Latest to Quit Google's Self-Driving Car Unit: Top Roboticist - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/technology/alphabet-google-autonomous-car-chris-urmson.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=CC520E9B5D3F22E2DE4DD4808171F4A1&gwt=pay&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Urmson quit? Wow. That's a bad sign. He was the guy who seemed to be keeping that project on track, making it better, more capable, safer, and not killing anybody. His boss, John Krafcik, came from Hyundai, and is an old-line car guy. He goes all the way back to the days of the old GM Fremont/NUMMI plant, the building Tesla now occupies. His statements are about "partnering" \- he's saying that Google's place is to be a parts supplier to the auto industry.

Maybe Urmson just didn't want to move to Novi, MI, where Krafcik is moving the self-driving car effort.

<comment><USER3> Novi, MI is very different than Mountain View, CA! Convincing people to accept winter will be difficult. It's one thing if it's a "Let's change the world!" pitch from a technical genius. It's another if it's "Let's supply GM" from a business genius.

<comment><USER4> I moved from Farmington Hills, MI (across the street from Novi) to San Jose, no way I'd go back there. 70% because of the winter.

<comment><USER5> Oh that's silly. You drive to work you drive home. Maybe you go out to dinner then you go to bed. What lifestyle are you talking about? Sf would be one thing but sj and mv are really not so different from novi or farmington. Just suburbs

<comment><USER6> I will never live where it snows. Ever. You couldn't pay me enough.

I grew up with 90 degree summers, and frankly, I find the heat to be amazing. Anything under 50 is downright unpleasant. I curse every moment of being outside when it's near or below freezing.

I realize this is only a personal anecdote, but I bet there are people out there just like me (and on all parts of the spectrum).

<comment><USER7> If it's cold I put on more clothes. Once it gets past like 80 I'm naked so how do I make more clothes off?

Plus I can run way faster when it is 20 out vs 100. Snow running rocks. Sun running is awful.

<comment><USER8> Different strokes, I guess. I absolutely hate every minute the sky isn't a clear blue with that lovely unshielded fusion reactor in the sky bathing us in its mostly benign radiation :-) I accept other people like it different - anything not resembling California (or central Italy) summer plain sucks in my view, while others would like 9 months of rain and winter.

<comment><USER9> I grew up in upstate NY with long, long winters.

Have lived in Phoenix since 2003.

I curse at the Daystar about half the year

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was just thinking about how the Google Self-Driving Car effort has become more aggressive recently. On a five-mile drive through Mountain View this afternoon (on El Camino and a residential neighborhood) I saw FOUR of the little bubble cars, and one of the Lexuses.

Of course, on each of the cars I saw closely, the operator had their hand on the joystick...

<comment><USER11> Gotta rack up those miles, man. They're all on the same stretches of road they've been driving for years, but Google sells that "miles driven" stat hard.

<comment><USER12> Obviously you do need to drive in other areas, particularly to get different weather conditions. However, even driving in the same area different incidents are encountered everyday - it is not a waste of training.

<comment><USER13> Google's cars have:

0 miles in snowstorms

0 miles in historic city centers with small mixed-use (pedestrian, bike and car) streets without lane markings

0 miles in mixed-used residential streets (basically, it's both a footpath and a street, usually with kids playing on it, and also used for cars)

etc.

They mastered only highway driving and driving on perfectly segregated roads.

That's the easy part that VW and Sony's cars had already working in 2008.

<comment><USER14> i think self driving cars will be a reality, but probably in no less than 50 years.

it's 2016 and we can't even keep websites up without armies of people tending to them 24/7\. i don't know what reality everyone who is enthusiastic about this technology is living in.

<comment><USER15> A lot of "AI"/machine learning/etc. examples show impressive results on relatively narrow and well-controlled use cases. A lot of people look at those and extrapolate to much broader and less controlled environments with lots of messy corner cases and assume it's just a bit more incremental work to get there. Whereas, in fact, getting from essentially a demo to mostly just works in messy real world environments can easily be 90% of the work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ouch, I interviewed with Chris when I was looking around inside Google for a new gig. At the time he was "the guy", Sebastian had this great vision but Chris was the guy making it happen. I hope he does something new and exciting.

</comment><comment><USER17> You know, my gut just tells me Google isn't really going to do much with the self driving car thing.

I think the technology will eventually become a reality. The real car companies will be the ones to deploy it.

<comment><USER18> Well, they could for instance wipe Uber from the face of the Earth.

<comment><USER19> That seems like one of the least noticeable consequences self driving cars would have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A car project seems complex enough that it demands its own org and will flounder as a division inside a company with other primary motivations (Google: Ads, Apple: phones).

<comment><USER21> Agreed, but the tension there seems to be that it also demands an org with enough money to buy small countries. Not just for the R&D either but also to sway public opinion, change existing laws and create favorable new ones, and for lawsuit armor. Probably a bunch more wetware-associated costs. In fact R&D might end up being a tiny slice of spending.

<comment><USER11> I'd find a company being able to do many of those things to be kinda scary/bad. If the technology can actually stand on its own and pass rigorous independent testing, law and opinion will follow.

The only reason you need to influence these things artificially, is if something isn't all there under the hood.

<comment> Paul-ish This is overly idealistic. Many people are afraid of technologies they don't understand, and self driving cars will certainly be a technology people don't understand. I can already imagine the scaremongering headlines about self driving cars "assassinating" their passengers or pedestrians. Countering fear and uncertainty may take effort, and effort = money.

<comment><USER11> The reason there's currently fear and uncertainty is because there's good reason to be. Tesla's troubles with people improperly understanding that their feature is a "beta" and watching Harry Potter on the highway aside, Google has routinely avoided mentioning their disengagement figures and "would-be accidents" avoided solely because they have professional test drivers, while repetitively citing how many total miles they've driven. The technology ISN'T there yet, but some PR departments are going full throttle that it is. This sort of disingenuous marketing is what causes these incidents, and causes these headlines to be blown out of proportion.

Nobody's flipped out about car manufacturers having cars that can parallel park themselves and brake themselves to prevent collisions. Reason why: It's tested, it's reliable enough for a Detroit company to advertise it, and it's not oversold as "autopilot" or "self-driving". It just is.

<comment><USER22> I disagree with your first sentence. I know at least two people who've flat out told me they wouldn't trust computers driving their cars or even other cars on the highway regardless of how pristine their driving records were. Don't underestimate irrationality.

<comment><USER11> I bet we can find at least two people in this thread who would ALREADY trust a Google Self-Driving Car. Clearly, the guy watching Harry Potter while his Tesla flew down the highway towards a semi truck trusted his Tesla... and it cost him his life.

For everyone you can find who will, without reason, be afraid of this technology, you will find someone who will, without reason, trust it implicitly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Am I the only one that found that title difficult to parse and understand? For a moment I thought the guy's name is Latest.

</comment><comment><USER24> I will not be surprised if Urmson ends up at Tesla.</comment>


Designing a killer free trial for your SaaS product - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/designing-killer-free-trial-your-saas-product-vladislav-malinovskiy/ <comment><USER2> I've heard it's better to offer a refund if not satisfied instead of a free trial. More commitment, better signaling, actual revenue.</comment>


Jobs vs. Gates: Who's the Star? (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/01/70072

<comment><USER2> Leander Kahney seems to think there's something unethical about building products, managing an organization, and benefiting from it. The resentful epithets he throws around (cutthroat capitalist, vengeful nerd, selfish business goals, greedy capitalist, obscene fortune) are shallow tropes and stereotypes. No one has any duty to participate in the ridiculous rock-star, celebutard culture Kahney endorses. The greatest responsibility that "…comes with great wealth and power…" is restraint. Whether Jobs shows that restraint through anonymous giving or recalcitrant hoarding doesn't matter to me, his work speaks for itself. I'm sure he can endure the shame of not meeting Kahney's childishly conventional ideals.

<comment><USER3> Kahney wrote a book in 2008 called "Inside Steve's Brain". It was very complimentary toward Steve, presenting his leadership techniques positively. Good book, and not at all negative as this article might suggest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is the focus on money here? The impact of the technologies they create dwarfs any monetary contributions. What's the value of their technology on top of what the obvious sellable product is? That is, how much more valuable is their product to the user on top of what the obvious product would have been?

It affects some products more than others. Productivity tools have high leverage, as do protocols and standards, because they are means to ends. End- user products like food, music, sex (for fun, not reproduction), and housing tend to have little leverage because they are closer to the ends. That is, more of them increases wealth.

iPods are good because they let lots of people enjoy more music than before. However, it is probably on slightly better than the obvious product and in any case, the possible impact of a media player is limited.

UNIX (or HTTP or C) on the other hand is non-obvious and a fundamental tool impacting work higher up the value chain. These things have enormous impact on wealth because of the knock-on effects of the tools and they afford. Innovation and development is approximately exponential and, rarely mentioned, prone to get stuck in local maxima. Here be dragons. Would we have as powerful an Internet if it weren't for a few key UNIX design decisions? What would a Microsoft designed world-wide computer network look like?

Try this: how much time do you think people spend trying to align things in PowerPoint that could be made a snap with better tools (maybe 2007 fixes this)? Let's say 2 min per presentation. With an estimated (by Microsoft) 30 million presentations a day, of which say a tenth are newly created, that means 6 million minutes, or about 11.5 man years, are wasted. Every day. Because PowerPoint doesn't make alignment easy. Not to mention that it may limit people's ideas. What if other Microsoft products have shortcomings more severe than those in PowerPoint?

Microsoft products often strike me as _worse_ than the obvious product, prospering because of lock-in/short-sightedness.

By giving his money away, I doubt Gates could ever make up for the value creation Microsoft has blocked. He would have to find something with enormous leverage that would otherwise not happen -- don't get your hopes up. Thus, though I hope he proves us wrong, Gates is down in my book as one of the bad guys. Things are looking better now, but we've lost years of exponential innovation. I bet Kurzweil is annoyed.

</comment><comment><USER5> The view of this writer brings up something that sickens me about philanthropy and that's doing it just to get the recognition and attention of rather than giving because you actually want to help someone.

<comment><USER2> Gates' early philanthropic donations were primarily to higher-ed institutions. Somewhere along the line he learned that that's among the most regressive, least effective forms of charity, and shifted his focus to the truly poor and needy. That convinced me that he was truly interested in helping others and not just looking for recognition, attention, or improving the MS brand.

<comment><USER6> "improving the MS brand."

Keep in mind he also has some investments in biotech too. Giving someone money in order to allow him to buy your products and prop up your market cap may be a very profitable form of charity ;-)

<comment><USER6> Voted down as what? "inconvenient"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if Jobs is well known outside of the computer industry, while OTOH everybody knows Bill Gates. If BG plays his cards right, he'll likely be not only widely-known and remembered, but he'll be remembered in a very positive light as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> One is an artist with lots of personal issues that sometimes show through his way of doing business (I won't forgive Apple for breaking my TV cable ;-) - [http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to- lik...](http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to-like-apple)), the other is a spoiled kid (<http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/>) with a sense of entitlement (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists>) and a borderline psychopath white-collar criminal that thinks law does not apply to him (if you disagree, please watch his DoJ deposition at <http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=56015>) with delusions that trying hard to become a philanthropist will make people forget his past.

Do we really need to compare them?

</comment><comment><USER8> Being a "star" has almost nothing to do with being a good person. It's persona. Jobs has a very compelling life story. He approaches his work with the relentless perfectionism and devotion of an artist. He understands the value of theatrics and suspense. He's reclusive and arrogant but also charming. He's simply a more interesting character than Bill Gates who was a rich kid that went to Harvard and got even richer. I admire what he's doing with his money now but it doesn't change the fact that he's a boring character.

</comment><comment><USER9> Personally I don't base my opinions of someone on their public support of the things I support. I like Jobs because I like his products, I couldn't care less about Gates because I find his products sloppy and awkward to use. Why do we have to get into a bunch of 'well Gates gave more money to the poor!' discussions? Not even getting into the issue of Jobs being a very private guy in general -- why is this any of our business?</comment>


The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Cloning Open-Source Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2016/04/19/the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-cloning-open-source-hardware/ <comment><USER2> Great article.

I'm a little surprised they didn't mention MakerBot and their reaction to hardware clones, followed by the community's response.</comment>


What happens when you steal a hacker's computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo#t=196s

<comment><USER2> hilareous</comment>


Uber engineering layoffs expected tomorrow - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-managers-asked-for-pay-cut-to-save-jobs-the-ceo-said-no <comment><USER2> This is an announcement of an announcement, which is off topic: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&sort=byDate&type=comment). On HN there's no harm in waiting: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

Edit: actually, the fault here seems to be that the submitter rewrote the title in an editorializing way, which is against the site rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). See [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20editorializ&sort=byDate&type=comment) for plenty of past explanation.

Edit 2: the article isn't buried for that reason but because of the hard paywall. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23214650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23214650)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the transparency, was wondering why this fell off the front page so quickly.

<comment><USER2> Actually that is for a different reason: the article is hard-paywalled (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)). If the article had been readable with a paywall workaround, I'd have fixed the title rather than burying the submission.

I sent an email to The Information asking if they'd unlock this one for HN readers: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20information%20unlock&sort=byDate&type=comment). They do that sometimes. If they do, and it isn't too late, we'll unbury the submission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The linked article has a really bad title. There was another article I think by The Information as well that said that Uber was planning 800 layoffs for engineers, which would still bring them over 3000 engineers. That seems quite high for a company whose main revenue has been catastrophically impacted globally.

Asking employees to take a pay cut is always a bad idea. Having gone through the dotcom bust, I can tell you that paycuts across the board will demotivate employees, even if they keep their jobs. As soon as this pandemic is over, they will flee to another company willing to pay them more.

The best way to handle crises like this, or the dotcom bust, or the next recession, is to cut deeply once. Too many times you get into situations where you want to do the least amount of damage and you don't have the courage to make the cuts you need. And then you end up going through multiple cuts over and over again, which paralyzes the company. Cut deeply, and preserve the cash bonuses and promotion cycles for the ones who remain. Show that you will take care of the employees laid off with generous severance packages, and then you will take care of the employees that stay, and this will cement loyalty.

<comment><USER5> The article also says engineering is moving overseas. The Uber Engineering era is over. Cutting deep vs pay cuts is moot, any talented engineer will be headed to greener pastures.

"Uber by McKinsey" [1]

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how- mckins...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey- destroyed-middle-class/605878/)

<comment><USER6> Totally, totally agree with this. I have a ton of respect for Dara Khosrowshahi, but if I were a good engineer, I would get out. The second the "we're going to move engineering overseas to save money" line comes out, the bean counters won. I'm not even going to argue one way or the other if this is good or bad for the company, but after having been through it before it is DEFINITELY bad for the engineering team. I wouldn't make it an emergency to get out in the current market but I would definitely leave as soon as I could.

<comment><USER7> If they can do it and succeed the Valley is in serious trouble and it's the same if they fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't live in the Valley but I have been wondering how engineers are going to cope when the supply-demand ratio changes in favour of employers. With the spate of SV layoffs I think we are about to head into challenging times.

Now is the time to:-

\- Get your resume up-to-date

\- Keep on top of friends/ex-colleagues who are at other companies still hiring

\- Be ready (to move out of state, start your own gig, etc.)

<comment><USER9> Why do you think the demand for programmers is going to decrease?

<comment><USER10> It's the supply you need to worry. When Gates and his ilk talk about an engineer shortage, it's baloney. Same thing going on in the trucking industry. There's a shortage of cheap engineers, which getting everyone and your mom into coding, will help alleviate.

<comment><USER11> > which getting everyone and your mom into coding

Are any of them any good?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That sucks for for a lot of people, but I don't think Uber/Lyft and many other startup afford to pay what they have been paying. I can understand google, facebook, apple etc. paying 300-500k salaries, but how can companies that don't generate that kind of cash flow afford to do the same?

<comment><USER13> How can they not? Its supply and demand, Facebook and Google are setting the price of supply for top engineers. If Uber and Lyft want those types of engineers then they have to pay what the market demands. The assumption being that five 100k engineers won't be able to solve complex problems as well as one 500k engineer.

<comment><USER3> The 300k-500k range is risky RSU paper money outside of FAANG. Uber and Lyft engineers know that now.

Pretend money met reality.

<comment><USER13> There's always risk that the stock price will drop due to a large scale economic event. Lyft and Uber were hit particularly hard this time due to their markets however in past recessions large tech companies weren't immune except long term. As for layoffs, it's still only a small percentage of Lyft and Uber engineers.

So not that risky all things considered and they did pay better than FAANG to make up for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the tweet by the article author discussing the timing of the layoffs: [https://twitter.com/amir/status/1262019344692723713?s=21](https://twitter.com/amir/status/1262019344692723713?s=21)

</comment><comment><USER14> The thing that gets me about this is how hard they had to work to hire those people. Uber is infamous for hard interviews and not hiring people who turned out to be superstars. The amount of value being flushed away is astonishing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, sucks for a lot of people. But an organization might be better off if they cut the workforce if " effective work needed in the future" < "work that can be done by workforce".

Work tends to always fill the available work capacity. Creating fake work that holds up the whole organization. Wasting time and money. The first one is much more important than the second.

I wrote about Overhiring in a much too long article here [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/overhiring-b966a6ff383d...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/overhiring-b966a6ff383d?source=friends_link&sk=2c4e3013c14534e1ec9a7f464da6be80) (free to read medium link, must migrate away from them soon).

</comment><comment><USER16> This is odd, isn't it standard Silicon Valley practice to do layoffs on a Friday?

<comment><USER11> Not if they fear something might leak first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not ideal for the people affected. Didn't read the entire article so not sure what regions are affected. Hopefully they'll all get a good severance package. Not too bad if you can add "Ex-Uber" to your list of titles..

</comment><comment><USER18> i imagine a lot of Uber people are reading this. what an awful way to for them to find out about impending layoffs... through a news scoop instead of their own boss.

<comment><USER19> As much as I hate citing blind for anything, the scuttlebutt on there the past few days from Uber employees makes it sound like this was an open secret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't read the full article because of paywall. But the headline:

> _Uber Managers Asked for Pay Cut to Save Jobs. The CEO Said No_

In a small startup the "company-wide pay cuts" might fly for a while, if everyone is truly motivated. But in a massive public company, where the majority doesn't feel connected to leadership, this would never work. The star employees would jump ship immediately if there weren't carve-outs for _some people_ to avoid the cuts, which defeats the whole "we are in this together" purpose of the company-wide pay cuts.

I'll say this straight - if I was a non-upper management employee and they asked me to lose 25% of my income, I would leave ASAP.

<comment><USER13> Except the market is rather bad right now due to all the engineers looking for jobs and all the companies with hiring freezes.</comment></comment>


Kiwi entrepreneurs announce international cable for New Zealand and Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3435625/Top-business-figures-in-bold-broadband-bid

<comment><USER2> This is great news! At the moment, the Southern Cross cable (which is half owned by New Zealand's incumbent telco) is essentially the country's only link to the rest of the Internet. They therefore charge monopoly rents.

I can't find the reference right now, but I recall that a couple years ago a 155mbit/sec link between NZ and California would cost well in excess of NZ$1,000,000 _per annum_. That link running at 100% capacity 24/7 has a capacity to transfer roughly 500,000 GB per year -- meaning the cost to an ISP in New Zealand was (and certainly is still close to) NZ$2.00 _per GB_ of data. It's no wonder that broadband there is slow, expensive, and has very limited data caps.

And of course Sam Morgan and Stephen Tindall have the cash and the clout to make this happen. Good on them for stepping up to the plate and tackling the incumbents!

<comment><USER3> It is good news but I'm not sure they have the cash. Tindell (520m) and Morgan (250m) combined have approximately 770m (using 2007 rich list numbers which could be way off, but for arguments sake...) This falls quite short of the 900m they are estimating - even if they both pushed their whole stack.

My guess - scare some incumbents (you reckon Telecom wouldn't stump up coin to own part of their only competitor when they're trying to raise cash?), get some money from Govt because of their names, and then chip some in personally along with some of their friends cash.

Not saying I don't wish this would happen - just saying what they're trying to achieve will be hard and they will need A LOT of help.

<comment><USER4> Investors usually don't start big projects using all of their own coin. THey'll usually put something like 30-40% to get the ball rolling. It acts as a catalyst for other investors to join in. They'll probably get the remaining 60% through private investors, hedge funds, and the government.

Between the 2 of them they have more than enough money to see this project through. Since there is only one other competitor and plenty of demand this is as sure a bet as you're going to get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is huge news for New Zealand, and I hope they can push it through.

NZ really is hampered by their external infrastructure. I lived in Wellington for 2 years. Offshore speeds were horribly slow, domestic speeds better. Downloading a 1GB demo from Xbox Live Marketplace took a day on the fastest DSL connection I could get (plus burnt through a large chunk of my download cap that month). It takes me less than an hour in California.

The university was charging students _per MB_ , which I hope is a policy that has since been rescinded.

The cruel irony is that New Zealand's brightest new economy is largely on the net; some of their programmers and designers are the best you'll find anywhere.

<comment><USER6> Things are somewhat better, but far from the speeds we see in the more developed parts of Asia. I'm in Wellington, and get 3.5 M.bits/second downstream, with a 50 GB monthly usage cap.

<comment><USER7> It's good to note that Wellington is probably the best connected city in New Zealand.

There is fibre around the Wellington CBD, and it extends outwards to some residential. There's also a cable TV offering.

The rest of the country has to put up with ADSL and Wifi links... though things may have improved in my 2 years away from home.

The entrepreneurs behind it are a good team; I've worked with Rod Drury for a couple of years at his startup, so I know this was something they've pitched national government before. It will be interesting to see what sort of public help they get with the endeavor.

New Zealand has traditionally been a leader in internet uptake - see the BBC's recent data visualisation <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8552410.stm> The initial uptake was all dialup, however, and we've been left behind in the push to broadband because of a local monopoly/duopoly.

I hope this cable goes through - I may consider returning home one day :)</comment></comment></comment>


Census Project – Identifying popular open-source projects that are at risk - <AUTHOR> https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/programs/census-project <comment><USER2> I thought the headline meant existential risk, but they seem to be talking about security/vulnerability stuff.

<comment><USER3> I'd love to see the number of on that - popular projects that have lost contributors, slowed down, etc.

Though I suppose some projects naturally slow down when things are working well.

<comment><USER4> One project which really needs contributors now is the Mitro Password Manager, it is shutting down due to lack of funding. [https://github.com/mitro- co/mitro](https://github.com/mitro-co/mitro)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great work! Very useful! It would be nice to have quick search filtering feature though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Url changed from [http://www.infoworld.com/article/2946566/security/core- linux...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2946566/security/core-linux-tools- top-the-list-of-most-at-risk-software.html), which points to this.</comment>


Show HN: My journey to create a Text Editor that allows you to build apps - <AUTHOR> https://zecoda.com/about <comment><USER2> Very cool landing page!

I am a bit confused by the conflict terms: "text editor" and "no code". Doesn't "no code" imply that you don't have to write any text/code?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. I argue that "clicking around" on a UI isn't actually coding. Because the end user doesn't have to know how to code to create logic and workflows. Makes sense?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks good, depending on your target market I would put more emphasis on integrating with other data sources. Your tool also overlaps with other industries like viz/dashboards. Finally I like sql and JavaScript or Python, I am saying I would not go purely no code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback. Were you thinking of any specific data sources?

<comment><USER3> Shopify, Salesforce, Etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it. Makes sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice landing page UI. But may be you can optimize on the copy. Its probably too verbose. Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Are you talking about the features description or /about /product pages?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Founder here. The text editor is the living force of the modern world. We use it everyday for countless use cases. It's our go to tool for putting words down. But I feel there's room to improve it for the next generation of makers and builders that grew up with the cloud, collaboration and information at the tip of their fingers.

So, I built one. The goal is to be able to create apps with a familiar interface. The result is a simple text editor tool that helps you i) stay organized and productive, ii) build your own custom apps or iii) design and launch landing pages. All in one platform.

The main features include: • Markdown editor • Connect to your databases • Add logic operations • Build web pages with UI components

You can check these features demos below [1].

I've decided to have these fairly large set of features in the beginning but with limited functionality (e.g. we only have a handful of Components and Functions to start with). This will allow us to learn from your usage and requests and build from those.

On a more personal note, it has been an unbelievable ride. I've been working on this since the beginning of the pandemic. This version is still pretty rough (expect bugs… let me know when you find them) but I decided to launch sooner rather than later to get as much feedback as possible.

I know it's a hot topic, this "no code" trend, but I actually believe software development is becoming ubiquitous and want to help shape that future.

If you think this makes sense, sign up for early access [2]. We are making Zecoda free during the early access period.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the product. Did you find it useful?

\----

[1] [https://zecoda.com#demos](https://zecoda.com#demos)

[2] [https://zecoda.com/#subscribe](https://zecoda.com/#subscribe)

[-] Spread your love (or anger) at Twitter: [https://twitter.com/zecodahq](https://twitter.com/zecodahq)

\----

PS - This was built 100% by myself, please expect bugs. If you find any just let me know. I'd love to fix them asap.

PS 2 - We are actually pivoting Zecoda from a "design to code" tool [3] to this broader text editor. Also, happy to talk about the pivot decision.

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20624140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20624140)

<comment><USER5> Hmm, "app editor", maybe, but definitely not "text editor".

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Can you elaborate on that?</comment></comment></comment>


Halite II: An Open Source AI Programming Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://halite.io/#2 <comment><USER2> I wonder if the AI overlords will come up with strategies that look completely non-sensical to humans but are otherwise undefeated. I'm think of the Alpha Go Zero style reinforcement learning.

I'm struggling to see how to run thousands of games programmatically in their documentation though</comment>


Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2019/03/06/announcing-the-open-sourcing-of-windows-calculator/ <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator#data-- telemetry](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator#data--telemetry)

"This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. Telemetry is disabled in development builds by default, and can be enabled with the SEND_TELEMETRY build flag."

Even on a simple calculator.

<comment><USER3> Basically every Android and IOS app you use collects telemetry (which you usually cannot disable) for UX purposes but suddenly when Microsoft does it it's a Big Deal. I don't see the issue with refining UX using anonymous data if it improves the product for the end users. Every high quality commercial app does this.

<comment><USER4> You can effectively disable telemetry in Android by getting Blokada from F-droid

<comment><USER5> Can it run on regular Android?

<comment><USER6> You don't need to root your phone to run Blokada, if that's what you're asking... I installed it sometime last year and as of right now, it claims to have blocked 595944 requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is cool, but I _really_ wish they'd release the source for the original Notepad. No real reason other than "this software was really important to me when I was a kid".

As it stands, though, Calculator is not something I've particularly cared about in the Windows world; pretty much anyone here could write a simple calculator app in an afternoon.

Still, I am glad MS is slowly becoming more OSS-friendly; I doubt anyone installs Windows specifically for the calculator app, so as a result, why the hell not open-source it?

<comment><USER8> Part of the Windows 2000 source code leaked and it included Notepad. I don't think it's changed much since then as it's pretty much a wrapper around the Win32 widget with a few features like changing the font, printing, etc.

The only place where I found it where it is publicly "browseable" -> [http://www.codeforge.com/article/148667](http://www.codeforge.com/article/148667)

<comment><USER9> It seems they updated a couple of things in Notepad (Unix eol, text size, ..) [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=windows%20notepad&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=windows%20notepad&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might try to commit to this.

I've always found the "App" version of Calculator lacking compare to its Win32 predecessor. In particular History. On the old Calculator you could double- click the history and edit the equation, and get a new result, no go on the App.

Plus the Programmer UI, while being more powerful is actually harder to use since the information is now split between two screens rather than one.

Oh and you cannot paste in currency ($10) is now invalid. The old one just stripped the currency symbols.

<comment><USER11> I use this: [https://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from- windows-8-and-w...](https://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from- windows-8-and-windows-7-in-windows-10/)

I don't know if it has the features you're missing, I use it because I don't like the look and feel of the new apps.

<comment><USER12> Very nice, and it even has a chocolatey package via choco install oldcalc so I can do my [Windows]+R calc and have the Win8 calculator open, very nice indeed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked on a win32 application for my first job out of college. My boss told me "want to learn win32 and c++, go program a windows calculator clone." It was a great project to get started and I did learn a lot. Now I have something to compare my work to ha

<comment><USER8> This calculator is not written using Win32.

(Why the downvotes?)

<comment><USER14> I didn't downvote you, but it comes across like you were trying to nitpick someone by pointing out a detail that isn't relevant to what they were saying.

<comment><USER15> One of my pet peeves when engaging in technical discussions!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can someone explain why it launches so slowly?

It's 2019, I have a multi-gigahertz processor, it's a calculator app, and it takes a few seconds to launch!

<comment><USER17> All the layers of more and more abstractions. What used to be a simple app with a few dependencies is now multi-team project requiring almost a virtual machine to run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The "help wanted" label on some of the GitHub issues[0] is interesting to me. Presumably there are Microsoft employees who are being paid to work on Calculator, are they trying to crowd-source their jobs? I should convince my company to open source the project I am working on so I can offload some of my work too ;)

[0]: [https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/issues?q=is%3Aissue+...](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22help+wanted%22)

<comment><USER19> It's something of a GitHub-wide standard/best-practice to have a "help wanted" or "probably easy" or "good first issue" label:

[https://help.github.com/en/articles/helping-new- contributors...](https://help.github.com/en/articles/helping-new-contributors- find-your-project-with-labels)

It's the Open Source issue tracker equivalent of the "Welcome mat". It doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft's employees here _need_ help, but it certainly shows that they _welcome_ it.

(Which is a very useful indicator for engagement and shows presumably some stake in actually continuing to develop Calculator out in the open, as opposed it being a one time or rarely-if-ever code drop.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> speaking from experience working in a truck repair shop, I quit using calculator in windows as it was rather unreliable. if im calculating inner diameter or outer diameter for a part, or doing tooth math for machining a new bull gear, ive often encountered wildly different values in calculator from what a machinists handbook tells me. Ive even had an old-timer warn me about different depth and feed rate calculations that calculator has never done right. This is simple shop math, but i think we're calling it trigonometry these days.

[https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/04/04/annou...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/04/04/announcing- windows-10-insider-preview-build-17639-for-skip-ahead/)

<comment> orbital-decay This is an issue with any math-related tool in general, including the specialized software, where bugs are much much more sophisticated. Most App Store/Microsoft Store/Google Play apps can't be trusted even for simple square root and trigonometry calculations.

<comment><USER21> I know it's totally overkill, but I use Mathematica for even simple arithmetic computations. I assume that the developers have ironed most of the obvious bugs.

<comment><USER22> I think Mathematica uses the GNU multiple precision arithmetic (gmp) library itself in many cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In case anyone is wondering what telemetry is collected: [https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/master/src/Calc...](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/master/src/CalcViewModel/Common/TraceLogger.cpp)

</comment><comment><USER24> Awesome seeing another component of Windows (albeit a small one) shifting to open source. My hope is that over time, more and more components will end up open source as they get updated and rewritten.

<comment><USER25> This is their whole plan. They are testing the waters with this. Soon all of Windows will be open source.

<comment><USER26> And we still have to pay for it

<comment><USER27> What does that have to do with anything?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> MS goes on to open source the famous and non interesting parts of its products.

What's next? Notepad, Ms Paint?

Shall we see anything bigger than VS Code?

<comment><USER29> "Microsoft open sources MSPaint.exe"

two weeks later

"Show HN: I added transparency support to MSPaint"

two (more) weeks later

"Adobe shares plummet as users cancel their subscriptions to Creative Cloud by the thousands, analysts baffled"

<comment><USER30> You joke, but Paint actually has a very rudimentary support of transparency: [https://www.wikihow.tech/Make-a-Background-Transparent-in- Pa...](https://www.wikihow.tech/Make-a-Background-Transparent-in-Paint)

<comment><USER29> I wouldn't even call that 'rudimentary' transparency support, since you're still relying on a background color to select an area of your image.

What I'm talking about is actual RGB _alpha channel_ support

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

But what you have here is still a neat function of MSPaint.exe

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Whoa, it appears to be written in C++/CLI. I wonder how much Windows code also is, and how it impacts maintainability.

<comment><USER32> I was trying to figure out if it was C++/CLI or C++/CX (I don't do enough Windows dev to know at a glance...). I was hoping it was C++/WinRT – I'm interested in seeing the new language projection in action.

<comment><USER33> It's C++/CX.

For an example of OS code that uses C++/WinRT, check out the native UI controls library, WinUI: [https://github.com/Microsoft/microsoft-ui- xaml](https://github.com/Microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The history is truncated on GitHub. (first real commit is [https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/commit/c13b8a099eea1...](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/commit/c13b8a099eea11d5d6777de7562d350352b909d2) ) They're using GitHub to merge PRs now.

Was this source previously in the Windows repository? Has all development moved to GitHub? If it was in the Windows repo, are they mirroring it back?

Do they still have the old history? There are multiple ways to deal with this in git (grafts, replacements) I wonder if they're using anything like this to get full history, internally.

</comment><comment><USER35> Kinda shocking how large the codebase is for such a simple app

<comment><USER10> That's enterprise development for you. 49% boilerplate, 49% tests, and 2% actual code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> They accepted my pull request:

[https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/pull/106](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/pull/106)

</comment><comment><USER37> Nice to hear that.

I like to calculate stuff from time to time, so I use the default OS calculator app a lot.

The Windows one is actually pretty decent, except maybe for the shortcuts - e.g. raising to the power is under "y" for some reason.

Ubuntu/Linux(es) has by far the best one. The shortcuts are obvious and the whole expression is visible at all times.

The one for macOS is surprisingly lacking.

<comment><USER38> I think that function has been bound to y for decades by now. No reason to change muscle memory, even when rewriting the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> How many threads for a calculator? My Task Manager says 20.

</comment><comment><USER40> Now if the would open solitaire, that would be huge.

</comment><comment><USER41> I can't believe the core of it is still some C code from '95 called "Ratpack": [https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/tree/master/src/Calc...](https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/tree/master/src/CalcManager/Ratpack) over which they added a whole bunch of enterprise fluff.

<comment><USER42> > I can't believe the core of it is still some C code from '95

Why?

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

"Internally, both MATLAB and NumPy rely on BLAS and LAPACK for efficient linear algebra computations."

As far as I know BLAS and LAPACK are still based on the decades old FORTRAN code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is really cool! I thought the open sourcing of Winfile was cool too.

I hope they continue down this road. I doubt we'll see the NT Kernel on GitHub in my life time... but, one can dream.

<comment><USER44> Technically that already happened: [https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes- pirated-windows-nt-...](https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-takes-pirated- windows-nt-4-0-source-code-offline-150415/)

<comment><USER43> The NT 4.0 source code is probably stupidly interesting and I'm sure there's much to be learned, but... Source code leaking is not the same as something getting open sourced. It's illegal, and it doesn't foster collaboration in the same way. And plus, even as fascinating as NT 4.0 is, it'd be neat to see more recent stuff too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Is this the version with floating point precision errors?

</comment><comment><USER46> My favorite calculator was the PowerToy Calculator back in the Windows XP days.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a replace on Windows 10?

</comment><comment><USER47> Finally I can have it run in a size that does not take up 3/4th of my screen by default.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is this for the old school cool calc.exe or the new Calculator Windows 10 app?

</comment><comment><USER49> I hope cmd.exe is next so that we can learn how to build terminals the ms way

</comment><comment><USER50> I see xaml there, does that mean this is WPF even though it's c++ ?

<comment> Const-me That's XAML but not WPF.

XAML is just a markup language, it's used across multiple frameworks and languages.

This particular technology is called UWP, it's mostly rebranded WinRT.

Historically, XAML was also used in Silverlight, both desktop/web, WinCE, and Windows Phone.

<comment><USER50> Well, the constructs used in the xaml appear to be very similar between uwp and wpf. You still have controltemplates, datatemplates, and dependency properties, so there is a lot in common more than just syntax.

<comment> Const-me The syntax and controls are indeed very similar.

If you know any XAML, you'll have zero issues using the rest of them. Speaking from experience, I started with Silverlight a decade ago, had no problems switching to others.

But the underlying tech is very different. Early Silverlight rendered on CPU, WPF is based on DirectX 9, UWP uses Direct3D 11. Silverlight and WPF are .NET based, WinRT and UWP are not, they're 100% native code, exposed to .NET through COM interop.

<comment><USER50> thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is the most trivial program on the entire OS. Hooray for Microsoft, I guess.

<comment><USER31> Most trivial? Not by a long shot. What about WINVER?

<comment><USER52> Not windows, but `true` has to take the cake for the most trivial program, the portion of my comment after the second : is a valid implementation:

<comment><USER53> Is true a program? I thought it was a command built into the shell.

<comment><USER54> It's /usr/bin/true on Mac, and the OpenBSD source for it is at [https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/master/usr.bin/true/true...](https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/master/usr.bin/true/true.c) .

<comment><USER55> I don't know what I expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is going to be great for ReactOS, they're even open sourcing more of their UI components.

</comment><comment><USER57> While I applaud this, and I'm generally positive about Microsoft's new stance regarding open source, I wonder whether they ever have, or ever will, apologise for having made remarks like "Linux is communism". They caused a lot of damage. It feels a bit disingenuous to just pretend now that nothing happened.

<comment><USER58> >having made remarks like "Linux is communism".

what?

<comment><USER57> Communism: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/31/ms_ballmer_linux_is...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/31/ms_ballmer_linux_is_communism/)

Cancer: [https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/ballmer-i-may- have-...](https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/ballmer-i-may-have-called- linux-a-cancer-but-now-i-love-it/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So they are gonna open source everything so that the community can contribute to it and still charge us for using it. Cleaver move Microsoft</comment>


How to generate revenue from your RSS feed: interview with Founder & CEO of Pheedo - <AUTHOR> http://talktech.tv/2008/08/07/interview-with-pheedo/

<comment><AUTHOR> Post a comment and let me know what you think of the video...I'd love your feedback!

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I can't turn the volume up at work or wear headphones. Is there a transcript?</comment></comment>


MikeOS: monolithic, compiled for x86 architecture, aimed for Posix compatibility - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MatchPointDarko/MikeOS <comment><USER2> But can it run Crysis? ;P</comment>


The Scienctific Approach to Dominating a Pinewood Derby - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RjJtO51ykY

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this to be informative and simple enough to be interesting for both parents and kids who are interested in Pinewood Derby racing. As mentioned in the video, there are more in-depth sources on engineering a dominant car but I think that this would be a better tool for a kid who wants to learn what makes a fast car fast.</comment>


Ask HN: Is the disappearance of RSS feeds affecting your happiness too? - <AUTHOR> In the last week, there have been almost a dozen articles posted here that I found interesting enough to want to read more from the author.  In each case, the only way I could subscribe to their blog was to sign-up by providing them with my email address.  Worse yet, these systems require that you verify your email before they start sending you SPAM.  I only want to know when you publish something new ... I didn't sign up to have you send me advertising!
The RSS protocol was specifically designed to allow this type of subscription and it works great.  I've got many blogs I've been following this way for 15+ years (Dave Winer, who occasionally posts to HN has one of the oldest).  It's even more disturbing when RSS feeds disappear and I end up with 404 errors in my reader.  This has also happened for a couple of RSS feeds that serve podcasts (Spotify and Pandora aren't helping this trend).
I have a couple ideas that I've started working on to counteract this trend but before spending too much time on them, I wanted to see whether anyone else was feeling this pain.  Depending on the response, perhaps I'll share these ideas at some point in the discussion. <comment><USER2> Yes, it's annoying. But many sites have RSS feeds that they _don't_ advertise. For example, almost all sites based on Wordpress have an RSS feed that you can get to by appending '/feed/' to the site's URL. For example, if the site is hosted at 'example.org', 'example.org/feed/' will give you the RSS feed. Appending 'comments/feed/' instead will give you an RSS feed for the site's comments.

And for podcasts that are listed on iTunes or SoundCloud, you can use [http://getrssfeed.com/](http://getrssfeed.com/) to extract the URL to the RSS feed.

BTW, even Hacker News has an RSS feed, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/rss](https://news.ycombinator.com/rss). (If you're on Android, I recommend using the Materialistic app instead, [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidroh.materialistic))

For reading RSS feeds in general, I prefer rss2email ([https://github.com/rss2email/rss2email](https://github.com/rss2email/rss2email)) to normal RSS readers. You get each new post as an e-mail (HTML or plaintext, with support for digest mode).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that although RSS isn't being advertised publicly on most of the sites anymore, it's still usable. I'm using Feedly and whenever I come across a blog or a website I like and want to follow, I just paste the URL there and it automatically finds the RSS for me.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I've found very few sites I want to follow don't have an RSS feed.

It's definitely out of fashion to link it prominently but it's usually in the meta data still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I rarely find a developer website without RSS. Most blogging platforms provide RSS either natively or via plugin. If a website does not offer an RSS feed and I _really_ want to follow it, I will ask the author.

Shameless plug: I've created a Tip of the Day platform [1] specifically with RSS in mind.

[1] [https://tips.darekkay.com](https://tips.darekkay.com)

<comment><USER6> I am having the opposite experience. I am running into quite a few developer websites and blogs running on what appear to be one-off homegrown platforms that lack RSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't RSS magical!

* Shameless plug *: Our web service, Feedity - [https://feedity.com](https://feedity.com), helps create custom RSS feeds for any webpage, even social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), via an online feed builder and REST API.

</comment><comment><USER8> Have you heard of [https://www.kill-the-newsletter.com/](https://www.kill-the- newsletter.com/) ?

Discussion of it here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12949154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12949154)

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't worry I'm building a tool that will allow you to do this with any resource. RSS preferably but if they don't offer that option so be it, you'll still get the new updates promptly. Self-hosted of course.

</comment><comment><USER10> I came here by way of newsblur, and I haven't had issues with adding a site to it and letting them find the RSS feed.</comment>


Google Chrome extensions with 500,000 downloads found to be malicious - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/500000-chrome-users-fall-prey-to-malicious-extensions-in-google-web-store/ <comment><USER2> From the first line: > Researchers have uncovered four malicious extensions with more than 500,000 combined downloads from the Google Chrome Web Store...

The word "combined" vs. the article title creates a perceived difference in severity, thinking there are multiple popular extensions with 500k downloads, when in reality 4 extensions total to 500k (so 125k downloads average each). The title makes it sound like millions of downloads are potentially infected, when it's actually a factor of 10 fewer. A bit misleading...

Still, grateful for the work of the security researchers who found the malicious extensions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can someone change the post title to something more accurate?</comment>


New Battlestar Galactica Series  - Blood & Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2011/02/11/battlestar-galactica-prequel-series-blood-chrome-kicks-off-production/

<comment><USER2> I presume from this article that Caprica has officially been cancelled? I really enjoyed that show, as weird and dark as it was.

<comment> brown9-2 Yes, back in October [http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/10/27/breaking-syfy-cancels- capr...](http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/10/27/breaking-syfy-cancels-caprica/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why should I invest any time in this show when it's likely to be cancelled before the storyline matures?

<comment><USER4> _a BSG prequel series set after Caprica and chronicling a young Bill Adama's exploits during the first Cylon War_

This was probably pitched as [insert war series] IN SPAAAACE!

[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekt6mtovm4vn...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekt6mtovm4vne)

The writers could just recycle plotlines from the best half of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" for a year. The target audience could be mainstream and emphasize action.

Why invest time? Because you like seeing things that go, "pew pew, BOOM?" (Take as tongue in cheek -- I expect you have higher aspirations for your media.)

<comment><USER5> Good call. Just substitute Robert Conrad in a corsair with a youthful version of Edward Olmos in a viper.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Track Spotify plays, trends and discover weekly (article and app) - <AUTHOR> https://suczewski.com/2018/12/spotify.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! About 6 months ago, I built a Spotify integration to:

\- save all plays

\- save all "Discovery Weekly" playlists

\- save top songs & artists of the last month, 6 months, and all-time & observe how each changes over time

This weekend, I wrote an article with some technical descriptions & learnings. Sharing my work here!

Thanks!

app link: [https://spotify.suczewski.com](https://spotify.suczewski.com)</comment>


Ask HN: Getting out of golden handcuffs? - <AUTHOR>

Here's my situation: I'm was part of an acquisition a little over a year ago, and signed a two year contract with the large and global acquiring corporation.
Life at BigCo is weird. They thought they might need my particular specialty, but over time there's less and less work to do. The real projects in my specialty are handled by a team overseas. Many of the projects I've worked on have been cancelled or whittled down into extremely minor features.
I could be delusional, but it seems like it would cost the company more (in terms of focus) to find things for me to do than it would (in terms of cash) to just keep me along until the contract is over.
If this is true, they could just pay me the final retention bonus early and I could leave, saving them the better part of my salary for the year.
Is there a way to ask for this? <comment><USER2> Talk to legal representation with experience in employment law. But yes, you could very possibly get a (fractional) payout. Could be a cash "bonus" or salary for 6 months of an "advisory" position. Be prepared for real talk about non competes ceding any (theoretical) equity/patents/etc.</comment>


A collection of postmortems - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/danluu/post-mortems <comment><USER2> I think it'd be easier to browse if it'd be organized in a directory structure like:

        Microsoft/
            Outage 1
            Outage 2

In case anyone feels like contributing:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=postmortem&sort=byPopularity&p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=postmortem&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=post- mortem&sort=byPopularity&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=post- mortem&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><USER3> I'd rather have them arranged by root cause category (e.g. bad service config, bad network config, units mismatch, inconsistent binary version, software bug, etc) than by which company it affected.

<comment><USER4> How about both?

        Organization/
            Microsoft/
                Outage 1
                Outage 2
        Category/
            Network/
                Microsoft 1 -> ../../Organization/Microsoft/Outage 1

symlinks are awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similarly, see also the RISKS-FORUM digest, with thirty years of archives [1]:

> Its intent is to address issues involving risks to the public in the use of > computers. As such, it is necessarily concerned with whether/how critical > requirements for human safety, reliability, fault tolerance, security, > privacy, integrity, and guaranteed service (among others) can be met (in > some cases all at the same time), and how the attempted fulfillment or > ignorance of those requirements may imply risks to the public. We will > presumably explore both deficiencies in existing systems and techniques for > developing better computer systems -- as well as the implications of using > computer systems in highly critical environments.

[1] [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Relevant: Foursquare's post-mortem with mongodb. [https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/mongodb- user/UoqU8...](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/mongodb- user/UoqU8ofp134)

<comment><USER7> I'm hoping I'm reading this wrong. Because what I'm reading is "A database grew to 67GB on a server with only 66GB RAM". And apparently in that situation you can expect performance to tank until a service is unusable?

<comment><USER8> You did not read that wrong.

The performance tanked because the working set now required a disk hit.

Each, and every, query, required a disk hit.

That many IOs/sec, irrespective of the size could be enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like how the healthcare.gov one is the only one without a description

</comment><comment><USER10> Really interesting repo and kind of a relief that mishaps happen to everyone, more or less. We can try to mitigate as best as possible, but these are just the high profile cases. Imagine the millions of internal post mortems carried out daily by all manner of successful companies.

My outage anxiety is reducing, even if contingencies are in place.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's not really what people usually call post-mortems though. A lot of those stories are just issues regarding products or services and how they were uncovered/fixed. Post-mortems are not limited to that kind of stories at all.

<comment><USER12> And post mortems also aren't only limited to startup's that failed :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> When we have a horrible bug or an outage, I always share a post-mortem email company wide, not just engineering.

I think post-mortems are a huge opportunity to learn about resiliency and common system and engineer errors, I know I grew as an engineer with each of those.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation](https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation) has a fairly complete list of Wikimedia's Post Mortems.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like how HealthCare.gov doesn't have a description

</comment><comment><USER16> I found it hilarious that they didn't even bother writing a description for Healthcare.gov.

<comment><USER17> You are the third post to remark on this without adding any further value too the discussion, in a thread of just 11 comments, surely you could have read through them all before posting this?</comment></comment>


What would it take for you to stay behind in a failing nuclear plant? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering what it would take for people to stay behind in a failing nuclear plant (like what is occurring right now). <comment><USER2> Guaranteed super powers. For starters.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd need to know I could do something to fix the situation. If the reactor is already FUBARed, the situation isn't helped any more by my death.</comment>


Practical Nerd: The hidden price of "free" - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/practical-nerd-hidden-price-free <comment><USER2> Sounds like he is yet to be shocked to discover why Skype is free :)

On a more serious note, Adobe Flash Player 10 comes equipped with P2P streaming meshwork, which is _enabled by default_ and which will cause the exact same bandwidth bleed as described in article. Being behind NAT or a firewall is not enough to prevent one from being a relay node as it includes fairly sophisticated NAT traversal logic and NAT-to-NAT connectivity stuff. The only way to NOT donate bandwidth with FP10 is to disable "peer assisted networking" in Flash Settings, which in itself is done by loading a Flash applet from Adobe's site. This also makes using FlashBlock in a browser pretty much a must have.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Media_Flow_Protocol>

<comment><USER3> > Sounds like he is yet to be shocked to discover why Skype is free :)

Skype isn't riddled with ads.

<comment><USER4> But its business relies on selling your bandwidth.

<comment><USER5> What do you mean? Selling bandwidth how? I really am curious here.

<comment><USER6> All the calls are P2P, and if the peers cannot connect directly, the calls are routed through someone else's computer that's called a supernode. Pretty much none of the actual VoIP traffic touches Skype's servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whoever edited the title of this submission (it used to be "when Spotify wasn't playing audio, it was using my network connection. A lot.") just took the whole thread out of context. This was never about the blog post, it was about the specific paragraph referencing Spotify and its P2P-ness.

<comment><USER8> The people editing the titles just to match the original source are driving me nuts.

I don't care how cute or clever the author was in picking a title. I want to know what the damn thing is about so I can make a good decision whether or not to spend time reading it! A good HN title should efficiently communicate to me why I should click on this link.

The original title was interesting. This one is not: the only reason I clicked on it again was because it had a high number of votes and comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Spotify is a peer to peer music streaming service, haven't they been pretty clear about that previously? I actually can't find any information about it on the website at the moment but I'm positive it's been there before. I have been a member since the early beta (i.e when only certain parts of Europe had access) so they might have changed it since then. I've never noticed any slowdowns though and since we don't have bandwidth caps over here it hasn't really become a issue for anyone.

I'm a premium subscribed now but I used the free service up until they limited the amount of plays per song and how long per month you could use it, and for me it's worth the $18~ I have to pay to get access to the music I want to listen to anywhere. Even if there is some bandwidth usage if I keep it running. It's never so much that I notice it in any way and it "gives" when other applications demand more bandwidth.

How often do you actually have Spotify running without listening to music anyway?

<comment><USER10> As to your last question, it's actually pretty much always running, listening or not. At least in my installation, clicking the X to close the window actually (by default) just minimizes it; to really close the application, you have to use a context menu or something. That alone is enough of a hurdle that I rarely bother to close it...on the assumption that it's not hogging too many resources. I'm wondering how safe that assumption really was now.

<comment><USER9> I just CMD+Q to quit it (on OSX) which as far as I know does in fact close it properly. In any case I make sure to close programs I do not use.

<comment><USER11> I do not believe it does quit it properly on OS X. Even after a fresh reboot, Spotify appeared to be using about 40k/sec outbound bandwith. After I removed it, idle bandwidth dropped to zero.

I also noticed something strange when removing it with CleanMyMac (similar to AppZapper). There's a separate dock icon file for Spotify, and removing it restarted Dock.app. I think that might be to cover up Spotify running in the background somehow.

<comment><USER12> Spotify does quit when you cmd-Q. You can verify this by opening Activity Monitor and looking at the process list.

If you are running MacOS X Lion, then the OS _might_ keep the underlying OS process around in case you start it again -- this is by design. I have not been able to observe this personally, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yup. This helps power the "instant" playback that I'm sure the author has enjoyed. Saving money on bandwidth, I'm sure, also helps them pay for all of the licensing agreements they have with the recording industry so that you can stream that impressively large catalog for _free_.

<comment><USER14> _"...the problem wasn't so much the eventual price I paid as much as the fact that the true cost wasn't clear until after I'd committed."_

All the author is advocating is for software companies to be up front about what their software is doing.

<comment><USER13> From clause 13 in the Terms of Service:

 _(ii) Spotify has a right to allow the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service to utilize the processor, bandwidth and storage hardware on your computer or other relevant device for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication and transmission of content and other data or features to you and other users of the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service, and to facilitate the operation of the network on which the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service runs._

Granted, it's not listed as a "feature" but you agreed to the possibility of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who already pays for Spotify premium, I see the bandwidth as an acceptable further price to pay; if it results in a viable business model that can continue to entertain me. I would mind a lot more if it were just so they could save money. However, it would seem that for the sake of low-latency, the p2p layer is crucial.

Also fun fact: "In total, during the measurement period, 8.8% of data came from servers, 35.8% from the peer-to-peer network, and the remaining 55.4% were cached data"

Source <http://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/spotify-p2p10/>

<comment><USER16> His point is that this cost is not mentioned before the point of sale and has to be discovered.

<comment><USER17> For people outside of US, where we don't have service providers that screws us sideways, this is a negligible problem. But I can see the point for people who are routinely being scammed by their service provider.

<comment><USER18> I take it you don't live in Australia.

<comment><USER19> Canadian ISPs are pretty bad as well. Mine is decent - seems the East coast isn't as bad as the rest of the country - but this seems to be the exception, not the rule.

<comment><USER20> I have cable internet in Quebec and the cap is really low. 120gb a month is to me quite low. I watch most of my tv,news,sports online now and I have to actively monitor it. Does nothing to reduce my total bw rate usage while I'm streaming. I guess my usage drops at the end of the month. It still doesn't help their claimed problem of congestion.

<comment><USER19> 120GB is low, but not nearly as low as other limits I've heard of.

I'm in Halifax, and the ISPs here seem pretty decent. Bell Aliant doesn't have caps at all - they used to be a distinct entity from Bell, IIRC, and are still sort of separate from the Bell that's often mentioned - and Eastlink caps at 250GB, or were planning to a few months ago anyway, but that's only for their 50 and 100 Mbps plans. The normal, standard-in-a-bundle plan is 20Mbps and is uncapped. I've been pretty pleased.

<comment><USER21> Yes, the Maritimes do get good service. I've also had luck in the plains as well; Telus claims that they have caps, but they are not enforced. Shaw has caps on some plans, but not on all of them.

I do find it curious that the most densely populated region is the one with the worst service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A month worth of Spotify premium usage will result in this amount of traffic : <http://imgur.com/wVdmS> (screenshot from my network traffic monitor)

I completely agree with the poster who said that this is an acceptable price to pay for the awesome UX we're getting.

<comment><USER23> How much do you listen a day, on average, to use that bandwidth?

<comment><USER22> 5 - 7 hours easily. This is not the high quality stream though.

And by awesome UX I was mostly referring to nearly latency free track skipping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "No "free" streaming service is worth the risk of pissing off the Xfinity limit police and losing my Internet service."

this is only a true statement if the value of your current service is infinite or your risk aversion is. to make any kind of realistic logical statement about this you need to calculate how much bandwidth is being used, user limits and isp switching costs.

a nice insight turned into fear mongering - this is how a lot of bad memes start.

<comment><USER19> Considering how in a surprising number of places there is only one broadband ISP available, it's not exactly unreasonable - though I'll agree it's hyperbolic - to say that the value of his current service is 'infinite', since internet access - at least in the developed world - is fairly important. Have you used dial-up internet lately? It's not really a fun experience. (n.b. I've not used dial-up in a while, but my mother has a bad DSL line that tests at around 0.2Mbps, and I was not amused by it the last time I was there. This is my basis of comparison.)

If spotify is silently operating a P2P client, even when it's not being directly used, then that's an issue for people with bandwidth restrictions. It's trivial to get distracted by something, forget an application is running when you leave the house, and end up using much more bandwidth than you intended. It's worse still that as bandwidth increases, usage limits don't stay proportional. You suddenly have the ability to share faster, reaching your limit sooner.

As I said, I agree that the statement is hyperbolic, but I don't consider the issue trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> FWIW: Skype doesn't say they're using your bandwidth either...

<comment><USER26> Does Skype route other people's calls through your system or transfer data off your computer to provide service to other customers? The Spotify model is very different than Skype.

Edit: I had no idea Skype worked like that as well. And I have the same reaction I did when I found out through personal experience that Spotify did that -> ⌘Q - Quit Spotify. I don't need to open my connection to the world and let a program suck up all my bandwidth just to listen to some music I can get from another source. I'm not the only person using my connection and I have other devices that I want to be able to use as much bandwidth as they need. The fact that I can't control that bandwidth consumption at all is bothersome and enough of a negative in my opinion that I won't use the service.

<comment><USER27> Skype is p2p.

<comment><USER28> Just stating that it is P2P doesn't necessarily mean this. If there were skype servers that handled everything except for the actual individual call, and the individual call was in a connection directly between two clients (not through a server) and that would be enough to be able to say "Skype is p2p".

<comment><USER27> <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=skype+p2p+architecture>

<comment><USER28> I don't think you understood my comment. I was simply stating that "Skype is P2P" is not a statement that is at all relevant to the conversation is above, it could be P2P and still not use your bandwidth when you are not actively using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just a suggestion. You could try installing something called "netbalancer" by seriousbit (<http://seriousbit.com/netbalancer/> assuming you're on windows). It allows you to throttle network usage per program.

<comment><USER30> Anything similar for OSX?

<comment><USER31> ipfw :o)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This doesn't really surprise me to be honest. Spotify also caches _a lot_ in order to be able to play content as fast as it does (for me it's usually as fast as playing something from my harddrive). However I didn't know about the upstreaming of cached content, this seems like something you should be able to turn off. I have the unlimited plan, curious to see if it also happens there. Will check when I get home.

</comment><comment><USER33> disturbing that so many HN readers install software without knowing what it does, or how it does it.

Having sad that, the docs could be a bit more clear.

For example, Spotify says quite clearly in sentence ii of para 14 of the end- user-agreement that "(ii) Spotify has a right to allow the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service to utilize the processor, bandwidth and storage hardware on your computer or other relevant device for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication and transmission of content and other data or features to you and other users of the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service, and to facilitate the operation of the network on which the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service runs. You may adjust the level of usage that the Spotify Service makes of your computer in the settings of the Spotify Software Application."

<comment><USER34> Considering the first indication of possible P2P functionality in the license agreement is the phrase "and other users," Spotify could be more upfront.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I haven't tried this yet, but as a premium subscriber, I'm pretty sure I could save songs as an offline playlist, and then set Spotify to offline mode.

<comment><USER36> How do you set spotify to offline mode (without completely disabling wifi)?

<comment><USER37> You can't set spotify itself to offline except on the phone app. You can however set a specific playlist to offline mode which will 'sync' the music to your HDD and plays it from there.

[edit]: BTW, you can do this on all devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It took me a while to get rid of the thought pattern superimposed by the title, including the words "nerd" and "free", that the article would be of the impractical sides of using free software (such as having to occasionally tweak around miscellaneous problems related to compatibility with proprietary software).

</comment><comment><USER39> I believe there is a really simple solution to this. Spotify is only using your network bandwidth to serve your music files that other people want to play. If you don't want to participate move your music folders to another location that Spotify cannot find.

<comment><USER40> Interesting, I assumed that Spotify just distributes data that originated on its own servers. If distributes music I've ripped myself, I could screw up its service for other listeners. Does anyone know what the behavior is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you object to the P2P aspects of Spotify, wouldn't it be pretty simple to find out the port that it's broadcasting on and block outgoing communication? I wonder if anyone has tried this. Maybe Spotify would notice and quit playing.

</comment><comment><USER42> So, the solution is to quit the app, right? Simple enough.

I only use it when I need variety that's not in my iTunes.

<comment><USER43> This seems like an adequate solution. It makes me wonder if some time there will be streaming music services that require you to have the program running for at least a minimum of hours a day in order to receive the free service. Or better yet, perhaps a discount for meeting monthly upload quotas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> As a Spotify Premium subscriber, I think it is unacceptable that Spotify do not allow you to disable or throttle Spotify's upstream traffic, or even disclose how much bandwidth it is likely to use! I have an uncapped connection (common in the UK) but anyone on a capped line may be subjected to hefty fees without even realising it.

I have no issue with the idea of P2P - it saves Spotify money, which is hopefully transferred to me - and is essential for instant or near-instant playback of music.

<comment><USER45> This is also my number one complaint. I asked about it at their official support forum on getsatisfaction, but never got a response. That's silly, because Spotify sometimes saturated my upstream, in which case I turned it off. It has now become a habit to turn it off. Before that, most of the time, it was one when I wasn't even listening to music, so the bandwidth was completely free to them. If they would allow me to throttle it somewhat, they could use it all the time. Since they don't allow me to throttle it, I've turned to shutting the client down whenever I'm not using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Well, no surprise there. It was stated and elaborated already from the start years ago - Spotify is a cloud service, and the users help out. What IS surprising is that there are no numbers what so ever about how much bandwidth and how many connections that might be in use on a client's computer.

<comment><USER47> It doesn't seem to actually say that anywhere on the web page though.

<comment><USER15> I understand the point you're making, they should say explicitly on their website. But to source my comment: <http://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/spotify-p2p10/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It does that - it's a P2P system. It also eats tonnes of disk space. My spotify data folder is about 12 gig.

<comment><USER17> Yes, by default Spotify caches everything up to 10% of your total free disk space. This is space that you are not using anyway, so what is the problem? It makes playback of music you've listened to in the past a lot faster, and saves you downstream bandwidth - which in turn makes for less load on servers and the swarm.

<comment><USER49> "This is space that you are not using anyway, so what is the problem?"

It's space your not using _now_. What if the user has no idea Spotify is caching that heavily, then checks their Free Disk Space (maybe they are about to transfer lots of data)? Nasty surprise ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The article isn't just about spotify, but anyway, bandwidth usage is a concern now, but certainly as bandwidth goes up there will be more and more services taking advantage of P2P for faster and better service. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER51> A good reason to try <http://songspin.fm> \- nothing to install, just stream cool music continually in your browser.

</comment><comment><USER17> And this is why you never-ever want to release a good product to the US. If it works great in EU and the rest of the world, you can be damn sure that you will meet so much hate in US, for some obscure reason. Well - from a personal perspective.

I've been running Spotify since early beta, and monitor the network usage of all my application, both when it comes to traffic and when it comes to what it accesses (littlesnitch is a great tool!). Spotify hardly uses any upstream bandwidth, and if it were using a lot, I should've seen that. I see a lot of downstream network usage.

This is just another blogger to piss on Spotify for some strange reason, to the point where they make up stuff. And it does not make sense to enable the user to not have any caching, then the network usage of the entire swarm would've quadrupled. I feel that 1GB minimum and standard at 10% of free diskspace (!!!! free, not total) is a good middle road.

(For those interested, Skype uses a boatload more bandwidth than Spotify. We've had problems with network congestion because so many clients on the network had Skype open and they routed so many calls through our network.)

<comment><USER52> >This is just another blogger to piss on Spotify for some strange reason to the point where they make up stuff.

Actually he discusses his reason, _right there in the post_. Spotify used a lot of his bandwidth with no way to throttle (as others on this thread have discussed), in a way that he didn't feel was disclosed up-front.

It's great that you love Spotify and get value from it, but don't jump on this board calling someone a liar and questioning their integrity because they _don't_ get the same value from it.

<comment><USER17> I agree with you, I was way out of line when I called him a lier. The fanboy- ism may be a little to strong in me.

But, to the point, he never said how much traffic he was seeing, so in his case /any/ traffic could be deemed "a lot". All services these days use your network connection to some extent, but I'm finding it hard to believe that it actually may end up congesting your networking connection, without seeing some serious proof.

I can to some extent see his point where this should've been clear from the start of, that Spotify will make use of your upstream network connection. Hopefully Spotify will make changes so that at least the US-market get notified that they might end up paying their service provider a premium, just for using Spotify.</comment></comment></comment>