Google has an iOS 6 Maps app awaiting approval - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/20/google-has-an-ios-6-maps-app-awaiting-approval-it-is-solely-up-to-apple-to-approve/ <comment><USER2> I really do hope they do.

I've been using the beta and all through it, there were no routing apps available for my area (San Antonio, so not exactly a tiny city, according to Wikipedia we are the 7th largest population wise)

Now that iOS 6 is out, I decided to give the Maps app a shot again. So I pulled it up, thought for a second since I am used to the old interface, clicked the wrong thing a couple times, finally got to where I needed to go. Scrolled through the saved list of directions that I've used in the past (very helpful). Clicked the bus button. Got routed to the App Store. There were 8 or so apps to pick from. Which ones sucked and which ones didn't, no idea. It's too new to tell.

Picked one at random, it's 99 cents, which is fine, I don't mind buying apps. It installs. And then sits there. Wait for a bit, maybe it's thinking or something (I'm on an iPhone 4, not 4S or 5). Okay, it's not. Go back into the maps app. It hasn't saved where I am, I'm back to the default screen. This time I remember so I go back to the directions. Click the bus button. Get routed back to the App Store again. This time the app I have says ROUTE. So I click it. It shows some introduction screen. I click the start button. Directions are blank.

Go back into maps, back to the directions, click the bus button, back to the App Store, click the route button, and the in the routing app, are two _very_ different addresses than the ones I entered in to the Maps app. Scratch my head wondering how that happened.

Close Maps, close the routing app, delete the routing app, launch maps.google.com, get the bus schedule almost immediately.

I have no idea what anyone else's experiences are, but I have never been so disappointed.

Now as mentioned, I'm still on the iPhone 4, and I'm at the tail end of the contract, I believe next month is when I qualify for the upgrade without paying full price. I'm seriously looking at the S3, although the new report of the exploit via NFC is a bit troubling. I'm not particularly worried about the apps I've purchased on the iPhone. I've spent maybe 150 on apps on the almost 2 years I've had the phone, and as I was talking about it to a friend, he pointed out that as a smoker, I spend more than that _per month_ on cigarettes, which really put things into perspective for me.

Never has Apple tastes so sour.

<comment><USER3> > I have no idea what anyone else's experiences are, but I have never been so > disappointed.

Not being in the US, google maps has never provided any kind of mass transit information. Apple's implementation not providing it doesn't really change anything.

The imprecision of the map, though, that's a problem (because it _is_ a step back)

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure whether you're specifically talking about Google's maps on iOS or not, but Google's web and Android maps clients both provide bus and train times for much of the UK.

<comment><USER3> > I'm not sure whether you're specifically talking about Google's maps on iOS > or not

I'm talking about Google Maps in general.

> Google's web and Android maps clients both provide bus and train times for > much of the UK.

Good on you for living in the 51st state I guess? Many still get neither.

<comment><USER5> in many cases they can't offer it because the transit authorities do not wish to provide that data to Google.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying it's Google's fault (I know it very likely isn't). steevdave opened the door to other people's experience re. mass transit on Google Maps versus Apple Maps, I gave mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Jim Dalrymple (who is an unofficial mouthpiece for Apple) says nope:

[http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/09/20/on-the-rumor-that- goog...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/09/20/on-the-rumor-that-google-has- submitted-an-ios-6-maps-app-and-apple-is-sitting-on-it/)

If I were Google, I'd hold off on releasing a Maps for iOS just a little while. It's firmly in the "killer app" category at the moment and might help spur Android adoption just a little.

<comment><USER7> "If I were Google, I'd hold off on releasing a Maps for iOS just a little while. It's firmly in the "killer app" category at the moment and might help spur Android adoption just a little."

Based on this logic google should withhold search (after contract runs out) and only serve youtube in VP8. Releasing Maps soon but not immediately for Google (which is what it looks like they are doing) wins in several ways:

(1) reap the benefits of Apple's Maps launch negative publicity for a couple weeks.

(2) once your app hits, more people are using your services. Google loves people doing this.

(3) and less people using Apple Maps and helping improve it. Keeps the gap wide.

(4) finally, if not approved, you can use the disapproval as another competitive advantage.

<comment><USER8> Nope. Maps is a huge differentiator. Search & Youtube is not. Windows and Android phones have good maps, iOS doesn't. No one will care much if the search is switched to bing or if youtube was not available as an app. Also youtube makes it money via ads which it shows in the latest app. I don't think google is monetizing maps much.

<comment><USER9> I agree YouTube may not be, but search is pretty big. However, Google would have a hard time blocking google.com from iPhone users without being anticompetitive.

They can not expend the effort to create a google maps app for iphone, but that's not the same as being actively anticompetitive as they would have to be if they wanted to block search from iPhone users.

<comment><USER8> Sorry. You missed the point. Google wants as many people to use youtube & search. It makes money via ads on both. Having it as default is good (google pays money to FF to be default for example) and even if it is not the default, people can use google by typing google.com in safari. From there, the experience is identical.

Similarly for youtube, google wants the widest audience. Wider the audience, more the ads and more money.

If apple switches from google to bing for safari default, apple gets to spite google a bit and google may lose quite a bit of traffic. This hurts Google. Google will never want to block iOS users from search or youtube.

Secondly, neither is a competitive advantage in smartphone markets. No one is going to switch platforms for either search or youtube.

Maps on the other hand, does not have much advertising. The previous app did not have any advertising at all. They got location data from it but they can get that from android phones. Google loses nothing if they don't release an app. If they don't release an app, it is a great advantage for android. So they have a tradeoff to make, whether to maintain that competitive advantage or release a maps app and gain some audience. If I were google, I wouldn't release maps. For the first time ever, android is way way ahead of iOS in one of the core features.

<comment><USER10> Incorrect: the maps app in iOS < 6 had plenty of ads in the form of sponsored listings. I can recall several times on a road trip recently where I searched for a point of interest, and got a sponsored listing... Sometimes it was right on top of the non-sponsored point, so I had to zoom in really far just to be able to select the desired pin.

iOS maps is basically another ad platform... And with iOS 6 being adopted at a high rate, Google would lose all those "eyeballs" and crowd sourced data if they didn't release their own iOS maps app.

<comment><USER8> Ok. I stand corrected :) I have never seen a sponsored listing. I still think maps as a product is not dependent on ads like search or youtube is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Even if it is approved and released shortly it still doesn't solve the problem of it not being the default Map app. Contact links & location links will still open in Apple's Maps. Still waiting on something comparable to Android's Intents in iOS

<comment><USER12> There's already a similar mechanism in the URL handlers, but Apple don't let you choose which application to use if multiple ones are registered. This still bugs me.

I'd also like widgets one day.

<comment><USER3> > There's already a similar mechanism in the URL handlers, but Apple don't let > you choose which application to use if multiple ones are registered.

It also doesn't let you override core applications (in that it picks the first one either way), and last time I checked it if two applications registered the same handler and you removed the first one, the association didn't switch to the second one it just broke.

May have been fixed since.

> I'd also like widgets one day.

I just want toggles in the notification bar (DND, airplane, 3G, roaming and location would be sufficient as far as I'm concerned). Instead of the waste of space that Stocks is (yes I know I can remove it from the notification center, and did)

<comment><USER12> > > There's already a similar mechanism in the URL handlers, but Apple don't > let you choose which application to use if multiple ones are registered. > > It also doesn't let you override core applications

Hence "Apple don't let you choose which application to use" - it all happens at Apple's whim, and currently that excludes replacing system apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How does "competes with existing functionality" not wake up the antitrust regulators? Wasn't the entire IE shipping with Windows situation based on a competitive functionality?

<comment><USER3> > antitrust regulators?

> antitrust |ˌantēˈtrəst; ˌantī-|

> adjective [ attrib. ]

> of or relating to legislation preventing or controlling _trusts or other > monopolies_ , with the intention of promoting competition in business.

In pretty much every thread about Apple on this site, you will be reminded that Android enjoys amazing sales.

> Wasn't the entire IE shipping with Windows situation based on a competitive > functionality?

Microsoft was found to be a de-facto monopoly on the desktop.

<comment><USER14> >In pretty much every thread about Apple on this site, you will be reminded that Android enjoys amazing sales.

And in the same threads and on Apple blogs like Gruber's and Siegler, you're constantly reminded how it doesn't matter because Apple takes ~75% of the profits, and statistics on how apps are more profitable on iOS because Apple users are the premium users willing to pay and how many Android users are too cheap to buy apps. So if you're an app maker looking to make money, iOS is pretty much close to a monopoly if you're trying to make money.

<comment><USER15> Its only a monopoly if you are very narrow minded about the market. Brew and J2ME have multi-billion dollar app markets that compete with Apple and Android in terms of volume.

<comment><USER16> Citation please?

So far as I know, Nokia was a leader in non/pre-iOS/Android app markets. For some reason I think their results weren't competitive with iOS or even Android...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This map uproar seems a tad hyperbolic.

I used it this morning and I was actually pleasantly surprised. My map experience wasn't worse as I expected, but actually much better with turn by turn.

The people most upset seem to generally be edge cases. I'm sure Apple will work those out as complaints roll in.

Google has had 7 years to perfect maps. Apple feels maybe a year behind in some respects and a year ahead in others, but definitely not 7 years behind.

<comment><USER14> >The people most upset seem to generally be edge cases

I love it how you dismiss 99% of people and the globe as an edge case by your anecdote of it working well for you.

Let me take a guess, you live on the West Coast where Apple engineers live?

<comment><USER18> The OP's point is that this feels a lot like Antennagate 2010, where a large number of non-Apple users latched onto the fact that there was _something_ wrong with Apple products, and complained louder than the actual Apple users. At this point, we can call all the evidence anecdotal until we see some hard numbers on how much map data is actually incorrect, and what actual percentage of the population is affected (I'm not holding my breath for that data, though).

I agree, though, that Apple rushed in prematurely with a new version of Maps -- either they screwed up big time engineering/management wise, or their hand was forced business-wise (I'm leaning towards the latter).

So putting the "outrage" aside for a moment, how well do maps work on your phone, and did you notice any problems so far?

<comment><USER16> To me, Google's tone at their pre-WWDC Maps event (and the effort they made to demonstrate things on iOS devices) doesn't seem consistent with the hypothesis that they decided to force Apple's hand.

<comment><USER19> Its entirely plausible that Google framed the map situation one way publicly, but another with Apple in private.

<comment><USER16> Possible, yes. But given the way many people criticized Google's tone at the time (nervous, etc.) it doesn't seem likely to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thank god. I'm holding off on upgrading to iOS 6 until this is released, so it will be very welcome. I live in a city, so accurate location data is important to me (and I prefer not to use the web based google maps because I don't want to give safari permission to use location data)!

<comment><USER21> Note that you don't have to give location data to all websites. You can allow maps.google.com and deny others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Jim Dalrymple says no: [http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/09/20/on-the-rumor- that-goog...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/09/20/on-the-rumor-that-google- has-submitted-an-ios-6-maps-app-and-apple-is-sitting-on-it/)

<comment><USER16> Dueling anonymous sources. Wonderful.

That being said, 9to5Mac seems to emphasize that an app was submitted and Jim Dalrymple seems to emphasize that it isn't sitting in review.

There's one simple way those could be consistent: an app could have been submitted and rejected. Google's and Apple's different points-of-view might even be giving us the contrasting spins on the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If this is true, then Google is making a catastrophically bad tactical error, or Apple Maps are not as horrendously awful as the blogosphere is making them out to be (haven't had a chance to try them myself).

<comment><USER24> This was Apple's decision, not Google's.

<comment><USER23> Sorry - I meant the decision to put an App in the App Store. If the Apple Maps are bad as people seem to be proclaiming, Google should let iOS 6 brew up ill will with Apple's customer base, especially since Apple users tend to upgrade their OS's immediately, and use it to promote Android.

<comment><USER25> You could alternatively see this situation as Google signaling that they are willing to act in the best interests of the consumer even if it means sacrificing strategy, putting them in stark contrast with Apple in the eyes of the people who are critical of Apple's new mapping application (ie, the people who are going to be deciding to continue using Google's maps.)

<comment><USER23> I don't think that the typical consumer's understanding of technology industry dynamics is deep enough for this to be relevant. I think the decision is more like, "Steve's phone's maps suck, I don't want that phone."

After all, all of these companies have faced huge amounts of criticism (Apple for worker's conditions, Google for its actions in China, Facebook for privacy issues), and they don't seem to meaningfully erode consumer enthusiasm.

<comment><USER25> You're right. I think the thought process likely to go through most consumers heads is either:

 _"This new maps thing sucks. Oh look, I can get Google's maps again. Thanks Google!"_

or

 _"This new maps sucks. Oh well, the rest of the phone is great."_

Google passing up the chance to keep people who already like one of their products happy on the off chance that they can pry Apple consumers away from Apple doesn't strike me as the best decision in the world.

<comment><USER23> Do most users actively know that the tiles in the iOS 5 Maps application are served by Google? The app itself is Apple top to bottom -- the display does say "Google" in the lower-left-hand corner -- but it would be interesting to know how users think of their iPhone maps application.

<comment><USER25> I should imagine that anyone who cares enough to become distressed by Apple's maps will be able to figure it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ok, this is an interesting twist to the story. See my comments elsewhere on why I don't think an App version of Google Maps would see the light of day (if it did that would definitely count as 'plan C' in my book).

Fun times.

<comment><USER27> Apple lost this particular battle ( mobile search ) the day Google bought Android. OSM is cool as we know, but it was not deployed until now, and the reaction is epic. Apple will fight the good fight like bing is doing in web search, but ultimately will be found wanting, just like bing. The only f-u play Apple has left is to spend billions of dollars making OSM on par with GoogleMaps, contributing that knowledge 'upstream,'watching specialized maps services eat google maps' ad lunch. I seriously doubt that would happen, but it's the only play left. "If I can't play then no one can..."

<comment><USER24> I had this idea recently of splitting the internet into two internets: one for Apple fans and one for Apple haters. Apart from getting rid of a lot of flamewars, Apple could rule supreme in the Apple internet, be the best search engine there and so on. If you never know that there are better options, you can be happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is blogspam.

Original: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/sep/20/apple-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/sep/20/apple- google-maps-headache)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Or this story:

Source: Google Hopes To Have iOS Maps App In The App Store "Before Christmas"

<http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/crap-maps>

</comment><comment><USER29> After checking out the bunch of complaints, I wonder what's going on with Apple's quality process. They must had seen some of this 'roller coaster street' bugs before... They either sacrificed quality for getting the product out soon... Or maybe they are assuming most of fans won't care about the bugs just because they'll get the new phone anyway... Or their quality process just needs some improvements.

</comment><comment><USER30> How about TomTom for iPhone?

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tomtom-u.s.-mexico/id35568237...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tomtom-u.s.-mexico/id355682375)

Yes, it costs $60 + in-app purchase for more frequent updates, but still, at least it is accurate.

<comment><USER16> Um, doesn't Apple source much of their underlying data from TomTom? Absent incredible stupidity on one side and/or the other could TomTom really be holding out on them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The problem is there is no other company that does maps and so Apple cannot even buy some one to fill the gap. They are now forced to grow/improve the maps organically, which will take some time. But this is Apple they will get there.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seriously, why wouldn't Apple approve it? Which of their terms will this app violate?

<comment><USER3> "Duplicates a native service" would be my guess". "We'll refuse what the fuck we want" is an other possibility.

<comment><USER33> I don't believe they've used that in a while. They let Chrome & Sparrow on without any complaints.

<comment><USER34> but they are both severly crippled on iOS, chrome is just a safari skin, and sparrow cannot be used as a default app for mail on iOS cannot use notification for new mail unless using 3rd party services (if you are trusting them with you email credentials).

<comment><USER35> Doesn't that come down to API limitations rather than actual functionality?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is it just me or has Apple "slavishly" copied the google maps app functionality, icons (that arrow looks like a copy paste) and rounded corners?

The hypocrisy here is just mind blowing.. And it clearly demonstrates the utter bullshitness that is there fight against Samsung

<comment><USER37> > And it clearly demonstrates the utter bullshitness that is there fight > against Samsung

The only thing it demonstrates is that you have no idea what you're taking about. The app "functionality" is "being a map" something Google has never patented. The UI elements are Apples, as they designed and built the iOS Maps app.

The only thing here that's a slavish copy is your comment. Reminds me strongly of the comments of a million other uninformed idiots that barely understand the concept they are trying to deride, yet insist it is hypocritical.

Yeah, it's the worst hypocrisy to use assets you designed and a concept that can't be patented in a new app. I heard Apple has a calendar app too? Is that also a slavish copy of Google Calendar?

Apple didn't sue everyone who made a phone FFS. They sued Samsung, a company that genuinely did rip them off and try as hard as they can to present Android and their devices as much closer to the iPhone than anything else.

Apple isn't doing a single thing that's similar with Maps. They're just making a Maps app. Google doesn't own the concept of mobile mapping.

<comment><USER38> This patent war is ridiculous, and even more ridiculous that so many people are now convinced that apple is merited with their claims. Patent laws have turned into a scary world for creative design, no one is safe. Here's a great article giving some insight into why maybe apple isn't so innocent after all;

[http://www.dailytech.com/Samsung+Apples+iPhone+Started+as+So...](http://www.dailytech.com/Samsung+Apples+iPhone+Started+as+Sony+Ripoff/article25277.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wonder how this jives with Gruber's comments on the maps situation:

>Using Maps to Improve Maps

>> Scott Rafer:

>>What's missing from this conversation is that map usage is critical. […] Google's maps are going to start degrading. Apple's will get better. They'll meet in the middle within 18 months.

>The idea is that you need to collect usage data to improve your data. The only way for Apple to get from here to there is to release what they have now and improve the data as millions of people start using it.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/09/19/rafer-maps>

If Google Maps is approved, far less people would be using Apple Maps.

<comment><USER40> Why would GMaps degrade in quality? Apple's might improve but Google's are on Android devices, and they have another key data source in StreetView.

<comment><USER41> I think Gruber was postulating that Apple would continue updating the app to take advantage of iOS in deeper ways while Google wouldn't put the same level of effort into the iOS version of the app, making it stagnate. So more of degrading of the iOS experience than anything related to map data.

<comment> brown9-2 He wrote "Google's maps are going to start degrading", not that their app would degrade. He seems to imply that with less iOS users, they'd get less corrections - which ignores the large userbase of Google Maps on other platforms (Android, web).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _Duplicates a native service_

Surly it can't be legal for Apple to potentially reject an app on such grounds?! and on that subject where is the talkative Google search update?

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-search- engin...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-search-engine-of- future-one.html)

<comment><USER42> They can legally do whatever they want. They've pulled apps before for the same rule. It's part of playing in Apple's ecosystem. As a developer you always take the risk that Apple will decide to wield the ban-hammer, and you basically have no recourse.

<comment><USER43> Just like Microsoft could legally do what they wanted on windows vis-a-vis Netscape and IE.

<comment><USER44> They couldn't because they were a monopoly.

Apple is so far from being a monopoly, it's not even funny.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kaspersky Antivirus left millions of customers open to online tracking - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/kaspersky-antivirus-left-millions-customers-open-to-online-tracking <comment><USER2> Related [https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/46403.html](https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/46403.html)</comment>


Show HN: Crypt0.Space- a New, Low-Fee Bitcoin and Litecoin Mining Pool - <AUTHOR> https://crypt0.space/ <comment><AUTHOR> Closed due to lack of interest</comment>


A New Way to Nab a Better Seat on the Plane - <AUTHOR> http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/a-new-way-to-nab-a-better-seat/?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> I travel very frequently and wouldn't pay the $10 monthly asking price for this.

It's a novel idea, but worth maybe $10/year, not $120/year.</comment>


Fortune First, Fame Later or Aim for the Enterprise - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/27/aim-for-the-enterprise/

<comment><USER3> You know, I'm tempted to flag this on purely selfish grounds. I want this article to disappear into the dust-bin of history and never be seen again.

Why?

Because I'm one of those weirdos that finds (most) consumer web apps to be inane and boring to the nth degree; and who is already all about building an enterprise startup, and for (mostly) the exact reasons cited by this article. And I don't want everybody and their brother jumping on the bandwagon! :-)

Ok, ok, I'm being a little bit fascetious. I don't care that much about competition, and (God|Allah|Satan|Zeus|Zoroaster|Dionysus|FSM|$DEITY_OF_CHOICE)knows, I have enough anyway though... Jive Software, Yammer, Clearvale, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and others all offer products that are - if not direct competitors - <USER2> least a viable substitute. Fortunately some of them offer complementary products that support the overall ecosystem I'm working on. A few more startups probably aren't a big deal.

Suffice it to say, I think this article hits on some very good points. Yes, selling to the enterprise has it's own set of challenges, but it definitely has it's advantages as well. The key point probably being "businesses spend money."</comment>


YouTube launched its first 360-degree video ad - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Wl9jAB45Q

<comment><USER2> Intreating.</comment>


Python Course in Bioinformatics - <AUTHOR> http://www.pasteur.fr/recherche/unites/sis/formation/python/

<comment><USER2> Looks nifty, but the course appears to require quite an extensive biology background and is targeted at biologists. What I'd love to see is a "Bioinformatics Course in Python".

<comment><USER3> Great if you happen to already have a biology degree and know Python to boot! This might just rekindle my old interest in biology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first B.Sc will come in handy for the second time in my life. :/</comment>


Show HN: Modserver – HTTP application server supporting 11 languages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ers35/modserver <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a list of the 11 supported languages: C, C++, CGI, D, Go, Haskell, Lua, Nim, Python, Ruby, and Rust.

<comment><USER2> > [...] supported languages: [...] CGI, [...]

Does it support TCP language?

<comment><USER3> Although you're kidding, there was an embedded server that reduced CPU/memory use by working almost exclusively in TCP. It evdn pre-encoded HTML pages as TCP packets that ig transmitted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Supporting language X" isn't the same as "can be called from language X if you manually use the FFI". At the very least, the bindings should come out of the box.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bindings are included: [https://github.com/ers35/modserver/tree/master/src/api](https://github.com/ers35/modserver/tree/master/src/api)

The Python module does not require one to use an FFI: [https://github.com/ers35/modserver/blob/master/src/example/p...](https://github.com/ers35/modserver/blob/master/src/example/python/test.py)

More idiomatic wrappers can be written later, but the FFI based bindings have to come first.

I updated the readme to make this more clear.

<comment><USER4> > FFI bindings have to come first.

Of course. But FFI bindings alone don't count as "support".

> More idiomatic wrappers can be written later

Then "support for <language X>" is "planned" or "work in progress".</comment></comment></comment>


Uberzet : The First File-Sharing Network built on Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://uberzet.com/?src=hn

<comment><USER2> I seem to recall there being an HN post about people doing this same concept and they just ended up with their accounts being unable to share files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm - not sure I recall that. I went through a fairly intense app verification process with Dropbox though - so I'm sure that won't happen.

<comment><USER2> Dropship is what I was thinking of. Here is one of the hn posts about it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2482712>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the basic concept, but I am not going to give you access to my _entire_ Dropbox; why not a subfolder therein?

<comment><AUTHOR> In-fact you're only giving access to the Public folder. The idea being that if you're willing to share it publicly ... well you're willing share it publicly : )

In any case, it's obvious that I haven't communicated that clearly enough. Thank you for the feedback : )

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unless this has a file search/discovery feature I don't see point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Obviously I am not communicating what uberzet is clearly enough.

You can do a keyword search. Also you can view popular files on uberzet. Finally you can ask uberzet to show you a random file.</comment></comment>


Back to the Future – Advanced Nuclear Energy - <AUTHOR> http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2014/backtothefuture

<comment><USER2> China is producing 60 new nuclear plants while the U.S. is making 5. Everything in China is happening much faster and on a larger scale. We should recognize this fact and more actively work with them to further develop nuclear energy.

A couple other examples of China's ability:

* This week China opened 32 new high-speed rail stations: [http://rt.com/business/212719-china-opens-high-speed-train/](http://rt.com/business/212719-china-opens-high-speed-train/)

Their current 10,000 miles of track probably cost them only 3x-5x what the high-speed train in California will cost when it's done.

* A decade ago, they built a 20 mile maglev train for $1.2 billion: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train)

* More airports:

"According to the Chinese government's 12th five-year plan, the total number of airports is set to expand from 175 in 2010 to 230 in 2015."

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/fedb9308-8501-11e3-8968-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/fedb9308-8501-11e3-8968-00144feab7de.html#axzz3LhN82SLn)

\---

China simply has the ability to move much faster and cheaper than the U.S.

<comment><USER3> Wages are lower in China. You can't compare the costs directly.

<comment><USER4> I doubt wages are why our stuff is so expensive... or, more accurately, I doubt that wages for people _actually doing construction_ is why our stuff is so expensive.

Some of the speed China has is that their government is willing to just stomp over anything and anybody in the way and Get It Done. We don't necessarily need to copy that element. On the other hand you can make a damned good case that we are far, _far_ too good at paying very expensive people lots of money for months and years at a time to come up with reasons why we can't do something, and once finally placated, reasons why we have to do it more expensively than we initially planned.

<comment><USER3> Wages: so I just googled the average Chinese wage and the first answer I got was around $5000. you don't think a difference of an order of magnitude in wages could explain the difference?

Regarding waste in administration: I'm sure the same happens in China.

<comment><USER4> For construction wage differences to matter, we have to be actually _constructing_. Spending billions of dollars on clearing red tape isn't due to construction wage differences. Of course we are paying the people implementing the red tape much better than the Chinese do, that is true. And we probably pay a lot more of them.

And please spare me the obvious black & white "oh, so you want _no_ regulation, then?" I want reasonable levels. Not levels that were clearly designed to be punitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regardless of how much you hate (or love) nuclear power, it is important to remember that radioactive decay is a stochastic process that doesn't give a crap about politics, policy, or nation states. As such, any prudent forward looking nuclear path needs to include methodology to transmute the unfortunate nuclide spectrum left over from light water reactors (LWR) into shorter lived species that don't need storage measured in epochs. New nuclear reactor technology with different neutron spectrums is likely the most prudent approach to effect this transmutation at scale.

The "green movement" anti-nuclear camp cannot seem to see the scientific need to continue with nuclear fission at least long enough to clean up most of the mess we've already created. A coherent "full stop" nuclear policy should still include reprocessing and transmutation of the existing waste stockpile. Stopping short of this makes the extant waste problem catastrophically worse.

\---

I took radiochemistry in graduate school several years before the the origin story in the Brooking's article, and the appeal of molten salt reactors was well known then, albeit with more conventional fuel loads.

The engineer in me gravitates towards the elegance of the proposed "Gen IV+" nuclear technologies, but the convoluted realities of nuclear power in today's form makes it hard for me to justify continuing the current path towards bigger and bigger light water reactors.

My personal opinion is that we need to diverge from, or stop, the building of ever larger LWR. Because these reactors operate at elevated pressure, and have multi-megawatt levels of decay heat, accidents are always a specter.

Research energy must then be diverted into technologies that will consume most of the long lived TRU waste. By the time the existing waste is transmuted, the performance of the transmuting reactor systems will be established enough that retaining or shuttering of those systems should be more clear. There will also be a long enough stretch of time in parallel to ascertain the asymptotic maturity state of the various renewable energy technologies.

<comment><USER6> _The "green movement" anti-nuclear camp cannot seem to see..._

As a bleeding heart treehugger myself, the "green movements" are routinely susceptible to "letting perfect be the enemy of good", which is where a lot of my objections to those movements come from, and IMO where your particular point stems from as well.

<comment><USER7> That's the proximate cause, but you need to go back one level to the root cause:

The environmental movement of today is a political alliance between a group of essentially science-oriented types who see a looming problem and want to solve it most efficiently, and an essentially anti-scientific group who have a philosophical objection to aspects of modernity that they see as being opposed to a desirable state of nature.

This alliance happened more than a generation ago, and like most close political alliances, it has resulted in a lot of cross-pollination of ideas from the two camps. So now you'll see people who are fundamentally anti- science use scientific arguments on, say, climate change.

But nuclear power, GMO food crops, and geoengineering are none-the-less dead issues for the modern environmental movement because about half of that movement is not interested in the science of whether or not those things are on balance good: they are ultimate expressions of the un-natural modernity that that half of the movement wants to get rid of. They aren't being irrational, and they aren't just waiting to hear the right argument for why nuclear power is less likely to provoke a catastrophe that will lead to the loss of human life than the status quo. They are opposed to nuclear power per se, for what it inherently is, not for the specific effects it will have on humans or particular animals or anything.

This isn't going to change unless the current big tent breaks up, and it's not clear that, like, scientific environmentalism has enough political clout to pass any part of its agenda if the current tent does break up.

Edit: To make it more explicit, there are people within the environmental movement who prefer solar and wind power to fossil fuels, and fossil fuels to nuclear, not because they believe that the damage to current living things goes renewable < fossil < nuclear, but rather because the sun and the wind go on around us all the time even in a state of pure nature, and we're just redirecting the energy a little with windmills and solar cells, whereas fossil fuels are in a state of nature sitting around underground and should remain there, but at least they are in and of themselves natural objects, whereas nuclear power creates isotopes and elements that simply do not exist in any measurable quantity in a state of nature. It's about being as close as possible to that state of nature, not about the harm to humans or animals that nuclear waste does versus the harm that fossil fuel waste does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Compare that to the amount of electricity produced by the other main non- emitting sources of power, the so-called "renewables"—hydroelectric (6.8 percent), wind (4.2 percent) and solar (about one quarter of a percent). Not only are nuclear plants the most important of the non-emitting sources, but they provide baseload—"always there"—power, while most renewables can produce electricity only intermittently, when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

He neglected to mention that renewables are cheaper:

[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/13/wind- powe...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/13/wind-power-is- cheapest-energy-unpublished-eu-analysis-finds)

Of course, since the piece seems designed to promote nuclear subsidies of some kind, this isn't entirely surprising.

<comment><USER9> No.

The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is estimated to be far greater for PV and wind. Why? The operation and management (O&M) for PV and Wind is insanely high. Grid scale PV has to be continuously cleaned with deionized water because dust and greenery can dramatically decrease efficiency. If a leaf lands on a cell, energy builds up like a capacitor in the shadowed area, and it can eventually decimate the whole cell.

On wind: the intermittency is overwhelming, and the cost to deal with that at base load is estimated in the trillions without even adding an extra megawatt to the grid.

In an urbanized setting, plants must be able to concentrate energy using small land mass. Neither wind or PV can do this at scale.

Some panel data on LCOE in this paper:

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w17695.pdf](http://www.nber.org/papers/w17695.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Naw, you're still oversimplifying it and being way too pessimistic. Renewables aren't 100% the answer yet, but their LCOE in practice isn't that bad right now at all[1]. I realize this is at relatively low levels of penetration, but their uptake has been extremely rapid and tech progression has been quick. Solar is still expensive as fuck, but everyone knows that. Look at those variable O&M costs though, those are some sexy zeroes if you can lock in your other costs adequately.

Pages 10 and 11 here [2](warning, pdf), discuss wind curtailment in MISO, where they've tackled the curtailment problem head-on with great success. They also estimate that they can keep manual curtailment incredibly low until wind doubles in capacity from the time of the report. The intermittentency is not overwhelming until you have much more wind in the system than we currently do. Additionally, there are exiting traditional storage techniques that don't get much traction for a variety of reasons (like pumped storage), which we could build out hard if we actually needed to.

A healthy mix of renewables, storage technology, grid upgrades, and more efficient traditional generation technologies would leave us in a fine position.

[1][http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm)

[2][http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrel.gov%2Fdocs%2Ffy14osti%2F60983.pdf&ei=fC6LVOWGIoWxyQSz9oG4Dw&usg=AFQjCNEy89XmStkVVRMwFMfx91TwP78Lfw&sig2=-g9dh3myK0l8mh- NZeWmPA&bvm=bv.81828268,d.aWw&cad=rja)

Hmm, never been downvoted before for providing a sourced comment with relevant information. Guess people aren't down for discussion today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The usual TerraPower and Transatomic stuff. An interesting aspect is that the molten salt reactor can chew up large parts of the light water nuclear waste. So even if we decide that nuclear power is not the way forward, and even if we have a working fusion reactor - is there a case to be made for reducing nuclear waste by processing it in such a reactor?

<comment><USER12> Yes, and some are making the argument that the remaining funds in the disposal account be used to fund this as it is a much more credible disposal solution than Yucca Mountain was. And it should help pay for itself with "free" power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The nuclear dream. Is it coming back - or not?

There was an interesting article some time ago: [http://thebulletin.org/2013/march/how-close-us-nuclear- indus...](http://thebulletin.org/2013/march/how-close-us-nuclear-industry-do- nothing)

Unfortunately it is now paywalled.

I personally doubt a come back - costs have gone up while the competition (wind, solar) is getting cheaper. When you factor in the time and associated costs to develop new nuclear designs and field test them, it doesn't seem to me that it can work out.

<comment><USER13> As long as proper and real scrapping costs are not flowing into the price for nuclear generated electricity, there will be a comback.

Just have a lock at what's happening in certain european states, i.e. Germany: Costs for dismantling are or will be exploding.

[http://www.dw.de/scrapping-nuclear-plants-to-cost- billions/a...](http://www.dw.de/scrapping-nuclear-plants-to-cost- billions/a-17439221)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > More than 1,164 nuclear engineering degrees were awarded in 2013—a 160 > percent increase over the number granted a decade ago.

> So what, after a 30-year drought, is drawing smart young people back to the > nuclear industry? The answer is climate change.

I am one of those 1,164 and graduated in a class of ~100 for a Bachelor's Degree. (About a third of my classmates upon graduation went straight to Navy Power School in Charleston, SC or other Navy schools -- so climate change probably was not their motivator)

I would argue that the _climate change_ implied by the article is the incorrect one that motivated a lot of people in our class. There were far more dicussions about the (USA) _political_ climate than the _weather_ climate and how to properly dispel myths without misinforming people.

EDIT: Formatting

EDIT2: Reading other comments, it does seem like a consistent theme within the nuclear industry is to properly educate the public -- being honest about the physics and challenges without getting too technical, but with enough detail to understand the significance and consequences of the problems.

</comment><comment><USER15> Meanwhile barrels of nuclear waste that are supposed to last for thousands of years are rusting, leaking or are all together missing. We really need that fusion thing to get going. All the waste from fission power is a disaster waiting to happen.

<comment><USER16> "All that waste" ... you mean the 60 years of waste that if you amassed together would fit in the endzone of a typical football field?

You mean that "waste" which could actually be separated into medically and scientifically useful radioisotopes, and a large portion of the remainder reprocessed as fuel for a 2nd or 3rd generation nuclear reactor?

You mean that waste which, after having its useful components removed, reduces to less than background levels in under a hundred years?

<comment><USER17> Oh, this must be a cheap thing to do then - how much would such an operation cost? We'll have it done by this afternoon!

<comment><USER16> Oh one little snag: that reprocessed fuel for the 2nd gen reactors I referred to? It's plutonium. You know, the kind you use to make bombs and really awesome spacecraft. If we actually started doing that you might end up with a _plutonium economy_ , where there are well guarded warehouses and armored transports full of this stuff. Then anybody with an extremely specialized remote operated machine shop for shaping explosive lenses, having insanely accurate detonators, and the balls to brazenly steal the most well guarded commodity in existence might be able to build a bomb! One big enough to take out a few city blocks!

We can't have that, obviously. No, better that we just stockpile this stuff in rusting metal bins.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lucky Microseconds: A Timing Attack on Amazon's S2n Implementation of TLS - <AUTHOR> http://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1129 <comment><USER2> unrelated coincidence? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10620990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10620990)</comment>


Image Formats and How to Use Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.designzzz.com/image-formats-usability/

<comment><USER2> This article gives a brief background on the various bitmap image formats (ignores vectors) but ends abruptly in explaining their best use cases.

For those looking for a rough answer, the best rule of thumb for web work is to use jpg for actual photos (being sure to adjust the compression level to balance quality and size) and png for graphics like logos.

Jpg is well suited for large dimensions and broad color range, but on graphics with sharp edges, artifacting is definitely noticeable, making logos look blurry. Png is best here due to its support for transparency and losslessness, but a poor choice for photographs if bandwidth is any consideration. Gif works as well for graphics, but the limited color range can result in poorer edge smoothing in a trade-off for file size.

Also be aware that IE6 doesn't support transparency in pngs without implementing a simple hack first. Hopefully the days of bothering with that will soon be gone though.

</comment><comment><USER3> GIF supports sound? Since when?

No coverage of any vector or hybrid formats?

No talk of TIFF compression?

I expected much more...</comment>


Is Airbnb down now? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I am experiencing booking dates errors, my host's emails to my airbnb inbox was not forwarded to me, my host is trying to get in touch with support on live chat but they are not answering, plus the website is down now too. what's happening over there? I wonder.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to do a Startup that's a Research Center? - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering this a few days ago, while reading about Microsoft Research. I pretty sure that is the answer is a negative, but I would like to know if someone already thought about this.
The basic idea is that a Research Center doesn't output products but ideas that can be licensed or sold to third parties. Like a for profit SRI that sells time and access to PhD and equipment to do research.
Could something like this come out of venture funding? <comment><USER2> My husband and I have been doing independent research in computer science since about 2003. We have funded it all through it consulting work, mostly with the state government.

It is possible, but up until this point it has not been profitable. But there are other ways to measure fulfilling work, and independent research has been enormously fulfilling. Having absolute freedom to set our own research goals was what kept us from ever taking VC. It is not the life for everyone but it is the life for us.

<comment><USER3> Very cool! Have you published anything?

<comment><USER4> Short answer: No, except some granted patents.

Long answer: We have delved into so many areas, worked so hard in seclusion for the past several years, almost existing in a parallel universe to Silicon Valley. Our own private Idaho, if you will. New database structures, encryption, automatic parallel programming, low power servers, basically whatever suits our fancy. Now it is decentralized genomics. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

I figured out early on that we were so weird that PhD land, corporate research, VC-istan, and federal contracting would think we were too "out of the box". So we decided to go it alone. We are motivated by pushing science forward purely, and the other groups have competing objectives that did not suit us.

The tragedy is that many of our inventions and code may never be used by the masses. We are so private the thought of sharing our work is excruciating. We have amassed a large amount of work. I guess we will start sharing it soon, but that would pull us away from the development, which would be terrible. :-)

<comment><USER5> That looks super interesting. Do you have links where you show your work?

<comment><USER2> Nope. Not even a website. Until now we have kept it all to ourselves. I do believe we will be sharing information with possible licensees in the near future though.

That's the thing - in the research for hire business secrecy is pretty important. You are trading your code, patents, and trade secrets for compensation. It is prudent to stay private.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's how Intellectual Ventures started; when it didn't work they switched to patent trolling.

</comment><comment><USER7> Its based at a university, but MIT media lab takes sponsorship from a lot of corporate entities.

[http://www.media.mit.edu/sponsorship/sponsor- list](http://www.media.mit.edu/sponsorship/sponsor-list)

</comment><comment><USER8> Sure, it's possible, but good luck getting funding.

Doing research for profit is very tricky, which is why it almost inevitably winds up being done at a loss. The world is full of entities (such as universities and government labs) which would love to be able to do research at a profit, but they succeed only sporadically despite the advantages of lots of smart people and equipment.

The sort of research that can turn a profit is usually fairly incremental stuff (e.g. let's formulate a new kind of paint), and is done within large companies' own research labs with deep domain expertise and trade secrets you won't be able to get your hands on. You can try to invent an improved paint and licence it to DuPont if you like, but if they want it they'll probably have got there before you.

Bluer-sky stuff, on the other hand, takes really long timescales and large numbers of people, with low probability of success. You'll be competing against university researchers in the same field who aren't even patenting their work.

There _is_ money to be made in the last mile -- taking technologies from the point where they're almost ready to hit the market, doing that little bit of extra research to bring them to market, patenting your method and watching the bucks roll in. But opportunities like that are rare and heavily sought after, and even _then_ it usually involves a crapload of money and risk. You can build a startup around just one of these ideas if you can find one, but nobody will give you money to go around looking for them in general, just like nobody will invest in your gold mine until you've actually found some gold.

<comment><USER9> A lot of companies get SBIR grants from the government to do stuff like this.

You get what amounts to a seed round and a series A with no dilution, few strings, and you own to IP you come out with.

[http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir/](http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir/)</comment></comment>


Mininet on OpenBSD: Interactive SDN Testing and Development [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan2018-mininet.pdf <comment><USER2> It's nice to see a port of mininet to OpenBSD despite mininet's marriage to Linux namespaces. Great work! I last used OpenBSD 2.3 with ipfilter as a firewall, but I still track the release schedule.

</comment><comment><USER3> With hardware support as bad as it is, isn't openflow basically dead?</comment>


Has Science Realized This 350-Year-Old Alchemist Wish List? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/has-science-realized-this-350_year_old-alchemist-wish-list <comment><USER2> I note:

        According to Pliny, an artist presented the Roman Emperor Tiberius
        with a cup of glass that wouldn't break when thrown on the
        ground. When Tiberius asked the artist if anyone else knew of this
        invention and the artist said no, Tiberius killed him—and so began
        the myth of the lost malleable glass.

This would give a good argument to patent your inventions. However it doesn't work, because when you submit a patent in the USA, the US government has the right to take it over and erase it from public knowledge, and I think we have numerous examples of dubious deaths of free-energy inventors, so we can't exclude that they also killed them.

Nothing changed at all since Tiberius.</comment>


U.S. Now Paints Apple as 'Ringmaster' in Its Lawsuit on E-Book Price-Fixing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/technology/us-now-paints-apple-as-ringmaster-in-its-lawsuit-on-e-book-price-fixing.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> 'After Random House finally agreed to a contract on Jan. 18, 2011, Eddy Cue, the Apple executive in charge of its e-books deals, sent an e-mail to Mr. Jobs attributing the publisher's capitulation, in part, to "the fact that I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store,"'

Three years ago I gave up on iOS because I could no longer look the other way while Apple took control over which programs a user could and could not run. For me the last straw was the edict about the acceptable programming languages a program could be written in. However, over the years I get more and more confirmation that I was right about Apple.</comment>


Bitcoin startup runs your miner for less than you might pay for electricity - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/05/bitcoin-startup-runs-your-miner-for-less-than-you-might-pay-for-electricity/

<comment><USER2> How much variance is there in bitcoin mining? With physical access to the hardware HashPlex could easily steal a percentage of user's bitcoins and blame it their bad luck.</comment>


Why You Should Never, Ever Put Two Spaces After a Period (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/never-put-two-spaces-after-a-period-2014-1 <comment><USER2> I'm often confronted by them ugly double-spaces, they upset me a lot, but there they are, mocking me. I've made some peace with the notion that for monospaced fonts the extra space may possibly have some use.

That brings me to an entirely new (mental) issue: what to do with Git commit messages, that are typed by users and shown to users in proportional _and_ monospaced fonts, depending on the tool used or their settings?</comment>


Northwestern University archivists aim to resurrect outdated technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-donate-old-electronics-cables-met-20151026-story.html <comment><USER2> The site is asking for registration to read the news and redirects me to the home page when I click "not right now".

This might be the most annoying behaviour of the all...

</comment><comment><USER3> >For another piece of their collection, the team is looking for a power cord for a hard drive that belonged to the late Dale Mortensen, the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics.

/facepalm, sounds like they need a clue, not a cable. contacting nearest hackerspace would be a start.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why I cannot downvote? Why there is only upvote button? What should I do to get downvote button?</comment>


Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut - <AUTHOR> http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/14/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school/?hpt=hp_t1 <comment><USER3> From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

        Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, ...
        If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Yes, this is important, yes, it's newsworthy. No, it's not "Hacker News". It's all over the news, and there's nothing specific about hacking, or start-ups. It's not even of "deep interest" in any real sense. It's tragedy, pure and simple, and then it becomes politics.

<comment><USER4> Note those words most and probably.

<comment><USER3> Noted. Thank you for replying.

So let me ask - given that this is all over every news channel I have access to, and every other tweet in my feed is about it, do you feel that it's appropriate here?

If so then I will reassess my understanding of what you want this site to be. I appreciate that I might be wrong, and I'm willing, even eager, to assimilate more data on this and adjust my views accordingly.

It's your site - I'm pleased to have the opportunity to gain insight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh.

EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

<comment><USER6> This has nothing to do with gun control. Guns exist, that can't be stopped any more than preventing alcohol from existing (prohibition), and some bad guys will always have access to guns. Or knives, or diesel fuel, or explosives.

Was the Oklahoma-city bombing a wake-up call for "explosives control"? Was the 2009 Chengdu bus-fire (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire>) a wake-up call for diesel control? Was the Osaka school massacre (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre>) a wake-up call for knife-control? Was the 2012 Toronto mall shooting a wake-up call for gun- control in Canada, which already has extremely stringent gun-laws?

It's all too easy to blame the gun in these situations, but guns are just tools, as are knives, and diesel fuel, and even explosives.

It's not the gun. It never was the gun. It's the person.

<comment><USER7> If you look in the history of states which had a problem with gun-violence, you can see that banning guns actually works. After banning, destroying and controlling guns, the amount of massacres and murders falls down. One example of this is germany (i think in the 1970s), but you can look earlier or at the history of other countries to find examples for that.

The situation over here is a tragedy, because all school shootings were commited by sons of fathers who were members of a shooting clubs (and therefore had access to guns). Even though it was not politically possible to ban those clubs and weapons.

But the situation in the USA is even more a tragedy. The USA have shooting after shooting with so many dead kids, and still the political forces are not able to ban guns. Or even slightly control them. Sickening.

<comment><USER8> There are numerous counter examples. Chicago had a handgun ban, and held the record for handgun murders for many years while the ban was in place.

<comment><USER9> Because Chicago is neighbors with cities and states where handguns are easy to obtain, and you don't need a passport to enter or leave Chicago.

<comment><USER8> Or the problem has nothing to do with access to guns.

<comment><USER10> I think your phrasing that wrong. If gun deaths are the problem, then guns are, by definition, going to be part of the problem. However their may be contributing or even bigger problems involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The psychology behind the kind of people that could do a thing like this baffles me completely. Insanity doesn't begin to describe it. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their children are safe in school. At the same time armed guards at school are not a solution either, then you might as well turn it into a mini prison.

What a sad sad day.

Even countries with gun control have instances like this (but they're arguably less frequent), and some countries with lots of guns have almost no problems like this at all (Switzerland for instance).

Just trying to imagine dropping a grade school kid off at school to find them dead in the afternoon from an insane thing like this I find that I can't do it, it is just too far from what I can still imagine. And I have a pretty rich imagination...

This world could be so nice, why does it have to be such a crappy place?

<comment><USER12> Can pro-gun people please stop using Switzerland as their go to argument? Do you know why they have so many guns? Because people who have done military service are required to keep a rifle locked up in their house. These are trained people who have gone through psychology tests and military training. That is very very fucking different than the situation in the US.

<comment><USER13> Because as we all know, psychology tests and military training are foolproof for sifting out the crazies.

<comment><USER14> I don't think anyone expects a foolproof solution. If we could come up with a solution where a few less crazy people had guns I'd be happier. Some training or licensing of guns ought to be discussed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Listen, there are two parts to this: 1. The horrible tragedy, and 2. The hopes to prevent this from happening again. If we are going to talk about this, we need to all fall under the assumption that we agree that this is both a very tragic act perpetrated by someone who is obviously disturbed/mentally ill, and that it is all of our desires to do what we can to make sure senseless acts of violence like this _never happen again_.

So where do we go from here? How do we prevent this from happening again? It seems that there are two schools of thought (generalizing obviously): 1. Disarm everyone, and 2. Allow everyone to carry weapons. Regardless of which side you fall in, neither work perfectly unless they are complete (i.e. all weapons are gone thus criminals don't even have access, or everyone is armed and no one has the upper hand). The problem with both absolutes, is a deranged person will _always_ find a means to carry out their ill will, whether that's a gun/knife/driving a car into a crowd.

The safest computer is encased in concrete, and buried 6 feet underground. Much in the same way, the safest society would have each of us locked in a room, with no interaction. What we have to figure out is this: How much liberty do we all give up, to limit the devastation of the senseless acts of a few?

<comment><USER16> > 1\. Disarm everyone, and 2. Allow everyone to carry weapons.

Nice strawmen. There are obviously options in the middle, namely, increasing traceability of weapons and ammo and shutting down channels that where weapons are allowed to change hands anonymously.

The proliferation of weapons is one thing, but the fact that these tragedies occur and we don't have a way to follow the chain back to the disreputable dealer who sold these armaments - and shut them down - is just non-sensical.

The 2nd amendment fundamentalists who don't even want question how these weapons can get in the wrong hands - often use that same strawman you pose above - which is rediculous - many folks support the 2nd amendment yet find the need for further action to prevent these events from happening.

<comment><USER17> Disreputable dealer? I absolutely agree, any car used in a drunk driving accident should be traced back to the dealer responsible, and they should be punished.

If you can determine in advance who the "wrong hands" are, I'm sure the TSA would love to speak to you and dump buckets of money over your head.

<comment><USER18> Or cars used in any accidents. Thousands of people die in car collisions every year, accidental and intentional, whether they were drunk or sober, reckless or diligent, or just an innocent pedestrian or cyclist who happened to have bad luck that day.

A few days ago someone posted a web site called <http://www.banthecar.com> where they laid out detailed arguments for banning all cars, because of all the problems they cause, including accidental deaths. Obviously banning cars is not reasonable or realistic.

We have a process for who is and is not allowed to drive a car, and we are fairly comfortable with it, even though it still fails to prevent thousands of deaths. The process of firearm ownership could use some adjustments, but ultimately we cannot prevent all deaths. The best we can do is prevent those who are obviously unsuitable(1) from owning firearms, and ensuring we have a system to remove the rights of those who abuse them.

(1) this is very dangerous due to the history of gun control being used to enable racism and genocide. The criteria must be objective, not subjective.

<comment><USER19> _> history of gun control being used to enable racism and genocide_

Reference? (Genuine question.)

<comment><USER18> Here are a few.

Racism:

<http://constitution.org/cmt/cramer/racist_roots.htm>

<http://www.guncite.com/journals/gun_control_wtr8512.html>

Genocide:

[http://www.davekopel.com/2a/Foreign/gun-bans-and- genocide.ht...](http://www.davekopel.com/2a/Foreign/gun-bans-and-genocide.htm)

<http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm>

<comment><USER19> Ah, interesting, it does seem that gun control can be a tool for racism and genocide.

However, I'm only willing to take those as anecdotal evidence for promoting less gun control: they are all written by people and groups who are heavily invested against gun control, i.e. a very high risk of motivated thinking, research and writing.

(Sure, one might point at all the references and evidence they provide, but what are they _not_ saying? What about a discussion of the countries around the world with gun control that has (as far as I can see) no racist or genocidal purpose (e.g. most of modern Europe, Australia, New Zealand)?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This isn't hacker news. I'm going to see this depressing, heart wrenching news in a hundred other places... let me have my one safe technology news site :(

<comment><USER21> True, but it's a community whose opinion I trust more than most others, so it's often enlightening to read comments about non-hacker news posts once and a while.

<comment><USER20> I know... I'm not trying to be a dick about it. My mind just recoils from this stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Horrible news. Also in China someone this morning stabbed 22 children at elementary school - wtf... [http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking- news/2012/12/14/man-stabs-...](http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking- news/2012/12/14/man-stabs-22-children-at-chinese-elementary-school/)

<comment><USER21> When are we going to start talking about knife control in a serious way?

<comment><USER23> Really not the time for jokes.

<comment><USER24> I think any conversation is better then no conversation be it a joke or not. The comment actually brought out some really great points on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a tragedy, but why is it on HN?

From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> we have:

 _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off- topic._

That fits this story.

<comment><USER3> I said the same thing here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922380>

PG himself has chimed in to point out the words "most" and "probably".

I'm with you, but we seem notto be in accord with the site owner.

<comment><USER25> It seemed to me that PG took a neutral stance.

<comment><USER3> Felt a lot more to me that he was saying that the "most" and "probably" made this case an exception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Awful, tragic things happen every day. Some can be prevented and some can't. It's highly unlikely that this is saddest thing to have happened in the world today.

There are a certain percentage of people in the world who will kill people for no reason, molest children, order executions and market crystal meth to young mums. This has always been the way, and will always continue to be.

Now I'm not belittling it as a tragedy, but we have to accept that some terrible things just happen and cannot be prevented or deterred. They always have, and they will continue to do so.

Sometimes there is no lesson to be learned, and we have to accept that what we've seen is a manifestation of human nature, in the same way that lightning is a manifestation of nature itself. Neither are predictable, preventable and both will happen forever.

</comment><comment><USER27> Am I the only one who finds it strange (or even slightly disturbing) that this is essentially an after the fact live-blog of the event? For those connected to this school, I can understand wanting information and not wanting to wait. For anyone else, it just seems like obsessive rubbernecking taken to the extreme.

</comment><comment><USER28> This may seem tangential, but I swear it's not. We live in a country (US) where growth and progress is measured primarily in GDP. Poverty is measured economically. People's happiness is blithely assumed to be some kind of function of their economic well-being, especially because that can be measured.

There are alternative ideas like "Gross National Happiness" that attempt to measure what could arguably be called the _end_ , as opposed the means (economic). This is generally presented as an alternative goal, to raise the "GNH" of a country. And it's certainly a valid one.

But what if, even more importantly, it's not the _gross_ "national happiness", but rather its _distribution_?

The perpetrator in this horrible tragedy was clearly horribly unhappy, and almost certainly with severe mental problems. But this isn't a private concern, because in cases like this it becomes a national problem.

When are we going to stop concentrating so much on economic progress and GDP, and start considering how our society and institutions provide for people at the bottom rung of the "happiness" ladder? When are we going to move mental health from a "side issue" about "sick people" that "doesn't concern me", to a central national priority?

There's so much work to be done, and it's barely even a blip in the conversation.

<comment><USER29> I don't think it's a matter of focusing on happiness. Mental illness a medical issue, like cancer and heart disease.

We need to develop a cure, and when we do, days like this will be far less common.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it is even more now..

This link reports 27 people dead, including 18 children:

[http://www.pressherald.com/news/Gunman-killed-in-Conn- school...](http://www.pressherald.com/news/Gunman-killed-in-Conn-school- shooting-.html?cmpid=breaking-news-box)

so sad

</comment><comment><USER30> First off, the school shooting is a complete tragedy, there's no two ways about it. It's sickening and frustrating and depressing. I can't imagine what something like this does to a person or how a person is drawn to do something like this.

However, our world isn't any different than it was. There's hope in everything. Crazy, murderous people have always existed and will always exist. Life has always had tragedies, even ones bigger than this. As humans, we're designed to look at the most recent thing and go "oh my god, this is the worst thing ever" in order to deal with problems - it's just how we're designed.

What I'm getting at is that the world will be here tomorrow, and it's not ending any time soon. There's plenty of hope in this world, we just lack the proper context sometimes:

1) Your children are more at risk dying in a car accident or eating crappy food than a school shooting.

2) You're more likely to die of a lightning strike than a terrorist attack.

3) If we couldn't have guns, he would have used a knife.

Be hopeful for the world.

</comment><comment><USER31> A father of one of the children's... how does our society produce individuals like this? I know there are probably dozens of answers...

edit: just to be clear, I am not a father of one of the children. I was told the shooter was a father of one of the children at the school. Not sure if that is correct.

<comment><USER32> Very many people suffer from undiagnosed mental illness.

An even larger amount just go way off the deep end.

<comment><USER18> Many who suffer diagnosed mental illnesses roam the streets because we don't care for them. Our mental healthcare system is that of a third world country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's depressing how we are becoming numb to mass shootings due to their frequency. It seems like a week can't go by without a tragedy like this occurring.

<comment><USER21> We're numb to them like we are all other kinds of deaths. Hurricanes, winter, car accidents, tornadoes, etc. There are ways to die are far more preventable than mass shootings that we should be focusing on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> here is a way to combine technology and transparency to make it more difficult for someone to do this:

guns owned in America have mandatory geolocation installed. guns lock if geolocation is disabled or hacked, an alert is autosent to local people and authorities with the last known location, and law enforces speedy investigation of the guns whereabouts and reinstallation of the geolocator. i'd like an app that tells me where the nearest guns are to me and some info about who they belong to, i.e. police, citizen, military etc. if a gun is brought near public spaces, schools, theaters, etc., it should tweet, sms, or otherwise alert local police and anyone who would like to know. i'd like to also set my own alerts, such as alert me if a non-police gun is within a few hundred feet of my location, or my kid's location, etc. the constitution says there is a "right of the people to keep and bear arms," but does not use the word "right" to defend privacy.

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant While I don't want to diminish the magnitude of the tragedy described here, I'd like to remind everyone that there are many other causes of untimely death that, while mundane, are much more lethal. Take for instance car crashes, or most diseases.

If the goal is to fight untimely death, we should take a hard look at the cold numbers. One will find for instance that smoking scenes in films kill far more people than those shootings. [1]

No, it should not happen ever again. However, we should not forget about the other priorities.

[1]: Regular exposure to smoking scenes makes children and teenagers far more likely to smoke later on. Smoking makes you far more likely to have cancer and such. And having cancer most likely shorten your lifespan. Despite the 3 layers of indirection, the numbers are so massive that a single smoking scene in a blockbuster is probably more lethal than a fully loaded gun.

</comment><comment><USER35> Here is an interesting infographic from the National Post:

[http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/28/guns-ownership- aroun...](http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/28/guns-ownership-around-the- world-graphic/)

"In 2007, the U.S. had the highest gun ownership rate in the world - <USER2> average of 88 per 100 people. But the U.S. does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the U.S. is well down the list with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people. Below is a list of countries with available firearm data from 2007 starting with countries where firearms are most common."

</comment><comment><USER36> Within a couple years this exact scenario will play out. A gunmen will talk in a crowded place loaded to the gills. Assault rifles, bullet proof vest, explosives hid around the building. He will pull out his gun and kill the poor unsuspecting first soul. After that initial shot someone with a concealed weapons permit is going to blow his brains out cutting his rampage short ( I truly hope the person who plays the hero is a little old lady packing heat in her purse).

<comment><USER37> Right, because everybody with a concealed weapons permit is James Bond with perfect aim and cool nerves.

Reality is a little bit messier than your fantasies.

<comment><USER38> The point was that "he with the gun holds the power" in those situations. And I'm sure the person with the gun feels like that. Make the odds of him having his tables turned on him by respectable law abiding citizens, and suddenly he'll be more afraid to do harm.

Ideally.

As a side note, she shouldn't shoot for the head anyway, especially if the bullet is going to go propelling out of the man. That's a great way to have unintended collateral damage.

<comment><USER39> > Make the odds of him having his tables turned on him by respectable law > abiding citizens, and suddenly he'll be more afraid to do harm.

Uh, we're talking about people who are frequently suicidal and are mentally ill enough to shoot up a kindergarten. I suspect they're not weighing odds in a logical manner, somehow.

<comment><USER38> I believe the parent post was speaking about a regular place in the city, not so much a school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Please, if you want to go postal, don't aim at our kids, aim at the politicians.

Drain your frustrations with those who destroy our future, not those who will build it.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think we have to be careful when things like this happen. It's god-awful. I can't imagine if I was in third grade and a guy barged in and started shooting up the place. But this makes me think of "You can always find evidence for your beliefs." I could take this story as evidence that the world is such a crappy place, but I don't believe that so I won't.

Everything will be okay.

</comment><comment><USER42> Something to be aware of

Ruger's 1 Million Gun Challenge <http://www.ruger.com/micros/million/about.html>

<comment><USER43> I fail to understand the point of your comment. Why do we need to be aware of a gun manufacturer wanting to sell guns?

<comment><USER42> Wanting to sell guns is a given.

I was surprised(not shocked) to learn of the contest for one manufacturer to sell over a million guns in one year with the goal of increasing funding for lobbyists.

1.2 million guns is a lot of weapons to sell in a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn I recommend against reading the principal's last tweets.

</comment><comment><USER44> And there should be no gun control....Bollocks.

<comment><USER45> Gun control cant and wont solve these problems. These are societal problems. Anyone insane and evil enough to kill children would get guns on the black market or use some other weapon such as a bomb. Schools need to able to have armed guards and better locked/secured entries IMO.

<comment><USER10> Then why is this problem more prevalent in America? I know this sounds like baiting, it isn't. Surely gun laws come into it, even if they aren't the root cause (they aren't IMHO).

<comment><USER46> I can't say for sure but I suspect the problem in the US stems from a number of factors not at all related to gun laws. Just a short list (for overall gun violence):

1) The way our prison system works. It makes people worse. It makes them better criminals. It removes much of their opportunity to get better (try getting a decent job as a felon). It creates desperation. 2) the way we treat mental illness. By that I mean it is demonized and ignored. Does health insurance even cover mental health exams or treatments? Probably not basic coverage 3) Disparity of wealth. In the town I live in there are people living in absolute poverty and people driving around in lamborghinis and million dollar churches. The cost of that car could feed 50 people for a year.

In thiscase there is no telling what the root cause was yet. I suspect a case of someone just losing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> A news anchor on CNN had a theory about how as a society, we are becoming less empathetic because of our tendency to have more and more online relationships.

Just look at the people on Twitter and even here on HN. You act very differently than you would in real life. I almost wonder if there is something to this and has an effect on some people, which leads to less empathy in real life.

<comment><USER47> I guess HN really is going down hill. I wasn't trolling at all and genuinely had some thoughts on the topic, and I am downvoted with no comment.</comment></comment>


Data Loss: and Now What? - <AUTHOR> https://www.grott.me/serverless/data/dynamodb/infrastructure/postmortem/2020/06/04/data-loss-and-now-what.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I've lost all my production data and I'm here to share how I handled it.

A while ago I deployed Quarantine Notes ([https://quarantinenotes.com](https://quarantinenotes.com)) and posted about it on HN as well ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22728460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22728460)). I had built it for learning purposes only but, then people start posting really interesting comments on it. Sharing how their life was going, replying to other people's notes and everything. I was really proud of it.

Of course, with time things started to slow down and the traffic wasn't the same and that's totally understandable, but then I lost all notes I had.

In the blog post that I'm sharing here with y'all I explain what happened, what actions I took, and how one can prevent it from happening in the future.

I hope you find it useful! And, of course, feedback is welcome!

Best,

grott</comment>


JXCore LLVM JavaScript Frontend - <AUTHOR> http://jxcore.com/jxcore-llvm-javascript-frontend-b/ <comment><USER2> This blog post is either spectacularly naive, or ridiculously over-hyped, or both.

"Consistent performance. (not like the V8 engine pausing the whole application for GC)"

Static complication doesn't get you out of having to worry about memory management. What's the alternative here? Reference counting? Leaking everything? Using a subset of JS that doesn't allocate anything? All of these things come with considerable costs.

<comment><USER3> So you are okay with having the server process is not responding for ten seconds? Come on!

<comment><USER4> Be serious. It's not a question of the process not responding for 10 seconds.

If the same code in V8 is causing a pause to deal with GC, then the LLVM compiled code must be doing _something_ different to handle the memory. Is it using a different GC? Is it running on a different thread? Is it just sucking up memory without freeing it?

These are all things that need to be known before getting too excited about the speed of LLVM compiled Javascript.

<comment><USER5> I don't know the details but in my opinion a deamon thread like with the Java could work. Besides, I don't think V8 specifically designed for the server use.

<comment><USER2> If you implement a GC which runs on its own thread, doesn't pause the application, and achieves good overall performance on any real-world code, then it would be a terrific thing to mention in your big blog post announcing the system. We'd love to hear anything you'd like to say about it.

If you don't mention it, and if you also say numerous other things which give the impression that you may not have given the entire topic much thought, then even people who would otherwise prefer to be positive and supportive may struggle to take you seriously, and may react with frustration if you also make extraordinary claims.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps because they take those features for granted because it uses some GC provided by LLVM ?

(I don't know anything about LLVM support for GC, but I would be surprised if it comes with a GC that doesn't require to do something special in order to make it concurrent)

<comment><USER7> LLVM GC support has been fairly weak, however Apple has been working on using LLVM in JavaScriptCore (FTL project), which requires that, so it should be getting better. I have no idea if this project is related to that in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori This sounds like the first step in a vision I've had for how the web should evolve. We now have an LLVM frontend for Javascript, so Javascript code can be turned into LLVM bytecode.

The next step would be to swap out the existing Javascript runtimes with this frontend plus a sandboxed backend for the native platform so they can compile Javascript to LLVM bytecode, then to native code.

Finally, you add an extension to the <script> tag to allow loading arbitrary LLVM bytecode, something like <script src="[http://some/url/code.llvm"](http://some/url/code.llvm") type="text/llvm">.

Once that's in place then you'd be able to execute any language that has an LLVM front end inside the browser environment. Javascript is no longer the sole language of the web, and things like Emscripten and asm.js become obsolete.

<comment><USER8> In other words, you want to use LLVM as a VM. Sorry to be harsh, but you're only the millionth person to think of this "idea". LLVM is not a well-defined protocol or specification; it's a library for making a compiler that changes with every release. Read:

[http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2011-October/0437...](http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2011-October/043719.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool hack. Is the source code available somewhere?

> \- Consistent performance.

> (not like the V8 engine pausing the whole application for GC)

But... you're still going to need garbage collection, unless you are only planning on supporting something like ASM.js. So there will still be application pauses for GC.

Also, you mention that you have support for JavaScript OO, but I notice the benchmarks don't exercise programmer-defined JavaScript objects/prototypes. Do you have numbers on its OO performance, or is that still something you're working on?

Finally, how do you handle type inference at the LLVM level? I assume you implemented some form of JIT compilation? I'd be interested to hear more!

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice to see a dynamic language getting an AOT compiler, in this VM age, even if it is JavaScript. :)

<comment><USER11> Objective-C is a dynamic OO language and it has always been AOT compiled.

Also there's Smalltalk/X: [http://www.exept.de/en/products/smalltalkx](http://www.exept.de/en/products/smalltalkx)

libart for Android also brings AOT to a jitted/VMed language.

<comment><USER12> > Objective-C is a dynamic OO language

Objective C is not a dynamic language.

Do not confuse dynamic language with dynamic typing or whatever the standard wisdom in the Apple cult is.

<comment><USER11> Sure is.

Supported:

Dynamic typing.

Fully dynamic message dispatch with doesNotUnderstand: (called forwardInvocation:), proxies, Higher Order Messaging, etc.

Addition of (a) classes ( objc_registerClassPair() ) and (b) methods ( class_addMethod() ) at runtime.

Changing an object's class at runtime (objc_setClass() slightly hacky, but done by system services such as KVO, so supported).

Closures/Blocks.

Reflection.

Addition of (associated) instance variables at runtime. Interpreted languages can be fully interoperable peers.

Not supported:

Eval (but see above re: interpreted peers).

Continuations.

\----

See: [https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ObjCRuntimeRef/Reference/reference.html#//apple_ref/c/func/object_setClass)

EDIT: added references.

<comment><USER10> How do you dynamically?

\- add fields to a struct

\- create a function

Objective-C is only dynamic typed in the OO runtime, everything else is static typed.

Dynamic languages are 100% dynamic, unless the CS classification got changed in the last years.

<comment><USER11> That's just silly.

By that definition, Smalltalk is not a dynamic language: you cannot change the definition of assignment ( := ), message return ( ^ ) or the messenger itself. You also cannot change the the way the GC works.

<comment><USER10> > That's just silly.

No it is not. I can do that in fully dynamic languages like TCL and Python, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does this mean I can translate JS to LLVM bitcode with this tool, then translate that bitcode back to Javscript with Emscripten? Sounds amazing :)

</comment><comment><USER7> > Javascript has always been considered as a scripting language with low > performance compared to most low level languages. Thanks to V8 engine, it is > now becoming a platform where developers can prepare a fully functional > backend.

This is not accurate, and shows a lack of respect for the JS VM developers at other browser vendors.

Very close to the time v8 was launched, SquirrelFish Extreme from Apple and TraceMonkey from Mozilla were also launched, each far faster than previous JS VMs, beat v8 on various benchmarks while losing on others, etc.

Since then v8 has generally been in the lead, certainly, but not always, and it would depend on the benchmark and platform.

So it is not fair to say - and this is not the first time I see it, or else I would not write this comment - that v8 is single-handedly responsible for JS being fast today.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does Node have an equivalent to the JVM's server and client modes? Node can probably assume that it will be hosting a long-running server process, skip the lazy JIT, and just AOT compile all JS code at maximum optimization.

</comment><comment><USER15> My only concern is Apple's patent for this: [http://www.google.com/patents/US20100153929](http://www.google.com/patents/US20100153929)

<comment><USER16> Julia, Rust etc. languages are already doing it.

<comment><USER17> The patent specifically targets compiling JavaScript to LLVM and running a monitoring daemon to update the IR when the source changes.

It is ridiculous.

It is a general compilation process, applying it to these specific conditions is in no way technically original. I hope it isn't from a legal standpoint, but IANAL...

<comment><USER18> I'm aware of that patent long before and not following the same structure. Besides, it also targets other languages by saying 'Javascript or similar'. No worries here. Thanks for reminding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found this via [1], would love to hear some opinions from knowledgable people here.

[1] [http://www.echojs.com/news/8496](http://www.echojs.com/news/8496)

</comment><comment><USER19> They should have used one or several of the existing benchmark suites instead of creating their own micro benchmarks.

<comment><USER3> considering all the other advantages. benchmarks are less important..

<comment> patents-suck +1

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> native javascript mobile

<comment><USER20> Agreed.

Write a game once in JS/WebGL. People can play it through the browser on the desktop, or download an app on Android/iOS/BB10/whatever that is the same code compiled with JXCore/LLVM for native performance and/or offline play.

Best of both world really. Especially with things out there like CoffeeScript, LLJS, and Typescript, which make using JS as your dev language manageable even for us traditional OO-heavy game devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was expecting this coming</comment>


This 25-minute video is the most riveting sudoku puzzle you will ever watch - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/5/18/21262771/sudoku-puzzle-cracking-the-cryptic-watch-this-video-simon-anthony <comment><AUTHOR> I have zero interest in sudokus. But this video captured me. The narrator's calm voice, his mastery (which is evident in how fast he excludes possibilities) and him explaing every step. Perfect.</comment>


B E A U T Y - by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/83910533

<comment><USER2> I almost flagged this, until I see the animated classical art pictures. (See the video. At lest peak 3 random points and see that video part.)

Is there a blog post about how this video has been made? I looked in the director homepage, but I only can find the video but no details about the technology stack they used.</comment>


Show HN: Building n-grams from 9m tweets for predictive typing (autocomplete) - <AUTHOR> http://ktype.net/wiki/research:articles:progress_20110209

<comment><USER2> I've been doing something similar for the last month or so but I decided that Project Gutenberg data was fine for me since what I am producing (haiku poetry) is slightly more formal than how real people talk.

I also ran up against the problems of storing huge data structures in memory - my list of n-grams had something like 57 million entries, which I was able to manipulate into a dictionary with 9 million keys.

Unfortunately this was still too large so I turned to the Redis key-value store. I'd been somewhat dubious about the benefit of these so-called "NoSQL" databases but I have to say that Redis was perfect for storing these huge data structures and the Python libraries made the whole thing really easy to work with. I recommend you give it a try if memory issues are limiting what you can do.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will certainly hit memory limits if I try to analyze the Google N-grams. Did you install redis locally?

I would most probably go with <http://aws.amazon.com/elasticmapreduce/> if I was going to parse through TBs of data.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I installed Redis locally. I am using only as a key-value store for a locally running Python script.</comment></comment></comment>


Bootstrap and JQuery CDNs Down in UK, France - <AUTHOR> http://check-host.net/check-report/4d9642

<comment><USER3> I have to say as unpopular an opinion as it seems to be I have always stuck to keeping local copies of my core libraries hosted on my server. I know all of the benefits of pulling from a central CDN like Google but I still can't get over the fear of being dependent on an external source for part of my core functionality.

<comment><USER4> What _are_ those benefits of pulling from a central CDN? I've never understood that, and always hated the idea of yet another point of failure. Especially for something so easy to host yourself.

<comment><USER5> This sums it up nicely:

[http://encosia.com/3-reasons-why-you-should-let-google- host-...](http://encosia.com/3-reasons-why-you-should-let-google-host-jquery- for-you/)

<comment><USER6> I know the theoretical reasons, but I'm not sure it makes such a big difference in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone ELI5 why the following doesn't exist (or please enlighten me if it does):

Some kind of asset management package that will pull a javascript or CSS file from a CDN if that CDN is alive. If it isn't then it can fallback to redundancy locations (maybe 2 more CDNs before requesting the asset off your own server which would act as a last-resort redundancy).

Is this possible? I imagine it could be implemented via JS.

<comment><USER8> I did that, with an inline document.write , a technique I got from html5 boilerplate.

something like

        if(!jQuery){document.write('<script>...');}

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Weird [http://code.jquery.com/](http://code.jquery.com/) appears to be down for me too

<comment><AUTHOR> o_O - it looks like MaxCDN is having a widespread failure of some kind. I was VPN'd through Ireland so didn't notice.

A lot of the web is currently without styles or scripts!

Edit: added to title. Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Time to switch a few services from CDN to local copies ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there any way to failsafe for events like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8552005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8552005) seems to present a solution, which works but may timeout slowly and doesn't handle Byzantine failure (hopefully unlikely)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It works now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it, yup - <USER2> [http://status.maxcdn.com/](http://status.maxcdn.com/) is now orange (wasn't earlier). Some updates to come, I imagine. :)

> All traffic has been re-routed to nearby locations</comment></comment>


Does anyone consider contract-to-hire roles? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone consider contract-to-hire roles? Seems like only desperation would cause someone to accept this kind of offer. Have any of you done this before? Did the job work out? <comment><USER2> I've known a lot of people burned by those deals.

The feeling you get is "I can prove my way in!" but the facts are usually related to which budget columns to drop you in...and if that's the case, budgeting is tough at that company, and the "contract-to-hire" is a huge gamble.

If someone wants you full time and refuses to hire, you HAVE to just treat it as a contract gig...and if the price is not contract-gig priced, you should probably move on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that's a good idea. Treating it like a regular contract and expecting contract pay rates.</comment></comment>