Improving Ourselves to Death - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/improving-ourselves-to-death?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." \- because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical education as a fundamental component to living the good life. Xenophon quotes Socrates saying this:

"For in everything that men do the body is useful; and in all uses of the body it is of great importance to be in as high a state of physical efficiency as possible. Why, even in the process of thinking, in which the use of the body seems to be reduced to a minimum, it is matter of common knowledge that grave mistakes may often be traced to bad health."

The whole article feels a little too mired in presentism, and ignorant of the history of self-improvement ideas.

<comment><USER3> > _Plato was a champion wrestler_

And the name Plato is a nickname -- meaning "the broad/wide one" given to him for his broad shoulders because of that training and physical appereance. Real name: Aristocles.

<comment><USER4> It's funny to consider that one of the canonically great philosophers in history is known essentially by the equivalent of his WWE wrestling name. It's like if in the future there were classes taught on the philosophical ideas of "The Rock".

<comment><USER3> Some other amusing related stuff: so, Plato, was called for for the ancient greek word for broad/wide.

Modern english words that stem from the same root: plateau, platitude, plat, plate -- via French and Latin (plattus) from Greek (platis "flat, wide, broad").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I also suffered from loneliness. And self-help books have helped me. I don't see myself continuing to regularly read as much self-help as I grow older. But I think it's important early on in your life trying to unlearn bad habits and learn good ones.

<comment><USER6> There's a lot of very bad pop-sci books on this topic. Do you mind sharing the ones you read and recommend?

<comment><USER7> It's not "self help", but anything by Alan Watts will help you think of "self" in a very different way.

And again, not self-help, but I love recommending _Shop Class as Soulcraft_ , by Matthew B Crawford, for reconsidering your relationship with work and finding joy in your career. The full book is worth reading, but this essay link gets the gist of it.

[https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as- so...](https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft)

<comment><USER8> I'll offer a dissenting opinion on the book. I read it, enjoyed it, but thought "this should just be an essay". Then I found the essay and feel it communicates the essential point.

<comment><USER9> I mostly stopped reading non-fiction books because of this. You have to wrestle through seven chapters of introductory bullshit because the author gets to the point, just because a blog post doesn't sell for $20.

I wish there was a culture where good essays _would_ actually sell for $20. Something with a "perceived value per word" review score maybe.

<comment><USER6> I find the same thing even with critically acclaimed "Thinking Fast and Slow" or "Power of habit". On the other hand sometimes blogposts may not be exhaustive enough. IMO roughly 60-100 pages is the perfect format – you don't need to overly simplify the topic (like in blogpost, newspaper article) but you don't need to repeat yourself 10 times over (like in 300-400 page book).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make.

What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be? And who cares if the quest kills us? We're all going to die anyway. What else were you going to do with your short life?

I can't say I'm familiar with this "self-help craze", as the author calls it. The only "self-help" book I've ever read is _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ \- an oldie which I can recommend.

<comment><USER11> > tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a > rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends > with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point > the author is trying to make.

An essay of this length should communicate something that is not necessarily digestible into a single point. In fact, it's arguable that a good essay cannot be summarized into a single point, and that the entire article needs to be taken as a whole before the full nuance of what it's attempting to convey can be understood. Sometimes "the point" is difficult to articulate and that, in my opinion, is something to be desired across all artistic forms.

I see this sort of criticism on the internet very often, as if people expect writers to create digestible, elementary essays that they can only vaguely engage with and still walk away with something to agree or disagree with. Personally, I demand more of both the writing I read on the internet, as well as myself.

Not to defend this particular essay too hard, but the conclusion does the exact opposite of recommend another self help book. Literally the final paragraph is the shrugging off of self-help books entirely.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you, poster. I'm baffled as to why you felt you needed a throw- away, though. If you don't think you can speak in earnest within this community, it probably isn't healthy for any of us to be here.

Back to your point, though, I think that the mark of an effective essay on the Internet is whether or not it drums up interesting conversation. This one has.

<comment><USER10> > I agree with you, poster. I'm baffled as to why you felt you needed a throw- > away, though.

I know, this isn't a political topic, we should be able to have a reasonable discussion :)

In any case, I like a good long-form essay on occasion - this one definitely failed to 'hook' me in the intro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures.

Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I always found an answer. It may take time and effort, but I always found it.

It's like smoking, drinking or drugs. If you want those things, you seek them out until find them. Why not do the opposite? Seek a way to change how you feel about them.

This worked in my family life too, I was very tired, and I blamed one of my kids for something (he actually did it, but I was brutal in my accusation) he fired back and we started fighting. At the end of the fight, I was angry because he couldn't admit his error. Despite this, I sought an answer in my mind and heart on how I could have changed the outcome. Me, not him.

I was so angry, even hurt by his disrespect, but I kept looking and looking. Then it hit me, a very obvious answer, if I had talked to him quietly, he would not have fought with me about how I treated him.

I found an answer. Then I applied it. I told him I was sorry for accusing him so harshly, and that I should have come to him more reasonably. That was it. I couldn't change what happened, but I got to replay the event halfway. A while later he came to me and acknowledged his own error, but I didn't demand this of him.

Seek an you will find is a generic answer though, as you can seek things that are bad for you as well. But then wisdom must come into the picture no matter what.

Once you have studied enough self-help stuff, you will find that distilling them down, they all end up in a similar place. Change yourself, you have control over this, and it will change your life. Just be careful what guidelines you use to change by.

<comment><USER14> TBH, and I say this as a pretty staunch atheist, Jesus sounds like he had a lot of his shit sorted. Most of what I've read about him is just him being fair and advocating respect of everyone involved.

<comment><USER15> Between about 1000 BC and 0 AD it seems as if humans worked out how to get along in life. I'm on your side in following Christian scripture but I think you can use any of the major texts that emerged during that time and get reasonable results.

In fact my main beef with self-help programs is that they tend to regurgitate a lot of basic lessons that already exist in ancient texts in cleaner and more direct forms, such as Matthew chapters 5-7 in the New Testament (aka the sermon on the mount). I certainly found this to be the case with the type of new age precepts that seems to be popular in training classes for corporate employees.

<comment><USER16> Have you read any classical history ? Thucydides records death camps in his history of the peloponnesian war.

<comment><USER15> It does not follow that people necessarily behave, even when they know better. We still have that problem today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The underlying problem with a lot of folks isn't that they aren't productive enough. They've got plenty of trait Conscientiousness - working hard and getting things done isn't the problem.

The problem is pairing it with too much trait Agreeableness. If you can easily work hard and you easily say yes to other people's demands, you'll _always_ be busy sating the insatiable hunger for more work at your expense. The solution isn't to become a better worker, though there's plenty of advice for how to do that. The fix is to learn how to avoid doing things not in your interest.

For fairly obvious reasons of self-interest, there aren't many people out there telling you to look out for number one. Especially for people with self- interested and highly authoritarian parents that taught their children to live up to a high standard and not push back against their demands.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Duckworth doesn't think you need talent in order to become, as another of > Duhigg's books puts it, "Smarter Better Faster," and neither do any of these > other experts. According to their systems, anyone can learn to be more > efficient, more focussed, more effective in the pursuit of happiness and, > that most hallowed of modern traits, productivity. And if you can't, well, > that's on you.

The thing that really gets me about self-help stuff (and a lot of clinical psychology, for that matter) is that there's very little consensus about what actually works, yet the followers of any given approach are generally pretty quick to blame you if their preferred method doesn't work for you. In the face of a failed attempt, a goddamned laundry list of previously unspoken caveats and requirements appears to "explain" how you failed the method rather than the method failing you.

<comment><USER19> I dunno about the no-consensus thing. It's kind of like saying "there's very little consensus about how to do frontend development with javascript." Well, perhaps in one sense, but in another sense there are some obvious paths (proven frameworks whether Angular, React, Vue, etc, proven and well- documented patterns/approaches - SPA, REST, etc), best practices, and things to avoid. And context matters, of course. When would it not? Surely life is not less complex than software development.

A couple things which I believe there are consensus about, at least within the clinical psychology field:

Exercise is the most obvious thing that comes to mind. And getting into nature. And meaningful relationships.

Cognitive behavioral therapy generally seems to have good results.

Meditation.

Coffee is good for you (just kidding, that one flips back and forth every week).

<comment><USER20> I choose to believe coffee is good for me on faith :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a related article some may find interesting if you like this one: [https://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster- wallaces-...](https://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces- private-self-help-library/)

It's about the writer David Foster Wallace's annotated self-help library. I think it's fascinating to see the energy with which someone who is brilliant consumed low-brow self-help literature.

Alas it seems like it did not work in the end.

<comment><USER21> When you're in such a bad spot you'll look to anything for a way out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most critiques of "self-help" books ring hollow if you've actually read any of the lampooned works. I feel that authors of such critiques are mostly trying to make themselves feel superior to those hapless plebs who are ready to throw themselves prostrate in front of this year's fad guru.

Count me on the side of the plebs. I've read numerous "self-help" books, including many of the ones named in this piece. And nearly all of them have useful information that has aided me. I recognize myself as deeply flawed. I would be a fool to _not_ look for information on how to deal with that from those who have learned something about it. Are there charlatans with bad information? Sure. Does that mean I should disregard everyone with something potentially useful to share? No.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Knight, who favors the shouty, super-caffeinated tone of a spin-class > instructor, calls herself a "bestselling anti-guru." She is particularly > proud of the best-selling part, and it's easy to see why her approach > appeals. The phrase there is nothing wrong with you takes up two full pages > of her first chapter.

...

> Then the book became a best-selling sensation. Brinkmann now lives the life > of a successful European public intellectual, appearing on TV and radio and > travelling the world to lecture "on the big questions of modern life."

...

I agree with the sentiment of the article. I find it interesting from a meta- analytical perspective, too. As the above quotations demonstrate, even when aware of the sinister, deep nature of the hamster wheel, the author perpetuates their own forebodings. The pattern is being unable to see value or usefulness without highlighting the material end; do we want to stoke the fires to encourage more of the same under a different brand?

There's some reference to the Stoics, aye. That's a good place to start. I'd suggest this book: The Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy ([https://www.amazon.ca/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/01953...](https://www.amazon.ca/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient- Stoic/dp/0195374614))

One of the secrets the Stoics have uncovered, I believe, is to practice will- power so that we can identify and resist craving. Simply saying "stop it", or "re-think the system" undermines the reality that billions upon billions of dollars and our smartest minds are, at this very second, applying our most advanced technologies to further expand this soul-less, insatiable machine which we've created.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think there's a major distinction between actually improving yourself, and posting about improving yourself. One is true self improvement, the other is insecurity.

</comment><comment><USER24> _> 2017 was a pustule of a year, politically and personally; the general anxiety around the degradation of American democracy made it hard to get much done._

If you're the type of person to make excuses for your lack of personal achievement due to the Twitter ramblings of politicians, then I have news for you: you're never going to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER25> Productivity as a term reminds me of collaboration. Just like collaboration isn't teamwork, productivity isn't <fill in the blank here>. Haven't figured out the analogy yet.

<comment><USER26> productivity isn't progress

<comment><USER25> Good one thanks. I was thinking achievement but progress is better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think part of the issue with the self-help approach is that it's trying to solve a problem that results from changes that are systematic and fundamental to the way humans live, and thus which need to be solved at the level of civilization, not the level of the individual.

In other words, individuals can mitigate the effects of these structural changes for themselves, but probably not ultimately resolve them.

While our shift to more or less utilitarian principles and capitalism has yielded large gains in increased production and higher quality of life, we've lost a great majority of the social structures, practices, and institutions that used to infuse life with meaning.

I've been reading a great deal about this recently in the work of Georges Bataille--when you contrast archaic forms of civilization with our own, some of the differences are striking--while we have much better living conditions, our ancestor's lives were generally much richer in structures that produce meaning (ritual, religion, monarchy, family, village...), and I think humanity is still struggling with their loss. Batialle points out how the biblical phrase "man does not live by bread alone" is really a truism about humanity, whether or not you're religious.

Replace "bread" with "material" and you largely have uncovered the problems of modern society--if you examine your familial and personal relationships you'll recognize that, subversively, so many of them are still attached to the acquisition and expenditure of material and are necessarily subordinate to economic mechanisms, and that pretty much all of man's meaning today is reducible to some form of accumulation, quantity, and possession (i.e. getting 'likes' on facebook--even in the digital world, the metaphor is material and centers around accumulation of a phony resource). Man desires sovereignty, but when he reduces himself to nothing more than a means (i.e. a thing that produces and acquires) and builds all his relationships around this principle, he doesn't actually share in any sovereignty--he makes a mechanism of himself.

I think this sort of dynamic is at the root of a lot of contemporary individual unhappiness.

If you take your time with it, reading philosophy will often yield many insights that I find help one not only grow as a person, but better understand one's being in the world. Actually, philosophy was really the original form of self-help for the ancients--only more effective, because it had attendant belief systems and thus was a set of practices suffuse with meaning (i.e. isms, stoicism, platonism, etc.--self-help books generally don't provide an 'ism' and ultimately don't provide a framework for maneuvering through the world, but rather provide ad hoc techniques which crumble quickly when not predicated on an underlying system for understanding phenomena). Old philosophical self-help wasn't merely a collection of tips on how to make your way through capitalist, isolating, hyper-technical systems without offing yourself--which is really what most (NOTE: NOT ALL) 'self-help' amounts to.

</comment><comment><USER20> The author sounds a bit defensive. She's portraying self-improvement as robotic self-optimization. What she's really doing is pointing out that there are "get x quick" schemes for self-improvement, just like every other thing. Big surprise!

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been reading happy by Derren Brown and really enjoying his take on how we keep thinking in stories and put us as the hero, when no such story exists, and failing often means very little if you think of it as a positive outcome

</comment><comment><USER29> Tldr: quit your job and move to an island nation with savings & income from your harvard-educated husband; it's much less stress inducing!</comment>


Microsoft's Plans to Fork and Extend Node.js Alarms Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.programmableweb.com/news/microsofts-plans-to-fork-and-extend-node.js-alarms-developers/2015/05/20 <comment><USER2> As a node.js engineer the only thing this fork will do for me is require me to double check with companies I interview for to ensure they are running their Node.js on a sensible Linux platform. I'm definitely not working on the Windows ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make it run on Windows you said, it will be good for the market you said.</comment>


Ask HN: Is asking someone where they work bad etiquette? - <AUTHOR>

I notice at tech meetups and user groups, people love to talk about what they work with, and it's not uncommon for someone to mention where they work, or for speakers to be asked to mention where they work when giving talks. However, I've noticed that the question comes up much less frequently in casual conversation. As someone looking for a job right now, I'm pretty interested in what companies are using what technologies. It's unclear to me, however, if the reason people don't ask each other who they work for is because they're merely not interested (most of the people at these meetings already have jobs) or because it's considered a mild faux pas, or try-hard, to ask. Dear HN community, please teach me your ways so that I might appear that much more savvy. <comment><USER2> Etiquette varies by region. I'm in San Francisco, and I do business development for a living, which means I talk to a lot of people. I'd say these rules are true for all of the US.

It's totally normal to ask where people work. In fact, it's outright good to do. As you meet more people, you'll find odd coincidences, like someone you just met works with a good friend of yours. Things like this will help build your network, and that's a good thing, especially as you look for a job. And don't forget to maintain your network once you've gotten the job!

As an example: "Hey, how's it going?"; "What brings you here"; "Oh cool, do you use this at work?"; "What company do you work with?"; and you're there in 4 sentences.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't feel 'where you work' or 'what you work with' is taboo.

In social chit-chat, it's .. awkward? to bring it up, sometimes. I'd guess that maybe 1/20 people know anything about what I do. Mention [Puppet, Solaris, Linux, BASH, Ruby, NetApp, FTP] and their eyes glaze.

</comment><comment><USER4> In Washington, DC this is often the first question that comes up between people. Some people find it off-putting (often times it's people new to the area), but it's pretty customary and I don't think most people find it strange here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Some places it is - I have friends from France who would consider "where do you work" and "what do you do" about as rude as directly asking how much money you make, and not to be done except among close friends.

<comment><USER6> And some places it isn't: I've struck up conversations with complete strangers in India where "What salary?" comes up right at the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "What do you do" or "where do you work" is one of the most common questions when you're getting to know someone.</comment>


Intro to Yada Project - An Open Source p2p Social Network (proof of concept) - <AUTHOR> http://yadaproject.com/

<comment><USER2> _"Yada is a patent pending method for implementing a peer-to-peer based social network without the use of a ANY central server."_

Is that a joke? Seriously?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, definitely not. Please read below and go to yadaproject.com to see why you should help out with this open source project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pardon what may seem to be a silly question (amateur "would-be" engineer speaking), but I have a doubt, which is the following:

Data needs to be stored. You either store it locally, and as such it is only accessible when the device is on, or it's stored on a central repository or index, meaning it's always on even if one of the devices is off.

How do you tackle this? How do you make sure that user A tries to access news feed of user B, and fails to get it because user's B device is offline?

Maybe I'm being slow or noobish, but it seems to be the same problem one has with bitorrent: user A downloads from user B if user B is online. If data is common, I have multiple seeds, but social network implies that nobody has the same data. Unless you copy my graph to my friends "device" so one has multiple seeds, which could be quite unpractical on mobile devices if I have a lot of friends.

How do you solve this "intermittent issue" and the synchronization and persistence problems it generates? Without a central "clearing"/indexing server? Even Skype has "Super nodes" to handle this issues...

This aside from the fact that "IPV6 deployment" is not going to be a easy cake to bake, one has to fix the problems faced by GPG trust model to ensure that two parties can verify (with some degree of trust) that the other party with whom they're communicating is, indeed, the person they expect, dynamic IPs, and so on.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can have your data hosted if you don't believe your device will be online all the time. This could open up some ad-based services.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that answers my question on intermittence, persistence and syncronization.

I can have my date hosted, but if my friends don't (that's why they use your service, so not to have to do that, or else they remain with Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. That's your USP), I can only access their data when my friends devices are online. Or, alternatively, you store my whole friends graph on my device, which presents scalability and performance issues. Or, 3rd route, you store my friends data on multiple devices on the network, doing "multiple seeds". Again, we're back to "opps my data is all over the place", when your Unique Selling Point was P2P = privacy, no need to centralize.

Even Skype Supernodes don't solve this issue. They solve some of the routing issue. Not the "address book/data issue". You don't seem to solve it either.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Or, alternatively, you store my whole friends graph on my device, which presents scalability and performance issues."

With all due respect, this is where you are incorrect. Devices today completely capable of handling a large amount of compressed plain text data. Media would will be links to external sources as storage capacities play catch up.

The CPU of the device would be able to map your entire social graph and do things that are not possible today being that calculating a social graph on a central server for each user is EXTREMELY expensive and basically impossible with high-load services. Kind of like the concept behind folding @ home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There appear to be a number of problems with this proof of concept:

1\. A requirement seems to be the ability to make and receive socket connections. How would you address the typically restrictive home firewalls/NATs that most people are living with?

2\. In the responses, a commenter raises this issue: _With the above example of two users and 56 connections it seems like there could be scaling issues and or perormance issues. They may be less obvious on computers but mobile devices with more limited bandwidth and sometimes quotas may suffer for those users with muilple devices and their multi device highly connected friends._

The response from admin is: " _Correct, this technology will have to scale along with hardware. I don't believe we are too far off with 4g, more inexpensive memory and the like._ "

That doesn't inspire much confidence in the idea as a proof of concept.

You're also claiming to solve a far more fundamental problem: that of creating and maintaining a reliable distributed peer-to-peer network without any central servers at all. If you do have a _practical_ solution to this problem, then a bunch of other difficult problems (like tracker-less Bittorent, for example, which currently relies on distributed hash tables) reduce to yours. Are you sure you're able to make that claim?

<comment><AUTHOR> "1. A requirement seems to be the ability to make and receive socket connections. How would you address the typically restrictive home firewalls/NATs that most people are living with?"

IPv6 is already being deployed from top tier mobile carriers and that allows globally rout-able addresses even behind NATs.

"That doesn't inspire much confidence in the idea as a proof of concept."

This technology is a little ahead of its time, but not by much. And by the time an end-user ready core is developed, we'll we be there.

"Are you sure you're able to make that claim?"

yes, the technical hurdles are only time consuming, not insurmountable.

<comment><USER4> > IPv6 is already being deployed from top tier mobile carriers and that allows > globally rout-able addresses even behind NATs.

With all due respect, if your solution depends on the following developments in the real-world:

(1) Everyone upgrades their cheap DSL/cable home modems to something that supports IPv6 (2) Cell carriers allow incoming mobile data connections (can you say mobile DoS?) (3) People modify their firewalls (again, nothing to do with IPv4 or IPv6) to allow incoming connections (4) You devise some way of allowing static or otherwise identifiable IPv6 IPs, even when the ISP doesn't give you a static IPv6 IP

then I would say you have a number of challenges ahead of you. Assuming that device X and connect to device Y on the Internet, for consumer devices, is a very difficult proposition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply, but take Skype for example, they have gotten over these technical hurdles. I could give you a huge explanation involving relay points and NAT traversal etc. but at the end of the day, these challenges have been defeated.

<comment><USER4> Skype uses a number of super-nodes that provide some guarantees on service level and has a set of central login servers: <http://www.mjalali.com/blog/?p=10>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, through mutual friends and indexers with persistent connections, these challenges are mitigated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you spoken with the Diaspora team? This was their exact idea, until they started implementing, and the practical concerns moved them back to the client-server, node-based model.

<comment><AUTHOR> There model is very different, though I don't know their history.

<comment><USER5> Their model is very different now, yes, but their original presentation was based on this exact concept. I would suggest looking at their history to see why they moved away from this design, and if possible, speaking with them or discussing on their mailing list the pitfalls they ran into.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll speak with anyone willing to help solve technical challenges associated with this model. But until someone comes up with something "damning" then I'm going to keep moving forward.

<comment><USER5> I wish you the best of luck, and I admire your ambition (and hubris) but as someone who has been working on distributed social networking (Appleseed) for over half a decade, I'll present this:

You don't always need a singular, damning situation in order to prevent a model from being implemented. Sometimes dozens of purgatorial ones are plenty.

<comment><AUTHOR> It just takes time and dedication, the motto of any true software developer.

Using the CPU power of a device that is capable of playing video games to calculate your social graph (that is stored on that same device) is extremely powerful and well worth the time and dedication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sorry, but I don't understand how this works without a central server.

edit: Namely, how do you securely add a friend without prior knowledge of his public key?

<comment><AUTHOR> Checkout the how-to page and watch that video. It gives more detail.

But in short, you can make friends with your friend's friends or you can be friends with an indexer, which will list a bunch of people you may or may not know that you can request to be friends with as well.

When you send a request through a friend, your connection is done securely through that already established relationship. Then that friend passes the request to the friend you want to be friends with that they are already friends with. Once that request reaches that friend and they accept, they will have the public / private key pair you originally generated. They will also have your IP address information and begin making secure connections directly to you without the need for the friend or indexer which you sent the request through.

<comment><USER7> How do you intend to tackle NAT, dynamic IP addresses, and devices that aren't always on, or devices only accessible to some machines but not others?

How do you intend to solve the chicken and the egg problem this network will encounter?

<comment><AUTHOR> IPv6 is already being deployed from top tier mobile carriers and that allows globally rout-able addresses even behind NATs.

If you have no social graph on yada, then your very first connection to a friend may have to be unencrypted, but not in every case.

<comment><USER7> > IPv6 is already being deployed from top tier mobile carriers and that allows > globally rout-able addresses even behind NATs.

You're making a lot of assumptions:

1) That IPv6 will assign a unique and constant IP to every device. Many ISPs provide this as an up-sell feature, not the default, and I don't expect them to change their behavior even if the cost of it approaches 0.

2) That IPv6 will solve all your network problems. It doesn't solve the issue of a bad link or a restrictive firewall. Consider Hosts [A,B,C] and Firewall F. F will block all connections from B. How will yada connect A and B in this arrangement: A <-F-> [B,C] ? Will is use C to route the connection? How will it determine that C can act as an intermediary, and how will it protect A's data such that C can not be used as a MTM (Man in The Middle) attack vector?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Each client checks for internal and external IPs and saves them. That list is transmitted to your friends every time you update them with other data. It automatically manages this list of possible places to reach you.

2) There will be indexers for these cases which can be used as relay points. C would merely be a match-maker, telling each host which IP address and port is currently open. No data is sent through C.

Skype does this.

<comment><USER7> Skype doesn't do this. Please read: <http://www.mjalali.com/blog/?p=10>

>1) Each client checks for internal and external IPs and saves them. That list is transmitted to your friends every time you update them with other data. It automatically manages this list of possible places to reach you.

According to the link, "supernodes" route connections and provide matchmaking between Skype callers. How do you find the "supernodes"? "If this file is not present, SC tries to establish a TCP connection with each of the seven Skype maintained default SNs IP address on port 33033."

>2) There will be indexers for these cases which can be used as relay points. C would merely be a match-maker, telling each host which IP address and port is currently open. No data is sent through C.

"If caller and receiver are behind a UDP-restricted firewall they will need a relay (node) in between to establish TCP connection to and then the traffic (including media) will go through from one side to the other."

Skype's protocol would use host C as an intermediary.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, its not exactly the same as your example. But the method I have developed does work.

<comment><USER7> You didn't address my point about initial discovery being maintained by Skype.

Also, could you please point out to me the method you have developed for initial discovery? I've yet to see it in your source code. This is a very tough nut to crack and if you've got it done already then I'm impressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> And if you're impressed, what happens? Do you help me? Because I'll fight tooth and nail to impress you if you'll help me.

Seriously.

<comment><USER7> Show me one place in your code right now where you have done something innovative with peer discovery, that no network engineer, or researcher has tried before, doesn't use a central meeting point, and is successful at discovering peers in a reasonable amount of time. I'll start work immediately. I'm pretty sure more people will join in on it too if this is the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is not coded at this time but you shall see, sir.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Lunar – Free Bootstrap Modal and Popups - <AUTHOR> https://lunar.atomui.com/ <comment><USER2> Hey Vivek. It looks awesome. I'll definitely get one of the team to check this for integration on our site. Totally Free!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> if you have any issues just let me know</comment>


Are Hackers Getting Fatter? - <AUTHOR> http://sbender.net/~scott/tshirt.jpg

<comment><USER2> _Everybody_ is getting fatter.

<comment><USER3> It's this guy's fault. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz> And every Secretary of Agriculture after him didn't help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That chart says nothing about sample size between the two events.

<comment><USER5> The chart also says nothing about the ages of the t-shirt requesters, or if people decided to get larger ones the second time around to offset shrinkage they were not aware would happen with their previous choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> also the same people who were 18 and 20 in 99 are about 30 in 08. and married, driving minivans, easting home cooked, chasing less/no tail</comment>


Wish list (books and bookshelves) - <AUTHOR> http://helwr.com/wish-list-47

<comment><USER2> I love books, however, true learning comes only through doing (even in maths).

</comment><comment><USER3> Please explain why I should care about your wishlist.</comment>


Searching Online May Make You Think You're Smarter Than You Are - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/02/396810355/searching-online-may-make-you-think-youre-smarter-than-you-are <comment><USER2> Please define "smart". Searching online massively improves my problem solving ability. The knowledge stored online actually turns into part of my brain. Did I lose (or never obtain) the ability to solve these problems without the internet? Probably. Do I care? No, in the rare case the internet is down I just go do something fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> <snark> Listening to NPR can definitely have the same effect. </snark></comment>


'I'm Stalin's daughter' - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/1002-ed-weston-ex4 <comment><USER2> For the context, the books of Rosemary Sullivan:

[http://rosemarysullivan.com/books/](http://rosemarysullivan.com/books/)

Specifically, she isn't Stalin's daughter. She wrote a book about Stalin's daughter Svetlana, called "Stalin's Daughter," not "I'm Stalin's Daughter," the article title is certainly confusing.

"With access to FBI, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana's daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana's incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy."

And it looks interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> In a similar vein, I find it surreal to realize that Stalin's granddaughter is alive and well and living in Portland, Oregon [1].

[1]: [http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/portlan...](http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/portland_granddaughter_of_jose.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not that it has a direct relationship with the article, but I'm watching The Americans (the TV show), it's made by an ex CIA officer, and I have to tell, the intelligence world is pretty scary. I can't comprehend how those couples could live such lives. I can't see any other work that is so mind sucking.

Although I have no idea how really accurate that show is, and I really have to look for clues about it.

<comment><USER5> There where Soviet Illegals who hid in plain sight in both the USA and UK.

Any history of the cold war will cover them and the is of course the more recent case Ana Chapman and the Illegal ring that got busted not that long ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The marine guard on duty was about to tell her the pretty, neatly dressed woman that the embassy was closed when she handed him her passport. He blanched…"

From what? Her name was Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva. "Iosifovna" is not that an uncommon patronymic because "Iosif" is not that an uncommon a name.

<comment><USER7> Couldn't a Soviet international passport contain the names of parents as well? I am sure the domestic passport had that information.

For everyone in Soviet Union near the major population centers, a domestic passport was necessary. And for instance any "enemy of the people" (as defined by section §58 of Soviet penal code) status was recorded in not only the passport of the said enemy, but also his/her children's passports.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_system_in_the_Soviet_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_system_in_the_Soviet_Union)

<comment><USER8> Perhaps in her case the information was missing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is common in history for a royal court to raise the princes and marry the daughters of their enemies. The Persians (Story of Esther), Egyptians (Moshe), Greeks (Helen), Romans (Herold), Mongols, Ottomans did this to name a few. Integration, hostages, aslyum politics are a few reasons. Stalins daughter is recent example in long tradition.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Children of high-ranking nomenclature didn't want to live in "their" country and they don't want now.

Most of Russian parliament members, high-ranking officers and oligarchs keep their families in London or Miami. Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia.

That's where theories arise that Russia is just a cryptocolony of the UK and been that for 100 years.

<comment><USER10> > _Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia._

Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.

<comment><USER11> Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all...

Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement.

Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way...

I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!"

"Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place...

It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!

<comment><USER10> You're missing the context, which is that this user has posted things like "Russia is the stupidest country" in the past. If it had been an isolated statement it would be different, but it was anything but. And HN is obviously not the place for this.

(On a silly note, your example of Switzerland is amusing because that's the country comedians use to make bigotry sound absurd, such as in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo), or Orson Welles' legendary cuckoo clock rant in the Third Man: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s)).

<comment><USER12> At first I agreed with swombat, but on reflection (and after digging up the thread you're referring to) I think you have a point.

I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that _you_ don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express _as an opinion_ your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on _people_ , even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.

<comment> guard-of-terra As I've already pointed out, there's a lot of "no one in their right mind" on HN and it is not usually considered an insult.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't address the point at all, because the meaning is in the thought you expressed, not a fixed phrase. Consider the difference between "no one in their right mind would want a four-hour commute" vs. "no one in their right mind would marry you". The first is not a slur. The second very much is.

<comment> guard-of-terra Now that you used that particular example, I can finally see your point. Sorry. I'll try to find more correct wording.

<comment><USER10> Thank you!

<comment><USER11> Collaborative communication - HN at its best :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The writing style of this article was horrible, something about it made it very difficult for me to pay attention.

<comment><USER14> I disagree. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. :)</comment></comment>


Reducing latency spikes by tuning the CPU scheduler - <AUTHOR> http://www.scylladb.com/2016/06/10/read-latency-and-scylla-jmx-process/ <comment><USER2> If scylla-jmx is used optionally why can you make this package optional ?</comment>


Start-up Offers New Hires $10,000, and All the Accoutrements of Hipsterdom - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/start-up-offers-new-hires-ten-grand-lifetime-supply-of-beer/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

<comment><USER2> This is Doug, Hipster's CEO. I'm happy to share the results of the campaign (if you're interested).

Yesterday, we launched the following page: jobs.useHipster.com

Essentially, we're offering a years worth of PBR, $10,000, and a whole bunch of Hipster swag if we end up hiring someone you refer.

The results are blowing us away. Here are the results of the campaign to date:

Yesterday, we had 12,296 unique visits to our jobs page. So far, 24 hours in, we've gotten 240 applications.

50% of those are for marketing / BD / sales / joke candidates, so not helpful.

40% of the applications are for developers, ranging in quality and location (not right for us, but potentially for others).

However, 10% of the applicants (so about 25 of them) are A+ candidates - people from our competitors, and from Google, Twitter, SalesForce, Oracle, AOL, and other top startups. All 20 of these people are seemingly eager to join.

Getting these 20 people into interviews would have cost hundreds of thousands in recruiter's fees, and we did it for free.

If you have questions about how we did this, feel free to email me at Doug (at) useHipster.com

<comment><USER3> Do the 10% of applicants you want somehow not fall under sales or development?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They also mass email spammed their entire database to let people know about it.</comment>


Hardening Mozilla Firefox Quantum for Privacy and Security 2018 Edition - <AUTHOR> https://vikingvpn.com/cybersecurity-wiki/browser-security/guide-hardening-mozilla-firefox-for-privacy-and-security <comment><USER2> Aren't the featuresets of uBlock and Disconnect overlapping? I would think that you could easily import lists from Disconnect into uBlock and vice-versa (provided Disconnect supports that functionality).

If the featuresets are identical, then I'd like to see resource usage comparison of both plugins. I haven't experimented with Disconnect, but I've noticed a performance improvement when I switched from AdBlock+ to uBlock.</comment>


Ask HN: Smarthouses startups – state-of-the-art? - <AUTHOR>

It is somewhat a ready-to-boom (or fail?) area and there're already hundreds of startups, all ready to turn your lights on (but only after you press a button in their application on your iPhone.) So I wonder who are the serious players and what is the state of the art of what's possible today?
Is there anyone supporting a lot of devices (maybe even supporting many standard busses)?  Is there anyone with zero configuration (who can learn itself about the available sensors/actuators/… in the vicinity)?  Anyone with working non-trivial scenarios (just as an example — who knows your position and can track your movements)?
Also what do you think is technically possible but noone has bothered to implement properly? <comment><USER2> I've heard that the Belkin devices Phone Home. I don't actually know that so don't take my word for it.

I personally could use a more-effective thermostat. I don't even need it to be networked, I just want one that works better.</comment>


From College To Silicon Valley: Tips From A Veteran - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/18/from-college-to-silicon-valley/

<comment><USER2> I'm in this position right now though I have yet to get any offers. Flew to Seattle last week for Amazon but was turned down and that's just one in a long line.

Do I feel like these have been unfair? _No._ In each case I can perfectly well understand why I was passed over: I screwed something up, whether an algorithm on the whiteboard or incorrectly describing a certain data structure. While it's a bit depressing to read stories like this about SV firms competing to hire college students, I've come to realize that I'm just not _good enough_ to get those positions.

Right now my plan is to stay where I am for a year (I do have an offer from a local firm, it's just not that exciting) and build up a portfolio of work. I've got products shipped out there in the wild but nothing I'm that proud of. However, a year of weekend projects will give me a portfolio of _working products_ and (hopefully) make me more attractive to companies in Silicon Valley.

I'll be releasing my senior thesis project into the wild soon and the corresponding paper has already been accepted for publication. I've started submitting pull requests for open source projects on Github with bug fixes.

Right now I'm not good enough. A year from now, I will be.

<comment><USER3> Just want to say I support your willingness to work and improve yourself. On the part of "a year's worth of weekend projects" might I suggest going for quality rather than quantity.

Back when I had a developer position, when it came time for hiring, my boss would hand-select his "top picks" from the resume pool and ask us (the developers) to give a general audit of their work.

For me, looking through all the apps, there was never anything robust. The codebases proved nothing more to me than the candidates ability to follow a ruby on rails "setting up a todo list" tutorial.

I got accused of being _overly harsh_ but I think you need top standards when hiring.

Anyway the point is its very rare that a candidate will have production quality apps running in the wild. And its even more rare that those apps have any more substance than you'd get following a paint-by-numbers rails tutorial.

Don't be one of those guys.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER2> Thanks! By 'weekend projects' I really meant two or three projects drawn out over several months. I've started working on one but it's at the bottom of my priority list right now, that'll change in a few months when I'm done with my thesis.

I've also come to realize how skewed your perspective is based on who you're surrounded by. I'm one of the best in my CS department which made me _think_ that job searching would be easy, but now I see that I'm the best of a small group that isn't that spectacular to begin with. Really wish I'd taken the harder path four years ago and gone for a better/larger school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing that might not obvious to people moving here is most of silicon valley is very suburban, and if you work in the south bay, most of your coworkers are going to be married with families in their 30s at the very least. Even in the startups. If your single, try to live and work in SF proper. Far more of your coworkers will be in your age range and the gender ratio will be somewhat more balanced. The commute from SF to the South Bay is a frustrating hour minimum.

Rent wise, SF and Palo Alto have about the same rent, even though half of Palo Alto and Mountain View is 1930s craftsman track houses.

<comment><USER5> This is one of the reasons I decided to move to New York instead, after having lived in the suburbs for my entire life, I just couldn't take it anymore. There are so many more things to do in Williamsburg (where I live now) and the easily accessible areas of Manhattan (East Village, SoHo, Union Square, even Midtown if you _really_ feel like that) than there were even in college.

<comment><USER4> Oh god, I just looked up the rent in mountain view and Manhattan and it's the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're joining a startup or a company where you're offered equity as part of your compensation package, spend some time to understand what it means. You don't have to be an expert at it, but a couple of hours of learning here could go a long way, plus that knowledge is likely to be useful again.

There's a pretty good write up at <http://infochachkie.com/options/>

Compensation is not everything, and for most startups the expected value of your options == $0, but you should still understand what you're getting or giving up so you can make a sound decision.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I learn and write about next? - <AUTHOR> As a front-end developer what should I learn next to improve my skill set. (and I also want to write articles about it while I learn; like a journey)
I use (everyday): REACT, REACT-NATIVE, REDUX, WEBPACK, CSS-FRAMEWORKS(Boostrap, Bulma, Materialize etc)
I know (not using everyday): NODEJS/EXPRESS,  BASIC DBs (MySQL, Mongo. etc), Firebase / Firestore, ROR
Any Suggestions? <comment><USER2> Learn anything, but please don't write about it. There's nothing worse than people who can barely switch a computer on writing 'tutorials' on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> How to lean down your stack so it will survive longer.

That is what I am interested in most. A pure html/css/js stack will probably last 10x longer then the typical stack developers use these days.

So if you are similarely productive with a pure stack, you are 10x more productive in the long run. As for the same work you get 10x more time of running software.

If you are 2x slower with a pure stack, you are still 5x more productive in the long run.

I find the question very interesting, where the optimum is.

Just pure html/css/js? html/css/js + a frontend template engine like handlebars? A framework like Vue that you include in the frontend? Or a heavy version of it that also requires something on the backend? Should there be a build process or not?</comment>


Anyone Looking for Non-Technical Co-Founder in NYC, SF, or Boston? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to join a technical person or a team to work on a start-up. I am willing to work my ass off including weeknights, weekends, or whatever it takes. I am willing to work 24/7 on this and give up everything else in my life to work on this. I have my own ideas, but I am completely open to joining others on their idea.
I am currently in NYC but am willing to move to Boston or SF if it's the right team or person.  I have bunch of savings saved up that I can survive for up to two years without a job.
Here is a little about me:
-I graduated from one of the top undergraduate business schools in America (currently ranked number two on Business Week's top undergraduate business school ranking list)
-I have worked at Google and Salesforce.  I am 23 years old male.
-I can SELL.  I worked at Best Buy for 3 in high school selling.  I am highly extroverted and can SELL!  I love selling!!  I very persistent and do not mind rejections.
-I am really good at people's skills, presenting, networking, and business development. I have high emotional intelligence and am pretty easy to get along with.
-I consider my specialty to be in business development, business strategy, marketing, and project management.
-I am a go-getter, and do not need to be told to do things. I literally can do everything that does not involve coding so coders can focus on the product.
-I am constantly reading and consider myself well read. I have obviously read classics such as the Lean Startup and all of Paul Graham's essays. I also have read many books in different fields such as: management, psychology, philosophy, and biographies of successful entrepreneurs.
I am looking to join people who are extremely dedicated and are willing work their asses off to make a successful startup. If you are action-oriented, hacker-type, and are looking for a non-technical co-founder that fits the description above then please contact me at email@example.com.
Thanks <comment><USER2> People might be interested in knowing what you did at Google and Salesforce (especially if it's linked with the sales/marketing which is where an inexperienced non-technical cofounder can add plenty of value to some startups)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have the savings and time, why not learn to code? You can add a lot more to the early technical parts and pull your own weight throughout the process.

Plus you'll better understand what's reasonable in terms of goals and deadlines, and find it much, much easier to find and attract technical people.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am learning to code but to be honest, I just do not like coding. I need to focus on my strengths rather than fix the clinks in my armor.

<comment><USER4> Wait..so you're willing to do whatever it takes..EXCEPT code? What other "chinks in your armor" are you not willing to do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would say hang out with other hackers at meetups. You just dont wanna join a startup based on their ideas or skills. You wanna make sure its a good fit for you and the team you join. Hang out with people, hack with them at hackathons, meetups etc. Once you find a team/individual that is good fit for beers, build a small product together and ship it without the mess of any partnership/equities/llc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trust me, I have tried. I went to countless meetups and hackathons and its harder to find people than you think it is.

<comment><USER6> I really do not mean for this to be offensive, but I understand how it can be (and I almost expect it to be interpreted that way) but I feel obligated to tell you this.

Your excuse is pretty weak. You've "tried meeting technical founders and hackathons, but its harder than we think." That's just weak.

You have to realize that you're within a forum of people that are very passionate and good at what they do. I really don't think anybody in the HN community is looking for a non-technical co-founder who is essentially saying they can't convince hackers, in person, at hackathons to bet on you.

If your rational was that you believe in HN users more than just a guy you can meet at a hackathon (not a bad approach, by the way), then you'd have merit. But your explanation basically suggests that you've been shot down hackathons, so now you're here to pick up a co-founder.

I'm not suggesting that finding a co-founder on HN is unheard of, nor that it is a bad idea (I particularly liked Coinbase's attempt merely days before the HN application deadline). But this whole presentation sounds unimpressive.

Lastly, having played point in both the non-technical and a technical founder roles, I'd suggest that you drop "I've tried but its harder than you think" line from your lexicon. Paul Graham has a succinct essay on this, but being a good founder is about being relentlessly resourceful. While you may have tried, and it my be harder than anyone thinks it is, both points are irrelevant. You jut have to do it. And you can't, or don't, you'll just be forgotten about.

I wish you the best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you haven't already, be sure to create a free online profile on CoFoundersLab, <http://www.cofounderslab.com/>. Search/connect with thousands of entrepreneurs, technical and non-technical looking to join a startup, for someone to join their startup, or open to either. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER8> Reading this makes me stop and think - I would not be willing to "give up everything else in my life" to start a company.

That said, good luck to you and I hope you find something worthwhile to apply your talents to.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am a developer in NYC, and I do client projects with two other developers.

I'd be willing to meet for a coffee to talk about any possibilities. Shoot me an email: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER10> Learn to code and explore Europe?

MakersAcademy.com</comment>


Discover Quickly for Spotify - <AUTHOR> https://discoverquickly.com/ <comment><USER2> This is incredible! This is how I often explore music on Spotify. Now lightning fast!</comment>


Show HN: Convert your API to Alexa skill or Google action in 5 mins - <AUTHOR> website: https://apitobot.io
Api to bot helps you create voice applications for Alexa and Google assistant without coding.
Convert your REST API to a voice application in few minutes.
Check out this video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmTC0XeaTic) where we create an Alexa skill for product hunt in 3 minutes. <comment><USER2> Hopefully you get the site back up soon! It is down for me at this time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, the website url was wrong. I updated the post with right url now. Check it now :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Learning Heroku - <AUTHOR>

I'm beginning to learn Heroku for a side-project. What are the best resources out there? Are there any books you'd recommend? Any good blog posts, documentation etc.? Please share them all! <comment><USER2> There are also some screencasts scattered around the Heroku blog. For example, I was just using their screencast on New Relic and the queue depth:

[http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/3/8/heroku_casts_queue_...](http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/3/8/heroku_casts_queue_depth_new_relic/)

I also recently used another screencast for setting up a Sinatra app. It's incredibly simple, go figure:

<http://twilio.heroku.com/>

Very helpful. The Heroku docs also have a lot of information about the Heroku specific stuff that you might want to read about (like dynos and the backlog).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great! Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Heroku docs are great. Michael Hartl's <http://www.railstutorial.org> Chapter 1.4 also covers that well

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://docs.heroku.com/> \- I am sure you have seen this, but there is a ton of good info here.</comment>


Show HN: Site I Made to Learn Elm - <AUTHOR> https://pace.ninja <comment><USER2> I'm doing a production site it Elm 0.18 right now; from someone who usually leaned on React, Redux and Ramda (and nothing else!) it's a breath of fresh air to have my compiler actually enforce purity. Amazing language and runtime.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! I built this site to learn Elm but also because I was astonished I couldn't find another site that did this. Would love any feedback!</comment>


Why This H-1B Visa Thing Is Bulls**t - <AUTHOR> http://sputniknews.com/radio_thom_hartmann_show/20160205/1034265268/florida-disney-land-h1-b-visa-program.html <comment><USER2> This is a big deal. In 2000, there were lots of H1B's that Motorola brought in to replace their programmers. Once again it seems that shady companies like Microsoft and Facebook are becoming greedy. The author also got the whole "cheap labor scam" analogy correct as well, except it's not exclusive to the Republicans - Marco Rubio has the nickname of "The Facebook Senator" for wanting to increase H1B visas. Hillary Clinton also has a deep history with wanting to increase H1B visas ([http://www.computerworld.com/article/2909983/it- outsourcing/...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2909983/it- outsourcing/heres-where-clinton-and-rubio-stand-on-the-h-1b-visa-issue.html))

<comment><AUTHOR> Just about every establishment candidate is going to be for more H1-B's. They have to; its the only way they can get the funding to get re-elected.

<comment><USER2> Time to not vote for an establishment candidate.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are correct, however there may not be a non-establishment democratic or republican candidate on the ballot for American voters once the nominations have taken place.

<comment><USER3> If Bernie doesn't get the nomination, I'll vote Trump. Not because I'm republican, not because I'm crazy, but because I refuse to waste my vote on a political robot.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I allured to in the previous post, Trump may also not be nominated by the powers that be. Call me cynical, but the people nominated and presented to the voters, are preselected by the capitalist class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oddly only those whose jobs are threatened by H-1B seem to care about it yet the vast majority of those same are all for illegal immigration. It is the same coin. Both are pushed by the establishment to support their corporate buyers.</comment>


Ask HN: What minor, yet annoying, problems do you need help fixing in 2019? - <AUTHOR> Are there any small issues, in your professional or personal life, that have been annoying you for a while? Maybe HN folks can help?
I would rather you posted problems that can't be Googled easily, unless your problem is not knowing the right keywords. It is just a preference, though.
Thanks and Happy New Year! <comment><USER2> Configuring and deploying web application before adding business logic

<comment><AUTHOR> Not necessarily my area of expertise, but what would be your desired end state?</comment></comment>


Getting Multiple Datasets and Joining Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2020-05-06-working-with-multiple-repositories/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a blog post showing how easy it is to take datasets from Dolt and combine them to get interesting data. In the blog I take the IRS Sources of Income dataset and combine it with information on congressional districts to find out which districts represent the least and most tax dollars.</comment>


High Schools Drop Tradition of Naming Valedictorians - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/farewell-valedictorian-high-schools-drop-tradition-of-naming-top-student-1507301285 <comment><USER2> PAYWALL!</comment>


Tracking the Digital Traces of Russian Trolls - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.05228 <comment><USER2> I always ask myself, where did Russians find so many people with such a great command of English as to be able to troll native speakers.</comment>


DIY Robotics: The Rise of Open Source Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/03/etech_hardware

<comment><USER2> Working with the real world is different than software. Shit breaks. Physical matters are fuzzy.

Commodity hardware has already done a great deal for robotics, but it takes high quality tools and intelligent sensor analysis to do smart things.

Yah, it's easy to hack together a Braitenberg Vehicle. It is hard to make something real.

All that said, I think robotics is an excellent education medium for all engineering. More people should make robots. Their expectations need to be realistic. You won't make something that can put away your dishes, but you might make a rooomba for 5X the cost iRobot does. Not Bad!

<comment><USER3> "You won't make something that can put away your dishes..."

Unless you're like Trevor. <http://www.anybots.com/dishwasher2.jpg>

<comment><USER2> I like using Anybots as an example actually. They're on a good track. But...

1\. they are completely teleoperated, skipping some hard perception problems.

2\. they're still solving a really hard problem that will take years.

So if you're just starting out, don't expect to be as good as smart people that have been working on it for years.</comment></comment></comment>


Trump Tariffs Will Increase Price of Laptops by 19% - <AUTHOR> https://www.techquila.co.in/tariffs-chinese-goods-computers/ <comment><USER2> Does this potentially open the door for a domestically made machine?

<comment><USER3> Do you mean, can anyone set up a factory and get through the startup phase before Trump's whims change?</comment></comment>


Is Sudo Almost Useless? - <AUTHOR> https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/232924/is-sudo-almost-useless <comment><USER2> Do people work under the assumption that sudo is meant to protect against malicious actors? I always considered it an administrative tool to differentiate between authorized users and administrators. You can, for example, limit a user to only running `sudo service` so they can log in an restart a service, but not make any other changes.

I thought the general strategy was to not give daemon accounts shell access at all. Getting shell access is the hard part for a malicious actor. Once you have shell, root access is just a matter of finding a piece of unpatched software with a privilege escalation exploit out there. Plus, there's still a lot of damage you can do without root access.

<comment><USER3> >Plus, there's still a lot of damage you can do without root access.

That's not really true. An unprivileged user shouldn't be able to take down a production system, or really adversely effect other users. Assuming you have disk quotas enabled, what else could an unprivileged user do?

<comment><USER2> My line of thinking was theft or data modification.

I have access to this box and it has granted me access to some other system which has useful data, like a database, NFS mount, or S3 bucket. Let me hop in here and grep for something juicy to steal, maybe flip some bits around to fuck with people, or just delete shit.

<comment><USER4> > theft

You can't steal data unless if you intentionally delete the original after copying, but then that is not really theft as any proper organisation will have backups.

<comment><USER5> So someone steals a book from a library isn't theft because they have secondary copies?

<comment><USER6> A better analogy would be photocopying all the contents of one of the books and putting it back on the shelf

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The only purpose of sudo is to protect you from yourself, that is, to avoid > messing up your system by mistake.

This is one reason I increasingly don't like the normal Linux distro "system packages, _plus_ everything else under the sun, with one interface and all co- mingled" default package management solution. I big fat "update the system" (or don't) button with my user-installed packages totally separate, as I get with macOS, is nicer. This made worse because, unless you're self-managing the base system and keeping it super minimal (as one might in Gentoo, Arch, or Void) Linux installations are weirdly fragile, I think in part because of this too-large package ecosystem all tied up with the "core" of the OS.

Especially on a single-user system, I should be able to install most software without escalating privileges. I should be able to blanket-update my user- facing software without any risk whatsoever that a kernel update will get thrown in with that (even if I don't read over the list to check—it shouldn't even be possible), nor with privileges to perform such even if it somehow did try to sneak in. I ought to be able to delete the directory with my user- installed packages and the system still boots with no errors or warnings—and yes, with a GUI and audio and networking and all that still working.

I know Nix and even a Homebrew port (with worse package availability, though) are options for achieving something kinda like this but it still feels like swimming against the current.

<comment><USER8> "user-installed packages totally separate" from the system is more or less how the BSDs work. OpenBSD provides user packages via pkg_add and pkg_delete, and the system updates with syspatch/sysupgrade. FreeBSD uses pkg update/pkg upgrade for user-installed packages, and freebsd-update for system updates. Maybe you'd like those systems better.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I'm thinking about trialing FreeBSD for both that and having better man pages (Linux's are _so_ incredibly bad). OpenBSD seems even nicer but I also like having, you know, software and drivers that Just Work™, which already seems like it might be a problem on FreeBSD. I haven't _enjoyed_ using desktop Linux since like 2008 (it is _not_ a coincidence that this is about when Poettering started to influence major distros with his NIH-motivated bloatware) and have puttered along on macOS for the last decade or so—a change is probably due, I'm just not sure there exists what I want, really. We'll see. I'm rocking Void now and it's... fine, I guess. Kinda.

<comment><USER9> > OpenBSD seems even nicer but I also like having, you know, software and > drivers that Just Work™, which already seems like it might be a problem on > FreeBSD.

It obviously depends on what you're using, but don't discount it without glancing at driver support: I've had it running quite nicely on a handful of laptops – typically older Thinkpads and Dells – and the "just work" factor of the overall OS is _through the roof_.

<comment><USER10> Have you noticed any problems with cpu throttling or hibernation? This is what I'm most afraid about switching to openbsd on my laptop (Dell precision).

<comment><USER9> Just works on my Thinkpad x220. You should, however, look for a dmesg output referencing your system and see if anyone has reported bugs. Power management is universally evil ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sudo serves one purpose well: for admin users to become root _with an audit trail_.

Why in 2020 do we still have non admin users on a host? Services! I still have non-admin users on my hosts for www, databases, etc.

Without sudo, the alternative would be for ssh to PermitRootLogin which is theoretically safe if root has a strong password etc, but in practice — should there ever be a bug in openssh that exploits permissive root logins — would needlessly expose systems to such a bug.

<comment> em-bee the problem with sudo is that it requires a password. on servers i use ssh keys to log in. i want that audit trail too, but either i set up sudo without a password, or i have to manage a user password as well. on some systems i thought to use ssh locally with a key, but then i need PermitRootLogin which doesn't distinguish between local and remote logins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The stack exchange post is asking specifically for Desktop users.

But for shared linux servers, sudo is very useful. It allows controlling which users are allowed to administer the system. (Generally, people who aren't sudoers can only view log files or do other readonly things). It's much better than letting people login as root directly since it keeps an audit trail of who is actually administering the device (they will show up using the `users` command, for example).

I rarely use sudo to do any fine-grained access control - it's almost always an all-or-nothing configuration - specific users are granted full access (with passwords), and everybody else gets none. I suppose this means that I use only 5% of it's functionality, but this 5% is quite useful.

<comment><USER13> Aren't shared Linux servers a thing of the past? I thought they were mostly obviated by VPSes.

<comment><USER12> I don't mean like shared hosting servers in the cloud. I mean application servers, build servers, and databases, hosted in-house. You don't always want to give the junior dev root access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sudo provides access control for root access, it's definitely not useless. Sudo allows for logging and locking of root actions. Those settings can be configured irresponsibly and lead to compromise for sure, but the main purpose is creating a sense of order to who can access what protected resources. Without sudo (or doas, or something like that), you're just running su whenever you want without real access control. For a timeshared system with a lot of users, handing out root in this fashion is especially irresponsible.

<comment><USER15> If a malicious sudoer has access to basically any system utility that takes a filename, and the filenames are not explicitly enumerated in sudoers, you're owned. The only way your claim here really holds is if you're limited to very specific pre-defined scripts with limited degrees of freedom in their arguments.

That is a fine thing to do. But when your operational processes are that structured, you're more likely to be doing code-reviewed changes to a configuration management repo, poking the API of a cluster scheduler, running playbooks in Ansible Tower or Jenkins, or something else that doesn't involve personal shell access.

<comment><USER14> Your point certainly stands, a lot of privilege escalation occurs because of sudo configurations like that. The idea that fine-grained access control necessarily implies that you're using something like Ansible or Jenkins for everything isn't necessarily true though, there are plenty of reasons why you wouldn't want to use those packages specifically, or if it's just an old- school timeshared computer. Sudo regulates those other utilities, and not the other way around. Even if using something like Ansible sudo is great because of the logging that it provides. Sudo works as a standard way to regulate admin (or other group) access, whether automated or not. That's why Ansible uses sudo as the become_method by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The most important feature of sudo isn't what it does, but what it doesn't do.

What it doesn't do is run everything with root permissions giving every process you run access to the entire filesystem, which is what you would be doing without it.

<comment><USER17> In theory. The reality is most people just use it to run "sudo bash".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> sudo is great for phishing. If I want to take over a system, I just need the users password. Given that sudo is almost never set up correctly and is unrestricted to anyone allowed to use it, I just send a script that requires sudo, capture the password, then relay the password in a DNS request back to myself. All in good red teaming fun, of course.

<comment><USER19> So, you send someone a script... And they just run it?

If they do, then it doesn't matter if it uses/fakes sudo, or not. They have some bigger problems.

<comment><USER20> But that is one reason I do use sudo.

I have some extra user accounts that I can sudo into to run scripts, plugins etc from e.g., github that I trust somewhat but not 100 percent. In case they do start mining bitcoins or sending spam mail I will find out and stop it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Our teams do not use sudo primarily to gain root privileges. We use `sudo sh` to switch contexts to a non-root user with different privileges. This allows us to modify web application code in the security context that it executes in (lower privilege).

Occasionally we do need to access system level resources, and `sudo` allows us to do this in a way that forces us to acknowledge that we are doing something more dangerous. However, we prefer using automation tools such as Chef to accomplish those things in a measured, repeatable way.

</comment><comment><USER22> I work in a mixed environment of both Windows and Linux and in my opinion sudo is very similar to Windows UAC and local admin rights. In that, you can give someone access to a computer without sudo or local admin rights and they won't be able to make any system-wide changes. But for someone who does have sudo or local admin rights, then it's just a safeguard that should hopefully make the user think twice before escalating their privileges.

If a Windows user is tricked into downloading some malware, and runs it by using their local admin rights to bypass the UAC prompt, then the system is owned. I believe this is the same risk with sudo, although the hope is that the extra authentication prompt gives the user the opportunity to re-evaluate whether or not they want to run the command as a privileged user.

</comment><comment><USER23> 1\. There's value in sudo (or su, or ssh root@localhost, or whatever alternative you like to logging in directly as root) as a safety measure, which is different from a security measure. Not having a paper towel holder wall-mounted above your stove is a great idea to prevent accidental fires, but it's completely irrelevant to stopping an arsonist. It's worth distinguishing these two cases.

2\. sudo can be used for both running a limited set of commands and for running an unrestricted set of commands. These are also two different cases. It's a bit tricky to ensure your limited set of commands are secure (you need to make sure none of the commands allow you to run unconstrained commands in turn), but if you do it, that _is_ a meaningful security limit compared to giving a user account unrestricted sudo or running that code as root. This isn't usually relevant for typical desktop systems, but if you're looking at designing some more involved deployment, it's relevant.

3\. For a multi-server deployment with a team of sysadmins, the question isn't really about sudo vs. su vs. ssh as root - the question is about the chain of accounts between a sysadmin's keyboard and their privileged shell. If you can come up with a design where the account that they can use (directly or indirectly) to log into root is more highly trusted than their everyday account (the one they use for downloading software from the web and trying it out, running code written by other people in the company, etc.), _then_ there's a meaningful benefit. There's a lot of ways to do that. One is to allow them to log in from their workstation's account to both a privileged sysadmin account with sudo and an unprivileged everyday one, and they do their work logged in elsewhere with the unprivileged account. One is to allow them to log in from their workstation's account directly to root, or to an unprivileged everyday account - it's weaker in terms of auditing but it has the same security properties as the previous solution. One is to set up multiple local accounts on their workstation, one privileged and one not, so they can work locally with their unprivileged account. The important bit is that the unprivileged account can't escalate to the privileged one. It doesn't matter if it does so with sudo or with su or with ssh or whatever, all of those can be used to escalate privileges.

If you really want, you _can_ apply the scheme above to your desktop system. Make two accounts, have one be an admin account and one not. If you're installing drivers etc. switch to the admin account, but otherwise work in the non-admin account. If the non-admin account gets broken into, you can reliably use the admin account to wipe it and restore from a known-clean backup. That's generally annoying in practice, though.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's definitely a design flaw that sudo doesn't use a secure attention key, and because of that, it adds no security at all in its normal configuration. But implementing that is probably impossible given the Linux desktop's lack of overarching design, and the fact that nobody cares about it (even a basic login doesn't have a SAK; Windows had that back in Windows 2000).

I'm pretty sure X doesn't support SAKs at all - any program can intercept any keystrokes. Maybe Wayland does, but then you somehow need to integrate your sudo binary with Wayland. And good luck getting that to work over SSH.

</comment><comment><USER25> Security is about trade offs. Talking about absolutes makes barely sense in this context, because any perfectly secure system is also perfectly useless.

Despite the chosen solution on SO - and from how the question is stated, it is clear that the asker only wanted confirmation -, sudo has its uses, even if is not perfectly secure (especially with the default configuration).

I suggest a more sensible approach for all security-related discussions: All systems have vulnerabilities, but some improve your security posture.

</comment><comment><USER26> I just always login as root. As long as I'm careful, I don't think I'll get infected. If I'm not careful, sudo will anyway not save me.

</comment><comment><USER27> One thing sudo does is prevent a local app takeover from completely owning your system. In particular, it can prevent a ransomware type attack from being able to touch your backups and makes it more difficult for the attackers to leave a persistent trojan in your system, especially the kind that can survive a reformat/reinstall or one that sniffs your network traffic.

</comment><comment><USER28> To each their own, but in my experience, both professionally and personally, I find `sudo` to be mostly useless, and an annoyance at best (which can be good for some people, just not me). My typical use-case for `sudo` is: _do X_ , oh, I need sudo permissions, _sudo !!_.

Any time I'm on Linux, I usually operate as root to avoid this annoyance and I put more weight into securing the machine in other ways - IP restrictions, cycling keys, cycling the servers, etc.

Sudo can prevent rookie mistakes, like wiping an OS or removing certain directories, but I consider most machines I work on to be ephemeral anyways, and anytime I make one of these mistakes it is a reminder to not do that next time - I prefer this to being hand-held and denied access superficially.

Oddly though, I do like that `sudo` exists in its current form, for people who are not as experienced. For me personally, I almost never interact with it.

<comment> em-bee i don't like sudo commands to clutter my history. i use tmux and run an interactive root shell (started with sudo of course) as one of the windows. i never work in that window unless i need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here's my question: should we just give up on using Unix permissions (or ACLs) for access control, and just containerize everything to limit access? That seems to be where things are headed.

</comment><comment><USER30> sudo is like CICD in the respect that it protects you from yourself.

</comment><comment><USER19> sudo does what it is supposed to do - run commands as a specific user. Without entering password every time you run a command (because of caching). Depending on parameters it will also evaluate some parameters for that user.

If you don't have particular use for it, just don't use it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anything is better than having root account enabled.

<comment><USER32> Like sudo su? Is that better(thanks ubuntu)?

<comment><USER33> The root account is a loaded gun. Sudo su is a loaded gun with the safety engaged. You can still shoot yourself with it, but you have to take an affirmative action first (disengaging the safety/sudo su), which cuts way down on the number of trips to the emergency room.

<comment><USER31> It's not just that. The 'root' account as such has no personality associated with it, so if two or more people share the password, all bets are off.

<comment><USER32> Yes absolutely, if sudo can make su, there is no more safety or audit in place...to go back to gun's...glock, you pull or you don't, no switch just 'sudo su'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yes, it's mostly useless but it's also interesting to consider sudo in the context of its history, and how computing has changed in a way that's made it less useful.

sudo was most useful when computing mostly occurred in shared runtime multiuser environments, as found in many research universities from the 1970s through the early 2010s. It was useful in this situation because it allowed selective granting of privileges to regular users (students, researchers, professors) to run commands otherwise only available to the superuser (sudo = "substitute [root] user do").

Those were the days of asking your sysadmin for root access to do something potentially dangerous to the system or disruptive to other users on the shared Unix system (i.e. running the "shutdown" command, or listening on a reserved network port). sudo allowed the sysadmin to trust specific users with certain commands they wouldn't otherwise be able to run.

sudo (and its GUI equivalents) was then adopted into personal computer OS's as part of the first push to secure consumer OS's against their own users corrupting them inadvertently, or via the emerging problem of computer viruses. At the time, consumer OS's (win3.x - win95, original MacOS) ran all software with administrative privileges.

Those OS's were replaced by enterprise equivalents that were designed with stronger access control features (windows NT, and the BSDs that became MacOSX).

The idea was that common tasks of the time (i.e. word processing, spreadsheets) would run as regular user accounts, and things like installing software or changing system settings would trigger a password prompt), just as happens in an enterprise or shared multiuser environment.

But consumer OS's basically have a single logged-in human user at a time. Thanks to the web, when computation needs to happen on a remote, shared compute machine, it happens over some form of RPC or API. Other concurrent "users" on most computers are usually system processes, not real users. How many of us login into a remote _shared_ "compute" system anymore? Heck how many of us even remember doing that?

Mobile OS's, and increasingly desktop OSs are evolving into managed runtime environments, which by design have no facility for "root" access at all, often to the chagrin of tinkerers who miss having the ability to modify OS internals. Even server-based apps are designed to run in containers that run in managed server environments.

Anymore, there's hardly a good reason to design most systems and software to require root access to install or run anymore. And yes, there are exceptions to this but those are usually for legacy software, or very specialized use cases like OS development itself.</comment>


Show HN: Pengram – Make AR annotations with your iPhone/iPad in less than 5 min - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
We are Will, Bill, and Charles, the hackers and makers of Pengram (http://pengramar.com). While working in the makerspaces at UC Berkeley, we noticed areas of heavy friction with regards to onboarding, safety, and technical reference, so we decided to do something about it.
Pengram uses a combination of markers and augmented reality to allow people to both make and read contextual data effortlessly. Imagine creating spatialized annotations, engaging 3D instructions, or simple sticky-note reminders that others can access with a quick scan of a marker.
We've already begun to push our solution to many of the makerspaces around the Bay Area. Our goal is to get this onto every piece of complex machinery out there, so no one will ever have to "find a manual" again!
You can see an example of our prototype at work on this laser cutter machine: https://vimeo.com/292876348
Our ask for HN community:
1. We are looking for feedback! Let us know how you feel about any and all aspects of our app - How smooth was the onboarding process? How do you feel about the UX? How often do you find a need to use it?
2. Let us know about your creative solutions! Do you leave notes around in your home? Do you create self-guided AR tours? How do you use your Pengrams?
How to use:
1. Start by installing the Pengram app on your iOS device here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1446229928
2. Download and print the Pengram marker, be sure to be at 100% zoom: http://pengramar.com/pdfs/marker.pdf
3. Stick the marker on something you want to add information to. Follow the in-app instructions to initialize the Pengram.
4. For more detailed information on the creation process please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI_qrRE_Nf0
Contact:
Feel free to reach us directly with your feedback and thoughts. Email: email@example.com
Looking forward to checking out your Pengrams,
Will, Bill, and Charles <comment><USER2> This is revolutionary and indeed a good way to avoid complexities with manual annotations.

I promoted your product on this site. Good job

[https://steemhunt.com/@lemmybe/pengram-ar-next-gen- assistant...](https://steemhunt.com/@lemmybe/pengram-ar-next-gen-assistant- solution-that-allows-3d-instruction-in-ar?ref=lemmybe)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for hunting Pengram and spread the words!</comment></comment>