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Asana Status - flyt http://www.asanastatus.com/ ====== Villodre I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but, what is this webpage for? ~~~ crixlet I'm guessing it's tongue in cheek? Or at least, this is what I typically see for the Asana Android app. ------ ewang1 Seems to just be a loading bar and nothing else... ~~~ Discere I think it is to show that usually all you see when using Asana is the loading screen? ~~~ nticompass I use Asana at work, and it loads just fine for me. So, if this is supposed to be a joke, it's not funny.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
After killing investigation, Bloomberg News sought to silence reporter's wife - kyleblarson https://www.npr.org/2020/04/14/828565428/bloomberg-news-killed-investigation-fired-reporter-then-sought-to-silence-his-wi ====== floatingatoll The article that Bloomberg refused to publish, that was later published at NYT, is here (no prior discussion at HN): [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/world/asia/wang- jianlin-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/world/asia/wang-jianlin- abillionaire-at-the-intersection-of-business-and-power-in-china.html) ~~~ jolmg Off-topic, but I decided to finally make that free account NYT insists on, and NYT returns the error "Please enter a valid email address." It's a @fastmail.com address with no weird characters. Anyone else had that trouble before? Even more interesting is that just changing the domain to a personal one that uses one of the new gTLDs makes it work. I would have maybe expected the opposite to happen. Are they blacklisting Fastmail? ~~~ danso It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) bother blacklisting Fastmail – isn't Fastmail a paid service (i.e. less likely to be used by freeloaders, or by people making throwaway accounts)? In any case, no matter how much they want to squeeze money out of new users, the NYT has more incentive to _not_ have a super strict blacklist, or overly onerous sign-up process. Signup numbers are still metrics that a company vice president/middle manager can brag about, and NYT's initiative of mandating free registration seems much too new (e.g. as a comparison, they had totally free access for more then a decade, then a leaky paywall for several additional years) for them to already have hard enforcement policies in place. ~~~ jolmg > It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) > bother blacklisting Fastmail If it's not a blacklist, I think it'd be even stranger for it to be a whitelist, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. mzkply's comment makes me think that it might have to do with Fastmail's email aliases, which is the closest thing they have that's like Mailinator (an email provider that _is_ frequently blacklisted for signups), but I don't think it's similar enough that this makes sense. I agree with everything you said about NYT's incentives, but that leaves the question raised by this experience. I opened up a chat with NYT to ask about it, but I was left waiting for an agent there for an hour before I decided to just close the chat. ------ drtillberg One could write this article about Bloomberg ... or one could write this article about China. I think the China part of the story is more relevant and newsworthy at this point, considering how things have unfolded in the years since. The news company probably didn't decide all on its own to pursue this remarkable effort to kill a story that had not much to do with itself. ~~~ seneca Indeed. Making the headline here about Bloomberg smells of the exact kind of tiptoeing around the CCP that the article discusses. The real story here, and probably of this decade, is the corruption and subversion of Western institutions by the Chinese government. ~~~ phkahler >> The real story here, and probably of this decade, is the corruption and subversion of Western institutions by the Chinese government. ...with the full cooperation of western corporations. ~~~ smooth_remmy ...and the full cooperation of the western elites and the government. ~~~ yibg Probably because elites in china enjoy a huge advantage, and elites in the west would want that kind of advantage. If you got the power and money in China, with the right kind of connections you can literally get away with murder. ~~~ yters Or CCP is a shell for communist westerners to try out their social experiments on other nations. Communism is itself a western import to China, not an indigenous worldview. ~~~ carapace I've got to congratulate you. I've been a conspiracy nut for decades but I've _never_ heard _anyone_ suggest that the Chinese Communists are a front for Western control. * slow clap* But no. Study the history of the Middle Kingdom. They invented totalitarian bureaucratic central government centuries ago. ~~~ yters Well, communism is not indigenous to China. It is a western idea imported by western educated Chinese intellectuals, who then indoctrinated Mao. Whether the western control is direct or indirect, it is indisputable that the CCP is not an indigenous movement. It is a product of western ideological imperialism. As a very visual example, go travel around China, visiting areas with greater and lesser CCP control. The less the control, the more elements of traditional China are around. The greater the control, the more it looks like a replica of yet another Western metropolis. I saw this very clearly when visiting Xinjing province near Tibet and hiking through the villages. The normal part of the village has traditional, hand made housing, beautiful craftsmenship, great food. Then, on the outskirts of the villages, were towering, empty apartment blocks. The CCP planned to move the villagers out of their traditional homes into these huge apartment blocks they could more easily control. So, yes, most clearly the CCP is a product of the west, not ethnic Chinese culture. ~~~ carapace Your earlier comment sounded to me like you were saying that current Western communist elites are somehow controlling the CCP, and that's why they are going along with "the corruption and subversion of Western institutions by the Chinese government." But that doesn't make sense to me because there aren't any Western communist elites anymore, are there? But if you're just pointing out the Western origin of the foundations of Chinese Communism them, yes, I agree the whole thing could be seen, from the POV of the West, as being confronted with a kind of social/political prodigal son. I'm so used to thinking of communism as an Eastern thing, but you're right (again). ~~~ yters There aren't any obvious communist elites, but there is a weird whitewashing of communism going on. And, a communist china fits the purposes of capitalist west quite well. So, I would say if there are western elite controlling China, they are doing it for personal gain, not ideological. ~~~ carapace > There aren't any obvious communist elites, but there is a weird whitewashing > of communism going on. Well the CCP is stumping hard on the propaganda front. They've shoved the Dalai Lama out of the spot light, etc., and they're working hard to influence Western media, and IMO too many are happy to go along with that to make money. Don't get me started on tech companies. I just don't think that there's a lot of secretly pro-communists in the West. > And, a communist china fits the purposes of capitalist west quite well. How? > So, I would say if there are western elite controlling China, they are doing > it for personal gain, not ideological. Ah but isn't that true of all elites globally? I'm not trying to "whataboutism" here, I just assume that most if not all elites are ideologically agnostic. ~~~ yters The Chinese government seems more than happy to exploit its people for western money, up to strip mining their citizens' organs. ------ tynpeddler Aside from Bloomberg's scummy behavior, this story highlights the eternal dilemma of journalism. To write good stories, you need access to the subjects. But if the stories make the subjects look bad, you lose access. Coupled with the fact that newspapers don't always make a lot of money these days, and often rely on wealthy benefactors that make their money in other ways, you can end up in an awkward spot where one wrong story can damage a newspaper's base of information but also it's financial foundations. I don't think there's any good answer to this question. ~~~ briandear They likely don’t make a lot of money because people, including many people here, do their best to block ads and bypass paywalls. Without fail, someone here will always paste an archive link or some other paywall-bypassing link. A second point (that actually justifies the practice of paywall bypass,) is that who is willing to pay for news when news outlets function frequently as PR organs for the constituencies they “cover?” The idea that you have to be nice to subjects in order to cover them is nonsense. What that actually means is that reporters lack courage or even basic training on how to get stories from confrontational subjects. So what if China gets pissed off. Publishing Xinhua-approved stories isn’t journalism, it’s PR. It’s not different than publishing DNC or RNC talking points. If all the journalists in China get kicked out, that still doesn’t preclude covering China — it just makes it harder — but it’s already hard, so there isn’t any difference. By letting China dictate coverage, that’s worse than no coverage at all since only an approved version of the story is all that gets out and people then are inclined to accept that “truth” without challenge because $some_international_media_outlet reported it. China’s obfuscations and outright lies during the Coronavirus situation makes this topic even more noteworthy — outlets promoting and parroting the CCP official line have been deadly; one example was China officially reporting that the Wuhan Coronavirus wasn’t human-to-human transmissible even after they knew that to be completely false and they themselves instituted mitigation for human-to-human transmission that, according to them, couldn’t happen. Even more ridiculously, the UN appointed China to a human rights panel on free speech. ~~~ rcMgD2BwE72F >They likely don’t make a lot of money because people, including many people here, do their best to block ads and bypass paywalls. Without fail, someone here will always paste an archive link or some other paywall-bypassing link. As a paid subscriber of several digital-only newspapers, I only want them to publish their news as publicly as possible, so I _and others_ can know better. Walls don't help. When we stop pretending that the news must be rarified to be of value, then we may start supporting actual journalism for what it does best: investigate and publish, instead of sell the news as a product. So as the readers, we should support them, not buy them. ------ tren-hard Did Bloomberg change his opinions on China when they OK'd the "The Big Hack" in 2018? [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-04/the-big-hack- amazon-apple-supermicro-and-beijing-respond) The controversy that unfolded from that was massive. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2018/10/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2018/10/22/your-move-bloomberg/) ~~~ valuearb You would think they would have fired the reporters who faked that story. ~~~ duxup Did they fake it? Or were they mistaken? ~~~ lobotryas Are you asking if there is evidence that it was intentionally wrong reporting? No, AFAIK there was no such evidence. Are you asking how, in good faith, such a factually wrong story could have made it to publication? We also don’t know. Are you asking why BB has not retracted it after being called out multiple times? Maybe hubris, maybe profit motive. At the end of the day, why would we trust anything BB publishes about China? They have Terminal licenses to sell and they don’t want to jeopardize their market. ~~~ duxup Yeah that's pretty much what I was asking. It was a weird story with weird reactions from the companies involved ... but at least I never ran across anything that explained how the reporting played out / if there was anything 'faked" or anything like that. The whole thing seems to not have many answers. ------ duxup It really brings home the importance of freedom ... elsewhere. It seems like a very real likelihood that China would choose to track people's sentiments about China elsewhere ... and at will pressure outside companies to remove or simply not hire people who they wish to punish / discourage. Post a winnie the pooh pic / are on the list? Good luck... ~~~ ceilingcorner “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” ― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1963 Pretty apt for our global society, too. ~~~ birdyrooster This argument is one that the left fails to make perennially. That improving the conditions of one necessarily improves the conditions of all and that policy that focuses on the most vulnerable helps everyone more still. The left will win Wall Street (and thus elections) when they finally show that social programs provide mitigation allowing Wall Street to minimize losses and a multiplier to increase their earnings. ~~~ jmeister Agreed. The left should learn from the Trump campaign, who put a positive, constructive spin on a fundamentally anti-establishment platform. Trump’s MAGA vs. Bernie’s angry finger-pointing ~~~ 8bitsrule So much to learn there. It's clear who the beneficiaries of that fraudulent platform are. Quite similar to China's tack, isn't it? ~~~ jmeister You can admire some aspects of the campaign/platform without agreeing with the people/policies. ------ eric_b I was a long time Bloomberg Businessweek subscriber until last year. Starting around 2017 China started taking out multi page ads at the beginning of each issue. (Or at least that's when I noticed). The editorial slant became predictably sympathetic to China as well. So much so that by the end when I canceled my subscription there were many outright pro-China propaganda pieces. Interestingly the editorial slant also went much further left, politically. Not sure if the two are related. ~~~ jxramos Is that somewhat unprecedented to have a government post ads in a publication which are not related to spreading the word about hiring or something. What exactly did those full page ads have as content? ~~~ adequateness I dob't know if it is the same content but China Daily, a daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, has purchased full page ads in American news papers that look like news articles. [https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-flouts-fed- la...](https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-flouts-fed-law-to- publish-propaganda-in-ny-times-wapo/) ------ buckminster Plain text version: [https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=828565428](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=828565428) ------ dahdum > "They assumed that because I was the wife of their employee, I was the > wife," author and journalist Leta Hong Fincher says. "I was just an > appendage of their employee. I was not a human being." I understand she sees it that way, but I keep coming to the exact opposite conclusion. They knew she was a respected journalist with enough clout to be heard and a riveting story of fleeing Beijing for fear of their lives. They were clearly afraid of her as an individual. I'm not defending Bloomberg, but I don't see any easy answers here. Publishing the second investigation would (in their estimation) have shut down all their reporting in China, put more reporters in personal risk / fleeing, and significantly hurt their core revenue. ------ a3n Maybe we should rethink this idea of billionaire presidents. The proposition is that their immense wealth makes them immune to pressure and corruption. To the contrary, they have much, much more to lose than any normal citizen. What would President Bloomberg, or any other billionaire president, sell us out for to protect their pile and its increase? ------ neycoda I'm not an alt-righter but the news media seems almost as corrupt as our politicians. ~~~ 93po It's almost like they serve the same people ~~~ nameless_me The far right and far right behave similarly -- except the language used differs. ~~~ mirimir It's not one dimensional. ------ adelHBN China has been kicking out Western news reporters from highly respected organizations, including WSJ, NYT and WashPost. See article: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bans-all-u-s-nationals- wo...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bans-all-u-s-nationals-working-for- the-wall-street-journal-new-york-times-washington-post-whose-press- credentials-end-in-2020-11584464690) ~~~ dntbnmpls > highly respected organizations, including WSJ, NYT and WashPost. Highly respected by whom? And I believe it was in response to Trump's ban on chinese journalists. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/china-journalist- associa...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/china-journalist-association- blasts-us-visa-limits-69427974) It's not shocking that we'd ban chinese state propagandists and china would ban US state propagandists. It's silly to allow enemy propagandists in your country during a trade war. ------ bbgthrowaway I was kind of close to Forsythe's first investigation was published and his next one was silenced. The New York Times's similar, and subsequent, investigation into Wen Jiabao's corruption gained it a Pulitzer in 2013. Bloomberg journalists widely and correctly thought that the Pulitzer process showed a clear bias toward the NYT in favoring the paper's derivative work on an outgoing politician, rather than the trail-blazing work on the man who is now China's leader. Here's some context: In 2013, after decades of reporting, Bloomberg News had never won a single Pulitzer. It ate at Winkler. One of the reasons Bloomberg employed Forsythe and funded the investigations of him and his team was in pursuit of that prize. The news organization and the company showed a lot of courage in publishing Forsythe's first investigation. And it suffered huge economic consequences. Its terminal sales to banks in China slowed considerably after that. Bloomberg won its first Pulitzer two years later, in 2015, for a series of explainers on corporate tax inversions. That was after it had re-organized and some would say eviscerated the projects and investigations team that Forsythe worked on. [https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/bloomberg- get...](https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/bloomberg-gets-its- first-pulitzer/) What Bloomberg realized, of course, as Bezos has realized with the Washington Post, is that owning a real news organization makes doing business complicated, because the best news stories contain information that someone wants to keep quiet. Bloomberg News has learned to toe the line on China, and that should scare people. It's a microcosm of how China intimidates individuals and businesses (and non-profits like the WHO) around the world. ------ LatteLazy I am very confused by the events and timeline detailed in the article. Bloomberg (Edit: Bloomberg News) published a story on the Xi family wealth in 2012 and were banned for it. But this article says they were still investigating and writing that story in 2013. And that they buried it. And that they did so to avoid upsetting the CCP etc. They even have quotes: "late Oct 2013": >"It is for sure going to, you know, invite the Communist Party to, you know, completely shut us down and kick us out of the country," Winkler said. "So, I just don't see that as a story that is justified." Except apparently Winkler, "founding editor in chief" didn't know that bloomberg news was already banned in China and had been for a year and for already publishing this story!? Has someone just massively screwed up their dates? [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-censorship- bloomber...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-censorship- bloomberg/bloomberg-sites-blocked-in-china-days-after-xi-family-wealth-story- idUSBRE86306820120704) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China) There is a lot to discuss here: * The extent that spouses' activities effect employee NDAs * When and whether NDAs are appropriate both in Journalism and other industries * The CCP and Chinese governments abuse of economic powers to silent dissent, in this case internationally and US and other governments compliance with that policy. * Connections between wealth and political power, both in China and the world * Whether being part of the larger Bloomberg entity strengthens BBG News or makes them more liable to external pressure I also think Winklers position (assuming it was his position, since apparently all this happened after it had already happened?) was very sensible: >Winkler alluded to that in his remarks. "There's a way to use the information you have in such a way that enables us to report, but not kill ourselves in the process and wipe out everything we've tried to build there," he told the reporting team. Bloomberg News and Winkler declined to comment for this story. Aka: we can't publish this as we do too much business there, but we could leak it to someone else without the same exposure Sadly the article seems to make a bad job of covering the basic facts and it's can't help but quote emotional projection instead of giving clear outlines of events. Good luck with this one (gender non-specific) guys! ~~~ vonmoltke > Bloomberg published a story on the Xi family wealth in 2012 and were banned > for it. ... > Except apparently Winkler, "founding editor in chief" didn't know that > bloomberg news was already banned in China and had been for a year and for > already publishing this story!? No, the Bloomberg News websites were blocked. Bloomberg News reporters were not thrown out, Bloomberg Terminal sales were not terminated. Blocking the websites is a far cry from "kick[ing] us out of the country". ~~~ LatteLazy >After the first investigative project ran in 2012, the Chinese authorities had searched Bloomberg's news bureaus, delayed visas for reporters and ordered state-owned companies not to sign new leases for Bloomberg's primary product: its terminals. That would make some sense, though it seems like they were pretty damn close. So why not mention the 2012 article and set all this in its context? The story here is "Once bitten twice shy", so why mash it up so badly I can't tell if they've been bitten already or they're hesitating after the bite. And why open it all with quotes like "I was not a human being"? It's like the intro to a story about sexism has been pasted in instead of the intro to the story about CCP censorship then someone hit publish without proofing it. ------ rdtsc > Last month, a Bloomberg corporate spokeswoman told The New York Times that > Forsythe stole "Bloomberg L.P. intellectual property and gave it to his > wife." The spokeswoman, Natalie Harland, said that Bloomberg LP and > Bloomberg News never pressured anyone to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The good ol' we never pressured we just warned we'd harass them to no end and ruin their lives. It was rather entertaining to see an old billionaire who rarely hears "no" from those around him being put on the spot during the primary debates by Elizabeth Warren. All those millions spent on his advertising campaign didn't help, and there were no lawyers and PR spokespeople to draft responses for him. Yeah, he eventually agree to release a few women who had NDAs signed if they requested. I think one might have gone through the process. But I can see being afraid to go through the process since a week later they could be sued for other things like "stole Bloomberg L.P. intellectual property" and then having to sell their homes to defend against it. It's just so bizarre how he got any support at all. Look at the things he was saying: "...and that upon learning that a female employee was expecting a baby, he responded: Kill it!" from [https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/politics/michael-bloomberg- no...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/politics/michael-bloomberg- nondisclosure-release/index.html) ~~~ kelnos > _It 's just so bizarre how he got any support at all._ I mean... Donald Trump is our president, so if Bloomberg gaining any support is bizarre, we've already been in bizzaro world for the last 4 years. It's not like the Democrat side of the house is squeaky-clean when it comes to its candidates not doing shitty things. ~~~ rdtsc > Donald Trump is our president, Good point. And I am thinking people who supported Bloomberg are the ones who protested for the last three years then a decent amount of them turn around and follow another old white billionaire from New York as a viable candidate. Not only that one with who was telling his employees to kill their babies. You'd think 3 years would be plenty to come up with well ... someone else. ~~~ kelnos Yeah, I find it incredibly bizarre that the DNC can't field a decent slate of relatable, electable candidates, even if you "only" consider the massive number of politicians with experience on the national stage. But I guess they are more incentivized to get their friends into positions of power than to do right by the country and party (though I assume they've convinced themselves that what they're doing does indeed fulfill that duty). ------ chx It's interesting how this is the same Bloomberg who have published the completely fake "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies" story. ------ jackfoxy From Alcibiades [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades) to Michael Bloomberg, it's always the elites who sell out their country. Of course it's only the elites who have have something of value enough on that scale to sell. Love of country is for the hoi polloi. ------ rhegart I vehemently disagree with the blatant partisan lean of almost every news company, but this crony, spineless cowardice is a far greater sin in my opinion. ------ worik I do not understand why any body would think that Bloomberg could do political stories in China. I do not understand why Bloomberg would be embarrassed about spiking political stories in China. I am not defending the press and political climate in China, but it is what it is. The Chinese make up their rules. Why should Bloomberg sacrifice billions of dollars in business for the sake of some political journalists work? I am glad they got their story published - good work. But Bloomberg would be _insane_ to publish it. ~~~ Chris2048 > Why should Bloomberg sacrifice billions of dollars in business Maybe they shouldn't. But for that reason, maybe they shouldn't be in the Journo business? ------ moron4hire How does it work for an NDA to gag people over criminal activity? ------ everybodyknows >"It has to be done with a strategic framework and a tactical method that is ... smart enough to allow us to continue and not run afoul of the Nazis who are in front of us and behind us everywhere," Winkler said, according to the audio reviewed by NPR and verified by others. "And that's who they are. And we should have no illusions about it." NPR's publication of this will surely lead to CCP pressure against Winkler, who will see him as a spy intent on leaking reportage out through other channels. And the world may lose still another channel of factual info out of China. One wonders how NPR management rationalized inclusion of this particular quote as being in the public interest. ------ brenden2 You can't trust "the news" anymore. Everything is just clickbait doomsday nonsense every day. It's incredibly hard to separate fact from fiction, opinion from fact, and reality from fantasy. ~~~ save_ferris This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think we generally expect too much from media outlets. Readers also have a responsibility to understand the context of what they're reading, and that's been true for as long as newspapers have existed. Take everything you read with a grain of salt, know that a story might later be retracted or edited, and follow different outlets with different perspectives. I think the homogenization of media consumption is far more dangerous than the fake and false stories that get out. ~~~ 34679 Seems reasonable enough to expect the following: Five Core Principles of Journalism 1\. Truth and Accuracy Journalists cannot always guarantee ‘truth’, but getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism. We should always strive for accuracy, give all the relevant facts we have and ensure that they have been checked. When we cannot corroborate information we should say so. 2\. Independence Journalists must be independent voices; we should not act, formally or informally, on behalf of special interests whether political, corporate or cultural. We should declare to our editors – or the audience – any of our political affiliations, financial arrangements or other personal information that might constitute a conflict of interest. 3\. Fairness and Impartiality Most stories have at least two sides. While there is no obligation to present every side in every piece, stories should be balanced and add context. Objectivity is not always possible, and may not always be desirable (in the face for example of brutality or inhumanity), but impartial reporting builds trust and confidence. 4\. Humanity Journalists should do no harm. What we publish or broadcast may be hurtful, but we should be aware of the impact of our words and images on the lives of others. 5\. Accountability A sure sign of professionalism and responsible journalism is the ability to hold ourselves accountable. When we commit errors we must correct them and our expressions of regret must be sincere not cynical. We listen to the concerns of our audience. We may not change what readers write or say but we will always provide remedies when we are unfair. [https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we- are/5-principles...](https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we- are/5-principles-of-journalism) ~~~ jb775 This sounds ideal but in my opinion is far from reality. ------ bt1a Spent a few minutes trying to decipher why Bloomberg would go through such hoops to silence his own wife. ~~~ dang We've changed the title above to that of the HTML doc, which fits the 80 char limit. (Submitted title was "Bloomberg Killed Investigation, Fired Reporter Then Tried to Silence His Wife", which I'm sure was cut to that to try to fit the limit.) ~~~ roosterdawn This issue comes up a lot. As a sibling comment says, if it is so common an occurrence for the character limit to lead to misleading headlines because they were overly condensed, you may want to consider slightly expanding the headline length limit (perhaps to 120-140). But I appreciate that it's a balancing act, because making it too long dilutes the punchiness of the HN front page itself. No easy answer here. ~~~ dang It comes up somewhat regularly but it's quite rare for there to be a case where there isn't a natural solution. For example in this case the HTML doc title not only fit the limit nicely, but was more neutral and thus better for HN. I think HN benefits from this limit. ------ djrogers I've seen it here in small amounts before, but it's rather shocking to observe so much obviously biased downvoting and flagging in one story. A number of anti-CCP posts already dead, and others on their way... I suppose it's rather predictable that people can't post something about the CCP on a meta-story about the CCP killing news stories, without their posts in turn being killed. ~~~ pwned1 I came to this thread to observe the same behavior, without any plans to comment, expecting any comment that is even mildly anti-CCP to be heavily downvoted. But I just had to second your own observation at the peril to my own karma. ~~~ phkahler Fortunately we dont live in a country where you online karma is relevant. Yet... ~~~ Der_Einzige What do you call your credit score? ~~~ jmeister False equivalence. Credit scores measure failure to honor financial contracts. They’re not about honoring arbitrary social norms ------ JPKab I've personally found that saying critical things about the Chinese Communist Party on this website results in people quickly conflating said attacks on a government with a non-existent ethnic group (ignoring the fact that China has multiple ethnic groups instead of just the dominant Han majority) and suddenly you are flagged for being a bigot. It's pretty obnoxious behavior that is very dominant in Silicon Valley. I view it as primarily driven at the bottom by people who see all bigotry through a purely Western lens (and are therefore blind to the fact that "white" privilege is actually "dominant ethnic group" privilege and changes depending on where you are), don't know anything about China other than it being an Asian country, and equate criticizing the country as being Western imperialism. From the top, it's money money money, because hey, who cares about Uighurs anyway, I just got a billion from some dude whose dad fought for Mao and is now a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party. Now I'll go talk about how much I value diversity while my company is funded by a country which imprisons people because they are Muslim, or criticize the government, or, you know, tell the truth. ~~~ eloff This is a disturbing trend I've seen on the left. Any criticism of a foreign country is construed as racism, or talk around immigration policies. That's obviously conflating issues, and it serves to shut down conversation rather than promote it. I hope people stop being so woke and wake up to the harm they're causing with that kind of extreme attitude. ~~~ lostlogin > This is a disturbing trend I've seen on the left. It’s not just the left, it’s both sides, and often there have been incidents of actual racism that can be accurately cited as prior examples of racism. ~~~ eloff I haven't seen this on the right, I think the left is far more guilty of invoking racism falsely. The right tends to be guilty of actual racism sometimes. ------ coliveira Let's not forget that this company published the largest fake news about China that one could conceive: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how- china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies) I haven't seen any retractions of this piece of garbage that has been denied by any and all Western companies that were supposed "victims". ~~~ knowaveragejoe Sorry, where is the refutation to this? ~~~ SpicyLemonZest Apple and Amazon produced detailed statements[1] explaining that they never found what the reporters say they found. And nobody has yet produced any concrete evidence of the spy chips existing; no example, no picture, no documents referring to them. It's impossible to definitively refute anonymous claims that some secret thing exists, but I think it's unreasonable to believe them. [1] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon- den...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17936968/apple-amazon-deny-servers- chinese-spy-chips) ~~~ redis_mlc > this company published the largest fake news about China that one could > conceive Was this particular article based on evidence? We don't know. Was it 100% plausible and done by governments all the time? Absolutely. Are IPMI, BMC and managemnt engines complete garbage from a security standpoint? Absolutely. So I find the strong language very over the top. If you know the history of weakening security equipment, then you wouldn't even bat an eye over this. You know how bad Zoom security is? It's actually 10x better than any IPMI or BMC code. I'd get worked up about that, which is on every server motherboard already. ~~~ SpicyLemonZest Sorry, yes, I didn't mean to give a misleading impression. It's very plausible that a government might intercept hardware in this way. I'm just skeptical of this specific way (there's got to be a subversion both easier and less obvious than planting a magic spy chip), and don't believe that Apple and Amazon would issue such strong denials if they had in fact found such a chip. ------ 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 My eyes have been open to China’s influence in _US media_ , especially with covid-19 outbreak, where they’re rallied various institutions to change the narrative around the name and origin of the virus. For example, Dreamworks carrying water for the CCP government by including the 9-dotted line prominently on a map in their movie[1]. Who thinks this inclusion was by accident? Their influence in US media and politics is out of control. 1\. [https://www.businessinsider.com/abominable-dreamworks- movie-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/abominable-dreamworks-movie- vietnam-ban-south-china-sea-map-2019-10) ~~~ jxramos It's somewhat amusing all the fuss over the legitimacy conveyed through maps, as if the map illustrator consulted some gold standard reference of truth. There was a time some centuries past when maps were approximations of reality. I think this comes down to the play on human nature of: when you say something frequently enough it's assumed to be true. Where is the relevant international law assuming there is one that expresses territorial waters. ~~~ handedness It may not convey legitimacies, but it often reflects realities such as the one illustrated here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE) Maps often illustrate who owns whom, and how. ~~~ carapace Wow. > When asked about Taiwan, WHO Dr. Aylward first pretended not hearing then > awkwardly cut the line They call him abck and ask about Taiwan again and he literally says, "well, we've already talked about China. ... when you look across all the different areas of China ..."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Distinctly American Ethos of the Grifter - rmason https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/t-magazine/the-distinctly-american-ethos-of-the-grifter.html ====== espeed Grifting is obsolete. Mass data and AI are pushing time to identify to zero. Risk vs Reward is now upside down. The Internet is written in ink. Integrity is your most valuable asset. Reputation is your brand. "Guard it with your life." "Law 5: So Much Depends On Reputation Guard It With Your Life. - _The 48 Laws of Power_ , by [https://twitter.com/RobertGreene](https://twitter.com/RobertGreene) ------ Causality1 There's nothing particularly American about grifting. Cult leaders worldwide engage in massive scams. Pyramid schemes operate around the globe. Heck, you may find yourself eating fake eggs in China or that your grandmother has sent thousands of dollars to Nigerian scammers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Rounds Out Insight into TPU Architecture and Inference - jonbaer https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/09/19/google-rounds-out-insight-into-tpu-architecture-and-inference/ ====== puzzle From the original article: "Most architecture research papers are based on simulations running small, easily portable benchmarks that project potential performance if ever implemented. This article is not one of them but rather a retrospective evaluation of machines running real, large production workloads in datacenters since 2015, some used routinely by more than one billion people." It's probably also the first time that Google mentions explicitly that the TPU is hosted by an Intel system, which obviously they manage for you. The phrasing around "18-core, dual-socket Haswell processor" is ambiguous and might not be the exact spec for a TPU host: it's not clear if the "platform that is also the host server" refers to just Intel or that specific configuration. Such ambiguity is usually deliberate, of course...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Latest PS3 update swaps out existing browser for WebKit - robin_reala http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=462325 ====== sgentle That's pretty interesting. WebKit-based browsers currently have about 30% of desktop browser market share, and basically all of the mobile browser share (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, but not Windows Phone). Combined with Firefox's 25%, that's a clear lead for open source. On the web, open source has always had the lead in infrastructure, but it's only recently started winning on the end-user side as well. It seems like browsers on TVs will be won by OSS before it's even started. The new Panasonic and Samsung TVs are going to be using WebKit. The Google TVs are a done deal. The PS3's browser is apparently WebKit too. Much like mobile, the only holdout is Microsoft with the XBox. I guess I'm beginning to wonder, why even bother keeping Internet Explorer closed? At this point everyone else is competing on UI while sharing core code and utterly winning while doing it. I can't even imagine how much time and money Microsoft is spending trying to keep up with the thousand eyes and hands of its competition, all just to maintain feature-parity, without even thinking of competing in UI or otherwise innovating. This is Microsoft v World, a tough fight even without all their competitors cooperating. As is, it's utterly unwinnable. ~~~ mikeevans Xbox doesn't currently have a browser at all. ~~~ sgentle Ah, my mistake. I Googled for it but misread the results. ~~~ mikeevans No problem, just further shows your point that Webkit is dominating most spaces. ------ robin_reala Originally I’d said that they swapped out Netfront for WebKit, but I’d forgotten that recent Netfronts actually use WebKit for the engine – obviously they just updated to that.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
50+ Everyday Products That Use ARM Microcontroller - ionela http://dev.emcelettronica.com/50-everyday-products-use-arm-microcontroller ====== ionela ARM is by now as God - it is in everything: in our mobile phones, in our GPS, PDA or in our laptops. Let's see a list with 50 products that use ARM Linux technology.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Day of the Triffords: A live coding performance in Scheme with Impromptu - pygy_ http://vimeo.com/2735394 ====== pygy_ It starts with quiet howls and hums, but gradually gathers in strength into layers of heavy industrial beats. The whole piece is coded right in front of your eyes, in Scheme. The code controls various synth and samplers (no real time audio synthesis here). The first 1min45 is silent, because the piece is coded from scratch.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Appbase - Fast graph data store for building web apps - sidi http://appbase.io/ ====== yashness Sounds interesting ! Waiting to try 't out ------ brenobmo Are there any free credits for new users? ------ telespablo Let's together! ------ pisrael Go appbase! ------ felipebyrro Great!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Have I earned the right to edit my HN username? - babyshake When I first signed up for News YC as a junior in college, I gave myself one of the few throwaway account names I was using on other tech-oriented forums at the time.<p>Well, two and a half years later, and I'm increasingly unhappy with my username, although I know the only solution is to create another account. An alternative I'd like to propose is that after hitting a great enough amount of karma, I've earned exactly one chance to change my HN username.<p>There are some technical considerations. Would the old profile URL simply redirect to the new one? Perhaps it would require some refactoring of user models or queries. There may be other issues I haven't even considered.<p>But aside from implementation details, are there any opinions about whether or not I should be able to edit my HN name? ====== bbuffone I would attempt a "Fanboys" style trip to the datacenter that hosts ycombinator.com and change it yourself. I will go with you so I can add a search box. Along the way we can interrupt the diggnation and TWIT podcasts, and mock all the reddit readers. It will be pretty sweet. ------ dryicerx You have gone past the point of no return, embrace _babyshake_ , be proud of it. It has brought you to where you are today. ------ byoung2 Remember this experience the next time you have to choose a username. When I worked for Kaplan, I scheduled teachers and tutors, and I once had to tell a student that the person most directly responsible for her success on the LSAT could be reached at drmonkeystud@[schoolname].edu (changed to protect the innocent) I'm really boring when it comes to usernames, opting for the first initial, last name, and a number at the end just in case it's taken. You won't likely grow tired of it, and there's less explaining to do. ~~~ dkokelley Instead of numbers, I use my middle initial too. d=Daniel, k=Kenneth, okelley=O'Kelley. I've found that I'm much less likely to run into any other identical usernames. In fact, when I do find that the username has been taken, it's always been because I registered for the site earlier, and it was time for a password reset. ------ anigbrowl Yes, but you have to work out how. It is the final test of HN. ------ marcusbooster And now I'm stuck with this name because _babyshake_ was already taken! ------ pclark make a new account, leave a note in your profile saying who your other account was, sorted. ~~~ rokhayakebe How will he port his Karma and reputation. ~~~ babyshake Specifying the link in my about section would work in most cases, but it would be somewhat kludgey. ~~~ throw_away you could choose formerlyknownasbabyshake as your username ------ dpcan Keep the username, implement a "display name" option so nobody sees your actual username, just the name you'd like to display - but everything else stays nice and connected. ~~~ wmf Sweet, I can't wait to change my display name to pg. ------ sireat Is there something specific that you'd miss being able to do, when going from high karma account to newbie account? ------ rms I'm pretty sure pg has changed people's usernames by request. Email him. ~~~ pg Actually I doubt I have. Usernames are built into all sorts of things. ~~~ cousin_it ...You use auto-generated integer IDs for _pagination links_ , but not for users? I don't mean to be disrespectful, but... it's wrong.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Computer Program for Simulating Time Travel and a Solution to Grandfather Paradox - mindcrime http://arxiv.org/abs/1609.08470 ====== squozzer Interesting. (Sorry, Spock.) I offer the following conjectures -- because they lack the falsifiability for them to rise to the level of hypotheses. 1) Causality may resemble inertia -- that is, what we observe as cause-and- effect only seems that way because we haven't observed an analogue to Newton's "Outside Force." So causality might not be an iron law. (In the paper, we introduce two constraints: remains and appears.) 2) If quantum mechanics can handle infinite universes, presumably distinct in space but not time, then maybe it could handle infinite universes in time. So a time traveler might not be in his original universe, but one equal to his original +/\- delta T. 3) Whatever mechanism allows for time travel probably breaks causality, which means a time traveler killing their ancestor would not cause the time traveler to disappear. (The paper refers to this as metaphysical model T2 – every time a person goes back in time a new copy (clone) is generated, and multiple clones may coexist in time) ------ WheelsAtLarge I read a theory that says that there's no such thing as time. What we call time is really our perception of the effects of entropy in the universe. So, there's no such thing as time travel since we would need to somehow reverse entropy which seems impossible since it would involved changing the whole universe. If true it would give an explanation as to why we have not seen time travelers. What do you think? ~~~ mindcrime I read a book by Lee Smolin a while back where he argued that, basically, we don't really know what time is. Since then he's written another book titled _Time Reborn_ which deals with the same issues. I'm about 1/3'rd of the way into it, and while I'm far from an expert on any of this, I think he makes some interesting points. At the very least, I'd say that I'm onboard with the idea that it's very possible that our entire conception of time is wrong, or at least incomplete. ~~~ WheelsAtLarge Cool, I'll have to read. Thx! I too feel that there's some missing knowledge as to what time is. ------ anotheryou Why the father thing and not him, shooting his past self? Also funny that the abstraction, skipping conception, lead to the father having the child.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Paperless: Scan and index paper documents - DaGardner https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless ====== bonoboTP For me the problem is stability and future-proofness. Technology changes very quickly. If the maintainer loses interest, the software may rot away as the dependencies change, etc. Important documents often need to be stored for 5-10-20 years. Why put everything in this shiny new software, when it may change in 1 or 2 years? I think it's best to just put scanned pdfs in folders based on year and topic. Those can be easily and transparently backed up and searched. But on a few months timescale this software could be useful. ~~~ upofadown That's why I archive my document scans as one bit per pixel PNGs. It ends up being 20KB-50KB per page at 150 PPI. I figure that there will always be a way to get the pixels out of a PNG. PDF is a more complex and dynamic standard. ~~~ bonoboTP That's true, but PNGs can't have a text layer for searchability. ~~~ zo1 I'm pretty sure text files can reside in the same folder as PNG files. ~~~ bonoboTP Yes, but not all documents are trivial to convert to a text file because the layout can be quite complex. A PDF file can have little bits of text floating anywhere and when you search inside the file, you can see it highlighted at its actual position. ~~~ zo1 I've had to work with PDF files before, and they're absolutely horrible. Precisely because of what you state: "little bits of text floating anywhere". Or something like disjoint, not-grouped, lines for table drawing, instead of a generic table with formatting, width/height, etc. Though, I generally agree with you, PDF/A is quite a good way of storing documents for long-term. But, that doesn't mean that PNG files along with text files, even with x:y coordinates next to the pieces of text, aren't a feasible alternative. ------ mattdlondon I have been doing something similar for a couple of years. My printer can scan to a shared drive on my home LAN, saving files as PDFs. These are then uploaded Google Drive where everything else happens automatically (e.g. if you search for something, it will find it in scanned PDFs automatically). Its super-useful especially since the mobile clients for drive is rock solid. I can be on the phone to someone and pull up basically any document I've had since the 90s in a couple of seconds, for free. Its kinda fun being on the phone to a call centre and being able to pull up data quicker than they can. Tax returns are an absolute doddle when everything is paperless. The only thing that is missing for me from Google Drive is like a "Knowledge Graph" for my own documents - I can search by keyword or filename etc sure, but I'd like to get some "intelligence" next like we're used to with Google Now, but for my scanned docs, like "show me my bank statements with a payment to Amazon in the last 3 months" etc. ~~~ stephenr So now people are _trying_ to give Google more highly sensitive personal information? /facepalm ~~~ mdp Why is this a facepalm? Privacy advocacy is about giving people the option to decide what they share, not preventing them from sharing. I don't have a problem at all if someone voluntarily decides to share their private information with Google. Why does it matter to you what he does with his data? ~~~ stephenr It matters for the same reason I think US gun violence is a problem, even though I don't live there. It matters for the same reason I think banning encryption in the UK is a problem, even though I don't live there. It matters for the same reason I think the millions of people riding around on motor scooters here without _any_ protective equipment/clothing, often against traffic in the parking/emergency lane is a problem. The more data people give to an organisation like Google, the more power it gets. The more power it gets, the more data it gets. The more data it gets, .... ~~~ jstx Going to need you to finish that train of thought. Data aggregation (or power concentration) isn't any more inherently machiavellian than any of the non sequiturs you rattled off. ------ cstuder If you don't want to buy a document scanner, just use your mobile phone for this. I personally use Scanbot for this, it automatically recognizes, crops and OCRs documents (on the device) and stores them as PDF with the extracted text in the location of your choosing. Works well enough. ------ jkmcf I've been using Evernote's Scannable for receipts and single pages. I had been using a scanner w/ ADF, but it was slow I never automated it. Scannable works really fast and Evernote indexes PDFs. If only Evernote's editor didn't make me want to switch away every time I use it... ------ kozikow I use google docs for it. You can upload scanned documents to Google docs. Documents are automatically OCRed, you can search by keywords and you can still access the original image. Disclaimer: I work at google, although not on the Google docs team. ------ leni536 Last time I checked it's much cheaper to get document scanner with ADF built together with a laser printer than to buy one standalone. I was quite surprised. ~~~ thenipper I can't really back this up with empirical evidence but in my experience the ADF's on consumer all in one's tend to be a bit crap compared to getting a standalone one. ------ ams6110 Nice combination of technologies to solve a problem -- could be very useful for a business that needs to be able to archive and access paper records. But for a household -- there are very few documents you need to keep long term. Better to just keep those in a fireproof file box, and shred and discard everything else rather than devote any resources or mental energy to keeping them around in either paper or digital form. ~~~ payne92 >few documents you need to keep long term I disagree. While I'm a huge fan of purging, there are many, many cases where you need/want documents. Theft/fire/casualty: old receipts prove ownership and value. Maintenance: who worked on the furnace 4 yrs ago? Warranty: our windows have a 20 year warranty (and we're using it!) Basis for home improvements: when you sell your home, if you can document improvements, you can raise your basis and lower your capital gains. Repair: where's the part number & diagram for the faucet that's leaking? School records for your children. Etc. ~~~ leni536 I would add university notes. I was really clumsy with mine but my gf has all her notes for all the classes from uni. It takes up two large shelves, it's freaking massive. We want to scan it but it's a huge task. ------ zellyn It would be nice if this joined forces with Camlistore to hurry up the Scanning Cabinet replacement :-) ~~~ epaulson Mathieu's got his code up for review! [https://camlistore-review.googlesource.com/#/c/5416/](https://camlistore- review.googlesource.com/#/c/5416/) ------ gwbas1c I bought a high-speed scanner with OCR a few years ago. MacOS automatically indexes PDFs, so I can easily search through my scanned documents in Finder. A magic folder system, like Dropbox or Syncplicity, makes sure that the pdfs are safely backed up for me. ------ avirambm You can use Docady's scanner that also does OCR and recognizes its content. It then stores your documents and encrypts them. At the moment it's available on iOS, but should be available soon in Android too. Demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_Zw6xoUaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_Zw6xoUaw) App: [https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id921250909?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id921250909?mt=8) (Full Disclosure: I work at Docady and part of its team) ------ petemc_ I've found adobe acrobat x to be great for OCR and indexing of PDFs. Nothing else I've used comes close to what it can recognise. ~~~ atourgates There's lots I don't like about Acrobat X (and now DC), but ClearScan is an awesome format for scanning and retaining PDF documents. I wish (though don't expect) Adobe would open source it. ------ stephenr It seems somewhat ironic to me that someone built this whole paper to ocr system, and then says "hey use it with a scanner like X", which has OCR capabilities (producing searchable PDFs) built in. ~~~ mayoff It's not built in to the scanner. It's done by the software that comes with the scanner for Windows and OS X. ~~~ stephenr Thanks for the clarification. ------ ictaot OP, great job. I have been trying to solve this very same problem for over an year now, and have a business plan based on the same. Is there a way I can pm you and get some clarifications. Thanks. ------ Chris2048 Any chance of a wiki to group-collaborate on getting different scanners to work with this? I have a HP envy I'd like to glue to the cloud. ------ hendry No Dockerfile? I have a Dockerfile for handling Web cam images sent by FTP: [https://github.com/kaihendry/camftp2web/blob/master/Dockerfi...](https://github.com/kaihendry/camftp2web/blob/master/Dockerfile) ------ nickthemagicman What about just take a picture? ~~~ noxToken Take a picture with your stock camera, or use an app that willcrop, apply OCR and convert your image to a document format? The former lacks features without relying on another program. The latter is only good for people who infrequently need something scanned. Most people can probably get by using a phone app, but this is for people with lots of paper documents. ~~~ DannoHung That said, even if you have a dedicated document scanner, you should spend the $5 or whatever to get Scanbot Pro for your phone. Makes it _so_ friggin easy to get a quick scan of a document if you ever need it. And it does on-phone OCR (far as I can tell the results are pretty good!) with the option to upload to dropbox or a similar service. I mention Scanbot specifically because I bought and tried about 5 or 6 of the available document scanning apps on iOS before settling on it. It really does do literally everything I want in a document scanning app short of tagging the documents (which would, of course, be a file-system specific thing).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Benefits of Using .Net for Startup Development - freezepro http://freezeprosoftware.com/news/benefits-of-using-net-for-startup-development.aspx ====== vhogemann Until .NET Core is mature, and gains support of the major packages from the Nugget repository I'll say: Thanks, but no thanks. Java, more specifically the JVM, is a safer bet. It both has better tooling, and a greater support from other open-source projects. ------ nippples I'd much rather stick to the very well-supported open source technologies like Python, NodeJS and Ruby than limiting my choice of platform right off the bat.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Even casually smoking marijuana can change your brain, study says - taylorbuley http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/16/even-casually-smoking-marijuana-can-change-your-brain-study-says/ ====== moron4hire This guy claims it was bad science: [http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/GeneralNeurology/45290](http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/GeneralNeurology/45290)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
DDecode – Hex,Octal,HTML Decoder - steeples http://ddecode.com/hexdecoder/ ====== whitten Seems to be a useful tool based on a research project, but very little example of what it expects for input. I tried it with some HTML entity notation, and didn't see the letters represented, but was disappointed. Maybe my use case didn't match theirs. The history of examples where it has been used is very useful in determining how to use it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
16-year old teen claims his search engine is 47% more accurate than Google - kshatrea http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/tech-news/This-16-year-old-Indian-origin-teen-claims-his-search-engine-is-47-more-accurate-than-Google/articleshow/48553228.cms ====== VOYD "60 hours to code a search engine", sounds like someone is spending daddy's hard earned money at a high PR agency. Nothing solid in this article at all. This made me LOL - "It understands what a user would like before it serves up the results by dwelling deep into the content of the text, understanding the underlying meaning" ------ smt88 It is laughable to suggest the search engine "accuracy" is universal and measurable enough to say that it's "47%" better. ------ Nadya _> To test the accuracy of each search engine, he limited his search query to this year's news articles from The New York Times. He created several fictitious users with different interests and corresponding web histories. Tukrel then fed this information to both Google and his interest-based search engine. Finally, the results from each search engine were compared._ Willing to bet the search phrase did not include "site:newyorktimes.com" ------ PaulHoule Good for him!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich - nreece http://www.nilkanth.com/2007/09/07/millionaires-who-don%e2%80%99t-feel-rich/ ====== byoung2 _"One might ask then, are these people fools to work so hard even after all that stack of cash?"_ I think the problem is that they might be millionaires on paper, but they don't have cash. Having a $1.5 million house and a $80K car doesn't mean you're rich...it means you have a mountain of debt to pay off. Now, go ask someone whose house is paid off and who has a million dollars in the bank if he feels rich.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New Frontier Of Business - benjlang http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/generation-flux-future-of-business ====== richoakley One of the most brilliant articles I've read in a long time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is there some unwritten code of conduct for code reviews? - MichaelMoser123 Code reviews are all the rage these days: I am getting code reviews at work from people whom I don't even know; Is there some accepted code of conduct for this kind of situations? I mean is one supposed to just do what any reviewer is suggesting, or is there an acceptable way to resolve differences of opinion? ====== jamessb Google's engineering practice documentation has a section on 'The Standard of Code Review': [https://google.github.io/eng- practices/review/reviewer/stand...](https://google.github.io/eng- practices/review/reviewer/standard.html) It includes this important rule: > In general, reviewers should favor approving a CL [changelist - equivalent > to a patch] once it is in a state where it definitely improves the overall > code health of the system being worked on, even if the CL isn’t perfect. ~~~ 3minus1 I'm really glad this was posted. The rule that makes sense to me, when before I didn't know where to draw the line between accept and nitpick. Gonna start thinking about this in code reviews going forward. ------ noir_lord In theory a code review should be a conversation in which you reach consensus. The goal should be that the reviewer understands the code and what it does and is satisfied with the other things. In reality what often happens is a busy programmer looks at it, spots that there is a { in the wrong place, flags that and considers his/her job done and moves on. If someone flags something in a way that you disagree/or don't understand the best approach is "Can you explain why you think your approach is better than mine and what the trade-offs are?" in which case you'll either get an answer that is satisfactory and accept their changes or not in which case you then have to escalate it again. If you think of it as asynchronous pair programming rather than a chance for someone to nitpick everything you do then it's more obvious how to respond. ~~~ MichaelMoser123 At what stage of the argument is one going to be flagged as uncooperative? ~~~ noir_lord At whatever point one party pisses off another in some way. You can delay that point by been open and reasonable up to a point, if you can't then reach consensus you need to escalate it to a lead/PM. It can get both messy and personal if you aren't careful because two programmers might often solve a problem equally well but differently and therefore there simply isn't a clear correct answer. In those cases I'd tend to default to the solution of the person who wrote the code (simply because they'll have put more thought into each part than the person doing the review usually). Team dynamics will largely play a part as well, you may have an incredibly good programmer who can't take criticism at all well (seen that) or whatever and then it becomes a management problem rather than a technical problem. A lot of it is simply tone and empathy though, "I'm curious why you did A instead of B here?" against "Why the hell didn't you do B?" or "B is clearly superior!" (with no explanation of why or the trade-offs). Asking clarifying questions is often a good way to drill down to the meat of the problem (and in a good code review environment imo one of the strongest benefits, it increases comprehension of the code and intent for all parties). One of my lecturers used to say "there are no technical solutions to a people problem". ~~~ MichaelMoser123 Thanks! So one possible answer is: try to reach the other party directly as soon as possibles (directly so that the discussion is not logged as responses to the code review log), this might help to reach consensus without stepping on anyones toes, so to speak. (and before the other party feels like it wants to escalate the issue) I think it is better to keep the discussions like this off the record, because the other party might not feel confident to formulate his/her position in a formal manner or might feel insecure about having this kind of paper trail . ------ codingdave There isn't one standard answer. The overall idea is to get another set of eyes on any code before it hits production, to help catch places where it could be improve, catch bugs early, help each other find better ways of doing things, etc. In practice, some teams do this very well and it an ongoing discussion of good practices that makes everyone better. Other teams nitpick over trivia, asking everyone else to code it like they would have. Some teams require an actual approval, others just toss all the code up for a while before merging it whether or not it got reviewed. Sometimes a lead reviews it all and say yea/nay, other times it is a teaching tool to expose people to new areas of the code before asking them to help out in that area. In other words, no - there is no standard code of conduct across the industry. But there should be some common understanding of how your team, specifically, is doing reviews, and what expectations exist. ------ olingern Code review, IMO, is specific to an org and how it wants the culture and codebase to mature overtime. Careless, quick reviews are going to foster an environment where PR authors do not feel adequately supported where as pedantic, nit-picking reviews are going to exhaust. As for the semantics, it's often about being idiomatic in the language and adhering to good design, i.e. if some requirement changes -- can this change with it?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An open letter to Yelp's CEO - RickS https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a#.5lakumugq ====== dogecoinbase As an update, Talia has now been fired for writing this open letter asking for a living wage for Yelp/Eat24 employees: [https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/700862005834444800](https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/700862005834444800) ------ gus_massa Main discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086) (85 points, 12 hours ago, 29 comments) ------ gyardley What a shameful and short-sighted way for a business as successful as Yelp to treat an employee. ------ 11thEarlOfMar YC Research has found their first basic income candidate.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Open Thread: How Would You Fix Yahoo? - terpua http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_thread_how_would_you_fix_yahoo.php ====== tyohn If I was put in charge; I'd start by examining each unit of the business and the leadership of each of the units. I'd make the tough calls; such as eliminating under performing managers and replacing them with my top team; and/or I'd give each marginally performing business unit a set time to reach agreed upon goals or be sold; and/or I'd help unneeded employees seek employment elsewhere. I'd breakdown existing barriers to communication. I'd put a focus on innovation and I'd dig deep into the business to see what opportunities exist but haven't been implemented. I'd establish known business and employee performance goals and "push" the business towards those goals. Profit would be a key dimension of my "new" goals. Without knowing anything about Yahoo - One of the mistakes I think they made was copying Google's Adwords system. I think they should examine closely the reason customers use online advertising - and then create a unique model based on their customers wants. I could go on but everything after this would be a guess since I really don't know the insides of Yahoo. ------ aston 1) Get bought by Microsoft. 2) Let Microsoft run the Yahoo businesses like they do all of their others, as a P&L that could actually take significant losses in the first few years just to gain market share. 3) Profit (half a decade from now) ------ Tichy Complete redesign of website - it looks so messy, compared to Google. ------ samwise sell off all the companies that having nothing to do with the company. Focus on search. Search is what made yahoo. Also they need to realize that the money is in search ads.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bangka Island: The WW2 massacre and a 'truth too awful to speak' - rmason https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47796046 ====== GreeniFi In my late teens, in the late 90s I attended university in the United Kingdom. In my first year, the Japanese Emperor visited the Queen. And was met by British WW2 soldiers on the Mall, who in photos in the papers, were respectable old men, wearing their regimental berets and ties, and stood with their backs to the royal procession, Japanese flags burning. They were protesting Japanese atrocity, still without apology. My great uncles had fought against the Japanese during the war, and I grew up listening to stories of their time in Burma. In fact we had a number of war souvenirs at home, including samurai swords pulled from the bodies of soldiers who had committed suicide rather than surrender. Airbrushed from history is the fact that the battles against the Japanese were won by soldiers from around the world: Kings African Rifles, Rhodesian African Rifles, Karen militia who fought the Japanese whilst living in trees. I don’t know why we don’t tell these stories more often. Here is a rarity, an Al Jazeera documentary about a Nigerian boy soldier, left for dead and nursed back to health by locals. It’s an excellent documentary for anyone interested. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BREOezfAJSU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BREOezfAJSU) ------ pjc50 Horrifying, but atrocities like this were known to have happened in quite a lot of places and were pretty much condoned by the Japanese high command. I'm also not sure what the HN specific angle is? ~~~ dosy Rape of Nanjing, invasion of Manchuria. I believe the notion that states are driven to war by resources seeking, which can result simply from incompetent government, poor tax collection, or natural catastrophe. So global prosperity is the best deterrent to war. The notion also guides which states you should assess are security or war threats -- the ones with that have economic capacity to meet their own growth, or the failed ones, with a large dissatisfied population easily roused to anger at a fabricated external scapegoat. Genghis Khan neutralized his powerful competitors by making them rich. Perhaps, and this is possibly quite a reach, Japan's war mongering was driven quite a lot by its self-imposed trade isolation that depleted the state coffers, than by inherent expansionist rhetoric which was simply mobilized to motivate. ~~~ throwaway2048 [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/955570...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9555708/We- mustnt-fall-for-The-Great-Illusion-again.html) Economic prosperity and co-dependence is absolutely not a barrier to war. This line of thinking was an extremely popular explanation of why something like World War I couldn't happen. And then it did, ~~~ SkyBelow Is it possible for something to be a barrier but for other factors to overcome the barrier? One shouldn't call it an absolutely unbreakable barrier, but there are less absolute barriers. ------ adolph _Ms Silver now wants the Australian War Memorial (AWM), which already includes the story of the massacre, to tailor its tours to include this account of the alleged sexual assaults._ I wonder how much this matters in terms of shaping contemporary public perception of Japan especially in comparison with China? ~~~ ensignavenger I would hope that most folks are smart enough to realize that the people who perpetuated these atrocities are all (almost?) dead now. Modern Japanese folks had nothing to do with it, most of them weren't even born yet. ~~~ tomatotomato37 I doubt it. You have people in the US pushing the atrocities of slavery on to others even though that was several generations ago and who may not even had relatives in the US at the time due to the massive immigration surge of the late 1800s ------ aaron695 The identity of sexual assault victims is still often kept secret, is this also an awful government cover up? Why does everything have to be an outrage/conspiracy theory? The media does still self censor, ask a cop for real stories compared to the media reports if you want a downer of a day. Avicii killed himself with a broken wine bottle, most media have not reported this for instance, this is a nice story compared to what no media will report. In this case, I also see little purpose in telling this story. It's not even clear to what extent it's true. Some obscure bullet through a shirt shows they were raped? This is a troubling 'fun' who-dunnit. It's also a pointless exercise, since there's no reason to think the weren't raped, there's documentation it happened elsewhere. Besides which tens of millions were killed, the war was horrific, we already know this, what's the story here other than salacious tabloid material? Sells books I guess.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Staffjoy Flex – Marketplace Scheduling for Contractors - philip1209 https://www.staffjoy.com/flex/ ====== philip1209 Today we are launching Staffjoy Flex, which is our product for scheduling independent contractors. Last month, we launched Staffjoy Boss, which is our employee product. The key difference is that, with Flex, we implement a marketplace for scheduling. So, contractors pick the shifts they want - rather than being assigned them. This helps with IC compliance for businesses, while at the same time giving workers long shifts and flexibility. Staffjoy Flex is the result of our research into how contractor-based startups schedule hourly workers. We found that engagement by contractors falls off with each additional step necessary. Collecting availability doesn't scale, and we found that contractor availability changes quickly. With Staffjoy Flex, contractors pick from available shifts, then immediately know whether they are working. This approach scales to thousands of workers without significantly changing the time it takes to schedule. Staffjoy Flex is used to schedule the agents behind a popular chat bot, to manage food delivery logistics, and to manage on-call rotations. The core is Staffjoy’s proprietary algorithms. We match the contractor levels to business demand. This means that a courier company can scale labor to match peak demand for lunch hour, then drop off staffing levels right afterward. We do this while offering configurable shift lengths. We also opened our API this week (docs.staffjoy.com). If you have any questions, we are here to answer them! ~~~ samp615 Looks great! ------ asimuvPR It would be really nice to be able to play with a demo account before signing up. I know people who could benefit from something like this bu can't tell them to check it out without me seeing the UI first and making sure its simple to use. :) ~~~ noir_lord Even a quick screen recording of the high notes would help hugely for that, the only screen shots I could find where in the docs and tended to be parts of the UI not the whole thing. I used to be a retail manager before I was a programmer full time, their IT skills on average are terrible so knowing something is easy to use would make it a lot easier to recommend. ~~~ asimuvPR Yes, double this. These are people used to using ugly GUIs with either overly big or overly small buttons. ------ rpedela What is an example use case? When I think independent contractor, I think freelance work which doesn't necessarily have shifts. ~~~ philip1209 For Flex, here are some uses: * Managing the agents behind "AI Bots". They routinely have to staff contractors (e.g. Amazon Turk / Upwork) to do basic tasks. * Managing couriers. We have app-based food services internationally that use Staffjoy to schedule bike, scooter, car, etc drivers based on order volume. They like that our algorithms vary staffing levels to match order volume. * Managing on-call rotations, e.g. for support. We had one user "stress test" a video game by scheduling contractors 24/7 to play it. ------ educar Typo in headline: Contactors Edit: oops, already reported by someone else ------ bikamonki Big typo on home page: "Contactors" ~~~ philip1209 Whoa. Thanks for the heads up. New build going out now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is Cyberpunk Dead? A Conversation with Bruce Bethke - keiferski https://www.markeverglade.com/iscyberpunkdead ====== currymj The book "Void Star" is an interesting one. It has a William Gibson style plot very similar to Neuromancer but instead of 1980s aesthetic choices, it has 2017 aesthetic choices. So instead of ninjas you get MMA jiu jitsu guys, US tech mega corporations are dominant rather than Japan, aftereffects of climate change rather than nuclear disasters, cartels rather than Yakuza, and so on. It's like 2017 future is extrapolated out instead of 1984 future. But the plot is extremely Gibson-esque: a woman hired as a consultant on a strange project for a mysterious ultra-wealthy client, rogue AIs, interactions between mega corporations and the criminal underworld. So if you take cyberpunk to mean just the synthesizers and neon and chrome aesthetic, then it is getting sort of tiresome. But you can update all that stuff to something slightly fresher and still tell the same kind of stories and it works. ~~~ WorldMaker > US tech mega corporations are dominant rather than Japan At the risk of going way out into tangents: Gibson's books had a fascinating mix of tech mega corporations, not just Japanese, but some of the big players were European in origin, and a share of US tech mega corporations. Gibson absolutely has a kawaii bug about Japanese culture, though that's not his only over-fascination (arguably _more_ of the Neuromancer trilogy is bound to voodoun fascination than Japanese culture fascination), but the important point at the time, and still a useful timeless quality to Gibson's books was how much Gibson got right about the increased _weird_ of a global mega- culture. Much more so than most of his contemporaries, Gibson's cyberpunk much more accurately captured the feeling of the internet before the internet: one minute you might be watching K-Pop on TikTok and then some dude with a Voodoo- based handle sends you some weird files on Discord, before you hop over to Facebook for the latest Eurovision memes. Gibson used the prominence of Japanese mega corporations not just because a lot 80s tech stock pundits (possibly wrongly; though Sony et al still have a large market presence) thought the Japanese would dominate the future, but as a part of a larger cross-cultural package that the future of "punk" wasn't just white-bread American but a stew waiting to be stirred of global culture. In that Gibson is an interesting comparison to pick when comparing timeless versus time-bound components of cyberpunk, as Gibson's Japanese focus I think was by far one of his most timeless additions to the genre. ~~~ currymj sure, that's a fair point. Neuromancer trilogy has European family offices, it has an American media/tech company Sense/Net, Zeiss and Braun are mentioned. but the books really do feel like Japan is the dominant economic power, in a way that seems very stuck in the 1980s (the Nikkei still has never recovered to its peak in 1991). the way this gets translated is always rainy city streets with neon signs in kanji, and synthesizers. a lot of work that is heavily derivative of Neuromancer just copies these choices blindly rather than trying to convey the same spirit as it tells the story. i liked Void Star because it did the opposite. another thing underappreciated about Gibson is that much of his world is not particularly futuristic. there's implied to be plenty of buildings left around from the 21st century. the bars, hotels, motels, and restaurants are mostly described as being like normal restaurants today. stuff like Cyberpunk 2077 seems to miss this. ~~~ WorldMaker Cyberpunk 2077 has a very interesting position, there's a lot of interesting architecture detail and layers in what little I've seen of Night City so far (we'll see when the game comes out), including some parts of the city that look usefully old. It just has its own layers of the fact that Night City is an American city, here being designed by mostly Polish artists giving it a strange (accidental?) European sensibility, combined with the idea that in the source fiction (the RPG), Night City was a planned city that didn't ever exist before (the future year) 1994 (Cyberpunk itself was written in the 80s). So there are at least 70-ish years of layers and tarnish to put on the thing, but the fact that it is entirely distinct from a real place was a fictional conceit from the 80s fiction it inherits. Which is to say, that I think Gibson is absolutely correct that most "future places" are and will always be built on the tops of the bones of the old places. No one is going to demolish _all_ of San Francisco or DC's haunts and landmarks. But also that's not a criticism that I think directly applies to Cyberpunk 2077 as a specific example because the fiction intentionally wanted and built a young city, with some of the EPCOT feels of the setting an intentional planned commentary of a different sort than most of the space Gibson enjoyed inhabiting in his books. Gibson did his own bits of entirely new construction such as space stations, too, to make various points/contrasts. Corporations building modern "cyber" company cities is a rich tradition of its own in cyberpunk fiction, evoking and reminding readers/players of the past dystopian company towns that did exist in a previous American century and could easily exist again. [https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Night_City](https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Night_City) ~~~ AkelaA The original Blade Runner is a great example of a film that depicts the changing architecture of a city - while we see sweeping shots of mile high sky scrapers throughout the film, on the ground we still see the remains of historic architecture, repurposed and built over - the police station was built within Los Angeles's 1939 Union Station, Frank Lloyd Wright's 1924 Ennis House makes an appearance as Deckard's apartment, and of course the famous Bradbury Building was used as the set for the film's finale. The end result is a city that still feels like it has a history not too dissimilar then the Los Angeles of the real world, extrapolated out to 2019 based on 1980's fears of overpopulation and such. Something it's sequel wasn't really successful with, where instead the city looks unrecognisable, with architecture that looks alien rather then anything actually realistically plausible. If it wasn't for the frequent Coca Cola and Sony product placement you could be convinced the city was Coruscant from Star Wars or something. ------ Grimm1 I mean maybe in books, but Deus Ex and the remakes are as fresh as a few years ago now we have Cyberpunk 2077 coming out and Detroit Become Human is fantastic from a story setting. Not to forget The early 2000s telling of Ghost in the Shell and the the most recent ones from 2016ish to now. Less story inclined but just as cyber punk being the Watchdog games. Cyber Punk and it's ideals are very much alive, however the medium of expression has changed to ones more fitting of Cyber Punk IMO. ~~~ ordinaryradical His point is that, with some exceptions (Ghost in the Shell), much of the modern work you cite is a regurgitation of the earliest ideas of the genre which have themselves hardened into tropes. Gibson found the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer exceedingly retro and 80s because its imagined future repeats anxieties and themes which were most relevant in the 1980s, when the genre first appeared. The return to these “ancient futures” isn’t really punk, it’s kitsch. But to do the thing those early authors did would be to continually approach the present with the same mindset for interrogating it and see what appears. ~~~ jjoonathan > regurgitation Somebody's an essayist. In any case, I'll grant you that the 80s cars and CRT theming are retro- futuristic, but those are all surface-level, as Gibson himself points out. However, I think the criticism loses steam if you try to apply it below the surface, even just a little. Social media, political troll gangs, cheap drones, and military + police robotics played a big part in Watchdogs, and those are all modern or forward- looking. Deus Ex's human augmentation is still forward-looking. AI integration in Detroit Become Human is still forward-looking, even if it isn't terribly imaginative. The interactions of technology, poverty, and crime common to all of these are still forward looking, even if in hindsight they failed to predict some big trends (e.g. social media boosting conspiracy groups and the "traditional hustles" of self-help and alternative medicine). Regardless, the artists are still using their imaginations. It's the critics who see an 80s car, call it kitsch to get engagement, and miss everything of substance. ~~~ drhayes9 But the concerns expressed in those works were the same as the ones expressed forty years ago; that's the point the original article is making. Bethke himself used the phrase “self-referential metafiction” in describing sci-fi authors in the late 70s. I think a lot of the current cyberpunk work is the same, commoditizing an art movement into a fashion dressing to tell the same kind of stories we always get. Vast corporations doing what they want to the helpless working class started as an 80s fear in opposition to a largely hopeful view of companies from the 50s and 60s. Just because it's come true, or is still a fear, doesn't mean that it's still exciting or exploring a new frontier. Bruce Sterling was writing eco-fiction thirty years ago, about humans struggling to survive post-climate-change... except that wasn't a phrase that meant what it means to people today. The edge he was riding on in his work has now headed towards the middle. Vernor Vinge writing about true names in the early 80s was predictive; Become Human commenting about it now isn't. It doesn't make it bad or not worthy or anything, but it definitely is a move away from the bleeding edge of a predictive SF movement. "Snow Crash" and "Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson are interesting books in this sense. "Snow Crash" works best if you're a cyberpunk fan already, if it can relax into the tropes you already know and make an action movie out of it. "Diamond Age" moves away from that towards a definitely post-cyberpunk place with people who aren't criminals trying to make a buck but maybe good people trying to change the world with the power of technology. It's already shedding the trappings and trying to get somewhere else. It's gotta be a little weird for these authors to see their "movement" co- opted into big media properties that make millions of dollars for big companies. Somebody else said it in these comments; that's not very punk. ~~~ Apocryphon Don't blame authors, blame society for failing to break out of the neoliberal (or other epithet) trap started in the '80s. If we had fundamentally different struggles and anxieties now, and perhaps a different, more idealistic outlook, then different genres would emerge. _It 's gotta be a little weird for these authors to see their "movement" co- opted into big media properties that make millions of dollars for big companies. Somebody else said it in these comments; that's not very punk._ It's not weird at all. Consumerism has co-opted and commodified every single ideology; there's nothing wiser or more edgy or purer about cyberpunk that would have prevented this from happening to it. If anything, it's very apropos. ~~~ ethbro > _there 's nothing wiser or more edgy or purer about cyberpunk that would > have prevented this from happening to it. If anything, it's very apropos._ But that never happened to punk musi... oh, I see your point. ------ parsoj I'm confused - is this complaining about the genre as a whole being less popular? Or just books? I think with one of the most hyped and games of the year being a cyberpunk game (with "Cyberpunk" literally in the name) - its definitely premature to call the genre as a whole "dead" If this article is just lamenting the absence of Cyberpunk books - well surges in popularity in one media can always carry over to others... ~~~ keiferski The article isn't about either of those things. It's about the original ideas of cyberpunk (which were rooted in the 80s) being turned into cliches and repeated ad infinitum since and whether a new 2020-era genre is needed. ~~~ whatshisface > _whether a new 2020-era genre is needed._ The idea that a new genre could be created because critics concluded that one was "needed" is the daftest and most out-of-touch thing I've ever heard... ~~~ _jal The idea that a random person on a message board could inspire someone to write software because someone said they needed a tool is the daftest, most out-of-touch thing I've ever read. Oh wait, that has happened multiple times. Granted, a genre is bigger than a tool. But this free-floating hatred for commentators of all stripes literally blinds people to reality. And it isn't some Critic-On-High making pronouncements and waiting for followers to act. It is observational. ~~~ slothtrop > The idea that a random person on a message board could inspire someone to > write software because someone said they needed a tool is the daftest, most > out-of-touch thing I've ever read. A tool already describes a solution to a problem in mind, it's clear cut. If the analogous problem here is "I want new genre fiction", then a) that doesn't describe what's desired, and b) that already exists (qua all the "punk" suffixed derivatives among other things), it's just not as popular, and therefore we can surmise the wrong question is being asked. Stephenson once had a talk where he suggested that sci-fi writers should effectively return to optimistic stories, but he hasn't done that himself. He could literally solve the problem he described. We want what we want, and write what we want to write. ~~~ dgritsko I've been re-reading "The Hobbit" recently, and this passage struck me as relevant to your comment. From Chapter 3, "A Short Rest": "Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway." During the stay in Rivendell, nothing much interesting happens - so Tolkien doesn't bother with telling us about it. The exciting, interesting stuff is when our heroes are in peril or experiencing great trials and tribulations. ------ A4ET8a8uTh0 It is an interesting take, but once you look beyond the obvious, the critique is reminiscent of "Nothing new under the sun" trope ( they phrase it as a minor insult -- Akira fan fic ). Not exactly compelling argument in my mind. Personally, I think interest in Cyberpunk may have declined ( and oddly increased in mainstream DND ), because, frankly, we seem to be living in early Cyberpunk universe ( powerful corporations, nascent augment technology.. ). edit: Then again, Cyber 2077 may re-ignite mainstream interest in the genre. ~~~ toyg I think we've been in "early cyberpunk" for about 15 years already (if not 20). The renewed interest, imho, is due to a combination of factors, but mostly two: the generation that grew up reading it as kids is now old enough to be in positions of power over artistic output, so they will use those influences in their own work; and some of the societal shifts cyberpunk speculated about, are now recognizable by pretty much everyone. ------ CapricornNoble Wasn't William Gibson (author of Neuromancer) roughly quoted saying: "I don't write 'cyberpunk' dystopias anymore...because we are living them. They are our reality today. So I just write contemporary fiction." ....somebody help me out on this...I might be off the mark. ~~~ anotherman554 I suspect you are thinking of a different writer. I've never read a Gibson interview where he said anything like that, though I have not read every Gibson interview. ~~~ akeck This article has similar quotes from Gibson: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william- gibson...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was- losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was) ~~~ anotherman554 Not really. He doesn't describe our world as a cyberpunk dystopia in that interview. Whatever world we have today I don't believe he has ever referred to as cyberpunk-esque. ------ cletus A couple of things: 1\. I wouldn't call The Matrix cyberpunk. That's the first time I heard that; and 2\. I don't see cyberpunk as having died in the 1980s, so much as it was simply the zeitgeist of that era and there have been lots of those in sci-fi (and more generally). For example, if you look at sci-fi from the 1960s you have lots of material about mental powers (eg telepathy in Stranger and a Strange Land). Star Trek was a utopia that mirrored a rosy view of America. All of this in an era of personal freedom and society wrestling with the lingering injustices of slavery a century earlier I think is no accident. What happened in the 1980s was the rise of Japan and the loss of manufacturing jobs in America. This stoked fears that corporations would replace governments and we'd face a dystopian but technological future. I still see cyberpunk as interlinked with anti-Japanese xenophobia. So the issue with cyberpunk is that this xenophobia faded, the genre didn't really evolve (and probably peaked with Blade Runner) and apart from the Internet virtually nothing predicted in cyberpunk came to pass. We still have governments. We don't live in a dystopian future (mostly). There are enhanced humans with implants. But I wouldn't describe it as dying. We simply moved on. ~~~ coolgeek > I wouldn't call The Matrix cyberpunk Why do you say that? Also, cyberpunk broke into the mainstream (Blade Runner, Neuromancer) at a time of fascination with Japan. I say fascination because there was a spectrum - from philic to phobic. That attention was, of course, a result of their (at the time) massively increased economic strength, relative to that of the USA. That same spectrum of attention exists in the body of cyberpunk, in toto. There is not an anti-Japanese xenophobia that exists in the corpus either pervasively, or inherently. ------ at_a_remove "Everything about UNIX sounds silly. We're talking about an OS with commands like chown, awk, and grep here and where 'zombie children floating in the pipe' is a legitimate description of an error state." — Bruce Bethke — _Headcrash_ ------ canistr It's been replaced by whatever genre you would describe Black Mirror as. A reflection of the modern dystopia we live in within the context of the current year. ~~~ toyg I agree that Black Mirror is one of the few original attempts at doing proper scifi about the near future, that we’ve had in quite some time. I wish it were not so utterly depressing, my mental health can barely stomach a single episode every month or so. If that were a genre, I would call it “cybercynical”. ------ cyberpunk No need to panic guys, I'm still alive. And this Bruce guy hasn't even spoken to me -- so take his opinion with the appropriate amount of sodium chloride. ------ jackcosgrove Considering a teenager recently commandeered the Twitter accounts of a number of world leaders, and then used this awesome power to run a two-bit scam with electronic money, makes me think cyberpunk is indeed dead because it is now reality. ------ arthurjj "A…depressingly mountainous amount of the self-identified cyberpunk fiction I see now is stuck firmly in the 1980s. It's not new, fresh, or original. It's paint-by-numbers Imitation Gibson. It's Blade Runner fan fic, or Akira fan fic, or worse, wannabe Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2077 media tie-in fic" I read a large amount of new cyberpunk and this is depressingly accurate ------ 082349872349872 What are, in the 20's, the big concepts that "cyber"[1] was to the 80's? Ecopunk has apparently been done, in 風の谷のナウシカ: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24298259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24298259) [1] we started with Tron and wound up with "I put on my robe and wizard hat." ~~~ dleslie BioPunk? Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl" is an interesting take on this. The most concise take I've seen for the core defining aesthetic of cyberpunk is: "high tech, low life." With that in mind, I don't think it _really_ matters what the tech is, so long as the story is about those on the fringes of society and their interactions with it; how _alien_ the world is to them, and how alien they are to the world. ~~~ nrp I would add “Blindsight” by Peter Watts to the list of great biopunk novels. ~~~ Apocryphon Watts's work is great also as an existentialist hard sci-fi cosmic horror. It's got all of the Plutonian depths, malevolent antediluvian creatures, unfathomable aliens, degenerated humanity, and posthuman body horror of Lovecraft, just not the omnipotent space gods. Plus, he even continues cyberpunk tropes to their natural dystopian conclusions- in Rifters, "N'Am" is a continent governed by the power company that sends PTSD-afflicted veterans and abuse survivors to maintain deep sea geothermal generators, gigacorp execs are literally called "corpses", and the internet is completely swallowed up by A.I. spam bots. ~~~ dymax78 How would you rate the Rifters trilogy vs the Firefall trilogy? (I thoroughly enjoyed _Blindsight_ , hobbled my way through _Echopraxia_ , and it's unlikely I'll read _Firefall_ ) ~~~ watt _Firefall_ is just an omnibus edition of the two. Great hardcover though :) ~~~ dymax78 Thank you for the clarification. In the context of our discussion, your nick begs the question.... Peter?! ------ nine_k Cyberpunk is sort of what we're living through now. It's like being the proverbial fish who does not notice the water around. ------ diegoperini Mr Robot is the best cyberpunk story of the current generation. ------ dougmwne At it's best, sci-fi is a great canvas for social commentary. You can use present day concerns and take them out to their ultimate conclusions to highlight the risks and rewards of taking our society down a certain path. That also means sci-fi is very much a product of the time it was created. If cyberpunk is getting less relevant, it's only because our society's concerns have moved on from corporate skepticism to corporate embrace and from techno- fear to techno-love. The cyber tech itself has gone from new to mundane. The next anxieties will produce the next sci-fi. ------ Animats The seminal "cyberpunk" novel is The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner, from 1975. He didn't use the term, but all the key themes are there. ------ knolax I'm gonna be honest, I only like cyberpunk for the aesthetics, not any of the themes. In 2020 most of the messaging behind the cyberpunk genre seems trite and obvious in hindsight (probably because of how accurate a lot of their social predictions were). I think most people agree that are into cyberpunk today are into it more for the neon signs than the social commentary. ------ mancerayder A friend said a line that I have been stealing: "The way things are going in the world, by the time Cyberpunk 2077 comes out it'll be redundant." ------ karpodiem Cyberpunk isn't dead - we're living it. ------ justinclift With all the discussion so far, it's kind of strange no-one has pointed out modern "CyberPunk" bands like GUNSHIP. eg: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nC5TBv3sfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nC5TBv3sfU) \- Tech Noir [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ruvzfXQoE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ruvzfXQoE) \- Dark All Day [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQaH3lh- CA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQaH3lh-CA4) \- Art3mis & Parzival. Pretty much a music clip for Ready Player One. They have tonnes more: [https://www.youtube.com/user/GUNSHIPMUSIC/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/GUNSHIPMUSIC/videos) Yeah, I'm a massive fan. :) If there's no GUNSHIP music in Cyberpunk 2077, something's definitely gone wrong. ;) ------ keiferski Bethke coined the word _cyberpunk_ and here's a little essay about it: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130716211015/http://www.bruceb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130716211015/http://www.brucebethke.com/articles/re_cp.html) ~~~ teilo Thank you. The word Cyberpunk may have come first, but there is no question that Gibson defined what it means. ------ shmerl _> I would dearly love to see a new form of SF emerge that reflects the baseline of now, and begins a whole new series of extrapolations that creates a new consensual vision of a different future._ I think VirtuaVerse does it pretty well. It has that classic cyberpunk style, but it explores very contemporary ideas. I.e. it's not stuck in the '80s. See: * [https://www.gog.com/game/virtuaverse](https://www.gog.com/game/virtuaverse) * [https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/album/virtuaverse-ost](https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/album/virtuaverse-ost) ------ overcast Cyberpunk 2077 should change this. ------ PedroBatista Part of it became the news, other part became so overplayed it became cheesy and the rest was always cheese to begin with. This happens all the time, Cyberpunk is not above the "laws" of time. ------ spiritplumber Polite reminder that the original Cyberpunk RPG took place in 2013. ------ LoSboccacc from page 2: > Bruce: wannabe Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2077 media tie-in fic. so yeah, basically an elitist point of view filled with "no true scotsman" kind of platitudes. that'd be like saying every fantasy sucks because it's just a lord of the ring tie in. > Bruce: I would dearly love to see a new form of SF emerge that reflects the > baseline of now if only he was a writer. oh wait. ------ 627467 This comment section is as rich as the article. Thank you hn'ers. ~~~ toyg Cyberpunk is to the early internet generations what beat literature was to boomers. ------ bitwize I've lost track of how many times cyberpunk has died and been resurrected with new cybernetic parts grafted onto its corpse. ------ donkey-hotei Kill Cyberpunk. Long Live Solarpunk ------ bytematic The single most awaited game in history is about to release, titled "Cyberpunk 2077". ~~~ Andrew_nenakhov After the (disappointing) release of Duke Nukem Forever, the title of the single most awaited game in history was overtaken by Half-Life 3 (or, maybe, Half-Life 2: Episode Three). ~~~ hobofan most != longest I don't think a lot of people are still holding their breath for HL3, especially without any official acknowledgment of its development and the release of Half-Life:Alyx. HL2 was also so long ago (16 years) that most young adults don't even have a connection to it, as they didn't grow up with it. ------ spiritplumber It happened. ------ sarreph No, as per Betteridge's Law of Headlines[0]. [0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines) ------ tus88 No it is not. ------ m3kw9 Cyberpunk 2077	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
When online gambling is legalized, Facebook will be $100 billion company - gdhillon http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-gambling-2012-1 ====== sbtest What concerns me is behavioral information obtained through games (particularly ones of the push-a-button, get point variety) could be used to target individuals with addictive personalities. Combining this with information from the social graph would even be more potent. The second a person turns 18, they will know all of the 'white whales' that should be brought in to play the slots. The ethics of psychological profiling will soon be a major ethical issue brought to us courtesy of big data; an issue that has implications well beyond gambling. ------ gdhillon Anyone working on any gambling apps for Facebook or in general on web/mobile?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Drug to Cure Fear - andrewl http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/opinion/sunday/a-drug-to-cure-fear.html ====== jqm I'm of the opinion that eventually (soon) human emotions/gut level feelings will be replaced with a controlled layer. In an earlier time hunger, fear, (and probably even things like love and religious sentiment) had strong purposes. To a certain extent they certainly still do. The problem is in this world all to often these impulses are destructive and as the problems of the world get traced down to the root these emotions will become revealed as troublemakers and replaced with something more suitable as the capacity is developed. For example... look at hunger. We need it to tell us to eat. Or we did. But the desire to eat evolved in a time when food wasn't as rich or as plentiful. So now it causes problems. Kills more people than terrorists and cars and smoking and drugs. So people try to beat it back, go on diets, suffer, but why? So eventually what I think will happen is that something will be tied into your metabolism. You'll get hungry when you physically need to eat and in proportion and with desire for the things your body really needs. Adjustable, controllable. Not the things a body craved on the Savannah 20,000 years ago or whatever. Other emotions... same thing. Incidentally, I'm not advocating this...I have no doubt plenty of people would be horrified at the thought and the concept has extreme risks for sure. But I think in the total cost/benefit it will be what happens to humanity fairly soon evolutionary speaking. ------ jamble Propanolol is not common, but it's certainly not a new finding by any means for treatment of anxiety (whether that is a one-time "stage preformance" dose, or a daily dose for persistent symptoms). I do wish that Propanolol was tried on more healthy (edit: those without heart conditions where beta-blockers would be dangerous) psych patients before benzodiazapines or SSRI's. I have PTSD and it helped me a lot with barely any side-effects. Dependance is still a question, of course, but I still advocate its helpfulness. I do not however in any way think it should be advertised as a drug to "cure" fear. That notion makes me sick. Unfortunately, that's what people will be seeking, in lieu of other treatment options that don't involve medication.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What is your employer doing to improve the commute? - mapster ====== mtmail Not my commute (I cycle), but friends get subsidized public transport, there a scheme to buy a bicycle and pay off later (not even the full 100%), locked bicycle parking obviously, company bike for running errands. The company has two reserved parking places for cars but only one person owns a car. In previous companies we had showers for those jogging to work (or during lunch break). The craziest was valet parking. I mean it cut the commute by a couple of minutes but the backstory was really the company didn't have enough parking and the city would've started issuing fines. Paying a valet parking company was apparently cheaper. ~~~ mapster I know many tech companies in the Bay Area consider commute times when re- locating offices, but wonder if this is based on corporate climate goal and how much weight it has in the decision process. ------ phantom784 We get a Go pass (free monthly pass for the Caltrain that runs from San Francisco to San Jose)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Exploiting a Go Binary - fabriceleal http://codearcana.com/posts/2013/04/23/exploiting-a-go-binary.html ====== laumars This is what should happen in IT. Someone looks for a vulnerability; find it. Determine if the project owners need prior warning; then go public. Everyone becomes aware of the issue and upgrades their systems accordingly. Problem solved. Criminalizing those who are only looking to harden the security of public facing infrastructures from those who don't have good intentions doesn't help anyone. And while I'm sure that Geohot and Reece took on this challenge as more of a fun exercise, we've all benefited from the results. So I look forward to reading more articles where hackers attempt to exploit Go binaries; and subsequently how to avoid my own Go binaries from being exploited the same way. (i should add, this is a more generalized comment. I'm aware that this specific attack isn't a practical real-world vulnerability) ~~~ StavrosK Well, to be fair, if you don't want your binaries exploited, don't write the exploit into them. I can't see a case where this could be used, unless you're letting people execute arbitrary code on your system, in which case you're screwed anyway. ~~~ _ak > Well, to be fair, if you don't want your binaries exploited, don't write the > exploit into them. That's a bit naive and not the point of this PoC. The exploit used a bug in the code generator. Normally, guard code would have been generated that would have caught that issue, but it just wasn't, and that's why the exploit worked. So in theory, every program with that particular programming bug and the missing guard code (due to the code generator bug) is vulnerable. ~~~ StavrosK Vulnerable to what? As far as I can see, it will crash or corrupt memory when it tries to read/write to it. An actual _exploit_ of this requires intent. ~~~ _ak "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" Imagine a programmer has a shitty day, lacks concentration, and adds code like this to his internet-facing server app: type Embedded struct { offset [0x400100]byte address uint32 } type Struct struct { Embedded bar int } var instance Struct Later in the code, he forgets to initialize instance.Embedded. When handling an HTTP request that comes from the internet, instance.Embedded.address is filled from a GET parameter. Et voila, anyone who can do a GET request can overwrite memory, possibly leading to code execution. The bug in the code was unintentional, because programmers (like all humans) make mistakes, the HTTP request was intentional (it was done by the attacker), and the exploit worked because of a bug in the code generation. That's what I meant by vulnerable. ~~~ StavrosK Ah, okay. I think this particular exploit falls a bit too far into the "you have to work to make it useful" spectrum (the "offset [0x400100]byte" part), but I see how it might be exploitable, thanks. ~~~ saidajigumi It's also worth remembering that a complete exploit can often compose numerous "small" vulnerabilities into the realized breach. As such, it's easy to discount a seemingly hard-to-exploit vulnerability until you see it in action. It may be used in concert with other weaknesses or "widened" by an unforeseen technique. As a specific example, check out the two-part wrap-up of the Pwnium browser hacking competition[1] [2]. It's a great illustration of chaining weaknesses together to achieve a desired exploit. [1] [http://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/tale-of-two-pwnies- part-1.h...](http://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/tale-of-two-pwnies-part-1.html) [2] [http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/tale-of-two-pwnies- part-2.h...](http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/tale-of-two-pwnies-part-2.html) ~~~ StavrosK Oh wow, that guy exploited 14 bugs to craft the exploit. That's some work... ------ tptacek To be clear: this is an attack that works if you're compiling and executing malicious Golang code, as if it were Javascript. ~~~ NateDad Or if you happen to have some fairly odd code in your executable. All that this really needs is really big array of bytes in one struct of your code. While anything that big should be unusual, you never know what crazy stuff people will write. ~~~ tptacek Odd code like that will crash your executable, and may set up the conditions for some other exploit, but this one requires the code to be very specifically written to maliciously overwrite a function pointer. ~~~ pcwalton What if, instead of a function pointer, an interface happened to be at that address? Given that interfaces are extremely common in Go, it seems plausible to me that many addresses in the heap could contain interfaces (and if they don't, then it may be possible to manipulate an application to create many interfaces so that they do). An attacker could overwrite the vtable pointer to point to attacker-supplied memory, and then an indirect call through the vtable could jump to shellcode. ~~~ tptacek Sure, that's a plausible vulnerability concept for Go. Someone just has to find a way to do that. :) ------ onlydnaq If we are writing programs to write to arbitrary memory, wouldn't it be easier to write them in C? :) int main(int argc, char argv) { ((char )addr_to_write) = val_to_write; } On a more serious note: this is a fun compiler bug, but I wouldn't call it a valid exploit. If you have the power to run your own binary on a system, then of course you can write to any memory the process has access to. ~~~ tptacek It's valid in the sense of, if you tried to use an in-language sandbox to keep people from running arbitrary code on your machine, this would bypass it. ------ bishop_mandible Non-executable heap and stack in Go 1.1 - nice! ~~~ gngeal Huh, there goes my plan to write a dynamic assembler in Go... ~~~ cthom06 You can still use mmap/equivalent to allocate executable memory and package unsafe to use it; the difference is that the memory allocated normally by the runtime won't be executable. Or I missed the sarcasm. ~~~ gngeal What sarcasm? Well, if I could mmap it, that would be fine, although it would mean that I'd have to manage the memory for the machine code fragments by hand, as opposed to having them as part of GCd values. ------ mvzink I'm really excited to see people working on security in Go. Security by default is supposed to be one of Go's "features" at some level. (The typical example: your first several C programs probably had many buffer overflow vulnerabilities, but it's very likely none of your Go programs ever will.) Still, Go hasn't been very thoroughly tested and security hardened, so I'm hoping to see many more exploits like this discovered and ironed out in the near future. ------ AYBABTME For some reason, the website is not loading here and Google's cache dates from before the release of the exploit, so the post is hidden. Anybody has a mirror or some way to access the post? ~~~ _ak It was accidently deleted. [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang- nuts/wZILkqFbbus/j9Wq...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang- nuts/wZILkqFbbus/j9WqQZQdaGwJ) ------ ancarda I'm a little confused, does this work on 64-bit binaries too?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What are some best resources for learning R? - xijuan I will be starting graduate school this year September for quantitative psychology program. I really need to learn R to be able to conduct the research. My undergraduate degree is just psychology so I don't have too much background in programming although I did learn basic R in several statistics courses in psychology. Please let me know any tip or resource for learning R. ====== houshuang I'll be following this post, since I'm in the same situation (well, in the middle of a graduate program, having done quant classes with SPSS, which I could never grow to like, and now discovering and learning R for my research). There's a lot of great free resources out there - I've been going on a bit of a resource hunt, and gathered lots of links here: <http://reganmian.net/wiki/R>. Totally unsorted dump at the moment, I'll eventually sort through it, but might still be useful. Yesterday I spent the whole day watching a Google tech talk by Hadley Wiggins (creator of GGPlot) talking about exploratory data analysis with ggplot and plyr, and replicating every single step in RStudio with RMarkdown (mix of code and text). I played with every single line, took arguments apart, tried out variations, until I understand what each piece did. Here are my notes: <http://rpubs.com/houshuang/ggplot-notes> (RStudio makes it ridiculously easy to publish these kinds of documents online). There's a link to the talk, and the data, there too. One thing I'm looking for is more information about doing survey analysis - I'd love to see a detailed walkthrough (like the file I posted) of someone designing a survey with Likert items, pilot-testing Likert items and generating scales, importing the whole survey with codebook, testing validity of the scales, doing some analysis of findings etc. I've found bits and pieces, but never a complete walk-through. ~~~ xijuan Hey! You are at U of T! I am from UBC. I have taken few grad level psych stats courses already. I have learned how to conduct basic regression, factor analysis using R. If you have questions about doing basic survey analysis using R, maybe I can help you out a bit. My contact information is in my profile! But for my own research, doing basic analysis in R probably won't be enough..I want to know more about how to write functions in R, etc. ------ houshuang I've found walk-throughs generated using knitr to be incredibly useful - they show you the commands, and the graphs/tables they generate, they often walk through in small steps so you can follow along, and you also get exposed to a bit of the thinking behind - how to approach analysing different data sets. My friend just posted this analysis of school board data: <http://rpubs.com/dirkchen/knaer-tdsb>. RPubs is awesome, you can also browse the front page <http://rpubs.com>, since all documents are public. Lot's to learn here. Two things that would make this easier: One is some more social features on the site, like tagging and voting up (show me examples with scatterplots, etc). It would also be great if there was an option to upload the Rmd sheet, as well as the data files when publishing. Of course, some people publish their entire projects to GitHub, but if it was a lot more convenient, perhaps more people would share - one-button import into your own RStudio, for your own experimentation, would be awesome. ------ jyu I'm currently learning R for the first time in Data Analysis on Coursera. It's great because you are doing things in R to achieve a data analysis goal. It names several resources for getting R help. [https://d19vezwu8eufl6.cloudfront.net/dataanalysis/gettingHe...](https://d19vezwu8eufl6.cloudfront.net/dataanalysis/gettingHelp.pdf) Keep in mind, the fastest answer is usually the one you find yourself. Try to search around on google, wikipedia, stackoverflow first. If you're still not sure, ask a question to the R mailing list or Stackoverflow. If it's a Data Analysis / Statistics question, ask on CrossValidated. If you're not sure how to do something in R, check the R libraries first with something like "how to do binomial dist in R". If you know the function you want to call, but don't know how it works, do "?functionName" and "args('functionName')". Here's an R cheatsheet: <http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Short- refcard.pdf> Good luck! ------ aburan28 I found the O'Reilly/CodeSchool "Try R" tool to learn R the best because you learn it by using it in a interactive manner <http://tryr.codeschool.com/> ~~~ xijuan I just founded that as well!! And I just started going through it today!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GNU Octave 3.8 - lelf http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/NEWS-3.8.html ====== clintonc A GUI!? Oh, my stars... Honestly, I like Octave a lot, and this new feature gives me the option to use it in collaboration with folks who aren't as UNIX-happy as I. I'm interested to know how "unpolished" the GUI is.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Acquires Jibe Mobile - stingrae http://www.jibemobile.com/ ====== wyldfire Would this/could this replace Hangouts? Or maybe WebRTC is a good complement for Project Fi? ~~~ DiabloD3 This would be nice, but Google has a habit of buying companies for certain people or certain technologies and just ditches the actual projects the companies are doing. Sometimes said people or technology are integrated well, sometimes they aren't and we never see those features ever again. ~~~ harryf Meanwhile Google badly needs to go on a mobile spending spree. Companies I would buy in their position include Localytics, AppsFlyer, Contentful and mParticle. Buying those would significantly increase trust and buy-in from mobile app developers, who today probably have more interest in Facebook and Parse.com than anything else ------ BillSaysThis Doesn't hurt that Jibe's office is a few blocks from the GPlex I bet. ------ sidcool Hopefully this betters the Hangouts app, on Android at least.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
North Korea – Vintage Socialist Architecture - curtis http://www.raphaelolivier.com/urban/documentary/photographer/north-korea/pyongyang/vintage/socialist/architecture/ ====== nikolay Not working in Firefox.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Tcpdump Tutorial and Primer - danielrm26 http://danielmiessler.com/study/tcpdump/ ====== 0x0 If you are planning on poking around with captures in Wireshark, keep in mind that there have been quite a lot of exploits for that app, particularly in the various protocol dissectors. You should avoid working on captures with unknown content on an important machine. <http://wiki.wireshark.org/Security> ------ RickHull One thing I haven't been able to with tcpdump is just dump the data stream (payload) without any protocol bits. I presume it's possible with the right command line option incantation. Instead, for this purpose, I have used tcpflow. This is useful for listening in on data streams, potentially piping a binary message stream to a decoder for human-readable output. ------ lkrubner Tip: sudo to root. I am ignorant as dirt on this subject. Maybe this was obvious to everyone else. I read this at work and decided to log into one of our main web servers. I tried following the directions but I got the error: tcpdump could not find a suitable device However this: which tcpdump showed me that tcpdump was on the machine. I look back at the examples in the article and saw he was root. Luckily, where I work, all of the engineers are given root access on most of the machines. So I could sudo to root. And then the examples worked. Don't get tripped up like I did. ------ bitops I love Daniel's site - he's written a ton of great tutorials and overviews of useful tools. tcpdump is definitely one of the "must know" tools. ------ teoruiz This is gold. Straight to my pinboard. ------ ggr ngrep, <http://ngrep.sourceforge.net>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Samsung buying WebOS? I wish they would. It's great. - EGreg http://www.fabcapo.com/2011/08/samsung-buying-webos-it-makes-sense.html ====== yardie _webOS still has no developers, which is the reason they did not make it._ WTF! As a webOS developer I'll be damned if someone says that the developers were the reason the platform didn't thrive. Between the official channels and preware there was plenty of development going on. Probably not in iOS or Android numbers. Here it is: Palm transitioned from Mojo to Enyo. Developers are writing applications in Enyo since that is where the future of the platform lies. The only device that used Enyo was the Touchpad. Once Apotheker shitcanned that product a lot of webOS developers were left holding the bag. _Samsung would have to build support on it, make it really cool and attractive for developers._ They would have to do no such thing. Steady improvements and a real commitment is all we ask. The platform is good on its own but if it has no rudder the community isn't going to steer it for you. _They added an App Store late and it never really took off_ This will come as surprise to a lot of v1 Sprint Pre owners. "Hey what's this icon do? It says App Catalog but that can't be right because according to this blog they haven't created it yet. Must be some sort of trick!" As a mobile developer I've put my project on the shelf because I don't know what HP is going to do with it and there are so many other mobile platforms that are still kicking. Under the current CEO I have no confidence that webOS is going to survive in any useful form. ~~~ chc I would say WebOS actually had outsized development support given its anemic support from its parents. ------ patd The CEO of Samsung denied it: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-02/samsung- electronics...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-02/samsung-electronics- says-it-won-t-pursue-hp-s-webos.html) But HTC could be interested: [http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL...](http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201109120009) ~~~ darksaga I remember seeing the Palm Pre 3 at the HP WebOS event and thinking it was going to be huge. A lot of people were comparing it the Droid Bionic at the time. I think the OS has a lot of potential in the right hands - but I can't think of any company who would want it. HTC has already had great success in running Android on their handsets, and really has no need to spend a ton of money to get it tested and implemented on some future handset. Maybe they'd pick it for a tablet line?? ------ NameNickHN Samsung already owns a smartphone OS - Bada. Why would they want another one? ------ wavephorm They don't need to buy an operating system, because operating systems and native applications are becoming obsolete. Everything is going web, whether people like it or not. Apple's success with IOS has tricked a lot of other companies, like Microsoft and RIM, into believing they need to compete directly on. I think Samsung is a lot smarter than people think. Really all they need is a phone with a good web browser because the underlying system is becoming only a support system to access the web. ~~~ mmatants Isn't WebOS basically like that already? From what I understand, it uses most of the same tooling as regular HTML apps, just with some OS hooks. But then I don't know much. If that's the case, then it's the closest to what you describe out of the mobile OSes out there. ~~~ wavephorm WebOS is still a native platform, you happen to build native apps using html and js. I mean native apps themselves are going to largely be phased out in the coming years. Samaung should be building something more like Google's ChromeOS.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Formally Verified Software in the Real World (2018) - icc97 https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/10/231372-formally-verified-software-in-the-real-world/fulltext ====== tpaschalis Second day in a row where HN frontpage features formally verified software! If you're like me, and would like to get started, or just see what this is all about, the TLA+ homepage and video course (narrated by Leslie Lamport himself), is a nice resource [1]. In about half an hour you will have a brief understanding of what "formal specification languages" are, write and 'prove' your first small program/spec. If you have another hour to spend, keep the cheatsheet [2] near you and follow through, you will write and 'prove' more complex specs, plus you'll start thinking about systems in a more abstract way. Finishing up the video course you'll be able to start reading complex specs others have written, or write a spec for any algorithm you think is fun! [1] [https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html) [2] [https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/summary- standalone.pdf](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/summary-standalone.pdf) ~~~ drharby I really want this to be a sarcastic post demonstrating how thinly veiled some pr efforts are ------ dahfizz Kind of a dumb question: have any operating systems been formally verified? Unless you are running an embedded application, verifying your software seems kind of pointless if you are still at the mercy of "unverified" system calls, memory manager, scheduler, etc etc. ~~~ kccqzy Green Hills Software has the Integrity operating system rated to EAL6+, which stands for "Semiformally Verified Design and Tested" so almost there but not quite. But honestly it's not something you would want to use in daily life. ~~~ heyjudy Not to the rigor seL4 has, with multiple-levels of verification. ~~~ kccqzy Yes I agree, but still with significantly more rigor than your typical operating system (Linux, Windows, macOS). ------ jschwartzi I have wanted to see a real-world use of seL4 in a safety-critical system since I heard about it 2 years ago. This is really impressive, and I'm very happy to see this here. ------ nestorD The exemple I was given while studying the subject is that the sofware for the driverless metro line 14 in Paris has been proven in Coq. ~~~ fuklief Are you sure on that? It was B method they used afaik. ~~~ cpeterso Wikipedia says B-Method. Parts of the train control system use OpenVMS! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro_Line_14](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro_Line_14) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Closure of NM solar observatory a mystery - DyslexicAtheist https://www.abqjournal.com/1219922/nm-solar-observatory-closed-authorities-mum.html ====== eitally Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17978598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17978598) ~~~ dang Thanks. We moved the other comments there.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Life of a Forgotten employee - jcslzr http://shii.org/knows/American_Dream ====== AngryParsley I'm surprised none of the comments (so far) are critical of the author. What's the point of mooching if you're not going to use that time productively? Eventually he'll have to find a new job, and not very many places want candidates with 5 years experience in pretending to work. I can understand a few weeks of slacking, but any longer than that and I would go stir-crazy. Instead of playing games or browsing the web, he could have used his idle time to find an interesting job or hobby. He could have read books or learned a new language (computer or human). He had an opportunity to make money while improving himself, and he squandered it. Edit: I think it's likely the story is exaggerated, but I've been in a similar situation. I used my free time to interview for other jobs and study/practice/learn. It's so easy to fall into the trap of wasting time in exactly the same way every day. ~~~ dagw >not very many places want candidates with 5 years experience in pretending to work. Except as far as any one else was concerned he had 5 years of experience "running the company" and he had the Vice President as a reference to back him up on that. I don't think it would be any harder for him to get a job than if he'd spent those 5 years actually doing his job ~~~ AngryParsley How does the saying go? I think it's, "The half-life of a CS degree is 7 years." (Yes I know he got his masters in physics in the story.) Being out of practice, he'd probably have trouble answering interview questions and writing code. ~~~ dagw He's a manager, he doesn't have to write code. He just has to show up at meetings and tell people to tell people to write code. ~~~ gaius Dagw if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times: write some code. And where's that TPS report? ------ lvecsey Is the moral of the story that everyone has the same useless role? And that the need to BS is a primitive, corporate instinct where everyone ends up sending globes to each other. ~~~ jamesbressi The truth is scarier than the most outlandish lie. ------ forinti This is why I find it funny that civil servants have such a bad reputation. This sort of thing happens in all big corporations and government is just another big corporation. ------ jdietrich I believe you have my stapler? ------ snikolov It's kind of sad that it goes from 'struggling to comprehend superstring theory' to being an unknown speck at <random company>. ~~~ houseabsolute Agreed, it was a waste of time to try to understand a theory that predicts nothing and can't be tested. ------ stevenwei Entertaining...I'm pretty sure it's fictional though. ~~~ metamemetics I'm not so sure, there have been more ridiculous true stories on SA. ~~~ metamemetics Correction: The user's name was "moonshine" as stated in the article and he has admitted to making it all up before. ------ robgough I can't decide if I want this to be real or not. ------ minalecs great story.. long, but worth the read. ------ starkfist The book "Whatever" by Michel Houellebecq does this much better. ------ earl Something similar happened to me, but it didn't have a happy ending. My last year in college I had to stay for fall semester because of scheduling issues with a required class, so I needed a job for a summer. A local firm -- and let's name names: Marshall Erdman, since purchased by Cogdell Spencer <http://www.cogdell.com/> \-- offered me a programming job. I accepted about 4 weeks before I started, and in doing so, turned down other job offers. My fourth working day, my boss, her boss, and an entire wing of people were laid off. In typical classy fashion, people figured out who was going when they couldn't login to outlook. Somehow they forgot about me though. So I literally spent the next 6 working days finishing already assigned work and coming to work in a wing of the office that was literally deserted except for me. Finally, I walked into the president's office and asked what I should do. I got a general, "huh?" reception; HR fired me that day. Of course, these assholes gave me no severance or anything else -- they just said, "Oops, our bad." Since I was in college, I didn't exactly have much savings and normally by the end of the semester I was living paycheck to paycheck so this couldn't have come at a worse time. I managed to string together enough jobs to make rent, but it was a close call. And employers wonder why employees don't feel any loyalty :rolleyes: I applaud the author of the post above; I should have done the same thing. ------ eli_s awesome read. very funny in parts. a couple of gems: _'I was talking, nodding absent-mindedly to myself, engaged in a pretend conversation with my pants'_ and _'Nothing had prepared me for a meeting. Therefore I decided on the smartest possible thing to do - ignore it like that lump on my balls.'_	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Letter to a Young PL Enthusiast - vamsee http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2010/06/letter-to-young-pl-enthusiast.html ====== jules > Ignore the siren calls of the virtual machines. You have to be the master of > your domain. Use C or assembler to implemente your language. The free Unices > are your friends. Learne about the internals of your operating system, how > it compiles, links, loads, and runs executables, the fruits of your labor. > Learn about calling conventions, system calls, and the god-given hierarchy > of the memory. Might want to skip the low level stuff and quickly get to business with high level libraries like the Dynamic Language Runtime. ~~~ pwpwp Sure. But IME, somewhat paradoxically, the lower you go, the more freedom you gain. Not to speak of understanding. ~~~ jules True, but if you have a great idea for a new language you really don't want to spend _years_ implementing your own code generator, garbage collector, runtime system and standard library; you want to get a useful language as quickly as possible. As an educational experience doing everything yourself from the machine code layer up is great, but for getting stuff off the ground it's not. ~~~ prog I agree that the VM can be a lot of work. However, some language features may need support from the VM. E.g. Scala and Clojure don't have full TCO support as JVM doesn't support that (yet!). If a languages uses an existing VM, it may need to work around the VM limitation. I suspect thats the reason Jython is slower than CPython even though JVM is much faster than the CPython VM. IMO the big advantage of using a mature existing VM is the library. It should be possible to have at least a usable GC (say simple mark-and-sweep), code generator etc. without too much effort. ~~~ Scriptor It'd be a good idea to decide on what features you want most and whether the disadvantages of a VM offset its advantages. Although Clojure lacks TCO, it's already gotten very popular very quickly, maybe more than other lisps. Hard data for the JVM's role in this is the poll posted not long ago that showed many Clojure programmers were former Java programmers. I'm also working on a cross-language compiler and have a question about TCO, specifically tail recursion. Currently my language compiles a tail-recursed function's body into a while loop. Don't Scala and Clojure do the same, except using the actual bytecode? ~~~ prog > I'm also working on a cross-language compiler and have a question about TCO, > specifically tail recursion. Currently my language compiles a tail-recursed > function's body into a while loop. Don't Scala and Clojure do the same, > except using the actual bytecode? I know Scala does it at function level (i.e. the function calls itself at tail position). I think Clojure have a 'recur' keyword to similar effect. The issue with JVM is that if f() calls g() at tail position and g() calls f() at tail position, it can't be optimized away (at least not without an undue amount of work so the advantage is lost). Clojure uses a trampoline[1] based approach to handle such a situation. I think Scala 2.8 also adds support for that. This works well with constant space, the only issue is that its a performance hit as its not done by the VM. [1] [http://richhickey.github.com/clojure/clojure.core- api.html#c...](http://richhickey.github.com/clojure/clojure.core- api.html#clojure.core/trampoline) ~~~ dfox compiling self-recursive function into loop catches many cases of tail recursion but certainly not all. Real TCO requires some support from VM to be efficient (if you don't care about efficiency it is possible to fake it with exceptions). ------ mdon Kind of funny that the only negative listed for C# is "(it) hails from the evil Northwest." A backhanded way of saying C# is really nice. ~~~ pwpwp You are right. C# is a cool language, especially v4.0, and originally, I wanted to add that to the post. ------ speek This is inspiring to me, as a young computer scientist. Maybe I'll go off to create my own language and OS. ~~~ nostrademons Be aware that it is a giant rathole. If you're looking for something commercially viable that might actually make a difference in the world, you're better off in a field like information retrieval, machine learning, geo, or image/audio processing. There seems to be a siren's call of language/OS/editor development, though. If you really can't resist it, go do it. At the very least, you'll learn a lot, and it beats CRUDscreen Web2.0 apps as a mental exercise. But other fields of CS are much, much, more useful. ~~~ FraaJad In your opinion, what languages have the best return on investment when it comes to IR, ML and related data sciences? ~~~ nostrademons In my opinion, languages don't matter as much as the underlying algorithms. Learn the math, and then you can implement them in any language. ...but if you had to choose, I'd say to learn Python so you can prototype quickly, and then C++ so you can make it run fast in production. The two also have the nice benefit of working quite well together, so that you can push things into the C++ layer as you understand them better, and keep experimenting by gluing together those libraries with Python. ~~~ dedward And we used to say prototype in C++ and then re-implement in C to make it fast in production. The math and the algorithms are important - but one shouldn't dismiss a fundamental understanding of the lower levels of the system - even though they'll change over time and you probably won't have to "go there". Real-world software runs on real-world systems, and there is no reason for a budding computer scientist to deprive himself of at least a cursory understanding of how things work underneath - you never know when he'll want to break out of the toolset Vendor X provides him and do something radical and new (like implement something in hardware, or recognizing there is some feature there he can use to massive real-world benefit) ------ gruseom Well now, this gem was unexpected: _you must create a programming language, or be enslav'd by another man's._ William Blake allusion FTW! Nothing at all is lost. ~~~ arethuza The original is: "I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's; I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create" From "Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion": [http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq?work...](http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq?workid=jerusalem&java=no) ------ kabdib Write the debugger first. You'll need it anyway. And it will provide /much/ insight into your mistakes. ------ thunk It's odd that he dismisses most existing Lisps, then advises the reader to create their own. I wasn't sure if he meant it pedagogically or pragmatically or both. ~~~ pwpwp Good question. I think that the crux is that if you're enthusiastic about PLs, you have to create your own or be enslaved by another man's. That's my feeling at least. And on the way to creating your own PL, you'll also learn to appreciate the existing PLs and implementations better, and learn to live with them, warts and all. ~~~ thunk Gotcha. And an influx of new and experimental Lisps is always welcome. ~~~ pwpwp Right on :) ------ teaspoon Question from someone who maybe doesn't spend enough time examining PLs: How is JavaScript "like assembler with hashtables"? What "messed-up-ness" are Python and Ruby legendary for? ~~~ pwpwp First, you should take the whole post with more than a grain of salt. ;) Re JavaScript, I'm referring to the lowlevel nature of many of its constructs: \- its impoverished way to pass parameters (i.e. there are no keyword parameters; you don't get an error if you pass too many or too few arguments) \- its impoverished exception handling (i.e. you can't catch exceptions of a specified type) \- its impoverished standard library and built-in data structures \- its lowlevel and complicated OOP system There's more, see [http://pwpwp.blogspot.com/2009/08/awesome-helma-and- lacking-...](http://pwpwp.blogspot.com/2009/08/awesome-helma-and-lacking- javascript.html) Re Python and Ruby, I'm mostly referring to the fact that both languages started out with broken lexical scoping, and had to change their scoping rules repeatedly, which is a huge red warning sign. Additionally, it seems very hard to implement both languages so that they run fast, another factor. Ruby also has an array of different kinds of first-class functions (blocks, procs, lambdas, I lost track), with different capabilities and restrictions, which is a design failure to me. That said, I think they're acceptable languages, even if they force you to memorize a lot of irrelevant stuff. ~~~ nostrademons JavaScript has a certain elegance to the minimalism, though, much like Scheme: \- You can emulate keyword parameters by passing an 'options' dict, and you can emulate defaults by 'var myOpt = options.myOpt \|\| default". You can also define a function, like $.extend, to do this for you. \- You can catch exceptions of a specified type by checking the type and rethrowing if it's not appropriate. And you can define a function to do this for you: function try_catch_if(exc_type, body, exc_handler) { try { body(); } catch (e) { if (e instanceof exc_type) { exc_handler(); } else { throw e; } } } \- You can define your own standard library a la JQuery or YUI, or even modify the built-in one a la Prototype (though I don't recommend this). And the built-in data structures aren't all that bad. \- You can build whatever OOP system you want on top of prototypes, and many libraries do just that. (In this respect, it's quite similar to Scheme, where every programmer starts by defining his own incompatible object system). Most of the sucky parts of JavaScript come from it _introducing_ things that weren't really thought through, eg. the 'this' keyword nonsense is ridiculous, as is the lack of argument-checking by default. ~~~ sreque You can build your own keyword-argument passing style, exception handling, standard library, and OOP system with assembly as well. Most of would rather start with a language that got these features right in the first place, rather than defending languages that didn't. ------ j_baker This is a decently thought-out article, but it's important to remember that programming language design is as much an art as any other form of programming if not moreso. ------ aerique Funny, I don't understand the only one that sort of applies to me: "Syntax is the Maya of programming". ~~~ rntz <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)> I'm not sure which part you didn't understand; this is my best guess. I believe the author is trying to say that syntax is a superficial appearance, and not relevant to - indeed, a distraction from - understanding the true beauty or ugliness, utility or disutility, of the concepts embodied in a language. ~~~ aerique At first I didn't understand the whole paragraph (I had just woken up :-) ) and then it was just the Maya part. I didn't understand his use of Maya. Thanks for the explanation. It seems the author and I have got a similar view on syntax (how can we not since we both seems to admire Alan Perlis!).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Political data on over 198M US citizens exposed - kjhughes http://gizmodo.com/gop-data-firm-accidentally-leaks-personal-details-of-ne-1796211612 ====== sctb Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14586833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14586833).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
695k TPS with Node.js and VoltDB - dscape http://voltdb.com/company/blog/695k-tps-nodejs-and-voltdb ====== MichaelGG I'd like to add an independent voice too. I tried VoltDB out around a year ago. Ran it on 3 servers, with k=1 (all data replicated on 2 nodes). Servers were Dell PowerEdge 860 - only 8GB RAM, and a Q6600 quad-core processor. They cost maybe $500 or so. Even with a low-end buildout, I was able to hit around 110k TPS. This wasn't one of VoltDB's sample apps; it was a small proof-of- concept for a telecom application. They don't seem to be riding the hype train. As far as open source: I was using the .NET client, and fixed a few issues with it. The folks at VoltDB were really responsive about working with me and accepting my patches. They also took time to explain the inner workings, sorta give me a launching point to investigating the core code. Pretty good experience for a commercial open source project. ~~~ signa11 > it was a small proof-of-concept for a telecom application. would you describe what telecom application this was ? was it billing, ocs, pcrf or something else ? thanks ! ~~~ MichaelGG Yes, very basic realtime billing/CDR storage. With traditional DBs, I have to resort to batching balance: Read N messages from queue, compute overall balance updates, then apply at once. With VoltDB, I can just fire off records as they come in. ------ jqueryin TITLE DISCLAIMER: 695k using 20 fairly large machines I was, at first glance, pretty impressed with the 695k TPS title claim. Upon reading the article, it became apparent that this was based on running 8 8-core EC2 m2.4xlarge instances for node.js in addition to 12 8-core EC2 m2.4xlarge instances for VoltDB. In terms of server architecture, this is quite a large setup. Just for an idea of how big of a machine we're talking for each of these instances: High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance 68.4 GB of memory 26 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each) 1690 GB of instance storage 64-bit platform I/O Performance: High API name: m2.4xlarge $1.800 an hour running Linux on demand $864.00 a day baseline for 20 of these This isn't meant to discredit the author or work, just to make sure it's apparent that this solution is for serious businesses only with deep pockets and boatloads of traffic. You'd be spending _$26,784_ for the servers alone over a 31 day period if using them on demand. The results are definitely impressive for the right target audience. ~~~ spullara I'm not sure if I am supposed to be impressed or not. On my macbook pro with 1 redis master and 1 redis slave I can do about 300k updates / second to the master replicated to the slave. Comparable? Who knows? These benchmarks don't mean much to me -- what matters is performance for your application. ~~~ arielweisberg I'll start by saying I dig Redis. I wish we had a storage engine that offered some of the kinds of flexibility that Redis does. If I were making Volt from scratch I would embed Redis or something with flexible schema and secondary indexes and spend less time working on SQL and more time working on distributed functionality. >These benchmarks don't mean much to me -- what matters is performance for your application. Very true. Think about how you would implement an application like Voter in Redis. Voter is an event counting app that applies business logic server side to do what is basically fraud detection. Let's take a look at what each of these transactions is. [https://github.com/VoltDB/voltdb/blob/master/examples/voter/...](https://github.com/VoltDB/voltdb/blob/master/examples/voter/src/voter/procedures/Vote.java) 3 statements and an entire round trip to validate data is kosher. 1 insert/update statement that is actually updating two different summary views You would need to implement your own locking to get the isolation necessary to implement the business logic and there would be at least two round trips for each vote. You would also have to write your own code to maintain the materialized view used to print the summary. Sure you could implement the validation logic client side, but then you lose the ability to transactionally update said logic and the state it depends on. With the new scripting functionality in Redis you would be able to do it in one round trip but you would still end up writing your own code for the view and rollback. How you will attach a debugger to debug your server side logic is also worth considering. I mistakenly wrote that Redis doesn't cache Lua scripts, but it actually does. Now that you have server side logic you will also probably want to start maintaining replicated state to make some of your transactions single shard transactions. With Redis you are on your own for updating replicated state in a way that stays consistent across the cluster even when restoring different shards. Also, no matter how fast Redis is you may reach a point where you have run out of disk/network IO, or even CPU. Now you are looking at sharding Redis. You are probably going to want to maintain replicated state to make more of your transactions single shard transactions. With Redis you are on your own for updating replicated state in a way that stays consistent across the cluster even when restoring different shards. Don't forget re-sharding and backups which are now your problem. You definitely want to be able to roll back to before that last application update that corrupted your data. Don't forget that you will need to bring the replicas up in the correct state as well. Preferably in parallel with bringing up the master since you are down right now, and it would be nice if it resharded at the same time since you took this opportunity to add capacity. Redis cluster is coming, but it isn't here today and depending on the application you may not want to risk it not being ready when the time comes. You should at least double the number of ops (where an op is roundtrip to the DB) done by Volt if not more. That said, doing half as much work inside the procedure doesn't make it twice as fast and doing twice as much doesn't make it twice as slow. The dominant cost for such a trivial operation is not the operation itself. Redis is much better at this because it is single threaded and written in C. My bet is that the number of instructions and cache misses to accept and execute a command in Redis is much smaller because the execution engine isn't dealing with stored procedures, schema, undo logging, SQL, and code expecting to deal with distributed transactions even if none are in play. >I'm not sure if I am supposed to be impressed or not. If you haven't tl;dr-ed already I'd call it good. ------ carterschonwald So voltdb is an in memory SQL Db with some durability and replication functionality. Is there any good documents on how it compares with some of its competitors/ who are its competitors? ~~~ MichaelGG I think durability should not be defined in terms of actual backing hardware. VoltDBs transactions commit and stay committed. If you restore from a backup, just like any other database, you'll have data loss until the backup point. What if my hard drive crashes when it loses power? At that point I'm in the same position as when I lose RAM. VoltDB is often compared to other in-memory NoSQL systems, although I'm not aware of any that actually offer cross-server transactions. VoltDB is best when you have a high volume OLTP workload and need to really scale beyond what traditional RDBMS can do. Edit: Here's a benchmark using VoltDB as a key-value store: <http://voltdb.com/company/blog/key-value-benchmarking> ~~~ maratd > What if my hard drive crashes when it loses power? At that point I'm in the > same position as when I lose RAM. Oh sure, except that the probability of losing your hard drive when you lose power is about 1 in a _very_ big number. Whereas, the probability of losing the contents of your RAM when you lose power is 100%. Now, MySQL (and in fact, most RDBMS outfits) provide tools for fixing corrupt data. But you actually need corrupt data to fix. That's the entire point of a hard drive. I'm sure VoltDB would be perfect for a chat application or something of that nature. It would be terrible for anything that involved the transfer of $$$ (banking, ecommerce, etc). ~~~ jhugg VoltDB Community Edition uses synchronous intra-cluster replication, as well as rolling on-disk snapshots for durability. The Enterprise Edition adds a synchronous or asynchronous command log (a logical journal) as well as asynchronous multi-cluster replication. The VoltDB blog has a series of posts covering command logging in detail: <http://voltdb.com/company/blog/intro-voltdb-command-logging> <http://voltdb.com/company/blog/voltdb-command-logging-replay> [http://voltdb.com/company/blog/voltdb-command-logging- option...](http://voltdb.com/company/blog/voltdb-command-logging-options) In short, VoltDB offers tunable durability from single-node purely in-memory, all the way up to synchronous disk storage on multiple local nodes and multiple asynchronous copies in another data center. All options are fully transactional. All options are extremely performant. We've worked very hard to make durability and performance not mutually exclusive. We have internally achieved six-figure TPS numbers using synchronous writes (requires a disk controller with a BBU, or a decent SSD). ------ purplefox If you think node.js is fast try <http://vertx.io>. It's like node but isn't single threaded so scales over multiple cores without having to fork. Also it's polyglot so you can don't have to use JS if you don't want. I'm hoping to publish some performance results vs node.js before our 1.0.final release in the next few weeks. ~~~ kolev How does vert.x compare to to Apache Deft? ------ amouat Is EC2 really the right way to do these tests? I would have thought it would introduce unwanted variables related to network congestion and server load caused by other EC2 users. ~~~ jhugg You might get a better number on bare metal, and you certainly won't get a worse one, so in a sense it's not ideal. On the other hand, a big chunk of the web is run from AWS. Demonstrating performance there implies performance in many places. It's also an easily reproducible environment, which is helpful for benchmarking. ------ tferris Sounds nice. Some questions: \- I assume you did the tests with direct SQL statements without any ORM? How would an ORM affect the test's performance (with an Node.JS-ORM of your choice, e.g. sequelize)? \- How does Node+VoltDB compare to i.e. Node+PostgreSQL or Node+MySQL \- What does in memory SQL exactly mean? How is data made persistent? ~~~ MichaelGG VoltDB doesn't really support ad-hoc SQL. It can execute ad-hoc by flipping a flag, but performance is achieved by using stored procedures. You write the sprocs in Java, and their compiler looks at the SQL statements and optimizes. VoltDB smokes other RDBMS (Postgres, MySQL, MSSQL, etc.) for certain OLTP workloads because it stays purely in-memory, _but removes all locking_. Normal databases spend a huge amount of time dealing with locks, even if the memory is in RAM. VoltDB was based on the H-Store project; you can read more about the ideas at [1]. Making transactions execute serially[2] adds latency to an individual transaction, but the point with VoltDB is to send tons of transactions so that there's always work queued up. You should be able to get average latency of, say, 10ms for the type of app mentioned here. I'm surprised it's not mentioned in the blog post. (Maybe on EC2, the latency numbers were less-than-ideal, but throughput was fine.) SQL and ACID have nothing to do with the backing store. Using RAM is just as valid as using disk. Practically, with VoltDB you're going to set the "k factor" - number of replicas you want. This allows you to lose k servers without suffering data loss (put batteries on the servers; that should be pretty good). There's a snapshot backup feature, and the enterprise edition has a disk logger to further minimize the loss window in case of catastrophic failure. 1: <http://hstore.cs.brown.edu/publications/> 2: More or less. Servers are sync'd via NTP, allowing one to know when it's safe to run a specific transaction. There's also some ways Volt might know when one tx is independent and safe to run before another. ~~~ pron Well, it removes all locking and achieves scalability only if you partition (shard) the data and don't have cross-partition transactions. ~~~ fredholahan VoltDB does support cross-partition transactions. They're not as fast as single-partition transactions, of course, because you're doing them over a network. But distributed transactions have been a supported feature since 1.0. ~~~ pron Right, that's what I meant. You only get scalability as long as you don't have cross-partition transactions. ------ olalonde > that’s beneficial to the scaling architectures of both Node.js That's not very accurate (unless you run multiple Node.js processes). See [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2387724/node-js-on- multi-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2387724/node-js-on-multi-core- machines) ------ salimmadjd looks very interesting. If I architect a tracking system again, I'd look at this setup.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Timelion: The time series composer for Kibana – Elastic - rbanffy https://www.elastic.co/blog/timelion-timeline?ultron=luke-warm-email17&blade=touch-email&hulk=email&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0Rjd1lqZzBNMkpsWVdFeCIsInQiOiJSYWw1RmJmNkpWTHJTWDdHeDM2c1I5TVFuVDYyZFN5MUVQTmRCVEVUR2grNVZcL1FJTklpZHZoK1diQmc3UWlzWXRvZG5jWWc5SnhXUk5jRW00N05EdTVUM29COE1iQXJ6eEh4SjR5Q0pmeW00Vkt2MFJJdkZkcG1sTUNsZEdYNVUifQ%3D%3D ====== pmontra > Timelion, pronounced "Timeline" Does that comes naturally to native English speakers, especially with the lion icon at the left of the name in the product dashboard?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Two Types of Friends You Make on Facebook - Or Why I Use Facebook Less - dreambird http://thefastertimes.com/theweb/2010/07/14/why-i-use-facebook-less-and-less/?preview=true&preview_id=123&preview_nonce=44ba7479be ====== spooneybarger Right now, I just get a 'you are not permitted to view drafts' message. ~~~ nudge This link works: [http://thefastertimes.com/theweb/2010/07/14/why-i-use- facebo...](http://thefastertimes.com/theweb/2010/07/14/why-i-use-facebook- less-and-less/) ~~~ spooneybarger thanks	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Live data from Chandra satellite - helwr http://cxc.harvard.edu/mta/G15.html ====== helwr About: <http://chandra.harvard.edu/about/tracking.html>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
With 200M daily users, Giphy will soon test sponsored GIFs - mcone https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/31/with-200m-daily-users-giphy-will-soon-test-sponsored-gifs/ ====== anilgulecha Unit economics never works out for gifs. It's historically not worked out well for normal JPG image hosts. It will most definitely not work out for hosting files in a teriibly un-optimized video codec. I think the whatsapp deal probably works out -- but how many of those will such companies bank against. One hope could be that disk and network prices become low enough to sustain some small profit, but when that happens a dozen other hosts will pop up. A gif website isn't hard to host. ~~~ downandout Supposedly Imgur is profitable and has been since Day 1. So not everyone in this space is destined to crash and burn. ~~~ rhc2104 It seems like Imgur was profitable from Day 1, but the early days were profitable through donations! [https://www.neowin.net/news/from-rags-to-riches-the-story- of...](https://www.neowin.net/news/from-rags-to-riches-the-story-of-imgur) Quote: "Imgur has always been profitable right from the very beginning and the only time I ever had to spend money on it was for the initial domain name because as soon as I released it, people liked it so much that they were donating and so Imgur survived for the first six months just purely on donations." ~~~ hayd Right... then they took VC $$$$$, over-hired and now they're not. ------ beager I liked a lot of what Giphy was doing with TV show parsing and captioning, I feel like that could be a huge vector for sponcon, but this announcement about sponsored GIFs and ad sales sounds go generalized on its face that I'm not sure it will be fruitful. Is BMW going to buy sponsored GIFs? Is McDonald's? Are major CPG companies going to buy sponsored GIFs? I think TV shows and major studios have a good use case for this, but even if the sales are constrained to suitable markets, and healthy, will those sales support a $600mm valuation, or even keep the lights on? Ad sales work well when you control a platform with a lot of eyeball-share, and when you have strong profiling. I don't think Giphy will have much of either, and if they do, I think the they won't have all of those attributes available (i.e., giphy.com is hard to build facebook-level profiling on, but is easy to control ad units on, GIF keyboards/facebook/various integrations are high-eyeball, but someone else controls the profiling and you can't control the ad units etc). ~~~ dave5104 Starbucks did this back in 2015: [http://www.adweek.com/digital/starbucks- whips-21-branded-gif...](http://www.adweek.com/digital/starbucks- whips-21-branded-gifs-starring-frappuccino-164691/) I could see them being a clear buyer here. Some of the GIFs in that article are clear, in-your-face ads, but some of the others are a bit more subtle... yet still probably achieve Starbucks' ad goals. As for Giphy reach... I use Giphy on Facebook Messenger, Discord, and probably a few other places that I'm unaware of. They hook into a LOT of places. ~~~ InternetUser "hook into a LOT of places" \- That optimism isn't well supported by acquisitions and IPOs in recent years. I maintain that the "pop-culture-image sharing" craze, which obviously includes gifs, hit its monetary-value peak when Yahoo bought Tumblr in May 2013 for $1.1B. It's been more than 4 YEARS since then, and what goin' on with Pinterest? I mean they are now 7 years into their existence and have neither IPO'd nor been acquired. Meanwhile, Imgur keeps chugging along--though downward, and since Reddit began hosting its own images, Imgur's decline has only accelerated, as even the Google Trends popularity graph reflects [0]. VIDEO is the future, and with AR, VR, and mixed reality on the rise (where the Almighty Facebook's Oculus is actually 5th place in sales [1]), images and gifs are looking about as exciting as innovations in the design of mobile flip phones. Snap, with Snapchat, went public earlier this year, but I don't think they ever could have done if they remained merely a _photo_ -messaging app, rather than a photo- _and-video_ messaging app, as well as a news-publishing app and now a TV app with its own proprietary programming. [0] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=imgur,re...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=imgur,reddit) [1] [https://uploadvr.com/psvr-vive-superdata- sales/](https://uploadvr.com/psvr-vive-superdata-sales/) ------ ejlangev Good luck living up to that $600 million valuation with sponsored gifs before running out of money. Seems they raised 55 on 300 in February 2016 and then 72 on 600 in October 2016. Seems like a lot of money to be burning for a gif search engine. ~~~ nolok > $600 million valuation Holy moly, good luck with that ... I think there is a place for a company like theirs, at a much smaller valuation, running and making profits. But now that they took VC money on such a high value, they're bound to do all the classic tricks to burn through money keeping the illusion going ... ~~~ lazyjones But if they only make $1/year profit on each of their 200M DAU, the valuation is easily justified. I'm sure FB, Google make much more than that and I haven't clicked on their ads for years. ~~~ rplnt FB did over a $5/year on a monthly active user in 2016. But they (and Google) are much better positioned at selling ads than a funny gifs engine ever could be. ~~~ Sholmesy These are still 200 million pairs of eyes every day on their product. VC funding has looked like a joke recently, but 200million _daily_ users at $600M doesn't seem ridiculous, regardless of how silly/bad the product is. ~~~ rplnt But that's just users viewing content there, not interacting with the site at all. I'm sure imageshack had those numbers, easily. Until something better (read not monetized) came along to replace it for a while. ~~~ Sholmesy You might be right. I've never thought of giphy as just an image hosting platform though. It's more about the integrations with apps that is their edge. Something imageshack/imgur never really nailed. ~~~ riffraff but how is that integration monetizable? The moment `/giphy cat` in slack returns sponsored content is the exact moment people will disable it. ~~~ Sholmesy Same. But I think there are variations on this that work/make money. `/giphy football` could return some relevant superbowl sponsored gif as one of the first N gifs. Kinda like how google gives you 3 "relevant" ads before showing you the actual search content. Start subtle, get more and more brash as time goes and people won't notice. I guess making it work without people leaving is the $600M question. ------ debacle I'm almost certain giphy is already testing sponsored gifs, or someone is dark patterning giphy's search engine. Every once in a while in slack, /giphy would return a gif that was 100% an ad and 100% not relevant to the parameters passed. ------ jdross Maybe a wrong way to view this, but Google does ~1,200B searches per year, market cap of ~650B. Assuming giphy does an average of 2 searches / user / day, that's ~150B searches per year. Put another way, 1/8 of Google search volume. I think it's reasonable to believe the average Giphy search can eventually monetize at > 1% of the average Google search query. Especially if Gif searches sometimes have intent. ~~~ beager I think that number one, your assumption about search volume is very hard to ascertain: do they have 200mm DAU? MAU? Total users? What's the total search volume per day? Is it ~450mm? Are all of those searches monetizable? Is the revenue per search on par with Google's? I think there are huge gaps to fill in before we can understand what the value of monetized search on Giphy is vis a vis Google. ~~~ choward Are you sure it's not just because it's impossible to find things so people search more? ------ forkLding I think a lot of people here are pessimistic about Giphy just because they took on huge VC funding, but if Giphy can maintain and grow its user base and be able to monetize and earn a profit of .5 dollars per user per yr, then it would have earned 100M in profit. I know it will be hard but thats entrepreneurship, its never easy ~~~ cwkoss Giphy is such a useless product, I have trouble imagining them being able to monetize for more that 0.10/user/year. Not only is it a timewaster application (why would a business pay for employees to use it), but it also does a poor job of search - its main selling point. Baffling that anyone believes it's worth $600M. ~~~ boyce Do you think the search problems are the barrier to their monetisation because surely that's a problem money can easily fix ~~~ cwkoss I think they could only solve their search problem by hiring an army of minimum wage gif classifiers to curate the attachment tags and labels to each gif. That would make their search usable, but still not sure what the market for gifs is. I don't see any good way to compel their end users to pay for the service, and ads will fundamentally degrade the utility of the service even further. They've essentially built a poorly-functioning toy and are getting investors as if they are a B2B SaaS service. What is their value-add? Is there any economic utility in being able to quickly find a gif? ~~~ sbarre > Is there any economic utility in being able to quickly find a gif? Giphy gets used all the time in my company's Slack channels.. It's a morale thing I think (at least a bit).. People enjoy putting a bit of fun into the work chat, in a way that's acceptable (in our office culture - don't want to speak for everyone) and low-effort.. If Giphy was suddenly 5-10$/month (like RightGif is for example), I think my company would gladly pay that to continue to let our employees use it during their work conversations. ~~~ cwkoss Fair enough. In my company's experience giphy only attaches a relevant gif around 25% of the time, the rest of the time the gif is an odd non-sequitur. Relevant and amusing gifs are probably closer to 5-10%. We used it a bunch when we first moved to slack, but now we probably use it less than once per day across the whole team. We'd turn it off without hesitation if we had to pay for it. ~~~ sbarre Yeah I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I definitely don't always get the most relevant GIF but that tends to add to the joke in most cases.. ;-) ------ peteretep > If Netflix doesn’t buy ads against "chill" I wonder if there's a potential issue with trademarks there. If "Netflix and chill" becomes popular enough, does Netflix end up just being a generic word for watching online TV? ~~~ maus42 I thought "watching" anything (or even having a Netflix subscription in the first place) wasn't obligatory part of the activity "Netflix and chill". ~~~ kyle-rb Related; Stallman said he wouldn't Netflix and chill, but he would agree to watch some local video files. [https://twitter.com/gexcolo/status/637383659318734849](https://twitter.com/gexcolo/status/637383659318734849) ------ dennyabraham I didn't know this wasn't already in prod. On numerous occasions, I've seen less-relevant gifs show up with an album link to a brand or product. It was what I expected the justification to be for the poor accuracy of gif search. ~~~ QAPereo Maybe that was a test run; otherwise it does seem downright bizarre, and I've had the same experiences. ------ cocktailpeanuts Do Giphy actually host Gifs anymore? I noticed how they make it very hard to actually access the image version, and even this image is in webp, so you can't embed it. It's all iframes. This is not saying they're bad, I totally can relate with their need to cut costs because just hosting these gifs for free and letting anyone <img src> them is not a profitable decision, but then again, it's not really Gif anymore. So even in this case the "sponsored gif" would probably be some sort of a video instead of an actual gif. Nowadays whenever I want to search for a gif I want to use for a blog post or website, I have given up looking for gifs on giphy and just go to google search instead. The "gifs" on giphy are unusable for my purpose. ~~~ wodenokoto Just like hoover or xerox, the would gif has transcended its "technical" meaning, and today it simply refers to a looped video without sound. ~~~ cocktailpeanuts I see your point but don't think it's an adequate analogy. Xerox still means photocopy and Hoover still means vacuum cleaning. Gif is something that used to exist for decades, not something giphy invented. ~~~ throwaway91111 Gif is far more useful as a media type rather than file format; and more than that, i don't think most people realize or care that they're actually watching some kind of video-sans-audio. ------ floatingatoll Dear Giphy, You know exactly how much each GIF served costs you. Charge that to a balance I keep on file on my account, and add autopay with a monthly spend limit. Let me indicate whether my GIF links should become sponsored or should simply return 1x1 transparent when my balance for the month runs out. I don't want a "premium monthly fee" account, I want you to charge me S3 delivery fees + 15% markup for the privilege of dealing with S3 for me. ~~~ reustle What if someone hotlinks your gif? Are you planning on using some kind of domain whitelist? How would that work? I like the idea, I just think enforcement is difficult. ------ kaikai Half the fun of using giphy through Slack was the risk of getting an awkwardly bad gif. Once there was a preview, folks in my Slacks stopped using it. I use the giphy website a couple times a week, but the search is terrible. It's my go-to choice purely because it's convenient, but there's no way I would ever pay for the service. If other users feel the way I do, sponsored gifs may be their only hope. ~~~ benburleson I also find myself cancelling Slack giphys because the results are so terrible, resulting in a constant decrease in usage over time. ------ khy I interact with Giphy exclusively through Slack. Am I a daily active user? ~~~ Theodores Me too, but I won't be /giphy if advertising comes along. ~~~ abraves10001 If the top result is advertised but still decent content and I still have the option to shuffle, I don't think that would deter me. ------ cwkoss 200M daily users seems like a suspect number. For comparison, Slack reports 5 million daily users: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/slack-is-reportedly- raisin...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/slack-is-reportedly-raising- another-huge-500m-round-of-funding/?ncid=rss) Seems like giphy is counting some things they shouldn't. If a giphy gets embedded on the page, maybe they count every single impression of that gif as a daily user? I'd be shocked if anywhere near 200M people actually had accounts on the giphy website. ~~~ tinus_hn WhatsApp allows you to send gifs you download and search for on the Giphy site. That probably accounts for a lot of users. ~~~ reustle Facebook messenger as well ------ z3t4 The moment they replace a gif image with ads it will kill all that goodwill. I do think _selling_ the gifs would work though. People (1) are willing to pay _a lot_ for attention/be cool/social/funny. The strategy will be to purge the Internet from gif images containing content from their partners, so that you can only find gif images from their site. 1) I'm glad HN doesn't allow gif images in the comments. If you are reading this you are probably not in the target group that might be willing to spend money on gif images. ------ blizkreeg We've certainly come a long way from when websites with gifs were annoying in the early web days to where there's a company with a GIF raison d'etre and a $600M price tag on it. ------ debt I originally was picturing like a normal gif but with an opening, intro ad. I think that's incorrect. I think ad-sponsored GIFs will be more popular and more legal then any other type of gif. I envision a future where we are all sending ad-company created gifs to each other without even noticing that they're created by ad companies. GIFs are so easy to make and so cheap, and they're used everywhere. ~~~ mcbits > I envision a future where we are all sending ad-company created gifs to each > other without even noticing that they're created by ad companies. I thought something like that was already happening in the form of PR firms producing contrived "reaction" GIFs with celebrities. ------ pmarreck I wonder how this will interact with them being sourced by Facebook's gif functionality, which has already broken a few times in the past month or 2, requiring you to physically go to Giphy's site to get a working link to the gif that you can paste manually in a Facebook comment ------ dboreham Google can't index GIFs??? ~~~ nolok I think it's a clear case of using "can't" to say "doesn't bother to because it's not worth it". In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that Google had great indexing of GIF already, but doesn't fully expose it in its search engine. ~~~ MikeFez Their keyboard (Gboard) has GIF searching functionality already - so it's certainly something they've implemented. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gboard-a-new-keyboard- from-g...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gboard-a-new-keyboard-from- google/id1091700242?mt=8) ------ dzhiurgis Worst imaging site if you’ve got autoplay disabled. ------ sAbakumoff I anticipate Giphy Movie to be released on our lifespan.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Anachro-PC – The Anachronistic Personal Computer - MindGods https://jamesmunns.com/blog/anachro-pc-001/ ====== traverseda I think there's definitely a market for some kind of "forever PC". A 20 year old PC is powerful enough to do a lot of stuff, and the really impressive part is that it wouldn't ever need to change significantly. Maybe something like the pico-8 "fantasy console" but for anachronistic "personal computing". Build some minimal apps that aren't user-friendly by today's standards but are nice and simple to program against and have good and simple UI paradigms. ------ michaelmior I find it interesting that commercial viability is "anti-goal" as opposed to a "non-goal." I can absolutely understand why practicality isn't the primary purpose, but why actively avoid it? (Unless I'm just misinterpreting the terminology.) ~~~ jamesmunns Just a turn of phrase. I suppose non-goal is more accurate, but as my day job is building embedded systems in Rust, sometimes it's good to strongly remind myself to keep hobby and work time separate. ------ v-yadli For anyone wondering about the CIPO /COPI thing instead of MOSI/MISO: [https://www.oshwa.org/a-resolution-to-redefine-spi-signal- na...](https://www.oshwa.org/a-resolution-to-redefine-spi-signal-names) ------ Jaruzel Conceptually, throwing a bunch of ICs, glue-logic, and some RAM etc. on a PCB is dead easy. The stumbling block here is the PC compatible BIOS. Is there an open source BIOS available that supports all the standard PC BIOS calls ? ~~~ pjc50 The result of the project on that blog will be something that looks very, very different from the PC compatible! The only thing it will share is the "personal computer" name. You probably _could_ build an ISA bus IBM compatible PC out of microcontrollers, and port one of the open source BIOSes to it, but the utility of such a thing is questionable. ~~~ Jaruzel Have you SEEN the price of working 8088/80286 boards on eBay?! :D Anything that gets people building more homebrew computers is a good thing in my book.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Your degree determines your salary: Choose wisely - volandovengo http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/education-degrees-that-almost-guarantee-jobs-1295023.html ====== comm_it Not just this, but your GCSEs and A-Levels too. I was actually turned down from a graduate job because my GCSEs were not all straight A, despite my A-Levels being so. Although this might seem a bit ridiculous from a graduate point of view, the market has become so saturated with graduates. So much so that these companies can be VERY selective, for no other reason than to get the number of people's CVs they have to look at down to a manageable amount. Additionally, just because you did a History degree, doesn't mean you have to do something USING that degree. University is an academic and educational pursuit, it isn't an apprenticeship.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Trademark lawyer to 3-man startup: hand over your domain–or else - velodrome http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/trademark-lawyer-to-3-man-startup-hand-over-your-domain-or-else/ ====== benologist This is exactly how trademarks are supposed to work... he used and protected the name first by several years and there is some similarity. It's unfortunate you didn't know that 2 years ago. ~~~ erikdykema Well. . . it isn't as clear as all that. To protect a mark, you have to do more than file a registration and buy a domain. You have to actually use it "in commerce" which is a rather stringent legal standard that changes on a per industry basis. It isn't clear that he is actually has been "using" the name in the manner required by trademark law, and you can't just have "token use" and keep a TM forever. It doesn't seem like any products are actually for sale under his mark, and it isn't being marketed, so it seems like he isn't using it "in commerce" in the way that TM law requires. Second, if you search the TM database there are approximately 40 registered names with "Case" in it, in the area of legal software; ergo it is a very common term in the legal software field. The standard for TM infringement is "likelihood of confusion", in other words, is a typical consumer going to be confused about the origin of the software. Even IF his marks were being used in a way which satisfied the "use in commerce" test, with all those Case* names out there there is no likelihood of confusion. In other words, if a consumer of legal software services is looking for his Case* mark, they are not going to be confused by the other 40 Case* marks, because consumers of legal services know that "Case" is a common term in the field and not all products named "Case*" are owned by the same person. ------ lightlyused CaseRails should patent their processes if they can and when the other person tries to enter that area, sue right back.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Freemium Vs. Premium - AndrewWarner http://michaelpriceless.com/freemium-vs-premium-which-is-better/08/25/2010/ ====== michaelpriceles Thanks for the post Andrew!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Trump Prepares to Unveil a Vast Reworking of Clean Water Protections - macawfish https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/climate/trump-clean-water-rollback.html ====== mindslight It is truly amazing how well these shitheads prey on our understandable frustration with the government to gather support, and redirect that energy into just creating more corruption to pad someone else's pocket. Even if downsizing pressure is applied evenly across the board, soft targets like the EPA take the damage while any reform that would actually cut into someone's bottom line remains unaffected. And the worst part is there will be countless cheerleaders who rationalize this action because the "other team" is upset. ~~~ dmix Yup I'm deep into the reducing government waste camp but of ALL the things to focus on that hurt business they focus on the one thing that's a compromise for something better, not just straight up wasteful interference in markets. There are a hundred better things to spend time on. There is an endless legacy of old agency mandates and legislation that started with good intentions to 'help the little guy' or whatnot that are a completely net negative for everyone (except a few politically connected companies). The EPA is not even a 'soft target', there are plenty of low hanging fruit. It's just a very public and obvious economic intervention, so it gets plenty of attention. Meanwhile the million other things the government has their hands in goes unnoticed. Politics is cancerous. ------ gdubs Vernal pools are an extremely important part of the ecosystem and also play a role in carbon sequestration. The background of all of this begins with a farmer named Duarte who plowed a wetland on his property and ended up with a huge fine. It became a divisive issue; some cried government overreach, others said he should have listened to the army corps of engineers. But there’s a reason we have an Environmental Protection Agency — people by- and-large aren’t going to go out of their way to protect these natural resources. There are exceptions, and I know conservation minded farmers — but if you look at the aggregate of farming in America, well, it’s pretty terrible for the environment. ~~~ __Joker Yes. There is a reason governments should be involved in this. Climate control, environment protection are classic game theory problem. Individual can profit from destroying a little bit of the environment but as a group we lose. Essentially governments do the group bargaining. Unless there is a group which represents all people government has to play that part. ------ masonic Text of the Obama administration rule: [https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13435/clean- water-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states) ------ cimmanom And by “reworking” they mean “undermining”? ------ masonic “They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era,” This is a flat lie, given that the Obama rule wasn't even put in place until the last 18% of his administration (barely _14 months_ before Trump's election). ~~~ cazum The Bush rule is that "wetlands will keep their federal protection" The Obama rule is "farms near those wetlands cannot do bad thing to the wetlands" By repealing the Obama rule, they are inherently repealing the Bush one. ~~~ mc32 Sure, but that is not the same as the tacit claim "They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era". ~~~ addicted Except that comment is likely referencing the regulatory environment, for which it is correct to state that the regulations are being rolled back to what they were before HW’s changes in this area. ------ dsfyu404ed This is what we get for putting so much power to interpret and enforce law in bureaucratic agencies. ~~~ FlyMoreRockets So, we should empower corporations to do the right thing without oversight? ~~~ dsfyu404ed We should make the legislative branch exercise more direct control over the alphabet soup of administrative agencies. I thought that was obvious but I guess not. ~~~ oculusthrift don’t get why you’re being downvoted. it legislation was passed then it would be much harder to revoke with the next president on a whim	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What would change in a neighborhood that installed Gigabit Internet? - Articulate I am helping a non-profit that is trying to bring gigabit internet to a main street in a neighborhood of Saint Louis. I want to explain to small businesses (restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, retail stores) how internet speeds that are 100 times faster will impact them (positively). My sense is that right now most of these people use the internet for emails, streaming movies, ordering things on Amazon, and Facebook/Pinterest. What will happen to a neighborhood and non-computer savvy people living in places that are among the first to install this capacity? ====== mschuster91 For the small businesses, especially the restaurants and coffee shops, the biggest advantage will be that the "mobile people" will like them. Mobile data is dead expensive, if it's available in high speed at all, and giving your customers access to high-speed internet will increase the timespan they spend at the venue.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Pre-Eminent VC – Forward Partners Is Hiring a Senior Developer - ForwardChris https://forward-partners.workable.com/j/73E3782BC4 ====== ForwardChris Work on greenfield projects, build MVP's, get equity in a successful fund, help build world class businesses. Click through and see what the fuss is about. ------ sharemywin FYI. in UK.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Stockholm Startups? - dsimard I recently moved to Stockholm for my wife's job. I'd like to work at a startup, and I've heard that there's supposed to be a decent community for that here (not like the valley, but better than most places). However, I'm starting from zero, with no network of people to talk to. I'm learning how easy it is to feel lost in a new country.<p>So, does anybody know of any good startups here? Or any communities I should try to get involved with? ====== RyanMcGreal I thought this was going to be about startups whose owners had grown to love the tyrannical VC funders who were ruining their lives. ------ lukego The Erlang community has historically spawned a lot of interesting startups in Stockholm (Bluetail, Synapse, Kreditor, tail-f, Mobile Arts, ...). There are pub nights. ------ enra Check out <http://www.arcticstartup.com/> and our index of Swedish startups <http://www.arcticindex.com/companies?search[country_id]=1> ------ willmacdonald I'd love to find to startup or developer communities here too. Do you speak Swedish ? I'd feel a bit awkward going to some meeting and being one of the few people who don't speak Swedish. I moved to Stockholm a couple of years ago but haven't had a chance to do any searching yet, busy with babies. ~~~ dsimard I'm learning fast, but it'll be a while before I'm really comfortable with it. Every time I think I'm getting good somebody will say something that sounds to me like a long unparsable stream of borka-borka like the swedish chef and I'll get all depressed about my progress for a couple of days. :) Rumor has it that most of this kind of work is done in English, which would help. I haven't been able to verify that yet though. Anyway, maybe we can help each other out. Email me if you feel like it. It's a gmail account and I'm "davesimard". ~~~ willmacdonald I am self employed, and 99% my clients are in UK, so I speak English all day. When I'm at home I need to to speak English with my children so they learn some English. I have trouble finding any time to learn Swedish. ------ mmelin One big thing that's happening soon is 24 hour business camp in late October. The event is already full (120 participants) but there will probably be an after-party the weekend after the event where you can build your network. edit: link for that is <http://www.24hbc.com/> Mattias Swenson of Bloglovin maintains a Ning network at <http://swedishstartups.ning.com/> \- it's not extremely active but if you sign up for a membership you'll get emails when new stuff happens, mostly in Stockholm but also in the rest of Sweden. I'm in Stockholm, feel free to drop me an email (contact info in profile) if you'd like to chat or have any questions. Welcome and gear up for the coming winter ;) ~~~ dsimard Start a business in 24 hours? Interesting... does that actually work for people? Anyway, thanks for the links! ~~~ mmelin Yeah, people build a first version of their app, not a whole business in the 24 hours. I participated in the first iteration as well, which was back in January. Check out the list of projects after the informal vote: [http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com/2009/01/vote-for-your- favo...](http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com/2009/01/vote-for-your-favourite- start-up.html) ------ erikstarck My own little humble database of Swedish startups is at <http://www.sweden100.com> Drop me an email if you feel like meeting up, my contact details are on the about-page on the blog. ------ tuukkah Spotify R&D is in Stockholm, they have users and are in the headlines, I hear they use Debian in their backend, and they let paying customers access their DRM service using third-party clients too. Draw your own conclusions. ------ unwind Not a startup recommendation, but if you're not aware of <http://www.thelocal.se/>, you probably should be. :) It's a news site in English, and has what seems to be a quite lively forum section, which might be a good place to ask, too. ------ JohanLange HI - freelancers/entrepreneurs meet at www.2lance.net - online and meetings, there's and Internation community, an entrepreneur community at ning.com and a few more... Niclas Carlsson runs "founders alliance" with an amazing bunch of startups. Just to start the seach - welcome to Shining Stockholm! Johan Lange ------ aik With the exception of Stockholm, where in Sweden would be a good place to find startups? ~~~ enra I think Malmö(in Southern Sweden) is next to Stockholm. ~~~ mmelin Definitely, since Malmö and Copenhagen are almost the same city nowadays. ------ Feeble What are your skills? What type of business areas are you interested in? ~~~ dsimard A little bit of everything I guess. I'm a developer for sure, but I'm a generalist at heart which is why a small start-up sounds appealing to me. As for specific skills, lately I've been defaulting to Python. I've been going through all the SICP lectures too which is re-exciting me about lisp, but I'm not too optimistic about finding a job using that. As for business areas, I'm feeling pretty open-minded right now. ------ appl3star checkout jameslist.com - they are in stockholm ... ------ berntb Other people have give good answers. Here are a couple of things you might want to do the first few years. Education is free in Sweden. Check for if your background allows you to get into university courses. (The evening/distance courses are generally for older people that already works. Good contacts.) You have checked for user groups of your favorite development environement(s)? Disclaimer: I left the area for a nice job, a few years back. :-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CopCards: Cheatsheets for dealing with the police - saraid216 http://s.ai/copcards/ ====== batguano I love this bit at the end: "I am not a lawyer and I am sure as hell not your lawyer."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HTML5: With Great Templates Comes Great Responsivity - jverrecchia http://verekia.com/initializr/responsive-template ====== ceol Great beginner article on "responsive web design". I found the walkthrough to be very friendly. Does anyone else feel like there are lots of buzzwords in HTML articles? For instance, _"The mobile-first approach is the equivalent of progressive enhancement for media-queries."_ sounds like it came straight out of the board room. It makes sense when you parse it, but I feel like it needs a "synergize" or two. ~~~ bad_user When developing Javascript-enabled interfaces, developers need to worry about older or incompatible browsers, paranoid users with JS disabled and crawlers. Therefore, depending on the browser's capabilities, it makes sense to enable/disable certain features and have the interface still work. To do this, there are 2 approaches for development: \- progressive enhancements, in which you start from a purely static interface (or the least common denominator you can start from) and progressively add more and more advanced features \- graceful degradation, in which you start from the featurefull interface and gradually disable features / make fixes to have the interface still work "progressive enhancements" is not a buzzword as the 2 approaches mentioned above WILL yield different results. Interfaces developed with progressive enhancements will tend to be featurefull on the common denominator, while interfaces developed with graceful degradation will tend to be very rich (GMail style), but barely usable on browsers with not enough capabilities and less accessible by classic crawlers. ~~~ ceol Yes, I know "progressive enhancement" is an actual term. I thought it was interesting to hear it coupled with "mobile-first" and "media queries" as it sounded like a bunch of buzzwords. ~~~ bad_user "media queries" is a new CSS feature with which you can now have "progressive enhancements" (otherwise you would have to drop to Javascript), the advice being that you should start first designing for mobiles, then gradually evolving it into a full wide desktop view. No buzzwords. It's actually pretty neat. ------ 4ad It's funny. I lobbied for years and years to designers to use fluid layouts (percentages instead of hard coded numbers). I have been met with a lot of condescending resistance. Fluid is bad because fixed layouts are good and I didn't know anything because I wasn't a web designer. The arguments didn't matter at all. The way it was done it was the way to do it, period. Years passed by and now everyone is doing it, which is great. ~~~ earnubs The landscape has changed considerably since olden days though. "Fluid" layouts of old were no use from a designers point of view because the designer was trying to consider the measure (words per line) as well as the layout, and the variance of screen size and resolution wasn't great enough to justify the work load in creating a truly useful (from a design point of view) fluid layout. We didn't have media queries and JavaScript was something that programmers told us we should never use, but all that has changed and the field of screen sizes has exploded in many directions (physical size, pixel size, pixel density...) meaning it's now appropriate/essential. In short the environment has changed, weak ideas are now strong ideas, and the design approach has evolved. ------ duhoang Is anyone else have the opinion that Responsive Web Design is a fad? It seems that you are better served if you design your mobile site in the style of an App, and your website the traditional 960px grid. Tablets handle the desktop site okay for the most part. ~~~ duhoang Thanks for everyone's thoughtful responses. I'm researching Responsive Web Design as an option for a large e-commerce site. But for me, for a large site with a lot of dynamic content and functionality, it doesn't seem ideal to simply shrink it down to one column. And I also wonder about the amount of time it takes to create designs taking all screen sizes into consideration. Anyways, thanks again. ~~~ danneu There are frameworks like Skeleton and Zurb's Foundation that handle the media queries and resizing/restyling for you, you just have to use their markup. And what they do out of the box is pretty much enough unless you want to hand- tweak a style down the road. Also, responsive design doesn't have to be about getting your website to work on your 2001 Nokia brick's display. A good first step in responsive design is just to take advantage of the full width of the device your user is using up until a point. A lot of websites I view from my netbook could take advantage of just one media query: a full-sized design for large screens and then a fluid width design for anything smaller. I find a lot of websites give me a horizontal scrollbar on the 10' screen. ------ chunkyslink I enjoyed reading this. I've been using www.getskeleton.com for an ecommerce project that will be launching early feb. I decided to use a responsive template as we want as many people as possible to be able to see the content and buy the products. Responsive templates were the quickest way to achieve this. There were still a few difficult problems to overcome, like how to represent long category navigation on mobiles and in an ideal world we would have a mobile specific version of the site which would better allow us to solve such problems. However for now, responsive templates seem to have really worked for us. EDIT: also the client loves it that there site 'works' on a range of devices without having to incur the costs associated with 'mobile specific' versions or 'apps' ------ babebridou As a dedicated Android supporter, I wonder when the Android webview system will be decent enough to actually work with that design pattern, because the premise is good. Shake a xoom a little and the css loses track whether it's in portrait or landscape. ~~~ ypcx I switched to Galaxy Nexus (from iPhone 3GS), where I ended up using Web apps over native apps. This is not only because the native apps tend to install costly background services that keep the phone awake, or because their Java UI without exception consumes more battery than their WebKit based equivalent, but also due to the really crappy user interface the native apps provide. The biggest trouble is with scrolling, which is jittery. I did not know about Android WebView, let's hope that native apps will start to use it for more fluid web interfaces, which, coming from Java myself, I'd say will also be easier to make (based on proper templates and libraries, e.g. Bootstrap, Modernizr, etc.). ~~~ babebridou Well, from purely an app developer's point of view, the situation with Webviews on Android is completely opposite to the one you describe! WebViews are power hogs and unbearably slow to render anything. Their only saving grace in that respect is that they share a common WebViewCore thread to perform most of the legwork behind the scenes, so you can have plenty of these with relatively low overhead, but they truly are to be avoided at all costs if your objective as a developer is low battery consumption and a responsive/fast UI. The main problem with most android apps is that they still include a tiny WebView just for displaying ads, carrying with it its dreadful WebViewCore Rube Goldberg machine. I find it sad that Android App developers in general are so poor that they can't figure out a way to make their apps run faster or smoother. Native is and always has been the way to go for performance, responsiveness, UI speed and power saving on those devices. Here's to hoping that the Android team solves the horrible performance and compatibility issues on their Webview component so I can safely go back on my words in the future. ------ richardburton Fantastic stuff. I have found responsive design forces me to think as carefully about a button on my large-monitor designs as it does on my mobile- designs. It is a wonderful process of cut-this, cut-that until you have something simple. ------ jollyjerry I was playing around with a redesign of my car blog over the weekend with responsive design with a vertical rhythm (<http://rockyroadblog.herokuapp.com/>) I like the post's approach to navigation and didn't know about the 'aside' element previously. If anyone's interested, I can post the source files for my redesign on github. ------ viraptor It looks strange when they talk about the responsive layout on a site that takes about 1/6th of my screen width... pretty much a thin stripe in the centre. ~~~ danneu Would you find it easier to read if the characters per line increased dramatically just to fit your screen? ~~~ viraptor No. Font size, kerning, multiple columns, etc. are all better alternatives. I wouldn't mention it on any other page. It's just that this article is about responsive page design. But it's not responsive itself. The post itself mentions: "Use a big font size and an adapted line height (this template uses 16px / 24px)." and "To design a responsive layout, we have to forget about the usual static 960px width layouts"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Electricity Map – Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption - robin_reala https://www.electricitymap.org/ ====== trzeci This page shows that some countries produce electric power in cleaner way than other. This projects only one point of view, and congratulations for countries that are shifting towards green sources. But, title is misleading: This map doesn't show consumption or total production. Moreover an option "Show wind" emphasis that countries with less green electricity poison other countries. Which is false. From this map it looks that Europe suffers from Estonia and Poland being there. If we'll consider total production from [http://world.bymap.org/ElectricityProduction.html](http://world.bymap.org/ElectricityProduction.html) we have following data: \- Estonia: 12900000 (tons / year) \- Poland: 108750000 (tons / year) \- Germany: 228717000 (tons / year) Without having total numbers there, my feeling is that this page tries to manipulate. ~~~ corradio Hi @trzeci, Author of the electricityMap here. The point of the app is to display how much CO2 is emitted when you consume from your power plug (hence the consumption point of view, and hence why we emphasise intensity and not volume). We're trying to give people an idea of when it is the best time to consume electricity, and what strategies are best to decarbonise rapidly. Total volumes are also interesting (the climate cares about total volumes), but if you want to look at strategies you have to look at per kWh values (coal in a small volume is still a bad strategy). \- Olivier ~~~ aurelwu I'm a bit confused with estonia, from all what I know - Oil is "cleaner" than lignite, why is the value so high for Estonia? just as one example showing emissons of oil vs coal: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d666/1a01ee6a54f86fad283e46...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d666/1a01ee6a54f86fad283e4650e1074c795b7b.pdf#page=14) ~~~ alephnil Estonia's oil is not normal petroleum, but surface mined oil shale. It is just as bad or worse than Alberta's tar sand in that regard. ~~~ toomuchtodo Are there any efforts in Estonia to move to renewables from their petrol fired generation? ------ tralarpa It's great how much public real-time information is available on energy production and consumption. Some other links: France: [https://www.rte-france.com/fr/eco2mix/eco2mix](https://www.rte- france.com/fr/eco2mix/eco2mix) Data from the Irish grid: [http://www.eirgridgroup.com/__uuid/2e0badb7-e18f-47bd-8eff-8...](http://www.eirgridgroup.com/__uuid/2e0badb7-e18f-47bd-8eff-865a716a3197/) Grid in Denmark (scroll down to the map): [https://en.energinet.dk/](https://en.energinet.dk/) Visualization of the networks, no real-time information: [http://ec.europa.eu/energy/infrastructure/transparency_platf...](http://ec.europa.eu/energy/infrastructure/transparency_platform/map- viewer/main.html) Finished this posting, and noticed that they already have a nice page explaining their data sources: [https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap- contrib#real-time-...](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#real- time-electricity-data-sources) ------ gravelc Well that's depressing - Queensland currently sitting at 3rd last. Given our agriculture is also a massive emitter (beef cattle the biggest earner), we are really not pulling our weight. ~~~ TheSpiceIsLife Oh hey, I live in Tasmania currently sitting at number two with 22g of CO₂ per kWh. Tasmania got lucky historically with something like 25 hydroelectric power stations, and more recently three wind farms.¹ Where as Queensland only has six, and most of them quite small.² 1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro_Tasmania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro_Tasmania) 2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hydroelectric_power_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hydroelectric_power_stations_in_Queensland) ------ kingosticks Is there a way (or would you consider adding a way) to view historical data so it's possible to see how the map has changed, e.g. over the last 24 hours? ~~~ corradio Yes we were thinking of making that, but we are a bit afraid of the amount of data that needed to be transmitted. We had an issue opened here: [https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap- contrib/issues/733](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap- contrib/issues/733) Feel free to help us at [https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap- contrib](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib) \- Olivier ------ nickik Our civilization is a total disaster. We face a crisis that we can never stop talking about, 'climate change'. There is a easy and simply model to follow to make a massive impact on this problem, but somehow for reasons of pure bias, ignorance and misinformation we do not do this. Nuclear power could have and should have solved this problem by now. Nuclear power was on track to replace older energy technologies faster then any earlier energy transition. But somehow we failed, mostly because of the anti-humans, sometimes called 'environmentalists' who declared war on nuclear above even coal. They declared their goal in terms of anti-nuclear as 'increase regulation to a point where nuclear becomes unprofitable' and they have largely succeeded. Since then the environmental movement has grown, and the problem they fight have grown, but they never went back and ganged their totally flawed assumptions about nuclear and they continue to spread outright lies and misinformation about nuclear energy. I would not blame them alone, but the reality is the whole population now basically believes most of these lies, its tragic. The left often accuses the right of being anti-science but in reality most anti-GMO, anti-Nuclear people are form the left. ~~~ pjc50 Declaring a bunch of people to be "anti-human" because you don't agree with them is insulting. The backlash against nuclear comes from four points and a meta-point: 1) Weapons proliferation. The standard fission cycle is just too convenient for this (after all, that's why it was developed) and so an international infrastructure needs to be developed around restricting this. See Iran for example. This also prompted a lot of opposition from people who didn't want to live under the threat of their cities being nuked. This also turned into lethal fights with the environmental movement (the French government sank Greenpeace's ship _Rainbow Warrior_ with a terrorist bombing that killed a photographer, over the question of nuclear weapons testing). A difficult bit of bad blood to bury. 2) Huge scale and persistence of accidents. Chernobyl affected agriculture in the whole of Western Europe, and took decades for an adequate final containment to be built. Bhopal was bad - and possibly worse in effects! - but at least the area isn't a permanent wasteland. Pebble bed reactors were deemed the promising future, until one of them jammed. It's now unfixable and practically impossible to decomission: (wikipedia) "There exists currently no dismantling method for the AVR vessel, but it is planned to develop some procedure during the next 60 years and to start with vessel dismantling at the end of the century." 3) Waste disposal. A forever problem. I'm old enough to remember Greenpeace fighting it being dumped at sea, but the problem of where we put it remains. 4) Cost overruns. A systematic problem in the industry. Doesn't affect renewables to anything like the same extent. 5) The meta-point: systematic lying about the effects of all of the above. That this happens to overlap with the era of discovering that all sorts of previous advances (CFCs, tetraethyl lead, DDT, asbestos) had nasty side- effects which were also lied about or minimised is not a coincidence. Nuclear advocates take the arrogant position that they don't need to win trust. ~~~ martythemaniak Yeah, his wording is quite strong, but isn't it even more insulting to have your very existence declared problematic? Let's be honest here, some environmentalists really do see too many humans as a problem. I mean, it's phrased in terms of too many people doing too many things and owning to much stuff, which all implies there's to many of us. The next logical question is "ok, so which one of us will have to go"? Your points are mostly valid, but they were all solvable, had people wanted to solve them. The reality is that today there are jurisdictions (Ontario, France) that produce clean, safe, affordable, carbon-free energy because they built and maintained their nuclear plants. But the anti-nuclear crowd did not want to solve issues, they had one aim, which they achieved, and now we have a far bigger issue. The uncomfortable fact remains is that if the rest of the developed world looked like Ontario, climate change would be a far smaller problem. And what bothers me personally isn't that the anti-nuclear left fucked up so badly in the 70s - after all climate change was barely on anyone's register back then. What bothers me is that even today after we see these facts staring at us plainly in the face, they still won't admit they fucked up. This bothers me because even today they won't let you call yourself an "environmentalist" unless you sign up to their very specific implementation of environmentalism. ~~~ api > isn't it even more insulting to have your very existence declared > problematic? A few loons might hold this view, but overall it's an extreme straw man to argue that this represents a majority view in environmentalism. Pointing out that our existence tends to generate _negative externalities_ that might be very harmful to us in the long run is not anti-human. It's pro- human in that the ultimate goal is to avoid those long term negative consequences. Too many humans might indeed be bad _for humans_ in the long run because too many humans might produce too many negative externalities. Is it anti-well-being to advocate living below one's means to save for the future? Saving implies spending less _right now_ to realize a potential future gain. The environmental movement argues the same, but from the angle that we should spend less right now to avoid future losses. I've often found it intellectually inconsistent for conservatives to oppose environmentalism, since it really reduces to a form of fiscal responsibility. If conservatives are worried about the national debt they should also be worried about the buildup of excess CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean. That's another kind of debt being passed on to future generations. I sometimes wonder if our high monetary debt load and our high environmental debt load might not be directly related. Keynes' famous quote "in the future we are all dead" could turn out to be accurate in a way he did not anticipate. ~~~ martythemaniak Indeed there are probably a few loons who hold this view explicitly. But there are large numbers that hold this view implicitly - ie, they would never say they want fewer people, but if you actually followed their their preferred course of action, fewer people would be required. I should note that I'm not a conservative and I also find their lack of concern for the environment to be at odds with their own interests and ideology, but what I'm talking about is slightly different. To be an environmentalist doesn't mean sharing some goals, it means having to sign up to a very specific set of views, which ostensibly lead to that goal. Being anti-nuclear power is one of those specific views you have to hold, so being pro-nuclear puts you at odds with most environmentalists, even if both sides of the view lead to the same goal (less CO2 in the atmosphere). ~~~ NeedMoreTea We're on a finite planet and numbers are increasing rapidly. Very few countries have a reducing population - Japan, and well, that's about it. At some point the solution _has_ to be fewer people. Looking at the world's pressing problems with loss of species, diversity, soils, climate change etc; all are hugely exacerbated by numbers. Even if we were to perfect interstellar or interplanetary travel we're unlikely to be sending billions. So what is your solution? Anyone who doesn't hold the view that the planet needs fewer humans, _in the foreseeable future,_ is simply ignoring the problem. ~~~ martythemaniak The numbers are increasing, but leveling off. High fertility rates only exist in a few regions of the world (Africa, South Asia) and even there they are falling rapidly. The "solution" broadly speaking is higher intensity - of energy, land, everything. If you have compact energy sources (nuclear) powering compact food production (high-yield agriculture, some vertical farming) feeding people living in compact cities (higher density, more ridesharing), then it's doable. You can already see lots of signs of this in the developed countries. This will still require lots of adjustment from people, but asking them to live in duplexes, share rides and eat less meat is much more doable than asking them no you know, not exist. The Breakthrough does lots of great research on this topic: [https://thebreakthrough.org/](https://thebreakthrough.org/) ~~~ NeedMoreTea That may buy a little time, but unless or until the numbers actually start falling it doesn't actually solve the problem. It's not asking them not to exist, I can't foresee compulsory euthanasia camps, it's merely asking them to limit procreation. China shows it's doable - though I'm sure there's better ways to achieve limits. At least that gives our future generations a chance of experiencing some of the things that make life interesting with still functional ecosystem and wildlands. ------ mrweasel With the exception of Denmark, the areas that are in the "green" either have hydro og nuclear. I understand the issues with nuclear waste, but it seems that's the current trade-off, if you want lower CO2 emissions and don't have access to large rivers. ~~~ skrause The problem with nuclear power is that it's too expensive unless you choose to simply ignore the long-term cost of the nuclear waste problem. At this point it makes more sense to invest in solar, wind power and energy storage capacity to reduce CO2 emissions. ~~~ s21n The problem with nuclear waste is exaggerated. It can be safely stored in warehouses, there's no need to bury it. The fuel rods are solid, so there's no risk of leakage. Dry cask storage containers are made of steel and concrete, they stop all the radiation and can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes. You can't steal the fuel, it's too heavy to load it on a truck, and even if you found a suitable vehicle, you need to convoy it when they're shooting at you… Our current solutions to short-term storage are perfectly adequate long-term solutions. And we don't even need to store it that long, because soon we'll need it to produce fuel for next generation reactors. The real problem with nuclear waste management are impossible and unnecessary safety requirements. The cost of waste management is already included in the cost of nuclear energy. The cost of energy storage is not included in the cost of renewables, thus they may appear as cheaper, and indeed they are – for now – because we currently don't need energy storage. But as the renewables penetration rises, the cost of energy storage will skyrocket: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion- re...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we- cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/) ~~~ maxerickson Trying to build enough storage to handle seasonal shifts in generation and demand is a fools errand, but we can _easily_ afford $2.5 trillion. ------ dcahill-ieee This doesn’t show CO2 emissions. It just lists each country generation type and what that generation type produces per kWh. Where is the actual volume of CO2 per hour or per day? This site would show 1 family on a little island with a coal furnace as worse than an entire nation burning gas. ~~~ jabl You can see the total generation for each country by clicking on the country, then hovering the mouse cursor over, for instance, the "origin of electricity over the last 24 hours". So you can see that e.g. France at the moment generates (or uses? This calculation might be slightly off due to imports/exports...) 51.5 GW with a carbon intensity of 44 gCO2/kWh. Which means that currently France in total emits about 44 x 1e6 x 51.5 / 1e6 = 2266 metric tons of CO2 per hour. By comparison, with the same kind of calculation Energiewende poster boy Germany generates 64.6 GW with a carbon intensity of 375 gCO2/kWh, leading to total emissions of 24225 tons of CO2 per hour. Ouch! EDIT: As pointed out by the author below, you can click on the "emissions" tab and see total CO2 emissions (per minute though, not per hour) directly if you don't want to do the above calculations yourself! ------ sol_remmy Why do they list nuclear as "low carbon" when it is actually zero carbon? ~~~ 24gttghh >Nuclear power is sometimes described as being free of greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s true of the nuclear fission reactions themselves. But here is a list of all the stages of the nuclear power cycle at which greenhouse gases are emitted: uranium mining, uranium milling, conversion of uranium ore to uranium hexafluoride, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor construction, reactor decommissioning, fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste disposal, mine site rehabilitation, and transport throughout all stages. >During these stages, greenhouse gases are emitted directly (for instance, by trucks) but also indirectly (such as through the use of materials such as steel and cement, which are manufactured using emissions-intensive processes). [0] I would hazard the site simply doesn't want to be disingenuous at all, and provide the facts, which I applaud! I do not consider this an argument against nuclear power per-se, as stated: it is still much lower carbon than burning FF directly as the plant's power source. [0][http://theconversation.com/is-nuclear-power-zero-emission- no...](http://theconversation.com/is-nuclear-power-zero-emission-no-but-it- isnt-high-emission-either-41615)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Employee surveillance at your work place? - badrabbit HN,<p>I've seen both ends of the spectrum but I wanted to know what the consensus with the HN crowd was:<p>Does your work place monitor employee activity? Does it extend to their personal devices? How about off work activity? How extensive are we talking about? Can you mention your company's name?<p>To me privacy is one of the most valuable "perks" I look for in a job. I will gladly exchange privacy for health insurance and 401k. I've seen companies where privacy is extremely valued,but I've also seen the other end,I just don't know what is normal anymore.<p>Bonus question: I've seen contractors' personal phones monitored because "they use it for work too.",is that common? ====== dizzystar In the US, a contractor is strictly BYOD... If I'm using a company phone, computer, or anything else, I fully expect that everything is monitored and locked down. Add your email and other login stuff at your own peril. Be wary of your browser history. I don't care what a company says. If I'm working for them, my personal life is my own personal life. I don't discuss where I work with anyone that is online. I definitely don't mention it on social media, and I flatly refuse to give my social media accounts to any place I apply to. I go home and do nothing related to work, and all my social media revolves around promoting things that do little to betray who I am. Here's the thing. An employer may say "do whatever, we don't care," but it only takes a coworker to see you made an off-color joke or, by horror, said something that isn't along the generally accepted marching of everyone in the company. Office politics seeps into everything, and while the company itself isn't monitoring you, your coworkers are. This isn't malicious, but a slip of the keyboard can have ugly consequences. It's my personal responsibility to protect myself at all times. ~~~ badrabbit I focus on what I can control. It's not a good feeling to have your off work and personal activity monitored (by superiors not colleagues). Anyway,thanks for replying , I will take your advice seriously.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Land conservation through crowdfunding - cromulent https://www.helsinkifoundation.org ====== fiatjaf If this is successful you should somehow open it to people that have land or want to buy land in other parts of the globe to let it be sold like that. Which is probably very difficult legally speaking. Ok, I've changed my mind, maybe there should be an Ethereum smart contract for this. ~~~ cromulent We had dismissed this as too difficult for the moment, so the Foundation must hold the title. Currently we have leads on some land that matches your description, but we need to transfer it to the Foundation. At some point I'll investigate the Ethereum contract, I don't know anything about it apart from it being blockchain based. Thanks! ~~~ fiatjaf Maybe in a somewhat near future the smart contract hype will be good advertisign. ------ simonpure This seems like a great initiative and increasingly important for future generations - congrats! I noticed there's a disproportionate number of Australian owners. Any insight why that is? ~~~ cromulent Thanks. Please share if possible. I'm Australian, so it would be the network effect :) ------ fiatjaf Why isn't that foundation disapearing with our money in some years? Is that foundation taking government money? ~~~ cromulent Great questions. The foundation is specifically designed to avoid problems like hostile takeovers, etc. In the agreement between you and the Foundation when you purchase a Greenspace, you get a veto voting right for any change in the purpose of the land. So, even if <bad company x> buys all the other ones, you can stop them. Anyone can read the statutes here: [https://www.helsinkifoundation.org/Helsinki-Foundation- Statu...](https://www.helsinkifoundation.org/Helsinki-Foundation-Statutes.pdf) No government money. It is totally free market conservation. We buy the land, people choose to buy Greenspaces if they want to. ------ cromulent Hi folks. This is a non-profit I'm involved with. I would be happy to get HN'ers feedback here. I'm trying to feed the YC knowledge and other HN info to the other founders.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why so many celebrities have died in 2016 - ohjeez http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36108133 ====== MicroBerto The biggest and scariest issue is that all of these celebrities are going completely unreplaced. I am a fan of rock and heavy metal, and it is clear that rock stardom is literally dying off. The days of filling American arenas with rock concerts are quickly coming to an end, and that deeply saddens me. Where are the twenty-something kids with attitude who will replace a band like AC/DC? Is Justin Beiber the best we could do? It's pathetic. Even a guy like Bon Jovi... Who is next in that line?? Seems like nobody. It's depressing. This is why I'm going to as many shows for bands like Iron Maiden as possible right now. When it's over, rock and roll may truly be dead. This is one of those moments where I realize I'm getting old. I never understood life extention and the quest for immortality. As things change, eventually they leave you behind. Find me a 90+ year old who really cares to stay. And that's how I'm going to feel when rock and roll dies. ~~~ hbosch Rock and roll lives on in a much more potent, pure form in basements and bookstores and independent venues all over the world. Arena rock is dead, because it's bland, diluted, and controlled by corporations. ~~~ ArkyBeagle It's possibly ( I won't generalize there so I disagree ) bland and diluted now, but this was not always so. The death of radio and the rise of the CD are always my usual suspects for why any sort of musical monoculture failed. "Basements, bookstores and independent venues" dooms the practitioners to being hobbyists. ~~~ hbosch >"Basements, bookstores and independent venues" dooms the practitioners to being hobbyists. Do you prescribe this theory to hacker culture as well? ~~~ ArkyBeagle That's slightly different because hacker culture creates a public commons that practitioners can use to make money. It is not clear to what extent this actually happens. Perhaps EDM works like how hacker culture works. I just don't know much about that . But for more traditional musicians it seems harder to... monetize the work. But this was probably always true - it was not uncommon for touring musicians in the radio era before TV to take on sponsors. The span in which people were sustained mainly by record sales was pretty brief. ------ endymi0n MUCH more likely than the original shallow fluff piece: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion) ~~~ coldtea The link you sent is about an effect that occurs with random sequences. Neither the baby boom, nor the huge growth of the media industry (radio, TV, recorded media, etc) after the fifties are "random". And then there's the fact that the earlier real stars we have now (as opposed to merely people famous in the past but already forgotten) are in their 70s and 80s (e.g. the 60s and 70s musicians and actors etc, all still quite relevant for modern audiences thanks to vinyl, VHS, tape, TV, CD, DVD and cable distribution, and --something previous generations lacked until recently-- instant access to all their works and news from the streaming, YouTube and the web). This is no clustering illusion, it's the inevitable combination of life expectancy + tons of people becoming stars en masse with unprecedented global distribution at more or less the same time that sees them now in an advanced age. ~~~ shalmanese The magnitude of increase can't be explained by demographic factors. It's far more likely that this is mostly due to a statistical blip with only a minor contribution from everything else. ~~~ coldtea The magnitude of the peak for 2016 isn't what's important. The steady yearly increase is what's important. ------ sandebert Surprisingly often I find myself thinking about poker in everyday life (even while not playing poker, that is). And surprisingly often I find something I learned in poker is also applicable in life outside the game. In this case, the concept of _variance_ comes to mind. Basically that values (for instance number of deaths of celebrities) are spread out. Sometimes there are more, and sometimes there are less. And that's just how it is, it doesn't automatically mean there's a trend change either way. Lots of pages out there to read about it, here's one that might give more insight than my comment: [http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/other/variance/](http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/other/variance/) ~~~ derefr Or, from another field: it might look like some stock investors are "hot" or "cold", but that doesn't mean that investing with a currently-"hot" investor will give you any better odds. The variance in the market is high; sometimes people get a streak of wins without that being any more than luck. (Some people, like Warren Buffet, do more; but if you know enough about their strategies to differentiate between the people getting lucky and the people "playing smart", you know enough to do your investing yourself.) ------ yeldarb I can believe that the long-term trend is upwards but the demographic reasoning seems like it should apply on the scale of decades not years. It doesn't explain why 2016 would be worse than 2015 or 2014. This year is likely just an outlier. ------ stretchwithme The year I was born, nobody that I knew died. Slowly, but surely that number started to rise, as I got to know about more people. And now with the Internet making us aware of so much of what's going on and who's doing it, that trend is amplified. And the more one focuses on that trend, or how long ago something happened, the older one feels. Which is another reason that living in the moment is often a very good thing. ------ jcoffland Lots of "unimportant" people die every day. ~~~ copperx About 100,000 of them, to be more precise. Your comment made me want to revisit Feynman's Letter: [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2015/10/do-not-remain- nameless-...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2015/10/do-not-remain-nameless-to- yourself.html) ------ sod Maybe there are just more and more people with each generation [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population) ------ Aelinsaar Prince doesn't really fit into that model, being 57, although maybe there's some modification for being a male of african-american descent? Congenital cardiovascular issues, and whatnot. ~~~ jtolmar Not all individual celebrity deaths have to fit the model for the phenomenon to show up, though. The proposed model just has to be one of the largest (or spikiest) components. As long as people who die for other reasons are fairly constant, they don't prevent the spike from showing up. ~~~ Aelinsaar Of course, I was just wondering if Prince could be made to fit this model, despite seeming to deviate from it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Socratic dialogue between two cybersecurity experts? - RodericDay I cannot for the life of me find this fantastic resource I saw posted on HN a while ago.<p>It was a fake conversation between Alice and Bob, where they took turns explaining how Alice would protect a password submission form, and then how Bob would thwart the protection, and how Alice would protect it again, and so on.<p>No keywords are working so I may be mis-remembering some aspects of it. ====== EvanAnderson This dialogue on Kerberos comes to mind, but I doubt it's what you're looking for: [https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/dialogue.html](https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/dialogue.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tell HN: JPL Annual Open House this weekend - krisneuharth http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/open-house.cfm ====== abecedarius I went to this once back in the 90s when I worked there -- there was a science-fair vibe (I guess; never been to one of those) with little booths and posters and some demos of things like active vibration control or some cryogenic/vacuum thingy whose purpose I've forgotten. Afterwards we had some food and juggling in the quad. If anyone wants to make an outing Sunday, email me (see my profile). You'd have to supply the wheels. ------ jschuur I went last year and had a great time. Be sure to arrive as early as possible though, as some of the buildings have long lines to get into. I waited 1-2 hours to get into the one with the clean room where they're building the new Mars Science Lab rover, but even those 10 minutes you get to go inside were totally worth it to get that close to something that is going to end up on Mars. ------ jgg If I were lucky enough to be on the West coast, I'd be there. )-:	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
GitLab Announcing January 16, 2018 Critical Security Update - teoruiz https://about.gitlab.com/2018/01/12/gitlab-critical-release-preannouncement/ ====== AdamJacobMuller One thing I'll say about GitLab (even if I'm not its biggest fan) their packaging/installation/upgrade is absolutely top-notch. I've never seen anyone do it better and I've definitely never seen anyone do it with anywhere near such a complicated set of interrelated moving parts. ~~~ connorshea Thanks, the Omnibus team has worked incredibly hard over the years to make GitLab easy to install :) Out of curiosity, is there anything we can do to make you a fan? What are we lacking? ------ jlgaddis Well, that doesn't sound good at all. Think of all those providers (e.g. DigitalOcean) who offer "one-click" installers for applications like GitLab. Now think about the users who never (or rarely, if they're lucky) update those machines. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of compromised VPSes and such running GitLab later this week. And since one of the big reasons for running your own instance is to protect your private stuff -- things like source code, secrets, credentials, API keys -- it seems to me that this has the potential to be pretty wide-reaching and damaging. So, who here gets to be one of the lucky ones that get to work late Tuesday? :) ------ mesozoic Hopefully they backport it to the versions that still have api v3 support. Otherwise the time window for their deprecation of critical functionality and security updates is way too short. ~~~ connorshea API v3 is still supported in the latest GitLab release (and will also be supported in this month's release, as well as probably the next few since we haven't decided the exact date of deprecation yet), have we communicated this incorrectly somewhere? ~~~ mesozoic We were under the impression that v10 removes it completely. Perhaps this is only in enterprise or maybe we have it wrong? Or maybe it is still included just deprecated but the release notes don't make that clear and no one in my org has checked an actual install or the source. ~~~ connorshea The current plan is to remove it in 11.0.0, if you know of anywhere this is unclear I can take a look and have it changed. ------ Rjevski Curious to know if this also affects their SaaS offering or if that is already patched. ~~~ AdamJacobMuller They commonly patch their SAAS stuff (by hand -- so it doesn't show in public) in advance.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
startup 2.0 - european startup competition - brett http://www.startup2.eu/ ====== whacked_new So the deadline is over. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Noam Chomsky: The world is at the most dangerous moment in human history - susam https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/09/noam-chomsky-world-most-dangerous-moment-human-history ====== ncmncm It is curious to have omitted Duterte and Erdogan from the list.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Sacrifice Seniority for Better Long Term Career Prospects? - OneSummersDay I’m currently at Job A where I have some seniority (5+ years) and a minor leadership role (tech lead on a small project). I enjoy what I’m doing and like the leadership experience. A larger leadership role is my goal, but I don’t see any opportunities for that anytime soon.<p>I now have the option for Job B, where I would have no seniority and little leadership (to start with). However, I would learn a lot of new technologies and tools, which would greatly enhance my skill set. Pay would be similar (good for the area) and Job B has a better pool of talented engineers to learn from.<p>Should I trade the seniority I’ve built up at Job A for a chance to learn more hard skills at Job B? ====== tboyd47 Seniority really isn't worth much on a software team because no matter how high you climb, there's always someone above you who can override your decisions. Once you have stayed at a company for more than 3 years, leaving for greener pastures is never counted against you. If you think it's good for your career, do it. ~~~ OneSummersDay The problem is I'm not sure if it will be good for my career. Ultimately I'd like to be in more of a leadership role, and Job A has me doing some of that. However, its not clear how much room there is to move up. I like what I'm doing, but worried I'll get stuck while skills atrophy. ~~~ tboyd47 There's never enough room for everyone to move up. If you're comfortable in your role, stay there. But don't expect any more promotions. ------ codingdave If your goal is higher leadership roles, then neither - look for Job C, where you are a full-time manager/leader, and you can focus on increasing your leadership skills, not re-tooling your tech skills. You can likely look for a higher place on the org chart in a smaller company to hone your management skills, and than start the big fish/small pond dance, where you get good at a role in a small company, upgrade to a later role in a bigger company, then go for an even higher role in a small company again. Rinse/repeat every few years. ------ decafninja I would do it. I am a "senior software engineer" equivalent at a large non-tech company (bank). I am painfully aware I am not at the level of a senior software engineer at a top or upper mid level tech company. I would gladly take the opportunity to delevel to a mid or even junior level engineer to get into a top tech company. The funny thing would be my compensation would probably take only a minimal hit, if any at all. ------ austincheney I felt bored and depressed at my job as a senior developer where I wasn’t contributing much so I accepted a temporary position as a director of a small help desk team in another country for less money. I love it. I am really making a difference here and turning things around. ~~~ marshmellman How did you find a temporary job in another sector in another country? ~~~ austincheney Military ------ s1t5 You just need to decide whether you value being an individual contributor more than being in a leadership role. You state yourself that your goal is a larger leadership role. It doesn't make sense to make a move in the opposite direction, especially if the salary at the other job is similar. ------ tuyguntn based on my understanding of your post, you WANT to go to leadership role in long term, but you got offer for non-leadership role. I would not accept this offer if both companies are in same caliber, because you don't know when you can adjust your ladder again to leadership position in upcoming years, you might end up being engineer for next 5 years. If we are talking about different caliber companies, say jumping from medium sized business IT department to FAANG companies, then probably you might be okay, since after getting FAANG in your resume, your next journey might immediately start with Engineering manager, Team lead positions. ------ elisharobinson visibility * skill * demand = value , if your function as SE is to increase value. There isnt good answer , pick the role which has best as aggregate of all three. if its a leadership role in a small popular company thats worth more than a senior leadership role in an other company , offcourse all of these variables are subjective and to truly know you would have to talk to lot off people. ------ muzani If you join a company that grows fast enough and put enough work in, you should be able to hit seniority and get promotions really fast. I'm usually able to master a segment of an entirely new tech stack within 6 months, no matter how complex, assuming that it's well documented. Generally, a lot of companies prefer that someone has ownership over a segment of the architecture, so there will be opportunities to grow, assuming the company is decent.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is kickstarter the new process for product? - sfrancisatx http://www.bp-3.com/blogs/2011/12/a-new-process-for-products/ ====== bradleyland Editorializing in the title is frowned upon. There is a gulf of difference between: "A New Process for Products?" and "Is kickstarter the new process for product?" Use of the article (part of speech) "the" implies exclusivity. As if the question being posed is whether or not Kickstarter will become the exclusive, or at least dominant, "process for product." The original title uses the article "a", asking whether Kickstarter is a real, viable "process for products." These are two very different questions. One is hyperbole, the other far more sensible. ~~~ sfrancisatx And, to be clear, did not mean to imply exclusivity or dominance - just whether it is a real, viable process, enabling perhaps more creatives to bring product to market (where previously you just can't get the funding to move forward, without risking too much personal wealth, which you may or may not possess). ------ GFischer If by the "kickstarter" model, you refer to the same process advocated by Steve Blank and others, I'd say yes - It's customer validation, essentially. [http://steveblank.com/2010/02/25/customer-development-for- we...](http://steveblank.com/2010/02/25/customer-development-for-web- startups/) If you're interested, watch this slide deck which presents the idea: [http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrep...](http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrepreneurship-5747012) ~~~ sfrancisatx yes, i think kickstarter, though it came at this from a funding approach, enables a "lean" process a la Steve Blank and others. It _feels_ like a side- effect of kickstarter but it is pretty powerful.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Super talented employee driving you crazy - sonabinu http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/30/talented-employees-management/ ====== rpwilcox The question raised in this question and answer column seems to me to serve as a warning for companies who are only looking for "rockstar" developers: often they come with a rockstar attitude. Or even if your team seems like mild mannered programmers, you suddenly get a MBA a few levels above you and suddenly your team is branded as "unmanageable" because maybe people don't get in under 10 AM or something. (Or your group tries to push back on project scope vs deadlines or whatever). ------ pasbesoin I kind of hope that "HMHP" learns of this letter from "Baffled Boss" and decides to GTFO. I've had more than one "Baffled Boss". (While I was not simply dismissive of process, neither was I a slave to it.) In retrospect, there is only one solution: Find a different boss. I realize this will sound harsh. Maybe I'm over-reacting, at the moment. But looking back, the longer such friction continued, the more problematic it became. I had one boss who was smart enough to kind of figure things out, and after a rocky start we ended up getting along. Another boss who didn't understand what I did, technically, but with whom I established fairly strong mutual trust. (He in turn came through for me significantly in terms of management.) But then, I've had some "Baffled Bosses". They simply aren't batting in your league. And eventually, they will cut you one way or another in pursuit of their own career and/or sense of well-being.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How I built a keyboard by hand - rhinoceraptor https://jacklew.is/keyboard/ ====== trevize Have to give a shoutout to keyboard.io - [https://shop.keyboard.io](https://shop.keyboard.io). Backing this project and watching the process and creation of this keyboard has been very rewarding. They are creating band new keycaps, not just modifying the inlays - but the full custom shapes as well. Watching the process of getting mass fabrication setup in China has been especially interesting as well. One quality example blog post: [http://blog.keyboard.io/post/148699005129/day-420-hinges- and...](http://blog.keyboard.io/post/148699005129/day-420-hinges-and-feet-and- keycaps-and-pcbs) ~~~ ChuckMcM Wow, $330 for a keyboard. I love the passion and the thought they put into it, and I expect that for the small quantities they expect to produce that is the right price to sell it at, but at the same time it seems to cross into the unsustainable price point. ~~~ overcast People pay thousands of dollars for a virtual weapon in online games. That a week later, is deemed worthless by the next expansion release. I think you're vastly underestimating what people will pay for, if you think $330 is in the realm of "too much" for a hand made keyboard. ~~~ ChuckMcM I need to be clearer, it isn't "too much" for a keyboard, the question I have is if it is sustainable. Or put another way will the keyboard.io folks ever get the chance to make a 'model 2.0' ? This is my reasoning on that. As a bespoke item it carries a premium price for folks who value its design points. A short anecdote; I have a pair of Roger Sound Labs studio monitor speakers that I _love_ , probably paid twice what similar high end studio speakers cost but the folks at RSL were passionate about speakers and made the kinds of quality choices I would make when building speakers myself. That quality is evident in that here it is 30 years later and the speakers still sound _great_ and still as they did when I bought them. Sadly, RSL no longer exists. I think about that and similar vendors where I have gone out of my way to pay a premium to get a product that isn't working so hard for profit margin that it has compromised the durability or quality of the product. Those vendors are fragile. If they make a really high quality product with the best components and engineering margins to insure decades of service, you only buy one unit and your done. Others will buy the same unit, but once the market is saturated you are stuck, you aren't selling any more, you still have bills and staff to pay. You need to either move on to a different thing, or shrink dramatically in size to be the maintenance organization. A Bosch engineer was talking to me about predicting whether or not a particular spare part would be available 100 years from now. For things like machine tools, there are lots of them that have been in service for 100+ years. However, if you collect old computers, you know just how hard it can be to find parts to repair an S-100 machine like an Altair or IMSAI, or Apple II or PET parts. Forget finding a new set of DTL transistors for a PDP-1. Even the Alto project that kens and company are working on, that machine is 20 years old and you can't buy new disc packs for it or r/w heads for the drive. (both considered 'consumable' parts by the Alto) So at the end of the day, can a company like keyboard.io survive by "only" charging $330 for a keyboard that they have nominally already sold to 2,000 backers. What is the total addressable market for that keyboard? 5,000? 10,000? And it serves a market (desktop computers) which is in steep double digit declines. Even with big budgets such niche products find themselves lost (I've got a Microsoft 'commander' here you can play with :-)) My thinking then on this artisanal keyboard is whether or not they made the right choice by going to China. It seems like something you will sell a few thousand of, tops, and if you can make/keep all of the tooling in house you can control your supply chain fully. Anyway, while I can't go that high for a keyboard, I know folks who will. I won't be surprised to find out they are already backers of this project. But from a long term "these guys will be impacting the way we think about keyboards for the next 30 years" I don't think they have set themselves up for even a shot at that. For that, it would have to sell for $1,000 each. That would give them the extra runway to develop additional fabrication capabilities in house and push the envelope on all sides. ~~~ cstejerean I think you underestimate the market for high end keyboards. Kinesis has been doing this for a while for example and they don't seem to have a problem sustaining themselves or coming up with new versions. I bought a Kinesis Advantage 10 years ago for $350. They recently announced the Kinesis Advantage 2 for a similar price point. [http://www.kinesis- ergo.com/shop/advantage2/](http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/) I'm sure it's not a huge market but it's enough to sustain a company that wants to focus on making premium accessories. I don't think keyboards are going anywhere anytime soon. Sure, the consumer market is shrinking but the average computer user was never going to spend $300 for a keyboard. People spend that when they do serious amounts of typing all day, and there doesn't seem to be a decrease in the number of people that need to type for a living. ------ theophrastus This is a very impressive effort! And I can't help but think it recalls an old heroic trope wherein the development of the true hero involves wandering off to forge one's own sword, (a theme which was more recently picked up on in Star Wars). I hope it encourages others not to necessarily settle with the blister pack handed to them. ~~~ pimlottc ObTVTropes link: [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AMasterMakesTheir...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AMasterMakesTheirOwnTools) ------ libraryatnight This is a fairly common sort of occurrence in the mechanical keyboard hobby community. The geekhack forums are filled with useful info and links to kits for this sort of thing. ~~~ wastedhours Yep - great to see someone follow through on it as well, I've got a pack of 110 Gateron Browns in the drawer wondering when they'll see the light of day. My 3 manufactured mechs and full-time job will probably mean they stay there as well unfortunately. ------ kakkun Welp, might as well hop on the bandwagon, and share mine as well. [https://imgur.com/a/SP4Ng](https://imgur.com/a/SP4Ng) I used a pre-made PCB, so not quite as hand made as the OP's, but it's something I'm still quite proud of. ~~~ mastazi That looks neat! Do you have a link for the PCB? ~~~ kakkun Yeah, here's where I bought it: [https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_det...](https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=536) and here are the instructions: [https://deskthority.net/wiki/Phantom_instruction_guide](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Phantom_instruction_guide) ~~~ mastazi Great, thank you! ------ agumonkey OP should talk to [https://twitter.com/adereth](https://twitter.com/adereth) (see: [http://adereth.github.io/blog/2014/04/09/3d-printing-with- cl...](http://adereth.github.io/blog/2014/04/09/3d-printing-with-clojure/)) and have pure fun together. ps: [https://twitter.com/adereth/status/784870134502465536](https://twitter.com/adereth/status/784870134502465536) ~~~ Adrock Thanks for the mention! For anyone interested, all the source and models for the Dactyl keyboard are available here: [https://github.com/adereth/dactyl- keyboard](https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard) There's also a talk I gave a Clojure/conj about it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4) ~~~ rhinoceraptor Thanks for your work! I love the dactyl (my main board is an Ergodox). If/when I finally get a 3D printer, I will definitely build a Dactyl. ------ pkamb Cool to see a keyboard without a big spacebar. I've thought that that would be a good way to put multiple additional modifier keys on your thumbs, for things like controlling the arrow keys from the homerow without overloading the standard modifiers. I even purchased the [Japanese version of my daily keyboard][1] to try this out. Haven't planned the functions or made the switch yet though. [1]: [http://i.imgur.com/9LaxboJ.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/9LaxboJ.jpg) ~~~ devereaux We do have very similar tastes :-) I have the exact same one, only with a trackpad and PS2 connectors, because it was so cheap it made sense to reuse my old PS2/USB converters. Thinkpad keyboards are a rare and expansive luxury these days. The fast tab switch keys next to the arrow is something I need in every keyboard or laptop, to the point I won't buy if there is just the inverted T without any key I can remap to fast-tab switch. I love this keyboard, what I find disconcerting however is the Japanese writing. I would like to replace all my caps by brand new english caps. ~~~ auganov A reminder for people considering it: the trackpoint on these is an old version with a lower resolution/sensitivity. If you have multiple displays there's a high chance you won't like it. Even on a sufficiently high res display, it can be somewhat disappointing. If you want the newest trackpoint you'll need to get the new chiclet usb one[0]. There's a jap version too. [0] yea, with the inferior (for many) layout unfortunately ;c ------ chromaton I think that most people go with waterjet or laser cutting their keyboard plates. The SwillKB Keyboard Plate and Case build really helps with the design: [http://builder.swillkb.com/](http://builder.swillkb.com/) ~~~ VLM To get OP out of hand filing all those corners I started researching the current year price of a 14mm sq punch (greenlee style) and then gave up and tried 9/16in instead, prices have gone up a bit since my dad was making vacuum tube projects with greenlee punches... Its probably cheaper to watercut than to buy and use a punch (and hope for perfect alignment) The problem with lasers is heat distortion that is a huge amount of cutting and the odds of it not turning into a pretzel are not so good. A weldment with CNC carved rows and columns welded together hopefully into a square array is not ridiculous. In fact its probably the cheapest option. And you could use a nice aluminum and then anodize it some crazy cool color. If not aluminum and tig welding, maybe a somewhat less ambitious steel and silver "solder" (brazing, really) would be more realistic. ~~~ convolvatron i was thinking 'water jet' too, but i think your welding process is potentially just as nice with a lower bar of entry (assuming you have a tig sitting next to you). you'd have to find a really friendly water jet shop to set up such a small run. if you had a mill, even a little one, you could take aluminum flat and cut channels so that the flats interlock. at that point you could just put down some tacks or even use fasteners. if we want to lower it further, i think your brazing suggestion is good to. brass is easier to braze with a small hand held propane torch than steel i think. also more local hardware stores carry products like stay-brite and appropriate fluxes for copper alloys. is there way to use half thickness so the top tab grabs on two edges and the bottom guys on two others? ~~~ chromaton It's possible to get waterjet cutting in low quantities with small setup charges. We have a good number of people ordering custom keyboard plates and cases from us at Big Blue Saw. ------ tjic This is neat, and I don't want to diminish that, but when I saw the headline "...from scratch", I wasn't expecting that the starting components would include "a full set of keys". I'm reminded of an old Disney cartoon (maybe WWII era ?) where goofy invents artificial rubber. The catch is that it requires rubber tires as an input. ~~~ DanBC There are many projects where people have built their own keyboards. Do you know of any where the people built their own switches? ~~~ ffreire I've seen a fair number of folks in the mechanical keyboard community (admittedly rather small already) that customize their switches. For example, a common mod for mechanical switches is to replace the springs in the switch housing, which affects how much force is required to depress the switch. Others replace the stem, which is the colored part of the switch, changing its feel (tactile vs linear, smooth vs course). Given that, would you consider someone building their own switch as someone who's created a custom switch from these components? e.g. I've read of folks putting Zealios stems in Gateron housings with 80g+ springs to create their ideal switch type. ~~~ wastedhours Yeah, have seen a lot of people mod their switches, but not seen someone create them from scratch - think customising them and blending components steps it up a notch, but isn't any more "from scratch" (although, in my opinion, getting the switches bought in is as "from scratch" as is logical). ------ Zikes > If you wish to make apple pie from scratch, you must first create the > universe. - Carl Sagan I see a lot of builds similar to this on /r/MechanicalKeyboards, but which use pre-made cases or other kits. This is more "from scratch" than many, due to hand-cutting the case. Every time I see one I get the itch to try it myself. The guide he links to makes it seem tedious, but relatively straightforward. ------ bjpirt Wow, drilling and filing all of those holes by hand makes me glad I've discovered laser cutters. That's dedication! ------ qwertyuiop924 Neat project. I'll stick with my Unicomp for now, though. As much fun as it would be to build this, and to say that I'm typing on a keyboard I built, even the MX switches don't feel quite as satisfying as the click of a Model M, and I'm not making buckling-spring switches myself: sure, it might not be too hard, but even if it isn't, you have to make a ton, and then you have to make the keycaps. Queue keyboard hackers arguing over whether buckling-spring is really better than MX. ~~~ aidenn0 I've run into quality issues with Unicomp recently (my last one only lasted 18 months). I'm now using a keyboard with Cherry Greens (CODE 104 key), and it's pretty darn close, but not the same (plus a bit quieter, which my wife likes). Regardless of which is better, feeling familiar is nice. Those of my age who grew up using Apples are likely to prefer the Matias switches; I grew up with an IBM keyboard, and the Cherry Green is the closest I can find that isn't made by Unicomp. ~~~ qwertyuiop924 Hey, I grew up with dome switches. I've tried the MXes, and they just don't feel right to me. ------ APosMot Jesus H. Christ what a lot of negativity from a neat project. And the same quote from Carl Sagan is a nice asshat touch from people that probably don't make anything at all ever. Great work op, don't let these pedantic asshats keep you down. ------ jsoltren I mean, sure, this is pretty neat, but par for the course with the excellent projects posted every day at sites like deskthority.net and geekhack.org. I'm surprised this one made the front page. It's neat but not the first of its kind. There are folks on these sites who are re-creating IBM capacitive buckling spring keyboards "from scratch": new molds for all the components. Also, keyboard.io is a keyboard project complete from scratch (except for the switches) from some friends. Kudos to the OP for building a keyboard! It's great fun and very instructive. Head to the forums I linked above if you'd like to see more. ------ akssri This is probably the only project which goes about building a backplate from household tools, rather than having it milled. ------ trymas [https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards) ------ scaradim First keyboard built by hand for me was a ZX Spectrum 16k keyboard replacement made of door bell buttons. It was back in 1986 if I remember well. Result was a matrix of about 1m/50cm. We've actually broke the keyboard of our teacher computer because we were a full classroom playing Jetpack on it. All class has participated - of course with teacher's help. hehe... ~~~ alasdair_ Did it have those obnoxious rubber keys like the original? :) ------ trishume shameless plug: If you're looking for more keyboard build logs, I wrote one about my custom keyboard. [http://thume.ca/2014/09/08/creating-a- keyboard-1-hardware/](http://thume.ca/2014/09/08/creating-a- keyboard-1-hardware/) ~~~ 9fiftyfive Interesting read! ------ WalterBright I made my own keyboard in college for the simple reason that I couldn't afford to buy one. You couldn't get one at Goodwill for $1.99 in those days :-) I salvaged the keys from some IBM device. Drilled a bunch of holes in a fiberglass board, mounted the keys in the holes, connected them in an XY grid with diodes, and used a 6800 processor to poll the grid to see which key was pressed, and send the corresponding ASCII value to a serial port. It was a simple design, and worked well. Later, I connected a 6845 video controller chip, some code, and a display, and voila! a VT52 clone. Sadly, the thing got lost in one of my many moves. ------ GrinningFool Thanks for posting this, looks like it was a fun build. What's the split keyboard you previously had, shown in the background of the first photo? ~~~ sturmdrang Looks like an Ergodox (Infinity?) with full hand case. ~~~ jbondeson Definitely an Infinity Ergodox, the full hand has the I:C logo on it. ------ nickpsecurity So he built part of a keyboard. The best application I see of this, other than a startup for retail or Wall St keyboards, is for secure input. A secure keyboard has to (a) be immune to code injection, (b) no leak anything over power supply, (c) be TEMPEST shielded, and (d) optionally encrypted input directly to input subsystem in CPU if anything else on I/O bus is untrusted. For this, the keys can usually be second-hand but everything else is custom. Mainly the MCU, power filter, material around it, etc. One might similarly do a wireless keyboard that encrypted its transmissions. ------ j45 Inspiring! I currently own a number of ergonomic keyboards. Kinesis Freestyle 2 at office, Microsoft Sculpt Ergo at home and I've discovered my ideal keyboard would be a mix of the two. Would love any ideas on how a custom keyboard could reasonably (time wise) be designed to combine the best aspects of both keyboards: \- separated halves of the Freestyle2, \- wireless bluetooth for both halves instead of the wire the Freestyle2 requires, \- curve like the Microsoft Sculpt Ergo keyboard. \- Ok with either full keys or scissor keys. ~~~ jetpacktuxedo Separated halves is the easiest of your requirements. That is a pretty well solved problem in the keyboard community (see ergodox, etc.). Having the halves communicate wirelessly is a bigger challenge, but still potentially solvable. The easiest solution would be to have each half register as a separate board. Then because it is wireless you have the issues of batteries and charging and stuff. The curve might also be tough, especially when combined with the wireless part. The easiest solution would be to have a plate cut, heat it up to soften it slightly and then bend it into the curve that you want. There would probably be a lot of trial and error involved in that though, and it may be faster (though a lot more expensive) to design the final 3D version of it in a cad program and have it milled as one big block. Standard cherry-style keys will be much easier to source than scissor keys. This geekhack thread might give you some ideas: [https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=70221.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=70221.0) ~~~ j45 Awesome, thanks! Some inspiration: \- As a prototype... I'm wondering if the MS Ergo Sculpt keyboard could be cut in half and rewired. \- Maybe two keyboards with two sets of wireless dongles could communicate via the same 2.4 ghz wireless dongle from "their half". \- Maybe even 1 battery each. That's a great link, thanks I'll see what might be possible. ------ DanBC I'd be interested to see how comfortable the grid layout is. The only keyboard I used like that was the Sharp MZ80K. It was unfun, but that used square and flat keycaps too. ~~~ rhinoceraptor My main keyboard is an Ergodox, so non-staggered keyboards are what I'm used to. Plus, the grid layout made it a lot easier to build. ------ 0xdeadbeefbabe How about a porcelain or plaster board that fits your hands precisely. They did that in the soyuz, but not for hands, and for other reasons too. ~~~ zafka I have thought of making ceramic electronic components. A keyboard would be a great start. ~~~ zafka If done carefully some of the wiring could be painted on as an oxide and then reduced to the metal in the firing. ------ tomcam It was obvious from the title and its posting on hacker news that this would be some kind of slick 3-D printer article. I was, very happily, wrong. Bravo for a much more interesting take on this project. ------ stuartcw That's cool. I supported an IBM/PC clone keyboard firmware developer in the 1990s. Having an open source USB based firmware has really changed the game as it was a nightmare to clone the IBM XT/AT keyboard controller with all it's quirks. ------ burnbabyburn I've built a similar keyboard, called atomic keyboard, I love it, even if it was pretty pricey. ------ glup Does anyone recognize the metallic split keyboard in the background? I have been looking for a high quality wired keyboard with separate left and right panels and hoping I don't need to build one (plenty of other things to build!) ~~~ rhinoceraptor It's an Ergodox Infinity with full hand mod, it's a kit keyboard sold through Massdrop. You get the PCBs, switches and caps and assemble them. I would look at the Ergodox EZ if you want a pre-made one. ------ bentpins That looks like a mini USB extension cable not a micro. Neat project though ------ koffiekop Looks like a preonic. Nice work. :) I couldn't type on a ortholinear keyboard at all... Switched back to a happy hacking :) ------ 9fiftyfive Saw this on /r/mk. You did a very nice job on the keyboard. How is it typing on an Ortholinear-like keyboard? ------ enimodas i wonder why people still use teensy boards, when similar chinese boards can be bought for a couple dollars each instead of $20. ~~~ jrockway Cheaper shipping / faster arrival for quantity = 1? QA/binning done by manufacturer instead of you? ------ pareidolia What is rollover going to be like on a project like this? ------ mamcx Exist a whole of crazy sub-culture about this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/) [https://geekhack.org/](https://geekhack.org/) [https://www.massdrop.com/mechanical- keyboards](https://www.massdrop.com/mechanical-keyboards) I'm almost build one, because I need a replacement for my MS ergonomic Keyboard: [https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79603.msg2053482](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79603.msg2053482) In short, MS hate me. He refuse to build a mechanical keyboard and also build the most nice Ergo (to me) but each iteration is far less durable. My actual one have several keys fade-out, and the palm rest is kaput. The original one, was rock-solid: [https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-A11-00337-Natural- Keyboard-...](https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-A11-00337-Natural-Keyboard- Elite/dp/B0000642RX/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1476133766&sr=1-7&keywords=microsoft%2Bergonomic%2Bkeyboard&th=1) (I have see it at around US 300!) So, I'm in the weird spot of: \- I like this keyb too much \- I can buy a more durable, but PS-2 antique, version \- I can buy a more up-to-date but cord-less (hate to recharge stuff!) and I'm confident it will break faster \- I can buy from the mech community, but do you remember? This community is CRAZY, and the options get weird and weirder! \- I can buy a commercial gaming keyboard and make my life easy. But I wanna ergo. \- I can build it myself, but do it curved is challenging, and I need to buy a custom keyset, so I need to convince like 20-30 people to do it so it not cost a eye. Yep, this _is_ nuts. I'm already > 1 year holding off this project, waiting for a reasonable compromise (Not get wrong: I can settle for less. Is not that I can't, is that I _wish_ a nicer option!) \--- The options in this space (Ergo+ Mech+ NOT CRAZY) are very limited. VERY. You can get stuff like [https://shop.keyboard.io/](https://shop.keyboard.io/) or even more popular [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/infinity- ergodox](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/infinity-ergodox) But that keyb is a example of how crazy people are. Note that is not only a weird layout, have less keys than a normal keyboard. I could buy it instantly if a least is a "normal" tenkey-less. Right know, is _SUPER-HOT_ to make the keyboard with the less possible amount of keys, where 60% is like the most popular, like this [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/kbp-v60-plus-mini-mechanical- ke...](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/kbp-v60-plus-mini-mechanical-keyboard) This mean a lot of material to DIY is biased torwards 60%. ~~~ Kliment Get the antique and replace the electronics. Seems like the most reasonable middle way. I'm happy to help you if you need assistance with that. ------ fixxer Very cool, but to anyone considering this endeavor, I gently suggest buying a Poker2 instead. ~~~ lorenzfx I wouldn't, notice the different key arrangement. ~~~ fixxer I was referring to building a keyboard in general, not the ortholineal layout. ------ acz Oh these emacs users ------ RyanRies Great job! ------ jInflux To anyone nitpicking, unless the headline has been changed since submission, the author actually says they built it "by hand", rather than "from scratch". ~~~ rhinoceraptor I changed it after the initial feedback. ------ sly010 If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch... ------ Tepix Spoiler: Did not build from scratch, used keycaps and keyboard switches. ~~~ no_protocol This complaint makes me uncomfortable on behalf of the project creator. He didn't set out to create switches from scratch, he wanted to create a keyboard. You didn't care that he used a prebuilt microcontroller or USB cable. Switching from keycaps to some substitute wouldn't be technically harder to pull off, it would just reduce usability. Same for switches -- the input/output of these switches is created with keyboards in mind, other switch choices including a homemade version would be possible, but he didn't set out to create 100 switches, he wanted to make a keyboard. ~~~ nickpsecurity He built a keyboard without the keys or switches. That would be the most useless keyboard ever made until... he obtained pre-made keys and switches from a keyboard vendor. The gripe stands despite this being cool. A more honest description would be he made part of a keyboard or maybe the frame of one. ~~~ no_protocol All the switches do is close a connection between two wires. He could have used bent paperclips and taped cardboard on top of each one for the keys. Would you be happy then? ~~~ nickpsecurity That would be a fully-custom keyboard. So yes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The student loan crisis will dwarf the housing market crash. - mikekarnj http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2010/08/11/college-inc/ ====== patio11 It isn't going to be as bad as the housing market crash, because degrees are revenue producing assets for the overwhelming majority of people and houses are costs for the overwhelming majority of people. Also, student loans do not have any mechanisms in them which are designed to induce payment shock, like ARM resets are. (I am only half sardonic there.) If your loan repayments are $700 a month when you graduate, they will be $700 a month for the next ten years. There is no mechanism by which they'll suddenly jump to $3,000. Even for degrees which you wouldn't expect great things from -- like, say, English -- the value of the degree exceeds the price by huge amounts. The NPV of a bachelor's degree in English is about a million bucks. You still come out ahead with virtually any college/loan combination possible, as long as you find a job with it, and unemployment among college graduates is still at ~4.5%. There are a few degrees which are exceptionally bad decisions, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. One example is culinary school, particularly the ones which will load you with the federal max of loans so that you can get a $12 an hour job as a line cook. There is one glaring sore thumb in the data for master's degrees, too. If folks are interested, I'll blog about this in a few weeks. I did a project for a client looking at government data and a few other sources to try to get numbers on the worth of degrees by majors. The work is 99% over but, clients being clients, there are some more steps it has to go through before they want to launch it publicly. ~~~ byrneseyeview Whoa, there! What discount rate are you using? For the median degree, I get an NPV less cost of $47K. Here are my assumptions: * Discount rate of 6% (we're talking about an asset with a 40-year lifespan and zero terminal value). * $25K in annual school costs. * $25K in annual opportunity costs. (May be conservative for people who are college material but didn't get a degree.) * Four years to complete the degree. Which is very aggressive. * $23K earnings differential. (The current average.) * Forty years of post-degree work. In this model, you get to breakeven 26 years after you start school. So, to the current high-school senior: _assuming the job market in 2036 looks pretty much like it does now_ , treat these projections as solid. It gets worse. If you assume a more realistic graduation timeframe of six years, the value is -$18K after 40 years. Of course, you can keep working; you'll hit breakeven after 54 years (at age 72). See sheet two for my assumptions: [https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjzB7A88UMCBdGVrUUN...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjzB7A88UMCBdGVrUUNoMmpCRjE1LVpZYXMyQllEUFE&hl=en&pli=1#gid=1) ~~~ ahlatimer I think you're overestimating the annual cost of school. I know it doesn't cost $25k/yr for me to go. I pay around $6k/yr for tuition, plus another $1k or so for books. According to College Board [1], that's about $1k less than the average for a student going to a public school, in-state. Your figure matches about what it costs to go to a private school, but, from my experience, public schools are also more likely to give scholarships [2]. Even still, no one is forced to go to a private school. [1]: <http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html> [2]: I went to a private school my first year. It was around $30k/yr, but I was also given a scholarship that cut that price to around $18k/yr. Most of the people I met on campus also received scholarships of some sort as well. ~~~ moxiemk1 The school I'm at costs ~ $55k per year in the end, and the grants I get bring it down to about $30ish, and my parents make not much more than $100k (by working a full time and a part time job each) The public schools I applied to that weren't rolling-admission 5th year of highschool types ended up costing the same in the end, because they didn't give need-based aid, and their merit scholarships were not large for people who don't play sports. ~~~ yoden Need based aid isn't really targeted towards people who's parents who make more than 100k (more than the national average). Merit scholarships are easy to achieve, given that you are exceptional. But if you are middle class and not especially proficient, I do agree that you have one of the hardest college experiences in america. ------ krschultz "3. College Loan Repayment Reform: If anyone files for bankruptcy, the student loan should go along with it." No, no, no, no. This penalizes the people who pay back their loans far too much. Who wouldn't just go into bankruptcy if they couldn't pay back the loan? Unlike other loans, the bank can't take your degree back. Interest rates will go up for everyone as it becomes a riskier loan. Suddenly people who had fully intended to pay the loan back will be crushed under higher interest rates. ~~~ sliverstorm Exactly. The ONLY plan worth taking would be graduate high school with no assets, take out a big student loan and live off that, graduate college, and file for bankruptcy. Tada, 4 years of your life absolutely free, and a degree they can't take away to boot. ~~~ nkassis Bankruptcy isn't exactly fun. You won't be living the high life afterwards. ~~~ sliverstorm You're in your early 20's fresh out of college. You wouldn't have been living the high life anyway. ------ CWuestefeld I got as far as _The pursuit of profit is a common theme in all of the documentaries I have listed, which is what ultimately led to the predicament we are in today._ That tells me that the author doesn't have the slightest understanding of economics. That being the case, there's no sense reading about his economic predictions. UPDATE: I think I overstated that. What I really should say is... The author appears to be of the class that believes that if something is done profitably, it must necessarily be bad. While it's true that many evil things are driven by greed, it's equally true that a pursuit of profits leads one to provide the goods and services that society values the most. Since the opening of the article seems to ignore the latter aspect, I don't expect that any economic analysis it might engage in will have any depth. ~~~ yoden Great post. Companies making profit is generally _good_ , because it grows possibilities for all. Granted, if they're doing it by exploiting consumers, that isn't true, but the author doesn't even consider that case. ------ kreek There's a huge difference between the housing crash and a potential student loan 'crash'. A house is an asset. A unique asset at that, the only kind you can live in (other than your car). An underwater house, despite the term, becomes illiquid. You literally can not sell it. If you become unemployed you can not move to find work without walking away and trashing your credit. A drop in house prices affects everyone. The student loan crisis affects very few and even fewer who make a meaningful contribution to the economy. An underreported aspect of the housing crash was the end of the house as a magic ATM machine. People were spending vast amounts of HELOC money during the boom. Literally doubling their mortgages by pulling out cash against their house. With the crash that has stopped and the economy has ground to a halt. What market would a student loan crash take down? Are people flipping degrees somewhere? If people feel a degree isn't worth it they'll go to a state school or transfer in from a community college. At worst schools will be forced to drop tuitions. The post mentions student loan debts in the billions, subprime losses alone are in the trillions. That's the money out in the open. There's even more money off the books as banks don't have to report a loss until they sell REO property. There's a shadow inventory of foreclosed homes right now that matches the houses you'll find on the MLS. The student loan crisis will in no way shape or form "dwarf" the housing market crash. ~~~ vannevar I'd go even further and say that a 'crash' in the higher education market would actually be good for the economy. Unlike lower home prices, lower tuition rates would have no significant direct impact on existing college graduates, and would permit more people to seek admission, increasing competition and therefore increasing the caliber of students enrolling. Bright people whose talents would be otherwise wasted working at Walmart will instead be able to contribute at a higher level to the economy. ------ Lendal This crisis won't be the same at all, because you can't discharge student loan debt. There is currently no reason for a lender to bother examining the loan because repayment is virtually guaranteed. Having the federal government take over the loans will only make the problem worse. Educational institutions are able to raise their prices precisely because they know that with a combination of federal and state grants and loans, anyone can go to college so why not inflate the prices sky-high? That's what happens when you mix unlimited government subsidies into what used to be a free-market system. ~~~ nkassis I agree that gov backed student loans are making the situation worse but removing them would be disastrous. Maybe and I can't prove this but maybe, if the gov was the sole lender, they could pressure universities into reducing tuition? ~~~ mikekarnj Scary thing is that the government will be the sole backer of educational loans. We all know how slow and antiquated they operate. I don't know if this is going to be a good or bad thing for the economy. ------ frossie Interesting article. _2-year Universities: Who made up the rule that we have to attend college for 4 years?_ Tertiary education does take a hell of a long time in the US. In my field, and in my generation, most UK students got their PhDs around 24-25 years of age; for the US students it was more like 27-28. Yes, if that is a real effect that would definitely be a problem. I can think of two factors that may be affecting this (I have no data): 1\. The level of the student arriving at college. Yes you can probably get a professional degree in 2 years with no holiday breaks, provided your college doesn't have to teach you basics. 2\. The fact that US colleges cost so much money potentially create a vicious cycle - you need a job to pay for college, which means you need enough spare hours in which to work, which means you have to space out your courses, which means you need more money etc etc. I would be certainly interested in views from US graduates as to why they feel it takes so long. ~~~ evgen > in my generation, most UK students got their PhDs around 24-25 years of age; > for the US students it was more like 27-28 The programs were not quite equivalent. US Ph.D. programs have traditionally included more courses and include a comprehensive examination in addition to a dissertation. A US Ph.D. candidate must demonstrate a broader understanding of the field and cannot just jump into thesis work upon starting their Ph.D. program. ~~~ frossie _The programs were not quite equivalent._ Sure, they may not be identical but they were teleologically equivalent. Newly minted PhDs from both countries proceeded to compete for the same jobs on a seemingly equal footing. ------ ezl Seems false. 1\. Housing market debt dwarfs higher education debt in notional value. >14 Trillion vs 830B. 2\. Most mortgages are non-recourse, meaning you can walk away. Most education loans are not. So people can't just leave banks on the hook without much more severe penalties. When a homeowner walks away from a 600k mortgage on a house only worth 500k in the market, he/she is implicitly trading credit for 100k in cash. For some people that trade becomes much bigger 900k loan on a now 500k house. A lot of people will trade credit for 400k. If walking away from an education loan was easy(which it isn't), I'm selling my credit for the value of my loan outstanding. That number tends to be a lot smaller, and most college-grads don't find it worth losing your credit for it. * edit for readability ------ jacquesm Student loans are a rip-off. The market is set up in such a way that to get jobs you have to have a degree, and to get a degree you have to borrow a bunch of money so that you can pay your way through school if your parents aren't wealthy enough. The end result is that you'll be beholden to a bank for a good sized portion of your life (as if having a mortgage or rent isn't enough to hold you down). Smart societies have free education, and their schools may not be always as good as those that you pay for with half of your life or so but they're adequate enough. The main reason why education should be free is because education not being free creates an inequality between people born rich and people born poor, the poor will end up getting their education but pay for that with a significant portion of their time later on, the rich don't care. ~~~ jrockway I don't see this as being true. I went to a state school (UofI). It cost $700 a quarter. I got bored and dropped out. I had absolutely no trouble finding a job. Not having a degree has not come up at all, even when working for a big corporation that does extensive background checks. So I am not buying that college must be expensive, or that there is no way to get a job without completing college. Sure, some people are rejected from some jobs for not having a degree, and some people spend a lot of money on college for no real reason. Overspending on college is no different than overspending on anything else. (Example: I just bought a $900 vacuum cleaner. That doesn't mean that if you don't have $900 you can't clean your house. It just means that I overspent.) ~~~ waterlesscloud You had a subsidized education. The cost of the education was not $700 a quarter, that was just the share of it that you paid. ~~~ jrockway This subsidized education is available for anyone, though, just like the $70,000 a quarter educations are. ------ ja27 I don't want to discharge my student loans. I just want to be able to refinance them again based on current market rates. ~~~ Teese I want to know why I can't. Nobody has said why, just that you can't ------ c1sc0 Whatever happened to studying for the sake of it? You know, like learning new things & stuff. When did that shift from studying as exercise for the spirit to studying as a way of fattening your wallet come about? ~~~ harry I've been curious about this myself. Through my work I get to take whatever college level course each semester I want. Been dabbling in physics and the like, but it hasn't really proven to be worth it. The material is COOL and when the professor is really allowed to 'open up' and sorta spin their tales and views it is amazing. However, the basics are only taught in this rigorous get-er-done style with 4-5 major exams a semester. My past experiences felt so accelerated and like the goal is to cram material in the smallest available time frame - thus making enjoying the material difficult. ------ nkassis One thing no one talks about, why do all degrees virtually cost the same in most universities. Why would a engineer pay the same as a liberal arts student. The reason I saying this is maybe the cost should be proportional to the expected earnings? ~~~ brown9-2 Well, what is the university charging students for - the services that they produce to give you your education, or the expected value of your salary after graduation? In theory, universities are not for-profit. Is there something about an engineering school education that is inherently more expensive than a liberal arts education? ~~~ nkassis Yes in fact it cost more in equipment, facilities, salaries of professors to educate an engineering student compared to a mathematics student or English student. ~~~ elai Many universities have different prices for different faculties classes. What end's up happening is that business costs the most, sciences cost the same as any other class and engineering/comp sci. is only marginally higher. (450/500/680). From a purely cost point of view, that is a bit skewed. ------ nolite looking forward to my bailout ------ joe_the_user The frustrating thing about the article is that it never asks _why_ the cost of four year education has been up faster than inflation for many, many years. His answer to the problem is less education. That seems like a problem to me. The reason we had affordable state school was that education was a good for society as a whole. America, as a whole benefits from having well-educated people. The state schools we had were affordable for both the student and the states. Why is that no longer the case? The article misses this question _entirely_. ------ startuprules Actually, the commercial real estate market crash will dwarf both the student loan and the housing market crash. "Over the next five years, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will reach the end of their terms and require new financing" Elizabeth Warren Warns About Commercial Real Estate Crisis, 'Downward Spiral' For Small Businesses, Local Banks [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/11/commercial-real- est...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/11/commercial-real-estate- wa_n_458092.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: VidFall – Pay with time, not your wallet - badgercapital https://vidfall.com ====== dkyc The age old problem that the demographic that watches video ads for .50$ is not the demographic you want to advertise to... ~~~ ianamartin So what? The people who click on google ad words and Facebook ads aren't the target market for those either. Doesn't stop them from making bank. ------ bengali3 Clean and i got the message in 3 seconds. I would guess your viewers will result in lower conversion rates for the advertisers when viewed from your page. Not sure how to handle that if advertisers notice. Also, since your whole pitch is about the $$$ your leaderboard should be tied to $ somehow instead of just # of watches. That's more for your own dashboard. (ie highlight the wins, not the amount of pain other users have been put through) ~~~ badgercapital Definitely need to work on the pitch a bit. Thanks, this will put the fire under me to get around to cleaning that up. Appreciate the kind words! ------ chatmasta These business models usually face a problem of one ad view not being enough to incentivize someone to watch it. I like the penny auction spin you put on that. Clever. That said, is your ad network aware of this and okay with it? How do you verify these are real viewers? There are a lot of "attack" vectors here... automated servers + proxies, or even just somebody with a clickbot on their home computer cycling through videos and buying an item once its price goes below what they can sell it for elsewhere? Also, why would your users not just buy giftcards at any number of the discount gift sites, many of which offer higher discounts than you, without the need to watch a video? I'm very curious about the economics here, because I find it hard to imagine you could win all these "startup of the month" type accolades without thinking this through. ------ Dragonai I like that the competitive edge doesn't feel very pressuring. Cool idea, I'll keep an eye on this site. Also just a quick note - the copy on the About Us section could use some slight sentence structure and organization checking. :) The end in particular reads a little strangely: > We even feature charity auctions, which apply the revenue users generate > from watching video ads towards great causes around the world. Thanks for > your interest in VidFall. Founded in September 2013, VidFall is a portfolio > company of Wasabi Ventures, LLC. ------ sadkingbilly How does this not violate the terms of your affiliate agreements? Are the video ads from direct clients of yours or through a general affiliate program? ~~~ thedangler I too, would like to know this. ~~~ calbear81 Yup, so who's gonna build the automatic video watching / bidding bot? ------ ChrisArchitect In Time (2011) - "... To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities...." ------ aaron987 I honestly don't see the benefit of this. If I understand it correctly, a bunch of people watch ads, causing the price to go down. But only one person gets the discounted price, and everyone else who sat there watching ads gets nothing? In other words, the majority of people using the site get no benefit. ~~~ badgercapital Sorry you feel that way. Thanks for checking us out! Cheers! ------ nacs First time I loaded the page, I got some massive text in the middle of the page that said: Error 500 CDbConnection failed to open the DB connection. Should look into caching that front page or at least handling DB errors more gracefully. ------ nicksergeant Wow, I'm quite impressed. I bought the $100 restaurant gift card (for $30). They sent it to me tonight, but it was only for $50. I emailed them, and they responded within 8 minutes with the remaining $50. Kudos to their customer support. ------ neil_s Really cool concept! I want to try it out, just for the game theory aspects of it. Has anyone successfully received the items they ordered off of this? ~~~ badgercapital Thanks! Appreciate the kind words. We ship out around 6pm every night. We have a lot to do today! ~~~ neil_s Turns out I couldn't buy because my Bank of America card currently has a UK address attached to it. Let people use international billing addresses for digital goods like Amazon gift cards? (Also, better aesthetics (like removing the stripe texture and the greyscale menu) would make this site way more trust-worthy in my eyes. Currently it looks too much like a rough tech demo quickly thrown together on Wordpress) ------ badgercapital Wow, well thank you HN for the support. Really incredible to be on the front page. You guys blew up AWS! Cleaned up the DB issues! Let's party! ------ llamataboot Bought an Amazon gift card to test it out. Says it will arrive in 24 hours. Would be nice if instant, but looks good so far! ~~~ badgercapital Hey, we ship each night at 6pm! Your card should arrive then. Thank you so much for giving us a try. ~~~ josh-wrale Which time zone? ------ obisw4n Its very hard to trust this website when there is a massive misrepresentation of the number of viewers. ~~~ badgercapital Hey the watchers variable is dependent upon the number of people actually watching videos. We were making a TON of calls to our ad networks at the peak of the HN craze, but not all the videos were coming through. That is why the viewer variable was all screwy. Lots of work ahead, appreciate the constructive criticism! ------ galuggus Who do you use for your ad network? ------ brandonpindulic This is awesome	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Udacity Says It Can Teach Tech Skills to Millions, and Fast - olalonde http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/technology/udacity-says-it-can-teach-tech-skills-to-millions.html?_r=0 ====== pakled_engineer I prefer the MIT OpenCourseware style, where there's no signing up, no trying to get money out of you and you can come in and just take what you want out of a course, much of it graduate level classes where knowledge is dumped for it's own sake, whereas Udacity/Edx/Coursera all seem geared to introductory courses and selling credentials. I typically just want the lecture notes, assignments, and the recommended reading now. I find video lectures too clunky to load up in the bulky UIs of MOOCs, bandwidth problems, and they eat up too much screen space for working along writing out the programs. I appreciate the condensed versions in the notes too since I don't have a lot of time to dedicate an hour to watch a lecture I could read much faster. For example this course on Elliptic Curves [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-783-elliptic- curve...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-783-elliptic-curves- spring-2015/index.htm) I decided to take after going through djb IETF working group mailing list posts which are so detailed I wanted to understand the basic math involved. Every post he writes is so thorough it's typically almost a class in itself in modern security analysis [http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/cfrg/current/msg07335.h...](http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/cfrg/current/msg07335.html) Also, I originally learned "real development" (my decade of hacking around C willy nilly modifying programs doesn't really count) from Sussman's "Adventures in Advanced Symbolic Programming" where you read chapters out of SICP and then work on assignments, with mini lectures built into them in just plain text [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-945-adventures-in-advanced-symbolic-programming- spring-2009/assignments/) ~~~ Cyph0n I agree completely. MOOCs require too much commitment to be frank. I'm currently finishing my EE degree, so I can't really afford to "follow along" given my already full course lod every semester. In addition, I'm more interested in slightly advanced topics covered in a rigorous manner. MIT OCW is the best solution. The self-paced courses on Coursera and Udacity are OK, but the UI as you say is too clunky, and the content is a bit shallow. Right now I'm starting to work through Computer Systems Security on OCW [1]. They provide lectures on Youtube, so no need to fiddle around with a third- party app on mobile. They also provide all lecture notes, exams, and labs for learning purposes. The content of the course itself looks extremely interesting as well, and covers a wide array of topics related mainly to RE. [1]: [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-858-computer-systems-security-fall-2014/) ~~~ pakled_engineer You can also look up the recent course and usually get updated lecture notes too, often course calendars are available at MIT and not locked for student authentication [http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.858/2015/schedule.html](http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.858/2015/schedule.html) Speaking of Prof. Zeldovich he's releasing this traffic analysis resistant messenging scheme with some grad students in October [http://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/vandenhooff- vuvu...](http://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/vandenhooff-vuvuzela.pdf) ------ artgillespie I'm the Director of Engineering at Udacity and wanted to clarify a couple things: All of our content is available at no cost. It's an important manifestation of one of our most important core values—that education is available to everyone. What we charge for are services. Students enrolled in Nanodegree Programs have access to coaches, a massive worldwide network of code reviewers, certification, job placement and much, much more. We work hard to help Nanodegree Program students that are looking for jobs in tech get them. For example, one of the best parts of my job is doing mock interviews. Folks on the engineering team volunteer to give a representative tech industry interview to a soon-to-be-graduate and then give them detailed feedback on how they could improve. Hearing back from these students a few weeks later that they got a job at Nest or Google or wherever is one of the most satisfying things I've experienced in my career, and everyone on the team who's done it feels the same. Finally, we really do think our graduates are ready for jobs. So much so that we've hired two of them as full-time SWEs onto the small engineering team at Udacity. This has worked out incredibly well—these are smart, effective engineers that I'd put up against any traditional school's CS grads. We'll be hiring more of them, and we hear from companies that have hired our graduates that they'll be doing the same. ------ netcan I'm a little disappointed at the comments here. It's fine to point out flaws and downsides. comparisons to other options like traditional universities, free options. Udacity might even ultimately suck. But, this is very early in the game and MOOCs are part of the progress, whatever their eventual form or role. The price of education will ultimately come down to a bunch of things that are still unclear. Can it work at scale without dedicated teachers, dedicated full time pursuit. Can credentialing be solved or bypassed at scale. The "people want it" is there and the only way to figure things out is to try scaling. That could take decades, culture takes time to evolve. I don't care about Udacity or anything else, but I'd like to see the concept of better education, cheaper using technology. So, I'm happy to hear them say something like "can be scaled up to teach millions of people technical skills." Try it. If they succeed, great. ~~~ mtbcoder I don't think the criticism is against the concept of MOOCs but rather the over-exaggerated claims being made regarding proficiency achieved from the cursory information provided in a given program and career opportunities available after completing said program. ------ radmuzom I recently completed 7 Udacity courses in less than 2 months. All of them are from the 'Front End Developer' nanodegree. I am not enrolled in the program, I am just taking the courses for free by watching the lecture notes and doing the short quizzes. Pros: 1\. It provides good breadth of knowledge around what is possible. 2\. The style is engaging and the videos are short and well made. I have tried to take Coursera courses before, but always ended up dropping out after the first couple of lectures. 3\. It gives you a specific goal; most of the nanodegree courses are geared towards completing a specific project. 4\. I was able to quickly get my personal website up and running (I believe in using completely static HTML + CSS, JS when required, and the courses helped me to learn enough to quickly hack together something just using Notepad++). 5\. I have plans to enroll for a Nanodegree later. It is quite affordable even for people in developing countries (like me), after accounting for exchange rate fluctuations and cost of living. Cons: 1\. The courses don't go too deep, and you won't become a master unless you are motivated enough to do the work yourself (e.g. Introduction to jQuery - it gives a flavour of what is possible to do with jQuery, but does not go into any depth if you want to be an expert). 2\. What you get out of the course if entirely up to your motivation in improving yourself. Completing the courses alone won't be enough to pick up a new skill. ~~~ mattmanser Wait until you have more than one page and want to change your menu. Then you won't believe in completely static HTML + CSS. I used Jekyll for my blog, but ultimately it's just not worth the effort and definitely impractical. ~~~ vikp Off topic, but I use Jekyll for my blog, too. It's compiled to static HTML, sure, but the templating is pretty powerful (downsides of Liquid aside). It's easy to make global changes with templates and CSS. Octopress can make a lot of Jekyll tasks easier -- [https://github.com/octopress/octopress](https://github.com/octopress/octopress). ------ ismail "Lower education costs"? Nah i doubt it. Maybe just for the US, but not for the rest of the world. At $ 200 per a month it is almost as expensive as a top tier university in South Africa. Udacity Cost per a Month: $200 Cost at a South African University: +- $3000 per year/10 months = $300 per a month. This excludes any discounts, bursaries etc. Also ignoring the different levels of quality and depth of what you will be learning. ~~~ LoSboccacc You don't need to go that far. Even in europe univs are quite affordable. I attended engineering at Politecnico of Milano and it costed me well south of 3k/year. It seems it's mostly the US having an issue in education costs. ~~~ peatmoss I think the distinction here is between "cost to provide education" and "direct costs to students." You can, through government subsidy, have an expensive-to-provide education delivered at a low cost to students. Most public universities around the globe that are cheap to students are cheap because of these subsidies. Udacity, if you believe is providing a comparable good, is going the cheap-to-provide route. Admirable if it works, because we can educate the masses without spending a lot as a society. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in academia (masters, first half of phd), I see areas where Udacity is a good substitute, and areas where it is not. If you're an undergrad sitting in the back row of a lecture hall, why not Udacity? If you're a grad student doing research, obviously not. If you're a grad student doing advanced coursework... maybe? ~~~ ismail Great point. I think the question is, how do you scale this so for example a University here in South Africa. That may not have the resources is able to tap into the flood of content that is being created in the education space, reducing the cost for students here in South Africa and uplifting millions. ------ codeonfire What I find ridiculous in this article is how bad and social focused Google hiring has become. Google regularly declines to hire people with pHds or decades of real dev experience for developer jobs, yet hires a person after one "full stack developer course?" Reading between the lines we can see how this really works: female: +1, ivy school: +1, young: +1, etc. On the topic of udacity, I knew from the beginning these claims that they were going to replace traditional education were equally ridiculous. Their courses might get some people jobs they can't handle, and those organizations will subsequently fail at their attempts to develop products. I see stupid stuff all day long. My previous employer hired (IMO) unqualified engineers for (IMO) social reasons. Those people did not commit anything resembling code for months, but of course social politics of the workplace prevented them from being fired or anyone saying anything about their non-work. Traditional education is traditional. This means everything else has been tried. Everything. MOOC's are not dissimilar to paper based correspondence work that has been around somewhere on the planet for probably hundreds of years. When it gets down to reality, the surviving companies are not going to say, "you watches some videos for a few months, welcome aboard." Those companies that do will slowly die off. ------ rahimnathwani The "full-stack developer" nanodegree mentioned in the article appears on Udacity's list of nanodegrees but, when you click through, it takes you to a page entitled "Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree". The curriculum seems decent enough[0] but it's focused on a particular skill set (building and deploying server-rendered web apps and the APIs to support front-end code). It doesn't cover front-end development (e.g. JavaScript or specific frameworks like Angular/React), and so it falls short of 'full stack web', and further short of 'full stack' in the original sense. [0] [https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-developer- nano...](https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-developer-nanodegree-- nd004) ~~~ gaius The "full stack" starts with electrical signals a thousand miles away and ends with glowing pixels in front of you. Javascript is a teeny tiny sliver of the "stack". ~~~ rahimnathwani That's what I meant, but I could have worded it more clearly: \- The lack of JS/front-end means it's not really 'full stack web development' \- The lack of lower-level stuff means it's definitely not 'full stack development' I'm not sure, though, that you and I would draw the 'full stack development' line in the same place. For me, the lowest level would be OS kernels. For you, perhaps it would be CPU microcode or even deeper. If someone could write an OS from scratch (running on an off-the-shelf hardware) and make that thing respond to HTTP requests, that would be sufficient to call them a 'full stack developer', right? ~~~ gaius Well, and render what was returned from that request onto a screen :-) But a lineprinter would do, I'm old-skool like that. ------ johnminter Udacity (and Coursera, edX, MIT OpenCourseware) can and do teach very helpful skills to large groups of self-directed learners. I have benefited from Coursera. I suspect that most who come here fit into that group. One problem is that a large proportion of the population do not have the personality/skills/drive to do this. I would note the Udacity pilot with San Jose State University. They started with a remedial math course, a college algebra course and an introductory statistics course. The pass rate of the stats class was about 50%, the two other courses much lower - 27 and 25% if I remember correctly. One approach that has worked better is a partnership with a Community College (e.g. Bunker Hill in Massachusetts). Here they use a flipped classroom approach. The students watch online lectures and come to a lab session where they have an instructor to help when they get stuck and are encouraged work in groups. This seems to help many get past the hard parts and complete the work. This approach is obviously more expensive. Very few people work "for free." Self-motivated, disciplined individuals will always do well with systems that focus heavily on independent study. Others will have to pay more to access more personalized support. ------ jakozaur Reads like a PR written article. Yes online courses are real, but article almost solely focus on Udacity and its success story. This is much broader trend (coursera, teamtreehouse etc.). There are also some obstacles (motivation, huge enrollment though very low percent of course completion). I wish journalist do their research, instead of writing semi-ads. ------ coldcode Anyone can teach fast, the question is does anyone they teach learn and become productive? ~~~ LoSboccacc The perils of 'java' schools, written ten years ago and still relevant [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html) Not everyone can be a productive programmer, independently from what they want, how hard they try or how they are teached ------ gaius If a man selling guitars and guitar lessons says he has a sure fire way to make you a rockstar, check your wallet. ~~~ pekk What did Udacity say that is comparable to "sure fire way to make you a rockstar"? ------ rtz12 > It Can Teach Tech Skills to Millions, and Fast I would say that too if I could charge everyone of them $200 every month. ------ redwood U's cs101 was a game changer for me. Loved blazing through on demand. U shot itself in the foot with bad PR when it publicized stats that showed lots of folks starting but not finishing classes. Haters jumped on that. .. But honestly i never saw the big deal. They're like textbooks... you get something out of it but seldom read every page. So what... you're learning! I read this PR piece as U having learned from that horrible move a few years ago. ------ SQL2219 Motivation not included. ------ ThomPete This is great news for anyone who want to learn something to create something but it will hardly help anyone who want to get a job. ~~~ rorykoehler Kind of ironic isn't it? If you can create something of value from scratch but still can't get hired what are companies hiring for? ~~~ ThomPete Problem is that what you can create from scratch isn't what the companies often need. Instead they need experience in working with something already created which is quite a different monster IMO. ~~~ rorykoehler You're right but one can quickly lead to the other if the company is willing to dedicate even a small amount of resources to training. ~~~ ThomPete Yes and there in lies the issue. They normally aren't in my experience. ------ graycat I looked at their _full stack_ program: Apparently for my startup I've done most or all of that already! So, right, I've got up my Web site, with Web pages with HTML and CSS, and four _server side_ servers. One of these is just SQL Server. Another is a Web page session state server I wrote. And the other two are specialized to the technical internals of my site. I did it all from self-teaching. Gee whiz. "Look, Ma: No courses!" Also looked at their program for training _data analysts_ to "Discover Insights from Data". "Insights"? For that goal, there needs to be some caution as in, say, Statistical Science 2001, Vol. 16, No. 3, 199–231 Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures Leo Breiman as at [http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS/Repository/1.0/Disseminate?vi...](http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS/Repository/1.0/Disseminate?view=body&id=pdf_1&handle=euclid.ss/1009213726) Part of their work is using _exploratory data analysis_. Gee, there's a book with that title by J. Tukey. I have a copy of the original, that is, the manuscript, that is, in Tukey's handwriting! It was okay. They mention finding "anomalies" in data. Okay, how about an _anomaly detector_ that is both multi-dimensional and distribution-free with false alarm rate adjustable in small steps over a wide range, say, one a minute, hour, day, week, month, quarter, and known quite accurately in advance? I published one of those. Gee, guys. I also sent 1000+ resumes and got back zip, zilch, and zero. Are some people hiring? Do they really know what the heck they are looking for? Will they recognize what they are looking for when they see it? All maybe not.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Beyond English, the language of the future - rjknight http://www.salon.com/2011/11/06/whats_the_language_of_the_future/singleton/ ====== bryanlarsen The most salient point I got from the article: an increasing number of people learning English are using it only to speak to others who do not speak it natively. A couple of illustrations: \- I have witnessed one student from Hong Kong and one student from Beijing use English to bridge the gap between Cantonese and Mandarin (as well as pen & paper). \- My French is very poor, so the only people that I can converse with in French are those with a really bad English accent. I can well imagine that English is worse, what with its crazy spelling and idioms. ~~~ wccrawford I post and correct on a language exchange site. One day, one of my Japanese friends there received a correction from someone with the worst English I have ever seen on that site, including that of people learning English. She immediately stated that she only wanted corrections from people who were fluent in English, and asked that he not correct her entries any more. He blew up. He claimed he WAS fluent. After a huge row, it turned out that everyone in his village in China speaks English like that and they are convinced they are fluent. I can only assume that's because they use it with each other, and don't try to communicate with people who are natively fluent. ~~~ pugnusferreus And that's why there's so many variant of English, including the broken ones. Manglish (Malaysian English), Singlish (Singaporean English) and much more. Though not biology, I think this is how language evolves. For example in China, you have so many dialects (Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese etc). And if you drill down to a dialect itself there are slight differences. You can roughly identify which part of province that person is from. ------ zerostar07 If only it had a consistent pronounciation, speech recognition would be so much more widely used. ~~~ nakkali_kuere The scripts from India has very consistent reading or pronunciation system.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Overfitted Brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization - johnsimer https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09560 ====== cs702 _> ... all DNNs face the issue of overfitting as they learn, which is when performance on one data set increases but the network's performance fails to generalize (often measured by the divergence of performance on training vs testing data sets). This ubiquitous problem in DNNs is often solved by experimenters via "noise injections" in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs. The goal of this paper is to argue that the brain faces a similar challenge of overfitting, and that nightly dreams evolved to combat the brain's overfitting during its daily learning._ Actually, there's compelling evidence that overfitting is a necessary step for achieving state-of-the-art performance with DNNs! Many state-of-the-art deep learning models today are trained until they achieve ~100% accuracy on the training data, _and then we continue to train them_ because once they go past this "interpolation threshold" they continue learning to generalize better to unseen data. This is known as the "double descent" phenomenon. See, for example: [https://openai.com/blog/deep-double-descent/](https://openai.com/blog/deep- double-descent/) [https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.02292](https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.02292) [https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08560](https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08560) The author makes no mention of double descent and the need for overfitting. In fact, he seems completely unaware of it. \-- EDIT: Also, see this comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23957501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23957501) elsewhere on this page. ~~~ blackbear_ You should be careful over-interpreting this stuff. Double descent is still poorly understood, and some [1] argue it is an artifact caused by wrongly assuming that the model complexity is a linear function of the number of parameters. I would also argue that "the need for overfitting" is a consequence of broken benchmarks, rather than a feature of deep learning. Why else would adversarial examples arise? [1] [https://deepai.org/publication/rethinking-parameter- counting...](https://deepai.org/publication/rethinking-parameter-counting-in- deep-models-effective-dimensionality-revisited) ~~~ jules Isn't double descent explained by the following? The network contains many more parameters than data points. Therefore there is an entire region of lowest training error. A random point sonewhere in the middle of that region probably generalises better than at the edge. Once SGD enters this region at the edge, generalisation can still occur because the randomness will most likely cause it to random walk inside the region. To test this hypothesis you could run gradient descent with line search instead of SGD, and then you should not see this extra generalisation. Then if you add a bit of randomness to gradient descent you should see this extra generalisation again, if this hypothesis is correct. Also, under this hypothesis you'd predict that the speed at which generalisation improves depends on the batch size. ~~~ Kinrany Might be a stupid question, but can we skip the random walk and just pick the middle? ~~~ pigscantfly Not a stupid question at all, but one problem is that the boundaries of a zero-train-loss region are not well characterized and evaluating the validation loss even at a single point is computationally expensive. The centroid of one of these regions might not even be inside it (eg. donut shape but in higher dimensions) Interesting discussion though -- probably worth a few papers if someone were to investigate further. ~~~ chillee This just sounds like Stochastic Weight Averaging, which works quite well: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05407](https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05407) ------ jere The abstract is indeed fascinating and I'm reading through the full text, which is so far mostly easy to understand for a layman. The high number of typos throws me a bit though. Amusingly they even misspell their central idea "Overfitted Brian Hypothesis" and I gotta say that the opening reminds me a bit of fluff you see in mindless high school essays. > During the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, many of those in isolation reported an > increase in the vividness and frequency of their dreams (Weaver, 2020), even > leading #pandemicdreams to trend on Twitter. Yet dreaming is so little > understood there can be only speculative answers to the why behind this > widespread change in dream be- havior. ~~~ datenhorst Maybe presence of typos is the way to signal non-authorship by GPT-3? ~~~ nullc GPT-3 can produce typos. ~~~ s_gourichon Indeed: GPT-3 is liable to produce the same density of typos as its learning corpus, which is from humans. ------ sgdpk In the book "Why we sleep?", Matthew Walker suggests something similar. That dream sleep is fundamental in making associations. In this case, generalizing and getting rid of overfitting. He talks a bit about problem solving when sleeping and how this leads to "a-ha" moments when waking up. This means that the idea in this paper is already "out there", contrary to what the abstract states. But it's exciting to have a framework to talk about it quantitatively. ------ TaupeRanger I'm foreseeing impending downvotes but I have to rant somewhere. There should be a name for this kind of ridiculous hubris. Unfalsifiable non-insights by people trying to apply arbitrary deep learning algorithms to a brain which is definitely not using any of them. DLcentrism? We don't even know how the brain does almost _anything_ and you think you can use trendy AI topics to explain something as complex and mysterious as dreams? This reminds me of Matt Walker's terrible book on sleep, which, as with almost all neuroscience research recently, tries to explain "why" we have some behavioral pattern or experience, but literally never offers an explanation at all, opting to say "this region lights up in an fMRI machine", as if that answers anything at all. It's like if you asked "why does the heart pump blood?" and a cardiologist answered, "well, the heart is very important for exercise, and people with healthy hearts live longer, and when we attach electrodes to it we see these interesting patterns associated with pulse and breathing...". That's Matt Walker's book applied to the brain. This allows "neuroscience" to get away these ridiculously overextended papers, because you can't disprove anything about something so hard to understand in the first place. ~~~ maps7 The answer I got from Matt Walker's "Why We Sleep?" was a list of benefits that we get from sleep and a list of negatives that we avoid. That is a sufficient answer for me. To ask why we need those benefits is a different question and eventually goes down a philosophical path. ~~~ andyljones 'Why We Sleep' has some, uh, issues on the benefits-and-negatives front too. [https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep) ~~~ maps7 Thanks for posting - it's always good to see all views. It's disappointing because the book helped me a lot. It helped me understand sleep and how I should change my lifestyle to get more of it. I feel (no measure) that it has benefited me. I will not regard it as scientifically accurate now though. Does anyone have any other books about sleep that they could recommend? ------ amitport "Notably, all DNNs face the issue of overfitting as they learn, which is when performance on one data set increases but the network's performance fails to generalize (often measured by the divergence of performance on training vs testing data sets)." Not really. For example, "Gradient Methods Never Overfit On Separable Data" [https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00028](https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00028) ~~~ blackbear_ "In this paper, we consider the implicit bias in a well-known and simple setting, namely learning linear predictors (x->x'w) for binary classification with respect to linearly-separable data" Hoping that this applies to deep neural networks is a huge leap of faith to be honest. ------ bil7 Wow. Never before has an abstract felt so mind blowing to read ~~~ belly_joe Came here to say the same. At least personally, it's the insight into human brain mechanics and new abilities to test hypotheses in this field that gets me most excited about deep learning developments, rather than the improvements in performance on various tasks. ------ bfirsh If you’re on a phone, here’s an HTML version: [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/2007.09560/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/2007.09560/) ------ seesawtron "The goal of this paper is to argue that the brain faces a similar challenge of overfitting, and that nightly dreams evolved to combat the brain's overfitting during its daily learning....Sleep loss, specifically dream loss, leads to an overfitted brain that can still memorize and learn but fails to generalize appropriately." This is a beautiful idea. Will have to read the whole paper to understand how they support this claim. ------ darksaints While an interesting hypothesis, we should always be careful with research that tries to derive biological understanding from AI research. AI is, by necessity, a simplification of how our brains work. For example, current neural networks really only have one definition of neuron. But biological neurons can be very different...there are hundreds of types of neurons. Even if we limit the definition of neuron type to just describe variation in switching behavior, mice have been found to have 19 distinct neuron types with distinct switching behavior, and humans likely have dozens more. ------ hliyan I wonder what psychology as a discipline will look like in twenty years? I feel like what we're learning now about the human mind through our study of neural networks is similar to the early work in cellular biology that eventually replaced metaphor-based models in medicine (e.g. 'humors') with more ontological ones. Freud's Ego, Superego and Id are gone. So are 'complexes'. Our model of the human mind currently seems to be limited to 'conscious and subconscious'. I'm excited at the prospect of something much better. ------ irrational To the best of my knowledge, I have ever dreamed. The abstract speaks of the dangers of not dreaming from lack of sleep and I wonder if the same thing applies to naturally not dreaming at all? ~~~ IAmGraydon It’s far more likely that you just don’t remember your dreams. ~~~ tgv What’s a dream then? ~~~ pstuart A dream is the brain coming back online after being shut down for maintenance. That's my supposition. It's an artifact, not a feature. ~~~ tgv But that's a model of how you think it works. It's not what a dream is. ------ briga I love it when two disciplines come together to find new solutions to scientific problems, but something seems off here. An artificial neural network is incredibly simplistic compared the the messy complexity of the brain. Generalization seems to happen in some places and for some dreams, but is that really the only function of dreams? I somehow doubt it. ------ g_airborne If we’re going down this road of theorizing about the human brain based on DNNs, what is the deal with dropout? Could we help human brains with generalization by randomly removing 10% of our newly created connections at the end of each day to improve long term learning? :) ~~~ rtkaratekid That’s called synaptic pruning and, while it most happens as a human matures, there’s evidence indicating that it occurs during sleep in adults to help consolidate the most important connections and remove the unimportant ones. It’s not exactly like dropout, but at a high level it kind of looks like it. ------ AndyPatterson Skimmed the paper so couldn't possibly give it a fair review but I always feel there's something off when people make comparisons of ANNs to actual biological brains. Even more so when it's the other way about. ------ metachor Is this a form of mechanomorphism, where we try to reason about how human cognition might work by drawing an analogy from how computers work (specifically, overfitting in ANNs) and try to apply it back to humans? ------ longtom Seems like a testable hypothesis: Prepare a "training" deck of cards with an A side and B side. Each side has a simple symbol on it. Create a second "test" deck of cards which is identical, expect each A symbol is slightly shifted in meaning (e.g. horse -> donkey). The task is to predict side B from side A. If less dreaming leads to overfitting, we would expect REM sleep deprived probands to do better on the "training" set after learning with them and do worse on the "test" set, compared to probands without sleep deprivation. ~~~ darksaints This paper isn't about sleep deprivation, it's about dreams. ~~~ longtom Right, REM phase interruption would be sufficient (according to this theory). There are also a bunch of additional variables that one likely cannot (easily) control for. Still, this theory should make predictions of the sort that more overfitting occurs in absence of dreaming. ------ ancaster I recall this being essentially the inspiration for the naming of the Wake- Sleep algorithm of Boltzmann machines. ~~~ isanybodythere In the paper: "It is worth noting that the proposal of a "wake/sleep" specific algorithm for unsupervised learning of generative models based on feedback from stochastic stimulation goes back 25 years (Hinton et al., 1995)" ------ choonway how about daydreaming? does that work too?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Use DuckDuckGo for !bangs and Google for everything else - mcrittenden http://www.duckduckgoog.com ====== jemfinch Every time I see someone laud ddg's !bang searches, I ask myself, "What makes managing your browser's configuration so damn hard?" I go to Chrome's "settings", I click "Manage Search Engines", and I update the keyword. Why is this so hard for some people? ~~~ DanielStraight I know that the !bang list is extensive. I know that most of the time using the full name of the site will work. Thus, I can reasonably guess how to directly search a site that I may not have even been to in years... or ever been to. If I want to know how much Wal-Mart is selling Bounty paper towels for, I can type "bounty paper towels !walmart" and I know it will work even though I may never have searched Wal-Mart's site before. That's just one reason. Some more: A single search interface. The Firefox search box lets you pick multiple search engines, but then a different one is selected each time. For me, DDG is always selected. I can change my search target without retyping my query. I type my searches into Firefox's search box and I always type the !bang part at the end of the search. If I don't like the results at Amazon, I can go change "!amazon" to "!newegg" and quickly re-search another site. I also frequently use this to redirect failed mathematical queries to Google or Wolfram Alpha just by going and appending a "!g" or "!wa" on the search. As someone else mentioned, portability. I don't need to ever configure another search engine list as long as I live. My list on my work computer install of Firefox is always up-to-date with my mobile and with my home Chrome install. If I get a new computer or switch to a new browser, it's already ready to go. It updates itself. If a new site comes along (or I discover a site new to me), I'll have the search ready to go long before I ever thought to search it (or configure it) myself. ~~~ icebraining To be fair, you don't need to click around with Firefox's search bar. If you create a bookmark with a keyword, then typing the keyword on the main bar loads the website, and if you put an %s somewhere in that bookmark's url, you can then use it much like a bang, e.g. newegg ATI HD4200 That said, I can perfectly understand why you don't want to waste the time to set them up if someone has already done it for you. ~~~ DanielStraight And then you can't re-target (or fix a typo) in the same query in the same place, since the address bar will be replaced with the address of the loaded site. That's why I use the separate search bar. ------ w1ntermute You can use keyword searches to get the !bang functionality directly in your browser for any search engine of your choice. There's no need to go through DuckDuckGo. ~~~ gphil Except for that DuckDuckGo has hundreds of them already set up for you and the list is growing all the time: <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>. I suppose you could curate the list of queries you use for yourself, but I find it easier to just use theirs. ~~~ w1ntermute I suppose if you're that lazy, but I've been curating them over the years (they're now synced using Firefox Sync), and because they're custom, I've got much shorter keywords and greater customization. 'w <term>' searches Wikipedia for something, while 'hn' just loads <http://hackerne.ws> I don't think there are more than one or two times a day that I actually type in a full URL. ~~~ tg3 Likewise, on DDG, !w <term> searches wikipedia for something, while !hn <term> searches hnsearch for something. And I never had to configure anything. The best part about DDG is what someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the fact that so many sites are already in the list. If I've never searched Stack Overflow before, I can !so just based on a guess, and most of the time it is right. ~~~ w1ntermute Those are just two examples that I gave. Two examples of customization that aren't available that I have are 'wf' set to search Wikipedia for <search term>\+ " (film)" and 'wtv' set to search Wikipedia for <search term>\+ " (TV series)". ------ Rudism I've switched full time to DDG for a couple months now, and have rarely ever used !g to Google results because I was unsatisfied with the DDG results. I'm curious what the criticisms of DDG's search results are. It's clear to me that many people prefer Google over DDG, but it's unclear why. What is the standard that the search results are being held up to? ~~~ chaud When I search for something on DDG, I generally find one or two good results somewhere in the first set and all the rest are spammy/junk sites that repost content from other larger sites or just poor quality results. DDG also doesn't understand context or acronyms, like MoP. I work for a gaming site, so my example is gaming related. Google knows when I search for "mop legendary" I am looking for information relating to a legendary item in the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft. DDG doesn't make that connection of MoP -> Mists of Pandaria. I do get some amusing results like this though: <http://www.buy.com/th/swiss- legend-diamond-mop.html> ~~~ greglindahl Tough one. blekko has a WoW slashtag, but it doesn't auto-boost for that query. You can invoke it by hand, though, how do you like this result? <https://blekko.com/ws/mop+legendary+%2B/wow> ~~~ chaud Less of the low quality sites, but I would expect one of these URLs to be on the first page: 1) [http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2806-Mists-of- Pandaria-B...](http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2806-Mists-of-Pandaria- Beta-Build-15762) 2) [http://www.wowhead.com/news=204099/mists-of-pandarias- first-...](http://www.wowhead.com/news=204099/mists-of-pandarias-first- legendary-available-for-every-class) 3) [http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/25/mists-of-pandaria-new- wrat...](http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/25/mists-of-pandaria-new-wrathion- voice-files-datamined/) It does better (at least as far as the first result or two go) when you don't have to guess the acronym though: 1) <https://blekko.com/ws/tier+14+sets+%2B%2Fwow> 2) <https://blekko.com/ws/challenge+mode+sets+%2B%2Fwow> For more standard searches it is okay, but DDG/Bing and Google are better. In these results I especially like potstuck and fabien potencier posts. 1) [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=php+dependency+injection+container...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=php+dependency+injection+container+example+) 2) [https://blekko.com/ws/php+dependency+injection+container+exa...](https://blekko.com/ws/php+dependency+injection+container+example) 3) [https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-a...](https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy- ab&q=php+dependency+injection+container+example&fp=e58c1f154d1f56aa) It is nice to see alternatives developing though, should the day ever come that I want to leave Google behind! ------ missing_cipher Small suggestion: You should give focus to the text area when the user lands on the page, so I can instantly search and not have to reach for the mouse or tab. ~~~ strangetimes Yes. I was so excited to use this but my heart broke when I realized the search box wasn't auto-focused. That's a dealbreaker for me. ~~~ mcrittenden Fear not, I just pushed a fix for this. Let me know if you run into any more deal breakers! ~~~ strangetimes Sweet! I'll be running all my searches through DuckDuckGoog from now on. Thanks so much! ------ stevewillows This is great! I've tried to adopt DDG but in the end I'm finding myself prefacing everything with !g -- to the point where I will type it for other engines. Nice work! ~~~ mcrittenden Thanks! It's awesome to hear that this is useful for more people than just me. ------ chimeracoder Shouldn't this be really easy to create using a Chrome/Greasemonkey extension or something similar? I mean, all you have to do is automatically preface every query with "!g" (after passing through a regex to filter out the other !bang queries). That way no tertiary server would be needed, which would probably improve the response times (and cost less...) ~~~ mcrittenden You're right, and it's something I thought about, but per-browser extensions are obviously more time intensive than a basic 30 minute web app. Plus, I'm not sure if Chrome's extension API supports messing with search queries or not and some quick Googling didn't turn anything up (does anyone know?) ------ polyfractal Nifty idea. I'm having a hard time setting it as default search for Firefox though. I followed the instructions to "Add a keyword for this search"...but I'm not really sure how to make it default? I don't see it anywhere under the searchbar dropdown ("Manage Search Extensions") and don't see anything under the general options. ~~~ mcrittenden Hmm, looks like setting a default in Firefox is more difficult than I thought. I'm a Chrome user, but I could have sworn when you added a custom search engine in FF then it showed up in the list from "Manage Search Engines" but it appears that's not the case now (maybe never was?), and that the recommended way is by using OpenSearch XML[1]. I'll get that in place and update when it's done. Thanks for the bug report! 1: <http://davidwalsh.name/open-search> ------ avar I wrote this a while ago (July last year) as <http://goosegoosego.com> whose source code is available at <https://gist.github.com/1113894> You missed a spot in your handling of bang syntax, DuckDuckGo allows you to use either "\", "! " or "!ducky " to find the first result, you don't handle "\". At the time I also sent Gabriel Weinberg an couple of E-Mails about it saying I'd love to have it be made redundant by DuckDuckGo itself, but it's not a feature he's interested in pursuing: > > > On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I implemented a wrapper around DuckDuckGo and Google and stuck it on > > > goosegoosego.com > > > > > > I got tired of always prefixing my normal queries with "!g", and not > > > having "! " work the way I wanted. > > > > > On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 12:47, Gabriel Weinberg <yegg@duckduckgo.com> wrote: > > > Hah, nice :) > > > Gabriel, http://ye.gg/ > > Needless to say I'd be delighted if some option to duckduckgo.com > would make this redundant. > > One flaw in it is that if you e.g. search for "!mysql" it'll redirect > to duck-duck-go, which'll do a "site:mysql.com" search an DDG. > > I'd like it to do a "site:" search on Google instead, but that would > require me to compile a list of all the bang operators that result in > site: queries, which would make the code a bit more complex than it > currently is. > > It would be great if you could pass some GET parameter to DDG to make > it emulate GooseGooseGo's behavior, e.g.: > > http://duckduckgo.com/?dse=google&q=foobar > > dse = Default Search Engine. > > Then you could also make it prefer Bing, Yahoo etc. Duly noted, but not sure about doing that. Alternatively, you can use the 0-click api at http://api.duckduckgo.com/, which returns bang redirects and then you can just do a substitution if you see that. Gabriel, http://ye.gg/ So handling stuff like !mysql is certainly something you could expand upon if you want to make this more complete, I was just interested in making mine as minimal as possible, so it's a simple standalone script. Also, to anyone using DuckDuckGoog or my GooseGooseGo you should be aware that you're trusting some (other) random dudes on the internet with your searches, I don't log _anything_ with GooseGooseGo (no access or error logs), but you only have my word for that. You can expose some sensitive information via your searches, and that's a reason why many people use DuckDuckGo in the first place even though their results aren't always up to par with Google's. ~~~ mcrittenden Neat! Thanks for the info/site/email thread. > You missed a spot in your handling of bang syntax, DuckDuckGo allows you to > use either "\", "! " or "!ducky " to find the first result, you don't handle > "\". I left this out on purpose since I don't really consider it part of "bang" syntax since it doesn't include ! ("bang") but I suppose I'm just splitting hairs at this point. > Also, to anyone using DuckDuckGoog or my GooseGooseGo you should be aware > that you're trusting some (other) random dudes on the internet with your > searches, I don't log anything with GooseGooseGo (no access or error logs), > but you only have my word for that. Agreed, this is a concern. I posted a link to the GitHub repo for DuckDuckGoog in the site's footer but of course it's my word against the user's that that is the current code being used on the site and that I didn't add in any tracking code in the build process or anything. ~~~ dhruvbird From what I understand, all of this can be done entirely in javascript, mitigating any security issues of queries going over the wire. ------ sktrdie God, do we really need a whole website for this? All it does is redirect to another site. ------ roryokane This looks interesting, but I find myself missing Google’s search suggestions. Does anyone know a way to enable them for this search engine? (I’m on Firefox.) I see somebody hosts a “Duck Duck Go + Google Suggest” plugin and proxy server at <http://nfriedly.com:81/>. If there isn’t already a search plugin like I’m looking for, I think the easiest way to make it would be to just change the search URL (and name and icon) for that plugin. Does anyone know how to do that? ------ danneu This would be a weird place to stop for someone trying to minimize their time executing searches and clicking. Having to navigate to the browser to launch a search for MDN Arrays from Vim is suboptimal. Alfred (OSX) is the best solution I can come up with. "lucky <query>" pulls the browser up with its Google Feeling Lucky result. I've shortened it to just "l <query>". You can add custom searches with a syntax like "example.com/whatever/{query}". ~~~ mcrittenden The idea is to make it your browser's default search since lots of people (the majority?) search from the browser search bar or omnibar. Edit: you could also add this to Alfred. Alfred supports custom searches ( [http://blog.alfredapp.com/2011/04/14/alfred-productivity- tip...](http://blog.alfredapp.com/2011/04/14/alfred-productivity-tips-using- custom-searches/)) so you can just use <http://www.duckduckgoog.com?q=SEARCH> as the custom URL and replace SEARCH with the token that Alfred expects ~~~ danneu Right, I wasn't trying to rain on the submission. But you bring up a good point -- DuckDuckGoog is still useful with Alfred since it saves you from having to manually create a bunch of custom searches. ------ olalonde I don't get what is so great about DuckDuckGo's bang syntax. Whenever I want to search Wikipedia, I simply go in Chrome's address bar and type "w<tab>". Google is "g<tab>". Hacker News is "h<tab>". DuckDuckGo is "d<tab>". This all works out of the box with no manual configuration given that you have used those search engines in the past. Is there something I am missing? ------ brackin Great, exactly what I want, although it probably doesn't need to go through DDG it works perfectly fine. Google will let me load up the add as search engine dialogue but won't let me press okay to add it. ~~~ mcrittenden > Google will let me load up the add as search engine dialogue but won't let > me press okay to add it. That's probably because you need to change the keyword to something besides "duckduckgoog.com" since Chrome already auto-stored one with that keyword. ------ mrschwabe Awesome. I think this is the perfect solution for those users 'on the fence' about switching to DuckDuckGo. You can send them this link and say, look - its Google but now you get benefits of DDG too. ------ jbverschoor Why not type: ama <tab> = search amazon in chrome ------ rduchnik I really like the search suggestions. ------ excuse-me You mean other browsers don't allow you to create search shortcuts? eg "a blah" for amazon, "w blah" for wikipedia "s blah" for stackoverflow? \- says a long time Opera users ~~~ manojlds Opera, as far as I know, was the first to support this. But this site is about using duckduckgo's !bang which is a readymade list for you.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How can I learn reverse engineering? - hacjjjjjjjj ====== cnvogel "Reverse engineering" is too broad of a term. Do you want to jailbreak the newest smartphone? Or want to repurpose some neat and cheap childrens' toy into a spectrum analyzer? Maybe your central heating has a odd habit of keeping your bedroom too hot, and the office too cold even though the thermostat is set correctly? Reverse engineering by itself is just a tool for building things, because once you figured out how something works, the fun begins when you start tinkering it into something the original designers had not forseen. So, to cut this philosophical post short: Get yourself a _problem_ you want to solve, then read all you can about it. If it involves reverse-engineering, e.g. analyzing something not yet documented, you'll have to solve that on the way. And you'll know to ask the specific questions (e.g.: How do I find out the right connection to pins I suspect to be a JTAG port? How can I find out which bits in the serial protocol might stand for what?) when you've come there. ------ dkersten [http://www.amazon.com/Reversing-Secrets-Engineering-Eldad- Ei...](http://www.amazon.com/Reversing-Secrets-Engineering-Eldad- Eilam/dp/0764574817/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293305102&sr=8-1) ------ runjake O'Reilly's Security Warrior, while a bit outdated should give you a good overview of the RE landscape and it'll give you enough meat to see where your interests lie. ------ meadhikari A methodology for reverse engineering <http://www.npd-solutions.com/remethod.html> ------ seven <http://www.crackmes.de/> ------ _0ffh Google Fravia!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Engineers build crappy products - cygnus http://willschenk.com/why-engineers-build-crappy-products/ ====== DanBC It's weird to criticise engineers for bad UIs by writing an article and then designing your website to allow only about 25 words on screen at a time. [http://imgur.com/dAM2RT6](http://imgur.com/dAM2RT6) ~~~ combray I never claimed I was anything other than an engineer. ------ dalke Alan Cooper wrote a well-known book on the topic, titled "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Coding Is Not a Life Skill - jsrmath https://medium.com/@jsrmath/coding-is-not-a-life-skill-3db7bd743965#.66ch29shx ====== danso What does "life skill" mean? Is math a "life skill"? Why do we think that, other than the fact that math is force-fed to us and made part of our standardized testing? I've worked with many functional, professional adults who have taken enough math to get into elite colleges and yet, a few years removed from gradua5ion, can't confidently calculate tips without a phone app, nevermind use algebra to estimate proportions or reason (not actually calculate) about mathematical optimization. What other "life skill" can people practice for hours a day, five days a week, for 10+ years, but lose the ability to use it for everyday simple problems after just a few years? I won't argue the case for coding as a "life skill" \-- the fact that the OP equates it with carpentry, which IMO is like equating literacy with publishing a novel, means that we have different concepts of what "coding" entails. It's enough to point out that math wasn't always seen as essential to being a citizen in a developed country, and now that it is ubiquitous, it's still of dubious value for non-STEM adults _if_ you have adopted as limited a view of math as the OP does of coding. FWIW, the learn to code movement has existed long before it was "both trendy and lucrative"...it is not trendiness that makes it a valuable skill, it's the fact that computers and data are so much more ubiquitous today...just like literacy existed long before the printing press but was of dubious value before books and papers became commonplace [https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1972/5079/00...](https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1972/5079/00/50790407.pdf) ------ alexschiller To me, the value in learning just a little bit of coding is in recognizing when something should be done programmatically and when something should be done by hand. Even a little bit of coding knowledge can allow that to occur, or allow the person to get the right person to automate it for them. The number of person hours I've seen wasted by not recognizing this is astonishing. ------ macawfish I haven't read the book, but I've read the title: "Program or Be Programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
U.N. postal union clinches deal to keep U.S. in - ineedasername http://reuters.com/article/us-un-postal/u-n-postal-union-clinches-deal-to-keep-u-s-in-club-idUSKBN1WA247 ====== lettergram Good. It was insane that we were subsidizing shipping from China. This, more than anything, will shift to a more balanced manufacturing model. It was more expensive to ship within the US and Canada than from China. Pretty much crushed the small retailers (I know I refused to spend $7 shipping for a $12 item). Now that that’s improved the rates should more normalize, because they won’t have to subsidize the loss on China shipping. ~~~ ikeboy I often hear the claim that it's more expensive to ship within the US than from China but rarely see it backed up. I've yet to see anyone give a specific size box, weight, and locations for comparison, and the few times they have I find the US shipping rate is cheaper. ~~~ semi-extrinsic Here's an example off eBay for an item that measures 6"x4"x2", is fragile so has to be packaged well, and costs $2 _with free shipping_. [https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acrylic-Transparent-Photo- Frame-6in...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acrylic-Transparent-Photo-Frame-6in-L- Shape-Photo-Picture-Frame-Home-Decor-DIY-S-/283304776438) ~~~ ikeboy "This item does not ship to United States" ~~~ dhosek Perhaps a victim of Trump's trade war? ------ freefal Nice to see this getting addressed. There's a great Planet Money episode explaining the brokenness of the existing system ([https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the- postal-illuminati)). NPR ends up substantiating the claim of an entrepreneur who says that it costs him more to send a package across the street than it costs someone in China to send a package to that same address. ~~~ ikeboy No they don't. They repeat a false claim uncritically. If you look up the cheapest US shipping rates you'll find they're roughly the same range, and that almost all the comparisons purporting to show otherwise are cheating, typically by using retail pricing on a more expensive shipping option. >So he turns to his shipping guy. And he asks, how much would it cost for us just to ship this mug, like, not across the ocean, just across the street? >SMALDONE: He told me it's going to cost us about $6.30 to ship this item. Amazon page for mighty mug says it's 12.6 oz shipping weight. [https://www.amazon.com/Might-Mug-1525-Mighty- Black/dp/B00FZD...](https://www.amazon.com/Might-Mug-1525-Mighty- Black/dp/B00FZDJHGK) Round up to 13 oz, then look up rates for the cheapest shipping option for packages under a pound "parcel select lightweight". See [https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c139](https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c139) The cheapest rate is $2.02 for 13 oz. This rate applies when mail is injected at the closest mailing point (DDU), which "mailing across the street" corresponds to. ~~~ mips_avatar Ok so you're right, you could drive to your local postal office and if you are commercially shipping stuff you can do destination delivery unit (DDU) and get a 13 oz mug to your next door neighbor for $2.02. So let's assume the fair cost of last mile delivery for a 13 oz mug is $2.02. The Chinese knockoff mug cost on ebay $5.69 including shipping from China. So if the Chinese seller was paying fair last-mile delivery (which they weren't), they would be manufacturing and shipping a 13 oz mug to a local postal office in America for $3.67. ~~~ ska FWIW you could ship a 40ft container of mugs (something like 20,000 of them individually packaged) from china to Seattle, say for a rough cost of about 10c per mug. Bulk freight of nonperishable things is _cheap_. ~~~ mips_avatar But if you listen to the story, these were individually shipped by the postal service, from an ebay seller in china. ~~~ ska Right - but what I was pointing out is making that particular scenario more expensive doesn’t shift the overall incentives that much of the COGS are significantly different. ------ mikepurvis If anyone else is interested in some of the history of how we got here, Wikipedia has a pretty decent summary: "The 1874 treaty provided for the originating country to keep all of the postage revenue, without compensating the destination country for delivery. The idea was that each letter would generate a reply, so the postal flows would be in balance. However, other classes of mail had imbalanced flows. In 1906, the Italian postal service was delivering 325,000 periodicals mailed from other countries to Italy, while Italian publishers were mailing no periodicals to other countries. [...] In 1969, the UPU introduced a system of terminal dues. When two countries had imbalanced mail flows, the country that sent more mail would have to pay a fee to the country that received more mail. The amount was based on the difference in the weight of mail sent and received." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Termina...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Terminal_dues) ------ kevindong A few years ago, as a joke, I bought the absolute cheapest phone case off of Aliexpress for a friend for $0.46 with free shipping. 1.5 months later, I did actually get it in the mail. It went from China, through several of the central Asian countries (the ones whose names end with "stan"), and was delivered to my mailbox. All for less than the cost of a first class postage stamp at the time ($0.47). It blows my mind that Aliexpress was willing to take my money and act as an intermediary between me and the retailer/factory as I cannot imagine they made a profit on this transaction given the fixed cost of accepting credit card payments (i.e. the "$0.30" part of 2.9% + "$0.30"). It further blows my mind that a retailer/factory can profitably send me the case at all, even if they were to receive the entire $0.46. ------ Animats UPU terminal dues were up for renegotiation in 2018-2021 anyway.[1] That's done every 10 years. The end result of all the noise from the US seems to be the same thing as would have happened anyway - a rate change in 2021. The UPU classifies countries by level of development, and there's a price break for underdeveloped countries.[2] China is currently in group 3, along with Chile and Lebanon, and was probably going to move up to group 2 in the 2021 round anyway. So all this was mostly hype. [1] [http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and- transit-c...](http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and-transit- charges/2018-2021-cycle.html) [2] [https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document- library...](https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library- files/2015/ms-wp-14-002_0.pdf) ~~~ s17n If I'm understanding the article correctly, the USPS can now unilaterally set its own rates, which is a pretty substantial change from the existing system where rates were determined by the decennial negotiations you're talking about. ------ socalnate1 This is one of those instances where playing chicken seems to have worked out (for the US). Good news on this issue; although I'd feel more comfortable if there were fewer geopolitical games of chicken going on; it just takes one crash to wipe away the wins. ~~~ the_duke This was definitely a case of the US strong-arming the rest of the world, but in this case I think it was justified. I hope European countries follow suit and stop subsidizing foreign mail. It's absurd that we can order something on AliExpress, have it shipped halfway around the world, and pay 1 Dollar. ~~~ _delirium European countries mostly discourage this not through postal rates, but by applying VAT and customs charges even on small-scale individual importation. How uniformly this is done varies by country (some inspect and enforce more aggressively than others). In Denmark, for example, which is one of the more aggressive, you either need to have your package pre-cleared by arranging duties/VAT to be paid ahead of time, or the Danish post office will charge you a flat 160 DKK (about $23) for clearing it [1]. That makes it not cost- effective to order $20 items from China, even if the UPU rates are low. [1] [https://www.postnord.dk/modtag/spoergsmaal-og- svar](https://www.postnord.dk/modtag/spoergsmaal-og-svar) ~~~ jfk13 In the UK, consignments valued at £15 or less are free from Customs Duty and import VAT, so that doesn't do much to discourage small-scale individual purchases from China. ~~~ AnssiH That exemption will be terminated EU-wide on Jan 1st 2021. It will also get terminated immediately in UK if they leave without a deal, at least according to current UK government VAT guidance. ------ gumby Not pointed out is that this works in the opposite direction as well, and it doesn't look like _that_ part was fixed. For example Australia post operates a service when you can buy US goods, have them shipped to a US address, and then have the parcels shipped in aggregate to Australia for arbitrage on shipping and licensing costs: [https://shopmate.auspost.com.au](https://shopmate.auspost.com.au) ------ ijpoijpoihpiuoh Worth noting that despite us not leaving the union, Trump is apparently getting what he wants. The union basically capitulated to his demands. At least that is my reading. To be clear, I'm not saying one way or another whether this is a good thing. It's just, I felt the title somewhat implied that the USG had given up on its intentions. Whereas actually what happened was the opposite. I meant only to point this out for others who might be likewise confused. ~~~ Scoundreller Trump’e arguments weren’t wrong: it didn’t make sense for China to keep its below-average and below-cost fees for sending packages to the US. I just wish he could get the USPS to stop seeing outbound international mail as a profit centre. Plenty of Americans could be exporting a lot more internationally, but the USPS has chosen high prices and low volumes. As a Canadian that sometimes talks Americans into selling to me on Ebay, they find it a painful and costly experience compared to US sales. ~~~ TMWNN >Trump’e arguments weren’t wrong Just say "Trump was right". You will not be condemned by _bien-pensants_ as a thought-criminal. At least, not immediately. >I just wish he could get the USPS to stop seeing outbound international mail as a profit centre. In other words, you'd like to pay less when buying from the US. (There's nothing wrong with such a wish, but let's be clear about what you mean.) >Plenty of Americans could be exporting a lot more internationally, but the USPS has chosen high prices and low volumes. I know of no evidence that the USPS charges more to ship internationally than Canada Post, notorious among Canadians for high prices. On the contrary, it's sometimes cheaper for Canadians to ship to elsewhere in Canada by mailing from the US. (Discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/6rcn0v/canada_post_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/6rcn0v/canada_post_is_so_expensive_that_it_is_cheaper/) ) >As a Canadian that sometimes talks Americans into selling to me on Ebay, they find it a painful and costly experience compared to US sales. That's because it is, compared to mailing domestically. It'd be surprising otherwise, for any country. I've sold on eBay and Amazon for years and have shipped often to Canada and elsewhere; the procedure isn't that much more cumbersome. The vast, vast, vast majority of sales are within the US, however. It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or with their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada is one ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American sellers. A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American market is nine times larger than the domestic one, so has much more incentive to a) learn how to handle international orders, and b) be willing to pay the higher postage rates. ~~~ Scoundreller > In other words, you'd like to pay less when buying from the US. Naw, I want USians to have better chances of getting my money. When I buy niche things that are available from the US and Asia, Asia keeps winning out. I'm willing to pay more for faster shipping, but I have my limits. > I've sold on eBay and Amazon for years and have shipped often to Canada and > elsewhere; the procedure isn't that much more cumbersome. The vast, vast, > vast majority of sales are within the US, however. Doesn't explain why most others don't bother. Is it still too cumbersome? Or is it just cultural where the rest-of-world is thought of as a scary and dangerous place? > It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or > with their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada > is one ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American > sellers. A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American > market is nine times larger than the domestic one, so has much more > incentive to a) learn how to handle international orders, and b) be willing > to pay the higher postage rates. > It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or > with their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada > is one ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American > sellers. Dunno why a business would throw away an extra 11% in sales, or being able to sell their same inventory for higher prices. Depends on your product. Obviously a lot of Canadians _really_ benefit from FBA because postal prices are high enough to discourage a lot of non-FBA online ordering. > A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American market is nine > times larger than the domestic one My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics. Although I comment from the perspective of a Canadian, there's a whole world out there that USians could profitably benefit from selling to, IMO. ~~~ TMWNN > USians Ah yes, you're one of those who think that not calling the only country in the world with the word "America" in its name, "America", somehow strikes a mighty blow against American imperialism. You'll pardon me if I am skeptical of your claim of primarily wanting to help American businesses, as opposed to wanting to pay less (which, as I said, there is nothing wrong with wanting, in and of itself). >Doesn't explain why most others don't bother. Is it still too cumbersome? Or is it just cultural where the rest-of-world is thought of as a scary and dangerous place? Yes, indeed, one of those. >Dunno why a business would throw away an extra 11% in sales First, it's not "11% of sales"; the actual share is less because of natural friction, just as you didn't have nine times as many sales to Americans as Canadians. Second, unless the item is very small, international shipping by USPS requires a larger-than-usual mailing label, in triplicate, and a special plastic pouch to put the extra forms in on the box's surface. Then there are the risks of complaints by customers who have to pay duty, and the much greater difficulty of accepting returns from international customers. I was willing to ship internationally despite these factors, but I cannot criticize others who decided that the additional revenue isn't worth the trouble. >My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics. That's a given. But, again, as a Canadian you would have left _much, much, much_ more on the table by only selling to the domestic market than your American counterparts. I assure you that if American sellers could quintuple sales by selling to Canadians, they would do so even if the mailing process were three times as complicated. But they wouldn't, so they don't. >My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics. Spare us the false veneer of kindly advice. You can't stand how the country next door to yours constantly has for sale items you want to buy at attractive prices but can't, at least not directly, despite sharing the same language and culture. Instead of trying to change things in your country to make it easier for such things to be sold there, you demand that the neighboring country seek to earn less money when transporting the items to you. Congratulations. ~~~ Scoundreller wat ------ TheSoftwareGuy >Under the phased agreement, high-volume importers of mail and packages would be allowed to begin imposing “self-declared rates” for distributing foreign mail from January 2021. Does anybody have any idea what this means? Who is considered a "high-volume importer" and how do they set "self-declared rates"? ~~~ markstos I translated that the United States imports more mail then it exports. Backbone internet companies trade traffic with each other, but the trades aren't always equal so it makes sense for there to be money flowing more in one direction. The US is saying that the current relationship has costs that exceed the benefits, so the US is going to be declaring their own interpretation of a "fair market rate" to import mail from other countries that aren't receiving the same volume of US mail in return. ------ theflyinghorse Does this mean the field is leveled against Chinese shippers? ~~~ oh_sigh Maybe. Maybe China will start subsidizing their mail instead of having the US do it. ~~~ Danieru China would need to use their foreign reserve to do this subsidy. Ignoring belt and road all of China's internal industry subsidies use Yaun. Belt and Road use dollars but are "lent" thus in theory China is not reducing its foreign reserve. Problem for China as we see in their capital controls is maintaining wealth in Yaun. Any subsidy which requires using foreign dollars, as paying the US postal tarrif would, weakens the states stability. ------ m0zg >> agreed to reform its fee structure And for decades before this moment it never occurred to any of the demagogues in chief to look into such mundane matters as trade imbalance, or subsidizing everybody in the world at the expense of our own businesses and manufacturing base, hollowing out large chunks of the country to make a quick buck. This shows the downsides of electing lawyers who never did anything of material consequence in the real world, and don't understand or care how the business side of things works. ------ iagovar So, would this apply to Europe too? I mean, it's insane that it cost me more to send a package to France than Import it from China. ~~~ avocado4 It applies to everyone starting 2021, and to large volume shippers starting July 2020. ------ Leary The decision was reached unanimously by all 190 some countries. It's good to see countries working together to reach a compromise. ------ AimForTheBushes Glad to see China backed the compromise. Definitely the best outcome. ~~~ kelnos I noticed this and found it interesting. I wonder what the motivation is here. Is the amount China stands to lose from this so low that it wasn't a hill they cared to die on? Will they use this in trade negotiations with Trump as a sign that they're being reasonable? ~~~ ehvatum Trump successfully telegraphed US intention to leave the IPU and impose punishing costs on delivery of Chinese parcels in the US, making acceptance of an equitable compromise the only palatable alternative for the Chinese. Incidentally, every Chinese person I know absolutely adores Donald Trump _because_ he plays hard ball, whereas they didn't quite know what to think about Obama, who was totally inscrutable from the Chinese perspective. Trump lays out what he wants, and then he fights for it, and he usually gets it. As far as I can tell, people who grew up in China view that as the natural, normal, and proper way of conducting affairs. ~~~ peteretep > Chinese person I know absolutely adores Donald Trump because he plays hard > ball, whereas they didn't quite know what to think about Obama, who was > totally inscrutable from the Chinese perspective I have read countless well-written articles arguing exactly the opposite, so I find this interesting. ~~~ ehvatum There is certainly no shortage of impeccably composed essays dumping on Trump and developing a galaxy of identity-political rationales for why various people ought to dislike him. The story on the ground is distinctly at odds with the impression I get from American media and the BBC. I'm sure they feel they are advocating for a good cause in a situation so dire that all other concerns are overridden. ------ megous More useful info here [http://news.upu.int/no_cache/nd/frequently-asked- questions-t...](http://news.upu.int/no_cache/nd/frequently-asked-questions- third-extraordinary-congress/) ------ caf I wonder whether, in practice, sellers will apply the higher rates only to US destinations - or whether they'll just spread it across all their customers, so that the situation changes to non-US customers subsidising the US ones? ------ duxup What are "self declared rates" and how does this exactly change things? I get the idea that international incoming shipments were subsidized but it's not clear what self declared rates really .. does? ~~~ kelnos I believe that the old rates were set by the UPU, and, in the case of China, were artificially low due to China's status as a developing nation. That status (conferred upon them 50+ years ago) has not been a reflection of reality for a long time. The new deal allows recipient countries to declare their own rates. The US will, almost certainly, declare a rate much higher than the current rate, such that the USPS will no longer be subsidizing shipments from China. ~~~ duxup OH, got it, the receiving nations declare it. It almost sounded like the sending were and of course they'd be all "oh yeah this is like a penny...". ------ racino84 Anyone have a list of countries that do over 75,000 tonnes of imported mail a year? ------ Overtonwindow Excellent! China has been abusing this system far too long. ------ ummwhat This is weird because the postal union was the one wonky, deep in the weeds policy where even the globalist agreed with the populist that something needed to be done. Way I see it there were 3 options. 1\. Use international institutions like the WTO and UN to affect a change or enact a legal, narrow set of tarifs on bad actors without putting the wider, generally beneficial system at risk. 2\. Start subsidizing our own postal service. China does it because it's an economic multiplier that benefits a wide segment of society. Why not copy it. 3\. Burn the postal union treaty to the ground. Trump picked 3 and has now pivoted to 1. I personally would have picked 2 but I don't think any of these options are crazy. 3 sucked but wasn't outrageous IMO. ~~~ aivisol Subsidizing own postal service would mean paying it with tax dollars. Why would those who never use this service should pay for those who use it more? Besides that (and its my own observation only) I have noticed that subsidies usually distort market and make service/product less sustainable and competitive. ~~~ ummwhat Same reason I'm ok with the government building a road even though I don't personally drive. It's an economic multiplier. It increases opportunity overall by facilitating more transactions than were previously possible, and the net economic growth can flow back to me even though I didn't directly use it. I'm not universally in favor of subsidies, just in certain specific instances where the economic multiplier is high and a large fraction of the public benefits directly (usually infrastructure). ~~~ Spivak Which is why I'm so surprised that people dislike farm subsidies so much since every single person in the US benefits from cheap corn being available. ------ mcv Good. This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished. Or that would have been my reaction until I read the article: _" Countries with more than 75,000 tonnes in post imported annually - mainly the United States - may apply their self-declared new rates from July 2020, UPU officials said."_ So does 'mainly the US' mean 'only the US'? I don't want an exception just for the US because they are too powerful to ignore, I want the same rule to hold for every EU country. Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement. ~~~ TMWNN Trump is president of the United States, not of the EU. It is the EU and its member states' onus to obtain similar changes, should they believe them desirable. That you begin with a snarky remark about Trump, and then go on to say that he is at fault for not helping Belgium or Austria win the kind of changes that the US needed to seriously threaten to leave the UPU for, says more about you than about the US or Trump. ~~~ mcv I'm not sure how you think the UPU works, but Trump does not set UPU rules on his own. 200 countries are involved in those negotiations. If the UPU rules are inconsistent, that's not just on Trump, but on the UPU and the many parties negotiating in it, including the EU. So I have no idea why you choose to read my complaint about the UPU negotiations as a complaint about Trump. I even started out by saying he is right in this one case. But this is an issue that's not unique to the US, but to all wealthy countries, and therefore should be handled evenly for all countries. That's what I pointed out in my comment. You're a bit too eager to read attacks where there are none. Had the UPU made just a single exception for the US because of the US's power, that would have been inconsistent and a mistake by the UPU. But as others have explained elsewhere, that's not what happened. The rule is for everybody, it just starts 6 months early for the US, which I guess is a minor gesture to appease Trump. I'm fine with that. Starting in 2021, the situation will be fixed for everybody. ~~~ TMWNN I love your rushing to pretend that you didn't write what you wrote: >Good. This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished. >Or that would have been my reaction until I read the article: >"Countries with more than 75,000 tonnes in post imported annually - mainly the United States - may apply their self-declared new rates from July 2020, UPU officials said." >So does 'mainly the US' mean 'only the US'? I don't want an exception just for the US because they are too powerful to ignore, I want the same rule to hold for every EU country. Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement. In other words: * Requisite snarky remark about Trump * Complaint that the rule change is only for the US (written before you read the rest of the thread and realize that this refers to the US getting the rule change slightly earlier than other countries, as we can see by ...) * Stating that "this is not an improvement" because other rich countries won't benefit from the rule change, again because you hadn't yet read the read of the thread. (Even were you correct, this would be an improvement _for the US_ , which is Trump's concern. As I said, he is not the president of the EU.) ~~~ mcv I'm not pretending I didn't write what I wrote. I did write what I wrote. I didn't write what you _claim_ I wrote: > _" then go on to say that he is at fault for not helping Belgium or > Austria"_ That is not something I wrote. I never said Trump is at fault for these results. That is something you're trying to put in my mouth, and I'm telling you not to do that, because it's a dishonest way of arguing. If you're looking for bad things to blame on Trump, there's tons of that around. This is one of those very rare things where he actually did the right thing. And had the UPU only made this an exception for the US, and not changed the rules for everybody, that would have been on the UPU as a whole and presumably the EU members who failed to negotiate this properly. Fortunately that's not what happened; it was a misunderstanding on my part (based on a cursory reading of the article, so I was already hoping it was the article or my reading of it that was wrong). ~~~ TMWNN >I never said Trump is at fault for these results. No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other countries. Let me repeat again what you wrote: >Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement. That you wrote the above without understanding the full ramifications of the change is immaterial, because you * Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished") * Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an improvement". The implication is clear: Trump is at fault for not obtaining the same improvement he gained for the US for other, "small rich countries" as well. I reiterate my original reply to you: >Trump is president of the United States, not of the EU. It is the EU and its member states' onus to obtain similar changes, should they believe them desirable. >That you begin with a snarky remark about Trump, and then go on to say that he is at fault for not helping Belgium or Austria win the kind of changes that the US needed to seriously threaten to leave the UPU for, says more about you than about the US or Trump. ~~~ mcv > _" No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other > countries."_ As you can see from your own quote out of my comment, that is simply not the case: > _" >Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from > (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to > pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement."_ Nowhere do I mention Trump. I'm not blaming this on Trump. > _" Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that > Trump has accomplished")"_ Well, it is. There's not a lot of good he's accomplished in other areas, has he? He's mostly a disaster. This is the one truly good thing I can see that he has accomplished. > _" Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an > improvement"."_ And indeed it wouldn't have been an improvement if it had only created an exception for the US. I'm glad that's not the result of these negotiations. I will absolutely credit Trump for this one good thing he has accomplished. But if it hadn't been this good result, and it had only resulted in an exception for the US, he would not have accomplished this one good result. Surely that's clear, right? You can't claim credit for something that didn't happen (though I'm aware that Trump sees that differently). However, had the result been not as good, that doesn't mean that Trump is automatically to blame. I understand the assumption, but he's not doing these negotiations on his own. It would be the whole of the UPU, and particularly the EU negotiators, that would have failed to replace the previous rule with a better universal rule, opting for an exception instead. That exception would probably have been good enough for Trump, so he'd still have gotten what he wanted, but this is an issue that's bigger than just the US, and I'm glad the UPU recognised that. I'm also glad Trump addressed this issue. Credit where it's due. ------ colechristensen >The U.N. agency coordinating postal systems worldwide on Wednesday reached a compromise to reform its fee structure, proposed by the United States, ------ spsrich2 what a relief. of all the postal unions the USA could be in the global one is the best ------ droithomme This is reasonably good news. However I was kind of looking forward to the insanity that would follow from leaving this long term and fairly sensible pact! Change isn't always bad, sometimes change leads to new solutions. I personally enjoy the ability to buy NEW parts for my 1914 sewing machine and have them sent directly from some mom and pop family stall in a Chinese village for $0.15 with free shipping. But I also see the importance of encouraging American manufacturing, even though I also realize the long tail products I love so dearly and greatly appreciate the life support China's extended to them is valuable. I also benefit from the ability to manufacture prototype PCB boards in China for new products just by sending off a webform request and for around 1/50 the cost stateside. Losing that ability might be damaging to domestic productivity since we really can't meet those prices, which makes doing frequent bugfix revs, or a small production product, untenable. For those with access to those highly superior Chinese facilities at low cost and quick turnaround, they might have the long term advantage. On the other hand why can't we locally have very modern robotic pick and place machines that don't cost hardly anything and have Joe Bob's fabrication of Arkansas pivot from custom tractor parts to producing clean room spec proto boards. These shops in China doing this stuff a lot are in rural areas and are small outfits run by a few people. We can do the same and would be more interesting for a lot of americans than meth and opioid despair. And yes we can do it. Who knows though. What happens in the global economy and balance of tech is a delicate balancing game and difficult to predict long term outcomes past next year. I do think our present administration is quite good at this game of take it or leave it hardball. The present outcome is a reasonable compromise. And is the new solution we may or may not have gotten from actually leaving. ~~~ h2odragon "Joe Bob's fabrication of Arakansaw" has some licensing requirements his foreign competition might not. And some materials handling friction that's probably less costly elsewhere. His employees have overhead and administration costs which are again, higher than many other places. ~~~ droithomme Two possibilities: 1\. Maybe maybe not. 2\. I guess we should just give up then. Manufacturing will never return to America! It's hopeless. Choose your own adventure. ------ paggle This is where Trump’s “give no quarter” tactics has really yielded fruit. I wish we could find a more normal and balanced guy who was still willing to throw around the weight and leverage of the US. ~~~ m0zg More "normal" and "balanced" guy would be eaten alive by the establishment and mainstream press, and would achieve nothing at all. ~~~ paggle Not at all, Reagan was a guy who managed to proudly use the strength of the US without being a moral degenerate. ~~~ m0zg Reagan too was called a total clown during his first election campaign and in his first term (he's in a good company, so was Lincoln). He was a much better public speaker, I'll give you that, but Trump is almost certainly a better negotiator, just from experience alone. I took some classes on negotiation, and did a bit of that myself, and I routinely see people misinterpret bog standard negotiation plays he does as his "missteps". Literally any book or course on negotiation will walk you through all of the techniques I've seen so far. It's getting tiresome. That's _the standard way_ of doing this shit, literally everyone who has successfully run any kind of business will see these tactics for what they are immediately. As to "degenerate", that's the label you use when you've lost the rational argument. All I see is a talented businessman with a bit of Aspergers, strong Twitter game, and a profound lack of public speaking skills. None of that disqualifies him from the job he was elected to do. [http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was- onc...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald- trump.html?gtm=bottom) ~~~ paggle No that’s not what I mean by degenerate. I mean someone who says Mexicans are sending their rapists, their daughter is a “piece of ass,” that they like soldiers who weren’t captured, that pays off porn stars to cover their affairs, that tells foreign leaders to investigate their political opponents, etc. There are plenty of people who can get tough on immigration, China, and NATO without being a degenerate... perhaps a four star general. Yes, one can make the argument that a degenerate can be an effective President, and there is precedent for this (e.g. LBJ, Clinton) but I think that welcoming degenerates to the office is a bad long term idea. ~~~ m0zg Litmus test time: does this look like degenerate behavior to you? This is a presidential frontrunner and (at the time) an acting VP. He got his cokehead son $1.5B in Chinese money, too, for his "investment" firm, how that continues to escape the front page of WaPo and NYT is beyond me. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA-- dj2-CY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY) Or are your morals selective enough to remain blind to this? Because it seems that the mainstream press is trying their hardest to not cover the story, and if it wasn't for Trump's "whistleblowing" (which I believe he orchestrated himself), nobody would know. ~~~ paggle On the Washington-calibrated President degeneracy scale, bounded by George Washington at 0 and Donald Trump at 10, I’d give this a 5, Bill Clinton a 7, and Lyndon Johnson a 9. ------ tehjoker The reason rates are so cheap from China is because the system was intentionally designed to make it profitable to produce goods in China where labor is cheap. These kinds of attacks on the system are pretty interesting as they undermine the system the business community has loved since the 1990s. It's kind of amazing that Trump is actually attacking the system in order to feed his xenophobic platform. On the other hand, it's possible the business elite are suspicious of China's rising economic power and want to reduce dependence. In no scenario will ordinary people benefit so long as the elites are allowed to execute their plans as all roads lead to their own enrichment at our expense. ------ gpm Alternative headline: "China gets deal to continue having America subsidize it's shipping for another 7 months"... I'm not impressed with the timeline associated with this deal. I'm also not impressed by how the US seems to have only solved the problem for the US. It seems like Canada and most of Europe are in a nearly identical situation. ~~~ avocado4 7 months is very short when it comes to international agreements. Also it applies to every country from 2021, i.e. Canada and EU will be able to set their own rates as well. ~~~ gpm 7 months is only fast when you ignore the 12 months leading up to this. > Also it applies to every country from 2021, i.e. Canada and EU will be able > to set their own rates as well. Oh, I must have misread the article, that's good to hear. ~~~ kelnos 19 months is still a pretty reasonable timeframe for modifying a huge international treaty that around 200 countries are party to. Regardless, I don't think it's fair to include the preceding 12 months; there was nothing actionable for any country to do to prepare for the changes until now. I would actually consider seven months to be impressively fast. ~~~ mcv Yeah, I'm quite impressed by how fast and smoothly this happened. Considering practically every country in the world is party to this, and it's going to impact nearly all global mail traffic, I expected more talk and slower implementation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wesaturate – 6000 Free Raw Photos - kashgoudarzi https://www.wesaturate.com ====== fulldecent2 Okay photo selection. I test with: lemons, boudoir, African RAW download button did not work for me. But you can download using this script by putting in the photo ID: wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.3fr](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.3fr) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.ari](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.ari) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.arw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.arw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.bay](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.bay) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.crw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.crw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.cr2](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.cr2) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.cap](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.cap) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.data](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.data) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dcs](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dcs) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dcr](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dcr) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dng](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.dng) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.drf](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.drf) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.eip](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.eip) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.erf](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.erf) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.fff](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.fff) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.gpr](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.gpr) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.iiq](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.iiq) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.k25](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.k25) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.kdc](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.kdc) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mdc](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mdc) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mef](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mef) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mos](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mos) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mrw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.mrw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.nef](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.nef) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.nrw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.nrw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.obm](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.obm) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.orf](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.orf) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.pef](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.pef) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.ptx](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.ptx) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.pxn](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.pxn) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.r3d](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.r3d) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.raf](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.raf) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.raw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.raw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rwl](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rwl) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rw2](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rw2) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rwz](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.rwz) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.sr2](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.sr2) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.srf](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.srf) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.srw](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.srw) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.tif](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.tif) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.tiff](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.tiff) wget [https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.x3f](https://cdn.wesaturate.com/photos/xxxxx.x3f)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon AWS Training Self-Paced Labs - sebg http://aws.amazon.com/training/self-paced-labs/ ====== neoedu I looked at this today and took a lab, seems very helpful. There are a few labs right now there, I hope they have more soon and then I can take some of the complex labs.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sharable, Open Source Workers for Scalable Processing - treeder http://blog.iron.io/2012/11/sharable-open-source-workers-for.html ====== jpsilvashy2 I like this idea too, I feel there are a lot of typical tasks that most web applications all need to do. Nice work! ------ malachismith This is SO cool!!! Cannot wait to try it out. ------ mangotron very cool! is there a way to do this without using command line? ~~~ treeder Not yet, but very soon we'll add the upload function to the API so you don't need the cli.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Goboy: Multi-Platform Nintendo Game Boy Color Emulator Written in Go - mrahbar https://github.com/Humpheh/goboy ====== giovannibajo1 For something more complex, I have written a mostly working Nintendo DS emulator in Go, with JIT, 3D graphics, and whatnot: [https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/](https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/) ------ lostgame I’ve often thought of writing my own emulator for the NES or GB/GBC to learn a little about how emulation works on a more fundamental level. I understand a lot of it is the process of translating machine code from, say, the GB processor to x86, but I’d love to learn more! ~~~ akdas > I understand a lot of it is the process of translating machine code from, > say, the GB processor to x86, but I’d love to learn more! You don't really need to translate to x86 per se. You can start off with an interpreter that takes in the 6502 or Z80 instructions (as represented by the binary data in the input ROM), then immediately perform operations based on those instructions. For example, if you're holding onto an in-memory representation of the GB registers, and you encounter an "add" instruction, you would perform the addition and update the registers. And if you're writing the emulator in a high-level language, you never really think about x86 instructions. The hard part, then, is timing. You need to make sure the different operations that would be happening in hardware--namely performing the CPU instructions, alongside audio and video operations that would normally happen "in the background"\--happen in sync. But that's a later step after you start on your first prototype! ~~~ CobrastanJorji I have a question there. CPU instructions and what they do are highly documented and easy to replicate, but I'm guessing that timing is significantly less slo. How do you get that right? ~~~ akdas Timings are usually documented as well, usually at the clock cycle level. Beyond that, you have to worry about hardware peculiarities that happen to affect maybe a few games, and at that point, you might start reverse engineering the behavior of those games! Take a look at this article talking about exactly those thinking issues: [https://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/2712-why-perfect- hardware...](https://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/2712-why-perfect-hardware- snes-emulation-requires-a-3ghz-cpu/) ~~~ Narishma Why not link to the original article? [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes- power-...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one- mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/) ~~~ akdas Oops! I searched for the article, then picked one of the results. I didn't realize the one I linked wasn't the original because I only looked through it enough to make sure the right content was present. Thanks for the correction! ------ wareotie I feel envy. I'm writing an NES emulator with a friend and it's taking so long... The gui is stealing my sanity. At least the CPU is completely done. I'll lurk his code :D ------ verletx64 As somebody not versed at all in the front end part of an emulator, what’s a good resource for learning how to put together something that will actually render frames? No preference on technologies here. ~~~ Double_a_92 Emulating the frame is also just part of the emulator. I.e. you got the display memory in some array (of pixel colors) in your code and the emulated instructions modify it. Then you just have to draw whatever is in that array on a "canvas" that your programming language supports. ~~~ verletx64 It’s the drawing bit that I don’t have much experience of haha ------ minimaul Nice! As someone who also wrote a GB emulator as a learning exercise, I found the sound code to be the worst part by far to write - getting sound timing right etc is very difficult (as the GB sound output changes instantly - it has no buffers etc) ------ subbz Well done! Everybody who's interested in multiple platform emulation with a nice UI should check OpenEmu: [https://openemu.org/](https://openemu.org/) ------ jchw Cool! I also wrote a Gameboy emulator in Go, but I never got to supporting audio or GBC. I wonder how much harder it is to do Gameboy Color once you've got decent Gameboy DMG emulation? ~~~ humpheh There aren't actually too many differences between GBC and DMG emulation as most of the hardware was consistent between them. The main change is around the PPU and the memory, as the GBC added some internal memory banks which are used for tile attributes and colour palettes etc. The actual changes around the graphics rendering aren't very significant other than some conditionals for GBC mode - you can see them here where `isGBC` is used: [https://github.com/Humpheh/goboy/blob/master/pkg/gb/ppu.go](https://github.com/Humpheh/goboy/blob/master/pkg/gb/ppu.go) ------ gf263 How would someone begin to work on something like this? ~~~ jchw My recommendation is to start with the CPU emulation. The CPU in the Gameboy has decent documentation and there are plenty of implementations to look at if you're stumped. (One I like particular is the core in Higan, a multisystem emulator written in C++.) ~~~ voltagex_ I remember seeing some people recommend starting with the NES rather than the Gameboy - any ideas on this? ~~~ notafraudster Start with Chip-8 or Space Invaders, both of which are substantially easier than the NES and Gameboy. ~~~ voltagex_ Took me a minute to realise you were talking about 8080 emulation - not Atari emulation: [https://github.com/superzazu/invaders](https://github.com/superzazu/invaders) ~~~ jacobush How did you reach that conclusion? ------ parski I like that the language is a part of the name. ------ igotsideas Love the name!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The weird world of fossil worm cocoons (2016) [pdf] - Breadmaker http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1047133/FULLTEXT02.pdf ====== gwern Abstract for [http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1047133/FULLTEXT0...](http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1047133/FULLTEXT02.pdf) ~~~ sctb Since that loads for me but [http://nrm.diva- portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:104713...](http://nrm.diva- portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1047133) doesn't, we've updated the link. Thanks! ~~~ data_spy Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Oxidizing Fedora: Try Rust and Its Applications Today - rayascott https://fedoramagazine.org/oxidizing-fedora-try-rust-applications-today/ ====== VohuMana Been using ripgrep for a while now, I love it. One other Rust tool people might find useful is fd ([https://github.com/sharkdp/fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd)) which is similar to find. ~~~ steveklabnik fd was left out of this article because it’s in the version of Fedora after the one the article is based on, incidentally. ------ simmons I just installed Fedora 27 in a VM out of curiosity. As far as I can tell from a quick glance, it looks like these Rust executables (ternimal, tokei) statically link their dependent Rust crates (including the Rust standard library), which is the typical approach to building Rust programs. I do wonder if someday we'll see distributions arranging a common dependency realm (as much as possible) among their Rust programs so that shared libraries can be used to reduce the total memory and storage footprint. ~~~ newnewpdro It's kind of funny how GNU/Linux used to intentionally have everything statically-linked that was involved in bringing up the system and needed for a rescue recovery session, so you could still administer a system even if your dynamic shared libraries were hosed. Now I see people tout statically-linked binaries as if it's some kind of new thing brought by Golang and Rust. Though this may be a result of modern glibc being somewhat hostile towards and incompatible with static linking, so maybe the blame should fall on GNU for that one. Netscape used to distribute statically-linked binaries for a number of *nix platforms as a way to avoid this problem all the way back in the 90s. All it needed was an X display server and stable kernel interfaces. Eventually GNU/Linux changed to the point that everything was dynamically linked to the point that only `sln`, a statically linked `ln` was all you had to work with in lieu of a working dynamic linker to fix the system. ~~~ the_why_of_y Statically linked binaries on the root filesystem for recovery were obsoleted by initrd/initramfs many years ago. ~~~ newnewpdro You're only considering the boot process. The initrd/initramfs serves to provide a minimal userspace required by more complex root storage arrangements before we can pivot root. Sure I can reboot a system with hosed dynamic libraries into its initrd and use that userspace to try fix things. But I can also reboot onto any other rescue medium. The moment you've introduced a reboot into the recovery process there's myriad solutions, the introduction of the initrd didn't make a significant difference in this regard. The historically statically-linked /bin /sbin stuff (yes, once upon a time not everything was shoved under /usr like the post-systemd world) could be used to fix broken dynamic libs without even requiring a reboot. ------ phkahler How about replacing the core utilities? [https://github.com/uutils/coreutils](https://github.com/uutils/coreutils) ~~~ empath75 already been done: [https://github.com/redox- os/coreutils](https://github.com/redox-os/coreutils) ~~~ cbcoutinho The `uutils/coreutils` repo is a rust re-write of the GNU coreutils. The repo you posted is a rust re-write of the BSD coreutils ~~~ phkahler Oh! Well that pleases me. ------ majewsky exa is a prime example of how too much color absolutely ruins an otherwise good UI. ~~~ sotojuan Meh, persona choice. I really like the default color schemes. ~~~ jamespo don't mind all but the rainbow file permissions ------ abrowne Looks like Fedora's missing fd [https://github.com/sharkdp/fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) ~~~ CUViper It will be available in Fedora 28+: [https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=25...](https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=25842) ~~~ abrowne Great! I had only searched [https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages](https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Good literature for a technical guy - m1k3r during the last year i've been reading complex and highly technical books, from programing to linear algebra and computational biology, i'm starting to miss some good literature, some recommendations? ====== jackfoxy Articles about Apple censoring the illustrated Ulysses have made it to HN lately. It took Joyce 7 years to write Ulysses. Ken Kesey wrote Sometimes a Great Notion, a favorite of mine, in about 3 months. It struck me that Kesey touches on some of the same themes as Joyce. I consider it an overlooked masterpiece. ~~~ m1k3r Thanks for the advice, i'll try to look for a copy of Ulysses at the library to give it a shot!! thanks!, ~~~ jackfoxy Actually I was recommending "Sometimes a Great Notion". ------ exline I'd highly recommend anything by Vernor Vinge. He is a science fiction writer who's other job was a computer science professor at San Diego State University. One of the best professors I had at school and one of my favorite authors. There are bits and pieces of programming sprinkled though out his books that only software developers can really appreciate. ------ ghotli You're going to enjoy spending time with Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. It's mostly metaphor, his writing style is quite vivid. The interactions of people and things in his fictional cities touch on many facets of what it is to be alive. It's short. You can read it in one sitting. ~~~ shipstar Heavily second the Italo Calvino recommendation. Although I love Invisible Cities, I think "If on a winter's night a traveler" is probably even better for the technically minded. It's somewhat recursive in structure, as the book is actually about reading itself. Highly recommended. ~~~ mquander I have a soft spot for _The Castle of Crossed Destinies_ , whose imaginative structure I'm sure would appeal to any systematic kind of mind. ------ mquander I just happened across Hermann Hesse's _The Glass Bead Game_ recently. For whatever reason, I had never read it before, and it's probably been my favorite book of the past six months. As a programmer, you may find yourself with a unique perspective on the Game. ------ c23gooey this was discussed not too long ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1226736> ~~~ m1k3r Thanks! ------ adrianwaj <http://www.sacred-texts.com> (not literature, but still interesting) ------ arrogantrobot "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. Apocalypse Now was based on this book. Fairly short and very good.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Star Trek: Picard - hestipod https://www.startrek.com/news/brent-spiner-jeri-ryan-jonathan-frakes-return-star-trek-picard-sdcc-hall-h ====== hestipod New trailer for the series. I am putting the YouTube link below as well but it may be regional. It might sound ridiculous to be so excited over a TV show, but TNG was formative for me. My life is completely miserable and hopeless and day to day I don't know if there will be another, and I really needed this. It's something to hang on for and if you get it you get it. The emotion of seeing this was profound and energizing. Hope it gives you the same feeling. Enjoy. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbXy0f0aCN0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbXy0f0aCN0) ~~~ cattlefarmer That link is blocked outside the US. here's a mirror. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oljxEb3H0Ic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oljxEb3H0Ic) ------ smush I have to post a comment even if it is somewhat vapid from a HN guidelines perspective. This is the first time in my conscious life that Star Trek has produced new chronological content. Everything from ENT onwards has been prequels, reboots to non-canon series, side quests, re-imaginings and general not-newness-just- nu-kirk-'dramatically'-dying-next-to-nu-spock-but-not-really-made-you-look and similar shenanigans. Finally, finally, finally, they have made what I've been asking for since my childhood - new Star Trek, set beyond the end of Nemesis in the main timeline with no nu-trek to be found. I'm supremely excited, wary of being disappointed with my slivers of hope, and definitely going to create a CBS All Access subscription to see this. CBS - please keep the millennials at bay so the adults can work, and you will have (finally and I don't know why you took so long to arrive at this TV show idea) a goldmine. ------ vikramkr I'm trying to figure out something substantive to add other than "WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Hells yeeahh!!!!" But the trekkie in me is not coming up with anything g else rn ~~~ hestipod That's mostly what my reaction was too :) I did think there would be a lot more interest. I would have thought Trek fans were common here.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why hasn't Zerocator found a VP of Engineering yet? - pm24601 Links not included because of anti spam But try this search: 'zerocater "VP of engineering" site:news.ycombinator.com'<p>1 hour ago, 14 hours ago, 12 days ago, 25 days ago, ... for FOUR pages of search results! All the way back to 2013.<p>Either no one is applying or they are incredibly picky. ====== eschutte2 Or they've gone through a bunch of VPs since then! I've been wondering the same thing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Next Web Index - sfvisser http://thenextweb.com/voice/2011/11/29/first-introduction-to-our-new-research-tool-tnw-index/ ====== rutgervw This is a great use of Silk (silkapp.com).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Thieves Are Using Bluetooth to Target Vehicle Break-Ins - cowsandmilk https://www.outsideonline.com/2406433/thieves-bluetooth-scanner-vehicle-break-in ====== gxon This seems like a trivial problem for law enforcement to honeypot. You wouldn't even need to actively monitor. Just get an alert when the devices start moving and dispatch officers to track them down. If thieves start getting clever and putting the stolen goods in a Faraday cage, then add a camera to monitor and capture faces/plates. Hell, add hidden cameras to all major trailheads and don't even bother with the honeypot. Obviously, there's funding and expertise issues with a solution like this. But is it really that significant or just law enforcement complacency? ~~~ mikefallen Yeah cuz what we need is more cameras installed by the gov invading our privacy. You think they should implement facial recognition on them too? Don't leave values in your car easy as that .... ~~~ hermitdev I had security cameras installed at my home last week. We already had a security system. I dont like having the cameraa, but the final straw was when someone tried to break into my home while I was at work and my wife was home the Friday before Thanksgiving in the US. With no cameras, had nothing to give the police. Id like to get a 12 gauge shotgun and teach my wife to use it, but she's gun shy. (I am licensed by the state, but dont own any firearms). There is something about the aound of a 12 gauge round being chambered that puts the fear of God in everyone (and I'm an atheist). ~~~ gambiting >>Id like to get a 12 gauge shotgun and teach my wife to use it, but she's gun shy. That sounds like a great way to get your wife shot to be honest. Either by criminals or by police coming to "help" you. You might as well advise people to carry a knife to avoid a mugging. ~~~ bobbyd3 Not necessarily. Assuming his wife was comfortable learning more about how to safely handle a firearm it _could_ be a great asset for protecting their household... ------ gruez >So what can you do to keep your stuff safe? Putting a device in airplane mode or entirely powering it off will both work [...] For additional protection, you can place those devices in a Faraday fabric sleeve ...or you know, turn off bluetooth. ~~~ tclancy Right, but that's the asymmetry of theft: all I have to do is mess up one time. It's the unfairness in Full Metal Jacket when Private Pyle is told if it wasn't for people like him (who forget to lock stuff) there would be no theft in the world. ~~~ georgeplusplus You can disable Bluetooth by default and enable it only when used. ~~~ lsofzz > You can disable Bluetooth by default and enable it only when used. You are _missing_ the point. Ever heard of secure by default? ~~~ lsofzz Expanding on it further, what I mean is that our BT stack should be built from ground up with security in mind. We cannot fight every attack surface but we probably can get to all the low hanging ones that the crims can exploit. One day in some utopia probably. I as a user of BT stack do not have to worry about whether it is switched on or off. This is what I mean by _secure by default_. Downvoter - thank you. I took time to explain what I mean this time :) ------ bdamm Fearmongering; this is a legal issue, not a technical one. Does anyone really think they're going to save themselves from thieves by turning off bluetooth? I hope nobody is that naive. This kind of thing also popped up when people realized that thieves could scan and replay early remote commands to unlock cars (and still can for some models!) Was the answer to not use car remotes? Maybe, but for most of us the answer was to make sure your car insurance is up to date and covers theft. Having a car without dents or scratches is attractive. Having visible chargers in your car is attractive. What thieves will find attractive will change over time. Get insurance, do the basic stuff you can to avoid having valuables in your car or advertising yourself as a mark, and don't worry about the rest. When the inevitable happens let your friends take you out for a drink and move on. ~~~ endorphone "this is a legal issue, not a technical one" What does this even mean? If you get stabbed while withdrawing money from the skid row ATM at 2am, are your final words _" This is a legal issue, not a ғɪɴᴀɴᴄɪᴀʟ ᴏɴᴇ"?_ Yes, people aren't supposed to break into your car, and they're bad, bad people if they do. For the sorts of people that do there is clearly a cost/benefit analysis, where the cost is the risk. Smashing into a dozen cars just hoping to find something valuable is quite a degree removed from knowing that certain vehicles have valuables, and even what those valuables are. And saying "get insurance" is weak sauce. Yeah, most of us have insurance. All of us, I suspect, never want the hassle and annoyance of claiming on it, or dealing with the BS involved with having one's car broken into. ~~~ greggman2 This is one of those crimes I'm curious why the police in certain areas don't do more to stop. SF is the worst place I've been for this. You can literally walk down Folsom street or around Dolores Park and see that every 2nd or 3rd car window was smashed the night before. Leave anything showing and your car _will_ be broken into. It's so common it's hard not to notice the glass everywhere from previously broken windows. Given it's so common it seems like the police could just put a few honey pot cars out and the problem would be solved but they don't care to solve it. LA is also bad though not as bad as SF. I've had my car broken into 6 times and stolen once. One I installed a removable stereo, forgot to remove it first day, windows smashed, stereo gone. Got a new one, it lasted 2-3 months. After that had to use a cheap portable boombox (no money for new car stereo). That lasted a few months until someone bust into car in my apartment's garage and apparently tried to steal the car. The steering column was jacked up and the car repair said that was from trying to steal the car. Those were in West LA. My car itself was stolen in Costa Mesa. The replacement was a used Samurai Suzuki (all I could afford). It had a $10 cheapo radio that was stolen in Huntington Beach (no need to break into the car for that). The 2 times, one time I think I forgot to take down the dash cam. Another I forgot to lock it, there was nothing showing but apparently someone was just checking for unlocked cars. Then again maybe I'm just used to living in a country like Japan where breaking into cars is mostly not a thing and so you can leave stuff in your car and you can have nice non-removable car stereos and not have to worry about your car getting broken into and getting stolen. It's funny/sad to me how having grown up in the USA I just took it for granted than having your car broken into and/or stolen was just a normal part of life in the world. Luckily I learned it's not though it can be also be sad to have your eyes opened just how messed up your country of origin really is. ~~~ ALittleLight I would not impute this level of criminality to the whole of the USA. ~~~ greggman2 Good point. I would love to know why it's not a solvable issue. Not saying it's easy and I'm sure there's multiple reasons, some maybe unsolvable. ~~~ Jamwinner Nobody wants to hear it, but crime and population density seem very linked. Where I live, we dont even lock our doors, while an hour away in the city, I cant even take one of my crs because it is too easy to steal even when locked. When you know your neighbors, you can't steal without everyone knowing. The psudeoanonmity offered by overpopulation makes crime pay. ~~~ ssivark Well, from an aggregate population level it naively seems cheaper (more efficient) to insure people against car break-ins rather than subsidize low- density housing infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, internet, etc.). That's apart from the productivity increase resulting from higher density (eg: see Geoffrey West's work on the nature of cities), and the loss of forest/agricultural land in rural areas. So, while low-density suburban housing avoids break-ins, it leads to bigger unanswered questions. ------ godshatter Has anyone had any luck with faraday bags? I bought one a few years ago, which worked fine for my galaxy s6. I tried it not long ago with my galaxy s9, and I was able to call it from my land line even though it was covered by the faraday bag. Maybe changes in frequencies are to blame? Or maybe I didn't have it as sealed in as well as I thought. ------ ropiwqefjnpoa That's simple and clever, knowing for sure what cars are worth breaking into. I imagine based on the BD_ADDR you can even surmise what type of device it is. ~~~ saalweachter I wonder how hard it is to masquerade your expensive device as a cheap device. ~~~ oliveshell Probably much more difficult than just turning off Bluetooth. ~~~ sideshowb Yes but good idea as you only have to do it once... ------ waltbosz I stayed at a hostel in Montreal 7 years ago and the owners warned me about something like this. They said local thieves used scanners to tell which cars in their car park had electronics inside and were worth breaking into. ------ nihonium This was inevitable. I suppose Apple's new "Find My Device even if it's offline" mode, which uses bluetooth to emit devices location, will help thieves to find these devices as well. ------ microcolonel People have already been lying [0] to the public about vehicle to vehicle communication protocols for a while now, saying that the radio signals will not propagate over long distances. Everyone who knows anything about radios knows that you can make the antenna more sensitive or directional on either side of a transmission. If this stuff ever makes it into vehicles, it _will_ be used by criminals (public and private sector) to track victims. ~~~ lawnchair_larry [0]? ~~~ microcolonel Lost the original link I had earlier today, but this one seems to make the same sorts of claims about the supposed limitations on the range of receiving the V2V signals. [https://youtu.be/3z09fCqmILU](https://youtu.be/3z09fCqmILU) ------ diego_moita > tablets, laptops, cameras, speakers, and phones—basically, most things a > thief may want to steal, except for your keys and cold hard cash. (Although > if you use a Tile or similar locater dongle on your key chain or in your > wallet, then those are discoverable using a Bluetooth scanner, too.) As in most security-related articles there's a lot of speculation and an overall fear-mongering tone here. Laptops don't propagate Bluetooth advertisements while closed and hibernating. The author's friend MacBook was stolen because it was close to the iPad that wasn't hibernating and had its Bluetooth on. Also, almost all cameras don't advertise Bluetooth (it is too slow to transmit video and images), most BtLe speakers are too cheap to interest thieves and most people keep their cellphones with them. Also, Tile trackers are mostly kept in things that people want to keep with them, one of their functionalities is precisely to warn the user when they're left behind. At the end, all the author has is just a theory and a suspicion from a police officer. ~~~ brettnak My bluetooth headphones connect to my macbook pro when come home from work and my laptop is sitting on the kitchen table. My headphones tell me "two devices connected" when I walk in the door. Although it seems like bluetooth _should_ be shut off by devices when not in use, I doubt most devices actually do that. ~~~ diego_moita I'd really like to understand this deeper: are you sure your macbook was hibernating, even if it was closed? Are you sure the proximity advertisement came from the laptop? Usually it is the iPhone doing it. I've seen that in airports and malls, more than 90% of the advertisements around are iPhones (Android doesn't do BtLe advertisement) and Windows computers (from the shops and stores). A small minority are beacons and wearables (iWatch, Fitbit, etc.) In libraries sometimes I can see Macbooks, but they all are non-hibernating. ~~~ brettnak My headphones are only paired with my macbook and my android phone. I always am walking with the headphones paired with my phone, so that's one of the two devices. The only other device is my macbook pro, that is often sitting on the kitchen table with it's lid closed, and unused for several days, and yet this happens every day. I obviously don't know what exactly is going on, but if they can "connect" then presumably something about the bluetooth is still functioning. ~~~ diego_moita Interesting. Thanks for the info. If you left the MacBook connected to the power supply and it is a 2016 model or later then it likely isn't really hibernating, even with the lid closed. By default, most of them remain active when connected to power. However, you can disable the Bluetooth connection. Go to System Preferences > Bluetooth > Advanced Button and deselect "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer." I wonder who does the advertisements here. In BtLe the standard is to have the Peripheral (i.e: the headphones) doing proximity advertising and the Central doing the scanning. But, in principle, anything is possible. ------ jaclaz Semi-random idea of the day. Would there be a market for something _like_ a dye pack [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye_pack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye_pack) emitting fake MacBook-like Bluetooth signals? (and would they be legal?) You'll still have your car window broken, but someone will need a lot of time to get clean ... ~~~ curiouscats Police departments could do this as they have done with "bait cars" to catch those who engage in this behavior. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car) ~~~ logfromblammo Bait cars are a police-state tactic. Just normal, Peelian-principled policing for me, thanks. Hunting and tracking, not fishing and trapping. Which is to say make better efforts to actually solve property crimes that occur naturally, rather than manufacturing crimes for the purpose of resolving them more easily. ~~~ UnFleshedOne Bait cars are not manufacturing crimes. Those are natural and organic crimes. Unless undercover officers actively entice somebody to steal them or something? That would be entrapment it is already not allowed I think. ~~~ ballenf You’re probably right, but we can probably all agree there is a line somewhere that we don’t want police crossing with regard to baiting criminal activity. I’d just rather us not have to debate where the line should be and be ever vigilant as police push the boundaries. ~~~ logfromblammo In the traditional crime triangle of motive, method, and opportunity, baiting and trapping artificially supplies the opportunity, and in some cases also the method, such that crimes that would not normally occur take place in such a way that it is easier to prosecute them than the naturally occurring crimes. It replaces the pursuit and prosecution of people who have committed crimes in the community with jamming up all the usual suspects. It's _lazy_ , and it takes resources away from victims waiting for satisfaction. "Sorry, we aren't going to look for the person who robbed you, but we arrested 30 folks who are criminally predisposed to do exactly the same crime against cars similar to yours, if they're parked nearby, with unlocked doors, and pawnable valuables easily detectable inside. One of them might even be the person who robbed you! We're not going to check, of course, but you can maybe pretend that we caught them, to make yourself feel better." Instead of setting a bait car, and watching just that one while it's out, watch over as many cars as possible to detect and prevent break-ins, all the time--as the community expects its police to do, to earn their pay. It may be effective in the short term, but it also undermines community trust in the justice system, which is critical for policing to be effective in the long term. If you round up and persecute all the usual suspects at regular intervals, their friends and family will stop helping you, and start shunning you whenever you come 'round to "help". ~~~ UnFleshedOne Another word for "lazy" is "efficient". I'd think people stealing bait cars are often the same people who would be stealing regular cars. So a successful bait car protects one or more regular cars. It is important to solve crimes that happened, but it is even more important to prevent future crimes. In fact, for property crimes, the overwhelming benefit of solving them is preventing future crimes. Except in backward countries with retributive justice system, like US, I suppose. (I want the guy who robbed me to suffer!) Otherwise we, as a society, would simply get collective insurance to make victims whole and simply ignore property crimes. Bait cars protect other cars as well, police is advertising their presence often, so everybody knows they are there. That has a chilling effect on crimes of opportunity. In fact you don't even need to have any bait cars at a given location to reduce crimes, just say you do. Would you be ok with private citizens, en masse, installing GPS trackers in their belongings, turning _all_ cars into bait cars btw? Would that also be considered entrapment? ~~~ logfromblammo I don't agree with some of your premises, there. Efficient is often lazy, but lazy is not always efficient. If the specific implementation of lazy is doing a different-but-similar job, rather than a different method for getting the same results, that isn't efficiency, it's substitution. Preventing future crimes is important, but that is not the public mandate for police. Police are there to investigate crimes that occurred, collect the evidence, locate and arrest the suspects, and then turn everything over to the courts for further resolution. Future crime prevention is the responsibility of everyone living in civilization, in part by implementing security infrastructure under the control of those most directly impacted by the crimes in question. People want to feel safe, but not _watched_. It's not security, if the implementation makes you nervous about how it will be used. Yes, I would be okay with private citizens, en masse, installing anti-theft devices in their belongings, provided that the tracking is under the control of the device owner. That's not bait, it's just another security measure. If it doesn't have a hook in it, it's just fish food; some worms get eaten, and others do not. You can't save them by taking a dozen fish out of the lake. They save themselves by developing camouflage, or a bitter toxin, or sharp spines, or slippery slime--whatever it takes to ward off the fish. Meanwhile, the anglers continue to use the bait that catches the most fish. They aren't out to protect worms; they just want to catch fish. Another problem, of course, is that people already do that, with services such as LoJack, Prey, and Find My iPhone. When the owners take the location evidence to police, they do not always do anything with it. Someone can give a cop exact GPS coordinates, including elevation, with video recorded from their laptop with a clear image of the thief's face, and see no action. A television journalist can go to the thief's house, with cameras rolling, get a complete confession, air it on a national news program, and still not recover the property or see an indictment. Cops do not have a legal obligation to do _anything_ for any particular person, as affirmed by several federal circuits independently, and then the Supreme Court. And private citizens and journalists do not produce a clean chain of evidence custody. The cops who don't pursue real property crimes that are trivially easy to resolve are being non-efficiently lazy, by doing an easier job. As long as the priority is on bait vehicles and drug-related civil forfeitures and parallel constructions and other bastardizations of Peelian policing, the cops are not making the public feel secure in their liberties and possessions. They are not being what we wish them to be, and not doing what we would willingly pay them to do. ~~~ UnFleshedOne I agree with most of your post, except police mandate part (at least on paper, implementations vary). Prevention is explicitly in public mandate of Edmonton police (first thing I found). If you look at other programs police departments sometimes have (like public outreach about securing belongings and so on), it is mainly about reducing crimes of opportunity before they happen, and only partially PR. And that bait cars are in the same category with civil forfeitures and other things you listed. We have police exactly so we don't have to grow slimy toxic spines ourselves. Places with weak rule of law can get by with Honor culture for example, but that has a cost. Anglers might not be out to protect worms, but they can destroy fish populations just fine nevertheless, most lakes need to be stoked in fact. As for not pursuing real property crimes with digital evidence, that is often a question of not having a process and infrastructure for that and balancing time spent with likelihood of getting enough for convicting. Standards for admissible evidence are there for a reason, and relaxing them would give much more power to police than to private citizens. This is going to be much worse soon, when deepfakes become popular. ------ viggity Ok, so I have an alexa in near every room in my house. My kids lose their fire tablets all the time. It would be awesome if there was an alexa skill saying "where is Johnny's Tablet" and it could tell me which alexa it was closet to based on the bluetooth. Alternatively, I'd prefer it if I could just set off the alarm on the tablet like I can via the "manage devices" section in amazon. But I'm not always at my computer and it is unwieldly as hell. But the bluetooth thing could help me find non-amazon devices like my ipad. ------ mataug Conversely can I use Bluetooth signal strength to find devices within my home ? ~~~ ObsoleteNerd FTA: > Using signal strength as a distance meter, I found the phone my fiancée > misplaced before she went to work. ~~~ ghaff I played around with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons a couple years ago and it seemed really tricky to locate things. Reflections, walls, etc. just introduced too many random variables. I'd love it to be better. (And maybe newer versions of at least full Bluetooth are.) Something I imagine to be useful if it were sufficiently reliable is some sort of "digital tether" between an Apple Watch and iPhone that buzzes you if you get too far separated. (Obviously not something to use all the time but could be useful in some circumstances.) ~~~ vorpalhex This is the idea of tile trackers, except they also emit noise so you can use that once you get pretty close. I'd imagine intentionally directional antennas would be helpful here, much like is used for ham radio foxhunts. ~~~ ghaff I keep thinking of trying a tile tracker except that seriously misplacing my keys or wallet is such an unusual event that it seems like sort of an expensive insurance policy given that (I think?) they all have a finite life with embedded battery. ~~~ vorpalhex They do have a finite life, but it's about a year. There are tiles with replaceable batteries (finally) but they're a bit thicker. I usually buy packs when they go on sale. ------ bduerst How exactly do they triangulate the Bluetooth signal to an individual car? Yes you can see the Bluetooth radio signal nearby but unless it's the only car in 40 meters you're not going to be able to tell which vehicle it's in. You would need some pretty complicated equipment and experience for these basic "smash and grab" thefts. ~~~ hamandcheese Measure the signal strength near each car. When the signal strength peeks, that's the car you want. ~~~ 2rsf Based on the fact that Bluetooth signal is weak and short ranged by design ------ hnburnsy How does Bluetooth leak the device manufacture, make, and model? Is there some sort of Mac? ~~~ 2rsf > Bluetooth device has a unique address called BD_ADDR. It contains two parts: > company ID which is unique across the world, and device ID which is unique > within the products of the company Link: [http://progtutorials.tripod.com/Bluetooth_Technology.htm](http://progtutorials.tripod.com/Bluetooth_Technology.htm) List of Manufacturer IDs: [https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/assigned- numbers/co...](https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/assigned- numbers/company-identifiers/) ------ toyg Pretty sure this has been a problem at Disneyland for a long time already. I’m sure I read reports of thieves targeting the original Macbook Air back in the day. ------ ChuckMcM Faraday cage for the trunk I guess. ------ scohesc So the summary of the article is: "Don't leave valuables in your car that you don't want to risk getting stolen" I guess the author is bringing this to light in the blog post, but don't people see this in parking lots of shopping malls or community centers to apply this everywhere? It would be even more relevant, since you're going on a trail and aren't near your car for potentially days at a time depending on route you take... but still! :\ ~~~ altec3 I'd say it's more about how thieves have started to use bluetooth scanners to determine if something very valuable is in your car. If they can tell a macbook is in your car, but your glovebox, center console or trunk are locked, they'll go to extra lengths to break into them. ~~~ barbecue_sauce Can you get a bluetooth signal from a MacBook when its sleeping? ~~~ gnicholas I believe you can, but not when it’s off. It may depend on your sleep settings (“wake for network activity” or “power nap”). I’m not an expert though — just my recollection. ~~~ president Also "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer" in Bluetooth settings. ~~~ MrQuincle Then, would the computer not need to listen rather than broadcast? PS: I know quite a lot about Bluetooth, although mostly about BLE. I don't see a reason why the device should be broadcasting anything. If it is scanning for BLE devices it can do "passive scanning". Is this about ordinary Bluetooth and is that different? PS 2: Why is this different for Wifi? When a device is not connected to Wifi it sends probe requests for access points. My intuition would blame Wifi rather than Bluetooth. However, perhaps I don't know enough about old- fashioned Bluetooth. Or the device manufacturers have implementations that do not make sense from a privacy/security perspective. ~~~ vorpalhex Bluetooth hosts aren't entirely passive as I understand it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A general purpose library for C - samuelrowe I have been working a C library for the past four years. It was originally designed for the compiler I am writing. However, I realized many of the components could be reused, which gave birth to Jez Toolkit (JTK). Currently, the library implements collections, unit tests, file I/O, and other modules. The library is a well designed alternative to Glib. I need some help to implement other powerful features such as regression, networking, concurrency, etc.<p>You can check out the repository here.<p>https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/tree/dev ====== git-pull What kind of license is it? Any possibility of ISC / MIT / BSD? Nice to see CMake! And also nice to see an effort to make something lighter than glib. It may be worth looking at BSD's base system in /usr/src to see code you can use as a reference, or add in a generic way. Take a look at #ifdef in ISC/MIT/BSD applications to see if you can port it in to offer portable functions. Hm, examples: [https://github.com/tmux/tmux/blob/master/compat.h](https://github.com/tmux/tmux/blob/master/compat.h) -> [https://github.com/tmux/tmux/tree/master/compat](https://github.com/tmux/tmux/tree/master/compat) For inspiration, all SDL2 is a cross-platform wrapper which probably has chunks that may be useful: [https://github.com/spurious/SDL- mirror/tree/master/src](https://github.com/spurious/SDL- mirror/tree/master/src), SDL_net: [https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL_net/file/c5b3c4171459](https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL_net/file/c5b3c4171459) Maybe the above is relevant / helpful / an inspiration. We need a lite, portable glib alternative. I'm guessing it must be hard to do. I wish there was a a library where we could just pick what we want and not have to buy into an object model, which inevitably entails a lot of dependencies downstream. Good luck with this! Look forward to watching it grow. Starred. ~~~ greenyoda > What kind of license is it? It's licensed under the Apache License: [https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/blob/dev/LICENSE](https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/blob/dev/LICENSE) The Apache License is a permissive license, similar to MIT or BSD. ~~~ git-pull Good find, I was looking at [https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/blob/3d28ed3/LICENSE](https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/blob/3d28ed3/LICENSE) ~~~ samuelrowe Yes, this was the original license. My bad. ------ ktpsns You should host the rendered Doxygen documentation somewhere. Furthermore, Doxygen is primarily designed for API documentation. You can add pages to explain concepts, but may consider to write additional documentation instead. Without documentation, your library is not even visible for search engines, despite humans. ~~~ samuelrowe Thank you for your suggestion. I will soon host the tutorial on GitHub Wiki and find a way to host the Doxygen documents, too. Right now you can refer the following tutorial to get started. [https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/tree/dev/doc/tutorial](https://github.com/itsonecube/jtk/tree/dev/doc/tutorial)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Speaking Fees of Media/Internet "celebs" - aj http://paidcontent.org/article/419-bonfire-of-vanities-part-deux-speaking-fees-of-mediainternet-types/ ====== onreact-com Crime pays: Kevin Mitnick: "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history" $15K to $20K.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
History of the browser user-agent string - bhaisaab http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ ====== pornel And now we have Chromium-based Opera which can't call itself Opera and has to use "OPR/16" instead, and pretends to be Chrome, which pretends to be Safari, which pretends to be KHTML, which pretends to be Gecko, which pretends to be Netscape. On a related note W3C+Mozilla are trying to document use-cases for UA sniffing: [https://etherpad.mozilla.org/uadetection- usecases](https://etherpad.mozilla.org/uadetection-usecases) ~~~ sneak I think it's lunacy to send do-not-track... with a user-agent alongside. The user-agent header is an artifact of history, and should be abolished. I can see no use case for it aside from standards-avoidance. ~~~ eropple _> I can see no use case for it aside from standards-avoidance._ That's true, but one's platonic idea of the browser does take a backseat to reality. ------ patrickmay My user agent is "Drakma/1.3.0 (SBCL 1.1.5; Darwin; 12.2.0; [http://weitz.de/drakma/)"](http://weitz.de/drakma/\)"). I like to keep webmasters on their toes. ~~~ slashdotaccount The ad companies and the NSA can identify you easier than usually. ~~~ jakub_g I pretended to use WinRAR (long time ago to make fun on some boards), until I've encountered [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/) ------ gnur The real question is, is this still needed in the modern web? I have never used the user agent to serve different content. I do expect that some sites still use the user agent for detection of mobile browsers but that is also deprecated for people with common sense.. ~~~ streptomycin It's still needed in many cases. For instance, I wrote an IndexedDB-heavy web app. It doesn't work in browsers that don't support IndexedDB. So I do feature detection and if IndexedDB is not supported, I show an error message telling the user that if they want to run the app, they have to use a more modern browser like Firefox, Chrome or IE10. ...except on iDevices, where it is literally impossible to install any browser that supports IndexedDB, despite the fact that it is possible to install something called "Google Chrome" that is not really Google Chrome. So I do user agent detection to display a different message to those users, so as to not give them false hope and confusion. ~~~ Touche You can use a polyfill that falls back to WebSQL (Supported on iOS): [http://nparashuram.com/IndexedDBShim/](http://nparashuram.com/IndexedDBShim/) ~~~ streptomycin I tried that and couldn't get it to work. Seems I'm not the only one with problems [https://github.com/axemclion/IndexedDBShim/issues](https://github.com/axemclion/IndexedDBShim/issues) Admittedly I could invest more time to try to get it working, but iOS represents a relatively small fraction of my users and even a working shim could have problems (IIRC there are serious bugs with WebSQL in iOS 7, not sure if they've been fixed; also, I don't know what this shim approach would do to performance in an IndexedDB-heavy app). ------ philbarr A great explanation that also made me laugh. I've never really thought of the browser vendors trying to impersonate each other before; sort of, "competing" for content. I always thought they just did what they liked and we all had to hack around it. ~~~ renekooi And they've all been hacking around our hacks! ------ ozh All this was meant to fund Senior JAVA Dev jobs like this one: [http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Enterprise-User- Agent.as...](http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Enterprise-User-Agent.aspx) ~~~ kippetlong Why do you capitalize Java like that? It's not an acronym or an abbreviation. It's just a word - named after the type of coffee from the Indonesian island of the same name. ------ tankenmate Actually this history has one minor mistake (there may be more); Microsoft didn't make their own web browser, well at least not initially, they licensed their code from Spyglass. ------ pilif _> And Internet Explorer supported frames, and yet was not Mozilla, and so was not given frames._ I don't think that is correct. IE 2 didn't support frames. IE 3 did, but 2 didn't. I remember waiting for IE3 to get more market share so that I could safely use frames. I can't tell you what feature made them fake the user agent, but it wasn't frame support. Yeah. Those were the days :-) ------ ronancremin The author reaches a trite conclusion uninformed by facts. The user agent string is used by at least 90+% of the Alexa 100 to improve user experience. There is a silent evidence problem here. Successful use of the user agent string improves the user experience but goes unnoticed; failures are very apparent. From the article: "user agent string was a complete mess, and near useless" vs. [https://etherpad.mozilla.org/uadetection- usecases](https://etherpad.mozilla.org/uadetection-usecases) His conclusion is a bit like saying "I don't see why I need ABS in this car because I've never skidded since I got it." ------ iLoch Sounds like we could really use a "User-Agent-Features" header or something similar. Or we just say screw it and make a new standard for the User-Agent header, then users can run in compatibility mode when needed. ------ Cthulhu_ I haven't had to deal with user agents in a while, thankfully. Except today; the client wants the user to be presented the mobile site we built, or the old desktop site, depending on user agent. I'm not going to parse no user agent strings though - there's an open source library / database called WURFL [1] that can do all those things. Hopefully. [1] [http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/](http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/) ------ Spoom The pseudo-Biblical writing style reminds me of The Book of Mozilla[1], perhaps the coolest browser easter egg in existence, which, sadly, Chrome decided not to implement. 1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla) ------ toblender Wow this is awesome, it answers so many questions. I'm actually surprised that Mozilla didn't sue the other browser for using its name in their User-agent browser. This may have secured Mozilla's place as #1. ------ angersock And then mobile happened, and everything was fucked forever. :(	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A/B Testing, Too Little Too Soon? [pdf] - mahmud http://www.futurenowinc.com/resources/abtesting.pdf ====== rrikhy Where is Patrick BCC when you need him? I'd love his take on this.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
I, Cringely 2019 Prediction 1- Apple Under Tim Cook Emulates GE Under Jack Welch - protomyth https://www.cringely.com/2019/02/27/2019-prediction-1-apple-under-tim-cook-emulates-ge-under-jack-welch/ ====== kevin_b_er Jack Welch pioneered stack ranking. Anyone trying to emulate him should be looked at dimly by the workers. It is a disaster to employee culture due to its nature of backstabbing and dirty tricks to get the best "score" to keep your job. Being on an "amazing team" becomes a bad idea, because even if everyone is amazing, someone's gotta get fired still. Jack Welch ended GE as a company that symbolized good products and turned it into a financial company. Jack Welch represents American job loss. ------ fgonzag I think that's a very dangerous pivot though. True, there is a lot of money to be made in financial engineering, financing, et al. I also think that's where companies go to die long term, even if it is a huge profit center short term. It means you are no longer looking forward to innovation and are now just looking to grease the wheels as much as possible. ~~~ woodandsteel My thoughts exactly. ------ musicale Transforming into a financial firm might be OK for Apple's cash hoard and shareholders in the short run, but it would also be turning away from the most interesting and beneficial parts of the company - the ones that make technology companies valuable to humans in the first place. I'm more interested in a company that applies technology to create tools to help people work, play, learn, create, and communicate. Or one that helps to improve health care and education. Even businesses like streaming music and video, improving cars, or making headphones and speakers seem more interesting and beneficial to humans. ------ timoth3y Tim Cook is a supply chain expert and is positioning Apple to profit accordingly. By controlling who can sell and repair the hardware, who can sell software and at what margins, he is making a lot of MBA-smart moves. But it looks like Apple has moved into a phase where it is milking its ecosystem and customer base rather than building it. In the same way, Apple engineers are focused on creating Apple devices than trying to create new and innovative products. I love Apple. I had an Apple II and there are three different Apple devices in front of me right now, but I'm not optimistic about the future of the company. You either die a hero or live to become Microsoft. ~~~ kalleboo > _You either die a hero or live to become Microsoft_ Indeed the comparison I see a lot is to Steve Ballmer, milking Windows for all it was worth The Jack Welch/GE turn is a new one though ------ aNoob7000 I think one of Apple's biggest issues right now is the incessant focus on margins and profits. For a company with a cash horde of 150+ billion, they should be focusing on attracting more users. I have no idea how Apple is going to transition to a services business when they price their products for a very high-end consumer, and most of their services are tied to their products which means a limited customer base. Also, I know people are going to think I'm crazy but I think Apple should buy DropBox. I personally iCloud is not fixable, just buy something that works.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
In-Person Coding Bootcamps Are Terrible Businesses - wikyd https://medium.com/@clintmania/in-person-coding-bootcamps-are-terrible-businesses-d4c9f122814 ====== jonny_eh Points are somewhat valid, but only looks at the downsides. Keep in mind this was written by the CEO of a company that offers a competing education model. Bootcamps can still be quite valuable. I've worked with many wonderful bootcamp grads that got tons of value out of them. ~~~ smt88 > _Bootcamps can still be quite valuable. I 've worked with many wonderful > bootcamp grads that got tons of value out of them._ I interpreted the title to mean that the owners of the businesses are making a mistake, rather than the students. Only the fourth point relates to whether the students are getting value, and it still seems to be from the standpoint of whether someone would want to start a bootcamp or not.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Economic signs in Apple's bond sale to pay for dividend? - jhowell http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2013/04/30/apple-17-billion-bond-offer/2124791/ ====== jhowell Apple is selling bonds to pay for their upcoming dividend. Perhaps this is a precursor to raising interest rates. Otherwise, they may have waited longer to for interest rates to go lower. From the article: "Last week, Microsoft sold nearly $2 billion in debt."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Small Dogs Pee Higher to Lie About Their Size - cambaceres https://gizmodo.com/small-dogs-pee-higher-to-lie-about-their-size-new-stud-1828084681 ====== hinkley Once, at a dog park, I witnessed a chihuahua-sized dog _do a handstand_ in order to pee higher on a tree. ------ chaoticmass My Australian Cattle Dog is a total hoss, very confident and often scares other dogs just by casting a serious look in their direction. Even though he's a medium sized dog at best, he never cocks his leg when he pees. Given his confidence maybe he just doesn't see the need to lie. ~~~ dvtv75 My greyhound rarely cocks his leg, and I would imagine that on the occasions he does that he's simply trying to mask a scent from a taller animal. He usually marks somewhat like a female, pressing his hips forward and just going on the ground. ~~~ King-Aaron Can greyhounds actually cock their legs though? Mine doesn't, and I admittedly have never seen one do it. I was just under the impression that it's like how they often struggle to sit like other dogs, etc. ------ cambaceres Is this caused by natural selection, or are they smart enough to do this intentionally? ~~~ mikestew "My hyper-sensitive nose tells me the place to pee is way up there. How can I get my urine way up there?" Don't attribute to evolutionary pressure something that even a pit bull could figure out.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Calculating Mean Time To Data Loss (and probability of silent data corruption) - prakash http://www.zetta.net/_wp/?p=147 ====== kurtosis I have a laptop harddrive that is about 5 years old. I backup to a USB drive every other day. It is inevitable that this drive will fail at some point. When is the optimal time to buy a replacement drive? I have always assumed that I should just get one when my current one fails, but this could come at an bad time (when I'm travelling etc.) Is it ever better to just buy a new HD when I have a chance to mess with doing reinstall?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sacrificing Inheritance for Equality - dasmithii https://medium.com/p/64284924df1a ====== PaulHoule I'd say that classism is the issue and not racism. Leftists of the 1960s handed the government on a silver platter to Republicans by promoting a 1-d view of "race". I grew up in New England where it didn't matter if you were black or white but rather what kind of black or white you were. There were blacks living in Beacon Hill in the 1950s but it all changed when the mechanization of agriculture sent southern blacks off the land and up north, and all of a sudden "homies" were colliding with refugees who were fleeing WWII and similar demographic and technological changes in Europe. (Why did Hitler think so many Europeans had to go?) My ancestors came from Poland and French Canada and we were the people on the bottom in the mills, we wouldn't even get foreman jobs. If any of us had applied to WASP Harvard or other elite institutions we'd face the same kind of discrimination that Jews faced except we wouldn't even apply because family and social pressures pushed us into blue collar work. If the left pushes the idea that all whites are privileged over all blacks that just means the numerical majority of whites go to the right. Big Win. To be a working class white and believe that guff you have to have your mind colonized. I would say that the attack on explicit racism that has happened since the 1960s has made classism all the more dangerous because the current system leads people to believe that they earned what they got (i.e. are not "privileged") whereas at least an occasional WASP might look at his circumstances and realize he won the lottery. (Oh, BTW, in economic terms there is no such thing as a majority oppressing a minority, the math doesn't work. For instance, if 90% of white people stole everything that belonged to 10% of black people, the whites only improve their standard of living by a little more than 10%.) If on the other hand, 10% of descendants of invaders of a country like Holland or England can steal 10% of what the 90% indigenous population have they can double their standard of living which is worth doing. That is, "whites" did not enslave "blacks" in the old South, it was a small class of rich white slaveowners who enslaved blacks.) ------ 11thEarlOfMar If this is a riff on the US, the whole premise is flawed. Only 16% of US millionaires inherited their wealth: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire) That means 84% of US millionaires earned it themselves. White, black or otherwise, for most of the wealthy, it still requires a lifetime of hard work to achieve it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Startups tend to ignore children privacy law - adamhaworth http://russellbulletin.com/2013/06/02/children-privacy-law/ ====== L4mppu Not all startups are from USA.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
New Tube for London - jpescada http://www.tfl.gov.uk/campaign/new-tube-for-london ====== SideburnsOfDoom A related BBC news article is here: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- london-29520761](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29520761) Including comment from the RMT Union about how they are "deeply concerned" about driverless operation, the "lethal and cash driven nonsense of removing drivers" Well... driverless operation may be "cash-driven", and TFL s often focusing on savings over performance (e.g by removing staff from ticket and information booths) but "lethal" sounds like a slur. Driverless trains work well enough on the DLR in East London, and are probably an inevitable step in 21st century London. ~~~ danielbln Works well in lots of places: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems#Grade_of_Automation_4_Systems) Of course people whose jobs are affected by these systems will speak ill of it, I'm sure the carriage drivers union wasn't very pleased with the automobile back in the day either. We will see the same thing for trucks and cabs real soon. ~~~ ealexhudson Victoria, Central and Jubilee are all "driverless". But they have drivers. There are actual reasons for this. ~~~ simpleigh Care to share any? Reasons I can think of: Existing automation may be insufficiently good to cope with adverse weather and unplanned situations. Technology has moved on considerably since the Victoria, Central and Jubilee stock. We're automating cars now, after all. The article mentions a new signalling system being rolled out in support. Lack of platform-edge doors. TfL have stated they won't run driverless trains without these. These are planned for installation on the Piccadilly line as part of the new stock rollout. ~~~ TheOtherHobbes One of the _actual_ reasons is that drivers go through intensive training (er...) as first-call engineers. If a fault stops a train, it's far more useful to have someone on the scene to try emergency repairs than to wait until the train can be cleared from a tunnel - because a stopped train can literally hold up the commute of millions of people. There are also safety issues. Drivers are trained in passenger management, and every so often they need that training to deal with fights, illness, suicides, or all the other messy things that happen on a public transport system - the public part of that being at least as important as the transport part. ~~~ michaelt Drivers are trained in passenger management, and every so often they need that training to deal with fights, illness, suicides, or all the other messy things that happen on a public transport system As I understand it in a lot of the London trains it's not possible to move between carriages - so the driver can only deal with fights, illness, suicides etc over CCTV or by stopping at a station? ~~~ yangyang There are doors but they are not for use in normal circumstances. The new Victoria Line trains were initially supposed to be "space trains", open all the way through, but didn't actually end up getting built like that. ------ tragomaskhalos Being called a "customer" instead of a pasenger makes me want to scream with rage every time I hear it, especially when I imagine the consultants and marketing gonks employed, and their fees, to push through this utterly pointless bit of linguistic chicanery. You are public transport infrastructure, not a fucking shop. ~~~ petenixey You pay to go on the tube. You can choose not to. That makes you a customer of the tube. Far better surely that such a system is designed in mind that someone might choose not to use it than that they'll get whatever they're given. I'm not sure why you would be outraged by this. ~~~ Tarang Because it's public infrastructure. TFL is a government body. We also pay to to use the road in the form of taxes, it would not be nice for the government to call us a 'customer'. If thats not a good enough example, there are plenty of government departments that require payment for their services and I think the same would apply. Like renewing a passport, I would hate to be called a customer. ~~~ jiggy2011 The roads are free at the point of use, the tube isn't. There's also the idea that words make a difference to how the staff will "see" the passengers and thus how they will perform their jobs. Are they a nuisance to be herded around or are they the people to whom you owe your job security? It's the same in IT ,it sometimes says things about a person's attitude depending on whether they say "user" or "customer". ~~~ xorcist > The roads are free at the point of use, the tube isn't. Perhaps it should. Surely it must have been tried somewhere? ~~~ jiggy2011 The tube is already very busy without people using it for frivolous journeys. At least it still costs people money (car) or physical effort (cycling) to use the roads. There are cities with free transit systems however. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport) ------ k-mcgrady >> Air-cooled carriages Got very excited when I saw this then noticed they won't be out for at least another 6 years. I haven't been in London long but the temperature of the tube is the worst part of the experience for me. The congestion isn't pleasant but if the temperature was bearable the congestion wouldn't be so bad. ~~~ Shivetya Well that was one part of the presentation that surprised me, I never expected the trains to not be cooled and heated. This may be simple ignorance on my part having not used most public transport systems, so is this common for underground services? How is humidity on these lines? ~~~ davb I was surprised on my first visit to London to see posters advising passengers to carry a bottle of water and not travel when sick due to the heat and humidity on the underground. We'd get on at one station freshly showered and hydrated then get off at another drenched in sweat and ready to pass out. We used the tube extensively on our visit and it was by far the most uncomfortable (from an environmental perspective) public transport system we've used. I'm not sure what makes the London underground so different from the systems in Glasgow (admittedly very small), Munich, Barcelona or LA. Perhaps it really is so much deeper under ground. That said, the contactless payment system was fantastic. Being able to use my credit card to move around the city without buying a separate ticket was very convenient. ~~~ gsnedders It really is deeper than the others you list — only Barcelona comes at all close. The other issue is it has a few lines that are _really_ crowded, which means what cooling ability it has is pushed to its limits. The fact the subsurface lines have had many of their historic vents closed off for above- ground development now steam trains are a thing of the past doesn't help there, either. At least Glasgow has other environmental factors keeping it cool — the fact it's a short circle with two underground crossings of the Clyde (which keeps the surrounding tunnels cool) really helps it in the summer, as well as moderating the temperature in the winter. It does get pretty ridiculously humid in the winter compared with outdoors — I have many memories of walking into the stations just to have my glasses steam up and be unable to see anything! It's also much, much shallower than the deep level lines in London (the deepest station in Glasgow is something like half the depth of the deepest in London). ~~~ davb I didn't realise passing under the Clyde had such an affect, that's quite interesting. I would have thought, however, that being mixed overground/underground (on many London lines) would make air circulation an easier problem to tackle. Ah, I do have similar memories of my (possibly rose tinted) glasses steaming up, but it was always so much cooler and I never felt that I couldn't catch a breath of clean air. ------ quarterto Wow, it's about time the Bakerloo line got some new rolling stock. It's still using stock from 1972. Even the Picadilly line's '73 stock is miles better. ~~~ simpleigh Personally I much prefer the Bakerloo. The seats are much more comfortable than anything more recent. The Bakerloo is pretty low down the list of an upgrade, apparently. Counter- intuitively this is because the trains need substantial refurbishment within the next few years - unfortunately this will be necessary before new stock will become available, so it makes sense to refurbish and then run for longer. ~~~ quarterto They're only more comfortable because the springs have all given up. ------ petenixey It's kind of crazy to think that the platform-side doors will increase service capacity by removing the ability for people to commit suicide in front of trains. The frequency with which there is "a passenger under a train" must have a tangible effect on tube capacity. ~~~ frobozz Platform overcrowding is also an issue, and passengers are often held back in the ticket hall or outside, because of how dangerous it would be to put more people on an open platform. With platform-side doors, you don't need to stand behind the yellow line. It isn't just one-unders, but the fact that the train can't safely move off when there are passengers right up against the train. ~~~ davedx I remember being blown away by the platform side doors for the shinkansen bullet train in Japan: the incredible precision with which the train doors align with the platform doors. ~~~ lmm Where was that? Most shinkansen platforms I've been on were in the open air. (Also, London has had platform edge doors for a while already - only on half of one line, but still) ~~~ davedx Not sure... one of the Tokyo stations I think. It was still an open air platform, but had doors on the edge of the platform around man-height that aligned with the train doors. ------ Sarkie What about the crappy Northern Line? ~~~ sabarasaba At least they could put more trains to bank, why so many for charing cross.. they are always empty ! ~~~ RossM Coming from South London, it seems like every train is on the Bank branch (I have to change at Kennington 9 times out of 10). ~~~ mattdoughty Northern line trains on the Charing Cross branch only go south of Kennington at peak times. This is shown on the map of the Northern line but not on normal Tube maps. ------ bane I wonder what the cost would look like to widen the tunnels on old subway systems like the Tube to make for wider trains. The first thing that hit me about the Tube when I used it is how narrow the trains are (especially the older lines). It's not a surprised when probably most of it was dug out by hand, but running a modern tunnel boring machine down the line and laying new track and using the kind of ultra wide trains used in Asia would move far more people. ~~~ alexbilbie Whatever the cost it wouldn't be worth it. First some lines run within metres of one another so you couldn't expand because there just isn't space. A back of the napkin plan if you were to go ahead would look like this: 1) Shut down the line completely 2) Remove the tracks 3) Design, build and then get underground some new boring machines which need to be capable of removing the metal lining, digging through earth and concrete then relaying the lining. 4) Rebuild platforms which would inevitably be damaged 5) Relay tracks 6) Design, build and get to London new wider trains Realistically you're looking at 3-5 years (at least) per line to widen them. I don't know if you live in London and are therefore aware how much we Londoners rely on the tube - even if they only widened one line, having it out action for that long would have devastating consequences for communities and businesses and every day Londoners' lives. ~~~ avn2109 >> "then relaying the lining." Former tunnel boring engineer here. Modern TBM's usually line the tunnel with prefab concrete sectional rings, which are built by a human-controlled hydraulic arm at the front of the TBM's trailing gear, immediately behind the cutterhead chamber. As far as I know, cutting heads that could bore soils/rock could not also bore through metal lining. This is limited by the material properties of the cutting surfaces, typically hard metals or coated ceramics. Heads with acceptable wear rates in hard rock or soils will likely have unacceptably high wear rates against metals. And 3-5 years is probably a drastic underestimate of project duration. ------ haphazardeous All I want is air-cooling as I'm sure the number of using the tube by 2020 will increase by 70% and we will still have to cram in... ------ imaginenore Why do all subways have to have the ugliest seat cushions? It's like they order them from the same shitty cushion factory. ~~~ NickPollard I don't have evidence but I always assumed they do it to mask wear and dirt - the odd geometrical patterns make it less obvious how old and dirty they are, compared to a single clean colour. ~~~ alexbilbie It's called moquette and "is renown for its hard wearing, durable and fire resistant qualities" [http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/for-home/furniture/about- moque...](http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/for-home/furniture/about- moquette.html) ------ crb Shame they didn't go for the Siemens design: [http://w3.siemens.com/topics/global/en/goingunderground/page...](http://w3.siemens.com/topics/global/en/goingunderground/pages/home.aspx) To me, it seemed like it would stand the test of time a lot better. ------ jmngomes I'm curious on how responsibility works in this case, e.g. a driver can be held accountable for causing an accident, but who is accountable for bugs causing accidents? The software house? I can only imagine the price of civil responsibility insurance for this... ~~~ troymc The software industry has a tradition of inserting a "Disclaimer of Warranty" and a "Limitation of Liability" into all licenses. Do those hold up in court? I don't know. It _is_ bizarre. Imagine if car companies did that. Example 1: The GNU GPL, sections 15-17, [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html](http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) Example 2: Microsoft Services Agreement, sections 11 & 12: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft- service...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-services- agreement) ------ TamDenholm Didnt the tube just get a bunch of new trains in the last couple years? I seem to remember there being a big deal about it because some of the long serving train drivers retired rather than learned how to work the computerised ones. ~~~ sksksk Different lines have different trains. The shallow level lines got new trains recently, because the lines were built using cut and cover (like in NYC), they were easily able to add air conditioning. These trains are for some of the deeper level lines that were built by using tunnelling machine to bore deep underground. ------ endeavour "Air-cooling" sounds like a gimmick rather than an actual solution (i.e. proper air conditioning). You see this on adverts for new-build flats in London too. "Comfort cooling" often just means a fan blowing hot air around. ~~~ mynameisvlad It's impossible to have actual AC on the trains, there's simply no space, and there's no real way to make space. Furthermore, you have the issue of venting the hot air 20m underground. ------ JonnieCache _> The trains will be designed and built to be capable of fully automatic operation. When the trains first enter service, they will have an operator on board. We would only consider implementing full automation following extensive engagement with our customers, stakeholders, staff and trade unions. We are committed to having a fully-staffed Tube network, on hand to assist customers and ensure safe operations. Given our existing train fleets, all drivers currently working at London Underground will be able to continue to drive trains for the remainder of their careers._ And so, the battle lines are drawn. They seem keen not to annoy Bob Crow and the unions too much, considering there's an election next year. I'm sure he'll react calmly, like he usually does. EDIT: whoops, he's dead apparently. ~~~ colinramsay I don't think he'll mind too much seeing as he died in March: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26527325](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26527325) ------ alimoeeny That was disappointing, so still by 2060 the only progress is better doors, 60% more capacity, air cooling, and driverless? that's it? ~~~ nodata What would you like to see? ~~~ cpplinuxdude Mobile phone network, for 2g and 3g. Stockholm has them, so surely it can't be that hard. I know this doesn't affect the trains directly, but surely it's something they have to take into consideration, especially during their announcement of their plans until 2060 god damn it. London keeps boasting "best city in the world, best city in the world", yet its citizens are under increasing work pressure, and simultaneously cannot send or receive emails during their daily commute. Sure they have wifi in the stations, but by the time you login (assuming you're paying because see, it's not free) you train has arrived. I remember my holiday in Tel Aviv. I was skyping on the beach, on public free wifi. Then I return to London, and nope, back to being offline, while on my way to a high tech job. And we're supposed to be a cutting edge city? Explain how. ~~~ corin_ I'm no expert, but I imagine the most cost effective way to do this would be to have wifi along the lines rather than on the trains themselves - even if I'm wrong about that, installing wifi onto a train isn't something that needs to be built into the train from conception, and is something that anything they plan into it now will probably be obsolete in its tech standards by the time these trains launch in ~10 years. On the subject of current station wifi - who has to pay? Certainly for me (Vodafone customer) I get it free, it's still provided by Virgin but they give a semi-whitelabelled login page for Vodafone (I don't have to login, it just takes 10 seconds when it opens the authentication page and verifies me on the network). I also find it great (albeit not as great as solid coverage all along the line) to be able to hook back onto the network as I travel through stations. It doesn't require me to re-auth each time, so essentially every minute or two my phone can sync emails, twitter, whatsapp, etc. leaving me the actual driving time between stations for reading/responding as needed. ------ binarytrees Meanwhile California can't get high speed rail, or connect LA Metro from 7th street to the terminal. ------ lucio The music and video, subconscient reference to Spirited Away? ------ Dwolb 'Future proofing' is not a good sign. Typically it means 'architectural and cost inefficiencies because we don't want to institutionalize knowledge' ~~~ corin_ When creating trains for a service that is growing in usage on a consistent basis you can either future proof it (i.e. make it bigger/better than it needs to be right now so that it can survive X years of growth) or you can not future proof it (i.e. make it exactly what's needed right now and a year later you're wishing you could upgrade it). It's the same reason when you buy a computer you think about the next year or two of use rather than your previous year or two of use. ------ swombat Why is this top of HN? These trains, even modernised, are years behind other underground systems like Hong Kong... And this won't even be out for years. It's nice news for London commuters, but hardly "Hacker News". Flagged. ~~~ jpatokal Because they're modernizing a system that started operating _151 years ago_? The Hong Kong MTR, by contrast, dates to the misty antiquity of 1979. ~~~ tonyhb And the Hong Kong MTR was designed by the same architect that worked on some of London's line extensions. They had a huge amount of experience and learnt lessons to pull from over the hundred years London's underground had been running. ~~~ NickPollard Also, I don't know what Hong Kong is like, but London has been a major city for about 2000 years, and under the surface contains not only rail lines, but sewers, tunnels, underground rivers, burial pits, bunkers, luxury belgravia basements, and the detritus of two millennia of occupation. Trying to dig anything under London now is a _huge_ effort because of all this. This is very much a 'move slow and try not to break anything' environment. ~~~ gsnedders Case in point: the Crossrail tunnel through Tottenham Court Road has about 85cm clearance both above and below it, _and_ had to be constructed with the Underground tunnels around it still in active service. Building new lines through relatively soft clay is _really_ hard when you have hundreds of notable historical buildings that you cannot afford to have _any_ subsidence (like, millimetres is enough to cause really damage), and then when you don't really even though where half the other underground pipes are exactly (many of them are hundreds of years old, and some we simply don't know exist)… It's a real challenge.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Where to get free PHP reservation scripts? - martintoth Hi guys, I need to create PHP reservation form similar to this one: http://goo.gl/EhcsX9<p>Can anyone tell how to create such a PHP without PHP knowledge? ====== el33th4xx0r no. you have to learn it, or use any other language that you know.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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