer you
question, though, Dell is. I'm not saying that's particularly sexy but you
asked the question. I'm not also not sure what your point is here or how it
related to startups?
------
johnrob
The author still thinks that you need to pack it up and go somewhere to
succeed. That message sidesteps the real debate: whether you can "stay home"
with your startup. Most people that are willing to move end up in Silicon
Valley.
~~~
dasil003
> * Most people that are willing to move end up in Silicon Valley*
What basis do you have for that claim?
|
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Year-End Report on Why Developers Love iOS - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/distimos-year-end-report-shows-why-developers-love-ios-iphone-4x-android-revenue-ipad-2x/
======
saturdaysaint
Owning the high end has its advantages. I've long seen anyone with a
smartphone as an early adopter with a bit of disposable income but that's less
and less true as the mainstream adopts them - they're now "almost necessities"
and a lot of people have tight budgets after they pay rent, gas, food and
phone bill. So a marketplace with people with a lot of disposable income might
rake in a disproportionate amount of money, just as an upper crust mall
generates orders of magnitude more money per square foot than a more humble
middle class equivalent.
|
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Germany's Wi-Fi Shortage Set to Ease as Merkel Backs New Bill - jeo1234
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-16/germany-s-wi-fi-shortage-set-to-ease-as-merkel-backs-new-bill
======
codebeaker
I'm currently suffering two copyright infringement cases, which I can only
assume are the result of the storm that reset my FritzRepeater back to factory
settings, leaving an open bridge into my network.
Two copyright claims, from two law firms, for albums I've never heard of, at
times that I wasn't in the house.
Because of an arcane, but largely logical German law named "Störerhaftung" I
am by default responsible, and have to pay both claims (in the order of €5,000
each). I have no recourse.
Tech-savvy as I am, powerless to defend against a case such as this, where do
I stand, I could theoretically bring a case against AVM Deutschland
(manufacturer of the Fritzrepeater) but then the burden is on me to prove
their buggy software failed, and reset to factory settings.
An impossible situation, and I hope that laws such as these move in the
direction of transparency, the Störerhaftung is designed to make sure that
someone who loses out always has someone to claim against (common other uses,
are for example if drunks throw stones from the top of a building, and then
run away, the building owner is responsible, in lieu of finding and proving
that the drunkards were responsible) - it's arcane, and whilst well intended,
and the "terrorism" argument holds strong, this is about copyright, and always
maintaining the Störerhaftung right.
~~~
vapourismo
[https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterlassungserklärung](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterlassungserklärung)
I think that is what you need.
~~~
pluma
Not without consulting a lawyer first.
If you signed one of these in the past and get "caught" again, you're in even
worse trouble than you would be otherwise. The last thing you want to do is
give them more ammunition against you.
------
wifi_germany
This bill is actually heavily criticized in germany, for example by the
Freifunk initiative: [http://freifunkstattangst.de/2015/06/16/neuer-tmg-
entwurf-zu...](http://freifunkstattangst.de/2015/06/16/neuer-tmg-entwurf-zur-
notifizierung-an-die-eu-noch-immer-keine-rechtssicherheit-wlan-stoererhaftung-
bleibt/) (german)
The bill requires network operators to make "reasonable effort to secure the
network against unauthorized access" and to "allow access only to users that
have agreed not to violate the law during their use" of the network.
The bill also takes service providers into liability if they offer
"gefahrgeeignete Dienste" (I have no idea how that accurately translates to
english).
Heise has more information in german:
[http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Bundesregierung-
besch...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Bundesregierung-beschliesst-
umstrittenen-WLAN-Gesetzentwurf-2818747.html)
~~~
pavel_lishin
> _The bill requires network operators to make "reasonable effort to secure
> the network against unauthorized access" and to "allow access only to users
> that have agreed not to violate the law during their use" of the network._
Can you elaborate on why this is bad?
~~~
briandear
Would a bad person actually refuse to agree with not breaking the law? A 'bad'
person already has a willingness to not follow the rules, so how would an
agreement matter?
~~~
jdmichal
I think the point is to clearly shift the moral hazard away from the provider
to the user. The user may not uphold the agreement, but then they are clearly
the morally wrong party.
~~~
scotty79
Isn't there some meta rule about the first world countries law systems (us
excluded) that the only crimes you are responsible for are the ones you
personally commited?
~~~
germanier
Few things: Firstly, this is about civil cases, not crimes. Secondly, the
wrongdoing here is allowing someone else to use your internet connection to
perform illegal actions, not those actions themselves. Thirdly, in any law
system I can think of there are crimes you can commit by literally _doing
nothing_ (neglect). For example, in Germany it's a crime to know about a
planned murder and not do anything about it.
------
MrBuddyCasino
> providers won’t be held liable as long as they secure the network properly
> and get users to agree not to act illegally
Of course they had to include that paragraph, forcing everyone to tick some
stupid check-box. As if the cookie agreements weren't enough already.
~~~
jessriedel
I'm really trying to understand how anyone can think this is sensible. Maybe
20 years ago when these laws were written by people who had never used WiFi at
a cafe before, but surely everyone involved with writing this bill intuits
that this sort of a measure is utterly worthless and just induces frictions.
Maybe it enables prosecution later for lying? Hard to believe they think that
outweighs the costs.
~~~
neuronic
Did you ever take a look who sits in the European Parliament and European
Commission?
Introducing Günther Oettinger, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy
and Society: (wait for his English at the 0:20 mark)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88OGXLFpeMw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88OGXLFpeMw)
As a German I am completely embarrassed.
~~~
skrebbel
wait, you're embarrassed because a politician has an accent when speaking
English?
~~~
kuschku
No, because his english is horrible, and then he said, during a press
conference "we’re here in Germany, we talk Deutsch!".
In general, his english is so bad that it’s become some kind of running gag.
~~~
mmarx
> No, because his english is horrible, and then he said, during a press
> conference "we’re here in Germany, we talk Deutsch!".
You're confusing Westerwelle with Öttinger.
~~~
kuschku
Öttinger said the same, too. Extra3 made fun of him for copying Westerwelle.
It doesn’t change anything anyway.
------
modeless
> as long as they [...] get users to agree not to act illegally
Is forcing everyone to set up captive portal pages just so people can check a
stupid box on a form going to make anyone's life better? Is it going to
benefit anyone in any way? I can't understand how anyone could possibly think
that this requirement is a good idea.
------
Kequc
Germany is no longer going to be one of the only places on Earth which
punishes Wifi providers for what users do while on their network? I may
actually be able to choose between more than 3 different cafes' that offer
Wifi from my half of the city? (One fewer than a month ago.)
Wow. That would actually be fantastic thanks for getting on that.
~~~
nolite
France does as well
~~~
pm3003
Yes, but they have introduced new practical rules for simplified user
registration.
And anyway they're not as restrictive as the Germans. For some fun, check GEMA
vs Youtube: [https://apps.opendatacity.de/gema-vs-
youtube/en/](https://apps.opendatacity.de/gema-vs-youtube/en/)
~~~
detaro
GEMA vs youtube is not really related.
------
lucb1e
Oh, that explains. I've always wondered why there are so incredibly few
hotspots in Germany - and the few existing hotspots are paid. Voiced it a few
times to Germans but nobody knew it was because operators would be held
liable.
~~~
kaybe
May I introduce you to Freifunk:
They're basically working around Störerhaftung by channeling the traffic over
a gateway as an ISP. Everyone can offer up part of their traffic, and there
are quite a few members (as shown in the local groups, they have maps). Feel
free to use some of our traffic, for example. No problems so far.
[http://freifunk.net/en/](http://freifunk.net/en/)
------
expertentipp
> as long as they secure the network properly
How do I prove it? This right here is so abmahnung trolls can keep on
threatening
> and get users to agree not to act illegally
Yet another useless popup, cookie popup is not enough
> ”digital agenda” aimed at blanketing the country with high-speed Internet by
> 2018
A yeah, "VDSL for all". Where do I buy VDSL modem in 2018? I will have to
break into Technisches Museum and steal one (no, I don't want your "free"
fritzbox)
~~~
simoncion
Why don't you want a Fritz!Box? If the internet comments are to be believed,
they are the best routers in Germany. [0]
[0] Note: I'm a USian who is _rather_ happy with his EdgeRouter Lite + UAP-AC-
LR.
~~~
roel_v
Oh here is my chance to complain about this pet peeve! My provider gives you a
Fritzbox with you subscription, I called them a few times that they should use
their mass-purchase leverage to demand better functionality but of course the
poor support people couldn't make that happen even if they understood what I
was getting at :) Fritzboxen are praised across the internet as great routers,
but they won't even let you
\- change the default host name suffix \- assign static host names for
internal use \- see which device uses how much bandwidth (only the total -
yeah great, now I have to hunt for which machine/mobile is uploading all those
photos to dropbox) \- block machines from the network, and/or throttle
bandwidth. It _looks_ like you can do it, but the implementation is useless -
yes you can prioritize smtp over http, hurrah! Everything bandwidth-hungry in
2015 goes over http, and then it's all-or-nothing on fritzbox.
------
rotoole
This is an issue across many EU countries, that require by law that WiFi
providers track what their users do online, and to keep a permanent record of
it. Its onerous to implement and support. I believe it arose from anti-
terrorism legislation.
~~~
briandear
It also feels like Stasi era nonsense. If someone borrows my phone, must I
record the call?
~~~
mahouse
Yes obviously, how do you prove it was not you who made the call?
~~~
scotty79
Voice? Being provably somewhere else when the call was made?
~~~
mahouse
Voice -> it is not recorded by default by anybody unless you are under the
spotlight.
Prove you are somewhere else -> can you prove you were somewhere else 24/7? I
bet you can not.
~~~
scotty79
If you don't have the voice then you can't say I made the call. Only that it
came from phone registered to me. I can't disprove that if that happened.
------
denzil_correa
Thanks Merkel for the small mercies! I do know of at least one free WiFi
providing service in Germany - "Freifunk Saar".
[https://saar.freifunk.net](https://saar.freifunk.net)
------
pm3003
From the "WLAN" café I spent 2 weeks to find in Kiel (currently in a seminar,
no internet access), and having just paid my €40 bill for 6 GB (bad) 3G
Internet this month, I fully approve this bill.
I also hope at some point cellular internet will get cheaper in Germany...
France 20€ 20 GB, Latvia 10 € 20GB with LTE, Germany 500MB 12€.
~~~
denzil_correa
> From the "WLAN" café
Is there any other country which calls WiFi as WLAN? I have traveled to many
countries in Europe but I assume Germany, France and Luxembourg seem to be the
only countries that use this term.
~~~
pluma
Just a sidenote: I think the reason the term "WiFi" never caught on in Germany
is that
1\. It sounds really awkward in German (most speakers will pronounce the "W"
as in German, i.e. "Vi-Fi").
2\. WLAN is easier to say (think "V-LAN").
3\. It can easily be confused with "HiFi" (which, btw, is commonly pronounced
as "Hi-Fee" for some reason, creating additional confusion about the
acceptable pronunciation of "WiFi" in German).
Another interesting(?) note: unlike WLAN, LAN is commonly pronounced with a
long "a" in German. I'm pretty sure I've heard the word "LAN" used a lot less
since WiFi became so widely used and most people seem to just use the German
word "Netzwerk" (network) or even simply "Netz" (net). Confusingly, a lack of
"Netz" ("Ich hab kaum Netz" \-- "I have barely any net") can also refer to
mobile connections (because "Handynetz" = cellular network -- and yes "Handy"
is a faux-English word commonly used in German to refer to mobile phones
because marketing is stupid).
~~~
mjlee
I'd guess HiFi is pronounced Hi-Fee as it takes the "fi" sound from "High
Fidelity".
~~~
pluma
Sure, but then WiFi would be expected to be pronounced the same -- yet I've
never heard it pronounced as "Wi-Fee" in English.
~~~
roel_v
Everyone except the British call it 'wee-fee' in Europe (well, I can't claim
to have a representative sample for _everyone_ , but at least among those I've
heard about it)
I was already starting to think that I was the weird one.
------
expertentipp
Each time Germans are passing any internet related laws or their brave lawyers
are winning another case against evil Facebook/Google I'm just facepalming.
They keep on hurting themselves, which part of the internet is so difficult
they are not capable of understanding?
------
odiroot
Can we shut down GEMA while we're at that?
~~~
junto
Why? They are trying their best to collect a fair fee for artists. YouTube are
the ones that have decided that those rules shouldn't apply to them and rather
than accept those laws they use their own site as propaganda to blame GEMA.
What you get presented on YouTube isn't telling the whole truth by any means.
It is really annoying as a YouTube user in Germany to have so many music
videos blocked, but that is what Google want you to feel. They appear to be
doing a very good job of it by the sound of it!
The reality is that GEMA and Google are both acting like children over the
matter that has been going on since 2009. Both are to blame but the only thing
users see is that it is all GEMA's fault.
The issue needs to be blamed on both.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_i...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_Germany)
~~~
Xylakant
While you're right that the youtube issue is more complicated than "google
good gema bad" it's an interesting assessment that the GEMA is trying to
collect a "fair" fee for the artist. The GEMA is in dire need of reform on the
fair front and on a couple of other issues as well. For example, only the
upper 5% of the members get to vote on the distribution of funds, classical
music gets ranked higher etc. The goal of the GEMA is a fine one, but over the
years the institution has gone somewhat astray.
For german speakers I can recommend [http://www.internet-law.de/2012/05/ist-
das-system-gema-unfai...](http://www.internet-law.de/2012/05/ist-das-system-
gema-unfair.html) as summary.
------
mtgx
Is that why Wi-Fi is so bad all over Berlin?
~~~
expertentipp
In Berlin? Impossible, it's European startup hub! /s
|
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Git LFS 2.5.0 is now available - guessmyname
https://blog.github.com/2018-07-30-git-lfs-2.5.0-now-available/
======
skunkworker
The new 'git lfs migrate' command will help when accidentally committing files
that should've been git-lfs but weren't.
------
jhabdas
Is it free yet? ><
|
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Things I Learned from World of Warcraft - JabavuAdams
http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/seven-things-warcraft
======
patio11
Seven Things I Learned From WoW (The Business):
1) Put _obsessive_ attention into making the first five minutes of use of your
product awesome. It is the five minutes people are most likely to see. It is
also a gate through which all subsequent use of your product must pass.
(Seriously, folks, if you value conversion optimization, I want you to play
five minutes of WoW and five minutes of any other MMORPG, and take notes on
what happens. WoW will drag you around by the nose. WoW will point you in the
direction of the next thing to do. WoW _will_ show you success in those five
minutes, even if you're terrible at what you're doing. We should all aspire to
making products that nail those first five minutes as much as WoW does.)
2) Do not devote disproportionate developer resources to content/systems which
the majority of the user base will not interact with. (It took them years to
learn this, but they eventually go around to it.)
3) Make it simple. Then, make it simpler. WoW is one of the most complicated
pieces of engineering the world has ever known, but six year olds can pick up
and play it.
4) People will put up with any amount of drudgery if you give them small,
frequent, random rewards for doing so. This is in fact so powerful I'm kind of
scared of doing it.
5) If people are bringing their boyfriends into your product so that they can
spend more time together, that is probably a good sign you have reached mass
market success.
6) Monthly. Billing. Minor discounts for cashflow in advance.
7) High quality visual design can be made rot-proof by using iconic
representations, bright colors, and timeless aesthetics. If you chase the
leading edge of graphical sophistication, on the other hand, three years from
now plan on doing a total graphical rip-out or you'll look dated.
~~~
reitzensteinm
As a game developer, I'd argue that thinking along the lines of #2 is very
dangerous. Great games have a ton of subtle touches and content that only a
small percentage of players will appreciate. The trick is that each player
will notice a completely different set of features/content, and it makes them
really happy when it feels like the developers went out of their way to polish
some little bit of the game.
Think of Super Mario Brothers, one of the best selling games of all time.
There are a stunning amount of hidden areas, tricks etc (even using an
emulator with save+load, and a guide, it's not easy to explore the entire game
world), but this is very closely related to how stunning the game world felt
(especially for the time). An average player may only come across 10-20
secrets in the game, out of hundreds, but each time they'll have that warm
fuzzy feeling where they are thinking, wow, they went to all the trouble to
put this here?
Another good example is No One Lives Forever. They did a TON of funny lines
with the guards talking to each other and notes that were left around (eg a
note to employees saying no fornicating in the evil death ray storage
facility). The chance of picking up on each of those was low, say around 10%,
but since there were hundreds the game world, each player will have 20-30
moments where they were exploring some back room and they found something
cool, which gave the game world immense amounts of character. If they instead
made 20-30 moments and forced the players through them linearly, it would have
felt cheap.
I'd also like to mention that, unlike many forms of software, it IS actually a
requirement that game developers have fun making the games they play, because
otherwise making the game itself fun is pretty much impossible. I don't think
it's a coincidence that the developers of Diablo 2 took the time to put in the
cow level, which most people never see, and spent a huge amount of resources
tweaking leveling up for characters all the way up to level 90+, at the same
time that they made such a fantastic game for the average player. If they made
the game specifically for the average player, I think a lot of that magic that
goes into development would have been lost, and paradoxically the game
wouldn't have been as fun for anyone.
Of course you have to be somewhat rational about where you spend your
development resources, but if you try to make sure that the majority of the
players see the majority of the content, it's so easy to make a sterile game.
And if you are often completely irrational about where you spend your time in
the name of being artistic, it's surprisingly easy to make a game that is
actually fun and gets attention. The difference in sales between the former
and the latter, without a marketing plan B, will be orders of magnitude.
(I agree with the rest of your post)
~~~
patio11
WoW was spending literally tens of millions of dollars on content seen by a
fraction of a percent of its player base. That was unjustifiably bad. That it
continued for quite some time was a problem of the dev team culture and also,
probably, a symptom that they did not have good metrics. (I have been there,
done that, and got the T-shirt. Not to the tune of tens of millions but I've
certainly frittered away man months on things seen by less than .1% of
customers and, even worse, 0% of trial users.)
~~~
reitzensteinm
It does sound like they took it too far (I've not played WoW after losing a
significant percentage of my time as a teenager to Diablo 2).
But I was talking about the general rule. I'd say that the opposite mistake is
much more common amongst game developers, and it's a big reason why so many
crappy games are released.
Certainly 0.1% of customers is too low. But I wouldn't call 1% too low - many
of the best games ever made include lots of 1% content. And I think that's no
coincidence - the mindset that results in developers putting 1% content into a
game also results in a fun core game. 1% content only happens when developers
care a lot about the game.
I should clarify that by 1% content I mean a different 1% of the audience will
see each piece of content.
------
hristov
One thing I learned from playing Diablo 2:
It is a real waste of time.
Having learned this important lesson I never played WoW, thank god.
~~~
Proleps
A lot of people think playing wow is a complete wast of time. But when you ask
them what they do all day, they just watch television.
~~~
rtp
Not practicing what you preach doesn't say much about the truth of what you're
preaching.
~~~
ZachPruckowski
I'm not sure if that applies here. Most people "waste" a certain amount of
their week on downtime, and that's probably healthy for them. Whereas in ages
past that was checkers at the general store or a bard's stories at dinner or
listening to the radio, today it's TV and video games. A person who watches 40
hours of TV a week for fun is in just as much trouble as a guy who plays WoW
or EVE for 40 hours a week.
------
skolor
I'm always a little confused about how much people love to bash WoW, and call
it such a waste of time. Sure, there are people who throw away massive amounts
of time into the game, but there are plenty of other people who play a
reasonable amount.
I spend 2 evenings a week raiding, with 1-2 hours throughout the week (plus
another hour or two on the weekends, when I can) doing other things. Twice a
week, a group of 10 friends get together, log onto WoW and a Ventrilo server,
and mess around for a few hours. I think of it a lot like a bowling/poker
night for some guys, except you're significantly more likely to invite a new,
potentially interesting person to a WoW raid than you are to your weekly game.
Honestly, I find the whole "If it does not have direct monetary value, or
somehow advance my career/list of contacts, it isn't worth doing" stance that
many people take rather disturbing. No, playing WoW doesn't directly benefit
me, but the indirect benefits have been pretty awesome. I've kept in touch
with several old friends I otherwise wouldn't have, met a lot of interesting
people, and it gives me something I can talk about with at least 10% of the
population. And that's all on top of just playing a well designed, pretty fun
game.
------
syncerr
The trouble is that no matter how much accomplishment I've seen in life
(college, wife, job), I still miss playing - a lot.
~~~
zackattack
maybe you should do something else instead of your wife and job.
~~~
roel_v
Or maybe he should do his wife more.
------
bretpiatt
Please read the post before making a comment on what you don't like about the
game. He just used WoW examples to contrast with life lessons.
The #1 lesson is probably the most important to life success, "Don't start
something you don't intend to finish." is another way to word it.
This is even more important to startups -- if you are constantly getting
features half way done and then scrapping them you should spend time figuring
out why.
Yes the "new feature" you thought of today might be better measured side by
side than the one that is half way done, but is it better for the effort
required?
------
JacobAldridge
"Grinding is part of the game ... but grinding is not the game."
Would that I had the wisdom to tell the difference between the grinding I
_have_ to do to move me forward, and the grinding I _keep doing_ because it's
there in front of me as an option.
~~~
DLWormwood
That's what made me give up WoW myself a few months ago, after playing for
about year and getting my sister hooked worse than me. I played rather
leisurely until Blizzard added Achievements. My play style changed drastically
afterwards, especially with regards to holiday events. My desire to get titles
(especially the Loremaster one) really burned me out. Brewfest was the final
straw, since you have to do several annoying grind quests every stinking day
for the two week duration. Really ruined the game for me. (Blizz had to extend
the holiday for a few days even due to glitches that really screwed up the
acquisition curve.)
I pity the players having to deal with the Valentine's Day event coming soon;
that was the second worst, IMHO.
~~~
JacobAldridge
I've never actually played (long story, but essentially my gaming tastes have
been permanently stuck in 1998), so I was referring to the broader lesson in
life. Glad to know the lessons continue to apply specifically and generally.
------
jyothi
The post is not about WoW. It is about his take-away from the game which
applies to everything in daily life and for bigger things.
The list is terrific advice and preaching it through the example of a game is
smart thing as one is hooked on to the reading part. Seems like most people
just had a negative feel for the whole thing as they detest WoW as a waste of
time. In the process they missed the gem of advice.
------
unwind
I found this quote:
"With my newfound time, I had a kid, wrote a couple of movies and directed one
of my own."
intriguing enough to dig up this imdb search: <
<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0041864/#writer> >. I'm sure the proper list is
actually on Mr August's site too, but ... This might have more trivia. :)
------
anonjon
The biggest thing I learned from world of warcraft:
If you quit wow and spend all of that time that you would have been playing
WoW on other tasks, you can actually accomplish some pretty amazing stuff.
(Get in shape, become a hacker, learn music, get girls... pretty much
anything.)
Grinding levels in WoW takes discipline. Grinding levels in WoW can be a time
investment similar to a second job. You can literally waste YEARS of your life
playing WoW.
If you have the energy and discipline to sit at a computer for 8 hours or
whatever after you've done all of your daily stuff, you could just as easily
be spending that time accomplishing something great or learning.
And you will have tangible rewards that you can take with you everywhere, not
just bits on a server.
~~~
patio11
Bug report: I quit WoW and all I got was bits. Bits in SVN, bits in MySQL,
etc...
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Software development at 1 Hz - telotortium
https://hackernoon.com/software-development-at-1-hz-5530bb58fc0e
======
ArthurBrussee
Article is a little snarky but I really agree with the main point: we've
accepted terrible tools and comlile times. It's been years since real
Innovation happened in this space - regressions if anything. Fingers crossed
for Rust improving their compiler, C++ getting their Modules, C# speeding up
Roslyn... Or blow makes Jai's million LOC/s really happen.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Google Chrome OS is 7 years too late - nreece
http://www.baekdal.com/articles/technology/google-chrome-os/
======
ZeroGravitas
I'd suggest the author's (mis)conceptions about the limits of browser based
apps is 7 years out of date. It's not even an explicit argument, it's just an
unspoken assumption that web apps aren't the real thing. Actually, maybe it is
explicitly stated: _"But the browser, being a viewer of HTML5+CSS+JavaScript
is not capable of ‘blowing you away', so we have to move beyond it."_
But, every negative point he raises about web apps (which aren't many or
particularly fundamental) is being worked on feverishly by Google (and Apple,
and others).
But even if you take his argument seriously, he's only saying that rich-client
will be thin, platform-specific wrappers round the APIs of what are
fundamentally cross-platform web apps. Hardly a resounding victory.
------
blasdel
Yet another otherwise-insightful essay on ChromeOS that completely ignores the
existence of Google Native Client -- rich native applications that are
integral to the web. ChromeOS doesn't ship without it.
~~~
ZeroGravitas
I've not looked into NaCl much but maybe someone can answer me this: running
"real" code in a browser but sandboxed for security? Isn't that Java? This
seems particularly key when they're talking about running Chrome OS on ARM.
~~~
blasdel
Code compiled for NaCL is in a word-aligned subset of machine code that can be
quickly verified before execution and can only generate interrupts to the NaCL
host (no syscalls). It's currently i386, but x86_64 and several ARM variants
are being worked on, hopefully with fat binaries.
The only security hole is timing attacks, because there's no latency hits or
blown caches from having a runtime or GC or even any preconceived notions
about what your language looks like.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
WikiLeaks website pulled by Amazon - Abid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-website-cables-servers-amazon
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Choose your news source:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959697> \- techdirt.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959655> \- cnn.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959633> \- arstechnica.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959607> \- bgr.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959335> \- npr.org
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959328> \- guardian.co.uk
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959308> \- readwriteweb.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959305> \- reuters.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959257> \- techcrunch.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959142> \- foxnews.com
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A New Twist on Neural Networks - sonabinu
https://www-wired-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-new-twist-on-neural-networks/amp
======
dr_zoidberg
Hinton explains the concept of capsules in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTawFwUvnLE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTawFwUvnLE)
Which is a lot better than reading someone tell you about this new idea that
is called "capsules" but doesn't go into detail. The only thing is that, when
this presentation was given, it seems they hadn't worked much more than MNIST
(so the new thing now would be the toys-recognition net).
Better source, with date:
[http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/bcs/videos/30698-what-s-
wr...](http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/bcs/videos/30698-what-s-wrong-with-
convolutional-nets) (December 2014, for the lazy).
~~~
olewhalehunter
at a first glance this looks like it's going back to old 80s research on
neural representations, back then this kind of stuff was known as Parallel
Distributed Processing
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/parallel-distributed-
processi...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/parallel-distributed-processing)
~~~
grandalf
Indeed. A blast from the past.
Oddly the capsule approach is how I naively thought image recognition worked
until I learned more about it.
------
jonbronson
The author writes "Human children don’t need such explicit and extensive
training to learn to recognize a household pet."
This claim seems dubious. Study's have shown humans can react to visual
stimuli in as little as 1-3ms. If a child observes a cat in the room for only
10 seconds, that's already between 3,000 to 10,000 samples from various
perspectives. While our human experience may describe this as a single viewing
'instance', our neurons are actually getting an extensive, continuous
training. Is this accounted for in the literature?
~~~
dr_zoidberg
I'm pretty sure that was the reasoning to build the ImageNet (about a million
labeled images) in the first place. But labeling images is expensive, and
there are hints there's more at play with human cognition.
If you see a black cat and a white cat, and someone tells you there are
striped colored cats, you can imagine it. And if you were to come across it,
you'd instantly recognize it as a cat. Neurals nets can't do that. You can
also see a lynx and recognize it as "some kind of cat". Again, neural nets are
not there yet. Which is why there are people researching to find new, better
algorithms that better mimic what we recognize as intelligence.
~~~
yorwba
Are you sure about your examples of things neural nets can't do? I think GANs
might be able to "imagine" striped cats, provided they have been trained on
enough images to capture the space of black/white/striped objects. And a lynx
being classified as a cat doesn't seem so outlandish. It has to be classified
as _something_ and cats are likely the closest in appearance.
Of course these are just based on my intuition of what neural nets are capable
of, so if you have examples of cases where these specific tasks were attempted
unsuccessfully, I'm interested.
~~~
dr_zoidberg
Let me remind you of sofas being classified as cats[0] and people being
classified as gorillas[1]. You're overestimating the guesswork convnets are
able to do, based on fragile training (which is still better guesswork than
what previous models did).
[0] [http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-
sofa.ht...](http://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.html)
[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-
apologizes-...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/1/8880363/google-apologizes-
photos-app-tags-two-black-people-gorillas)
~~~
yorwba
People being classified as gorillas was actually what I was thinking about
regarding the lynx/cat example. The model might have been unsure about the
kind of ape it was looking at, but clustering them together is its own kind of
achievement.
~~~
dr_zoidberg
The thing is that the convnets are unable to learn about "macro structures"
(or structures in general). A cat has ~4 legs, a tail and pointy ears.
Gorillas are black, have a primate-y face and fur. The sofa is lacking the
tail, head and pointy ears. People were missing the fur. Yet those things did
not prevent the net from missclassffication (because those features weren't
detected in the learning phase).
Once again, children are able to see a cat and extract all that relevant
information: four legs, head, tail, eyes & nose & ears with a particular
shape, different than dogs, most cats fur (except for those alien-looking
furless cats, of course).
~~~
nkoren
If you ask a child to draw a hand, they will almost always draw it with five
fingers stuck straight out, widely separated. This is a view of a hand that
one almost never actually sees; generally you'll have fingers clustered
together, occluding each other, foreshortened, etc. So why do they draw it
like that?
It's because they're drawing a _conceptual, represntational model_ of a hand,
not a distilation of visual "hand" characteristics. That's the difference with
human learning: it's based on representational model-making, which is not at
all the same thing as pattern matching.
~~~
goldenkey
The representation is the distillation of pattern matching. They are
isomorphic.
~~~
nkoren
Is that a belief or a fact? I believe, but cannot prove, that symbolic
representation is _not_ isomorphic to pattern matching.
If you reverse the output of a CNN "hand" classification, it'll give you
images that resemble the geometry and shading of fingers, palms, nails,
knuckles, etc. -- _these_ , I submit, are the distillation pattern matching
for the _actuality_ of "hands". Under no circumstances will it give you the
five widely-separated fingers which a child draws. That's because the child-
drawn hand is based on literal visual stimuli, but rather on an abstract
_logical_ model of a hand. That logical model is fully integrated with a
similarly abstract model of the world, and includes functional relationships
between abstractions, like the knowledge that "hands" can open "jars". The
value of these being _logical models_ rather than _matched patterns_ is that
they can then be extended to include never-before-seen objects. Confronted
with a strange but roughly jar-sized object, a child can surmise that maybe
it, too, can be opened with hands. That isn't pattern-matching: it's algebra.
~~~
goldenkey
Algebra is pattern matching of a set of operation rules with regard to a
space. Your jar example just extends the domain to physicality. And I agree -
until these sorts of learning mechanisms have a wide range of quality realisms
to pattern match from - they will not be able to form the type of cross
visual/physical knowledge that is a much deeper and abstract undestanding of
reality. But don't fool yourself. Humans and well..life..are just input output
machines with incredible pattern matching capabilities. Algebraic
representations are the structural result of that pattern matching.
~~~
nkoren
> But don't fool yourself. Humans and well..life..are just input output
> machines with incredible pattern matching capabilities.
See, that seems to me like a statement of faith which I just don't share. I
think that building relational models of the world via abstract inductive
reasoning is qualitatively different than pattern matching. I don't think
there's some magic tonnage of pattern matching at which abstract inductive
reasoning will suddenly emerge. I don't think that they're isomorphic. I think
the AI toolkit still has a few missing pieces.
~~~
goldenkey
The only way to induce a consequence in a scenario is to have pattern matched
the scenario. Pattern matching can be very abstract. It can use programs that
may not halt. You are conflating patterns with exact details. A pattern can be
as general as "[wildcard]." The human psyche promotes survival over *, every
scenario.
You talk about representations and reasoning but are not assessing the fact
that the human brain is literally a decision maker, acting on stored
procedures and memory. Any representations and any reasoning will only apply
to a select scenario or select objects, regardless to how you wish to define
the pattern, the fact that a subset of abstractness/generality out of the
whole of existence is specified, implies a pattern that is coded for
implicitly or explicitly.
~~~
folksinger
You claim to have the facts on the human brain?
My God, the level of hubris expressed by members of the cult of AI has reached
a fever-pitch.
Stored procedures and memory?
Newton, in the age of clocks, managed to present the universe in the image of
a clock. Is it any wonder that computer programmers present the universe in
the image of the computer?
------
pgodzin
> To teach a computer to recognize a cat from many angles, for example, could
> require thousands of photos covering a variety of perspectives. Human
> children don’t need such explicit and extensive training to learn to
> recognize a household pet.
Human children see their pet from a million different viewpoints every day
~~~
danharaj
Sure, but they're not being explicitly trained to do anything. It just happens
because that's what children do. Also, you don't have to label their cat
experiences to identify them from the other millions of experiences they have
in a day. You don't need to, they just figure it out without even realizing
it.
That's pretty great.
~~~
pgodzin
Sure, but at some point you do label "This is our cat Tabby. He lives here."
Now every time they see a cat in the house, it is implicitly labelled. I'm
definitely disagreeing with "extensive" more than "explicit" in the original
quote, but I think it's silly to differentiate explicit vs implicit when
talking about a human vs computer
~~~
obastani
How do you know it's the same cat? A neural network needs to be explicitly
told, "these are all the same cat".
~~~
pgodzin
Not necessarily: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16483542/google-
photos-r...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16483542/google-photos-
recognize-pets)
~~~
mlazos
This article says that google photos’ model can still have trouble telling
your pets apart if you have the same breed - it kind of disproves your point.
The model needs to be explicitly told which cat is which. That said, I’m
pretty sure a toddler would probably need to be told which is which too.
~~~
heavenlyblue
Don't forget humans don't just see pictures - they see a video upon which they
are learning.
Micro-movements of cat body parts and their more general character traits
could be the only hint that separates two supposedly same cats.
------
flabbyrabbit
Direct link: [https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-
new-...](https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-new-twist-on-
neural-networks/)
~~~
AlphaWeaver
Can the article link please be changed to this non AMP link?
------
smhx
The article does not mention the first and second authors of the research
work, which is an atrocious thing to do.
The paper was authored by Sara Sabour, Nicholas Frosst, Geoffrey E Hinton in
that order.
~~~
nabla9
Capsules are Hinton's idea. His speech "What is Wrong With Convolutional
Neural Nets?" was 2014 and he was already working with capsules.
[http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/bcs/videos/30698-what-s-
wr...](http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/bcs/videos/30698-what-s-wrong-with-
convolutional-nets)
The credit from the paper should go to all researchers of course, but Hinton
is main driving force behind the research.
~~~
faitswulff
I'd say the first and second authors still warrant a mention, at least.
~~~
dmix
The article was updated to include the two other authors names. There is an
update at the end of the article mentioning this.
------
_joel
Please can we not use AMP links, but the direct URL, thanks
~~~
lightbyte
Why? The AMP site for this specific article is significantly cleaner and
easier to read.
Edit: whoops apparently I'm not allowed to question this.
~~~
_joel
Not everyone uses mobile, desktop experience is awful.
Also I'd prefer to see the original content rather than a mangled Google
version, there are significant issues with AMP (both technically and morally)
and it would help if we don't propagate it's usage where possible. Thanks
~~~
lightbyte
I was referring to desktop experience, it's significantly better from what I
see.
~~~
dingo_bat
Are you serious? The page stretches across my widescreen monitor. I can't even
see the whole image because of that. Reading such long lines is a hellish
chore. Why do you think this is better than a properly formatted page?
~~~
benrbray
snap your browser to the side of your screen, and voila! it's half the length
of your screen now
~~~
dingo_bat
Again, how is this better than a page that is already properly formatted?
------
chrisa
Here's a youtube video that explains the new capsule idea:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKoLGnq15RM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKoLGnq15RM)
(I'll admit that I don't fully understand it yet), but I think the major thing
that capsules tries to fix is that a CNN only looks at a small window of the
image at a time. Since the capsules aggregate more information, it can learn
more general features.
Also, he notes that the paper was done on the MNIST data set (small images),
and may not generalize to larger images, but the initial results are
promising.
------
crishoj
Mods, please de-AMP the link:
[https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-
new-...](https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-new-twist-on-
neural-networks/)
------
indescions_2017
Congrats to Hinton, et al on publishing. Should see more info at NIPS 2017 in
December. Quite admirable, embarking on a late-career "Year Zero" course
correction, all in the name of advancing the field ;)
How does the human brain handle "invariance"? Not just of the spatial variety.
But transformational, temporal, conceptual, and auditory invariance as well?
Some background on "columns" from bio-inspired computational neuroscience
startup Numeta:
Why Does the Neocortex Have Layers and Columns, A Theory of Learning the 3D
Structure of the World
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/07/12/162...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/07/12/162263.full.pdf)
------
thallukrish
I guess the key is our ability to extrapolate, imagine things from a single
picture. When a child is shown a proper image of a cat and it sees a cartoon
cat, it has done that extrapolation of cat's body contours. Or rather I would
say it is some sort of meta data that is learnt out of each experience like
the way we model in OO - class and object instances. We somehow are able to
abstract the class out of a image even if it is just a single image and I feel
it is the meta data that gets refined over time rather than the storing pixels
of actual images.
------
program_whiz
I believe that the kernels learned by a deep net (especially the detailed
ones) are basically what this guy is talking about (a small nnet that
recognizes basically one feature). I suppose you could sample a large number
of capsules, but that would be equivalent to just making a bigger deep net.
~~~
malmsteen
It's probably more than that otherwise that guy wouldn't waste his time.
~~~
ccozan
yes, is about feeding the 3D context too. It means to recognize a feature
once, and then give a spatial translation, is able to say, yes is the same
feature, just turned 30deg right, 40deg up, for example, without having to
train the model with a _picture_ of an object taken from all sides and
perspectives. Humans use binocular vision [1], but AI can be programmed to do
more.
This is practically introducing AI to the real world: an object is more than
the picture of it.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_vision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_vision)
------
robthebrew
I think the key is not looking at how well humans perform, but how badly they
make mistakes. For example, over the halloween period we interpret 2 flashing
LEDs as scary cat eyes. We might not do the same taken out of the temporal
context. How we "fail" is a possible indicator to how we succeed.
~~~
wavefunction
I'm not sure I follow your example of LEDs as cat eyes and Halloween.
Do you mean a Halloween decoration involving LEDs that a human interprets as a
representation of cat eyes? That's not really a mistake.
Or a human mistaking flashing LEDs as cat eyes? In which case I can't see how
the mistake would be limited to the Halloween period.
~~~
robthebrew
I mean we decide that the LEDs are supposed to be cat's eyes because everyone
has halloween decorations up, whereas another time of year, we might conclude
(correctly) that they are just flashing LEDs
------
rdlecler1
It’s interesting that they mention that Geof’s Inspiration is coming from
biology. I think there is a lot more mining we could do in this area. We don’t
have to capture the implementation details, just the salient ingredients that
make intelligence work in biological organisms.
~~~
HammadB
This paper
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692705/pdf/106...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692705/pdf/10670021.pdf)
I read in a neuroscience class once makes the argument that their are various
"levels and loops" or abstraction layers to the way the brain functions. Kind
of similar line of reasoning.
------
epmaybe
I haven't read the research papers yet, but as someone new to machine learning
and image recognition...
> Hinton’s capsule networks matched the accuracy of the best previous
> techniques on a standard test of how well software can learn to recognize
> handwritten digits
Is the journalist just saying that capsule networks can perform well on MNIST?
Don't most state of the art techniques perform with 99+ accuracy on MNIST?
~~~
yorwba
Yes, their first paper is on MNIST. That they get high accuracy isn't earth-
shattering, but since they are doing something very different from other
approaches, it's still noteworthy. The real benefit is in the generalization
performance:
_We then tested this network on the affNIST 4 data set, in which each example
is an MNIST digit with a random small affine transformation. Our models were
never trained with affine transformations other than translation and any
natural transformation seen in the standard MNIST. An under-trained CapsNet
with early stopping which achieved 99.23% accuracy on the expanded MNIST test
set achieved 79% accuracy on the affnist test set. A traditional convolutional
model with a similar number of parameters which achieved similar accuracy
(99.22%) on the expanded mnist test set but only achieved 66% on the affnist
test set._
~~~
amelius
Yes that seems like a good first test for generalization. Did they publish
these images somewhere?
------
mlboss
Siraj Raval's implementation of Capsule Network using tensorflow. video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKoLGnq15RM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKoLGnq15RM)
code:
[https://github.com/llSourcell/capsule_networks](https://github.com/llSourcell/capsule_networks)
------
empath75
Eventually they’re going to start connecting specialized neural networks
together into a neural network of neural networks and that’s where the real
magic is going to happen.
~~~
folksinger
Eventually Jesus will come back to Earth and that is where the real magic is
going to happen.
------
jacinabox
If you consider it, a convolutional neural network is applicable to any type
of picture, including those that are not pictures of 3D scenes, such as
seismic data. So, in order to handle pictures of 3D scenes well, you are going
to have to take extra assumptions about the data. This Geoffrey Hinton does,
by taking the assumption that a scene consists of objects, with associated
pose parameters.
------
drdebug
So same concept as face detection by Viola Jones ? Look at smaller features
and a superset/composition of them ?
~~~
bitL
CNNs do the same (hierarchy of features, combining lower, simpler features to
more complex ones on each level). This is a bit different concept.
------
yters
Fodor's the mind doesn't work like that is a great book explaining the
shortcomings of both connectionist and modular models of cognition. He
basically says neither should work, nor combinations thereof. Never seen
anything more than dismissal of his work.
------
asadlionpk
This hackernoon article is what cleared the concept of capsules for me:
[https://hackernoon.com/what-is-a-capsnet-or-capsule-
network-...](https://hackernoon.com/what-is-a-capsnet-or-capsule-
network-2bfbe48769cc)
------
mempko
Wow, this should reignite the Chomsky vs Norvig debate. This is the kind of
science Chomsky wants.
------
guskel
Layman's interpretation of capsules is that they're designed to facilitate
inverse graphics. It's like a pixel shader in reverse.
------
adamnemecek
“AI wizard” wired you are killing me.
~~~
c3534l
Wizard is an established and well respected title within computer science.
------
bawana
is there a 'toy' example where one could compare a 'regular' NN as compared to
a 'capsule' NN? Code??
~~~
amrrs
That's what they've done with MNIST dataset.
[https://github.com/naturomics/CapsNet-
Tensorflow](https://github.com/naturomics/CapsNet-Tensorflow) Tensorflow
Implementation of CapsNet.
------
fori1to10
Is there a link to the original papers?
------
yolorn123
what's the difference between concatinating the layer and adding more layers?
------
2K17
I thought Hassabis was in charge there?
~~~
visarga
Deep Mind, which keeps separate kitchen from Google.
|
{
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}
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Linux Challenge Blackbox #1 - iodigitalsec
http://www.iodigitalsec.com/linux-challenge-blackbox-1/
======
ageha
I reached a point where I have no idea on how to move on. I hope after this is
"done" that there will be a mini how-to on how you get to the solution :)
~~~
iodigitalsec
Solution has been posted :)
------
iodigitalsec
The challenge covers some Linux file manipulation, C/ASM, GDB and filesystem.
Please post questions or feedback in the comments
------
joegyoung
I don't see a link to the challenge at the above site page.
~~~
psgbg
The link is in the page, that's part of the challenge. Keep trying.
------
iodigitalsec
Keep trying!
|
{
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Give us your phones and passwords - virtuabhi
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/14/complaints-describes-border-agents-interrogating-muslim-americans-asking-for-social-media-accounts/
======
RichardHeart
Canada is brutal with this. They will demand your phone, they will demand your
password. If there's anything that makes them think you might overstay your
visa, they'll likely deny you entry. The only "reasonable" solution, is to
enjoy your trip free of cumbersome electronics, or buy new ones.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan - fjarlq
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552
======
flowerlad
Zero mentions of Solaris. Surprising. BSD, Minix and Linux are mentioned. Even
Santa Cruz Operation is mentioned. Bill Joy and Sun Microsystems are
mentioned. Solaris was the most influential Unix of the 90’s so its omission
is curious.
~~~
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
>Solaris was the most influential Unix of the 90’s so its omission is curious.
I think you meant 2000s because in the 90s Solaris was nothing special. All
the interesting stuff (zones, SMF, dtrace, ZFS) was introduced in Solaris 10,
which was released in 2005.
~~~
flowerlad
No I meant the 90’s. Solaris was the top platform for dotcom startups in the
90’s. By 2001-2002 the dotcom crash had happened. By the time the “interesting
stuff” you mention were added, Solaris was waning in popularity.
~~~
ncmncm
True enough. But when it was big, it was nothing special. 2.2 (2, in the final
number scheme) was pretty crashy. One would not expect a Bell Labs person to
find a SysV variant interesting.
As I recall, solarix had Doors by 2001, but I can't remember what it was.
Solarix probably deserves mention if Tru64 nee OSF/1 did. Ah, the Unix Wars:
Sunview vs. Motif, buggy vs. ugly.
~~~
lonelappde
Windows 95 was buggy too, but a history of OSes would be silly to leave it out
~~~
ncmncm
Buggy _and_ ugly. But not Unix.
------
pmoriarty
I wish I could see memoirs like this from Ken Thompson and Rob Pike.
~~~
fjarlq
Videos of Ken Thompson and Rob Pike telling Unix history stories:
Ken Thompson (interviewed by Brian Kernighan, 2019, starts after 7m38s):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o#t=7m38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o#t=7m38s)
Rob Pike (Unix History presentation, 2018, starts after 3m40s):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2NI6t2r_Hs#t=3m40s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2NI6t2r_Hs#t=3m40s)
~~~
pmoriarty
Thank you soooo much for posting the links to these. I'm just starting to dive
in to the Thompson interview and it's amazing.
I strongly recommend anyone with even a vague interest in UNIX (well,
obviously that would be everyone reading this HN thread) to watch these!
------
pjmorris
Rummaging around the local mall bookstore in ~1982, I came upon 'Software
Tools in Pascal', by Kernighan and Plaugher. I fell in love with the ideas,
and the prose. It became the first of what is now a nearly complete collection
of everything Kernighan has published (I don't have the AMPL book, or 'D for
Digital'.) I can't calculate how much I know because of Dr. Kernighan, or how
much my career's course has been altered by the levers he's given me, but it's
a large number.
This is now on my Amazon wish list (How many of you have private lists for
'things to remember and check out later?' Mine's called 'Random Followup
Stuff')
~~~
AnimalMuppet
You might find this interesting, then:
[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-
pasc...](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pascal.html)
It's Kernighan's view of Pascal after writing "Software Tools in Pascal". It's
not (as widely perceived) a hit piece on Pascal. It's Kernighan saying "I
wrote the original 'Software Tools' in Ratfor. Rewriting it in Pascal should
have been much easier than it was. Why?"
~~~
pjmorris
I know the piece well. Back when, my university used "Oh, Pascal!" to teach
introductory programming to programmers. For worse reasons than Kernighan, I
never liked that the length of an array was part of the type in Pascal, but,
in retrospect, that might've saved a couple Trillion in buffer overflow
problems.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
At the price of being fundamentally unable to deal with variable-length
arrays? That seems like taking away a rather fundamental ability.
------
naikrovek
Amazon is returning a 404 on this item for me, when this post is 6 hours old.
Googling for the book and following amazon.com links gives similar 404 errors.
~~~
kbd
Weird, URL is
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552)
which loads for me.
------
jasoneckert
I ordered a copy just now, but was somewhat disappointed that it didn't ship
in tape format.
~~~
dredmorbius
It's a long-proved bound paper-tape format.
------
chrstphrknwtn
Copyright 2020. Spooky.
~~~
maxlybbert
When I was a teenager, I bought a book from a bookstore that had a copyright
date or printing date a month in the future. I was surprised that the date
included the month, and realized the page has been laid out weeks in advance.
But even so, it felt weird to own that book for that first month.
|
{
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}
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Hacker unlocks the 3DS system kernel key to running pirated software - unstoppableted
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/02/hackers-break-3ds-security/
======
SifJar
A poorly researched article. First of all, GBAtemp is a terrible source, 90%
of it users are self entitled pirates who know nothing. Secondly, neimod has
never posted anything on GBAtemp, at all. He said those things in an IRC
channel. The second part (the elitist comment) was a joke because of how some
people talk about hackers like neimod. As for the piracy slant, the hackers
involved are against piracy.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
Where to Go to College If You Want a High-Paying Job - prostoalex
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045598/forget-harvard-heres-where-to-go-to-college-if-you-want-a-high-paying-job?utm_source=facebook
======
sgeisenh
This is Simpson's paradox at work. And the article even acknowledges it. Most
of the universities on the list have disproportionate numbers of students in
STEM fields.
That's why Ivy League schools aren't well represented. And also why places
like CMU or University of California don't appear. Additionally, salaries
aren't adjusted for cost of living. Most of the universities here are located
in areas with a high cost of living, so salaries will typically be higher.
~~~
balls187
Rose-Hulman (my alma mater) is in Terre Haute Indiana is rated high, with
fairly low cost of living.
The General Tso's Index is currently $4.90
~~~
tghw
But would you want to stay in Terre Haute?
~~~
balls187
Obtain a quality education.
------
xvedejas
As a Senior at Caltech: I fear that a large reason Caltech students tend to be
able to make money is because you don't come to Caltech for the name, you come
to it because you care about science, math, or engineering. Plenty of us were
accepted to big name universities; so we've been effective at getting students
who only care about name to select other schools. I worry that because of the
recent positive press (like this) that that may change, and as a result
Caltech's undergrad population might change to have more people who follow the
money and fewer who will work hard to deserve the money.
~~~
balls187
Amongst STEM, I'd argue Caltech is a big name.
------
visoz
This needs scaling according to students' parents' income level. It's
worthless saying students of college X all got high-income jobs if those jobs
come from their parents' networks rather than the university itself.
~~~
evanpw
The article doesn't explain very well, but this is exactly what the study did:
"Drawing on government and private sources, this report analyzes college
“value-added,” the difference between actual alumni outcomes (like salaries)
and the outcomes one would expect given a student’s characteristics and the
type of institution."
------
adamcanady
I'm a junior at Carleton, #2 on the list. It's interesting to see these
rankings come out since I have been under the impression that our graduates
don't enter STEM fields through normal channels. Until recently, our CS
department didn't have very many majors, and many of the graduates majored in
liberal arts areas. These folks found their way into big tech and financial
companies or ended up starting their own businesses several years after
graduation.
Talking to alumni, I've always heard this is because of the ability to learn
how to communicate here, but I think the difficult course load contributes a
lot to character throughout 4 years here. I'd be interested to hear how this
compares to other institutions.
The additional stats on the Brookings.edu page [1] were interesting as well.
[1]
[http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/04/29-beyond...](http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/04/29-beyond-
college-rankings-rothwell-kulkarni)
------
mirimir
It seems that the author loves Caltech, give how the table of four-year
schools is sorted. It's sorted only by mid-career earnings, and not at all by
occupational earnings power (or loan repayment rate). With secondary sorting
by occupational earnings power, Clarkson University and MIT would be second
and third, respectively, and very close. Just sayin'.
------
jacques_chester
The "X-factor" for small schools might be that they're small schools.
Small sample sizes mean higher variability. Large student populations will
regress to the mean.
------
akhilcacharya
>Getting into Caltech is practically a winning lottery ticket for life.
Its really difficult to not get discouraged when reading these.
------
lordnacho
I'd have titled it "What to do at college if you want a high paying job"
~~~
walshemj
middlling paying job if you really want to make bank you do law or target wall
street/ the city not the STEM professions (outwith possibly medicine)
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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NASA ‘Snoopy’ lunar module likely found 50 years after being jettisoned - jason_zig
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/10/nasa-snoopy-lunar-module-likely-found-50-years-after-being-jettisoned-into-space/
======
seniorsassycat
> Notably, the fuel tanks used in this mission weren’t provided enough fuel to
> return from the Moon’s surface — an intentional limitation imposed in case
> the astronauts flying the test run were tempted to jump the queue and become
> the first people to walk on the lunar surface
I wish we lived in a universe where NASA didn't have the forsight to short
fuel Apollo 10. Imagine a joyride to the lunar surface.
~~~
chrisshroba
Is it really reasonable to think the astronauts would have disobeyed orders
and landed on the moon? This seems like it would have so many negative
repercussions on the astronauts involved that it seems outside the realm of
possibility to me.
~~~
patejam
I feel like this type of job self selects for people who would totally do
that.
Also, disobeying orders in space has happened before:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_controversy)
~~~
NikolaeVarius
Though that story is apparently in dispute, and there was no strike. I've done
some research and its a surprisingly murky topic.
~~~
wiggler00m
Amazing story if true.
"[T]he crew were alleged to have stopped working. Gibson spent his day on
Skylab's solar console, while Carr and Pogue spent their time in the wardroom
looking out at the window."
------
ahazred8ta
The object is 2006-RH120, which was closer than the moon (0.002 au) in 2007
and will come within 0.025 au in 2028. It is currently on the far side of the
sun.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_RH120](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_RH120)
\--
[https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3403148;orb=1;old=0;c...](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3403148;orb=1;old=0;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#cad)
~~~
ahazred8ta
The 'Apollo 10 Lunar Ascent Stage' is listed here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derelict_satellites_in_heliocentric_orbit)
------
supernova87a
Is it me or is this article so poorly written that the main point of the
article -- where the thing is -- is not even described coherently?
~~~
cyberferret
I was disappointed in the lack of details too (as well as the mis-spelling of
Gene Cernan's name). Is the LM in orbit around the sun? In an extended orbit
around the Earth's orbital plane? Trapped in orbit around another solar body?
That was what I was looking for from the article...
~~~
RawChicken
The lack of knowledge in news articles regarding space topics is astounding.
If you want to learn more about Snoopy, Scott Manley makes a great video about
it!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXVYZm9epmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXVYZm9epmU)
The orbit description starts at 3:30 but the rest is worth a watch, full of
interesting footage and data!
------
mirimir
Sky News: [https://news.sky.com/story/snoopy-lunar-module-
from-1969-apo...](https://news.sky.com/story/snoopy-lunar-module-
from-1969-apollo-10-mission-may-have-been-found-11738299)
~~~
protomyth
Sad you got downvoted given the TechCrunch article links to the Sky News
article while providing less information.
[edit: I see the TechCrunch brigade is out in force]
~~~
mirimir
Hey.
What's really funny -- and why I posted the link -- is that TFA doesn't
actually point to the Sky News article. The Sky News link in this sentence ...
> The effort to discover its location began in 2011, undertaken by a group of
> amateur U.K. astronomers led by Nick Howes — the same who now claim they’re
> “98 percent convinced” they’ve discovered where it ended up, according to
> Sky News.
... actually points to [https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-snoopy-lunar-module-
space-1443...](https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-snoopy-lunar-module-
space-1443091) . Some editor wasn't paying attention, I guess. If they still
_have_ editors, anyway.
~~~
protomyth
Wow, when I went to the article it had an actual link to the Sky News article.
I wonder what they have going on, because that is just wrong. It really looks
like they decided they didn't want to point to Sky News and then switched to
Newsweek without changing the actual text.
~~~
mirimir
Huh. That's even stranger.
I mean, why would they switch from a primary source to a secondary source? I
wonder if there's some sort of relationship between TechCrunch and Newsweek.
------
ornel
This is the closest to a primary source I've found:
[https://twitter.com/NickAstronomer/status/113779137705039462...](https://twitter.com/NickAstronomer/status/1137791377050394627)
------
toddsiegel
I just learned about this mission on Saturday, while visiting the Charles
Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA. They have small display with pictures, and
the audio from the mission.
I often think of NASA as exceptionally serious people, but it never seems to
stop them from adding a bit of humor and fun to their work.
[https://schulzmuseum.org/](https://schulzmuseum.org/)
~~~
trsohmers
Well Apollo 10 was the last time NASA let the astronauts name the CM and LM,
precisely because they named it Snoopy. I think it is well known that in
general the early astronauts had a pretty good sense of humor (along with
balls of steel), but ground control, not so much.
~~~
WalterBright
WW2 air crews named and painted their airplanes crazy fun things. There were
some complaints about it, but the brass had enough sense to let the crews do
what they wanted. It was a way for them to take a bit of the edge off of the
terrible strain they were under. (Very high death rates.)
My dad was a bit superstitious, all his combat rides were named "Round Trip
Ticket". It worked :-)
[https://imgur.com/zuY1vGA](https://imgur.com/zuY1vGA)
[https://imgur.com/QqlYM](https://imgur.com/QqlYM)
~~~
tomcam
That is brilliant on so many levels. Kudos to him!
~~~
WalterBright
Thank you. Above his funeral, another P-51 driver gave him a spectacular
sendoff.
------
pryce
An impressive achievement if they did manage to locate it, certainly.
On the other hand, proposing that it merits retrieval is staggeringly vain-
only the tiniest fraction of human enterprise has ever operated outside our
planetary system (the Earth and our moon). Consider the mind-blowing
opportunity cost of any mission sent to 'retrieve Snoopy', and take a moment
to think of just some of the incredible projects one could do instead.
~~~
cesarb
> Consider the mind-blowing opportunity cost of any mission sent to 'retrieve
> Snoopy', and take a moment to think of just some of the incredible projects
> one could do instead.
For an opposite point of view, think of all the technological advances that
would be necessary for a safe "retrieve Snoopy" mission. Even if the mission
itself is pointless, all the developments leading to it could be useful. That
is, what matters might be the journey, not the destination.
~~~
iscrewyou
I was thinking the same thing. The technology and science that could come out
of a mission like that would be great! We’d be the First Nation to retrieve
something far away from earth that belonged to us. A stepping stone for future
mishaps on other planets.
~~~
fuzz4lyfe
"We choose to go (back) to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this
decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they
are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our
energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to
accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and
the others, too."
~~~
pryce
Millions of people have looked to the moon for tens of thousands of years, and
wondered if someday, a human being might walk on it.
A truly transcendent category of goal, even if a large part of the underlying
motive was pretty obviously demonstrating American superiority over the
Communist 'other'.
I don't really put retrieving the 'Snoopy' module in this same category.
~~~
saagarjha
I think you may have missed the joke.
~~~
pryce
I did, thanks.
EDIT: for anyone interested in the history of the Apollo 10 mission, its
commander (and only crew-member remaining living) Thomas Stafford also went to
Moscow to serve as a pallbearer in the state funeral given to the Soyuz 11
crew after the tragedy, the only human beings known to have died in space.
------
melling
The BBC has a podcast about the moon landing:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-48232627](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48232627)
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csz4dj](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csz4dj)
Apple podcast url: [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-minutes-to-the-
moon...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-minutes-to-the-
moon/id1459657136)
~~~
rjmunro
It's one of the best podcasts I have ever listened to.
RSS feed:
[https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/w13xttx2.rss](https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/w13xttx2.rss)
Program page (with link to RSS etc.):
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads)
------
evanweaver
So, where is it, and how was it found? The article and even the source it
links are extremely vague.
~~~
protomyth
It is apparently in an orbit that "won't make a close pass to our planet until
2037".
[https://www.iflscience.com/space/apollo-10-lunar-module-
snoo...](https://www.iflscience.com/space/apollo-10-lunar-module-snoopy-may-
have-been-found/amp.html)
------
stcredzero
This sounds bad, but it's a serious question: Was there any poop aboard
Snoopy? It sounds silly, but it's at least an issue of comfort and dignity
when people first enter the historic craft after recovery.
~~~
waiseristy
It'd be completely frozen through. Anyone who has a dog in a cold climate
knows frozen poo is infinitely easier to deal with
~~~
erobbins
and vacuum desiccated. Freeze dried poo.
------
salutonmundo
I feel like it's kind of ironic that a probe named "snoopy" was hard to find.
~~~
warrenm
It wasn't a probe - it was part of Apollo 10
|
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|
Andy Hertzfeld tells about the team behind Google+ Circles - dirtyaura
https://plus.google.com/117840649766034848455/posts/FddaP6jeCqp
======
orky56
You've got to hand it to him for being so classy and humble about it. It's
much easier to be quiet and take the praise. Only when someone is modest
enough and truly believes that others deserve credit does he/she actually
advocate for other people on his/her team.
~~~
espinchi
Humble? Look at the first two sentences after the introduction: "I am indeed
the main individual behind the interaction design and implementation of the
circle editor. I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype
for it almost single-handedly". And then, the first sentence of the following
paragraph "Steven Levy's excellent Wired article got the story right - I wrote
the circle editor and then recently widened my focus to the overall Google
Plus user experience."
In my opinion, in order for me to believe Andy is actually humble, the last
sentence, "Suffice it to say that Google Plus is the creation of large,
talented team that I'm proud to be a part of", should have been the first one.
~~~
brown9-2
I think you are missing what he is actually doing - he states that the part he
is wholly responsible for is just one tiny part of the whole, and that all the
other credit given to whom is wrong. His first statement is meant to be a bit
ironic.
------
StavrosK
I was impressed with the fact that this post was on plus. It's like Twitter,
only with no size constraint and with discussions right on the post. I'm
excited to see how its usage will pan out.
~~~
neilk
Or exactly like LiveJournal circa 2002.
~~~
michaelchisari
Except without nested/threaded discussions. I don't know why the social web
loves flat comments so much.
~~~
DannoHung
Flat comments ensure a narrative thread.
~~~
Groxx
Like Twitter encourages? Or maybe you're referring to YouTube comments.
~~~
DannoHung
Okay, Twitter is more like a disassociated bag of nodes in a partially
connected non-directional graph where half the edges don't connect to the node
they're intended to connect to.
YouTube is a pack of raving howler monkeys with the occasional howler monkey
researcher at the periphery. And, in fact, YouTube used to have threads, but
they were still threads full of howler monkeys.
I'm talking more like your classic bulletin boards producing high quality
content, like MetaFilter, Something Awful, and the like.
~~~
Groxx
We agree on the sites, but I don't see what the conversation being flat has to
do with it. Reddit is famous for the AMA threads, those are threaded.
~~~
DannoHung
Yeah, but try reading an AMA after it's been finished. It is really hard to
find everything from the Askee.
I'm not intrinsically opposed to threads, but I'm not sure they're super
beneficial outside of technical contexts or in an environment where people are
expected to break a larger conversation off into it's own little set of
discussions to keep the high level conversation easy to understand.
------
Bud
You've got Andy's name wrong, twice, in the headline. It's "Hertzfeld", with a
t, and no i.
~~~
dirtyaura
Doh. Thanks for pointing it out, maybe I learn and get it right next time. It
seems that I can't edit the title to fix it.
------
staunch
Anyone interested in technology who hasn't read the stories on his site are
missing out: <http://www.folklore.org>
------
nikcub
It was nice of him to announce this using a service he single-handedly built
in a weekend
~~~
algorias
Subtle trolling always works best
------
justlearning
" I conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost
single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production ......but
that's pretty much as far as it goes."
That's some modesty!.
~~~
guptaneil
For only the circles editor. His point is that he had very little to do with
the rest of Google+ and nothing to do with the rest of Google's redesigns.
He's still taking credit for the significant work he did on Circles, as he
should.
------
mark_l_watson
I thought that the UI was done in GWT, but that was a guess, and I was
probably wrong. Anyone know?
~~~
neilk
Whenever a new Google site comes out, everyone always asks this question. I
can only assume it is asked by people who only know Java and are terrified of
JS (which seems to be GWT's primary audience, despite the framework's other
advantages).
If you want to know, just pop open Firebug or Chrome's Inspector and search
for the string "__gwt". I don't see it in Google+.
To my knowledge GWT is not actually used that much within Google. Most of the
things it solves for developers are solved in other ways within Google anyway,
and if you want really low-level control GWT is not the best option.
~~~
grimlck
[http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-
toolkit/msg/37bf75...](http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-
toolkit/msg/37bf75b622b32584)
has a list - just eyeballing it, it seems like about half of the major
javascript apps from google are GWT. (the other half would likely be closure)
~~~
_sh
There is an overlap: GWT itself uses closure.
~~~
eneveu
That's interesting. I've done my fair share of GWT development, and I didn't
know about this, so I tried to find more info.
I've searched through the GWT source code, and I found no mention of the
closure library (closure tools / closure compiler). There are obviously some
mentions of javascript "closures", but that's all I found.
According to [https://groups.google.com/group/closure-library-
discuss/brow...](https://groups.google.com/group/closure-library-
discuss/browse_thread/thread/bf3731cee9d8a57c) , no code is shared between GWT
and the closure library.
Where does GWT use Closure?
|
{
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Social Networks Will Be the New Breeding Ground for Viruses - reazalun
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2008/12/11/11readwriteweb-the_facebook_virus_spreads_no_social_network_is_s.html?em
======
wesley
The biggest difference between email and social network viruses is that the
social networks are centralized, and should (theoretically) be able to easily
block these viruses by just banning certain destination URLs.
Or is this not so easy? If not, please explain.
|
{
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Shag Marry Employ - isomorph
http://shagmarryemploy.com/go/index
======
metageek
Creepy.
|
{
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What if this is as good as it gets? - jeffmiller
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2011/02/18/ie9-is-the-new-ie6
======
chubs
I have a suspicion that they will focus heavily on ie because of windows phone
7 - they desperately need developers, and will do whatever they can to get
them on their new mobile platform, be it native or web-apps. (this all relies
on the desktop and mobile versions of ie sharing a codebase.
~~~
fleitz
I should have looked at your comment before posting my own similar comment,
but I wanted to add that the codebase sharing is almost a given. With Windows
8 being ported to ARM one can only assume it's to bring a very full
implementation of Windows to the mobile market.
~~~
Someone
_full implementation_? If I were to create Windows for ARM, I would take the
opportunity to get rid of as much ballast as possible. Examples:
\- ditch all non-Unicode APIs
\- ditch a zillion older/ancient graphics technologies
\- ditch a zillion older/ancient database access layers
\- get rid of that ROM-based font and character mode displays
\- ditch various shims for older software (yes, it would be cool to download
Visicalc from <http://www.bricklin.com/history/vcexecutable.htm> and run it,
but it is not that necessary, and my feature list would not contain a X86
emulator, anyways)
\- remove Notepad.exe from the Windows directory
~~~
zdw
\- include telnet.exe in the default install (worst vista/7 change ever from a
network debugging perspective)
------
r00fus
Microsoft is becoming less and less of a gatekeeper with the rise of Firefox,
Chrome, and Safari. In 2-3 years when the next "version" of HTML gains the
public eye, they will not have a stranglehold on the web. I'd be more worried
about Apple or Google than MS (as silly as it may sound now).
~~~
schwabacher
I am less worried about Google because webkit, chromium, v8, etc. are open
source. I think Apple has a pretty good record with open standards, but they
have a big incentive to keep people buying native apps on iOS (and i guess on
OSX too now). It is definitely not in their intrest to have people easily
build cross platform mobile apps when the default is for people to build iOS
native apps first now.
------
JamesNK
Microsoft is going to keep caring because the browser has become the most
important application on a computer.
If Internet Explorer is garbage then sure the average user could go download a
third party browser but they could also just jump ship to a non-Microsoft
operating system or device.
The trend over the last couple of years is users just wanting something that
works out of the box and if Microsoft wants to keep those users on Windows or
other MS devices then IE is going to have to stay competitive.
------
Spines11
Hopefully, in time, people would end up just installing Firefox or Chrome.
------
Locke1689
Is this what-if really worth thinking about? If and when that time comes
whoever is using IE can just switch to one of the half-dozen other browsers on
their platform.
~~~
spatulon
They could have done that when IE6 stagnated, but they didn't. Not in anything
like large enough numbers anyway.
~~~
weavejester
When IE6 stagnated, it had a market share of over 95%. So if a web developer
wanted to take advantage of new HTML/CSS features, only 5% of their users
would notice, and so it wasn't really worth the cost. This meant that all
websites had to work in IE6, so there was less incentive to switch browsers.
Now IE market share is closer to 40%, so whilst they're still the market
leader, they no longer have a majority. Even if Microsoft ceased development
on IE9 now, web developers could still use new HTML/CSS features and reach 60%
of their audience. This would mean more websites using new features, which
would result in a faster switch from IE.
If you have a monopoly, you can afford to sit back and allow technology to
stagnate. If you don't, and your competitors are constantly developing new
features, you'll lose market share rapidly unless you keep up.
~~~
StrawberryFrog
_your competitors are constantly developing new features, you'll lose market
share rapidly unless you keep up_
This, in a nutshell, is why IE9 is not oing to be "as good as it gets". To be
sympathetic to IE9, it's a good start. But _only_ a good start. The people
inside MS who plan IE must know that there's more work to do in order to keep
up with the competition, let alone speed up and overtake them. MS is used to
running marathons when they have to, not betting it all on one version.
------
fleitz
It's not as good as it gets for one simple reason. Mobile. Ms's policy when
behind is embrace and extend. They are almost behind in browser share and are
currently not in the running with win phone 7 (that could change rapidly as
their offering is on a technical level in the running). In order to compete on
mobile they will have to bring their browser upto webkit levels. They will do
this as if they lose mobile they become irrelevant in the next 10 years.
Mobile is the new desktop and desktop client + office is their bread and
butter
------
amurmann
I have very little hope that IE 9 will change anything about the IE problem.
What we need is continuous releases of IE like we see it with other browsers.
I don't see anything in Ms's behavior that indicates that that's what will be
happening once IE 9 is released. It will probably take years until we see IE
10 and updates to IE 9 will only be minor bug fixes.
Some of the posts here show that people think that Microsoft loses it's
dominance if they don't deliver a better browser. It's in Microsoft's best
interest to have the average user use the worst browser possible. Yes, it's
true Microsoft has missed out on the Internet. But by providing users with a
great browser doesn't make this problem smaller, it make sit bigger. For
example Google Docs and GMail become more of an alternative to Outlook and
Office, if you have a good browser. That's not in Microsoft's interest. So the
bets strategy for Microsoft is to release a browser that's only as good as
necessary to keep the majority of users from moving away from it, but at the
same time makes web development as hard as possible. As someone else here
pointed out. MS implemented all the big prominent buzz wordy stuff like
Canvas, rounded corners, etc. All the features even non-developers might have
heard about and will make them think they are using a great modern browser
that has all the awesome flashy stuff they read about. However, many things
that actually would help taking web development to a next level like web
sockets, workers and esp. the app cache aren't there. I am pretty sure MS
could have implemented that stuff if hey had really wanted to, but that would
have supported the Internet, in which MS is very little invested, too much and
weakened their Desktop apps even more. So nothing will be happening until
everyone's unhappiness with MS's IE effort has reached a critical point again
and even then we will only get a minimum of what MS thinks they have to give
us to please the crowd.
------
barista
Biten once twice shy. They have been burnt badly by ignoring internet for a
long time even though they were made aware of its importance by numerous
memos. GOOG and AAPL won't let them rest on the laurels of IE9.
~~~
kenjackson
This is revisionist history, admittedly very well propagated.
The Vista debacle caused MS to get flat footed on IE. They never ignored IE,
but their ship vehicle was reset and delayed. Which forced them to do an
intermediate release.
------
jasonkester
Funny, his list of things that IE9 supports reads like a list of cool HTML5
stuff you'd want to use. The "things it doesn't support" list looks like
something he made up on the spot (though clearly they're all real things that
_somebody_ has proposed putting into web browsers.)
But it's all stuff that doesn't _belong_ in web browsers. (OK, maybe
WebSockets). If it were up to me, now would be the time to actually
_standardize_ some of those things on the first list so that they work cross
browser. Then we're done.
~~~
lukifer
History API is huge: ability to use real permalinks and back/forward in a
dynamic web app without full page reloads. (We all want to get rid of the
those damn #!hashbangs.)
WebGL opens up far more possibilities for cross-platform gaming than <canvas>
and SVG combined.
Some of the others, admittedly, are only useful in edge cases, or are just
plain pipe dreams (<device> in particular). But many are already supported by
non-IE browsers, and all the other players have clearly broadcasted their
intent to keep improving and evolving. Microsoft (AFAIK) has yet to do any
such thing.
~~~
alanh
<device> just a pipe dream? It has “broad support” and exists on some phones
already, per ppk's latest weekly roundup.
[http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2011/02/linkbait_8.h...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2011/02/linkbait_8.html#item18)
(Grandparent: Just because something isn’t in (all) browsers now doesn’t mean
it “doesn’t belong” or, less straw-man-ish, that it wouldn’t be useful for
some browsers to support; not all browsers need to implement everything,
that’s why we have feature detection. But having IE, still the #1 most popular
browser, on board really opens doors.)
~~~
lukifer
I wasn't aware that progress was being made; nothing would please me more than
device APIs in JavaScript. I don't know of any working implementations in the
field, though.
|
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Show HN: Song Lyrics Generator - lessthanseventy
https://lessthanseventy.com/lyricsmarkov
======
lessthanseventy
This is still a work in progress but I think it's neat. It still needs caching
and proper error handling. I would welcome any feedback.
~~~
karmakaze
Because it uses the same words and short phrases as the lyrics it consumes, it
just seems like a mishmash. Maybe you could substitute synonyms or words from
the same class (e.g. August instead of April). Another great thing would be if
it considered the number of syllables per line [does it already do this?] and
follow a pattern from one of their songs.
~~~
lessthanseventy
I like the idea of counting syllables and possibly implementing a sort of
structure to it with choruses and whatnot also. Would be cool to enforce
rhyming too.
|
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Ask HN: Coronavirus: any open source WebRTC conferencing website without login? - zoobab
======
lwakefield
Check out [https://meet.jit.si/](https://meet.jit.si/) \- no account needed. I
believe all rooms are public, but not discoverable.
I don't know how well it holds up for large groups, but for ~5 or so clients
it has worked nicely for me.
------
verdverm
WebRTC experience will be highly dependent on the network connection of the
participants and can only handle so many connections. If you turn off video,
it will handle more people and lower connection bandwidth.
|
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Power of customizability and Time management = Smarter task management - katrik14
https://medium.com/orgzit/think-your-task-management-solutions-are-a-setback-read-this-f2b4a37ded3e
======
magicsquare15
Yes! The ability to add custom fields is missing from so many apps. Also
necessary for task management / bug repos is: * The ability to view and edit
the data like a spreadsheet. * The ability to customize your view with an SQL
query.
~~~
katrik14
Exactly! Would love to see if you think Orgzit can be a solution to this.
Give it a try? www.orgzit.com
|
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Nation's Cops Seem Determined To Demonstrate Why People Are Protesting Them - miles
https://reason.com/2020/05/31/nations-cops-seem-determined-to-demonstrate-why-people-are-protesting-them-in-the-first-place/
======
cmurf
Peaceful protest does not work. That is the legacy of the last 50 years since
the civil rights movement. Not a lot has changed. Black men are still being
lynched. What would the conversation be if it weren't for video? Even with
video, the conflicting autopsy from the county makes it sound like Floyd had
either a pre-existing condition or drugs in his body.
I'm pretty irritated with the media, allowing various leaders to claim that
they support peaceful protests. No they do not. Not Republican leaders, who
consistently impugned the peaceful protests of Colin Kaepernick. They demanded
these were vile, unpatriotic, and un-American. These are not mere talking
heads, but the V-POTUS, and the POTUS, among others. They do not support
peaceful protest, they hate it. They hate all criticism and all protests.
America is getting exactly what it deserves. It claims a contract of freedom
and equality of all before the law. And this is provably, deterministically
not true. And if it is not true, then why listen to any of it? The social
contract is dust. If it is not wrong to lynch black men, then it is not wrong
to loot, and burn, and pillage, and create widespread chaos. That is the
central problem with loss of trust of the social contract, it begs the end to
civil society, when we blatantly for all to see do not have a civil society
for all. The deck is stacked in favor of some, and against others. Plainly.
Clearly.
The contract we really have is Amy Cooper contract. The one where a black man
asks her to put her dog on a leash per the law, and then she uses her
whiteness as a weapon, and his blackness as a deficit, with the threat to call
the police to get her way and her revenge and assert her white superiority.
And knows the force of the police will make sure only one of them has a bad
day. And then demand she's not a racist, right after having perfectly
demonstrated racism. Hers and the system. That is the hallmark of
institutional racism.
------
jaredcwhite
Excuses for bad actors on American's police forces must end. Not tomorrow, not
next week, not next year.
Today.
As Chris Rock put it in his widely shared comedy bit, we don't tolerate bad
actors in industries such as airlines when it's a matter of life and death. We
don't excuse pilots who just so happen to crash planes into mountains.
Furthermore, we don't excuse surgeons who get upset during a procedure and sew
the wrong body part back on out of spite.
Some professions just require zero tolerance for poor behavior. ZERO. Police
officers fall under that category.
------
mydongle
My question is how is destroying small businesses and disrupting the lives of
innocent people in your own community protesting cops? If anything, they
created jobs for the police. And they've caused people that otherwise would
support them to not support them (except out of fear for their lives).
~~~
basch
In situations of institutional inequality, the bottom row considers everything
above it complicit.
[https://i.imgur.com/vpv5anc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/vpv5anc.jpg)
It's a have vs have not, opportunity vs not. A business owner is a have. It's
a form of leveling a playing field by destroying what others have. Similar to
the intention of the terrorists in Fight Club or Goldeneye, a reset to blow up
banks and financial institutions.
I don't think the rioting mob necessary has thought it out that well, but the
anger causing it, and targeting business moreso than residential is an attack
on the benefactors of protection rackets, whether they be law enforcement,
banks, anyone who gives some a different opportunity than others. In this case
business and land owners. It's a belief that "fixing the system from the
inside" has failed.
Attack's on the media are similar, because they are intrinsically linked.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico-
media_complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico-media_complex)
The message of Fight Club was NOT to blow everything up, and that it can be
fixed from the inside, but not everyone agrees.
------
bradknowles
Not all police forces are bad. And the ones that do have a higher percentage
of bad apples aren’t all this bad.
But yes, there are some out there that seem bound and determined to exhibit
the exact behavior that people are demonstrating against. Contrary to all
logic, there it is.
~~~
tinus_hn
If the police defends, supports or ignores unacceptable action they are just
as bad themselves. One bad apple spoils the bunch.
~~~
yosito
Blaming the problem on the individual morality of police officers feels good.
But the real problem, why police are getting away with crimes like murder, is
something called "qualified immunity" and police unions. Until those are
reformed, judging the individual morality of police officers isn't going to be
enough to solve the problem.
~~~
jgwil2
Yes. Change incentives and behavior will change.
------
gedy
The "groupism" of lumping "white", "black", "cops", "Republicans", etc is just
not useful. Just distracting old tribalism instincts. Take personal
responsibility and expect it from others.
~~~
aoeusnth1
So social systems and institutions have no effect on the human condition, got
it.
~~~
dang
Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and following them when posting
here? We'd be grateful. They include:
" _Don 't be snarky._"
" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good faith._"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
Note that they don't require you to change your views, just express them
thoughtfully.
------
mjfl
I’d say they’re in a pretty tough spot. I certainly wouldn’t have the patience
to be the punching bag of a bunch of assholes who are so sure that if they
were in charge, things would be better... I guess that’s why I’m not a cop.
~~~
woah
It takes a pretty serious lack of patience to drive a truck into a crowd
~~~
mjfl
Not if they’re banging on the windows, pulling on the doors and trying to drag
you out of it.
~~~
kettro
The video showing that is pretty clear that none of that happened. They drove
around a corner and into the crowd.
~~~
masonic
Maybe multiple cases are being conflated here. In the case of the cab hauling
the FedEx trailers where one attacker got caught in a rear wheel, the truck
_had_ stopped, but multiple people climbed onto the cab and tried to break in
while members of the crowd shouted, _" set it on fire!"_.
------
muzika
Yeah, sucks for them because they seem to be blamed for a crime that they had
nothing to do with.
|
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Facebook deliberately bans Grooveshark from its services - Natsu
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/facebook-deliberately-bans-grooveshark-from-its-services/
======
Rudism
I'd always avoided using Facebook to sign into any third party service due to
privacy concerns (and eventually deleted my Facebook account altogether). But
this is another good reason not to that I had never even really considered
before. I wonder what will happen to user data for Facebook users... Will
Grooveshark be able to let those users create a new local account and somehow
tie their old data to it? Seems unlikely to me.
I never understood the one account to rule them all mindset. It drives me nuts
when my wife uses the same password for every service she ever signs up for,
and it seems that using the same account for everything is only mildly better
(reduces the recovery time if your password is compromised to updating a
single account instead of dozens).
Thank goodness for KeePass and random password generators!
------
ryandvm
What Facebook giveth, Facebook can taketh away.
~~~
joe_the_user
Yeah,
Adding Facebook as your sign-on adds another significant point of failure.
~~~
patrickaljord
Not if you also ask for the user email though the Facebook API. In this case
people can get access by getting a password reset sent to their email. This is
what Grooveshark is doing right now and what most people using Facebook for
signing in do too.
------
ricardobeat
GrooveShark must be the most legally attacked business ever. I'm surprised
they haven't gone down. I still pay the monthly $3 plan, just to do my part
keeping them afloat, even though I rarely use it these days.
~~~
wanderr
Hey ricardobeat, Grooveshark developer here. Thanks for the support! It just
so happens that we're currently making an effort to reach out to users who
haven't been back in a while to find out why and see if there is anything we
could do to improve the service. If you'd like to contribute your thoughts,
just shoot an email over to support@grooveshark.com
Thanks!
~~~
ryandvm
I spend about half my time in other music services (Turntable.fm, Last.fm,
Spotify, etc.). What I would really like to see is better playlist
import/export capability. For instance, I would love to have the same songs
available whether I'm spinning in Turntable or just playing music for myself.
I realize that by the nature of the problem, you can only fulfill half of it.
I also know that it's probably a pipe dream since lock-in is so valuable, but
that is what I would really like to see from my music services.
~~~
wanderr
Thanks for the feedback. One of our other developers created
<http://groovebackup.com/> to make exporting playlists easier. It's not
officially supported, but it should get the job done. :) Another dev was
working on playlist importing as a side project but I think it fell by the
wayside.
|
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An outdated idea about solar panels has been slowing advancement: study - xbmcuser
https://www.inverse.com/article/59404-solar-panel-replacement
======
ASalazarMX
Alternative title: "Why don't we make solar panels last 10-15 years instead of
20-25?"
How about no. The technology improves in very small increments, there's no
need to replace panels for a 3-5% gain. This smells of wanting programmed
obsolescence because the current growth rate will stabilize in the future.
------
thefj
_In recent years, the price of solar panel technology has been driven down,
but the cost of labor and installation hasn’t. As the framework technologies
go out of date within a 25-year period, individuals and companies are facing
larger costs when they are required replace both the framework system and the
panels themselves every 25-30 years in order to install entirely new systems.
In contrast, the authors write that replacing panels more often with newer and
more advanced models would allow cross-compatibility between the panels and
the system, allowing the framework itself to remain the same while new panels
are popped on and off._
So even though the installation and replacement labor is what's expensive,
they assume that some kind of cross compatibility will appear, and it will be
cheaper? Seems like quite a leap.
------
agoodthrowaway
The cost of installation is why I don’t have solar. While I agree 25 year life
is a limitation on adopting better panel technology, it’s hard to justify the
installation costs at shorter intervals.
------
robotron
Terrible mobile site.
------
Spooky23
In the HN hive mind, this makes solar even more deadly. With installers
falling off of roofs at a faster interval, the death rate per gigawatt will
grow.
|
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YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service - uptown
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/17/youtube-indie-labels-music-subscription
======
fpgeek
Upon reflection , I think this article (and others like it) are starting from
the wrong place and end up confusing the issue more than illuminating it.
I think the right place to start is that Google wants to offer a premium, ad-
free YouTube service. Given that, what happens to videos that are ad-supported
today:
1\. They participate and are ad-supported for free users and subscription-
supported for premium users. Cool. Everyone's happy.
2\. They don't participate and...
(a) Premium users see ads anyway. They're pissed.
(b) Premium users don't see those videos at all, but free users see them with
ads. Might dodge the issue for a while, but when they find out they'd be even
more pissed.
(c) You can't offer ad-supported videos to free users unless you also offer
ad-free videos to subscription users. Labels that like the ad-supported terms
and don't like the subscription terms are pissed.
Alternative (c) seems to be what Google has picked. Which seems logical if
they're launching a new service they want new users to like.
Corollary: Indie labels should still be allowed to post whatever non-monetized
videos they want (subject to other YouTube policies like the terrible
ContentId, of course). If that isn't true, then we can talk about being
"kicked off YouTube". Otherwise, they're choosing to leave because they don't
like how the monetization option is changing. That's clearly their privilege,
but, in the exact same way, it's Google's privilege to change the monetization
they're willing to offer (whether that's as small as tweaking the payout
formula or something larger like adding a subscription tier).
P.S. I found some of the Ars Technica comments (not the article) particularly
helpful in terms of explaining how this must fit together:
[http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/artists-who-dont-
sig...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/artists-who-dont-sign-with-
youtubes-new-subscription-service-to-be-blocked/?comments=1)
~~~
magicalist
One interesting thing is that this is a service that Google is letting you pay
for instead of viewing ads. Have they done that before? I guess gmail/google
apps, but that's a little different, as you have to get a new account, you
can't add a subscription to your existing account. I wish they would do this
for all of youtube, not just music.
The phrasing (and its effect on how people react to the story) is very
interesting. If it had gone instead with "Google forcing labels to allow ad-
free youtube subscription service" or something, you'd probably see far more
positive reactions. I hate services like hulu plus (subscription _and_ ads!)
with a fiery passion, so it sounds good to me.
On the other hand, youtube is so ubiquitous, "block" might not be that poor of
a choice of words, as not being able to monetize on youtube is surely a hit.
Of course, if they're getting revenue from ads they already have some kind of
deal, this is just a different one, and it wasn't so long ago that some labels
were holding out ("blocking" youtube from playing their music) in a reverse of
the situation.
Really, though, without knowing the details of how google is trying to
strongarm them into this agreement (or even the terms of the agreement), it's
hard to make much of a judgement here. Definitely played up in the news for
drama, though.
~~~
fpgeek
> Have they done that before?
As you note, not really, but YouTube is an excellent place to start. YouTube
ads suck on pretty much every dimension compared to search/Gmail ads: They're
irrelevant, repetitive, interrupt what you're doing, burn bandwidth, etc. And,
so far as I can tell, there's no obvious way to make them less sucky for users
without destroying the value proposition for advertisers.
> I wish they would do this for all of youtube, not just music.
Given how often otherwise non-commercial videos end up monetized because of
the music they contain, getting rid of music ads may affect more of YouTube
than you might expect.
------
Shooti
Plausible breakdown of Google/YT's side of the story:
1\. Youtube wants to offer users a subscription service with no ads.
2\. Youtube needs to update its licensing/terms with artists: If a video plays
for a subscriber they see no ads, artist gets money from subscription pool. If
a video plays for a non-subscriber they see ads, artist gets money from ads
pool.
3\. Artists need to explicitly agree to these terms because it changes how and
how much they'll get paid.
4\. It doesn't seem fair for a user to pay a subscription, expect to see no
ads, and then see ads for some video's because that artist/distributor did not
agree to new terms. This is why Google wants all or nothing.
~~~
dublinben
YouTube's new service will be an _audio_ streaming service, not a video
streaming service though. I'm not sure why they think they can just make a
slight modification to their licensing agreements and roll their video catalog
into a music catalog.
The record labels are completely right to be demanding better terms here, just
like they would get from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc.
~~~
Shooti
Not sure you can draw such a hard line between audio/video since all the
rumors point to this subscription service essentially being both:
[http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/27/apk-teardown-
youtube...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/27/apk-teardown-
youtube-5-3-reveals-upcoming-music-pass-with-uninterrupted-music-millions-of-
songs-with-no-ads-offline-playback-and-background-listening/)
i.e. By enabling the Android/iOS Youtube app to background (which they've gone
out of their way to disable up until this point), it essentially becomes an
audio streaming service with the same interface.
Plus according to the FT, the problem the indie labels have isn't with the
subscription rate per se, its how the new ad tier is set up:
"One label boss said the big problem with YouTube’s new licensing agreement
was not to do with the paid tier, but rather that it allowed YouTube to make
substantial enhancements to its free tier. His fear is that YouTube’s free
tier will become so attractive that it will reduce the number of people
willing to pay for subscription services such as Spotify or Deezer."
~~~
fpgeek
That sounds like a fundamental disagreement about how much video-wrapped audio
streaming is worth (with Google saying enough people will pay to avoid the
extra overhead/complexity and the labels thinking that people will walk many
miles to save a few bucks). That sounds like a plausible place for
negotiations to break down.
I suspect Google is right today (at least for the many people who care about
mobile music, since the data and/or storage costs would be prohibitive now),
but I can also see how a label might not want to set too generous a precedent
for tomorrow (on the assumption that bandwidth and storage might become
abundant enough sooner than they're comfortable with).
~~~
peroo
A lot of people are already using YouTube as a free streaming service, and
even though artist can monetize their music, the payout is significantly lower
than from pure music streaming services. This is seen as a fair tradeoff
seeing as YouTube is also a great promotional channel, but Google are now
trying to pivot it into a pure streaming service without significantly
changing payouts.
It sets a very dangerous precedent for the value of music, which can be
incredibly damaging for already struggling indie artists (not so much for the
three majors who have received _massive_ advances)
------
k-mcgrady
>> "WIN claims that the company has signed lucrative licensing deals with
major labels Universal, Warner and Sony, while demanding that independent
labels sign up to inferior terms or face having their videos blocked from
YouTube's free service."
I hope this isn't true but it wouldn't surprise me. Creators of services that
allow music to be accessed for free/very cheap always talk about how it's
great for independents while simultaneously offering the majors better deals
and screwing over the little guy.
~~~
davehur
It isn't. The videos aren't being "blocked", youtube simply won't have the
license to show them anymore. These "indie labels" are trying to extract
higher rates from free streaming by holding out on the paid service.
The real issue here is the guardian publishing the labels' PR as is.
~~~
hullo
From a seemingly more evenly sourced article on gizmodo:
"Some labels are refusing to sign up because they say they're getting a raw
deal from Google. They say that while the major labels have negotiated
lucrative contracts, Google is offering indies comparatively bad terms. It's
their right to say they don't want to sign up if they don't like the deal
Google is offering them. In response, Google is drawing a line in the sand: If
your label won't sign on to Google's crappy licensing deal for a new streaming
service, you can't host videos on YouTube at all."
[http://gizmodo.com/googles-about-to-ruin-youtube-by-
forcing-...](http://gizmodo.com/googles-about-to-ruin-youtube-by-forcing-
indie-labels-t-1591957089)
Google has a reply appended at the end that is absolutely the worst bit of
corporate puffery-non-response I've ever seen from them and IMO as bad a sign
as any of the actual things they're being accused of plotting.
~~~
davehur
"crappy licensing deal" doesn't really indicate an even article.
Basically same as everyone else they are siding with the labels and adapting
their narrative.
Yes, if Youtube can't licence the music the videos will get flagged by
ContentID, which means they gets "blocked" because they don't have the license
to show them, it's a semantics play and circular logic that the labels are
offering and as with most attacks on Google the media has lapped it up.
As to the actual term we only have the labels' word on it and they are an
interested party in the midst of negotiations.
Edit:
This spells out that it's a "renegotiation" process, the labels want more from
the free streaming to agree to the paid one:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27891883](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27891883)
And: "content from artists signed to independent labels will remain available
on YouTube via channels such as Vevo".
~~~
hullo
I don't really care about their wording. The proposition that Google has made
the choice that labels can either (1) join the premium service or (2) not be
on YouTube anymore does not really seem disputed by anyone other than you.
Except you may not even dispute it now? If you don't, you may very well not
agree with the opinions and commentary people are sharing about the situation,
but that's a disagreement about interpretation not facts.
~~~
fpgeek
Is there any evidence labels don't have option (3) provide some videos for
free (presumably for promotional purposes) and pull the others? On what planet
would Google forbid that? Practically speaking, how would they (absent the
label cooperating for the takedowns by providing audio/video fingerprints,
etc.)?
There might even be option (4) provide some videos for the paid service and
pull the others, but that's more ambiguous because it's possible that could be
forbidden contractually (e.g. if you participate in the paid services, you
have to give it all videos you make public!y available or somesuch) and there
are plausible reasons that Google might care.
------
k-mcgrady
Every time I read about this I still can't believe Google is creating this
service. Why do they need to create two of everything? They have Android and
Chrome OS. Their was Wave, Buzz, Google Plus. I have separate Google Plus tied
to my personal and business accounts and there is no way to resolve it. Now
they have Google Play Music, Google Play Music downloads, and they're creating
a new separate YouTube streaming service for music.
~~~
pjc50
It's not so much about having two of anything as eliminating non-Google space.
------
JonnieCache
So basically they're chopping off the long tail? Seems bizarre to me.
Google really is the new MS.
Twitter should buy soundcloud and add music video hosting to it. Premium users
only obviously.
~~~
danudey
The long tail might be lucrative but there's more overhead, and
mainstream(ish) music provides economies of scale.
Put another way: if they can make a penny per view on Psy's Gangnam Style
video that's $20m for hosting and distributing one video. Maybe they can get 2
billion combined downloads from indie videos, but that requires hosting and
distributing hundreds of thousands of videos. It makes sense, business-wise,
to want more favourable terms from indie labels just because their content
doesn't monetize as well, doesn't draw advertisers as well, and isn't viewed
as much.
~~~
Floegipoky
This is assuming that the long tail is independent (no pun intended), but it
isn't.
Musical taste is a very complex issue, and lots of people are going to be
annoyed that a handful of their favorite bands aren't on youtube anymore.
Others are going to be really angry that their entire favorite genre is
missing. Are enough people going to pissed off enough for it to hurt their
bottom line? My guess is yes, especially after the heavy-handed tactics
they've been using to try to force adoption of some of their other services
that nobody wants.
The bigger problem is that it damages YouTube's brand. It's not just a video
hosting site, it's THE video hosting site. It has everything- cute cats,
stupid people eating cinnamon, your favorite music, etc. They're going to have
real problems when the average user has to go elsewhere to see a video that
she cares about, especially if that elsewhere also has cat videos and doesn't
require a Google+ account to comment. Supporting the long tail is the cost of
maintaining their monopoly.
------
notatoad
Youtube blocks all videos they don't have the rights to. If an indie label
refuses to give google the rights to show their videos, then youtube can't
play those videos. That isn't youtube blocking indie labels, it's indie labels
refusing to licence their music to youtube.
~~~
bowlofpetunias
If read it four times, but the logic in this statement is bizarre.
Your first sentence clearly states _" Youtube blocks all videos they don't
have the rights to"_. That's YouTube doing the blocking. Period. Of course
they can play those videos, copyright hasn't gotten that far out of hand yet.
~~~
notatoad
Youtube is doing the actual act of implementing the block, but the only reason
youtube blocks anything is because the content owner requested it to be
blocked. They play/allow everything they have the rights to. Google is not
telling the indie labels "fuck you, you can't have your music on youtube", the
labels are revoking youtube's licence to broadcast their works because they
don't like the way youtube is planning to broadcast it.
------
spingsprong
Will somebody here please make a video hosting website to replace YouTube.
~~~
jsonson
What you are reading (and reacting to) here is part of the negotiation tactic
of one party trying to force a better deal out of the other.
Accounting to the cited FT article, the issue isn't about the yet to be
announced music service, rather that these "indie labels" are trying extract
higher rates for the free streaming that is already available.
~~~
falcolas
Regardless of why this is becoming public, we would still only benefit from a
YouTube competitor.
~~~
IanCal
Would we? Competition is good but fragmentation is bad. If I want to stick on
a playlist of 10 songs and half of them are on YouTube but the other half are
on DomainNameAbu.se that's not good for me as a user.
------
bakhy
lucky thing that most YouTube music videos are blocked in Germany. i won't
feel a thing.
otherwise, this looks an awful lot like another forced bundling by Google,
like the way they're showing Google+ down everyone's throats. (I recently
caved to that one, and reopened my Google+ simply to be able to login to sites
where I was using my google login for authentication. they chose to take away
that ability if you don't use G+, along with the ability to use the mobile
hangout app, just because they can. i should move elsewhere.) now they're
capitalizing on the market share of YouTube to coerce small labels, while
large labels were reportedly given preferential treatment. but the fact that
they will abuse YouTube instead of simply opening a new, independent service,
and trying to win over customers to it, instead of forcing them over, that
part stings me.
------
sheltgor
This could seriously open up the market for a new contender. Didn't Twitch
take off thanks to how onerous it has become to handle game-related videos on
Youtube? Perhaps something similar could happen for music, since as far as I
know youtube is a HUGE source of exposure for independent artists and labels.
------
newaccountfool
YouTube is about to begin testing the new service – which will charge people
to watch and listen to music without ads, and download songs to their mobile
devices – within the next few days, initially within Google.
So, Adblock Plus and Youtube to MP3?...
~~~
higherpurpose
Annnnd...now we know why Chrome 35 doesn't even allow you to install 3rd party
extensions in Developer Mode anymore, and they _all_ need to be installed from
the web store.
They might leave the blocker if it comes from the well known ones like Adblock
or Adblock Plus, but they will reject any other extension that is purposefully
built to block such ads in the new service.
~~~
briandh
No, the reason you can't install extensions from third-party _sources_ is to
stave off crapware and worse from being installed by other programs, which is
a real problem.
And it is only applicable on Windows, and not applicable to developer or
enterprise channels.
~~~
newaccountfool
I know other apps can install Plugins, but weren't they thinking of making the
user confirm about newly installed extensions?
------
tehwebguy
This is super weird, I'm under the impression that music generates much higher
ad rates than most content on YouTube. Wouldn't eliminating ads be sort of
shooting themselves in the foot, even against a subscription fee?
Maybe they see the other streaming services replacing them in the near future.
~~~
davehur
These videos aren't being blocked, it's just that youtube will no longer have
the license to show them, because those indie labels are holding for a better
deal.
~~~
codezero
If I visit the URL of one of these videos, will it play?
It sounds like you are just arguing semantics about what "block" means
internally at YouTube versus what a person using YouTube considers the word to
mean.
~~~
sejje
I think it's the difference in "we're mad/blackmailing/whatever, so your
videos won't play anymore" and "we legally can't play your videos."
GP is suggesting throughout this thread that the indie labels are using
deceptive language to say "YouTube is blocking us" when really they're saying
"we don't like the terms so we won't let YouTube play our content."
Whether that's true or not, I have no idea.
~~~
dublinben
Since when has YouTube ever cared about hosting unlicensed content? That was
their entire raison d'être for years, and they still haven't completely
abandoned their reliance on less-than-licensed content.
~~~
codezero
The DMCA makes different provisions for content that the hosting party knows
is unlicensed. Since they are working on some sort of contract with them, they
know what content is licensed and are therefore responsible for it.
------
askura
This is VERY bad news for Indies that are seeing a lot of success through
videos that go viral.
~~~
wutbrodo
Well, not really. It's depressing that HN is being so credulous about this,
but saying that Youtube is "blocking" or "removing" videos from indie labels
that don't agree to the licensing fees is as accurate (or more) as saying that
indie labels are blocking their videos from Youtube unless they give in to
their demands for higher license fees. There's an ongoing negotiation over the
license fees, and if indies decide that the value of having their videos up is
high enough that it's worth it under the current license fees, there's nothing
stopping them from accepting it.
To put it another way, if it's "VERY bad news" for them then they wouldn't let
the negotiations get to the point where they pull their videos from Youtube.
------
EGreg
Another symptom of centralization. Why don't people host their own videos?
~~~
smacktoward
Because doing so is complicated and expensive, would be my guess.
~~~
dave5104
I also don't think grandma (or heck, even teenagers) are going to set up and
configure their own servers to host videos.
------
NAFV_P
Second paragraph in the article > _YouTube is about to begin testing the new
service – which will charge people to watch and listen to music without ads,
and download songs to their mobile devices – within the next few days,
initially within Google._
Make a note of the wording: "watch and listen", as opposed to "listen and
watch".
------
chris_mahan
YouTube is becoming OurTV.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Google Cloud Armor - mindprince
https://cloud.google.com/armor/
======
antoncohen
I know people are saying this is just like Cloudflare, but there might be some
real value differentiation here. Google has been doing some really advanced
things in this area for a long time. I think I saw a research paper or talk
from 5-10 years ago about how Google shows the impact of network policies
before applying them, I just searched for it and couldn't find it[1]. The
things like _Preview Mode_ and _Rich Rules Language_ could be very advanced.
[1] But I did find this page about their network research:
[https://research.google.com/teams/netsys/](https://research.google.com/teams/netsys/)
~~~
puzzle
What kind of network policies? Millions of years ago, Google used Cariden
software to simulate what happened when links went down, QoS changes were
applied, etc. From what I recall, at some point, the size of the network, new
special hardware and the need for more flexibility outgrew the tool's
capabilities, so IIRC it was supplanted by in-house solutions that were more
real-time and fit into the new SDN architecture.
------
foxylad
Interesting - given Cloudflare's real value proposition and domination of
their sector, I've been half expecting Google to buy them for a year now.
Google are very good at internet plumbing, and I expect this to be a pretty
compelling service. Serious competition and not being an acquisition target
any more must have really hurt Cloudflare's value today.
~~~
meirelles
Apparently, they don't support external origins yet. IMHO without this feature
they can't be considered a direct competitor to CloudFlare. Also, CloudFlare
lately is adding a bunch of very neat features, it's not just about DDoS.
Of course, for those who are already using GCP and depending on their needs is
a great alternative.
------
ivanfon
Not a huge fan of Google getting more control over the net. On the bright
side, Cloudflare getting a serious competitor is good.
~~~
villedepommes
Agreed. I just wish it wasn't Google. They "extinguished" a lot of good
projects...
~~~
deadbunny
Name one product in GCP (that had reached general release) that they have
"extinguished".
~~~
8perezm
Google custom search
~~~
deadbunny
Not part of GCP. Yes they have a history of shutting down free services but
things in GCP don't get shut down, they are products, products people pay for.
------
wslh
Many people don't realize that Cloudflare also received funding from Google:
[https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-raised-110m-from-
fidelity...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-raised-110m-from-fidelity-
google-microsoft-baidu-and-qualcomm/) it seems cheaper to include it in Google
Cloud than buying the company.
------
philip1209
This would be a lot easier to use if Google added auto-https to their http
load balancers. They already offer it for AppEngine custom domains.
~~~
jwandborg
If you're using GKE there's [https://github.com/jetstack/cert-
manager/](https://github.com/jetstack/cert-manager/)
------
victor106
This is great news. Cloudflare is way too expensive. Pricing seems reasonable
Policy Charge $5 per Cloud Armor policy per month Per Rule Charge $1 per rule
per policy per month Incoming Requests Charge $0.75 per million HTTP(S)
requests
~~~
kentonv
> Cloudflare is way too expensive.
Eh? DDoS protection on Cloudflare is free:
[https://blog.cloudflare.com/unmetered-
mitigation/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/unmetered-mitigation/)
Which features of Google Cloud Armor are "too expensive" with Cloudflare?
(Disclosure: I'm an engineer at Cloudflare, but I'm genuinely curious what you
mean here.)
~~~
developer2
Not comparing to Cloud Armor, but the $200/month minimum to bring one's own
tls certificate. That alone puts Cloudflare squarely on the list of unusable
options for any small project or business that is running their entire
production infrastructure on less than $100/month. Also, the inability to
specify cache expirations below... what was it... 30 minutes or 2 hours?
Again, forced to pay too much for one of the core features of a CDN.
~~~
zapita
I never thought I'd see the day when $200/month is considered "way too much"
for a CDN... We've really come a long way.
Personally I use Cloudflare's free tier for lots of projects, and it has a
perfectly reasonable TLS offering.
------
Elect2
Here's a comparison of Google Armor vs. AWS WAF vs. CloudFlare:
[https://www.chooseacloud.com/waf](https://www.chooseacloud.com/waf)
------
Dawny33
How does it compare to its Azure counterpart?
([https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/services/ddos-
protection/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/services/ddos-protection/))
~~~
deno
Azure differentiates itself here by aligning their interests with the
customers’ interests. They’re not first do that either. For example, another
major hosting provider, OVH, bundles DDoS protection in their basic service.
Google’s model de facto means they’re just running another protection racket,
that is they make more money the more DDoS attacks there are.
From Azure’s website:
> Protection against unplanned costs
> Our cost protection provides service credits for resource costs which are
> incurred as a result of a documented DDoS attack.
------
xstartup
Kubernetes doesn't support multi-region load balancing with GSLB yet.
~~~
manigandham
How is that related to security policies?
Also you can't run a GKE cluster across multiple regions, only multiple zones.
If you have multiple clusters in different regions, you can use a NodePort
service on each and manually setup a GSLB with a backend pointing to all of
the GKE clusters.
There is a solution being worked on though, called multi-cluster ingress:
[https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/k8s-multicluster-
ingr...](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/k8s-multicluster-ingress)
~~~
puzzle
Running a Kubernetes cluster across multiple regions is not a great idea. You
can set up a federation of clusters, but GKE doesn't seem to support that yet,
so you need to create and manage the federated control plane yourself. And
there's no standard way at the moment to have generic cross-cluster
networking, like you easily could with Borg. So you can load balance external
requests to a number of clusters, as you explain, but currently it's easier if
each cluster is self-sufficient and doesn't need to refer to internal services
in other clusters.
~~~
manigandham
I didn't say anything about K8S across regions, it's fundamentally not
designed for it anyway.
GKE doesn't support federation because it's not a final feature either, it was
beta at best and is now being revised and renamed to "multi-cluster":
[https://github.com/kubernetes/community/tree/master/sig-
mult...](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/tree/master/sig-multicluster)
If you need to reach services between clusters, that's completely different
from ingress. Ingress is about external access to cluster services.
You can still use an authentication layer and expose everything through an
ingress, or use internal IPs for the services/containers which are already
routable in GCP's network across regions. A headless service to get the IPs
and a cron job to sync these to a public DNS system will give you the same
thing federation does for cross-cluster service discovery. There are also apps
like ExternalDNS that'll do it for you: [https://github.com/kubernetes-
incubator/external-dns](https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/external-dns)
------
philip1209
I'm trying to enable Cloud Armor to play around with it, but it just looks
like a firewall. I don't see a simple way to just "turn it on" \- it looks
like you have to create an IP address-based policy. It's unclear to me whether
there is any kind of adaptive DDOS protection.
------
nenrek
Honestly thought this was an early April fool's joke base on the headline
alone.
------
greatamerican
Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.
~~~
ktta
Cloudflare is 'dominating' because of their free tier. There are other
services actual companies use. Fastly, Akamai, AWS Cloudfront, CacheFly and
more.
~~~
notamy
CF having that free tier is a HUGE reason me and people I know stick with it.
None of us want to have to throw money at a CF-like service for a low-traffic
site, or for an MVP, or... At some point, it definitely becomes worth it, but
Cloudflare's free tier is a HUGE boon early on imho.
------
samat
Is GCA able to cache responses with proper cache headers or does it pass
through everything without caching?
------
vim_wannabe
Is it true that sites routed via Cloudflare are blocked in certain countries
like China? Would this work better?
~~~
andrem
Just to clarify - Cloudflare have POPs behind the great firewall of china in
cooperation with Baidu. That is not to say Cloudflare routed sites are all
accessible through CF, but it's certainly not a blanket statement either way.
Not sure if this would work better.
~~~
Elect2
Yes but you need a "license" given by Chinese Gov. Otherwise your website will
still be routed to edges outside of China. And the bigger problem is the
CloudFlare DNS, it is not working well in China.
------
shenki0
googleflare
------
mdekkers
Many, many years ago, a new product or service announcement from Google would
leave me interested and excited. Now I just shrug and wonder when it will be
abandoned.
------
jacksmith21006
Wasn't it Google that uncovered Cloud Bleed? Think Google solution is going to
be more secure then something from Cloudflare.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Boston Based Startup Goes Live with app that gives Job applicants an edge - bgelb7
Boston, MA: This week, Jobgator Inc, a startup focused on giving candidates an edge in the job application process will launch their software live to the world. Three months ago, Jobgator was accepted to MassChallenge, one of the world’s best small business accelerator programs. Jobgator aims to disrupt the way applicants apply for jobs, and the way recruiters recruit by providing candidates an edge in the application process. Jobgator provides an easy way to evaluate and improve their resume based off of several different levels of feedback given by Jobgator’s predictive platform prior to applying thus increasing chances of an interview.<p>Jobgator’s innovative software uses predictive algorithms to provide candidates a chance to tailor their resumes for each job, and include necessary keywords and job skills prior to applying for jobs. Jobgator software also ranks top job results by taking into account top keywords and skills in the individual's resume and then uses those top words to deliver more relevant jobs to the candidates. Jobgator will also provide candidates with a summary of how they will fit in culturally at the company they are applying to in order to tell them how the company fits in with their beliefs, ideals, and previous experience. This will help inform and empower candidates to choose jobs that they will be more effective and happy in!<p>As a former college student who struggled to find a job after graduation, CEO/Founder Ben Gelb hopes to not only build a thriving business but also have a strong social mission focused on helping disadvantaged and frustrated job applicants. One of his social mission is to eradicate discrimination and promote gender equal pay!<p>Jobgator is currently in the process of raising a funding round and is excited to see their business launch and begin to grow. Jobgator has just launched!
Check out Jobgator’s website at https://www.jobgator.io and email jobgator.us@gmail.com for more information!
======
stablemap
I think you should introduce yourself through a Show HN, focused on features,
instead of a press release.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Tell HN: Simple ransom spam results in success - hippich
So I was going through my spam folder and noticed email below. Essentially, spammer told me they recorded me watching porn and bitcoin address where I should send 650 USD equivalent to erase these records. I was like "what a waste of spam". But then decided to check bitcoin wallet - it actually received about 1500 USD worth of payments - https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/17viZFKw1Xn8WQcpC6GwLqjzLTcE7qBJ93<p>Not sure what to get out of it, but found it is very interesting. Why hijack a computer and encrypt files, when you can just send a spam email and get the same result...<p>The original email: https://pastebin.com/JhtduV3W
======
walrus01
Has anyone done an analysis of the btc addresses associated with the recent
bomb threat spam, to see how much money they received?
ref:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+bomb+threat+spam&num...](https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+bomb+threat+spam&num=100&client=ubuntu&hs=GUT&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi187PXi8vfAhVrs1QKHXFFB-4Q_AUIDigB&biw=1412&bih=1023)
------
PaulHoule
Now all you need to do is track down who sent the payment, then blackmail them
with (1) I know you've been watching porn, and (2) I know you paid somebody
off...
------
voyager2
I got a couple of those, both demanding $800. Maybe the $650 threshold gets a few more hits.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ask HN: How do you backup? - may
Is it automatic, how quickly can you recover and what service(s) do you use (or is it all done in-house) ... or not at all? What thought-process prompted your chosen solution?<p>Personally, I keep all of my important stuff in git, mirrored to GitHub and augmented with cperciva's Tarsnap, into which the majority of my home directory goes, excepting large files but including my Firefox history & sessions.<p>This post was prompted by the fact that I've taken a hard look at my budget and cannot justify paying GitHub a bunch of money to do something I can do on my own* -- that is, archive my git repos with a degree of assurance that the data is secure.<p>I am, as I type, pulling all my data out of GitHub and throwing it onto tarsnap to guard against the chance that my laptop's disk will die in the next week. However, removing my data from GitHub as produced a lot of anxiety -- I feel like I can't live without a distributed, redundant backup solution.<p>So, how do you backup?<p>* I will probably keep the cheapest GitHub plan because GitHub is useful for active development, but very overpriced for what I mostly use it for -- keeping my data safe, backed-up and distributed (but it worked for a while, long enough to show that I like this system).<p>(Yes, I know this has been addressed before:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=786225 and
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99194
etc.)
======
cperciva
Somehow I get the feeling that you don't need me to explain how and why I do
my backups. :-)
~~~
may
_laughs_ Indeed.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Is Twitter going to pull a bait-and-switch on developers? - RyanMcGreal
http://econsultancy.com/blog/5724-is-twitter-going-to-pull-a-bait-and-switch-on-developers?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
======
necrecious
Platform owners are the new land users and developers are share croppers.
If you develop for a platform, like Apple or Facebook or Twitter, you are
basing your business on the whim of the platform owner.
Every change in development license for Facebook/Apple has killed off some
company who got in their way.
Zynga is estimated to be worth $5 billion, but it is running on Facebook. At
anytime, Facebook can kill Zynga or force it to pay a large tax to be on their
platform. Otherwise, Zynga might have enough money to buy Facebook outright.
So the trick is to be a platform owner, instead of making one off
applications.
~~~
garply
Incidentally, if you own a website that is highly dependent on SEO, Google
falls into a similar category as Apple, Facebook, or Twitter.
~~~
necrecious
If your customer acquisition depends on one source and they control the
relationship you have with your customer, you might be screwed. :)
------
RyanMcGreal
One note on the Fred Wilson quote:
> Twitter really should have had all of that when it launched or it should
> have built those services right into the Twitter experience.
Part of why the Twitter platform is so rich with services is that the company
_didn't_ insist on filling in all the holes itself. The more open model they
followed is precisely what allowed such creativity in the services that run on
top of the platform.
~~~
telemachos
And haven't many people argued that Twitter did this _exactly right_? The idea
being that they did one small and simple thing, provided a generous and open
API and then let other people help bring interest to them?
~~~
frederickcook
To comment on that, Twitter has been promising a "version 2" of their API
since around the time they went from 12 employees to 150 and took that $150M,
and we haven't seen anything.
A glaring example of how little Twitter has done to support developers since
their original API is this support ticket that has been open for about 15
months: <http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=214>
Obviously, those 150 people have been working hard on something for the last
year, and providing the best tools for developers (let alone filling huge
holes in their API) doesn't seem to be the top priority.
I could be totally wrong on this and API V2 will be out in a few weeks and
blow all of our socks off.
------
tptacek
This seems like an extremely alarmist take on a VC's blog post. My read, which
is _also_ not authoritative, is that Wilson is just saying "stop writing URL
shorteners and image uploaders".
~~~
spolsky
More specifically, I think what he's saying is, "if you write a URL shortener
or image uploader, don't whine when/if Twitter decides that it needs to
compete against you by building that functionality into the product."
~~~
gscott
All of those people writing those things advertise Twitter. As we all know
Twitter has a huge drop off rate where people post a few tweets and then go
away... forever.
So Twitter is always in the need of new users. Let's say they do an Apple and
kick out all of the various different add-ons that they make (while allowing
ones that they don't make until they make one themselves).
Eventually Twitter will just be another memory because the critical mass,
people advertising twitter, will fall away.
------
cryptnoob
The least disruptive way for them to begin to capitalize on the money that 3rd
party developers are making off of them, in my opinion, is to introduce an
amazon type model, where the first 3000 (for example) api calls are free, and
then they're charged at 0.01 cents per call or something. Just layer on a
small api tax, so anybody actually making money can continue to do so, but
those who aren't will go away and unload the system. Giving away some free api
calls lets innovation and experimentation continue as well.
------
ct4ul4u
I suspect that "I think the time for filling the holes in the Twitter service
has come and gone" should be read as "I won't invest in something like that
anymore." He's a VC after all. My take is that he wants to see more
interesting and compelling opportunities for his portfolio and believes they
are built on top of the platform rather than augmenting it.
~~~
ryanhuff
While that's certainly a reasonable interpretation of his comments, the
enthusiastic chatter from Twitter employees in support of his comments speaks
to this being a common view from within Twitter's ranks.
|
{
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7 most crowded spaces for your new web startup - techcore
http://franticindustries.com/blog/2007/03/28/7-most-crowded-spaces-for-your-new-web-startup/
======
danielha
Look at them so easily and distinctly categorize all the different spaces of
the web.
I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of successful startups that significantly
overlap several of these categories. Don't look to strictly find a set that
your company falls into; just solve a problem no one has adequately solved
before.
------
mattculbreth
That's a great post. We all know that some places are overloaded, but it's
nice to have a concise list like that.
Quality and differentiation usually win out though. Hopefully somebody here is
working in one of these areas and we can see it. I guess heySan! and Zenter
come to mind, now that I think of it.
------
brlewis
Good point about photo sharing. But what's really surprising is that people
are still making text-sharing sites. Do you realize how many text-sharing
sites are already out there? It's pretty much hopeless today to do anything
with text that hasn't already been done.
------
davidw
There are a lot of time trackers/project management/todo list things, too...
I've been finding that out with my Stuff To Do application:-/
------
zkinion
Yeah, theres a ton of startups in all these areas. One must find a totally
different approach or do something different.
------
volida
this must be the most pessimistic article I've ever read in my life by the
most pessimistic writer out there!
If Paul Buchheit thought like this, we would never have GMail.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
Big Tech Is Going After Health Care - SREinSF
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/technology/big-tech-health-care.html
======
mxwll
There are some major hurdles for these SV companies to overcome if they want
any level of success in this arena. EPIC and Cerner together hold over 50%
market share of EHR systems in American hospitals. Their interoperability and
patient facing applications are a joke. EPIC actively makes it difficult for
third parties to build on top of their system.
Sure, these SV companies have figured out how to build great tech at scale but
transitioning an entire hospital network to a new EMR is a massive undertaking
-- both technically and organizationally. Many doctors had their world rocked
by the forced transition to using EMR systems and they run the other way from
those claiming a novel technology will solve all of their problems.
There are much greater issues at play here and IMO the organizational problems
within hospitals are far greater than the technical ones. To be successful
hospitals will have to become tech companies. They aren't exactly the hottest
place for top tech talent to end up.
I think the patient first approach that Apple and Samsung have been taking are
likely to win out. If they can build a system that captures an individual's
personal health record doctors will want that data. Hospitals will have no
choice but to begin integrating that data even if it lives outside of the
walls of EPIC, Cerner, et al.
~~~
nikanj
EPIC and Cerner are doing their best to, simultaneously:
1) Appear to be open, ready for innovation and playing fair (so hospitals
don't replace them)
2) Maintain their position as gatekeepers, and use that position to extract as
much revenue as possible. New startup wants to deploy tech at your hospital?
Hospital probably will end up paying more to Cerner for the integration, than
the new tech.
~~~
grwthckrmstr
Sounds EXACTLY like an industry ripe for disruption
~~~
nradov
The EMR market for hospitals and large clinics really isn't ripe for
disruption. This isn't an industry where a startup can quickly hack together
an "80% solution" as an MVP and sell to some early adopters. Due to regulatory
requirements and legitimate patient safety concerns any new entrant needs to
be a 100% solution from the start. Otherwise they'll never make it past the
first vendor down select.
There may be some limited opportunities for disruptive innovation in niche
markets like smaller medical specialties with unique requirements, concierge
medical practices, genetic counseling, etc.
------
blhack
Good.
I spent a few years working in a medical IoT startup, and the current state of
the "mainstream" medical monitoring technology is not inspiring.
During a brainstorming meeting, I asked one of our cofounders, a physician, to
tell me about some of the problems he had seen in health. Don't try and solve
it, just lets talk about problems.
He said that _by far_ one of the most common causes for re-hospitalization is
congestive heart failure. It's a super common problem, _and_ it's actually
really easy to catch (it has strong indicators). When your heart begins to
fail, depending on what side of it fails, your body will retain fluid (in the
form of blood) in either your heart or your organs. Regardless, you will bloat
up, and gain weight quickly.
So if a patient is at risk for CHF, a nurse will monitor their weight every
day (or multiple times a day) and watch for spikes. If their weight spikes, a
doctor will intervene in whatever way is necessary.
Can you imagine my frustration at hearing this? It's this massive problem with
an obvious (CHEAP!! SO FUCKING CHEAP!!) solution.
I spend $30 on a scale from amazon immediately, and about an hour after it
arrived I had it connected to an android tablet and broadcasting its readings
to a webservice.
We never went to market with that (long story). Please, if you have the means
to take something like that and scale it, do so. You could save lives. I'm
currently trying. More people should be trying. This stuff is so easy, and the
impact that you could have is massive.
Also: please call your grandparents and just talk to them. Ask them how they
are feeling. Social isolation (full disclosure: this is what my current
project is trying to solve) is probably the area where we as software people
could have the biggest impact.
~~~
hacker_9
The monitoring devices are the real problem, not the people. Do you think all
weight spikes simply equate to having CHF? You can't just rely on such a basic
measurement when dealing with an incredibly complex system such as the human
body. A lot more specialist equipment is going to be needed to come to a final
conclusion (Questioning from experts, MRIs, XRays, even Microsurgery with
cameras).
What consumers can currently access are weighing scales, and heartbeat
monitors. Maybe even temperature monitors. Do you think this stuff is useful
for diagnosing medical conditions? There is a whole lot going on under the
surface that we simply can't see at all, that's the real problem.
~~~
killjoywashere
Your comment is a great example of the disconnect between people in this space
and people not in this space. Do you actually think _anyone_ in this space
would believe that weight spikes are tied to CHF in all cases? You don't
diagnose CHF by weight. It's something you trend in known patients.
Comments like this are one reason why doctors give zero shits about the
potential of computing. Explaining even the basics of a narrow area of human
physiology to some overly arrogant IT guy is maddening (arrogant is fine, for
Pete's sake, it's not like doctors aren't arrogant). Yes, the doctors can be
blamed for conflating computer scientists with the IT guy who came to replace
their mouse. But the IT guy and the CS guy (always a guy) can both equally be
blamed for their unholy arrogance. How many lives did you save today? Zero?
Ok, at least I didn't spill any data (that I know of).
This can go round, and round, and round.
You have _no idea_ how far down the problem goes. I know this because _no one_
knows how far the problem goes. We sequence hundreds of thousands if not
millions of genomes, and still we don't know. Do you really think we spend a
decade in training and come out thinking everything is simple?!
Now, on the flip side, doctors also don't even know how to frame their
problems, in no small part because they're only required to take 2 semesters
of calculus. And then most of them punch out of math as fast as possible.
Computer scientists should be going to biology conferences. Go to ASCO. Pick a
medical specialty, they have multiple conferences a year, I garauntee it.
There's one or 10 in your city. If you want middle ground, look at
microbiology, immunology, molecular biology. They use a fair number of
quantitative methods (sequencing, mass spec, flow cytometry, etc).
~~~
jghn
I'm a software guy in the healthcare space, albeit not medical devices. We see
this problem all the time. Despite the fact that most of the people involved
have degrees, often Phd level, in CS, Math, and Physics we see no end of other
software folks from typical tech companies coming in and describing how we
just don't know what we're doing and that we need big tech to come in and
disrupt us.
There's a reason we do things the way we do them and it's not because we're
stupid and/or ignorant.
------
dawhizkid
As someone who most recently worked in product at a healthcare startup I found
the most difficult thing about innovation in the space is the cost of
compliance/regulation.
When you work in an industry that is so highly regulated, and assuming you are
working at a company that follows the rule of law, how do you actually
"disrupt" a set of problems in this industry when there is so little wiggle
room for doing things differently? Following legal guidelines in healthcare
means reenforcing bad norms rather than disrupting them.
One of the biggest WTF moments I had when I first started was realizing that
fax communication is HIPAA-compliant whereas email/SMS are not, even though in
theory anyone could walk by a fax machine at any time and take medically
sensitive information sent over.
~~~
newman8r
I'm pretty sure email can be HIPAA compliant as long as you implement the
system using the established guidelines.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Indeed it is as long as you’ve configured your email system to use TLS and not
downgrade to no encryption if the handshake fails for mail systems where
HIPAA-governed information is departing to.
Source: Not a lawyer, not your lawyer. Sign off provided by non profit bio
research orgs lawyer before I set it up.
~~~
newman8r
This is my understanding as well. Additionally, I believe you can send
encrypted attachments over an unencrypted connection. Furthermore,
[https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-01-25/pdf/2013-01073.p...](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-01-25/pdf/2013-01073.pdf)
suggests that it's acceptable to send patients unencrypted PHI if they've
explicitly agreed to accept the risks associated with that (although I'd be
extremely cautious in those situations)
------
bawana
Physician here. SV Tech will win because it is customer centric. Traditional
Healthcare tech is enterprise centric - the precept on which they base their
strategies is 'economies of scale'. People are not widgets. Economies of scale
(aka corporate controlled healthcare) do not apply. As institutions grow
larger, eddy currents of dominance develop - fiefdoms that compete for
control, power and share of the budget. There are so many layers of middle
management that the most popular complaint is that everyone is a manager. Our
hospital actually has 5x as many employees as there are patients in it. I know
of no other industry where this skewed statistic exists. Can you imagine an
airliner with twice as many stewards as passengers? Perhaps the legal
profession is an exception, where you have so many bodies tending to a trial.
In healthcare, patients are lost in this machine and the cacophony of voices
speaking to them is a disservice. Perhaps tho in this era of the consumer age,
some patients conflate quantity with quality and might actually feel 'more is
better'. If healthcare is delivered through a watch on your wrist instead of
an army of servants, the layperson might be able to focus his/her
understanding on the single voice their device has.
The other secret weapon of SV is that it promises to get people to open up
their pocketbooks to actually pay for their own healthcare. Government will
adore them for that. If you think that will never happen, just stop and think
for a minute. People shell out hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of
being tracked and being advertising targets. All because the mobile device
caters to their impulse for 'connectedness'. Imagine if this device promised a
longer life, better sex, better sleep, less disease. And it showed you with
colorful cartoon graphs how much better you were every time you asked it.
Forget the fact that many of these parameters are only relevant to the big
picture. Statistics apply to populations and any attempt to assign
characteristics from population studies to a given individual carry
uncertainty. They never tell you how big the error bars are, do they?
Certainly a better diet and more exercise confer health benefits. But trying
to 'gamify' this data will just add a cognitive burden and most likely will
lead to more popular misconceptions and misinterpretations. Or perhaps it will
be a new social nexus?When I am in a Starbux or Panera, there are always a few
conversations my ears cannot avoid as people share their health problems over
a sandwich and a coffee. And I cannot help laughing at how ironic the whole
HIPAA thing is.
Ultimately I fear that tech will foster the return of snake oil salesmen, on a
massive scale. We are in a deregulation mania now and I think healthcare will
soon fall under Trump's razor and he will encourage SVTech to make their move.
------
mjfl
Yeah, nothing's going to happen. Compliance costs are too high for any of
Silicon Valley's business models to work.
~~~
Forge36
I'm with you on that. For reference I pulled up Google's announcement that
"Google Health" is being shutdown.
[https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/update-on-google-
hea...](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/update-on-google-health-and-
google.html)
I could see Big Tech enter in other areas (Apple Watch and and their research
app are promising)
~~~
lern_too_spel
The post doesn't say that they shut it down due to compliance costs. It says
they shut it down because almost nobody found it useful.
~~~
acdha
I think the argument is that the problems are too challenging for the
management culture common at places like Google. Getting a product developed,
certified, and deployed is likely be longer than it takes for them to get
bored, forget what they were doing, and move on to something else.
------
oh-kumudo
If there is one industry that needs to be disrupted, that is US's health care
industry, it is too expensive.
~~~
epmaybe
I don't think tech disruption is necessary to reduce costs, a
multidisciplinary approach could do something similar.
Edit: apparently my comment never finished, lol. What I meant to say is that
disruption could work, but I think that optimization and regulations with the
tools we have today would also alleviate many problems we have.
------
zitterbewegung
They are going after health care because they either ran out of customers or
people to advertise to.
Hopefully they can make some progress but so far I don't see much.
~~~
Clubber
It's an immensely lucrative and recession proof industry.
------
Apocryphon
I wonder if this will prove to be an opportunity for cities outside of SV to
grab a bigger piece of tech. Nashville?
[https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2017/09/22/health...](https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2017/09/22/health-
care-is-growing-quickly-in-nashville-but.html)
------
AngeloAnolin
Interesting to see the big players like Apple, Google and Amazon making
significant investments in this area.
The big problem though still lies in the maze of regulatory bodies with which
all these innovative solutions have to navigate before they even get
mainstream. Small players who does not have enough financial leeway ends up
burying what could be a groundbreaking solution. Of course, governments need
to do their due diligence as public health is the one at stake but there needs
to have a certain compromise where the end result is the good of the public
and humanity.
------
hacker_9
This article is pretty devoid of content, and really only mentions that the
Apple watch can be used as a constant heart monitor. Big deal, you aren't
going to get much information from measuring just your heart beat and knowing
next to nothing else of whats going on in the rest of your body too.
The real technological breakthrough will come when we have the ability to
measure in real time what is going on in our various organs, such as enzyme
production and transportation of molecules, but that's a long way out yet.
~~~
lovemenot
Toto, the producer of fancy toilets in Japan, is believed to be developing
some kind of _back-end_ analytic system.
------
ynonym00s
Would love to get some insight into the work at Verily or DeepMind Health for
a software developer interested in working in healthcare.
------
perpetualcrayon
Why hasn't Big Tech made a bigger dent in the insurance industry?
~~~
tim333
Insurance has quite a lot of specialist knowledge that isn't really tech.
------
fiveFeet
I am all for it if someone can make the doctors use emails instead of faxes.
~~~
dqv
The problem is that we don't have a key server for doctors. I really wish
someone would lobby the HHS to provide a key server that maps to providers'
NPI. Then setting up PGP for email can be streamlined.
As it stands now, everything is fragmented because companies want to lock
practitioners and health care orgs in. I'd love to see them start issuing
"HIPAA compliant" seals for the implementation of open and secure standards
that make it easier for health care systems to communicate and transfer data
easily. That way all these closed solutions will have an incentive to actually
make communication between practitioners easy _and_ secure.
The biggest joke is secure messaging. There are all these apps for secure
messaging between practitioners. Of course, you have to be using the same app
to open a communication channel. I know at least one of these companies is
using XMPP on their backend, so it's likely others are as well. They are
_literally_ using open source solutions to make a problem that the open source
solution was supposed to solve! There's no reason why $SecureMessenger can not
communicate with $MessageSecure. They just don't want that to happen because
they think it will cause them to lose business.
------
659087
I don't want "big tech" anywhere near my doctor's office or anything else
having to do with my health.
~~~
Clubber
Too late. HIS is Health Information Systems and have been around for decades.
Also, thanks to the patriot act, doctors and hospitals share your health
information to the federal authorities without a warrant. So there's that.
[https://cdt.org/insight/law-enforcement-national-security-
ac...](https://cdt.org/insight/law-enforcement-national-security-access-to-
medical-records/)
------
mtgx
And it's going to throw your medical privacy out of the window in the process.
I suppose we'll also see some major deregulation similar to the net neutrality
repeal in the healthcare industry before long.
~~~
rossdavidh
Maybe, but in this case there's an entrenched interest (health care companies)
that might want to use medical privacy as a way to keep themselves from being
Uber-ized.
------
dawhizkid
I am a big believer that we have already discovered a safe, free, plentiful
lever against some of the most high profile diseases (cancer, Alzheimer’s,
some mental illnesses) out there in fasting/calorie restriction/keto.
I highly doubt it will ever become mainstream for the simple reason that no
healthcare or big tech co can make money from telling people to eat in a way
that induces ketosis.
Science of Fasting doc: [https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fasting-Sylvie-
Gilman/dp/B075...](https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fasting-Sylvie-
Gilman/dp/B075848T5T)
~~~
aviv
Insane how we both get downvoted isn't it? Oh well. Another decade or two
before people wake up.
Agree with you, so much of our economy and social structure is built on the
fact that people get sick - and either stay sick or get medicated for the
foreseeable future. Sad. All we can do is mention it, even though we get shut
down quickly be it online or IRL.
Mandatory anecdote: I cured severe arthritis in the knee 6 years ago through a
30-day water fast. It was gone by day 20 or so, and stayed gone for 6 years
now. It's sad that so many people suffer needlessly.
~~~
dawhizkid
Step one is getting to consensus on sugar = toxic, then refined carbs = bad,
then getting people to stop believing we were evolved to eat consistently
throughout the day everyday
It’s amazing that “you are what you eat” has become so controversial
~~~
aviv
The old "a calorie is a calorie" that Reddit/HN geeks like to point out
wearing their science hat. LOL. Oh man... Sometimes I think we've gone too
far. My kids have a hard time finding classmates to play tag with because most
of them are overweight and prefer to sit in the shade and eat their Costco
bought school lunch. It's really sad what's happening.
------
aviv
It's unfortunate that people think "tech" is what health care needs, when in
reality society would benefit tremendously if something as simple as a 5-10
day water fast became mainstream [again], as it used to be, before modern
medicine took over.
|
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|
California Senate passes universal health care bill - fred256
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article153931299.html
======
ZeroGravitas
Why is the level of conversation on this topic so low?
There's two top level comments here that effectively say: "Healthcare costs
money! You didn't think of that did you, commie!".
And this is on a forum full of intelligent techies who are interested in
business. I shudder to think what the opinion of the average Republican voter
is. Some fever dream involving death panels no doubt.
------
dreamthtwasrome
This won't pass the house, the Property class won't let it. (Their two
departments are the Democrats and Republicans.)
If it were possible, in a hypothetical sense:
Raise corporate taxes, they're much too low to be sustainable.
Care would need to be more efficient than Cuba or UK NHS in order to be cost-
effective, this means preventative medicine and QALY will be front-and-center.
The question will be how to pay for major operations and expensive, ongoing
conditions without ending-up with Greece-style finances and IMF bailout
austerity conditions. Even with cutting costs to rest of the world prices (1/4
of current prices), it would still be hundreds of billions per year. It's not
impossible, but it would be an up-hill climb all the way and might not be very
good with compromises, loopholes and back-room deals that will likely infest
it.
Maybe there's enough rich corporations and wealthy people with taxes to raid,
but their lobbyists on both sides of the aisle won't allow anything more than
crumbs and getting back to sucking the blood money out of poor people.
~~~
adiabatty
Last I checked both houses were over 2/3 Democrats. Is this not the case now?
------
ams6110
_The bill does not include detailed language about how the state would come up
with hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for health care coverage for
nearly 40 million residents._
Perhaps they expect to go bankrupt and let the rest of the country bail them
out?
~~~
digitalzombie
You mean the red states that California have been subsidizing to help us out?
~~~
dreamthtwasrome
California is indeed a profit-center in the United $tates.
------
valuearb
$400B a year with no way to pay for it.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Instead of everyone paying insurance premiums, they pay through taxes. And no
need to argue: almost every other first world country provides universal
healthcare funded by taxes. It's both financially possible and prudent.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_unive...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care)
~~~
dragonwriter
> And no need to argue: almost every other first world country provides
> universal healthcare funded by taxes.
Almost every other developed country provides universal healthcare, but
there's a mix of systems and all-public systems are not overwhelmingly
dominant. Mandated-purchase with public safety net programs are not uncommon.
~~~
toomuchtodo
I think we're in agreement? There is a basic level of care in those UHC
countries, but then private insurance/services/etc for above and beyond.
~~~
dragonwriter
In some the model is very similar in outline (but superior in execution) to
the US ACA model: everyone is required to buy insurance with certain minimum
standards, with subsidies and/or a public fallback program for the indigent.
In some there is a universal public baseline program that everyone is on that
you may be able to supplement on top of, as you describe, but that's not at
all _generally_ true.
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How to Talk to Your Parents About Encryption7 - r3bl
https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-to-talk-to-your-parents-about-encryption/
======
ColinWright
Dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10790861](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10790861)
|
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Random startup tip #1: Picking a name - matt
http://blog.mattrubens.com/2007/07/06/random-startup-tip-1-picking-a-name/
======
coffeeaddicted
What I find more important now in retrospect is to agree upon a name as one of
the first things when working together with someone. _Not_ because the name is
important, but because this will be the first decision where you can find out
how good you will work together when you have an argument. If you can't decide
on a name, work with someone else.
~~~
pg
This is a good point. We find it also works as a predictor of success at the
level of whole startups. When a group is spending half their time agonizing
over what to call themselves, that's probably a sign of deeper breakage.
------
mr_luc
Is this a troll, or did the author not realize that urbandictionary isn't
exactly a reliable resource?
The entry in urbandictionary for "googe" tries to be funny but is clearly
fake.
I suppose it's technically possible for someone to name their startup
something like "Blumpkn", but I'd say this is a non-issue.
It's a good idea to think about a word before buying it as a domain, but
that's common sense.
~~~
matt
Fake meaning what? Doostang is just a ridiculous name regardless, but it might
have served Google well to see if 'googe' had any other connotations (whether
or not they're in Merriam/Webster) before putting it in a logo.
~~~
mr_luc
First, the stem of the cherry was intended to be the L, but it's acknowledged
that it doesn't look that way.
Secondly, "Googe" doesn't connote anything, unflattering or otherwise.
When I say fake, I mean that people try to invent new words on
urbandictionary, and not words that people have ever used before. Don't
believe me? Then just click a letter on urbandictionary and read the entries
sequentially instead of by popularity.
To sum up: the examples used in the article are completely ineffective, but
know what words mean before attaching them to the identity of your company.
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CloudFlare issues wildcard SSL certs for domains without owners consent - tachion
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/certificate-transparency/1tAcVS17wMM
======
BetaCygni
Just a simple misunderstanding/communication problem. The "DNS-only" option
seems to be reached by clicking "Pause website", that will "temporarily
disable CloudFlare". Seems quite reasonable to still have the certificate
available, so it can be used right away when you unpause.
------
hobarrera
Just checked this for my domain. Looks like CloudFlare requested about 3-4
dozen certificates for my domain. It does worry my that this many certs are
going around, but given that they already manage my DNS, I've already given
them enough power anyway.
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All she wants is the rain water that lands on her roof - soundsop
http://www.wildlifemanagementpro.com/2008/07/09/water-rights-and-rain/
======
spectre
Where do they draw the line on rain harvesting? It sounds as like having any
vegetation on your property would be included.
------
cubicle67
I too live in a very dry area, but here we're actively encouraged to install
water tanks and harvest our own water, with the understanding that for each
litre of rain collected about 10 litres of dam water is saved.
[Edit: this makes no sense. sorry. What I mean is that if 10% of water makes
it to the dams, then for each litre I collect, only about 100mL would have
make it into the water supply.]
------
ars
I have to wonder why she even asked in the first place?
~~~
anigbrowl
She grows and sells organic food. So being registered as a farmer, she
probably has to show where her resources are coming from or be fined.
This is a really interesting article. Tradable resource rights are often
touted as a solution to environmental overuse but this is a good example of
how they can go badly wrong.
~~~
noonespecial
I wonder what they would say if she used a precipitator to get moisture from
the air?
~~~
jrockway
"Wow, that's an expensive and horrifically inefficient means of getting water,
lady."
------
quoderat
I'm proud to be an American, because at least I know I'm free....
------
Bensch
This does sound like a ridiculous law - it's possible that all they need to
change is to allow people to harvest water if it's to be re-released on the
same property.
------
sethg
How are water rights distributed in the Western states? I'm wondering if this
is analogous to a few large plantation owners locking up great swaths of
arable land (which their ancestors acquired in good Lockean fashion after
killing off the native inhabitants) and refusing to sell to a poorer
entrepreneur who might use some of that property in a more useful and
efficient fashion.
~~~
anamax
> I'm wondering if this is analogous to a few large plantation owners locking
> up great swaths of arable land (which their ancestors acquired in good
> Lockean fashion after killing off the native inhabitants) and refusing to
> sell to a poorer entrepreneur who might use some of that property in a more
> useful and efficient fashion.
People who use resources inefficiently eventually lose them to folks who
don't.
Or, were you referring to national parks?
------
padmanabhan01
This does look really ridiculous at first. But when I come to think of it,
both parties do have a point.
If ground water is something that is shared, then it does make sense to ban
one from drilling a bore and extracting all of it even if one were to drill it
in his property right?
------
gills
She has to be a pawn in some larger game that intends to subvert water rights.
Bills don't come into the state legislature over one organic farmer's attempt
to capture rain water. This reads like a slimy PR piece to stoke "grassroots"
support for overturning water rights.
~~~
knowtheory
Even if this were a piece in a larger debate, the stance the courts have taken
is highly counter-intuitive (although granted it's not represented in this
post), and completely opaque to me.
I can understand the concern to preserve the water rights of the most senior
people (okay, that's a lie, i think it's stupid, but i'll capitulate to the
court's desire to preserve the system). But i just don't understand how this
is either a slippery slope (oh! a pun!) to loss of water rights/usage, or how
this could possibly materially effect other water usage.
So... yeah, i'm skeptical about the court's position.
------
fishercs
regardless of who is right or wrong here, she's going about this the right
way. Let the public know about it and she'll get her water if a big enough
stink is created about it all.
------
riffic
she should just do it anyways. it's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask
for permission.
~~~
noonespecial
Except that apparently, forgiveness costs $500/day.
~~~
jrockway
And if she doesn't pay?
(The answer is: she gets in legal trouble, and the issue goes to a real court,
with the possibility of appeals. Will three judges really think she can't use
the water that lands on her roof?)
~~~
anamax
> Will three judges really think she can't use the water that lands on her
> roof?
Odds are, yes.
What other laws do you want judges to ignore? On what basis? What are the odds
that they'll only ignore the laws that you think that they should?
~~~
jrockway
It's a matter of correcting the faulty science that led to the current
decision. If using water from your roof really deprived the "rights holders"
of their water, then that's one thing. But it seems that that's not the case,
even though that's what officials are telling her.
(Courts decide facts, not laws.)
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Could you cope with eight different jobs a week? - pmoriarty
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/43145319
======
gamechangr
Or just get out of the academic world. Everyone knows it's going down.
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Ask HN: is Prolog special or enlightening? - QuadrupleA
In the book Coders at Work, Joe Armstrong got me curious about Prolog: "Prolog is a beautiful language but not widely used... Prolog is so different to all the other programming languages. It's just this amazing way of thinking."<p>Another blog post, "Six programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding", mentioned Prolog as an example of the mind-expanding "declarative programming" paradigm, which got me curious enough to start experimenting with it.<p>As an experienced programmer in C++, Python, SQL and other languages, I found myself thinking, "I could do all this quite easily with a relational database, or with structured data types in a mainstream language." Defining relationships between data (e.g. "likes(fred, apple)."), boolean predicates ("is_fruit_eater(X)."), etc., could be represented easily with boolean fields, boolean functions, and so on. And searching through your data for certain conditions is pretty trivial with a for loop or recursive search, with the added bonus that you know what the hell is going on algorithmically without having to read the Prolog interpreter's source code.<p>But: I'm a Prolog ignoramus at this point and have only scratched the surface, so I wanted to see if any Prolog veterans on here could shed some light. Is there a moment of enlightenment that comes with a little more persistence and study? Am I missing something? Can it be summed up in mainstream-language terms?<p>People giving advice online seem to take the attitude of "learn everything you possibly can, it can only help your programming knowledge" but with finite time on earth and a bottomless supply of information out there (look at how deep you can go into the game of chess!) that always strikes me a bit glib and uninsightful. So for someone who's walked down the Prolog road - how was it worth it?
======
zmonx
Prolog is well worth learning for several reasons. One is practical and easy
to explain: Syntactically, Prolog is a very simple language with a powerful
implicit search mechanism. As one consequence, it lets you _prototype ideas
quickly_ , especially if search is involved in some way, which is almost
always the case in practice.
The second reason is harder to explain. I can only hint at it for now, and you
will understand the full extent once you apply Prolog in actual practice: With
Prolog, you feel closer to the actual task. First, because you will not manage
to even get started unless you manage to express your ideas clearly. Without
this, there is nothing "to do" in Prolog. In other languages, it feels that
you can always "do" something, such as declaring interfaces, types etc., even
if it does not truly help you for the task at hand.
I have sometimes heard students proclaim: "Prolog is so hard! I could easily
solve the task in Java, but I cannot solve it with Prolog." When you ask them
to describe how they would solve the task in Java, they are unable to do it.
In my view, this shows that the tasks we demand from Prolog beginners are
typically already _inherently_ much harder than what we demand from beginners
in most other languages. There is also a reason for this: These simpler tasks
would often be non-issues or at most extremely trivial in Prolog, so we eschew
them entirely.
Second, you are reasoning _directly_ about terms, without any intermediaries
such as pointers, references or even arrays. It's just terms, terms all the
way down. They come into existence by simply _writing them_ , or by stating
the properties that ought to hold, and asking the system to _find_ them. This
second property is specific to logic programming and _not_ present in
functional languages.
In a very real sense, this is close to the ideal of programming: We describe
what we want, and the machine finds it.
Prolog has many other advantages too, such as admitting very simple yet
powerful meta-interpreters, much shorter ones than are possible for Lisp, for
example. The implicit search mechanism and logical variables enable such
features which are missing from most other programming languages.
Finally, constraint logic programming blends in naturally in Prolog. This is a
very important paradigm that is heavily used in specialized industries, making
excellent Prolog skills also very marketable.
------
kazinator
_Logic programming_ is very useful and absolutely worth learning, like object-
oriented programming and functional programming.
Unfortunately, the Prolog implementation of logic programming, arguably, not
so much.
An alternative is to find some general purpose language which supports Prolog
semantics as a library.
E.g. one example is miniKanren, which has been implemented in a number of
languages, many of them Lisps but not all:
[http://minikanren.org/#implementations](http://minikanren.org/#implementations)
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the-
ma...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the-main-
technical-differences-between-prolog-and-minikanren-with-resp)
If you're using something like miniKanren, you've got the logic programming,
plus the rest of the language in which to do other things in other ways.
The idea that you specifically have to use Prolog for logic programming is as
outdated as the idea that to do OOP, you must use Smalltalk.
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“Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics” - donohoe
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
======
kerng
I totally agree with this!
I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to
monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads
overall. Many kids started playing it also.
Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the
ads they might see are at times super inappropriate!
Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and
have a good time. Its not always about money. At times I get contacted by
players, how they love the game and how it has been part of their childhood
etc. Some very moving messages, worth more then a few additional bucks from
ads and I feel much better because players aren't exposed to random ads,
pictures and messages.
The learning for me was that I will never work on anything that uses ads as
source of income, this includes turning down jobs at Google and Facebook.
~~~
TheCapn
Do you morally disagree with advertising/tracking monetization as a whole or
just those particularly geared towards vulnerable populations? (children in
your instance)
I have my professional job developing software solutions for clients on a
contractual base, but for a period after I graduated university I dabbled in
mobile development and made the decision during that time that I'd never bloat
my crappy apps with ads or tracking. I can't particularly articulate why I'm
against that business method as a whole, but something always felt wrong in
subjecting people to tracking/advertisements for my own monetary gain... if
I'm not producing something worth paying outright for then I'm not going to
skim pennies off the privacy of my users.
~~~
derekp7
I can give you my feelings towards this topic. Personally, I don't mind ads
that inform me of the existence of a product that I may be interested in,
where it tells me how it can solve my problems.
What I don't like is ads that use psychological devices to try to get me to
buy their product. I also don't like ads that are a distraction of the content
I'm trying to consume. So when playing a game, if the ad scroll at the bottom
of the screen is flashy, I can't easily play that game so I give up. Now an ad
that shows on a loading screen may be more acceptable, as long as the contents
of the ad aren't something that would get me fired if someone at work sees it.
I also hate that ads have to have their own javascript in it. The ad networks
should provide a safe canned set of functions that they control, and not serve
up anything that an ad customer submits.
Finally, if I'm already doing research for something (such as browsing through
the Bose headphones site), I don't want to see ads for those same headphones
that I already researched, following me around on all the web pages I visit.
It just really feels like someone is stalking me. Or look through a site like
rvtrader, then when you look up the weather the next day you see a bunch of
camper ads. Again, stalking. It's gotten to the point where I constantly
browse in a private browsing tab (yes, there are ways they can still track me,
but they aren't as obvious about it).
~~~
renlo
The distraction aspect is what really gets to me; cancelled my NYTimes
subscription after these bright red / orange advertisements loaded all over
the page, where the content I was interested in was the bland black text over
white background. Couldn't even read the headlines without naturally focusing
on the bright red advertisements.
~~~
gryz
So, do they really have the same ads as you could see without subscription?
~~~
tylerhou
Yes, WSJ too
------
joshstrange
Here is the whole section
> 1.3 Kids Category
> The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are
> designed for children. If you want to participate in the Kids Category, you
> should focus on creating a great experience specifically for younger users.
> These apps must not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities,
> or other distractions to kids unless reserved for a designated area behind a
> parental gate. Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow
> the Kids Category requirements, it will need to continue to meet these
> guidelines in subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the
> category. Learn more about parental gates.
> Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or
> analytics. You should also pay particular attention to privacy laws around
> the world relating to the collection of data from children online. Be sure
> to review the Privacy section of these guidelines for more information.
It appears to only apply to apps in the "Kids Category" so Candy Crush and the
like can just say they are "adult"/not-kid-games and continue to be used by
kids (while showing them ads and tracking them).
~~~
criddell
Why do they ban third-party advertising in particular? It seems like
advertising should be allowed as long as it's display only with no outward
information flow. Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads
should be allowed.
~~~
mithr
In general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular
don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze
content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree
than adults.
> Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed
I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of
TV/magazine ads should be strictly controlled (and probably they are -- I'm
not sure what the exact regulations around these are, but I am sure it's much
harder to publish a blatantly misleading magazine or TV ad, without
consequences to the advertiser or the network/magazine, than it is to publish
one online).
~~~
snek
Not just a belief, it's been studied many times, and it is in fact illegal to
have "native" advertising on children's TV shows, at least in the U.S.
~~~
scarface74
Almost all cartoons aimed at kids hope to make money on related merchandise. A
lot of animated shows were cancelled because while the ratings were good, they
skewed toward older teens and adults that didn't buy toys. Two that come to
mind are "Young Justice" and the original "Teen Titans". Cartoon Network
specifically made "Teen Titans Go!" to skew younger.
This isn't a new thing, they killed off most of the Transformers in the 80s
movie so they could introduce a new line of characters/toys.
------
move-on-by
So far the only kids apps I've used with my little one is 'Sesame Street' and
'PBS Kids Video'. He loves Elmo, and its very handy in the pediatrician's
waiting room to have a distraction.
I also run a PiHole, and to my displeasure, I've found both these apps use
Google Analytics. PBS Kids Video goes a few steps further and uses Google
AdWords as well as ScorecardResearch analytics. These publicly funded apps are
siphoning data about me and my little one off to 3rd parties. The 3rd paries
might not be able to use that data for targeted advertising within the app,
but make no mistake that the data is still used to 'enrich' my shadow
profiles. I am very excited about these changes from Apple and I hope that
they are able to enforce them. I've written both of the apps support emails in
the past about the analytics and never received a response.
I've also heard of a popular BBC kids app called CBeebies. Last time I ran it
on my iPhone, it reached out to Facebook, Localytics, Branch.io, Google
Analytics, app-measurement.com, and onesignal.com
~~~
penagwin
I dislike tracking as much as anyone, but can you really fault them for using
Google analytics? It's not like PBS choose to use them "to profit off the
viewers".
~~~
stevenwoo
I have a stupid question, why don't they use something like Matomo instead?
~~~
rchaud
GA today is much more than just pageview analytics. With something like Google
Tag Manager, you can have non-technical staff add in event tracking for stuff
like form completion or file downloads, without needing to get developers
involved. Reporting for stakeholders is also robust because of its integration
with Google Data Studio, Google Sheets and other related tools.
Ultimately though, GA wins because these organizations outsource web
development and digital marketing work to agencies or contractors, and they
are the ones that make the tooling decisions. GA is a known quantity, so even
if their contract isn't renewed, a new agency will be able to take over the
account fairly frictionlessly.
And there are more contractors that are GA-focused than there are for Matomo,
and that's important when you're tasked with shopping around for agencies.
------
CountHackulus
Dropping adds seems good to me, but dropping analytics doesn't seem great from
a game dev perspective. New features and game balance is often driven by
analytics data. For example, if no one's using a certain feature in the game
then maybe it needs more attention brought to it or maybe attention won't be
focused on it for the next update.
I understand that there's a fine line between game analytics and farming PII
but I think it's an important line. I'm sad to see Apple forcing you to use a
first-party analytics solution. Smaller indie devs often won't have the time
to set up their own data pipeline and depend on things like Unity Analytics or
Flurry to help them do data analysis.
~~~
dsjoerg
I guess I should start a service that provides small indie devs with "first
party" analytics. I provide the software, it runs on a server dedicated to
you, your data is separate from anyone else's. That's first-party, right? But
I suppose I would have to charge 3x more for that than Amplitude does.
~~~
itake
There are a few OSS projects that do this. I am not sure how well they
integrate with mobile apps though.
[https://matomo.org/](https://matomo.org/)
------
panpanna
Google please steal this idea.
Edit: current policy is
"Ads in your app that are served to children need to be appropriate and served
from an ads network that has certified compliance with our families policies."
See [https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-s...](https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-safer-google-play-for-kids.html)
~~~
duxup
Considering the state of the play store and such ... probably nobody is paying
attention.
~~~
panpanna
A year ago I would have agreed but a lot has happened lately.
Play store went from 3.2m to 2.6m apps last year. When it comes to rejecting
apps that violate their tos they are pretty trigger happy.
~~~
duxup
I feel like they're trigger happy... but via automation and scripts that I'm
not sure are getting that much.
Like the volume is down, but for all I know it's just the same actors getting
the same stuff out there.
It's really hard to tell.
~~~
panpanna
I thick they are starting to do some good.
For what it's worth, Apple QA is also mostly automated.
~~~
duxup
It would be interesting to know how Apple's automation works as the impression
(may not be accurate) is their approval or denying is a bit more precise.
------
the_unknown
As a parent of 3 children and owner of multiple iPads and Android devices
(including a kids edition Fire Tablet) this really strikes a chord with me. We
buy the Toca Boca and Sago Mini games and the occasional game from other
providers that strike the kids fancy.
But this is a huge development. Big enough that I'll be dropping the Android
devices and switching my kids over to Apple ones completely. As it is I have
lots of conversations with them regarding why some games they see will never
be bought by us (like those awful Thomas and Friends ones that you have to buy
then still have ads and IAP to put up with).
Thank you Apple. But also, shame on you industry for making this something
that I need to specifically look out for.
~~~
fhsm
What do those conversations sound like with Thomas age kids? If you’ve got
tips, metaphors, known failure, anything at all on how to create a class level
understanding that short circuits per instance debates I’m all ears.
~~~
the_unknown
LOL. I ended up going overboard on it and actually took them to a store for
Teachers' materials and bought some exercise books on Media and
Currency/Finances and we've ended up with a bunch of discussions about
personal finances, the advertising world, and critical thinking. I'm trying to
instil in them the ability to analyze what they see, understand what the
motivations of others are and translate that to the messages they receive.
If all goes well they'll understand what ads are and how they manipulate us
from a young age and be better able to deal with this crazy world as they grow
older. Of course this is a long game - I don't know if I'm being successful
yet but I'm hopeful.
------
gorkemcetin
This has been something both requested and discussed online for a long time.
Kids can't really decide what information to share and what not, and they are
often bombarded by retargeting ads supported by analytics services. It still
remains unclear how those apps will make money using 3rd party ads, but it is
clear that kids apps won't be able to use 3rd party SaaS services (Mixpanel,
Amplitude, Firebase, etc) and have to rely on same-domain-on-premises and/or
open source product analytics services, eg Countly (shameless plug: I am co-
founder of Countly, building an open source analytics platform particularly
for privacy and security reasons).
Let's see how it goes. Apple sometimes comes up with a "quick" decision and
then stands down after a few months as criticisms occur. I expect that
corresponding wording will change until the section goes into effect.
------
pnutjam
That's great, except there is no way to create a "kids" account without
another apple device.
My kids school won't participate in the program to create kids accounts for
schools, and I don't own other apple devices. So on my rented ipad, the only
option is to create a 13+ year old account (for my kindergartner). So now that
she's in 2nd grade, apple thinks she's 16.
I've complained about this endlessly to the school, and talked to a couple
lawyers. Apparently there is no legal issue because I have to create the
accounts, so they are my accounts. I'm just letting my kid use them.
So... apple sucks, give us a web-ui for creating child accounts. I don't mind
having a parent account, but you cannot have family accounts without an Ipad
or some other apple device, and a single ipad is a single user device.
~~~
gridlockd
> I don't mind having a parent account, but you cannot have family accounts
> without an Ipad or some other apple device, and a single ipad is a single
> user device.
You can't just log in to the ipad with a parent account, create a child
account, log out, then log back in with the child account?
~~~
pnutjam
I tried this, but whenever the child account needs approval, your done. You
can't approve anything so your child is stuck.
------
crazygringo
> _Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or
> analytics._
Totally agreed for advertising... but analytics are essential to improving the
quality and usability of apps including for kids, and they're a real cost to
roll your own. Using third-party analytics is like using a third-party JPEG or
MP3 decoder: it almost never makes sense spending 100's or 1,000's of hours
writing your own.
So I don't get it. What's the harm for kids in third-party analytics? Third-
party analytics are just a service, they're not necessarily ever correlated
with anything else. But even if they are, the only argument I can imagine is
not helping further build up advertising profiles... but if kids aren't seeing
the ads _anyways_ then again, what's the harm?
~~~
dawnerd
Because it’s wrong?
~~~
crazygringo
What is wrong about it?
"Because it's wrong" isn't really a response without something backing it up.
That's what I'm asking -- what's the harm, where's the wrong?
The harm in advertising is obvious. A harm from third-party analytics is not.
~~~
dawnerd
Analytics can be harmful too. Developers use it to make the app/game stickier,
more attractive to children. Children also have no way of consenting or even
knowing what analytics are. Not only that but there’s no knowing what happens
to the analytics at third parties - regardless of their privacy policies.
Basically all third party analytics are designed to build profiles and help
marketing.
Plenty of safe ways to track interactions that don’t rely on third party
scripts which gobble up all kinds of data. Plus might even be illegal
depending on jurisdiction.
~~~
notatoad
>Developers use it to make the app/game stickier, more attractive to children
another way to phrase that is "developers use it to make the game more fun"
~~~
Avamander
Addictive does not always mean fun. Kids love bright things like lasers and
love to shine them into their eyes (I know I did), doesn't mean it's a good
idea - even if it is fun.
------
S_A_P
Here me out here- I equate apps with ads as predatory. The gut feeling from
many apps/games is that the goal is to annoy you into paying. Many “free”
games let you have one ‘turn’ and then force a 30-60 second ad on you that
usually redirects you to the App Store to download some other affiliate app.
Maybe I am the old man screaming get off my lawn, but when pc shareware was
the rage you usually attempted to delight the user into parting with their
money. Then I remember a shift in the late 90s where ad/malware started
showing up in shareware. That effectively killed the shareware market for me.
Rubberduck h30 was the app I remember as the culprit.
~~~
cbsmith
But this won't prevent ads. It merely prohibits third party ads.
------
Someone1234
How does this impact Google's "YouTube Kids" app. It is currently listed as
the "Best video app for all kids" on iTunes. It contains more videos
advertising stuff to kids than it does any other kind.
With McDonalds non-affilitated but clearly still ads being the most prominent.
~~~
lotu
Well given that Google own the AdSense/DoubleClick platform which is used for
serving ads on YouTube as well as all of it's own custom analytic tools none
of these would be third party. The part about not linking out of the app would
still apply though.
~~~
tdaltonc
Wow, so that really reinforce the trend toward monopoly and conglomeration in
tech. Make a kids entertainment platform and you must get acquired by google,
facebook, Amazon or Apple before you can turn on ads.
------
jsnell
Here's how I expect this to go:
1\. Six months from now, Apple will announce a new ad network, which will be
whitelisted for Kids apps.
2\. Twelve months from now, they'll ban all non-Apple ad networks in kids
apps. If they want to be subtle about it, I'm sure they'll find some
inappropriate ad to use as a pretext.
3\. 18 months from now, they'll open their ad network to all apps.
4\. 24 months from now, they'll ban non-Apple ad networks in all apps, and
swim in money as they've found another way to squeeze more money out of their
captive userbase.
And every step of the way, HN will cheer as Apple continues to brutally
exploit their ownership of the platform.
~~~
cyrksoft
What's the problem about Apple doing that? It's their platform. You can go use
whatever else you like, nobody forces you to use their system.
~~~
gnopgnip
Apple force's you to use their platform if you have an Apple device. You can't
install fdroid, or anything else.
~~~
asaddhamani
And that is why Apple devices are more secure, faster, more privacy-
respecting, and last much longer with good performance. That trade-off is
absolutely worth it to me.
~~~
wayneftw
Nope. Kids demand Apple devices because of the cool factor.
"Survey: 83% of US teens have an iPhone, Android 9%" \-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357)
Seems like they're abusing their monopoly to me.
~~~
cyrksoft
Where do you see a monopoly? The fact that people choose it doesn’t make it a
monopoly. Specially with that price tag. You can choose many other options.
There is no real economic argument to call it a monopoly.
~~~
wayneftw
"Survey: 83% of US teens have an iPhone, Android 9%" \-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357)
They've got a monopoly on kids devices.
~~~
cyrksoft
Market share is different from monopoly. Apple is not the only phone
manufacturer. There are many companies out there making phones. The fact that
everybody likes or chooses them doesn’t mean they are a monopoly.
~~~
wayneftw
Market share is absolutely a huge factor in defining who has a monopoly.
------
yawz
This should be the standard across the board, but unfortunately we're too far
from that. As a parent, it pisses me off to see not-age-appropriate
advertisement shown to kids.
~~~
xemdetia
Yeah, part of me wonders if this is just more a reaction to the apps market
hitting the next plateau and one of the last impulse growth markets being kids
apps. Once there is a special category it should create a new breed of app
that would inherently get less complaints/refunds/etc.
------
lallysingh
This is the first thing I've seen Apple do that actually makes me happy about
them. I haven't considered one of their products in years.
------
busymom0
I develop for both iOS and Android and since last year, I have completely
stopped using ads in all my newer apps. I have switched to a freemium model.
On my recent HACK app for HN client for example, I let you use all features
and unlock features on a session basis. So lets say you switch on dark mode, I
let you use it for the session until the app is either killed by iOS or
restarted from the app switcher. Once restarted, you need to re-set the dark
theme and I just show you a popup asking you to support development with a one
time only small IAP. This freemium model has been working good.
On another of my apps, OLEDify I have used a tipping/donation model where I
give all features for free complete and hope that you will tip me whatever
money you like. This hasn't really gotten me much despite thousands of
downloads and DAU but I just don't want to support the advertisement companies
based on all the recent manipulative tactics they have been playing.
------
chillydawg
If I were apple I'd extend the definition of a kids app as any app thats
userbase is kids by majority. Not sure how to enforce or detect that, though!
~~~
MBCook
> Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow the Kids Category
> requirements, it will need to continue to meet these guidelines in
> subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the category.
Sounds like they’re ready.
------
Rebelgecko
Are first party ads better for kids?
~~~
vilhelmen
I'm curious what keeps "first party" analytics/ads just phoning home and doing
the third-party transaction server-side.
~~~
majewsky
Apple's banhammer, should the public ever catch you in the act. (I guess.)
~~~
bilbo0s
And their ban hammer is not terribly sophisticated either. They find one ad
that is the same, or similar to, an ad being served someplace else and WHAM!
Unless you've got money to burn, don't try to be nickel slick with Apple.
Learned that the hard way.
------
tyfon
I would be much more impressed if it said “Apps intended for kids may not
include advertising or analytics”
As it stands now it seems rather empty and in relation to recent news
something that could fuel the anti-trust talks.
Edit: considering that the law of my country states specifically that you can
not target kids with ads, I wonder how apple will handle it since they now
obviously have a method of tagging apps targeted at kids.
------
ricardobeat
Yes! This is amazing. The thing I most loathe is the advertising that shows up
when my kid is using one of the few apps we allow (and PAID for), in the
limited allotted time with the iPad.
Total feeling of powerlessness, especially when the content is not exactly
child-friendly: last one she told me about was an ad for a game with somebody
tied up, having his head cut-off, inside Cut The Rope.
------
duxup
I like it, leave kids out of this stuff rather than dance around policies and
enforcement about what ad networks are good or whatever.
------
arenaninja
Good; I only wish this is where applications on phones had started to begin
with. Try giving a toddler a phone and they'll figure out navigation controls
on their own easily, but once ads start playing they'll smash it because they
have no clue what to do. Ads have no place in apps for kids
------
thefounder
Next: apps/games for kids should not include micro-transactions/inapp payments
------
akerro
This is massive, Apple banned what Google does with Chromebooks for
kids/schools.
~~~
saagarjha
Chromebooks for education don't use the information for advertising, right?
~~~
MBCook
That’s what Google says.
------
fidz
In addition, you may want to see
[https://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com/](https://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com/)
for detailed changelog / history.
------
jm20
We have a decently popular kids app, Kodable, that helps kids learn to code.
While this is something we’re mostly already in compliance with and have never
actually included ads, I worry about the analytics.
We use anonymous analytics to track things like user completion through level
funnels. Nothing nefarious about it, if one of our levels is too hard for kids
and there’s a big drop off from one to the next, we want to know about it and
tweak it. I worry how this will effect stuff like that, but I also wonder how
you can even differentiate “proper” analytics usage.
------
sidlls
This is interesting.
What options does that leave for making money on these apps? Charging directly
and first-party ads? Are parents willing to pay for these apps?
~~~
iscrewyou
If parents are willing to spend money on consoles for their kids to play and
for school supplies for their kids to learn, this isn’t any different, right?
Parents will pay.
~~~
sidlls
Mobile is much more difficult to monetize than consoles. People have become
accustomed to getting mobile apps for free.
------
tlogan
This will not change a thing. I still have to see a kid which plays games from
"Kids category". So no Minecraft... no Terraria...
------
yalok
Can someone please clarify the “analytics” part? All kinds of analytics
services, or services that use your app analytics for their own purposes, or
use it for the sake of ads targeting/retargeting, or have PII risks?
I’m not sure I see the harm to kids if an app uses some ads-free analytics
provider like Amplitude just for its own 1st party needs... or am I missing
something?
~~~
scarface74
Do you have the source code to Amplitude? If not, you don’t know what the
binary blob you’re including in your code does.
~~~
yalok
yes, on iOS (Unity App) all of Amplitude SDK is in source code.
~~~
buremba
Yes, maybe they can't place an ad on your app but they do track all your user
event data which means that they can target them somewhere else. All the iOS
unique identifier, location, and user attribution data are collected directly
into their servers.
~~~
yalok
yes, they collect and store that data, but what if they don't use it anywhere
else other than for my app analytics?
It's a very vaguely defined rule which may create tons of additional work for
developers, yet may not improve the privacy in some cases.
~~~
buremba
Well, you can always use open-source solutions in order to collect your
customer event data into your data-warehouse and run your queries on your own
data.
------
ixtli
This along with the "sign in with apple" feature really makes it a good time
to be a bit of an apple fanboy.
------
robbrown451
Is this a new change? What is the backstory on this?
And how is "third party" defined? Sounds easy to game by having it only
directly communicate with the server of the app developer, and having it
completely impossible for Apple to tell whether or not they are then
communicating with a third party service.
~~~
anbop
An ad network is not going to trust your stream of requests, taking you on
your word that your requests are coming from actual users and that the ads are
getting shown back to actual users.
------
madrox
I worked for a very large company that's considered a leader in apps and games
for kids. I don't think this is as good as it seems first glance.
COPPA compliance isn't new. There are _some_ third party analytics tools that
are COPPA compliant, and any responsible company is already taking COPPA
seriously. What's new here is saying you can't farm responsibility for your
data collection to COPPA-compliant third party SDKs. My guess is because there
have been too many watchdogs raising concerns, and it's much easier to review
apps for compliance if you blanket ban third party SDKs with this purpose.
That said, this isn't going to change the business need. You'll just seem more
first party code hitting a first party wrapper to a third party service. It
will also encourage more small companies to try rolling their own, which
invites bad security practices and greater risk what the data that _is_
collected. I'm not sure that really helps kids or parents overall.
~~~
scarface74
Like I said above, what’s wrong with the simple idea of getting people to pay
for apps and avoid any ads?
~~~
madrox
I don't think there is, and there's a lot of apps with that model. However,
that's not the topic at hand.
~~~
scarface74
Hopefully with Apple making it harder to monetize via ads, it will be the
topic.
------
djsumdog
Can we get this rule for adults too?
------
bfrog
Working on an ad platform, this definitely makes sense.
As a company we moved away from user targeting to context targeting where app
developers provide all the context. Our case is specific to transit but I
think in general this invasive ad model needs to go away
------
tdaltonc
This means that if you make an app for kids, and you were planing on using ad
monetization, your only recourse is to get acquired by an Ad-Tech company
(Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon included) so that you can run "first-party
ads."
------
beaker52
I'm being drawn into Apple by their stances on things like this and privacy.
As much as I am bought into the Google eco-system, I'm questioning how long
that'll be for.
------
musicale
This is good, but they should probably ban all ads in kids' apps, particularly
ads that push microtransactions and in-app purchases.
~~~
bilbo0s
You're in luck. I strongly suspect microtransactions and in-app purchases are
next on the child content chopping block. (Well, at least for Apple.)
If you're making apps for kids today, you should definitely start looking at
how you can stay in business without these kinds of facilities.
------
jiveturkey
Apple is so 'on it' right now.
------
sadness2
Sounds like a missed opportunity for Apple to provide a curated, child-
friendly advertising channel.
~~~
cwkoss
> child-friendly advertising channel
There is no such thing. Children do not make purchasing decisions. Advertising
to children is adversarial manipulation of the development of their
preferences.
------
rejschaap
I never thought I would say this, but I will get all of my apps from the kids
section from now on.
------
whenchamenia
Can i just get kid cersions for all my apps then? Why should adults not enjoy
the same freedom?
------
LukeBMM
How about adding an additional, voluntary section with apps that are bound by
the same standards and requirements, rather than segmented by audience or
purpose?
~~~
scarface74
I would hope that an adult would have the maturity to make the decision not to
use ad supported apps if they didn't want to.
~~~
lawnchair_larry
Adults can't really make that decision for analytics though. Most iOS users
that don't use facebook have no idea that facebook has all of their data
including their location because third party apps are using facebook's
analytics SDK, for example.
------
brightball
A great start!
------
SparksZilla
This will include Facebook, right?
~~~
ClassyJacket
Facebook doesn't allow you to sign up unless you're 13 years old, and isn't in
the 'kids' category of the App Store, so this is not applicable.
------
Creationer
Apple should just go all in:
Disable free to play games targeted at children completely. Require every
children's game to have an upfront price (I suppose the $0.99 minimum app
charge at least).
This would be great news for the market - game developers would focus on
building more rewarding gaming experiences, instead of just endless skinner
boxes. It would also help sell Apple devices, since developers would not need
to target the lowest-common-denominator for mass advertising appeal.
~~~
drivingmenuts
I think your optimism is misplaced. App developers would soon figure out how
to charge 99 cents for a Skinner box.
~~~
cwkoss
I wonder if you could list multiple copies of an MMO game client on an app
store, with each client having a different price and providing different in-
game aesthetic effects like "FooGame: Sparkly Hat Edition".
Could be an easy way to get around this limitation.
~~~
drivingmenuts
That already exists with the Basic, Advanced and Pro editions of some
application software. Extending that paradigm to a game is just a matter of
determining which expansion packs are preinstalled.
------
throwayEngineer
But all Apple apps will continue to do this?
You really need to drink the Apple koolaid to think this changes anything.
~~~
scarface74
The only Apple app that has advertising is the App store. They've already
stated that the games that will be a part of Apple Arcade won't have ads.
~~~
throwayEngineer
But they will collect data for APPL
~~~
scarface74
Third party developers will send data to Apple? What’s Apple going to do with
it?
~~~
throwayEngineer
Apple has their own apps. Do they collect data on children?
Will they let some high profile devs slip by? Apple is known to be anti
consumer.
~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've
been doing it a lot, and it's not what this site is for.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
------
joegahona
I don't mean to be pedantic, but I'd argue that Apple copy writers should have
used "shall not" rather than "may not" in this text. The latter is ambiguous
and could mean "perhaps they won't..."
~~~
captainredbeard
Apple's copy writers didn't write it, their lawyers did.
------
brownbat
If you charge for listing and take 30% for sales, people are going to try some
aggressive revenue techniques.
One of the biggest unsolved problems for users is how to get the security of a
walled garden while still encouraging open development, the sort of little
experiments that become free simple QoL apps or toy proof of concept programs
that spawn a business.
It's a problem only for users of course, less so for the gardeners.
~~~
scarface74
You mean they are going to charge enough money to account for the cost of
distribution? That could even be a new business model -- charging people money
and giving them stuff. Like software makers have done since the first personal
computer or game console came out? You realize that retail stores were
routinely charging 60%?
~~~
brownbat
This has sat for a while. I don't really understand why the sudden dismissive
sarcasm, but my best guess is I just didn't explain my point very well. You
probably don't care at all, but for posterity maybe I ought to explain what I
meant.
I feel like it's easier to find reputable free software on PCs than on app
stores. I'm not saying all software should be free, or that free software is
better than paid or ad-supported software, or that it's crazy to charge for
hard work. Nothing radical.
It just seems like on other platforms there are a variety of models that all
overlap. Less so on app stores.
My best hunch is that the dev fees have something to do with that.
I feel like you're saying this is purely a distribution cost, but all these
platforms are using the same Internet. I also don't think Apple is setting
these fees at pure cost. They have a captive set of users that developers
can't get access to in other ways. Monopoly rents for access to that unique
set of users wouldn't be that crazy.
Maybe I'm wrong though. If there's some other theory that explains this, I'd
love to hear it. "It's expensive to move electrons" doesn't seem to explain
why the ecosystems on different platforms are so different though.
EDIT: tone.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Richard Stallman Is Active and Doing Well - madmax108
http://techrights.org/2019/12/02/rms-alive-active-and-well/
======
jascii
"""Summary: The rumour mill may still be humming along; but against all odds —
as Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project — Stallman keeps fighting the good
fight"""
Calling the body of questionable posts by RMS a "rumor mill" seems rather
disingenuous.
I have always been a great admirer of RMS, particularly of his no compromise
stance in ethical matters. I hope he can learn from this and turn this episode
into something more positive for all involved, but seeing this, I will not
hold my breath.
~~~
eindiran
I think the author intended for "rumor mill" to refer to posts about RMS, not
by RMS.
~~~
jascii
I haven't seen any posts about this issue that don't address direct quotes
and/or posts by RMS directly. I wouldn't call that a "rumor mill". Granted, I
have not read everything written about the subject.
------
downerending
I don't know him personally, but I've traded email with him recently. He
clearly is maintaining his laser-like focus on the same cause he's been
focused on for decades, which I greatly admire.
Didn't really expect less, but being the target of a vicious attack does
sometimes break people.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What's your interview question? - marmshallow
What behavioral or technical interview questions do you like giving? What has proven to be a good measure of a candidate's ability?
======
acctng
What have you been reading lately?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Facebook will remove 5,000 ad targeting categories to limit discrimination - anigbrowl
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17764480/facebook-ad-targeting-options-removal-housing-racial-discrimination
======
bertil
It sounds like they are not removing the category but the ability to exclude
members from those categories from any ad. This shows that they didn’t trust
real-estate agents to declare their ads as related to housing. I’m wondering
if that means that they don’t expect to be able to target ads on political
topics, and maintain the requirements on proving your identity.
------
Spivak
This doesn't seem like it's really addressing the core problem which is that
Facebook is wholly responsible for the ads on their platform but getting away
with having little to no human involvement in vetting them. Somehow they've
convinced legislators that if advertisers don't have the ability to target
specific demographics and they have a ToS that asks advertisers to pretty
please not discriminate then Facebook is not-in-theory-but-in-practice
absolved of their liability and can remove discriminatory ads ex post facto.
Now look, I sympathize with Facebook here because above a certain scale it
becomes impossible to police just about any community and advertisers are
really no exception but I don't think the takeaway should be to change the
rules just because some process doesn't scale, surely there has to be some
middle ground.
------
crb002
Isn't discrimination the point of Facebook targeting? They could easily throw
a warning if the set you are hitting is out of protected class ratios for the
geographic neighborhoods and you could randomly sample around them to fix
bias.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Self-driving cars can be disabled with a laser pointer and a Raspberry Pi - scoot
http://www.alphr.com/cars/1001483/self-driving-cars-can-be-fooled-by-fake-cars-pedestrians-and-other-bogus-signals
======
ArcticCelt
Human-driven cars can also be disabled with a laser pointer to the eye of the
driver.
[http://www.livescience.com/21707-lasers-eye-
damage.html](http://www.livescience.com/21707-lasers-eye-damage.html)
~~~
mikeash
Human driven cars can also be disabled with funny sounds or women wearing
short skirts or a bit of spray paint on the road.
We really need to remember that humans are atrocious at driving on average,
and doing better than them is a pretty low bar. Not that we shouldn't strive
to improve automation, but don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
~~~
krapp
Human drivers, on average, are not "disabled" by any of that. Distracted
momentarily, sometimes, perhaps, but not disabled - city driving is _replete_
with "bits of spray paint" and "funny sounds" and sometimes "women wearing
short skirts." On average, human drivers manage a great deal of complexity
without incident. We use the same visual acuity, adaptability and instincts to
negotiate traffic as we did millennia ago to avoid predators and survive our
climb up the food chain, and we're actually quite good at it, albeit obviously
not perfect. Human drivers are capable of not mistaking the reflections of
other cars _for other cars,_ and know the difference between a cardboard box,
a human being and another vehicle.
The bar is actually quite high, if you want to do better than humans _on
average_.
~~~
mikeash
Humans usually aren't disabled by that, but sometimes they are. How often is a
human distracted by one of these things, and before they can recover they
drive into an obstacle? It happens with great frequency.
And in this particular case, humans not only can be disabled with a laser
pointer, but they can be disabled _permanently_ , not just for that driving
session, but for the rest of their lives. Can't swap out cameras in a human
driver. Yet somehow this is not a crisis for manually-piloted cars.
~~~
krapp
> It happens with great frequency.
I doubt it happens that often, but I can't back that up with numbers, and I
can't be arsed to try.
But, humans can vary in their driving ability. In the case of autonomous cars,
you would have to assume any flaw in one is shared by all. The problem isn't
the laser pointers, or that humans can also be disabled by laser pointers, but
that autonomous cars aren't yet smart enough to deal with errant signals. If
all the autonomous cars can be stopped by an ever increasing list of simple
conditions that (with a couple of exceptions, like a laser pointer in the
eyes) wouldn't stop an average human driver, then it implies that the current
state of the art does not nearly live up to the hype.
~~~
mikeash
We can come up with a long list of simple conditions that wouldn't stop an
average computer but would stop an average human, too. For example, a computer
won't have any trouble driving for 48 hours without powering down, or with a
stinging insect in the cabin.
That's not to say that computers are superior to humans. It's quite clear that
the current state of the art in autonomous driving is way behind what humans
can do. My point is simply that comparing scenarios which one can handle and
the other cannot is not very informative.
------
djrogers
"Google, Uber and even Apple’s potential self-driving car can all be
foiled..."
So two cars that haven't even been seen in public yet - one of which might not
even exist - can be foiled by this technique?
Might be true, might not be - no way for anyone involved in this story to know
though. Is this really what passes for journalism now?
In fact, according to the article, this was never even tested on an actual
autonomous car's software - he just spoofed a commercial LIDAR system and
extrapolated from there.
~~~
archycockroach
"Ultimately, this latest car hacking is yet another signal that industries
usually disassociated from data security now need to start taking it
seriously."
Garbage.
------
scoot
_" Petit began by recording pulses from a commercial Ibeo Lux Lidar unit.
Discovering the pulses weren’t encoded or encrypted, he could simply use them
at a later time to fool the unit into believing objects were there when they
weren’t." _
That appears to answer my longstanding question as to what might happen when
multiple vehicles using lidar are on the road at the same time. (Pulse timing
notwithstanding of course, but given enough cars and enough time it could be
periodically problematic.)
However, regarding stopping a car with fake laser generated obstacles - that's
nothing that can't be done with real "obstacles". A roll of paper or aluminium
foil stretched across the road can't be discriminated from a solid object, and
a a few empty cardboard boxes are as good as concrete blocks to a self driving
car.
Or even just standing in the road yourself if you have sufficient faith in the
technology.
~~~
analog31
I suspect that the lidar signals could be modulated in the same way that cell
phone signals are, so that a population of cars can share a single laser
wavelength without confusing one another.
------
Robdgreat
Ever since I first played Need For Speed 2, I've fantasised about a real-life
version of the ROADRAGE cheat code I could use to cause those doing the rest
of us on the road a disservice to flip over with a mere honk of my horn. We're
not there yet, but this is a clearly a step in the right direction.
------
jedberg
You can disable a human driven car the same way, and you don't even need the
Raspberry Pi.
------
redthrowaway
You don't need the Raspberry Pi to disable a human-driven one.
~~~
mirimir
Randomly pointing lasers at vehicles is a good way to get shot. Just sayin' ;)
~~~
chx
USA, baby, USA! Feel threatened? Answer with deadly force, it's the only way.
~~~
mirimir
Laser gun sights are very common in the US. So for some people, it's more than
just "feeling threatened". They're arguably too paranoid. And irresponsible.
But being right about that won't help if they shoot you.
------
chipsy
I remember how when laser pointers started proliferating there was a media
panic over their potential use in downing aircraft and blinding people.
Schools swiftly moved to ban them(I recall being in a few assemblies where
someone brought in a pointer and caused some mild, easily ignored disruption).
Regardless, the world hasn't blown up. You can still legally own a laser
pointer in most countries, subject to various power limits. The risks and
responsibilities involved in their use are real, but have to be weighed
against every other hazard.
------
andrewchambers
The police will crack down on you as hard or harder than if you just pointed a
laser pointer at human drivers. You can get very long prison sentences already
for doing this.
~~~
veb
They already do to people who do this to aircraft!
------
rfrey
Who needs a laser? Self driving cars can be disabled with a three dollar box
of roofing nails.
~~~
mikeash
Yeah, but at least they're immune to two-dollar boxes.
------
JabavuAdams
Who did the industrial design on these cars? What's the target market?
I love the tech, and I love the goal, but I might refuse to ride in one of
these just because they look too retarded.
EDIT> This may seem frivolous, but I see it as a huge barrier to adoption. At
least make them look cool, not like preschool toys.
~~~
sigmar
>Who did the industrial design on these cars? What's the target market?
No one did the industrial design. It isn't a product, it is a prototype to
test a technology.
~~~
JabavuAdams
Right, but someone had to create that image, even if it's CG. The image itself
is a liability to the eventual product's marketing.
|
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|
Coinbase added Bitcoin Cash - will_brown
https://mobile.twitter.com/coinbase/status/943270201058922496?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
======
mohoff
This will increase the price of Bitcoin Cash further.
I feel like Bitcoin Cash is very unpopular in online forums (HN, reddit) but
its value increases still... any explanation?
~~~
drunkenmeister
Why is it unpopular?
------
sgwealti
Look at the price!
~~~
lurker78
dropped back to normal level, some people made some money....
~~~
lttlrck
Anyone that knew when coinbase we’re adding could have done very well.
~~~
lttlrck
Oh look...
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42425857](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42425857)
|
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People who use BSD as their desktop os, why do you choose BSD over Linux? - rodrigo975
https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/gkvcs6/people_who_use_bsd_as_their_desktop_os_why_do_you/
======
blaser-waffle
Security, simplicity (at least in principle...), plus an excuse to understand
other OS's. FreeBSD had a cool history, and its, like 80% of the way to OSX,
right?
In practice getting help or fixing things usually required more deeper
thinking than it should.
Laptop drivers, esp. wifi were problematic.
I liked FreeBSD as a server OS, but Fedora runs Steam and AMD graphics out of
the box, and finding Red-Hat-related solutions is easy.
------
smabie
If I could use OpenBSD as my primary OS, I would. Unfortunately, the
performance isn't there and sometimes you run into compatibility issues. The
OS itself is absolutely beautiful though. Great documentation and you get the
feeling that someone actually designed it, unlike Linux that has man pages
from like 1992.
------
doublerabbit
Because Linux is now fat, bloated and in bed with a few enterprises loosely
named as Microsoft and Google.
I reject Linux for the same reason as people rejected Windows back in the
80’s.
Once it went main stream and people went “I use Linux, it’s Ubuntu” which is
only commercialised version of Debian. I decided to switch.
I’m not a big gamer so that was never a requirement for me. I just want an
operating system that turns on when I press the power button. Linux fails at
that. The drama, noise..
------
jki275
Well OS X is a BSD, so I use BSD for my desktop OS because that's what comes
on my Mac...
But seriously, the only successful desktop Unix or "Unix like" OS has been OS
X, and it's really a joy to use. I don't have to fight it like I do Linux.
If one of the BSDs would offer a better windowing system than X, I'd consider
switching. For now, OS X is pretty much where it's at if you want Unix on the
desktop.
------
andarleen
Unfortunately I stopped using freebsd some 10-12 years ago, due to lack of
compatibility and modern applications. I wouldn't have minded contributing
with tooling but it lags so much behind linux that it would have been a waste
of time. It’s a shame tho because I really liked its structure, performance
and generally speaking the philosophy around freebsd and bsd os’ in general.
------
KitDuncan
For me Void Linux hits the sweet spot, between BSD philosophy and Linux
compatibility. Really enjoyable desktop distro.
~~~
smabie
You know what bugs me, Void Linux claims to be BSD inspired but uses a sysv-
style init system (runit). I don't like systemd, but sysvinit is even worse.
If Void Linux used an rc init system, I would probably switch from Arch Linux.
I like OpenBSD's init system: super simple and best of all, no bs runlevels!
~~~
duncaen
1\. Void Linux doesn't claim its BSD inspired, BSD inspired could mean 100
different things.
2\. runit is not a "sysv-style" init, its the complete opposite. runit is a
supervisor and inspired by daemontools. A "rc init" is more closely related to
"sysv-style" than runit is.
3\. > I like OpenBSD's init system: super simple and best of all, no bs
runlevels!
Runit has no runlevels, can actually automatically restart services when they
die, can signal services without relying on pid files (which are prone to race
conditions) and can create a pipe between a service and a log service that
will never lose any logs.
------
bromonkey
because root on ZFS (for Linux) is a painful endeavour that is best avoided
|
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Are We Taking CSS Too Far? - superduper
http://blog.echoenduring.com/2010/08/14/are-we-taking-css-too-far/
======
tptacek
It bothers the hell out of me that many web devs have decides that all HTML
and CSS should be hand-editable and comprehensible at a glance.
Obviously, it's vital that both those features be possible.
But it's not obvious to me that those features be required in all markup; on
the contrary, it seems far more useful for there to be a standard, predictable
strata of functionality that developers can target with compilers.
From that perspective, the ability to do pure-CSS buttons and icons is a win.
It's hard for a web developer hand crafting markup to apply CSS buttons, but
it's trivial for a developer using something like Sass to get a button as a
oneliner.
I'd sacrifice 10,000 extra lines of line noise markup in every design if it
meant I never had to open Photoshop.
~~~
metamemetics
> _the ability to do pure-CSS buttons and icons is a win._
CSS is not designed for assembly of vector graphics, we have SVG for that. SVG
is a well defined and logical format for web vector graphics. The ideal case
would be Firefox and IExplorer implement embedding SVG graphics with <img> to
catch up with Opera\WebKit. Also since SVG is xml based any web app could also
probably implement dynamic generation and cacheing for bizarre use cases.
~~~
mike-cardwell
I didn't realise Opera/Webkit would display SVG from an img tag! They don't
execute the embedded javascript though, you need to use an object tag for that
still.
------
nanairo
I agree with the author wholeheartedly.
I always assumed these were experimental of the "just 'cause I can" type.
Trying to show off how far CSS can go, but not really in a realistic usage.
I read here though that people believe this is a useful type of use. Without
getting into a flame-war if it is or isn't, I think the answer there is SVG:
that should be just perfect for these sort of usage.
~~~
mgcross
Unfortunately, IE 8 won't render SVG at all. I suppose graphics could be
designed in a vector-based tool like Illustrator that can export SVG for
compatible browsers as well as raster for lte IE8.
~~~
msy
raphael.js can take svg-style input (it's trivial to write a svg-raphael
converter) and display it in all browsers incuding IE using IE's VML support.
It's a hack but it's a damn nice piece of tech and allows us to move forward
with SVG use.
------
sjtgraham
"Are We Taking CSS Too Far?" I would say yes. I first had thoughts like this
when Webkit introduced CSS animations. Something like an animation seems to me
to be a behavioural concern rather than one of presentation, and thus belongs
in the JS layer.
Pragmatically speaking I don't mind CSS animations as much since they can do
things that are non-trivial to pull off convincingly in JS, e.g. 3D
transforms. I also understand CSS animations are, or imminently will be GPU
accelerated too.
~~~
rix0r
A nice compromise would be:
_transformations_ in CSS (display concerns), _animations_ in JS (behavioral
concerns)
WebKit went ahead and did both...
------
rudd
I'm surprised that so many people here are saying that pure-CSS buttons are
actually a good thing, because they're programmatic. Sure, they're
programmatic, but the code behind them is really confusing. I'd much prefer to
use a sane drawing environment like an HTML5 canvas or the Raphaël library.
Raphaël is perfectly suited to this sort of thing. Anything you make in
Illustrator, you can make with Raphaël, and you get nice, clean code.
------
protomyth
Somedays I just wish we had used Postscript with hyperlinks instead of
HTML/CSS/Javascript.
~~~
jacobolus
Any further explanation? I think for most people with websites, postscript
would be an absolutely terrible choice: the barrier to entry is simply too
high.
(Note: I think PostScript, and stack-based languages generally, can be great
fun, but really not for the average “guy making a site about his dog” sort of
user)
~~~
protomyth
I am not as sure it would be such a horrible choice. Most people don't hand
code their site and a Postscript derivative would have probably got decent
support from Illustrator and the DTP crowd. It would have probably been easier
for the normal user because writing software to create the pages would have
been quite a bit easier. It would have spawned a lot more software instead of
the user-unfriendly "use a text editor" culture we have now. Also, having an
actual display model that was well understood by the creative crowd would have
been pretty nice.
------
sp332
If you want to minimize HTTP requests, or store everything in one document,
couldn't you embed a GIF or PNG in the HTML using MIME? I just checked, and a
PNG of the "profile" icon is about half the size of the CSS. (261 bytes vs.
560).
~~~
MichaelApproved
The problem with that method is it'll make the initial page load really
slowly.
Often multiple http requests are avoided because browsers only make a limited
amount of requests to a server at the same time. The best way to fight this is
with image sprites and css source files stored on another server. I believe a
simple sub domain would be enough to trigger more requests at the same time.
Something like files.domain.com that even points to the same site as
www.domain.com should do the trick. Load your site from www. And css/images
from file. Subdomain.
~~~
robin_reala
No, he’s talking about data URLs. They work in everything barring IE6+7.
------
wihon
Is there any way we can unite the global community and ditch IE? Or at least
make it catch up with everyone else? I've only been involved in the world of
web for a short time - but even for me IE is a massive clumsy thorn in my ass.
I agree with the author about the slightly over-the-top usage of CSS to make
graphics - but what bothers me more is the fact that IE may either fail to
render your creations properly (c.f. <http://bit.ly/aqv6jT> from the article),
or make perhaps better alternatives (like SVG) unecessarily painful.
------
_delirium
Hmm, this trend of replacing bitmap images with CSS vector graphics is
interesting but a bit strange. Is SVG on the browser dead, and CSS is
replacing it? It has the advantage of better support and a simpler spec, but
_much_ worse tool support than SVG, not to mention really not being designed
for vector graphics.
~~~
zokier
SVG didn't gain the needed momentum as it's approach was more revolutionary
instead of evolutionary. Also Internet Explorer, although I'm not sure how it
fits in this situation as it surely can't support all that fancy CSS required
to do advanced graphics either.
~~~
robin_reala
SVG is supported (and hardware accelerated) in IE9.
~~~
mike-cardwell
Also, SVG can be embedded directly in HTML5 now. Also, Firefox 4 seems to be
making progress on actually supporting SVG animations now.
I don't think SVG is dead, I think it's getting closer and closer to the point
where people will actually be able to start using it as was intended. Not
quite there yet though.
------
bittermang
Just because you can use a crowbar in the place of a hammer, doesn't mean that
you should.
The right tool for the job, and other such anecdotes.
~~~
sliverstorm
Ah, but it certainly means I _would_!
(You know. In the absence of a hammer)
------
mjterave
Yes.
------
cpr
No.
~~~
user24
Did you read the article? He makes a good argument why CSS icons are a Bad
Idea. In short, paraphrased:
CSS is about facilitating graphical display, it's not about creating the
graphics themselves.
I think that's a good point. I'm quite shocked to see someone's pushing CSS
Icons as an actual solution to a problem - what next, CSS video? It's possible
(an absolutely positioned div for each frame, and then just cycle the z
indices to animate (perhaps even sans-js using :hover!)), and would be a
lovely thing to hack around with, but as a serious "let's deploy this"? Whoa
there.
That's taking CSS too far.
~~~
tptacek
CSS buttons mean that web apps can create UI elements without (a) relying on
ugly, unreliable browser builtin sprites, and (b) having to handcraft graphics
for every label the application needs. It's not a small win; it reduces many
feature requests from 30 minutes down to 2.
~~~
earnubs
If you need to handcraft graphics for every label the application needs then
you are doing it wrong.
~~~
tptacek
We generate them with GraphicsMagick, but I've worked on my fair share of
projects with complicated web UIs, and it was definitely not the standard
practice I observed to automate this stuff (I got made fun of on this project
for taking a couple hours to do it). They made buttons in Photoshop.
|
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|
Before cancer kills, it cheats - chmaynard
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/harvard-talk-envisions-path-to-containing-cancer/
======
wgerard
Hah! Wow that's a blast.
I used to work at a lab as an undergrad that worked on extremely similar
topics, though the cancer link was more implied:
[http://research.fhcrc.org/shou/en.html](http://research.fhcrc.org/shou/en.html)
We had four yeast systems: Two cooperative yeast systems (exchanged
metabolites the other needed to survive), and two cheater systems (needed
those same metabolites to survive, but just took from the system and never
gave back).
One experiment I assisted with was basically putting them all together at
differing ratios and seeing what happened over time - the different systems
released different fluorescent proteins, so we could measure their relative
populations.
Common sense might dictate that the cheaters would rapidly outgrow the
cooperators and eventually crash the whole system, but that actually didn't
happen until very high ratios of cheaters.
The cooperative yeast systems somehow managed to extinguish the cheaters
pretty consistently (all the experiments were repeated and done in
triplicate). This happened even at fairly absurd ratios like 3:1
cheaters:cooperators. Unfortunately, I left before any of the follow-up work
to determine why that was happening.
All that to say, it's fascinating how much cooperative systems really are
favored in nature. Glad to see someone explicitly applying this idea to
cancer.
~~~
QML
Your post kind of reminds of two other articles along the same concept: [1]
[http://ncase.me/trust/](http://ncase.me/trust/) [2]
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-triumph-and-
cooperate-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-triumph-and-cooperate-in-
game-theory-and-evolution-20171109/)
------
bhickey
Slime molds are another excellent model for studying cheating. They're
typically single cell organisms except when starved. Then they chemotax an
aggregate into a multi-cellular organism. At this point they undergo
sporulation, producing a stalk and a fruiting body. Cells in the stalk die
while those in the fruit are hopefully whisked to greener pastures. When the
slimes are homogeneous this works just fine. In a heterogenous setting all
bets are off.
Cheater mutants have been widely observed and fall into two categories:
obligatory and opportunistic cheaters. The obligatory cheaters refuse to
participate in the stalk, while the opportunistic cheats preferentially
segregate themselves into the fruit. It's easy to see how these behaviors
might be beneficial. There's a double edge to obligatory cheating, though: in
they cannot undergo sporulation.
~~~
AllegedAlec
Maree and Hogeweg did some really cool research on Dictyostelium (one of those
slime molds). For those interested:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/98/7/3879](http://www.pnas.org/content/98/7/3879)
------
domnomnom
Here are some ideas:
Look at the functional call stack. Its a slice of the linear address space
that’s actively being used and it is strikingly similar to the promoter
regions of the genome. Like some pathogens, hackers randomly try to hit that
sweet spot that will jump to the special program.
Operating systems are like simple biological organisms that evolve in response
to various influences (cybersecurity it seems these days). My favorite is
OpenBSD, they invent the cybersecurity. They were one of the first to
implement address randomization for kernel and library loading. This is
actually strikingly similar to what goes on with the genome with
retrotransposons during early embryology stages.
People really like to repeatmask (aka SINE/introns) genomes because it makes
BLAST go faster. Ironically, arithmetic/statistical compression algorithms
work really well with repeats (I don’t think this compressed state can be
examined, but compression algorithms are seriously under appreciated).
~~~
smallhands
I have no idea what you are talking about but does human biology have
computation at the core? Any papers on these?
~~~
thraway180306
_biology have computation at the core?_
Doubtful. You can to computing _with_ DNA
[http://dna.caltech.edu](http://dna.caltech.edu) but it is still debated if
the actual role of DNA is being a code (some recently weasel out form that
stance by saying it's an “app”, like there's a difference, machine code being
a code). Coding theory applied to DNA yields inconclusive results. Galois
theory usually has power over any kind of information encoding, cryptographic,
computable or not. One constructed one for DNA convinced mathematicians it's
not the way to go at all. If it's computation it's nothing like what we mean
by any model computation, you may as well say it's magic instead of making
stretched analogies.
About OpenBSD and evolution, that's so fetch... these folk _invented_ the
attack in the first place, not evolved a response to some market force in the
early oughties. Broadly I don't think designed systems are in business of
evolving, otherwise living organisms could perhaps evolved electro-hydrostatic
instead of hydraulic power system with a pump being a single point of failure.
~~~
Cybiote
Linking biology to specific concepts in computer architecture or worse, with
OS design, is indeed a stretched analogy but biology is rich with computation.
I'll try to be short.
A cell must sense and respond to its environment. One aspect of this is
regulation of gene activity by interactions of for example, transcription
factors. When interaction types can be well enough approximated as either of
inhibition or activation, you can model them with boolean networks and when
levels matter, some have found moderate success with recurrent neural networks
under a restriction on what NN nodes represent, to ease interpretability.
That is not the same thing as saying your genome unrolls neural networks. What
it is actually saying is that the complexity of the best performing neural
network indicates the richness of the underlying computation, and the
predictive accuracy of the model captures the functional equivalence of the
respective computations (in the cell and in the neural network). The learned
model is the instance and neural networks are the class, it is a mistake to
place emphasis on neural network, they are merely a way of packaging the
computational model of interest.
A cursory review here:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001048251...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010482514000420?via%3Dihub)
If you have time for videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA9D727AGHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA9D727AGHI)
, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX-
GrO2qXQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX-GrO2qXQM)
More relevant to this article is the study of cancer within the framework of
_evolutionary game theory_ , as done here:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768082/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768082/)
There is a precise correspondence between that formulation and one done in
terms of online sequential prediction or the so called experts algorithm. All
of these are models and still quite limited at that but biology is complex and
the future lies in the development and leveraging of these rich connections.
~~~
domnomnom
Can you explain how the analogy is stretched? It’s my personal belief that
biologists tend to be fairly implementation focused from how they learn about
the systems involved.
In biology there is 2 factor authentication to protect against parasitic
spoofing, intrusion detection systems, protected kernel memory, memory
hierarchy, policy based permission. It a very nice operating system IMO.
~~~
Cybiote
Analogies can help but if taken too far, will provide only illusionary
knowledge from superficial similarities. Consider, if you trace out the
hierarchies induced by interactions in biological networks and then do the
same for an OS's call graph, you find quite different topologies reflecting
their different priorities. In computers, in part, efficiency and reuse. In
biology, robustness, minimized interdependencies, developmental stability and
more.
There are things that concern our electronics that do not matter for biology
and there are many things biology must allow for that our hardware cannot.
Tying things down to the peculiarities of our systems too narrows the scope of
applicable models and understanding. Sometimes it is more useful to think in
terms of stochastic differential equations than in terms of operating systems.
------
mikepetroff
A video of her full talk is available here:
[https://www.facebook.com/harvardmuseumsofscienceandculture/v...](https://www.facebook.com/harvardmuseumsofscienceandculture/videos/815475351995720/)
~~~
fredsted
Youtube link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLgvdS3VEQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLgvdS3VEQk)
------
homero
A future where cancer is controlled but not cured is just as good and might be
easier to achieve. I hope science gets there before I get cancer which is
inevitable, unless I die from a heart attack.
~~~
jcims
Agreed. My wife is going through this now, and the primary issue is the
uncertainty around it all. Nobody can tell her what her future holds, just
that there's a very high likelihood that 'success' will be fleeting and this
won't be our last series of chemo.
I may be misunderstanding what the author proposes, but if the threat of
cancer was reduced to the physiological impacts of dormant tumors, I'm pretty
sure we would consider that a win.
~~~
spyspy
Always relevant xkcd [https://xkcd.com/931/](https://xkcd.com/931/) really
helped visualize for me what going through cancer treatment is like. God
speed.
~~~
jcims
This pretty much nails it. Thank you.
------
artsnail
How accurate is the comparison with plant fasciation, for anyone who knows
more? My experience with owning/growing fasciated succulents (usually referred
to as "crested" by growers and collectors) has been that they're more
challenging to grow in terms of risks of things like overwatering, but as far
as I know that behavior doesn't necessarily impact their overall lifespan.
Sometimes a crested specimen can also revert back to normal growth. Maybe
that's tangential to the article itself, but it's something I'd be curious to
find more information about.
------
untilHellbanned
Professor at a med school here.
Regardless of whether you think the specifics presented in this article (e.g.,
NSAIDS-esophageal cancer) are right, it’s great to see this kind of
philosophical approach to biomedical research. We need more people like this
professor.
That she started with a plant and that made her think about humans was a great
insight. She rightly recognizes the key role of cell autonomous vs. cell non-
autonomous processes in how multicellular organisms work.
That she is a woman and someone not at an Ivy League school is also very
refreshing to see getting publicized by Harvard. There are so many great
scientists aground the world doing great stuff. Let’s keep finding them and
reporting on them!
Please media, more of these types of stories and less clickbait please! I
loved this article. My faith in humanity was restored just a touch here.
~~~
klmr
> She rightly recognizes the key role of cell autonomous vs. cell non-
> autonomous processes in how multicellular organisms work.
This is an odd comment: This realisation is quite literally at the core of
cancer research, and _every researcher in the field_ recognises this. Heck,
it’s implied if not mentioned outright in the seminal _Hallmarks of Cancer_
paper [1] that every cancer researcher (and probably generally most human
biologist) has read.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s a well-written article explaining the biology to a
lay audience. But it doesn’t hold any striking new insights. All of this is
not merely known but in fact fundamental knowledge.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer)
~~~
tcj_phx
> But it doesn’t hold any striking new insights. All of this is not merely
> known but in fact fundamental knowledge.
A lot of "fundamental knowledge" in medicine is wrong. The genetic theory of
cancer has always been a dead-end, because it reverses cause and effect. The
cancer industry has encouraged "kill all the cancer cells" treatments because
it's convenient for their business model. The cancer treatment situation is
similar to how the use of bloodletting persisted for hundreds of years [0], in
spite of the low rates of success.
[0] [http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-
yo...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-
york/n8661?snl=1)
There's no need for new insights, the old insight needs to be fully developed.
Your link has a subsection:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer#Deregu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer#Deregulated_metabolism)
Warburg's nobel prize was in 1931; we're finally realizing he was probably
right all along.
(minor edit)
~~~
epmaybe
Your comment is misleading. Certain cancers are indeed 'caused' by genetic
changes, and researchers are actively looking for ways to prevent those
genetic changes from occuring in the first place. But do you really tell
someone with a familial mutation that we know causes thyroid cancer that they
should be on a ketogenic diet?
Most therapeutics today are developed knowing that they will not have a
substantially more beneficial effect than current therapies. We still develop
these because even if they are not better they could reduce adverse events
caused by our current best meds.
As far as I can tell in the last 80 years the Warburg effect has led PET
scanning a viable way to detect the progression of many cancers.
To suggest that increased research into the Warburg effect is going to be the
thing that leads to an explosion in novel therapeutics for cancer is wishful
thinking, as far as I'm concerned. Cancer is complex, and while we could stand
to learn more about metabolic changes in cancer, there's not going to be a
magic pill for this one.
~~~
tcj_phx
Your comment history suggests that you've been through medical school.
I like to say that sometimes doctors do good work, and sometimes they make
work for themselves. Please take this response as a gentle and well-intended
effort to protest the standard practices that hurt patients by 'missing the
forest for the trees', such as I've observed in my own family (who themselves
are employed in the conventional approach to medicine), and my girlfriend (who
is being harmed by allopathic psychiatry).
Did you know that the term 'allopathy' was coined by a homeopath? At the time
bloodletting, calomel, and blister agents were the standard of care.
Homeopathic medicine held that the body can fix itself when properly supported
(diet, clean environment, etc). Allopathic medical practitioners engage in the
heroic struggle against disease [0].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_medicine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_medicine)
Allopathic medicine never went away, it just changed form. While conventional
medical practitioners are doing much better than 200 years ago (w.r.t. not
killing their patients), from my perspective, conventional psychiatry and
conventional cancer treatments leave much to be desired.
> To suggest that increased research into the Warburg effect is going to be
> the thing that leads to an explosion in novel therapeutics for cancer is
> wishful thinking, as far as I'm concerned.
I have some great anecdotes about cheap metabolic therapies. But they're just
my non-rigorous anecdotes... The one person who I'd most like to experiment
on, trusts her doctors because they wear the halo of 'conventionality'.
> Cancer is complex, and while we could stand to learn more about metabolic
> changes in cancer, there's not going to be a magic pill for this one.
Consider the possibility that cancer is much simpler than the geneticists have
led us to believe. Sometimes 'we must unlearn, what we have learned'.
Edit: google scholar turns up some papers about 'spontaneous remission' of
cancer. To figure out how to induce spontaneous remission of cancer cells
would be a revolutionary advance.
~~~
leereeves
> To figure out how to induce spontaneous remission of cancer cells would be a
> revolutionary advance.
There's a lot of work being done on that front, primarily in the form of
inducing an immune response to cancer.
This work is being done in "allopathic" medical schools and hospitals and in
biology labs that are the source of most allopathic medicine.
If this work succeeds, it might lead to a cancer vaccine: the kind of
treatment sometimes opposed by homeopaths and naturopaths.
~~~
tcj_phx
> This work is being done in "allopathic" medical schools and hospitals and in
> biology labs that are the source of most allopathic medicine.
'Allopath' is considered a derogatory term by the modern doctors who are aware
of its origin.
> If this work succeeds, it might lead to a cancer vaccine: the kind of
> treatment sometimes opposed by homeopaths and naturopaths.
The core of the resistance to vaccines is an opposition to the idea that a
disease's context doesn't matter. Improved sanitation, refrigeration, insights
into adequate nutrition, and other improvements in technology have done just
as much as vaccination to vanquish the diseases of antiquity.
~~~
leereeves
> Improved sanitation, refrigeration, insights into adequate nutrition, and
> other improvements in technology have done just as much as vaccination to
> vanquish the diseases of antiquity.
I don't understand the relevance. Will sanitation, refrigeration, or nutrition
protect you from polio, measles, or other diseases commonly vaccinated
against?
------
danharaj
> This is what cancer cells do: Proliferate without limit, avoid cell death,
> monopolize resources, co-opt the labor of other cells, and destroy the
> surrounding environment.
Rings a bell
~~~
gshubert17
Agreed. What can society, which creates corporations, do to limit the
likelihood that they will "go rogue" to harm society?
~~~
wobbly99
Regulate them, limit them and in extreme cases kill them. And the thought that
corporations are cancers of human societies that cheat is not a new.
~~~
2chen
Corporations are more multicellular organisms than cancer. They are capable of
achieving far more than a single cell or person, for better or for worse.
------
aszantu
[https://ketogeek.com/blogs/news/episode-20-dr-thomas-
seyfrie...](https://ketogeek.com/blogs/news/episode-20-dr-thomas-seyfried)
coincidentally listening to that right now
|
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|
CNN to buy Mashable for $200 million + - kunle
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/03/12/cnn-to-buy-social-media-blog-mashable-for-200-million-a-little-bird-tells-reuters-reporter/?awesm=tnw.to_1Dcix&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Twitter&utm_content=CNN%20to%20buy%20social%20media%20blog%20Mashable%20for%20$200%20million%20,%20a%20little%20bird%20tells%20Reuters%20reporter
======
geuis
I really love things like this. Its old media trying to get in the game on
"new" media. It only benefits their eventual demise. There's several things
happening here:
1) The founders of Mashable, and their stockholders, are earning out on what
they've built. That's a good thing, and well deserved.
2) Its really Turner Broadcasting that's doing the buying here. Its an old
media company again demonstrating that they are unable, or unwilling, to
modernize. They are throwing money at a problem rather than innovating.
3) Such a large amount of money flowing from old media into the technology
sector works to hasten the demise of companies like CNN/Turner Broadcasting.
It drains their coffers a bit more, while providing new cash flow to the
founders and employees in Mashable and frees them up to pursue new innovative
ventures over the next few years.
pg really saw something important when he added RFS 9 - Kill Hollywood to the
Request for Startups at Ycombinator. While CNN is a "news" company and not
directly part of Hollywood, they are most certainly tied at the hip to the
same people that run Hollywood. So in that aspect, this is a very good thing.
~~~
securitytheater
What if they bought HN? Then throwing money at the problem would probably be a
good thing for them.
~~~
geuis
How do you "buy" HN? HN is a community-driven site and long-running
experiment. I suppose YC could sell the domain name, but the community would
just evaporate and move elsewhere over night.
~~~
kmfrk
Like Conde Nast bought reddit?
~~~
freehunter
And saw no return, put next to no effort into improvements, and later spun
them back into the wild.
And in the meantime, reddit's community was completely unaffected by the
changing of hands.
~~~
drx
Reddit is now worth at least ten times as much as when it was acquired.
~~~
freehunter
True, but this wasn't the doing of Conde Nast, nor did Conde Nast see this 10x
increase when they pushed reddit out on its own. Reddit's growth was organic.
Last I heard, CN still owns reddit even though the site now operates
independently, so CN still has the chance to recoup their investment, but this
will take a more profitable business model without sacrificing user trust.
Valuations on sheer page hits or user counts are faulty with a capital F U if
you can't figure out how to make money from them.
~~~
mburns
It doesn't matter if it was Conde Nast's doing. They made an investment in a
new media property, and it has seemingly gone splendidly with little to no
'fallout' from having a corporate overlord owning a community site.
------
jgroome
Forgive me if I sound ignorant, but... How in the name of everlasting gods can
Mashable of all things be worth $200,000,000?
~~~
gjulianm
I don't know about the stats of Mashable, but I'm pretty sure it's driving a
lot of pageviews during the past months. CNN is probably taking that into
account, not the quality of their articles.
~~~
citricsquid
That's about $10 per unique visitor if they're paying for traffic... if CNN
are buying it for page views they're... stupid.
------
AznHisoka
I agree with others that Mashable is deteriorating in quality. However the
bulk of their visitors, I bet don't come from "devoted" followers, but rather
from search engines, I would venture around 75-80%. They're like a content
farm disguised as a quality blog network. They put out 10-20 pages a day, for
4-5 years, and each page gets like what? 20 links, 20 likes, 20 +1's? That all
adds up to high search engine rankings. At this point it doesn't matter if
Mashable jumps the shark - they can just keep on putting on mediocre content,
and it'll still rank based on their brand and authority.
I don't know if CNN knows that's what they're buying - they probably think
Mashable has lots of "fans". They do, but it's not that valuable.. definitely
not 200 million valuable. If Google gave them a site-wide penalty, their
traffic would plummet overnight.
------
jcc80
So far the comments seem to be negative. Just want to say congrats to Pete
Cashmore. I don't know him and don't really read Mashable. But, I'm sure him
and his team have put years of their lives into making Mashable a success.
When he first started, I bet he never imagined a day like this would come. He
made it happen. Good for him.
------
spinchange
I remember when Mashable was on a blogger account and Pete was running it out
of his parents basement. Well done, Pete and team.
------
kmfrk
I'm sad to see a site like Mashable get rewarded for their crap, but if this
contributes to their eventual demise, I guess I don't mind that much.
~~~
joering2
I +1 you. This is sad indeed. Imagine all those wannabees setting up websites
with minimum content, couple bloggers, plastered all around with ads.
on the other hand - does anyone know Mashable's profits?
------
itsprofitbaron
Having read a few comments regarding the valuation of Mashable at the $200MM
range, I've decided to post my 2 cents here.
Personally, I think the valuation for Mashable is achievable when we consider
Mashable as similar to HuffingtonPost rather than TechCrunch - Mashable is no
longer a tech/startup blog.
HuffingtonPost which was acquired for $315MM which was 10x its 2010 revenue
and it is this exit, which I believe turned Pete's head and meant he's seeking
an exit. Whilst, I don't know Pete personally to confirm if this is true but
from what I am hearing this seems to be the case.
I may be completely wrong but, I doubt it as Mashable has been expanding its
verticals & focusing on them more since, the HuffingtonPost acquisition to
become more like them rather than TechCrunch etc.
Bringing TechCrunch back into the mix and you consider they are on course to
do $10-15MM this year & you consider the fact that Mashable hosts similar
events AND has more pageviews/visitors than TechCrunch then $20MM seems
plausible.
Remember, Mashable virtually doubled its revenue in 2010 or 2011 just by
focusing on selling its advertisements itself rather than through ad networks.
Additionally, Mashable also offered some of their top writers retainer bonuses
in order to stay and prevent the turnover they were experiencing and to stop
it putting off potential buyers - some writers/editors were offered up to
$200-300k to remain at Mashable from what I have heard as a cash bonus on top
of their normal salary
As I highlighted earlier with regards to the expansion of Mashable, Ulanoff
was brought to expand Mashable into general news which again proves my theory
as highlighted by the launch of World and Entertainment News.
Likewise, I have been told that pageviews have also become the main metric for
success at Mashable. This is over unique visitors and their writers have been
told to insert a gallery where possible to increase and generate additional
pageviews (For instance, if you go on Mashable yourself you can see that they
have more of the BusinessInsider feel with Slideshows).
With all these things considered, I think that Mashable can easily be worth
around the $150-200 Million mark especially when you consider the
HuffingtonPost acquisition price.
------
kloncks
Makes the $25,000,000 AOL spent on TechCrunch seem so paltry.
~~~
bvi
I'm shocked that Mashable is perceived to be 8x the value TechCrunch was, when
it was acquired by AOL. Either TechCrunch was low-balled, or Mashable's value
is over-inflated. I suspect the latter...
~~~
brianbreslin
Mashable has a wider audience, less niche (startups are not mainstream yet).
Mashable also has a higher traffic rate. Pete Cashmore knows what he's doing.
~~~
darwinGod
'Cashmore' -I honestly for a second thought it was a pun on the founder's
name,till I googled him. Extremely impressive exit for a 26 year old guy!
------
fpp
Article was updated: "...the NYT has three sources telling them that there are
indeed ‘advanced talks’ being held about a potential acquisition of Mashable
by CNN, but that a deal could still fall through..."
------
majani
The main takeaway here(if true) is about branding.
There is hardly any proprietary software any more these days, it's been
largely commoditised.
In this situation, the wise words of Warren Buffet ring true. He said that the
best investment is one where you take a commodity, brand it, then sell it. So
make great software, brand it and sell it.
~~~
instakill
I'd like you to extrapolate on the software commodity quote.
------
simondlr
Has anyone felt Mashable sort of deteriorated the past few months?
~~~
wyclif
I was never very impressed by Mashable. Far too much linkbait.
~~~
joelhaasnoot
Far too many "100 ways to" or "Be sure not to miss" and then their "tips"
being rehashing of other people's work or thigns I could've thought of myself
too, especially with a little Google work.
~~~
Uchikoma
Seems to work to sell for $200M :-)
~~~
joering2
No. Rather seems to be a _part_ of work that got them to sell for $200MM.
Mashable has executives with very deep connections. I say this was more
important.
------
ChrisArchitect
If true, that value is off the chart crazy but makes this also amazing. Pete
Cashmore has definitely put the time in.... but as many of us know has been
crazy with the linkbait drivel for like the past year or more. He must be in a
surreal state of bliss about all this.
------
Achshar
Well i have to say this was totally out of the blues for me and 200m is still
an over valuation IMO. esp considering that is the value of page views. but
congrats to Pete and team!
------
blackysky
first congrats to Pete Cashmore and his team... now let's be honest here CNN
is buying the traffic ...hate it or love it Mashable is driving a lot of
traffic with their "spammy tactics"..CNN don't really care about the quality
because they can add their own staff later...However $200M is a huge price tag
...is it as valuable as the huffington post? what's going on here...is it a
race for page views with cheap content...news media is dying....
------
jacquesm
They're about 20 days early with this announcement.
This is like seeing a re-run of the broadcast.com sale.
------
sad_panda
$200 million?
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
------
webwanderings
Finally, both TechCrunch and Mashable are dead!
~~~
funkah
Sure, they're dead. In the same way that NeXT is dead.
------
spacestation
"surely, you must be kidding?"
must be a typo. 20 million, right.
------
dotcoma
How clueless can CNN be?
------
shingen
The word is: boondoggle
|
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|
Ask HN: How would you invest $500k? - jliptzin
Aside from startup investing, where would you allocate $500k? Real estate? S&P? Gold? Cash? Bitcoin? Assume no diversification - you can only put it in one place.
======
fennecfoxen
VFFVX (Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund)
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=1487&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=1487&FundIntExt=INT)
(Actually, I have more my ~$300k in other Vanguard funds, but if I had to
consolidate to exactly one, that'd be it.)
You could also make a case for VT (Vanguard Total World Stock ETF).
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&FundIntExt=INT)
It is a stupid question, though, as it makes no accounting for your individual
situation, an important thing that defines your relationship with money.
------
bobfirestone
S&P through a low fee mutual fund or ETF. It is boring but over the long haul
will probably have the best performance.
If I was placing an all or nothing bet with $5k it would go in bit coin. I
doubt the volatility will go away anytime soon so I suspect that it will
either continue the explosive growth or crash.
------
simbolit
The assumption is stupid. Sorry to say that, but it is.
If it is throwaway money, put it in bitcoin. It definitely has the greatest
potential to double in reasonable time. It also has a fair chance of
completely crashing, but, hey, it's throwaway money.
------
strick
wealthfront.com - author of Random Walk Down Wall Street is the investment
guru. Auto allocation and tax loss harvesting.
------
Casseres
SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Growth ETF
------
creativeone
Buy multifamily real estate.
------
macarthy12
on Black
------
AutoCorrect
Indoor soccer field.
------
sharemywin
Ivy league education
------
Mankhool
Commercial RE.
------
jbobes
cloud306.com - startup, just launched (no press release yet), bootstrapped,
wicked uber cool
------
davidsmith8900
\- If its one place, I'll put it in startups.
|
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|
What's Wrong with the Internet of Things - ghosh
http://www.tomtunguz.com/simplicity-complexity-coin/
======
Sanddancer
Ugh. The example given here, the electric imp, is everything that's wrong with
how people want to commoditize the Internet of Things. Had the "as a service"
product been optional, I'd have already purchased a half dozen of them for
various projects I'm working on. However, because it can only use the
integrated wifi to connect to their servers, there's no way to build devices
that will work in situations where internet access is spotty and/or latency
management is crucial. Internet of Things is neat, and fascinating, but
articles like this may very well smother it in its crib. Dependency on a
central server is the one way to ensure that it stays just a geek toy.
~~~
mrtree
IoT researcher here. You can buy devices with LTE or GSM connectivity, or
Bluetooth LE if you prefer. Those still work well for battery devices since
the new Bluetooth provides sleep cycle syncing. Also for LTE sleep patter
synchronization is being added.
~~~
Sanddancer
I know that part, and battery life is not the issue. My issue is more with the
Electric Imp specifically having everything communicate up with the
mothership. For background, the application I wanted to use it for is a
costuming project with lighting and sound synchronization, where having to
send my data up into the ether and then back down into the other costumes and
props, in areas with potentially no GSM/LTE signal, is a no-go. There are
quite a few bits of TCP/IP that would make my job easier, but dependency on an
outside server isn't one of them.
~~~
sounds
I came to say the same; my application differs but the breakthrough is not
SaaS, it's Moore's law even while Dennard scaling is running out.
I specifically mean the density at minimum cost per transistor. ARM cores are
now providing what I used to need x86 cores for.
Embedded has been around longer than any other app.
------
bakhy
IoT is a really unsettling prospect. I was expecting a text dealing with this,
but alas, mostly click-bait. the text is superficial ideological bickering
which takes IoT for granted. IoT is simply here, it seems. the text deals only
with what kind of IoT you should like.
it's only a question, as one commenter here put it, of our psychological
adaptation to it. like cows in a super-high-tech milking farm, we should adapt
to being monitored and analyzed by devices 24/7\. furthermore, according to
the text here, the most important aspect of this might just be the need to
centralize all the collected data! crazy.
not to mention, i still haven't seen anything other than gimmicks and empty
talk about ubiquitous devices. which devices? what is the actual use here? you
can change your thermostat temperature before getting home? good going for
Nest and their product, it certainly seems useful, but there is no revolution
here, other than perhaps a completely revolutionary loss in privacy.
and BTW it all sounds like some kind of bubble. like the need to find a way to
sell more new stuff has recently gone into over-hype.
~~~
knowaveragejoe
It sounds like you're failing to grasp the true implications here. Sure, there
is loss of privacy, but there is massive efficiency to be gained for both
businesses and end consumers. As with everything we will have to make
tradeoffs, and as time goes on I hope privacy considerations will continue
play a larger role in the debate.
~~~
bakhy
i don't know why you think i failed to grasp that. there are benefits, i
agree. i just don't see any such great or important benefits which would
justify this almost complete destruction of the notion of privacy. can you
give me some examples?
PS there's a lot more to life than efficiency ;)
~~~
knowaveragejoe
You're using the negative connotation of efficiency that should really be
discarded. It doesn't only mean "more, faster, because higher profits, work
like crazy until you die", that notion is extremely narrow for what efficiency
actually means.
Efficiency saves lives right now. It is also what will enable us to save our
species from the destruction of the planet. In a world as populated as ours,
efficiency is by and large what the very concept of sustainability _itself_
consists of.
~~~
bakhy
you are again projecting some notions of yours into me, than correcting your
own projections as if i actually said that. if you would be interested in
having a conversation, we might try that. till then, buh-bye.
------
amirmc
I agree that the IoT should be about improving lives but that's true of any
new product/service/thing and is not specific to IoT.
I do think the post misses the much larger point of _how_ such services and
products get created and deployed. Right now, developers either have to (1)
use someone else's platform and be locked in or (2) build a system completely
from scratch.
We've already seen what happens with option 1 on the web, where the company
providing the platform can make an arbitrary decision that puts you out of
business - or they get acquired and shut down or a whole host of other things.
Option 2 is just too difficult right now unless you're doing nothing but
'appccessories' (toy devices that have some networked functionality) - mainly
because we're dealing with distributed systems and the problems they pose.
What's needed are _open-source_ tools to make option 2 viable for a new wave
of developers. In other words, we need the equivalent of the open-source LAMP
stack but for distributed systems. Just think for a moment of the billions of
dollars of value that this open toolstack enabled. We need an equivalent stack
to solve the modern problems and empower developers to make _new_ products and
services.
I see these modern problems as related to (1) how we create and deploy
applications, (2) how those applications store and sync their data and (3) how
they identify and securely connect to each other. Of course, there are
solutions to all of these right now but they're cumbersome and inappropriate
for the environment we're deploying to. I'm working on a toolstack that deals
with these issues but in a much more scalable and resilient way. We're calling
it the MISO stack and I'll be writing more about it soon. In the meantime, you
can look at following post to get an idea of what we're doing and why.
[http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-
nymote/](http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/)
~~~
digitalengineer
I think we love to think that. Developers care about the 'how'. Most of the
users, sadly, don't.
And –to be perfectly honest– most developers will sell their service/product
with the client data should a big fat offer come along.
~~~
amirmc
It's the developers I'm talking about, not the users. I've yet to see any
breakout company that's using a proprietary IoT platform (but correct me if
I'm wrong). There's an inherent risk associated with trying to build a big
company that way.
Yes, the developer could still sell everything to a third party but that's not
really what I'm trying to tackle. It's the problem of building and connecting
such applications/services in the first place. You shouldn't need a 'platform'
to do that.
~~~
digitalengineer
I agree, you shouldn't. However, I think dev's will flock to the first
commercial API that allows them to concentrate on the specific problem they're
trying to tackle. They'll worry about the 'walled garden' if it ever get's so
far that it would become a problem. It could even go the Twitter-way. Open for
all and pinching down on devs when they've grown (too?) succesfull.
------
primitivesuave
In certain European farms, each cow carries a computer and produces 200 MB of
data each year. Contamination and irregularities are found through analyzing
the data they are producing.
IoT will certainly improve our quality of life, but I suspect it will be in
the background for some time. The processes that bring you the things you use
and interact with every day are already getting smarter and more connected,
but I doubt most people will have an intelligent anticipatory device strapped
to them for quite some time. Humans have to first psychologically adapt to a
world where you don't need to stand in check-in lines at an airport terminal.
------
noonespecial
I think we're still waiting for the "IBM PC Compatible" moment on the IoT.
Most of whats available today reminds me of the C-64 era of computing.
Everything is limited, silo-ed, and locked. Lots of gardens, no ecosystem.
There's a big difference between complexity being _hidden_ from the user and
complexity being locked away in a portal, platform, or single service.
------
simonbarker87
We had this discussion in our office recently - I'm a fan of using the
Internet to add more powerful functionality but for a product to really be
adapted at scale the Internet connection still needs to add value without
requiring the user to interact for more than a few seconds periodically - if
at all. I think the IOT category will allow products to better integrate into
people's lives but also give power users more control and value.
------
ronaldx
My concern about the "internet of things" is not discussed here.
My concern is that "internet of things" is really a synonym for "things that
used to work great independently but now have external dependencies that make
them less reliable and less accommodating, for primarily anti-consumer reasons
including surveillance and vendor lock-in"
|
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|
Show HN: Segment Functions - nzoschke
https://segment.com/functions/
======
nzoschke
Poster here, and engineer on the Segment Functions platform. We're super
excited to launch this new way to process your analytics data.
Functions open up Segment to integrate with virtually any service. You can
write a function to convert any source webhook into a format for your data
pipeline, and write another function to send your data to any destination API.
Happy to answer any questions...
~~~
mindcrash
I would love to know what platform you use to power Segment Functions, and the
rationale from an architecture perspective to use this particular platform.
Would it be possible for you to get into this?
The reason is that I'm working on data pipelines myself (but not in customer
analytics) and currently look into ways how serverless tech like Openwhisk, Fn
and similar tools could integrate into our platform to provide customization
and extensibility options to our customers.
~~~
nzoschke
We built the initial version on AWS Lambda.
Out of the box it gives us a lot of isolation, scaling and visibility into
each piece of customer code.
Most importantly using Lambda let us focus almost entirely on the user /
developer experience.
|
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|
Strategic thinking, or what I think what we need to do to keep FreeBSD relevant - vermaden
http://www.leidinger.net/blog/2019/01/27/strategic-thinking-or-what-i-think-what-we-need-to-do-to-keep-freebsd-relevant/
======
ggm
The docker story needs work. I use bhyve a lot and docker on Debian and OSX.
I'd love to be able to do deployment to freebsd more easily.
Kubernetes needs a story.
Better pf examples would be nice. How to set up decent stateful Configs. How
to self protect a host.
I've whined about BBR elsewhere. I won't repeat that here.
The filesystem story with zfs is fantastic. Snapshots made some stuff much
nicer. I use a slideshow from the web to drive postgres on zfs deployment but
that leads me to:
Zfs and sysctl kernel tuning need better stories. How to rightsize buffers to
get max performance from things.
iSCSI needs a story. It's not able to do easy dual master live (failover modes
are fine)
Pkg is good. Brew is better as a lived experience across upgrades.
~~~
empthought
My experience with Homebrew has been universally awful, even on OS X.
------
75dvtwin
I guess the author is thinking that Operating system dev must be run like a
corporation.
I think it is a valid point of view, and if competition with Linux is the goal
-- then it could be, the only valid view.
But if competition with Linux is not a goal for example -- the goal is to be
complimentary to Linux, or the goal is to research/innovate quicker in some
specific areas.
Then the FreeBSD thinking needs to be more of 'risk-taking', rather than
strategy?
I personally always tend to use underdogs if I can (bee it BSDs vs Linux, AMD
vs Intel, Duckduckgo vs Google, etc).
But I think it is hard for BSD to compete with Linux.. may be when Linus steps
down, people will not like new leadership/structures -- and will look for
alternatives and then FreeBSD will pick up, and will need to become that
'company-like cube of strategies) ?
~~~
75dvtwin
I should have used better and clearer wording, so apologies.
What I meant was, strategic thinking on FreeBSD has to follow (not precede, in
my view) the goals of the project.
Which is what I was trying to say above, but poorly.
\--
FreeBSD dev summit in 2018 made an effort to define the goals
[https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/201809/13goals](https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/201809/13goals)
A piece of that the author of the article is describing, is in the goals too
(virtualization tooling).
But other points do not seem to have equivalents in the 13goals.
\-- I have a personal set of 'wants' for FreeBSD, but felt that without
clearing understanding its goals, I should not be just throwing the 'wants'
out there)
\---
In my projects, I prefer to support where possible all the BSDs (NetBSD,
openBSD, dragonflyBSD) -- so I compile and test there, too, where possible.
These projects leverage and follow FreeBSD porting efforts, so FreeBSD,
perhaps acts as 'big brother', or may be 'leader' for the other BSDs
packages... if may say so.
If anything, I would prefer that FreeBSD recognizes that role, and somehow
helps the portability of the packages to the other 3 to be at least 'in the
sight' (for example by templating/allowing placeholders for the other ports
config/make files)
There are porting efforts I could contribute to (small code bases in
C/C++/Erlang).
But something like even a small contribution to a Java11 port (which is still
not in any of the BSD) -- is well outside of my capabilities (both skill and
time wise).
Delay of having, for example, java 11 in FreeBSD -- is, I think, negatively
affecting adoption of the other bsds. I guess, that's an example of my
specific want.
|
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|
Show HN: Impact Investment Funds – Growth-Enabled P2P Lending Donation Funds - jkurnia
https://p2p-microlending-blog.zidisha.org/2016/11/24/introducing-impact-investment-funds/
======
jkurnia
I'm Julia, the founder of Zidisha (YC W14 nonprofit). This is the first time
in two years we've offered a loan fund that is designed to grow in value over
time. I'd welcome feedback on the appeal of a compounding-value donation fund
and on our implementation of it.
~~~
qwrusz
Hi Julia,
Congrats on the success so far! Wishing your team and the entrepreneurs you
are helping even greater success to come.
I don't know all that much about microlending, but I do know quite a bit about
investment funds, so I clicked the link hoping to learn more and maybe help
offer some feedback if relevant.
After reading your blog post I still didn't fully understand it so I went to
your main site to try to learn more. I read through the FAQs too, but still
have a couple questions:
For example: while exploring some of the projects on your site I came across
Ms. Mwangi from Kenya asking for a loan to buy shoes and clothes for her
clothing line. [https://www.zidisha.org/loan/shoes-clothes-for-my-
clothline-...](https://www.zidisha.org/loan/shoes-clothes-for-my-clothline-
bokiewear)
_Ms. Mwangi is asking to borrow $509.00
The cost of the loan details show:
-Service Fee: 5% of $509.00 = $25.47
-Lifetime membership fee: $50.95
-Optional Pay into Zidisha Members Loan Fund in return for a higher starting credit limit: $428.02
The costs total: $504.44_
To me this looks like costs and fees totalling $504 in order for her to borrow
$5?
So my sincere apologies for any misunderstanding on my part. I realize
microlending has unique risks and challenges compared to other types of
lending. And of course a practical amount of money needs to got to Zidisha to
help cover costs and expenses of the good work you guys are doing.
But how can costs and fees be $504 for a $5 loan? Is that correct? The costs
to loan value seem _very high_ to say the least. If you see this, I'd really
appreciate a bit of clarity and info on these details. Thanks
~~~
jkurnia
Thanks for taking a look and for your feedback. The default starting loan for
first-time borrowers without a track record is very small (around $10). If a
first-time borrower opts to start with the small default amount, there is no
Members Loan Fund deposit required. But if a first-time borrower is confident
they can repay larger amounts, we offer the option of depositing the
difference between the ~$10 default first-time loan amount and the desired
starting credit limit into the Members Loan Fund upon joining Zidisha. The net
amount received for the first loan is still $10, but after successful
repayment of the first loan, the borrower may take out larger loans
commensurate with the starting loan they have repaid.
The Members Loan Fund deposit may be withdrawn at any time the borrower does
not have an outstanding loan. It may also be used to pay off the remaining
balance of an outstanding loan, if the borrower requests it. If the loan goes
into arrears, it is used to reimburse lenders for the amount they had lent.
The lifetime membership fee is currently zero, but at the time this borrower
joined, it was 10% of the starting credit limit chosen by the applicant. (So
someone choosing the default starting credit limit of $10 would pay a lifetime
membership fee of $1.)
The above costs are only paid once, at the time a borrower first joins
Zidisha, and entitle the borrower to lifetime access to raise loans. You can
learn more about why we developed a lending model that front-loads costs here:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/the-story-of-
zidi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/the-story-of-zidisha-
dram_b_9580894.html)
The 5% service fee is a flat percentage of each loan amount, and is
independent of the loan term. If Ms. Mwangi opts to hold the loan for two
years, she would still pay only $25.47.
We'll aim to make this clearer in the cost breakdown explanation. Thanks
again!
~~~
qwrusz
Thank you for the reply.
1\. Part of the reason I found the Members Loan Fund confusing was the
terminology in the FAQ wasn’t clear it’s a deposit which could be withdrawn if
the borrower no longer has an outstanding loan.
2\. I understand depositing the difference of first loan into the MLF helps
facilitate future larger loans at a higher credit limit. Though how it works
seems to involve a borrower receiving a ~$10 loan, but then being asked to
“repay” the lender a very different loan amount in some cases hundreds of
dollars – over the course of only a few weeks...These entrepreneurs able to
turn $10 into $100s in profits so quickly would be very impressive. Maybe
repayments come from another source.
3\. There may be more behind this part but it looks like when good borrowers
pay back their loans in full and they eventually move on from Zidisha they
would take their MLF deposit with them as they leave. At the same time there
are the borrowers who take out loans and default on repayment and don’t come
back; they end up creating a loss as their MLF deposit doesn’t cover the full
loan value.
Basically this sounds like a system exposed to some moral hazard and adverse
selection but without a mechanism for good actors to help offset any losses
from bad actors. ie people leaving Zidisha are either ~neutral to the fund or
they created a loss, no one ever moves through leaving a net positive. It's
comparable to insurance company model and doesn't sound sustainable if this is
what's happening - and made more difficult if the biz model involves spending
the principal and keeping the interest instead of spending interest and
keeping the principal.
With that said, I do want to mention I read the huffpo link. It’s awesome the
way you guys are iterating based on observations and innovating as you build
this - making it more efficient. It's really exciting to see this happening on
this level in the non-profit space.
I realize you have a challenging two sided market to grow that requires
balancing info and experience for many people across many countries. It seems
really complicated too how to handle the different messaging that lenders and
borrowers need here respectively and then also keeping things consistent as
one platform. And it's P2P lending which brings with it all kinds of hurdles
and biases. And it's also non-profit work! Which nobody seems to get is real
work and too many crazy people love to complain about (PS I hope you are not
underpaying yourself for this role, I see way too many underpaid non-profit
workers). Basically what you are building looks darn hard to do, and it's
super impressive what's been built so far, a ton of respect from me. Best of
luck.
|
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|
Efficient Methods and Hardware for Deep Learning – Stanford – Lecture 15 [pdf] - blopeur
http://cs231n.stanford.edu/slides/2017/cs231n_2017_lecture15.pdf
======
blopeur
video :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZdOkDtYMoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZdOkDtYMoo)
|
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|
Keybase.io Invite - erasmuswill
Hi,
Does anyone maybe have an extra keybase.io invite code?
I'd really like to try it out.
======
joshstrange
What's your email address? I need that to send the invite.
~~~
erasmuswill
keybaseioinvite@hmamail.com
~~~
joshstrange
I sent the invite
~~~
erasmuswill
Thanks a lot :)
|
{
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|
Container OS comparison - kilimchoi
http://blog.codeship.com/container-os-comparison/
======
xj9
What about SmartOS? It's been container-native for, like, ten years and Joyent
just recently added support for running Docker containers on bare metal.
~~~
yellowapple
Seconding SmartOS. I haven't used it for running containers yet, but I've had
wonderful experiences with it running Zones and traditional VMs (mostly
OpenBSD, with a few Linuxen).
~~~
xj9
Triton is pretty sweet. Provisioning is a little slow, but everything is
blazing fast once its running.
------
davexunit
This focus on "container OSes" is baffling to me. Just use one of the well
maintained, general purpose distros such as Debian with a minimal set of
software. We don't need specialized distros for this.
~~~
vezzy-fnord
The current app container model as it is takes the form of binary images
managed by a de facto runtime that enforces namespace, cgroup and other
boundaries by using kernel subsystems for logical partitioning.
Unlike system containers like LXC, appc means you now have an explosion of the
state space whereby every container has their own independent copy of a host
OS, yet relies on the semantics of its container manager to function, i.e. it
is not easily introspectable with vanilla tools.
So you end up needing to build a small parallel userspace to handle things
like service discovery, orchestration and provisioning, networking bridges,
location transparency, resource scheduling and taken to its logical conclusion
you start running a user-mode kernel (Mesos) on top of a base OS kernel
(Linux) to provide further abstractions of OS resources and run extended
versions of OS processes called frameworks.
I don't know if it's too early to tell, but I think people might have dug
themselves into a ditch where in an attempt to escape the limitations of their
kernel and userland, they've only expanded it with a concurrent layer and must
maintain both.
~~~
jacques_chester
> _So you end up needing to build a small parallel userspace to handle things
> like service discovery, orchestration and provisioning, networking bridges,
> location transparency, resource scheduling_
Or you install a PaaS, which does these for you. I've worked on Cloud Foundry,
OpenShift is a competitor. Both are far superior to rolling your own.
------
jonasrosland
Author here if you have any questions on the content :)
~~~
pmelendez
I like this... it served well to get my feet wet about what is out there. It
would be nice having a chart comparing the pro and cons of those OSs. Maybe in
the future?
Thanks! :)
~~~
DaemonHN
Yeah, this seemed more like a listing of the operating systems than a
comparison.
~~~
jonasrosland
You're right, it's a list of the OSes and some of their strengths. I'd rather
not get into a container OS war on "which one is better", as I stated at the
beginning of the article it always depends on your needs :)
------
hendry
Archlinux with systemd-nspawn is my favourite container OS. Tools like
machinectl, networkctl, journalctl nicely integrated. Easy to manage multiple
processes in individual containers. Streaks ahead of the competition which are
seriously bloated by comparison.
------
senthilnayagam
smallest OS possible is no OS , second best which I use is tianon/true image
from docker registry, 125 bytes, with my compiled golang app as binary image
size under 5 mb,
[https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/tianon/true/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/tianon/true/)
reference
[https://github.com/senthilnayagam/godockersample](https://github.com/senthilnayagam/godockersample)
edit: added a implementation link
~~~
justincormack
This is talking about OSs to run containers not to run in them. And why do you
need true?
~~~
sime
Apparently AWS does not support the minimal Scratch image this is based on.
~~~
justincormack
You can create scratch with
tar cv --files-from /dev/null | docker import - scratch
------
npx
Alpine seems like a glaring omission.
~~~
vezzy-fnord
Alpine's a great distro, but it's not a container OS in the sense that's being
defined here.
|
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|
OpenBSD 5.7 Released - jakobdabo
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=143043178115828
======
privong
There was some conversation on this release announcement a few days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9467990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9467990)
|
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|
Post-Capitalism: Rise of the Collaborative Commons - nissimk
https://medium.com/@cjdew/post-capitalism-rise-of-the-collaborative-commons-62b0160a7048
======
jjoonathan
I don't see it as post-capitalism, just a change in what constitutes the most
efficient means of production. Cuts out middlemen.
If rent-seeking accounts for an increasing fraction of economic activity (a
big IF, but let's assume it's true for the sake of figuring out consequences)
then it will eventually surpass the inefficiencies of small-scale generalist
production and we'll break into "communes." Scare quotes because there's no
reason they have to be anti-technology, anti-capitalism, anti-trade, anti-
government, or any of the other scary associations that follow the word
around.
Especially for "unskilled" (or otherwise marginalized) labor, this sort of a
model would seem to make sense. Employers would be forced to beat the value
proposition of "work x days a month, do whatever you want with the remainder,
your ability to secure food and shelter is guaranteed unless you screw up big
time."
There's a ton of work to be done before it's a viable alternative. Hell, I bet
it's even going to get VC funding someday (better to sell the shovels,
right?). Neat stuff, but right now I'll just watch from the sidelines. Robotic
farming (GVCS), DIY circuit board / chip manufacture, DIY chemical industry
(stock up on popcorn when they get to Haber or Frank-Caro), 3D printing of
structures... am I missing anything? Is there a mailing list I should be on
(FBI forgive me)?
EDIT: We should talk about the big sticking point, which will be "how would
one replace or compensate specialists that haven't been marginalized by
capitalism yet and don't contain bunches of 'hippies,' for lack of a better
word"? In other words: doctors. This is why I'm on the sidelines for now ;)
~~~
bryanlarsen
"If rent-seeking accounts for an increasing fraction of economic activity (a
big IF)"
Is this really a big IF? Software revenue is technically rent (since the cost
of production is 0), and that's definitely growing as a fraction of economic
activity.
~~~
zzalpha
In what world is the cost of software production zero?
You _are_ aware software developers are paid, you know, money for services,
right?
To be honest, your argument, here, is exactly the trouble economists have
trying to understand economic rent. Rent is to economists what pornography is
to a supreme court justice: they know it when they see it.
There simply is no concrete theory to define rent, and so it's extremely
difficult to provide any kind of proof of increased rent seeking in modern
economies without relying on personal judgment, and therefore bringing to bear
personal bias.
Which is, of course, why you think software is rent while someone else might
not: it's in the eye of the beholder.
------
bcheung
I question the post-scarcity assumption. If you described how people live now
to someone who lived 5000 years ago they would think we live in a post-
scarcity world now. We have such abundance now, yet we still have "poor"
people and humans still want to consume and control more. It's human nature to
want more. Maybe in the far future people will want their own planets and
anyone who doesn't have one will be considered living in "poverty". I don't
think it will ever end unless the biology of human nature and the animal brain
changes.
~~~
Scarfleece
It's human nature to want more.
You pulled this out of your ass, and it's nonsense. Any anthropological study
will tell you that hunter-gatherers are/were satisfied with what they could
get. Anecdotally, there are vast amounts of people around the world who don't
"want more".
~~~
bcheung
We all came from hunter-gatherers. If hunter-gatherers didn't want more then
logically they would have stayed hunter-gatherers. So, why do we have the
current civilization? I suspect because being cold, not having medicine,
refrigeration, running water, plumbing, transportation, etc sucks.
~~~
Scarfleece
You're making the presumption that people adopted agriculture because it "gave
them more", when there could be a vast number of other reasons for adopting
it.
More than likely, the first tribes that started becoming farmers did so
because the area they lived in become bad for obtaining food (whether due to
the extinction of big game events, or moving to a naturally inhospitable
area). Because of the nature of agriculture, this gave them a lot more power,
and they started conquering tribes.
When your choice is between "get slaughtered by the farmers", "have your food
supply diminished by the farmers", or "become a farmer", guess which choice
you pick?
This is all speculation, though. I'm merely trying to get you to realize that
there are many reasons for technological progress (esp. the adoption of
agriculture), the least of all being that "it's human nature to want more".
~~~
bcheung
They had no game and thus no food. So they switched to agriculture because
they wanted food.
(food > no food) == more
~~~
Scarfleece
"Wanting enough food" is not the same as "always wanting more".
------
Loic
This post is basically a copy/paste of the latest book of Rifkin:
[http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-
Collaborati...](http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-
Collaborative/dp/1137278463/)
Book, which is by the way very good.
------
terravion
The premise of this piece is that we are close to satisfying the demands of
society and that we'll be living in a post-scarcity world. But everyone I know
wants to vacation on the moon (i.e. we have an unlimited capacity to consume
new things). At current prices, just my 30 closest friends going to the moon
for two week every year is about the same level of consumption as the total
global economy.
We only live in a post scarcity world if you believe that humans have a
limited capacity for consumption. Everyone who has bet on that thus far in
history has been proved wrong, so capitalism or no, we need to deal with
scarcity.
~~~
zzalpha
_We only live in a post scarcity world if you believe that humans have a
limited capacity for consumption._
I think that depends on how you define "satisfying the demands of society".
If that means everyone is essentially comfortable (ie, all essential needs are
met, including things like basic recreation... I consider "play" a basic human
need), I'd say that qualifies.
Will there always be people with ambitions that outstrip their resources? I'd
certainly think so. But there's an awful lot of people out there who don't
share your ambitions for space travel.
~~~
dragonwriter
> If that means everyone is essentially comfortable (ie, all essential needs
> are met, including things like basic recreation... I consider "play" a basic
> human need), I'd say that qualifies.
There's considerable evidence that "comfort" is driven largely by perceived
_relative_ economic conditions, not _absolute_ conditions, so as long as most
people aren't doing above average compared to what they perceive around them,
we won't achieve that.
> Will there always be people with ambitions that outstrip their resources?
> I'd certainly think so. But there's an awful lot of people out there who
> don't share your ambitions for space travel.
Even if only _some_ people had unmet needs, the society would still fail to be
post-scarcity, since post-scarcity means rationing is not necessary because
there isn't contention for resources. Even if there are only a few people who
will always want more (though there is no reason grounded in the reality of
actual human behavior to believe that there will only be a few, no matter the
objective conditions), they will eventually place other people into a deprived
position without a social system for allocating scarce resources, hence, no
post-scarcity.
------
KaiserPro
I just dont see it happening, that those with great capital resources would
allow themselves to be undermined in such a way. The innate human power
structure is such that those with the most resources make the rules. (Feudal,
mercantile, and democratic)
I would suggest reading the second half of "road to wigan pier" which will
both provide history and an excellent critique of this style of thinking.
------
pjonesdotca
I have a feeling that anything other than "free market capitalism" is going to
be shunned around these parts. :)
Great read. And the predecessor as well. [https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-
obsolescence-of-capitalism-340...](https://medium.com/@cjdew/the-obsolescence-
of-capitalism-340ad9fafd8f)
~~~
tomjen3
In all my travels (on the interwebs) I have seen two articles arguing against
capitalism that were worth reading. Easily twenty times that failed.
So yeah, my bayesian filter is going to shun anything but free market
capitalism. Especially because for many it has become a political stop-word,
even though we sit in the greatest luxury in history. For me, any article that
wants to replace capitalism first has to explain how it rolf-stomp every
system that came before it, and how their new proposed system will augment
capitalism.
~~~
Estragon
What were the two good ones?
~~~
tomjen3
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-
plenty/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/)
Is one of them. It made a totally convincing argument for why socialism should
rofl-stomp capitalism for production efficiency (which is quite something in
that capitalism strength is rofl-stomping every other system in production
efficiency).
The other I have forgotten, but it basically proved that poor peoples minds
worked differently (as a function of their environment) and so they really
couldn't pull themselves up.
------
dmichulke
Capitalism - that word again. I don't think it means what you think it means.
PS: Post-capitalism implies capitalism was or is present and unless the author
wrote this piece in Hong Kong or Singapore he should not even remotely apply
that word any present or past "economic system"
PPS: Much like democracy.
~~~
dragonwriter
The term "capitalism" was created to refer to and defined by the early
industrial economic system of the more developed countries of Europe in the
19th Century. It is _quite_ odd to claim that it never existed anywhere other
than Hong Kong or Singapore.
~~~
dmichulke
OK, I see your point :)
Here's what I mean:
Capitalism is (as democracy) not a yes/no thing. Instead, it is one extreme of
a scale and every state has a value on that scale and can can be more or less
capitalistic (democratic). Less capitalistic in this context means more
centrally planned, typically by an actor of the state (government, council for
economic planning, ...).
The problem I see in the typical use of the word "capitalism" is that many
flaws of the current system are blamed on the "too capitalistic" side while
I'm convinced the reason lies on the "too centrally planned side", i.e., we
have too little capitalism.
Hence my reaction to the word "post-capitalism" which sounds to me as if
someone against torture wrote an article about "post-humanism" as a follow-up
to "the obsolescence of human dignity" (where clearly humanism and dignity
aren't the problem, rather it is the lack thereof).
So, yes, we had and have capitalism to some extent everywhere (including
Soviet Russia) but plain capitalism is very hard to find and even more so in
the last 50 years. In fact, even Singapore has a central bank and I bet HK has
one, too.
~~~
dragonwriter
Sure, even approximately pure capitalism has been dead in the West for more
than 50 years (closer, I think, to 80) because capitalism was because of many
of the problems it caused for the vast majority of society that were
identified by the critics who named the system in the 19th century (though the
replacement wasn't generally what those critics advocated though it
incorporated some elements of it to form the modern mixed economy).
But, while that has in some cases mitigated or showed the growth rate of the
problems that caused poor capitalism to be rejected, it hasn't chef them, and
those same problems are often the things that provoke criticism of the current
system.
I don't think that the problems that were mitigated by a retreat from pure
capitalism will be further mitigated by a return to it.
|
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Malaysian Official Says Missing Plane Hijacked - r0h1n
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_MALAYSIA_PLANE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-15-00-22-45
======
dakrisht
First, I can't imagine the US doesn't know the location of this airplane or
exactly what happened during deviation from its original flight path.
Understandably, they cannot reveal the full breadth of their reconnaissance
capabilities to "enemies" and the general public.
If you don't know, there is a highly sophisticated US naval air facility on
the island of Diego Garcia. The Navy does deep space reconnaissance over
there! among other things...
And they didn't detect a massive 777 flying north/south in and around the
Indian Ocean?
That area is saturated in complex radar. Diego Garcia houses complex radar and
satellite communications systems and who knows what else that is still
classified.
Additionally, there are over 1,000 operational satellites in orbit!
IMO, this was a carefully and planned mission.
For all we know (tin-foil hat time) there could be behind the curtain
negotiations with hijackers and/or missions being planned to recover the
aircraft in case of wild extremists theories flying around on the Internet
(0.1% on this) And as we all know today, nothing is that extreme anymore in
the world we live in.
Disabling transponders takes three clicks of a wheel and it was most
definitely done intentionally, the sharp, almost hairpin turn, this jet made
and then strategically avoided radar are all signs of a sophisticated
operation here. The WSJ reports that circuit breakers were accessed in order
to shut down transponders, clearly requiring a high level of skill for
aircraft maintenance opps. Sure, pilot can break a circuit but they will spend
20 minutes reading the flight maintenance manual AND contact ground before
doing anything like this.
Finally - there were a few important people on board, including quite a few
high-tech people involved with government contractions.
Whatever is happening, it might never make complete sense - or at least the
general public might be out the loop and get whatever information THEY want us
to hear. I don't know who THEY are but this whole situation is very strange
and gets crazier by the day.
Edit: this bird was hacked
~~~
lawl
* puts tinfoil hat on *
In two months there are EU elections. Plus the hijacking in switzerland
shortly before this... Sound convinient.
~~~
coob
You'd need something stronger than a tinfoil hat to think that EU elections
are important.
------
Steko
AP is already walking back the headline, now reads "Malaysian official says
missing plane hijacked"
_" It is not conclusive. I'm heading the investigation and nobody is saying
that. It's not true. We are looking at the possibility, we're looking at all
possibilities. We're doing every profile of the passengers and crew but there
is no firm evidence or leads so far," he told the Telegraph. _
~~~
ubernostrum
At this point the only safe headline to run is "Malaysian officials currently
saying something they're going to deny saying a few hours from now".
~~~
downandout
Or perhaps _" Passenger Jet Missing"_. That seems to be the only confirmed
information.
------
andrewflnr
At this point I'm guessing it was hijacked or otherwise a victim of foul play,
and then the perpetrators screwed up somehow which is why no one now wants to
take credit for the affair. I bet we're going to hear conspiracy theories for
years.
~~~
FatalLogic
>then the perpetrators screwed up somehow which is why no one now wants to
take credit for the affair
There is no hard evidence for it, but a suicidal pilot who wanted to make sure
his insurance paid out would also explain this. Suicidal _and_ psychopathic.
It's horrific, but it has happened twice before.
~~~
yardie
Except psychopaths and suicides are on opposite sides of the spectrum. You do
have edge cases where psychopaths choose suicide over being caught, ie Hitler.
But to commit just suicide there literally thousands of easier ways to do it.
You don't even have to leave home to do it.
~~~
danielha
Got it, so because committing suicide is easier to do at home, you must be
silly to do it in this matter. Crazy, even.
------
FatalLogic
It has to be asked, why did it take so long to get the additional data about
the flight path?
That data includes engine to satellite handshake, and military radar.
A lot of effort and time was wasted searching in the wrong place, even though
the lack of wreckage beneath the last transponder location was an immediate
sign that something might be unusual about this case. Meanwhile, possible
evidence, such as floating wreckage in the Indian Ocean, was being lost.
~~~
allochthon
It's fascinating that you can find your iPhone using a Web site, but we're
having such a hard time finding a plane (with lots of people with smartphones
in their pockets turned off, or not).
EDIT: just to clarify -- I'm thinking of how tracking the precise location of
a plane at all times is a problem that it seems like we should have a handle
on by now, although not necessarily using cell phone technology. (I wasn't
thinking clearly about the cell phone signals in this context, though, as
people have been correct to point out.)
~~~
FatalLogic
It's fascinating, but it leads one toward the unpleasant conclusion that the
passengers could have already have been dead or unconscious before the plane
flew back across Malaysia.
Cellphone tower records should provide more evidence, because there are sure
to be some phones that were not in airplane mode.
Cellphones won't have enough power to connect more than about 50 km from the
coast.
~~~
jamesaguilar
Do you still get cell signal seven miles up? I remember one time accidentally
leaving my phone not in airplane mode and I had no signal. YMMV.
~~~
FatalLogic
The quality of service may not be good, but text messaging will work, at
least.
------
cwilson
I'm convinced this is one of three things after watching this for 7 days:
1\. Hijacking gone wrong and the plane is in the ocean.
2\. Pilot suicide and the plane is in the ocean.
3\. Hijacking gone right and the plane is parked somewhere and all the
passengers are dead and/or being held captive (least likely option).
That's it. Nothing else could have happened.
~~~
afatc
What about a portal to another dimension?
~~~
kenrikm
That's what I'm talking about!
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/)
good theory.
~~~
nunodonato
man I loved this when it came on TV for the first time. gotta watch it again
someday
------
fasteddie31003
A modern day Earhart. I wonder if this incident will be the result of
unintended blowback from making the cockpit too secure. Can we trust pilots?
Should we be able to over-ride the controls of a plane mid-flight? EgyptAir
Flight 990? All 9/11 flights? Ethiopian Airlines flight ET-702?
~~~
MichaelGG
"making the cockpit too secure"
How so? If you don't trust the pilots to the point where you want, who, the
FAs? taking over the plane, you've got far bigger issues. An override system
should be a remote-control thing requiring keys from multiple people.
------
yeukhon
I think hijacked is a high possibility, though the only question remains is
why hasn't anyone actually claim the responsibility? This is so unlike
terrorist group out there.
From what I understand, no terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the
recent Kuming massacre in China the week before the missing plane.
Uighurs separatists/terrorists are not that shy; they did claim responsbility
are few times.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China))
If this were a hijack, it's either targeting at the Chinese (most likely
Uighurs separatists) or an upgraded terrorist attack. Maybe I've watched too
much _24_ and Sherlock Holmes.
------
csense
Hmm. I wonder what the motivation is. I don't think it's terrorism or ransom,
since nobody's claimed responsibility yet.
Maybe it was a hijacking gone wrong, and the plane went down?
Then again, the time gap between the disabling of systems suggests the
hijackers ended up with enough control of the aircraft to send someone to see
to it (presumably if they were engaged in a desperate battle with the crew and
passengers, or if they lost control of the aircraft and the plane was going
down, all of the hijackers would be busy dealing with the crisis).
The fact of "significant flying experience" and the disabling of the
transponder suggests a professional operation -- maybe some country's
intelligence agency wants one of the passengers badly enough they're willing
to interfere with a couple hundred other innocent passengers? The outcome
doesn't bode well for the missing, since they are now Witness Who Have Seen
Too Much.
Or maybe the hijackers _want_ all the passengers because they have a use for a
couple hundred humans. Slave trading? Weapons testing? Wouldn't it be simpler
(and bring a less thorough investigation) to just kidnap people off the street
in some country with poor law enforcement?
The more I think about this, the less sense it makes.
~~~
arrrg
There can’t be _that_ many places within reach of that plane where such a
plane can land, right? The time window and range are both known, so can’t all
those places be checked somehow?
~~~
timr
More importantly, there aren't that many places a 777 can land _without being
picked up by a radar_. Probably zero places.
~~~
Zancarius
I'd imagine that most airports that could handle a 777 would be suspicious if
it wasn't a scheduled flight, wasn't an emergency _per se_ , and later learned
that an aircraft of that type went missing.
And if it was still the case up to the point of disappearance, its latest
livery was a bit... flamboyant [1]. Not exactly the sort of thing I'd want to
try hiding.
[1]
[http://flightaware.com/photos/view/1342999-1276f63c75e647f6d...](http://flightaware.com/photos/view/1342999-1276f63c75e647f6d73bb3dc004b0dfad70ae7ea/aircrafttype/B772)
------
driznar
Officials now believe most likely location for MH370 is on land near
Chinese/Kyrgyz border.[1]
If this holds true, then the most likely perpetrators are Uyghur separatists.
But this begs the question, how did they manage to evade being detected by the
numerous radars?
[1]
[https://twitter.com/JonahFisher/status/444754310677553153](https://twitter.com/JonahFisher/status/444754310677553153)
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
They probably were detected by radar, but geopolitics means few countries will
admit they were able to detect it to avoid revealing military capabilities.
------
Oculus
_" Radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the
airliner climbing to 45,000 feet (about 13,700 meters), higher than a Boeing
777's approved limit, soon after it disappeared from civilian radar, and
making a sharp turn to the west. The radar track then shows the plane
descending unevenly to an altitude of 23,000 feet (7,000 meters), below normal
cruising levels, before rising again"_
Sounds to me like a possible fight/commotion in the cockpit was the cause of
the plane to fly in such a weird pattern.
Potential Scenario:
\- Fight in cockpit results in the plane flying unexpectedly high ( _" above
approved limit"_)
\- Hijackers obtain control, turn off transponder and turn to their target
location
\- Unexperienced pilot (possibly learned how to only fly smaller planes) makes
an _" unevenly"_ descent to lower altitudes as he knows the plane is above its
approved limit
\- Rise again could be a second fight in the cockpit? Not sure on how to
explain this one.
The rising and falling in altitudes makes me suspect this wasn't pilot
suicide.
~~~
sebcat
Why would a plane ascend because of a struggle in the cockpit? You don't just
climb 15000 ft at that altitude because someone fell over the controls.
Someone had control at that point. Had there been a struggle, a descent would
be the most likely outcome. All the explanations I've heard so far contains
way too many assumptions. Ockham's razor.
Here's another scenario: hypoxia. Makes you retarded and euphoric. Like being
drunk but with less disassociation. Suddently, it's a great idea to climb! Oh
wait, nope. Better descend. Are we on course? Better turn.
Hypoxia and/or stress. Look at AF447. All pilots know what a stall is. But
when you're flying at night in bad weather with S:t Elmo's fire all around you
and the airspeed indicator stops working and you believe you need to climb,
you might react without thinking. Oh, we're losing altitude? Better pull up!
------
nnx
Malaysian PM just concluded a Press Conference.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwRUf4NlwDc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwRUf4NlwDc)
He himself confirmed that satellite data (alledgedly cross-checked with US and
other countries) shows the plane was still up in the air until at least 8:30AM
Malaysian Time (~4-5 hours after the disappearance iirc).
Search and Rescue operations in the South China Sea (east of Malaysia) have
been cancelled - the search now focuses west of Malaysia.
I quote (emphasis mine) : "the last satellite communication occurred in one of
two possible corridors, a northern corridor, stretching _approximately_ from
the border of Kazakshtan and Turkemistan to northern Thailand, and a southern
corridor, stretching _approximately_ from Indonesia to southern Indian Ocean."
PM exited the press conference right after ending his speech, not answering
questions.
------
final_approach
This story gets more interesting and interesting with every day. I really hope
it was hijacked and landed safely somewhere.
~~~
mjs7231
If true, it means 230 peoples lives are in the fate of a group crazy enough
and smart enough to hijack a plane undetected. I don't even want to think
about that too much. The situation they are in must be hell.
~~~
maaku
> The situation they are in must be hell.
Better than being dead.
~~~
kaoD
Are you sure?
~~~
maaku
Yes. Being alive is better than being dead. I will stand by that statement no
matter the circumstances.
------
TenJack
One plausible scenario is that the plane was hijacked by terrorists so that it
could later be used to deliver a payload (or be the payload itself a la 9-11).
Since the plane has such a huge range, it could be used in an attack on
American soil. This could also explain flying at a high altitude as a way to
kill the passengers.
~~~
LordHumungous
You can't just fly an unidentified plane into American airspace without
getting shot down... I think
------
beagle3
Motorola/Freescale is apparently a dangerous place to work:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_006](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_006)
~~~
dm2
It happens a lot more than people think.
If your company has 20,000 employees and it's routine for many of them to fly,
then the odds are that something bad will happen eventually.
[http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02/tesla-employees-
identif...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02/tesla-employees-identified/)
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/connecticut-
pla...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/connecticut-plane-crash-
six-feared-dead)
Below are some unusual airplane incidents, I'm sure there are many more than
are on this list. The point is that everyone would say the below things would
NEVER happen on an airplane, yet, they happened.
[http://www.planecrashinfo.com/unusual.htm](http://www.planecrashinfo.com/unusual.htm)
Some highlights:
"A passenger brought aboard a crocodile hidden in a sports bag. The crocodile
escaped, causing a panic among passengers who all rushed to one end of the
plane. This caused an imbalance in the aircraft which led to loss of control
and a crash."
"A stray bullet from training soldiers struck the landing plane, hitting an
oxygen cylinder. A fire broke out and control of the plane was lost and it
crashed."
"The aircraft was hijacked shortly after taking off from Ethiopia by three
drunken escaped prisoners. They demanded to be flown to Australia, but
wouldn't let the pilot stop to refuel. The plane eventually ran out of fuel
and ditched 500 feet offshore killing 127 of 157 aboard."
"A passenger's cigarette caused a fire in the cabin which led to an oxygen
tank exploding. The plane crashed killing 25 of 69 aboard."
"Two passengers were sucked out of the plane after a tire exploded in the
wheel well causing damage to the fuselage."
"Out of boredom, the captain and flight engineer decided to experiment and see
what would happen to the autothrottle system if the circuit breakers which
supplied power to the instruments which measured the rotational speed of each
engine's low pressure compressor were tripped. This led to engine overspeeding
and destruction of the engine. Pieces struck the fuselage, breaking a window,
causing rapid explosive decompression and a passenger was sucked out of the
plane. The plane landed safely."
"An unrestrained German Shepard interfered with flight controls and caused the
plane to crash."
"Without authorization, the pilot taxied half-way down the runway to try and
clear fog. Braking done during the fog clearing overheated the brakes. Soon
after takeoff, the overheated brakes caused a tire to burst which damaged a
fuel line and started a fire. The plane crashed shortly after killing all 80
people aboard."
These below happened like 50+ years ago.
"A U.S. Army Air Force B-25 crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State
Building in fog, killing 3 aboard and 11 on the ground."
"Carbon dioxide extinguishers were discharged in response to a fire warning in
the cargo hold. The plane's nose was lowered for an emergency descent and due
to a design flaw, carbon dioxide entered the cockpit and rendered the crew
unconscious after which the plane crashed killing all 43 aboard. "
"The DC-3 disintegrated in flight outside of Quebec killing all 23 aboard.. A
dynamite bomb was planted in the forward baggage compartment by Albert Guay, a
jeweler, in a plot to kill his wife who was a passenger on the plane. Guay,
who assembled the bomb, had his accomplice, Marguerite Pitre air expressed the
bomb on the aircraft. Ms. Pitre's brother, a clockmaker, helped make the
timing mechanism. The insurance policy was for 10,000 dollars. All three were
hanged for their crimes. "
"The plane landed in Pacific Ocean, 2.5 mile short of the runway in the
shallow waters of San Francisco Bay. All 107 people aboard were safely
evacuated off the plane. The aircraft was recovered from the San Francisco Bay
55 hours after the accident, repaired and eventually flew back home to Japan
and was in service for many decades."
"The aircraft crashed killing 61 of 82 aboard after colliding with a balloon."
~~~
dag11
> "Out of boredom, the captain and flight engineer decided to experiment..."
Wow, that starts out like something out of The Onion:
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/pilot-tells-passengers-
hes-...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/pilot-tells-passengers-hes-about-to-
try-something,34934/)
~~~
gaius
A similar story is how Chernobyl happened.
------
taspeotis
Like every other piece of information that's denied in the daily press
conference...
> the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
> authorized to brief the media.
------
kbar13
didn't google news have a hosted page for AP stories that was formatted a bit
better for reading? I can't seem to find it anymore...
------
notastartup
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/1069...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10699933/Missing-
Malaysia-Airlines-flight-MH370-investigator-denies-claim-plane-was-
hijacked.html)
I don't know who to believe.
~~~
Cookingboy
They've been publicizing information and shortly denying them afterwards
themselves this entire week, it almost seems like there is a faction within
the government that has conflicting motives with the rest.
Next they are gonna deny that MH370 existed at all.
~~~
notastartup
It almost seems like they are trying to avoid looking bad in front of the
world. It's really hard to believe that a large flying object like that is
undetectable or the idea that it's sitting on an island with trees covering
it.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Fall of Open Source - linuxhiker
https://www.commandprompt.com/blog/the_fall_of_open_source/
======
verandaguy
I agree with the author's concerns. It's a bit unsettling to build upon a
closed-source ecosystem, but it's unrealistic to expect the world to work
otherwise.
When people have skills, it's natural and totally understandable that they try
and market these skills. It's something they're good at, and that they can
make a living off of.
I've worked on teams and with groups that use Github and Slack extensively.
The reason these services have succeed -- and why they were adopted, at least
by the teams I knew -- is because they got their foot in the door early on.
Someone was on a payroll, being paid to come up with a good, simple, user
interface, a useful feature set, and a decent API. Most OSS projects just
don't have the developer base to come up with an idea and develop it to the
point where it's a really well-polished piece of software ready for use by
even the most tech-illiterate users.
Once all of that was invented, it was trivial for just-as-good OSS and self-
hosted alternatives to surface. For Slack and Github, those were Rocket.Chat
and Gitlab (and more recently, gogs). There's nothing wrong with these
services; they mimic their closed-source counterparts really well, and are
sometimes even better than them in some respects. They just didn't come into
the market at the right time to get the critical mass of users early enough to
dominate the market.
So TL;DR it's less a problem that closed source G-men are trying to take over
the market, and more that developers have to choose between having the free
time to come up with an idea and to develop a well-polished OSS app, and
spending time having a steady source of income.
------
api
Slack is kind of my litmus test for whether someone understands what's wrong
with FOSS. If you do not understand why Slack has grown so much vs. IRC, you
don't get it.
User experience is a _huge f 'ing deal_ and FOSS doesn't care about user
experience. There are two reasons for this.
One is that UI/UX work is not fun and so programmers generally must be paid to
do it. This is an economic model problem and in some cases a management
problem. Jamie Zawinsky observed this over a decade ago and not much has
changed:
[https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)
The second is that many in FOSS view mastery of arcane systems as a status
symbol and have active contempt for any effort to make systems easier to use
or more approachable. This is an elitism problem. FOSS is about freedom and
equality among developers, but there's also a mentality among many (but not
all) that looks down on non-technical people and resents any attempt to bridge
that gap.
IRC lets people message each other and chat on channels, and Slack lets people
message each other and chat on channels. The comparison ends there. Try
getting a non-technical person on IRC vs. Slack and now try teaching them to
really _use_ IRC -- to transfer files, etc. Now try getting IRC working on a
phone. Call me in a few days.
Slack is not just warmed-over IRC. All the apparently little things that make
Slack so easy to use for so many people took a _huge amount of work_ to
implement. UI/UX is _hard_ and _painful_ and requires loads of testing,
iteration, and attention to detail. Little things like the fact that when I
edit a Slack message it changes everywhere at once reliably are things that
took... oh god... I shudder to imagine how much pain.
I do believe that open source can overcome this problem, but step one is
actually understanding it. So far almost nobody in FOSS gets it, so I'm not
optimistic.
Edit: one more point about user experience...
It's not just about luxury and convenience. It's about cognitive load. Forcing
people to learn endless amounts of arcane nonsense to do trivial things that
have been done since the 70s is a waste of peoples' time.
In the information age information is cheap but _attention_ is incredibly
expensive. If something doesn't work instantly it's broken. If I have to spend
time figuring it out it's broken. If I have to learn anything more than I
absolutely need to learn to make it work it's broken. That's because there are
a billion more new things to learn that are waiting in the queue and most of
them are probably more important. Next, next, next!
~~~
bb88
A couple of points here.
1\. Slack is centralized. When you control the hub, you control the protocol.
Which makes it easier to modify and change. You don't have to worry about
people whining that you broke their client if you change the server. They
control the hub and the spokes.
2\. Slack is centralized. (I feel that's important). There are what 1M IRC
servers (if you count all the internal company servers) and 20M clients in
existence. You can't just change a popular protocol overnight without people
complaining that you broke a client.
3\. Slack is ... you guessed it ... centralized. IRC has a peer to peer chat
feature (that doesn't go through the server). This is ironically, the way file
transfers happen on IRC too. It's also what makes people able to host IRC
servers without paying a huge bandwidth bill, nor get sued when their server
is used to transmit Game of Thrones.
4\. Slack is ... you heard it .. centralized. Messages must go through slack's
servers. For people concerned about privacy, it makes it an easy target for a
National Security Letter.
5\. Slack is ... like a broken record ... centralized. Today I was told to not
send proprietary information on it, because my company doesn't have an on
premises hosted slack. Can any one self host slack?
6\. Why haven't you looked into Mattermost, if you're tired of irc?
You know, it's not that open source devs are elitist, but they have a history
of writing code for people that are the 10% technically elite. It's not that
they're smugly arrogant, but rather, IRC does the job they need it to. So is
there really any reason to change it? No. Just like there's also no need to
put a python interpreter in the linux kernel. Would it make things easier for
the average user to write a device driver? Possibly, I don't know? Is it worth
the headaches of maintaining a python interpreter in the kernel? No.
In fact, the FOSS devs I know could probably care less about this holy war.
Yes, slack is a great tool, and in some cases would work better than IRC. In
other cases they would say IRC would work better than slack. Oh, did I mention
they don't see it as a holy war in the first place?
~~~
nickpsecurity
BitTorrent is decentralized with lots of clients and tons of users. Users of
GUI clients usually download a Torrent file, see what files they're getting,
uncheck any they don't want, hit OK, wait a while, and stop it when finished.
Change the download directory in preferences like most of their other apps but
has sensible default usually. Opposite of all your points about Slack yet
still super-easy-to-use due to good UX.
See how your centralization point was pushing your ideology instead of
apparent claim that Slack was only good due to centralization?
"You know, it's not that open source devs are elitist, but they have a history
of writing code for people that are the 10% technically elite. It's not that
they're smugly arrogant, but rather, IRC does the job they need it to."
Oh no, he's right. Ask them to change anything to something easier. It took
quite a while to get the GUI clients that simplified key steps. They were
insistent on forcing people to learn and memorize commands instead of menus
with obvious options. They certainly could've improved look-ups and had "save
to favorites" earlier in usable form. They didn't care because they were
elitist.
Now, I'd consider a different explanation if tech people weren't doing same
thing for UNIX commands, GUI configuration, installers, incomprehensible-by-
default text editors, everything is a command line argument instead of sane
menus of text, and so on. The amount of mental load it took to use those
systems and apps vs Windows or Mac is a huge chunk of why they dominate the
desktop.
I recall the pain of switching to Linux from Windows. Everything that was
simple or easy to find just clicking around took thought in Linux. I knew that
was unnecessary because my previous supplier made it unnecessary by putting in
work. I later saw Apple do the same for network configuration, backups, and
getting apps mostly safely. Elitists are still bragging about their commands,
ports, and so on while _known_ UX or foundational issues never get fixed.
~~~
bb88
"See how your centralization point was pushing your ideology instead of
apparent claim that Slack was only good due to centralization?"
No. I don't have an ideology here. Just facts I'm sharing.
"They didn't care because they were elitist."
Do you have proof of that so called elitism? Maybe they didn't want to get
into a holy-war. Maybe they didn't want to break a 30 year old protocol.
I think, they didn't care because they just simply didn't care. Don't confuse
elitism for general apathy.
Also, have you looked at Mattermost?
~~~
nickpsecurity
"Do you have proof of that so called elitism?"
They get into holy wars, break stuff, and take action regularly. So there goes
three reasons. What they will do is call people idiots or lazy if they
complain about poor UX. Or remind them how you only do (arcane steps here) to
accomplish the task so why the fuss?
It's hard to absolutely prove elitism over all other things that go on in a
person's head. However, that kind of behavior resembles elitism. Hell, many
such people even made memes like "Elitist Linux Asshat" to rub others' noses
in it. Starts to get harder to deny their ego and aire of superiority is
involved at that point.
------
slgeorge
The problem for Free Software advocates, is that they 'won' but that's also
brought about a change in 'communities' make-up.
The key quote is in the first sentence "Once upon a time FOSS was about
Freedom": this simply isn't the case for many users of FOSS (and I mean people
who use code that is under an open source license which covers those that are
FSF compliant and others). The winning part if landing up with many more
users, and many more creators both personal and in a professional context - it
feels unarguable to me that there's more active FOSS than at any time before.
The user-base has simply changed, everyone can use FOSS not just the technical
elite and/or fringe. And FOSS is active in areas I never considered.
But ... if you care about the values/philosophy behind Free Software then you
may dislike the fact that the core philosophy hasn't made it across to a
substantial (majority?) of users. But, in terms of providing users with the
core freedoms (e.g altering/copying) it's certainly a win.
------
rxm
And many of these kind-of-free tools are built on top of open source code. I
also feel that Open Source movement is changing.
------
meira
I agree with him, but a new movement, stronger will emerge from this, just
like free software started. And I bet in #indiewebcamp (Freenode)
~~~
bb88
Have you looked at mattermost?
~~~
meira
It's not about tool replacement, but awareness enhacement.
~~~
bb88
Right, so I'm making you aware of mattermost.
~~~
meira
Nice :)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Framing other sites has always seemed scummy to me. Am I off-base? - brandnewlow
One thing that never fails to tick me off is when a site frames one of my own. Seeing someone else's URL and branding atop a page that I created and filled with original research/content/thoughts makes me feel just a tad violated.<p>It's arguably a fuzzy area, but there's nothing fuzzy about how I feel about seeing it happen. It feels like theft.<p>When I first had this happen two years ago, I started adding a frame-breaker to all my blogs. Problem solved. Most people don't know how to do that however.<p>For a while, it seemed that only shady sites like i-am-bored were engaging in massive framing of other people's content.<p>However, recently I noticed, to my disappointment, that Facebook frames the destination pages for all links shared on it.<p>And more recently I've seen some startup called Outbrain add "related content" links to popular blogging platforms. These links lead to framed pages with a prompt at the top inviting visitors to log in to outbrain. Major newspapers are now using this outbrain garbage on their blogs.<p>Aside from my decidedly negative emotional response to the practice as a content creator, are there other, perhaps more tangible detriments to being framed?<p>Does it hurt a site's SEO and create duplicate content problems?<p>Could it be argued that it's a form of IP theft?<p>Am I off-base in my intense hatred for sites that frame others?<p>I want to be able to concisely explain to non-techies why this gets me so mad. To techies as well I guess.
======
tokenadult
Yes, it is scummy. I sure don't set up many outlinks to sites that frame other
sites. I don't recommend them actively in online discussion either. I would
never set up framing like that in any site I administer.
------
chris11
That's why I've never really liked about.com. Looking into it, it seems like
all the content has been paid for by about.com. But content on their sites has
appeared elsewhere, and it looks like they frame content, so it's just
distasteful.
I do think it can be done well though. Isitfunnytoday.com frames content. They
are a web comic aggregator that lets people vote on web comics. On all their
out going links, they have a very small frame that lets you vote on the
displayed comic, vote on a different comic, and share the the comic on
websites like digg. The bar is not invasive, and you can easily get rid of it
by clicking the red x. It also helps that isitfunnytoday.com is actually
sending more traffic to the other site.
------
callmeed
I don't think it hurts your SEO–since it's framing your page at the same URL.
Google is smart enough to know that the frame comes from your site/blog.
Honestly, I don't think you should be too concerned about it. After all, RSS
readers, blog search engines, news search engines, meme aggregators, and other
sites all scrape content and republish it (in whole or part) in their own
pages–often profiting from ads at the same time. Is that any less shady to
you?
I'd say just make sure your pages clearly define you as the content creator.
People will get the idea.
~~~
brandnewlow
In some of those cases, the practice is just as shady. In others, not as much.
I don't use an RSS reader personally and never will. I visit the sites I like
so they can recoup advertising views from me reading the stories they paid
real money to professionals to write.
I also don't like how RSS readers make every story look the same no matter
where it comes from. It loses personality.
I think newspapers are partly in their current situation because they didn't
sue the pants off Google or charge for their sites to be spidered 10 years
ago, before the public grew comfortable with the practice. Google got all
their data for free.
If I'm expected to pay Twitter for use of their API, surely I could have been
expected to pay the NYTimes to spider their site and store local copies of all
their content.
------
inerte
1 - It doesn't hurt SEO. Sure, a directly link would be better, but a framed
one is better than nothing. If it creates duplicate content problems, it's for
the framer, not the framed.
2 - No. Why do you think it might do?
3 - No, I hate them too :) Except isitfunnytoday.com, because, you see...
that's the problem. Sometimes you can clearly see value being added by the
framer. But these are rare, most framers do it to stick the users, log
activity or show ads.
~~~
brandnewlow
1\. Ok. Good to know. Still seems scummy because...
2\. They're adding their branding/user experience to your site, usually up at
the top, in an effort to brand your content as their own.
According to think link: <http://www.publaw.com/framing.html>
There was a lawsuit back in 1999 in which some news orgs sued the pants off a
site that was framing their content and running ads around it.
Outbrain doesn't appear to be running ads, but it's definitely adding UI
elements and "login" and "about" links that I wouldn't want anywhere on my
site. That's why I wonder if there's grounds for legal challenge, the user
experience is being co-opted without prior consent.
~~~
ygalai
Hey brandnewlow - I'm the founder of outbrain... thought I'd drop by your
conversation here. The recommendations we make in the outbrain widget are
based on how readers rate blog posts. Therefore it is important to give
readers the rating functionality (which is why we keep the frame). We don't
promote our brand in the frame and did our best to keep the functionality and
UI to the absolute minimum. Furthermore - when a reader clicks on a link to a
page where our widget is installed, we don't show the frame at all as the
rating functionality is already available on the page. So a good way to
prevent the outbrain frame from showing up would be to install our widget on
your site... ;-) (<http://www.outbrain.com/get/ratings>)
We don't really like frames either, and are doing whatever we can to reduce
the use and minimize the UI intrusion when we do use them... but in some cases
there ain't much better ways to do this... I'd appreciate any ideas for
improvement.
~~~
brandnewlow
Thanks for dropping by and joining in.
A few questions:
1\. Do you request the content creator's permission before framing their site?
I checked out Outbrain.com but it doesn't appear that you have any sort of
submission form. I'm assuming you just index whatever sites you choose. I
don't see any sort of opt-out form on your site either.
2\. I understand that your model is based on getting recommendations from your
users, and that you get those recommendations by framing people's sites so you
can make the rating interface impossible to ignore. That's a decision on your
end, not my problem as a content creator. You do not promote the brand you
say, but you do promote your service and its ends.
3\. As your model is based on a practice I find distasteful, I'm not sure why
I'd want to install your widget.
4\. What is your business model? Will you eventually sell advertising on the
frames across the top of these sites once your widget is getting enough use?
5\. Can you really not find a better way to engage users other than framing
other people's content? Your reasoning here seems to boil down to "We can't
think of a better way to do this."
I appreciate you coming in here and look forward to your responses. I don't
see how a business based on framing other people's content is defensible
though but I'm sure there's enough framers out there ready to prove me wrong.
~~~
ygalai
Hey - before answering the specific questions, I'd take a step back and say
that the ultimate judge on web services like outbrain should be the user, not
the court (assuming the service is legal, and I believe that both linking and
framing are perfectly legal). I think outbrain offers great value to all 3
stakeholders - the reader, the blogger installing us, and the site receiving
traffic - and so I hope these stakeholders keep us honest and let us know if
we're doing anything that's distasteful in their mind. If you search for
references about outbrain on the web you'll find that they are all very
positive.
Specifically - 1) We do not request the content creator's permission, and
don't think we need to. The content we link to is published publicly, and
linking to it is perfectly legal. As I mentioned before, we'll gladly block
links to any site that's not interested in them promptly after getting a take-
down request. (BTW - why would you expect services like outbrain to ask for
upfront linking permission, but not from say Google?)
2) I think what you said is reasonable... we're in business for providing a
great product and getting people to use it. I think that is fine. As for the
crawling - our crawler respects your robots.txt settings, so if you wish to
prevent us from indexing your site you can easily do so.
4) Our business model will likely evolve around advertising, though the frame
will probably not play a major role on that. As I said above - we hope our
bloggers and readers keep us honest and let us know as soon as we breach their
respect of our product. Our users' loyalty is paramount to us, and we would
not breach that trust too easily...
5) Any solution other than framing would require us to pull the target page
and insert our code into it. That is something we would not do because that
really is distasteful - for example, it would affect the site's ability to
properly serve and count their ads.
Bottom line - a frame is far from perfect - I agree with you about that - but
I don't think it's inherently evil if used with some care.
------
The_Sponge
It's perhaps only tolerable in situations where a site has to deal with
phishing on a large scale basis, perhaps on a forum targeted towards a younger
audience. And even then, only if it is only a banner which says "WARNING:
Don't give out your password to sites you clicked on from us!" as well as a
swift way to see the page in full.
------
NoBSWebDesign
As long as it's relatively unobtrusive and has a prominent "remove frame"
button, I don't see what the big deal is. If it weren't for their link to you
(framed or not), that user would not have found your content in the first
place. I would be grateful for them driving traffic to your site and move on
to more important issues.
------
chris11
"Facebook frames the destination pages for all links shared on it."
Where does Facebook do this? I just checked it with a site for a food drive
that I'm advertising on my news feed, and it wasn't framed.
~~~
brandnewlow
Click on a "posted item" in your news feed.
Example:
[http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=52798147212&h=...](http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=52798147212&h=0C-c4&u=mHSaK)
Instead of
[http://www.myrecipes.com/recipes/gallery/0,28548,1708361,00....](http://www.myrecipes.com/recipes/gallery/0,28548,1708361,00.html)
FB adds a blue bar across the top with the profile info of the person who
shared the link.
------
timf
Here's the only example of where I like it: <http://playericious.com/>
------
kbrower
For me it boils down to whether or not the frame is adding any value to the
page, unobtrusive, and easy to close.
------
anotherjesse
stumbleupon is now doing this for their non-extension based experience.
~~~
kw
StumbleUpon is an example of framing content right...a simple unobtrusive
toolbar. I used that site as inspiration for a website I created during my
spare time. Link: <http://www.picahuna.com>
I don't think there's anything necessarily scummy about framing content. In
the case of StumbleUpon and my site, there's a benefit to the user experience,
and visitors can immediately start using the site without installing an
extension. Furthermore, StumbleUpon actually increases traffic to your site.
~~~
brandnewlow
See, I'd be annoyed if I saw that on one of my sites.
And I understand I could be in the minority here with this discussion. It's
good to hear the counter-argument from people who organize, scrape, and
aggregate other people's content.
And I ask in part because my main project right now is an aggregator. There
are a whole host of practices that would help from a business standpoint that
I have questions about, like framing.
~~~
kw
When I made the site I debated whether to include frames or not. The
justification I used was that I as a user (not just the creator of the site)
would actually want a small toolbar that would allow me to navigate quickly
between aggregated sites (it aggregates image sites, so I tend to move quickly
between pages), and view the sometimes funny captions people give the images.
I can understand your annoyance though. Content creators should have a choice
whether to be framed or not... and they do, but like you said not a lot of
people know about framing sites and/or how to break them.
|
{
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}
|
So Remind Me Again, Why Do We Need the NPM Registry? - benologist
https://blog.javascripting.com/2015/06/11/so-remind-me-again-why-do-we-need-the-npm-registry/
======
judge2020
Really excited to see this play out: [https://github.com/entropic-
dev/entropic](https://github.com/entropic-dev/entropic)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Porn Identity (2006) - yannis
http://www.tnr.com/article/washington-diarist-the-porn-identity
======
dotBen
Um, for a start this article is for _2006_ people -- I'm not sure why this is
of interest now.
The piece sounds fabricated/exaggerated - the author claims she was not
involved in porn yet she was clearly happy to appear to be associated with the
industry... That's totally the inverse of the norm (women get involved with
the industry but DON'T want their true identity to be associated with their
work).
Also a quick google of Eve Fairbank's name returns an Urban Dictionary result:
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Eve+Fairbanks>
"Her writing style is known as Fairbanksing: A gratuitous fabrication in a
story when the truth would have served just fine."
She appears to be known to embellish stories that she writes in publications.
~~~
epochwolf
How authoritative is Urban Dictionary?
(I ask because I don't know, I haven't used it much)
~~~
pmiller2
Urban Dictionary is essentially Hot or Not for words and phrases. Take that
for what you will.
~~~
zackattack
I would actually like to suggest that wordhate
(<http://apps.facebook.com/wordhate/>) is the Hot or Not for words and
phrases. Haha
------
ramanujan
> "I've been talking to Google," my mother wrote, "and they got your name off
> all those sites." Sure enough, thanks to persistent attention from Google's
> user support, the links--byproducts of tricks to drive more traffic to porn
> sites--were gone.
How about that. I bet a lot of people wish they could talk to google.
------
waterlesscloud
My first assumption would have been that there was some sort of algorithmic
trick behind that, like what you see when you google names of famous people.
But that does require a fair amount of sophistication to suspect that.
Googling my real name used to turn up a lot of text porn, written by someone
using my real name as a pseudonym (I admit, "Rod Ramsey" is tempting for that
purpose). I just lived with it, didn't see that it really hurt me in any way.
~~~
crosvenir
Don't worry. Just chalk it up to na?vet?.
~~~
samd
<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/naivet%C3%A9>
~~~
barrkel
I think you missed the joke. And the umlaut (diaeresis) on the i.
~~~
zackattack
(diæresis)
------
andrewvc
Seriously? Anyone who uses the internet at all knows that searching names is
likely to turn up multiple people, especially for common names like the
author's. I don't really see how this is a problem. Should the phone company
be liable if you look up someone by name in a phone book at it turns out
they're a prostitute when people call them up?
~~~
epochwolf
Do I really need to point out the "facebook login" incident again?
A lot of people trust computers and assume they are magically correct.
Example: THE DATABASE is magically and completely up to date in every detail.
Just try getting incorrect information changed in a database some time. People
trust computers way more than they should.
~~~
zackattack
What was the "'facebook login' incident"?
~~~
jmah
A ReadWriteWeb article started becoming the first result when Googling for
"facebook login", and the comments were filled with confused people who think
they're accordingly on (the "new") Facebook.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1119184>
------
tophat02
I don't know about the rest of you, but the moment I turned 18, this kind of
assault on my privacy by my parents would have been completely unacceptable.
------
jgrahamc
Long ago I complained to Google about my name being associated with
pornographic ads. They fixed it very fast.
------
greenlblue
The lesson here is if you want to protect your reputation you need a name that
is not likely to be a pornstar name.
|
{
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|
Sony starts another standards war - iamelgringo
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080107-sonys-transferjet-to-take-on-bluetooth.html
======
justinw
Surprised? Nope! Sony is king of the propriety format from the overpriced
Memory Stick to the UMD Disc. It's all about the money; Sony hopes that by
flooding the marketplace with these formats at least one will be adopted as an
industry standard. This leaves Sony in sole control of it with the potential
of licensing the technology to other companies, and making even more money.
|
{
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|
Why Spacemacs? - twampss
http://www.lunaryorn.com/2016/01/26/why-spacemacs.html
======
anonyfox
I used to love Sublime Text. Been a paid user, even paid for addons (sftp). As
accessible as sublime is for newcomers, as restricted and antique it feels. I
can't describe it in words right now, it's a feeling of mine.
The release cycle stalled, I looked into Atom for a while, but being browser
based has advantages and disadvantages, and I finally discarded Atom because
of performance issues (yeah, even with the current release) and most of all:
battery usage. I need to work 8h+ straight without outlet on my MBP.
Then I discovered the final solution to my editor/IDE needs: Spacemacs[1]. The
unparalleled extensible IDE of Emacs combined with the ergonomic and fast
editing style of vim, plus layers of goodies ontop, pleasantly looking. It
totally changed the way I work, having only a fullscreen spacemacs open the
whole day, except for occasional looking into my browser window. And then I
discovered org-mode, and oh my god, this goodie seems to be the final solution
for everything remotely organizing/planning related.
Sorry for the mostly unrelated comment here, but I want to spread the word
about spacemacs! I came from being a heavy sublime user with occasional vim
editing needs to this lovely pieve of an editor/IDE.
[1] [http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/)
------
gradschool
Package 'spacemacs-theme-' is unavailable during initialization, apparently
closed last month [1] but still very much an issue on an up-to-date Debian box
for both the master and the develop branches
[1]
[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/4097](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/4097)
|
{
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|
80 chars per line is great - jaimebuelta
http://wrongsideofmemphis.com/2013/03/25/80-chars-per-line-is-great/
======
cletus
At Google, our Python style guide dictates 80 characters with 2 character
indenting [1]. Java is the only exception at 100.
Even 100 can be awkward to fit into. Lord knows I've renamed variables to
avoid splitting a line on several occasions.
But what a lot of posters here seem to miss is that it isn't about the width
of screens for editing, it's about the width of screens for _reviewing_ so you
need twice the real estate.
Add in doing interactive merges and you need _three_ times the width.
This really comes down to the principle of enforcing a common style (for an
organization or project). A lot of people rail against "arbitrary limits" and
"arbitrary style guidelines" as it's something extra they need to learn and
adds no value (according to them). I've seen people here for 6+ months again
still fighting this.
Such things (IMHO) have value as it adds a reasonable level of consistency
across teams, it avoids commits on files due to stylistic changes (which may
or may not be automatic from IDEs, etc) and, most importantly, defuses a lot
of the aesthetic-driven boneheadedness that we engineers are prone to.
The last point is really important. Otherwise you'd have engineers and groups
fighting over where to put curly braces, 2 space indents vs 4, whether tabs
are OK, etc--none of which actually matters.
So if you feel your creativity somehow stifled over 80 characters, I'd
strongly suggest you just abosrb it, get over it and move on to things that
actually matter.
[1]: [http://google-
styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.ht...](http://google-
styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.html#Line_length)
~~~
rayiner
Lines of > 80 characters are really the last jabs at the dying corpses of
typography and taste in the digital world. Typographically proper paragraphs
are not wide across, because that forces the eye to move more while reading.
This is a basic fact that has been known for literally longer than we've had
printing presses.
Wide lines are barbaric, and I'd go so far as to say that languages that can't
be rendered comfortably in 80 character lines are nothing more the primitive
tools of barbarians.
~~~
5h
> Wide lines are barbaric
I agree utterly, and enjoy the irony that I read your comment displayed as
<http://i.imgur.com/iJNs9SV.jpg> ... a full 258 characters ... HN could do
with some responsive css to max-width comments above certain viewport widths!
------
npsimons
I love how a lot of responses here are of the condescending tone of "we aren't
using vt100s anymore, grandpa", as if advocates for the 80 column limit are
still running VIC20s in their mom's basement. I see this argument pop up a lot
against things like vi and Emacs as well.
Yes, we realize that monitors are bigger, resolutions are higher, etc ad
naseum. None of that matters. What matters is code readability. So what if you
can fit 120 characters in your code editing window? I can fit more than 400
across two monitors, should the new line length limit be 400? Why stop there,
why not just let lines be endless and have the editor wrap them? Answer these
questions, and you've answered why people still like the 80 column guideline,
or even care about code formatting at all. Code is only incidentally written
for machines to execute; it should be written for people to read.
~~~
ak217
Yeah, but code readability has little to do with line width. I could show you
perfectly unreadable code that fits in 80 characters because it's legitimately
pre-indented by 40 and has to go to one word per line or shorten variable
names to fit in 80, and wonderfully easy to read code that goes out to 160
(often because of some literal data that would otherwise just increase the
vertical length).
Also, it's funny to me that people talk about horizontal line length impacting
readability, but never seem to talk about _vertical_ length impacting
readability as well. To me it's critical to keep related code clustered
vertically as closely as possible without too much brevity: having to
scroll/split view to see related pieces of code incurs a cognitive overhead.
Arbitrary line breakage imposed by the 80-character limit gets in the way of
that. (And don't get me started about teams that treat this as a _limit_
instead of a _guideline_.)
It's critical to give programmers the tools to make their code readable (good
languages with good grammar and idioms), not arbitrary restrictions that try
and fail to accomplish that indirectly.
~~~
ajross
> _I could show you [...] wonderfully easy to read code that goes out to 160_
I'm calling this bluff. No, you can't. If you actually have evidence I'd truly
love to see it.
Ridiculous line length is actually one of the most reliable code smells I
know. Seeing something like that, I can virtually guarantee that it's an OOP-
gone-wild mess of needless abstraction, tightly coupled data structures spread
across a dozen files. It's going to be a spaghetti mess of nested if()
constructs used where clean data-driven logic would have been better. It will
be filled with commented-out-code. And it will probably have indentation that
lies, lined up in incorrect columns waiting to fool the developer.
Clearly you feel differently. Prove it. :)
~~~
ak217
[https://github.com/kislyuk/dmtk/blob/master/scripts/compareP...](https://github.com/kislyuk/dmtk/blob/master/scripts/comparePulseData.py)
Feel free to criticize. That code has lots of shortcomings. Compromised
readability due to line length is not one of them.
~~~
ajross
You can't be serious. Check lines 388-400. Now, even ignoring the fact that
_github itself is chopping those lines because they're too long_ , they're
simply not meaningfully readable. The ridiculous repetition (which is the
proximate cause of those awful line lengths) totally obscures the meaning.
Note all the repeated use of this weird dictionary name
"my_stats[condition][strand]". This thing appears, often multiple times, on
ever line of that loop. You're telling me that this couldn't be made more
readable by using a simple local "stats" reference name "st"? Repetition of
expressions is the sign of lazy code, it's the same kind of thought process
that gives us cut-and-paste bugs.
Note likewise the repated use of "kc_stats[condition]". Same deal. Same
treatment.
Note likewise the oddball commented out line (assigning a tuple of
m2_ci_lo_fwd, m2_ci_hi_fwd) which is disabled without explanation. Remember my
list of attendant symptoms?
And, on the design side: note the mean/median/stdev calls. Those are generally
pretty well-defined properties of "sets". Why is there a "Metric" postpended
to the method names needlessly? Surely the reader would understand
"st.stdev()" already, right? And _why do the methods take five named
parameters?_. That's insane -- they should take _zero_. It looks like this is
trying to pass in some extra "stuff" (maybe to control some side effects, or
to filter the data) to what should be an idempotent operation on a fixed piece
of data. If you have to filter, or if the object does some extra counting or
whatever, those should be set up on the data ahead of time.
This code is crap. Sorry.
~~~
ajross
Just because I'm feeling bored today, here is that same loop (around line 388)
"cleaned up" to work inside 80 columns. I added a "metricGenrator" abstraction
to the API because it seemed like a sane addition to clean up the "too many
arguments to mean()" problem, but all other changes are is pure syntax. I
_dare_ you to argue that this isn't more readable than the original:
my_stats = {'Modified': {'+': {}, '-': {}}, 'Control': {'+': {}, '-': {}}}
for condition in 'Modified', 'Control':
for strand in '+', '-':
st = my_stats[condition][strand]
kc = kc_stats[condition]
kc = kc.metricGenerator(metric, ref_pos=ref_pos, trim=opts.exp_trim,
coverage_ceiling=opts.coverage_ceiling,
strand=strand)
st['mean'] = kc.mean()
st['median'] = kc.median()
off = st['stdev'] = kc.stdev()
if use_se:
kc.setOpts(ref_pos, metric, trim=0.0,
coverage_ceiling=opts.coverage_ceiling, strand=strand)
off /= sqrt(len(kc._getMetricData()))
st['spread_lo'] = st['mean'] - off
st['spread_hi'] = st['mean'] + off
my_report_row.extend(st['mean'], st['median'], st['stdev'],
st['spread_lo'], st['spread_hi'],
st['coverage']])
~~~
arh68
I don't know if this was easy or quick for you (less than an hour, in any
case), but you seem to prove the parent correct: "That code has lots of
shortcomings. Compromised readability due to line length is not one of them."
Maybe you're simply an amazing programmer, but to jump in and refactor a small
bit of code deep inside something you've never seen before proves to me that
the initial code was indeed readable.
In either case, both examples are literally geometrically square, which I
think drives readability more than line width. When the long lines poke out
and don't relate to other long lines, it's hard to read. If all the lines are
long and share structure, it's just verbose, but reasonably easy to read. With
that perspective, I'd say the parent's code isn't a great example of long-line
code: it doesn't demonstrate a _need_ for 160 chars; I'll agree with you.
~~~
ajross
I started typing a longer response, but honestly I think the clearest answer
here is just sarcasm:
Some of us have a higher standard for "readable" code than "can be refactored
so that it doesn't suck". :)
------
kstenerud
80 characters is an accident of history, an accident that should be corrected.
With an 80 character limit, you need to be mindful of the length of your
identifiers. You start compromising recognizability in the name of fitting the
line to an essentially arbitrary length (drop a few vowels, maybe use a less
precise word).
Using a width limit to coerce into indenting less is just plain silly. If you
don't want high levels of indentation, put THAT in your coding guidelines.
Don't rely on side effects.
~~~
GhotiFish
This isn't about the indentation. Look at the examples. you can see that allot
of his code is indented heavily.
This is about the amount of time and distance required to scan my eyes across
a line to understand its meaning. How much do I have to read to understand a
simple concept?
This is also about the amount of screen real-estate i have to use. We arn't
programming on VT100 terminal any more, damn right. NOW I get to have the
compiler output and continuous integration output to my left. The directory,
class structure and documentation to my right.
I also get to split my screen to have two editors open for comparing snippets
of code line by line.
Merge conflicts and diffing are hugely common operations. merges have three
parallel windows open at once!
You, still, only have 80 characters to work with.
~~~
ajanuary
This isn't about the indentation.
From TFA:
Also, having the mandatory indentation whitespace increase the line width is a good visual way of minimising the nested loops in your code and suggesting, in a subtle way, to refactor anything that is indented more than about four times.
~~~
scarmig
Your line from TFA is 241 characters, making it a pain to read....
------
ak217
Screw arbitrary limits.
Personally, I prefer the 120 characters per line _guideline_. Most code I see
starts looking very ridiculous when trying to accommodate the 80 characters
max width, and it starts becoming hard to follow lines when exceeding 120
characters. So, to me a _soft_ 120 characters guideline is the nice medium
between the fact that it's no longer 1980 and the need to make lines easy to
read.
Also, in most cases readability has almost nothing to do with line width (in
fact it can suffer greatly from too much line breakage), and everything to do
with how the programmer chooses to structure their code, aided by language
idioms.
~~~
epochwolf
I do the same thing. I set a vertical guideline to 120 characters. Depending
on the codebase I'll turn on wordwrap at 120 characters too.
~~~
heidar
I like a 80 column soft limit which I usually stick to and a 120 column hard
limit which I use when I feel splitting the line and indenting would harm
readability.
------
d23
I had to fight with my team over the 80 character limit, but they eventually
gave in. It works great in nearly every editing environment, and I've started
trying to use it as much as possible in non-python projects as well. I can
neatly fit two windows side-by-side in my IDE and read them both easily. I
just can't go back to the old way of having the ends of lines hidden off-
screen.
~~~
Evbn
Do you code on a netbook? 2x120=140. At 7px each, which is generous (even if
you are using some non-proportional font for archaic reasons or misplaced
machismo) that is under 1000px wide.
~~~
awj
I have a 27 inch monitor and _still_ prefer an 80 character limit. It rarely
forces me to mangle code and allows me to have four different files open side
by side. It's especially useful for frontend development where I'm going to be
editing html, css, and javascript almost all at once.
This "hurr durr, we aren't on terminals anymore" argument is dumb. You aren't
arguing with crotchety old geezers or people with stupid hardware choices.
Quit assuming the people who disagree with you are idiots.
~~~
marssaxman
With you here. I don't even know how big my monitor is, but more horizontal
space just means I can open up more code windows side-by-side, which means I
can see more context at once. All to the good.
------
bluedino
With the long variable/class names used these days, and the availability of
clear, small fonts and 16:9 displays, 80 columns seems silly. But I'm against
raising it, even to 100 columns. 100 really isn't much more than 80. And then
you start to lose things like being able two view two pages of code side by
side.
The other problem is that 100+ column lines are just flat out hard to read.
It's hard to follow text that far across these screen. A few years ago when I
was working with Objective-C I came across methods used with each variable on
one line and really grew to like that.
It's similar to the way source code is laid out in books. But is that because
the code is more readable that way, or is it a consequence of the layout?
Books are taller than they are wide and usually have generous margins.
~~~
vadman
I use a soft-ish guideline of 100 columns per line, but I mostly code in C# at
work, so normally namespace/class/try-catch is already 3 indentations, and 80
chars is simply not enough for everything.
I do my best to keep it between 80 and 100 chars. With a horizontal screen
resolution of 1920 pixels, 2 pages of such code fit nicely side by side.
------
nonamegiven
I think the three file views side by side image is one of the best arguments
I've seen for 80 chars. But I'm predisposed to like that image, because I like
80 chars.
~~~
balloot
So why not make it 60 characters? Then you could have _4_ files side by side!
But seriously - I guess there is some workflow where you would like to have 3
files side by side, but I certainly have never felt like that is something I
need. I would much rather have readable, verbose variable names, which I have
found to be the first thing to get axed in an 80 char column setup.
~~~
snprbob86
Three files side by side is extremely common for those of us who have to
regularly resolve merge conflicts. You put the common ancestor in the middle
and the diverging changes on either side, then you edit both sets of changes
in to that middle buffer.
~~~
balloot
I resolve merge conflicts as well. Every system I've ever used gives you one
file with delineated chunks (<<<<, === >>>). Never once have I said "this is
too difficult - I need three windows open." And even if I did say that
sometimes, I can't imagine optimizing the character width of my code for that
one use case.
~~~
nonamegiven
The most definite thing that should be taken from a thread like this is that
it usually boils down to personal preference. In fact I'd say that personal
preference in these matters should take at least as much preference as any
available emperical studies. If you're in a group, and you don't get your way
in the coding standards meeting, accept it and move on. _You can do it_! :)
------
richardlblair
The thing people miss here is the "Python related". If you need 120 characters
on a line then you completely missed the "zen" of python.
Having to go beyond about 85 characters is a good indication that you probably
need some refactoring in your _python_ code. As the idiome states, "Flat is
better than nested."
Your if, in an if, in an if, in a for, in a method, in a class is probably
complete garbage. Even in other languages, if you are so nested that you
legitimately need 120 characters then you likely need to refactor. Your code
that is nested to oblivion will prevent anyone from being able to give you a
thorough code review which opens you up to unnecessary risk.
~~~
obviouslygreen
This is painfully presumptuous. Generalizing others' code and constructs as
"probably complete garbage" and suggesting that a 120-character line implies a
"need to refactor" is either profoundly naive or grotesquely smug.
I love Python, but programming languages don't have "zen," and reality is
never so ideal that an 80-character line -- in and of itself -- can ever be
assumed to imply anything useful.
~~~
Chris_Newton
Thank you for making that point.
I used to work on some code that did a lot of subgraph matching. Subgraph
matching in general is computationally expensive, so ideally you do it
heuristically, searching for more likely elements of the subgraph you’re
looking for first so you can skip over edges/vertices that have no potential
as early as possible. Even then, if you’re looking for a complicated subgraph
then you’re going to have a bunch of conditional logic that runs _lots_ inside
deeply nested loops one way or another.
That kind of code is often unwieldy, simply because the algorithms it
implements are unwieldy. However, arbitrarily factoring out some of the inner
levels into separate functions, which might have little meaning in themselves
and little potential for reuse out of context, just means when you’re trying
to review/update the code you need to look in more than one place to find it.
On top of that, you’re also incurring a bunch of relatively heavy function
calls (many parameters might need to be passed in for context) right in the
middle of deeply nested code or you’re trusting your optimiser to inline them
reliably.
So these days, whenever I see someone quoting dogma about how more than _n_
levels of nesting are bad and your code needs refactoring if you hit their
personal arbitrary limit, I cringe a little inside. Not all real world
algorithms fit neatly into a dozen lines of code and a level or two of
looping.
------
CapitalistCartr
Long ago, I wrote Web pages to be served from OS390. Because it still enforced
the 80 char limit from punch cards, I had to adhere to it, also. But no fancy
editors for code directly in the machine. And when any line ran over 80, it
would only render the first line of HTML. Took me hours to figure that one
out.
But I never ran across anything I couldn't make decent inside those 80
characters.
------
jspiros
I find the 80 char limit nice as a suggestion/warning, a way of saying "are
you sure your approach should require lines of code this long?" So, a good way
to make sure that someone is writing readable code, which is otherwise the
overall goal of PEP8. But, sometimes there are lines of code that are
perfectly readable, maybe even more readable, despite exceeding 80 characters,
and which become less readable by doing line continuations. (I would argue
that line continuations make everything less readable, almost all of the
time.)
The other rule that I personally ignore, and when I'm managing a project I
have my developers ignore, is the suggestion to use spaces instead of tab
characters for indentation. Of course, with Python, you must use one or the
other, but I prefer tabs.
In both cases, it comes down to my belief that individual coders should have
the ability to customize their experience without forcing it on everyone else.
When you use spaces instead of tabs, and indeed, when you use line
continuations, you're forcing your (the author's) exact view of the source
code on everyone you're working with. If you use tabs, and don't use line
continuations, others with specific needs (2 character tabs, 4 character tabs,
8 character tabs, 60 character-width editors, 100 character-width editors,
etc.) can, with any modern editor, customize their view (using variable-width
tab stops, and soft line wrapping) to what they're comfortable with.
------
VLM
I think its a given that we'd all agree that writing portrait mode or
landscape mode you still fundamentally take about the same number of square
inches to do it.
One observation is a fixation on horizontal space never on vertical. If you
can't make sense of the big picture without scrolling vertically then you're
probably doing it just as wrong as requiring horizontal scrolling to see the
little picture.
Two interesting analogies:
RISC vs CISC. Doing something RISC like with simple little operations but the
order and block control are super important? Go "RISC" landscape mode. Doing
something ridiculous complicated at the operation level? Go "CISC" portrait
mode and only do one "weird thing" per line.
Another interesting analogy is I've been in this game since 1981 and the
physical display ratio has consistently gotten shorter and fatter every year
(kind of like my body, sorta). Like it or not, the style trend is that someday
our display hardware is only physically going to be capable of something weird
like 800 characters across and only 8 lines up and down. You might have a 10
inch tall display but if 6 vertical inches are taken up by window bars and tab
bars and ribbons and 25 toolbars and a bottom status bar, well you're only
getting 4 vertical inches. Doesn't matter much if you like it or not, you'd
best get used to it as styles don't seem to be changing, not even the 1st or
2nd derivative of the ratio over time...
------
larkinrichards
I really like the 80 character limit for readability, but I'm also a fan of
what it does to git commits (and any other diffs). When I have to wrap code,
say, function calls, I often use one line per keyword argument. When you have
to change or add arguments later on, git recognizes that only one line -- the
argument -- changed, instead of the entire function call changing.
------
Kaivo
What about other languages? I find it harder in C/C++ when I have functions
with too much parameters. It's almost less beautiful to look at. Do you change
parameter names to shorter ones, add usings to avoid explicitly stating the
scope, tab at 2 spaces instead of 3/4, increase the line cap to 90/100?
On a semi-related subject, what about the vertical limit of the code? I often
heard that a function should fit in one page, but that also depends on the
screen resolution. Also, the 80 chars rule would increase the amount of line
instead. How do people deal with that in general?
~~~
nmcfarl
Yeah - I was thinking about a Java codebase I was looking at a while back that
had ultra verbose variable names like
"BackupCopyOfLedgerUsedInWorstCaseScenarioProjections" You couldn’t even do a
simple addition in 80 characters.
This limitation seems fairly language specific, and has a lot of side effects
for the rest of your style guide.
------
k_bx
I'm ok that people don't use email/vim/sublimetext2 with splitting panes, but
don't people use meld / kdiff3 for reviewing they're changes? And on my
1366x768 120-chars would be too wide to show in meld.
~~~
dbrgn
I much prefer colored unified diffs in my terminal (e.g. those from git) over
side-by-side tools with multiple panes.
------
caioariede
I love to work with a 79 chars per line limit.
For those using vim, I use this snippet to automatically split my window at
startup:
<https://coderwall.com/p/suj3fq>
~~~
q_revert
set colorcolumn=80
is another nice way to keep yourself within the bounds, it also has the bonus
of not being a hard limit, just a visual indication that you're overstepping
edit: (already mentioned)
------
struppi
When I can freely decide, I set the column indicator in eclipse to 100 and set
eclipse to not enforce this limit (maximum line length=1000, never join
lines). I prefer it like this because there are circumstances where longer
lines make sense for me. Anyway, I try to keep lines as short as possible
because I usually use a very large font for coding and have 2 files open next
to each other...
------
niggler
In vim (appears the author is using macvim) you can use
:set cc=81
to mark the 81st column and visually nag when you go over 80 chars
------
NateDad
100 characters seems a pretty reasonable compromise. Keeps lines from getting
too long and hard to follow, but you're not splitting lines all the time just
to keep under the limit, which also reduces readability.
If you're having trouble fitting two 100 character wide files side by side,
there's two things you need to do:
#1 - get a screen with a decent resolution. 1920px wide should be standard for
any developer worth his salt. Yes, this means "don't develop on a 13 inch
laptop screen"... you're a developer, this is the main tool to do your job,
make it a decent one.
#2 - use a real font. Courier New (or whatever the corollary is on Linux/OSX)
is not a real font. I prefer proggy fonts
(<http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download>)... they are incredibly
more compact and still very readable... you get significantly more characters
on the same line.
~~~
jaimebuelta
Author here, just for reference, I use a iMac 27'' and Menlo 11 (I also have
an extra screen, where I put other info, like mail)
I anyway use the same setting when I use a laptop, though is not my main
workplace.
------
ratsbane
80 characters seems like such an arbitrary restriction. Once upon a time we
were limited to 80 characters but we were also limited to monochrome ASCII
text. Just as syntax highlighting improves readability, I think the
_occasional_ use of longer lines _where appropriate_ improves readability -
the shape of the code gives your eye additional clues about where you are in a
section of code, allows you to have more lines on the screen at once, find
what you're looking for faster, and isolates details that aren't crucial in
getting the big picture. E.g. - inline lambdas or anonymous functions,
strings, etc.
When I work on a codebase with formatting standards I try to follow them. This
is 2013, though, and when I work on my own stuff I format it to get the most
readability on my Macbook or 32" 1080p desktop screen, not a VT100 from 1987.
~~~
jimktrains2
> When I work on a codebase with formatting standards I try to follow them.
> This is 2013, though, and when I work on my own stuff I format it to get the
> most readability on my Macbook or 32" 1080p desktop screen, not a VT100 from
> 1987.
And then someone working on your code on an eeePC will have a great time!
~~~
cabirum
The options are: use smaller font size, enable word-wrap, buy a higher-
resolution display (or two), use your IDE to auto-format code according to
your preferences. I don't really see anybody using eeeePC for serious coding
in 2013.
~~~
jimktrains2
> use smaller font size
Makes the code harder to read
> enable word-wrap
Makes the code harder to read
> buy a higher-resolution display
Increases cost and I can't take an external on the subway/train.
> use your IDE to auto-format code according to your preferences
So, make it 80 to 120 chars per line myself
> I don't really see anybody using eeeePC for serious coding in 2013.
Because the year means sooooo much. Who are you to choose when and how I code.
~~~
cabirum
> Who are you to choose when and how I code
I'm asking the same question when 80 chars limit is enforced on me.
~~~
jimktrains2
80 to 120 char has other advantages over just screen size. It's easier to read
as well. Working on a team is giving and taking of everyone's capabilities.
I've had to work on teams that use odd tabbing, but I do it because that's
what others use.
------
njharman
> combined with the use of whitespace in Python, makes the code much more
> compact and readable
Because of Python's significant indentation is exactly why I can't stand 80
char limit. Breaking lines, causing "false" visual structure destroy's
Python's readability.
Seeing more logic vertically is far more important than horizontal.
I've been on teams that choose horrible names, used strange constructs, etc.
just cause they fit on 80 char. Also wasting huge amount of time getting shit
under 80char. Oh, and 80 char leads to people using import from over import
(to avoid fully qualified names), which introduces bugs (name conflicts) and
tons of confusion / lookup time wasted figuring out "process" is from some.lib
and is not local,, or the one from some.other.lib
------
ajanuary
Personally I find the splitting in the for loop much harder to read, though
the smatch splitting is fine.
I would favor splitting only if you're indenting to line up with the first
couple of tokens. In those cases the pattern is obvious as soon as I start
reading, and my brain switches to scanning vertically. I find it jarring to
have to switch from having read most of a line to suddenly scan vertically.
It seems like the example doesn't demonstrate the point that precedes it at
all. Apparently in this example an 80 character limit doesn't promote re-
factoring, it promotes splitting lines. Which makes the justification for 80
characters being a typical line length + 4 indentations a bit weak and 80 is
back to being arbitrary.
~~~
nonamegiven
I don't quite like the loop split, but that's because I've never like
"continue the next line under the first argument of the series." It makes next
lines start at inconsistent places and makes it harder to read. I usually bend
that rule and follow the four space indent 90% of the time.
But I do like the loop split better than the non-split, despite the above.
I like the smatch split too. It looks like how you'd arrange bullets in a
bullet list, one below the other, so you can see/scan them at a glance,
without having to labor over where the next item is in a single line.
------
tonyblundell
Rules are there to be broken.
I stick to 80 chars 99% of the time because long lines are more difficult to
read.
But if a line ended up being 84 characters wide I wouldn't go replacing
variable names or hacking a single function call onto multiple lines to fix
it.
No one has died yet :-)
------
Glyptodon
I hate the the 80 character limit. I never follow it, though using 2 char
instead of 4 char indentation might help.
The main reason I hate it is pretty simple: I think it encourages using
cryptically named variables. I find that using properly descriptive naming
often leaves lines around 90 to 100 chars, particularly with 4-space indents
and several arguments or a chained call. I also don't find the suggested
practice of implied multi-line via unclosed parens leads to good readability
in many cases.
That said, I agree there should be some limit. My usual practice is to set it
at 120 chars, though I find it rare for a line to exceed 90 to 100 chars.
------
ioquatix
The only consistent method is to not wrap text at an arbitrary limit. Everyone
can follow this and it is very clear. Readability may or may not be
compromised. Dictating an arbitrary line width is exactly that: an arbitrary
standard. If it works for you and your team, great, but ultimately it is a
totally arbitrary choice.
Also, I believe that text editors are generally catching up in this regard and
doing a good job of intelligently indenting code that wraps over multiple
lines. This means you can choose an editor width that suits your needs rather
than having it dictated by someone's arbitrary choice.
------
dbrgn
I agree that we need a limit, but in my experience 80 characters is often too
limiting and sometimes causes wraps that make the code _less readable_ instead
of more readable.
I use a vim colorcolumn at 80 characters as a soft limit, but the hard limit
for my projects is at 100 (or 99, to be exact). This has proven to be a nice
guideline to write readable code, versus the 80 hardlimit that forces you to
write short code (which sometimes is less readable than a clean & clear line
with 90 characters).
------
vph
The problem with 80 chars/line and Python, in particular, is list/dict
comprehension. Naturally, as they replace a whole loop, comprehensions pack
much information into one line. Consequently, there are many times when a
list/dict-comprehension line that are clean and meaningful but had to be
broken into 2 lines.
And that isn't nice.
~~~
jaimebuelta
Having a list comprehension in 2 lines is really a problem? I find very
readable something like
result = [something(value) + value * 2
for value in values]
I mean, I prefer one line, but if it has be in two (or more lines), I don't
see the problem really
~~~
mst
Actually, with a minor tweak this gets even more readable -
result = [something(value) + value*2
for value in values]
I find indenting the subcaluse makes my eye flow naturally over the code. I'm
normally doing this in perl, and often end up with functionalish code that
looks like
my @result = map { something($_) + $_*2 }
grep { valid_candidate($_) }
@all_candidates;
but the same principle seems to apply nicely to both languages.
------
mgrouchy
80 character lines is perfect. Allows me a reasonable number of splits in vim
and most importantly makes diffs/code that I get in my email readable.
That being said, as with all things(especially guidelines), apply common sense
liberally. Which in Python is one of the guidelines of pep8 on writing
readable code.
------
philwelch
At 80 characters, I often find myself worrying about line length more often
than worrying about the problem I'm trying to solve. 120 is fine. Also, I
orient my (widescreen) monitor vertically so I don't have anything side by
side anyway, just top and bottom where I can see more lines of code.
------
Grue3
It's great for a language that is not whitespace-significant. Python requires
hacks like backslash just to do a line break, which makes both alternatives
(with/without line break) equally ugly.
------
cabirum
Ideally, IDEs should automatically take care of how to represent the code
according to user's preferences. Also, IDEs can save files according to
project's guidelines.
------
wyqueshocec
I like to have my font size rather large. It reduces eye and neck strain for
me and makes the long days more ergonomic.
An "80 char/line" guideline is nice for that.
------
cmars
I mostly agree, but SQLalchemy queries and the occasional complex conditional
could cause one to reconsider or start making allowances.
------
cabirum
80 chars ought to be enough for anybody, right?
------
artificialidiot
With default bells and whistles your IDE provides enabled, you'd be lucky to
have a 79 char wide editing area.
There are modern options though:
1\. Disable unnecessary stuff on your IDE. 2\. Don't use a IDE, use a
dedicated editor. 3\. Don't use an editor from a VGA console. 4\. Stop
pretending you code on a vt100.
I see no wrong with a sensibly long line which is longer than 79, just as I
see no wrong in keeping multiple parts of code visible at all times. There
shouldn't be hard limits or carved to stone guidelines.
------
the1
what? do programmers still layout their code using whitespaces manually? use
code editors that support declarative stylesheet for layout and enable
intuitive structural modification.
~~~
tonyblundell
I prefer to be in absolute control of the layout. It's not that big a task.
------
jlebrech
what about having a limit for the number of lines, 200 lines?
~~~
jotux
In mission-critical systems line limits are common. The first public example
that comes to mind is the NASA JPL C Coding Standard(<http://lars-
lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf>). Check out Rule #25:
>Functions should be no longer than 60 lines of text and define no more than 6
parameters. [Power of Ten Rule 4]
>A function should not be longer than what can be printed on a single sheet of
paper in a standard reference format with one line per statement and one line
per declaration. Typically, this means no more than about 60 lines of code per
function. Long lists of function parameters similarly compromise code clarity
and should be avoided.
>Each function should be a logical unit in the code that is understandable and
verifiable as a unit. It is much harder to understand a logical unit that
spans multiple screens on a computer display or multiple pages when printed.
Excessively long functions are often a sign of poorly structured code.
------
Chris_Newton
I agree completely with the author that readability is paramount and
artificial limitations are often questionable.
Having said that, whenever this topic comes up, we always seem to fall into
the same trap of comparing one dubious representation (very long lines) with
another (awkward breaks to avoid crossing an imaginary limit). Beyond a token
comment on not nesting too deeply, and a token reply that sometimes deep
nesting really is tidier than artificially separating the inner levels
somehow, we rarely consider whether _what_ we’re representing is fit for
purpose. Does it really make sense to take the basic syntax we use for short
expressions like
short_name(easy_param, other_param)
and try to apply it to longer expressions like
full_project_name.useful_package_name.handy_function(first_param,
second_param,
third_param)
or something more complicated than a single function call? This leads to a
debate where the most radical alternative proposed might be something like
full_project_name.useful_package_name.handy_function(
first_param, second_param, third_param)
If you look at well typeset mathematics, which suffers a similar problem of
scalability, there are often (at least) two different conventions for
representing the same mathematical expression. For example, maths set using
the TeX family probably has one version designed to read neatly in-line with
other text, but another version designed to be clearer when set as a
standalone display that might cross several lines.
There are many tools for tidying up those displays, aligning things in logical
ways. There are also conventions for breaking expressions too wide to fit on a
single line, and sometimes those conventions do opposite things when setting
an expression in-line to in displayed form, for example when deciding whether
to leave a trailing + at the end of one line or move it to the start of the
next. There is also a general idea that if you’re dealing with a lot of
expressions that don’t fit, you should be looking to define self-contained
parts of those expressions separately, and incorporate them indirectly using a
more concise notation within the larger expressions. There are even subtle
cross-references like numbering the key equations (only) and then adding a
note like “by (1) and (2)” in the margin to help the reader navigate a
complicated series of results. All of these ideas fit _within_ the broader
typography of setting a paper or thesis, where you still want good general
readability in terms of (physical) line lengths, numbers of columns, use of
tables, positioning of displayed content, and so on.
In programming, we have some of the same basic ideas, particularly separating
out smaller parts of a larger whole as separate functions or variables for
exposition, but we haven’t really developed the same depth of typographical
conventions. Almost everything is based on the idea of taking that basic
syntax that works on a single line for relatively short expressions and trying
to make it work for arbitrarily large expressions across many lines with
nothing but a line break and fixed tab/space characters as tools.
I think this is partly because our text-based editors typically don’t separate
the meaning of our code from its layout. Even ideas like elastic tab stops,
which might be everyday alignment tools in programming languages that use
meaningful indentation, are still esoteric. A few functional languages promote
ideas like “let x in y” or “x where y” syntax to help separate out
subexpressions, but on the scale of functions separation implies creating a
new self-contained function to do part of the work, which comes with its own
scope, which means explicitly passing values in and out when they were already
conveniently available in the all-in-one function.
I don’t see the controversy over X characters per line limits going anywhere
until we get over these more fundamental problems of conflating code
layout/presentation with code meaning. We need to be able to express the ideas
in our programs systematically and have our editors and diff tools and code
review software present those ideas in a suitable layout that adapts to both
the idea itself and its context. Sadly, that’s not going to happen as long as
we keep asking questions like how wide a tab stop should be, and not asking
questions like whether we should even have tab stops at all.
~~~
rdtsc
Not being able to fit the code in 80 columns easily (for me at least) is a
smell test for potential problems code.
Now it depends on languages, I am thinking of Python, C and Erlang here.
If you use too many:
full_project_name.useful_package_name.handy_function(...)
is there a way to alias it to a function local name such as my_handy_function
= <the above>. Maybe there isn't (again it depends on language here as well).
> I think this is partly because our text-based editors typically don't
> separate the meaning of our code from its layout.
You need a better editor. That is a solved problem. I like emacs the best. I
imagine vi is just as good. It knows how to indent code based on the
semantics. It knows you are in the middle of the list or just started a code
block and does the right thing. (And I don't mess much with the default, an
editor that does most thing reasonably form then on I assume whatever else it
does to my code is now the new "right thing").
> A few functional languages promote ideas like “let x in y”
It kind of proves my point -- if you have functions that are going past the
end of the screen, you need to think a bit about the code (also of course
depending on language here, but most languages allow this). Break it up into
functions. For functional languages like Erlang, they really encourage short
functions that are 5-10 lines long. Use function clauses and pattern matching
(with guards) to lay out the logical structure and so on.
~~~
Chris_Newton
_is there a way to alias it to a function local name such as my_handy_function
= <the above>_
I agree, though of course a single function call is a trivial example. It
would be nice if we made more use of intermediate variables for exposition to
simplify complicated expressions more generally, too. But somehow this sort of
idea rarely seems to get promoted whenever long lines come up in discussion.
:-(
_You need a better editor. That is a solved problem._
I respectfully disagree. Current editors, even the most flexible, rarely do
more than automatically sorting out line breaks and indentation, and rarely
provide more viewing options than collapsing blocks and jumping around to one
cross reference or another. I am challenging the assumption that even the same
symbols in the same order are necessarily appropriate in different contexts.
I think there is a parallel here with the idea that a variable or function
name can be relatively short if it’s only used locally with the full context
available, but it might be better to use a longer, more detailed name or to
add full qualifiers like which package/module/scope the entity lives in if
it’s going to be used more widely. This is a simple case of adaptation that
many programmers would apply instinctively, but it illustrates the basic
principle that using the same name/representation for an idea regardless of
context isn’t always helpful.
_Break it up into functions._
But at the moment, breaking something into functions for ease of presentation
typically equates to breaking something into functions to establish an
independent scope, to allow wider reuse, or for other non-presentational
reasons.
For example, most languages offer no way to break down a moderately long
pipeline algorithm into stages without separating each stage into its own
function, complete with manually passing all of the context in and passing all
of the results back. If many stages depend on much the same general context
for that algorithm and the stages don’t make much sense outside of the
algorithm as a whole, might we not consider some sort of lightweight,
presentational way to split things up for better readability, without implying
all the side effects and maintenance overheads of full functional
decomposition?
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Scale Cheaply - Sharding - dhotson
http://codebetter.com/blogs/karlseguin/archive/2008/06/30/scale-cheaply-sharding.aspx
======
mdasen
Sharding is a great way to scale, but it has problems - specifically, you
loose easy joins. With the example mentioned, you have a client where all
their stuff is on one box - think a hosted CMS. Wonderful!
This doesn't apply as neatly to something like Twitter. There, we have all our
users potentially needing to be joined to data on all our other users. Joins
don't go across shards. You loose that with such a system. So, for something
like Twitter, you can either run lots of batch jobs and deal with the latency
that batching implies (not an option for a service that is used for instant,
small updates), use a single DB (replicated still applies as single in this
case), potentially use something like memcached to store a giant hash table of
the relationships and updates for the past 24 hours (and the database only
becomes long-term storage).
Sharding is awesome. Sharding has great uses. Sharding isn't something most of
us will have to use.
~~~
paul
Twitter is no harder to partition/shard than Google is. (your search is
against the entire web, not just one part of it) Batching has nothing to do
with this issue.
------
DenisM
If you are sharding, I recommend "distributed hash table"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table> with a twist - make sure
each physical machine participates in the table many times (1000). This way
you can relocate small pieces of data to balance the load without affecting
other machines.
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Deep Learning – Past, Present, and Future - rbanffy
http://www.kdnuggets.com/2017/05/deep-learning-big-deal.html
======
nl
One day someone will properly credit the anonymous Canadian public service
workers who recommended the CIFAR bet and their political masters for backing
it. Then maybe CIFAR can join it's rightful place alongside NASA and DARPA as
exemplors for how public research should be done.
------
131012
The title is misleading, nothing is said about future.
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Using hosts file to block ads - anilshanbhag
http://blog.anilshanbhag.in/post/12511348303/block-ads-the-geek-way
======
infinity
It is generally not true that nothing exists at 127.0.0.2. For example I have
a local Apache server running.
If you are using the hosts file to block the resolution of domains, you can
use 0.0.0.0 which is really false. The blocked domain will not be resolved,
because the operating system will recognize 0.0.0.0 as false, and a local
webserver running on port 80 will not see the requests.
The hosts file is not optimized for large amounts of data, so if this is used
to block an excessive number of domains and subdomains, the whole process of
name resolution will be slowed down.
The good thing is that a block via the hosts file applies to the whole system
and all browsers.
Another bad thing is that the hosts file does not support something like
wildcards or regular expressions, each domain or subdomain has to be blocked
individually.
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Ask HN: GUID, int, or both for primary key? - Fsp2WFuH
If both I'd just use int as primary key, and short guid as unique indexed key.<p>I like being able to get last n records if my primary key is int. At the same time I don't want to show to the public my auto incrementing int, I'd rather do a form of short guid. Reason is to prevent someone form randomly incrementing to next record or something similar. Most of my tables also have a created datestamp. Not sure, any thoughts on this?
======
coreyp_1
You actually answered your own question, which I'm glad for because that means
that you are thinking about security.
Use numeric IDs internally (for foreign keys, etc.), and GUIDs for anything
public-facing. NEVER expose the internal IDs to the end user, but, conversely,
only use IDs internally in the database. As long as you are consistent, then
it will never be a problem.
[edit: added this sentence] The ID will be the primary key, but the GUID can
be a key as well, but it does not have to be part of the primary key.
As a side note, it's not just about a person being able to increment to the
next record, but that it exposes information about your system. If a person
has just joined your website, and they know that their ID is 7, then they know
that there is nobody else on the site (and that's potentially catostrophic).
If their order # is 5, then they know that nobody else is buying from you.
Essentially, exposing IDs is, in essence, an information leak.
------
eesmith
Various discussion about something similar at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16946557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16946557)
. This concerned the essay "User IDs probably shouldn't be passed around as
ints" at
[https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/27/uid/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/27/uid/)
.
The author argues that auto incrementing ints have additional failure modes
that sparse integers don't have, even if those sequential values aren't user-
facing.
If they have a created datestamp then if you index them then it's easy to get
last-n.
------
daleholborow
There are additional arguments against using ints as ids in the database, if
you ever plan to shard etc, as in "you'd still have to do a lot of work to
migration data from an integer-key-based-system to something distributed".
Various articles describe this. Keep in mind that many RDBMS systems now
support some concept of a "sequential guid" \- but keep in mind that they all
store these in different ways. Plug: here's some code I pulled together, with
links to the reference material, that will generate sequential guids for
various databases:
[https://github.com/daleholborow/iayos.sequentialguid](https://github.com/daleholborow/iayos.sequentialguid)
Speaking from personal experience, in theory I would always choose a
(sequential)GUID as PK.. BUT... they ARE a pain in the bollocks to work with
when you are developing and writing sql by hand to query data. E.g.
a) select * from Thingies where Id = 5
vs
b) select * from Thingies where Id = '12331-432Aafds-32424-df'
------
jstewartmobile
If you do GUID PK or clustered index in an RDBMS, probably want to turn it
into a monotonic GUID.
Many DBs order the table by PK. If the GUID value moves backward, that's a
slow insert into the middle instead of a fast append to the end.
[https://dba.stackexchange.com/a/17212](https://dba.stackexchange.com/a/17212)
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Ask HN: CS major who doesn't want to code. Am I in the wrong major? - ajaimk
I am currently in my 3rd year as a Computer Science major. I choose CS cause I love technology and still do. Its just that I do not see myself in a stereotypical "coding job" cause that is not who I am.<p>I am a very outgoing and people person and am hoping for a job of the business/marketing/management side of a technology company. I am also the founder of the Entrepreneurs Club at Georgia Tech.<p>I look at my job prospects and people want CS major for coding jobs only.<p>Am I in the wrong major?
======
edw519
_Am I in the wrong major?_
Yes.
You (and some others) may not like what I'm about to say, but you asked for
it, so here goes...
In all the years I've been in technology, it has typically taken me about 28
seconds to determine if another person was "fluent" more than one or two
levels below the surface.
Those that were were almost always programmers, engineers, or technicians at
one time or another. Everyone else was at best managers and business people,
or at worst, administrators or posers.
I know some might disagree with me, but a Computer Science major who doesn't
want to code is like a dental student who doesn't want to look into anyone's
mouth.
To get good in technology, and I mean really good, you must get under the
hood, deeply and often. The best and most logical way to do this is by
programming. And you will have to do this intensely and for long hours, so
_you have to love it_.
The single biggest difference I've seen between great programmers and everyone
else is a pure love for what they do. Intelligence matters, work habits
matter, ability to work with other people matters, but make no mistake about
it, there is no substitute for passion.
Great technologists love what they do so much, they can't wait to get back to
it. They have to check on their work after dinner. They have to review their
notes at bed time. They are often the first in the office in the morning and
just as often the last to leave. They read and learn voraciously and can't
wait to apply their skills to new problems. They're so busy doing what they
love, they don't even think of it as "working 9 to 5".
By your own description, you do not sound like this. So do yourself (and the
rest of us) a favor and find something you love and major in that. If, on the
other hand, it's too late or it doesn't make sense to switch majors, then go
ahead and finish your CS major, but please find a direction to follow that
puts you in work you love. Be forewarned, though. Unless you're a programmer
first, you probably won't make a very good sales engineer or project manager.
You may want to consider sales or even (dare I say) proceeding on to business
school for your MBA.
~~~
ivenkys
This and a thousand times this. If you don't want to code - you are wasting
your time being a CS major.
~~~
tjpick
I had a lecturer in CS who didn't really code and would freely admit it. A LOT
of what she lectured stuck and I've used it everyday in my programming jobs.
CS != programming.
------
david927
Dijkstra said, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is
about telescopes." It's more than that though. Computer Science is no more
about _most programming languages_ than astronomy is about telescopes.
There are a lot of people who code giant Java or PHP projects and think it's
Computer Science. It's not. It's not even interesting.
Computer Science, at its heart, is a form of mathematics. Its progress, at
best, stems from that, and is simple, elegant and beautiful.
~~~
elblanco
Too right. People who want to be coders shouldn't be CS majors (though the
better coders tend to be CS majors), they should be IT majors and study
programming. People who want to understand the theories of computation should
take CS. It's that simple.
It's a common misconception that programming = CS. It stems from the fact that
programming just so happens to be a very convenient way to compute things, so
it happens to be what most people who don't understand CS see.
~~~
scott_s
In most universities, the computer science program is the best way for people
to learn how to program. In the future, I think CS departments will split into
software engineering (which focuses on teaching students how to program and
engineer software) and computer science (which prepares students for careers
researching in the field of computer science). But that's not how things are
in most places.
Also, "theory of computation" is an area of computer science theory. There is
much more to a CS curriculum than theory of computation.
~~~
elblanco
>In most universities, the computer science program is the best way for people
to learn how to program. In the future, I think CS departments will split into
software engineering (which focuses on teaching students how to program and
engineer software) and computer science (which prepares students for careers
researching in the field of computer science). But that's not how things are
in most places.
Too right. I agree with this. I think that the "field" of software has
generally gone in three directions.
1\. How do you compute it (or Thinking about it)? That's CS 2\. How do you
plan to build it (or Planning it)? That's Software Engineering 3\. Go build it
(or Doing it)! That's IT
Sadly, at least at my alma mater, the trend of keeping these three fields
separate has reversed. Instead, with budget cuts, the departments have merged
under the CS umbrella. I think this continues to push forward the layman idea
of these three things being equal because of how they are co-mingled -- but
really they are as separate of disciplines as Physics is from Road Paving.
Ideally the number of students and practitioners in each fields should be
distributed like a pyramid (a la any other engineering discipline). Most
people doing, fewer people planning, and even fewer people thinking.
>Also, "theory of computation" is an area of computer science theory. There is
much more to a CS curriculum than theory of computation.
I guess I also agree with this. I've always chafed at calling Computer Science
the "Science of Computing" though since it's not a science in the classical
sense. But everything I ever learned in my undergrad (not counting unrelated
curriculum coursework) was definitely related to "computing" in even a loose
sense of the term. I just don't think calling it the discipline of "computing"
makes it any more clear since "computing" - the act of using a computer (like
a Mac) and "computing" the act of performing computations, are easily
confused. The "Theory of Computing" has always seemed to have the best balance
while providing context for "computing". But I'm open to accepting other 2
word descriptions ;)
~~~
scott_s
Software engineering is a young field. While I think separate SE and CS
degrees is how things should be in the future, I'm not sure it's the right
thing to do now. I recognize that SE programs do exist, but we (as a species)
are still new at building software. We've been doing the other engineering
disciplines much longer. And as you point out, we're unlikely to see programs
split in a poor economy.
(I do have to disagree with your point 3: building it is very much
engineering. I consider IT management and service of computing resources and
information.)
~~~
elblanco
All true, I think the very fact that we can have an interesting discussion
about where the three major disciplines draw their respective lines is
evidence of the immaturity of the respective fields.
I have a feeling that, with the way the three disciplines overlap, when
everything finally shakes out we'll probably see the formation of a few more
disciplines. We've been doing math, science, engineering and building things
for thousands of years, but software for not even a century.
------
BigZaphod
Maybe. But your major doesn't have to define who you are or will become - it's
just a thing.
~~~
rw140
It's also worth remembering that there are vast numbers of jobs that don't
specify a CS degree, but where being a technical or semi-technical person
helps.
If you're good at interacting with people and have a background in technology
that makes you very valuable - look at the spread of jobs in consultancy and
team leadership (software development end of the scale), technical writing
(aka information development), technical pre-sales (explaining technical stuff
to non-technical people).
------
Kliment
Being in a _coding job_ is one thing, _enjoying_ writing code and building
things is another. I can fully understand not wanting to be the stereotypical
code monkey who sits in a dark room and outputs code. So the real question is,
do you dislike the _subject matter_ or the _imagined career_. If the former,
then you have a problem. If the latter, you can probably escape the stereotype
by founding or working at something smaller.
------
jhancock
Here's a few thoughts for you:
1 - I know of no major whose job outside of college resembles what you study.
2 - I went to Georgia Tech, '87-'92. Yep, a long time, as I was a co-op
student and had several entrepreneurial jaunts along the way. I chose EE as a
major as I specifically did not want to study CS since I had been programming
for 5 years prior to college and the first 2 years of the CS curriculum looked
boring to me. I have not used my EE education any more than I would have any
other discipline in my entrepreneurial life.
3 - My work as a co-op student gave me clear perspective that what I was
learning in school would not be what I would do afterwards. Changing majors
would not have effected this. In fact my work as a co-op gave me a better
"MBA" than what I feel most learn from the world's most revered MBA programs.
I can't say this is the case for all co-op students as I was handed a dream
job surrounded by industry veterans that loved to be my mentor. Even with
that, I still didn't know what I wanted to be for the rest of my life ;).
4 - Don't worry about your job outlook. It will change by the time you
graduate. Stay the course with your CS degree and continue your
entrepreneurial thread. A true entrepreneur is one for life. You have no idea
what you will do or if and when you'll make a windfall of money.
5 - I don't always like to code, it just happens that I'm pretty good at it
and was able to fall back on coding work to supplement my income to support
bootstrapping my own projects. It comes and goes. I enjoy a job well done even
when it was tough to get motivated. You will most likely have to bootstrap
things yourself and coding skills can play a big role.
------
mikek
In my experience, the best managers / product designers of programmers know
how to program. This helps them tremendously in understanding how to set goals
and expectations. It is very difficult for non-coders to know what is a very
difficult task (e.g. data deduplication) vs. what is an easy feature to add.
~~~
terrellm
There is a real need for people who can bridge the gap between programmers and
non-programmers (end users, clients, supervisors, co-workers).
After graduating with my information systems degree 10 years ago, I started a
small software company. Three years later, I was concerned that since my
strongest skill was programming that I was doomed to be a programmer. I went
back and got my MBA from Texas A&M (2 intense semesters followed by a very
light 3rd semester).
Pairing the MBA with my technical background has proven to be very beneficial.
I can interact with my customers or occasional clients and really understand
their needs from a non-technical perspective and then I can then go back to
the office and work with a developer either in pair programming or just in a
project management role.
------
jasonlbaptiste
Not at all. If I could choose between either an entrepreneur with an
entrepreneurship major or a CS major, the CS major would win hands down every
time. It seems a lot of CS/CIS majors prepare you for "coding jobs" in fortune
500 IT, which is a real shame. The degree is what you make of it.
~~~
ajaimk
That is my problem mostly. I love coding and do it for fun. Its just that I
can't convince myself to get a desk job where I stare a monitor from 9 to 5.
~~~
FreeRadical
To be honest, most (professional) jobs nowadays require staring at a monitor
9-5.
------
Elepsis
At some point around the third year of my CS degree at Georgia Tech I went
through a similar realization (I wonder if it's something about the
curriculum): I understood that while I was smart, competent, and able to get
through the curriculum with good grades, I was never going to be a "rock star"
programmer. And, indeed, I realized I didn't want to become one, because it
wasn't really my passion in life.
Do I think that means I finished my degree with the wrong major? No, not
really. Like you, I'm interested in technology and I felt I could still
contribute something worthwhile to that world. The understanding and ability
to code are still things that have a huge benefit.
There are plenty of opportunities for people with that background as well --
from technical sales (on the more people-oriented side of the scale) to
program or product management at software companies (on the more tech-oriented
side). I'm a Program Manager at Microsoft, and while I don't code as part of
my job, I feel like I wouldn't be able to interact with developers and testers
nearly the same way if I didn't graduate with a degree in CS. You should look
into positions like this and see if they sound interesting. Here's a great
writeup by Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division at Microsoft:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/techtalk/archive/2005/12/16/504872.asp...](http://blogs.msdn.com/techtalk/archive/2005/12/16/504872.aspx)
Long story short: Stick with CS. There will be plenty of opportunities to get
further away from the technology if that's what you decide to do, but very few
opportunities to get back into it if you let your skills wither while you're
still in school.
------
DenisM
The most profitable ventures are always at a junction of two tings. In your
case a junction of someone who can code on one hand and who can see the point
of another coder and negotiate to the agreement on the other hand is very
valuable in any large company. Product development in large companies always
requires more coordination between different teams than is available, so you
just can't go wrong by targeting this niche. Do both and you will do well.
As a matter of staging, get a coding job in a large company. Straight out of
college the expectations will be fairly low for you, so meeting coding
expectations would be easy. Use the spare time to seek out right-sized
communication gaps in projects that are important for your skip-level manager,
suggest improving it, provide your budget (I will spend one week on this, this
and this) and make a tiny but clearly measurable progress. If you make a
decent effort you will be noticed, if you succeed after first three attempts
you will be fast-tracked.
Remember that engineers respect other engineers, so if you start with coding
and especially a coding _achievement_ you will come from the position of
strength compared to any regular program/project manager.
------
tjr
A classmate of mine graduated with a degree in computer science, and went on
to law school. I was initially puzzled by his decision, but now applaud him!
Society needs more lawyers with a solid understanding of software technology.
~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
I also know several lawyers who started with a degree in computer science. It
may be a more common path than you'd think.
------
maukdaddy
I was once at the same place you are with regard to CS, albeit at Virginia
Tech (go Hokies!). I would suggest seriously considering an MIS program in
your business school. I switched to Business Information Technology (VT's MIS
program) after two full years of CS, and it was the best thing I've ever done.
The programming experience I gained through CS has served me well, but the
business skills learned in the business school have served me far more. I'm
currently working on my MBA, something I definitely wouldn't be doing if I had
stayed in CS.
If you're interested at all in starting your own company, which you definitely
seem to be, I'd definitely recommend switching majors. The network of people
you will meet in a business program will prove far more valuable than CS.
Edit: Good luck in the ACC champ game!
------
HeyLaughingBoy
No, you're not in the wrong major but you do need to look at fields outside
just "programming."
A smart girl I used to work with realized that she was more interested in the
business than in coding & testing and left to become a Business Analyst. The
job suits her personality much more than being a coder did and she's good at
it. Basically her job now entails meeting with customers to elicit
requirements and understand their needs from a business perspective. Having a
CS background gives her the ability to talk to both business people and
technical people and be able to translate between either "world."
In software development today, your interpersonal skills are much more
valuable than technical skills. I rarely turn down an job candidate for tech
skills: it's almost always a personality problem.
------
bengiuliano
I am exactly in the same position as you, just got my bachelor in CS - albeit
in Europe (Switzerland), and don't want to code for a living, even if I enjoy
it.
In my opinion one solution would be IT or management consulting. You'll be
travelling around, getting to know many people, etc... And I think it gives
you the exact tools you'll need if you want to become a entrepreneur later
(social network, overview of how businesses are managed, what they need, you
get the picture).
Some consulting companies that love to hire CS majors here in Switzerland: \-
The big 3 (BCG, McKinsey, Bain) \- Accenture (seems to be present in Europe
only) \- ...
~~~
tsestrich
That's exactly what I'm going to be doing with my Computer Engineering degree
(like CS with some electrical engineering thrown in), but in the US with
Deloitte Consulting.
I had the exact same conflict, where I didn't want to be programming every day
for eternity, and this will give me the opportunity to travel around and see a
ton of different companies. Granted, I'm expecting to get worked to the bone
and get tired of staying in hotels every week, but it'll be a fun experience
that should let me move into something awesome.
------
CrLf
Well, I'm a CS major (or whatever you want to call to the european equivalent)
and I don't code for a living.
I'm a systems administrator, and while I like to program and do so fairly
frequently (both for fun, and on the job), I just can't see myself as a
programmer, at least in the near future.
I find most "real-world" programming to be quite boring. And doing it day-in
day-out would just burn me out of it real quick.
Of course, there are some programming jobs I can see myself taking. But making
business apps or web stuff isn't one of them, and that's pretty much the whole
market right now.
------
roundsquare
Nah. I'm a CS major who just left his first job (which was a coding job) for
something different and hope to go to law school soon. Half the people I work
with are CS majors who decided to go into business.
But being a CS major has helped. From being able to break down a problem and
create a concrete solution to the fact that our spreadsheets work better and
are easier to read, the things we learned as a CS major are very helpful.
Treat it as learning a particular way of thinking and I think you'll be fine.
Treat it as "learning how to code" and you might regret it.
However, now that you've realized other majors might be interesting, I would
suggest minimizing your CS courses and finding other courses that interest
you. Take a marketing class instead of a class on compilers or something. Get
a minor in something you really want to go into. Or, better yet, study
something you'll never get the chance to learn about again (at least until you
retire).
Edit: Sorry, one thing I didn't consider is that some colleges do core classes
for 2 years and then classes for the major afterwards (didn't do this at my
college). If thats the case for you, then I'd suggest looking into a CS minor
and maybe some other major.
------
igrekel
Your first job doesn't mean it's what you'll always do.
My first job was a mostly coding job (even tough it was really not "just"
coding) but it quickly morphed into something else. If you are good and you
are interested, there are many other things possible than just sitting at your
desk 9 to 5. Nowadays I very rarely code on my day job and when I do, it
usually is fun (unless its Excel macros, that doesn't count).
------
rw
You are not in trade school. Take control of your life :-)
Most things in CS are able to be studied both empirically and theoretically.
For example, Scott Aaronson is a CS theorist at MIT who has admitted to doing
just a little BASIC programming in school. I took no computer science courses,
but now I code full-time.
Are you passionate about _something_? What is it? Do that, and don't worry
about your major.
~~~
jhancock
Georgia Tech was originally called "North Avenue Trade School" ;)
~~~
gte910h
Damn, beat me to the quip :OD
~~~
jhancock
I think maybe the OP is just feeling a bit down today about his college life
due to our poor showing against UGA two days ago. ;)
~~~
gte910h
I was expecting to deliver such a fine fine spanking to the dogs too. Oh well.
Piss on them.
------
charlesju
No I don't think you are in the wrong major. I was in your same boat, for the
majority of college I wanted to switch to being a political science major. But
now I started my own company and I code everyday. The worst part, I love it,
coding and all.
So I think you have two options coming out of your major in your position. (1)
you don't code, but that's ok because at least you'll have a technical
background which will enable you to do a lot of cool things (tech consulting,
tech ibanking, project management, etc.). or (2) you find out you really do
like to code, at which point you're happy anyways.
Last, but not least, most things in college you can learn by simply picking up
a book and reading about it. The only critical classes I took in college were
several of my upper-division CS classes that I would not be motivated to learn
about (ie. how to build a CPU) and accounting 101. As such, whatever your
choice, at least you gave CS a shot, and that has defined another set of paths
for you given your current disposition.
------
icco
I'm not sure if I want to say you are in the wrong major, but I think there is
a current disconnect between what people learn in high school and what people
learn in college.
High-schools need to start informing students that what ever their major is in
college, it doesn't necessarily affect what they will do out of college. I
know a lot of great programmers who were history majors, and a lot of tech
industry managers who were engineers.
What matters in college is that you are taking classes that you enjoy. If you
are spending $20,000+ a year to just get a piece of paper, you are wasting
your time. you need to find something that makes you happy and increases your
knowledge of the world. for me, that happens to be CS, but if you aren't happy
taking CS courses, get out now! Find something that you enjoy and do it, you
are wasting your time and everyone else's if you are in something just for the
money.
------
crs
No, you are not in the wrong major. There are many career paths available to
you. I work for Boeing, and we have a lot of people in systems engineering
roles. They define requirements, perform integration, and generally do a lot
buisness like tasks on the engineering side of the org chart. There is Quality
Assurance, where you need to understand code but not necessarily write it. In
addition to that there is Configuration Management. Our current SCM lead is
not a coder but you need general technical ability.
Those are just a few examples, but it shows that there are careers out there
that require a technical background but don't involve coding.
However don't expect to jump int business/marketing/management" out of the
gate with a cs degree. Your going to be competing against mba's, and people
with marketing degrees.
------
mdragon
I think CS is too heavy for most programming jobs, much less for non-coding
technology jobs. You'd probably be much better served having a business major
or some sort of technology commercialization or even some sort of technical
(or not ) writing, or psychology or math degree. CS is about reading papers
other CS guys wrote, writing papers for other CS guys to read, and typically
doing very little real world work. There's an exception to every rule, but I
had CS professors who I feel would have been amazed if you showed them this
amazing Internet concept that had flourished by building on top of the OSI
model... :P That being said, your major != your career... though don't tell
any HR department employees that or they'll tar and feather you.
------
rit
A few thoughts come to mind here for me.
First ... So don't take a stereotypical coding job; whatever your definition
of that may be. I've personally in general avoided big companies my whole
career to avoid what I see as the stereotypical coding job - too many
meetings, too much waterfall style development and way too much bureaucracy
which I find myself unable to navigate. It's served me fairly well in that I
get a chance to do a lot of different things. Small companies need more
versatile staff - people who can do systems and network work as well as
coding. Who can help design and architect systems as well as coding. These
things from my standpoint let me enjoy technology while not going insane
spending 12 hours a day producing cogs and widgets. And of course the option
exists for you to go the route you are obviously culturing of Entrepeneurism.
If you can handle both the technical and business sides you may have an
advantage as you can work both sides of the equation. But beware of becoming
the dreaded business-guy who produces crappy code and expects his programmers
to take it as holy writ from upon high. If you plan on blending business and
technical keep your skills and knowledge polished and relevant. (Yes, I've had
a few of those. Including one who would "Align" all his code in the gutter
[aka no freaking tabs] and freak out if anyone reformatted it)
Second... The degree does not make the man. Personally, I'm an autodidact
although I originally pursued a Criminal Justice degree. The best programmers
I've worked with personally (keep in mind the plural of anecdote isn't data)
have all had either no degree, or had a degree in an unrelated subject. I've
worked with chemistry, physics, English and history majors all of whom were
stellar programmers. While the fundamentals are important, it's the capacity
for learning and doing something that you enjoy that matters much, much more.
If you think you have the core concepts of CS at a point that they're useful
to you, change majors. Go get a business degree, or one in physical education
if it makes you happy.
Just use what you know, and what you think you can learn in the future to best
advantage.
------
kvs
If you're good at interacting with people and a computer science major you do
have an edge over most computer science majors:-)
Perhaps you can minor in business or other area and see whether that helps
with your job prospects better. I think you're "selling yourself" wrong...
------
ErrantX
No. Despite what people are saying there are a bazillion such jobs for a
smart, non-coder, person to grab hold of.
Ultimately "the wrong major" comes down to the course content. CS courses can
vary wildly - the one at my uni (I never was on it) was very business oriented
for example. If your enjoying the course then there seems no reason to
consider it the wrong one.
However beware: do talk to people who are happy to be critical of you (and you
trust to tell the truth) and find out if you ARE a people person. With the
best will in the world every single person I have ever met claiming to be a
"people person" generally isn't. I'm sure you are: but it's worth checking :)
------
krobertson
Does your college have an MIS focus? When I was in college, you'd chose a few
focus areas for some of your electives. In the Business dept, they had an MIS
focus which included some of the entry level CS classes, software process type
stuff, and then some management-type classes from the business dept. It might
be more for you.
Generally though, I'd agree. If you don't want to code, CS isn't the best fit
for you.
Although in our field, it is quite unique that what your degree is in really
doesn't matter. I several coworkers, who are great developers, with degrees in
Political Science, History, and other completely non-tech fields.
~~~
gte910h
Georgia Tech doesn't really have a MIS focus for an undergrad degree. They
have a MBA-esque degree which is a 60 hours masters which is however.
------
bhousel
What's a "stereotypical coding job"? I didn't know such a thing existed..
Working in a 3 person startup in a loft is very different from Fortune 100 IT
dept, different still from writing code in a research lab, or freelancing, or
out in the "field" in remote places, or programming lathes and CNCs on a
machine shop floor. I know people who started with CS degrees doing all of
these things.
Since you're still in college, I'd suggest you just finish your degree and try
a bunch of different challenges. If you love coding, you'll find a place where
you fit in.
~~~
BigZaphod
I think I had one fresh out of college... It was a Windows shop where everyone
was expected to spend the day in Visual C++ and never stop typing in code from
9 to 5 (with small breaks allowed for lunch and pointless meetings). Googling
things or reading slashdot was more or less culturally forbidden.
Collaboration was subtly punished in the sense that if you spent too much time
at someone else's cube discussing a problem, the manager would interrupt and
assume we weren't working and were just screwing around.
------
nkohari
Yes, you are in the wrong major. If you're looking to be involved in the
business aspect of a technology company, a computer science degree will not be
very useful. I have a BS in computer science, and in my experience, the
curriculum was often too theoretical even for people who become full-time
programmers. If you're not interested in the nuts and bolts of software, it
offers even less.
Unless you're planning on continuing education to get something like an MBA,
switch majors now.
------
nzmsv
Honestly, switching majors isn't that big of a deal. It is better if you
figure this out now, rather than after you've worked in the industry for 5
years. Some people see it as a "failure". This is wrong. You are just figuring
out what you like, and what you are best at.
I'd imagine a lot of your credits would transfer to a program in management.
Alternatively, finish your CS degree and go to law school. There is a shortage
of lawyers who understand tech. Or do an MBA.
------
pmorici
Depends, if you by "I don't want to code" you mean you suck at it so you're
thinking of going into management then yes I'd say you are in the wrong major.
Junior year is the point when most CS programs really start to get difficult
if it were just about not wanting to code might you not have figure that out
freshman year?
------
sofal
I don't think the corporate-slave orientation is limited to CS students. If
you're into entrepreneurship, you'll probably feel out of place in any
technology-related major, especially if you only look for job prospects at
campus job fairs.
------
prakash
Look at _Product Manager_ and/or _Sales Engineer_ openings. There are a few
companies that hire people right out of school for such positions.
~~~
recampbell
Agreed, sales engineering is a great way to start if you have a technical
background but want to spend more of your time interacting with people. Beyond
becoming familiar with the sales process and improving your communication
skills, the most valuable part of that position is that you are exposed to
real customers with real problems.
~~~
eob
Just chiming in with agreement on this one. If you are interested in business,
CS can be a valuable background to have.
Look for jobs that put you in the more administrative/management side of a
software project, and then transition from there to building your own company.
Having CS credentials will give you more street cred with programmers who
you'll ultimately try to rope in with a startup you want to found. Without
those credentials, they'd likely just view you as "just another business guy
with an idea".
------
caffeine
Your major doesn't really have much to do with your job. The CS you learn in
school doesn't really make you a good programmer anyway...
------
mindstab
I'd say no. I've been continually disappointed in the coding part of the
university education. It is much more about theory than a technical degree.
I'm a code monkey, all I want to do is write code, and learn to write better
code.
You on the other hand would be great for management, which I've seen lots of
my friends with CS degrees who don't like coding more into in the work force.
Stick with it, there are plenty of jobs for you!
------
timcederman
Sounds like you'd be a good candidate for an associate product manager role at
Google.
------
gte910h
Howdy fellow GT CS person (although I graduated many moons ago)
You have plenty with a capital P jobs available to you as a CS major with no
love of code.
However, the entry level position with someone in your degree will typically
be, pretty much, coding. You don't know enough about anything else to even be
marginally useful. (Remember, I have the same degree you're pursuing).
Depending on how much you've co-oped or interned, you may be one hair of one
bit useful, but chances are you aren't even that, in anything, not even
coding, but you're more likely useful in a coding position than in anything
else.
Other jobs: MS Has entry level PM track positions
Consulting companies such as Deloite, etc (of which there are lots) have
positions which are more about meetings and less about coding (but require
~80% travel).
There are LOTSS of technical sales jobs about. You work on commission though,
for the most part, and you often have to have pretty good base knowledge of
the field, for some you have to code pretty well, others not so much.
Honestly, if you're still a 3rd year, and want to learn sales, I'd go start a
Clear wireless dealership right now and sell sell sell (They are in Atlanta at
the moment, and appear to be cheap to start. Franchises are the most likely to
succeed form of small business out there).
Now onto jobs past the first couple years:
First off: I too am quite "outgoing" as you'd say. I run a small consulting
and product development company. But I'm also a deep deep code guy. Liking
talking to people does not by any means mean you're going to be one of those
unwashed guys in the Old CoC smelling like BO and playing wow all the time in
their time off who's height of social interaction is a LAN party or anime fest
(sorry to pander to stereotypes).
In our field today, there is a HUGE premium for _translators_. I land so many
contracts because I can explain deeply technical issues to businesspeople in
the terms that they care about (risks, costs, etc) while still getting across
the technology. If you can get fascinated by the technology as well as working
on your communication skills, you can land similar positions.
Secondly: CS is still paying well, and hasn't hit a huge of a downturn as many
of the other majors available to you that fit your current skill set. If
you're interested in doing something entrepreneurial, then CS is by far one of
the cheapest fields to do that sort of thing in. That alone should keep you
looking at CS as a means to the end and make you learn how to do something
deep.
Lastly: CS is not just programming. While I studied systems and embedded
programming, there is a LOT of work in software engineering that is pretty
much herding people all day long. I will caution you against spending too much
time in that department, because you will strangle any entrepreneurial
endeavor under too much process if you get that stuff too much in your blood
(it's really better suited to mid-large sized companies).
Additionally, if they haven't changed it massively since I went there, GT is
WAAAAAAY too in love with somewhat older, non-MS languages.
Try some python or some C#, or even some AS3. You may be surprised how
joyfully productive those languages are for you at this point compared to some
sort of matlab/C/java/scheme things you've had tossed at you so far. Hell, buy
a mac mini or $999 macbook pro and release a iPhone app or two, Objective C is
like the best parts of C and Smalltalk rolled into one. (Although apple is a
bit controlling).
PM Email me (iphoneappsiphoneapps@gmail.com) if you'd like to go to lunch and
talk, I live in midtown.
~~~
gte910h
Midtown Atlanta, as in where Georgia Tech is. Already had one HN person think
I was in Midtown New York
------
rufius
Yep.
------
jwecker
Ask HN: Math major who doesn't want to write equations. Am I in the wrong
major?
------
gaius
We can see you can't code from the <p> tags you've scattered everywhere...
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ARIN DATABASE MIGRATION COMPLETED - amitlan
https://www.arin.net/announcements/2013/20131214.html
======
jmcguckin
This just proves that the proper response is to not cooperate or say anything
to the police without an attorney being present.
|
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NaNs Just Don't Get No Respect - stianan
http://www.drdobbs.com/article/print?articleId=240005723&siteSectionName=cpp
======
tikhonj
NaNs are annoying because, thanks to them, equality on floating point numbers
is not an equivalence relation. In particular, NaN /= NaN.
This means that in Haskell, for example, you cannot really rely on the Eq
class representing an equivalence relation. Code relying on the fact that x ==
x should be true for all x could not work as expected for floating point
numbers.
I don't know if this has any practical ramifications in real code, but it
certainly makes things less elegant and more complex than they have to be.
~~~
joshAg
Attmepting to just use simple equivalence with any floating point type a
horrible idea to begin with, even without NaNs. You should instead declare
equivalence if the absolute difference between the two numbers is less than
some bound based on what you're doing and not look for bit equivalency.
However, you should be able to examine two NaNs and declare them "equivalent"
(for certain definitions of equivalence) by intelligently examining the bits
based on the hardware that you're running the program on. In the case of a
binary Nan [1] that would entail checking that the exponential fields are both
entirely high (eg 0x8 == (a.exponent & b.exponent), assuming a standard 8 bit
exponent) and that the mantissas are nonzero (eg a.mantissa && b.mantissa).
[1]: "Binary format NaNs are represented with the exponential field filled
with ones (like infinity values), and some non-zero number in the significand
(to make them distinct from infinity values)."
--<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN>
~~~
shrughes
That's not true, there are plenty of cases where using equivalence is just
fine. Integer arithmetic, and algorithms that are more reliably written not to
contain any empty intervals are two examples.
~~~
noblethrasher
He was specifically talking about equivalence on floating point types.
Integers don't have or need NaN.
~~~
shrughes
I was talking about integer values (with floating point representation) being
multiplied and added (and divided and floored, I suppose).
~~~
joshAg
even just addition and multiplication with floats make simple equivalence a
horrible idea, due to uncertainty.
For example:
float a = 1.0;
float b = 1000.0;
for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; ++i)
a+=1.0;
b *= b;
There is no guarantee that a == b. Floats make everything more complicated,
even simple addition: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahan_summation_algorithm>
~~~
shrughes
There is no uncertainty. There is a guarantee that a == b (if we ignore the
off-by-one error in your post), because IEEE operations are guaranteed to be
accurate within half an ulp. You can safely perform addition, subtraction, and
multiplication, and truncated or floored division, within the 24-bit integer
range for single-precision floats and the 53-bit integer range for doubles.
This is why people can safely use integers in Javascript.
~~~
joshAg
i guess that's what a i get for not double checking my math. here's a revised
version that (as long as i haven't made any other math mistakes) still fits
within a 32 bit signed int but doesn't guarantee simple equality:
float a = 0.0;
float b = 10000.0;
for (int i = 0; i < 100000000; ++i)
a+=1.0;
b *= b;
why in the world would you use a float instead of an int for addition,
subtraction, and multiplication, and truncated or floored division, within the
24-bit integer range? it seems like there's no benefit to offset the facts
that floating point operations are slower than integer operations and that
ints can store integers 7 or 8 bits larger.
and what happens when you go beyond 24 bits? since it's a float no error or
warning will be thrown, but now equivalence won't work for numbers that are
easily stored by an int.
~~~
shrughes
Why aren't you capitalizing your sentences? Are you too lazy to write
properly?
Where did I say I'd use floating point numbers for integer math? Yes, let's
move the conversation to a direction it never existed so that you can pretend
you were right.
(The place I'd use it would be in a Javascript implementation, or a Lua
implementation, and other situations where I'm designing a programming
language where I want the simplicity of having only one numerical type. And
that would be a 53-bit range, not 24-bit.)
~~~
joshAg
You said using equivalence for floats that store integers is fine. here is a
link: [1]. The point of my example was to show that that is not the case for
numbers that are easily stored by an int that's the same size as a float.
I've not used lua or javascript, but wouldn't it be better to choose an
implmentation that silently switches between ints, floats, doubles and big-
nums as needed? That way you don't limit the speed float and int operations by
autoconverting up to doubles, when double precision isn't needed.
[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4400424>
~~~
shrughes
I do not recommend using floating point numbers for integer math. I am saying
that _if_ you have integers stored in floating point representation, equality
comparisons are fine.
> I've not used lua or javascript, but wouldn't it be better to choose an
> implmentation that silently switches between ints, floats, doubles and big-
> nums as needed?
If you want to go through the engineering effort, sure, it might make sense to
have separate int and double encodings. You have to check for the possibility
of integer overflow and convert to double in that case. In particular, this is
useful if you want to use Javascript's bitwise operators. See
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/SpiderMonkey/Intern...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/SpiderMonkey/Internals#JavaScript_values) for a description of how
SpiderMonkey does it. Lua just has one representation for numbers, double
normally but it could be float or long depending on how you compile it. There
would be no reason to have single-precision floating point or big-num
representations.
------
malkia
There are much worse thing than NaN's.
They are called denormals. These appear when dealing at the same time with
lots of big numbers (very far away from 0) in operations with lots small
numbers (close to 0).
In such cases the FPU (or whatever deals with fp numbers), switches to a
format that could be very inefficient producing an order of magnitude slower
operations.
For example when dealing with IIR filters in audio, your audio buffer might
contain them. One of the solution is to have a white noise buffer somewhere
(or couple of numbers) that are not denormalized and add with them - it would
magically normalize again.
I'm not a guy dealing with "numerical stability" (usually these are physics,
audio or any simualation engine programmers), but know this from simple
experience.
~~~
zurn
Denormals are part of IEEE fp. If your implementation is too slow, you can
often trade correctness for speed by turning them off in the C/C++ runtimes.
They're also a sign you're skirting on the limits of FP precision (or worse)
so a bit of numerical analysis might still be a good idea...
~~~
malkia
You cannot simply turned them off everywhere. On certain platforms they are
produced always, and nothing can be done, but openly deal with them (by
expecting them to happen).
------
saurik
The things this author likes about NaN are also properties of NULL in many
environments (that NULL cannot be compared to NULL, that operating on NULL
returns NULL, etc.); so while you might not see many languages default
initializing things to NaN, you do see them default initializing things to
NULL with similar effect.
~~~
duaneb
Except this is actually worse, since there are many possible values which
evaluate to NaN.
EDIT: I do not know how D implements NaNs; they may have magic to make them
more sane to work with.
~~~
WalterBright
D does not implement NaNs, it just relies on the IEEE FP hardware to do it.
What D does do is expose NaNs so the programmer can rely on their existence
and use them in a straightforward manner.
------
roryokane
An alternative workaround to writing `float f = 0` in languages without NaN:
float f;
bool thingIsFoo = condition1; // store the result…
if (thingIsFoo)
f = 7;
// ... code ...
if (thingIsFoo && condition2) // and explicitly depend on it later
++f;
But this causes an extra `&&` to be computed at runtime, so it seems NaNs are
still better for this case.
------
mieubrisse
You've written quite the interesting and informative article, and your logic
as for why you initialize to NaN was perfectly clear.
------
klodolph
I've gotten a bit pissed at the Microsoft C compiler for (1) having no
standard way to generate NaN or Infinity and (2) having a good enough static
analyzer that if you generate one by casting, it emits a warning saying that
your arithmetic overflows.
Gee, thanks MSC. I didn't expect "x = INFINITY;" to overflow.
~~~
malkia
0/0 should be NaN, 1/0 should be +Infinity, -1/0 should be -Infinity. (I
haven't tried that in a while).
Also check the flags, like /fp:precise for MSVC
------
tzs
URL for people without bionic eyes: [http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/nans-just-
dont-get-no-respect/240...](http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/nans-just-dont-get-no-
respect/240005723)
------
voyou
Stop trying to make D happen. It's not going to happen.
------
malkia
Be afraid of QNaN the Barbarian!
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Losing the War - pmcpinto
http://www.leesandlin.com/articles/LosingTheWar.htm
======
cannam
Interesting seeing Rupert Brooke's "swimmers into cleanness leaping"
associated with American attitudes to the Second World War. I associate this
poem's bright naivety with European attitudes to the First World War, and
associate the Second with painful reluctance both in the UK and in much of
Germany.
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Ask HN: How to replace Excel? - gilliali
Morning HN!<p>I'm just another Biz Analyst that's getting tired of building CRUD in Excel. However, the more I look at web-based solutions, my inherent fear is that PoCs and new and complex features are going to need full on developers, rather than our analysts just putting something together for quick use.<p>So what's a good way we can replace Excel and deploy stuff quick and dirty? Excel is good for BI and ad-hoc analysis, not production grade stuff we don't have the time or expertise to develop in SAP / APO.<p>The team is proficient in SQL, VBA and not super against Python.
======
makecheck
Start with “xlrd” to import spreadsheet data into Python. At least then you
can start building other things that work with data that don’t _have_ to be in
Excel.
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Tech We’re Using: When a Tech Reporter Doesn’t Use Much Tech - 0xbxd
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/personaltech/tech-reporter-does-not-use-tech.html
======
masonic
Here's an idea... why not hire people with _actual_ tech experience to write
about tech?
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Line length in programming - cjk101010
http://ck.kennt-wayne.de/2014/feb/line-length-in-programming
======
yeukhon
Here is what I've said about 80 char in the past.
"If the argument for expanding to 100 or more is that screen is getting wider,
then the benefit of wide screen is the ability to fit multiple terminals in
one window. For normal workflow, I'd split my windows into two or terminals,
depending on what I am doing, so I don't see any benefit in increasing the
limit."
~~~
aleem
Touche. Multiple monitors and more screen real estate has been proven to
increase productivity. It's an easy win.
If the lines come out too long too often, it may be a symptom of other
problems.
if ((browser.OS == 'win') && (browser.userAgent == 'IE')) {
is often better written as:
isIE = (browser.userAgent == 'IE');
isWindows = (browser.OS == 'win');
if (isIE && isWindows) {
It's self-documenting and reads like natural english. It also has the good
side-effect of making lines shorter, more terse.
~~~
collyw
Its more code, more variables. I sometimes do this with complex conditions,
but for your example I find it counterproductive.
~~~
yeukhon
Well if this is deep deep down in a nested loop, then either you increase char
or you wrap that code into multiple statements. It would be counterproductive
if this is first or second level.
However, I think I missed one important point. If you are writing for Linux
kernel, then 80 chars is definitely not enough since 8 spaces = 1 tab in
kernel code. That is, if you have a deep branching, then after 2-3 levels 80
chars wouldn't be enough. But increasing to 100 is only going to help for an
extra level.
So the important point missing is the char limit is often project coding style
dependent.
------
weland
I'm surprised and, to some degree, annoyed at the superficiality of some of
the arguments in this debate. Like this one:
> Readability - You don't have to scroll over horizontally when you want to
> see the end of some lines.
It's not having to scroll horizontally that bothers me with long lines. My
monitor is wide enough that it can probably hold 250 characters with ease. _It
's having to read long lines_. Something is very bloody, terribly wrong in
your code if you consistently find you need to write 150-character lines.
Besides, yes, monitors have gotten that wide that it's not an issue. Is there
any serious reason to assume that code is the only thing I want displayed on
my monitor at a given time? In a single window? That's as big as the monitor?
The only moment when people had a good reason to be enthusiastic about that
was the late 70s, when serial terminals appeared and teletypes began going the
way of the dodo.
Also, who says the IDE is the only place where I want my code to be output?
Maybe I want to grep on it or whatever. On an 80x25 terminal window because
the least useful thing on earth is a huge monitor where I constantly alt-tab
between a full-screen editor and a full-screen terminal.
~~~
randallsquared
"Something is very bloody, terribly wrong in your code if you consistently
find you need to write 150-character lines."
Not necessarily.
Most lines are below 80 characters, but there are good reasons (for
readability!) to use longer lines from time to time: vertical space is more
precious than horizontal on modern screens, and the more content I can fit
into each vertical page, the faster I'll understand what I'm looking at.
The main reason I like the ability to occasionally have a 150 or 180 character
line is akin to code folding, which some editors have as a feature. The
feature allows you to hide a function or class by collapsing it into one line,
because you want an overview of the code around it or calling it, and for the
moment the implementation details aren't relevant. Now, I don't actually use
the code folding feature in practice, mainly because I find that the times I
would want to use it are times when I nearly _always_ want to fold the code,
and in a case like that, it's nice to be able to "pre-fold" it by putting it
all on one line.
For example, if not using an ORM, I might want to use SQL to grab some results
from a db (in a model, say), and I almost never want to think about my SQL and
my surrounding code in the same context. Now, you might say, "Just put that
SQL in its own method with a reasonably short name, and call it where you
would otherwise have a long SQL string, and in the function that returns it,
you can break each line at 70-80 characters," but that seems like a "solution"
which improves nothing in my typical reading of the code, and requires me to
jump around to find the SQL in the rare case I need to pay attention to it. It
breaks up something which is naturally local and specific to this place in the
code.
Another example which happens somewhat more frequently for me is when I want
to use a literal object in JS. If I want to keep the definition local --
because, perhaps, nothing outside of this function ever needs it -- my choices
are to put each key/value pair on its own line (easy to find a given key, but
consumes lots of vertical space), to put multiple key/value pairs on each line
to fit ~80 characters (both moderately difficult to find a given key, and
still eats moderate amounts of vertical space), or to "fold" it all to one
line (consumes the minimum vertical space, with the trade-off that it's
difficult to find a given key). The most common case of this is where I have
the choice between using 4-6 lines, or one line, and it's an easy choice for
me to pick one line, though I've never encountered a coding standard that
agreed with me.
~~~
weland
> Now, I don't actually use the code folding feature in practice, mainly
> because I find that the times I would want to use it are times when I nearly
> always want to fold the code, and in a case like that, it's nice to be able
> to "pre-fold" it by putting it all on one line.
IMO that's just compensating for the inadequacy of tools by making code harder
to follow. Usefulness of code folding (and what it says about the code it's
folding) aside, this is a really poor solution. If you just need that done
temporarily, why not _temporarily_ replace all the returns in the region you
select, and then add them back when you're done? Any editor with search-and-
replace can do that.
> For example, if not using an ORM, I might want to use SQL to grab some
> results from a db (in a model, say), and I almost never want to think about
> my SQL and my surrounding code in the same context. Now, you might say,
> "Just put that SQL in its own method with a reasonably short name, and call
> it where you would otherwise have a long SQL string, and in the function
> that returns it, you can break each line at 70-80 characters,"
No, what I might say is "just stop thinking about the SQL query and the
surrounding code in the same context".
Alternatively, put the SQL query in a separate function that conveys some
meaning related to its purpose, so that people who read your code later don't
have to decipher a 300-character query line in order to understand what that
code is doing. They may not even be debugging that part of it, maybe something
several layers of abstraction above borks and they end up in that part of the
code debugging it.
> (easy to find a given key, but consumes lots of vertical space)
which can be easily averted with code folding? Or by simply scrolling _down_
to the body of your code. Skipping entire lines is very easy, it's following a
hundred-character snake that sucks.
~~~
collyw
> IMO that's just compensating for the inadequacy of tools by making code
> harder to follow.
Thats pretty much how I would describe the 80 character rule for old
terminals. I find the occasional long lines can make things more readable. It
certainly helps in locating the bit of code you are looking for when you can
recognise it's shape.
------
Nursie
80 is too few. The old reason for it (what if you get stuck doing an emergency
bugfix using vi on an 80 char display?!?) no longer holds.
It's not massively too few, and most lines never get close to the limit
anyway, but the odd line of 100-120 thrown in really isn't a problem on a
modern display.
~~~
NateDad
That is a straw man. No one actually thinks 80 character displays are the
reason to use 80 characters.
I think 80-100 is fine. More than 100 and you probably need to refactor the
line some, because you probably have too much logic on a single line (or you
need to choose names that aren't hugely long).
~~~
Nursie
>> No one actually thinks 80 character displays are the reason to use 80
characters.
Err, yeah they do, I have been given exactly that reason on a few occasions,
generally by older engineers who had experience with old-school machines that
had precisely those screen dimensions. I don't disagree with your main point,
but it's really not a straw man.
~~~
NateDad
Well, for most people it's a straw man. I've worked with some greybeards, and
they are smart enough to know that they can resize the terminal on their
modern laptop :)
------
matthewmacleod
80 chars is a useful rule of thumb, so long as it's tempered by practicality.
I've worked on projects where the limit was taken far too literally, which
results in code that's harder to read.
This is especially true if you're using something verbose (Java, Objective-C)
or whitespace-sensitive (Python).
~~~
masklinn
I've never had much issue keeping Python code under 80 columns. Going beyond
usually means you've used way too many nested clause and should either rewrite
the whole thing or extract part of its to subroutines.
~~~
shadowmint
Really?
class Engineer(Person):
__tablename__ = 'engineers'
__mapper_args__ = {'polymorphic_identity': 'engineer'}
engineer_id = Column('id', Integer, ForeignKey('people.id'), primary_key=True)
primary_language = Column(String(50))
12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
^^ Line length marker
Woops. 2 characters over. Do we really need a line break there?
Guess perhaps I should rename my columns with more obscure names like engnr_id
instead.
Seriously; you see this in python all the time; people not wanting to break
the line because its only a character or two off, and then stupidly renaming a
variable to some obscure abbreviation instead.
We won't go into the 2-character indents argument, or the push for the 100
character limit that the BDFL veto'd for the PEP8 revision; but... safe to
say, I think a fair number of people hit this as an issue.
I don't think 'you can just refactor that to be shorter' is really a solution
in all circumstances.
~~~
masklinn
> Really?
Yes, really.
> Woops. 2 characters over. Do we really need a line break there?
_You_ do what you want.
> I don't think 'you can just refactor that to be shorter' is really a
> solution in all circumstances.
You don't think the solution I didn't advocate as a cure-all in the first
place is a cure-all? Am I supposed to be surprised at this finding?
~~~
shadowmint
Well, you specifically said that if someone had gone beyond the 80 character
limit, its probably because they needed to rewrite / reword / subfunctionize
something. If you've never had a problem with it, dare I ask, how are you
qualified to make that call, given you've never had to face that challenge?
Anyway, that example is _straight_ from the sqlalchemy examples, which is
arguably (other than the extremely wordy Zope) most commonly used python orm
around.
Wordy database interaction is really common point this sort of thing, and it's
hard to refactor/rewrite your way out of it; that's the only real point I'm
making.
I personally think strict adherence to line length limits reduces code
quality; you've got to use common sense for it.
~~~
masklinn
> Well, you specifically said that if someone had gone beyond the 80 character
> limit, its probably because
Yes. The operative word here is "probably". Meaning not always.
> If you've never had a problem with it, dare I ask, how are you qualified to
> make that call, given you've never had to face that challenge?
And here we can see an other important word of the original comment: "much" as
in "much of an issue". As in, I've faced it, I've never found it very
difficult a challenge to go against. Now of course if you pile on additional
constraints for personal reasons…
> I personally think strict adherence to line length limits reduces code
> quality; you've got to use common sense for it.
I have no issue with that, but common sense being a super-power[0][1] and thus
generally uncommon. Thus in my experience erring on the side of respecting
line length limits and having to defend an exception to the rule produces
significantly better results, and avoids 200+ characters lines because "well
it fits in my widescreen 24" display so I don't see what the problem is"
[0] [http://walls4joy.com/walls/people/deadpool-wade-wilson-
commo...](http://walls4joy.com/walls/people/deadpool-wade-wilson-common-
sense-9639-1280x760.jpg)
[1] and was likely named by people who had none
------
NateDad
The argument about no one editing in a 80 character terminal anymore is a
straw man. That's not the real reason 80 characters is good. The article even
says why - we're just not good at reading long lines for whatever reason.
There's two modern reasons for smaller liner lengths (80-100) besides
cognitive capacity:
Viewing/editing two files side by side on the same screen.
Side by side diffs.
Now, that's not to say that you should contort the code to make lines short.
If it makes the code significantly more difficult to read, don't do it... but
still try to keep it reasonable. This is also a good reason to keep your
variable names relatively short - so you don't hit this situation all the
time.
~~~
frou_dh
What doesn't help is silly idioms in some environments where most of the lines
written START at 2 or 3 indents deep because they're inside a method inside a
class inside a namespace that are all indented.
===
If anyone's interested, I wrote a simple command to scan files for
configurable line length violations and the presence of a file-terminating
line ending.
[https://github.com/frou/pagecop](https://github.com/frou/pagecop)
(yes, I'm aware it could probably be duplicated with some sed/awk wrangling!)
------
mrottenkolber
I found 72 character wide lines to be optimal (writing CL). Note that I also
apply the rule of choosing long descriptive symbol names. E.g. MAKE-RESOURCE-
RESPONDER etc...
When I have trouble keeping the lines short I consider: 1) Is there a better
way to write this? 2) Is this function too big?
There are cases where lines have to be longer, but not in Lisp. Inability to
write short lines is a symptom of bad syntax designs like e.g. C et al.
EDIT: I have been writing JS the last months and keeping lines short is
especially hard in JS, because of its abomination of a syntax. UNIX style
backslash escaped line breaks don't help either.
------
nkuttler
I'm glad we talk about this. Once we have solved this question we can move on
to really important stuff, like tabs vs spaces.
~~~
mooism2
Code is read far more than it is written. Therefore code legibility is
important. Line length affects code legibility. Therefore line length is
important.
~~~
sparkie
Code can be read in more ways than one. More often than not you aren't
interested in all the minor details in a single statement, but you're
interested in the larger structure of some code unit (say, a function), and
having dozens of wraps in a function hinders the ability to scan through the
code vertically. Therefore, line length is unimportant.
------
arocks
In my opinion the 80 character limit is mostly for better presentability. If
the code appears in a blog post or a book, it is better to read and typeset if
it is less than 80 characters. Though there are several articles[1] which
explain other reasons for this legacy limitation.
I would be happy to read code more than 80 characters, if it doesn't have to
be artificially cut into multiple lines (the screenshot in the post is a
pretty good example). In fact, I find 80 characters too less and often set
Emacs to use 100 characters as the limit.
[1]: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/903754/do-you-still-
limit...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/903754/do-you-still-limit-line-
length-in-code)
~~~
mooism2
IMO, given that most blog templates include copious margins, many don't allow
readers to resize the text, and some don't even allow readers to scroll
horizontally, 80 characters is far too long for a line of code in a blog post.
~~~
arocks
Sadly true. In this age of Responsive design, figuring out an optimal line
limit for code samples is a tricky task indeed.
------
adamtulinius
And obviously practicality can get in the way. 80 character lines will be a
nightmare in a java-project with verbose naming schemes
(FactoryFactoryObjectThingymybobProducer thingy = new
FactoryFactoryObjectThingymybobProducer(..);).
~~~
viraptor
Or python if you're already in a function in a function in a class (so 68
chars left). If you also standardised on importing modules, not classes things
can get silly. My favourite counter-example to the 80 char limit was a line in
openstack which was:
return some_loaded_module.fairly_descriptive_but_necessarily_long_name(not_very_long_argument)
The way applied to fit it without forced line breaking?
fdbnln = some_loaded_module.fairly_descriptive_but_necessarily_long_name
return fdbnln(not_very_long_argument)
(yes, actually using first letters of words) Because yeah... that makes things
simpler than just crossing the limit in that place.
~~~
mst
In perl I'd just write -
return $some_loaded_thing->fairly_descriptive_but_necessarily_long_name(
$not_very_long_argument
);
Surely python has something approximating an equivalent?
~~~
collyw
Come on, you can get rid of the return statement if it is the last line in a
subroutine.
------
keithgabryelski
I disagree with the author that the programmer can't interpret longer than 80
lines. we don't read programs like a 6 year old sounds out words. We read more
like a 10 year old (and above) by sighting tokens.
Simply put: the world is different than it was in the 70s and 80s and 90s (all
decades I have programmed in).
1) screen width is generally wider 2) screen widths are generally exandable 3)
identifiers are generally longer
In today's world I see little reason to hold to the 80 character limit causing
line breaks in what would other-wise be odd places.
That all being said, we still have yet to realize an editor that displays
source code in a programmers preferred spacing while saving the program in the
repository's preferred spacing. THAT is the real issue, here -- that editors
are not helping with this issue, wrapping and indenting code as the screen
width allows.
Your primary concern, with line-length, should be readability -- if your group
decides 72 characters is the limit, well, so be-it, but I would press anyone
who believes that is acceptable for JAVA.
And I no longer see a reason why one line length limit should hold for all
source files. Why not let the source code decide the best line length -- we no
longer have fixed sized screens, these are windows that expand with click and
drag.
~~~
collyw
That's a far more sensible response than the OCD like attitudes of some
commenter’s here.
------
bjourne
I think this post was upvoted because the tip is easily among the top 10
advice that can be given to aspiring programmers. Forcing yourself to write
short lines forces you to decompose code which in turn lets you see the
patterns you are working with which you then can refactor. Long lines, deeply
nested code blocks and code duplication. Those traits tend to cluster together
and are a sign of inexperience imnsho.
------
logicallee
Most languages allow you to be quite concise. The best argument for 80
characters might be that it keeps you that way.
A similar thing would happen if technical writing and scientific reports kept
the average sentence to 12-15 word sentence averages and tried not to go over
25. Reading comprehension goes up:
[http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/how-many-words-are-too-
many-...](http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/how-many-words-are-too-many-in-a-
sentence/)
It's very similar. Breaking one long sentence into two is the same as breaking
nested if and loop statement into several lines, the first just assigning a
boolean based on the test. Then the if test just tests the boolean. Reading
comprehension goes WAY up.
Look at the top response on this question:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7289087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7289087)
(the one with several short lines.)
100% comprehension.
~~~
collyw
I just had a quick look at that grammar article. I imagine when people are
describing something technical / scientific / difficult to comprehend, it will
take more words.
~~~
logicallee
And what is more technical than code?
It's literally logic that will be followed extremely, anally literally. No
scientific language gets close to being that literal - normally, you are
always going to keep the author's view/point in mind as you read. If you were
to accidentally remove a random "not" from scientific writing (as happens), we
can usually realize what the author meant. (With rare exceptions, if we are
particularly unfamiliar with the topic.)
With code, on the other hand, code doesn't have a "point of view". It will
just do whatever you wrote, completely literally. The shorter the expressions,
lines, etc, the better.
~~~
collyw
Code rarely has the ambiguities that spoken languages do.
------
scrabble
I put two guidelines in my editor. One at 80 chars and one at 100. I treat 80
like a goal and 100 as a hard limit. If I go over 100, I'll put the break
around 80.
Not only do I find the code easier to look at, but I find I write better code
and I'm less likely to violate the Liskov substitution principle.
~~~
NateDad
Wow, I do the exact same thing. Nice to see someone else doing the same.
------
zk00006
Under what mechanism is it decided that this particular post becomes visible
on Hacker News? Does it simply mean that one user with high karma liked the
post? The 80 character rule is in programming over and over again and I didn't
find anything new in the article...
~~~
mooism2
The information on how to configure emacs to highlight lines that are too long
was new to me.
I presume it is on the front page because it has got several up votes in its
first half hour.
------
eddd
Never ending stories \- tab vs spaces \- line length \- republican vs
democrats \- favorite colors
~~~
zk00006
exactly, however, when you point this out, the "cool" community votes you down
quickly :)
~~~
collyw
pedantic OCD community
------
frou_dh
Before we start I'd like to point out that I have a few cans of mauve paint
going spare.
------
chrismorgan
In Vim:
set textwidth=80 colorcolumn=+1
Then you get a coloured column 81 (probably red).
For some things I use colorcolumn=+1,+21 for highlighting 81 and 101, for
situations where I allow myself 100 in an extremity.
------
Sirupsen
To highlight characters after the 80th column in Vim:
match Error /\%81v.\+/
|
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}
|
Rails, Wicket, Grails, Play, Tapestry, Lift, JSP, Context - Alind
http://www.jtict.com/blog/rails-wicket-grails-play-lift-jsp/
======
dkhenry
Biggest thing I see in these tests is that tomcat actually slows down a web
framework. Using Netty with Play was actually faster then using JSP's on
tomcat. That's crazy it takes less time to get a request, render a template,
and return the response ; then to have Tomcat respond to a simple request
using a JSP which is compiled (pre-rendered)
|
{
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|
Kindle DX as E-Ink computer monitor (2012) - tango24
https://tinyapps.org/docs/e-ink-monitor.html
======
jseliger
This piece is likely pertinent due to the discussion of e-ink screens:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100447)
from a couple days ago.
I can see the appeal of something Dasung 13" screen:
[https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/B07GWGFW1B) for long, sequential text documents.
It'd make an interesting second display. Just not for $1,200.
~~~
chx
[https://www.amazon.com/BOOX-Ereader-Android-Interface-
Dual-T...](https://www.amazon.com/BOOX-Ereader-Android-Interface-Dual-
Touch/dp/B077GVLMJN) what about $800? (it's not an affiliate link)
~~~
Erlich_Bachman
That product packs both a screen and a standalone ereader for that price.
Sounds like a superior deal compared to Dasung, in every regard.
~~~
vvladymyrov
BOOX ereader has significant delay when it is used as computer display
(according to reviews on [http://goodereader.com](http://goodereader.com)).
Dasung display is much smoother.
~~~
gbraad
Right, but you can enable A2 which uses a different drawing algorithm and
adjust the full refresh period, but it is NOT a means to play games or watch a
movie. If you do, you are probably using it wrong to begin with ;-)
------
qwerty456127
I actually wish there were a whole [laptop] computer and an OS designed around
an e-ink display so it wouldn't be a pain to use in bright direct sunlight.
~~~
destinator
Lenovo has a new laptop called the Yoga Book. The keyboard is an e-ink display
that can be used as an e-reader. Windows, so not a full OS, but definitely a
step in that direction.
Here is a non-affiliate link: [https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/windows-
tablets/yoga-bo...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/windows-tablets/yoga-
book-windows-series/Yoga-Book-with-Windows/p/ZZITZTWYB2L)
~~~
nsriv
Just a clarification, this is actually the previous gen version, where the
keyboard area was intended to be a digitizer for handwriting and pen input.
The new one with e ink keyboard is called the Yoga Book C930 and should be
available later this year. Lenovo's mobile sites are a mess so I can't seem to
find a page for it at the moment but there are many video previews of the
device.
------
WalterBright
I love my DX. I just wish Amazon would push an update where the screensaver
was the last page read.
~~~
qwerty456127
Why would an e-ink device even need a screensaver or to turn the display off?
Isn't just leaving a displayed picture as it is the most energy-efficient and
display-saving solution on e-ink?
~~~
arthurfm
> Why would an e-ink device even need a screensaver
To display adverts?
~~~
qwerty456127
OMG. Thanks g-d I have a PocketBook rather than a Kindle and have never seen
ads on e-ink...
~~~
ThePadawan
Note: Back when I bought my Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon offered an ad-supported
version and one completely without ads.
The price difference IIRC was roughly $99/$119, so please don't let the parent
mislead you into thinking every Kindle comes with ads.
~~~
thrower123
As unobtrusive as the ads on a Kindle are, there is not really any good reason
to pay the extra to avoid them. At least the e-ink ones. If I was going to
ever buy another Kindle Fire, I would definitely get an ad-free version
though.
------
ggm
The paperlike hd looks interesting. [https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/B075FL8DKV/ref=sr_1_3)
I Liked my DX but the screen wasn't adequately protected and I let the magic
fairy goo out.
~~~
unicornporn
> The paperlike hd looks interesting. [https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
> Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Ink-
> Paperlike-13-3-Monitor/dp/..).
A blog post featuring that display was discussed yesterday here on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100447)
------
saagarjha
> Note that in some jurisdictions, it may actually be illegal to jailbreak
> your tablet (but not a phone!).
I believe an exception was carved out for this a couple years ago, so it
should be legal to jailbreak both tablets and phones now.
------
pacuna
Does anyone know why Amazon stopped selling the DX?
~~~
WalterBright
Poor sales is the most likely reason.
------
xky
I'm hoping we see color e-ink displays integrated into TV displays so they're
not such an eyesaw when not in use.
~~~
ip26
I fear the day. Their screens, when off, will then be used to present
advertisements 24/7
~~~
tracker1
Too true... a lot of "smart" TVs are already heading in that direction... I'd
be happier seeing better AndroidTV support by application vendors, and a
refresh for the Shield TV.
------
AYBABTME
Anyone knows where large e-ink displays can be purchased directly for
electronic projects/prototyping?
~~~
ThrowawayR2
In answer to your question, E-ink themselves sells large displays and
controller modules: [https://shopkits.eink.com/product-category/e-ink-display-
mod...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product-category/e-ink-display-modules/)
~~~
AYBABTME
Thanks! That's very expensive, I didn't expect this price range. I saw some
stuff on AliExpress that was a lot cheaper, but I guess the spec might not be
the same.
------
purplezooey
that's a little fucked up
|
{
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}
|
Mark Zuckerberg’s political group funds ads promoting Keystone and ANWR drilling - jboynyc
http://grist.org/news/mark-zuckerbergs-political-group-funds-ads-promoting-keystone-and-anwr-drilling/
======
MaysonL
One more reason not to work for, or use, Facebook. A few high-profile
resignations or rejections might make a difference.
~~~
curt
You do realize that if the current global temperature trends continue for
another 2 years every global warming model will fall outside the 95%
confidence interval (ie, wrong).
~~~
waps
You're missing the point. You're conflating 2 ideas:
1) science is so much better and verifiable ! (this is for atheist versus
religious people discussions ONLY)
2) when I actually verify $scientific_theory it doesn't stand up to scrutiny
(this is for discussions against farmaceutical companies denying that they
understood the effects of a drug 40 years ago EXCLUSIVELY)
3) Oh my god we're all going to die because some grad student claims it's once
again a lot worse ! (this is for climate change discussions)
You see your mistake ? The world is massively invested in climate disaster
theory being right. We've got 20 years of treaties, massive infrastructure
dependant on it. Lots of important people getting elected, getting cushy jobs,
getting ... and you're just saying that looking at the numbers it doesn't work
out. Then you're giving people 2 options :
a) global warming is true and yet worse still and man-made and ... ! ($10
billion "well spent" by politicians on their friends)
b) global warming ... is a natural phenomenon that just starts and ends,
humans or not, policies or no policies ! $10 billion bribery scandal ! Fire
them all !
You're asking loads of people to acknowledge they've been stupid for decades.
Many of them (esp. the grad students) have never known any other way of doing
things ... good luck with that.
Get on the bandwagon. Find some vaguely reasonable excuse for people to pay
you millions (think Solyndra) because "we're all going to die of global
warming ! More money !". You'll have much more success, because the whole
house of cards depends on having ever more people on the payroll. If you're
loud enough, they'll have to include you too.
------
kkwok
This reminds me of the South-Western pact decades ago to support western
projects in exchange for their votes on civil rights. Happens all the time,
but impressive that people actually caught on and linked these two.
------
spamrprtr
How anyone on this forum can claim to believe in science and rationality and
not abhor this is appalling and beyond me.
~~~
illuminate
Compartmentalization. Smart people can hold incredibly stupid beliefs. I
believe Michael Shermer's book on "Why People Believe Weird Things" argues
that smart persons are actually better at self-rationalization of
untrue/cognitively dissonant "facts".
|
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War erupts over app that directs users past home owners and onto Malibu beaches - jonchang
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342147/Secret-beaches-Malibu-woman-reach--War-erupts-app-directs-users-past-obstructive-wealthy-home-owners-pristine-sands.html
======
ctdonath
Downloading the app now, and wondering why it looks near identical to a slew
of other apps. What framework product does it use?
|
{
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}
|
This Is Your Brain on Silence - pmcpinto
http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence
======
BoppreH
Great article, but I think I'm missing something. Several times through it I
thought: "ok, but what about _obvious explanation_?".
Examples:
People who live in consistently loud environments often
experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormones.
But did they prove _correlation_ or _causation_? To me most things that make
noise also cause stress. Construction work makes lots of noise and changes
your routine. A failing piece of hardware brings me technical headaches along
with the noise. The article implies it's the noise itself that caused that.
“In the absence of sound, the brain often tends to
produce internal representations of sound.”
When I think of a song, I can _hear_ it in a very similar way to actual songs.
Isn't this fairly well known? Same thing with the abrupt silence increasing
attention. That seems... obvious?
There seemed to be a type of background brain activity
that was most visible, paradoxically, when the test
subject was in a quiet room, doing absolutely nothing.
First thing I would do is attribute this to the internal monologue, but I see
no mention of that. When I'm by myself I'm definitely thinking harder than
when listening to music. It's hard to actually do nothing, as people who
meditate can tell you. Yet it's talked like it's entirely subconscious
activity.
I enjoyed reading this piece, and did learn a few things, but it frustrates me
to no end when they gloss over stuff like this. Maybe they are not as obvious
as I thought, or I missed something that clearly proves them wrong, but my
feeling is that the article ignores common sense in a few spots.
~~~
nyrulez
Correlation vs causation has sort of become a cultural trapdoor to all new
claims. In reality, it is very hard to find the actual cause of many things we
take for granted. Its often that the first event that sets off the chain of
events is mentioned as the cause itself. Sometimes even if one doesn't know
the mechanism, as long as you can reliably reproduce or predict the same, its
seen as good enough for practical purposes, if not for textbook teaching.
For example, not drinking water for a day tends to make me thirsty. Thats a
correlation. Is it the cause? Not really. It just sets off a chain of events,
which triggers dehydration, and eventually neuro chemical triggers of thirst
somewhere in my brain centre.Even that centre is probably not well understood.
But we still say "not drinking water causes thirst". it may be possible to
mess with that circuitry to avoid these feelings. In fact a lot of
neurological drugs prey on this fact.
Causality is a very philosopical subject. But I would argue that for most
practical purposes, reproducibility and predictability are often good enough
to be useful, even if mechanism is currently unknown.
See manipulation theories in causality (along with some intro on causality
calculus) if you really want to dig deep into the beast known as causality.
------
geekam
You are fortunate if you have a quiet room or dark room at work. Even more if
you have an office which reduces noise.
Two of my biggest points when I try to find a job -
* As small a commute as possible and hopefully public transportation availability (have achieved this time and again)
* Place where I get an office, quiet room. (Have never achieved this)
~~~
mbrock
Yeah. Or work remotely from places that respect the sublime power of silence,
like certain public libraries, especially academic libraries.
I think my love of silence is a big part of the whole foundation for my
political and spiritual leanings. I loathe capitalism because it's noisy in
all kinds of ways. And zazen, that speaks for itself.
I know many Zen practitioners from Finland. They're all so lovely; I lack
words. The whole aesthetic of Zen: lightning on a black sky; the moonshine
reflecting in the lake; the far-off bird cry... It's all Finland.
Compare all this to the typical open office. Why do we accept such painful
environments? How can some people be so comfortable in full-time office jobs?
It chafes on me like a hairshirt.
~~~
eurleif
>I loathe capitalism because it's noisy in all kinds of ways.
If communism is less noisy, it's because the state has forcibly silenced
people. You can't hear them because they have a gun to their head. Don't
forget that.
~~~
crpatino
Capitalism and Communism are not the only possible forms of human
organization. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that Capitalism and
Socialism (the only kind of Communism for which there are historical records,
AFAIK) are two competing and closely related patterns that happened to be
dominant in the world during the second half of the 20th century.
As a result, I have a hard time believing Communist cities were significantly
less noisy. And while the gun to the head probably happened more than a few
times, it's probably not relevant to this discussion.
~~~
eurleif
>Capitalism and Communism are not the only possible forms of human
organization.
What alternatives do you have in mind? Everything listed at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_systems#Types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_systems#Types)
looks like either a form of capitalism, of communism/socialism, or a mix of
the two. (There are one or two that might be considered distinct, but they
look like they are only applicable at a very small scale, and even then they
ultimately look pretty similar to capitalism or communism.)
I assume you're not just trying to draw a distinction between communism and
socialism, since you're calling socialism a form of communism. You have
another comment claiming it's the other way around, but regardless, the point
is that they're very closely related.
>And while the gun to the head probably happened more than a few times
The gun to the head is a necessary component of any communist/socialist
system.
>it's probably not relevant to this discussion
The original comment I replied to connected a dislike of capitalism with Zen
Buddhism. Buddhists are supposed to care about peace in the world, not just
silence for themselves. Communism is anything but peaceful. So it seems very
relevant to me.
~~~
crpatino
I think[1] it is a bit disingenuous to claim that every economic system is
either capitalism, communism/socialism, or a mix of the two. This is not what
I saw at all in the wiki page. Of course all systems have things in common,
they belong to the same category after all, but each has its own unique
characteristics.
By example, the Guilds system in Renacentist Europe. Is it capitalism or
socialism? Each master had control of his own means of production, and hired
both journeymen and apprentices to provide labor, but on the other hand, each
master had to answer to the guild at large, and more directly to his peers in
the same city. They had pretty strict controls over who could do business
where, without intervention of the State, so in our eyes may look like a mix
of capitalist oligopoly with socialism...
Except this analysis misses the point that the Guilds system was not about the
control of the means of production, but about the control of knowledge and
social status. Of course you can say that knowledge and social status _are_
means of production, but that would be true only in a very abstract sense.
Regarding the "gun to the head", I insist it is not a defining characteristic
of socialism/communism. Capitalism, and feudalism, and traditional economies,
etc, all have their own ways to impose the will of high status individuals
over the rest of the people, and more often than not this involves the threat
of physical violence. That's why I don't think it is relevant.
[1] Disclaimer, my knowledge of economic systems is limited to 101 classes but
still.
------
Dru89
In our office, we have "Quiet Rooms." Many people go there to grab a fifteen
to twenty minute nap, but I find myself going there when the noise just gets
to be too much.
I've found that many problems, even software problems, can be solved in a
completely dark, quiet room. At the very least, it helps reduce stress levels
and allows you to try to tackle the problem again when you get back with a
fresh mind.
~~~
epaladin
I've found the dark/quiet room to be useful for brainstorming in general. I've
only actively utilized that tactic a couple of times though, I should try it
more often. On those occasions I found that coming up with decent ideas seemed
to be easier, just by sitting at a table with the lights off. Perhaps this
allows the brain to let go of the world in front of you a little bit and lets
the creative side take the foreground.
------
qzxvwt
Who honestly couldn't foresee that sensory deprivation would be a luxury. We
already have to pay to remove advertising from our lives.
~~~
findjashua
Could you elaborate on paying to remove advertising? I don't think I've paid
anything other than $5 donation to AdBlock.
~~~
qzxvwt
Generally, on and off the web, media can be free as long as you're willing to
let your experience be mediated by advertising to a degree.
Your own private experiences can be devoid of ads, but private possessions
usually cost money.
For example in NYC, if you're taking the subway or bus, your visual landscape
is bombarded with ads. If you pay for a cab you have less. If you buy your own
car you aren't necessarily subjected to that beyond the billboards and signage
you'd find on public roads. If you can afford to live in the Hamptons and take
a helicopter to and from Manhattan, you have that much more control over your
environment.
But like you said, even Adblock isn't really free.
~~~
findjashua
Well, on the web, I'm looking at content, and the ads are just distracting and
annoying. On the bus/subway, I don't find the ads that annoying.
As for AdBlock, they don't actually charge you - you can get the extension for
free. The donation is purely voluntary.
------
brightsize
On several occasions I've been on solo backcountry hikes, stopped to rest, and
realized that I could hear absolutely nothing. No wind. Not even bug-noise.
Zero. It is truly sublime, transcendent, something entirely outside of
ordinary human experience. Just typing this, laptop keys clicking, fan
whirring, electrical timer creaking, crows squawking, the uncouth hollering of
neighbors outside, cars rumbling in the distance, I am longing to experience
such silence again.
~~~
macNchz
I swear by getting out into the wilderness as a means of disconnecting and
finding a sort of deep, long-lasting relaxation. My trips aren't extreme, but
we hike long enough to be worn out at the end of the day, and deep enough into
the forest to escape the sounds of civilization, and the reaches of cell
service.
I've always loved backpacking, but the more connected I've become, the more
important these trips have become to maintaining a sense of well being.
------
rch
Having spent a bit of time in an anechoic chamber, I can say that true silence
can be a powerful experience. There's a physical sensation of pressure being
lifted, and intense feeling of focus (at least for me). I'd go well out of my
way to hop in one again.
~~~
Shinkei
I think it's worth mentioning that extreme absence of sound is not a condition
that humans can tolerate.
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-w...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-
worlds-quietest-place-chamber-Orfield-Laboratories.html)
~~~
rch
Here's a video response^ by a guy who wanted to test this assertion. He spent
about an hour in one at BYU, and seemed comfortable enough throughout.
Interesting points: at around the 16 minute mark, he verbally estimates his
time at 8 minutes; after the 45 min is up he asks for the lights to be turned
on, and gets no response from the people outside the chamber. He calmly finds
the door by using his cell phone as a light.
^
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXVGIb3bzHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXVGIb3bzHI)
~~~
Shinkei
I am glad you sent me this video, but again the important part is that the
test conditions are not the same as the original article. As much is mentioned
in the video notes and comments... I do agree though that my source article is
not exactly scientific, and it may be some kind of bias being introduced by
the test participants.
~~~
nubsrevenge
that article is wrong wrong wrong. I hate that article. I've seen it many
times, it just sounds like some dumb reporter got into an anechoic chamber and
thought it was crazy so he says you will start hallucinating and nobody can
stand it for more than 45 minutes. that is plain wrong. I've been in an
anechoic chamber to setup equipment to be sound tested, it's a very weird
sensation to have the pressure of sound lifted off of you, and to hear your
insides working, but everything about that article I loathe.
edit: oh what the hell, I never saw the certificate picture of the world
record before, and that chamber is only -9.4dBA when there are plenty now past
-12dBA (though I don't know the rating of the chamber I was in)
------
Eiriksmal
> The cochlea converts physical vibrations into electrical signals that the
> brain receives. > The body reacts immediately and powerfully to these
> signals, even in the middle of deep sleep. ... > The activation prompts an
> immediate release of stress hormones like cortisol. > People who live in
> consistently loud environments often experience chronically elevated levels
> of stress hormones.
This article got me thinking... what if I'm waking up feeling tired not
because my mattress is aging and terrible, but because I moved from a quiet
house to one that's 500 feet away from some train tracks? Even with a line of
trees and other houses between the tracks and my bedroom, you can still hear
the trains go thundering by, regardless of the time of day.
~~~
plainOldText
Have you tried to sleep with earplugs on? Do you still wke up tired then?
Also, I think the environment can have a much deeper impact on our health than
most doctors like to admit. You could also wake up feeling tired as a result
of changes in air quality (chemicals, mold, spores, wall paint, even furniture
materials apparently).
Here's an interesting collection of reads:
[http://readpiles.com/pile/Environmental-
Illnesses,-Chemical-...](http://readpiles.com/pile/Environmental-
Illnesses,-Chemical-
Sensitivity,-Allergies/94bac754-fe6c-4309-a0ca-e4e9a45b9acb)
------
neoterics
Are there any studies that show the advantages of open space offices? I loathe
them so much, constant distractions with people on the phone, clickyty clacks
of tens of keyboards, people laughing & talking loudly etc. etc.
How do people think that this open environment can be conducive to
productivity? It just blows my mind. We see such studies all the time about
silence, yet most companies (especially in the Bay Area) are moving towards
the open space layout. Are they just incapable of rationally thinking about
this and doing it just because it's the new and cool thing in town and others
are doing it?
I always end up being the most productive during holiday season (I wish our
company gave us the option to work from home).
~~~
devindotcom
Some people work better in those circumstances, believe it or not. I
personally don't, but others do - they thrive on being in the midst of
activity, are stimulated by it. Both types should be accommodated, I'd say,
but it's hard to justify giving someone an office just because they prefer to
be alone. Luckily working from home is an option, though, as you point out,
not for everyone just yet.
Strangely enough, I actually read very well when at a crowded bar. The
background music and conversation, even if it's loud, sort of makes my brain
focus on the book at hand, and I'm able to concentrate on it as well or better
than I might have in a library reading room. Plus, you know, beer.
~~~
neoterics
Right, but even if the percentage of such a person is 50%, then you are only
catering to half the crowd.
I realize giving an office to everyone is not the best (or the most realistic)
solution, but I think a compromise can be found, some parts of our office have
these large cubes where 2 to 4 people can sit, this keeps you together with
your team and makes for easy interaction/collaboration, but at the same time
the high walls surrounding you keep the background auditory and visual
distractions to a minimum, this way there is something for both the groups of
people.
------
gregpilling
I find that I need some quiet time everyday or I get irritable. An office with
a solid door and insulated walls is at work, and I have a quiet room at home.
------
noir_lord
Silicon earplugs are sanity savers, I don't sleep without them as I have sleep
problems.
I also use them sometimes when I need to concentrate.
------
Throwaway1224
I lived in Finland for six years. I speak the language fluently.
:crickets:
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What's wrong with CS research - iamelgringo
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-wrong-with-cs-research.html?dupe=with_honor
======
mmp
This rant would be worth reading weren't it for the fact that programming
language provability is but one of many areas of research in CS, which is
something the author doesn't seem to realize in either of his two rants.
Almost no one cares about program provability, well gee golly, I'd never have
known!
Why should anyone who needed years in grad school to figure that out even be
taken seriously?
------
bayareaguy
Isn't this a dup of: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43074>
~~~
aswanson
Sure is. I thought pg put in a safeguard against this that would refer you to
the first submittal. Running out of storage space, I guess.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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U.S. considers cutting Huawei off from global chip suppliers - pseudolus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-tech-tsmc/u-s-mulls-cutting-huawei-off-from-global-chip-suppliers-with-tsmc-in-crosshairs-idUSKBN20B1YO
======
fgonzag
What are they going to threaten TSMC with? Banning it's products? So you kill
the smartphone and most of the SoC industry in one fell swoop?
TSMC has way more bargaining power than Huawei. The US won't be able to bully
it around that easily. They could easily find enough buyers for their wafers
in Asia and Europe.
Any tarif would be directly passed onto TSMC's clients too, so it'd be
straight up taxing 80% of the things that have silicon in them. I don't see
what leverage the US govt has on an entity with as much global relevance and
few competitors as TSMC.
~~~
101404
> What are they going to threaten TSMC with?
Its a Taiwanese company. The US is pretty much the only country that helps
Taiwan to continue to exist as an independent country (not officially, but in
practice). If the US tells Taiwan to stop supplying Huawei, that's what they
will do.
I an still not sure though what the motives if the US are in bashing on Huawei
so much.
~~~
fgonzag
You do realize China thinks and claims it owns Taiwan. If Taiwan refused to do
business with a Chinese company on behalf of the US, you'd be guaranteed to
have the Chinese army there within the week. China-Taiwan relations are
nothing to fuck with, unless the US is willing to spill major blood.
To China this is no different than the US demanding a Tibetan village stop
trading with China.
~~~
teknologist
The analysis says that China would "spill" plenty of blood in that situation
too, and the outcome might not be as predictable as you think...
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-
wi...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china)
~~~
fgonzag
The whole point of the preceding paragraph is stating that china is absolutely
willing to spill blood over Taiwan. We're asking if the US govt has enough
political capital to fight a war against a country with an actual army over
literally nothing at all. The US hasn't fought one of those since World War
II, and it hasn't had a war with major casualties since Vietnam IRC?
China doesn't care if half its army comes back home in body bags. Their
country is built on extreme nationalism and Taiwan going off script is an
existential threat to their model. Could the US population tolerate a casualty
rate much much higher than Vietnam, especially over an economic dispute?
Nobody is disputing the US would beat China in a war.
------
davidw
Nice article on TSMC in the Christmas edition of The Economist:
[https://www.economist.com/christmas-
specials/2019/12/18/a-lo...](https://www.economist.com/christmas-
specials/2019/12/18/a-look-inside-the-factory-around-which-the-modern-world-
turns)
------
throw0101a
Won't this just cause them to set up their independent supply chain?
As I understand things, part of the reason for encouraging international trade
(esp. post-WW2) was/is to tie different countries together so that it would
disincentivize conflict between them.
~~~
wmf
The only advanced semiconductor foundries are TSMC and Samsung; if Huawei was
locked out of both they would be stuck with inferior technology.
~~~
totalZero
What's your definition of "advanced"?
Intel, UMC, GlobalFoundries don't make your list??
~~~
wmf
At this point Huawei is looking for 5 nm and 3 nm capacity so no, Intel, UMC,
and GlobalFoundries do not make the list.
~~~
totalZero
What does 5nm mean to you? It's all jargon. Intel's 7nm is comparable to
TSMC's 5nm. Go do some research instead of making arbitrary classifications
based on marketing terms.
------
Taniwha
God, it's like some giant running amok, staggering around stepping on markets,
how can anyone do business in the world these days?
Given past experience the result will of course be a domestic Chinese fab
industry that out competes the rest of the world .... when what we want is
real competition in this space
~~~
teknologist
It would seem that the US view is that CCP state sponsorship of companies for
surveillance purposes is not conducive to "real" competition in the market
------
teruakohatu
What is the end game here? I can't figure out if they want to cripple Huawei,
which seems unlikely to succeed, or if this is some sort of negotiatong tactic
as part of some bigger geopolitical game.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Both. It’s meant to be punitive for past transgressions related to trade
(which is a complex issue beyond the scale of a single thread) and send a
message for future interactions.
~~~
h0l0cube
> punitive for past transgressions related to trade
You can take the morality out of it. This is simply two adversaries in a power
play.
~~~
toomuchtodo
IP and patent theft is a legal, not moral, issue. Examples of theft of Western
intellectual property by China is trivially available, and requires no
enumeration here.
~~~
h0l0cube
Property rights _are_ a moral concern, though of obvious financial import. But
as far as I'm aware, the trade war is not premised on increased enforcement of
property rights in China, but on the trade deficit.
~~~
DeonPenny
A trade deficit that people believe was created using unfair trading practice
which includes the violation of Property rights among many other
~~~
h0l0cube
As far as I'm aware, at the behest of it's trading partners, China had already
made strides to implement IP laws prior to the trade war. Once again, the goal
of the trade war isn't to improve China's engagement with it's trade partners,
which can be achieved through bi-lateral trade agreements, but to address the
growing power of China.
Edit:
To clarify my own opinions, I'd be really happy for a trade war if it's
objective was to change China's policies. If China grows unimpeded with the
same human rights, and lack of enforcement of IP laws, it means the whole
world would have to compete on the same terms. This would mean a degradation
of human rights in first-world countries in the long run.
------
simonblack
As Julia Roberts says in 'Pretty Woman'.
'You guys work on commission, huh? So I went elsewhere!!'
'Big mistake! Big!! HUUGGE!!!'
When you say 'But there is no elsewhere.' you're right. _FOR TODAY!!_
Tomorrow, China will now have to produce its own chips. And those chips will
be cheaper and put the US's chip manufacturers out of business. (Just like the
US paper manufacturers, and the furniture manufacturers, and the small-item
manufacturers, and the tools manufacturers, and the clothing manufacturers,
and the ... but you get the point.)
------
blackrock
This is quite fascinating. Trump and his cronies are now willing to burn his
own house down, and burn everyone else’s house down, in order to not let
anyone play.
Blocking TSMC from selling to Huawei, might very well kill TSMC. I don’t know
the specifics, but TSMC rely on the sales from Huawei to sustain their R&D and
manufacturing investments. This is why it is economical for Apple and Qualcomm
to use a contract manufacturer, since only they (TSMC) can sustain the economy
of scale. If TSMC falls apart, then where is Apple and Qualcomm going to
manufacture their chips?
By doing this, Trump has now painted a target on every other Chinese company:
DJI, One Plus, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Alibaba. Although I am sure they have already
drafted up contingency plans.
At some point, if it hasn’t happened already, these companies are going to
band together, and create their own platforms and technologies. The Chinese
market is massive enough to sustain these companies internally, while they
mature and build out their technology, for later export to the rest of the
developing world.
The key tool here is the photolithography machines from ASML. Once China’s
scientists builds a replacement, then there is no further dependence. So if
Trump wants to get the maximum effect, then he should pull the trigger on
this, right now.
Five years ago, a lot of pundits kept saying that Chinese tech companies were
only competitive because they had the China government backing them up, and
blocking the Chinese market from American domination by Google and Facebook.
Well, today, that decision seems prescient. Nobody back then, ever thought
that an American President would do such a thing, but today, here we are.
~~~
ksec
>Blocking TSMC from selling to Huawei, might very well kill TSMC.
Um. NO. They either continue to sell Smartphone using chips from TSMC, or they
retreat the Smartphone market where other maker will continue to use TSMC's
chip.
~~~
blackrock
I think you read my sentence backwards.
------
Traster
The US wants to stop a Chinese company buying chips from a Taiwanese company?
The problem the US has is that it has blatantly conflated national security
with economic interest. Now we've got no idea whether Huawei is a genuine
threat or whether America would just prefer you buy American. The UK was a
great example - even one of the US's closest allies isn't excluding Huawei
from 5G infrastructure.
If there was actually a clear national security threat and the US was acting
reasonably, its allies would be backing it and we might actually see a unified
resistance to potential Chinese espionage. Instead the world is pretty much
unified in seeing this as another one of Donald Trump's _fantastic negotiating
ploys_ where he alienates all his allies, sacrifices key objectives needlessly
and then claims victory anyway.
~~~
volak
Its bipartisan. [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-pelosi-warns-
nat...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-pelosi-warns-nato-allies-
against-integration-into-huaweis-5g-networks)
------
NicoJuicy
I wonder who shorted TSMC, it seems to be a recurring pattern for Trump
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I made $1,000 an hour as an SAT tutor. My students did better without me - skybrian
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10728958/sat-tutor-expensive
======
giardini
I disagree with the author's premise that
"Few understand that the SAT requires specific, school-independent training."
I took both PSAT and SAT cold with no specific preparation and did very well.
So did my friends. It was even fun.
While I see no _need_ for SAT tutoring, especially for excellent students,
I've heard claims that tutoring can raise scores. I would have felt, at the
time I took the SAT (and even today, somewhat), that "preparing" was a form of
cheating, since those who "prepare" have an unfair advantage over those who
did not. It also taints the statistics.
But that was before I read about how physics and mathematics students in the
English university systems were sometimes heavily tutored prior to
mathematics/physics contests/exams. Having a personal tutor of Nobel-prize
quality who drives you hard would undoubtedly sharpen one's skills.
~~~
mhuangw
I can confirm that tutoring boosts scores significantly. I went to an SAT prep
program that was designed specifically to help you beat the test. My score was
1680 as a freshman and 2390 as a junior.
|
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Minecraft creator banks $350k a day, turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie - bconway
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35973/Minecraft-creator-banks-350k-a-day
======
aresant
The most refreshing part of this story is that it's not about the Apple /
Google / etc App stores.
Shows that exceptional indie products can get huge traction on a traditional
platform, sort of like Braid on XBOX / PC / etc.
That said, also excites me for the future when MSFT's & Apple's standard OS
come with a servicable app store baked in.
~~~
nihilocrat
On a similar note, Minecraft is written in...
get this
...
_Java_
Which seems to be the dorkiest and most uncool language on the planet if you
were to ask HN.
~~~
raganwald
A plumber climbs out of a manhole, and his arms are covered with - guess what?
- excrement! A beautiful little girl in a beautiful white dress happens to
pass by. The plumber seizes the opportunity and quickly, but firmly sweeps his
hands over the girl’s white dress.
Little girl (appalled): AAAH!!
Plumber (outraged): Oh yeah? I bet you love to take a shit though.
[http://www.yosefk.com/blog/the-cardinal-programming-
jokes.ht...](http://www.yosefk.com/blog/the-cardinal-programming-jokes.html)
So yeah, Java is dorky and uncool, but I bet we love to play Minecraft (I
don't know, since I haven't played a video game in at least a decade).
~~~
lrm242
The poop leaves my bottom and goes into the toilet. I never touch it. Do you?
~~~
yafujifide
Actually, you do touch it.
~~~
Groxx
With your arms?
------
simplegeek
Amazing stuff. Honestly, when I saw this post I thought man I should have been
a games programmer (and the desire to learn how to create games started to
surface). Then, I went searching on Google and it seems that this guy has
found his luck after working hard as a games programmer for around 10 years
(<http://www.mojang.com/notch/>). After reading this, I smiled & felt happy
for the programmer and went back working ;)
~~~
SwellJoe
Behind nearly every "overnight success" story is a reality of years of
practice and persistence.
~~~
steveklabnik
<http://startupquote.com/post/1164724792>
------
zeteo
The sales graphs are public:
<http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/>
The best day (9/23) had 25663 sales, or about $255k. This came on top of the
server being down (0 sales) for 3 previous days. The recent average is around
10k sales ($100k / day).
EDIT: As pointed out by bananaandapple below, the price is in euro not USD,
which brings the best day to $347k. The recent average works out to about
$136k / day.
~~~
vaksel
according to that he sold 230,441 copies which comes out to €2,292,887.95
euros.
1 euro = $1.36 USD
so that comes out to
$3,118,327.612
After all the fees and costs, that's 3 mil before taxes,
~~~
studer
His company (Mojang Specifications) is a sole proprietorship, so the tax
situation is interesting (i.e. most of it is taxed as personal income, and
Sweden has a progressive tax system, and he has to pay insurance contributions
as well). I can understand why he's scrambling to establish a real company :)
~~~
barrkel
Indeed, a quick glance at online calculators indicates it's pretty horrific,
i.e. that he'd be lucky to see more than 35% of gross, assuming that sole
props get whacked for employer taxes too, which I'd expect to avoid a simple
loophole.
------
twymer
Valve: "We heard you were making $350k/day, how would you like a job making
$50k/year?"
~~~
kevingadd
1) Health care, taxes, payment processing fees, development tools... There are
a lot of expenses covered by an employer, especially when you're a game
developer. 2) It's not $350k/day versus $50k/year, unless he can somehow
sustain his current income indefinitely (he can't). 3) The value of games
publishers and platform developers being willing to talk to you (and having
access to development kits, etc) is hard to put monetary value on. Working at
a studio like Valve gives you that, too.
~~~
efsavage
"unless he can somehow sustain his current income indefinitely"
If he sustains it for 2 weeks he's pretty much set for life.
~~~
zacharycohn
He's already sustained at least $250k/d for two weeks. These numbers are 100k
bigger than the last ones I saw a few weeks ago.
Pretty sure he could BUY Valve at this point. :p
~~~
sshumaker
Considering he's made about 4mm, and Valve turned down a multi-billion dollar
offer not too long ago, I think you might be a bit off-base. :)
~~~
zacharycohn
Slight exaggeration. :)
------
msie
Good news: Indie developers can still get rich doing what they love.
Bad news: You will probably not be one of them.
;-)
~~~
SwellJoe
Best news: You probably can make a pretty good living, even if you don't get
rich.
~~~
rikthevik
That's a great sentiment. I'm not interested in getting super rich, I'd just
like to do interesting work and have some freedom in my life. Hopefully that's
not too much to ask.
~~~
SwellJoe
I can assure you it's not.
I'm not the most amazing software developer in the world, nor am I the most
astute businessman, but after a little more than decade of work and
persistence, I'm in a position where I can do pretty much everything I've
always wanted to do. Part of that time was spent figuring out _what_ I
actually always wanted to do (age brings clarity of focus, I think). I travel
full-time (I'm in Bozeman, MT right now, on my way to Yellowstone), I run a
company that builds stuff I'm really proud of and millions of people use, I
work with two guys that I really enjoy working with, I occasionally get to
meet up with our users and customers and they're awesome, and I make enough
money to live on without having to think too much about money, and the
revenues continue to grow at a modest but steady rate. I'm definitely not
rich, and the subject of this story has made more in a couple months than I've
made in four years of running Virtualmin, but I've got nothing to complain
about.
Most importantly, I have as much freedom as anyone I know, including several
millionaires and a few billionaires.
~~~
matwood
Your story is my goal. I don't need cars or giant houses, I just want the
freedom to solve interesting problems and the responsibility of making the
business decisions.
------
Groxx
> _turns down job offers from Valve and Bungie_
Thank _God_. Not that they haven't been successful, but I _really_ want this
to stay _entirely_ in Notch's control, as that's _precisely_ why it's
succeeding.
~~~
mdwrigh2
This may be a good thing ultimately, but if there was a gaming company I'd
consider working for, it'd likely be Valve. They seem very community focused,
and I imagine they'd give this guy the freedom to run the game how he likes,
considering its his 'baby'. Plus, they'd give him some risk-free (to him)
resources to build a second game if he needed it, and they probably have way
more experience handling multiplayer side stuff that he could benefit from.
But this is pure speculation. As it is, him keeping it is probably a good
thing for the community.
~~~
weaksauce
Just look at the game that the team they purchased made: portal. The indie
game was very ugly. The final game was polished, funny, and fun. If he were to
bring his game to valve they could probably improve it a lot.
------
pirko
Considering that he'd quit his job as a game developer to be able to develop
indie games (<http://www.minecraft.net/about.jsp>) it's not so surprising that
he turns down the job offers. And it also seems that he's in the beginning of
starting his own company and hiring developers
([http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1205447916/im-sorry-about-
the-l...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1205447916/im-sorry-about-the-lack-of-
updates))
------
wushupork
Why would you work for a software company if you are making that much?
~~~
aresant
Think Hollywood director type job offer.
Use somebody else's money to build your dream product with a huge incredible
staff.
Get gauranteed, huge up front salary to do so.
Take away a sizeable piece of the action on the success.
~~~
icefox
And being forced to justify every small thing and have to use outlook.
~~~
awakeasleep
When you're eminent in your field those sorts of things may become negotiable.
------
gavingmiller
I don't know where this website pulled their numbers from, but I think they're
incorrect.
According to Minecraft's stats[1], in the last 24 hours 12,025 people bought
the game, times 9.95 Euro = 119,499.50 Euro, which is a bit less than
$163k/day in American dollars.
[1] <http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp>
~~~
bananaandapple
A week ago, he was selling up to 36000 copies a day.
~~~
zeteo
Either give a reference, or you must be confusing sales and downloads.
~~~
bananaandapple
<http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/>
~~~
zeteo
That shows the maximum as 25000, not 36000 sales per day.
~~~
yafujifide
The number of copies are in Euros, and there are 1.44 US copies per Euro copy,
so the number sold is 36000 US copies per day.
~~~
studer
That's not how currency exchange rates work...
~~~
sliverstorm
I choose to interpret your parent as a joke.
------
messel
I bought it a few weeks ago but only played twice (no time). My first time
playing the demo I immediately was struck by several opportunities
1) converting 2D images into 3D minecraft world for artists and lazy people
2) Connecting 26 adjacent worlds to have a fluid adaptive minecraft universe.
As users move from one world to the next it pulls in the data from the next
set of adjacent worlds (no crossing lag). Folks can host their own worlds and
pay for virtual real estate (hosting) or lay claim to a parts of a big cube,
Thematically clustered worlds would be fantastic (hell worlds, water worlds,
sky citiies, shopping districts, space worlds.. etc).
There's something oddly beautiful about building your own game world.
~~~
pshc
_cough_ Second Life _cough_
~~~
thumper
_cough_ Worlds Chat _cough_
Seriously, we had that exact idea implemented around 1997 -- and it even
supported multiple authentications (anonymous worlds, versus worlds with user
accounts) all transparently. And it could even do VRML, crowd control, dynamic
downloads (so you could link to new worlds), and a built-in world builder.
It seemed that we had thought of everything... And then management took over.
~~~
pshc
You should have let marketing take over and built up unsustainable hype and
corporate endorsement instead ;)
------
zenocon
As someone who is quietly lurking on HN, and working on my own product nights
and w/e, this gives me hope. I think the ISV model just feels right...at least
for me. I've been wavering on quitting the day job. Kudos to this chap. Long
live the ISV success stories.
------
bl4k
I wonder what the potential market size is for this game, and if he will reach
a large part of that while the game is in alpha and on special.
Something tells me he is selling it for too cheap, especially with all the
buzz it is getting. The license is also a lifetime license, so he has ongoing
server costs for the next 5+ years that need to be covered with what he is
bringing in atm (minus the huge tax bill he will be hit with).
He is selling what is a recurring service at a flat one-off rate, a
subscription at $20 year may have sold just as well.
~~~
teamonkey
He's selling it at $10 while it's in a preview state. The full RRP will be
$20.
~~~
bond
It's 9.95€ and 20€, around $13 and $26...
------
SwaroopH
Inspiring. I am going to work harder on my current personal project.
------
rdj
Not surprised. What could a job at either Valve or Bungie give him that he
doesn't get now?
~~~
kevingadd
Ask the Portal team? Or the guys who made Team Fortress? Or the guys who made
Counter-Strike?
To be more precise: Working at a larger studio like Valve means you trade some
creative control and (in notch's case) some short-term income for reliable
long-term income and access to things you could never get in the short term as
an individual, like access to devkits for consoles, access to well-trained,
highly skilled QA/art/programming departments, decades of design and
programming experience from leads and senior developers, etc.
~~~
city41
The Portal team was scooped up from Digipen. If their game was netting them
over $200k/day, something tells me they wouldn't have been so eager to join
Valve.
Hey I f'ing love Valve, my all time favorite game company. No one is trying to
suggest working for Valve is a bad thing. But a little perspective is needed
here.
------
rospaya
I image he would make loads more if he used a simpler distribution platform
like Steam.
~~~
ugh
PayPal is not exactly hard.
------
vaksel
their math is a little bit off, a copy sold every 3 seconds = 28,800 sales a
day.
Or 10.5 million copies a year. To tell the truth its pretty shocking how
minecraft has taken off...the guy will probably end up making 100 million off
the game. And if he sticks to iterating it, it might end up making over a
billion over it's lifetime(say 40-50 years).
Which may seem like a huge number, until you remember that World of Warcraft
is making close to a billion a year.
The reason the number looks that shockingly high, is because he is a one man
show.
My guess is that he is going to end up using his new found fame/resources to
start his own game development company.
~~~
ryanwaggoner
Speaking as a someone who has never played either, it's also shocking because
World of Warcraft looks like this:
<http://www.sopheon.com/Portals/1/WoW%20Screenshot.jpg>
While Minecraft looks like this:
<http://www.indiegames.com/blog/images/timw/minecraft.jpg>
~~~
vaksel
looks can be changed, my guess is that the first thing he'll do is update the
graphics to give the game mainstream appeal.
right now people are playing for the gameplay...just like they do with WoW
~~~
zacharycohn
The graphics are simple on purpose - because the game is essentially
infinitely scalable (theoretical max map size is 3x surface of the Earth),
simple graphics are super important for not lagging servers and clients to
hell.
He's said in interviews that the improvements he wants to make are
improvements that make the game more fun. He's not going to add features that
won't somehow add fun, and if he finds that something isn't fun, it's out.
Because the graphics are purposely so simplistic, people are okay with that.
As soon as you upgrade them and start to make them more modern, you start
getting compared to other modern games like WoW, etc.
Keep it simple, people won't worry about the graphics.
~~~
prawn
I also think he avoids any issues with the 'uncanny valley' of near-realism in
games. If something isn't going to look exactly like a pig wandering the
mountain slopes, why not make it look like a Lego pig and be done with it?
------
rwhitman
The question is how long will it take major game developers to build a similar
game and turn on the marketing faucet?
I don't know much about game development, but it sounds like it would be a
pretty easy game to replicate, right?
~~~
dasil003
If he's already sold hundreds of thousands of copies, it seems like he's made
significant inroads into the market. Not sure how much more the marketing
faucet could do.
------
lujz
His business model is very appealing to the customer: pay only once and
receive all future versions. The "downside" is that, once market saturates,
you have to come up with a completely new product.
~~~
ido
That's basically how almost all games work tho (with a handful of exceptions)
- most people eventually get tired of playing the same game and move on to
something else.
------
CGamesPlay
Notch's story proves what indie game developers have been praying for all
along:
_Gameplay is everything._
------
CrankFrank
Looks like that the site is down now :)
------
retube
that's... $127,750,000 a year!
~~~
mrtron
He will earn...a billion dollars this decade!
------
clistctrl
I get the impression that this game was built because he wanted to build
something he himself would enjoy, not something he could become rich off.
Maybe there's something to that philosophy ;)
~~~
houseabsolute
Maybe. On the other hand, people do things every day for the love of it that
get little traction in the market place. It seems more likely this confluence
is just a coincidence.
~~~
Groxx
I wonder if it might be a _requirement_ (or nearly) for run-away successes
though, while obviously not _sufficient_ for it.
~~~
kranner
Careful, you never know if Malcolm Gladwell is lurking here.
~~~
Groxx
I'm not aware of that reference... care to enlighten me? The wikipedia entry
didn't really answer it for me.
~~~
scrame
Malcolm Gladwell writes books about "success" where he uses many anecdotal
(albeit fascinating) stories to come to a very vague conclusion of how people
can be "successful". GP was referring to "qualities of success" (passion,
writing something for yourself), which don't necessarily cause success.
It was tongue-in-cheek.
~~~
kranner
Thanks, well put, just what I meant.
------
klbarry
It's kinda sad that the Dwarf Fortress creator only earns about 2k a day. It
shows what some business savvy will do for you.
Then ago, the DF creator is passionatr about his vision, so who knows.
~~~
fossuser
Not sure if it's business savvy. While Dwarf Fortress is a great indie game I
don't think it has the wide spread appeal of a game like mine craft. Mine
craft's 3D world and game play is more intuitive to your average person. Not
to mention Notch's luck with going viral certainly helps as well.
~~~
zacharycohn
Agree. I played a bit of Dwarf Fortress, and there was definitely a learning
curve. Minecraft has, essentially, no initial "how to play" learning curve.
~~~
jamesgeck0
Crafting is the biggest part of the learning curve right now, although Notch
has some ideas about how to address it. One way might be by having the player
unlock "recipes" as they gather resources and experiment.
Redstone is the other part of the game with an epic learning curve. It can be
used to craft functional logic gates. Some guy on YouTube made a massive ALU
using it...
|
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}
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Jason Seifer has Died - milesf
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-lake-ivanhoe-suspected-drowning-20170401-story.html
======
milesf
Gregg Pollack, the other half of the "Rails vs." videos, has a tribute page to
him:[https://www.greggpollack.com/remembering-jason-
seifer/](https://www.greggpollack.com/remembering-jason-seifer/)
I remember meeting Jason many times at conferences. Always jovial, always
encouraging, and always very funny. You will be missed.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Is Memcached a Good or Bad Sign for MySQL? - vladocar
http://gigaom.com/2009/05/17/memcached-and-an-ailing-mysql/
======
russss
He's getting it wrong (unsurprisingly).
If you just use Memcache to cache the same results you get out of a DB, of
course you might as well just throw that RAM at the DB. With any sane DBMS
this will result in the same performance improvement.
The problem with _that_ is that it limits you to the amount of RAM you can
throw into the DB. The biggest Memcache clusters reach well into the multi-
terabyte range.
Secondly, you can use Memcache to store constructed objects which could take
many DB calls (or CPU time) to generate. Now you're getting one Memcache hit
instead of several DB hits, which is a distinct bonus.
Since it's shared-nothing, Memcache also gives you the ability to massively
parallelize queries to many cache servers at once, and get a much quicker
overall response than just hammering one DB into the ground.
~~~
pj
I've never used memcache, but my understanding is that memcache stores the
results of queries whereas adding ram to the database will perhaps help it
store indexes, tables, and query compiles, but to the best of my knowledge,
the results of queries are not stored by DBMSs -- this is why memcache is
used.
If my understanding of memcache is correct, throwing more ram at the db won't
provide the same performance improvements that memcache will provide.
~~~
nomoresecrets
mysql has a query cache, which stores the query and results:
<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/query-cache.html>
~~~
chrisbolt
With the query cache, if you update a single row in one table, all cached
queries that involve that table are invalidated, whether or not that row would
have affected the result. This makes it almost useless for many sites.
------
patio11
From my point of view, memcached isn't a godsend because the database is weak,
it is a godsend because it prevents you from trying to do things that no
database should be asked to do.
My personal projects use memcached recently, but not for anything interesting.
At the day job, we have a particular case where we render a per-user sidebar.
The data for the sidebar is volatile, but unpredictably volatile -- i.e. it
should be unchanging for the length of a user session except when it isn't,
but when it isn't the user requires us to know Right The Heck Now (TM). That
data is actually stored on another system, and accessing it requires hitting a
web service on the other system. Accessing the web service is, obviously, an
overhead, and the service it calls is very heavy. Obviously, big win for us if
we can avoid hitting that service on every request for a webpage with a
sidebar.
Enter memcached. It is a fairly simple way to keep the sidebars for 3+ app
servers synced with each other, and the other system can force-expire the
cache if it wants to. This isn't a knock against the database running on the
other system -- it doesn't and shouldn't care about what format we use their
data in, just that they're keeping the contract about providing it when we ask
and pinging us when it needs expiry.
~~~
bobbyi
How are you having the other system expire the cache?
~~~
henriklied
As I've been involved in a similar project, for my part I set up a very simple
web service that handled the invalidation. The third-party service only needed
to know the user session key or the user database ID, and then send a HTTP
DELETE to the relevant API method, and the main app server did the rest.
------
neovive
The increase in development for memcached is a good thing since it's a
relatively easy and less expensive way to scale. As mentioned in the article,
relational databases will be around for a while and were never designed for
the kind of scale that many companies require today. It's a proven technology
that just needs a boost in certain situations.
The combination of MySQL + Memcached is a great solution to for many small
companies to scale.
~~~
silentbicycle
> As mentioned in the article, relational databases will be around for a while
> and were never designed for the kind of scale that many companies require
> today.
MySQL is not representative of all relational databases.
|
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Yahoo to kill off inactive IDs to free up ‘short, sweet’ usernames - QUFB
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/12/yahoo-announces-it-will-kill-off-ids-inactive-for-more-than-a-year-to-free-up-memorable-usernames/
======
tcdowney
Glad that I've never used a Yahoo email address to register for anything.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Driving Detroit 2017: Has the renaissance reached the streets? - rmason
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/12/21/driving-detroit-michigan/813035001/
======
rmason
A common theme in Detroit is that sure the downtown area is booming but what
about the neighborhoods? I believe they've got it all wrong. You can't bring
back the neighborhoods without a strong downtown core at its center.
On my frequent trips the neighborhoods are showing progress with most of it in
the past two years. But as the article shows the progress in uneven.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Dear Foursquare, Gowalla: Please Let’s Stop Pretending This Is Fun - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/13/foursquare-gowalla-stop-pretending-fun/
======
acgourley
This article bothers me. The author says that we should check in downtown and
announce that we're hungry or need a gift somewhere "and then sit back and
watch the discounts roll in."
1) I'm a little tired of tech bloggers stating their own opinion on what a
company should be doing as fact. A a little more humility here would be
appreciated; they would be high priced consultants if their ideas were so
golden.
2) If someone wants food, they're going to pull that information down on a
service like yelp. That's a much more appropriate context for offers to be
exposed, too. If tons of appealing offers have not surfaced in sites like
yelp, why would they appear in LBS services? *
* I'm not saying LBS can't monetize, but the issue is more likely that the local deal / advertising market is not there yet, not that the LBS companies need to hire techcrunch writers for ideas.
~~~
doron
I somewhat support this point of view, from admittedly selfish interests. I
dont support advertising schemes online that dont give me (the consumer)
something. i.e i expect online advertising to create a system where if I
choose to click, I am rewarded with a discount,or some such, otherwise they
just impede on my time (and on my phone, its not trivial, ads take longer time
to download any content)
Many useful sites and services seem to completely rely on advertising as
opposed to the service they actually provide, this is all well and good, but
as long as advertising is the same mode of operation it used to be offline
(and what did change between offline and online? metrics, nothing much else) i
agree with you that I dont think LBS can monetize until the advertising market
creates another alternative.
The concept of online advertising is generally a two way, service provider and
ad provider, it would be better if it will be a three way, rewarding the
consumer as well.
------
mattmanser
While the article is pretty good, I really didn't like this:
_if you’re competing with Facebook in social networking and your name isn’t
Twitter or Google, I’m sorry, but I don’t like your chances_
Basically, he's saying we should all give up now and go home.
Sod his world view that established players are king.
~~~
patio11
Twitter has done some _amazing_ Jedi mind tricks to convince the media that it
has a place in that sentence.
~~~
tonystubblebine
What's the trick? Twitter is useful for the media and Facebook is not. I think
it's that simple. You can now write a news article where every quote is pulled
from twitter. Nobody is doing that with facebook.
~~~
antareus
Useful? Why would I care what xXNinjaGuy2938Xx's opinion on foreign policy is?
Twitter strikes me as a very anti-intellectual medium because of the 140
character limitation. How do you convey a nuanced, complex opinion in such a
fashion?
~~~
alexknight
"How do you convey a nuanced, complex opinion in such a fashion?"
\- You don't... that's what a long form writing is form, i.e a blog. Brevity
is the sole of wit.
~~~
rfrey
_Brevity is the sole of wit_
Originally, "soul" of wit. But I think I like yours better.
------
nir
Actually most people don't find it much fun, and don't use these apps. TC, NY
Times & the rest of the hypeosphere are those pretending these products have
any impact.
~~~
nickbw
I think this is the salient point for startups. Painfully contrived "fun" can
be a short-term win. Tech press and early adopters like it ... but only
because they like being clever enough to appreciate it.
"Look at that, it gave me a badge! Normal people will eat this up!"
But then normal people fail to eat it up, and traffic goes nowhere.
Three possible ways to avoid needing contrived "fun":
1\. Be immediately useful. E.g., save people money, or provide excellent
search results. This is pretty straight-forward, but tends to require either
amazing engineering skills or an actual business model.
2\. Be a social obligation. Facebook is home to plenty of third party apps
that are desperately projecting contrived fun, but FB itself is rather somber.
It doesn't have to be anything else.
3\. Actually be fun. This is subtle, difficult, and maddeningly subjective.
------
grandalf
It took me a while to realize what Gowalla was after seeing some bizarre
tweets about it for a few months. When I finally clicked on one of the URLs
there was no map, no pictures, only a useless placeholder page for the
business. What a waste of time it was clicking on that link... it offered
nothing to someone who wasn't already familiar with the business... in essence
it was a 100% regrettable click.
Why would Gowalla encourage people to tweet useless links to their
friends/follwers?
~~~
jkaljundi
That's the reason why Facebook Places is available only in the US and coming
to a few selected countries later. They want to populate the database in
advance. Same reason for Yelp to take the country by country approach, to make
sure it's useful.
------
tkanet
In just a year or so, we will see the same story about the coupons' madness.
How valuable is it to get 10% out of a coffee ? if groupon and daily deal
makers do not change the mechanic and move to the next(?) level, it will end
up as pure spam. Coupon fatigue just like checkin fatigue
Foursquare, Gowalla ...are simply missing an opportunity to move to that next
level of guinuinely discovering places. They havent (yet) found a deeper
motivation for checking in (than badges for younger gamers). I recently read a
book mapping some modern places (in european cities) with their forgotton
history. You could walk to some restaurant in Paris and discover (from the
book) that some historical event happened here. Historical view as well as
many other angles are possible and could drive attention for mass markets
...and that looks like a guenuine discovery.
I dont believe "check in and get coupons" is really enough
------
chadp
about time someone in the press admitted to these LBS' (current) uselessness.
Potential for being big businesses (which is exciting for the companies) but
personally useless for me at the moment.
~~~
byoung2
I agree...I was a big fan of FourSquare at first, but now that the wow factor
has worn off, I don't see the point anymore. Now if being the mayor gave me
coupons or discounts, then I'd have more of an incentive to check in more
often at more places.
~~~
pavs
What was the wow factor of foursquare?
~~~
matwood
Maybe the same novelty that any other achievement based game like system
provides?
~~~
antareus
And the achievements give you...what? A tiny shot of dopamine?
It is hard to be enamored with tech these days when you see what people fall
for.
~~~
matwood
They don't provide anything but I was responding to someone who asked what the
wow facto was. There really isn't any wow factor, but for some reason people
are suckers for achievements. Just look at pretty much any video game today
for additional examples.
------
vacanti
The real reason why Groupon is growing faster than Foursquare is because
Groupon can and is aggressively buying users at $5 to $10. Foursquare can't.
~~~
samtp
Do you know they pay $5 to $10 per customer or is it a guess? just curious
~~~
bmr
In their early days, they were paying affiliates $2 per email submit.
------
RBr
It's always scary when a sumo sized company like Facebook enters your space.
However, there are two things that this article doesn't consider:
1) People like new, shiny and cool. Facebook won't be new, shiny or cool
forever. Sure, neither will Foursquare or Gowalla, but you get the idea. Out
sumo the sumo and you'll win the next round.
2) Foursqure and Gowalla are interesting social networks, but they're social
networks in the loosest form of the term. First and foremost, their
functionality is based around engagement and motivation. Users "get something"
for "doing something". This was somewhat revolutionary on the web and we
haven't even scratched the surface of this.
------
SriniK
Deja vu all over again. Most of them said same thing about facebook twitter
and linkedin. Look where they are now. Agreed foursquare/gowalla need to
provide real value for checkins.
I can only sympathize with entrepreneurs on 'what if google did it' and now
'facebook did it'. Till yesterday location services were awesome and now that
facebook entered in the space it is bad? Give me a break.
~~~
kin
I can't entirely agree that there is deja vu. When Facebook and LinkedIn came
out, there was an immediate market not to mention Facebook's incredible
growth, something Foursquare/Gowalla don't have.
When Twitter first came out there was no initial growth and out of nowhere it
boomed, which I blame on media and as of now there is no monetary value in
Twitter (though technically it's there with all of the information on trends
and social impact that can be visualized through Tweets and Twitter as a
general Marketing/PR tool).
Foursquare/Gowalla on the other hand, don't offer entirely different from FB
Places other than a 'fun' aspect that FB can easily mimic. Till yesterday
location services were not awesome. No one really used it. It's inconvenient
to use. I don't use it and only 1% of my friends do. Now that FB entered the
space yes it is bad because it's even more difficult for people to break out
of the shell lest they come up with something to offer.
If it were me, I would throw in a "want to check-in" feature. That way you can
express a desire to go somewhere and amass a party to go with you instead of
checking in and have people say "oh, that place is cool".
------
davidamcclain
Is there any chance that there's bit of a chicken/egg scenario going on here?
Maybe we won't see many coupons for LBS until they have a large enough slice
of the retailer's demographic (or just a large enough % of the population) and
few people will sign up to use these services if they don't have these
coupons.
Facebook on the other hand is a different beast. A massively larger user base
and greater brand recognition with companies. How many ads do you see on TV
where the URL on the screen is to facebook.com/some-household-brand.
Businesses are already savvy to the fact that a great proportion of their
customer's traffic is on Facebook. Seems like a small jump to move your
coupons from your Facebook page to your location/"Place" on Facebook. Gowalla
and Foursquare don't have their foot in the door like Facebook does.
~~~
acgourley
While FB is on a great trajectory in this space, as of right now I would guess
Yelp serves more page views to people looking for information about
restaurants. They have some deals but its not extremely compelling.
Two possibilities: Yelp is missing a big opportunity or that opportunity is an
illusion; every restaurant doesn't want to offer coupons freely online.
I realize you didn't specifically say restaurants, but if it isn't happening
in that extremely competitive industry, why would it happen anywhere else?
------
sdizdar
I think these check in services are still in infancy - and neither foursquare
nor gowalla fix real-world problems.
For example, my wife and I went for dinner yesterday. We ended up at Pier
39th. Which restaurant to chose? What are the specials? Which ones are open?
Any coupons? Prices (meaning actual prices in $$)? Menu? We tried Yelp! - fail
(there are ~10 restaurant in Pier 39 but Yelp! was tell us to walk 1 mile). We
tried Foursquare - useless.
BTW, I'm experimenting something on <http://wall.si> but I still don't have
clue how to do it right.
~~~
fmkamchatka
Why not have a walk, look at the menus and the atmosphere and let your guts
decide?
~~~
pyre
Maybe their guts were telling them, "Food. Here. Now."
------
callmeed
Was thinking last night: do any of these LBSs have a solid dating component?
It seems to me that some dating-specific features (find and flirt with nearby
singles but also maintain privacy) could help increase adoption.
~~~
lennysan
<http://www.assistedserendipity.com/>
~~~
callmeed
That's on the right track, but I'm not sure piggybacking one of the networks
will work–almost as if they need to do it and promote themselves ... maybe
even work out deals with the venues ... if a lady checks in at a bar, she gets
a free drink–if a dude checks in, he gets to meet ladies ... just thinking out
loud.
Or maybe everyone who is single can wear a shirt with a QR code on it :)
~~~
antareus
I've been thinking about this for awhile. Current dating sites make it easy to
meet lots of people, but then there's the issue of how well you actually mesh
in real life. Thus, some sort of hybrid approach might be better.
I'm imagining some sort of OkCupid/augmented reality mashup. I think there
might be something to some level of algorithmic matching, but it doesn't mean
much until you actually meet the person. Matching systems can, for instance,
prevent people with totally incompatible different values systems from even
wasting time with each other. Augmented reality would let you pick someone out
of a crowd (via the inevitable smartphone) and pull up their profile. It could
even provide the "similar users" ability among people that were present if you
happen to meet your type, but they're not physically attractive to you.
Lots of work can be done here. I'm trying to get the number of awkward first
dates down, and I believe it to be possible if we meld the best aspects of
online and offline personas.
~~~
rhizome
OKCupid seems to have been making changes that would allow something like that
to become a factor in their compatibility ratings. Their "Special Blend"
ranking algorithm is multivariate secret sauce, and it's easy to imagine them
offering the option of sorting on proximity.
------
andrewhillman
I just don't think these services will go past the early adoption crowd. I
love "social" but telling people where I am worries me. I just think robbers
and such will take advantage at some point.
~~~
tomotomo
I believe they already have.
------
tomotomo
People are slowly realizing location-based + game mechanics is not an
automatic win. A lot of people still caught up in the initial hype but for
those still betting long on 4sq, I can think of 7 or so ways FourSquare-LBS
will play out and only one of them is good for FourSquare:
<http://www.saigonist.com/content/future-foursquare>
------
philfreo
Just looked at Shopkick for the first time and was pretty impressed. I bet
they'll do really well.
<http://shopkick.com/>
~~~
philfreo
Wow, why all the downvotes? They were mentioned in the article and my comment
was genuine.
------
va_coder
"they’re not giving us any good reason to use them."
I've been avoiding traffic tickets by using trapster on my iphone.
------
robryan
Interestingly one of the big cinema chains in Australia uses bluetooth to send
deals to phones when people are at the cinema. Seems to be a decent way to
bypass location based stuff altogether, of course you have to authorize the
bluetooth connection to your phone.
------
phlux
In addition to LBS, I am not so sure Isee the value of gamification, which has
taken a lot of attention these days - specifically badging.
Companies that showcased at disrupt showed badging as a feature, and the
panels seemed to like companies that did so - even so far as to suggest
badging to those who didnt have it.
Reddit has badging, but it is transparent to the use of the site (it is not a
goal of using the site). This, to me, works well - but for any site to think
that they will garner interest/drive traffic due to badging seems naive.
~~~
robryan
Can't say badging has ever motivated me outside of gaming and even then some
are just highly repetitive to keep you playing. In something like WoW some of
the badges actually require you to complete new sections of content and can be
fun to acquire.
~~~
phlux
>In something like WoW...
Yes, but that _is_ a game... badging (or gamification) of activities that are
a stretch to be called games... that's what I find odd.
I will not decry these sites/services outright, simply because I have been on
the internet since its inception and therefore cannot claim to be able to
predict how newly adopting generations will use it.
I personally don't see the value of gamification - but there certainly is the
genius site that will make the next killer with it. I don't feel they exist
yet. The idea is in its infancy and will be say, 3 generations of companies
will we all go "holy shit - that is _so_ obvious!"
------
ry0ohki
Beerby (<http://beerby.com>) is the only thing that makes checking into places
fun.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Silicon Valley CEO Response to Talia Jane’s Letter - rockdiesel
https://medium.com/work-reimagined/a-silicon-valley-ceo-response-to-talia-jane-s-letter-6b1f4540d3df#.b719hv1es
======
dudul
" Most solutions have been attempts to move people to work, but I’m proposing
an alternate solution: moving the work to the workers."
Holy crap! That's revolutionary! Letting people work from home! How
groundbreaking!!!
Seriously, it's great to see another CEO encourage this trend, but the way
it's presented in this post as a brand new thing he just invented over the
weekend is a bit ridiculous.
~~~
DrScump
Looking at the actual Careers page at her company site, however, none refers
to working from home except on Wednesdays.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How I Program Stuff - craigkerstiens
http://rdegges.com/how-i-program-stuff
======
Derbasti
This post is so deeply antisocial it makes me sad. Maybe I am just not born to
be a programmer like he is, but I invariably have more fun and I am more
productive and creative when working with other people.
That said, I enjoy how he so poignantly describes coding as antisocial at its
core. With people, you need to make compromises and concessions all the time.
Code on the other hand has no feelings, and deserves no pity. Maybe this is
why so many programmers struggle with being social.
I feel like there is a message about work/life balance in there. Or rather,
code/empathy balance. Can you realdily switch between ruthless coding mode and
caring people mode? How do you deal with that contrast?
~~~
irahul
> This post is so deeply antisocial it makes me sad
The post is describing what works for him. While in the midst of something,
mails, random greetings, IM pings are extremely irritating. When I was at my
day job, I always had my headphones to cut myself from the open cube farm.
When you are working on something, apart from the required inputs and division
of responsibility, it isn't a group activity. If you find it antisocial, well,
that's how it is.
Programming isn't alone in that regard. Think sculpting, painting, theorem
proving, creating music etc. All of these activities can, and are generally
done as a team, but the individual's work is his own.
> I invariably have more fun and I am more productive and creative when
> working with other people.
I am curious. How else you suggest you go about programming?
> Maybe this is why so many programmers struggle with being social.
Since your premise was lone wolf nature of coding, I presume you will be
making the same conclusions about sculpting and painting? I don't think you
have a valid inference here.
> I feel like there is a message about work/life balance in there
It's simple - when you are working, you aren't free to take long and/or
frequent calls from family/friends; or go fetch grocery even if you are
working from home. When you are at home, unless it's a serious outage, you
don't take unnecessary calls relating to work.
~~~
bmj
_It's simple - when you are working, you aren't free to take long and/or
frequent calls from family/friends; or go fetch grocery even if you are
working from home. When you are at home, unless it's a serious outage, you
don't take unnecessary calls relating to work._
This, of course, is good advice, and fits well to any sort of individual
endeavor, being programming, painting, or wrenching on your bike.
I think many people react negatively to articles like this one because they
read it as prescriptive (that is, this is how you _should_ work as a
programmer) rather than _descriptive_ (that is, this is what works for me as a
programmer, taking into account my character).
Generally, I work best at home, free of distractions, but there are times when
collaborative work at the office is also productive. YMMV.
------
mahmud
For me it's much less glamorous, and even less purposeful. I write code almost
everyday, sometimes without even thinking about it. If I don't carry out some
form of automation at least once every 2 days, I get physically ill [hyperbole
alert!] I'm the guy that always installs strange editors & calculators on
other people's computers.
Most of the time I don't have a particular need for a development environment,
but I have a phobia about being stranded somewhere without my tools. My mobile
phone has 3 programming languages, their manuals and other cheat-sheets. It
also has as many advanced calculators, solvers & graphic visualization
utilities.
To me it's a mix of arms race & addiction. I hack because I crave it. I feel
inadequate if I don't know how something works.
Most of my work is snippets. I usually store it in a file with a long
descriptive name, for later finding & greping. I have had a ~/hacks directory
in all my machines for the last 12 years or so.
~~~
ppk
What 3 programming languages do you have on your phone, and pray tell, what
kind of wonder phone is this?
~~~
groovy2shoes
The Android Market has a bunch of mini development environments. On my Galaxy
S, I have a Clojure REPL and two little apps for Ruby and Lua "development."
Of course, you wouldn't want to do anything serious directly on the phone, but
it's nice for trying out little things when you have an idea while you're out.
~~~
mahmud
Yep. Clojure, Lua & Retro. The last is crap and I can't wait to get a real
useful FORTH on my Android.
------
mrlase
What I do:
1\. Open terminal, `mkdir <project name> && cd <project name>`
2\. Spend way too much time thinking of what language to use.
3\. Spend way too much time thinking of how I should implement it.
4\. Start coding.
5\. Get bored and have new idea.
6\. Go to step 1.
I think I need to work on actually finishing my projects and spending less
time with thinking.
~~~
jrockway
I disagree. There is more value in starting something than in finishing it.
Starting a project may involve designing and testing a new algorithm.
Finishing it may involve playing with CSS for hours. At that point, there is
no educational value in finishing it; the time would be better spent on a new
project.
Personally, I have a lot of 80-90% "finished" projects that are available for
people to use. This is usually enough. If someone is really using them, I
might be motivated to finish everything on my todo list. But otherwise,
something else would interest me more than checking off some imaginary todo
list.
~~~
dan00
"There is more value in starting something than in finishing it."
I see your point about learning and agree with it, but I don't think that in
starting something is more value than in finishing it.
Starting is pretty easy, because new things are always more interesting. It's
getting hard when the interest vanishes. That's the challenge of finishing
something, that you can overcome this stage. Otherwise you will never produce
something remarkable, but just jump from something interesting to the next.
For me, jumping from one to next thing just isn't satisfying, it's aimless,
just following your desires without any direction.
------
steve8918
I've found that I will have times of really, really productive programming,
usually around 5-6 hrs a day for 3-5 days. I'm not one of those guys that can
claim to program 18 hrs a day for weeks on end, but I'm pretty happy with the
quality and amount that I can program. However, historically, my biggest
weakness is that once I finish a milestone in any particular project, I get
too pleased with myself, I admire what I have built, and then take the next 2
days kind of milling around. I recently decided to take 1 yr off to pursue my
own side-projects, so this is the one thing I'm trying to change about myself.
I'm not one to advocate Performance enhancing drugs, but I've discovered that
taking a 5 Hr energy around 11 am really helps me concentrate the rest of the
day, especially when I'm learning new things.
Every programmer has their own style, but the one thing I disagree with the OP
is programming in a complete vacuum. I agree that programming by yourself
really helps in terms of getting rid of your distractions.
But the one thing I miss is sitting around and talking about problems with
other programmers. I've found throughout my career that when I stuck on a
particular bug or issue, as soon as I try to talk it out with another
programmer, the answer comes pretty quickly. The physical act of trying to
explain the situation seems to force you to take a different pathway in your
brain that gives you another perspective that you might have been otherwise
stuck on if you just say there thinking about it.
~~~
SatvikBeri
When I run into a similar issue and don't have a programmer to talk to off-
hand, I write an e-mail describing the bug. I usually don't send the e-mail
because by the time I finish writing it out, I've figured out the answer.
------
Peaker
> Being ruthless with your code means you make commits that _fix whitespace,
> fix indentation_ , ... --whatever needs to be done, you do it without a bit
> of regret.
Given that current tools are not advanced enough to properly merge these kinds
of changes, you end up learning _not_ to mess with whitespace/indentation (at
least not commit these changes) because it will generate spurious conflicts.
Bad indentation make bugs slightly more likely. Conflicts make bugs _much_
more likely. It's a sad tradeoff to have, but until our tools mature, this is
the case.
~~~
jonstjohn
This kind of depends. At the company I work for we had a wide-range of coding
styles for several years, then decided to standardize and run all code that
was not explicitly excluded through a pre-commit hook to enforce standards. We
replaced a significant amount of code using tabs with 4 spaces. I don't
remember ever really having a problem with conflicts. May be a setting in your
source control software.
~~~
Peaker
Maybe you didn't have lots of topic branches floating above the trunk?
------
akg
One practice I've found that works really well is to cancel your internet
subscription. I am then forced to go to public hotspots to check/answer
emails, browse the web, go on hacker news, Facebook, twitter, etc. Most of the
time I can just download API docs for the projects/libraries I am working on
and don't need a persistence connection. You'll be surprised how much you
don't miss out on by simply checking your emails 1-2 times a day.
This has greatly increased my coding efficiency as I am not distracted with
being constantly connected to the world. I code "ruthlessly" during the time
and when it is time for a break, I head over to my local coffee shop for some
free wi-fi and a refreshing macchiato. For emergencies I always have my iPhone
connection over 3G. Not only am I less distracted and more efficient, but I'm
saving money (cost of coffee < cost of internet) and I find my life to be more
balanced.
~~~
keithpeter
You must be paying quite a large monthly fee for your Internet. I have thought
of this route, but there is a desktop PC to keep updated (linux likes its
downloads, but then if I used that system just for production...)
~~~
akg
;-), not that much. A decent connection is about $30 - 50/mo. The money saving
is merely a fringe benefit, but it does add up over time. I usually just put
everything up on my Linode instance where I can remotely manage updates via
ssh. As for system updates on my laptop, coffee shops tend to work fine during
off-peak hours or you can just head over to a nearby university library (which
is also a nice chance to meet smart people).
------
the_cat_kittles
I think the author makes a very important point about being willing to throw
away stuff. I think artists struggle with this too, because they project the
amount of work on to things they make, which makes them see it as more
beautiful and satisfying than their audience in some cases. I have actually
started taking pleasure in throwing things away after working on them for a
while, because I've learned that, like in music, what you leave out is just as
important as what you leave in.
~~~
b14ck
Throwing away code feels _good_ inside. It feels a lot like shrugging off tons
of worry ^^
~~~
jilebedev
Objectively filtering code as accepted or discarded according to a high
standard of quality is fairly easy when judging others' code. It's a lot more
complicated when judging our own code :)
I'd argue we're naturally biased to hold our own creations on a higher
pedestal, and hence more likely to keep them instead of discarding or
rewriting them.
------
zeeed
+1 for the "clean your desk, terminals, browsers".
To me it's literally like cleaning a workbench. Every good craftsman learns
that in his education, yet somehow as a software guys these basic principles
have never been taught to me.
It's a great article and a quick and good read. thanks for sharing.
------
duopixel
I've programmed probably only four or five serious projects in my lifetime.
I've seen that—as I learn more about software architecture—the quality of my
code increases, but my output decreases.
In a certain way I miss the early days when the thrill was just having
something work, despite being ugly on the inside. Nowadays I'm constantly
refactoring code to make it more elegant, extensible, and maintainable.
I often go back to an interview with Charles Eames, he's talking about
Industrial Design, but it applies perfectly to software design:
Is design ephemeral?
__
Some needs are ephemeral.
Most designs are ephemeral.
Ought it to tend towards the
ephemeral or towards permanence?
__
Those needs and designs that have
a more universal quality will tend toward permanence.
<http://blog.gentry.io/eames-design-is-a-method-of-action>
I constantly try to keep perspective of my work in terms of who needs to
maintain it, how often it needs to be maintained, and its lifetime. When I
think about it in these terms, then I can keep on being crappy but productive.
------
potomak
About isolation: I can't start to program without starting before my pomodoro
timer [1], it become a new kind of time unit measure for me.
I start the timer and for 25 mins you just can't reach me, no skype, no gmail,
no twitter.
[1] <http://tomatoes.heroku.com>
------
manmal
For me, the most important thing to do before programming is: Going outside
for some time in the morning (e.g., for a walk), or I will be brain-foggy for
most of the day. I don't care about other people being around or not - I like
people and I like exchanging little bits of information while programming (to
get out of the "box" for some seconds). Also, having other people around me
somehow forces me to look at code from their perspective once in a while
("Will he like the method names?", "Will he kill me if I do it like
this?",...) - it's like an internal review, triggered by the presence of
others.
------
khookie
:-( "sudo rm -rf *" brings back really bad memories...
------
ofca
One more thing I found helps me a great deal > focusing your mind on something
other than programming during a day. I found that I have no trouble coding for
days in a row, but after a week or so, I go numb... I cant programm shit. That
is why I started running and boxing. If you are the same, find something, some
hobby that doesn't involve computers.
------
leak
"being around other people seems to really drain my energy and sap my
creativeness." sums up why I don't enjoy other programmers and why I like to
program alone. If i'm programming on a team and we have dudes who are anti-
social, can't take a joke, don't like to talk to you, don't eat lunch with
you, etc, etc, it sucks. I don't care how good they are.
~~~
paulhauggis
Exactly. A well-rounded developer should be able to work well with others.
Most projects require people to work together to finish them successfully and
on time.
------
wylie
"There is no room for ego in success." That seems like a good way to sum up
the get-it-done hacker attitude. Ego can come later.
------
codeanand
And when i really get stuck while debugging, I go take a nap, eat something
and when i am back i easily figure out the error
------
agumonkey
I experience the same mental block around people he described. So much that I
aggreed for a schedule offset, pretending a better fit for managing a team; in
fact as soon as everybody left, my focus and creativity came back in a second,
as if my mind was suffocating their presence and now could fill the room.
------
lza
Interesting to read this and other posts that talk about isolation. I am the
total opposite. I like noise and people around me. I have an office at home
and renting one too. But I get the most done when I am coding in one of the
local coffee store. I guess I am just wired backwards:)
------
motter
For me, programming is creative, and to be creative, you need to have the
right environment.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
Students Pay Services to Obtain Internships - ALee
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/business/09intern.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
======
steamynachos
[http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/07/20/104-unpaid-
intern...](http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/07/20/104-unpaid-internships)
~~~
abalashov
Hahaha! Nice.
------
derefr
I don't understand this phenomenon. What company wouldn't take someone who was
willing to work for free? Strictly economically, working for $0 should mean
that you can choose any company on the planet to work for, as they all have
something [marginal] to gain, and nothing to lose (on the provisio that they
can't _rely_ on you, because that would potentially cost them money should you
fail to be reliable. They'd have to treat you as a truly "redundant" subsystem
to their machine, giving you tasks that they've already assigned others to
complete in the hope that you'll do them better/faster/whatever-er.)
~~~
likpok
It costs time to come up with a project, for training, a coach, etc. In
general, internships are a good idea (they give both sides a trial run), but
some companies may not want to spend the resources on them.
------
elai
Nice thing about compsci is that almost all the internships are paid.
~~~
shaddi
Right on. I go to a large state school that a huge number liberal arts
students. I've never met any students in the sciences (esp. not computer
science) who have held unpaid internships (unless you count research for
credit), but I know several students in the liberal arts who are doing
internships completely unpaid. I even knew one who was living in London for
the summer out of his (or maybe his parents') own pocket! I can't fathom the
idea. Maybe when you have to /pay someone else/ to let you work you should
take the hint that the market doesn't value the labor you are doing. But hey,
we are talking about liberal arts majors here! (I kid, I kid...)
------
abalashov
It seems strange to me that in a recession, companies would want less interns
(unpaid or paid), not more.
Yes, using interns effectively - especially in a large organisation - requires
considerable management resources. As well, their limited tenure (a summer,
say) gives them very limited value as a useful, specialised IT employee's
ramp-up period to break even can be longer than that.
Still, there are lots of smaller companies that use interns to build entire
products over summers; I think the one that's most well-known here is probably
Joel Spolsky's Fog Creek Software. And I've run into several web-oriented
companies that do the same here in Atlanta.
I would think they'd be foaming at the mouth for a chance to get unpaid, or
very low-paid slave labour with a rather high skills to cost ratio.
Now, of course, I have little reference frame for the usefulness of interns
outside of the IT profession. But, surely there has to be a correlate to this
opportunity in other directions of commercial endeavour as well?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China - jseliger
http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0&nsukey=%2F5QBU%2FsxpVCdCfuvl%2FmKjRgKs0iqmO9SitUSEEBxRyIOUPe8bFTcrBLFWUHw%2Fj%2Bkyobnr%2FJ4Zk04a3VByvzJmw%3D%3D
======
amyjess
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10038805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10038805)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Putin to Offer Snowden Asylum, but With a Catch - vinhnx
http://world.time.com/2013/07/01/putin-to-offer-snowden-asylum-but-with-a-catch/
======
brokenparser
Putin is a former KGB agent and not to be trusted. We know that from the
leaked cables.
~~~
meowface
Uh, we knew that far before any leak, honestly.
------
tnuc
When I was younger people would seek asylum from Russia in different places.
Now that I am older, people seek asylum from the USA in different places.
How the secret police have changed.
~~~
mjolk
Are you seriously implying that the USA is some sort of evil "secret police?"
Please.
~~~
tnuc
Yes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police)
------
galaktor
Snowden surely has copies of the documents distributed around the globe;
what's stopping others from continuing to leak after he stops?
~~~
ihsw
Politeness, courtesy, generosity, prudence... need I go on? It stands to
reason that those secrets would stay secret out of respect for Edward and
genuine concern for his continued existence.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Has anyone made the jump from tech to finance? - gargarplex
I am interested in going from tech into finance. The issue here is strictly related to compensation: I want to make more money, in cash, every year. Has anyone made the jump? I'm extremely strong with math and with web development, but I don't have any C++ or R experience.
======
NickPollard
When you say finance, do you mean you want to do tech in finance, or you
actually want to trade? Those are two different (though related) questions.
2 years ago I moved from the games industry into the finance industry. My role
now is varied and would probably come under either quant-dev, e-trading or
algo-trading, depending on how you look at it. I was hired with zero financial
knowledge, on the basis of my maths and computer science skills, and it has so
far gone very well.
I was lucky in that I had contacts in the industry; without that it is
probably harder, but it is definitely doable. If you've got strong maths +
computing skills then there are a lot of possible roles for you.
Web skills aren't terribly useful (although not worthless); a lot of things
are different in the financial world where for example correctness, latency,
etc. are much more important. Financial software tends to be written in either
low-level languages (e.g. C++ for execution stuff), or high-level functional
languages (Scala, Haskell, OCaml - see e.g. GSA, Standard Chartered, or Jane
Street). Some places use Python for analysis stuff, though R/Matlab are very
common too.
If you want to into an actual finance role (Trader, or to a certain extent
Quant (as opposed to Quant-dev)), that's possible but you'd probably have to
go via a technology role. That's your way in.
~~~
gadders
There are plenty of Line of Business apps written in Java and C# as well,
including risk management systems. The core quant libraries will probably be
C++.
I've seen a tiny bit of Scala, but not mainstream adoption. Python is pretty
popular in a few banks especially (EG BofA).
A lot of banking jobs ask for "Banking Experience", but not all. Also, I would
think doing a few finance/quant courses on Coursera wouldn't hurt.
~~~
NickPollard
Only one datapoint, but my current job is 90%+ Scala (Fixed Income, a multi-
national bank). GSA definitely use it and I believe Goldman are moving to it
as well.
It's not mainstream, but it's also not niche either.
------
bt3
Have you considered exploring opportunities that unite the two? For example,
in recent years, high frequency trading (HFT's) have been big business, as
well as the meteoric rise of automated investment services (AIS).
Betterment, Wealthfront, SigFig, even RobinHood... all are companies that
bring tech into the financial industry.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Astronomers Find a Galaxy Containing 3 Supermassive Black Holes at the Center - mmoez
https://www.universetoday.com/144144/astronomers-find-a-galaxy-containing-three-supermassive-black-holes-at-the-center/
======
teh_klev
Without wanting to be pedantic, but the article title reads as if NGC 6240 is
a new find, which it isn't. Title should perhaps be:
_Astronomers Find Galaxy Contains 3 Supermassive Black Holes at the Center_
or
_Astronomers Find Galaxy NGC 6240 Contains 3 Supermassive Black Holes at the
Center_
Fascinating stuff nevertheless.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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