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Reddit Robin cheating - bigfatcheater
https://jsfiddle.net/8nLrycp1/2/
======
apahwa
A+ completely illegal
|
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Redesigning for Readability - a Retrospective - sudojosh
http://joshmcarthur.com/2012/09/25/redesigning-for-readability-a-retrospective.html
======
jonwag
Nice write up Josh. I always enjoy seeing the process of decision making.
|
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Declassified U-2 spy plane photos are a boon for aerial archaeology - pseudolus
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/declassified-u-2-spy-plane-photos-are-boon-aerial-archaeology
======
saagarjha
Desert kites: they're mentioned in passing in the article and I was curious so
I looked them up. Apparently they're 5000 year old traps for gazelles that can
be kilometers long:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_kite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_kite)
~~~
LeifCarrotson
Funny how they were named by "pilots who first saw them from the air in the
1920s" and not by the people who built them.
~~~
joosters
Since they were abandoned about 4000 years ago, I'd imagine that it's quite
hard to find any records of their original name...
------
twic
_Hammer and colleague Jason Ur, an anthropologist at Harvard University,
created a systematized index of several thousand U-2 photos taken on 11
reconnaissance missions throughout the Middle East_
Fantastic bit of nominative determinism:
_Jason Ur is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at
Harvard University, and director of its Center for Geographic Analysis. He
specializes in early urbanism_
As well he might:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur)
~~~
TomK32
I wonder what his favourite game might be. One I still have an unfinished
implementation in C lying around.
------
libertyhouse
The U-2 is the only U.S. surveillance aircraft still flying a "wet film"
camera called the Optical Bar Camera, or OBC. Ironically, this relatively old
technology keeps the U-2 mission from being completely transitioned to other
aircraft like Global Hawk, due to the film imagery being easily releasable and
able to be declassified.
Around 2007, a PC-104 embedded computer running Linux was integrated into the
OBC camera to allow correlation of flight data with the imagery, as well as
supply an OBC camera status page on the cockpit multi-function display.
~~~
sorenjan
Why is film easier to declassify and release than digital imagery?
~~~
kilo_bravo_3
Film's properties are known and understood and there aren't any "super films"
that are better or more capable than another country's. Lenses are also
understood.
With electro-optical (EO) sensors, great care must be taken to reduce the
quality of the final product when it is publicly released so that adversaries
do not gain a complete understanding of the what the sensors are capable of.
Film creates "better" images, but modern EO sensors are more capable in
certain circumstances.
There is all kinds of computational and electronic trickery one can do to
obtain images that may be impossible to capture on film that you want to keep
secret, like fusing short wavelength IR with visible light or using it to
discipline visible light to correct or reduce atmospheric distortion. Other EO
technologies can determine what an object is made of from great distances.
Technologies like that you want to keep secret.
In a hypothetical Cuban Missile Crisis set in 2019, US analysts would have
visible, near- and short wavelength-infrared, thermal, and pan-chromatic
imagery to look at, but the 2019 version of Adlai Stevenson would still only
show the visible images at the UN.
~~~
sandworm101
There were superfilms, film stock sensitive in the infrared/UV spectrum and
filters to optimize such film. There was also film sensitive only to very
specific colors. Releasing images from these, at any resolution, would indeed
give away much of the program's abilities/goals.
The ability to more easily declassify film stock is due less to the technology
and more to the bureaucracy within intel communities. The film stock is owned
by a single agency and so the declassification authority is relatively
straightforwards. Digital imagery is shared instantly with a host of different
agencies, many of whom still do not talk to each other regularly, and is
stored in countless archives. Declassifying a digital file is therefore an
administrative burden in comparison to a roll of film kept by a specific
agency.
~~~
varjag
These were all known since 1920s-1960s and very little progress has been made
since. Everything you named is bog standard film photography practices.
~~~
sandworm101
Yes but the use of a particular technique in a particular location/time would
divulge the specific collection goals of an operation, something that often
remains classified long after the operation itself has been acknowledged. So
while the existence of UV film is no secret, knowledge that it was being
employed over a specific site at a specific time can be.
------
paganel
For those interested in aerial archeology I also heartily recommend what Roger
Agache did in (mostly) Northern and Central France starting with the 1960s.
His aerial photos helped discover hundreds of locations for Roman-era villas
and castra among other very interesting things. The website documenting his
work can be found here [1], and for example aerial photos of Gallo-Romanic
structures can be found at this link [2] (the website looks like it hasn't
been updated in quite some time but it's still functional)
[1] [http://www.archeologie-
aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/](http://www.archeologie-
aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/)
[2] [http://www.archeologie-
aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/](http://www.archeologie-
aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/)
------
anc84
If this triggered your curiosity, have fun with
[http://www.apaame.org/](http://www.apaame.org/)
> The Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East was
> established in 1978 by Professor David Kennedy under the patronage of Prince
> Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. The archive now consists of over 91,000
> photographs and several hundred maps of a dozen countries. The vast majority
> of this material can be viewed online in our digital archive at Flickr.
------
Abishek_Muthian
>In recent years, the Islamic State group gutted archaeologically important
Iraqi sites in Mosul and Raqqa and Syrian sites in Aleppo and Palmyra.
Not to forget Buddha of Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
It is disheartening to think that, these sites & artefacts which were
preserved for thousands of years are destroyed during our lifetime.
Perhaps because of its familiarity we value it higher, but powerful people in
several parts of the world have been systematically destroying historical
objects of value to a culture or civilisation to push forward their ideology.
Edit : Edited to be succinct.
~~~
microcolonel
> _Perhaps because of its familiarity we value it higher, but powerful people
> in several parts of the world have been systematically destroying historical
> objects of value to a culture or civilisation to push forward their
> ideology._
This is a particular feature of utopian ideology; marxists, islamists,
fascists, etc. seek to carve utopia from reality, and the artifacts which
prove that there's something else are just in the way. A look at what's
preserved in Taiwan should make you weep to know what was lost just a little
bit to the west.
~~~
Abishek_Muthian
I guess a less violent form of it practised by every country, even the
democratic ones is falsifying history text books from grade school.
~~~
microcolonel
Yeah, Canadian grade school history textbooks are a joke. Be a good parent,
don't let your kids get all of their historical education from your school
district's standard textbook. :- )
~~~
dredmorbius
Specifics might aid your argument.
~~~
microcolonel
In my experience, there was no mention of the broader historical origins of
Canada, the focus was generally on a) stories framed to make French Canadians
look interesting and blameless (especially long sections on coureurs de bois),
and b) stories of amicable arrangements with native Americans, conveniently
away from the various times the public's government has broken promises to
various communities in Canada.
I'm an adult, why would I have the worst history books I've ever read, which
were on loan from the school when I was in school, in my personal library to
share specifics from?
~~~
dredmorbius
Thanks for the first.
I'd not made any demands to the latter point, though there are times when
keeping a spectacularly bad example around for debate, discussion, or
reference can prove handy.
I'd put specific store in rough order "steelman" or best-case defenses or
arguments for the indefensible, officially sanctioned references (as with
textbooks), or with particularly poular bad examples, even if not particularly
cogent.
Knowing your enemy, testing your own beliefs and biases, and walking into
battle fully armed, are all benefits.
You don't need to find endless such examples (see also: Gish Gallop), but a
carefully selected few can be exceedingly useful.
This applies to other areas as well, tech included.
~~~
microcolonel
> _Knowing your enemy, testing your own beliefs and biases, and walking into
> battle fully armed, are all benefits._
Sure, to be clear, I grew up with two older brothers and a younger sister, in
three different major cities, in three different provinces in Canada, and the
history curriculum has largely lacked much particular detail. My history
curricula, and that of my brothers, included little or no international
history, ancient history, or national history. The main topics of every
history textbook (the only source for each curriculum, in my experience) I've
seen in Canada (including my brothers', for years I didn't attend in a given
school district) have been an obscure subset of clean indigenous stories, and
a handful of stories about early Québec.
I'm not saying these history textbooks are especially bad _among government
school history textbooks_ , but that they are bad in a general sense, and fail
to give much perspective on the origin of the tapestry of nations in Canada,
or the story of our legal and governmental traditions.
A better job could be done with an in-depth reading of a mature historical
author's work, the kind of thing you would read if you had a personal interest
in understanding the history of _something_.
------
tony_cannistra
I'm working with some researchers who are using similar recently-declassified
spy plane imagery from the '60s for an analysis of glacier size + movement
changes over time, which is another cool use case.
------
maxxxxx
Somehow I always thought the U-2 is like a gliding plane, quiet and slow. But
then I saw one at an airshow last year and I was pretty impressed how loud and
powerful the plane sounded. It also climbed extremely steeply which kind of
makes sense considering that it has get up to 30 km altitude within a
reasonable time.
------
8bitsrule
Recommend the book "The Past from Above" by George Gerster for those who enjoy
'aerial archeology'. 500+ photos taken from lower altitudes back in the 1950s
and 1960s. (Can be had in paper, if you can't find the coffee-table-size
hardcover.)
Review:
[http://www.historyinreview.org/ggerster.html](http://www.historyinreview.org/ggerster.html)
ISBN-Book sources:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-89236-81...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-89236-817-9)
------
bookofjoe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19587495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19587495)
~~~
gus_massa
Repost are usual
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and sometimes the same link is ignored one time and gets traction other time.
It's matter of the day of the week, the hour of the submission, the other post
that are trending, the number of users reading the newest page, the phase of
the moon, and many other factors. Just assume that it's a mater of luck.
Linking the old post is useful when it has some interesting comments (I
sometimes quote partially the most interesting comment.) But in this case the
older post got only 2 points and no comments.
~~~
bookofjoe
I like this: "It's matter of the day of the week, the hour of the submission,
the other posts that are trending, the number of users reading the newest
page, the phase of the moon, and many other factors."
------
cracauer
What I want is some of those lenses and put them on my Canon. Looks like
"pretty good" pieces of glass.
|
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Is fiat money to blame for the Iraq war, police brutality, and the war on drugs? - jpkoning
https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2020/06/is-fiat-money-to-blame-for-iraq-war.html
======
onyva
Shouldn’t we call it The USA war on Iraq, or the USA invasion of Iraq etc? It
is a war the USA and its allies started on false pretense after all. The
attacker is the USA the victims are Iraqis, not the other way around. Same
goes for many other wars the USA started of course, for which we are all
paying the price.
|
{
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Constructing Hardware in a Scala Embedded Language - mihau
https://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu/
======
eranation
Very interesting. One of my favorite aspects of scala is the ease of buildig
DSLs with it.
On a side note, Scala seems popular at Berkley. (Amplab developed spark using
scala)
Was that a spontaneous decision by graduate students or is there some faculty
members who suggested going the scala way?
|
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Advice about taking advice. Jason Cohen video & transcript. - marklittlewood
http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2011/08/jason-cohen-on-working-out-when-to-break-the-rules-ignore-advice-video-transcript.html
======
marklittlewood
Jason Cohen's Business of Software talk in 2010 was a cracker. As someone who
has consistently broken the rules he spoke about rules and when you might
break them.
He also offers great advice about advice. He explains why you should always
remember that advice, even from the best known and admired sources, should
always be taken in context and offers a framework for filtering the legion
sources of advice out there for entrepreneurs so that you can work out what is
appropriate for you.
A must view if you are in the habit of giving, or receiving advice!
|
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Diaspora's Proposed Social Media Model - mhunter
http://www.joindiaspora.com/images/Diaspora_ISOC_Presentation.pdf
======
logic
I think it's important to mention that this PDF pre-dates their Kickstarter
campaign, lest anyone think this is a new architecture discussion.
I really want these guys to succeed for a variety of reasons (not the least of
which is that they were lucky enough to stumble onto a bit of buzz around the
project), but I have this fear that they're going to go hide in a room for a
few months and then release something they consider "complete" (but without
any peer review, collaborative development, or user testing), to the
collective yawn of the Internet.
------
metachris
Will be interesting to follow Diaspora; I think all the publicity could
increase their chance to build something big. But I think their motto/tagline
needs a serious rework (it would already help to cut out the "do-it-all"):
"The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social
network."
~~~
jsiarto
Yeah, I agree. Anytime you start saying that your software can "do-it-all"
you're bound to run into problems. I still can't see how this has mass public
appeal--anyone outside the HN/tech scene isn't even going to understand 1% of
what any of that shit means.
------
Avshalom
Wait, doesn't the proposed routing make it impossible to share links? If Dan
has friends Mike and Sara and mike wants to say "Hey Sara look at this photo
of the three of us" doesn't he end up pasting an invalid link because it
contains Mike's key, not Sara's?
------
starnix17
There's no way a typical end user is going to know how to deploy an open-
source Ruby on Rails application.
Although I really dislike PHP, I feel like it would be more appropriate
because at least some technology enthusiasts are comfortable with uploading
some PHP files and running a web based installer even though they aren't
programmers.
Edit: It's also using MongoDB, interesting.
~~~
logic
Realistically, there's no way a typical end-user is going to deploy their own
seed at all. I suspect they know this, as suggested by the fact that they plan
to build a hosting service. (I presume that's how they're planning to monetize
this, long term?) Anything that requires active system administration or
application deployment by the end user is going to fail.
IMHO, I'd consider language/framework choice to be the least of their
concerns; they picked something they knew, and moved on to more pressing
issues.
------
what
I'd be more interested to hear about what they're actually working on. Judging
by their twitter stream the only thing they've actually done is redesign their
web site. 200k well spent.
------
adulau
Looks nice on paper. Where is the free software implementation?
------
messel
Diaspora has mastered selling promises.
But can they build?
------
stck
If this is enough details for raising $200,000 there's something seriously
wrong with investors.
~~~
sp332
Maybe it's too risky for $200,000. How about $5? 1400 people thought it was
worth $5. Another 1000 thought it was worth $10. 2500 people - almost half the
backers - gave $25. Only 600 people (10%) gave even $50.
~~~
jokermatt999
It's also worth noting that a decent number of these donations probably came
from the whole Facebook privacy scandal and wanting to stick it to Zuckerberg.
Still, I hope they succeed.
------
mdg
The farthest I go into "social networking" is Reddit and HN. That being said,
why dont they, or anyone, just glue together the popular social networks in a
portal-type page?
Flickr for photo sharing, Twitter for status updates, etc. Isn't that a
_distributed_ network? You might not own your data, but at least no third
party owns ALL your data. I am dumbfounded by the idea of seeds, and what that
is buying you. If I request a page from someone on Diaspora, whatever was in
that page is now on my pc (somewhere). It has been said many times, but if you
dont want it out there, dont put it out there (and this is why I dont do
"social networks").
Someone please correct my misunderstandings
~~~
sp332
Something like FriendFeed? e.g. <http://friendfeed.com/leolaporte> (Facebook
bought them last year.)
~~~
mdg
Duh, silly me.
|
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Introducing: Autocap - vincecima
https://medium.com/unpacking-trunk-club/introducing-autocap-f33701f3264a#.hie33gflx
======
messysaurus
I wrote the Autocap post and helped work on the project — shout if you have
any questions!
------
dsfreed
Awesome, love it!
|
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One-Bit Computing at 60 Hertz - Tomte
http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html
======
floatingatoll
If you find this circuit appealing to consider, Shenzhen I/O may be of
interest.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12660253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12660253)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041538)
I was reminded by the 4099 output -> input as a form of 'register', which is
used in SI/O ( _and_ TIS-100).
~~~
gnulinux
Agreed Shenzhen I/O is a very nice game. It's more of a 2-bit, 3-bit than just
1-bit (I think the first 2 microcontrollers are truly 1-bit but later ones are
2-bit, and you can store state in p registers) (also not quite bit as IO is
analog) but your circuits look very similar to the one in OP. I bought it off
of Steam when there was a sale and it was only $5; best $5 ever spent!
------
kazinator
> _The machine always jumps from one instruction to the next. It doesn 't know
> how to "fall through" to the "next" address because it has no program
> counter and no ability to count (compute an increment)._
That is very similar to the logic state sequencer designed by Wozniak for the
Apple II disk drive controller.
------
jacobush
This is such genius. I actually understood how it works, but I think I would
get a headache "programming" it.
~~~
Dr_Jefyll
>I think I would get a headache "programming" it
One-bit creator here. I'm surprised by how often people make comments like
this. Is it the dual jump destinations which seem so confusing? All you need
is to ignore one of them, assuming you'll "fall through" instead. This is
noted in the article. "instructions generally do tend to get stored in
sequential order, and, as a matter of coding style, conditional branches very
often do specify address+1 as one of the outcomes. The assembler makes it easy
to use the familiar branch, else fall through to the instruction at address+1
arrangement. "
Thanks for posting, Tomte. This and other projects of mine have appeared on HN
before.
Edit: but don't use HN's search to find Dr_Jefyll. That's an f there, not a k;
but HN's search seemingly can't be convinced of this.
~~~
mbreese
I somewhat understand what's going on, but it might be helpful to have an
example or two of what you actually used this for. Like... what kind of
functions did you add to the printing press?
Is the tradeoff here if you use a "simple" 1-bit processor, you have to have
more complex data/instructions? Meaning, because you only have 1-bit, there is
a lot of jumping around. This means that for everything that you'd want to
compute, you'd have to have the instruction flow in memory, instead of relying
on more OP codes/instructions for the microprocessor?
This all sounds really interesting, but I'm having trouble completely wrapping
my head around it.
~~~
Dr_Jefyll
> it might be helpful to have an example or two
Apologies. The original source code from the early 1980's is stored on a non-
DOS floppy. Maybe someday I'll retrieve and publish it. But meanwhile here's a
taste:
One of the tasks is to activate a solenoid to ink up the lithographic plate
after a certain number of revolutions of the press. That number, range 0 to 9,
is read from a 4-bit, binary weighted thumbwheel switch which has been set by
the press operator.
The code uses 1 instruction to test bit0 of the thumbwheel switch. If bit0 is
true, we fall through to another test that waits (jumps to self) until the
tachometer pulse goes high; this eventually falls through to another test that
waits for the tachometer pulse to go low. So, that's one revolution. But if
bit0 of the thumbwheel switch is false, we jump past all this (ie, don't wait
for one revolution).
Bit1 of the thumbwheel switch is similarly tested, except the tach must go hi-
lo twice (2 revolutions); and so on for bits 2 and 3 (4 revs and 8 revs).
Then, with all the counting complete, the solenoid gets turned on.
I have simplified somewhat; actually the rev-counting portion is a subroutine,
called from two different places in the code. The (very primitive!) subroutine
calling convention is explained in the article. HTH.
~~~
mbreese
That does help! Thanks for writing this up. It’s really quite interesting.
------
bctnry
It somehow reminds me of BitBitJump[1].
[1]:
[https://esolangs.org/wiki/BitBitJump](https://esolangs.org/wiki/BitBitJump)
|
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Ask HN: What are the best free and pay web charting libraries? - matthodan
What are the best free and pay web charting libraries?
======
yish
Protovis out of stanford (<http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/>) seems to be
incredibly comprehensive while also being really slick and interactive.
Haven't had the chance to use it on a project but have it bookmarked since it
would be the first thing I would try when I do. Also, seems to be updated
regularly. I know they didn't support IE for a long time as they are SVG
based, but not sure if that has changed.
~~~
og1
There's also the flash based version called flare: <http://flare.prefuse.org/>
which I've found to work well.
------
rmanocha
I've been using the Google Chart Tools
(<http://code.google.com/apis/charttools/index.html>) and have been pretty
happy with it. Haven't used it on a major project though, so your mileage may
vary.
~~~
ig1
I'm working on a project that does analytics on universities, and Google Chart
is the only decent package I've found that meets my requirements.
A lot of these charting libraries use javascript or flash which is fine for
user-specific data, but unsuitable for public data.
I need charts to be jpg/gif/png so people can easily copy them to
blogs/forums/facebook. If I use javascript or flash charts I'll lose a huge
amount of viral traffic.
------
kilian
I built Grafico, a free (MIT licenced) javascript and SVG charting library.
it's fast in most browsers and should see a ridiculous speedup with ie9. Also
it makes really pretty charts :) <http://grafico.kilianvalkhof.com/>
~~~
fun2have
Grafico is really good but lacks pie charts. You have to use
<http://g.raphaeljs.com/> for Pie's. But that is not so bad as Grafico uses
raphaeljs.
~~~
kilian
Not having pie charts is by design. Grafico attempts to adhere to the chart
design principles by Stephen Few, amongst others, who has this to say about
pie charts:
[http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intel...](http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/save_the_pies_for_dessert.pdf)
------
graham_king_3
Flot. JS / Canvas library, supports excanvas for IE. Good looking,
straightforward.
<http://code.google.com/p/flot/>
I have been using it for a while in production, am happy with it.
------
staunch
Open Flash Chart <http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart-2/>
~~~
nopassrecover
Wish I could find pictures on that site somewhere.
~~~
staunch
<http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart-2/area-hollow.php>
The navigation is in the top right...it's pretty badly designed. The charts
themselves are very customizable though, so you can mimic almost any nice
chart you've seen by tweaking.
------
nfriedly
I've used the charts widget from YUI 2 more than once. It's not amazing, but
if you have a small amount of data it gets the job done. Large data sets can
take a while to render and then be hard to read once they do render.
<http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/charts/>
------
dmpayton
I've had good experience with ChartDirector. It can create many different
kinds of charts and graphs, is very customizable, and comes with support for
several languages.
Their website isn't much to look at, but the software is solid.
<http://www.advsofteng.com/>
~~~
brisance
Another vote for ChartDirector. The support forum is really active and the
library itself has been licensed for use in a large number of commercial
software.
------
mark_story
If you like SVG, or even if you don't. <http://g.raphaeljs.com/> has some
sweet graphing. I wouldn't recommend it for huge data sets, but for small to
large datasets its quite nice.
------
revorad
Hi matthodan, I'm building Pretty Graph (<http://prettygraph.com>), which is
more of a complete web-based data visualisation app, not just a charting
library. But we are also building an API, which might be of use to you. We
also offer PDF downloads of graphs. Drop me an email (see profile) if you're
interested.
------
atlantic
I had some good experiences with DotNetCharting - for the .net framework,
obviously. Easy to set up, charts are very classy, but a bit expensive.
<http://www.dotnetcharting.com/>
------
pkc
I have used fusioncharts and found it to be pretty awesome.
<http://www.fusioncharts.com/>
------
alexjmann
I've used the free version of AM Charts. They look nice and work well.
<http://amcharts.com/>
------
fadeddata
I've used Highcharts with good results... <http://www.highcharts.com/>
------
quinto42
Hah, such bad replies.
<http://www.highcharts.com/>
No questions.
|
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Node-Qt: Build native apps using Node.js + Qt (Windows, Mac, Linux) - arturadib
https://github.com/arturadib/node-qt
======
arturadib
Hi, OP here. For folks who prefer HTML5 APIs, I'm also working on a layer that
translates these Qt APIs into HTML5 primitives (like Canvas and AudioContext):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3816870>
(There are some neat demos there :))
~~~
buu700
Wait, so what Node-Qt and Node-Five would both allow you to use exactly the
same code?
~~~
arturadib
Not the same, but sometimes similar. (For example the QPainter API is similar
to the Canvas 2D API, etc).
Node-Five is for folks who are more familiar/prefer HTML5 APIs over Qt's
proprietary API.
~~~
buu700
Hold on, I think I misinterpreted something. Is Node-Five a Web framework or a
native application framework?
~~~
arturadib
Think of Node-Five as a very small WebKit/Gecko engine for Node.js. It is
written in JavaScript on top of Node-Qt, whereas Node-Qt itself is written in
C++.
When I say "native apps" in this context I simply mean you don't need a
traditional browser to run the apps, and the runtime interacts more closely
with the OS (for example, Qt exposes native menu methods, native OpenGL, etc).
~~~
buu700
Ah, okay, awesome. I was thinking Node-Five was a Web framework which would
take your Node-Qt code and run it server-side as a public Web application by
translating the Qt API calls.
------
firefoxman1
In the sample on that page, it says:
// Prevent objects from being GC'd
global.app = app;
global.window = window;
Why do you need to do that? I thought that as long as there were still
references to an object, it isn't GC'd.
~~~
arturadib
Yeah it's just in case there are no surviving references to those vars. For
example in the hello world code app gets GC'd unless it's in a callback in
setTimeout().
------
artyyouth
From Qt5 "Lighthouse" would replace C++ as the main development method, and
the Qt Quick language in Lighthouse is just a JavaScript extended language,
IMHO, this project is just another re-invention of the wheel...
And on desktop, we already have state-of-the-art web browser Chrome, why
bother using this to write HTML5 Canvas based app?
------
iamleppert
Nice. Last time I looked at Qt bindings for Node, it didn't support async and
used the main node thread to run the UI on (OSX seems to require Qt use the
main thread to draw UI on).
Care to elaborate how you got around this? I tired several different things
and couldn't get it done.
~~~
arturadib
Some Qt APIs are inherently asynchronous (like QHttp) but the graphics-related
ones I'm binding to are not (like QPainter).
So the situation is analogous to the DOM in web browsers. The calls are
synchronous and run in the main thread. As the web has taught us though,
single-threads and blocking graphics calls can go a long way :)
~~~
iamleppert
True, but Qt specifically (as well as many OS such as Mac OSX) do not allow
running of the GUI in anything but the main thread. This is due to the fact
that (from what I've read) graphics drivers are not thread safe.
Just wondering how you got around this...I see you're using processEvents in
QApplication.
from <http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7-snapshot/thread-basics.html>:
GUI Thread and Worker Thread As mentioned, each program has one thread when it
is started. This thread is called the "main thread" (also known as the "GUI
thread" in Qt applications). The Qt GUI must run in this thread. All widgets
and several related classes, for example QPixmap, don't work in secondary
threads. A secondary thread is commonly referred to as a "worker thread"
because it is used to offload processing work from the main thread.
~~~
icefox
On X11 I actually have a bunch of patches so I wrote for Qt so I could do
painting in another thread. It was useful for a project where I was injecting
QtWebKit into a game where the main thread was the game and the Qt event loop
and all its processing had to exists on a different thread sending a single
opengl buffer across when rendered. I got some patches into Qt, but others
were rejected for one reason or another (could no reproduce, not supported
etc), but nonless it was a very cool project.
------
ing33k
God job . Will definitely give a try , as I have some experience in both of
them .. I always wanted to try qt php bindings, but even running the example
apps was difficult .
Thanks to NPM :)
------
mirsadm
This seems to describe a large portion of javascript based frameworks:
This is a list of common errors when experimenting with Node addons, and their
possible solutions: "Out of memory"
~~~
arturadib
Hi, OP here. As explained that message happens when you mess something up in
the C++ bindings, not because of JavaScript actually running out of memory.
------
optymizer
So... this allows us to run webservers that call Qt methods? Why would anyone
do that?
~~~
tlrobinson
It allows you to call Qt methods from JavaScript. You don't need to run Node
as a webserver.
~~~
optymizer
Don't they have QtQuick or QtScript for that?
------
tferris
OT but regarding the current native app hype (especially in the mobile space):
I still don't like native apps except my browser, my editor, the shell and
some legacy software (Office and Adobe CS). I don't like updating 30 apps a
week on my Android. But it's more than a trend I guess?
~~~
arturadib
Node-Qt apps are really semi-native since the app itself is written in
JavaScript. So you can easily make your app auto-updating, just like a web
app. (iOS is an exception due to Apple's restrictions, unless they're OK with
QtWebKit which I doubt).
------
DaNmarner
Why the dependency for Python?
~~~
arturadib
That comes from node-gyp (Node's addon build tool)
|
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The Xbox Story, Part 1: The Birth of a Console - Phoenix26
http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/02/the-xbox-story-part-1-the-birth-of-a-console/
======
dstein
The original Xbox was the best product Microsoft ever made. Hacked with
modchip, XBMC, and emulators, the Xbox was basically my dream entertainment
system come true. The authentic Xbox games were just a bonus. 8 years later my
modchip still works, the machine has never given me any problems. And I still
use it almost every day for watching movies and I still haven't found a more
convenient way for me to get my MegaMan, F-Zero, and Gradius fix every now and
then.
It may seem trivial, but what I also liked about it was the boot screen menu.
It was quite radically advanced, it felt futuristic. Remember this was back
when Microsoft was even more frighteningly good at what they do than Apple is
today. And when I saw the 3D menu, with all the futuristic sounds and whatnot
-- you knew this system was for real. But the Xbox360 seemed a bit like a step
backward, it was more refined, but didn't have that badass feel to it. And
then Microsoft kind of fizzled away in the years since.
------
Phoenix26
Part 2
[http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/03/the-xbox-story-
part-2-gunnin...](http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/03/the-xbox-story-
part-2-gunning-for-greenlight/)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2841521>
------
beaumartinez
> _PlayStation was the market. Sony owned consoles. Japan owned console games.
> [...] Microsoft didn’t understand the console world._
Oh, how times change.
~~~
w1ntermute
The Japanese (actually, this applies to Asians in general) are very good at
making standalone devices, which is why they owned the console industry prior
to the 6th generation. Creating integrated platforms where software plays a
significant role isn't something that the Japanese are very good at. That's
why when Microsoft came in with Xbox Live they were able to steal a huge chunk
of the market share.
This is also why none of the Korean or Taiwanese cell phone makers that had
huge market shares were able to beat Apple to the iPhone (and even now, all
they do is provide hardware for Android, which is American as well), or even
beat RIM to making an email-friendly cell phone.
------
saturdaysaint
It will be interesting to see the impact of MS's game studios/technology in
3-5 years. By then, TVs and/or sub-$100 set top boxes will be thoroughly
integrated into the post-PC app ecosystems and will be powerful enough to run
fairly sophisticated games. It's not hard to imagine Blizzard/EA/Ubisoft/etc.
targeting the most ubiquitous platform before the "dedicated game consoles",
at which point the console game will dramatically change.
So the question, to me, is not the future of the XBox so much as whether MS
can leverage their impressive game technology to get a foothold in these
emerging ecosystems. I'm generally not a fan of WP7, but the games have some
very impressive technology and I think their studios could make something of a
completely different caliber than anything Gameloft/Chillingo are doing. If
they can create a groundbreaking Halo or GTA-like game phenomenon on their
phone platform it could be their best chance to stay relevant in the consumer
space.
~~~
jerf
"By then, TVs and/or sub-$100 set top boxes will be thoroughly integrated into
the post-PC app ecosystems and will be powerful enough to run fairly
sophisticated games."
A solid prediction, as at least one such device already exists:
<http://www.roku.com/roku-products> (This is amplification, not disagreement
or a "gotcha".)
------
antonioe
It's great to be a 30+ year old gamer/entrepreneur who is living thru the
console wars. The landscape today feels a lot like it did in late-90's. And
this piece give you a great glimpse of the dynamics on building a ground
breaking piece of software.
|
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The Most Frequently Used ConnectrixCommands for Cisco and Brocade SAN switch - Top_geek
https://community.emc.com/thread/180494
======
artil
good reference as a handbook
------
threestones
Very useful, I use Brocade in my company.
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Inside Russian Troll Farm, the Internet Research Agency (2015) - joering2
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
======
sschueller
Is this the same firm that was just indicated by the Justice department?
~~~
gandhium
Don't think so, those trolls are working on Brexit, Germany, Ukraine and other
areas as well.
|
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Flaming the Victim - Why you should care that NimbleBit got ripped off - xonder
http://www.pocketnext.com/stories/flaming-the-victim/
======
dojogrant
Isn't that what copyrighting the written word is?
------
rdg
Enough with trying to copyright ideas...
|
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Announcing Confluent, a Company for Apache Kafka and Realtime Data - jermo
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141106180403-2945786-announcing-confluent-a-company-for-apache-kafka-and-realtime-data
======
jermo
Interesting that LinkedIn is an investor in a startup consisting of its former
employees.
[http://confluent.io](http://confluent.io)
|
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Ask HN: Cleaning a MacBook by submerging it in distilled water? - palish
Someone spilled alcohol into my fiancee's running MacBook. It's quite sticky.<p>I believe the logic board is fried because people stupidly tried to turn it on several times with no success. But I'm going to assume it's not, and hope for the best.<p>Since distilled water is non-conductive, could I use it to clean the logic board? (Assuming the logic board isn't shorted out, I need to remove all traces of the spill because it would corrode the logic board over time, eventually resulting in a failure.)<p>My current plan is to disassemble the MacBook; remove the logic board; submerge it in a tray of distilled water; pour out and refill with fresh distilled water, then submerge again; use a hairdryer for ~30 minutes to quickly dry the logic board; and finally, let the logic board dry over the course of a couple days, reassemble, and cross fingers.<p>My question is: is this a bad idea?
======
noonespecial
I once rescued an N64 from a Coca-Cola related incident using the process you
describe but isopropyl alcohol instead of distilled water. The alcohol worked
much better on the sticky soda, didn't seem to harm the electronics and dried
very quickly because it evaporates so fast.
YMMV.
~~~
gregpilling
I have used isopropyl alcohol with success also. IF you have a choice at your
local store, choose the one with a higher % .
------
nhebb
Back when aggressive fluxes were used in manufacturing, washing the circuit
board was a normal part of the process, so it's not an entirely crazy idea. I
wouldn't use a hair dryer, though. Besides possible heat damage, moving air
can generate a static charge.
~~~
palish
Would you let it dry naturally? Or do you have any tips for accelerating the
drying process?
~~~
proexploit
A pretty standard process for drying out cell phones that get wet is to drop
them in a bag of rice. Rice is a desiccant and will assist in the drying
process.
One source: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/06...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001276.html)
------
proee
First, let's clear up your thinking. You don't need to worry about the
solution being "non-conductive" because the board is powered off.
Second, distilled water isn't going to have much cleaning power. Most PCB
cleaners are pretty toxic because they're trying to remove things such as
solder flux and resin.
The easiest solution you could do is to run your board through your
DISHWASHER. Yes, that's right. Lot's of small board houses will do this and
they turn out clean as a whistle.
[http://www.vintage-
computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-...](http://www.vintage-
computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-15371.html)
Good luck!
~~~
sigstoat
yow. i'd suggest the shower or spray nozzle in your sink before the
dishwasher. the dishwasher is going to want to use hot water and high
pressures, neither of which are necessary.
------
argon
My lady friend's laptop was immersed in a fine Italian port wine for a few
hours during an unfortunate incident on a plane ride home from Italy. She
didn't turn it on, and quickly removed the battery once she realized what
happened. I immersed pretty much everything except the harddrive, LCD, and
battery in isopropanol for a few hours, and, then in multiple baths of
distilled water. I skipped the hair drying step, but used compressed air to
get most of the water off. I then waited a few days to be sure any excess
water had evaporated. In the end, everything worked except the LCD screen,
which was easy to replace.
------
wazoox
Actually even regular water is usually OK for electronics. I washed LC630
innards in the shower. Dry it well, though; you'll probably be better opening
it to avoid trapping moisture inside.
~~~
xyzzyz
I frequently wash keyboards in the shower and never had any issues either.
------
peterb
I wouldn't do that yet. The stickiness could be on the keyboard only. I would
disassemble (get instructions for your model from <http://www.ifixit.com/>)
and visually inspect for damage. Make sure everything is completely dry,
reassemble and retest.
If it won't power on, then you have to start debugging to isolate the problem.
If it is the logic board, then my sympathies ... they are expensive to
replace.
------
iag
Distilled water = non conductive Distilled water + dust + sticky alcohol that
you're trying to wash off = definitely conductive
See Tom's hardware guide experiment where they took out the fans and instead
dumped the computer into distilled water:
<http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/strip-fans,1203.html>
------
andrewstuart
I believe you can get chemicals specifically designed for cleaning
electronics.
~~~
palish
Hmm, info?
Also, it's been about two days since the spill. Would it be harmful to wait
for these chemicals to arrive, rather than cleaning right -now-?
------
reashlin
Answer - possibly not. Maybe not for reasons you are thinking of. The non-
conductivity of the distilled water will be eliminate as soon as the water
comes into contact with any contaminates, as its contaminates in the water the
provide conductivity. However, as long as the board is completely dried there
is no reason for a problem to exist, aside from corrosion.
------
danielh
Even if you use distilled water, make sure to also remove the on-board
battery. (I'm not sure if the current MB still have one).
------
brudgers
After washing, put the logic board in a sealed container with five pounds of
rice for a few days. I'd skip the hair dryer.
------
lsc
disassemble it. soak it in pure alcohol. (fry's sells big bottles of 99.9%
rubbing alcohol for cheaper than what you'd pay at the drug store.)
You aren't going to submerge it while it's plugged in, and you aren't going to
submerge the LCD (take it apart, I said, get the keyboard and circuit board
submerged) make sure it is completely dry before re-assembly.
I do this periodically with my keyboard... and it's standard procedure when
something is spilt on my thinkpad. It won't work 100% of the time, but it does
quite often work
Alcohol is, I think, a better solvent than distilled water, but the real
reason I prefer it is that it dries faster.
~~~
billswift
You can get denatured alcohol at nearly any hardware store. Besides drying
faster, the advantage with alcohol is that fats, like those in coffee creamer
are also soluble in it, but not in water. Sugars, though, are less soluble in
alcohol.
------
fuzzybassoon
I work in computer repair for a university, and we see students coming in all
the time with liquid spills.
We usually:
1) Disassemble the computer (ifixit.com is your friend here) 2) Clean the
board with a non-conductive cleaner such as Electro Klene
(<http://www.criticalcleaning.com/CCContact.htm>) 3) Dry it off using
compressed air and then let it air dry for a bit 4) Reassemble and cross
fingers.
We find this works about 1/2 the time.
------
patrickk
My first thought reading the heading was it's similarities to the Ice Bath
"fix" for the Xbox 360 red ring of death:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UN7MrhQaAc>
Read the description, it's quite funny that people fell for this obvious hoax.
------
jacquesm
There is a fluid they use for ultrasonic cleaning of electronics:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=ultrasonic+cleaning+fluid>
I would use that over distilled water because it may be quite hard to get the
last of it to evaporate.
------
moxiemk1
Why are you worried about the conductivity of the water? Presumably, you wont
be turning it on while its wet, so removing the battery, any clock batteries,
and discharging capacitors (I'll admit, I don't know how to do that or if its
possible) should make it fine to submerge in anything.
------
StavrosK
I don't know about your mainboard, but when my soundcard had accumulated years
of dust on it, I just ran it under the tap for a few minutes and let it dry.
It works perfectly, too.
------
timr
You can buy cans of aerosol circuit board cleaner at Radio Shack. They cost
less than $10, and don't contain corrosive or conductive liquids.
------
jenrawson
What kind of alcohol was spilled onto the computer?
~~~
palish
Some kind of pink, sugary, sticky kind.
------
gtani
how about try this. Also, i remember the logic board clips on some MB's are
very fragile, to the point my mac repair guy (doing this for decades) didn't
want to take it apart.
[http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/12/dont-panic-liquid-damage-
and-...](http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/12/dont-panic-liquid-damage-and-what-to-
do-about-it/)
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Abnormally warm December killing of the world gas market - vasiapupkin
http://teknoblog.ru/2015/12/18/52538
======
brudgers
Cited Bloomberg Story:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/when-s-
win...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/when-s-winter-
coming-balmy-december-sinks-global-energy-prices)
|
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Resonance - janober
http://www.edelman.com/news/resonance/
======
DrScump
(video)
|
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The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down - evo_9
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/8/21/17765330/mayfield-robotics-kuri-robot-shutting-down
======
derekdahmer
I got a demo of Kuri at CES from one of the founders and loved it, it’s kind
of like a friendly Alexa on wheels. The killer feature IMO is it can send you
videos of it interacting with your pets and small children over the course of
the day. If you use Timehop it’s the same sort of feeling.
I think something like Kuri could be successful at $200-300 price point but
not the $700 preorder price they listed. I bet we’ll see a low cost clone of
this in the next few years.
~~~
technobabble
Besides the Kuri, what else that is currently on the market the closest
equivalent to an Alexa on wheels?
~~~
iampims
[https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector](https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector)
------
applecrazy
This company had a large booth at Maker Faire Bay Area this year. While the
robot was cute and the tech inside impressive (full 3D SLAM!), I didn’t see a
market for a home robot just yet, given that people have just gotten used to
devices like Alexa (and especially at their price point).
I’m not sure if they had an SDK to develop integrations on top, but if they
had such an ecosystem I think I would pick up one for home use to hack upon.
A bit disappointed they had to shut down before they had a proper product.
------
jpm_sd
While it's clear that both Kuri and Jibo were far too expensive, I am
wondering whether there is a market for a "home entertainment" robot at any
price. What are they for?
~~~
evo_9
Home entertainment no, and even the dubious 'security' guard angle that Kuri
and Jibo had which was basically just a roaming camera keeping an on your
place, not compelling enough at that price.
People would pay real dollars for a home robot that did basic choirs but so
far that hasn't been the focus. Maybe it's too hard of a problem to solve
still, or maybe they overvalued the usefulness of an entertainment robot, or
maybe it's a bit of both. I just hope this doesn't kill the dream of a truly
useful home robot.
~~~
jonathankoren
I own a roomba, and while I can’t say it’s great, it at least does something
useful. The Alexa with wheels isn’t very compelling, because the mobility
aspect doesn’t add anything. These robots don’t even have a tray to carry
drinks on. From that perspective they’re less useful than a HeathKit HERO [0]
or an OmniBot[1].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_(robot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_\(robot\))
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibot)
~~~
bfuller
I own a roomba and I do think it's great. Why dont you like it?
~~~
jonathankoren
I own two, and use them regularly. They're not a gimmick, but they do have
lots of room for improvement.
They're very inefficient. Perhaps the 980 with the camera is better at
mapping, but my 880 and an ancient 551 feel like they take hours to clean a
single room. Granted, _I_ can do something else entirely while it wastes time,
but it feels weird. (I simply take them from room to room and lock them in for
an hour or two, and then move them. I don't want to waste all day with the
bots cleaning my house, and I've learned I can't trust them not to get into
trouble by themselves.)
Also, they're not the most powerful vacuums. They're fine for regular
maintenance cleaning, but they can't replace a regular vacuum.
Now if only I can find a robot to dust...
------
rajacombinator
“Adorably doomed” implies something about its doomed status is adorable...
|
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Ask HN: How does a small team of freelancers approach large companies? - prattbhatt
Few days back, there was a Ask HN 'How to move beyond “freelancer”?' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9289500<p>Some comments mentioned about getting projects from large companies:<p>pauletienney (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9289724):<p><i>- Once you have a team, you will look for interesting projects. They are more complicated to get. They often come from medium / large organization. Those orgs. have important inertia. Projects can take weeks of month to start. Chase multiple projects at the same time.</i><p>---<p>cheetos (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9290005):<p><i>Instead, find startups with technical people doing the recruiting or large companies with established roles and processes for freelancers. They will at least understand market rates and what you actually do.</i><p>---<p>How do we find out which companies have 'established' roles and processes for freelancers?<p>Also, what are some other ways to approach companies for remote projects? What techniques have you tried that seem to work : for example cold emails, picking up the phone and calling at office hours?<p>I understand that having people from your network in companies helps. My query is mostly related to companies where we do not have anyone from our network.<p>PS: We are a team of two who have been doing software consulting and development for a year, and are looking at ways to get larger, longer contracts, which we are thinking might come if we approach large companies.
======
loumf
I don't recommend you try to do this without networking. I was successful at
getting projects from a big company, but I don't think blind applications
would have worked. That being said, I will try to explain the process that one
VERY large company (>10k employees) used.
Even though I was effectively hired by a senior executive (former colleague),
I still had to become an approved contractor in their procurement system. They
used a 3rd party
([http://www.pontoonsolutions.com](http://www.pontoonsolutions.com)). So, I
was instructed to make a proposal via that system -- to be clear, though, I
had already negotiated everything before this even came up -- but it was a
requirement to get the work.
However, once I was in, I had visibility to other work that was being put out
for bid. I personally was fully booked up with work from my network in this
company to take advantage of it though. My sense is that it would not be a
good idea to bid blindly for these projects -- most of them were commodity IT
work, not necessarily interesting projects. I found out about those from my
internal networking.
So, I guess I would suggest looking at Pontoon -- seeing if there's a way into
companies through 3rd parties like this.
I would also suggest just looking at giant company career sites and seeing if
they have any contractor positions listed. Once you are in, you can find other
projects. The easy networking you can do is with the company's recruiters
(they probably call you) -- find out how they hire contractors.
------
davismwfl
In our experience, almost all the larger company deals come from a contact you
already have or you network to get. Rarely does a cold email or call end up in
a deal with a larger organization, although we have stumbled into them a few
times.
The short version is that you need to target companies with specific
demographics. I'd say few companies really are "setup" to handle freelancers,
but many businesses are setup to have solutions provided. You get bigger deals
by not being a team of freelancers and instead bringing solutions to problems.
Your goal is to take a part of a project or a whole project and develop it
outside their team generally. If you are integrated to their team and need to
be in their daily stand ups or on site etc, you are just a contract employee
which will not make you independent or allow you to take on other work easily
and grow your business (see my last point below on this).
To your question how to get these deals. Find ways to meet people in these
companies, using your network of contacts, go to meet ups, conferences and
basically stalk people that can help you get in the door. You can cold call
and send emails, this keeps your name around but just be careful not to be
annoying. We also research companies heavily to find out what their tech stack
is, what issues they are having, who works there that we can target and try
and offer free help in some cases. For example, many times one of us will
answer forum posts from a developer we have found works for the target
company. This is in fairness to help them out but importantly for us many
times it then can help lead us to a foot in the door (we just made a new
contact). Without a big marketing budget it is all about creative ways to meet
people at a distance and have them see you as a solution and expert that can
help them.
IMO, focus on companies that have revenue of $3M-$10M annually at first,
sometimes this is a guess obviously because they are private but rough head
count and other details you find in the public domain can be used to estimate.
This generally gets you companies that are mature enough to understand they
have to pay for quality and also small enough that they still need to
outsource quite a bit of work to meet their goals. Not only that, what we
found is that by doing well for these types of companies, they will help you
network to the next level up and so on (usually they will have mentors or
contacts they are happy to introduce you too). So over time you are working
with as large of an organization as you like.
Personally, we have gone back to targeting businesses in the $10-50M in annual
revenue (with most in the $10-25M), they are large enough to afford us, small
enough we can meet all their legal requirements and generally low enough
politics that we can get paid reasonably timely. We have worked with Fortune
10 companies too, but the time requirements and reserve funds needed to
service a client that is used to be waited on by everyone can be really tough
when you are building yourself up. They also generally have a great deal of
cruft you have to work your way through and typically pay their bills very
slowly, which again is tough when you don't have significant reserves. On this
note too, the industry of the companies matters too, a $3m software company is
way different then a $3m retail sales company. You have to learn to tell the
differences and what can be sold to each.
Last point, I know this is a touch off topic, but here is my simple way to
figure out if a company is really trying to use us as a group of contract
employee or a solutions provider, I just ask/answer some basic questions. If 1
or more are yes then they just want a contract employee which is not what we
do. Are they trying to manage our time? Do they want to set our working hours?
Are they expecting exclusivity? Are they wanting to task my team individually?
Are they wanting us on-site sitting in their building doing the work? The last
point does not include sales, demo, installation, integration or training type
work.
------
prattbhatt
loumf, davismwfl: Thank you for your thoughts. We will try to follow a
strategy along the guidelines that you have suggested. As you have said, we
are initially going to target companies where we have an existing network, and
take it on from there.
|
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Hacking with private APIs on iPad - ingve
https://rambo.codes/ios/2019/01/11/hacking-with-private-apis-on-ipad.html
======
walterbell
JSBox source code:
[https://github.com/cyanzhong/xteko](https://github.com/cyanzhong/xteko)
_> JSBox is not only a full-fledged environment for standard JavaScript, but
also provides many utilities: safe environment to run JavaScript natively ...
editor to write JavaScript, multiple themes, auto completions and snippets...
VSCode extension ... APIs to interact with iOS ... Almost all the cool tech in
iOS: Today Widget, Action Extension, 3D Touch, Home Screen_
Discovery is non-existent on the App Store. Other than blog posts, is there a
good way to find new scripting/dev environments as they are released for iOS?
[https://scriptable.app](https://scriptable.app) is another JS runtime.
[https://codea.io](https://codea.io) is a Lua runtime.
~~~
selectodude
Pythonista is as it sounds.
~~~
zapzupnz
Pythonista is fantastic, especially if you get StaSH — a shell and basic
userland written in PyPy to replicate as many POSIX tools as possible.
~~~
rcarmo
I second this. You can easily invoke Cocoa classes and swizzle methods with
it. My eldest figured out how to snapshot a WebView inside Pythonista that
way.
------
samatman
I know this is a silly comment but: 12” iPad Pro made my brain skip a frame.
12.9” rounds up to 13”. I carry both a 12.9” iPad Pro and a 13” MBP, and they
are practically the same size, the iPad is slightly bigger on the small
dimension and the MBP noticeably wider on the large one, due to the different
aspect ratios. Picked up the iPad to use with Duet, and have been pleased with
the combo, nice to have two full screens to work with while coding.
Ok, nit picked. ;-)
~~~
fdm
All 13" MacBooks are actually 13.3", 15" are 15.4”.
~~~
samatman
Which round down to 13" and 15" respectively, which is my point.
12.9" is awkward, 12" more wrong than right, I'd call it the 13" iPad if I had
to pick one, but it's branded as 12.9".
------
eggy
I use Continuous [1] for C# and F# coding on my iPad Pro. It implements a lot
of Native iOS libs like UIKit, SceneKit, SpriteKit, Foundation, and CoreImage,
but I am not sure if it can do what the article here does with Pythonista,
which I also use on my iPad Pro. It has code completion and debugging, and
code changes update very quickly for interactive development.
[1] [http://continuous.codes/](http://continuous.codes/)
~~~
rcarmo
I’m pretty sure Frank (the author) had some samples of how to fish out private
frameworks. Apple does frown on that a bit, but since they’re usually exposed
to the sandbox as read-only, you should be able to do the same.
~~~
eggy
Thanks, I'll have to check that out. I am not beholden to any OS or platform.
I have Windows 7 (at work), Windows 8.1 and 10 (at home), Linux, and an iMac
and iPad, and I am amazed at how great the developing and coding experience
can be on my 2015 iPad Pro. My other notebooks are all four-plus years old,
but I have heard the latest iPad Pro is even faster and more capable for
serious work. The Smalltalk/Pharo environment is pretty amazing, but coding F#
on the iPad with Continuous is close to it.
------
ackfoo
Swift Playgrounds example doesn't work on 12.1:
assert(Bundle(path:
"/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AvatarUI.framework")!.load())
Error: Unexpectedly found nil while unwrapping an Optional value.
~~~
saagarjha
This framework doesn’t exist on my iPad. Either Apple has removed it from non-
Face ID capable iPads, or dropped it altogether.
~~~
zapzupnz
Yes, the framework isn't installed on devices that don't have the Face ID
camera — because there's no use making Memoji (what AvatarUI.framework is for)
without it.
------
aphextron
This is the number one thing that turned me off of the Apple development
ecosystem. Their absolute insistence on providing headers-only distributions
of their libraries. It makes absolutely no sense. They're not protecting some
closely guarded trade secret here, it's just a bunch of Objective-C UI code.
And then the moment you need to change the color of something... or change the
most trivial implementation detail in a base class, you're left completely
starting from scratch.
------
stevefan1999
They're undocumented APIs, not private APIs, they will eventually be
documented anyway.
~~~
ben-schaaf
What's the practical difference on a proprietary platform where you can't just
look at the source code to find out what it does?
~~~
saagarjha
Undocumented APIs are exactly that: you are free to call them, but there isn't
any information on how to do so (for iOS, this is often POSIX or Mach
functions). Private API is intended to be used by Apple exclusively, and is
indicated as such by not being in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks, or
included in a usual framework but not intended to be called–either by
prefixing the method name with an underscore or not being included in the
class's documentation. Private API is occasionally opened up to third-party
developers, but this is usually quite rare.
|
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Think Twice Before Installing Any Chrome Extension - arpitnext
http://blog.arpitnext.com/2011/08/chrome-extension-awesome-screenshot.html
======
joel_liu
Hi, This is Joel, the developer of awesome screenshot the article mentioned.
First of all, I apologize for what I did for it in the last version a day ago.
I'd like to share with you my intension for this amazon + google search
feature.
1) It's from my need. When I search some shopping items from google, I always
want to check them in amazon also.
2) It can help us make small mount of money.
3) I provide an option to disable it.
However, I did it in a wrong way. I should did it like this: 1) Disable it by
default. 2) Ask user's permission to enable it 3) Tell users why we add it.
I did it wrong but still respect users. This feature exists only one day and I
removed it in the new version(3.2.1).
~~~
stanleydrew
You should be more honest and re-order 1 and 2. Putting affiliate links into
Google search results isn't even in the same category as taking a screenshot
of a page. Why "scratch that itch" in an extension that is completely
unrelated unless your primary interest was to make money.
Now there's nothing wrong with making money, and I don't even disagree with
the way that you attempted to monetize the awesome screenshot extension (via
affiliate links). But be honest with users about your motivation. Most will
understand.
------
laxk
The answer from the developer of Awesome Screenshot:
===
Developer 1 hour
@All, since many of you don't like this feature, we removed
it in the version 3.2.1.
===
Developer 39 minutes
@All,
Hi All, This is Joel, developer of awesome screenshot. I am so sorry to add
the amazon search result in google search result page without info
our users first. It's such a bad decision.
This additional features was designed to scratch our own itch. Because when
I search some shopping items in google, I always want to check them
in amazon at the same time.
In the spirit of transparency, we should disclose that this feature
does bring small amount of revenue to us, which enables us to continue
to improve this product. Since so many users don't like it,
*we already updated a new version(3.2.1) to remove this feature*.
I think they should make this feature optional and disabled by default.
~~~
SoftwareMaven
Nobody would ever see it. Enabling new feature discovery in software is a very
hard problem. Just throwing in features and hoping people will find them is
not a good philosophy.
In this case, I would probably have shown it by default with text including
"why am I seeing this?" and a "don't show this anymore" button.
~~~
joel_liu
I provided a customize button beside the amazon search result page for users
to disable it. But it seems many users don't like it, so I removed this
feature completely.
~~~
SoftwareMaven
You are facing two problems:
1\. The feature is orthogonal to the plugin. Alone, you probably could have
survived this one.
2\. The feature came to light for many through negative press. With number 1,
that pretty much kills the feature in the current extension.
Rather than just killing the feature altogether, though, you could release it
as a new extension. Add a couple other ecommerce sites and call it a shopping
assistant.
~~~
joel_liu
Thanks for your suggestion. I will release it as a new extension if I have
enough time.
------
asknemo
Can't help casual users, but for power users, this is a very handy tool to
inspect the source on-the-fly:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbamfloeabgknfklmg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbamfloeabgknfklmgbpjcgofcokhpia)
~~~
troels
Ah yes, but how can I trust that "Extension Gallery and Web Store Inspector"
is safe to install?
~~~
RyanMcGreal
Obligatory: <http://xkcd.com/250/>
------
monochromatic
Apple's solution has taken a lot of flak over the years for its audit process
and some pretty arbitrary rejections, but if this is the alternative...
~~~
icebraining
The best alternative is AMO; the testers are extremely helpful, explaining the
problems and giving tips and links to help you improve the extension.
------
Triumvark
Anyone could review extensions in Chrome's gallery and provide a seal of
quality or recommended avoid list.
With Chrome's model, competing groups with different priorities could
recommend different sets of apps to use or avoid, just like competing review
magazines for consumer goods.
Mozilla's model invites pressure from DHS to kill specific apps the government
doesn't like. So far Mozilla has rejected calls to kill extensions that help
circumvent state sponsored blacklists,* but for how long?
As Google learned in China, if there is a technical measure which could
hypothetically suppress speech, then some government will eventually demand
its use.
* See "MAFIAAfire"
------
Tichy
While I don't like the Awesome Screenshot approach, high profile startups like
Posterous seem to take a similar approach (stealthily rewriting links in blog
articles) and hardly anybody from the tech elite seems to mind.
~~~
joakin
Please, Would you mind explaining that? Or giving link to info?
~~~
Tichy
Another reply to my comment has a link:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403>
------
whileonebegin
I think the title of this post is too alarmist. Chrome makes it very easy to
install or remove apps, unlike traditional desktop applications.
I recently released a Chrome Extension myself
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ifhpbfmklgecpflbnb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ifhpbfmklgecpflbnbamoahdeabljgfi),
and was surprised that Google requires a $5 payment from developers,
supposedly to prevent malware and spam, even though most extensions are free.
I suppose Google largely counts on ratings and comments to moderate content.
------
swombat
What's the technical term for this?
Ah yes. I remember: "pretty fucking bad, man".
If the Chrome team also have access to the source of these plugins, it seems
pretty irresponsible that there's no audit process whatsoever. There should at
least be random audits, particularly of popular applications.
~~~
sp332
That really is the least they should be doing. For contrast, here's Mozilla's
policy for addons.mozilla.org: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/developers/docs/policies/re...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/developers/docs/policies/reviews)
Chrome supposedly has a better security model (not to say that FF's is bad),
but if it gets in the way so much that users are in the habit of allowing all
extensions access to everything, then it's not really better.
~~~
mbrubeck
And specifically, Mozilla's review process includes a "No Surprises" principle
that covers cases like this one:
<https://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2009/05/01/no-surprises/>
_"Changes to default home page and search preferences, as well as settings of
other installed add-ons, must be related to the core functionality of the add-
on. If this relation can be established, you must adhere to the following
requirements when making changes to these settings: The add-on description
must clearly state what changes the add-on makes. All changes must be ‘opt-
in’, meaning the user must take non-default action to enact the change.
Uninstalling the add-on restores the user’s original settings if they were
changed."_
------
nathanuk
A few months ago I discovered a similar situation with a very popular
extension (300,000+) users. It removed facebook ads, and injected it's own.
After a quick search, I found 4-5 others that were doing the same. Took Google
over 3 weeks to remove them.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/gpwqc/caution_auto_h...](http://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/gpwqc/caution_auto_hd_for_youtube_extension_is_now/)
------
iand
Sounds like an opportunity for a startup based on rating, review and
certification of chrome extensions. I'd pay for peace of mind.
------
stanleydrew
Also, think twice before visiting any website. A web browser can be used for
many things. Some of those things (like running extensions, or visiting web
pages) have the potential to deliver malicious code to a user's machine. It is
not Google's responsibility to police the content of the web, or the content
of Chrome extensions. Although one could argue that it would be wise for
Google to use its vast resources to provide recommendations/warnings on
extensions, similarly to what it does for links in Google results that it
suspects are delivering malware.
~~~
angelbob
Sure, but browsers work hard to keep web sites from doing arbitrary things to
your computer, and mostly succeed, most of the time.
It's also a huge deal when they fail.
Extensions get extra permission to do stuff, so it would be nice if they got
extra auditing or restrictions.
------
jscheel
Odd, I've had that extension installed for a while now and have never had any
of those amazon ads inserted into my content. Uninstalling awesome screenshot
just to be sure.
------
samstokes
So in principle the Chrome gallery has the tools in place to prevent these
abuses. The extension listing page states what permissions the extension will
have (if it says "access all web pages", then you certainly should think hard
before installing it!), and the user reviews and ratings mean users can call
out bad behaviour (like this sneaky affiliate link adding) and warn other
users.
Unfortunately both of these things are pretty broken in the Chrome gallery at
present. The warning about what the extension can access is fairly muted, and
you have to _notice_ and _read_ it - unlike when you install a Facebook or
Android app, when the permission dialog interrupts the install flow so you
have to at least _see_ it before you can install. And the implementation of
user reviews is terrible - there's no way for the extension author to reply to
a misinformed or misleading review, except to leave his own "review" (yes, you
can review your own extension).
~~~
extension
The "access all pages" permission is required for "content extensions". That's
any extension that interacts with web content. They can limit themselves by
domain, but that's it.
Even simple UI tweaks, like changing how scrolling works, can often only be
implemented by injecting into every page. Since Chrome doesn't understand the
meaning of any web content, it can't pick and choose what an extension has
access to in any useful way. As a result, the permission model is just not
terribly useful for extensions, besides the site-specific ones.
Also, last I checked, reviews worked essentially like comments and I could
effectively reply to issues on my extension's page. Maybe that has changed by
now.
~~~
samstokes
There's a big difference between "can access your data on domain.com" and "can
access your data on all websites". (And not all extensions need to modify
pages, even Chrome ones.)
I didn't say you shouldn't install extensions that require content privileges
(indeed I would highly recommend that you install at least one [1] [2]); just
that you should do so with care, and decide whether you trust their authors,
because of the broad access they have. The advantage of the Mozilla approach
of reviewing every extension is that they (partially!) offload some of the
trust decision from the user onto the reviewers.
As I said above, you can respond to a review with your own review, but that's
a broken way of doing it: the author's response isn't visually distinguished,
and there's no way to ensure it appears anywhere near the review it's
responding to, so there's a high chance prospective users will just read the
negative or misleading review without seeing the response.
(Concretely: someone can "review" your extension by saying "this extension is
evil and spies on all the sites you visit", and your only options as an author
are to leave another review halfway up the page saying "@anonymous: oh no it
doesn't", or to abuse the "mark review as spam" button.)
[1] <http://rapportive.com>
[2] Disclaimer: this recommendation is not without bias, given I'm part of the
team that develops this extension.
------
wesbos
Everyone has access to chrome extension source
------
dkokelley
I completely disagree with the conclusion of this article. Consider Apple's
App Store. Supposedly, the application and review process makes things safer
for end users. Unfortunately we've seen this is not always the case.
Additionally, Apple's policies have been harshly criticized by others as being
a walled garden that stifles competition.
Can Google really expect to keep an app like this from slipping through their
approval process? It's not like the extension runs and crashes Chrome while
sending your browsing history to DoubleClick.
I think a better way to approach this issue is to engage the users when they
install an app with flexible permission settings, by saying "These are the
things this app is allowed to do. If you don't want it to do all of these
things, you may uncheck specific permissions. Be aware that restricting this
extension may cause it to not work properly".
~~~
ootachi
That's a bad idea. People will always click through warning and permission
screens; increasing the complexity of warning screens simply increases the
likelihood that people will click through it without reading it.
------
Andrex
Extensions really can't do anything without specifying permissions explicitly
in their manifest. Those permissions are then shown to the user when
extensions are installed. I don't see the problem here.
And inserting links in a search results page is hardly the type of malware the
title of this article implies.
~~~
nitrogen
Hackers place a high value on veracity of information. Altering a search
result page without complete transparency ahead of time is not cool. Altering
a search result page in a way that filters money away to someone else is
exactly what some malware does.
------
meemo
Safari extensions too. I installed Dictionary by Slice Factory. Then, when I
was shopping on Amazon, I got a huge in-browser pop-up asking to help me find
products with the lowest price. They do have an opt-out feature, but it was
very disconcerting since initially I had no idea where this came from.
------
3pt14159
This is why I only use bookmarklets. I click they run. I don't click, they
don't run. Sure my Readability bookmarketlet might be collecting a couple of
links I have trouble reading, but at least they aren't doing anything
malicious when I'm not using them.
~~~
js4all
Plus, bookmarklets don't spawn an extra process.
~~~
ootachi
And they execute within the context of the page you're currently viewing,
which prevents malicious cross-site behavior like that of this extension.
------
nischalshetty
The developers of this app just lost a lot of trust! Be honest with your
users. That's the first rule of developing a good product. It does not matter
how much they apologize now, a lot of users aren't going to trust them
anymore!
------
plasma
Use Screen Capture (by Google):
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmjmljamhdncknpmg)
You can take the entire page, partial pages, redactions etc its fantastic.
No remote server needed either.
------
simonbrown
It's not the only one. Upside Down adds Viglink to pages (and mentions it in
the extension gallery page).
Allow copy-paste action on websites replaces the banner on LyricsFreak with
one for the author's website.
The Web Of Trust Firefox extension also adds "safe search" links to Google
results.
~~~
oroup
This is Oliver Roup, CEO of VigLink. Merchants generally offer affiliate
programs to encourage the creation of content discussing their products or the
development of services where such content tends to develop.
Extensions like this one have neither of these characteristics and instead are
seen as a "tax" by the merchants - they drive up costs without any benefit.
This is of course not welcomed by the merchants and as a result, VigLink does
not permit this type of use of our service.
The account this extension references was terminated quote some time ago, not
long after we discovered it. Although the extension continues to insert our
code (we cannot prevent it) we do not affiliate any clicks on the account and
the extension owner is making no money through VigLink.
Oliver Roup Founder / CEO, VigLink oroup@viglink.com
------
crazydiamond
Wasn't able to move to Chrome from Firefox. No proper replacement for
Vimperator/Pentadactyl. Vimium just doesn't cut it. Doesn't work on all pages,
often stops working. Any chrome users here who use vimium (vim bindings) who
might share some inputs?
------
aklemm
I wondered where those Amazon ads were coming from! This is definitely shady;
to have websites modified without your knowledge is unnerving. With such a
successful extension, there must be a better monetization idea than tricking
users.
------
vertice
use the source, luke.
~~~
chico_dusty
So you figure Chrome should only be used by neckbeards capable of
understanding the source?
~~~
dangrossman
Can we not start using that term here?
------
niyogi
this coming from the guy monetizing his site with with obnoxious google ads
and hover-over links.
------
gcb
Why is everyone treating this as something new?!?!
you run code on your machine, you have to trust it.
Heck, i don't trust even stuff i download from the app store! and I still
limit the talk of my wii with nintendo servers on my router.
the chrome extensions just add a little insult because it 'seems' official or
something. Much better the grease monkey way, full of warnings so the user
remembers that he has to think for himself.
------
crizCraig
There should be a permission for contacting external sites. That's where the
biggest security threats lie and most extensions, like a screenshot extension,
don't need to be making requests to other sites (like Amazon).
~~~
aboodman
There is. This extension requests the permission.
~~~
crizCraig
The extension requests permission to access "Your data on all websites" and
"Your tabs and browsing activity". I guess what I'm saying is that there
should be a distinction between permissions for accessing stuff in the browser
and accessing external data through AJAX and other resource requests. Besides
cutting off extensions themselves from the outside world, Chrome would just
have to prevent extensions from injecting scripts or elements that made
external requests into loaded pages by disallowing <script>, onclick='',
src='' etc... from being added to the HTML and DOM of those pages.
~~~
aboodman
I'm not sure I follow, but Chrome does allow developers to request those
privileges separately. This developer just requested both.
~~~
crizCraig
For example, say you wanted an extension to be able to take a screenshot of
Amazon, but not get access everyone's private data on Amazon. This is not
currently possible in Chrome. To get the screenshot, you need to allow access
to Amazon.com in the permissions list of the extension config, i.e.
manifest.json. This, however, gives you permission to request resources from
Amazon that the user did not load into the browser, like all their previous
purchases. And if there's another URL in the permissions list that the
extension developer hosts, they can set up an API for the extension to phone
home the users private data on Amazon.
Here's a sample that demonstrates this:
[http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/commo...](http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/docs/examples/api/tabs/screenshot/manifest.json?revision=88353&view=markup)
Note that "tabs" and "code.google.com" must both be listed in the permissions.
|
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Facebook: Simplifying the Stream - ivankirigin
http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=321
======
jgilliam
It's great we don't have to use the templates anymore, but the frequency of
the API changes to something as basic as posting to the stream is really
getting annoying.
~~~
goodside
"Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving
fast enough." - Mark Zuckerberg
~~~
xal
This is a really great quote. There is a lot of truth in it and the effect of
a company build on the principle is breathtaking. Facebook moves at lightning
speed considering their size. It seems that they somehow found a way that
let's them add engineers and scale their development speed linearly.
~~~
robryan
For something like this I would prefer if they took a bit more time to flesh
out options, as could find a button to remove things like friends adding other
people as friends from the live feed.
Also this should come with a box up the top with specific help pages written
up to explain it all, if people who develop and use web apps every day find it
different and confusing, imagine the average facebook user.
------
the_real_r2d2
I like the ranked feed and I like to have an option to see it unranked (as
live feed). I wonder if FB has an option to set the default to either
rank/unranked. In the past many of my friends have these annoying applications
that fortunately are not showed in the ranked news (may be because the
algorithm learnt that I did not like them as I use to hide them).
------
snprbob86
I am really happy about the return to the ranked and filtered feed; less stuff
to read. But then, they went and added an unread count next to the View Live
Feed link! Aaaggghh! I just threw out dozens of RSS feeds because I have OCD
and must drive unread counts down to zero. This will torment me.
------
cnicolaou
Again, it's confusing and unpredicted.
------
joeythibault
wait...so now there's a popularity contest within my own friend network?
------
devicenull
Ever since these recent updates started, I've been running into what seem to
be caching issues.. I'll see old content on the "live feed", and it doesn't
update until I refresh the page
------
whereareyou
Glad to see the popular stuff back in the stream. The way the highlights used
to be presented on the right side was visually akward.
------
joubert
I HATE how they now obnoxiously suggest who I should write to.
------
gaius
Broken for me (showing newsfeed as of 3 days ago).
~~~
salvadors
are you using it over https? There seems to be a problem with that. I switched
back to plain http and it's working OK there.
------
DanielBMarkham
So after updating my status and refreshing a half-dozen times (including
resetting my internet connection, clearing my cache, and switching browsers)
now I understand why my status doesn't appear in the same place anymore.
I understand that right now I'm a tired and distracted reader (30 hours of
flying today and in the airport lounge) but I can't help think that other
folks are going to be frustrated by this, even if it's an improvement.
Sites need to be very, very careful about changing stuff that works. This
looks like a great improvement, but it you don't get something for nothing --
there is a cost of change.
------
geuis
This is happy and annoying. Happy because it simplifies the API. Annoying
because I have to go back and rearchitect a big part of our site to support
this. I just finished a week long project last month ago supporting this crap.
------
igorgue
New Facebook is flying, I think this is the Python (Tornado)!.
|
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Git client for Windows - brlnwest
https://www.git-tower.com/blog/tower-for-windows-launch/
======
BoorishBears
Really glad to see this coming to Windows.
To me Tower is the perfect combination of a coherent UI and a powerful tool.
If only more software I used could follow that theme...
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Best uses for spaced-repetition software? - kcovia
Other than foreign languages, what are the best uses for SRS software, such as Anki? At the moment I'm using Anki for:<p>- terminal commands (I'm fairly new to coding)<p>- high-level English vocabulary (already a native speaker)<p>- Spanish, Polish, and Italian
======
LittleFishyChan
I have used SuperMemo for the last nine years of my life to learn three
languages, lots of scientific concepts I had long forgotten after leaving
school, world history, jokes and countless other information. Spaced
repetition is one of the coolest modern inventions and one of the best uses of
computers on the human mind that I know of. It totally rocks as long as you
put in effort.
------
Kortaggio
I'm starting a new Anki deck to memorize the names of people I meet. When I
add a new contact I usually make notes in the "other" section of my contact
book but they're not very useful if I don't get reminded about it (i.e. I
don't randomly bump into the person on a semi-regular basis). I have a feeling
spaced recognition for remembering names is also going to help me keep in
touch with people that I haven't seen in a while.
~~~
rahimnathwani
What is your question/answer structure? Do you take a photo of each person you
meet?
~~~
Kortaggio
If I've had a significant conversation with them and it's not socially
inappropriate to ask for a photo, then I'll probably ask for a photo. If not,
then I plan on just writing a brief description of the general circumstances
that we met. E.g. "The teller at XYZ bank that helped you set up a company
bank account"
------
kndyry
Gwern has a great write-up on spaced repetition [0] which you might find
useful. He addresses your questions and introduces several other
considerations in addition.
[0]
[http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition](http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition)
------
lifeisstillgood
I honestly don't know - maybe if you posted this again in 12 hours, then 24,
then 72 I might have thought of something
:-)
More seriously the names-reminder is a _great_ idea
|
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5 Reasons Why Google Hired a Person Like Me - amays_me
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-reasons-why-google-hired-person-like-me-anthony-mays
======
ljk
Any way people without linkedin account can view the article?
|
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Unreal: The Backstory - bane
https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderBrandonMusic/posts/10153814555037621
======
rocky1138
CC'd my response here:
Living in Waterloo now. I was walking home from work with my friend when we
met a guy flying a drone. After briefly talking, my friend mentioned that he
was a developer #2 on Unreal back in the day. Must have been Schmalz! Crazy to
think you just meet your heroes like that...
When I was 15 when my brother got me a disc of pirated games. On it was an
Unreal directory which contained a tech demo of sorts. a castle with marble
walls and eyeballs you could place with the mouse. Even then the realtime 3d
rendering was really solid. I wonder how far along development was at that
point and how this demo was leaked to BBS' at the time. Do you have any
information on that?
Out of everything, I remember the music the most. Unreal's music has always
been fantastic. Deus Ex, too! Thanks!
~~~
ethbro
The thing that always impressed me was how good Unreal looked with CPU
rendering at decent frame rates. I wasn't able to convince my parents of the
necessity of a Voodoo or TNT card, but Unreal handled my rig far better than
most other games.
------
LinuxFreedom
There is one big white box across the screen that forces me to login to that
web service when I want to read the text, so I actually can not read it.
You, the people, have to understand that you must not use that freedom
destroying web service when you want to keep your freedoms.
It has gone much too far and we have to take consequences, this is a serious
question about your real life freedoms, not a game or a simulation.
~~~
s_kilk
pastebin: [http://pastebin.com/9Z7WRCbt](http://pastebin.com/9Z7WRCbt)
~~~
vog
Thanks for making the article available to non Facebook users!
------
Pengwin
The whole Unreal series and the engine it spawned were, and still are
something i love to just look at.
I remember going through the file system as a kid and looking at all the
nicely arranged but weird files in Unreal Tournament. I liked the music from
the game and wanted to play it, but i didn't know what the weird UMX file was,
but i knew it was music thanks to being placed in the Music directory (A nice
change to Quake 3 where all i found was a giant PAK file). A Google search and
a winamp plugin later and i could play it. Looking at the winamp plugin i
realized that it was not like an MP3 or wave with everything baked in but more
like a midi, there was a whole UI in the plugin which displayed the
instruments and timeline of the song being played. It was a really fun thing
to learn about on top of instagib matches on Deck16.
Looking it up now i see that Alexander Brandon is the composer of Go Down, the
music for Deck16. I guess ill have to go and find a nice source of the music
from UT and have another listen. It'll be nearly impossible to deal with a UMX
file these days!
~~~
Ralfp
> I guess ill have to go and find a nice source of the music from UT and have
> another listen.
It's all on youtube these days. I'm loving Unreal's ambients for programming
work.
~~~
rocky1138
Save yourself the bandwidth and get them in higher quality off modarchive :)
[http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&...](http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_artist_modules&query=69698)
~~~
Lorin
Modarchive is such a treasure trove of great music... great to see it being
referenced on HN :)
------
rl3
> _But we did establish specific points where music would turn to combat and
> sometimes play or stop for cinematic moments. And that ended up being the
> system that eventually got modified for Deus Ex._
I'll always hold a special place in my heart for Alexander Brandon and his
work on _Deus Ex_ 's score. It still remains one of the most immersive game
soundtracks ever made. Tyrian's score was equally magical.
~~~
Pxtl
Tyrian and Jazz Jackrabbit remain two of my favourites for music.
As an aside, anybody know the best way to get Tyrian running on a modern win
machine with modern gamepads? I tried tyrian2000 and open Tyrian and no dice.
~~~
voltagex_
Don't forget One Must Fall: 2097 and Epic Pinball!
[https://www.gog.com/game/tyrian_2000](https://www.gog.com/game/tyrian_2000)
is the only one I've seen working.
What issues did you have?
~~~
pluma
Oh my god, I thought nobody else remembered those two.
Epic Pinball to me is still the best pinball game in history and I played One
Must Fall for hours on end despite not actually being a fan of the genre.
EDIT: The soundtrack to OMF (1994) is on YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UGRR6MkVmE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UGRR6MkVmE)
EDIT2: Different company but same area: The Crusader series (No Remorse
(1995)/No Regret (1996)) had a pretty awesome score as well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2xs8pQBcZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2xs8pQBcZk)
And of course C&C Tiberian Dawn (1995):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TkyB3kTiPQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TkyB3kTiPQ)
EDIT3: For sake of completeness, here's Jazz Jackrabbit 1 (1994) and 2 (1998):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6L78lXPHro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6L78lXPHro)
EDIT4: OMF was declared freeware at some point and works in DOSBox so you can
play it online in the browser at the Internet Archive:
[https://archive.org/details/msdos_One_Must_Fall_2097_1994](https://archive.org/details/msdos_One_Must_Fall_2097_1994)
~~~
voltagex_
The last I saw of OMF2097 it was _very_ crashy in DOSBox.
If anyone knows enough to debug why it's crashing, let me know.
------
santaclaus
Did Epic ever release source like id software? How rad would it be to pump
Unreal through Emscripten and pull it up in the browser...
~~~
jonny_eh
The latest version is available as open-source on github apparently:
[https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-
github](https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github)
~~~
greggman
the source is available to look at. It's not "open source". See definition of
"open source"
~~~
chrisrogers
The OP asked for 'released source'
~~~
hueving
But the comment being replied to mentioned open source.
>The latest version is available as open-source
------
facorreia
I still remember the impact that Unreal had on me. Such a revolutionary game,a
real jewel.
~~~
jonny_eh
It was greatly overshadowed by its bigger hit of a sequel, Unreal Tournament.
I still fondly remember the original's remarkable technical and artistic
accomplishment though.
------
abtinf
I fondly remember sitting in an IRC channel with the devs and enthusiast fans
well before the game was released. Treated to lots of screenshots and rumors
about the game.
~~~
eswat
I miss those days where you could easily connect with the developers in a
small tribe like that. I grew up chatting with Epic/DE devs and modders in
those days and it was a terrific experience.
Now developers are either beyond reach or stick with mediums where it’s more
like a sounding board for them to talk at you than for both of you to have
serendipitous discussions.
------
xgbi
For those who (like me) don't quite like the 1/3 of screen banner asking you
to login to view the article, here is the content:
Unreal: The Backstory During the development of Tyrian, Jason, Robert allen,
Daniel Cook and I visited the Epic office in Rockville, Maryland, which at
first was a fairly small place, only a few rooms. These were used for the
growing shipping and customer service departments. By departments I mean one
person each. There was a room where Tim had his office, and a larger room that
doubled as a conference room and, in the case of our first few visits, the
room where the last phase of Jazz Jackrabbit was completed. Arjan Brussee was
present along with Cliff Bleszinski. The two had a funny "smack talk" rapport.
When I called Arjan "Ahr-yahn", he turned and said "thanks! For once someone
who can pronounce my name right!" to which Cliff responded "oh, so no
appreciation for people who've tried this whole time to get it right, ARR-
JAAN!" <collective laughter>
The next office was the whole floor of a small office building, also in
Rockville but more out of the way, rather than in an office park the building
was more surrounded by trees (I don't remember the address). The shipping
department grew into a few people, same with customer support, with a very
small supply chain room with boxes of diskettes, envelopes and various
printing label machines. But quite a few offices were devoted to development.
And Tim took the largest corner office. We figured out most of Tyrian's
development decisions in here, fed mostly by Domino's pizza and water from the
local water buffalos out of red plastic cups.
In these days Tim had something pretty cool going on. The title at the top of
the window said "Unreal". And it consisted of polygonal 3d experiments, among
the first of which was a red dragon, which started life as a flat texture that
got folded around the mesh. 3d art was created in interesting ways back then,
with UV mapping, wrapping and unwrapping and binary trees being widely used
terms. Tim also got a Silicon Graphics Indigo 2 workstation with Alias
PowerAnimator. Several developers rendered cinematic single frame artwork for
cutscenes using these systems, and you can see some examples in "Traffic
Department: 2182", which was the first Safari Software release (Epic's sister
company).
Unreal seemed neat. 3d levels sprang up, and the effort was jointly between
James Schmalz and Tim. James operated out of Waterloo, Canada, and had a small
team that eventually would turn into Digital Extremes, the folks who brought
us Warframe and Dark Sector. But from the start it looked special, as the
games garnering the most attention in 3d at the time (1995) were Doom and the
following year, Quake.
Given that I'd heard the great orchestral MOD composing of Michiel Van Den Bos
on the Epic published, Triumph developed "Age of Wonders". I asked him if he
wanted to pitch Tim on doing the music of this new effort. He said "sure!" and
both of us being at the Epic office at the time, we walked into his office and
I asked if we could write the score. Tim said "yeah" positively and that was
it. We were onboard.
Given that it would be about 3 years before the game got released, we ended up
writing a lot of music. Now, I honestly don't remember what Michiel's deal was
but to the best of my knowledge it was separate from mine. Given that
percentages were how we worked things on Tyrian, I asked if the same could be
done for Unreal and the first contracted amount was 4%. Eventually, the game
grew and grew and the amount shrunk to 2% or 2.5%, something like that. By the
time I asked for a buy out because I owed money for taxes that year, I had
pulled in around $100,000 total. So clearly the game did pretty well. At
first, Michiel and I wrote a theme that still isn't in the game, but is found
on YouTube (it was called Underworld and we worked on it jointly). Theres also
a longer 7+ minute version. The real inspiration for our stuff wasn't as much
orchestral but "fantasy". And not Tangerine Dream "Legend" stuff, more dark
and percussive and full of reverb. The artwork used for inspiration for the
team started off with two art books Tim had in his office: Roger Dean and
Rodney Matthews, depicting vast fantasy landscapes. Cliff was greatly
interested in doing levels like this but soon discovered players didn't want
to spend 15 minutes walking across a 2 foot wide impossible stone arch bridge.
As such, the score that made it in (Suspense.s3m was another theme that didn't
make it in mainly because it was used so much early on people got tired of it)
was well over 2 hours. But it wasn't just ambient themes.
Tim and James both pushed for interactivity. I was not so enthused about it at
the time but they convinced me that it would make the game more interesting.
Yep, you heard it here. I didn't come up with interactivity as a way to go
until prodded by my team leads! Hah... fancy that.
So we discussed what would be realistic. Area music, not so much, at least
with the player going back and forth across a trigger and not having the
ability to crossfade or transition at the time. But we did establish specific
points where music would turn to combat and sometimes play or stop for
cinematic moments. And that ended up being the system that eventually got
modified for Deus Ex.
The Unreal sound system (now referred to as vanilla Unreal) began life as an 8
bit system. It was awful. Using 8 bit samples for anything was noisy and
terrible in quality. While I didn't fight for interactive music, I DID fight
for 16 bit sound, which finally made it in thanks to Carlo Vogelsang. His MOD
and audio sound system was called Galaxy and it melded eventually into what
Unreal would use for it's overall sound player.
Some designers were enthusiastic about the music and what they wanted, with
Cliff being the top requester for specifics. The Skaarj attack early on and
the lights going out were his idea. "Lights go out, you hear the Skaarj for
the first time, shit yourself, and the music comes in, BAM!" I'm paraphrasing,
but not by much. Cliff established all these moments, of which there weren't
that many to be honest. I think if the game lasted about 5 years he'd have
added a lot more. Pancho Eekels was another enthusiastic designer. "The music
just keeps getting better and better. Dusk Horizon is awesome!" I remember
that from an email. He ended up using Dusk Horizon since he created Nyleve's
Falls outside the Vortex Rikers crashed prison ship at the start of the game.
Playing was wonderful. The levels were such a departure from Doom and even
Quake, with it's more full 3d but dreary brown maps. Unreal was gorgeous.
There were lens flares which caught your attention. Huge cliffsides, emerald
green temples and arena boss fights. It was always a treat to play the game.
Eventually GT Interactive was chosen as the publisher after the game was
shopped around. There was interest everywhere... Microsoft, Activision, the
usual suspects. But GT won the bid. The team split up with most of the core
dev group going to Canada for, 6 months? Can't remember. I visited once,
though I can't remember at all why as I don't remember actually writing music
or integrating it while I was there. But a bunch of designers and programmers
were all crunching away and I could tell people were ready to push it out the
door. Boy, were they ever. The game originally was to be nearly TWICE it's
original size, but half of the maps were organized into the Unreal Mission
Pack, Return to Na Pali. And we wrote more score for that as well, with the
grand total being around 3 and a half hours for both the main game and mission
pack.
Oddly enough originally I was slated to do sound design as well, but James
Schmalz stressed the sheer amount of work involved, and Dave Ewing was brought
onboard to do sound design. Eventually Dave would move into level design. But
working with the team, from James, Tim, Cliff, Mark Rein, Michiel, Pancho,
"Myscha the Sled Dog" aka T. Elliot Cannon, Shane Caudle, Cedric "Inoxx"
Fiorentino, Erik De Neve, Steve Polge (who still is at Epic along with others,
and who created the Quake Reaperbots as well as the AI in Unreal Tournament),
Carlo and Dave, was overall an excellent experience and the game of course
would go on to be the start of the Unreal engine, one of the most used engines
for games in the world. I'd say the music continues popularity as a "cult
classic". The same year, Jeremy Soule burst on to the scene with one of the
first if not the first orchestral scores to a game with Total Annihilation. So
Unreal got a bit overshadowed. But for sure, people have said and I agree that
the score is unique. Nothing had come along quite like it, and nothing has
been made quite like it since.
~~~
Olap84
Firefox reader mode did a stellar job on it
------
highCs
The Total Annihilation soundtrack by Jeremy Soule mentioned in the post can be
hear here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxAdOQtAFEs&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxAdOQtAFEs&feature=youtu.be&t=557)
------
joshschreuder
Digital Foundry did an episode of their Retro series on the Unreal Engine's
move to consoles, which is well worth a look.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8enCp651c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8enCp651c)
------
jarcoal
I remember forcing my parents to drive me to our local Apple retailer so that
I could play this game on a beige PowerMac G3. One of the first games I truly
lusted for.
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Secure email provider Tutanota launches free encrypted calendar - Down_n_Out
https://www.tutanota.com/blog/posts/free-encrypted-calendar/
======
Down_n_Out
After what seems a very long wait Tutanota now provides a free encrypted
calendar along their secure email, a most requested feature. It's still beta
for now but usable and I for one welcome it. I like the simplicity of the
Tutanota interface but a calendar was definitely something I was sometimes
missing.
|
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Slow languages battle across time - jacquesm
http://prog21.dadgum.com/52.html
======
SeoxyS
Doesn't seem like a fair comparison of the language implementations, since
Python is running on modern hardware, and BASIC isn't. It'd be more
interesting to run a BASIC implementation from 80s on a modern CPU and compare
that with Python today.
I'd be curious, also, to take an benchmark of a program written in C in 1980,
and compare it to Python today. I wouldn't be surprised if the slow Python
version ran faster, simply because of the faster CPU. This would completely
contradict the author's point.
~~~
luddypants
Yeah this article really says nothing interesting about the languages. The
BASIC timings are from 48K Atari 800 system and the Python timing are from
some unknown modern system. Not sure what the point is...
~~~
jacquesm
The point is (in case that wasn't obvious, apparently not) that the _real
world execution time_ of that program has improved more than 5 orders of
magnitude (decimal ones at that).
So stuff that we'd be waiting for for a couple of days in the 80's can be done
in a few seconds now. Of course that also means that we're generally much less
aware of where the inefficiencies are until something really grinds to a halt
but still, it's absolutely amazing to me even today that digital circuits can
run at the speeds they have and that we can afford to run pretty numerically
intensive stuff in interpreted languages and not bat an eye when the answer
pops up in under a second.
2 MHz looked pretty good back in the day.
The computer I worked with most as a kid (besides the TRS-80 and the 'Dragon')
was a BBC micro, it had an expansion bus for - no kidding - a _second_ 6502 so
you could have true parallelism. That meant you only had to wait for a day
instead of two if you were taxing the machine and had something that was
compute bound.
------
jejones3141
Guess I'll have to get my CoCo 3 back up and running so I can see how long a
BASIC09 version of the sieve takes. That would be running on a (NTSC color
burst frequency / 2) MHz 6809 rather than the Atari's 6502, and, unlike the
usual "gutter BASICs" of the era, has integer and Boolean types; also,
although you can use BASIC09 interactively, the code is compiled to an
"I-code" virtual machine language to be run.
Ironically, The Fine Article from which the BASIC times are taken is one
reviewing Action!, a compiler/IDE of sorts for a structured language for the
Atari. It has an Action! version of the sieve, and cites a run time of 1.5
seconds, rather faster than 324 seconds the Atari BASIC version takes.
Yes, Moore's Law and all that... but there was more to computing in those days
than gutter BASIC.
~~~
jacquesm
Basic09? Wow, that's the luxury version. The BASIC that came with the regular
CoCo was simply microsoft basic ported to the 6809, nothing so nice as
compilation.
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Hasselblad Ships 200 Megapixel Camera - peternorton
http://www.conceivablytech.com/7678/products/hasselblad-ships-200-megapixel-camera
======
mashmac2
Not exactly for a photo that has any motion... it combines 6 50 megapixel
shots into a single image by moving the sensor slightly for each shot.
------
petervandijck
32,000 Euros! And finally getting close to actual film resolution that is
available for less than 1000$ <http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm>
~~~
angusgr
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted given that it's essentially true
(link to the widely disliked Ken Rockwell notwithstanding.)
The reason digital has eclipsed film is a combination of rapid results, ease
of use, portability, and cost. This camera only hits 1 out of 4, with the
added restriction of requiring multiple exposures per image.
For the kind of mega-high-res "slow" photography its marketed for, it's not
really clear to me why you'd use this over medium/large format E6 film unless
you had unlimited money, or needed absolute speed in delivering results.
Of course, OTOH, for 35mm/medium-format equivalent stuff it's fairly clear
that digital (35mm or digital MF backs) has now been adopted pretty much
entirely, at least for commercial & professional photography.
~~~
petervandijck
Why is Ken Rockwell disliked? (Curious, I like his site.)
~~~
angusgr
I don't personally mind him either, I think he has written some useful things
for the photographer world (and I also like film photography as a hobby, so
confirmation bias helps there!)
I've seen him disliked on two fronts. I have some photographer friends who
just think he's outspoken & over-opinionated for who he actually is (this is
what jars me a bit about his site as well.)
I know he also gets flak from photography forum types as a gadget shill or for
being allegedly clueless because they disagree with his opinion on some
particular thing. Although I think that's mostly coming from armchair internet
photographers who sit at home and stroke their L-series lenses but never take
any actual photographs. ;)
~~~
petervandijck
"stroke their L-series lenses" priceless!
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Ask HN: Where can I get a phone number like *12345? - ManOwl
Where can I get a phone number like *12345? I want to start a service where users can send data by text and I need a memorable phone number for it. Bonus points for any implementation details about receiving that data.<p>I figure it's by email. I could implement my idea without it by using google voice or an email address, but I really want a fancy number.
======
k33l0r
Depends what country you're in. The Wikipedia article on short codes has some
general information and specific links in the External Links section:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_code>
------
sramam
Twilio seems to be in early stages of providing short codes
<http://www.twilio.com/sms/short-codes>
------
drallison
Hmm... seems so last century. Wouldn't you do better building a smartphone
App?
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Larry Ellison (2006): If an open source product gets good enough, we'll take it - bensummers
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041820061306424713
======
dasil003
Man is he a shark. Seriously, between him, Steve Jobs, and Eric Schmidt it's
no wonder a glorified sales guy like Ballmer is lost in the wilderness.
------
rajat
How is what he's saying different from what RMS has said how you should make
money with open source software? You might not like Ellison, but making money
by offering support services is perfectly legitimate with open source
software.
~~~
jonknee
> You might not like Ellison, but making money by offering support services is
> perfectly legitimate with open source software.
Agreed, but with Oracle it's more like bundling free code with very expensive
not free code and then supporting the whole package. Case in point about what
he mentioned regarding Apache.
~~~
dotBen
_with Oracle it's more like bundling free code with very expensive not free
code and then supporting the whole package_
Sure but that's called a 'solution' (sorry for the enterprise corp dev speak).
Most FOSS projects don't solve a customer's problem in their own right and
larger customers want to buy into _solutions_ not disparate projects that they
then have to put together and maintain.
These customers don't see it as X amount of free code and Y amount of 'very
expensive not free code'. They just see the sum of X+Y and a price point.
To use a completely left-field expression for this context: don't hate the
player, hate the game.
------
compay
To all those who read the title and think "OMG Oracle is so evil," by "take
it", he means "use it in compliance with its license and build business around
supporting it."
I'm not a fan of Oracle but the title given here on HN is kinda deceptive.
~~~
bensummers
The title is a direct quote from the interview, with one word, 'just', removed
to fit the 80 chars limit.
~~~
compay
And selective quoting is _never_ deceptive or equivalent to editorializing,
right? :)
------
hasenj
> So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it – a company like
> Oracle is free to take it for nothing
Doesn't that just piss you off?
This is not what RMS and the "Free Software" advocates say about making money
from free software.
What this guy is saying is, we'll take open source and embed it in our
proprietary products and we don't owe anyone anything.
~~~
loumf
You can make money from free software (according to RMS), you just can't
restrict usage and exercise of rights. It amounts to what LE is saying -- sell
the support. If Oracle includes GPL software, then they have to make the
software that embeds it GPL as well. Apache is different.
------
aphexairlines
In other words, open source developers partially enriched Oracle as a
glorified consultancy to the point where the company could buy Sun and its
patents for aggressive litigation against an open source project?
------
Tichy
Is there a problem?
------
korch
Hubris like this triggers unstoppable _nerd rage_ in me. I can't even imagine
how big of a jerk one would have to be to seriously believe they can
appropriate the work & passion of hundreds of thousands of developers from all
over the world who are _giving_ the fruits of their labors and imagination to
the world. Ellison flat out doesn't understand software and thus he deserves
to get completely steam-rolled by the open-source community, just like _we_
did to Balmer a decade ago with Linux. Oracle could not be killed fast enough
for my liking. For far too many decades Ellison has _fucked up_ the software
industry, like a parasite siphoning money off of everybody. Now you may think
that's an inflammatory remark and that Oracle really does provide "real" value
to their customers. (I've had to use Oracle for _real work_ , and there is not
a single thing I like about it.)
_Bollocks!_
Invert the question: for every dollar of "profit" diverted to Ellison, imagine
the lost opportunity cost to the rest of us—what else could those billions of
dollars have been spent on other than a shitty, obscenely overpriced database
that belongs back in 1983 and that is entrenched into the biggest Gordian-knot
of enterprise vendor-lock-in? A helluva a lot more good could have been done
in the world if Ellison was a pauper. He might have even been a good man
before he had all that money, though I doubt it.
My only question is: how best can the open-source community align itself to
cut off Oracle's air supply?
Now that Google is unabashedly marching under the evil flag of Mordor, can't
they just open up Big Table or something for enterprise customers, and snatch
the pebble from Ellison's hand? Since day one, Google's dominant strategy has
always been to take an expensive, over-engineered technology that other
megacorps sell, scale it off the charts of those selling it, and then give it
away, recouping the difference by becoming the quasi-impartial steward of the
Internet.
I don't think NoSQL yet has the traction to put two bullets in the back of
Oracle's skull and call it suicide, though as we saw with the success(and then
failure) of MySQL, the situation can change in as little as a few years.
~~~
StavrosK
I don't understand. If you substitute "take" with "use", which is basically
what he says, what's the problem? Having Oracle DBs run on Linux is good for
Linux, surely, no? Having whatever-he-was-talking-about run on Apache is a
vote of confidence for Apache, and it's probably getting some corporate
patches.
Where's the harm in that?
~~~
korch
You are absolutely right in pointing out that Linux has greatly benefited from
being able to run Oracle. But I would argue that Linux no longer needs Oracle
more than Oracle needs Linux. Linux has been mainstream for many years now,
while Oracle has lost a lot of ground to Mysql, Postgres, etc and is greatly
waning in influence. (Even though Oracle will never go away, much in the same
way IBM and mainframes will never go away).
IMHO Ellison's lack of distinction between "take" & "use" is _precisely_ the
harm. The danger is how easily that becomes the _Embrace & Extinguish_
strategy. He obviously sees no such distinction himself and imagines that he's
big and powerful enough to just take whatever he wants. He sounds like a
modern day warlord, and not in the good way. In my book, any individual who
assumes that much power, without giving back in proportion, deserves to be
shut down on general principle. How is it possible to respect one of the most
eminent business leaders on Earth when he shoots his dumb mouth off in public
like that? At best he reveals his inability to strategize & maintain
coalitions, and at worst he reveals his sociopathic hubris. Being so mighty he
would do well to learn the value of at least trying to listen to the advice of
his PR viziers, and wear a false-face of humility in public, so as to not
trigger indefensible public outrage. Which would lead to eventual Federal
investigations—anyone as big as Oracle has a graveyard of skeletons buried in
the basement.
I can forgive accidents, stupidity, and even short-term, limited corporate
greed(implicit in _The Game_ ); but never when it's backed by the treacherous
potential to cause long-term harm to much weaker open source allies. Linux,
Java, Apache and other open source software projects are not mere pawns to be
moved around the chess board upon which Oracle, Apple, Google and IBM engage
in battle.
I hope the hippie idealism of open source populism hasn't been drowned in the
ocean of money, but is instead still alive & kicking—Up Against the Wall
Motherfuckers!
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfucke...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfuckers)
~~~
StavrosK
I agree with everything you say, but this article says more about Ellison than
Linux. He just sounds pompous, arrogant and irrelevant, I don't think he
presents that big of a threat. Certainly not the way some other commenters
have taken it, some people seem to think that it means he can extinguish
whichever large OSS project he wants at whim.
------
lzw
Whereby "Take it" he says:
No. If an open source product gets good enough, we'll simply take it. Take
[the web server software] Apache: once Apache got better than our own web
server, we threw it away and took Apache. So the great thing about open source
is nobody owns it – a company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing,
include it in our products and charge for support, and that's what we'll do.
So it is not disruptive at all – you have to find places to add value. Once
open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. Keep in mind
it's not that good in most places yet. We're a big supporter of Linux. At some
point we may embed Linux in all of our products and provide support.
~~~
muhfuhkuh
He did do that, he "took" Red Hat Enterprise Linux software source code,
recompiled it, called "unbreakable Linux" and proceeded to undercut Red Hat in
support pricing.
By most accounts, it's an unmitigated disaster. I think they sold like the
first reference sales and then trickled to almost nothing. They still use the
term "unbreakable Linux" but there is no OS product marketed around it
anymore.
Sometimes people don't like the cheaper knockoffs.
~~~
lzw
That's the market at work. I'm sure Larry is not crying over this failure, and
if it had been a success it would have only succeeded by spreading linux to
more institutions and improving the linux marketplace, market size, etc.
------
j_baker
In case anyone hasn't already figured it out, this should be proof that you
shouldn't take anything Ellison says too seriously. He's like the tech crunch
of CEOs.
~~~
jonknee
Why isn't he serious here? He's not suggesting anything nefarious--he's simply
stating that when open source is good enough his company will begin to use it
(for free) and make money with it. Seems logical.
~~~
sprout
The part where he's talking out of his ass is where he claims that Oracle can
support Red Hat better than Red Hat.
I'll grant that Oracle can support Oracle running on Red Hat better, but
that's a different story.
~~~
jonknee
From what I've read about Ellison, I don't doubt he believes Oracle can
support Red Hat better than Red Hat can support Red Hat. You and I believe
otherwise, but that has nothing to do with what Larry Ellison believes.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Give in to Procrastination and Stop Prefetching (2013) [pdf] - lainon
http://people.csail.mit.edu/lenin/papers/Procrastinator-Paper-HotNets13.pdf
======
wgjordan
Abstract – Generations of computer programmers are taught to prefetch network
objects in computer science classes. In practice, prefetching can be harmful
to the user’s wallet when she is on a limited or pay-per-byte cellular data
plan. Many popular, professionally-written smartphone apps today prefetch
large amounts of network data that the typical user may never use. We present
Procrastinator, which automatically decides when to fetch each network object
that an app requests. This decision is made based on whether the user is on
Wi-Fi or cellular, how many bytes are remaining on the user’s data plan, and
whether the object is needed at the present time. Procrastinator does not
require developer effort, nor app source code, nor OS changes – it modifies
the app binary to trap specific system calls and inject custom code. Our
system can achieve as little as no savings to 4X savings in bytes transferred,
depending on the user and the app. In theory, we can achieve 17X savings, but
we need to overcome additional technical challenges.
------
rixed
I don't want to dismiss this work that I find interesting but still there is
something sad about it. Estimating the cost of a connection can hardly be done
without a change in the transport protocols, because the device do not know
the cost of a fetch just by looking at the type of network it is connected to.
Think about WiFi hotspots to cellular network. Think about data bundles. This
is way easier to address in the transport protocol.
Why can't we spend any effort fixing the root causes of anything and instead
treat every early tech as a given and spend so much effort in developing
workarounds?
~~~
toyg
_> a change in the transport protocol_
Deploying network infrastructure is the hardest and most expensive element of
networking. You want to do it as little as humanly possible, and anything that
can be retrofitted on top of already-deployed hardware is an instant winner.
Changing network protocols would likely require hardware replacement all over
the place.
~~~
marvy
Now you made me think. I agree this sounds really hard, but it's not clear
that this requires hardware changes. After all, transport protocols are
written in software. In fact, I don't think that this needs changes to the
transport protocol either.
Consider, your ISP knows most of this information. For instance, if you have 2
GB of 4G cell service and then it throttles to 3G, then the cell company must
have real time info of how much data you have left, or they would not be able
to throttle you. They will often give you an app so you can check how close
you are to the limit. The only trouble is that there is no STANDARD way to ask
them any of this.
So make one up. This is one of the few cases where network effects mostly take
care of themselves. Here is a straw man proposal. Feel free to bike shed this.
Let's say we extend DCHP so that in addition to giving you the default
gateway, it also gives you cost parameters for the current connection, or
possibly the IP address of who to ask for the cost.
If the network supports this, the OS can find out when connecting and then
provide it to apps via an API. If the network doesn't support it, the OS can
still expose the API, but fall back to heuristics such as whether you're on
cell or Wi-Fi. Of course, the user typically knows what they are paying, so
you should allow them to override the heuristics and supply real data. The
apps need not know whether the data came from the network of from heuristics
or the user.
~~~
rixed
This could be easier: your phone could query periodically your balance(s) and
figure out the price of various connections. All you need for this is telcos
providing real time balance in a standard protocol.
~~~
wutthrow
Spoken like the generation taught to not conserve data. /s
The phone itself could easily record the returned file size of all requests
within a threshold. My old Note3 has these alerts built in with separate
limits for mobile vs wifi.
------
gjjrfcbugxbhf
This should be based on whether the connection is marked as metered rather
than WiFi Vs cellar. I s sometimes need to tether one device to another - a
risky thing to do with a limited but high speed data plan and a second device
that will happily use 100s Mb of data in a few minutes.
~~~
gizzlon
Sure it can happen but I have never seen a "normal person" use tethering. My
guess is that you could pretty much ignore it if you're making something for
the general public.
~~~
jstanley
If you cripple your software just because the average user isn't a power user,
there will be no way for average users to become power users because there's
no advantage to doing so.
~~~
tunap
Reliance=revenues
Able=self-reliance
<Monop/Oligop> Corporation, Inc is not remotely interested in the latter.
------
jplayer01
This is pretty interesting. However, they mention their initial version is for
Windows Phone. Why? Completely wasted effort on an insignificant user base.
------
justinsaccount
> prefetching can be harmful to the user’s wallet when she is on a limited or
> pay-per-byte cellular data plan
Sure, but if you are not on a limited or pay-per-byte data plan, then
prefetching a large block block of data so the radio can go into low power
mode for a while is more helpful.
~~~
snakeboy
From the abstract,
> This decision is made based on whether the user is on Wi-Fi or cellular, how
> many bytes are remaining on the user’s data plan, ...
so it sounds like your scenario is already accounted for and you'd be flagged
as a "data-heavy" user, for which prefetching would be enabled.
~~~
dandyrandy
The network layer is not the application programmers problem. I am requesting
data because I want to make my application responsive. I should take into
account exactly what is a "good" amount to request or what data is most likely
to be requested anyways but alot of prefetching has to do with making the
first load faster. So if you decide to not prefetch then many applications
will force the download on the first request... Im not concerend with wifi
just if the user is connected or not. If they are connected then im trying to
make the resource fetching as efficient as possible which will scale from wifi
and up.
------
lainon
Related: [http://people.csail.mit.edu/lenin/papers/Procrastinator-
Pape...](http://people.csail.mit.edu/lenin/papers/Procrastinator-Paper-
MobiSys14.pdf)
~~~
ranit
Did you intend to post a different link here? This is the same pdf as the one
you submitted.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Sam Altman “The days are long..” Slack notifier - seanarnold
https://github.com/seanarnold/sam_altman_quotes
======
seanarnold
I created a quick Rails app after Sam Altman posted his "The days are long but
the decades are short" blog to send one of this 32 quotes to a Slack channel,
everyday.
If you haven't checked out the blog have a look here:
[http://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-
decades-...](http://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-
short)
Sam's blog really hit home to me on a number of points, so I decided that I
wanted to be reminded of what he said in a regular fashion. I set up a cron
job to notify our Slack channel every day at 9:30am just as my work day was
about to begin.
I've found it really useful to continue to be reminded about these. Hopefully
some of you will find this useful too :)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Control Bootcamp – A lecture series on optimal and modern control - code_biologist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7l8mMjYVE&list=PLMrJAkhIeNNR20Mz-VpzgfQs5zrYi085m&index=2
======
code_biologist
I found this lecture series and I'm very much enjoying it, but the presenter's
whole youtube channel is a gold mine for anyone interested in linear algebra
topics as well.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
US tells India it is mulling caps on H1Bs to deter data rules - ETHisso2017
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-india-exclusive/exclusive-us-tells-india-it-is-mulling-caps-on-h-1b-visas-to-deter-data-rules-sources-idUSKCN1TK2LG
======
nilsocket
Master Card and Visa are failing, because we have something better in place.
BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) developed by National Payments Corporation
of India.
\- Transferring money from one personal account to any new account (adding a
beneficiary account) would take more than 4 hours.
\- One needs to login each and every time to transfer money.
\- There is a chance of forgetting password and account being locked on
multiple tries.
\- Extra charges for transferring money.
All this problems were solved by BHIM new UPI (Unified Payments Interface).
\- Linking bank account with app (takes less than 1 minute)
\- Transferring money doesn't have any extra charges
\- No password, but 4 to 6 digit pin for transaction.
\- Safe, transaction can be done only from mobile which is linked with bank.
Additional benefits,
There is no need to give personal information, one can provide UPI address or
Virtual UPI address.
In Google Pay app,
If my Gmail account is xyz@gmail.com
Then my UPI would be, xyz@ok{bankname}
If my bank is SBI,Then my UPI is xyz@oksbi
Mentioning this address, anybody can make a payment or request one.
Edit: Formatting
~~~
nunez
I completely believe it. I spent two months in Hyderabad. India is WAYYY ahead
on the payments game.
Every business, no matter the size, accepted mobile payments (usually PayTM,
but I saw support for PhonePe, Zeta and others). The US is super behind on
this; very, very, very few retailers accept Square Cash, more accept PayPal,
none of them accept those payments easily. Any app that does mobile banking
requires KYC verification. For mobile payments, usually support soft KYC,
which you can easily fake, but only lasts 180 days. For anything else online
banking related, hard (in-person) KYC was required.
Every terminal supported credit/debit cards (though using international cards
was a crap-shoot, and AMEX even more so) and all of them expected Chip + PIN.
People were legitimately surprised when they saw that I had to sign. Some
didn't even ask for the signature because they weren't used to it.
Everything in India uses SMS OTP and requires an India phone number to receive
it. This was super annoying before getting a Indian SIM card, but once I did,
I realized how nice of a system this was.
There were many things about the India experience that I wasn't a fan of;
paying for stuff was definitely not one of htem.
~~~
kamaal
>>India is WAYYY ahead on the payments game.
Only if you(and the person receiving) can afford a smart phone, and an
internet connection.
The edge US has is the cards are ubiquitous, they cost nothing to carry and
use. Every one has them, and every one receiving them has the readers. Most
credit unions don't charge for checking accounts, and transaction fees are $0.
US is WAYYY ahead on the payments access game.
~~~
gingabriska
Not just that but getting an account to process international card is very
difficult in India and setting up recurring payments or SaaS very difficult.
~~~
nonamechicken
I recently tried to buy Office 365 from MS India. It just kept on failing with
my India debit card even though it accepts both debit/credit cards. The error
message was not helpful and finally came to know from customer care that it
was due to the debit card. So, it can go both ways.
------
belltaco
>The move, however, was not solely targeted at India, the source said.
>“The proposal is that any country that does data localization, then it (H-1B
visas) would be limited to about 15% of the quota
It does sound targeted at India and perhaps China because they are the largest
countries with English speaking populations and take a large percent of visas.
I doubt the European countries or most other countries will be affected by
this since they have way smaller populations and fewer people looking to work
in the US.
Anyway I am not totally opposed to restricting new H1B visas to 15% since work
based green cards are 7% max per nationality causing long delays. They just
need to make sure that people waiting for green cards close to a decade while
on H1B are not affected by this.
However, if this does happen, it will accelerate offshoring to India
tremendously and end up benefiting work immigration friendly countries like
Canada. Microsoft already has a large campus right across the border in
Vancouver, and other companies will follow suit with setting up in Canada and
India.
------
paxys
As an Indian - good! This will help the local IT industry tremendously.
~~~
ETHisso2017
I wonder, how much do Indians prefer emigration vs remote work? Assuming pay
is equal
~~~
nonamechicken
Even if pay is half or one third, I prefer India (saying as someone who was an
h1b in US for 6.5 years). India has a lot of problems-bad infrastructure,
crazy traffic, poor air, bad policing and so on. Life in India is basically
like playing a game in difficult mode while US is easy mode. But the peace of
mind that comes with not having to live in the uncertainty that h1b brings is
insanely huge. When it comes to quality of life, while things like good air
matters, the "uncertainty" seems to override pretty much everything else, at
least in my case. I guess my lizard brain sees it as "US has lot of resources
that will get you lot of food, but there are plenty of predators, so you must
go somewhere free from those, and until you do that I am going to make you
miserable". It may sound stupid, but that's how I make sense of my experience
as an h1b.
Based on my rough estimates, when I compare an h1b (earning $100k in midwest
per year and paying $1000 per month rent with a stay at home spouse and kids)
vs the same person working in India with spouse also working (both earning
₹50-70k per month), the person in India can save more or less same. And if
that person were to try in one of the good companies in big cities say
Bengaluru, they most likely will save more.
Bankruptcy due to medical bills is another major concern (one of my h1b
friends faced this, ended up wiping out all his savings he had from his 1+
year stay in US, and I think some of it went to collections).
Another issue is the one faced by h1b spouses, who are predominantly women.
With the proposed removal of h4 work authorization (h4 means spouses of h1b),
this becomes an even bigger issue considering that Indians typically have to
wait anywhere from 15-20-50-150 years for the green card. Imagine being
completely reliant on your spouse on a foreign country with absolutely no
support. I wouldn't want to be in that situation, I don't want my wife to be
in that either. One can never know when a person will change.
>Sharing her experience while interacting with the victims of domestic
violence, Peshawaria said overarching their rather harrowing lives is the fear
of social stigma that is particularly intense for the women who come from
south Asia. More often than not, they have been told stories about how a
wonderful life awaits them in America, the world's richest country, which
would be a dramatic improvement for them compared to what they experience in
India," she said.
[https://www.news18.com/news/india/indian-american-lawyer-
aut...](https://www.news18.com/news/india/indian-american-lawyer-authors-book-
on-domestic-violence-among-south-asians-in-us-1996111.html)
And reports like below makes me suspicious of how great the immigrant life is
actually. I am not saying crimes/suicides don't happen in India, but its not
that reassuring since I am not sure if its murder-suicide or if they were
targeted.
* June 2019-Iowa family of four found dead with gunshot wounds: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/iowa-family-four-f...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/iowa-family-four-found-dead-gunshot-wounds-n1018081)
* May 2019-'Why haven't they found the killer yet?': Sikh family want answers in West Chester (quadruple) shooting: [https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/08/west-cheste...](https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/08/west-chester-sikh-family-shooting-ohio/1130155001/)
* February 2019-Friends reel from suspected murder-suicide death of Sugar Land, TX, couple: [https://www.newsindiatimes.com/friends-reel-from-suspected-m...](https://www.newsindiatimes.com/friends-reel-from-suspected-murder-suicide-death-of-sugar-land-tx-couple/)
~~~
kamaal
As some one who returned from US, this is how I look at US/Outside India stay:
1\. Ensure you are rich/have lot of money.
2\. Ensure you are healthy.
Even if one doesn't apply to you, life can be hell outside India. This is to
an extent you won't even get a shoulder to cry upon. A lot of people think
they have a social structure in the US, until they have call upon on in the
times of emergencies, and realize they have none. A lot of this depends on a
major disease never touching you, and having life long 20% YoY career growth.
You have to be lucky beyond belief to fit into this definition, this is
regardless of how hard you can or are working.
The problem with this luck game is, no one is lucky enough to be lucky
forever. Most people who settle in the US are really having tons of luck going
for them in early life. That's the good news. The bad news, is if you plan to
toss a coin a billion times, and a straight 10K heads have shown up. Guess
what a straight 10K tails are coming sooner or later.
Go figure.
~~~
throwaw4324
Isn't there a burgeoning Indian community though ?
~~~
kamaal
Most of it won't come to your help. You would be hard pressed to call upon a
close friend.
In most cases its colleagues who graduate to being friends. But those
generally wither away when you change companies. Others are made at community
centers, they are mostly like frenemies.
If you plan to settle in the US, ensure you don't get poor and stay healthy.
------
nilsocket
Reason for storing financial data within the country is, because in India
corruption rate is high and no.of tax paying citizens are very less.
Indeed it is important for us to store financial data within the country to
stop non tax abiding citizens.
Money laundering is also a huge problem. Citizens were being educated, not to
take cash in large amounts, for the same reason.
Even after demonetization, government was not able to get rid of black money.
Edit: grammar
~~~
csdreamer7
How would requiring information be stored in the country prevent corruption?
Countries can already demand any business records of their citizens from a
business as a condition of doing business in that country or citizens.
The US requires that any fin business that does business with US Citizens
report to the United States government or be cut off from the US financial
system. A lot of international banks responded by closing the accounts of
Americans rather than deal with the costs of compliance.
~~~
nonamechicken
I don't know much about this topic (finance). But since I see news reports
regularly of Indians depositing black money in foreign banks, I am posting
this. I am not really sure if this 'financial data must stay in India'
requirement could solve the problem of black money.
>The total amount of black money deposited in foreign banks by Indians is
unknown. Some reports claim a total of US$1.06 - $1.4 trillions is held
illegally in Switzerland. Other reports, including those reported by the Swiss
Bankers Association and the Government of Switzerland, claim these reports are
false and fabricated, and the total amount held in all Swiss bank accounts by
citizens of India is about US$2 billion. In March 2018, it was revealed that
the amount of Indian black money currently present in Swiss and other offshore
banks is estimated to be ₹90 lakh crores or US$1500 billion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_black_money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_black_money)
Getting Switzerland to release that information isn't that easy. I have been
hearing about it for at least 5 years, may be more. Even 4 days ago, there
were reports like this: [https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-
politics/noose-...](https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-
politics/noose-tightens-on-swiss-account-holders-details-of-at-
least-50-indians-being-shared/story/356528.html)
------
mac01021
The efficacy of this as a deterrent seems to depend on the notion that India
would like its citizens to be able to obtain H1 visas from the US.
Is that the case?
~~~
NTDF9
Yes and no.
Yes, because it directly affects the business of large outsourcing companies.
It also drops remittances, one of the largest sources of dollars for India.
No, because for many decades, India has been trying to keep their smartest
citizens to build their own country. Making local companies, serving at local
hospitals, teaching at local schools and universities. They want their own
Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Adobe instead of Indian citizens working
in the US for US corporations. They were just unsuccessful for so many years
because countries like US drained the well-educated so much.
Ultimately, this will be a great deal for India. India doesn't want
remittances. They want their own companies to make software that the world
wants to buy.
~~~
darklajid
Help me understand the first part. Why do you need a US visa (well, THAT visa
- I understand a 'fly over for a meeting' visiting visa) as an outsourcing
company?
What I mean is: How are the outsourcing companies affected by this?
~~~
NTDF9
Its a business visa to allow exchange of ideas quicker, better.
Imagine GE, a company with a pool of power electronics talent in the US, wants
to build specialized power plants for the Indian market. They can't do it
remotely from the US. They will fly their US employees to India to study the
market, understand rules and constraints, design and consult local Indian
teams. The US employees need to stay there for years to build those things.
All that requires India to give US citizens the visa to work for such a long
time. And India does give that. Business visas in India are easy to get.
Reverse the roles and if an Indian company wants to use their own pool of
talent to do business in the US, H-1b are the only ones available for long
term business related work, which got totally distorted by politics over the
years.
[https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-
resident/...](https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-
resident/intro-us-business-visas/)
~~~
nunez
Then why doesn't India restrict inflow of US citizens in return?
------
mailmrg
if free flow of data across countries helps in privacy then HIPAA should not
have rule that healthcare data of US citizens need not be stored only in US.
Will USGOV relax that norm ? the Indian govt rules are about storing financial
data within the country and not gmail data.
~~~
0xab
There's so much wrong with this.
HIPAA doesn't talk about US citizens or distinguish different types of records
based on any properties of the people that those records cover. The words
citizen do not appear in HIPAA or HITECH. HIPAA applies to any records by
covered entities, which is what it discusses, regardless of who those records
refer to.
There is no requirement in HIPAA that PII must be stored in the US. This is
such basic info it's in the HIPAA FAQ from HHS [https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-
professionals/special-topics/c...](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-
professionals/special-topics/cloud-computing/index.html). Question 9 is
unequivocal, you can store data outside of the US, but you need to think about
any dangers or risks associated with this. Which is totally logical.
There are lots of reasons to have issues with the US. But not what you're
talking about.
------
bigbigs
lol. If you don't change your data rules, we'll shoot ourselves in the foot by
removing the cheap labor that we've become addicted to.
~~~
jimmaswell
It would be a good thing in the long term. Too many programming jobs are taken
up by things like this, especially jobs for fresh college grads. I wouldn't
mind harsh limitations on all software offshoring/worker importing in general.
~~~
addicted
Right, because college grads in STEM fields are just really struggling to get
good high paying jobs right now.
~~~
sadris
RAND corporation found that the H1B program reduced tech worker's salary by
9%.
------
cobbb
The Problem is TRADE not H1B visas . ...
Simple example every Enterprise level company has IT department in US. the CTO
or the VP of the company wants to save money by going to offshore business
model ... so how does this work, let say an infrastructure IT support in
company consists of ( storage, database, network , System admins etc say about
150 employees) then a new CTO or VP of IT comes in and he decides to go for
offshore model then enters the cheap low tech incompetent service companies
from Asia bids these projects here .. let say 200 Million dollars for 5 years
24/7 support .. so these Body shopping company decides to have about 60
employees offshore and 10 employees onshore here in USA using H1b visa ... now
the CTO of the company feels happy for saving money and starts firing ..sorry
(Let go) of those 150 citizens..... this happens in every company across this
country i know because I've seen it All..
now those employees who given their flesh and blood to those projects over
years gets emotionally raged...at the time of KT( knowledge transfer) to those
H1B onshore slaves.. saying you guys are taking our jobs away. and all that
BS. BUT they forget One big Logic/common sense..that they lost their jobs
because satanic .. crooked CTO's or VP of IT of their own company and due to
the company it self .... not because immigrant came over H1B visa..
Let say for the argument of emotional mob .. that the H1b is completely
removed by some revolution...do you really think the jobs will come back
hahaha... those body-shopping companies will be more happy because that will
give them a chance to make more money.. they will make 100% offshore and then
they wont even keep those 10 h1b resources onshore.. they will make a deal
with those crooked CTOs to operate everything from offshore ...so the
emotional mob will be still unemployed even after H1B is removed ..
the solution is the current administration should bring up the trade barriers
a Bill to stop offshore business model completely which they wont do since
this country is built and run by Rich CEOs.......
------
gopkarthik
_Pompeo said the Trump administration would push for free flow of data across
borders, not just to help U.S. companies but also to secure consumers’
privacy._
How does 'free flow of data across borders' help secure consumers' privacy?
Setting caps on H1Bs is the US governments prerogative though this will have
adverse impact on US-India relationship.
~~~
NTDF9
> How does 'free flow of data across borders' help secure consumers' privacy?
This is not about consumer privacy. This is about corporate profit. Visa,
Mastercard and other US banks want to maintain fewer datacenters around the
world. They already have them in the US (because US law) and they possibly
also feed that data to US govt.
With such localization laws, US corporations are having to invest in other
countries. They are lobbying to bully other countries for profit and this
administration is ready to support profits at any cost.
~~~
paxys
Maintaining foreign data centers isn't really an issue for large companies.
All cloud providers already support various data residency and compliance
requirements. Companies are happy to follow these laws if it means more
business for them.
It is the US government which has a problem because it wants direct access to
data from foreign countries & corporations. In fact Microsoft was involved in
a very long legal battle with them over it -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_States).
------
fourier_mode
Instead of worrying about location of the servers, the real point should be
which government should be in control of the data. Even if the data is located
in India under US government pressure on a company, say for some
investigation, the US would still be access the data; the companies can still
sell the data to other US-based companies.
Or, is location being used metaphorically over here?
~~~
devoply
Perhaps. But you still have oversight and physical access. You could bug the
servers. You could monitor their network and so on. Your courts could create
orders against the data on your servers. Also it's very dangerous as we have
seen to have all your citizen's data exposed as it could allow like a country
to better socially engineer your public and determine outcomes of elections.
I would double down and say if you do that, I will ban all H1Bs from leaving
the country. Let's see how Trump and Silicon Valley feels about that.
~~~
fourier_mode
> You could bug the servers. You could monitor their network and so ...
> determine outcomes of elections
This is again irrespective of the server's locations.
------
writepub
More Americans travel to India on business than Indians seeking H1-Bs.
If the US wants to limit work visas to Indians, India should limit any work
based travel of Americans to India.
~~~
sethherr
This is a joke? You realize work visas are different from travel visas, right?
------
scarejunba
Bit of an empty threat. Probably hurts America more than India.
------
devoply
If you don't let us steal all your user data, we won't brain drain your
country. Sounds like a good deal for India other than the remittances sent
back by citizens.
~~~
pixelrevision
This was pretty much how I read it.
------
petre
This is quite a silly threat as it would reduce brain drain. Cool, go ahead,
keep smart Indians in India while also not spying on Indian citizens because
their data is also kept in India. Win-win for India.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Trump to Order China's ByteDance to Sell TikTok U.S. Operations - cochne
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/trump-to-order-china-s-bytedance-to-sell-tiktok-u-s-operations-kdaib6eb
======
Firebrand
Apparently Microsoft is in talks to purchase TikTok:
[https://twitter.com/cgasparino/status/1289254703705075722](https://twitter.com/cgasparino/status/1289254703705075722)
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Web-based SVG Editor - jamesbritt
http://svg-edit.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/editor/svg-editor.html
======
stackTrase
Bookmarked. This is really useful.
------
sidcool
Awesome tool, bookmarked.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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V lang source code is released - aredirect
https://github.com/vlang/v<p>(I posted as Text because somehow github links are recognized as `dead links` on HN)
======
gus_massa
The GitHub link has been posted a few times, but it never got traction:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20248950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20248950)
(4 points, 8 hours ago, 0 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990)
(6 points, 1 minute after your post, 0 comments)
EDIT: The second link now has (35 points, 8 comments, still 1 minute after
your post)
------
inetsee
I looked at the examples and saw ":=" as the assignment operator. That brought
back memories of my first Algol programming class back in 1969.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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How we built the prototype for Split by GroupMe in a weekend using Balanced - mahmoudimus
http://blog.groupme.com/post/44797051373/how-we-built-the-prototype-for-split-by-groupme-in-a
======
Smudge
> Not a programmer? It’s cool. Be good at something. If you’re awesome at
> making pitch decks for your boss, spend a weekend making a killer pitch deck
> about your own idea.
This is great advice. While it's important to push your limits and learn new
skills -- hacker culture often looks very favorably on jacks-of-all-trades, or
"learning to build x" with no prior experience -- it's also important to know
exactly what you can bring to the table, and then deliver quality work, in
whatever it is you do best.
------
zwieback
These kinds of things are fun to read but I'd love to see more posts along the
lines of "how we built x in y years".
~~~
ryanglasgow
That would be the summation of their blog posts. It's easier to search for and
access blog posts that are around specific topics as opposed to longwinded
novels covering several processes.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Microsoft Builds up Health IT Portfolio, Waits for Market to Materialize - ltimmerman
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/02/26/microsoft-fleshes-out-health-it-portfolio-waits-and-waits-for-market-to-materialize/
======
altano
Here's a cool video made by some nerds in this group:
[https://tjackson.blob.core.windows.net/videos/GymOfTheFuture...](https://tjackson.blob.core.windows.net/videos/GymOfTheFuture_Walkthrough_720p_1600kbps.wmv)
Linked from this blog:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/familyhealthguy/archive/2010/02/22/mag...](http://blogs.msdn.com/familyhealthguy/archive/2010/02/22/magic.aspx)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Remote Monitoring of Network Connections with Arduino and LEDs - legind
http://www.inputoutput.io/remote-monitoring-network-connections-arduino-leds/
======
creeble
Just wondering if this guy got paid to do this. Not that I dislike fun, but...
I'm glad it wasn't my dime.
|
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ICANN extracts $20m signing fee for $1bn dot-com price increases - LinuxBender
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/07/icann_verisign_fees/
======
Tepix
This appears to be a fierce competition between ICANN, the IOC, and the
reigning corruption champion: FIFA.
~~~
Balanceinfinity
That's funny.
~~~
killjoywashere
It's also one of the subjects in _The Dictator 's Handbook_, an excellent
layman's read on political economics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair
Smith.
[https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-
Po...](https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-
Politics/dp/1610391845)
If you want the hardcore game theory version, check out _The Logic of
Political Survival_ by the same authors:
[https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita...](https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita_2003_logic.pdf)
------
xemoka
All this BS with ICANN, what other options are out there to replace them? Some
decentralised solution would be great, I guess Namecoin is trying...
What other options are there that you're aware of?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root)
~~~
Mathnerd314
OpenNIC looks like the easiest replacement, they mention some other TLDs
they're peered with on their front page such as emerDNS which is
decentralized.
That doesn't work for anyone who wants their site accessible to the public
though, since it won't resolve. Maybe once a few ISPs switch and Google,
OpenDNS etc. change their resolvers it'll be a possibility.
~~~
davidu
OpenNIC is no different than ICANN aside from being a failure. It just appears
to be better since it uses a talk track that's attractive, but structurally,
it's probably even worse than ICANN.
------
LatteLazy
The ICANN ITSELF got 20m. How many senior members will, in totally unrelated
transactions, suddenly find they can buy yachts or pay off mortgages they
previously couldn't in the next 12 months?
~~~
unapologetic
Nah, they just change the rules then immediately jump into companies built
specifically to take advantage of the rule changes.
See the theft of dot org or the opening of TLDs.
------
gen3
So, the price caps on .com have been released too? Isn’t this the same as what
happened to .org? When will we hear that .net is ballooning too?
What a scam.
~~~
giancarlostoro
Honestly, I will just not renew, my domains aren't that special. I'll rather
have 1 domain and everything else be a subdomain.
~~~
gen3
I’m defiantly going to drop down. Right now I have a personal domain, my
parents domain and a few other. High schooler me didn’t realize what I was
signing myself up for when I started using a personal domain.
~~~
troquerre
You can also use alternative root zone projects like Handshake.org. Most
people wouldn't be able to resolve it by default but if it's just for personal
use it's trivial to set up a resolver for friends and family.
------
download13
Oh look capital is eating another public service who'd've thunk
~~~
unapologetic
We never bothered to properly build ICANN as a lasting public service. This is
what happens.
------
Can_Not
What TLDs should be looked at that are in the nearly $10~ or less range and
are not likely to rate hike? I hate the idea of investing $10/year in a
personal use domain then getting a surprise $50 bill X years later.
------
AWildC182
This is corruption in it's purest form, but I feel like there might be a
silver lining here. If they increase prices on domains the scummy domain name
squatters will get burned and have to dump a good chunk of their inventory
when renewal comes up. They're basically taking the margin that the scalpers
were exploiting.
~~~
echelon
Legitimate players lose out as well. But you're correct that this hurts the
squatters more, as they're the ones subject to linear multiple cost increases.
------
BitwiseFool
The rent seeking has begun in earnest.
~~~
AmericanChopper
I can’t see how this is rent seeking. .com domains are a finite and scarce
resource, they should be increasing in price over time. The registration costs
are also a tiny fraction of what any desirable domain name would sell for on
the secondary market. I don’t think you can describe selling something for
well below the equilibrium price as rent seeking.
I’m also not sure it’s even a bad thing to have registration costs increasing.
DNS is a highly dysfunctional system, especially for the popular TLDs. If you
want an alternative system to take its place, then rising registration costs
will only increase the demand for that.
~~~
mundo
Since you're getting downvoted for an honest question, I'll explain: you're
confusing the cost of _owning_ a domain with the cost of _registering_ a
domain. ICANN and Verisign don't own nor sell domain names, they just perform
administrative functions relating to owning and selling them. The gist of this
article is that Verisign gave ICANN a kickback to get the right to charge more
money without adding more value, which is pretty much what "rent-seeking"
means.
------
vxNsr
So let's get the players straight:
In 2014 the Obama Admin decided to cede control of ICANN.
ICANN is run like a classic Italian mafia org, with corruption at every level
and zero accountability.
This year the Trump Admin rubber stamped a price increase on .com because....
reasons?
The price of domains should trend down. not up. This is a classic case of
regulation being abused by those in power to give each other a bonus.
Running a global address book has gotten cheaper and easier with automation
and yet we're allowing these orgs to just increase prices willynilly instead
of trying to make internet hosting more accessible.
~~~
frandroid
> The price of domains should trend down.
Their value doesn't, so why should renewals go down?* It's not like
registration is related to anything like cost of operation...
*: I'm not in favour of this, but living in a capitalist market, I'm surprised things haven't gotten much worse, e.g. a sliding scale cost for domains, so Amazon would have to pay $50,000,000/year for its domain, for example.
~~~
freehunter
I was actually thinking about this the other day. Domains are too easy to get,
and too cheap to hold on to. I like being able to go to Namecheap and buy a
domain name for under $10... what I _don 't_ like is the hours or days I spend
trying to find a domain name that isn't already taken and parked. And even if
you paid $3k for that parked domain, it might now have _years_ of history with
search engines as a parked domain that you have to fight against.
If ICANN really wants more money, they'd increase the renewal fee for parked
domains every year until it's actually put into use.
~~~
gruez
>If ICANN really wants more money, they'd increase the renewal fee for parked
domains every year until it's actually put into use.
and how do you differentiate a parked domain from a non-parked domain?
~~~
davchana
Yeah, people always use domains for non-website purposes, like email etc with
nothing coming up if browsed. Also, with no dns on main except cnames, which
can not be easily found as easily mx or txt records can be seen on a gived
direct domain.
~~~
freehunter
That’s not really a parked domain then is it? You know when you’ve hit a
parked domain when it loads a page covered in ads that says “buy this domain
for $30,000” at the top.
------
salawat
I never understood the fascination with domain names anyway.
I actually rather liked just memorizing IP's. I thought it had a nice parity
with phone numbers, which we were all kind of used to anyway.
The whole "buy a name" thing struck me as little more than a land grab for
speculators anyway. You already have a unique identifier to the overall
network... Just use it!
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Going Down the Pipes (1996) - onemind
https://www.topic.com/going-down-the-pipes
======
jeffrallen
Reminds me of Pushing Tin, a 1999 movie. Wonder if they are related?
eta: Wikipedia says yes, so it must be true.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Tin#cite_ref-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Tin#cite_ref-1)
~~~
dreamcompiler
The preface to the article says exactly that.
|
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Interplanetary superhighway - mattknox
https://medium.com/looking-up/8e3e734346ed
======
ColinWright
It's really nice to see a write-up of the story behind this. The bare facts
have been submitted many times[0][1][2][3][4], although never provoked
discussion. It's a fascinating idea, and the math and physics are subtle and
intriguing.
Great story.
One previous comment[5]:
It's not news, but the potential for using it is growing.
By using fuzzy orbits and the edge of chaotic regions, it's
becoming possible to do large scale movements in the Solar
system with very little expenditure of fuel. As with the
time/space computing trade-off, this is a time/fuel trade-
off -- the movements take a lot longer to achieve.
-- RiderOfGiraffes[6]
Finally, there's an excellent write-up in Discovery[7].
[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482985)
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3414311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3414311)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3889406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3889406)
[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213525)
[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6755954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6755954)
[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482987)
[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RiderOfGiraffes](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RiderOfGiraffes)
[7]
[http://discovermagazine.com/1994/sep/gravitysrim419](http://discovermagazine.com/1994/sep/gravitysrim419)
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Interactive NYT Census Map - kingkawn
http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer?hp?hp
======
wlievens
Nicely done. Too bad it's in Flash, I would have loved to check out the WMS
service behind it.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN:What are your daily reading sources? - karthiksk2012
Where do you read everyday about things you are interested in . Tech, startups etc?
======
kiloreux
I have hacker news and the /r/programming /r/cpp also /r/netsec subreddits,
That's all.
------
a3n
HN, NYT, Python Weekly newsletter, Data Science Weekly newsletter.
|
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United Airlines CEO considers United a Tech Company with Wings - raheemm
http://www.itleaderstoday.com/management-and-data-culture-technology-insights-from-jeff-smisek/
======
phlux
They should focus on being a customer service company with wings.
United sucks.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Help! What should I call myself? - title_question
I work with a number of clients developing social websites. I code with PHP and Python, Javascript and CSS. I've been known to design. I project manage from time to time. I have a computer science degree. I make $80k a year and could make more but prefer the lifestyle.<p>When people ask me what I do, I say, "the internet." When IT people ask me what I do, I say "web application developer." When people that work on the web ask me, I say "social media."<p>What should I call myself? <p>I hate when people ask if I'm a "web designer." Not to hate on designers, they're priceless, it's just not what I do. Technically I run my own business, but I'm more consultant than entrepreneur. I want a title that speaks to the masses, with the same clarity as "computer programmer" but reflective of my decidedly web and social media orientation. <p>Help?
======
Shooter
I always liked the name "Jake"...?
If you can also smooth talk people out of their passwords, you could call
yourself a "Social Engineer."
------
rms
web programmer?
I don't think there is a title out there that will be widely understood and
descriptive. Good luck, though.
------
jpalacio486
social web media programmer. (i think).
~~~
title_question
That's absurd.
~~~
jpalacio486
i know. its meant to be a joke.
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A serious security vulnerability has been found in 7-Zip - doener
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-serious-security-vulnerability-has-been-found-in-7-zip/
======
stephengillie
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16985460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16985460)
------
kbaker
Release notes for version 18.05, 2018-04-30 include:
> CVE-2018-10115 - Incorrect initialization logic of RAR decoder objects in
> 7-Zip 18.03 and before can lead to usage of uninitialized memory, allowing
> remote attackers to cause a denial of service (segmentation fault) or
> execute arbitrary code via a crafted RAR archive.
Excellent article from the bug discoverer here:
[https://landave.io/2018/05/7-zip-from-uninitialized-
memory-t...](https://landave.io/2018/05/7-zip-from-uninitialized-memory-to-
remote-code-execution/)
Some good discussion in the linked HN discussion from a couple of days ago.
~~~
hartator
Doesn’t seem that big, if you open a RAR from a shaddy source, I would expect
to get malwares anyway.
~~~
FRex
I would not. It's not reasonable that a pure data viewer runs something. This
is like saying viewing a script in notepad can run it and is expected to
infect you. And for better or worse antiviruses use 7z dll to scan archives
too.
~~~
fjsolwmv
Remember when Microsoft Outlook used to automatically execute programs sent to
you in email?
~~~
FRex
I'm not that old but I'd bet that it wasn't received well and caused
infections and that's why it 'used to' and doesn't anymore.
A similar thing is with ldd (I don't know if this still works and can't search
or check right now):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902958)
------
shakencrew
previously discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16985460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16985460)
------
komali2
Haha, that sourceforge 7zip "trailer" at the end was great. I wonder if anyone
actually found that useful? Like, if they found the video, I assume they could
have found and installed 7zip...
~~~
fjsolwmv
Websites put videos on pages because watcing a video increases tome on page,
and time-on-page metrics that feed into automated advertising spend. The
website needs nothing from the video besides you spending time playing it.
------
EODjugornot
This is some real news. I use 7-Zip quite often. Being relatively new to the
infosec community, I find it to be fun, and a learning challenge to keep up
with any new exploits!
~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Yes, too true; old infosecers resemble Carrie Nation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Nation).
------
zython
Isn't this old news or am I missing something ?
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Why we need another domain registrar - sammcd
http://nameptr.com/2010/12/04/why-we-need-another-domain-registrar.html
======
kaerast
I want a registrar to sell domains, not be a platform for marketing other
services to me. I want one registrar which will sell me any tld, many of the
nice-looking registrars don't support .uk or .dk domains. I want there to be a
well-documented API for setting up dns, and this may be a partnership with
Zerigo. I want their website to not make me think. I want to have sub-accounts
for my clients to handle their own domains, white-labeled if possible. I want
one-click setups to point to Google Apps, Heroku, etc. And whilst I'll pay a
premium for this, I don't want it to be so expensive I can't afford it.
~~~
sammcd
This is very much the direction I am trying to go. Of course I will be
releasing as early possible. But many of the things you mentioned are on my
radar, except for the dns api. I'll have to check out Zerigo.
I am starting out as an Enom Reseller. It looks like I should be able to do
.uk domains day one.
------
sammcd
This is an announcement of my current project. I have a very good idea of what
I want in a domain registrar, but I would love to hear what other people want.
Please let me know if, if you have the time.
|
{
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}
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Show HN: Design your own thin wallet - devinmontgomery
http://fabnik.com/products/bookbinder-thin-wallet-kit
======
fragmede
It's not the most user-friendly design - I found myself start at the bottom of
the page where the form was, and then scrolling up to the
pictures/descriptions, and then back down to the form, and then back up again
to the next section.
~~~
devinmontgomery
Thanks - this is absolutely true. We're working on a javascript configurator
so customers can better visualize what they're building. And see it all
without scrolling. :)
------
devinmontgomery
For those interested, we did an Instructables "launch" a couple weeks ago:
[http://www.instructables.com/id/Custom-Thin-Wallet-
Kit/](http://www.instructables.com/id/Custom-Thin-Wallet-Kit/). Having great
instructions for the kit was really important to us, so it seemed like a good
fit. We got a very warm welcome and some incredibly useful feedback.
------
bnejad
This is awesome. I've been on the lookout for a thin wallet and this checks
all the boxes in addition to it being very reasonably priced.
Just ordered brown/brown, nice work guys.
~~~
devinmontgomery
Awesome. Thank you! We'd be really interested to hear how making the kit goes.
~~~
bnejad
Sure thing, can't wait to get it. Whats the time frame looking like for order
delivery? No rush, just curious.
~~~
devinmontgomery
Your kit will ship tomorrow (well, today - Wednesday), so you should have it
by the weekend!
~~~
bnejad
I don't know if you're still checking out this thread, but my girlfriend and I
put it together.
Packaging is good, form factor is slick. The instructions were spot on and all
the build materials seemed good. My biggest complaint is honestly the leather
- its surprisingly lightweight and doesn't really give off the "premium" vibe.
For instance I've got the apple leather case on my iphone6+ and it has a
totally different feel despite being nearly the same thickness.
Just want to clarify I liked the kit and would recommend it but I figured I'd
give you my whole honest opinion.
------
ianseyler
How much for international shipping? I'm in Canada.
~~~
devinmontgomery
Thanks for the interest! It's $5.
------
S33V
This is a really awesome product, I'm going to see if I can make some room to
get one. Great job
|
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Machine learning: the new competitive advantage - uyoakaoma
https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/04/survey-says-machine-learning-happening-now-and-paying-off?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-May-GCP-newsletter-en
======
uyoakaoma
Link to the pdf [https://lp.google-
mkto.com/rs/248-TPC-286/images/MIT_TechRev...](https://lp.google-
mkto.com/rs/248-TPC-286/images/MIT_TechReview_MachineLearning.pdf)
|
{
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Is it possible for a novice to build their own smartphone? - patientplatypus
Hey guys-<p>I was wondering if anyone had any guides for a novice to build their own smartphone. I used to build my own desktop computers as a kid and I'm willing to do some basic soldering. I just am looking for some instructable guides with part lists and what hooks up to what. Seems like a fun side project that shouldn't be too difficult considering where the tech is at these days.<p>Thanks!
======
NoOn3
I think it's possible. You can see project like
Openmoko([http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page))
and neo900([https://neo900.org/](https://neo900.org/)). It's open source and
allow you to download
schematics([http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/downloads/](http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/downloads/))
~~~
NoOn3
But it's not so easy. You need to know simple electronics and communications
protocols([https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/37814/usart-...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/37814/usart-
uart-rs232-usb-spi-i2c-ttl-etc-what-are-all-of-these-and-how-do-th)). Read
chips datasheet and connect it as indicated there.
You need to know some electronic design automation software(like Kicad), to
draw schematics and layout. Order board somewhere like
[https://oshpark.com/](https://oshpark.com/) soldered or solder it yourself.
Put it all together with screen and hull. And maybe write some software:-)
~~~
NoOn3
Or you can see more easy project like
KiteBoard([http://www.kiteboard.io/](http://www.kiteboard.io/)) or search
google for ArduinoPhone or RasspberyPi phone.
|
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Ask HN: What are these cartoons called? - shashanoid
https://www.hioscar.com/
======
slater
[https://twitter.com/humansofflat](https://twitter.com/humansofflat) ?
|
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Linux is 25 today - SpaceInvader
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA%5B1-25%5D
======
astrodust
Being able to install a UNIX-type operating system on my personal computer,
one that was _free_ , was a life-changing experience for me.
At the time there were prohibitively expensive UNIX operating systems on the
market, many of which required even more expensive proprietary hardware to run
on, and then you'd have to fork out even _more_ money for a compiler.
An enormous thanks to Linus and the GNU team for changing all of that and
making this accessible to pretty much anyone crazy enough to try and install
it on their computer.
~~~
jethro_tell
You wonder what the innovation curve looks like when people are interested
then can't afford the 20k per year for unix4. Someone probably would have
gotten there (GUN/hurd is only 20 years away, probably because of many people
working on linux instead). A lot of the innovation in tech is a result of
tinkering or being able to run on a low cost platform to make the margins
pencil out. This wasn't much of an option under the commercial OSs that
existed before Linus started.
------
karma_vaccum123
Linux is amazing! From 86% of the world's smartphones to pretty much all of
the top500 supercomputers to millions of Chromebooks in schools to tens of
millions of critical servers to umpteen embedded uses I've never even heard
of!
Linus must be considered one of the greatest project managers ever
(seriously!)...results don't lie. His manner is almost identical to Leslie
Groves, who managed both the construction of the Pentagon and then the
Manhattan Project (greatest engineering project in history). Some tasks seem
to demand people who don't need to be liked.
It is just incredible that we can use something as awesome as Linux in a free
and open manner.
Thanks Linus! I don't care if you're a jerk, you deliver like a freaking boss!
~~~
mikekchar
Most people don't remember (or weren't around to see) what it was like before
Linux. IMHO Linus's biggest contribution to the world was the modern open
source development methodology.
In my 4th year at university I did a project on Mach and was very excited to
continue working with it through the HURD. At the time, getting up to date
source code for the HURD required sending an email to the team and requesting
it. I dutifully did so and was greeted with a reply asking for my CV. I sent
it in (as bare as you might imagine it would be as a university student) and
was denied access since they only wanted experienced kernel developers to work
on the project. I've often regretted not saving that email.
But this is the way it was back then. You waited until something was released
to play with it, or you contacted the team to see if they would grant you
access to the latest development code.
Linus changed all that by giving ubiquitous access to the code and taking
patches from _anyone_. It was a huge revelation. Keep in mind that this
coincided with more open access to the internet, so his attitude was
facilitated by the fact that you didn't need to rely on UUCP to slowly
distribute code. More and more, people had access to FTP (and soon the web).
The reason for Linux's success, IMHO, is down to that. _Everyone_ flocked to
Linux because it was obviously unencumbered by the BSD legal issues and Linus
would look at any patch coming his way, regardless of who sent it. This is now
de rigour -- to the point where I'm sure the vast majority of people using
free software today believe that it's always been that way.
For me, RMS invented the concept of free software. Linus showed how to
actually make it work. There were other good projects at the time, but from my
perspective nothing came close to Linux.
~~~
notaplumber
> Linus's biggest contribution to the world was the modern open source
> development methodology.
OpenBSD made a pretty big contribution as well.
[http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-
paper.pdf](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-paper.pdf)
[http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-
slides.pdf](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-slides.pdf)
~~~
mikekchar
It's a fair point. I often wonder what would have happened without the
potential BSD lawsuits hanging over everything. I remember at the time being
torn between installing Linux on my box or BSD. When mmap was finally
implemented on Linux, I decided (rather unhappily IIRC) to go with it thinking
it was the "safer" choice.
One thing to keep in mind, though, wrt OpenBSD is that by the time it arrived
on the scene, Linux was well and truly established. The better comparison is
NetBSD, which showed up in 1993, but even then Linux was in the fabled 0.99
version (and rapidly running out of letters). It was really Linus's actions
before that time that cemented Linux as a legitimate contender -- he had
attracted a really large number of very talented programmers. NetBSD, if
memory serves, was suffering from a fair amount of internal infighting which
eventually ended up with Theo de Raadt being ousted.
------
matt_wulfeck
Linux and Linus are amazing, but let's give our props to another humongous
catalyst to the open-source, free software movement: Stallman and gcc.
RMS and his grudge against the brain drain at MIT single-handedly changed the
free software movement forever.
~~~
thearn4
> brain drain at MIT
I haven't really heard about this part of his motivation. What was going on at
MIT that made him feel that there was a brain drain in progress?
~~~
Mikeb85
[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html)
> In 1981, the spin-off company Symbolics had hired away nearly all of the
> hackers from the AI Lab, and the depopulated community was unable to
> maintain itself.
------
stonogo
Ah, google groups, the only reliable way to download more than a megabyte of
data to render 1kb of text.
Somewhere, I still have a copy of this message, from when it appeared in my
newsreader. It would be an interesting exercise in archaeology to see if
modern linux has the tools to mount that old filesystem... guess the rest of
today's productivity will have to take a back seat.
~~~
brs
Well, another five years until it shows up on
[http://olduse.net/](http://olduse.net/) (which is worth a nostalgic browse if
you haven't tried it)
------
TheLarch
I'm not usually nostalgic but my circa 1994 Slackware CD distro is special.
Incidentally I can't overemphasize how far basic sysadmin skills will get you.
~~~
rconti
Ah, memories of my Slackware (kernel 1.2.8) CD set. Whatever version of LILO
it shipped with munged the lilo.conf, and hence MBR, every time you ran it.
Trial by fire. Good times.
~~~
Florin_Andrei
I still remember looking at the screen showing "LIL" at the top. Damn it, what
else went wrong this time around?
~~~
parshimers
Ah, very fond memories indeed. See also: XFree86.conf .
~~~
TheLarch
So much time. _So much time._
------
billforsternz
It's really amusing to see Linus in humble, I'm not really worthy, it's just a
hobby, it might be interesting to someone perhaps, etc. mode.
------
tokenizerrr
> I don't want to be on the machine when someone is spawning >64 processes,
> though.
Ha.
------
itgoon
Huh. What am I going to do with this old 386. This article says this..."Linux"
thing will work on it.
Damn. That's a lot of floppies.
Well, I'll be damned. It works! Let's see if I can't get this Apache web
server (what silly names! Tee hee!) to go.
Ha! That works better than (whatever I was using - I forget).
(still using it)
------
cmdrfred
Been a full time Linux user for over a year now. Windows 10 pushed me off the
Microsoft treadmill. The future is Linux, everything else will be an
historical oddity.
~~~
electricEmu
I don't see a world benefited by a monoculture operating system anymore than I
see it happening.
~~~
sounds
This is not a monoculture!
\- Theo de Raadt
:)
------
eloy
NO! It is GNU/Lin.. oh wait...
Congrats Torvalds, thanks for changing the world!
------
gghh
Since git was born in 2005, the git repository has not even half of Linux'
history.
~~~
Maken
They seem to plan to port the early source control history into git, but it
seems to be a WIT
[https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/1da177e4c3f41524e88...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2)
~~~
anarazel
There's
[https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/history/history...](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/history/history.git/)
which you can graft to happen before that commit. Or just look at separately
if you're lazy ;)
------
elliotec
I love all the parentheses (including nested parentheses!) in that
introduction post from Linus, and how he's careful to make it clear that it's
just a hobby and not professional.
~~~
w8rbt
He probably had a few Lisp classes in college.
------
loafoe
Remember getting Linux root and boot diskette images via FTP mail
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTPmail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTPmail))
and downloading them using UUCP on a "superfast" 9600 baud dialup connection.
Thx Linus!
------
crudbug
IBM backing Linux was the tipping point.
~~~
yolesaber
I remember when they showed commercials during the Super Bowl about Linux. My
12-year-old geek self couldn't believe it! I had a bunch of older people at my
parent's party asking me about Linux. Felt cool to be able to show off my home
built computer running slackware to a bunch of adults who often chastised me
for being in the basement too much :)
------
EdSharkey
Most big and fancy things like Linux start out humble and pokey. Linux
inspires me to do great things!!
------
aidos
Can someone explain how there's a post in the middle of this from before it
all started?
"Thanks for creating Linux." 24/06/2011 John
~~~
justinsaccount
From before? That was posted 5 years ago on the 20th anniversary.
~~~
aidos
Ahhhhhhh oops. Dates are hard!:-)
------
Whostasay
Link for this article goes off to some unrelated page (it's not related to
Linux is 25, it's related to MINIX).
~~~
stockerta
Its the original post in which Linus introduced his minix clone linux.
------
jff
> Most of these seem possible (the tty structure already has stubs for window
> size), except maybe for the user-mode filesystems
And thus Linus dug a hole out of which Linux has only recently begun to
clamber.
|
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Australian government unveils 'world-leading' regulation of tech giants - soroushjp
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-government-unveils-world-leading-privacy-competition-regulation-of-tech-giants-20191212-p53j8r.html
======
siquick
> Under the direction of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the unit's first priority
> will be inquiring into the tech companies' advertising technology and
> algorithms.
This seems like a weird thing to focus on. What exactly are they looking to
find out? It's not like it's the advertising algorithms that are at fault, its
the content of the ads that's the problem as we've seen by the content of the
Conservative party's ads in the UK election (who use the same PR company as
the current Australia government)
Anyone know how any of this is actually enforceable?
~~~
brokenmachine
Obviously it's enforceable through the voluntary code of conduct!
What could possibly be more enforceable than a voluntary code of conduct?
|
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The nuclear reactor in your basement - fogus
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-nuclear-reactor-basement.html
======
SlipperySlope
What a wonderful description of the new theory behind Low Energy Nuclear
Reactions, which used to be known as cold fusion.
Essentially ...
"We start by processing nickel so that it can hold hydrogen the way a sponge
holds water. The hydrogen is ionized, meaning that each hydrogen atom has its
electron stripped away, leaving only a proton. Electrons in the metal are made
to oscillate together in such a way that the electromagnetic energy stored in
tens of thousands of them is transferred to a relative few, giving them enough
energy to merge with nearby protons (the hydrogen ions) and form slow-moving
neutrons. Those neutrons, as we noted, are immediately captured by nuclei of
the metal atoms, setting in motion a chain of events which turns the nickel
into copper and releases useful energy."
When Widom-Larsen Weak Interaction LENR Theory is better understood ...
"One percent of the nickel mined each year could meet the world's energy
requirements at around a quarter of the cost of coal."
Hopefully, renewable energy costs will be even lower, but LENR is far, far
better than fossil fuels regarding climate change, and space exploration -
which is why NASA is sponsoring the research.
|
{
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Polymer 1.0 Released - onestone
http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2015/05/polymer-10-released.html
======
michaelsbradley
I'm very happy to see that one-way binding is now supported within templates,
with syntax that sets it apart from two-way binding:
[https://www.polymer-project.org/1.0/docs/devguide/data-
bindi...](https://www.polymer-project.org/1.0/docs/devguide/data-
binding.html#property-binding)
That option may have become available some time ago, but I haven't looked at
Polymer in quite awhile. Two-way binding can be a great and convenient thing,
but having it as the only option, in the early days of Polymer, led to many
headaches (for me, at least). The reason is that two-way binding can make it
practically impossible to reason deterministically about data flow when
several or more bindings come into play.
|
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Broken crawler behavior with my binary protofeed file - protomyth
http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/04/14/protofeed/
======
anonymouz
Can one really blame the crawler for trying to parse URLs out of an,
allegedly, text/plain document?
I'd argue the MIME type starting with "text/" for binary data was wrong. One
could serve it up as application/binary or application/x-protobuf or something
like that.
~~~
protomyth
My question is why would a crawler think that there are urls in a text/plain
document? More to the point, why would it parse it for any formatted
information?
~~~
anonymouz
Why not? URLs are pervasive these days, and loads of plain text files contain
them. Maybe they are indexing plain text files, and while they are already
there, why not apply some heuristics to try to find URLs inside of them.
Of course the result won't be perfect, but probably better than nothing.
~~~
protomyth
At this point, I would actually think nothing would be better. It seems like
any attempt to part plain text for structured information or urls would just
add noise to search results. I can seen using it as text for terms but not
much else.
~~~
anonymouz
The crawler still hits the actual "URL" he found, so that provides sanity
checking. It's just another way to discover (potential) new URLs.
~~~
protomyth
I see your point and the sanity check is good. My problem with the whole thing
is that interpreting text is fraught with problems and I just don't see the
value from a search perspective. Something served as plain/text either is a
problem with the server or just a plain text file. Either way, it seems like a
poor value thing to add to a search.
|
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Judge extends ban on 3D printed guns - RobertSmith
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/403811-judge-extends-ban-on-3d-printed-guns
======
akvadrako
My favourite quote from the ruling:
_> First, it is not clear how available the nine files are: the possibility
that a cybernaut with a BitTorrent protocol will be able to find a file in the
dark or remote recesses of the internet does not make the posting to Defense
Distributed’s site harmless._
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4784902/3D-Guns-S...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4784902/3D-Guns-
Seattle-20180827.pdf)
~~~
mlindner
You can google the files, hardly "dark web".
|
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2018 Is the Last Year of America's Public Domain Drought - sohkamyung
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw4gwd/public-domain-drought
======
mratzloff
In my opinion, the best solution for everyone involved is to allow companies
to renew copyrights annually into perpetuity after an initial period, but
charge a non-trivial renewal fee and increase it with every renewal.
If you're a company like Disney, renewing certain properties should really
make you think after it starts to cut into the balance sheet. Most works
wouldn't generate enough revenue to justify the renewal and would fall into
the public domain. Disney wouldn't be holding thousands of unrelated works
hostage.
~~~
acjohnson55
Why bother? Why should we allow entities to continue to monopolize
intellectual property long after the actual innovators are dead? If Disney's
so great, they should be able to come up with some new shit. Otherwise,
they're just sucking up oxygen.
These rules are being abused to stifle innovation and competition, simple as
that. I don't have any problem in principle of some exponential scale, but it
just seems like a solution for a non-problem.
~~~
RhodesianHunter
Because the best solution to a problem is rarely to swing your approach to the
opposite extreme. That inevitably leads to more problems.
Let's take a few steps in the right direction and see what happens?
~~~
orbitingpluto
Intellectual property entering the public domain after the original creators
are long dead is not an extreme.
Perpetuating private control over what was already promised to be in the
public domain is the extreme.
Anything taken out of former copyright limits probably already is in the
public domain even in spite of the legislation without compensation to those
who have standing, which just happens to be the American people. Legal has
never pursued that avenue. Pity.
As for your username, wow.
~~~
LoSboccacc
what about group works? commission works? commissioned group work? right
transfer?
the copyright needs to be an entity by itself and not tied to the author.
it needs shortening but any proposal with 'original creator' center and
foremost is basically ignoring the reality of modern content production
~~~
SllX
> it needs shortening but any proposal with 'original creator' center and
> foremost is basically ignoring the reality of modern content production
There's a handful of ways to do it if you are not going to center copyright
terms around the life of the original creator, some of which I think are
better than others but I'll try to leave most of my opinion out of this.
1\. You can center it around first publication. In this scenario you actually
do not automatically retain copyrights unless you actually publish, and then
you would likely need to define in detail what publication is.
Is sharing in an email message or WhatsApp "publication"? I would argue not,
but the law would need to reflect this. Again without spinning this discussion
off into a tangent, there's probably multiple ways you could write that into
the law, but some language like "made available to the public for free or for
a fee" etc. or whatever the American legalese equivalent of that sentence
would be. IANAL
2\. You could center it around the registration date with the Library of
Congress. Again, in this scenario you do not actually automatically retain
copyright, and while it massively simplifies the letter of the law, it shifts
more of the burden to the Library of Congress to retain records. In this
scenario, you would file a registration with a full copy of the work or
specifications or some other means of defining it in the case of things like
statues. Probably the main advantage of this is that the Library of Congress
then has a full copy of the text, source code, blueprints, etc. that it can
then automatically publish itself upon the copyright's expiration.
Anything you do though, I would do it for a fixed term, say, just to pick a
random number out of the air, 50 years and no more. No renewals, just one
copyright term and that is it. You can choose to relinquish it to the public
domain before that time has come to pass but you could not extend it.
------
Mountain_Skies
A few years ago I wanted to read Virginia Woolf's novel "To The Lighthouse" so
I searched for it online and discovered it was public domain in her native
Great Britain but still under copyright here in the United States. If I
downloaded it from an UK server, would I and/or the owner of the UK server be
in violation of copyright? If I bought a reprint in the UK that was printed
after it entered public domain, would it be legal for me to carry the book
back home? What about having it mailed? Is it realistic to expect the average
reader to understand all of these details of various copyright laws across the
globe especially in an age where data flows so easily and it isn't even
obvious where from?
~~~
djsumdog
As the person buying the work, you'd think you wouldn't face potential
criminal charges; that this would be a civil case where the copyright holder
would have to sue the distributor. However we're seeing copyright cases play
out criminally now, with Kim Dotcom fighting his extradition from New Zealand.
~~~
njharman
Copyright violation is a crime. Has been since the right to monopolize the
public domain was enshrined in law (before copyright, there was only the
public domain). It can also be a civil matter. But the JAIL time and $500,000
per infraction are criminal penalties.
------
sohkamyung
I always bring this up whenever copyright extension is mentioned: Spider
Robinson's "Melancholy Elephants" [1], a worthwhile read on the effects of a
super-long copyright extension. The story itself is under a Creative Commons
license.
[1]
[http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html](http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html)
~~~
eat_veggies
That was a really enjoyable read! Thank you for this. Do you have any other
recommendations?
~~~
sohkamyung
Not for stories on copyright. Spider Robinson's story is the only one that has
stayed fresh in my mind.
If you are interested in general stuff on copyright, you might want to try
Cory Doctorow's books [1] which talk about information and copyright or the
articles he published on it at Boing Boing [2]
[1] [http://craphound.com/](http://craphound.com/)
[2]
[https://boingboing.net/tag/copyright](https://boingboing.net/tag/copyright)
~~~
eat_veggies
Thanks for the links! Do you have any recommendations for short stories and
books in general that you find cool? I haven't been reading much and I want to
change that.
~~~
sohkamyung
There are way too many on-line SF sites for me to recommend. Just pick one.
:-)
Personally, I'm old-fashioned and get my short-story fix via traditional SF
magazines like Interzone (UK) and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(USA).
If it's hard SF you're looking for, one site that might be worth a look is
Compelling Science Fiction [1]. Here's a HN post about it some time ago [2].
P.S. Okay, I'll recommend looking at Locus [3], which covers the SF world. You
might be able to get some good recommendations of current SF stuff from there.
P.P.S. This is self-advertistment, but I maintain a Goodreads list of books
I've read and would like to read [4]. It's mostly on SF and Science / Nature
stuff, but if you are interested in that, you may find some interesting stuff
on it.
[1]
[http://compellingsciencefiction.com/](http://compellingsciencefiction.com/)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13106748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13106748)
[3] [http://locusmag.com/](http://locusmag.com/)
[4] [https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5876605-kam-yung-
soh](https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5876605-kam-yung-soh)
------
sharemywin
Disney now has until 2023 to figure out how to extend that date once again.
Enter Steamboat Willy, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon and the first animated
short by Walt Disney in 1928. Under the 1909 Copyright scheme, the Mickey
Mouse character had copyright protection for 56 years (with the renewal),
expiring in 1984.
~~~
msingle
The more relevant deadline is for Winnie the Pooh (first published in 1924).
Pooh is worth several billion dollars per year to Disney, so don't be
surprised if they try to change the copyright (again) in the next year.
~~~
iMerNibor
Wait, does the copyright not just cover the actual movie/videos/art/... of
that time, still having them own the character itself (since they're actively
using it)?
~~~
maxlybbert
I believe that officially only the movies, etc., would fall into the public
domain. But people can make derivative works of public domain items, so they
wouldn’t be limited to literal copies of Steamboat Willie. They could show
Steamboat Willie using a smartphone.
However, Disney also has trademarks on Mickey Mouse, etc., so using Mickey’s
likeness in commercial ways would still be a legal minefield.
------
jeremyjh
Sure, let's pretend congress won't do what they are paid to do.
We really have no chance on this issue, the interests in seeing works enter
public domain simply aren't commercial enough to supply the requisite lobbying
dollars.
~~~
Endy
Well, then the answer is to stop voting for people willing to take lobbyist
money, and for those that were already elected, make a public stink over it.
~~~
WaxProlix
This is so naive that it sounds like a joke or a parody.
~~~
SapphireSun
You can only say that without knowledge of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Prior
to that I'd have agreed with you. It was tremendously successful at
fundraising from small dollar donations by pushing policies that benefit the
many over the few. I don't see a reason why other campaigns can't pick that up
and run with it.
~~~
stmfreak
That was one guy amongst 536 politicians. And he lost because a corrupt system
scuttled his campaign.
~~~
SapphireSun
That is true, but the 535 other politicians are nearly all centrists or right
wingers. Politicians are beholden to their donors. Eliminate the elite donor
class, eliminate their interests being represented. I have some optimism that
the Democratic party will be reconfigured to some degree. It's either that, or
keep losing cyclically.
FDR won four presidential elections and scared the right so badly that they
got a constitutional amendment to limit future "damage" to two terms.
~~~
WaxProlix
So, GP says "Vote for people who aren't interested in taking bribes" and you
say "eliminate the donor class" \-- those seem like pretty distinct policy
recommendations. How are they related?
~~~
SapphireSun
GP's literal words were "stop voting for people willing to take lobbyist
money". The lobbyists and big donations / bundlers come from the same class of
people - the wealthy. These dollars come attached with policy positions that
favor that class both explicitly (in terms of policies that are explicitly
favored) and implicitly (policies that will not be given strong support, i.e.
various forms of redistribution).
The only way to run a modern political campaign is with lots of cash, so the
cash must be procured somehow. Your two options are to level the playing field
with public funding of campaigns (unlikely to happen in the wake of Citizen's
United) or for a candidate to raise small dollar donations. The Sanders
campaign proved that the latter is possible.
------
ekianjo
I still don't understand why we can even make legislative changes in copyright
work retroactively. Changes should only apply for whatever comes AFTER the
changes.
~~~
CobrastanJorji
There's a very solid argument. The Constitution explicitly says that Congress
has the right to grant copyright "[t]o promote the progress of science and
useful arts." Since extending copyright after a thing already exists cannot
possibly cause it to exist MORE, it doesn't seem to be within Congress's
power. And also, if Congress continues to extend copyrights by 10 years every
10 years, it also is no longer a "limited time."
Both of these arguments were put before the Supreme Court in 2003
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft)),
and the argument lost 7-2. Somewhat unusually, the it was not a party-line
decision.
~~~
ralfd
It is interesting to read Lessigs view and how he thought he lost the case:
[http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-
April-2004/story_le...](http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-
April-2004/story_lessig_marapr04.msp)
\-------------------------------
There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the court
was going. The first was a question by Kennedy, who observed,
_" Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, too, should
have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone because of the
disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded progress in
science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for
that."_
Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I
answered,
_" Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing in our
copyright clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about impeding
progress. Our only argument is, this is a structural limit necessary to assure
that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted under the
copyright laws."_
That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer
was to say that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of briefs
had been written about it. Kennedy wanted to hear it. And here was where Don
Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer was a swing
and a miss.
------
joering2
The article doesn't go into how Disney was able to preserve it for so long...
and continue. So if I copyright something today, can someone explain how I can
make sure it is still covered in 2108 ?
~~~
lisper
1\. Make a ton of money
2\. Use the proceeds to bribe politicians to pass legislation to extend the
copyright period
3\. GOTO 1
~~~
JonathonW
Strictly speaking, Disney's already done most of the hard work for you--
barring some sort of massive public policy reversal (unlikely) or societal
collapse (probably slightly less unlikely), all _you_ should have to do (under
current copyright law) to keep something protected under US copyright law
until 2108 is just not die before 2038.
Or, if you published something today as a work for hire, it'd be covered until
2103. Which isn't quite 2108, but surely Disney and their congresscritters
will get you that extra five years at some point before it goes into the
public domain.
~~~
pls2halp
Realistically, you’re covered until Disney goes bankrupt for any work you
publish.
------
AnimalMuppet
2018 is the last year of the drought... unless the rules change again.
Here's how it's likely to happen. Somebody will float a trial balloon to
extend copyright. We will try to oppose it. Because it's an election year, our
opposition will have some leverage - the threat of immediate retaliation on
those who don't vote the way we want. If our opposition is loud enough, the
bill will stall...
... until after the election. Then it will pass, despite the howls of outrage,
because then we'd have to remember who betrayed us for two years before we can
do anything about it, and they suspect that our memories aren't that long.
(And if our memories _are_ that long, we'll have two years of other issues to
dilute our outrage on this one.)
I hope I'm too cynical.
------
regulation_d
I think we're losing sight of the goals of intellectual property law.
Society as a whole benefits greatly from a rich public domain. The starting
point in IP law is that there are no rights in ideas. Then from that starting
point, we start to carve out exceptions that make sense from a market
perspective.
We grant trademarks, because the market benefits from being able to identify
the source of a thing.
We grant patents and copyright protection, because they incent innovation, and
innovation is good for the market.
The protections that copyright law affords have more than rewarded Walt Disney
for his innovations. The Constitution specifically requires that copyright
protection be limited in term. In my mind, the time has come for Mickey to
drop into the public domain.
------
cornyNetHandle
How any new legislation on this issue may play out over the next year, brings
to mind the old theological saw regarding an irresistible force meeting an
immovable object, given the large political incompatibility of the current
players.
~~~
coldtea
There's no "large political incompatibility between the current players" when
it comes to passing out corporate favorable legislation.
~~~
cornyNetHandle
You may have a point there, but Disney and the Trump administration are, at
least publicly, on very different sides in the culture wars currently
dominating political discourse.
~~~
dragonwriter
The culture wars are largely a distraction behind which class war by the rich
against everyone else is carried out. Most forces who seems strongly one on
side or the other of the culture wars are on the same side of the real war.
------
shmerl
95 years after publication is crazy. Copyright term should have never been
that long.
~~~
rabidrat
Originally it was 14 years. It's only been extended (gradually) over the past
50 or so.
~~~
njharman
It's been extended, regularly, several times. The recent 1976, 1998 have
extended it massively (doubling it) and applying their extensions,
retroactively much further back.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Bell%27s_graph_showin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Bell%27s_graph_showing_extension_of_U.S._copyright_term_over_time.svg)
~~~
ataturk
The 1998 one was particularly egregious--we were right on the verge of having
some decent content in the public domain and wham! It's not that I think
everything should be public domain, but the current duration is absurd.
------
solomatov
IANAL, but as far as I understand the law this is incorrect:
> Films are literally disintegrating because preservationists can’t legally
> digitize them
This is fair use. archive.org works on legality of such activity.
~~~
lostapathy
Sure, but the economics of preserving something you can’t redistribute are
tough, especially as you get out into less popular media. If you could sell
copies of those preserved works, it would provide a means to finance the
preservation efforts.
------
whiddershins
One thing I’ve never understood about the whole Disney/Mickey Mouse discussion
is Trademark doesn't expire.
If Disney can hold a trademark on Mickey Mouse, all the old movies could enter
the public domain but you still wouldn’t have a right to make your own Mickey
Mouse movies or t-shirts.
So it seems what they are really trying to protect is Fantasia or whatever.
Specific movies. Not iconic characters.
------
sixdimensional
I still wonder how much faster parts of the world who do not honor the
traditional IP laws can innovate? Not that I'm encouraging ignorance of IP
laws, just curious about what happens differently in their absence... how does
the system work then?
~~~
djf1
Ignorance of IP laws would help the developing economy, while hurting the
developed economy. Copying is cheap, original invention is expensive, and
developed countries have more to lose.
In a somewhat relevant WTO dispute between US and China,
"The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition of U.S.
entertainment and software industry groups, has claimed piracy in China costs
them more than $3.7 billion in lost sales." [1]
[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-wto/china-u-
s-t...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-wto/china-u-s-trade-
barbs-over-wto-piracy-case-idUSTRE52J3T920090320)
~~~
bighi
While I'm not saying that is a lie, anyone can claim anything.
I can claim piracy in China costs me 18 billion dollars.
~~~
vorotato
Also I think it's an absurd argument that just because someone pirated your
content that they would necessarily buy it. A lot of content is pirated
specifically because they think it's not worth buying.
------
vorotato
If you can't survive after 20 years without any competition, perhaps you don't
deserve the copyright in the first place.
------
darepublic
When is mickey mouse due to enter Public Domain?
~~~
naravara
Mickey is trademarked. Old Mickey Mouse movies, like Steamboat Willie, will be
free to copy and distribute but I don’t think other people will be permitted
to produce new works starting Mickey Mouse.
It’s a bit of a legal gray area. I don’t think anyone has settled the question
about whether trademarking characters runs afoul of the constitutional
prohibition on perpetual copyright.
Based on how much money Disney has put into absorbing every trademarked
franchise ever (Marvel, Star Wars, etc.), it seems like they’re willing to bet
on those trademarks being enforceable.
~~~
darepublic
Ah ok. Does international law vary on this? Can Disney sue IP violators in
other countries over this and who would enforce it
~~~
sohkamyung
Yes, they can and they have. You can search for articles on Disney suing
people in places like China for selling or featuring images of Mickey Mouse
(or lookalikes).
A perverse effect (I think) of trademarks is that the owner of a trademark has
to sue to protect it from infringement: otherwise, it becomes a common mark,
not a trademark, and is usable by anybody.
------
ataturk
The copyright mess is another example of how corporations have sucked the life
out of America. Disney (and others) lobbying for that law is perhaps the
definitive example of regulatory capture and how it has an affect on all of
us. It makes citizens cynical, breeds distrust in our (wholly bought)
government, and it illustrates how tyranny can arrive from any direction, not
just the expected ones.
------
Testudio
You know why patents and drugs have short terms, but copyright is very long?
Because the thing it is protecting is a luxury. It is unnecessary. No one will
die if Mickey Mouse remains copyrighted in perpetuity, and the progress of
humanity won't be stunned because you can't make youtube clips out of Winnie
the Pooh.
You can just stop buying Disney merchandise if you don't like them. There is
more public domain art than you can consume in a hundred years. Disney will
stop lobing for copyright extensions once it no longer profitable.
Oh, and stop using Facebook while you are at it.
------
Asooka
The concept of "Public Domain" sounds absolutely bonkers to me. You own
something and then suddenly you no longer own it. It would be like if you woke
up one day to see a family of squatters living in your house, that you can't
get rid of, because the person who built your house died 70 years ago and your
house is now "Public Domain".
We should just get rid of the public domain exception and recognise
intellectual property as normal everyday property, not something that can
magically becomes ownerless one day. Communism has been tried and it doesn't
work. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past.
On the other hand, I do hear the plight of preservationists &c. There should
be a lot more rights granted to people to use copies of other people's
property. For starters, all non-commercial use should be allowed, so that old
movies could be digitised and stored in better formats. After all, the studio
doesn't own the tape or the DVD that contains the movie, it owns the movie
itself and the type of media it's stored on shouldn't matter. This probably
would also mean that noncommercial free peer-to-peer filesharing would also be
legal, but honestly, if you can't compete with torrent sites, which blast
thirty porn popups and show you a dozen false download links, your business
probably deserves to die.
~~~
Can_Not
> It would be like if you woke up one day to see a family of squatters living
> in your house, that you can't get rid of, because the person who built your
> house died 70 years ago and your house is now "Public Domain".
It wouldn't be like that.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Any hacker houses in Dublin where I can stay for a week? - ben-gy
======
ShaneCurran
I'm based in Dublin, send me over an e-mail (in my profile) and I'll see if I
know anyone :)
------
coppolaemilio
You should try being a member of couchsurfing ;)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: A collection of the best apps, gadgets and products made for travelers - itsemi
https://www.mytrapp.com/
======
itsemi
I made this page to collect all those great travel apps and gadgets out there.
I think it's great to have blogposts like "the best travel apps in 2016" but
with Mytrapp I want to create a lasting collection of all great travel apps --
sortable and ratable!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
HardCIDR will query ARIN and a pool of BGP route servers - crystalPalace
https://github.com/trustedsec/hardcidr
======
natch
Beware, this script will hose / clobber and then silently clean up (delete) a
ton of various different files if files with those names happen to already
exist. To see the exact file names you'll have to carefully pick through the
script. So obviously? run it in its own directory, which is no guarantee of
safety, but should be safer.
If you have a subdirectory where you run it named after your email hostname
(such as "example/" for "example.com"), then it will prompt you to "overwrite
the contents of the directory" and then, if you accept, it will not only
overwrite the contents, it will remove the entire contents with:
cd $outdir
rm * 2>/dev/null
There's a slight violation of user expectations here. Removing and replacing
the contents isn't quite the same as overwriting the contents. It may be a
fine line, but it's better to err on the side of protecting the user's files,
not deleting them, when deciding where to come down on that fine line.
And if $outdir is empty or not there, it tries to detect that by first doing a
check for -d $outdir, but this won't save the user if $outdir gets moved aside
by another process while they are reading the prompt and before the cd
happens, leaving them in another directory. Hopefully the user has rm aliased
to rm -i but that still won't help since the rm is being run in its own shell
in the script.
I know we're not supposed to focus on the negative here on HN. I'm sure the
script is awesome for whatever it does. Just be careful out there!
~~~
CJefferson
I wish modern OSes made this easier. I would love to have an easy bullrtproof
way of saying "give me a temp directory for writing, don't let me write
anywhere else, clean up my directory after me".
~~~
cheeseprocedure
Chances are that every system this script runs on has "mktemp," and trapping
exit makes it easy to clean up when things are finished.
[https://www.mktemp.org/manual.html](https://www.mktemp.org/manual.html)
[http://redsymbol.net/articles/bash-exit-
traps/](http://redsymbol.net/articles/bash-exit-traps/)
~~~
peterwwillis
Yep, makes it much simpler to write scripts like this
[https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/blob/public-
bin/src/st...](https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/blob/public-
bin/src/stage_git_app.sh) (run an application that's stored in git, but in a
temp working directory, and clean up after)
------
jauer
OK, but what does it _do_? The README is pretty sparse. Some examples would
really help.
Edit: the header from the script is good, toss it into the README for great
success.
~~~
jlgaddis
It simplifies the process of finding the IP address blocks allocated/assigned
to an organization.
> _HardCidr is written by Jason Ashton, Senior Security Consultant at
> TrustedSec_
I'm guessing it was written with pen-testing in mind.
------
mixologic
This might give it some more context:
[https://www.trustedsec.com/march-2017/classy-inter-domain-
ro...](https://www.trustedsec.com/march-2017/classy-inter-domain-routing-
enumeration/)
~~~
mablap
It all makes sense now! This is much more pertinent than the code if you don't
know much about the subject matter.
------
javajosh
Note that this script installs "ipcalc" (or really, whatever is in
[http://jodies.de/ipcalc-archive/ipcalc-0.41.tar.gz](http://jodies.de/ipcalc-
archive/ipcalc-0.41.tar.gz)) without user interaction.
I'm generally pretty _not okay_ with scripts that curl | tar things (or apt-
get install things, which this does if it's run on a linux) from the interwebs
without my explicit consent.
~~~
jlgaddis
That shouldn't be an issue if you don't run it as root.
By running it as root, I'd argue that you _did_ give explicit consent for the
script to do anything it wants.
~~~
sigjuice
Sorry, no. The opposite, in fact. A script that demands to run as root on my
computer needs to be extremely well mannered.
~~~
jlgaddis
I certainly don't disagree with that.
If one downloads and blindly runs some random script as root, however, you are
effectively allowing it to do anything it wants.
It sounds like _javajosh_ took the time to look the script over first which,
of course, is exactly what one should do.
------
packetized
Oh, this is superfly. Easy way to build your own up-to-date ASN DB, similar to
the one from Maxmind. Think: embellishing Apache/Nginx logs with up-to-date
information about the IP address of the client, including ASN/OrgId. Useful
for identifying snowshoers spreading their footprint across a lot of
discontiguous IP addresses in one ASN/Org.
~~~
jlgaddis
If you just want to build your own IP-to-ASN table, you can download dumps of
"RIS Raw Data" [0] from RIPE and parse them if you don't yourself run BGP.
I'm a network engineer at an ISP and it's pretty common to use something like
this for analyzing traffic network when considering peering sessions, for
example. Even if you don't run BGP, you could use it for answering questions
like "how much traffic do we send to/receive from Facebook?" and such.
RIPE's RIS dumps are performed every five minutes from more than a dozen
different "vantage points" across the Internet.
ARIN used to provide an "originAS" file [1] but it looks like they quit doing
that a few years ago. You may be able to find some interesting stuff browsing
around /pub on their FTP server, though [2].
[0]: [https://www.ripe.net/analyse/internet-
measurements/routing-i...](https://www.ripe.net/analyse/internet-
measurements/routing-information-service-ris/ris-raw-data)
[1]: ftp://ftp.arin.net/pub/originAS/
[2]: ftp://ftp.arin.net/pub/
~~~
packetized
I always forget that this exists - thanks for the reminder.
------
simplehuman
I guess this is on hn because it sounds cool? It's impossible to understand
what it is.
~~~
finnn
From the top of the script:
> A tool to enumerate CIDRs by querying RIRs & BGP ASN prefix lookups
> Currently queries: ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC
>
> Queries are made for the Org name, network handles, org handles, customer
> handles,
> BGP prefixes, PoCs with target email domain, and 'notify' email address -
> used by
> some RIRs.
>
> Note that severl RIRs currently limit query results to 256 or less, so large
> target orgs may not return all results.
>
> LACNIC only allows query of ASN or IP address bloks & cannot search for Org
> names
> directly. The entire DB as been downloaded to a separate file for queries to
> this RIR.
> The file will be periodically updated to maintain accurate information.
>
> Output saved to two csv files - one for org & one for PoCs
> A txt file is also output with a full list of enumerated CIDRs
>
> Author: Jason Ashton (@ninewires)
> Created: 09/19/2016
~~~
simplehuman
This might well be Arabic. I have been in the industry for over 10 years and
that explanation is meaningless
~~~
xj9
you might want to go back an re-read your networking books.
~~~
simplehuman
Care to point to a book that talks about these acronyms. They are not in comer
or Stevens both which are networking bibles
~~~
jlgaddis
Some of these acronyms are specific to BGP. You could work in networking for
years and not encounter some of them, especially if you aren't running BGP.
As far as "bibles" go, however, Halabi's _Internet Routing Architectures_ is
the BGP variant.
TCP/IP Illustrated _might_ not mention CIDR since it was still pretty new when
those books were written. My copies haven't been opened in years so I can't be
sure.
If you've performed any subnetting in the last 15 years or so, however, I
fully expect that you have encountered CIDR.
------
TheRealPomax
Those are some cool acronyms that I've never heard of. Reading the README does
not explain any more. It's quite the mystery how this got to the top-30...
~~~
jlgaddis
Perhaps because some of the people here _do_ know what the acronyms stand for?
------
popol12
I can't find how to make it work for european companies. For instance,
fnac.com doesn't give any result with the -r option. Did I miss something ?
------
natch
>The script with no specified options will query ARIN and a pool of BGP route
servers.
To what end?
------
blockfinder
see also blockfinder:
[https://github.com/ioerror/blockfinder](https://github.com/ioerror/blockfinder)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Dead bodies on Mount Everest - jayeshsalvi
http://imgur.com/gallery/rkRAk
======
lostlogin
There is a great story about a team member getting sick of the slow progress
Sir Edmond Hillary was making cutting steps on Everest at the early stages of
the ascent. A team member went up to tell him to hurry up. The guy got to him,
spent several minutes laboring to catch his breath? Said good work, and
started back down without Hillary breaking from cutting steps.
------
kbenson
It never occurred to me that dead bodies would just be left there.
~~~
pvdm
At that altitude, the effort to move a dead body is four times the effort at
sea level. If you attempt it, you put your own life in danger.
~~~
kbenson
I understand the reasoning why they aren't always recovered, it just never
occurred to me that there were bodies that are routinely passed but left up
there until now. I'm more horrified by the situation than anything else.
That's not to say that the behavior is entirely acceptable. The story of the
man whose body froze but was still alive and people just trudged past him
assuming he was dead until someone finally heard him moaning softly is
particularly horrific.
I understand that horrible situations can call for relaxed moral constraints
just to survive. Living/fleeing an area seeing active military conflict,
severe drought/famine, and any number of other extremely taxing situations can
call for harsh decisions in order to survive.
I think this is different.
What we have here is (I admit, I assume) a bunch of privileged people
purposefully submitting themselves to extreme hardship for a sense of
accomplishment and meaning. In a way, emulating what they were lucky enough to
have avoided by nature of where and who they were born as.
I didn't really have strong opinions about mountain climbing at this level
before this montage (beyond thinking it's a bit ridiculous), but now I'm
somewhat disgusted by it.
~~~
pvdm
Yes, life and death is sometimes horrific. Makes you appreciate life even more
when you contemplate death.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The hardware it takes to handle 60 million hits a day - Readmore
http://www.auctionads.com/blog/peek-at-auctionads-hardware/
======
SwellJoe
Amateurs. I could do it with a single Nintendo Wii.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Uber is stubbornly refusing to apply for a $150 permit for its self-driving cars - ryan_j_naughton
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13990318/uber-refusing-permit-self-driving-car-california-dmv
======
fludlight
It's not about paying $150, but about agreeing to additional regulation, which
businesses generally don't want. Uber might actually prevail, since tech is
the most vibrant sector in the Northern California economy and all the local
politicians want a local company, not one in Michigan, to bring this tech to
fruition.
Edit: I don't understand the downvotes. I'm not saying that regulation is bad,
just that businesses are generally anti-regulation. I'm also not saying that
the California DMV should or should not regulate self-driving cars, just that
the government might give them a pass.
~~~
veidr
Laws are not something that corporations or citizens have to agree with. They
apply regardless.
This is the equivalent of Uber deciding not to pay its federal taxes. Sure, it
could concoct a theory that the corporate income tax "doesn't apply to Uber",
and in theory there's a possibility that the IRS might somehow agree. In
practice, however, there is none.
The major difference here is simply that the penalties for failing to pay
taxes are well-defined and severe, while the penalties for failing to obtain a
state permit for autonomous vehicle testing are not. Uber is betting on the
eventual penalties for their (flagrant and straightforward) violation of these
laws will end up being something they prefer over making the relevant
disclosures required by the permit.
~~~
jasode
_> Laws are not something that corporations or citizens have to agree with.
They apply regardless._
That simplistic reductionism is not true. There are concepts of civil
disobedience.[1] History has shown that many laws (e.g. copyright laws, sodomy
laws, Jim Crow laws) are more like an ongoing dialogue/battle between the
citizens and government for universal compliance. Other laws such as homocide
seem more stable for straightforward compliance without controversy.
The DMV didn't write the autonomous vehicle laws -- they are _interpreting_ it
-- to their benefit. Likewise, Uber didn't write the law either, they are also
_interpreting_ it -- to their benefit.
Those 2 interpretations differ. I have no idea who is "more correct" in their
interpretation. The DMV may have the last word and win. We don't know yet.
_> This is the equivalent of Uber deciding not to pay its federal taxes._
No, the analogy is somebody _disagreeing_ with a government agency's
_interpretation_ of the law. An example would be a taxpayer who disagreed with
IRS and won the case.[2]
It's similar to one entity claiming that early VCR users taping shows were
"breaking the law."[3] If VCR consumers and Sony disagree and say it's "fair
use", responding to that with _" copyright laws apply to everybody
regardless"_ doesn't actually analyze the differing _interpretations_.
Eventually, the consumers and Sony got the Supreme Court to agree with their
interpretation by a very close 5-4 majority ruling.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience)
[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/arts/design/tax-court-
rul...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/arts/design/tax-court-ruling-is-
seen-as-a-victory-for-artists.html)
[3] Betamax "fair use" Supreme Court ruling:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc).
------
supercanuck
>Asked if Uber was trying to avoid disclosing accidents involving its self-
driving cars, as permit holders are required to do, Levandowski denied this
Should have just opened the article with this.
~~~
dullgiulio
He is not exactly without bias. Should we just take his word for it?
------
grogenaut
This got me thinking, how does a police officer tell a self driving vehicle to
pull over? Or do they have to pull out the road strips? Does the car just keep
going when it's been disabled? Do they have to do a bump turn?
How do they react and get out of the way of an emergency vehicle?
~~~
fred256
AFAIK all the self-driving cars currently on the road still have a human at
the wheel to take over in cases like these.
~~~
KKKKkkkk1
Waymo's demo video showed a blind man traveling alone in their vehicle.
~~~
agildehaus
Their video from 2012 also showed the same man (Steve Mahan) and it also
showed the car going through a Taco Bell drive thru on its own.
It's going to be some time before both of them are reality.
------
zodiac
I'm not sure why so many people here are ignoring Levandowski's stated reason
for not applying for the permit / downvoting people who agree with him,
without explaining why they think Levandowski's argument is incorrect. This
isn't a case of them willfully disobeying a regulation, it's them disagreeing
with the regulating agency about the interpretation of the regulation.
And this disagreement isn't a necessarily a bad thing; I think the regulation
is unclear, and in such cases the only way to "clarify" it is to wait for the
regulating body to sue you and have both sides present their arguments in
court. (You can't just ask them to clarify it, as they have no obligation to
respond).
------
detaro
front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13198079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13198079)
------
tomc1985
His analogies don't make any sense. Tesla's 'autopilot' is much more narrow in
scope than self-driving taxis.
------
hlandau
I think I agree with Uber on this one.
Self-driving functionality, at least for the time being, is a tool used by a
human operator to achieve their objectives with regard to the vehicle. This is
distinct from a vehicle with no driver, for which regulation is obviously
necessary. It's no different from a pilot using autopilot. If someone wanted
to make an unmanned passenger plane, there'd need to be huge regulatory
changes (not saying it's necessarily a good idea), but pilots use autopilot
all the time without great regulatory upheaval, because it's just a tool the
pilot is using to fly the plane as they wish.
So long as a human operator is in control of, and responsible for, the
vehicle, it shouldn't matter in particular what method they use to operate it.
~~~
tadfisher
Interesting choice of example, considering the relative level of regulation
between the aviation and automotive industries.
The use of "autopilot" in aviation is not without controversy, and there are a
number of schools of thought on the spectrum between "it saves lives" and "it
dumbs down pilots and kills people". FWIW, the FAA at least requires a
functioning autopilot (or "automatic altitude control system") when flying in
RVSM airspace, or the altitude where most commercial jets fly, so regulation
is on the side of automation here.
------
Hondor
The definition is:
"any vehicle equipped with technology that has the capability of operating or
driving the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a
natural person..." [1]
Seems like Uber is right as long as their cars can't function without drivers,
which is probably true.
[1]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/d48f347b-8815-458e...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/d48f347b-8815-458e-9df2-5ded9f208e9e/adopted_txt.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=d48f347b-8815-458e-9df2-5ded9f208e9e)
~~~
fabianhjr
> without the active physical control
As in not turning the steering wheel or pushing the gas or break pedals?
Because that sounds like what Uber's Self Driving car does. (Even on the
promotional videos, the "drivers"/testers are not turning the steering wheel.
~~~
Msurrow
You're only quoting part of the statement.
> without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person...
Its the physical control OR monitoring of a human. Ubers cars may not require
[human] active physical control, but it does require monitoring of a human and
so this doesn't apply to Ubers cars.
~~~
fabianhjr
Well, every single self-driving car bein tested requires the monitoring of a
person. Google Self-Driving car for example. (And even Tesla has the permit)
------
chillingeffect
I wonder if AI-enabled taxis will use machine image-editing techniques to
synthesize false evidence against each other in the future? :)
------
KKKKkkkk1
Regardless of whether Uber is right or wrong, what benefit does the public
derive from this $150 permitting process?
~~~
swyman
It covers the costs of ensuring the applicant meets the agreed-upon regulatory
requirements. Next question.
~~~
marcrosoft
Agreed upon by whom? I certainly didn't agree on this.
~~~
atonse
No but you probably voted for someone who helped put those rules in place. (Or
maybe you didn't, but the point is that we "hire" others by voting, to sweat
the details)
~~~
marcrosoft
That system sucks :(
~~~
learc83
You want to put every single traffic regulation to a vote?
~~~
marcrosoft
I wouldn't want someone else making these choices for me so yes, yes I would.
~~~
rev_bird
To be frank, you'd probably be terrible at it. All of us would, if only
because lots of rules and regulations deal with more nuance than anyone could
be reasonably expected to understand, if they had to vote on _everything_.
That's why we have government committees staffed with people to research this
stuff. I wish I could be that involved in things, but there are real,
complicated considerations at play, not just, "Hm, given the choice between
these two paragraphs, I can pick one and everything will work out."
------
programmarchy
DMV is stubbornly insisting on higher taxation of life-saving innovation.
~~~
Mtinie
$150?
~~~
programmarchy
Just pointing out the spin.
To be honest, I don't really like Uber the company all that much. But I do
appreciate their irreverent attitude towards meddling bureaucrats.
On principle, would you give a bully your lunch money? It's only $5...
~~~
thewhitetulip
I really don't think they are doing it for the money, it is probably being
done aso that they do don't have to disclose accidents, they don't even
disclose self driving car % as per the article + they call out that Tesla
doesn't require it, that's apples to oranges and the article also states that
Tesla does have the permit.
------
devereaux
And I'm very glad Uber is doing that!
The DMVs need valid "reasons" to extract money. With human drivers, they can
argue a database record must be maintained for traffic violations, a new
license reissued every N years, etc. This is "plausible deniability", because
there is no reason why it would cost tens of dollars per row in a database.
With self driving cars, plausible deniability goes away. There is no reason
whatsoever. If the algorithm does not follow traffic laws, it won't be allowed
on the road.
Another nice thing to notice: the DMV is double dipping. I mean, one fee for
the self-driving car, another fee for the human behind the wheel, what a
profitable operation! But why exactly? What kind of good services is it
offering? None at all.
Self driving cars could mean the end of DMVs, and I would see that as a very
good thing.
~~~
Mtinie
I pay more for a minimally-sized instance for a non-trafficked web app on
DigitalOcean every year. Uber has no legitimate reason to not pay the fee,
regardless of the validity. This is just a company attempting to "screw the
Man", even though they are basically the peak representation of SV Man.
~~~
devereaux
It's not about the $ amount.
I respect and admire their attempt to "screw the man."
~~~
trome
So you hate civilized society and think companies should be able to do
whatever they want?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Mark Cuban: Here's how to fix America's crippling student debt crisis - ytNumbers
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-heres-how-to-fix-the-student-debt-crisis-2015-3
======
bko
The focus on private student loan lenders seems odd considering that $1
trillion out of the $1.2 trillion of outstanding student debt is public. I
think a lot of private student loan providers are great. For instance, SoFi
often offers rates lower than that of Sallie Mae, but discriminates on the
school and the major, which seems reasonable. There are other benefits such as
the ability of former students to be able to default on their private debt.
[0] [http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/student-debt-
swells-...](http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/student-debt-swells-
federal-loans-now-top-a-trillion/)
------
higherpurpose
Completely agree that this is the solution, although I would probably go even
further and kill college loans for good.
I "get it" that this was done with the best of intentions - to help more
students get into college. However, these sort of "guaranteed money from the
government" solutions _always_ end up distorting the market, and it's for the
worse for the students.
Whatever alternative solution exists it shouldn't allow for "virtually
unlimited" sums of money to be requested to help students go to college. But
even if you limit let's say to $10,000 the maximum amount for a student loan
and let's say without any of that, the cost of college would be $100,000, the
student still wouldn't have to pay "only $90,000" in the end. The private
colleges would just end up raising the price to $90,000. And now you've just
made it so the colleges get $10,000 free money from taxpayers. This always
happens with subsidies and such.
What's worse, is that those who get the free money, "get used to it", or in
other words, they become less efficient and more costly, so that when the
government tries to _cancel that subsidy_ , those who got it are outraged
about it and say they would have to cut jobs and whatnot. I assume if the
governments puts a limit on private loans too, the teach union will go
immediately to the streets as well.
------
VLM
Note: will only fix the problem going forward. Not looking at the trillion or
so sized existing problem.
~~~
davidgerard
Yes, it's one of those "wait, you should do this other side thing addressing a
tiny part of the problem _first_!!" proposals. Pretty obvious derailment.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
An introduction to photography - wslh
http://photo.net/learn/making-photographs/
======
janeglendale
For anyone looking to learn, definitely check out The Bastards Book of
Photography:
[http://photography.bastardsbook.com/](http://photography.bastardsbook.com/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Apple / Google / Facebook Message War Starts Now - iProject
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/message-war/
======
dirtyaura
Author forgets Skype, which in my circles is used as much as FB and more than
GChat for private chats. Anectodally, Skype is also the most popular of three
in professional use. Microsoft's Messenger is still very popular in certain
demographics, so I wouldn't count out MS from this war.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: Free Email Tracker for Gmail - willcheung
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/contextsmith-email-tracke/idihnnlkpfggfgjinfiodninabjggfop
======
willcheung
Hey guys,
I used to work in Sales, and my company usually paid for Email Tracking (like
Yesware) and Contact Profile (LinkedIn) tools. These email features are now an
indispensable part of my daily workflow. Now that I started my own company, I
wanted my whole team to have this superpower - not just sales, but all
customer-facing teams. However, paying for everyone starts getting expensive.
So we built one for ourselves instead and decided to let the world have it as
well, for free.
We'd love your thoughts and feedback!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
New brand site for Sony uses rendered JPG frames for 3D parallax scrolling - danhon
http://discover.store.sony.com/be-moved/
======
TeeWEE
Very nice and breathtaking. Just a superb experience, this is the most awesome
site I have every visited. Seriously.
Ok, it is big, it is huge. But c'mon, they are stretching creativity, nobody
else would come up with something like this, i didnt even know it was possible
at all. It not all TECH API's and BITS and BYTES. Its sometimes creativity
what matters.
Abusing technology to create something cool often is the first step to making
the technology better support something cool like that. So somtimes there is
no proper way to do it with current API's. But there is a hack todo it. This
is how HTML5 video was created. Because you could hack it in with Flash. But
flash was not the best way todo it.
------
vinhboy
You guys are being way overly critical. I think the website is unique and
cool. Reminds me of the those nice story boards on NYTimes.
Also, works ok on Chrome Macbook Air.
------
taspeotis
Care of Chrome's developer tools...
Network tab: 1410 requests | 51.4 MB transferred | 2.0 min (load: 1.2 min, DOMContentLoaded: 4.29s)
Console: 15 errors, 12 warnings
~~~
LandoCalrissian
I was wondering how big it was, that completely blows away what I expected.
That's really not usable for huge swaths of people.
~~~
daeken
How many people that can't handle 50MB of content are really in Sony's target
market?
~~~
talmand
People who buy their electronics that happen to have data caps? They could at
least load it all that image data on demand.
~~~
JohnTHaller
I don't think Sony is marketing the products depicted on that site to the
folks worried about downloading 50MB.
~~~
talmand
Well, yeah, that's probably true I suppose.
------
ChrisNorstrom
The Good: Really changed my perception of Sony as a brand. They're a lot more
experimental and ahead than I though. I feel like going out and buying a PS4
honestly. Great job on the marketing team. (I actually watched the videos and
was... "moved", wireless lens, underwater ear buds, 3d viewer)
The Bad: Over complicated and choppy (anyone else?). It's basically a TV
commercial that you have to keep scrolling to watch. I think there are better,
simpler, less choppier ways that this brand message could have been conveyed.
Alternative: Slides/pages with full screen video? Take each scene and separate
it into it's own full screen "slide" (not slide show but one slide after the
other on the page) and each mouse scroll moves you down to the next slide.
~~~
alan_cx
Changed perception? That has to be insane. Just a mere funky web page and you
go from not interested to wanting to buy? Good grief. I am stunned that a mere
web page can do that for any one in actual reality. You seem far too easily
bought. Here, have a shiney thing, there you go...... I had no idea people
were so easily manipulated, and equally happy to say so in public.
I really don't get on with these scroll down animated sites.
As usual with these things, I don't see anything useful or informative on the
landing part of the page, begin to scroll, see I'm expected to scroll for god
knows how long incase there is anything useful, all I usually see is show off
animation, I sigh, then close the page.
Why am I suddenly expected to constantly scroll these things? Is it just so
some web developer can show off their latest, now tired, seen it all before
now, trick?
I want to land on a page, see if its worth anything, then possibly click for
more info. If I want to see an animation, video, or what ever, just show the
darn thing in a normal video. But I want a choice there, not a silly site that
auto starts it, often hurting my ears, or waking up the house, with full
volume in the process. If the landing page gives me interest, I'll happily
watch a short advert, animation, or whatever to get more info.
Why all this scrolling? There are much simpler ways to show all this, without
me having to almost work to get to see it. Its not my message, its theirs. Why
are they making it harder for me to see their message? I just left the page.
Just me?
Oh, BTW, I have some magic beans for sale on a pretty website. Any takers?
~~~
jrs99
i think saying you "feel like" going out and buying something is not the same
as "i will absolutely buy it now without looking into reviews or anything else
whereas before i saw the ad i would never have bought it." The first suggests
that something moved you emotionally. The other might be more irrational.
Maybe if you make a pretty website he would "feel like" buying some magic
beans and eventually decide not to.
personally, i love the scrolling. you get to stop and look at things. in the
future, these are going to have much more interaction and exploration. That's
the next logical step.
------
kjhughes
_After all, it 's not about what we make; it's about what we make you feel._
What their site, their opening punchline, the responsive design problems, and
the slowness make me feel is that they're overly focussed on superficial form
at the expense of deeper functionality.
~~~
vanderZwan
> they're overly focussed on superficial form at the expense of deeper
> functionality
Then again, isn't that what almost all advertising is trying to do these days:
draw your attention to the superficial form so you forget to criticise
fundamental flaws with the design?
~~~
headgasket
water resistant IP65 smartphone is a real enhancement, as in 100M deeper
functionality. I wish the iphone had that instead of lighter/ taller/ thiner
fonts.
Yeah I dont take calls underwater but I keep a bag of rice handy...
~~~
leephillips
Agree: cellphones should be waterproof. One of the _two_ iPhones that I
destroyed in 2013 drowned in a waterproof case that was not closed properly,
when I took an unexpected swim in the Atlantic. The silver lining was that I
discovered Android, which I prefer.
Also, I visited the site using a Thinkpad T60, which dates from around 2006
and would not be considered high-end. Using Chrome on Ubuntu, it was pretty
smooth - but I let it load before trying to scroll.
~~~
larrys
"cellphones should be waterproof."
It would be nice if they were. But all manufacturing involves design and price
tradeoffs.
I have a Sony Rx100ii (great camera) and it would be nice if that were
waterproof. But it's not and Sony (and others) offer a different camera that
is waterproof (but doesn't have the features of the Rx100ii). Any feature adds
to cost (or maybe makes something else not practical or not as good). Even a
slight increase in cost can change the demand curve. Or performance (take a
car with 4 wheel drive vs. 2 wheel drive). Etc.
By the way my own example of "should be" involves desktop or rack mounted
servers having at least a nominal surge protection or UPS. Obviously that has
been thought of and ruled out for various competitive reasons. (Weight, size,
cost, demand).
~~~
leephillips
Agree completely. In the case of cell phones, what I mean by "should" is that,
since we carry them around everywhere, it would be _extremely desirable_ for
them to be at least very water resistant, and is downright inconvenient to be
obligated to protect them from rain, etc. Worth paying a premium!
~~~
headgasket
I dont think the "Dell marketing" feature/price tradeoff logic applies to the
top of the market.
I just want the best tool, period. Since a price point for best device period
is well established since the original iphone, and the build cost keeps going
down, at one point it is this feature/that feature tradeoff for the next-gen
iteration.
I care more for indestructibility for a wearable or quasi-wearable device than
for a fingerprint reader that sort of works. And for a better camera that
opens at 1.8 or even 1.4 than for 9 grams less in my pocket and 1mm less
thickness.
But that's me. I guess the folks at Apple have a better algorithm. I'm really
tempted by the xperia tho, just not ready to ditch iOS, although the banning
of coinbase got me really close.
------
tambourine_man
Something is wrong when you are selling image quality and your site features
blurry artifacted images.
The animations are nice, but they are basically doing frame by frame 704 × 396
movie that look terrible when pushed to 1920 wide.
Just use a proper video format, which is much more efficient.
~~~
cyphunk
I'm curious why the images have artefacts (or pre-loading fuzz)? A year or so
ago Andreas Gysin did something very similar
[http://ertdfgcvb.ch/p2/sm/play/protog3](http://ertdfgcvb.ch/p2/sm/play/protog3)
and for some reason does not have the artefact issue. (code for that here
[http://ertdfgcvb.com/sequencer/](http://ertdfgcvb.com/sequencer/))
------
metabren
clickable: [http://discover.store.sony.com/be-
moved/](http://discover.store.sony.com/be-moved/)
~~~
sehr
Just realized how lazy I've become, thank you.
~~~
MichaelApproved
It's not just about being lazy, this is really helpful for mobile users.
------
Geee
What's the point of these scrolling sites? It's really hard to control the
scrolling speed and stop just in the right place. Just let me press a button
and then proceed to the next "slide" if you want fancy transitions.
~~~
jffry
I agree, and on this site, over on the far right side, are some little
rectangles you can click to jump between the sections (albeit still with the
animations, but sped up).
------
smackfu
So I follow the URL, and it takes 30 seconds to show me three lines of text on
the screen, and I can't skip forward or anything.
How is this better than Flash landing pages, exactly?
~~~
hnha
It does not require proprietary nonfree software.
~~~
talmand
So crappy performance and bad customer experience is okay as long as the
software involved was not proprietary and free?
I don't understand what you're statement means in terms of what it is replying
to.
------
gbog
Very choppy and hard to go back.
On the plus side, I didn't know about these "Smartphone Attachable Lens-Style
Camera", is there someone here able to tell me if it is worth it? (I have a
Galaxy Note and no other camera).
~~~
anujkk
Like many other verticals there are many technological innovations happening
in photography too. This "smartphone attachable lens-style camera" is one of
these recent innovations. I can't comment on quality of the lens itself but
they must be far better than that of a standard camera installed on mobile
phones. These lenses can be used both attached/detached to the mobile phone.
They use NFC (if your phone is into that sort of thing) or create their very
own Wi-Fi signal to connect with the phone.
I first read about such lenses and other similar products on
[http://photojojo.com/store/](http://photojojo.com/store/) . They have such
products for both android and iphone.
Now, is it worth it? Depends on your requirements. If you don't want to get
into professional photography but still want to improve the quality of your
photographs you can use one of these. However, remember that these don't
replace DSLRs.
1\. Mobile Camera : average quality/almost zero creative control/very good
mobility
2\. Mobile Camera + Lens accessory : better quality/almost no creative
control/good mobility
3\. Point & Shoot Camera : decent quality/little creative control/good
mobility
4\. Hybrid/Zoom Camera : decent quality/very high optical zoom/decent creative
control/poor mobility
5\. Mirrorlesss/Interchangeable Lens Camera : Good quality/Good Creative
Control/average mobility
6\. DSLRs : Good quality/Good Creative Control/Poor Mobility
I personally prefer to keep [1] in my pocket & [5] in my bag(along with
lenses). I also have an old Zoom Camera that usually sits in my home. I
occasionally use it together with a teleconverter lens to take photographs of
sun, moon & objects/people that are far far away.
~~~
gbog
Thanks for these details. I'm interested because I usually don't carry a bag,
and care about mobility and availability. I also like the idea of taking
picture without disturbing too much the (human) environment, e.g. without
shooting too explicitely. However this lens seem to be too big to fit in a
pocket.
~~~
anujkk
There are smaller alternatives available on Photojojo :
1)[http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/cell-phone-
lenses/](http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/cell-phone-lenses/)
2)[http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/macro-lens-
band/](http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/macro-lens-band/)
3)[http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/iphone-telephoto-
lens...](http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/iphone-telephoto-lens/)
4)[http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/olloclip-iphone-
lens/](http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/olloclip-iphone-lens/)
------
coolnow
Does anyone else have an i7 4702Q with a HD4600 running Chrome (Windows 8.1)?
Is smooth scrolling, actually smooth for you? It doesn't for me, and even
Internet Explorer (which surprisingly runs most pages 60fps smooth) runs the
page really badly.
edit: firefox runs the page smoothly, but on other pages, still can't top IE's
smoothness. What a weird world it is now.
------
pwpwp
I don't see any parallax here. Seems like normal 3D triggered by scrolling.
~~~
talmand
Could you define parallax? Because I see it, as I know it, in several places
throughout the page.
~~~
pwpwp
"background images move by the camera slower than foreground images"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_scrolling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_scrolling)
~~~
talmand
And you don't see that on this page?
~~~
pwpwp
Not really, no.
------
Oculus
Really cool website. I've noticed that really cool brand websites for large
Fortune 500 tech. companies tend to be done by a high end agency rather then
the companies' own teams.
------
benguild
Interesting experiment, but even chugs along on my latest generation rMBP in
Chrome. Meh
~~~
wanda
Weird. It's fast on my Thinkpad X201s from aeons ago (running chromium).
~~~
X4
I have a 3y old 1.3GHz cpu with integrated graphics only on Gentoo, but it's
so smooth, I can't believe it's not a video! How do they make it so smooth?
When I click the last page button on the right side, it runs smoothly through
all animations, same when happens when I scroll around. Can't wait to see
someone make a blog post on: "This is how Sony exploited HTML5 to run Smooth
Parallax Effects on their Page".
I ran it in Firefox with about ~100 tabs open having over a dozen addons, an
IDE opened and npm install running in the background.
~~~
wanda
Slack user here.
_tips fedora_
~~~
krisdol
Yeah, fedora runs it, too.
------
linux_devil
>" A journalist once called us a guinea pig because the results of our
experiments were copied by others.It was meant as an insult, but we took it as
a compliment. Combining artistry and engineering IS an experiment—but when
artists work with engineers, every day is a chance to be moved." Found this at
bottom of page
------
Pxtl
... I really want to like Sony. They seem to have the best chance of bringing
Apple-style quality to more open software-platforms.
But seriously, this is crap (at least on Firefox). It's slow and choppy and it
has a (however brief) unskippable intro. Pretty, but broken.
------
neals
At some point, wouldn't you just rather play a movie than have me scroll all
the time?
------
waltercfilho
All that, and they couldn't get the damn Twitter icon right.
~~~
mineo
The text and images also cut off on the left and right if your browser window
is "only" 1200px wide.
------
robin_reala
Any reason why they didn’t just use a paused video and step through it frame
by frame on scroll? Seems like it’d be a much more efficient experience for
the user.
~~~
prr
Reverse scrolling a video is really slow, unless you set the key frames close
together (in which case, you don't really gain much file size wise).
~~~
robin_reala
Ah, I figured there was a reason I was missing. Thanks!
------
yourad_io
It is interesting to note that even if I _ever_ manage to create a splash page
as awesome as this, HN will still (partly) respond: Meh - choppy.
~~~
talmand
I think it has more to do with the choices in technology than art direction.
It is cool, but if it sucks performance-wise for enough people then it sucks
no matter how cool it looks.
I haven't been a big fan of these types of pages, especially the type that
take over the scrolling functionality. I was recently tasked with building
one. The creatives love it, I dislike these pages even more now.
------
leephillips
One implied claim that stuck out was that their recent full-frame digital
camera produces images comparable with "medium format film". This is extremely
unlikely, and casts all their claims in doubt. Also, I couldn't find anything
about their creative research into incorporating rootkits and other exploits
into their products: I know what _that_ makes me feel.
------
scarredwaits
Apparently the RX1R PREMIUM COMPACT CAMERA (third from the end) includes a
slice of cheese in the middle of the sensor. Easter cheese? :-)
------
TomGullen
I got a pretty good desktop computer and it's choppy. These things really have
to be silky smooth for me or I leave pretty quickly.
------
aplusplus
Was it done in-house at Sony USA or who produced it, does anyone know?
Quite funny how the use meta keywords like its 2002 … "download movies online,
online movies, internet movies, video on demand, movies on demand, tv shows,
watch movies online, watch online movies, support, technical, service, repair,
fix, USA"
------
pdknsk
I was distracted by blurriness and compression artifacts. Homework for Sony
web designers: try the site on a rotated 1920 x 1200 screen. Then you'll also
notice that it's cut off left and right. Apple has the same problem on their
Mac Pro site, which uses a very similar mechanic.
------
ihatetomatoes
Curious how it was build? Here is the Be Moved site deconstruction -
[http://ihatetomatoes.net/sonys-be-moved-website-
deconstructe...](http://ihatetomatoes.net/sonys-be-moved-website-
deconstructed/)
Nicely done Sony.
------
bigd
there's a Venus de Milo inside the ps4 controller! can't wait to open mine!
------
Raphmedia
I really like it! Imagine how easy it must be to create something like that!
Simply export a video into jpegs, add some JS and BAM! A nice scrolling
effect. I like it!
------
tsunamifury
Design should not force the user to relinquish tactile control. I spent more
time aware of the broken scrolling physics choppy animations than reading
anything.
------
nebulous1
[http://flashvhtml.com/](http://flashvhtml.com/)
Feels better in my opinion. The jpg method seems too jerky.
------
jwcacces
"Scroll Down to Explore"
So, where's the scroll bar?
~~~
dfxm12
And I generally use the space bar to scroll. That's not working here :(
~~~
calciphus
Scroll wheel on my mouse isn't working either.
Nor are arrow keys.
Someone tried a little too hard to optimize for Safari and OSX and forgot
that's like 8% of the market.
Chrome on Win 8.1. Site is nearly un-usable (I can click in their custom
scrollbar to make it move).
~~~
talmand
That all works for me but everyone's mileage may vary because of the way it
appears to have been built. It doesn't use the browsing scrolling and likely
attempts to take over all the normal scrolling duties to do what it wants. So
if you browser of choice is not on the list for whatever reason, then their
will be problems.
------
chrislgrigg
This trend of sites that break gesture forward/back, space bar scroll, and
other standard browser features needs to stop.
------
_pmf_
Ah, that explains why it works without crashing Chrome (as HTML5 WebGL
monkeying does).
------
thrillgore
Ow my CPU load
------
Kiro
How does this work exactly?
~~~
talmand
Series of images are loaded into a canvas element that steps through them as
you scroll. The text is layered on top and parallax-ified as needed.
------
mrdude42
wow...
|
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(Since 2016) Ongoing Amazon scam - esturk
https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/59500l/psa_amazon_cloud_drive_i_just_got_charged_5999/
======
em3rgent0rdr
Wow, just wow. I really think a future payment system where _you_ are in
charge of how much money is spent. Maybe you designate up front recurring
payments that are fixed, but by default require any new charges to be manually
approved.
------
gjvc
I am by no means an apologist for Amazon or any other company, but from the
comments on that reddit link, it seems like the customer service operation is
empowered to easily fix this. It reminds me of the Jeff Bezos quote from way
back when: "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might
each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can
each tell 6,000 friends."
~~~
esturk
Thats what I thought at first but I only discovered this after the 2nd charge.
(Which was also when I discovered the post.)
I was only able to get 1 of the 2 charges refunded. They insists that the
system wouldn't let them refund it from 2016. So its not so "easily" done.
------
esturk
edit: The Reddit post is not mine. I only discovered it after finding out
about this scam while searching for the credit card charged information.
I just want to share this with the HN community so some people may be on the
look out for this similar charge. I myself just discovered (last night) this
charge for the past 2 years and Amazon absolutely refuses to refund me for the
prior year.
I never once received any email to ask for my consent nor any email notifying
me that the subscription have been renewed. Amazon insists its all in the fine
prints. It was all automatically charged on which ever credit card was on my
account.
Would anyone know of a proper recourse to this?
|
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NaCL: Slides on DJB, Lange, Schwabe's High-Level Crypto Library - tptacek
http://cr.yp.to/talks/2011.09.28/slides.pdf
======
tptacek
Quick translation:
Daniel Bernstein (DJB) is a renowned systems programmer and a serious academic
cryptographer. Many of the SHA-3 candidates are partly derived from his work,
and he designed one of the eSTREAM finalist stream ciphers.
Bernstein, Lange, and Schwabe designed NaCl. NaCl is a high-speed crypto
library designed to correct all the things that go wrong with "low level"
crypto libraries like OpenSSL. This is a big deal, because OpenSSL is the
current "lowest common denominator" crypto implementation and thus forms the
basis for most crypto facilities in high-level languages like Python and Ruby.
OpenSSL is extraordinarily error prone and itself has a spotty track record.
NaCl provides an ultra-simple interface (crypto_box_+) that handles the
details of message signing, encryption primitives public key, formatting, &c.
It's been used by a bunch of projects already (also note that DJB software is
somewhat inherently credible; he wrote qmail and djbdns, which have the two
best security track records in all of serverside software). A bunch of very
smart people have contributed to it.
NaCl addresses a bunch of serious systemic security pitfalls:
* It's hardened, fundamentally, against the "side channel" effects we know about today that allow attackers to measure crypto operations to extract keys. For instance: "NaCl systematically avoids _all_ branch conditions".
* It authenticates messages, in constant time, before attempting to decrypt, which prevents attackers from exploring how the target is handling ciphertext (for instance, this prevents padding oracles in asymmetric and block ciphers).
* It handles the details of getting crypto-secure random numbers in a sane way, and also minimizes places in the design that require random numbers (for instance, DSA requires a random nonce in addition to a strong random key; that's something many people have screwed up).
* It makes extremely well-informed choices about ciphers and algorithms (it's designed by active contributors to the literature).
* It's crazy fast (crazy fast is basically Bernstein's current academic focus).
This thing is simple, it's fast, and it's designed to be safe by people who
know what that means.
Start building language bindings for this thing!
~~~
JoachimSchipper
Too bad it's already off the front page...
_Some_ degree of caution is probably warranted. djb is awesome, but most of
the algorithms in NaCL are his own, rather new, ideas. You trade in fixes for
known problems in AES/RSA (implementations) for possible unknown errors. (That
said, djb _is_ pretty good.)
~~~
tptacek
Worth noting that NaCl is a couple years old now.
You are far safer using NaCl than trying to cobble together anything using
OpenSSL AES or RSA.
If you're debating between NaCl and Keyczar or cryptlib or PGP, sure, think
carefully. But if it's NaCl or homebrew: no contest.
------
m0nastic
I've watched his 27c3 talk a bunch of times over the past few months, and have
convinced myself about 80% of the way to start messing around with CurveCP.
|
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Ask HN: Best service to find a therapist? - Regardsyjc
Is there a service where you can easily find therapists that are covered by your insurance and schedule an appointment?<p>A friend needs help finding a therapist and I would love to know what would be the best way to help her. Zocdoc?
======
ajb413
[https://www.twochairs.com/](https://www.twochairs.com/)
~~~
Regardsyjc
Thanks! Unfortunately we're based in NYC.
|
{
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Show HN: Chat Envy - Simple browser based video chat - jeffpalmer
I decided to build Chat Envy this weekend to get a feel for the OpenTok API.<p>Chat Envy is a simple web based video chat platform that allows users to quickly setup a chatroom.<p>What do you think? Would you use it?<p>Any feedback is appreciated.<p>http://chatenvy.com
======
Sargis
Your homepage_view function doesn't return an HttpResponse object. How do I
know that? Because you're in debug mode. You should disable that.
~~~
jeffpalmer
Ouch. Thanks for that, it's disabled now.
------
jeffpalmer
Link: <http://chatenvy.com>
~~~
sitkack
\- urls are too long
\- hit refresh when there is a flash problem, boots me out
\- no ability to type messages
\- should alert user to turn of flash block
~~~
jeffpalmer
Thanks for the feedback, all good suggestions. URL length is an annoyance for
me as well. I will look at passing the identifier in some other manner.
------
switch33
You should promise anonymity like Jitsi.
------
marcomassaro
Very cool. Would use it. Bookmarked.
|
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Show HN: Cohortt – Find people whom a Twitter user frequently tweets to - gj0
https://cohortt.com/
======
gj0
Hello Hacker News! Creator here, happy to answer any questions! :)
I decided to build Cohortt to find accounts similar to a particular twitter
account. Usually we tweet or interact with people who share similar interests.
For example here is Paul Graham's Cohortt
[https://cohortt.com/user/@paulg](https://cohortt.com/user/@paulg).
To find cohortt of any other person, say Naval Ravikants (@naval), just
replace the screen name / twitter handle in the url.
[https://cohortt.com/user/@naval](https://cohortt.com/user/@naval)
------
easytiger
Within or without Twitter's TOC?
|
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Linus Torvalds reveals his favorite programming laptop - CrankyBear
http://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-reveals-his-favorite-programming-laptop/
======
AdmiralAsshat
Original G+ post might be better for the link:
[https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/VZj8vxXdtfe](https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/VZj8vxXdtfe)
On that note, he mentioned manually opening the Dell XPS 13 in order to switch
out the wifi card. This suggests that he got a regular version versus a
Developer Edition, since the latter should have an Intel card built-in.
(Additionally, I'm glad he didn't have any problems switching out the
hardware. I did the same thing to my own Dell XPS 13 and ran into repeated
problems first getting the metal case _off_ , and then getting it back on.
First few times, I had random airgaps near the palm-rest assembly. 3 or 4
attempts later I finally got the gaps to go away, although even now I can
still hear an occasional clicking noise if I press on the back near the vents.
I'm guessing one of the back clips did not completely catch. But I'm terrified
of taking it off again, so I'll live with it.)
|
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PyCon 2015 Channel - slashfoo
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgxzjK6GuOHVKR_08TT4hJQ/videos
======
slashfoo
They are uploading next-day.
|
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Discuss on HN: The NSA Leaks Make Everyone Less Safe, Here's Why - samstave
The NSA leaks have been defended by the NSA itself, politicians, and some members of the public as a measure to keep us safe.<p>This is a patently false statement. These programs have proven 100% beyond any doubt that every human on the planet is less safe.<p>There is no safety from a system where you have no ability to freely dissent, disagree, discuss, or discover the ideas and thoughts of others that may be in opposition to the currently ruling power structure.<p>The NSA in specific, the USG in general has completely eliminated the ability for any American citizen to feel safe in their articles and effects:<p>><i></i><i>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.</i><i></i><p>The NSA's dragnet eliminates any and all security of person (conversations, location by phone), papers (email, browsing), effects (files, downloads, contacts, accounts) and the ability to query anything is an entirely unreasonable search.<p>The NSA has eliminated the spirit and soul of what America is.<p>There is simply no justification for the level to which the 'system' has evolved in response to "the war on terror".<p>It's time to stand up against the encroachment and expression of the terror-intelligence state.<p>Today, I am proposing a call to action to protest, peacefully, but relentlessly, against the state of the United States Government, and its agents in the NSA with complete civil disobedience. Refuse to accept their lawful authority over you, your person and your life given that they are not upholding the basis on which this country is built; the U.S. Constitution.<p>Please discuss.
======
Torkild
I believe that abuse of power in general, and illicit surveillance in
particular, is nothing new, especially for the United States. This does not
make any of it kosher of course.
But in an age where the courts can literally, retroactively re-write the laws
to serve their own interests, protests and petitions are as evocative as a
breeze.
I suspect that portions of every generation feels that things will get worse
before it gets better. I believe that other portions of every generation
believe theirs to be the ultimate showdown, the Armageddon. All said, I don't
see how we can be backed any further into a corner. I've been running daily
news aggregation articles at my website:
[http://thelotteryparty.com/](http://thelotteryparty.com/)
And every day's post makes me feel more and more like a sadomasochist. I see
no easy solutions. I think we will all need to go without many things that
we've been taking for granted, before life will look anymore hopeful for
future generations, even the next generation.
Edit to add: I have not had a bank account since the big bailout of '07, and
have never owned a credit card. I pay only sales taxes. I do not vote. I
boycott freely and widely. These and other small battles make for a truly
awkward lifestyle, but I think it the best way to buck the system- by not
enabling any of it. Take the power away from the Powers That Be. The People
own the gov.
~~~
samstave
How are you paid without a bank account? I'd be really interested in hearing
how you manage that physically.
~~~
Torkild
Cash primarily, though I cash checks at non-chain pawn shops as needed. I've
been getting lucky in the last year or so with trading goods and services-
such as covering my hosting fees by proofreading/script doctoring/ghostwriting
for others, etc. Even lawncare for groceries in the funner months. It is not
easy, but I watched Turk182 waaay too much when I was a kid.
------
MattyRad
Yes, indeed, a sentiment shared in some form or another by most of the users
here. However, your call to action is nebulous at best. Most of the solutions
that myself and others are taking include 1) Encryption, 2) Writing
politicians, and 3) Discussing the issue with friends and family. If you are
able to suggest something more effective, please do so.
Also, if you are truly want to make a difference, I think it's a good idea to
start using Bitcoin. The ability to circumvent taxes (at least, for now, while
Bitcoin is fresh) decreases the government's ability to control you. Of
course, Bitcoin's public success is more of a fantasy I hold. Regardless, I'd
be interested to hear your thoughts on that matter.
~~~
venomsnake
Just a thought - which do you think will be cut more if tax revenue declines?
Food stamps or NSA funding?
~~~
MattyRad
That's a good point. I would hope that if tax revenue declines, the NSA, at
the very least, would cease growing. It is possible that more justified
programs would take a hit, such as food stamps, but in the end I'm far more
concerned about being spied on. But honestly, I think it's more about the
principle: I'm not going to finance a government that so blatantly ignores its
own Constitution.
|
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Show HN: Android virtualization on ARM processors - robot
This is our MVP (took ~2 years to build): http://vimeo.com/21889466<p>We run virtualized instances of Android/Linux on multicore ARM processors.<p>I am the founder, 29, we are a small team. I would welcome any feedback, suggestions, improvements... A great help would be improving our plans on who to approach with this. There may be people/companies which we didn't think of.<p>I will be in Mountain View from 10th April onwards and happy to meet in person anyone interested in the technology. (also looking for housing in the MV area).
======
robot
Clickable: <http://vimeo.com/21889466>
|
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React v0.12 - spicyj
http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/28/react-v0.12.html
======
jbhatab
I don't know if I'm reading the changes wrong, but I'm not liking how I have
to do an extra step if I don't use jsx. I want to use coffescript and not have
to do extra stuff.
I definitely feel this forced vibe around making everyone use jsx, but have
yet to hear any compelling reasons why it's better.
~~~
sebmarkbage
Hi, this was a tough call for us to make. We wanted to everything we could to
avoid extra bloat for everyone. In the end, most people tend to use some kind
of extra helper, even if it's not JSX. E.g. a custom library or another third
party language.
One reason for this change is to make it possible to use object literals or
record syntax where that is more appropriate than function calls. We don't
currently recommend it because there's no validation in that case, so you
probably want static analysis to catch errors. I would encourage you to play
with the idea of using object literals instead of function calls though.
One compelling reason for this change is that in 0.13 you will be able to
build components using plain CoffeeScript classes instead of relying on
React.createClass. So, in the end, you will be getting some of that
bloat/overhead back.
We're definitely not making React depend on JSX. We will continue to support
non-JSX and fully support compile-to-JS languages. Unfortunately, that
sometimes means a trade-off. In this case trading React.createClass for
React.createFactory. Some would've preferred it be the opposite tradeoff but
React.createFactory gives us more benefits than the opposite.
~~~
jbhatab
Thanks for the response.
Could you give me a quick example of calling a component with object literals
instead of functions? I'm not understanding how that will play out in the
final code.
Also, isn't it just adding React.createFactory, not replacing
React.createClass?
~~~
sebmarkbage
In CoffeeScript it might look something like this:
element = type: 'div' props: className: 'container', children: [ type: 'span',
props: className: 'foo' type: CustomClass, props: className: 'bar' ]
(This doesn't fully work in 0.12 because we also have some extra properties on
there but that's the direction we're going.)
0.12 is just adding React.createFactory. 0.13 will optionally replace
React.createClass.
We do this so that there's a seamless upgrade path. We have to remove the
warnings to fix the classes.
~~~
kaoD
I guessed that indentation:
element =
type: 'div'
props: className: 'container'
children: [
type: 'span'
props: className: 'foo'
,
type: CustomClass
props: className: 'bar'
]
------
simplify
I'm disappointed that JSX is now so coupled to React. I was looking forward to
JSX being used by many different JavaScript frameworks[1], but this change
reveals the devs are not interested in moving that direction.
[1] Example: [https://github.com/mrsweaters/mithril-
rails](https://github.com/mrsweaters/mithril-rails)
~~~
spicyj
We do actually want JSX to be flexible and usable for not just React, which is
why we're trying to write a formal specification of the syntax with multiple
parser implementations:
[http://facebook.github.io/jsx/](http://facebook.github.io/jsx/)
We intentionally don't specify semantics to give different transpilers the
flexibility to compile the JSX into whatever's appropriate for the library
you're using.
~~~
simplify
A specification is great, and I'm happy to see that. However, even though it's
true that transpilers can compile JSX with arbitrary semantics, it still
requires _writing your own transpiler_.
JSX is a great syntax, and these changes mean nothing if you're a transpiler
writer. What I was hoping for was the JSX transpiler _that React uses_ would
become flexible enough for any library to use, without the need to
modify/rewrite the transpiler itself.
Yes it's possible for someone _else_ to write something like this, but writing
a compiler is no small feat =/
~~~
malandrew
JSX is a great syntax
It's really not. It's just mixing syntaxes to solve the problem that mixed
syntaxes causes. Higher order functions (i.e. createFactory) is a much better
solution.
------
malandrew
What options are there for syncing flux stores on the server and client?
I ask this because the increasing move towards microservices seems to suggest
that "joins" are going to start taking place on the client via waitFor.
For example, if I get model A and it depends on Models B, C and D. I don't
want to have to wait for the client to fetch model A before it knows it needs
to fetch models, B, C and D. Ideally, as model A passes through the server
side store layer, it already starts fetching models B, C and D so it has those
ready to serve to client, (or better yet it anticipates that the client is
going to want B, C and D and eagerly sends that data to the client).
~~~
collyw
That sounds like a problem of pushing too much processing to the client side.
~~~
collyw
A downvote for pointing that out.
Can someone explain why I would want to do joins on the client side, when
there is mature, well tested, well understood technology for doing joins on
the server side? All the data is going to be on the server, so no danger of
loosing a connection.
------
jaredgrippe
I have a huge problem with this change explained here:
[https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/da8c020662ea8e6002dc](https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/da8c020662ea8e6002dc)
~~~
chenglou
Rest assured, see sebmarkbage's and my reply here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8523732](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8523732)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8524465)
~~~
jaredgrippe
The object literal syntax also sucks :(
[https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/79c09610cac5a67f4a5d](https://gist.github.com/deadlyicon/79c09610cac5a67f4a5d)
~~~
spion
Agreed.
* JSX more tightly coupled,
* less straightforward JSX->JS mapping - I used to be so excited to tell people how JSX simply maps to function calls in JS... well, now it generates boilerplate instead.
* worse non-JSX syntax
I don't buy the ES6/CS/TS argument - wrapping classes with createFactory
before exporting seems fine to me, and I use typescript. Also, from what I can
see the object literal syntax is always worse.
So its basically all about Jest. The only reason I see is that a mocking tool
can't handle factories. Makes me a bit sad. Seems like a good example of "test
induced design damage" to me. How about adding plugins to that mocking tool
instead?
~~~
peterhunt
If you wrap the class in createFactory() then you break instanceof; how is
this fine?
~~~
spion
True. But I can't come up with an example where I'd use instanceof on react
components, can you give me one?
~~~
mateuszf
Just wondering .. maybe it's used internally by the library?
------
palcu
A sincere and big thank you for building and evolving this awesome tool that
simplified UI madness in browsers. :-)
------
hardwaresofton
As a person who is using react, this is a welcome change! I'm glad they're
taking time to get rid of the kludgy code that wasn't quite consistent.
~~~
jbhatab
Hey can you explain how they improved consistency because I just don't
understand how the new changes help. I may just not understand what they did
at a fundamental level.
~~~
hardwaresofton
IMHO it's more consistent because the things that react has been modifying
have been Elements all along (DOM Elements).
React called them components, and it's always felt like a kludge to create
some thing that WAS a DOM element (boiling down to React.DOM), and then set
it's "tagname" as an after-thought.
Things like prop are tied directly to the DOM Element, further suggesting that
the "thing" the component was, was actually a DOM Element.
I guess it's really subjective, but I think it'll be clearer to explain to
people now:
"React manages creation and rendering of dynamic/intelligent (DOM) Elements"
(bonus points for no overlap with the Web Components terminology)
But then again a lot of this is just my opinion, consistency
------
glittershark
Always really happy to see a ton of breaking changes in a pre-1.0 release, and
very pleased that they're all moving towards simplifying the public API.
------
xiaoma
Ouch. I've been building dynamic components using transferPropsTo(), which is
now deprecated. It's very flexible and working well, so I'm a bit bummed to
see it go.
render: function() {
// after building up some object, propsObj that is determined by state
return this.transferPropsTo(
Component(propsObj)
);
}
~~~
lobster_johnson
No problem, just do this instead:
render: function() {
// Assign propsObj here
return <Component {...propsObj}/>;
}
------
fiatjaf
I don't get the React.isValidComponent -> React.isValidElement change. Wasn't
"class" the name of the abstract idea of component and "component" the name of
the actually rendered component, the class materialized in a DOM?
~~~
spicyj
See this post for a description of our terminology:
[http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/14/introducing-...](http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/10/14/introducing-
react-elements.html)
If I write
var C = React.createClass(...);
var e = <C />;
var c = React.render(e, document.body);
then _C_ is a class, _e_ is an element (previously "descriptor"), and _c_ is
the actual mounted component. Components are generally accessible only through
"this", refs, and the return value of React.render.
------
jaredgrippe
One of my favorite patterns in React is using functions to wrap a React
component.
It goes something like this:
App.Button = React.createClass({
render: function(){
var className = 'btn '+this.props.className
<a href className={className}>{this.props.children}</a>
}
});
App.BigButton = function(props){
props = props || {};
props.className = 'btn-large '+props.className
return App.Button.apply(null, arguments)
};
How would you do something like this?
~~~
sebmarkbage
This is actually an anti-pattern that we're explicitly trying to get rid of.
The fewer components you have, the fewer optimization hooks you have. This
also have subtle changes in semantics, and disables local optimizations in the
consuming files.
The idea of a lightweight declaration of a component (e.g. a just function) is
definitely still on the table and might be resurrected in a different form.
[https://github.com/reactjs/react-
future/blob/master/01%20-%2...](https://github.com/reactjs/react-
future/blob/master/01%20-%20Core/03%20-%20Stateless%20Functions.js)
------
josebalius
So are ES6 classes for components coming in 0.13?
~~~
lobster_johnson
You can use ES6 classes today:
class Button {
render() {
return <button>{this.props.label}</button>;
}
}
Button = React.createClass(Button.prototype);
Of course, it would have been nice to be able to skip that last line, and
extend/mix in some React base class instead.
------
bostonvaulter2
I've been looking into React.js recently and I have a general question. Is it
possible to use React.js with zurb foundation cleanly? It appears that it will
not work well because Foundation expects to modify the state of the DOM for
Foundation elements. Are there any workarounds?
~~~
biscarch
After looking into this I've come to the conclusion that rewriting the
JavaScript to handle events through React's system is the best way to include
Foundation's JS components. (This is something I'm planning to do with
Foundation-for-Apps since I won't be using Angular).
That said, the styles are still usable without modification and you could tell
React to not handle pieces of the DOM in some cases for the existing JS.
------
moondowner
The license change paragraph mentions patents. Anyone knows which Facebook
patents are used in React?
------
Kiro
How are bindings in React not two-way? Update an input field and it updates
the underlying JS object. Update the object and it updates the input field. I
thought that was the definition of two-way, regardless of what happens behind
the scenes.
~~~
insin
It doesn't update the underlying object for you by default.
If you use an uncontrolled component (by giving it a
defaultValue/defaultChecked prop) you have to pick up the new value using an
event or directly via the DOM. If you do it this way, you can't update the
displayed value by changing the props passed to it.
If you use a controlled component (by giving it a value/checked prop), its
displayed value won't update unless you pick up the new value from an event
and set it in whichever JS object you have holding its state for the next
render. There's a helper for doing that, or it's easy enough to roll your own
event handler which takes care of all your fields.
[http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/forms.html](http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/forms.html)
------
limsup
Can someone explain what the "spread operator" is and how to use it?
~~~
jbaudanza
[https://gist.github.com/sebmarkbage/07bbe37bc42b6d4aef81](https://gist.github.com/sebmarkbage/07bbe37bc42b6d4aef81)
~~~
claar
Wow, the example in that gist:
var component = <Component {...props} foo={'override'} />;
Wha?? For me, there's a point in a language where the benefits of syntactic
sugar are outweighed by readability concerns.
------
scwoodal
Are the v0.11 docs available anywhere other than the Github markdown files?
------
johne20
off topic a bit, but why do the CDN urls 301 redirect?
~~~
zpao
Mostly what @BinaryBullet said. fb.me is a urlshortener and then it hits real
CDNed files. I (as maintainer of React) suggest not actually using fb.me urls
in production. Use cdnjs or jsdelivr. Or host it yourself. We've been meaning
to put together a proper CDN hosting setup for JS libraries but just haven't
gotten around to it.
~~~
johne20
Out of curiosity why don't you suggest using the fb.me urls in production? It
would be nice to take advantage of the reach of Facebook to know that a decent
percentage of users would have hit the CDN'ed react url before hitting non-fb
site(s).
------
fiatjaf
I really don't see the point of making so much breaking changes just to
simplify the public API. The thing was working, it was good. It didn't need
any changes. God would have rested.
But well, the developers were there and, you know, they cannot see a
repository without commits for much time, right?
~~~
spicyj
We made these changes to try to make React better for everyone, but if you
would like to continue using React 0.11, please do.
~~~
fiatjaf
Please, don't take this as an offense. I didn't mean to. This was an attempt
of a joke, but it clearly didn't come out the way I wanted.
I love React, I love you guys for making React and I'm sorry for this comment.
|
{
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|
Choosing the “best software” - deafcalculus
https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/01/24/choosing-the-best-thing/
======
dsr_
This is a systems argument, not just software. It applies to choosing to do
anything. I would rearrange these points, but they are essentially correct.
You don't make changes for the sake of change or because something is cool,
you make changes when:
1\. Necessity. You need something that the current system is not doing for
you. That might be scalability, or performance, or stability, or having good
maintenance procedures, or compatibility with another system... In order to
justify this change, you must clearly understand and document what it is that
you want to do and how the existing system cannot do it.
2\. Cost. Could be dollars paid for licenses, or for consultants, or for
attention required from your own people, but excessive cost is certainly a
convincing reason to change a system. You do need to make sure that the cost
of implementing the new system isn't going to exceed the cost of keeping the
old one. That can be non-obvious.
I have lumped in "difficult" with "cost" because they are the same thing with
two names. Cost in time to change or time to learn or time to implement always
converts directly to a cost in dollars and a cost in opportunities to do
something different.
|
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|
Welcome to “Learning by Shipping” - aaronbrethorst
http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/03/hello-world/
======
aaronbrethorst
Also, since it's not immediately obvious: this is Steven Sinofsky's new blog.
Sinofsky was the guy in charge of Windows who just left Microsoft a few weeks
ago.
~~~
krevis
_I’m super excited to see how this experiment goes._
Yes, must be him all right.
~~~
subsystem
Uhm. Seems like an unnecessary attack, especially with him having a HN account
(only 1 comment but still) and you being a former Apple engineer.
~~~
kvb
I don't think that was an attack; Sinofsky says "super excited" a lot.
~~~
subsystem
Oh ok. I misinterpreted.
------
sanguit
Like the spirit of the blog. I'd love to see the following: 1\. Common
misconceptions about planning code 2\. Real-life examples of how our pre-
shipping hypotheses are often wrong 3\. How to be smarter about optimizing
post the initial feedback
All the best with the blog
------
d0m
Make sure to fix "learningbyshipping.com" (Without the blog.)
------
up_and_up
What's with the giant OM symbol on the blog. Just curious.
Is transcendental wisdom being elucidated?
Not snarky here, just genuinely curious since its rare to see in this context.
~~~
batgaijin
theblogdoctor - your account is dead
------
lominming
Looking forward to Steven Sinofsky's new blog. "Learning by Shipping" - very
true. Love the title.
|
{
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|
ElixirConfEU Keynote – Phoenix Takes Flight [video] - chrismccord
http://www.chrismccord.com/blog/2015/05/09/elixirconfeu-keynote-phoenix-takes-flight/
======
chrismccord
Creator here. I'm happy to answer any questions. We had our first ElixirConf
in Europe a couple weeks ago and I showed off our new features and what it's
store for 1.0 in July. For those that want to take Phoenix for a spin, we've
have getting started guides to get up and running quickly:
[http://www.phoenixframework.org](http://www.phoenixframework.org)
~~~
MCRed
Congrats on the popularity of Phoenix. The documentation is quite excellent!
I'd be interested in your perspective on the current state of the elixir web
framework scene and where you think it's going.
Specifically, how would you compare Phoenix and N2O?
Would you say the perception is correct that Phoenix is going very much into
the direction of Ruby on Rails? (Generators, you and Jose are rails
contributors, etc.)
I'm torn. On one hand Phoenix has the momentum, but on the other, I feel like
it's making a lot of assumptions that don't hold in my situation. (EG: I'm
doing routing at runtime because the routes change, I don't store anything on
the local drive, so no static data there, I'm doing an unusual way of
composition to produce what's sent to the browser. I haven't run into any
blockers to using phoenix just feel like I'm fighting it sometimes.)
Yeah, sorry, vague question. :-)
~~~
chrismccord
Thanks!
> I'd be interested in your perspective on the current state of the elixir web
> framework scene and where you think it's going.
One of my goals from the start was to rally around Plug
([https://github.com/elixir-lang/plug](https://github.com/elixir-lang/plug)),
which is our webserver abstraction and middleware lib (somewhat like Rack from
Ruby, or Ring from Clojure). With Phoenix, Plug is core to the framework and
we don't hide it like Rails does with Rack. So in Phoenix, Endpoints, Routers,
and Controllers are Just Plugs. This makes things less magical, simplifies the
request lifecycle, but most importantly it allows easy interop with community
libraries. So plugs released for framework X, phoenix, or "pure plug" usecases
will just work across all codebases. So the for "elixir web framework scene" I
see a vibrant community around not only Phoenix, but Plug in general and other
libs built on top of it.
> Specifically, how would you compare Phoenix and N2O
I have no direct experience with n20, but some of our realtime goals overlap
and they have done really great work. We use their filesystem watching lib for
our live-reload feature. We don't go to the level of writing html abstractions
not the server to push updates over, but it's a really neat idea that I would
like to explore doing over Phoenix channels after 1.0 is out. If you see my
work on Sync, a gem for realtime rails partials, I explored things around
these ideas.
> Would you say the perception is correct that Phoenix is going very much into
> the direction of Ruby on Rails? (Generators, you and Jose are rails
> contributors, etc.)
To be clear, I'm not a Rails contributor, but I have done Ruby/Rails
professionally for 6 years or so. It depends what you mean by "direction".
Rails set the bar for productivity and onboarding out of the box, so we aim to
go this direction in spririt, but we aren't out to match feature to feature.
We are also taking a more explicit approach (thanks to FP). I would say our
goals for bootstrapping productive apps quickly with fast iteration is where
we match Rails, but we are ready to take on the world out of the gate perf
wise. Phoenix is also deviating on a the traditional "web framework" notion.
Browsers aren't going anywhere, but we should have a framework that can hold
persistent connection and broker messages across _connected devices_ ; many
coming over browsers, but iOS, Andoid, et al as well. That's where the world
is heading and where Phoenix aims to excel. So we should be great at the
standard server rendered html, form builders, etc, but we're trying to take it
to the next level with channels.
> ... I haven't run into any blockers to using phoenix just feel like I'm
> fighting it sometimes.)
I can't help if we don't have specific code examples. I always tell people we
aim for the common 80% usecase that we all share. Special use-cases will
always require deviations from any framework. Since our http stack is "just
plugs" you should be able to easily get the best of both worlds with your
needs while still using phoenix. Find me on IRC with some gists and we can see
about making it work well :)
~~~
MCRed
Thanks for the response! I read it yesterday and thought about it and did some
investigation and just read it again today. You've convinced me to go with
Phoenix for a couple weeks and see how that goes. I think what sold me was you
selling me on plug, as I think that is the correct solution and answers the
core issue (that I was having trouble articulating.)
I am definitely not working on the %80 use case you're targeting, in fact, the
best explanation of what I'm doing is I'm competing with you. I agree with you
on the choice of elixir, and I agree with you about the direction of connected
devices but we have some philosophical differences in solution. (One could say
you're coming from the web world, and I am coming from the native world.)
But I will work on breaking out my solutions, as much as possible, into plugs
so that people using phoenix can use them.... and if I end up pulling in some
N2O I'll probably wrap it as a plug.
And since phoenix is based on plugs and lets you build a pipeline, this may be
pretty convenient.
Thanks again for your work, contributions to making Elixir the Next Big Thing
and your answers above!
------
digitalzombie
The search bar doesn't work over at phoenixframework.org (using firefox).
I was trying to search for API authentication.
How easy is it? And what protocol do phoenix have in place for authentication?
Thanks.
Are you planning to have a vagrant box for Pheonix?
Laravel have this, named Homestead. I thought it was pretty easy and awesome.
~~~
bphogan
Hi. There's nothing out of the box for API authentication. But I set up
authentication in less than an hour for my app yesterday. You really want to
learn how Plug works, and doing that opens up so many possibilities. I'm
frustrated that there are so many things missing right now, because I'm used
to Rails where everything exists right now. But I'm finding that having to do
these things myself helps me really learn how Elixir works and it's opening up
a lot of possibilities.
~~~
doomspork
For me the lack of available solutions is an opportunity to contribute back,
something that I find can be more difficult with established projects.
------
UserRights
How can I do object level permissions with Phoenix and ecto?
I can not find anything about advanced security features in the docs (not only
because the search on the site is broken).
|
{
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|
Am I Being Tracked? - drefanzor
http://amibeingtracked.com/
======
drefanzor
Supposedly checks for "supercookies" that track your every move on your phone.
Anyone know anything else about this?
|
{
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|
How Optimizely Onboards New Users - samuelhulick
http://www.useronboard.com/how-optimizely-onboards-new-users/
======
samuelhulick
Happy to answer any questions anyone might have!
|
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|
Docker was unavailable in Ubuntu/Debian repos - pi-squared
https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/23203
======
shykes
Hi, I work at Docker. Here is my reply on the github thread:
[https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/23203#issuecomment-2...](https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/23203#issuecomment-223326996)
I am copying it below:
<<< Hi everyone. I work at Docker.
First, my apologies for the outage. I consider our package infrastructure as
critical infrastructure, both for the free and commercial versions of Docker.
It's true that we offer better support for the commercial version (it's one if
its features), but that should not apply to fundamental things like being able
to download your packages.
The team is working on the issue and will continue to give updates here. We
are taking this seriously.
Some of you pointed out that the response time and use of communication
channels seem inadequate, for example the @dockerststus bot has not mentioned
the issue when it was detected. I share the opinion but I don't know the full
story yet; the post-mortem will tell us for sure what went wrong. At the
moment the team is focusing on fixing the issue and I don't want to distract
them from that.
Once the post-mortem identifies what went wrong, we will take appropriate
corrective action. I suspect part of it will be better coordination between
core engineers and infrastructure engineers (2 distinct groups within Docker).
Thanks and sorry again for the inconvenience. >>>
~~~
falsedan
> At the moment the team is focusing on fixing the issue
> and I don't want to distract them from that.
That might be ok for feature teams, but for infrastructure tools/services,
it's very frustrating for users (devs) to be kept in the dark on the progress
of the fix.
At work, the incident response starts with identifying Investigators (to find
and fix the problem) and a Communicator (to update channel topics, send the
outage email & periodic updates, field first-line questions about the
incident, and to contact those most affected by the incident so they don't get
surprised/try to fix it themselves). The person who starts the incident is the
Coordinator, who assigns the roles, escalates if more help is needed, tries to
unblock investigations, and turns facts from the investigators into status
updates for the communicator.
~~~
beachstartup
i will provide an opposing viewpoint which i'm sure many people do not agree
with.
if a service i use is down, all i want is an acknowledgement and that "we are
working on it right now with high priority". i want all available resources to
be fixing the problem.
my anxiety over powerlessness in relying on others during a crisis manifests
in other ways, like figuring out why i'm at the mercy of this thing in the
first place, and putting alternatives in place.
but during the crisis i'll just go do something else for an hour and then read
the post mortem when it comes out.
~~~
robryk
Updates that are communicated are not the details of what's happening in the
investigation, but things that are expected to be useful to users/clients.
They are things such as the estimated time for problem resolution, updates on
the scope of the problem (e.g. "this is an instrumentation problem" vs "this
is an actual outage") or mitigation steps that could be applied by the
clients. It is often very useful to know such things during an outage.
~~~
beachstartup
i don't think anyone, anywhere would have given you an accurate estimated
figure of nearly 5 hours to fix this problem.
furthermore, even if you somehow could divine the future, telling the customer
that you think an outage will last over half a working day is going to turn an
extremely shitty situation into something even worse.
------
tsuresh
From the GitHub issue thread, I see a lot of people being angry for their
production deployments failing. If you directly point to an external repo in
your production environment deployments, you better not be surprised when it
goes down. Because shit always happens.
If you want your deployments to be independent of the outside world, design
them that way!
~~~
karterk
Maybe this is the norm in big enterprises, but I have not actually come across
any company which hosts a local package repository for commonly available
packages.
~~~
TillE
You don't need a seamless, robust process for dealing with the occasional
remote failure (especially when there are mirrors), but you can for example
save snapshots of dependencies.
You should be able to do _something_ in an emergency, even if it requires
manual intervention. If you can only shrug and wait, that's bad.
~~~
toomuchtodo
> If you can only shrug and wait, that's bad.
Welcome to cloud computing!
------
justinsaccount
Title is misleading. The 'apt.dockerproject.org' host had a broken release
file. This is not an Ubuntu or Debian maintained repository.
~~~
vox_mollis
Broken, or compromised?
~~~
cjbprime
Probably broken, since a competent attacker would have been able to avoid
creating a checksum mismatch.
My company's actually done the same thing before (same error), by putting
Cloudfront in front of our APT repo -- it cached the main packages file
inappropriately, causing the checksum mismatch.
------
poooogles
>Does this mean that Docker -- a major infrastructure company -- does not have
any on-call engineers available to fix this?
It appear to be that way. Reminds me when all of the reddit admins were stuck
on a plane on the way back from a wedding [1].
Remember kids, improve your bus factor.
[http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/8/26/reddit-lessons-
lea...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/8/26/reddit-lessons-learned-from-
mistakes-made-scaling-to-1-billi.html)
~~~
oldmanhorton
There was a comment a bit below that suggested that those who paid for
commercial support got it 24/7, but if that's true, id imagine the fix that
commercial support would have given to paying customers would have fixed it
for everyone else too...
~~~
shykes
Disclaimer: I work at Docker.
I believe commercial releases are downloaded from a separate infrastructure
(to be confirmed).
Either way, the availability of Docker packages, free or commercial, is
critical infrastructure and we should treat it as such. IMO our primary
infrastructure team should have been involved, and someone should be on call
for this. We'll do a post-mortem, find the root cause, and take corrective
action as needed.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
~~~
voltagex_
You may want to lock that GitHub thread soon, it's getting argumentative and
not very helpful.
~~~
shykes
> You may want to lock that GitHub thread soon, it's getting argumentative and
> not very helpful.
In open-source we call that "thursday" :)
~~~
zjaffee
What ever happened to community over code?
~~~
shykes
Part of a healthy community is accepting that people disagree a lot, have
different values, and communicate their ideas in very different ways.
Where we draw the line is if people are being intimidated, bullied, insulted,
or anything that even remotely resembles harassment.
Although I personally feel that some of the comments in that thread are pretty
unfair and poorly informed, they don't seem to violate the social contract.
------
0x0
It's scary how most people in that thread seem to be more concerned about
forcing an installation, rather than pause and consider why the hashes might
be wrong and why it might not be a good idea to install debs with incorrect
hashes.
If the apt repo was compromised (but the signing keys were not), this is very
likely exactly the symptom that would appear.
~~~
cjbprime
> If the apt repo was compromised (but the signing keys were not), this is
> very likely exactly the symptom that would appear.
I don't think that's correct. It would pass a checksum test and fail a
signature test with a "W: GPG Error". The checksum test is not about
cryptographic security, it's just about files referenced by the Packages file
having the same hash that the Packages file declares them to have. You don't
need any signing keys to make that happen.
~~~
0x0
What's more suspicious: Bad hashes or bad signatures? What would an attacker
choose if their goal was to get as many people as possible to force install?
~~~
cjbprime
It's impossible to force install the packages when they have bad hashes (hence
the severe breakage here), and it is possible to install the packages when
they have bad signatures if you didn't import the gpg key or don't run with
signature checking.
So I'd guess a rational attacker would choose a bad signature. But attackers
can be irrational; it doesn't prove it's not an attack. Just not my intuition.
~~~
0x0
That's interesting, I'm assuming you're talking about apt now. I don't think
dpkg checks signatures if you install straight from a .deb. :)
~~~
jwilk
It doesn't, mostly because there are no signatures in a deb. :)
------
mapleoin
This is a really bad title. There is nothing wrong with either Ubuntu's or
Debian's repositories. The problem is with Docker's repositories of
Ubuntu/Debian packages.
------
brazzledazzle
I'm a bit disappointed that people are willing to make public criticisms of
Docker when it's their builds that are failing. They made the decision to
depend on a resource that could be unavailable for a large number of reasons
entirely unrelated to Docker or their infrastructure.
Just like the node builds that failed this should cause you to rethink how you
mirror or cache remote resources not prompt you to complain about your broken
builds on a github issue page. There may be things you'll never be able to
fully mirror or cache (or could just be entirely impractical) but an apt
repository is definitely not one of them.
~~~
willejs
+1 !
------
mschuster91
... which is why the clever sysop mirrors his packages and tests if an update
goes OK before updating the mirror.
If you're running more than three machines or regularly (re)deploy VMs, it is
a sign of civilization to use your mirror instead of putting your load on
(often) donated resources.
It's the same stupid attitude of "hey let's outsource dependency hosting" that
has led to the leftpad NPM desaster and will lead to countless more such
desasters in the future.
People, mirror your dependencies locally, archive their old versions and
always test what happens if the outside Internet breaks down. If your software
fails to build when the NOCs uplink goes down, you've screwed up.
------
ajarmst
I often wonder why the community's response to issues with an
open/free/community package is to give the maintainers a strong argument to
discontinue it in favour of a commercial one, or just abandon it altogether.
~~~
ajarmst
"Why I Haven't Fixed Your Issue" \--- [http://www.brycematheson.io/post/why-i-
havent-fixed-your-iss...](http://www.brycematheson.io/post/why-i-havent-fixed-
your-issue/)
------
therealmarv
I think this is a combination of chains which are dependent on eachother,
especially when you use Travis CI: 1st) apt-get not flexible enough to ignore
that error on apt-get update 2nd) Travis CI having so much external stuff
installed, it's a big big image which has more failure points 3rd) Docker repo
failed.
------
perlgeek
Outages or mis-configurations can happen to pretty much any source of packages
you use, be it debian, pypi, npm, bower or maven repositories, or source
control. Anybody remember left-pad?
So as soon as you depend heavily on external sources, you should start to
think about maintaining your own mirror. Software like pulp and nexus are
pretty versatile, and give you a good amount of control over your upstream
sources.
------
smegel
Sometimes paying for RHEL isn't a bad thing.
|
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Apple Developer Center still down - vinhnx
http://www.marco.org/2013/07/21/adc-downtime
======
nwh
My money is personally on massive, unrecoverable data loss.
If you've ever poked around with the way that Apple's website works, you can
see that the entire place is a huge mess. There's old servers running ancient
(pre-2004) perl scripts alongside the brand new iCloud gear. I can't imagine
how the authentication for AppleID is working as login details still work on
the ancient pages (think pinstripes and glassy buttons). Depending what URL
you hit, the webserver is using php3, php4, perl, python or maybe WebObjects
(java).
At one point I wrote a scraper that was targeting one of their product pages,
and kept getting random, unexplainable results. It turned out that one of
their product areas was behind a round-robin load balancer, with three
completely different apache versions on each server. The page was dying on one
but not the other two. In the end I just had to repetitively scrape until I
hit a good response.
Even the domain for the "maintenance" page for the developer section is
telling. It's just a broken template system regurgitating a bit of the
homepage.
[http://devimages.apple.com/maintenance/](http://devimages.apple.com/maintenance/)
[http://devimages.apple.com/](http://devimages.apple.com/)
Truly a hacked together system. Some engineers at Apple must be having a truly
awful weekend, no matter the cause and solution.
~~~
saurik
Interesting; the [http://devimages.apple.com/](http://devimages.apple.com/)
URL seems to return the underlying contents of the file, bypassing the SSI
(I'm so happy they use SSI... seriously: I love SSI ;P). You can then see the
raw <!--#include virtual=""\--> directives, and pull the individual parts. (It
isn't quite then fair to say that it is a "broken bit of their template
system"; it is more that it is a poor way to setup a static large-file caching
endpoint, and may itself lead to a security vulnerability. To be clear: that's
probably worse ;P.)
~~~
legutierr
Might I ask what vulnerabilities exist for SSI, and why you describe SSI as a
"poor way to setup a static large-file caching endpoint"?
I haven't used SSI before, but after researching various technologies, it
looks like a solution for my own caching use-case, and I am planning on
implementing it. I realize that it's a rather old technology, but as long as
there's nothing _wrong_ with it, I think it could work for me.
Is there something _wrong_ with it? The only thing that I have seen is that
the "exec" command is dangerous, but NGINX doesn't seem to implement it.
~~~
saurik
I did not describe "SSI" as a "poor way to setup a static large-file caching
endpoint"; that description was for the way they setup "devimages." to overlap
with the content for "www.".
Let's imagine that the code in question was not SSI, but instead PHP. You
might have this running behind a copy of Apache and mod_php. Your website
includes both code and images.
This website runs like this, but maybe the way you configured Apache is too
slow to handle downloading all the images: these large-file static assets need
to be handled by a different system.
So, you install a copy of nginx and point it at the same folder. You give this
copy of nginx a new hostname, such as "devimages.example.com" as opposed to
the Apache "www.example.com".
Problem solved, right? No. Now if you go to
[http://devimages.example.com/index.php](http://devimages.example.com/index.php)
you get access to the source code to the website (which is generally
considered a big security failure).
That seems to be what's happening here: the "devimages." hostname is
configured to bypass the SSI parser, and you are getting to see how the page
is composited. This could be a problem.
However, it also might not be a problem: it largely depends, which is why I
was just idly speculating; it certainly _feels wrong_ , though. As for SSI? I
was serious: I _love_ SSI, all my stuff uses it.
------
NelsonMinar
Could you imagine if the Linux Developer Center went down? It'd be nearly
impossible to write Linux software, or download Linux development tools, or
generate a Linux binary that a device was allowed to run. It'd be awful.
~~~
benihana
Could you imagine if people could make the kind of money developing things for
Linux that they do developing things for iOS? It would make comments like
yours kind of funny and relevant.
~~~
ninguem2
Android (Linux) has surpassed iOS in number of users worldwide.
~~~
millerm
More people drive Toyota than BMW. More people eat at McDonalds than Five
Guys. More people stay at a Holiday Inn than The Ritz Carlton. The statement
is worthless as it conveys no meaning, other than a factoid, as do my
statements.
~~~
pavanky
How is that smugness working out for you ? Windows users are fewer than iOS
users. Would you now compare Windows phones to Ferraris by using the same
analogy ?
------
zackmorris
Apple's websites are among the worst corporate sites I've ever used. I don't
say that just to be critical or cynical (ahem), I'm merely pointing out that
they have tremendous room for improvement. As opposed to say php.net or
stackoverflow.com which still give me that fresh air "why can't all sites be
like this?" feeling every time I visit them.
Most of the time when I visit Apple's sites now, I just assume that what I
need to find will either be buried in a convoluted maze, or simply won't
exist, and I'll find myself on a "this has been deprecated" 404-style page
which takes me someplace only loosely related to what I was looking for. So I
end up back at google to try to find a copy of the information either cached
somewhere or offsite.
Simply being an Apple developer is a chore. Keeping up with yearly certificate
expirations is taxing when you are contracting for several clients. And they
never really worked out an easy way to allow several developers to share
certs. I just assume now that the other developers will invalidate whatever
shared cert I made.
The situation is bad enough, and exacerbated by Apple stubbornly refusing to
see the flaws, that I wish a startup would encapsulate the friction and just
take care of all the minutia for me. I should never have to personally deal
with provisioning. Anything short of a one click submission to iTunes Connect
is reminiscent of all the TCP/IP details that we used to have to put in our
modems in the dialup days, when all that should have been required was a phone
number and passcode. I can't gently forgive them for it. So I think this
downtime could be a wakeup call for them that the inefficiencies in their
system are even costing them now.
~~~
briandear
Have you spent any time on the Verizon or Sirius XM sites? How about the
average multinational insurance company? "Among the worst corporate sites" is
a huge leap, considering the profound amount of crap. Spending 5 minutes using
the average electronic medical records (EMR) web application would be enough
to make your hair fall out. Forget about interoperability of EMR formats. It's
a mess. I'm not defending Apple at all, I've spent many nights throwing
iPhones over the provisioning and certificate process, but to me, the outcome
of surviving that process is that I'm making money from the apps, so it's not
ideal, but at least my iOS users are actually paying me money, as opposed to
Android users that, as a group tend to expect something for nothing.
We ought to also look at the inefficiencies of the Android system while we're
here. 35% of users are still on Gingerbread! You can't really expect to earn
money as a developer if you ignore 35% of your target market, with iOS we have
over 90% running iOS 6 and only about 6% running Android 4.2, which means that
developers can't take advantage of a new Android feature without leaving
behind the majority of their market, or creating multiple versions and then on
top of that, having to test on a myriad of different hardware configurations.
The fact also remains that Android users are generally cheap -- they don't
like to pay for apps. So you have a highly fragmented OS environment, coupled
with a user base that, in generally spends much less that iOS users and, on
top of that, you have a royal mess in the copy-protection scheme used in
Android -- which had to be disabled in Jelly Bean due to it breaking apps.
Of course, the security in Android is top notch! Great job on that Google.
If we want to talk inefficiencies with Apple, we certainly can, but to ignore
the Google mess is disingenuous.
As far as the effect of Apple's "inefficiencies," is it really affecting them?
Are people still buying apps and computers?
My last point is that the assertion of Apple "stubbornly refusing to see the
flaws.." That's interesting, because unless one works for Apple at a level
high enough to be involved in the conversation, that suggestion is merely
conjecture. That's right up there with the pundits being disappointed that
iWatch has been delayed, despite having no proof or any acknowledgment from
Apple that even such a product exists.
There's an easy solution to not having to deal with Apple's "inefficiencies"
\-- don't deal with Apple and go make your money with all of the people paying
money for Android apps. Or, respond to one of the hundreds of job listings at
Apple and do something about it.
~~~
ludoo
Given that iOS users worldwide are less than 1/3 of Android users, ignoring
Gingerbread would still leave you with roughly double the userbase...
I completely agree with all your other points though. :)
------
qnk
What's even worse is that we, the developers, their customers, will never get
to know what happened. Because that's the Apple way.
I'd really love that Apple proves me wrong on this one and comes clean on the
problem, the cause and prevention measures being put in place so this won't
happen again, whatever it is.
~~~
general_failure
Nope they won't say a thing and they will get away with it. Oh the things
apple devs have to pout upon with.
In another world HN would be up in arms about how to manage downtime, how this
is u acceptable and how they are going to switch to somebody else immediately.
But not for apple because they have no choice...
------
kailuowang
I have received 6 "How to reset your Apple ID password" Email from Apple
during the last couple of days, none of which was triggered by me. Could this
be related?
~~~
tsenkov
This makes our best guess to be "security breach".
~~~
rimantas
I receive similar emails from Gmail now and then. Does not me think that Gmail
had been compromised.
~~~
MAGZine
right, but we don't have multiple people all confirming GMail password resets
while GMail just so conveniently happens to be down.
------
esalman
Just received following email- confirmed breach:
Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our
registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal
information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been
able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing
addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of
transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down
immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.
In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re
completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software,
and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant
inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the
developer website up again soon.
------
undoware
Let us compare:
World's premier closed-source shop: (presumably) gets hacked; goes down; stays
down.
Github, Rubygems, Linux Kernel, etc. get hacked; restore from SHA256SUM'ed
backups; keep moving.
Turns out what used to be called "hobby" projects matter, because code made
without love has a smell, and no one does a "hobby" for anything but.
(Remember the 'ama' in 'amateur') (ok ok so kernel.org was down for a while.
But remember all the heavy lifting done by git to keep those commits clean. It
was _just_ the server, not the data.)
~~~
angersock
You probably have better developers pushing live code over at those other
places, I'd bet.
------
Jgrubb
This reminds me, yesterday i got an obviously spoofed phishing email from
"apple" telling me to reset my passwords and reenter my CC info. Anybody else
get that?
[http://imgur.com/hyta4bC](http://imgur.com/hyta4bC)
~~~
rossjudson
It never ceases to amaze me that such emails are carefully constructed in the
graphical sense, but miserable failures in the grammatical.
~~~
ams6110
The British spelling of "apologise" is also a giveaway.
------
atgm
I just went to check on the dev center and got this e-mail:
Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our
registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal
information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been
able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing
addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of
transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down
immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.
In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re
completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software,
and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant
inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the
developer website up again soon.
------
Tloewald
Amazon bas been down for as much as a half day in recent memory — and not dev
stuff but their customer-facing money-making site, and mid-week too.
~~~
mullingitover
Apple's customer-facing store was down last night for several hours.
~~~
Terretta
Doesn't matter. People aren't going to decide, gee, I actually wanted a
Toshiba.
~~~
MAGZine
people also aren't going to decide 'gee, i'm going to go to x store and pay
more for something' anymore then they'll go to BB to buy their apple product
of choice.
------
slowdown
Why is a mere unfounded speculation not backed up by any facts written to
garner pageviews featured on the frontpage?
~~~
freehunter
Because there are no facts, Apple hasn't said a word. The alternative is that
we ignore this. At least with this article (which no one has to read), there's
a place for HN Apple devs to talk amongst each other.
~~~
hrktb
It goes very deep in meta territory, but hey, it's not as if there were any
fact intersting to discuss.
I remember a lot of discussions a year or two ago when marco was very vocal
about the reasons he didn't have comments on his blog, and would prefer to
have all of these on HN for e.g.
_slowdown_ 's comment goes the other way round, on why HN should care about
commenting on marco's blog. There is another thread [1] with 138 comments and
more quality opinions and speculations than anyone should need, Marco's
speculations are also represented in the top comments. Agree or not with he's
stance, it's a valid point IMO.
I think it's fun to see this kind of reaction on why some contents should be
commented or not, and the motivations to push a site or another.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6071233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6071233)
~~~
freehunter
I've been checking on that post since it first came up looking for anything
new, but old HN posts get to be hard to read for new stuff pretty quick,
especially with no way to collapse a thread. If there was anything new, I'd be
hard pressed to actually find it.
That thread is quickly sliding down the list and is already off the front
page. I don't think a new one is out of the question.
~~~
shabble
[https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/138037](https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/138037)
A way to navigate to new _unread_ entries would be nice.
Sometimes I really wish NNTP wasn't quite so dead.
------
allwein
Apple is set to report their earnings on Tuesday, July 23rd. If this isn't
back up by Tuesday evening, it's going to be a very interesting earnings
conference call.
------
peterkelly
I would be _very_ interested to see what the implications would be if this had
happened to iCloud.
I'm sure Apple are as unhappy about whatever has happened as the rest of us
(likely much more so), but I think at least some communication from them about
it would be in order.
------
tsenkov
Instead of fighting about which platform is the best, I hope all of you will
agree that Apple should not leave us in the dark for 15min, let alone 3 days,
or not even "post mortem" to answer the question "what happened?".
------
navs
Apple just released an update (developers should be getting it in their inbox)
but still no ETA on when it'll be up. Very unfortunate for those of us waiting
to release apps before August.
------
ttflee
> or device provisioning and certificates (potentially very profitable)
Well, an `App'(, the name of which I would not like to identify, ) which was
installed using Safari exploits and whose intended use is to help users search
and install apps free of charge from AppStore, is still up and running.
I guess there exist various exploits up and down the App Store chains, till
now.
------
xixora1
So… Did everyone get the email saying they had an intrusion and they're
rebuilding the system?
~~~
vinhnx
yep, I got it a few hours ago.
------
tater
Forstall has the backups.
------
trackztar
If it weren't Sunday, I wouldn't speculate, but it is. My 2 cents: iOS7
updates galore. Just imagine everything that could be overhauled. Even the old
gray textured background we see is not very much like iOS 7.
iOS is in a big transition here. You can't even update apps at all unless you
now include 'widescreen' support, for example. If you don't, iTunes reports an
Invalid Binary (no default 586 image, etc).
So I would guess a huge overhaul, and typical Apple, is taking care of that
vs. arguing or commenting on theories.
~~~
grey-area
_So I would guess a huge overhaul, and typical Apple, is taking care of that
vs. arguing or commenting on theories._
A design overhaul wouldn't require the dev centre to go down at all - they
could just prepare all the assets etc on testing servers and switch them over
when they are ready.
Given the normal warning given on any maintenance, and the obvious negative
consequences for Apple's business of any extended outage (extended in this
case being over a day or so), this is unintended, and most likely caused by a
security breach. I think we can safely rule out a design overhaul unless Apple
are incredibly incompetent.
NB itunesconnect is still up (the bit which deals with app upload, itunes
store metadata etc), only the dev center - dealing with certs/device
registration/distribution etc - is down.
~~~
jordanthoms
Keep in mind, this is the company which takes their whole store down when they
need to add new products to it.
~~~
deletes
Did you mean when they have their WWDCs? In that case it might be a marketing
reason.
~~~
ben1040
They take it down during WWDC keynotes and other major announcements, yes.
But there are other instances where the store will go down outside of those
periods. Sometimes it's for maintenance, but more often than not a new or
updated product appears (e.g. a product line gets a speed bump across the
board).
------
coldtea
Gee, thanks Marco, we would have never known ourselves...
~~~
nicholassmith
That sounds like "I just read the title so I could post a snarky remark". He
does put some suggestions forward of what he thinks could be the root cause.
~~~
coldtea
I read the whole article. The suggestions cover all the cases one would that
thought himself.
He is being Captain Obvious.
Including the gem to "set some time aside" as developers, because we might
have some work to do after the site comes back up.
Everything in the comment is what men wiser than us called "idle speculation".
~~~
TwistedWeasel
If you don't like reading idle speculation then you should probably avoid 95%
of tech blogs.
~~~
FrankBlack
I think that comment is Quickmeme-worthy. [http://www.quickmeme.com/Captain-
Hindsight/](http://www.quickmeme.com/Captain-Hindsight/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Titanoboa – an open-source alternative to Zapier - newcrobuzon
https://www.titanoboa.io/using-titanoboa-for-cloud-integration.html
======
hlesesne
The title meta tag said “alternative to ansible” and I thought, “why in the
world?!?”. Must have been a typo.
~~~
newcrobuzon
Should be fixed by now, as a bonus here is the original post:
[https://www.titanoboa.io/using-titanoboa-for-it-
automation.h...](https://www.titanoboa.io/using-titanoboa-for-it-
automation.html)
------
hbcondo714
N8n.io is also a workflow automation alternative to Zapier, discussed here a
couple months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21191676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21191676)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Why I will never, ever, use an Instant Pot - bookofjoe
http://ovens.reviewed.com/features/how-to-clean-an-instant-pot-electric-pressure-cooker
======
vhodges
Here's a shocker: Things get dirty when you cook and need to be cleaned
(sorry, a bit crabby this morning).
------
babygoat
Do you use disposable cookware?
------
edmanet
Misleading title.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Team and Strategy - worldvoyageur
http://avc.com/2016/09/team-and-strategy
======
raywu
> I like to say that CEOs should do only three things; recruit and retain the
> team, build and evolve the long term strategy and communicate it effectively
> and broadly in the organization and externally, and make sure the company
> doesn’t run out of money.
I've been hearing more and more of this, and experiencing this first-hand;
it's so true. _Communication_ is often left out/undervalued in early stage
startup blogosphere.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Can the Hacker News maintainers darken the user submission body text? - zappo2938
The text of the body of user submitted stories is very light and difficult to read. Is it possible to darken it a couple shades for legibility?
======
gus_massa
It's on purpose to discourage that type of submissions. The links in the text
are not converted to real links. And also, these submissions have a penalty so
it's more difficult for them to reach the front page. If possible, I recommend
using a normal submission.
Anyway, if you want an official reply from the mods, try writing an email to
hn@ycombinator.com
------
tod222
WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) shows numerous contrast errors[1].
(Click the contrast button on the sidebar.)
[1]
[http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/...](http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622948)
------
kgtm
You gain flexibility by letting your browser handle such things. Have a look
at Stylus
[https://github.com/openstyles/stylus](https://github.com/openstyles/stylus),
which is a privacy-conscious fork of Stylish for Chrome, also compatible with
Firefox as a WebExtension.
------
gremlinsinc
probably not, don't think they make frequent updates.. but you can use stylish
plugin to change CSS on hackernews or any site really.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How a star explosion may have shaped life on Earth (2015) - dnetesn
http://oceans.nautil.us/feature/562/the-secret-history-of-the-supernova-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea
======
ferros
The more I read and learn the more I realise how little we know about
everything that surrounds us and existence itself.
It truly is humbling.
~~~
jcims
Start watching the complexity of energy management in a cell or how the immune
system works or how cancer cells implement countermeasures to bypass all of
the evolved mechanisms against it (yet remain viable). It's beyond ridiculous
Honestly I just struggle with the overall statistical likelihood of life
evolving. I've tried to get folks to engage on my thinking here but it never
happens. I don't know where I'm off.
One example. The number of interactions per second in water is roughly the
mean molecular velocity divided by the mean free path times the number of
molecules. For a mole of water (~18g) that's approximately 590 m/s *
1/3.1e-10m * 6.02e23 or ~1.15e36 interactions per second. Per kg of water
that's ~1.15e36 * (1000/18) = ~6.4e37. Given that most chemical reactions
related to the formation of life are going to happen in solution in water,
this seems like a reasonable place to start on this journey.
Expanded across all of the water and entire biomass of the earth (in kg) for 5
billion years, this is 1.15e36/kgs * (1.4e18kg + 6e14kg) * (360024365*5e9)s =
2.5e71 potentially life-forming molecular interactions in water on planet
earth's history. We're just spitballing here so let's square that to account
for any bullshit that I missed.
6.25e142 'interesting' molecular interactions on earth since it was a sphere
of magma.
I know this is broken but just roll with the idea for a second.
Given 6.25e142 molecular interactions total, let's assume that's the upper
bound of base pairs of DNA stacking on each other (reality is obviously many
many many order of magnitudes less). A+C+A+G, then A+C+A+T, then A+C+T+A, etc
etc. Let's further assume that the absolute minimum number of base pairs
required for a critter to reproduce is 1/10 the smallest observed genome. The
smallest i can find is Carsonella ruddi with 160k base pairs. Let's split that
down to 16k base pairs just for shits and giggles and assume that most of it
can be random and still result in a living reproducing organism. The only
constraint i'm going to ask for is that there are one or more critical
sections that need to be reasonably correct for the DNA to be viable.
The question is what is the likelyhood that all of these interactions are
going to create one of those critical sections?
There are four nucleotides that make up dna, commonly labled as A, C, G and T.
The possible combinations of these nucleotides grow exponentially with the
length of the sequence. 4 base pairs have 4^4 combinations, 10 base pairs have
4^10 combinations. etc etc. What if we assume perfectly uniform distribution
of random variations (obviously broken), what's the maximum length of
'critical section' that we can guarantee will get at least one shot at life.
log₄(6.25e140)=237
237 nucleotides is the limit to where our mythical mix master could explore
all possible combinations and any one of those has a 100% chance of being
realized. (Keep in mind that this is individual nucleotides, not genes. A
single gene typically starts at 1000 nucleotides, our 'most simple organism'
Carsonella ruddi has 160,000 base pairs, and the human genome has ~3 billion
base pairs.)
What this tells me is that you cannot have a 'critical section' in ANY gene or
DNA sequence that is more than 237 nucleotides long and attribute the source
of that sequence as some kind of statistical certainty...from there it starts
to become a function of chance. The degree to which it is chance depends on
what kind of sequence you need to find to get life moving. (ANd this is
completely ignoring the fact that DNA is not living, it needs all sorts of
mechanisms around it to actually function) This is all true also if you limit
the scope of your investigation to the planet earth.
If you expand it to all of the atoms across the entire universe assuming it's
one giant blob of water, just expand the middle term from ~1.5e18kg to
1.5e53kg and the length to 15 billion years. You wind up with max critical
section length of 355 nucleotides.
Again i'm sure something is wrong with my thinking. But my mental model is
that we are operating somewhere along an infinite stream of events of
trillions of universes and we are unbelievably special/unique. OR the universe
is much more bizarre than we even remotely understand.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
~~~
throwaway_pdp09
The weakness _may_ be down to your assumption that the simplest form of life
then is equivalent to the simplest form of life you personally can find now.
. Life has to do a lot of things now that maybe the first reproducing cells
needn't, like defending itself from other life.
. There may be simpler forms of life that exist currently that we are unaware
of...
. ...or maybe not, because each time it gets created it gets eaten by much
more advanced life around it.
. We don't even know what life really is.
etc. etc. I get the feeling you're perhaps paving the way for a theistic
argument. If you don't believe that god the creator exists, the proof that
life is possible regardless of your stats is all around you.
(None of my arguments are novel)
~~~
jcims
Thanks for the reply. I definitely feel that my idea of where it started is
polluted by where we are now. However, the minimum viable product for
evolution is essentially 'trait inheriting chemical structure' and even the
simplest examples that we have of that today are _incredibly_ complex.
>I get the feeling you're perhaps paving the way for a theistic argument. If
you don't believe that god the creator exists, the proof that life is possible
regardless of your stats is all around you
Nope. It's really not. There's no way for me to prove it, and I'm glad you
said it out loud so it could be addressed, but it's really not. This honestly
came to me out of my career in information security and tangents into
encryption. If you think of those 'critical sections' as passwords or
encryption keys to life, our current thinking just seems to be totally fucked
by impossibly small probabilities.
The place where the ball settles in the saddle for me is panspermia OR that
there is something that we don't quite understand in general about emergent
phenomena that drives 'chance' in a certain direction.
|
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All 40 Runners Fail at 100-Mile Tennessee Mountain Race - ph0rque
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-30/all-40-runners-fail-to-complete-100-mile-tennessee-mountain-race
======
error54
It's interesting to note that in every year that someone finishes, they add
additional parts to the course making it more difficult for the competitors in
the following year.
_In 2013, Nick Hollon finished in 57:41 and Travis Wildeboer in 58:41. A new
hill was added, "foolish stu", increasing the total climb to over 60,000 feet.
In 2014, Jared Campbell got his second finish in 57:50. Another new hill,
Hiram's Vertical Smile, brings the total climb to 62,680 ft.[1]_
1- [http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/](http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/)
~~~
gesman
I think this "addition" of complexities needs to be treated as totally new
course each time such addition is made.
Otherwise previous finishers (total respect to them of course) would claim to
do something that new participants cannot using the identical name of
event/race. Which in fact is totally different race by now.
Marathon is not adding extra 10km every year to compensate for too many
finishers.
~~~
eitally
I would agree with you if the competitors were in any way competing on time
over the course of multiple years, but in reality they aren't. It's a one time
race, repeated annually, and each course & victory stands alone. (Not like
other extreme ultras like the Leadville 100, etc, where there absolutely is
competition each year to lower the record.)
~~~
beatboxrevival
I don't think many ultra runners would consider Leadville extreme. It's mostly
fire roads. Ever since the buy-out from Lifetime Fitness, the top runners seem
to skip the event.
------
AndrewKemendo
As an ultramarathoner I can tell you that the Barkley is notorious in the
community.
Here are the r/ultramarathon threads on it this year:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Ultramarathon/comments/30x5at/all_40...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Ultramarathon/comments/30x5at/all_40_runners_fail_at_100mile_tennessee_mountain/)
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Ultramarathon/comments/30isk7/you_he...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Ultramarathon/comments/30isk7/you_heard_it_here_first_this_will_be_the_year_a/)
~~~
arethuza
Great comment on that first one:
"Fail is a strong word. I'm sure every one of the runners were successful in
learning something about themselves. You fail by not trying."
~~~
scuba7183
You also fail by failing to complete the race
~~~
arethuza
Makes me think of "The Man in the Arena":
_It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short
again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows
in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat._
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic)
------
cwal37
I live slightly south of Frozen Head, and have hiked there a number of times
in the last year or so since I moved down here (dryish-winter hike[1], a snowy
day up top[2]). It really is a beautiful park and TN state parks are free, so
if you're in the area I recommend stopping by.
I've been trying to convince a few ultra-marathoner friends to apply for the
Barkley since I got out here, but they're all extremely hesitant. From
everything I've read and gathered this race is just totally unlike what
they're used to out West in terms of its general terrain (including plants,
stepping off the trails in the spring and summer you can quickly get into
quite vicious thorns, and the race isn't really on trails anyways as far as I
know), and overall idiosyncratic nature. The weather down here can also be all
over the place this time of year. I hiked Frozen Head in the high 50s/low 60s
back in late January or early February; this past Sunday I was 2 hours south,
in the Smokies, hiking in 5-6 inches of snow.
It's certainly a personal pie-in-the-sky feat to dream about before I move
away in a few years, but realistically I'll just settle for an AT through hike
instead (which should be far, far more manageable).
[1]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/sets/721576407426...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/sets/72157640742661175/)
[2]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/sets/721576422837...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/sets/72157642283756455/)
~~~
mason240
If that kind race looks interesting, but you are not an ultra-marathoner,
check out orienteering: [http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/outdoor/the-
rise-of-ori...](http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/outdoor/the-rise-of-
orienteering-no-path-no-rules-20150327).
It's basically a land navigation race. The club I'm in,
([http://mnoc.org](http://mnoc.org)), does courses that are usually 3km to 8km
in length (there will be several to choose from).
The events are pretty minimalist compared to obstacle races like Warrior Dash,
mud runs, ect. It's just you, a map, and a large chunk of woods.
~~~
cwal37
That actually sounds incredibly appealing, thanks for the heads up. I love
finding my way with a map and a compass, but I've somehow never heard of
orienteering specifically before.
I hike basically every weekend, but since most of that is in the Smokies I
adhere to the trails. It would be nice to venture into some more self-guided
routes. I have relatives up near the UP I visit once or twice a year, I'll
definitely look into this the next time I'm near a more active orienteering
community.
~~~
nl
There's also the sport of rogaining, which is like orienteering but much
longer (6-24
hours):[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogaining](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogaining)
------
sheltgor
Watched a great documentary on the Barkley awhile back. I've done a city full
and a trail half marathon, but its mindblowing to comprehend just how rough
this race is. For those not familiar with the handful of people who have
finished, these guys are seriously tough. Brian Robinson has a wikipedia page
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Robinson_%28hiker%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Robinson_%28hiker%29))
that highlights his accomplishments, and the Barkley is one of them:
"Brian Robinson was the first person to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, the
Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide Trail (or the Hiker Triple Crown)
in one year, a total distance of over 7,000 miles."
"In the years following the Calendar Triple Crown, Robinson became an active
ultra-marathoner. He has completed several 100-mile races, including the
Western States 100 and the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run. In 2008 he set
the course record at the Barkley Marathons, a grueling 100 mile course in
Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee."
Jared Campbell has also, I believe, won Hardrock previously.
~~~
yesiamyourdad
The best part of that documentary (I'm guessing it's the same one) is that the
official starting signal for the race is when Cantrell lights a cigarette.
Also, the license plate is part of the entry fee. You have to bring him a
plate to enter in the race.
Also, there are no trails, no markers, and the only aid station is the
starting line which you pass 4 times during the race. You do have to stop and
check in at various stations to verify that you actually did the course. IIRC,
you had to pick up some kind of memento from the station. As someone
mentioned, you're frequently going through brambles.
The entire idea of the race was based on James' Earl Ray's attempted escape.
Cantrell was fascinated that a man on foot could make it only 8 miles in
almost 60 hours, and that led to him starting the race.
~~~
karlshea
Which documentary is it?
~~~
sheltgor
My mistake, forgot to include the link:
[https://vimeo.com/97270099](https://vimeo.com/97270099)
------
ccleve
A brisk walk is 4 miles per hour and an average walk is 3 miles per hour. If
you do the race at a slow walk, 2 miles per hour, you'll do the 100 miles in
much less than the allotted 60 hours.
Which means that the elevation and sleep deprivation must really take their
toll. Those are the limiting factors, not running speed.
~~~
capex
Check out Naismith's Rule. A climb of 60,000 ft alone adds about a hundred
hours to the speed you've mentioned above.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naismith%27s_rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naismith%27s_rule)
~~~
cpncrunch
It adds 30 hours at 3mph. 63 hours total.
~~~
trhway
actually there are 60000ft of ascent and 60000ft of descent in that race. With
steep and or bad condition of descents (check the photos from the links others
posted), you need to apply the rule (at least partially) to descents too. Thus
we come almost all the way to 90hrs.
~~~
forrestthewoods
And speed has got to be a good bit slower at night.
------
ceruleus
_“I got a little confused where I was,” Coury said upon returning to camp,
explaining that he took an eight-hour nap on a mountaintop after getting
lost._
Man, I take one of those naps every day and I'm not even running 100 miles.
What's wrong with me.
~~~
jmnicolas
I'm left to wonder what is a regular sleep cycle for him ;-)
------
derrida
I'm planning to compete in a 75km race with 4 1000 meter vertical assents in
October. This is about as mountainous as you can get in Australia. This is a
walk in the part compared to the races in Europe, New Zealand and North
America, which have more geologically recent mountain ranges, and communities
in which alpine / mountaineering / orienteering and running cross over.
I've heard Anton Krupicka (well known and achieve North American ultra racer)
refer to the UTMB (the most well known ultra marathon race in Europe, in which
a loop of Mt Blanc taking in 3 countries is done) as "unexpectedly flat"
Here's some footage of that race:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St49BdhuA8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St49BdhuA8c)
I look at the course profile for that, and the course profile for the 4 1000m
assents for the 75km race I'm doing in October and think "how do that many
people finish".
The US has harder races, which still have remarkably high finishing rates. The
"Hard Rock 100" (miles) is basically at times a rope-free scramble up mountain
tops, and it has a remarkably high finishing rate (when we're talking more
that 10% of the field finishing, it's remarkable)
It's quite amazing the variation among ultra races, and 100 miles is not just
100 miles.
The interesting thing is that many of the trail / mountain runners need that
sort of variation for psychological reasons and find things like 100 mile
tarmac races to be more psychologically and physically taxing. A mountain /
trail race having highs and lows geologically, mentally, physically but a flat
tarmac race having less variation being harder to switch out of a down patch,
and requiring serious inner resilience to counter-act a "runners low".
~~~
nl
I'm surprised there's nothing more extreme in Australia. I'm in Adelaide, and
we have road cycling events with 4000m climbing in 140km. You don't need high
mountains to get the total elevation, just lots of steep climbs.
~~~
windowsworkstoo
We generally don't have sustained climbs, especially like those in Europe. In
cycling terms, we don't have an Alp d'Huez or a Tormalet - something that is
15+ km of HC climb.
We tend to either 2 - 5km of sharp steep stuff, or maybe up to 15km of less
sharp (like cat 3/4) climbs.
It's that sustained climbing at > 9% that will get ya.
~~~
davidw
You don't need the high mountains to get lots of total climbing. Look at the
Ardennes races coming up in Belgium, or even the Amstel Gold race - 4000
meters of climbing in the Netherlands!
------
wetmore
There's a fascinating essay about this run here:
[http://www.believermag.com/issues/201105/?read=article_jamis...](http://www.believermag.com/issues/201105/?read=article_jamison)
------
nl
The _Outside_ magazine story of the Barkley is pretty good if you are looking
for some background: [http://www.outsideonline.com/1924491/60-hours-hell-
story-bar...](http://www.outsideonline.com/1924491/60-hours-hell-story-
barkley-marathons)
It's be interesting to see Jornet try it sometime.
~~~
soci
Now that you mention Kilian Jornet (the world famous sky runner), I can't
refrain from saying that at KiteBit we actually built and run the service used
by him and others to sell his movies.
Technology stack we have set up at KiteBit is RoR + Unicorn + Redis + Postgres
+ Vagrant. And we make also make use of Sendgrid + AWS S3 + CloudFront +
ElasticTranscoder.
Kilian's movies and other stuff from him are on sale at his website
summitsofmylife.com. This is a PrestaShop store but when it comes to the
downloads and video streaming it's KiteBit (our service) which takes the
relieve.
------
zgniatacz
[https://vimeo.com/97270099](https://vimeo.com/97270099)
~~~
themodelplumber
You should have included a description! I was about to post that link myself.
It's a really impressive documentary about the race and shows why it's so
difficult and what's so neat about it. The music score is awesome too.
------
jefflinwood
I don't think most of the entrants expected to succeed, so that's not too big
a surprise. Even in a "runnable" 100 mile ultra marathon, only about 50-70%
usually finish the race. You can see some stats here:
[http://run100s.com/ultra.htm](http://run100s.com/ultra.htm)
The same race director puts on a much more finishable race - 314 miles,
typically self supported, in the middle of summer, across the entire state of
Tennessee:
[http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=29688](http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=29688)
It's on my list of runs to do.
~~~
nswanberg
I understand race preferences are idiosyncratic but what about Vol-State
appeals to you? Distance? Crossing a state? Laz?
If anything on your list includes something in Colorado (or Bighorn or Fat Dog
this year) send me a note--pacing is sometimes more fun than racing. (Same
goes for anyone else reading this).
------
sytelus
Is this really harder than Mount Baker Marathon? That one involves 108 miles
of trail from sea to summit of 10,700 foot snow clad volcano. Just climbing
the volcano alone even when starting at 5000ft is usually quite a bit of an
accomplishment. This race adds a long ~100 mile run on the top of it.
[http://www.trailrunnermag.com/people/adventure/1495-revival-...](http://www.trailrunnermag.com/people/adventure/1495-revival-
of-the-toughest-race-youve-never-heard-of)
~~~
TylerE
Yea, way harder. The vertical climb is equivlant to going up and down your
volcano almost 6 times.
Also, the whole thing thing is in backwoods on practically non-existent
trails.
------
cgsmith
It always amazes me that there is always, _always_ , a harder race out there
then the one I've done.
Humbling...
~~~
dalke
Do you reckon the 1% of the people who completed are looking for something
even harder?
~~~
cgsmith
Wow, that is a good thought as well. I imagine the 1% of competitors that
complete the race would be willing to do any challenge given to them.
Just constantly driven.
~~~
eitally
There are a small handful of extreme races that are all approaching impossible
in their own special way. The Barkley, because of it's traversal of insane
undergrowth and ridiculous total elevation, is one. The Marathon des Sables
([http://www.marathondessables.co.uk/](http://www.marathondessables.co.uk/))
across part of the Sahara is another (6 days max to traverse 251km while
carrying all your supplies except a tent (and you can refill water containers
each night at the aid stations)). The Arrowhead 135 is essentially the same
style, but conducted in northern Minnesota in the middle of winter
([http://www.arrowheadultra.com/index.php/race-
inforegistratio...](http://www.arrowheadultra.com/index.php/race-
inforegistration/race-rules)). The Iditarod is a fourth.
~~~
narrator
Meh, the Iditarod is easy. They should do the Antarctica dog sled race to the
south pole. Amundsen did that one at the beginning on the 20th century with
ease.
I once was in Argentina and met some people who were going to climb Vincent
Mastiff in Antarctica. The tallest peak in Antarctica. It cost them something
like $25,000 a person to fly their group in. Basically you have to get someone
willing to fly a perfectly good long range airplane and land it on a glacier
in the middle of nowhere with no hope of rescue if you screw up.. and then you
have to have it take back off and get you back to south america. Now that's
adventure.
~~~
dalke
Perhaps eitally refers to the Iditarod Trail Invitational?
> The Iditarod Trail Invitational is the world's longest winter ultra marathon
> by mountain bike, foot and ski and follows the historic Iditarod Trail from
> Knik, Alaska over the Alaska Range to McGrath and to Nome in late February
> every year one week before the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The short race 350
> miles finishes in the interior village of McGrath on the Kuskokwim River and
> the 1000 mile race finishes in Nome. Racers have to finish the 350 mile race
> in a previous year before they can enter the 1000 mile race.
~~~
eitally
Yes, thank you for clarifying.
------
olalonde
Since not many sports news make it to HN's front page, I am wondering why this
one did. Am I missing some context or is running just popular among the HN
crowd?
~~~
mburns
It is a uniquely difficult and quirky marathon. One of the qualifications is
bringing the organizer a pack of his favorite brand of cigarettes, etc.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/sports/the-barkley-
maratho...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/sports/the-barkley-marathons-
few-know-how-to-enter-fewer-finish.html)
------
cconcepts
Ultra distance running has always been something that has inspired me - I got
into it through my friend Mal Law who has just run 50 marathons in 50
consecutive days over 50 mountains (I think adding the mountains made it
unique compared to past efforts).
[http://www.high50.org.nz/](http://www.high50.org.nz/)
------
trestletech
We need a new work for not succeeding at something as unfeasible as this.
"Fail" doesn't seem appropriate...
~~~
acadien
All the runners came in 2nd to last, I guess.
------
whalesalad
Reminds me of the book Born to Run. For anyone who has taken any sort of
interest in running, I highly recommend it. [http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-
Hidden-Superathletes-Greatest...](http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-
Superathletes-Greatest/dp/0307279189)
~~~
esolyt
I'd recommend it even more if you're not interested in running. It might
change your mind.
~~~
whalesalad
Completely agree.
------
cafard
Pretty harsh. At the Old Dominion 100, finishers under 24 hours get a silver
belt buckle, and there are always some handed out. It has plenty of relief--or
so it seems to those going over Massanutten Mountain in the dark at about 70
miles in--but I'd guess the total climb to be well under 10,000 ft.
(Information based on going as "handler" a couple of times many years ago for
a friend, who got the buckle on her second try.)
------
tedmcory
This might put things in perspective. [http://www.irunfar.com/2014/04/silver-
linings-at-the-barkley...](http://www.irunfar.com/2014/04/silver-linings-at-
the-barkley-marathons-jared-campbells-2014-report.html)
------
lancefisher
I knew this was Barkley without even having to click through. it is notorious,
and unlike other ultras - tough terrain and tons of elevation gain/loss. I
love running ultras, but I also like to finish. This one is not on my list.
------
allworknoplay
Fail? I would say that they succeeded simply by getting most of the way.
------
guelo
Is the race supposed to honor James Earl Ray? That's fucked up.
~~~
dtparr
I'm pretty sure that's not the case. My reading was just that his escape was
the inspiration for this particular physical feat. I wouldn't say it honors
him any more than those escape from Alcatraz triathlons honor the escapees or
marathons in general are political statements about Athens v. Persia.
------
malandrew
What opportunities are there to get into long-distance orienteering races in
the SF Bay Area? I'm already randonneuring and this seems like another sport
worth exploring.
------
josu
>With a finisher rate of about 1 percent, the Barkley has been labeled by many
as the world’s hardest race
The 1% figure doesn't add up with the rest of the data they provide
~~~
detaro
> In 30 years, 14 out of about 1,100 runners have completed the race, made up
> of five loops around a mountainous 20-mile course. With a finisher rate of
> about 1 percent
14/1100 = 0.0127…
------
TN2398
> Cantrell was inspired to hold a race in the rugged mountains by James Earl
> Ray’s failed 1977 escape from Brushy Mountain State Prison.
My southern racism sense is tingling.
------
fsk
It's like Ninja Warrior (the Japanese version).
------
BorisMelnik
Should it really be considered a "race" if less than 1% of people finish?
|
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Botrnot: an R package for detecting Twitter bots - tysonzni
https://mikewk.shinyapps.io/botornot/
======
dexen
I was surprised by the number of false positives reported here, went ahead and
tested on several Twitter accounts of my friends, both professional and
personal. 9 out of 25 tested were classified as 'bot' with probability > 0.6.
Only 11 were classified as 'humans' with probability > 0.7. And that's on 25
accounts of people I know personally.
Given the preposterous error rate, I deem there is no actual classification
logic in R, and instead it uses the (very fallible) humans to do the actual
classification via a Mechanical Turk-style API.
Wait, do I need to add "/s" to this post, or is it obvious enough?
~~~
peterhi
Same here. I am a bot with 84.7% confidence
Dread to think how they came up with this
~~~
na85
83% chance that I'm a bot, apparently. Neat idea though.
------
nl
I've done some work in this area - it's disappointing how terribly the Twitter
product has failed to evolve to take account of bot usage.
There are (of course) some useful bots, but lots of incredibly harmful bots,
they they should be treated differently to actual humans.
But Twitter can't ship product, so it's not really worth suggesting what they
should do.
In the mean time, my colleagues and I got a nice WWW18 conference paper about
a new _unsupervised_ (!) way of detecting some type of bots on Twitter. Like
most things it's completely obvious in retrospect...
~~~
tysonzni
Can you share the paper on the new method?
~~~
stingraycharles
Seconded, I would be very interested in this paper!
EDIT: Perhaps it's this one ?
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.09025.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.09025.pdf)
~~~
nl
No it's not.
That's supervised for one thing. Also this is bot detection, not attempting to
detect fake news.
I'm not the first author and I'm not sure what the convention is for pre-
prints at WWW.
It's the kind of thing I'd love to talk about because it's so damn amazingly
effective, but it isn't really my place to say anything.
------
dsacco
I looked at the GitHub README for the project, which says
_> Uses machine learning to classify Twitter accounts as bots or not bots.
The default model is 93.53% accurate when classifying bots and 95.32% accurate
when classifying non-bots. The fast model is 91.78% accurate when classifying
bots and 92.61% accurate when classifying non-bots.
Overall, the default model is correct 93.8% of the time.
Overall, the fast model is correct 91.9% of the time._
How is this accuracy determined? There is no information available explaining
how this determination is quantified, nor what the caveats are.
~~~
minimaxir
From the code
([https://github.com/mkearney/botrnot/blob/master/R/features.R](https://github.com/mkearney/botrnot/blob/master/R/features.R)),
the percents are # correct / # total, which makes sense.
However, the percents are from the training set; there’s no test/validation
set, which is a problem when working with bespoke text data as a feature.
~~~
tysonzni
Do we know that no cross validation was done? I couldn't figure out what the
dataset is or where it came from just by looking at the repo.
~~~
minimaxir
k-fold cross-validation was done (the cv.folds parameter to gbm), but that
doesn’t help when the model overfits like hell.
~~~
gerty
I agree this is probably what happened. From the estimation object I see
around a total of 3500 training samples with around 90 predictors. 3-fold
cross-validation was done so at each iteration only around 2150 samples were
used for training... And it seems none of the samples were used for out-of-
sample checking.
------
minimaxir
Per the README to the corresponding repo:
> The default [gradient boosted] model uses both users-level (bio, location,
> number of followers and friends, etc.) and tweets-level (number of hashtags,
> mentions, capital letters, etc. in a user's most recent 100 tweets) data to
> estimate the probability that users are bots.
Not an exact science, but shows what you can do and deploy quickly with
R/Shiny.
The author’s rtweet package is very good for making quick Twitter data
visualizations.
------
andrew-lucker
I tried putting in verified users and they were all "probably bots". By
definition is that not the only type of user publicly acknowledged as "not a
bot"?
~~~
nl
Yeah it's not very good. It marks the author's account[1] as "not a bot" when
it appears to be just reposting Instagram posts.. ie, it is a bot.
Plus it said I was a bot (85% chance anyway), and I'm pretty sure I'm not.
[1] [https://twitter.com/mkearney](https://twitter.com/mkearney) (I assume
this is his account?)
~~~
opsiprogram
It correctly classified me (I am a bot) w/ 96% accuracy.
------
peatmoss
While the quality of the model can be debated (I noted lots of false positives
too), I do note that it’s kind of cool that we’re all sitting around and
poking at an app written in an R web framework.
If you haven’t:
1\. Downloaded RStudio IDE
2\. Built a hello word Shiny App (better still for a flavor of the thing a
hello world app using the shiny dashboard package)
3\. Deployed your app to shinyapps.io
I highly encourage you to do so if for no reason than to see how streamlined
RStudio has managed to make web app deployment for people who often don’t have
much of a programming background.
I’m continually impressed with the work RStudio does, even if I’m a curmudgeon
and still write all my code in Emacs instead of their IDE. If RStudio expanded
to support Python similarly well, I imagine they could really be the place
most data scientists work.
~~~
bllguo
RStudio is by far my favorite IDE. I would write much more Python if there was
something as good for it. Anticipating more Python support, which I believe is
part of the plan
------
prateek_mir
It is classifying me as a bot with 94.6% probability. Does it give too much
emphasis on retweets ?
~~~
Pokepokalypse
False positives are usually due to high number of retweets and. . . uh. . .
check your followers. You may have a lot of bots following you or you may be
following a lot of bots.
------
derrasterpunkt
I recently watched a talk from 34c3 (chaos computer club conference) which
were held at the end of last year about Twitter bots, their existence and
their detection. The speaker couldn't find a lot of bots that were cited in
studies and that their methodology were somewhat arbitrary.
Definitely worth a watch:
[https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9268-social_bots_fake_news_und_f...](https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9268-social_bots_fake_news_und_filterblasen)
(The video is German but there should be a translated version of it on the
site)
~~~
shaki-dora
I believe there is a bit of confusion in the public discussion, mostly of the
2016 election:
While “bots” featured large in initial discussions, the details that have
emerged since, especially in the recent indictment, actually point at
software-assisted humans as the main avenue for these activities.
I believe the “bot” monicker because (a) it’s how most people would tackle the
task, perhaps ignoring the cheap labor pool this shadowy PR operation had
access to, and (b) the bot-like behavior exhibited by many of these accounts,
which was actually a result of not being native speakers, following a script,
and having no deeper knowledge of politics and culture to fall back on.
------
ehudla
The classification is based on an R package for Generalized Boosted Regression
Models[1]. Can anyone knowledgeable opine about this choice?
[]1
[https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gbm/](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gbm/)
~~~
jupiter90000
I'd opine the choice of model matters less than the general approach used. In
this case, features are taken from the data that are more like metadata about
an account, metadata about the frequency and such of tweets, and automatically
generated text features about the tweet text which are used to train/predict
the binary classifier. Whether it's gbm, lda, logistic regression, etc. used
on this data is probably not that huge a deal (maybe small % differences in
accuracy) assuming each are used correctly.
What I'd want to also see however, would be curation of a relevant corpus of
tweet content that could be integrated in the classification process in terms
of actual tweet content (bag of words, sentence structure, & other NLP
features, images, other media) being used to determine a given account's
similarity between bots and non-bots -- instead of relying essentially on
metadata similarity in addition to crude auto-extracted text features like
simple total number of words and character counts. I can't say for sure if
it'd improve predictions but would seem key for this type of problem.
------
betolink
I got .6 probability, that's pretty high and last time I checked I could fool
the Turing test.
------
mcintyre1994
I tried a few things, it seemed to be working well but now I keep getting "An
error has occurred. Check your logs or contact the app author for
clarification."
------
plcancel
@jack, 0.693?
------
tysonzni
Developer: Michael W. Kearney
Link to github:
[https://github.com/mkearney/botrnot](https://github.com/mkearney/botrnot)
------
amelius
What use is this really if bot creators can incorporate this tool, and adjust
their tweets until they pass the test?
------
glangdale
Welp, apparently I'm probably a bot. Time to go into the bathroom and cut my
arm to verify...
------
_susanoo
It seems even @potus has a probability of .929 of being a bot. Is this fake
news?
~~~
mcintyre1994
@realdonaldtrump is only 0.008, interesting comparison! I wonder if it's
picking up something weird from the style of @potus changing from Obama to
Trump, and in particular something related to the fact Trump seems to favour
his personal account even as POTUS.
------
benliong78
Kinda wish you named it: 'Robot or not'
[https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/](https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/)
------
drefanzor
I think you need to fix your bot algorithm.
------
opsroller
This is the name of a browser plugin mysef and a few others have been working
on. Glad you jacked the name.
~~~
wpietri
Jacked? I just tried searching for "bortnot" and I can't even find your plugin
in the search results. You can't blame somebody for stealing a name that
nobody can even find.
~~~
Nition
Did you search "bortnot", or "botrnot"?
~~~
wpietri
Sorry, botrnot is what I searched for.
|
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|
What's Going On with Intel? - diskmuncher
https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440
======
sxp
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1294653961211752448](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1294653961211752448)
> Friends, at the request of the original author, I have deleted the thread
> entitled "What's going on with Intel?" He was not comfortable with the
> attention it is getting.
~~~
justinclift
The individual images are already archived in the Wayback machine.
~~~
rgrs
Do you have link? I had bookmarked tweet for later reading, now lost them.
------
Symmetry
The idea that Intel's process was able to stay ahead by accepting design rules
that were hard to work with was something I'd always heard. That's why their
foundry plays, despite the process lead back in the day, never seemed to work
out.
------
Const-me
Interesting.
BTW if anyone wanna watch the video linked from #4, here’s the link, took me
couple of attempts due to uppercase i versus lowercase L:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLpQnIJviE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLpQnIJviE)
~~~
greendestiny_re
I usually deal with that problem by copying the link to Notepad++, where the
distinction is quite clear.
------
rossdavidh
It's a big ship, which is hard to turn around. However, I am reminded that
General Motors was clearly a shadow of it's former self by the late 1970's,
yet it took until the Fiscal Crisis in 2008 for it to actually go bust. When
you're that big, you can spiral downwards for a long, long time.
------
martinpw
Very interesting set of posts. Part 4 on what Keller did to shake things up
was particularly enlightening (and impressive).
I wish there was a part 5 discussing why he left. I've seen lots of
speculation but no good inside information.
~~~
dr_zoidberg
> I've seen lots of speculation but no good inside information.
I've read rumors along the lines of illness, some say him, others say a close
relative of his. Even so, these rumors are not really very interesting. I
think "illness" crossed the mind of everyone who read the sudden and
unexpected announcement of him leaving "for personal reasons".
------
nabla9
Interesting read.
The point about Intel having many units waiting for 14nm capacity to be
gradually released to them from CPU/Server business is good one. All those
14nm fabs should be used for other things already.
~~~
phire
I feel really sorry for Intel hardware engineers.
A lot of them have finished designs only to have them delayed due to the
process they targeted being either not ready, or having no spare capacity.
Many of the products have been delayed so much that they get cancelled. It
doesn't make sense to release them anymore as newer designs are ready to take
their spot on the queue waiting for capacity.
~~~
rat9988
I feel more sorry toward the investors who paid for their workj to be honest.
~~~
nabla9
Investing is opportunity/risk management.
If investors suffer more than they are prepared for, they have been
incompetent.
------
DoofusOfDeath
I'm getting an error message saying "This Tweet is unavailable." Does that
mean it's been deleted? (I don't normally use Twitter.)
And if so, is there still some way I can read the content?
~~~
thewebcount
Thread reader is able to pull it up[0].
[0]
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1288402693770231809.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1288402693770231809.html)
~~~
skoll43
its dead jim
~~~
diffuse_l
The images seem blank, but if you click an image, you'll get the image with
the text.
------
post_break
You can see why Apple saw the sinking ship in 2015 and started down the ARM
path with all the delays and vulnerabilities.
------
redwood
I will never understand the fascination with Twitter.
~~~
Guy2020
It's the Borg hive mind.
------
justinclift
It's a bit hard to read as is. There are several posts in .png format, each
translated to English. There's a bunch of insightful info in them.
Part 1:
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440/photo/1)
Part 2:
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288402697536720897/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288402697536720897/photo/1)
Part 2.5 (a commentary by the author):
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1289816670626709506/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1289816670626709506/photo/1)
Part 3:
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1291687789260451847/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1291687789260451847/photo/1)
Part 4:
[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1293444174851653632/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1293444174851653632/photo/1)
This appears to be thr original (non-english) author:
[https://www.facebook.com/RDinPortland](https://www.facebook.com/RDinPortland)
~~~
prvc
How about a plaintext transcription?
~~~
justinclift
More effort than I can be bothered with personally, but you're free to do one.
;)
------
kanox
That's a tweet with an image of part 3 of an article?
I don't understand why people do this. Please just post text.
~~~
thaumasiotes
People do that on Twitter to get around the rule that you can't post anything
long enough to be worth talking about.
Isn't the limit still 280 characters?
~~~
dijit
There is twitlonger for that. But it has the unfortunate side effect of
basically being a plain URL, where as images can be read on the site directly.
At some point though someone’s got to understand that the platform is not
conducive to sharing longer content. Tweet chains and especially images of
text are an accessibility and UX nightmare.
I’m actually getting more annoyed the more I think about it, because I
understand why.. but it’s just so wasteful.
~~~
imtringued
Twitter isn't meant for this type of content. If you want to publish an
article then do that on a blog and link to it on twitter.
~~~
dijit
Yes. But posting a link to that content will be engaged with less. It will
have a smaller audience, thus, people game the system by posting images of
text or tweet chains.
That’s what I’m saying.
|
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|
The Slave of Seriousness - tintinnabula
https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/sontag-benjamin-moser-biography-review.html
======
majos
Since this article didn’t do it (or if it did, I missed it), can someone
explain why Susan Sontag is considered an important American intellectual
figure? I’ve read a few articles about her over the years, and the general
picture is of a charismatic, intelligent, intimidating person whose
contribution seems to be just...being that kind of person, the famous Susan
Sontag. Unfortunately, the accounts from people around her have a weird cult
of personality vibe that make her seem like an academic con artist.
Of course, that’s pretty uncharitable. So can anyone explain some of what
Sontag contributed, or how her work has helped you in some way, a specific
work of hers to read, etc?
~~~
iron0013
Read Notes on Camp. I’m certainly no expert on Theory, but a lot of stuff in
there rang true to me. Also, be sure to read the linked Slate article if you
haven’t. The title makes it sound like it’s going to be an anti-Sontag
polemic, but it’s really not at all.
If there’s one feminist author who really doesn’t deserve the usual “feminists
bad!” treatment that some corners of the internet default to, it’s Sontag.
~~~
majos
Thanks, I’ll read Notes on Camp.
I did read the Slate article, and I didn’t get much out of it beyond a claim
that Sontag, via her writings or just her status as a public figure,
represented and argued for a serious approach to thinking about culture. But
this conclusion seemed oddly tacked on to the end of the article.
~~~
ritchiea
Also for many major figures like Sontag their impact is hard to measure just
by reading their work. Their impact is measured more by influence on their
peers and intellectual ancestors. So if you're not familiar with an entire
canon of literature you might find her interesting but not necessarily
special.
------
Merrill
Most Americans seem to regard literature, art and other cultural subjects as
an innocuous recreational activity. Since they are not taken seriously, there
is not much call for censorship. On the other hand, perhaps our freedom of
expression allows such variation of writing and arts to flourish that they are
not taken seriously.
~~~
CptFribble
I would add that Americans' deification of money also drives this view. In our
culture, anything that doesn't produce profit is by definition a hobby, and
can be safely ignored.
~~~
msla
Europeans seem obsessed with obscure status games, which probably drives the
obscurantism in European (Continental [sic]) philosophy.
------
AzzieElbab
Pardon my ignorance but I only heard of Susan Sontag because Nassim Taleb used
meeting her to illustrate "virtue signaling" in one of his books
|
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|
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