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PubNub is Faster than iMessage - ajb413
https://www.pubnub.com/blog/pubnub-chatengine-is-faster-than-imessage/
======
millzlane
It looks like apple just has a slower animation to show the read receipt.
~~~
stephenblum
Yes you are right regarding the visuals, essentially you can not be certain
unless you check the datagrams on the network using tcpdump ( or wireshark for
GUI ).
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ruby and the power of gems - gduplessy
http://gduplessy.com/2011/04/09/ruby-and-the-power-of-gems.html
======
gduplessy
Just wrote this up and I would like to know what you guys think about it! :)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Why Women-Only Transit Options Have Caught On (2012) - EGreg
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/02/why-women-only-transit-options-have-caught/1171/
======
biff
_But there are worries the harsher penalties may have actually led some women
to falsely accuse men of groping in the hope of a cash settlement._
_It looks like until Japanese men and women – but especially men – learn to
behave themselves on trains in mixed company, completely gender-segregated
cars might sadly be the safest way to ride._
I leafed through a book once (and fully intend to actually buy and read though
the thing soon) called the "No Asshole Rule". [1] My takeaway was that there
are people who on the surface are extraordinarily productive but who are so
destructive in interpersonal relations as to contribute negative value overall
to a business.
Reading this article makes me wonder if, on a more general level, anybody's
tried to quantify the amount assholes cost society in general. And how much of
that cost is truly wasted vs. that which creates industry of benefit to all of
us. I know effort's gone into using our understanding of psychology to steer
people into more responsible social behaviors, but I wonder if all things
considered we somehow end up in a better place because assholes are constantly
testing limits and we come up with social accommodations for that behavior.
1: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Asshole-Rule-Civilized-
Workplace/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Asshole-Rule-Civilized-
Workplace/dp/0446698202)
~~~
philwelch
The US actually ran a massive social experiment like this in the 80's and
90's, where repeat criminal offenders eventually got life imprisonment if they
committed enough crimes. Now we have the world's largest prison population.
(I'm being a little wry.)
------
lettergram
I'm just going to come out and say I think 104 incidents of the 100,000 -
1,000,000+ riding the trains is pretty low...
Further, I know multiple women (or I guess men) who would over react if they
were accidentally touched and in a bad mood, tired, hungry, etc. With Japan's
very large population in a relatively small place I can imagine this happening
often. I am sure that groping happens, but it seems as though this is at least
as much hype as it is facts.
~~~
whyenot
104 _reported_ incidents on a single subway line. The number of unreported
incidents is likely much higher.
~~~
sfall
Unfortunately there is no way to determine if the actual is 110 or 1100 so you
can only base off reported incidents
~~~
thaumasiotes
This isn't true at all. For example, here in the US we keep statistics on
reported crimes, but we also have the National Crime Victimization Survey.
------
cclogg
Random unrelated hilarious moment: When I finished reading, I looked at the
other articles linked below, and one of the images used was randomly from my
flickr page (of my gf) hahaha. Such a weird moment to see that, considering
the image only has 16 views. But I do set all my photos for complete open use.
------
jsonne
Serious question. I've traveled rather extensively and this seems to be a much
more serious problem outside the US as opposed to within the US. Does anyone
have any insight into this? Is this purely anecdotal on my part?
~~~
Myrmornis
When you say outside the US, do you definitely not mean "outside affluent
western society"? Or do you find it more common in London, Vienna, Sydney,
etc?
~~~
jsonne
Southern Europe (Italy and Spain specifically) it seems to be more of an issue
than London or say Hamburg.
------
EGreg
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-
only_passenger_car](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-only_passenger_car)
------
joshbaptiste
hmm.. article is almost two years old, so I wonder what the current situation
is as I've never heard of segregation of the sexes in Japan.
~~~
graeme
The first sentence notes that women only-trains have existed in Japan for 100
years.
I find Hacker News has a recency bias. This is appropriate with tech stories,
but often inapplicable in other areas where norms shift much more slowly. A
two year old article can be quite reliable.
------
EGreg
Why was this title renamed? It used to say "train cars where men are not
allowed". What was wrong with that title?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ask HN: Will they hate me? - ThrowawayCoward
I wrote the following letter to my team (only peers, no managers). Does it have a chance of being productive? If so, would I become hated or viewed as a superior jerk? Is there anything that would produce a better letter if it were eliminated?<p>http://pastie.org/8287095
======
EllaMentry
Honestly this does not read well. You have some decent points (not unique
points to any professional software engineer but good points) - there are
several grammatical errors "to(sic) much magic" and you have not provided any
examples.
You state that you are new to the project - from the writing style it sounds
like you are fairly young, so I would guess this is your first programming
gig? Either way take a professional writing course.
Provide examples - where are there problems with code clarity? Where are the
repeated sections? Simply stating there are problems help nobody - you need
data - how many repeated lines? What is the overhead of this code? How many
special cases etc.
Good luck!
~~~
ThrowawayCoward
Thanks for your review! I'm aware that they are not unique points. They all
come either from hard experience or from things I've read from people I
respect over the years.
It's not my first programming gig, and as for young, it's relative. I'm in my
early thirties. Unfortunately, I am the most senior person there.
I am surprised my writing style would lead anyone to think I'm young. Are
there any specifics there? I have taken professional writing courses, but
writing is still something I try to improve. I will keep the suggestion of
enrolling in one in mind, though!
That particular gramatical error was really a typo. Either way, if I decide to
send it at all, I will definitely be proofreading it again. Even though I re-
read it once, I missed that one and would probably have missed it every time.
I haven't provided examples for three reasons. First, I'm hoping it prompts
discussion. Second, many of what I would include as examples are things that
either I or they have pointed out previously. Third, it is already very long;
details will bog down the pace. Given those reasons, would examples still
help?
~~~
EllaMentry
That is interesting, from a reread, I would say the "youngness" is a product
of the length and over-descriptiveness.
""Magic" is my term for "I don't know how it works because I haven't taken the
time to figure it out yet" \- it's an attribute of my understanding of a
thing, not of the thing itself; that is, it's the Clarkian definition." \- No
one speaks like that - it makes it sound like you are trying to come across
smarter than you really are - Every developer under the sun understands what
you mean when you say "Magic"
At it's most essential it sounds like you gobbled up a "software best
practices book" and then spouted chapter titles without any context - Examples
definitely help!
e.g. <Module Z> is a great example of why we need to keep our code clean,
since I joined the team no fewer than X lines have been added resulting in
this module having Y different responsibilities - because <Module Z> is so
bloated we have Q different tickets in our backlog which will result in code
changes to it.
<Module T> and <Module R> are a perfect example of where we can utilize code
reuse. Both contain a function Y, which we make heavy use of - we should
consider extracting this into a common library function etc. etc.
If you make an actual proposal instead of a complaint, people are more likely
to listen - it is a lot harder to argue against raw data than it is a personal
opinion.
~~~
ThrowawayCoward
Interesting. My description of magic is there because I specifically see two
programming-related definitions.
When used with Rails, it's usually derogatory, and it means something like
"something tricky or obscure and complex that is done in order to provide an
easy interface", and in that sense, it is usually derogatory and used when the
someone believes there is a straightforward way that may be an even easier
interface, or is at worst, not much more cumbersome than the interface that is
presented.
The other definition - the one I used, is, for example, how many developers
would answer "How does the Linux syscall mechanism work?" In that case, the
syscall interface is very much needed to provide an easy interface, and it's
not incredibly complex.
One often seems like the other until you look into it, but I still think they
are separate.
------
tjr
A lot of how this is received may depend on the role you have in the group.
You state you are new to the project; were you brought in as a junior novice?
Or as a seasoned professional? If the former, then you might consider
presenting these ideas as suggestions rather than as a critique.
I think, though, that either way, this is a lot to digest all at once.
Breaking this apart into separate communications might be easier to grasp.
Generally, it sounds like your team needs some sort of coding / development
standards. Until a behavior has been established as "correct" or "incorrect",
it's all a matter of opinion.
~~~
ThrowawayCoward
I'm new to the project, but not new to the company. My previous role was a
project lead, and I interacted with this project on a regular basis. I was
brought in to this project to get stuff done because it's very behind and new
work is piling up in the future.
I agree that it's too long. If I send it anything at all, it will have to be
shorter or in segments. Based on this and other peoples review, I probably
won't send it. Still, it helped my identify the issues for myself. There must
be ways of getting results without sending this, and I'll continue to consider
that as I work with the team.
I suppose I really would like these ideals to be a standard.
Thank you for taking the time to read that novella and to post your thoughts!
------
bobfirestone
Yes you will be hated and it won't change anything.
There are members of your team who will agree with some or all of the points
you make you will still be known as the a-hole.
Additionally that is just way too long to be persuasive. Most people won't
read past the first paragraph.
------
gus_massa
For context: When has the project started? When did most of your team come
together? When did you enter the team? How many working experience do you
have?
Most of your ideas are right, but in real world sometimes you need to make
exceptions. For example sometimes you must add a special case. It makes the
code worst, but sometimes something has to get fixed _now_ and cleaned after.
I recommend you to read: "Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt":
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000332.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000332.html)
(don't forget strategy 6)
~~~
ThrowawayCoward
The rewrite started a year ago. It's the _fifth_ version of the same product
that is only four years old. I joined this project about a month ago, but have
been working on a related project and interacting with them for about three
years.
I agree that sometimes things have to be fixed now and cleaned later, but it
should make you feel a little bit queasy when you do it, and you should be
aware that you are adding future work to the project.
I skimmed that link and it looks great, I'll be diving in fully. Since I've
seen the posts from others and was leaning that way already, it's likely I
won't send it, but I really want to push this project to be better. Since you
suggested strategy 6, I read that first, and it's awesome and difficult. Part
of being new means that more than a usual amount of my development time is
spent understanding the project. I've felt rather unproductive because of
this.
Thank you.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Opium, Empire, and India - Hooke
https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/opium-empire-and-india-part-i/
======
atxcrab
This might be interesting to readers : ibis trilogy from amithav ghosh
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis_trilogy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis_trilogy)
~~~
miraj
it sure is a great historical fiction! in another HN thread I too suggested
this for readers interested in drug trade during colonial India.
------
ultimoo
Having never tried any hard drugs or the mentioned concoctions, pardon my
basic question -- what effects does consuming opium have? Is it like consuming
modern day heroin? Does it imitate what people feel after smoking pot? Just
trying to understand why people consumed it -- the article mentions pain
relieving uses as well as 'taking the edge off' uses.
~~~
mtdewcmu
"Narcotic" means numbing, and that's an accurate description IMO. Reports of
euphoria are exaggerated. It feels good if you are feeling pain or malaise and
it takes the pain or malaise away. Otherwise it doesn't feel like much.
~~~
fragsworth
> Reports of euphoria are exaggerated.
No, they aren't. It depends a lot on the person, the specific narcotic, and
the quantity taken. Some (most in my experience) people feel intense euphoria,
others don't.
~~~
mtdewcmu
The "euphoria" is situational. It's like alcohol. Drinking alone is usually
not much fun.
------
pruthvishetty
Surprised not to see a mention of the Tatas here.
~~~
gjkood
Can you shed some more light on why the Tatas should be mentioned in the
article?
As far as I can tell from Part 1 of the article which is posted, the
discussion is more of society's use of Opium through the latter part of the
millennia. It doesn't go into any specific purveyor of opium products except
for the regulation and subsequent clandestine production after prohibition.
> By Regulation XIII of 1816, opium cultivation was legalised in Bengal under
> the supervision of the Commercial Resident of Rungpore. The control of the
> Opium Department went from the Board of Revenue in the Customs, Salt and the
> Opium Departments by the Regulation IV of 1819. In 1850, by Act XLIV, the
> Customs, Salt and Opium Board was merged in the Board of Revenue at
> Calcutta. In 1797, prohibition was imposed on the private cultivation of
> poppy in Bengal proper and in Behar division of the province. It was then
> that the attention of the Government proper was being met by ‘systematic
> smuggling and clandestine production’
I am really curious about the Tata family role in this that you allude to.
Please elaborate.
~~~
clock_tower
From your tone, it sounds like this is a known controversy in India. Could you
elaborate?
I know nothing about the Tatas' origin, although it's hard to miss the
importance of the modern Tata Group. Wikipedia says that the family fortune
was founded by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, who had some wealth from his father
Nusserwanji and parleyed it, through trade, into enough capital to recondition
a cotton mill.
Are you saying that Jamsetji's trading company dealt in opium? That his
father's business was involved in it? Or even both? If so, looking at things
from a United States perspective, I'd find that a little heartening. I'd
always seen the opium trade as a matter of pumping money from undeveloped
China to already-rich London and Boston; if there was going to be an opium-
for-silver trade regardless, at least some of the silver went to somewhere
else in need of capital.
~~~
douche
> I'd always seen the opium trade as a matter of pumping money from
> undeveloped China to already-rich London and Boston;
Like most things, it's a little more complicated than the packaged narrative.
Prior to the introduction of opium to the Canton trade, pretty much all of the
goods that were imported from China by foreigners were paid for with silver -
mostly from Mexico and Potosi or Japan - as there was very little that
Europeans could find or produce that would sell in China's largely self-
sufficient economy[1]. By the late 1700s, Britain, Portugal and the
Netherlands were shipping millions of silver Dollars into Canton for silks and
tea and such every year. China vacuumed up so much of the world's silver
supply that it severely distorted the exchange rates in the Qing bimetallic
currency system. Up until the opium trade got going, China had a massive,
massive trade surplus. A lot of that wealth did get squandered - probably the
poster child would be Heshen[2], a Manchu official that siphoned off a fortune
estimated at fifteen times the annual tax revenue of the Qing Empire, or Wu
Bingjian - one of the primary Chinese merchants in the Cohong system, who was
so wealthy he personally contributed a third of the indemnity stipulated in
the Treaty of Nanking[3].
[1] I don't have a link, but it is hilarious reading some of the early
official records of the English East India company, and their utter inability
to find anyone who would buy the woolens they initially tried shipping as
cargo.
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen#Fall_of_Heshen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen#Fall_of_Heshen)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howqua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howqua)
~~~
cubano
Yes...this is a pretty concise history of the situation, but I feel it needs
at least a passing mention of one of the "evilest" government-sponsored wars
in the history of mankind, the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century.
What made these particular acts of aggression so odious was, as I discovered
in shock several years ago, they were not fought for the obvious reasons you
would think; that the Chinese has opium and the British sent some military to
take it from them. The reality is much more hideous then that.
As the previous poster mentioned, the British had little the Chinese wanted to
trade for, and the Brits wanted Chinese tea in huge quantities. What the
British eventually settled on was Afghanistan opium, which the Chinese had a
taste for. The problem started when the Chinese leaders, seeing the
destruction that opium addiction was doing to their people, tried to stop the
trade of opium and reign in the millions of ruined lives it was causing.
The British responded, rather poorly I'd say, by going to war with the Chinese
_to force them to continue to trade the opium for the tea and thusly keep
their people enslaved to the drug_. It's a rather unbelievable premise for
going to war actually, but in 1839 that's what they did.
They won, thus insuring several more generations of totally ruined Chinese
addicts. I always think that this pretty much represents government and big
business working in tandem at its most evil worse.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Elon Musk’s Neuralink Plans to Put Chips in Human Brains by 2020 - Yuqing7
https://medium.com/@Synced/elon-musks-neuralink-plans-to-put-chips-in-human-brains-by-2020-d7ad5f7afde1
======
franciscojgo
How can Musk be involved in so many high-stress projects and still have the
clarity of mind needed to pursue even awesome-er projects? Crazy dude.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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The Road to Running Haskell at Facebook Scale [video] - kornish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl2zo7tzrO8
======
citeguised
Recently started to dive into FP and Haskell, and it's nice to see it used at
this scale.
If anyone is looking for a starting-point: I stumbled upon a great book:
[http://haskellbook.com/](http://haskellbook.com/) It's still early-access,
but the biggest part is done and it's already at 1000+ pages.
(I'm not affiliated with this project in any way)
~~~
cplat
+1 for this book. Also, version 0.9 got released yesterday adding more
chapters.
------
co_dh
I'm really excited about this. If facebook is able to use it in production,
then Haskell is no longer an academic language. I would tell my boss that we
can use Haskell because facebook is using it:)
BTW, the stackage project have resolved a big problem (Cabel hell) in Haskell
ecosystem, and I start to use haskell again.
~~~
KirinDave
Facebook using Haskell, or any language, does not make it less "academic" or
more "production quality."
Ultimately, we can use lots of different languages in different roles. People
have been shipping Haskell code in production for years. The runtime and
compiler have been up to snuff for some time, and honestly the build tools
were not in any worse of a place than Go's are right now.
The decision if something is production-ready for your shop is a matter of
your personal (and/or organizational) commitment to that technical platform.
You do not need the blessing of a big company to use a tool. Perpetuating this
idea only makes it harder for people to try new tools. And so long as Haskell
continues to be flexible and easy to extend, it'll still be useful to academia
(hence the 100+ language extensions still available).
~~~
ori_b
Strongly agree -- I'm on a team at Facebook that has D code in production.
There is a lot of investment that we'd have to do to make it what I'd call
solidly production quality.
At one point, I found myself writing a heap profiler, since the tools
available where inadequate. If your company doesn't have the ability or will
to fix issues deep within the runtime of the shiny new system you're using,
I'd be cautious about using a shiny new tool in production. I'm not
necessarily saying "Don't do it", but you do need to think long and hard about
how you'd handle a tricky bug in your tool.
~~~
KirinDave
Yeah, although I always try to be more positive for startups. Rarely are those
bugs so destructive that they'll take down your business unless you do a
really deep dive like that.
And if it's a leverage factor for a small time, the math is almost always in
favor of the more pointed tool.
------
dmix
Have they done a similar talk about their use of Erlang for their Facebook
chat (ejabberd) platform at scale?
~~~
lambdas
They stopped using Erlang at least two years ago and use C++ for the chat now
|
{
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A New Kind of Science: A 15-Year View - Cozumel
https://backchannel.com/a-new-kind-of-science-a-15-year-view-4f5668abe54f
======
leephillips
I haven't read the book, but I've dipped into it. Some of the ideas are
interesting; ideas that I was acquainted with through Wolfram's papers before
the book appeared. From critical examinations published by others, I've
gleaned two things: the book contains one new theorem, apparently discovered
by one of Wolfram's collaborators; and, there are no successful predictions in
the book. To the extent that it's supposed to be "science", 15 years later one
might hope to see the author saying something like, "Here is my NKS prediction
of <whatever>, and this experiment confirms it," or "this experiment
contradicts my prediction." Even the latter case would show an attempt to do
science. So I'm intensely interested in knowing, from people who have been
following this, are there any testable predictions from this NKS, have the
experiments been done, and what were the results? Because this new article (I
couldn't get through it, I confess) seems to be just more handwaving, and
Wolfram talking about how important his insights just have to be.
EDIT: I meant to add that it's very nice that the book is now free, in any
case.
~~~
cr0sh
Maybe the choice of title was a bad move on Wolfram's part? Your argument
makes sense; it doesn't predict anything, or show any hint of science. Based
on what I recall of the book (I did read it - everything except the
appendix/notes), and what I've read of this new article (I didn't finish it -
I will read it in full at a later point, though), it can't predict anything.
What I mean is that these simple rule programs can't be run any faster than
the universe in which they are running. So you can't say "I predict this
simple rule set will eventually draw a butterfly" (or whatever) - because you
couldn't run it long enough for that to occur.
In a way, it's a simulation (or emulation) problem; just as you need a more
powerful computer to run software to emulate a system in real time, provided
that system is less powerful - you would need to do the same in order to run
these simple programs. In essence, since the theory espoused in NKS (more or
less - at least, that is what I got out of it - and maybe I am wrong) is that
the universe at its base level (quarks? dunno) is composed and operates and
creates based on these simple rules, in order to go faster than our universe
(and catch up), you'd have to have a more powerful system than whatever the
universe is running on (conjecture, I know - and Wolfram noted this as well
IIRC).
So right now - just like if you were wanting to emulate a PS4 on a
contemporary PC - the only way you can do it is non-realtime; you have to be
satisfied at running the system at a slower rate. What is interesting about
this - and this is pure speculation - let's say you are running "rule 30" on a
computer, and unknown to you, it is actually computing a new universe (that
is, simulating it) - to you, it is happening much more slowly than realtime -
but to anyone "inside" that universe, they can't relatively know that they are
running slower - their sense of "time" is "normal"...
I'd like to encourage you to read the book in full and maybe this new article
as well. Yes - it's a real long slog. And maybe it is nothing more than a
giant ego stroke on the part of Wolfram; I don't really know what to think
about it anymore. But you might walk away (to get some aspirin for your
headache?) with something to think about and ponder - even if it is completely
wrong, or you think so, or whatever - simply reading it and understanding it
might lead you to your own discoveries and ideas.
~~~
leephillips
That's an interesting point of view. I've never heard this work described that
way before. If that's the correct interpretation, though, (and I think you've
implicitly acknowledged this), the NKS work is, perhaps, some kind of
metaphysical speculation, with some demonstrations to support it -- but not
any kind of science, since, as you say, it can't predict anything. Also, in
that case, it would be unfair to demand that it produce a prediction, of
course.
~~~
xrange
>I've never heard this work described that way before.
One way to summarize the thesis of book would be to say: Historically, we've
analyzed natural phenomena and tried to fit equations to the data. But Nature
may be doing something analagous to running simple programs instead of solving
equations. What are the implications of this? Complexity and "randomness"
comes about from the "programs", not from their initial inputs/conditions. And
predicting behavior of programs is harder than predicting behavior of systems
of equations, which sucks.
>but not any kind of science
I think many people who aren't familiar with the book are thinking that "a new
kind of science" means "a new branch of science" like we have physics,
chemistry, biology, and now this new "computery" science. But the book is
actually about looking at nature with the new perspective of "programs", that
previous generations of people didn't have a reference frame for. And some of
things that we think are "complex" might actually be following simple rules
(or can better be modeled as such).
------
cliffy
Can anyone who has actually read NKS comment on the value of its contents?
I've seen a lot of criticism[0], most concerning being the lack of
mathematical rigor in the work[1]. Seems damning considering the author's
background in math.
[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science#Receptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science#Reception)
[1]: [http://crd-legacy.lbl.gov/~dhbailey/dhbpapers/dhb-
wolfram.pd...](http://crd-legacy.lbl.gov/~dhbailey/dhbpapers/dhb-wolfram.pdf)
~~~
xrange
I found it to be a very interesting book. The criticisms basically boil down
into three categories:
\- I don't like Stephen Wolfram and his personal style offends me.
\- This isn't new material because there were academic papers that covered
some of this material scattered throughout the literature.
\- Stephen should have been more generous in giving credit to previous work.
...If nothing else, get a copy to look at all the great pictures, and ignore
the text if it bothers you.
>most concerning being the lack of mathematical rigor in the work
This book is about how very very simple programs can end up producing complex
results. You can easily write the program for simulating the cellular automata
in any programming language and check that you get the same picture as shown
in the book. You don't have to accept anyone's philosophy of math and their
opinions on the Axiom of Choice when it comes to uncountable infinities. It is
completely formal. In fact, the best reason for getting the book is to
encourage you to write tiny little programs to see the results for yourself.
[http://math.wikia.com/wiki/Mathematical_rigor](http://math.wikia.com/wiki/Mathematical_rigor)
~~~
jerf
My primary criticism with the book is that it repeatedly unto belaboring the
point claims to be "a new kind of science", when in fact it turns out it's
merely a somewhat interesting tour of some corners of recreational mathematics
that has had zero impact on the world and will likely continue to have zero
impact on the world.
As a book of recreational mathematics it's pretty fun. As a "New Kind Of
Science" it's atrocious.
~~~
xrange
>As a "New Kind Of Science" it's atrocious.
Investigating nature starting with the premise that the "laws" may be
imperative procedures instead of pure functions doesn't seem orthodox (for
2002), so isn't that "new"?
~~~
jerf
It hasn't produced any fruit.
And especially from a retrospective perspective, the importance of that can't
be understated.
I'm not enough of a mathematician to be able to do this myself, but
intuitively I expect that there must be some way to measure the chaoticness of
a program-type mathematical system, the degree to which small perturbations in
the input produce large changes in the output. We are familiar with this in
practice in the programming world in the difference between languages like J
or a fluffier language like Java. Within the domain of legal programs,
perturbations in the original symbol stream are more likely to have larger
effects on programs in J than in Java. My personal feeling, after watching
people sort of screw around with CAs for the last many years (only recently
unsubscribed from /r/cellular_automata) is that CA are simply too chaotic to
be useful for any non-trivial purpose; the task of establishing correlation
between a real physical outcome and a CA is too difficult, and then even if
you do, the task of understanding the CA itself is still itself quite large!
It just isn't a useful way of modeling the world. Or, if you prefer, the
problem isn't that CAs are too _simple_ to model things with, the problem is
that in general they are too _complex_. Either a CA is degenerately simple or
impossibly chaotic and there just isn't enough in between. The same
characteristics that makes it fun to watch a CA explode from a very small seed
into a complex diagram that is still somehow obviously structured in strangely
complex ways makes it impossible to actually make them do anything you want to
do.
Go look at the Turing machine implemented in Life. Look at the sheer _size_ of
the thing. It's a bit of a cheat because it is simulating something else that
we already have models for, but... could you imagine trying to understand the
behavior of Turing Machines through the lens of that Life model?
Another interesting thing to look at is the way people sometimes try to
incorporate CAs into video games. It turns out they are very, very hard to
tame into anything useful, without a lot of work spent constraining them down
to something tractable. Or, in other words, by stripping out all their power
just so they might do something slightly predictable.
Turing machines are a much better model of computation than CAs are of very
many other real processes, and in practice, Turing machines are _still_
virtually useless, useful only for the theoretical pleasingness of the UTM and
the resulting mathematical theorems, but not something we use on a day-to-day
basis. Lambda calculus is way more useful, and even more useful than that is
just the adhoc models we tend to use day-by-day that may lack nice
mathematical properties but actually resemble the machines we work with. CAs
have an even larger gap between their sheer mathematical perversity on the one
hand, and any useful application on the other.
~~~
cr0sh
> It hasn't produced any fruit.
This as well is a good argument against the book. The fact that there doesn't
appear to be anything brought forth in other fields, or in the same field of
work as the book doesn't bode well for it.
Then again, there have been many time in history where something was written
or put down, which wasn't known or seen to be relevant, workable, or whatnot,
until many decades or centuries had passed. I'm not saying this book is a case
of that, only that it might be. We don't really know, and can't if or until it
happens, of course.
~~~
xrange
Re: Fruitfulness. For the general thesis of "computation" vs. "equations" as
the "new kind of science", it is not like Stephen is the lone practitioner...
[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/finite-time-
blowup...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/finite-time-blowup-for-
an-averaged-three-dimensional-navier-stokes-equation/)
...(skip down to the last paragraph).
------
cr0sh
Regarding criticisms of this book...
When this book came out, I purchased a copy, determined to read it; I was
successful in reading it, minus the appendix and notes section (which is
printed so small, that if expanded to the size of the font used in the book,
would probably create at least one or more books of the same length - this
thing is insanely dense - but at least it isn't a "House of Leaves").
I only ran into one issue - on the first copy of the book I purchased: So far
into the book (I don't recall how much offhand) the text repeated or did
something weird; basically I had purchased a copy of the book that was bound
improperly or something. I kept that copy, and purchased another.
Anyhow - what I constantly see in reviews of this book (then and now) is the
criticism that what Wolfram wrote wasn't original, or "new", and that it was
"egotistical" of the author to publish it.
What I've never understood though, is that the Wolfram constantly asserts that
what he is writing isn't anything original or new - that it all existed
before. I mean, I recall reading this kind of language seemingly on every
other page. But I don't think I've seen a critical review that has mentioned
this?
At this point, 15 years later (has it really been that long?) - I'm not sure
what to think of the work. Based on the first few comments here, it still
seems to be something that raises the hackles of people. Maybe it's deserving
of the criticism? Or maybe it's one of those texts that needs to age a bit
more before we see it for what it is?
Whatever - I enjoyed reading it, as difficult a read it was, I still found it
fascinating and curious.
------
edbaskerville
Every mention of Stephen Wolfram's ego-trip of a book deserves a link to Cosma
Shalizi's epic take-down of a review ("A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania
and Utter Batshit Insanity"):
[http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/](http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/)
(EDIT) The gist: "As the saying goes, there is much here that is new and true,
but what is true is not new, and what is new is not true; and some of it is
even old and false, or at least utterly unsupported."
~~~
apo
_Let me try to sum up. On the one hand, we have a large number of true but
commonplace ideas, especially about how simple rules can lead to complex
outcomes, and about the virtues of toy models. On the other hand, we have a
large mass of dubious speculations (many of them also unoriginal). We have,
finally, a single new result of mathematical importance, which is not actually
the author 's. Everything is presented as the inspired fruit of a lonely
genius, delivering startling insights in isolation from a blinkered and
philistine scientific community. We have been this way before._
I had no idea this review existed, but it captures many of my reactions to the
book when I first tried to read it many years ago. I distinctly remember the
lack of discussion of previous work, lack of specific citations to the
academic literature, and the garbled way in which scientific fields I had some
knowledge of were explained. The book seemed to take pains to make it appear
as if the author were inventing something the likes of which the world had
never seen before.
~~~
coldtea
> _The book seemed to take pains to make it appear as if the author were
> inventing something the likes of which the world had never seen before._
A "new kind of science", perhaps?
------
gozzoo
This reminds me of one of the most hilarious reviews I have read on Amazon.
For some reasone it has disappreared, but it found it's way in this
collection:
[http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_humor.html](http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_humor.html)
It's called "A New Kind of Review".
~~~
seibelj
For posterity:
A New Kind of Review by "a reader"
I can only imagine how fortunate you must feel to be reading my review. This
review is the product of my lifetime of experience in meeting important people
and thinking deep thoughts. This is a new kind of review, and will no doubt
influence the way you think about the world around you and the way you think
of yourself.
_Bigger than infinity_ Although my review deserves thousands of pages to
articulate, I am limiting many of my deeper thoughts to only single
characters. I encourage readers of my review to dedicate the many years
required to fully absorb the significance of what I am writing here.
Fortunately, we live in exactly the time when my review can be widely
disseminated by "internet" technology and stored on "digital media", allowing
current and future scholars to delve more deeply into my original and
insightful use of commas, numbers, and letters.
_My place in history_ My review allows, for the first time, a complete and
total understanding not only of this but _every single_ book ever written. I
call this "the principle of book equivalence." Future generations will decide
the relative merits of this review compared with, for example, the works of
Shakespeare. This effort will open new realms of scholarship.
_More about me_ I first began writing reviews as a small child, where my
talent was clearly apparent to those around me, including my mother. She
preserved my early writings which, although simpler in structure, portend
elements of my current style. I include one of them below (which I call review
30) to indicate the scholarly pedigree of the document now in your hands or on
your screen or committed to your memory:
_" The guy who wrote the book is also the publisher of the book. I guess he's
the only person smart enough to understand what's in it. When I'm older I too
will use a vanity press. Then I can write all the pages I want."..._
It is staggering to contemplate that all the great works of literature can be
derived from the letters I use in writing this review. I am pleased to have
shared them with you, and hereby grant you the liberty to use up to twenty
(20) of them consecutively without attribution. Any use of additional
characters in print must acknowledge this review as source material since it
contains, implicitly or explicitly, all future written documents.
|
{
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Show HN: Language-agnostic project template CLI for OSX - bryceneal
https://github.com/prettymuchbryce/templ
======
face7hill
This is pretty awesome. I've wanted something like this for a while but was
too lazy to create it myself. Thanks for doing this.
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{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Working Remote Is Awesome - dsschnau
https://danschnau.com/blog/working_remote_is_awesome
======
6nomads
In terms of remote work, only one thing matters — work! This is amazing
because the ordinary question “What have you done today?” replaces many others
such as: “What time did you come?”, “Why are you late?”, “What did you do
today?”, and so on. Teamwork becomes result oriented, not process oriented.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ask PG: How many non-commenters? - saurabh
Just wondering about how many people here do not comment at all, would be interesting to know.
======
BigEd781
I never comment. Oh, shit...
------
fuzzythinker
Your question is an oxymoron.
~~~
mahmud
Why? it's a perfectly legitimate question. He is asking about the percentage
of lurkers vs active users. There are just a few handlers/scripts POSTing user
content; reply, and submit link. PG can easily take the difference between all
the IPs that have hit the front page, and those IPs that have hit the UGC
submission handlers.
~~~
fuzzythinker
It's an oxymoron because ppl who don't comment will not comment and answer the
question. If the author wanted votes to count as an answer, he didn't state
so. Even if he did, does the current vote count of 7 indicate anything? I
would have down voted it if I had the power, instead I see ppl down voting
mine and the other 2 sarcastic replies. I am saddened to see ppl value dumb
questions that pollutes hn and downvote on comments that points them out (mine
and other 2 comments).
------
awa
I rarely comment
|
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A Dam-Building Boom Is Transforming the Brazilian Amazon - Red_Tarsius
http://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-dam-building-boom-is-transforming-the-brazilian-amazon
======
thiagooffm
I think it's a fair move. A lot of people around the world and organizations
try to do anything on their hands to protect Brazil from using its own lands.
Meanwhile all countries have devastated their own forests to build ships and
make wars, people from Brazil are hungry and the country must grow to make the
lives of all the human beings there good.
But no, instead we've got first world countries which give us always very
shitty trade deals speaking about what we do with our own land, when they
complete wrecked theirs. And if you check their energy solutions, it's always
coal, or they all got cars, or anything. They've got their own problems, which
are potentially even worse for the environment but they keep looking at a poor
country, just as they did in the past, to perhaps steal gold, slave people,
make money... They want us to follow their crappy and shitty agenda when they
can't even get decent politicians, they get shitty ones as we do, they go on
middle-east and make fucking wars everytime, killing millions. But no, we
can't do whatever the fuck we want with our forests.
The sad part is that much of Brazil has succumbed to environmentalists from
abroad. If those who complain about it would go to Brazil and try to live a
middle-class life there with a job in shitty conditions going through a crisis
every decade, always feeling things aren't stable enough to make a living.
Perhaps living in a big city, taking 2-3 hours to go to work, then 2-3 hours
to go back, I've bet that they wouldn't care too much about Amazon or whatever
countries from abroad says... but they don't, they come from privileged
backgrounds, sometimes they say that they know poverty, sure, everybody can
look at a magazine, but did they ever feel it like they do in a country like
Brazil?
my 2 cents, thumbs down as much as you feel like.
ps: I completely get the point of environmentalists, but this will never work
out while people are still hungry. Perhaps you should ask for your country to
help Brazil to reach its enlightenment and then have enough cash and
businesses to be willing to protect its own forest. But no, you just make the
situation worse.
~~~
kikoreis
Not downvoting, but as a Brazilian living in Brazil I don't agree with the
false dichotomy you imply here, that you can't develop in an environmentally
sane way. What the current government is implementing is criminally
irresponsible and walks us back to 20th century exploitation. My dad worked
for Shell and Rio Tinto for years, and travelling with him around the country
you could see how practices changed as environmental regulations came into
play. It was definitely less lucrative for the companies, but they were not
major employers or generators of local business anyway. We can do better than
suggesting we should replicate environmental damage the first world committed.
~~~
marcosdumay
There is environment friendly development, and there is pushing a country into
forbidding every kind of energy generation available. What do you want to
replace hydroelectricity with?
~~~
iraphael
> there is pushing a country into forbidding every kind of energy generation
> available
which is _not_ what is happening in Brazil. There are enormous opportunities
for energy generation far away from the Amazon. In fact, a lot of foreigners
don't know but the vast majority of Brazilian population lives _nowhere near_
the Amazon. Creating an energy grid in the forest is a great way to waste
energy due to traveling long distances in transition cables.
~~~
marcosdumay
> There are enormous opportunities for energy generation far away from the
> Amazon.
Like where?
The Amazon is 50% of the area of Brazil, and the only place where most large
falls aren't harvested yet. Besides, most of the Brazilian rivers are there by
number, and an even bigger share of them by volume.
~~~
namarie
Wind energy in the south, solar in the northeast - both closer to major
population centers.
~~~
marcosdumay
You know, there are plenty of articles just like this one criticizing the
construction of wind farms in the NE (there, because the South is way too
small to have a sizeable project).
There aren't enough articles criticizing Brazilian solar farms. That's
probably because they are expensive. As they get cheap enough to turn a
profit, you can be sure the articles will appear.
------
badosu
It's sensible to understand (for us, brazilians) that much of our land is a
bastion of pristine environment and that we should preserve it. On the other
hand I think it's very hypocritical of many countries to point a finger at us
when they have enriched themselves through pillage, exploitation of their own
environment, slavery and shady practices from their government and
corporations, most of which had consequences on the troublesome political and
economical development of the (South American) region.
That being sa(i)d, does not justify bad behaviour from both parts and a mutual
understanding can only arise when both sides have a dialogue to work together
on these issues.
If you want people not to burn forests to grow cattle then you need to
understand why there's economical sense on that and mitigate the issue on it's
root instead of trying to enforce a law that's very difficult to apply. Same
thing for energy requirements of a country vs exploitation of it's environment
where it's so much easier to point a finger than to propose and help on a
solution. Case in point:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/02/216878935/ecuad...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/02/216878935/ecuador-
to-world-pay-up-to-save-the-rainforest-world-to-ecuador-meh)
> _President Correa said scrapping the program was one of the hardest
> decisions of his presidency. "The real dilemma is this," he said in a
> televised address last week. "Do we protect 100 percent of the Yasuní and
> have no resources to meet the urgent needs of our people, or do we save 99
> percent of it and have $18 billion to fight poverty?"_
I also looked for a translation of a great speech form Cristovam Buarque for
when there was pressure to internationalize the Amazon, it's worth the read:
[http://www.diaplous.org/amazo.htm](http://www.diaplous.org/amazo.htm)
> _If the Amazon Region, from a humanist΄s point of view, has to be
> internationalized, then we should internationalize the oil reserves of the
> entire the world as well. Oil is just as important to the well being of
> humanity as the Amazon Region for our future. Nevertheless, the owners of
> oil reserves feel it is in their right to increase or decrease oil
> production and to raise or lower the price. The rich of the world, feel they
> have the right to burn this valuable possession of humanity. Similarly, the
> financial capital of the wealthy nations should be internationalized. If the
> Amazon Region is a natural reserve for every human being, then it could not
> be burned down by the decision of a landowner or a country. To burn down the
> Amazon Region is so tragic, as the unemployment provoked by the arbitrary
> decisions of world wide speculators. We cannot permit that the world΄s
> financial reserves serve to burn down entire nations according to the whims
> of speculacion._
------
aurizon
And when those dams all silt up, what next - whining?
~~~
mhkool
The silt is the key to fertile soil. Can you image what happens when soil
becomes infertile?
~~~
sriacha
Yeah, that's also true. But the dams will still silt up. This is a huge
problem worldwide.
~~~
aurizon
Yes, the foreigners put up the foreign aid to build it. The corrupt people
running it simply thieve the $$ they sell the power for and do not manage the
silt
|
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Ask HN: What do you think on volunteering opportunities during a pandemic? - emrehan
There are many opportunities to volunteer during a pandemic: Helping at hospitals, helping dependent of healthcare workers, elderly, patients at home isolation. There are also volunteers needed to curate academic research for doctors on the field.<p>What do you think would be people’s approach to such volunteering opportunities?<p>What could be done to mobilize more volunteers from all over the world?<p>ps. I’m building a platform to collect volunteering applicants: https://pandemicvolunteers.org
======
esrefozturk
People around me are already organizing volunteering small groups. A global
platform for collecting volunteering leads could get quite popular fast.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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AMD: what went wrong? - dotmanish
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/372859/amd-what-went-wrong
======
gbaygon
"In a bid to win new custom, AMD offered HP a million free chips – but it was
only able to accept 160,000 because of its agreement with Intel."
Couldn't they reduce the price of their chips instead of giving them for free
(and in very large quantities) to large corporations? I would be happy to buy
a Bulldozer for half the prize, but at current prices i will choose an i7
hands down (hell, the fx-8150 is beaten to death even by the i5-2500k) .
|
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Ask HN: Converting a Slideshow to a Website? - Mz
I have an old PPT, now converted to Google Slides and slightly edited and I have set up a BlogSpot site to move it to. But I am running into real problems with moving graphics, figuring out how best to convey the information, etc.<p>The slideshow is probably super bad (even after today's edits). I have had it for about 14 years and the project began in 2001. I can't see what I need to do different. I probably need to do a lot of things different.<p>I am interested in whatever feedback I can get. I had a previous website where I just linked to the slideshow and I don't think that worked all that well. I would like the content to be properly published on the web. Copying and pasting is absolutely not working (it does not bring over any of the graphics, formatting, etc).<p>Thanks.
======
bananicorn
Here's some information on the topic - well, if the power point is still the
most up-to-date version:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6274218/how-to-convert-
fr...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6274218/how-to-convert-from-
powerpoint-to-html-css-foss)
And if you've got the possibility to manually enter html and css (I don't know
my way around blogspot, honestly)
Depending on whether you already know html, modifying the resulting document
to something useful should be farily easy.
This power-point to html converter might help:
[http://www.zamzar.com/convert/ppt-to-
html/](http://www.zamzar.com/convert/ppt-to-html/)
Not sure if it handles animations, though - it's all possible in html, but it
might need some additional effort.
~~~
Mz
Yes, I know some html and css and both can be used in blogspot, at least to
some degree.
It is mostly text, which I am having no trouble copy-pasting, but there are
some graphics, basically all maps. I did the map work at least in part while
in GIS school. GIS for the common man, a la Google Maps et al, has come a long
way since then. It is possible that I will just rethink and re-do the maps.
Not as easy as copy-paste, but that isn't working anyway, and this might get
me a better end result.
Thanks all who replied. I am looking at the various suggestions and resources
and checking what might work for me.
------
tschlossmacher
Do you mean like this?
[https://webslides.tv/](https://webslides.tv/)
Or have I mis-understood
------
sogen
maybe try something like this?
[https://github.com/impress/impress.js/](https://github.com/impress/impress.js/)
or upload it to [http://www.slideshare.net/](http://www.slideshare.net/) and
embed it
~~~
Mz
Thanks. I am really looking to take the content from the slideshow, plus
content from a previous version of the website, and turn it into a website, no
slideshow.
It is quite old and needs to be updated in various ways. But I really don't
want to embed the slideshow. I want to take the content and publish it as
webpages. So, that's my question here: How do I do that? I have maps and stuff
on it and it doesn't just copy-paste.
~~~
sogen
To preserve formatting when copy-pasting, I'd go with Wordpress, you'll save
time and _all_ your images can be also be imported in one or two clicks.
Honestly I don't know if other platforms such as Blogger/Blogspot preserves
formatting, but I hope so.
For the maps and images, which I assume only cover part of the slideshow, for
each slide do screencaptures of only the images (that is, they will be already
cropped and separated from the text, hope I explained myself).
After you finish exporting all your images as individual pieces, it will be
very easy to import them into place in your Wordpress.
~~~
Mz
I have a BlogSpot site. I left Word Press to move to BlogSpot.
Copy-pasting isn't working at all, except for the text. The graphics aren't
copying at all.
They are mostly maps. I am considering redoing them.
Thanks for your feedback.
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Airbnb allegedly purged more than 1,000 New York listings to rig survey - jflowers45
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/10/airbnb-new-york-city-listings-purge-multiple-apartment-listings
======
jakevoytko
Honestly, it couldn't be easier to find listings that violate the law. This
stuff isn't abstract, you can go look for yourself and see how pervasive
short-term full apartment rentals are.
I just looked on the block where I live, for a one day stay starting next
Monday. Six listings. One was legit, one was borderline (daytime office),
three state that the guest will explicitly have the whole apartment to
themselves, and with the final one you can infer that the host will not be
present. Even giving the last one the benefit of the doubt, 50% illegal.
OK, let's look at somewhere that guests might not want to stay because it's
far from tourist attractions, the Lower East Side. Random block, 4 listings. 2
legit (I'm giving one the benefit of the doubt), 2 illegal.
OK, let's go even further away, Fort Greene. Random block. 2 units, one of
them is actually not legit. Damn, I thought I would be done here.
South Slope, harder to find blocks with units. Pick one near the park. 2
units, I'll give both of them the benefit of the doubt, because it's not
listed one way or the other.
If the fines were high enough, the state of New York could make a healthy
profit on paying inspectors to rent out units for one night and levying fines
against violators.
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Intermittent fasting: No advantage over conventional weight loss diets - AndrewDucker
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181126115842.htm
======
tonystubblebine
This reminds me of a study we ran at Lift/Coach.me a few years ago where we
randomly assigned 12,000 people into popular diets. I was hoping we'd be able
to pick a winner, but all of the diets led to weight loss and all had a result
within the same margin of error (and yes, there was a control group). So
basically, all the diets worked equally.
The only strong signal we got was that people who were giving up soda were the
most likely to lose the most weight. The cynic in me feels like we're writing
giant book-length stories that are just cover to get people to reduce their
sugar intake.
As I read more of the research, I'm coming to the opinion that our framework
for thinking about weight loss is wrong. We mostly talk about rules, and I
think we should be talking about levers.
You want to pull the levers that cause your body to burn fat while avoiding
the levers that cause your body to store fat. That's subtlely but importantly
different than calories in < calories out. Your levers include fasting, going
Keto, even extreme exercise (most studies against exercise stop at 60 or 90
minutes, but try doing a backpacking trip or other 5hour+ routine).
~~~
ars
> The cynic in me feels like we're writing giant book-length stories that are
> just cover to get people to reduce their sugar intake.
I feel that's factual, not cynical. That's exactly what all the different
weird diets that people love to make fun of do: Convince people in all sorts
of ways to eat less.
All the rules and whatever of the diet have just the one goal.
We should stop evaluating diet plans based on weight loss (since they are all
basically the same), and instead evaluate them based on compliance.
~~~
pfranz
I've always suggested people find one that works for them. My father in law
loves competition and numbers, so Weight Watchers lets him accumulate points.
My wife hates cheat days and they don't really have the intended effect on
her. She's also fine eating the same thing almost every day. A lot of the fad
diets are fairly similar in that they're low-carb and reduce sugar; Atkins,
South Beach, Keto, Whole30.
------
ohthehugemanate
As others have pointed out, the weight loss of any caloric deficit diet is
more or less identical. The stuff that's impressive about intermittent fasting
is the other benefits we've seen in (still early!) studies. Insulin
resistance, blood glucose, cholesterol, and overall metabolic profile,
obesity, and diabetes risk. Most of this comes from rodent or animal studies.
The precise definition of "intermittent" varies from study to study, and there
are a lot of other variables going on. But it is legitimately interesting
science.
But afaik no one says it's particularly better at weight loss than other kinds
of caloric restriction.
~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Exactly! Though it sounds a bit paradoxical when written out - walking around
with less weight is just one of the healthy things that happens when you lose
weight.
------
cnahr
Completely missing the point. Of course calorie reduction works _as long as it
is followed_. But people have a very strong desire to regularly eat their
fill. With intermittent fasting this is part of the diet by design. With daily
calorie restriction it’s impossible. Compliance with daily calorie restriction
always lapses over time for this reason, so people return to their former
fatness. Intermittent fasting is possible to maintain for the rest of your
life, daily calorie restriction usually is not.
~~~
hondo77
> With daily calorie restriction it’s impossible.
May be impossible for _you_. Doesn't mean it's impossible for, say, _me_ (and
it, demonstrably, isn't).
~~~
wnissen
90% fail within a year. That's not even really long term yet. I think the
5-year numbers are 95%. Depends on your definition of impossible, but...
~~~
NikolaeVarius
That's not impossible. That's just people have terrible willpower
~~~
SpikeDad
And this is why dietary science fails often. Because of the insistence that
dieting is a matter of willpower whatever that means.
Lots of real research needs to be done on why people eat unhealthy even though
logically they know it's bad for them.
And unless you're someone who's lots a significant amount of weight, changed
your eating habits over a long time person and have maintained that you don't
really have any standing to make such statements.
~~~
NikolaeVarius
I've lost over 120 pounds (290-170) over the course of 1.5 years simply by
intermittent fasting. I changed nothing about what I ate, just ate less of it.
I still get cravings. But I control myself.
I think I have plenty of standing. When I was fat, I had no willpower and ate
constantly. Now, its all about controlling myself.
~~~
gremlinsinc
that's pretty amazing... I've been trying to do IF but got off it for a few
weeks... I also do keto on top of that though... I've lost 65 pounds since
September, but that puts me at 450, my goal is 50 more by the end of January
when my 2nd child is born and to be under 400.... (first time since before I
was 15 - I'm 39 now).
My highest weight was 690, I had VSG surgery, so it's a little easier once I
get into keto to keep going, as long as I don't stray into sugar land I don't
usually have desire for food... I can easily eat 500 calories/day when
intermittent fasting and feel like that's plenty... I've also been doing
Crossfit 3-4 times per week.
I like IF because I only have to prepare one meal, and forget about food the
rest of the day and just worry about my workout, and my day job.
~~~
Omnius
You are only eating 500 calories a day? That seems really low but i am not an
expert.
~~~
gremlinsinc
I was for a couple weeks... I had no hunger... had to add protein drinks
during the day to get my protein in (at least 60g/daily). I'm trying to get
back into it..lately.. I've been just trying to eat between 2/8 and not really
care what I eat just try small portions and only till I'm 3/4th full.
Sunday, I started keto again though... and hopefully my appetite diminishes
again... got a little lax around my birthday/thanksgiving.
------
ravenstine
I don't ever hear proponents of intermittent fasting talking about weight
loss, but of _maintaining weight_ and for longevity. This article doesn't
speak of the touted benefits IF has on telomere length, so I'm not sure how
seriously I can take it.
------
a0-prw
The ICR group reduced their energy intake by 75%, 2 days a week. Hardly real
fasting, is it? And also, ..
"Log_e relative weight change over the intervention phase was −7.1% ± 0.7%
(mean ± SEM) with ICR, −5.2% ± 0.6% with CCR, and −3.3% ± 0.6% with the
control regimen (Poverall < 0.001, PICR vs. CCR = 0.053)."
So the difference on average between the ICR group and the CCR group was as
great as the difference between the CCR and the control group.
Seems pretty clearly superior despite not being real fasting.
------
baal80spam
Summary: Intermittent fasting helps lose weight and promotes health. However,
it is not superior to conventional calorie restriction diets, scientists have
found out in the largest investigation on intermittent fasting to date. The
scientists conclude that there are many paths leading to a healthier weight.
Everybody must find a diet plan that fits them best and then just do it!
In other news: water is wet.
~~~
jobigoud
It is superior if you take into account human psychology and the fact that we
have unlimited supply of food.
------
jmvoodoo
My experience with intermittent fasting is that it was superior if you wanted
to change body composition. I used it to reduce body fat while increasing lean
mass (results confirmed via DEXA scan). I suppose it's probably possible to do
that without intermittent fasting but I wasn't able to do it.
~~~
P_I_Staker
Did you run a controlled study? Body builders have sworn by "precision
nutrition" for years, which is basically the opposite of IF. This kind of
anecdotal "evidence" is very problematic. Could be that both "worked" and your
composition improved over time, due to better fitness regimen.
------
loourr
This study is totally missing the point. Intermittent fasting is not about
weight loss. It's about trying to mimic bodily processes that result from
fasted states that have been observed to lengthen lifespan.
------
newnewpdro
I thought the most significant claim for intermittent fasting is the anti-
aging effects through autophagy, not just weight control.
The study seems entirely focused on bodyfat.
~~~
Omnius
IF when discussed usually means fasting daily. So maybe your food window is
only between 4 - 8 pm. The anti-aging stuff you saw/read (if its the same that
i did) was more about actual fasting where you might not eat everyday and here
they did find some linkage to aging.
~~~
newnewpdro
I am under the impression that IF usually refers to the now popular (thanks
BBC) 5:2 schedule. This is the context I've most seen/read about the topic,
which often includes the talk of anti-aging and autophagy.
But this is all very muddy waters since it's fad diet territory and
unscientific claims abound.
------
everdrive
Incorrect, it feels awesome whereas traditional diets do not feel awesome.
------
bigmit37
I thought intermittent fasting was better for insulin resistance. I can’t read
the article right now but was this disproven?
~~~
pard68
It wasn't covered. The article only covered weight loss.
------
virtuallynathan
I really enjoy intermittent fasting, over the past 265 days I've spent 4655
hours (193 days) fasted. 235 of those days >15h, 190 >16h, and 60 >20h.
I now eat a single meal per day, and aim for some notion of nutrient density.
I'm almost never hungry, and my body composition has never been better.
------
solidrake
I've tried IF before and was very similar to caloric restriction. Many people
point out the point that a diet has to be followed and when you fall thru, you
will gain the weight back all over again. Imho, IF is easier to do than
conventional diets.
~~~
P_I_Staker
It definitely can be. For me, I don't get hungry until late morning, and can
usually hold off until lunch. I only really feel the need to eat 400-800 cal
during the day, which is around 30% of my daily needs (depending on exercise
and goal number)
------
hippich
When I was experimenting with my Clicker Diet (shameless plug -
[https://clickerdiet.com/](https://clickerdiet.com/)) I found it is much
easier to not eat in the morning/lunch times, to stay under daily target. It
is intermittent fasting per se, but the reason, I believe, it worked for me -
it helped me to stay under target, not because it made me burn more fat.
------
jhowell
I IF because I get pretty sleepy during the day if I eat.
------
black-tea
Of course there isn't a difference between a calorific deficit with and
without intermittent fasting. That's not the point at all. The point is it may
be easier to adhere to than regular caloric restriction. A secondary point may
be that it's overall healthier to fast.
~~~
vosper
This is certainly my experience - I've found it much easier to fast 18 hours
per day (a bit less on the weekends) than to try to adhere to a caloric
restriction over a full day. I think that for me it requires less willpower to
have fixed start and end times for eating.
~~~
mixmastamyk
The blood sugar spike and trough (from eating recently) is what makes you feel
hungry. So avoiding that can make it easier to eat less.
|
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How to Use Trend Micro's Rootkit Remover to Install a Rootkit - MikusR
https://d4stiny.github.io/How-to-use-Trend-Micro-Rootkit-Remover-to-Install-a-Rootkit/
======
guardiangod
>the Bruteforcing Processes code doesn’t make sense, are Trend Micro
developers not aware of enumerating processes via ZwQuerySystemInformation?
As someone whose work involves screwing around with Windows' internal,
whenever I see codes like this, I immediately think that the developer doesn't
trust Windows' API. I guess that Trend Micro believes there's a chance that
ZwQuerySystemInformation has been hooked by a malicious process and its data
is unreliable, and they would rather retrieve the information themselves by
scanning the memory manually.
~~~
dmitrygr
It is a tool to detect rootkits
A good rootkit would certainly exclude itself from the info returned by
ZwQuerySystemInformation
~~~
anotherepisode
That's exactly the reason.
------
MikusR
The main thing is that Trend Micro is basically doing the same thing
volkswagen did. Cheating in tests to get certified.
~~~
codezero
In this case, the regulatory board is Microsoft, and there’s nothing telling
us (yet) that there isn’t a partnership in which they gave them certification
knowing about some of their dirty tricks.
------
yborg
So Trend Micro cheats to get Microsoft certified, and my employer then uses
Trend Micro virus scanning to get certified for HITRUST. It's turtles all the
way down.
------
GordonS
Cheating in a driver qualification test is _not_ a good look.
Surely Trend Micro should be penalised in some way by Microsoft?
------
justinclift
In the early screenshot where it shows the directory listing for
"%TEMP%\RootKitBuster", three entries jump out (to me) as immediately
interesting:
* sqlite3.dll
* scan_db.sql
* DB <-- a folder name
That scan_db.sql is likely full of SQL statements.
And SQLite can have user defined C functions added.
Depending on when those SQL statements are run (just for initial DB creation?
during every run? etc), it could be a cheap and easy way to get your code
running in a high privilege context. :)
------
ngcc_hk
Seems the installation still going without one agreeing to the license is very
odd
~~~
Semaphor
Maybe they thought that, as it’s essentially unenforceable in EU anyway, they
might as well not bother? ;)
------
maxmalysh
It always amazes me how using Windows never feels safe. It is literally a
sieve in terms of security.
------
Stierlitz
“Most of the driver feels like proof-of-concept garbage that is held together
by duck tape.”
Oouch!
------
fomine3
TrendMicro does too many BS things in Japan. Many devs getting recognizing it
but still their products are adopted many places.
|
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Would You Pay Someone to Do Your Online Dating? - samanthaglower
http://observer.com/2016/02/would-you-pay-someone-to-date-for-you/
======
douche
Not long ago, I took an Uber ride from a driver who's main job is as an online
dating consultant. It apparently is a fairly lucrative niche.
~~~
DrScump
He has a "lucrative" business but drives for Uber (even with current rates)?
That's an odd choice of hobby.
~~~
douche
A lot of the Uber drivers in this area tend to be semi-retired older guys that
seem to do it as much to get out of the house a little bit as any other
reason.
|
{
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Entrepreneurs are cocky jerks - SeattleSeeley
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/11/03/surviving-startups-justin-seeley-entrepreneurs-jerks/#more-3851
======
j45
I like talking with doers. I like sharing with doers. I like learning from
doers.
Helping people want to become doers is where I find some of this friction
happens. How that comes across can be another point of hurt feelings.
There's a big difference between thinking less about yourself and thinking
less of yourself.
There's a big difference between having a quiet confidence in what you do and
just doing it, vs having to strut around like a rockstar CEO.
I'm not cocky, or a jerk. I'm not a doormat or a pushover either. I know my
shit. I'm just focussed on goals. I constantly read, learn and try. I also
know what I don't know and dont' hesitate for a second to say so. I don't
believe in faking it until I make it.
I believe in keeping kindness and goodness fashionable and am not opposed to
making people cry if they continually make other people cry and can't think
beyond themselves.
Either way if you're truly busy doing things and improving, you're busy not
celebrating yourself.
Entrepreneurs/Startups are like the new Rockband, everyone wants to be one
including the self-promoting posers who often don't have a track record. Ideas
are cheap for entrepreneurs, execution is the limited resource.
Those who have succeeded in small ways know to shut up because listening is
always an opportunity to learn and get better, and sharing is an opportunity.
When you come across people who talk more than they do, it's not selfish to
say I will give everything I can, but knowing what I get back might be limited
to help take something off my plate, I have to go take care of my sh*t because
no one else will.
------
SeattleSeeley
I know it's a controversial opinion, and I have gotten a lot of criticism, but
I'm curious if people agree? I can't imagine what it would be like to be a
founder with a "demanding relationship."
What about married founders. Isn't it very important to have an understanding
wife?
~~~
paulitex
I am in a long term relationship with a girl I plan to marry. For the first
year-ish of my startup it was a slow ramp up to the hours/comittment talked
about in these articles. I used to read these articles and feel like I was
doing something wrong, or was going to fail, because I did have a healthy life
and relationship.
But when we started having real customers and real investors and real
competitors.... excuse the pun, shit got real. I've become a classic startup
'cocky jerk' - and I love it. I'm losing my hair faster than otherwise, but
I've never felt so alive.
My gf takes the long term perspective. Luckily she started grad school around
the same time my work ramped up, so we're both busy. She also knows I have a
few years window to really do this (we're 28, want kids in early 30s) so I've
got to give it my all. Make the time together really really great when you get
a moment, and take a long term perspective. She knows, success or not, when
I'm 40 family will be priority #1 and understands I've got a once in a
lifetime opportunity for a short window of years.
It works for us, for now. She has 1.5 years left of grad school. But I admit I
am super lucky to have found her. :)
~~~
SeattleSeeley
Exactly. I'm a little jealous of your situation to be honest. I have tried to
do both at once, but it's like I'm cheating on the girl with work! Thinking
about it at all times, leaving to go back to work, etc.
When I had a "normal job" dating was easier.
------
Hyena
This needs a citation.
The writer is probably leaning on his own extended circle of acquaintances
which is likely to be, like him, young and male. This group is fairly cocky
and entrepreneurs from this group could be expected, at a minimum, to be as
cocky. Secondly, cocky jerks stick out more in our minds, we are less likely
to remember entrepreneurs who were pleasant people.
While this doesn't run counter the title, the implication is that cocked
jerkiness is a virtue for entrepreneurship. I somewhat doubt this and suspect
that your average entrepreneur is _less_ a cocky jerk than their reference
group. (Unless, I guess, the RG's unusually deferent.)
------
kingsidharth
Jason Friend and DHH wouldn't agree to this post.
------
maxklein
Yes, the ones who haven't succeeded yet.
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Show HN: My Google Analytics widget is now available for OS X - ryno2019
http://ryanbrink.ca/ga-today/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=link&utm_term=osx&utm_campaign=osxlaunch
======
therollingrook
Just bought this! Great job!
~~~
ryno2019
Thanks a million! Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions on how I
can make it more useful!
...and if you don't mind leaving a review I'd be really grateful! :)
|
{
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How Paypal Onboards New Users - amitmathew
http://www.useronboard.com/how-paypal-onboards-new-users/
======
samuelhulick
Hi all! I'm the person who made this. If you'd care to share your thoughts, I
plan on watching this thread closely today. :)
------
samuelhulick
@amitmathew Thank you for sharing this!
|
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Startups : Stop thinking about fucking aqusition - ofca
http://svenduplic.com/post/12601995015/startups-stop-thinking-about-fucking-aquisition
======
rick888
This seems to be the new theme: Create a startup that has no long-term plans
and the goal of being bought out by a larger company.
|
{
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Show HN: Commits.io - Create a poster from your code and logo - ortuna
https://commits.io
======
gregmac
Suggestion: Write a standalone tool that does the code extraction step, so
someone can run it on their private repository (or checked-out code) and
generate the data dump you need.
This mitigates some of the security issues have with granting access to live
repositories, as well as opens your service up to people who have code hosted
on anything besides Github or Bitbucket hosted services.
~~~
ortuna
Didn't expect this to blow up today. But security was considered from day 0.
\- Each time a poster is generated the repo's code is fetched and destroyed.
\- Your auth token is cleared after each session.
\- For maximum security use Gists!
You can create a private Gist[0] and add all the files you want into it. After
that you can just use the Gist's ssh/https url under the "Embed"
menu/dropdown.
This will allow you to specify exact files that get cloned.
[0] [https://gist.github.com/](https://gist.github.com/)
------
kamarg
The service looks awesome and I really want to order some posters for my
company. However, I can't grant the kind of access that is being asked for to
a private company repository.
The idea of allowing a someone to have the ability to
administer/transfer/delete company repositories so that we can print some neat
posters is rather unsettling.
~~~
BHSPitMonkey
Why not grab some files/snippets from your project that you deem safe to share
and drop it into a secret gist?
~~~
kamarg
I hadn't noticed that I could provide a gist. Just saw that it had
Github/Bitbucket integration and went to try that out. I was disappointed when
I saw how much control I'd have to allow in order to use that integration and
didn't go back to see if there were other options.
Aside from being more thorough in my inspection of the site, it might help to
make that portion of the site more obvious given how many people came to this
thread and made the same general comment about security/permissions.
------
knowaveragejoe
Very similar to Litographs -
[https://www.litographs.com/](https://www.litographs.com/)
I expect they developed some algorithm to color/format lines correctly per
some image in this case, so a little more flexible...
------
Kaotique
I want to order a poster but I don't want to give so much access to our
company's github. It would be nice if there was an alternative route where I
can just copy paste a bunch of code and then start the generating and order
process.
~~~
HelloYouPerson
I was thinking the same. I can't really tell for sure tho, is it read only
access or what?
Edit: Never mind, I figured out how to see what access it was. Btw, Holy shit!
Why all this access?? "read and write all public and private repository data"
~~~
ortuna
Unfortunately, this is all the control Github provides on their scopes. There
is no read only for repos scope. The only scope it asks for is 'repo' and
email as an identifier[0]
[0] -
[https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes](https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes)
------
gravypod
When I graduate from college I'm going to glob all of the code I've ever
written for side projects and all of the code I've done for homeworks together
and print it out via this service.
Should make for a very nice piece of paper that I'll put next to my other
piece of paper (my degree). I'm pretty sure I'll be more proud of this then I
will of my degree.
~~~
acedinlowball
Totally stealing this idea!
------
cvburgess
Would love a cheaper "download" option. Would be cool to use this on a shirt
or mug or maybe a wallpaper.
~~~
ruddell
You can download the image (4320 × 3240) by right clicking on your generated
preview and choosing "Save image as"
------
avitzurel
This is really neat!
I uploaded an image of a gopher and it automatically detected the shape and
drew it on the code.
[http://assets.avi.io/screen-
shot-2016-11-15-f4w73.png](http://assets.avi.io/screen-
shot-2016-11-15-f4w73.png)
This is impressive. Would love insights on how you did that.
~~~
mf2hd
I think it's simple, every character is a pixel, you just have to change the
color of the characters to match the same pixel on the uploaded image.
It's a great idea btw.
~~~
nicky0
It is not so simple. The characters are not the same colour as in the image.
Look at the eyes and the nose for example. It seems to be doing a more
advanced kind of image feature detection.
~~~
mf2hd
It is, just the white pixels on the image are black text on the poster, and
the same with black pixels, so Gopher's eyes (and the other black parts)
disappear.
There is a Light Text option, with that white pixels are grey so you can see
the eyes :)
[https://s18.postimg.org/4jg01zwux/gopherposter.jpg](https://s18.postimg.org/4jg01zwux/gopherposter.jpg)
------
frankwiles
At REVSYS we got a print made when we launched the refresh of python.org. It's
pretty awesome, can definitely recommend this service.
~~~
ortuna
Thank you! Would love to see a picture of it hanging if you have time time:
supportATcommits.io
------
elliottcarlson
Great job - ordering was streamlined and the process was really smooth -- I
was expecting the generated image to auto-update when I was making selections,
but I can imagine that is process intensive so it makes sense how it behaves.
Looking forward to our poster.
------
allengeorge
This is absolutely awesome! I would have loved to do it for the company I work
for, but...I'm not comfortable with giving access to a private repo.
That said, _did_ do it for an open-source project I wrote, and it's great!
------
dankohn1
This is great. Here's the poster[0] for the Core Infrastructure Initiative's
[1] Best Practices Badge [2]. Zoom out by clicking "-" at the top left.
[0]
[https://commits.io/posters/a9a5c093686](https://commits.io/posters/a9a5c093686)
[1] [https://coreinfrastructure.org/](https://coreinfrastructure.org/) [2]
[https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/](https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/)
------
JorgeGT
Enhancement idea: RegExp field to blacklist/whitelist files in the repo (I
tried to do this with my PhD thesis but the central part of the image is the
boring .bib file). Still, pretty neat!
------
tymm
This is pretty cool.
Would be interesting to know how much revenue you are making so far.
~~~
amelius
Pretty cool indeed. But I guess one problem is that if everybody starts using
this, then it loses its coolness factor.
~~~
JackFr
Word clouds.
------
pokstad
Reminds me of the old Apple posters with C & Objective-C code on a black
background. Does anyone have a link to those? We had them hanging in some of
our university classrooms.
~~~
joshdance
Interested in seeing a picture of one of those.
------
acedinlowball
Congratulations on the enormous amount of money you have made from this
website. I wish I had a website like that so I could just retire....
------
donmb
+1 on the security issue. I won't give an "unknown" company access to our
private github repo. Besides that: love the idea!
------
ybrah
neat idea 50$ though? Ill just implement it myself and print it myself. The
price tag is a bit high
~~~
gregorymichael
You may want to consider increasing your hourly billing rate.
~~~
nicky0
Alright, smug one. Might be a student.
------
module0000
I notice half of my banner is various GPL 'LICENSE' files... I still like it
:)
~~~
caf
You can select which type of source file(s) to include down the bottom and
regenerate.
------
shaydoc
this totally blows my half assed idea out of the water!
[http://coderte.es](http://coderte.es)
~~~
stockkid
The site looks great. Did you use any libraries to make it look like a command
line?
~~~
shaydoc
sure.. i used this great repo called jQuery.terminal
[https://github.com/jcubic/jquery.terminal](https://github.com/jcubic/jquery.terminal)
------
wyclif
Doesn't seem to work with my GitHub repo.
|
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|
Ithkuil: A Philosophical Design for a Hypothetical Language - opusdie
http://www.ithkuil.net/texts.html
======
jasode
Not the same url as submitter but there was a previous discussion about the
New Yorker article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8180493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8180493)
------
goldfeld
Just a few days ago by chance I was searching my notes for the word 'magma'
(for unrelated reasons) and it matched an article by The New Yorker on Ithkul
that I had saved years before, which mentions a french progrock band called
Magma having had an influence on Quijada as a teenager with their chant opera
and theatrical performances sung in an invented German-like language. It's
funny the first time I read through that article I didn't pay any mind to it.
Now I'm in love with Magma's MDK album these days, so thanks Ithkul.
|
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Should Facebook, Google be liable for user posts? asks U.S. Attorney General - jhatax
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-internet-regulation-justice-idUSKBN20D26S
======
danShumway
There are 3 options for moderation:
1\. Platforms with no moderation (8Chan -- except probably even worse, because
even 8Chan moderates some content)
2\. Publishers that pre-vet all posted content (the NYT with no comment
section)
3\. Platforms that retroactively moderate content only after it's been posted,
in whatever way they see fit (Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Youtube, Reddit,
Hackernews, and every public forum, IRC channel, and bug tracker ever built)
Revoking section 230 just gets rid of option 3. It's not magic, it just means
that we have one less moderation strategy. And option 3 is my favorite.
Option 2 takes voices away from the powerless and would be a major step
backwards for freedom of expression. It would entrench powerful, traditional
media companies and allow them greater control over public narratives and
public conversations. Option 1 effectively forces anyone who doesn't want to
live on 8Chan off of the Internet. Moderation is a requirement for any online
community to remain stable and healthy.
Even taking the premise that Twitter is an existential threat to democracy
(which I am at least mildly skeptical of), it's still mind-boggling to me that
people are debating how to regulate giant Internet companies instead of
implementing the sensible fix, which is just to break those companies up and
increase competition. All of the "they control the media and shape public
opinion" arguments people are making about Facebook/Twitter boil down to the
fact that ~5 companies have become so large that getting kicked off of their
services can be at least somewhat reasonably argued to have an effect on
speech. None of this would be a problem if the companies weren't big enough to
control so much of the discourse.
So we could get rid of section 230 and implement a complicated solution that
will have negative knock-on effects and unintended consequences for the entire
Internet. Or, we could enforce and expand the antitrust laws that are already
on the books and break up 5 companies, with almost no risk to the rest of the
Internet.
What problem does revoking section 230 solve that antitrust law doesn't?
~~~
slg
I would generally agree with everything you said here except that Option 1 is
really just Option 3 except the "way they see fit" is very minimal. Moderation
still exists on those "unmoderated" sites. No right-minded person supports
completely unmoderated content like no right-minded person supports completely
unregulated free speech. Child porn is the most obvious example of an
exception to both. We can all agree that we don't want to see that and don't
want to host it on our platforms. Once you accept that, it basically becomes a
question of negotiating where that line is. It is reminiscent of that old
inappropriate Churchill joke about haggling over price [1].
[1] - [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300099-churchill-madam-
woul...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300099-churchill-madam-would-you-
sleep-with-me-for-five-million)
~~~
SkyBelow
I think a difference of kinds and not just degrees can be established between
moderating just illegal content.
But maybe not, given that there is a lot of different interpretations of what
is illegal and judgment calls have to be made over that, as well as issues of
jurisdiction and even issues involving laws that may be unconstitutional.
~~~
slg
The problem with just limiting it to illegal content is who gets to decide
what is illegal? Websites don't have jurisdictions in the classical sense.
Should website follow German laws and ban Nazi imagery? Should they follow
follow Polish law and ban blasphemy? Should they follow Russian law and ban
homosexual imagery? Should they follow Chinese law and ban support of for an
independent Hong Kong?
~~~
mirimir
Some huge percentage of Western mass media is illegal under Saudi law.
------
protomyth
It really seems like this article is a bit off on the reasoning they ascribe
to people. The biggest objections I have heard is that Facebook / YouTube /
Twitter should now be classed as "publishers" and not "providers" because of
the perceived bias in their removal of individuals and content.
~~~
cmac2992
I hear that argument a lot as well. It's a very strange argument because
publishers don't have a legal requirement to be "unbiased".
~~~
jeffdavis
Common carriers (like a telephone company) are content-neutral (unbiased) and
have no legal responsibility for what is said. If someone mails you a
threatening letter, you can't sue USPS.
Publishers can publish (or decline to publish) whatever they want, but they do
have some responsibility for what they say. Libel, copyright infringement, and
threats all carry consequences even if the publisher is not the author.
Publishers can be as biased as they want.
Is FB a publisher or a common carrier? What about Google? Youtube? Instagram?
Twitter?
(The answer is that they are kind of either depending on the exact part of the
organization. And they are having it both ways: control without
responsibility.)
~~~
koboll
>Publishers can publish (or decline to publish) whatever they want, but they
do have some responsibility for what they say.
It is abjectly insane to label a tweet as something Twitter, the company, is
"saying". If we're retooling the law to orient it toward that definition, then
the inevitable endgame, after the avalanche of litigation, will be that the
concept of posting text on social media or blogging platforms is dead. It
kills Web 2.0 in its entirety. It regresses the United States back to the dark
ages of a completely one-directional media, where the best you can do as an
outsider is to submit a letter to the editor.
~~~
gadders
Well, by the fact they are allowing some voices and silencing others, largely
in one political direction, it would seem they are expressing an opinion
indirectly.
I don't think anyone wants Twitter to be responsible for every tweet. What
most people want them to do is be more like they used to claim to be "We are
the free speech wing of the free speech party"
~~~
Fjolsvith
Maybe not disabling accounts, but they do shadow ban:
[https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/06/twitter-admits-
shadowbanning-...](https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/06/twitter-admits-
shadowbanning-and-unfairly-filtering-600000-accounts-7920206/)
------
cassalian
Can anyone explain why William Barr seems so intent on trying to change
technology in such major ways as this? Does he not understand the implications
of the things he proposes? Or worse, does he understand the implications and
proposes them nonetheless? I just don't get this guy's motivation.
As far as I can tell, revoking section 230 would just result in people putting
up fake content themselves and then suing the platform they posted to. Is
there a reason why this wouldn't be possible?
Also, I see a lot of people focusing on major platforms, but why wouldn't such
changes also impact tiny sites? In particular, it seems that anyone casually
hosting their own site (not something they focus on often), will be forced to
remove all user generated content or quit their day jobs to manage their site
- am I misinterpreting the implications here?
~~~
Nasrudith
Because Barr is literally a fascist with a long history of violating civil
rights. He wants to rule unquestioned, unopposed, and unaccountable. He
doesn't care so long as he can torture into compliance.
~~~
cassalian
My initial reaction to reading about Barr makes me want to agree with you.
However, I really haven't looked into him too much - tbh I only really know
about him from popping up in HN articles (where he is always cast in a
negative light). Any chance you have some links relevant to his history of
violating civil rights, etc? Would love to be able to read through them to
form a stronger opinion myself.
~~~
Nasrudith
ACLU is one here listing many of his outright struck down ones including
sticking Haitain asylum seekers in Gitmo indefinitely. And that is restricted
to the obscenities that the courts have called out instead of accepting as the
norm.
[https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/william-barr-
has...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/william-barr-has-long-
history-abusing-civil-rights-and-liberties-name)
My personal philosophy is civil rights are not up for a debate or vote.
Normalizing them is itself a form of damage that mere politeness can never
justify.
~~~
cassalian
Thank you for the link! ^_^
It looks like Barr has been pushing pretty extreme views for longer than I've
been alive :/
I can definitely see why you would use the word fascist to describe him
------
throw7
I have no idea what Barr's exact problem is he's trying to solve? And if I run
a web forum/mailing list/etc. I am now liable for anything users say on these
services?
It seems like he's unhappy that facebook/google/et al. are shaping (or trying
to shape) a narrative... I mean, he's not wrong. But everyone is: businesses,
politicians, cia, hacker news.
Opening up people to easier liability for running a web forum, just means
fewer will be able to provide this type of service; not to mention, this
favors those with lots of money and time to spend on a lawsuit of such nature
e.g. the gov't and large businesses... hmmm, maybe that's the point, only the
gov't and monied interests should shape the narrative.
~~~
Faark
As you stated, everyone is already shaping the narrative. But right now nearly
all of the power to do so is highly centralized at a very short list of
companies. You already mentioned some tech companies, but I'd certainly also
add a bunch of classical media/news orgs like e.g. FOX and Disney.
We could now discuss if democracy can work with so much centralized power. But
the result we'll see is those powers fighting each others. It might be more
obvious than before thanks to our current polarized times and such simple to
identify targets.
------
ogre_codes
I don't think it's a good precedence to make companies liable for the posts of
users. I do think it's reasonable to examine the ways Google and Facebook
profit off of extremist views and surface extremist views algorithmically.
As soon as Google and Facebook moved to having an opinionated queue of content
(Youtube's suggested videos and Facebooks timeline) based on things like
engagement, I could see the argument made that they have both ceased being
mere conduits of information and became publishers themselves.
------
bearcobra
The question I have for people who advocate for "platform liability" is, at
what size should they become liable for user generated content? Facebook &
Google definitely seem big enough to most people, and maybe Twitter & Reddit.
But what about Y Combinator?
~~~
jeffdavis
Liability should not be black-and-white. HN has a process for flagging and
burying content, and they employ moderators. If some kind of libel is buried
in a greyed-out user comment or a flagged post, then no harm. If the libel
sits on the front page in the title of a post for two days, there's a real
issue there.
It's interesting that you mention HN, because it's basically not a problem
here.
~~~
bearcobra
That kind of goes to my question though. It seems that people are suggesting
that by offering a process to flag & bury content and by employing moderators,
HN becomes a publisher and therefore should be liable for our posts.
~~~
jeffdavis
To some degree, yes. Maybe not in the same way as a book publisher, but also
not zero like a common carrier.
------
gonational
I think a couple big concepts are being conflated. There are a couple really
important questions:
1\. Should Google, Facebook, etc. be responsible for user generated content
hosted on their websites (i.e., should they _not_ be treated as “public
square”)?
2\. Should the government have any hand in telling any company or any person
what they can or cannot say, as long as they are not making threats or
publishing illegal materials?
I am of the personal opinion that most (all?) of the major tech companies have
engaged in censorship and even politically driven enforcement of their content
policies, and therefore should have lost their “public square” status a long
time ago, making them responsible for illegal content posted by their users.
Pertaining the second question, there simply is no question; the government
does not and should never have any authority here, because the Constitution
protects free speech, regardless of what kind of Ministry of Truth they would
like to implement.
~~~
GcVmvNhBsU
I think question 1 should really be: should Google, Facebook, etc, be
responsible for the user generated content that they algorithmically focus
presentation on? It’s one thing to have, say, an early 2000’s forum where
users search for and consume information. It’s another to ignore timelines and
present content that will likely generate the most engagement. The latter to
me is editorialization of the content.
------
eyeinthepyramid
Will every post need to be pre-moderated to ensure that nothing objectionable
is published? I wonder how this would affect sites like Hacker News and
Reddit, or any forum sites really.
~~~
jeffdavis
I don't think the big tech companies should get blanket common carrier
protections because they aren't common carriers. They have knowledge and
control over content, and therefore should be responsible for it to some
degree.
But that doesn't mean they should have no protections or that thry should be
treated like a book publisher. There can be some reasonable processes amd
limits of liability in place.
~~~
eyeinthepyramid
Are you suggesting that there should be a size requirement before a site has
to pre-moderate their UGC? What metric would you use? Revenue? Taxable Income?
Impressions? Volume of UGC? # of employees?
If there's a blanket repeal of liability protection for UGC, it's going to
have a much larger impact on smaller forums.
~~~
jeffdavis
No, I'm not suggesting company size should have anything to do with it.
------
kryogen1c
> escape punishment for harboring misinformation and extremist content
its so bananas that statements like this are glossed over and unqualified.
this is not a solved problem, and its not even being treated like its a
problem at all.
this perception that there are a set of correct facts and incorrect facts is
just so meaingless. what does it even mean to be true? $Person is on $Video
saying $Statement. True or false? Well, it depends. It ALWAYS depends. are you
asking if $Video.Words = $Statement.Words? almost never. You are not
investigating $Video.Soundwaves and $Person.VocalCords, you are making a case
for $Person.Beliefs. What if $Person.Beliefs @ $Video.TimeStamp !=
$Person.Beliefs @ $Today? Is it true but meaningless, or are you trying to
imply conclusions contextually - but guess what, different people interpret
the same context differently!
an example suitable for HN is talking about security. Is your company secure?
You cant answer the question because _the question is bad_. the answer to
security is ALWAYS it depends. Are you talking about physically secure against
a wandering drunk trying to pee on your server, or physically secure against a
disgruntled employee building a killdozer and driving through your building?
Are you talking about secure from some kid who finds LOIC and tries to DoS you
or from a long term campaign from a nation-state APT? The discussion
_requires_ framing, and so does discussing "misinformation and extremist
content"
~~~
MadWombat
This is a bizarre line of reasoning
> his perception that there are a set of correct facts and incorrect facts is
> just so meaingless
Yes, there are facts. In your example, if I say "person X said Y" and have a
video of them saying it, I am stating a fact. I am not dealing in beliefs and
I don't give a fuck whether or not the person still supports the statements
they made or not. I am saying that at some point in time T, person X said Y
and this fact is on record.
~~~
curryst
You are correct, there are literal truths. Some person factually used some set
of words in a particular order. The part that people care about is how we
interpret those words. It being fact does not make the implication incorrect.
In an extreme example, if someone says "There are extremists in the world, and
I am not going to be one of them", I can quote that as "There are extremists
in the world, and I am ... one of them", which is factually true, that is a
portion of what was said. The interpretation is the polar opposite, but it is
factually true.
Likewise, there are facts that are misleading, but true. "The Earth is at the
center of our solar system". It's a perfectly valid statement; the rotation of
planets can be modeled where the Earth is at a fixed point and the other
planets moved around it. It's messy, and the movements look extremely erratic,
but it's perfectly valid to be modeled that way.
There are also facts that are true, given a set of circumstances. "I weigh 7
pounds". It's not true on Earth, but in the correct gravitational field, I do
weigh 7 pounds. Determining whether that statement is true depends on the
implication; was I implying that it is true on Earth or not? That depends on
the context of that statement, and on how you interpret the context.
~~~
Izkata
> In an extreme example, if someone says "There are extremists in the world,
> and I am not going to be one of them", I can quote that as "There are
> extremists in the world, and I am ... one of them", which is factually true,
> that is a portion of what was said. The interpretation is the polar
> opposite, but it is factually true.
Not so extreme considering this kind of editing is basically what led to Count
Dankula's court case and conviction.
~~~
joshuamorton
That's a reach.
Doing explicitly offensive things as satire and being selectively quoted
aren't similar.
~~~
0x4477
Why is it wrong to say explicitly offensive things and why should someone be
legally punished for it?
Who gets to decide what is and isn't offensive and to what degree?
~~~
MadWombat
> Why is it wrong to say explicitly offensive things
Because they are offensive
> and why should someone be legally punished for it
Because that is what legal systems are for. Punishing people who do things we,
as a society, find objectionable
> Who gets to decide what is and isn't offensive and to what degree?
That is a rather general question, but generally speaking, the law makers and
the legal system decide things like that.
Now, mind you, personally, I support a rather radical version of freedom of
expression. I think almost every kind of censorship is ultimately detrimental
to society, but I am not naive enough to ask "but who gets to decide" or "but
why cannot I"
------
kilo_bravo_3
My favorite thing about the "publisher" vs. "platform" rabbit hole people of a
certain political persuasion seem to be burrowing through as a not-so-veiled
threat towards service providers that "censor" posts consisting of pictures of
Michelle Obama photoshopped to look like a gorilla is the delusional
alternate-reality plane of existence on which they seem to reside where they
think that going through with the threat will mean that their preferred
content will be more likely to be hosted.
~~~
clSTophEjUdRanu
That's a bingo
------
kelnos
I think we need to stop trying to fit these things into old laws that weren't
written with them in mind.
Twitter isn't a telephone company _or_ a newspaper. I think for the most part
they should have the liability protection that a telephone company has. But
_users_ do want moderation. They often want to restrict what they see to posts
by people in their own echo chamber. They want the ability to flag things as
spam or abuse. They want to be able to block people. They want posts taken
down if enough people complain about them. And to extend that further, they
often won't mind if there's a system in place to automatically do the above
without their prior action.
The problem ends up being bias, even if it's just perceived, and not real. If
a certain group thinks "the algorithms" are suppressing their speech, then the
algorithms are either bad, or aren't transparent enough to prove that they're
unbiased.
At the end of the day, people believe that these companies have an agenda that
they push by shaping discussion in certain ways. Whether true or not, the best
way to combat that is complete transparency, or just no filtering or
reordering at all.
------
tasty_freeze
It is easy to ascribe bad motives to a person of a party of a different
affiliation and to assume this is just selective application of the law to
advance political goals.
However, there is another way to look at this different from my own political
leanings. As little effort as Democrats put into anti-trust prosecutions,
Republicans (of the past 30 years) have been anti-anti-trust. In the late 90s
when the DOJ had Microsoft on the rack, nominee Bush said he'd stop the
antitrust effort. In fact even though MS had been found in violation of
antitrust laws, then President Bush stopped the effort to break up MS and
instead they were told to make relatively minor changes in their behavior.
[https://slashdot.org/story/01/09/06/157258/Bush-
Administrati...](https://slashdot.org/story/01/09/06/157258/Bush-
Administration-Stops-Microsoft-Breakup)
So is it that the current administration finally believes there is a place for
antitrust, or is it using the law as a political tool?
~~~
Nasrudith
It is a political tool - they aren't even considering the actual monopolies. I
thought it was obvious by now with their very flexible standards.
------
acd
In Sweden they are probably liable for moderating user content. The Swedish
law is called BBS lagen, the bulletin board system law. Yes the law is a bit
old but it should regulate content published by users and that the hoster of
content has liability for the data published on the platforms.
------
sneak
Reading the following:
> _“No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts. They have become
> titans,” Barr said at a public meeting held by the Justice Department to
> examine the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act._
> _“Given this changing technological landscape, valid questions have been
> raised about whether Section 230’s broad immunity is necessary at least in
> its current form,” he said._
...all I can think of is “well, here comes the state-sponsored moat.”
If they weaken these protections, the big four will just hire a few more
entire buildings of minimum wage content moderators (like most of them already
have running) and it’s curtains for small entrants.
It makes me really sad to see the US thinking about shooting its only real
growth industry in the foot.
Edit:
> _while a few Democratic leaders have said the law allows the services to
> escape punishment for harboring misinformation and extremist content._
It’s also terrifying to think that parts of our government want to explicitly
punish people for hosting legal content that they don’t like to read.
~~~
icheishvili
FAANG will need to decide if they're platforms or publishers. They currently
moderate the communities, albeit selectively, while enjoying the protections
granted by being a platform. This can lead to abuse of power where only select
viewpoints are moderated out because unaccountable corporate leadership says
so.
It's correct to be thinking about this, notwithstanding the fact that I place
little faith in the federal government to produce the correct outcome.
~~~
azinman2
Let’s be clear. The “conservative” voices that have been moderated out not
because of the PC police, but because of obvious reasons that violate ToS
(spreading racism, inciting violence, etc). Look over [1] and show me this
consistent “abuse of power”.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions)
~~~
klipt
There are a lot of misandrist "men are trash" posters on Twitter that haven't
been banned:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/menaretrash?lang=en](https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/menaretrash?lang=en)
Unless they're equally blasé about "women are trash" posters, seems their
enforcement against sexism is only one sided?
~~~
azinman2
I don’t work for twitter so I can’t speak for them. Trump is still on twitter
saying all kinds of horrible things, and I can only presume many others are as
well. I’m not sure what triggers crossing a line, but I don’t agree with this
accusation of some great anti-conservative conspiracy. I see this often in
reaction to Alex Jones who spreads all kinds of false lies that have lead to
violence.
Note it’s not like there are humans evaluating each and every tweet so it’s
going to be inconsistency applied.
I also find it interesting that since posting on HN someone is trying to reset
my Facebook account. Talk about censorship...
------
WaitWaitWha
When we used to run BBSes, we were repeatedly warned by lawyers and courts
that if we start actively manage the content of other people's posts, we
become publishers and our legal protection vanishes. Why is this not the case
for large social media orgs that do exactly that?
------
nnq
Look... _if platforms become responsible for content published on them, it is
the end of free speech? Period. You want THIS?!_
The point would be to limit/regulate targeting: either (a) they're a no-login
and no-user-personalization place, and they do no targeting everyone gets a
random sample from the same content (I'd _really prefer this!_ ), or (b) it
needs to be very clear what kind of targeting is allowed... and the line gets
very blurry here, amplifying hate speech for clicks and eyeballs can probably
pay well and there need to be ways to solve this problem...
------
OrgNet
Of course they should, because they moderate content. (you can't have it both
ways... you either moderate or don't... but if you do moderate, you are
responsible for what you let through)
------
aSplash0fDerp
>with any alterations to one of the internet’s key legal frameworks likely to
draw unexpected consequences. “It’s hard to know exactly what the
ramifications might be.”
Since there is no direct bridge to the digital money, power and influence,
analog types will wreck the whole thing trying to implement legislation to
give them any kind of foothold on all of that easy profit.
The lack of influence/sway will eventually drive the traditional powers to
contrive the shortest-term solutions to destabilize the ecosystem. Its more
than a "war of words" at play.
------
baby
BTW this would probably include reddit and HN as well.
------
AnimalMuppet
Well, just to put the shoe on the other foot:
Should US AG Barr be liable for (or bound by) comments/tweets by President
Trump?
This isn't as tight a parallel as I would like. But when I make a post on HN,
say, it's _my_ words and _my_ opinion, and does not represent the opinion of
HN (even though they moderate). I don't speak for HN; they don't speak for me.
In the same way, when Trump sends his tweets-of-the-day, that doesn't speak
for AG Barr or the DOJ (despite Trump's idea that he is the chief law-
enforcement official).
As I said, that isn't quite as tight as I would like it to be. But it's
something that Barr should be able to understand at both an intellectual and
an emotional level.
------
dfischer
The solution we need is a p2p social network with user opt-in moderation
lists. The gov should be no where close to this.
------
013a
I tend to believe that the only path forward is for these "global platforms"
to become more sharded, allowing smaller, more focused communities to thrive
and self-moderate.
Platforms like Reddit, Discord, etc have "tiers" of moderation whereby
community leaders handle the day-to-day moderation of individual content
posted within the community, yet there is still Big Company Inc. at the top
capable of moderating entire communities (you can't create a subreddit focused
on school shootings, stuff like that). These platforms have problems; there
are problems intrinsic to any situation where Speech and Social Interaction is
involved. But their problems are far less in both magnitude and quantity than
the global platforms.
It seems to me that holding any organization or moderator liable for what
people post on their platform would have a Supreme Court-level case on their
hands concerning the first amendment. Who would win, I don't know, I'm not a
lawyer, but that feels like the ground we're treading on.
------
m463
There's another facet to this story.
If companies are to moderate, they must have the ability to view at the
content.
Say there's a requirement to moderate an encrypted chat client.
see where this is going? Even light moderation means they keep the data
collection going.
------
KorematsuFred
Tech, Aviation and Agriculture are some of the areas where Americans are the
world leaders by far and yet the American government is totally set to hurt
these very industries (we'' break the evil google) and so on.
This is beyond idiotic.
------
tboyd47
The Section 230 saga just shows how dangerous it is for the government to
interfere in industry.
The CDA was passed when people were scared of the internet and looked to
government to protect them from its evils. Section 230 was added to save "the
little guy" from becoming collateral damage of this legislation.
Fast forward 30 years and these "little guys" have grown into the scary forces
that everyone wants the government to protect them from!
Imagine if ordinary people had been allowed to sue Google and Facebook over
this time. There's good reason to think that no one would have been able to
monetize the internet in such a way as Google, Facebook, etc. if not for
Section 230.
I don't think anyone in Congress is interested in repealing Section 230 but
I'm glad people in Washington are at least talking about it.
------
vinniejames
No. Full stop.
~~~
slumdev
Saying "full stop" doesn't make or strengthen an argument.
~~~
Nasrudith
It says there is no need for an arguement because there is nothing to justify
it. "Should it be legal for the government to kill and harvest the organs of
underperforming schoolchildren?".
"No. Full stop." Is a stance that there is nothing to even argue.
------
acd
In Sweden they most probably are by a law called BBS lagen. This is the
bulletin board system law. Where the provider of content are to some extent
liable for the content.
------
carapace
Should Facebook, Google shield users from the legal consequences of posting
illegal posts?
If we were using e.g. Ted Nelson's Xanadu (instead of the WWW) every post and
link would have provenance information and it would be _technologically
feasible_ to make the original source of a given piece of illegal content
liable for the legal consequences of publishing it, as well as each and every
person/entity that promulgated it across the network.
As it is now, these platforms omit or delete provenance information, making it
technically impossible to moderate _at scale_.
------
jeffdavis
The protections designed for phone companies, etc., make perfect sense: the
phone company is just facilitating communication in a content-neutral way.
Phone companies should not be responsible for knowing or caring what content
is shared, even if it's some kind of slander or treasonous plot being
discussed.
But does that apply to web platforms that aren't content-neutral? I think
probably not. There is such a huge volume of communication that they should
have some protections built in, but not blanket protection.
~~~
luckylion
> Phone companies should not be responsible for knowing or caring what content
> is shared, even if it's some kind of slander or treasonous plot being
> discussed.
What if they influenced the content that each side hears, e.g. add strategic
gaps where they leave out key noises, to make the phone call go on for the
maximum amount of time (because they charge by second)?
------
admiral33
Should International Paper be liable if an extremist writes down their ideas?
Should the US postal service be liable if they mail it to their friends?
The US postal service uses dogs to find drugs in the mail, and yet we don't
charge the post master general with drug smuggling.
Any attempt to get rid of undesirable content should not then make you liable
for the content you miss. The platform vs publisher debate is silly.
------
rayvd
Obviously, whoever has money lawyers can go after should be liable...
------
shmerl
It's the same Barr who wages war on encryption.
------
mikedilger
Conservatives want platforms to moderate in a politically neutral way. Passing
a law requiring such would be unconstitutional as it would violate the free
speech of those companies. Making section 230 conditional upon political
neutrality might not be unconstitutional. No Internet platform would ever risk
operating without section 230 protections, so they would essentially be forced
into political neutrality. So the same effect would be achieved.
Nobody is seriously considering simply removing section 230; that would be
devastating to the economy and to free speech both. Any such assertions are no
more than sword rattling and idle threats.
Neither is anybody seriously talking about ceasing all moderation entirely.
Platforms would become flooded with spam, among other things making them
virtually unusable.
Where this all gets very complicated very fast, IMHO, is in how you define
political neutrality. And I'll stop here because that's much too long of a
discussion to have in a HN comment.
------
lanternslight
If they are censoring, then yes.
~~~
OrgNet
this, 100%... and label them as dangerous internet entities
------
notamanager
This is such a disingenuous framing from the AG as well from media outlets who
keep misrepresenting section 230.
That law isn't about protecting Facebook or Google it's about ensuring that
anyone can express themselves online without needing a highly paid lawyer and
a protracted trial to do so.
It also isn't about publisher vs. platform, section 230 protects the Times
from being sued for comments on their website same as for any bigger or
smaller operation.
It's tragic how the powers that be in this country are trying to insert a
lawyer into every transaction like it's a jobs program, and the infuriating
part is that they are trying to convince people that it's for their own
benefit.
~~~
rayiner
> That law isn't about protecting Facebook or Google it's about ensuring that
> anyone can express themselves online without needing a highly paid lawyer
> and a protracted trial to do so.
If you post something defamatory on Facebook, you can be sued, but under
Section 230 Facebook cannot. I happen to think that's a good arrangement, but
it's definitely about "protecting Facebook or Google," and not about
protecting the individuals "express[ing] themselves online."
~~~
heavyset_go
> _not about protecting the individuals "express[ing] themselves online."_
Who in their right mind would host content created by individuals online?
GeoCities, blogs and personal sites wouldn't exist as they did or do today.
------
fragsworth
I don't know how Barr expects to have a civil discussion about any topic in
the midst of what he did with the Roger Stone prosecution, and in the midst of
this presidency.
The public and his own Justice Department cannot have a reasonable discussion
with him, when his behavior and actions up to this point have almost all
appeared to be for one purpose - to help the President and his supporters in
criminal issues.
The question we all find ourselves asking is: "So how is this going to benefit
the President at everyone else's expense?" and even if it doesn't benefit him,
it colors the entire discussion in a bad light.
~~~
riversflow
There’s such a thing as professional compartmentalization. If you don’t like a
colleague‘s/vendor’s/customer’s/government’s behavior you can(but not
necessarily should) quarrel about _that and that only_ , when you start to act
as if a slight(however large you perceive it to be) is enough to blockade all
relations in everything you do together, the initiator looks weak. A decision
to halt all relations has far reaching impacts, if you are a business it
almost always effects your employees and could easily effect your customers.
If you are a government it effects both country’s citizens and possibly others
as well. If it is between colleagues it effects everyone below you.
In the case of Barr or Trump, we are talking about effectively shuttering
government progress/modernization. What does this serve? We don’t get these
months/years back, the beat of progress marches on regardless. It’s
unreasonable to think that we are just a few years away from a sweeping blue
tide of progressives(or a red tide of conservatives under Obama) that are
going to have the whole of congress on their side to make huge reforms, or
whatever it is that would make the USG quickly modernize. Our system of
governance stalls with sort of behavior, and it only really serves entrenched
interests, if anyone.
~~~
multiplegeorges
His actions call into question all his professional judgment, that's not
compartmentalizable.
Considering the gravity of this issue, reasonable people can conclude that
we'd be better off "wasting" these years and months and to return to the idea
later when someone with more judicial independence is in the position.
------
cs702
Sacha Baron Cohen proposed this in his widely seen/read keynote speech at the
ADL's annual summit:
[https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-
keynote-...](https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-
address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism)
If you haven't seen it before, I would highly recommend it -- regardless of
whether you agree with him or not.
------
m0zg
The sentiment expressed by many in this thread would flip 180 degrees if Zuck
e.g. one day woke up and decided he doesn't like commies (which would be a
very reasonable, and amply justified opinion, in my view), and had his
underlings at Facebook censor the entirety of Bernie Sanders' presidential
campaign from the network.
My position on the issue is simple: if a site owner
censors/throttles/shadowbans/detrends/etc _any_ legal speech, they're a
publisher, and and they should be liable for the stuff that remains on their
site. Don't want that? Be a carrier and don't censor legal speech. Nothing
could be easier.
~~~
NE2z2T9qi
I share the exact same sentiment as you, but I don't know if I'm being fair to
how ugly a unmoderated forum can be.
For example, spamming advertisements in comment sections is completely legal
speech. So would be typing in gibberish and hitting enter a thousand times.
But both of these things would ruin the point of the forum.
Even if I compare Hacker News to Reddit, the former is consistently high
quality while the later is 95% garbage in my opinion. Why? Probably because
Hacker News is far more highly curated.
At the same time, I feel like YouTube has crossed the line with idea
suppression. YouTube gives the impression that it's an open non-biased
platform that links you to content you're interested in. But there are several
egregious examples where popular videos with near-mainstream "conservative"
viewpoints are suppressed into oblivion (e.g. appears on the 12th page of
results even when you search for the video title verbatim and it has millions
of more views than every other "relevant" result).
But, just because I can give examples of things which cross the line
(suppressing popular conservative videos) vs things that don't (suppressing
random gibberish, suppressed bot-created videos)... I don't think I could
clearly articulate any rules to say exactly where that line is in a way that
is scalable. YouTube created YouTube... I might just have to defer to their
moderation policies while hoping another competitor comes along to challenge
them.
~~~
m0zg
Well, we did make robocalling illegal, right? We could do the same for ad spam
quite easily. IMO 99% of YouTube issues would be resolved by just not showing
comments by default. I.e. you're welcome to read and write comments if you
like, but you have to click a button first to show the comment section, and
don't have to see them otherwise. Some sites already do this.
------
cletus
The Trump administration complaining about "harboring misinformatioN". The
ironing [sic] is delicious [1].
There is no universal objective truth. Specifically there are things that
reasonable people can disagree about and the same set of facts can be used to
argue different positions. This fact is abused by the mentally challenged to
argue ridiculous positions (eg anti-vaxxers, the Moon landings are fake, that
sort of thing).
Likewise, as seen here, one side will argue those who disagree are engaging is
misinformation (and in the Trump administration's case, from the President
down there are multiple claims per day that are demonstrably false such that
no one can really keep up). The agenda is to silence the opposition and
undermine confidence in any sort of news.
ISPs were given safe harbor from liability for traffic on their network, for
good reason. They just need to comply with certain standards. Tech companies
really are no different and to argue otherwise would set an incredibly
dangerous precedent (IMHO).
[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p23mA2VV0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p23mA2VV0A)
------
RustyBucket
If porn sites are liable for their content - FB should be too. Porn sites
managed to survive and thrive and so will FB.
~~~
vorpalhex
Define "liable". They share the same Section 230 protection as FB.
------
goatinaboat
Yes absolutely. They exercise editorial control even if they attempt to
disguise it behind “algorithms”. Everything posted on Facebook should be
treated as if it was a newspaper article, for all legal purposes.
~~~
karatestomp
Yeah, easy yes from me too. "Oh but we won't be able to make a business out of
exploiting user data and exposing hundreds of low-paid workers to
psychologically damaging material anymore" right, yes, exactly, that's the
point.
~~~
eyeinthepyramid
Won't they need to have even more low-paid workers to make sure they don't
publish something that violates the law?
~~~
karatestomp
If they're treated like any other publisher, probably having that many workers
manually vetting everything won't be viable. Which is fine, because it
_shouldn 't_ be. It confuses me how every time we have one of those posts
about how horrible that work is for the people doing it, most posters kinda
throw up their hands and go "well whatcha gonna do" when the obvious answer
is... _simply not do it_? If your business requires that, the easy answer to
how to not cause that harm is to not have the business.
~~~
eyeinthepyramid
If the survival of their company depended on it, they would absolutely figure
out a way to pre-moderate content, and almost certainly that would include
significantly more low-paid moderators.
They had something like $18 billion dollars in profit last year, you don't
think they could afford to hire an army of moderators?
~~~
karatestomp
I reckon they can afford 150,000-200,000 more moderators, moderator-managers,
workers on and managers of tools for same, et c. before that profit margin
starts getting mighty thin. Is that enough? I don't know, maybe it is. How
long before profit hit zero would investing in Facebook start to be considered
a poor use of capital, since that's the actual tipping point? Also not sure.
------
psychlops
Since Facebook and Google shape the information that is seen using a
proprietary algorithm, they have become publishers. Perhaps if their
algorithm's were open and available, they may have an argument in their
defense.
Until then, it is entirely possible they are shaping a narrative based on
whatever model they want.
I don't buy the argument made by Barr that the scale of the platform reaches a
point that it therefore requires regulation. This seems to be a simple money
grab where large tech companies need to tithe to lawmakers.
~~~
decasteve
You hit the nail on the head.
They want to shape the content and do whatever curation or editorializing via
human or algorithmic means, yet be seen an an open forum of user-generated
content. Have it and eat it too scenario.
Not to mention adding paid content that blends in in a way that is
indistinguishable from user submissions. This further complicates the
intentions of the platform.
~~~
d1zzy
Yes, they most definitely want the cake and eat it too but there are lots of
good arguments to make for that, arguments that have nothing to do with
sustaining the business model of multi-billion dollar Internet companies.
------
fareesh
If these companies are treated as a "public square" then the first amendment
ought to apply. It's disappointing to see enlightened ideas like free speech
being taken apart by these large corporations to push what seems to be a
political agenda.
Recent example - a female Nascar driver shares a selfie with the President of
the United States and Twitter's algorithms flag it as sensitive content. When
algorithms make mistakes that lead to race based discrimination, it's treated
extremely seriously. When this sort of thing happens it seems like everyone
shakes their head and chuckles "oh those silly algorithms". Outcomes that
marginalize folks based on political views are dangerous for your country. The
shoe will be on the other foot someday.
~~~
scarejunba
Can’t wait for the end of flagging and modkilling on HN to preserve First
Amendment rights. This is going to be good.
~~~
fareesh
I'm making the argument that the authority to moderate discussions is being
misused and you are replying as if I am suggesting removal of this authority.
~~~
scarejunba
I'm riffing off what you're saying, not attempting to counter it.
------
drannex
Companies are liable for their employees.
Employees produce content/products/sales/projects for the Company.
Social media users create the content that give value to social networks, thus
social media users are, in a way, employees of the company. The Company has
the requirements of limiting and being liable for the content that exists on
their platform.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
Tell HN: Vodafone AU is still blocking archive.is - tempactforhn
Today I found myself unable to access archive.is on my Vodafone network, I got redirected to<p>https://www.vodafone.com.au/temporarily-unavailable<p>from<p>http://archive.is/gcj3w<p>I don't think they are forced by a court order on something since other ISPs here (such as Telstra) are not doing the same.<p>So, please avoid Vodafone AU if possible, they are doing nasty things on user's traffic.
======
PebblesHD
Quite disappointing. Optus, another Australian carrier, only very recently
reversed their similar blocks on a number of archival sites among others. When
all players are equally bad, there are very few options available to ‘vote
with your wallet’ per se. For what it’s worth I raised a number of support
tickets requesting these be unblocked, but like most large firms I’m sure
these simply fell into the ether.
------
mgliwka
Archive.is is also not available for users with 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare DNS):
[https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-
blocked/](https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/)
Long shot: those two are related. But hijacking requests like that is a big
no-no.
------
deogeo
"This website is temporarily unavailable."
As always, corporate messaging uses vagueness as a shield - no mention of why
it is unavailable, not even if the reason is technical or legal.
~~~
tempactforhn
It's probably not technical, this can be bypassed by put the correct IP
address into the hosts file.
What's made me angry is their lack of transparency.
And what's made me even more angry (and sad) is the fact that the people in
this country aren't being angry about this. :(
------
easytiger
Isn't this related, they claim, the the Christchurch shootings?
------
Tepix
Related(?): Vodafone Egypt uses MITM on SMTP traffic to strip TLS.
~~~
londons_explore
You would be amazed how much SMTP traffic has TLS stripped by big backbone
providers...
It's time some big webmail providers stepped up their game and required
actually valid TLS certs from any provider which had previously had a valid
cert.
Today most providers will happily accept a self signed expired certificate
just fine, which totally breaks security.
------
HNLurker2
That's why I hate Vodafone besides putting 5g and getting headaches
(electromagnetic sensitivity)
~~~
ladberg
I don't think this is possible.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
How I like my Finder - stelian
http://stelian.firez.be/post/how-i-like-my-finder
======
mhd
I'm still surprised how used we all got to the modern, somewhat simplistic
file management metaphors. Icon/list view plus "shortcut" panel, wherever you
look. I still remember that for years after Windows 95 came out, one of the
first applications everyone installed was a better file manager, quite often
some GUI Norton clone. Then there was the "spatial Finder" hullaballoo, echoed
by GNOME, too, if I remember correctly. But in recent years, that market niche
seems to be on the verge of extinction.
Probably for the same reason why keyboards are getting increasingly worse: No
"hardcore" users. Pictures, music and similar files are "managed", lots of
other stuff is exclusively accessed via a single application and its open
dialog, leaving _maybe_ the all-purpose Documents folder to be the target for
occasional visitation.
And the desktop. Oh heavens, the desktop...
------
JangoSteve
The author mentions a bunch of programs that offer similar functionality but
states that "the way they're designed doesn't work for me." I'd be curious
what about them doesn't work.
I use TotalFinder primarily for this functionality, and their split-pane looks
almost identical to what he has set up in the screenshot, with the added
benefit that it is more efficient (e.g. you can move the window around and
resize it and the panes stay together, you can adjust the size of each pane
relative to the other just by dragging the single middle bar, etc.).
TotalFinder split-pane screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/K6KkSws.png>
~~~
stelian
The tab join looks weird(aesthetically) and the separator is too thin. I want
one side in focus. But all these things have to do with taste. The screenshot
you attached looks probably great to you, but I prefer the side by side
windows.
------
vladstudio
Do consider ForkLift - <http://www.binarynights.com/> \- just look through the
key features. I would have bought it for Multi Rename alone (but it also has
Dual panes, Mount as disk, all kinds of remote connections, custom shortcuts,
Merge, etc etc)
~~~
thecoffman
+1 For forklift. The tabs and multipane remotes are killer features. It also
feels lighter weight than a complete finder replacement like TotalFinder.
------
hawleyal
Why don't you just use one that has dual windows and tabs.
TotalFinder <http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/>
XtraFinder <http://www.trankynam.com/xtrafinder/>
~~~
micampe
Why don't you just read the second sentence in the article?
~~~
TheRealPomax
I just read that sentence, and it doesn't explain anything. It just says
they're not what he likes, so here's another one that might work:
<http://www.mucommander.com/>
~~~
stelian
The separator of TotalFinder and Xtrafinder is just too thin. I want to see
right away which side is in focus. When you click on one of the two windows
the other one becomes washed and is also covered by the shadow of the active
one.
For me, that's better usability.
------
lukeholder
totalfinder has a split pane (actually a tab join) which works awesomely.
What I like about totalfinder is that it is not a finder replacement, but just
adds some small (but massive) improvements.
highly recommend.
~~~
stelian
The tab join seems visually weird to me. But I guess it's a matter of personal
taste.
------
liotier
I still don't understand how some people work without a folder hierarchy in
the left pane... I never understood Norton's dual-file-list-pane setup - the
current path is not sufficient context for me.
~~~
WayneDB
Mac users, by necessity, find all sorts of ways to work around missing
features.
~~~
pflughaupt
Insulting without provocation and needlessly inflammatory? I take it you're
from reddit?
~~~
jfb
He's not wrong. On the other hand, everybody works around limitations in their
technology. It's the nature of the beast.
~~~
ygra
It's astonishing how often people don't even notice that they're working
around things. After noticing that something doesn't work the way you like and
finding a workaround the workaround slowly becomes muscle memory and you stop
thinking about it.
And then you look over someone's shoulder and wonder _why_ on earth they would
do what they're doing the way they're doing and when pointing out to them that
there is a better way they just shrug and note that what they did works too.
Funnily enough, at least regarding UX, such coping behaviour doesn't seem to
register as a nuisance after you have your workaround. That being said, I
still prefer getting things right enough that users stumble on the obvious and
easiest way first.
~~~
jfb
In a sense, all technology usage is the child of working around limitations;
when the plasticity of thought meets the annoyingly concrete world,
something's got to give. The best technologies, then, are the ones that
conform to our predispositions and allow us to reuse pre-existing workarounds.
------
illbert
I use Bettertouchtool's window arrangement functions which you can set to
(nearly) any custom shortcut you want. I use these on all applications not
just Finder (in some it will not work) and I use these all the time.
my laptop:
\- fn + left middle double tap -> position/maximize window to half left screen
\- fn + right middle doubletap -> position/maximize window to half right
screen
\- fn + top middle doubletap -> maximize window
on my desktop workstations I use keyboard shortcuts.
~~~
rimantas
I also use BTT, but just drag the window to the left/right/top edge of the
screen accordingly. Turns out that's enough for me so I even stopped using
Moom which alows more flexibility.
------
unhammer
I always bind super-left and super-right to
<https://gist.github.com/unhammer/5336830> (requires wmctrl and xorg-
xdpyinfo), so I can tile any two windows left/right. Also handy when e.g.
reading an article while note-taking, watching a screencast while chatting,
etc.
I guess I should try a tiling window manager some day, but I almost never need
more than fullscreen vs 50/50.
------
HugoDias
<http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/>
You're welcome.
------
super_mario
Terminal (or better yet iTerm 2). It's the best filesystem manager out there.
------
kaptain
I recommend spectacle instead of divvy. There were a couple problems that I
had with divvy resizing and placing windows. Spectacle addresses those
concerns.
~~~
8ig8
I haven't used Spectacle, but I wanted to point out Better Touch Tool as
another option to those investigating Window Mgmt apps/scripts:
<http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1619>
BTT provides the same window controls as Spectacle, configurable to your
custom keyboard or mouse or touchpad actions, plus a lot more that may be
useful to you. I've been very happy with BTT.
------
KhAIROP
Use total commander not open source but definitely us worth every penny sold
more than 25m copies
------
pazimzadeh
Reminds me of <http://panic.com/transmit/>
------
Dhekke
Oh, you mean F3 in that usability-horrorshow-totally-not-to-the-level-of-MacOS
that is Ubuntu?
------
purephase
TotalFinder and Divvy work for me. I get exactly what he's looking for.
------
dr_win
Hello, TotalFinder author here. I'm a HN addict too :)
------
racl101
Forklift v2 will do this pretty well. Sure it costs $50 but it does a lot for
a program.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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StarCraft is a deep, complicated strategy game. DeepMind’s AlphaStar crushed it - lawrenceyan
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/24/18196177/ai-artificial-intelligence-google-deepmind-starcraft-game
======
kwillets
Micro has always seemed like the weak point of this game; it relies a lot on
making the UI clunky for humans.
------
pidu87
Is that as true as saying Minecraft has amazing graphics?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Is the tech sector producing more startups than other areas? - woodtrail
As a 19 year old who reads HackerNews, it can feel overwhelming to read about all the startups that are being founded in the tech sector.<p>I'm wondering if this is just an effect of the HN echo chamber, or whether other industries are just as actively producing startups.<p>When I read about all the startups being founded in tech, I just start thinking "How am I supposed to start anything that competes with all these other people?"<p>I'm pretty sure this is an effect of the HN echo chamber, but it would be helpful if more educated people could tell me whether the tech sector produces a disproportionate number of startups, or whether it's this way in other areas too.
======
OafTobark
I can't say for certain on the number of tech vs non-tech startups and it
varies depending on what each person's take of a startup is. So putting that
aside, what I can say is _I_ that not every startup is tech base, even if a
large number are being covered here. For example, I think of Zappos (although
fairly no longer a startup by any means) as a shoe company. Not a tech
company. They merely utilize tech to run their business. Some startups are
very tech centric. Some utilize tech to run. And there are a range of
everything in between. I think because of the community, HN tends to clearly
have a lot of tech related startups covered but there certainly are a number
of non-tech businesses out there.
What industries are you interested in?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Show HN: MailTrigger – A Simple HTTP-Based Email Notification Service - BjoernKW
https://github.com/BjoernKW/MailTrigger
======
BjoernKW
This blog post explains the motivation and design rationale behind this tool
in some more detail:
[https://bjoernkw.com/2017/12/24/mailtrigger-a-simple-http-
ba...](https://bjoernkw.com/2017/12/24/mailtrigger-a-simple-http-based-email-
notification-service/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Do you know the“Awesome” lists in GitHub? I made one about anti-racism - rafacavalcante
https://github.com/rafaelcavalcante/awesome-anti-racism
======
rafacavalcante
An awesome list with anti-racism material
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Google fires Kenya boss over Mocality - jaxonrice
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Google-fires-Kenya-boss-over-Mocality-20120131
======
ChuckMcM
Nice to see the follow up. And it does clear up the whole "Were they
contractors or did they work for Google" question. It seems clear now that
they did work for Google and now someone has paid the ultimate price for the
shenanigans.
Hats off to Mocality for their detective work.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ask HN: Ideas for weekend projects? - CGamesPlay
I'm wondering if anyone knows of any idea pools for weekend projects, or if anyone has any small projects that they haven't implemented yet. I have a lot of down time over the next two weeks, and I would love to put the time to good, creative use. Note, I'm not looking for startup ideas, although the two are obviously not mutually exclusive.
======
bobds
Try this:
"A home for ideas by people who lack time, money, or skills."
<http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/>
------
noahc
What is your goal?
Is it to learn a new technology?
Pick up chicks?
Be featured on RWW, Wired, HN, Reddit, etc, etc?
It seems like a good formula for hit and run success is popular new
feature/gimmick from facebook, twitter, google, youtube add your own twist to
it and then watch the traffic come in for 2 days and then die off.
------
photon_off
I've got 2 ideas for you, which I would absolutely do if I had the time to do
them.
1) Feedback Loop: Users submit URLs and ask for feedback on them. Each time
they provide a feedback for an other submission, they get to view a feedback
provided on theirs (hence the loop).
You can fine tune the system by having feedback receivers rate the feedback
they've recieved (better feedback = more points for the person who wrote it =
they get to see more feedback on their post or their post gets pushed to top).
I think it's a beautiful and self-enforced "you scratch my back, I'll scratch
yours" idea.
2) Graffiti: This is a bookmarklet that allows a user to draw on top of a
webpage (probably requires transparent flash). Of course, they can view other
people's graffitis as well.
This would be pretty awesome, and has a lot of game aspects to it that would
make it extremely addictive. For example, you could notify a user if anybody
writes over their graffiti (eg, starting turf wars), and you could keep a
record board for "most pages graffiti'd" and "most area covered", etc.
I feel like there's a very real possibility this could go viral and stay
popular. And, I've got an awesome domain name for it. E-mail me if you're
interested.
~~~
thesystemis
for (2) you might want to checkout webmarker:
<http://webmarker.me/>
<http://vimeo.com/10427062>
a firefox addon that allows you to draw on top of web pages in a persistant
manner.
------
datageek
Build a better chess rating system and enter your system into the following
competition: <http://kaggle.com/chess>.
You may want to use machine learning techniques, which you can learn using the
Andrew Ng's Stanford lectures
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxYlbK2c7E&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxYlbK2c7E&feature=channel)).
------
iamgabeaudick
Reverse Craigslist - Allow a user to enter an anonymous Craigslist email
address (that they had previously replied to) and their city, and then return
the post that contained the email.
The reason being: When looking for something on Craigslist, I often send
similar emails to several potential sellers. But then, when they reply, I have
no way of knowing which posting was theirs (and the link to it). (Of course,
you could contain the link to the posting you're referring to in each email,
but that's a hassle that I'm sure most forget to do.)
~~~
vbhavsar
You can just enter the url of the Craigslist post at the end of your mail.
------
retroafroman
I've got lots of little ideas I haven't had time to implement (most of them
are pretty goofy). Tell us more about your skills and what you'd like to work
on if you have any ideas-games, webapps, open source stuff, whatever.
~~~
CGamesPlay
My skills are pretty typical: I'm versed in the web technologies, C++, and
.NET. Notably I'm not familiar with XNA or Flash, but the underlying
technology isn't really important to me.
I just want to do something creative that is "interesting". If there's a novel
idea for a game, or a utility, or a visualization, or something else entirely;
I'd like to hear it.
~~~
dkarl
Visualization for C++ code metrics, specialized for C++, would be interesting.
The C++ code metric visualizations I've seen have hooked into visualization
front-ends designed for Java code.
P.S. This probably isn't a weekend project, but you might get something useful
done in a week.
------
d4ft
Sidebar for gmail that recommends quora responses based on email content
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The death of Bitcoin (controversial) - tranc99
http://hackishword.com/blog/2014/the-death-of-bitcoin
======
typedweb
I heard that GHash.io was reaching the 50% mark a while ago and then the
community decided to split off of a lot of their hashing power to rebalance
the minering to other pools. Now this article is saying GHash is intentionally
trying to take over? Isn't being part of GHash a volunteer effort?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Systemd is nice. Dont be afraid - sandGorgon
http://www.lambdacurry.com/systemd-nice-dont-afraid/
======
olgeni
Had Microsoft attempted to pull even 10% of systemd on Linux a few years ago,
the wailing would have reached the highest heavens. And "frankly, after
ShellShock," learn to use a less bloated shell for init scripts.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
I’m Learning Ruby On Rails Because I’m Weak-Willed And Stupid - RawData
http://www.flatplanetmedia.com/im-learning-ruby-on-rails-because-im-weak-willed-and-stupid.html
======
RawData
Not to start a flame war, but I've always sort of thought of ruby on rails as
kinda faddish. What's the reason to use it over php/mysql/javascript?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: How to find people/blogs in niche topics? - freetonik
While finding good blogs, in general, seems to be very hard, finding good and interesting blogs about niche topics is just blind luck to me. For example, I'm very interested in the topic of exploring new ways to teach computer science and math (taking into account different mindsets, ways people learn concepts, the importance of empathy, etc). The blogs and people I've found all come from random topics on HN and Reddit. I wonder how many links I missed over the years.<p>How do you find interesting people to follow?
======
RossBencina
> How do you find interesting people to follow?
Use Twitter. At least some of those people with interesting blogs tweet and
re-tweet interesting additional sources. You can also check out who they
follow, and who follows them for further leads. You could also search for who
is tweeting about the blogs that you do follow, and see what else they are
tweeting.
Especially in the areas of teaching CS and math I think Twitter is applicable.
There are a lot of people in those areas on Twitter. @benorlin, @centerofmath,
@henryseg, @JohnDCook (and his many aliases) come immediately to mind.
~~~
freetonik
Thank you. 10 minutes in and I already found great resources. Ben Orlin is
fantastic!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Getting started with bare-metal assembly - a7b3fa
https://johv.dk/blog/bare-metal-assembly-tutorial.html
======
rixrax
I think one great way to do this is to get a Commodore 64 emulator (or Atari
2600 etc) and start writing and learning 6502 assy. Arguably its one of the
last instruction sets that was designed with humans writing code in assembly
(and not in some higher level language) making it excellent learning language.
You can readily run your code in emulators and for not too much $$$ you can
pick a real hardware from EBay to really run it on HW.
And once You think you’ve run hw to its limits there are plentiful demos and
examples around to blow your mind watching what people have been able to do
with these machines (often in obscure ways).
~~~
pizza234
I've always been skeptical of using retro machines to learn low-level
programming.
While the processors are simple, making non-trivial programs is hard, because
the machines as a whole have lot of limitations, making programming very
intricate, compared to more modern systems (say, 16-bit 80x86, but I guess
even Amiga and so on).
If the target it challenge for the sake of challenge, then nothing makes those
machines special, I mean, one can code directly in machine code if that's the
intention :-)
~~~
saagarjha
I had to teach an class recently that required introducing students to
assembler. I designed an _extremely_ RISC architecture (we’re talking mov into
pc for control flow, r31 is “suggested” for use as a stack pointer) but gave
it just enough that they could write more advanced instructions in assembler
macros, which they designed themselves. I think it worked out well!
~~~
gumby
Finally an application for MIX!
~~~
saagarjha
Well, kinda. The architecture is minimal but I had a strong focus on
orthogonality, a linear address space, and clean instruction decoding; so much
so that I named it REGULAR ;) The ISA ([https://github.com/regular-
vm/specification](https://github.com/regular-vm/specification)) was
specifically selected so that traditional control flow could be created with
the use of only one temporary register (some take a bit of work; conditional
branches decompose to branch islands for example).
~~~
gumby
Yeah I was being tongue in cheek. Your approach sounds great for encouraging
people to think about and find solutions to specific issues.
MIX was, in theory, supposed really to be the opposite: so universal/generic
that you'd ignore the language and focus on the lesson. Similar to the
motivation for using Scheme in SICP. Obviously times have changed :-).
Sort of the difference between putting on eyeglasses to see the world better
(MIX) or putting on eyeglasses to learn about how lenses work.
------
heinrichhartman
Does anyone know how to circumvent UEFI?
When the CPU starts, it will start reading instructions from a hard-coded
address on the memory bus / EPROM somewhere, right? How can I directly control
these bytes?
I don't want some proprietary firmware sit between me and the CPU.
If it's not possible on hardware because "secure boot", or whatever, this
should at least be possible in emulators like QEMU.
Does anyone know how to do that? ... or clear up my misconceptions? :)
~~~
kryptiskt
Below UEFI is the BIOS, or the firmware formerly known as the BIOS. There is a
project to make an open source firmware for PCs:
[https://www.coreboot.org](https://www.coreboot.org). It works on a selection
of newish motherboards.
You can't really start completely from scratch in an understandable way on
Intel platforms, and it's iffy on ARM. Because setting up the DRAM requires
some insane magic, where it doesn't really help if you can see the source.
~~~
izacus
> Below UEFI is the BIOS, or the firmware formerly known as the BIOS. There is
> a project to make an open source firmware for PCs:
> [https://www.coreboot.org](https://www.coreboot.org). It works on a
> selection of newish motherboards.
This simply isn't true - while UEFI firmwares do offer BIOS emulation, there's
no "BIOS" underneath them on most modern boards.
~~~
XMPPwocky
They might mean the "meta-bootloader" which brings up all those UEFI capsules-
afaik Intel's boot ROM doesn't, for example, parse PE headers.
------
0xff00ffee
Not exactly bare metal when you've got UEFI in there.
In the embedded world, Bare Metal means you control the first byte executed by
the CPU when it comes out of POST, and aren't using any kind of operating
system or proxy loader in between. But it gets kinda fuzzy, because RToS is
still "bare metal" and you have full access to the source-code.
~~~
waynecochran
That's not really bare metal either. You should be directly manipulating the
electrons flowing through the material :)
~~~
chungus_khan
Nah, electrons aren't quite full bare metal either. Mechanical computing gives
you real bare metal!
~~~
waynecochran
Can't have metal w/o electrons. :)
------
saagarjha
If you want to go down a different rabbit hole than being "bare-metal" while
still being in UEFI, take a look at EFI Byte Code: it's a strange and arcane
little virtual machine that you can use to write cross-platform UEFI drivers.
Here's a simple emulator for it:
[https://github.com/yabits/ebcvm](https://github.com/yabits/ebcvm)
------
kahlonel
I recommend anyone just starting with bare-metal assembly to get an STM32F0
board and write assembly programs for it. I'm just gonna plug my super small
toy RTOS I wrote for Cortex-M0 a while ago.
[https://github.com/kahlonel/rt0s](https://github.com/kahlonel/rt0s)
~~~
0xff00ffee
CubeMX is the best config manager I've ever used, the clocking interface alone
should be mandatory for all embedded companies.
I have still yet to really need an RTOS, even for BLE.
------
newswasboring
Just an aside, but it always felt weird to me that we call is bare-metal while
the actual code runs on mostly semiconductors.
I am very glad that in my bachelor program our microcontrollers class actually
made us hand enter hex codes in a kit. It got tedious after a while (maybe it
should have been for only a few weeks not the whole semester), but it gave me
a weird sense of being one with the machine. And it has as awesome ice breaker
when talking with older programmers. For some of them I am the only one of my
age that they have met who has ever done this. Another thing is it helped me
sort of see the flow of it and encouraged optimization.
(I don't want to give too much credit to my college, they did it not as some
great pedagogical trick but to save money and laziness)
~~~
tyingq
I think it might come from auto body shop terminology. We would remove layers
of paint or rust and get down to the "bare metal" for prep work. That "down to
the bare metal" phrase was very commonly used.
That is to say "no layers" or "right on the substrate".
Just a guess though.
~~~
newswasboring
> That is to say "no layers" or "right on the substrate".
Ok, I feel very pedantic saying this, but the substrate is the thing that is
mostly semi conductors :P.
~~~
pjc50
This "silicon is not a metal" pedantry is a whole new layer of tedium. But if
you want to take it that way: the data is mostly carried in the _metal_ layers
of aluminium, and the substrate is .. a substrate that's not doing very much.
~~~
newswasboring
If you really want to be pedantic then the data is processed and stored in
flip flops and stored as charge in semi conductor dielectrics.
But don't take this so seriously, I work in semiconductor manufacturing and
even I don't take it that seriously.
------
cptnapalm
A couple of years ago, I was learning PDP-11 assembly on 2.11 BSD and enjoying
it, but then the old textbook got to the point of system calls. I couldn't get
anything working properly, so eventually I found something else to do. I did
very much like it though.
Also, TIS-100 from Zachtronics (the assembly language game you never asked
for!) I think made assembly type programming less intimidating.
------
lonelygirl15a
There's a bunch of people doing bare-metal work on Ben Eater's two projects
right now:
[https://eater.net/](https://eater.net/)
------
fmakunbound
It used to be way easier. Something like this:
debug hn.com
a 100
mov dx, 200
mov ah, 9
int 21
mov ax, 4c00
int 21
a 200
db "Hello, World$"
w 300
q
Replace 100 with 0 and write it to the first sector of a disk and you had a
bootable program (BIOS interrupts only, of course).
Edit: Geezus. It's just an example of how accessible getting something running
in assembly language was compared to all the qemu, UEFI stuff in the article.
~~~
0xff00ffee
int 21h uses ...
A BIOS CALL. :)
Still not bare metal.
:)
(I'm totally gatekeeping for laughs: write your own BIOS you noob!)
~~~
non-entity
On a random, but interesting note though, manuals from some of the early IBM
PC's have the BIOs source listing in them
~~~
0xff00ffee
I had a giant pink book of PC BIOS that was my bible from 1988 to 1994 before
the internet took off. I can't for the life of me remember who published it,
but it had everything you needed to know about PC BIOS and an old IBM bios
source listing. It was over 600 pages.
It look liked this 1200 page book, but this isn't it (also a book I used):
[https://www.amazon.com/PC-Interrupts-Programmers-
Reference-T...](https://www.amazon.com/PC-Interrupts-Programmers-Reference-
Third-Party/dp/0201624850)
I also had the Apple ][+ ROM listing in one of those spiral-bound books from
apple circa 1980 but that too has been lost, sadly.
~~~
spc476
Sounds like the _The Programmer 's PC Sourcebook_ (which is on my shelf, and
yes, one could say it has a pink cover).
~~~
0xff00ffee
YES! That is exactly it. I wish I saved mine for nostalgia.
------
winrid
If this interests you I suggest Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black
Book.
I have a copy I'd sell, although you can find it for free, legally, online.
It's about a thousand pages....
~~~
SkyMarshal
Posted to HN multiple times:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Graphics%20black%20book&sort=byPopularity&type=story)
------
greyhair
You can explore the same world easily in AVR, ARM M0/4, or PIC. And really be
running on bare metal.
------
mlang23
Does anyone know if qemu and OVMF can be made to work in plain text mode? I
just tried but qemu wants _GTK_ by default, and when I pass -curses I get a
message that the screen is in 640 x 480 graphics mode. Is UEFI really that
complex that it doesnt allow for plain console access?
~~~
a7b3fa
Try '-nographic'. It can be a bit wonky IME, but good enough for the basics.
~~~
toast0
If you do this (or -serial mon:stdio and leave the VGA output), you can do
console I/O via com1, and it works pretty well. As a bonus, this is viable on
real hardware too, although most consumer level motherboards don't do serial
consoles :(
------
DoofusOfDeath
At first I thought this would be a story about DIY metalwork projects during
quarantine.
------
liquidify
I always wanted to do this stuff, but classes just never taught it. I think
some of the ECE students got some classes which taught some assembly, but not
us lowly CS people.
~~~
coldpie
Well, assembly doesn't have much to do with computer science. The fact that
aspiring programmers are taking CS degrees is the root of this problem =/
~~~
therealcamino
It used to be standard to teach a Computer Organization course, which would
involve some assembly programming, even in a liberal arts CS program.
------
commandlinefan
FYI if you're trying to follow along - it appears that QEMU doesn't (for some
reason) run on a headless workstation. You'll have to have X installed.
~~~
AntiRush
You can run qemu without the graphical UI with `-nographic` (serial port
output to the console) or `-curses` which can show the vga text output on your
console.
~~~
commandlinefan
Ah - thanks. I wish I'd known that before I installed the full X distribution.
------
ngcc_hk
Any instruction to run this under macOS. Qemu can run of course. But ovmf.fd
(or install from edk2) seems no clear instruction under macOS.
------
classified
Is there another level of assembly than bare-metal?
------
underthensun
Love playing with Assembly and bare-metal :)
------
djmips
Why are assembly related topics so popular on Hacker News? I don't see pursuit
of this topic happening in my anecdata of programmers I interact with in day
to day life.
~~~
rvz
> Why are assembly related topics so popular on Hacker News?
Because there are some engineers perhaps at ARM, Apple, Microsoft, Intel or
Google who deal with compilers or operating systems and UEFI booting devices
that you're probably currently running or using to either build software or
even reply to this thread, who still take interest in reading about blog posts
like this.
> I don't see pursuit of this topic happening in my anecdata of programmers I
> interact with in day to day life.
Maybe not for you, but it's the reason why you are able to post your message
here and browse the web or build software faster thanks to the engineers who
did this sort of programming. Sure, general end-users shouldn't care but it's
gives me confidence that there are some engineers out there who understand
some OS internals to 'make' things happen even at FAANMG companies, rather
than doing generic web apps all day long.
~~~
abnercoimbre
Came here to say just that, but to also mention I know some web developers who
love these topics and are ahead of the game compared to their colleagues.
P.S. And if a low-level programmer goes into web, stuff like this [0] happens
:-)
[0] [https://nira.app/](https://nira.app/)
------
Koshkin
I am not sure if using heavily microcoded CPU instructions qualifies as "bare
metal programming."
~~~
commandlinefan
risque-metal programming maybe?
~~~
blendo
Touche
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Mobirise Free Wwebsite Bbuilder – CSS Background Video - Mobirise
http://mobirise.com/video-background/
======
Mobirise
HTML5 Background Video - Add breathtaking video background to your website w/o
touching the code! [http://mobirise.com/video-
background/](http://mobirise.com/video-background/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort - aritraghosh007
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/world/europe/russian-presence-near-undersea-cables-concerns-us.html?_r=0
======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10449673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10449673)
------
drafty
Why exactly should I be worried that Russia is doing what the United States
probably does on a daily basis without making headlines?
------
DanielBMarkham
Booby-trapping undersea data cables is a new one. (Note that this is different
from the usual cable-tapping. The implication is not monitoring, but service
disruption.)
Not sure that the U.S. or any of its partners can do much about it, though.
Increase launch capacity and cable-laying speed.
It might be worth it to lay some secret, dark fiber, but beats me how you get
away with doing that without the Russians finding out.
If true, the Russians are clearly exploring new territory here. It's
increasingly obvious that there is a low-level cyberwar well underway between
the Russians, Chinese, and United States (and their proxies). I _think_ the
Chinese would be happy to keep the game at just under the kinetic level, but
the Russians seem hell-bent on seeing how far they can push things -- probably
because of how terribly things are going at home.
One thing is for certain: there will be a counter to this. Lots of tech
available like microwave repeaters, blimps, LEO sats, and so on. While I
couldn't care less about the tit-for-tat involved, at some point the Russians
are going to find a spot that hurts. This will not be a good thing for folks
who want a stable world.
------
Luc
Is this... a Pentagon submarine article?
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
------
NietTim
But when the US does it, it's a-okay.
~~~
vixen99
On balance if I have to choose, I would say yes.
~~~
NietTim
I'd rather have both not do it.
|
{
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}
|
San Diego Hacker News Meetup is Tomorrow, 7/30 at 7:30 PM - paulbaumgart
http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Meetup#Upcoming_meetups
======
Towle_
I demand to know whether the 7/30-7:30 thing was intentional or mere
coincidence.
~~~
jayliew
Historical records show that it's mere coincidence, as we have been consistent
with our day of month and time of day. <http://bit.ly/sdhackernews>
I MEAN. It was intentional :)
------
compumike
Everyone is welcome, but please note that an RSVP is requested if at all
possible: <http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=145752418769809> (Previous
meetups have been large enough that the coffee shop owner has asked to get an
approximate attendance in advance.)
------
clemesha
Cool, hopefully will make it.
(btw, did anyone else from San Diego attend the YC 'Work at a Startup'? I
went: [http://clemesha.org/blog/2010/jun/22/my-experience-at-
ycombi...](http://clemesha.org/blog/2010/jun/22/my-experience-at-ycombinator-
work-at-a-startup) and would love to talk more about experiences, etc. It was
a very cool event.)
~~~
jayliew
Hey Alex. I was there at the post-party reception. Hope you'll join us!
------
Poiesis
I would like to make it to one of these, but the timing's always been wrong.
Tomorrow our youngest daughter will be eleven days old, so we're a bit
preoccupied with her.
------
stanley
Is anyone heading up from downtown? I would like to make it but my wheels are
in the shop.
------
Aaronontheweb
Sorry I'm not going to be there guys :/ - out of town this weekend.
------
thereddestruby
Awesome. I didn't even know we had one of these.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: Tubda – An easy way to play our songs and videos together with friends - daajust
https://tubda.com
======
daajust
My friend and his girlfriend discovered that they unconsciously do listen to
similar songs at bedtime. Oh, how beautiful would it be to help them actually
play the same songs at bedtime, sharing that vibe, that deep emotional state
in real-time, I fantasized.
Months later, I and a friend across the world got bored while on a long video
chat. She decided to play us some songs to keep the vibe. Bummer! We realized
there was no easy way to share such a vibe, that emotional atmosphere. Then I
decided to fix this.
Tubda is not just an app, it's an experience.
Please kindly give it a try with your friends/teammates and tell me how y'all
like it.
~~~
codegladiator
> that they unconsciously do listen
subconsciously ?
~~~
daajust
I think both terms apply.
Unconscious means not awake or lacking awareness.
Subconscious refers to thoughts, actions or brain processes of which a person
is not directly aware.
Subconscious might arguably be more applicable in this context.
However, now they can actually play their songs together in real-time. :)
|
{
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}
|
Security wish list for 2019 - dlgeek
https://alexgaynor.net/2019/jan/06/security-wish-list-2019/
======
kerng
>>The most secure email provider (Gmail) and consumer operating system
(ChromeOS) [...]
MacOS has arguably been more secure then ChromeOS, maybe even Windows.
ChromeOS had some horrific security issues, like being able to read the very
security token devices the author wants to see adopted. It was possible for a
while to just read the keys out via WebUSB, from the browser, cross origin
with Chrome!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
OVH down - 56k
http://ovh.com/
======
nly
Had some huge (10x) increase in ping times to Roubaix yesterday, but
everything seems fine for me today. Firs time in 3 years I've noticed
anything.
------
Shank
I've got servers in their Canadian datacenter and everything seems peachy. I'm
guessing this is their French infrastructure. Even
[http://status.ovh.net/](http://status.ovh.net/) doesn't load.
~~~
mattzito
It is their french datacenter - we are affected, they're saying should be back
in an hour.
------
cellover
It seems to be related to a BGP leak:
[http://travaux.ovh.com/?do=details&id=16568](http://travaux.ovh.com/?do=details&id=16568)
~~~
56k
Link not working (down, too)
~~~
cellover
Here is a screenshot:
[http://i.imgur.com/eocXsNK.png](http://i.imgur.com/eocXsNK.png)
------
fweespeech
Remember kids, have DC failover to a second provider.
~~~
kennysmoothx
Hey,
Just out of curiosity do you have any provider recommendations?
I have my servers on OVH but have been looking for a second provider/backup
but cant seem to find any with affordable bandwidth (My services experience
heavy traffic)
Thanks!
~~~
fweespeech
Are you in a OVH France or OVH Canada location?
What sort of latency can you tolerate? [e.g. Can you go from OVH Canada to
Kansas City without it impacting your setup? Or France to Germany? Or do you
need something closer?]
~~~
kennysmoothx
I am currently in OVH Canada,
90% of my customers are US customers with a large percentage on the East
coast.
Kansas City would actually be very ideal, nothing more West than that though.
~~~
fweespeech
Since you want high bandwidth, OVH level prices/hardware/etc.
Reliable site is noticeably better but costs more. The others are
Kimsufi/SoYouStart kind of providers. [e.g. the lower end OVH brands]
__NYC Metro __
[http://www.reliablesite.net/](http://www.reliablesite.net/)
__Kansas City __
[https://www.wholesaleinternet.net/dedicated/](https://www.wholesaleinternet.net/dedicated/)
[https://joesdatacenter.com/dedicated-server-
packages/](https://joesdatacenter.com/dedicated-server-packages/)
[https://www.datashack.net/dedicated/](https://www.datashack.net/dedicated/)
__South Carolina __
[https://billing.dacentec.com/hostbill/index.php?/cart/dedica...](https://billing.dacentec.com/hostbill/index.php?/cart/dedicated-
servers/)
~~~
kennysmoothx
I wanted to thank you,
I forgot to mention that I also needed large storage 16tb+ however looking
into [http://www.reliablesite.net/](http://www.reliablesite.net/) , they're
pretty much EXACTLY what I was looking for.
Thanks again for your help you have helped me tons!
\- Kenny
------
ju-st
postmortem from CEO:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca9N_zXXIAAwfm2.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca9N_zXXIAAwfm2.png)
------
maremmano
live outage map:
[https://currentlydown.com/ovh.net](https://currentlydown.com/ovh.net)
------
ju-st
All OVH links work for me, thanks to Ipv6 I suppose
------
sithadmin
My two servers in Roubaix are still down.
------
dubcanada
It appears to be back up for me.
------
Gmo
It's back up for us :)
------
maremmano
still down here. multiple servers. 94.23. _._ and 188.168. _._
|
{
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|
CDNJS: The Fastest Javascript Repo on the Web - spahl
http://blog.cloudflare.com/cdnjs-the-fastest-javascript-repo-on-the-web
======
jread
Low latency with a handful of pingdom monitoring nodes sitting in data centers
does not necessarily translate to the "fastest repo on the web". We've tested
CloudFlare since their launch using thousands of real users, and based on that
testing performance tends to be on the low end compared to traditional static
content CDNs. CloudFlare is more of a website proxy than CDN. By assuming full
control of your website DNS, it stands out more with add-on features like
security. Here is a link to some real user performance analysis I've compiled
for various CDNs including CloudFlare:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20765204/feb12-cdn-report/index.html>
~~~
ksec
I have similar experience with CloudFlare. The Speed just isn't there. Most
CDN perform MUCH better then them. I would love to pay to even get faster
speed. But that is not the model they decided to work on. I hope they will
have more speed improvement coming in soon.
------
nikcub
this shouldn't be hosted on the cloudflare.com domain. since I am a customer
every request sends my cloudflare session cookie and a bunch of Google
Analytics cookies.
Not only is it 2.5KB of extra header info sent, but I don't think cloudflare
should know which websites their customers have been visiting.
~~~
graue
Yeah, that is an odd decision. Makes you wonder if the “secret” motive of
CloudFlare in hosting this, other than to promote their service, is to track
and analyze your visitors.
I don't see a privacy policy on CDNJS.com. I'd definitely like to know what
data they collect about my visitors and what they do with it.
At least the CDN doesn't itself _set_ any cookies.
~~~
atonse
If anything this would only work on other cloudflare users (like people who
logged in to cloudflare). Most users won't have any cookies on that domain.
~~~
bigiain
There's nothing to stop them setting cookies in the responses down the track
though. Wait until you've got enough users, then one day just switch on your
3rd party multi-site user tracking. Or perhaps less publicly dicoverable, use
browser fingerprinting and ip address correlation to do the same thing with
somewhat less accuracy, but completely invisibly.
And note too, that if you're relying on a 3rd party to serve javascript your
users are going to run in their browsers - if that 3rd party isn't
trustworthy, you're screwed in much worse ways that cookie tracking privacy
violations. Who'd notice if they started occasionally serving a modified
version of jQuery which sent all form field keydowns (aka, your usernames and
passwords) back to theselves?
~~~
atonse
Following the money will especially help in this situation.
How does CloudFlare make its money? It's a CDN company. I mean, that's the
CORE of what they do. What is jsCDN? It's a CDN.
A simpler theory is that hosting a Javascript CDN (and demonstrating that it's
even better than Google's, which is amazing), is going to provide a lot of
free advertising for their product. If I use their CDN for JS and it works
really well, I'm likely to go back to them for hosting other things, because
using jsCDN is almost like doing a free trial of their actual CDN.
It's not even like their main form of income is in another industry that we
have to make a cognitive leap to see what their ulterior motives are. It's
precisely this. CDNs.
------
eric_bullington
For analytics and tag generation of libraries hosted by CDNJS, take a look at:
<http://www.scriptselect.com> It's a weekend project I did a couple of weeks
ago using d3 and backbone. You can select libraries, view selected library
size, and copy the generated script tags for the libraries you've selected.
Just a little tool to make using CDNJS a little more convenient. If there's
enough demand, I'll add other CDNs.
Thanks to Ryan, Thomas, and CloudFlare for a very cool service!
------
IanDrake
Quick question... I thought the best part of CDN hosted js files was that they
were more likely already cached on the client, not so much for the speed of
delivery.
So, wouldn't it be better to go with the most popular and not the fastest?
~~~
graue
For jQuery, maybe. But if you're using, say, Backbone, that point is moot
because only CDNJS has it. The Google CDN[1] only hosts 11 libraries, CDNJS
hosts over 200.
1\. <https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/devguide>
------
scosman
+1 to joshfraser - cache hits always beat requests. I remember seeing a stat
about n% of top 100 sites use the google CDN for jquery, it was by far the
most popular. Stick with Google for popular libraries.
------
moe
Backing up wild performance-claims with a _Pingdom chart_?
I really don't know how anyone can take CloudFlare seriously anymore...
------
po
They say this is 'peer-reviewed' but is that all? If someone sends them a pull
request for an update to a widely used but perhaps smaller library, will they
review it or does it just get merged into the CDN? It seems like a good way to
get access to millions of browser sessions. Is anyone in Cloudfare taking
responsibility for checking that the code is coming from the authoritative
repo and not joeblow/underscore.js?
<https://github.com/cdnjs/cdnjs#pull-requests-steps>
While Google and Microsoft are slower to update their libs, we can assume that
they are downloading releases from official sources.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Contributors generally include the links to the official sources.
If not we track down the official repositories ourselves.
Once we have verified the source, we then check the diff against the submitted
and official. We have always flirted with the idea of a level of automation to
handle this. But your comment addresses the problem with a solution such as
that so we are still manually diff checking for maximum security.
------
joshfraser
The fastest request is the one that never happens. One of the biggest benefits
of using hosted libraries is that browsers cache those files locally. By
sharing the same URL for your copy of jQuery with thousands of other sites,
you increase your odds of getting a local browser cache hit. For popular
libraries like jQuery you're probably best using Google since they have the
most adoption. That said, I think CloudFlare's CDN is an interesting idea and
could grow into something genuinely useful especially for less popular
libraries.
------
daemon13
The question I have [but not the answer] is:
Usually in every project there is bunch of .js [jquery, backbone, etc] and
.css files. So the good practice is not only to minify and compress, but also
to bundle some/all of them into several big combined files to save on extra
HTTP calls.
So my question is - what is better - (1) have separate files served from such
CDN [or any public CDN] or (2) combine the files and serve yourself by
nginx/AWS?
Not a developer, feel free to correct any mistakes :-)
~~~
joshfraser
It's a great question. The answer depends on a lot of different variables like
your cache hit ratio, the size & number of files, etc. I'd recommend doing a
performance A/B test using JavaScript to time which one is best for your
particular site. We offer a free Real User Measurement tool at Torbit
(<http://torbit.com>) that includes the ability to do A/B tests like this.
------
cypherpunks01
cdnjs is a great public service, I've been using it for various projects for
awhile and it seems consistently fast everywhere.
------
atonse
I've recently started using CDNJS for my projects. Thanks to Ryan, Thomas, and
CloudFlare for this awesome service!
Even happier to see that you guys host CSS and images for the common libs. I
will change my bootstrap css hosting over to yours soon.
------
alexchamberlain
We can still improve this by caching across CDNs.
~~~
byoung2
You mean updating browsers to recognize the same file across different domains
(e.g. md5 hash, etc)?
~~~
alexchamberlain
I mean this... [http://alexchamberlain.co.uk/opinion/2012/09/13/cache-
across...](http://alexchamberlain.co.uk/opinion/2012/09/13/cache-across-
domains.html)
~~~
nikcub
the reason this hasn't been done is:
a) would require all servers and browsers to be updated for what is a marginal
gain
b) privacy nightmare
~~~
alexchamberlain
a) No it wouldn't; it would be totally optional. b) Get over it; there is no
difference between this and CDNs.
~~~
nikcub
> Get over it; there is no difference between this and CDNs.
except the part where you track people across sites
what I am saying is not speculative. this has been proposed previously, and
shot down. there is a reason why it hasn't happen.
~~~
alexchamberlain
Where would you be tracking people across sites?
~~~
nikcub
If you trawl through the IETF and more recently WHATWG mailing lists you will
find that every time caching comes up - either with Last-Modified or when ETag
was being ratified the proposal for cross-origin caching also comes up, and is
rejected.
The browser vendors just spent the past 4-5 years locking down cross-origin
access in the DOM because of all the security and privacy implications that
come up. Corporate profiles and ISO standards don't even accept running the
code - let alone caching it (i've worked on plenty of corporate projects where
you aren't allowed to even use Google hosted JS - it just won't run due to AD
policies).
To give you but one example of what arises with this new vector. Say I were to
go to the top 50 banking sites and take a sample of a Javascript file that is
unique to each site. I would then take the hash of each file, and in a single
web page include the script element with a hash of each of those files. When a
visitor hits that page and the browser attempts to load each script element,
if it loads it in 4ms then I know the file was in the cache and that the
visitor is a customer of that bank.
~~~
alexchamberlain
Why would the banks enable hashing on their unique stuff? It would be their
security flaw, not the design of the system.
~~~
nikcub
Well that is just one, and as I mentioned cross-origin requests and access
have been further locked down recently, not opened. With all the different
versions and variants of libraries you are implementing and exposing a lot to
save very little. You wouldn't even save 1% of web requests. as mentioned,
this isn't a new idea, I'm just telling you the reasons why it hasn't and
won't happen
------
0x006A
is the chrome extension[1] working? was just thinking that I might start to
use it if there was a browser extension that makes sure those requests stay
always local. otherwise its rather slow to use any remote resource while
developing a page locally.
<https://github.com/cdnjs/browser-extension>
|
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The CCC English YouTube Channel Terminated - comboy
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG4QMB95FR6Df6XdQwn8gSg
======
comboy
I have it in subscriptions and just noticed accidentally. Couldn't find any
info about it. Needless to say there were a lot of excellent videos in there.
Some information could be used to do malicious stuff but the same can be said
about pretty any technical talk. I doubt that any talk encouraged black hat
actions. So why did it disappear? Does anybody have any info about it?
Btw, truly decentralized video platform seems to be a real challenge because
of tons of bandwidth necessary (and poor uplink bandwith for most users), I
wonder how close we are to getting there.
~~~
detaro
THIS is the official CCC channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/mediacccde](https://www.youtube.com/user/mediacccde)
, and the CCC has it's own video hosting here:
[https://media.ccc.de/](https://media.ccc.de/)
As far as I know CCCen was a copycat (trying to make ad money?)
~~~
comboy
Oh, I've been tricked. Thanks.
~~~
uhhyeahdude
And what a stupid bit of deceit at that! Publishing others' content for your
own benefit, especially when they do so themselves, is reprehensible. Aiming
for a highly technical niche of natural skeptics seems like a poor strategy.
That said; if the CCC were officially disallowed to publish, or quietly
advised that they would face sanction for publishing a talk, I might feel
differently -- that would be acting in the spirit of the event, and protecting
the organizers from reprisal.
|
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Americans say US cars top Asian autos - samratjp
http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1425/ap-gfk-poll-americans-say-us-cars-top-asian-autos/
======
ilkhd2
I prefer Canadian vehicles, New Flyer
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abqride_729.jpg>).
|
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Ask HN: An Autodidact Asks, "What's Your Favorite Wikipedia Article?" - shawndumas
Being that I barely made it out of high school, and am a person who is self-taught, I need to fill in the gaps myself. But knowing what you don’t know is tough. Reading interesting mathematical, historical, philosophical, grammatical, political, or scientific Wikipedia articles has been a great way to explore and fill gaps. Can you suggest some starting points?<p>Please and thanks.
======
yannickmahe
My personnal favorite article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_in_Somalia>
Ever since reading that one, I have been following Somalia news much more
closely.
------
hector_ka
Read every day Today's featured article on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page> That is a good starting point
~~~
shawndumas
Is that a random article? I kind of wanted human selected ones...
~~~
hector_ka
Try this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence> Is as good as
any other article ;-)
------
bhousel
Is this a joke?
Autodidacts are self-directed, by definition. They don't ask others what to
study.
~~~
shawndumas
See! I learned something already!
Kidding aside: An _autodidact_ is a person who is self-taught. They can also
be an _autonomous learner_ but the two terms are not strictly equivalent.
------
grizzlylazer
a strange article for a strange question:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death>
|
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The Cyberpunk Sensibility (2016) - zabana
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/10/27/the-cyberpunk-sensibility/
======
keypusher
The author seems to have wanted to write an article about cyberpunk, but
didn't have anything to say. There was no premise or conclusion, simply a few
rambling thoughts about the current state of technology and media.
What I find fascinating about the cyberpunk sensibility is the dramatic shift
from the classical view of the future. When you dig into older science fiction
it is almost universally accepted that the future will be clean, bright, and
government-controlled. Sure, the spaceship crew might have to dispatch some
weird bug creatures, or family's robot might have gone haywire, or Big Brother
might be watching your every move, but it's taken for granted that
technological progress has kept pace, rockets are zooming around, and power
has been steadily accruing upward to the government, which is basically taking
care of things. The biggest problem might be that the government (or should I
say The Empire) has gotten a bit too much control, and some rebels have banded
together for the sake of Freedom.
The cyberpunk sensibility and vision is not only darker, but significantly
more subversive. Power has not conglomerated in the hands of the government,
it's been usurped by corporations and wealthy individuals. Technology has not
solved hunger, poverty, sickness, or human suffering, in fact in many cases it
has made them worse. The environment has been fucked by centuries of
industrial abuse, the cities are a mess, drugs and crime are rampant, the
streets are dirty, even the rain is dirty. Technology never managed to lift
mankind out of its daily struggle, humanity never banded together in search of
the stars, and the hope of that clean, bright, government controlled future
has become a cruel joke.
~~~
chme
Or both the government and big corporations hammering down on the humans...
I do miss the optimistic view of the original Star Trek series. A world where
technological and sociological development of humanity went mostly parallel.
We now seem to develop technology faster than ourselves. Current SciFi is
therefor mostly on the dark and dramatic side.
~~~
krapp
The original Star Trek also had a megacorp keeping workers pacified with
neurotoxins (The Cloud Minders) sex slavery with advanced pharmaceuticals
(Mudd's Women,) genetically engineered elites oppressing baseline humans
(Space Seed) and AI run amok (The Changeling, I, Mudd and others.)
It was optimistic, but it was also a product of the 60's. Fear of the future
was there, it just tended to be presented in political terms, through
metaphors of the Cold War and Vietnam, rather than technological.
~~~
Izkata
_The Cloud Minders_ was the opposite. The neurotoxin was an accident that no
one believed existed until the Enterprise arrived, and it made the lower caste
violent, not pacified.
~~~
ajuc
Lol, was it an analogy for lead in fuel in real life on purpose?
Cause it's roughly how this worked in the real life (20 years after ban of
leaded petrol in each country violent crimes fall dramatically).
~~~
Izkata
It could only be "on purpose" if they could see some 40 years into the
future... The episode aired in 1969.
------
motohagiography
Was watching an Uber eats courier on a carbon fiber bike with electric boost,
complaining about the order routing and dispatch AI he worked for, while
exhaling clouds of bug juice he was pulling from a small electronic element he
kept on his belt. Not cyberpunk, just poor.
~~~
InitialLastName
Where the industrial class divide was once the window between the shop floor
and the shop office, now it's the API. Either you work above the API --
writing the programs and managing the programmers -- or you work below it --
packing the boxes and delivering the pizzas.
------
ErikAugust
Surprised cryptocurrency isn't mentioned in this article - as I feel that is
one of the more cyberpunk developments in a very cyberpunk past decade.
I dig the author's take on the internet being more meritocratic but prone to
monopoly -- due to a sort of lack of friction. Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc.
The dystopian/cyberpunk logic is that things that begin decentralized/open end
up centralized/monopolized. I fear that happens with cryptocurrency, much like
it happened with the internet.
I'm working on a game that explores that theme through that lens:
[https://www.cachethegame](https://www.cachethegame). It's based on Ethereum
based and based on the old Drugwars classic.
~~~
exolymph
If I rewrote the article now, I would definitely mention cryptocurrencies! I
have a couple of essays in the works currently that will address the same
themes from a different perspective, with updated examples. I actually work
for a cryptocurrency-related organization now :)
~~~
davidgerard
If "Burning Chrome" had thought of cryptocurrencies, it could have been set in
the present.
~~~
pavel_lishin
Cryptonomicon largely could be.
------
ajuc
I think there are already a few subgenres of Cyberpunk. It can be seen easily
after reaction to recent trailer of Cyberpunk 2077 game
People either love it (cause it shows the 80s atmosphere and is basede on
pen&paper rpg Cyberpunk 2020 from 80s), or hate it, because it's "not dark
enough", and it doesn't rain all the time, so it doesn't resemble Bladerunner.
I quite like it so far.
According to Max Pondsmith (the creator of the p&p rpg from 80s) - Cyberpunk
is "high tech - low life".
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2kIfS6fb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2kIfS6fb8)
~~~
acoye
Yeah Cyberpunk 2077 has a je-ne-sais-quoi that reminds me of "Ready player
one". The 80's are there.
------
auslander
I love cyberpunk. Essential ingredients are:
\- hostile AI
\- Corporations and Government surveilance and going dark
\- DNA / implant chips / biometric border controls
\- Borders protected by armed drones / robots
\- Underground Identities markets
~~~
drakonka
I think hostile AI isn't really an essential ingredient in cyberpunk for me,
but _some_ sort of AI, and often coupled with _some_ sort of conflict between
whether the AI is hostile or benevolent. I associate cyberpunk very much with
the grey area between man and machine.
~~~
auslander
AI that decides if you are not a good fit for or a threat to society. And
kicks off all kinds of threat control measures. Black Mirror S03E01.
~~~
klez
Did we see a different version of the episode? In Nosedive your score is
decided by people, not by AI. There's no hint of AI in the whole episode.
~~~
auslander
It was AI :) People's scores were just another source of data, used together
with throves of banking, social, medical, criminal, telecom datasets.
~~~
klez
I'll have to rewatch it. Not that I would mind :)
------
jancsika
> [T]aste governs every free — as opposed to rote — human response.
Also apparently governing every free human response-- the smell of farts[1].
I think what Sontag meant to say in that quote is that if you have more than
adequate amounts of food, shelter, comfort, and agreeable company then "taste"
tends to govern the way in which you interact with your agreeable compatriots.
I'm not sure what this has to do with Cyberpunk. But it's just too tantalizing
not to mock these types of exaggerations from authors like Sontag.
[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528731-800-the-
yuck...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528731-800-the-yuck-factor-
the-surprising-power-of-disgust/)
------
acoye
"The cyberpunk mental model [...] can be risky because it’s quite cynical and
pessimistic. We expect the worst of people."
If that does model best mankind and society, maybe it is not that much cynical
and pessimistic but realistic.
That said, it is only a model, a tool to better understand ourselves.
~~~
coldtea
> _If that does model best mankind and society, maybe it is not that much
> cynical and pessimistic but realistic. That said, it is only a model, a tool
> to better understand ourselves._
Therein lies the problem, though. Models when used by people are not only
models. They shape and influence reality in return in a feedback loop.
Even if a cynical model "does model best mankind and society" as it stands,
there is the possibility that using a less realistic one could help improve
mankind and society.
~~~
spyrosg
People who like thinking seem to overestimate the power of ideas in shaping
the world. My interpretation is that it's probably the typical arrogance of
the intellectual letting itself through.
For example, there are arguments that the renaissance was a result of the
social and economic conditions created by the black death, not the intention
of any human actor. The post-WW2 social wellness a result precisely of the
war, and so on.
Not everybody agrees on what "improve mankind and society" should mean, so
you're back to either submitting to a common concept of objective truth, where
the "bad" but realistic model wins, or political arm wrestling for your ideas
to win against the other's (on the basis of faith if you're in the middle
ages, or whim if you're a postmodernist).
~~~
coldtea
> _People who like thinking seem to overestimate the power of ideas in shaping
> the world. My interpretation is that it 's probably the typical arrogance of
> the intellectual letting itself through._
This was not about ideas -- it's was about viewpoint, which has enormous
impact in shaping the world.
> _For example, there are arguments that the renaissance was a result of the
> social and economic conditions created by the black death, not the intention
> of any human actor._
Well, there were other periods similar to the renaissance throughout history,
periods not affected by the black death. E.g. the rise of ancient Greece city
states (from the so-called "middle ages" of pre-historic antiquity), or the
rise of the islamic culture.
And even if the black death was a major factor of change, the way the change
took shape is all ideas and viewpoints.
In fact a common argument is that the renaissance was indeed a response to the
conditions created by the black death, but the mechanism of change was a
change in viewpoints ("let's celebrate life", etc).
~~~
Nasrudith
What seperates ideas from viewpoints essentially? I would guess largely how
they dearly they are held. Another factor was what it did to existing ones. It
undermined authority in both economic/balance of power sense and in "claim to
being right". The church could not save them no matter how much they prayed
nor how saintly their lifestyle. Nobility could not protect them - nor even
themselves. It wasn't an enemy to be faced by big budgetted knights riding out
to slay those who raid and pillage. It left a vacuum for growth of other
forces while the society had not collapsed.
It had an interesting cultural remnant so embedded that nobody notices it -
desensitization to skeletons. Nobody reacts to skeletons in an elementary
school classroom or doctors office in the west.
Yet Chinese variants of video games widely censor their apperances despite
other brutality. One in a moba notably changes a spell icons from skeletons to
a tortured bald man - more graphic to us but not them. China does have their
own hangups but it highlights how weird it is fundamentally that we are okay
with dead bodies reduced to their very core and reassembled. Keep preserved
other internal organs around small children and people would ask what is wrong
with you. The unacceptable ethics in sourcing were the main driver for the
switch to plastic if I recall correctly. Cheaper now but they started when the
fine details were more expensive and at risk of being less accurate.
~~~
coldtea
> _What seperates ideas from viewpoints essentially?_
I used the first to refer to general abstract theories (marxism etc) and the
second to refer to more concrete ways of viewing the world that people share /
adopt etc.
In the 60s for example there were several abstract theories about this and
that, but also a shared viewpoint about the need of change, revolution, etc
------
bsamuels
if you find this article interesting, highly recommend reading The Seventh
Sense. does a great job at explaining how networks will redistribute power and
change power dynamics
~~~
mindcrime
_New Power_ appears to explore similar terrain as well.
[https://www.amazon.com/New-Power-Works-Hyperconnected-
World/...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Power-Works-Hyperconnected-
World/dp/0385541112)
Looking forward to reading both in the near future.
------
auslander
Black Mirror is pretty much cyberpunk, if you missed it somehow
~~~
klez
Not really.
Sure, it's dystopian and futuristic, but that's not enough to make it
cyberpunk.
Usually cyberpunk is seen from the point of view of the lowest part of society
(the "low life" in the "high tech - low life" motto). This is mostly missing
from Black Mirror.
~~~
prophesi
There's really no agreed upon definition of what constitutes cyberpunk; for
me, the core of cyberpunk is simply the abuse of advanced technology.
Everything else is just icing on the cake; the neon lights, the overcrowded
failing city, and a track from Master Boot Record playing in the background.
~~~
klez
Eh, Case is trash, Molly kills people, the Finn sells stolen goods, Bobby (the
Count) lives in the slums, Chevette (Virtual Light) is a courier that lives in
the bridge, Hiro (Snow Crash) lives in a container and delivers pizza. I'm not
sure how much more low-life you can be in the future.
Also, from Wikipedia[1]:
> This emphasis on the misfits and the malcontents is the "punk" component of
> cyberpunk.
Otherwise it's just "cyber".
Then again, I've seen dystopic sci-fi movies defined as cyberpunk when I
wouldn't agree with the definition.
(NOTE: I'm being argumentative because I love cyberpunk, not to score internet
points or to be told me I'm right, so keep firing, I'm not fighting, I'm
enjoying this :) )
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk#Protagonists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk#Protagonists)
~~~
prophesi
Hmm, I'm almost sold. I think what ties together the 'punk' part is the
gritty, visceral aspects of the futuristic dystopian city; the protagonist
doesn't necessarily need to be a representative of these lower rings of
society, but it definitely helps drive that point home.
Not sure if I'm wording this right... Basically, cyberpunk needs to show those
gritty aspects to be cyberpunk, but the main characters don't necessarily need
to be those punks. For instance, a game where you play as an AI that defects
from an evil corporation, or perhaps play as a bartender[0] who simply listens
to her clients' crazy stories.
[0]
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/447530/VA11_HallA_Cyberpu...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/447530/VA11_HallA_Cyberpunk_Bartender_Action/)
(I'm also a huge fan of cyberpunk, so no worries :P )
~~~
klez
I watched the trailer for that bartender game and I have to admit I didn't
understand what it's about, but yes, aesthetically it has a cyberpunk vibe.
And now that I think of it you're probably right. To be cyberpunk a piece of
work needs those punk elements, but they don't need to be the protagonists.
~~~
prophesi
It's a pretty awesome game. You basically choose the music that plays for the
night (has a great soundtrack), and then just talk to whoever comes in and
occasionally make them a drink. If you know your client's tastes and serve
them just the right one, they're likely to stay longer and spill their
secrets.
You eventually start to figure out what exactly happened in a huge event that
plays out, thanks to the secrets from your clientele.
|
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|
Ask HN: Should you commit package-lock.json? - wawhal
Hello HN,<p>We are trying to decide if we should commit package-lock to version control for our JavaScript project.<p>It is generally considered a good practice to commit package-lock to version control to avoid breaking anything due to the dependency updates and thus we have been committing it till now.<p>However, we are facing some problems. Everytime we run `npm install`, package-lock is overwritten whenever a new version is detected from `^` in package.json. This causes a lot of merge conflicts which are impractical to merge in the long run.<p>We were thinking of freezing the dependency versions in `package.json` itself and update them only when we really need to update them. In this way, we do not need to maintain package-lock. But this does not let us auto update the deps with incremental bug fixes that are released in the minor versions.<p>What do you people think?
======
xyzzy123
For an application, yes, commit the lock file. TL:DR; use “npm ci”, not “npm
i”.
This has several benefits; a) You know if a test fails, you broke something.
Not a bug caused by dep shift. b) Your team is using same versions of deps
during dev (reduces “works on my computer” moments) c) Your builds are more
reproducible. You can be more confident that you can exactly build say, last
month’s version of the app and have it work the same way it did back then.
Re: the noise problem, recommend using “npm ci” as the default and “npm i”
only where you’re planning to update deps. This is less work than “freezing”
stuff in package.json and also addresses the problem of transitive deps (the
deps if your deps, which you would not really want to put in package.json
anyway).
Use npm audit to detect stuff that _needs_ updating and treat periodic dep
updates as a janitorial task. When you do updates, make a PR with just the dep
updates (plus any changes needed for them to work) and make sure all the tests
pass. You can mostly automate this.
As a side note, the docs explicitly call out that the file is intended to be
committed: [https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package-
lock.json](https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package-lock.json)
------
quantummkv
Have you looked at yarn? From my experience yarn does not change its lock file
unless you explicitly change your dependencies.
|
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Show HN: IMDB ratings, movie browsing for the lazy (Chrome) - skidding
https://github.com/skidding/chrome-imdb-ratings
======
skidding
Hi guys. I wanted to take a break from all these TV shows everybody's been
watching lately and get the time to catch up with some good movies for a
change, but I didn't really know where to start. Naturally, I begun browsing
IMDB to see what my favorite actors were up to and what new movies did they
play in. The problem was I wanted to find the ones with at least a good rating
(I know, I know... but that rating still helps), so I kept going back and
forth from an actor I follow to each of his movies, one by one. Then I
thought, wouldn't it be cool to just have all the ratings listed? Yes it
would. So I started building this basic functionality as a Chrome extension a
few hours ago and now it's already working as intended and makes it a lot
easier for me to find a movie to watch. Take a look and let me know if you
have other ideas to improve this experience.
~~~
joshschreuder
Hey, looks like a nice extension.
Just one thing - if I load up a page, and then try to click an accordion
dropdown thing, it doesn't copy down ratings (or load up now ones). Apart from
that, nice work!
See screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/W5GdC.png>
~~~
skidding
The reason I didn't want to load ALL titles from the page was that it would
make an awful amount of requests at once, and also because I wanted to
calculate that person rating based on the the first (featured) section. But
since some people (such as Wes Anderson, in your case) have a similar amount
of titles in more than one section, I made this work. Every section has
ratings loaded now, except that they load only after they're made visible.
Update your extension and all should be OK
Edit: typo
~~~
joshschreuder
Thanks for the update, works really well!
|
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Judge Protects Secret Muffin Recipe by Barring Employee Hire - grellas
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202443728649&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=Law.com&pt=Law.com%20Newswire%20Update&cn=LAWCOM_NewswireUpdate_20100217&kw=Secret%20Muffin%20Recipe%20Prevents%20Executive%20From%20Switching%20Jobs
======
grellas
This is a highly unusual trade secret case illustrating what _not_ to do as a
high-level executive about to switch jobs.
Bottom line: a _very rare_ result in which the executive was not just enjoined
from disclosing trade secrets but was barred outright from ever working at the
competitor's on any terms. Shows the extreme steps taken in and out of court
to preserve the secrecy of a highly valuable trade secret (in this case,
involving a muffin recipe), probably akin to what Coke does to protect its
proprietary soft drink formula.
~~~
hga
Agreed, and add (the detail of):
" _Botticella also surreptitiously accessed highly sensitive documents on his
final day of work at Bimbo, Surrick found, and a computer expert showed that
an external drive had been connected to Botticella's laptop._ "
Although the reported basis is one I'm very uncomfortable with, the judge
saying the plaintiff's "burden was to show at least a 'substantial threat' of
disclosure of a trade secret". If Silicon Valley had been under such a regime
way back when, we wouldn't be having this discussion (well, we might ... on
300 baud modems...).
|
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We bought a $1 house in Italy. Here's what happened next - yarapavan
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/italy-one-euro-home-buyers/index.html
======
auslegung
Here’s an excellent counterpoint to this [https://www.italianfix.com/italy-
giving-away-houses/](https://www.italianfix.com/italy-giving-away-houses/)
------
jsilence
Not reading because of clickbaity title.
------
foulianna
Actually $1 it's just your 'ticket' for the lottery, you have to buy the house
in normal (but cheap) prices.
|
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My weekend project: Get Facebook events in your calendar - maggit
http://myfbfilter.appspot.com/
======
maggit
The iCal export at Facebook is unfortunately written in a way that lots of
calendar software chokes on. I wrote this utility to fix that problem.
In the process, I also added a filter on RSVP-status, so you don't have to
consider all the events you have declined.
I hope it can be of use to some of you guys :)
|
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|
Engineering Leaders Are Failing Themselves - mooreds
https://medium.com/@kathkeating_78433/engineering-leaders-are-failing-themselves-73678d41192b
======
remotecool
Skin color and gender do not make a better engineer. We should have diversity
of thoughts and ideas and educational backgrounds.
Ie: the content of our character and not the color of our skin.
|
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GMail is not a business tool. Period. - lostbit
http://www.formortals.com/gmail-is-not-a-business-tool-period/
======
burke
To play Devil's Advocate:
> Problem #1: Over-aggressive spam filtering
In five years of using exclusively GMail (and GAfB, which has the same
filters), I have never once missed a legitimate message (or, at least,
noticed). A quick poll of my friends indicates they have had the same
experience.
> Problem #2: “… sent on behalf of…”
This is already countered by #3.
> Problem #3: Fixing “… sent on behalf of …”
Just because this is a minor pain in the ass doesn't make it an illegitimate
business tool. A few extra minutes to figure it out is certainly worth the
productivity gains from all of GMail's other features.
> Problem #4: Calendars
Author should either cancel his GMail account, or read the email that gets
sent to it. Either would solve this problem. This is not a valid complaint.
> Problem #5: Customer Service? What’s that?
Semi-legitimate. Every time I (and anyone I've even heard of) have had an
issue with GMail, it is fixed promptly with no action on my part. Google has
monitoring for this and actively works to solve problems, rather than waiting
for support requests. How is this not preferable in every sense?
Mainly what I take issue with here is that the author is claiming GMail to be
completely unacceptable for "Business". Full stop. That's an absurd statement
to make. I fully respect his decision that it's not suitable for _his_
business, but how he is putting this across is immensely arrogant.
~~~
Groxx
re #1: I've had a few, and I have relatively low volumes of spam (a dozen a
day or less). Strangely enough, most of them have been from major emailers -
Borders, a couple tea sites, etc. A couple personal emails, but the last one
was over a year ago.
The major business-problem I see with Gmail is the 10-connection limit with
IMAP (a single client often has multiple connections). Totally screws over
people with multiple devices, which seems to me to be more likely w/ business-
oriented uses. I could be wrong, but I think it applies to apps-for-business
as well as regular Gmail, which is a bit crippling.
------
sleepyhead
Gmail is a free personal email service and this guy complains about lack of
customer service? Boohoo. Wish I could downvote links on HN.
------
MenaMena123
"The problem is, GMail is absolutely unacceptable for business usage, but the
folks who use it don’t see it that way."
Its odd you say that above. The people who use it are the ones that matter.?
If its used for it, well its works for them for business. End of Story.
|
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If you haven't pushed it to revision control, it doesn't exist - edward
http://yakking.branchable.com/posts/truism-3-if-you-havent-pushed-it/
======
dalke
Minor historical point. SCCS dates from 1972 and was first written for the IBM
370 and then for Unix on the PDP 11. See [http://basepath.com/aup/talks/SCCS-
Slideshow.pdf](http://basepath.com/aup/talks/SCCS-Slideshow.pdf) .
Tar didn't come out until years later, so the text:
> A long long time ago, in the dim and distant past, revision control
> consisted entirely of making a tarball of your code tree from time to time
> and calling that "releases". We passed from there to "local" revision
> control such as RCS and SCCS and from there to ways to collaborate with
> tools like CVS and thence to SVN, TLA, BZR, git etc.
reflects a personal history of "we" rather than a global one.
For what it's worth, some of my code has been published in books and
magazines, so it does exist in the sense the author means, even though it
wasn't in revision control.
|
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|
Show HN: Pauv, a P2P Bitcoin exchange - luisivan
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pauv/x/4135454
======
0x006A
its unclear to me what "their favourite payment processor" is supposed to be.
How does the system prevent fraud?
~~~
luisivan
Good question. So, we will implement some payment processors by default, and
obviously we are choosing the ones that do not let chargebacks. On the other
hand, as the server has both your payment details and your Bitcoin details,
the exchange happens automatically when the match is produced, so there is no
fraud possible :)
~~~
switch33
[https://inputs.io/](https://inputs.io/)
[http://bitpay.com/](http://bitpay.com/)
[http://bitmerch.com/](http://bitmerch.com/)
[http://coinbase.com/](http://coinbase.com/)
[http://fasterco.in/](http://fasterco.in/)
[http://bitstamp.net/](http://bitstamp.net/)
[https://localbitcoins.com/](https://localbitcoins.com/)
[https://campbx.com/](https://campbx.com/)
~~~
luisivan
?
|
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|
Ask HN: What exactly does the Color app do? - eklovlfjkeos
Okay, so Color is a photo sharing app - but it's not?... I get that they mine users' data extensively, but can someone give me a detailed example of how the app would actually be used?<p>I don't have a smart phone, so I can't just download the app.<p>Review quotes from http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/color/id427763573?mt=8&ls=1# :<p>"Three buttons - and no explanation of what they do and how to make them do what I want. No tutorial, no nothing."<p>"It's not usable. It's not attractive. Using it doesn't help you understand what it's for."<p>So apparently even people who download the app don't understand what it's for.
======
zoowar
Get a lot of hype.
~~~
eklovlfjkeos
Yeah, I've noticed. But one way or the other they're going to have to get
people to download and use the app. "We'll sell your personal data" isn't much
of a selling point, so what exactly does the app do? Even color.com is vague
about it. I sure as hell don't understand it.
~~~
herman
It does look like they will be updating the app to try and resolve these
issues. Although, one of their planned "fixes" are to stop the app from
working at all when no one is around. I really hope they implement that
properly because if they think they got backlash now, imagine if people try to
open the app and it just closes on them, without a proper explanation of why.
|
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|
Tell HN: Rejected from YC Core and Startup School - real_yc_reject
A little disappointing, but I'll continue working on my startup nevertheless. Stay strong, don't take a YC rejection personally and keep working on your startup anyway. A YC acceptance is not a requirement to succeed.
======
ENadyr
Well said.
But lets break down what value YC offers:
Education: The Startup School videos are available publicly here:
[http://bit.ly/YCVideos](http://bit.ly/YCVideos). You can schedule office
hours with YC even if you are not part of YC on
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-
hours/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-hours/)
Investment: A YC allum last week told me that YC's investment is really not a
good deal financially, and I think he's right given where we are (we've been
through 2 accelerators)
Network: This is one of the aspects that's hard to replace, but reach out to
your network (get [https://www.conspire.com/](https://www.conspire.com/) ). I
managed to get a lot of advice from the above YC allum who I happened to work
with in banking a few years back. And also help people out! You never know how
it can come back, e.g. a guy at our co-working space I helped out with some
electronics last year was the designer for the original Oculus Rift and put as
in touch with one of the co-founders!
A YC badge for your startup: Again, hard to replace but it just means you have
to be that much better at pitching and looking for angels/advisors who are in
your space. Also read Venture Deals
YC makes a lot of mistakes and most of their startups fail, they have however
got some big successes and that's what makes them attractive.
Hope this helps those that didn't get in
------
crispytx
Did you get your rejection email for Summer 2017 already?
|
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|
Ask HN: What's it like working at Apple? - Flameancer
So I went to a job hiring event on Sunday and I got a call sunday asking to comeback tomorrow for an interview. From the way it sounded on Sunday they said if I got a call asking to come back in I was basically hired and they just wanted me to come back to see where I would fit in at. So I was wondering what exactly is it like. Would I have to own my own apple product because I don't, but I have knowledge on them because I have family members that have them and I'm the family IT guy.
======
msoad
I have a couple of friends working there. It's pretty dry corporate culture.
Expect being overworked sometimes. But on the bright side they pay really well
and the RSU will be a lot of money. At the end of the day it all depends on
who are you working with not the company itself. I hope you get lucky and get
into a good team.
~~~
pixeloution
OPs post history puts him as a college sophomore - his pay package won't
include RSUs. That being said, it really depends on the team, and the manager
- just like any other big company.
And no, you won't need to own your own Apple gear.
|
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|
On being a single founder for 7 years - apolymath
http://www.markentingh.com/home/entry+on-being-a-single-founder-for-7-years
======
filvdg
Mark, nice project,but don't be scared that the product is not completely
finished ... it will never be ...
your most important next steps are now get customers , get customers and get
customers ....
so
\- remove the "closed beta" tag
\- have a graphic designer give it a 2013 layout
\- put up an price page
\- buy some adwords to start doing live user testing
\- start optimizing the sales funnel
~~~
dualogy
> have a graphic designer give it a 2013 layout
20x this. Or, switch to Bootstrap: instantly have numerous gorgeous pre-fab
themes at your disposal, plus an infinite number of web designers who will
have an easier time customizing and theming to your and/or your users' needs.
~~~
jabbernotty
>> have a graphic designer give it a 2013 layout
> 20x this.
That page looks great to me. Can you give me an example of a '2013 layout'?
------
andrewljohnson
This is truly a case of should have launched quicker, if this is really about
a business.
It sounds more like a guy has been wandering around the world, living what is
surely a very interesting nomadic existence, hacking up a storm, rather than
building a business though.
JavaScript like scripting language? Custom markup? Beta for 5 years? This
doesn't sound like the path to profits to me.
------
dave_sullivan
I've noticed there seems to be two definitions of a solo founder.
1) Single hacker trying to build a business and the product at the same time
by themselves. They do everything, by themselves.
2) A business where there is a single founder with all the equity. They have
employees and those employees are paid with currency.
In the case of 1, I think it's a very hard road. Most software is built by
more than one person, and most businesses must involve more than one person.
You can of course make pretty good money off of freelancing, but building a
business around a product is tough. Of course, not impossible.
In the case of 2, you need to be willing to "put your money where your mouth
is" because you'll need to pay people. And even then, if you see any success
and want to grow faster, you probably won't be the only shareholder for long.
Jeff Bezos started Amazon alone, but they're a public company now so there are
lots of shareholders. However, it is interesting to look at eg Sergei Brin's
net worth as a ratio of Google's market cap versus the same for Bezos and
Amazon. Not splitting equity in the beginning makes a big difference later on
if everything goes according to plan (which it rarely does, but hey).
The OP probably falls into definition #1
~~~
GuiA
> However, it is interesting to look at eg Sergei Brin's net worth as ratio of
> market cap compared to Bezos.
Saving everyone some Googling :)
\-----
\- Google market cap: $260.45B
\- Sergey Brin's net worth: $22.8B
\- Ratio: 0.087
\-----
\- Amazon's market cap: $124.03B
\- Jeff Bezos' net worth: $23.3B
\- Ratio: 0.187
~~~
SatvikBeri
Wow...both companies are roughly the same age (Google is 14, Amazon 17), and
the one that had two founders is worth about twice as much as the one with one
founder, which makes the net worths of the founders nearly identical. That's a
freaky coincidence.
------
astar
"This whole time, I worked on the platform source code. I feature-creeped for
at least 5 years. I didn't have much of a portfolio to show for it either. "
Congrats on persevering for that long but I almost think this is a case
example of the downside to being a single founder...no one to rein in your
feature creep time.
------
Pyramids
This is definitely inspiring, and it looks like Mark has developed a very
viable SaaS platform if the right demographic is targeted.
With that being said, I would suggest that he seriously consider a pivot in
his marketing strategy due to competition which has emerged during his product
development; Webs, Weebly and Squarespace come to mind. I would say at this
point, small brick and mortar businesses are the most viable market target for
a product like this.
Additionally, it might be worth investing a small sum to recreate the UXD, or
at minimum reduce the use of gradients and move toward a more simplistic
approach graphically. The center gradient overload is almost migraine
inducing.
Other than that, I truly hope he's successful with the amount of work and
personal funds which he's put in.
------
devgutt
Too complicated for an average user, too simple for a
developer/designer...sorry, doesn't sound good for me. This said, in your
shoes, I'd probably try to find a very specific niche, or maybe to turn into a
service for instantly hot page creation, like 1 short-lived pages, or
something like that...my 2 cents
~~~
loceng
I think it's a bit short-sighted of a comment you're making. It doesn't need
much work to make it simpler, nor to make it more advanced for a
developer/designer.
~~~
apolymath
if you look at the blog post again, I added more screenshots of the back end
dashboard. The platform is more advanced than you think. Designers can use a
server-side markup language to handle custom skinning of web page content &
UI, along with half a dozen other advanced core features. complex applications
that can be installed, tableless responsive design, editable web design
template for every web site with built-in source-code editor, javascript-like
server-side/client-side scripting language, 3rd party widgets, google
analytics, near-live-editing of web pages, DNS management.
------
nivstein
I have to say that at least from standpoint, this seems to be pretty heroic
(to use quite a strong word) and kind of inspiring! To be able to believe in
and forge ahead working on something you believe in. Regardless of the end
result my own sense is that the at the end of the day the writer Mark can
really be proud of his accomplishment.
------
mkreef
I tried it, but I get
Server Error in '/' Application. Object reference not set to an instance of an
object.
at <http://www.rennder.com/compelling-web-site-footer/>
------
imperialdrive
I had to read this article in Opera using view-source... tldr but I'm assuming
this guy failed and I'm not surprised based on his blog code being such an
awful mess... better luck next time
------
s3curityx
it's nice to see something that could be left as a side project evolving into
a functional and hopefully successful product. Good luck! Did you switch
programming languages in the process?
~~~
apolymath
I didn't switch server-side languages, but I started from scratch 2 years
later, in the beginning of 2008. I had developed my own Flash based AJAX
system I called AFLJAX before then, and was using ASP.net 2.0, then started a
new project with ASP.net 3.5, Microsoft AJAX and update panels.
------
super-serial
Reminds me of a pic I sent my programmer friend after not seeing him for 6
months... <http://oi47.tinypic.com/2utk9b7.jpg>
|
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Ask HN: Would a book on “Data Engineering” be useful? - vishalzone2002
Hi All,
I have been working in the field of data engineering before it was a real title.
I was recently approached by a publisher to gauge my interest in publishing either simply on data analysis or data engineering.<p>When I google for "data analysis" there are obviously a whole lot of resources available. But data engineering on the other hand has less resources but have gone through bigger innovation in past few years.<p>So what are your thoughts? Will a book on data engineering covering latest tools, git repo structure, working with models, deploying at scale be helpful? Any ideas on what should be included/excluded. Really appreciate any inputs.
======
vcmoney
I cant give you any pointers on what topics to cover. But there is certainly
market. I know that data engineering and finding relevant resources is one of
the challenges faced by many startups today
~~~
vishalzone2002
Thanks for your feedback. I have heard similar stories.
------
jetti
I'm currently working with a publisher on a book that provides an intro C# and
XML. The way that I have gauged what to put in is to think about what info I
needed when I first started. That got me only so far so I took to the internet
and started searching what kind of questions people are asking about handling
XML. From there I was able to add topics/information that would solve problems
of real people so that others who may have the same problem have a resource to
go to.
|
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|
Abusing the HTML5 History API for fun (and chaos) - mmastrac
http://grack.com/blog/2011/03/07/abusing-the-html5-history-api-for-fun-and-chaos/
======
pak
OK, but websites have used alert() since the dawn of time to trap you on the
site with an endless stream of annoying modal dialogs. If this ever catches
on, browsers will do exactly what most have done with alert(): if the webpage
calls it more than X times a second, the browser asks you, "Do you want to
allow Site X to continue to screw with your location bar?" and you can say No.
~~~
rflrob
It isn't too likely to catch on, I think. Unlike the modal alert()s, changing
the address bar doesn't prevent one from just closing the tab that has the
page in it. Sure, you lose whatever history got you to that site, but I find
my history is rarely more than 5-10 links deep, since I tend to spawn new tabs
rather than using the current one.
~~~
ItsBilly
It does for me anyway, in Chrome. It makes it nearly impossible to close the
tab.
------
gmurphy
Here's one I made that lets you transition between URLs:
<http://bodytag.org/rollstate/>
We didn't have the button/title flicker when it was first implemented though
:\
~~~
DougBTX
Tip: use replaceState for the animation so that the back button still works.
------
pbhjpbhj
The article at one point asks:
>" _What if we could resurrect marquee, but give it all of the screen real-
estate of today’s large, modern location bar?_ "
What indeed. Sets my hard drive mashing - grunt grunt grunt - strangely
enough.
------
kree10
See this comment by johnswamps from last year
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1535673> for a bookmarklet that does
location-bar-marquee.
------
RyanMcGreal
> On Chrome, the same thing happens, but it’s even worse. Every replaceState
> call not only wipes out the location bar, but it cancels navigate events
> too.
This didn't happen for me on Chromium 9.0.597.107 (75357) on Ubuntu 10.04. I
clicked on the address bar and it stopped scrolling while the pointer was
focused there.
~~~
mmastrac
It might just be Mac browsers that fail here. I tested on Win7 and the
location bar works fine. Bookmark navigation is still cancelled, however.
~~~
ahlatimer
Bookmark navigation on OS 10.6.6 with Chrome 10.0.648.127 beta works just
fine. Clicking the address bar doesn't work, though.
------
jarin
Couldn't you use this to mask AJAX fragment URLs for the forces of good?
~~~
JoshTriplett
This API exists for that precise purpose. If you want to "navigate" your AJAX
application to a new logical page, you use this API to do the navigation, and
you supply a state that helps the browser return to the previous logical page
when the user hits the back button. (And the same when they hit the forward
button.) And you use real URIs, which when the user copies and pastes them
will navigate properly to that page without the AJAX magic.
------
JonnieCache
You can recreate the effect by going to your history listing and scrolling up
and down. Kinda like those pages with tiled backgrounds that create epilepsy-
inducing strobe effects when scrolled.
|
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OCaml for the Masses (2011) - alanfranz
https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2038036
======
jasim
I for one can't wait for Typed FP to become mainstream as soon as possible. I
think the prevalence of scripting languages in large systems today is a quirk
of history.
In early 2000s, as the web was growing to be an application delivery platform,
the only practical statically typed language was Java. It didn't have generics
or lambdas at the time, and was infested with the sprawl of J2EE. Choosing
Ruby/Python over Java was at the time an act of rebellion and a show of
technical superiority. To quote pg: "if they wanted Perl or Python
programmers, that would be a bit frightening-- that's starting to sound like a
company where the technical side, at least, is run by real hackers."
The static type system in Java is object-oriented: the only way to create a
type is to create a class. I believe it was limited in abstraction power and
everyone attributed it to the rigidity of static types. Java has come a long
way since, but the sense that dynamic typing is superior to static types
lingers.
But OCaml's static types are a completely different kind of type. There is a
kind of "procedural" static typing in Go, C, and to some extent C++ where
primitives are typed and you can construct structs and unions without much
ceremony. Then there is object-oriented static typing in Java and C#, which
traces its origin back to Simula through C++ where types and classes are the
same. Then you have functional static types where types are just and only
about data. Almost all Typed FP languages use a form of Hindley-Milner
inference, support algebraic data types and pattern matching, have generics
(they were invented by Milner for ML in 1973), and allows for code
organization and encapsulation through modules and opaque types.
Algebraic data types alone is a tool for thought like no other. You'll start
reifying concepts that would've otherwise gone implicit in your codebase
thanks to ADT. The languages are solid, ecosystems are vibrant but small and
that can only be fixed with more people. Come on in, the water is fine!
~~~
weberc2
I agree with the points in your post and I also want a mainstream typed FP
(something with a clear happy path so I don’t need to guess about what prelude
or string types or standard library or etc to use). The biggest impediment I
see is that these language communities are more concerned about the abstract
mathematical properties of the language and things like tooling get neglected.
I would love to see a typed FP equivalent to Go—everything is super
simple/small learning curve (I should be able to meaningfully contribute to a
project after a day or so), the standard library is decent, package management
just works, no guessing about what test lib to use, everything compiles to a
single static binary by default (dead simple deployments), no-fuss
documentation generation, great concurrency/parallelism story, straightforward
profiling and optimizations (e.g., if my program is slow because I’m
allocating too much in the hot path I can trivially preallocate), etc. These
are the things that matter for real world projects—mathematically elegant type
systems really are just gravy, which is why Go has been able to be so
successful in spite of its flat-footed type system.^1
^1: if you go over to r/programming, no one can figure this out because
everyone believes you can’t ship Software in a language without monads or
generics, so Go’s popularity must be due to Google marketing.
~~~
_hardwaregeek
I'd say Rust is the closest thing. Cargo is fantastic, super ergonomic and
with an excellent package ecosystem. Rust doesn't have the pretense of purity
or immutability, but honestly, you can very easily write pure functional Rust
(and it'll save you a lot of pain with lifetimes). Performance is excellent,
of course.
~~~
weberc2
I agree that Rust is the exception--it has a fantastic tooling story, but it's
actually the _language_ that holds it back for the sorts of applications I
tend to write. The performance and even correctness benefits it affords me
over Go are just too small for the cognitive burden it imposes (and yes much
of the gap closes with time--I've been kicking the tires on and off for 5
years now--but every year the returns diminish and it's looking like the gap
will remain significant). Hopefully I'll be proven wrong in the next few
years.
~~~
Ar-Curunir
Would you mind elaborating on the cognitive burden you find Rust imposes?
I find that after roughly two years of writing Rust, I can architect and re-
architect big projects fairly clearly, and the type system gives me strong
reassurances that refactors haven't screwed things up.
Not to mention the advantage of even simple things like enums, which most
languages (including Go) tend to lack.
~~~
weberc2
> Would you mind elaborating on the cognitive burden you find Rust imposes?
Millions of little decisions with respect to which lifetimes to use, which
types to use, which type of pointer to use, whether to pass by ref or by copy,
and so on.
> I find that after roughly two years of writing Rust, I can architect and re-
> architect big projects fairly clearly, and the type system gives me strong
> reassurances that refactors haven't screwed things up.
> Not to mention the advantage of even simple things like enums, which most
> languages (including Go) tend to lack.
I don't doubt it. I think these are really cool properties of Rust. They just
don't pay for the cognitive burden, since the applications I write aren't
critical systems (I can afford _some_ unsafety, but I can't afford to slow my
development process).
To put it differently, if I write in Go, I can quickly ship a feature with a
high degree of confidence that it's overwhelmingly correct, and the few errors
that do slip into production can be quickly fixed because I can iterate so
quickly. If I write in Go, I will eventually ship a feature with a very high
degree of confidence that it's overwhelmingly correct, but even if I find zero
bugs in production, the time spent shipping the first iteration in Rust is
much larger than the time it would spend me to ship _and_ iterate on bugfixes
in Go. I'm sure the extent to which this is true shrinks as I get more
experience with Rust, but there's a law of diminishing returns at play, and no
indication that the gap will ever vanish entirely.
~~~
Ar-Curunir
What kind of code have you been writing? For most Rust code that I write and
read, I find almost no lifetime annotations are needed.
------
yminsky
Hey, author of the linked post here.
A few thoughts, since some things have changed since that post was written:
First, the tooling limitations that I mentioned in the article have gotten a
lot better. In particular:
Merlin now provides IDE-like functionality for your editor of choice
(including code, vim, and emacs).
Also, Dune is an excellent build system for OCaml that does an enormous amount
to simplify the build process, and tie a bunch of different tools in the
ecosystem together. One great thing about Dune is it does a lot to unify the
experience we've long had inside of Jane Street with the open-source OCaml
experience. It's really a big upgrade.
We've also made some progress on debugging tools, like the spacetime
allocation profiler. There's also active work on making GDB/LLDB debugging in
OCaml really first class.
Also, OCaml has had some major industrial uptake. Notably, Facebook has
several major projects built in OCaml (Hack, Flow, Infer) as well as their own
syntactic-skin-plus-tooling on top of OCaml, in the form of Reason. Reason has
gotten a lot of traction in the webdev world, which is awesome. Bloomberg, and
Docker are some other big names that have real dependencies on OCaml, along
with some more names you probably don't know like Ahrefs, LexiFi, and SimCorp.
People sometimes feel like Jane Street is the only real user of OCaml, so they
imagine that Jane Street's needs are the ones that drive the language
priorities. So, the thinking goes, if you're not a trading firm, you should
look elsewhere. But this is the wrong picture. First, there are other serious
users, as discussed above. Besides, the community doesn't just roll over and
do what we say. If you don't believe it, go and see how often our PRs to OCaml
get rejected.
And even our interests in the language have grown beyond what you might
imagine a trading firm would care about. We use OCaml for building traditional
UNIX system software, like MTAs, for designing hardware (via HardCaml), and
for building dynamic browser-based applications (via Incr_dom).
For sure, there are still challenges of being a minority language (and there's
still no multicore GC, despite some exciting progress). But I believe OCaml is
a yet better choice than it was in 2011 when I wrote the article.
~~~
yminsky
And, shameless plug, if you're interested in seeing what it's like using a
functional language at scale for solving real problems, well, you can apply...
[https://www.janestreet.com/programming/](https://www.janestreet.com/programming/)
~~~
krupan
You mentioned HardCaml in your other post, but I don't see any hardware
positions on the website. Are you guys really doing hardware too?
~~~
yminsky
Right now, we're looking to hire an FPGA engineer in London. Our hardware team
is still small, but I expect we'll be doing more hiring as time goes on.
[https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-
street/apply/ldn/full-t...](https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-
street/apply/ldn/full-time/fpga-engineer/)
------
rkangel
If people want to move towards functional programming, I would recommend
Elixir as the first step.
There is a fantastic web framework called Phoenix built in Elixir. This
provides a way that you can immediately build something useful, and it teaches
you how to use Elixir well: the documentation is good, the generated code that
you start working with is a great example of how to use the language properly,
and when you start understanding the design of the framework it's a great
example of functional systems design (e.g. the Plug.Conn structure that gets
passed around).
Not having to deal with a full ML (or Haskell) like type system takes away a
large barrier to entry, but you still have to change your mindset about how
you implement things. And then the dialyzer is there, when you later want to
start using gradual typing.
~~~
progman
If you want to teach FP you should use the very first and most simple FP
languages --- Lisp and Scheme. Despite their extreme simplicity, they provide
an extremely expressive power (through their macros) which is still unmatched
in most other languages.
~~~
baby
These languages are horrible, filled with parenthesis and not fun. I had to
learn these in school, like many other people, and I stayed away from FP
languages for a long time because of that (like most people).
Try to learn Erlang or Ocaml, it's fun.
------
raphinou
I'm currently looking for the language and framework to use for a project, and
I'd like to go with a functional language.
I really, _really_ want to do my next project in Ocaml, but... I find the
ecosystem seriously lacking. You find Ocaml libs for a lot of needs, but a lot
of those a unmaintained and have their last commit a couple of years ago. I'm
afraid that choosing Ocaml would mean spending quite some time on libraries I
need, and less on the app I want to develop.
There's F# and the SAFE stack, but I don't feel home there. A lot of docs/libs
still are (or have quirks due to having been) Windows specific, and joining
the most popular f# community communication channels requires you to join the
F# Software Foundation....
Then there's Scala, with functional programming and access to Java's
ecosystem. But I prefer the ML style of Ocaml and F#.
~~~
nestorD
My ML of choice is F#, I came from OCaml because I wanted better tools,
librairies and an improved syntax.
The only place where I suffer from windows only librairies is UI and graphics
in general (I don't do web developement so I cannot comment on that) otherwise
developement on linux feels good (first via mono and now dotnet core).
Without the heaviness of dotnet (and, in particular, its project files), it
would be perfect.
~~~
raphinou
As you have experience in both, are there Ocaml things you really miss in F#?
How long are you developing in F# (and which type of apps if I may ask)?
~~~
nestorD
I have been using F# for data science, developing algorithms (where ML truly
shines) and most of my scripting needs for 3 years now (it is not my main
language as, these days, I need to instrument some C++).
As remify said F# came from Ocaml : it lacks modules, GADT and other thing but
you can easily translate most Ocaml to F#. For me the syntax was a net win.
The thing I miss is the Graphics module of Ocaml's std. I used to build quick
visualizations with it and I have not found a good F# equivalent that would
run flawlessly on Linux (the relevant section of mono's std was very buggy the
last time I tried using it).
~~~
hardlianotion
But now there is no need to rely on Mono, right? Now that Microsoft has
released dot net for other OS.
~~~
nestorD
When the first version of dotnet core went out, parts of it such as
system.drawing were just empty shells. Nowadays dotnet core is all you need
(happily F# seems to be developed first and foremost by the community and not
by Microsoft).
------
prossercj
> _Sometimes, the elegant implementation is a function. Not a method. Not a
> class. Not a framework. Just a function._ \- John Carmack
This mirrors a discussion I've had with my boss a number of times. Most of our
products are written in C++, and we complain about how often developers
(usually coming from Java) think that everything needs to be inside a class
hierarchy. The procedural parts are still there for a reason: the CPU is
procedural. A procedure or function is a closer mapping to what the CPU is
actually going to do when the code runs.
On the other hand, I've never done serious work with a pure functional
language like OCaml. I would welcome the chance, though I wonder if one finds
the same kind of dogmatism as in the OOP world...("it _must_ be a pure
function!")
~~~
hajile
Haskell is dogmatic. Everything _must_ be lazy. Everything _must_ be
immutable. Everything _must_ be pure.
Ocaml (and SML) aren't particularly dogmatic. They are both eager, so
reasoning about performance is much easier. Most things are immutable by
default, but you can make mutable data structures in both. Rather than
insisting on pure functions, SML and Ocaml allow side effects in functions and
have the `unit` type for functions without a return.
The type system is actually strong (eg, no implicit casts) and null exceptions
simply do not exist. Multi-threading is the big weakness. Ocaml has been
promising support for at least a decade without mainline support. Likewise,
most SML variants don't have support (though PolyML does along with a couple
others).
~~~
elbear
The first one, about everything having to be lazy, isn't true. You can define
strict data types or functions. The other two are though.
~~~
sudomakeup
You can still have mutable references and impure functions in Haskell, but its
not like "path of least resistance" of other languages. The IO type marks
impure functions
Also one can use STRef if they want to have a pure function that is internally
implemented with mutable values - that is all the side effects are self
contained.
[http://gamasutra.com/view/news/169296/Indepth_Functional_pro...](http://gamasutra.com/view/news/169296/Indepth_Functional_programming_in_C.php)
"a function can still be pure even if it calls impure functions, as long as
the side effects don't escape the outer function"
------
zengid
I'm personally having a lot of fun learning Rust, which seems to have been
largely inspired by OCaml. Algebraic data types and pattern matching are a
revelation!
~~~
aldanor
Fun fact: Rust compiler was initially written in OCaml.
------
christophilus
I would love to see something more like SML, with OCaml compile times, and a
Go-like standard library. If that could be accomplished, I think we would see
statically typed functional programming go mainstream.
------
adultSwim
Python makes it easy to start a program. OCaml is easy to finish one.
------
lovebes
ReasonML is going to bring Ocaml to the masses. Massively popular React apps
can be created from ReasonML. Ocaml + syntactic sugar = ReasonML.
------
tybit
The masses won’t be coming to ocaml unless it comes to them. ReasonML seems
like a much more likely approach to succeed to me.
~~~
lmm
What seems to be working is Rust.
~~~
leppr
Rust is a very different beast when it comes to development speed. When
compromises must be made, its design decisions always favor runtime speed over
developer friendliness. That results in rather unwieldy APIs compared to the
alternatives in dynamic languages.
As a replacement for C/C++ this makes perfect sense, as a replacement of
JS/Ruby/OCaml, not so much.
~~~
fnord123
OCaml belongs with C++ and Rust for compile times...
~~~
LeonidasXIV
How so? OCaml complies way faster and you don't actually need to compile it.
You can sort of use it as scripting language without any compile step to begin
with.
------
remify
Great writing.
By the way, How is it that HN readers always heavily promote OCaml related
threads ?
~~~
DanielBMarkham
The nice thing about OCaml (and its MS cousin F#) is that it's a hybrid
language. Know FP? Fine, you can code that way. Know OO? Fine, you can code
that way. It meets you where you are.
~~~
int_19h
I would even argue that for OO, OCaml is a better object-oriented language
than most dedicated OO languages. It nicely decouples classes from types, for
example, so that the subclass diagram needs not correspond to the subtyping
diagram (i.e. you can reuse code via inheritance without following LSP
subtyping rules, but the type system will still prevent any unsafe use of such
hierarchies).
------
ynniv
I want to spend more time in OCaml, but without threads it's a tough sell.
Modern performance requires parallelism with shared memory, and the current
mainline solutions don't offer that.
Where threads aren't part of the equation, OCaml has become suddenly popular.
That's telling.
~~~
jasim
[https://pl-rants.net/posts/go-and-ocaml-scalability/](https://pl-
rants.net/posts/go-and-ocaml-scalability/) has an interesting take where they
found multi-process OCaml performing better than goroutines. I don't know how
to interpret those measurements correctly, so any help there would be
appreciated.
~~~
ynniv
This experiment has "embarrassingly parallel" data, ie there is little to no
benefit to sharing data between computations. It's not surprising that
multiprocess does well on this, but this is not common in most real world
applications. Imagine a simple chat server, where every request needs to read
and write shared state. Even when the application doesn't seem to have shared
state, any in-memory caching requires it.
~~~
anentropic
"most real world applications" is a meaningless phrase, I doubt anyone can
quantify "real world applications" one way or the other
also the result is still interesting, why wouldn't goroutines scale just as
well, but apparently didn't?
~~~
ynniv
That's fair, but perhaps I can rephrase it to say that embarrassingly parallel
applications are a well known edge case and not the norm.
------
donpdonp
Elm is the langauge that showed me a functional language can be amazing. It
clicked in my head like no other language. I did a substantial web app in it,
and came to appreciate it more and more. I only wish it were available as a
general purpose language. I used to call elm a gateway-drug to ocaml but I
have a hard time swallowing a lot of ocaml syntax. Reason seems to be a good
way around that. I'm also keeping an eye on the Grain language.
------
twoquestions
Is F# still being used/developed, or has MS started to leave it out to dry?
------
revskill
The problem with Reason is non-automatic understanding 3rd party Javascript
codebase. It's the pain to implement correct type to use in Reason program
with existing JS codebase.
------
justaaron
is there any NON-garbage-collected functional programming language? Something
suitable for real-time or deterministic timing usage?
~~~
manu3000
[http://intuitionistic.org/](http://intuitionistic.org/) ... seems barely
alive
------
thibran
These kind of blog posts are one of the reasons why I love the internet, and
why Hacker News is such a great place.
------
devit
It seems like Rust would have been an even better choice, had it been
available at the time they chose OCaml.
~~~
progman
Rust may be a very good choice for systems programming. However, safety
criticial software can also be written in other languages which don't need a
borrow checker -- Ada and SPARK for instance, or even in C with verificatino
tools (FramaC etc.). Most developers also don't need Rust's "feature" of not
having a garbage collector since they are not involved in systems programming.
As for me, what makes OCaml attractive is its functional nature combined with
a very practical imperative syntax. There is no steep learning curve like in
Rust, and OCaml's compilation speed is staggering.
------
G4BB3R
I am still waiting a friendly backend language similar to Elm. OCaml is hard
and lost timing.
~~~
eterps
You might find this interesting:
[https://wende.github.io/elchemy/](https://wende.github.io/elchemy/)
IMO OCaml is not any harder than Elm.
------
fileoffset
OCaml is not for the masses, it never has been
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: Golang library to convert png/gif/jpeg images into ANSI art - alexellisuk
https://github.com/johnmccabe/img2ansi
======
kadirayk
looks fun! Some sample output would be great.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Buddhist monk confronts Japan's suicide culture (2013) - bookofjoe
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/last-call-3
======
b5
This is one of my favourite _New Yorker_ articles. I wish they published more
articles like this.
Suicidal thoughts are a really tough thing to deal with. I've struggled with
them for my entire adult life -- more than 20 years now, and counting. They're
also deeply personal, and it's hard to find a one-size-fits-all method of
helping people through them.
In my case, I find them perversely soothing. Planning it out, and planning out
the accompanying clean-up, is strangely calming for me; I suspect at least
part of it is because it's applying a feeling of control and structure to
otherwise chaotic, painful, or confusing situations. As I run through details
in my head, the feelings that incited the thoughts begin to dimish.
I know, rationally, that it would be devastating for those left behind. I
know, rationally, that no amount of preparation or planning will make it
easier or less painful for them. I know, rationally, that suicide is _not_ a
solution for anything.
But it _feels_ like all of the above. It feels like a release, like a perfect,
lasting solution to pain and confusion and distress I've carried with me for
so long.
I'm lucky that I've found some kind of equilibrium that's allowed me to work
through them when they occur, relatively harmlessly. I know others who aren't
so lucky, and who haven't found something that works for them. Some of thoem
have died; others have survived, but aren't whole since.
It's something that's hard for us to talk about, and current society doesn't
seem predisposed to talk about. Many of those suffering the most are faced by
a media climate that's not helpful or supportive, and makes it hard for some
of the most emotionally and psychologically vulnerable to seek help because of
who they were born.
If you've ever had thoughts, please don't suffer in silence: try to find
someone, anyone, to talk to. In the UK, we have the Samaritans[1] on 116123
(free to call). There's also Breathing Space Scotland[2] on 0800 83 85 87
(also free).
[1]: [https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-
samaritan...](https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/)
[2]: [https://breathingspace.scot/](https://breathingspace.scot/)
~~~
l8mr4
Buddhism has an explanation for why these thoughts are soothing. It comes down
to thinking provides a level of control and an appearance of a illusion you
feel in control of. But alas this is illusion. The mind simply likes thinking.
In fact Buddhists off camera will say your addicted to thinking. I believe
this will be shown to be true. The default mode network may be the “addiction
to thinking.”
~~~
gerbilly
I haven't ever heard of the explanation you offer for why thoughts are helpful
(having the appearance of control over an apparent illusion?).
Thinking is required in buddhist practise, it's just not thinking about
anything you please.
Also, one usually deals with the coarser forms of suffering first, and no
special esoteric philosophies and techniques are needed to address them,
usually just clear thinking and problem solving is required.
~~~
Annatar
"having the appearance of control over an apparent illusion?"
_Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I
lead you on?” Ikkyu asked.
Ninakawa replied: “I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to
me?”
Ikkyu answered: “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion.
Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going.”_
~~~
gerbilly
I get what is being referred to, but if you are implying that buddhism teaches
everything is an illusion, the Buddha himself specifically warned his
followers away from nihilism and solipsism.
Your everyday conventional wisdom is not negated by buddhism.
For example, buddhist people use the word 'I' all the time ("Let _me_ show you
the path on which there is no coming and going."), despite trying to realise
the doctrine of 'no self" in their practise.
The doctrines attempt to eliminate suffering, proceeding from the coarsest
levels down to more and more subtle forms of suffering.
The delusion the monk is suffering from here, can only become uncovered after
much work has been done clearing the way first.
~~~
emptysongglass
This Zen parable is faulty wisdom (like so much of Mahayana and Vajrayana
fanfiction). The title the Buddha used to refer to himself, _Tathagata_ , can
simultaneously be translated as, "Thus Comes One" and "Thus Goes One". It's
not about a path where there is no coming and going, it's about both
simultaneously.
~~~
jdietrich
Buddhism is a living tradition and always has been. Theravadins have no
monopoly on "true" Buddhism - the Pali canon was transcribed hundreds of years
after the death of Gautama Buddha and the authorship and authenticity of many
parts of the canon remain disputed within the Theravada tradition.
Perhaps more to the point, a quotation from Nanda-manava-puccha (as translated
by Thanissaro Bhikku):
"Whatever brahmans & contemplatives describe purity in terms of views &
learning, describe purity in terms of precepts & practices, describe purity in
terms of manifold ways: none of them, living there in that way, I tell you,
have crossed over birth & aging."
~~~
emptysongglass
What?
The Buddha is speaking _very_ specifically in the quote you've mentioned of a
class of religious priest, the brahman, and the contemplative engaging in
jhanic meditations that do not lead to the ending of suffering.
You're right, the words of the Buddha weren't written down for hundreds of
years after but across those earliest texts flung across space and time, we
find an astonishing harmony.
Look, I'm seeing calls to end my supposed promotion of sectarian strife: I
love Three Pillars of Zen, have obsessively studied the Mahayana epic the
Surangama Sutra, and washed myself in the pure poetry of the Complete Reality
school. But I cannot stress enough, and neither did the Buddha, in the
importance of incisive, unequivocal language when it comes to identifying
right view.
Vajrayana, the deeply mystical arm of Buddhism, stresses the importance of a
guru relationship to the disciple, fraught with a history of sexual
manipulation. Unquestioned power structures do this. We have thousands of
years of history to support this.
Mahayana Buddhism gave birth to Zen, perhaps the cleanest strain to emerge but
which sacrificed an essential tenet: that a monk should not grow their own
food; should rely on the continuing generosity of the people to survive. It is
further compromised by the trappings of rites and rituals, which the Buddha of
the early texts rejected.
And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible
in such a fallen world? The same enlightenment the pre-Mahayana Buddha
stressed was for everyone?
~~~
Annatar
"And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible
in such a fallen world?"
Nothing, or better yet, no thing. They're just wrong.
------
gkanai
2019 update: Japan Records Lowest Suicide Rate Since Statistics Were First
Kept in 1978 [https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00381/japan-records-
lo...](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00381/japan-records-lowest-
suicide-rate-since-statistics-were-first-kept-in-1978.html)
~~~
umvi
It's still extremely high compared to other countries though.
To put it in perspective, nearly as many people die by suicide alone in Japan
(per capita) as suicide + guns _combined_ in America (per capita).
~~~
kevin_thibedeau
It's hard to get accurate stats on gun deaths in America because many reports
lump in suicide by gun and accidental shootings to make the numbers look
scarier. You might be double dipping.
~~~
CarlRJ
On the other hand, it has been suggested that quite a few deaths that are
actually suicide using a gun get reported as "gun cleaning accident",
presumably to lessen the impact on relatives (however slightly).
------
75dvtwin
This a very good article, and good comments here.
Reading it, there is a quote from the person 'T':
> _" I understand that I’m in such an irretrievable situation because of my
> own fault, and I myself have to solve the problem. However, I’m a weak,
> dependent person who was financially supported by my parents until after
> reaching thirty, so I’m too weak to find a way out of this situation myself.
> . ."_
These words, I cannot help myself to think -- that these words, these labels
-- are not something he(she) came up with... Instead, these words are really
the words of T's parents, that got implanted in his head after continuous
drilling and pushing and pushing and pushing him to go to that law school.
It is sad and painful to read. When parents cannot appreciate the natural
beauty, talents and just overall the magic of life in their children....
Nobody can influence a mind person, his/hers inner-thoughs -- as deep, as
long-lasting as parents can.
Yes, may be that influence stops before 20, but parents influence is so deep
seated, that it will continue affect the person for the rest of the life.
Anybody who is a parent has to really take this seriously.
------
MandieD
One of the techniques of what Westerners call Stoicism is the negative
visualization that Nemoto has his patients/clients undergo - imagining you
only have a few weeks to live, that you've lost your material wealth, that
you've lost someone important to you, thinking about your death. Also,
intentional self-deprivation.
"A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" was well worth
reading and has a whole chapter on negative visualization as a means for
overall more positive thinking.
~~~
specialist
I have some experience here.
I now prefer to think of every day as the start of my life and ask myself
"What to do first?"
Life is a gift, everyday a celebration.
------
dotism
Ittetsu Nemoto is the subject of a wonderfully quiet documentary on this
selfsame topic, _The Departure_ , directed by Lana Wilson. (It is available on
Amazon Prime Video.)
------
dang
A thread from 2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114547)
------
momokoko
The reason I consider ending my life is because I have done the things I've
wanted to do in life. I would not have much to write on that paper as opposed
to visiting some friends and family for some conversation and hugs.
I think we forget that much of the suicide rate in adults, especially over 50,
is that the burden of life in much of the United States can become higher than
the benefits for some people at that age. Things like health ailments, cost of
healthcare, worsening job prospects, lack of social connections etc.
Please, do not take this as encouragement or other things for suicide. It is
simply an effort to help others to consider the quality of life issues we are
creating for people, as they age, in the United States. We continue to try to
treat the person, but maybe we need to treat the circumstances we are creating
that can place a person in that position.
~~~
mikelyons
The reason I consider ending my life is because I've done or experienced all
the things that realistically I want to or can. I'm never going to be an
attractive man, so I'll never have love, or a wife and kids. It's just not
worth it to me to work to pay to sustain myself just to watch the planet be
destroyed and the social fabric disintegrate. There's just nothing worth the
time or effort when living is just so unenjoyable.
~~~
asveikau
> I'm never going to be an attractive man, so I'll never have love, or a wife
> and kids.
This pops out to me.
I don't know your full circumstances but I don't think this is true.
If we focus only on the attractiveness aspect: I've known plenty of people of
both genders who I thought were "unattractive" people (a very subjective
term!) and they were partnered. If your desire is to find a partner, don't
give up on it or consider it an inevitable failure! You are worthy.
Then it makes me consider if there's some other health issue preventing
finding a partner or having a kid? Surely, a few of those exist, and I can
imagine them being very sad.
~~~
0xffff2
I think it's important to distinguish physical attraction from net total
attraction. Usually when people say "attractive" they mean the former, but I
think GP may mean the latter. I'm probably about average physically, but I
have my own set of personality issues that make me pretty damn unattractive on
the whole. I doubt I would be interested in anyone who was so fucked up that
they were interested in me.
I've come to terms with my situation and I'm not the least be suicidal, but I
think it's important to tread carefully when talking about this stuff online,
where you have so little context. Someone who says "I'm never going to be an
attractive man, so I'll never have love, or a wife and kids" has probably
thought about it more than you have, and certainly knows their own situation
much better than you do. I think it's extremely unhelpful to give them
platitudes like "You are worthy". Maybe they are, but you're really not in a
position to know.
~~~
asveikau
It's quaint that you think you cannot apply a nonphysical meaning for
"attractive" to my comment and see that the point still stands.
I think you're probably wrong about yourself too.
And yes I did call out that I don't know the full circumstances.
~~~
0xffff2
And I think it's very presumptuous of you to think that you know my own
circumstances better than I do. Both of your comments are, frankly,
condescending to a degree I find slightly insulting and I have no further
desire to continue this conversation.
------
wannabcodr
I’ve struggled with incessant suicidal desire for the last 75% of my years
alive on earth. Having given up everything in slow preparation for the act:
family, friends, savings, career - I can safely say that the only thing
holding me back is the infinite unknown of the afterlife.
------
atoav
A incredible read.
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Some iPhone apps should not be written in Cocoa - jrnkntl
http://kudtler.com/2008/12/some-iphone-apps-should-not-be-written-in-cocoa/
======
byteCoder
A new religious war is breaking out before my eyes: web apps vs. native apps
on the iPhone.
The reality is that there are lots of native iPhone apps that should be web
apps. Right now, the web apps don't quite pay as well.
I believe what we're ultimately seeing is the rise of the native/web hybrid
application. These are a class of web-like applications that can run in
disconnected mode:
* views use HTML/CSS stored locally on the client
* handling of requests from the views is done within the client itself, or dispatched externally to a web API
* sophisticated data structures can be persisted on the client (in mysql, text files, etc.)
* more sophisticated processing than typically occurs in your standard web app
* better access to native hardware features
The technologies are coming together: Adobe AIR, UIWebView/iPhone SDK,
Android's WebView, etc. to support this. I'm looking forward to it.
~~~
ibsulon
That's the approach I am looking at. Consider a workout program for one reason
for this approach. Many gyms are in basements and places where reception is
crummy. The application should be able to run in these places, and offload to
the webapp when necessary.
Consider travel applications. An American going to Europe will not want to
spend the money to use your web application. (We've already heard about the
incredible bills by people who didn't realize what was happening.)
~~~
ibsulon
Forgot one thing -- don't forget about the iPod touch market. Webapps are
useless for those in many cases.
------
stillmotion
I don't think this guy understands how simply amazing Cocoa is. Yes, maybe a
designer couldn't learn Objective-C, but my goodness is it a beautifully
designed framework.
Everything he lists is simple and stupid when you understand how to build
iPhone applications.
"want slightly different buttons in a snap? Just photoshop it and you’re off"
HTML and CSS? It's pretty easy to develop a beautiful UI in Photoshop and
simple slice it up for Cocoa. When going back into CSS development, I'm
frustrated because of the need to move things around by a whole bunch of divs
and styling all that type.
He then continues on about server side administration? Hell no. Personally,
I'm glad I can just make an app, deploy it, and not have to worry about the
e-commerce, server maintenance, and running costs.
If making iPhone applications were like this, I'd die.
~~~
jrnkntl
Altough I agree on one point, that the sliced up photoshop UI also can account
for Cocoa. I don't think you read the whole article. The part about server
side administration is that it's easy to edit and add functionality to your
app in a snap without all resubmitting to the app store and apple hassle. I
also point out that not all iPhone applications should be written like this,
just for some apps the advantages of this method outweighs the advantages on
using Cocoa (first-last sentence in the article).
------
GHFigs
Apple's been saying that all along. <http://developer.apple.com/webapps/> The
old "web apps are the SDK" line wasn't greeted with open arms by many, but I
think Apple's done much to promote iPhone-tailored web apps as a viable
alternative to Cocoa Touch for the very simple reason that there are more web
developers than there are Cocoa developers.
They've even tried to make it reasonably transparent to the user, as web
applications can reside on the home screen, and when launched, can be set to
not display the browser toolbar, making them appear practically
indistinguishable.
If you look at the work that's gone into WebKit/Safari, like a tenfold
increase in JavaScript performance, HTML5 dbs, and a whole host of CSS work
like gradients, canvas backgrounds, masks, reflections, transitions, and
implicit animations, it's a more attractive platform than ever.
~~~
tocomment
Now if they'd just provide javascript hooks for the location, acceleratometer,
sounds, etc. (Yes, I've seen PhoneGap)
------
markdionne
Take a look at <http://phonegap.com>. It will let you develop a web app and
also get access to the iPhone’s GPS, accelerometer, etc.
------
tocomment
Nice ideas and all, but most developers still benefit from being able to
charge on the app store, plus the marketing Apple is doing for you (less and
less, but it's still better than a web app no one goes to, and google ignores
for 6 months.)
BTW, I'm going to be disappointed if I don't see the $5000/week people keep
mentioning once I get up to speed on iPhone programming :-~
------
chaostheory
I would agree with the post if IPhone was on a better network like Verizon,
but given that AT&T's network coverage just isn't that great in the US (I'm
currently a subscriber), not to mention that we don't have great nationwide
wifi yet; I just feel that most IPhone apps still need to written in obj c.
(ironically, this is pointed out in the post)
~~~
tlrobinson
You can store the HTML/CSS/JavaScript locally within the app, as well as use
the built in SQLite database, which solves this problem. Of course, you lose
the ability to update the app whenever you wish.
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Ask HN: What software do you use for graphics in mobile games? - FreeRadical
I was wondering what software packages are used to create the graphics in games like 'Angry Birds' and 'Plants vs Zombies'...and what are the common software packages people use for this?
======
davidw
Since it's available for Nokia, that means it's either J2ME, or Symbian, so
either Java or C++.
~~~
towndrunk
I think the OP is asking about graphics software not the development
environment. That said, I think they are using the most common tools out
there. Photoshop and Illustrator.
------
starkfist
Illustrator and Photoshop.
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Weekend project: web2.0collage creates collage from sniffed browser history - pantsd
http://web2.0collage.com
======
crazyirish
How was the set of "white-list web2.0 related sites" chosen?
------
pbhj
body { background:#0099FF url('/images/g2.png') repeat-y }
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The Gambler Who Blew $127 Million - cwan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125996714714577317.html
======
dantheman
I found it interesting that the wynn decided that he was on a self destructive
path and decided to ban him from their casino:
> In 2006, Mr. Watanabe resided primarily at Wynn Resorts' Wynn Las Vegas
> casino. But, he says, his heavy betting drew the attention of Chief
> Executive Steve Wynn. After meeting with him in June 2007, Mr. Wynn
> concluded that he was a compulsive gambler and alcoholic, and barred him
> from the casino, according to a letter to the Nevada Gaming Control Board
> drafted by Mr. Watanabe's attorney, Pierce O'Donnell.
> Ms. Jones, the Harrah's vice president, says, "It was not our understanding
> that he was kicked out of Wynn because of problem gambling."
Whereas at Caesars:
>Mr. Kunder and Mr. Deleon say they both voiced concerns to managers that Mr.
Watanabe was too intoxicated, and were told not to get involved. "Nobody
wanted to be the one to cut him off," Mr. Kunder says. "We were afraid of what
upper management would do if he left because of our actions."
I think that its the moral responsibility for any company to not sell products
that harm their customers; they should refuse to do business with those who
are throwing their life away. Now this is not a legal responsibility, but
merely doing what is ethical.
For instance: 1\. Bar or Package Store that refuses to sell alcohol to
alcoholics 2\. McDonalds refuses to sell unhealthy foods to the morbidly obese
3\. Firearm dealer refuses to sell weapons to the suicidal.
Also, can credit be extended to an intoxicated person? Do they have footage of
when the credit was extended?
~~~
ryanwaggoner
Sadly, in our society, that's often not possible. McDonald's would almost
certainly face class action litigation in your 2nd example.
------
lionhearted
Found this the most interesting part of the article:
> Nevada treats unpaid gambling debt as a criminal matter handled by the
> District Attorney's bad-checks unit. Most defendants agree to pay the debt
> through a payment plan before charges are filed, with around 10% tacked on
> to fund the D.A. unit. Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, prosecutes
> roughly 200 cases involving gambling debts a month, says Bernie Zadrowski,
> who runs the bad-checks unit.
Unpaid gambling debts seems like it'd be a civil matter to me - pretty crazy
that it's criminal, and defendants pay an additional 10% to the state on top
of it.
~~~
ryanwaggoner
Agreed, just came here to post that. What's particularly amazing is that the
casino might not actually be out any money, depending on what you were
playing. In any other state, you can borrow $1000 from a bank, burn it, and
then face the consequences to your credit score, bankruptcy, etc. But
apparently in Nevada, if I borrow $1000 from the casino, pour it down their
slot machines, and then walk out without paying, they can have me prosecuted
and jailed, even though they got their $1000 back. Bizarre.
~~~
sokoloff
If you lent me $1000, and then offered me a fair coin flip for $1000, would
the fact that you "won" the coin flip and I stiffed you for the $1000 I
borrowed be adequate consolation?
If so, can I borrow $1000 and do you have a quarter on you?
~~~
Confusion
That's something entirely different from what ryanwaggoner sketches. The point
is whether this is a criminal or a civil case, not whether the casino should
get their money back.
~~~
sokoloff
I don't think the example is actually that different.
My response was to the point of "the casino might actually not be out any
money". If the outcome of the wager (that the casino won and "kept" the money)
is critical to determining how/whether a case is prosecuted, then you set the
casinos up to be free-rolled, which is the point I was making with my coin-
flip after loan analogy.
The moment Ryan beats me in the coin flip, he's "earned" $1000. If the law
differentiates at all whether he's entitled to be paid based on whether I
moments earlier borrowed $1000 from him, then I have a free-roll.
I borrow $1000 in cash, and bet $1000 in cash on heads.
Heads, I win $1000, pay the loan off and walk out with my $1000 profit.
Tails, I lose $1000, but I say "well, you have the money anyway, so you're not
actually out anything" and walk away with no more and no less money than I
started the day.
Mathematically, that's the same as Ryan _giving_ me $500 and us making a $500
wager on the coin.
I wasn't trying to address whether it should be civil or criminal; I tend to
agree it should be civil, but Nevada gets to make the rules for Nevada. I was
merely pointing out that whether or not the casino "kept" the money that it
beat the guy for is not relevant.
------
raheemm
Guy gambles away $127 million and turns around to sue the casinos - only in
America!
~~~
brent
I don't think gamblers suing casinos for millions lost is purely an American
phenomenon. There have been similar cases (perhaps a less substantial
magnitude) in at least France, England, Australia, and South Korea.
------
ct
No sympathy for him.
~~~
gojomo
Some people have persistent decisionmaking flaws that make them engage in
compulsive, self-destructive behavior. Sometimes these bad decisions cascade
in a self-reinforcing cycle -- as with intoxication and intoxicant addictions.
Are these people fair game for however much profit can be extracted as they
self-destruct? Should competing firms race to break them first?
~~~
brandnewlow
A lot of businesses make their money by making it as easy as possible or those
people to make these sorts of bad decisions. Video poker in bars?
~~~
houseabsolute
To look at it another way, bars in general. On some level most services you
can provide will be detrimental to some of the people consuming them. It's
hard to say where to draw the line. But I think based on how heavily regulated
gambling is even in Nevada, as a society we've decided that is about as close
to the line as we want to get.
------
MikeCapone
And he's now facing up to 28 years in jail. Way to blow it, dude.
------
jasonlbaptiste
haha, he's the heir to oriental trading. that's a lot of noise makers down the
drain.
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A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming - throwaway888abc
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/second-coronavirus-death-surge/614122/
======
claudeganon
I’m consistently impressed by the new forms of denialism about the ongoing
disaster of a pandemic response in the US (of which pointing at the death rate
discrepancy was a recent, popular genre). I understand that people are
fundamentally irrational, but now that many countries have gotten the disease
to a manageable state, so much psychic energy in this country seems devoted to
denying the validity of their approaches and coming up with new reasons why it
won’t actually be so bad here, contrary to all evidence.
~~~
miles7
Agree, though for many Americans it doesn’t take too much energy since they
don’t pay any attention to what’s going on in other countries.
------
xfour
Absolutely amazingly clear article which I’d sum up as _we are screwed_ sub-
headline bring that we had a path and we failed to follow through and it’ll be
worse than the last wave now.
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Trolls try and trick people into drilling huge holes in their new iphones - neverminder
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/iphone-7-headphone-hoax-sees-trolls-try-and-trick-people-into-drilling-huge-holes-in-their-new-a7330921.html
======
dexwiz
If you did this, you were the same person who put sugar in the gas tank to
improve you MPG, because Same down the street told you to.
The only evidence of people drilling holes they present is comments on
Youtube. Have you ever read Youtube comments? Sounds like the only people
getting trolled here are the authors.
------
damaru
It's not trolling, people are just really stupid.
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The Europa mission is real and could very well happen - anigbrowl
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2014/03/heres-why-the-europa-mission-is-real-and-could-very-well-happen/#21279101=0
======
bfe
I talked with a NASA engineer in 1998 who was working on the planned Europa
probe, and hoping it would be funded enough to include a lander and not just a
Europa orbiter. Sad to see how little progress we've made since then, and how
arbitrarily the cause advances.
Even more, it's continuously sad to see how arbitrarily NASA's space missions,
and overarching goals and strategies, in both robotic exploration and human
spaceflight, fluctuate almost randomly with the whims of incoming and outgoing
congresspeople and presidents. Space exploration missions by their nature have
a longer timeline than the terms and attention spans of elected officials.
NASA has no real chief executive but a board of directors with 536 people on
it, all of whom have dozens of more important priorities, none of whom has
expertise in its operations, and almost all of whom don't have the
qualifications to be a substitute science teacher in middle school.
Our space program would be light-years ahead (maybe even literally) if it were
just given its annual funding in a single block grant with a simple mandate to
further the exploration and settlement of space, period, full stop, overseen
by a real board of unelected technocratic experts, and with any specific
direction from Congress forbidden.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _with any specific direction from Congress forbidden_
The only way for a present Congress to bind a future Congress like so would be
by way of a Constitutional amendment. That seems like overkill.
An alternative is giving NASA independence in the model of the Federal
Reserve, FDA, or NIH. This is more workable. The problem is the public doesn't
value space travel _per se_. There are sound economic reasons for maintaining
an independent central bank. Voters understand the benefits of better
medicine. But space travel is less accepted in itself. It is pitched as an
article of national prestige, or as a way of encouraging other technological
development.
At its core, NASA suffers from an asset-liability mismatch. Its liabilities,
missions, carry decade-long terms. Its asset, Congressional funding, comes in
election cycles. A myopic NASA, considering only projects realisable in the
current election cycle, would be disastrous. Moving to locking in, each year,
NASA funding for the next N years seems like a good first step. It avoids the
messiness of NASA's year-to-year budget variance. It also side-steps the
politics of granting NASA independence.
~~~
bfe
> "An alternative is giving NASA independence in the model of the Federal
> Reserve, FDA, or NIH."
This would almost certainly be the best way forward.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
The politics would be arduous. If NASA can choose which projects it pursues it
can also choose where to base operations. NASA has facilities in states and
Congressional districts which make no sense beyond politics. Those who stand
to lose from a de-politicisation of NASA would bring a hard fight. That is the
political reality.
~~~
bfe
Yes. It would take a president and/or members of Congress who cared enough
about having an effective space program instead of using NASA as a pork
delivery truck, to make the change.
It would also be resisted at least as much by members of Congress who
represent NASA's contractors, besides just its facilities (like Dana
Rohrabacher, the congressman from Boeing). On the other hand, it would also
naturally be supported by members of Congress representing at least some NASA
centers and contractors who would clearly gain from the move.
A reform like this will also be boosted though by SpaceX as it keeps
accomplishing more and more on a comparatively low budget, making forward-
looking technologies readily available of its own volition (Grasshopper,
Falcon Heavy, methane rocket engines that can use Mars in situ manufactured
fuel, etc.), and creating more and more embarrassment for the traditional
space program and its contractors (like the Senate Launch System (SLS)), and
forcing everyone to ask, why can't NASA do that? Hopefully they will
eventually shame Congress and the President into reforming NASA into a
professionally-managed organization, i.e. reforming away their own control
over it and making it more like a Federal Reserve for space exploration.
------
pshin45
I feel compelled to plug the 2013 sci-fi film "Europa Report"[1], a great
movie that no one watched.
Space.com called it "awesome" and "stunningly realistic"[2].
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Report](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Report)
[2] [http://www.space.com/21247-europa-report-scifi-film-
trailer....](http://www.space.com/21247-europa-report-scifi-film-trailer.html)
~~~
qbrass
It was an advertisement for manned spaceflight that ironically showed why it's
a bad idea.
~~~
darsham
Advertisement ? It's borderline a space horror movie, no irony here...
The mockups of mission branding and press conferences were rather well made
though, so I can imagine why you'd get that impression.
------
Sharlin
This would most probably end up being a New Frontiers class mission with a
cost cap of a billion dollars or so. This is much less than the proposed
4.7-billion-dollar Jupiter Europa Orbiter [1], and also less than the already
very much slimmed-down "Europa Clipper" concept [2] with a price tag of $1.5
billion or so. For reference, the Mars Science Laboratory mission cost about
$2.4 billion.
With a sub-billion dollar budget, the achievable science objectives would be
severely limited. It would probably still be worth it -- these days we have to
take what we're given.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Jupiter_System_Mission](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Jupiter_System_Mission)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper)
~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
To say nothing of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, whose price tag was $16
billion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter)
------
stcredzero
Since Europan life is separated from the sky by a kilometer thick shell of
ice, could there be an entire global civilization down there we're unaware of?
(Since they're aquatic, maybe low frequency acoustics have taken the place of
radio for them, so we would not have detected them.)
~~~
Udo
Well, if there's life in that ocean, they're probably not tool builders
(otherwise we'd have detected something). But microbes and maybe multicellular
life isn't out of the question. It's also interesting to think about if we
should count, say, a global population of whale-equivalents as a civilization
or not.
~~~
yk
I would not rule out that they have a way to build tools, assuming for a
moment they exist. So earth technology is closely related to fire as a energy
source. ( During the early development for smelting.) But this role could be
filled by black smokers, or volcanic activity. But further development would
of course be completely different, so I think it is entirely conceivable that
we did not detect anything.
~~~
Udo
True, it's a matter of definitions. Octopuses also use tools, but do they
qualify as an intelligent civilization? Probably not (yet). We assume, because
we have little reference of what an intelligent human-equivalent entity might
be like, that they'd probably build very complex tools over time as we have.
This judgement of what constitutes an advanced life form sadly carries a
cultural component. If we encountered our own species at the very beginning of
its intellectual journey, would we have labeled them a civilization? Would we
have described them as having human-equivalent intelligence? It's tricky. But
then we move hundreds of thousands of years ahead and suddenly there are
monumental buildings and clever machines, suddenly you can meet individuals
with astonishing capabilities, and now it's very easy to categorize them.
So if our hypothetical space Euroctopus species is in its early intellectual
development, we might not be able to correctly attribute their intelligence.
There's always the possibility of that development being stagnant too, and
again we'd have a difficult time recognizing that. Therefore, the only real
chances at discerning an intelligent civilization would be by either directly
observing its behavior or by looking at the capabilities of their tools.
~~~
bennyg
The funny thing is, we can only categorize intelligence to the peak and
adjacent possibilities of where we're at now. Go back over 100,000 years or
more and it would be very hard to categorize us as extremely intelligent
beings.
~~~
yk
Not sure if this is what you meant, but assume you are showing a picture of a
programmer to someone from the past. One hundred years ago, the person would
probably recognize a computer as some kind of type writer, and from his
background then assume that the person is a typist. 200 years ago, there were
no jobs which could be described as 'sitting in front of a box,' so the person
would have no frame of reference to understand the picture. ( And it seems
likely to conclude the same into the future.)
~~~
pavlov
Medieval monks copying manuscripts had jobs that were essentially "sitting in
front of a box all day":
[http://www.studenthandouts.com/photo_gallery/Pics1/MiddleAge...](http://www.studenthandouts.com/photo_gallery/Pics1/MiddleAges-4.jpg)
------
iwwr
Looks like NASA may be dragged into it kicking and screaming. It may be time
to change some people at the top. There's no point having this kind of a
mission if leadership doesn't believe in it.
~~~
thearn4
I know personally that Europa is actually pretty high on Charlie Bolden's (and
other NASA HQ folk's) as well as academia's radar, but has thus far lost out
to other programmatic/political necessities.
NASA has a very hard time devoting resources to planetary science and
exploration programs when key legislators continue to earmark NASA'S budget
for (what are essentially) jobs programs in their own districts. SLS has
shaped up to be a perfect example of that.
~~~
XorNot
Well, the other problem is Europa is not an easy mission by any stretch. It's
airless - so wave goodbye to parachute landings, which means we need to carry
all the propulsion we need to decelerate into orbit with us.
No magnetic field either, so tethers for orbital adjustment are out to. And
it's flying out to one of the more radiation hard environments in the solar
system, where we have very little data on what exactly it'll experience.
And it's going to be a long long way a way. 1 hour signal round-trip time.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Think of all the new technologies and solutions that will have to be developed
for it, and then will find their way to commercial sector. NASA at it's best!
------
arethuza
ESA also has a planned probe going to Jupiter's moons - hopefully launching in
2022, JUICE - JUpiter ICy moons Explorer:
[http://sci.esa.int/juice/](http://sci.esa.int/juice/)
------
doctorwho
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE
------
dandelany
Awesome, though it will obviously take a lot more than $15m or even $100m -
Cassini-Huygens cost $3.6 billion. Personally I'd like to see NASA's project
merge with the ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer project - add some instruments
or another probe to their launch instead of launching a completely separate
craft. Although I guess this increases the risk - if the launch fails, both
missions fail...
~~~
rsynnott
JUICE came about due to the effective cancellation of Laplace
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EJSM/Laplace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EJSM/Laplace)),
a joint ESA/NASA mission. Laplace died because the ESA didn't think that
NASA's budget allowed it. The ESA mightn't be hugely keen on risking that
scenario again.
------
skywhopper
Mars has been very well explored. Titan just recently got a drop-in probe.
Except for maybe Venus (which presents logistical challenges that would likely
make a lander mission impossible) Europa is by far the most interesting place
in our solar system that hasn't been extensively explored.
What are we talking about here, expense wise? $5 billion over 15-20 years?
Totally worth it.
~~~
adventured
Probably more like $15 to $20 billion over that span (accounting for
inflation, cost bloat, unexpected b.s. etc).
Still worth it. I'm hoping our technology for traveling the solar system, and
the robotic systems to explore it, will get cheaper and cheaper on a cost per
unit of result basis (meaning the nominal cost will rise as expected, but the
value we receive from our technology will rise much faster).
------
crusso
I know we're all science geeks and enjoy the possibility of a Europa mission -
but doesn't it bother anyone that we have a system whereby some congressman
with a pet project can ram through tens of millions of dollars in the budget
that will likely balloon to billions of dollars?
Yay, the broken clock shows the right time for this minute.
------
antjanus
Funny. No money for a moon or another Mars mission but NASA is basically given
a command for a mission to Europa because one congress person said so.
Quite strange.
I'm still excited. I think anyone who has read the Odyssey series by Clarke
would be ecstatic too! :)
~~~
dredmorbius
We've been to the Moon and Mars. Europa's yet unvisited, and as a science
mission, there's considerable potential.
------
alexandros
"I want to make sure you and I are here to see those first tube worms and
lobsters on Europa."
If he wasn't joking, he is in for a disappointment and I am depressed with the
quality of people who are deciding these budgets. But if its that or more
weapons expenses, take the money and run NASA!
~~~
Zikes
Likely he didn't specifically mean tube worms and lobsters (excepting the case
of convergent evolution) but if he had said something like "life" or "aliens"
then the sort of imagery that comes to most people's minds are the classic
Roswell Greys.
------
mturmon
The relevant mission concept, still in flux as more observations of the plumes
coming from the surface are taken
([http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-
xml/AW_...](http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-
xml/AW_02_17_2014_p37-663090.xml&p=1)), is Europa Clipper:
[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-
clipper/](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/)
------
nutanc
NASA should collaborate with the ISRO scientists as they too have good
experience with space exploration and can suggest cost optimizations etc.
------
1ris
I was very scared when i saw that headline. Thank god this is not about
military missions in Europe.
------
jokoon
I find it amazing to see how cheap that price tag is for something so
technology worthy.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
Um, that's not the price tag. That's the amount of money they're going to
spend now to keep working on it.
~~~
deathanatos
$15 million (or for that matter, $100 million) is still a very small fraction
of the federal budget, and in my opinion, a much more well spent $15 million
than a lot of the other $15 millions in there.
------
Raphael
Awesome, as long as we don't breach the Prime Directive.
------
wiredfool
So we're not going to leave Europa alone.
Wonder if this is going to end well.
~~~
civilian
Clarke is dead.
|
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}
|
Ataribox retro mini-console plays current and classic games UK - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2017/07/ataribox-mini-console/
======
sk0g
Looks pretty cool, but not sure what they mean by "modern games." Angry Birds
modern, or full blown Battlefield on PS4 modern?
|
{
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|
New Adventures for Elm - shoover
http://elm-lang.org/blog/new-adventures-for-elm
======
jey
I've been looking at the options for pure-functional languages targeting JS,
and it seems that PureScript is superior to Elm from a technical perspective
for full-stack webdev. PureScript takes the approach of providing a full
Haskell-like language that is "native" to the JS world. It has the features
and type system of Haskell, but atop a cleaned up version of Javascript's
semantics (e.g. strict evaluation, not lazy, by default). It's also well
suited for both server and client code, and even has a C++11 backend in the
works in addition to the native JS backend.
In contrast, Elm is focused on front-end work and is less expressive, but
emphasizes simplicity. Elm's goal of figuring out how to simplify and distill
the Haskell and ML world's abstractions is an admirable one, but as an
experienced programmer interested in practical work I'd rather just go with
PureScript and just learn the Haskell-like abstractions along the way. It also
really helps that the PureScript compiler's javascript output is "natural" and
easy to understand, without any mysterious transformations involved.
Have others looked at PureScript, Elm, Haste, GHCJS, etc and chosen
differently?
~~~
rlander
Well, "superior" is subjective in this case.
It's like an OO programmer claiming that Smalltalk is a superior language than
Elm. Besides, Purescript is squarely targeted at experienced Haskell
programmers, which is not the case of Elm. Elm is an ML language, not a
Haskell dialect that compiles to JS.
I also evaluated Elm, Purescript, Roy, F#, JS_of_Ocaml and ended up choosing
Elm precisely for the reasons you chose to stay away from it. I only use JS
for front-end stuff, I value simplicity over expressivity and I don't want to
spend many weeks learning Haskell-like abstractions to start being productive
in a new language (in contrast, it only took me an afternoon to start being
productive in Elm).
~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Elm is an ML language, not a Haskell dialect that compiles to JS."
To be clear, Haskell also comes from the ML lineage.
~~~
hanniabu
ML stands for machine learning, correct?
~~~
thedufer
In this context, it stands for MetaLanguage, which is a language family (and
was at one point a language itself, I believe). The family includes Ocaml (see
the ml there?) and Haskell, among many others.
~~~
pinealservo
As a point of possible interest to people who are interested in programming
language history, I'm going to elaborate a bit on this topic:
The root of this particular family tree is essentially a fusion of the lambda
calculus-inspired parts of Algol 60 and Lisp with some new ideas for syntax
that were promoted by Peter Landin in his highly influential paper from 1966,
"The Next 700 Programming Languages". He called this language ISWIM; it was
studied extensively but never directly implemented. Landin was also associated
with Dana Scott and Christopher Strachey in their foundational work on
programming language semantics.
Robin Milner was interested in the relationship between the logic underlying
the semantics of programming languages and the possibility of using computers
to prove propositions in that logic (a logic developed by Dana Scott in
support of his semantics work). At Stanford, he and a small team (including
Whitfield Diffie, who later went into cryptography...) developed a system
called Stanford LCF (for Logic of Computable Functions). This was an
interactive system in which the user states a main goal in the logic, then
splits it to subgoals and more subgoals until they can be solved directly.
Proofs were represented directly by data structures and were built directly by
the proof manipulation commands, which corresponded to the inference rules of
the system.
Milner moved to Edinburgh in 1973, where he worked on a subsequent version of
LCF, Edinburgh LCF. Stanford LCF was limited by the size of the proof data
structures; for Edinburgh LCF Milner had the idea to forget the proofs, but
store the results of them; i.e. the theorems. The proof steps would be
performed, but not recorded. To ensure that theorems could only be constructed
via valid proofs, a meta-language was developed with a static type system that
would only allow data structures corresponding to valid theorems to be built.
It also allowed more sophisticated proof development, since the meta-language
was a full higher-order programming language modeled after Landin's ISWIM.
Exceptions were included to deal with the possibility of failure of particular
proof strategies. This version was implemented in Lisp.
LCF spread to other universities; it was early on split into two parallel
tracks, ML and Caml. Both have continued to be strongly associated with
implementation of theorem proving systems. ML and LCF have become Standard ML
and HOL; Caml has become OCaml and Coq. A lot of programming language research
has also gone into ML and OCaml as languages in themselves due to their close
association with the logic underlying semantics of programming languages.
Meanwhile, a language called PAL was developed in 1968 at MIT in response to
ISWIM and Strachey's ideas on programming languages. David Turner, while
starting his Ph.D. research at Oxford, got access to the PAL sources and used
a simplified form of the language as the basis for his lectures on functional
programming at St. Andrews; he called this language SASL. It was initially
just a blackboard language, but a colleague surprised him by implementing it
in Lisp.
In 1976, Turner changed the semantics of SASL from eager to lazy, based on a
lazy version Landin's SECD machine. Somewhat later in his career, he combined
ideas from lazy SASL, a cut-down version of SASL called KRC, and the ML-
originated Hindley-Milner type system to form a language called Miranda. And
Miranda is one of the primary influences on Haskell.
So, this leaves out a lot of other languages such as HOPE and lazy-ML that
also were developed in this space. But what's interesting to me is how all
these languages, from ML to Haskell, are so strongly related to Algol and thus
the Pascal, C, Java, etc. languages that are more familiar to industry.
That got a lot bigger than I intended; I hope someone takes some interest from
the digression.
~~~
mgold
I thought that you might be one of my college profs, but then realized that he
would never apologize for a long post.
------
charlysisto
Here's the path I've been following :
(ruby)rjs -> prototype -> jquery -> backbone -> angular -> react -> flux ->
redux -> elm...
But I'm just a backend guy happy with Ror, just waiting to go on the
frontline... with the proper weapons!
My feeling about elm is that it's more than the new kid on the js block. It's
closure without parens, it's Haskell without academy, it's Redux without
facebook, it's duck-typing without quacks, it's MVC without objects and last
but not least evan Czaplisky (the creaor) is the new Aaron Patterson (bright
__and __fun!)
I'm all in (but yeah I've been bitten before)...
~~~
Touche
That's a lot of churn. You should stop and ask yourself if it's worth being on
the cutting edge all of the time. Are you making better projects as a result
of dropping "old" tech the moment something shinier comes around?
Everything has tradeoffs. Elm has no server side rendering, for example.
~~~
vdaniuk
>Are you making better projects as a result of dropping "old" tech the moment
something shinier comes around?
That's a lot of assumptions you are making there. Why "better projects" is the
only metric considered here? Perhaps, OP utility in front end technologies is
based on their learning. Or what's you reason to assume OP is dropping old
tech "the moment something shinier comes around" and not after a reasonable
period of exploration and trial?
Prototype.js was created in 2005, 10 years ago. Angular was released in 2009.
React was released in 2013.
A lot of churn? Absolutely not. Someone staying current, perfecting their
skills and knowledge? Good for them!
The HN trend of "hipster shaming" people trying new, sometimes esoteric
technologies (even if it's only for the novelty factor!) is not conductive to
constructive discussions and really has no place in the community named
_Hacker_ News.
~~~
rixed
Unless building a taste for long lived techs as opposed to favoring the newest
reinvention of old ideas is part of the learning process?
------
mgold
Most of these comments boil down to, "the food's awful and the portions are
too small!". Someone wants better JS interop because Elm will be a small part
of their stack; someone wants server-side and isomorphic apps because Elm will
be a large part of their stack. Yes, the tooling and language features have a
long way to go, and hopefully Evan will make progress while at NoRedInk. If
you enjoy Haskell, you're not really Elm's target audience. If you hawkishly
watch HN, you're probably not the target audience - the point is that it's
sane programming for the rest of us.
------
ghuntley
For those just getting started in FRP or whom may have not seen the
presentations at StangeLoop:
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agu6jipKfYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agu6jipKfYw)
\- Controlling Time and Space: understanding the many formulations of FRP by
Evan Czaplicki (Elm language designer/Prezi)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XNATGjqM6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XNATGjqM6U)
\- FRP In Practice: Taking a look at Reactive[UI/Cocoa] by Paul Betts
(Slack/GitHub)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyKHxy7X0w&t=18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyKHxy7X0w&t=18)
\- ReactiveUI - It's pretty neat by Brendan Forster (GitHub)
------
ZenoArrow
What's the best programming environment for Elm? I know there's a Light Table
plugin for Elm, which I think is promising (in some ways they seem like a
natural fit, whilst they started separately the direction of both was inspired
at least in part by Bret Victor's ideas), but I wonder what other tools are
being used to code Elm.
[https://github.com/rundis/elm-light](https://github.com/rundis/elm-light)
~~~
redka
Sublime Text with Elm language support[1] does auto compilation and is plenty
enough. It also comes with an extension to SublimeREPL[2]
[1]
[https://github.com/deadfoxygrandpa/Elm.tmLanguage](https://github.com/deadfoxygrandpa/Elm.tmLanguage)
[2] [https://github.com/wuub/SublimeREPL](https://github.com/wuub/SublimeREPL)
------
wtetzner
One of the things I found odd (or maybe just annoying) is how the Elm
Architecture doc [1] keeps mentioning how you can cleanly model your code
using modules. But the module system is about as primitive as you could
imagine. The language would be much more expressive with ML's module system,
and functors would relieve some of the pain of not having type classes.
[1] [https://github.com/evancz/elm-architecture-
tutorial/](https://github.com/evancz/elm-architecture-tutorial/)
------
sotojuan
Congrats! I hope one day to work for NoRedInk. Elm is a big reason why.
~~~
rtfeldman
Please apply! We're hiring. :)
[http://noredink.com/jobs](http://noredink.com/jobs)
~~~
firlefans
Remote US only or remote EU also?
~~~
rtfeldman
We currently have remote developers from the UK, Germany, and São Paulo. (We
do wantjunior hires to be in the office, though, to facilitate mentoring.)
We do a solid amount of pair programming, but remote pairing via ScreenHero is
pretty sweet. :)
~~~
zapu
What would the requirements to apply for remote, "non-junior", position be?
~~~
mtoledo
There are more details for each position at our jobs page :)
[https://www.noredink.com/jobs](https://www.noredink.com/jobs)
------
arvinsim
I am a frontend developer and I wanted to learn Haskell for a long time. But I
just can't wrap my head around it. Is Elm or Purescript a good way to ease
into it? If so, which one is better?
~~~
thinkpad20
One of the major goals of Elm is being easy to learn, both from a language and
a library point of view. PureScript is, for better or worse, no simpler than
Haskell as a language, with all of the power of Haskell but its complexity as
well. Elm is going to be much more approachable, and has a major focus on
readable documentation and simple, straightforward concepts. It takes trade
offs in language features in exchange, but is probably a better bet for
someone who wants to get up and running quickly.
~~~
codygman
> PureScript is, for better or worse, no simpler than Haskell as a language,
> with all of the power of Haskell but its complexity as well
Is it really no simpler? A few common complexity complaints i hear about
Haskell that don't apply to purescript in order of frequency:
\- Haskell is lazy by default
\- has too many language extensions
\- records pollute global namespace
\- has fmap and map
\- $ is confusing
~~~
Kutta
Except that Purescript uses the liberty from Haskell legacy libraries to
become even more hardcore on algebra and categoric language. The relatively
small user base also consist of experienced Haskellers, and the libraries tend
to be quite advanced. For example, the "basic component" in the beginning of
the Halogen tutorial already mentions natural transformations (which made me
instantly intrigued, personally, but I'm one of those experienced Haskellers).
~~~
purescript
> to become even more hardcore on algebra and categoric language
In some of the standard libraries, yes, that's true. However, it's possible to
use PureScript without the standard libraries, and use alternatives such as
Preface (a teaching library) or Neon (an alternative to Prelude)
[https://github.com/paf31/purescript-
preface](https://github.com/paf31/purescript-preface)
[http://pursuit.purescript.org/packages/purescript-
neon/0.1.1](http://pursuit.purescript.org/packages/purescript-neon/0.1.1)
------
hassox
As an experiment I tried rendering elm in the server. It's renders fine but
I'm not sure that it doesn't re-render everything on page load.
[http://blog.overstuffedgorilla.com/server-side-elm-with-
phoe...](http://blog.overstuffedgorilla.com/server-side-elm-with-phoenix/)
------
k__
When is back-end elm?
------
sjrd
These are some very exciting news for Elm and its community. Well done!
------
codifyhus
Nice.
------
nanoojaboo
"It's unprecedented for a company our size to hire a language creator," says
R.Feldman of NoRedInk. [http://tech.noredink.com/post/136615783598/welcome-
evan](http://tech.noredink.com/post/136615783598/welcome-evan) This might be
true, but it's also a very smart marketing investment. I would have never
visited NoRedInk otherwise, and it's the kind of company that would benefit
immensely from general word of mouth discussion
------
open-source-ux
My comment is off-topic and likely to annoy people here, but I'll say it
anyway: that entire page appears to have been generated in Javascript. If you
view source, there is no HTML at all. What would a user with a screen reader
hear if he or she were to visit that page?
If the page had been written in plain HTML and CSS, it might be about 10-15k
in size. At the moment, written in Javascript, it's over 300K in page weight.
So both inaccessible and bloated in page weight. This is really bad practice.
~~~
epidemian
> What would a user with a screen reader hear if he or she were to visit that
> page?
Well, the page still renders paragraphs and titles to good ol' <p>s and <hX>s,
so i'd presume a screen reader would just read those things as the page
content. Wouldn't it?
~~~
habitue
the screen reader needs to execute the javascript before it can read the tags.
I'm not sure if they do that
~~~
girvo
Most do, thankfully, and have done for a while now :)
|
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|
Advocacy groups are pushing the FTC to break up Facebook - wil_I_am_27
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/24/18195959/facebook-advocacy-groups-ftc-break-up-cambridge-analytica-scandal-data-breach
======
porpoisely
"Advocacy groups" hired and funded by whom? There are lots of "advocacy
groups" demanding a lot of things. It would be interesting to find out why
theverge and other news companies selectively choose which "advocacy groups"
to promote.
Also, what about microsoft, netflix, amazon, twitter and most importantly
google? Also, what about humongous international banks? Or the
chemicals/agribusiness where 2 or 3 companies dominate the world's market.
What about the media? Where a handle of megacorporations own so much of the
market?
~~~
reaperducer
_Also, what about microsoft, netflix, amazon, twitter and most importantly
google_
Only have to break up one and the rest will fall into line.
_what about_ ism
~~~
wahern
Fall in line how?
Other than Google, which clearly abuses (at times) their market power from the
dominance of Google Ads, Android, and Chrome, I have no idea what draws the
ire of all those other companies; not individually and certainly not as a
group.
I guess it's supposed to be something... something... social media...
something... privacy... something. But I strongly suspect it's just vague
anti-corporate sentiment, anxiety around our bitter political divisiveness,
and resentment over the excesses in the technology sector (e.g. brogrammers).
I'm no anti-trust scholar but I don't think the purpose and design of anti-
trust law is to resolve national cultural crises.
~~~
giornogiovanna
Microsoft is the poster-child of abusing market power, and Amazon isn't
exactly innocent on that front, either.
~~~
wahern
I do think Amazon is the new Microsoft. With AWS, Amazon figured out how to
embrace, extend, and extinguish the entire open source ecosystem. But AFAIK
AWS isn't yet acting anti-competitively. (And neither is Microsoft any longer,
for that matter.) I suppose maybe in the book publishing industry there are
strong anti-trust concerns.
But I don't think this is what people have on their minds. Few in the industry
question the consequences of moving to AWS. And most people--techies and non-
techies--use and enjoy Google Search, Chrome, and Android without qualms.
Nobody is shedding a tear for Bing, Firefox, or Yahoo, and in any event nobody
is arguing that Google unfairly muscled them out.
It's only when a service or technology implicates social media do people
really get fired up, and to a lesser degree the selling of mined personal
data. But the fact that people think of Facebook, Google, _and_ Twitter, plus
a litany of other tech companies with household recognition, should all be
punished betrays their logic. None of this behavior is anti-competitive; it's
not destroying markets; it's not transferring wealth. It's one thing to argue
personal data aggregation, mining, and selling should be more heavily
regulated (a la GDPR). But anti-trust has nothing to do with it, and I don't
see how splitting any of these companies up would substantially change
anything, let alone result in a net benefit. At least not under the pretense
of "fixing" social media, privacy, or fake news.
------
root_axis
Break it up into what? All the problems of Facebook are inherent to Facebook
as a product, "breaking up" Facebook doesn't really fix anything.
~~~
chr1
Two facebooks that need to talk with each other (and new implementations) via
open and documented protocol.
~~~
traek
This is the worst case scenario for consumers.
An "open and documented protocol" is what led to the Cambridge Analytica
scandal; most people are not informed enough to properly manage permissions
and even if they were, the personal data of friends would necessarily be
available via this protocol. Posting something on this new platform-ized
Facebook would be akin to sharing with every app each of your friends has
authorized.
------
wudangmonk
Are there any historical examples of this where the company in question was
not in charge or national resources or infrastructure that was paid by a
government?. All the bell, oil, railroad examples have this in common.
Short of the government making these companies the only government approved
ones in their respective fields I do not see how breaking them up would be
something that can be done. Even then the monopoly would only exist because
yet again the government created it.
~~~
reaperducer
_Are there any historical examples of this where the company in question was
not in charge or [sic] national resources or infrastructure that was paid by a
government?._
American Tobacco Company, for one. There are a number of others.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._American_Toba...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._American_Tobacco_Co).
~~~
wahern
American Tobacco was aggressively and successfully _conspiring_ with other
companies to maintain high prices. It's precisely such conspiracies to
restrain trade that are _specifically_ prohibited by the Sherman Act.
How is Facebook conspiring to restrain trade? With whom? Would breaking
Facebook up result in lower prices for using social media services? The
services are already free. Should people expect to get paid for posting
selfies?
Breaking up Facebook for its behavior would be like breaking up IBM for age
discrimination. It doesn't matter whether it's wrong nor even whether it's
illegal. It's neither the function nor intent of anti-trust law to break up
companies under such pretenses.
------
ashton314
Are there any analogous corporate breakups in history? Any tech companies that
have been broken up as these people are suggesting?
~~~
b11484
AT&T and Bell were broken up, but that was because it was a monopoly.[1] I
don't think Facebook is a monopoly though.
[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)
~~~
evv
It does effectively have a monopoly on online identity. Organizations like
Uber and Airbnb depend on FB accounts for trust.
But I think the most effective way to take down the monopoly isn't by
regulating, because it may hurt consumers. Instead the government could help
make FB obsolete.
If people could "login with us.gov" instead of "login with Facebook", I think
most people would.
~~~
jerkstate
If there's any dependency it's a soft dependency. I don't have FB and I use
uber and airbnb.
~~~
evv
It may be harder as a host/driver, but you're right that they may have fixed
that dependency. Back in 2008, it was one of the main ways you could trust the
car or house that you're about to step into.
------
nkingsy
It seems to me that US trust busting in the past was:
1\. Seen as radical at the time, and odious to all private industry. 2\. Able
to leave shareholder value somewhat intact because they were simply splitting
physical assets.
While I think 2 might be addressed by eg forcing Instagram/YouTube/etc to spin
off, 1 would require the election of radicals to high office. Our political
system has built in so many safeguards over the years to keep true radicals
out of office that I just can't see it happening. Trump promised many things,
but disruption of business was not one of them.
edit: What I see as more likely is regulations that preserve shareholder value
and enshrine these companies as utilities, erecting barriers to entry so high
that they become permanent monopolies, while (hopefully) slowly reigning in
the wild profits.
edit 2: Facebook's current share price basically values it as a utility
already, and given their slowing growth they might even lobby for such
regulation themselves to staunch the bleeding.
~~~
stcredzero
_1 would require the election of radicals to high office_
How does Theodore Roosevelt fit into this model? How does JFK/Johnson fit into
this model?
_edit: What I see as more likely is regulations that preserve shareholder
value and enshrine these companies as utilities, erecting barriers to entry so
high that they become permanent monopolies, while (hopefully) slowly reigning
in the wild profits._
That's 180 degrees away from where I'd go. Change regulations to favor new
competitors arising. Right now, big tech companies seem to comprise a faction
which sometimes colludes to crush potential competitors.
~~~
nkingsy
TR was punted to the vice presidency to get him out of New York because he was
too radical. Johnson and JFK pushed through some of the most progressive civil
rights and anti poverty measures this country has ever seen. By today’s
standards all three would 100% be considered radicals, and were considered so
by their contemporaries.
Edit: I didn’t say what I want to happen, just what I thought was most likely.
Strange reason to downvote
Edit 2: I think Vietnam weighs heavily on LBJ and JFK. I personally lay that
on the feet of the military industrial complex coopting an inexperienced JFK,
and LBJ doing everything he could to see through his predecessors policies.
------
JumpCrisscross
What’s the best one for a New Yorker to get involved with?
------
basic1
Break up Google while you're at it.
~~~
AimForTheBushes
More like Amazon
~~~
endofcapital
How about all three? Instead of everyone just picking their favorite platform
for dubious reasons and blindly adhering to that corp maybe we should just
bust them all up at once in one swoop, whether they are on your "team" or not.
Google is probably the most dangerous and abusive of the three today, but I
think Amazon is trying to steal that throne and will probably be much scarier
in a few years.
|
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|
Carthago delenda est - kwikiel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est
======
FabHK
Cato's famous phrase, "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", is feared
for its grammar, but it is quite expressive and not really that hard. It is a
combination of two constructions: ACI, Accusativus cum infinitivo, which also
exists in English, sort of: I see he swims or I see him swimming (in Latin it
would be "I see him to swim") = I see that he swims. The other thing is the
gerundive, which expresses an obligation. Sounds complicated, but it really
isn't - same thing as English "This is to be done" meaning "This ought to be
done".
Now, in Latin, the ACI construction can be done with many verbs, not only "to
see" ("I see him swimming") but also with "censeo", or "I opine, think" ("I
opine him swimming" \- I think he swims.) Next, throw in a cool "Ceterum" = by
the way, and combine this with the obligation of the gerundive, and we get:
_Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam_ =
"By the way, I think that Carthago is to be eliminated."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive)
~~~
askthereception
Your example using the verb "see" is not quite right, but a genuine ACI does
exist in English: I want him to swim / I expect him to swim.
For another example, in Dutch it happens to work with "see" (zien): "ik zie
hem zwemmen" (I see him [to] swim), it doesn't work with want, and with
expect, "verwachten", you would have to add "to": "Ik verwacht hem te zwemmen"
(I expect him to swim).
~~~
FabHK
Yes, thanks for pointing that out, I was indeed taking the example from German
(where "sehen" works with a genuine ACI like Dutch) and put it in English
without much thought, particularly without realising that other examples do
work in English.
------
alasdair_
Also notable for Mark Zuckerberg's use of the phrase repeatedly in emails to
exhort his employees to ensure Google Plus didn't happen. See
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/how-mark-
zuckerberg-...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/how-mark-zuckerberg-
led-facebooks-war-to-crush-google-plus)
~~~
dredmorbius
Zuckerberg's efforts were second only to Google's.
------
tomlockwood
It's probably worth noting - and I'm surprised it isn't mentioned in the
article - that almost 100 years after the razing of Carthage, the enmity
between Rome and Carthage is mythologised in Virgil's Aeneid. In that epic
poem, its said that the people of Carthage swore to either destroy or be
destroyed by the "heirs of Aeneas" aka the proto-Romans. This epic revisionism
is not a singular act in history but instead one I feel we must be wary of
even in the present. I see similar narratives forming about bastions of the
"west" constantly assailed by the barbarians just outside the gates.
~~~
FabHK
Where does revisionism enter? The Romans were probably correct that they had
to destroy, or be destroyed by the Carthagens. Quintus Fabius Maximus
Cunctator defeated Hannibal, and who knows what would have happened otherwise.
Of course, history is written by the victors. But what is the connection to
today's narratives? In particular, a narrative today bearing resemblance to
the past does not mean that it's wrong.
~~~
DiogenesKynikos
By the time Rome destroyed Carthage, it surely did not have to. Carthage had
already been defeated more than 50 years previously, and had been reduced to
little more than a Roman vassal state. The destruction of Carthage has to be
one of the greatest acts of unnecessary spite in history.
------
lspears
If you haven't checked out the hardcore history podcasts I recommend doing so.
The punic war episodes are particularly good.
~~~
ufo
And while we are in the topic of podcasts, "The History of Rome" by Mike
Duncan is amazing.
~~~
positr0n
Agreed. His second podcast series, "Revolutions", is excellent as well.
I have to admit I struggled a little through the English revolution. The
American revolution was much more interesting. Then the French revolution was
absolutely fascinating.
~~~
Nightshaxx
I listened to the French revolution twice, it was that good.
------
davidpaulyoung
It was uttered because the practice Carthage of sacrificing children to Baal
was horrific to Cato...
([https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginian...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-
sacrificed-own-children-study))
~~~
auggierose
The destruction of Carthage probably included the slaughter of many children
...
~~~
EForEndeavour
And the resection of a solid tumour inevitably involves the killing of
perfectly healthy cells.
\- If you do nothing, sacrifice continues indefinitely.
\- If you intervene, you'll likely cause a short-term uptick in deaths of
would-be sacrifices, with the goal of completely ending sacrificial deaths
thereafter.
~~~
TheGoddessInari
If everyone is dead, they can't keep going around killing each other!
------
neferbast
Especially if Dido back-stabs you, and she always does.
Jokes aside, the youtube channel Invicta has some good material on the punic
wars, he uses the game total war to illustrate everything. There are a few
minor mistakes there, and he only covers the first punic war, but still it's
some good material.
------
ken
Not exactly news. Mods, can we get a “150 BCE” on the title?
~~~
komali2
I'm not sure I get it - am I missing some modern relevance?
------
romaaeterna
Plutarch's version, δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ Καρχηδόνα μὴ εἶναι is closest to Ceterum
censeo Carthaginem delendam esse.
The biggest difference is that "μὴ εἶναι" isn't quite equivalent to "delendam
esse".
The John Bolton of ancient Rome.
------
afinlayson
I like Cocoapods, but I don't think we should destroy it :p
------
masonic
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS [0]
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8)
------
jhallenworld
"The First Genocide"
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&ved=2ahUKEwi97pfficXjAhUswlkKHdg5DRIQFjAOegQICBAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgsp.yale.edu%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffirst_genocide.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1y3gd5ymM6LdZ07JOaxcFV)
------
FabHK
Ok, slightly off-topic, but here goes - a great piece of music:
So, the Romans finally destroyed Carthago (took them a while, Punic war 1, 2,
and 3), with Cato egging them on ("Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam").
(I find it interesting for two reasons: 1. Alternative history - what if
Carthago (Hannibal) had won?? 2. The Roman general who defeated Hannibal,
Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator a) is my namesake :-) and b) won by... doing
not much, just staying away and picking up the pieces (cunctator = "the
delayer, doubter"). "Cunctator" is not as sexy as "Terminator", but he turned
out effective nonetheless.)
But next, so Virgil's Aneid has Aneas visit Carthage, in particular the queen
Dido, and they fall in love, but then he, duty bound, leaves (clandestinely at
night), to found Rome. She, crestfallen, commits suicide (after predicting
eternal strife between Aeneas's people (Rome) and hers (Carthage)).
This was set to music by English composer Purcell in _Dido and Aneas_ , with
the famous piece "Dido's Lament" \- she sings before committing suicide:
When I am laid // am laid in earth, may my wrongs create // No trouble, no
trouble in // in thy breast Remember me, remember me, // but ah! forget my
fate. Remember me, but ah! // forget my fate."
The piece is brilliant - a simple underlying musical structure (Passacaglia -
a constant repeated bass line) with her heart-felt lament. Check out the
versions linked below (YouTube links), by Jeff Buckley or Janet Baker or
Jessye Norman or any other. I mean, this did _not_ happen, and 2500+ years
ago, but still can make you tear up today.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Fabius_Maximus_Verruco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Fabius_Maximus_Verrucosus)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5UAbl1OWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5UAbl1OWY)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIAi2XwuWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIAi2XwuWo)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_50zj7J50U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_50zj7J50U)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido%27s_Lament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido%27s_Lament)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passacaglia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passacaglia)
|
{
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Singapore gets a hackerspace - dgr
http://www.e27.sg/2009/10/14/what-do-seattle-silicon-valley-berlin-and-cambridge-both-cambridges-have-in-common
======
donaq
Good move, though the price of membership is a tad steep for a debt-ridden
code monkey such as myself.
|
{
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Soylent now available on Amazon Launchpad - majewsky
http://blog.soylent.com/post/145547071142/soylent-now-available-on-amazon-launchpad
======
majewsky
Still only available in the US. I'm eagerly waiting to get my hands on some
Soylent over here in Germany.
|
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My Lisp Experiences and the Development of GNU Emacs - mofey
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html
Transcript of Richard Stallman's Speech, 28 Oct 2002, at the International Lisp Conference
======
thurn
Emacs is the first and probably best proof that you can write fast and
responsive software without needing to stick close to machine code the whole
time. It's a compelling counterexample to those who don't believe you can
write "real" software in Python or Ruby.
~~~
ssp
Maybe I'm missing the joke, but Emacs was famous for bringing multi-megabyte
machines to their knees and garbage collecting for minutes. The joke was that
emacs stood for "eight megabytes and constantly swapping".
~~~
angus77
Which would've been funny when eight megabytes was a lot of memory. Just try
and buy that little memory today.
~~~
rbanffy
If you manage to do it, it's ridiculously expensive. Believe me - I restore
interesting computers from the 80's and early 90's
|
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Ask HN: what would you put in course for data science? - tomrod
I'm considering putting together a university course on data science, and would like your input as to the skills and techniques you'd expect a data scientist to have fresh out of school.<p>You all are the experts on what you need, and I'm all ears. Fire away!
======
eshvk
It depends on what your background is. And what the role looks for. There is a
wide spectrum of programming vs statistics background that may be required for
a job. Having said that, here is a list of basic stuff that may be useful to
know.
1\. Computer Science:
\- Algorithms/D.S. Enough to be able to identify what sort of problems are
C.S. problems or statistics problems.
\- Systems. You may not have to build a system but it is useful to know how
the real world systems are built, what sort of constraints come into play,
what trade-offs are there. Especially, if you will be working with large scale
datasets. You don't want to be remembered as the dude who did a select * order
by rand limit 10 on an HBase table.
\- Programming Language: Learn one programming language well. Depending on
your job, you may need to learn more than one. Python is a nice starting
language. One useful trick to learning more languages is to learn one language
really well and see how stuff you can do changes in the other language. Also,
side note: don't get into one true language debates. They are useless. Every
language has its pros and cons.
2\. Stats/Math/ML:
This is tough to kind of characterize. Because the field is so diverse.
\- Probability: Get some basic probability under your belt. Getting the
intuition right is more useful than learning a lot of stuff. You can pick up
more complicated stuff (Stochastic processes, Stochastic Calculus stuff) as
and when you progress further anyway.
\- Statistics: At the very least, figure out hypothesis testing, biases,
p-values, estimators and regression. The more statistics I learn the more I am
of the opinion that the tools matter less as much as a critical understanding
of where statistics should apply. What biases are there and how you can
identify them.
\- Linear Algebra: Again a very basic undergraduate linear algebra course
(with vector spaces) should help you understand say Matrix completion stuff.
Of the top of my head, I think grokking how vector spaces work, what
independence means, how dimensionality reduction, kernels work is useful.
\- Machine Learning: This is mostly a tie up of the kind of stuff you learn in
the math courses. My basic 101 ML grad school covered the following:
Unsupervised Learning (KMeans or some clustering algorithms), Supervised
Learning (Discriminative, Generative approaches, bias - variance tradeoffs
etc). I also learnt some silly bullshit on Genetic algorithms.
So yeah, as long as you learn the basic fundamentals really well, you should
be able to pick up stuff fairly easily.
E.g. Recommendation systems, I never learnt most of this in school as part of
a specific course. However, once you know what goes on in Matrix decomposition
and know what regression is, you can understand the why of why people do what
they do when they solve these problems.
~~~
tomrod
Great suggestions. I'll probably structure the course in the stats/ml vein--
that corresponds to what I already had in mind.
Do you have any recommendations for big data components? Would it be worth
teaching how to use a Hadoop cluster, or is a small toy cluster too far
abstract from what using a large cluster requires?
~~~
eshvk
Well, I took a couple of courses at UT which dealt with "practical"
distributed systems. The first was more on the lines of here is a large
dataset, how do we design a distributed system that handles it. There, we
learn about principles/paradigms such as MPI, threading, CUDA to address these
issues. I took another course that was basically only Hadoop. Both are good.
It completely depends on what the outcome of your course is: If you are
looking for someone who just needs a flavor of what it means to think at that
scale, generating an EC2 cluster and working on a few Map Reduce problems
should be fine. If you are looking more to inculcate general principles of how
to think at scale, the former should be good.
------
ivan_ah
I think a good way to structure a course would be to cover several problems
from end-to-end: motivation (what you want to achieve), theory, data
preprocessing, algorithm development, and finally setting up a "production
grade" system that solves the problem.
In my experience learning ML, learning concepts in theory is good and all, but
I never really understood the details until I had to implementing the
algorithm.
------
glimcat
Bill Howe did a solid intro course for the University of Washington. Videos
and other materials are available on Coursera.
[https://www.coursera.org/course/datasci](https://www.coursera.org/course/datasci)
The one thing I'd really change is to tighten up the range of tools used. It
seems helpful to show students a range of tools, but it usually ends up being
a major distraction for students and a lot of extra effort for course staff.
Any such course is already going to be a blitz of new concepts and technology.
Go full Python, plus interactive tools as helpful (Weka, Tableu). Let them
pick up R or D3.js or whatever later, after they have a better appreciation
for the concepts and such which make them useful.
------
rfergie
The hard part is not the coding or statistics; the hard part is figuring out
what to code/analyse.
I would want something on identifying actionable dimensions and how to talk to
people to figure out how to help them
|
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You are your biggest failure - cblackthornekc
https://medium.com/devops-dudes/you-are-your-biggest-failure-48f3f389e97d
======
qubex
And to quote some of Despair.com’s all-time best Demotivators: The only
recurring factor in all of your failed relationships is you. It could just be
that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
~~~
cblackthornekc
hahahaha, that's beautiful.
|
{
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In defense of the corporate jet - jsomers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/opinion/01garvey.html?scp=1&sq=mile-high%20office&st=cse
======
sgman
If I'm a shareholder, I don't want to see profits (ha!) invested in a
corporate jet. Fly commercial or better yet cut out travel altogether.
~~~
pfedor
I don't think it's the best use of the CEO's time to wait a couple of hours
for the connection every time there's no direct flight from point A to point
B, or wait 1h for the checked-in baggage to arrive (more than once if it's an
international flight to the US with a connection in the US). I also don't
think it would be good for business if they miss meetings every time they miss
a connection. I'm not talking about waiting in the check-in line or for the
security, because I assume people flying first class don't do that--but
there's no way first class can save you from missing connections.
~~~
donaq
You have a point, but then again, I don't think it's the best use of the CEO's
time (or the company's money) to fly somewhere just to talk to people (some of
whom have also flown there) when there are things like video conferences,
emails and IM.
~~~
gravitycop
Indeed. Why fly, when one can instantly Halo?
[http://www.hp.com/halo/pdf/Halo_Collaboration_White_Paper_3_...](http://www.hp.com/halo/pdf/Halo_Collaboration_White_Paper_3_21_06.pdf)
[PDF]
_Travel almost immediately declines, which is why many believe that the
decline in travel costs alone constitutes Halo’s return on investment. [...]
While Halo has proven to reduce travel costs, it is also reported to bring new
levels of group productivity. As informal social networks begin to meet in
Halo rooms, they accelerate innovation, problem solving and project
completion. [...] Face-to-face interactions that occurred quarterly or semi-
annually now occur on a daily basis allowing informal social networks to
flourish. Travel time and its physical effects on individual productivity are
eliminated. Finally, loss of productivity from being away from the home office
is avoided, while improved quality of life is realized, both of which
contribute to productivity on the job._
~~~
anamax
> Indeed. Why fly, when one can instantly Halo?
Do you always take a vendor's claims as gospel?
Me - I have a strong bias toward whatever decision is made by someone who has
significant skin in the game. Sure, they make mistakes, but they've got far
more relevant experence and incentive to get it right than someone in the
cheap seats.
If you think that Halo is usefully better, use it and drive the fossils who go
face to face out of biz.
~~~
gravitycop
_I have a strong bias toward whatever decision is made by someone who has
significant skin in the game._
The people with skin in the game are using telepresence, instead of flying.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470063>
_High-definition (HD)-based video meeting services will replace 2.1 million
airline seats annually over the next three years [...] Gartner was saying the
technology would take away $3.5 billion from the airline industry - this year.
And that's just airline tickets. The total figure of corporate savings would
also include room, board and other travel-related expenses._
|
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SQL Server 2017 Announced. Called “A new database world order” - bobwardms
http://www.zdnet.com/article/review-sql-server-2017-adds-python-graph-processing-and-runs-on-linux/
======
r721
Looks like some kind of spam attack is going on - 20+ submissions from new
accounts in 24 hours:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=zdnet.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=zdnet.com)
------
BrentOzar
Look at you, Bob, here on HackerNews! I never thought I'd see the day. It is
indeed a new database world order, heh.
------
bbrauer100
Awesome! It's great to see MSFT embracing open source on so many levels! -Ben
------
bobwardms
Just following your lead Brent.
|
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Why I Don't Like Metro [Microsoft] - What Games Are - tadhgk
http://whatgamesare.com/2012/01/why-i-dont-like-metro-microsoft.html
======
tedsbardella
Metro is sounding a lot like Microsoft Bob. I loved Bob it was very
interesting and fun for a couple of minutes
|
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Ask HN: What should you do or avoid when pivoting a startup? - aliabd
Stories welcome
======
chriscatoya
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking a pivot is a failure and therefore
bad. What’s important is that by killing an idea, you’re giving yourself a new
opportunity rather than chasing after sunk costs.
Fear of failure is very common and it’s a huge inhibitor from ever starting-
and this is much worse. You want to set the culture that embraces failure for
what it is: a time to assess, take stock, and move forward with a better
understanding and course of action. You want to encourage faster recognition
of mistakes and removing any shame or stigma will make it easier. This pivot
is actually a good time to treat the team to a nice meal and celebrate the
progress. You’ve learned and grown together over the course of that journey
and enough to know there’s something better. This also means that when you
talk about this pivot in the future to potential customers and investors, you
have nothing to apologize for if you all did your best. Focus on how these
experiences make you an even better fit to solve the problems you’re focusing
on now.
------
muzani
Pivots are like scientific experiments. You should have a hypothesis that
you're testing with every pivot. Business Model Canvas is great for this -
just pick something and pivot on that, see if it ends up better.
The goal of a startup is Product-Market Fit, which is where you're exhausted
because people are trying to throw money at you and you can't keep up with the
demand. If you're the one throwing money at them, you probably have to keep
pivoting.
My favorite source of inspiration is to look what people are hacking together,
but badly. If people are building Facebook Groups around remote work, that
suggests that there's demand for remote work sites. If people are taking
months off production to integrate chat into their site, that means the
current chat SaaS solutions aren't doing the trick.
~~~
aliabd
Thanks, the 'bad hacks' is actually really dope.
------
davismwfl
Don't pivot partially. There are varying degrees of pivots of course, but if
you are having to pivot because a market or idea didn't work out, commit 100%
to it. The worst thing you can do is partially commit where you don't fully
push forward in the new direction and try to keep a foot in the old
idea/process for fear of losing what little you had.
Partially committing almost always will create a failure, or at least delayed
or more costly success. It can be scary to pivot, in fact the more success
you've had the harder it gets to pivot but many times it is more important
than ever at that point.
------
smt88
Pivot before you're desperate (meaning nearly out of cash). Someone else said
not to pivot partially, which is bad advice. Some VC-backed companies can do
this, but it's usually after a spectacular B2C failure. Most companies
don't/shouldn't do it.
A pivot can start as small as a phone call with a trusted client or an
employee hackathon. You don't need to throw existing cashflow away to test it
out.
If it's vastly different from your old product, create a new LLC and brand. If
not, create a new product under your existing name. Either way, reuse your
relationships, staff, etc. and start talking to clients.
------
psyklic
Many of our part-time team members lost motivation after our first pivot. They
were first sold on the original vision, and they did not see that same vision
in the product we pivoted to. Others believed we pivoted too quickly without
fully giving the first product a chance.
So, I would make sure that everyone on the team gets to participate in the
pivoting process, including realizing for themselves why a pivot is necessary.
Also, make sure everyone realizes that the overall company vision and values
are still there, even though the form of the product has changed.
~~~
gwbas1c
> Many of our part-time team members lost motivation after our first pivot.
> They were first sold on the original vision
Perhaps you grew too quickly? IMO, part of a successful pivot is making sure
you don't grow too quickly before you find product-market fit.
Perhaps you pivoted too far? IMO, a lot of early-stage companies can pivot
without changing the general vision.
I think it's important that the vision and team are flexible enough that
pivots within that vision are anticipated and tolerated.
------
matijash
My advice would be when you pivot, to stay in our choose the area that you are
personally interested in / have domain expertise in.
Our story: we started with a pretty tech-oriented idea (since we are
engineers) in the events space, but then pivoted to more biz-oriented idea -
the main challenge became to sell a solution, not to build it.
That worked initially because we were addressing a real problem and we got
initial customers, but when things became hard it was much harder for us to
stay motivated - there was no tech part we could be excited about and we also
knew little about events industry at first, so we had to learn it all from
scratch.
So my advice would be always try to choose something where you have that
intrinsic motivation that will keep you going, rather than following what
feels like the "best" market opportunity at the moment.
|
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|
I Am Community (And So Are You) - neeharc
http://blog.shoutt.me/post/51573499503/i-am-community-and-so-are-you
======
hashgowda
Recently back in Bangalore a guy started harassing a family consisting of
Mother & daughter by tapping on the door & window @ 1am, 3am in the night.
Couple of calls to Police has not solved the mystery yet. It would be nice to
have this app to alert the neighbors and nabbing him without a squabble.
|
{
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}
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Show HN: Find out if you’re being paid fairly and help to reduce pay inequality - ngranja19
https://knowyourworth.site/
======
ngranja19
What is KYW about?
KYW is an anonymous way for people to openly discuss their wages because we
believe that sharing salary is the best way to eliminate existing pay gaps in
society.
Why did I decide to build KYW?
\- Talking about your salary can be considered taboo. But how do you know if
you’re being paid fairly without salary transparency?
\- Discussing your salary information with your coworkers can lead to serious
problems at work. While it's not technically illegal to discuss your salary,
this talk could damage your workplace environment and get you in trouble with
your employer.
\- You’re starting at a new job and trying to understand how much you should
earn.
\- The gender pay gap, also known as the gender wage gap, is one of the most
pervasive financial issues for women in America. In 2017, women in the U.S.
earned just 82% of what men earned.
How KYW solve those problems?
\- Sharing salary has proven to help eliminate existing pay gaps in society,
including gender pay gaps and pay gaps between different social, economical
and ethnic groups.
\- Knowing what others in the same situation or similar roles earn can give
you a sense of your worth without having to ask a colleague.
\- Transparency can expose discrimination. We can find a trend of certain
classes of employees being paid less than others, such as a gender or age
group.
So if you are interested in seeing what other people in your similar situation
are earning or you are happy with your salary but you want to support
equality, you all are invited to visit
[https://knowyourworth.site](https://knowyourworth.site). I'd appreciate any
kind of feedback or showing some support sharing it ! Cheers,
------
imauld
Thanks for including transgender as an option but users should be able to
choose both male/female/non-binary and transgender/cisgender. I identified
myself as transgender in the survey but I would have preferred to ID as
transgender woman.
Neat project!
~~~
ngranja19
Oh sorry for my ignorance I didn't know that. Thanks for your comment and glad
you like it!
|
{
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Supposed creator of Bitcoin gave a speech on the history of the technology - ca98am79
http://www.businessinsider.my/nick-szabo-ethereum-bitcoin-blockchain-history-satoshi-nakamoto-2015-11/#GWKS300eqT2eAQUh.97
======
Alkim
REALLY bad article. Don't waste your time.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Space Invaders in Perl 6 - szabgab
http://ttjjss.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/new-game-space-invaders/
======
peteretep
> Parrot can run this, but awfully slow and JVM has a bug
> that makes it impossible to run the game.
For those unfamiliar, Perl 6 can now run on several backends: the JVM, the CLR
(.NET/Mono), and a couple that have been purpose built, MoarVM
([http://moarvm.com/](http://moarvm.com/)) and Parrot.
Perl 6 isn't finished, but it's much further ahead than one might think ...
[http://rakudo.org/](http://rakudo.org/)
~~~
microtherion
Bullshit.
Top article there right now is "A useful, usable, “early adopter” distribution
of Perl 6". Sounds lovely, doesn't it?
The problem is that these "early adopter" distributions of Perl 6 have been
released regularly since mid-2010. The first "early adopter" Perl 6 book was
released in _2003_.
Generations of Perl 6 hackers have joined the project, re-written a key piece
of the infrastructure, broken a bunch of APIs, and left again. If it hasn't
happened already, we will soon see the CHILDREN of Perl 6 hackers born during
Perl 6 development start doing half-baked infrastructure rewrites.
I don't expect the project to ever converge on a stable release. Early adopt
it all you want, but don't claim it's "further ahead than one might think".
~~~
tadzik_
Thankfully or not, your comment is so full of bullshit, FUD and exaggerations
that it's not going to fool anybody. Try being less poetic and more to the
point next time.
~~~
Pacabel
How do you figure that? That comment that you replied to matches reality very
well.
Perl 6 is nearly 15 years old now. There have been many attempts to implement
it during this time, and none of them have really been usable like Perl 5's
implementation is.
I can recall hearing about Rakudo Star, Pugs, Niecza, v6.pm, Yapsi, and
Sprixel. There are probably others that I've forgotten about. And that's
ignoring NPQ, Perlesque, Parrot and all of the other intermediate
implementations and runtimes that have been dabbled with.
There has been a lot of wheel-spinning when it comes to getting Perl 6
implemented. It's like they've tried everything except the proven approach of
just writing a plain interpreter using C, like we've seen work well for
earlier versions of Perl, Ruby, Python, and so many other languages.
------
broodbucket
Assuming this is OP's project, can you explain what the JVM bug is?
~~~
tadzik_
Not OP, but the author here: the JVM bug is reported at
[https://github.com/jnthn/zavolaj/issues/38](https://github.com/jnthn/zavolaj/issues/38).
I could workaround it, but I dind't (yet) bother to do it.
So, not really a JVM bug, but rather a bug in Rakudo for the JVM. I'd fix the
readme, thanks.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How to visualize a Formula 1 race - CWIZO
http://mihafeus.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-visualize-formula-1-race.html?spref=fb
======
RiderOfGiraffes
This is what you get if you connect to the F1 live timing. It's live (as it
says) and updated in real-time during the race:
<http://www.formula1.com/live_timing/live_timing.html>
I always have that open during a race, because you get a lot more detail from
that than from the commentators. Some camera shots of the pit lane wall show
exactly that screen.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Digital Marshallese Sovereign - gist
https://avc.com/2020/03/the-digital-marshallese-sovereign/
======
freepor
I would also talk up idiotic concepts on my blog for his kind of money.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Facebook outs hacker with 1 million+ accounts - FluidDjango
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/05/facebook-ups-login-security-outs-hacker-with-15m-accounts.ars
======
kgrin
Of course the real trick is for Facebook to automagically _know_ the answer to
your secret question rather than having you pre-populate it like you do for
banks. That wouldn't be creepy at all!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
I Spent Two Years Botting on Instagram – What I Learned - mathgenius
https://petapixel.com/2017/04/06/spent-two-years-botting-instagram-heres-learned/
======
stOneskull
that's nuts and an enlightening story. i had no idea this was going on.
i think his photos are genuinely really good.
it'd be funny to see this experiment done with crappy photos.
------
elastic_church
Despite the "expose'" that author is behind the times.
There are even more effective ways to grow accounts faster, with real
followers.
Instagress can be complementary, if you want it to be.
The author's conclusions are also wrong or incomplete, such as why
Facebook/Instagram allow it despite being against their TOS. They're wrong
about how to effectively spot instagress botters, as Instagress is a HIGHLY
customizable bot and the obviousness is up to the user
~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Could you clue us in to your insight?
~~~
elastic_church
The instagram economy is booming and this is primarily a public service
announcement about the incompleteness of the author's expose'
The only nugget I can reveal is that many users have bought into a social
contract of rags to riches, "organic growth" from nothing, and just like real
society, this is the least effective and time wasting set of rules to play by.
~~~
soared
Can you share some more with us, or is this a 'I've made $50k on insta this
year alone - but I can't tell you my secrets. Unless you visit my website.'
~~~
elastic_church
its a "reject this subtle advertisement for Instagress as you saw how
effective it is despite the criticisms"
when there are obviously other competitors that don't take a bot approach,
shouldn't be that hard to accept
~~~
strgrd
What in the fuck are you alluding to, can you stop being so vague and offer an
actual criticism or insight?
~~~
builtinbuffalo
Its probably some combination of paid "shout outs" from popular accounts to
the new account they are attempting to build and reposted or shared content
where the popular account showcases a piece of content from the new account.
There are also likely to be large, influential, account networks that are real
and when used to boost a new account, very effective (I know numerous people
on instagram with multiple million+ follower accounts).
All of this is similar to content marketing and link building strategies that
have been effective for a decade plus.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Chrome Store Foxified – Install Chrome Extensions in Firefox - nozzlegear
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/
======
gcb0
wake me up when they reverse all that and I have firefox true extensions on
chrome.
remember kids, without the power of the old extensions and xul, we would never
have had firebug or dalvik debugger, the forefathers of todattoday dev tools.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Videogames Might Be Keeping Young Men Out of the Workforce - lumisota
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2017/07/13/videogames-might-be-keeping-young-men-out-of-the-workforce
======
digikata
Is correlation != causation not a consideration anymore? They should have
spent much more time seeing if the causation analysis was any good whatsoever.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
U.S. Army Exploring “Devastating” New Weapon in the Event of War with Russia - smacktoward
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/04/us-army-exploring-devastating-new-weapon-event-war-russia/136943/
======
leed25d
The thing to do is to put these things in orbit. Imagine a piece of tungsten
bigger than a phone pole dropping into your neighborhood from a height of 200
miles.
EDIT: It would not surprise me to find that I am not the only person thinking
about things like this.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Pair vs. Pair: Pair The App Is Being Sued By Pair Networks, The Hosting Company - dwynings
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/05/pair-vs-pair-pair-the-app-is-getting-sued-by-pair-networks-the-hosting-company/
======
pg
This is a lame move by Pair Networks. It reminds me of the days when Sun went
around threatening random businesses that had "Java" in their name. I'm glad
someone is standing up to these thugs.
~~~
shabble
One of the more ridiculous examples I'm aware of is Sparkfun:
<http://www.sparkfun.com/news/300>
In which, some lawyers hilariously try to argue that people might be confused
when trying to buy some SPARC hardware, and could end up with a crate full of
Arduinos, and the vague nagging feeling that it's going to take more than a
beowulf cluster to placate their C*O.
------
staunch
I've known about Pair Networks for at least 10 years. I didn't for one second
think that a new social networking app named Pair had anything to do with
them.
I can't say I'm _totally_ unsympathetic towards Pair Networks though. If I was
Pair Networks I would probably be annoyed that a Pair social networking app
was getting popular. Then again I'd probably be hoping they became a billion
dollar company so it would make sense for them to trade me a $10M+ chunk of
equity for my domain.
I definitely wouldn't sue them though. Being annoyed doesn't justify being a
bully.
~~~
rdl
They must defend their trademark in order to maintain it. Maybe this is enough
of a grey area that they could have let it pass, but letting your trademark go
generic can be bad for some companies. I don't know if there's a way to do
this without suing, but maybe contacting trypair directly and getting
something in writing that trypair recognizes pair Networks priority in
(hosting, etc.) classes and will never enter those classes under the name
Pair, would be ok.
(in practice, I don't think pair needs rely that much on their trademark --
people don't really shop for hosting services casually, and the canonical
domain pair.com is an adequate identifier).
This seems like a reasonable civil disagreement where no one needs to actually
pitchfork either side.
------
antidoh
When I first heard of Pair, I thought it was Pair. So I'm not surprised.
~~~
cperciva
Agreed. As soon as I got past the "why on earth is Pair joining YC?" and
realized that Pair wasn't Pair, my next thought was "doesn't anyone at YC have
enough sense to advise against using the name of a very large and well
established company?"
Starting a mobile software company called Pair and saying "but we're a mobile
software company, not a web hosting company" is like starting a motorized
bicycle company called General Motors and saying "but we're selling motorized
bicycles, not cars". I don't know or care what the lawyers are going to make
out of this; it stinks no matter who wins.
~~~
pg
It's more like starting an ice cream company and saying you're not making
cars. The two companies are in completely different businesses.
~~~
cperciva
Your analogy is only valid in a world where an ice cream company could pivot
into making cars without anyone blinking (except for the occasional blog post
about how free ice cream is evil because the company behind it might decide to
start making cars instead).
~~~
pg
Are you claiming that Pair Networks could pivot into being a mobile app for
couples? Or that Pair could pivot into being an ISP? Because they both seem
equally unlikely.
~~~
cperciva
Yes, they both seem unlikely. But I never expected an MMORPG or a mash-up of
foursquare and mafia wars to turn into photo sharing websites... or for a
group of people who want to put art galleries onto the web to end up building
retail stores.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but at this point I'm not convinced that the
words "internet startup", "unlikely", and "pivot" belong in the same sentence.
------
zdw
I'm a long term user of pair.com's service, and my feelings are mixed on this.
I tend to think that "Pair" is no more unique than the "Scrolls" term that
Mojang/Bethesda were arguing about in the games area recently.
In this case, the product types are even more different (dating vs web
hosting).
Personally I think that Pair (the dating app) was pretty dumb by picking that
name when they don't own it as a domain - historically I've disagreed with say
37signals and their arguments that owning the obvious domain names of their
products not mattering. It does matter, whether or not you buy into "everyone
uses search to find things", if only to reduce the likelyhood of phishing
attacks.
In short, don't confuse people. Don't launch a product with a name that is
someone else's domain (unless it's a scummy/obvious squatter). Do own the
domain that corresponds to your product. This make sense, other things
generally do not.
~~~
chc
It sounds nice, but in practice, this advice is basically a more positive way
of saying "Choose a horrible name that's impossible to remember" — because
those are pretty much your only choices. All simple words are taken. A huge
amount of sensible phrases are taken. You can get creative and go the Dribbble
route, but now you get the downside of not owning the domain most people
expect _and_ the downside of having a horrible name.
------
michaelpinto
I hate to say this but since I started using pair.com back in 2002 anytime I
hear the name "pair" they're the first company in the tech space that comes to
mind. But of course I'm an old timer around these parts...
------
easp
I have mixed feelings about this. When I first heard about the Pair social
app, it was in the context of a discussion about social apps, and I never
thought about Pair.com.
Since then though, about half the time I've seen or heard me tionof the new
Pair app, I've had confusion about how Pair.com is suddenly a topic of
conversation again.
For what it is worth, I used to be a Pair customer, but ditched them for
Linode in search of better Wordpress price/performance.
|
{
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}
|
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