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My webapp: Guitar tabs as they should be - kilian http://guitaryst.com/ ====== mayank This is great, but as another comment below notes, beware the legal troubles that are headed your way. A number of wonderful guitar tab sites (starting with OLGA back in the day) have been taken down. In fact, it seems that OLGA is still down: <http://www.olga.net/> And they just put up tabs. ~~~ kilian Yes, I know :( This kept me from doing anything in this direction for a long, long time, but in the end I just wanted to _build something cool_. I don't host any of the tabs so that might make a difference. However if people want to take me offline, I'm just going offline. ~~~ getsat Your domain is already on a non-US registrar, so all you need to do is move from EC2 to a non-US host like abdicar.com, PRQ, admin.2x4.ru, or any "bullet- proof" host. They will ignore DMCA requests and their ilk. ------ bjonathan Your website doesnt seem to work under Firefox 3.6.12 (windows 7 64bits) . I can see the page 1second and after I am redirect to a blank page and the page is stuck loading. Strangely the site works smoothly with Chrome.. ~~~ kilian I'm sorry! This is a bug I just can't seem to fix (and it's not consistent either) or find out why it's happening. ~~~ JangoSteve If it behaves differently in FireFox and Chrome and it's inconsistent, it's usually an issue with the speed of JavaScript execution and the order of the JavaScript operations. If it works in FireFox but not Chrome, it usually indicates a problem with the JavaScript executing too quickly. E.g. computing the width of one element and setting it based on the width of another element on the page, before the content of that other element has been fully rendered. If it works in Chrome but not FireFox, it usually indicates a problem with the JavaScript executing too slowly. E.g. firing off an intensive process, like manipulating 100 elements on the page at once, and then firing off another action that depends on the previous process being completed. If the JavaScript execution is slow, it's possible to fire off the next event while the other is still being processed. In this case you'll want to either have the previous function fire off an event when it's completed, and bind the next function to that event, or brute force it with a setTimeout. Wow, that was way longer than I meant it to be. Oh well, hope it helps. ~~~ kilian FYI, I managed to track this down to the twitter 'hovercards' causing a fit onload. Got rid of them and the problem went away. ------ jkincaid Very cool as a V1, with a user experience that's loads better than existing alternatives. Couple feature suggestions (that are probably already on your roadmap): -User and/or editor reviews are a must. Tab quality tends to range from completely wrong to _almost_ right, and without any kind of community input it can be difficult for newbies to tell the difference. -I don't know how feasible it is, but a web based version of PowerTab (or comparable solutions) would be great. Old-school tabs are nice, but when you can listen to a MIDI-fied version of a portion of a tab, it helps a lot. ~~~ kilian I have plans for getting much better tabs, but I'm not there yet. Regarding number two, check out <http://www.songsterr.com>, I don't think I'm ready to compete with them yet :) ------ kilian I wrote this much in the same vein as <http://lystener.com>, as just an easier, better and prettier way than other guitar tab sites. Let me know what you think! :) Edit: For people wanting more info, I wrote a blog post too: [http://kilianvalkhof.com/2010/css-xhtml/guitar-tabs-as- they-...](http://kilianvalkhof.com/2010/css-xhtml/guitar-tabs-as-they-should- be-guitaryst-com/) It has invites to the hosting platform I use: <http://djangy.com>, a very cool "Heroku for Django" ~~~ tenaciousJk Definitely don't want an invite for this host. The site has been unreachable since the link made it to the font page of HN. ~~~ kilian I don't think so: <http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/guitaryst.com> There's about 90 people online right now :) ------ cosgroveb I find the tablature somewhat difficult to read. The color of the text doesn't contrast too well against the background. You might also try to find a typeface but I assume you need something monospaced for this app. Otherwise this looks really awesome! ------ cypherpunks01 This is really nice, I was thinking of working on something similar for a web- based music player I'm building. Just curious, is your tab data from one source, or a variety of sources? Or is that confidential? :) Keep up the good work ~~~ kilian Feel free to email me! My email is at the bottom of the site or in my profile here :) ------ iterationx You need a demo button so I can see how it works without creating an account. ~~~ mishmash Or search for a song. ~~~ kilian Hover over "last.fm". Next to Last.fm I support Like.fm and Libre.fm, _and_ regular tab search :) ~~~ Vindexus Consider putting a down arrow next to "last.fm" to show that it's a dropdown option. I had no idea until I read this comment. ------ necolas At first I didn't notice that you could search for songs. It didn't work for me in Chrome or Opera (didn't bother trying other browsers after that); no music was playing at all. Nice idea though. ------ slouch i couldn't get this to work. i put "test" in for the last.fm name like was suggested here. a song and tab appeared, and nothing else. am i missing audio or something? when i browse tab sites, i know which ones have the quality tabs. i choose ultimate-guitar and bassmasta as frequently as possible because i know i hate 911tabs, etc. i'm not going to switch to anyone's new web app unless i know they have the best tabs from these other sources. ------ econodog This is awesome. Hope you can get around the legal stuff. I wish I still had a guitar because I'd definitely be all over this. ------ tofumatt This is really cool. Hope you can deal with the legal issues, because I would use this for sure. ------ PonyGumbo FYI - The page has been stuck loading for me for several minutes. ~~~ kilian The Twitter button is being mega slow, just press stop and the page should load :) I'll look into getting loading those after the rest of the page is done! ~~~ Pewpewarrows You should just look into using AddThis, which allows you to load their script async and it'll load itself once the DOM is ready: [https://www.addthis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12202](https://www.addthis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12202) ~~~ binarysoul you can do the twitter button async as well [http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/08/13/the-twitter- but...](http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/08/13/the-twitter-button-is-it- making-your-site-join-the-fail-whale-shuffle/) ~~~ Pewpewarrows Nice find, but I find it kind of ironic that the page took about 10 seconds to finish loading from the other non-async scripts the author has on that page :)
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Aviv Ovadya on impending information apocalypse - althaffe https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-terrifying-future-of-fake-news ====== cmurf I'm rather unsurprised this, and similar stories, get almost no votes or comments on HN. There's a massive cognitive dissonance in the tech community about the peril of technology, believing only that it's generally good and any evidence to the contrary is to be ignored. There's no solution for the problem even if by chance the vast majority don't have an emotional attack upon contemplating tech might in fact be worse on average than good on average. And I think that's because of the lack of history, ethics, philosophy, and imagination by people in tech. At best they have no interest in these things, and at worst they actively consider them less important for society than science, technology, engineering, math. Good luck though with getting off the planet while being surrounded by so many ignorant and willing saboteurs.
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Twitter Bootstrap Code Clip Marketplace - bavidar http://www.bootclipper.com ====== msurguy Bootsnipp.com creator here... I really do not appreciate that somebody just ripped off my idea completely, the layout, the thumbnails styles, etc. Maybe you can change it up a little? There is also Foundation by Zurb that does not have a site like bootsnipp, feel free to make that isntead =) ------ mcrittenden See also: <http://bootsnipp.com/> ~~~ bavidar Yeah this was built off bootsnipp idea. On bootsnipp you can't upload your own code. ~~~ msurguy Yes you can. This update was pushed a day ago. <http://bootsnipp.com/submit> ------ yvan One great thing that you can add its a preview of the code. ~~~ bavidar Thanks. Ill add that right now. Its my side project so I haven't had that much time for it recently. Let me know if you would like to help.
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The Discoveries of Continuations (1993) [pdf] - brudgers http://www.cs.ru.nl/~freek/courses/tt-2011/papers/cps/histcont.pdf ====== ufo Changing topic a bit, the other day I tried looking for some paper on John Reynold's webpage and the ftp server is apparently offline: ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/jcr Made me think about how everything eventually comes to an end... ~~~ agumonkey Or is it : [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/jcr/ftp/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/jcr/ftp/) seems like the same paper [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/jcr/ftp/histcont.pdf](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/jcr/ftp/histcont.pdf) ------ tomcam A good paper and a fairly easy read. Reynolds is diplomatic: While he mentions in the abstract that "In the early history of continuations, basic concepts were independently discovered an extraordinary number of times. This was due less to poor communication among computer scientists than to the rich variety of set- tings in which continuations were found useful" the truth appears to be more textured. In the body of the article he cites a number of occasions in which seemingly relevant papers were declined from journals for what seem to be petty reasons.
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Microsoft’s Next Era - jamesjyu http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/microsofts-next-era/ ====== mcdougle As most people seem to right now, until the past few months I thought of Microsoft as sort of an aging giant. They had gotten lax during their monopoly, and instead of keeping up with the times they're struggling to keep up with more "hip" companies like Google and Apple. And in the public space, this is true -- the average consumer (or the small business/startup rather than the large corporation) these days is more likely to buy an Apple product or a Google product if they can. The average consumer has a better mental image of Apple or Google than Microsoft. And then I started my job at a large hospital system assisting the guys who do financial analytics, and saw the other side of the industry. Microsoft is still the giant in corporate-level big data analytics and providing solutions for large server farms. Their B.I. stack (SQL Server, reporting software, Sharepoint, and other data analytics software I won't go into right now) is worlds ahead of its competition (and from what I understand can be used interchangably with the other software -- for example you can hook Tableau into SQL Server and use it as a front-end for an SSAS cube). I would have never thought about any of this if I hadn't been at this job, but Microsoft is still a giant in providing software and systems for hospitals, insurance companies, big banks and others in the financial sector -- big companies that need to procsess big data. In addition, as the article states, Microsoft is a leading competitor in providing cloud hosting solutions -- I went to a Microsoft thing to learn about and test Windows Azure, and it's incredibly powerful and so easy to use. The article kind of hints at this stuff -- that, under Ballmer, Microsoft has actually been successful despite their stock falling and how the general public perceives them. They're not failing, it's just that the people who buy the stock are typically the average consumer who see Microsoft in the light I mentioned above. The stock market isn't always the best indication of a company's success, just an indication of what the people who buy stock think. This doesn't mean I like Microsoft. I just wanted to point out something I don't think many people pay attention to -- they're still wildly successful, just in a different market segment, and people might not have noticed that if they weren't actually in that market segment. I still prefer not to use their products when I can help it, and I think they could do things much better, and maybe trying to actually compete with Apple and Google and earn the general public's respect back would be a good thing. Maybe their "next era" will do this. But then again, I'm the individual consumer, too. ~~~ sirkneeland At this point only 25% of Microsoft's revenue comes from Windows. And yet if you asked the average man on the street how big a part of Microsoft is Windows and they'd probably say between 80% to 600% (nobody said the average man on the street would be good at math...) ------ msluyter Just curious -- what's the usage profile for Office in the HN world? Where I work, we use Outlook (on macs), excel on occasion, powerpoint, and that's about it. Around 10 years ago or so, we'd draw up big honkin' requirements documents in Word and e-mail them around, but now we use Wikis & Stories (jira/VersionOne/etc...) for that, so use of Word has plummeted to about zero. Excel is used a fair bit for columnar data and the like, and frankly, I think it's not a bad product at all, though for personal use, I'd probably go with a google docs spreadsheet. And for simple cases, the google docs presentation software is an adequate powerpoint replacement. My general question/theory is that a lot of free/cheap/niche products have been nibbling at the edges of Office, and I'm wondering if/when a tipping point will occur, at which point it'll become totally irrelevant. On the other hand, perhaps if there's enough pushback against cloud services due to the NSA thing then standalone desktop apps will make a resurgence. "Office is Dead. Long live Office?" ~~~ pcunite We use LibreOffice and Outlook 2010. ------ brudgers _" Competitors were stamped out one by one (see Lotus, Word Perfect, Netscape, Real Networks) along Microsoft’s journey to capture eyeballs and entire software budgets."_ Microsoft didn't stamp out WordPerfect. It was a brilliant company with amazing customer service which was acquired, gutted, and lives on as a rusting hulk. The same was the fate of Lotus - corporate customers could still purchase the 1990's Lotus Suite from IBM a couple of years ago. I guess a case could be made about RealNetworks, but it would need to explain away the relevance of iTunes and Youtube to the space and explain how Windows Media player was the real force in the space. Netscape is of course emotionally charged. My opinion is that its multi- billion dollar sale to AOL aligns its story more closely with that of WordPerfect and Lotus, than David and Goliath. ------ cpleppert Microsoft's problem is that the marginal advantage of going with its dominant products (Windows and Office) is very low with cloud and mobile devices as opposed to PCs. Microsoft's strategy of trying to leverage its desktop monopoly in applications to build a similar monopoly(or at least a very strong critical mass in mobile applications) has two critical drawbacks: 1\. desktop and mobile applications aren't magically interchangeable, and where they are, desktop users don't like the new interface 2.mobile applications aren't just about functionality, they provide value based on the ecosystem they are connected to. This ecosystem is completely portable among application platforms 3\. mobile applications aren't as complex as desktop applications So I think that the Windows 8 strategy is actually counterproductive. Nothing about Microsoft's troubles is a surprise. It could have moved aggressively to build new markets but instead it chose to view every opportunity as a way to extend its core products of Windows and Office. If no disruptive technologies came along this might have been a good strategy but we all know the changes in the technology space over the last 10+ years. Microsoft's core competencies aren't built around blue ocean innovation at all. So changing the strategy will require significant risk. There isn't a magical solution here. ~~~ cageface _Microsoft 's problem is that the marginal advantage of going with its dominant products (Windows and Office) is very low with cloud and mobile devices as opposed to PCs._ Perhaps, but I think this has as much to do with the fact that mobile just isn't a great platform for power user tools. Sure, we now have iPad spreadsheets, drawing apps, word processors, presentation tools etc, but they're very simplistic compared to what's available on the desktop. They're also generally just too cheap per unit to generate anything like the kind of revenue pro desktop apps can generate. But, as limited as these apps are, they do meet the needs of a lot of casual users. This is a problem every desktop software vendor is dealing with right now. ------ username42 I think that Microsoft has first grown to become a "monopoly". this has been done by killing (or buying or copying) concurrency and by providing software that were cheap or trivial to copy. In a second phase, they have been able to make a lot of profit by forcing people to buy their products. They are still in this phase and a lot of concurrency has appeared. If Microsoft does not want to die, I think they should stop these huge profits and kill again the concurrency by selling cheap software, easy to copy. The version of Office and windows that is sold to particular is a striped down version. The full experience of what could be Microsoft product is only available in enterprise versions. I think people are fed up of being considered as second class citizen or like sheep. If Microsoft gives the whole software (with all languages), for a small price, there would be less motivation to go to concurrency. ------ pcunite When companies get _big_ they lose empathy for their users. If MS can somehow get back to caring about the _feelings_ of people who use their products and not simply follow _charts_ that show increase revenue paths ... well, I for one would be grateful. To start off this new era they should allow their GUI's to be more configurable instead of forcing broad changes. They're so good at supporting binary compatibility ... extend that to include the kinesthetic investments I've made in their older GUI interfaces while selling me on the value of the new platform.
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REST Anti-patterns - marcelocure http://marcelo-cure.blogspot.com/2016/09/rest-anti-patterns.html ====== PaulHoule This misses the elephant in the room. The REST-inspired API that requires 10,000 API calls to do something that could be done in 1. This is a disaster from a simple performance perspective. There is no simple way to build transactions on top of REST so if you need to do something that involves updating more than one data record you really are best off updating them all in one API call. When you are writing a web front end this is all the more acute because choreographing a complex interaction with a server is a PITA with asynchronous communications. If Fielding's thesis went in the trash and got replaced with "one click, one API call, update the UI" we'd hear a lot less carping about how awful the web platform is. Careful reading of the http spec is a road to hell anyway because 80% of it is dark corners that aren't really used or implemented. ~~~ robzhu You might want to check out GraphQL: [http://graphql.org/](http://graphql.org/). One of its killer features is the ability for clients to specify exactly the data it needs and obtain it in a single request/response. ~~~ EuAndreh Also checkout David Nolen's "Clients in Control"[0]. He approaches specifically those points mentioned, and pilfers ideas from Relay and Falcor. [0]: [http://www.datomic.com/videos.html](http://www.datomic.com/videos.html) ------ fzilla Other commenters are correct that POST /accounts/4402278/close is not right (and also fairly hilariously contradicted in the next section). Account status (open, closed, suspended, whatever else) is a property of the account, in the same way that the account owner's name is a property of the account. If you went to all the trouble to represent each account as its own resource, which I assume responds correctly otherwise to GET, POST and PUT requests, why is this one property special enough to get its own endpoint? Why would you not just PUT or PATCH the account to change the "status" property to "closed"? In my experience, programmers typically break best practices in this way when there is special logic that needs to happen when the property changes. In other words, PUT is fine as long as it's only overlaying new data and not triggering other processes, but closing an account kicks off a whole host of internal processes at the business, so it seemed reasonable to someone to make it a separate endpoint. This either represents a friction between good API design and what programmers find reasonable ("I have to make a bunch of special things happen, so I'll bundle them into their own function and expose them"), or the API framework isn't flexible enough to supply hooks to insert logic at field-level changes, or both. ~~~ caseysoftware This depends on your data model. If "status" is just a property on the accounts resource and doesn't have further meaning, I would tend to agree with you. If "close" is an action or activity that acts upon an accounts resource, then his approach makes sense. Since the context is an account that we "need to close," I would assume the author is talking about something more complex than a database field. It's probably a workflow that initiates other actions and workflows, maybe even requiring additional review. I'd want to see/understand the requirements more fully before I started down either path. ~~~ fzilla REST is just a representation of the underlying data. What does it matter if "status" is a database field or not? More specifically, it shouldn't have to matter to consumers. Because of the way REST and HTTP work, clients intuitively understand retrieving and modifying resources (via GET, POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE). But they don't understand interacting with special-purpose endpoints (POST always implies "make a new thing" so it's weird in this context). Your consumers should not have to learn weird idiosyncrasies in your API because you let your data model bleed into the interface. ~~~ amk_ What if 'status' isn't a column in the account database? What if closed_accounts is a join table or something else? Then wouldn't adding a /close route be _hiding_ idiosyncrasies in your data model, not the other way around? It seems like we spend a lot of time designing object relations that map a domain, but maybe not so much mapping domain-specific actions. Or would you consider all of the above bad practice? ~~~ jnbiche > What if 'status' isn't a column in the account database? What if > closed_accounts is a join table or something else? Then wouldn't adding a > /close route be hiding idiosyncrasies in your data model, not the other way > around? So what? REST is an _API_ [0]. It's the public interface you expose. What you do behind the scene in your data model is, or should be, irrelevant to the API. Sometimes you'll map your data model practically one-to-one to the REST API, but there are times when I do significant logic in controllers before mapping the result of that logic to a resource. As long as the API is resource oriented and follows good REST practices, it's all good. 0\. OK, REST is one way to expose an API, since the wording I used is not amenable to some people. ~~~ dragonwriter > REST is an API. No, REST is an architectural style. ~~~ jnbiche > No, REST is an architectural style. For APIs. But yes, we can argue semantics now. My point is, REST is a way to expose an API. ------ macca321 How your URLs read (and if you PUT or POST) is entirely unimportant if you are doing hypermedia/HATEAOS/REST as Fielding envisages it ([http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be- hyperte...](http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be-hypertext- driven)). "If the engine of application state (and hence the API) is not being driven by hypertext, then it cannot be RESTful and cannot be a REST API. Period." If you're doing REST as-in JSON-over-http + a docs page, knock yourself out. edit: Also see: [http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2009/it-is-okay-to-use- post](http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2009/it-is-okay-to-use-post) ------ niftich The content of the blog post is okay, but the premise is flawed. Most of us have reluctantly accepted the abuse of terminology that happens when everyone calls these APIs 'RESTful' \-- but they're not. They're inspired by REST, but cargo-cult took the easiest-to-implement pieces all the while pretending to stand on some moral high-ground about not being openly RPC because 'RESTful is the right way'. This results in a worst-of-both-worlds situation, where most of these API don't have custom mediatypes that I can Accept: header for, don't have custom link relations one can programmatically traverse, and some poor person had to contort their data model to come up with plausibly 'resourcey' objects to make HTTP calls against, all the while losing simple reassurance you would've gotten from an uncool RPC endpoint. HATEOAS is _critical_ to REST -- it being nothing more than a terribly obtuse rendition of the ideas behind how the web (but more importantly, the semantic web) works. This isn't the usual rant complaining about how HATEOAS is most implementers' afterthought; this is the rant about how HATEOAS is the entire damn point; without it you're just squirting JSON on the wire and using HTTP as a transport because it doesn't get blocked on a middlebox. And now that we've retrofitted schemas into JSON, and moved half our APIs to use CORS/CSP-needing PUT/DELETE methods, and require OAuth for more than half of the requests, the original advantages of this scheme are entirely gone -- you can no longer just muck around in some half-baked javascript, parse out a single field, discard the rest and surface it in a 'web 2.0 mashup'. And when the vendor supplies the SDK anyway (even in Javascript), the exact form the messages take on the wire is entirely irrelevant. I hope the new wave of RPC (helped by the bi-directional multiplexing transport protocol inexplicably known as HTTP/2) becomes the new fad and kills this awful fumbling with cargo- cult fake-REST once and for all. ~~~ rv11 _HATEOAS is critical to REST -- it being nothing more than a terribly obtuse rendition of the ideas behind how the web_ REST APIs must be hypertext-driven. [http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest- apis-must-be-hyperte...](http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/rest-apis-must-be- hypertext-driven) ------ barrkel HATEOAS is much less important for programmatic APIs. You either hard-code knowledge of the URL scheme in the API client, or you hard-code knowledge of the payload schema in the API client. There isn't a huge amount of difference here IMO, especially if you have some kind of versioning mechanism in your URL routing. Hard-coding URL scheme permits more pipelining and concurrency in the client. Embedding URLs in payloads forces sequencing. This alone can make the templated URL scheme a win for interactivity. ~~~ macca321 The dream is that your client can dynamically update itself or seek out ways to process new, incomprehensible things* that it encounters while traversing a rest request (see "Code-on-demand in REST literature). If you think this is possible in the wild or not is another matter. *each nugget of data can be versioned and meaninged independently ~~~ barrkel That, and the semantic web, and pluggable components from different vendors using standardized interfaces, and other architecture astronaut ideas of software composition. Any day now. ------ carsongross The initial and fundamental problem is a misapplication of REST. To take advantage of REST, you need some form of hypertext, _not_ raw JSON APIs. Additionally, on a practical level, you need the end points to be relatively coarse grained, which can be achieved if you design the API for your UI use case, rather than general data access: [http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/01/18/rescuing- rest.html](http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/01/18/rescuing-rest.html) Shoehorning HATEOS in JSON APIs is a category error: [http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/05/08/hatoeas-is-for- humans.ht...](http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/05/08/hatoeas-is-for-humans.html) Long story short, REST: you are all doing it completely wrong. ~~~ Falkon1313 The issue with HATEOAS is a little overstated. You don't need a full AI with independent agency. What you need is a clear media type that corresponds to some domain concepts that both the client and server agree on. The client and server don't even have to totally agree, as long as there is some overlap. The server may provide functions that the client doesn't care about, and the client may care about functions that the server doesn't provide (but are provided by another server). Failure cases are: \- media types totally disjoint (this wouldn't work for a human either, since the server couldn't do anything that the user wants to do with the resource) \- media type misunderstandings - there is overlap in the functions, but what the client intends and what the server does are two different things, because their concept of that domain function is different (that would also be the same problem for a human) \- media types undefined - everyone is just passing random unlabeled JSON globs, so any domain concepts have to be hardcoded equivalent on both sides (this is one case where a human might be able to intuitively guess the right thing, but only if their mental model happens to match the server's model) The solution is to document the domain concepts of the media types that fit your domain from both perspectives, find the places that don't overlap or match in name but not semantics, and decide what to do about them. ~~~ carsongross Without agency on the client side, supplied by humans, how is it advantageous to send an unknown number of potential actions from the server? ------ vinceve What about error representation? Most of the time I find that actually representing errors is the hard part of creating a REST api. You usually want some representation of each field, plus maybe a generic one. I always have troubles with this. Is there a standard or a proper way to define/do this? I would be very interested. ~~~ idbehold There's an RFC for that! [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7807](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7807) ------ beat These aren't really antipatterns. They're just bad design. Not all bad design is an antipattern. ~~~ blowski Much sexier and authoritative sounding name, though. ------ EugeneOZ "Correct POST /accounts/4402278/close" bullshit. POST should not contain all details in URL. POST can have body and each query should not be unique. Stopped reading after that. ~~~ zeveb I disagree. In the example, account 4402278 is a resource represented at /accounts/4402278; actions on that resource should be performed … on that resource, not on some other resource (e.g. all accounts, at /accounts). This also gives increased future-proofing, since someday one might have uncloseable accounts; those accounts could still live under /accounts, but would simply have no /close endpoint (as opposed to having /accounts/close, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't). ~~~ EugeneOZ "close" is a verb, so it's not a resource, it's a method and 4402278 is just argument of that method. ------ KillerRAK Resource verbs in POST URLs are almost always a bad idea. You POST a command via the body to the resource and should expect a result in turn. Though I do understand the idea that URLs with verbs allow the API to be self describing via links, I think it's a bit naive (and verbose) to think a user will get all the info they need from hitting the API. RAML and its variants do a great job of conveying this information. ------ jack9 > looking at the URI the consumer must understand all about the given resource Just because? No. > The HTTP methods must be used to give the intent of the action that is > happening. That interpretation (PATCH, DELETE, etc) is not "correct", which is endlessly maddening. It was a possible scheme, just like a waterfall process was a possible development scheme. There is no correctness implied. See: [http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch...](http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm), [http://cafe.elharo.com/web/why-rest-failed/](http://cafe.elharo.com/web/why- rest-failed/), [http://www.artima.com/lejava/articles/why_put_and_delete.htm...](http://www.artima.com/lejava/articles/why_put_and_delete.html), [http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2009/it-is-okay-to-use- post](http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2009/it-is-okay-to-use-post) I really get sick of these purity guidelines that have no practical use other than to say "see, it works" which isn't compelling. ------ tvjames Useful article for someone needing help in revising a URI naming scheme, but beyond that could end up being harmful to that person's greater understanding of building "RESTful" systems. For example, in the Idempotency section, the author states that for GET requests "no change in application state should occur" which is good, but then also states "the response should always be the same" which is incorrect. There's nothing that says the response cant change, if the resource has changed, but the constraint is that it cant cant _as a result_ of the GET request. This is an important distinction. DELETEing a resource twice, the second delete should be a NOOP, not a 404. There's some excellent NDC Oslo & London talks covering more in-depth RESTful topics that I'd recommend checking out if the content of the article is an eye opener for you. [https://vimeo.com/131631886](https://vimeo.com/131631886) [https://vimeo.com/131196782](https://vimeo.com/131196782) ------ orware I'm currently working on a Database Proxy API Project I cooked up (essentially creating a way I so we could query our different MySQL and Oracle databases using a RESTful API) and it makes sense for me (from the RESTful perspective) to use a GET request to send the query. However, I know that the request body (a JSON string or a JSON array that could contain one or more queries, along with one or more different decryption keys allowing the server-side to retrieve the connection details that are encrypted on the server) could be quite long (we have some massive SQL queries that get used elsewhere and could potentially be used with this new API once it's available) and I also didn't like the idea of some of the more sensitive information being in the URL, so I decided to implement it as a POST request instead of a GET. It feels wrong (again from the RESTful perspective since I'd like my API to be fully RESTful) but from a user point of view I know I'm making the right decision. If anybody has better ideas though, please let me know! ------ mikio Why is POST /accounts/4402278/close correct in the first example? According to the rest of the post, PUT should be a better option. Closing an account seems to me like its updating a resource, not creating one. Also, will calling that url close the account multiple times? POST is not supposed to be idempotent ~~~ mcherm You may be operating under the misapprehension that "POST" means "CREATE". It WOULD make a nice set with CRUD operations: POST - Create GET - Read PUT - Update DELETE - Delete But that's not actually how the HTTP verbs are defined[1]. Instead, my own mental mapping looks something like this: GET - read information. Must be idempotent and side-effect free so this one really IS just for reading. DELETE- delete. Usually pretty obvious except for arguments about whether a "soft delete" (mark as deleted but don't remove from the underlying DB -- like a bank account which can be _closed_ but continues to exist (its account number, for instance, is never freed up). PUT - update things. Must be idempotent. If you're a stickler for doing things right, this should NOT be use for a "partial update" (where you supply a few fields and everything else is left "as is") but only for a "total update" (where the new thing you sent in replaces whatever was there). POST - "do it". Means to do the obvious thing (whatever that is for this URL). PATCH - great idea. Maybe in a few years support for it will be ubiquitous enough that we can actually start using it. If we DID us it, this would be the partial update variant of PUT. OPTIONS and HEAD - occasionally used at a framework level. You won't ever use it. _everything else_ \- don't use it. [1] - [https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html](https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html) ~~~ drostie I like to think of DELETE as "if the response to the DELETE is 200-level then further GETs to the resource should be at the 400-level." Call those responses to GET requests "2XXing" and "4XXing" respectively. Similarly a PUT should make sense whether the underlying resource 4XXes or 2XXes, and should in either case make it 2XX with the same response. Then POST is just a verb which does not share these semantics at all; POST <url> can be done on a URL which either 4XXes or 2XXes, and even if the post succeeds that's no guarantee that the underlying URL will now exist. POST /update-caches for example might not change the HTTP statuses of anything. ~~~ mcherm That's a nice simple view of it, I really like it. ------ marcelocure right, POST is not supposed to be idempotent. However, if you do a PUT on it, you are updating a resource, closing an account may involve more processes than only updating the given resource. Ok, but why did I say it should be a POST even if POST is not supposed to be idempotent? In my point of view, POST should only be idempotent when creating resources, in this case we're acting in a resource, the /close is a process that happens on that resource (4402278), not a create/update/delete/retrieve. The best way to do it would be a POST in my opinion. Also, if we want to update only a piece of the resource, it should be a PATCH. PUT is supposed to update the whole resource. ~~~ tremon Strictly speaking, if you do a PUT on it, you are not updating a resource, you are _replacing a resource_. I know you basically say the same thing, but "update" is too ambiguous in this case. That is also why PUT is idempotent: it replaces the complete state of the referred resource. Similarly, POST is not idempotent because it _modifies_ (part of) the resource's state while leaving it otherwise untouched. ------ laurent123456 > POST /accounts/4402278/close I'm not really sold on this one since "close" is not a resource. I think I would do: PATCH /accounts/4402278 with data `{ "status": "closed" }` ------ 0xmohit \- REST Anti-Patterns [0] \- API Anti-Patterns: How to Avoid Common REST Mistakes [1] [0] [https://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-anti- patterns](https://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-anti-patterns) [1] [http://www.programmableweb.com/news/api-anti-patterns-how- to...](http://www.programmableweb.com/news/api-anti-patterns-how-to-avoid- common-rest-mistakes/2010/08/13) ------ whamlastxmas Disappointing to see so much downvoting in a thread when people are just giving their opinions. Seems like a lot of downvote misuse on HN recently. ------ velox_io Question 1#: Is there a reason PATCH is used (or even needed?), instead of PUT to update records? (Create, Read, Update & Delete => POST, GET, PUT & DELETE) seem like a natural fit, why complicate things? Question 2#: What is the consensus around custom verbs? While I've never gone down this route, a few times I have been tempted. ~~~ Falkon1313 Re #1, PATCH is useful because PUT requires that you replace the entire resource even if you just want to change one little thing and to do that safely, you need the now-current-latest representation of the full resource. A common case is looking at resource A, which is related to resource B (and therefore you have B's ID, but not its full data), you can patch resource B specifying just its ID and the change that you want to make without having to fetch the whole thing first. Also, PUT can conflict (or overwrite changes) if something else has altered the resource since you fetched it. PATCH is more granular, so you can make it a lot less likely to conflict or overwrite (in addition to being more efficient). Re #2, I don't know about consensus, but usually when I think that I could use a custom verb, some more thought reveals that I could instead use a standard verb on another resource that I haven't spec'd out yet (like the comments about having a 'transaction' resource representing details of a transaction instead of a 'transfer' verb). ------ SEJeff Also an absolutely fantastic article from Jacob Kablan-Moss, one of the three original founder of Django on REST anti-patterns (not Django specific at all): [https://jacobian.org/writing/rest-worst- practices/](https://jacobian.org/writing/rest-worst-practices/) Every web developer should read that ^ ------ jackcosgrove No mention of the biggest single problem with REST as it's practiced: POST /login. You should use POST /session instead. ~~~ rahkiin What if i use JWT and thus have no concept of 'session' resources? You would actually create a token using username and password. ~~~ jackcosgrove My critique with POST /login is that it's a verb, not a noun. Whether the session is stored on the server or the client is the same regardless of the verbiage. In both cases a client-side session is a bit of semantic abuse but HTTP does not have verbs for creating resources on the client. I think a JWT token represents a session, since it can expire and be disposed when logging out. ------ nmgsd Nice to PATCH mentioned. Highly useful and often overlooked. ~~~ strictnein Yes. Just make sure everyone is on the same page for PATCH. Multiple ways to handle it, and two very different RFCs. On an old project our backend team agreed to support PATCH, but they wanted it based on this RFC: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6902](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6902) The front end team wanted something more like this (before it was ensconced in an RFC): [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7386](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7386) To me, RFC7386 more accurately represents the idea of just sending the updated content. ------ currywurst Are there good guidelines on complex patterns in modeling your resources ? E.g long-running operations involving multiple entities. ------ partycoder Cache control and misuse of e-tags is also a common problem.
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Cloudflare Warp - blocked_again https://blog.cloudflare.com/get-started-with-warp/ ====== geetfun This looks like a ngrok competitor. Am I missing something or is this essentially the same kind of service? ~~~ jgalt212 my read as well. waiting for others to weigh in to see what I am missing.
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Show HN: PHP cross-env CLI helper - asika32764 https://github.com/asika32764/php-cross-env ====== meSingh You seriously need to work on your documentation, I can't understand if this is to pass the env variables or what? if its only sending them then how are we supposed to accept them? and if we are using a different implementation to read from a file then why do we even need this?
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Anticresis - syntaxfree http://dayvancowboy.org/?p=49 ====== talboito Seems like what he's describing as anticresis is a form of <a href="[http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/639E3D61-87F1-4663-9...](http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/639E3D61-87F1-4663-9B08614F3414F24E/alpha/S/)">shared equity mortgage</a> enforced by some interesting informal arrangements. That writeup includes some of today's most astounding terminologizing. I believe "habitation services" sits in logical place of "housing" at some point there. ~~~ syntaxfree "Anticresis"is both the legal and the folk term for these things. I didn't just make that name up. I really mean "folk"-- people with semi-functional knowledge of essential finance. As for "services flow", that's straight out of microeconomics 101. Otherwise, I'm usually too preoccupied about avoiding repetition, so I keep trying to find synonyms. I don't believe I'm coming up with any pseudo-fancy neologism, but if I did, that's just because of my deficient english. Me try to write good but sometimes me makes mistakes. Shared equity mortgage is somewhat similar to anticresis, only entirely different. No equity or property rights are transferred in anticresis, on one hand, and on the other habitation rights are kept until the loan is repaid, so it's more like collateralized debt, other than the collateral is ex ante "transferred" (but not really).
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Ask HN: Ever refuse to build something for moral reasons? - mavsman A lot of times we talk about what makes the internet good and free and what makes it bad (e.g. auto playing media in a page). As developers, we are often asked&#x2F;demanded by managers, sales people, and CEOs to build things simply to make money. Have you ever actually said no to something you don&#x27;t believe in? ====== Isammoc Yes, I was asked to create a missile guidage from an helicopter, and I refuse, I know somebody else made it now, but I didn't want to participate into that. In another subject, I refuse to develop a password rule : for log in, the password would be case insensitive, but will be case sensitive for unsubscribing. It was unfair and against all security. ------ waterphone Yes. I refuse to install tracking social media button embeds on client websites and will push clients towards non-tracking equivalents instead, as well as refusing popups and adding people who haven't consented to join to mailing lists. ------ nnn1234 This is why we work non stop. If you don't build it because morals, someone else will build it. ~~~ waterphone Keep telling yourself that. Often, the person asking you to build something immoral hasn't given it much thought. When you refuse and explain why you are morally opposed to doing such a thing, sometimes that makes them stop and think and realize that you're right. Not always—sometimes they will just get someone else to do it, but at least you tried and aren't involved.
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We're living in the Age of Curation - Okvivi http://okvivi.com/?p=324 ====== nextstep This is a rambling jumble of thoughts. I'm not sure what the take away is.
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The Internet Attack That Wasn't - iProject http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-internet-attack-that-wasnt/ ====== onetwothreefour So... a story about a non-story?
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The Value of Undefined Behavior - ingve https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/07/20/ ====== arcticbull Its undefined because it's not guaranteed to happen, that's the whole point, and that's what makes it undesirable. Rust has it right here: don't allow undefined behavior and make the programmer specify the behavior they want. If they want wrapping overflow, fine. If they don't, great. Tell the compiler don't make it guess/assume/optimize/hope. What this article is arguing for IMO is not the concept of behavior that happens to sometimes work and sometimes not depending on the target machine (because thats crazy) but the functionality itself, which is valuable, and should be explicit and defined. The issue is the last-generation languages like C/C++ don't give you mechanisms to express what you want so you're left hoping the compiler figures out what you meant. That's not a world I want to live in anymore, we can do better. UB is bad, period. Define what you want, make the compiler do it. ~~~ cperciva _Rust has it right here: don 't allow undefined behavior and make the programmer specify the behavior they want. If they want wrapping overflow, fine. If they don't, great._ What if I know overflow can't happen (e.g. I have an integer counting from 1 to 10)? How do I say "it doesn't matter how you handle overflow; just do whatever is fastest"? ~~~ steveklabnik The parent spoke a bit too broadly. Here’s the rules: * overflow is a “program error”, not UB * compilers must either check for overflow and panic, or two’s compliment wrap * when debug_assertions are on, implementations are required to panic on overflow This means release mode wraps today, but if it’s cheap enough someday, we could make it panic. If you want specific semantics on overflow, then you should use the various wrappers and/or methods that let you do them directly, rather than relying on any of the above. But you don’t _have_ to specify; by default, the above is the semantics. ~~~ Paul-ish What if rust got "unchecked" (unsafe) versions of arithmetic operations that have C arithmetic semantics. Kind of the opposite of "checked_add". ~~~ steveklabnik It’s possible! Nobody has ever proposed it... ------ samatman This is a fine opportunity to link to one of my favorite essays on the subject, Undefined Intimacy With the Machine: [http://thoughtmesh.net/publish/367.php](http://thoughtmesh.net/publish/367.php) This argues that it is precisely C's undefined behavior which allowed for its dominance. ~~~ arcticbull I have a hard time accepting the premise that a language is better because you have to hope that it does what you want instead of telling it, and for that reason it has become successful. In fact, the ANSI C spec even states from your link that "Undefined behavior gives the implementer license not to catch certain program errors that are difficult to diagnose." That's just not an acceptable tradeoff anymore -- in fact I don't know it ever was. That's akin to shipping your org chart because you can't make your program do what everyone agrees it should do. You know, catch programming errors, in this case. ~~~ samatman The paper argues that some behaviors being undefined let compilers target the widely varying architectures of the early microcomputer era, while still using a language that remains at least somewhat portable between them. ~~~ arcticbull Yes, but your program isn't doing what you think you told it to, which is worse, because the compiler tells you that it will, know what I mean? A false guarantee of safety is kind of the worst. ~~~ DSMan195276 > Yes, but your program isn't doing what you think you told it to, Your program is still doing what you told it to if you weren't relying on any undefined behavior (Which, obviously, you shouldn't be). That's the point - if you write C that doesn't rely on any UB, then it can run on a large variety of architectures, work exactly the same on each one, and still get close to the maximum speed for each architecture because they can take the fastest possible option for any of the UB cases (And your program shouldn't care what they do in that situation). ~~~ fiddlerwoaroof The problem I generally have with C is that the scope of UB is really wide. Languages like Common Lisp have UB too, but it’s generally easier to avoid in “normal” code. ~~~ dfox In CL case the "is an error" wording generally covers all of C's "implementation-defined", "unspecified" and "undefined". And surprising amount of normal looking constructs are in the implementation-defined category. When you add type declarations and (optimize (safety 0)) into the mix you get similar scope of UB as in C (another thing is that in reality nobody actually writes code like that) ~~~ fiddlerwoaroof I’m thinking of things like it being UB to modify a reader literal because the reader is allowed to do things like tail sharing. ~~~ dfox I think that modifiing reader literal is an error mostly to allow implementations to store such pairs in read-only pages (eg. in .rodata section when you build standalone executables) and to allow simple implementation of CDR-coding for reader literals (dfsch has three distinct implementations of abstract <pair> class for exactly this reason and to be able to actually signal meaningful error condition when you violate this restriction). ~~~ fiddlerwoaroof But it’s not an error: for some of these cases the standard doesn’t specify the consequences and most implementations don’t throw an error if you modify a reader literal, even if you end up modifying the interned list. ~~~ dfox "Is an error" is wording used by the standard for things that are left undefined. For things that should signal some kind of error condition the standard uses wording "an error is signalled", the set of such cases is surprisingly small. ------ mehrdadn To those annoyed about, say, signed integer overflow being undefined: do you even have a habit of ensuring that what's inside your loop will behave correctly around an overflow boundary? Is the real problem really only the loop increment for you? ~~~ 3pt14159 The problem is tractability. If you send me your data, your source, and your OS and if I compile it with a slightly different compiler and I can't reproduce it gets incredibly frustrating to hunt down _why_ something isn't working. ~~~ mehrdadn Interesting, this is a less common complaint than what I usually hear. It kind of makes sense if you run into this a lot (I don't in C++, but maybe it happens more in C?), but at the same time I'm wondering why can't you just e.g. use -fwrapv if you want to rely on integer wrapping in your release executable? It also doesn't sound like it's related to using a different compiler, since using the same compiler with a flag like -fwrapv or with optimizations disabled should also prevent UB from being exploited. ~~~ 3pt14159 Sorry, I miscommunicated. I was not speaking about integer wrapping, I was speaking about undefined behaviour in a general sense. ------ makecheck Excessive flexibility for optimizers, schedulers, etc. adds a high price to debugging, and it’s not like we have perfect programs that can only be improved in these fancier ways. Programs are not all written by experts. Performance may be left on the table in areas that have nothing to do with optimizers or schedulers (e.g. picking an absolutely terrible algorithm or not noticing unnecessary memory allocations). _If_ something must remain “unspecified”, I at least want a debugging tool for that behavior. If something “may” happen, give me a switch to _make_ it happen. If something is data-dependent, show me the data that triggers a different outcome or give me a way to scramble data enough to increase the chance of triggering a change in behavior. ------ taneq "Value" is the wrong word, because it implies goodness. It's taken me a while to come around to this viewpoint but I think "undefined behaviour" is unambiguously bad in pretty much every context. I understand why it was originally included in language specs but in modern times, where even the meanest embedded processors are generally 32 bit 2's complement processors with an ALU, we can afford to define the behaviour of the language which we're using. ~~~ millstone One example of undefined behavior is dereferencing a free'd pointer. How should that be defined? ~~~ taneq In a perfect world it would either be impossible by design or result in a compile error. I'd settle for "reliably crash with an error message saying where in the code it happened". ~~~ bluecalm You can get it in C. Just set the pointer to NULL after free, you will get your crash, problem solved. ~~~ gpderetta How would that work if you have two pointers pointing to the same object? ~~~ bluecalm If your design is such that you destroy thinks more pointers point to you have way bigger issues than UB or even language you use. ~~~ gpderetta Are you saying that a program should have exactly one pointer to each allocated object? ------ MrBingley The problem with the first example is that `int` and `unsigned` are not the correct types to be using for array indexing. As we saw, they were 32 bits wide on a 64 bit platform, which lead to an additional sign extension and (in the case of `unsigned`) truncation instruction. However, this can be avoided by using `ptrdiff_t` and `size_t`, which are defined to match the platform size and avoid the extension and truncation altogether. The fact that signed integer overflow being undefined allowed the compiler to elide the `int` truncation is somewhat irrelevant, since using the correct integer types leads to even faster code that doesn't rely on undefined behaviour at all. ------ saagarjha > What irritates a lot of people is that compilers will still apply the strict > aliasing rule even when it’s trivial for the compiler to prove that aliasing > is occurring I think better diagnostics for this would be a win for everyone. ------ swayvil Defined behavior is a mere shadow of undefined behavior. All form comes from the constraining definition. One who limits his explorations to the defined has crawled into a hole and pulled in the hole after him. Ya, I know, offtopic. ------ Dylan16807 * Most forms of undefined behavior don't have any meaningful use to compilers. * With integer overflow it would be relatively easy to write a spec that allows "n+1>n" optimizations but not utterly _anything_ to happen. With strict aliasing it's probably not too hard either. You'd still see some program misbehavior in the strict aliasing case, but it would be a vastly reduced set of misbehavior. And allowing signed numbers to act more like abstract numbers would often _decrease_ misbehavior. ------ iainmerrick If these are the best justifications we can come up with, it doesn't change my opinion that the current reliance on UB by compilers is a bad idea. Anyone got any better ones? ~~~ saagarjha It makes your code many times faster in a lot of cases? ~~~ iainmerrick This article gives two examples where UB arguably helps you, and in each case the article itself mentions a cleaner and better way of doing it. Magic behavior of "int" (but not "unsigned int") --> just use a type that's the correct size and better conveys your intention, like "size_t". (And that one doesn't make your code "many times faster", in the example given it saves a single instruction.) Type-based assumptions about aliasing (with a special case for char*) --> be explicit about your intention with the "restrict" keyword. ------ IshKebab This is a good history lesson on why UB was introduced, but times have changed and it is definitely not justifiable today. Saving one instruction was probably worth it in the 70s, when security wasn't a thing, but it definitely isn't now. ~~~ millstone Are you objecting to the UB in the specific named cases (aliasing and signed overflow) or UB in general? ~~~ IshKebab In general. ------ Asooka I really think that undefined behaviour should be switched to machine- dependent behaviour everywhere and we should just have tools that can suggest optimized variants of hot functions - to be rewritten in ways that take advantage of assuming undefined behaviour doesn't happen. Or lift the `extern "lang"{}' construct from C++ to C and have `extern "C-strict"' which turns on full strict undefined behaviour optimizations. Yes, I _know_ I can turn most of them off. We ship C++ software and always compile with singed-overflow enabled and strict-aliasing disabled (among others). Those are just too dangerous to be turned on for an entire codebase of a large C++ application where you have no idea what will be inlined where and what LTO will do. But if some UB allows for measurable performance gains, we should be able to turn it back on for restricted safe scopes. And please, if the compiler can prove that the program invokes UB in "strict- UB" mode, that should be an error, not a cause for the code to be deleted. I'm talking about the case of this SPEC 2006 code [1] It doesn't make sense to me to just apply potentially disastrous micro- optimizations that save a couple of percent of run-time on the whole program. This sounds like a classic case of optimizing before measuring. 1 [https://blog.regehr.org/archives/918](https://blog.regehr.org/archives/918) ~~~ tedunangst > This sounds like a classic case of optimizing before measuring. But you have done the measurements, right?
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AWS Tips, Tricks, and Techniques - sehrope https://launchbylunch.com/posts/2014/Jan/29/aws-tips/ ====== thomseddon Here's another one for you: distribute your s3 paths/names Because of the way s3 is designed, the place files are stored on the physical infrastructure is dependant on the prefix of the key name. I'm not exactly sure how much of the key name is used, but for example if you prefixed all you images with imges/....jpg it's highly likely they will all be stored on the same physical hardware. I know of at least two companies for whom this has caused large problems for, one of them is netflix. Imagine all the videos in a single bucket with key names "/video/breaking_bad_s1_e1.mp4" (a crude example I know), all requests hit the same physical hardware and under high load the hardware just can't keep up and this exact issue has apparently been the cause of more than one Netflix outage. The solution is simple, ensure your files have a random prefix ({uuid}.breaking_bad_s1_e1.mp4) and they will be spread around the datacentre :) ~~~ jeffbarr This is definitely a good tip. Here's a blog post with more info on the topic: [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/03/amazon-s3-performance- tip...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/03/amazon-s3-performance-tips-tricks- seattle-hiring-event.html) ~~~ moe This seems a rather odd implementation detail to burden the user with. Why don't you just use a hash of the filename for the partition key, so all files are distributed randomly regardless of their name? Is there an advantage for amazon or for the user in having S3 files cluster up by filename by default? ~~~ penguindev most likely so dir listings are a lot faster. (they are sorted by key, and can use delimiters for subdir emulation..) ~~~ dllthomas ... but for that they just need to store the _filenames_ sorted somewhere. Content could be located based on a hash of the filename, still. ------ grosskur Another tip: IAM roles for EC2 instances. [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/06/iam-roles-for- ec2-instanc...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/06/iam-roles-for- ec2-instances-simplified-secure-access-to-aws-service-apis-from-ec2.html) Basically, the apps you run on EC2 often need to access other AWS services. So you need to get AWS credentials onto your EC2 instances somehow, which is a nontrivial problem if you are automatically spinning up servers. IAM roles solve this by providing each EC2 instance with a temporary set of credentials in the instance metadata that gets automatically rotated. Libraries like boto know to transparently fetch, cache, and refresh the temporary credentials before making API calls. When you create an IAM role, you give it access to only the things it needs, e.g., read/write access to a specific S3 bucket, rather than access to everything. ~~~ penguindev You can also use that temp cred to assumerole() to an external IAM role, for example to access a customers account. It's a lot to think about - my ec2 instance role then assuming another 3rd party account's IAM role - but its quite secure; neither you or the customer have any private secrets or rotation headaches. ------ teraflop I would temper the suggestion to use Glacier with a warning: make sure you thoroughly understand the pricing structure. If you don't read the details about retrieval fees in the FAQ, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot and run up a bill that's vastly higher than necessary. You get charged based on the _peak_ retrieval rate, not just the total amount you retrieve. Details here: [http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/faqs/](http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/faqs/) For example, suppose you have 1TB of data in Glacier, and you need to restore a 100GB backup file. If you have the luxury of spreading out the retrieval in small chunks over a week, you only pay about $4. But if you request it all at once, the charge is more like $175. In the worst case, you might have a single multi-terabyte archive and ask for it to be retrieved in a single chunk. I've never been foolhardy enough to test this, but according to the docs, Amazon will happily bill you tens of thousands of dollars for that single HTTP request. ~~~ mjn They explain it _really_ weirdly, but it's not that hard to cap your expenditure if you translate it into bandwidth units rather than storage units, since that's what's really being billed. The footnote on the main Pricing page is the most misleading part of their explanation: _If you choose to retrieve more than this amount of data in a month, you are charged a retrieval fee starting at $0.01 per gigabyte._ From this you might think the retrieval fee is some function of the gigabytes retrieved, but isn't really in any direct way: you're charged ((max gigabytes retrieved in any one hour in a month) x (720 hours in the month) x per-GB price), modulo some free quota. So you can really get charged up to "720 gigabytes" for a single gigabyte retrieved, which is a bit silly to think of in terms of per-gigabyte pricing. It makes more sense to me if you think of it as priced by your peak retrieval bandwidth. Then you can cap your expenditure by just rate-throttling your retrieval. Make sure to throttle the actual requests, using HTTP range queries on very large files if necessary (many Glacier front-ends support this)... throttling just your network or router will not have the desired effect, since pricing doesn't depend on download completion. Anyway, the retrieval pricing in units of Mbps is ~$3/Mbps, billed at the peak hour-average retrieval rate for the month above the free quota. If you use that as a rule if thumb it's not bad for personal use. For example given my pipe, it's perfectly reasonable for me never to pull down more than 10 Mbps anyway, in which case my max retrieval costs are < $30/month. ~~~ teraflop Yeah, that's a good summary. Another way to look at it is that if you retrieve data as fast as possible -- say, to S3 or EC2 -- it costs about $1.80/GB, minus the free quota. So for large objects, it's cheaper to store them in Glacier than S3 if you don't expect to need them in a hurry any time in the next 18 months. The free retrieval quota starts making a difference if your typical "ASAP-retrieval" size is less than 0.1% of your total archived data. ------ sehrope OP here. Really cool to see people enjoying the write up. It started off as a list of misc AWS topics that I found myself repeatedly explaining to people. It seemed like a good idea to write them down. I'm planning on listing out more in follow up posts. ~~~ cheese1756 Fantastic post with really helpful tips. Thanks a lot for that. I really want to read the details on the spot instance setup for a web service. Do you have a quick summary for that? ~~~ sehrope > Fantastic post with really helpful tips. Thanks a lot for that. Thanks! > I really want to read the details on the spot instance setup for a web > service. Do you have a quick summary for that? I don't have anything written up to point to but the idea is to have the spot instances dynamically register themselves with an ELB on startup. As long as they stay up ( _ie. spot price is below your bid_ ) you get incredibly cheap scaling for your web service. The ELB will automatically kick out instances that get terminated as they will fail their health checks. Combine this with a couple regular ( _ie. non spot instances_ ) and you get a web service that scales cheaply when spot prices are low and gradually degrades the QOS for your users when it gets more expensive. I've got a couple other topics in the works first, but I should the write up for that one up pretty soon too. Haven't gotten around to adding an email signup form to my site yet ( _need to do that..._ ) so shoot me a mail if you want to notified when the full post is up. Email is in my profile. ------ dmourati This is all good stuff. AWS takes a while to grok but once you do, it offers so many new possibilities. The Aha! moment for me came when playing with SimianArmy, the wonderful Netflix OSS project and in particular, Chaos Monkey. Rather than build redundancy into your system, build failure in and force failures early and often. This will surface architectural problems better than any whiteboard. [https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy](https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy) Also, check out boto and aws cli. [http://aws.amazon.com/sdkforpython/](http://aws.amazon.com/sdkforpython/) [http://aws.amazon.com/cli/](http://aws.amazon.com/cli/) ~~~ benjaminwootton I think I saw a tweet along the lines of "don't think of EC2 instances as you would servers." The point is, achitecting for the cloud is all about treating your infrastructure as very transient and failure prone. Hopefully stuff doesn't fail but architecting for that gives you a much better application. Netflix are my favourite tech company based on their open source distributed system stuff. Check out Hystrix and their circuit breaker implementation. I am going to lean on that heavily in an upcoming project such that entire application tiers can dissapear with graceful degredation. ------ ultimoo I for one think that S3's server side encryption is amazing for most if not all data. We backup hundreds of gigabytes of data every day to S3 and enabling server side encryption enables us to not worry about generating, rotating, and managing keys and encryption strategies. It also saves us time since we don't have to compute the encryption or the decryption. The best part is that the AWS AES-256 server side Encryption at Rest suffices for compliance. Of course, the data that we store, while confidential, isn't super-mission- critical-sensitive data. We trust AWS to not peek into it, but nothing will be lost if they do. ~~~ thomseddon I suppose it's OK for some use cases but realistically it doesn't provide a whole lot of security. Doing this only really protects you if someone steals the physical disks from inside AWS, whilst this is a legitimate risk it seems incredibly unlikely and i'm not aware of any such instance. HOWEVER, it does not protect you from the far more likely scenario of someone gaining access to your AWS account. If someone is able to get your credentials (or otherwise hack your account) then all your data is vulnerable. ~~~ gfodor In a lot of cases your AWS account being compromised is going to open you up to having any encryption keys you use for GPG encryption stolen too anyway. So it seems that there's a decent chance that even GPG encryption is just protecting you from the "disks stolen from the datacenter" risk. At the end of the day your AWS account is often the "master key", so make sure you use a good password, rotate it, and 2-factor auth. ~~~ e12e How's that? Say you set up duplicity on your AWS _instances_. They only need access to the public encryption key and private signing key -- the session (actual encryption) keys will be destroyed after a backup is made. Now, to _restore_ you'll need to provide access to the public signing key (this _is_ public, so no problem), and private encryption key. This should only ever be on-line and decrypted in case of a restore. Of course, if you set things up differently, then, yes. Compromised by design. ------ kmfrk Cloud66 is a good cautionary tale of refusing the temptation to double-dip, when it comes to your AWS tokens: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685406) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5669315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5669315) ------ kudu I know this is about AWS, but it might be helpful to mention that DreamObjects ([http://www.dreamhost.com/cloud/dreamobjects/](http://www.dreamhost.com/cloud/dreamobjects/)) is an API-compatible cheaper alternative to S3. ------ geoffroy Very good article, thanks. I did not know about S3 temporary Urls, might use that in the future. ~~~ sehrope Yes they're a _really_ useful feature. You can use them to allow both downloads and uploads. The latter is particularly cool for creating scalable webapps that involve users uploading large content. Rather than having them tie up your app server resources during what could be a long/slow upload, they upload directly to S3, and then your app downloads the object from S3 for processing. If your app is hosted on EC2 you can even have the entire process be bandwidth free as user-to-S3 uploads are free and S3-to-app-server downloads to EC2 are free. Just delete the object immediately after use or use a short lived object expiration for the entire bucket. I've made a note to add an example of this to my next post on this topic. ~~~ mje__ Also useful for authenticated downloads - don't tie up an app thread, but have your app redirect to a pre-signed url ------ mrfusion Question about the underlying SaaS product. I'm not understanding how a database client on the cloud can connect to a database server on my own machine? Or am I misunderstanding what it does? ~~~ sehrope > Question about the underlying SaaS product. I'm not understanding how a > database client on the cloud can connect to a database server on my own > machine? OP and founder of JackDB[1] ( _the SaaS product referred to_ ) here. The majority of people using JackDB connect to cloud hosted databases such as Heroku Postgres or Amazon RDS. As they're designed for access across the internet, no special configuration is necessary for them. To connect to a database on your local machine or local network you would need to set up your firewall to allow inbound connections from our NATed IP. More network details available at [2]. [1]: [http://www.jackdb.com/](http://www.jackdb.com/) [2]: [http://www.jackdb.com/docs/security/networking.html](http://www.jackdb.com/docs/security/networking.html) ------ aerlinger If you're running an application that runs on more than one server it's definitely worth checking out AWS OpsWorks. It's a huge time saver and extremely useful in integrating and managing setup, configuration, and deployment across a server/db/cache etc without any loss of control or customization. ------ sandGorgon So, in older reddit threads, I read about how you need to build Raid-1 EBS for all your ec2 servers as well as test your EBS storage, because they could be really bad. Is anybody doing this for their EC2 deployments and more importantly, automating this? ------ rschmitty Does anyone have experience with Reduced Redundancy Storage on S3? How often do you lose files? Do you run a daily job to check in on them? ~~~ jhgg I've been using S3 RRS for a few hundred thousand files, and have yet to lose one over the course of the year that I've stored them. You don't run a daily job though, you simply set up an event on SNS to notify you if a file is lost[0]. [0]: [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/UG/SettingBucketN...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/UG/SettingBucketNotifications.html) ~~~ rschmitty Excellent, thank you so much! ------ alimoeeny thanks for the [http://www.port25.com/](http://www.port25.com/) tip, ------ sparkzilla The first tip should be to use something cheaper and faster. ~~~ FourEdenSix Such as? ~~~ sparkzilla I was on AWS for over a year. I moved to Digital Ocean. Much cheaper and much faster. ~~~ rubyist_delight Except for the fact Digital Ocean doesn't take security seriously at all. It's good for testing small projects but to run a business on, no thanks. DO has a very small fraction of the features available that AWS does. ~~~ toomuchtodo And DigitalOcean doesn't have ELBs, or S3, or DNS service checks. Need I go on? Digital Ocean is good for small projects, cheap projects, or anything where you only need semi-reliable compute power.
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No Webcam? No Problem : Desktop Video Recording w/o A Webcam. - cdanzig One of the sticking points in our sales process has been that our video recording feature was dependent on the user having a webcam to work (duh). While this may seem like an obvious limitation it didn&#x27;t stop us from getting the &quot;what about people without webcams&quot; question from marketing folks. Until recently our answer has been that users can record videos on their computer (using desktop software) then upload that file. Unfortunately, this was a bulky process for the end-user and often an attrition point.<p>Recently we came up with a solution to this &quot;issue&quot; that we think is kinda cool &#x2F; fun and we wanted to share it with you guys. Using CameraTag users can now record videos using their mobile devices (iOS 6.0+ and Android 2.2+) directly into their desktop browser. The recorder has a &quot;record by phone&quot; option which will SMS them a link to record a new video on their phone. After recording the videos is instantly populated into the desktop form (URLs for h.264, webm, and thumbnails). As we have come to say now: No webcam? No Problem.<p>It&#x27;s not groundbreaking technology but we think it&#x27;s a pretty cool aggregation of existing technologies that produce a &quot;wow&quot; effect for clients and users.<p>You can check out an example on our homepage http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cameratag.com (click the &quot;record by phone&quot; link in the recorder).<p>Welcome your thoughts &#x2F; feedback -Chris ====== brokenparser Why not use a QR code to link the mobile device with the form instead of/in addition to SMS?
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20-year-old lost 700k on Robinhood options, takes life - zoolander2 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/finance-isnt-worth-losing-your-life-over-the-heartbreaking-story-of-a-rookie-trader-who-racked-up-700000-in-debt-2020-06-14 ====== UncleMeat A while ago I got a recruiting email from somebody at Robinhood. In it, they listed the number of times their average user interacts with the app daily and framed the high number as something to be proud of. For a lot of services, this is a neutral (or even good) metric. But for an investing platform, encouraging people to interact _more_ is a fabulous method of turning it into gambling and causing people to blow a huge amount of money. ~~~ zimmern So it's Robinhood's fault somehow?? Holee fuk. This is why we can't have nice things. ~~~ UncleMeat Is heightened clickbait and outrage porn Facebook's fault? I see this as roughly equivalent. IMO, Robinhood is being socially irresponsible if they are making design choices intended to increase engagement. ~~~ nix23 >Is heightened clickbait and outrage porn Facebook's fault That's not the same, and NO they are not 'socially responsible' you know how many times that happened at NYSE? Look it's easy, don't work/play with money you cannot effort to loose, never think more than 10% profit is normal because your a genius, and never ever listen to others. ------ runawaybottle Is it a fair question to ask if one should be allowed to manage 700k via a mobile app? You can’t even have more than 250k in a bank that’s FDIC insured. Most of our most effective safeguards in life is to straight up take away even the possibility of fucking up. It doesn’t sound like Robinhood wants to take on any ethical responsibility when things are put in those terms. ~~~ scottLobster What's the difference between a mobile app vs any other interface other than convenience? Should I be required to talk to a financial advisor before managing my own freaking money that I earned? While we're at it why don't we make Amazon track user bank accounts so they can decide what you can and can't afford and stop you before you buy that $10,000 TV when you still have credit card debt? Not saying there should be no safety rails, but as an adult you are allowed to ruin your life through bad decisions. Society's obligation is to provide reasonable protection from things outside your control and point out the obvious pitfalls you may not be aware of. Fidelity tried to upsell me on their margin trading system. At the time I had no idea what trading on margin was, so I read some blogs, watched some YouTube videos, did some high school algebra and decided the risk wasn't worth it at the rates they were offering. For people who don't have that kind of time/education, know your limits and maybe don't buy something you don't at least fundamentally understand. At what point are people expected to own their mistakes? Seems like every time a story like this pops up there's a discussion as to how to make systems more paternalistic, bail out individuals for their stupid decisions the same way the government bails out corporate America. The correct social response in both cases IMO is the opposite. Financial failure shouldn't be death, but it should have teeth. This guy likely could have declared bankruptcy and recovered in a few years. That is a reasonable safety net IMO. ~~~ RcouF1uZ4gsC > What's the difference between a mobile app vs any other interface other than > convenience? When dealing with potentially addictive behaviors with their associated dopamine hit, interface and immediacy matters. This is why there are a lot more heavy cigarette users than cigar users and tobacco pipe users. For cigarettes, being able to have 20 cigarettes with you all the time in your shirt pocket makes it easy to indulge whenever the urge hits you. On the other hand, having to prep a pipe for tobacco gives the person time to think. I think this is similar to stock trading. If you are addicted to stock trading, being able to whip out your phone and go to the app with FaceID in a few seconds is going to lead to a lot more impulsive behavior than if you had to go to your desktop/laptop and go to the site. ------ brian_cunnie These deaths are tragic, and sometimes there are other forces at play. My friend Andy Ettelson took his own life; his girlfriend had recently broken up with him. Those who didn't know him might assume that his suicide was due to heartbreak, but those close to him knew that his 25-year struggle with his bipolar condition was the more likely culprit. He refused to stay on his meds. When a mutual friend called me to let me know that Andy was dead, he said, "you may wonder why I sound so emotionless. Let me tell you why: I had been expecting the call for years, so when Andy's father called me, I knew right away what happened." ------ theshrike79 Another discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246) ------ mam2 He actually didnt lose 700k it was a UI problem. ~~~ dirtnugget Where’s the source to that? ~~~ howeyc It's a pretty well known Robinhood "glitch" at this point. Has to do with how they handle assigned/exercised legs of option spreads. Example: [https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/aohvow/hi_t...](https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/aohvow/hi_this_morning_i_lost_172k_trading_options_on_my/) ~~~ jerednel Well also, on pretty much every brokerage, if you get assigned a leg of a spread while your position is ITM then your balance drops through the floor far beyond what your max loss is. But that's just temporary until you close the position fully. I would hope that isn't what happened here because he could have just closed the other side of the assigned leg and accepted a much more modest loss. edit: this is where a standard brokerage shines. when this first happened to me i called TDA and they walked me through how to get out of my shitty position. Not sure you can do the same with RH. ------ joshbaptiste What happens if you over leverage and end up owing your broker after a bad trade and you can't pay it back.. ~~~ anitil For you? Bankruptcy. I imagine the broker would have insurance. ~~~ joshbaptiste ok, something the poor kid could have bounced back from after a few years of bad credit etc... dam sad. ------ blastonico This is more common than than thought. Fortunately (or not?) these cases don't hit the press. ------ badrabbit They added options trading as well which lets you take on more risk if you're selling.
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Pirate Bay Hack Exposes User Booty - ukdm http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/07/pirate-bay-hack-exposes-user-booty/ ====== epochwolf > I also sought comment from a Pirate Bay representative at the organization’s > official IRC channel, but was unceremoniously kicked and banned from the > channel after pasting the user names and hashed passwords of the site > administrators and moderators. Uh... that's not how you ask for comment in IRC. That's being a douchebag. Every chatroom I've been in would ban you for posting that information in a public chatroom. ~~~ oozcitak From the comments: > I idled on TPB irc channel for probably 5 hours before I pasted those > usernames/md5′d passwords. I also checked the major rainbow tables and > available Md5 decryptor sites to make sure they weren’t easily reversible, > before pasting them. I just wanted to get someone’s attention. I was told > several times that no one was in charge, and then some admin started > taunting me, saying he couldn’t believe I was a journalist b/c I couldn’t > put two words together. ~~~ epochwolf Context is important. That comment wasn't on the site when I was writing my response. I was careful to check the comments before making an ass out of myself. I wish it had been there. :) That said, unless he sent the data via private message I'd still support an immediate kickban. You don't post that publicly, even if it's not immediately crackable. You never know who has full automatic logging turned on in their irc client. (I'm always logging and I always assume everyone else is too.) ~~~ ErrantX Getting sensible discourse in the Pirate Bay IRC channel is not exactly easy. Mostly you just get abuse :) (but, yeh, posting it publicly was a bit silly) ------ rick888 I guess the piratebay is getting a taste of their own medicine. A third-party is sharing their data without their consent. Boo Hoo. I remember hearing a speech a couple of weeks ago from one of the guys that runs the Piratebay. He talked about how he remembered when he was a little kid and he was taught to share. He believed that everything online should be given out for free for the goodness of mankind. I hope this guy shares all of the usernames/email addresses and password hashes as a torrent. After all, it's just data. Data is only 1s and 0s (and can't be stolen). ~~~ chc There is a very big difference between "We should share generously" and "All data should be public." The Pirate Bay doesn't advocate leaking credit card numbers or anything. ~~~ rick888 "There is a very big difference between "We should share generously" and "All data should be public." If they were advocating the sharing of their own property, that's one thing. However, they advocate (and facilitate), the sharing of other people's intellectual property without their consent. I have heard many reasons as to why this should be okay. "Data can't be stolen, only copied", "Information needs to be free", etc. So, going by their own rules, this is fine because email, password hashes, and usernames are just data. Information that can be freely copied and distributed without any harm to the original owner (they still have a copy of it. It's not like it's stealing). "The Pirate Bay doesn't advocate leaking credit card numbers or anything" No, but if I had their credit cards on an open forum, I wouldn't expect them to take legal action (unless of course they are hypocrites). Credit card numbers, like torrents, are just 1s and 0s that could be used for harm (IE: downloading illegal information). I find the people from the piratebay very hypocritical. They have this new service coming out that allows you to give donations (I can't remember the name.but I saw a video on it). They charge a 10% service fee, which is enormous compared to many alternative services out there right now. Why not charge $0? Yes, it may cost money to run such a service, but it also costs money to create many of the software applications, games, and movies that they seem to have no problem "sharing" (yes, I know they don't actually host the file..only torrents..but they host readme files on almost every torrent which explain exactly what the file is. They also run many of the trackers out there.). ~~~ chc This is not copyright violation. This is the sharing of sensitive user data. You may find both abhorrent, but they are not at all the same thing. You're making a straw man argument with all this "sharing data" nonsense, essentially trying to paint The Pirate Bay as supporting any illegal use of a computer just because they support one illegal use. TLDR: _If_ The Pirate Bay were getting upset over having their intellectual property shared freely, that would be hypocrisy. But they're not. They're trying to stop people from hacking their site. ------ binarymax Would have been amusing if they'd have gone into covert talks with RIAA and MPAA under the guise of selling them the data illegally, while documenting the whole thing. Then in the end not sell the list, and out the documentation. ~~~ pavel_lishin I wonder what would happen if they'd done that, and then sold them a fake list. ------ dhyasama If these guys have the proven ability to modify user records, could you use that as a defense in court? What's to say I didn't create an account, never downloaded anything, and someone else modified my account to say I did? ~~~ bradleyland Prosecution that relies on a single piece of evidence rarely make it to trial. Prosecution is all about the chain of evidence. In addition to the user account they'd identified on the Pirate Bay, any successful prosecution attempt would have previously seized your computer, imaged the drive, and uncovered all the torrent files and copyrighted material lying around on your hard drive. ~~~ ovi256 Yeah, but all the evidence pursued from a false basis can be thrown out of court. I remember a landmark case sometime ago where cops imaged a house using infrared, and those images, purportedly showing a pot grow house, were the basis for a subsequent entry warrant. However, the court (may have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court) found that the initial infrared imaging was invasive, infringing and illegal, and thus all evidence coming from it was tainted and had to be thrown out. Therefore, it seems to me that a single weak link in the chain will nullify all the next links. IANAL. ~~~ bradleyland This would only apply if the existence of a Pirate Bay account were the impetus for the investigation. There is just as much a possibility that the driving factor was the observation of your IP obtained through a standard torrent client. In your example, the IR evidence was the grounds by which they obtained a warrant. I'm not saying this wouldn't be the case in our hypothetical prosecution here, but the distinction is important. The bottom line is that suing individual file-sharers is an inane idea to begin with. The RIAA/MPAA are using this only as a shock & awe tactic. The rolling back of the file sharing tide will not come from the direct prosecution of every file-sharer. Their hope is that many people will become fearful of prosecution, thus resulting in a reduction of piracy. ------ ronnier It looks like the passwords were stored as straight MD5 hashes, which is just slightly better than storing plain text passwords. ------ arnorhs The title should be more accurate. Maybe change it to "security weakness exposes information of 4 million Pirate Bay users" ~~~ epochwolf Pirate Bay _Exploit_ Exposes User Booty I like creative titles. :) ~~~ arnorhs maybe, but first when I saw it I wasn't sure if there was a user called Booty that was exposed, or that there was an actual ass that was exposed (as in a picture of it).. I didn't realize until I checked it out that it was the user's personal info :) ------ mikecane Hm. They wondered how much the info would have been worth to the MPAA and RIAA. But wouldn't that have been thrown out of court as evidence gotten illegally? ~~~ smokinn If it got to court. They usually never do. MPAA/RIAA don't want a court case, they just extort money from people. They know they can because it's completely irrational to pay more to defend yourself in court with a chance of losing than to just pay the protection fee and never be charged with anything. ~~~ mikecane Hmmm... so maybe a defense would be "How do you know this, MPAA/RIAA?" If they can't present legal evidence in court, they'd lose. They can't extort people who know the evidence is illegal.
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The Story of Stripe (2018) - lowmemcpu https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stripe-payments-apple-amazon-facebook ====== julianeon So, where did Stripe go wrong? It says in the article (and I've heard this in other places) you could start using Stripe "with only seven lines of code." Sounds like a JavaScript snippet you drop in, so the whole thing could be contained in one 15 line HTML page. It's not like this now. I recently set up Stripe and used AWS with a Lambda function, following a tutorial, to accept the token and the message back from the server and etc. You know the drill. I mean it's not insanely hard but it's sure as hell not "seven lines of code." It is definitely hard enough to deter junior devs who can code up HTML+CSS and basic JS, and maybe even a simple React page. I can easily see someone reading about the API token and responding to the API token on your server and being like "oh shit" and dropping out. So why can't it be like that anymore? It's funny, all these services say "we want payments to be easy" and eventually develop to a point where payments are no longer easy. It seems like either it's a credit card or it's complicated - nothing in between. ~~~ stu2b50 It can be 7 lines, if that's what your business is. If you run a service where you mail people orders, for instance, then 7 lines of checkout is enough. The order will show up on your dashboard and you can mail them the goods. If you run a digital service where you need to automate payment confirmation, of course that will require communication between your server and their server. What do you expect. ~~~ julianeon I expect it to be easy: actually, "seven lines of code" easy (look that up and see how many results it gets). They are getting traction and users off this claim. I expect them to live up to it - simple as that. If it's harder than that: I expect them to devote engineers and brainpower to the problem until it's not. They should solve it - that's their business. I tried just now searching for 7 line checkout code, finding the code for it. (It's fine if it's 12, that's not the sticking point - but I can't find 12 either). It's not there. The simplest result is this one. [https://stripe.com/docs/payments/checkout/accept-a- payment](https://stripe.com/docs/payments/checkout/accept-a-payment) Note the "client and server flowchart" diagram, with its 6 boxes. [https://github.com/stripe-samples/checkout-one-time- payments...](https://github.com/stripe-samples/checkout-one-time- payments/blob/master/client-only/client/html/README.md) I think the closest to 'simple install' I can get is this code, which was not easily discoverable, in my opinion. [https://github.com/stripe-samples/checkout-one-time- payments...](https://github.com/stripe-samples/checkout-one-time- payments/blob/master/client-only/client/html/index.html) It stand by what I said: it's a hell of a lot harder than 7 lines of code. I find the claim irritating because the reality is it's blatantly untrue. ~~~ fragmede The modern-day equivalent of the "7-lines of code" is the stripped down, client-side only integration at: [https://stripe.com/docs/payments/checkout/client](https://stripe.com/docs/payments/checkout/client) tl;dr, click on the stripe website a bunch, then copy and paste the generated html+js (which includes your api key, so you, the user don't have to mess with that) into your own website. The demo UX is here: [https://70p1h.sse.codesandbox.io/](https://70p1h.sse.codesandbox.io/) ~~~ voidray Good find, and IMHO this should probably be the default integration in their docs; the first tutorial listed here is for the Payment Intents API, which is a more complicated version of the Charges API: [https://stripe.com/docs/payments](https://stripe.com/docs/payments) ------ DenseComet $35 billion and 11 years old. How can Stripe still be considered a startup? Even at the time of writing, it was 9 years old and worth $20 billion. ~~~ aeyes You stop being a startup when you start spending your own money. ~~~ noir_lord Hmm. I like that but how about. > You stop being a startup when you start spending only your own money. Lot's of growth based VC backed startup's have some token income you could argue they are spending. ------ conroy Discussion from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18153909) ------ ciguy Since when has Stripe ever been even remotely "secretive"? They've been highly publicized in the tech community since the beginning. Just because they weren't mainstream in the beginning doesn't mean they're secretive. ~~~ dang Perhaps they are "secretive" in the same sense that their story is "untold": not particuarly. ------ sky_rw Secretive? ~~~ noir_lord To non-developers perhaps. They marketed (very well) a good product directly at developers realising that would give them a foothold when business person said "who should we use?" and dev thought...well I can deal with paypal or stripe. ------ rattray Title needs a (2018) ------ nickff Title should include [2018] ~~~ dang Added. Thanks!
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[Brief critique of Go error proposal] Golang, how dare you handle my checks! - networkimprov https://medium.com/@mnmnotmail/golang-how-dare-you-handle-my-checks-d5485f991289 ====== reusLi You can always use `if` to handle errors like now. Handle/check is a addition to error handling but not replacement. Function arguments can be placed on multiple lines, that would make `check` expression more readable.
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Wii board comparable to 100x more expensive physio "force platforms" - mmastrac http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527435.300-wii-board-helps-physios-strike-a-balance-after-strokes.html ====== danw Likely more expensive for two reasons: 1) Wii board is mass produced in greater volumes. 2) Selling any technology into medicine is a long slow costly process involving multiple stages of approval and testing. Not so for a consumer game. No 2 isn't going to change any time soon. ~~~ bh23ha As someone has has in the past worked in biotechnology software and is currently working on biothech instrumentation software - you are EXACTLY correct. The problem with #2 is that we could get a lot of things cheaper and faster to market with only slightly more risk for the consumer. But the regulators have no incentive to take on that extra bit of risk. Sick people on the other hand... ~~~ electromagnetic I wonder if, for exercise equipment at least, it would be worth developing it as a video game 'peripheral' and avoid much of the regulators control. Imagine this: a row-machine that links into your Xbox/PS3/Wii and you can compete in tournaments in game and online, but have it completely usable without it being used as a gaming peripheral. It could be similarly attached to any 'sport' equipment. I wonder if this would be enough to evade regulator oversight or not. ------ aaronblohowiak This is another win for consumer electronics and the "trickle up" economy. The tail is wagging the dog here. Not by pushing the bounds of science, but by increasing the availability of tech throughout the economy.
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France map its local investement and release openDatas via GitHub - cowreth https://cget-carto.github.io/dotation_investissement/ ====== cowreth French gov has published a map of where (and in what) it invests money on a local scale (cities, regions). It's a new step in openData _by_ France, where previous openDatas were almost all previous releases were consisting in table sheets.
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Ask HN: How would you define a full stack developer? - NikolaTesla You see it in job posts everywhere: &quot;looking for a full-stack developer, engineer, programmer&quot;. What exactly does that mean? And yes, since I&#x27;m asking the question, I must not be one. Seriously though, how would you define it? ====== maxdemarzi Previous Discussion => [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4860755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4860755) If you've ever done a one person start-up... you might be a "full stack developer". ~~~ NikolaTesla So true. As often as it's used, I'm not sure that there's a real consensus on what it means. ------ johnmurch Someone who can do backend development (node.js, ruby, php, whatever) as well as front-end development (css/html/javascript/ember/angular/backbone) ~~~ NikolaTesla Is it enough to know one of for the backend and frontend or do you have to have a broader list of expertise? ~~~ johnmurch You should have a broad range, so you can fix css issues, javascript frontend issues as well as build a new feature that integrates with a database. As shown above, but basically you can code a web app from start to finish (e.g. backend code/framework like ruby on rails, frontend like css/html/etc and integrate some time of database (e.g. MySQL or Mongo). ------ joeldidit I'm great at backend, frontend, and design, though design is harder for me. I'm also great at marketing and am often called a liar because of it (my vision of the future seems so far-fetched that people have problems believing that I'm very close to making it happen and that with a little help (for now I'm working on becoming even more self-reliant) it'll all happen). My training in the CS fundamentals are solid, but I have a Computer Engineering degree, so there are some gaps (weakness when it comes to graph theory), but those are made up for by a wide range of experiences in Electrical Engineering whose applications overlap Software Engineering in a very real way (if you can see it). For example, I use the Kalman Filter in my head ALL the time, and it seems like thinking about things as being in a black box that you feed input and get output is very useful for debugging and getting started quickly. I naturally like drawing connections between disparate things, and learning a wide variety of things which can then in turn be applied to a wide variety of things, so a Computer Engineering degree was the correct one. I can easily brush up on the gaps, which is what I'm doing now, and then all that exists is a Computer Scientist with all this extra knowledge that he's waiting to apply in clever or unique ways. I not only know backend and frontend, but I'm good at both. Though I'm good, I'm often unconventional, so those that are sticklers for convention and the specs won't be able to appreciate the work that I do. I spit in the face of minutiae like code formatting and spending a lot of time breaking things down in favor of getting something working, then when it's working to my satisfaction I can dive into all the details. I would previously get overwhelmed, because when starting a new project I would see the entire system and how it all came together and would get stuck on all the details, but after learning how to wait and how to let things marinate for a while, I see this as a good thing. I see everything connected together, and design a system that's holistically sound. And the better I get across the board, the better wired together the system is. If you are a backend engineer, then learn javascript and that will get you a long way toward being a full-stack developer. It seems as though picking up language is not that difficult for many engineers, so you can just think of javascript as another language. Then learn HTML and CSS. Even if you don't become full-stack, it's good to know the other side of the fence, so you have an idea what's going on. All you have to avoid is to try forcing baby- understood conventions, as though you know what you're doing, on those front- end people trying to do something different, or that all of a sudden seem to not know that much. Things are rarely as simple as these management-fueled blanket rules (which are often sh*t).
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How to Overcome Patent Rejections Based on the Alice Decision - nitin_flanker http://www.greyb.com/rejections-based-on-the-alice-decision/ ====== mkesper This is the evil side talking. ~~~ nitin_flanker Yeah you can say so. But you know the way USPTO is rejecting patents on the basis of Examiner's subjective examination is even more evil.
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Bulk SMS Services for Ecommerce Businesses - jkuria https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/2981268/Which-are-the-best-bulk-SMS-services-for-an-ecommerce-business ====== peeterx You should also checkout custom chatbots for Ecommerce Business. They are a great opportunity to anyone looking to improve the communication between the customers and the business, which we all want in Ecommerce. Though, setting up a custom AI chatbot can be so annoying. There are so many tools out there but they all seem to miss a feature that you REALLY need. Most times they all force you to pay to have that “Powered by….” imprint removed and AI doesn’t work. How about a done-for-you solution? These Chatifai guys set up a simple custom chatbot for just 19$/m in 72 hours after placing your order! [https://chatifai.datawisepro.com](https://chatifai.datawisepro.com)
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Common Lisp Standard Draft - tosh http://cvberry.com/tech_writings/notes/common_lisp_standard_draft.html ====== jlarocco I'm downloading and may use this, but I've actually come to like the hyperspec. It was overwhelming at first, and the formatting isn't great, but I got used to it, and can actually find things pretty quick now. My biggest complaint would be the lack of examples. I also don't know if I'd call $60 for the official spec expensive, but the fact it's a scan is inexcusable. ~~~ michaelmrose When plenty of other languages have zero cost associated ANY cost is too much unless you want people to read about and adopt alternative choices in the time required for someone to justify the company making a purchase. ~~~ pubby I think you're misunderstanding the point and confusing standards with documentation. Standards are for one very narrow group of people: compiler writers. If you're not a compiler writer, you have zero reason to buy the official standard document. And if you are a compiler writer, well, it would be very bizarre to choose your target language based on the price of its spec! Please note that the final draft of the standard is published for free on that website. ~~~ mycl ISO Prolog (ISO/IEC 13211) doesn't have a free standard and it has hurt the Prolog language immeasurably. In this case the last freely available draft is quite different from the final standard, which makes the situation worse because not everyone is aware of this. I have noticed a lot of Prolog programmers don't know what's in the standard and what's not - you routinely see answers given on SO that are implementation dependent when they could easily have been expressed in strictly conforming ISO Prolog. Of course, you can get pirated versions of ISO/IEC 13211-1 and 13211-2 but even saying these exist probably makes me complicit in piracy, let alone suggesting they should be widely shared in the Prolog community. The 3 technical corrigenda that update 13211-1 are freely available[0], or at least ISO allows you to "Preview" the whole document in each case. [0] [https://www.iso.org/standard/21413.html](https://www.iso.org/standard/21413.html) ~~~ stonemetal I would put that on the implementations not following the standard rather than the availability of the standard. How many C# devs out there have read their ISO standard? ~~~ setr not sure about Prolog, but afaik compiler writers are usually very good about following the standards (and they reference the standards consistently when discussing (potentially) semantic bugs). In general I think its safe to trust that any given compiler (tries to) follows the standards strictly; and then implement extensions on top. And extensions are fine. They might be syntactic sugar, or specific hacks, or strange DSLs or whatever. Convenient, if you know you're targetting a single compiler. But you can still write standards-compliant code, when necessary. But if the compiler doesn't make it explicitly clear, and the standards aren't easily available, then you now have people using extensions without realizing it, and if you tell them you're using an extension, there's nowhere to point to as proof. If you're trying to write code successfully against two different compilers, and get different results, there's nowhere to point to to show that compiler A has the incorrect response. Instead you file against both and assume they have access to the standard. Also afaik C# only really runs against a single compiler (mono, i think?), doesn't it? So it makes sense that community doesn't bother with the standard; you're not writing cross-compiler-compatible code, so whatever works on mono _is_ the standard (in practice). The same is true for python, ruby, haskell, etc. There's practically only one compiler in existence (that you care about); those implementations _are_ the standard, regardless of any ISO standard. But you look at the C and C++ community, and half the SO answers directly reference the standard, despite presumably being mere "users" of the language. Because when many compiler implementations exist (and used), then extensions are much less viable, and the standards are extremely important And afaik, CL is one of those languages with multiple major compilers, and thus an easily available standard is important. ------ hydandata Common Lisp UltraSpec [0][1] is another awesome resource [0] [http://phoe.tymoon.eu/clus/doku.php](http://phoe.tymoon.eu/clus/doku.php) [1] [https://github.com/UltraSpec](https://github.com/UltraSpec) ~~~ aidenn0 And the Ultraspec is generated from the same tex sources as the PDFs in TFA. The HyperSpec is copyrighted with a license that only permits distribution if not modified, so it cannot be used as a basis for an improved version. ------ TurboHaskal I got excited for a moment and thought there's a new revision in the works. ~~~ ghettoimp Me too. It’s too bad how stale the language has gotten. ~~~ peatmoss I think for people who want to be able to have a bit of lisp into their daily lives, Clojure is where the majority of the current industry-focused mindshare is going. At least as far as new development of language features is concerned. For people who are less industry focused, and more interested in the evolution of lisp from a CS perspective, Racket has gobbled up that mindshare. Common Lisp, in spite of its strengths, multiple standard implementations, and historical pedigree, seems at risk of fading more if there isn't some new lifeblood injected. The problem if I understand it, is that the Common Lisp spec is so gigantic, and was itself the product of a tenuous truce between many warring tribes of lisps long forgotten. I wonder how possible a new spec even is? ~~~ kazinator The Common Lisp spec came to under 1100 pages. That's not a lot. I made a small scripting language starting in 2009. The reference manual is close to 640 pages now if turned into a PDF (with no cover pages, table of contents or index). You go bit by bit, document everything, and you'll be surprised at how the pages stack up over the years. I think Steele's ClTl ( _Common Lisp, The Language_ ), a major base document, is already at > 1000. ECMAScript (i.e. JavaScript) 2017 is 885 pages. C11 draft: 696 pages. C hardly does anything! Just compiles some Von-Neumann- style word-pushing computation to machine code, and supplies a bare-bones library. (The K&R2 book is 288 pages and the C90 standard is around that size also. In that K&R2 book, the authors state: "C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book." Ha!) C++ ... let's not go there. ~~~ lispm CLtL1 had around 470 pages. ~~~ groovy2shoes I don't have a copy of CLtL1 myself (though I vaguely recall checking it out from the university library a few times many moons ago). I'm replying to you because your post was the last stop for my train of thought, but this isn't a rebuttal by any means. CLtL2 has 1053 pages if you count the front- and back-matter, 975 if you don't. For comparison, the ANSI C11 standard comes to 683 pages, but I think it's worth mentioning that CL leaves far fewer things unspecified, is much more "powerful", and is written in such a way that it can reasonably serve as an introduction _and_ a reference _in addition_ to a definition, compared to the C11 standard which, imo, doesn't serve particularly well for any use other than definition (I'm far more likely to reach for Harbison & Steele than for ANSI C if I need a C reference, and if a handful of programmers trying to learn C given only the standard were broadcast on TV, I'd set my DVR, because that would be _very_ entertaining). The Emacs Lisp reference manual weighs in at 1077 pages. Nobody really cares. Standard ML (revised) comes to 583 pages between the Definition and the Basis Library, but its succinctness comes at the cost of being nigh incomprehensible to mere mortals, since the ~100 pages of the Definition are largely occupied by formal semantics; this is both a good thing (formal semantics are nice to have) and a bad thing (to understand it you have to learn the formal language first... I don't consider this a huge deal, but my experience has been that most people can't be arsed). IEEE Scheme comes to 73 pages, but it omits a lot of things that would be considered essential for "programming in the large": modules, records, macros, &c. While I don't think it could serve as an introduction for anyone not already versed in a Lisp dialect or at least some applicative language, it does function rather well as a reference, except that 80% of the time you're better off checking your implementation's documentation (for example, the 895 pages of the Guile 2.0 reference manual). ISLISP is 127 pages (the "official" ISO ISLISP standard is also the most expensive of all of these documents _by far_ , but fortunately Kent did us all a solid), and suffers from _some_ of the same "problems"[1] as IEEE Scheme. BCPL punches at the featherweight class, containing the language definition, tutorial, examples, reference, virtual machine specification, and a source listing of a self-hosted reference compiler, all in a mere 183 pages. Despite its admirable simplicity, so few people seem to be writing any serious software in BCPL these days. I wonder why that is... Die-hard Wirth fans like to champion the fact that the Oberon-07 report is small enough to keep in your wallet, so you can drunkenly show it to strangers at the pub and proudly tell them all about your wee little language that you haven't seen since your Wirth left you 10 years ago. It's only 17 pages, but it deals _almost exclusively_ with matters of syntax, including only the bare minimum informal, imprecise descriptions of semantics interleaved therewith. The library reference consists of a couple lists of procedure names without even an afterthought mentioning what they actually _do_ , all the while making even the IEEE Scheme standard library look luxurious and capacious in comparison. The point of mentioning all this is that even after a language has been designed and documented, the act of writing it down comes with all kinds of tradeoffs. Pages numbering in the quadruple digits can be intimidating and perhaps tedious at times, but pages numbering in the double digits can be rather frustrating and just as tedious at times, too: when you find that some aspect of the language is only vaguely specified or communicated, and you have to take your best guess (which is probably wrong, as a rule of thumb); or when your program grows beyond the original intent and suddenly packages and CLOS really start looking like they're worth their weight in paper. The complexity of a programming language is many-dimensional, and there are many possible functions that can map that complexity into the single dimension of page count; some of those functions might result in standards that are great for neophytes but aggravating for professionals, others might yield results that are brilliant for implementors but absolute rubbish for students. All things considered, I think ANSI CL (and CLtL, for that matter) approximate a sweetspot in the language standard space, not even just in terms of how they're designed but in how they're written: they're immanently accessible to regular programmers, provide thorough coverage of the language and libraries in a format that also serves as a handy reference, _and_ (usually) offer enough detail that implementors don't have to roll any dice. They're not absolutely perfect, but having read so many language standards from so many different perspectives (learner, practitioner, implementor, and once-upon-a- time author), I've really developed an admiration for those in particular. It's not an easy task to write a language definition, especially with a language as featureful as CL, and yet they still manage to do it in a way that I consider exemplary. — [1]: Depending on your use case, they're features rather than problems. Everything would be so much better if only we could all agree on a damn use case. ~~~ lispm Well said. > CLtL2 has 1053 pages if you count the front- and back-matter, 975 if you > don't. Actually CLtL2 is not a book describing the standard, but a book describing a specific state during the standardization. Thus it includes lots of superseded material (plus the reasoning why it was superseded) and also material which was not part of the language (like Series) or later has been removed again (like environment access for macros). Probably (just an estimate) 1/3 of the book is not actual language documentation, but there because this special nature of the book. ~~~ groovy2shoes Yeah. I quite like the way the second edition was conveyed, though, with additions and amendments indicated by typographic conventions, because the result is that when you have the second edition, you also kinda have the first edition. It's also cool from a historical perspective, since it is very much an intermediate "development snapshot" between CLtL1 and the ANSI standard, and the votes and discussion topics are meticulously catalogued. But despite CLtL2 not being a standard _per se_ , I think the ANSI standard as published retains a lot of the "spirit" of CLtL, in that it defines things precisely without resorting to obtuse formalisms or overly-dry description, and in that it is organized in a similarly versatile way. ------ rogerb nice. whenever i am in between jobs, and are plotting the next thing to do - i turn to lisp :|
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THE 9 BEST LANGUAGES FOR CRUNCHING DATA - kodekracker http://www.fastcompany.com/3030716/the-9-best-languages-for-crunching-data ====== bsg75 These are not all languages, but a mix of languages and tools.
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Harvard study: Computers don't save hospitals money - edw519 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9141428/Harvard_study_Computers_don_t_save_hospitals_money?taxonomyName=Hardware&taxonomyId=12 ====== iamelgringo This just touched a big nerve with me, so be prepared for a rant. I've been an ER/Critical Care nurse for 15 years. I've worked/contracted at over 30 hospital, and I've worked in a number of different specialties. I recently went back to school for a CS degree, and I'm working 3 days a week as an ER nurse, and I code the other 3 nights a week on my social news site for economic and financial news, <http://Newsley.com>. I get asked all the time by people at Hackers and Founders meetups as to why I'm not going in to Health Care IT. And, the short answer, is that the computerization of healthcare is wrong. I currently work at a hospital that's consistently named one of the nation's "Most Wired", and the more I work at a "Wired" hospital, the more of a luddite I become. As much as I love computers, I think that their role in Health Care should be limited to a very few places. Why? Here's the long answer: \- Culture. When a physician graduates from med school, they take a vow to "First, do no harm." The culture of safety, is everywhere. Physicians change their practice slowly based on research that often takes years to vet. Medications take years to pass FDA approval. This is all because of the very strong culture of safety in hospitals. Now, try and meld that with an IT culture where a generation in technology is 18 months, and user's heads explode. I've seen CardioThoracic surgeons who makes $750 thousand a year cutting into beating hearts struggle for an hour trying to put orders into a new computer system . A lot of physicians trained in the last 40 years never learned to type, and really don't use computers much. It's simply not cost effective to force physicians to make the huge adjustments in their practice to fit the needs of the IT department. -Disasters. If any organization has to run in a disaster, it has to be a hospital. There aren't many disasters that can prevent me from writing a note on a paper chart in a disaster. But, every computer system that I've worked on in hospitals crashes. When that happens the whole hospital is crippled. Fault tolerant, reliable systems are essential for hospitals, and frankly, they just don't have the money to spend to build them or buy them. Paper is much more forgiving in a disaster than a huge distributed computer applcation running on 1000 Windows PC's with a datacenter back in New Jersey. -Time. More often than not, I've seen software systems slow patient care down by a factor of 1-4x. We have to spend a lot more time looking at the computer rather than looking at my patient. -Money. I've alluded to it above. But, when hospitals actually are running in the black financially, they tend to run a 1-2% profit margin. Software systems to run hospitals usually tend to cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and a large support team to manage them. Hospitals generally don't have the money to pay top notch talent to maintain a really complex IT system. -Bugs. Bugs are a fact of life for programmers. Bugs happen all the time. But, when a bug happens in a healthcare setting, people die. I've seen in happen, and it sickens me. -Proprietary data formats. Every application that I've ever worked with in a hospital has been proprietary. That means proprietary data formats. A typical hospital will use dozens of different systems that all have their own proprietary data formats from automated lab systems, EKG machines, vital sign monitors, billing systems, inventory tracking systems, etc... All those systems have to be integrated, and for that data to be available across systems is really hard. (see Bugs and Money above). After years of thinking about this, and working in this environment, I've come to the conclusion that paper is simply a much better technology for the industry. Really. Paper is cheap, portable, fault tolerant and easy to change. I don't have to wait for months for a work order to go through IT to change a database schema when I want to adjust the data that I'm gathering at Triage for instance. I can just have someone print up a copy of the new form. I'll stop now, but if you want to hear more of this rant, feel free to stop by our next meetup and buy me a beer. By the time we're done we'll both need it. As you can see, it's a hot button issue for me. :) ~~~ dsteinweg I'm curious, could you provide any details around the death caused by a software bug? ~~~ cakeface <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25> ~~~ derefr The parent said "I've seen in happen, and it sickens me," implying that he wasn't referring to a famous event that happened more than 20 years ago, but rather something that occurred in medicine today, even after this generation of software engineers had all been told the story of the Therac in their first year of school. That makes this much more interesting. ------ jordanb I have a friend who manages a hospital IT department. He said that problem is that American private hospitals already are highly computerized, it's just that the computer systems are focused entirely billing and not at all on medical records management. When they decide to get an EMRS, hospitals turn to their billing software vendor to provide them with something integrated with their billing systems. The vendors tack something on to the billing software without adequate requirements gathering amongst the actual nurses who will use it, so the result is a system that simply does not have the proper workflow for managing patient medical records. While EMRSes like the Veterans Administration's VistA program exist and are well-liked by nurses and doctors, they provide no functionality to ensure that you get billed $20 for each tongue depressor used. That functionality is, of course, of primary importance to private hospital administrators. So effective EMR software gets passed over unless it integrates with hospitals' existing billing infrastructure, and the hospital billing system vendors build terrible EMR software. ~~~ jhancock great summary. I've noticed the VA system is quite good as well and have been trying to see why other institutions don't use it. I assume the taxpayer already paid to create it, so why not open source the product and let people integrate? ~~~ jberryman I can't find a link right now, but a month or two ago there was an interview on NPR with the author of (I believe) this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Best-Care-Anywhere-Health- Better/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Best-Care-Anywhere-Health- Better/dp/0977825302) In the interview he talked about how some doctors at the VA hacked together a computerized medical records system in the 70s, and how having these computerized records actually allowed the VA doctors to discover links between some dangerous drugs and disease. That's in addition to the benefits of a doctors being able to pull up 30 years of your medical history on a screen. Wish I could remember details about the interview, but the book is probably good. ------ xiaoma _"For 45 years or so, people have been claiming computers are going to save vast amounts of money and that the payoff was just around the corner," he said. "So the first thing we need to do is stop claiming things there's no evidence for. It's based on vaporware and [hasn't been] shown to exist or shown to be true."_ Oh, but it has. Outside the US, a number of countries have used computers very effectively in health care. In Taiwan, my medical records are linked to my national ID number and follow me wherever I seek care. Furthermore, doctors can regularly do pull up my chart from a laptop when I meet them in their office. It's also easy to make appointments online, and they go straight to the doctor in question, without any need to go through human administrators at the hospital. It's been a huge time saver for the patients, and the doctors achieve a turn-over that would be unheard of in N. America. I can only speculate about the money savings, but it's overwhelmingly likely they are large. Most visits have a co-pay of about 3-10 US dollars, my one emergency room visit was about 40 and the highest tax bracket is only 20 percent. Most people are only taxed at about 7-8 percent, so it isn't simply a case of a health care system flooded with public money. US hospitals just need good computer-based systems, or if it's a national one then a single good system. ~~~ anamax > In Taiwan, my medical records are linked to my national ID number and follow > me wherever I seek care. Furthermore, doctors can regularly do pull up my > chart from a laptop when I meet them in their office. It's also easy to make > appointments online, and they go straight to the doctor in question, without > any need to go through human administrators at the hospital. It's been a > huge time saver for the patients, and the doctors achieve a turn-over that > would be unheard of in N. America. Apart from the "national ID" part, that's exactly how Kaiser works, and has for some time. I don't know how widespread Kaiser is, but it's certainly common in California. ~~~ allenp I just wanted to emphasize that the best part about Kaiser is their interface - it is super simple to schedule and receive care and it rarely felt "slugish" to go through their processes. ------ maryrosecook Computers rarely save money. They usually allow people to do more in the same amount of time for the same money. In the case of hospitals, they provide a better level of care for the same money and in the same time. e.g. I was in an appointment with my cardiac consultant yesterday. He was able to pull up the results of my recent exercise test during the consultation, rather than having me wait to receive a letter with the results and his thoughts. ~~~ trapper If this were true we would see a reduction in visit times, costs per visit, patients per doctor, patients per nurse, medical errors etc. Instead we see the opposite. The point of the research is that none of these benefits are supported by the data we have available. Individual anecdotes are the exact opposite of what we should be thinking about after reading this paper. ~~~ aplusbi That assumes that the only thing that has changed is the computerization of records. In the same time span that we've seen increased computer usage we have also seen increased red tape from insurance companies, malpractice lawsuits, etc. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that we don't have enough information to make any claims. ------ cakeface I used to work for a health care information systems company called Meditech. They are one of the largest providers software and EHR to hospitals. While I was there I was amazed at how inefficient the whole process was. My daily coding work did not even involve version control! Also we were programming in a language developed in house from like 1985 or something. Its certainly easy for me to believe that a system like that would only cause more problems than it solved. ~~~ sethg I have a friend who told similar horror stories about working for Meditech. I hope she's escaped to a better job by now. ~~~ niels_olson I used meditech as a medical student on the wards. Very painful experience. I'm sure it was really slick 20 years ago, but it's painful now. ------ samuel I work in IT for my country's National Health System. I made the switch only six months ago so my domain knowledge is still very limited. Anyway, I have already seen how automation may greatly improve doctors and nurses efficiency. For example, RIS/PACS(Radiology Information System/Picture archiving and communication system) systems may (and do) save millions euros a year only in radiographic film. I've seen figures stimating the ROI and its only 3-4 years. That without mention the advantages of having radiological data instantly accesible from anywhere, which opens the door to telediagnostics and telemedicine. That's a very clear example. In other cases it may be harder to calculate real savings(if any), but not the improved care level. ------ sethg _The problem "is mainly that computer systems are built for the accountants and managers and not built to help doctors, nurses and patients," the report's lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, said..._ So the software works for the only interest group in the hospital that actually has the power to spend five- and six-figure amounts on infrastructure. The system works! :-/ ------ aik This article seems overly negative. The tone makes it sound like computers should not exist in hospitals. I wonder what their agenda is? "The problem 'is mainly that computer systems are built for the accountants and managers and not built to help doctors, nurses and patients,'" There are plenty of products out there specifically to help doctors and nurses, and an increasing amount are being installed in hospitals. If it is in fact true that a majority of hospitals only have billing software, I would say it is the fault of the hospital/institution in that they chose to go that route. "Implementing e-health records nationwide would cost between $75 billion and $100 billion, Brailer said, adding that individual hospitals "will have to make sizable, potentially multi-hundred-million-dollar budget commitments." Still, he said a fully functioning national electronic health system could reduce U.S. health care costs by $200 billion to $300 billion annually by cutting down on duplicate records, reducing record-keeping errors, avoiding fraudulent claims and better coordinating health care among providers. Himmelstein called those claims "unsupported."" The dollar amounts I don't know where come from, but the advantages of a universal health care record aren't too difficult to see. Supposedly 50+% of faulty diagnoses are due to a doctor not having the information they need (that is available elsewhere). ------ aho I was surprised to learn how just little computerization there is in the ER. Each medical device is basically a standalone unit, with its own input and display. There is no central computer system that automatically alerts doctors if the devices connected to a patient are configured in a potentially dangerous way. For example, apparently it is surprisingly common for surgery teams to use a ventilator, switch to a heart-lung bypass machine, but then forget to turn the ventilator back on once the heart-lung bypass machine is off. This can cause permanent brain damage if the patient doesn't get enough oxygen. There should probably be some system that warns the doctors if both devices are turned off. Unfortunately there is no standard communication protocol for these devices, which makes it impossible to build such a system. Here is a presentation on the state of affairs if anyone is interested: [http://www.mdpnp.org/uploads/Capitol_Hill_NSF_CPS_MD_PnP_9Ju...](http://www.mdpnp.org/uploads/Capitol_Hill_NSF_CPS_MD_PnP_9July09.pdf) ------ jfoutz amusingly, the computerworld summary doesn't include the paper's summary: "Finally, we believe that the computer’s potential to improve efficiency is unrealized because the commercial marketplace does not favor optimal products. Coding and other reimbursement-driven documentation might take precedence over efficiency and the encouragement of clinical parsimony. The largest computer success story has occurred at Veterans Administration hospitals where global budgets obviate the need for most billing and internal cost accounting, and minimize commercial pressures." It seems like hospitals hyper-optimize single actions at the expense of efficiency of pipelined actions. sort of like... An addition takes a single clock, a multiplication takes a single clock, but a multiplication followed by an addition takes 100 clocks. Except tongue depressors and temperature taking instead of arithmetic; money instead of time. I doubt you could build a more cost effective system to have a doctor walk in, take your temperature and leave. ------ Alex3917 Paul A. Strassman wrote a book about this in 1997. You can read the executive summary here: <http://www.infoeconomics.com/squandered.php> If organizations aren't following Strassman's recommendations for technology implementation, then it's not really that much of a surprise that they're still wasting money. The costs of technology are basically the same today as they were ten years ago, and it's not like human behavior has magically changed. ------ va_coder I have a friend who is a hospital administrator. She recently complained about an awful Oracle system that tries to do everything and fails. As I think about my friend with the Oracle system I wonder if the problem is technology or the companies implementing the technology? ~~~ gaius I'm always fascinated by the thinking behind these ERP behemoths. Like, does anyone at Oracle or SAP ever take a vacation, or get promoted? How? Do they use their own software to do it? ------ mildweed Its not just about the money. Its about increased quality of healthcare. I think one of the important things to note is that the true benefits of healthcare reform are going to come with IT in the form of payment/reimbursement reform legislation and a restructuring of Health Insurance. As this article also notes, greater public benefit of IT comes from the data exchange pieces which are being put in place, big news this week with Kaiser sharing data with the VHA, I expect this to be a trend that snowballs more information into the NHIN. Other pieces of Healthcare IT that will benefit outcomes and burden on the system that this article doesn’t mention is Telemedicine for greater collaboration around providers, that is a sample among other emerging technologies that it will take government funding to really skyrocket. Taking a massive IT project inside the four walls of a Hospital can be tricky since you have to account for some soft metrics like time saved, reduced LOS’s, and other non direct financial rewards. The other piece that does not have widespread adoption is the analytics piece, mining the data and being able to use for process and efficiency improvement is HUGE, doubt that was taken into account either. ------ aneesh There are positive externalities from the use of EHRs, though. The whole health ecosystem benefits (including patients, other providers, insurers, etc), not just hospitals, so it's misleading to consider the hospital's bottom line as the overall impact of EHRs. ~~~ jhancock There is no "ecosystem" that I can see since the data cannot be shared. Have you seen some examples where its providing value? I truly would like to know if I'm missing out on some great software. I've helped a mid size doctor's office for over 10 years with their IT system. The only value it has for them is managing billing with insurers and scheduling patients. Everything else the system does (tracking lab reports, patient history) is either not practical for the doctors to use or they don't need it. The part about helping with insurers is a business they'd rather not be in but have no choice. The scheduling could be replaced with Google Calendar if not for the tie-in to the data already mandatory for the insurers. Overall the system is something they consider they have to use but a bit of a pain and provides no other value. ~~~ aneesh I can access my dental records online. But you're right, that's probably not a common scenario. Since you have some experience in this field, could you imagine this situation changing in the next several years, so that there is a meaningful ecosystem? ~~~ jhancock I'm highly skeptical of the current program to subsidize purchasing EHR systems. I only see it leading to multiple vendors providing proprietary systems and frankly all the systems we've evaluated don't wow the doctors into finally believing they have a solution to the backlog of patient records they have to maintain. Sure, there's supposed to be an interoperable data format, but when I try to find how any of these vendors have made it accessible, I come up short. I don't think its in their best interest to do this. When I try to find out how to become an approved solution which qualifies for the subsidy (maybe to take an open source solution and run with it), I don't find out how you break into this magic government approved list of vendors. If we do find a solution to the data sharing/privacy issues, its useless without a common core platform that all doctors/hospitals/insurers use. I think we need a core open source platform and have vendors provide value on top of this. I've heard good things about the VA program. Maybe this could be the start of the FOSS platform. ------ raheemm I would attribute this failure to the vendors/developers/IT experts in the healthcare sector. IT works extremely well in many sectors that need speed, accuracy and reliability such as finance, transportation, manufacturing, etc. So why can't IT provide the same level of service in healthcare? ------ teyc Toyota's kanban was done with cards and physical cues. Computers aren't as flexible. ------ ecq Harvard study: Computers don't save hospitals money They save lives..
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Ask HN: What is your web “Go to” tech stack? - funerr Why is it the go to? And maybe an addition of any API&#x27;s&#x2F;SaaSs that help? ====== polishdude20 React for frontend Node, express, postgres for backend. Logrocket , Google analytics for tracking. Im most proud of myself for setting up a little server application that some of my GitHub repos are connected to through webhooks. When I push a commit to master, the webhook fires, my server calls git pull and builds and the code is ready to go. Very little downtime and no need to ssh and scp ------ Vosporos Haskell / Elixir for the back VanillaJS for simple interfaces / React for complex ones PostgreSQL for the RDBMS ElasticSearch for search features on datasets greater than 1TB In a FreeBSD jail
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Boeing seeking to reduce scope, duration of physical tests for new aircraft - pseudolus https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-airshow-boeing-certification-e/exclusive-boeing-seeking-to-reduce-scope-duration-of-some-physical-tests-for-new-aircraft-sources-idUSKCN1TH0A3 ====== torpfactory In my experience as a mechanical designer physical testing, especially system level integrated testing, is the only way to find errors in the “unknown unknown” category. In a complex system (mechanical, electrical, software, biological, basically all of them), there usually exist interactions that are very difficult to predict. Software-based simulation can help, but is only as good as the models which are used to describe the underlying physics. In my experience, these models aren’t nearly good enough, and without testing, you can’t even say what is wrong with them. Full-up testing isn’t always possible, but it shouldn’t be abandoned only because it is costly or difficult. ~~~ im_down_w_otp One of the things I continue to find disturbing when interacting with the markets we work in (e.g. self-driving & other highly-automated systems) is the growing hope that simulation will somehow bail people out of having to do real world validation, let them take significant shortcuts, or make assurance claims that can't really be made. We deal in formal verification for some aspects of what we do, and that lead to a conversation that went roughly like this: AV Exec: "Can we use formal methods to prove that our simulator is as good as reality?" Me: "No. You can use formal methods to prove your simulator implementation more closely adheres to your simulation model." AV Exec: "Isn't that the same thing?" Me: "No. Your simulation model is definitely wrong." AV Exec: (looking at me both disappointed and despondent) Me: "Look. It's important to understand that simulation isn't creating an approximation with a known correspondence to reality. Simulation is fabricating an entirely new reality with an opaque correlation to our reality." AV Exec: "Then how am I supposed to use simulation to prove our system is safe?" Me: "You can't." Despair on both sides of the table ensues. ~~~ microcolonel I'm lucky that I'm generally met with people who trust me when I say the simulation is not the reality. ------ samcday Here's the thing. I don't doubt that since the controversies with the MAX earlier this year, a great deal many people at Boeing are taking a hard look at everything around them and figuring out how to do better. I'm also sure that this article could be embellishing the facts. It's entirely possible that the very smart people who think about aviation engineering all day are supremely convinced that some of the digital tests can absolutely replace physical tests that were in place for decades. I'm not even remotely qualified enough to offer an opinion on that, so I won't. So here is my question. Boeing is a very large company beholden to shareholders, and kept in check by a declining number of other checks and balances. Should we, the public, trust that Boeing will pay close enough attention to maintaining safety as an utmost priority? Or should we be demanding that more oversight and regulation are put in place? ~~~ AnthonyMouse > It's entirely possible that the very smart people who think about aviation > engineering all day are supremely convinced that some of the digital tests > can absolutely replace physical tests that were in place for decades. I'm > not even remotely qualified enough to offer an opinion on that, so I won't. This is really the foundation of the problem. Members of Congress are not aeronautical engineers, so they're in the same boat as you. Aeronautical engineers work for aircraft makers, so they have a conflict of interest. Then, because they don't really know what they're doing, they tend to require things that _reduce_ safety, either by requiring measures that aren't cost effective and thereby blow your entire budget including the money that could have been spent on other safety measures with better cost/benefit, or are overly rigid in requiring the specific solution to a problem which was the state of the art three decades ago when the rule was enacted even though safer alternatives are known today. So why doesn't the government higher some regulators with some relevant industry experience? Well, they tried that, and then we got all of this revolving door nonsense where, to use an example closer to home here, former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai is now running the FCC as a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon Communications. Then we get proposals to prevent regulators from going back to industry when they finish, to try to prevent that. But the government _already_ has trouble attracting talent when they're paying substantially less than private industry does, and the jobs tend to only last for one administration until the next one comes in and replaces them with their own people, so how are they ever going to get anyone good to do a job that will a) pay less than they're making already and b) by law end their private career even though their tenure in government is likely to be less than a decade? It's possible that we're better off not specifying _how_ to make airplanes safe but instead imposing significant liability on companies and individual engineers who make ones that aren't. (This works in industries where the smallest company has a multi-billion dollar market cap. It's obviously less of a deterrent when the manufacturer has no exposure to the jurisdiction of your courts or is small enough to file bankruptcy every time there is a problem, but then we're no longer talking about Boeing and Airbus.) ~~~ samcday You make a compelling case as to why regulation can be problematic! I can't find any part of your assessment that I disagree with. What do you think about reforming how we regulate though? You point out that the revolving door problem stems from the fact that attracting the right people is hard when you're not offering them the right salary and career security. Surely there's ways to make that possible in the public sector! Given that regulatory bodies really ought to be non partisan and focused on a particular field or industry of activity, perhaps the institutional heads could be selected via a more democratic process (rather than just whichever buddy helped out an elected representative win their campaign) and given guaranteed minimum terms? And as to the problem of turnover throughout changes of political administration, isn't that perhaps also merely a policy problem? Why does the FCC or HUD need to be gutted and repopulated during a transition of political power? Those departments still have to report to the executive and congressional branches of government, so are their staffing choices something the White House should just be able to change on a whim? ~~~ AnthonyMouse > You point out that the revolving door problem stems from the fact that > attracting the right people is hard when you're not offering them the right > salary and career security. Surely there's ways to make that possible in the > public sector! It's actually pretty hard. The first problem is that if you paid them the amount it would take to attract good people, it's easy for opponents to score cheap political points by charging you with wasting tax dollars or comparing the high salary to that of unskilled workers. Meanwhile a high salary increases the perverse incentive to fill the position with cronies as a reward for political support, which is the opposite of helpful. There may be ways around it if you're creative, like making a benefit of the position that you and two generations of your descendants get free healthcare and college tuition / loan forgiveness forever (provided you do the job for at least two years). Then that's worth potentially quite a lot of money and provides a suitable incentive to attract good people, but makes it harder to take cheap shots because the total cost is indeterminate in both time and amount. Meanwhile you attract just the sort of experienced greybeard you want, who can do the job for a few years as the final leg of their career before retirement and in so doing provide financial security for their children and grandchildren. At which point it becomes sort of a meta problem, because to bring that about you need honest and creative people in the legislature to make good rules, which was kind of the original problem -- how do you get good and honest lawmakers and exclude incompetent and corrupt ones, when the people choosing them have insufficient time and expertise? > Given that regulatory bodies really ought to be non partisan and focused on > a particular field or industry of activity, perhaps the institutional heads > could be selected via a more democratic process (rather than just whichever > buddy helped out an elected representative win their campaign) and given > guaranteed minimum terms? Making them directly elected positions might help, but it's more like trading one set of problems for a different one. Now it's an elected position, but are random airline passengers going to care about who gets elected? (Boeing will, of course.) How do you get honest specialists who know what they're doing to even run, and how does a random voter tell the difference between that person and an industry shill prior to putting them in office? How do you prevent the foreseeable result when there is a disaster not long before an election and people elect a strongman to Do Something About It, only to ruin everything with bluster and incompetence? > And as to the problem of turnover throughout changes of political > administration, isn't that perhaps also merely a policy problem? Why does > the FCC or HUD need to be gutted and repopulated during a transition of > political power? It's because they make policy. If a Democrat replaces Trump they're certainly not going to keep his head of the EPA. Giving them guaranteed terms that are of similar length to the President's doesn't strike me as something likely to change much in a helpful way -- and you still have the same issues in choosing who to select to begin with. ~~~ samcday Yeah, my suggestions were just spitballin'. I have exactly zero experience formulating good public policy :) I find it fascinating though since I have no illusions that even the best policy nerd is ever gonna come up with an optimal solution, but I'm positive there's plenty of low hanging fruit! > how do you get good and honest lawmakers and exclude incompetent and corrupt > ones, when the people choosing them have insufficient time and expertise? I think this is the crux of the problem, but I also think it's actually a problem no matter what. Because if you don't regulate, you're just basically crossing your fingers and hoping shitty people don't climb the corporate ladder at Boeing / AT&T / Volkswagen / whatever. > How do you get honest specialists who know what they're doing to even run, > and how does a random voter tell the difference between that person and an > industry shill prior to putting them in office? Well I guess in my head I figured that if it becomes an enviable electable position, then you're creating healthy competition for it. In the same way we sort of all collectively hope that competent and benevolent people will run for Congress, the presidency, etc. By making the positions individually electable and clearly demarcated, I would hope that then the public is making decisions for that role more based on competency, rather than charisma. Put differently, I'm not a huge fan of representative democracy because I think it inevitably descends into cult of personality, but I don't necessarily have something I can hold up as a better way ;) > If a Democrat replaces Trump they're certainly not going to keep his head of > the EPA. Yeah but that's my point. The people making policy in the airline industry, or the telecom industry, or whatever, should ideally be formulating public policy in the most bipartisan way possible. If you made those roles independent from the current ruling party, then it would mean that those organization heads would need to maintain healthy ties to the major parties, since they wouldn't be able to effectively carry out their role if they're only pals with Bernie and are universally hated by all conservatives. I'm probably just hopelessly naive, but I think it should be the moderates who are making decisions about how to maintain airline safety, not some hyper partisan cronie of the DNC or RNC. ------ elil17 It sounds like Reuters is trying to draw a connection between this and the 737 Max crashes, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that better testing in silico would not have caught that issue just as well as physical testing ~~~ alkonaut And let’s not forget that too strict requirements for _new_ airframes is part of what led Boeing to keep modifying the original 737 design instead of building something that would require new certification for both planes and pilots. ------ dreamcompiler It's time for the Feds to insist that Boeing return to developing aircraft in an adversarial manner, where dedicated teams try to break everything the primary engineers build. Adversarial engineering is the only proven reliable way to build safety-critical systems. It costs more initially, but it's less expensive than the penalties and lawsuits later. ~~~ dsfyu404ed So what you're saying is they need competition? ~~~ dreamcompiler They have competition from Airbus. But this is too coarse-grained in time to provide the necessary incentives to improve safety. ------ contravariant I'm not really against testing something in a simulation, but in this case would the simulation be using the same software that designed the thing in the first place? Because in that case you're not so much testing it with software as just removing any testing altogether. ------ mhb Boeing 777 wing loading test: [https://youtu.be/Ai2HmvAXcU0](https://youtu.be/Ai2HmvAXcU0) ------ conistonwater > _expanding the use of digital analysis over costlier physical testing_ Oh no. > _For example, when vibrating a fuselage on an enormous platform to expose > weaknesses - known as fatigue testing - the vast majority of the time the > tool itself breaks instead of the airframe, according to a person with > knowledge of past tests. Such work is costly and has reliably confirmed > engineers’ expectations, he added._ Is this just hubris, or is this real? That's a lot of confidence to place in a software model. ~~~ chroem- It's not software: it's mathematics. You don't build a bridge by successively creating bridges with more and more structural reinforcement until the bridges stop falling down. Instead, you calculate the appropriate size of the columns using a model and only build a single bridge. This is no different. Finite element methods are such a known quantity that we're able to design nuclear weapons without ever testing them in meatspace. If it's good enough for nuclear weapons, I am strongly convinced it's good enough for something as simple as stress analysis. ~~~ tempguy9999 I'm neither an aero engineer nor a nuke weapons designer but I am pretty sure that nuclear weapons are a whole lot more complex than a plane. As for not testing nukes, I'm damn sure they test the relevant non-nuclear parts such as the lensing (conventional) explosives. > ...for something as simple as stress analysis Of _entire wings_? From the article "..such as using machines to bend the wings to extreme angles and shaking the fuselage until it cracks" Your job isn't in this area I guess. I'm sure of it. BTW the model is only as good as its inputs so if you have a defective batch of components (and wasn't there very recently a case where a bunch of deliberately below-spec aluminium parts were delivered to various aerospace companies which cost lots to rectify) then your model had better refelect that defect. But how are you going to find out? With pure maths? ~~~ chroem- > Your job isn't in this area I guess. I'm sure of it. I'm a mechanical engineer. My point is that stress analysis is the oldest, simplest, and most well understood application of finite element analysis. I can't even begin to imagine the multiphysics that goes into simulating a nuclear weapon, but if we are willing to bet our entire nuclear deterrent on it, it seems reasonable to skip some additional rounds of physical tests that are mostly a formality at this point. Also, defective materials are caught much earlier in the manufacturing process through quality assurance methods, before they become airplanes. And then you apply a factor of safety on your calculations for added assurance. ~~~ kanaba > I'm a mechanical engineer. My point is that stress analysis is the oldest, > simplest, and most well understood application of finite element analysis. I am not a mechanical engineer. My understanding is that some composite materials used in modern aircraft manufacturing can fail in ways unlike classic aircraft aluminum (i.e. suddenly, without prior visible signs of stress/wear). Is that relevant here? ~~~ goatinaboat I am a mechanical engineer, and yes it is. The composites are simply too new to have all their properties adequately modelled yet. And they are a moving target. ------ taneq Well, in theory there's no difference between theory and practice... ~~~ noir_lord I think (since the topic is software testing of physical things) that this classic applies. > Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried > it. - Knuth. ------ throw2016 This is another instance of market failure with the mantra of 'freedom', self regulation and 'good intentions' spectacularly coming undone. Boeing's CEO is incredibly still in office inspite of damning evidence of incompetence which is a straight indictment the whole concept of 'shareholder interest' and accountability. Can anyone provide one instance where shareholder interest has ensured some kind of accountability of management? Why shouldn't Boeings top management be fired for seriously damaging the company and the brand? ~~~ astrange Boeing's share price hasn't gone down, therefore they haven't actually damaged the company. ~~~ throw2016 If this doesn't affect Boeing's share price what will? This raises even more questions about the stock markets accurately reflecting business sustainability, revenue pipelines and brand damage given 737 Max orders are now essentially over. [1][2] [1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/boeing-s-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/boeing-s-600-billion- in-max-orders-at-risk-as-airlines-retreat) [2] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-737-max-deliveries- fell-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-737-max-deliveries-fell-in- march-11554826316) ------ kjar Boeing cost cutting as the Max runtime defects pile up - aircraft groundings, returns, and cancelled sales. My confidence in this rationale is non-existent. ------ anticensor They are asking for more trouble by doing this. ------ solarkraft Brilliant PR. Let's have more Boeings crash.
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ES2015 is not backward compatible with ES5 - tbassetto http://bocoup.com/weblog/es2015-nightmarefile/ ====== Nadya I dislike it was made with as clickbait - but on the other hand I probably wouldn't have read the entire thing otherwise... so I'll tolerate it this time! TL;DR: The breaking changes only occur in rare, isolated, and "who would even do that?" scenarios. My opinion on the matter: I've always had a huge dislike for (most) cases of backwards compatibility when it sacrifices potential progress to avoid breaking things of the past. Why should everyone be dragged down instead of others forced to improve? It saddens me that backwards compatibility and "reaching the largest audience" is the reasons for this: marketing. A 'reliable' tool that isn't going to break all your old code 3 releases later is more likely to be used for production to avoid maintenance/rewriting of legacy code. So I know "why" \- but dislike that that is how things work.
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Anonymous hijacks Syria's government pages - jimmyjim http://mod.gov.sy/ ====== lotharbot The text loads slowly. It actually freezes if you're in another tab, which IMO is a poor implementation decision; it means you actually have to sit and watch it come on the screen word by word. For those who either don't want to wait for it to load, or didn't get to it before it got taken down, here's what it says: \-------------------------- To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in the face of the regime's brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery Bashar Al-Assad is next. To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country - rise up against the regime! - Anonymous \------------------------- Once the text has loaded, it links to several revolutionary sites, and also scrolls images across the top that apparently link to youtube videos. ~~~ kaichanvong Kids these days huh! Never knowing when and when not to use javascript and how to implement things in the most accessible manner. Wonder how well it worked on IE6 and how many Syrian people run that browser or the latest ones... Anyone have any stats? ~~~ muxxa IE6 8.53% [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-SY- monthly-201007...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-SY- monthly-201007-201107) ------ adammichaelc In case you don't want to wait for the page to load, here's what you'll see: <http://postimage.org/image/75ivivdw/> The actual text: To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in the face of the regime's brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery Bashar Al-Assad is next. To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country - rise up against the regime! - Anonymous ------ 8ig8 <!-- mod.gov.sy was seized for the people by Poppy :) Support the fight vs oppressive regimes in #operationfreedom @ irc.anonops.li Props to the hundreds of Syrians that had mailed this server with messages of protest over the past year. You're admirably, recklessly brave! --> ------ yaix This is a very good hack and also a reminder for Western countries and political actors that these kind of break-ins are not necessarily criminals acts but may be political demonstrations. If a break-in is non-destructive and has as motivation a political demonstration, in a democracy it should be treated as such and not be brushed aside as "criminal". ~~~ yid A break-in, by definition, is criminal regardless of the motivation. This would be like breaking into city hall to stage a protest -- the protest part is democratic, the break-in part is criminal. ~~~ danenania How about when the folks making the laws are criminals? Perhaps we should be more concerned with right and wrong than following the rules. ~~~ khafra When the folks making the laws are criminals, breaking the law is still criminal. By definition. Whether it's right or wrong is a different and more nuanced question; but it's not the question addressed by the parent. I sympathise with your perspective, but I dislike "debate drift." ~~~ danenania In that case, using the word 'criminal' as if it's at all relevant to the situation is 'debate drift'. It's a loaded word and its use as a label carries well known connotations. I'm not disputing the tautological definition, I'm disputing the implicatons of invoking it. Put another way, you don't often hear Gandhi or Martin Luther King referred to as 'criminals', even if by definition it's the truth. There's a reason for that, and there's a reason why I'd tend to be pretty skeptical of someone who chose such a label for those men in conversation, technically factual though it may be. ~~~ khafra That's not the way I read the original use of "criminal," but that's a legitimate argument to make. The thing to do would have been to say something like "I agree with you denotatively, but disagree with your connotations," and explain why. Not to fight debate drift with more debate drift. ------ sage_joch The page is nearly unresponsive. If the idea is for the Syrian people to see it, this is an unfortunate side effect of being on the top of Reddit/HN. ~~~ redthrowaway Mirror's here: <http://zone-h.org/mirror/id/14599065> ~~~ moe Better link (without the frameset): <http://zonehmirrors.net/defaced/2011/08/08/mod.gov.sy/> ------ agilo Fyi, mod = ministry of defense ------ lightyrs Great production values. ------ XLcommerce How are people in Syria accessing the net? If it's mostly mobile and/or ie6 then I hope this was tested on those platforms. ~~~ burgerbrain Well it works great on android at least. ------ redthrowaway The traffic seems to have killed the site. Here's a mirror showing what it looked like when it was still responsive: <http://zone-h.org/mirror/id/14599065> ------ adrianwaj Kudos. I am hoping Anon do more than just deface for moral support, but actually ruin and undermine as much of their systems as possible. ------ JDulin Well done Anonymous. Although it may seem like an empty gesture based on what the U.S. government has (or hasn't) done. ~~~ BasDirks Anon is not buddies with the US gov. Anon does what it can do. ------ Ideka And now it seems Syrian "hackers" defaced Anon+. <http://anonplus.com/> ------ dkersten I can't load the page so don't know if the text was in English only or also in Arabic. I was in Syria in October 2009 on business and.. about 80% (or perhaps even higher) of the population did _not_ speak _any_ English, so this text isn't going to help much. EDIT: Ok, I see from the mirror that it is in both English and Arabic. ~~~ ordinary There are 3 links to mirrors or images in this thread. It would have been trivial to find out that the text was both in English and Arabic. ------ yarian Make sure you wget :) ~~~ yannis good idea! ------ niels_olson dear anonymous, thanks. Please do libya also. And if you could access their fire control systems, I have friends who could make use of that access. ~~~ randomanonymous Agent Provocateur.... ------ shpoonj Bravo. I don't think there's anything more to say. ------ jessica_moyer Exciting!
{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dear Klout, This Is How You Measure Influence - kjhughes http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/21/science-social-contagion-klout/ ====== phant0ms Klout is the most ridiculous thing ever. Sure, it helps you visibly notice who could be considered an influencer, but the scoring system is completely messed up and the topics you're authoritative on can be completely off base with no mention at all.
{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Turn off DoH, Firefox - telmich https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/09/11/turn-off-doh-firefox/ ====== jfindley This is painful to read. Masses off unfounded FUD - the article deliberately buries that it's trivial to change your DoH provider if you're silly enough to believe that CF is actively logging DoH requests and selling them (CF is involved with serving vast swathes of the internet anyway - if they wanted to go down this route they have _far_ more lucrative avenues open than selling DNS requests by IP). If instead what you worry about is the government spying on your traffic then complaining about DoH is even _more_ silly - DNS requests are routinely intercepted and monitored by ISPs in many countries, with the information available to the security services, who have very few restrictions on what they are allowed to do with this data. This is especially true in the country the author appears to be based (Germany). DoH is vital to protect users around the world from censorship and worse. Enabling it by default is a _good_ thing - protecting users from abuse shouldn't only be opt-in. There has to be SOME default chosen, and the default needs to be a site large and well run enough to a) handle the load, and b) be in the firefox HSTS preload list. There aren't a lot of good DoH providers that fit these criteria - CF is one of the few. ~~~ yosamino There's nothing that makes Cloudflare the more "privacy friendly" 3rd party. "Privacy friendly" would be a mechanism by which my desire to communicate with "example.com" involved my computer and the computer at example.com with _no_ third party in between. As it stands Mozilla is switching out our local ISP for CloudFlare without asking our consent which means my traffic data is now spread around one _more_ company - that seems like less privacy. And I am not looking forward to finding out the fun ways in which this will break our local DNS. The idea that Cloudflare is in way more trustworty than my local ISP is at best naïve. All this creates is another huge centralized pool of data with no oversight whatsoever except the _promise_ of some company that is currently growing fast, that they will not do anything with that data. Come the times when money becomes tight again, we'll see how well that promise holds up. Sure, encrypting DNS is a good thing. But this is just like trying to make email more secure by using a 3rd party encryption gateway - all it does is moving around who to trust. That's not privacy - that's just silly ~~~ diffeomorphism > that seems like less privacy. Seems obvious, but is wrong. If there is a really obvious obstacle to anything, which immediately comes to mind, chances are people addressed this already. In the US, Firefox by default directs DoH queries to DNS servers that are operated by CloudFlare, meaning that CloudFlare has the ability to see users' queries. Mozilla has a strong Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) policy in place that forbids CloudFlare or any other DoH partner from collecting personal identifying information. To mitigate this risk, our partners are contractually bound to adhere to this policy. [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over- https](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over-https) ~~~ icebraining Before, my ISP could gather the domains I visit by DNS. Now, they can still gather them from the IP addresses and SNI, _and_ Cloudflare can gather them from DNS. I'm really struggling to see how this isn't a reduction in privacy. > Mozilla has a strong Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) policy in place that > forbids CloudFlare or any other DoH partner from collecting personal > identifying information. To mitigate this risk, our partners are > contractually bound to adhere to this policy. What happens if they get a FISA warrant? How does your contract protect users that before didn't have their DNS queries sent to US companies? ~~~ diffeomorphism Your ISP can gather them with much, much more effort. There is privacy value in making things harder. The only motivation your ISP has for logging this is making money; if getting the information is too tedious and expensive why would they bother? > and Cloudflare can gather them from DNS but is contractually forbidden from saving that information. > What happens if they get a FISA warrant? They have to follow the law? Wrong threat model. ~~~ a-raccoon > Wrong threat model. You are not permitted to hand-wave corrupt government interception or rubberhosing of civilian data as "wrong threat model." These technologies are central to, and must be focused specifically on, protecting all civilian data from all governments. That is the primary purpose of all privacy systems. Not to protect you from coffee-shop denizens trying to snoop which dating sites you use. ~~~ dredmorbius Your ISP is subject to the same FISA warrant threat. If it's one of the large monopoly providers, it's as much a one-stop-shop as Cloudfront is. ~~~ TeMPOraL Not outside the US. Now unless Mozilla decides to pick a different DoH party for deployment in EU, the problem will come back. ~~~ dangerface The internet is as much of a monopoly outside of the US for example Tiscali in Europe. We have the same kangaroo courts when it comes to getting warrants to invade people privacy. At least from a general perspective I don't see a big difference. ~~~ icebraining But it's not one or the other; an EU court will make a warrant for the ISP traffic data, and an US court for the DNS requests. You become vulnerable to both. ~~~ vsl 1.1.1.1 operates on edges of CloudFlare CDN - EU users will be handled by EU DNS server. And there’s no logging. ~~~ icebraining Cloudflare is still a US company. Do you have any FISA jurisprudence showing that simply running the server on another country makes it immune to warrants? > And there’s no logging. Until the courts say there must be. ------ userbinator It's very disturbing to see the overreach that Mozilla has resorted to and the "privacy" argument (it was "security" before that...) being used to justify essentially ignoring system configuration. My ISP has more accountability than a company in another country. _The correct way would be to standardise DoH and DoT and add support into it into automatic address configurations and operating systems._ Exactly. If Mozilla wants to, it's more than welcome to reach into the VPN area with its own products, but I don't believe this functionality should be part of a browser. They're already reaching into the VPN area[1], should they also investigate bypassing Chinese censorship with their own "firewall- busting" obfuscating VPN? That's not something most users want nor need in their browsers, and such functionality is really a cat-and-mouse game that I think is best left to smaller and less-well-known entities. It's unfortunate that browsers are already beyond "neutral", when IMHO the only thing they should do is fetch exactly the page URL that was entered and display it. Edit: yes, apparently people disagree and want Mozilla to control what the Internet (and every user, ignoring his/her default configuration) does. This is really _really_ disturbing. [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927832) ~~~ gnode > the only thing [browsers] should do is fetch exactly the page URL that was > entered and display it. I strongly disagree. Browsers deal with a hostile environment that poses countless threats to their users, and need to be safe. Arguing that browsers should be minimal and not protect privacy is like arguing that cars should be minimal and not have seat belts. There is an argument that ensuring privacy in DNS could be done outside the browser. I think HTTPS is a good precedent for putting privacy in the scope of the browser; the browser should attempt to ensure that privacy expected by the user is established or it should refuse to operate. I disagree with the solution of trusting Cloudflare, but privacy should be considered crucial to user safety in modern browser design decisions. ~~~ userbinator _I strongly disagree. Browsers deal with a hostile environment that poses countless threats to their users, and need to be safe. Arguing that browsers should be minimal and not protect privacy is like arguing that cars should be minimal and not have seat belts._ I strongly disagree. A browser has one job, and that is to follow and render URLs. Secure connections and such are services provided by other components of the OS, and the browser should absolutely use those services but not attempt to overreach its main purpose. It's really the principle of "do one thing and do it well". To spin your analogy, you're arguing that cars should have seatbelts that also check your age and blood alcohol level because "that's also a safety thing". _There is an argument that ensuring privacy in DNS could be done outside the browser_ Yes, the same way that VPN clients are; and I'm perfectly happy for Mozilla to be working in that area, but most certainly do not put that in the browser and do not make it default. ~~~ Spivak What do you do as a browser vendor when the OS fails to provide you meaningful security and privacy? This is pretty much how we got here. Basically every device on the planet is right now configured to blindly accept whatever DNS server is handed to it by DHCP and there is really no movement on changing that. So browsers can throw up their hands and say "we are as secure as the OS" or they can do it themselves. Not ideal but the alternative is worse for users. ~~~ userbinator _What do you do as a browser vendor when the OS fails to provide you meaningful security and privacy?_ Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Work within the environment you're given. _Basically every device on the planet is right now configured to blindly accept whatever DNS server is handed to it by DHCP and there is really no movement on changing that._ ...and that's just fine, because I trust my LAN more than some third party in another country. ------ akerro Of course, I'd rather trust unecncrypted plaintext DNS queries that go to my ISP and government! If you don't like CF just switch to different provider [https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over- HTTPS](https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS) ~~~ Aaargh20318 > I'd rather trust unecncrypted plaintext DNS queries that go to my ISP and > government! I trust my ISP and government more than a US company I have no formal contract with and the US government. Also, there's the whole 'applications should not override system level settings' thing. My DHCP pushes a local (caching) DNS server that also does name resolution for internal services. This change would break that for all Firefox users on my network. ~~~ roblabla > I trust my ISP and government more than a US company I have no formal > contract with and the US government. And every single intermediary and whoever else might be listening in? This is an unencrypted plaintext connection. Which is the main point here. The whole "we trust ISP more" thing is completely beside the point. The point is DNS is horribly insecure nowadays, and it is about damn time we switch to something better. > Also, there's the whole 'applications should not override system level > settings' thing. Hopefully, DoH will become a system level setting eventually. ~~~ seszett If you use your ISP's DNS servers, there is no intermediary between you and them. ~~~ unethical_ban If you use wi-fi without a VPN, you have the coffee shop and the coffee shop's ISP. And anyone listening there. Of course there is cleartext SNI even for SSL connections... but alas. ~~~ Aaargh20318 What coffee shop ? I only connect to wifi at home and at the office. ~~~ unethical_ban And you're the only person who uses mobile computing devices. ~~~ Aaargh20318 Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. ------ Aissen This is a gross over-simplification. Cloudflare is required by contract to respect your privacy, which is much stronger than even the privacy laws have here in the EU since it addresses everyone, not just the EU population: [https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to- priv...](https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to- privacy/privacy-policy/firefox/) The people fighting for the status quo probably know how to run their own resolver, even with DoH or DTLS. But Mozilla's conundrum is how to protect _everyone_ 's privacy (and to a certain extent, security). DoH, despite all its flaws, attempts to do that by piggy-backing on already working infrastructure, so it seems like a good fit to move everyone to DoH. But then, they're the chicken-and-egg problem. How do you make sure people deploy local DoH resolvers if no browser enforces the move to DoH ? How do you make sure those resolvers are truthful, or even respect local law (having both is often impossible). So, you need to compromise. I'd have preferred to have temporary non-profit third party entity handle this à-la-Letsencrypt, but Mozilla deemed its contract with Cloudflare sufficient to provide enough guaranties. Ideally, name resolution should be done closer to the user instead of being centralized like that. But by arguing instead of experimenting we just keep the status quo. Time will tell if this was a bad decision. But it's not as clear cut as this blog post says it is. ~~~ nullc A contract where cloudflare receives no consideration isn't particularly comforting, as such agreements are routinely ignored by courts (or equivalently by capping damages at nothing). > Mozilla's conundrum is how to protect everyone 's privacy And exactly how does this protect user's privacy? Instead of the user's ISP being able to see where the user connects now both cloudflare AND the user's ISP (via seeing the connection itself) can tell. ~~~ Aissen Re: the contract, let's hope you're wrong. Re: privacy: by not having lying DNS or no NXDOMAIN, there is also less tracking (say, fingerprinting in ad web pages). And in the ISP's case, you're assuming they already do DPI, otherwise they now see IPs, which might not mean much in the CDN case. But if they do DPI, it will be resolved once ESNI starts being deployed. ~~~ TeMPOraL > _Re: the contract, let 's hope you're wrong._ Switching from a technical measure of privacy (no data being shared) to _hope_ isn't the right way to go. > _But if they do DPI, it will be resolved once ESNI starts being deployed._ Once. ~~~ zzzcpan > > But if they do DPI, it will be resolved once ESNI starts being deployed. > Once. This underestimates DPI vendors. eSNI can't stop them, they will just move to exploit side channel information (traffic patterns) to identify which websites you are visiting. People need to remember, that DPI industry has been fighting with obfuscation for years, it's a war where Cloudflare and Mozilla are compete newbies. ~~~ Aissen These are just unsubstantiated assertions. Fingerprinting does exist, but what you're saying is that there might be methods we haven't foreseen that will be implemented to improve DPI analysis and tampering. So what ? Do nothing in the meantime ? ------ isostatic > The correct way would be to standardise DoH and DoT and add support into it > into automatic address configurations and operating systems. Not in > applications! You're right. But so are Mozilla. Here we are 30 years into the web, and we're still using plain old DNS. DNS over TLS should have caught on, but it didn't. Apple and Microsoft had years to ensure it's implemented as standard, but they didn't. The points this article makes - about DHCP options, about multiple providers, are very valid. But they're also just talking shops. The biggest problems here seems to be 1) DHCP can't give internal DOH servers. When I'm at home I want it landing on my own DOH server, but when I'm away I want to use a different one. 2) Internal DNS resolving falls to bits ~~~ m-p-3 Agreed, I'd prefer setting up the DNS-over-HTTPS config at the gateway level (and either push the config over DHCP, or have the gateway act as a local resolver, which forwards the new requests over DoH), but we're not there yet. ~~~ isostatic In theory isn't it "just" a matter of agreeing a DHCP option number, then having the DHCP client (or vpn client or whatever) be responsible for passing it to applications that want it (including the system resolver, be that mDNSResponder, systemd, glibc, whatever windows uses) Anyone who wants to can configure their dhcp client to ignore it, or use a different service, you could even have applications doing that too, but this would allow a network operator to tell people where the recommended resource is. Likewise if you want to change your DNS provider yourself you would have a single location on your machine to do it for the entire OS, rather than having to change 50 different applications. ------ gommm As someone who has donated to Mozilla over the years and used Firefox as much as possible, this makes me very unlikely to donate in the future. People say that it's trivial to change. It's trivial to change for us who are technically minded. It's far from obvious and will not be changed by non- technical users. This will only increase the massive amount of data that Cloudflare gets about people's online behavior. I am always very skeptical of centralization and of having a company get this much information. Remember google's Don't be evil? I'm extremely uncomfortable with such a massive centralization of data. People might say that the status co is not great because DNS is sent to the ISP. I'd argue the status co is better because it's far less centralized. And, at least for Europeans, I trust European legislation better than US legislations. I can understand the argument that some countries have mass surveillance and it's a net positive for users in those countries since it will protect them. But in that case, I feel that the default should be randomized from a list of provider, not only one company. I also would be much less concerned by this if it was an option on first startup with a clear explanation (even though users tend to not read and blindly click accept, it's at least more of an informed consent) And anyway, that purpose of preventing mass surveillance and blocking in those countries where it would actually be useful seems to be moot because of: > Additionally, Mozilla is also working with ISPs to make sure users won't use DoH as a way to bypass legally-set blocklists. > The organization said it's been asking ISPs and providers of network-based > parental control solutions to add a "canary domain" to their blocklists. > When Firefox will detect that this canary domain is blocked, it will disable > DoH to prevent the feature to be used as a filter-bypassing solution. So, if isp in countries with censorship can use a canary website to prevent users from bypassing "legally-set blocklists". What is the point again of enabling this? ~~~ diffeomorphism > This will only increase the massive amount of data that Cloudflare gets > about people's online behavior No, it explicitly won't. Mozilla has a strong Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) policy in place that forbids CloudFlare or any other DoH partner from collecting personal identifying information. To mitigate this risk, our partners are contractually bound to adhere to this policy. [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over- https](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over-https) ~~~ toupeira Which sounds nice in theory, but there are the usual legal exceptions: > The resolver must not retain, sell, or transfer to any third party ( _except > as may be required by law_ ) any personal information, IP addresses or other > user identifiers, or user query patterns from the DNS queries sent from the > Firefox browser. > Transparency Report. There must be a transparency report published at least > yearly that documents the policy for how the party operating the resolver > will handle law enforcement requests for user data and that documents the > types and number of requests received and answered, _except to the extent > such disclosure is prohibited by law_. > The party operating the resolver should not by default block or filter > domains _unless specifically required by law in the jurisdiction in which > the resolver operates_. This doesn't really matter if you live in the US, but most of us don't. ------ coleifer There are two points: 1\. centralization of all dns lookups is worrisome 2\. Dns should not be handled by applications. It should be handled by the operating system. I see a lot of people conflating the two in the comments. ~~~ kbumsik > 2\. Dns should not be handled by applications. It should be handled by the > operating system. I agree with #1 but why it should be managed by the OS? ~~~ vezycash It's annoying. I've already experienced this with chrome as chrome ignores my hosts file settings. Example: Say you use hosts file to block porn and other shady sites for your kid, all they have to do is use chrome. ~~~ Someone1234 This has nothing to do with the topic. Chrome isn't replacing the OS's DNS resolver, and that bug is just that: a bug. A bug that I cannot reproduce. Chrome follows my HOSTS file fine on Windows 10. But even if it didn't it would still be off-topic. ------ Chirael It seems like this change by Firefox would bypass a pi-hole. Am I understanding it correctly? ~~~ userbinator ...and a local HOSTS file. So now it will, by default, contact all the ad/tracking hosts that you configured to be blocked. "But now your DNS queries to those ad/tracking hosts are encrypted!" No. I don't care. I didn't want to connect to those hosts in the first place. ~~~ cremp Even worse, corporate _intranet_ addresses get leaked. Everyone on this article saying it's FUD is either a framework junky, isn't seeing the bigger picture, or just focus on one wrong thing in the article. ~~~ m-p-3 It's actually FUD, because it's missing some important points > For starters, Mozilla said that after it turns on DoH by default for US > users, Firefox will contain a mechanism to detect the presence of any local > parental control software or enterprise configurations. > Additionally, Mozilla is also working with ISPs to make sure users won't use > DoH as a way to bypass legally-set blocklists. > The organization said it's been asking ISPs and providers of network-based > parental control solutions to add a "canary domain" to their blocklists. > When Firefox will detect that this canary domain is blocked, it will disable > DoH to prevent the feature to be used as a filter-bypassing solution. [https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-to-gradually-enable- dn...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-to-gradually-enable-dns-over- https-for-firefox-us-users-later-this-month/) ~~~ cremp I hardly see how the OP is FUD. What the article states is true; just because you can opt-out doesn't mean it's wrong. Where you are drawing the line is the opt-out to disable it, as opposed to the convention of opt-in. Think about companies in the 50-200 employee range; As a sysadmin, I have to purposefully go out of my way to put that domain (use-application-dns.net)[1] in my root resolver, and point it to NXDOMAIN. I can't do it if another provider is managing my DNS (ISP, cloud service...); it also doesn't actually guarantee that it is off. > If a user has chosen to manually enable DoH, the signal from the network > will be ignored and the user’s preference will be honored. The basic IT mantra has been 'If it aint broke, don't fix it.' Mozilla itself is moving fast and breaking things; which is why we have standards in the first place. For god sake, there isn't even a proper RFC to select yes or no to DoH. I, as a sysadmin, must not only implement the domain in my resolver, but I also must keep in my mind that if a user is using Firefox, that there are things it does internally that are not right, and it is easier for me to have my users on Chrome, because it is less of a headache for me. [1] [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks- di...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks-disable-dns- over-https) ~~~ comex Indeed, Firefox is prioritizing the interests of users over the interests of sysadmins. Personally, I'm fine with that. > The basic IT mantra has been 'If it aint broke, don't fix it.' An unencrypted protocol that compromises privacy may not be "broke" for sysadmins, but it is for users. ~~~ YarickR2 Well, now CF will know per-organization IT structures. All those LAN-only administrative interfaces, and, with link prefetching, internal resource maps could be built in just a few clicks , using account with sufficient privileges. This is such a security-defying move by Mozilla I can't even start. And CF DNS logs will be the obvious first step for every targeted attack. ~~~ comex Sure, if your targeted attacker has managed to compromise Cloudflare first… Not exactly a trivial prerequisite. If you have any kind of VPN or Wi-Fi access to your network, those domain names are already leaking to other DNS providers whenever someone accidentally accesses a URL while on the wrong network. Also, if your internal resources are using publicly trusted SSL certificates, the domain names are already being broadcast to the public thanks to Certificate Transparency. If you’re sophisticated enough to run a private CA for them, then you’re probably sophisticated enough to set up use-application- dns.net as well – though I still wouldn’t recommend ever treating domain name secrecy as a meaningful security boundary, considering how many ways they can be leaked. The remaining possibility is that your internal resources aren’t using SSL at all... in which case you have bigger problems than domain name leaks. ------ dreamcompiler I had no idea this was going to be the default. It's massively wrong. I use a Pihole DNS server, which means after a lot of debugging I'd have discovered Firefox had unilaterally decided to _stop abiding by internet protocols_. It's always one step forward and two back with these Moz guys. I guess that's better than every step back like Chrome, but jeez Moz, get a clue. ------ mantap This misses the forest for the trees. In the UK ISPs are already legally mandated to log your web requests and provide them to the government. Those who live under free regimes should not deny those of us who live under oppressive governments the right to privacy of our communications. The fact that cloudflare is a US entity and thus not subject to UK law is the whole point. ~~~ cookie_monsta > The fact that cloudflare is a US entity and thus not subject to UK law is > the whole point. As a fellow citizen of a Five Eyes country, I assume that if any of those 5 have info about me that one of the other four wants it won't even be a question of paperwork for it to be shared. ~~~ mantap The previous UK law, RIPA, was abused for investigating minor crimes such as fraudulently obtaining disabled parking badges. It's not just about national governments but local municipal authorities too. Yes I would prefer another jurisdiction but it's way better than the status quo whereby the browsing history is just handed over. ~~~ cookie_monsta > The previous UK law, RIPA, was abused for investigating minor crimes such as > fraudulently obtaining disabled parking badges. I understand that you're trying to illustrate a larger problem, but that example is likely to get you zero sympathy from anybody, anywhere. I know that US ISPs have an established pattern of "just handing over" browsing history, but I have no idea what CF's track record is like. ------ codedokode > It is clear what Mozilla needs to do: Mozilla can and should revert the > change and allow users to easily opt-in. I think it should be on by default. In my country encrypted DNS makes it more difficult for the government to track what people watch and to block sites. > And to select or enter the DoH provider instead of defaulting to Cloudflare. You can enter any DNS server address in Firefox. While I agree, that it is bad to concentrate all the world's DNS queries in the hands of an entity under US jurisdiction, not encrypting DNS is much worse currently. So Cloudflare and US government are the lesser evil for me. Also, if there were volunteers running free DoH servers then Mozilla could choose one of them randomly instead of sending all queries to USA. ~~~ saurik Why not install DoH system wide, then (the kind of change which is easy if tools like Firefox use the system APIs for this and very difficult if individual applications all reimplement DNS) instead of only doing it for Firefox? ~~~ codedokode Because it is easier to embed it into a browser rather than persuade vendors of all major OSes (Windows, Mac, Android and thousand of Linux distributions) to add it. Also, even if a company like Microsoft adds it to Windows, they will add it only to they latest version and leave people on Windows XP, 7 and 8 without protection. Same with Google - they will add it only to the latest Android. Because commercial companies want you to buy new products, not to use the old one for a long time. ------ m-p-3 What they should do is offer several alternatives when enabling DoH (Cloudflare isn't the only DoH provider out there), and anto-detect if your ISP or local network supports it at the enterprise level. At least you can change the provider in about:config. I don't remember if you can do it through the settings page. ~~~ akerro Many ISPs won't offer such thing [https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-isp-group- names-mozilla-int...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-isp-group-names- mozilla-internet-villain-for-supporting-dns-over-https/) ~~~ raverbashing > claimed that Mozilla plans to support DNS-over-HTTPS "in such a way as to > bypass UK filtering obligations and parental controls, undermining internet > safety standards in the UK." > By planning to support DNS-over-HTTPS, Mozilla is throwing a monkey wrench > in many ISPs' ability to sniff on customers' traffic and filter traffic for > government-mandated "bad sites." But I don't see why they can't offer their DoH, it seems their issue is with Cloudflare not with DoH per se ~~~ chii because most people don't know they can easily bypass the DNS based filters that is used to block "bad sites". DoH by default uses cloudflare's DNS, and so won't (need to) comply with the UK's filter laws. ~~~ profmonocle > DoH by default uses cloudflare's DNS, and so won't (need to) comply with the > UK's filter laws. I'm assuming the DoH servers used by British users are physically in the UK. (I believe they anycast the service from all of their edge locations, and they have several in the UK.) So the fact that Cloudflare doesn't have to comply with this law is precarious. Is it because only ISPs are required to comply? If so, it seems like a matter of time before Parliament amends the law to require any public DNS operator to implement the filters as well. ------ bennyp101 The only thing that annoys me slightly about this, is that I currently have a couple of pi-holes running at home (one for us, and one for the kids) and I have the Mikrotik setup to redirect any request for DNS to the correct pi (So even if they change the DNS on the device it still hits the pi) This is going to make that a pain - especially if they introduce it in the mobile version? ~~~ sjagoe You should be able to disable the Firefox default-on DoH across your network by returning NXDOMAIN for use-application-dns.net [1] I don't know how to configure pi-hole, but at the dnsmasq level you can do that with this directive: address=/use-application-dns.net/ [1] [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks- di...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks-disable-dns- over-https) ~~~ bennyp101 Interesting, thanks. I guess if these use normal DNS requests first to determine if it should be allowed, then it will work. > If a user has chosen to manually enable DoH, the signal from the network > will be ignored and the user’s preference will be honored Well, that kinda puts a dampner on it all! ------ falcolas It's worth noting that CloudFlare has already proven itself to not be a neutral party - they have proven willing to take sites offline for both legal and social pressure reasons. This will greatly impact the internet's ability to route around censorship as if it were damage. ~~~ AgentME I agree, only somewhere that hosts neo-nazi websites would be trustworthy enough for this. /s ------ clan The Internet was a great distributed system with reasonable separation of concerns. Now we are content that applications do their own name resolution and said resolution is centralised on a very few (non-altruistic) hands (CloudFlare/Google). Add amp to this. Sprinkle it with the views of people who run their own mail server and consider where this leaves us. I am not that naive and think we can keep ourselves in 1995. But I do think we give up on too many of the good parts all to freely. ~~~ pixl97 The internet also was 99% plaintext. Then we realized that governments would pull all kinds of tricks to watch that text. From your own state monitoring all the traffic, to outside states hijacking BGP and slurping up your data. This has, at least in the case of http centralized certificates. Here's the next thing, no one is stopping you from running your own DoH server. No one is stopping you from changing the FF config to use it. The big issue has been is the end user has been so unaware of security for so long and done so little about it _somebody has to_. There is no financial incentive for your ISP to care, so they have not. Most operating systems, specifically Windows, but also Apple have done little to nothing for client DNS security. This could have been handled between operating system developers and DNS infrastructure but they didn't care to. ~~~ zzzcpan > This could have been handled between operating system developers and DNS > infrastructure but they didn't care to. No, there was a lot of caring over the years as DNS is old and insecure, in particular unencrypted communications with authoritative DNS servers being the biggest issue. And yet completely ignored by DNS-over-HTTPS, because solving it would likely eliminate the need for resolvers in the middle, so surveillance capitalism isn't interested, they only want to "solve" it in a such way that doesn't really solve it, but just gives them DNS data. ------ mikl Disagree. Most users haven’t chosen their DNS server, so replacing one unchosen DNS server with another makes no practical difference. And DoH means that people snooping on your network can no longer spy on you. Cloudflare has committed themselves to not track users via DNS requests, and only log what’s strictly necessary. And if you distrust Cloudflare, you have a much bigger problem. Half the Internet routes through Cloudflare these days. If they wanted to spy on you, they have (potentially clear-text) access to a good chunk of your HTTPS traffic. And as many others have pointed out, it’s a much better recommendation to have people change the DoH server to something else. ------ ltt481 Living in Russia, I, for one, welcome DoH and ESNI. I know I trust Cloudflare more than my government and ISP (The same ISP that routinely spoofs requests to inject ad pages/reminders to pay for service, nevermind all the blocked sites). ~~~ konart Not like DoH helps much here though. ------ wwright How will this affect using Firefox on an intranet, where there are often services and websites on a local-only DNS server? Will Firefox be unable to reach those sites by default? ------ nullc Wow, thats awful that they're sending all user DNS requests to cloudflare without informed consent. Is this also potentially a violation of federal wiretap law? My ISP being able to monitor where I connect is not great, but being exposed to my ISP _and_ cloudflare monitoring it is not better-- and is also very unexpected. There are also at least somewhat clear standards of privacy expected from ISPs, it's entirely unclear to me what duty of care cloudflare has towards users of this service or what position they'd be in to resist further compromise of user data (through either legal or illegal means). ------ fimdomeio Does anyone knows why does mozilla think this is a good idea? Between each user sharing dns queries with their isps and everyone sharing dns queries with cloudflare it appears that it's obviously more secure the first approach even if none of them is really that great. ~~~ Avamander ISPs have proven themselves untrustworthy repeatedly, CloudFlare yet really hasn't. Not that I like the control they have, but it's honestly the fault of ISP's this has happened. ~~~ userbinator _some_ ISPs. The problem is that Mozilla is taking a very US-centric view of a product that is used worldwide. ~~~ gsnedders …and DNS over HTTPS, using CloudFlare, is only being enabled in the US. A US- centric view for a US-only decision seems fair to me? ------ unionpivo One thing that concerns me greatly is debugging network problems. Up until now, you could use dig, nslookup and other tools to see how your computers resolves to help you figure stuff out. Now what do you do? also what happens when firefox uses this cloudflare, some other X application will start using Z, and the third Y. Also I work, and used to work for many small shops (under 50 people) in different industries. Its standard practice to have internal domains, sometimes even having different things on the same domain (ie mail.comany.co is diffrenet server form inside and outside the network). If you don't have AD (increasingly common here with apple and linux laptops being the 95% of users), you will have to go to each user on every device that has firefox and help him fix the settings. I would say just block it at firewall level, but it's not trivial, without breaking sites that use cloudflare. ------ Crinus If the single DoH 'server' is the issue, wouldn't having a list of several 'servers' around the globe (hopefully in places where there isn't any form of censorship and preferably though non-commercial institutions) that the browser selects randomly solve this? ~~~ vetinari No. The browser has no business in selecting DNS servers; it is a system-wide setting and it should ask the operating system to resolve names. How the operating system resolves names, is up to it. It could use tcp-over- pigeons, if the sysadmin configured it so, and no application should be working around that. If you want to use DoH with Cloudflare, you are free to configure your system to do so. You will also get consistency, all your apps will use the same system, not just the browser. Let the others to have their systems configured as it suits them. ~~~ yuft Maybe if the OS providers were more proactive about DNS over TLS/HTTPS, Mozilla wouldn't have needed to do this to keep users secure. ~~~ vetinari Android does support DNS-over-TLS, and it does it in a way that does not break networks - whatever it gets from DHCP, it tries the same server with DoT first. Users can also configure their preferred DoT server. Linux, or at least the glibc-based distributions, have a concept of nss_modules; you can configure whatever mechanism you want, some people are using DNSCrypt or nss-tls, for example. Systemd-resolved, with all the hate it gets, does support DoT. So do other local caching resolvers, like Knot. With other systems, you would have to discuss that with the respective vendors. Vendors also discuss these issues with customers, and very few customers are fond of breaking their systems. Activism, as Mozilla has shown, is a good way to irritate a good chunk of your user base. The change would have to be gradual, and allow the local admins to be in control (like Android and Linux distributions do). ------ tssva I think this is a horrible idea and applications should respect the OS DNS configuration. I have already configured the instance of dnsmasq on my router at home to return NXDOMAIN for the canary domain. That being said I am a little confused by those that are concerned because this change would mean their DNS queries will be sent to a US company and they don't trust US companies. Firefox is developed and distributed by a US corporation and is just a susceptible to being forced to follow US government directives as Cloudflare. ------ kemonocode Also, do keep in mind that by using DoH, you're also rendering anything like Pi-Hole useless. The solution of course being to use DoH from the Pi-Hole device [0], picking your own provider and disabling it on Firefox. Only step you need to change is the part where upstream providers are given and use your own instead of Cloudflare's default. [0] [https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/](https://docs.pi- hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/) ------ mcovey I simply don't like DoH because I use a DNS provider that I have chosen - OpenDNS - specifically because they log my DNS queries _and let me see that log_. I don't mind DNS lookups from my network being logged, as long as the provider does accurate, uncensored DNS lookups. It's helped me find domains to block such as tracking domains used by IoT devices that I can't configure myself. I have my router directing all DNS traffic to OpenDNS so these devices can't pick their own servers, any outbound requests on port 53 will be redirected. If they start using DoH/DoT, I can't do that so easily. I'd have to start monitoring outbound traffic and do hostname resolution on the IPs. I think the privacy argument for DoH in the browser is fairly weak, since doing a DNS lookup is not really an indication of, well, anything really. No matter what domain it was, there's no indication that the user intended to visit a website or use a service on that domain, it could be as simple as a lookup to load an embedded image in a spam email. The only good usage of it is to prevent censorship via DNS. ------ sirtoffski Idk folks, the entire debate seems to be out of proportion. 1) If you do not agree with Mozilla’s actions - do not user their browser. I mean Mozilla isn’t forcing anyone to use Firefox. As a company they are free to design their product as they see fit. As an individual you are free to either use their product or not. 2) If you disagree and still chose to use Firefox - just because you are reading this means you have the knowledge to disable DoH. 3) If Mozilla remove the option to disable DoH over CF and you don’t like it - use another browser. 4) If you are concerned for other people’s data going to CF (specifically people who are not as well informed, people who don’t know what DoH or even DNS is) - very noble indeed, but unfortunately options are limited here. Encourage people to do some research and to decide for themselves whether or not they are as passionate about it. The main point I am making is just as we want to be free in choosing whether or not to use DoH over CF, Mozilla is as free to design their own product. ------ _Codemonkeyism I was never a conspiracy buff but the hordes of shills here who think it's a good idea to send the whole worlds browsing habits to the US a country with practically no protection of data lets this seem like a long prepared operation. The Chinese had to hack BGP to get that kind of data for a limited time. ------ lousken As a sysadmin and a user i dont see any problems with DoH, i can easily set a DNS entry[0] so that FF respects my company configuration. And as a user I've been using DoH for months, just not from cloudflare but from CZ NIC because the latency was slightly better. You can easily set your custom DoH provider with 2 clicks in the Options menu. Also for most users I see benefits, because most of them don't use VPNs on free wifis. edit: I also think OS maintainers are the main problem here, none of this would've happened if they supported DoT or DoH themselves. [0] [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks- di...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks-disable-dns- over-https) ------ tedk-42 I think it's good Firefox are leading the way on DoH. The ability to chose which DNS provider you query will be next on the feature list for Firefox I imagine. Cloudflare have the same mindset to do something about the vulnerability of DNS to snooping (see their 1.1.1.1 app). Two companies with the same mindset. I'm hoping others follow them. The article itself sounds paranoid and divides those that would rather trust private companies (with good intentions) against those that would rather trust their ISP/Government (also with good intentions). ------ tannhaeuser With Mozilla pushing their users around, it's inevitable that a FF fork with Moz's shenigans disabled will become mainstream. What's the current state of eg Seamonkey? ------ garganzol We are having zero problems with the current decentralized DNS architecture. Evidently, Mozilla plays the role of a Google's darling once again. Those financial "donations" have some interesting effects, aren't they? Aside from an official "Google Search Bar in Firefox" line. What's even more interesting is that Hacker News moderator deranked the topic. Probably all the actors represent the same mafia ring, as they painfully in need to defend those interests to stay commercially relevant in changing world (hello IPFS). ------ stordoff Maybe I'm missing something, but the "I think just me and you was safer" image feels a little misleading. There already was a third party - your ISP/DNS provider. ------ throw0101a In other news, bots have now started using DoH (one via Google's DoH service): * [https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/psixbot-no...](https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/psixbot-now-using-google-dns-over-https-and-possible-new-sexploitation-module) * [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20934680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20934680) ------ darkhorn I don't know about you guys but in Turkey if you query wikipedia.org from 8.8.8.8 it doesn't return results. However if you use DoH you can access Wikipedia. Thank you whoever contributed to DoH! ~~~ teddyh Whatever convinced Google – _Google_ – to censor Turkey, you don’t think they will be able to convince Cloudflare to do the same? This is a problem of centralization. ------ methou The stated problem is that there are few providers, as for the offending party - Firefox, it's they've defaulted to a company based in the US or a 14 Eyes member. It doesn't feel right to address the issue by blaming the DoH, or Firefox, as they are not defaulting to the prime evil - Google. I believe the better suggestion here to say is to set up own DoH servers, urge related parties to opensource their own implementation if there's none. ------ knorker The government already has your DNS queries. So the whole point of the argument is moot. The ISPs, and anyone they share the data with, also already have the DNS queries, so the argument is wrong. But also, if you do want just one government to have the data, do you prefer that data to go to your local country, which may be speech-oppressing regimes like Syria, Saudi Arabia, UK, Ukraine, or Iran? I fail to see how this is in any way a step backwards. ------ auslander List of FF "integrations" grows. There is also HIBP one. We need a clean from 3rd parties version, like ungoogled-chromium project. ------ Niksko Pretty hilarious that this entire article is negated by contractual agreements spelled out in Firefox's FAQ in DoH [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over- https](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-dns-over-https) ------ TX-i I don't understand the DoH protocol entirely. I thought the entire point of it was to pass encrypted requests to CloudFlare. Can anyone confirm how this works? I thought this was the entire point of DoH, adding encryption to requests and directing it away from the plaintext DNS requests. ------ m-p-3 For those who are uneasy to use CF DoH, here's a list of alternative DoH Resolvers [https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS#publicly- av...](https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS#publicly-available- servers) ------ NikkiA I had to turn it off, not because I'm opposed to the idea, far from it, I'd love to use DoH, but because cloudflare's spat with archive.is renders the whole thing useless if you ever need to browse archive.is stored copies of pages. ~~~ tick_tock_tick Kind of a disservice to call it cloudflare's spat when archive.is added special code to make their dns implementation non spec compliant only when queried by cloudflare. ~~~ yuft I wonder if they will deal with it now that all US Firefox users will be unable to use it by default. ------ tptacek _As somebody who 's been working for internet security over 20 years, we strongly believe that applications should not choose the DNS server. The operating system is designed to manage DNS and network settings for all applications._ This is nonsense. ~~~ tambre Instead of a reactionary remark please provide arguments and explanations for your viewpoint to actually further the discussion. ~~~ draw_down I think tptacek's comment is just fine as it is. ------ Grue3 Not convincing. I live in Russia, explain why I wouldn't want this turned on? ------ Tharkun The result will be simple: FF market share in corporate environments will drop. If sysadmins have to jump through hoops simply to get the thing to respect corporate DNS settings, then it won't be used. ------ distant_hat In places like India, blocking is often done at the DNS level. Cloudflare and Firefox are big reasons I can get around stupid overbroad government blocking of whatever they think is anti-national or porn. ------ DavideNL It's weird how large companies can make decisions like this (re-routing all DNS requests to the US) on their own, without local/EU government stepping in to prevent it... ------ paulcarroty DoH and DoT are very interested technologies, disabling them 'cause Cloudflare is ... strange. From another side, DoH/DoT prevents ISPs/government from DNS modifying/rerouting. ~~~ antientropic Why is that strange? It seems rather obvious to me why people are reluctant to route all their DNS queries through a for-profit company in a country with no real privacy laws (and one that you have to assume is backdoored by the NSA). ~~~ paulcarroty 'Cause it not vendor-locked to Cloudflare, you can use your own server. ------ treggle I strongly support DoH as it prevents government snooping on the public. It’s really unhelpful that people like this attack Firefox over this issue. Stand strong Firefox against this. ~~~ notyourday One goes fishing where the fish is. There are dozens of large and hundreds of medium to small ISPs in the US. There's only one Cloudflare. That's where the resources to get the data would be concentrated. It has been demonstrated with PRISM. If Mozilla wants to play this game, it really should make DoH a visible top level choice for a user. ~~~ magashna Most users don't understand DNS, HTTPS, or DoH. I think this decision overall is good, and for those who see and understand the possible issues, it's trivial to remedy. ------ 9588 I think dns (and many other "trivial" to implement sensitive services) should be a gov service. Preferably the eu and idealy made usable for anyone. ------ auslander OpenBSD folks removed it, and they are always right about security, as they were with disabling Intel hyperthreading. ------ auslander How decisions are made in Mozilla? By whom? Is there public discussion beforehand? ~~~ gcp This has been tested and debated for months. Initial support for Firefox rolled out 9 months ago or so: [https://miketabor.com/enable-dns-over-https- and-encrypted-sn...](https://miketabor.com/enable-dns-over-https-and- encrypted-sni-in-firefox/) The conclusion of the debate was that it vastly improves the privacy for most users. Which is why it shipped in Firefox. Take that into account when you read (misleading, factually wrong) push-back like the original article. ~~~ auslander > The conclusion of the debate Obviously debate is still on, as we see in here and in [0], and it looks like HN folks are not in favour of these integrations, including me. So question stands, how/why the debate was concluded, did all developers had a vote? Is there a link to discussion? [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927832) ~~~ gcp >it looks like HN folks are not in favour of these integrations, including me. I have no idea why you think that random HN discussion afterwards (in response to an article filled with misinformation!) would have any bearing on how Firefox is developed. [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/governance/) >Is there a link to discussion? There's been about 1.5 year of extended discussion and iteration over DoH, yes. I'm sorry but there certainly isn't just a "single" link! ------ bechampion privacy aside , how about internal hosted zones and stuff that isn't resolvable by TLDS or CCTLDS? ------ booblik My understanding is that the DNS query goes to the closest of the more than 180 Cloudflare servers, not specifically to the US servers. Complete FUD. ~~~ userbinator The point is that Cloudflare is a US company. From that perspective, where their servers are located is irrelevant. ~~~ booblik Of course it is relevant. They claim US government has access to all the logs, this is simply not true. ~~~ falcolas Please provide some proof that a US company would not have to respond to US government requests. The location of the servers doesn’t matter. ------ SimeVidas > It means people outside the US can now be fully tracked by US government How? ------ netfl0 Firefox, wth. Cloudflare is not the internet. ~~~ m-p-3 It's currently proxying 10.2% of all known websites (by the surveyor) on the entire Internet. [https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn- cloudflare/all/a...](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn- cloudflare/all/all) Not big, but not insignificant. ------ riccardogiorato I hope to see a solution from Mozilla, is it known why they choose DoH with Cloudflare? It seems a bit strange from a company always focused on OSS. ~~~ mikl There aren’t a whole bunch of companies that are able to provide a good DNS service world-wide. You’ll need high-reliability DNS servers co-located all over the world. Probably a multi-million dollar investment to get such a thing going, saying nothing of the running costs. ------ ros65536 I think this article would benefit from not shoehorning politics into the issue. Couldn't take this seriously after the irrelevant slight at Trump. ------ aazaa > DoH means that Firefox will concentrate all DNS traffic on Cloudflare, and > they send traffic from all their users to one entity. Why does DoH necessarily mean that Cloudflare will be handling the traffic? The article barrels right to that conclusion without explaining why. ~~~ bennyp101 The default setting in Firefox is to use Cloudfare as the DOH provider ~~~ aazaa Thanks for pointing this out. > It is clear what Mozilla needs to do: Mozilla can and should revert the > change and allow users to easily opt-in. And to select or enter the DoH > provider instead of defaulting to Cloudflare. Buried lede is buried.
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Ask HN: Best Way to Discover Blogs? - onlyrealcuzzo For podcasts, there&#x27;s a lot of discovery services popping up. And as far as keeping up with several different blogs, RSS is great for that.<p>But is there a service that makes it easy to discover blogs?<p>In a sense, HackerNews and Reddit and such sort of function as this indirectly. Ditto for Medium. I&#x27;m wondering if there&#x27;s something more direct. ====== tmaly You can use a combination of advanced google search operators along with recent content filters to find blog content [https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search- operators/](https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/) Popular Podcasts also serve as a good proxy for locating interesting blogs ------ lukaszkups Twitter. When you find interesting people to follow, most probably they also have interesting stuff on their websites/blogs.
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George Hotz Presents Comma Neo - phodo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM2_E2y4eCg ====== 3327 So let me get this straight. After 3mn bucks of funding and a few vanity demo's on techcrunch and this the output is a DIY 3D printed with a 120mhz microcontroller that you solder together? Are you fucking kidding me? A opensource file that cannot drive on El Camino? Clearly The investors are very disappointed and pushed to see some material traction which is a DIY kit akin to the ones sold at hobby shops. Sorry but calling Musk out publicly and claiming you are going to destroy Tesla is easy and clearly easier said than done and nothing more than attention grabbing stunts. Hotz - you realized building something real is not easy as talking out loud with your mouth full? Next time swallow the food before you talk buddy and take a little taste of humble pie because a year in and a DIY kit as milestone is joke. ~~~ activatedgeek I agree with all the arrogant part but calling it a joke is probably too early. Self-driving is a very hard problem and expecting miracles is just too much to ask. ~~~ 3327 Agree - perhaps joke is a bit over the top... however its a DIY kit at best a project many accomplished graduate or these days undergrad teams could produce within months especially at leading institutions, berkley, stanford, etc. I guess my "joke" comment was from the perspective of investors putting in upwards of 3mn angel round. ~~~ activatedgeek I think a better metric to look at could be how much of the 3m has been burnt to produce this. Factoring that in would be a more saner approach to evaluating. But more importantly I am just happy about the fact that somebody who believes in open-source is taking up the project. Self-driving cars are a distant future and can only be accelerated when a lot of eyes see what is happening. OpenAI is most likely the product of the same ideology. ------ jsjohnst Guess that answers that question, binary blobs in their "open source" for the foreseeable future. :(
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Ask HN: Just found out that I’m gonna be a dad - altsyset Hi everyone, I just found out that I&#x27;m gonna be a dad. If is something I always wanted but my income is unpredictable. Sometimes I make 50k sometimes nothing. It never bothered me untill now. So I&#x27;m freaking out. What do you guys did when you have to have consistent I&#x27;m income. ====== rossdavidh Congratulations! One thing, not as major as some of what other commenters have mentioned but worth knowing, is that you should not feel guilty about buying used clothes/cribs/etc. for your kid. 1) most baby clothes get worn very few times before they're outgrown, so you can get them in good shape at garage sales or thrift shops 2) your baby doesn't care whether it is dressed stylishly or not, it just cares if it's comfortable and its parents are nearby 3) your kid will likely throw up on it five minutes of putting it on anyway :) Some parents feel guilt about buying used things for their child, and end up spending a lot of $$ on new clothes, crib, etc. for a child that will not benefit from all that extra expense in the least. You don't want to cut corners on, for example, health care or quality food, but things like clothes because they are visible can cause some parents of newborns to spend a lot of money they don't need to. Save it for the things that actually matter. ~~~ altsyset Is it safe though? Like possible skin issues that can easily be transferred? ~~~ circlefavshape :) Dude - relax! Becoming a parent is a real emotional roller-coaster, and it's hard to keep your perspective, _especially_ with your first, but remember - all kinds of morons have kids, and they're fine. Perfect is the enemy of good in this part of your life too (my kids, and all my friends' and family's kids, wear and have worn hand-me- downs almost exclusively, except for fancy or special-occasion clothes) ~~~ karmajunkie > all kinds of morons have kids, and they're fine So, so true. ------ AndrewDucker On a non-monetary note, here's some advice I gave my brother recently. (My daughter is now 15 months old, and I was thinking about what advice I wish I'd been given before she was born): 1) Remember at all times that no matter how tired you are, your partner is almost certainly much more tired. Basically, give her a free pass for the first few months, if not longer. (The hormonal changes a few days in are no fun either) 2) There is no point comforting a crying baby - they just don't understand what you're trying to do. Distract the fuck out of them instead. (This from a baby psychologist on a BBC documentary.) 3) Babies are their own tutorial. They start off really simple, with about three things to remember, and then once you've got the hang of those things they start adding new ones on. But you don't need to panic about whether you can do it, it's not complicated, just full on. 4) Bonding - do not panic if it takes you six months (or longer) to fall in love with your child. I certainly felt incredibly protective of Sophia from the moment she was born, but I didn't feel fully connected to her until she was able to smile at me, and we could have some kind of interaction. It's really easy to feel awful because all the TV and movies says it happens instantly, but it can take a fair while, so don't worry about it. 5) Ignore any advice you don't like. [https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3746257.html](https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3746257.html) ~~~ sparrish This is good advice. I've got 7 kids and can verify this. To add a bit more to it, teach your babies how to fall asleep without you rocking them for hours. It's a skill and one few of them learn on their own. Your life will get incredibly easier once they're sleeping through the night and mom and dad can sleep through the night as well. A recommended book is 'On Becoming Baby Wise'. Worked for our 7 - all them were sleeping 8+ hours at night before 12 weeks old. ~~~ znpy Holy shit dude, seven kids? On a more serious note: how do you teach them to fall asleep without rocking then for hours? ~~~ codingdave In short, ignore them... for actual details, you can google "Cry it out". There are a variety of techniques, varying from letting them cry for 5 minutes, to just letting them cry. Most modern ideas lean towards the 5 minute route, starting when they are close to 6 months old, as then they are old enough to not need feeding overnight. It does work. Kids do learn that crying doesn't bring any attention, so they stop, and learn a sleeping routine. And with 7 kids, I can understand the appeal. With less kids, we went another route. When my kids were little, there was research saying these techniques were not healthy, but in the last 10 years newer studies have said they are OK. But it is a heated debate among parents. Ultimately, every parent needs to make their own choice. ------ pcx Congratulations! 1\. Get a health insurance for you and your wife if you don’t already have one. That takes care of large unexpected costs. 2\. Make a budget for next 2 years. This will show how much money you might actually need. 3\. Build savings from today. You should be able to make good savings by the time your baby is born. 4\. Not sure what you do. If possible find a way to build long term relationships with your clients. 5\. Doing 2 projects, about half time for each is also a good idea. Gives you a safety net. 6\. Choose clients that have good cash flow. Funding or profitability. It’s important not to freak out now. Your wife needs a lot of support and you should be there. Also, first time dads under estimate the support they will get from friends, family and the system in general. It should be manageable! ~~~ acconrad Is the government recommendation of $25k/yr per child accurate? To answer this: > _Make a budget for next 2 years. This will show how much money you might > actually need._ How much _does_ one need for a child? ~~~ sloaken Government numbers are hard to use in reality. If you have insurance that should cover the medical. What share you apportion that to a child ... Breast feeding saves money, makes for healthier children. Diapers could kill you. We did disposable. Look for coupons and watch for sales, try to double dip that one. Important things to remember: 1) kids want your time, not the crap you buy them. 2) you will make mistakes, just try to learn and move on. Anyone who says they did not is not being intellectually honest. 3) start reading and numbers as soon as possible. ABC 123 from day one. ------ notduncansmith My son was born less than a week after my 20th birthday. I had been doing odd software contracts to make money, but those weren't consistent. Here's what I did: I picked up 3rd shifts at McDonald's while recruiters floated my resume to a few companies. Yep. I had no college, no professional experience at anything, so I got the one job I could definitely get while I worked on making a better one possible (doing interviews, working on my portfolio, etc). Eventually I landed a full-time software job in a city 2 hours away. We moved down there and the rest is history. I should say that I was also buying baby food with WIC, and my parents provided a critical safety net when I would occasionally run out of money before payday. Nowadays, I'm gainfully employed at a rate that disqualifies me from public assistance anywhere, and I have gotten all of my software jobs through Angel.co and Hired. I'm not the world's most talented engineer or likable person, but I've managed to work alongside some very talented and likable people. I think most people with an in-demand skill like software engineering can do what I did and make their way to a stable income that they can raise a family on. ------ bsagdiyev Congrats! As someone else said, make sure you have a healthy buffer of cash. Unexpected doctor visits come up, you'll want to take the kid somewhere and they go through diapers really fast in the beginning. Also make sure you and your partner can communicate and have plans for sleeping and babycare. My son is just two months and we've finally figured out a sleep routine since we had both been getting up when we started to fuss or cry at night to eat. If you need any advice, have questions, or just want to talk I can send you my email. ~~~ kgwxd "they go through diapers really fast" This is where a membership to a wholesale place like Costco becomes a no- brainer. Diapers, wipes and formula are best bought in bulk. ~~~ sloaken I do not want to be a nay sayer, but often the costco bulks are a rip off. Specifically paper products. Of course their hotdogs are a good cheap meal ... Get the calculator out and do the math. With coupons I often bought the smaller packages and saved money. Then the next month the bigger ones. When we had kids we often bought diapers at Toys-r-us / babies-r-us, but I think they are out of business. In the end shop around. Ask others. Friends and neighbors will save / grab coupons to help you out. ------ charliesharding Don't see much mention of it in other comments so for what it's worth.. don't underestimate the importance of being involved in a community. While I would personally suggest a church community, it could be anything as long as you're open to receiving help and giving it to others when you can. Nobody wants to feel like a charity case but anyone who has had kids understands how hard it is and people are often willing to give you a hand with babysitting occasionally or with food/supplies. Good luck and congratulations! ------ avgDev What field are you in? You could switch to a corporate job for steady income and it usually comes with decent benefits. Honestly, you really want to budget very well. We are planning on having a child sometime next year. We created a plan. Bought a house, remodeled. Now, we are going to aggressively save $50k, so we can survive 12 months without any income if we ever need to. After we save $50k, we will focus on aggressively paying of the house, and investing 1k a month. My health is so so, therefore I am not sure how much time I got. As far as career goes, I will most likely start consulting in a few years, as I have experience with the full life cycle of applications, even forcefully extracting requirements. ------ spaginal Save your money. Live to the lowest standard you can. I had my business start to fail while my second was born. I thought I wouldn’t recover it. I did. It is survivable. I now have three, but my income is still significantly down. Thriftiness and creativity will do you wonders. Budget and save, even if it’s a little bit. Some wise financial advice I received as a young man went like this... Those that make little but save a dollar are better off financially than those that make more but spend a dollar. The stress of debt will do more harm to you than anything. Try to stay out of it, enjoy these next years, you’ll never get back your children’s early years, but you will always recover finances or a career. Good luck! ~~~ altsyset Thanks ~~~ sifar Yes, avoid debt. ------ ingenieroariel When me and my gf got pregnant I was part of a startup and was contributing to random hacking groups for burning man, music festivals, etc. What happened was that I stopped doing anything that did not pay me and started working all my hours on the most profitable and constant stream of work (in my case a 20 hours a week gig for $20usd an hour while working from Colombia where minimum wage was $2 usd an hour at the time). In my young mind this was the equivalent of kind of failing: not doing the most interesting stuff and just going for the money. But this worked out pretty well, all of the sudden the Django skills that I had got in 2007 doing not for profit projects were in full demand in Enterprise by 2012 and onwards and I got to $60, $80, $100, $120 usd an hour as I did more specific projects for bigger clients. Short version: Go for the boring stable job because the most important thing is providing roof and food for your family. It will work out, God permitting. ------ vorpalhex Congrats! Diversify the income stream. If you make most of your money freelancing, consider doing some pluralsight courses or writing a book. I highly recommend reading this article [1] from Troy Hunt (creator of HaveIBeenPwned) on some of the finance lessons he's learned. You might also look at working part time with a regular client at a cheaper rate, or modifying your contract to ensure more regularity, especially if you can manage to get benefits. [1] - [https://www.troyhunt.com/10-personal-finance-lessons-for- tec...](https://www.troyhunt.com/10-personal-finance-lessons-for-technology- professionals/) ------ oceanghost First of all, congrats! I wanna tell you things I wish someone had told me, some of which will involve your career. Assuming you and your partner live together-- you will have a strong hint if you're having a boy or a girl by how the pregnancy affects the woman. Girls generally are a sleepy pregnancy. Boys are generally energetic pregnancies. This has to do with the fetus producing sex hormones which affect the mother. Being a parent is a marathon, not a race. I burned myself out before the baby was even born trying to be everything to everyone. Trying to keep my wife happy, trying to keep an employer that could never be happy satisfied. Let me repeat this point. You need to separate yourself from things that can't be satisfied. From employers whom you can never work enough for, from people who use all of your time and energy. From now on, your life will be about stability. Children thrive on stability, and you will too. When you enter the stability mindset suddenly whole swaths of society make sense. You're going to have a hard time getting a job with a child. You won't have time to study interview ephemera. Your hair will turn gray from lack of sleep. You won't have time to participate in the latest fads, or to get drinks after work, and you will be judged for that. But all the meanwhile, you'll be doing something vastly more important. ------ sifar Congratulations. Cherish it ! Take care of your partner - eat healthy food. I would like to add - stop worrying. Yes you don't have a predictable income, but your constant worrying about it will hamper your ability to have one. It is a vicious loop. Be calm, keep improving your skills and producing better results. In your anxiety to provide for your kid, it is easy to forget to actually "be" with them, love them. Children can easily pick these things in you. Read/tell them stories every night. Goof off with them - this is your chance to be a kid again !! It is surprising how easily you can get away with "my kids insist I do/play this with them" :)!. The world can wait, it will be there still, when you return to it. Like others have said, lower your costs - increase your savings. Keep increasing your Savings Rate. Drop things that cost but add little/no value. Convenience has a cost - Embrace inconvenience. Prefer buying used things, learn to invest at a low cost. Stay healthy. Parks and libraries are free, use them over other forms of entertainments. ------ rubidium Congrats! It really depends on your current situation, so to be more helpful please answer these: 1) how much savings do you have? 2) assuming a spouse, will the spouse continue to work? Do you have parents nearby who can help with childcare? 3) can you clarify your earnings, maybe with yearly breakdown of the past 5 years? 4) where are you located (country at least)? Option 1) Get a regular job with health benefits. If you're a programmer in the US with some experience, $65-80K should be readily attainable. Certainly much more depending on location and abilities. Likely the least stressful but more boring option. Option 2) diversify the income as vorpalhex said. This will be more stressful. You do need to figure out your "minimum expenses" and budget for that. You can't afford to go 1 year without making anything unless you've got significant money banked. One datapoint: in a US midwestern city, a conservative baby/toddler budget is running me about $4-6K not including increased medical. Set a budget just assuming you're going to max your out-of-pocket every year. 1 birth + 1 ER visit will usually get you there. ~~~ altsyset I have small saving (<10k) and I run my own dev agency which just survived dramatic founders separation. We live in Ethiopia but my wife is American. I think she just stopped paying for healthcare . I didn't wanna bring it up just now. ~~~ altsyset Ohh the one advantage I have is that my parents and older sisters live cloth by. So, at least, no baby sitter concerns. ------ mxuribe Beyond the advice of "healthy buffers of cash" \- which is good advice - you might want to get your sleep now. I don't mean that you should oversleep - since you want to balance your time in order build up as much cash as possible NOW...What I mean is: don't go out and party much now. You will not have enough sleep when your baby arrives, so sleep now. Beyond cash and sleep, begin to work out a system (AHEAD of time) with your partner - including who will sleep while the other is on pager duty - er, I mean, feeding/diaper duty. In addition to organizing duties, communicate, communicate, and communicate with your partner NOW, DURING, and AFTER your baby arrives. Communication is so important during projects, and this is vastly more important than other projects, so it makes sense that communication with your partner is essential. You (and your partner) are about to put a dent into the universe; cheers, congratulations, and best of luck! ------ altsyset Edit: We just came back from a long walk out. At first I was quiet and awkward. Then I talked about it and handled it better. I even told her how I asked the HN community for help and how it helped me. It turns out she did the same in some mom's community. The advice she we got was completely different. Hers were things like 'take a cute pic'. Mine were more practical and what I wanted to hear. Even though some of them were scary. Maybe, I should have provided better context. Everyone assumed am from US or EU. Anyways, thanks for the help and sold advice. I was in the toilet shaking when I posted this. You guys helped me to think about it in a practical way. I still don't have a solid plan but I feel like I have a clear head. ~~~ sifar If you don't live in the US/EU, basic things are pretty cheaper in RoW. The family/community ties tend to be stronger. You can live off well on a small budget and increase your savings if you ignore keeping up with the Jones's, societal trends or obligations. ------ dvaun Congratulations! Becoming a father involves so many great emotions and moments of excitement, fear, and wonder. It's scary becoming a new parent. Having children is world changing, because you no longer have to think only about yourself — there is someone else who loves you, and depends completely upon you. There is no one that I've ever spoken with has ever said that they felt ready for this change. That's completely normal, and that's okay. My wife and I were relatively young — age 21 — when we had our first son. Our situation was somewhat similar to yours in that we had a financial challenge; we learned how to utilize what was available to us. As others have said in this thread: your community and relationships are extremely valuable. It takes a village! ------ p0d Many of us here started with a family and no money and now the children are older have money. Life is a bit back to front that way. My advice is work hard. Knowing you have provided for your family is one of the great joys of life. Whether that means the $20 second birthday dinner you paid for or helping your twenty year old through uni. Provide what needs provided. My journey was being the photocopy guy in a school, advertising fixing computers in the newspaper at night, getting a degree with the Open University, being an IT Technician and now leading an Infrastructure Team for a saas company. I also have a sideline which my company let’s me work on one day a week. Do what you have to do :-) ------ Arrezz If you have inconsistent income you have to have a healthy buffer of cash that you can draw from in times where you aren't making a lot of money. Congratulations on becoming a dad! ------ inerte Budget. Make your inconsistent income look like a steady one and plan how you're going to spend the money. I use YNAB, and they have a bunch of articles / videos / podcasts about variable income, such as [https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ynab%20variable%20inco...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ynab%20variable%20income) ------ trykondev Wow, what an incredible journey you're embarking on. Congratulations to you -- I'm vicariously thrilled and terrified as I read this post :) Regarding consistent income, one of the companies I work for offers part-time, fully remote contractor work conducting technical interviews. I use it as a way to keep a stable income while I pursue riskier ventures outside of that company and a lot of the folks working on the platform have very young families. I plan to use it as my sole income when I start a family of my own. It might be a good fit for you since it sounds like you'd want to continue doing your own contract work. It pays $100 USD per 90-minute interview -- if this type of thing is interesting to you (or anyone reading, for that matter) -- feel free to send me an email! Details are in my profile. ------ circlefavshape In my experience having a baby cost very little. There's an initial outlay for crib/buggy/etc, but you don't need to buy new - and if you have family nearby you probably can mostly use hand-me-downs (we did). Dunno where you live, but doctor visits for kids are free in a lot of Europe. Also - breastfeed! ------ hazard I was in a similar 'unpredictable income' situation when I had my kid. Since you're on HN, I'm assuming that your income comes from some kind of knowledge work, and you have to be mentally sharp to be productive. The best investment I ever made was to get a night nanny. This is someone who comes to your home at night and changes diapers, feeds the baby (or brings them to the mom to nurse without waking you up) and may also do basic domestic stuff like laundry and dishes while your partner adjusts to their new routine as a parent. The cost is going to vary dramatically depending on where you live and whether your kid has any kind of special needs (e.g., if they're a premie you might want a night nanny who is also a registered nurse). They will basically double your productivity during your waking hours since you will not be suffering (as much) from sleep deprivation. ------ RazvanS Congratulations. It's a good idea to have a list of must have's/nice to have supplies for the baby. Stick to the must have's, skip the others. You will spend less money and avoid having too much stuff afterwards. The money you save this way you can use it as a buffer for the periods with limited income. ------ cannonedhamster Plenty of people with less financial stability than yourself are parents and do just fine. The most important part, more than any other advice is to just show up. A lot of people overestimate what it takes to be a good parent. Be there, be present, and the rest tends to fall into place. ------ yatendra Congratulations. Not sure if this will work for you or not but this is what I did - * Make sure you have a good health insurance plan. * 529 account - the day my kids were born I started a recurring deposit 100 with some extra deposit on events like tax refund/bonus etc. I want to have enough to support public college tution. * whatever I have left after mortgage and monthly expenses, I contribute to each of my accounts in specified order, going to next account only when I reach max limit for that account - Checking account (limit 2 months of expenses) - Online savings account for emergencies (limit 6 months of expenses) - Roth IRA for both my wife and me (limit IRS prescribed limit around 6K per year) - Retirement accounts (Robo advisors : regular investment account/IRA) ------ tmaly Definitely read the book Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. Getting the baby to sleep through the night is something you want to do as soon as possible. Your also going to want to get really good at time management. With one kid, you are allowed one hobby. Once you have two kids you can have a hobby once in a blue moon. If you can get a stable gig, I would recommend it. Diaper prices recently went up. ------ vxjester Just remember in the beginning. It’s basically 3 things that will make a baby cry. Those are needing a diaper changed, hungry or tired. Also if you want to gain brownie points with the wife. Switch off with her for caring for the baby. Just realize your both going to be tired. The switching back and forth with the care not only helps avoid arguments but also is nice getting a few extra hours of sleep. ------ sergiotapia Congrats. I owe my career and the opportunity to bring my family to the states thanks to Upwork. With that level of income I could save for the trip, home, car, the works. It opened up a huge market for me and ultimate gave my everything. Try that platform to find work I'm assuming you are a programmer or something related since you're on HN. Also, try not to freelance as much, it's too unpredictable for children. ------ chrisjc Look for Daddy-bootcamps, as well as all the other kind of classes available. These classes are often times free or pretty inexpensive. You don't even have to belong to the Hospitals that they're presented at a lot of times. I went to a daddy bootcamp, breast feeding with my wife, baby-care, etc... All of which were extremely informative and helpful. Congratulations! ------ cerberusss Why can't you just buffer money on your business bank account, and thus give yourself a steady salary on a private account? ------ PopeDotNinja You always have the option to switch careers. ------ OrangeUnicorn12 Find a permanent job at BigCo. Take mortgage and buy a house. Spend lots of time with family and support your wife morally, but do not "spoil" her. Start saving for kid(s) education. Plan for 2. Congrats and good luck. ------ sorokod Congratulations, your life is about to change in all sorts of ways. One of them is that you are now responsible for others, not just yourself. Accept this, don't freak out and think Cooley and rationally what needs to be done. ------ RickJWagner Congratulations! Get a steady gig. Life is about to get real. (BTW, kids are the greatest.) ------ dbg31415 Hey man, first off... no judgement intended, but look on Glass Door and make sure you're being paid appropriately for your line of work in your region. And... consider moving to a region that pays more. Just saying, $50k seems low for tech / anything that would bring you to the Hacker News community. If you're freelancing, and sometimes you get paid and sometimes you don't, you need to work on getting clients to pay up-front (most are happy to do the first payment up-front at least), or at minimum make sure your contracts are solid and you're billing and following up for the work you did. (This is the bane of freelancing, and it gets more complex the more clients you have.) Fixing your contracts and invoicing will keep things consistent. Cut any client that doesn't pay on time, and never lift a finger to help someone who is behind on payments -- so many times people try and be "nice" but if they don't pay, they're just using you. Generally speaking, so many issues are sorted out for you if you take a job at a bigger company. Stability, insurance, consistent pay... this is a huge draw for a lot of people. Freelancing is fun for diversity, and the pay can be better, but in the long-run most of my friends who work at big companies seem like they have more time for their families. Something to consider. Savings is going to be key, and it's impossible to retroactively save, like it's impossible to retroactively diet, so you just fix the issues as you see them and try to avoid mistakes and stay healthy going forward. You need to find a way to get money saved up. It'll help with your stress. When I freelance, I try and keep 6 months of cash for all bills on hand. My mortgage, car payments, etc. -- should work dry up, I want runway to fix it. The prerequisite to the above is having a budget. A lot of people just sort of spend what they spend, and don't think about it. This is lazy and wasteful. If you eat out a lot, set a budget... and consider scaling that down. When I first started tracking, I realized I was spending about $600 a month eating out. I cut that to $300 -- it was a bit harder at first, but I like cooking and meal prep, and within a year I went from eating out almost every meal to almost never eating out at all -- unless it's for work. Once I had a budget, and my target savings goals, I got there by auditing my spend, and cutting expenses. Then putting aside 10% of my paycheck (for a few years), into paying off all debts and building savings. Once I hit the "cushion" goal, I still take 10% and put it into a 1) rainy day fund, and 2) retirement fund. The rainy day fund is for bigger purchases... things like, "Oh crap, I need a new AC," type stuff. It's invested, but it's more liquid -- I can turn it into cash inside of a week if needed. For debts, it's not rocket science. Pay the ones with the higher interest rates first. Generally speaking. Credit card debt is horrible, and will doom you. Get it all paid off as quickly as you can. Then work on things like student loans, mortgages, etc. Keep in mind a lot of this debt helps you with your taxes... set up some time with a professional tax consultant and see what they say. For a retirement account, and for a kid's college account, I just use a three- fund portfolio approach. [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three- fund_portfolio](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio) It's simple enough, and I've beaten the market the last 10 years. Let the machines do it, I wasted money on a money manager for years... kicking myself. They always took 1% of my money... not just the profit. It was a rip off. And you can do this stuff yourself. (= Setup some time to chat with a banker, but y'know... understand that they're out to make money too. If you're new to investing, they can help you with some of the basics... a Roth IRA, for example, if you don't already have one. Keep away from places like Edward Jones, the strip-mall shops have literally the worst returns vs. fees vs. risks (vs. environmentally friendly investment) ratios. Anyway look, financial health, like fitness, or anything... isn't something you just do over night. It takes planning and effort to get where you want to go. Don't beat yourself up for past mistakes, learn from them and adjust going forward. Cheers! ~~~ JakeStone There are areas in Texas with moderately tech savvy industries where $50k can cover basic needs for a family of four with good housing (3BR/2BA with reasonable dimensions for all rooms and yard), savings, and an occasional splurge on entertainment. Now in the SF Bay area, you've got to look at 2.5-4+ to keep that quality of life. Useful salary, to some extent, is geographical. The rest of what you're talking about, I've got nothing to add. ~~~ dbg31415 Yup, always gotta watch that salary vs. cost of living ratio. That's what ruled out Seattle, SF, LA, and NYC for me. I'm in Austin -- not the cheapest place in Texas, but your buck goes a long way here. Not as far as it went 15 years ago, but property investments have really paid off for me here. [https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/06/24/studywhen...](https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/06/24/studywhen- adjusted-for-cost-of-living-austin-tech.html) ------ ryanmercer Congrats! ------ lurker9525 First thing you need to do is make sure it's yours? You don't want to be trapped taking care of someone else's child.
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Tether loaned USDT to investors and illegally traded in New York, says NYAG - benmunster1 https://decrypt.co/7795/investigators-tether-loaned-usdt-to-investors-illegally-traded-in-new-york-ran-an-unregistered-securities-offering ====== llamataboot Tether has been an openly fraudulent enterprise since the beginning. Pretty much anyone with any experience in financial securities and even passing knowledge of crypto was raising red flags, including on this website. Never wanna blame the victim, but kinda feel like anyone with any due diligence here was just hoping for casino rallies and didn't believe what they were being sold. ~~~ A2017U1 Do you have any proof? The US authorities have literally shown in court they have vast sums backing tethers. Bifinex itself is a money printing machine. I'd love to take some serious 5 figure wagers with the people who say this stuff. Because they've been saying it for years now and have been consistently proven wrong. ~~~ pfisch There is no chance it is 100% backed like they claim. I would happily wager $10000 on it if a framework for such a wager existed. ~~~ repomies691 The majority of markets don't care if it is 100% backed, like they don't care when their bank does fractional reserve. They care about whether the USD peg will last within their timespan they plan to use tether. One of the most common advertised applications for tether is arbitrage between exchanges. There it hardly matters whether tether has 100% reserves, what matters if the peg stays within the days that you are doing the arbitrage (buying tether from one exchange, transfering to other, selling it). ~~~ pfisch >The majority of markets don't care if it is 100% backed, like they don't care when their bank does fractional reserve. Banks are insured, and in general they haven't failed for the last like 100+ years. I do think what you are saying about usdt is mostly true though, however if(when) usdt does fail the entire market will take a dive off a cliff. So even if your assets are in other cryptos it still represents a systemic risk to the entire system. ~~~ SkyMarshal _> Banks are insured, and in general they haven't failed for the last like 100+ years._ Not sure what you're trying to say here, given Bear Stearns and Lehman just failed ~11yrs ago, and the entire banking system would have imploded if not for trillions in Fed lending support and govt stimulus. ~~~ pfisch Those were not consumer banks. I don't think anyone actually lost their account balances. ~~~ arcticbull That's the SIPC for ya ([https://www.sipc.org](https://www.sipc.org)) ------ shireboy Curious what HN thinks about Maker DAO. Dai is pegged to the dollar by a decentralized scheme where people loan/borrow an underlying asset. Seems to be floating pretty close to $1 and I wonder if it will replace USDT... ------ pretfood oh man, I'm in New York and I've got Tethers. Time to pull the eject cord (on both) ~~~ SimonPStevens Serious question. What is the reason for holding Tethers? They a supposedly pinned to the dollar, so there isn't much point in holding them hoping they will gain in value. If anything their peg is questionable so they are only likely to decrease in value. As far as I can see their only purpose is a a way of transferring between other crypto currencies and exchanges, but you would only ever need the tethers very short term while you completed the movement or transaction. ~~~ koolba The reason is when you have some other crypto holding and you want to close out your position but not have any reportable tax or legal liability. Of course you’re trading one set of liabilities and legal ramifications for a whole new set. Plus a hell of a lot of counter party risk. ~~~ SimonPStevens So to clarify... If you were holding bitcoin, but decided you wanted out because you think it's about to go down, you'd exchange for tether and hold that instead until you decided that bitcoin is ready to start going back up again. And you accept all the associated risk rather than fully cashing out to real dollars because your jurisdiction doesn't treat crypto to crypto purchase as a taxable event? Interesting. Thank you. ~~~ carbocation But if your jurisdiction is NY (as it is for OP), then this doesn't really answer your question IMHO. ------ chvid I am curious. Has anyone actually tried to redeem a tether? [https://tether.to/fees/](https://tether.to/fees/) It sure seems like they would like to just have people trade them on an exchange. ~~~ shawabawa3 So best case scenario you can get $0.996 per USDT, and yet people still choose to buy them for $1 on exchanges... ------ Lucadg Tether business model is dependent on banks. Banks are always a huge risk when you deal with crypto. They can freeze your funds anytime. You need to be on regulators side or they'll attack you on the bank accounts. That means full compliance with KYC/AML and so on. ------ dawhizkid This would explain the mini Bitcoin rally ------ HipGeeks Quick - someone call the SEC! ------ lanrh1836 I know there are a lot of crypto skeptics here, but if you believe in Bitcoin more than Tether at least then you should buy Bitcoin...if Tether does indeed fail Bitcoin will almost certainly spike past 2017 highs. ~~~ grey-area This assumes the price of bitcoin is not manipulated, specifically by bitfinex and tether. Both may go down together when more news of manipulation comes out. At this point, I wouldn't recommend going near any of the current cryptocurrencies, for any use. ~~~ andirk What about other coins tied directly to fiat? ------ trophycase "Loaned USDT" in this context just means created tether and gave it before the wire transfers went through (but presumably these pending wire transfers count as assets, especially considering they can blacklist tokens at will). Not exactly damning evidence. Also it seems like "illegally traded" just means that NY companies set up foreign shell companies to skirt NY regulations? I don't see how this is iFinex's fault either tbh ------ slappyjoe I still don't see how the State of New York can claim jurisdiction. I mean, it can "claim it" but good luck getting Bitfinex and Tether to comply. ~~~ Lazare Yeah, Bitfinex and Tether won't have anything to worry about... ...as long as they don't want to have USD denominated bank accounts, or transact with USD, or do business with people with USD denominated bank accounts. Which, of course, they do. If you touch the US financial system in any way, or if any of your counterparties do, or if your counterparties want to have _other_ counterparties that do, then you need to care deeply about what the US federal government and the NY state government think. ~~~ oyebenny What are your thoughts on Gemini? ~~~ solotronics Gemini and Coinbase are on the forefront of legitimizing cryptos. They go out of their way to cooperate with American authorities, which is a good move for their business model. Contrast this with a crypto exchange based outside of the US that would loose their clientele if they worked with the American government in any way. Why you ask? Do research about Americans trying to open bank accounts in Europe. Basically under the new laws banks in Europe prefer to reject Americans rather than try and go through all the extra reporting involved. ~~~ logicchains Most crypto is traded outside of the US though; most of the volume is on Binance and Bitmex. In this sense they cut themselves off from many customers. The advantage of their business model seems to be that with less competition from other US-law-abiding exchanges (because there are so few of them), they can charge much higher fees: Coinbase fees are higher than most large non-US exchanges, and Gemini fees are insane, something like 1% per trade. ~~~ oarsinsync > Most crypto is traded outside of the US though; most of the volume is on > Binance and Bitmex. This doesn't stop US persons from trading on the exchanges, and self reporting accurately to the IRS/SEC, which may do. ~~~ jki275 Actually most don't. The IRS released statistics a couple of years ago, it seems like the number was low 3 figures who actually reported though I don't remember exactly. ------ seibelj USDT has a strong following in APAC countries. Also for some crypto users part of its allure is that it’s vaguely sketchy - it means they are less likely to have their funds blacklisted, a feature which Tether maintains the ability to do but has never enforced as far as I’m aware. If you are getting into the space now USDC is an audited stablecoin backed by Coinbase and Circle which has the second highest issuance after Tether. Most likely you would prefer USDC over tether. [https://www.circle.com/en/usdc](https://www.circle.com/en/usdc) ~~~ duxup "vaguely sketchy" What does that mean? That doesn't sound like a positive thing. ~~~ floodyberry- I think it means seibelj works for Circle and is shilling their stablecoin. The irony is that the entirety of "crypto" outside of the people doing the academic work for it is not just vaguely sketchy, but extremely sketchy. ~~~ repomies68 Well, don't know for these stablecoins but to me the "normal crypto" meaning bitcoin is very easy to understand and use. It is like commodity nowadays - it is up to the user whether to use it for scetchy things or for normal things. ~~~ chx ROTFLMAO Are you serious? You need to establish presence at an exchange meaning you need to scan and send your ID to a company which more likely than not -- does QuadrigaCX ring a bell -- is run by scammers. Then you need to buy bitcoin and store it somewhere... and then send it to someone. The sending costs an unknown amount, takes an unknwon amount of time, the receiver gets something but none of you can predict how much that is actually worth by the time they receive it. If they want to do something with it they need to go through the exchange rigmarole. And you call this very easy to use. Bitcoin was, is always will be nothing more than a novel scam. It's not a Ponzi... it's a novel form of scam. [https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/](https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/) ~~~ ryanlol >The sending costs an unknown amount, takes an unknwon amount of time, This is a downright lie. >the receiver gets something but none of you can predict how much that is actually worth by the time they receive it This is just misleading, the recipient gains control of the transmitted bitcoin almost instantly. Confirmation delays are known. ~~~ chx I do not lie. > The sending costs an unknown amount Here's you can see historic daily average Bitcoin transaction fees both in dollars per transaction and in satoshis per byte [https://bitcoinfees.info/](https://bitcoinfees.info/) > takes an unknwon amount of time Here's the average time for one confirmation: [https://coincentral.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Screensho...](https://coincentral.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Screenshot-2017-12-06-15.35.05.png) here > This is just misleading, But it's not, there's a time delay between when you initiate exchanging your real money to scam money and the receiver finishes the exchange back and during that time bitcoin can move in any direction. ~~~ ryanlol Fees are _always_ knowable, the real average confirmation time for transactions with appropriate fees is fixed at 10 minutes. >But it's not, there's a time delay between when you initiate exchanging your real money to scam money and the receiver finishes the exchange back and during that time bitcoin can move in any direction Well yes, but this is known beforehand. There are many mechanisms you could use to hedge your risk here. ~~~ chx > There are many mechanisms you could use to hedge your risk here. Do you even hear yourself? We started from very easy to use and now we are at hedging strategies... ~~~ ryanlol I don’t think I’ve ever said it was very easy. I don’t really have all that many good things to say about cryptocurrencies. I was merely objecting to your false claims. Bitcoin & co. have enough problems as is, there’s no need to invent imaginary ones.
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DRM Needs To Be Banned Because It’s Toxic - Uncle_Sam http://torrentfreak.com/drm-needs-to-be-banned-because-its-toxic-111016/ ====== jdludlow _DRM is toxic. Just like lead._ Eating a CD might be bad for your health, but that's where this analogy stops. I rarely buy DRM-protected content, and will always prefer open formats. (See also: My digital PragProg mountain that I've purchased because they're excellent books and not larded down with DRM.) However, in a free society the government has no business forcing citizens to create a string of bits in a particular way. Vote with your dollars, not with the hammer of a tyrannical law. ~~~ wazoox Libertarian mumbo-jumbo. When you have any significant evidence that 1° people buy rationally 2° people are free from influences 3° markets do exist in the absence of an overarching organisation such as a state; please do come back with these. You should read less Ayn Rand and more actual science. ~~~ jdludlow I didn't say that we should have anarchy. I said that if I'm going to produce a string of 1's and 0's, I get to arrange them in the manner of my choosing. You need to clearly explain where you get the right to force me via law to produce that string in the manner of your choosing. ~~~ wazoox If a pressure group limits the choice of customers by unilaterally enforcing limitations, which is generally the situation we've known in software and digital media in the past, we'll simply stick to the (very) suboptimal current situation: DRMs on one hand, generalised piracy on the other. Do you think the current situation is optimal? Did we made much progress since the first copy- protected software in the early 80s? What you propose is going on the same way we did for the past 30 years. As the saying go, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same - quantisan https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613034/the-hipster-effect-why-anti-conformists-always-end-up-looking-the-same/ ====== quantisan link to the paper [https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.8001](https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.8001) ------ ListeningPie I saw the Flat Earth documentary and I wonder if model could maybe be applied to conspiracy theories, alternative thinkers thinking the same. ------ staticautomatic "You can't be a nonconformist if you don't drink coffee" \--South Park
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A Move Away from SQL Server - No Longer Buying Aircraft Carriers - peschkaj http://datachomp.com/archives/no-longer-buying-aircraft-carriers/ ====== shawty I have to confess, these days I use Postgres more than SQL Server. But that said I do a LOT of GIS work, and weather you like it or not SQL Server just does not follow the spatial SQL simple features standard, well not correctly anyway, as I said in my presentation in spatial SQL at Last years DDD, "it's the most compatible, incompatible spatial SQL implementation I've seen." Postgres also does a ton of stuff the SQL Server can only dream of and it runs fantastic on a Windows based OS too.
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Show HN: Rofocus – Chrome extension that plays ambient sounds to help you focus - rohanm93 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rofocus-increase-your-foc/olomkelphccokjjidpagjpihlnemlpng/ ====== rohanm93 Hi HN! Been spending the last week or so hacking away at this side project. I'm hoping it might be useful to some! I'm really big into ambient sounds when working (e.g. listening to sounds of cafés / rain / etc) and I find that they help me focus, since they don't distract me as much as music. I typically use a number of sites (e.g. brain.fm) or find a youtube playlist. Though, I thought this experience could be improved upon + I wanted to learn how to make a Chrome extension, so I made this. If you have a moment to try it out, I'd love some feedback! Do you see it being helpful? What's it missing? This was meant to be a small project to get a bit of a break and scratch my itch to design/code something, but I ended up getting really into it and can see this growing into something bigger (e.g. a productivity suite of tools) - any ideas on where I could take this would be awesome too! P.S. made a quick landing page that has more details too - feel free to have a look here: [https://rofocus.com](https://rofocus.com) Thanks! ~~~ mihaifm Interesting project. What's the source for the ambient music? ~~~ rohanm93 Hey! I purchased most of the tracks.
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Ask HN: Good long form presentation of the history of probability theory - formalsystem How did it start? How did it evolve? Who were the main players? First big success stories? Competing formalism? ====== stiff This is a very good book, fairly mathematical: [https://archive.org/details/ofmathemahistory00todhrich](https://archive.org/details/ofmathemahistory00todhrich) Ian Hacking has two books, he is a philosopher, accordingly they have a broader outlook: "The Taming of Chance" "The Emergence of Probability" Stephen Stigler's "The History of Statistics" seems to be the most popular history of statistics.
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Why TDD Should Not Be Controversial - kellet https://dzone.com/articles/why-tdd-should-not-be-controversial?oid=hn ====== fbreduc don't waste your time, a BS handwavy thing
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Waymo Tests Autonomous Trucks in Texas - apsec112 https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-tests-autonomous-trucks-texas ====== benatkin Curious what the founder of Starsky Robotics is up to. The site is still up and there's even a blog post after the post about them shutting down: [https://www.starsky.io/](https://www.starsky.io/) [https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-poor-roi-of- aut...](https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-poor-roi-of- autonomy-f5d6f4f2dd14) Here's the post entitled "The End of Starsky Robotics" [https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-end-of- starsky-...](https://medium.com/starsky-robotics-blog/the-end-of-starsky- robotics-acb8a6a8a5f5) ~~~ mikepurvis That's a terrific post; thanks for linking. It seems like Starsky did everything right— they focused on a highly safe system for only highway driving, and an elaborate teleop setup for covering the last mile and exceptional conditions. Basically they just hit a wall as far as VC timelines and expectations. But I wonder if Waymo can basically follow the same playbook and do it long enough to make it work courtesy of Google's pocketbook. ~~~ stefan8r CEO of Starsky here. My assumption is that they won't - Waymo has a lot of inertia around trying to build full autonomy, and it working in a corner of Phoenix seems to not have convinced that that it's way too hard. The winner in this space is almost certainly a company that hasn't been founded yet, doing an updated version of Starsky's approach...which is why I've been trying to explain Starsky's approach in detail through blogposts. ------ hourislate The driver is such a small cost in all of this. Contrary to what the media says, drivers are really not making that much for the amount of time they spend in the truck and on the road. It would be good if an autonomous system could be more of a supporting technology that works with the driver allowing him/her to rest while it takes over on those long interstate segments of a trip. It would definitely save time and money for everyone. Best of all you still have the driver to complete the difficult segments or deal with bad weather and break downs. ~~~ briffle It's not just the drivers salary, it's finding drivers (up till covid, trucking companies were getting desperate and jacking up rates here) and the rules about hours behind the wheel. Self driving trucks don't have drug testing, physicals, better job offers, and mandatory rest periods ~~~ nradov The trucking companies were desperate, but apparently not desperate enough to significantly raise wages or improve working conditions. ~~~ dominotw uh..not this tangent again. ~~~ snake_plissken What is "this" tangent again? I might be going off on a tangent here but, I bet it's this novel idea that companies should raise their compensation when they have trouble finding people to fill their open positions. ~~~ dominotw > companies should raise their compensation when they have trouble finding > people to fill their open positions. So you are anti H1B ? another tangent :D ~~~ datameta Another inflammatory strawman comment, not this again... ~~~ dominotw exactly! ------ KKKKkkkk1 My theory is that the self-driving car industry, similarly to Theranos, at some point switched from a fake-it-till-you-make-it mode to full blown faking it. This was either some time around 2016 when Waymo made a video of driving a blind man around Austin [0] or maybe 2015 when Elon pronounced that self- driving is a "solved problem." [1] [0] [https://youtu.be/uHbMt6WDhQ8](https://youtu.be/uHbMt6WDhQ8) [1] [https://youtu.be/xQhb3C2hQoE?t=3510](https://youtu.be/xQhb3C2hQoE?t=3510) ~~~ mikejb I think the primary fallacy in the theory is confusing companies like Waymo with companies like Tesla, and mingling their (in)capabilities. Both have a very different approach in trying to get to self-driving, and when combining what both can't do, it would seem nobody can do anything. And whilst both throw out their fair share of "demo videos" (=advertising), they have different track records for what they can (and actually do), and what they can't (but claim to do). ~~~ Dumblydorr You just named the two companies closest to autonomy, IMO. Waymo has the lead in actual self driving, Tesla has the lead in actually commercializing features. I'm confident these two companies will reach mostly autonomous driving before many of the other fakers. ~~~ mikejb I named these 2 companies because the parent referenced them in their argument. But I agree that they are the ones that are the ahead in their individual approaches, though I think Tesla is not really that near to autonomous driving. They have a lot of features in development that their test drivers (=consumers) are using, and that gives the impression that they got that already (Elon even claimed Tesla has FSD on highways in early 2019), but the step to "the driver doesn't always have to pay attention" is gigantic and far away - and on that scale, Tesla's lead to other manufacturers (who don't do that kind of marketing or testing on consumers) is relatively small. They're still doing better than a lot of the wannabe-unicorns that pursue self-driving or Lidar though. ------ Animats California's DMV won't let autonomous vehicles over 10,000 lbs. on the road with just a testing permit. CA's testing permit for autonomous vehicles is much like a learner's permit - no passengers for hire, no heavy vehicles. Which makes sense. ------ anitil If you're interested in trucking, the podcast 'Over The Road' is worth a listen. The host Long-Haul Paul has a voice to die for, and the oncoming change to autonomous trucks plays a part in some episodes. I think there's 12 or so episodes in total [https://www.overtheroad.fm/](https://www.overtheroad.fm/) ------ anticensor I never expected that Google would enter trucking business. ~~~ onion2k It's a multi-billion dollar market that they could, potentially, completely dominate using a technology solution. That's _exactly_ the industry Google goes after. ------ kleiba Would you like to be the last car in a high way traffic jam when you see one of these coming closer in your rear view mirror? ~~~ mikejb Lidar-based systems are pretty good at detecting stationary objects. Humans on the other hand crash into traffic jams pretty regularly. So in that situation I'd prefer that to be an automated truck. ~~~ kleiba [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relativ...](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relative- Privation) ------ SrslyJosh I'm expecting to see waymo autonomous vehicle fatalities in the near future! ~~~ derwiki You can have fatalities and still have several orders of magnitude fewer fatalities than non-AV. ~~~ itsoktocry This is true, but ignores two things: 1\. People will (over)react to autonomous deaths. Every AV death "matters" more. 2\. Getting the death rate below non-AV is difficult to test. Accidents are _rare_. Are you going to let these things loose on the public for hundreds of millions of miles before determining that the death rate might not be better yet? ~~~ ghaff 1\. And any accident of a properly-used/maintained vehicle will be viewed as some company's fault because of design/software flaw. 2\. There will doubtless be accidents that will be quite different from the sorts of accidents humans have. And those will be viewed as proof that these cars aren't safe.
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What process do you use to find mental healthcare? - bluecenter I&#x27;m curious why it&#x27;s so fundamentally difficult to find the right care? It&#x27;s a nightmare navigating the system and am curious if anyone else has struggled with it. ====== zahrc Give less fucks Move on Rant Take breaks Have proper and relaxing hobbies next to coding
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Ask HN: Give me one topic and in one month I'll present you a project - bobnarizes Please share one topic, idea and I&#x27;ll do a project out of it. On August 18th I&#x27;ll post the project here as Show HN! Since I only can do one project I&#x27;ll take the most ranked one. Thanks! ====== gradschool I'm not the OP, but I love this idea: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477365) There's no need to wait for the whole world to switch to a different email protocol. In fact, it's better if not everyone does so that spammers aren't incentivized to develop countermeasures. The use case is someone wanting to publish a contact email address on his or her web page. Your project involves writing some javascript code to do the proof of work in the sender's browser. You don't even need any cryptological expertise to pull this off. The javascript code can search at random for a token to be attached to the message such that the sha256 sum of the message combined with the token ends with a number of trailing zeros chosen by the receiver. More zeros mean more work. The rest is just normal webdev stuff that can be as fancy or plain as you want to make it. If you have time left over, a server side filter written in any language you want to check the tokens would be nice.
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Canada's software development jobs - niceguy4net what website do you use to find software developement jobs in Canada. ====== Poui Here are four starter suggestions: 1: MaRS Community Job Board: [https://www.marsdd.com/careers/?type=community_careers](https://www.marsdd.com/careers/?type=community_careers) 2: Betakit Job Board: [https://betakit.com/jobs/](https://betakit.com/jobs/) 3: OneEleven: [https://www.oneeleven.com/careers#s=1](https://www.oneeleven.com/careers#s=1) 4: [https://angel.co/vancouver/jobs](https://angel.co/vancouver/jobs) Hope this helps. ------ kat I've used craigslist in Vancouver a lot with good results, both small and large companies. I'm unsure if other Canadian cities use craigslist as much. ------ tavito Maybe [https://app.vanhack.com](https://app.vanhack.com) can help you! ------ aprdm linkedin, indeed, stack overflow careers, hacker news who is hiring ------ borncrusader movnorth.com has some links that can help you get started. ~~~ niceguy4net Thanks!
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Ask HN: Will this post reach the front page? - sgt ====== ColinWright Why should it? It's content-free ... why would anyone upvote it? ------ PaulHoule No.
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Marc Andreessen's Startup School Talk One of his Last? - edw519 http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/05/is-marc-andrees.html ====== SwellJoe The "clown" mentioned in the article (dubbed "mic troll" by folks around these parts) was also at Startup Camp a couple of weeks ago, sharing his gas-baggery once again. And, apparently he is a regular at many valley events...pretty much any place with an open microphone and people who will feel compelled to listen out of politeness.
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Valve debuts Source 2 for free in bid to compete with Epic, Unity - risyasin http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/237944/Valve_debuts_Source_2_for_free_in_bid_to_compete_with_Epic_Unity.php ====== Zezima Not entirely sure if it's a fair assessment to say that it was released for free in order to compete with Unreal and Unity. The general rumblings with Source 2, especially in context of the recent Dota 2 mod tools, was that it would be free. Valve probably made their minds up a long time ago, and GDC is when everyone let it out.
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Ask HN: Is there any software like this (online marketing for business owners)? - saturngirl I have been speaking to a few small business owners and I have come to the conclusion that advertising online is a big pain point for them. Most of them are not tech savvy enough to be able to run adwords or facebook ads - let alone be able to measure conversion rates or A&#x2F;B test them. They also do not have the budget to employ a company (or a professional) to do the same. These are hands-on business owners who want to do this, but just don&#x27;t know where to start.<p>Is there any software or service that solves this pain point? ====== petenixey I think that the premise of Hubspot is similar but also that it's way overpowered for SMBs. FWIW I've seen exactly the same confusion that you describe in small businesses. I worked with the Yellow Pages for a while and went out in the field with their sales guys. They confirmed that most SMEs only think about advertising when the Yellow Pages sales girl walks through the door each year. I would guess that a plug 'n play - put money in, get customers out for SMBs would do incredibly well. I'm not sure what it would take to deliver it but even if there is a service that's out there that does this, most SMBs do not know about it. ~~~ saturngirl Thanks. Hubspot looks pretty cool. I think you are right though - its an overkill for small b/s. The tool needs to be dead simple to use (even if it means limited options) ~~~ fananta (disclosure: I worked at HubSpot.) HubSpot is a pretty powerful tool but might be a little much for a small brick and mortar business. I think BuySellAds.com is a great (and simple) alternative to digging through Facebook or Google ads. ------ bebbs There's Visual Website Optimizer and it's competitors. I've made good money in the past by setting VWO up on client websites and handling their testing for them. They aren't interested how it's accomplished or whether it's a software or service solution, only that before I started they sold 10x widgets a day and now they sell 15x. When x is worth several hundred dollars it makes them more than happy to pay good money for it to be done. I suspect this is true for all but the tiniest of companies. ------ weddpros At least in Europe, there are many companies helping people with Google ads... Some are dishonest though (like "I'm from Google", "We have a free slot on Google's first page", "your ad will show on each and every search request", etc...). They're targetting professionals: I've come to know them when I was a photographer. And as far as I can tell, they're not very competent... ~~~ UnethicalHacks the reality is that if you know how to buy traffic online (meaning you can get high ROI) then you don't sell your consulting "services". ------ Salniter Small business owners can learn how to do this, through a step-by-step approach, and at a nominal cost. [http://affiliatemarketinguniversity.info/signup](http://affiliatemarketinguniversity.info/signup) It says affiliate marketing, but it's all about internet marketing. They can sign up for free and see if they like it, and they will get unlimited free coaching. ------ kjpatel I've been working on a startup called SMPLE.co (www.smple.co) that also tries to address some of this problem. Email us if you want to learn more - happy to share. ------ AznHisoka Yes, the service is called an agency. Software won't solve this. if you don't know how to use the Adwords editor, how can you use any software? makes no sense. ------ bkrull There are numerous "pay for leads" companies. SMBs want the outcome, and are willing to pay for that. They have little time for DIY. ------ seige Locbox(www.locbox.com) is a startup trying to address exactly this market.
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Show HN: Journyal – record all your travels in the background - journyal http://journyal.com ====== duiker101 Nice! I have been looking for something like this but for Android, in an attempt to break out of Google Maps Location tracking. For now the only solution I found is to store all my history with GPSLogger but that is not very "search friendly". Any plans of a port?
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Memory recall dependent on gene influencing hippocampus-based circadian clock - bookofjoe https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13554-y ====== S_A_P Perhaps my thinking is flawed and grossly oversimplified here. Doesn't this just seem to line up with brain chemistry and how everything seems to work in the brain? When I drink a coffee, caffeine inhibits adenosine from accumulating in the brain which makes me feel more "awake". Eventually that chemical wears off and I start to get sleepy. I would imagine much like mood memory recall is dependent on some chemical in the brain, of which there is a limited supply. Sleep allows for cleaning and regeneration of said supplies. What if its not because of the time of day, its just that once you've been awake for a certain number of hours your brain is running on empty until you sleep again? If you had folks working(and acclimated to) the graveyard shift I would expect similar results on memory recall but in the morning hours. ~~~ grawprog >If you had folks working(and acclimated to) the graveyard shift I would expect similar results on memory recall but in the morning hours. Only anecdotal, but I had a friend that worked graveyard shift for a few months and when she could get proper sleep during the day it was pretty much like that. She'd be awake and energetic around 10 or 11 pm, worked through her shift, would go through that same early 'morning' productive push and that after 'lunch' slump and by morning she'd be tired and kind of hazy before she went to sleep. It just ended up being she'd never get proper sleep during the day to the point she was tired and hazy all the time and couldn't take it any more and had to quit. During the beginning though, her memory for things was definitely better at night when she first got up. She'd forget things from conversations we'd have in thr morning or sometimes she wouldn't remember them at all and her memory is usually pretty good, sometimes better than mine, with things or wouldn't really be that coherent about what was going on. ~~~ Bartweiss Generally, people working night shifts in "normal" settings have worse health and cognitive outcomes than people on equivalent day shifts. (Swing shifts are evil, and do far more damage than either.) There seem to be two main factors driving that. One is simply that we arrange the world for being awake in the day: night-shift workers get less sleep due to daytime tasks (e.g. going to the bank), and worse sleep because isolating from light and noise is much harder during the day. The other is a bit more subtle: even with a bright office and blackout curtains, nightshift workers get hammered with conflicting time/light signals every time they commute home or go near a window. It's like a vastly worse version of checking staring into a computer screen right before bed. There are other impacts, too - I've heard of nightshift workers getting something like SAD, and Vitamin D deficiencies are probably common. But all of that applies to people in wholly-artificial light cycles (e.g. submarines or the Arctic), and yet those people seem to cope far better than 'regular' nightshift workers. ------ lspears Mentions Zeitgeber which I had to look up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeber) ------ jodrellblank I have read of Dementia having “sun downing” issues as patients get worse symptoms around dusk, and care homes having good results by brighter daytime lights and working on day/night rhythms. Prof. Satchin Panda’s work is on intermittent fasting and circadian rhythms, and in his TED talk he has dementia on a slide as one of the possible problems involved with this kind of metabolic dysregulation. Now this memory recall depending on circadian rhythm; ------ gallerdude So heavy technology (blue light) use literally gives us worse memory. As our economy moves to be more and more attention-based, that sounds about right. ~~~ tgb Where do you get that from the article? They even say tha the memory deficits were observed in constant darkness conditions as well (and therefore due to intrinsic clock not extrinsic light per se). Also keep in mind that mice are nocturnal so poor memory performance late in the light period for them is probably analogous to poor memory performance during early morning for us, when there is no light. ------ jmpman I notice that my recall is much better if I had learned the information while moving... either driving a car (actively aware of my surroundings) or on a walk. I can typically think back to exactly where I was when I learned something. ~~~ jcims I think I have a related thing going on in my brain. My recall ability is poor to middling, but if I listen to a podcast a second time within a week or two of the first, I have these intrusive and extremely vivid scenes play out in my mind from the first time I listened to the podcast. I want to try an experiment where I film my first listen, then a week later re-listen and narrate the 'film' without watching it to see how close i am. ~~~ nkrisc Kind of similar experience. As a kid, when we'd go on a road trip, on the way back I'd remember everything I was thinking about on the trip there, but in reverse order. It was the landmarks and scenes that triggered the recall of what I had been thinking about when I saw it the on the trip there.
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Google to bring Dead Sea Scrolls online - jeromec http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-to-bring-Dead-Sea-apf-2071511005.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode= ====== hammerdr These are the types of things that made me fall in love with Google in the 00's. It makes me happy that Google is continuing its quest to make all historical documents available to everyone. Now, I know cynics can argue that "This is just Google driving more search traffic!" or "This is Google putting a ton of money into a PR campaign!" In fact, I would be one of those cynics if I didn't believe this is just residue from a kinder, more lofty-goaled Google that was led by Larry and Sergey. I want the old Google back. ~~~ rakkhi Totally agree I think it is brilliant that Google can spend resources on projects like this, for me it is similar to lofty goals like scanning all printed books on earth so they are digitally searchable, I mean how else would most people discover the long tail of books? Also streetview with covering the entire globe, computer driven cars and investment in wind farms are projects that could really advance humanity. I don't even mind as a shareholder! ------ oiuytrdrfghj This is typical of the sort of free-loading piracy that Google promotes. Have they even tried to contact the authors? Don't they and their families deserve some of the royalties? Has Sonny Bono been told? ------ quizbiz I think print.google.com can be an amazing tool for fostering research on ancient texts without compromising the preservation and security of such rare ancient documents. I hope this is the first of many rare texts to be made public and accessible. ~~~ tjarratt Seeing as how Google initially made the entire web more public and accessible, and has done so with much print, it seems likely they will continue as much as possible. I, for one, would like to see some older books that I have little chance of finding used in a bookstore, or do not wish to pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege of owning. Perhaps the next rare book will be the Codex Seraphinianus (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus>)? I can always hope... ------ Alex3917 This is actually fairly historic considering all of the controversy that arose over the translation of the original sea scrolls. Basically almost all of the translators were members of the Catholic church, so when they discovered that the scrolls undermined their faith they just sat on them for 20+ years so no one else was allowed to read them. (With the except of John Marco Allegro, the one non-Catholic who published his work immediately and then went on to use them in his next book as evidence that Jesus was actually a psilocybin mushroom.) ------ tjarratt I hope I'm not the only one that thinks it's hilarious that this news about Google is being reported by Yahoo. Where's the official Google announcement? ~~~ wyclif I was gonna ask just that question when I saw your comment. Indeed. Where is the Google announcement? Anybody? ------ torial I was hoping they'd be using advanced imaging for text not visible to the naked eye, and was excited to see this paragraph: "The refined images were shot with a high-tech infrared camera NASA uses for space imaging. It helped uncover sections of the scrolls that have faded over the centuries and became indecipherable" ------ iskander The (still!) ongoing translation of the dead sea scroll fragments could really benefit from some computational techniques. They're trying to do something akin to gene sequencing manually.
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Wacom Inkling Makes Vector Graphics From Pen & Paper Drawing [video] - moe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXbBA1DRE84 ====== cjbprime This would be more exciting to me if there were a Linux client, or signs that they were using some open standard (SVG paths/layers?) for storage. :/
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Show HN: Bitcast.io – A marketplace for web development tutorials - zhs https://www.bitcast.io/ ====== avolcano Massive feature missing: last updated date. I would NEVER buy a screencast, tutorial, or anything on web development without knowing EXACTLY when it was last updated. For example, the paid Ember screencasts claim to go over the Ember router - how do I know whether it was the old beta router, the RC1 router, or the RC6 "Promise-ified" router? ~~~ rdouble _I would NEVER buy a screencast, tutorial, or anything on web development without knowing EXACTLY when it was last updated_ Sadly that's exactly why the last updated date usually isn't listed. ------ sergiotapia You guys really need a "Date Published" field on each screencast and a "Date Updated" if it has been updated. I was about to buy the Backbone + Rails bundle but I was apprehensive because what if it's really outdated? Lynda.com displays a publish date, it's useful. ~~~ zhs We overlooked that but completely agree, and we're adding that ASAP. FYI, the Backbone + Rails videos were produced recently and are very up to date – I went through all of them myself. ------ earlz Why are people willing to pay for screencasts(of any quality), but NEVER for a well written article over the same thing. I personally hate trying to learn things from videos. I can't search it. I can't copy and paste code from it. I can't skim over it. Later review and skimming ahead is lousy, at best, impossible at worst. The only thing screencasts have going for them is that they are (in general) easier to create than a well written article. The difference for readers/viewers though is substantial. ~~~ wikwocket We do pay for well-written articles. They're called books. Also, video can be a powerful tool. The combination of seeing a thing or a process, hearing a narration about it, and observing another human being interact with it, provides more bandwidth across a wider spectrum of our senses. For some people, it is easier and faster to learn this way, in the same way that it is easier to learn from a tutor than from a textbook. ~~~ zhs Amen. ------ bluetidepro Is this done by the people at Treehouse _[1]_? It looks like the design/layout is very much inspired by them, at the least. If they are not associated to Treehouse, they may need to think about making their design a bit more unique, because some might try to call that out as a rip. [1] [http://teamtreehouse.com/](http://teamtreehouse.com/) ~~~ ngoel36 Although we're all big fans of Treehouse, we're definitely not associated with them. I'm sorry you feel that it could be called out as a rip, but our in- house designer develops everything from scratch. I think it's safe to say that both landing pages are pretty typical. ~~~ bluetidepro I think it's just things like: -The color scheme: [http://bluetide.pro/DWYp/5BcKpQnl](http://bluetide.pro/DWYp/5BcKpQnl) -The hexagon cut for images/icons: [http://bluetide.pro/VZYM/3VbvSuxF](http://bluetide.pro/VZYM/3VbvSuxF) , but then using circles for avatars: [http://bluetide.pro/LOFC/4Np9xUmq](http://bluetide.pro/LOFC/4Np9xUmq) -The wide button styles: [http://bluetide.pro/yzft/L49wdKTr](http://bluetide.pro/yzft/L49wdKTr) And yes, these are common things in general, but I think they stick out more to me because the products are in the same realm. Just some food for thought! :) EDIT: And don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in a bad way. It's just something to be aware of that I noticed. I really like the idea of the product, in general! Good luck with it! :) ~~~ ngoel36 Zach - Thanks for the feedback, we'll definitely take a closer look at things like this in the future. ------ joshuahornby This may get shot down, but why no PHP? I know its not cool and trendy but it works dam well. ~~~ zhs Hey Josh, Zach here (one of the co-founders). We personally don't use PHP very much but we're more than open to hosting those screencasts. If you have any recommendations or would like to post some yourself please let us know. ~~~ notok22 Also adding Go([http://golang.org](http://golang.org)) would be great. ~~~ zhs We're definitely planning on adding Go. Do you have any screencasts that you enjoy in particular that'd you'd like us to add? ------ ryanhandby I am actively trying to watch some videos on Bitcast at the moment. I love it by the way great concept and great way of setting it all out although I am hitting a wall with a 404 when trying to view a video. GET [https://data.sublimevideo.net/js/kcvkz080-beta.js](https://data.sublimevideo.net/js/kcvkz080-beta.js) 404 (Not Found) This makes it quite hard to watch the videos. ~~~ ryanhandby This was the first video in the AngularJS bundle FYI. ------ stephanos2k One thing I learned from watching MicroConf presentations online: Make it about them (the users) not you. The title reads "We Love Screencasts". According to the marketing gurus this should instead focus on your audience (because we only care about ourselves, you know). Oh and it seems the favicon has an odd white background :-? Other than that, the site looks extremely sleek :) ~~~ ngoel36 Stephanos2k, thanks for the feedback! We definitely weren't trying to make it about ourselves but instead demonstrate our passion for screencasts and the screencasting community. That is, after all, why we created Bitcast. We're always looking to optimize our front page though, so we'll absolutely take your feedback into consideration. ------ cbhl I don't understand why y'all chose the screencasts niche as opposed to, say, music education. What's your reasoning, and how you plan on differentiating yourself for content creators from, say, a YouTube Partner network? ~~~ ngoel36 Hey, one of the co-founders here. No particular reason - all four of us are web developers, and we quite simply, we each badly wanted a platform for web development screencasts to exist. We differentiate ourself from YT in a few big ways. The first is our focus on developers. A YT Partner can post videos exclusively on development, but it's obviously impossible to include code markdown or have meaningful software- related tags. We also feature the ability to offer both free and paid videos; it takes a lot of time to make quality screencasts, and many of the developers we've spoken to have found YT insufficient for monetizing their content. ~~~ josephjrobison I think this is an excellent idea and will do really well. If you have developers who can walk us through real projects that can go live in the wild it will do really well. This can be like the Themeforest for screencasts. This will supplement nicely with Treehouse/Code School/Net Tuts videos because it looks like you guys will show how to do some of the rarer or less widespread tips and tricks that the big guys usually don't cover. Good luck! ~~~ zhs Thanks Joseph, having developers release screencasts where they work on actual projects is definitely a big goal of ours. People often underestimate how much you can learn by watching someone who's an expert in something. ------ izztmzzt Should be renamed "A marketplace for Ruby on Rails tutorials". ~~~ ngoel36 Izztmzzt, I'll admit, we do love Rails :). Naturally, a good percentage of our initial content turned out to be Rails centered, but the large majority of our content library is not. We're looking to expand into all of the areas that our users are interested in, which topics would you most like to see? ~~~ acmecorps I'm a rails and ios developer myself. I'd love to hear screencasts on building webapps using Go. If u have this, then take my money. ~~~ ngoel36 We're hard at work on it! Who are your favorite Go screencasters currently? ------ shire I really like this, please make more videos more towards Python and Javascript. I would love some PHP but that's asking for to much. ------ epa This makes me sick. Web development tutorials should be free and open for the sake of learning and spreading information (as per the last 10 years). ~~~ bdcravens Why? There's plenty of successful pro screencasters: RailsCasts, PeepCode, Destroy all Software, etc. Some have free content, like RailsCasts and Ruby Tapas. Producing a decent 15 minute screencast takes hours of preparation. At decent billable rates, that means hundreds of dollars per episode. Plus these are videos with real value, that if they do their job, allowing the watcher to earn tens of thousands of dollars more per year. As for free tutorials, you're a Google search away an essentially limitless library (many of which were written by some of the screencasters that make you sick). I've learned from free material, but I also feel that that an on-point screencast is worth a few dollars. That's why I'm more than happy to pay for RailsCast, Tapas, CodeSchool, and more, every month. As for "should be free", I really don't know where you get this. In a world where information is a scarce resource, perhaps. That's not the world we live in, and I hope all that can add value all the best in selling their expertise. ~~~ ngoel36 Thanks bdcraven, we completely agree. Even before the rise in screencast popularity, writing a good book on programming took just as much effort, if not more. Authors certainly didn't give those away for free either.
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MySpace v. Facebook Advertising Showdown. Which Platform Is Better? - qhoxie http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/21/myspace-v-facebook-advertising-showdown-which-platform-is-better/ ====== symptic According to my affiliate marketer friends, Myspace is one of the only reliable sources of relatively cheap traffic. Google and Facebook are getting tougher to buy it cheap from.
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The Log: An Epic Software Engineering Article - tosh http://bryanpendleton.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-log-epic-software-engineering.html ====== Erwin Hah, I just noticed something amusing: Oracle headquarters buildings: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation#mediaviewer/...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation#mediaviewer/File:Oracle_Headquarters_Redwood_Shores.jpg) The typical symbolic representation of a database in a diagram: [https://openclipart.org/detail/181674/database-symbol-by- ete...](https://openclipart.org/detail/181674/database-symbol-by- eternaltyro-181674) ------ qznc > Focus on the data, not on the logic. The logic will emerge when you > understand the data. -- Bryan Pendleton Sounds similar to: > Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data > structures and their relationships. -- Linus Torvalds ------ qt_scientist Good discussion of an (indeed) epic article. Reading the other comments here, I would like to stress the complexity of allowing concurrent updates of the same object on distributed machines. And I totally share the hopes for the current eventual consistency monopoly to perish. Some use cases should use strong consistency. You see people build stuff like this [https://github.com/Netflix/s3mper](https://github.com/Netflix/s3mper) to "fix" eventual consistency...awkward ~~~ nawitus Cconcurrent update of the same object is actually an extremely common real- life use case. You need to handle the arising conflicts anyway, so you might as well get the benefits of eventual consistency. If you don't have concurrent updates, then you don't have a distributed system. But that doesn't model the real world anymore. The state of the object is already distributed to multiple computers (e.g. mobile clients), and the database system needs to handle that. You can, of course, handle the concurrency on the application level, but the question is, why bother? The database can help with managing that. ------ Pxtl RTS games are an application of this form of replication - each player had the full fame state, sends their commands to the server that timestamps them and sends them back to all users (including the player who initiated the action) and the player's action is applied in sync to all the machines. Synchronicity is maintained by pure determinism. ------ erikb I'm a little sad that neither article (I've read some more beside the ones linked there) about mentions that the idea of logging here and processing there is pretty much the Unix principle of each program handling text (mostly lines of colon/comma separated data records) as input and creating another stream of text as output. Also I don't know if the idea of a central data storage (which is Krep's suggestion as far as I can understand) is really the solution to all our problems in a time of distributed everything. ~~~ fintler Having several datacenters running Kafka with MirrorMakers between then ([https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pa...](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=27846330)) is far from being central data storage, it's more like a graph of (reasonably) ordered data distributed across the globe, which is available to any application. I don't really see much of a relationship to unix text stream processing. Maybe in something like a Kafka -> Samza -> Kafka style system -- but even then, it feels like a stretch. There's much more of a focus on the ordering of messages rather than the concept of log here, process there. ------ skybrian The LinkedIn article seemingly discusses every possible issue except security and privacy, which seems rather important when handling customer data. Access control in Kafka seems to be work in progress: [https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Security](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Security) ------ qznc The Bitcoin blockchain is another nice example of this principle. ------ dkarapetyan Great article, horrible layout. Fix the layout by pasting this in the console: $('div#main').style.width = "100%". ------ dang The referenced article was discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6916557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6916557).
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IOS Devs Hit by Patent Infringement Notices For In-App Purchases - epo http://www.macstories.net/news/ios-devs-hit-by-patent-infringement-notices-for-in-app-purchases/#more-22837 ====== akadien Using the logic of this company, why stop there? Why not go after users of the apps that use in-app purchases? ~~~ noonespecial May as well just finish it off with "everyone who uses a smartphone for any purpose anywhere." They'll get there. They're just testing to see just how far they can push it. Even the trolls are starting to shake their heads in disbelief when they discover just how far the absurdity can be taken. But why say no to free money?
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Mark Shuttleworth Comments Following Ubuntu Community Friction - caution https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/future-of-ubuntu-community/17593/29 ====== Kednicma Sounds like a preparatory delegitimization of the community council. After all, if the community doesn't care enough, then Canonical can retake more direct control eventually and simply say that the community wasn't stepping up enough to take their own lead. I wonder what the endgame is like here. Ubuntu is slowly being crushed under the weight of all of their experiments and different packaging needs, and outreach efforts aren't paying enough to sustain growth. Like a Ponzi scheme, but without the ill intent or even the understanding of what was increasing in cost over the years.
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Quelling the floating point demon in my line rendering code - mortoray http://mortoray.com/2015/01/07/quelling-the-floating-point-demon-in-my-line-rendering-code/ ====== Sharlin > angle = Collision2D.AngleBetween( lv, bisectNormal ) > if( /*cusp*/ angle < 0.1f || angle > Math.PIf - 0.1f ) { > //use alternate corner cap > } Just a quick note: you might want to use dot product there: if( /*cusp*/ dotProduct(lv, bisectNormal) < 0.1f ) { //use alternate corner cap } ~~~ mortoray I know in some situations you can use dot product and it's an optimization I will apply. A bit more care must be taken though. The input must be unit vectors and the output can be positive or negative. I tend to do my first code as logically clean and then apply optimizations later. This will likely be replaced by an `IsCusp` function instead, to make it even clearer, and provide a clean place to do the optimization. ~~~ Sharlin Oh, indeed. I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't consider the need for normalization and the potential negative output :P
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Nu: Lisp on Objective C. (think Clojure for Cocoa) - jashmenn http://github.com/timburks/nu ====== mahmud I was going to complain how I found neither compiler nor VM in that source listings, and how it's not a pure Lisp, yada yada yada. Then I took a look at the author's other projects to see if he was a Lisper .. Well, the man certainly puts his money where his mouth is. He has 40+ projects on github, the majority of them written in Nu. <http://github.com/timburks> If it's good enough for him, and let's him get work done, who am I to complain. ------ yuan If you're interested in Lisp, Objective C and Cocoa, you might also be interested in Clozure[1], a Common Lisp implementation which provides complete access to Cocoa through its Objective C bridge[2]. [1] <http://ccl.clozure.com> [2] <http://trac.clozure.com/ccl/wiki/Cocoa> \-- Auto suggestion machine at your service ------ zephjc I don't think the "clojure for cocoa" description is apt. 1\. All the examples I saw on the git tutorials we're basically just imperative programming with parentheses instead of ObjC's brackets (actually some of the examples remind me more of Smalltalk). 2\. Clojure seems to be finding a niche in the web app world, whereas Nu is targeted at Cocoa app programming, i.e. end-user GUI apps. ~~~ jashmenn I'm the OP, and I'm not really sure what the source of let-down is here. Nu has closures, anonymous functions, supports currying etc. It uses the Cocoa classes and they claim it can even be compiled onto the iPhone. So while the examples in git may be "imperative" I would guess its only because they are trying to show how to be interoperable with Cocoa objects which, not being functional, causes imperative constructs to creep back into your code. The same thing happens when you try to use existing Java objects in Clojure. This seems to be a limitation only of the examples and not of the language itself. ~~~ itistoday Lisp for Cocoa would have been a better title. Clojure is quite a different Lisp, and to say that this is "Clojure for Cocoa" implies it has something in common with Clojure other than also being a member of the Lisp family, which it really doesn't. Clojure is very functional, Nu is not. Clojure's language is designed to make it safe and simple to write multithreaded code. Nu is just an imperative Lisp with smalltalk syntax so that it can interface with Cocoa/Objective-C. Clojure takes a departure from all Lisps by treating lists as just any other datastructre, and therefore has literal syntax for arrays, hashtables, and sets, Nu has no such thing. Clojure places a huge emphasis on "data abstractions" like Seqs and builds its core functions around that. Clojure is compiled, Nu is interpreted, etc... Don't get me wrong, I think Nu is really cool, but I can't think of a single thing that Nu shares with Clojure that is exclusive to Clojure and not Lisp. ~~~ jwr Agreed. It has little in common with Clojure. But it is an interesting effort. I would like to be able to write Mac apps in Lisp, closures come in very handy in GUI programming. ~~~ itistoday Objective-C has closures, they're called blocks. ------ jared314 Bad title. From the Nu website: "Its syntax comes from Lisp, but Nu is semantically closer to Ruby than Lisp." ------ stratospark So would be allowed on iOS given the 3.3.1 clause forbidding alternative languages? ~~~ Elrac This is a question I'm very interested to hear an answer to. I've started dabbling with Objective-C and I don't like it much; it would be very sweet if I could write apps for the i{Pad,Phone,*} in a Lisp-like like language. ------ kunley The `nuke' name for the build tool is so cool! ------ protomyth Tim Burk has really done some great work for Cocoa programmers and very informative to follow on twitter @timburks. ------ c00p3r I can't wait for the Arc on LLVM! It is more portable than JVM ^_^ ~~~ astrange <http://openjdk.java.net/projects/zero/> ~~~ c00p3r There is a presentation around here by pg about bloatedness of Java's syntax and clarity of the Arc. Find it. ^_^ ~~~ astrange I'm not sure anyone would disagree.
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This Just in From the Institute for the Obvious: Media Likes Covering App - mjfern http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100927/pew-apple/ ====== mjfern What's interesting to me is the percentage of tech articles that cover Apple (15.1%) and the advantage that Apple has over competitors, particularly Microsoft and to some extent Google. The implications of this advantage in terms of brand value are substantial.
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FTC: Vemma Has Been Shut Down for Running Pyramid Scheme - saadmalik01 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/ftc-vemma-shut-running-pyramid-scheme-33333526 ====== saadhus It's Ok, Vemma will just change their name and be back.
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McCain signs on to Democrats' Facebook ad disclosure bill - tareqak http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/18/facebook-ad-disclosure-bill-243914 ====== tareqak Techmeme summary: _Ashley Gold / Politico: Senators Warner and Klobuchar to file bill, cosponsored by McCain, to increase online political ad transparency, bring rules to parity with TV, radio, satellite_
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Ask HN: Anyone using Nixos in production? - notheguyouthink If so, what are your experiences? ====== smilliken MixRank has been using nix in production for over 3 years now. We're just using the nix package manager on Ubuntu and MacOS, not nixos. Easily one of the best technical decisions I've made. Here's a comment I left on it's benefits: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714102) ~~~ akavel What do you mean by: _" The fork is then squashed as a git subtree into our main repo"_? I don't grasp what actually happens there, between the two repos (the nixpkgs fork repo vs. your main repo)? ------ bfrog There are a few outstanding issues that are keeping me from using it in production but it's pretty stellar as a home system. There are a few companies using it though. Biggest issues I have at the moment relate to secrets/keys not being storable in a sensible way. That and the dev environment is in my opinion so different than the norm that it seems to break some tools like spacemacs and some embedded arm tools in my case ~~~ zopa I've had no trouble with spacemacs on nixos: I just let spacemacs manage its own elpa/melpa packages. Works the same as on any other system. What's the issue with keys/secrets you've had? ~~~ bfrog The trouble I had with spacemacs was it didn't see programs that were part of the nix-shell path which was incredibly annoying. As an example having a rust development environment, spacemacs couldn't find cargo, but it was clearly in my shells path. ------ vaibhavsagar Yes, we use it for all our customer-facing web services at Zalora! It works as advertised and is rock-solid. I also run it on all my Linux laptops (2 personal + 1 work). ------ abathur Curious as well. Particularly regarding: \- how do you provision & manage systems/instances? \- relative to any other ways you've done this, how much effort goes into standing up the first server, any additional servers, and ongoing maintenance/management? ~~~ akavel Also: how do you upgrade the system? Do you jump between "releases"/stable channels, or do you somehow chase the nixos-unstable channel? Do you do some kinds of pinning of nixpkgs? ~~~ hood_syntax Just in case you didn't see since they commented after you, smilliken describes the nix process at their company [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714102) ------ jugmac00 our hoster offers Nixos VMs only; flyingcircus.io
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Yet Another Boingo HotSpot Loophole for Free Wi-Fi at Airports - skaul http://shivankaul.com/blog/2015/11/03/boingo-hotspot-loophole.html ====== sithadmin Welp, cat's out of the bag. Guess I'll count on this being fixed before the next time I need it.
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The Thought Emporium - apsec112 https://www.thethoughtemporium.com/ ====== SilasHaslam Found this one: "Developing a Permanent Treatment for Lactose Intolerance Using Gene Therapy" Seems very promising. Recently, I discovered that lactase derived from Kluyveromyces lactis is effective for me, whereas lactase derived from Aspergillus oryzae seems to have little to no effect. The latter is used in mose lactase supplements ~~~ dmart This is interesting. Do you know which brands are derived from each source? I wasn't able to find much information online. ~~~ SilasHaslam Source info is usually tucked away in fine print, or on the manufacturer's FAQ page, if at all. "Lactose-free" dairy products (milks and yogurts) and OTC supplements in pill form, as far as I know, use lactase derived from A. oryzae. Commercial dairy supply companies sell K. lactis in bulk. I've found one brand on Amazon (SeekingHealth) that's made with K. lactis derive lactose. Maybe they re- package the commercial size product? I've thought about buying a gallon for $1200, but that would probably last me more than a lifetime. Lactase comes from different sources and has different properties [0]. K. lactis has a neutral optimal pH, so it's better for processing dairy prior to consumption; A. oryzae has a lower optimal pH and higher heat tolerance, so it's more suitable for OTC supplements. [0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429307/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429307/) ------ freezing_coffee Have been a patron for some time, and discovered his channel with his lactose gene therapy video - to which he recently posted an update: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoczYXJeMY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoczYXJeMY4) . Great addition to scientific youtube. ------ bil7 this guy has some really great youtube videos, particularly enjoyed the series on building a camera to "see wifi" ~~~ foobiekr Agreed. I really like them... Though ... his live streams are pretty revealing. I recommend watching a few of them, as it will probably change the way you view his other content, both in the positive sense and in the negative. ~~~ shawa_a_a I’ve only watched his WiFi video, as well as his Lactose Intolerance gene therapy and felt he cane across quite positively. Are you alluding to specific negative behaviours he exhibits on stream that are edited from his videos? ~~~ foobiekr I suggest watching a few and just drawing your own conclusions. I'm not being coy, I just think that the conclusions I drew may be pretty unfairly negative and I don't necessarily want to bias you.
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As Flow of Foreign Students Wanes, U.S. Universities Feel the Sting - sethbannon https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/us/international-enrollment-drop.html ====== lewis500 There are really three different downsides to this. First, the foreign students cross-subsidize the locals' education. There are large fixed costs to running a university and these students pay way above their marginal costs. So now the universities have fewer resources; hence cutting the newspaper funding etc. Second, the foreign students increase the schools' reputations and can collaborate with the faculty. Research is a public good. We do not have a research system so that we can think of things for nerds to do; we have it to produce valuable knowledge. In my own PhD program, the productivity of the Americans was much lower than the foreigners. That productivity led to discoveries that benefit everyone. Third, immigration: some of the foreign students would have wound up staying. We should want these people to stay here and have families. Educated people who work hard and are ambitious enough to go overseas and stay are good for the country. ~~~ seanmcdirmid > In my own PhD program, the productivity of the Americans was much lower than > the foreigners. I think the bias has swung way too far the other way. Racism against Americans is still racism. Also, this applies mainly to undergrads (full paying students), not PhD students who are generally fully funded. ~~~ lewis500 Regarding PhDs, grad international enrollment is declining. Regarding the full-paying foreign undergrads, their tuition contributes towards the costs of the university that are shared. American students, especially at middle-ranking public schools, are hurt when schools lose their funding. Regarding the "racism against Americans," there is no such race, and if there were one it would not explain research productivity. What would is the self- selection of who will go across the world to study something technical, the much better high schools in other countries, and in the mere fact that the rest of the world is a larger talent pool than the US. It is easy to think of reasons. ~~~ seanmcdirmid > Regarding PhDs, grad international enrollment is declining. Your source on that? All the schools I’m in contact with are still as international as ever in their CS PhD departments. I’m not sure what the trends are outside of CS, but I can’t imagine they would be very different. I think you are just pulling this number out of thin air. Research is funded quite differently from undergrad programs. Sure, fewer TAships are available, but your research funding is much more detached. DARPA and NSF aren’t going to become stingy all of a sudden. > Regarding the "racism against Americans," there is no such race, and if > there were one it would not explain research productivity. If I claimed (without any evidence in fact) that “Indians or Chinese are less productive than Americans” I would totally be accused of racism even though both India and China are multi-ethnic. It is especially a stupid thing to say as foreign and domestic students are pretty diverse, with slackers (or dreamers) and very focused students on both sides. ~~~ pm90 > Your source on that? All the schools I’m in contact with are still as > international as ever in their CS PhD departments. I’m not sure what the > trends are outside of CS, but I can’t imagine they would be very different. > I think you are just pulling this number out of thin air. So you're asking for a source when your own view is based on anecdotes? Great. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Yes, the number of international graduate students is at an all time in 2016, and I’m sure for 2017 also. It isn’t rocket science: [https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international- studen...](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international-students- united-states) Growth has been falling, but that wasn’t the claim that was made, which was actually ridiculous. ------ petilon This is bad news. People like Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, not to mention CEOs of Google, Microsoft and Adobe all came to the US as students. Without the immigration of the brightest on the planet, the US will, over time, lose its edge. ~~~ mc32 As other have pointed out, this is mostly about the schools losing full- tuition international students, ie.e "International students pay double the $6,445 tuition of Missouri residents" \--which is insane. I mean, it's insane for in-state students to have to shell out 6.5 thousand a year for higher ed... The international students are typically those kids of parents who are perhaps middle to upper middle class in a foreign country (JP, KR, TW, IN, CN, UK, AU, etc) who want to send their kids to an American school and get an "American" degree and go back home for a job --those who come from non-English speaking countries get the bonus/cachet of now having a degree from an English speaking country which potentially gets them an international station or at least a slightly better slot. ~~~ fellellor >go back home for a job Haha. Not really. American salaries, standards of living are among the highest/best in the planet. Plus an abundance of economic opportunities and relatively low discrimination compared to what one may face in other developed countries. These are the __only __factors which decide whether a family sends their kid to the US for higher ed or not. The degrees themselves aren 't worth much at all. Unless on course you are talking about the very elite, who have well established businesses and properties in their home countries, who then want __Ivy League __degrees for their kids. They won 't give a f __k about the average mid western universities that the article is actually talking about. ~~~ janekm You underestimate the value of an “overseas” degree in “developing” countries like China. A student who comes back to China with a US/UK degree will get preferential access to first-tier city resident permits, direct financial “housing” benefits from the city, a good job and faster career advancement and more besides. Some of those benefits are starting to get scaled back but it’s still a big advantage. ~~~ tanilama U overstated it vastly...In China, UK degrees got so inflated, many of which being one year master, that they are pretty useless now.Oversea working experience is still valued ~~~ gaius _In China, UK degrees got so inflated_ This is driven by ex-poly degree mills cashing in. If you’re studying in the UK it’s Russell Group is still prestigious for the right reasons. Otherwise the value is questionable. ~~~ chillydawg Even that is changing. I know of a masters course in a UK Russell group uni where Chinese students outnumber any other group including locals. The result of this is terrible, terrible English skills and huge pressure from the "sales" department to give better grades to keep that sweet Chinese money flowing. Essays written in broken English that suddenly and suspiciously transition into perfect prose are common and no longer punished. When one of the students was asked why they picked that course at that uni, they said it was because the entry requirements were easiest and the level of English required was low. Now, obviously, this course at this uni is clearly going to crash and burn at some point, having used up all good will pandering to rich Chinese students. The problem is that this is an industry race to the bottom. Sure, the main stem subjects at Cambridge or Manchester are in good shape, but all the fringe subjects are going to shit, especially the one year masters courses. I can't name the specific course or university as I was told this in confidence by a faculty member, so believe what you will, but the race to the bottom is happening and is causing immense harm to UK institutions at all levels, not just the ex-poly degree mills. ------ dmode I would highly recommend to Indian students not to study in the US going forward. At least until the generally hostile attitude towards immigrants and meaningful reforms in GC attainment is done. If you plan to lay down your roots in America after school, it will simply not happen in the current climate. Go study in Canada, Australia, UK, and India and contribute to those societies ~~~ sombremesa All you have to do is get married to an American. You could be the best and brightest or the dumb and dullest, won't matter. ~~~ netheril96 Indian/Chinese men are much less desired than whites and sometimes blacks and latinos in the US dating market. Marrying an American is probably harder than alternative approaches, at least for males from these countries. ~~~ pentae Or you know, put up an ad on craigslist. ------ sitkack Even my old community college stuffed itself on mediocre kids from overseas paying 3x market rate, but god their parents were probably really stoked to see them be someone else's problem. Universities need to cull their bureaucracies and stop wasting their time, money and effort with their spin-out accelerator programs. Research, teach and keep the roof patched. Problem is, they will probably double down on out of state tuition and patent grabs. ~~~ Simulacra A lot of my professors in undergrad engineering hated teaching. They openly derided it as a chore. This was very disheartening as a student to hear. ~~~ nitwit005 More a consequence of the schools happily trading teaching quality for research prestige. And for sports prestige, of course. ------ moduspol > International students pay double the [...] tuition of [in-state] residents > Nationwide, the number of new foreign students declined an average of 7 > percent this past fall I mean, perhaps Trump can be blamed for some of it, but maybe these schools might consider lowering tuition a little to become more attractive to foreign students? ------ foobarbazetc The only surprising thing about this article was how lowly paid a language professor is. $47,000? What? ~~~ seibelj Seems right to me, given the job prospects for someone whose talent is speaking two languages. Do you think the market for Italian / English specialists is super hot? ~~~ fellellor Leaving everything to be decided by market factors definitely has it's flaws. There should be room for authorities\patrons to intervene and prevent a certain skill set from being wiped out because it doesn't make business sense to preserve them. ~~~ hardwires It's not being "wiped out", it's being scaled down to sustainable levels. If "the authorities" protect price levels for every job that is in a larger supply than demand, that money goes straight out of the pockets of the people who perform jobs that _are_ in demand, i.e. the people performing the tasks that are needed the most by _all the other people_. You have a less efficient economy as a result, which makes people poorer on the average. ------ tanilama Well, why come to a country that is openly hostile to you after all? ~~~ anonymous5133 $$$ is why ~~~ tanilama Unless u get a job. It is pretty hard by itself, even harder under Trump. As an investment, its return is diminishing. ~~~ mc32 I can see the difficulty of getting in to make a degree even more valuable in some countries. ~~~ tanilama True for Good Schools. It is a great privilege to get into Ivys and top US institutions. Those Midwest public schools in the article don't really have a reputation for themselves. ------ nn3 So they're cutting the french tuba and Italian professors, but keeping all the far more expensive deans? Seems backwards. ~~~ mac01021 Are you saying they don't need to have a dean in order for the school to function? That might be true but, assuming it's not true, the best they could do to reduce the cost of deans would be to reduce the dean's salary by half. And laying off 2 or 3 faculty from departments that are not in high demand will lead to a much higher cost savings than half of a dean's salary. Removing a whole out-of-demand department even moreso. ------ Decabytes It's really sad that research institutions are leveraging international student's high tuition to increase their revenues. ~~~ Overtonwindow Not just that but those same students want GTA positions. To fund those positions the universities are increasing fees and no-credit courses on students. ------ conjecTech This can be largely explained by the drop in birth rates in China associated with the one child policy. The number of college-aged Chinese in 2020 will be roughly half what it was a decade before[1]. People have seen this coming for years. The administrators blaming this on politics are most likely scapegoating for their poor planning. [1] [https://www.indexmundi.com/china/age_structure.html](https://www.indexmundi.com/china/age_structure.html) ~~~ dmode If this was the case, it would be a gradual decline, instead of a dramatic decrease in one year. Also, anecdotally, none of my family members want to study in the US anymore. ~~~ conjecTech How gradual would it have to be for you to find this plausible? The prior NYT article referenced in this work mentions that first-time international student fell 3% from 2016. Those were numbers collected prior to the election, mind you. And a 50% change in the largest cohort of international students over only 10 years is going to make for a pretty big impact. Especially considering that these middling American schools are seen as alternatives to better domestic choices like Tsinghua. If the schools being discussed here were low on the priority list of potential students, the change would be even more exaggerated. Imagine the hypothetical where there were 2 schools, each of which could educate 50 students per year and where all students prefer school 1 to school 2. If the population drops from 100 to 80, school 2 would see a 40% decrease in enrollment, even though the general population only dropped 20%. Now if school 1 is in China and school 2 is in the US... ------ mathattack Losing international students is bad, but the cuts they claim are hardly draconian. Given the current environment (high change, bloated costs, online education) we should expect massive changes at non-flagship public schools. Should local students working full time pay to subsidize a money losing swim team? (Independent of internationals) ------ glbrew Apparently I'm the only one who is happy about this. I went through undergrad/grad school just as the explosion of foreign students occurred. Don't get me wrong, I'm open minded and liberal but I saw class rooms go from a dozen English speaking students with close connections to the professor to rooms stuffed beyond the fire code specifications of 50+ students who I couldn't even communicate with, not to mention the precipitous fall in education quality associated with this transition. Foreign money and skill is nice but I saw top tier programs go to shit to cram in a bunch of high paying mediocre foreign students. Domestic students deserve access to high quality education, and I personally saw major US programs fail at that. ------ Simulacra Universities should not make up budget short falls and high administration salaries in the backs of students. ------ newen This is also due to Obama era scholarships/money provided to refugee students aren't done by the Trump administration anymore. The universities were indirectly subsidized by the US government and aren't done so anymore. ------ Robotbeat ...and rural college towns. That ought to be in the headline, too. ------ bawana Finally. Time for the sword of Damocles to fall on those overpaid administrators. ------ brohoolio Trump is going to ruin the American economy. Attack universities by discouraging foreign students. Cut federal funding for research. Encourage political attacks on universities. The most damaging will be not forgiving student loans from people who went to scam universities, like Trump university. What Trump and others don’t recognize is that the American university system is a distributed system of factories that manufacture knowledge, innovation and the future. Just look at self driving cars. Much of the tech and the talent came from various universities. ~~~ throwaway7312 >> Trump and others don’t recognize is that the American university system is a distributed system of factories that manufacture knowledge, innovation and the future. There is another side to this. And that is that the American university system has a distinct political agenda that is opposed to the interests of the Trump- supporting half of the American electorate. It is a bad thing for innovation when there are fewer smart people immigrating into the U.S. However, when you have a system of institutions that adopt adversarial political positions toward a large chunk of the electorate, you should expect that at some point you will end up in a situation where the electorate elects leaders who work, to some degree, against what the winning side of the voting public regard as powerful institutions firmly in the hands of political opponents. There is not, unfortunately, an easy solution to the adversarial relationship between academia and half of America. The shift toward a mono-cultural academia (from a political standpoint) has occurred over decades; the left is now firmly entrenched in American universities and unlikely to relinquish its position any time soon. We can't ban politics from universities either; you will never get politics out of any organization in which humans are involved. We are distinctly political animals. So perhaps the focus should be on returning academia to a more politically balanced setup... that we might no longer end up in scenarios like today, where half the voting public views academia as a shining part of the leadership of progressive society, and the other half views it as a once-great former pride of our country, sadly fallen and increasingly adversarial. So long as the universities remain a bastion of the American left and an enemy of the American right, they will continue to feast during the years in which the left holds power, and continue to starve during the years when it does not. ~~~ Al-Khwarizmi Disclaimer: I'm not American. But my view is that the American right has placed itself outside the Overton window of anyone with a higher education. For example, the President is a climate change denier. How do you expect those views to be represented in universities when they fly in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence? In most countries, this problem doesn't exist because parties with ideas equivalent to the GOP don't exist or are marginal. ~~~ throwaway7312 Climate change isn't a very good example. Individuals who subscribe to anthropogenic global warming and individuals who are skeptical of it have equal levels of scientific comprehension. [1] It's more accurate to note that either side of the political divide in the United States has its share of unscientific beliefs. On the right, you have things like creationism and anti-vaxxers. On the left, you have things like gender theory and anti-GMO. Dismissing either side as rubes because of deeply held (if unscientific) ideologies doesn't help bridge the divide any. >> In most countries, this problem doesn't exist because parties with ideas equivalent to the GOP don't exist or are marginal. As an American who has not lived in or visited America for quite some time, I agree there is typically more uniformity in most intranational political ideologies worldwide. Though I would not agree "most countries" don't have parties similar to America's GOP. I think it'd be more accurate to say most Western European and Western European-descent countries do not have parties like America's GOP. Meanwhile, most non-Western European or non-Western European-descent countries do not have parties like America's Democrat Party. For example, every major political party in Asia and Africa, with very few exceptions, pursues an ethnonationalist agenda. This is more akin to the modern American GOP than the modern American Democrat Party. On the other hand, in Western Europe, ethnonationalist parties tend to be not only out of favor, but illegal. America is a rather strange country politically in that regard. Half of it is more like Western Europe. The other half is more like the rest of the world. In that sense, I suppose it is a bit like if you created a country made up half of England and half of China. The result would be a type of tumult similar to that of the U.S. (if a bit more extreme). [1] [https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1148067](https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1148067) ~~~ pm90 The right and left are not equivalent. While anti-GMO may be a personal preference for many hipsters, its most certainly not the defining agenda of the left. Also the left seem to be much more willing to change their beliefs in the face of scientific evidence, whereas the Right is more theology, faith and other such nonsense. So don't say they're equivalent, because they simply aren't. ------ junkscience2017 Schools like Cal are still offering too many slots to foreign students despite being chartered to serve the families of taxpayers who provide their funding. The same issue will eventually plague Canadian schools...foreign students will simply pay more directly for tuition even though taxpayers are still the core source of funds. For private universities, no one should care..they should select students from wherever they like. But State schools should exist to serve their residents. ~~~ mc32 A question I would have, if I were an international student living in say, California, is why would I pay tuition as a legal immigrant on say a F-1 visa, but if I came in illegally, I would have a chance at getting a subsidy[1]? Could they just pretent to be illegal for the subsidy and then when done just go home on your F-1. It's not like the school would check or even less ask the feds about status. [1][https://students.ucsd.edu/finances/fees/residence/ab540.html](https://students.ucsd.edu/finances/fees/residence/ab540.html) ~~~ sjf You can't get an F1 visa without the school knowing, they are sponsoring the visa. ~~~ mc32 Couldn't you go AWOL and then register as undocumented? Or why not be able to register for Non-Resident Tuition Exemption? Wouldn't that be discriminatory in some sense? ~~~ dragonwriter > Couldn't you go AWOL and then register as undocumented? . Well, you can't > qualify for DACA without a time machine, so you'd need to estsblish > eligibility under AB 540 by spending three years as a California resident > attending a California high school to qualify. Having done this, you > wouldn't have to pretend to be undocumented, since you'd pretty certainly > lose your F-1 status. So, you'd potentially be eligible for in-state > tuition—but also potentially eligible for deportation. Plus, unlike an > actual good-standing F-1, you’ll have a lot harder time ever getting legal > status in the US. > Wouldn't that be discriminatory in some sense? Of course it would; every status distinction made in law is “discriminatory in some sense.” The relevant issue is does it fail to meet the legal standard of legitimacy of purpose and adaptation to that purpose applicable to the basis and nature of discrimination. ------ Overtonwindow George Mason University leans heavily on international graduate students. The school increased no-credit-but-required classes on undergrads to pay those same international students who wish to be GTA's. It's almost like a Ponzi scheme. ------ sol_remmy This is good news. At the moment, universities are the primary gatekeepers to becoming a citizen in the U.S. Right now universities are capturing nearly 100% of the "citizenship cost" that immigrants pay start their path to becoming citizens. That is disgusting and greedy. With 100K in loans paid to the university, anyone can come to the U.S. on a student visa, make contacts with companies, and eventually become a U.S. citizen. A U.S. graduate degree serves as the primary "citizenship cost" for a lot of immigrants. Instead of New England universities shaking down immigrants, I would like to see midwestern small towns, red states, small business all get a piece of the small fortune that immigrants spend to come to the United States. ~~~ yedava According to the article, it was Midwest (aka "red" state) universities which have mostly benefited the most from foreign students. Also what visa allows immigrants to skip university enrolment and be directly employed in a small town small business? ~~~ sol_remmy > Also what visa allows immigrants to skip university enrolment and be > directly employed in a small town small business? The student visa allows one to be in the country for an indetermine amount of time (until their degree is done) and that person is free to obtain employment while enrolled in university
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An 1828 Balloon Ascent on a Pony - Avawelles http://mimimatthews.com/2015/12/17/an-1828-balloon-ascent-on-a-pony/ ====== twic I was drinking in that pub a couple of weeks ago! Inexplicably, it has no monument or plaque commemorating this feat of equestro-aerial navigation. ~~~ Avawelles It should have one! This balloon launch was apparently a really big deal to to people back then. ------ crisnoble For some reason I was really anticipating an old timey video of the event. ~~~ Avawelles If only!
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We need feedback for our tower defense game - we are 2 guys with a game engine. - calufa http://scramblermedia.com/charliesHardWorkDay ====== jameswyse It wasn't what I expected when I read 'tower defence game', but it looks fun anyway. Unfortunately it runs incredibly slow and crashed the chrome window it was running in. Needs some more work guys, good luck! ------ calufa we are 2 friends from Costa Rica trying to build a game engine. The server is made in node.js, all the actionscript code is made by us with no dependency and we sync the sprites and config files using dropbox. -- Feedback is always welcome... ~~~ washedup it moves slow for me... ~~~ calufa ...like everything is running slow because of cpu (framerate problems), or is more like the character moves too slow...? ~~~ calufa maybe some framerate issues, I am aware I need to compress more the imgs to improve it... I will work on that... -- thanks! ~~~ jameswyse It's something to do with CPU usage, on my core i7 flash is using 90% CPU. Maybe you have to look at how often you're updating the screen, I'm not very familiar with ActionScript but it feels like there's a constant loop running as fast as it can, is it possible to use an event based system to update the screen instead?
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Jekyll turns 21! Err... I mean 2.1.0 - parkr http://jekyllrb.com/news/2014/06/28/jekyll-turns-21-i-mean-2-1-0/ ====== Isofarro Does Jekyll 2.1.0 still have a dependency on node.js out of the box ([https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/issues/2327](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/issues/2327))? The release notes don't indicate this has been fixed, and the issue looks to still be open. Broken on install isn't really a good first impression.
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Wallflux User Agent - tracked http://ua.wallflux.com/ ====== tracked Wallflux User Agent is an online user agent switcher. It displays the versions of a page shown to a for example Googlebot and is helpful to kill google cloaking. (here goes the disclaimer)
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PostmarketOS in 2020-02 - ollieparanoid https://postmarketos.org/blog/2020/02/17/postmarketos-in-2020-02/ ====== jeroenhd This is a great project. I've put it on my old tablet and it's surprisingly quick. Sadly, it's an old ARMv7 chip so there's not a lot of Alpine packages compiled for it and the graphics aren't hardware accelerated; would be nice to run Firefox... I wish manufacturers would upstream their changes but that's probably never going to happen. Now my tablet is running Linux 3.0 so it won't even boot systemd let alone anything that requires GPU acceleration. I also noticed the weird partition schema Android uses (6 different partitions larger than 100MB on my tablet) doesn't play well with normal operating systems. I don't know how many partitions are required to get the system booting so I can't really remove any. That all being said, the devices running mainline are doing great on pmOS. I admire the people who build on the open source GPU code, I'd have no idea where to even start working on something like that. I hope this project will be as successful as some of the custom ROM communities in a few years time when the project has had time to smoothen things out. ------ commoner > @afontain has impressive results to show regarding Anbox: the Android > compatibility layer, that was never tested much outside of Ubuntu, is for > the first time running on postmarketOS / Alpine Linux! It's great to see this. With Anbox, Linux phones will gain access to a large selection of Android apps, which would make it easier for people to make the switch from Android/iOS. ~~~ webmobdev Just a rant - I know why we need it, but I wish mobile OSes like Sailfish OS or postmarketOS didn't require crap like "Android compatibility layers", especially when we are turning to them to get away from Android in the first place! ~~~ ollieparanoid If it makes you feel better: this will always be optional, and we strongly advise against using Android apps on postmarketOS unless there is no alternative for one's use case. With that being said, I find this an incredible technical achievement by Antoine Fontaine. I've tried to run it on postmarketOS myself, and ran into all kinds of problems with LXC and what not (since Ubuntu used another version than Alpine, at least at that point in time). All I got was this loading screen: [https://postmarketos.org/static/img/2018-06/anbox- starting.j...](https://postmarketos.org/static/img/2018-06/anbox-starting.jpg) ------ ollieparanoid Why does Hacker News auto-capitalize the first letter? It's "postmarketOS" with a lowercase p, just like blink-182. ------ dzonga this is really impressive.
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Creating a New Business Model for Cartoonists (2014) - gk1 https://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoonists/ ====== billconan I have been using [https://www.webtoons.com/en/](https://www.webtoons.com/en/)
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Show HN: A crowdsourced list of “buy it for life” products and brands - hubraumhugo https://www.buyforlifeproducts.com/ ====== husarcik There is some issue with voting. I tried to vote for Arc'teryx but as I vote / unvote it pushes the count down. If I refresh the page and then vote/unvote, it'll continue to go more negative. I assume there must be an issue with the unvoting code in regards to vote summation. I really like the concept as I've had some great experiences with both Arc'teryx and Darn Tough Socks. ~~~ hubraumhugo Thanks for the bug report! Just fixed it :) ~~~ husarcik For sure! Happy to help. ------ smt88 I love BIFL products, but this isn't something you can crowdsource. As soon as it became mildly successful, you'd be in the same cat-and-mouse game as Amazon. Unfortunately there's no way to trust aggregated, anonymous online reviews. I just go with Consumer Reports or Wirecutter these days.
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Jajasblog - jajas http://denuncia-online.org/faq-preguntas-y-respuestas-sobre-delitos-en-internet/ ====== jajas jajas its good. its sweet and fantastic. go hack!
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UN Population Report: 8.5B people by 2030 [pdf] - drallison http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/Key_Findings_WPP_2015.pdf ====== drallison The summary of key findings report linked here are only part of the package. Check out [http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/](http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/) for additional details and data.
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Refactoring JIT Compilation [video] - andralex https://archive.org/details/dconf2014-day02-talk02 ====== tach4n I may be biased, but this was one of my favorite talks at DConf :3. You can find the source to higgs on GH: [https://github.com/maximecb/Higgs](https://github.com/maximecb/Higgs) More info is on Maxime's blog: [http://pointersgonewild.wordpress.com/](http://pointersgonewild.wordpress.com/) And our subreddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/higgsjs/](http://www.reddit.com/r/higgsjs/) You can also stop by and say hello in #higgsjs on freenode. We're looking for contributors of all skill levels if anyone is interested! ------ WalterBright Youtube version: [http://youtu.be/cJGNItlMWBM](http://youtu.be/cJGNItlMWBM)
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Experiment reveals the ugly side of open-source journal industry - D-Coder http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/experiment-reveals-ugly-side-to-open-source-journal-industry ====== dllthomas Yes, this experiment revealed that Science publishes studies _with no control_ if you flatter them.
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Ask HN: How can I improve and make my CV more effective? - register Hi All, I am looking for constructive feedback about my CV. I am a software engineer turned manager with a long history in system integration consulting companies. At the point at which I am now I would like to move from the consulting industry to the software product one. I have published an anonymized version of my CV here:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;anonymouscv.blob.core.windows.net&#x2F;anonymouscv&#x2F;AnonymEng-Sept2018.pdf<p>I am struggling to condense all my experience in a mere 3 pages and I had to cut several interesting experiences so I would like to hear from other what is the professional figure that is reflected in the CV. I consider myself to be quite strong as a software engineer and also a valid project manager.<p>Would you mind to provide some feedback about what is effective and what could be improved ? Thanks all, Luca ====== vfulco2 Hello- Here are my observations: 1\. In the summary section, I would like to see more "wins" and achievements mentioned. There are a lot of features about you, what are the benefits to employers in terms of past milestones? What can you walk in and change for the better on day #1? 2\. The paragraphs in the job description are quite dense. Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager or recruiter facing a large pile of candidates (after initial filter by an automated applicant tracking system). Best to distill the history further into the "best of the best" and leave the balance for the first interview. 3\. I would like to see dates aligned right which would make the titles more prominent. 4\. This misspelling needs to be fixed--> "Continuos integration" As a point of background, I run a professional services consultancy in Shanghai, China editing English resumes & Linkedin Profiles and interview coaching among other services. Previously 24 years in the US on Wall Street. If you are looking for more thematic ways to upgrade your resume, I have a free DIY resume course delivered by email. The material has been presented to about 2,500 Fortune 1,000 employees, private continuing education and public university students. Here is the link--> [https://weisisheng.typeform.com/to/GfrQuX?source=weixin](https://weisisheng.typeform.com/to/GfrQuX?source=weixin) Good luck! ------ whitef0x Remove your certs. They are a negative signal for most companies in tech unless you are in infosec (which you aren't judging from your resume) ~~~ register Really? Our company welcomes certification exams because they make employees more marketable and make easier participate in calls to tender. As a matter of fact certifications are "must to have" requirements to participate in most calls to tender. ~~~ whitef0x If you want to work at FAANG or Uber/Dropbox/etc then yes you don't want certs. For lower tier companies/smaller ones then it might make a difference.
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What Can a Technologist Do About Climate Change? (2015) - midko http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ ====== sitkack Technology will play a role in affecting a perilous recovery, it won't in the way most technologists think. We don't have time to "invent a fix", we can't bank on having fusion power magically suck carbon from the oceans and skies at the last moment. Or a sunshade to prevent the tundra from erupting in methane. Technologists can help organize (via online tools), educate and show (via charts, graphs, simulations). This is ultimately a social and political problem that requires the full force of governments. Individual efforts are largely symbolic. Not that we shouldn't do them, but convincing your legislators to enact real reforms is where we avoid life ending catastrophe. We can have a huge impact, we just have to find the areas where we can have a 1000:1 advantage vs a 1.5:1 advantage. ~~~ titojankowski We have time to invent a fix. We can’t continue to wait for a policy change to change the world. Technologists have the opportunity to build new solutions, improve renewable energy efficiencies, hack direct air capture. Technology holds the keys for 10,000:1 advantages. Anyone who is interested in this...shoot me an email. ~~~ eledumb Hubris, or a get rich scheme. ~~~ titojankowski Why not both? ------ theptip The section on "model-driven debate" ([http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#media- debate](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#media-debate)) describes (and provides an example of) a mode of conversation that I have long wished was more common. In particular it seems that the web should facilitate such model-driven debates, since these dynamic calculations can be embedded in the fabric of the conversation (the posts, articles, and documents that are being shared), where they would be more awkward to include in verbal/visual presentations/conversations. I would love to see more of this, but alas it seems like an incredibly niche way of presenting ideas. ------ dang Thread from February: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19259106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19259106) 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16505675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16505675) 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615) ------ 8bitsrule Brilliant article. Four years have passed. "Everything about today’s power grid, from this centralized control to the aging machinery performing transmission and distribution, is not suitable for clean energy." Had the U.S. started on this 10 years ago, like China did, we'd be well on- the-way to ready. The author again calls for WW2-scale effort. The clock is ticking. ------ helen___keller Frustrating that the author parrots the wishful thinking "But once the grid cleans up, not only will electric cars be cleaner than gas cars, they may be more efficient than mass transit." while later admitting "Reducing the need for personal transportation via urban design. Among other reasons, this is important to counter the likely tendency of autonomous cars to increase urban sprawl, which has been strongly correlated with emissions." The two are strongly linked. Mass transit is necessary because when you have a highly dense city (i.e. when you fight against urban sprawl) you need a higher throughput mode of transit than roads could ever provide. Good luck moving literally 9 million people per day as the Tokyo subway does with a system of automatic electric cars. In this lens of thinking, the solution we need is innovating more efficient mass transit. The other approach is to increase density but in a distributed manner, a system of "small towns" if you will. Dense small towns are charming and, more importantly, can be walkable so that neither mass transit nor cars are needed for the average citizens' day-to-day. The issue with this approach is that modern civilization is currently demanding the opposite - despite internet technology, we are becoming more centralized in fewer megacities. Find a way to somehow make companies _prefer_ remote work and we might reverse this trend. ------ omarhaneef Had not seen this though I am interested to anything Victor says, and climate change. This looks like a lot of work went into it, and it seems to contain a lot of information. I wonder if there were an easy way to rank the innovations on various axes (most impactful for the environment, easiest, most profitable etc) ------ pjkundert Answer: quit Grievance Studies, enrol in Engineering. :) ~~~ pjkundert Seriously! We’re not going to plant a trillion trees in the next few years by complaining. We’re going to do it by inventing and executing.
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Orlando shooting discussion censored on Reddit - personjerry https://reddit.com/r/news/comments/4nql8f/orlando_nightclub_shooting_megathread/ ====== personjerry The uncensored version can be seen at [https://r.go1dfish.me/r/news/comments/4nql8f/_](https://r.go1dfish.me/r/news/comments/4nql8f/_) ------ philiphodgen Discussed (and flagged into oblivion) on HN at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888870) ~~~ personjerry Oh interesting. Any idea why it was flagged? ~~~ philiphodgen I think people flagged it as outside of "what is interesting to HN". My belief is that the shooting event itself should be flagged, but the knock- on impact of the event in the tech world (how do Reddit executives and mods behave?) is absolutely an important point of conversation here. It is just as important as the ongoing drumbeat of accusations of Facebook manipulation of the newsfeed against conservative topics.
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The Founder Dilemma: Risk, Equity Dilution, And Term Sheets - oguz http://tech.li/2012/02/the-founder-dilemma-risk-equity-dilution-term-sheets/ ====== flom I have a question for the more experienced HN users: is the author correct in asserting that in the "real world," being a co-founder of a startup is considered unemployed if there isn't a successful exit? I always thought that building a product from start to finish that has users is considered good experience to employers, even if it turns out not to be a sustainable business.
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When does data access become data theft?(2011 article) - sonabinu http://strata.oreilly.com/2011/07/jstor-swartz-microsoft-daytona-academics.html ====== gasull Please add "(2011)" to the title. ~~~ sonabinu Just did :)
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Plan to bring UK clocks forward - vrikhter http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12517762 ====== th0ma5 I hope they factor in global costs. Also when the DST stuff changed here in the states a while back, I either missed an update on my corporate managed machines (or something) cause I was showing up late in the Spring and early in the Autumn to various meetings during the dates in between the new and old dates. I eventually got a new laptop and didn't have the problem anymore :D However, I do remember many of our servers being out of sync at least for the first change, and we eventually just relied upon GMT dates and did a lot of fudging by hand with anything during those time periods. ~~~ vrikhter This is the government we're talking about, there's no way they can factor these type of things in :)
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Data from Experian breach found on the internet - nsomaru https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2020-09-13-data-from-huge-experian-breach-found-on-the-internet/ ====== nathanyz Given the amount of personal data now being held not only by credit companies, but also big tech, it seems like the liability for data breaches needs adjusted. If a companies main asset is their data, that means that you can ascribe a value to each person's data that they hold. If your data is stolen, they should be on the hook for value of that data to each of the people whose data was stolen. They need to stop being able to value the data at the cost of credit protection service on the liability side while booking value significantly higher on their assets ledger. This would encourage them to be much more careful in both protecting the data and mitigating breaches versus the current blase approach. ~~~ londons_explore Data is a copyable asset. Most other assets are not. Any copyable asset is worth zero as long as any copy is in the hands of someone likely to make more copies. ~~~ deftnerd There is a lot of case law regarding digital media, such as movies, tv, books, etc, stating that the digital version doesn't lose value despite the ease of copying it. It's an interesting conundrum that "big business" claims that personal data being copied doesn't necessarily have value, but entertaining data does. ~~~ bleepblorp It all makes sense if you accept that the purpose of modern intellectual property law is to protect the wealth of the rich from the people they exploited to get rich in the first place. ------ arkadiyt The Experian South Africa CEO has hilariously said [1]: We were not hacked, a clever criminal convinced us to give him our data [1]: [https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/364636-we-were- not-h...](https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/364636-we-were-not-hacked-a- clever-criminal-convinced-us-to-give-him-our-data-experian-sa-ceo.html) ~~~ dylan604 Isn't that even worse? Now they would be complicit as they freely gave the data away vs having something stolen. You used the word hilariously. Were you be sarcastic, or did this person mean the statement as a joke? ~~~ karpierz I think the "hilarious" part is how disconnected from reality the CEO must be if they think their quote somehow makes the situation better. ------ Propaganda_ "Breached data still breached" \- The only new thing in this article is that someone was stupid enough to believe Experian when they said the data had been "recovered". ~~~ trollied Reminds me of this: [http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html](http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html) Try to pay for something with a spider drawing attached to an email, ask for the drawing back afterwards ;) ------ forgotmypw17 All information will become public on a long enough timeline. ------ mkskm Credit bureaus are required to adhere to CCPA now in California. It might be worth making the request to opt out or delete your info: \- [https://experian.com/ccpa](https://experian.com/ccpa) \- [https://www.equifax.com/personal/my- privacy/](https://www.equifax.com/personal/my-privacy/) \- [https://www.transunion.com/consumer- privacy](https://www.transunion.com/consumer-privacy) ------ Stierlitz ‘The personal data of millions of South Africans, "stolen" in one of SA's biggest data breaches earlier this year, has been discovered on the internet, despite assurances that the information had been recovered.’ Technically speaking, how do you go about recovering data stored on any amount of copies? ------ chromedev Time for my $0.39 check or a year of additional credit monitoring in exchange for my credit history and personal information. ~~~ mkskm Will this change in California now that there's stricter privacy laws? Looks like the fines are much higher: > \- Companies that become victims of data theft or other data security > breaches can be ordered in civil class action lawsuits to pay statutory > damages between $100 to $750 per California resident and incident, or actual > damages, whichever is greater, and any other relief a court deems proper, > subject to an option of the California Attorney General's Office to > prosecute the company instead of allowing civil suits to be brought against > it (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.150). > \- A fine up to $7,500 for each intentional violation and $2,500 for each > unintentional violation (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.155). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act#Sanctions_and_remedies) ------ iafrikan [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24346674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24346674) ------ iafrikan [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24368557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24368557) ~~~ dang The convention on HN is to link to previous threads only when there are interesting comments there. If readers click on a link like this and don't see that, they'll be disappointed and sometimes come back and downvote the link.
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How can Skyrim be so unoptimized? Modders do better job than Bethesda - jhack http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1321675-how-can-skyrim-be-so-unoptimized-modders-do-better-job-than-bethesda/ ====== newobj Wow. The forum is full of so many really smart people. And the Bethesda developers are so stupid. Maybe all the people in the forum should start a company and acquire the rights to develop Elder Scrolls VI. /sarcasm Most likely explanation: PC port was crashing, they disabled optimizations, it stopped crashing. Been there, done that. Drop dead release date approaching, no time to find the root cause. Maybe the PC game already crashes enough that the people who pick up this patch don't notice that it's crashing more now. Dunno. The forum thread just makes my head spin with naivete. As a former game developer, I'm reminded why I could only ever read forums with one squinted eye open, head turned to the side. ~~~ davedx Inlining getters should not cause crazy stability bugs. I'm also a former game developer and I see both sides of it. To be honest one thing that I think is true is it's probably not some hacker's fault - the marketing and politics BS that goes on with respect to choice and support of platform when making AAA games is really horrible sometimes. ~~~ EponymousCoward throw new BathwaterException(new Baby()) ? ~~~ jcarreiro No no no. Always throw by value, and catch by reference. Like this: throw BathwaterException(Baby()); Wait, we are talking about C++ programming, right? ;) ------ nickolai > Rewriting some x87 FPU code and inlining a whole ton of useless getter > functions along the critical paths because the developers at Bethesda, for > some reason, compiled the game without using any of the optimization flags > for release build. That sounds appalling. This is not some tricky algorthm-level optimization - they seem to have simply disabled compiler optimizations. Or forgot to reenable them for the final release. Inlining a function should have zero impact on the QA process (some try to explain the lack of optimization by the need to 'fix' bugs). If it does, then there is some sort of memory corruption bug somewhere, and the code should fail QA anyway. Ensuring compiler optimizations are active would be the first low-hanging- fruit thing to come to anyone's mind when considering performace. The fact that it was 'forgotten' means that no one even considered performance during the whole development process. Not even in the "let's leave it to the compiler" form. ~~~ vilya I think you're making the same mistakes as people on that thread. It's a long stretch from "there's some x87 assembly instructions and some function calls that could be inlined" to "they compiled with optimisations off". It's entirely possible, for example, that the relevant code came from a 3rd party library that the game was statically linked against; or that they had to disable optimisations in parts of the code because they were found to cause bugs elsewhere. Creating a rich interactive world the size of Skyrim is a considerable technical achievement, so I certainly don't think you can accuse the developers of incompetence. ~~~ nickolai >disable optimisations in parts of the code because they were found to cause bugs elsewhere. Well that is exactly what I meant. Compiler optimizations by themselves do not cause bugs - they reveal bugs. They are specfically designed to be sematically equivalent[1]. Without the compiler optimizations the bugs may not manifest themselves, or only manifest themselves in particular conditions that may not be spotted by QA - but the bugged/unsafe code is still present. Any functional discrepancy between compiler-optimized and non-optimized code should be cause for concern. >Creating a rich interactive world the size of Skyrim is a considerable technical achievement, I wouldnt say that the size is a _technical_ acheivement - the credit would mostly go to the artists there - and they did an amazing job. Although it would cerainly not be possible without a decent quality engine. Don't get me wrong. I really like skyrim, and have spent a lot of time with it. But I simply get the feeling that performance receives less and less attention in the modern products. [1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler_optimization> ~~~ julian37 _Compiler optimizations by themselves do not cause bugs - they reveal bugs._ This is incorrect. Optimizations do often reveal bugs rather than causing them, but turning on optimizations can also cause bugs in itself. See for example: [http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?short_desc=optimizat...](http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?short_desc=optimization%20bug&resolution=---&resolution=FIXED&cf_known_to_fail_type=allwords&cf_known_to_work_type=allwords&query_format=advanced&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=SUSPENDED&bug_status=WAITING&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&product=gcc) ~~~ sharpneli These are due to bugs in the compiler, not inherent property of optimizations. It's quire rare for anyone to hit a optimizer bug and when it happens one can always selectively disable the buggy optimization method. Disabling all optimizations kinda overdoes it. ------ pak Because Bethesda has deadlines and P&L statements, and modders don't. It's as simple as that. E.g., the Macintosh launched with a hard-crash bug in the Clipboard code in ROM [1]. When you're struggling to meet a tough date for a huge project, things fall through the cracks. They fixed it later with on-disk software. [1] [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Cut,_Paste_and_Crash.txt&topic=Technical&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1) ~~~ ajross Bingo. The questions one asks before launch are "Does it work?" and "Will it sell?". Performance is part of the former only inasmuch as it impacts the latter. Far more important in those final days is the coarse QA, not tuning. Look down that forum post for all the people asking for help getting it working. Every one of those would have been a lost sale if this were in the shipping product. And who knows: maybe this was off for a reason. Maybe they hit some voodoo late in the process which produced a crash bug on one of their 19 test systems that didn't occur with a debug build. So one of the engineers tries an unoptimized build and it works. Slightly slower is better than crashing, so they pulled the trigger and shipped it. Shipping software only looks easy when you look only at code. ------ bstar77 I think what the people in that (painful to read) thread failed to realize is how the QA process works. I'm guessing that there would need to be significant regression testing for some of those optimizations. When you are killing yourselves to hit a date, that's the last thing you want to worry about considering things are already working well enough. ~~~ lt Most likely they have been explicitely disabled to workaround problems. ------ alimbada Not much more to say than this: [http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1321675-how- can-skyrim-be-s...](http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1321675-how-can-skyrim- be-so-unoptimized-modders-do-better-job-than- bethesda/page__view__findpost__p__19868762) Bethesda _are_ releasing patches, but right now they're fixing bugs rather than optimising performance and I'm presuming that it's a slow process because they need to test on all platforms before releasing patches. ~~~ lloeki Indeed Skyrim is butter smooth at 1080p on my 360, even in Markarth and Whiterun. Maybe it's lacking a few bells and whistles compared to a PC powerhouse (whose GPU alone would cost more than my console) but I don't care. Given the performance of Oblivion and Fallout 3 (which was okay-ish) for an inconsistent visual quality (see checkerboard patterns in the hills) I would never have expected Skyrim to achieve such a level. Secondly, the interface on the PC has been criticized, but on the 360 it's just fine. I bet on a PC it's a mere remap from buttons to keys and it just begs for a controller instead of keyboard/mouse. I have no PC to compare with and honestly care less, but from what I hear it shows where (some) priorities lie. ~~~ Havoc >Skyrim is butter smooth at 1080p on my 360 Its rendered internally at 1280x720 and then up-scaled (Pretty much all xbox/ps3 games do this). Which is over course a legitimate approach & looks good. In contrast on a PC, it is actually rendered at 1080p without upscaling & so the PC ends up rendering more than twice as many pixels even though both are set to 1080p in the options. So direct PC-Console performance comparisons are a bit tricky. ~~~ gte910h Where do you have the technical details on that? I have a considerably larger monitor and have been going past that, but would love to know more about detailed specs like this to better tune the game ~~~ zokier DigitalFoundry does some technical comparisons of console releases, eg Skyrim triple-platform Face-off: [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry- face-off-sk...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off- skyrim) ------ macspoofing >How can Skyrim be so unoptimized? Time. Bugs and features coupled with (tight) deadlines will push aggressive optimizations "for later". This is especially true if the product is performing adequately and nobody really wants to mess with it lest they introduce unknown regression bugs. ~~~ pohungc It's surprising that they didn't have SSE enabled to begin with. ------ mrhyperpenguin There are some great people at Bethesda, creating an engine that is capable of what Skyrim is capale is no small feat, so I'm sure they are perfectly aware of what they are doing. Its hard to believe that they 'forgot' to turn on optimizations or optimize critical code paths, they simply didn't because they are probably fixing show- stopper bugs which is much more important (I'm saying this as a game developer.) Part of it I believe is that we are spoiled by title updates, they allow developers to ship games earlier (before extensive QA testing or bug fixes) but at the same time is what the fans want and makes sense financially for their company. So I doubt these modders can do a better job than the professionals at Bethesda, if anything they can do the trivial things that would take any novice programmer a day with a profiler. ------ maximilianburke I doubt code optimizations were off, it's more likely that the offending functions were not declared inline and not visible across translation units. I've seen this many times in games that definitely were optimized -- some trivial constructor exists out of line because it was forgotten about but then was called thousands of times per frame. Sometimes they just don't show up on the profiler. ------ acgourley Another huge oversight which they only fixed 2 days ago was only enabled 2GB of virtual memory on 64bit OSes. This made most 64bit OS people I've spoken to crash every few minutes. How did _that_ get past QA? Of course, it could be fixed with a patch on the EXE someone released. Until they encryped the EXE (to prevent piracy) and broken the only fix people had for a month. ~~~ unsigner A 32-bit executable can use 2 GB on both 32 and 64 bit OSes; there's a linker flag that lets you use 3 GB, if you're not playing any dirty tricks with your pointer bits. More than that, and you need to recompile the EXE for 64-bit, which is far from trivial, and uncommon for games. Especially games that also run on 512 MB consoles. ~~~ acgourley Maybe I misunderstood the reason, but this patch fixed it for me and everyone else: <http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php> It seems to just flip a simple flag in any exe ------ sliverstorm Yea, because tweaking software is so much harder than writing an entire massive-world RPG. ------ Omni5cience Am I the only one who thought of that story about the programmer who occasionally checked in unnecessary loops, so that when performance bonus time came around he could just take them out? ------ sgoranson I don't know much about reverse eng, could someone explain how you can recompile machine code with new compiler flags? And changing getters and setters to be inline?
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AVX-512 Mask Registers, Again - ingve https://travisdowns.github.io/blog/2020/05/26/kreg2.html ====== wtallis I knew that the server variant of the Skylake core tacked on a few extra sections to enable AVX-512 and the extra L2 cache. [0] But I wasn't aware that the base consumer Skylake core already had a blank spot reserved for the AVX-512 register file. In hindsight it makes sense, but it raises the question why in 5 years of iterating on the Skylake core, Intel hasn't tried to fill in that blank and implement at least one AVX-512 execution unit on their consumer chips. It seems like they could have gone for something running at half rate to avoid the severe down-clocking the server cores require when powering up the full AVX-512 unit, and they'd gain the benefits of the mask registers and other new AVX-512 features and stay years ahead of AMD (expected to deliver AVX-512 in 2022?). Instead, this seems to be another feature that has been delayed by Intel's 10nm failures. [0] [https://images.anandtech.com/doci/11544/skylakedie_changevsc...](https://images.anandtech.com/doci/11544/skylakedie_changevsconsumer.png) ~~~ londons_explore Why would you ever leave a blank spot for something on a chip? Die area is expensive, yet transistors on it are free. Might as well take a crack at implementing it, and later disable it with fuses on models that 'shouldnt' have the feature. Smells to me like perhaps corporate inefficiency making its way into the silicon - space was reserved in the layout for this feature, but then the team was late shipping a design, but they wouldn't allow anyone else to use that area either, because "we'll be ready any day now". ~~~ BeeOnRope Modern chips are full of "logically blank" spots. That is, chips are often sold with 2 cores enabled when they physically contain 4 cores, sold with certain parts of the ISA disabled (AVX) even though the execution units are present, sold with less cache than physically present, etc. Sometimes this is a necessary result of binning (e.g., those cache slices didn't work), but mostly it is a result of pricing strategy: you want to charge more to the customers who are willing to pay more, while still capturing those who will pay less. Building chips is expensive, but not _that_ expensive on a unit basis, so whether you sell a die for $100 or $20,000 you are still making a (marginal) profit. Given that context, it's not surprising that chips can also have _actually blank_ spots which are not enabled on any chip: in this case because the SKX and SKL designs are tightly bound, so the floorplan is almost the same for both chips. This is probably either as a result of co-design, where SKL was designed with the future SKX in mind, meaning that SKX needed minimal changes to the core port over SKL, or as a result in a change of strategy: perhaps most SKL parts were originally slated to have AVX-512, on 10nm, but when 10nm was repeatedly delayed, the power or other impact was too high for most of the 14nm line and so AVX-512 was relegated to the SKX family. Who knows. What is clear is that SKL was definitely laid out with AVX-512 in mind. ------ zbjornson > Who is going to be making heavy use of x87 or MMX (both obsolete) along with > AVX-512 Edge case and still not likely to cause contention: x87 fadd has 3-cycle latency while AVX has 4-c lat through ICL. If you need to prepare some constant with a chain of high-precision additions to broadcast into an AVX reg, it's faster. (Especially if the alternative is compensated addition.) ~~~ BeeOnRope Yes, that is interesting. fadd also uses a different port (p5) as compared to SSE/AVX FP stuff which uses p01, so it seems likely that there is separate dedicated hardware for the x87 stuff, probably in the slice between the main vector pipes and this can also handle the 80 bit stuff. ------ vt240 >Who is going to be making heavy use of x87 or MMX (both obsolete) along with AVX-512 mask registers? It seems extremely unlikely. Wouldn't this be a performance issue if your linking an executable against libraries compiled for MMX, AVX. ~~~ chrisseaton x87 and MMX are both so incredibly old that I think it's pretty unlikely that you will be linking code that combines these, unless you have a 'dusty' library that nobody has the source code for anymore. ~~~ acqq x87 is still providing some functionality which is more convenient to be used in some specific scenarios. I've used it intentionally even for some 64-bit code, where it was a perfect fit to all other requirements of the whole environment and the goals of the project. When you don't need it, of course you should use your defaults. But there are still some specific scenarios where it definitely has its uses. Just as an example of the advantages, x87 code is very compact and the numeric manipulations happen on the implicit hardware floating point stack, allowing for complex formulas fitting in only a few bytes (as the addresses are implicit). Also, as some ABIs still depend on it, targeting such ABIs makes the use of x87 unavoidable. ~~~ BeeOnRope It also provides the 80-bit precision stuff which I guess could be useful for something.
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What happened to websites like this? - bobsondugnutt http://www.launchdate.com/ ====== anon1m0us Google stopped including them in search results for a couple reasons, I believe. 1) Google prefers to show people curated websites with modern looks because that's what most people like 2) Google prefers to show sites that help them generate revenue, because that's what google likes.
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Numerically Controlled Oscillators - jcr http://0au.de/2015/07/numerically-controlled-oscillators ====== masswerk Regarding quick oscillators, compare Marvin Minsky's method for circles by shifts only: _«Here is an elegant way to draw almost circles on a point-plotting display:_ NEW X = OLD X – epsilon * OLD Y NEW Y = OLD Y + epsilon * NEW(!) X _This makes a very round ellipse centered at the origin with its size determined by the initial point. epsilon determines the angular velocity of the circulating point, and slightly affects the eccentricity. If epsilon is a power of 2, then we don 't even need multiplication, let alone square roots, sines, and cosines! The "circle" will be perfectly stable because the points soon become periodic._ _The circle algorithm was invented by mistake when I tried to save one register in a display hack! Ben Gurley had an amazing display hack using only about six or seven instructions, and it was a great wonder. But it was basically line-oriented. It occurred to me that it would be exciting to have curves, and I was trying to get a curve display hack with minimal instructions.»_ ("Item 149 (Minsky): Circle Algorithm" in HAKMEM, Programming Hacks. MIT AI Memo 239, Feb. 29, 1972) Remarkably, this approach was also used for sine and cosine computations in the Sinclair Scientific pocket calculator (1974): [http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul...](http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html) For a fun application using oscillators based on this algorithm see the "Minskytron" (by Marvin Minsky, early 1960s), [http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/](http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/) ------ ChuckMcM Back when 8 bit micros were the "big" machines :-) Hal Chamberlin wrote a book called "The Musical Applications of Digital Microprocessors" which discusses this sort of frequency synthesis in detail. Recommended if you can find a used copy somewhere. ~~~ jcr It seems the title is just: "Musical Applications of Microprocessors" [http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Applications- Microprocessors-H...](http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Applications- Microprocessors-Hal-Chamberlin/dp/0810457687/) ~~~ ChuckMcM That is the one. ------ VLM Might get a kick out of comparing this software algo which works at Hz to KHz with DDS synthesis hardware which works at MHz to GHz. Typical example, an AD9851, low performance, but simple, cheap, and runs up thru VHF frequencies. [http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical- documentation/data-...](http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical- documentation/data-sheets/AD9851.pdf) (start reading around page 12) ~~~ aswanson Got a kick out of reading this in the datasheet: "Both versions of the AD9851 evaluation boards are designed to interface to the parallel printer port of a PC. The operating software (C++) runs under Microsoft® Windows® (Windows 3.1 and Windows 95); Windows NT® not supported ...." ~~~ VLM Well, it is over a decade old. I think I need to cross it off "cheap" also as its now impacted the far side of the price bathtub curve and costs a bit more than newer competitors. At least it is a relatively simple chip.
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Taking the 'D' Out of CRUD with Soft Updates - smerchek http://scottsmerchek.com/2015/08/04/taking-the-d-out-of-crud-with-soft-updates ====== pjungwir There was a very interesting presentation this year at PGConf New York with something similar [1], but where the history table has the _same name_ as the normal table, but lives in a separate history schema. Also there is a timetravel schema whose tables again have the same name, but are views of the history schema, with an extra WHERE filter to only show rows that were active at a given time. So by changing your schema_search_path and setting the "current_time" setting you can easily query the whole database as if it were some other time! I haven't tried this out yet, but it looks to be very compatible with an ORM like ActiveRecord. This is something I've been looking for for a long time. [1] [http://www.hagander.net/talks/tardis_orm.pdf](http://www.hagander.net/talks/tardis_orm.pdf) (pdf) ~~~ aidos That seems like a really clean way of building the abstraction. Are the only downsides the overhead of writing to the extra schema and the space required? Anyone know how bad the hit would be for the writes? With this setup it seems like you don't lose much by trying it. No interruption to the current db, you have the extra data if you want it, you can always cull to free up space and you can remove the whole thing at any point. Or am I missing something? ~~~ pjungwir I agree it seems pretty great. One big pain point would be if the schema changes over time. What if you add a new NOT NULL column? What if you remove a column? What if you change the type of a column? What if you remove a table? What if you add a new CHECK constraint? Some of these things get mentioned in the video linked by 'tvon, but they are mostly passed over. ~~~ aidos That's a good point. I guess in terms of the constraints you wouldn't mirror those to your history schema anyway? The changing schema is not so easily solved. Again, you could be a little looser with it. Don't remove columns from the history table (just mark as nullable). Adding columns would be a similar thing. I guess I'm thinking of the use case of wanting to get a bit of extra history of free vs the "needs to be auditable, 100% correct, user queriable" scenario. ------ brixon He is talking about Effective Dating except in his version he can never use it. If you don't need to reference past for future dates then his idea is nice since it keeps the primary tables smaller and the SQL easier to handle. Effective Dating: [https://talentedmonkeys.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/temporal- da...](https://talentedmonkeys.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/temporal-data-in-a- relational-database/) [http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~rts/tdbbook.pdf](http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~rts/tdbbook.pdf) I did a college project with this where you pick the data and the system will show you how the database looked at that date/time. The past was read only, but the future was editable. The SQL Selects are quite annoying and the data grows very fast. ~~~ moron4hire I personally believe that the majority of CRUD projects actually need Temporal databases. I've come to realize that--in my 12 year career--every project I've worked on was in some way covered by at least one form of government regulation (whether Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA) that required the ability to audit change. The problem is, most organizations (at least the ones I've worked for) don't know that they are covered by these sorts of regulations, because most places are sub-100 employee consultoware shops that are just reimplementing ERP for small B2B clients who also don't have much visibility on their regulatory coverage. That's not even getting in to user requirements. Users almost always eventually want to know what the past data looked like. They always say at the outset of the project that they won't need it, and they always change their mind a year in. And they never understand why you can't "just get it back. You said we had backups." It's kind of the Wild West out there. ~~~ EvanAnderson Commenting to voice my agreement. Modeling and querying temporal schema in a traditional RDBMS is difficult so most developers don't even try to do it (and, when they do, they do it badly). ~~~ moron4hire Yep, that's exactly right. So many shops live and die off of new college grads who--at best--only know relational algebra and nothing about optimization. I've seen a rare few people coming out of college who could design a schema that didn't completely destroy their data, but it's been rarer still to see anyone of any experience level in that environment who knows anything about making it work in a performant manner. ------ numbsafari Another approach that is often used for these things is now generally referred to as Event Sourcing. You'll see it mostly associated with Domain Driven Design (DDD) and Command Query Responsibility Separation (CQRS), however it is a technique that has been widely used for decades prior to either of those terms being made popular. In particular, it has been used in banking applications for quite a long time. ~~~ kodablah While I use event sourcing w/ Akka persistence, I find it is not a panacea for the problems that the blog post may reference. I find that oftentimes people store the resulting state in memory which may become unwieldy. And if you're storing it on DB/disk (not to be confused w/ storing your events/snapshots) you're basically back to the way traditional CRUD works except you have a stream of events if you need a new data structure from scratch. Also, many times event sourcing offers eventual consistency which, while it is obviously preferred to develop your app that way for scalability reasons, not all apps can do that and need atomic state. ~~~ hesdeadjim For atomic updates we implement this via CAS-like semantics. A caller who obtains a point-in-time aggregate view of an object (equivalent to the 'R' in CRUD) is also given the sequence number of the latest event. They can then conditionally push new events into the object's queue and request a rejection if the current sequence id is not equal to the one they have. Since we use Redis for the queue, the event pushes have a consistent view of the queue at the time of the attempted push. ~~~ kodablah While scalable, this basically turns it to bidirectional by adding a side- channel for conflict resolution which can add system complexity. This is why many event sourcing approaches recommend making the event represent the mutation (e.g. count + 1) instead of the result (e.g. count = 15)...when it does have to be atomic, I just give up and use a centralized place like you have with Redis. Such is life with atomic, distributed systems...they can only be so distributed and still reject conflicts in real time. ~~~ hesdeadjim Most of our events do in fact represent the state change as the mutation. However I see no complexity issue with how we implement CAS semantics. Its 100% equivalent to any other implementation with all the implications -- reduced concurrency being the primary issue. We avoid this at all costs for most objects and, like you suggest, resolve conflicts by de-duping events or combining state changes to the final aggregate. ------ ams6110 I've used this approach, but although there are pros and cons I come down against the idea of using triggers to record the history records. Triggers make things happen sort of "by magic" and it's easy to be confused by their behavior and how they impact transactions. You also need to remember to disable them if you ever want to do some kind of bulk update/correction that you _don 't_ want recorded in the history. My approach is to use stored procedures for the updates, and make the history tracking explicit in that code. Overall this is easier to manage, with fewer gotchas. ~~~ sleepychu How do you deal with future developers acting on the table? Triggers ensure that later on I don't develop some new code and forget to update the history (and does all your code deal with inconsistent/damaged history). Perhaps if you're using some sort of abstraction layer then you can make sure that only developers who've read the docs and are aware of semantic links between tables which aren't enforced by the database then this can be mitigated? ------ jakejake We do the same thing except we don't keep the version number in the main table since we have no reason to ever display that unless we're looking at the history anyway. We have a history table with two JSON columns representing the before and after state, so we don't need to keep columns in sync. (Technically the before state might be redundant, but it makes comparisons simpler). I really like this idea of using triggers, though. We handle it at the ORM event level so the DB isn't entirely self-sufficient. There have been many times where having the version information has helped us to debug and fix problems. We've had customers call us, freaking out because they accidentally deleted something, or confused because somebody else in the company changed something. We can tell them exactly when, what and by whom the data was changed and easily restore it. ------ meritt It'd be nice if we could see a Postgres patch that works exactly like Oracle's Flashback [1]. You can simply do: SELECT * FROM TABLE AS OF '2015-07-01 08:05:04' and it works as expected. This article is just reinventing Kimball's Slowly Changing Dimensions Type 4 [2]. [1] [http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28424/adfns_...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28424/adfns_flashback.htm) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_changing_dimension#Type...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_changing_dimension#Type_4) ~~~ vmind Postgres used to have timetravel built in, but there's still a basic timetravel implementation in the contrib: [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/contrib- spi.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/contrib-spi.html) ------ bink-lynch We implemented a "point-in-time" database architecture to accomplish similar behavior based on this document: [https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database- administration/data...](https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database- administration/database-design-a-point-in-time-architecture) The article describes two columns, dateEffective and dateEnd. If dateEnd is null, the row is still effective. When the row has been updated or deleted, the dateEnd field is set. This was implemented in a regulated industry where we had to show the state of the system at given points in time. It worked well for this purpose. ------ sigmaml During 2004-5, I designed and implemented a K-V object store on the top of BerkeleyDB. It served as the persistence layer for a number of applications my then company developed for regulated industries. The approach was very similar. The current versions of objects were stored in a set of tables, while old versions were stored in separate tables. In order to reduce bloat, I employed a few fairly simple compression techniques. They were reasonably good. On desktop-class machines with a Pentium processor, 256 MB of RAM and spinning hard disks, searching a million objects completed in single digit seconds. Later, I added bit-mapped indices with dynamically self-adjusting bucket sizes that were determined based on locally-weighted densities along their respective dimensions. They reduced search time on a million objects to tens of milliseconds, with full history searched. The obvious downside was that there was no SQL for ad hoc queries! So, a command line shell was provided with Ruby as the language, talking to a C API behind the scenes. All in all, the system worked and scaled very well. ------ mapleoin I don't understand what the 'version' column is for. You can get the sequence by just looking at the 'version_on' attribute. Deletes are already restricted on that table and it wouldn't solve concurrency issues since it's generated by the trigger. ~~~ smerchek Concurrency issues can be solved by restricting the UPDATE to the version passed in by the application. If I think I'm updating version 2 of an entity, then only update that version, otherwise throw an error. I've updated the post to address this scenario. ~~~ mapleoin I don't see the update in the post. If you pass the version in an UPDATE statement it will get overridden by the trigger. _NEW.version := OLD.version + 1;_ ~~~ smerchek The version is part of the WHERE clause in the UPDATE statement. Therefore, it is only possible to update the version of the entity that you were updating. If the entity is updated before your statement, it would not succeed in updating the row. Is there a different concurrency issue I'm not seeing caused by updating the version in the trigger? ~~~ mapleoin Yes, you're right. I didn't notice the WHERE in the UPDATE statement. That makes a lot more sense now, thanks! You still have the issue of someone setting the version explicitly in an update statement without a WHERE clause which checks for the current version. But I guess as long as you enforce not doing that it's fine. ------ buckbova I rarely do a D in prod. I've built a generic trigger function for postgres and proc for sql server that will do the auditing in K-V format on every table. And I call a proc to add the stuff to the table to create the audit tables and triggers. Works well. I also capture information like the host and session references in an audit batch record that points to the audit detail. I also employ the insert only table for some very special datasets where looking up the history in a quick manner is important. ------ Confiks Completely offtopic, but the site loads 1.1 MiBs worth of a grinning man at a resolution of 2446x2446, which is then rendered as an icon at 91x91 pixels. ~~~ smerchek Totally noticed this in google analytics, earlier. Whoops. It's now fixed! ------ jasonjei I do something similar because we have drafts (first drafts and drafts of existing records) in our system. My question is whether there is any downside to maintaining drafts and historic revisions in the same table opposed to maintaining it in a separate table as the OP does. Thoughts? Bloat and table optimization come to mind as potential problems, but it does make it easier to query for records. ------ 1wd Could you get rid of the is_removed column again (by copying the delected row to the history table) so the main table again has only the currently active rows and simplify queries? (Moot if both tables are merged and views are used as suggested by others.) Is it common to name timestamps _on, like version_on? That doesn't seem very clear to me. What's the rationale? ------ ahachete Oh, please, my eyes hurt so much. Please, please, please change that "WHERE boolean_column IS FALSE" to "WHERE NOT boolean_column". Thank you ;P ------ alternize the problem seems only half solved - the author does not show how they select (only) the most recent record. as soon as the app needs to generate a list of f.e. active users, this can get nasty pretty quick. sure, one could use an aggregate like max(version), but once there are joins or lots of records involved, this could become a performance hit... EDIT: the records are kept in a separate table, so my arguments are moot. ~~~ dwrowe Why? They're modifying the main table, which isn't growing with each update. The changes are simply tracked in the history table. ~~~ alternize oh right. small but important detail... thanks for pointing it out to me. ~~~ smerchek Valid question though, I've updated the post to be more explicit and added a couple more query examples.
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Show HN: Wall of Books [Goodreads login required] - zodiac http://xuanji.appspot.com/goodreads/request ====== vog I find it kind of awkward to hide a "Show HN" entry behind a login wall, without any explaination what to expect there. The given "static" URL is some help, but still just shows a page filled with book covers, without any explaination what this is all about. ------ zodiac If you don't have a Goodreads account, here's what this looks like with mine: [http://xuanji.appspot.com/static/books.html](http://xuanji.appspot.com/static/books.html) ~~~ shire Thanks for making it easier.
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Ask HN: Whats the most annoying thing about Netflix (if anything)? - curtisspope What are your biggest gripes(streaming,selection,speed,etc.) ====== CWuestefeld Their recommendations. Despite their overtures to help this, they've really been chasing a red herring. Their big $1M challenge got people to give them a 10% better way to predict what an arbitrary movie's rating would be. But that doesn't actually help. The only thing I want to know is a list of movies that I'm likely to love (and perhaps a warning list of those I'm likely to hate). It's quite alright if they mistake a 4.5 for a 5, and it's alright if there are false negatives. But they still do a lousy job on the actual recommendations, because they're trying to solve the wrong problem. ------ stonemetal Availability, I am not sure why(damaged, lost, whatever ) parts of series are unavailable but they don't seem to replace them. I have added several TV series that are a few years old(stuff that isn't on everyone's must watch list but still available on DVD at amazon) and approx. 30% is unavailable. ------ chrisclark1729 The lack of content to be streamed, which has more to do with the studios than with Netflix. ------ pbw Scratched discs which hang right at the most exciting part of the movie. ------ there not being able to clear an account's movie history (whether for privacy or just a change in preference that affects recommendations). no android client. ------ petervandijck Can't get Netflix (streaming) outside of the US. ~~~ curtisspope sux man
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aSMtris – Tetris in assembly language (2016) - tosh http://sebastianmihai.com/main.php?t=96&n=aSMtris-Tetris-in-assembly-language-x86-16-bit ====== userbinator 1.85KB may sound tiny, but for Tetris clones written in Asm, it's still "reasonably large". The Hugi Size Coding Competition (unfortunately defunct now) from 2003 had a Tetris-clone competition, and the winner was _363 bytes_ : [http://www.hugi.scene.org/compo/compoold.htm#compo22](http://www.hugi.scene.org/compo/compoold.htm#compo22) ------ 2ton_jeff Obligatory addition of the assembly language TetrOS in a single boot sector (512 bytes) from the author of flat assembler many years ago [https://twitter.com/grysztar/status/1054729111623606273](https://twitter.com/grysztar/status/1054729111623606273) ~~~ MaxBarraclough Real demoscene material, right there. And to think Super Mario 64 was a whole 8MB. ------ nottorp People now write stuff like this for fun. Pretty sure the original Tetris was also written in assembly because there was little choice in the matter though. ------ cjauvin For fun, a while ago, I tried my hand at writing a Tetris clone for the C=64's 6502 (it has been quite a challenging exercise): [https://github.com/cjauvin/tetris-464](https://github.com/cjauvin/tetris-464) ~~~ chongli As if that's not challenging enough, recall that the game Elite [1] ran on a BBC Micro (model B), a computer that also used the 6502 yet had only 32K of RAM, half that of the C64! It still blows my mind how they were able to accomplish so much on such a limited computer! [2] [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_\(video_game\)) [2] [https://gdcvault.com/play/1014628/Classic-Game- Postmortem](https://gdcvault.com/play/1014628/Classic-Game-Postmortem)
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Natrium Power Production and Storage System - rbanffy https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-and-ge-hitachi-nuclear-energy-launch-natrium-technology/ ====== gus_massa Is there a page with more technical info, like how many watts does it produce or the size of the building or the estimated cost of the electricity? ------ PaulHoule Why?
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Google's Keith Enright dodges China questions at Senate privacy hearing - Jerry2 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/google-keith-enright-dodges-china-questions-senate-privacy-hearing.html ====== anoncoward111 How on Earth can US Senators question Google when the NSA does things 100x worse than this?
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MacBook Pro 13“ Function Keys Late 2016 Teardown - ProZsolt https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Keys+Late+2016+Teardown/72415 ====== shadowfacts > The battery assembly is entirely, and very solidly, glued into the case, > thus complicating replacement. Eek, this seems like one of the biggest issues. If you want the computer to last for a long time (and since you're paying a ridiculous amount for it, you probably do), the battery is probably going to be the biggest issue. > The trackpad can be removed without first removing the battery. The only thing that can be (relatively) easily replaced is the one that is less (or the least) likely to need replacement. > Repairability 2 out of 10 This is incredibly low and only beaten to the lowest score by the 15" retina MBP at 1/10 [1]. [1]: [https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+D...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Display+Mid+2012+Teardown/9462#s36210)
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Human beings are not computers - zick http://theenergyproject.com/key-ideas ====== LoSboccacc The ideas are correct, but this > We're at our best when we move between expending energy and intermittently > renewing our four core energy needs will be hand waved as hogwash and feeling goods hr practices until they start putting some numbers behind the claim sadly it seems nobody is able to do research anymore, or even read old research. Most of it has to relearned at every new generation of CEOs coming in offices, at about 20-30 years cycles. you can find a lot of it in the 40s, 60s, 80s, etc. now we're just about at the end of yet another 'resource extraction' cycle, where managers (who just got bonuses pushing people into unsustainable working hours) are looking for reasons why productivity dropped across the board and how to bring it back up look at the references at the bottom of this study (which mostly colorize graphs and reword sentences, but still) [http://danzpage.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/05/Construction-...](http://danzpage.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/05/Construction-Management- Resources_Calculating_Loss_of_Productivity_Due_to_OT_Using_Charts_- _Nov_2001.pdf) not included, but more or less same conclusions [http://www.awci.org/cd/pdfs/8107_b.pdf](http://www.awci.org/cd/pdfs/8107_b.pdf) and yet while "As an example, it is well known that within narrow limits a craftsman learns to expend his physical and mental energy at an accepted pace which he has established" (from second link) we keep getting into a death productivity spiral fueled by retarded KPI and other "fun" HR practices. ------ jonstewart Yuck, this is just some marketing fluff. What, pray tell, is "spiritual energy" and should companies really get involved in spiritual/religious matters? Where's the news for hackers? ------ jackgavigan FYI, The Energy Project appears to be a commercial organisation, owned by its chairman and COO (Jean and Sally-Anne Gomes): [https://companycheck.co.uk/company/05881149/THE-ENERGY- PROJE...](https://companycheck.co.uk/company/05881149/THE-ENERGY-PROJECT- EUROPE-LIMITED/group-structure) ------ tbrownaw Rather than trying to pick out the sane parts of this, wouldn't it be better to go find (and watch) that youtube synopsis of "Drive" by Dan Pink? ------ inatreecrown reading and specially looking at the graphics in this article feels more like "Human beings are not computers yet"
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Why the Obamacare Website Sucks - __chrismc https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2013/10/21/Obamacare-website ====== hga Not impressed. E.g. his knock on the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars" per its detractors) is on a architectural strawman constructed by its enemies, the people involved planned on sane, somewhat independent defense in depth systems, where one failure of any sort would hopefully be compensated for by the other systems. E.g. "Brilliant Pebbles" were entirely unnetworked except for the necessary "GO!" signal, each would look at its view of the the attack and decide which booster it should try to take out. And it ignores its stunning political success: the Soviets, after Brezhnev pretty much bankrupted the country with a return to Stalinist repression and all the money spent on the military, especially the 3 complete armies of armor on down supplied to North Vietnam (one used up piecemeal, one destroyed in the first post-"peace" attack, the final succeeded because the Democrats stopped supplying the South with ammo), and the Strategic Rocket Forces. The latter of which SDI was going to entirely obsolete in one "generation"; faced with the expense of replacing all that investment, and the loss of first strike capability (you have to count on your enemies defenses working somewhat, _and you can 't pick which warheads make it_), threw in the towel. We won the decades long Protracted Conflict/Cold War "without firing a shot", one of the greatest diplomatic successes in history. But it's an _Idée fixe_ among the ignorant like Bray that it was an impossible failure, heck, he doesn't even consider people like me to be sane, "the foaming-at-the-mouth right wing". Oh, yeah, the embedded systems contractors who do this sort of work have a _much_ higher rate of success, and frequently not one you can fake in peacetime, either that fly-by-wire plane flies or crashes. The success of e.g. the F-16, F-117, F-18, B-2, F-22 speak for themselves. And the ABM Standard Missile 3 and it's supporting AEGIS system sure seem to be able to blow up things.... So if he's this stunningly ignorant or biased about a proven governmental success, how much is the rest of his judgement to be trusted? Like this ludicrous analysis, either massively ignorant of the basic facts, or trying to protect the political and civil service types responsible for this mess. Seeing as how those masters of the universe in the HHS's CMMS decided to handle the integration job of coordinating 50+ contractors, including integration testing per the AP. And made it impossible for them to succeed: per the NYT " _In the last 10 months alone, government documents show, officials modified hardware and software requirements for the exchange seven times._ " ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583327)), those changes continued through the last week before the launch, and full testing obviously was delayed until that last week. ~~~ Turing_Machine "So if he's this stunningly ignorant or biased about a proven governmental success, how much is the rest of his judgement to be trusted?" This is Tim "XML" Bray. So, yeah. ~~~ hga XML??? I rest my case ^_^! Seriously, I know an equivalent S-expression system wouldn't have been accepted, but it's nonetheless an over-complicated nothingburger to us Lispers. More seriously, XML is a micro level thing, it says _nothing_ about his high macro level political and systems development knowledge (proven to be sorely lacking as I demonstrate), goodwill (ditto), or expertise ( _seems_ to be sorely lacking, but that could be politics interfering). To make one point perhaps more clear, he's talking about a inextricably political thing and can't help but to totally denigrate the other side _on false grounds_. Doesn't even have the self-discipline to hide it. So he impeaches his comments, showing he's not to be taken any more seriously than any random Joe programmer on the street. Or rather, even less seriously. ------ memracom I love that definition. Enterprise Software means "Doing It Wrong". So many management folks just roll over and play dead when an IT guy says "This is an Enterprise class package" not realizing that the IT guy has just said "I don't have a clue what I am doing. Sadly, business schools try to teach managers how to make hard decisions, but in the IT realm, they seem to forget everything they have learned. And it's not as if there are no examples of how to manage technology projects around. Look at an aircraft manufacturer or NASA and see how much they rely on incremental change followed by lots of testing. ------ dham > "The chances that the most elite squad imaginable of Googlers, Facebookers, > NSA geeks, and Government-of-China attack hackers all laid end to end could > have made this work at startup? Zero." Yes they could. Look, one of my good friends works at Duke, and they're constantly pulling from legacy, disparate, the most xml you've ever seen, medical systems all the time. The amount of J2EE -0.35 code would make you cry. Sure this is definitely on a larger scale, but it can be done. By scale I mean the amount of disparate systems, not the comical amount of traffic the site got. Healthcare.gov is an oversized wizard sign up form. Sure there could be bugs later in the process, but signing up a user shouldn't have these problems. I'm hoping that as a developers everybody can see that. No way of knowing the amount of people that are signed up? No, that's either some crap the government is feeding us, or a sign that this is an over engineered pile of dog turd. > "Could Healthcare.gov work? Sure. It probably will, eventually." Eventually > is a good word, but throwing more programmers at the problem will only make > it worse. ~~~ hga All correct points. And I myself have interacted with lots of older (pre-J2EE) systems, they tend to be characterized by stability and sanity, however weird. Grok the formats, write adapter code, you can get the job done as long as you don't exceed their duty cycles. You're right, those going on the record are feeding us crap, although the site is a _bit_ more complicated because it wants to confirm identity to reduce fraud (although a lot of that was punted; this is a separate system done by another contractor using Oracle's identity system; CMMS panicked and proposed to replace it 3 days after launch), it _must_ get FICO scores (from Experian as it turns out) because that's a part of insurance policy pricing, and it and only it (or a subsystem below it) is the only allowed source for all sites' subsidy calculations, which are utterly important for Obamacare to work (otherwise a lot of less wealthy people and families simply won't be able to pay for policies, since there's only one gold-plated type now legal, the old major medical ones are outlawed come Jan. 1). Except perhaps for getting the FICO scores, all of the above is being observed to frequently fail, as is the interfacing to the insurance companies (which ought to be _de novo_ ), they're getting self-evidently bogus data including multiple enrollment and cancellations of the same person. Who know's who's responsible for the latter, but CMMS is unquestionably responsible for making sure that worked. " _I 'm hoping that as a developers everybody can see that._" For far too many, like Mr. Bray, revolutionary truth beats bourgeois truth ... pity that attitude is slamming into the brick wall of reality, that computers do _exactly_ what we tell them to do, not what we want them to do. Which of course is delaying any steps that would get this fixed in time, e.g. the White House and CMMS have been consumed with the launch mess for 3 solid weeks and hope to have a plan come Thursday, vs. e.g. the White House realizing CMMS as the integrator, including integration testing per the AP, and HHS/CMMS as requirements specifier are part of the problem, not part of the solution to any likely fix before things get really ugly. And as you note, ignoring the lessons of _The Mythical Man Month_ " and throwing more programmers at it, calling it a " _tech 'surge'_" (an odd call out to Bush competency or a precursor to blaming it all on Bush? :-)
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