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Amazon will start displaying 3rd party seller names and addresses on its US site - hbcondo714 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-to-display-seller-names-and-addresses-on-us-marketplace-2020-7 ====== justaguy88 Please provide the text, is paywalled ~~~ spzb [https://outline.com/NNpPGY](https://outline.com/NNpPGY)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Browser extension to quickly inspect, pick colors, capture and more - zicsus Hi HN!, My name is Himanshu Mishra I would like to introduce you Hoverify, A browser extension that makes it super easy to inspect by just hovering over the element. If you are anything like me then you would often find yourself scrolling through the inspect window. Which gets worse with page size. So 6 months and an infinite cup of coffee later, Hoverify is the result with a bunch of features jammed together to make your web design a smooth experience.<p>Check it out- https://tryhoverify.com<p>With Hoverify you can- Inspect CSS and HTML just by hovering over the element. Use selector mode to see styles according to selectors. Copy styles by just clicking the spacebar or 'c'. Live edit CSS in computed mode. Live edit HTML attributes. Inspect media queries and animations. Edit the content of elements. Toggle visibility of elements or remove an element from the page. Quickly search elements by tags, classes and id. Pick colors from any element on the screen, even images, and iframes. Take a screenshot of the current tab or every tab with just one click.<p>I'm an independent developer from India. I've got a line of features for Hoverify that continues to grow. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ====== Etheryte Just a heads up, when you fill both the URL field and the text field when submitting, only the text is used. The URL field is used to submit a lone link to some content, to add a link along with your text just put it wherever appropriate in your text. This is covered in the readme at the bottom of the submit page, but it is fairly easy to miss on your first go. ~~~ zicsus Updated! :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Do you keep a journal? And Why? - zabana ====== pawelwentpawel Pinning this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13492501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13492501) ------ makmanalp Personal journal aside, I love the benefits of keeping a technical journal. Every day, I have these sections: Today I worked on: Today I figured out / debugged: Problems / Thoughts: Other: I'm fairly lax about not doing it every single day, since it can become a chore or waste space. If it feels like I have nothing of substance to report, I just skip. This is interesting because it helps me introspect about the work I'm doing, whether I should be doing it that way, whether I keep running into similar issues, whether I can fix things systematically, gauge happiness and stress levels, etc. I've returned to this many times and often found it to be super helpful - the information that goes in here is hard-won details, and those are also the kind that are very easy to forget. It also sometimes helps with the "why had I done this this way" questions. Perhaps I do need a personal version of this too. ------ toxican I had a really bad day a few weeks back and in my 'rage' I quickly created a dead simple, self-hosted blogging platform in PHP for myself to keep a journal. But by the time I'd finished it, I'd calmed down and didn't see a point in writing to it. Which is in part due to the fact that I'm incredibly bad at making new habits, so while I've tried a few times in the past to journal, I just don't actually do it. My parents actually have quite a few (embarassing) journals I wrote when I was a kid. They're all scattered around my childhood because I never stuck with it. My grandfather on the other hand, has kept a journal every day going back decades. In fact, as a gift to my parents when I turned 18, he shared with them the journal entry from the day I was born. He's now working on turning his journal into a self-published book for his children, grandkids, and great- grandkids. That, and my increasingly shitty memory of small details, makes me want to get into journaling. ------ turtleofdeath Yes, I keep a journal for a few key reasons. One, because without writing them down, my thoughts seem to take on actual weight in my head. Putting them into my journal seems to remove the weight while helping me to sort through things, sort of like talking to myself in real time. Two, because it helps me to stay practiced with Vim. I started just one single file called journal.md, separated by markdown headers/dates and keep it in a folder that gets backed up instantly (though I'm thinking of moving it to Dropbox so that it also gets versioned in addition to immediate backups). Three, because it keeps me writing. As someone who is continually writing short stories, it's important to keep the words flowing out of my head, even if I'm not writing about something that happened to someone else, real or imagined. ------ Overtonwindow Yes. Alms or every day since 2002. I don't really trust memories, especially as I get older. My journal not only helps me vent, and work through my thoughts, but it's a record I can look back on someday when my memory really begins to fade. ------ wernsey I don't keep a journal per se, but I use Evernote to write down ideas and save links to interesting articles and websites. I do this for two reasons: \- These notes may come in useful in my hobby projects, or at work. I have also been able to help my colleagues with information. \- I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the number of open tabs in my browser. Saving links allows me to close the tab, knowing that if I ever need information on that topic again, I have some notes somewhere. Evernote is not the perfect tool for this. Years ago I used Wiki On A Stick for this purpose because it allowed me to cross reference ideas and notes. ~~~ pragyajswl Hey! Check pocket. ([http://getpocket.com/](http://getpocket.com/)) It has definitely helped me with the overwhelming feeling from the number of tabs open in the browser. Doesn't really help with writing down ideas, though. ------ vkazanov I keep a daily work + personal note journal in Emacs using org-journal. All the files are synchronized using Dropbox between my machines. The journal is a mix of a TODO list and a diary. I also have a tagging system for all the entries which allows convenient searches/stat building. Benefits: 1\. Allows to do primitive daily planning. 2\. Having my daily plans/notes in searchable format allows to do all kinds of mass retrospectives (I know what movies I saw, music I enjoyed, things I did for both personal/job-related projects). 3\. Being able to go back to a certain date and see what was done sometimes even helps to sort out various job-related issues. ------ nextweek2 I keep a log/todo list at work. They stretch back years. Its more bullet points than a journal. I started after a manager kept claiming they had asked for something, or getting me to revert things they had asked for but claiming they never asked for that. Back then it was my word against theirs. If I am asked to do something, the first thing I do is write it down and who its for. My work is now free of other peoples bad memories and recollections. I am the go to person to settle disputes and provide reasoning for decision making. ------ esaul I do. I find that I can think clearer when writing out my thoughts and have a habit of writing for 10 mins every morning. It started out mainly as a way to manage my anxiety and feel more in control of my days (it has definitely helped). I find it really useful in managing my thoughts and reflecting on what happened the previous day. In case you're interested, I use the Mac Notes app. I've set the order preference based on date created (the default is date edited) and tag each entry with #journal for easy searching. ------ pjc50 Work or personal? I don't have a personal journal, but I do have a workflow that involves gradually collecting TODO notes on whatever I'm working on - then when it's done archiving the whole slab of text at the top of another file. Low-effort and surprisingly useful. I've worked with people (software developers from a scientific background) that keep "daybooks", which are extremely helpful if you want to file patents in first-to-invent jurisdictions. ------ swalsh I don't keep a journal in the "today I kissed my boyfriend" sense. However I do keep a log of all my thoughts, and tasks related to the projects I work on. I started as a way to lay breadcrumbs to easily pick back up where I left off in case I was interrupted. However it's proven useful to be a good back reference. ------ SolaceQuantum I keep a dream diary, if that counts. I have fairly lucid, vivid dreams about societies and fantastical worlds. Writing them down allows me to examine for common themes and unconscious thinking. They often turn into great writing. ------ tlackemann I've been using jrnl ([http://jrnl.sh/](http://jrnl.sh/)) to write an entry each night. Love it because it's simple and out of my way ------ big_spammer I wrote software for this that helps me. The main reason is that I felt I wasn't learning anymore after leaving grad school. This helped me keep learning. If anyone wants to try it leave me your contact info. ------ skierscott Yes, to write down my thoughts. Writing them down makes me think about the situation and resolve any feelings I may have. ------ cdumler I use a variation of bullet journaling for my work. I have to track a lot details, and I off-load them to paper.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists tell us their favourite jokes - wrongc0ntinent http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/29/scientists-favourite-jokes ====== JoeAltmaier So its true; scientists have underdeveloped senses of humor.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: 'Halo' ring three.js small demo - belltyler http://mixingrealities.site44.com/halo/ ====== belltyler If it seems super blurry, that's by design. I wanted to make it seem like you were viewing it from the 'depths of space' if you will. ;)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's Spotify NYC culture like? - tastefulcakeful I recently saw my dream opening, user researcher, posted for the NYC and Stockholm office. So I'm thinking of applying and just wanted to ask if anyone could describe more of the team/"missions"?<p>Any input and advice would be appreciated it particularly on the UX research team! ====== jasonmotylinski NYC Spotify employee here. Spotify has a very honest, open, and autonomous culture. Spotify is comprised of many Missions which are defined by a business purpose like ads, user engagement, or analytics. Within a Mission you will have one or more Tribes. Each Tribe is loosely associated with the Mission goal and addresses a portion of the overall Mission. A Squad is a delivery team/product team. Squads are accountable for building great products. They are given autonomy to make the right decisions for the direction of their product. Squads function as "mini-startups", if you will. A grouping of many Squads is called a Tribe. A Mission will have one or more Tribes. It's a tad confusing and I'm sure I've gotten some of definitions wrong, but you get the general gist. As for the people culture, Spotify values the growth of employees. We focus heavily on personal growth over product delivery. We believe if we build good people they will build good products. I was doubtful before joining Spotify that they would fulfill everything I was told (about the culture) during the interview process but everything has held true. For better descriptions of Spotify check out the engineering culture video: [https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering- cult...](https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering-culture- part-1/) I would encourage you to apply. Spotify is a great place to work. ~~~ tastefulcakeful Thanks I really appreciate the perspective! Quick follow up, are you assigned a team from the get go and what's the the mobility between missions/tribes? I'm definitely going to apply, but I image they get inundated with apps so I'm trying to learn as much I can for that cover letter (hopefully that counts for something,haha?). Would you suggest I email a recruiter directly on top of applying online? ------ halflings That seems like a very specific question, maybe something that you could get a faster answer to by messaging Spotify NYC employees on LinkedIn? I worked at Spotify Stockholm (doing my master thesis there), and it was quite nice. Pretty much what you'd expect from bigger tech companies (Google, FB), only on a smaller scale. I'm sure you'll find a lot to do as a UX researcher since they are constantly experimenting with new features. ------ 8draco8 Glassdoor is a great place to start your research [https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/spotify](https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/spotify)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Proposal to Fix Online Identity - llambda http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/a_proposal_to_fix_online_identity.php?_utm_source=null ====== jfarmer Why do people think online identity is broken? Better yet, why do people even think this is a "problem" at all? ~~~ droithomme Well in some cases oppressive governments and corporate controlled governments aren't able to track and validate the origin of all net activity. So in that sense it's broken. The trick is how to package fixing this in a way that the public will support? ~~~ mjwalshe Normally "protecting children" comes into it some where :-( ------ cheald Edit: I've PGP-signed this comment to prove my point. Here's my public key: <https://gist.github.com/1803486> You can verify the signature of this message, and know for certain that the person who controls the "cheald" github account rubberstamped the contents of this message as originating from him. Neither GitHub nor Hacker News controls that identity; they are simply conduits to convey the identity link. Of course, you can still take this comment, strip the signature, and repost it, thereby denying GitHub user cheald credit for the message. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This is the same ReadWriteWeb writer who got his panties in a twist that someone took parts of a story he wrote, pasted it on Google+ without attribution, and then ranked higher in Google for the headline [1][2]. Despite the grandiose pontificating about how we should own our identities (a sentiment I agree with, FWIW), I'm pretty sure that Jon's entire impetus behind this idea is this snippet: > Identity on the Internet should be embedded by the user like a fingerprint. > It should be written into the digital material we make using hardware we > have authorized...We want this because it would simplify problems of > attribution and copyright on the Web. If we didn't sign something we > created, it would default to the other ways we deal with unsigned content. > But content that is signed would have an unmistakable origin. Jon's butthurt that people can copy his bytes, post them somewhere else, and he doesn't get credit for them. That's understandable - content creators should be credited for their creations, after all - but what Jon's talking about -whether he realizes it or not - is DRM for textual web content. Pardon me while I laugh my ass off. The problem is inherently unsolvable. Textual content as it works on the web is literally impossible to protect from copying without attribution without gutting and redesigning the entire internet from the ground up. If you want to tell other people that something you wrote is indeed from you, sign it with your private key and publish your public key for verification. Create as many keys ("identity facets") as you want. Associate any given key with any given online persona you want. Boom, problem solved with technology that we've had for the last 36 years. Verification of identity is _not a difficult problem_ anymore, chain-of-trust issues notwithstanding. But it doesn't solve the problem that Jon wants solved, which is that I can still take his content, strip the signature, and repost it, and nobody will be able to recognize that that content is his. Just as in the Real World, I can hear someone tell a joke, and then turn around and tell the joke over dinner without attribution to the original author, I can copy a string of bytes on the internet and republish them as my own without including a link back to the author. That's simply the nature of information flow. The problem is unsolvable, and down the path of trying to solve it lies DRM madness. It's a Bad Idea, and it's a little dismaying that a technology writer would even suggest it to begin with. [1] [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_is_going_to_mess...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_is_going_to_mess_up_the_internet.php) [2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3424457> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPNrVLAAoJENc6Nkx25axIAaAH/RbzNSqtqYQXeTtTdm2FDc2T sIXMOicqP1IL/Ge/FITiKZ4xEh3JhcFTCEApgqSwBCdPEUXxqR2ibM9v/K5T7Y3C N/3IgZnM0t7Sx5o5XEfrQVsuWsjZZo6gk3Ki/u8JliaZl670Ouo8a2NEMi+1hQVJ tnu2y+CUB4bQhSgg6hGoLdkfs+iC0/RBZwrb8LLac4/25I3nOXqLaZKBcUnoqwUR WOFy6+M56nQ4dHIpPflvdEn0J8RO//pE30iqeg9OHOo0L+WoYYHTI+uXrBidBEFI RzDYaTxSC2o4f4QkF778pMR4wwsuySrUHViheG/uwt2woh9n2obXaMc8iwyLRvA= =mL7+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ~~~ mjwalshe Has he or R/W web not tried the Google author tags? ------ mjwalshe Actually i think having online identity's being flexible is good thing what we don't need is some 1984 enabling tech.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists find damage to coral near BP well - sz http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-scientists-coral-bp.html ====== devmonk Why am I not surprised?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
French Universities Cancel Subscriptions to Springer Journals - apsec112 https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/52208/title/French-Universities-Cancel-Subscriptions-to-Springer-Journals/ ====== fnordsensei The alternative business model that the world is moving to is Open Access. The difference being that instead of paying to access the journal or paper, the researcher or institution that wishes to publish pays up front to have the paper published. Open Access has its own problems, such as predatory journals, where researchers who don't know better or who are desperate to publish are more or less lied to as to the reach and validity of a journal. It has become an area ripe for a new kind of scammers. This has prompted efforts such as Think, Check, Submit[1]. There's also the problem with raising the funds to publish something as Open Access. It's not always the case that the researcher actually has the means to pay for Open Access. Nevertheless, Open Access is clearly the way where the research community is headed, and we're going to see a steady growth in percentage of research published as such over the next decade or so. But it does come with its own set of problems to solve. 1: [https://thinkchecksubmit.org/](https://thinkchecksubmit.org/) ~~~ jfaucett I'm going to be honest. IMHO publishing a paper should be like doing a PR on github and there is no reason it shouldn't be. You do your research, read the "PR" i.e. submission guidelines and submit it, - sure let the committer and reviewers be anonymized until the PR has been accepted - then just pull it into a "Repo" aka journal and be done. How can this process cost tons of money? ~~~ philipodonnell How would you incentivize peer review with your approach? ~~~ codelord Do you think Springer pays for reviewing? No publisher does. It's all voluntary work by the same people who write the papers. It's the modern day slavery. ~~~ philipodonnell The parent comment implied that reviewers would be anonymized with this Github-based approach unless the PR was approved, which seems like it would lead to more acceptances so that the reviewers could get credit. ------ aj7 What has always underpinned this flawed and collapsing business is that successfully published works in “prestigious journals” are a form of private property to the authors. A series of such publications can result in tenure or lifetime job security and prestige for the author. The PRESENT VALUE of cash flows associated with such publications is a number of million dollars in advanced societies, and no cash investment was required on the part of the beneficiary. And the publishing fees are paid by someone else. So the researchers went along with the system which only began to crack due to two factors: (1) Developing economies needed the information but couldn’t afford it at absurd prices (2) Commercial application began to eclipse government and defense as a research driver. ~~~ WhompingWindows Your post lacks crucial detail. I worked in a scientific journal and am familiar with the pipeline of article creation. Can you elaborate on who "someone else" is that is paying the publishing fees? These are often derived from grants authors have received. Furthermore, where is your evidence that commercial applications have eclipsed government/defense as research drivers? The vast majority of the studies I reviewed in the scientific journal were not directly related to commercial applications, but were most often funded by government organizations of one kind or another (CDC, NIH, defense, tech innovation funds, etc. from various countries). Your comment just doesn't square with my experience in the industry. ~~~ killjoywashere As a government/defense researcher, there is definitely more money available from industry sponsors. When I go to internal conferences with my bretheren, their salary is paid for, they have interesting problems, and no money or political will to organize basic processes, like a common infrastructure. Meanwhile, my project, a collaboration with industry, has literally anything we need and more. ------ fermigier Best move would be to institutionally forbid, or disincentive somehow, publication in non open access journals. ~~~ WhompingWindows Look at the UK's regulations. If UK govt money goes into a research project, it must be open access. They are, to my knowledge, the only country which uses this policy. ~~~ toufka That is actually true in the US as well with NIH funded research [1] (the majority of biomedical research). HOWEVER, the research need only be opened after a time-embargo (generally a year). Additionally larger universities like the University of California system also 'require' open access publication [2] - however waivers to that requirement are often sought and easily granted. In both cases, the policies (NIH in 2009, UC system in 2013) were shots across the bows of the large publishers, and permit a gradual easing of the culture without just blowing it up. So long as the eventual goal of all open-access is met in a relatively timely fashion, I think the strategy of slowly cinching down the rule is a reasonable compromise. [1] [https://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm](https://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm) [2] [https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access- policy/in...](https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access- policy/index.html) ------ cornholio In related news, the academic publishing problem is still unsolved. There is no standard model to fund the resource intensive process of peer review in the open access journals and their role as a gatekeeper for scientific relevance, advancement and funding. ~~~ cm2187 Do you really need peer review? Isn’t number of citations a form of peer review? Of course you sort of need to assign a reputation to these citations. ~~~ TheCondor You absolutely need peer review. You’d be stunned at some of the rejected submissions ~~~ barry-cotter Absolute crap will be roundly ignored with or without peer review. Science and the Humanities worked fine before peer review and if it’s dropped they’ll work fine again. If Grigori Perelman puts another paper on arxiv that’s groundbreaking people will look at it without benefit of peer review, just like the last one. ~~~ Mediterraneo10 > Absolute crap will be roundly ignored with or without peer review. Things might be ignored, but only after a person has already wasted their time looking at it and determining it is crap. It was harder for cranks to publish back when journals were purely physical and a crank would have to come up with the printing costs himself. Now that anyone can publish for free on the internet, peer review is even more important for establishing what content out there is worth paying attention to and which is not. ~~~ barry-cotter You neglect the costs of submission, revision, resubmisssion etc. which are borne by the authors. Even if we assume that all involved are pure of heart and no one is deliberately delaying publication of their rivals’ work submission to publication in economics is on the order of two years. This is insane so the actual intellectual conversation has moved to working papers with final publication being in a journal being as much for archival and career progression metrics as anything else. I believe the situation in much of computer science is similar, with conference papers serving as the workaround for the fact that pre publication peer review is unbearably slow, not working papers. Peer review happens anyway, but faster, and in public, without the insanity of revise and resubmit. Journals are not where the action is in Economics or Computer Science. It works for them. Why not for everybody? ~~~ Mediterraneo10 > You neglect the costs of submission, revision, resubmisssion etc. which are > borne by the authors. I neglect those because journals in my own field are both free to publish in and, more often than not, open-access. I do understand that not everyone is so fortunate, however. ~~~ barry-cotter I’m talking about time, not money. Because those costs absolutely are borne by the authors. Insofar as peer review hinders the free dissemination of ideas it also hurts the scientific community and those who depend on its research. ------ jzl No one has mentioned the heroic work of Sci-Hub yet, so here's an obligatory link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332139) ------ gmueckl Meanwhile, German universities are teaming up for joint negotiations with journal publishers. Their first target is Elsevier. My university came close to losing access to Elsevier journals as a part of this move. ~~~ mgr86 I work at a small non-profit anthropological database. Our primary target is academia. We can only employ a small team of developers (2) and 12-13 total staff. About a decade ago Germany negotiated with us our only perpetual access license for all of their universities. Consortia memberships in the US and Canada are not uncommon either. However, Germany possess our only perpetual license. A lot of us desire open access, however, we are not sure how we would fund ourselves. Our subscription rates are generally very low. Especially compared to these large journals. ~~~ icebraining Could you get a grant or two? ~~~ mgr86 >Could you get a grant or two? \-- Re:open-access? Perhaps. I should note that this area is not my expertise. However, what to do when the grant runs out? Even so most of our revenue comes from the subscription. A grant may pay for hosting, but what about the time of the developers. Or those working on the publication side. We are already on a near skeleton crew. Especially compared to what we had here in the 1940-80s. ~~~ icebraining _However, what to do when the grant runs out?_ Well, you get another. Lots of non-profits run only on grants. Have you thought about applying for EU grants? Open Access is one of the goals on Horizon 2020, the €80B EU program[1], but even after that there's no shortage of EU cash being dumped on anything even barely related to "innovation". [1] [https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon202...](https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon2020/files/FactSheet_Open_Access.pdf) ------ notyourday Science: journals are too expensive! they should be cheaper! HN: Just do it yourself! It is easy! You already do the hard part! Yay! - _\- -_ \- -- At the same time. Poster: this is how you run your small db HN: Oursource your databases! Outsource your apps! Oursource your auth! Outsource your mail! It is difficult! ~~~ erikpukinskis I don’t see the paradox? ~~~ notyourday People who say outsource everything to techies are the people who tell scientists to insource their journals. ~~~ erikpukinskis Aren’t they saying scientists can now insource their journals because everything but the labor they are already doing has been outsourced to software? ------ cnees I’ve been reading these comments because I’m always seeking ideas for how to distribute peer review and provide signals about paper quality. How could we leverage the Internet and a large group of authors and papers to show readers which papers thrown online are of citable quality? Surely there’s something we can do beyond counting page views. ~~~ berryg I have not given this much thought or did any research. It is just an idea that popped into my head reading this thread. Why not just replicate the open source software model? Author opens a git repository on a github like repository. Reviewer can comment on the content repository. Article versions are stored and changes are stored for future reference. Even research data can be stored in same repository. Reviewers can build up a reputation by reviewing articles. Articles can even be forked or referenced. Articles with the most references and reviewed by reviewers with a good reputation can thus rise to the "top". Technically everything is in place. Or I am too much of a technical optimist? ~~~ cnees As a programmer, it’s hard not to wish we had git-for-publishing, git-for- Photoshop, git-for-homework, etc. it’s just such a powerful system! I think the steep learning curve is the reason it hasn’t already caught on beyond where it’s absolutely essential in software engineering. Maybe that means we need a more approachable git. It would also mean getting people onto the platform. Maybe a platform that already has the users could gradually introduce a version control system piece by piece. ~~~ kd0amg FWIW, I've already got git-for-homework, git-for-academic-articles, git-for- slide-decks, git-for-lesson-planning, and probably a few other things. I'd be curious to see what passes for version control in fields other than software/CS, but I don't think I've heard of any such thing in use. I don't even hear "git is too complicated" \-- people don't seem to talk about (anything I recognize as) version control at all. ------ lolc Good thing when rent-seekers are countered. It doesn't happen enough. ------ dmitriz Related discussion on the Publishing Reform Forum: [https://gitlab.com/publishing- reform/discussion/issues/38](https://gitlab.com/publishing- reform/discussion/issues/38) Please help us by expressing your opinion and public support on the forum. There is still a lot of work needed to convince the journals' editors. ------ harunurhan Here's an interesting and relevant project, scoap3. It tries to convert high quality journals to open access with an interesting model. [1] [https://scoap3.org/](https://scoap3.org/) Disclosure: I work at the same section as scoap3 team, at CERN. ------ ddavis Interesting that the publishers are still allowing the universities access (at least for now) while the universities refuse the publisher's wishes. ~~~ sitkack Because if the Universities truly leave, the publishers are screwed. This is cycle of feudalisation or corporatization, unchecked power created an imbalance, but that imbalance threatens the power holder because their power is only symbiotic, not absolute. Publishers need Universities to both _consume_ the product and _create_ the product. If they cut them off, it will only force the inevitable. ------ ginko Elsevier and Springer are European companies. I wonder if the EU countries could just nationalize them. ------ haZard_OS My hope is that the ethos of FAIR data sharing principles spreads and researchers finally replace the current commercial aspect of publications with an endowment funded system. * [https://www.monash.edu/ands/working-with-data/fairdata](https://www.monash.edu/ands/working-with-data/fairdata) ~~~ pedrocr >replace the current commercial aspect of publications with an endowment funded system The research itself is funded by the tax payer. The peer review is funded by the tax payer. What endowment funding is needed to replace whatever Springer is actually providing? This whole mess is solvable with a single law. Just have the EU or the US legislate that any tax payer funded research (including research with external grants but done by researchers in public universities) needs to be available free of charge for download to any citizen. The whole "sector" would unravel pretty quickly after that as it should. Charging the tax payer, through huge contracts like this one being renegotiated in France, huge sums for access to the very research the tax payer has already paid for to be done in the first place is a complete travesty.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WikiLeaks flash conference in NYC on Saturday - davewiner http://scripting.com/stories/2010/12/08/wikileaksFlashConferenceOn.html ====== steveklabnik I think your original title is much better.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
McDonald's staff took offence to digital glasses, inventor says - tokenadult http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/07/17/tech-mann-digital-eye-glass-assault.html ====== ColinWright <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4252955> _Added in edit after tokenadult made his reply:_ _I see that this is, as tokenadult says, a professional reporter writing about the incident. It is, perhaps, of some interest that this story should be taken up by the mainstream press, but it does add very little to the original story. The following is new:_ ... a McDonald's media representatives sent a statement by email saying, in part: "We take the claims and feedback of our customers very seriously. We are in the process of gathering information about this situation, and we ask for patience until all of the facts are known." _It would be especially useful if the media harass McDonald's until a proper response is finally given._ _So that's new, and my bare reference to the original blog post perhaps should have said that. Interestingly, I was prevented from saying that quickly because I was IP banned, and it's only that my modem rebooted and changed my dynamic IP address that I can write this. So I will respect the intent of the IP ban and go "off-line" for a time._ ~~~ tokenadult Yes, Colin, this is the first follow-up by professional journalists to the blog post that launched that busy previous HN thread.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What is the best solution to get rid of banners, pop ups, tracking, malware etc? - ClarenceBoyd What is the best solution to get rid of banners, pop ups, tracking, malware and more? ====== JamRob If you are like me, while browsing the net, you've come across thousands of banner ads. Generally, I am the type of person, that if I want to buy something, I'll google it, find it, and purchase it. I rarely if ever actually pay attention to those annoying bandwidth wasting banners that appear on almost every site. Come on, there has got to be an easy way to prevent this garbage from hitting my computer. [https://theporndude.com/useful- software](https://theporndude.com/useful-software) This is accomplished by using the HOSTS file. The HOSTS file contains the mappings of IP Addresses to host names. The file is loaded with Windows Startup, and Windows checks the HOSTS file BEFORE it looks to your ISP to find the site. Editing the HOSTS file prevents access to the outside sites by redirecting traffic back to your own computer. * It can block applications (viruses, trojans, downloaders) from accessing specific sites, by redirecting any (would be) outgoing communication back to your own computer, preventing it from accessing whatever material it was trying to get. * It also blocks the ad servers from tracking your movements - in many cases the banner ad would open a separate connection to your computer, which is active even after you leave the banner's page. This connection reports all the cookies you send, even to other unrelated sites. Yikes! * It can speed the loading of pages, by skipping the animated GIF files, hit counters, annoying ads, and can block data miners from ever seeing your IP address, and tracking you on the net. ------ zeristor Have you tried uBlock origin?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
These guys do great job on understanding my problems on home monitoring cameras - phnx http://get3rdeye.com ====== get3rdeye Thank you for comments. Appreciate your signing up for early access. We are also listening to your feedback / requirements. Please let us know if you would like to connect with us for finding out more on your requirements. Get3rdEye Team ~~~ phnx Great guys I saw you've changed your website and it looks fantastic but I am still willing to see more about your solution, I mean you guys are posing yourself well and I will say this is going to be popular among home owners! I already got your emails and I am looking forward to your updates! ------ phnx Hope they can come up with something really cool! I've signed up, looks like it's gonna be some monitoring camera with built-in storage, that's the best part, I will never ever pay a penny to get clips go to cloud....	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Evidence That ADHD Is a Genetic Disorder - wmat http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100929191312.htm ====== rauljara One thing to note about ADHD research: The bar for getting diagnosed with ADHD in a clinical trial is much higher than getting diagnosed with it by your family doctor. All of the symptoms involve a great deal of leeway and personal interpretation, and in a clinical trial, they are really, really strict about that stuff. A doctor, who has a financial incentive to prescribe ADHD medication is much more likely to bend the diagnosis towards positive. There is no shortage of writings by smart people arguing ADHD is over diagnosed. I am also of the opinion that it is. But I also think ADHD is a real disorder. I have no doubt that the findings of this study apply to people who really have ADHD. I also have very little doubt that this study doesn't apply to the vast majority of kids who have been diagnosed with it. ------ Rexatron As a child of 8 years old, I was given 120MG of Ritalin per day. I rarely slept the first 2 years. If I did it was around 6am for an hour or so. Then I had to take my morning dose for school. They also wanted me to take a pill to sleep, which felt so horrible I cannot even explain it. I was a zombie in the morning if I took it, then onto the morning ritalin dose. I would just do pushups in my room until 3am some nights just to get the energy out. Yes, I did well in school while I was on it. Yes, I stayed out of trouble when I was on it. But I was not myself. I felt as if I were on drugs. I did not learn "how to learn" or "how to get things done" without being on drugs. When I finally kicked the habit in college, I was a mess. I couldn't do anything that took more than 30 seconds of concentration. I had to learn how to live life without drugs. For a condition I may or may not have had. It took me to more years to finish my last semester of college because I could not function. Years later I’ve relearned what I should have learned as a child – how to discipline myself and get things done. The DSM IV/V has a very loose definition of this "DISORDER". The genetic basis I don't doubt, because at one time in our evolution it was a selective adaptation that made us better at hunting, preventing accidents, and trying new things. Now, because our society resides in cubicles, desks, and institutions, it's a "DISORDER" that needs to be medicated. Just be good parents and give your child an environment where his or her differences can thrive. Find some open space and let them loose for several hours a day. Homeschool them with creative and intriguing lessons tailored just to them. Do whatever you can to allow their abilities become advantages rather than brand it a disorder and ruin their self-esteem by sending them to the nurse twice a day to be force-fed a pill they don’t need. Don't just give them a pill. That's lazy and detrimental to them in the long run. The over-prescription of these drugs is epidemic and I can't stand by and watch comments say : "Each year a parent doesn't take actions is a year lost for a child" to convince people to medicate children for what used to be a genetic advantage (and still is given the right environment). Each year a parent doesn't take actions to provide the right environment for their child's natural ability to thrive (rather than be told to have a disorder) is a year lost for that child. ~~~ roel_v What are you saying, that people should build corralled pens for children so that they can 'thrive' on their natural ability to bounce from left to right and generally moving about a lot but accomplishing nothing? Your appeal to emotion argument is detrimental to all those who are (through prejudices like yours) denied treatment for what is an actual, physiological brain defect. 120 mg is a lot, it may have been too much for you, or you may not have ADHD, I don't know. But denying that a disorder exists because you had a bad experience is intellectually dishonest and holding back the treatment of hundreds of thousands if not millions, and social acceptance of treating it. The science is clear on this point: ADHD exists, it is treatable, and the quality of life of people who have it is improved significantly with medication and behavioral therapy. That methylphenidate works has been widely proven scientifically, and its effects have been studied for decades. It's true that we don't know everything about it, and we will need further studies for decades, but that doesn't take away from the dramatic improvements in functioning that many people get from it. Your 'argument' seems to be based on 'But I was not myself.'. I'm sorry that you apparently feel that there is some sort of mystical 'true self' that is somehow different when your neural functioning is chemically improved, and I hope that until you come to terms with reality you can live a productive life and be generally happy. But until then, don't be the crab at the bottom of the bucket. ~~~ Rexatron Is that so? I don't recall saying those things. I did say an open space for them to get the energy out, so that when they return they are more able to focus on 'accomplishing things'. Whatever it is kids need to accomplish other growing up. Yes, I'm biased (not prejudiced). Due my experience, which I stated clearly. Taking a set of traits that don't work in modern society and calling it a DISORDER is the only intellectual dishonesty here. Prescribing meds for a behavioral traits that people don't approve of is selfish, controlling, and a true detriment to those kids. That ADHD (which I did not deny exists, I stated it did, and that I believed it's genetic basis) is treatable by Ritalin/Adderall I don't deny. I just happen to know the long-term effects are detrimental. Studies happen to back me up. Studies also show behavioral therapy is as good as medication. It's far better for kids as they get to learn about life without being on drugs. They learn real life skills rather than brute force concentration through drugs. "I was not myself" is true. I was drugged with something that crams neuro- chemicals into my brain making me into something other than I wanted to be. There is no true self (especially mystical). There was a natural me and a me on Ritalin (which was very different). I would have preferred to learn the life skills I needed and haven't learned until recently. I had the experience for a reason and often I believe it is to let people know about it and possibly protect other kids from what I experienced. Sincerely, -Crabby McGee ~~~ onemoreact The human brain is arguably the most complex system on the planet. We have a very poor understanding of how it functions so we fall back to the old, "is this useful metric" and DISORDER only refers to things that are less than optimal. There are plenty of environments where a mild level of ADHD is not an issue; unfortunately children are expected to be able to sit and concentrate for several hours a day. In that context the term DISORDER is appropriate which is not to say it can be compensated for just that there is an issue. There are plenty of ways to compensate for poor vision and people are starting to think of mental issues in those terms. Unfortunately it's harder to change the environment or give extra attention than a cheap external prosthetic. Thus, drugs are often the first choice, even if they have minimal value or just trade harming the user to help those around them. ------ tomlin This is welcome news. I recently got diagnosed and after taking the medication, I've found a great increase in the quality of life. There are a few who are very _anti-drug_ when it comes to this condition and their children. Let me tell you from personal experience, these people are doing more harm to their children than good. Education is important. Depending on the severity, each year a parent doesn't take action is a year lost for their child. ~~~ Alex3917 "Let me tell you from personal experience, these people are doing more harm to their children than good." The problem is that the science clearly says the opposite: "At the end of 14 months, core ADHD symptoms were reduced more in the children treated with stimulants than with behavioral therapy. However, at the end of three years, 'medication use was a significant marker not of beneficial outcome, but of deterioration. That is, participants using medication in the 24-to-36 month period actually showed increased symptomatology during that interval relative to those not taking medication.'" [http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/...](http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/3-year%20followup%20of%20the%20NIMH%20MTA%20Study.PDF) "At the end of six years, medication use was 'associated with worse hyperactivity-impulsivity and oppositional defiant disorder symptoms,' and with greater 'overall functional impairment.'" [http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/...](http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/Mta%20at%208%20years.PDF) "Within 21 months, 11 percent of children treated with a stimulant for ADHD developed 'psychotic symptoms.'" [http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/...](http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/Psychotic%20side%20effects%20of%20stimulants.pdf) "Two-thirds of the adolescent patients hospitalized for mania at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center had been on stimulants 'prior to the onset of an affective episode.' Stimulants, the researchers concluded, may 'precipitate depression and/or mania in children who would not have otherwise developed bipolar disorder.'" [http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/...](http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children_files/Prior%20stimulant%20treatment%20in%20adolescents%20with%20bipolar%20disorder_%20association%20with%20age%20at%20onset.pdf) via <http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Children.html> ~~~ tomlin If we're getting into a debate of whether medications can have other effects than intended, I cannot argue that. ADHD and ADD should be treated in completely different ways. People diagnosed with ADHD have a much higher chance of psychotic symptoms than those who are only of the inattentive type. Then there is the old saying, "if you've seen one child with ADHD, you've seen _one_ child with ADHD." In my experience, and for many others, it has provided a world untold, halted depression, increased motivation and enjoyment in life. Stimulants aren't perfect, but we're throwing the baby out with the bath water when we ignore their usefulness. ~~~ Rexatron Your experience is yours. How long have you been on medication? What medication specifically? I've heard that some new meds are not stimulant. They might be good. But the old Ritalin/Adderall stimulants have quite possibly caused the psychotic symptoms you are talking about. That's what they do. Are you familiar with street meth? Ritlain/Adderall are pharma grade long duration forms of that. They have made me crazy before. And they don't "Halt Depression" they get you so busy you that you won't reflect on yourself. Artificial increases in motivation are silly. If you aren't inspired on your own to do something, you probably should be doing something else. Stimulants are much less than perfect and throwing out a pharma grade street drug with the bath water is fine with me. It's drugs or it's not. There are ways to handle ADD/ADHD without drugs. Change the environment. Forcing kids to take meth is just wrong. ~~~ true_religion If you're willing to throw out a "pharma grade street drug" then wouldn't you be willing to throw out _any_ pharma-grade drugs that are used directly on the street such as codeine, morphine, Valium, Vicodin, and any other broad spectrum pain reliever. ~~~ Rexatron Not pain meds for legit pain. But as a ex-addict of benzos I would restrict those to epileptic patients... The data on benzos for mania, depression, and suicide is scary. Long term use has terrible effects. Most docs don't prescribe the heavy ones for psychiatry anymore. Seizures are a different story. ~~~ Alex3917 "Most docs don't prescribe the heavy ones for psychiatry anymore. Seizures are a different story." Benzos have actually made a huge comeback recently, and are quickly catching up to their peak prescription levels in 1975. In 2009, benzos were 3 of the top 20 most-prescribed psychiatric drugs prescribed in the US: 1\. Alprazolam (Xanax) 44,029,000 3\. Lorazepam (Ativan) 25,868,00 10\. Diazepam (Valium) 14,009,000 There were 83 million prescriptions for benzos written in 2007, as compared with 103 million at their peak in 1975. (Granted there are more people today, but still.) source: [http://www.erowid.org/general/newsletter/erowid_newsletter18...](http://www.erowid.org/general/newsletter/erowid_newsletter18.pdf) (And also Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 131) ~~~ Rexatron That is scary. My experience,when I was addicted, was that I couldn't find a doc to prescribe them for me. Was it the dead-faced junkie staring back that prevented it? Probably. It's sad they are so heavily prescribed again, because I know how it feels to rely on a pill to stop the pain and get out of my own head/anxiety. I'm lucky to have found another way. ------ juiceandjuice I'm one of those people who wishes they were diagnosed as a kid. I've been diagnosed by two different psychiatrists with ADHD. I've been on Adderall (XR) at dosages up to 80mg, Strattera, Wellbutrin XL + 10mg Adderall (actually my favorite, but not so effective), and now I'm on Concerta (Ritalin) 27mg/54mg. The 27mg dose of Concerta is minimally effective without affecting my sleep, so sometimes I need to boost it. I hate stimulants though, and I wish I could get along fine without them but it's just not possible. Strattera worked good but the "sexual side effects" were too weird for me to continue on. Wellbutrin + Adderall worked okay (with the benefit of me generally being a bit happier) but my psychiatrist after moving didn't want me on two medicines that can raise your blood pressure. I ended up going to 6 different schools between 8th grade and graduating across 4 different cities. Despite that, I graduated high school with a 3.5 and started college as a Sophomore. My first semester in college I got a 1.8 and thrown in academic suspension. The next three years would be really rough. After that, I went to my family doctor and got adderall, and that helped out a lot at first, but it wasn't a miracle drug and I still had to really force myself to concentrate in weird ways to get through school, and that's really where the adderall helped. Towards the end, school got easier and I enjoyed it more, but I could also sit down and do homework. I've gone off meds completely for a few months at a time almost once a year, and I just can't do it. I wish I would have been diagnosed with it as a kid and had the behavioral therapy along with it instead of having to wing it for the past 6 years, but that's in the past. I also wish there was a non- stimulant that worked really well without side effects too, but for now, I'm happy with the Concerta. ------ mcantor I'm 26, and I was diagnosed with ADD last year, at the suggestion of my dad, who was not diagnosed until his 40's. It took me almost a year to start actively researching ADD, because I grew up in an upper-middle-class community where it was primarily over-diagnosed in unmotivated kids whose parents were convinced that brain dysfunction was the only thing that could _possibly_ keep their children from being A students. To say the very least, I was skeptical. When I finally began learning about ADD, I was startled by how standard my story was. Reading _Driven To Distraction_ was a watershed experience for me; at times I was convinced that they had simply copy-and-pasted my academic transcript: " _Dreamer_ ," " _Has a creative mind that would produce incredible results if he applied himself once in a while_ ," " _Inconsistent. What happened to the A student sitting in my classroom last year?_ " In perspective, so much suddenly made sense; not just my experiences in high school, but beyond that as well. I failed only one class in my entire academic career, a programming course in my second year of college. How ironic and confusing that my only failure would be in the subject for which I had the most passion. Now it made sense. Only two or three years ago from today, I almost lost my job because my output was so inconsistent. I barely scraped by and recovered, but the experience shook me. Now, I understood. There are many forms of treatment, all of which I have experimented with. When it comes to medication, it took me a long time to settle on Adderall, which lets me focus like a normal person without any appreciable side-effects. The drug was a game-changer for me, like the first time I put on glasses. I think I'm glad that I wasn't medicated as a kid, if only because of a deep uncertainty about medicating something as malleable as a child's brain. Conversely, going 25 years without diagnosis has also drastically affected every part of my life. (I have no idea how my dad dealt with it for almost 50 years.) This was also something that I grew to understand as I learned more about ADD; undiagnosed, it can lead to perennial struggles with depression, self-esteem, poor impulse control and a host of others. I think the most important thing about ADD isn't necessarily medication or even "treatment" but simply _awareness_. "Laziness" is a symptom, not a root cause. If we can be mindful about the signs of ADD in childhood, we have already taken a huge step towards improving the quality of life for people with the disorder, and everyone they interact with. I'm sure there will be debates about how to treat it for many years to come, but simple awareness can only help. ~~~ mattdeboard I literally double-checked to see if this was copy/pasted from an old post of mine. Getting treatment for ADHD changed my life for the better immediately and dramatically, as well. And I've even used the, "It's like putting on glasses for the first time" metaphor. ~~~ mcantor Glad to know my post resonated with someone! I still struggle almost daily with ADD-related complications, but getting on the treatment bandwagon was a huge step forward. ~~~ mattdeboard Still struggling? That's kind of depressing. Sorry, hope it gets better. ------ rdtsc Another popular (anecdotal) explanation why this disorder is more prevalent in America is that somehow the same genetic trait that motivated inviduals to pack up and move to another continent, when amplified (after hundreds of years) is somehow responsible for hyperactivity. Basically "the settlers were a restless folk" they all come to America and breed with each other, after hundreds of years you end up with a good number of people who are "too restless to function". Anway that is one popular theory, not sure if I personally endorse it but it would seem to be somewhat supported by this find. Of course the counter-point could be that doctors + parents + pharma companies are just more eager to diagnose it in America, and I can see that happening too somewhow. ~~~ felipemnoa Nahhh. I think it has more to do with people being dead poor in their own countries and is why they immigrated to America (Occam's Razor), better opportunities. It is still the reason why people come to America today. Also, too many people want to use disorders as an excuse for their lack of success. "See, is not me, I'm actually pretty smart, is this damn disorder that is holding me back. Not my fault." ~~~ HeyLaughingBoy The overwhelming majority of "dead poor" people still wouldn't leave their home country. Most people have very, _very_ strong ties to friends, family and familiarity and have great difficulty with the concept of uprooting thier life, no matter how bad, in such a manner. ------ bugsy > Children with ADHD have a significantly higher rate of missing or duplicated > DNA segments compared to other children The problem with this study is they looked at kids who had been diagnosed and were on long term drug therapy. This is similar to studies that show that ADHD diagnosees on long term drug therapy have "brain damage", which matches the brain damage of long term stimulant users. The findings are not an indicator of ADHD, they are indicators of brain and genetic damage from long term drug use. Much more effective than Ritalin, and safer, for treating ADHD is the prescription drug Desoxyn. It's not used as much because of the stigma of taking methamphetamine hydrochloride. I mention this because everyone agrees that methamphetamine is not an innocuous drug to take long term, the same goes for Ritalin, they both have very similar effects on brain chemistry. ~~~ JunkDNA This is not at all similar. It would be _highly_ surprising to me to find that long-term exposure to ritalin leads to deletions and copy number variations in someone's DNA. Furthermore, it is improbable that a drug causing DNA changes would cause the same changes across a population in a statistically significant way. Can you point me to any research that shows this to be the case? ------ randall For me, ADHD isn't a disorder as much as a collection of personality traits. I have a bunch of traits I constantly have to look out for to ensure I complete work, and I've built a system so that I can cope really effectively, w/o medicine. To argue that it's any other case is sorta weird. ~~~ mcantor I don't think "disorder" and "collection of personality traits" are mutually exclusive terms. ~~~ randall I guess to be more specific: I don't think this should be treated as a medical condition. I'm in the Temple Grandin camp of neurodiversity. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity> ~~~ antimora I agree with you. I don't think just because one's trait isn't optimal to the modern environment it should be as a mental disorder and try fixing by medication. ------ spydum ADHD is a real problem, but the rate at which it's diagnosed, and the rate that kids are just thrown Ritalin and other drugs is alarming. A child's brain is a very plastic environment that is still developing. The impact it can have on the brain is not as predictable as a developed adult. It would be foolish not to try more sensible approaches like diet/exercise/parenting FIRST, and if those have no impact, then consider alternatives. However, this is not how parents of today approach problems. They want the quick fix: give my child a pill/shot/instant gratification, so I can get back to my job. Also, this article is from Sept 2010.. not exactly news is it? ------ RandalMolek I think this article understates one point. ADHD is already known to be highly heritable, which already tells you genes are involved. <http://i.imgur.com/G7jDX.png> Also, the first association between ADHD and polymorphisms affecting the dopamine transporter was found in 1995. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1801209/> ------ JunkDNA This study is nearly a year old. Even at that, it is not an example of the _first_ eidence that ADHD is a genetic disorder. There's at least one other study from 2009 (<http://www.research.chop.edu/publications/press/?ID=475>) that had similar evidence. ------ jason25 This is a debate about a pseudoscientific norm set by a bunch of "experts" who evidently dislike children and have convinced millions of parents their children are sick because they fidget in class. ------ lightblade First, I do not believe ADHD is an disorder. It's a certainly a condition, but it's not an disorder. And so I say this: ADHD is a genetic advantage and not a generic disorder. ------ jason23 The term ADHD is meaningless. It is simply the level of activity deemed excessive by the "expert" making the diagnosis. ------ antihero Interesting. Is there any way I can volunteer my DNA for them to have a play with? I was on Ritalin all through school. ------ jason23 "ADHD" is not a medical condition. It is the level of activity deemed excessive by whichever "expert" is making the diagnosis. It was voted into existence by a show of hands. ------ sparrish Genetic? I highly doubt th... Squirrel!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Death of M. Rocard, former French PM, hero in the fight against software patents - fermigier https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zdnet.fr%2Factualites%2Fmichel-rocard-heros-victorieux-de-la-lutte-contre-les-brevets-logiciels-39839198.htm&edit-text=&act=url ====== jacquesm There were quite a few articles on ZDnet like this: [http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-we-need-software-patents- an...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-we-need-software-patents-and-yes-im- smarter-than-you/) Which were pushing software patents for all they were worth (not much), in recent years. Keep in mind that this is one of those 'retry until you get it' subjects, that will be pushed over and over again until the ratchet clicks and then you're stuck with them forever. We owe M. Rocard a great debt for keeping Europe free as much as possible of this nonsense and it's sad to see him go. ------ markvdb Rocard was into politics to try and make the world a better place. He was one of our strongest allies in the software patents fight. I remember standing at the entrance of the Strasbourg parliament with a megaphone kindly saying to all members of parliament arriving: "Please vote Buzek-Rocard-Duff. Thank you very much!" Makes me think of [http://free765.wikidot.com/](http://free765.wikidot.com/) . I never spoke to him in person like I did with other MEPs, but friends who were in the parliament while we were canoeing tell me he really really appreciated that. Rest in peace, Michel. ------ lolive Some interviews of Michel Rocard are now available (in french) on various news sites. One funny detail is that he ALWAYS mentions the fact that politics has become incredibly difficult to do properly because of the small time available in medias to explain things in depth to the people. He usually points at the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death)) to explain why. That is quite an unusual opinion for a politician. (especially when you compare with media experts, such as Nicolas Sarkozy). ------ ooOOoo For French speaking people, original article is [http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/michel-rocard-heros- victorieu...](http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/michel-rocard-heros-victorieux- de-la-lutte-contre-les-brevets-logiciels-39839198.htm) ------ toyg This is what a democratic Europe looks like: Parliament standing its ground and rejecting special interests pushing bad legislation coming from the executive, like it happens in the best democracies. And at a time when the European Parliament was even less powerful than it is now. ~~~ jacquesm Note that Rocard's opponent in this issue, McCreevy also tried to get copyrights extended to 95 years on behalf of the major labels and was one of the bigger wheels in the EU part of the real estate crisis because of his incessant pushing to relax the rules governing banking. ~~~ Create Note, that people who have a clue about why the EU came to be at all are either dead or have been managed away. BXL became a parking place for second rate politicians (understatement). Manipulators like Cameron, Farage know this too: and this is the tragedy. McCreevy, déçu de voir ses arguments taillés en pièces, ne prenne la parole, le visage rougeaud, sur un ton énervé: "Monsieur Rocard, si c'est la guerre que vous voulez, vous allez l'avoir." Réponse de Rocard, d'un ton posé et ferme: "Monsieur McCreevy, des guerres, dans ma carrière, j'en ai déjà arrêté deux. Mais ce n'est pas parce que je suis un homme de paix que je céderai à l'intimidation. Je maintiens donc mes positions." ~~~ toyg _> BXL became a parking place for second rate politicians _ This is primarily the fault of national governments, for which BXL is a convenient scapegoat for their own mistakes, and secondarily of voters who ignored European elections for too long. Post-Lisbon, MEPs do have significant powers and ultimately designate the Commission President, so it does matter who you vote for AND that you vote at all. For McCreevy in particular, the Irish government should shoulder _a lot_ of the blame for nominating him, at a time when Commissioners were extremely powerful. These days a Commissioner so divisive would likely get shut down by EuroParliament. Also, I might be partisan but the last three Commissions were mostly a reflection of centre-right parties (EPP etc), which still command a majority in EuroParliament as well as in the Council. As long as people keep voting right-wing, we will get right-wing policies. Like with all democracies, we get the politicians we deserve, not the ones we need. ~~~ Create We are talking about the same thing: those managed away from domestic power get compensated by a bxl holiday if their blackmail powers warrant it. The Parliament was and still is weaker than the Commission and the Council, the latter two usually work in tandem anyway. (Actually, the swpat rejection by the EP wasn't about values, but rather an attempt to demonstrate capabilities, unseen before or after for that matter, see belgacom). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/nsa-gchq- surve...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/nsa-gchq-surveillance- european-law-report) What was the consequence for those behind? [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/security- and-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/security-and-liberty- theresa-mays-surveillance-plans) In a democracy you need to be informed (see NHS campaign). That is incompatible with W. Lippmann's Society of the Spectacle, privacy and freedom of thought. ~~~ toyg The Parliament now has veto powers on almost all directives, as well as a (not practiced yet) right to send packing the entire Commission. It does not have executive powers, so it cannot "take action". To be fair, it does need additional powers to initiate legislative action rather than just blocking or shaping laws that Commission and Council introduce; but that's blocked by euroskeptics who think BXL already has too much power and proposals should be left to national governments. The reason EP and Commission/Council don't lock horns that often is that, when you get down to details, pretty much everyone agrees that European Directives are right in principle (i.e. harmonizing this or that) and it's just about hammering out details (which are often just guidelines anyway and are left to national parliaments to sort out) and trade a few horses. Swpat and copyright extension were among the very few subjects that were simply too controversial to pass, so MEPs put the hammer down - at a time when their hammer was much smaller than it is now. As the EP gets a bigger role, it's on the electorate to send better-prepared MEPs. After 2009 old practices should be on their way out, as long as we push for this change to continue. ------ jld89 Translation of the very pertinent first comment of the article: No one can deny the role of this political giant in this epic battle, but it would be very improper to speak of victory so far. 25 years later, Maastricht has not kept its promises, and Rocard still openly confessed it a few months ago, stating that they had "missed the boat" in Europe. Somewhat paradoxical given that it is nevertheless his government and his buddies who sold us the baby ... Beyond this basic finding it's especially pertinent that TAFTA Treaty is being negotiated in secret with the US, which is very worrisome. As Mr Asselineau (UPR) in his youtube videos, our former allies want Europe in their pockets, to face the other 2 major blocs. This is all the more urgent and decisive for them to submit and satisfy the European nations, with NATO on the military side, and Europe for the civilian side, the Chinese are trying to win points quickly, and everyone already knows that China will concentrate a very large part of global production in the next 20 years, which will not help at all our economies, artificially abused ... Forced sale in stores, mobile, cloud and its derivatives, are only the top of the iceberg for Washington, Europe MUST become an American colony and controlled subject in itself. Just observe the successive zeal, and still more evident of our elites since the 80s! Between $ ironing ticket which runs idle since the end of the gold parity / dollard, and an abysmal debt, it increasingly relegates Americans in the background, the Treaty TAFTA is even more dangerous for us Europeans, it may lead us to the bottom with our former ally of 39-45. When Mr. Pierre Sprey, father of the F16 and A10, openly calls the last lighning F35 II "Turkey" (Turkey), one realizes that even in their own defense, and despite defense budgets in hundreds of billions of $ (!), the americans are completely off track! Finally, when I read the obstacle course that Mr. Mamère's has to simply follow to access a part of the ongoing negotiations TAFTA (cf. [https://lesmoutonsenrages.fr/2016/06/26/les-incroyables- prec...](https://lesmoutonsenrages.fr/2016/06/26/les-incroyables-precautions- pour-cacher-le-traite-tafta-aux-elus-du-peuple/) for example), and with reports that are apparently not the same on both sides of the Atlantic, there are many more battles ahead, and not just in IT. We can certainly recognize Mr Rocard for having a rare piece of political courage, that became sporadic in our elites. The fact remains that software patents as the rest will eventually be back on the table, and there is absolutely no doubt. In politics, there is never victory: just battles won in their time ... ------ zoobab While Mr Rocard did a fantastic job trying to understand the consequences of software patents, he was also a supporter of software patents through the backdoor of a central patent court. In fact, the directive was rejected at the call of large companies that did not want to see a Parliament voting against their interests. Their argument was to push for a central patent court, which they managed to get only 6 months after the 6 july. Now we are 10 years later, and their plan is near completion, only the Brexit has slowed down their plan. But the goal is still the same, validate software patents Europe-wide. ------ Animats One result of the anti-patent fanatics is that more important technology is now a trade secret. We don't know how Tesla's "autopilot" works, even though it's a shipping product. We don't know much about Google's automatic driving technology. We don't know what Intel's management processor is really doing. We don't even know how to maintain a modern John Deere tractor. The price of weak patents is mysterious, undocumented technology, often made resistant to reverse engineering. ------ SFJulie Having grown near the city he was a mayor (Conflans St Honorine) his influence on french politics has lead to a severe turn of technocracy and denial of democracy. His (in)famous disciples are [0] Macron, A. Richard, Valls, Sapin, DSK that are all famous for priming business accounting based decisions other the people's choices. A very capitalist/market friendly turn of socialism, that makes US democrats looks like hardcore communists. Valls (Val d'Oise federation) and Richard (St Ouen l'Aumonne) were famous for their interest in politic agenda and despising the people. I do regret that some google washing has been made on his keyword in google because right now, all his obituaries are saying how human and nice this man was, and I can't factualize my memories. He was also a great artisan of the European Union, I may say in the direction most europeans maybe a tad mad with: the one where enlightened freaks and crony technocrats can lead 300 millions people to a destiny they did not choose. For the software patents he was like for a lot of things choosing direction randomly by reading techno-prohecies and as coincidence happens, he happened to be right on this. With his death, we remember that my generation scarified to the altar of the greater good envisioned by the 68' generation may have one day the power to choose their destiny ... democratically now that these people begin to die. He did great things still, like helping to solve the post colonialist kanak situation in new caledonia and was at least a convinced pro-peace and pro- friendship between people, even at the cost of an heavy jacobinism. [0] [http://www.slate.fr/story/85937/rocardiens-pouvoir-valls- mac...](http://www.slate.fr/story/85937/rocardiens-pouvoir-valls-macron-sapin) ~~~ astrobe_ Let's not abuse the fact that most of the readership here know nothing about French politics, please. Here is a text written by Rocard on the topic of software patents: [http://www.sens- public.org/IMG/pdf/SensPublic_MRocard_Patent...](http://www.sens- public.org/IMG/pdf/SensPublic_MRocard_PatentsLiberties.pdf) I'll just let those interested here compare your _slightly biased_ description of him with his writing. ~~~ SFJulie He had nice ideas and was a wise men. It does not mean that all praise should not come with a little of objectivity on its political bias: his _slightly biased_ opinion of the people in the process of making political decision. He was a techocrat -even though he was a gifted one. And technocrats have been so far strongest heralds of unfair IP laws that is the very first reason of the existence of free software. Free software is a walk-around technocratic decisions. Technocracy is much more a problem to free software than regulations. Regulations that can be changed by the people matters more than «right» decisions taken by some sort of deaf aristocracy. I will agree his essay was on spot. I will still spot his strong will to undermine democratic process and his distrust of the people. 1 right can be undone by a small wrong that is more important. ------ timwaagh so...this is probably one of the reasons im being paid zap for this work and have to skirt regulations to get anywhere. meanwhile the folks in the us earn over a hundred thousand each year, inventing new software and getting proper recognition for their work. maybe the hero of open source fanatics (i like open source. i just mean certain fanatics) and perhaps consumers, but certainly not my hero. of course its sad that another well intentioned person passed away. ~~~ markvdb You can always go work in the US or sell your product there. Rocard - may he rest in peace- and so many others did make a difference, for the better. The software patents battle is one of the reasons we have less patent trolls in the EU versus the US. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas#Patent_litigation) What few people seem to know is that the software patent battle was also an important in tilting the balance of power between the EU commission, the EU council and the EU parliament towards the democratically elected parliament. ~~~ timwaagh I'm not sure bout how easy it would be to move to the US, but it's not surprising many of our best software engineers and innovators choose that option. Not wanting to belittle the guys achievements, yet the balance between EU parliament and the commission is still way off, which is one of the only legitimate reasons people have to dislike the EU. i understand that the patent system has downsides and of course 'fewer patents' means 'fewer trolls'. however nothing significant in software (esp. outside of open source) has come out of the EU for a long time. Our innovation model needs to change. ~~~ bkor How have software patents helped any of the big growing companies over the last 10 years? Maybe explain it using the various startups which are quite a success: Whatsapp, Instagram, Wechat, Twitter. Your entire comment reads like a false dichotomy. [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FalseDichotomy](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FalseDichotomy) ~~~ timwaagh For one thing those are/were based in America and china, not Europe. If anything the cases of startups with European founders moving to the USA to found their companies helps my argument. As for companies which have benefitted: microsoft gets paid for android. because of stuff they invested in a long time ago. Motorola getting bought by Google because they invented a lot of things. oracle is of course a very big company and the only thing that keeps it alive is their IP. All those big companies rely on the patent system to make investment decicions. to put someone on a project which takes a long time before it will yield results. If there are no patents, you will not have these kinds of R&D based corporations. And that is a big loss for Europe. As for whether this particular dichotomy is false, it may be so but i doubt it. history has more or less already spoken.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
6 lessons learned from going serverless - dfirment https://read.acloud.guru/6-things-i-wish-i-had-known-before-going-serverless-502236cf5540 ====== jgrid007 I would add to the list 'keep an eye on the billing'. Once you exhaust the free tier, it could be the case that your Serverless solution is more expensive than a traditional Server solution. ~~~ dfirment I'm curious why you'd think a serverless solution would be more expensive than traditional instances once you've exceeded the free tier limits. With Lambda, you are only charged based on the number of requests and their duration. The pricing model includes 1M requests and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute time for free every month. Thereafter, its $0.20 per 1M requests. Seems very cost- effective when compared to traditional server-based solutions.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Estimate cost of mobile app development yourself - AppAgency http://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost-calculator ====== AppAgency Anyone can calculate cost of mobile app (iOS, Android) yourself by answering some questions on this tool, also feel free to give your feedback. This is ofcourse not a replacement of manual estimation, but would give you a nice idea of the budget you should be taking for hiring an app development company. ~~~ AppAgency did anyone use this link yet? [http://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost- calculator](http://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost-calculator)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitcoin Unlimited Miners May Be Preparing a 51% Attack - prostoalex https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miners-may-be-preparing-51-attack-bitcoin/?_ke=bW9za2FseXVrQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ%3D%3D ====== 6nf This is not an attack, this is just the miners working out a way to increase transaction throughput on the block chain. Maybe they will go with the Bitcoin Unlimited plan or maybe they will end up going in a different direction. We'll have to wait and see. They're not doing this to attack Bitcoin, that's ridiculous. They've spent millions of dollars investing in mining equipment and they will do everything in their power to keep the price of bitcoin high. Calling this an attack is just pure nonsense. ~~~ Dylan16807 Nobody is calling Bitcoin Unlimited itself an attack. It's the measures they might take to prevent a fork that would be an attack. An attack on the fork. ~~~ 6nf Bitcoin Unlimited IS a fork, why would they try to prevent a fork? I don't understand what you're saying. ~~~ Dylan16807 The entire basis of the article is wanting it to _not_ be a fork. If they have a majority of miners, they are in theory able to set the rules for actual bitcoin. ------ Kinnard This is old [divisive] news on a rapidly developing situation. Several mediating proposals have been put forward in the time since this was published: [http://moneyandstate.com/thoughts-on- segwit2mb/](http://moneyandstate.com/thoughts-on-segwit2mb/) [https://thecontrol.co/a-bitcoin- compromise-45cd92739387](https://thecontrol.co/a-bitcoin- compromise-45cd92739387) [http://www.coindesk.com/purse-proposal-touts-extension- block...](http://www.coindesk.com/purse-proposal-touts-extension-blocks- bitcoin-scaling-solution/) EDIT: And the title is click-baity. ------ markkat It's not an attack if the majority of miners decide to use a specific implementation. That's how bitcoin works. ~~~ Dylan16807 Most of the time it's unanimously agreed to follow the majority of minors. Everything runs smoothly. When that's not agreed, preventing a fork requires some way of blocking the non-majority miners. That is an attack, and not just 'how bitcoin works'. Bitcoin has no builtin way of handling such disputes. ~~~ 6nf Why would it not be agreed to follow the majority of the miners? That's literally the whole basis of the blockchain. The chain with the most work wins. If you don't like it then you can make your own fork, nobody is going to care or try to stop you. ~~~ Dylan16807 Because the different chains are abiding by different rules. Software A sees both chains as valid, while software B only sees the shorter chain as valid. The result is a conflict that cannot be easily resolved. It's a human consensus problem. (And don't say that only the original version of the bitcoin rules are valid, or that would mean that bitcoin actually disintegrated years ago.) ------ dchuk As with most things Bitcoin: can someone please help explain this to me like I'm 5? I've read numerous articles, even a whole book, on Bitcoin, and I still struggle to wrangle all of the vocabulary and terms necessary to read through an article like this. Is this a new Bitcoin about to form? Same thing? Are existing bitcoins in "danger"? I struggle to even think of valid questions for some of these topics, you'd think by now there'd have been an effort to make this stuff more easily digestible to common folk (and I'm a technical guy! this just whooshes right past me). ~~~ nickthemagicman Think of a git repo with all of the miners maintaining the master branch. If suddenly a majority of miners wants to create a new branch and they are over 51% of the miners, the new branch becomes the master branch. Both branches still work. All coins before the fork apply to both branches, however, after the fork,both branches are different, any new coins purchased apply to only one branch. It's essentially two coins at that point. Then essentially it's up to the payment processers like coinbase to decide which one to support. ~~~ Kinnard That doesn't explain what the divide is about(How to scale Bitcoin now that it has become so much more popular) and doesn't touch on the fact that as Bitcoin is still achieving internality, and most users don't hold their own Bitcoin the exchanges/wallets and the interface fiat-liquidity they provide matter A LOT and these parties largely support seg-wit which arguably gives them more power. ~~~ 6nf Segwit is still compatible with increasing the block size a la Bitcoin Unlimited. They are not being forced to give up segwit here. It's really two separate conversations. Supporting segwit doesn't mean automatically opposing BU. ~~~ Kinnard [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14047294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14047294) ------ out_of_protocol Current situation in numbers (see [https://coin.dance/blocks](https://coin.dance/blocks)): * Bitcoin Unlimited (and compatible implementations): Raises protocol maximum from 1MB up to 32MB blocks. No hard-defined activation threshold, miners decided to use 75%. Current progress: ~38% * SegWit: Raises protocol maximum via extension blocks up to ~2MB. Activation threshold: 95%. Current progress: ~32% * Currently active chain. 1MB blocks. ~30% mined blocks to keep things as they are (don't care etc). ------ giomasce I wonder how can anyone expect Bitcoin to become popular, if things keep being that unstable... ------ imjustsaying 6 day old news, already caused a dip in prices, but was rebounded by the next day. Trying to hit the price again by posting this on HN? ~~~ imjustsaying Downvoting without comment is like making a claim without evidence.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bret Stephens: Climategate: Follow the Money - littleiffel http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular ====== jfoutz Does the CRU even collect data? i thought they were some sort of aggregation organization. Maybe I'm wildly off base, but it thought a whole bunch of people working in independent fields with independent methodologies said, "huh. looks like it's getting a little warmer over time". Isn't CRU's purpose to reconcile all that data? i'd be willing to stipulate they're a bunch if lying liars, but that doesn't mean all the raw data is faked, just that we don't understand the relationship between less ozone and tree ring thickness (or whatever metric scientist X chose to measure) ~~~ uuilly A major problem is they have refused to publish the raw data they used for their conclusions. One of the emails said something like, "I hope nobody figures out that the Freedom of Information act applies to us." (Britain's FOI act.) I also don't get the sense that they faked data. But they hand picked it from different sources at different times and used questionable statistical methods to make it look worse. ------ drp The Watergate is a hotel/office/apartment building. Why do all 'scandals' have to end with -gate? ~~~ olefoo Because it's a cheap way to make your opponents look sleazy and create a whiff of scandal around a topic. ------ Tichy "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!" Sorry, but that sounds like a normal database. Enter any organization with more than 3 employees to hear the same shouts of despair. ~~~ BearOfNH We should hold scientists to a higher standard than any organization with more than 3 employees. Especially if they are spending Other People's Money. ~~~ jberryman Sorry, but the "other people's money" thing irks me. You've experienced all the benefits of living in a society that chooses to fund things collectively with taxes, and paying taxes is part of being an active participant in that society. ~~~ jerf That's not the perspective in question. The point is that when you are taking other people's money, you have a responsibility, as part of that society you mention, to take that money more seriously than you might take money you earn from your own labors. Money is a big deal; money is retirement funds, money is food, money is medical care, money is all kinds of things. Money isn't just "big TVs" and "fast cars", though it is those things too. Society needs to take money to do various things, but the recipients should be treating it as a sacred honor, not their birthright. When you waste $1000 of your own money, you (hopefully!) do it in the knowledge that you can afford it; when you waste $1000 of public money, you should do it in the knowledge that at least some of the people that came from really _couldn't_ afford it, especially if it brought them no value. I say this in general, actually, not specifically in reference to any recipient of public money. And I say it with full knowledge that it's horrifically utopian and there's hardly anyone that actually acts that way. But they _should_. ~~~ nollidge But taking extra care of a database requires more time and therefore more money. There's a break-even point somewhere (not that I claim to know exactly where that is). ------ rbranson Oh please, comparing a few billion distributed over years and years in government projects to the multi-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year oil cartel is shameful "journalism." There's no science in this opinion piece, it's just Glenn Beck style arrow graph tin foil hat nonsense. ------ diego_moita This whole "climategate" is smelling like hipocrisy in more than one way. For 8 years Republicans raised a war against science by repressing environmental research by NASA and EPA, blocking stem cell research, supporting creationism and fighting the teaching of evolution. Now, because one University in UK leaked a few comments out of context and concealed data and methodology they are "oh-so-shocked!" about all global warming research.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The dance moves that make men attractive to women - LANYC http://www.economist.com/node/16984701?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/lordofthedance&ref=nf ====== RiderOfGiraffes Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1673302>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What features would the ideal news reader app have? - allenleein Which one is best news reader for you (Flipboard, Feedly, Nuzzel, Pulse, Google News, Trigger...)?<p>And, What features would the ideal news reader app have? ====== sjs382 I use Feedbin. The web view is attractive but not decorated, and it has folders and keyboard shortcuts. It also can be used as a backend for Press, a newsreader for Android. ------ eip I use rssident.com All I need is subscriptions, a browsing view, a streaming view, and search. Metrics would be nice but not necessary.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Windows 10 will soon run Edge in a virtual machine to keep you safe - antouank http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2016/09/windows-10-will-soon-run-edge-in-a-virtual-machine-to-keep-you-safe/ ====== chatmasta Why stop at the browser? Why not do this for every app? And sure, this makes exploiting the desktop from the web more difficult, but only by requiring an additional exploit in the chain. I'm sure there will be vulnerabilities in the virtualization that hackers will pair with edge vulnerabilities. This is a good step so long as they continue to patch browser vulnerabilities at the same pace. But if they use it as a crutch ("oh that vulnerability is no big deal because edge runs in a VM!") then it quickly becomes a problem. ~~~ drinchev This sounds awfully similar to iOS sandbox mechanism. ~~~ compsciphd something like this? [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix- atc-10/presentation...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix- atc-10/presentation/apiary-easy-use-desktop-application-fault-containment- commodit) ------ NietTim Ah. My mom, and her underperforming laptop, which was forced to upgrade to windows 10 by pop ups which you could not just click away, will absolutely love that. ------ blub This seems to be the only reasonable way to avoid getting hacked considering how hostile the web has become. NoScript and anti-tracking extensions still have to be disabled to be able to see what amounts to plain text on a significant number of websites. Now we only need a method to protect ourselves from Microsoft's data gathering/spyware that's bundled with the OS. ~~~ Shorel Not using Windows is a very reasonable way to avoid getting hacked, seems to me. It's been years since I miss something because it only works in Windows. ------ lostmsu With VT-* and now apps running in VMs, how is it different from Ring 0/everything else separation? ------ aNoob7000 I wonder if this same technique could be used to protect users using Tor. ------ oyebenny Doesn't Chrome do this with its own internal sandbox? ------ na85 So instead of fixing the holes in their browser, they've just decided to offload responsibility to a VM, hoping the hardware virtualization isn't vulnerable (even though Intel surely cooperates with governments)? ~~~ c0nducktr What makes you think they're going to stop improving security in the browser itself? It's not an either/or thing, they can do both. ~~~ patrickmn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_$computing$)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twice a Century, India is Attacked by a Plague of Rats - jbail http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9198000/9198744.stm ====== nodata _Burma's ruling junta offered a small cash reward for each rat tail delivered by the rat collection campaigns_ Great way to reward rat breeding! ~~~ dboyd Only if the reward is more than the cost of breeding the rat. I grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada. While I missed out, my father always talked about turning in gopher tails for money. My recollection is that my older brother was able to do this, and he got $1 per tail. At that price, even in the 1970s, I doubt you could have made any real money raising gophers. ------ tarouter Title sounds a little bit misleading. :) It only happens in tiny Indian state of Mizoram. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_Mizoram_locator_map....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_Mizoram_locator_map.svg) From the article - "more than 26,000 square kilometres throughout the north- eastern state of Mizoram, extending into the Chin Hills of Burma and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh" ------ camiller _The rats can produce a litter every three weeks and the baby rats reach sexual maturity in just 50-60 days._ Almost sounds like a star trek episode. ~~~ gregpilling You mean "Trouble with Tribbles" ? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_With_Tribbles> ------ ajays India is a large country. This happens in a tiny part of Northeast India. The title is sensationalist. It reminds me of the cicadas that come out once every couple of decades in the US. You don't hear "US is attacked by cicadas" when that happens! ~~~ melling People aren't afraid of cicadas. ------ steve19 Australia has a mouse plague of epic proportions every four years. This video showing the mice is just incredible: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH4EFgRB4bU>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Upcoming Firefox update will decrease power usage on macOS by up to three times - n1000 https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-decrease-power-usage-on-macos-by-up-to-three-times/ ====== tylerchr > This, according to a series of tests, has put Firefox on par with Chrome, in > regards to power usage. So still not awesome, but a round of applause to the team nonetheless. Not a small achievement. ~~~ philjohn Whic is odd, as I find FF better than Chrome for energy usage, but still trailing Safari. ~~~ derefr The big X-factor is extensions. I think these stats usually measure the browsers where neither has any extensions installed. ~~~ andy_ppp And I think Safari Extensions are pretty much non-existent now, so it's probably never going to be a fair comparison. ~~~ eivarv They're mostly distributed on the App Store these days. The old distribution channels are still available, but installation using these trigger a warning. ------ vezycash Firefox has been my only browser since quantum appeared. However, on my 10inch 2-in-1 tablet with 2gb ram and an Atom Processor, Firefox's performance has been subpar. Pages will freeze, tabs become unresponsive. Closing the browser doesn't work. It remains in process, eating up 70-80% of CPU until I terminate the process with task manager. Because of this, I'm back with chromium (Opera and Edge). I thought Firefox 69 would change things but it hasn't. For touch screen friendliness, all desktop browsers suck at the moment (Classic edge's basically unusable for me.) Firefox is definitely better than opera in this regard though. But I want a button to switch to touch mode - make buttons bigger. No need for AI to guess which mode I'm currently on. ~~~ jchw Using Firefox on a 2-in-1 indeed leaves things to be desired. When pinch zooming, it seems to treat the pinching like normal page zooming instead of having a smooth viewport zoom. ~~~ vezycash Thought you'd find this useful: Was really frustrated today. And searched for a way to make firefox a bit more touch friendly. 1\. Launch Firefox, click on the hamburger menu and navigate to “customise”. 2\. In the customise sub-menu, look out for “Density” settings at the bottom left of the screen. 3\. Select Touch Density, and tick the option for using Touch density in Tablet Mode as well. source: [https://mspoweruser.com/how-to-set-up-firefox-quantums- inter...](https://mspoweruser.com/how-to-set-up-firefox-quantums-interface- for-windows-tablets/) ------ kristofferR Let's hope this marks a care for Firefox on macOS by the developers, it has been neglected for years now. I hope proper trackpad support is next. ~~~ goda90 From the bugzilla[0] about Pinch to Zoom last year: "We definitely haven't forgotten about this, and we are working on it (as other priorities permit)." [0][https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990) ------ vbezhenar How does one optimize applications for power usage? Should it avoid using GPU? Should it run computations in batches? ~~~ roca The main change in Firefox is to use the system compositor (via CoreAnimation) to composite components of Firefox windows. Until just recently, Firefox composited its entire window into a buffer using OpenGL, and then sent that to the system compositor. Unfortunately, with that method, you have to send the entire window to the system compositor on every frame (because the APIs are just limited that way), which uses a lot of power when just one little caret is blinking, for example. With CoreAnimation you can set things up so that large chunks of the window that aren't changing never get recomposited. Unfortunately this change is somewhat invasive, which is why it wasn't done long ago. ~~~ brians Long ago? That is what enabled the original Mac GUI in the 1980s. I am having trouble understanding why anyone would have shipped anything else—what was missing in the time of earlier Firefox? ~~~ mstange APIs for partial compositing _in combination with hardware accelerated compositing_ was the thing that was missing. If you don't use hardware accelerated compositing, repainting only part of the window, and letting the system compositor know about those areas, is not a problem. It's only the GPU acceleration and the lack of convenient APIs that makes this a problem. Before Firefox got hardware acceleration, so up until Firefox 3.6, we were using CPU-side painting and sending accurate dirty areas to the windowing system. With Firefox 4, we added hardware accelerated compositing, which made scrolling and transform / opacity animations a lot more performant. However, it also meant that we switched to using OpenGL for the compositor, and macOS does not expose any APIs for invalidating only parts of an OpenGL context. And at the time Firefox 4 shipped, "retina" displays were not a thing yet, so the impact of recompositing the entire window was not apparent. And there was the pervasive notion that "modern GPUs are fast, fill rate is not a problem". It was only as pixel count grew and grew that this started becoming problematic. And it took some amount of research and a lot of surgery to switch Firefox to an approach that gets OpenGL content to the screen while also allowing for partial updates of that OpenGL content. ------ Vinnl Previous: \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892) \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255) ------ Nr7 I hope this will allow me to finally ditch Chrome on Mac. On Windows I changed to Firefox when Quantum was released but on my old Macbook Air it has been too slow to use as my main browser. ~~~ n1000 I am not a huge fan of Safari, but it seems so much more optimised for macOS that it has become my default regardless. I mean an hour extra battery life is really nice. ~~~ lethologica Over the last 5 years I've been slowly shifting into the Apple ecosystem. It started with a 2015 Macbook Pro which I immediately installed Chrome on because what the hell even was Safari? Chrome was basically the only browser in my universe. Then I switched to Firefox but I had so many issues with it. It was slow and buggy and made my laptop chugg along for some reason. Quantum was a good step forward, though. But now I own three Apple devices and have fully made the switch to Safari. I'm so locked into the Apple eco system now though but it has made my life many times easier using the browser that's designed by the hardware manufacturer of all my devices. ~~~ neuronic After being a long time Linux/Android/Chrome user I got dragged into the Apple ecosystem as I received a used iPhone 6 as a student back in the day. For my daily life, this has been a blessing. A lot of the complaints about Apple that people have (and I used to have as an avid Android user) are absolutely valid. MacBook Pros are hardly "Pro", missing ports are simply annoying, weird multi-display handling and breaking butterfly keyboards... all that is true to some extent. BUT... at risk of sounding like marketing shill, in general my workflow and private usage of my Apple devices is a wonderful fresh breeze. 99.8% of the time things just work and I don't have to install third party drivers and adjust my fan speed to a Fibonacci percentage so that Ubuntu's WiFi works after waking the laptop from sleep. Hell, a large portion of the added cost (at worse specs) compared to Dell or ThinkPad is completely worth it in order to have an amazing trackpad which is still miles ahead of any other device. Maybe I should finally give Safari a serious go as well. I always avoided it due to its image of a less feature-rich browser. ~~~ infecto I probably sound like a shill too but while there are definitely many valid complaints, I still feel like being in the ecosystem makes my life a lot easier. I don't have to do any hacky workarounds. My favorite one that I discovered last year was sharing WiFi passwords. I was at my buddies house and asked for his WiFi password but we both have iPhones and it automatically asked him to share the WiFi password with me. It was a beautiful experience. ------ neallindsay Save you a click: They switched to core animation. ~~~ neallindsay Also, is it journalistic best practice to put the only information that's not in the headline in the last paragraph of the story? That's the opposite of what I learned in school. ~~~ mfer For ad revenue they optimize around time on the page. Putting the key information at the end is becoming a more common practice. ------ gnicholas I would love to be back on FF, which was my daily driver for most of the last two decades. I had high hopes for Quantum, but I didn't love it. When I heard that Brave had switched to Chromium (and supports most Chrome extensions), I tried it and haven't looked back. I will try this new version of FF, and I hope it can win me back. Tree Style Tabs is unparalleled, and I've yet to find a Chromium-compatible version that works as well (currently using Sidewise, but don't like that it's in a separate window). But Brave is so darn fast, I will not be surprised if FF doesn't win me back. Glad they're improving though, and at the very least pushing the whole field forward! ------ sokoloff Presumably it reduces power usage by up to 2/3rds, not 3x. (You won’t be using Firefox to charge your MacBook.) ~~~ Heliosmaster Having it decrease by 3x is the same as dividing by 3... ~~~ sokoloff If the reference power level was 30W (purely to make the math easy to do), and the “power _increased_ by three times” what would the new power level be? 50W, 90W, or 120W? If 120W, then why is a “decrease by three times” different? ~~~ stonemasonn 30 * 3 is 90... 30 / 3 is 10. ~~~ sokoloff Unambiguously true math. If 30 “increases by three times”, does it become 90 or 120? If 90, what happens if 30 “increases by 1 times”? Does it stay 30 or become 60? If 60, then what does 30 “increases by 2 times mean?” Also 60? ~~~ inimino These things are contextual. "x increases three times" means 3x to most people. This is different from "increases by 300%" which usually means 4x. The article says "by a factor of up to three" in the first sentence but that is too wordy for a headline. > what happens if 30 “increases by 1 times”? Nobody would ever say this. We would say it doubled or stayed the same, or "increased by 100%" perhaps, but never "increased by 1 time". > 30 “increases by 2 times mean?” Nobody would ever say this either. ------ SanderSantema Is this fix already available in the dev version of firefox? Edit: The improvements are already available on nightly [https://twitter.com/whimboo/status/1168437524357898240](https://twitter.com/whimboo/status/1168437524357898240) ~~~ Fnoord The first part of the improvements is the most important one. This is already included in the Developer Edition as well. Not sure about the second part as of today. ------ liability Does anybody know if these changes will benifit users who only have intel GPUs and non-retina screens? I can't complain about performance as-is, but even better would still be nice of course. ~~~ abhinavk The change for avoiding secondary GPUs as much as possible has already landed in Firefox 69. This one is about using CoreAnimation. ------ Sangeppato You can also try "pinch to zoom" on the trackpad, enabling the "apz.allow_zooming" flag ------ sorryitstrue I am suffering silently through using Safari.. might this be the end? ~~~ ansonhoyt Yes, you've now spoken, making you a vocal sufferer ;-) ------ LinuxBender Will this change be backported to 68.x esr? ~~~ yifanl I would strongly doubt it, switching out the core graphics driver doesn't seem like something sensible to push into an ESR release. ------ jbverschoor duplicate	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: taxKilla helps us turn the game around - fredBuddemeyer http://www.taxkilla.org ====== philiphodgen Oh dear. I don't know what lurks behind the signup page. I hope the strategies are scrupulously legal and kept up to date. I'm a tax lawyer. I have seen a lot of train wrecks, let's just say. If the promoter is suggesting anything remotely out of bounds, expect the Department of Justice. You will go bankrupt defending yourself if the DoJ decides to grind you. Anyone signing up for a tax planning device has become trivially easy to find and prosecute. Subpoena the promoter for records. Find customer list. Launch prosecutors. That's how it worked in the tax shelter days 30 years ago and it still works like that. I hope the developers have killa legal and tax advice. ~~~ fredBuddemeyer oh dear indeed. if you dont have the courage to even sign in, you never will know now will you? if instead you speculate and fear monger, well, then you are just what we are trying to counteract in this society; what you've expressed is exactly what allows authoritarianism. the advice in taxKilla is legal and we dont maintain any customer lists. ------ fredBuddemeyer during the ows protests it dawned on me that citizens shouldn't camp outside of buildings hoping to influence those inside; they actually hold the money/power and just don't see it. so as a side project we made taxKilla to counteract the root of government power and systemic corruption: taxes. it's a simple, line by line guide to using an independent entity to control your taxes. it's legal, free, and is a particularly good fit for hackers that perform independent contract work; i hope some of you can enjoy it this year.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Set of trained deep learning models for computer vision - fchollet https://github.com/fchollet/deep-learning-models ====== terhechte Caffenet also offers a set of pre-trained models in their "model zoo": [https://github.com/BVLC/caffe/wiki/Model- Zoo](https://github.com/BVLC/caffe/wiki/Model-Zoo) ------ Omnipresent Can the classify images example be modified to train on other (new) images. For example, images of screenshots to identify elements that are in the images (such as: word processor, browser, command prompt). ~~~ fchollet Yes, you can use these models for fine-tuning (or feature extraction) on a new dataset. This tutorial would be a good place to start (esp. sections 2 and 3): [https://blog.keras.io/building-powerful-image- classification...](https://blog.keras.io/building-powerful-image- classification-models-using-very-little-data.html) ------ minimaxir Are you allowed to redistribute the models under the MIT License? ~~~ fchollet The code is under the MIT license, not the weights. The weights are under their respective licenses. The weights are not included in the git tree and are thus not covered by the LICENSE file. They are automatically downloaded when you run the code. EDIT: following your comment, I have added a point-by-point breakdown of licensing information in the README. This will avoid any confusion. ~~~ ma2rten Don't take my word for it, but actually as far as I know both in the US and EU data (including model weights) can't be copyrighted. ~~~ akhilcacharya I'd like to see more information on this. I ask because I'm surprised more companies haven't gotten into the market of licensing the data they collect (unless they do, in which case, sorry). ~~~ praccu [https://www.ldc.upenn.edu/](https://www.ldc.upenn.edu/) [http://kingline.speechocean.com/](http://kingline.speechocean.com/) [http://deeplearning.net/datasets/](http://deeplearning.net/datasets/) [http://www.elra.info/en/](http://www.elra.info/en/) ------ chris_va Question: Does anyone know of a library for loading models/weights from a registry of some sort? ~~~ nl Yes - pretty much every Deep Learning library. Caffe, Torch, Theano, TensorFlow etc (that's kinda what this link is about?) Just use Keras on top of TensorFlow as shown at this link. ~~~ chris_va Well, this is fairly manual. More like: my_model = registry.get("tensorflow://github.com/asdf/models/imagine/latest") ... my_model.push("...") ~~~ nl That's hundreds and hundreds of MBs you are downloading. It should never change, so it hardly seems a critical piece of functionality. I guess someone could build it, sort of like the datasets you can download in SciKit or R, or the trained models in NLTK/Spacy. In-fact I've almost come the full circle on this and think it might be a good idea. Weird - I didn't think people on the internet could change their mind. ~~~ chris_va Heh :). I was thinking that the current "best" model/architecture may change fairly frequently. Obviously you wouldn't want to download 100MB every time the application starts, but maybe amortized every time there is a significant jump would be good. Anyway, I haven't seen anything like this, so was curious.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Dangerous Folly of Software as a Service - ingve http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8338 ====== freedomben Really wish this would get more attention. I suspect that ESR has fallen out of favor with many because of his Libertarian leaning views, but he is a historical legend in the free software movement. He's also completely right about this problem. As someone who makes his living via SaaS I would love to find a solution to this. I tend to think the Instructure/Canvas model is a good one: the product is open source. The money is made (mostly) from hosting (since ops is hard and most schools have better things to do). Aside: ESR please add TLS to your blog. It's 2019 ;-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ash HN: What is your must-read audiobook? - uvu What is your must-read audiobook? ====== prossercj A number of great selections from The Great Courses, including: The Great Ideas of Philosophy [0] Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It [1] The History of the United States [2] World War II: A Military and Social History [3] There's also this new translation of The Odyssey [4], which I've just started but like so far. [0] [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Great-Ideas-of- Philosophy-2nd...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Great-Ideas-of- Philosophy-2nd-Edition-Audiobook/B00DDVSD34) [1] [https://www.audible.com/pd/Great-Scientific-Ideas-That- Chang...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Great-Scientific-Ideas-That-Changed-the- World-Audiobook/B00DGU4CMS) [2] [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-History-of-the-United- States-...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-History-of-the-United-States-2nd- Edition-Audiobook/B00DIHAN68) [3] [https://www.audible.com/pd/World-War-II-A-Military-and- Socia...](https://www.audible.com/pd/World-War-II-A-Military-and-Social- History-Audiobook/B00DJ8ILIS) [4] [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Odyssey- Audiobook/B07GLN33S8?...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Odyssey- Audiobook/B07GLN33S8?qid=1542814211) ------ xupybd Dune is the book that got me sold on audiobooks [https://www.audible.com/pd/Dune- Audiobook/B002V1OF70](https://www.audible.com/pd/Dune-Audiobook/B002V1OF70) ~~~ freetonik For me, it was the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons, narrated by excellent Victor Bevine [https://www.audible.com/series?asin=B006K1Q0FC](https://www.audible.com/series?asin=B006K1Q0FC) ~~~ xupybd Thank you, will add that to my list of books to listen to. ------ Bumerang \- Extreme Ownership, especially if you like military stories (although the book is about leadership). [0] \- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, a refreshing perspective on life values. [1] [0] [https://www.audible.com/pd/Extreme-Ownership- Audiobook/B015T...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Extreme-Ownership- Audiobook/B015TVHUA2) [1] [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Subtle-Art-of-Not-Giving- a-F-...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Subtle-Art-of-Not-Giving-a-F-ck- Audiobook/B01I28NFEE) ------ Wowfunhappy My favorite audiobooks ever are the His Dark Materials trilogy, by far. A different actor reads each character's dialogue, and the casting is absolutely _perfect_. The series is general is really special to me, and the audiobook is the best way to experience it. ------ cweiss I know I'm late to the party, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - It's a BBC Radio Play, but was my first exposure to the story, and a fantastic one at that. I also really enjoyed the Star Wars radio drama. ~~~ dragonwriter > I know I'm late to the party, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned the > Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - It's a BBC Radio Play, but was my > first exposure to the story, Also, the world's first exposure. The BBC Radio Play preceded the books (the first two “phases” preceded the first two books, more specifically.) ------ MrTonyD Yanis Varoufakis "Adults in the Room" is a book I enjoyed on the plane, but would probably never read in print format. It describes all the back-room dealing going on during the Greece economic meltdown. It was very insightful to see how the PR presented by the EU and Germany was so different from their real goals (protecting the banks and the rich from any losses - even if all their populations had to pay on bad loans that were structured to fail.) ------ lscore720 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - a creative and compelling deviation from typical true crime storytelling. The author and the narrator do a brilliant job at really transporting you into Savannah, Georgia (I'm not even a fan of the city, but I nevertheless was totally consumed by the fascinating characters, society, and atmosphere). ------ catacombs American War by Omar El-Akkad, read by Dion Graham. Not many characters but a riveting story about a plausible second American Civil War. The Power of the Dog and The Cartel by Don Winslow, read by Rob Porter. A must read just for the vast characters Porter plays, many of whom are Hispanic. An amazing feat that tells a riveting story. ------ ghtet I only listen to fiction when it comes to audiobooks. That said, I really like Clive Barker stuff who I discovered relatively recently. In particular, I like "Books Of Blood" [0]. [0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8x7Iee3m0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8x7Iee3m0A) ------ redhale Jurassic Park got me into audio books. Incredible book, fantastic narration by Scott Brick. ------ mattnumbe Gods in America is done really well. I also enjoyed listening to the Game of Thrones series on the way to and from work every morning for like 8 months. Gave me something to look forward to in the morning. ------ Benjmhart The Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgeman. Sold me on the format and is more like a 7 hour stand-up comedy special than a book per se. Also features Paul Rudd. ------ Immortalin Shameless plug if you want to convert a ebook to an audiobook: [https://auditus.cc](https://auditus.cc) ------ asidiali Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, written and narrated by Carlo Rovelli ------ systemshutdown The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman. ------ zeuslawyer Ray Dalio's principles, for 2018. ------ cvaidya1986 Mastery by Robert Greene ------ thetricia I usually listen to them but anyways (I had to, sorry!!) - I really enjoyed Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble. It's a very cynical take on the startup culture, which usually isn't something I'm into, but the author really did a good job at keeping it fun (he was one of the valleywag people) and has enough experience from the inside that there's actually plenty of subtle insights.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's cool these days? - graviboots I'm looking to build something new, and need a refresher on the exciting opportunities at the moment. So... what's good now?<p>PHP sucks now right? Did Python replace that? And what about IOS? Is there more opportunity there, or is Android "where it's at" these days? What area is hot? Is social gaming still cool, or are we doing other stuff now like B2B? Are we building cross-platform, or are we perfecting down on one platform at a time?<p>In other words, what's cool these days? ====== lutusp > I'm looking to build something new, and need a refresher on the exciting > opportunities at the moment. So... what's good now? That depends. What are you trying to accomplish? > PHP sucks now right? Did Python replace that? And what about IOS? Is there > more opportunity there, or is Android "where it's at" these days? Same answer -- it depends on what your goals are. You just asked a question so general that it mixed platforms (Android, IOS) with languages (Python, PHP), so your inquiry is too general to be meaningfully answered. > PHP sucks now right? Did Python replace that? There's really no comparison -- PHP and Python address completely different purposes. It's like asking which is better -- a car or a typewriter. > In other words, what's cool these days? Technology isn't a fashion show. Well, anyway, it shouldn't be. ------ iamwil I find that HN is usually a leading indicator of tech. Just keep note of which technologies keep appearing week after week, and that's what you should look into. ------ ibstudios [http://www.thoughtworks.com/radar](http://www.thoughtworks.com/radar) This should help. Best of luck!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Wrong Kind of Paranoia - akerl_ http://prog21.dadgum.com/206.html ====== AdeptusAquinas In my view the purpose of const/protected/internal/static etc is not so much to prevent mistakes by myself or others, but to embed in my code a 'living documentation', enforced by the compiler. If I mark a method as internal, that means I intend it for reuse within the library but don't expect it to be used by any external caller, which means another developer can come along and make changes to it without needing to worry about anything outside the library (short of those in C# using [InternalsVisibleTo] or similar, which hopefully is restricted heavily to obvious test projects). By decorating my code appropriately, I don't need to write comments most of the time, which means I don't run the risk or filling my code with out-of-date or poorly understood annotations that become useless almost as soon as I finish writing them. ~~~ rdtsc I agree with this. The code is not just a message to the compiler to build the binary/bytecode, it is also a message to other programmers. As such there is value in annotating things in that manner. Even in Python, a very dynamic language, there is a convention that methods that start with _ are private. And I often also separate them into a different (bottom) section with a big header saying this is the private block of methods. So in that case there isn't a compiler rule but rather a common convention (which is kind of a step above comments if you wish). ~~~ rpedroso If you want to enforce this more stringently, you can even prefix methods with __ (double underscore). Python will mangle the name: __mydef -> _myClass__mydef You can, of course, still access the method, but it's very useful for keeping implementation details of a base class out of a subclass. This way, your subclass can have its own `mydef` without overriding the base class. ------ haberman These protections might be overly fussy in small, one or two person projects. But for programming in the large they are essential as they represent a social contract between teams. If you call only my public methods, you can generally expect: - if my public methods don't work properly, it's a bug - and I, as the library author, promise to care - if the internals of my library change, I'll keep my public functions working if possible. Disregard my protections and all bets are off. If you cast away const on an object I gave you and then call a non-const method, you might be totally violating the threading model of my library. If you write and complain about this, I will ask why you thought it was ok to cast away const. Without these annotations it would be much harder to effectively communicate and enforce the parameters within which the library is "promised" to work. ------ Swizec Over here in the dynamic languages world (JS, Ruby, Python, etc) I often cry myself to sleep because I spend hours debugging something that turns out to be preventable with a const or a private function or something. ~~~ TheLoneWolfling Python being Python, you can prevent non-malicious problems of the sort you mention (const and private functions / variables). Const via overwriting setattr / etc, private functions via stack inspection (among other things. There's a sliding scale of thoroughness versus clean code here.) Though it won't protect you from malicious intent (though this is still the case with C / etc), and it's caught at runtime as opposed to at compile time. ~~~ Swizec > Though it won't protect you from malicious intent It often does feel like junior developers are malicious. While I commend their ingenuity in solving the problem, code review can be a real schlep. ~~~ TheLoneWolfling Hanlon's razor ------ kstenerud Static also allows the compiler to make better optimizations, knowing that nothing outside of the current compilation unit will ever use it. Const also allows the compiler to optimize better with the knowledge that the called function won't perform any writes to the object state. Access modifiers give you a way to separate out functions that can be called externally vs those that shouldn't. The API doc generator won't know which is which unless you mark these correctly. You use access modifiers to show intended use and keep things clean, not to lock someone out. Same goes for internal classes. ~~~ plorkyeran In practice const very rarely allows any interesting compiler optimizations (passing a reference to a const local variable to a function whose body cannot be seen is pretty much the only place where it's safe to do so). The const overload of a function with const and non-const versions could in theory be faster, but copy-on-write data structures are the only common example of that actually being the case. ------ bucky I completely agree we should stop being paranoid about what's going to happen when we let other people loose on our beautiful code. But I don't think having private methods or marking variables const is about paranoia, it's about communicating intent to the people who come behind you and using the compiler to enforce that intent. Every piece of extra context you can give to someone reading your code helps them understand why it's there. Identifiers like const and private are almost like nonverbal communication for code. ------ opinali I usually love James Hague's posts, but this one has his head buried deep in the sand. And he's enough of a veteran to remember early Lisp and Smalltalk systems, where excessive openness in all aspects looked awesome for prototyping/hacking or academic toy programs (or what is considered toy-size in the last 20 years anyway), but was a disaster even for the mid-1990's definition of programming in the large. Attempts to discipline these languages came too late, so they got overrun by competitors with lots of "paranoid" rules like C++, Java, hell even Eiffel. (Not the single reason of course but one important reason; not even the gurus could help themselves to not abuse dark magic and write application code that would be compatible across minor updates of the language/frameworks, let alone other compilers/VMs/platforms.) If you need extra evidence with more current technology, see most "bad parts" of Javascript (successful, but in the same way that the Titanic was wildly successful for one week; people who build large JS apps have been in a mad rush to fix or replace it for the best part of the last decade, hopefully with ES6 coming as a first major win in that direction). TLDR sorry James, we have tried the elegance of extremely simple and open language/runtime architectures, and that was always an abject failure. ~~~ jack9 > we have tried the elegance of extremely simple and open language/runtime > architectures, and that was always an abject failure. Just because it was tried in the past, doesn't mean it wasn't the right direction. > Attempts to discipline these languages came too late, So, as an industry, we were learning and now we know some basic principles. Discipline does a great deal for Erlang. Ironically the game sockets he describes are basically how Erlang functions at scale. To say the practice is always an abject failure is burying your head in the sand. ~~~ opinali You didn't understand what I meant by "discipline". I didn't mean best- practices -- i.e. programmers learning to not abuse openness without any help from the language. What I meant was adding the missing controls to languages (making them more similar to the languages James criticizes) so proper discipline could be enforced: visibility, module systems, restrictions to change core runtime classes, optional static typing etc. ------ underbluewaters This post resonates with my experiences of the last 6 months. I'm a very good web developer, and have been working for a while now on a couple iOS projects. Coming from javascript which everyone seems to regard as dangerous and overall terrible, I expected that after some time I would get used to and appreciate working in Objective-C and Swift. Nothing could be further from the truth. While you can shoot yourself in the foot with javascript, in practice it's not really an issue. The absurd lengths that these languages (particularly Swift) go to make you less productive while preventing errors is ridiculous and unhelpful. I get as many runtime errors writing Swift code as I do javascript, but my code is riddled with as? or foo.bar!.method() cruft just to satisfy the compiler and get on with my life. Rather than thinking about how to solve a problem I'm strategizing how to work within the limitations of type systems. As someone who learned to code with javascript, ruby, and python, I'm not sure I'll ever really appreciate these "nanny languages". ~~~ buttchrist This old canard. I am a professional Objective-C developer and have been for several years. Type safety is not an absurd length. Eliminating an entire class of errors from your program by having the compiler infer and enforce types is not ridiculous. Using a type-safe language is a very good idea. We are human. We have stupid unchecked nil object errors come up in our code bases all the time. Swift will ensure that does not happen again. That's like the least part of what I am looking forward to. If you are having trouble writing a program that compiles with strong typing, I don't know what to tell you. Using types is nothing more than stating what you expect the shape of the data to be in and having the compiler make sure that is so. ~~~ vinceguidry Is it really worth that much though? I'm a Ruby developer and I've only very rarely actually wanted a type system. I've often found that I could work around its lack by implementing class checking and raising an error whenever the wrong type gets passed. It gave me everything I wanted without having to give up dynamicism. I think types probably work well in situations where you don't know what kind of code you're going to have to deal with in the future. It depends on the type of organization you're in, not the type of problem you're trying to solve. I think any respectable programmer should try to avoid having to have people hook into his code at any level other than the level he defines. To interface at the level of data, not client code. If you are needing typing to solve your own inadequacies as a programmer, you should become a better programmer rather than expect your language to do that for you. With a dynamic language, you can get all you could have wanted from a type system without having to infect your whole codebase with it. Most of the time, you just don't need it. ~~~ actsasbuffoon I agree that some type systems are infuriating. They demand highly verbose code, and offer almost no protection in exchange for your effort. However, not all type systems are equal. Haskell (for example) almost never requires explicit type annotations. It has a type inference system that is sometimes frighteningly good. You can express a huge amount of logic through the type system and enforce very non-trivial constraints. I've been writing Ruby for 7 years, and I've loved every moment of it. It's a wonderful language. That said, I usually have to spend quite a bit of time getting my code to work correctly. In Haskell, by the time I get to the point where the type checker approves of my code, it usually works as I intended the very first time I run it. It's a wonderful feeling. ~~~ vinceguidry The problem isn't the type annotations. The problem is losing the meta- programming capabilities you gain when you can make everything an object with a class. These capabilities are really useful when you don't really know what you're doing yet, which, for me, is almost all the time. Knowing at any time I can take the class hierarchy I just built, turn each class into an instance of an object, and store those objects in a database, with a 10 minutes and a fancy bit of code, is much much more useful than having a babysitter. ------ Mithaldu "There's an architecture used in video games for a long time now where rendering and other engine-level functions are decoupled from the game logic, and the two communicate via a local socket." Is he talking about multiplayer or has anyone ever actually seen this? ~~~ catmanjan Some games (even in singleplayer) host a "local server" and environment information is passed to that. If you're making a networked game it makes sense as you'd be creating the server anyway, decoupling is nice and less codebase to manage. Steam's Source games, UT do this, if you open up the console and scroll up you can see the local server initializing. ~~~ douche For Source, that's probably the GoldSrc/Quake legacy. You can see this somewhat in the source on GitHub - WinQuake has both client and server mashed into one process, but there are clear divisions, with the cl_ _.c /h and sv__.c/h files. ------ simula67 I wonder how much the software state of the art is advanced by software developers as opposed to software maintainers. When you are working to refactor software written by others, things like "private methods" are a gift. If you are trying to refactor some piece of code, you only have to make sure that the callers within the said class are modified to guarantee that the codebase is not broken. I don't think a lot of people understand that maintainers in the real world do not have the time to read and understand every line of your code. And the toughest part of doing software maintenance is figuring out how much you can safely ignore. I feel qualifiers like "private" were designed to help with this problem. I also severely dislike the architecture proposed by the author with loosely coupled services talking over a socket. This style of code is only maintainable if you understand the entire system inside and out. For example, lets say the maintainer receives a ticket that says 'Report X has wrong data'. She will start investigation with the question : 'Why does it have wrong data ?'. She will walk back up the call tree looking for why and eventually learn that the data coming off the socket is wrong and that is where the trail ends (unless there is a document describing who is responsible for putting said data there). I have faced this issue in real life. I can understand when this style of decoupling is necessary to improve modularity, but it does not have a positive maintenance impact. ~~~ buttchrist Apple have added a fantastic thing to iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 that I am terribly interested in but have managed to find nothing about beyond this post[1]. I think you'd be interested, it addresses exactly the problem you describe by including information from other threads and _processes_ to crash logs. [1] [http://www.objc.io/issue-19/activity- tracing.html](http://www.objc.io/issue-19/activity-tracing.html) ------ plorkyeran > If they're not in the tutorial, examples, or reference, you don't even know > they exist. If you use the header file for documentation, and internal > methods are grouped together beneath the terse comment "internal methods," > then why are you calling them? Autocomplete is a thing. Even if there is a big comment explicitly saying not to use a function, if it doesn't show up in the autocomplete window someone will inevitable use the function anyway (and sometimes even if it does). ~~~ mikestew If I'm reading this correctly, you're saying that someone will use a function for which there is no documentation, no external reference, and the user hasn't even seen the code (since they didn't see the comment saying not to use it)? Just a function name and (maybe) a method signature in the autocomplete? The caller deserves whatever woes befall them. ~~~ douche This kind of thing provides endless material for Raymond Chen's blog[1]. It also explains a lot of the insane backwards compatability that is still in Windows. [1][http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/) ------ j42 To be clear, static typing is the zenith of of compiler optimizations and in many ways the programming "ideal," however in the context of loosely typed languages (and their OOP abstractions) and I think the author is missing a significant use-case. Separation of responsibility/decoupling on the service level are good principles to begin with, but in an OOP paradigm where you are defining/exposing classes and methods, these keywords are really useful for grouping functionality when you adhere to "contract-driven development." When used correctly they help you abstract the interface for your class (ie, the public implementation-agnostic methods that provide interoperability between the service and the program as a whole) and separate it from methods only designed for internal use (within the class itself). Often times those abstractions are essential (DRY principles) and the class is the proper place to encapsulate them, however you wish to clearly designate that "this method is self-modifying, limited in scope, and does not interact with or is required by any other class in any meaningful way," and for that it's quite useful. ~~~ chipsy A nice standard reply. But how do you verify that your usage has the impact you think it does? When I started estimating the complexity of my code - just using rule of thumb and line counts - I found that most uses of classes were unjustified. The "right size" of a class was quite large, especially so in the top level of an application. ~~~ j42 Well, I can't speak necessarily for the way you write or view code, but for my process I've found its impact intrinsic and clearly definable. First I should note that I follow a few basic principles/sets of principles when programming loosely-typed imperative languages. 1) Single-responsibility for classes and methods, with each method coming in around <= 20 lines. In total the majority of my classes in enterprise level applications (supporting 100's of millions of users & responding to internal events with meta/statistical analysis) rarely grow beyond 200 lines per class. Usually whenever I hit the 2-500 line range I'll find that many methods can be logically abstracted to a few core traits in order to take advantage of multiple-inheritances without overcomplicating the central registrar or DI patterns. 2) I build an interface before building a class--the interface defines what methods will be available to the application/world context (thinking as per an API interface), as well as what type(s) should be received and what type(s) should be returned. By type hinting/checking at this stage and ensuring conformance to an interface, you can swap out implementations easily later, as well as have a general map or "spec" before you really start hammering the nails--this helps in staying organize and weeding out bad architecture decisions early. 3) I keep these public methods simple, so that I can clearly detect failure points and debug based on input/return types for the 'service' as a whole, and then I use _protected_ methods internally similarly to data pipes in functional programming; each method is clearly named, has a specific transformation it applies, and acts on a series of (n) objects by mapping transformations vs iterative loops which precludes un-terminated conditionals and other type-juggling weirdness. This all results in software that's very concise (IMHO), runs well, and is quite simple to test. I can inherit any class from a testclass, in order to test the protected data pipes with any sample streams. I can verify the I/O types for all interfaced methods of the class (via functional tests), and tie it all together neatly in knowing that I can pull up any file and clearly differentiate between what formats/returns/transports data, and what mutates it and/or the "state." The process is by no means perfect and I continue to learn in my pursuits as do we all, however this structure has worked well for me consistently on the types of large projects where others have failed, and in that context I feel it's worth expounding. ------ Sophistifunk Some of these things are simply to "nanny" us, but there's a very good reason for private / protected: The Namespace is a precious and limited resource. It's a good-thing(tm) not to pollute it with internal details, and what is unexposed need not be well-named, which is after all one of the 2 hard problems (along with cache invalidation and fencepost errors). ------ r00tbeer Most of the commenters here didn't seem to read James' whole article. He's not saying that you should throw away isolation but that isolation should be taken care of from your architecture, not your programming language. Of all the places that should be up on a microservices architecture and see the sanity of it, you would think that would be here on HN, no? ------ blt `private` is a joke in C++. Coupling happens at the header file level, not the class level. Any C++ programmer who cares about reducing dependencies should be thinking about header files, not classes. Man, we really need a module system. I think the problem is not that `private` exists, but that it is taught/sold to programmers as a silver bullet for making software architectures better. People think "Decoupled systems are good. `private` hides my variables from the outside world. Therefore, if I use `private` variables, my system will be decoupled." This is false. A program can use `private` extensively and still be tightly coupled. So, I agree with the author that `private` encourages myopic engineering, but I think education is a better way to fix the problem than removing the features. ~~~ quanticle >Man, we really need a module system. And you might be getting one: [https://isocpp.org/files/papers/n4214.pdf](https://isocpp.org/files/papers/n4214.pdf) It's under consideration for C++17, as I recall. EDIT: Also, CLANG allows you to use modules right now, but IIRC those are CLANG specific extensions and the final module spec. may or may not be compatible with them. ------ sreejithr I find the assertion that compiler enforced discipline is paranoia, too hippy. What it does is free you from a big overhead, which is keeping track of the access levels for all of your instance variables. Moreover, documenting enforcements is a very shaky way to go about it. It requires military discipline. I've seen time and time again, documentation which didn't get changed with the code. ------ anabis I actually want _more_ possible restrictions such as limiting rage of values, or allowing only printable characters in a string. As other comments say, its a documentation to future self and others.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update - Nitishshah700 https://www.troyhunt.com/dont-tell-people-to-turn-off-windows-update-just-dont ====== merricksb Heavily discussed at time of publication 7 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286) ~~~ hungerstrike I see a lot of articles that are dupes, but nobody ever says anything. Just curious - Are we all allowed to talk about something twice or not? Looks like plenty of people commented on this posting of the story, so I'm left wondering - what's the intention of this comment? I don't see anything in the guidelines about duplicates here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) Are moderators responsible for pointing this out or just regular users? Who eventually marks something as a dupe? Is it in response to a comment like this? Is this actually the most highly rated comment or did mods put it there? (Again - just curious!) ~~~ merricksb The site policy about reposts/dupes is explained in the FAQs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) _If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok._ And you can see more commentary on it from dang via this search: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention%20year&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment) Any user can point out that a link is a dupe or has been posted before. It's helpful for others to be able to see earlier discussions (whether or not it was in the past 12 months and qualifies as a dupe), and evidently moderators don't always realise something is a repost until a user points it out. There are no hard and fast rules about what user can or should comment about stuff like this, but the mods seem to appreciate it any time people are helpful. And when a post is marked as dupe, the mods will push the explanatory comment (either from them or another user who already pointed it out) to the top of the thread. ------ mschuster91 > Microsoft needs to make Windows Update better. Microsoft especially needs to do two things: 1) respect the DHCP settings that tethered devices provide (Android provides option 43/ANDROID_METERED) and NOT suck every data plan dry when on the road (maybe would be worth to expose an API to applications "the primary internet connection is metered, do not suck dry", given how huge any kind of update is these day) 2) give users the fucking option to only subscribe for security updates and not for the latest "feature" set. I know many people who disabled Windows 7 auto-updates after every other month MS would re-enable the W10 update nagware screen. This is way beyond hostile behavior, not even Apple goes this low. I went Apple once Win8 was coming out, definitely not going back until MS either gets a grip or makes W10 LTSB (the one on a "stable" track e.g. for embedded devices, without nagware, ads or other bullshit) available for general sale. oh, and 3) provide a Windows 7 Service Pack 3 and installation media with all the updates preinstalled. Having to either upgrade by hand or mess around with ISOs is not exactly customer friendly. ~~~ whywhywhywhy > not even Apple goes this low. Apple goes just as low, OS X asks me every day to update to High Sierra and the option is only "Later" and it can't be swiped away quickly like a normal notification. I ran an iPhone 4 for until the iPhone 7 launch, I used to keep it on iOS7 because after iOS4 rendered my 3G unusable I knew to no longer update. Every single morning it would ask me to update, which I had to carefully dismiss. It would always download the update filling up my phone to the brim which I would have to then manually delete. If my phone was full it would give me another option offering to temporarily delete apps (Which it claimed would have data restored from iCloud but I knew they would not). My Mothers iPad auto-updated locking her out of her painting app (Brushes, as used by David Hockney), I had to use a dodgy 3rd party app to extract her documents or they'd be lost for good. At least Microsoft gives you options to downgrade and supports old OSes, unlike Apple who stops handing out the encryption keys. ~~~ dvfjsdhgfv They follow their traditional policy. A huge part of Apple's income comes from hardware. They will use every method to convince you to continue the vicious upgrade circle, whether you care about new features or not. A customer that is satisfied with their current setup is a lost customer. So Apple's only hope is to make sure the battery is as difficult to replace as possible - because this component is sure to fail sooner or later. ~~~ stordoff > A customer that is satisfied with their current setup is a lost customer. A satisfied customer is a customer who will eventually come back (want something new, lost or damaged device, or just general wear and tear). A dissatisfied customer will look elsewhere. ~~~ fileeditview But this satisfied customer probably wouldn't buy every iteration of the iPhone. I guess that's what the parent was aiming at. ------ bambax Here's how Windows Update "works" for me: "installs" an untold number of patches, does an untold number of reboots, then displays that the update "failed", and undoes all said patches, with the same number of reboots, to bring my PC back to where it was before the update. Failures have generic error messages that don't point to any useful information from the (abysmally bad) MS forums. So yes, it is disabled. Once every few months, I try again, and usually get the same result. I have multiple backups of everything, so hopefully if WannaCry 2 hits, I'll survive. Or maybe not, but in the meantime, I'm sorry but I can't spend all my time watching my PC doing updates that don't update anything. ~~~ imtringued I had the same problem. Don't waste your time like I did by searching for a solution beyond reinstalling windows. Reinstallation is the only way. ~~~ mehrdadn Reinstallation is not the only way. I had this problem on a fresh install on a VM, meaning reinstalling would have resulted in exactly the same problem. The only way is to remove it and literally install a _newer_ version of Windows, i.e. one with the offending update already incorporated. ------ foobar1962 A comment at the end of the article: >Lost productivity to malware = 0hrs. Lost productivity to windows auto updates = 28 hrs. Sitting here right now losing time and money to an unauthorized update. I know how to avoid malware on my work laptop. That's a bit like how some people (who weren't THERE) think the Y2K-thing was a non-event: they didn't see all the work that got done fixing things before the big day. ~~~ youdontknowtho I don't even know what to say to the guy you are replying to. Holy...just wow. Can you imagine trying to fix something when some of your users are just unwilling to let you try anything to fix it? ~~~ JoshTriplett > Can you imagine trying to fix something when some of your users are just > unwilling to let you try anything to fix it? That's what happens when you 1) don't understand the problem you're solving, and push things that aren't appropriate updates through an update mechanism, and 2) lose user trust. ~~~ youdontknowtho Do you really think that they don't understand what problem they are solving? Compare the number of patches vs windows 7 or the number of cases that require a reboot since XP...they are working towards a better system. That being said, I really, I'm not trolling here, think that you can't make users happy in this age. People have been trained by interactions with crap companies, Microsoft included, to go from 0 to apoplectic immediately just to get a resolution. There's no benefit to being a happy user, you won't get your issues looked at...and there are always issues! ~~~ JoshTriplett > Do you really think that they don't understand what problem they are > solving? _Yes._ Every single person who turns Windows Update off should be considered a critical bug, and their use case should be understood and fixed. The fact that they instead _still_ use it to push anti-features means they still don't understand why people still turn it off. If they started, _today_ , focusing heavily on getting people to trust Windows Update again and leave it turned on, they'd have a massive uphill battle. But I've seen no signs that that's a focus at all. ~~~ youdontknowtho Wow, man. Talk about back seat driving. Why do you think that they have spent over a decade refactoring the operating system into smaller components that can be installed and updated independently? What about peer-to-peer updating and all of the updates that not only don't require a reboot but don't require any user intervention whatsoever? Something that is an "anti-feature" to you is someone else's (in the case of windows, several million someone else's) every day must have. ~~~ JoshTriplett That's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about things like misclassifying updates as "important" or "critical" rather than "optional" to get them installed onto more systems, which makes people stop trusting that distinction. ------ Grollicus I think a lot of the hate for Windows Update is because of how slow it is. I have a Windows machine I use for gaming. Its started about once a month and whenever I turn it on it is almost unusable for the first 30 minutes because its checking for updates and installing them. This is totally on Microsoft and their bloated update mechanism. ~~~ hengheng Windows machines need to be on for about half a day every week. I know no other device that needs this kind of attention, apart from helicopter gas turbines that are best kept slowly spinning. ~~~ mehrdadn Microsoft thinks just because Google can force-feed Chrome updates to users, it can do that with Windows too. It doesn't seem to comprehend that an OS has fundamentally more stringent availability and reliability requirements than a browser. For example, my Chrome ("stable") right now just renders most new windows as completely white -- no address bar or anything else. Because Google decided to force-feed me a buggy version I never wanted or asked for. So I have to open 2-3 new windows before I get a working one. It's painful but I can still do that, or use Firefox/IE if all else fails. If this kind of crap happened with the OS I would not be able to use my laptop at all. ~~~ stordoff It's also a different install process. Chrome doesn't decide to automatically close itself to apply the updates, and they are applied fast enough that you usually don't notice unless something changed. Neither can be said for Windows - the reboots are often unexpected and the install can be lengthy. If Microsoft got it closer to Chrome (no forced reboots and applied without triggering a potential long "Configuring Windows Updates" stage), it'd be much less of an issue IMO. ------ BlackFly Windows update worked a lot better for me when there was the notification of updates. I shut my computer down every day, so I would update my computer every Tuesday when I turned it off. Now, they have completely broken my work flow for staying up to date. There are no "active hours", if my computer is on, I am using it. No, I don't want you downloading updates without my permission, I am actually trying to use my internet without latency and bandwidth issues. I understand I am not the majority of users, but it is very clearly the power users that understand windows update that are creating blog posts on how to disable windows update, so maybe to avoid the cobra effect Microsoft should cater to such power users even if the majority of people aren't going to use those features. As it is, for me, a more effective work flow would be to disable automatic updates and just check every Tuesday when I don't actively need my internet or mind my computer rebooting. The problem is, I am fallible. If only there was some way to remind me. ------ throwaway13337 Security fails when a large percentage of the your customers think it's too painful to use. That's a failing of your software, not the customer. OSX and Chrome gets it right. It's possible. ~~~ romanovcode I don't get it. How is updates painful? You do not have to restart your PC when they show up, just like on MacOS - you can click "Restart Later". ~~~ throwawayReply Windows is far more painful. Firstly, it'll keep prompting even if you choose "restart later". Secondly, unlike most linux environments, it doesn't perform the updates which take effect next restart, it actually performs the update next restart. That means if you find yourself needing to restart forgetting you've updated, you can find yourself suddenly having to wait a very long time before your computer is usable again. They often take multiple 'restarts' to apply, typically you might have to wait the first shutdown, then when it boots back up it'll be "applying updates", then it'll restart _again_ having done those updates. Occasionally you'll even get a third restart. That's compared to 'nix applying the updates but them not having taken effect until a restart which isn't normally noticeably slower than any other restart. ~~~ youdontknowtho They actually take a long time because people put them off. Catch 22. ~~~ masklinn I generally allow rebooting after each update is downloaded. I haven't had any case where it _did not_ take a long time, and putting off the reboot until after a second set of updates has downloaded doesn't seem to make it significantly worse. ------ krylon > Sometimes, updates will annoy you Unfortunately, that is an understatement. If you are using a Windows computer at home, it's one thing. If you are responsible for a company network of 80+ clients, Windows updates (pre Windows-10, at least, I have no experience with Windows 10, yet) are a little bit like Russian roulette. It's one thing if an update breaks third-party software; I suspect this usually means the third-party software did some questionable things begin with or is just crawling with bugs (I am looking at you, Siemens!). But if Windows updates break functionality like, say, communication with a WSUS, or booting properly (I could go on and on and on...), it is my responsibility to at least do some research how this month's update may affect my users, instead of blindly installing anything Microsoft throws my way. I wholeheartedly agree that keeping systems up to date is very important. But unless Microsoft gets its act together and makes updating as painless as on, say, Debian or CentOS, I am going to have mixed feelings on the subject. ------ taspeotis I think it's great that Microsoft are pushing updates but it's slowly wearing me down. Keep in mind I'm 100% on board with getting security updates out as broadly as possible as fast as possible. But for the last two days Windows Update has gone rogue and started gobbling up CPU. GOG Galaxy has gone nuts as well, I uninstalled it but I can't uninstall Windows Update. I can't even _stop_ Windows Update, it'll go into the "Stopping" state but ... no dice. It's like literally everything is coming for my CPU [1] for updates updates updates. It's a 6700K so there's 8 threads at 4GHz being used 60%... I'll probably re-install Windows 10 over the Christmas break and cross my fingers. [1] [https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE](https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE) (Windows Update is _Service Host: Local System (3)_ along with _Update Orchestrator Service_ and _Remote Access Connection Manager_. ~~~ yummy I've used W10 since it's release (August 2015) on many devices, and it only keeps getting worse. There's no way they do this unintentionally. At work I primarily use Linux, but also have a W10 laptop for testing. I'm used to the fact that the OS can eat all of your CPU and SSD (50-100% SSD usage for 30min? WTF is it doing?), you have no idea when it stops and you have no control over it. Last time I was unable to use the laptop for a good hour. Sometimes longer. ------ Silhouette I normally have a lot of time for Troy Hunt, but on this one I'm not sure I agree with him. If Windows Update provided only essential updates for security and stability by default, and if it did so transparently so everyone could see exactly what was being done and why, and if it did so with minimal interruption to the user's real work, he would have a decent argument. But none of those things is the case. Look at the comments on the article, or here, or on countless other forums since the Windows 10 fiasco started. Heck, look at Troy's own acknowledgement: _I 've had Windows Update make me lose unsaved work. I've had it sitting there pending while waiting to rush out the door. I've had it install drivers that caused all manner of problems. I've had it change features so that they work differently and left me confused. I've had it consume bandwidth, eat up storage capacity and do any number of unexplainable things to my machines._ I've seen those things too, and more. I've seen unfortunately timed updates cripple a sales team right before a crucial demo, months in the making, that was supposed to close a £1M deal... in a small business that closes perhaps 2-3 such deals a year and relies on them to pay everyone's salary. Not much point worrying about encrypted filesystems if your business went bust already. The fundamental problem here is that _Microsoft is no longer trustworthy_. They have demonstrated, repeatedly, that through both negligence and malice they will break systems that install their updates. The Microsoft that some of us trusted back when we bought our Windows 7 machines is not the Microsoft of the past few years, but we're stuck with those machines now, so we have to find the least risky path forwards taking into account as many potential problems as we can. It is far from clear to me, on the evidence to date, that accepting all of Microsoft's updates by default is safer than rejecting all of them by default. ------ sshagent Initially Windows 10 felt fresh and nice, combined with all the other 'nice' things Microsoft have been up to...i was happy. Being able to ssh from windows cmdline...excellent stuff. But... ...with every stupid update, and after every boot up Windows insists on settings, programs and games it wants you to have. Should i have to curate my own powershell script to disable and remove some of the shit that gets forced on me. I paid for my OS, why do i get to suffer like this. Microsoft please sort this out, you're pushing me away. You know, looking at the Steam for Linux game list now, we're getting close to a point where the Gamer in me might see an opportunity to leave. ------ thijsvandien I just hate the moving platform that Windows has become. Windows 7 did plenty of updates already and they could take forever or incidentally break something, but an installed system would essentially stay the same. As of Windows 10, anything can happen at any time. You install a system, do nothing and the next day it has Candy Crush on it. (Yes, you can fiddle with the registry, but WTF??) New functionality is pushed and with it, default behavior changes. The most annoying one that comes to mind was default printer management. From one day to the next, the default printer started changing. Every time there is one more thing to remember to turn off or work around, but it won’t be enough, because at a random point in the future, Microsoft will decide you want it differently. Sometimes they ask—Edge opening to show some release notes and conveniently using the opportunity to offer to make itself the standard browser—but not using the standard browser in the first place already pisses me off and that question is really one too far. Recently a family member clicked the wrong button, making Firefox disappear, resulting in a panic call because they “lost” their bookmarks, logins, etc. /rant There are many improvements since Windows 7 that I can appreciate, but those practices—together with the increasing privacy violations—are a complete shame. ------ Grollicus On the other hand python virtualenvs, npm, docker containers almost never get updated and people almost religiously fight for the ability to freeze packages at specific versions. ------ finnthehuman Well, yeah, obviously a bad idea. But the real question everyone in "security" should be asking themselves is "if the idea of having better security is such an easy sell to even the vaguely-clued-in, what have we implemented so poorly that people still use insecure practices? Or go out of their way to disable security?" The article's point here is that no matter how much windows update might suck, you still need to use it. And that's the problem with security people in general. It's not like they "think their shit doesn't stink" it's that they everyone must put up with whatever level of stench because security is just that important. Which gives them zero incentive to reduce the smell. They'll probably just blame the developers for fucking up the distribution mechanism the same way they blame developers for having the temerity to write bugs. Unfortunately, the impression I get is that "the security community's" answer is that users do things like disabling windows update because security hasn't been sanctimonious enough towards the unwashed masses, and we should just get on with taking away all of end users' control over their systems for their own good. ------ yellowapple It continues to amaze me that Windows is so terrible at system updates when pretty much every Linux distro out there has done it in a more-or-less sane way since day 1. openSUSE doesn't require sitting at the shutdown and startup screens for hours when I install a single update. Ubuntu doesn't forcibly reboot itself if I leave it unattended. CentOS doesn't disguise new "features" and nagware as critical security updates. Slackware doesn't burn through my mobile data constantly downloading updates. Even Android seems to do a better job than Windows, and Windows Update alone has existed for longer than Android has at all. If Microsoft knew how to do system updates in a way that wasn't an absolute fucking pain, then I'd be a lot less tempted to just turn off automatic updates on Windows. ------ stordoff If Microsoft et al. want me to leave Windows Update enabled, they either need to push way less updates (security updates only track) or at least make the install process faster (which would probably be helped by not pushing new features). Losing two days of progress on a video encode[0] due to a reboot when "you aren't using your PC", or pulling out my laptop to do something time-critical to be greeted with 20 minutes of configuring Windows updates, means I'm turning it off ("download and notify to install" Group Policy setting). These are real problems; malware is only a _potential_ problem (largely mitigated by keeping offline backups). [0] Fairly ridiculous x265 settings on a laptop CPU, as I'm not keeping the source files so want to ensure optimal quality. ------ orf You see a lot of this kind of thing in HN threads as well, (including using older unmainted/vulnerable browsers), where there is presumably a subset of users who have very strong feelings about automatic updates and are also blind to the security implications of disabling them. Keep your machines and software updated with the latest patches people. Keep your parents and non technical friends machines updated with the latest security updates. Don't ever tell them to disable it because your heavily customized windows 7 setup broke a little bit one time after a huge windows update. ~~~ Anarch157a Security patches are a good thing, but reseting privacy settings, reinstalling Candy Crush Whatever/Cortana/Skype, re-enabling spy/adware, changing the UI EVERY.DAMN.TIME. is definitelly not good. There are so much abuse people can take before they start considering the actual malware a lesser evil than Microsoft's malware-like OS. My Windows box is running 10 LTSB with wuauserv disabled. I keep zero important stuff there, most of my gamesaves are synced with cloud servers from the game's developers (Overwatch and Elite: Dangerous) or from the store (Steam and GoG), so I can wipe it out any time with no real losses. The important stuff (taxes, documents, pictures, etc.) are all on a notebook running Debian that is mostly kept cold. Speaking on Debian, Microsoft could learn a LOT from them. Specially with regards to the strict policy of not adding new features to a stable version. ~~~ Feniks One of the best things about LTSB is cumulative updates. I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month or so that quietly installs in the background. Like it was in Win7. And when its done it just sits there waiting for me to MANUALLY push the restart system button. Without ever nagging about it. Honestly regular Windows is a fucking joke. ~~~ Anarch157a > I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month That's a joke all by itself. Not even a rolling release distro like Debian Unstable or Arch produce that volume of patches in a whole year... Windows has two major problems in regards to updates: 1\. It's utter inability to update files that are currently open by programs. All Unix and Unix-likes can handle deleting/moving/replacing open files gracefully by keeping a reference to the old file in memory. Windows can't, so the only way to update the most used DLLs is by rebooting. 2\. It's a monolithic system, with so many cross dependencies, it's almost impossible to make small, punctual updates of independent packages. Hell, Unix was 23 years already when Windows NT 3.1 was finally released, MS used to develop and sell Xenix, yet they learned nothing from those. It ridiculous how inept they are handling updates. If they ever ask me how to do it properly, I'd advise them to throw the whole idea of Windows in the trash and start again from a BSD (or maybe buy Solaris from Oracle). Slap an improved WINE for partial, best performance compatibility and a full VM for lower performance, full compatibility. It worked well for Apple while transitioning from "classic" MacOS to MacOS X, it could work for MS, as long as they don't screw it up completely. ~~~ orf > It's a monolithic system FYI, Windows is anything but a monolith - especially the kernel. It's heavily built around services and message passing. Whereas actually Linux _is_ a monolithic kernel (granted, the ecosystem on top is not so much). ------ dvfjsdhgfv I actually agree with the person commenting the original article: > The "security updates" situation reminds me of organized crime's protection > racket: Either pay us to "protect" you or bad things will happen. In the > case of automatic "security" updates -- and not just Microsoft's -- we're > compelled to pay in computers and programs that are corrupted with unwanted > new behaviors. If you don't accept those, well then your computer will be > insecure. So "pay up" or else. ------ Grumbledour The thing I don't understand is the insistent nagging and it's persistence that a restart NOW is really needed and then often forcing you to restart. This all worked perfectly on windows 7. It downloaded in the background and would install whenever I restarted the system myself. No nagging, ever. Of course, I get why some people might have problems with automatic downloads or automatic installation on restarts, but I feel it was still worlds apart from the current windows 10 behavior and a good compromise between staying up to date and getting annoyed. So why has this actually changed? Why does it need to nag all the time now and force-restart in the middle of the workday? Who gains form this? ------ stephengillie In the newest AWS Workspaces images, Windows Update is disabled. I'm having to enable it manually on newly-deployed Workspaces. (Probably a bug that will get reverted on their next refresh.) ------ SAI_Peregrinus The biggest issue is reboots. They interrupt workflow. They stop the user using the computer for several minutes: the updates are applied after the reboot instead of being applied and then switching to the new binaries, the user has to save all their work manually, the user has to restart their applications manually, and the reboots often make new updates available requiring further reboots... Reboots are a DOS attack. Don't DOS attack your users. The same goes for "feature" updates that break the existing workflow. ------ betimsl Tell them to install a better OS. ------ jchw Having used a Chromebook, I hope someday desktop operating systems can become as easy to update. All you really ever have to do is restart and things are up to date. Mostly similar with Android on the Google Pixel phones. Google is oddly ahead of the curve with making updates really painless. Of course, inconvenient or not, it's pretty hard to deny that disabling updates is a stupid proposition. ------ oliwarner Holy fuck, CNET actually tells people to turn off Windows Update?! I'm starting to think published tech advice should be treated like legal or financial advice. If you give out stinkers like this and they turn out to be violently harmful to its readers, you are liable for it. Microsoft doesn't get off free —they've been cocking this up consistently— but turning off WU is antivax level stupidity. ------ sus_007 A Windows Insider Here, and while I'm enjoying the Ubuntu Subsystem on my machine, I somewhat regret opting in. I hate waiting for hours just for getting some negligible updates & patches for Windows Defender AV or a software I don't use like Paint 3D, Mixed Reality Viewer, etc . Still, I like showing off my fancy terminal to other Windows noobs. ~~~ slfnflctd I'm pretty happy with dual booting. Restarting the machine into a solid Linux distro on a modern machine takes maybe 30 seconds (often quicker restarting back into Windows), and it's nice to get MS out of my face for a while. The whole subsystem thing always seemed like the worst of both worlds to me. ------ ScottAS # of times I've lost Valuable data because of malware: 0 # of times I've lost valuable data because of Windows Update: ~10 # of times malware has made my computer unbootable: 0 # of times windows update has Made my computer unbootable: 2 ------ nofilter Last I checked, even if you wanted to, you couldn't turn off Windows Updates. ~~~ kachurovskiy Windows Update likes to kick in when I'm playing online, making fps drop to 10. Tried all the buttons to make it ask before downloading stuff but it didn't help. My last punch was disabling the Windows Update service. ~~~ pooper Please don't disable windows update for gaming. There is a gaming mode (which really ought to be called normal mode) which should help. The only other stipulation is you must keep your computer plugged in, turned on, and connected to the Internet as much as you can so windows can do its thing while you're not using it. ~~~ bschwindHN Windows: it's like a small child you have to take care of. They're lucky gaming is most popular on Windows, otherwise they've got zero going for them. ------ Necromant2005 For those who uses windows primally for gaming in its home protected network, it's better not to update windows forever, because a new patches and fixes only make windows slower. ------ pawelkomarnicki I find the Windows Update in windows10 pretty good :-) Not as good as OS X update mechanism, but it's miles ahead of what we had in previous Windows :-) ~~~ JensRex I'm reading this tread and thinking "am I the only person who's not bothered by Windows Update?" It just does whatever does, and occasionally asks me to reboot, which I do. And life goes on. ------ Feniks If only Microsoft could separate feature updates from security and bugfixes... Oh wait they can! They are! I'm using Enterprise LTSB. Solid as a rock. Windows as a service: they haven't done anything since 1607 that I want. ------ asdsasds As a Sys admin i can say only F __YO(( very much: \- delay windows update by 2 days \- see what happens \- ohhh no 1% users blue screen 10% auto update on \- watt for final path \- still blue screen of dead \- wait for new windows path \- install on 10% more machine do snapshots \- wiat for new pathes \- install on 10% machines \- ok its now works without issue \- install on 100% PC	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Forecasting with Econometric Methods: Folklore versus Fact (1978) [pdf] - henning https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=marketing_papers ====== zwaps Interesting article, but heavily biased approach. 1\. Econometrics, as defined here, would include anything regression or classification. Indeed, Machine Learning would be included as "Econometrics" by the author's definition. I think everyone, including econometricians, would say that Machine Learning is doing a pretty decent job at forecasting. The authors are thinking of classical regression, but maybe this is simply because it's an article from 1978? The answer may be: Perhaps we just weren't there yet? 2\. The primary goal of econometrics aka statistical inference is not forecasting. It is separating effects from confounders, in a multitude of fashions. Modern approaches are bad at forecasting, and this is almost by design. One tries to approximate experiments, in a sense, and experiments by definition do not forecast real, complex situations: They try to get rid of everything that makes reality complex. 3\. The definitions survey question can be understood as \- Statistics vs. qualitative research \- Econometrics vs. time-series econometrics \- Economics vs. other social sciences \- Regression vs. other statistical techniques \- ... In other words, the survey is designed to get the maximum agreement from economists. The "test", however basically evaluates the success of early simple linear regression studies. This is, essentially, what we call a biased research/survey design, to the degree that I'd suspect there is some sort of agenda at play! ~~~ bachmeier > The primary goal of econometrics aka statistical inference is not > forecasting. There are some in the economics community that agree with you. Believers in the Freakonomics/Josh Angrist tradition largely agree with this view. ------ dvfjsdhgfv The big question is: if forecasting with econometrics doesn't work, what other methods can we use? ~~~ bachmeier Please note that this paper is 40 years old and there is no reason for anyone to read it, with the possible exception of someone working on a history project.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Rant: The DRY Principle Is Bad Advice - rotemtam https://medium.com/@rotemtam/the-dry-principle-is-bad-advice-78c51afd5cf0 ====== danielovichdk DRY is simple and should not be thought too much off. Don't Repeat Yourself. Too many developers look at this principle with refatoring in mind, a lot more than it should be. If you have duplicate code, and by duplicate, i mean exact copy, then this principle applies. A 90% duplication is not a copy. It's close, but it's not a copy. Abstractions often come with a much higher cost than duplication. It's much easier to get your abstractions wrong than it is to keep things stupid and repetitive. Time is your friend here. Don't ever start abstracing, introduce it slowly and a small bit at a time. ------ kwhitefoot I stopped reading at the point where the article gave an example of the clients of the shared code being given extra responsibilities and claimed that the fact that both clients called the same library function meant that they could not be separately changed to cope with the new responsibilities. > you can't change one without the other. That's just nonsense. All the coder has to do is either make the shared code parametric or take a copy of it and hack it until it works (choose the approach that makes the most sense at the time). Alright, now it isn't shared, but so what? You can't always predict with certainty that the clients won't share the code at some distant point in the future any more than you can predict before writing it which bits of code will definitely be candidates for sharing. ------ mathgladiator The hardest thing about growing up in this field is understanding that every day is a practice of a dealing with competing priorities. As an example, I'm currently writing my own programming language at the moment for board games. I'm prioritizing shipping a game for my friends and myself to play, and this is forcing to leverage WET a great deal because I do not have the primitives yet to even contend with DRY. Now, interestingly enough, this has been fortuitous since I have many touch- points which enable specific tweaks influence by game rules. Without WET, I could see myself not making progress or refactoring endlessly. This is leading me down an interesting path, and I'm finally old enough to appreciate that things are going to be messy and weird. ------ Sevaris This seems like terrible advice and a terrible clickbait title. His conclusion is even this: > Coming full circle, I must admit, the DRY principle is a pretty important > piece of advice after all So DRY is fine. Just be sure you're deduplicating for the right reasons. Like every other "rule" we have out there for programming, there are caveats and you shouldn't be blindly applying rules. I hate people like this. ~~~ rotemtam If it got you reading all the way to the end and considering where and when should DRY be applied, what are its origins, and what are its limitations then I guess the title did its job just fine. ~~~ danaur No, regardless of the outcomes it's not okay to trick people into reading your article through misrepresenting yourself. ~~~ rotemtam here, a question mark was added to the title to better reflect the contents of the article. [https://medium.com/@rotemtam/the-dry-principle-is-bad- advice...](https://medium.com/@rotemtam/the-dry-principle-is-bad- advice-78c51afd5cf0?source=friends_link&sk=8f5d77ebee500b15d4427f419f792572) ------ skywal_l DRY is just a principle. It must be applied in accordance with common sense. As a character of one of Asimov's book used to say, "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right". ------ rurban "Repeat yourself for max 3-5 times" is a much better principle. Copy & paste is a fundamental principle for reason. Just when it becomes a burden you need to abstract.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Italy’s Struggling Economy Has World’s Healthiest People - davidf18 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-20/italy-s-struggling-economy-has-world-s-healthiest-people ====== madengr 40% unemployment? Maybe it's the lack of stress due to not working. Is there universal healthcare? How about education? If I didn't have to pay for healthcare, and save for 2 children's college, I'd quit in a heartbeat and work for myself. I'd bike every morning too. Americans are stressed from work, or stressed from lack of work with financial burden. ~~~ m0llusk It isn't about access to care, it is about lifestyle and community. This has had a lot of study and is similar to the so called Hispanic health paradox. Poor Italians and Hispanic people have better health than wealthy Americans because of their relations with extended family. As a result there is also a social cost in that such healthy and socially integrated people are less likely to be radicals. ------ tim333 I wonder how they figure the index. The link goes to "The article you requested is only available for Bloomberg Professional Service subscribers."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The US military could begin drafting 40-year-old hackers - jstoiko https://thenextweb.com/insider/2018/03/13/the-us-military-could-begin-drafting-40-year-old-hackers/ ====== redspectre The military is the antithesis of hacking culture: \- Play by the rules, even if they don't make sense, because I said so. \- Listen to people above your paygrade, even if they are clueless, because that's the way we do things around here. \- There's a simple rulebook and checklists to follow to complete your task, and if you don't follow the rules you get punished. \- Low pay for extraordinary work. \- Endless meetings and powerpoint slides. I know a lot of security folk, and none of them like any of these things. I don't know a single one who would enjoy making 40k a year while shining their boots for some drill instructor. What a total joke. You want to get good hackers? You gotta pay up and stay the out of their way. This is not a problem you can throw bodies at, and you can't coerce people to be good at hacking. ~~~ dfsegoat You are misinformed my friend. With respect to innovation and talent, and the military - One of the top officers in command of the US Marine Corps said this a few days ago, about the technical talent that the corps has been attracting [1]: "My eyes are watering with what our young people can do right now..I have an engineering background, but I’m telling you, some of these 21- and 22-year- olds are well ahead of me" and "The men and women in uniform, they’re impressing us, they’re really smart and they’ve got a lot of really good ideas,” Neller said. “We would be well served to turn them loose. I saw that at the Innovation Challenge.” They go on to describe how the USMC reduced an 18-month / $1500 maintenance operation for an M1 abrams tank, to 7-days / $50 by using 3D printing. That is remarkable when you know how wasteful the military acquisition process is. This post was about security, but my point is - the thinking is changing, and it doesn't matter whether the 'domain' is cyber, or land warefare (as above) - the top leadership is ready to leverage every ounce of the technical talents that these new generations have to offer, and as an American - that makes me feel great. Further, you can look at the US special operations command (SOCOM) and DARPA as other examples of military organizations which have discarded with bureaucratic process and traditional military organizational structures in order to attract the most talented people in the interest of national security. I have no horse in this race btw. I work for a private company, but I found your assessment unfair and worthy of reply at length. [1] - [https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/marines-love-affair- with...](https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/marines-love-affair- with-3d-printing-small-is-cheap-beautiful/) ~~~ redspectre I found your assessment out of context. The context of this article was essentially: "Should we force hackers to come work for us via selective service, even if they are older than the current cutoff age? Should we change the cutoff age to make this legal?" Yes, the military might be doing "impressive" things with people who VOLUNTARILY join, but I can assure you, if you draft hackers to work for the military in the same way you draft truck drivers and infantryman back in the 60s, you will get few if any good hackers. I know exactly zero hackers who think joining the Marines is an appealing venture. That was the essence of my comment. Nice try though, appreciate the propaganda about using 3D printers to waste less money killing people in other countries that never attacked us though. Thank god we are saving big money doing that. ------ King-Aaron Honestly asking - surely this isn't something that the United States would seriously consider in this day and age, is it? ~~~ Synaesthesia The NSA has had a long history recruiting elite cryptographers and keeping secrets from the public. Given today’s prevailing attitudes towards China and Russia (ie Cold War 2.0),I’m not shocked. ~~~ King-Aaron Hackers being involved with the government isn't what surprises me, moreso the consideration of bringing a draft back, after the public backlash from Vietnam. I would have expected it to be politically suicidal to even utter the word? ~~~ krapp >I would have expected it to be politically suicidal to even utter the word? Backlashes are cyclical and sometimes generational - the hippies against the beatniks, the yuppies against the hippies, etc. The current political and cultural zeitgeist in the US seems to be much further right and pro-war than it might have been 40 years ago. ------ brudgers Changing Selective Service rules is a long way off. Changing the rules is even further from instituting a draft. Instituting a draft across the universe from the sort of arbitrary conscription implied by the article. Arbitrary conscription of people from a well paid industry with the resources to hire good lawyers...yes it's a logical possibility. However the premises of the logical possibility include a centralization of state power in a way that excludes the interests of capital. Basically, conscription of forty year old IT professionals would require US political culture to become more like a Stalinist state. And a change to US military culture which has been built to maximize the benefits of a volunteer army, like better motivation than conscripts. ------ squozzer >On a side note, I once melted the face off of a GI Joe with a magnifying glass, burying him in a shallow grave in the backyard in an attempt to conceal the crime. That GI Joe, I presume, is now rolling over in his grave. Oh yeah? I used to destroy those cheap green "armymen" with firecrackers and sometimes gasoline. With respect to military culture, its rigidity is all over the map, and mostly depends on the nature of the unit's mission. ------ cafard Drafting or enlisting? I don't think that anyone born after 1953 ever was drafted. ~~~ jsjohnst I agree, the last year someone could’ve been born and drafted was 1952, but how does that change anything? I thought the article was talking about reinstating the SSS. ~~~ cafard It does--I hadn't bothered to read it, sorry. Still, I think it the plan impractical. Trying to draft those with the most resources to fight the draft is just not going to work well. The article is incorrect about radios and TVs. It was the very end of the draft era that the birthday lottery was introduced, and young men listened with great attention to see whether they came in under 100 (likely to be drafted) or over 300 (most unlikely). ~~~ jsjohnst > Trying to draft those with the most resources to fight the draft is just not > going to work well. Agree completely. ------ dsq this could be a way of silencing dissent, by drafting 'troublemakers' and putting them under martial law. Seems farfetched today, but in a situation of external threat, who knows?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Texas shooting: Devin Kelley's locked cell phone thwarts FBI - fmihaila https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/11/08/fbi-has-devin-kelleys-cell-phone-but-cant-unlock-it-obscuring-clues-texas-shooter/844694001/ ====== Gibbon1 I'm sure there is a trove of useful and important crap on that phone.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Behind every great fortune lies a great crime? - osipov http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2009/IO+June+2009+Staying+Rich+in+the+New+Normal+Gross.htm "Balzac was on to something 200 years ago, but to be fair to modern day multi-millionaires, the only real way to accumulate wealth prior to the 18th century was to steal it, or tax it,"<p>Will we ever go back to the economy where the only real way to accumulate wealth will be to steal it or tax it? ====== osipov "Balzac was on to something 200 years ago, but to be fair to modern day multi- millionaires, the only real way to accumulate wealth prior to the 18th century was to steal it, or tax it," Will we ever go back to the economy where the only way to accumulate wealth is to steal it or tax it? ------ ScottWhigham Why is this "Ask HN"? This is just submitting an article.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Re/code removes onsite comments - devindotcom http://recode.net/2014/11/20/a-note-to-recode-readers/ ====== goler I'm a re/code fan, but it would be a shame if other sites followed this move. User comments posted in social media are difficult to find after some time has passed, so removing comments from articles makes it difficult for future readers to get sense of the discussion around an article. While some re/code stories do generate great discussions, most don't. This move is a way for them to avoid reinforcing the feeling that there aren't many readers. ------ minimaxir See my rant on the HN submission when Reuters removed their comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8574156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8574156) ...although, in this case, not many people used Re/Code's comments anyways, mostly because it never worked due to a combination of LiveFyre and SSO.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Larry Ellison ‘Speechless’ Over New CEO of HP - markbao http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/10/01/larry-ellison-%E2%80%9Cspeechless%E2%80%9D-over-h-p%E2%80%99s-new-ceo/ ====== anigbrowl I was half-hoping he would emphasize his astonishment in pictorial fashion. Oh well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Travelling to work 'is work', European court rules - wj http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34210002 ====== furyg3 In the US, I worked for a consulting group in the bay area (Fremont). There was a big discussion about whether or not we were on the clock while driving to client sites, because some people wanted to live in Tracy and other people closer to the office, and the client sites were all over the place. So how to calculate this? One way to do it was just to say you have to show up to the the Fremont office before going anywhere ('fixed office'), but this can be wasteful for everyone, since the client site can be in the opposite direction of the office. The final agreement was that the time it would have taken you to get to/from the office was your own time, and from then on you're on the clock and paid. So if you live next to the office and get sent somewhere, your whole commute time to that place is paid. If you want to live in Tracy and drive an hour into work, that's ok, but your commute to the client site is only paid if it's longer than an hour or so. If you had to go to two client sites in a single day, the time between the client sites was always paid. Nobody really had any idea if this was legal or not, but all of the consultants agreed it was very fair. ~~~ alistairSH My wife's current employer handles it this way. And it does seem like a fair compromise for cases of occasional semi-local travel (in her case, a remote office that's 50 miles from home and visited monthly, vs. her usual 12 mile commute). Her previous employer didn't count any commuting to client sites as "on the clock". One of many reasons she left. Granted, this was a Beltway Bandit and all work was at client sites, but as contracts changed, her commute changed dramatically (not just within the city, but as much as 2 hours on the Interstate). ------ roel_v The article's headline is not in line with the ruling of course, but it's not even what most people in this thread are assuming. The ECJ's rulings are to be interpreted very narrowly. In this specific circumstance, the company _closed an office_ after which people had longer commutes. So this ruling in no shape or form means that people who took a job with a certain commute now all of a sudden will be paid for that commute! It's only the people where, through the choice of the employer, the commute has become longer, who can use this as a precedent. Precedent case facts matter a lot! ~~~ DanBC Doesn't this apply to eg care workers who visit clients in the client's home where the care worker's employer doesn't have a central office? The closing of the office is an unimportant detail of this particular case. I haven't seen anything else that interprets this case as narrowly as you do. ~~~ roel_v "The closing of the office is an unimportant detail of this particular case." Says who? _All_ precedent is to be interpreted narrowly in scope wrt to the facts, and that's not even taking into account that judge-made law as a concept is, in general, foreign to most EU jurisdictions (with the UK being the most notable exception). While there is not much dispute over the primacy of the ECJ over national law (although de jure this is not even a given!), there is no reason to assume that broad, general doctrines laid out by the ECJ all of a sudden constitute new law in the members of the Treaty (I mean, I'm not even talking about the ECJ-equivalent of a 'van Gend en Loos' ruling, I'm just talking about de factor interpretation by member state judiciaries and administrations). Furthermore I'm a bit perplexed at how easily you seem to dismiss the closing of the office, which is absolutely material to this case. It's quite different when a unilateral decision of a party affects the counter party, or if both parties knew what they got into from the start! Also, or maybe 'especially', in employment cases. Please tell what you base your assertion on, because it's in direct contradiction with all literature and practice. (and yes, I do have a law degree, although it's been a few years since I last studied any EU law, so I'm not claiming to be an expert here). ~~~ BlackFly Where is your law degree from? The vast majority of EU coutries follow civil law (as opposed to common law) and courts are supposed to interpret law, not interpret precedents. Basically the only holdout to this is the UK, which leads to civil law sometimes being referred to as Continental law. That being said, the closing of the office was definitely the important fact in this case, but this doesn't narrow the scope of the law. The law says that companies cannot require work weeks of more than 48 hours. Excluding commutes can lead to preposterous results, so there are a variety of circumstances where commute time must be considered as part of the work. This case just happened to be about one such set of circumstances. Where to draw the line is determined by the individual judges. ~~~ roel_v "The vast majority of EU coutries follow civil law (as opposed to common law) and courts are supposed to interpret law, not interpret precedents. Basically the only holdout to this is the UK, which leads to civil law sometimes being referred to as Continental law." Right, which is what I said. ------ lfowles > Time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers > without a _fixed office_ should be regarded as working time, the European > Court of Justice has ruled Oh well. ~~~ phowat Thankfully, because I wouldn't want to be discriminated against if I chose to live further away from work so I could afford a nicer, bigger place. ~~~ robzyb Fun fact: In Japan most companies will pay for your public transport ticket. Never heard any suggestion of discrimination based on this though. Although time cost > public transport cost. ~~~ patio11 _Fun fact: In Japan most companies will pay for your public transport ticket._ This is primarily a tax optimization, FWIW. If I pay you 10万 in cash, I owe the government ~１万 and you owe the government maybe 3万 or so (depends heavily on bracket). If I pay you 10万 for your train ticket, neither of use owes the government additional taxes. Thus, if we come to the agreement that your labor is worth 35万 a month to the company, it is in our mutual interest to characterize that as 25万 of salary and 10万 of "reasonable travel expenses." There exists a spectrum of how aggressive companies are on this one. Some play things very safe and use the actual cost of the shortest public transportation between your house and the office, going to _elaborate_ lengths to calculate that. Some say "We assume, unless you tell us differently, that transportation costs you more than 10万 a month, and will accordingly compensate you for the first 10万 of it." (The reimbursement is only non-taxable up to １０万.) (Edit to add: １万円 = 10k yen = ~ $100. Much like our Indian friends count things in lahks and crores, Japanese breaks numbers lower than a hundred million into a count of 10^4 rather than a count of 10^3.) ~~~ seanmcdirmid This is also why we get 600 RMB every month on a card in China for lunch. So Microsoft does offer free lunches to some employees, just not in the states. The 万 is used in China as well, confusing as heck when talking about home prices. ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel Funny how using 円 for both Yen and Yuan carried over to the dollar-style currency symbol, ¥, which is also shared. ~~~ seanmcdirmid I rarely see the yen symbol used, I don't even know how to type it, instead we have 人民币, 块, 元。 ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel Oh, I know it's not used in actual Chinese or Japanese text. It's more used in other languages in place of the hanzi/kanji. ------ xacaxulu The best thing about being a consultant and running your own business is that every expense or spent time around work is considered WORK. As a basic employee in the US, you never get these sort of benefits and write-offs. When I hear people commuting 1 hour to work, that means they work 50 hours a week (assuming a 40 hours at the office). Their hourly rate is effectively much lower. ~~~ pmiller2 This, for sure. I have a 1 hour commute now. When I go looking for another job, the commute time will be factored into the salary number I'm willing to accept. Every 5 minutes I add to my commute on average constitutes 3.33 hours a month doing things I don't want to and wouldn't normally do (commuting). The way an employer gets me to do things I wouldn't normally be doing for them is to pay me more. It's simple. I don't like to drive and hate sitting in traffic, so if I can't reasonably take public transportation, they have to pay me more to drive, too. This has resulted in me flat out turning down interviews with companies I'd otherwise consider, and I'm ok with that. ------ century19 I guess this should also apply to work trips then? I knew one guy who would only book a flight from 9am on Monday mornings, rather than being pressured into Sunday night or sillyAM Monday morning. When I told other people who travel for work abot this the response was pretty much that he should be fired. ~~~ jasonkester Sad, but this seems to be hardwired in to human nature. See also 6am-3pm, 10am-7pm, "four tens", telecommuting, unpaid leave to supplement vacation, and other things employees do to improve their own quality of life without harming anybody else. There's a dominant personality type that, when it sees somebody getting something nice seeks to tear them back down. The concept of "what a great idea. _I could do that too_ " never breaks into conscious thought. Only rage and the desire to bring the offender back to the status quo. Ideally with punishment. ~~~ century19 \-- Ideally with punishment Yes, or shame. "It will look like you aren't a hard worker." ------ Retra Makes sense; nobody is going to tell you it's not your job to get somewhere you are being payed to be. ~~~ verelo But...is it the employers issue if you choose to work 4 hours away from where you live? Are they allowed to not employ people based on where they live as it is going to impact their costs? I like the idea, but i get the feeling the implementation will result in no major benefit for anyone. Edit: I'm an idiot and i understand now :-) ~~~ thesimon "The ruling came about because of [...] a company which [...] installs security systems. The company shut its regional offices down in 2011, resulting in employees travelling varying distances before arriving at their first appointment." (Using US examples in the following, because probably the majority of the readers understand it better than European cities, even though it does not apply to the US). Say you are living in NYC where your company is based. Every day you get an email telling you where you have to install a new security system. One day it might be Brooklyn, one day it might be Washinton D.C, because everything is being managed from the central NYC office. Why exactly should traveling to and between the appointment (say Newark in the morning, Bronx in the evening) not be considered work? The employee is not living 4 hours away from the first appointment because he wants to own a bigger house, but because his employer has told him to work there. ~~~ owen_griffiths That example makes sense, but if you want to impose a rule you have to worry about the cases where it doesn't make sense. What about a plumbing business which dispatches jobs within a 5 mile radius. If the employee moves 2 hours away, suddenly the company has to pay 4 hours a day of commuting. The net result of this could easily be workers being required to travel to and from a central location as a workaround, when they could have better outcomes travelling straight from home - hurting the people you are supposedly want to help. ~~~ salvadors > What about a plumbing business which dispatches jobs within a 5 mile radius. > If the employee moves 2 hours away, suddenly the company has to pay 4 hours > a day of commuting. As you say, if the company has a fixed office at the centre of that radius, they can still tell the worker that their days begin when they arrive at the office, and then the 'worktime' begins once they get there, ready to travel out to the first customer. That's how many businesses operate anyway — and how the business at the centre of this case used to work. The case was brought once they closed that office down. ------ zhte415 Tangential, but related to the headline: In China, if an employee has an accident on the way to work, the employer is required to provide care and compensation (not liability compensation, just regular employee compensation) just as if the accident had happened in the workplace. This ruling was made in 2013. ~~~ forinti Same thing in Brazil. ------ DanBC I'm a bit confused how they claim this has no effect on UK minimum wage workers. If that travel time counts towards my 48 hours max working hours why doesn't it also count as time I should be paid for? ~~~ fennecfoxen In programming terms: namespacing. You have a set of activities which people do. You have validations on those activities. To determine whether a working arrangement is legal, all validations must pass. The UK has one set of validations. The EU has another. Some of them check the same things. Both the EU and UK validations make use of abstractions. One of these abstractions they reference is a particular symbol named 'work'. However, the symbol for 'work' is not defined in a common namespace or dictionary, but is instead private to each ruleset. Therefore if the EU court rules that 'work' must be defined a certain way for the purposes of EU regulations, it does not affect the UK regulations. If you think that's at all confusing wait until you hear about the government of the city of London. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c) ~~~ digi_owl that video kinda reminded me of the enclaves exclaves one. BTW, The City even has its own police force afaik. It really is a strange place... ------ jksmith Start the autonomous car, let it send a "punch the clock" event to work. Status: 1) Remote 2) in office 3) working, in route? Additionally, only accept meetings when status is 3). ~~~ bhc3 I'm convinced way down the road (ahem...pun) that autonomous vehicles are going to become our work spaces. We already see it with some people getting work done on their company buses. But those are limited in terms of letting you work fully. In our future, you'll have your own personal space on a self-driving car. Room for proper placement of your laptop + keyboard. Ability to loudly participate in conference calls. Dual screens. And this opens up home ownership possibilities. Bay Area home prices are going through the roof. If companies want to hire people, they need to account for housing prices. Well, why not hire people who live 2 hours away? For example, the job may be in San Francisco (median home price $1.063 million), but the employee lives in Roseville (media home price $372,200). The work day starts with the 8 am commute. Our employee lets the vehicle drive and starts working. Emails, documents, conference calls, etc. He then shows up in the office at 10 am. Gets that key face time and benefits from those serendipitous moments that only occur in person. Exits the office at 4:30 pm to return home, working on the commute. Has dinner with the kids and helps them with the homework. One can see real possibilities for positive change once we have autonomous vehicles. ~~~ Raphmedia I've been thinking about this a lot. I think that ultimately, a lot of offices are going to be replaced by virtual reality offices. This would cut our dependance on commuting. ------ simonjgreen This is for people without fixed offices eg travelling salespeople etc. This is not saying your daily commute is work. The title of this submission is very misleading ------ rockdoe Does this apply to consultants going to a customer (where they may be for a longer period of time)? ~~~ Cthulhu_ I've been wondering that, since I'm in the same situation. But, in my personal situation, our contracts are generally for longer terms, so I guess it is a fixed office - and we have a fixed HQ too. Which we don't generally visit during our workdays though. Even if it would apply to consultants though, I doubt anything would change. Right now there's already laws in place here (NL), or just a company agreement, about longer commutes, iirc any commute longer than an hour can be written down as working hours. ~~~ rockdoe _But, in my personal situation, our contracts are generally for longer terms, so I guess it is a fixed office - and we have a fixed HQ too._ The issue is that you have no control over the location of these changing "fixed" offices, so your employer is free to assign you to a customer halfway across the country. Sounds exactly like the kind of situation this ruling is supposed to protect against. ------ conceit My place of work is fixed, but it's not an office. So, does this apply to me? :) ------ bullen No, travelling to a work today is just stupid, work from home! ~~~ coldtea How does that work for a plumber? You fix your own plumbing? ~~~ xacaxulu For a lot of people on Hacker News, traveling to work is stupid. Of course electricians and plumbers must go on-site, but let's consider the general audience here. ------ leovonl Clickbait title. ------ supriyarao Would love to see this implemented in Bangalore! With the traffic jams, one could get paid for just leaving home to get to work ~~~ xwat Haha yeah, then you would see how fast would corporations allow working remotely (if the nature of the work makes it possible). ------ D_Alex So... for _some_ people, the work day now starts as soon as they leave the house. Now those with a "fixed office" can feel they are being hard done by... I have a feeling we started sliding down a slippery slope here. ~~~ scrollaway Your own life has not gotten worse just become someone else's life has become better. There are other comments explaining why this is a needed law. I'll let you read them. ------ wavefunction Hopefully this puts more interest among executives and managers towards distributed/remote teams. ~~~ mhurron Know how I know you didn't read the article? ~~~ wavefunction I read some of the article. Did you know that? I guess you signaled that you did not know that with your contentless comment. ------ Frozenlock I wonder if Europeans see the vicious circle they are in. Step 1: More job regulations. Step 2: Employees cost more and are harder to get rid of; Businesses less inclined to hire. Step 3: Jobs are hard to get, so employees ask for more security from the government. Repeat. ~~~ Animats Like Germany, unemployment rate 4.7% and strong job protections? ~~~ Frozenlock No, more like all the countries that aren't Germany. Or do you think it's a breeze seeking a job in France (unemployment ~10%), Italy (unemployment ~13%), Spain (unemployment ~20%), Greece (unemployment ~25%)... There's many others if you want to take a look. [http://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment- rate-...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate-in-eu- countries/) ~~~ bildung Please take a look at the following graph: [https://sturdyblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/greece- workin...](https://sturdyblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/greece-working- hours.jpg) _All_ your listed countries have higher working hours than Germany. In fact, the working hours in Greece are _50% higher_ than in Germany. Annual working hours are highly correlated with unemployment rate. Note I'm not saying that a _causes_ b, but the correlation is obvious. On the other hand, there is no empirical evidence of workers' rights protection causing unemployment. That narrative often gets repeated, but that doesn't make it true. ~~~ Frozenlock > Annual working hours are highly correlated with unemployment rate. Note I'm > not saying that a causes b, but the correlation is obvious. Interesting... but like you said, it's just a correlation. Could as much be that people are less likely to work many hours when there's full employment, or when a country is richer. > On the other hand, there is no empirical evidence of workers' rights > protection causing unemployment. That narrative often gets repeated, but > that doesn't make it true. As a business owner, every additional regulation regarding employees is increasing my cost. (And it doesn't matter if I would have agreed anyway with what the law says; I still have to waste time learning it, more paperwork, less flexibility.) So I know that the more regulation there is in this field, the less _I_ 'm inclined to hire. It's not a narrative, that's _my_ reality. ~~~ bildung _> As a business owner, every additional regulation regarding employees is increasing my cost._ My point was that it doesn't matter if every other business in your industry bears the same burden, too. Your competitive position stays the same. No profit opportunities are lost. ~~~ hwstar This. There is an American mindset which needs to change. We have a lot of businesses complaining about regulations, yet other countries with more regulation seem to conduct business in a profitable manner. In fact, it could be argued that the businesses operating in a more regulated environment, are probably more robust than their American counterparts because the regulations add stability and reduced uncertainty. A lot of American business owners complain that their business is "hanging on by a thread". This is because they are operating at the lowest energy state which provides little safety margin for failure. If there were stronger regulations in America, then fragile business models would not be able to attract investment.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Programmatic access to the call stack in C++ - kilimchoi http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2015/programmatic-access-to-the-call-stack-in-c/ ====== forrestthewoods I find it pretty annoying how often things are advertised as C++ but are Unix specific. As someone who ships Windows + OS X + Linux I'm pretty biased though. Anyhow, there's pretty good support for stack traces on Win64. For 32 bit it's less good. [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/ms6...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/ms680650$v=vs.85$.aspx) ~~~ nwmcsween dwarf debug info is a part of x86_64 abi ------ mzs Cool thanks for mentioning libunwind. I had used backtrace() and libexecinfo where that was not available with not as good results. ~~~ eliben libunwind is awesome. It uses the same information for its job that the actual compiler uses for unwinding exceptions in C++, etc (DWARF .eh_frame & co). It's also much more portable these days (I believe backtrace() is glibc- specific). There are also remote unwinding capabilities I want to play with ~~~ cokernel_hacker Darwin (iOS and Mac OS) have it too: [https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/backtrace_symbols.3.html) ~~~ eliben Ah cool. But I'm fairly sure that these days os x uses libcxx which uses libunwind ~~~ boulos I seem to recall them implementing the unwind _interface_ but with standard rbp/ebp unwinding. As in [http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/Libc/Libc-498.1.1/gen...](http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/Libc/Libc-498.1.1/gen/backtrace.c) and [http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/Libc/Libc-825.25/gen/...](http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/Libc/Libc-825.25/gen/thread_stack_pcs.c) My biggest problem with "standard" libunwind is how slow it is compared to a whole loop against the registers (which of course isn't reliable with -fomit- frame-pointer). IIRC, the gcc's call to backtrace actually parses DWARF to work around this (and thus is super slow).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Specialising Dynamic Techniques for Implementing Ruby (TruffleRuby, 2015) - tosh https://chrisseaton.com/phd/ ====== tosh discussion from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791428)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use - ch4s3 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/20/its-final-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/?fb_action_ids=277355565775300&fb_action_types=news.publishes ====== beloch First off, let's take a moment to appreciate what we've got. Gasoline is fantastically dense in energy. Approximately 46 MJ/kg! Ethanol is about half as energy dense, which is why it is usually mixed with petroleum gasoline. Engines must be specifically designed to operate on pure ethanol. Going from the numbers quoted on Tesla's site, their Roadster's lithium ion battery packs have an energy density of 0.456 MJ/kg. If you want to have the same range, electric vehicles have to devote over a hundred times more weight to batteries than gas-guzzlers do to their tank contents. To make matters worse, spent gasoline weighs nothing while spent batteries weigh the same as full batteries. Electric motors are mechanically simpler/lighter and innovative design can carve even more weight off of new vehicle designs, but there is a very good reason why cheap, long-range pure electric vehicles are still a ways off. Lithium ion batteries are also pretty nasty things to produce in terms of environmental impact. It's debatable if a plug-in electric vehicle run off of solar/wind/etc. power actually has less impact than a small gasoline car does at present. If the power used comes from coal then an electric car is actually a huge step in the wrong direction. Also note that the U.S. is not a major producer of Lithium, so dependency on foreign nations is not broken by switching to electric cars. If corn derived ethanol is worse for the environment than petroleum derived gasoline, the only reasons to use it are economic. If it's cheaper, people will likely use it. (Nevermind that so-called "biofuels" often command a premium because people think they're environmentally friendly!). However, if biofuels are bad for the environment, electric cars are bad for the environment, and other alternatives are not yet commercially viable, what does that leave? Well, sadly, it means stop driving so much! Use public transit. Bike. Walk. Carpool. Stop throwing irrational hissy fits about pipelines meant for safely transporting petroleum if it's the least harmful option that's currently available. Hopefully better electrical storage technologies will become available before too long. Nanomaterials do potentially offer ways to make capacitors powerful enough to eclipse current chemical battery technologies. This is years or decades off into the future unfortunately. I'm not saying all this to be a drag, but most people really think battery technology has come a lot further than it actually has. Gasoline is still pretty darned useful stuff. ------ tim333 The whole corn ethanol thing amazes me. How they can throw $30bn a year into a program than makes the environment worse is surprising. I realise the recipients of the cash they pay a proportion back to the politicians to keep the thing going. But really - a $300bn or so cost over the life plus producing hunger in poor countries by burning the food? I'm surprised the political system is actually quite that bad. On the plus side I'm optimistic about algae produced ethanol that companies like Algenol are trying to produce. ~~~ randomdata As someone who grows corn (in a country where the crop is not subsidized, I might add), the way I see it is that we're going to grow the corn anyway, so turning it into fuel is better than letting it rot away as was happening before the ethanol program was put into effect. The problem is that our crops need to be rotated. Corn seems to be the only crop that fills the gaps that is also compatible with the equipment we use to grow other grains. The market doesn't give us incentive to shell out millions more for equipment to grow crops that are a radical departure from what we're already growing (grains and oilseeds for human and animal consumption). It's far from perfect and is really a stopgap measure, but I'm not sure what the alternative to growing corn is. That is the problem that needs to be solved. It's not simply a matter of no ethanol = no corn grown. The corn is going onto the market regardless. At least ethanol can recapture some of that energy. ~~~ zhte415 I'm curious about corn rotting. I live in a country that produces quite a lot of corn. Some is sold as fresh produce, but any surplus ends up on the rooves of farmers' houses, dried, consumed during the winter as the major starch. The husks are used for fuel - quick and hot burn stir fry. There is no need to let corn rot. Why let it rot? ~~~ hga We certainly didn't let it rot in the US before this debacle. The corn is dried using propane or maybe natural gas if the farm is lucky enough to have a hookup, the husks, or sometimes the whole plant, are used for silage and fed to animals, as is most of the corn, although that's generally sold to middlemen and bought by feedlots for cattle, and those who specialize in feeding other animals. ~~~ randomdata Perhaps I didn't fully characterize the situation. Certainly we had other uses for corn, but around the year 2005-2006 there was so much corn being grown it started to exceed the storage capacity and immediate need for the crop, so it was being dumped outside because there was nowhere else to put it. Exposure to the elements started the process of decay. The ethanol programs came in to use up those excesses. ~~~ hga I do remember that, but it was a temporary problem. E.g. right now at least my part of the Midwest is suffering from 3 years of drought, and we haven't had even 1 inch total of rain this spring since snow stopped. Save during the fat years, consume during the lean years and all that. ~~~ randomdata Which technically should be sorted out through the market price. Ethanol is only viable when corn is cheap, which is only reached when supply greatly exceeds demand. However, then you run into people not liking their jobs tied to the random fluctuations of the corn market. The whole situation is kind of a big market failure full of small patches trying to stop the leaks. ~~~ hga I don't think it's a "market failure" so much as people not being willing to accept that "Sorry, today the value for the corn you painstakingly grew is close to $0", and they've been told since at least the '30s that the Federal government will take care of them (well, back then, it would if they were Democrats). The New Deal policies, BTW, both raised food prices while the same USDA (US Department of Agriculture) estimated 25% of the population was malnourished, which was confirmed by the WWII draft. Which lead to the Federal school lunch program, which was eventually widely extended to breakfast, and now even dinner I hear in some places. ~~~ randomdata The government needing to take care of you seems like a pretty big market failure to me. And those attempts to take care, instead of solving the root of the problem, is what has ultimately lead to the need for ethanol. ~~~ hga Well, the problem is, how does a society address the issue of steadily decreasing commodity prices as science and engineering produce them? The New Deal helped farmers, back then a much larger percentage of the population, at the expense of everyone else. The real solution was to move people from farming to industry, or as it turned out, the US military and industrial production to support it for WWII (and per the WWI song, " _How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? (After They've Seen Paree)_" (Paris), between that, the "GI Bill" subsidizing college education, learning all sorts of useful skills, etc. I gather many if not most didn't return). The New Deal, as I've pointed out above, didn't really solve the problem when it's policies damaged so large a portion of the population. No Holodomor, but just as deliberate. I've seen a newsreel of this: [http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.ht...](http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.html) ; you can imagine what hungry people back then thought when they saw it. ------ cheepin How did these laws pass (besides lobbying from people growing corn)? I wasn't following too closely at the time. ~~~ randomdata Leading up to that time we had corn coming out of our ears and elevators were quite literally leaving it out to rot. The energy was already spent, ethanol was just a plan to recapture it. It wasn't completely misguided. ~~~ ams6110 There was a good bit of uncritical, emotion driven thinking as well. Corn == bio == green != oil thus must be good. ------ acjohnson55 _In 2000, over 90% of the U.S. corn crop went to feed people and livestock, many in undeveloped countries, with less than 5% used to produce ethanol. In 2013, however, 40% went to produce ethanol, 45% was used to feed livestock, and only 15% was used for food and beverage (AgMRC)._ Why the heck would they state the comparison this way? That just seems unprofessional. ~~~ fludlight Because a journalist quoted someone from the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. Journalists aren't good at math and marketing people pretend not to be. The raw date is here (see table 5): [http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/us-bioenergy- statistic...](http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/us-bioenergy- statistics.aspx#.U1Sh--ZdW51) ------ tezza I wouldn't say _no_ use. Instead I'd say no _current_ use. Some power uses cannot be electrified ( nuclear powered airplanes ? ) David Mackay estimated[1] that if there was no fossil fuel left / consumed we'd need to use 12% of our arable land for biofuel as: _" There are a few essential vehicles that can’t be easily electrified"_ [1] [http://www.withouthotair.com/c27/page_204.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c27/page_204.shtml) ~~~ waps > "There are a few essential vehicles that can’t be easily electrified" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119) Specifically the Tupolev Tu-95LAL is a nuclear powered aircraft. Only one was ever made. I love the Soviet tech programs. ------ mixmastamyk There are reasons besides environmental ones to encourage use of biofuels (hopefully made from more than corn). One is that ~10% less oil has to be imported during production shortages. It's not a complete solution, but a minor part of one. ~~~ gscott My wife started using E85 fuel her gas mileage went from 22mpg to 17mpg. Even though there was a subsidy on the fuel she ended up having to purchase more. She has since switched back to regular fuel. ~~~ mixmastamyk The math is a bit more complex than 10% and why I put the ~ there. ------ afhdshufdufdo Most new cars will be electric in 10 years. Then instead of oil, coal or nuclear (power plants) will be the primary power source and ethanol for automobile fuel will be a minor issue. ~~~ i80and I agree with you, but battery technology has some pretty serious problems for cars that can't be ignored. How do you deal with the replacement cost and lemon risk (battery leasing and warranties). For me, cars are for road trips. How is that usage addressed (open question, aside from putting superchargers _everywhere_ usable for all electric cars). How do you deal with the power grid costs? Power mains aren't build to handle the kind of scale that rapidly charging electric cars needs (???). ~~~ bruce511 Your other into aside, which certainly are important questions; >> for me, cars are for road trips... It's probable that many people have taken a road-trip holiday at some point in their lives. Some percentage of people do it regularly. However anecdotally I would suggest most people have not. Outside the US conditions for the road-trip holiday are not as prevalent. In high-density Europe for instance there are easier ways to travel (train for example). In Asia "most" people don't own a car and driving for fun is almost unheard of. The perfect conditions for a road-trip exist in large countries with lots of open spaces, good roads, good places to stay interesting places to get to and so on. USA, Australia, South Africa and so on. A motoring holiday in the UK is brilliant, but the short distances would work fine with simple recharge points. It's hard to drive for 4 days solid in the UK without just going around in circles. Of course the idea of the road trip is more fun than the road trip itself, and we end up doing a trip maybe once every few years. I use my car every day to commute. It's the idea that I _could_ do a road trip that seems to be the logic against electric, but in practice I don't actually do one all that often. (some people do, but they're a tiny minority) Heres my point. Do the math. Simply hire a petrol car when you want to do a road-trip. For most people that will be never, for others it might be every few years - for a tiny fraction it will be often. The tiny fraction can continue to drive petrol. The price of oil isn't coming down, so that will be more and more expensive. On the up side every road-tripper should lobby for electric cars all day long. Using petrol for commuting is a terrible waste, and when it runs out its the road tripper who will be hurt. Frankly electric cars today have more than enough range for daily use for 360+ days in the year. As the price of oil rises over the next 10 years the economics for electric make a lot more sense. ~~~ hueving >some people do, but they're a tiny minority Do you have any citations for that? I do a trip once a year or so of about 1000 miles and it never really surprises anyone when I tell them that so it must not be that uncommon.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Speakers Earn $30,000 an Hour - Confessions of a Public Speaker - baha_man http://oreilly.com/social-media/excerpts/9780596802004/why-speakers-earn-30k-an-hour.html ====== oldgregg I spent 7 years helping to build one of the largest speaking bureaus in the country before leaving a couple years ago to launch an unrelated startup. Couple observations: The business is dominated by celebrities. If you are an event planner often all you care about is getting people to show up-- so you'll pay $30k for a celebrity who is a lousy speaker over $5k for someone who is a real expert. We made a real effort to develop some tech related speakers but it was difficult to do. It's not worth it for a large agency to book 1-2k engagements. More importantly, if you want to have a speaking career you have to be consistent in your pricing. You can't charge someone $5k for a speech and then give your next speech away for $500. Most tech speakers if you tell them they can't accept any dates less than $5k they really don't like that. Often what has gotten them recognition is giving away their content (both on the web and speaking) for free or nearly-free and so the shift is hard to make because in the short term they have to turn down free exposure. Sadly most of the tech speakers making 10-20k are total wankers. You've probably never heard of them and they are mostly full of shit. They haven't done anything particularly remarkable but they have their pitch down and know how to sell it to bureaus and CEOs. I've seen people walk away with $15k for a one hour talk about how second life is the future of business accompanied by a walk through-- and the audience walks away with a big chubby. What a joke. ~~~ joe_the_user Fascinating parent and fascinating though depressing article. I tried to help a would-be new age guru more up in that world and it's a strange freak-o-nomics situation. Rich are the most desirable customers for any establishment that doesn't seat 60K people. The rich have more time than money, so they don't mind spending a lot of money for a positive experience. But the rich also don't have a lot of time to determine who's an actual good speaker or spiritual healer or whatever. So they instead go with those who are preselected. That's celebrities of some kind. Many celebrities still have poor skill levels, we can be sure. But they might be a _bit_ better than non-celebrities. If the rich had the time to research the matter, they could find even better speakers but they won't spend extra time researching the question for the same reason they will pay $1000 - their time is worth more than their money. It's paradoxical - there's lots of money to be if one can master these processes but virtually by definition only a few do so. ~~~ keeptrying Why is this depressing? This is how the world works right now. If your an entrepreneur you should want to make it better and earn a living (or a 100 livelihoods) from this situation. I've seen lots of businesses which focus on allowing the rich to make better use of their time. 1\. A service which looks for all the new restraunts in NYC and gets each user a booking to such openings. 2\. Social network for high networth individuals. 3\. A "linkedin" for CEOs and COOs. (A friend works for one of these and he makes a ton of money just as a salesperson). I personally dont think I could be passionate about such a business but I've seen that people who have the means to pay usually are more likely to pay (at least Americans are). ------ RiderOfGiraffes I do talks for schools and various other organisations such as the Royal Institution, the Royal Society, the Further Maths Support Program, and others. The groups for whom I speak have very, very small budgets, and there's no chance of commanding fees like this. I do it because I think it's important. I take time unpaid leave from work, and I use my vacation time. I get my expenses covered, and a moderate fee, ranging from ukp50 (about usd80) to ukp400 (about usd650) per talk. And I do between 90 and 100 talks a year. I'd love to make my living doing this, but 100 talks, to earn ukp40k, usd64k, I'd have to charge usd650 plus expenses for every talk. Schools can't afford that. I'm not claiming to be a great speaker, although I'm over-subscribed, and described as one of the UKs leading speakers on math and science, but schools can't afford to support me. 100 talks a year is a real grind. 20 talks a year is genuinely sustainable, given that after a short time you'd have to change what you talk about. There's a lot of work goes into a really good talk. If you're charging lots, you are ethically required to put in the work to give a good talk. At 20 talks a year, to make, say, usd 100k you need to charge usd5k. No wonder schools can't get inspirational speakers. ~~~ tbrooks _"No wonder schools can't get inspirational speakers."_ Uh really? I was an agent at a bureau (same as oldgregg) and only booked speakers for K-12 events. The average speaker fee I booked was above $10k. Schools DEFINITELY have money to book big time speakers. The money comes through Title I, Title II, or NCLB funds. The reason you're only making $650usd per talk is because you're probably negotiating your own price. It's hard for you to justify a $5000 fee to a school who gives you some push back. Trust me they have the money. You just have to be willing to walk away if they don't meet your budget requirements (whatever they may be). ~~~ gaius From the use of Royal I assume he's in the UK, and any State school that spent GBP 10k on a speaker would be pilloried in the press. That's not to say that schools are short of money (they have more than they know what to do with in their IT budgets alone), but there's that perception. ~~~ tbrooks I'm surprised US schools are pilloried in the press. These are public schools, all this information is available through Freedom of Information Act. The press would have a field day, if say, your local school district booked Dan Pink for $35,000. ------ simonw I do a lot of public speaking[1], and occasionally earn a speakers fee for doing so. I'd be interested in doing more paid speaking gigs (in particular the in-house type) but it's not at all obvious how to get them. There are plenty of speaking agencies for celebrities / motivational speakers, but nothing for technical speakers. I've been thinking for a while that there's an interesting business opportunity here - a speaking agency that specialises in technical topics ("the guy who created Solr" / "one of the Linux kernel comitters" / etc) and goes out and sells them to companies that want to know more about specific technologies. [1] <http://simonwillison.net/talks/> ~~~ concretecode I enjoyed your Django and OpenID talks at Webstock in 2008 - they fit the conference and audience perfectly. However Webstock is a 400 person conference hosted in a remote part of the world. I'm not convinced that the niche of conferences that want speakers for such technical topics is large enough to support an agency you described. ~~~ simonw I'm not so interested in an agency for conferences, since most of the conferences I speak at can't afford to pay their speakers (or if they can, don't pay them enough to make it worth having an agency involved). I'm interested in an agency that gets bookings for private talks at companies - really sort of one day consulting gigs. In my case, I'd give a talk at a conference like Webstock and note at the end (probably just in text on a slide, no need to say anything out loud) that I'm available for internal talks at private companies. If anyone in the audience asked me about this afterwards I'd put them in touch with the agency. The agency negotiates pricing / travel / etc, and also actively sells my talks in other media (taking out adverts in "CTO Monthly" promoting the 20 or so speakers and topics in their stable). I'm pretty confident that the niche of companies that want to engage technical experts for a combination of tech talk + a day consulting in the office is big enough to support something like this. I just have no interest in doing it personally - the reason I want it to exist is so I don't have to negotiate / market / coordinate the above points myself. ------ zaidf Did anyone else wish the author just stuck with talking about public speaking than all the other issues he tries to play off of(ie. clean water)? I gained insights that I enjoyed but it didn't have to be this long and convoluted. Then again, may be he is just proving his point about public speakers:) ~~~ mattm It's a sample chapter from his book, not a blog post, so the content will differ from most online articles. ~~~ jeremymcanally I have to admit I wouldn't read that book if that's indicative of the general content and tone. I hate how these days it's wrong to just write solid non-fiction without wrapping it in some vacuous story. Yes, illustrate your point, but make it relevant rather than just flowery words to make it more "readable and approachable." Bah, I say. ~~~ eric_t I agree, extremely annoying. I just skipped to the last sentence in every paragraph. ------ redsymbol Whenever I give talks (2 or 3 sizable tech talks a year), I practice... a LOT. Like, go through the full, whole talk at least 15 times in its polished final form. If you count the more exploratory earlier practices, I think it's more than 30 or 40 practices, every talk. So far I've only ever been paid a portion of travel expenses, which is why I don't practice more (honestly, I think practicing the final version only 15 times is kind of lazy). At $5,000 a gig... I think in the end I'd still be making a bit less per hour than I do programming, because I'd practice a lot more. The good thing is that I could suddenly _afford_ to take the time to practice more :) ~~~ simonw Wow, that's a lot of practices. I generally go by Damian Conway's rule of thumb: 10 hours preparation time for every hour of talking, or 20 hours prep if it's a difficult talk. I make sure the preparation includes at least one full run through (out loud in an empty room, usually my hotel room) with plenty of time to spare to fix things that inevitably come up. I'll do another run through once I've made the changes. ~~~ pbhjpbhj I rarely give talks but I find it difficult to do a full talk-through as prep as I don't have the adrenaline buzz and can't put the enthusiasm into speaking to a wall that I do when talking to people. Any tips? I'm a very nervous speaker! ------ decode I'd never heard of this guy or his speaking, so I looked around for something. Here's a 1-hour lecture on innovation, that is at least quite entertaining, and possibly informative: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amt3ag2BaKc> ~~~ joe_the_user Interesting how you can watch him for free on Youtube or for $50 or $500 dollars in person. I watch five minutes of him on his site. He indeed seems like a good though perhaps hyper-aggressive speaker. ------ sriramk I just spent the morning reading this book through O'Reilly's Safari access. It is absolutely brilliant and is up there with Presentation Zen and Slideology as 'must have' books if you're a speaker. Here's the thing though - despite Scott's best efforts, I don't think this book helps you if you're not already a speaker or somehow interested in speaking. But if you are one or someone like me who enjoys it and is looking to polish 'the craft' this is great. Scott notices a lot of patterns, some of which I do unconsciously and never noticed before. Highly recommended. ~~~ jlees Thanks for the recommendation. Due to this sample chapter and recently getting a Kindle, I now own the book... this is too easy :( (Or not due to 'copyright issues' - WTF. Phew. The point about it being too easy still stands.) ------ andrewhyde I've been to a few conferences with Scott and watched a few presentations. Stand up guy. He is one of the best out there, excited to see the rest of the book.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Webshop with the most amazing design ever - tobiasf http://www.arngren.net/ ====== arkitaip I love it. Imagine being a kid and opening this web site: it's very visual and very obvious what they are selling. ------ iask Brings back so many memories...and felt like a kid again. ------ btown NSFW	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Gates testifies in $1B lawsuit against Microsoft - jamesbritt http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYzn1xEmIu0lbdWczON4Iyj5akvQ?docId=b62c8d3e439643ddbded9bb0cee899a6 ====== hunterjrj Forgive what could be a naive question but... why now? ~~~ wmf Novell was probably running out of money and decided to cash in on some old grievances. ~~~ mburst This is probably the sad truth. I'm surprised the courts even opted to hear a case this old being brought up for the first time. Technology has come a long way since then..	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Facebook to integrate the infrastructure for WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger - tysone https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html ====== wyldfire > Mr. Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end > encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from > being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation. I don't blame NYT for getting this wrong wrt WhatsApp but it bears repeating: if you let someone else broker the key exchange, you trust them implicitly. That is to say that IMO this is not truly trustworthy "end to end encryption". To add insult to injury, WhatsApp permits rekeying to take place without any indication to the conversation's participants [in the default settings]. ~~~ bouncing > if you let someone else broker the key exchange, you trust them implicitly. Sort of. Yes, they could serve you a MITM key, but it would be easily discoverable when you compare security codes in the client. And since the client is widely distributed on major app stores, it would be very risky to ship a compromised client. Ultimately key exchange is a hard problem to solve. Notice that Signal doesn't do anything that much different; Signal does the key exchange and unless you verify each user's key offline, you have to trust it. Both WhatsApp and Signal have an option to display a notice when keys change, but Signal's is on by default. Overall it's still pretty damn good. WhatsApp is perhaps the only major form of consumer communication where, by default and with no opt-out, every single chat really is fully encrypted using a widely respected protocol (libsignal). That's not nothing. ~~~ feanaro > Notice that Signal doesn't do anything that much different; Signal does the > key exchange and unless you verify each user's key offline, you have to > trust it. Let's not forget Signal is FOSS and has reproducible builds ([https://signal.org/blog/reproducible- android/](https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/)). This makes it far easier to trust its verification code. ~~~ crankylinuxuser Yes, signal is better than FB or sms.. But the whole requiring phone number puts a nail in it on my end. So Signal can learn who talks with whom via requests going through their LDAP- like server. They can get an idea how long calls are, and if it was a vid or audio call. They know the times of communication. You know, they can see the _metadata_. When's the last time we had problems with metadata? The POTS network? Yep. And you're indeed right the _client_ has reproducible builds. But the server side certainly doesn't. And we have no way to ascertain that. ~~~ bronco21016 Everytime Signal is brought up someone just has to chime in saying ‘we must abandanon Signal at all costs because metadata’. The metadata limitation is well known and if metadata interception is a problem for your threat model there are steps to obscure your identity or you should use a different tool. For the 99% of other cases where I just don’t want anyone snooping on my conversation with friends and family but don’t care that people know I’m obviously conversing with my friends and family Signal is great. Let’s not throw Signal out just because the metadata is still there. ~~~ e12e If metadata is good enough to drone strike weddings, it's probably good enough to throw you in a concentration camp too. And since data never dies, it might be enough to throw your grand kids in concentration camps. Now, protecting everyone's meta data is hard (probably impossible), and I don't mean to be defeatist - but "it's just metadata" doesn't sit well in a post Snowden world. We _know_ all large intelligence agencies hoover up this stuff. And we also know that agencies are made up of people, and some people abuse their access. ~~~ bronco21016 I certainly don’t mean to discount the importance of metadata. I specifically mentioned ensuring Signal fits your threat model. To suggest that metadata of communication over Signal between my spouse and I will be used against my grand kids one day is a bit absurd though. Of course there’s tons of metadata connecting my spouse and I. It would be more suspicious if there wasn’t. ~~~ e12e Spouse, "family" and friends are different goalposts. Mapping friends and family is AFAIK a key part of who gets bombed by the cia. Sure, if your spouse is found to be an "enemy of the state" under a new totalitarian government - your immediate family will have problems. If a friend turns out to be union organizer, you might be banned from jobs, if the government decides to collude with employers (again). ------ tejaswiy Oh man ignoring the privacy implications of this, all the "product" people at Facebook are going to destroy WhatsApp as we know and love. It is going to become a giant monstrosity with a 500MB binary size, lag, whole bunch of tracking code and super slow servers. It has begun to a certain extent already and it's only going get worse. I assume they think that the network effect is going to lock users into WhatsApp but the moment it becomes too painful to run on a 100$ Android phone with 1GB of RAM, it will inevitably die. Sure it's not going to be instantaneous but I'm a 100% sure that all the PMs that run Facebook Messenger are itching to get their hands on WhatsApp. I understand these changes are only on the server side, but I imagine the client side is not too far away. Some client changes are inevitable because I'm pretty sure they'll build a "unified" API for all these apps and it's is going to contain a whole bunch of messenger service code (because look at all those messenger features that noone cares about, surely we can't just drop what a whole org has been working on for two years) ~~~ Stubb You don't trust Zuckerberg to keep your private messages private? Even if that somehow happens, he'll be selling your messaging network info to everyone with two nickels to rub together. No thanks. Delete Messenger/WhatsApp and move everything onto other services. ~~~ malloreon you have to delete instagram too ~~~ reitanqild Nobody ever accused me of being a Facebook shill, I'm happy to say I've helped a number of people off WhatsApp after Facebook bought them. But let's keep this serious: Instagram isn't a tool for secure messaging. It is a tool to publish images, mostly public images. A person might very well decide to move sensitive communication off Instagram and continue to post their cat videos on Instagram. A valid reason for not using Instagram however is to lead by example and weaken the network effect of Facebook. Facebook is already in panic because users are leaving the platform so IMO now is a good time to test out alternative solutions :-) ~~~ Stubb This is precisely while I'm on instagram: There's no pretense of anything being private. It's like the best parts of Facebook (cool pictures/info from people who interest me) without the bullshit (TDS-fueled ramblings). I'll be out of there as soon as a federated alternative pops up and gets the least bit of traction. ------ cleansy I wonder what the EU commission will say to that. They only agreed to the WhatsApp takeover because FB stated that they would not do exactly what Zuck has in mind. ~~~ grahamel FB have already been fined over that "When Facebook took over the WhatsApp messaging service in 2014, it told the [EU] commission it would not be able to match user accounts on both platforms, but went on to do exactly that." [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook- fi...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook-fined-eu- whatsapp-european-commission) ~~~ johnnyfaehell Doing this after they're already talking about forcing them to sell WhatsApp is a bold move. ~~~ mechazawa You can't sell the platform if it's heavily integrated. Whoever buys it will just have to rewrite it from scratch then. ~~~ tivert > You can't sell the platform if it's heavily integrated. Whoever buys it will > just have to rewrite it from scratch then. Not necessarily. My understanding is WhatsApp basically uses the Signal protocol right now, Signal itself is open source, so I assume an acquirer could just stand up some new Signal infrastructure and get 80%+ of WhatsApp functionality without much redevelopment. ~~~ stingraycharles Not if they integrate the messaging infrastructures as described in the article... ~~~ tivert > Not if they integrate the messaging infrastructures as described in the > article... WhatsApp is a phone app. Even if Facebook heavily integrates the messaging infrastructures, the problem an acquirer has is _porting the existing users over to a new messaging infrastructure_. Signal-based infrastructure is (relatively) turn key, most of the software is already developed, deployed, and tested. After you have that, the main thing you have to do is push a new version of the app out to all the different app stores that uses your new infrastructure. Bam, you're done. I am simplifying certain things (there'd definitely be a somewhat complex transition period where your new app would have to support both infrastructures), but my main point is that this integration is not as big of a barrier to re-separation as it may seem. ~~~ johnnyfaehell > the problem an acquirer has is porting the existing users over to a new > messaging infrastructure. If you're selling it, it would be your job to port it. This wouldn't be the purchaser's job, it would be Facebook's job. It would be like expecting someone to dismantle a bed your selling on eBay. No one in their right mind would agree to dismantle it for you unless you were giving it away. ------ CivilianZero I'm going to start this comment by saying that I don't agree with or approve of most of/anything Facebook has been doing. Security and Privacy are very important to me when it comes to the internet. I don't have a Facebook account. So now I'd like to point out that the article has a couple mistakes. You don't actually need to provide anything but a phone number to use Facebook Messenger, but not many people know this, it seems. Related to this is a lot of hand-wringing about "oh no this will mean Facebook is watching us in all these apps now". Well, I'll address this in a second. I want to talk about this quote in the article: "Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized." This is already impossible. WhatsApp and Instagram collect information on you whether you have a Facebook account and whether or not you are logged in if you do have one. They know who are you are (this is the reason why I don't really care how encrypted WhatsApp is, I'm not going to use it). So if this really bothers people, well, I've got some bad news. ------ rajeshmr > "a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a > WhatsApp account, for example. Currently, that isn’t possible because the > apps are separate." This freaks me out, as i have deliberately chosen to stay away from facebook since the early days! I somehow felt repelled by the idea of facebook back then, now its trying to hunt me down! Oops! I have been thinking of quitting Whatsapp since facebook acquired it, but continued using it since almost everyone i frequently communicate with does so on Whatsapp. Maybe it's time to quit whatsapp before this integration happens! Or am i just freaking out ? :D ~~~ rchaud I don't think you're wrong. The point of this integration is to start connecting Whatsapp's giant database of phone numbers with Facebook Messenger/IG accounts. At this time, it's still possible to be anonymous on Whatsapp, but that ends once this project is completed. Been trying to get friends and family to switch to Signal since early 2017 with no luck. ~~~ _wmd You're only as anonymous as the contact records in all the phones you're communicating with, i.e. not at all. The only winning move is not to play [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/how-to-stop-your-phone- from-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/how-to-stop-your-phone-from- uploading-your-contacts-to-facebook.html) ~~~ 14 This is a sour point for me. It bugs me that other people can reveal information about me and there is little I can do. I actually stopped entering contacts into my phone because of this. Or I put false names for ones I man need to label. I recognise my contacts by their phone number. I doubt my part is overly effective because others likely don't do this but it is my way of saying screw off. I hope one day legislation will regulate these companies and what they share about us. I thought Facebook promised it would not suck up the whatsapp data how can they integrate without all that data? Reminds me of a child. Was told no so going to just do it anyways and see if there is a punishment after. I hope some regulatory body sinks Facebook over this idea. ~~~ _wmd It's almost entirely ineffective. Each phone book upload probably nets them something like ~100 contacts, multiply that by 1.74 billion and the war is entirely lost. A bit like how self-driving cars may shortly redefine the meaning of 'public space'. ~~~ rajeshmr May I know why you deleted your reply ? Should I also be careful around here ? :) ~~~ _wmd Self preservation :) I didn't want to get drawn into a thread about some topic I shouldn't be paying attention to just now! ~~~ rajeshmr Ha ha, true! :) but i felt your point was good, there is an upside to the fact we are acknowledging the state of affairs as it is. ------ JumpCrisscross At least on the East Coast, there is a growing groundswell for breaking up Facebook. I don't think we'll see it break until after 2020. But if I'm seeing it, Zuckerberg is seeing it. I suspect one reason for integrating infrastructure is to make it more difficult to unwind these companies in the years to come. ------ krn It makes a lot of sense from the technical point of view. Essentially, one could share a single table of "users" between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Because the accounts can be easily identified and connected by email addresses and phone numbers, which don't change that often. This way, a "Facebook Account" could become like a "Google Account", but for social media. This is exactly how Google integrated YouTube. It's bad for privacy, but good for everything else. ~~~ octorian It would actually make product development a lot harder. You have three end- user apps developed by different teams, supporting different content, wrapped in different structures. Managing the differences when sending messages from one to another is probably going to result in very weird and inconsistent user experiences, especially in the shorter term. Also, because of E2E encryption, the server infrastructure really cannot do the sort of content translation necessary to make things seamless. ~~~ krn I think the front-ends would remain completely separate, and the back-ends would be namespaced by a platform. For instance: facebook.users, facebook.ads, facebook.feed, facebook.messenger, facebook.instagram, facebook.whatsapp. This way, users and ads would be shared across all Facebook's platforms, which is, I believe, the main reason for the entire integration. ------ flycaliguy I have a feeling that they will live up to their encryption promise and this will actually provide them with a long term messaging service that can provide some stability for their company. The messages themselves are likely not valuable enough to creep into compared to the unified metadata that all this messaging can bring in. ~~~ wtmt I have just the opposite feeling. Facebook is going to remove end to end encryption as the default from WhatsApp and turn it into something like Messenger or Telegram, where chats are by default not end to end encrypted, and the user has to explicitly choose it. There'd be some backlash in the press. But most users won't bother about it, just like they don't bother about all the Facebook scandals to move off the platform or care enough to look for better privacy elsewhere. What's more, Facebook can, and will, paint this as something it's doing in order to monitor content and handle fake news, earning brownie points from various governments who'd be eager to tap into this new source for surveillance. ------ simias I'm not sure I understand the motivation. Seems like they don't have much to gain and they do have a lot to lose. While (anecdotally) Facebook doesn't appear to be very hype with the youth today, Instagram and WhatsApp still appear to be quite popular. In a weird way Facebook is both the mainstream choice _and_ the underdog, that's a good position to be in IMO. Beyond that what does it mean for people like me who use WhatsApp but do not have a Facebook account? Is the plan to force people like me to create a Facebook profile? ~~~ flycaliguy The article is pretty clear about your question. This is just going to provide cross platform messaging between all current and future apps. ~~~ simias But how can they hope to do that without some form of unified account? ~~~ rjmunro They /could/ do it quite easily. I can email people who have different kinds of email account with no problem. The Jabber / XMPP protocol was designed to link messaging systems in this way. While it would be great if they moved to a pure Jabber federation model or similar, I very much doubt they will do that, however, unless someone like the EU can get their act together and force them to do it. ------ bad_user I like WhatsApp but it seems that Zuckerberg is determined to destroy it. At least I now have an incentive to move to Signal and convince my friends to do so, hopefully, or otherwise I’ll be alone. Well, I can always be reached by SMS or email. ~~~ justaguyhere I thought Whatsapp use is great in the U.S., but I realized how big it is outside the U.S. when I saw it firsthand. It is insane, there are people who use it to run their entire business/livelihood. I really hope it stays out of Zuck's "vision" but it likely won't, considering the amount of money he paid for it ~~~ calvinbhai As an immigrant from India in the US, when FB bought WhatsApp, I still remember the sense of surprise/wonder among my american freinds/colleagues as to why Whatsapp was worth so much. The kind of traction Whatsapp has, even now in India, is something no bay area startup can even dream of achieving. Every family member, remotely related relatives, every single classmate of mine since childhood, everyone has whatsapp, and almost everyone uses it everyday. as someone who has no FB apps on phone other than whatsapp, I hope/wish this move means someone from messenger/insta can send message to Whatsapp account and vice versa. Nothing more than that. FB has done a good job in keeping Whatsapp true to it's core features (except the status/stories debacle). Once it's whatsapp payments / business messaging picks up, there's no looking back for FB even if it's core FB web platform goes to zero, Whatsapp + Messenger + Instagram will be a force to reckon with. ------ stevehawk As a person that doesn't have Facebook or Instagram accounts and minimal desire to be a part of that product line, I see myself abandoning Whatsapp. Only used it because of myself and family/friends I'm the only Android user to begin with. Guess I'm going back to iPhones in the next iteration. _ninja edit_ I was already debating going back to iPhone to begin with. I feel like this just cements it as my friends and I will give up Whatsapp for group iMessage ~~~ technofiend I deleted whatsapp after their purchase by facebook just to remain outside of the Zuckerverse. Signal allegedly offers a group chat feature, but getting 20 of your closest iphone-using friends to install signal rather than use iMessage seems unlikely. ------ godelmachine I wonder what platform will he use for this? Like what framework? If anyone has any idea, please share. Edit -> I don’t understand why the heck are honest technical questions downvoted!! It’s not like I would have found a ready answer for my question with a simple Google search. If a question does not interest you, at least please don’t downvote it! Some dumb people are courageous enough to ask questions. ~~~ Tistel Whats app is made with Erlang: [http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/2/26/the-whatsapp- archi...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/2/26/the-whatsapp-architecture- facebook-bought-for-19-billion.html) the article (and others) have crazy stories about scale in WhatsApp (70 million messages a second (from a few years ago)). Erlang (and Elixir) are perfect for this scale and high reliability challenge. But, its corporate decision, so it might wind up being rewritten in some idiotic language. Or, more likely, it will be a hodgepodge of micro services written in different languages and glued together with HAProxie (or whatever). ------ nunez > The move, described by four people involved in the effort, requires > thousands of Facebook employees to reconfigure how WhatsApp, Instagram and > Facebook Messenger function at their most basic levels. While all three > services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their underlying > messaging infrastructure will be unified, the people said. Facebook is still > in the early stages of the work and plans to complete it by the end of this > year or in early 2020, they said. Thank god. If they collapsed WhatsApp into Facebook Messenger, I would quit WhatsApp. ------ nindalf Some folks in this thread are convinced that end-to-end encryption is going away when the article says the exact opposite. ~~~ handzbagz Unless they radically change how Facebook messenger works I don't see how it could even be called end-to-end encryption. For it to work how it does now (online and independently through the app) they would have to hold the encryption keys. They would have to instead tie Facebook messenger to a phone like Whatsapp does and use a web app to send messages directly from the device instead. I don't see how else it could be done and still be called end-to-end encryption. ~~~ nindalf > Unless they radically change And according to the article, this radical change is coming. Why is that so hard to believe? ~~~ throwawaylolx Because there are no details beyond vague promises, and it entails serious restructuring and UX trade-offs that may affect revenue. At the moment, skepticism makes much more sense. ~~~ nindalf Just to be clear, do you think that the NYT is mistaken, or that Facebook has committed to something that is too difficult to execute due to technical and revenue concerns? ~~~ throwawaylolx I don't think they committed to anything. It's just vague promises that can be reinterpreted in many ways, most of which can compromise trustworthy e2e encryption while also implementing some form of loophole-ridden e2e encryption. Yeah, WhatsApp is e2e encrypted by default, but it also automatically backs up all your chat history encrypted using a WhatsApp-owned private key. Sure, you can opt-out of backups, but will your peers do as well? Without a clear spec, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be very skeptical of what will be the final product of this operation. ~~~ nindalf > just vague promises Now I know you didn't read the article. There were no promises made because this was based on conversations with employees, not a press release. ------ delhanty >To add insult to injury, WhatsApp permits rekeying to take place without any indication to the conversation's participants [in the default settings]. Agreed. A nice Twitter thread [0] by Mustafa Al-Bassam back at the end of November on how that might be exploited by GCHQ: >Ian Levy of GCHQ has released an essay on how law enforcement should get access to end-to-end encrypted communications. Here is the critical bit to pay attention to. They're proposing to exploit the fact that users don't verify each other's public keys, and inject bad keys. Then this [1] later in the same thread by Twitter @inag_fc: >This is a coordinated attack by 5 eyes. They slipped it through AU parliament in the week, presumably as some horse trading because there was practically no debate nor warning, beyond the normal straw man proposals. [0] [https://twitter.com/musalbas/status/1068179464197156864](https://twitter.com/musalbas/status/1068179464197156864) [1] [https://twitter.com/iang_fc/status/1071373264646225920](https://twitter.com/iang_fc/status/1071373264646225920) ------ skohan I wonder how people will feel about this. I always thought that to some extent, people use different social networks to segment their interactions. I.e. will this make it feel like my mom is on Instagram now? ~~~ CamelCaseName The comments here are rather bleak, but for me, this is fantastic. My family is all on WhatsApp, but my friends and colleagues are on Messenger and SMS. Previously, I would only ever use Messenger, checking SMS and WhatsApp once a month at best. A while ago, SMS got integrated to Messenger, I started staying in touch with people who only use SMS. Now that they're adding WhatsApp, I literally don't know a single person I can't reach from Messenger/Gmail. I love it, and I hope things go smoothly. ~~~ sfilargi You love it that all your communication is controlled by only a single for profit company? I wonder how you will feel the day FB decided to ban you for whatever rule their algorithm would decide you violated. ------ majewsky I wonder much how XMPP is left over in WhatsApp's guts at this point. ~~~ basch facebook chat and whatsapp were both written in erlang and used ejabberd. It's kind of funny that through rewrites they have become less standard and compatible, and now the goal is to bring them back together closer to where they were. ------ xfour Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I can see the business salivating over this. Integrate tracking into WhatsApp, you can now more easily graph who people talk to and use that for their FB and IG accounts, and probably destroy the e2e encryption while they're at it. Therefore re-monitizing that section of their userbase. ~~~ DCKing It's easy to grab your pitchfork when seeing just a headline, but I'm quoting the article verbatim here: > Mr. Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end > encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from > being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation. ~~~ realusername I highly doubt Messenger will have end-to-end encryption, especially that they have to display those messages on Facebook web. ~~~ Spivak WhatsApp's UX is pretty darn good and would be copied for Messenger. You sign- in on the web from your phone and then messages are proxied through it. Also an option to enable web E2E with a password-protected key stored on FB's servers is still pretty darn good. ~~~ realusername Yes but Whatsapp does not have a real web client unlike Messenger, web.whatsapp.com is just reading data from your phone. People are using both Messenger & Facebook web to send messages, they will have to break that somewhere for end-to-end. ~~~ Spivak It just means that two (or n) keys will need to be able to decrypt the message database. The web client doesn't have to behave any differently than the native client. If Facebook is storing your encrypted message database on their servers then the problem gets significantly easier. ------ mikece Ironic timing: I just adopted Singal as a replacement for WhatsApp and have been telling all of my WhatsApp contacts I’m going to drop it in favor of Signal because I don’t trust FB not to fiddle with Whatsapp’s Infrastructure or pull games with the end-to-end encryption. ------ zadler If they change whatsapp im moving to telegram end of story. ~~~ dmix Signal is the better choice ~~~ lighthazard While it's the more secure choice, it's definitely not 'better'. Telegram has a better messaging infrastructure, more reliable, multi-platform (doesn't _need_ a phone), can create identities without a phone number, and (most important, IMO) the quality of life of using the app is far superior. Use Signal if you absolutely need end to end encryption, extremely secure chat, and no way to use it outside of your phone being on and connected to the Internet. Use Telegram if you want chat. Don't except high levels of security and for the average user who already uses Facebook Messenger and Instagram, it's good enough. ~~~ whyever > Use Signal if you absolutely need end to end encryption, extremely secure > chat, and no way to use it outside of your phone being on and connected to > the Internet. You can use Signal on Desktop without your phone being online. (This does not work with WhatsApp.) ~~~ throwawaylolx How does it work? Where is the private key stored? ~~~ lorenzhs On the desktop. It's synced when you set up your desktop client (you have to scan a QR code on your phone). ~~~ daemin And therein lies the problem the original poster was referring to: no way to create a WhatsApp account without a phone number. ------ rhema On the list of end-to-end encryption platforms I would trust the least, Messenger might be number 1. If they can make this happen slowly, maybe it will work. ~~~ majortennis messenger listens to you 24/7 i experienced this first hand with ridiculously specific targeted ads. ------ progx "Currently, that isn’t possible because the apps are separate." It is impossible, because the don't want an open API, which other clients can use too. ~~~ ambivalence Open APIs led to some of the biggest anti-Facebook stories over the last two years. I'd also like to see external clients and so on, but I don't expect that, given how many problems that brings. ~~~ ge0rg Facebook got into trouble for opening data about users to its business partners. I'm sure this is not the same kind of "open API" that you would use to access and control your account and your interactions with the Silo. However, this kind of API will empower you to use a client that allows you to spend _less_ time on Facebook, the opposite of their strategy. ------ pmlnr If only there was a federated protocol for messaging... oh, wait, there at least 2: XMPP and Matrix. I guess everything old is new again. ------ billfruit While much of the commentary is negative here, I do think this will give us inter-operability among whatsapp, messenger, facebook and instagram. For those who have accounts on all these, it will be beneficial to be able to access them in an richer, integrated manner. ------ octosphere I saw this a few days ago. If this means I can populate my empty Instagram profile (which was weirdly given to me by having a Facebook account) - then this is a win. I share a lot of images on Facebook, so if these went on my Instagram feed I would be really happy. ~~~ fastball You can already automate that fairly easily. ~~~ octosphere You mean using something like IFTTT?[1] [1] [https://ifttt.com](https://ifttt.com) ------ deca6cda37d0 Apple should really make a android version of iMessage. ~~~ jumpman500 If they did it for iMessage and Facetime they'd capture all chat traffic in America in a week. They'd risk losing the premium status of the iphone, but I think the real risk is they'd start a war with facebook and google. They'd be betting that google and facebook would keep their apps on the iphone if they invaded the android ecosystem. At least that's what I think. I'm not sure if Apple is ready to say all their applications are better then Google's yet. ~~~ robjan I think a lot of us are now sufficiently locked into our ecosystem. Most iOS users would never "downgrade" to Android but I bet many Androids would be willing to pay $10/year for iMessage ------ viach But, Instagram has messaging already, no? So it's only needed to drop WhatsApp and Messenger to get integration done. Ah, and move users accounts. ------ olivermarks Anyone know of a viable whatsapp alternative that lots of people could use? The problem with all these systems is you have to go where people are, rather than where you'd like to be. whatsapp is ubiquitous but this is looking even worse for snooping now and I'd like to have a credible alternative to suggest. I thought signal was it but most people aren't using it ------ spoid It is also worth mentioning that Whatsapp relentlessly buggers you to backup to Google Drive or iCloud respectively, where all messages and contents are stored in plain text (at least on Drive, not sure about iCloud). It's nice that they advertise end-to-end encrypting the messages in transit, but then just dump everything to the world's biggest data mining machine. ------ SketchySeaBeast I was under the (naive) assumption that Whatsapp prevents snooping for building a digital simulacrum of you - am I wrong in this? I see the article says that they are working on making the messaging product end-to-end encrypted, how do they know that they need to try and sell me socks because I mentioned socks once in a conversation to my grandmother? ~~~ daat Whatsapp has end to end encryption. But the metadata is not encrypted, and Facebook uses that data to track you. What is in the metadata? If I'm not mistaken it's the recipient, the time and probably the IP address of where you sent it. So if you start talking to someone new in Whatsapp, it shouldn't be a surprised when Facebook/Instagram will suggest you add them as friends/follow them based on that data. It doesn't know what you send to you're ex on a Friday at 2AM, and it doesn't know that you what you sent to your friend the next day, from her home WiFi. ~~~ SketchySeaBeast Ah, ok, so the rule of thumb is you can talk about having murdered a guy, but don't message the person you murdered right before you kill them? ------ ggm Oh, if only we had some activity to define open standards so we could do secure interpersonal message with any app using common standard protocols and cryptography. Oh wait. We do. That's what the IETF is for. We just let pricks like Zuckerberg run closed gardens because we suck at using choice to walk to things like signal. Go signal! ~~~ bascule Might want to check the names on this IETF draft... [https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-mls- protocol-02.html](https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-mls-protocol-02.html) ~~~ ggm One Facebook author and like apple iMessages which used xmpp they lock the anchor certificate to a walled garden. They're writing standards and deploying closed ecologies. ~~~ tptacek I'm not getting the sense from you that you're especially familiar with how this particular IETF effort came together. ~~~ ggm True. Since i'm familiar with Richard Barnes I'll ask him in Prague. Your comments in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16325803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16325803) seem relevant. ~~~ tptacek I'm not optimistic about MLS, the standard. I also don't think it's a secret plot against open protocols. ~~~ ggm I don't think I am a secret plot believer. I just observe apple and others deploy group communication software and person to person as walled gardens even when they use xmpp and like protocols. ------ objektif The question I have abiut this is that some news agencies claim that this will make it harder for regulators to break up FB. Hows it even a legitimate argument. Cant FB use the same technology replicated for each product in the worst case? ------ logifail Q: for those of us with friends/groups that still insist on using WhatsApp to co-ordinate stuff, what's the recommended way to use it while handing over as little data as possible? ------ stirbot Is there a paid secure messaging platform anyone can recommend? I don't want drag my friends and family to another platform only have it sell its users to the highest bidder. ~~~ JustSomeNobody iMessage. Just buy an iPhone. Before anyone gets pissy, think about it, it's true. ~~~ stirbot There is no reason a chat app can't be multiplatform, plus the total cost to transition to iPhones would be in the thousands. Most of them would spring $3-5 a month for a platform secure though. ~~~ JustSomeNobody Ok? That doesn't make my answer to the question wrong. FTR: I would _love_!!! an open source / open protocol messaging platform that wasn't owned by anyone. But, that doesn't seem to be in the cards for us all. ------ aboutruby I'm guessing this means unifying every Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp user account into one unified "Facebook" account (already happened for Instagram). ~~~ SmellyGeekBoy > already happened for Instagram This is the case for business accounts but not quite for normal users just yet. You can create an Instagram account with a username and password and it will repeatedly nag you to connect to Facebook for a while but eventually give up. ------ strikelaserclaw I'd image they want to consolidate all their services and add a couple more like what wechat did. They will probably add the ability to send money. ------ 0xfffff Hopefully the EU sues them - this is unacceptable. Facebook should have never been allowed to buy out its core competition. ------ ersiees This would actually make me delete my Facebook account finally, if I can message all people on Facebook through WhatsApp. ------ rblion I don't know if this will fix the underlying problem: people want something else. ------ _bxg1 WhatsApp... like "what's up". I _just_ got that. ~~~ bb101 Wouldn't surprise me if its name was from Budweiser's What's Up ad back during the last dotcom boom. It was _really_ popular at the time. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlZoq3niIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlZoq3niIY) ------ danijelb I wonder what this will mean for Whatsapp's privacy ------ vezycash Summary: Facebook wants to turn WhatsApp into Telegram. ------ msie Uh oh...lots of security bug bounty ahead! ------ milin So long instagram, nice knowing you. ------ perseusprime11 This seems like a bad news for customers who care about their privacy. Zuckerberg unhinged! ------ humbleMouse the end is here. orwell 1984 ------ fooblat > While all three services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their > underlying messaging infrastructure will be unified... The headline is missing a key word: infrastructure ~~~ stingraycharles This has to be the biggest clickbait I have seen in a while. HN title should reflect this because that changes interpretation completely. ~~~ steeleduncan It is a shame that HN does not have some system where you \- mark a title as clickbait \- either suggest an alternate title, or accept one from a list of previously submitted alternate titles When enough karma has gathered behind a title the system can automatically replace it. ~~~ Kurtz79 I have seen many titles on HN reported as "clickbait" which are changed eventually to reflect better the actual content. I'm not sure if it is done my moderators or it just depends on the original poster to change it. On the other hand, it is the exact title of the article being linked.... ------ jradd whats 'messenger?' ~~~ detaro [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Messenger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Messenger)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Baggage and bits: Overage fees have unintended consequences - chaostheory http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9969570-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware ====== ambition I don't mind pay-for-what-you-use services... "unlimited" plans of anything rarely reflect the economic realities of providing the service. Paying by usage seems intuitively fair to me. I do mind that companies try to make money by forcing you to predict your usage in a given month. I never understood why it would be so difficult to dynamically adjust pricing as usage goes up.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The New Seiko SII NE88 Automatic Chronograph Movement: A Change in the Wind? - QuillandPad http://quillandpad.com/2014/06/29/the-new-seiko-ne88-automatic-chronograph-movement-a-change-in-the-wind/ ====== chrisbennet I flag very rarely but i think you have earned this one. Please read read the FAQ and consider why sending links to your web site 24 times in the last 18 days (while not commenting on any other posts but your own) is flag worthy.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The libtom projects: cryptography and multiprecision arithmetic - fanf2 https://www.libtom.net/ ====== Sir_Cmpwn I'm a big fan of libtom. The relevant GNU project is gmp: [https://gmplib.org/](https://gmplib.org/) In comparison, libtom is very liberally licensed, which is a feature that I think is good to have in a component as low-level component as big math. ------ mrpippy The Dropbear SSH server/client uses libtomcrypt/libtommath	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Why is hosting in Australia (and New Zealand) so crazy expensive? - mingabunga I have a dedicated Xeon server in Australia with 20TB monthly bandwidth allowance, costs about US$315 a month - this is cheap. I think I got lucky because I went to get another, my 20TB bandwidth now costs US$1550 a month. Looking around for a VPS, found 200GB allowance a month for $60, but each extra GB over is $1. So it seems the bandwidth is expensive compared to Europe where they're just giving it away. What gives? ====== CyberFonic Our office is in Sydney. It's not as expensive as you make out. You do not need to rent in a CBD high-rise. Whilst some VPS are expensive you can shop around. We use AWS & Google hosting - only about 10% more than USA. You have to shop around for good prices for internet access. Most mobile phone plans provide ample access at reasonable cost. Home ADSL is around $70 / mth for unlimited access. Most phone boxes provide free WiFi as do MacDonalds, StarBucks, etc. But with 4G & LTE on your phone, you generally don't bother. ------ tomcorrigan Essentially Telstra (the biggest ISP in Australia) charges a fortune for transit. Cloudflare provide some detail about the relatively high cost here: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of- bandwidth-a...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth- around-the-world/) ~~~ fratlas Do you think Australian ISP services is a market that could be disrupted? As an Aus, I would love Google to come through and strongarming Telstra into at least rethinking their inflated prices. ~~~ levinet Definitely could, but they'd need to lay their own international cables -- PIPE Networks (owned by TPG) is the closest we've got to a market disruptor and they can only compete because they have their own undersea cables. Given the low total population and very low population density it's probably not really worth it though. ~~~ Gustomaximus As a general comment, I hear this 'low population density' about Australia a bunch. I wonder if its a fallacious argument for many business cases. Contrary to the Crocodile Dundee image, Australia is one of the most urbanised nations in the world. We have almost 50% of the population in Sydney & Melbourne alone, and our top 10 cities takes this to almost 90%. While a big landmass you can reach a high proportion in relatively few spots. Assuming a business doesn't expect infrastructure/coverage for the entire population Australia not to bad density. Obviously the general remoteness of Australia and 25m population remain big factors, and I suspect this is more relevant than the often cited density issue. ------ thenomad A workaround: I tend to rent servers in Singapore when I need to address the AU/NZ market. They're considerably less expensive and the latency's still pretty good. ------ bobby_9x Everything is more expensive in Australia. A large social net, a minimum wage > $20USD, and other high taxes, leads to rising costs of most goods and services. I went there 2 years ago on vacation and stayed in hostels (which were $70USD/night) to save on price. Meals at most restaurants for 2 was $50+ and a 20 oz of coke and a small bag of chips cost me close to $11USD. Internet was more expensive than anywhere I traveled. Free wifi was almost non-existent and most hostels charge $25USD/8 hours (it was also ~4MB). It's probably why they don't have a flourishing startup scene. ~~~ ojm Are you trying to be the 'typical' American who portrays 'facts' about other countries that are nothing of the sort? Minimum wage is AUD 17.29 per hour, not the AUD ~28 you quote. A hostel at Bondi Beach is ~ USD 50 per night, not the USD 70 you quoted (and this is an expensive spot!). I can only think you must have visited when the USD was down the toilet. On the hostel charging USD 25 for 8 hours. You can get a 4G sim card with with 50mbps+ download and 5GB limit for AUD 30ish. But yes, everything is more expensive, generally. The dollar fluctuations makes it interesting. Also, sales tax is included in our prices unlike the US. ~~~ bobby_9x "Are you trying to be the 'typical' American who portrays 'facts' about other countries that are nothing of the sort?" The facts are that Australia has high taxes and is much more expensive than the US. The numbers I gave might not be 100% accurate, but it's still a fact. "Also, sales tax is included in our prices unlike the US." I would rather have sales tax separated. Why? I've seen so many people bitching about why certain products are more expensive in Australia, and commonly blame the company. In reality, they should be blaming the government. Merging the prices allows politicians to raise taxes without the citizens actually knowing the true amount. The same thing happens with the gas tax in the US. So many people bitch about the cost, yet have no idea that taxes account for a big portion of it. ~~~ allendoerfer I would rather have sales tax separated. Why? I've seen so many people bitching about why certain products are more expensive in Australia, and commonly blame the company. In reality, they should be blaming the government. Merging the prices allows politicians to raise taxes without the citizens actually knowing the true amount. This is not true. If you sell to consumers in Germany, you have to add the sales tax in your prices, too, but you also have to give out an receipt that shows the tax rate and amount. I believe it is the same in Australia. The consumer knows the tax rate and he does not have to calculate the price he is paying. If you sell to businesses only, you do not have to add the tax in your prices, but you have to give out this receipt, too. ------ levinet Few simple answers off the top of my head: Electricity is generally more expensive in Australia than US/Europe Internet (consumer and business) is more expensive, huge area to cover with low population density Most DCs are located in Sydney and Melbourne where rent/land and other costs are a lot higher than less populated parts of the country ~~~ mingabunga Ok, I can understand the price of renting the box, but bandwidth seems unreasonably expensive. ~~~ levinet Local bandwidth in Australia is generally more expensive than Europe or USA because we have a huge area to cover and a relatively low population. Also because of this the infrastructure that does exist is held by a handful of companies who can pretty much dictate the price. International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by expensive undersea cables. While both the US and Europe have bordering countries where most of traffic is likely to go. Also similarly with local infrastructure, it's all owned by just a handful of companies who can strong arm providers. Also in reference to your original question, it sounds like the VPS provider your using doesn't separate local vs. international traffic, so they're probably assuming most of it will be international and are charging on the higher end of the scale. I think BinaryLane charges a bit less at around $1 per 10GB. There's probably cheaper providers out there but YMMV. ~~~ joshschreuder > International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by > expensive undersea cables I have heard this quite a bit, but _why_ is it hugely expensive for this reason? Is it because of the maintenance of the undersea cables or recouping initial construction costs? ~~~ NeutronBoy It just all adds up: \- First world, bandwidth hungry nation. \- Low population to recoup costs from. \- Very low population density so transit across the country isn't super economical (related to above) \- Expensive to build transit because it's all underwater cable, no easy cross-border land-based fiber.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why I believe the US has herd immunity in some states - gloriosoc https://realscience.community/2020/08/17/why-i-believe-the-us-has-herd-immunity-in-some-states-and-is-barreling-towards-it-as-a-country/ ====== tghw NYC had only 20% prevalence in mid-June[1], after they had contained the initial outbreak[2]. Therefore, the drop in new cases is very unlikely to be from herd immunity, which would need prevalence to be in the 80% range. The author seems to ignore that most people are interacting with far fewer people because they are working from home, kids mostly aren't in school, and our other interactions with people outside our household have been limited and altered to decrease the chances of transmission. It's nice to think that some people had memory T-cells that could deal with the virus, and it seems some people do, but based on the original R0 numbers, it would be foolish to think that is the case for enough of the population to conclude that we've reached herd immunity. [1] [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases- updates/comm...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases- updates/commercial-lab-surveys.html) [2] [https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states/new- yor...](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states/new-york) ~~~ rdtwo The theory was that some large percentage of population is either immune or at least significantly more resistant to covid. Do once the initial 20% get it the other 50-% are resistant so you get your 70% number that way ~~~ tghw Barring concrete evidence that is the case, it's a very dangerous assertion to make. It would also mean that the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 is much higher than we originally thought, amongst those without "natural immunity". Even if it were the case that half the population was naturally immune, we would want to understand why. The leading explanation at the moment is T-cells and previous exposure to other coronaviruses. Problem is, there's a good chance that previous exposures would be less likely in certain populations, like children, which could be especially problematic as we're debating sending kids back to school. At the very least, we need more data on T-cell prevalence/reactance to SARS- CoV-2 before we can jump to the conclusion that people are already immune. But right now, it's far more likely that we've seen drops because of the drastic measures that have been taken and the changes in daily behavior across the population. ~~~ anoncake We already know that the virus is harmless to children. No need to grasp at straws to pretend that our collective hysteria was necessary. ~~~ Tainnor While kids are less likely to get sick from it (less likely doesn't mean zero cases or even deaths btw), they can sure as hell spread it. There was some research suggesting that they're spreading the virus as much as (or not detectably less than) adults [1]. Yet at the same time, there are also some indications that kids might be less likely to become infected [2]. How that will affect school reopenings is anyone's guess. [1]: [https://zoonosen.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/microsites...](https://zoonosen.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/microsites/m_cc05/virologie- ccm/dateien_upload/Weitere_Dateien/analysis-of-SARS-CoV-2-viral-load-by- patient-age.pdf) [2]: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0962-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0962-9) ~~~ anoncake Less likely doesn't mean zero cases, but non-zero doesn't mean non-neglible either. ~~~ Tainnor It's still a stretch to say that the virus is "harmless" to children. But that's beside the point. The real point about children is that they can spread the virus just as well, even when they don't get sick - especially since it's also really hard for at least smaller children to keep distance or wear masks. ~~~ anoncake And cruel, almost as cruel as withholding their education from them and forcing them to social distance. ~~~ Tainnor You continue to miss the point but ok. ~~~ anoncake This "point" about children is not about children at all. It's about scared, egoistic adults willing to sacrifice children's welfare for their own. ------ subsubzero Some up to date news regarding T-cells and their implications suggest this in fact could be a thing with some of the harder hit states. Apparently T-cells will "remember" an infection after a person is exposed to and recovers from covid-19[1]. This is a huge development as it suggests that neutralizing antibodies are not the only defense against a reinfection of covid-19(and these antibodies only last a few months) whereas T-cell memory of infections lasts years. Also, there are some signs that other cornavirus family of viruses(common colds, not covid-19) could trigger a memory with these t cells, this is a possibility why some have extreme cases and others show no signs of sickness[2]. Couple these points with data showing 40% of people who contract the virus are asymptomatic[3] this leads to the idea that alot more people have had the virus than what is reported, which in this case is a good thing as its closer to herd immunity(if all the above is found to be true). [1] - [https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus- immuni...](https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immunity-t- cells-2020-8) [2] - [https://www.livescience.com/common-cold-coronaviruses-t- cell...](https://www.livescience.com/common-cold-coronaviruses-t-cells- covid-19-immunity.html) [3] - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/08/asymptomati...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/08/asymptomatic- coronavirus-covid/) ~~~ gloriosoc yes agree. And the CDC reports there are 10X the cases of COVID than has been reported based on antibody studies. And there are many more deaths than have been reported [https://realscience.community/2020/08/16/why-a-lot-more- peop...](https://realscience.community/2020/08/16/why-a-lot-more-people-have- died-from-covid-than-is-being-reported/). All reasons that we are closer to herd immunity than is the common perception. ~~~ DougN7 Doesn’t herd immunity for a country of 350 million need somewhere on the order of 220 million to have been exposed and recovered? I don’t think we’re anywhere near that yet. ~~~ ekianjo How do you define that 220 is the right number? ~~~ mr_toad It’s an estimate based on the probability of a virus finding new hosts. the higher the proportion of potential hosts that are immune, the less likely the virus is to spread. ~~~ tonyedgecombe Herd immunity is the threshold where the replication rate falls below 1. It's not the point at which transmission stops. The disease will continue beyond that point. ~~~ hatenberg Thats, uhm, very limited understanding. Currently behavioral changes (mask, etc) are much larger factors affecting R0 and none of them have any bearing on hwrd immunity. Plus we are finding that traditional herd immunity (aka just let the disease rampage) may come at the cost of heart disease in a majority of cases. ~~~ tonyedgecombe Of course they have an effect on herd immunity. If behaviour changes then the replication rate changes and hence the herd immunity threshold changes. ------ tunesmith Should it be called herd immunity if it depends on current social practices of physical distancing and masking? Sure, you might have "effective herd immunity" in some regions, but those herd immunity percentage targets go up if people start interacting more. ~~~ asdff I think the name still applies, and it's intuitive that this number is a function of the connectivity of your network. ~~~ rallison I think using herd immunity to apply to temporary network states is going to be more confusing than helpful. There will be some fuzziness at the edges - some of the changes and adaptations we make during this pandemic will probably persist longer term. ------ freehunter > This analysis and the conclusions that I have drawn are my own and do not > necessarily reflect the opinions of the wider scientific and medical > communities. That’s an important point because the wider scientific and medical communities don’t agree with this analysis at all. ~~~ gloriosoc Well some do- MIT's paper, MIT Tech seems to [https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006366/immunity...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006366/immunity- slowing-down-coronavirus-parts-us/) ~~~ notacoward They only seem to agree with the weaker claim that immunity _plays a role_ in the patterns we're seeing, not the stronger claim that general herd immunity has been achieved anywhere. And it's a _very_ brief superficial article, not exactly comparable to peer-reviewed studies that tend to reflect a nearly opposite conclusion. ~~~ gloriosoc Data source for "peer-reviewed studies that tend to reflect a nearly opposite conclusion"? ~~~ notacoward You go first. You claimed there were others that agree with you, but that doesn't really seem to be true. Provide a _serious_ citation, and I'll reciprocate. ~~~ gloriosoc The MIT tech is serious. MIT doesn't publish garbage science in their news paper. ~~~ danielmarkbruce I'm not sure many/any serious scientists take it seriously. It's interesting, but it's far from peer reviewed journal type material. ~~~ gloriosoc The Tech quotes peer reviewed science like the lay press. But they generally do a better job of quoting quality science and conveying the research accurately (as opposed to politically). I think the issue here is speed. Most of the research informing this pandemic is scientist opinion, back of the envelope calculation, and pre-prints. The reason for this is that peer review lives in the world of years and we need information in the world of days to weeks to make good decisions for public health. If we wait for peer review, the pandemic will be over or the conclusions will be obsolete. ~~~ nickthemagicman This person is discrediting MIT. There's nothing you can say to make this person consider your viewpoint. ~~~ danielmarkbruce No one is discrediting MIT. MIT Technology Review simply isn't a science journal. Nothing is peer reviewed. It wasn't intended to be, no one thinks it is. It's an interesting technology magazine. ~~~ nickthemagicman MIT journal is written by some of the top scientists in the world. Its not peer reviewed but it at least deserves consideration and respect. But like a lot of intelligent ideas now days...if it doesn't fit someone's narrative it's immediately discredited and discarded. Only the experts who agree with the narrative are to be taken seriously. It's become a real problem to discredit ideas that disagree with ones narrative even if they're from expert sources. ~~~ danielmarkbruce Then maybe just quote the person who wrote the article. You are missing the point: If you want to appeal to an authority in science, it's a high bar. I read the MIT Technology Review. I like it. I respect it for what it is. But, it's simply not good enough in a science discussion to say "MIT Technology Review says X". The bar is higher. It's not a function of politics or existing narratives or anything of that nature. ------ theontheone This is barely even an article. You state a trend and then say herd immunity must be happening because... you cannot think of any other reason. ~~~ gloriosoc Can you think of another reason? The states with above ~30% infection rates are now trending down. They are not being more careful. Sometimes logic is that simple. ~~~ PhrosTT New Yorkers are only interacting outside, where there is airflow constant supply of fresh air. Same with the beaches you photo'd. People in NY/NJ are NOT hanging out together inside. They're not in schools, not in offices, etc. So YES, they are being more careful. ~~~ gloriosoc OK I was in Ocean City NJ at the beach a month ago. This is just not true. I was in the women's bathroom- no masks, 6 inches from other people, no airflow. I'd say about 1/10 wearing masks. People crowded together. ------ smallgovt Isn't this hypothesis pretty easy to validate/falsify? Just take a random sample of 1K NY residents and test them for antibody/t-cell presence. 1K is plenty to make a statistically significant sample size when you're suggesting the true infection rate is double digits. Why do we NOT know what the population infection rate is? It seems relatively easy to do. ~~~ gloriosoc But we also don't know what antibody/T-cell levels, which btw testing for Tcells is not widely available or commercial, would = herd immunity. So there is no result that would prove herd immunity. ~~~ smallgovt > But we also don't know what antibody/T-cell levels... would = herd immunity. OK, but wouldn't a random sampling at least provide an answer to what pct of the population was infected at some point? That seems like a great starting point. ~~~ gloriosoc Yes, and for some reason, NYC and the CDC are not releasing results later than mid April. It is very suspicious imo. They were releasing antibody results and then abruptly stopped without explanation. ~~~ smallgovt Can you point me to the latest released results? Thanks! ~~~ gloriosoc This just came out [https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data- testing.pa...](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-testing.page) ~~~ smallgovt The antibody test results for this data set don't seem representative of the population at large. Reason being, if you look at the antibody positivity rate, it consistently drops as time goes on (whereas everything I've read suggests it should increase with time as more ppl have been infected). My guess is that at the beginning, hospitals were only testing COVID-sick patients, and as time went on testing became more widespread. ~~~ gloriosoc Or the initial antibodies drop in people that have had COVID over time (which they probably do). The antibody tests test for the kind of antibodies that are present immediately- over time a previously infected person will have less of those antibodies and more of the back up Tcell kind. You can read a review on this here: [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02400-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02400-7). ------ Hnrobert42 When it comes to CoVID-19 analysis, I prefer mine in the form of a peer- reviewed paper from a reputable journal. ~~~ gloriosoc Good luck- you might be waiting a while. Peer review takes months to years. At that point it's too late for preventative strategies for a pandemic. ~~~ Hnrobert42 Years? No. And if you want to improve the peer review process, lobby for paying reviewers ([https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5)). Regardless, I stand by my original point. I prefer peer-reviewed analysis. The alternative is a free-for-all where junk claims equal weight with legitimate science. Such a system is usually supported by folks whose work can’t make it through the traditional system. ~~~ gloriosoc Oof now we are saying that my work is not of publishable quality? The data are from two days ago so it would be hard to get it peer reviewed in that time. But I do plan on publishing. I am putting it out there so people can make more informed decisions (about schools etc) in real time. ~~~ bobosha You could put this up on biorxiv and invite other researchers to comment. ~~~ gloriosoc That's a good idea- that too will take some time- writing a paper is not a small task but I will put it on the to do list. ------ hnarn I block new domains via NextDNS, so if anyone's interested this domain was only registered 2020-07-31. ~~~ gloriosoc Yep it's a new site, just created it:) ------ 1kGarand Simple math below. NY has 1,300 deaths per million, and NJ has 1,800 deaths per million currently. Let's take the average and say that they reached herd immunity with 1,500 deaths per million. Great. For the entire US (320 million), that implies 480,000 deaths before reaching herd immunity. Does 480,000 deaths sound good to anyone? ~~~ gloriosoc It's not good, no. But I am not suggesting that this was a good plan. I am just saying it is the plan that is happening. I think the US government took a really bad route in handling the pandemic. New Zealand had the best model imo- shut down hard and early and eradicated. Hardly any deaths. Were able to reopen in 6 weeks. ~~~ skolsuper Does the US approach mean countries like New Zealand need to stay isolated until a vaccine is found? Or would herd immunity eventually eradicate the virus in US? ~~~ gloriosoc They should definitely have anyone abroad strictly quarantine for at least 14 days upon entering the country. Herd immunity would slow it to a crawl but it seems like it could pop back up in odd pockets of previously unexposed people. We also still don't know how long immunity will last- scientists are hopeful that it will last until a vaccine is produced but that's not a guarantee. ~~~ skolsuper Thanks ------ hellofunk That first paragraph, where the author seems to, even in jest, place blame on his college professor, all the wording and weird emphasis on that, it’s just really really strange. I certainly would not want to be his college professor. ~~~ coldtea Not even sure what you're getting at. It's a common type of tongue-in-cheek comment, one can find in tons of writings. "Blame X who inspired me to study Y, and led me down this path". There's no actual blame, it's just praise for his professor (and that's immediately understood as such). There's nothing "really really strange" about it, and there's no "weird emphasis" (it's a mere passing line in a big post). If anything, your pointing it out is weird. ~~~ hellofunk Eh, I read it differently. It’s not just one line, it’s three sentences followed by a reference to the political climate. I think it’s a bit much and it threw me off while I was reading it. I’ve seen those kinds of jesting comments in other blogs, but this one is more awkwardly phrased. When they write “Sorry Dr.Hume” I do actually feel sorry for his professor! ------ gloriosoc Ok I'm going to put this at the top since I believe it sheds further light on many of the points. This is a talk at UCSF's medical grand rounds (the weekly science talks given to all doctors at UCSF). At 38 minutes, one of the scientists cited by the MIT tech explains his findings in support of herd immunity. It's not peer reviewed yet because it's brand new- peer review takes a minimum of three months. He shows open table and google maps data in support of people not being much more careful in Florida or AZ. He also explains the interplay between mask wearing etc and RT. Hopefully you will find this to add extra rigor to what I have been saying. It is pretty dry- but that is the nature of this sort of talk. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MEF4XX8w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MEF4XX8w). ------ phenkdo Sorry for hijacking this thread, but it'd be great if some serious science/politics show hosts an extended debate from both POVs and have a serious scientific conversation about what's next in covid? herd immunity or not? ------ josephby > Why would Floridas numbers start to decrease if not for herd immunity? We > know they aren’t being more careful. Disney land reopened and there is a > police sheriff who literally made a rule that police officers and people > going into the station were not allowed to wear masks. This is idiotic. Rather than “herd immunity” one could, in fact, be seeing the impact of large numbers of people having been scared straight simply avoiding further contact. The author’s conjecture could be correct but they offer no proof. ------ newsbinator Does Sweden have herd immunity? They didn't lock down, but they did implement social distancing recommendations. Does Belarus have herd immunity? No lockdown, no social distancing to speak of, basically nobody wears a mask, er, anywhere. I see people in the centre of Minsk having face-to-face conversations all day long. And now there are tens of thousands of people protesting/yelling/hugging each other without masks. I very much hope the answer is yes and these countries do have something close to herd immunity. But that feels like wishful thinking. ~~~ gloriosoc This is what the MIT Tech has to say about Sweden (and I agree): "Lessons from Sweden Outside the US, researchers are also closely tracking the role of population immunity in national responses. Sweden, for example, did not impose a strict lockdown, and saw a large number of deaths starting in April. Since then, however, the number of new infections has declined. The nation’s leaders said last week that children would go back to school unmasked. “I would say in Sweden there is no doubt that immunity plays an important role, more than in other countries,” says Britton. “Now this epidemic is slowly stopping.” [https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006366/immunity...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006366/immunity- slowing-down-coronavirus-parts-us/) ~~~ danielmarkbruce I don't think you realize the quoting of MIT Technology Review isn't helping you. It's hurting. ~~~ gloriosoc ? care to explain? ~~~ danielmarkbruce MIT Technology Review says X is an appeal to authority. They aren't one. Hence it doesn't work. It also makes you seem naive. ------ dr_dshiv Yall gotta know that life is almost totally normal in the Netherlands and has been for months. Almost no one is dying. It's likely because people get so many colds in the winter, so there is general immunity. Or we are all about to die...? ~~~ ketamine__ I spent several pandemic months in the Netherlands. I have two ancedotes. Often if I was running on the sidewalk and encountered another person they would cross to the other side of the road (or I would). On my street there were 3-4 parties every week. I work late so loud music didn't effect my sleep much. Generally I felt like people kept their distance although I think compliance is a big issue with lockdowns everywhere. ------ fragmede We _know_ that the numbers are being futz with to make things look less bad. They've artificially low, and have been since the data has been redirected through the White House, and the expressed political beliefs of the resident there. In particular, by playing with the number of tests being run. Longer explanation here (not mine): [http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/2020/08/coronavirus- case...](http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/2020/08/coronavirus-cases-and- playing-games.html) ~~~ gloriosoc Yeah I'm pretty worried about data corruption. I have been planning to compare all the databases. Thanks for the link- I'll check it out tomorrow. ------ mchusma There have been multiple studies now that suggest significant herd immunity kicks in around 20-30% infection rate. We should see in a couple of weeks but if every state and country continues to hit an infection wall around 30%, it bodes well that the end is near. It also suggests that even 10-50M vaccines (in the US) can make an enormous impact and this thing may be over (as a severe widespread issue) in 2020. I'm excited to see the next 4-6 weeks of data on this. ~~~ SomeoneFromCA "Herd Immunity" is a spectrum, as some already commented. It depends highly on the introduced restrictions measures. So for some limited masking it will appear at the earlier moment, but once people stop wearing them, the threshold will go up. ------ 1kGarand I think the winning countries in this pandemic would be the ones who were able to collectively wait for a vaccine while maintaining low death rates. Sadly US will not be one of those. ------ somewhereoutth Can someone explain to me why every Covid submission that makes it to the front page of HN seems to take the 'denialist' perspective? Is an agenda being pushed? There must be so much important science being done right now, surely we would rather hear about that. ~~~ smallgovt How is this a 'denialist' perspective? The author is affirming that COVID is real and so widespread that some areas are reaching herd immunity... ~~~ somewhereoutth The idea is that if we have reached herd immunity then we can all go back to work/school and forget about Covid. This is a very dangerous line of thinking, and indeed is self fulfilling - ignoring Covid will sure enough result in herd immunity (assuming we get lasting immunity - unlike the common cold coronavirus!), but at the cost of thousands of lives and serious long term health effects. ------ smallgovt Interesting that this is flagged. There are almost no strong claims made in the article. Are people not open to a discussion about herd immunity? ~~~ dang I don't think it's an unreasonable submission (which, just to pre-empt some objections, is an orthogonal question to agree vs. disagree), and it's a bonus that the author is here to comment. We'll turn off the flags for now. ~~~ gloriosoc Thanks! ------ not2b When herd immunity is reached new cases don't hum along at a lower but steady rate, as they are in New York State. Herd immunity means that infected individuals can't find enough non-infected people to infect, R0 is well below 1, meaning that cases exponentially drop to zero. Check out the chart for New York's new cases, it isn't happening. [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new- york/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/) ~~~ gloriosoc Herd immunity is not in reality a single cutoff, it's a spectrum. So there is some point- looking like ~30% where R<1 and cases dip. But the > the %, the more immunity. ~~~ tonyedgecombe Technically it's the threshold where R drops below one. You might expect transmission to continue for some time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Overshoot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Overshoot) ~~~ gloriosoc Sure. That is the technical definition. My point is that the rate at which cases will drop is proportional to the percent of the population that is immune. It's not a binary.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hash: Simulation For Everybody - tobr https://hash.ai/about/mission ====== sradman Joel Spolsky is one of the founders and blogged about it [1]. [1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2020/06/18/hash-a-free- online...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2020/06/18/hash-a-free-online- platform-for-modeling-the-world/) ~~~ dang I originally put the current submission in the second-chance pool (described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)), but perhaps that blog post, short as it is, provides a better intro.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Quora's "India Problem" - Brajeshwar https://www.quora.com/Navin-Kabra/Blog/Quoras-India-Problem ====== GhotiFish I think Quora has a Quora problem. It's Quora. The bait and switch yahoo answers with the anti-user attitude. Why the hell are people using this service? ~~~ maqr It's not like there aren't people competing in this space either (like StackExchange). I would love to understand why people use Quora and how they got to the level of popularity that they seem to enjoy. ~~~ saurik StackExchange does not compete in this space as they do not provide vertical instances of their site for general questions and answers like Quora, and have the overall attitude that such things are too open-ended and not handled well by their format (so when you see such questions on any of the larger StackExchanges, while there is always a flurry or really great and really valuable user contributions, the question is always quickly closed by moderators). If StackExhange _wanted_ this space, they could probably own it very quickly. ------ arjie I hope this website dies. It is Expertsexchange reborn, with the downside that all questions are open-ended and consequently all answers are rubbish. ~~~ tzs Please explain what was "rubbish" about this answer: [http://qr.ae/IsPDn](http://qr.ae/IsPDn) ~~~ arjie I was using hyperbole. In the English language at least, it is used as a rhetorical device. Other examples: 1\. "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse": Rarely is the person actually capable of eating a horse. 2\. "I'd die if he found out": Rarely would the person actually die. They'd probably be mortified (ah ha, nice pun there, eh?). 3\. "Everyone's a critic": Nope, not everyone. Some people are not critics. ------ incision Some variation of this topic comes up over and over again. I've seen people bitch about Brazilians on Orkut, Chinese on WoW, Blacks on MySpace/Twitter, Indians on Quora and Android users on Instagram. For all its potential as a connector, the Internet is full of homogeneous echo chambers. There's some threshold for these places where integration suddenly becomes a "problem". I've occasionally wondered if the future of recommendation engines are systems which feed us a steady stream of what we want to hear and filter out everything and everyone else. ~~~ rayiner > For all it's potential as a connector, the Internet is full of homogeneous > echo chambers. That's the point of the internet. To be able to seek out more people who think like you and have the exact same interests so you don't have to deal so much with all the heterogenous people in the real world. ------ gedrap Many people have their own views on this topic (India problem) but most of them will keep it to themselves because nowadays mentioning almost anything related to some specific country/race/religion will get them called 'racists'. But it doesn't count when talking about Americans, Europeans, white people. You can tell anything you want about them. And that's crazy. ~~~ beachstartup well. the problem is white people don't seem to give enough of a shit to actually do anything about it. who's fault is that? at least white nationalists have the balls to just come out and say what they mean. coward. ------ JazCE "But no-one was complaining when Silicon Valley was dominating the feed? So isn't it racist to complain when Indian topics dominate? There are two main reasons why most people find it not too irritating to have a Silicon Valley dominated social network. First is that most social networks are initially dominated by Silicon Valley, so in general, people are used to Silicon Valley content. The second, and more important reason is that many people in other countries are interested in keeping tabs on what's going on in Silicon Valley because they feel that the same thing will reach their country in an year or two. So, too much Silicon Valley content is usually not a problem for most people." This pretty much invalidates the argument... Do they really want silicon valley content or is it just the authors bias? ~~~ Wilya I can't speak for everyone, but that's certainly the main reason why I'm not on Quora. Even before the whole "login to read" thing, I sometimes went there, skimmed through the topics and profiles of people and my impression was "So, it's a social network for Silicon Valley people. Why should I care ?" ------ Tichy I have a similar problem with feminism on Twitter, perhaps I would even like to be able to block politics completely. Machine Learning to the rescue? ------ PaulHoule Indians are what, half of the English speakers in the world? Any en-language site with a global audience is going to have more Indians in it than most US- ians are used to. ~~~ eip And Chinese are the other half. ~~~ acchow Chinese represent half of the world's English speakers? Either I can't detect the sarcasm here or you have some odd misconception of China. ~~~ eip China Daily reports that more than 300 million Chinese already are studying English—nearly one quarter of the country’s population. And in the next five years, all schools will begin teaching English in kindergarten, and all state employees younger than 40 will be required to master at least 1,000 English phrases. ------ guylhem I'm sorry but it is just as racist as when people complained about Orkut being "invaded" by brazilians. There's a product, there is a population, and a good fit. How exactly is it a problem? If you don't like indian content, just don't read it. No one is forcing you. What if most of the content on facebook was suddently in spanish? Would you stop using it or ask for a anti-hispanic filter?? It you feel like "these people are really overtaking my place", maybe the problem is not with them, but with you. There are many websites, and one may want to cater to a WASP-only audience. But maybe it won't be as successful. ~~~ millstone "Just don't read content you aren't interested in" is paradoxical, because the determination of interest requires reading. The problem is that Quora presents users with content they aren't interested in, and don't give users tools to filter that content. If left unchecked, Quora may converge to a monoculture, which would make it much less important than it could be. But you're absolutely right to point out the racism of the phrase "India problem." The problem is with Quora, not the users or their countries of origin. > What if most of the content on facebook was suddently in spanish? Would you > stop using it or ask for a anti-hispanic filter?? Absolutely, if Facebook insisted on showing me Spanish-languge content no matter what I did. The relevant metric is not "majority of content on the site" but "majority of the content presented to me." ~~~ theorique _" Just don't read content you aren't interested in" is paradoxical, because the determination of interest requires reading._ When I last used Quora, you could follow different topics and people. Presumably, if you aren't interested in Perl coding, you don't follow that topic, and you don't get exposed to Perl content. In what way is India-centric content 'forced' on Quora users in a way that (e.g.) Perl-centric content is not? Is Quora attracting English-speaking Indians as users in disproportionate numbers compared to users not from India? ~~~ rdl Like half of the new users are English-speaking Indians, if not more. It got a following in the IITs and exploded there, while stagnating elsewhere. ------ andrewcooke does quora support multiple languages yet? i ask because when i was there (years ago - and i should add, given comments below, that some of the commentators i remember best were indian) a similar cultural problem was playing out, where they were clamping down on non-english posts. being vaguely bi-lingual i was happy to chat in spanish and so noticed the resentment. anyway, in retrospect (and assuming they still don't support multiple languages) it seems like the quora reflex - to prefer "ban it" over "understand and adapt" \- has come home to roost. instead of providing tools to support multiple communities / languages, they relied on exclusion through language, which was fragile to a community that uses english. it's actually quite satisfying, if you're happy to watch quora burn. ------ gojomo More generally, they're having a 'plaza problem', where a universally-shared space, with too much visibility of bulk and differing-tastes content, creates scaling problems. There's a good discussion of this concept of 'plazas' and 'warrens' in social software (originating with Xianhang Zhang) here: [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and- the-...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the-edge-of- legibility/) ------ mojuba In this regard, Quora seems to be in a unique position among similar web sites. Why doesn't StackExchange have a "race problem", for example? (And what I really mean by "race problem" is people complaining about it, somehow feeling uncomfortable or discouraged by it, rather than the "problem" itself.) I think Quora's more fundamental problem is that the rules of the social game were not well though out. For example, I find that the user's feed can become too noisy too quickly. It is too easy for someone to add a crappy unrelated question into a topic you follow. As a result you see people who value their time leaving the social network, no matter how "intellectualist" the network wanted to be in the beginning. Indians just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: exactly at the time of interesting people (including interesting Indians) leaving. Somehow I'm still hoping to see Quora's revival. Just noticed a question about Noam Chomsky and thought: so why doesn't Noam Chomsky himself answering it? This wouldn't sound like a fantasy a few years ago. If I were Quora, I'd re-think the user's dashboard with those who value their time in mind. ~~~ gojomo There are some similarities with how, when Orkut took off in India and Brazil, its open-community/broad-affiliation features became less useful in the US. ------ pdog I don't think blocking India-specific topics is enough. Even general questions are dominated by answers from people with "Indian-sounding" names. ~~~ computer Is there a specific problem with people with Indian-sounding names answering questions, or is this just casual racism? ~~~ rdl Indian names are good predictors of contributors of low-value content on Quora, but not because Indians in general suck. It's that most of the users added after 2012 are Indian _and_ most recent additions also suck. "Indian name" is highly correlated with "joined after 2012" and "suck". I think non- Indian recent joiners are actually worse than Indian recent joiners, but it's not as easy to immediately tell when someone joined. Indian users from pre-2012 were indistinguishable from other users. (2013 isn't that much worse than 2012, yet; the decline really accelerated in late 2011). Some of the best users on Quora are "early Indian users". The problem I have with filtering stuff on Quora is that I've successfully filtered most of the bad content, but now I have virtually no content in my feed at all. The percentage of worthwhile questions/answers has _really_ fallen. If they didn't have essentially limitless internal funding, they'd be shutting down. They have made no meaningful product improvements in ~years. ~~~ AJ007 I'm not a Quora user but I've seen this issue occur on numerous message boards and online communities over the years. I have seen one default ban anyone the moderators think is Indian. The real problem is the output: broken English & logic that is indistinguishable from trolling. The reason why this seems to be an "Indian" issue is because of English literacy which is good enough to be usable, but with very poor grammar, at a massive scale. Other countries, be it France, Russia, or China, appear to have either English literacy that is either high enough quality as to be indistinguishable from being non-native, or it is just a tiny blip that goes unnoticed. I would suspect that "Indian" is the term many of the outliers of these other groups are being grouped in to. Solutions? The ones that lump everyone in to groups based on their country of origin are the simplest. The least "racist" would be to divide the community down these lines, just as Google does. The bigger question to me is, how are so many people learning English so poorly, but in a usable form? ~~~ ridiculous_fish I have chatted with people (primarily from India, but also from some other countries) who were intelligent, but wrote using the stereotypical broken grammar, heavy abbreviations, zero capitalization, and rampant misspellings. "plz send me obj jaba code for engg proj vey urgent." I asked them why they type that way, and the answer I got was that it saves time, and as long as the ideas are communicated successfully, who cares? Especially on a medium as transient as the Internet! In turn, they were baffled at why I typed with so many unnecessary words and letters. In the USA, correct English is a way of signaling respect for your content and for your reader. If I am unwilling to invest my time to spell and punctuate properly, I have no right to ask you to invest your time in reading what I wrote. For these typists, there are other signals. For example, a common question was "sir plz cn u hlp me". Respect is conveyed via the first two words, and the style is intended to be neutral and not communicate anything. In turn, I found "sir" to be weird and overly deferential, and the style to be incredibly off- putting. So that's one factor I identified. I'd be interested in hearing from others. ~~~ kamaal >>I asked them why they type that way, and the answer I got was that it saves time, and as long as the ideas are communicated successfully, who cares? What??? Ironically while working at a major US based call center here in Bangalore, my American English instructor told me I need to exactly do that. In fact she always used to insist I need to let go of my 'British English' and adopt the 'US English' standards. 'Want to' had to become 'wanna', 'I would' had to become I'd - And stuff like that. To me it felt like I had to unlearn all the good things to speak in US English. >>In the USA, correct English is a way of signaling respect for your content and for your reader. This really made me laugh. By British and even by standards of English spoken in Indian schools. Most Indians and can write and speak better English than most Americans can ever do. India probably has the highest number of publications and consumption of English material and may easily account to half of the world's English speaking population- magazines, newspapers, books, novels, text books, printed form etc you name it and India will easily come out on top. You seem to be(disturbed and) referring to a form of communication called 'SMS lingo' which is very famous among kids around the world, not just India. Its more of generation gap, while I chat with kids around- I get equally irritated as your are. Yet among them, this is what they call 'cool'. On a side note, there was once a time when people complained about a lot of Indians in Wikipedia. This is going to happen with any English based site. ------ volume I found out about the "India problem" from the response I got on this quora: [https://www.quora.com/Expertise/What-are-examples-of- experts...](https://www.quora.com/Expertise/What-are-examples-of-experts-who- in-the-end-are-not-really-experts) You'll see that the first 8 pictures posted in ranked order are all of indian decent. At firs I thought maybe Varrun Ramani's upvotes were some sort of 4chan/anonymous hack but that's the first time I discovered this "Indian problem". This is my "best" quora with the most followers. Anecdotally, it's peaked around 500 and it seems the makeup of it has skewed towards Indians. For me, it's just another tool to research and discover things. I'm sure if I worked for quora, I'd like it to be way more than just that. I like the comments about having country specific stuff, but then again that seems to be tough to break down current content that way. Perhaps that is a Manhattan Project that Quora needs to tackle. That all said, if I wanted to make a "random indian name generator" I'd definitely harvest it off certain quoras. ------ kineticfocus The world IS pretty big. Always interesting getting unique perspectives. ------ Buzaga Quora was always a 'club' and not a 'community', that's why it sort of can't grow... clubs are meant to be exclusive, when they grow there's always 'this place was so much cooler before', I guess an actual community won't care because it will provide ways for people to contribute that brings up the whole community, with a purpose and value enjoyed by everyone in it, that's an ecosystem that can grow. If someone contributes to Rails core, nobody will care if the dude lives in a nudist community in Camboja smoking pot and doing OSS code naked everyday. It's structural.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Bosses at Google Are Not Allowed to Hire, Fire, or Promote Employees - bedros https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/heres-why-bosses-at-google-are-not-allowed-to-hire-fire-or-promote-employees.html ====== dollaholla Google: The only company where your potential colleagues and managers have no say in whether or not you get hired.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you manage non urgent new problems? - justinboogaard I used to make a list of things that I needed to do and stacked new questions or problems under my list. Over the last week I tried addressing the most recently discovered non urgent problems first and it’s been feeling more productive. What do you do? ====== epc I used a slightly modified version of Stephen Covey's time management matrix (urgent vs non-urgent, important vs non–important). My modification is that things that fall into the not-urgent/not-important bucket get retained if they're educational, otherwise I discard them.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Virginia man owes $1.5 million for sharing 10 porn films - chinmoy http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/virginia-man-owes-1-5-million-for-sharing-10-porn-films/ ====== JoeAltmaier Ignore a plaintiff; ignore a lawyer; but Never ignore a judge.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft unveils IE8 Beta 1 (now available) - drm237 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software_development&articleId=9066778&taxonomyId=63&intsrc=kc_top ====== andreyf Link for the lazy:[http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/e/8/7e88c69b-77d2-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/e/8/7e88c69b-77d2-4fd7-b1eb-12c6d89ecc93/IE8-WindowsXP-x86-ENU.exe)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Claims that tomato juice is good for the heart not backed by evidence - open-source-ux https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/claims-tomato-juice-good-heart-not-backed-evidence/ ====== dvfjsdhgfv I still wonder why anyone is still spending money on studies without a control group, it makes the whole study useless. And it wouldn't be that expensive since you wouldn't even need to give them tomato juice, just measure their cholersterol and blood pressure levels. ~~~ AstralStorm Sorry, but both kinds of studies are useless. Your proposition is observational and needs a big sample. (Not that any nutritional study does not need one, just an order of magnitude bigger.) Tomato juice is liable to get lost in the noise of various diets and genetics unless you truly control the whole of the diet, which is reasonably easy to do with free, well done boxed meals. Then you just need a sample size of few thousands instead of few hundred thousand. ~~~ dvfjsdhgfv Yes, I totaly agree, I just wonder why - even if it's observational study - they decided not to have a control group at all. They might as well choose not to have any study at all, the result would be the same.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Graceful server restart with Go - _Soulou http://blog.appsdeck.eu/post/105609534953/graceful-server-restart-with-go ====== zimbatm This is something the process manager should handle. With this approach each language and program has to implement the fd-passing and restart coordination. It also doesn't integrate really well with systemd/upstart because they want a stable pid. That's why I wrote socketmaster[1], it's simple enough that it doesn't need to change and it's the one handling the socket and passing it to your program. I haven't had to touch it for years now. For my current work I wrote crank[2], a refinement of that idea. It's a bit more complex but allows to coordinate restarts. It implements a subset of the systemd socket activation protocol conventions. All your program has to do is look for a LISTEN_FDS environment variable to find the bound file descriptor and send a "READY" message on the NOTIFY_FD file descriptor when it's ready to accept new connection. Only then will crank shutdown the old process. * [1]: [https://github.com/zimbatm/socketmaster](https://github.com/zimbatm/socketmaster) * [2]: [https://github.com/pusher/crank](https://github.com/pusher/crank) ~~~ mnutt For many workloads that's fine, but it sounds like some people have found that using the OS socket handling doesn't distribute very evenly among processes in some cases: [http://strongloop.com/strongblog/whats-new-in-node- js-v0-12-...](http://strongloop.com/strongblog/whats-new-in-node- js-v0-12-cluster-round-robin-load-balancing/) Edit: more concise explanation, in the context of SO_REUSEPORT: [http://lwn.net/Articles/542718/](http://lwn.net/Articles/542718/) ~~~ zimbatm Yes it's true that socket sharing is not optimal for load-balancing scenarios. Here you would use 1 crank/socketmaster process per process that you want to run and a haproxy in front. Their goal is not to do load balancing but to not disrupt existing (web)socket connections when a new process is started. ------ gtrubetskoy exec.Command() is a more elegant approach, I've written about this back in June, my write-up was specific to an HTTP server: [http://grisha.org/blog/2014/06/03/graceful-restart-in- golang...](http://grisha.org/blog/2014/06/03/graceful-restart-in-golang/) I think the article also misses an important step - you need to let the new process to initialize itself (e.g. read its config files, connect to db, etc), and then signal the parent that it is ready to accept connections, only at which point the parent stops accepting. The important point here is that the child may fail to init, in which case the parent should carry on as if nothing happened. ------ jpollock Process upgrades are a variant of fail-over on either hardware death or bug. I recommend treating upgrades as a chance to test your failure recovery processes. If you really can't afford someone getting a "connection refused" what happens when the machine's network connection dies? ~~~ _Soulou You're right, but in some cases, for example a 'git push' to deploy an application, we don't want the SSH connection to be cut when upgrading our SSH server, this is not an option. If the server crashes the current connections will be lost, but it should be the only scenario when this occures. ~~~ laumars You can cut an SSH connection while SSHed in providing the server comes back up in a timely manner as SSH does some clever keep alive tricks to resume broken connections. I often restarted sshd or even the network interfaces themselves while SSHed into some Linux boxes. ~~~ _Soulou That's because when you connect to your SSH, it forked and there is one process which is handling your connection, then when you restart the daemon, it only restarts the master, no harm done to the existing connections. ~~~ laumars That doesn't help when you restart the network interfaces though. Normal TCP/IP behaviour would be for the connection to terminate, however SSH can reattach itself. ~~~ _Soulou I don't want to say anything wrong on this and I don't have the knowledge on this, but it's possible than the OS is doing a lot of work on this to avoid cutting connections. Do you have any details on this? ~~~ laumars Sure, not a problem: "A keep-alive is a small piece of data transmitted between a client and a server to ensure that the connection is still open or to keep the connection open. Many protocols implement this as a way of cleaning up dead connections to the server. If a client does not respond, the connection is closed. SSH does not enable this by default. There are pros and cons to this. A major pro is that under a lot of conditions if you disconnect from the Internet, your connection will be usable when you reconnect. For those who drop out of WiFi a lot, this is a major plus when you discover you don't need to login again." Source: [http://www.symkat.com/ssh-tips-and-tricks-you- need](http://www.symkat.com/ssh-tips-and-tricks-you-need) There's probably better sources out there, that was just one of the top results in Google as, if I'm honest, I'm not an expert on this either. ~~~ bluecmd Devil is in the details, but the source actually talks against you here: This happens because your router or firewall is trying to clean up dead connections. It's seeing that no data has been transmitted in N seconds and falsely assumes that the connection is no longer in use. To rectify this you can add a Keep-Alive. This will ensure that your connection stays open to the server and the firewall doesn't close it. In other words: What keep-alive does is that it prevents routers/middle-ware- boxes to forget that the connection exists in the first place. This is _not_ needed on a clean internet connection where everything is treated as stateless and simple routing is everything that is done. ~~~ laumars It also says: " _if you disconnect from the Internet, your connection will be usable when you reconnect._ ". The same logic applies if you restart your network interfaces on the server. I'm open to being proved wrong here, but as I've already said, only been doing this for several years now, so I'd need a counter argument to explain the mechanics of what's allowing the connection to reattach rather than "it's not possible" :) edit: hmmm, re-reading the latter part of keep alive article I posted, it does seem to imply what your saying. So how come my SSH connections aren't nuked then? Is this just a property of TCP/IP (I'm not a networking guy so ignorant to some of the lower level stuff) ~~~ bluecmd Yes, as long as both endpoints (TCP/IP stacks) keep their state it doesn't matter what stuff does between them. Interfaces being one of the things being between stacks. That is what allows for stuff like live application migration as long as you bring the TCP/IP state. ~~~ laumars I see. Thank you :) ------ dividuum I wonder if there's any library out there that uses the SO_REUSEPORT option (see [http://lwn.net/Articles/542629/](http://lwn.net/Articles/542629/)). It allows multiple programs to bind and accept on the same port. So I guess it should be possible to just start a second new process and then gracefully terminate the old one. Any thoughts? ~~~ zimbatm You still want some form of coordination to only stop the old process when the new one is live. The best place to be to know about the life of a process is being it's parent process (because you can call wait(pid)) and in that case you might as well open the socket and pass it's fd during fork/exec. That way you keep the cross-POSIX compatibility. ------ jcrites Interesting technique! I can see this being useful in applications that are single points of failure. In redundant systems, however, I have found it quite effective and generally prefer to solve this problem upstream of the application, in the load balancer, by routing traffic around machines during each machine's deployment. First step of a deployment: shift traffic away from the machine, while allowing outstanding requests to complete gracefully. Next you can install new software or undertake any upgrade actions in isolation. This way any costs involved in the deployment don't impair the performance of real traffic. Bring the new version up (and prewarm if necessary). Finally, direct the load balancer to resume traffic. We call the general idea "bounce deployments", as a feature of the deployment engine. Two advantages of having a general-purpose LB solution: (1) You can apply it to any application or protocol, regardless of whether the server supports this type of socket handoff. Though to be fair, some protocols are more difficult to load balance than others - but most can be done, with some elbow grease (even SSH). (2) It's possible to run smoke tests and sanity tests against the new app instance, such that you can abort bad deployments with no impact. Our deployment system has a hook for sanity tests to be run against a service after it comes up. These can verify its function before the instance is put back into the LB, and are sometimes used to warm up caches. If you view defects and bad deployments as inevitable, then the ability to "reject" a new app version in production with no outage impact is a great safety net. With the socket handover, your new server must function perfectly, immediately, or else the service is impaired. (Unless you keep the old version running and can hand the socket back?) (By LB I don't necessarily mean a hardware LB. A software load balancer suffices as well - or any layer acting as a reverse proxy with the ability to route traffic away from a server automatically.) A technique like this would also be useful for implementing single-points like load balancers or databases, so that they can upgrade without outage. Though failover or DNS flip is usually also an option. ------ finnh Questions from someone who doesn't use Go: 1\. Won't this leave the parent process running until the child completes? And, if you do this again & again, won't that stack up a bunch of basically dead parent processes? Maybe I'm misunderstanding how parent/child relatioships work with ForkExec 2\. What if you want the command-line arguments to change for the new process? 3\. In addressing (2), in general would it be simpler to omit the parent-child relationship with a wrapper program? The running (old) process can write its listener file descriptor to a file, similar to how it is done here, and the wrapper reads that file & sets an environment variable (or cmd-line argument) telling the new process? The wrapper could be used for any server process which adheres to a simple convention: on startup, re-use a listener FD if provided (via env or cmd line ... or ./.listener) once listening, write your listener FD to well-known file (./.listener) on SIGTERM, stop processing new connections but don't close the listener (& exit after waiting for current connections to close, obvi) 4\. Am i the only one who finds "Add(1)/Done()" to be an odd naming convention? I might go with "Add(1)/Add(-1)" instead just for readability ~~~ _Soulou Hi finnh, post author here, 1\. When the parent process has finished handling its connections, it just exits. The children are then considered as 'orphans' and are automatically attached to the init process. When you run your service as a daemon, that's exactly what you want, so you don't have a huge stack of processes. 2\. I used syscall.ForkExec(os.Args[0], os.Args […]), but I could changed the string array os.Args by anything I want to change the arguments. 3\. It could be a way to do it, it would also work, but it is not the choice we have done. 4\. It may look a bit weird, but it's part of the language, you get used to it really quickly ;-) ------ alexk Here's the library that implements this pattern: [https://github.com/gwatts/manners](https://github.com/gwatts/manners) And Mailgun's fork that supports passing file descriptors between processes: [https://github.com/mailgun/manners](https://github.com/mailgun/manners) ~~~ _Soulou Hi alexk, post author here, The 'manners' package only enables graceful shutdown in a HTTP server, there is still work to be done to restart it gracefully, that's what I'm trying to show in the article. ~~~ alexk Great article btw! That's why I've added missing methods here: [https://github.com/mailgun/manners](https://github.com/mailgun/manners) Getting files from listener: [https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/listener.go#L...](https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/listener.go#L77) Starting server with external listener: [https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/server.go#L87](https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/server.go#L87) It's used to restart Vulcand without downtime: [https://github.com/mailgun/vulcand/blob/master/service/servi...](https://github.com/mailgun/vulcand/blob/master/service/service.go#L207) Let's collaborate on this as a library if you are interested ------ fjordan Goagain by Richard Crowley is a great package that we are using for graceful restarts: [https://github.com/rcrowley/goagain](https://github.com/rcrowley/goagain) EDIT: added author ~~~ alexk I found that it corrupts the FD by using this call: [https://github.com/rcrowley/goagain/blob/master/goagain.go#L...](https://github.com/rcrowley/goagain/blob/master/goagain.go#L267) Not sure why it happens though, but it led to all sorts of strange intermittent issues with broken connections. Once I replaced this logic with passing files using GetFile().Fd() instead it started working fine, so beware of this. I still wonder why it happens though. ~~~ fjordan Thanks for this. Were you able to publish your changes either on a fork or in a PR? ~~~ alexk I ended up using different library: [https://github.com/gwatts/manners](https://github.com/gwatts/manners) But the code that extracts the fd without using reflection and access to the private properties is here: [https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/listener.go#L...](https://github.com/mailgun/manners/blob/master/listener.go#L155) I think it should be fairly easy to port it to Richard's implementation ------ christop I've played with Einhorn from Stripe, which works pretty nicely for graceful restarts too: [https://stripe.com/blog/meet-einhorn](https://stripe.com/blog/meet-einhorn) [https://github.com/stripe/go-einhorn](https://github.com/stripe/go-einhorn) ------ steakejjs So I wrote a golang application and it runs behind nginx. My server "restart" when I want to push new code is, Re run my program on a different port, point nginx at the new port, reload nginx, kill the old. Curious what is so bad about this approach? I admit it's hacky, but it works. Is there just too many things to do? ~~~ blakecaldwell Similar to what we do. We have two instances of our services behind HAProxy. We drain and kill one instance, then restart or upgrade it, add it back to the pool, then do the same for the other. Nothing hacky about it, and it's language/framework independent. ------ agwa Does anyone know what's going on with this line: > file := os.NewFile(3, "/tmp/sock-go-graceful-restart") What's with that filesystem path, which isn't referenced anywhere else, and which should be unnecessary because the file descriptor 3 is inherited when the process starts? ~~~ peterwaller Given a file descriptor, this returns an _os.File [1] (it 's analogous to a `FILE_` from C-land). Which among other things, knows its name [2]. I guess it's hard to in a portable way go from a file descriptor to filename, so it's a parameter to `NewFile`. [1] [http://golang.org/pkg/os/#File](http://golang.org/pkg/os/#File) [2] [http://golang.org/pkg/os/#File.Name](http://golang.org/pkg/os/#File.Name) ~~~ agwa Thanks. Indeed, it's not generally possible to go from a file descriptor to filename, because not all file descriptors refer to files with names (e.g. sockets). So I guess the second argument in this case is just a dummy value that is necessary because the Go library doesn't have a way to create a nameless "file" from a file descriptor. ------ thinxer Here's the `grace` package from Facebook: [https://github.com/facebookgo/grace](https://github.com/facebookgo/grace) ------ iffycan Here's a way to do it for any language: [https://github.com/iffy/grace](https://github.com/iffy/grace) ------ the_mitsuhiko You can just use systemd for this. Open the FD in systemd and then pass it into the process. ~~~ _Soulou The less I rely on the operating system environment, the best it is. Go provides static binaries, easy to deploy. I don't want to get hooked to systemd. (even more if my server can handle the use case with a few lines of code.) ~~~ acdha Notice how the discussion is full of edge-cases which this code doesn't handle? That's the argument for letting the operating system handle it unless this is such a key part of what you do that it's worth taking on that expense personally. ~~~ agwa > Notice how the discussion is full of edge-cases which this code doesn't > handle? Can you point to a _single_ unhandled edge case mentioned so far in this discussion? The only possible one I see is finnh's complaint that it doesn't support changing arguments, but that seems more like a missing feature (which doesn't seem that important to me) than an edge case. The logic needed to correctly implement this is quite minimal, and implementing it yourself both spares you a rather heavy dependency and gives you more flexibility. ~~~ _Soulou For the argument, you can change them, i answered there: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8773176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8773176) So far, I haven't encountered any annoying edge case I can't handle, so if you have examples, I'll be glad to discuss them with you ------ wbeckler Does anyone know if there is a way of doing the same thing in node.js? ------ teabee89 I really enjoyed reading this article. Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Results of the SQL Performance Quiz - randomdrake http://use-the-index-luke.com/blog/2014-02/results-three-minutes-sql-performance-quiz ====== pdubs Regarding #5: >That caught me by surprise. Both options “roughly the same” and “depends on the data” got about 25% — the guessing probably. I don't think it was guessing so much as reasoning that fetching 100 rows (and filtering by value) instead of 10 rows doesn't have significant real-world impact unless the row data is particularly large. I'll admit I didn't think of the out-of-index lookup, but my main thought was 100/1000000 vs 10/1000000 isn't a big deal unless the DB is running on an abacus. ~~~ brianberns I had the same thought. Seems like the optimizer could still perform an index- only scan to get to 100 rows, then go to the table to filter them down to 10 rows. Yes, the second step is extra, but should still be fast. What am I missing? ~~~ eterm That was my reasoning when I answered, but I had missed the fact it was a GROUP BY, which means you can't just filter after the fact. Edit: In other words it was 100 or 10 aggregated rows. A extra WHERE clause will change the values of each of the rows rather than just filter the rows from 100 to 10. (Which a HAVING clause would do.) ~~~ buckbova It's much simpler than that. The first query only has to reference the index because the data is IN the index. The second query has to access the table. That's it. It's called a covering index. ~~~ eterm But if it wasn't for the GROUP BY, filtering 100 results of a million down to 10 results wouldn't change performance much even if you read every column of every row of those 100. The trick is the fact that the GROUP BY means that "It used to return 100 it now returns 10" is a red herring, it still has to read every row to make up those 10. ~~~ buckbova I don't understand what you mean "trick". SELECT date_column, count(*) FROM tbl WHERE a = @a AND b = @b GROUP BY date_column; The "AND b = @b" causes the sql engine to access data in the table instead of solely relying on the index. GROUP BY has 0 to do with it. If you changed the query to SELECT a, date_column FROM tbl WHERE a = @a and SELECT a, date_column FROM tbl WHERE a = @a AND b = @b The answer would be the same. ~~~ eterm No, it wouldn't. If we're told that: SELECT a, date_column FROM tbl WHERE a = @a Returns 100 rows. Then: SELECT a, date_column FROM tbl WHERE a = @a AND b = @b Will only have to scan column b over 100 rows. Even without an index that will always be neglible, not compared to using the index to grab 100 rows from 10million but just compared to running a query and returning results at all. The reason that the original can be a lot slower is that the 100 and 10 rows of results are comprised of a lot more rows of actual information, because of the grouping. You're right that: SELECT a, date_column FROM tbl WHERE a = @a AND b = @b would be a lot slower, given the same data, but that isn't the scenario, the group by has implications about what "returns 100 rows, returns 10 rows" actually means in terms of data read. ~~~ buckbova Query 1 is an index seek only. It does not access the table data. Query 2 will perform the same index seek but will need to do a key lookup on each row and filter. It's not negligible. The 100 results are not comprised of a lot more information in this case, regardless of the grouping, because the 1st query does not access the table. Edit: I happen to have a table laying around with a little over a million rows and set up a similar set of queries. The query optimizer suggested the index seek taking 6% of total operation time while the key lookup taking up the other 94%. The rest was negligible. ------ tom_b I consider the critical path to SQL performance to be understanding what the data looks like and the type of queries to be executed against it rather than general guidelines. To be frank, knowing the difference in how to write an inner and outer join when given a three table schema and a desired output is a frightening filter of candidates. Having an instinct that some type of index could help a query probably makes you a db wizard. ~~~ tbrownaw _knowing the difference in how to write an inner and outer join when given a three table schema and a desired output is a frightening filter of candidates_ Even just asking for a basic understanding at the "use this to look up that" level -- since SQL syntax is easy to learn if you know what you want, and whoever does the recruiting has taken to mostly finding us new college graduates -- filters out an absurd number of candidates. I guess it's the same thing as makes FizzBuzz a useful question. ~~~ RogerL I honestly don't grasp why this is a good question. Sure, I write a SQL query now and again, but if I have to join I look it up. I don't do it a lot. If I had to do it a lot for you, I would learn it inside out. If I told you I was a DB wizard, then sure, I better already know how to join. But I know tons of people that don't really do SQL. They are eminently hire- able and valuable. source: a guy (me) who was bounced out of an interview because he didn't recall some specific detail about boost::shared_pointer(). ~~~ cwyers If you don't know how to do a JOIN you really don't know how to use SQL, and that's not a tricky use of JOINs at all. If you're hiring for a position that mostly uses an ORM or something and raw SQL is only important in cases where the ORM is giving bad performance, maybe not knowing how to do a three-table join is fine. If actually writing SQL is part of the job regularly, though, the sort of thing grandparent is talking about is absolutely a bare-minimum of knowledge needed, maybe even below the bare minimum. ------ bradleyjg The fact that something like this is necessary just goes to show you how much of a failure SQL is compared to what it was supposed to be. Remember the promise of a "declarative language" where you just had to tell it what you want, and it took care of the details? ~~~ jcampbell1 I reach the opposite conclusion. These are premature optimization tweaks which means tons of people are using SQL successfully without knowing them. You could argue CSS is a failure, because designers don't know that #sidebar .widget is slower than .widget I'd argue that it is evidence CSS is a success because it makes no real difference, and people opt for the more readable solution. ~~~ taeric Do you have a good link for numbers on this css point? I would expect speed differences, but my naive view would be that they wouldn't be much. ~~~ jcampbell1 The difference is probably .1us. You may find it interesting why browsers match CSS selectors from right to left (though this is a useless bit of trivia). see: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5797014/why-do- browsers-m...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5797014/why-do-browsers- match-css-selectors-from-right-to-left) ------ nwatson Hmmm, I'm no SQL jockey, rarely deal with it directly, and currently work with MongoDB. I got 5-of-5 on the PostgreSQL flavor of the test but am sure I'd fail a whiteboard interview on SQL particulars. Being a generalist I can usually figure things out and think I have an intuitive grasp of issues involved in many systems -- but unfortunately only 30% of workplaces understand that intuition, adaptability, and general experience usually trump specific knowledge. Fortunately I've landed pretty good jobs in spite of employer myopia, and work for a SV salary and a SV company though I live in a non-tech town in North Carolina. Just venting a frustration. ~~~ mattfenwick Just curious -- where did the "30%" figure come from? ~~~ herge Probably his intuition. ------ henrikschroder Interesting, every question in this quiz is about the concept of covering indexes, and figuring out if the query in question is covered by the suggested index or not. I'm surprised people didn't score better on this, it's a very simple concept. :-/ ~~~ cwyers The author has a website and sells a book devoted to teaching people about SQL indexing, so that's where his focus is. I wonder what kind of a pool he got; given that he seems to have given it mostly to people reading his site, you'd think that it'd be people who know more about SQL indexing than the average. Most troubling to me was how people who chose the MySQL option did so much worse than pretty much every other database. (I took the MySQL option, even though I work on MS SQL these days, and got 4 out of 5.) I suppose for people who consider MySQL to be a toy RDBMS, that's less "troubling" than "confirming current perception." ------ einhverfr He wonders about PostgreSQL users doing poorly on question 4. This is a fairly tricky question. Since the index is a btree index, it is pretty clear what the right answer is, but there are ways to address the wildcard issue with better indexes. PostgreSQL folks who have less familiarity with the db may miss the fact that a GIN or GIST index is required along with the pg_trgm addon, to make that query fast. ~~~ cbsmith Actually, since ~9.2 you don't need pg_trgm. But yeah, I was kind of surprised that he was surprised about why PostgreSQL folks failed: they just didn't think about whether the index was optimal. ------ tbrownaw I have two nearly-identical tables, both shaped like (foreign_key some_data_type, name varchar2, value varchar2). (Before you say "that means you should use No-SQL", this is a staging environment for loading data into a claims handling system. Which is built in a language that comes with a relational db built in.) They both have about 50M rows, with statistically identical data. I was running near-identical large queries on both, with the same execution plan (nested-loop join with index lookups), and getting vastly different timings. This being a staging environment, these tables are re-populated by truncating them and running an ETL tool. What turned out to be happening, is that in one case the source query on the ETL tool was sorted by the foreign key, and in the other it wasn't. So in one case all those fetch-by-index-lookup operations added to to essentially a partial table scan, and in the other they added up to what you'd expect where blocks would be fetched in random order and probably re-fetched after falling out of cache. ------ deepsun Interestingly, if you worked a lot with NoSQL systems, you could get 5/5 on that score. Although I worked a lot with SQL in past, I think good knowledge of only a NoSQL system (e.g. GAE Datastore) would give you enough understanding of how simple indexes are, and how to deal with them to pass this pure SQL test. Would like to hear a feedback from someone with only NoSQL experience after taking that test. ------ troels Maybe I'm just a bit slow, but what's going on with the 50/50 "guessing score" reasoning? Surely, you should half the wrong answers as well, rather than just subtracting it from the right answers?!? ~~~ Robin_Message If proportion X (between 0 and 1) of the population knows the right answer (we'll call A, and the wrong answer B), and the other half guesses evenly, you would expect: A = X + (1 - X) / 2 So to calculate X, given A, 2A = 2X + 1 - X = X + 1 X = 2A - 1 The author implied the formula X = A - 0.5 which is not correct. In particular, assume everyone got the answer right (X=A=1). Then the assertion that half of the answers are correct guesses is absurd. The correct lucky guess fraction (amount of the right answers to discard) is: A - X = A - (2A - 1) = 1 - A If A is near to 0.5 (which we would expect if our model is accurate and few people know the answer, the 50% approximation the author used is about right.) ~~~ troels Thanks - Not just me then. ------ Shivetya I like some of the examples they provide, however this is very platform dependent. Some advanced platforms have highly optimized query engines, to where even bad queries can be handled if they are run many times. Expressions can be reordered without the users knowledge and the results will be the same. ------ conradfr I'm guilty of using multiple single indexes instead of multi-column, so I'll try to correct that. ~~~ Hannan There's valid uses for both approaches; it all depends how you're querying the data. ------ bowyakka I wonder if postgres higher scores come from the excellent visual explain that is inside pgadminIII ? ------ ugk Not enough info to make good choices on all, at least for MSSQL. Besides, the correct answer to most database issues is "it depends". ------ veddev Very interesting thank you. Can anyone recommend any books on the matter? (on top of the one being recommended in the article itself). ------ eie I missed #2. I wonder which case assigning sort order(ASC or DESC) to columns in index gives performance advantage. ------ sergiotapia Wow this just highlights why I absolutely hate working with raw SQL be it Postgres or MSSQL. ~~~ bhaak How do you think an ORM will help you avoid those performance issues? Unless the ORM isn't very feature-rich but then you've got other problems anyway. SQL's syntax is ugly because it was designed in the 70s where some people had quite different ideas what a DSL should look like (hey, COBOL, you are guilty, too!) ~~~ dreamdu5t Ugly compared to what query language of equal power and expressiveness? ~~~ saosebastiao Datalog. I honestly love SQL...I consider it a noble language:) It is the only declarative language out there that is still used today, and there are some solid reasons for that. However, I believe the biggest mistake that was made in the creation of SQL was to try to emulate natural language flow patterns. This makes it hard to format and edit, and when people optimize towards writability, they kill readability (such as the use of leading commas. The lack of any real standard indentation practice makes it cooperative work frustrating. And the natural language flow actually confuses the writer/reader into thinking that order of operations is linear, as opposed to the FROM->WHERE->GROUP BY->HAVING->SELECT->ORDER BY->LIMIT order. This makes for really annoying logical bugs, such as how filter conditions in the where clause on a left- joined table can effectively turn your left join into an inner join. ~~~ einhverfr The biggest mistake in SQL was in using NULLs to mean three different things (no record found in an outer join, vs not applicable, vs not yet known). Fortunately with some types (varchar) on sane db's you can use dedicated empty values ('' for varchar) for not applicable, but you are still stuck with the other two as possibly conflicting. This is actually a big issue because your ability to have complex declarative constraints goes up with table width, so breaking off potentially nullable columns also removes them from being available for cross-column check constraints. ------ fooyc 5/5, as a MySQL user. I'm a bit ashamed by how bad MySQL users performed at this test. ------ uptown Scored 4/5 ... Missed #3 - the multi-column index question. ------ nousernamesleft 38.2% of people got 4/5 or 5/5 questions right. That is amazing. I never would have guessed anywhere even close to that. I would have figured it would be around 15% or so given that guessing randomly would put it at 12.5%. I guess I get a skewed perspective from looking at applicants since presumably most of those 38% are happy with their current jobs. ~~~ club7g I took the test twice so I'm guilty of skewing the stats. My reasoning - first time I got 4/5 and it told me 'you know a little bit about SQL performance tuning.' I was curious about what the 5/5 message would be. It's interesting on many levels that the message was the same.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wrapping up Java 9 new Features - submeta https://aboullaite.me/wrapping-up-java-9-new-features/ ====== pwaivers I am a C# developer. My thoughts: \- I love that they are adding REPL. I really wish C# had this. I use IPython all the time for Python. It is very helpful to mock something up quickly or try out different features. \- Adding private methods to an interface seems very wrong to me. An interface is just a contract without any implementation at all. I am not sure the reason behind this. Aren't abstract classes a thing in Java? \- I was sad to see that they have not included type inference to Java yet. It is just a syntax thing, but it makes writing code feel so much less wordy. Here's an open JEP for it: [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/286](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/286) ~~~ pents90 As a long-time Java developer, I really hope they won't implement JEP 286. I think type inference by the compiler is a bad idea, as it results in less readable code, more bugs, and an unnecessary burden on the compiler. I think all the examples where type inference is convenient are trivial cases, but the downsides start to crop up in real-world, large code bases. So it's something that makes the easy things slightly easier and the hard the things harder. Type inference already happens for you when you are using a good IDE, like IntelliJ IDEA. You can just use the "Introduce Variable" refactoring. And better yet, it self-documents your code with the variable's type. ~~~ pwaivers > _Less readable code_ Maybe it is because we are used to our own paradigms, but the following is no less readable to me because of inference. And these are the 95% of cases. var index = 0; var name = "pwaivers"; var names = new List<string>(); var nameMap = new List<string, Dictionary<int, Address>>(); > _more bugs_ I have never seen a bug arise because of type inference. Do you have an example? > _unnecessary burden on the compiler_ The compiler does a lot of work and this would probably be insignificant to add to it. However, I am totally open to learning more about this. ~~~ kentosi The examples you've given have direct values. Try: var index = getIndexFromSomewhere(); var name = getHandleFromUser("peter", "waivers") The type isn't as clear anymore. Edit: I'm absolutely a fan of the var syntax, having dabbled with scala. I'm just expressing what I think the original author's complaint is. ~~~ thelazydogsback I think the code is _much_ more readable and less annoying with inference. And as for your examples, you don't _need_ to know the types - the compiler will complain if you try and use them inappropriately whether the type was explicit or not. But the issue you have glossed over is that sometimes there is no nominal type - there is only an anonymous type, as for example returned by a LINQ query using new{}, or via monad-style combinators where you really don't want to see the type for fear of your eyes bleeding. ~~~ btschaegg > I think the code is much more readable and less annoying with inference. I concur. I've been dabbling with Java a bit again (mainly because of a hobby project in order to learn Clojure) after a pause of multiple years. It boggles my mind that compiler inference didn't make it into the language yet. Everytime I have to declare a totally obvious type, I cringe. ------ buster Is jigsaw being shipped or not? (relating to [https://jaxenter.com/jigsaw- dispute-means-possible-delays-ja...](https://jaxenter.com/jigsaw-dispute- means-possible-delays-java-9-133723.html) ) ~~~ bitmapbrother Yes, the objections by IBM and Red Hat won't stop this train. ------ linkmotif All of this is super cool but what I really want is async/await. Every day I wish I had it. I know everyone has some pet thing they want, but I can't imagine async/await being nothing short of a game changer for Java. Why is it never mentioned? Will it ever happen? ~~~ sreque I can only guess, but it is in general very difficult to retrofit what is essentially green threading, coroutines, and continuations into a runtime that was built without those features. Scala has tried at least a couple of times, and as is typical of the language and community, has come up short as the original contributors lost interest or decided the problem was too hard. This includes: Scala's CPS compiler plugin, now deprecated and unmaintained. * Macro-based async/await library. It's neat but has many more limitations than C#'s equivalent or Kotlin's, and hasn't had any updates in a couple of yaers. It looks like Kotlin has recently added experimental support for async/await. That language may be your best bet for now if you want to code in this style on the JVM. ~~~ tormeh What's the difference between async/await and a future? I've only used futures, but async/await looks like exactly the same thing: You're forking a thread (green or otherwise) to do some stuff and to set a flag of some sort when it's done so you can check on it. Right? ~~~ sreque At a high-level, async/await lets you write non-blocking code as if it were blocking. Golang has a huge advantage here because the runtime was built from the ground up so that everything is non-blocking and the language has built-in support for operations that look like they block, but underneath the hood they don't actually block a thread. Futures are interesting, but at the end of the day they are basically not that different from callbacks. Instead of writing a function that takes a callback, you write a function that returns a future that you essentially register callbacks onto. In Java 8 this type is called a CompletionStage. In fact, in one of Scala's coursera courses they teach you how to take callback-oriented code and convert it into code that returns futures. The fact that it is so easy to convert between the two helps illustrate that futures aren't really adding much. Yes you can compose using flatMap, but, again, I don't think this makes the code that much easier to write, or, more importantly, debug and maintain. As an example, at $lastjob I converted a blocking networking library to a non- blocking one. I started out using futures but I found that it generated a lot of Lambdas, which made debugging much harder because the stacktraces were long and incomprehensible. I ended up switching to callbacks and used named, not anonymous classes to improve readability. Not only did the code feel easier to read and debug but I got better performance out of the library due to reduced memory pressure. ------ wodencafe Why didn't they just use OSGi, a stable, mature (16+ years old) technology for modularity, instead of re-inventing the wheel with JPMS? ~~~ pjmlp Because OSGi is a pile of needless complexity for selling consulting support, the less I have to touch it the better. ~~~ fauigerzigerk Aren't you an IT consultant though? ;-) ~~~ pjmlp Yes, but getting to do JEE and stuff like Websphere is already enough, I don't need to fight with OSGi as well. :) Having written a few Eclipse plugins was already enough. ~~~ wodencafe Don't let Eclipse give you a bad impression of OSGi. There are now some very cool things that make starting a new OSGi project a lot easier: * Declarative Services, for simplifying Component definitions (No more editing XML) * bnd / bndtools for building your OSGified jar (No more manually editing the Manifest) ------ mcherm > underscore character is reserved. A variable can no longer be named only '_' Huh.... I wonder why that is? ~~~ wodencafe They are going to use it to represent lambda parameters. Please see: [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/302](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/302) \- Lambda Leftovers ~~~ mcherm Ah. Thanks. ------ kleff Has there been any hints of adding default parameters to Java at some point? It's one of those things I find really useful in Python or C#, but for some reason never seems to find its way into Java. ~~~ wodencafe I second this. Java needs default parameter values. ------ aethos Simple, but I am most excited to see a REPL here -- JShell. I have written so so many Tester classes when I just wanted to run a few lines of java. ~~~ revscat I used the Groovy shell for this. Since Groovy is Java, you can paste Java code into the Groovy REPL and it works fine. ~~~ vorg > Since Groovy is Java, you can paste Java code into the Groovy REPL and it > works fine Did you mean Java 7 and previous versions? You certainly can't paste Java 8 code into the Apache Groovy REPL if it has lambdas because Groovy hasn't been updated for Java 8, not to speak of the new features in Java 9. My guess is the sad state of the Groovy ecosystem is probably why Oracle even created JShell. In fact, you can't even paste Java 7 code in there and have it behave the same because of lots of little incompatibilities like the meaning of the == operator. Every Java developer should know never to paste Java code into a Groovy REPL and rely on the result for testing purposes. Groovy isn't Java. Like Java, Groovy generates JVM code, though it typically runs slower than Java code because Groovy is a dynamically-typed language. Although it added annotations for static typing into Groovy 2, they don't work for bulk code, only isolated test cases, and the latest versions of Groovy are still written in Java, not statically-annotated Groovy. ------ needusername The HTTP/2 client is incubator only [1]. Strictly speaking it's not part of Java 9. But that's not a big deal because ALPN is part of Java 9 so you can use 3rd party clients. [1] [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/110](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/110) ------ leastangle One additional thing which is missing in the post is that AES-GCM is (finally!!) becoming usable: [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/246](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/246) > performance increase is large compared to JDK 8 GA, ranging from 34x to 150x ------ bachmeier I don't see anything in there about improving interoperability with native code. Years ago there were discussions of a project to do that. Maybe that is dead - perhaps everyone interested in native code interop has already moved on. ~~~ vvanders Or value types, which would remove some of the need for native code(yes yes, I know it's coming in Java 10 which means we'll see it in 2030 or so). ~~~ pjmlp C++ devs are still waiting for concepts and modules as well. Waiting for features is not unique to Java. ~~~ vvanders Really? I'm certainly not waiting for those. If I'm using C++ it's to go wide across platforms or for performance and none of those help me much in that area. ------ sea6ear List<String> list = new ArrayList<>(){ }; ~~~ ucho Yeah, worst example ever. They should make it harder to make inner anonymous classes, not easier. When such code is used inside JEE/CDI/Spring Beans it leads to some annoying leaks or issues with serialization. ------ joshmarinacci Death of the Applet. Yay! Finally.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Introducing UberLETTERS - ben1040 http://newsroom.uber.com/st-louis/2015/07/introducing-uberletters/ ====== ben1040 Backstory: St Louis is the one of the largest US markets in the country that doesn't have UberX. By state law, 4 of the 9 members sitting on the taxi commission must be taxi fleet owners, and at least one driver. The current sitting chairman of the taxi commission is a notorious professional lobbyist. The taxi commission has decided that while they typically accept emailed comments on matters before the commission, they will only accept actual written letters or faxes for public comment regarding UberX. So now Uber is offering to hand-deliver letters. ------ invinceable In the future they will be picking up petitions, not letters. Something with some real legal weight. Mark my words. ------ midgetjones I wonder if this is a way to beta test a package delivery service without arousing suspicion?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
IOS 6.1 jailbreak site officially launched, releasing on Sunday - signifiers https://twitter.com/evad3rs/status/296778372141420547 ====== signifiers For those who don't follow this closely, from @MuscleNerd (of the gang-of- four): <https://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/295964113270620160> ------ saurik (AFAIK, the official release is not set; it could be earlier, or later, than Sunday.)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
German Government Warns Key Entities Not To Use Windows 8 – Links The NSA - devx http://investmentwatchblog.com/leaked-german-government-warns-key-entities-not-to-use-windows-8-links-the-nsa/ ====== rainsford This is among the sillier NSA stories I've read. First of all, the "link to NSA" was basically invented out of thin air. The original article in Die Zeit as well as this one are basically just reporting that TPM COULD be a "backdoor" for the NSA but not actually supporting the idea that it IS. And beyond the issue of baseless speculation as a replacement for journalism, it's a little hard to understand why NSA (or anyone else) controlling TPM is a special threat to users. Despite what the article claims, I don't think TPM is a "backdoor" and it certainly isn't a "surveillance chip". And the articles don't explain how control over TPM gives someone a special advantage over computers with TPM support, an explanation I'm not holding my breath for. ~~~ forgottenpaswrd Excuse moi, man, but TPM IS a backdoor. How would you define that when MS wants it could enter your computer and control it without you ever realizing. Then if something is proven is that if Microsoft can, then NSA can too. Why Microsoft controlling the crypto keys to your computers is a problem? Are you serious? Why American companies controlling all the computers of the rest of the world is an issue? Europe for one should not depend on American companies for basic use of their computers. This is obvious, if you are not American. ~~~ rbanffy > This is obvious, if you are not American. This should be obvious, regardless of nationality. ~~~ iooi It is. Just look at the GP's comment history and it becomes pretty obvious that it's a shill adamantly defending the NSA. ~~~ rbanffy > adamantly defending the NSA Is it even possible? ------ guardian5x The story is false, and the BSI (Federal Office for Information Security) has declined the rumours and explicitly does NOT warn of Windows 8: [https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Presse2...](https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Presse2013/Windows_TPM_Pl_21082013.html) it was just a story made up by a german site (zeit.de) ~~~ mtgx The story seems to be from leaked internal documents. Haven't we learned better over the past 2 months than trusting the "official statements" afterwards, that inevitably deny it whether it's true or not? At the very least, I think this deserves more exploring. It's not the first time I saw the Germans weren't happy with Windows 8 and its "secure boot". This is from last November: [http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/11/21/german-govt-comes- out-a...](http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/11/21/german-govt-comes-out-against- trusted-computing-and-secure-boot/) And it seems the source for that is _your_ source. So are they contradicting themselves now? [http://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Themen/OED_Ve...](http://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Themen/OED_Verwaltung/Informationsgesellschaft/trusted_computing_eng.html) ~~~ arnehormann Those are different sources. BMI = "Bundesministerium des Inneren", interior ministry. BSI = "Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik", federal office of IT security. And they are not contradicting themselves. The statement they just issued reiterated Windows 8 is not safe for government and critical infrastructures. ------ tty Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248010) ~~~ throwawaykf02 And the most important comment on that thread, which is unfortunately not at the top: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6249933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6249933) ------ thomasz Wrong. [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/BSI-Trotz- kritischer-...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/BSI-Trotz-kritischer- Aspekte-keine-Warnung-vor-Windows-8-1940081.html) ~~~ sdfjkl From that article: _However, this means no all clear in terms of Trusted Computing. While the publicly available TPM 2.0 specification includes no back-doors, any implementation might do so, either by malicious intent, due to implementation errors or government pressure. This risk can be met only if implementations are scrupulously tested and certified by independent bodies. This is not the case with the integrated TPM of current Windows 8 tablets, to name just one example._ ------ RDeckard Can't tell fact from fiction these days. What is the credibility of investmentwatchblog.com ? ~~~ adamnemecek The sentence "Microsoft [...] informs the US government of security holes in its products well before it issues fixes so that government agencies take advantage of the holes and get what they’re looking for." kind of suggests how credible the source is. ~~~ maxden That was reported in a bloomberg story also: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies- said-t...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap- data-with-thousands-of-firms.html) It obviously gives the Govt time to protect themselves, but could also exploit it on other systems. ~~~ adamnemecek I'm aware of the fact that they were informed first but I'm not aware of instances of gov't agencies using these exploits to get 'what they are looking for'. ~~~ levosmetalo > I'm aware of the fact that they were informed first but I'm not aware of > instances of gov't agencies using these exploits to get 'what they are > looking for'. Were you aware of NSA surveilance before Snowden? It all comes down to trust, and once there is no more trust (like in case of US gov) then the burden of proof they are not doing anything wrong is on them. ~~~ adamnemecek Sure. At the same time, even if trust was broken does not imply that NSA was using <0 day exploits which is what the article was saying. Or can I start posting blog posts about NSA developing super-AIDS since it has not proven that it is not? ~~~ levosmetalo No need to pull up AIDS "conspiracy"/conspiracy theories. NSA has been already caught spying on everyone in the world. The method explained allows them more spying. Would you risk your country security, or your own business relying on a piece of technology that NSA or anyone else _can_ use for spying on you? Given a choice between multiple platforms why would you choose one vulnerable to spying and inherently unsecure? ~~~ adamnemecek Your comment if off-topic. Article said, "Microsoft gives NSA exploits which they then use to spy on people". I pointed out that there is not a single recorded instance of that. ------ alimbada Seems very sensational. Where in my 6 year old Core2Quad machine would I find these fabled chips? Or for that matter, where on a modern motherboard would I find one? ~~~ mtgx This is what the "trusted environments" on chips can be used for, which are currently at least used for DRM (but who knows what else). This is something people like Richard Stallman and Cory Doctorow have warned for _years_ \- that allowing them to DRM your machine at the hardware level, inevitably means the machines will eventually be used against you for different purposes, including surveillance or censorship. This is exactly what the NSA is implying when they say they want to be the "anti-virus of the Internet". TPM will allow Microsoft and/or NSA to _remotely_ disable viruses from every computer - and course anything else they want - anywhere in the world, and that's how they will promote it to normal people: "It will make you safe". ~~~ ds9 All that is correct, but it needs (a) support in software and (b) the outside party having secret values mathematically related to the "attestation key" embedded in the TPM. The OS designed for this kind of system then uses the TPM to verify the signature, hash or whatever of software, and would either shut down any unapproved software or deny access to the DRM'd data. I don't know whether Windows 8 is like that, but anyway you can opt out of it by using an OS that doesn't support any remote control. In many BIOS's you can turn TC support off. Here is the formerly canonical, maybe dated now, overview of TC [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa- faq.html](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html) ------ frank_boyd I still don't know why people limit the scope of surveillance products/services to Microsoft. There are a handful of companies to avoid that work with the NSA. If you have missed the list, check out the slides: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism- serve...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server- collection-facebook-google) ~~~ tehabe It is not about Windows 8 but about TPM 2.0. Which basically limits the control over your computer, it might be mostly harmless for private users but for governments and critical infrastructure it is not. ------ Zoomla "It allows Microsoft to control the computer remotely through a built-in backdoor." Like every other mobile OSes... ------ mrt0mat0 So.... Linux everyone? ~~~ rdtsc This would be the time for Canonical to move in and pitch Ubuntu. ------ jister if hackers wants to hack your server it doesn't matter what OS your using. ~~~ rbanffy True. But you don't have to provide a nice backdoor for them to use, do you? Every system has a set of exploitable vulnerabilities. Each of those vulnerabilities is known by a set of parties other than you. With Windows you can be sure those sets have at least one element each. ------ shortcj what about 'Intel inside' do you not understand?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Barefoot shoes try to outrace the black market - edw519 http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/13/smallbusiness/vibram_fivefingers/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin ====== cgs1019 Seems like there is a great business opportunity in here somewhere. Something like SSL certs but for identifying brands being sold online. I understand the basics of encryption and digital signatures but not enough to see immediately how this could be done reliably. Maybe the retailer would register with the manufacturer and receive a temporary or at least regularly updated private key to use in dynamically requesting a "badge" of legitimacy to fetch and display on the page. This might require browser support to be truly effective, as with https changing the appearance of the address bar. Someone should jump on this. I can see it being an indispensable web feature as more brands suffer counterfeiting online. Of course, it's already a problem offline in many ways but at least online one could be reasonably proactive in mitigating it. $2500 a pop in legal fees to shut down an illegitimate counterfeiting competitor is exorbitant and the problem could be solved more cheaply and efficiently. EDIT: spelling (typed this on my phone) ------ blasdel I noticed them all over the chinese trade sides about six months ago. I had this bookmarked from then: [http://www.tradetang.com/search/index.jsp?keyword=VIBRAM&...](http://www.tradetang.com/search/index.jsp?keyword=VIBRAM&catid=2445&splitcount=20&sort=priceT0&currpage=1&type=0&ttsearch=ttform&rankdom=11&searchform=web&page=2020&browser=search) — note that 'VIBRAM' is a banned keyword, but the search is still returning plenty of results fromt he category. ~~~ csmeder Hmm, I've never actually seen a "chinese trade site". I am guessing this is what many people use to make money on ebay or shopify account. Do you have more info about chinese trade sites? A blog you could recommend? Or any info at all would be interesting. ~~~ blasdel Yep, that's one of the main purposes of the site I linked to. Alibaba is by far the biggest player, their ecommerce empire is easily the third biggest after Amazon and eBay. Their main site is basically for people outside China to hook up with factory agents to buy stuff wholesale. They also have a japan-specific version, and a heavily used internal chinese B2B version. Their <http://taobao.com> is super dominant within China, occupying a space between Amazon and eBay stores but with even more marketshare, and with sellers ranging from a kid in a dorm room to multinational corporations. They also own Yahoo China, the chinese paypal-equivalent, the biggest chinese ad network, and a salesforce.com-style CRM. Their equivalent site to TradeTang would be their recently launched <http://aliexpress.com> that has a full US localization and integrated cart/payment/shipping/etc. You'll find some weird shit on there, like this seller: [http://www.aliexpress.com/store/801597/all-wholesale- product...](http://www.aliexpress.com/store/801597/all-wholesale- products.html) — page through his catalog to find dried seahorses, reciprocating drilldoes, folding bikes, giant inflatable water walking balls, ghillie suits, dried human placentas, cow bezoars, portable titanium stripper poles… By far the biggest hassle with using Alibaba is just communicating with the seller, they hate answering email and if you ask multiple questions they'll cherry-pick the most superficial one to respond to. The only way to get anything done is to be up in the middle of the night and get them on MSN messenger. ~~~ csmeder > _By far the biggest hassle with using Alibaba is just communicating with the > seller, they hate answering email and if you ask multiple questions they'll > cherry-pick the most superficial one to respond to. The only way to get > anything done is to be up in the middle of the night and get them on MSN > messenger._ Can you elaborate? Is this only true if you need more detailed info about the product. If you know the product is what you want will it be rather easy to order it? Or is it that Alibaba doesn't have "full US localization and integrated cart/payment/shipping/etc" ~~~ blasdel It's the latter — on aliexpress or tradetang or taobao you could just add it to your cart, checkout, and pay with no haggling. Shipping is often free, as EMS and Hong Kong Post have normally very low rates. On DealExtreme and many eBay stores you can order a 99¢ item with free airmail from HK and get it a few days later. On Alibaba, you have to talk with the seller for anything to happen. Though some of them work directly for a factory, many of the sellers are total freelance agents, and even the ones that work for a factory will act as agents to resell items from other factories. You can usually suss out how direct a seller's relationship with the ultimate supplier is, and they'll often tell you outright, though none of them seem to be willing to talk about each other. All of the ones I've interacted with have been ~30yo women that seem to be working solo as agents with other people doing the fulfillment. The other thing is that they very rarely put up enough information to find out what the product actually is. Often the product can easily be made-to-order with finishing options up to you (though the factory does all the product development). You end up looking at a bunch of agents and looking at pictures, weights, and options to discern who's reselling what. Occasionally the OEMs will have product data on their websites and you can backtrack from there. It's kind of maddening but none of them really give a shit. Even if you think you know what you're getting, you still want to get spec sheets from them for confirmation, and spreadsheet catalogs of similar stuff so you know you aren't missing anything (they don't keep their listings up to date). Even after that you still have to go back and forth on quantities, prices, shipping, lead times, options, potential setup fees for customizations, etc. They do like MSN and pasting stuff into excel documents to send via direct file transfer. It works ok once you get that far, but it feels really sketchy. ------ bh23ha Personal anecdote: I started running with an ancient pair of shoes. Flat, thin sole, absolutely no cushioning in it. After quite some time, I bought new running shoes, thick sole, lots of cushioning. On my first run with the brand new shoes, I was much faster. MUCH faster. I got home amazed and thought I should have switched a long time ago, what was I thinking running in those ancient beat up shoes! And I thought these new shoes must have a lot of bounce in them. So I jumped up a bit - nothing, no bounce. So I took them off, and tried to bounce them again. Still no bounce. They are cushioned, they dampen shock, absorb it, they are the opposite of bouncy. Well then I should have been slower, why did I run faster with dampening? I kept thinking about that, and then the next day my knees were in pain. And that's when I seriously started researching running and shoes. And I've pretty well convinced myself barefoot is the way to go. But to avoid stepping on you name it, look for shoes like the Vibrams, avoid heavy cushioning. ------ pg These are one of the more common things we get spam links for on HN. ~~~ seattlejet What are some of the other things? So we know when we see them... ------ mambodog This is what the ACTA should have been focused on, instead of trying to stop people downloading music. It is the _Anti Counterfeiting_ Trade Agreement, after all. ~~~ barrkel It's counterfeiting if the consumer is getting fooled. It's something else if the consumer is aware they're not getting the real deal. ------ camworld There was a 1991 episode of "Married With Children" where Al Bundy creates "God's Shoes" which look exactly like these shoes. There is nothing novel or new about this idea. ~~~ PidGin128 I haven't voted up or down here, but cam is correct. Maybe the tone was a bit rough? [http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=129234...](http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=129234&currentpage=2) (found via images.google.com .) This site also has an amusing comparison of crocs & vibrams. ------ whyenot I think ads like this are a great way for Vibram to raise awareness of the problem with a sense of humor: image: [http://birthdayshoes.com/media/blogs/bdayshoes/2010_Photos/m...](http://birthdayshoes.com/media/blogs/bdayshoes/2010_Photos/merrell/vibrammiddletoe640.png) description: [http://birthdayshoes.com/merrell-barefoot-shoes-partner- with...](http://birthdayshoes.com/merrell-barefoot-shoes-partner-with-vibram- slated-for-spring-2011) I love my VFFs. Vibram deserves to reap the financial rewards for creating a whole new product category, and doing such a great job with it. ~~~ bmj I have a friend who works for a running publication (and is a long distance runner), and she noted that Vibram got kinda lucky with this design. _Born to Run_ was published after they introduced their shoes. While Vibram's marketing department certainly did their part, without the book (and associated media), one wonders if they would be so popular. As an aside, both my friend and her husband (who sometimes runs barefoot) said they didn't like the shoes. Since the glove-like fit actually forces the toes a bit further apart, they prefer lightweight "natural" trainers like these: <http://tinyurl.com/yagubt5> ~~~ nchlswu I think saying "Vibram got kinda lucky with their design" is taking away from what Vibram achieved with this product. It's no different from any new venture. I've been interested in barefoot running ever since products like Vivo and Nike Free began making headways into the market. The article posted makes it seem like these are competitors introduced after Vibram Five Fingers, but they were all introduced at roughly the same time. The barefoot products mentioned were all introduced at a time period where barefoot running was beginning to gain serious traction. It was excellent timing for all companies pushing barefoot products. Personally, I think alot of Vibram's press has to due with their unorthodox design. Nike's barefoot alternative is a much more traditional shoe design (that I think is more known for its comfort). Vibram is popular due to a quality product with some timing that wasn't just coincidence (they weren't the only company who saw the trend). I think their "honest" and unorthodox design gave was the real differentiator that made them that much more popular than the competition ~~~ bmj I didn't mean to imply that Vibram produced a mediocre product that took off thanks to a book and a trend. Vibram did do their design homework, and the shoe itself is well-designed. My point is that without _Born to Run_ and the "natural" footwear trend, it's unlikely Vibram's product would have the following it does without that. ------ htsh I'm curious if anyone knows, how far does Vibram's IP protection go? It sounds like here these were counterfeit Vibrams (holding themselves out as real) but can someone else make gloved shoes (with individual toes) or do these guys have a lockdown on that entire concept? ~~~ scotty79 You can learn about IP protection in different countries here: [http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/johanna_blakley_lessons_fr...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html) ------ yanowitz Best way I've found to defunkify my Vibrams is to soak them in Oxyclean (yes, "as seen on TV" Oxyclean) overnight and then wash them in the washing machine and air drying. This is with KSOs. With the Sprints, I've never had an odor problem, but they can air out more easily. I suspect that if you had some kind of warm-air (~35C) device (e.g., a heat gun) to gently blow air through them post workout, one could keep the odor on KSOs down. Don't tumble dry them though -- the glue melts. ~~~ philwelch I think if the glue melts from a simple tumble dry I'm sure as hell not going to use a _heat gun_ on them. ~~~ yanowitz Why? A dryer gets far hotter than 35C. I just mean enough warm air moving through the shoe to dry it quickly. A decent heat gun should give you that control. ~~~ whyenot The low setting for a heat gun is somewhere around 350 deg F. A hair dryer on the lowest setting might work though. edit: according to Wikipedia, heat guns go from 200-1000 deg F. Still far too hot. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_gun> ~~~ yanowitz I was thinking of something like this: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00004TI29/ref=mp_s_a_10> which goes down to 90F. ------ evo_9 So do they make matching socks? I know this is about 'barefoot' but some of us know our bodies, and in my case if I actually worked out with these - which would be cool - I'd pretty much destroy them in a few days from sweating. Without socks to absorb the moister I'd be concerned about them getting pretty stinky after heavy use. Now for a specialty shoe, rock-climbing/boulder comes to mind, yeah these would be incredible. In fact, I think I'll probably buy a pair for that the more I think about it. I don't tend to sweat as much climbing. ~~~ edj I've tried bouldering in a borrowed pair. Edging gets painful fast. Far too much stress on my toes. Having separated toes and a relatively pliable sole produces an awful lot of foot strain. Real climbing shoes are tighter and more rigid. They do just the opposite of what these barefoot shoes do; they bunch your toes together, forming them into a kind of single supertoe. It's probably about as bad for you as wearing high- heels, but it's very effective. Also, the soles on barefoot shoes are not sticky enough for climbing, so smearing doesn't work too well. ~~~ avar I've done rock climbing in both the five fingers and regular rock climbing shoes. Rock climbing shoes are definitely better 99% of the time, their rigidity helps you to maintain secure footholds. There's the occasional exception though, I was once able to gain a foothold in the five fingers by sticking my big toe in a hole that fit it exactly. ------ atomical I didn't realize that there were a lot of runners here hacking up the hills. I have Newtons at home but I didn't like them. They aren't made for the trails I run either. I might try Zoots soon. ~~~ kajecounterhack I can't seem to find any real reviews of Newtons...there are so many fanboy reviews that I wasn't sure if it was worth the money so I never tried them. Hrm. ~~~ atomical This is one man's opinion, but I think the way the lugs are placed at the front of the shoe compact the impact with the ground. I had been running 8-9 miles on average a day. I integrated Newton's into my routine for 1 mile every day and at the end of the week I was having pain and had to take some time off. ------ gcheong I think it says something about the power of culture when fully shod feet, high-heeled feet, flip-flopped feet, etc., are all acceptable but a gloved foot is somehow "weird looking". ~~~ jackfoxy Whenever someone makes fun of my VFFs I say, "Let's do a little investigation. Put your foot up next to mine. Now, whose shoe is formed more like a human foot?" ~~~ nooneelse Whose car looks more like a strong pair of legs? I like the shoes too, but sometimes the rhetoric used to promote them strikes me as silly. ------ barrkel _And this year, a study by Harvard evolutionary biologists published in the journal Nature concluded that barefoot runners land on the balls of their feet, rather than on their heels, ultimately creating less joint stress and reducing injuries._ I don't know how other people do it, but I find it hard _not_ to land on the balls of my feet when running. ~~~ hakl I think the secret is long strides with slow cadence. ------ fuzzythinker I wanted to try them but was surprised that REI in Mountain View & San Jose, CA did not carry more than 1 (large) size in just 1 model. I know REI has very good return policy and encourages me to just order online & return if don't like. But still, I feel like wanting to try them on and see if I like them or not and which model is best. ------ sliverstorm I want to get a pair, but I don't think they have a model appropriate for motorcycling, thus limiting my ability to use them. ~~~ sliverstorm Does HN have a suggestion of how to make them work for me, when I lead a lifestyle that requires the wearing of boots everywhere? I am genuinely interested in them.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Warby Parker (or, Finding Broken Systems That Are Full of Money) - yoshizar http://www.thinkhard-ly.com/1/post/2011/11/warby-parker.html ====== binarysolo Reads a bit too much like ad copy for my tastes. Or rather I read it with the intent to understand more about the content in the parentheses, not Warby Parker. :) That being said they are situated in a vertical that has efficiency players (Zenni Optical, Coastal Contacts) but haven't mastered the design/marketing/CS game yet. Going Zappos-style is their entrenchment mechanism, as well as the in-house designers. ~~~ chaostheory I agree. One thing that isn't mentioned is that all of Warbly Parker's frames are plastic, as opposed to the titanium (and other) alloys that you find in the brick and mortar stores. Moreover I just don't see enough variety of styles at Warbly Parker. The article just feels like submarine PR that's disconnected from reality. There are better online glasses stores. ~~~ count They don't sell a single pair of wire frames, just the thick plastic 'hipster' style that's currently in fashion. No wonder they're only $95... ------ simonsarris Huh that's funny. I just ordered 5 pairs from them to try on, they came yesterday. (<http://imgur.com/a/ZRTKi> if you're interested in offering an opinion) I'm really impressed with the build of them. They feel a lot better than my zenni optical pair (which were only 30 dollars, not 95). Hopefully the lens quality is better too (mostly anti-glare I'm concerned about), but I'll have to wait and see. Also, if you missed their april fools site, it is extremely adorable and well done: <http://www.warbybarker.com/> Every pair of glasses has a dog modeling it, ie: <http://www.warbybarker.com/sunwear/aldous/> ~~~ Domenic_S D without a doubt. ~~~ matthewdanger Second this, D's compliment the shape of your face very well. Try and stay away from B, the square sides accentuate your nose a bit too much (even though you do have a lovely nose!) C and E are very nice choices as well! ------ streptomycin I've been using Zenni Optical, which I guess is disrupting the broken system of Warby Parker by undercutting their prices by yet another factor of 5, just like Warby Parker did to brick and mortar stores. ~~~ pbreit How is the product quality? Those are pretty low prices. I'm not sure it's a great comparison as WP is delivering on several other levels beyond price. The Zenni buying experience is decidedly inferior. ~~~ dhastings I've bought three pairs of glasses from Zenni. The arm snapped off of my last pair. After that I bought two pair. At $30 each shipped, it's still worth it. The current pair I wear are comfortable and fairly strong (they withstand the beating my twin daughters give them). The issue with Zenni (and others where the lenses are produced outside the country) is they don't have the stringent quality control standards for lenses you find in the US, Canada and Europe. If you have a fairly common and simple prescription, go for it. If you need progressives or bifocals, you should probably avoid buying online. ~~~ blacksmith_tb I agree, and I generally get a couple of pairs from Zenni whenever I order for that reason (my toddler and my cat both like to knock the glasses off my face for a laugh). I haven't noticed that the quality of Zenni's lenses is worse than, say, Lenscrafters or any of the other "1-hour" shops here in the US. I like the try before you buy idea of WP, but they really don't have a lot of options (dig the monocle, though). ------ jmduke Somewhat unrelated, but I love Warby Parker's 2011 "Annual Report". Clean, engaging, and aesthetically pleasing. <http://www.warbyparker.com/annual-report-2011/> ~~~ eragnew Agreed. It is well-designed. ------ petercooper I wonder if this is one of those rare instances where the US plays catch up with an established money making idea (another being text messaging)? Glasses Direct have been doing the same thing in the UK since 2004 and having similarly major blow out success. Usually it's the other way around.. the UK copies the US model ;-) ------ naner This is a little weird for me. I've got a couple optometrists in the family who own their own practice. A lot of this article rings completely false. Kind of makes me wonder, when reading about other "disruptors" what information is exaggerated or missing. Still, not a bad idea, especially for people without insurance. ~~~ 286c8cb04bda _> A lot of this article rings completely false._ Such as? ~~~ naner _At an optical store, designer frames with nice lenses will run you over $500 a pair._ This is false. Designer frames (Gucci, Nike, Kate Spade, Prodesign) retail around $120-$240. (I think? I'm going from memory here...) Lens pricing varies based on your prescription and options (transitions, AR, scratch coat, etc). Single vision wearers can easily get designer glasses w/ integrated anti- reflective for under $300 retail. At my optician that includes a 2 year warranty. Also my insurance knocks that down quite a bit. Since Warby only does single vision lenses, $300 would have been a more appropriate ballpark than $500. Lens price can jump up quite a bit if your prescription requires certain materials (e.g. high-index lenses) and it jumps up a lot when you get into progressives, etc. Also, I can't remember ever purchasing glasses and not having them adjusted to my face when they arrive. I guess you can take your Warby glasses into your regular optometrist and have them adjusted but that feels a little like taking your Burger King cup to get free refills at McDonalds. _you're going to be choosing from the same frames as any person who lives in your area._ This is so much of a non issue that it is kind of weird to even mention it. _This is a market where sales channels are fragmented and undifferentiated. The product being sold is either the equivalent of the "CVS store brand" or has the prices inflated two-fold._ I assume he's talking about optical chains here? (Lens Crafters, etc.) Anyone want to guess what Warby's materials markup is? Cost x 2 seems like a reasonable guess. _Brick-and-mortar stores are expensive to maintain, inevitably adding a lot to the price of every product, but bring little value to the customer, except the ability to try on glasses._ I guess he's referring to optical centers that _only_ sell glasses? I don't recommend going to those places, either. Anyways... Warby looks good for people with simple prescriptions who don't have insurance. Really, it is just cheaper designer knock-off frames and low to medium grade lenses with really good customer service. A good business model, yes. Earth-shattering value and disruption? No. Most people will continue to buy at their doc's office. ------ lsc huh. the biggest problem I have with buying glasses online is the lenses. The PD (I believe is what it's called; the distance between your pupil and the bridge of your nose) is super important for the glasses to work very well at all. Yeah, you can fuck around with a mirror and a ruler, or once at wallmart the kid at the counter just looked at me real hard and drew spots on the plastic filler lens... as far as I can tell, the actual machine to do that measurement? makes a pretty big difference. I think the optometrists know this, too; the optometrist is happy to give me my prescription, but they won't give me the PD numbers. "you usually have it measured when you get the frames" they say. (I should look if it changes.) And that's the thing, the difference between pretty good glasses and perfect glasses is huge for me. Enough that I'm happy to pay five hundred bucks for a product I can get for fifty online. That said, my local Cosco has those machines, and as far as I can tell, the lenses they grind are just fine, and if not 1/10th the cost, at least 1/5th the cost of the optometrist. But yeah, until they solve that measurement problem? I don't really see how this is any different from any of the millions of other online frame/lens retailers, save for the vertical integration (which is kinda interesting.) ~~~ swah Does that change as time passes? Can't it be done with a picture of you (and a scale like a quarter that you could hold between your eyes) ? Anyway, I don't know why that won't go on the prescription, bothered me too. ------ ambertch How come not many people are talking about this article in the context of entrepreneurship? Pretty astute advice for people doing startups. "1) it fits the classic definition of a disruptive company and 2) is an innovative company playing in a large market with unsophisticated competitors." Of course, everybody who does a startup has to go through the cloning phase. It's just part of learning how to build a business... ~~~ yoshizar Thanks!! ------ shanecleveland As some have mentioned, not a great option if you have insurance. Mine covers a new pair every two years (plus the appointment you need to get a current prescription). They may want to make an effort to cater to that segment more, if it's possible. But it is an innovative approach to a market ripe for the picking. On that note ... Insurance and medicine – Talk about a broken system full of money. ~~~ yoshizar I actually wear both contacts and glasses, and my insurance is enough to cover the contacts or the glasses, but not both; I end up paying for the glasses out of pocket. I wrote this post after being really frustrated with the experience I had at the local optician. ------ pm90 I always get my glasses from Korea (I'm not Korean). I think a large number of Koreans wear glasses, so I always find a lot of variety. I bought my current glasses for ~$150 almost 3 years ago and they still look new. If you are visiting/vacationing, I highly recommend checking them out (I think the store that I bought them from was 1001 optical or something like that) ------ SatvikBeri There are plenty of brick & mortar stores at the $95 price point in my area. Warby Parker won my business because they had many more styles, better-looking glasses (IMO), and a really strong guarantee (most other stores had a no refunds policy). I had never heard of Zenni Optical until reading this HN thread, which goes to show you how successful WP's marketing is. ~~~ pavel_lishin They did mention that glasses in physical shops come in two varieties: cheap and boring, or stylish and expensive. And I, too, am surprised at the lack of marketing done by Zenni; I swear by them now, since I always order the most minimalistic glasses possible - just a nickel's worth of metal to attach lenses to my face. ~~~ SatvikBeri Assuming that they have similar manufacturing costs, WP has tons of money for marketing while Zenni probably has almost none. ------ clarky07 Interesting all of the people who keep saying they've heard of WP but not Zenni. I'm actually the opposite. I've gotten several pairs from Zenni for < $10 and have always been very happy with them. This is the first time I've heard of WP and for me the price is too high for me to consider that disruptive. ------ johnzimmerman I heard about Warby Parker about two weeks ago and decided to give them a try. Whenever I would get frames at a local shop it always felt rushed and I was never happy with the results in the long run. I really like the idea of the home try-on and did find a pair I'm very happy with. ------ tryitnow When I have more time, I'd like to look into just how WB grew so fast. What's really impressive is the logistical and operations side (the marketing and publicity are awesome too, but less impressive than coming out of nowhere to ship so much physical product) ~~~ starpilot Acetate frames are "in" right now, and Warby Parker's look nice and are reasonably priced. Places like Zenni Optical are cheaper but you have to wade through many ugly frames, and they're usually pretty flimsy. WP also offers antiglare coating standard. There's a lot of decision fatigue in sifting through the bargain bin that is Zenni Optical, but WP cuts through that by only offering midrange-premium choices without the sticker shock of an optician's office, and by focusing on the fashionable niche of acetate frames. ------ keithpeter Who does the eye tests in the US? In UK eye tests are often done through local opticians. Disclaimer: not using specs at present but probably will be soon, I'm having to hold the books with small print further and further away... ~~~ dangrossman You can go directly to an optometrist's own office, and they'll usually have a selection of frames they can sell you, or you can just get the prescription and take it to another store. Chain stores like Lenscrafters have office space for an optometrist in the back of each building which they lease to one or more doctors; they don't work directly _for_ the store, but they work at the store and the store books appointments with them for its customers. ~~~ pavel_lishin Note that some optometrist shops really hate giving away the prescription, since they want you to buy the lenses and frames from them. I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I've had some tell me over the phone that they wouldn't release my prescription to me. (I didn't bother fighting them, I just moved on to the next one.) ~~~ starpilot That is illegal in the US; the FTC entitles you to a copy of your prescription [1]. This doesn't include your pupillary distance, but shops will tell you whether or not they'll give PD as well. Some places I called offered to measure mine for free as a walk-in, it's pretty quick. [1] <http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt143.shtm> ~~~ pavel_lishin PD seems like something that you could measure at home with a pretty high degree of confidence. ~~~ starpilot Many people do. I'd still rather trust an optician using a PD meter though. ------ nickpp Been using framesdirect for a few years now. Very happy. How is this different? ~~~ swah They have fewer and better selected frames, IMO. Their website has pretty good design compared to these, enough that they managed to disconnect from the "cheap chinese glasses" feeling that the other websites give me - although in the end it might be the same product. ------ ngokevin I love WP. I've bought three pairs from them. They have free try-on with free return shipping. And you get glasses anti-reflective, polycarbonate lenses for less than a frame alone if you bought them retail. ------ AndrewWarner Does anyone know how big they are in terms of sales? I considered interviewing them for Mixergy because I hear they're doing well, but the only metric I see for their success is valuation. ~~~ modernerd Gigaom estimates sales at $10m for 2011, based on their annual report claim of distributing 100,000 frames. [http://gigaom.com/2012/03/26/at-warby-parker-the-power-of- br...](http://gigaom.com/2012/03/26/at-warby-parker-the-power-of-branding-is- easy-to-see/) <http://www.warbyparker.com/annual-report-2011> ~~~ spitfire distributed 100,000 frames. So the clicks metric comes to real life? ------ pm90 off topic but: Is there a similar service for lens? ~~~ ceslami Selling lenses completely breaks their business model and competitive advantage. If Apple is so good at selling computers, why don't they sell motherboards? Not to mention the addressable market... ------ tudorw Anyone know any UK based equivalents ? ~~~ knes in France we have Jimmy Fairly which is a 100% Copy/paste of Warby Parker. Even the Branding & naming is similar. <http://www.jimmyfairly.com/fr/> ~~~ cdrxndr Holy shit ... pricing is even 95 euros. Any background on this - are they part of a group that specializes in copying success in other markets (e.g., Rocket Internet), or is it an independent startup? ~~~ ccozan Seems not: <http://www.rudebaguette.com/2012/02/16/jimmy/> They asked via an email, got no response, so they build it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Plugin Roadmap for Firefox - doener https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Plugins/Roadmap ====== metalliqaz TL;DR: Firefox has already disabled everything other than Flash, Flash is currently discouraged, and Flash will be killed off in 2020. At some point in 2018 I decided to disable the Flash plugin on my system. I figured I would end up activating it maybe once every three months. I was surprised to discover that a surprising amount of video content is still displayed via flash players. Let's hope that 2019 is the last year of that crap. ~~~ drcongo Wow. I removed Flash from my system about 4 years ago, keeping one browser installed with Flash on it just in case. I've never had to open that browser. ~~~ beatgammit I'm the same. I use Firefox on Linux and installed Chrome since it comes with a flash player. The only times I've had to open Chrome, I've regretted it (flash content wasn't worth it). Just stick to non-sucking sites and eventually other sites will go away or improve. ------ vzq >When Adobe stops shipping security updates for Flash at the end of 2020, Firefox will refuse to load the plugin. So much for giving the user freedom!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
I just wrote Machine Learning with TensorFlow – The code is available on GitHub - BinRoo http://tensorflowbook.com/ ====== NipunSingh This looks really interesting! Can't wait to get my hands on the book.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dear HN: Please Fucking Hire Me To Do Anything - KennethMyers http://i.imgur.com/vB27cd2.jpg ====== ynoclo "I'm good at communicating." Really? If I were your prospective employer, I'd be wondering just how often the f-bomb finds its way into your communications, and why you thought it was appropriate to drop twice in a job appeal. Please take this as a constructive criticism of your approach. ~~~ KennethMyers An employer who thought the f-bomb in a hacker news post spoke poorly of my communicative abilities would not be my ideal employer. ------ serf "On the other hand, JPEG may not be as well suited for line drawings and other textual or iconic graphics, where the sharp contrasts between adjacent pixels can cause noticeable artifacts. Such images may be better saved in a lossless graphics format such as TIFF, GIF, PNG, or a raw image format. The JPEG standard actually includes a lossless coding mode, but that mode is not supported in most products." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg) ~~~ KennethMyers Yep, this is not the stuff I'm good at. Correct. ------ thufry This is the wrong approach -- why not take a job as an ESL teacher (you won't find many people here hiring for that) by searching in the right channels? ~~~ KennethMyers I'm looking for other jobs too. I can do lots of things. ~~~ thufry Your ad seems to suggest desperation -- "I need cash right now." That's not a bad thing to say, but when you're in that situation you should be playing in your wheelhouse. If you're not desperate, you should reword your ad to emphasize the fact that you're trying to broaden your search. There's an incoherence in the message. ------ icu I think you got balls for this posting, however I agree with ynoclo. Although the f-bomb is an attention getter it is also a turn off since you could have-- at the very least--used asterisks for an equally attention grabbing title and omitted it entirely from your profile. ------ fnordfnordfnord Do a startup translating Terms of Service documents (like fb needs to do) and other business related webpage stuff. ------ visaking1 do you have a visa? ~~~ pmtarantino redditor since 2 minutes ago. Oops, wrong community. ~~~ KennethMyers Huh? Oh, the visa asking guy, not me, right? ~~~ TallboyOne He's referring to visaking (his username is green, meaning new)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
High blood pressure damages brain long before old age - whoisnicole http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-blood-pressure-brain-damage-20121101,0,3791840.story ...the brain integrity of a 40-year-old with hypertension, for instance, was roughly equivalent to that of a person 7.2 years older whose systolic blood pressure reading was in the normal range. ====== omnisci Here is a link to the actual article, sans media bs. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212702417) Ps. lots of things can damage your brain long before you are old. Don't go flipping out because of this one article. If you are interested in learning more about disease, etc, go to www.pubmed.com and search for info there. There you will find links to actual studies (not from the media) and you can inform yourself. If you are interested in a particular topic, look for review papers. NIH has mandated that these must be available to the public (free) for at least 1 year after publication. Although this one article is not as bad as others, I can't stand when the media talks about scientific experiments. "This just in, study shows that normal drinking water will murder your whole family!!!!......[small font] if you are a bacteria in Antarctica and it's Tuesday night following a purple moon. [fontsize] ------ hluska This article terrifies me.... About four years ago (when I had just turned 31), I started working at a local startup. It was the typical startup gig with huge hours and even bigger responsibility. Being somewhat dysfunctional, I began living the worst possible life. I was working huge hours, so I decided that it didn't make sense to cook. Consequently, I started eating out at least two meals a day. And, since I was working too many hours to cook, I couldn't justify going to the gym. Heck, why work out if you don't have enough time to cook??? Within a year, my body decided to rebel. I started getting weird symptoms - my chest often felt hollow, I'd get weird pains across the tops of my shoulders and through my neck, and occasionally, I would have to stop while walking up a flight of stairs. It wasn't because I was out of breathe, rather, it was because my head would start to spin and I was afraid that I'd fall. Being stubborn, I put off going to the doctor. But, eventually, I started having bigger symptoms and I had to go. My blood pressure was extremely high. So high that my doctor took two readings, then took me into another office to try a different machine. I'll never forget that conversation: \- "Greg, your blood pressure is very high." \- "How high?" \- "High enough that if you keep doing what you're doing, you will have a stroke." Hearing the word 'stroke' when you are 32 years old is a pretty big shock to the system. So, I made some changes. I went back to the gym. I started cooking. I cut my salt intake drastically. Things settled down... But, as they often do, stress started creeping back into my life and my habits started to slip. My attendance at the gym started to drop off. My eating habits started to slip. Things culminated one horrifying morning, when I was sitting at my desk at work and things went....well, uh...things went. Half of my body went totally numb. I looked at my computer and, even though I knew it was a computer, I could not, for the life of me, remember what the heck it was called. There I was...33 years old and I saw a computer in front of me. I knew what it was for. I knew what I could do with it. But I could not, for the life of me, remember that it was called a computer. I'll never forget the sheer terror of that moment. My company's Biz Dev guy rushed me to the hospital, where I got to experience a full battery of tests. Thankfully, it wasn't a stroke, but it was freakishly close. I am a touch claustrophobic so they were afraid that a CT scan would elevate my blood pressure, so they drugged me. The combination of extreme fear and a heavy dose of Ativan was unlike anything I have ever experienced. When I'm afraid of things, I like to intellectualize. I like neuroscience a whole lot, so, until the Ativan kicked in, I was rapidly going through my symptoms and trying to localize them to a region of my brain. Once the Ativan kicked in, I knew that I should likely do, uh, something, but uh, yeah, oh wow, this is, uh, pretty relaxing and..... Long story short, I did not have a stroke. Rather, my blood pressure went through the roof and my body decided to flip the reset button. I took blood pressure medication for awhile and, with my doctor's help, eventually got off of it. Now, I live differently, but I still see my inner demon trying to make me sick again. The old habits - working too much, exercising too little, and eating out a little too often - still rear their head. But, this time, I know that if I don't take care of myself, I might end up in the hospital again. Sorry for writing so much, but I wanted to share my story. We are involved in a very stressful industry and, though I don't know many of you, I care about all of you. Please be healthy. ~~~ pitchups >I took blood pressure medication for awhile and, with my doctor's help, eventually got off of it. Can you share how exactly you got off the blood pressure medication? I know it is possible with appropriate diet and lifestyle changes - but would love to hear how you did it. Specifically, how high was your blood pressure and what changes made the most difference. I have been on daily medication for over 5 years now, and would love to try a natural drug-free approach to bringing it back to normal. ~~~ hluska Hey there... First off, sorry to hear that you've been on daily medication for five years. I'm not a doctor, but I'll tell you everything I know. As well, if you have any questions you don't want to share here, or if you just need some support, my email address is on my profile page. The worst reading I ever had was 240/120, but I lived in the 200+/100+ zone for a long time. Over my entire battle, my average would have been around 220/110... It will likely be easier if I basically open source myself. At the time, I was 5'11 and weighed about 210 pounds. I should weigh 170. My daily regiment looked a whole lot like this: \- The only time I ate breakfast was when someone brought in doughnuts, at which point, I'd usually eat at least two. \- My caffeine consumption was extremely high. I'd have a minimum of three 500ml travel mugs every morning. 500ml equals two cups, so, that was pretty heavy. In the afternoon, I'd usually cut back a little and only drink two travel mugs. The fact a liter of coffee was considered cutting back is somewhat scary to me now. \- For lunch, I often (at least 2x per week) went to a great Thai restaurant, where I often had Paht Thai. Sushi was another common lunch food. I was one of those sushi eaters who downed prodigious amounts of soy sauce. \- We normally worked until 6pm, then went out for dinner and drinks. After dinner, I'd usually head back to work until 2am. This is when things really hit the crapper. I had no willpower after two pints and my nights at work usually had at least one or two convenience store breaks. Potato chips were common snacks. When I wanted to be healthy, it was salted peanuts. \- I'd be satisfied if I got an average of four hours of sleep a night. \- Water? Did people drink that?? Long story short, nutritionally, I was a complete mess. That's where I did most of my work. \- My first step was to fix my diet. I all but stopped going out for lunch and started making my own lunches. Breakfast became a new friend - poached eggs are actually really good. And I started going home and cooking dinner. Finally, I cut my salt intake dramatically. \- Not only did I change what I ate, but I also changed the schedule. I wrote a Chrome extension that replaced all images with cats every two hours. That wasn't sign to go eat something and drink some water. Old me would eat two huge meals and snack at night. New me had breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, and a healthy dinner. Snacks were usually something like raw asparagus, or maybe some carrots. \- I cut my caffeine consumption dramatically. This was the hardest part of the whole process. Turns out that caffeine is really a drug (and I'm an addict). \- I started drinking water. I didn't follow that eight glasses crap, but I made a point of drinking water with every meal. \- Exercise was huge. At first, I couldn't really exercise. Rather, I had to spend 20 minutes on an exercise bike barely moving. The idea was to slowly introduce myself to cardio while keeping my heart rate very low. When that didn't kill me, I bumped it up to thirty minutes. Then, I kicked up the intensity. After three months, my doctor authorized me to start lifting weights. At first, I could only lift really tiny amounts of weight, though I could do lots of reps. When that didn't kill me, I could start lifting a little heavier (10 reps to failure). And when that didn't kill me, my doctor finally agreed to let me lift heavy (ie - less than 5 reps to failure). \- A few months into the process, I went through a very deep, dark bout with depression. It was a mid 30s, I'm a complete loser, I hate my job, I hate my life and, if I died right now, nobody would care. Sounds crappy, but it was helpful because I got to realize that I wasn't living. I had a job. I worked with my friends. I didn't have hobbies and had forgotten everything (and everyone) I loved. I went through a few months of apologizing to th friends I abandoned in favour of my gig and worked to find myself again. That's when I realized that real life doesn't feel like a giant ball of stress. Rather, there was thus weird state called "being content in the moment." \- With that sudden interest in mindfulness, I started meditating. Meditating sucked and was likely the hardest thing I ever tried. Meditating is still very hard, but it is part of my life now. \- Between getting back into collecting vinyl, going to punk shows, working out and playing in a really excellent World of Darkness campaign (I never said my interests were terribly cool), I began to see two distinct versions of myself. There was crazy Greg, who worked all the time, had no joy and was always stressed out. And then, there was laid back, totally chill, happy Greg. Joy is, I'm both of those people and am in control of which persona I choose to wear around. It sounds like crap, but I decided that I wanted to be happy. I can't tell you how critical that was in my recovery - learning that stress happens (and that I can deal with the stressor and then be fine) was amazing. I realize that I was in the habit of feeling stressed. I made a new habit. I'm not sure this is going to be helpful. I can't point to one particular thing that helped because I changed many different things. One thing though, changing my mind helped me so much. Becoming mindful of stress, learning to recognize it, and then using things like exercise, meditation, or a really kickass Werewolf to put it someplace helpful was amazingly beneficial. On a pure, statistical level, my body is dramatically different today. When I started lifting weights, my max bench press was 1/4 what it is today. As far as lower body goes, my squat has increased 5 times since I started. When I started exercising, I couldn't run one kilometer without stopping; today, I routinely run 8km. While my raw measurements haven't really changed (I'm 5'11 and 195 now), my body is different. You won't get me and Arnold Schwarzenegger mixed up, but four year olds don't beat me in arm wrestles anymore.... However, I also seriously owe my doctor. Seriously, the man went way beyond the call of duty. He could have easily kept me on meds forever. Rather, he knew I wanted to be natural and worked hard to get me there. He put me on a very harsh regiment, where I had to check to check in with him once a month. He monitored me constantly and that is the biggest factor in how I got off the meds. Seriously, I hope this helps and please feel free to email me! ~~~ whoisnicole Hi Greg, thanks for sharing your story. It's great to hear that you're staying very healthy now. To all other friends here, I'm sure most of you have read the recent article by Jessica Livingston, What Goes Wrong. In the article, she said, "We tell people that during YC there are really only three things you should focus on: building things, talking to users, and exercising." Over the past year, I've been doing exactly the three things, and I'm feeling healthy in spite of the long hours, and crazy schedule. Take care of yourself, everyone. So often we hear people say that doing a startup is a marathon, not a sprint. We really need it take it to heart. ------ tptacek I would like a credible dismissive comment to be at the top of this thread now please, because otherwise this is very bad news. ~~~ a_bonobo Best medical journal (Lancet), proper sample-size (579), from first glance it looks OK! From their discussion there are some caveats: \- mostly white people checked (so if you're Asian, this might not happen) \- MRI has a known bias towards participation of healthy people, as unhealthy people don't like to hear the "news" about their condition \- the study is "cross-sectional", i.e., the MRI is just from one point in time. Having several measurements from the same people over a period of time (in years) would be much, much better. Here's the original paper in case anyone's got access: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147444221...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212702417) P.S.: To lift your mood, the first comment in the news-article is hilarious: "now the government obama care will start to penalize people with high blood pressure? absurd, they just need more cash." ------ jacques_chester Hey guys, before we post the same link to "The Best Gym for Startups: Crossfit" two dozen times, let's reflect that Crossfit has a number of issues -- completely absent quality control being chief, with poor exercise selection logic being a close second. Let me put it this way: injuries per kilowatt-hour. Kettlebell swings, prowler pushes, etc -- good! High rep Oly lifting, high rep box jumps, kipping pullups -- terrible! Crossfit does not distinguish between these exercise selection options. ~~~ srlake You clearly haven't tried crossfit for very long, or went to a shitty box. ~~~ jacques_chester Like I said: there is no quality control. ~~~ srlake There is no quality control at regular, commercial gyms either. I used to work out at a popular commercial gym and would see trainers doing the most ridiculous things with their clients: swimmers press on a bosu ball for a average 45 year old non-athlete, all kinds of pointless machine circuits. Coming from a competitive sports background and year of training, my injury rate has actually gone down after joining crossfit, mostly due to the balance it builds by the variety of movements. ~~~ jacques_chester > I used to work out at a popular commercial gym and would see trainers doing > the most ridiculous things with their clients: swimmers press on a bosu ball > for a average 45 year old non-athlete, all kinds of pointless machine > circuits. Which brings us neatly to my second point, which was injuries/Kwh. Most commercial gyms don't perform exercise selection; it's done by trainers who generally focus on stuff that seems difficult and exotic because that's what brings in the business. The gyms themselves select insurance-friendly machinery. While Crossfit gets people up off their backsides to do actual work, there's a lot of flat out stupidity mixed in with the legit stuff. High rep Oly movements? Dumb. High rep box jumps? Dumb. Kipping pullups? Let's not go into that here. Mix in the fact that a bosu ball pushup, while stupid, is less likely to cause a bulged disc than say deadlifting 65% of your DL 1RM for max reps; and suddenly we again find the quality control thing swinging back into central view. ~~~ srlake I'm not sure what kind of training background you come from, but many of the exercises you mentioned are core parts of training programs for competitive athletes in a number of sports. High rep oly movements = dumb? In what situation? With what intended training effect? Rep/weight schemes, in a periodized training program for an athlete are set to achieve a specific training goals. In one phase of the program that may be power endurance, for example. In a training program for competitive rowers high rep (30+) sets of power cleans at a low weight may be used to build power endurance. Deadlifting 65% of 1RM for max reps is another very common exercise prescription for athletes building power endurance. If the exercise is stopped when form breaks down, I see nothing wrong here. 65% is a relatively light load. If you have a decent deadlift it's only about 300 lbs or so - a good athlete will have no trouble keep form for sets of 10+. The desired training effect of a high rep 65% effort is much different than a 85-100% max strength effort, or even a 65% low rep, speed focus. High rep box jumps, for untrained individuals = a bad idea. If you've built up to it and have no achilles issues, this is not a concern. ~~~ jacques_chester My background is as an Olympic-style weightlifter. I'm a licensed sports power coach under the Australian Weightlifting Federation. > High rep oly movements = dumb? In what situation? In _all_ situations. This is _never_ a good idea. _Ever_. > With what intended training effect? If it's to improve technique, do more sets. If it's to improve cardiovascular conditioning, _do something else_. > a periodized training program Oh, you mean the kind of "voodoo science" that Crossfit HQ specificially eschews and that every top level Crossfit Games competitor nevertheless follows? > If the exercise is stopped when form breaks down, I see nothing wrong here. I'll say it again: quality control and exercise selection. > If you've built up to it and have no achilles issues, this is not a concern. And yet I see middle-aged housewives doing AMRAPs on box jumps. And it's not just repetitive strain injuries. Misjudge the jump (because, I dunno, _you're really tired from high rep box jumping_ ), land on toes, fall down, _snap_. A lot of Crossfit is fine. The problems _still remain_ that quality control is _explicitly non-existent_ and that exercise selection is hit-and-miss with a genuine fondness for stupid ideas. Basically, no good and safe Crossfit gym has any resemblance to Crossfit HQ's vision except to pay a licensing fee to use the trademark. ------ frankus It would be interesting news if intervening with blood-pressure-lowering drugs led to a reduction in brain aging against a control group. For now it's just an interesting correlation, and it's kind of disappointing to see the Heart Association making recommendations based on it, particularly since the evidence for the benefits of reducing salt intake is so weak. ------ danjaouen Reading this article has significantly raised my blood pressure. ~~~ barking Someone should do a study on the impact on peoples' health of the epidemic of media reporting of medical studies ~~~ spydum Good luck finding a suitable control group ------ revelation My body likes to shoot up my blood pressure far off the charts whenever someone tries to measure it. Of course, the pattern only grows stronger from these experiences. ~~~ jrockway True of everyone, it's called white coat hypertension: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension> After my doctor noticed high-ish blood pressure, I bought a meter and started measuring at home. Always below 120/80, sometimes below 110/75. I brought the same meter to the doctor's office and measured 135/85. Strange, isn't it? ~~~ michael_michael Not true of _everyone_, but definitely true of some (including me). Additionally, white coat hypertension is not entirely benign. From the wikipedia article you link: "In general, individuals with white coat hypertension have lower morbidity than patients with sustained hypertension, but higher morbidity than the clinically normotensive." ~~~ jrockway _In general, individuals with white coat hypertension have lower morbidity than patients with sustained hypertension, but higher morbidity than the clinically normotensive._ There goes my plan to live forever. Foiled again! ------ kayoone I am 29 and suffered from high blood pressure. I am not particulary overweight but not super lean either. For the past 3 years i have worked at a startup that i founded as a CEO and programmer. Ultimately we failed but it still was a superb experience but the long hours and high stress also had alot of negative impacts on my life. I got high blood pressure without noticing it, i gained about 10kg in weight, lost a long term (8 years) relationship and always felt stressed and guilty of not doing enough. In the end the product didnt find success and i realized that even if i love my work and love to work hard, i dont want to sacrifice my health and life as a yound adult. Now i go to the gym 4-5 times a week and try to maintain some balance while still working hard and most importantly more efficient. Even in 8 hours of highly focused work you will get alot more done than in grinding it out for 12 hours each day, and with regular exercise you will feel much better and be healthier! I love working out, not only is my blood pressure in excellent condition again and i feel fitter than ever, but it also gives me something else than my coding work to excel at, which is very important to me. This is just my experience and YMMV, but i learned it the hard way. Think of your health and happiness first! ------ wiggins37 I hope that somebody reads this and sits down in the automatic BP machine at the drug store. Current recommendations are for everyone to have their BP checked every two years even if they have never had hypertension. Besides neurological damage you could be saving yourself a lot of grief with heart disease and kidney disease in the long term if you get your blood pressure under control early. Especially if your parents have or had high blood pressure, please get your's checked. ------ marze It would be more accurate to say: High blood pressure may damage the brain, or, the factors that cause high blood pressure also damage the brain. Correlation does not imply causation. ------ niels_olson you know, here's a weird question: is there a market for a start-up-centric physician? I'm seeing a focus on depression and nutrition. Thoughts? How would one measure the cost-benefit? Let's say I want a house in the valley? How does one work backward from there? Has anyone visited a doctor literally lived above his clinic? The primary care side of HN actually fascinates me a little. But, wow, that would be a big, scary jump. ------ givan What do you think of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptical_trainer> to stay fit and avoid this thing of problems? I don't like losing time going to the gym and this machine seems to train a large number of muscle groups and could be a good gym substitute to maintain health. ~~~ Lost_BiomedE If only one machine were to be picked, I would go rower. ------ pud There's an awkwardly worded survey question at the top of that article: "Do you know if your blood pressure is in the normal range?" It could mean "Do you have normal blood pressure?" or "Do you know your blood pressure?" I think grammatically it means the latter, but my guess is most people are reading it as the former. I'm not sure which one the author intended. ------ srlake +1 for exercise and healthy eating. One of the many reasons we pay for our employees gym memberships. If you really want to get in shape and turn your health around, find your local Crossfit (www.crossfit.com) gym and get hooked. ~~~ rhokstar Definitely. 6 days a week, 2 hours a day. ~~~ tomjen3 Okay. If that is what it takes, count me out. That is an insane amount of time to spend doing something that we as a species have worked so hard to overcome the need for. ~~~ srlake This comment is the problem with North America's health today. ------ rhokstar [http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/the-best-gym-for- startups-c...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/the-best-gym-for-startups- crossfit/) ------ cypher517 I wonder how factors associated with high blood pressure, such as diet and exercise, also contribute to the damages on the brain. ~~~ hluska Great question! As far as diet and exercise go, researchers from UCLA conducted an experiment. They found that (in mice) a high fat diet reduces the level of brain derived neurotrophic factors. These levels are a predictor of how well you will learn. However, exercise can counteract these effects. Dehydration causes a range of neurological problems. Essentially, if you don't have enough water to cleanse your system, your body starts using amino acids. These amino acids would normally be used up building neurotransmitters, so, this can cause all sorts of problems, from what resembles ADHD, to depression, or even conditions that look like autoimmune disorders. ------ tocomment Has anyone tried garlic to help with blood pressure? It seems there's good evidence for it. ~~~ Lost_BiomedE Aged garlic took mine down. I don't have hypertension so I got off of it; my BP returned to my normal. The studies are actually kind of hit and miss, but it worked for me as a normie. Another one to look at is pomegranate. A friend of mine was having side effects with his BP medicine, and I made the suggestion to try it, LEF brand pills or POM juice. He was able to get off, had same BP as when on meds, without side effects. There are lots of studies to look at on this on at pubmed, essentially a beta-blocker with some other actions. Lastly, most people are deficient in potassium. Get some potassium glutamate powder to supplement (not pills as they are regulated to be under 100mg). RDA is 5g, and most people are under 2g a day intake. I have taken 500mg worth of potassium, daily in water, for years without issue. ~~~ tocomment Is there a certain product you buy for the garlic? What dosage? ~~~ Lost_BiomedE It was Kyolic 100. I was taking one a day but the bottle says 2. ~~~ tocomment Hmm, I was reading that the aging process makes it lose the active ingredient? But it still seemed to work really well for you? ~~~ Lost_BiomedE It loses some actives and gains as well as intensifies others. The studies are not consistent for its ability for dropping BP. For whatever reason, I see a drop when using it and a rise to normal when not (did this twice before isolating it as the cause, for me). If I was looking for supplements for BP, based on research, I would go with pomegranate or potassium. ------ ExpiredLink 118:78 right now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How will twitter make money? - johnrob Now that they've raised money on a billion dollar valuation, it's clear that someone thinks twitter will have a serious revenue model. Who has the best guess as to what that could be? ====== johnrob In all honesty, the only thing I can think of is a big sale to either Yahoo or MS. Either might want to keep twitter away from google, and there's a good chance that owning the firehose would produce the best 'real time search' product. ~~~ byoung2 I agree...on its own twitter doesn't have a rock solid path to profitability, but coupled with a search giant like Yahoo, Microsoft, or Google they could be a real powerhouse. ~~~ volodia Could you explain how? ~~~ byoung2 How they don't have a rock solid path to profitability on their own? Or how they would be a powerhouse coupled with a search giant? The answer to the first question is that they don't have an easy way (that I see) of generating significant revenue from their end users, such as premium plans because most additional functionality is already offered by add on apps via the API. I don't see advertising working either, without offending users (we have enough spam tweets). The answer to the second question: three words - real time search. Google indexes the web but it can't crawl pages as fast as people can tweet about them, and there is a vast amount of data about what people are talking about that doesn't hit the web, blogs, or news sites as fast as it hits Twitter. This as what I believe is part of the value of YouTube as well (especially if Google develops a way to transcribe videos). Adding Twitter to the portfolio would flesh out Google's ability to index more than just web pages (they've got our email with Gmail, voicemail with Google Voice, and videos with YouTube already). ------ yan They will be rich once they discover a way to harness these questions to turn them into clean energy. ------ jasonlbaptiste ??????????????	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
USS Liberty incident - evo_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident ====== rbanffy I think a sister ship (still in its cargo configuration) is docked in San Francisco and open to visitation and cruises. The engine, even it's 19th century tech, is quite impressive.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Finally true prepared statements for node-mysql? - Glyptodon https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/prepared-statements-for-nodemysql/description ====== Glyptodon Complaints and arguments about this were (I think) the genesis of this blog post previously discussed on HN: [http://felixge.de/2013/03/07/open-source- and-responsibility....](http://felixge.de/2013/03/07/open-source-and- responsibility.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Monitoring team health in a startup - zackgilbert https://ofcoursebooks.com/platypodes/ ====== zackgilbert I'm one of the founders of ofCourseBooks. Happy to answer any questions people might have. We built this to help encourage ourselves to, not only be more transparent, but to not just sit in front of the computer all day, as is easy to happen while coding up new features. We also have any updates posting to slack to easily show how people are doing. It's turned into a fun little competition between us founders. ~~~ pauljarvis I'm one of the other cofounders (currently the step winner, ha) - I'm happy to chime in too, although Zack was the one who programmed the page, I just made it look pretty (so I could get back to getting all my steps). ------ studiofellow I love that you are proving to others that it's possible to build a great business and still be healthy and happy. So often the message from startups is to sacrifice everything—even health and family. I'm excited to see your business grow using this model, and hopefully others follow your example. ~~~ pauljarvis Heck ya! Now if only I could get Jason and Zack to catch up to my steps ;-) ------ tnorthcutt This is awesome - I'd love to see more companies do this. Not out of voyeuristic fascination, but because it would represent more folks in the tech industry leading well-balanced lives. ~~~ zackgilbert Thanks! We totally agree. Maybe if people are interested, we'd open source it or build a tool that makes it super easy for other companies to share this data also.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
When the Billionaire Next Door Moves Out - hvo http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/sunday/when-the-billionaire-next-door-moves-out.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 ====== tracker1 I've been saying for years we should remove income taxes, and move to a financial exchange tax, specifically on transactions in/out of the country combined with a VAT system on all imports.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stop Comparing JSON and XML - padraic7a http://www.yegor256.com/2015/11/16/json-vs-xml.html ====== jtmarmon This article is pretty garbage. compares almost nothing about xml and instead compares the tooling around xml giving no thought to the tooling around json. instead, let me give you my unsolicited opinion: if you need to represent both the structure of your data and characteristics within that structure, xml is great because attributes are a really good way to do that. there's a reason most UIs are represented as XML. if your data is just - well, data - use json. or better yet use edn ~~~ calanya It's funny to say json and edn represent data, because they are both strictly UTF8 encoded - raw bytes have to be encoded somehow (with neither standard specifying a prefer erred method) to be represented. Why is this important? Sometimes we want to embed a binary formatted piece of data (e.g. an image) as part of our data. ~~~ frou_dh Isn't that the point of the 'hashtags' in edn? If a #png arrives then your program is going to throw an exception unless you've registered a handler that reports success in decoding it? In effect it doesn't matter than the encoding is arbitrary edn (e.g. a 150KB png could be a solitary bigint literal) because the tags prevent false- positive decodes and keep things "strongly typed". ------ arocks It is a great example "Worse is better"[1]. XML has a lot more functionality than JSON but very few people can fully understand all the X* family of specifications, whereas JSON is a _lot_ easier and handles majority of the use cases. There are many, many real life situations where a developer needs to choose between using JSON, XML or YAML to store their configuration data, message formats etc. Simply stating that JSON is good only in one scenario and XML must be used in every other is over-simplification. [1]: [https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html](https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html) ~~~ cm2187 In all fairness, 99% of the time you will use a library to serialise and deserialize. So I always found this xml vs json debate a bit sterile. As long as it is possible to inspect the file visually ocasionally, they're both good enough. I don't know anyone who edits manually huge amounts of xml/json, and if they do, there is probably a better way. ~~~ jcrawfordor One consideration that's worth thinking about is that XML serialization is larger (often not insignificantly) than the same data serialized as JSON. On the other hand, XML can make error handling much easier by schema- validating received documents and thus rejecting a large class of invalid inputs at an early stage. This is particularly helpful if you're making something interoperable, like a public API. So even when you're just using a library, there are ramifications to the decision. ~~~ cm2187 Correct. But in the order of things I care the most about, using angle or curly brackets matters a lot less than problems like: can I serialize multi- dimensional arrays, dictionaries, arrays of bytes, etc. ------ haberman The entire article rests on this: > JSON was not designed to have such features [as XPath, XML Schema, XSL, > etc.] But this claim is not justified, just stated. And the supposed inferiority of eg. JSONPath vs XPath is not justified either. I would actually claim that JSONPath is _superior_ to XPath. JSONPath is much simpler, easier to understand, easier to implement, and still fulfills the most common use cases. Also JSONPath can be evaluated on a streaming input, which is not possible for XPath in general (maybe some subset of XPath queries could support streaming). ------ Finnucane The main problem with comparing XML and JSON is that their use cases don't perfectly overlap. I work with complex text documents, typically encoded in TEI schema, and it would be insane to try to do this work in JSON. It's possible, but the result would be an incomprehensible mess. Unfortunately, a lot of programming languages have poor support for XML, and standard libraries usually only give you XPath 1.0 compatibility. XPath 2.0 and XQuery 3.0/3.1 are far more powerful and flexible, but you need Saxon or a good XML database to make proper use of them. ~~~ ingenter I am yet to see an example that makes me say "this JSON file does not represent the data very well, I wish they used XML instead". Representing HTML/XML does not count. ~~~ falcolas Encode a hash table where key order matters (like the Python OrderedDict). Or a hash table with non-string keys (like a sky chart with XY coordinates). Or any other data structure which doesn't conform to a simple list/hash table format. Right tool for the job. JSON is a great 80% encoding format, which handles most cases. The problem is that folks try to make it handle all cases (ironically, just like they did with XML). ------ vanviegen Sure, if you define "XML" to include algorithms that operate on it like XSLT and XPath, but define "JSON" to be just the data format, then the former is indeed more featureful. ~~~ tracker1 That was my first thought, that there's tooling around JSON to do all of the above... for that matter straight python, js/node and other languages do very well processing JSON... if your encoding ensures no unescaped cr/lf, then a record per line in json + gz is awesome. XML is literally too expressive, and you can't tell how to deserialize xml with a good fragment... json you can (at least better)... the query/expression syntax is even worse than learning/using a simple general purpose programming language. ------ urvader Stop comparing JSON with XML... let me compare them to show why.. ;) ------ mehrdada The article misses the mark, but XML--the language itself, not the tooling-- does have an advantage: it is designed to be quite good at one thing that's often neglected despite being in its name: extensibility. XML provides enormous flexibility via namespaces and integrating many schemas that your application may or may not understand in one document. When done correctly, it can be a huge win in interoperability in heterogeneous environments and across versions. That said, you could very well argue its additional complexity is often not worth the gain in most applications. Of course, you can also define your own extensibility/interoperability conventions with any data serialization format, but the point is XML has it baked in the standard and already provides an accepted way of doing things that everyone has implemented. ------ TeMPOraL It's worth linking to the famous XML rant of Erik Naggum: [http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum- xmlrant.html](http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html) It's both very insightful and enjoyable to read. ------ scotty79 XML is interesting case in point that syntax matters. XPath and XSL are so awesome but barely anyone cares because XML. ~~~ xaduha It's easy enough to create an alternative syntax for it, one-to-one translation. For HTML (XHTML?) there are plenty examples already like Jade. [http://jade-lang.com/](http://jade-lang.com/) But people who are serious about XML-related technologies understand that syntax of XML is mostly fine, interoperability and existing tools matter way more. It would be hard for such an alternative syntax to catch on. People often forget that it is a direct descendant of SGML, I imagine for similar reasons - there were existing tools for it. ~~~ TeMPOraL The reason it's "easy enough to create an alternative syntax for it, one-to- one translation" is because XML document is _a tree_. Just that. There's an argument to be had about tooling & specification ecosystem, but that can be replicated in other formats, and if all you want is hierarchical data representation, it's not worth it to poke your eyes out while working with human-unreadable format XML is. ~~~ xaduha What's important about XML isn't XML itself. It's specifications, standards, toolset. Just because it can be replicated doesn't it will be. That's probably man-centuries of work. ~~~ TeMPOraL I agree. Though a big part of the XML ecosystem is made of dead ends and very domain-specific stuff. But either way, we need to be precise - let's evaluate XML and XML ecosystem separately. If you're not heavily exploiting the latter, XML is almost never a good choice - because alone by itself, it's just a tree notation that sucks. ------ atilaneves Ok, let's take the points one by one. XPath: JSON doesn't need this in, say, Python or Javascript. You write normal code once it's a Python/JS dict/array/list and you're done. I don't need yet another language, I have general purpose ones that will do just fine. Attributes and namespaces: these can sort of be faked, but fair enough. But then you get discussions on what should be an attribute and what shouldn't... Schema: pretty sure this exists for JSON XSL: Ah, the poor man's Lisp macros... And, again, easier to do in code in a scripting language. ~~~ krick > XPath: JSON doesn't need this in, say, Python or Javascript That's not exactly true. There are books in the library. Here's how I get some book's main character's name: library[5]['mainCharacters'][3]['name']. Except I want to know _all_ main character names in all books. This is a clear, simple request, there's no need for me to put 2 cycles here if I don't have to. So I would end implementing my own XPath here anyway, to write declarative stuff declaratively. But then again, I don't have to, because JsonPath already exists and is just fine. ~~~ kaoD IMHO JSONPath is an unnecessary DSL when you have a sufficiently powerful and expressive language. It basically abstracts a less-powerful version of the essential higher-order functions. E.g.: > Here's how I get some book's main character's name: > library[5]['mainCharacters'][3]['name']. Except I want to know all main > character names in all books. library.flatMap(x => x.mainCharacters).map(x => x.name); > This is a clear, simple request, there's no need for me to put 2 cycles here > if I don't have to. Using higher-order functions (and a functional programming style) it's still declarative. Yes, there are still nested cycles but, just like in JSONPath, they're hidden in the abstraction. Plus, not using a DSL but a fully-fledged programming/scripting language, you can store intermediate results, make more complex queries, etc. which is more often than not what you need. __ I've used JSONPath mostly in Bash scripts to quickly hack some JSON manipulation, but I'm slowly transitioning into using more powerful scripting languages and not using it anymore. I'm not really _that_ familiar with JSONPath though. Are there any use cases where it's really convenient? ~~~ krick I would say, that being a DSL is a benefit by itself. This is how the above example would look in Python: [character['name'] for book in library for character in book['mainCharacters']] (Python also has maps and stuff, but it's considered non-idiomatic, plus flatten would be more awkward.) First of all, syntax is quite different from what you use (Scala, I suppose?), when were we using JSONPath we could just copy 1 line from one project to another and that would be fine. Moreover, both our implementations have the same problems: we assume every book has mainCharacters and every character has name. Would it be JSONPath — it doesn't matter, no 'mainCharacters' means path doesn't match the pattern, just skip it. In our cases this means exceptions. And what if we want to get all 'name' fields from whatever object at whatever depth? Or 'name' of every object where 'color' is 'yellow'? Now, if you consider dictionary structure much more nested (say, some AST) — processing that without errors would be quite painful. And you also would end up writing your own XPath (JSONPath), even with all your map's and reduce's. Of course, should it get complicated enough we would end up needing to write something custom anyway, but stuff like JSONPath just helps to keep things simple when possible. That's it. ------ xchaotic Actually the reverse is true: you should compare XML (and related tech) vs JSON vs other options (say HTTP headers) and choose what's best for you. I've seen projects that are all about editing books and stubbornly use JSON, where XML would let them have schemas, and I've seen huge chunks of XML being exchanged where a simple key value pair would suffice. Things like JSON Schema indicate that people are using JSON for things not intended for it, likewise XML can be put to bad use. ------ herge The main strength of JSON is that it directly maps to simple data structures that are first class citizens in many programming languages like Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Golang, etc. XML is a bit more complicated, and often need dedicated libraries to manage. Every time I try to get the nth text element of node X with elementtree, it's bit of a hassle. ------ white-flame The metadata argument is rarely applicable. Metadata tends to be rich, and it's horrible to represent rich data in opaque string attribute values. Rich metadata is therefore represented as child nodes, giving them similar child/sibling status as JSON children, and the semantic ambiguity of when to use XML attributes vs child nodes remains. ------ javajosh Nonsense. They look very different, and that matters, at the very least. In particular I like that JSON has some sense of "type" built into the format, when you omit quotes you know it's a number or a boolean. You can get that (and better than that, really) with XML Schema (or old-school DTDs) but it's baked into JSON. Plus, dealing with JSON in a JavaScript interpreter is about as simple as it gets; only if you're programming in XML (e.g. with Ant) would you ever say the same about XML. It's quite nice to be able to "dig in" to JSON using normal, plain-vanilla JavaScript dereferencing tools and looping constructs. As for the tooling around XML, that's okay, but it's almost always overkill, and it almost always turns out the overhead of the tooling becomes a problem in-and-of-itself. Anyway, JSON is actually a better data format. ~~~ usrusr I think your point could have been made even better if instead of quotes/numbers/strings you would have illustrated the in-band typing using square brackets and arity. Two bytes for "there can be more", so much better than the plural/singular convention often seen in XML (rarely without some creative breaches closely nearby). In hindsight, the biggest advantage of XML over JSON was that it was painful enough to make schemas popular, a quality JSON is lacking. Unlike schema languages, which do exist. To me, XML tooling lost quite a bit of its appeal when I realized that all the typing available via the various schema languages is completely lost to the world of xsl/xpath/xquery. I understand the reasons for that, but that does not provide much consolation. ------ chipsy There is a point, but I think the wrong things are compared to indicate that it's "apples to oranges". XML is designed towards a type of problem that is not an everyday programming problem. It is designed for a full-fledged _schema_ \- it builds on the lessons of SGML and its predecessors such as GML[0], for people who need those things, which has historically meant "documentation writers". DocBook and DITA do not really have equals at what they do, which is semantic, textual content with rich markup. (Yes, you like TeX. But it focuses on presentation for typesetting, not semantic meaning.) This means that in practice XML is really useful for describing an abstract, pre-tokenized syntax. This is a useful tool from a language design perspective; it lets you take an intermediate position between human-friendly and machine-friendly formats, without going straight to binary data or writing a full string parser. When computer language tooling emits an XML AST, they give tool-writers who would like to manipulate or inspect the AST a major leg up. Simpler forms like sexps or JSON exact additional overheads on that problem that can be nearly as bad as just writing a custom string parser, once you get beyond the "strings, numbers, and simple containers" cases that are basically about data serialization, not data parsing. You want to have nodes that have unique names or attributes once you get into the parsing problem, but they are superfluous if you have plain old data. And as soon as you get into mixing different types of documents validation becomes a major concern and XML has the right groundwork for that. It's just that most people don't want or need to deal with data of that complexity, especially since XML as a plaintext document just looks like angle-bracket trash. For those needs they are better off writing in something that a string parser can work with and then using XML as an intermediate, if at all. Even for the documentation-writing situation, it's easier to write Markdown for 98% of the prose and then convert it to add the last 2%. Basically, XML has been used for far too many things that it shouldn't, and the blame for that lies on some 90's-era hype machines that decided that XML would be the buzzword of the future and pushed it into every technology. We got some nice tooling out of it, but in the end, it's still most useful for a certain kind of document markup. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Generalized_Markup_Languag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Generalized_Markup_Language) ~~~ TeMPOraL XML looks well for markup use - for documents with lots of text and sparse semantic tagging. Matching opening and closing tags is actually a pretty nice feature there. RE AST, somehow Lisp managed to encode it in S-expressions since forever, and there was never a problem. In fact, writing Lisp code is mostly writing an AST directly. There is apparently no need for the additional syntactic sugar XML adds. The one thing JSON misses that actually is important is symbol type. S-expressions have it, and at this point it's no longer "strings, numbers and basic containers" \- per code=data, you have everything you need to encode an AST conveniently. ------ EdiX But XML has XPath, XMLSchema and XSLT and JSON doesn't XML has those things because it's data model is hostile to every programming language in existence and you need tools designed specifically for it to manipulate it concisely. JSON fits well with the list/map/primitve data model that is common to most scripting languages so those tools aren't needed, you can just use javascript or python, something you use everyday anyway and doesn't look alien. A similar document would look like this in XML ... plus encoding and schema declaration and also all the garbage involved with dealing with namespaces. Or, at least, don't sing praise to XMLSchema and namespaces if you aren't going to put them in your example. PS. XML is a markup language, if your data is a text document with markup then XML is a good choice, otherwise leave it alone. ------ krick So, what screenshot from "The Men Who Stare at Goats" is there for? ------ jamesmalvi This tool will help to convert json to xml [http://jsonformatter.org](http://jsonformatter.org) ------ adnam Not to mention that XML is generally more suitable for streamed i/o. ~~~ dozzie Except that it is generally less suitable for streamed I/O than linewise JSON. Remember that you don't need to stream a single big document. You can make a stream of several separate documents. ~~~ adnam Provided your data can be chunked in that way, yes. ------ vmorgulis Looks like a troll...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018) - alexandroo https://alexand.ro/2018/08/how-focus-became-more-valuable-than-intelligence ====== ChrisMarshallNY As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate _vast_ amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I break out, sounding like a complete moron; struggling for the most basic terminology. "Whatchacallit" is one of my most-uttered phrases. ~~~ sscarduzio I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrating to myself no matter how hard, it was useless. This is how I discovered my brain only had a "fast gear", and the "slow gear" that normal people used was basically not working for my brain. I breezed through all my exams, got a series of cool jobs and promotions, now I own my company and sell my own software to Fortune 50 companies. The side effect of operating at peak concentration levels is becoming socially impaired, and verbally inept exactly like Chris Marshall above described. This has non trivial social consequences. The amazing thing here is that I just thought I was getting older and grumpier. But now I understand it's in fact tied to the focus. Thanks Chris, now I know what it is, and maybe I can try to tune it down for a period to see what happens. ~~~ chibg10 Does this resonate with anyone else? Is there any studies on this? I’ve had a similar experience over the past few years — a ton of work focus (at a FAANGM as an ML scientist/engineer) combined with limited social interaction and I’ve noticed my ability to have normal social interactions has declined greatly (“verbally inept” and “difficulty with empathy” pretty much hit it on the head). There’s potentially confounding factors in my case so I’ve been hesitant to attribute it to overfocusing at work although I’ve considered it may be a cause. In retrospect I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s not really a worthwhile tradeoff and I’ve been pulling back from work a bit. To add to the larger discussion, I thought I was focusing on work for the right reasons (making a difference in the world, gaining skills, self-actualization) but after getting my “dream job” it turned out that it the job wasn’t very fulfilling at all. No technical challenge or abstract impact metrics really did much for my happiness (or money fwiw)... at the end of the day it’s still rewarding social interactions (which don’t necessarily _have_ to be outside of work) that control the needle for me. ~~~ Roritharr It resonates with me from a different direction. Up until I've become a dad I could crank out vast amounts of code and dive very deep into a given topic relatively quickly, producing extensive results when being able to focus, but since then I have a strict schedule, can't easily say "I'm coming home a few hours later today" or things like that to conserve momentum, I feel my output drastically reduced. I'm currently looking for ways to reorganize my way of working so I get a better output and require less compromises of my family. ~~~ IvanVergiliev I’ve found it extremely useful to keep a detailed log of my thoughts and ideas as I’m working on a problem that requires focus. It’s like a thread dump or memory dump of my thinking. Then, if I get interrupted for whatever reason, I can easily go back to the notes and “restore” from the thread dump. This is a pretty good blog post I found on the subject: [http://faq.sealedabstract.com/uninterruptible_programming_su...](http://faq.sealedabstract.com/uninterruptible_programming_supply/) . I’ve found various side benefits in addition to being able to focus in shorter time windows. For example: \- it’s useful for dealing with interruptions that are part of work too - e.g. if you’re helping teammates with different projects, or have to switch contexts for other reasons. \- it can be useful as an artifact of work. For example, you’ve spent a lot of time debugging a weird issue and you’re still not making progress, so you can use a second set of eyes. You can share your work notes with a coworker so they can immediately know what you’ve tried, what worked or didn’t, etc. In that context, I like to think of it as “offline pair programming”. ------ cutler There's so much middle-class context assumed in this piece I don't know where to begin. What if, for starters, you have a family and the responsibilities that come with it? "I'm only going to focus on my passion from now on" will probably lead to homelessness in pretty quick time unless you have a nest-egg to burn through while you reach profitability. What if you're in your 50s and stuck in a low paid job with a wife to take care of? What if you have a disability? The point I'm making is that a lot of life's time-sinks/distractions are non-negotiable and one life varies drastically from another in terms of how much freedom one has to pursue one's passion. Those who shout loudest that money doesn't matter are usually the ones who have plenty. In the author's middle-class world there are always other options to what you're doing at any point in time. Unfortunately this isn't a universal given. A lot of people are stuck with massive amounts of debt just trying to survive and live from one paycheck to the next. In this context pursuing one's passion is sadly not an option if you want to be able to keep up your rent payments. ~~~ AndrewKemendo I think maybe a good way to describe it is a hierarchy of priorities. The examples you give, taking care of a wife, family responsibilities etc... are in your words "non-negotiable." Which I interpret as required to be maintained as top priority irrespective of all other wants, needs and desires. Each of those examples however, except for having a disability, is truly a choice in terms of priority. I think most people would argue that it is unconscionable to abandon a family or ailing spouse to "follow their dreams," however it's surprisingly common to see. That's not to defend it, but simply to point out that it is done and with surprising frequency, by people who you probably admire. Someone quoted Bukowski on here recently, as giving some insight into the mind of someone who is fully invested in something, and I think it's apropos for this discussion: "If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench...etc [1]" It sounds like your suggesting that people are actively making that "all-in investment" in what you describe as non-negotiables. [1] [https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/13275.Charles_Bukows...](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/13275.Charles_Bukowski) ~~~ cutler Whatever happened to living a balanced life and the satisfaction of fulfilling a responsibility? It may not be fashionable but some view the follow-your- passion cult as shallow and self-centered. ~~~ AndrewKemendo Maybe I didn't make my point clear. The concept here is that, everyone has something that they prioritize - even if not explicitly. So writing something like "Whatever happened to living a balanced life and the satisfaction of fulfilling a responsibility?" suggests that the primary priority you think is being under-emphasized is "living a balanced life." This is very similar to the popular philosophy of "diversity of experience" being the ultimate priority, which is a remixed version of the classical philosophy of hedonism [1] (not to be confused with the modern interpretation which only focuses on sexual pleasure). [1][https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/) ------ claar I agree that focus is rare and critical, but I take issue with the closing paragraphs that suggest prioritizing focus over relationships. What good is it to gain the whole world but have no one to enjoy it with? Of course this is simply another form of focus - choose which relationships to focus on. But putting intellectual pursuits above relationships is a lonely and foolish path, even if you achieve your dreams. If someone close to you suggests spending more time with them, you would be better served to listen to them than to cut them out of your life. ~~~ throwaway72873 I disagree. Keeping focus is a basic biological function of brain. Healthy boundaries and respect are necessary for that. If your "partner" prevents that, relationship is toxic and will probably get even worse over time. In other words, it is better to be alone, than with someone who ruins your mind and sleep. ~~~ koonsolo Well don't have any kids then. So from an evolutionary standpoint, focus might not be that important after all ;). ~~~ throwaway72873 I have kids. Again it is about setting boundaries and respect. Most people make mistake they start compromising very early for no reason, and when things get tough, they just get buried. ~~~ koonsolo So how do you set the boundry when your baby starts crying in the middle of the night, or when your kid throws up in the bed? Let the wife handle it? ------ TheAlchemist I can only agree on that. For people interested in the topic, I would recommend reading Cal Newport's blog too. Also, I intend to turn internet mostly off in 2020. By that I mean: \- no 'checking' of any websites, no news. I will only use internet to search on specific topics I'm interested in \- subscription to paper edition of Economist, to keep myself informed (albeit not in real time - what's the use of that anyway ?) \- read interesting sites / blogs I subscribe to, once a week I've tried this for 2 weeks once, and the effects on my mind were amazing - besides the obvious effects on concentration and work quality, I've also noticed that I actually do have plenty of free time ! ~~~ gcp123 I'm interested in this. How are you planning to execute your plan for 2020? Will power? or will you combine that with some kind of service or application to set some guide rails for yourself? Would love to hear the specifics! ~~~ TheAlchemist No need for technology here. It's an addiction that many of us have. And I feel it got to a point it messes way too much with my brain. So yeah, only 'will power'. ~~~ tdaltonc Will power does not have a great track record in the "will power v addiction" war. ~~~ TheAlchemist Fair point. But it's an addiction that I think will be rather easy to get rid off (based on my previous experience) so I'm not planning anything very specific (other than the points I've listed). ------ playing_colours “Anathem” by Neal Stephenson describes monastic communities dedicated to studying mathematics. I sometimes entertain an idea, if a similar monastic community can work in our world - assuming they would be less strict than in the book. Such isolated retreats would be beneficial for rebuilding focus, finding calm and comfort, without noisy distractions, so one could focus most of their time on studying mathematics. Definitely, nowadays isolated monasteries would not be convenient for doing actual research, as the access to Internet is a must. ~~~ internet_user We already have such a concept, ever been to a remote research university grad school campus? ~~~ TeMPOraL Isn't that tied to being a grad student or an academic teacher? I wish there was something like this for random adults. I hate the structural assumption in our society that only people on the academic track are capable of doing deep intellectual work. Being in academia, or even in orbit of academia, comes with a lot of irrelevant responsibilities and spatial constraints, making it not cost-effective for someone who already ended up in the private sector. ------ wallflower If you find yourself spending too much time on social media-type or even general information consumption applications (like Redfin) on your phone, one simple step is to remove the native application from your phone. The mobile web for most of these are just janky enough to snap you out of your reverie. Second, you can try changing your phone to grayscale. Lack of color may make use of your phone less appealing. iOS makes it relatively easy. [https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/grayscale- iphone-266894](https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/grayscale-iphone-266894) ~~~ prirun I tend to be a focused person, and like being focused. A couple of years ago I upgraded to a smart phone, mainly to get the larger screen (easier to read) and the speech-to-text feature (I hate pecking out a reply to a text). I don't have WiFi enabled on the phone, have Cellular Data disabled, have never signed into my Google account (it's an Android phone), have Bluetooth and Location disabled, and have never downloaded any apps. It's a phone, period. I can't imagine having something in my pocket beeping and dinging at me all day long. It would drive me nuts and I'd never get anything done. If I'm in the car and lost, I have a $100 Garmin GPS that works fine without having to load a bunch of crapps on my phone. Or someone is in the car with me and is quick to start navigating, which is even better. Try disabling WiFi and Cell Data for part of the day. You might really like it! ------ 300bps I’ve said for years that one of the 20th century’s large problems was humans having to learn to live in a world of unlimited sugar, fat and salt. One of the 21st century’s large problems is humans having to learn to live in a world of unlimited information. Both problems involve overcoming our evolutionary programming to scarf up as much of what used be a limited resource as possible. ~~~ mannymanman Solid observations. Do you have any suggestions/resources on how to live well with unlimited information? How do you decide what to absorb and what to ignore? ------ bearer_token > A wasted day may lead to a wasted life This smacks of anxiety and FOMO. Thinking like this would drive me absolutely paranoid. Life is much more stochastic than this. Yes, it is likely that in retrospect a few select hours of work may have unlocked huge value. You don't know which hours in advance. It is highly unlikely that one missed day will derail your life. It's highly more likely that a wasted day was necessary to recover from a lingering illness, fatigue, or stress. It's OK to have an impromptu sabbath. ~~~ TeMPOraL It's not the one wasted day that will derail your life. It's one wasted day after another, after another, after another... ~~~ feanaro Yes, but it doesn't help to fear that one wasted day will lead to this chain. ~~~ rckoepke For a year or two I had a mantra: "A day is a length of time that no man is rich enough to waste". It wasn't grammatically/syntactically valid, but it worked well as a token for a concept that helped me immensely those years. ~~~ feanaro I guess it depends on your personality. Fear-based tactics don't usually work well on me, they just make me anxious about what I am supposedly going to lose. Once I realize that there is in fact nothing to lose, I can relax and handle things effortlessly. ------ bearer_token One tactic I've learned is to set aside time to focus on relaxation. Ambitious people assume intention should be applied towards productivity, but relaxation is required for us to function at high capacity. Do not assume idle or distracted time is rejuvenating. Plan it. I've found that you can't rush relaxation, but you can enjoy higher quality relaxation. Watching youtube videos, reading reddit, or playing a videogame will relax me in a sort of listless, not-quite-satisfied way. Similar to eating chips as an entire meal leaves you feeling full but not nourished. Meanwhile, a long walk with the dog and a podcast leaves me eager to jump into the next thing. But it requires focus, thought, and effort to get into - a higher activation potential than scrolling on a phone. ~~~ 300bps _One tactic I 've learned is to set aside time to focus on relaxation._ I got the exact opposite advice from "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art) The entire book is how to overcome what he calls "resistance" which is what prevents you from getting creative work done. He says the belief that you need relaxation is false and just another way your mind keeps you from what you need to get done. ~~~ bearer_token Interesting. I tend to structure my day around goals and work so much that I don't leave enough time for relaxation. I likely mistakenly assume most HNers are overly ambitious, perfectionist, neurotic types like myself. I have no trouble getting started, I have trouble stopping. ~~~ TeMPOraL N=1, but this HNer seems almost opposite from you. My biggest problem is getting started, and maintaining focus for the initial period of 15 minutes to one hour (for some reasons I get really anxious; despite a decade of trying, I still haven't learn how to manage it). But once I get past that hurdle, I can get a lot of high-quality work in short time. I'd trade my issues for yours in a heartbeat ;). ------ baxtr I employ these techniques with mixed but promising results: \- I block relevant news and social media sites on my phone and laptop (phone rules are more restrictive) \- I force myself to note everything I want to research/read down as a todo. This alone helps me to avoid many irrelevant things I would have otherwise read/researched \- Every month I set priorities, how I want to spend my time. Then every day I go through the list of items I have written down to select and prioritize what I want to do. Then I start working my way from the top item down This article has helped me shape my thinking: [https://medium.com/swlh/theres- no-such-thing-as-motivation-e...](https://medium.com/swlh/theres-no-such- thing-as-motivation-e02edd7de30) ------ gallegojaime A strategy that kept me pretty productive is to have a "primary task" for the day, scaled appropriately, and a secondary one. Just those two. Say: Primary task: write outline on all areas of X presentation. Secondary task: replace light bulb of car. It's just that simple. Two tasks that I'll struggle to finish in a day. From there some properties emerge beautifully. It naturally forms chunks of focus. The "flow". Yet, it's flexible because the execution details are not agreed beforehand, they're made up as you go. " _2h on the main task at least, now that I 've done some stuff and have enough free time for a chunk!_" I can still deal with any blow as it comes. Stuff happens. But at least one can be more mindful about priorities, having the easy to remember two tasks in mind. loose systems (good ones) often work better and can handle failures without crashing down. PS for the author: i live & study in Madrid as well! these kind of deliberations are an important part of my self-improvement. I really like trying things out, and bouncing ideas off another person in a good discussion. You can consider this an invitation, open at any time, about things that we both value :) ------ spectramax I deeply resonate with this - there are just too many things to do, and too little time. This is a boon and a curse. One cannot realize all things we can do in our lifetime, but if we can fixate on _one_ particular thing, we can compound our efforts. What a great article! A reminder that stop dicking around on multiple things in the shallow waters, instead take a deep dive into depths that no one in the world has explored. You're at the forefront of combining pieces of past knowledge, adding your own intellect into an amalgamation that is truly unique. Build it with all you've got, take as much oxygen as you can with you and stay calm as you dive deep. There is a new world out there. I feel like I need to print this article out and stick it across from my desk to be reminded of this every day. ------ matwood Underlying focus is discipline. People hate discipline because it is hard. Not eating that donut, exercising daily, turning off your phone, and actually working for multiple hours straight has become rare. Jocko Willink has written multiple books on the topic of discipline and coined the phrase "Discipline Equals Freedom". ~~~ proverbialbunny Discipline is hard because of two primary things: 1) not enough mindfulness and 2) saying no to things is difficult, but replacing a bad habit with a good habit is easy. With mindfulness, one is aware before the bad habits starts. The earlier the habit is caught, the easier it is to change. It's the difference between struggling to replace a habit for months vs noticing it once, changing it once, and then reaping the rewards. The mind when given a situation needs to respond to it. Habits are born and then they stick. Saying no to a habit is almost impossible. Instead an alternative habit needs to be made to replace the old habit. Every time that trigger pops up, the new habit fires instead. Once those two criteria are met, it becomes easy to self-program. ~~~ matwood Great point. What you describe is how I improved my procrastination. Anytime I noticed I was procrastinating I had to immediately do the item I was pushing off. The awareness you mention in the moment is _the_ key to making changes. ------ arez One aspect nobody mentioned so far is, why do I have to focus so much on my dreams and "work on the next rocket to mars"? Why isn't it okay anymore to just do my job, have friends and watch movies? Why does everyone has to be an entrepreneur and do a successful side-project? Why can't I just have a hobby that doesn't pay off at all, like playing an instrument alone in my room, without any pursue to ever play a concert? ~~~ TeMPOraL Selection bias. Nobody says _you_ have to be like that. Just ignore the article and move on. For me, it resonates, because the perspective of "doing my job, having friends and watching movies" sounds depressingly empty to me. I want to work on the next rocket to Mars (yes, I really do want to work on space rockets - because I care about space rockets). I don't buy into the pressure you're seeing either. If your heart doesn't drive you to strive for meaning in your own work, then you won't be happy chasing it because social pressure tells you to. Not everyone ticks this way, and this is fine. ~~~ arez it's not just this article. I feel the pressure in my every day life. I already have a job that fulfills me and where I give 100%, does that mean I will be the next CTO, no probably not, so I can't even claim to push my career that much. It's just that you read online about all these people that do open-source stuff, create their own website/business, build tools, do research etc. that you feel left out and the big pressure to do something meaningful. In addition nowadays you have to do something meaningful for the world, but it's hard to impress the world or the community, because in your community (like the hacker-news, reddit, indie hacker) there are now thousands or millions of people, you have to do something very substantial to actual get noticed. ~~~ hoorayimhelping > _I already have a job that fulfills me and where I give 100%, does that mean > I will be the next CTO, no probably not, so I can 't even claim to push my > career that much._ What more do you want? Think of how many people there are in the world who want that. Who just wish they didn't dread waking up every morning to go to work. I love my job and I'm completely fulfilled with it. It's all how you look at it - we've made it as far as I'm concerned, anything else is icing on the cake. Really, the question you might want to ask yourself is: do you even _want_ to be a CTO? I don't, it sounds like a set of skills and activities I don't really want to work on. I'd rather be a good engineer who helps other people grow in their career, who also gets to fish and surf in the morning and play video games in the evening. Whenever I feel the way you're feeling, I think back to this quote by Kurt Vonnegut about Joseph Heller: _True story, Word of Honor:_ _Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island._ _I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel 'Catch-22' has earned in its entire history?"_ _And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."_ _And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"_ _And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."_ _Not bad! Rest in peace!_ ------ 1take No it hasn't. Focus isn't more valuable than the ability to improvise or memorize. People are just realizing what's been true all along: IQ is a bunk measurement that points to nothing of note in the brain. ~~~ barry-cotter IQ positively correlates with income, educational attainment, age of death and socioeconomic status, and negatively with criminality, STI infection rates and likelihood of having a child out of wedlock so bunk it is not. Regarding IQ and the brain there are positive relations between brain volume, white matter volume and IQ and between hippocampal volume and verbal IQ so ------ robomartin I finally pulled myself away from Facebook a while back and could not be happier with the results and perspective I gained. I removed all “friends” and kept about a dozen family members just to keep in touch. I had to keep the account due to my businesses using it for marketing purposes. The change in quality of life (due to the negativity on FB) and productivity was instantaneous. ------ proverbialbunny I'm surprised meditation hasn't been mentioned yet. Meditation drastically boosts focus and increases awareness, which then accelerates learning of whatever is being observed / studied. Because of this, focus is a prerequisite for learning, and learning is a prerequisite for intelligence, so focus is very important and more beneficial than many realize. ~~~ starpilot Meditation is awesome, though I don't do it enough. It's like push-ups for your brain. You just focus on your breath, and if you can do that, you can focus on anything regardless of how boring it is. ------ adamnemecek I've had thought about this a lot as well, I'm really unsure I agree. The main problem is figuring out where exactly is the line. Like some of the best gains I've had in life were from things that others considered a distraction. I think I have a better solution. Watch your level of engagement, if you are hating something, it's a good signal you should do something else. Like say Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt had a lot of things going on. ------ zackmorris I was voted most spaced out in my high school yearbook. My creativity and problem solving skills at one point were pretty much off the charts. Got a computer engineering degree, had a few years working at great companies solving important problems. I have to be honest though, I no longer believe in the startup world. I'm so disillusioned now that I honestly don't know if I can write code anymore. There are so many bad indicators about where all this is going, how it's causing wealth inequality and the destruction of the natural world, that I just don't know if my heart is in any of this anymore. I'm mostly coping now and coming to terms with the fact that I may have to choose tech or my life. All I ever wanted to do was invent stuff, but as far as I can tell, the whole system is rigged so that that can never happen. Without hope, there can't be focus. I don't even know what to call the limbo I'm in. It's not really depression, it's not burnout, it's not even apathy because I care very much. It's more a sense that, the best thing to do rather than invent something is to wait a year for someone else to do it. Or more realistically, for 10 other people to try with 9 of them failing. Soon that will be 100 attempts with 99 failures, going up an order of magnitude with each passing decade. If a true next-gen solution that comes after the internet arrives soon, then it could replace the soul-sucking work-life imbalance that we've all recreated. It could replace late-stage capitalism. But it's looking like tech's going to keep crushing down harder and harder until there is no profit in anything and we're all just running the rat race until we die. How did it come to this? Am I alone in feeling this way? Seriously, I don't really even know what to do to make my next $100 to survive tomorrow. I don't know if I can eat the $#!@ sandwich and work for someone again and lose however many more years of my life. Why can't I just go help somewhere and contribute in positive ways and make a modest income? Why is it so cutthroat and all-or-nothing? Blah. Just blah. ~~~ mklarmann I feel you. But I don’t things have to be looked at so narrow. There are hardly any people on this planet that have your opportunity to fix things for the better. There are enough challenges to put your heart into and find fresh energy if you start looking. You just need to fall in love again with something that you really consider worthwhile your time. I am sure there will be something. ~~~ zackmorris Thanks, ya I tend to do a lot of soul searching this time of year. My social media feed is so saturated with bad news that all I really use now is the sad emoji. Right now when I think of tech, I feel emotions like disappointment, loathing, frustration, jealously, resentment, skepticism, etc etc etc. All negative. You are right about love though, that is very insightful. Even though it seems like tech is this analytical endeavor, I've found that it is really built on passion (love, devotion, etc, the things that got us started making things in the first place). Because when you step back from it, why would someone bang their head against the keyboard day after day in endless frustration, often alone and misunderstood, trying to do even the simplest things but coming up short, unless they saw potential in it. That's the real reason why pretty much every tech job listing is looking for passionate people. It's not about excelling now, it's about survival. Anyway, after 6 months of writer's block, I have finally started seeing some alternatives. When I think about the opposite of the tech world today, I start feeling good emotions again like inspiration, hope and maybe even some love as you put it. Here is a starting point for anyone curious: [https://qz.com/933681/start-ups-shouldnt-try-to-be- unicorns-...](https://qz.com/933681/start-ups-shouldnt-try-to-be-unicorns- they-should-be-zebras/) [https://www.zebrasunite.com](https://www.zebrasunite.com) The table at the bottom of the second link lists some of the problems with the startup world today and some ways that we might transition from consumerist phantom tech to real tech. Where phantom tech mainly distracts or lowers some prices or makes some people obscenely rich, with jobs that provide time or money but not both, at great cost to society and nature. But real tech is things like distributed alternative energy, robot labor, universal basic income, etc that provide both time and money passively (without human slavery in the developing world) so that people can get back to living freely like we did as recently as the 80s and 90s. ------ bluedino Focus, and persistence can be a double-edged sword. I've seen C and D-level developers create working systems-despite the fact that they are using the wrong tools, creating un-maintainable code, etc. The key is only letting things go sad far before the right people are brought in to "fix" things. ~~~ coldtea If it's stupid and works, it ain't stupid. ~~~ chaboud That depends on your definition of "works". In a team environment something that is stupid and is barely coughing blood is a tar pit of wasted effort that will ensnare team member after team member, like a repeating land mine. Odd dependencies, bad repeated patterns, and strange process/architectural workarounds will leave a team inefficient, entrenched, and broken. It's why I'd rather have lazy stupid people than energetic stupid people. Energetic stupid people destroy organizational output. Lazy stupid people just keep a chair warm. ~~~ rzzzt "I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage." [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein- Equord](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord) ------ yahwrong Fuck that. I live once. One chance to understand as much as I can about the universe I live in. Fuck chasing human value, that's fleeting, anxiety inducing, and utterly insignificant within probably 20 years of your death. ------ moneywoes What does HN think of the pomodoro technique? ~~~ proverbialbunny It's a good 101 technique and worth trying, but I prefer a 102 alternative. If have enough mindfulness, you start to notice this tension feeling that happens when learning. (I'm not talking about trying to get a project done, getting stuck with a compiler error, then "learning" how to solve it on Stackoverflow. The tension I'm talking about is usually subtle and happens when there isn't some sort of pressing other end goal, just learning to learn for learning and enjoyment.) This tension is correlated to how well the unconscious mind is digesting what was learned and converting it into long term memory. If I learn a lot and it is a difficult subject, I might get very tense within 5 minutes of reading. This means I need to take a break to let the mind digest what I just learned. In the other direction, I can be reading a book and most of it is review, so I feel bored. My initial instinct was to skim to go over it faster, but that only reduces learning. Instead, I can dive into deeper levels of detail, focusing on how the author sees the world, why s/he is demonstrating their findings that particular way, and so on. Basically, diving in more aids learning. Anyways, sometimes I can go for 2 hours of study straight and be in a happy middle ground of tension where my mind isn't overworked or underworked. This is the ideal state, sometimes called flow. By being mindful of this, my study sessions dynamically adapt to it, into an optimal state of learning. Also, if it's too tense, I may not be getting it, because there is too much prerequisite material I don't know well. I might turn to wikipedia or other text books at that point. A detour can be fun, and is far better than not understanding the material. I once had to spend 3 full days learning over 20 new concepts (due to recursive prerequisites) just to read a paragraph in a book. ------ willart4food add resilience to the mix: focus without resilience when things go wrong, can be counterproductive. ------ redis_mlc "Focus is the new IQ" is the best expression I've seen of this. I'm lucky to have the gift of focus, and to know other people who also have it. I know I'm on the right track when I'm asked: * "You did that yourself?" * "How did you do that?" * "How is that possible?" One person with deep focus can change everything. Nikolai Tesla is the ultimate example of this - he made the modern world. My secrets? My only social media is HN, and I use a stick phone. ~~~ newnewpdro > I use a stick phone. What is a stick phone? I presume you're not referring to this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_telephone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_telephone) ~~~ theIV I think they might be referring to what some call the candybar form factor. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_factor_(mobile_phones)#...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_factor_$mobile_phones$#Bar) ~~~ celticmusic Are you able to buy a reasonably modern version of these that comes with GPS? Literally the only things I use my phone for is calls, SMS, GPS, and eeeeeeevery great once in a while I'll google something at the store. I'd love something like this, but it would really have to have GPS on it. ~~~ redis_mlc No GPS, wifi or usable camera, but older phones have techniques for map location using the cell phone signal.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Beginner's Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency - nesquena https://hackmd.io/s/Sym2QZb-M ====== brndnmtthws Here's a tool I wrote which is basically an automated version of what's described in the article: [https://github.com/brndnmtthws/optimal-buy- gdax](https://github.com/brndnmtthws/optimal-buy-gdax) ~~~ nesquena Looks cool! ------ Jdam Calling putting money into cryptos “investing” is a bold move. ------ jhiska It's a competent basic guide on how to invest, but it doesn't explain how you trade crypto back into cash and the problems associated with that. >Coinbase is the safest and most secure online cryptocurrency site. Always start with Coinbase. You can be quite confident your money and personal information is secure. No, you can't be confident of that. Buyer beware. ~~~ emerged Coinbase, who disappeared my order of ETH with no reason, when it doubled in value. ~~~ nesquena Did this ever get resolved? ~~~ emerged Nope. They offered to reinstate my transaction at the price it doubled to. Throwing away the lost profit which is very convienent for them. ------ chx Beginner's Guide to <s>investing in</s>Gambling With Cryptocurrency. FTFY. ~~~ nesquena Fair enough ------ soVeryTired > You should hold between 5-15% of your full investment portfolio in crypto in > total. Sorry, no. That's just horrendous advice. ~~~ nesquena Fair enough, I've adjusted this to be more clear now. ------ erikbye Wherever you purchase some coins transfer them to your private wallet/cold storage. One thing is the need to own your keys and thereby your wallet, but you also should not trust that your exchange will keep your coins safe, or even that the exchange will be there tomorrow. ~~~ chx This is the biggest hurdle to become mainstream: in the hustle to decentralize money, bitcoin hustlers have decentralized security and most people absolutely suck at (cyber)security. Previously perhaps you needed to reinstall Windows or even lost a few (or more than a few) documents but now you will lose this thing you paid for and the thief can easily turn into real money (and hard to track at that). ------ fapjacks > You’ll want to use an app to track your profits and gains. Actually, you'll be using an app to track your losses.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Venture Pimp: Plenty of Tweeps has a crummy name, but a good idea - markchristian http://venturepimp.com/post/650821209/plenty-of-tweeps ====== olefoo I would agree that the name Venture Pimp lacks a certain something.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Andoid app pulled from Marketplace for in app purchases - 00joe http://androidcommunity.com/visual-voicemail-pulled-from-android-market-due-to-terms-of-service-violation-20110225/ ====== pedalpete With Android being an open platform, I would expect the marketplace to be open as well. What google needs to be doing is making the marketplace billing implementation competitive to companies building their own billing service. As a developer, we're already making decisions on what platforms to build on. If you select iOS and Android (likely), you are now forced to then implement a separate billing solution for each bundle. I guess there is a big opportunity for somebody like appcellerator to build a api to the billing systems. But billing systems are often complicated enough. I'm beginning to think the best solution is find another way to monetize. Why are these sorts of terms legitimate for the marketplaces? They wouldn't be permitted to restrict advertising to come only from iAds or AdSense, would they? ------ metageek Did these people not read the agreement before they published their app? I remember seeing that clause when I read it. (Not that I like the restriction, but professing shock when it's enforced is almost as stupid as building your revenue stream on something that you've been told will be taken away if they catch you.)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Deploying ES2015+ Code in Production Today - robin_reala https://philipwalton.com/articles/deploying-es2015-code-in-production-today/ ====== WorldMaker One additional thing to further the article's points is to mention @std/esm [1][2], doing a similar thing for node module loading. Between the tools the article mentioned and this library we are quickly approaching that big inflection point to start distributing only ES2015+ modules for many libraries. [1] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/@std/esm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@std/esm) [2] [https://medium.com/web-on-the-edge/es-modules-in-node- today-...](https://medium.com/web-on-the-edge/es-modules-in-node- today-32cff914e4b) ~~~ styfle I read about @std/esm and I wasn't totally sold on it. But now that I read the browser side of the story, I think it makes way more sense to make use of @std/esm in all packages on npm. The old way of doing things was write for node, and transpile/polyfill the browser with browserify/webpack/etc. But the amount of bytes you ship to the browser really matters. So now the new way of doing things is to write for the browser and transpile/polyfill node which is what @std/esm is doing. This is explained a little better in the r2 readme: [https://github.com/mikeal/r2](https://github.com/mikeal/r2) ~~~ WorldMaker I agree, a large amount of npm code is always going to be targeting browsers for many uses and the better the Node world converges with browser APIs, the easier it is for everyone. It makes sense from the Node side of things too, because there's an ability to sometimes borrow the browser-hardened native implementations of "web" APIs directly from partner tools like Chromium, v8, and even ChakraCore. A rising JS tide can lift all boats, and the more "universal" the web platform is the easier it is to develop for. Also, File I/O is still a bottleneck in Node, even if nowhere near the bottleneck of browsers requesting files over HTTP, and it feels like webpack/rollup is starting to be more of a thing on server-side/NodeJS side, because there are benefits to reducing the bytes you need to read from disk in startup times of NodeJS apps, too. So it's interesting seeing some optimization tools converge on that side of the fence as well. ------ deathanatos > _async /await, classes, arrow functions, etc. However, despite the fact that > all modern browsers can run ES2015+ code and natively support the features I > just mentioned_ What is everyone's cutoff for de-supporting a browser? According to caniuse.com[1], >30% of browsers _don 't_ support the mentioned feature-set; that seems like … a lot. (<script type="module"> is listed at 60% unsupported, which seems very high, but his point that if you allow it, you should allow everything else mentioned seems sound. I also heavily agree w/ his point about delivering modern JS, and letting end consumers transpile as needed.) [1]: [https://caniuse.com/#feat=async- functions](https://caniuse.com/#feat=async-functions) ~~~ rayshan If not supporting IE, a good gauge is evergreen browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) and Safari going back 2 major versions. This means supporting 2 years of Safari 9.x and 10.x as of today. macOS doesn't upgrade as often as evergreen browsers. ~~~ timdorr Safari 11 just came out this week, so you can drop 9.x soon. ~~~ robocat Note many older Apple devices are stuck on iOS9 or iOS10 - a good list is here: [http://www.everyi.com/by-capability/maximum-supported-ios- ve...](http://www.everyi.com/by-capability/maximum-supported-ios-version-for- ipod-iphone-ipad.html) So it depends a little upon your user demographic (or whether you want to keep supporting users or companies that can’t afford to upgrade their device). ~~~ timdorr Also keep in mind that in addition to limited language feature support, many of those older devices have limited performance capabilities as well. So, while you may be able to get your code to run on them, it might not be a great experience and of limited value to your customers to even try offering support. ------ skrebbel I love this, but I'm missing a key piece to make this effective for non-tiny code bases. The author proposes using 2 webpack configs, one for es2015 and one for es5. That means running webpack twice from scratch. This, in turn, means you can't effectively use webpack's devserver because that's just a single instance with a single webpack config. The author's boilerplate [0] "solves" that by hand-coding a watcher based on chokidar which just rebuilds both files on every change. On our code base, clean webpack builds take minutes (and when babel is even configured to exclude /node_modules/, as the author recommends against). If we'd follow the author's advice, we'd be waiting for minutes every time we make a change. Anyone got a good idea here? The best I can come up with is to use the es2015 build (but with node_modules excluded) in dev mode, and then for staging and production, running webpack twice as the author suggests. That makes the dev version rather different from both the production es2015 output and the production es5 output, however, so if there's any bug in the chain anywhere (babel bug, webpack bug, babel-env browser support table error, etc etc) we may not always find it. In all honesty that itches me a bit (even though by skipping uglify in dev mode we already depend on at least 1 tool being essentially bug-free). Any ideas? [0] [https://github.com/philipwalton/webpack-esnext- boilerplate](https://github.com/philipwalton/webpack-esnext-boilerplate) ~~~ crooked-v Actually, I believe you can already run webpack-dev-server with a multi-config just by making your webpack.config.js export an array instead of a single object. The article seems unaware of this capability, but you should be able to have both builds be part of a single webpack config file. See [https://github.com/webpack/webpack-dev- server/blob/master/ex...](https://github.com/webpack/webpack-dev- server/blob/master/examples/webpack-config-array/webpack.config.js) for a simple example. I've used this before for web worker scripts (which require a different environment than the DOM) alongside a normal build. ~~~ philipwalton I didn't know about that. I'll look into it! ------ redonkulus This solution for loading the scripts is great. We have been experimenting with this and browser sniffing was our approach. Will start testing this new approach. Really makes integration and fallback much easier to manage. ------ mijamo One thing missinh here is that dependencies are still published as ES5, sometimes with ESM as an addition. There is no easy way to provide a library with async/await as of today. We would need module:es2017 property in package.json for that. It mitigates a lot the benefit becausr in most code bases dependencies represent the majority of the final JS, and they gain nothing with this approach. ------ reificator Was mildly interested at the headline, but the fact that this works even for static hosting is pretty great. To be honest I was expecting browser sniffing. ------ Vinnl Relevant to module publishing: Axel Rauschmayer's proposal for package authors to start packaging untranspiled code _in addition to_ legacy Javascript: [http://2ality.com/2017/06/pkg-esnext.html](http://2ality.com/2017/06/pkg- esnext.html) ------ mkishi If you have an app shell being served from a Service Worker, you can also assume the browser supports most modern features! ------ agnivade Excellent ! I was thinking a lot about this lately. Someone beat me to it .. dang it. ------ shaydoc Fab article. ------ spraak Edit: Sorry, I didn't read to the "Is this really worth the extra effort?" section. ~~~ mkishi Do you disagree with the reasons given in the "Is this really worth the extra effort?" section or did you just miss it?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
On the Road to WebRTC 1.0, Including VP8 - OberstKrueger https://webkit.org/blog/8672/on-the-road-to-webrtc-1-0-including-vp8/ ====== bobowzki I like WebRTC but it's a complicated mess of protocols... I'm currently trying to implement a WebRTC peer client in pure Erlang. One of the most difficult things I've done because WebRTC relies on several hundred pages of RFCs. ~~~ kodablah Yup, lots of telephony-inspired RFCs in there. If you're not already, I suggest referencing [0] as you develop, it's a great project that is also really easy to read what's happening underneath. 0 - [https://github.com/pions/webrtc](https://github.com/pions/webrtc) ~~~ stcredzero Thank goodness for pions webrtc! I changed my MMO's dev version over to it a couple months ago. This is going to be tons better than the node-electron webrtc proxies running under tmux I was using. Between this, nanomsg, and BadgerDB, I'm going to be removing all of my non-golang dependencies, which is going to enable some very cool stuff. For one thing, I now have _edge servers_ in my architecture. This means that I can now use my ability to serialize the state of a game instance server process, then inject it into another process without any participation from the client. This will make hot code updates really slick. ~~~ Sean-Der That is great to hear :) If there is anything we can do to make it better I would love to work on fixing anything that comes up, thanks for using Pion! ------ aclatuts This isn't as useful if webviews in iOS don't have the same apis enabled. It is very annoying that other browsers on iOS probably wont have access to these features and updates. ~~~ JimDabell If it's not enabled in web views, there's nothing stopping browsers from polyfilling it with native code. ~~~ untog There is _everything_ stopping you. WKWebView runs in its own process and has very limited options for integrating native code. ~~~ JimDabell The model I was thinking of was native code in the native app, injected polyfill that talks to the native code over a message bus. The native code can draw over the top of the web view and pass messages in. Is there anything in particular stopping that? ~~~ Klathmon I believe the problem is the "message bus" is pretty slow, and has pretty limited throughput, especially for something like audio and video. ------ qwerty456127 > The VP8 video codec is widely used in existing WebRTC solutions. It is now > supported as a WebRTC-only video codec in Safari 12.1 on both iOS and macOS > betas. For Steve's sake! Why not add VP8 and OPUS system-wide already when they already even are built in different parts of the system? ~~~ awill probably because Apple doesn't have hardware acceleration for vp8. They don't want developers to use it. It'll be an inferior UX. Less battery, hotter device. It's a bit arrogant for them to compare battery life of h264 to vp8, as they've chosen not to support hardware accelerated vp8. All Android devices have had this for years. I'm hoping this all settles out with av1. Netflix and Amazon will support av1, so that doesn't leave Apple with much choice. ~~~ vetinari The Intel chips that Apple uses support VP8 decoding since Broadwell and encoding since Cherryview/Braswell. On the mobile side, it was their conscious decision not to support it, just like they newer supported the free audio codecs or container formats either. ------ nottorp All I know about WebRTC is Chrome preventing sleep on my systems with "WebRTC has active peer connections". Made me ditch Chrome before it was fashionable to de-google. So the only new feature i want from this WebRTC thingy is... an OFF button. ~~~ sempron64 In addition to being annoying, WebRTC is a privacy hazard and I believe it should be off by default. I install this to make it so [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/happy- bonobo-...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/happy-bonobo- disable-webrtc/) ~~~ kmlx isn’t webrtc by default off on all browsers? aren’t websites asking for permssion before the js is allowed access? and won’t it stay off when you deny the request? ~~~ SahAssar Nope, the audio/video capture requires permission, but the rest should work without a permission prompt. ~~~ kmlx "but the rest should work without a permission prompt" what "rest" are you referring to? ~~~ sempron64 Connections can be made to other computers without explicit permission. ~~~ kmlx ah, i believe you are referring to the webrtc data channel. it leaks local IPs, but the severity depends on several factors, including whether you're running VPN and what you're using the VPN for, or just running behind a regular local network. if you're running behind a regular local network then I wouldn't consider the local IP leakage as a "privacy hazard". local IPs are compromised already. everywhere. they are easy to guess. they are easy to obtain in native apps. etc. there are issues when it comes to places where VPN access is crucial/vital. thankfully, very few VPN providers leak your IP nowadays, and with drafts such as what the poster above mentioned ([https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft- ietf-rtcweb-mdns-ice-...](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-rtcweb- mdns-ice-candidates/)) this problem will be history soon enough. ------ citrusui I know it'll probably never happen, but I hope this somehow leads to Apple supporting .webm in Safari. ~~~ ihuman VP8 can only be contained in MKVs and WebMs files, so I do see this happening. Apple is also part of the consortium working on AV1, the successor to VP8 and VP9; it also uses the MKV and WEBM containers. ~~~ morganw "uses the MKV and WEBM containers" Maybe, but not exclusively VP9: [https://www.webmproject.org/vp9/mp4/](https://www.webmproject.org/vp9/mp4/) (uses 'vp09' & 'vpcC' in the stsd) AV1: [https://aomedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/AV1-ISO- Base-...](https://aomedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/AV1-ISO-Base-Media- File-Format-Binding-Specification.pdf) (uses 'av01' & 'av1C' in the stsd) YouTube's AV1 playlist [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q&list=PLyqf6gJt7K...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q&list=PLyqf6gJt7KuHBmeVzZteZUlNUQAVLwrZS) uses mp4 as the container for the av1 (av01.0.05M.08), webm for the VP9 (vp9) ./youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXYbGmF3_Q [youtube] 2nXYbGmF3_Q: Downloading webpage [youtube] 2nXYbGmF3_Q: Downloading video info webpage [info] Available formats for 2nXYbGmF3_Q: format code extension resolution note 249 webm audio only DASH audio 55k , opus @ 50k, 1.43MiB 250 webm audio only DASH audio 70k , opus @ 70k, 1.81MiB 171 webm audio only DASH audio 118k , vorbis@128k, 2.99MiB 140 m4a audio only DASH audio 128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 3.65MiB 251 webm audio only DASH audio 133k , opus @160k, 3.38MiB 278 webm 256x144 144p 101k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 2.57MiB 160 mp4 256x144 144p 109k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 1.02MiB 242 webm 426x240 240p 205k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 2.81MiB 133 mp4 426x240 240p 241k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 2.27MiB 243 webm 640x360 360p 377k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 5.08MiB 395 mp4 426x240 240p 426k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 3.33MiB 134 mp4 640x360 360p 514k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 4.66MiB 244 webm 854x480 480p 696k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 8.29MiB 396 mp4 640x360 360p 751k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 6.04MiB 135 mp4 854x480 480p 989k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 8.54MiB 397 mp4 854x480 480p 1175k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 9.86MiB 247 webm 1280x720 720p 1282k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 12.27MiB 136 mp4 1280x720 720p 1675k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 14.43MiB 398 mp4 1280x720 720p 2075k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 18.99MiB 248 webm 1920x1080 1080p 2349k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 20.93MiB 137 mp4 1920x1080 1080p 2768k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 23.33MiB 399 mp4 1920x1080 1080p 3759k , av01.0.05M.08, 30fps, video only, 39.32MiB 18 mp4 640x360 medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k, 11.11MiB 43 webm 640x360 medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k, 16.66MiB 22 mp4 1280x720 hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best) ~~~ ihuman AVC1 is just H264[0]. FFmpeg says stream 0 is "Video: h264" The page you linked about AV1 in mp4 says it uses MPEG-4 Part 31, which is under development and not final [1]. Until now I was not aware they were extending the MPEG-4 container standard to include more formats. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Naming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Naming) [1] [https://www.iso.org/standard/66062.html](https://www.iso.org/standard/66062.html) ~~~ TD-Linux The GP shows both avc1 and av01, the latter of which is AV1. ~~~ ihuman Yes. The post also said avc1 and av01 are both av1, when just av01 is av1. ~~~ brigade I think you misread av1C (av1's equivalent of avcC) as avc1 ------ kodablah > Safari also comes with additional improvements, including better support of > capture device selection, experimental support of the screen capture API, > and deprecation of the WebRTC legacy API. Looking very much forward to this. Currently my plugin-free in-browser screen- sharing tool [0] only works in FF and Chrome. The real question is will mobile browsers offer it. In general though, I am impressed with how well screen capturing over WebRTC works and so far haven't seen that many people needing a TURN server. 0 - [https://github.com/cretz/myscreen.live](https://github.com/cretz/myscreen.live) ------ derf_ As someone who harassed you about VP8 support in the past [0], this is really great news. Thank you for all of your hard work. I am also really happy to see the transition to Unified Plan. [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14510045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14510045) ------ ksec Under what situation is H.264 not available in WebRTC and require the use of VP8? ~~~ rhn_mk1 Free software. The Cisco H.264 codec supplied with Firefox cannot be distributed with other software, despite being "open". From [https://www.openh264.org/](https://www.openh264.org/) , there seem to be licensing costs involved with the usage of this code, which have been waived for some uses, implying they were not waived for others: > We will not pass on our MPEG-LA licensing costs for this module, and based > on the current licensing environment, this will effectively make H.264 free > for use on supported platforms. EDIT: To clarify, such licensing requirements on H.264 may make codecs fall outside of the guidelines of software distributions allowing only free software, making them supply their browser without one. ~~~ detaro If I remember correctly, only decoding for online video streaming doesn't require licensing fees. Cisco hits the fee cap with the products they sell already, so letting everyone use their binaries doesn't cost them anything. ~~~ TingPing Right the core problem is you have to use their binaries so Mozilla can't build it and ship their own. ------ therealmarv VP8 and VP9 hardware decoder acceleration is common on new products nowadays?! Or is this only the case on non Apple Smartphones? btw: Looking forward to AV1 HW decoder accelerated CPUs. ------ kmlx excellent news. the webkit team are really improving their webrtc offering. i feel the next great leap for webrtc is wasm + webrtc: [https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/bloggeek.me/webassembly-in- we...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/bloggeek.me/webassembly-in-webrtc/amp/) ~~~ Sean-Der This is super exciting, so many cool things happening here. I haven't had a chance to grok it fully yet but someone added WASM support to pion recently [0] you will able to just write your code once in Go and _should_ work in both places! [https://github.com/pions/webrtc/blob/master/examples/README....](https://github.com/pions/webrtc/blob/master/examples/README.md#webassembly) ~~~ kmlx wow, that's brilliant. ------ EGreg Is there a way to do WebRTC without revealing your IP to some signaling server? ~~~ kabes If you know the ip adress of the peer and you can adress him directly. You dont need a signaling server in that case. ------ shmerl When will Safari support Opus audio codec in Ogg container?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ghislaine Maxwell's personal emails have been hacked - pattusk https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7919155/Ghislaine-Maxwells-personal-emails-HACKED-leaked.html ====== pattusk For those experiencing issues: [http://archive.is/rX4g4](http://archive.is/rX4g4)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Startups that TechCrunch missed out on – October 2012 - chehoebunj http://www.startupplays.com/blog/top-35-startups-in-tech-that-techcrunch-missed-out-on-october-2012/ ====== polyfractal So I joined StartupPlays a while ago and checked out their "Accelerator" program. Does everyone else have a different experience than me? The place felt dead to me...like a ghost town with only a handful of active participants. Was I just using the interface incorrectly and not finding the activity or something? ~~~ janson0 I don't know. I have found some of their resources really helpful (like the articles you can get from the accel.io part) but i haven't engaged with the community too much yet. They seem like great folks though, so hopefully it will grow? Dunno. What do you do? ------ turbohz We're really excited to be featured at spot #9 (thanks Startup Plays!). Typeform\| (<http://www.typeform.com>) is our take on how to evolve forms and surveys for the many devices, form factors and input interfaces available nowadays. Visually attractive, with touch input in mind, responsive designed, usable, pleasant and gracefully degradable to support old devices. We're a young, enthusiastic, startup based in Barcelona, ready to take online forms and surveys to a whole new level. ~~~ binxbolling I really like the potential here and signed up for an invite. I'm wondering though where data would live, and what kind of access we'd have to it. E.g. what kind of export options are there? Or, can form data be automatically dumped somewhere else? ------ janson0 Well, this is nice to see first thing in the morning! It's exciting to see our startup picked up in articles like this! I'm the founder of GameWisp, so let me know you guys have any questions! ------ msiegler Thanks Franco and StartupPlays! Mike here with Erli Bird. I'm usually a lurker here on HN but shouldn't be. Our goal is to help new startups get some users, feedback, and improve. We also want to provide a way for early adopters to get more involved early-on and help shape companies they love. We've had a few nice success stories, but we have a long way to go and are constantly trying to learn and improve. Happy to answer any questions and listen to any feedback that you have. ------ axx Do people still read TechCrunch? ~~~ mzuvella About 10 million a month. ------ frankdenbow I used Fiestah for an event in NY and was very happy with the experience: it made event organizing much easier. Its a pretty solid idea if they can scale up both sides of the marketplace. ~~~ stefanoslm Glad you enjoyed your experience with Fiestah Frank! ------ mattwick Kareer.me is excited and honored to be a part of this post. Lots of other great companies as well.CopyBar, Mover.io, Quivee, and others look awesome. Great finds! ------ jwarzech GameWisp looks pretty interesting, I wonder if we are going to see more and more cloud services focused on supporting mobile/web games rather than applications. ~~~ janson0 Hey thanks for the interest. Make sure you apply to test, if you want to check it out. We are going to start adding another round of testers really soon. Any questions off the bat? ------ deservingend I'm sure there are some good ones here, but the few that I checked had Alexa Ranks in the millions. Sites in that range generally have negligible traffic. ~~~ GBKS Out of curiosity, at which Alexa rank range do you take new sites serious? 100,000? 50,000? From a little bit of research it looks like piccys.com has 30 million page views with an Alexa rank of 8518, and weheartit.com has 850 million page views with a rank of 1367. So the top 10,000 seem difficult to get into as a newcomer. ~~~ deservingend 100,000 is already very good. Anything inside a million at least suggests that there are real users visiting the site. The sites in the millions basically do not have any traffic. Newly registered sites get into that range from a few random search engine hits even before they have any real content. ------ aioprisan check out TaskUp (<https://taskup.com>), now with cash rewards for getting things done! (disclaimer: founder) ------ OoTheNigerian I did not think any thing good will be in "top number post" However, I am glad I clicked through. Some really cool stuff there. Moqups looks AMAZING!!!! <https://moqups.com/> ~~~ jiggy2011 It looks fine, but I don't see what is different to all the other mockup tools.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: You're not allowed to comment/ reply on your own submissions? - pistoriusp I made this submission earlier:<p>http://corporatecrimereporter.com/barrylynn021310.htm (Two corporations dominate US beer market).<p>And I'm unable to reply or comment on my own post. In place of reply I see "-----." ====== jacquesm That's because it's (rightly) dead. ~~~ pistoriusp Was the article in bad taste? I found it rather interesting. ~~~ jacquesm It doesn't have to be in bad taste to be thrown out, the criterium is that it is 'not hackernews', which is loosely defined as stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with hacking and so will not be of interest to the large majority of those visiting here. Switch 'showdead' to on and browse the new page for a while, you'll get the idea of what makes the cut and what does not (aside from the outright spam).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Vulnerability Discovered in Email Server Software, 5 Million Hosts Affected - nickroessler https://nickroessler.com/dovecot-cve-2019-11500/ ====== posix_compliant What’s crazy is that this offers remote code execution for around 5 million email servers. As far as bug hunting goes, it doesn’t get much juicer than this and the author could easily have sold the exploit for more than the awarded bounty.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you deal with distribute CI definitions? - throwawayci With the move to CI configuration files stored on each repository (.travis, .buildkite, Jenkinsfile, etc) versus a central location. How do you deal with keeping all pipelines standardized? Do you have a central CI team that touches all these repos (and has the autonomy to do so)? Or is it up to developers to keep things updated? Say you want all pipelines to have a linting step, how would that happen in your organization? ====== fatninja We provide very generic CI templates for each stack(java,go etc). If teams want any customizations on top of that, they will have to do it themselves. In CD we have some very specific expectations from the package so this make sure that CI part won't go way out of the way even if they make some customizations. ------ ilotro We leave it to each team to write and manage their own, gently nudging them in the right direction if they stray.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The underground farm growing salad crops in a disused air raid shelter [video] - open-source-ux https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-49411645/does-the-future-of-farming-exist-beneath-city-streets ====== squish78 "Does the future of farming (something indoors) ?" No. It never will, despite all of the admittedly cool proof-of-concepts. The energy required to photosynthesize will never be more economical from artificial lighting than the sun. The future of farming (in the U.S.) is better soil management, agro-forestry, and removing archaic systems of subsidies which favor corn and beef to the detriment of human and environmental health. Underground crops are cool, but they cannot feed the planet ~~~ dekhn solar panels + LEDs is more efficient than direct sunlight because the panels absorb in a wide frequency range and then the LEDs only emit at the wavelength required for photosynthesis. This is a very recent development and it's barely an improvement over outside growing due to overhead costs. ~~~ squish78 How much would it cost to cover 100 acres with LEDs? ~~~ dekhn see my comment about overhead costs. However there are a number of interesting details: since with LEDs you can stack plants vertically, the horizontal area is less important. You can also keep things more compact (plants in a field aren't particularly dense) with light coming in at multiple angles leading to bushier plants with more growable surface area. I guess the real question is, "what are the amortized costs of growing using solar panels and LEDs compared to fields", and that's a super hard problem to solve/estimate. So far, people have only been growing high-profit crops, so it seems like the economics don't favor interior growing yet even for well-heeled players. ~~~ 14 There are massive benefits to growing indoors in certain conditions. Areas that were previously too hot or too cold could now be used to grow provided you have access to power. I one day think we will have portable nuclear generators and don't think this will be an issue. I don't think it will be economical in every situation but I do think there will be some market for indoor crops. The other factor I think of with indoor crops is with artificial you can optimize it both intensity and duration for different crops so you can also grow a bigger variety of crops in areas previously not possible. What if we could grow almonds closer to an abundant water source, or peppers in the frigid north closer to the people who eat them instead of shipping them large distances. ------ Havoc This is great for exploring. But practically anyone putting crops anywhere other than under the sun is missing out. Taking them away from that abundant FREE source of energy sticking it underground and then spending electricity & money to light it up with LEDs...yeah no. ~~~ georgeecollins What if you were using geothermal power for LEDs to grow crops in Antarctica? Sounds crazy but probably easier than living on Mars. :) ~~~ Havoc haha yes that would work. Things like inner city growing where real estate is scarce could work too. Just say as a whole stick plants in dark & light them with electricity is about as stupid as it gets. ------ j-c-hewitt I too can grow salad in my basement but it's pointless when I can use the sun, which is a mass of incandescent gas -- a giant nuclear furnace that I don't have to pay to use. ------ elektor There is an org that does something similar in New Jersey: AeroFarms. Their greens are sold at the local Whole Foods. It's pretty neat to get your food grown locally. [https://aerofarms.com/](https://aerofarms.com/) ------ thinkcontext They should grow mushrooms not salad greens. No light needed, humid conditions, constant temp. ~~~ open-source-ux Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D, but when they are grown in total darkness they contain virtually no vitamin D. Some supermarkets in the UK now sell mushrooms treated with UV light to elevate their vitamin D levels. However, there is a simple 'hack' if you don't have mushrooms grown outside or treated with UV light. Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms. In case you're wondering about the veracity of this info, it's from a 2017 book published in the UK called _How to eat better_. The author is a botanist, science writer and TV presenter called James Wong. (He has appeared on a couple of BBC TV shows.) Here is the relevant passage in full from the book: > Doing one simple thing to your shop-bought fresh mushrooms can transform > them from containing virtually zero vitamin D to one of nature’s richest > food sources in as little as an hour or two, according to Penn State > University. Popped on a sunny windowsill, the mushrooms (which commercially > are grown in near total darkness) will react to the UV light, churning out > loads more of the antioxidant vitamin to defend themselves from damage from > solar radiation. > The Penn State team found that a serving of white button mushrooms exposed > to UV lamps for just 1 second could go from containing essentially zero > vitamin D, to an astonishing 824 per cent of your daily recommended intake. > When they tried the same thing with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, their > vitamin D content skyrocketed way over a thousand times what you need to > consume each day. In the world of food science, this really is as close as > you can get to alchemy. > With such tiny amounts of UV light needed to create such an enormous impact, > it doesn’t have to be a blazingly sunny day for you to do this at home > either – simply lay your mushrooms out on a windowsill for an hour or two > anytime between 10am and 3pm and their levels should peak significantly. As > the gill tissue (the brown underside of the mushroom caps) is more sensitive > to light, placing them with the gills facing up will trigger the strongest > spike. You can now even buy special vitamin D-rich mushrooms at a premium > price in some posher supermarkets where this UV treatment has already been > done for you. Just three of these mushrooms should give you your entire > daily dose. But as tumbling your mushrooms out on the work surface for an > hour or so will do the exact same job, you may want to save your cash. ~~~ sornen The light that is required to increase vitamin D production is UVB. The Penn State researchers used a pulsed UVB source for their research. Lower frequency light will not activate the conversion to vitamin D. Glass absorbs most UVB light therefore laying out mushrooms on a window sill will not work.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WordPress vs. ProcessWire - jlahijani https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOrdUWNK38ibz8U_5Vq4zSPZfvFKzUuiT ====== lixtra Are you going to also make a conclusion video? Like wp is for x pw is for y?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
3D Mandelbrot Fractal in Blender Python - swietlik http://slicker.me/blender/3d_mandelbrot.htm ====== etatoby I expected some actual 3D fractals (or rather, some shapes with 3 < dimensions < 4) such as a Sperpinski or Menger Sponge: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menger_sponge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menger_sponge) ------ mkesper For 3D fractals, have a look at mandelbulb: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbulb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbulb) ~~~ lbenes And for discussion of 3D analog of the original Mandelbrot, check out the Math Exchange discussion[1] and site dedicated to finding it.[2] The vanilla zoomed mandelbrot[3] looks 3d to me. It's interesting that actually turning them into true 3d is such an elusive problem. [1] [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/150117/is-a-3d-mande...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/150117/is-a-3d-mandelbrot- esque-fractal-analogue-possible) [2] [http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/2mandelbulb.html](http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/2mandelbulb.html) [3] [http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/h-frac.jpg](http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/h-frac.jpg) ------ deepnet For Volumising Mandelbrot's Equation the Mandelbulb is worth a look: "In 2006 Daniel White inspired by an idea of Rudy Rucker developed a mathematical equation with the potential for a real 3D equivalent to the famous 2D mandelbrot set. With a modification by Paul Nylander _in 2009 the Mandelbulb was born on fractalforums.com_ "[1][2] [1] [http://www.fractalforums.com/still-frame/the-discovery-of- th...](http://www.fractalforums.com/still-frame/the-discovery-of-the- mandelbulb/) [2] [http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html](http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html) ------ CoffeeDregs If you want to play with 3D fractals in WebGL, you can also try: [http://www.alsonkemp.com/geekery/webgl- fractals/](http://www.alsonkemp.com/geekery/webgl-fractals/) ------ sgnelson If nothing else, I learned that you can write Python scripts for Blender. Neat. ------ unosit Step 4 made my day. ~~~ swietlik Hey, the code is well commented and the math is explained in detail as well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Craigslist Quietly Begins Testing Maps - revorad http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/craigslist-maps-test-openstreetmap.php ====== aasarava "[T]here’s a certain irony to Craigslist suing other companies for creating maps with Craigslist ad data — claiming a breach of proprietary content — then turning around and using an open, crowd-sourced mapping solution to create its own maps." ~~~ genwin I think people get confused by the ".org", when it's really a typical corporation doing whatever it takes to maximize profit.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Who Stole the Four-Hour Workday? - ca98am79 http://www.vice.com/read/who-stole-the-four-hour-workday-0000406-v21n8 ====== spindritf People who don't work at all. That's the choice (maybe more like outcome) the society went with. For what might the first time in history, the rich are working more than the poor[1] and labour participation rates are dropping[2]. In many ways this is a superior alternative. Children don't work. They used to. People spend a lot more time in school at the beginning of their life when it has the potential to have the biggest impact. It's not all bad. Although not quite living up to the dreams from 20th century either. There's also something to be said about positional goods. A lot of people are driven by status and they work to be ahead of others. Elizabeth Warren believes that this explains why, despite technological progress, regular middle class family needs two incomes where one was enough a couple decades ago[3], they're competing for the same house, or school district. It doesn't explain everything but it's a factor. [1] [http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21600989...](http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21600989-why-rich-now-have-less-leisure-poor-nice-work-if-you-can- get-out) [2] [http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/08/18/equitable-growth- make-...](http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/08/18/equitable-growth-make- confused-cyclical-recovery-monday-focus-august-18-2014/) [3] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class- Paren...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class- Parents/dp/0465090907) ~~~ cousin_it I think competition is the main villain here. Zero-sum games, prisoner's dilemmas, arms races and tragedies of the commons stole the four-hour workday from us, and many other good things besides. A nice toy example is "20% time" at companies like Google, which tends to evaporate as soon as your performance evaluation compared to your peers becomes tied to your performance at your main project. The only solution to competition is centrally enforced precommitment. First, the government should actually enforce the eight-hour workday. Then it should reduce the workday, for all employers at once, so no one can get ahead by cheating. I don't see any other solution. ~~~ privong > The only solution to competition is centrally enforced precommitment. First, > the government should actually enforce the eight-hour workday. Then it > should reduce the workday, for all employers at once, so no one can get > ahead by cheating. I don't see any other solution. This would not really be a solution. All it would result in is more people taking work home, because job evaluations would still be based on how much progress one made on the primary project. To get ahead and get that next promotion, many people would still feel compelled to work extra (unreported) hours. I suspect a madate such as what you propose would simply push the long work-days into being unreported. This is basically what happens in graduate school (in the US, at least). I just finished a PhD program; as part of our contrats students agreed to only work 20 hours per week. There is no way one could finish a dissertation working on 20 hours per week, so everyone worked longer hours. Sure, you could complain about how many hours you worked (and some people did), but that did not change the fact that only 10–20% of Astronomy PhDs get faculty jobs, so if you want that faculty job, you need to put in the hours to do great research, regardless of the mandated 20 hour limit. ~~~ bmj Do you think there /is/ a solution to the problem? Or is this just one of the side effects of capitalism? I'm not trolling here...just curious. My own mind tends to go in the direction of the parent, but, I also see how enforcement would be next to impossible. ~~~ avz I think you're trying to solve a wrong problem. Work isn't a problem. Work is what propelled humanity to explore, understand and conquer the world around us. Human work is a requirement for the development of medicine, greener technologies, safer transportation and even space exploration and colonization. If there are any problems about work, they are about making it more enjoyable, making good work more widely accessible and distributing the proceeds fairly. ~~~ waps That is the exact problem with the 4 hour workday and other forms of part-time work. As I've heard many people describe part-time work : 40% of the pay for 80% of the work. Until that changes, I would not expect part-time work to happen for anyone but really high up managers where such a trade may actually make sense. ------ FD3SA Capitalism`s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The profit motive is so strong that it often ends up creating irrational scenarios such as the economic situation we have today. European countries seem to have struck a far better balance by harnessing the profit motive of capitalism while preventing disasters such as for-profit healthcare, for-profit education, for-profit government policies (for the rich), for-profit prisons, etc. It is fascinating how powerful cultural and institutional momentum can be. I regularly run into very intelligent and rational Americans (particularly on HN!) who defend American institutions (e.g. healthcare) in spite of all the widespread data about them being massively inefficient. In the end, we reap what we sow. The profit motive brings great riches, but to a tiny few. The rest, sadly, often become the servants who enable the lifestyles of these outliers. Conversely, the outliers become the American Dream, seducing the average worker ever onwards with promises of riches and comfort just a few lucky breaks away. ~~~ wyager Please explain how for-profit education is a disaster. By all measures, private schools in the US are superior to public schools, and the US's private universities are consistently rated best in the world. You also can't generalize about e.g. for-profit healthcare based on the American situation, because the regulatory environment is so extreme as to have to created a government-controlled crony-capitalistic oligopoly. The for- profit healthcare in less regulated countries like Mexico is inexpensive and amazing. ~~~ adventured I can only assume the parent is blaming the spiraling cost of education on Capitalism, when in fact it's the perpetually increasing federal loan guarantees spurring massive inflation that is the root of the cause. The spiral in healthcare was also caused by the government taking over the industry in the late 1960s. No coincidence both industries began to skyrocket in cost at exactly the same time, shortly after Nixon ended the gold standard, and the Fed acquired free reign to generate immense inflation and aggressively tamper with interest rates (spurring the cheap consumer debt boom of the past 40 years). Everyone recognizes that healthcare and education became very expensive recently. Nobody seems to ask what changed in the last few decades to cause that. They act like Capitalism didn't exist in 1960. ~~~ was_hellbanned _The spiral in healthcare was also caused by the government taking over the industry in the late 1960s._ I'm guessing that you're referring to the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, which is hardly "taking over the industry". ------ programminggeek Poor negotiation and group think stole the 4 hour workday. I've seen companies where you can have 2 devs working on the same project, one making say $30,000-40,000 and one making like $60,000-70,000. They do the same work, but have wildly different valuations because of their ability to negotiate. If people negotiated higher rates and fewer hours, that is entirely possible to achieve and eventually could be the norm, but most people don't negotiate for anything. They think an extra $2,000/yr. is a big win, but then turn around and work an extra 10 hours a week at a job they hate. The value in unions was that they would negotiate harder than individuals will. They perhaps outlive their usefulness and aren't great as an entity that should last forever because demanding more money every year doesn't always work if the company isn't having a good year, but the point still stands that lack of negotiating power is a problem. C levels executives make outsized amounts of money because of 2 things - the higher you get in an organization, the better you probably are at negotiating (otherwise you wouldn't make it to the top), and many have agents that negotiate on their behalf (just like pro athletes). I'm not an expert at negotiation, but I do know that the people who know how to negotiate well can get wins that the average person can't comprehend. A lot of people could negotiate their way into a 4 hour workday if they tried, they just don't know how. ~~~ spiritplumber It puzzles me how Americans don't want to discuss how much they make with coworkers. ~~~ programminggeek Well, bosses have been known to threaten to fire workers if they are found to be discussing how much money they work. People act as if it would be impossible to work at a company where people could know what other people make. Yet, public school teachers have a pay schedule that is pretty cut and dry, government workers' salaries are public record, etc. Somehow people manage to work those jobs without any kind of mutiny due to freely available information. I'm sure there are other companies where this works out just fine. Mostly, companies take advantage of the information asymmetry to pay as little as they possibly have to. It works for them as long as people don't find out their getting screwed. If people find out, they negotiate better. Ultimately, that probably leads to people getting paid better or getting a better paying job. If companies just took care of the employees well to begin with, it wouldn't matter if people knew how much other people were getting paid. At the end of the day, it's a problem of greed, and that's an unsolvable problem as long as humans are involved. ------ chris_va This is not well thought out: "If everyone worked fewer hours, for instance, there would be more jobs for the unemployed to fill. The economy wouldn’t be able to produce quite as much, which means it wouldn’t be able to pollute as much, either; rich countries where people work fewer hours tend to have lower carbon footprints." The economy is not a zero sum system, almost by definition. Working less will not mean more jobs are available. In fact, lower economic output may reduce the number of jobs available significantly. Also, correlation does not imply causation. Modern societies with lower carbon footprints are those with smaller industrial/shipping industries and good public transit. That probably correlates pretty well with reduced working hours, but selling this a ecological alternative is a bit of a stretch. ------ mrjj I prefer to think about USA as no-vacation-nation. Just because it's good to think that there a lot of guys working 24/7 and if you don't do so, you are retired. You can't do the smart work more than 4 hours a day, right, maybe it's just beyond energy exchange capacity in our brain that support extra concentration. But everyone have a lot of a dumb work, documentation, settling professional conflicts in mail, pinging standstill tasks, routine refactorings or other forms of small product polishing, whatever. I'm not sure that the 4 of "smart work" is including all those 20% of work giving 80% of value, its sounds funny but sometimes you have too much energy to do very valuable routine. If you have predisposition to depression (as i do) you can liberate your own time and just waste it to extension your depression experience. Wow it's really worth it. Depression is just negation of any actions. When external factors is punching your arse its hard to negate. When not, welcome to slow way down. ~~~ afarrell How is documentation dumb work? Explaining technical concepts clearly is hard. ~~~ mrjj Sorry, i don't want to injure any of the technical writers. They are the only guys keeping big projects from informational collapse. Moreover, they are some kind of project detectives, collecting clues about how this pile of __* actually works. But if you are making something, you have to make some pieces of human- readable information about it and the poor quality is significantly better that no internal documentation at all. That the way developer or manager can help real technical writer. Also you can express your thoughts in short notes, schema drafts, checklists, documenting your mindflow. It's very usable and nearly impossible to delegate. You can steer at the lines and rectangles or lists, looking for missing points or removing redundant. Not hackworking, just harmonizing the details because it's odd to have time to polish shoes and no time to polish work. ------ cheepin Maybe the stuff we want to buy has gotten increasingly expensive. College, phone and internet, all on a stagnating wage. ~~~ mahyarm Depends on the place. Phone & internet is not it, but college, rent, cars & health care are. ~~~ stanmancan I guess it does depend highly on lcoation. I live in Vancouver, Canada. For my fiancee and I, our cell phone bill comes to about $150/m and internet is $40. That alone is $1,200 a year. Cars are another expense that's gone up substantially over the last 20 years. We pay $140/m in insurance and at $1.40/L gas, at least $150/m in gas. That's $3,500 a year not including servicing (minimum $100 every ~3 months) or car payments ($280/m). All in, just owning a car costs us about $7,200 a year. ~~~ jarek A year ago in Vancouver, I was paying $28 a month for cell, $30 for wired broadband internet, and $81 for a transit pass ($91 now). But if you want to spend a lot of money, cars and Canadian telecoms definitely make it easy. ~~~ stanmancan Transit is alright in Vancouver, but not sufficient for a small family. I live in North Delta and work downtown Vancouver. I have a 7 year old daughter that needs to be dropped off at school, and picked up from her Grandma's in Surrey. I also coach her soccer team and play myself. For the individual transit alone is typically sufficient, but as soon as you have certain responsibilities a car quickly moves into the 'necessity' column. ~~~ jarek > but as soon as you have certain responsibilities True, kids in suburbs aren't cheap ------ RankingMember This could be done, but it'd need to be some kind of modern take on the old labor movement. People want 4 hour workdays, but they don't believe it'll change. Set up a site to allow people to specify their employer and essentially "opt-in", expressing their support for a 4-hour workday, but make it anonymous insofar as you'll only see a number of people at your workplace that share the same sentiment. There'd need to be some unique key to confirm that each person can only opt-in once. Compare the opt-in number to the number of employees reported on a company's tax paperwork, have the site get popular (whole project in itself unless there's good grassroots support), and suddenly you've got a nice obvious display of support within various companies for the 4-hour workday. Making it harder to ignore the will of the masses (or at least verifying that such a will exists) is a good start, I think. ------ sp332 Universal basic income is the case that gives the rich, ruling class the maximum power over everyone else. Everyone gets dependent on government money, and it takes an act of Congress to increase the baseline pay. ~~~ Kiro If everyone would receive X money then X would be the new 0. ~~~ fennecfoxen ... No. That's not how those numbers are related. Consider a case where I give every US citizen $500/mo, and a software engineer makes an additional $5000/mo. Then 11 unemployed persons have the same spending power as a software engineer, which is _markedly different_ from 0... ~~~ Kiro Wouldn't it lead to massive inflation making those $500 practically worthless? The engineer's nominal salary would rise meaning you would need a magnitude more unemployed persons to have the same spending power. ------ spiritplumber People "need jobs" to be able to "afford" things, so we have a lot of people basically generating work for each other, as per Parkinson's Laws. ------ avz > “If every man and woman would work for four hours each day on something > useful,” Benjamin Franklin assumed, “that labor would produce sufficient to > procure all the necessaries and comforts of life.” True, but I hope we aspire to more than necessities and comforts of life. If we worked more and directed the effort, Armstrong might be a name of a town 240,000 miles away. ------ qwerta Four-hour workday is simple: do not marry and do not have a children. ~~~ dijit and work part-time? ~~~ RankingMember and have no hobbies? ~~~ protonfish And don't get sick. ~~~ goodcanadian And where do I find the employer who will let me work only 4 hours a day? ------ emo_tards_on_hn The guy next to me stole it. And some pens from my desk too. If you see him, tell him to please return them. Thanks. ------ Shivetya so many people wanting stuff combined with far too many wanting someone else to pay for it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
OAuth 2.0 for Google APIs (contact, calendar and docs) - way66 http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/03/oauth-20-for-apps-apis.html ====== way66 This is a great news because OAuth 2.0 is much easier for developers to implement. Documentation can be found at : <http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OAuth2.html>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GM, eBay test online new-car sales - bgnm2000 http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/08/10/gm_ebay_test_online_new_car_sales/ ====== marcusestes Think these listings will be exposed to the eBay API?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lionhead: Pre-owned worse than PC piracy - josephcooney http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-17-lionhead-pre-owned-worse-than-pc-piracy ====== masterzora Oh, come on, keep the sensationalist headlines out of here. I know it's the headline on the linked page, but that doesn't change anything. Most of the article is about piracy, though there is a single quote saying that second- hand sales probably represents more in actual lost sales, which is both unsurprising and unexciting. There is also a brief paragraph outlining how EA (who, by the way, is not Lionhead) tries to convert the secondhand market, which is also nothing new. And yet, the headline of the article seems to be attempting to imply that pre- owned sales are some great evil. ------ barisme Is that violin music? Are those tears? Is the resale value of your product hurting you? Aww. I guess next I should feel sorry for GM because they don't get a cut when I sell my 10 year old car. OR maybe they should disable the steering wheel if the driver changes. That way they can charge a fee to enable the car for each new user. This studio needs to get out the duct tape and shut up its developer before any more of this crap flows out of his mouth.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitbucket.org - Mercurial Hosting - jespern http://www.bitbucket.org/ ====== uggedal It's good to see some competition in the marked where Github seemed to be the only player for a while. Extra kudos for Mercurial support!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Could this be the end of electric power cords? - JournalistHack http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/07/wireless-electricity-charge-iphone-g1-phone.html ====== duskwuff > Could this be the end of electric power cords? No. ------ igrekel The only article by the scientist they mentionned that seems related to this is this one: Wireless Non-Radiative Energy Transfer [PDF] <http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0611/0611063.pdf> Otherwise is work seems to be more related to photonics and nano materials.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Problem You Solve Is More Important Than the Code You Write - treyhuffine https://levelup.gitconnected.com/the-problem-you-solve-is-more-important-than-the-code-you-write-d0e5493132c6?ref=hn ====== malyk I was at a conference a few weeks ago and one speaker put up a slide that went something like: “Software engineers solve problems. Sometimes they solve problems with code.” Which is how I’ve always viewed my role, but it has definitely become clearer over my 20 years in the business of software that there are a ton of people who just want to sit in a corner and write beautiful elegant code with no particular purpose. Great for personal projects. Troublesome when you are building a team to solve business goals. ~~~ tluyben2 Here on HN there are many articles (some even today) ranking where people hammer on about performant code and database queries; never do this, don’t use ORMs etc without even knowing any business case they are referring to. People are calling out for people to ‘tweak, optimize and refactor’ without knowing anything about what the reader might be doing. I find that quite a solid case of people doing things they maybe should not be doing while spending a lot of time on these things. If ‘beautiful, highly optimized’ code is not a business goal then I am wondering what money they are burning; if not their own, it could be very worrying for the company. ~~~ Chronos309 Ok, beautiful and highly optimized code needs to be a standard in my opinion. If it is genuinely well written, it simultaneously teaches new comers good habits (implicit training), and makes future modifications that much easier. These are time savers. Time is money. It is a money saver. Conclusion: Beautiful and optimized code is a money saver. One addendum: Optimized code results in a performant application. This means you are better than a competing product that accomplishes the same thing but at a slower speed. You've maybe heard: 'performance is a feature' for this reason. This, one COULD argue, is a direct money maker. You can then tack on words like 'slick', 'snappy', etc. to your list of descriptors. ~~~ slededit The problem is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've been around long enough to see a few cycles of "best thing ever" -> "never do this". Each time massive disruptive changes were done to the code base, and each time they were simply ripping out last cycle's fad. Certainly there are new things under the sun, but one should try and be respectful of what has come before. It wasn't all crap. ------ segmondy This depends on if you are writing code for others, a company or yourself. If you're writing code for others as your customer, then it's true. If you are writing code for yourself, then it's totally false.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Go Interfaces, the Tricky Parts - signa11 https://timr.co/go-interfaces-the-tricky-parts ====== tsimionescu It always bothers me that, when discussing why `[]struct` can't be passed to a function expecting `[]interface{}` in Go, people always give the explanation that it would require extra memory allocation and so on. If it were only that, this would be a fixable problem. What you should instead mention in these cases is that it would be fundamentally type unsafe to do this. Slices are mutable, so `[]struct` does not fulfill the contract for `[]interface{} `, since I can store any Go type in an `[]interface`{} , but not in an `[]struct`. The same is true for pointers. Note: if this were only a problem of memory layout, the designers of Go could have built into the language a special type that wraps a slice of structs and behaves like a slice of interfaces, by doing automatic wrapping/unwrapping when you read from/write to an index. This would obviously complicate the runtime, so it may not be desirable anyway, but it could be done and it would solve the problem discussed in the article. In contrast, there is no way to solve the fundemtal type mismatch, so I see it as a much better explanation. ~~~ mkozlows Yeah, I kept waiting for the article to mention covariance and contravariance, and it never did. A very weird explanation of a not-that-weird phenomenon; I suspect the author didn't really understand what's going on. ~~~ bogomipz Might you or someone else have some links you could share that talk about covariance and contravariance? ~~~ pulisse Eli Bendersky has a good post[1] on the topic. [1] [https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2018/covariance-and- contravari...](https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2018/covariance-and- contravariance-in-subtyping/) ~~~ bogomipz Oh this is great read, thanks! ------ voidhorse Nice article. I’m still getting used to go so it’s good to have this resorce! I find the go tour a bit lacking on details on the subject of interfaces. Go’s approach to interfaces is also one of the language’s breaks from convention that confuses me. The implict implementation approach, imo, actually hurts ubderstanding when reading code instead of helping. I _sort of_ get the idea that using the implicit approach enables greater decoupling between interfaces and implementors, but it also does a poor job at signaling intent. it’s kind of nice to be able to start at the top of some type/class/whatever declaration and see that the author inteds it to implement the methods defined by foo interface, vs having to read the individual func defs, parse the somewhat syntactically odd func (T) arguments to comprehend that the function refers to this type (defined elsewhere) and implements this interface method (defined elsewhere). But it may be totally fine once I get used to it. It’s almost like using a language that _really_ wants to be only imperative but begrudgingly introduces support for minimal oop. In spite of this though, it’s still a pretty great language and I have a lot of fun reading and using it. Some of it’s other patterns and decisisons, such as the v, ok := expresions I find quite delightful to read and use in practice. ~~~ inyorgroove I've notice this problem as well, makes it really difficult to search what all "classes" implement a certain interface. Not sure how wide spread it is, I see this hack some times: var _ MyInterface = (*MyImplementation)(nil) ~~~ rqk9j You might be defining interfaces on the wrong end. Interfaces should be defined where they are used, so searching for implementations becomes a non- issue anyway. [https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/CodeReviewComments#interfa...](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/CodeReviewComments#interfaces) ~~~ tsimionescu The problem of finding implementations of an interface is harder if they live in separate packages, isn't it? Why would it be a non-issue? I'm not saying that we should define them together, the article makes sense in its recommendation. I'm just saying that the GP also seems correct to me, there is a problem in finding interface implementations in Go that would be lessened by explicit implementation (though I hope go pls will fix this on the tooling side). ~~~ grey-area I’ve never seen this problem, when did it come up? As OP says usually the consumer defines an interface, so they aren’t ‘used’ in lots of places, and are rarely changed independent of the code that uses them (which could easily use its own interface instead if required). Typically the implementer changes (which doesn’t matter as long as it still conforms), not the interface. The exception would be interfaces provided in the std lib, like io.Reader, which are widely used elsewhere but those won’t change at this point. ~~~ tsimionescu The way I see it, you normally have 3 places where an interface is 'used': 1\. there is code written to depend on the interface 2\. there is code written to satisfy the interface 3\. there is code written to pass some implementation to a function using the interface The recommendation, which I agree with, is to define the interface in area 1, which is always a specific package. Areas 2 and 3 can be spread all over the code, in different places. io.Reader is a good example - there is a single io package, and most code which does something with an io.Reader is there. Implementations exist in many places, some in the standard library, some in your own code base. Then, all over your code base, you may have code which takes some specific implementation of an io.Reader and calls some function in io and passes that specific Reader to it. This shows that even if you respect the recommendation in the code, you can still end up with many places which 'use' an interface in some sense. Now, to give a more specific use case, say I have defined an interface which takes a slice, but I expect that the slice is used in a read-only manner. I want to audit all existing implementations to ensure that they respect these semantics, and I can only do that by hand since I can't express this in Go's type system. Another simpler example is that I know what function I want to call, and what interface it takes, and now I want to find out what implementations exist for that interface, to see if I can re-use one of them or if I need to create a new implementation. ~~~ grey-area I'd contend that code in places 2 and 3 shouldn't care about the interface except insofar as they violate it (for which they'll get a compile error and be able to fix the problem). The only place that really cares about the interface is place 1 - where it is used, where it defines a contract for the types passed to a function which they must conform to. Re your examples, if you want a slice to be used in a read-only manner, pass in a copy of the slice, it's the only way to be sure in future too - those use-sites might be modified later anyway so one check doesn't really help. Interfaces are not intended to limit this sort of use, nor are they a good mechanism to do so. Re the existing implementation, I can't imagine losing track of types such that they'd be a good fit for a given problem, but I wouldn't know about them, interfaces are usually small so it's just a question of one or two functions... While it's of academic interest to see which types conform to which interface (and people have written little tools to do this), I don't find it's really a limitation in real-world go code, it just doesn't really come up, and I like that interfaces are explicitly one-way, you don't declare them on the implementation side for good reasons. ~~~ tsimionescu In my own real world code, this problem comes up daily or more - I have a concrete class, but is it through an interface for mocking purposes. When I am trying to follow the code which uses the interface, I want to follow what galena to the values passed into the interface, through the real (or sometimes mock) implementation. Hopefully gopls will some day be able to do this, but it is a constant annoyance at the moment that I have to break my flow and search for the implementation class by hand. I am honestly considering just getting rid of the interface and finding some other hackish way to mock the code, just because of the improvement in ease of following the code. ------ leshow An article about covariance/contravariance that doesn't once mention either terms... ------ nemothekid > _It was also very different from languages like TypeScript and Java, where > if User implemented Named, as well as being able to pass User to a method > accepting Named:_ This is possible in Java? Is this a new feature? Or is this only true for arrays (rather than List)? I could have sworn List<Cat> would be incompatible with List<Animal>. ~~~ tsimionescu In Java, Cat[] can be passed to a function expecting Animal[]. List<Cat> can't be passed to someone expecting List<Animal>. The first case is allowed by the language, but it is not type-safe - depending on your usage, you may get type errors at runtime (trying to write a Dog to an Animal[] that is actually a Cat[]). Java does also support a safe way of achieving variance - your function can take a List<? extends Animal>, in which case you can pass a List<Cat> to it. The compiler also makes sure that a function that takes a List<? extends Animal> can't write a Dog to that list, so this is actually type safe. ------ marcrosoft > Does this Go snippet compile, and if not, why? Line 2: `User` is undefined... can't read the rest of the article.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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