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Twitter founders address all-staff meeting on eve of IPO filing (photos) - xadxad http://qz.com/131651/photos-twitter-founders-address-all-staff-meeting-on-eve-of-ipo-filing/ ====== xadxad Notable absence is Noah Glass (imho) - the 4th cofounder pushed out in 2006	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best company structure for a CA resident running a lifestyle business? - ericvorheese My side project has been growing pretty quickly, and I'm making it my full-time focus. I'm the only owner (I do plan on having employees), I have no plans to ever raise money, and I'm a CA resident.<p>What's the best way to setup the company so as to minimize my tax burden? ====== RScholar LLC is definitely the most flexible business structure currently available, but it comes with a high price tag in California (>$1k once you've paid the attorney, and that's every year). Depends on how good your margins are and what kinds of things you'll be having your employees do, but if liability exposure isn't a big concern, hang onto DBA status as long as possible. California is an amazing place to live, but a lousy place to be in business. If you're not tied to your current location, the best advice you'll get is to get setup in Nevada ASAP. Your balance sheet, stress levels and sinuses will all thank you often and profusely if you do. ------ downrightmike Doing business as or llc will have the same pass through income tax. You're probably already doing dba. You can have a 10 million llc, there's no limit. LLC will protect you better and if you want, later you can make it an s-corp. Find a good CA CPA and a book keeper.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
"We have hard/challenging problems" replacing "Looking for Ruby Ninja"? - sebilasse It seems that this years "we have hard/challenging (technical) problems" is replacing last years "looking for programmer Rockstars/Ninjiutsu-Ninjas".<p>Am I the only one that gets slightly annoyed by these generic drink-the-kool-aid slogans? ====== noonespecial Not at all. I just make sure to fill in the blanks when reading. It goes like this: We have hard/challenging (technical) problems _that are mostly of our own creation and despite hiring you specifically to solve these problems, you will by no means be allowed by your managers solve._ No only is it good for a chuckle, but its a nice reminder that on the balance, anyone who hires with catch phrases is probably not somewhere you want to work. Hire with catch phrases, get resumes full of buzz with absolutely no fizz included to go with that buzz. ~~~ glimcat I know it's usually that, but it's at least nice to see them trying to figure out what motivates people. I'm still much more likely to bite if they actually say straight out what a few of those problems _are_ instead of spewing a list of every library used in their stack and asking for 5+ years experience with them when better than half haven't been around for more than two. If it's legitimately interesting work, I'll happily learn any and all tools necessary to do it. ~~~ bluedanieru The magic word in your post is _interesting_. Everyone has hard problems to solve, and most of the time those hard problems are borne of stupid decisions made 5 years ago by people who don't work there anymore. Then perpetuated by people currently working there who will, as pointed out, completely defeat at least half your efforts to make any actual useful progress. I work on hard and challenging problems, which are by no means interesting, and I've often contemplating throwing myself out of a window just to experience some new shit :-) If you have _interesting_ work, let's talk, but you probably don't. ------ wavephorm They can't exactly be honest say "we used Rails and didn't build this right so we need someone who knows what they're doing to fix it for us, oh and we're VC funded and offer generous 0.25% equity vested over 4 years"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How to persuade a traditional Java company to use Node.js - bodelecta I realise this is a very subjective topic but IMO node.js from a development point of view, is much faster to market for a traditional web app than a Java application.<p>There's been many blogs and topics over the last few years espousing why it's a more productive environment to work in. I'm sure Amazon and possibly Ebay 3 or so years ago officially blogged the benefits of using node.js for prototyping applications in the sense of agile development. I can't remember exactly but I think Amazon wrote how they were able to reduce their development resource requirements to 10% of what was needed previously by Java developers (for a particular app they wrote), using the same developers after they were retrained.<p>I love the fact that I can write isomorphic applications and debug them both front and back end in the same environment. For many Java/C# etc developers this loose typing and functional type programming is alien to them but IMO, developers once they understand the language semantics, should be able to cope with that easily. I'd like any opinions from others who've worked in the same legacy environment and moved to node.js to discuss the pro's and cons.<p>For me, there are a few cons. Moving to a weakly/loosely typed language. No precompilation. Functional/callback design. An ever changing world of ECMA compliance. Lack of tooling. I can argue all day the opposite of those cons (e.g. typescript) but one of the issues I struggle to defend is the churn rate in any libraries you depend on. I wholly support express.js becoming the standardised web framework API in the node.js foundation, however there's huge churn in the number of required libraries you may depend on and which inexperienced devs may add without researching their suitability or how stable they are.<p>NPM is great but those modules might be useless in 6 month, a year or later depending on how they're supported. ====== cdnsteve When considering bringing in a new technology, start off small. Start tinkering on something with low risk, low profile. Heroku is a great place to put an app you're working on, without having to also worry about the hosting stack side of things. Often, getting people to think about new technology is about showing them what you can do with it, after actually building something useful they see value in. It's about winning people, not winning technology. ------ moondev you could always run node on the jvm [http://nodyn.io/](http://nodyn.io/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
One Medical S-1 - coloneltcb https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1404123/000119312520001429/d806726ds1.htm ====== karl11 Medicine comes down to human-to-human interactions (doctor and patient) and those are really hard to scale. One Medical is basically a novelty offering nice offices and predictable visit times. It takes some of the most common complaints you have about your doctor and removes them. In my experience, the quality of doctor was incredibly low, however, the quality of doctor will not be super important to you if you are 25-40 years old because you're probably pretty healthy on average, especially the young working professionals likely to be One Medical clients. If you actually want good medical care, over your lifetime, your best bet is to build a strong relationship with a good doctor. If you also want to never wait, concierge medicine is where you ultimately need to be (doctor is trading off a higher volume of patients for a fee to a small number of patients). ~~~ dbcurtis > In my experience, the quality of doctor was incredibly low, Hmmm... never would have guessed that. In my experience, the One Medical doctor that my wife and child see is excellent. I've met him and think he is great. A colleague is also extremely pleased with her One Medical doctor. Maybe you just had bad luck with your doctor selection? I don't mean to invalidate your experience, but it certainly varies from my experience. ~~~ Godel_unicode I'm always really curious what people mean when they say a doctor is "great". Is this just biases about smiling and seemingly having it together, or are there medical aspects to the greatness which set them apart as doctors? How does an average person know if your doctor is, in fact, doing a good job? ~~~ mantap A good doctor is one who pays attention. I've met my fair share of bad doctors who are overworked and just are not paying attention to what they are doing. Then they end up making mistakes, such as misdiagnosing a condition, prescribing the wrong medication, etc. It's hard for the average person to know if their doctor is doing a good job until something goes wrong and it's too late. My doctor now is excellent, he's excellent because he actually listens to what I'm saying. That doesn't mean he always agrees with me, I would hope he doesn't! But at least he is paying attention. Many other doctors seem to go into a _keyword search_ mode when listening to patients. It's the difference between reading a page thoroughly and skim reading it. ~~~ utopian3 Same. I have a GP who takes 40-60 minutes per patient, and gets into detail of what’s going on. I felt he truly cared. Compare that to the ~5-10 minutes of my previous GP ------ nknealk Interesting snippets from the footnotes: “ For the year ended December 31, 2017 and 2018 and the nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2019 (unaudited), the Company had customers that individually exceeded 10% or more of the Company’s net revenue...For the nine months ended September 30, 2018 (unaudited), individual customers accounted for 15% (Customer A), 12% (Customer B), 10% (Customer C) and 10% (Customer E) of the Company’s net revenue. For the nine months ended September 30, 2019 (unaudited), individual customers accounted for 14% (Customer A), 12% (Customer F), and 10% (Customer E) of the Company’s net revenue.” “Certain of the Company’s investors are also customers of the Company. The Company recognized revenue under contractual obligations from such customers of $2,112 and $22,273 for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2018, respectively, and $15,984 and $19,801 for the nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2019 (unaudited)” Sounds like they’re beholden to a handful of entities for the next year or two as they scale out. ~~~ JacobDotVI What happened to customer A and B? Edit: My question is what caused these corporate customers to churn? Did they maintain spend levels with One Medical while the other customers grew spend? Did they decrease spend below reporting thresholds? Did they stop using (or sponsoring) these services entirely? ~~~ cbhl It sounds like "customer" here is defined as "corporation paying for a bunch of its employees", and not "one poor person who had lots of doctors visits". Elsewhere in the S-1: "In 2017, 2018 and the nine months ended September 30, 2019, our top customers accounted for 42%, 37% and 36% of our net revenue, respectively. These customers included Google Inc., which accounted for 10% of our net revenue for 2018 and the nine months ended September 30, 2019." (Disclaimer: I work at Google, and they do pay for my One Medical membership.) ~~~ zndr Correct, CMd+F for enterprise and they outline a LOT of information about their sales to larger organizations. ------ chachra I love one medical and will not bother with anything else in the US if I can help it. They accept insurance, appointments start on time, it’s a paperless experience, I can get same day appointments. What else can one want? The doctors have great table side manners and are always professional. I have had 0 bad experiences and I hope they have a great stock market debut! ------ rcheu I like One Medical a lot, I hope they find some way to be profitable. Their doctors are far less rushed than any other GP doctor office I've been to, and their app is well done too. I've been confused how they're able to do this and not charge more than they do (only $200 a year). ~~~ TuringNYC Long-time customer here and totally agree -- they are awesome on timing. I think they do this _by virtue of having a system._ They seem to have a systematic effort thru the entire office of abiding by schedule appt times. Some of that is systematic scheduling to prevent overbookings, etc. I one time showed up 2min late and they sent me back home, that is when I knew they were the real deal. I'm so glad they did, because 1. I was never late again, and 2. I know they wouldn't be late for me in the future. I think many times when doctors are late, it is often because 0\. They have a cascade of latenesses with really just a single early appt that is actually late causing the domino of late starts and hence ends. 1\. They have a patient come in late or w/o appt, cater to them or "squeeze them in" One thing OMG has going for them is the generally professional clientele -- many of the clients dont want to arrive/leave later either, so that is good for everyone. ~~~ maxerickson I look forward to reading what you say after they are late for you in the future. ~~~ TuringNYC I dont think they are perfect and dont expect them to be. I think the difference is -- For most primary care practices i've used, lateness is expected and there is no design or system. For OMG, lateness is unexpected and designed out of the system. ------ ztratar Losing money per quarter like other tech companies, but I could see a bunch of knobs they can turn to make the unit economics profitable. Curious how this will all play out. ~~~ peteretep Guessing it'll be a phenomenal avenue for selling insurance or further medical services. ------ cgb223 Why do people use One Medical vs just having a doctor? Been thinking about my current medical care and wondering the advantages ~~~ chucky_z My answer is "Why doesn't everyone use One Medical _and_ have a doctor?" To laser-focus on the peninsula/south-bay in the bay area; going to PAMF or Stanford Medical typically results in a 2-3 day wait to see a Dr. If you're sick, you want to see a Dr asap. I have a doctor at PAMF, a doctor at Stanford Medical, and One Medical. If I am sick, I simply book an appointment at One Medical usually 30-min ahead of time, see them, get whatever treatment I need and go back home and be sick. When something is truly wrong I start at One Medical for temporary help, and immediately book either at PAMF or Stanford depending on who is available sooner. ~~~ nradov PAMF has several walk in urgent care clinics. You can also often call in and schedule a same day appointment with a primary care doctor (although perhaps not your regular PCP). ~~~ chucky_z I should add a caveat that One Medical is basically always the same price. I've had _really_ bad experiences with anything labeling itself an "urgent care clinic," and pricing. ------ surfmike The two times I used One Medical, me and the doctor just ended up googling my symptoms together. Don’t have a lot of confidence in their staff. It’s a nice idea though, although concierge care like this probably pushes health care costs even higher. ~~~ pxlpshr Direct primary care is (generally) much cheaper for better quality/more holistic care. I think DPC is particularly attractive if you’re a low utilizer on an HDHP and never hit your deductible. ~~~ surfmike Much cheaper than what? I also can get direct primary care through Sutter, and although the experience is probably worse (less time during appt, longer wait time) it’s probably cheaper than the concierge model of One Medical. At the very least it allows a doctor to scale to more patients. ~~~ JshWright Presumably they mean cheaper than using a fee-for-service PCP, but I don't really see how (especially in the low utilization car they mentioned... DPC makes more sense in high utilization cases, since the overhead cost is fixed) ------ alpb They highly cater to the corporate benefits market: > Historically, our revenue has been concentrated among a small number of > customers. In 2017, 2018 and the nine months ended September 30, 2019, our > top customers accounted for 42%, 37% and 36% of our net revenue, > respectively. These customers included Google Inc., which accounted for 10% > of our net revenue for 2018 and the nine months ended September 30, 2019. ------ rdl I love One Medical as a "walk in" option when visiting SFBA, Seattle, NYC, etc. For the discounted annual membership fee (available through various programs), it's even easier, even if I only use them once a year on average. ------ JadeNB The title seems almost incomprehensible. Is it meant to be "1Life Healthcare, Inc. Form S-1", and somehow the number-removal algorithm mangled it? ~~~ chimeracoder > The title seems almost incomprehensible. Is it meant to be "1Life > Healthcare, Inc. Form S-1", and somehow the number-removal algorithm mangled > it? One Medical is the name that most people know the clinic by, because that's how they present themselves to patients. ------ TrinaryWorksToo The way one medical records all phone calls creeps me out ------ trafnar A one Medical doctor "prescribed" me homeopathic medicine for my sore throat. I didn't realize what it was until I looked it up later. Other than that being a member was a nice experience. ~~~ jelling Had a similar experience with a one medical PA. ------ stevebmark Was anyone who works at One Medical actually told about this? lol ~~~ closeparen Announcements about IPOs are regulated; employees may have a general sense that an IPO is impending but generally get confirmation at the same time as the public. ------ asdfq1234 How much of their revenue can be attributed to their totally optional and very shady """annual fee""" they push on customers? ~~~ mosdl It's required, not optional last I checked. Similar to the Costco membership. ~~~ cgati They offer financial assistance as well as a limited access model which removes access to their mobile offerings and other value-add items. [https://www.onemedical.com/faq/membership-fee- alternatives/](https://www.onemedical.com/faq/membership-fee-alternatives/) ~~~ kolencherry I would argue that the predominant reason to choose One Medical for primary care would be the value added services included with the $199/yr fee.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What Can Prewar Germany Teach Us About Social-Media Regulation? - TheLastSamurai https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/germany-war-radio-social-media/590149/ ====== tomohawk History shows again and again that regulating speech just doesn't work, and has many negative consequences. The best thing is to leave people be to talk and interact. People are not machines that can be controlled so easily. If they cannot talk in an open way, they'll conspire in a hidden way, and possibly even resort to violence as a remedy to the oppression. They'll use the oppression to justify violence, and to gain sympathy with their cause. ------ SiempreViernes Clickbait title: the only lesson I can see presented here is that if you build infrastructure and a dictatorship takes over, you save them some effort. There isn't even an account of _how_ the nazis used the system in a new way, and certainly not even a _hint_ of a case that unregulated radio would have weakened the nazis. ~~~ repolfx The case for free speech preventing nasty dictators is an empirical one - America has the strictest free speech laws and has never been taken over by a dictatorship, Germany and other places had very weak free speech laws and was taken over repeatedly. Also, dictators are always very keen on censorship. To what extent it really helps them is a matter of debate; probably it depends a lot on how effective the censorship is for any given topic. ~~~ shaki-dora It's obviously statistical malpractice to draw conclusions from one or two datapoints. But anyway: the UK and France have arguably more restrictive free speech laws than Germany, yet they have far longer democratic histories than the US. It's also somewhat misleading to present the US as some sort of haven of free speech. Just look at the widespread "de-platforming" of anyone even remotely left-wing during the "red scare"/McCarty era. Or the FBI and other agencies' efforts to undermine both the Civil Rights movement as well as anti-war effort in the 1970s. ~~~ alephnerd Your statement that the UK and France had a longer democratic history is patently false. France was an absolute monarchy until the French Revolution in 1789 (which was a major splitting point between the Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton factions of the early United States), and the UK had a very limited form of franchise compared to the US until the Reform Act was passed in 1832, and even then it was still lacking due to the undue power of unelected, monarchy chosen House of Lords (though the US Senate as well didn’t have elections, but Senators were directly chosen by democratically elected governors) ------ anoncake > Goebbels quickly exercised power over the medium, because the state already > controlled its infrastructure and content. Unlikely. The Nazis exercised power over _everything_ , including newspapers, which previously were not state-controlled. Radio being privately controlled wouldn't have stopped them. If you want to read more, this was part of the process called "Gleichschaltung". The article apparently wants to use the Weimar Republic as an argument against restricting free speech. Which is interesting because the prevailing view here in Germany is that it failed because of _too much_ free speech. That's why the Parliamentary Council, which drafted the West German constitution, put into place certain restrictions. That's part of the concept of "militant democracy" which the article mentions, but plays down a bit. > Initially, Bredow allowed private companies to broadcast Private companies were not allowed to broadcast in post-war West Germany until the eighties. We had and still have public broadcasters (similar to the BBC) for that. Media law is a state matter to ensure a federal government hostile to freedom and democracy cannot take control of them. The private broadcasters hardly contribute to democracy. > “freedom of speech has boundaries.” That isn't quite what he said. He said that freedom of _opinion_ has boundaries. Which they do, but the difference is still important. Forbidding people from making factually incorrect claims does not restrict their freedom of opinion because lies aren't opinions to begin with. As the Federal Constitutional Court put it: "To knowingly spread incorrect averments that have been proven false cannot contribute to the formation of public opinion and is not protected by freedom of opinion by itself." ------ repolfx A good essay. Something it didn't seem to mention (or maybe it danced around it) is that one reason Hitler flew around in planes so much was he was completely banned from the airwaves by state censorship. Obviously that didn't stop his rise, which should (but won't) give pause for thought to those supporting deplatforming, hate speech laws and other modernised forms of censorship. I suspect the reason such censorship isn't effective is that by blocking a viewpoint from being heard you are implicitly agreeing that it must be correct. The logic is that if people heard this argument they would start to agree with it i.e. because it's right. That's why we need to work so hard to stop it being heard at all. So to anyone on the fence who doesn't have a clear opinion yet, the censorship sends a strong message that the victims of it are winning the argument, without giving anyone the chance to truly make their own judgement about that argument. ~~~ SiempreViernes > How far can the media protect or undermin edemocratic institutions in > unconsolidated democracies, and how persuasive can they be in ensuring > public support for dictator’s policies? We study this question in the > context of Germany between 1929 and 1939. Using geographical and temporal > variation in radio availability, we show that radio had a significant > negative effect on the Nazi electoral support between 1929 and 1932, when > political news were slanted against Nazi party. This effect was reversed in > just 5 weeks following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor and the transfer > of control of the radio to the Nazis. Pro-Nazi radio propaganda caused > higher vote for the Nazis in March 1933 election. After full consolidation > of power, radio propaganda helped the Nazis to enroll new party members and > encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti- > Semitism. \-- Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany, Adena et al. ~~~ repolfx I've encountered a paper before that argued the opposite, that Hitler's rallies didn't appear to actually have much impact on voter preferences, but now I can't find it. Too bad. Firstly, where did you get that abstract? It appears to be selectively quoted and also phrased much more strongly than the copy of the paper I found. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you got it from a different source to the paper itself: [https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=6120850860711060...](https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=612085086071106084126025107007023078006040020061071033076093083097072088066069082109101003043040006010034084025002117079065094061087094034004090103067083004123003030012051097123066028072092024012027124024103092111073112073002126064123084014094065024&EXT=pdf) The final two sentences which you missed out are _rather important_ in any discussion of the effectiveness of propaganda: _" The effect of anti-Semitic propaganda varied depending on the listeners’ predispositions toward the message. Nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-Semitism was historically high and had a negative effect in places with historically low anti-Semitism."_ Later the paper authors draw the obvious conclusion: _" This result highlights potential pitfalls of propaganda: it can backfire, if listeners are unlikely to believe its message."_ It's very unfortunate that this part of the abstract went missing - one might say it was censored to strengthen a political message ;) I also don't think this sort of pseudo-scientific historical analysis is much use overall, to be honest. No criticism for raising it though, as Adena et al are of course welcome to contribute their views to the debate. But consider the replication and statistical failures in fields like psychology and biology, where experimentation is possible. Now consider that this paper in the field of history, where experimentation is not possible, makes claims like this: _" In the absence of radio during the campaign for the September 1930 election, the Nazis would have got additional 4.1 percentage points, i.e., 22.3% instead of 18.2% of the total vote."_ Two problems with this. 1) The version of abstract you quoted claims "significant negative effect", but the paper itself says the opposite. It says the modelled effects on the outcome were "modest", "not big" and "such a small difference". 1) They specify precise numbers but can't possibly know this: it's wild conjecture made to look scientific by the use of extremely high precision. Modern opinion polling in contemporary elections routinely yields numbers far off the final result - we can't even accurately measure or model _things happening right now_ , but here they're making claims to 3 significant figures about a parallel universe that never happened, on the results of an election that took place nearly a century ago. It makes intuitive sense that campaigning and speeches have _some_ sort of impact on voters, if only to inform them of what politicians believe. But it's not clear that trying to censor such speeches works in an environment with many other ways for people to find out what candidates stand for, like word of mouth.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Fiverr Raises $30M for Online Services Marketplace - louhong http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/08/11/fiverr-raises-30m-for-online-services-marketplace/ ====== sgdesign Relevant: my post about my experiences hiring logo designers on Fiverr from last week: [https://medium.com/@sachagreif/in-the-past-couple-years- star...](https://medium.com/@sachagreif/in-the-past-couple-years-startups- have-started-realizing-that-good-design-can-make-the-difference-2fdeb90d390a) (HN thread here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8152631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8152631)) ~~~ Kiro I've bought a couple of logos as well and have been very happy with the result every time. After the first iteration I would give feedback and they would change it accordingly. I don't care if they based it on a template as long as they deliver something usable (it's $5!). It's either that or use one of the lousy logo generators out there. Even if all they do is manipulating a template it's still better than what I will ever be able to do myself. ~~~ gabzuka The problem is not if it's a template, it is if they're using someone elses work and passing it as their own ~~~ sgrove And actually, even the ones that sgdesign liked ended up being copies of existing logos: [https://news.layervault.com/stories/25882-the-5-logo](https://news.layervault.com/stories/25882-the-5-logo) There's a lot of danger and unnecessary pain in it for a founder having a logo that's a liability. Not uncorrectable after the fact, but why do it in the first place? ------ DonaldH My sole experience with Fiverr was terrible. I paid $35 to their highest-rated logo designer, who promptly delivered the worst logo I had ever seen. I'm not usually one to complain, but I was so unimpressed that I told the seller that I was not happy with the logo. His response was basically "I don't care. See ya!" I will never use Fiverr again. I've had much better luck with Elance. ~~~ rxdazn what kind of logo did you even expect for $35 though?... ~~~ DonaldH Nike's logo cost $35. Twitter's logo cost $15. I honestly didn't expect anything good, despite the satisfaction guarantees and "examples of past work" on the seller's profile. I expected to receive something very mediocre, and I was STILL disappointed. ~~~ willcodeforfoo In these cases, I think its less about the cost of the initial design but the hundreds of billions of dollars in marketing and advertising spent since building the value of the mark in our collective conscience. ~~~ DonaldH I completely agree. I was just making the point that it isn't necessary to spend a lot of money on a logo when bootstrapping. I've had logos created by designers on Elance for around the same cost and been very pleased with the results. ------ ghiculescu My prediction: consistent inflation causes Fiverr gigs to consistently decrease in value until they boldly "pivot" to Tenerr in 2020. It sounds like a joke, but seriously, the name of their business does seem like it could have some ramifications in the long run. ~~~ petercooper I don't disagree, but I've been continually impressed with how "pound shops" (dollar/99 cent stores in the US) have coped between the mid 90s and now. It seems advances in logistics, manufacturing and the ease of international trade have counteracted inflation to a certain point, at least when it comes to the cheap crud those stores tend to sell :-) ~~~ QuasiAlon J.C. Penny was founded in 1902 and for years everything in the store cost a penny :). Same goes for the price of coke that stayed at a penny for 70+ years :). So I guess in the very long run $5 isn't sustainable (and they're going at that direction btw... $5 is just the starting point nowadays) ------ imjk I see a trend of Hacker News envy emerging: The news of any startup (other than a Y Combinator company) that raises a large sum of money is derided and accompanied by a series of anecdotes of poor experiences. I think there's so much good discussion to be had about fiverr. They created this huge marketplace for low cost services. They have impressive UI. They provide a win-win for both buyer and seller. They provide a great case study on the foot-in-the-door sales methodology through their impressive upsell system. This is a very unique and original business idea that has been executed very well on many accounts. ~~~ imjk And just to add my own personal anecdote, I've had a very good personal experience ordering a design on fiverr. I ordered a logo for just the minimum $5 (FIVE DOLLARS!) knowing full well that I'd have to pay an additional $20 if I wanted the PSD file after. I considered this a relatively risk free way to get a logo concept (I'd pay $5 all day for logo concepts). I actually received two different logos -- both of which were surprisingly good -- and had the option to have one of them edited once more, which I did. I gladly paid for the psd file after. Also, the whole flow of the process through their UI was seamless too. ~~~ iLoch The trouble is that the likelihood of that logo actually being unique is extremely low. ~~~ coldcode I remember a HN post (I think) recently showing how most of the logos a guy ordered were ripoffs. ~~~ galenko I think it's the luck of the draw/poor selection of supplier. My girlfriend did fiverr logos for a while to build up a portfolio to be able to get reasonable clients and charge more. All her work was unique and very well researched. ------ kenrose Lots of discussion about poor experience with logo design. Fiverr has a lot of other services and I agree that it can be difficult to separate out the wheat from the chaff. As an anecdotal example of a positive experience though, I used Fiverr a few months ago to hire various musicians singing Happy Birthday in a video as a birthday present for my wife. Was the quality a bit amateurish? Sure. Did my wife care? No. Quite the opposite, she loved it. I think if people expect to get professional quality work from Fiverr, overall they'll be disappointed. However, for fun, personal projects, where production value is not prized, it's fantastic and I think this niche is where they can start to grow. ~~~ GFischer A bit offtopic: Great idea :) . It's really hard to find customized birthday presents (it was actually a startup idea that was floating around at several startup meetings I attended). ------ ihatehandles I've had great experiences with voice-over services etc, but I'm a bit hesitant with creative work like logos (most just run through online logo creators). I do earn some[0] though creating small AngularJS directives and services, pays for my Digital Ocean dev box [0] [http://www.fiverr.com/ihatehandles/help-you-with- angularjs-c...](http://www.fiverr.com/ihatehandles/help-you-with-angularjs- challenges) ------ collypops That's $29,999,995 more than it needed. ------ dbg31415 You get what you pay for. The cheaper, or more fixed-price, the service... the worse the quality is going to be. On the flip side... salesmen are liars... so... you're kinda screwed as a client. Anyway... $2.99 for a bucket of beef?! Sounds like a great deal... * The League / Yobogoya on Vimeo \|\| [http://vimeo.com/35722138](http://vimeo.com/35722138) ------ dharma1 I think the idea and user experience of fiverr is good but $5 is too little to get anything done properly. The people doing the work end up being ripped off and not caring. You usually end up paying the extras people charge on Fiverr to get anything remotely useful I've used it a couple of times for voiceovers - worked well if you can find the right person. ~~~ imjk Have you actually used the service before? They have a very good upsell service for order add-ons, a lot of them with fees much greater than the $5. For many sellers, the $5 is just a foot-in-the-door sales method to acquire the customer, much like the freemium model for saas companies. They may lose money on the initial $5 order, but they make much more on the percentage of customers who purchase add-on items. This is no different than other customer acquisitions strategies, if not cheaper. See how much you need to spend to acquire a design or voiceover customer via Adwords, as an example. ------ milge I can see people getting screwed on design/logos. That type of thing is a creative process. I've heard good things about fiverr from colleagues. I haven't used it yet, but plan on it soon for some voice work. I think something like voice work could work well since it's not really open to interpretation like design is. ------ seanwalker08 Fiverr is the harbor freight of online marketplaces. You can find gems, but its hit and miss. ------ donniezazen I have such a bad experience with Fiverr when it comes to purchasing Android icons. They usually return with either poor quality icons or literally stolen icons from internet. ~~~ astrodust It's a race to the bottom and you're surprised that's how they do it? ~~~ donniezazen But how can you justify stealing. ~~~ astrodust I'm not justifying stealing. I'm just saying if you're paying five bucks don't be surprised if people do. It's like buying a large TV on the street for fifty bucks. Would you be surprised if it was stolen? ~~~ donniezazen I don't mind bad service. What I mind is someone flagging my product because the service I used to get graphics sold me someone else's intellectual property.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Node Based Vector Designer Mac App - nthState Hi!<p>I've been working for a few weeks on a node based vector design tool.<p>It's non-destructive and exports to Sketch and Illustrator.<p>You can create graphs of Vector Nodes which feed into each other and produce a new Vector shape.<p>I've created a quick video on how to use the grid component, and also a longer video where I go other a few more features.<p>Longer overview: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM8fgL-ibjI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM8fgL-ibjI</a><p>Grid tool: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPYTu8_XwE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPYTu8_XwE</a><p>I wrote it in Swift 4.2, using Cocoa (It's a Mac app), It also uses Metal for rendering the canvas and a SpriteKit view for the node editor. ====== sunshineMoon That is really helpful - Thx	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Smart Home Surveillance: Governments Tell Google's Nest Hand Over Data - edejong https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/13/smart-home-surveillance-governments-tell-googles-nest-to-hand-over-data-300-times/ ====== ChuckMcM My hope is that this is another push toward on-prem data management. One of the things that the "computer revolution" spawned in the 90's was that there were a lot of "extra" computers around because everyone upgraded every 18 - 24 months. After a couple of rounds of upgrades, if you had kept the old parts, you had enough parts around to make another computer. In my house this typically became the "kids" computer and we would build it, them image it, and then use the image to restore it back to what ever it had been built to originally when the kids did something to make it non-functional. Of course after a still longer period you had upgraded that "previous" gen computer and now you had a left over previous previous gen computer. And typically what I did was put Linux on it and have it for running this that and the other thing. These days a RasPi 3 is about as powerful as that generation -2 computer was. Like a lot of people as my Internet speeds increased I started leaving computers on all the time as servers that I could access from anywhere. This was made easier (and without paying extra for a fixed IP) with dyndns, although these days it is easier still with IPV6 (no dyndns required if your ISP will give you an IPV6 prefix (so far this has been pretty easy). So I think a number of services you use "in the cloud" might be implementable as local services where it is harder for the Government to get its hands on your data, (or at least it would have to serve _you_ with a warrant and so you would know they were looking at you, an NSL doesn't work if the person being served is the person being observed :-) ~~~ oulipo This is exactly why we are building on-device private AI at Snips ([https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai), disclaimer: I'm a co-founder) We believe that the only way to have people trust AI is when we will make it possible to have privacy-respecting AI, we believe it is not only feasible, but it is our duty to build AI which respects people and is able to scale without presenting a danger to our societies ~~~ brian_herman__ Sorry man your site lost me at the token based app store... ~~~ JumpCrisscross > _lost me at the token based app store_ Same. Got excited, then saw it's shilling a coin [1]. From a branding perspective, this undoes the goodwill won by the privacy message. [1] [https://token.snips.ai](https://token.snips.ai) ~~~ oh_sigh Did you take a moment to understand why they are doing this with a coin, or are you just anti-crypto-coins altogether? ~~~ QuercusMax Care to explain it to us? There's nothing obvious I can see as to why they're using coins, and based on the recent stories about the SEC investigating ICOs, skepticism seems warranted. ~~~ oh_sigh Oh, I don't know, I have just heard of these coins myself. But based on OPs response it is hard to tell if they just dislike cryptocoins altogether, or if they read about the specifics and disliked the specifics of this one cryptocoin. ~~~ quickben You are missing the fact they are taking about privacy. ~~~ oh_sigh I don't see how privacy and cryptocoins are related. Some cryptocoins can enable privacy, whereas some can make privacy more difficult. My question is if OP has a problem with the specifics of this cryptocoin or if they just dislike all cryptocoins. ------ neumann Reading the article, wtf is a rap crew? And why do half of these sentences not make sense? Back in my day, journalism in forbes was still shitty but at least with coherent sentences. edit: A link in the article does inform me of 'rap crew' "O n a June day last year, a skinny, dreadlocked 29-year-old rapper known as Tony Da Boss lay in bed in a redbrick apartment on a tree-lined street in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was not the kind of place you’d associate with a million-dollar criminal conspiracy. But Da Boss (real name Damonte Withers) was a leader of the FreeBandz Gang, an amateur hip-hop crew of twentysomethings who were into much more nefarious activities than laying down tracks." jesus christ. get out of journalism and go write that pulp novel kicking around in your head. ~~~ stephengillie I didn't see any mention of the rap crew in the article... That blurb mentioning the rap crew was really an advertising blurb for another article. It just happens to be strategically placed between paragraphs of this article. ~~~ TeMPOraL Between this and sites where scrolling past the end of an article loads the next one, media companies are really fucking with people's ability to understand what they're reading. ------ lloydde The weekend submission of this article had a comment with a marketing to law enforcement video linked [https://www.dropbox.com/s/x83gyclt497fi8t/Ring%20Neighborhoo...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/x83gyclt497fi8t/Ring%20Neighborhoods%20Portal_1.mp4?dl=0) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18215293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18215293) ~~~ IshKebab Seems like a well designed system. Note if you don't watch the video - the police can only send _requests_ to users for video. The users can say no. ~~~ boxfire That is some "think of the children" legislation away from a rubber stamp subpoena system. Oh well, I don't assume privacy outside my bedroom anyway. Maybe not even in it soon enough. ------ yardie If your data is not end to end private key encrypted, then you are inviting the government in to look at all your shit; photos, documents, logs, everything. ~~~ wstrange We tend to view this as a technology problem. The real question: Why do we let governments get away with this kind of behavior? Fighting a technology arms race with the government is a losing battle. They can ask for private keys to be handed over - on threat of jail time if you don't comply. We need to start at the ballot box. ~~~ jliptzin I'm curious at what point people decide that the government spying on them begins to be ok? How does the average person feel about the following: 1\. A spouse going through your cell phone without your knowledge 2\. A landlord requiring cameras in all rooms of your house to catch potential property destruction 3\. A boss logging all computer activity at all times I'd imagine the average person would be pretty pissed about all of the above. At some point though, when it gets scaled up to the federal government effectively having the power to go through anybody's phone records, cloud data, email, search history, and now surveillance cameras, a lot of people seem to be okay with that, because terrorism. Terrorism is bad, but police states are worse, because at that point the government becomes the terrorist. If you're that afraid of terrorists that you're willing to give the government the power to spy on you (which is not even guaranteed to prevent terror attacks), maybe you should move to a rural location far away from any population center. Otherwise, it should be treated like any other crime. Perhaps we should think about why people become terrorists in the first place, and maybe get at the root of the problem, instead of increasing police power endlessly to try to solve the symptom and not the cure. ~~~ pjmlp As someone from the first generation to live in democracy after 41 years of dictatorship, I would say people ignore the signs and when they finally decide to start taking action is too late. ------ zby I am surprised that it is only 300 times - but this is probably because these devices are now bought by wealthy people who don't commit too many crimes or felonies. ~~~ spaceribs I'd wager white-collar crime happens more than street crime. It's known that it costs us between 250 billion to 1 trillion dollars yearly, but pursuing the crimes isn't prioritized by the FBI/IRS because of the costs of litigation, the possibility of destabilizing the markets, and the war on drugs/terror. ~~~ zby Interesting point - maybe they don't need home surveillance in these investigations that often? The case mentioned in the article as the first one was a white collar crime: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/12/how-a...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/12/how- an-amateur-rap-crew-stole-surveillance-tech-that-tracks-almost-every- american/) ~~~ tedunangst That doesn't really say much about what the prosecution learned from nest. ------ collias I was recently looking for some security cameras for my house. I was considering Nest, but the fact that they are owned by Google makes me a bit weary, privacy-wise. Does anyone have experience with other brands that you might recommend? ~~~ Forge36 I have a Synology NAS (I wanted an always on network backup for 3 PCs) it came with 2 free security camera licenses. The standard I found is ONVIF, my first camera arrives tomorrow (the software looks good, online support looks promising). Depending on features cameras are ~$25-$50 with the heavier duty hardware being ~$100 (there is also commerical grear you could easily spend $500 a camera) Here are the questions I'd ask in making your choice. 1) device storage vs onsite storage vs hosted remote (my dad wants to setup a system, I'm hoping we can share an off-site backup solution) 2) internet required vs CCTV (local lan only) 3) WiFi vs wired vs Power Over Ethernet (I'd prefer wired PoE, but I don't want to run cable at this time, I went wireless, this requires a phone app to setup in my case) 4) fixed camera vs pan/tilt (I'm planning a mixed system, pan/tilt for living room with fixed cameras looking at doors) Obviously this is putting most of the setup/maintenance onto you. If you're comfortable with that and setting up a network I believe this is the most privacy-wise solution as the data should never leave your house ~~~ imglorp Synology has been getting wierd, also, with privacy. A few updates ago, my private fileserver asked me to agree to a privacy terms of service. I'm considering airgapping it and ending updates. ~~~ imglorp I'm providing a source to above claim since it appears someone is skeptical. Reddit thought to take a screenshot. [https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/8mdioc/device_ana...](https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/8mdioc/device_analytics_whats_this_and_how_can_i_disable/) ------ Sharlin I think the time has come for a _The Wire_ reboot. Anyone else? Edit: Downvotes, why? _The Wire_ was a critically acclaimed series whose major themes included abuse of power, the use of technology to both surveil and evade surveillance, perverse incentives, and failure of institutions, among other things that are as relevant as ever in the post-Snowden era. But instead of pagers and burners we'd get tech circa 2018. ~~~ rdl A series where people used technical surveillance using devices like these (IOTINT? IDK what the term of art is yet), OSINT from online things like FB, various forms of legal process (civil, LE, NS, and extralegal), etc. to go after "terrorists" down to criminals of various crimes down to "enemies of the Party" down to "people who slightly antagonize employees of the Agency" to "for the lulz" would be interesting. More like Homeland than The Wire, though. Or, uh, Black Mirror. ~~~ Shorel If you want a total surveillance show, there's Person of Interest. ------ yters It's interesting how many hardware and software services are "in the cloud" now. For example Slack monitors the conversations of thousands of businesses, and there's no telling what they do with the data behind the scenes. ~~~ SquareWheel People who are concerned about privacy should read the policies which are designed specifically for them. [https://slack.com/privacy-policy](https://slack.com/privacy-policy) ~~~ janvidar Without being too cynical: There is what they say they do, and what they actually do. I'm not picking on Slack specifically here, but this is just healthy skepticism when dealing with cloud services all in all. All bets are off with governments involved. There are lots of compelling reasons for secretly disregarding the already set privacy policy. Including but not limited to patriotism, anti-terrorism, child abuse, human rights, crime or flat out regime criticism, political reasons such as opposition. Pick your providers carefully. You trust them more than you think. ------ StavrosK I love the Sonoff series of smart switches/plugs. They're super cheap, well- made and flashable with open source firmware (ESPurna, for example) that's secure and very featureful. ------ onetimemanytime Home..where you pick your nose, scratch your crotch, walk naked, have sex with the lady next door, get angry at your kids and so on. Why would I want all this stuff backed up at Google.com? No thanks, unless it has end-to-end encryption and only I have the key. Also I'd delete all items older than x days (unless on vacation, I'd know that I was robbed, no need to store months of "tape") ------ KaranRaut does google have a choice when authorities come knocking down? Maybe they should encrypt the data in such a way that only the user can decrypt it. We need to think about privacy as a design requirement and not something that is optional. Companies wouldn't do it because that is the only way they can monetize thier profit seeking craze. ~~~ azadal Reading the above comments, it seems that companies don't have much say when the government comes knocking.. Which is precisely why I think privacy should be a requirement and not an option in the design stage. The company heading towards that right now with the most advancements in technology is Snips. Data is stored on the device primarily. To help with AI(As an option), your data will be encrypted and sent to the developer along with all the data from other users as a whole big data(Data generating). ------ randyrand I'm a little surprised google does not use the user's password for encryption. Seems like they are inviting a very bad data breach in the future. ~~~ tyingq I imagine it's encrypted over the wire, but since the model is "processed in the cloud", it has to be decrypted to do anything useful with it. I suppose they could not log anything that could allow correlation to a user/ip, but that creates a different security problem. I don't see a real technical solution here other than doing all the processing locally. ------ EdSharkey > The company also noted it has never received a National Security Letter. > Such NSLs are typically filed by intelligence agencies looking for company > data. They also normally come with a gag order preventing businesses from > revealing their very existence. That means that if Nest ever removes its > disclaimer that it hasn’t received an NSL, it likely has been sent one. Whenever I read copy like this, I read it as "no dragnet this time, nothing to see here! Keep buying Nest and other great products from Alphabet, Inc!" But is it possible that no NSL was ever sent and Google simply provides a data feed of all relevant info and video to their national security partners? (A generously paid-for feed, of course.) I guess what I'm asking is, is an NSL required for Google to legally surveil its customers on behalf of the host government? Beyond sheer EULA license legal weasel-wording, I'm wondering if the fourth amendment restricts the US government from arranging for a dragnet-style data feed from some willing corporate partner. ~~~ cryoshon > I'm wondering if the fourth amendment restricts the US government from > arranging for a dragnet-style data feed from some willing corporate partner. it doesn't. NSA has had room 631 at AT&T for over a decade now. and, of course, everywhere else. there's almost certainly an API for government agencies that they can query without any new warrants -- think facebook, google, amazon, etc. i remember back in the day people used to say that these things were just conspiracy theories.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Choose Your Paradox – the downside of the Axiom of Choice - rutenspitz https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/thanks-axiom-of-choice-the-banachtarski-paradox/ ====== danharaj Constructive/Computable insights into variants of choice: [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/22990/choice-vs- countable...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/22990/choice-vs-countable- choice) The way mathematics is taught it's easy to think that there's only one notion of truth and logical justification. For mathematics of finite objects that can be a very compelling story. Once you let infinity in, and you will because infinity is where all the fun's at, there are a multiplicity of concepts of truth. The axiom of choice is an incredibly powerful statement about infinite objects in a system, namely logic, which is inherently finitary[1]. Any strong statements about how infinity works is going to imply bizarre things to us finite mortals. For example, if you assume the _negation_ of AC then you can prove that there's a collection of nonempty sets whose cartesian product is empty. Equally bizarre! AC and not AC are both independent of ZF, which makes sense because ZF is an axiom system for reasoning about monstrously infinite objects. Stronger infinities are harder and harder to say anything about. In a constructive mathematical universe (yet another notion of truth that's perfectly good), as usual, you have to be careful in how you state the axiom of choice. One formulation is a theorem and another implies law of excluded middle. The latter one ought to be considered the right importation of classical AC into constructive universes [2]. [1] There are infinitary logics but they don't magically allow you to perform infinite amounts of reasoning. All physically plausible logical reasoning is inherently a finite process. [2] [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/68d6/790cdbfda26cf71311e137...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/68d6/790cdbfda26cf71311e13756d87f164838da.pdf) ~~~ delhanty >For example, if you assume the negation of AC then you can prove that there's a collection of nonempty sets whose cartesian product is empty. Equally bizarre! Intuitively, that's not "obviously" false to me. Similarly, when I first encountered AC it wasn't obviously true to me. ~~~ yaks_hairbrush > Intuitively, that's not "obviously" false to me. That's fair -- intuitions are pretty personal things. It is "obviously" false to me, and Bertrand Russell fairly well articulated the reason why by calling AC the "multiplicative axiom". If you have sets A, B with 3 and 5 elements, respectively, the Cartesian product has 15 elements. So, if we have an infinite series of sets, each with at least one element, I'd expect there to be something in the infinite Cartesian project just by multiplication -- the number of elements should (and I say "should" here to clearly denote my intuition) be in some sense the product of each of the individual numbers of elements. (I avoided the word "cardinality" here explicitly because I'm talking intuitively). The idea that there's a collection of non-empty sets whose Cartesian product is empty is therefore akin to saying that you can multiply numbers bigger than zero and end up with a zero result. ------ DonbunEf7 Quote: "One possibility is to treat AC as a powerful drug and take it only when necessary. Theorems should come with consumer labels saying what went into them. So if you see a box on the shelf of 'Banach and Tarski’s Miracle Duplicator! Feed Multitudes!', it will say on the back of the box 'Contains AC'." Indeed, many mathematicians are sensitive to this and try to point out when they invoke the Axiom of Choice, and there are other mathematicians who deliberately seek non-AC-powered variants of theorems in order to put them on less nebulous and more constructive ground. Personally, I view AC as another reason to consider more generalized foundations of mathematics. For example, if you know anything about topoi, it turns out that we can view set theory as a topos on a point, and any topos on a complete Boolean algebra comes pre-equipped with an inherent axiom of choice! [0] [0] [https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/axiom+of+choice](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/axiom+of+choice) ------ ikeboy >But it also implies that ZF is consistent. This sounds nice, too, but is actually a disaster. It means that we can’t prove the consistency of AD with ZF (assuming the consistency of ZF). I don't think this is strictly speaking correct. For instance, Con(ZF) _itself_ trivially implies that ZF is consistent (which is literally what it says). But we can prove that ZF+Con(ZF) is consistent, assuming that ZF itself is consistent. (For that matter, we can prove that ZF+not(Con(ZF)) is consistent, again assuming that ZF itself is consistent. Don't ask.) So just because something implies Con(ZF) doesn't mean we can't prove that it plus ZF is consistent, assuming ZF is consistent. If ZF is allowed access to Con(ZF) it can prove a great many things that ZF alone cannot, without generating any paradoxes, as far as I know. I may be missing something, this always blows my brain. ~~~ kirrent > But we can prove that ZF+Con(ZF) is consistent Perhaps I'm naive, but doesn't that violate the incompleteness theorem? Surely you could only prove such a statement in ZF + Con(ZF) + Con(ZF + Con(ZF)) or something equivalent? In regards to what you quoted, the incompleteness theorem says that because ZF is provable in AD+ZF then AD is not provable in ZF otherwise ZF would prove its own consistency. ~~~ ikeboy You're not proving it formally, you're proving that if ZF is consistent, then that system is consistent as well. > AD is not provable in ZF That's not what it said. It said you can't prove the consistency of AD (presumably AD+ZF). But under the same conditions (assuming Con(ZF) that doesn't rule it out and definitely not for the reason it states. Edit: a meta proof that ZF+Con(ZF) is consistent if ZF is consistent: Suppose it wasn't consistent. Then ZF+Con(ZF) proves anything. But then we can prove not(Con(ZF) from ZF as well: 1\. Assume Con(ZF) 2\. Prove contradiction using ZF. 3\. Therefore, not(Con(ZF)), proof by contradiction. But if ZF proves that it isn't consistent, clearly it can't be consistent. But by assumption ZF is consistent. Therefore, if ZF is consistent, so is ZF+Con(ZF). I think this proof works but again, mind blowing material so I can never be 100%. ~~~ kirrent > Suppose it wasn't consistent. That means the model you're investigating isn't ZF+Con(ZF). It's ZF+Con(ZF)+Not(Con(ZF)) because you've added the extra axiom as part of your proof by contradiction. Obviously you trivially get not(Con(ZF)) from this model, let alone anything else via the principle of explosion. ZF+Con(ZF)+Not(Con(ZF)) is not consistent and it shouldn't surprise you that you can use it to trivially derive contradictory results. Ultimately, Godel's second incompleteness theorem says that you can't prove the consistency of a formal system within that system. The Wikipedia article is dense and awful to read but has a reasonably succinct statement of the theorem. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems#Second_incompleteness_theorem) EDIT: "mind blowing material" \- on that we can both agree. This is something I really wish I got to study more back in uni. Further editing to clean up some minor errors. ~~~ ikeboy >It's ZF+Con(ZF)+Not(Con(ZF)) because you've added the extra axiom as part of your proof by contradiction. No. It's ZF+Con(ZF)+not(con(ZF+con(ZF)). Which is, in fact consistent (assuming ZF is). ~~~ kirrent Of course! Thankyou, that makes me much more comfortable. ZF+Con(ZF)+not(con(ZF+con(ZF)) is an example of what's sometimes called the self hating theory, which is known to be consistent if ZF+Con(ZF) is consistent (you said much the same thing in your original comment). As it's known to be consistent, you can't apply the principle of explosion to produce Not(Con(ZF)). EDIT: Obviously I'm not really the sort of person to talk about this stuff with you because of how much of a neophyte I am. Perhaps this lecture would make it clearer? [http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec3.html](http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec3.html) In particular, the excerpts: The Second Incompleteness Theorem establishes what we maybe should have expected all along: that the only mathematical theories pompous enough to prove their own consistency, are the ones that don't have any consistency to brag about! If we want to prove that a theory F is consistent, then we can only do it within a more powerful theory -- a trivial example being F+Con(F) (F plus the axiom that F is consistent). But then how do we know that F+Con(F) is itself consistent? Well, we can only prove that in a still stronger theory: F+Con(F)+Con(F+Con(F)) (F+Con(F) plus the axiom that F+Con(F) is consistent). And so on infinitely. (Indeed, even beyond infinitely, into the countable ordinals.) On the other hand, again by the Second Incompleteness Theorem, ZF can't prove its own consistency. If we want to prove Con(ZF), the simplest way to do it is to posit the existence of infinities bigger than anything that can be defined in ZF. Such infinities are called "large cardinals." (When set theorists say large, they mean large.) Once again, we can prove the consistency of ZF in ZF+LC (where LC is the axiom that large cardinals exist). But if we want to prove that ZF+LC is itself consistent, then we need a still more powerful theory, such as one with even bigger infinities. ------ soVeryTired >the union of two minorities is a minority, and the intersection of two majorities is a majority Is that a typo? Shouldn't it be the other way around? ~~~ taejo The other way around is already implied by the previous property. Maybe it helps to consider finite sets. A finite set should clearly a minority, and the union of two finite sets, though bigger, is still finite; similarly, the intersection of two co-finite sets is smaller, but still co- finite. Minority and majority are generalizations of finite and co-finite, respectively. (A set is co-finite if the set of elements in some universe that it _doesn 't_ contain is finite). ~~~ soVeryTired Yep - I see it now, you're right. Thanks for the clarification. ------ ocfnash There are famously-many other axioms that can be added to ZF, and which turn out to be equivalent to Choice. Of the following three equivalent extensions to ZF: * Axiom of Choice * Zorn's Lemma * Well-ordering Principle Jerry Bona quipped: "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the Well-ordering Principle obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google+ API Launch Still Months Away - jdp23 http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/06/google-api-launch-still-months-away/ ====== lucisferre This is disappointing news. Watching G+ was a bit like watching a wave crash and roll back. My twitter feed actually slowed down for a few days while everyone played with the new kid, only to pick right back up again. The great thing about G+ is it seems to be popular with a few really interesting people I like to follow who post more to G+ than they did on Twitter. However the lack of an API is preventing wider use and adoption. Right now there is no convenient way to say integrate your own blog and while I actually use the twitter website a lot more now, 3rd party tools are still the most popular way for people to organize their multiple social networks together.. Of course I realize API integration has it's dark side too, mostly in the form of spammers, but it's a small price to pay for having a more active community. ~~~ AndrewDucker I agree. Google+ got a lot of momentum, and then it all slowed to a crawl. And once the real names stuff broke, and got it a bunch of bad press, the traffic seemed to slow to a crawl over there. I worry that they're going to leave it too late - that by the time they have a product worth having they'll have lost their customer base. ~~~ jdp23 They certainly seem to have thrown away a lot of their advantage from the brilliantly-executed launch. If they had followed up quickly, and avoided the real names rathole, they were on track for a huge success. Now it'll be a much tougher path. I still think it'll be at least semi-successful, but it doesn't seem as likely to take significant market share away from Facebook or Twitter any time soon. ------ pavel_lishin So, are there any ghetto homebrew APIs that just talk to Google+ via POST and GET requests? I've found something that lets me crosspost something to both twitter and Facebook, and it's annoying having to do it explicitly in Google+ as a separate action. ~~~ brlewis See the penultimate paragraph of the article. ~~~ pavel_lishin Looks like that just reads Google+ data, but doesn't actually post anything back to it. ------ wavephorm Shouldn't they have started with an API? Facebook tacked on their API later and look how well that's worked. Facebook's API is horrible, just figuring out how to use the login system is extremely painful. Google should have built an API first, and built their own Google+ website on it. ~~~ pestaa Any time I work with a Google API I am literally surprised how beautifully engineered they are. I trust Google on this one too -- so much in fact, I believe they already have such an API that the website is interacting with, it is just not mature enough to be publicly accessible. ~~~ georgemcbay Agreed 100%. The only issue I have with Google APIs is wondering if they might get cancelled. The actual APIs are a joy to use compared to most sites'. They are well designed, well documented, and mostly consistent across different products (once you implement something using one Google API, the rest look pretty familiar if you use them later).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why is quality of pseudorandom number generators important? - DrinkWater http://superuser.com/questions/712551/why-are-people-so-bothered-about-truly-random-numbers-instead-of-ones-generated ====== chriswarbo When I see the word "random" I parse it as "unpredictable", since this is usually what people mean (even if they don't realise it) and can clear up many arguments. The concept of 'random' is interesting in some cases, but the vast majority of the time it's _far_ stronger than what is required. In this case, the question is: > If a number generator is uniformly distributed, why might that not be > 'random enough'? If we rephrase this as: > If a number generator is uniformly distributed, why might that be 'too > predictable'? This makes the flaw obvious: there are many ways to choose numbers uniformly which are completely predictable. For example, choose the smallest value first, then choose a value which is furthest from any previously-chosen value (in, say, lexicographic gray-code order). The point here is that 'uniformity' is not the property we care about; it is a _consequence_ of the property we care about (unpredictability). If a distribution were non-uniform, we would be better able to predict it (by biasing out predictions to match the distribution), hence the least- predictable distribution is necessarily a uniform one. Other times this comes up: > Are quantum measurements 'truly random'? That's untestable, but we _can_ test whether they're predictable or not. > This encryption algorithm requires a source of random bits. It would work just as well with a source of bits that are merely unpredictable. > This strategy can only be defeated by a random opponent. It can also be defeated by an opponent which you can't predict. And so on. ~~~ sdevlin That is a good way to think of it. Indeed, that is how cryptographic randomness is typically defined. Simply put: given the first k bits of a random stream, can you predict the k+1th bit (more than 50% of the time)? A generator that passes this test will pass any statistical randomness test, but the converse is not necessarily true. For example Mersenne Twister is a good generator from a statistical perspective, but it's actually quite easy to recover its internal state by observing a small amount of output. (Around 20k bits, if I recall correctly.) ~~~ dalke > Simply put: given the first k bits of a random stream, can you predict the > k+1th bit (more than 50% of the time)? This definition isn't sufficient. Suppose you have a random stream, and one predictor which asserts the next bit is "1" and another predictor which says that next bit is "0". As k increases, there's a nearly 100% chance that one of the two predictors will be correct more than 50% of the time. Even if you pick a single predictor, say, that all-1s predictor, there's an almost 50% chance that for a given random stream and k that it will have better than 50% predictive ability. Just because Guildenstern's coin is heads 92 times in a row doesn't mean that it's not random. Only that it's very unlikely to be random. ~~~ sesqu > very unlikely to be random. Speaking of word replacements, "random" does not mean "uniformly distributed". An unfair coin toss is still random. ------ pygy_ put on hold as primarily opinion-based by Xavierjazz, Olli, Excellll, HackToHell, Tog 3 hours ago Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question. Stack exchange is broken. The question mixes up uniform distribution and randomness, but the answers are factual. There's little to no opinion involved here. ~~~ df07 Give the system time to work. It's already been taken off hold. ~~~ cruise02 No! A question got closed! The whole thing must be broken! ~~~ pygy_ Hyperbole sometimes helps to get the point across... The problem with Stack exchange is that it conflates heavy site usage with domain experience and maturity. Avidity for imaginary internet points and maturity are at best orthogonal. ~~~ bronsoja As a general rule across the web, I'd agree with you. Although, I feel like on StackExcahge (or at least SO) those with the highest scores typically gave good answers in their domain as judged by their community and would not commonly give any answers outside their domain that could be voted up simply based on user rep alone. I don't really have any hard data on this, it's opinion based on seeing _extremely_ good answers from high rep people regularly, and not being able to recall seeing poor answers from high rep users voted highly when they aren't actually useful. ------ Udo I've been running a virtual dice roller site for pen & paper roleplayers for about ten years. I get these kinds of emails _all the time_. "Your RNG is faulty, I just rolled three 20s in a row!" and stuff like that. It's probably not fixable psychologically, we're just seeing patterns everywhere. This also happens with physical dice by the way. If a player rolled two or more abysmal results in a row it's common to say "hey, you should really swap out these dice". ~~~ polymatter I've toyed with the idea of not using a fair RNG for games for this reason. People expect die rolls to converge to the average distribution much much faster than they actually do. So perhaps you can make a RNG program that does exactly that and does what the user expects, even if mathematically ridiculous. For example, if 20 is rolled then the probability of 20 being rolled again is halved (so it has a 1/40 chance) while the probability of its inverse is doubled (so probability of 1 is 1/10). This dramatically reduces the chance of the three 20s in a row scenario and would very quickly regress to the mean, just like people expect. Added flair for affecting the probabilties of all possible values subtly (so that after rolling a 20, a 2 becomes more likely and a 19 less likely). I'm sure I can't be the only person to think of this. ~~~ tfgg I've thought about the same for Settlers of Catan, which I think is too random if you use dice, disrupting people's ability to do more than basic strategy. I know there exist "dice" packs of cards, which contain the correct distribution of rolls. If you shuffle a few of those together, you'll probably get a nicer game. ~~~ ygra That sounds like a nice idea, actually. I hate those rounds where 11 or 2 occur more often than 6 or 8. I know it _can_ happen, but it can make the game rather annoying at times. ~~~ taeric I actually think that makes the games more fun. Especially so when you have a larger game so that there are people on those tiles. For me, it makes the game feel less "solvable" by basic analysis. Sure, statistically certain observations will hold. For the game you are in, though, you have to be ready to adjust your strategy based on what has happened. (Clearly not in anticipation of future rolls, but more based on the resources you have managed to get, not the ones you wanted.) ~~~ ygra Admittedly, we already tend to take the number planning a bit out of the game by initially turning them on the other side and you can only reveal the numbers to hexes you have built at (for the inital round of placing settlements/streets they are revealed after everyone has placed both). Makes for a nice variant where exploration holds surprises, or you can expand to hexes that are already known. ~~~ taeric I've played once with this variation. I liked it, not sure why we didn't let it stick. Of course, I haven't played at all in a long while. ------ jbert PRNGs (pseudo-random-number-generators) take in a small amount of randonmness (a seed) and produce a long stream of numbers from that. Anyone using the same PRNG can look at the output of yours and try to put their PRNG in the same state. If they succeed, the output of theirs will match yours - now and in the future - unless you re-seed. Two problems can occur here: 1) you seed with something they can predict. e.g. seconds since 1970 (or microseconds since 1970). If they have a reasonable sample of numbers from your system, they can try _lots_ of different seeds and see if they can find the one which gives the same output as you. 2) PRNGs have "internal state", which is a bunch of numbers they mix together. Some PRNGs have the property that if you can you can observe enough numbers in a row from the PRNG, you can turn them back into the internal state locally and then you can do the same thing as if you knew the seed (predict future numbers). ~~~ chilldream > you seed with something they can predict One of my favorite examples of this ever: Once in Las Vegas a keno machine mistakenly used a _fixed_ seed. Meaning once someone figured this out, he could show up when the game started for the day and predict what the machine would do with 100% accuracy. [http://www.americancasinoguide.com/slot-machines/the- worlds-...](http://www.americancasinoguide.com/slot-machines/the-worlds- greatest-slot-cheat.html) ------ aestra Take a look here: [http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.ph...](http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.php) They found a flaw in a REAL poker site because they were using a pseudo random number generator (and a stupid algorithm) and were able to know the order of the cards being used in the game! >The RST exploit itself requires five cards from the deck to be known. Based on the five known cards, our program searches through the few hundred thousand possible shuffles and deduces which one is a perfect match. In the case of Texas Hold'em poker, this means our program takes as input the two cards that the cheating player is dealt, plus the first three community cards that are dealt face up (the flop). These five cards are known after the first of four rounds of betting and are enough for us to determine (in real time, during play) the exact shuffle. Figure 5 shows the GUI we slapped on our exploit. The "Site Parameters" box in the upper left is used to synchronize the clocks. The "Game Parameters" box in the upper right is used to enter the five cards and initiate the search. Figure 5 is a screen shot taken after all cards have been determined by our program. We know who holds what cards, what the rest of the flop looks, and who is going to win in advance. ------ lutusp > Just say you code in any language at all to roll some dice (just using dice > as an example), after 600,000 rolls, I bet each number would have been > rolled around 100,000 times, which to me, seems exactly what you expect. Bad example. Because the author specified "some dice", we can assume more than one die, in which case some numbers have a greater chance to appear than others, in a series of fair "random" throws. It's a bad sign that the author of a piece about randomness isn't aware of the systematic behavior of his chosen example, a behavior biased in favor of certain outcomes. [http://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/NumericFractions/Num...](http://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/NumericFractions/Numeric_Fractions.faq.question.200314.html) ------ StavrosK The linked poker vulnerability article is really worth a read. ------ snarfy The idea of something being truly random bothers me because it goes against cause and effect. An effect happened without a cause. It violates laws of conservation, entropy, determinism, and a lot of other things. ~~~ lutusp > The idea of something being truly random bothers me because it goes against > cause and effect. Not at all. The fact that one cannot predict the next number in a random sequence is irrelevant to the fact that, in the long term, that number has a predictable relationship with other numbers in the pool of possibilities. For a random generator of the digits 0-9, can I predict the next number in the sequence? No. Can I say what the proportion of, say, 7s will be, within a large list of outcomes? Yes, and the larger the list, the more reliable the prediction. If your position had merit, quantum theory, probabilistic on a small scale, would be seen as violating cause/effect relationships, a rather important part of physical theory. But, because of the mathematics of quantum probability, individually unpredictable atoms become very predictable macroscopic objects. ------ mathattack Eric Lippert's answer is great. It isn't the distribution of answers, it's the predictability. In most cases it's ok if the distribution looks random, but in some it turns out not to be ok. ------ Aardwolf Ivy Bridge and newer CPU's of Intel have this new "random" instruction (I still have a Sandy Bridge CPU tho). Is that one truly random enough for crypto purposes? Thanks! ~~~ fhars It depends on whom you trust: [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we- cannot-trust-inte...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we-cannot-trust- intel-and-vias-chip-based-crypto-freebsd-developers-say/) ------ sturmeh The issue is that if you run the same program twice without selecting a suitably random seed you will make the same 60 million rolls. If you can somehow control, predict or influence the seed you can predict or influence rolls. For example if the game uses JUST the system time as a seed, I can shift the system time back to a specific position and run the application again to get the same random number generation. If you know the algorithm, for example you're playing an open source card game, and you can determine the time (offset) on the server or the other players computer you could cheat by calculating their random variables. Now it really isn't an issue in games, but it's incredibly important in security. Randomness makes up a huge component of encryption. That's why you have applications that require you to move the mouse a bit, hopefully randomly and they take in a whole bunch of other entropy fed in by the system. In Unix-like OS's you have /dev/random and /dev/urandom. /dev/random requires a certain amount of entropy and environmental noise, and it blocks on reads until it's satisfied with the output. /dev/urandom does not block, but it gives pseudo random output. For the purposes of security, /dev/urandom should NEVER be used. However neither are truly 'random'. ~~~ sharpneli But for any other purpose than generating private keys one should NEVER use /dev/random. If you're not sure use /dev/urandom. I've had to painstakingly explain to certain people why, as an example, erasing a HDD from /dev/urandom is allright. And why their program that simulates some random input should use /dev/urandom. But no, they babble about true randomness and then complain why they get like paltry few hundred bytes per second. Even if you have a server running casino games just use /dev/urandom/. It requires a total compromise of the server to get the internal state out of that, and in that case it's easier just to change urandom into /dev/zero. ~~~ blueskin_ If you need a lot of entropy, it's good to use a hardware RNG to keep the load down (and it improves quality). ~~~ sharpneli You should be careful when using word like quality in this context. Some might think that by quality you mean any kind of statistical property. E.g dice rolls generated by either of them are somehow statistically different, which they are not. What does this mean in practice: If I give you 10 10MB files. 5 of them created with urandom and 5 of them created using hardware RNG there is practically no chance that you could differentiate which came from which, barring knowledge of the urandom entropy pool. But it is true that HW RNG could be useful just to keep CPU load down. By now we know that those are backdoored by NSA, so you should still use /dev/random as a source for private keys. So HW RNG is useful just to keep the load down. Not to avoid any attacks. This is so important that I'll have to repeat it again: The only difference between urandom and random is that urandom is theoretically suspectible to an attack which could allow prediction of the output values if the attacked knows the internal entropy pool state. The statistical properties of both are the same. ~~~ blueskin_ Agreed that some (e.g. RDRAND) are potentially untrustworthy, but others aren't - for example, linux has daemons available that can source entropy from audio or video noise.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best Sales Training for an Engineer? - greatatuin Hi!<p>I run a small agency doing mostly enterprise mobile apps and web development. I'm an engineer first so I feel like I have so much to learn about sales to best run and grow the business.<p>Does anyone have any recommendations on good B2B sales training courses, books etc you got a lot of value from? ====== verdverm The Challenger Sale, To Sell is Human	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yelp University Dataset - adi92 http://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2011/09/calling-all-data-miners.html ====== PaulHoule Why not make it available to everybody? There's a lot of data mining talent in academia, but there's also a lot of us in the "real world" who follow what they do closely and add our own special twists because we've been doing data analysis for decades rather than teaching about it for decades. Why keep the data under wraps? I can't see the data being all that valuable to Yelp's competitors, unless somebody wants to make a niche out of have stale data about university towns. ~~~ ben1040 It might not be valuable to competitors, but I wonder if this data set would be useful for someone trying to write fake reviews that get past their filtering mechanisms. ------ andre is this the same dataset: <http://socialcomputing.asu.edu/datasets/Yelp> ~~~ truncs I think the dataset you mentioned only contains the yelp social graph ie it doesn't have the reviews and stuff. ------ rorrr > _you'll need to be associated with an academic institution to qualify for > access_	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Question that Harvard Students Get Wrong - jhull http://www.businessinsider.com/question-that-harvard-students-get-wrong-2012-12 ====== anon6567 Huh, I got it wrong, and I didn't go to any of the schools mentioned in the article, maybe I just stupid?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WTF is the Blockchain? - smb06 https://hackernoon.com/wtf-is-the-blockchain-1da89ba19348?source=linkShare-3e4d3e72fc4a-1498858843 ====== Frogolocalypse quite a lot of effort went into making something so complex seem so sillyly (have i just invented a word?) easy. There were a few complexities left out but it certainly explains the gist of it. The bitcoin implementation is slightly more nuanced. One thing he didn't touch on was the difference between nodes and miners. another thing he didn't touch on was the signing of your txns. Because that wasnt covered, the specifics of a 51% were not clear. A 51% attack can stop you spending your coins, but still can't spend your coins. You would need to control the nodes for that to occur. But still pretty good and it at least gets across the concept of the blockchain itself.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What happens if authorities seize your laptop? - drucken http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25458533 ====== joshka "Or you can scrub your laptop clean, storing everything on an external hard drive that you leave at home. Then you know you are safe from prying authorities, at least at the border." That is unless you believe that those prying authorities have the will and the way to leave an undetectable backdoor in your laptop. Breaking the chain of custody in any laptop today is akin to destruction of trust in that device. Who is responsible then for paying for this damage? ~~~ nhaehnle I would second this. We know for a fact that the NSA uses BIOS malware. I don't believe we know for a fact that such malware is routinely installed by border guards, but it's not a very far-fetched worry at this point. The technical expertise required to do so is very limited as long as you don't password-protect the BIOS: Basically, they only need to be able to plug in a USB stick and reconfigure the BIOS to boot from it. In other words: If you leave your laptop outside of your physical control for even a few minutes, you may have to assume that it is totally compromised as long as you don't have a BIOS password. If the laptop is outside of your control for a longer period of time, you probably have to assume that it has passed through the hands of somebody with sufficient technological know-how to work around the BIOS password as well. ~~~ drdaeman Isn't BIOS passwords useless? For non-soldered but socketed BIOSes I think one can just take chip out and put it into your wallet, possibly, covering some pins with some dissolvable insulating substance. For soldered SPI EEPROM chips with known pinout, I think one can reflash the chip afterwards. ~~~ daxelrod BIOS passwords are not always useless, depending on model. I had a Thinkpad T42 on which I managed to set a password for editing BIOS settings that I did not remember. I the laptop into IBM for repairs to the monitor, and as part of their repairs they needed to get into the BIOS settings (I believe to run a diagnostic). Their solution was to replace the entire motherboard. ~~~ drdaeman Well, guess it were hardware types, who performed the repairs, or they just didn't have necessary equipment (an AVR board like Arduino or PC with an old parallel "LPT" port will suffice, hardware-wise) at hand, so it was easier for them to solve it that way. :) I was 99% positive the same could be achieved by messing with EEPROM. And, indeed, less than 10 minutes of searching yielded this unsurprising result: [http://arduino.ada-language.com/recovering-ibm- thinkpad-t42-...](http://arduino.ada-language.com/recovering-ibm- thinkpad-t42-bios-password-with-avr-ada-and-arduino.html) tl;dr: Nope, T42's BIOS password is _not_ secure if you allow anyone with necessary hardware to touch the motherboard for a minute. TPM may (depending on the laptop model and firmware revision) prevent password recovery but will likely not prevent anyone from resetting them - at least this seems to be the case with Thinkpads. Next time I'll clean dust from my X300, maybe I'll remember this thread and check its EEPROM too. :) So, do _not_ rely on BIOS passwords as a strong security measure. ------ a3n Activists and other "interesting" people have their own particular security problems. For most of the rest of us, we really have no data of any interest to the authorities. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care about data security, if that's important to us. But it's not the real problem with border confiscation. The real problem is not having your hardware or software tools at your destination. So don't bring any hardware or data that you can't afford to lose. Certainly don't bring anything that you're emotionally attached to, particularly inbound. Either don't bring anything, and buy it all at the destination, or just bring the cheapest stuff you can use productively, and be prepared to replace it at the destination. The NSA already has my email. But I'd hate to be without a camera, or phone, or laptop, or data, or whatever other tools I was going to use at the destination. Plan for that, it's the more likely and practical threat. ------ zacinbusiness Is it possible to encrypt two files together with two different keys? Say I have my class notes from freshman Latin and I have my plans to take over the world. I encrypt them together into a single file "dont_read_super_secret.encrypted" and if I enter "fuzzykitty98" as the key then I see only the notes. But if I enter "downwithfreedom2000" then I see only the diabolical plans. Is that possible? If anyone builds this app, I'd like a slice of the pie, please :-) ~~~ valarauca1 It'd be possible but difficult. I don't know how to do it without some kind of markup / document system (no morning coffee yet). I figure it wouldn't be that hard. You could use a TDMS file(v1), which each channel is an item. When ran you give the program a password, which it checks against each channel, calculating the salted hash of your password. When it finds a matching hash it decrypts the document (saved as data within the channel). This gives you a lot of plausibly defensibility because nobody understands TDMS file structure, not even people who work with them (it is an open standard, just nobody cares). And secondly, you decrypt the document and you get something out, even if that something isn't exactly correct. I could likely push out a windows version by Saturday I guess if you don't mind it'd be using SHA-256 instead of [b/s]crypt for password checking. Maybe future updates to include some form of internal compression + some type of signing who last modified the document(s). ~~~ zacinbusiness Knock yourself out. People will be buying anything that they think can keep their data safe, so someone may as well come up with a decent solution. We can build it and let the HN community battle test it. Split on profits can be 60/30 as you're doing the work :-) ~~~ valarauca1 Battle testing is a horrible way to prove crypto works, from the outside looking even horribly done crypto looks secure. ~~~ zacinbusiness Yes, comments like this actually are what I'm looking for. We need to develop real tests. ~~~ valarauca1 The only real test is to make it open source. There isn't a lot of money in cryto done correctly, that is closed source. Because without public audits its impossible to know you've done it correctly, and even if you have, the public perception will be you haven't due to its closed-source-something-to-hide nature. ~~~ zacinbusiness Makes sense to me. I've always wanted to get involved in a cool open source project. Anyone want to get this started? Make it a free time activity or something? Or are there already better solutions out there? No need to reinvent the wheel. ~~~ valarauca1 Not in this direct line of software of the encrypt multiple documents and only out 1 based on pass-phrase, this would be unique (as far as I can tell). True crypt tells you how to set this up, but not do this automatically. Also it would require you selecting which volume, not just "insert password get document" This would offer a higher degree of plausible-deniablity, and portability, by making it a file its not tied to one location. The structure of the file, and multiple hashes also grant plausable deniability why you can't just decrypt the entire file in one go and compare the 2 documents SHA hashes. Would it stand up in court? No. It would help avoid less tech savvy people. ------ nmc A frightening thought: if it was practical to search _each and every device_ going through the border, they probably would do so. Happily enough, statistical sampling techniques can make that possible [1]. [1] S. Garfinkel. Searching A Terabyte of Data in 10 minutes. [http://simson.net/ref/2013/2013-01-07%20Forensics%20Innovati...](http://simson.net/ref/2013/2013-01-07%20Forensics%20Innovation.pdf) ------ thirdsight I don't travel with any hardware other than a DSLR and then I mail the SD cards home. I'll use internet cafes and my phone and that is it. It gets broken, searched, x-rayed, fucked up and generally treated like shit. At Zurich airport, they managed to break my old IBM T42. Had to get my company at the time to courier a new one overnight from the UK by road which cost £1150 just for the courier. ------ markeganfuller "During their inspection of your laptop, the authorities will disregard files that are not germane to their investigation, says Rosenzweig, explaining that the official policy is to 'flush all non-criminal data'." How exactly do they tell the difference, what if I use steganography to hide stuff in my family pictures? They won't flush anything, they will keep everything in case it's relevant. ------ powertower > Between October 2008-August 2009, for example, more than _220 million people > travelled to and from the US_ , according to Department of Homeland Security > officials. > During that time authorities searched about _1,000 laptops_ carried by > travellers. We don't live in the police state that most Snowden and Kim Dotcom supporters here tell us that we do. I get really tired of seeing anecdotes used to represent the average. ~~~ iaskwhy Tangential. One of the reason I love "V for Vendetta" is how it shows how normal it is to live under a dictatorship. Thing is, for most people, there's almost no difference, mainly during the most recent dictatorships. But for a very particular minority, life is very very different. I should know, I'm currently in a country where 50 years ago there was a dictator and it's not uncommon for normal people to claim how things were maybe better during those decades. Well, my grandfather, tortured by the state police for being part of an union, wouldn't agree. But for the other 99% of the population, life was, give or take, just as it is. ~~~ powertower > But for a very particular minority, life is very very different. That's pretty much true for any and every society. ~~~ iaskwhy Can you expand on that? ------ mindslight This has been the case for some time, and I doubt the unaccountable bureaucracy is going to change. So the only thing we can do is disrespect, mitigate, and undermine. Here was my ad-hoc procedure from traveling internationally a few months ago (tourism), with a prior of not really expecting to be hassled on the way there, but unknown for the way back: 1\. Choose the laptop I'm least likely to miss in the case it gets stolen by JBTs, with respect to the functionality I require. 2\. Wipe(1) the first 10MB of disk (has only ever been LUKS), then one /dev/urandom pass into the entire thing. (In retrospect, zeros may have been better than random) 3\. Reinstall Debian, with a passphrase I don't mind giving up. Sync over only files that I don't mind giving up. 4\. Go through Japanese customs - the only question asked was "Are you with him?" (friend in front of me). 5a. At this point, I possess a still uncompromised machine at the destination, with stored ssh host keys, etc. When (last-minute) prepping, this possibility didn't quite occur to me. Not being prepared to take full advantage of this was regrettable. 5b. (If machine had been molested, I would have not logged into my privileged accounts at all. For the most part I didn't have to anyway, but since I wasn't fully prepared it came in handy once or twice) 6\. For return, wipe first 10MB of disk again, then one /dev/zero pass to the entire thing (so there was no argument that I had encrypted data). Then mkdosfs on a whole-disk partition for derp-nothingness. (This was done with a Debian install image written to an old flash drive I had with me for the purpose. My only concern at this point is the hardware getting stolen. 7\. Take hard drive out of laptop so that it is a separate device. This would most likely increase suspicion, but make them even less justified in stealing the whole machine (not that this would stop them). 8\. Get waved through coming back through USG because laptop "searches" aren't actually that common for people not on the primary watchlist (everyone is on the secondary watchlist). Still, I will do the same thing next time, and think it irresponsible to not. There are of course improvements that could be made to this, including a small default-booting "nothing to see here" install, with file times etc automatically adjusted. Automatic copying of machine credentials etc when you're at your destination. Using a separate partition instead of the flash drive. And of course automation of the process so it's easy for everyone to do :) ~~~ toomuchtodo What tools could be used to boot off a trusted, non-writable USB stick to checksum the BIOS? Difficulty level: Macbook Air ~~~ mindslight Well, that's a completely different problem. If you travel frequently and your gear gets stolen for a few days at every border crossing? At the very least, I'd look into a laptop that was easily field-strippable, and figure out how to verify non-volatile storage with an external device, at least on return. And never fully trust the machine again either. Note that this problem is what TPMs purport to solve, but that doesn't help you against a major government which will demand a backdoor from the manufacturer. My laptop was never touched by customs - had it been, my plan was to never trust the machine again. Most people are in my situation - never actually getting hassled but wanting to protect themselves now that the gloves are coming off. In the future we all may have to deal with device quarantines of a few days at every crossing (what a boon to local sellers!) but that's not now. ------ ludoo Hardware is cheap in the US, I'd leave my laptop at home and get something cheap (either a Chromebook or a used laptop), then access/transfer data and configuration over the net. As for my phone, if I were in a position to be worried about customs installing backdoors, I'd prepare a recovery zip beforehand with all my data, then download it from my own server or a secure storage, and flash it after passing customs. Or better yet, travel with a SIM and buy a cheap Moto G, the resale value alone once back at home would make up its US price. ------ perlpimp Such an inconvenience. They should reimburse the cost of the laptop say to standard tune of 3-5k government cheques and allow for you to pick up your laptop in return for the money, if you need it. Full on encryption, tmp lock and filesystem hashing via tripwire then is mandatory. Fun thing is that you can screw up the malware to send all kinds nasty shit back to them, like trojans and viruses, PIF files and EXE files and whatever might tickle your fancy. Then get your malware do maximum damage on their network. After all they hacked your laptop, they engaged in illegal activity and it is only fare for you to punish them to the fullest extent of your technical capability. They cannot acknowledge the fact that they hacked your laptop without a warrant. etc.etc. There's tons of fun to have this way. Since people who are doing these things are expecting you to be retarded luser and so you can set a trap and have them fall straight into that. Make a blog post and example of malware and how to entrap the said trespassers, what does malware do etc. my 2c. ------ oracuk I have seen the corporate response of only providing remote desktops via browser and SSL to foreign (US) deployed personnel. Means the data never physically crosses the border. No clear players in this market for consumers though. Where is the consumer remote desktop via browser+SSL that doesn't rely on a US hosted cloud service? ~~~ blueskin_ >Where is the consumer remote desktop via browser+SSL that doesn't rely on a US hosted cloud service? The one you host on your own infrastructure? ~~~ oracuk Which software? Remote Desktop + SSL. I don't know of a good self-hosted combination for that. ------ pcvarmint You can hide your (encrypted) Micro SD cards inside fake nickels: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006BFCOIE](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006BFCOIE) But really, it's safer to not physically carry data across the border, but to access it over VPN or another secure tunnel while abroad. ------ etanazir oh so, we must upload custom encrypted files somewhere obscure and scrub our electronics before traveling; then download them again after we reach our destination. and then this border seizure non-sense is really a waste of time. ------ qwerta There is vague sentence "Afterwards you get your laptop back ", but not much else. Perhaps it would be worth to create serious article on subject. Who pays for damages? If harddrive is separated from laptop, does it get seized as well? What if I have 100GB of random data on hdd? Is there obligation to provide technical support to officers? Not everyone knows howto boot FreeBSD without bootloader. Do I get written certificate of what was seized? There could be some bitcoins on hdd... ------ nekgrim 1\. Backup your documents on Dropbox/GDrive/Whatever (edit: can be you personal server. You can use Truecrypt, and not upload your datas uncrypted. The point is that you must not have the datas on your pc when you pass the border). 2\. Wipe your PC. Optional 2.5. Download a bunch of fake personal files. 3\. Pass the border. 4\. Access Internet. 5\. Download your datas. ~~~ Shivetya With the recent history of topics here about the NSA having back doors into providers of services how is uploading your data where you suggest actually going to protect you? If anything, I would go to the point of screwing with border agents by having tens of thousands of pictures of my dogs, kids, flowers, and whatnot, all with naming similar to PICnnnnn or whatever is the current default of most digital cameras. Having them given the wrong doc type would be a nice touch too. Of course why not store your data on a SD card and just pop it somewhere they are not bound to look? ~~~ logfromblammo Make sure you include a few vanilla porn pics and only slightly embarrassing drunken party photos. If they don't find some evidence of vice, they will suspect it was just staged data, and they might keep digging. ~~~ jasomill When border patrol agents are looking for narcotics, do you honestly think they pass over the guy carrying rolling papers in favor of the one carrying nothing remotely suspicious due to lack of evidence of vice looking "staged" in the latter case? What's different about a porn- and photo-free hard drive full of boring business reports and uninteresting browser histories? ~~~ logfromblammo If they are seizing and searching your laptop, it isn't because you're violating ITAR or carrying dual-use spreadsheets. There are few legitimate reasons why the authorities should be at all interested in the data on your devices when you are entering an area where both free speech and privacy are considered rights. Among other goals, they are assembling profiles on dissenters, to be used against them later. If you give them something that appears legal but still potentially embarrassing, that's disinformation that might save you from a stronger attack later. This differs from a narcotics search in that having data on electronic devices is not a crime. They could not perform such a search anywhere but at a border crossing. ------ plg Can the authorities ever compel you to provide a password? ~~~ andrewcooke in the uk you can be imprisoned (up to 2 years) for not revealing your password. i am surprised the bbc didn't mention that (maybe i missed it?) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingd...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom) (also contains details for other countries) ------ Mithaldu So is the only correct answer to package the hdd in a sales package, then send it and the laptop separately with UPS or DHL in and out of the country? ------ salient From what I hear, SSD's can't be wiped completely, so be careful with such laptops (Macbook Airs, etc). ~~~ kps Theoretically true, but practically misleading. Each block of flash can be written only a limited number of times, so flash drives (SSDs, cards, USB sticks) all have more blocks than are visible as part of the disk. Drives internally rotate active blocks in and out of the spare pool to try to keep the number of writes to each similar ('wear levelling'). When you write to a flash drive — including trying to overwrite data to destroy it as someone might on a magnetic disk — it will generally pull a block from the spare pool for the new data, and put the old block in the spare pool. The spare pool is invisible to the OS, but it is reasonable to assume that there are ‘secret’ commands to access it — not because some TLA demands it, but because the hardware/firmware engineers need it for development and debugging. BUT there is a great big BUT. Writing flash is a two-step process. Programming flash can only change a 1 bit to a 0. Before this, there has to be a slower erase step, that sets the block to all 1s. In order to avoid this performance- killing overhead on every write, flash drives erase as much as possible (whether spare pool blocks or TRIMmed visible blocks) in the background as soon as possible.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Any decent postgreSQL tutorial for a newbie - codecrusade Its been extremely depressing and frustrating. Can anyone help please? ====== csdreamer7 I go into configuring postgres for my automation book. You can also check out the source code to see how my script set ups postgres. [http://www.amazon.com/Deploy-Rails-BlueBook-2014-Edition- ebo...](http://www.amazon.com/Deploy-Rails-BlueBook-2014-Edition- ebook/dp/B00GZ9SNKY) [https://github.com/jbwyatt4/railsbluebook2014/blob/master/co...](https://github.com/jbwyatt4/railsbluebook2014/blob/master/cookbooks/deployserver/recipes/dbinstall.rb) Just remember to login as the postgres user in Linux. ------ BWStearns For SQL in general SQLZoo is a horrible looking website, but if you go through the tracks you will actually learn a bit. If you're having issues with using postgresql with Rails and heroku (judging from post below), then you're really asking how use those three things together. In this case there are plenty of examples of all the things that can go wrong and how to fix them on stack overflow. If you'd like to send me the errors you're getting and other details of why it's breaking I'd be glad to field a couple emails (contact in profile). ------ brudgers Newbie in what sense? Are you an experienced database administrator looking at postgreSQL for a new project? Are you an experienced programmer, coming to postgreSQL as an option for your first project with three tiered architecture? Are you new to programming and want to learn to database? Are you new to databases and expect them to be pretty much like word processors and spreadsheets? ~~~ codecrusade Around Point 2 and 3.I have an app that I built on Mysql and now trying to host on Heroku- therefore the confusion. ~~~ brudgers Why Heroku rather than scaling the MySQL? ------ sc90 Here's one [http://www.postgresqltutorial.com/](http://www.postgresqltutorial.com/) ~~~ codecrusade Thanks- I just booked you a seat in heaven-god bless ------ Maxious [http://use-the-index-luke.com/](http://use-the-index-luke.com/) helps when you deal with performance issues. The examples can be altered for your particular SQL server including postgres. ------ ansible There are plenty of tutorials for SQL in general those should work fine for PostgreSQL too. What seems to be the problem? ~~~ felixgallo there's a large body of postgresql-specific knowledge. Don't be that guy. ~~~ ansible _there 's a large body of postgresql-specific knowledge. Don't be that guy._ Yes... and the OP was very unspecific as to what exactly was the problem. Maybe he/she just doesn't get SQL, I don't know. If the question was PostgreSQL specific, then that is another issue.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Rumor: Baidu Hires Stanford AI Lab Director - turingbook http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/2014-05-15/article/74934/rumor_baidu_hires_stanford_ai_lab_director ====== sabalaba This seems to be "reporting" from an unconfirmed rumor that was originally posted here and has been bouncing around the chinese net for the last 24 hours (I saw it a few hours ago) Original source: [http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/2014-05-15...](http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/2014-05-15/article/74934/rumor_baidu_hires_stanford_ai_lab_director) ~~~ dang We've changed the url to that from [http://www.pingwest.com/will-andrew-ng- join-baidu-idl/](http://www.pingwest.com/will-andrew-ng-join-baidu-idl/). We're also going to bury this story until it's confirmed. Pure rumor doesn't make for a good HN post. ------ ant_sz this rumor has been confirmed by a mail inside baidu, which is spreading on Weibo.com	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
SymSpell vs. BK-tree: 100x faster fuzzy string search and spell checking - chandanrai https://medium.com/towards-data-science/symspell-vs-bk-tree-100x-faster-fuzzy-string-search-spell-checking ====== inetsee Link is broken. Try this: [https://medium.com/towards-data-science/symspell- vs-bk-tree-...](https://medium.com/towards-data-science/symspell-vs-bk- tree-100x-faster-fuzzy-string-search-spell-checking-c4f10d80a078) ------ herickson123 404	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
MetaFilter comment about public libraries (2012) - Tomte http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210 ====== vpribish basically the post (in long, melodramatic style) is making the point that libraries have evolved into vital social services, tech support, and community centers for the underclass. I've discussed this with librarians, and others - and there is a major hurdle to talking intelligently about libraries: They no longer serve the traditional, pre-internet purpose - anyone who grew up with _that_ library will have trouble talking to people experienced with modern libraries. ------ LeoPanthera So it's been six years. Has anything changed?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Couch Theory - Imaginathan I have been trying to man my way through getting a couch through a doorway, I exhausted all mental capabilities of visually the different ways in which I could perceive it could fit due to moving several pieces of furniture in my life, I am now stumped, stumbled apon this sit and feel I may be able to be helped here. I have a couch that is width = 205cm height = 77cm depth = 105cm and I am trying to fit it through a door way that is width = 81cm height = 207cm, and am trying to figure out if its possible. More details, there is a front door at the end of a hallway, coming through the front door 28cm in perpendicular is the doorway in question then another wall of 82cm and then another doorway and then again more hallway. Parallel to this wall is another wall going for 118cm then a 120cm archway then more wall, through the archway is a large loungeroom where the couch in question currently sits in limbo in the middle, question here is if it is actually physically possible to perform this task with out dsimantling the couch (not possible). I know there is a mathematical way of solving this, it may be quite simple Im not sure, I just dont see it, if I could get some help on this that would be so so greatly appreciated, explanation too if possible :) ====== qubex [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Real Deal about Jonathans Card - creativityhurts https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-deal/174391689299156 ====== Pheter Could someone please explain to me why this is such a big deal? Let us assume that Jonathan is deceiving us and that this is a marketing ploy... what does it matter? We haven't been conned into spending our time or money on anything. The card still works in the same way. Now, if Jonathan is telling the truth then it sucks for him to be treated in this way. It seems to me that there is nothing to lose by believing him. Sure, it sucks to be misled and I'm sure it hurts some people's pride to think that they are prone to being tricked but ultimately we don't lose anything! For me it comes down to a nice example of how generous some people can be. And if Starbucks are actually the ones topping up the card then yay, free coffee! ~~~ danso It's not that big of a deal. I wish he would just say whether or not his company has a relationship with Starbucks, and if it does, why he made such a strong claim of no-affiliation-whatsoever to Starbucks on his project page? Here's a screenshot of the cached clients page: <http://i.imgur.com/PgccX.png> Nothing wrong with free coffee, or sponsored free coffee. And not that much wrong about doing a hobby project that relates to a professional client. But appearing to hide evidence of that relationship seems to be what has caught people's interest: ~~~ danso FWIW, Mobuqity has made a statement to TechCrunch [http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks- conspira...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-conspiracy- jonathans-card-wasnt-faked/) >Mobiquity has no professional affiliation with Starbucks. As a young company launched this past March, Mobiquity had initially included on its website the logos of companies with whom members of our team had worked with in the past, as we stated on the page. Mobiquity took down the l page in late July as part of an ongoing site redesign – complete coincidence, not conspiracy. Jonathan Stark was not the Mobiquity team member who had previously worked with Starbucks. But he does admit to liking their coffee. If you read Jonathan’s original post on the subject on July 14th, you’ll see he was as surprised as anyone else that his experiment in “broadcasting money” (by taking a screenshot of his Starbucks card barcode via his iPhone and emailing it to himself to use on his Nexus S) was successful. Jonathan’s exact quote was, “I bought a coffee with a picture.” ------ pnathan The Jonathan's Card story really demonstrates something that I've been increasingly aware of: On the Internet, it's very easy to wear a tin-foil hat _and_ persuade others to do so. _Why_ does every other thing have to be a conspiracy? ~~~ sebkomianos I share your and Pheter's take on the "issue" but an answer to your question can be that it makes people believe they are smarter. ------ corin_ A remarkably empty statement. I already didn't think it was a marketing ploy, but if I did then reading this sure as hell wouldn't have changed my mind. ~~~ michael_dorfman Really? What more would you have liked him to have said? ~~~ robryan Clear up his professional associations with Starbucks. ~~~ potatolicious > _"The Jonathan's Card experiment was completely my idea, Starbucks had > absolutely nothing to do with it, and until recently, I was scared to death > that Starbucks might sue the crap out of me."_ What part of that is unclear? Believe or disbelieve him, but the statement is unambiguous. ~~~ praptak The accusations were specific - he works for a company that provides mobile solutions for Starbucks. They pulled their clients page from the web after this blew up. I'd expect something along the lines "I'm not the Jonathan Stark who works for Mobiquity" or "I'm him, but the idea was still solely mine and my employer pulled the clients page for reasons totally unrelated to the whole affair". ~~~ praptak Update: Mobiquity has spoken up and said it was indeed a coincidence. ------ civild That's all well and good, but removing their Clients page and the Google cache of it is pretty damning. Why cover your tracks if it was all above board? I don't think it really matters in this case whether it was sincere or not, but I guess people don't like to feel like they've been played. ~~~ magicseth It could simply be Starbucks didn't want to be associated with the project, or they never gave Mobiquity permission to use their name as an endorsement. This stunt could have caused them to notice. And this could still be the case while a marketing team at Starbucks has decided that this card is a great tool that they can sink a couple thousand dollars into slowly to get people in to Starbucks. Like you say, it is pretty tempting to assume the worst because nobody wants to be the last person to know they've been duped. ------ creativityhurts TechCrunch also wrote a piece on this coffee conspiracy thing [http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks- conspira...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-conspiracy- jonathans-card-wasnt-faked/) ------ djtumolo The comment thread under that looks super fishy as well. All positive comments, on the internet? Yeah right. And most of them are well written? Maybe my bs detector is set too high, but I smell shenanigans. ~~~ dannyr It's a Facebook note. Only his friends can leave comments.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Good place to code in SF? - yayitswei I'll be in San Francisco all day, and I'm trying to figure out a good place to work on my app.<p>Ideally somewhere relatively quiet with ample cheap parking (rare or nonexistent in the city, I know) and free Wi-Fi. Any suggestions? ====== codeswimmer Citizen Space (<http://citizenspace.us>) might be a good option for you. For a small donation (they recommend $10 to $20) you'll pretty much have what you need for working on your app. You should give 'em a call just to make sure there's space available, however. Not sure how quickly the drop-in slots get filled up. Of course, Starbucks now provides free Wi-Fi so that may turn out to be good enough. I occasionally use the 'bucks across from the Metreon (4th & Mission). It's right next to a parking garage (not all that cheap, however) but does have lots of power outlets, and there's plenty of decent food options within walking distance. ~~~ yayitswei Citizen Space sounds a bit like Hacker Dojo in the South Bay. ------ endlessvoid94 If you're in the mission, check out Philz Coffee at 24th and folsom. Then check out Haus coffee across the street (sorta).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NSTM: Real-Time Query-Driven News Overview Composition at Bloomberg - ArtWomb https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01117 ====== Der_Einzige From the moment that I tried my hand at making a queryable summarizer ([https://github.com/Hellisotherpeople/CX_DB8](https://github.com/Hellisotherpeople/CX_DB8)) I've been obsessed with the field and love to see innovation like this happening. They found a way to get grammatically correct, queryable sentence based summarization out of any article. That's very impressive to me. ------ bfirsh If you're on a phone, here's a responsive HTML version: [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/2006.01117/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/2006.01117/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Analytics in Bootstrap, Boilerplate etc. Is Google spying while Development - micronax After I set up the 1000th Bootrap or Boilerplate I wondered if the integrated (and active!) Google Analytics snipped would collect and submit data while development progress to Google servers.<p>That would allow Google to collect information about the quality of development (eg. testing, hours spent, count of developers / testers etc.) month BEFORE the Website launches to public.<p>Should we all comment out the GA-Snippets while development or is it just OK to leave them active? ====== chestnut-tree Yes, they most certainly will be collecting tracking data. Do you link to any Google fonts? Or to the JQuery libary they host? Presumably that also sends info to Google. What info they collect and what they do with that data is not clear. Here's an excerpt from their Google Analytics privacy policy for example _" Google Analytics does not report the actual IP address information to Google Analytics customers. Additionally, using a method known as IP masking, website owners that use Google Analytics have the option to tell Google Analytics to only use a portion of the IP address, rather than the entire IP address, for geolocation."_ [http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/analytics/privacyoverview...](http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/analytics/privacyoverview.html) Notable by omission is what Google do with the anlaytics data themselves, they presumably capture (and save) the full IP address as well as all the tracking data they collect. I've said this many times before: Google has a rapacious appetite to track and record online behaviour. That doesn't mean they are evil or bad, but it does mean that their policies on tracking, collecting and recording online data should not pass without discussion or scrutiny. ------ codeonfire If you are running Google's code in your application and you don't even know what it does, you probably want to remove that code from your application. There's a reason that banks don't link in stuff like GA. ------ diorray Interesting question, as an paranoid, I'd comment out all Google related snippets. ------ micronax I would not call that paranoid. But I think developers who use software like Twitter's Bootstrap should be aware of feeding information to google while developing (on their test-servers, eg. local, whatever..) ------ Artemis2 Well thought! I'm going to comment them out now!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Chladni Patterns - lbotos http://skullsinthestars.com/2013/05/02/physics-demonstrations-chladni-patterns/ ====== kabla Really cool post! I wrote a blog post on calculating/simulating these patterns: [http://blog.kaistale.com/?p=1295](http://blog.kaistale.com/?p=1295) ~~~ lbotos Awesome! I figured someone here would have studied/written something awesome about them. Is the code for your simulation available anywhere? ~~~ kabla It's some pretty messy Python code, so at the moment no :) ------ yetanotherphd The only thing missing from this is a reference to the mathematical theory of harmonic analysis, which provides a way to calculate the exact eigenvalues (or modes) of these systems (well at least a linear approximation to them). In particular, there is a lot that can be said about such systems (formally defined by a self-adjoint operator on a Hilbert space) beyond simply simulating them. ------ err4nt It is believed that the stone carvings in the Rosslyn Chapel show not only knowledge of these Chladni patterns, but also represent the first use of them to encode information. It's believed by some who study them that they encoded sacred melodies in the physical structure of the church in a way that only those with hidden knowledge (at the time) could decipher. The most fascinating thing about the Rosslyn Chapel is that since it was built during the 1400s it predates Chladni by at least THREE CENTURIES! That's pretty fantastic in itself. [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_rosslyn_code/2011/05/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_rosslyn_code/2011/05/the_rosslyn_code_5.single.html) ~~~ darsham According to Wikipedia : "Like many claims in the cymatics community, the hypothesis that the carvings represent Chladni patterns is not supported by scientific or historical evidence.[citation needed] One of the problems is that many of the 'box' carvings are not original, having been replaced in the 19th century following damage by erosion." Citation needed indeed, but there's no academic research about this extravagant theory anyways, and with my foray into the subject, I just found the patterns to be decorative geometric shapes with a coincidental resemblance to Chladni patterns. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics) ~~~ err4nt I know it's debated, but it wouldn't be the first time humanity rediscovered forgotten knowledge! What intrigues me about it is it still lines up with Occams Razor and the KISS principle, if mystics and academics of the day wanted to encode secret knowledge this would fit the bill perfectly at the time the original chapel was built. I haven't looked I to the actual history as much, I ran across Rosslyn reading about art history and cathedral architecture and I spent a lot more time reading about Chladni patterns than I ever did about Rosslyn itself. Thought the link would be interesting in light of the original article. Now what I am wondering is the shapes of these patterns on non-square and non- circular plates. I haven't seen many exotically shaped plates so it leads me to wonder if the patterns don't show up as well on other shapes. I'm curious from a visual perspective what 'patterns' occur in nature like some people obsess about relationships between made-up numbers ;) ------ chillingeffect I had heard about these a million times and understood laser resonance, but hadn't previously made the connection to atomic resonance! Not sure I fully grasp it yet, but it's great to have identified that area :-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Does a national health care plan make people more likely to start a company? - yequalsx Some years ago I had an idea for a startup but didn't want to go without health insurance. I have a good job and I felt the risk of getting sick or injured without health care insurance outweighed the likely gains from starting a company. ====== ErrantX Living in the UK I can say it is a big bonus having to not worry about healthcare in any aspect of life: because you know if something goes wrong your guaranteed care. With that said it isn't FREE: there are taxes and so forth though I believe private US health insurance (like you would be purchasing) is anything from 2-5 times more expensive (my NI contribution on a £33K salary is £130 a month - of which a percentage goes to healthcare - I estimate around £80). However one big advantage IMO is that the National Insurance Tax is recovered in a standard way by the tax man and there is no tiers or anything - it just covers everything - meaning less stress finding a good deal and ensuring you have adequate deals (I know just ensuring my car is a pain in the bum :) I cant imagine medical!) The crux being: I dont think it's quite possible to claim it would encourage more startups. But I suspect it would remove another hurdle from any other prospective startups. ~~~ yequalsx Thanks for the perspective from a national health care country. I've come to the belief that the lack of universal care in the U.S. keeps workers from being less mobile and from taking risks. ~~~ ErrantX Agreed. Take today for example. Dental care is also available subsidized on the NHS (as in were all entitled to cheap or free dental though it is quite common to go private). Today I am about 150 miles away from home in city Ive not been to before and my tooth filling collapsed. I went to a random dentist this morning and he saw me within 10 minutes (the time it took to request my medical history from NHS records) and my tooth is now fine! There was no questions about insurance, cost or whatever it's all just simple :D ------ obxerve Generally, I would think so. Not so much from the perspective of "risk taking" as other commenter mentioned but more so from administrative effort and business cost / break even analysis. "Risk taking" is, in my opinion, relatively independent of cost or administrative overhead. Some people would simply not start up any company even when the break even analysis is good. Whereas others would jump on a given opportunity, taking the risk that he / she can do better than the break even analysis. ------ abalashov It might encourage, but I don't think its absence materially discourages. ------ known <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity> FTW ------ einarvollset Yes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cancer: the mountain lion in your fridge - jacobkg https://somehedgehog.tumblr.com/post/119415185391/cancer-the-mountain-lion-in-your-fridge ====== jacobkg My wife went through Breast Cancer treatment last year. We both agreed that this metaphor is the most accurate description of the experience we could find (with enough levity to make it readable).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Software is Expensive - edw519 http://itscommonsensestupid.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-software-is-expensive.html ====== a-priori The most important one is the last one: anything custom-made is far more expensive than something that's mass produced. Would you go into a tailor and expect them to make you a suit at the same price as you'd pay for a pre-made suit in a store? ~~~ jorgem Actually, in much of the third-world, this is not true. Hand made is cheaper than manufactured . I know it seems ass backwards, but the best examples I know are in Mexico: 1) Guy selling handmade pots (or any handmade product) -- his product is worthless. Imported electronics -- very expensive. 2) It's cheaper to have 30-50 guys using hammers and handsaws on a home construction site, than to pay for power tools. So to the third-worlders: Hand made is cheaper. ~~~ mattmaroon So let me get this straight, you're comparing pottery to iPods and from that drawing a conclusion? Hand made goods are almost never cheaper, even in Mexico. A handmade pot would cost more than a machine produced one. It's just that the cheap labor makes the production equipment an unjustifiable investment because the ROI is less. It's less cheaper, but still cheaper. In general of course. ~~~ bsaunder _cheap labor makes the production equipment an unjustifiable investment because the ROI is less_ I think that's his/her point. The manufactured pot would need to be priced higher (to pay for the production equipment over a reasonable depreciation period) in comparison to the hand produced pot that incurs no such overhead to produce, just cheap labor. So in effect, yes, a manufactured pot would be more than a hand produced pot. I do think the commenter confused the matter by including imported items in the argument. Given unlimited future earnings, you are right that a manufactured product may be cheaper to produce since there's much less labor cost, but in all practicality I'm not sure it applies. ------ roc Price is determined by willingness to pay, not cost. The article talks about why costs might be high. But price is determined first and from _that_ acceptable cost levels set. Software is expensive because people pay it. ~~~ bsaunder Interesting perspective, but don't you think it takes two parties to establish a real price? If you want to pay $5 and I want to provide the service for $100, then no price is set. To say that it's only the buyer's perspective seems to be ignoring the other side (as you correctly point out the OP did). ------ mattmaroon These are actually just wrong. Computers are dirt cheap, for instance, and most programmers who aren't working on games don't need one that costs more than $1,000 for any reason at all. In fact they shouldn't want a cutting edge one, they'd rather see how the software runs on the computers that will typically host it. The overhead costs of starting the next Google are significantly lower than the overhead costs of starting a McDonalds. ~~~ Confusion OK, I'll bite. If a set of tests on a feature that I'm working on runs in 15 seconds instead of in 30, I'll save that 15 seconds dozens of times. The benefits of a faster computer add up fast and shilling out a few hundred extra dollars is well worth it. Luckily, my employer got that. Especially fortunate since it doesn't seem like my Z61m will be replaced anytime soon (as we aren't doing so well) and a 2GHz core-duo with 2GB of RAM is only now starting to be limiting. If he had gone for a budget option, I would be tearing my hair out by now. ~~~ mattmaroon Even an extra few hundred per computer is virtually nothing. You can outfit a whole 5 man shop with top of the line Dells for what a McDonalds pays for one deep fryer. My startup quite literally ran for about 6 months on what one top of the line commercial fryer costs. ------ tybris software expense = development cost/customers ------ jng $200 expensive? ~~~ nsoonhui It's expensive by Malaysia-- a third world country-- and most third world country's standard. ~~~ hboon I don't know if it's considered a third world country (I don't). But $200 is not expensive in cities there. ~~~ mbrubeck "Third world" hasn't been meaningful since the end of the cold war. (Originally it meant the countries that were aligned with neither the Soviet Union or NATO.) Now the fashionable terms are "developed" and "developing" (which basically mean "rich" and "poor" and so are obviously two ends of a spectrum, not clearly-defined categories).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Backtype (YC summer 08): Twitter for comments launches - rokhayakebe http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/27/backtype-a-twitter-for-comments/ Although the article calls it Twitter for comments I think it is more a Google for Comments. ====== tdavis We've been using BackType in Beta for a while now and it has been an incredibly useful service. They're already a good way to keep up on what people are saying about your business (much like Google Groups) and as they add more blogs to the fold it will only increase the usefulness. Great job guys. ~~~ rantfoil BackType fills a huge need for every startup founder out there who wants to keep on top of what people are saying about their product. I look at it every day. The BackType guys have really nailed it. ------ whacked_new I find it quite unfortunate that this is termed as a "Twitter for comments" rather than just a comment tracker. The application has merit in itself, regardless of Twitter's existence and history. This would have been useful even before Twitter. ~~~ omakase Fair enough. We've found it a useful way to explain the idea of following all your friends comments. There are two ways people are using it right now; following comments by the author (twitter for comments), and searching them by keywords. ~~~ fallentimes ahem Kayak for Sports Tickets This is straight out of Made to Stick. It gets people to understand what you're saying or building very very quickly. Once you're established, the word linking is no longer necessary. They should have marketed themselves the TicketStumbler of comments, but I digress. ~~~ daniel-cussen Youtube was originally "the flickr of video." [http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/08/14/youtube_the_fl...](http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/08/14/youtube_the_flickr_of_video.html) ------ PStamatiou As a long-time blogger that has seen comment-based startups come and go, I have to say this is pretty badass. Unlike those failed comment-tracking companies I don't have to install a plugin or what have you, backtype just indexes. Neat to find some of the comments I've made in the past - although I have a feeling I've made more than 80 comments in the last 1-2 years. Anyways, eloquent solution guys. :-) And I'm loving the clickpass support. 1 minute registration. However with the clickpass registration I did not receive feedback that my username was taken.. it just hung, but I assumed "Paul" was taken so I tried again and it worked. ~~~ konsl Glad you're enjoying it. Clickpass is awesome indeed, but there are a couple things we need to fix. Thanks for spotting that. ------ konsl FYI Everyone can add their Hacker News comments to their profiles too -- add <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=YOUR_USERNAME> to the list of websites on your account page. Alternatively, you could just do a people search for your username and claim it from there. ------ whacked_new Pardon me if this has been addressed completely before, but you are storing the comments on your server, right (I wouldn't believe you if you say no anyway)? Privacy issues aside, what about copyright issues? Disqus, for example, says that the comment owners are owned by the commenters. Suppose then, as a comment owner I want to prohibit you from storing it on your servers? ~~~ fallentimes Robot.txt file. You can tell Google to do the same thing. ~~~ briansmith Only the site owner can use Robots.txt. The commenter cannot control it. ------ hooande The Backtype RSS feed for your company name is now required reading, fellas. You'd have to be crazy to pass up on a chance to get feedback and join conversations about your product. Just hope that your competition hasn't already started using it. ~~~ ian Totally agree, I've wanted this to exist for a while. Thanks guys. ------ fallentimes I would pay gobs of money per month for this service once they have analytics and cover more blogs. Great job guys. ------ apexauk Cool. Possible to do anything to solve the www-vs-no-www (essentially duplicate content) issues? (entered my websites then immediately wondered if I should enter them with/without the www as I may sometimes leave that out when commenting.. also searched for a friend and his blog came up twice in the people search results) ~~~ omakase those are technically different urls, so we'll have to do something to figure that out. you won't see duplicate comments as a result, just duplicate people. right now putting both on your profile helps because then people looking for your comments will see them all in one place. thanks for the feedback ~~~ apexauk aye.. might be worth going with the notion that chances of different sites existing at www.domain and <http://domain> (in particular those different sites being used as the identities of two different people) is probably 0.00somethingverysmall.. sure google etc do their funky duplicate content detection but y'know, i reckon you guys could just add a "this aint right" button in the same style as your ones to flag fakes etc, and then just wait for the day anyone actually uses it before worrying what to do about this. ------ 13ren [not criticizing but curious]: what's your competitive advantage with respect to Google? Google's blog search doesn't search blog _comments_ , and doesn't (explicitly) search on comment author. But google could add these things easily. What protects you? I'm guessing: (a) this niche is too small/specialized for google to care; or (b) if google did care, they buy you. Liquidity event! ------ maxklein This is a nice product. Do you have an API that would allow one specify a company name and it returns a feed or so of mentions? Anything like that planned? ~~~ konsl An API is one of our top priorities. ~~~ maxklein Like how soon are we talking of here? Couple of weeks? Or couple of months? ------ ryanwaggoner Looks awesome...great job! ~~~ omakase thanks man. I added your blog to backtype :) ------ cosmok <http://www.backtype.com/> ------ rokhayakebe Makes you want to rethink what you say online. The application was able to bring identities that I thought were completely separated online. Great job ------ danw So you can 'claim' anyone's comments as your own?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Who Put the IPv6 in my Internet? - there http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/09/who-put-the-ipv6-in-my-internet/ ====== Kadin Well that's reasonably promising. I think there's still a race between IPv6 adoption and carrier-grade NAT. If the big ISPs deploy CGN rather than IPv6, that will eliminate the big motivation behind v6 (the IPv4 address runout), while at the same time neutering the Internet into something resembling little more than interactive broadcast media. Given that the major US ISPs--which tend to either be broadcast media conglomerates (threatened by P2P media displacing traditional broadcast) or telecommunications conglomerates (threatened by VOIP displacing more profitable wireline services)--would seem to have a motivation to go the CGN route, I'm holding my breath a bit. IPv6 seems to be winning, in the sense that I don't think we'll all get stuck behind CGN and IPv4 forever, but I'm not quite ready to call the race just yet. ~~~ bjelkeman-again I had never heard about CGN before you mentioned it. Thanks. CGN is certainly not where we want to end up. I believe it is time to start pushing the local ISP harder for IPv6. /rolls up sleeves/ ------ JBiserkov Windows 7's Home group requires IPv6 to work, I believe.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
HAProxy can block a 100,000-connection-per-second DoS - wmf http://haproxy.1wt.eu/10g.html ====== datums A DoS is usually trivial to stop. Now a DDoS, that would be impressive. I don't need haproxy to stop a specific request or from a specific ip. The kernel routing tables can do that. ~~~ wmf Yes, for a known IP address you can use the kernel. HAProxy ACLs can match user agents, URLs, referrers, etc. ------ ezmobius I don't see anything in this article about DoS, where are you getting that from? these are benchmarks against static files, still very impressive but not DoS protection. ~~~ wmf The section titled "Session setup/teardown rates" talks about using ACLs to block or redirect requests. ~~~ ezmobius cool thanks ------ datums route add ip.address.of.offender reject	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's the best service for phone number verification? - akhilcacharya Considering writing an app with phone number login using a verification system - I was considering rolling my own using Twilio (asking the user to call a number and add a code or get an SMS and enter a code), but I was wondering if there are any better solutions that work OOTB. ====== rcdexta For a mobile app, I developed recently, I tried the following services: [https://www.nexmo.com/product/verify/](https://www.nexmo.com/product/verify/) [https://getprove.com/](https://getprove.com/) In terms of ease of use and reliability, I preferred Nexmo. But however, I faced issues sending sms to VOIP numbers with Nexmo. I ended up using Twilio and Parse (it was the backend anyway) to get a verification service running. You can use this [http://shamadeh.com/blog/web/mobile/twilio/parse/2014/07/31/...](http://shamadeh.com/blog/web/mobile/twilio/parse/2014/07/31/VerifyPhoneNumbersTwilioAndParse.html) as a starting point! ~~~ Danilka Here is a link to Twilio Lookup [https://www.twilio.com/lookup](https://www.twilio.com/lookup) ~~~ rcdexta Twilio lookup gets you details about the carrier and whether it is voice/sms enabled. Basically used to validate if you have number that enables communication. This service is not the same as the verification API the OP is talking about! ------ alex_sf Twilio has a product specifically for the 'get a code via SMS and verify it' use case: [https://www.twilio.com/authy](https://www.twilio.com/authy)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Advice on founding startup during PhD? - anthonye I'm in a CS PhD program at a decent school. My eventual goal is to launch a start-up. I'm also just getting by financially (I support my family).<p>I know of people who've launched a startup <i>after</i> their PhD, but anyone have advice on how to launch one during?<p>Reasons: - money - want my ideas to come to market quickly, not stagnate in conferences forever ====== jtfairbank I can't say as a PhD, but I started my current company as a senior in college. I spent two years working on it as a side project (including building the alpha and talking to users), then jumped the bridge as soon as I was able. In short, my grades suffered. But school as a whole is less important to me- I am doing what I wanted to after school, just a bit sooner. If you want to start a company during your PhD, be prepared to give in one way or the other. Wrap up your PhD with as little work as possible and as quickly as possible. Bonus points for aligning your PhD work with your startup work, but be careful about allowing the school to make claims on the startup. If you choose the PhD over the startup, maybe don't go full startup yet but begin quietly building the product and talking to people in your free time. Then launch and grow as soon as your PhD is done. ------ quantisan Make use of your school's network and resources while you're a student. I would start by contacting your school's venture/entrepreneurship/tech transfer office. Also your profs might know of people that have done the same. Ask those people for advice as they probably know about things beneficial to you in particular that random people on the internet don't. ------ Warewolf-ESB I've never done a PhD but I have (and do) run a start up. To do it successfully you will more than likely spend 90% of your waking hours obsessing, thinking, working, planning and doing stuff that your start up needs. I can't imaging having anything else big, like a PhD to focus on at the same time. There is also a good chance that your family will be missing out on time with you, because of the above. While it is VERY fulfilling, and certainly has the ability to bring in rewards far bigger than a "job", think about it carefully. You need to really want this, it is not always easy and can be risky. Good luck! ------ sideproject It's hard to do both, so I have to say it's going to more likely either-or- case. I tried doing a side-project during PhD, but quickly stopped because it was eating up my progress in PhD. I guess, for me, my desire to finish PhD was greater than trying to do a startup. What about you? How much more do you want to do PhD than startup (and vice versa)? I have to say, completing PhD is.. an extremely rewarding and worthwhile experience, albeit... a tremendously stressful thing to do. :) ~~~ anthonye Which do I want more? That is a good question, will have to ponder that. I see value in both at this point. I see what you're saying about stress though, startups and a PhD are both very stressful, which is why I'm trying to use this time to research stuff for my future startup. Thanks for the advice! ------ FiatLuxDave I've balanced school and work/startup before - I launched a startup in undergrad, and worked at a corporation while doing my Masters. I think that if you are going to do two things which consume so much time and energy, that the most important thing is to make sure that your focus is the same for both. Then you get benefits on both sides. For example, I did my Master's thesis while I was a product manager, and the thesis was related to the product. This meant that my knowledge from work informed my research, and I could go far more in depth into questions about product behavior than a product manager could normally spend time on. So, if your startup and your dissertation are focused on the same basic problem, then it's not really splitting your focus, but it is adding more "to- do's" to your list. The hard part with a startup is finding a way to get all those to-do's done in limited time and money. This is always a challenge, just realize that school is going to take time away and budget time and money accordingly. For example, if you could do something for your customers in a month without school, maybe you should not promise anything in less than 3 months. If you don't budget time appropriately, you will need to ship something the week before finals, and something's got to give. Of course, if you do this, watch out for intellectual property issues with your school. Depending on your school and what you are doing, this may or may not be an issue. Usually, you can talk to the school's commercialization office, and they have a process for evaluating whether the school has an interest. You might think it's better to fly under their radar, but using the process grants you either a) institutional support, which is great, or b) a declaration that the school doesn't have an interest, which is also great. If you don't already kind of know what you want to do for your dissertation and/or startup, then you aren't ready. For either, really. Do not attempt either a startup or PhD, and especially not both, without some passion. If they're not both the same passion, and you feel more for one than the other, then you already know what your decision should be. This isn't meant to be harsh, just as advice. A startup can be a way to get around the issue of having your ideas get stuck in academic neglect. However, be aware that there are downsides to trying and failing. The academic route is long and not glamorous, but you are also unlikely to end up living in a car with your significant other leaving you. That is a possibility with failed startups, if you let it be (trust me on this). Have an exit strategy for if it doesn't work out. If academics is your plan B, make sure you keep publishing and retain your contacts in the academic world. ------ joeclark77 Not everybody finishes their PhD. I believe there are a lot of successful people who started something during their PhD that turned out to be more than just a dissertation. You could simply shift gears and go ahead with the startup, hoping to finish the thesis later (maybe using your startup as a research site or data source?) or you could focus on the PhD project now and monetize it after you graduate. Reflect on this question: do you really want to be a professor, or primarily value the sheepskin? ~~~ anthonye I don't really want to be a prof, I'd rather be in industry. I like making things too much :) I see value in doing the PhD though, so it might very well come down to one off the other. The timing of the startup is going too be really important, so that will likely drive things. Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
'Frenzy of hatred': The dramatic rise of far-right extremists - DanBC https://news.sky.com/story/frenzy-of-hatred-the-dramatic-rise-of-far-right-extremists-11609611 ====== beobab I can’t help feeling that the general rise in hatred is fuelled by the press reporting every news story with so much “outraging”. “You must be outraged by this now!” seems to be a rallying cry. Chill. Yes, there’s lots of chaotic evil people in the world, but most people are neutral, good or lawful. [edit to clarify who was who] ~~~ marcus_holmes yep, journalism is all about the clicks, not the truth, these days. And people click on shit like this.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Advertising Standards Authority Ruling on LiveDrive Internet Ltd - DanBC https://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2015/12/Livedrive-Internet-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_311623.aspx#.VoKQaraLS00 ====== mchahn FWIW, I disagree with the ruling. The fact that you have to use an admin account to backup the whole computer is a technical detail that is too complex to explain in an ad. Edit: Also, if a user can't access certain files then it is unreasonable for that user to expect to be able to back-up all files. That is tantamount to accessing the files. ------ DanBC > A complainant, who understood that the standard back-up option could back-up > one user account only, challenged whether the claim "Backup your whole PC or > Mac" was misleading and could be substantiated. This was ruled to be misleading because they don't back up all user accounts if the user doesn't have permissions to access to files.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lenovo shipping a BiOS rootkit? - plantain http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29497693#p29497693 ====== condescendence greenyoda posted a link to discussion about this. On that thread there's also a few links to other decent discussions about it. There's some discussion in the top comments of this link too. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039306) ------ greenyoda Duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10040130](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10040130)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Chrome Harlem Shake - sajithdilshan http://pastebin.com/YbnNuQuw ====== ninjanoise So tired of these videos but this is pretty awesome! ------ sairamkunala works great on a google search result (for a sample page)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Bash function to run concurrent tasks and display pretty statuses - themattrix https://github.com/themattrix/bash-concurrent ====== calebm Very pretty. Looks useful too! ------ woud420 Good work. Looks good.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Part-time founders more productive than full-time founders? - vlad ====== webwright I built a company as a "part-time founder". I think it's quite do-able and really forces you to focus your time. Parkinson's Law states that tasks tend to expend to fill to time allotted for them... That's true with Founders as well. That said, I think your day job needs to be fairly light for this to work. At the time, I was doing light consulting after having sold my first company. I'm currently working on another little startup idea (<http://www.rescuetime.com)> but it's been moving a LOT slower, as my day job is something I invest a lot more time and energy into. Of course, it very much depends on the scope of the problem you are trying to solve. You're never going to build the next salesforce.com as a PT founder. ;-) ~~~ juwo The look of your website is very professional. Just curious, did you hire someone? what tools did you use to do it? ------ Readmore I'm actually quitting my day job today so I'm betting that a full-time founder is more productive. ------ leisuresuit I wish part time work was easier to find. I would much rather work 20 hours a week for someone else than 40 hours a week. It'd give me a lot more time to work on my own projects. You can only be so productive anyway. Just because you spend 8 or 9 hours a day at work doesn't mean you're working the entire time you're there. More like 1/3 of the time is actually spent thinking and working. It's not even that you're being lazy, it's just you burn out if you work too hard and too often. The strange thing is, nobody who's in a position to hire understands this. And if you do find part-time tech work, you're most likely going to be paid LESS per hour than you would if you were doing the same thing full-time. ~~~ juwo Even stranger: people who work in manual jobs and even in healthcare, do actually work the full 8 or 9 hours. So, maybe we ARE goofing off (me included). ------ dhouston short answer: part time sucks. long answer: part time sucks. i did a variant of this (school for part of it, work for another) for 3 years with my first company, and it was frustrating because you miss opportunity after opportunity because you move so slowly, and everything just turns out mediocre. so if you have to do your startup with a 40-50hr/wk job, do it as briefly as possible until you can prove to yourself the worth of the idea and then make the jump. and this may sound strange, but get yourself in decent physical shape so that you have more stamina and aren't exhausted after a normal 8-9 hour work day. in my case i had way more energy/focus if i was running/lifting regularly (and frittered around/needed more downtime if i wasn't.) i'm going full time on my idea at the end of this week and have a lot more momentum because 1) other people will be working on it with me and 2) i will be able to focus 100% and do things like pull all nighters when necessary and basically not have any other constraints in the way of getting things done. ------ rokhayakebe That only depends. Some people are good only 3 hours a day, but you best believe that they will outdo most programmers who put in 8 hours/day. Nevertheless I would advise you to quit your job and focus full time on your startup. ------ vlad Do you think about your startup at work, and then rush home to implement, knowing you have a limited amount of hours? A lot of startups have begun this way. ~~~ orlick I had a unique idea that I implemented in my part time. The site was featured on Techcrunch a few years back and quickly started making a lot of money. Within a few months a handful of VC funded competitors sprung up. They were able to iterate on the concept very quickly and completely destroyed me within the year by developing a significantly better product then I did. The moral of the story: Working on your startup part-time is a great way to mitigate risk while you build out your first version. However, if you see some traction quit you day-job and start executing relentlessly. ~~~ sbraford I think it would also be tricky to explain to your employers why you're working on a startup on the side. Was your name featured on TechCrunch, or just a URL? I've tried doing "anonymous" startups under pseudonyms, it's hard to be taken seriously by the likes of TechCrunch, etc. ------ dawie I think Part-time founders are less productive, because they are tired from working for 8 hours. This causes silly mistakes and bugs to happen. ------ asdf333 full time, definitely. Part time, you are just too tired out.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Insights from FindTheMasks-US Data - ISL https://findthemasks.com/blog/2020-04-21-Data-Insights ====== ISL Corresponding author here -- happy to answer questions.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why MongoDB is worth $1.2 billion - felixr http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2013/131010-why-mongodb-is-worth.html?source=nww_rss ====== shin_lao _Not only is MongoDB considerably lower in cost than Oracle, but adding nodes to a MongoDB cluster is an exercise in simplicity._ It was my understanding that MongoDB scales poorly. ~~~ hhw Not to mention, considerably lower in cost means considerably less revenue. How exactly is that supposed to be justification for a high valuation? Especially when NoSQL databases are a fairly small niche compared to RDBMS, so it's not really possible to make up the difference in volume. ------ 7Figures2Commas Comparing MongoDB to Oracle? _Really?_ Next thing you know we'll be reading articles about how oranges are threatening to take significant market share from apples. As for, "[Oracle] also does not affordably scale to the tens or hundreds of terabytes required by some", an honest question: if scaling to "tens or hundreds of terabytes" is so easy with MongoDB, why is scaling to 100GB a big enough deal to warrant a presentation[1]? [1] [http://www.slideshare.net/mongodb/partner-webinar-the- scalin...](http://www.slideshare.net/mongodb/partner-webinar-the-scaling- checklist-for-mongodb-100gb-and-beyond) ~~~ mathattack I view this as they have Oracle to thank for there being such a large database market independent of the big ERP and hardware vendors. And for that, you do have to thank Uncle Larry.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Obvious Goes Beyond Meat - atestu http://obvious.com/beyondmeat.html ====== samstokes Obligatory Title Police comment: not knowing that Obvious and Beyond Meat were companies, this headline gave no clues as to the topic of the article. In fact I only clicked to see how on earth that title could parse as English... I know the submission just took the title from the original article, but when the article title is that obscure a little editorial summarisation wouldn't go amiss. ~~~ nswanberg I'm as much a fan of clear, meaningful titles as the next person, but when life hands you such an unforced, ambiguous, deliciously absurd title, I think it's best to savor it. ------ nosse The text sites this "51%" of greenhouse gas emissions globally. It comes from here: [http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climat...](http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf) I can cut this short for you. It's a lie dressed as calculation. It calculates cow breathing for instance. And more heat produced while cooking meat compared to vegetables. Still they don't really show you the numbers. EDIT: <http://beyondmeat.com/> doesn't state how large environmental effect their product has. ~~~ bawllz Its like nearly all statistics, I have learned to ignore the large part of them. I hate it when people drop percentages based on correlations which they don't reference the actual methods. In my opinion, its what defines bad media/writing. ------ slyn Slightly OT: Maybe I'm just underestimating to the power of familiarity as a plus in marketing, but I've never been able to wrap my head around meat- imitation vegetarian and vegan options. I understand things like veggie dogs or burgers, patty and tube shaped foods are just plain convenient to store and eat. But I don't really get: "... Beyond Meat™, the first plant protein that looks, feels, tastes, and acts like meat." Wouldn't it be more prudent to create an identity for next level plant- based products than essentially "It's like meat but not"? ~~~ cdcarter I'd say that a lot of the vegetarian food community is leaning towards that! Morningstar Veggie Patties (my favorite "faux-meat") doesn't taste like meat, nor does it really try to. It tastes like a tasty patty of mushrooms and veggies (and a bunch of soy thrown in for extra protein). ~~~ chc A great example of fake meat that isn't actually anything like meat is Morningstar's black bean burgers. They taste nothing like meat (which is good, because overly realistic veggie meat is uncanny valley to me), but they still give the effect of a hamburger and taste delicious. ------ mark_l_watson While I applaud anyone who gives up eating lots of animal protein (I believe it is bad for their health, and I know it is bad for our environment by using about 10x more water and energy for production), there is this: why not just eat regular vegetarian foods? Why fake meat? We eat vegetarian with little bits of seafood (Pescatarians), BTW. ~~~ famousactress I've often wondered (and been asked) this. I haven't eaten meat for about twenty years now. My wife and I purchase and eat plenty of fake-meat products. It's frankly, simple. Easy to prepare, easy to eat. Fairly high in calories and protein for effort-expended compared to many alternatives. The other interesting question was posed by another commenter who asked why fake-meat in terms of flavors, instead of finding their own identity. The interesting thing is that I don't think most of these things have much flavor either way. Does chicken have much flavor? The veggie-chicken doesn't. It's more of a high-protein, high-calorie carrier of other flavors. Dip it in siracha, fry it and make orange 'chicken'. All in all it doesn't contribute much flavor to the meal, just substance. All of that said, I think of it as junk food (not compared to meat, but compared to other vegetable based meals). I'd much rather get better about putting together more balanced dishes. ~~~ UnFleshedOne The tasty parts of chicken have a lot of flavor, you can pretty much boil and eat drumsticks (in skin) with no seasoning whatsoever. It is white meat that is tasteless and needs a lot of postprocessing. (or mayo, mayo makes everything taste good...) ~~~ famousactress That makes sense. I think it's the white meat that's imitated. ------ Nogwater How much will it cost in my local grocery store? Will it be cheaper than regular (non-fancy/organic/free range) chicken by the pound and by the calorie? Does it have all of the same amino acids that chicken has in close enough to the same amounts to completely replace real meat without having to think about changing the rest of your diet to compensate? Genuinely curious. ------ earnon Meat is not bad for the environment. Factory farms are indeed terrible, but they're not the only way to raise animals. On the other hand, grain agriculture is beyond fixing See <http://lierrekeith.com/vegmyth.htm> for a great intro. Meat is also healthy. Grains are not. See any of these Good Calories Bad Calories/Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes, The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf, <http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cholesterol/#axzz1wxjdQqRB> Eat real food. ~~~ chc No matter how you slice it (no pun intended), raising an animal for human consumption is a net energy loss. AFAICT, it's just a mathematical fact. Unless you have magic cows that photosynthesize, you are taking resources that could have gone toward supporting a human being and instead using them to grow an animal. I mean, if you're happy with your Neo-Atkins Diet, that's cool, but enough already with this looking down on people who don't eat as trendily as you do. ~~~ earnon What if the animal ate only grass? Also, keep in mind that modern grain agriculture is 100% dependent on fossil fuels. Back in the day, animals were raised on the farm along with vegetables. The animals ate the cellulose (inedible to us) and scraps and created protein. They also created fertilizer (today it is synthesized from fossil fuels and wreaks environmental havoc - the Dead Zone at the mouth of the Mississippi is mostly caused by nitrogen runoff from farms) and ate bugs, so there was no need for pesticides. ~~~ zzzeek I can't cite an authoritative source but I think the idea is the amount of unforested, undeveloped grassland on the planet is nowhere near enough to support the current meat intake of the world population. There are actually similar issues with organic vegetables too. Of course if people wanted to eat _much less_ meat, and if there were a lot _fewer_ people, things might work better sure. ~~~ earnon That's probably true. However, like I said above, our agriculture is also unsustainable. Most of the increase in crop yields over the past few decades have come as a result of fossil fuel-based fertilizers. Without oil yields would plummet. Overpopulation is the problem. Ideally, animals should be raised either on land that's not suitable for agriculture, or on the farm, eating the inedible plant parts and providing more of a closed-loop ecosystem. ------ cdcarter Not to parrot Michael Pollan too much, but I think I'll stick to eating _food_. His latest book provides plenty of skepticism on whether eating animal protein actually leads to cancer, obesity, type II, &c... or if it is perhaps due to an overly reductive food culture in the West. What nutritionists are saying is good for us is changing ever decade. I'm going to stick to eating minimally processed food in moderation. ~~~ earbitscom Vegetables are _food_. And even better still, they have zero cholesterol and basically provide much the same benefits without the bad side effects. Say what you want about the flip-flopping nature of nutrition trends, there is very little scientific data that shows that milk, cheese and red meat don't cause heart disease and other health concerns. Broccoli tends not to. ~~~ cdcarter Oh I completely agree. Vegetables are great _food_. Whole grains are great sources of yummy carbs. And meats in moderation are likely Just Fine. Broccoli is _food_ , highly processed soy injected with omega-3s and corn is a food- product, not _food_. ~~~ earbitscom Fair enough. I'm not saying eating anything vegetarian, no matter how processed, is good for you. Just clarifying that, in my opinion, avoiding meat if you can is healthier. ------ phil These guys are doing such awesome stuff. I like eating meat, but would love to live in a world where Big Macs are made from vegetable protein and all meat is raised locally/humanely and fed a healthy diet. ~~~ epoxyhockey Seeing as how Taco Bell recently got dinged for using mostly soy (only 35% was beef) in their beef tacos, have no fear, your McD's meal will probably be the first to become all-veggie as soon as they can lower the FDA's definition of what qualifies as meat. ------ quadrant6 The article gave me hope. Then when I clicked through to the website and looked at the ingredients, I was let down. The 'chicken strips' seem only marginally better than the soy sausages in our supermarkets already. I guess I was expecting some miraculous new ingredient. It's nice they have amaranth in there but it doesn't exactly seem groundbreaking. ------ ben1040 An interesting article from two years ago about the product development (the names in the "About" page here match up to the Mizzou team in the article): [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993883,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993883,00.html) ------ Zaheer Is this perhaps VC Vinod Khosla's stealth meat startup? [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/09/13/vinod- khos...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/09/13/vinod-khosla-clean- tech-not-a-disaster-i-have-stealth-meat-startup/) ------ tomjen3 I don't get it, but that may be because I don't have a problem eating meat -- our emotions are not evolved to live in the world we live in now, so they shouldn't be used to derive what we should eat. ~~~ cpeterso Our emotions are not evolved to use iPhones or modern medicine either. Animals eat other animals because have no alternative. Humans have the knowledge, technology, and (I hope) empathy to eat without killing animals. ------ epoxyhockey I'm more excited about synthetic meat R&D. Rather than trying to make soy- based products more like meat in taste and texture, why not just create meat in a test-tube, sans the animal? ~~~ earlyriser This has been discussed previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3873470> It seems to be really hard to create tissues. ------ cvg I like that Beyond Meat is trying to offer better vegan options. The product looks interesting, but after reading the ingredients, <http://beyondmeat.com/products/> , I doubt I will try it. Titanium Dioxide (what color is it normally), Dipotassium Phosphate and tons of Phytoestrogens (Soy) don't sound so tasty. ------ geekfactor Beyond Meat is people! ------ freshfunk #FirstWorldProblems ------ J3L2404 This web page is a good example of simplicity gone too far. I guess you don't know where the boundaries are until you have crossed them. This design is off- puttingly empty. I am not saying you have to fill it with bling, but you have to have something to focus on. Just my two cents. ~~~ Joeboy > This web page is a good example of simplicity gone too far It's extremely readable and loads very quickly. I wish more pages would go too far. Edit: Although given its otherwise commendable minimalism it seems odd that it goes to the trouble of using a non-system font.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Doesn't Anyone Answer the Phone Anymore? - stepstop https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/ring-ring-ring-ring/561545/ ====== mindcrime That's an awful lot of words just to say "because 98% of phone calls are spam". It's really kind of sad. Spammers seem to find a way to ruin everything, eventually.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Turtles on the Wire: Understanding How the OS Uses the Modern NIC (2016) - nz http://dtrace.org/blogs/rm/2016/09/15/turtles-on-the-wire-understanding-how-the-os-uses-the-modern-nic/ ====== drewg123 The biggest innovation that I've seen in quite some time in terms of making creative use of hardware offloads is Hans Petter Selasky's RSS assisted LRO in FreeBSD. On our workloads (~100K connections, 16 core / 32 HTT FreeBSD based 100GbE CDN server) LRO was rather ineffective because there were roughly 3K connections / rx queue. Even with large interrupt coalescing parameters and large ring sizes, the odds of encountering 2 packets from the same connection within a few packets of each other, even in a group of 1000 or more, are rather small. The first idea we had was to use a hash table to aggregate flows. This helped, but had the draw back of a much higher cache footprint. Hps had the idea that we could sort packets by RSS hash ID _before_ passing them to LRO. This would put packets from the same connection adjacent to each other, thereby allowing the LRO without a hash table to work. Our LRO aggregation rate went from ~1.1:1 to well over 2:1, and we reduce CPU use by roughly 10%. This code is in FreeBSD-current right now (see tcp_lro_queue_mbuf()) ~~~ pebblexe FreeBSD also has netmap [https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=netmap&sektion=4](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=netmap&sektion=4) ------ policedemil Great article! A lot of this is way beyond me, but I'm generally interested in the process of how a NIC filters based on MAC addresses. I'm in the humanities and certain scholars working with culture and technology love to make a huge deal about data leakage and how intertwined we all are precisely because you can put a NIC in promiscuous mode and cap packets that weren't meant for you. The whole point is that because your NIC is constantly receiving data meant for others (i.e. because it's filtering the MAC addresses), something like privacy on networks is always problematic. I've always found the whole point somewhat overstated. So, could anyone explain real quick the process of how a NIC decides whether a packet/frame is actually bound for it or link some good resources? For example, does the NIC automatically store the frame/packet in a buffer, then read the header, and then decide to discard? Or can it read the header before storing the rest of the frame? How much has been read at the point the NIC decides to drop it or move it up the stack? Reading all of every packet seems improbable to me because if it were the case, laptop 1 (awake but not downloading anything) would experience significant battery drain due to constantly filtering network traffic that was meant for laptop 2. I'm not sure that really maps to my experience. Also, I assume there are also differences for LAN vs WiFi? Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated! I've tried google diving on this question many times before and it's really hard to find much on it. ~~~ javajosh The serial nature of the physical connection cannot be overstated. Bits flow to your NIC one at a time. A 1Gb/s NIC is detecting a billion wiggles in voltage per second. Structure is imposed on these wiggles in stages: first, the A/D conversion happens, making the voltage wiggles 1's and 0's, then ethernet framing, then IP packet parsing, then TCP packet/ordering, then the application handles IO (and can, and often does, define even more structure, such as HTTP). You might look up the OSI network layering model (or the OSI 7-layer burrito, as I call it). My understanding is that MAC filtering happens after ethernet framing, and before putting into the ring via DMA, and packets failing that test do not generate interrupts. Your NIC hardware is _choosing_ to ignore packets not addressed to it because, generally, it's pretty useless to listen in on other people's packets. Especially these days when your most likely to capture HTTPS encrypted data. ~~~ policedemil Thank you! This is starting to make a lot more sense! I guess what's still confusing to me has to do with the seriality (continuity?) of the process vs the OSI model, which seems like there are more discrete stages. Does each stage of the model need to complete for the whole packet before moving on to the next stage? For example, does A/D conversion take place until all of the packet information is converted, then the whole binary blob is enframed as a header and a packet... then we filter for MAC address and move on up the stack in discrete and consecutive stages? Or are the voltages read off the line and once there is enough information to construct the header, compare it, then choose to continue reading the rest from the line or stop the A/D conversion because it is just a waste of energy? The latter makes a lot more sense to me. EDIT: words ~~~ mschuster91 > Does each stage of the model need to complete for the whole packet before > moving on to the next stage? Usually, not. Massive core switches could not work if they had to wait for every frame being fully in the buffer before beginning to transmit it to the correct out port. All a core switch needs to look at is the destination MAC address. Simple math explains why: MTU (max packet size) is usually 1500 bytes (due to most packets originating in Ethernet systems). The dstmac in the Ethernet frame is bytes 9 through 16, which means it would be an absolute waste of time to wait with forward transmission until the remaining 1484 bytes are in the buffer. Let's calculate this with your ordinary 100 MBit/s home connection (to keep the numbers in reasonable magnitudes). 100 MBit/s means: 0.00000001 s/bit (or 0.01 us/bit, or 0.08 us/byte). With retransmit start after the first 16 bytes, the delay introduced by the equipment is 1.28 us (and needs, basically, 9 bytes of buffering capacity from start of packet to end of packet). Waiting for the full 1500 bytes would introduce 120 us (or 0.12ms) of latency, as well as require 1500 bytes of buffer during the transmission time. ~~~ policedemil Excellently put! That's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you! ~~~ mschuster91 If you want to read further, this is a part of network delay ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_delay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_delay)). A highly interesting field. By the way, one thing I have forgotten: an instant-forward has much less latency (obviously), but it cannot retract packets that were corrupted during receiving at the ingress port - simply because the checksum can only be calculated when the whole packet is in the buffer. So basically you choose between safety (corrupted packets do not travel as long, because they don't even reach the final station) and latency (e.g. 10 hops a 0.12ms = 1.20ms delay on 100MBit/s), and also for the cost in buffer memory. ------ en4bz This is why I'm really hoping RDMA [1] will catch on soon. It would be great if there was a cloud provider that would enable this feature on some of their offerings. Amazon has done something similar by allowing kernel bypass via DPDK [2] with their ENA offering but Kernel bypass is inferior to RDMA in so many ways IMO. At this point we have 200Gbit/s NICs being provided by Mellanox [3]. CPUs aren't getting any faster and the scale out approach is extremely difficult to get right without going across NUMA domains [4]. Based on the progression of CPUs lately there just isn't going to be enough time to process all these packets AND have time left over to actually run your application. There's a lot of work focusing on data locality at the moment but at this point it's still not fool proof and the work that has been done is woefully under documented. As the article mentioned we've already added a bunch of hardware offloads. RDMA is just a continuation of these offloads but unfortunately it requires some minor changes on the application side to take advantage of which is why it's probably been slow to be adopted. RDMA has so many great applications for data-transfer for backend services. Whether it's queries between a web-server and a DB, replication/clustering of DBs, or micro-service fabric with micro seconds latency. Overall there's a lot of low hanging fruit that could be optimized with RDMA. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_direct_memory_access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_direct_memory_access) [2] [http://dpdk.org/doc/nics](http://dpdk.org/doc/nics) [3] [http://www.mellanox.com/page/products_dyn?product_family=266...](http://www.mellanox.com/page/products_dyn?product_family=266&mtag=connectx_6_en_card) [4] [http://rhelblog.redhat.com/2015/09/29/pushing-the-limits- of-...](http://rhelblog.redhat.com/2015/09/29/pushing-the-limits-of-kernel- networking/) ~~~ kev009 One other point, these cloud companies like Amazon and Google do a great deal of self congratulations for some pretty embarrassing architectures. Necessitating million server datacenters is as WTF to me as being proud of millions of lines of code when someone else is doing it with magnitudes less. 40G networking has been commercially viable since the top of the decade and 100G (or partial variants) for a couple years now while ENA tops out at 20G. They are basically asleep at the wheel because their architectures are predicated on poor assumptions, shirking understanding of computer architecture for 10s of thousands of SREs and "full stack developers". Dovetailing a bit, back in the commercial UNIX and mainframe markets it is pretty common to have 80%-90% percent system utilization. In the Linux world, it's usually single digits. For some reasons (I guess it's more inviting to think holistically due to the base OS model), we are getting those 90% figures in the BSD community. See drewg's comment, WhatsApp, Isilon, LLNW: I led the creation of an OS team, to look from first principles, where we were spending CPU/bus/IO bandwidth, and focusing on north-south delivery instead of horizontal scale. A team of 5, we are able to deliver significant shareholder value [http://investors.limelight.com/file/Index?KeyFile=38751761](http://investors.limelight.com/file/Index?KeyFile=38751761). ~~~ en4bz Yeah I suppose what I really want is physical procurement of hardware with the ease of cloud. ~~~ kev009 I haven't used them, but it looks compelling: [https://www.packet.net/](https://www.packet.net/) ------ tedunangst Buggy firmware with edge cases is putting it mildly. I suppose a checksum of 0000 or ffff is technically an edge case, but not all that uncommon, and a pretty popular thing to get wrong. ~~~ gonzo Even the standards got it wrong. [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1624](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1624) ------ bluetech Interesting article. Another related article I found interesting: [https://www.coverfire.com/articles/queueing-in-the-linux- net...](https://www.coverfire.com/articles/queueing-in-the-linux-network- stack/) Discusses some of the queues in the Linux network stack. ------ ams6110 As an aside, is anyone using the Joyent cloud stuff in production? Any good comparisons to Openstack? Looking for something easier to manage. ------ pthreads This is a very useful write-up. I thoroughly enjoyed it i.e. found it informative. Thank you.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to tune a guitar with Ruby and FFT - danso http://makaroni4.com/ruby/hacking/2014/03/26/how-to-tune-guitar-with-ruby/ ====== tantalor "As you can see we need to pull the string for 77.09Hz :)" What does that mean? Edit: 329.63 (desired) - 252.54 (actual) = 77.09 I was confused because the frequency/magnitude plot had the maximum-magnitude frequency in the title. Perhaps that point should be labeled instead.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Oracle shuts down PostgreSQL test servers - murrayb http://www.itnews.com.au/News/221051,oracle-shuts-down-open-source-test-servers.aspx ====== lsc Man, Oracle works /hard/ to maintain their bad reputation. I mean, they do some good work, look at BTRFS, but it looks like their general public relations to nerds is really, really bad. To some extent, you have to make a choice to focus your marketing on managers or to focus your marketing on Engineers... but even so, it sometimes seems that oracle goes out of it's way to piss off the Engineers. ------ guelo I'm scared of Oracle. Having built my current career around Java I'm actually glad Google has forked Java with the Android project. ~~~ nitrogen I feel your pain. I've decided that after my current big Java project, I'm going to move into HTML5+CSS3/Ruby web apps. I've seen what people are doing with JS these days, and I wonder why I'm still writing my UI in C++/Qt and Java. I find Sunoracle's lackadaisical treatment of Java 7 and JavaFX unacceptable. ------ jacquesm Don't blame on malice what you can most likely comfortably blame on incompetence or miscommunication. ------ bioinformatics I have access to Solaris on SPARC-based machines, would be glad to help. ~~~ bioinformatics Found the <http://pgfoundry.org/> site and will add the system to it. ------ moe Oracle scared of PostgreSQL? Good times. ~~~ tomjen3 Yep. Oracle is scared of pretty much any other database (properly not sqlite, but otherwise). They are so scared that they prevent anyone with an Oracle license from publishing a benchmark of it. Which can only mean that they suck at everything except playing golf. ~~~ viraptor To be honest it makes _some_ sense in their case. Just look at the amount of blog posts that compare how fast databases are by running an insert of 1M rows, then a couple of selects and declaring a "winner" based on that... I'm sure Oracle wouldn't like any "tests" like that published. ~~~ ahi I don't think that is really their concern. Even if Oracle comes out on top in benchmarks they lose. "We're spending how much to get a x% performance increase?" Once numbers are attached a rational decision can be made come buying decision time. Oracle wants/needs that decision to be based on qualitative arguments, "our space unicorn is better than they're blue elephant." ------ adolfoabegg They're trying to avoid what Paul Graham said: "It's very dangerous to let anyone fly under you. If you have the cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end. And if you don't, you're in the crosshairs of whoever does." <http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html> ~~~ adolfoabegg from the same post: "In technology, the low end always eats the high end. It's easier to make an inexpensive product more powerful than to make a powerful product cheaper. So the products that start as cheap, simple options tend to gradually grow more powerful till, like water rising in a room, they squash the "high-end" products against the ceiling." ~~~ silvestrov I think Apple is the exception. They ate the other mp3 players and they ate the other mobile companies' profits. So it seems like if the high end is cheap enough, it can eat downwards. ------ compay I'm a big fan of Postgres and have a hard time overcoming my visceral dislike for Oracle. But I suppose this makes perfect sense for them. Businesses protect themselves from real and potential threats. If I were an Oracle shareholder, this is probably what I would want and expect them to do. ~~~ ahi Except it does nothing to protect Oracle. The cost is so inconsequential somebody is going to provide hosting. All they achieved was a couple days (hours?) of hassle for the pgsql people and pissing off some devs. Zero competitive advantage was achieved while confirming to developers they can't be trusted. If it was an accident, Oracle employs humans. If this was purposeful, Oracle employs idiots. ------ ars Debian could probably provide a build server if they ask. The have them anyway, and they build PostgreSQL anyway when it's uploaded to debian (although obviously that's not every commit). But with ccache a rebuild is not very expensive. ~~~ rnicholson I think it was more about Solaris support than just the mere fact of having another build server. _Sun Microsystems - and for a short time its new owner Oracle - had provided three member servers to ensure PostgreSQL was stable on the Solaris operating system._ ~~~ cageface With the end of OpenSolaris I think it would be wise for the open-source community to write off Solaris support. Time spent supporting Solaris is time better spent making Linux a better server OS and making sure that things like Postgres work as efficiently and reliably as possible on Linux. ~~~ gleb_sitnikov Linux will never get all enterprise features of Solaris. That OS, broken into a myriad of distributions, driven by lammers who think they are making smth great while they're not - is it gonna become your OS of choice for a mission critical system? Where did you see "the end of OpenSolaris"? Is all that FUD made by Linux users who I so happy to blame the competitor? See [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server- storage/opensolaris...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server- storage/opensolaris/overview/index.html) ------ Confusion Could it be that this was an accident? I can imagine someone at Oracle going "Sun guys, what do these servers do?". The Sun guys, some of whom may have already left Oracle, some of whom may have shifted departments recently, don't know and say: "they don't seem to be used for anything, according to the administration. There's some weird postgres stuff going on there, but it doesn't seem to do anything useful". "Well OK", the Oracle guy says, "then we can use those machines elsewhere". ------ rnicholson I wonder if this move has more to do with killing off Solaris than with Oracle directly trying to screw PostgreSQL. ~~~ bnoordhuis I don't think so. It's not uncommon to run Oracle on Solaris + SUN hardware. Not a large market but one with high profit margins. Why would Oracle want to kill a cash cow? ~~~ ams6110 For years, Solaris was the "original" platform upon which Oracle was developed. Everything else was a port. Solaris got the patches first, etc. Several Oracls DBAs I know used to say "if you want to run Oracle you might as well run it on Solaris" ~~~ astine That is true, but Oracle recently has been pushing Linux, not Solaris. The Exadata, which is Oracle's first attempt to to build a database appliance on Sun hardware uses Linux, not Solaris, for example. ------ vegai So PostgreSQL won't work on Solaris soon. Nothing works in it anyway, so will anyone even notice? ~~~ astine I will. I run PostgreSQL on Solaris at the day job and it runs very well. (Most things run fine on Solaris so long as you avoid X.) We use a lot of Sun hardware where I contract, and it will be very annoying if I end up having to port my software to MySQL to make Oracle happy. ------ julius_geezer It sounds pretty bush-league. ------ elptacek Boo. ------ bdwalter There seems to be no end of the enterprise deuche-baggery that is Oracle.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dear Miss Disruption - McKittrick https://medium.com/p/d7e5d14065f1 ====== pytrin Lots of gems, but this is my personal favorite: "However… you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t get him to drink. Even if the water comes in the form of an endless supply of VitaminWater in the company fridge." ------ mantas I really hope this article is a joke, but author forgot to add /sarcasm. ~~~ aegiso I think it's perfect. Adding sarcasm tags here would be like adding ketchup to your hotdogs, comic sans to a summons, or promises to node.js core. ~~~ dohertyjf Comic Sans to a summons. Now THERE's an idea!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Flippaper: Draw your own pinball in real time - neo2001 http://www.flippaper.org/ ====== chipsy This is a nicely polished-and-optimized hardware version of the UI in Stephen Lavelle's Plingpling. [0] I have a prototype sitting around of a directly inspired "draw-to-physics" thing myself. [0] [http://www.plingpling.org/](http://www.plingpling.org/) ------ GFK_of_xmaspast That's not working for me, but "Pinball Construction Set" was a hell of a thing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set)) ------ Animats This is an art project, not a product.[1] As an arcade machine, it's at least 20 years too late. But it has potential as a casual game for tablets or very fat phones. [1] [http://sewergadget.tumblr.com/exhibition](http://sewergadget.tumblr.com/exhibition) ------ zharkov Hey there, I'm Roman Miletitch, co creator of Flippaper with Jérémie Cortial. Glad to see us on hacker news! If you have any questions, I'm here to answer. Just one comment already. While the pinball was indeed the thematic, the point was to have a gameplay that would take drawing as an input (or any colored stuff actually), and output on top of it. While not new, the fact you're both the game designer and player is a fun & sometimes weird experience. And yeah, it's an art project indeed. While we're aiming later for an app on smartphone, we wanted first to keep the physical aspect. This spawned many new way of playing Flippaper (ending up with one guy playing his T shirt because it had the right colors). ------ fiatjaf I thought this was a finished game I could play right now in the browser! ------ failrate I was hoping that this was something I could buy for my son's tablet. That would be awesome. ------ SixSigma not exactly "realtime" if you press "scan" but still, I love the idea ------ orbitingpluto The 80s vibe of creating shitty useless junk to buy because we didn't have what we really wanted, smartphones and tablets, was a nice touch. ~~~ randyrand Haha that's an amusing idea. Definitely were more of those toy commercials back then.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Silicon Valley Finds Trump’s Disruption Unwelcome - my_first_acct http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/silicon-valley-finds-trumps-disruption-unwelcome.html ====== chillacy Tech is less and less the everyman/underdog and becoming the establishment. It's no surprise to me that it begins protecting itself and its interests. I actually think it's not a case of entrepreneurs becoming greedy and protective once they make it, but the flock of people from wall street and other "big businesses" into tech. ------ tn13 Why are these political hit jobs being posted on HN ? ~~~ caminante Hit job? Who's getting attacked? I didn't read it as such.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Web Hosting Dilemmas: Who To Avoid - MatCarpenter http://www.sofamoolah.com/blogging/web-hosting-dilemmas-who-to-avoid/ ====== bradleyland A couple of things: If you follow tech news, you'll notice that every major cloud based service has experienced some level of down time, so while you should "avoid" shared hosts like HostGator (I think this goes without saying), you shouldn't expect that just because you go with a cloud service like MediaTemple, Amazon, Heroku, etc, you don't need to plan for possible outages. MT also had their fair share of issues back when they were getting started. Amazon has had some well publicized issues. Both of these wouldn't be an issue for those who engineer their systems properly. It's hard to beat simplicity when it comes to reliability. We don't need the scaling capabilities of cloud services, so we go with simple VPSs. Our primary hosting is straight forward VPS systems hosted with a provider colocated at Colo4 in Dallas. I've had systems with them for 5 years now and I've never experienced a failure. We still maintain redundant services in a Freemont data center just in case. ------ wccrawford HostGator does random license/identity checks on customers? What kind of idiocy is that? If you sell an service with 'instant' in the name, it had better be. Let them get started instantly. If you want to do random checks on content, go for it. But don't piss off your customers before they've even started. Especially if they've got any weight in the industry. ~~~ garethsprice HostGator is also one of the largest consumer-facing web hosts for small sites. They don't require these checks from everyone, just orders flagged as high risk. I'd imagine they're flagging these orders using a third party risk verification/fraud detection service. Sofa Moolah is registered in Australia, and International orders are a high indication of risk - especially as Australia's region of the world includes Malaysia (huge hotbed of credit card fraud). Given the very large amount of fraud in web hosting (people ordering using fraudulent credit cards, that can result in $20-50 chargeback fees for that $8 account), it's not unreasonable to ask for verification. Annoying, but not unreasonable. ~~~ wccrawford They specifically told him he was randomly selected. Yes, he picked the 'high risk' web hosting choice, but that's no reason to give him lousy service. They could have come to the same end as far as service checks go without pissing him off and losing him as a customer. Not to mention everyone he tells. If all they are worried about is the chargeback, they should have enabled his account immediately, then started running the checks. If he fails the checks, THEN you disable the account. What would it cost them? Like $.20? Instead, this way cost them at least 1 serious customer. ------ paulnelligan OR you could get a VPS slice at linode and set it up for yourself, one day of work, but if you're serious about your product, it's well worth it!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How to Improve Typing Accuracy - jdowner I have been using a keyboard for a long time, but I struggle to type accurately. I am more a 'touch-typer' than a 'hunt-and-pecker' but my accuracy is poor. There are two particular times when I find this frustrating. I work on the command line quite a bit, and invariably I will make a mistake and the command doesn't work. Correct it, but make another mistake. Again it doesn't work. I could slow down, and that helps, but at times it is frustrating. Also, it makes using slack/irc/etc frustrating because most of the time my sentences contain some mistake that makes me sound like I am struggling with the language when I am a native speaker!<p>I know that it sounds like a should simple do more touch typing practice, and maybe that is the answer, but the problem is that when I do exercises online I actually have pretty good accuracy. That includes typing practice in code and not just English. I am hoping that some of you might have suggestions or ideas that I have not thought of.<p>(you have no idea how many times I hit backspace while writing this!) ====== necovek Perhaps you could try hitting the correct keys. :) I am myself a touch-typist not using all ten digits, but still getting around 90-110 wpm typing English on online testing sites (though not a native speaker). My error rate is usually pretty small (1-3%), but I "feel" when I miss a key and quickly correct it automatically. I find that the rate of my typing is sufficient for the work I do (software development), so I am not bothered about improving further. You obviously don't think your typing speed is sufficient (thus the typos), so I believe you should invest in proper hand placement and practice: if you can't force youself to do it, just get one of those split ergonomic keyboards. There is nothing like being forced to deal with it to make you improve :) (Any typos here are due to phone "keyboards" :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Di-ary – mathematical note-taking app built on Ruby on Rails, React and Redux - mkalygin https://github.com/mkalygin/di-ary ====== brudgers If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN". Show HN Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) ~~~ mkalygin Thanks for the hint! I'm new to HN, I try to bring some value to the community. I've made a new post to "Show HN".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why is Facebook blue? The science of colors in marketing - andygcook http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-science-of-colors-in-marketing-why-is-facebook-blue ====== mnicole While color psychology is an excellent topic, I think this post relies too much on data that isn't reliable/was meant to be marketing linkbait vs. legitimate research. The real tell-tale in those buttons are their styles rather than the colors. If you took the solids and lined them up as palettes, it would be a lot more difficult to parse. The infographic showing the emotion colors correlating to their brands does more to prove that big and bold is what matters, not the hue (and honestly it looks like someone just pasted all the logos they could think of, regardless of if they supported the meaning/emotion). I'm not even going to touch the gender-based one. I tried to reach the _single_ URL that Kissmetrics lists as their proof but it no longer works (also why don't they have HTML versions of their data?). At the end of the day, it really comes down to _how_ color is used. There are lots of great books and blogs on color psychology, and I'd suggest looking into those instead. ------ brianlovin This post got me thinking about brands I know - Fast food seems to really prefer warm colors (red, orange and yellow) - think, McDonalds, Wendy's, Subway, KFC, Dominos, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Sonic etc. This correlates with the post, where red = energy + creating urgency while yellow = optimistic and youthful. Fast food: making customers energized and in a rush since the color red. Alcohol for some reason really loves pure black or pure white (I'm thinking to tv commercials with black backgrounds and the slow-motion alcohol pours). Again, great correlation here in the post where black = luxury/power. But thinking to my own personal experience with design, Leo's quote stands out to me: "Despite all the studies, generalizations are extremely hard to make. Whatever change you make, treat it first as a hypothesis, and see an the actual experiment what works for you." It seems to me like a blue/orange combo has become one of the most-used color schemes for startups (correlation to movie posters? [http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie- poster...](http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/)) ~~~ mindcrime _It seems to me like a blue/orange combo has become one of the most-used color schemes for startups_ Really? Crap... I haven't really noticed, and it probably doesn't matter, but we're blue/orange heavy[1]. For what it's worth, we went with this design 3 or more years ago, so at least we probably can't be considered copycats. :-) [1]: <http://www.fogbeam.com> ------ benblodgett > 21% more people clicked on the red button than on the green button. > Everything else on the pages was the same, so it was only the button color > that made this difference. I think it is a bit of a reach to immediately jump to concluding red outperforms green. Cohorts in a/b testing are not always equal (even if the traffic split is 50/50). Imagine situations where 30% of a has 70% more mobile users than those of b. The green used for b is significantly less noticeable on mobile than desktop. Can we still reasonably conclude that color defined the conversion difference? ~~~ gingerlime _Imagine situations where 30% of a has 70% more mobile users than those of b_ Wouldn't this be statistically impossible (i.e. extremely unlikely) given a big-enough data-set in a properly designed A/B test platform? ------ mindcrime That's pretty interesting stuff. In our case, I picked our original color scheme mostly by accident (I just thought it looked nice), and went with a blue/orange/white scheme. Now, reading this, given out space (enterprise software) it looks like blue/orange were pretty good choices. Of course, given IBM's history and nickname of "big blue" I guess a lot of people would default to associating "blue" with "enterprise software". ------ Svip I thought it was because facebooks (that is the concept they are named after) were blue. In fact, the term for a facebook is »blå bog« in Danish, lit. meaning 'blue book'.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
American Express fails miserably at basic security - ice799 http://timetobleed.com/warning-american-express-fails-miserably-at-basic-security/ ====== edj This sounds scarier than it really is. Why? Because credit card companies focus on identifying fraudulent transactions rather than verifying your id. From Bruce Scheier's blog[1]: "But once you understand that the problem is fraudulent transactions, you quickly realize that authenticating the transaction, not the person, is the way to proceed. "Again, think about credit cards. Store clerks barely verify signatures when people use cards. People can use credit cards to buy things by mail, phone or Internet, where no one verifies the signature or even that you have possession of the card. "Even worse, no credit card company mandates secure storage requirements for credit cards. They don't demand that cardholders secure their wallets in any particular way. Credit card companies simply don't worry about verifying the cardholder or putting requirements on what he does. They concentrate on verifying the transaction." [1]:<http://www.schneier.com/essay-153.html> ~~~ tptacek Strong disagree. In reality, and especially for small-ish transactions, card companies are terrible at detecting fraud and customers are terrible at noticing it. Criminals can make second-order money off innocuous transactions through affiliate scams. The only reason this isn't a big deal is that it remains incredibly easy for attackers to get CC#'s without capturing packets off the wire. ~~~ DrJokepu Don't know, obviously you know a lot more about this than me, but in my experience as a consumer, at least my bank (HSBC UK) has been pretty good at identifying fraudalent transactions on my account. They actually spot them before I do and call me right away. ~~~ patio11 My credit card companies are so good at identifying fraud they've caught 17 of my last 0 fraudulent transactions. (OK, I sympathize: buying a thousand bucks of stuff in four transactions from central Japan at 2 in the morning is not exactly typical behavior for a Bank of America customer.) ~~~ lanstein btw, as a fellow B of A customer who has had to deal with their crappy fraud algorithm as recently as last week, apparently you can go into the branch and have the 'fraud protection' removed. ------ pkulak That's pretty terrible, but I'd say it's still more secure than most of the ways I transfer my credit card number. Twice I've needed a tow truck, and both times would you like to know how they charged my card? By picking up their radio and reading off all my info to the main office. All I'd need is a scanner to get dozens of valid credit card numbers a day. ~~~ mynameishere I once gave my card to a waiter. ~~~ hugh3 A waiter stealing credit card numbers has a good chance of being caught eventually. I assume the credit card companies do some basic data mining on their stolen card database, and if card numbers start getting stolen shortly after dining at a particular establishment then they'll track this down. I googled "waiter stealing credit card numbers" and here's an example from today's news of some folks who got caught: <http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0510/739156.html> On the other hand if you have a radio scanner and are picking up numbers going over the air from tow truck companies there's no traceable link between you and anything in the database. ~~~ mseebach No, but there'd be a link to tow-truck companies in your area, and perhaps their not-exactly-PCI-compliant handling of credit-card numbers would be exposed. ~~~ spohlenz Who says it would be in your area though? You could travel the country and probably find hundreds of instances of this sort of thing happening. ------ jrockway Maybe. But their fraud detection is pretty good. I've seen some unauthorized charges before, and Amex has called me before I had any idea. I've also had unauthorized charges show up on a Citi card -- their customer support didn't care and refused to help me. I just paid the $60 (for some scam software, apparently) and canceled the card. So Citi may protect their numbers better, but Amex actually helps you when someone gets your number. (I also had a Paypal debit card canceled for authorized charges. Needless to say, I just buy everything with the Amex. Good customer service, good interest rate, cash back.) ------ InclinedPlane American Express also limits password for their online banking functions to less than 8 purely alphanumeric characters (no spaces, no special characters). If this alone wasn't bad enough, this almost certainly means that somewhere deep in the bowels of AmEx's software stack there's an ancient system where the password field is in plain-text. ~~~ bradgessler AMEX isn't the only one with arcane password restrictions. Most banks limit the characters to an alphanumeric subset of ASCII with a few characters like _, and -. It makes no sense. If that wasn't bad enough, look at how services like Mint have to interface with these institutions? When will something like OAuth come into play at banks? I'd love to charter a bank on the premise of superior online service. ~~~ gry I wonder about this, same for my bank. My theory is alphanumeric plus one, maybe two symbols means there is a lower probability of some sort of SQL injection. Perhaps a greater risk for exposing one account, but lower risk for exposing many. It's the only explanation I can come up with. ~~~ natrius It's a good explanation, but it can only be valid if they store passwords in plain text. No financial institution would do that, right? ~~~ jlangenauer I'd dare say that if a financial institution ever had a situation where an attacker could see any part of their database, they'd have far bigger problems to deal with. ------ tptacek It wouldn't matter at all if the handler was https. If the form is delivered over HTTP, a man in the middle can make it go wherever they want. ------ jeff18 Just out of curiosity, what is the actual penalty to American Express for saying their page is secure while transmitting credit card numbers in plaintext? ~~~ eli If someone steals my card number, they're the ones on the hook. Edit: mkull is probably right in the vast majority of cases ~~~ mkull wrong.. if someone steals the card number, the merchant who accepts the fraudulent transaction is on the hook. Not AMEX ~~~ xenophanes That sounds awful. Credit card fraud is mostly paid for by merchants?? ~~~ jacquesm The card issuer has two parties they can stick the charge to, one is the merchant, the other their customer. The merchant is the easy way out, they're not going to cancel their connection with the card issuer because that's their bottom line. Sticking the charge to the customer is harder because the customer will cancel. Follow the path of the least resistance: stick it to the merchant. Now if they did the right thing, they'd fix their acceptance rules and a bunch of security issues and eat the remainder of the charges. Fat chance of that happening any day soon. ~~~ hugh3 This is actually sensible, since it shifts the responsibility for verifying the customer's identity onto the merchant, and lets merchants figure out exactly how much trouble they want to go to in order to do this. Some places will demand a photo ID to go along with your credit card transaction. On the other hand, some places like Starbucks don't even make you sign the receipt -- they figure the small number of coffees which get charged to stolen credit cards are well worth the ability to keep the line moving. ~~~ ptomato Per the merchant agreements, they _cannot_ deny you the sale if you don't want to show your ID. Also, the credit card companies no longer require signatures for purchases under $20 (possibly $25?) which is why Starbucks doesn't require you to sign any more. ------ jacquesm That's just an ad for 'homerun'. Find insecurity in competitors service, make loud blog noises, drop payload. ~~~ recampbell Really, just an ad? Amex's lack of security is no less interesting if it's discovered by a competitor. It's a pretty serious mistake by an organization you would expect to be more careful and knowledgeable about these things. ~~~ JoachimSchipper True, but read the comments. The organization reporting this is little better. ("Encrypted on the client" - which means they would be horribly exposed to man-in-the-middle attacks...) ------ dalore In the old mail order days my dad used to write the cc number on the order form, in plain text! ------ ams6110 The F-bombs really don't add anything to an otherwise decent write-up. Use some more creative vocabulary. ~~~ ice799 sorry bro i write the way i talk. also: "shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits." ------ kaddar "This page is secure"? This comment is complementing American Express. ------ hans I canceled Identity Protect service at AMX after it routinely lagged (sometimes months) in notifying me of credit changes to my fico or whatever. It is sad to see people pay $14/month for that service which, best case scenario, notifies you after somebody jacked your card and has long since moved away to a foreign country. Then I canceled my card too! Really identity thievery is an issue b/c of the banks + loan companies. They're perfectly willing to roll accounts with very little scrutiny and I don't understand why there are not class action lawsuits etc. to nail the lender not the jacked identity. Search on the "credit freeze" if you want the real solution. ------ henrikschroder Why would you even need the entire credit card number to sign up for a service likes this? That's what boggles my mind the most. Amex really only need enough data to identify one of their cardholderes in such a way that noone can sign up for someone else. Name + billing address + four last digits should be enough? Or eight last. Or four last + CVC. Asking for everything that's required for a purchase is beyond dumb. To me, it's like giving out your password while talking to customer representatives, that's also something you don't do. ------ DeusExMachina Reading the discussion about credit cards number security reminded me of this, that is worse than having some money stolen: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129797> ------ someone_here Unfortunately, most of today's "security" with regards to credit cards are merely there to deter the easy grabs. Any determined person could easily get anyone's details through a number of means. ~~~ amdev Sure, but why not grab low hanging fruit? ------ treblig I would be inclined to take this more seriously if there wasn't an enormous distorted AMEX logo at the top of the post. ~~~ ice799 i don't do graphics bro sorry ------ kadhinn Eye Opener..it's hard to believe but then you have proved it. Merchants need to take this up with banks. ------ c00p3r The issue is as old as the internet itself - do not use your primary card. Open a special one for electronic use only with separate account instead.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Groundbreaking blood test can detect cancer years before symptoms appear - hanniabu https://jpost.com/health-science/groundbreaking-blood-test-can-detect-cancer-years-before-symptoms-appear-636443/ ====== s09dfhks Is this what Theranos was trying to do before they got busted?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
DOJ: Billionaire pharma owner fueled the opioid epidemic with bribery scheme - rbanffy https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/doj-billionaire-pharma-owner-fueled-the-opioid-epidemic-with-bribery-scheme/ ====== alkonaut I trust this guy will get what he deserves, but surely there should be other people falling here? Usually it's the _taker_ of bribes that is the biggest criminal. Any doctor who can be shown to have given addictive opioids to people that aren't terminally ill should be investigated. This is completely regardless of whether it was the "standard practice" at the time, or whether some pharmaceutical sales rep told them it was a good idea. If just a couple of hundred doctors would lose their license and a few dozen end up in jail, that would make some headlines and perhaps make other doctors think twice before prescribing oxycodone to someone with normal back pain. Doing that is like amputating someone at the hip for toenail fungus. ~~~ pakitan Fast forward 10 years. Top story on HN is "I'm in excruciating pain and my doctor is refusing to prescribe me a painkiller because he's afraid of losing his license". Top comment: "This is ridiculous! Why are all these regulations preventing people from getting proper health care instead of actually helping them?" No, the solution is not putting doctors in jail. No, the solution is not piling regulations on top of more regulations. Only thing that's needed is educating people and providing less addictive alternatives. If the pack of pills has "Warning: this is highly addictive! Use only in emergency!" in big bold letters, then people will think twice about taking them. ~~~ jasonlaramburu They tried this with cigarettes. It did not really work: [https://www.rand.org/blog/2014/09/graphic-warning-labels- on-...](https://www.rand.org/blog/2014/09/graphic-warning-labels-on- cigarettes-are-scary-but.html) ~~~ pakitan The cigarette warning labels are working just fine. The point is to warn people of the dangers and practically every smoker is already aware of those and yet they choose to smoke anyway. That's perfectly fine in my book - as long as one is making an informed decision, they should be able to pick the poison that kills them. ~~~ GordonS I don't know about the US, but in the UK at least I reckon it's the _taxes_ that work better than the labels (the price of a pack of cigs has risen dramatically over the past 15 years or so) ~~~ orf They also banned small 10 packs, and 7.5g pouches. This seems to really stop people from buying a small pack for a night out, at least it stopped me. That is until you buy a larger pack and have some.left over the next day that is. ------ shams93 They certainly went after many medical cannabis providers with a vengeance and refuse to reschedule cannabis. I know someone who was able to quit a fentynal pump. Rather than jailing doctors we need to allow them to access cannabis for their patients as a far safer alternative, but Sessions is hell bent on forcing chronic pain patients into a choice between agony and suicide. What kind of kickbacks is Sessions getting from the drug cartels to start a war on medical cannabis? ~~~ stevenwoo I think you should specify when you write drug cartels if you mean traditional drug cartels in Central/South America/Asia or if you meant big pharma in USA. ------ pxeboot Something is really wrong with the system when billionaires have their bail set at 1 million. If he wanted to flee and forfeit his bail money, his net worth would be impacted about the same as the average American getting a parking ticket. ~~~ jsmthrowaway Bail is to guarantee appearance to respond to the _crime_ , not insure against the _accused_ , and reflects the seriousness of the crime and how much the state would care if you don’t answer for it. That’s why if you go in on multiple sets of charges you have multiple bails. That’s also why your DUI bail was five figures or less. In most places there is a table for bail amounts that can be stiffened, softened, or denied entirely at the judge’s discretion, but it is all based _on the crime_ and flight risk only. $1 million is a fairly high bail, generally in the ADW/manslaughter/sexual assault neighborhood. A court is not set up to handle a $1 billion bail, as you’re suggesting. That sort of money isn’t just moved around like that ($1 million is difficult enough), and the court would almost certainly mishandle it. ~~~ charlesdm Probably not, but for someone with a net worth of $1bn it seems extremely low. Just like said bail is extremely high for someone with a close to $0 or negative net worth. How about setting it at $100m? That doesn't sound unreasonable given the situation. Not mishandling is easy: you put it in a locked escrow account and don't touch it. It the depositor had to borrow against assets to secure the deposit, then let reasonable interest accrue against the principal and deduct. ~~~ jsmthrowaway Bail is set independently of net worth considerations and in a relatively impartial manner, which is the point. Judges do not have the flexibility to set a bail that high. Destitute murderers get $5 million+ bails all the time, which we would have to revisit if we started factoring in net worth (think about it). ~~~ mikeash Bail is set independently of net worth, but is that how it should be? There are tons of poor people stuck in jail awaiting trial for relatively minor crimes because they can't afford what would be a trivial bail amount to most HN readers. A rich person who commits a much more severe crime gets to sleep at home, or can flee if they think they don't have a good chance of winning without a big financial impact. Is that just? ~~~ jsmthrowaway Should we adjust criminal justice or adjust wealth? What you describe is a well-known inequality that comes with being wealthy; bail is built for the 99%, and being rich is a good, unfair way to remain in control of such a situation. But is altering the impartiality of several elements of the criminal justice system to pursue the occasional unjust rich guy the right answer? I don’t know. Is there any country in the world that does bail that way? It seems like there could be a lot of unexpected drawbacks to such an approach, since on the other end it’s harder to justify a high bond for a destitute, transient murderer, for example. If you’re okay with $100 million for this guy, it follows that you’d also have to be okay with $10 for _him_. Otherwise justice is partial and biased, even more so than it is now. Ignoring net worth seems safer, but again, I don’t know. ~~~ mikeash It's not just about the 99% versus the 1%. There are tons of poor people stuck in jail awaiting trial because they can't pay a bail that middle-class people could afford. Many end up pleading guilty for a crime they didn't commit because it gets them out of jail faster than waiting for trial. Assuming that $10 is high enough to ensure that the destitute, transient murderer will show up for trial, why _shouldn 't_ I be OK with it? ~~~ jsmthrowaway I’m aware and do not need explanation, because I was one of them. I could not afford $80,000, even with a 10% bail bond, and I plead guilty to a crime I did commit to get out of jail faster (I was in about five months). I realize that it might be startling to hear me argue for the status quo having been in that very position. What you allege, that people happily plead out while innocent, does not happen. It just doesn’t, and it’s something I’ve heard repeated a lot by people who haven’t been inside. I was in a position to advise dozens of inmates on their cases during my time, and not once did that ever happen. The truly innocent folks (and it’s hard to tell) were _happy_ to sit to get their day to prove it or wait for the charges to get dropped. I’ve seen inmates rip up a plea bargain and throw it in the prosecutor’s face after sitting in county _three years_. Inmates are not dumb cattle looking for the first door. They understand what signing a plea bargain does. Even beyond that, innocent people are almost never arrested in the first place. There are very, very, very few innocent people in jail. I hate to break it to you, because I know it undermines liberal sensitivity and view on the world (which I know because I’m liberal, I’m not critiquing). You’re also coming at this from the perspective that assumes everyone should be able to bail out, which isn’t true. Would you revisit total bail denials, too? Re: $10, how can you make that assumption? It’s disappointing that I’m being downvoted so heavily for pointing out that a seemingly minor change which is reactionary to one case could have implications far beyond intention. Being upset and changing things because of one billionaire is the very definition of mob-style reactionary grievance. There’s more to consider than just him, _and I agree it sucks_. This is a complicated issue and the easy engineering fix is very likely not the right one. ~~~ mikeash "innocent people are almost never arrested in the first place" Oh, I see. Guess this conversation is pointless, then. ~~~ jsmthrowaway It’s an important conversation to have and I was disputing your characterization that people routinely plead out when innocent, which is a tenuous claim and strongly argues for reform which perhaps we should be slower to adopt. It’s a key point. I’m trying to remain civil and substantive, and I wish you’d extend me the same courtesy. (Edit: I’m out of posting quota for today, but I at no point said what you’re claiming I’m trying to tell you in even the most uncharitable interpretation.) ~~~ mikeash It's tough to do that when you throw such ridiculous statements at me. The felony conviction rate in the US is around 70%. That doesn't sound to me like "innocent people are almost never arrested in the first place." The rate of false convictions for people on death row is about 4%. That's for by far the most scrutinized cases out there. According to this article, it's believed that somewhere between 2% and 8% of convicted felons are innocent people who pled guilty: [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent- peop...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead- guilty/) Maybe we have a disagreement over what number constitutes "almost never"? I'm trying to talk about the real problems bail causes in the justice system, and you're trying to tell me that it doesn't matter because basically everyone who gets arrested is guilty anyway. That's not substantive, and it's only superficially civil. ------ monktastic1 And then there's the Sackler Oxycontin story: [http://www.esquire.com/news- politics/a12775932/sackler-famil...](http://www.esquire.com/news- politics/a12775932/sackler-family-oxycontin/) > You’re aware America is under siege, fighting an opioid crisis that has > exploded into a public-health emergency. You’ve heard of OxyContin, the pain > medication to which countless patients have become addicted. But do you know > that the company that makes Oxy and reaps the billions of dollars in profits > it generates is owned by one family? There's big money in opioid addiction. ------ fjsolwmv Why hasn't the local sheriff's office seized that billion dollars like they do for anyone suspected of handling street drugs? ~~~ 21 For the same reason that you never see a SWAT team breaking down a rich criminal's door to arrest him, even if he has body-guards or registered firearms, or is accused of a violent crime. (Yes, I know, someone will find such a video on youtube to prove me wrong). ~~~ MertsA [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMas0tWc0sg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMas0tWc0sg) ------ calvinbhai As a healthy 30 something person, I feel fortunate that I'm not in pain, nor do I have any addictions to these potent addictive pain killers. But it is just more salt on the wounds for me because the monthly insurance premium I pay is huge, and people (after I asked around) consider my health insurance scheme to be very good. And yet every doctor visit, test etc means more bills to pay. It forces me to conclude thus: The healthcare system in the US is totally unfair to hardworking people of America, and the blame is not on the doctors/physicians. It lies squarely on this Pharmaceutical/Insurance Industry complex of creating more sick people, keeping costs artificially high to fleece more money as premiums from hardworking people, while making it easy to get prescriptions for such drugs. EOD, it feels like my money is feeding this drug addiction epidemic. And politicians on the left, right and center in US are doing zilch to fix this. w.r.t this article, I hope this owner gets a fair trial, and if convicted, I hope that he drags down every single person who was part of this scam, with him. ------ rudedogg "NSAIDs are stronger pain medications than opioids" \- [http://www.nsc.org/RxDrugOverdoseDocuments/evidence- summary-...](http://www.nsc.org/RxDrugOverdoseDocuments/evidence-summary- NSAIDs-are-stronger-pain-medications-than-opioids-with-IFP.pdf) ~~~ scott_karana "...for dental pain". ------ zaroth I don't see any numbers on the scale of the operation... How many prescriptions, net reimbursement per prescription, how many dollars? Also, if a doctor is writing an inappropriate script based on a kickback are their licenses getting suspended? ~~~ mikeash A lot of doctors didn't know that they were writing inappropriate prescriptions, because they were evaluating the tradeoffs based on information from the drug company that said these drugs were much less addictive than they really were. ~~~ astura It was in one of the linked articles that doctors are required to undergo special training from the FDA before they are allowed to prescribe fentanyl. So they absolutely should know. ~~~ mikeash Was the information in that training based on the bad data from the drug company? ~~~ astura The training is provided by the FDA and the medication is only FDA approved for breakthrough cancer pain. So almost certainly not. ------ acqq In case anybody missed, the fentanyl overdose is officially what killed the musician known as Prince. ------ solotronics find and prosecute those responsible for importing fentanyl from China these are the biggest killers of American youth. I know a handful that died from heroin laced with fent or from straight fentanyl from the darkweb. Legalize opiates and treat addiction as a medical condition. ------ phkahler Tell me again why fentanyl isn't a schedule 1 drug and totally illegal. ~~~ leggomylibro Because it has legitimate uses for clinical short-term pain management, which should really put it in schedule 2. With cannabis up in 1, though, I guess those scheduling guidelines don't _actually_ mean a damned thing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Second known interstellar visitor after Oumuamua - QueensGambit https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6465/558.1 ====== fernly Does this suggest a serious danger to any hypothetical interstellar ship? If the density of such kilometer-scale objects is such that disk of our solar system intercepts them by the dozen, there is one fuck of a lot more solid matter drifting through interstellar space than I have ever seen suggested. Sure, as Douglas Adams said, "Space is big. Really big," but still: if you imagine traveling even a very modest fraction of C, this begins to make the Millenium Falcon in the asteroid field[1] look like real science. [1] [https://youtu.be/c8deRYotdng?t=133](https://youtu.be/c8deRYotdng?t=133) ~~~ dandelany Let's back-of-the-envelope this a bit... Let's say that there are 10 big interstellar rocks with a volume of 1 km^3 each that are currently within 30 au of the sun (roughly Neptune's orbit). If we assume this is a good estimate of nearby galactic space, then if you chose a random 1km^3 "voxel" in our neighborhood of the galaxy, the odds that it would contain a 1km interstellar asteroid would be roughly (10 * 1km^3) / ((4/3) * pi * 30^3 au^3) ~= 3 in 10^29. Now imagine a spaceship that travels 100 light years. It's going to pass through roughly 10^15 1km "voxels" on its journey, which means the chances of it hitting one of those 1km rocks is ~(10^15/10^29) or 1 in 100 trillion. Space is biiiig. The real danger, though, is the smaller stuff. It's hard to know the distribution of interstellar dust size, but there are a LOT more small things than big things, and it only takes a grain of sand at relativistic speeds to cause a really bad day. If sand-sized rocks turn out to be 100 trillion times more common than these big ones, well, that's going to be a problem... ~~~ Angostura Wouldn’t a grain of sand, even at relativistic speeds, Bournemouth up instantaneously with a small >tffffop<! ~~~ simonh It’s impact energy would be similar to that of a bullet. The penetration power would be relatively high though due to its small size and extremely high velocity. Of course as the size of the particle goes up the impact energy goes up too. A pebble the size of a fingernail would be pretty bad news at about a million times the energy and many of them will be mostly iron. ------ QueensGambit 2I/Borisov, the second known interstellar visitor after Oumuamua, looks like a normal comet from our own Solar System. The size of the two objects, along with the rate of their discovery suggests this could be common occurrence - at any given moment about a dozen interstellar visitors are passing through the Solar System. ------ anjel They will be finding more of these, in large part because Oumuamua, "the news story" got huge ratings. ~~~ zaphirplane Or oumuamua is the long range scout and now the aliens are setting up their forward base ;) All hail our new overlords ------ vages By alien (as in the article’s headline, do the authors limit their claim to “from another star”, or do they actually mean that some other intelligence constructed it? ~~~ namarie It'd be much bigger news if it was constructed, I'd think. ~~~ aetherspawn Hey if I were observing humans, all my ships would look and scan like comets. ~~~ perl4ever As we see from New Horizons, a flyby gives you very limited options for scanning. But hanging around requires eliminating nearly all the velocity you had to get there, which is infeasible.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Where does consciousness come from? - jmtame I've been pondering this with several other friends. If you take a psychology class, you learn all about the brain, neurons, and neurotransmitters. But at some point, do you wonder how do we feel a sense of "personality" and consciousness based on nothing more than electrical signals firing off?<p>For example, I know we have an amygdala and frontal lobe where our personality is formed. But what about the chemical make up of neurons? How does that cause us to feel certain ways?<p>Does anyone feel like the field of neurology fails to explain a lot of the low-level fundamentals?<p>EDIT: At birth, when does the first neuron fire, and how does it sustain itself? ====== randomwalker "do you wonder how do we feel a sense of "personality" and consciousness based on nothing more than electrical signals firing off?" This is one of the central questions of cognitive neuroscience today, and scientists aren't even close to a convincing answer. It is exactly the wrong question for an ask HN post -- it's like a bunch of sailors speculating about quantum mechanics. Please read the papers. Here's a great introductory video for a lay audience -- Dan Dennett's TED talk: [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consci...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html) I do sympathize with your point that the abstract scientific jargon seems to leave one wanting for a "real" answer, but since the science itself is way incomplete at this point, any attempt to pare it down will result in something that's no better than random guessing. ~~~ davidw [ I generally try and avoid frivolities, but... ] > a bunch of sailors speculating about quantum mechanics. Arrrr... 'tis like the waves of the ocean, but also like me musket shot - at the same time, lads! I agree though, that outside of one or two people (robg?) , most of us aren't very knowledgeable about the subject. ~~~ jwilliams > _I agree though, that outside of one or two people (robg?) , most of us > aren't very knowledgeable about the subject._ The neuroscience side, yes - but I think the philosophical implications are anyone's game (that's the beauty of philosophy really - no license required). ~~~ JabavuAdams Actually that's the retardedness of philosophy. See Dennet's TED talk. By the way, thanks to those posting on this thread for introducing me to Daniel Dennet. I had mentally categorized philosophy as "verbose wanking by a bunch of people who would rather win debates than understand things," until watching his lecture. ------ pg The word "consciousness" doesn't mean one single thing. To the extent it means anything definite, it seems to refer to a collection of self-referential thoughts. I'm sure everyone who studies the brain wonders very much how neuron firings correlate with these thoughts or any others. I'm equally sure everyone who studies the brain would be surprised if they _weren't_ "based on nothing more than electrical signals firing off." ~~~ mechanical_fish What I find amusing is the phrase "nothing more than electrical signals". As if electrical signals were somehow _trivial to understand_. As if _one_ individual neuron didn't embody so much chemistry and physics and history (it's got your entire genome stored inside!) and complex behaviors (it's a tiny little _creature_!) that we can't even understand it _in isolation_. I'm not sure whether to recommend Dennett's _Consciousness Explained_ or to compel the questioner to work through _The Molecular Biology of the Cell_ , followed by (e.g.) Hölldobler and Wilson's _Journey to the Ants_ \-- and then keep going -- before trying to dismiss the complexity of a network of neurons with the wave of one hand. ~~~ yan I find that some people (hooray weasel words) are so driven to find that something special that can put humans in a completely different realm from other things and animals that they won't accept that the same processes that run us also run most other living things, just more progressed. I don't know why people need a clear, binary difference of what makes one "human" to appreciate how beautiful life and the mind is. Am I in the minority that has no problems with being categorizes as a mammal, just more progressed, not different altogether? ~~~ ddemchuk I think that defining difference could be language. While on a biological level we are not much different than primates and other mammals, what we do have that no other animal so far has exhibited is language. Humans communicate on a level above and beyond anything else in the animal kingdom. This leads into my biggest question regarding consciousness: how does one think without language? We all have an inner self speaking in one language or another, but what if we had no knowledge of any language? Does language define consciousness? ~~~ byrneseyeview _how does one think without language? We all have an inner self speaking in one language or another, but what if we had no knowledge of any language?_ When you cross the street, do you narrate the situation to yourself ("One car approaching at about 25 miles per hour, currently two hundred feet away, decelerating at...") or do you model them visually? ~~~ ddemchuk But crossing the street does not require a heightened sense of consciousness. In fact, you are probably not even conscious of nearly everything that's going on as you cross the street, you are just doing it. Now if you were sitting on your couch in dead silence in a pitch black room, what would be going on in your head with no language? ~~~ byrneseyeview I can't track how much of my thought is visual versus verbal -- because, of course, if I did so I'd switch to verbal mode -- but there are plenty of thoughts one can consciously have that don't require words. The category that most readily comes to mind is sexual fantasies. They don't require consciousness, I guess, but I suspect that many beings we think of as conscious have such thoughts, consciously. ------ kirse This is a great question, and one that will never be answered by scientific naturalism. The current worldview assumed by scientists is that the "natural" and "material" is all we have and all that can be used to explain everything. Unfortunately, while this does form a powerful basis for truth in the empirically observable, it completely shatters and is horribly faulted when one tries to explain the unempirical and unobservable with only what you have. It is an extremely powerful assumption (based on faith in a worldview) that the domain of the metaphysical is purely explained by the physical (the laws of physics and the material)... In your case, where does this concept of mind, self, and consciousness come from? It's clearly powered by a physical entity (the brain), but the "self" is also clearly not a physical entity. There is absolutely no proof that the system of material thinking holds water in other domains such as the metaphysical, so most of what scientists think about the mind and self come out of some seriously convincing bullshitting. They really have no clue how it arises, and it will never be explained unless we manage to re-create a conscious entity ourselves. With that in mind (pun not intended), take anything you read about how the "self" comes about with a serious dose of common sense. This is where it's up to you to make a decision, because the scientists (while sounding smart), really have no more clue than you do =) ~~~ glenstein Well, "the metaphysical" needs to actually _be there_ , before it can show us any shortcomings of "scientific naturalism". How exactly does someone observe the "unobservable"? How could one come to confidently believe in a realm built up out of "unempirical" content? If anyone can satisfactorily answer these questions, chances are they have done science, and discovered that the unempirical content everyone was talking about was scientifically describable after all, unique from other science only in its being particularly difficult to apprehend. Until we get there, this unempirical component of consciousness being posited shares common heritage with the Luminiferous aether, the life-force, hollow earth theory, mythic gods of natural forces and any number of premature theories which hover in the closing gaps of indeterminacy before a science comes along to explain them. ~~~ FlorinAndrei Keep in mind though, a large part of modern science is a monism - it tries to explain everything starting from a single principle. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just pointing it out. A monism works beautifully, as long as its basic assumptions are true. Unfortunately, the converse is true - a monism cannot detect whether its axioms are true or not. The more it keeps digging, the more it appears to confirm itself. It is quite possible that the fundamental assumptions of materialist science are true. It's just that, if they are not, chances are the system will never detect its own incompletitude. ------ skynomad I think this might be the wrong place to be looking for such answers. Anyway, you might like to do some research on Emergence and Chaos theory. The fundamental aspect of emergence is that individual agents (ie neurons) follow simple rules, and through interaction with other agents also following these simple rules, a system emerges which is greater than the sum of its parts, with its own goals and intelligence which is not known to any of its individual agents. There is a brilliant book on this entitled "Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software" by Steven Johnson. Another interesting author to read is Brian Fay. He argues that the conscious 'self' does not exist as a concrete thing, but rather, it is dynamically created through interaction. He gives a very interesting analogy of an eye traveling through space, and can only become aware of itself by seeing its reflection. He then explains that we see our reflection in others, and eventually that becomes internalised. The reality is that the brain is the most complex structure we have yet encountered, and it will be a very long time before we fully understand how it works and how the mind is thus constructed within it. ------ Retric _At birth, when does the first neuron fire, and how does it sustain itself?_ The brain starts well before birth. Humans don't have a single on switch so much as a long bootstrap process that starts when the first few neurons start to link up and ends at death. Although most positive changes happen by ~25 years old. What we think of as consciousness is basically the neuron's that stop focusing on what is going on and start considering options that we don't directly carry out. AKA when you actually catch a ball you don't really think about it but when you consider how you might do a better job in the future well that's consciousness. The brain is not a fixed entity but a constantly adapting system and consciousness is really best thought of as part of that adaptive process. ~~~ rodrigo Also against the switch view; It well migth be a replica of the evolution process; a little being w only a couple of neurons that handle simple proceses, and by iteration grows to a more complex being. That would also correspond w the natural pattern of growth. ------ cool-RR I can try to answer this according to my theory. So one big "IMHO" on all the following text. Saying that chemical activity "causes" us to feel certain emotions is not correct. A little thinking could show you how absurd this is. "Causing" would mean that there is some sort of cause and effect here, some event X that causes event Y. Like when you turn on the kettle and the water boils. So this would mean that when a chemical event X is happenning in a brain, it will cause the person to feel an emotional event Y. This is an absurd hypothesis. Where is event Y? It's actually hard for me to explain why I find that hypothesis so absurd. Maybe someone here can help. Anyway, my opinion is that THERE IS a correspondece between chemical events and emotional events, but it's not causality. I can't lay down all of my theory here, but I would say that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the "inside" world and the "outside" world. (Like a 1-1 correspondence between sets.) And those X and Y are paired together in that correspondence. I remember when I was in elementary school I wanted to make a conscious computer program. I was programming in Basic at the time. I thought, "Okay, the program should be able to feel pain. So I should make a variable PAIN, and when certain events happen it will cause PAIN to be equal to 1 or 0 or -1 or whatever." But I kind of got stuck there, because what do you do after you set a value to the PAIN variable? The best you can do is to have the PAIN variable determine the behavior of the creature, for example to make it scream "ouch". I believe that when it comes to emotions of creatures other than ourselves, behavior is all there is to their emotions. When it comes to our own emotions, it's more complicated and independent of our brains. ~~~ ahoyhere Dude, there's lots of empirical evidence that introducing certain chemicals into a human body result in certain feelings. It's not 100%, but it's pretty causal. ~~~ byrneseyeview I think his point is that, dude, there's a lot of empirical evidence that by introducing certain electrical charges into a computing device results in certain outputs. In other words, he's saying that when you say "You change the chemical composition of the body in X way, and this causes feelings," everything after 'way' is redundant. ------ yan Check out "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter, he tackles that question and argues from the point of view that hard ai is possible. Check out "Emperor's new mind" by roger penrose for a conflicting viewpoint. Both books will teach you _much, much_ more than it's central thesis and is a tour through other important topics in science. Also, you might find the brain science podcast ( <http://brainsciencpodcast.wordpress.com> ) interesting. She tackles some of these questions also, summarizes current research and interviews other people in the field. ~~~ mindviews Douglas Hofstadter wrote a book after GEB called "I am a Strange Loop" that deals pretty much exclusively with the ideas of self and consciousness. This is far and away the most compelling argument for consciousness being an emergent property of the brain that I've ever seen. I strongly recomend this book for anyone interested in the topic. ------ sgrove I major in cognitive neuroscience, which is exactly what you're asking: how does conscious thought arise from unconscious parts? I think one book you may benefit from reading is [http://www.amazon.com/Vehicles-Experiments-Psychology- Valent...](http://www.amazon.com/Vehicles-Experiments-Psychology-Valentino- Braitenberg/dp/0262521121). It's a wonderful and short book with some subtle humor and amazing powers of explanation. After reading it you may very well have a better understanding of how it's possible (and how many different ways it might be possible) for what we see as complex behaviors to _emerge_. I've had dozens of friends read this short book, and they've all thanked me for the recommendation and ended up buying a copy for themselves. ------ jbert As far as I know, you'll get no answers here (or anywhere). My view of things was shaped a lot by some sections of Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. If you allow that symbols (think of a bunch of object properties + some methods) can be represented in the brain and operate on each other. (There's a good description in GEB which suggests we use a javascript-like prototype object-based system. Briefly, if someone starts talking about an individual they know called Joe, who's a football player, you basically mint a fresh new symbol which carries some of it's own data (name => Joe) but also inherits from your default 'football player' symbol. As you find out more about Joe, you add more specific data on Joe's symbol, which shadows the football player one. That, to me, explains a lot about prejudice (some people's heads overly-favour the inherited attributes. But I digress...) Your brain models the world by creating symbols which reflect the world (evolution helps for that). An important (the biggest/most complex?) symbol in your head is the one which represents yourself. Consciousness is then that symbol operating on itself. All this is of course happening in a physical substrate which has it's own methods of affecting things (psychoactive substances washing through your brain etc). ------ gregorylent western science is barbaric, primitive, stubborn, and totally ignorant about this ... and so arrogant about their model, which says consciousness comes from meat ... yogis have nailed this so well over a few thousand years of investigation of the nature of the self and its relationship to consciousness ... you will have to learn some new vocabulary, and do some meditation ... worth every moment spent .... just as an example of the subtlety of the east, there are five words in sanskrit for aspecets of the mind, while we have only the one .. your question is great, the motivation is wonderful, and may your search be fruitful .. it is the reason for birth, to come to understand this ... enjoy ~~~ yan If not meat, where? I don't mean to offend, but I am curious as to how one can separate pseudo-science, already disproven ideas (All matter is made from 5 elements) and some eastern tradition from posed hypothesis, repeatable experiments and conclusions that are up for being argued. ~~~ yters One approach is to say consciousness is properly basic like science assumes matter and/or energy are/is. ------ rms Consciousness isn't special. And neurology can't satisfactorily explain what it means to exist because English itself can't describe how a bunch of chemical reactions add up to _cogito ergo sum_. <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/zombies.html> seems a little relevant. ------ Eliezer I recommend either Gary Drescher's "Good and Real", or the relevant parts of Overcoming Bias (which aren't exactly collected into one place yet). ~~~ randallsquared I don't recall seeing implementation details in OB, and the description of that book doesn't indicate there are any in there, either. Of course, that's because the real answer is "no one understands it, yet". A bunch of jargon and entertaining stories can be used to show that some proposed implementation _isn't_ the right answer, sometimes, but it can't be the answer. ~~~ Eliezer Well, I'm not just going to come out and _tell_ you how to build a conscious entity. Next thing you know, people would be making conscious Java applets. That's the real reason "no one can explain the hard problem of subjective experience". It's actually pretty simple, but as soon as someone figures it out, they realize how easy it would be to create billions of small computer programs experiencing intense suffering; so they keep it a secret. ~~~ randallsquared Ah. That must be it. Thanks for the tip. :) ------ jhp I believe that consciousness is the ability for a computing system to continually maintain and update several simultaneous contexts. These contexts may run highly detailed simulations (including the core "where I am") or more abstract thinking (including the current conversational or semantic context). For a human being, the "primary simulation" results in a powerful feeling of self, perhaps because the here and now that you are feeling is also the here and now that you are simulating. While sustaining these contexts, the system is able to explore related information and can choose to break focus on a certain context, or to open a new context. Usually, a discarded context can be quickly restored, such as in the case of restoring an interrupted thought. Perhaps, then, contexts are continually run, stored, and restored. I don't know. What I do know is that the primary world simulation (with its continual sensory update) is rarely broken without the system electing to do so. That would be "losing consciousness" :) Whether received through sensory input or through memory in the form of stored simulations or related concepts, the constant exploration of related information influences the context that spawned it (and often the other contexts as well). This allows the computing system to update its assumptions as represented in simulation or conceptual frame, and then begin anticipating and exploring possible future contexts. \- JHP ------ jackchristopher There are two methods for investigating consciousness; One subjective, the other objective. The first is philosophical, the second is a physical. And they should lead to the same answer. Both sides will claim their method to be the right one. And from time to time one will seem better than the other. But ultimately, some questions will be left unanswered. And both methods will break down. And you will want to fill in the gaps. But you'll realize that one may complement the other. And you may decide the course ... but you'll never be sure. ------ paraschopra Four to five years ago, I would have asked the same question and would have been superemly excited about being able to ponder over such questions. Now, I simply don't bother. ------ speek It depends on who you ask, but there are two general camps: the bottom-up approach and the top-down approach (neuroscience and psychology, respectfully). I believe it to be a side product of response to stimulus (neurons firing off). If I'm right, we're going to have a lot of fun with interfaces in the next 20 or so years. I'm a big believer in emergent neuropsychology (the functional programming version of brain science). I'm not going to delve into the top-down approach because you get a lot of other really cool theories, but a lot of it has to to with perception ("Is this red the same color to me as it is to you (other than just naming this color red)?"). In response to your edit, I'm pretty sure that neurons start firing before birth but neurons are interconnected in a multi-dimensional graph, so it's pretty much a chain reaction that gets influenced depending on external (or internal) stimulus. I believe that when we take both the bottom-up and the top-down approach and meet in the middle, we will have a true AI... but I'm guessing it'll be based on a non-vonNeumann architecture. ------ tricky Maybe a little off-topic, but something I've been thinking of for a while. Has anyone ever tried to build a mesh network of nodes that react to signals and fire outputs? I'd to build a few million of these and evolve them to see if they'd ever do anything interesting. Does anyone know if anyone is working on something like this? ~~~ yan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network> Is that what you mean? ~~~ tricky No. Something more along the lines of interconnected signal processors that, after a while, achieve sort of a message pumping stasis. I think it would be interesting to evolve the network until it is able to "react" to changes in the outside environment (i.e. signals coming in from outside the network) ------ tsally Woah, woah, woah. What's this business of talking about consciousness like it exists? The only thing you know for sure is conscious is yourself. You simply make assumptions that other people are conscious based off of their responses to various challenges (questions, interaction, etc). But you don't know whether their 'consciousness' is even remotely related to yours or not. This is why the Turing test does not seek to address the issue of consciousness. It simply tests the appearance of consciousness. We will _never_ know anything about the consciousness of anything else besides ourselves. ~~~ pygy ... until we plug two (or more) brains together using miroelectrode arrays. ------ tlrobinson This is one of those questions that bothers me. Not the question itself, just the fact that we don't know, and likely can't know. Is there some test to prove if something has "consciousness"? Without such a test I don't think we can know what it really is. You might propose having the thing explain the feeling to you, but I could just program a computer to do the same thing (theoretically). I have no way of knowing whether or not anyone else besides myself experiences this thing called consciousness. You all could be perfectly designed robots that are tricking me into believing you're also humans who experience consciousness. ~~~ Tichy The funny thing about your thought experiment, as well as the infamous "chinese room", is that you could actually turn it on it's head. The conclusion is that consciousness doesn't matter. ~~~ randallsquared If you divorce all the products of consciousness from consciousness itself, then you could say consciousness doesn't matter. Also, any particular product of consciousness is easily produced without it. Given that evolution stumbled on consciousness, I think it's plausible that within the constraints of biology, consciousness is the simplest way to produce the behavior we associate with it. ------ chengmi This question is better suited for a philosopher rather than a biologist: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind> ~~~ yan ... until biology catches up. ~~~ chengmi So take biology out of the discussion, and consider consciousness in a computer system. If a program is self-aware, is it conscious? Or is there more to consciousness than that? Why don't conscious computer programs exist if we already understand how consciousness works? Would it be ethical to reboot that program, if it existed? Biology can explain how neurons in the brain (computer) works. It can also potentially explain how thought and logic play out (program logic). But how do you explain consciousness in this metaphor? this.isRunning? Or does it make more sense to say that even if we understood all of biology, there are still things that we won't fully understand? ------ Tichy Consciousness doesn't really exists, it is just an illusion. It is both scary and amusing to me that there are entire (expensive) conferences dedicated to something the participants can't even give a definition for. ~~~ yters Why do people find the "illusion" response helpful? "How do Newtonian physics, quantum physics, and relativity work together? Don't worry about it, the physical world is just an illusion, and illusions aren't rational." ~~~ Tichy What I mean by "consciousness is an illusion" is that consciousness does not exist. It is a non issue. Again in this thread as in any other discussion on consciousness, nobody has given a definition of consciousness. There is nothing meaningful to talk about. On the other hand, the physical world exists, or at least out perception of it exists. You might say that you also perceive consciousness, but honestly, what is it you perceive? I don't think it is the same as perceptions of physical things. ~~~ rodrigo What do you mean by consciousness does not exist? How do you define consciusness? you have to have a definition so you can deny it. ~~~ Tichy Well the whole discussion is rather useless then, isn't it? Perhaps we should discuss the Spaghetti Monster instead? ~~~ yters Do you have to define red to discuss it? ~~~ rodrigo It migth help. ~~~ yters Definitely, but the point I'm getting at is that there are loads of things we discuss without having to define them. Especially the basic terms of whatever you happen to be defining. I.e. do I need to define the words I use in this question for you to understand what I am asking? ~~~ rodrigo If youre going to discuss something it helps to have a common ground to begin with, as i dont pretend to know what consciousness is or if it even exists, i asked Tichy to tell me his definition so i can understand what hes denying. Not to the point of defining all the words, just the basic concepts were trying to understand. ~~~ Tichy Then I am sorry, I didn't think you meant the question serious. My criticism of the whole consciousness debate is that nobody knows what they are talking about, so I am the last person who could give you that definition (since my point is that there is no meaningful definition of it). People have this notion that there should be this something called consciousness, but they can not say what it is supposed to be. This becomes especially clear in Searle's Chinese Room where Searle describes how an intelligent process is supposedly not conscious, but he still dodges the question what he means by consciousness. To me the chinese room shows that there is no such thing (ie the notion seems to be that a human speaking chinese does so by employing his "consciousness", whereas the chinese room example basically proves that consciousness is not required). ------ eggnet If we mechanically understood how thinking or consciousness worked, we would have AI. We don't understand, and don't have AI. I hope I was helpful :) ~~~ chris_l Intelligence != Consciousness ~~~ randallsquared That's true, but most people really mean artificially generated consciousness when they say "AI". A few people, like Yudkowsky, really don't, but the original post here was about consciousness, not really powerful optimization processes. ------ jsyedidia You should read "The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach," by Caltech professor Christof Koch, which is a book about this subject. ------ mpk I doubt you're going to get any answers here. I've seen GEB mentioned already and if you're a reader I highly recommend Julian Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Fascinating theory, but the consensus seems to be that it's probably not correct. I picked it up after encountering references to it in a diverse set of sources. ~~~ yan While that book is fascinating and totally came out of left field when it was published, I don't think I would recommend it as an introduction to consciousness. The idea that people very similar to modern humans weren't self-aware as recent as the pharaohs is fascinating though! ~~~ yters That is very interesting. Know of any good links about the non self-aware people? ~~~ yan It was basically introduced in the book mentioned in the above post. You can read more about bicameralism here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_>(psychology) (I'm pretty sure it's been disproved since, but he put forward a very interesting theory) edit: err use the entire link, the parens didn't get included. ------ KevBurnsJr The first thing a psychedelic experience will teach you is the absurdity of such a question. Edit: Genuinely surprised to see that nobody else has mentioned the psychedelic experience in their search for a solution to satisfy this line of questioning. ------ seejay I think Buddhism has very good explanation for such questions. I suggest you read some good Buddhist books or find someone who has a good knowledge about Lord Buddha's teachings (probably a Buddhist monk) Good Luck finding answers! ~~~ ahoyhere No, it doesn't really. Buddhism doesn't concern itself with the question of "why." That's ego talking. ------ markessien Consciousness is just the firing of pleasure centers when external actions fit into pre-defined purposes. It's like the very highest abstraction of a functional event-triggered programming language. ------ mrtron Id recommend reading Godel Escher Bach. It talks about how complex things can be built from simple building blocks. There really are no answers other than it is impossible to exclude such complexity from a system. ------ yan _At birth, when does the first neuron fire, and how does it sustain itself?_ Body activity doesn't start from birth, even the zygote has already processes inside it that are life processes. ------ fawxtin Conciousness is somewhat a prevalence over instincts, you got "magically" a way to "choose". You really should read S. Freud, and M. Minsky if you want to know more about. ------ pygy First one has to define consciousness as subjective experience, not as being awake. The only consciousness one is able to experience is his own. But solipsism is a point of view that is both depressing and not really explanatory of anything. Let's assume that people around, who are similar to us, are conscious too. The problem in the last sentence is the word "similar". A few centuries ago, Black people were considered soul-less animals by their "enlighted" European peers. We recentlty came to realize that most traits that we thought made us unique, like symbolic language for example, or "theory of mind" ie realizing that other creatures have other thoughts and other beliefs than our own, are shared by other species (eg bonobos). Even if they don't recognize themselves in the mirror, in most animal species that I know of, individuals are able to recognize their own smell. Assuming personnal consciousness can be mapped to some part of the brain processing, can a dog, a frog, a worm be conscious? How many neurons make a conscious brain? Let's keep on recursing. Are plants conscious? At least, some of them seem able to compute. The opening and closing patterns of stomata (the pores that allow the gaz exchanges on leaf) are not statistically different from those of some 2d cellular automata. (Evidence for complex, collective dynamics and emergent, distributed computation in plants <http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0307811100> ) Can a monocellular animal be conscious? Not only do they sense and react to their environment, but some are able to anticipate periodic variations of their surroundings, and memorize stimuli patterns. (Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events <http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.018101> ) Now please be confused :-) I don't think that consciousness is related to the ability of having explicit self referential thoughts (how do we define thoughts, BTW? are they language related or not necessarilly?), nor to symbolic language. From the "mapism" point of view, something that really puzzles me is the fact that identity is preserved overnignt, despite the extensive plasticity that occurs while one is sleeping. Could identity rely on the statistical properties of a brain rather than on a strict material mapping? Cognition at least, and possibly conscious access to information relies on bayesian processing of the information (see Hakwan Lau's work). As long as we don't have proper formal models of these concepts, we'll keep on speculating. I really wonder whether it's possible to find a Gödel-like paradox regarding statements about consciousness pronounced by conscious beeings... :D /rambling. ------ renno <http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000901.html> ------ jogaun The unknown is vast in all disciplines, especially neuroscience. ------ chris_l Consciousness is the brain sensing the mind of the world. But that's just my speculation :) ------ joubert Study some ethology. ------ time_management I'm philosophically a Buddhist, so I put consciousness ("mind") first and wonder more about where the physical world comes from. Experientially, the world is not much different from a dream (except the sex is more awkward) but it has certain properties of persistence, regularity, and sharedness among ~10^11-14 sapient organisms that make a convincing case for a world of cold, hard matter that exists independently of us. But that's an illusion. The physical universe doesn't actually exist, any more than a dream world does. There are probably trillions of universes in existence-- maybe infinitely many. They can't be counted, and they don't much matter because they're physically inaccessible to us. We're lucky, though, to be in an exceedingly successful universe whose laws are set ("fine tuned") to allow for complex life. The universes that don't support complex life to observe them might be "out there", but they effectively don't exist. Mind is eternal, but the processes it can support depend on the physical system (body/brain) to which it binds, and of course that physical system evolves and, sadly, collapses. We're extremely lucky to have our minds bound to such beautiful, powerful creatures as humans. We could've just as easily been bound to cockroaches or tapeworms (and it can happen after death in a negative rebirth, but karma's another subject entirely). The transmigration of consciousness is taken as self-evident by Eastern religions, and there's actually a fair bit of evidence for reincarnation (refer to the work of Ian Stevenson). What's controversial is whether or not a mind-- or, at least, an unenlightened mind-- can exist independent of a physical body at all. The Theravadan perspective tends to be that it cannot, whereas Tibetan Buddhists believe in an intermediate experiential state called the bardo. _Am I butterfly dreaming I'm a man? Or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi? Never assume what you see and feel is real!_ \-- Doreen, Chrono Trigger. ~~~ yters Can you describe the most convincing evidence for reincarnation? ~~~ rodrigo I dont view reincarnation as "me" waking up in some other body in some other time; IMHO it has to be on a gene level, "me" is just a bunch of genes wich have learned and contribute to the general pool. Or something like that. ~~~ yters Well, then anything adaptive is "reincarnation." You might as well just call it "adaptation," then, instead of redefining another word. ~~~ rodrigo Thats it, i normally dont say "reincarnation". It seems to me that words like that were used to make graspable a concept thats hard to grasp; but it lost its sense when someboy tried to hard to make it fit in some view of things. Edit: It can also be called Evolution. ------ ahoyhere I'll give you $8k and two months this summer. If you come up with an answer, we'll both get rich. ~~~ blues Um, no. I'm a "formerly autistic" (the irony should freak you) researcher in (classical) information theory and linguistics. You will hopefully get your answer at linguistics.name, when I get around to it. There is no charge to just learn the material. I do claim to own the theory itself, So you can't teach it without a license from me. Life is hard y'know? ------ ram1024 consciousness is simply the state of being responsive to one's environment. it can boil down as far as gauging the responses of one neuron, but the "environment" of that neuron is its connectivity to others, so it's far more comprehensive to total consciousness up as the whole collective. ideally, you'd be able to single out a singular and distinct "thought" and trace the workings of all your cognitive elements involved. the result of this thought then loops back through the system and re-patterns it with a "conclusion". the chemical nature of one's neurons is the important part whether malleable or incorrigible, allowing us to exhibit unique traits and personality.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Live: Huawei Unveils AI Chip and Computing Framework - roboys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHNdVZp1lsc ====== roboys From the description "Huawei launches its Ascend 910 AI Processor & MindSpore Computing Framework in south China's Shenzhen. The company aims at boosting computing power for the development of artificial intelligence technology." ~~~ roboys Huawei: MindSpore, All-Scenario AI Computing Framework [https://youtu.be/3cvLXCzChhc](https://youtu.be/3cvLXCzChhc) ------ tuxpenguine When the director was asked about ethics in AI, the first thing he can think of is related to the coexistence of humans and nature. That just showed how little consideration was given on moral issues within such an organization.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Too small to fail: How startups can grow in recessions - lrm242 http://blog.asmartbear.com/blog/too-small-to-fail-how-startups-can-grow-in-recessions.html ====== ABrandt I find this post rather inspiring (who doesn't like cheering for an underdog?) Although I believe he is right to use Balsamiq as an example of great success, I'm not sure Peldi's market is exactly a small niche. Sure he has targeted a small development community, but his mock-up software could certainly be useful to a wide spectrum of people. Perhaps that is where the whole "growth from a small niche" thing comes in... But I digress. The fact is that this article outlines exactly what more founders need to focus on. Why be a small fish struggling in an ocean when you can just as easily rule your own pond? (disclaimer: I watched Finding Nemo yesterday)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Profilr.me \| Pull everything together. - profilrme http://profilr.me/ ====== lewisflude Is that the final product?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Program Uses Interactive Genetic Algorithm to Help Witnesses Remember Criminals - CaptainMorgan http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005161328.htm ====== scott_s Our memories are notoriously unreliable, and subject to outside influence. I want to see how this would hold up in controlled experiments. Simple experiment: have a person briefly appear in a room full of students. Run each student through this process. Quantify how close the produced images were to the person's actual face. If the faces are more fleshed out but not accurate, then that's just as bad as having a generic likeness. There's an academic paper on the work (George et al., EFIT-V: Interactive Evolutionary Strategy for the Construction of Photo-Realistic Facial Composites, Genetic And Evolutionary Computation Conference 2009, <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1389095.1389384>), but it only mentions using the software as a trial with police departments. There's too many variables there to give me confidence in the results. ------ a-priori If I were a clever defence lawyer I'd argue it would invalidate any later line-ups. This sounds like a stellar way to destroy a memory of a face. Each time you show a person a face, you're adding new memory trace that will conflict with the real one. This will reduce the confidence in a later recognition task. You're also re-activating the real trace, allowing it to be disrupted. This would increase the false-positive rate in a line-up. ~~~ DenisM All good points and a subject to an experiment. ------ clevercode A possible (somewhat sci-fi) future extension to this idea would be directly monitoring the brain of the subject, in conjunction with eye movements, in an attempt to quickly detect a subconscious signal of 'recognition' while scanning the computer-generated faces. Might be that certain signals in the brainwave (e.g. the P300 or something similar: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P300_%28neuroscience%29> ) could be used for this purpose. ------ joblessjunkie I bet that a web application built from this would be enormously popular. It would also be useful as a way to create and share an online avatar likeness.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Court Rejects Google's Book Settlement With Publishers - mikecane http://www.businessinsider.com/court-rejects-googles-book-settlement-with-publishers-2011-3 ======	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The scariest part about the Internet of Things - Libertatea http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/19/heres-the-scariest-part-about-the-internet-of-things/ ====== Pxtl I disagree that the wifi is a terrible single-point-of-failure. The chief concern in privacy security is not a criminal on the street or a member of your local police department - it's a vast swarm of overseas hackers or massive advertising conglomerates. For that case? Keeping the data in your home is fine. Doubleclick and Tribalfusion aren't going to be wardriving your neighborhood. Honestly, I'm waiting for somebody to make the one-stop zero-configuration grandma-friendly home server device. Something that gives you a DropBox-like file-server with optional internet-cloud mirroring, has a media bay with one- button backup functionality so you can easily get a detached hard-copy, runs a Print server and DNLA, its own Gmail-like webmail/imap system. If you make it a wifi router, it can also run its own domain and whatnot. The problem, of course, is half the ISPs provide a wifi router that isn't grandma-friendly to configure. Have all your home devices talk to _that thing_ and not the Internet. ~~~ eterm But then the fridge maker wouldn't have "anonymised usage statistics" (to sell) so where's the incentive for them to make a smart fridge? ~~~ Symmetry Charing you $10 more for a fridge that saves you $5 on your power bill every year. Differentiating is really hard for white goods manufacturers, so they tend to end up with commodity levels of profit on what they sell. ------ Spooky23 The scariest part about the internet of things is that we're apparently doing it without discernable purpose that delivers benefit to the consumer. In the 90's, our refrigerators were going to tell us that we're out of milk. Now our refrigerators are going to be linked to some smart grid that will let utilities shape our electricity demand. (Presumably via punitive costs) As a consumer, I say screw the internet of things. I don't want my fridge letting Heinz know when I'm out of ketchup so they can push ads to me, and I don't want my dishwasher usage habits or thermostat settings available to government agencies for "any legal purpose" or my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods. ~~~ intopieces >my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods. I think this statement communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the energy use management implemented by the SmartMeters, or an attempt to villify a fairly clever project that has the potential to save tons of electricity. For one, the SmartMeter system is entirely voluntary, and can be taken out at any time. For another, at least where I live, it applies only to A/C, and only will shut off one time, for one hour, once every week during peak usage. Please do not present promising technology like this as some kind of Orwellian spectre of tyranny. It's really not. ~~~ shit_parade >For one, the SmartMeter system is entirely voluntary, and can be taken out at any time. Lol, this is often how compelled compliance works, you begin with voluntary adoption. This is promising tech but not believing any and all data will be saved and used for every conceivable purpose including oppression is an obvious feat of delusion -- have you had your head in the sand this year? ------ kosma IOT engineer here. As much as it hurts, I have to agree with the spirit of this article: we, as the industry, are simply not prepared. Your average embedded engineer does not care much about security. When you launch a hardware product, the things you care about are stability, EMC compliance, extending battery life, getting the production chain right, packaging, cost optimization and squeezing every damn bug that causes random faults (remember, this is embedded, and pretty much any exception is equivalent to an instant device reboot). Security rarely gets mentioned simply because there are dozens of more pressing issues - the most important being _getting that damn thing to work_. This approach has worked fine for decades simply because there was no practical way of attacking a device - until now. Firmware has _always_ been riddled with vulnerabilities. It's just the Internet connectivity that suddenly made them exposed. ------ wreegab Excerpt: "it also vastly expands the universe of things that could go wrong, particularly when it comes to privacy". Very funny, from an article sitting in a web page filled with tracker scripts and whatnot. ~~~ acheron Indeed. I got 9 Ghostery blocks there. ------ sdrinf Honest question: under what circumstances would it be beneficial for my dishwasher to be "smart" at all, let alone be connected to the Internet? If that isn't a demonstrative example, what _specific_ devices _would_ be useful to have Internet connectivity, and in what specific ways? ~~~ kens There are a bunch of specific devices that I would really like to connect to the internet: Irrigation system: I shouldn't need to punch buttons on a controller box outside in the rain. Anything with a clock, e.g. microwave, thermostat: It should get the right time itself. Pool heater: I should be able to control it from the house and check the temperature. Barbecue: It should let me know if it was left on (like happened yesterday). Freezer: It should let me know if the door is ajar, before everything thaws. Alarm system: monitoring and control. Stereo: should be able to control from my phone. Washing machine: notification if I left wet clothes in it, or if it goes off balance and stops. These are mostly available now, but not in an easy-to-use way. Home automation seems to be like the home computer industry in the 1970s: you have to really want to do it, you need to be a bit of a hacker, it costs a fair bit, and what you end up with is pretty primitive. I think there's a huge market for someone to solve home automation. What I want is when I buy an irrigation controller from Home Depot (for example), it "just works" as part of a home system. Edit: A couple people asked why connect to the internet? I should be able to do these things remotely, e.g. from the office or my phone. a_c_s mentions that the time tinkering could outweigh the benefit. That's kind of what I'm getting at with my 1970s home computer analogy - you could do e.g. word processing back then, but it wasn't worth the difficulty for most people. Now non-technical people can buy a computer at Best Buy and easily do word processing. Likewise, home automation needs to become something that is built in to products and "just works" by default, rather than something for hackers. ~~~ a_c_s Thanks for enumerating this. However, for me, the amount of time 'saved' for tasks like this seems like it could easily be outweighed by having to spend even a minimal amount of time tinkering/debugging the setup of these devices. Given that my phone sometimes forgets which wifi network to use, I can only imagine having to reconfigure my microwave, washing machine, stove/oven, dishwasher, stereo, etc. occasionally. If each device forgets the wifi network infrequently, like once every six months, that means 12 times a year I have to configure wifi one of my six smart devices. This amount of reconfiguration is more time/frustration/effort than would be saved by the kinds of notifications listed. ~~~ evacuationdrill I agree, but ideally they'd be wired in. Perhaps new homes at one point will have Ethernet ports behind your stove, microwave, etc. It's interesting that you chose 6 months, because that's how often you have to change the time. :D ------ lazyjones The engineers mostly understand these Things, but they do not have the same priorities as consumers, nor do they care about privacy, security, safety (apart from compliance with regulations). A good example is the recent trouble with LG smart TVs "phoning home" and LG telling consumers basically to suck it up since they accepted the ToS. Regulations cannot fix this or prevent abuse / privacy intrusions any more than the law can prevent illegal NSA wiretapping. Consumers will never be informed enough (they mostly don't care, or do not have access to a thorough analysis of these devices' behavior), so we're basically doomed. ~~~ Zigurd I predict "Your Home IoT Firewall for Dummies" is going to sell big. ------ discostrings I got to 'Ten years ago, the word "smartphone" didn't exist' and stopped. I know it's just a topic-establishing observation, but it's terribly incorrect.[0] If the writer couldn't be bothered to check that basic claim, I can only assume it's a fluff piece. [0] [http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone- assault-3...](http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone- assault-3002124261) ~~~ fr0sty Linked article is just over 11 years old. Is the author's rounding of 11 years down to 10 that offensive? ~~~ discostrings Actually, yes. It wouldn't mind if the term originated 11 years ago and the author stated it was coined 10 years ago. But the author claimed it was _less than_ 10 years old, and the term was around for many years before 2002--I just found that article as a quick example for younger readers who might think the term "smartphone" developed as a generic word for "iPhone-like device"\--it may seem crazy, but some people actually think this, and the article's opening supports that narrative. Inaccurate, unthoughtful statements like this lead us to forget history, and they especially do a disservice to articles contemplating developments in the near future. I think it's relevant to the article that "smartphone" was a part of tech and business life and news before it became a household term--these products see a lot of development and a niche user base before, suddenly, everyone has them. That nascent period, during which products' dangers can be considered and hopefully diminished, is essential. ------ gmuslera If security cameras teach us something, is that they are riddled with security bugs, never updated, and with hardcoded backdoors/admin passwords. The internet of things have high chances to make that problem worse, as it will give remote action more than just monitoring. And that without even taking into account our friends at the NSA and similar, that will require remote access to anything popular. ------ gooderlooking "Just because I know how to write PHP doesn't mean I understand these vulnerabilities at all." Ouch. You need to know a lot more than PHP to make your toaster talk to your dishwasher. And I'm pretty certain it's not the Maytag Man who's going to make it happen. The concern over securing mesh networks is real, but the argument in the article is terrible. ~~~ Glyptodon I don't know... a lot of terrible wifi router software is written in PHP, and it's not clear that you can expect something different from your microwave.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How can I get people at school to check out my 'game'? - thatusertwo I'm a student at college and I've made a 'game' that I think is well targeted for the demographics here. I've tried putting fliers on the walls, but the turn around hasn't been so great. Anyone have any other suggestions? I've only got a week left at school so I want to make it worth while (I'd also be willing to do something extreme given that I'm done soon). ====== sid6376 Have you tried sharing it on facebook? Given the typical network in a college, its the quickest way to market your game. Also try getting some of the more popular women to sign up or share your game. This quote i read in the book 'Love is a mix tape' is actually a very obvious yet insightful observation "bitch power is the juice, the sweat, the blood that keeps pop music going. Rick James helped me understand the lesson of the eighth-grade dance: Bitch power rules the world. If the girls don't like the music, they sit down and stop the show. You gotta have a crowd if you wanna have a show. And the girls are the show. We're talking absolute monarchy, with no rules of succession. Bitch power. She must be obeyed. She must be feared." " ~~~ thatusertwo Sadly I erased my Facebook account with all my connections. ------ matomesc Facebook, twitter, start with your social graph and if you've got the audience it will pick up.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
BMW wants to sell subscriptions to in-car features - loriverkutya https://www.engadget.com/bmw-connected-drive-store-subscriptions-193746962.html ====== nicbou I am not in the market for a car, but I don't think I'd ever want to buy a vehicle I don't fully own. Cars last for decades. That's a lot longer than short-lived technologies and standards, and especially online services. Fortunately, this trend hasn't quite reached the motorcycle world yet, but I know KTM charges you to enable "rally mode" on your motorcycle. I sometimes wonder what we will really own in 10 years. The operating system on my phone and laptop are already taking worrying liberties. ~~~ thomascgalvin > I don't think I'd ever want to buy a vehicle I don't fully own. Cars last > for decades. That is the "issue" BMW is trying to solve here. Just like software subscriptions, this automaker is trying to wring out more money for no work. Hard pass. ~~~ perl4ever They already make unreliable cars and try to make it as difficult as possible for amateurs and independents to repair, including the electronic aspects. Doing things that should be simple, like changing the spark plugs or transmission fluid, can be nightmarish. Out of warranty BMWs often have oil leaks, that sometimes are as simple as replacing a cheap gasket but will run you $500+ for a dealer to fix. Here is a description of the procedure to replace the valve cover on a lot of recent BMWs for DIYers: [https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1197637](https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1197637) It's kind of strange to me that this should be sustainable, because if you're designing cars only for a short lease period when they're under warranty, shouldn't this be less profitable than having better resale value? ------ mc32 Everyone loves recurring revenue. They’ll find as many ways to make it happen as possible. From club memberships to entertainment and sports to software and and now durable goods. On the other hand it means you can have partial ownership of things for a slice of time. As in housing rental, it offers flexibility (the alternative for people who can’t afford to build an average house is to build a shanty... ~~~ radoslawc It just a way to squeeze some more money out of customers. Add some nice marketing babble that it's for customer's own good (lower maintenance fees, offer simplified pricing, add elasticity, energy, synergy, bulshitergy) and here you have it: "I'm sorry your subscription for AC has expired". Funny enough there already are lines of cars where engine power and torque is just set in software, so buying most expansive engine version is just buying cheapest version with some variable in ECU software set to different value. For me this is equivalent of selling premium version of application which has sleep=10 removed from every loop and advertise it as many times faster. Why people are accepting this? Take SketchUp for example, they recently went subscription only and CAD software has somewhat steep learning curve, and you kind of learn using it as "muscle memory" of shortcuts and general flow. I bet many people will just buy subscription just for convenience of going on with their work or hobby projects in familiar software. ~~~ sokoloff Are producers obligated to only sell at cost-plus, or are they permitted to sell based on value to the buyer? Do I cost an airline more money to transport me out on a Monday and back on a Friday than the converse? (I suspect not, but not staying Saturday night makes the former ticket more expensive on many carriers.) Does SSO really cost as much to provide as the “enterprise pricing” tier suggests? Those higher priced business flights or enterprise tier purchases help subsidize the lower cost options, making it possible to sell a base version and a deluxe and get enough revenue to make the economics attractive. I remember years ago shopping for a Jeep Wrangler. There was a ~$175 option for a larger gas tank (22 vs 18 gallons or so). If you bought the option, you got the same physical tank and a shorter pipe from the filler into the top of the tank (so more fuel would go in before the pump clicked off). To the buyer of the Jeep, that option was worth something. I’m OK with Jeep offering it. (I wouldn’t buy it, since you could easily install the “larger tank” with a hacksaw, but I’m sure many did.) ~~~ tonyedgecombe _Those higher priced business flights or enterprise tier purchases help subsidize the lower cost options, making it possible to sell a base version and a deluxe and get enough revenue to make the economics attractive._ The purpose isn't to subsidise poorer customers though. Rather it's to maximise revenue. ------ rland Who comes up with these ideas? I swear, there is a class of people (seemingly in charge of every decision at big companies now) who just sit there and try to come up with ways of extracting money from customers without adding value to the equation what-so-ever. I'm sure the guy who came up with this brilliant idea was paid a huge bonus -- while the engineers actually trying to make a better car get nothing. It's so tiring to see this happen again and again everywhere. It seems actually doing things -- anything at all -- doesn't really matter to companies any more. Who teaches people that this is OK? ~~~ sitkack > Who teaches people that this is OK? Candy Crush. Farmville. Pervasive market segmentation. What happens when the children who were fed a constant diet of DLC become the c-levels of our future corporations? That world to me looks like some shitty vending machine version of corpofacism ------ radoslawc Funny that BMW is pushing it again after CarPlay subscription fiasco. ------ anm89 I used to think stuff like this was crazy and destined to fail but I've really become aware of how far my preferences are from the norm over the last 5 years. I think people on average are very open to integrating many subscription services into their lives. ~~~ m463 I think this might be something slightly different than you suggest. I think all of it is (intentionally) confusing and people are always on the verge of being overwhelmed and say ok fine ok accept it's only 99 cents, etc Somewhere I read something like "californians are ok with paying all the taxes" but it's not that they're fine with it. ------ jdhn This is something that I’m warily watching as we move towards a predominantly BEV fleet. I don’t like the idea of subscriptions in software, and I really don’t like it when it comes to vehicles. It will be interesting to see how automakers deal with users who take matters into their own hands and start tinkering with code in order to access features that would otherwise be locked away if you don’t have a subscription. There’s already lots of experience in the ICE world of tuning the ECU, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them have a “secret menu” if subscriptions become rampant across vehicles. ------ mips_avatar The way the automotive industry thinks about market segmentation and now subscriptions is beyond frustrating. They want the same car to sell at 3 different price points, but because there is nearly zero marginal costs for most features the companies typically just build the top features in all the cars and then turn them off in the cheap ones. I see why BMW is doing this, but It still makes me angry. ------ mcbutterbunz > Say you buy a model with heated seats. You could pay for that feature only > during the cold months of the year. If I bought a model with heated seats, why would I pay to access the feature that I already paid for? As everyone else will point out, this is clearly a way to extract more money from customers. I can't see any alternative. ------ siruncledrew Sell a >$40k car, and bill ‘owners’ $10-20/mo for the entire life of the car for convenience features is an easy way to squeeze a few $1000s more from consumers. It’s also a great way to get consumers to hate it after being nickel-and- dimed. ------ jti107 i guess there are no gamers at BMW...otherwise they'd know about the rage that micro transactions elicit ~~~ tonyedgecombe It's not even that rational. We know what the cost is and can decide if it's worth it or not. But you can see from this discussion people get quite emotional about it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft and Shell are building a better gas station with AI and IoT - benryon https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/shell-iot-ai-safety-intelligent-tools-001 ====== easytiger Working link: [https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/shell-iot-ai-safety- intellige...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/shell-iot-ai-safety-intelligent- tools/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
I hate Honeydew or: Why you should always ask "Why?" - theyCallMeSwift http://theycallmeswift.com/2012/10/03/I-hate-honeydew-or-why-why-matters-in-user-tests/ ====== bilalq Honeydew melons are my favorite. They have an amazing texture with just the right amount of sweetness. Putting your terrible taste in fruits aside, you raise an excellent point. The waitress reached a conclusion that was the complete of the truth. Similar mistakes in product or software design would catastrophic. ~~~ theyCallMeSwift Despite our completely disjoint opinions of the devil's fruit, I tip my hat to you sir.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
5 more essentials for your programming toolbox - dood http://www.spiteful.com/2008/02/25/5-more-essentials-for-your-programming-toolbox/ ====== anupamkapoor skip lists are not bad at all. also, i guess for unrolled-linked-list you might have to have different 'num-items' for different cache sizes. better would be to have a library of cache-oblivious data-structures & algorithms. google for 'harald-prokop' for some interesting stuff. ------ tim2 “TimeDeleted” - great idea. ~~~ slackerIII Glad you liked it! I'm always on the lookout for ideas that help me sleep better at night. Thinking about it, I'll probably do a future post about some other things in that same category. For example, I like to checksum data structures before I serialize them across the network and after I rebuild them, just to make sure there aren't any bugs or network glitches. Nothing worse than trying to track down a problem that was caused by flaky networking or bad memory.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Working in Oxford university - amjadcsu Hello,<p>I am a Sys admin/Devops with over 10 years experience. At my current job, i am getting good pay and savings, though career wise , it is a hole with no career/professional growth. I had applied to oxford university and am in final stages of hiring process. Though salary is way less and savings is also less.<p>With a family of 2 kids , what would you folks suggest? Jump to oxford or stay put where i am currently and make savings ? ====== aorth You only live once. Go to Oxford. It's not like you're going to quit your job and move to an island in the Indian Ocean.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hacking TechCrunch Disrupt's Hackathon - jason_shah http://blog.jasonshah.org/post/31592808546/hacking-techcrunch-disrupts-hackathon ====== jason_shah I really learned a ton during this hackathon and want to share everything I can with the HN community. Let me know if there's anything I can add!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Spot the Drowning Child (2015) - vinnyglennon http://spotthedrowningchild.com/# ====== balls187 When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't. I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore. I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning the swimming merit badge, which for a weak swimmer, was no easy task. For his heroism, and because I had overcome my near death experience, we were both recognized for embodying different aspects of scouting. That incident in the lake inspired my friend to go on to become a life-guard. Both my kids started swim lessons in infancy, and my oldest son gets compliments for his swimming skills while at the public pool. Though the pool we use has life guards, I never for a second take my eyes of my kids. Maybe one day they'll go on to be life guards prior to college. ~~~ lm28469 Something similar happened to me as a kid, I decided to swim from our boat to the shore of the lake, got exhausted 100 meters from the shore. Before going in full panic mode I remembered you can basically float indefinitely on your back with very minimal effort and did just that until I was calm and rested. Turns out our mandatory swimming lessons from the age of 8 weren't as useless as I thought. ~~~ irrational I think the skill of being able to flip onto your back and scuttle to wherever you need to go is more important than knowing how to swim (and I love to swim - I swam 2 kilometers just this morning). Unless you are in super cold or choppy water you should be just fine. ~~~ scaryclam I have some very young nephews. As well as teaching them how to swim, we're teaching them how to flip over and float, just for this reason. If they can do that, and recognise when they're in trouble, then it might just save their lives one day. ~~~ Mirioron Don't forget teaching them how to swim on their backs. ------ ben7799 Like others who commented I worked as a life guard and water safety instructor when I was younger. (Everything I am saying pertains to the US only.) I rescued quite a few children, it's hard to see in this video because the video quality is poor and the camera is at an angle that is worse than what the lifeguard in the video is seeing. Overall this victim is fairly active and should not have been very hard to spot in person for a well trained lifeguard. (And they did spot the child.) This is a weird video because: There are lifeguard(s) but yet the pool is full of non coast-guard approved tubes and floatation devices such. Most places with well trained lifeguards would not allow this. They don't work, can be more dangerous than no PFD, and they make it harder for the lifeguards to see. The worst drowning incident I witnessed involved a child in a tube who got flipped upside down and couldn't get out of the tube or flip back over. (I was not a lifeguard yet when I saw that.) I think things from my perspective are in a terrible state in terms of water safety compared to 20 years ago. Something must have changed with insurance liability, as most places just don't even have lifeguards. Resort pools I see these days are designed in a way where sight lines are so poor lifeguards/parents cannot even see children in the pools unless they are in the pool and stay within 10ft of the child. Very different than things used to be. Pool designers have reduced depth & eliminated diving boards resulting in a false sense of security. Meanwhile the pools are no longer even sufficient to be used for teaching up to a point where a person can be considered a swimmer. I just got back from vacation and the resort we stayed at had a pool which absolutely terrified me. I was 100% in lifeguard mode the entire time my child was in the pool, and the pool was so bad I couldn't sit in one spot and see him, I had to walk the edge of the pool to maintain sight lines. (The pool in the video is not like this FWIW) Fewer young people are supposedly physically fit and able to get to advanced swimming levels and pass tough standards like Red Cross. There are fewer places that even have Red Cross accredited programs these days as a result. Red Cross level instructors command high pay, and most places teaching swimming lessons these days are money making businesses that pay instructors near minimum wage and try to make the franchise owner wealthy. This is a relatively large change from non-profit Red Cross programs back in the day. Red Cross has always refused to act as insurance for pools/resorts/water parks, and alternate private organizations now certify lower quality lifeguards & swim instructors and we have new things like "Shallow Water lifeguards" that can be paid minimum wage. These alternate private certification orgs train to a lower level but do act as insurance so they're very attractive. I have a 7 year old, he's been through 4 private orgs so far. None have had Red Cross accredited programs. All of them have been super expensive but they're the only choice available. 3 of them did not have deep enough water and their instructors were not trained at a level for teaching to a full "Swimmer" level. None of the programs seem to focus on water safety and have strange practices like trying to teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes without teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke, etc.. which are more useful in emergency water situations. Most of the instructors I've seen teaching my child show poor enough form they'd have not passed a Water Safety course 20 years ago. The whole thing is a giant mess. I have been considering getting re-certified to take over finishing my child's swimming lessons, but the course is hard to take these days. Which also explains why not enough 16-20 year olds manage to take it. And there are almost no pools left to use that are not privately owned and have deep enough water. Also at least by the old standards when someone who was a Red Cross WSI calls someone a swimmer we're talking about a pretty high level. Someone who can't swim for 30 minutes to safety in deep water is not necessarily a swimmer IMO. Maybe standards have reduced. But that was a requirement at one point. And this is not something that requires elite physical fitness or stamina when you are trained to swim well. Some of the strokes are barely more physically taxing than walking if you're proficient. Non swimmers get a false idea about this because they mostly see competitive swimming which uses the taxing/fast strokes. ~~~ smileysteve > teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes > without teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke. I am amazed at how few of my early millennial peers have never heard of the elementary backstroke. ~~~ kubanczyk I just googled "elementary backstroke" and yeah... I'm in my forties, pretty proficient swimmer, and nobody ever showed it to me. I watch my kid's lessons and I'm sure I didn't see it being shown to them. They got into what I google as "backstroke" straight away, without the "elementary" phase. ~~~ bsurmanski I just looked it up and turns out that's my favourite stroke! I didn't know it had a name, I just called it the "Jellyfish" :) I don't think I was ever taught it. I think I just discovered it playing around in the water one day. ~~~ mark-r That's one of my favorites too! I didn't know it had a name either. When I want to play around, I try swimming backwards. On my back, with my feet straight ahead and motionless, I stroke backwards with my arms so I move in the direction my feet are pointing. ------ minimonk One of the important lessons I learnt from a lifeguard is that movies depict a very inaccurate representation of drowning. The movies would have you believe that drowning is a violent and noisy event when in reality it is an inconspicuous and silent event. The victim cannot shout or call for help when they are struggling to keep their nose above the water level. Another important lesson I learnt that sometimes when someone is rescued from drowning, they are at the risk of secondary drowning which can occur during sleep after the accident. Especially, if a child looks very weak and tired after a drowning accident, it is important to keep the child under medical care for the next 24 hours. Never take the risk of the taking the child back home in such a case. ~~~ JdeBP An important lesson to learn in general is that television and movies depict very inaccurate representations _of everything_. ~~~ TeMPOraL Including _sounds_ , which are almost universally added to the footage in a separate processing stage, and have no relation to what has actually happened on the stage itself. ~~~ grawprog Hence why every bird of prey ever shown in any movie ever has the call of a red tailed hawk. ~~~ fenwick67 And every jungle is full of kookaburras ~~~ retsibsi Hah, have you got an example of this one? It's a very distinctive sound so it would be hilarious to hear it over a shot of some obviously non-Australian jungle. ~~~ fenwick67 This is so common it's on TVTropes: [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JunglesSoundLike...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JunglesSoundLikeKookaburras) ~~~ retsibsi Wow, thanks. I'm not big on TV/movies but I'm surprised I missed this one completely. ------ sequoia In Toronto, children are tested for swimming ability at _each visit_ to a public pool. Children are given wrist-bands corresponding to their age upon arrival. If a child wishes to swim in the deep end, he or she may ask a guard to give them a swim test (swimming a fixed distance without touching floor or wall). Upon passing the test, the child is given _another_ wrist-band indicating that they may use the deep end. Parent:child ratios are also strictly enforced for younger children. [https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming- spl...](https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming-splash- pads/drop-in-swimming/) (see "Important Information") The presence of children with no swimming ability in the deep end of a crowded pool in this video seems like an obvious recipe for disaster. edit: toys and floats _are_ allowed in Toronto public pools, the kids have quite a lot of fun with them. ~~~ rtkwe Wow I think the only time I've ever had a pool give me a swim test was for Boy Scouts summer camp where it's 75 yards front stroke 25 yards backstroke and then float. Then you get a little tag you place on a board and you always have a swim partner with periodic checks where everyone gets out finds their partner and they count pairs to ensure no one's missing or without a partner. ------ chrismeller All in all after watching several of their videos I feel like I do a good job of recognizing the drowning person, but I’m amazed at how quickly the lifeguards spot it and dive into action. Even knowing that in this short clip there is absolutely someone drowning I still have doubt, but the lifeguard who doesn’t have that context is already half way to the person by the time I’m sure. ~~~ JshWright The guards actually have a lot more context. They have been watching the people in the pool and have mentally sorted them by how much attention they need. They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and their brain is ignoring all the visual noise that is distracting you. They also have the benefit of stereo vision and sound. ~~~ laumars I agree with your general point but I think some of the assumptions you've made aren't quite accurate: > _They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and their brain is > ignoring all the visual noise that is distracting you._ I'd suspect mental fatigue would counteract any benefits you'd get from increased filtering. Which, I assume, is why life guards are generally rotated regularly. > _They also have the benefit of stereo vision and sound._ Sound might not be of much help here because drowning is usually something that happens quietly (as the linked site also explains). ~~~ JshWright I meant "hours" cumulatively, so their brain is ignoring all the background stuff that is competing for our attention in these short clips because it's all novel stimulation to us. Drownings in progress are often quiet, but that doesn't mean there aren't useful audio cues (splashing that stops, a kid who is no longer laughing or shouting, etc) ~~~ laumars Two very fair points :) ------ sys32768 I never got to properly thank the 15-yo lifeguard who saved my 7-yo from certain drowning in a crowded artificial lake pool. We turned away for what only seemed a minute and he was going under. He was slightly blue in the face when the life guard brought him out. The weird thing is he didn't fight or flail. He just sort of faded away into the water, and it struck me as especially weird that he didn't seemed scared at all after. It has haunted me ever since just how easy it can be for a child to drown. Many swim lessons for my child later, I still watch him like a hawk and insist on life jackets in any moving water conditions. Bondi Rescue, a series on Netflix about a team of Australian lifeguards, is instructive and entertaining. ~~~ quickthrower2 I am curious, hope this is OK to ask as I have a 7 yr old... How would you rater you 7-yo swimming ability when this happened? For example could he swim 20 meters (~60 ft)? Also I might watch that Netflix thanks. I don't go to Bondi much but Manly beach a few km away is interesting. They are always yelling at people who are swimming in the dangerous current area and it takes several whistles to get them out. I usually give 'em a gentle yell too if I am there on a surf board :-) ~~~ chillacy I almost drowned in one of these wave pools as a teenager and I had been swimming every summer in swim camps (so a decent swimmer). In my case it was because there were so many people in the pool that I could barely move, after struggling to breathe a few moments I had to exert myself to climb up someone else's inner tube to gain my breath. But I do recall spending most of my time barely above water and struggling to breathe. Could have gone very bad. ------ japhyr > Parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you > get to them and find out why. If you're a new parent and haven't heard this advice before, this is one of the key takeaways. It also applies any time young kids are playing out of sight. If your kid is in their room and it gets quiet longer than usual, it's a good idea to go peek in on them. ~~~ opwieurposiu If my 3yo goes into the bathroom and gets quiet, 9/10 he is making toothpaste/shampoo/toilet paper art all over the floor. ------ mjlee Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning [1] has gone round the internet a number of times over the last decade. Well worth reading if you spend time around water, and a good read in any case. [1] [https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/](https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/) ~~~ bmgxyz Thanks for this. I hadn't read it before, and it's quite interesting. In particular: > One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – > they probably are. When I was a kid, I spent a few summers learning to sail. Part of our training included responding to falling overboard or capsizing our small boats with crews of two. Our instructors insisted that whenever this happened we first call out to each other, "Are you okay?" and confirm it before attempting to right the boat. I never understood why, but now I do. ~~~ MS90 I remember watching the Discovery channel series BUD/S 234 about SEAL training, it stuck out to me that during their swimming test where they're required to swim an entire lap of the pool underwater that the first thing they're required to do when they come up is yell "I FEEL FINE" as loud as they can. Anyone who didn't do so was instantly hauled out of the pool and sent to the medic. Which was good, because some of the men were unconscious when they got there, though they still passed the test! The requirements were to swim down, touch the far wall, swim back, touch the near wall, all while remaining underwater. State of consciousness was never specified :) ------ wycy It seems like spotting drowning children could be a good use case for computer vision, at least as a backup. The heuristics for a drowning child are pretty marked, but they're hard to spot for humans distracted by lots of other stimuli. ~~~ Jaruzel But who would you sue if the computer vision didn't spot your child drowning? ~~~ zentiggr I think the more likely scenario is who wouldn't you sue? Even the camera manufacturer wouldn't be immune from defending themselves. Welcome to America. ~~~ keanzu You wouldn't sue yourself as the parent/guardian of the child - you look around for someone, anyone to blame. When I took a 5yo to a pool which had multiple lifeguards I put her in a lifejacket and stayed within arm's reach of her. Playing in a pool is great fun but it is very high stakes. No way I am going to leave a child in such a dangerous situation and hope it works out. Making sure your child survives a trip to a pool is your responsibility. ------ _ph_ I am impressed by these videos any time the pop up on hacker news. But one thing struck me: that they are using those large floatation rings. A lot of the incidents seem to be where a child looses contact to the ring and then cannot swim on itself. I am wondering, why they are allowed at all. In my personal experience, I have rarely seen such rings in public pools and that basically means, you are not getting far into the deep part of the pool without some basic swimming skills. Most people/children wouldn't even try as they don't feel comfortable with deep water without an aid. ~~~ Nasrudith Part of the reason for floatation devices is a transitionary measure to get them more used to and practiced in "preswimming" while participating and not simply wading or pool side clinging. They are just often misused - you are supposed to be supervising them when they are in the pool period and they only need deep enough water to keep their feet off the ground. ~~~ falcolas Personal opinion, based off my own experience and teaching other children how to swim: Flotation devices have no part to play in teaching how to swim. Parents (or teachers) holding their children and teaching them how to float is step 1. Only after the child can handle themselves in water (float, know when to breathe) should they be playing with flotation devices. ~~~ alistairSH We should clarify that PFDs (life-jackets) are probably good for young children and new swimmers. It's the floating toys that might actually be harmful. And one skill that swimmers need, but cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the water. I watched an adult friend learn to swim, and this was REALLY hard for him. Crazy enough - he was ex-Royal Navy submariner, so he had passed basic water survival - he could float on his back, just couldn't do anything beyond that. ~~~ keanzu > cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the > water. We used kickboards for this exact purpose. So you can float face down with arms outstretched holding the board. You can transition to freestyle swimming taking one hand off the board at a time. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE) ~~~ AstralStorm So it was practised for teaching swimming here in Poland at schools, but these are always in a very shallow pool and supervised too. They lack the failure mode of floating face down in water, but instead are unsafe to others who can be hit with them. And kids will collide. The newer foam ones are much softer and safer. ------ iamthepieman My kids wear type III PFD's until they pass their level 3 swim class. If I am swimming actively with them in close proximity they may go without. If I'm on the shore/side of the pool though, they have their PFD on. Armbands and toy flotation rings are not safety devices. Although me and my family love the water in all forms, going to the pool, lake or ocean is always a little stressful for me. I cannot have a thoughtful discussion with someone while my kids are swimming as my head is always on a swivel and my attention is 95% on the water. I will call my kids in periodically so I can take a break from the constant attention required. We do most of our swimming at lakes and ponds. At the pool, I will allow myself a little less focus since there are lifeguards. Fortunately I only have one left that needs to pass her level 3's. ~~~ chrisgd Always on a swivel! It is so stressful. ------ philshem Rates of drowning in Europe[0][1] vary by more than an order of magnitude. I'd be curious about compulsory swimming lessons in schools, as is done here in Switzerland[2], and its correlation to the rate of drowning. [0] [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat- news/-/D...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat- news/-/DDN-20190809-1) [1] [http://78.136.22.110/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland- dro...](http://78.136.22.110/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland-drowning.pdf) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland) ~~~ AllegedAlec Netherlands reporting in: swimming lessons are spread over three competency group, and as far as I know, nearly all primary schools take time in the curriculum to do at least the first two competency levels before the pupils turn 7 or 8. ~~~ philshem Thanks for your answer. I posted my question to the open data stack exchange site[0]. If there isn't an existing dataset, maybe we can create one country by country. [0] [https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511](https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511) ~~~ AllegedAlec Some data on the netherlands from 2014: [https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99...](https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99d2-82bd64cdf2aa&type=org&&) ~~~ wichert Interesting - that data does not quite match my experience; I was expecting a larger percentage to have B or C level diplomas. I wonder if that is due to region (more water and lakes on the west and north), (ethnic) background or something else. ~~~ AllegedAlec Age and ethnic background, I think. ------ HenryBemis To all parents out there, it takes 10 seconds for a toddler to drown. Once in the water, if they go under, they tend to get disoriented and don't know where is up or down. When you are with your kids near a swimming pool or the sea, keep your eyes glued on them. My rule is "never break line of sight" (I borrowed the term from Assassin's Creed where if you break line of sights from the guards chasing you for a few seconds, their aggro switches off). Line of sight. When near water opt in for a nice podcast/audio book and keep your eyes on your kids. A lifeguard is scanning the scene but on a 50 kids, you are most likely to spot something like this faster/sooner. Also while looking at your kids, you automatically scan/cover an area of 10-15sqm. ~~~ throwaway744678 I can only strongly confirm this: last summer, my 2.5 years old boy fell in a (private) swimming pool while playing around it. Of the 4 adults that were around the pool (less than 3 meters away), only one saw him and could get him back safely. We could not hear a single noise, no cries, no water splashes... Although he was wearing those kids armbands, they were useless as they were keeping his head underwater (he fell head first). The whole thing took less than 5 seconds, but it was really frightening in retrospect. Do not break line of sight. ~~~ epx Happened with me once and my kid was 8 or 9 already. 10 seconds not looking and he was already drowning on the deep part of the pool (where he was told not to go). ------ Insanity I could spot a few - but was faster than the lifeguard only once. (Well, before they came into view, considering the time it took before they came into view I was probably slower). It'd be a lot harder in real life, when you don't know if there's going to be a drowning kid.. being prepared is half the game. ~~~ dsfyu404ed It's easier in real life because nobody just jumps in the deep end and starts drowning. When you're doing nothing but watching the pool you notice who is and isn't a strong swimmer and focus your attention on the kids who look like they're a higher risk. Also when you do it all day you get good. Most people who are struggling will know it and make it to the side of the pool with no issues so you get a lot of experience identifying what "not drowning but might soon" looks like. ~~~ chii you can drown even if youre a strong swimmer. a cramp in your feet/abdomen can cause you to drown. ~~~ keanzu I've had severe cramps in my legs/feet many times in deep ocean water with no- one around. If you drown from a foot cramp you are not a strong swimmer. ~~~ AstralStorm Or you're incorrectly trained. You should always be able to flip and float on your back if push comes to shove, and in that position you can swim just using your arms. ~~~ matthewowen "incorrectly trained" is what people typically mean when they say "not a strong swimmer". anyone who has swum alongside 10 year olds on swim teams will understand that you can swim quite strongly even without being "strong" in the muscular sense. ~~~ keanzu Exactly it isn't physical strength. A strong swimmer is someone who removes "drowning" from the list of options as long as they remain _conscious_. This is a critical point when boating - friends have asked why I always wear a lifejacket when on a small boat; as a strong swimmer surely I have no need of one. In a boating accident the "conscious" part isn't guaranteed. Get hit by the boom and go overboard and you are going to need that lifejacket. ------ quickthrower2 Discussion from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185) ~~~ dang Related, from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769) 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755) 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237) 2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835) ------ m463 I was talking to a friend, and mentioned it's probably a good idea not to have a swimming pool, because it's one of the top ways kids die accidentally. However she said kids don't usually die in their pool, they die in their grandparents pool. food for thought. ~~~ TheKarateKid As someone who grew up with a pool, it made sure that everyone in my immediate family was well trained on how to swim. It's usually guests that visit who have the biggest risk of drowning in your pool. ------ mimimi31 Why are there so many people in the deep end of the pool who don't know how to swim properly? Looking at some of the videos, it seems like the majority can't do a breaststroke and drowns if they can't dog paddle to anything buoyant within a few seconds. ~~~ rtkwe Because public pools can't administer a swimming competency test to every one who shows up to swim and people underestimate just how bad they are and how quickly they go from fine to fucked. ------ sq_ Things like this give me _so_ much respect for lifeguards, especially ocean lifeguards. Being a lifeguard in a pool is clearly tough enough; being in charge of a stretch of sand with people moving in and out constantly has to be absolutely insane. Especially since a kid could run in, get smashed by a wave, and be underwater in the time you spent glancing down the beach the other way. ~~~ dmos62 In beaches, I think often lifeguards rely upon being summoned and being able to get there quickly (beach vehicles). That's in case s/he has to cover kilometers of sand. Of course in such cases a lifeguard can't help with the Instictive Drowning Response: as the article points out, if you're affected by IDR you can hold out only 20-60 seconds. ~~~ ben7799 Those are often places that aren't really fully staffed. If the place is fully staffed and well managed the beach vehicles shouldn't be needed cause the lifeguards should be close enough to not need them. Most places I've seen ATVs in use the ATVs were being used by volunteers who were not lifeguards but watch the beach and call the coast guard/lifeguards on the phone if there is an emergency. The main beach I see this at is ultra dangerous with cold water, dangerous undertows, thousands of harbor seals in the water, and now has occasional great white sharks hunting the seals! Making a beach safe enough requires a lot of well trained lifeguards. Not many beaches are ever staffed like that. If it's dangerous enough some of the guards might need to be in the water on personal watercraft. Usually I've only seen this in super dangerous surfing locations though. A full lifeguard training program also typically contains training on using a rescue board which is basically like a surfboard and can be super useful in ocean surf. Baywatch was always super funny.. they carried Rescue Buoys which were near obsolete in favor of Rescue Tubes by the 90s. (The rescue tube is flexible and can be clipped into a circle once you reach the victim.) But the scenes on Baywatch would have realistically often have been done with both a rescue buoy + a rescue board. Ocean surf is super dangerous, water temps can be dangerous at the ocean. Then in some places you've got sharks, jellyfish, coral reefs. It's super intimidating compared to working a pool. ------ saagarjha I was able to consistently identify the drowning child faster than the lifeguard fairly easily, but it did require a significant amount of concentration (I'm sure it helped that I knew that I was supposed to look for someone in trouble). I'm not sure if I could pay that much attention for a long period of time… ------ Zenst This is brilliant and one of those things that should be in all schools etc as it is an education in observation awareness that holds well in many walks of life. I speak as somebody who trained to be a lifeguard in the UK - taking the bronze medallion #1 and whilst in intensive and in depth (having to know the four chambers of the heart as well as full CPR...) course with lots of practical exam parts, awareness that this gives you is something you can not learn from books and is hard to roleplay. #1 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_(United_Kingd...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_$United_Kingdom$) ------ Munksgaard How come no one has commented on the fact that most of these videos include someone falling off an inflatable ring in the "deep end" of the pool while having virtually no swimming skills. It seems like a no-brainer to me that it's a bad idea to float out on a ring if you can't swim. Is that really common? ------ yourapostasy While there are many machine learning-based drowning detection systems out there, I'm having a hard time finding solid information comparing their reaction time and accuracy rates to lifeguards. Does anyone have any solid research that they've found? I don't want to replace lifeguards or increase their workload by spreading them thinner, but want to find out if we complement them together whether or not it would _increase_ detection rates and lives saved. However, if the current state of the art performs abysmally compared to lifeguards, then I have doubt whether or not they can be combined for improved outcomes. [1] [https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine+learning+spot+drowning&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) ~~~ wearcam There seems to be two broad categories of products: those for pools and those for beaches. Here's a shortlist of systems for pools: Coral Manta, SwimEye, Mobotix, Axis, AngelEye, Argusmatik, Poseidon, Zwembadcamera, Optoswim, Dipsee A.I., and Lynxight Deep Vision. For beaches there's: Milestone, Coastalcoms, etc., and two of the above companies also do beaches: Dipsee A. I., and Lynxight Deep Vision. ------ huffmsa Looks like it give you a different video each time. Lifeguarded during high school. It's hard, even in a small pool. ------ wjnc How are things related to swimming education in different countries? In the Netherlands swimming lessons are a pretty basic parental 'requirement'. Former decades had school swimming, but that fell out of grace due to costs and liability issues. I've been taking my sons for lessons for what feels like ages already (about 1.5 years weekly, now twice a week, with about max. a year to go). At that point they are pretty good swimmers, even fully clothed including jackets and it's my responsibility to keep practicing. How is that internationally? It feels quite irresponsible to take children without training to swimming pools, but that might my local customs focus. Swimming is a hard technique to master though. ------ bane There's a youtube channel of these videos: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw) For those not deeply familiar with U.S. structural issues regarding race, a random viewing of the video will show the unfortunately, the victim/rescued person is likely to be African-American. The reasons for this are complex and sad. Anecdotally, as a child, my family wasn't well off (and at least once homeless), and for a while lived in a lower class urban neighborhood that just happened to have a nice public pool. However, I know that my swimming education started as a toddler with my mother taking me to the local recreation center for early swim classes. Later when I was maybe 6 or 7 my older brother, a champion high school swimmer, further reinforced this until I was very comfortable in the water and had no problems even at the bottom of the deepest parts of the pool. All through my early, middle and high school years I had countless opportunities to swim, and to learn new skills around water. When I was 17 I could easily complete a mile-long endurance swim, or pull a bucket of rocks 20 feet up off the bottom of a pitch black lake. My African-American friends, starting way back at that housing complex, had no such similar experience. I remember long summer days with my friends teaching our black friends to swim so we could have more fun in the pool as a group. As children, it wasn't entirely unusual that one of us kids couldn't swim, as maybe their parents just hadn't gotten around to teaching them, so we took it upon ourselves -- never really noticing the pattern that _only_ our black friends hadn't learned to swim yet. What we didn't understand is that most of their parents would _never_ teach them, as many of them in fact couldn't swim either or discouraged it for various reasons -- creating a generational problem. Now, older, I've come to see and understand the sadness of the situation and hope it continues to be addressed in a more systematic way. Please, if you can't swim, learn to. Teach your children or have your children taught. Water sports are tons of fun, but your safety is mostly on your ability to swim. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E) [https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for- drowning](https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning) [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-11172054](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054) ~~~ ben7799 This is a great response. When I was a Water Safety Instructor I spent part of my time teaching at a special inner city program that was designed to try and counteract the disadvantages you are discussing. Another place I worked was in a very privileged town at a very large country club. They did a lot of corporate events where the pool was hired out by a company for their party. We would never get through corporate events without multiple rescues if the company had a lot of employees who lived in the city without access to pools & swim lessons. ------ arthurcolle I almost drowned when I was pretty young (I wanna say 6 years old) might be older though but not by much, when we went on a pool trip when I was in day care or something, can’t really remember what grade you’re in at age six. I went to a deeper end and wasn’t able to grab the edge to pull myself up. A girl a few years older than I was was able to swim across and push me up. I remember there were two “chaperones” who were just a few feet away from the edge of the pool but they were both facing away. Terrifying experience, still remember it vividly. Parents kind of laughed it off but I definitely could have died. Definitely teach your kids to swim properly before letting them go to a pool unsupervised is all I’ll say. ------ rendall Something in the embed code prevents the "allow full screen" from working properly, so the video is tiny and scrunched up into the upper left hand corner. When I watched this on YouTube, with full screen enabled, I spotted the poor little fellow within about 5 seconds. This is using the latest chrome (v80.0.3987.132) This worked, though: <iframe id="player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" title="YouTube video player" width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T5mDQeDkca0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> ~~~ chrismeller In Safari on mobile you have the opposite problem - it’s too large for the display and there’s no way to make it smaller (or full screen). I kind of assumed that was intentional, since the lifeguard can’t make it full screen or zoom in either. :) ~~~ xenocratus ... for them it is already full screen and way better resolution ------ w-m The first one I got was #26 ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o)) and I find it quite hard to detect. Just next to the drowning child, there are a few others splashing around, which looks nearly identical. Could a machine make the distinction reliably? Also interesting to note that there are many people really close by who do not notice the drowning, but spring into action to help once the lifeguard jumped. ~~~ saagarjha The things that gave it away for me are the head being really close to the waterline and desperate-looking, rapid flapping by the arms to try to stay above the water. Disclaimer: not a lifeguard, this might not actually be valid. ------ sebringj Oh, I thought they were going to use me as a mechanical turk to train an AI...seems like a good idea...could have camera-based lifeguards that dispatch lil' float rescue drones. ------ mosselman Jesus, looking at this and reading a few of the comments has me well scared of the dangers of water again. Good reminder, but always chilling. ~~~ keanzu A healthy respect for pools is an excellent idea. There are few activities a child might reasonably engage in where it could go so wrong it might end up in their death. Swimming is one. ------ sizzle This seems like the perfect exercise for computer vision and machine learning/AI to rapidly alert the lifeguard to the drowning child or deploy some sort of scuba robot flotation device that can get to the drowning person before a lifeguard to shave off precious second that can cause brain damage from deoxygenation. ~~~ mark-r A flotation device isn't enough, often a drowning person doesn't have enough awareness or body control to grab it. You need someone who can grab the victim and pull them out of the water. ------ pmarreck Wow. OK, what the hell is a kid doing in the deep end who cannot f __*ing swim? A large flotation ring is NOT a life preservation device! ------ bias_var I believe this is where tech can be used as a tool to alert the lifeguards. I am seriously exploring building a real time video monitoring tool to alert potential drowning risks. I have the tech chops (video processing + image detection) and would be happy to collaborate if someone wants to join. ------ cranekam Very good podcast about drowning: [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff- you-should-know-269...](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should- know-26940277/episode/how-drowning-works-29467262/) ------ annoyingnoob I once told a Life Guard at a public water park that his job is hard, that I can't even keep track of my own kids let alone all of them. He laughed at me. I still think its a lot of responsibility and hard to track everyone. ------ kempbellt After a couple of videos I quickly trained my eye to notice specific splash patterns peripherally and was able to spot it immediately in the rest of the videos. Seems like it would make an interesting CV/ML project ------ amitry Any thoughts/experience with systems like the Coral Manta 3000? [https://coraldrowningdetection.com/](https://coraldrowningdetection.com/) ~~~ lucb1e In the videos from the "article", the pool guard jumped in while the person is still trying to get above the water. They never lose consciousness and get away with a scare. This system is "trained to detect people under-water" and in the demo it only starts beeping after about 6 seconds of no movement while the person is on the bottom of the pool. So the person first has to get exhausted, sink, stop moving, and then the system catches on that something is wrong. I guess if you get oxygen into the person fast enough, they can make a full recovery, but in the context of a pool this should _not_ replace lifeguards. At home, this is better than nothing, though I wonder if actual (near-)drownings would go up or down because of the sense of security. Edit: the About page confirms it: > Without air in your lungs, your body sinks [...] For children, irreversible > damage to the brain tissues typically starts to occur after about 4-5 > minutes without oxygen, (for adults it is after about 3-4 minutes). $product > detects when a person sinks, meaning seconds after she or he stopped > breathing Detecting people that have gotten lungs full of water and are unconscious at the bottom of a pool is better than not detecting that, but it doesn't sound like pool guard or proper parenting can be replaced just yet, even if it might be a helpful last-resort aid. ~~~ amitry Thanks. Yes, I was thinking of the Coral as a backup in the residential use case. ------ parentology So tragic. In college a group of friends were at the beach when one of them started drowning. Everyone thought he was fooling around, but by the time they realized the truth it was too late. ------ ericjang I'm a ML researcher: if you have video data/footage for this "spot the drowning child", I'd be interested in helping build a ML system for detecting this. ------ SubiculumCode This was really really informative. I realized my eyes were totally looking for the wrong thing, and also spent too much time looking at swimmers who were swimming under water.. ------ downerending If you haven't seen this, read it. Really. [http://drownproofing.com/](http://drownproofing.com/) Every kid should be taught this. ------ dr_dshiv In the Netherlands, children learn early to swim _in their clothes and shoes_ because of the risk of falling in a canal. ~~~ orion_uranus Yep. For anyone curious: "Diploma A" can be started at age 4. The requirements to finish the exam are: - Swimming with clothes on after an unexpected fall into the water, able to orient themselves above water and leave the water independently. - Enter the water in different ways, can orient themselves and proceed to swim through something. - Can use one or more of the 4 basic strokes (breaststroke, single backstroke, front crawl, back crawl) to swim a base distance - Can float on his back and stomach. Feels confident in the water. - Can do water steps(?) with arms and legs, can turn and orient themselves. The clothing required are: - Bath clothes - Shirt/Crew neck with long sleeves - Long pants, dress or skirt (reaches the ankle) - Shoes (plastic/leather/sports) Source: [https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/](https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/) Diploma A is the first of the three diplomas (ABC). If you have all of those you meet the national swimming safety standard. More reading: [https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale- zwemdiplomas/zwem-...](https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale- zwemdiplomas/zwem-abc/) ------ nileshspatel Is there active AI research ongoing to identify such at risk individuals in crowded pool from real time Video monitoring ------ scoutt Very interesting! In addition to what I saw in the videos, it could be interesting to learn how to spot the drowning person because it went unconscious or because of a cramp, etc. ------ a0zU God Damnit, now I really want that domain. ------ mmhsieh using 2x rings is unstable and can also cause drowning; flipping upside down while on a ring can also do it. ------ johnwangdoe Can computer vision be applied to this? ------ ropiwqefjnpoa the kid drowned under my watch, but i'm not a trained life guard so that's expected. ------ kentosi Can we please update the title with "2015" ? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185) ~~~ Someone1234 Why? Typically you age an article to contextualize it (sometimes REALLY important). In this case it is an interactive educational tool, the age hasn't changed its purpose, value, or usage. ~~~ clarry Because someone seeing the title might want to know if it's something new or the same thing they saw three years ago. (Sometimes, new things pop up under a title that has been seen before) ------ ratsimihah Can we do that with coronavirus? ------ oauea Why is there no progress bar? Do you really expect me to sit through several minutes of video of nothing happening just to prove a point? Finally I saw the child go down, so I wanted to rewind a few seconds to see what happened there. Nope, not allowed! ~~~ keanzu The videos are on Youtube, you can click the Youtube logo in the bottom right and gain full control. The site has an overlay where you can click on the drowning person and find out if you were correct. Hence the other controls are hidden. ------ tiborsaas What's the point of this? Should I be surprised that I do a poor job at watching a camera footage compared to a person being present there with all sensory inputs, context, trained to spot drowning people? ~~~ rtkwe It shows what actually drowning looks like which is quiet and very predictable movements that don't match how most people expect it to look from movies/tv. ~~~ tiborsaas Then I think this page does a poor job and overly dramatic. It took me 4 attempts to see the popover text box. ------ cafebabbe So many of them don't have arm bands? It's borderline criminal to allow untrained kids in a pool without wearing those. ~~~ panadan Despite their popularity, swimming experts advise against using inflatable armbands. Although they can help a child to float, they can slip off and lead to drowning. Inflatable armbands do not prevent drowning, nor are they a life- saving device. Mistaking them for one can create a dangerous false sense of security. Additionally, inflatable armbands teach children to float in a vertical position, which is incorrect because swimming is usually done in a prone position. Children who wear armbands can become dependent on them, as well. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands) ~~~ mcv They're a temporary measure; they make sure that a child that goes under, quickly comes up again. But a parent still needs to be nearby and paying attention. Never let a child without swimming diploma swim without nearby supervision. (This should be blindingly obvious.) Of course once they start swimming lessons, they practice without armbands. ------ rezeroed This is choreographed - I don't think the comments on reactions vs lifeguard reactions mean much. ~~~ saagarjha They don't look very choreographed… ~~~ rezeroed They do.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Australian metadata retention changes explained - andrewstuart http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/metadata-retention-changes-explained-20151011-gk6m7p.html ====== andrewstuart What could possibly go wrong? How soon till the worlds hackers start releasing details of Australian citizens digital activities? It's such a relief to know that I am now safer. ------ a_bonobo Relevant: Majority of ISPs not ready for metadata laws that come into force today [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-13/majority-of-isps- not-r...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-13/majority-of-isps-not-ready-to- start-collecting-metadata/6847370) >but 84 per cent say they are not ready and will not be collecting metadata on time. >A majority of ISPs, about 61 per cent, are requesting exemptions or variations from parts of the legislation, for example, the requirement to encrypt retained metadata Cool, so the data isn't going to be encrypted ------ kodablah I may be in the minority here, but I see the law as having a positive. By actually legislating this instead of having it occur clandestinely, the true intentions are clear to those that otherwise might not have known (i.e. the non-technical masses). I can only hope that the US follows Australia and Germany in making a clear statement about this metadata collection, for better or worse, to increase the market for client side encryption and anonymity. ~~~ x1798DE I think that makes the unfounded assumption that they don't go any further than the legislation would allow anyway.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scene Reconstruction from High Spatio-Angular Resolution Light Fields - anigbrowl http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/lightfields ====== jasimq For some reason having Mickey Mouse on top of a research paper page makes me not take the site seriously.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stackify Launches Free CertAlert.me Service to Monitor SSL Certificates - spo81rty http://www.stackify.com/stackify-launches-free-certalert-me-service-to-monitor-ssl-certificates/ ====== jspaur hah, i did the same thing this weekend :) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5281794> care to merge these?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Binom Bijection - Storing k-Subsets Efficiently - volkergrabsch http://www.profv.de/Binom_Bijection/ ====== bumbledraven It's odd that in listing the ways to store a choice of 40 numbers from the set {1..100} the paper doesn't mentioning the traditional approach of using a string of 100 bits. Bit _n_ is set to 1 if _n_ is in the subset, and 0 otherwise. This is damn close to the theoretical optimum of 94 bits, and way simpler. ~~~ volkergrabsch Thanks for the hint! I really forgot that one. I just added it to the presentation. In addition, I adjusted the example to "30 of 100" as this better reflects the average case. ("40 of 100" was too close to the pathological corner case "50 of 100"). ------ cperciva The author has a rather narrow definition of "efficient". Yes, he uses close to the minimum number of bits of storage... but his encoding scheme is _horribly_ slow -- encoding takes O(k^2 log n) time, and decoding using the presented algorithm takes O(k^2 n log n) time. ~~~ volkergrabsch Yes, I meant just space efficiency. It might be handy if you have many subsets (e.g. a solution space) you need to store in memory or on disk. I'm still looking for a faster algorithm that reaches the optimal space efficiency. ------ zaphar I know this isn't a discussion of his subject matter but I love his presentation format. ~~~ carbocation I was thinking the exact same thing. This is a rare example of an appropriate use of the PowerPoint medium. ~~~ volkergrabsch More exactly, it's the "beamer" package of LaTeX, not PowerPoint.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Success & Motivation: A Lesson & The Worst Sales Letter Ever.. - peter123 http://blogmaverick.com/2010/01/05/success-motivation-a-lesson-the-worst-sales-letter-ever/ ====== lmkg My gut says, this was not written by a native english-speaker. I don't know if it was pieced together by a computer program, or outsourced Chinese labor, or outsourced Chinese software, but it looks like the combination of two unrelated high-performing pieces of spam email. Giving the name of a fictional acquaintance is a strong tip-off. ------ gorbachev That's an advance fee scam, nothing more.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Working around the EC2 outage - jpetazzo http://blog.dotcloud.com/working-around-the-ec2-outage ====== ulope Having read that (and assuming it's accurate) I really wonder how anyone in their right mind can see EC2 as a viable hosting solution. ~~~ pan69 EC2 is built for scalability and distributed systems. The article seems to give a negative spin on something which is the authors own fault. In most traditional hosting environments you have e.g. one web server. If this one server goes down your website stops working. A solution would be to have two web servers behind a load balancer. If one web server goes down, the other takes over and your site continues to work. A lot of people who are hosting on EC2 place all their application components in the Virginia data-centers (because its the cheapest data center for reasons the article points out). If the Virginia data center is down nothing works any more. However, EC2 gives you the option to distribute your website over multiple data centers in case of an event like this. If you choose not to take advantage of this architecture you're no different than running your website on a single web server. E.g. a single point of failure. With EC2 you have to ability to set up a website that never goes down. Of course, distributing your web site over multiple data centers can be costly. But I guess it's pick and choose, not bitch and moan. ~~~ ulope Well ok that's understood. But still - instances randomly crashing is not acceptable under any circumstances in my view. ~~~ shykes Just to be clear. DotCloud is in fact designed to withstand instances randomly crashing. So far however, it has not been designed for instances randomly crashing _across multiple datacenters_. I will add that neither is the canonical high- availability designed _recommended by Amazon_. ------ mbailey Quick answer: have presence in both the VA and CA locations. ~~~ shykes The corollary is: ignore the AZ feature entirely. You may be right, but that's a big hit to the attractiveness of AWS.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Speculation on DNS DDOS [video] - okket https://ripe73.ripe.net/archives/video/1536/ ====== webscaleizfun Interesting idea, but then you are essentially forcing everyone to go through their upstream provider or Google's DNS servers, since when DDOS attacks occur, smaller networks won't be in your 8000 resolver whitelist. Part of me thinks this is just the author building another wall, since now the DDOS will just attack ISP DNS servers instead, and worse yet quite a few of those compromised IoT devices are on those same ISPs networks, providing even better connectivity & potential throughput compared to congested peering. Perhaps we should be taking a different path, instead of letting Qualcomm, Broadcom and ilk continue to build massive out of tree branches of the Linux kernel and never mainline their changes, thus preventing effective long term support for said hardware, we should seek to force them to properly mainline their code so when the vendors using their chips drop support, all these vulnerable IoT devices aren't permanently sitting there vulnerable. Otherwise, the future is bleak for your smart toaster. Its likely gonna join a botnet sooner or later, just a matter of time ultimately. ~~~ aexaey > Otherwise, the future is bleak for your smart toaster Well, no. Smart toaster is going to be just fine. And that's the core of the problem here. Much like it is the case with polluting diesel cars, owners are reasonable happy with their purchase and simply unaware of any problem (until/unless product is recalled). And even being aware, there is very little incentive for owners to address the issue of their property subtly contributing to harming somebody else. And same again with much-needed BCP-38. It adds very, very little value to the ISP who implements it, so many never bother to. Yet less-then-universal roll- out of BCP-38 hurts Internet as a whole. ------ mhandley The idea Geoff presents, of whitelisting the source addresses of the 8000 or so most frequently used recursive nameservers, and giving them priority service, is a good one, and should help. However, something like 20% of the Internet can still spoof source addresses. That 20% can spoof whitelisted DNS server source addresses, so end up in the priority queue. An interesting question is how many of the bots in these IOT-based botnets are behind home NATs - if it's most of them, then even if their ISP allows spoofing, the IOT device won't be able to spoof. However, it does make it all the more important as IPv6 rolls out that BCP 38 is enforced. ------ metafunctor The idea given in the talk is simple: keep a whitelist of known recursive name servers who have behaved well in the past. Serve requests coming from these known good IPs with a high priority. Serve all other requests with a lower priority. ~~~ teddyh Actually, he gives _two_ ideas, the second being that all resolvers should use “NSEC aggressive caching” for DNSSEC signed zones, so compromised devices can’t go around the whitelist from the first idea by using DNS resolvers as proxies. ------ Vlakslcllell After a few minutes, the video embedded in that page stops, stating "html5: Video not properly encoded". Direct link to the video: [https://ripe73.ripe.net/archive/video/Geoff_Huston- A_Specula...](https://ripe73.ripe.net/archive/video/Geoff_Huston- A_Speculation_on_DNS_DDOS-20161028-112925.mp4") ~~~ teddyh That link is broken; fixed link: [https://ripe73.ripe.net/archive/video/Geoff_Huston- A_Specula...](https://ripe73.ripe.net/archive/video/Geoff_Huston- A_Speculation_on_DNS_DDOS-20161028-112925.mp4)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best static web site host? - danvoell I'm trying to figure out the best place to host a static (html/php) company web site. I'm looking for a good combination of render speed, up-time, support, and price. I'm currently using shared web hosting on dreamhost and I just want to make sure that I'm not missing out on a faster host which may potentially help Google rankings. Suggestions? ====== byoung2 If it is truly static, just use S3 (and optionally Cloudfront). If you need PHP, look at putting Cloufront in front of your existing shared hosting, or better, get a VPS and run Varnish in front of Apache with Cloudfront. You can set up rules in Cloudfront to point to different origins based on URL, so you could point at an S3 bucket for /about or /news pages, or the /images* folder, and to your PHP server for /contact or /blog. That way you have maximum uptime for all the static pages and content, and you only hit your server for stuff that absolutely needs to be dynamic. ------ mattkrea I'd just go S3 for static content though I pay for two DigitalOcean droplets to run some dynamic content. ------ buugs PHP isn't static but NearlyFreeSpeech has been a good host for me (cheap and easy as long as you don't mind ssh). They do have php and mysql if needed. If actually static (just html and other static files): S3 might be a better choice. ------ MrGando I'm on Digital Ocean, for the money my server didn't have any issues handling being in the Top posts of HN for several hours... I'm serving static HTML generated by Octopress. ~~~ danvoell Thanks for the comment. It seems like there were several digital ocean comments, I will give it a try. ------ tehwebguy I'm using github for my personal site, not sure if it's good for something larger / higher traffic. ------ pinup Depends on the geographic location of the largest reader base you want to reach. Try to figure out where you biggest reader base are living and just get hosting there. ------ sharmi I use the basic droplet from DigitalOcean. Works like a charm. ------ sauravt How about Github ? ~~~ bitlord_219 For static HTML/PHP that sounds like overkill. This is a job for Sourceforge.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Thermosonic Bonding - peter_d_sherman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosonic_bonding ====== peter_d_sherman Excerpts: "Thermosonic bonding is widely used to wire bond silicon integrated circuits into computers." [...] "A thermosonic bond is formed using a set of parameters which include ultrasonic, thermal and mechanical (force) energies." Future Idea: Bonding should be studied from the perspective of using a variety of substrates/energies, including but not limited to: electricity, magnetism, infrared, light, ultraviolet, sound, and a variety of chemicals and materials (both similar and dissimilar) to be bonded... The reverse (unbinding) should also be studied, under all of those conditions. A future science would create all kinds of tables (or perhaps equations) where you could see what effect a specific energy or energies would have on specific materials, at what temperatures, frequencies, combinations, etc.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CLOCKER – CREATING A DOCKER CLOUD WITH APACHE BROOKLYN - msolujic http://www.cloudsoftcorp.com/blog/2014/06/clocker-creating-a-docker-cloud-with-apache-brooklyn/ ====== grkvlt Author here. This project uses jclouds to provision VMs in a cloud, installs Docker on them and then deploys an application across those VMs in Docker containers. There's a more detailed post on my blog as well: \- [http://abstractvisitorpattern.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/clocker...](http://abstractvisitorpattern.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/clocker- implementing-docker-cloud-with.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Best Remote XYZ jobs found in the World this week - xoelop https://blog.noicejobs.com/best-remote-jobs-found-between-sep-04-and-sep-11/ ====== xoelop Hey HN! Some months ago I shared ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500588)) a bot I made that finds and curates the best remote jobs and posts them on Telegram channels. More than 500 people joined and the comments were generally good Now I've created a blog and newsletter where I'll be sharing the best jobs found every week the week for 50+ categories. I'd love to hear your feedback on it to make it better. What's what you like the least about it?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Solutions to Easy Tip for Sites - SubuSS I see a lot of sites now locking down with per month article limits etc. As annoying as that is on one hand, I also see the value of content without ads. I ALSO don't want to go through the whole process of creating yet another account / giving them my paypal et al.<p>Anyone working on solutions to tip small amounts? say with per day maximums, one click tips, reviews monthly for fraud etc. IOW if this resembles a tenner in my wallet, I would be much more comfortable tapping a button to donate. I am obviously projecting that's a case for many folks :) ====== DoreenMichele I suggest you support existing platforms that allow you to pledge as little as a dollar per month, such as Patreon. There are also one-time tip services, like Buy Me A Coffee.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Secondary indexes support in Sophia 2.2 - pmwkaa https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sophia-database/70cPZ-LWDW4 ====== crudbug Great work. Is there an ETA on Tarantool integration ? ~~~ pmwkaa thanks. if everything goes well, it will be ready for testing within one-two week time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Promotion/Raise Salary Data - beefjerkylover http://perks.guide/promo ====== beefjerkylover Hey Hacker news! we were inspired by other salary tracking sites to build a tool for engineers, product managers & other tech workers. Our observation was that the yearly raise and promotion process is even more opaque than the "new job negotiation" process. Our goal is to try to crowdsource an answer to that! We're currently testing the tool so we're only tracking Google, Facebook, Amazon & Microsoft for now. Open for any questions! ~~~ beefjerkylover Alternatively, we track raises @ [http://perks.guide/raise](http://perks.guide/raise)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Parsing HTML in Python with BeautifulSoup - jgrahamc http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/11/parsing-html-in-python-with.html ====== spatulon I think there's an important distinction between telling someone they've written "poor code" and telling them they're a "poor programmer". Whether the latter is true or not is irrelevant to the discussion at hand and comes across as an ad hominem argument. I more or less agree with your criticism of parsing via regular expressions, but there was no need to distract us all with insulting Eric (and he should know better than to respond in kind). ~~~ jgrahamc One thing I asked myself after I wrote that comment was how I would feel if I had been on the receiving end. I think there would have been two reactions. First, I would have had the sort of anger and upset reaction that would have come with someone describing my code as "looking like it was written by a poor programmer". I'm sure that I would have wanted to lash out at that person. But that reaction would have quickly been replaced with deep shame that my code had been examined by someone and found to be very poor. Once I had examined the code I would have felt very bad because I had put something out there of that quality. ~~~ gonzo esr is a poor programmer. there are dozens of examples. ~~~ jacquesm Indeed, there are dozens of examples of poor programmers. ------ rhymes The only problem with BeautifulSoup is that its kind of slow, but if it's fast enough for you go for it, otherwise you can try lxml with its lxml.html module. See also: [http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser- per...](http://blog.ianbicking.org/2008/03/30/python-html-parser-performance/) ~~~ jamongkad Upvote I used to dig BeautifulSoup. It's latest release is slower than it's predecessors. That's why I use PyQuery nowadays, it's based on lxml and uses a jQuery like API to access the DOM. ~~~ joshu I'm always terrified that these conversations will unearth a library or technique that will immediately obsolete most of the code in my current pet project. Thanks! ------ ivankirigin At Tipjoy, I needed to parse pages to find Tipjoy widgets to validate the owner of the widget. The configuration made sense, but left me in an undesirable position of parsing lots of pages. At first I used regexes. I would find bugs, and fix them. The bugs affected the product in delaying confirmation of content ownership, which stinks. I noticed that the bugs didn't stop coming, so I switched to BeautifulSoup. It was faster and better. I highly recommend it for anyone using Python. ------ transmit101 This guy is correct, of course. But he comes across quite rudely. Sometimes it is better to not be right at all than to be right at any cost. Actually, I'm a bit surprised that this article has been voted to the top of HN. It's not particularly interesting or challenging from any perspective that I can think of. ~~~ jgrahamc I was a bit rude, but it's not always inappropriate to be rude. Recall that I was addressing a person who claims, literally, to be a God: <http://catb.org/~esr/writings/dancing.html> ~~~ statictype I disagreed with you on the previous thread, but I would agree that if anyone deserved a harsh reality check on his skills, it would probably be esr: <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1350#comment-241727> "On the other hand, every once in while I am reminded that “programmers I’ve known” are clustered in the top 5% of ability, usually the top 1% of ability." ------ jim_lawless The author doesn't state which version of Python / BeautifulSoup he's using, but based on this page, the older versions parse HTML more reliably. [http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/3.1-problems.ht...](http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/3.1-problems.html) ~~~ jgrahamc I was using 3.1.0.1 ------ pkulak I've tried to use BeautifulSoup, but I wasn't impressed. Coming from Hpricot and Nokogiri, it leaves a lot to be desired. Mostly because it's not very tolerant of bad markup, which is a deal breaker when you're trying to parse random HTML from around the web. I'm also pretty sure it's a dead project. ------ derwiki I started using BeautifulSoup a few weeks ago to help write more exact unit tests for front end design. Instead of saying "make sure this page contains abcdef", I can say "pull the exact section that abcdef is supposed to be in, and make sure it is (or conversely, make sure it's NOT showing up when it's not supposed to). If you have access to the HTML code, you can make it a lot easier on yourself by putting eyecatcher IDs or classes in elements and starting from there. ------ cookiecaper I've used BeautifulSoup before and I've gotta say that it was kind of a pain; surely easier than writing regex myself, but I've had a much more pleasant parsing experience with other methods, like XPath in scrapy or jQuery API. BeautifulSoup is also only kinda-sorta-maintained from what I recall, so it's probably better to use something else. ~~~ Erwin I've found this addition to BeatifulSoup useful: <http://code.google.com/p/soupselect/> which lets you use CSS expressions to find what you want. ------ DanielBMarkham It's a shame we don't have something like Beautiful Soup for .NET or C or any other of a dozen languages -- it would have made this article more applicable. But the thrust is good -- for easy-to-describe yet tough-to-implement problems, always steal somebody else's work if you can ~~~ arihelgason There's a port for Ruby, Rubyful Soup <http://www.crummy.com/software/RubyfulSoup/> Apparently it's slower, though. I've only used the python version, which works very well if you use it with the old SGMLParser. ~~~ DanielBMarkham UPDATE: For those of you doing .NET, the HtmlAgilityPack looks very interesting. You can search using multiple paradigms such as XPath, XSLT, and Linq <http://www.codeplex.com/htmlagilitypack> ------ eli Another option is to run the source through Tidy with XHTML output and then treat it as XML. ------ jgrahamc The other thing that I wondered about is why he goes to all the trouble of web scraping when SourceForge (at least) offers an XML export option: <https://sourceforge.net/export/> ------ nvn1 Is there an equivalent library for PHP? It might save me a lot of time. ~~~ qeorge Yes, try Simple HTML DOM: <http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/> Its a little light on documentation, but has a familiar syntax and handles malformed HTML. I've used it in a number of projects and its been great. ------ qeorge So someone open-sources code they wrote, and the author decides to insult them for it? And as if being an ass on HN wasn't enough, he regurgitated it on his blog and then resubmitted _that_ to HN? Ugh. Parsing malformed HTML is a nightmare, I'm impressed the programmer even gave it a shot. ~~~ natrius You're not supposed to give it a shot. That's the point. ~~~ qeorge I fundamentally disagree with this. If an existing solution exists, one shouldn't try to create his own? Then why did Linus build Linux? There's also a lot to be said for curiosity. I'm currently building an email client in my spare time, not because I don't think there are plenty of great ones already, but because I'm interested in programming with IMAP. I'll probably open source the final result, and I don't think there's anything wrong with doing so. ~~~ natrius If you want to build an HTML parser, go ahead. From the comments in the code, it's clear that ESR tried to parse HTML because he thought he had to, not because he wanted to. ~~~ qeorge Fair enough, good point. ------ jacquesm The question is would you have spent that much time picking apart his code if you had liked the guy ? ------ d0m Yeah good job for destroying his code publicly like that, that's pretty cool and I hope it make you feel good. Just send him a patch email with the beautifulsoup version instead. And I can't believe this is ranked first on hacker news. ~~~ Torn Peer-review and constructive criticism are valuable forces for change and improvement. Clearly there's some personal politics going on (insults having been traded) but jgc does raise some good points: the original code is very tightly-coupled code to whatever Berlios outputs, and would incur a large maintainability cost. It's also bought BeautifulSoup to my attention, which seems quite a neat utility built _exactly_ for this sort of thing. For these reasons it's interesting, and is why I've upvoted it. ~~~ jgrahamc It would be foolish of me to pretend and try to hide my dislike for Eric Raymond, but it comes down not to a personal problem, but a problem with the way he presents himself. In this case, the juxtaposition of the quality of the code (which was truly poor) and Raymond's opinion of himself (recall that he claimed to be a Core Linux Developer at one point) made plain the problem that many people have with the man. Interestingly, his response to my criticism was not to say something like "You are right, but don't be nasty about it". Instead he wrote a blog posting going on about how right he is. Oddly, I share his concerns about HTML parsing, but I think he's wrong to not use an HTML parser and do everything by hand. Having done a lot of screen scraping work dealing with all the edge cases is a pain. And, also, Raymond claims to be very thick-skinned: <http://catb.org/~esr/writings/take-my-job-please.html> ~~~ statictype >Oddly, I share his concerns about HTML parsing, but I think he's wrong to not use an HTML parser and do everything by hand It looks like he didn't really understand how BeautifulSoup (or for that matter, xpath) works. For example, he seems completely unaware of the '//node' syntax which would completely sidestep the issue of encoding structure in the code. ~~~ youngian And in his defense, someone who has not used BeautifulSoup might not realize how robust it is. I was deeply impressed with it when I used it for a scraping project - it's really good at handling tag soup _and_ giving you powerful access to the parse tree. I would not have expected one tool to perform well in both those areas. ESR probably just made some assumptions about the capabilities of available parsing options that would be correct but for a few exceptional tools. Let's fault him for not checking his assumptions rather than name-calling about poor programming.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Nvidia Launches Patent Suits Focused on Samsung Galaxy Phones, Tablets - readerrrr http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-patent-suits/comment-page-3/#comments ====== grageth Really Nvidia? Respect is gone. Where is the suit against Apple? Don't they use PowerVR too?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Max no. of EC2 instances used by a single web app? - jm3 Including DB & API machines, our web app occupies 18 heavily utilized Amazon EC2 instances under a traffic load of ~7k RPM. "Conventional wisdom" says that we're mis-using EC2 by keeping so many virtual instances running but I prefer hard data to "conventional wisdom".<p>Curious to hear from the HN community: what’s the most long-running EC2 instances you've seen in a successful web app? ====== kehunt Some other data points: * Animoto was running several thousands of machines in 2008 (<http://bit.ly/EDLtt>) * Litmus runs 400 servers (<http://bit.ly/d7Hc7y>) * 99Designs runs entirely on EC2 (<http://bit.ly/aotKgg>) I've personally had long-running EC2 instances with uptimes in _years_. You could do it cheaper in terms of hardware, but at the cost of wasting time at the colo while you could be building cool shit. ~~~ nethergoat Good start - I wasn't aware of the Litmus environment. The Animoto example is great, I love telling that story to people just starting to look into cloud computing. To add to the large-environment roll call, here are the persistent server counts of some 100% cloud-hosted companies: \- Bizo: 100+ instances (I work here) \- Reddit: 100(?) instances ("256 Virtual CPUs" <http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/schedule/event/148/>) - HNer jedberg runs this \- ShareThis: 250 instances (I worked here) Longest-running instance I've had is at two years and still going strong. ~~~ grep Is Reddit profitable? ~~~ jedberg We don't discuss that, but Conde isn't a charity. They wouldn't keep us around if it wasn't worthwhile. ------ teej Zynga runs over 12,000 EC2 nodes total. A single app like FarmVille, which runs entirely on EC2, will be a few thousand. It's safe to guess we're Amazon's biggest customer. ~~~ jedberg You're not their biggest customer, but you're up there. :) ------ imp I've got two running now. A large for the webserver and a medium high CPU for the database. Roughly a couple hundred reqests per second. ------ jm3 I’ll go first: we (140 Proof) actually have 20 instances, not 18. How many instances do other people’s apps use?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
When ‘he’ll be kept on payroll, somewhere’ is where you are - Tomte https://medium.com/@hdevalence/when-hell-kept-on-payroll-somewhere-is-where-you-are-f419d3022d0#.3lr09533w ====== skystrife If this had occurred in the US (and the mentioned confidential conversation did in fact allege sexual misconduct), DJB would be in trouble: > Within the University of Illinois System, ALL employees, unless specifically > exempted, are “Responsible Employees” with the responsibility and authority > to report sexual misconduct to their university's Title IX Coordinator. The > only employees who are exempt from this reporting requirement are > professional or pastoral counselors who provide work-related mental-health > counseling, campus advocates who provide confidential victim assistance, and > employees who are otherwise prohibited by law from disclosing information > received in the course of providing professional care and treatment. Student > and graduate employees are handled differently at each university. Please > reference the Responsible Employee Resource Page under the "Portfolio" and > Resources tabs. Please remember that all references to Responsible Employees > are references to YOU and apply to you in your capacity as a university > employee. To me, this would mean that he is a mandatory reporter, and I am unaware of any scenario where you are freed from that obligation because it was a "confidential conversation". The weird part comes in when you realize that (a) this is happening outside of the US, but (b) DJB likely has NSF grants, which require adherence to Title IX (this is what the author is referring to when he brings up Title IX training). But how does one enforce Title IX outside of the country in which it was passed? ~~~ belorn While its different in each country, I know that teachers and counselors can be required by law to personally report such crimes to the police. If I remember right, this is true for Sweden, which would in this case result in a police report and then no further actions or communications from the university (in order to allow the police to do a proper investigation without interference). If it is a student that is accused, then the university might not even be allowed to suspend the student, through the police can of course put the accused in holding if the police suspect a continuation of crimes or interference of the investigation. Compared to the US system, I actually prefer this way since it puts the whole process into its proper place as soon as possible, and puts a form of common- sense approach when a university employee hear or witness a crime. ~~~ M_Grey There's also a reasonable Tarasoff case here, given Jacob's extensive and ongoing history. ~~~ belorn I know that education institutes in Sweden sometimes move students if they consider that the person is continuing disruption the education, through as with all of this, there need to be documentation that they tried multiple methods to correct the situation and still failed. Moving students is seen as a last-attempt. In the case of Jacob, we don't see any of those actions. No police report or investigation. No claim that he is continuing acting disruptive to the university, nor that they have tried and failed to correct that behavior. Basically no events or documented actions of jacob after the point he left the tor project. ------ syswsi Is this a common thing in the infosec industry? Personally I have known two people who were sexually harassed who work in security. I've also hung out with some and they do seem to have an unrealistic view on the opposite sex. Some examples I've found of documented cases: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/female-hackers- st...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/female-hackers-still-face- harassment-at-conferences) [https://www.the-parallax.com/2015/10/26/how-myth- of-meritocr...](https://www.the-parallax.com/2015/10/26/how-myth-of- meritocracy-stymies-women-in-infosec/) ~~~ sulam Crypto absolutely attracts a strange group of people as compared to other disciplines. That includes some people who are very liberal in their definition of consent, almost by definition, which in turn can affect other areas of their life. [Note: I am not making excuses for their behavior, although I'd hope that would not need saying.] ~~~ tptacek Are you an academic cryptographer? I'm not, but I'm a practicing crypto engineer, and I go to the occasional conference and workshop. What I've noticed is that crypto is far better about stuff like this than CS and certainly than infosec; I think it's a consequence of crypto being as much a part of mathematics as about computer science. ------ pfarnsworth Wow this blog post makes djb sound like such a scumbag. The idea that he would ask people to consider the allegations "false" is absurd (there's a difference between presuming innocence vs presuming the the allegations are false). I would love to hear his side of the story. ~~~ brl > I would love to hear his side of the story. Some of his side of the story has been told in the leaked emails: [https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt](https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt) ~~~ hawkice tl;dr DJB was approached with a complaint, and thought it was a situation where he would give advice and his counterparty expected he would maintain his confidence. After he heard about the frustration the complainant was experiencing, asked the person to file a formal complaint, or at least send a self-contained email (explicitly acknowledged as not confidential) that he could use to move forward, in order to not break that confidence. Seems that's where things broke down. There's another complaint related to Tanja that seems separate (he says that she urged him to not file a complaint immediately), but that's orthogonal to DJB's side of this, I think. EDIT: It seems, from context, that the complainant wanted the confidence revoked, and everything put on the record (not unreasonable). But DJB doesn't _keep_ records of confidential things -- hence his insistence that they start from the beginning. EDIT2: I'm trying to summarize "What is DJB's side of this (as communicated in the linked emails)?" not the whole scenario. I don't know anything about this situation directly. ~~~ viraptor > But DJB doesn't _keep_ records of confidential things -- hence his > insistence that they start from the beginning. I call BS on this, if we're talking about adults at university positions. The reasonable response in that case is: "I do not have any archives. Please resend everything you've got.", not starting from the beginning without communicating that fact clearly. If someone fails to act properly in that position, they shouldn't be overseeing other people. He should not stop because of a technicality on his side in that situation. (Edit: reasonable response == absolute minimum here, he could do much more) ~~~ sulam You're talking about a crypto researcher here. Their behavior absolutely does include a much higher level of awareness around the handling of confidential information. He may well have a policy that all confidential communication is treated separately, including being automatically wiped after some period of time. This would need to be standard for his work as it relates to investigating 0day and other vulnerabilities that must be confidentially disclosed to third parties. This does not make him a nice guy, and he would likely have been in violation of Title IX, which means any US govt funding for his lab is potentially at risk as a result of this case. ~~~ viraptor I don't care who he is, or what his daily email routine is. It doesn't matter. At any level, if someone you're superior to in your organisation comes to you and reports abuse from another person in the org, you either follow up immediately, or you shouldn't be superior to them. Any kind of follow up should produce report of that. If the person taking to you doesn't want you to report it further, then it's your business to have a record of that and never lose it. I know it from normal decency and numerous company trainings and I've never even been a manager. His research topic, or even whether the report is true don't matter. It's in his interest to follow up on his own and keep records. If not because it's right, at least to protect the university and himself from what's happening right now. ~~~ sulam Sometimes your best protection is a policy that all electronic communications are automatically deleted after a retention period. Many companies have such policies, and they have them on advice of their legal council, specifically to avoid discovery issues in the event of a suit. You can argue this doesn't apply here from a moral perspective and I would agree with you, but IT and legal policies often do not follow an ethical code. Crypto research exacerbates this because the likelihood of such suits is higher than with other kinds of research, sometimes rising to the level of nation states getting grumpy at you with all that could entail. Finally, while I can't make any excuse for the behavior, he would be far from the first graduate advisor to have less than stellar management training or skills. ------ lkrubner I've also run into exactly this tactic: "When I informed the project reviewer and the other fellows that, in fact, I had resigned due to sexual harassment, Dan sent a response which opened with a long, irrelevant, and inaccurate story about how my work was low-quality, my research contribution was minor, etc. " Myself and a business partner had a web startup that we ran from 2002 to 2008. I was the CTO, he was the CEO -- at first the titles didn't mean anything because the whole company was just the two of us. Later we had some money and we hired some people. He was nominally in charge of sales and raising funds from investors, but as the years went by, he struggled with the stress. He started smoking way too much marijuana. I eventually lost all faith that I could build anything with him. For years he had tried to win me over with excessive praise (especially when we had no money) but when I told him I was leaving, suddenly he complained that my work had always sucked, I wrote terrible code, I aggravated everyone we'd worked with, I scared away all potential investors, etc. It is curious the way that particular mentality works. It's very much similar to what is described in the article. Once they realize they can not win you back, they feel an urgent need to delegitimate anything you might ever say. ~~~ engx When things go bad, the tendency for people to lie is shocking. I lived with a business partner, and decided to move out. Him and his girlfriend begged me to stay but I wanted privacy (it was a big house with other roommates). Few months later we get into a dispute involving our third partner, everything falls apart and suddenly they started telling people I was "evicted" from their house and a terrible person. ------ empressplay The "smoking gun" here is, I suppose, that the person in question was fired from _another_ project in quite a public fashion for engaging in the very same sort of harassment the OP reported to his supervisors and was rebuffed for. There really doesn't look like there's much wiggle room here. Now, that said, I think this is brilliant because this sort of thing happens _all the time_ -- typically, if you report a Higher Value Person(tm) for harassment (no matter what the field) you may as well just be shouting in the wind. You'll get told "oh, you don't want to ruin their life, do you?" or "I've spoken to him, he won't do it again, please won't you take one for the team?" And if you persist, well, you're just disgruntled and unhappy and maybe you should go somewhere else. Nice to see someone held to account for once! ------ le_sign I tried Jake's menthol eye drops once, he was offering them to lots of people at the time. They burned for a few seconds but I felt no lasting effects. They're something like this, possibly even this brand: [http://www.rohtoeyedrops.com/product/rohto- ice/](http://www.rohtoeyedrops.com/product/rohto-ice/) (the bottle was that shape, anyway). ------ KKKKkkkk1 WTF is a "strictly confidential conversation"? Do professors at TU/e have some special status akin to doctors or lawyers? I've never heard of this sort of thing anywhere else. ------ omgtehlion I only did a quick skim of the story, not read it thoroughly. Maybe someone knows, did anyone went to (real) court or complained to the police about Appelbaum? Looks like, this is the main concern of djb. ------ hartator His wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum) Doesn't seem to be the first time he has been accused publicly of sexual abuses. Very far from that. ~~~ maraisednofool Here, have something more serious and in depth. [https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor/blob/mast...](https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor/blob/master/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor.md) I formed my own conclusions, including about those who take this lightly. Who has called out journalists seriously since? That's the last he did before the attack website and the carefully placed articles started, no? For all this talk about how Appelbaum was this sociopath plagiarist just being charistmatic and summarizing the work of otehrs, while others do the super serious work (that doesn't include not partaking in witch hunts, but it's fine to be this socially inept, and spout so much sophistry, because you see, _he_ is the sociopath, that slot is taken so everybody else is in the clear), and all those crickets chirping in response to questions about that, including on HN, complete with downvote brigades, the flagged article by someone offering their first-hand account in response to what third parties claimed about them, and so on -- I haven't seen anyone pick up the mantle yet. Even assuming every single accusation against him is completely true, that absolutely pales in comrparison to the "response" to it, and how transparent it is. HN is completely scorched earth in that regard until downvotes are made public. That would be interesting, until then take care. ------ donatj The story would be a lot more powerful if it were vastly more concise and meandered far less. This reads like an angsty teens livejournal entry, which doesn't do the serious nature of the matter justice. ~~~ tptacek It wasn't written for your entertainment. ~~~ flukus It was written to evoke an emotional response though, not to layout a series of events clearly and concisely. ------ spraak It looks like this has disappeared from the front page? ------ sillysaurus3 Since this post casts djb in an unfavorable light, I feel it's important to post some of his emails here, so that his words can stand alone, uncolored. From [https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt](https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt) "Hi everybody, As most of you know, we hired Jake for a 5-year PhD program, starting with a 50-50 split between Tor and TU/e, and increasing TU/e percentage assuming that the first year goes well. The Tor Project put up a blog post yesterday afternoon saying that Jake had resigned from Tor. The blog post doesn't say "to concentrate on his PhD studies" or any other explanation. If you look on Twitter you'll find a shocking statement "Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore" from Meredith Patterson, and a rapidly growing pile of comments. If it's true that Jake raped someone then of course he should go to jail for this heinous crime. If it's not true then the source of the false accusation should be appropriately punished for slander. Clearly _someone_ has broken the law. But it's not my job to issue punishment, or to figure out who deserves punishment. I'm going to presume _everyone_ innocent until proven guilty. Everyone has a right to due process: being told exactly what the accusations are, having adequate chance to respond, having hearings in front of a neutral judge, etc. Often people are falsely accused of crimes. I see it as part of my duty, as a member of a civilized society, to avoid prejudging and punishing people who are accused and who have not had their day in court. On the opposite side, often people are correctly accused of crimes, and I also see it as part of my duty to avoid prejudging and punishing accusers who have not had their day in court. As long as nobody goes to court claiming rape or slander, I would ask that you join me in presuming that the accusations of rape are false, _and_ in presuming that the accusations of slander are false. Assuming that someone _does_ go to court, I would ask that you join me in waiting for judges and juries to do their jobs---no matter how tempting it is to instead join a poorly informed mob on one side or the other. I'm not saying that judges and juries never make mistakes; I'm saying that the alternatives are much worse. \---Dan" Furthermore, from the article: "Isis told Tanja their story of being raped by Jacob, without identifing it as theirs. Tanja’s response was to ask “Why were they in the same bed with Jake?”, and when I asked Tanja whether, if someone she knew personally came to her with this story, she would believe them. Tanja said no, not without hearing Jake’s explanation. At this point myself and Isis left in tears, ending the conversation." From the emails file: " Dear Harry, A few weeks ago you initiated a strictly confidential, and ongoing, conversation with me. During this conversation I have been listening carefully to what you've been saying, frequently summarizing to confirm my understanding, asking questions regarding various details, and providing my advice as to the best procedures for you to follow. I'm deeply concerned about this conversation, for two basic reasons. First, I've now heard multiple rumors making me believe that you have been summarizing the contents of this conversation to other people in a highly inaccurate way. Perhaps you weren't paying close attention to what I said, or perhaps you weren't careful in how you summarized it. There are other possible explanations---perhaps the rumors I've heard do not reflect what you actually said; perhaps I seriously miscommunicated something---but the bottom line is that I'm not confident in the reliability of the communication channel. Second, some of the things you've said sound more severe than simply wanting advice. It seems to me that you're facing problems that you don't feel able to resolve on your own: your goal is for other people, in particular me, to take action. However, a strictly confidential conversation makes action impossible. My role in such a conversation is purely as an advisor; complaints and other requests for action require different procedures. Given these concerns, I've decided that this message will be the end of our strictly confidential conversation. I recommend that you send me a separate message explaining in detail what problems you're facing--- without any reference to the previous conversation; again, it's procedurally impossible for me to take action that relies even slightly on any portion of a strictly confidential conversation---and explaining what actions you would like me to take. I'm sorry if this sounds excessively formal, but following proper procedures avoids errors and provides protection for everyone involved. \---Dan" From a followup email sent by Dan: " > In fact, I told both Dan and Tanja in June that I felt I had no option > but to resign, due to sexual harassment, blackmail, and physical abuse > by another of their students. Mr. de Valence fails to mention that what he told me was part of a strictly confidential conversation. I was not even at liberty to disclose to you the existence of this conversation. After careful consideration, given what I now see Mr. de Valence writing, I have concluded that the following limited disclosure is proper: with all due respect, Mr. de Valence is wildly exaggerating the contents of his conversation with me. It is with the utmost care that I am choosing the words "wildly exaggerating". [...] > That student, Jacob Appelbaum, was fired this summer from his other > job, at The Tor Project, The article cited by Mr. de Valence says that Mr. Appelbaum resigned from the Tor Project. "Was fired" is not an accurate summary. > on account of other abusive behaviour, as > described in The New York Times: > [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/technology/tor-project- > ja...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/technology/tor-project-jacob- > appelbaum.html) I am Mr. Appelbaum's first supervisor. I am aware that Mr. Appelbaum has been accused online of rape. I am also aware of the following articles to the contrary by investigative journalists: [http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape- sexua...](http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexual-abuse- allegations) [https://taz.de/Der-Fall-Jacob-Appelbaum/!5361578/](https://taz.de/Der-Fall- Jacob-Appelbaum/!5361578/) I don't know which side is correct, and I'm certainly not in a position to judge. Obviously it is important for criminals to be punished, and it is also important for innocent people to be protected against false accusations; this is why we have courts. [...] Six days before the deadline, Mr. de Valence said on the chat system that he wouldn't get much done that day or the next day because he felt "quite burnt out from last week and travel and some life crises", and that he would check back in the next day. He then fell silent, with the status of his work far from clear. Three days later, after the lead student finally managed to track him down by smartphone, Mr. de Valence sent one message saying Hi, sorry if I was unclear, I merged the WIP code I had into master so that other people could work on it, because I am burnt out and can't do both implementation work and the Tor meeting at the same time. He then fell silent again. It turned out that the software was quite far from a satisfactory state. The rest of the team had to stay up late nights writing code and text to get the submission done on time. Two weeks later, to my astonishment, Mr. de Valence gave a public talk at the University of Waterloo on the results of the paper. He had never asked the team for permission; he had never even notified anyone else on the team that he was planning to give a public talk. (I first heard about the talk from a Waterloo tweet two days before the talk.) The only part publicly announced before that, a tweet in September, had clear consensus of the team; the question of what to announce when had been an explicit discussion topic for much longer. As for content, Mr. de Valence's previous slides for a private ECRYPT-NET audience needed quite a few fixes, were missing cryptographic context, and predated tons of work on the paper by the rest of the team. Even today I don't know what his Waterloo slides said; he never replied to my email asking for slides. " I have to split up this comment in order to post it due to HN's length limit. See my reply below. ~~~ sillysaurus3 From the article: "Dan has written at some length about the importance of “due process”, both internally to the research group and externally to the world. But it’s telling to notice that in every such discussion, Dan carefully avoided any mention of concrete processes: he did not define the “different procedures” suddenly required for him to take action, nor what “proper procedures” should be followed." This is patently false. Dan sent a series of emails that clearly outlined both the procedure to take to file a formal complaint, as well as Dan's reasoning for insisting on these procedures. I recommend reading [https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt](https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt) in its entirety. It isn't something that can be summarized. I've done my best, but I have cherry-picked quotes here which both support and defend Dan. Why? I feel it's important for someone to point out that insisting that someone file a formal complaint is not the same thing as failing to take action. Again, the length of [https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt](https://www.hdevalence.ca/etc/34de2f3c2a48f7da/EmAiLs.txt) and the emotions that are invested in this situation will prevent most readers from actually reading the full emails in their entirety before making a judgement. But I strongly recommend taking the time to do this. Note that in no way am I condoning or defending anything about Jacob's behavior. There is enough anecdotal evidence to be extraordinarily suspicious of him. But I am uncomfortable with the idea that Dan is getting thrown under the bus solely because he insisted that Henry file a formal complaint, and because Dan refused to take action based on off-the-record conversations. ~~~ wehere i mean those e-mails by Dan you quoted are pretty incriminating themselves ~~~ tempestn Incriminating in what way? They sounded pretty reasonable to me. ~~~ vacri From the article, Dan and Tanja are superiors in a workplace, not unrelated folks in a volunteer project. It's their responsibility to ensure a safe place to work - telling people to take it to the courts is an unreasonable way to start dealing with an internal HR problem. ~~~ watter Exactly this. They clearly failed to follow university policies and they were acting as supreiors. ------ simplehuman Is this the same Dan as the author of qmail? I feel I cannot use that software anymore in good conscience ~~~ poikniok Shouldn't we wait to hear Dan's side of the story before we get out the pitchforks just yet? ~~~ clearly_a_shill I have seen instances of Jake behaving inappropriately in front of DJB, and I'm pretty sure he saw. I've heard Jake bragging about his sexual exploits on numerous occasions, including the sawzall story. Not posting under my normal account for obvious reasons. ~~~ flukus Any more detail? There is a big gap between inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment and/or the assault allegations made. ~~~ knieveltech Is there now? By all means describe what objectively differentiates inappropriate from harassment. ~~~ flukus Farting is inappropriate but not harassment (usually). There is a huge range of behaviour that's can be inappropriate but not harassment. ~~~ sethherr That's a reasonable example, but doesn't answer the question: what differentiates it? I'd say it's something like "involving people without their consent" \- e.g. farting on them. Which includes forcing people to listen to tales of your sexual exploits. ~~~ flukus I'd disagree discussing your sexual exploits is harassment either, up to a point. It's harassment when it's clearly unwelcome and directed at a specific individual. So if we sit next to each other and I keep farting even though you don't like it, it's not harassment because it's not directed at you, but if I kept walking over to your area just to fart, that's harassment. I would have thought the distinction would be obvious considering the overlap between HN readers and the socially awkward. ~~~ knieveltech sethherr nails it with consent. Just about anything can be harassment if the critical element of consent is missing. ------ nemo1618 After what happened to Assange, I can't help feeling skeptical of character- assassination pieces on people associated with Wikileaks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Y Combinator's Graham Discusses Start-Up Industry - zaveri http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83135286/ ====== aculver In the later part of the interview she asks some questions about the recent discussions regarding minorities in the startup community. I thought his response was insightful: "Well, I think the problem is upstream from us. I don't think it's that, like, huge numbers of women and minorities want to start startups and that we're filtering them out because they're not white or men or something like that. I think that the applicant pool, the applicant pool has the same problem that people see in our output, right? The same problem is in our input that people see in our output. The problem is further upstream. The problem is that the pool of startup founders is the people who are messing about with computers at age 13. If you want to fix the problem, that's what you have to change." ~~~ jdp23 Some other incubators fund more women and minorities than YC, so this seems like it's only part of the story. A couple questions this leaves in my mind: \- what are they doing to broaden the applicant pool? \- have they considered that something about the process or their reputation might lead to women and minorities steering away from YC? ~~~ pg Probably the biggest things we've done to broaden the applicant pool are Hacker News, Startup School, and all the essays I've written about startups. I don't think there's anything about our process or reputation that directly discourages people of any gender or race. But we do prefer founders who are hackers, which presumably thus causes fewer members of groups that are underrepresented among hackers to apply to YC. ~~~ kevincjemison It's definitely a complicated issue with no clear overriding cause. As a minority who did take apart his mothers computer at 13 and compressed the windows partition to install linux (woo hoo slackware) and has gone on to found a startup I think some of Paul's commentary is spot on. Though I was representative of some of the larger stats (single parent home, lower middle income specturm) I was also one of two kids on my block with access to a computer in the home, and my single parent was a teacher who made education a priority. If you looked at the cohort of kids I grew up with you'd find myself and 2 others out of 11 or so that are not either a. dead or b. in jail, or have been in jail. Why is that? I don't know and don't claim to know, but the road to changing it starts very young. ------ richardburton I really enjoyed the interview but I found this exchange puzzling: Emily Chang (quoting Max Levchin): ‘Entrepreneurs aren’t taking big enough risks … ’ Paul Graham: ‘Well, that probably isn’t true because it’s gotten cheaper and cheaper and cheaper to start a startup and when the cost of failing gets lower usually people can do riskier things’ Risk is the potential for loss. If the cost of starting a startup is lower then the potential for loss is lower which means the risk is also lower. More people are starting startups because it is less risky, not more. That means the number of companies being formed is going up; in turn, that means that more people are _taking the risk_ of starting a company, whether they are risking much or not. This might seem a subtle distinction but I think it is an important one. A week ago I sat down opposite an entrepreneur who built a 24-hour transaction layer on top of the UK’s banking system which runs on nightly batch- processing. It made the transition from 9-3 banking to 24-hour online banking possible. He started out with a _really big_ vision and had to take _really big_ risks and the result was a _really big_ company that created a lot of value economically and socially. It took him two decades and nearly bankrupted him on dozens of occasions. His vision sustained him. It kept him going through all the terrible lows and in the end he shook up one of the slowest- moving industries out there. That was a big risk. That was a big reward. ------ softbuilder "it's gotten cheaper and cheaper and cheaper to start a startup" "maybe it's just not the right time yet for a vacation on the moon" There is a terrible amount of segment bias here. It is orders of magnitude cheaper than it used to be to start a _software or virtual service_ startup. Other varieties of tech startups (chip fabs, space launches, flying cars, etc.) aren't nearly as cheap yet and represent far greater risk. It's a big world. Lots of markets. Lots of possibilities. ~~~ corin_ Agreed, and if anything this makes it harder to aim for something like holidays on the moon. If it costs the same to try and build a spaceship as it does to create the new social fad then why not reach for the stars (literally) - but when it's so much cheaper to try and start the next Facebook, and you know that starting the next Facebook could have just as much potential to make you far less people will take the riskier option. ------ jholman You know, it's always a visceral pleasure to hear/watch pg talk; at least for the way my brain is (soft-)wired, he's so charming and listenable. But every time I see him interviewed, my "he's got an axe to grind" detector is going off so loudly that it's starting to drown out the charisma. It's understandable, in that high-tension soundbyte-oriented environment, that pg wants to ensure he stays on-message, but it's also disappointing from someone who we know is capable of being so much more informative. He says, in response to several questions, "oh, that's not how a perfectly rational market would work, so it's probably not what's happening". I mean, I agree with the argument as far as it goes, generally reality roughly approximates an ideal market, but the approximation is always rough, and pg repeating this is sort of wasted air, isn't it? Examples: at 2:08 in response to "big enough risks", starting at 2:38 in response to valuations like Dropbox's, at 5:25 in response to Aston Motes's very plausible theory about bias in "pattern-recognition" Everyone's entitled to try to manipulate the media as best they can, and I'm not even doubting the sincerity of pg's claims about the market's effect on all those issues. But it sure would be nice to hear you dig a little deeper, pg. ------ vasco I don't understand the women+minority problem. Different people have different interests, and I believe this is a good thing and not a problem. If more diversity were to come to the startup world that would be awesome, but I don't see this as a problem that needs fixing. Startup people just have to keep doing what they do and if more people get interested in startups then things will all fall into place. What about the percentages of women and minorities in such places as politics? Is this a problem too? What about other industries that are dominated by women, is there a problem there? People like what they like and that's that! ------ pwim Eric Ries claims to have had "shocking" results when having recruiters remove all demographics from resumes. His suggestion for YC: _I suggest the following experiment: for your next batch of admissions, have half of your reviewers use a blind screening technique and the other half use your standard technique, on your first screen (before you’ve met any applicants). Compare the outputs of both selection processes. I predict they will show different demographics._ <http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/19/racism-and-meritocracy/> Obviously YC needs to interview applicants, but as it already cuts people before the first interview, it might be an interesting experiment. ~~~ pg We see them at the application stage too, because the application includes a video. The video tells us a lot more than their race and sex. So if half the people reading applications didn't see the video, we'd do a lot worse at reading applications. ------ the_cat_kittles Why is the "not enough women and minorities" question even on the radar? Did I miss something? ~~~ schwabacher Because it is an ongoing and serious issue that hurts startups as well as women and minorities. ~~~ the_cat_kittles care to be more specific? ~~~ schwabacher They spent a long time talking about this, at the expense of more interesting questions she could have asked PG. Especially more interesting to people interested in startups. It is a serious issue though, 96/4 men to women is a really bad ratio. And my guess is that the ratio of white and asian to hispanic and black is even worse. So startups miss out on a huge potential talent pool and the perspective of people who might approach problems in a different way. And at the same time women and minorities are largely failing to take advantage of a really exciting opportunity. PG is probably right, the bulk of the problem is that thirteen year old girls / black kids are not playing with computers. So maybe this is a question that would be better directed at parents or teachers, but it definitely should be on the radar. It is a problem that can be solved, that we should solve, and is a good thing for people watching Bloomberg / people doing startups to think about. ------ localhost3000 Thought she handled the, "well, this is news to me! i don't know anything about the recent IPOs!" response pretty well. ~~~ latchkey She's also very smart (Harvard grad) and has an impressive resume. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Chang_(journalist)> ~~~ gbog So she is of Chinese ascent. How weird, I couldn't tell. And her strong American accent, so strange. Sorry. ------ gbog A bit OT but would be nice to have a [video] tag for these autostarting videos. ~~~ rdl I particularly hate autostarting videos with loud preroll ads :( ------ dontbelame I love Emily Chang's facial expression :))))) ~~~ steveheady Listened to the audio while browsing web, the condescending tone of overvalued tech for privileged white people was all I could hear from her. Paul, on the other hand, is a class act as always.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What change in your programming technique has been most transformative? - dmux As an example, the team I work on has been adding more precondition checking to all of our applications. The simple act of stepping back from the perceived data-flow and explicitly declaring what we believe should hold true has uncovered several bugs in our understanding of our applications.<p>We've likened it to having someone review a paper you've written: you often read what you <i>think</i> you wrote, not what's actually written.<p>This got me to questioning what others have found to be transformative in their development practices. ====== beeforpork Programming in a team and accepting that it is not 'my' code but 'our' code. Not feeling slightly pissed when someone else changes the (not my) code. For me, this was a total game changer and a complete change in programming style. The focus changed to using the most common idioms, the clearest and cleanest and most concise way of writing stuff down, and avoiding smart hacks or, if necessary, encapsulating and documenting smart hacks. Not being shy of writing stuff multiple times until it really is clean and inviting to be read and understood. Using a very strict style (including when/where to put white space and line breaks) that everyone else also uses so that code is easy to read for everyone. It improved my programming enormously and the bugs/line ratio went down. It also gave a much better intuition to smell fishy code. It also took quite a while to internalise, but I now always code like that, also in private projects and in quick hacks scripts in, say, Perl. My second most important change was to learn how to use contract based programming, or, if the language has poor support, at least to use a ton of asserts. This, for me, feels like stabilising the code very quickly and, again, improved my bug/line ratio. It forces me to encode what I expect and the code will relentlessly and instantly tell me when my assumptions are wrong so I can go back and fix that before continuing to base the next steps on broken assumptions. ~~~ woutr_be I agree with the first bit; however it's hard to find a balance between accepting that your code can be improved, and standing by your solution. What I see in my team is that someone else has another solution, and whatever that is, should be implemented, if you argue against it, then it's often "I'm just trying to improve your code". However his solution might not necessary be better, it's just a different approach. We also follow very strict style guides, but this is all defined in formatters and linters, so there's no arguing against it. Even for my personal projects, the first thing I do is usually set up .editorconfig and TSLint (if I use Typescript). ------ sjamaan I would say: Automated testing and a functional programming mindset. Even for legacy projects, starting with adding regression tests for every bug you find is a great way to introduce testing. And when you add new features, you can write tests for that as well. I find that a FP mindset is helpful mostly because it tends to reduce the amount of global or spread-around state. This in turn makes testing and quickly iterating in a REPL a lot easier. Also when later the time comes to debug, it's much simpler if you don't have a huge amount of state to set up first. And even if a lot of state is required, having it be an explicit input to a procedure is helpful because it makes it much clearer what you need to set up when doing manual testing. ~~~ inkeddeveloper You had me at automated testing. ~~~ diarmuid +1 ------ muzani It's okay to be messy. Treat code mess with the same techniques you would treat RL mess. Sometimes you sweep it under the rug. You can toss it in a closet or attic. You can buy a shelf or box and toss everything in there. You can clean it up seasonally, like set aside a sprint for it. Some kinds of messes are hazardous and absolutely should not be tolerated - this is similar to leaving milk out or trash piling. Many people make this mistake of assuming that because some messes are very dangerous, all of it is too. Most messes will slow you down, but cost more to clean up. Overall, I've seen documentation do more harm than help - it's often faster to interrupt a colleague doing something than for that colleague to spend weeks documenting and updating documentation on something that gets thrown away. Some will take more time to fix later than now - this is what people mean by tech debt. But it's less common than it seems. With a lot of mess piles, the important parts float to the top and the less important ones sink at the bottom. God classes are mess piles. Once the mess becomes a burden, it's a good time to clean up. You may need a few janitors and landscapers, especially for a large code base. Some people place much higher priority on cleanliness than others. Be respectful of them but you don't have to be like them. ~~~ wewake Wrong. Absolutely wrong analogy. You can't discount people who keep code clean, modular and simple. It's not an easy thing to do unlike cleaning your house. It just takes one's will to clean the house but when it comes to keeping your codebase clean, it's much more than just will. Sound knowledge of software architecture and design principles is required to write and keep your code clean and unfortunately, the number of people with this knowledge is very small in most teams and sometimes there's none. Also, it's not okay to be messy unless you are working on a school/university project. ~~~ easytiger > It's not an easy thing to do unlike cleaning your house. It just takes one's > will to clean the house but when it comes to keeping your codebase clean, > it's much more than just will. Let me put it this way. I've seen no relationship with code purity and a happy client ~~~ afarrell Have you ever walked into a restaurant and asked to see how they refrigerate or organize their ingredients? No? Would you say then that you don't care if your food comes out slowly or gives you food poisoning? You care about the result, but you trust it to someone else. It is a Chef's responsibility to maintain the mise-en-place and food safety to a degree which enables him or her to keep delivering meals quickly and without salmonella. It is an Engineers's responsibility to maintain the code clarity and tests to a degree which enables him or her to keep delivering improvements on business needs quickly and securely. ~~~ easytiger That analogy would work if I hadn't worked for companies who made $400m+ with code and processes that would be at home in a 14 year olds hobby project. Oh and 0 tests. I find a lot of a certain kind of sw person who need analogies to make their mental model work. It never did for me ------ skishor Learning different programming paradigms. For example, logic programming with Prolog makes you think about solving certain problems quickly and efficiently in a declarative style. Strongly-typed functional languages like SML and OCaml make it easy to use types and pattern matching to reduce errors and shift some cognitive burden from yourself to the compiler. Lisps allow you to quickly prototype functions in the REPL and test them interactively, and thinking about code as data (homoiconicity) is a powerful concept. In short, learning new programming paradigms completely changed my view of programming and these skills can translate over to more "mainstream" languages, so it is still a worthwhile effort. ~~~ fortydegrees >shift some cognitive burden from yourself to the compiler This is the best way I've seen the advantages of static type checking articulated. ~~~ Smaug123 The line I use is: "I'm a very bad programmer, but I'm very good at making the compiler force me to get it right". ------ hcarvalhoalves You can come up w/ an algebra for a specific problem domain by thinking about the data models and repurposing some simple abstract algebra. E.g.: new(state, &args) => mutation apply(state, mutation) => state' Applied to finance: newPayment(balanceSheet, amount, date) => payment apply(balanceSheet, payment) => balanceSheet' newDiscount(balanceSheet', amount, date) => discount apply(balanceSheet', discount) => balanceSheet'' Applied to chess: newMovement(board, K, E2) => movement apply(board, movement) => board' newMovement(board', b, D6) => movement' apply(board', movement') => board'' As a bonus, it's clear where to enforce invariants and fail early: newMovement(board', K, E3) => Illegal Movement (Can't move to E3) newMovement(board'', K, E2) => Illegal Movement (White King not available on board) apply(board''', randomMovement) => Illegal Play ~~~ ignoramous You'd like: [https://blog.ploeh.dk/2017/10/04/from-design-patterns-to- cat...](https://blog.ploeh.dk/2017/10/04/from-design-patterns-to-category- theory/) ------ aaron-santos Hot code reloading. It was one of the best decisions I made when I added it to a hobby project I've been working for the last six years. Most of my development time for this project is spent adjusting code while the app is running. The feedback loop is incredibly tight and the most engaging of all of the projects I've ever worked on. I'm working on extending auto reloading to all of the assets in the project because I know that tight feedback loops are that important. ~~~ jolmg What language? Is it a game? I've been wanting to try that ever since I saw a video of someone developing an FPS in Common Lisp while playing it at the same time. They would modify the bullets and the way they made collision, then fire after each change to see the effect. ~~~ minikomi Sounds like you're remembering John Carmack developing VR using racket: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydyztGZnbNs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydyztGZnbNs) edit: Also check Arcadia for Clojure: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p0co13WYPI&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p0co13WYPI&feature=emb_title) And developing flappy bird in clojurescript (canonical figwheel example): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZjFVdU8VLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZjFVdU8VLI) ~~~ jolmg No, the one I saw was different. They were walking around the world and shooting stone building walls. They also weren't part of a conference. The video was just their screen split with their code on one side and the game window on the other. I'm pretty positive it was Common Lisp too because I think I was looking for SLIME videos at the time. Thank you for the links. ------ quickthrower2 1\. Using REPLs: The tool or the principle. REPL means Read-Eval-Print-Loop and its a place where you can run code immediately and get immediate feedback. For example F12 in your browser and use the console to do 1+1. But you can also use that console to interact with your code in the browser, the DOM and make http requests. But I also see REPL as a principle - to get as quick feedback from the code you write as possible, and things that help this are: * Quick compile times * Unit tests * Continuous integration So that each stage is as quick as possible. I write code and within as second or two know if it failed a test. Within a few seconds maybe I can play with the product locally to test it manually. Once committed, I can see it in production or a staging environment at least pretty quickly. You can then have bigger REPL loops where a product manager can see your initial code fairly quickly, give you feedback and you can get stated on that right away and get it out again for review quickly. I don't think there is any excuse not to work like this given the explosion of tooling in the last 20 years to help. 2\. YAGNI Writing over elaborate code because it is fun! That's fun at first but you soon learn it's better to write what is needed now. There is a balance and writing absolutely shit code is not an excuse, but adding too generic code because of stuff that might happen is also a problem. ------ jerf By far, starting to write automated testing as I code. The sheer number of bugs I find immediately and the number of bugs I find from changes that I didn't expect would be enough to justify it, but what is even _better_ is that it forces me to keep my code _testable_ , which also happens to correspond fairly closely to _well-architected code_. Not perfectly, but for something that is automated and always running, it's really helpful. When I'm able to greenfield something myself, and use this from day one, I tend to very naturally end up with the "well-separated monolith" that some people are starting to talk about. I have on multiple occasions had the experience where I realize I need to pull some fairly significant chunk of my project out so it can run on its own server for some reason, and it's been a less-than-one-day project each time on these projects. It's not because I'm uniquely awesome, it's because keeping everything testable means it has to be code where I've already clearly broken out what it needs to function, and how to have it function in isolation, so when it actually has to function in real isolation, it's very clear what needs to be done and how. Of all the changes I've made to my coding practice over my 20+ years, I think that's the biggest one. It crosses languages. At times I've written my own unit test framework when I'm in some obscure place that doesn't already have one. It crosses environments. It crosses frontend, backend, command line, batch, and real-time pipeline processing. You need to practice writing testable code, and the best way to do it is to just start doing it on anything you greenfield. My standard "start a new greenfield project" plan now is "create git repo, set up a 'hello world' executable, install test suite and add pre-commit hook to ensure it passes". Usually I add what static analysis may be available, too, and also put it into the pre-commit hook right away. If you do it as you go along, it's cheap, and more than pays for itself. If you try to retrofit it later.... yeowch. ~~~ inkeddeveloper Ah man. Reading these comments make me so happy. Automated testing from the start. Code as you go. Love every bit of it. ~~~ 0x445442 To piggy back on here. Don’t use mocking frameworks in tests. I’ve found it to be a great way to expose design flaws in the code. ------ hellofunk Avoiding cleverness at all costs. Simple code that is easy to both read and write without strong efforts to follow senseless DYI or take on abstraction for the sake of abstraction. ~~~ Buttons840 Can anyone give a specific example of code they've worked with that was "too clever"? Based on my experience, if a coworker wanted to "avoid cleverness" I imagine we'd end up arguing over something like a for-loop versus a map, but such small code decision matter very very little in comparison to overall architecture, and where you place the "seams" in your system. So I ask, when you have felt that code is "too clever", was it because someone used a map, but you're more comfortable with for loops, or was it bigger than that? My first job was maintaining some PHP. The author didn't know what a function was. The code was a 5,000 line script, top to bottom, with basic control and looping logic nested up to 17 deep (I counted). It was horrible. Yet surely, the author had avoided cleverness at all costs; he had built a working system with only the most basic tools, those being all he knew. ~~~ DonCopal Clever: for(let i=0;i<100;)console.log((++i%3?'':'fizz')+(i%5?'':'buzz')\|\|i) Readable: for (let i = 1; i <= 100; i++) { if (i % 3 == 0 && i % 5 == 0) { console.log("FizzBuzz"); } else if (i % 3 == 0) { console.log("Fizz"); } else if (i % 5 == 0) { console.log("Buzz"); } else { console.log(i); } } ~~~ blumomo I like that example. Since I'm preaching to prefer functional style programing and to separate the side effect from the rest of the algorithm, I'd write the code this way: Array .from({length: 100}, (v, k) => k+1) .map(i => { if (i % 3 == 0 && i % 5 == 0) return "FizzBuzz" if (i % 3 == 0) return "Fizz" if (i % 5 == 0) return "Buzz" return i }) .forEach(console.log) ------ hnruss Functional Programming fundamentally changed the way that I solve problems. It also changed my expectations for how code should be designed. The concepts that influenced me the most were immutability and the power of mapping+filtering. Whenever I read a for/while loop now, I’ll attempt to convert it to the FP equivalent in my head so that I can understand it better. ~~~ alexanderscott map and filter are not concepts of FP - they are just syntactic sugar around for loops. fully evident if you check any native source code. many languages (such as go which I currently use) do not even have these functions but can apply FP. this is by design of simplicity and visibility: it does not get much easier to read than a simple for loop and know the exact iterations count at runtime. ~~~ monsieurbanana One of the key principles of functional programming is, well, functions. A for loop isn't a function and isn't composable, map and filter are. ------ vanusa Recognizing that there's a special power in resilient technologies. Those that keep chugging along decade after decade, and getting stronger, too. Not from inertia or monopolist effects or other kinds of random lock-in. But because they tackle a certain set of fundamental problems very, very well. Despite endless complaints about their fundamental limitations, conceptual flaws or alleged lack of scalability. SQL, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and many aspects of Unix and the C/Make toolchain all come to mind. Mind you, I don't _like_ all of the above. At least 2 in particular I definitely wouldn't mind seeing "just go away." But I do recognize that they have special _staying power_. And they didn't get this power by accident. ~~~ spectramax This is certainly not true. Evolution of programming languages is _circumstantial_. There are many flaws in all of the ones you had listed. The marginal cost of deprecating something or breaking something is higher than the incremental cost of workarounds. This happens all the time from the laryngeal nerve in Giraffe to the evolution of a programming language, say JavaScript. Please don’t mix good design with popularity. It’s a correlation/causation fallacy. ~~~ chrstphrknwtn Look close enough and everything is flawed. Evolution doesn’t ‘design’ anything, least of all anatomy. The ‘special power’ is that they have stuck around, for whatever reason or circumstance. ~~~ spectramax I never claimed that evolution “designs” something. In fact, I’m talking about the opposite - Evolution has no hindsight. Therefore, the marginal cost of undoing something is larger than incrementally adding or bolting on fixes. ------ ericb Making debuggability (transparency) a first-class design criteria. For many (most) systems, there are designs that make perfect sense, but will be hard to debug. When I started designing so that programs could tell me what they are going to do, what they are doing, and why, and so that their state, wherever possible, could be expressed into a structure where I could "see" the wrongness, my development time went way down--because it was really time spent debugging, so my productivity went way up. ~~~ gtirloni Interesting. Any examples of libraries or papers? ~~~ ericb I can give an anecdote. I needed to design a load testing system that would ramp up to an arbitrary number of users of certain types, over an arbitrary amount of time. Rather than just make a loop and increment every so often, I made the system output it's "plan" for the user ramp, and a second component execute the ramp plan. We had a bug in the calculation which we were able to see easily by reading the "plan." Without this step, we would have been unsure if it was the calculation of when to add users, or the implementation of adding a user that had a problem. ------ ludsan For me it was three things: 1) learning to understand push/pull between data structures and algorithms 2) learning new programming languages from different paradigms, and 3) understanding the physical implications of programming (i.e. latencies of disk-access, network, and memory; the non-amortized cost of pulling data from a database only to do the joins in memory, etc.) My younger self did not truly understand the strength of modeling or treating data as the reification of a process. I saw everything through the lens of what I knew as a programmer which was, for the early 2000s java developer I was, a collection of accessors, mutators and some memorized pablum about object orientation. I treated the database with contempt (big mistake) and sought to solve all problems through libraries. Now I can see the relational theory in unix pipes. I can see the call-backs of AWK and XSLT processing a stream of lines/tuples or tree nodes as the player- piano to the punch cards. I understand that applications come and go, but data is forever. I no longer sweat the small stuff and finally feel less the imposter. ------ Ocerge I throw away rough drafts all the time for non-trivial work that I don't fully understand yet. There are different approaches to it, but I usually just create a throwaway branch to hack out a naive solution until I run into the non-obvious roadblocks and then try again. I used to try to _really_ understand something before coding a solution, but not being afraid of throwing away a rough draft has helped my mindset a bit in terms of working out difficult problems. It's not a novel or huge concept but it works for me. ~~~ jamil7 This is an interesting idea, I think I often do this subconciously but I might take your mindset next time and tell myself I can chuck the first draft away. ------ valand Static typings + type inference Parse, don't validate [https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse- don-t-va...](https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t- validate/) All libs/products should be pure functions, with input output documented, making libs/products predictable Use in-app event sourcing to reduce the need for global states states DoD [https://youtu.be/yy8jQgmhbAU](https://youtu.be/yy8jQgmhbAU) In non bare- metal languages, this will be useful for readability For errors, return instead of throw ~~~ charlieflowers Thanks for that "Parse, don't validate" link. It definitely is the clearest explanation for type driven development I've found. Turns out, years ago I was writing some C# code and I found myself wanting to explore something like that. However, it wasn't idiomatic for C# (especially at the time), and I talked myself out of it. Since then, I've wondered if that's what people mean by type driven development. It's cool to see that is at least in the general ballpark. ~~~ valand Is C# nowadays friendly enough for type driven development? Using TypeScript daily, I have a great time with type driven development. (C# and TS was created by the same guy) I was never comfortable with Java community approach of automating stuff, with their heavy use of reflections, method name parsing instead of being strict in typings, use generics, macro, templating, etc. ~~~ charlieflowers Well, you can "force" some of it ... make an object whose ctor can only succeed if a certain check passes, for example. You'd be using types in a way that pretty much no one in C# does (not idiomatic), except for maybe those who are explicitly trying to go for type driven development (for example, people doing things like railway oriented programming). ------ lubujackson "Premature optimization" was happening a lot more in my head than on the screen. By that I mean I would waste time struggling to succinctly generalize a function instead of making something work the easy and ugly way FIRST. It is far easier to copy paste working code in 4 places and leave a nice comment on each about what could be probably consolidated... without actually doing the work at least until you come back to the code to make a minor change in those 4 places. Half the time you never come back, most other times you end up merging them within a week. And for outliers... good commenting saves the day. ------ twh270 Some game changers for me off the top of my head: * Automated regression testing and build/deploy pipeline. The machine will do things quickly and repeatedly exactly the same way, given the same input conditions/data. * TDD. Create tests based on requirements, get one thing working at a time, and refactor with a safety net. * Mixing FP style and OO style programming to get the best of both worlds. * Understanding type systems, and how to use types to catch/prevent errors and create meaningful abstractions. * Good code organization, both in physical on-disk structure and in terms of coupling & cohesion. * Validate all incoming data and fail fast with good error messaging. ------ sethammons Many developers think of themselves as abstraction masters. "Moar abstraction is moar better!" Abstractions have a cost in readability and maintainability. It is very hard to make the abstraction that improves both. I'm tempted to say that pre-abstraction is a larger problem than pre-optimization. Make your code easy to read at the expense of easy to write. Don't abstract unless you know exactly the use case. If the use case is not immediately forthcoming, YAGNI (you aint gonna need it). Related, don't be clever. Clever is cute and all. It does not belong in production code. ------ sethammons When working on most things, I ask two basic questions: how does it fail? how does it scale? I picked that up years and years ago. Any line, function, workflow, etc can fail. You need to have worked through all the failure cases and know how you are going to handle them. Somethings don't need to scale, ever. But most things I work on do. If I don't know the story on how I can ramp up an implementation a few orders of magnitude, then I can't say I've designed it well. Aside from that, measure everything. Metrics, telemetry, structured logging. Design for failure and design for understanding what happened to cause the failure. Data will tell you what you are doing, not what you think you are doing. There was a post here yesterday about a neat map thing. I hit a bug and the author could only rely on their experience with it being potentially slow at times but saying it should work. If there were proper metrics in place, they would know that N% of calls exceed M seconds and cause a timeout. He could then relate this to the underlying API and its performance as the service experiences it. With proper logging, they see what the cache hit ratio is and determine if new cache entries should be added. Build, measure, learn. Oh, and automated tests. So much to be written on that. ------ lllr_finger Leaning on the type system for as many guarantees as possible. A few of my teams use Kotlin's sealed classes and extension methods to prevent a lot of goofy invalid state and improve composability (using a Result<T, E> sum type very similar to what Rust has built-in). I liked this article I recently came across discussing the topic: [https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t- va...](https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t-validate/) ------ perlgeek Continuous Delivery. I'm building internally used software, and getting feedback from stakeholders in the testing environment was hard work, and often impossible. We went from roughly monthly releases to deploy-when-it's-ready, and this tightened our feedback loops immensely. Also, when something breaks due to a deployment, it's usually just one or two things that could be responsible, instead of 20+ that went into one monthly release. Waaaay easier to debug with small increments. ------ chapliboy Optimising for quick feedback loops. Basically it involved writing additional code to set up the app state to the state I need. It went from changing a line of code, running the app, clicking/filling fields as needed, and then seeing the change reflected, to the app immediately being in the state that I wanted. Now that I'm working in web-apps, hot-reloading is quite beautiful. ------ nemoniac Many incremental changes (some already mentioned here) but none comes close to grokking macros in Lisp and lisp-like programming languages such as Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Emacs Lisp and Clojure. That was truly, truly transformative. ------ kody Probably learning to use a debugger and decreasing my reliance on print() statements. It's a nonzero initial investment but saves time in the long run. At the team level, probably CI/CD. It forces us to break the monolith into digestible chunks and makes regression testing easier. ------ tcbasche I've recently joined a team that focuses massively on test-driven development, and it's just such a great way to shake out dumb bugs and focus on the requirements and the problem you're trying to solve. Also recently did Thorsten Ball's Interpreter/Compiler books which focus heavily on unit testing the functionality (I can't recommend these books enough). I now can't imagine going back to a pre-TDD world ~~~ fjp I did Learn Go With Tests which was my first intro to TDD and I found it enjoyable even if the author is little overly pedantic about his preferred testing approach. However at work, I often find that I feel like I can't write unit tests before starting code because I just don't know how it's going to get built until I start poking at the code. I'm not sure how to break out of this ~~~ mandeepj > However at work, I often find that I feel like I can't write unit tests > before starting code because I just don't know how it's going to get built > until I start poking at the code. I'm not sure how to break out of this You'd start with shallow functions and quality asserts. Initially, you'd have broken tests, you have to write code to fix them, and that's your TDD. ~~~ tcbasche This is definitely the best way. Start with the how you want everything to look and make your code match your expectation. ~~~ quii Hello, I wrote learn go with tests! Your comment is exactly what I try to get across in the book but it's not always easy. If you cant decide how you want something to look (as that's not always easy) just take a punt on something. Make sure it's a small decision and make something useful. Sure you might have to change it, but at least you'll be basing that on some real feedback. ~~~ fjp Hi, thank you for writing the book! Great introduction to Go. One thing I was uncomfortable with about TDD is the step to "just write enough to make the test pass". The danger seems to be when you have to walk away from some code and you or whoever picks up your code doesn't know what you were up to. In a simple app and a few tests you could probably tell, but the larger an application gets, the less you can put effort into finding out "this test works because the application works how it should" or "this test works because someone wrote just enough code and hardcoded some value somewhere in order to make the test pass". It seems "safer" to write tests that are going to stay broken until every little corner of everything works properly, even though this is less iterative. As mentioned above I have little TDD experience, so maybe I'm missing something. ~~~ quii The point of "just writing enough to make the test pass" is to get you to the point where you have working software (proven by the test, even if the code is "bad") This is the _only_ point where you can safely refactor, if your tests are failing how do you know you haven't broken something? So long as you keep things "green" you know you're ok > The danger seems to be when you have to walk away from some code and you or > whoever picks up your code doesn't know what you were up to. Just don't do this. You're not "done" with the TDD cycle until you make it pass and have refactored. I reflect this in my git usage too, roughly it goes \- Write a test -> Make it pass -> git commit -am "made it do something" -> refactor -> run tests (if i get in a mess, revert back to safety and try again) -> git add . -> git commit --amend --no-edit > It seems "safer" to write tests that are going to stay broken until every > little corner of everything works properly, even though this is less > iterative. The problem with this is how do you safely refactor when you have potentially dozens of tests failing? A big point of this approach is it makes refactoring a continuous process and makes it easier because you have tests proving you haven't accidentally changed behaviour. ~~~ tcbasche I need to get this book now too ;) ~~~ quii Well it's open source so just go take a look [https://github.com/quii/learn-go-with-tests](https://github.com/quii/learn- go-with-tests) ------ bg4 Writing simple functions which take an A and return B in any context. Then, composing those simple functions together to build up more complex functionality. ~~~ NicoJuicy I would mention generics also. It has forced me to a clean architecture from the start without throwing away code. Although sometimes the domain is not clear enough before you start, that's shitty. ------ mucholove Realizing that I can roll my own framework. Why? Because I’ve tried to actually think about my underlying data structure instead of defaulting to convention but reflex. The best example? Marcel Weiher Ch 13 in “iOS and MacOS Performance Tuning” explains how to improve lookups in a public transport app by 1000x. What more? The description of the the data (the code) and the the application (the intended use) are probably way better because thinking about performance is similar to thinking about your data. You want answers fast. Fast answers, fast code. ------ hermitdev I've been doing a lot of Python lately and using type annotations strictly and a decent IDE like VS Code or PyCharm. If you screw up, passing a foo instead of a bar, both almost immediately highlight the error. Don't even have to run the script to see it blow up. Huge time saver. Also doesn't hurt that it improves Intellisense/Autocomplete, gives better hints/help as you're calling a method, and improves on "self documenting" code. ------ downerending I ask myself what's the smallest, dumbest, least-coupled program I could possibly write to get the job done. Turns out that the answer is often "very", and short, simple programs are a lot easier to produce bug-free and work with over time. ------ bch I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority here are doing this, but version control everything Distributed version control is one of the greatest things to have gained popularity in the last ~20 years; if you’re not incorporating git, hg, fossil, ... start now. You gain: concise annotated commits, ease of cloning/transporting, full history, easy branching for feature branches or other logically seperate work, tools like bisecting, blame/annotation, etc., etc. ------ curiousfiddler I can think of 4 things: 1\. Not being afraid to look at the code of the libraries that my main project depends on. It's a slow, deliberate process to develop this habit and skill. But more importantly, as you keep doing this, you will develop your own tactics of understanding a library's code and design, in a short amount of time. 2\. Not worrying about deadlines all the time. Not a programming technique as such, but in a world of standups and agile, sometimes, you tend to work for the standup status. Avoiding that has been a big win. 3\. (Something new I've been trying) Practicing fundamentals. I know the popular opinion is to find a project that you can learn a lot from, but that may not always happen. Good athletes work on their fundamentals all the time - Steph Curry shoots like > 100 3 point shots everyday. I'm trying to use that as an inspiration to find some time every week to work on fundamentals. 4\. Writing: essays, notes. In general, I've noticed I gain more clarity and confidence when I spend some time writing about a subject. Over time, I've noticed, I've become more efficient in the process. ~~~ Bootwizard What would be some fundamentals to practice for a software developer? ~~~ curiousfiddler There are quite a few, and you can create a list of categories you consider as fundamentals for the nature of your work. As an example, I would think Algorithms and Data Structures is a fundamental subject. These are the easiest to practice. You could for example pick something as simple as a HashTable, and implement it from scratch. Then, you could add more complexity to it, like HTs that won't fit in memory, expanding and shrinking HTs efficiently etc. Or, you could use one of the several practice websites like LeetCode to practice Algorithms/DS problems. Once you start building a habit, you will also become better at organizing your practice routine and finding out more about what to work on, and where to look for study/practice materials. But mind you, this is a slow process, which you want to build as a habit. There is no end goal here (like cracking Google interview or such), this is a process to get better at the fundamental skills in your field. ------ mlrtime Moving from my college years of emacs on the server to a proper IDE on the desktop. ~~~ lucasmullens Do you use any emacs key bindings in that IDE? ~~~ mlrtime Yes, but compared to an IDE (Pycharm in this case) there is no comparison. ------ minimaul Honestly at a team level - code reviews. At least one other developer reviewing every line of code that is written is transformative in the quality of code that is produced. A lot fewer problems, a lot more maintainable. ------ Epskampie Autoformatting (gofmt, prettier, etc). I can't believe how much time I was wasting having to manually indent, split lines etc. ~~~ fjp +1... black for Python. I didn't agree with some of the formatting decisions, but it has gotten better with passing versions, and the gains of not thinking about it at all are huge. ------ jacquesm Self discipline. Just sitting down and showing up is not enough, you need to _concentrate_. This is why I think open plan offices are terrible for getting real work done, there always should be possibilities for solitude for those that need to work on something hard. Oh, and KISS. No way without that. ------ contingencies Can't believe this list doesn't include revision control systems. So many benefits. Without these, you can't easily work with others. Never again break code then scratch your head wondering how to return it to previously working state (we've all been there). Have a documented history of changes over time. Support for branching. Also amazing for efficiency and not so frequently used are pre and post commit hooks for CI/CD. Basic inline documentation. Who wrote it, when and why. What else did you consider. How does it differ from other solutions. Why is it designed the way it is. Brief history of design changes. What state did you reach in testing. What are the forward looking goals. Takes 5 minutes, pays for itself many times over in future. 90% of effort is maintenance. ------ AndrewDucker Immutability. I don't use it all of the time. And sometimes I use bits of the knowledge I've picked up through playing with it. But encountering it made me think a lot more about how state is available through the systems I write, and that definitely made me a better coder. ------ mekster Logger as an anonymous function. I think literally every logger let's you log at a certain point as a single line that does not cover the context of the log. logger.info('Doing this and that', function () { do_this() if(maybe) do_that() }) This way you know how much the log comment is supposed to cover as well as take a benchmark on the said context. I can never think to just add a single line logger anymore. This is much better than inserting comments in a code as comments can have no context except the line below. You can add a function like, logger.comment and don't let it log anything to be comment syntax replacement. ~~~ stevenroose Not an active HN user. There doesn't seem to be a downvote function.. ~~~ mekster I guess you can't downvote having below 500 points for yourself. You can certainly add a comment on how you don't like it. ------ robomartin State Machines. Thankfully that was decades ago, which means I enjoyed the magic and bliss for most of my professional career. Also interesting: I started using state machines in hardware designs before I applied them in software. ------ DeadBabyOrgasm Environment variables with fallback to a default value. They're a super cheap way of 1\. allowing feature flags 2\. injecting credentials in a way the user thinks about exactly once 3\. moving workstation-specific details out of your code repository They're implemented into the core of most every language in existence (especially shell scripts) and you're probably already using them without knowing. They're (get this) _variables_ for tuning to your _environment_. Sounds like I'm being sarcastic here (eh, maybe a bit) but it never really hit me until I really dug into the concept. ------ fapjacks Honestly, I used to be such a computer nerd, to a fault. So over the last quarter century of programming for money, I'd have to say the most transformative has been writing comments like my livelihood depends on it (since it does). Other development practices that boosted my output significantly: Regular cardio exercise like running, strength training by lifting weights, and regularly reading source code for pleasure. ------ nikivi Using [https://github.com/watchexec/watchexec](https://github.com/watchexec/watchexec) to evaluate code as I save. [https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/a...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/alias.zsh#L15) ~~~ contingencies Re: watchexec, another two patterns are: (1) trigger processes using pre- commit hooks with your local RCS/VCS. (2) replicate core watchexec functionality using inotify-tools, fsnotify or similar. As you seem to be using go also consider [https://github.com/fsnotify/fsnotify](https://github.com/fsnotify/fsnotify) ------ Dowwie Async-await in Rust has made asynchronous programming a joy. It's no wonder that programmers are refactoring as fast as they can to support it. ------ personjerry Not a programming technique, but a mindset. If you separate your ego from your code ("My code doesn't define my value") then it becomes much easier to look at your code objectively and understand others' criticism. This allows you to grow faster and more openly (in directions you may have opposed before). ------ kristov Writing a basic test before starting a task, and use that to verify that the task is correct. I use the word task because this can apply outside of writing code, for example making some large scale changes to data. Never underestimate your ability to overestimate your ability. Reality is hard so make the machine help you. ------ maerF0x0 Something not mentioned yet. I find programming is the task of last resort and I spend a good deal of my time talking with the product person to help them refine their product idea into something that is mechanically sympathetic with how computers work and the general problem domain. It often adds 10% time for the initial work and -90% of the time for iterations. For example once we had a project that wanted to add Role Based Access Control and some juniorish engnineer suggested adding boolean columns to the table for each of the user's roles.. Nope. Instead we created a document store w/ roles and defining new roles was as simple as adding a const to a set in the service's code. Good thing too because the number of roles grew from the initially requested ~3 to almost 100. That would have been too wide of a table. ~~~ NicoJuicy I would have used flags if roles aren't dynamic ~~~ maerF0x0 in our case they were not only dynamic, but also managed by the administrator on an account (by our customers, not by us the software creator) ~~~ NicoJuicy Not that hard, if there's something like a Tenant implementation. Which would limit the scope of the "moderator" role explicitly to the tenant database. Eg. [https://martendb.io/documentation/documents/tenancy/](https://martendb.io/documentation/documents/tenancy/) Fyi: The op, which i was responding too, was referring to using roles as const. Which is not dynamic :) ------ bobbydreamer 1\. Write notes, when notes can't support ur thoughts draw, scribble. Date every page. Revisit the notes every 2-3 days. Put priority on the idea. Write notes when you about to get off work or before you go into a boring or interesting meeting and chances are you might forget what you were thinking. 2\. Don't get into the trap of refactoring just because you read a new cool way of doing it unless, it's reduces half the size of code or improve performance multi fold. This might waste time as you could write a new feature or plan about it in that time. 3\. Write very big elaborative comments. It's for future you as you can't remember everything, sometimes you need to know why you wrote that code or condition as you might not remember why you wrote it at that time. ------ NicoJuicy If you have to run your code to understand it. Try again. ~~~ WClayFerguson This is so true for beginning developers. They tend to have a mindset that once they run something and it appears to work, then that means they likely got it right. In reality the code might be right for 90% of use cases, but once you multiply this over a whole project, you end up with total dogsht, and mainly because of laziness too. This is the biggest reason the inexperienced developers create such horrendously buggy code. ------ jamespetercook Migrating from JavaScript to Typescript and declaring interfaces for classes and data structures forced me to put more thought into each piece before I start implementing. Now I’ve cleaned up a lot of old code I didn’t have much visibility over thanks to the compiler warnings. ------ NicoJuicy Using static typing to make changes slightly bigger than intended. But with a better architecture and nearly zero mistakes. Through using OO correctly ( please read the word correctly) One step at a time. Ps. This is mostly when a code-base is detected where a part of the code is sensitive for bugs. Eg. From today: handling better payment providers and payments. I thought it was important enough to make the change bigger, but with the intention of removing recurring/similar errors in someone else his code-base. Afterwards, go to him and explain why. Developers can be proud of their code, although it's just shitty code ( eg. Long functions, loops, if else, switch, by reference, ... Is mostly an example of bad code) and never say it's shitty.. ------ dazzlevolta Off the top of my head: \- Reading books (e.g. Clean Code, Refactoring: Ruby Edition, Practical Object-Oriented Design, ... these left a mark) \- Going to conferences (Rubyist? Attend a talk by Sandi Metz if you have a chance) \- Testing (TDD at least Unit Testing) \- Yeah, the usual stuff: quick deployments, pull requests, CI/CD ... \- Preferring Composition over Inheritance (in general and except exceptions :) \- Keeping on asking myself: what is the one responsibility of this class/object/component? \- Spending a bit more time on naming things \- Have a side-project! It's a fun way of learning new things (my current one is [https://www.ahoymaps.com/](https://www.ahoymaps.com/) \- I could reuse many things that I learnt also in my 9-5) ------ ooooak FP, REPL Driven Development and generative testing. In short, I have been doing Clojure since last year. ------ svnpenn I stopped doing small commits. In the past as soon as I was "done" with something I would commit, even if one line. What would end up happening sometimes later in the day I would decide revert or modify the change, so my commit history ends up flooded with bunch of small commits. I ended up writing a script that checks my current work, and if enough changes or time has past, then a commit is recommended: [https://github.com/stvpn/sunday/blob/master/git-train/git- bo...](https://github.com/stvpn/sunday/blob/master/git-train/git-board.php) ~~~ downerending You can have your cake and eat it too by initially generating a series of small commits and then going back later to reorder them and squash them into a much shorter series of logically coherent commits. This makes it way easier for someone (possibly you) looking later to understand what was done and why. (I once almost took a job where the repo was just a series of huge commits taken at more or less regular intervals, but with no logical coherence and no attempt to document what was happening. Noped right out of there.) ~~~ jlokier This is exactly what I do, with one addition: Sometimes I don't check everything in as I go because I'm doing a lot of experiements at high speed. However, I will locally do "junk" commits for trivia such as comment typos and short, obvious bugs that are noticed. At this stage I don't worry much about the commit message, as it's purely local, and many of them will be squashed (discarding the message). So the trivial ones get one-liner messages like "WIP: Adder: Comment fix" or "WIP: Parser fix '...', needs testcase'. "WIP" commits are a useful tag for me: They are never allowed to be pushed to a shared repo. Then the "git add -p" stage. When a task, feature or bug has been dealt with, I'll start using "git add -p" to separate out parts of files, and commit them as logically independent changes. At this stage, I don't mind separately committing even very scrappy little changes, such as comment typos, as separate commits because I will merge them later. The key is to separate out logically separate kinds of things in the delta from worktree to HEAD. During this I will usually find a few things that are untidy or comments that could be worded better, and add tiny commits for those changes. The "git add -p" stage is a great time to get some perspective on what logical units were actually needed for the main task, and what else was refactored or fixed in passing, and this "pick up the pieces later" method frees me up to fix things and do small refactors without having to switch context while doing it. Then the "git rebase -i" stage. When the adding is done, "git rebase -i" to reorder into a sequence of logical, coherent and explainable changes. Ideally in an order where things still work if they are partially checked out in that order (bisectability), and squash together separate "git add -p" chunks that really must be one logical unit. Also, squashing trivial fixes such as typos in comments, whitespace etc into logical commits. I may then go back and clean up and flesh out some of the commit messages before pushing the lot upstream for review. Or, in practice, there's usually no review of my work other than testing it, but so that others can at least read through the commit messages and patches to see what was done and how; hopefully learn from it. The above cycle is usually done about every 1-2 workdays, but it can be longer if there's a tough problem being debugged or a complex new feature (but for big new features a branch is more useful). If something turns out to be too big, though, it doesn't matter because I can always commit any work in progress to a new local branch or stash, and rewind back to a stable worktree. The final, logically coherent and documented set of commits is very satisfying to push, and rarely contains "junk" commits or unexplained changes, even though what I commit locally at first is often like that. I guess it helps to know Git quite well. ------ stevekemp I can't think of a specific technique, but one thing that has been very useful has been exploring the use of fuzz-testing. I'm pretty much adding fuzz-testing to all my current/new projects now. It doesn't make sense in all contexts, but anything that involves reading/parsing/filtering is ideal - you throw enough random input at your script/package/library and you're almost certain to find issues. For example I wrote a BASIC interpreter, a couple of simple virtual-machines, and similar scripting-tools recently. Throwing random input at them found crashes almost immediately. ------ jasani \- Letting code crash early and hard, deciding what parts of the code i never think about handling \- Dependency Injection (ObjectOriented/Functional), controlling when stuff gets created vs. used \- Accepting to having some level of redundancy in code, using code to configure stuff (wrappers, adapters, factories) and not trying to pull out everything from the start \- Figuring out what parts of what i could test i should test, being fine with just coverage \- Writing a cli for every project \- Learning how to transform code without breaking it for long periods of time ------ AdamCraven The most transformative experience was learning how to retain information better following the Coursera course: Learning How to Learn ([https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)) I'd not always been the best learner and this taught me how to learn more effectively. Whilst at the sametime accepting the limitations of the brain. It led me to find the Anki app and combined with more effective learning, it positively affected my ability to be a better programmer. ------ romdev Voraciously eliminating unnecessary whitespace, especially vertical whitespace, was a trick I learned early. Most monitors are wide, not tall. When you can see a whole function without scrolling it's much easier to understand. I'll collapse 'if' statements to a single line in most cases to make it readable left-right instead of up-down. 1TB bracketing is my default unless style guidelines prohibit it. End-of-line comments make it easier to associate functionality with comments and keep code tidy. ~~~ fpopa I personally hate one liners. I used to love them and feel good about how neat the code looked like. After some time I've noticed that I read the code much easier and understand flow when the indentation is similar to python or go. Also, I keep my editor on a vertical half of the screen. ------ jamil7 A lot of really good answers in this thread. I had a great mentor years ago and she really taught me the importance of working cleanly and professionally. Proper code formatting, checking your comments for spelling mistakes, indentation, auto formatting on save, linting, writing solid documentation, rebasing and tidying up your commits to create clear steps that a reviewer can step through. All of the things that often get overlooked but are very important in how you come across as a professional developer. ------ glitchc Not mentioned yet 1) Start with consistent naming conventions, notation and structures 2) Rely on autocomplete to simplify typing/readability/programming effort. It’s a tremendous force multiplier. Ninja’d 3) TDD 4) Functional programming ~~~ hinkley Consistent naming does not mean “use the same word for all similar things”. It means using one word every time you have the same thing. Words stop meaning anything when you use it all the time. Use a thesaurus. Naming everything “handler” or “node” is just naming them “function” and “object”. ------ narag Touch typing. There was a huge difference in speed between the my brain and my fingers. Once removed, it was much easier to make the code flow. ~~~ mekster You realize you never need anything printed on the keyboard and that's what I use for 10 years now. Good way to make non programmers laugh too. ------ shamanreturns2 A divide and conquer approach to complexity; which is turning the complex idea/code into several loosely coupled simple building blocks. ------ dokka I used to just write code fast and forget about it, only slightly caring about the finished product. After having to build and support 2 fairly large applications(for use on a company intranet) I will fully plan, document and test my software. No more clever code, no more quick hacks. I also gave up on Javascript and node.js, and I mostly do c# now because of type safety. ~~~ toper-centage Caveat: sometimes you just want to finish something. Specially when prototyping or creating an MVP, it's important to have a hard focus on the end goal. ------ AJRF From iOS perspective changing to clean architecture using VIPER has made our code testable and easier to reason about. We enforce the architecture as much as possible through protocol conformance, which doesn’t always work, but works extraordinarily well for “Views” or “Scenes”. It’s taken so much stress out of the development lifecycle for our team. ------ newzombie A surprising one is to avoid all kind of jumps (early return, breaks and continues). A broader one: writing expressions as much as possible. Basically, it means avoiding unnecessary mutations (and jumps). Then avoiding architecture. Thinking algorithms that process data (instead of "systems") has been transformative. ~~~ mekster Why avoid early returns? If something doesn't match a condition to process anything in the function, then it's cognitively better to return early and say that case should be left out before possibly doing anything weird in it. ------ franzwong Being full stack in mind. You don't need to have full stack skill, but you should have experience working on frontend, backend and Dev/Ops. This can help how you design API between frontend and backend, how you implement your system to ease maintenance. ------ chrisbennet 1\. It's better to implement solidly 8 features then partially implementing 10. 2\. If you can, step through any new code with the debugger. You may find the execution path isn't what you thought it was. ------ zubairq I program slowly now, and only program in my head and on paper. Only when I am 100% sure that I have something I can add as a small step to a larger working goal do I touch the code ------ gwbas1c Using "this." for object-scope identifiers and "ClassName." for class-level identifiers. Greatly improved readability, even though there was a short adjustment. ------ g051051 Learning generics and the streaming system in Java. There's a clear improvement in expressiveness and they minimize a lot of duplication and visual clutter. ------ ftreml Functional programming with functions as first-class-citizens. And related: asynchronous programming. Both with Node.js, a couple of years ago. ------ slipwalker using data structures and parsing techniques over "convoluted" algorithms ( pretty much discussed here: [https://lexi- lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t-va...](https://lexi- lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t-validate/) ). ------ SergeAx 1\. Shifting from solo/modular to team software development 2\. Figuring out unit and integrations tests 3\. Embracing clean code paradigm and SOLID architecture ------ adamnemecek Entity component system as a replacement of OOP. Don't even bother writing a complex app without it. ------ masterjefferson TDD and clean architecture for me. ------ sidcool TDD for me. It's frowned upon but has helped me craft elegant code with less bugs . ------ gfs78 KISS + YAGNI + constant refactor. Code is a means to an end and I suck at futurology. ------ reikonomusha Metaprogramming in Common Lisp. ------ taf2 JSIO - just shit it out. Stop worrying about it being perfect and get it done ------ polyterative Learning ReactiveX. 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Pyston 0.2 released with experimental GIL-free mode - bilalhusain http://lists.pyston.org/pipermail/pyston-dev/2014-September/000063.html ====== tlmr Will this run numpy etc? ~~~ bilalhusain The project is at a very nascent stage. I am not sure if 0.2 can run numpy put eventually it will.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Build your own location-aware logistics app in an hour - deniszpua https://github.com/hypertrack/logistics-android ====== prateeks Looks great! Quick q about geofencing: given the android device and OS fragmentation, what's the best way for PMs to create effective geofences that work consistently? ~~~ deniszpua OS has awesome geofences APIs on the device, accessible through Play services. Though if you are geofencing for say 1000 devices, first you have to manage the geofences on the device (download them to device, get callback events, then send them to server using say Firebase). And then secondly, if devices have different hardware, OS version and Play services versions, then the geofencing service reliability might vary. Our implementation ingests locations to server, and all geofences are done on the server. This provides a more consistent experience. Does this answer your question?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Xeround discontinuing cloud DB service - concerto Dear Sir/Madam,<p>We are deeply sorry to inform you that Xeround's public cloud offering will be discontinued as of May 15th, 2013.<p>Xeround's leadership forum has recently decided to re-focus the company's effort. This means we will no longer be able to support our service over public clouds.<p>It is with genuine sadness that we inform you that Xeround's service will be terminated in 2 weeks, across all of our currently active data centers.<p>What this means for your database? We ask you to please export your database instance and migrate your database to another service of your choosing.<p>Important: Your DB instance will be automatically dropped on May 15th, 00:00 EST. So that your application doesn't experience any downtime, it is crucial that you migrate your database before that time.<p>We sincerely appreciate the support you, along with our thousands of customers, have shown us over the last couple of years. We regret the inconvenience this causes you, and hope your migration to a new DB solution goes smoothly.<p>We thank you for your business and for the overwhelming support of our users.<p>If you have any questions or need assistance exporting your database instance, please contact our Support team at support@xeround.com<p>With the deepest respect,<p>Xeround Team ====== robbiet480 I was given only 7 days to back up my (free) databases. Sucks. Especially sucks that according to Twitter, people have been charged (and in some cases double and triple charged) for this month already. Sucks further that they haven't put this on their Twitter, Facebook, Company Blog, or even had the decency to update their website to not allow sign ups. ~~~ concerto Mine are paid for, so I will need to pay for another provider to take them over - not to mention the migration/testing time. They are still listed as a provider on Heroku too. ------ cvburgess Same here. Just paid my bill yesterday, and was told today I have 2 weeks to pack up and move elsewhere. I wish I would've gotten more notice. On a related note, any suggestions for DBaaS? ~~~ concerto I am considering switching to Amazon RDS, but would welcome hearing other suggestions too	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How to compare costs of compute providers? - jononor I've got some services which are mostly compute bound (image processing etc). They are packaged as Docker images, don't require much else (blob storage and a message queue), so it can run on almost any cloud provider. AWS, GCE, Azure, etc.. Naturally I'd like to use the cheapest. However it is really hard to compare different providers. The provided workers are all different performance (CPU/RAM/disk/network). There are steps and limits in the worker pricing. With autoscaling the timebase (per hour/minute/second) becomes significant..<p>Are there good cross-cloud comparison tools for pricing? How do you compare? ====== edcr Hi, I'm building this exact thing: HTTPS://www.cloudrac.es I would love to help you work this out, my email is ed@cloudrac.es This is an example of the sort of insights I have been finding: [https://www.cloudrac.es/blog/2017-01-12/Azure-Comparing-F- An...](https://www.cloudrac.es/blog/2017-01-12/Azure-Comparing-F-And-H-Series- CPUs/post.html) Ed	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yahoo Announces Settlement with Carl Icahn - nickb http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080721/20080721005563.html ====== markbao Yang is screwed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
3 Essentials of Effective Team Management - Jessicamiller https://medium.com/flowmagic/3-essentials-of-effective-team-management-db77f9382223 ====== redhale This is just an ad.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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