Railyo - job board for Rails freelancers - <AUTHOR> http://railyo.com/developers

<comment><USER3> Having started a job board before (orangeslyce.com), one recommendation I have is to pre-seed the board with jobs to help get over the chicken/egg problem. You can hustle analog and get some posts or even copy quality postings off other sites. Sure they won't be paying customers, but it's kindling for the fire and gives the appearance of social proof.

<comment><AUTHOR> But it's a private job board - so developers can't see any job offers until they are signed up :) Anyway - it's really a problem - until know - there is only one job offer - from the launch (around two weeks).

<comment><USER4> 37signals lets people browse jobs, but not see contact information, until they sign up/pay. A similar workflow might be a possibility here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems good, Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check into that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I tried to register 4+ times with a password that included special characters, but each time it said my password didn't match. Once I changed it to an insecure password, it went through. I could have been bad typing on my part 4 times, but... you may want to test this.

Also - It doesn't appear that the profile visibility dropdown gets repopulated after form submission failure with the previously selected option.

<comment><USER5> Forget the special characters and get more entropy from the sheer length of the password. Now if they restrict _that_ , you have a problem.

(Also use a decent password manager that can remember randomly-generated 30-40 character strings for you.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are a Django developer, there is a similar approach:

<http://djangogigs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> I got your cold email the other day. About the 3rd cold email I've gotten from an HN user. I was happy. Anyhow, your email copy is not very good. Work on it. I also replied to the email and you never answered? If you contact me then reply. You lost your chance, because I know a _lot_ of Rails developers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank You for the suggestion! but I checked my email box and I never received any application/email from your email address (as listed on your HN profile) ? kinda weird though, I never miss any email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> few things i could have done differently:

> importing developer data from linked-in/github instead of form filling.

> Showing some jobs as it will make me sign up to the site. How do i know how > many jobs are there??

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, signing up with github could be more faster and easy! but jobs preview requires some job submissions! (one is not enough :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Crashed, when I clicked on the hompepage URL of this developer: <http://railyo.com/developers/53>

And btw your app runs in development environment!

<comment><AUTHOR> I added the `<http://`> to the developer's url and it's fine!

About Development Environment - yeah, it's displaying error messages instead of error page.

I'm using Capistrano for deployment! May be I had previously enabled error reporting during testing and forgot to turn it off in production environment. I'm checking into that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No search? Browsing through page upon page is going to get tired soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Number of Developers were low, so I left that out. I'll soon add search feature, possibly integrated with Google Map. Thank You :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is Railyo open source?

<comment><AUTHOR> not until now, but if it will be useful for other people (may be in setting up a job board quickly on anything) then I would love to open source it.

<comment><USER11> I am working on a project and Railyo's functionality is perfect for what I am looking for. Do you mind open sourcing it?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are lots of bugs and incomplete features, I'll tackle most of them - <USER2> next few days. So after a week, I'll open source it :) my github username: rkjha

<comment><USER11> Awesome, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is that I'm the only one think the site itself proves Rails isn't the silver bullet to solve all web application requirement out there? You guys could have done a way better job.

<comment><USER13> It's a job board. Who ever said Rails was a magical silver bullet? Spread your anger and animosity elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> rails -g scaffold developer name:string desc:text

post to hacker news

<comment><USER4> This dismissal of technical problems by fellow hackers always confuses me. As a 20-something I'm all too tempted to routinely adopt the "oh, psh, that's easy" bravado, but as I always tell my junior devs, "if you think it's easy, you don't understand the problem yet"

<comment><USER15> You have a good point, but some problems really are easy.

That doesn't mean they aren't worth doing. Actually, things which are easy to do mean less time and cost to develop, which is a big upside if you are trying to get something done. Which hopefully most of us are doing, most of the time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> any_feedback?

<comment><USER16> I'd suggest taking a few minutes (tops) to tweak the confirmation email. Either the sender, the subject, or the body (or all) should specify it's coming from Railyo.

In gmail, the sender is showing as "bots"--I came close to deleting it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh!! probably that's the reason why most of my manual invitation - received no replies / signups. Thank you :) I'll fix that soon.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla touchscreen wiper controls land driver with fine after crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53666222 <comment><USER3> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025100)

</comment><comment><USER4> Touch screens are horrible for frequently used controls in cars.

Any car you are in is traveling with kinetic energy, so it is likely to bounce and move around over the road surface. Without a physical button to rest your finger on it's nearly impossible to get something on the first "touch" unless you are standing still.

Yes it looks cool, and yes it's fun to play with on a red light, but using any of these touchscreens even at 50 mph is nearly impossible.

Made much worse if it's a sports car and has a bit of a stiffer suspension.

One step forward, two steps backwards.

<comment><USER5> The 'excuse' I've heard is that cheap touch screens are cheaper for manufacturers than the old style of dashboard that had 10k little small plastic parts for all the buttons, sliders, and whatnot.

However this makes me wonder: is it still cheaper when using a large expensive panel like Tesla does? And even if so, what place do such cost-cutting measures have in [ostensibly] luxury vehicles?

<comment><USER6> > large expensive panel like Tesla

Tesla used non automotive-grade panels to keep costs really low. They started delaminating and the solution was to have everyone's cars run the air conditioner even when the car is unoccupied, causing a big negative impact on effective mileage in the city, but it actually got great response from fans with slick marketing around it. It saved Tesla a lot of money in recalls, but is not great environmentally.

<comment><USER7> The interior couldn't handle the heat of being parked in the sun? This is a very basic standard. Every BMW, ford, Ferrari or Honda is tested in a chamber with heat lamps. I cannot imagine any Honda engineer suggesting that the car run the AC in order to protect the interior parts.

And it isn't all about the customer. Would one of these teslas survived on a used car lot? Could it survive being transported across the country on the back of a truck? A car that cannot survive direct sunlight is a logistical nightmare.

<comment><USER8> A lot of what's "very basic standard" for other car companies gets ignored by Tesla. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

<comment><USER7> I understand the need to break conventions, but there is a heat advisory in my area today. My Honda gets parked outside. And when things go wrong I occasionally do 15+ hour shifts. I'd be screaming mad if I came out after one of those days to find my car's battery was dead and the screen delaminated. But that is why I bought a Honda. I cannot sync my ipod list with my google cloud account, but it always starts when I ask it to.

<comment><USER8> Another example in the "bad!1" category is the flash chips in one of the control units. They had logging enabled, and over time the control unit killed its own flash chips by overwriting them too often. Needs the entire unit changed, or finding someone who'll solder fresh chips in.

Where a traditional design would have taken care to run entirely from a read- only storage, and if there is logging needed, to log to an extra partition that doesn't stop the system from working if it becomes unavailable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This seems... odd, in that presumably the regulators allowed the car to be sold with essential functions dependent on the touchscreen in the first place, so it's strange to fine someone for accessing essential functions. IMO the proper solution would have been to force Tesla to have a more sensible interface in the first place...

<comment><USER10> I wonder if the driver could, in turn, sue Tesla. Tesla sold him a car without legally usable wiper controls.

<comment><USER11> I doubt it, there were several legally usable options to allow him to control the wipers without the screen.

<comment><USER10> What were they? According to the article, there were physical controls to turn the wipers on and off but not to adjust the speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having had a Model 3 for eight months now, the interface is something you learn to live with rather than ever feeling totally confident with.

The buttons etc are designed for a car that can run the wipers etc flawlessly itself but the tech isn't there yet.

<comment><USER13> I read somewhere that the Model 3 was intended to be fully autonomous, which was why the interface and look of the car is as spartan as it is. When the autonomous tech ended up not being there (no surprise), Tesla kept the look of the car as if the car were meant to drive itself.

This is probably why CarPlay and Android Auto still aren't integrated, among other reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every single engineer and executive working at Tesla right now needs to grab a copy of The Design of Everyday Things and read it cover to cover before returning to work.

<comment><USER15> Not just Tesla. Every car manufacturer. So far it's only Mazda IIRC who said they are getting rid of touch controls. Meanwhile Mercedes Benz _proudly_ advertisers this crap: [https://youtu.be/SuFE5x6fPqw](https://youtu.be/SuFE5x6fPqw)

<comment><USER16> You do see the buttons that do almost everything you'd want to do while driving on the steering wheel right?

Along with a voice operated climate control, you don't need to touch the screen, ever

<comment><USER17> Did you actually watch the video? It clearly shows the driver being distracted by controls on the touch screen to "share" media with a backseat passenger. That's a terrible design that could easily lead to deaths.

<comment><USER16> First off, it doesn't let you share media or most of the more advanced functions if the car is in any form of motion.

Second... are you kidding me?!

A driver deciding to look down at their screen to share media while driving would be blamed... on the infotainment, is that a joke?

By that logic you're also allowed to look down at your cupholder and count the crumbs that have accumulated, that's a terrible design and the cupholder should be mounted at your sightlines.

-

Normally I'm in the "putting screens in is adding unnecessary temptation" camp, but please.

Personal culpability is still a concept.

MB kept all the stalks that make sense, they kept the steering wheel buttons, they kept physical buttons for stuff specific screens. They did fine for the parameters they're playing with, which is "Tesla has made not sticking a giant touchscreen in your car not seem futuristic".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's why I hate having to deal with touch controls in cars for basic functions. I like having tactile feedback so I can control them without needing to look, or just having a glance instead of having to focus navigating through an interface. Don't get me wrong I love how smarter cars are getting but some things just shouldn't be made "smart" imo.

<comment><USER19> I don't think the main reason car companies are shifting more and more functionality to touchscreens is because of the perception that they're "smart". I think it's because touchscreens are cheaper, especially in terms of development costs, since it's easier to iterate in software than hardware. I'm not super knowledgeable about the field though, so maybe someone who's worked at a car company can help explain.

<comment><USER20> Mazda is ditching touchscreens, and I doubt they'll be the last (if they survive 2020).

Safety controls aren't something that should be subject to "move fast and break things."

<comment><USER19> I'm not saying the cost savings are necessarily worth it. I strongly dislike the move to touchscreen interfaces in situations where they don't make sense. I think cost savings might be a reason many car companies have chosen (IMO) a clearly worse interface, especially if you look at it from the perspective of an executive trying to decrease costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Tesla's automatic wipers are bizarrely bad. At one point Elon touted a new neural net upload that was going to make them better, but they actually got worse.

My Dodge truck has much better automatic wiper control than my Tesla.

<comment><USER22> That's because the Model 3 doesn't have a dedicated rain sensor but tries to detect rain with the built-in cameras.

<comment><USER21> Oh. Dear. God.

I wouldn't have guessed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Tesla's touch screen interface is probably one of the worst interface decisions in car history. It takes two taps on your touch screen to just open a glovebox - in what way is that better than a handle, which is completely intuitive, way faster, and usable without having to look at a screen. Or their fans, where you have to use the touch screen to change their direction - <USER2> not just have a tab you can move around like every other car. In my Honda Fit, I can adjust the temperature and fan direction in about 2 seconds without taking my eyes off the road. In a Tesla it requires me to look at a screen and tap like 10 times to navigate the menus.

Touch screens are a much worse interface that physical interfaces in many cases, especially when you are driving. I don't understand why you would take away almost all feedback and speed from some control, and consider it progress.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not sure if everyone's familiar what is actually in the Model 3/Y.

\- The main mode of use is 'auto' which uses as its feedback sensor the forward facing camera (I think only this location, but not 100% sure about that) located where the rear view mirror attaches to the wind screen. It covers ~75% of my driving without issue. I think there is a problem with that sensor location as the boundary layer gets compressed near the apex of the windscreen, resulting in better mass transport and a drier windscreen than the part the driver looks through. This camera location is thus a laggy indicator of rain because it tends to be one of the driest parts of the car. Personally my experience with the this feature is a good advertisement not to get full self driving yet: If you can only answer the question "Is it raining?" accurately 75% of the time with cameras, you've probably got a long way to go on FSD.

\- There is a physical button on the end of the left stalk. You press it to get 'wipe once'. If you need to respond quickly to a sudden burst of rain or the driver next to you goes through a big puddle, you can do that without the touchscreen.

\- The physical button push also brings up the wiper control on the touchscreen, which is otherwise behind one (non physical) button which is always on the screen. The touchscreen controls include manual control of wipers on/off/auto and wiper speed.

\- There is also voice control which seems to work fine. As with many voice control systems, you have to say a specific phrase, which presents a discovery problem: how do users learn that phrase unless they're the kind of people who search out documentation on the internet. I'd also wager many drivers haven't gotten used to the idea of voice control of car features so they're not well utilized in general.

And for your consideration, my opinion: It works fine most of the time (because I just leave it in auto), but I occasionally need to tap the physical button to get an extra wipe. Sometimes when it is very lightly raining I need to manually set the speed since the feedback system doesn't seem to do a good job in that scenario. The touchscreen feels pretty accurate and responsive, so I've never had trouble hitting the button while in motion. I think Tesla should release a software update to let the user 'double tap' the physical button to force the wipers 'on-high' for the rest of the journey.

<comment><USER25> > _As with many voice control systems, you have to say a specific phrase, > which presents a discovery problem: how do users learn that phrase unless > they 're the kind of people who search out documentation on the internet._

The internet? The car doesn't come with a manual? Doesn't _every_ car come with a manual?

<comment><USER24> It has a manual accessible through the screen, but most people just google it anyways. I certainly did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Regardless of the merits of touch control UI on cars (or their lack-of) it's a stupid idea to fine the driver in this situation. Maybe the law enforcers want to make an indirect point...

If the vehicle is _road legal_ (that is it has stop lights, breaks etc) then it is assumed that it can be used legally on public road. If the touch interface would make the driver break some laws then the vehicle should _not_ be road legal in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER27> From an ISO 26262 perspective, it seems like for the driving scenario of "unexpected windshield wiper speed increase", they may have set the controllability to C0 (Controllable in general) [1] when it may have needed to have been something less controllable (C1 means 99% of drivers can avoid harm in the condition, C2 means 95%, C3 means less than 90%). That probably set their risk level to something lower than it actually was. They probably need to do some tests for anything they're diverting to the touchscreen to figure out how many drivers can manage the situation within the time frame of avoiding a crash.

It looks like Tesla's job postings reference ISO 26262 experience as a plus [2], but I can't get a straight answer to Tesla's adherence to it in-house. My understanding is that no government mandates its use, but lots of car companies adopt it anyway.

[1] ISO 26262-3:2011(E) Table B.4 [2] [https://www.tesla.com/careers/job/software- integrationengine...](https://www.tesla.com/careers/job/software- integrationengineerchassiscontrols-65063)

</comment><comment><USER28> Hope this prompts them to put the windshield wiper controls on a stalk or the steering wheel. Never been comfortable with that part of the interface.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't own a Tesla, but when it automatically enables the wipers, does the UI on the touchscreen "adapt" to current conditions and bring the wiper speed controls to the top level so it's one touch away? Or does the driver still have to touch through N menus to get to it at all times? If so, that's a terrible driver experience. :-(

<comment><USER30> Model 3 owner -- when you press the quick wipe button on the left stock it brings up the wiper interface menu to adjust the wipe speed and the auto wipe button. It's very quick and only requires a short glance and one screen press.

One way to improve it would be after the left stocks quick wipe button is pressed, let us adjust the speed with the steering wheel control wheel with a volume based auditory click to indicate it's gone up or down. Although those are used for volume and speed if cruise or autopilot is enables so it would need to only stay in wiper speed adjust for a few seconds

<comment><USER22> > requires a short glance

Just as short as checking whether I got a text message?

<comment><USER30> Shorter

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have always wondered how Tesla is allowed to sell cars where the controls are so touch-screen-heavy. It does seem far less intuitive and more distracting than the convention for many controls.

I always assumed there was some rigorous usability test they're required to undergo.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think device distraction is dangerous in traffic. The whole point is that you as a driver or cyclist need to be aware of other traffic participants. If you are distracted with a device you are not paying attention. Thus agree with the court ruling.

It's better with physical touch controls to control car functions.

Consider search depth, physical device control is direct access hash table. But touch button interfaces are like searching through a list/tree so slower.

</comment><comment><USER33> Misuse of technology --- technology that actually detracts from usability.

Provide essential info and control in the simplest possible manner. If you feel the need for additional gadgetry, use voice recognition and response --- something with minimal distraction from the essential task at hand.

</comment><comment><USER34> "Tesla touchscreen wiper controls land driver with fine after crash"

These headline-esque sentences are very hard to parse without context sometimes. It took me ages to figure out this one. It's a small hobby of mine.

<comment><USER35> The wiper controls the land-driver? Glad they clarified it wasn't the sea- driver.

But don't worry, it's fine. It was not damaged in the crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't know how anyone who has ridden in a car and used a capacitive touchscreen could come to the conclusion that the two should be combined in one product. Especially for controlling safety features.

</comment><comment><USER36> The stupid touch screen controls on the Tesla are the one and only reason why I refuse to buy one (and I have test driven a number of them and love everything else about them).

</comment><comment><USER37> This was discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025100)

</comment><comment><USER38> Theres seem to be a hardware button to turn these on and off. The solution should be simple: \- Long press to turn on and off. \- Press many times to change speed.

<comment><USER11> Short press is wipe once, long press is spray cleaner to wash windshield currently. I would like to see double tap to turn on or something. Or what about tap it and then one of the scroll wheels on the steering wheel to adjust speed. Not great, but would be possible with the hardware they have.

<comment><USER38> Could also be same as I said but very long press to spray cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I hate the arrogance of the Model 3 that everything should be touchscreen. It's very dangerous to do even the simplest things while driving, like turning off the fan. You have to find the right location on the touchscreen and then hold it down for a few seconds. Trying to change the direction of the fan is basically impossible to do safely while driving. Things like those should have been physically things like knobs that people can change safely without having to look.

<comment><USER40> At least they didn't put the pedals and the steering wheel on the touchscreen. Yet.

(By the way, we're in 2020. Weren't we supossed to get self-driving cars without pedals and steering wheels by now?)

<comment><USER41> Well it is a Tesla, you can buy it with "Full Self-Driving" so surely it doesn't actually need any pedals...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I looked into getting a Tesla but decided against it because of the all touchscreen UX.

</comment><comment><USER43> I find it inexcusable that Teslas don't have voice commands.

"Tesla, slow down the wipers."

<comment><USER44> But they do?

The voice recognition is a bit sub-par IMO, but I can control the wipers by voice if I want.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Adsense earning dissapearing? - <AUTHOR>

Now, I am starting to doubt myself, and perhaps that two has always been a two rather than a three, but has anyone else noticed any discrepancies in their earnings since last payment? <comment><AUTHOR> Right, ok, apparently it is a known issue: [http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en...](http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=92365)</comment>


4 Principles of DevOps - <AUTHOR> http://radify.io/blog/four-principles-of-devops

<comment><USER2> Blank page for me, even after enabling cookies and reloading. Hidden domain at work?

<comment><USER3> Just wondering - what browser are you using? Do you have JavaScript disabled? We'd like to diagnose the issue :-)

<comment><USER2> Might have been PEBCAD, it's working now, once I enable cookies for site. Sorry for the distraction.

(FF 30.0, JS enabled, but AdBlock Plus and CookieMonster installed, fyi, jic.)

EDIT: Excellent article BTW.</comment></comment></comment>


The Eccentric Lives of Steinhaus, Banach and Ulam (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://culture.pl/en/article/maths-madness-and-the-manhattan-project-the-eccentric-lives-of-steinhaus-banach-and-ulam <comment><USER2> I wonder sometimes if our modern structured and red taped upper education model could ever cope with such exceptional individuals at all. I cannot stop thinking they will never get the unbridled space they need to express their ideas and concot together without an heavy amount of supervision and channeling toward 'agreed' topics and behaviours, I think education and the application of the law should be very flexible when exceptional individuals are at stake...

<comment><USER3> That is already the case. Many Hollywood stars walk penalty free from repeated drug incidents, while poorer people spend many years in prison for one time minor offenses, for one example amongst many.

You might argue that these people are not the "exceptional" you have in mind, but many are likely to not argue with your definition either.

<comment><USER4> They get off crimes mostly because they can hire good lawyers. A lot of successful entrepreneurs didn't finish college and instead ran out to do their own thing (gates, jobs, zuckerberg).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Steinhaus, Ulam and many other mathematicians in the Lviv school were Jewish, and had to flee or go into hiding to survive the German occupation. Interesting that there is no mention of this in the article.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately today, Lviv remains hostile to Jews by celebrating[1] extreme nationalism. Something I experienced first hand due to my Jewish heritage.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera#Jews](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera#Jews)

<comment><USER7> > Lviv remains hostile to Jews

I'm not sure how that relates to the OP since the article is on a Polish website. "Remains hostile" seems to suggest it was hostile before WWII. Remember, Lviv today is largely Ukrainian (as was Bandera). Most Poles, Jew or gentile, were either expelled after or killed during the war.

<comment><USER4> The wikipedia page on the city has a great description of the history. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Notice Ulam, Feynman, and von Neumann at Los Alamos in

[http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/BigPictures/Ulam_Feynman...](http://www- history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/BigPictures/Ulam_Feynman_von_Neumann.jpeg)

For the Banach match box problem, that is, flip a fair coin x + y times and find the probability of getting heads exactly x times. So, it's a binomial probability problem.

A _Banach space_ is a complete, normed linear space. There is a nice chapter on Banach space in

Walter Rudin, _Real and Complex Analysis_.

There are some nice applications of the Hahn-Banach theorem in

David G. Luenberger, _Optimization by Vector Space Methods_.

In

Patrick Billingsley, _Convergence of Probability Measures_.

is a nice presentation of Ulam's result in measure theory Le Cam called _tightness_ : Roughly, IIRC, for any probability measure P and any a > 0 no matter how small, there exists a sphere S of finite radius so that P(S) > 1 - a. Intuitively the probability mass can't just keep avoiding all spheres; eventually some sphere, if large enough, must cover nearly all the mass. There are some cute technical details.

Once in a paper I used Ulam's result to show that a goofy distribution-free statistical hypothesis test was not trivial. And I've seen other applications.

The hypothesis test was to improve on our work in artificial intelligence for zero day monitoring for problems in server farms and networks. So, Ulam's tightness has played a role in at least one piece of work intended to be practical!

IIRC, Ulam was long head of Los Alamos. Once I heard his lecture on the role in evolution of having two sexes.

There was a Time-Life book on math with a few pages on Ulam. IIRC, Ulam did by hand or mechanical calculator some of the early Monte-Carlo evaluations of critical mass.

At

[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/stanislawu312043....](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/stanislawu312043.html)

is

"It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs."

Stanislaw Ulam

</comment><comment><USER9> There is an intriguing reference here: "...the concept of a spatial x-ray locating device came to [Steinhaus] during a winter stroll spent observing snowflakes falling on his fur coat." Elsewhere, I have found the comment "Steinhaus designed and instrument for localization of strange bodies in the body of a sick person by means of X-rays, based on a simple and elegant geometrical conception (1938) [1]." Does anyone know what this is? A form of tomography, perhaps, or an application of stereology? - which is distinct from tomography, according to this article [2], and is apparently somehow related to his Longimeter, recently discussed here [3].

[1] [http://prac.im.pwr.edu.pl/~hugo/HSC/Steinhaus.htm](http://prac.im.pwr.edu.pl/~hugo/HSC/Steinhaus.htm) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereology) [3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16647821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16647821)

<comment><USER10> From that description, I would guess a form of focal plane tomography ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_plane_tomography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_plane_tomography)), but [http://far.in.tum.de/pub/sielhorst2008jdt/sielhorst2008jdt.p...](http://far.in.tum.de/pub/sielhorst2008jdt/sielhorst2008jdt.pdf) says

 _"The first setup augmenting imaging data registered to an object was described in 1938 by the Austrian mathematician Steinhaus. He described the geometric layout to reveal a bullet inside a patient with a pointer that is visually overlaid on the invisible bullet. This overlay was aligned by construction from any point of view and its registration works without any computation. However, the registration procedure is cumbersome and it has to be repeated for each patient. The setup involves two cathodes that emit X-rays projecting the bullet on a fluoroscopic screen (see Fig. 2). On the other side of the X-ray screen, two spheres are placed symmetrically to the X-ray cathodes. A third sphere is fixed on the crossing of the lines between the two spheres and the two projections of the bullet on the screen. The third sphere represents the bullet. Replacing the screen with a semi-transparent mirror and watching the object through the mirror, the third sphere is overlaid exactly on top of the bullet from any point of view. This is possible because the third sphere is at the location to which the bullet is mirrored. Therefore, the setup yields stereoscopic depth impression. The overlay is restricted to a single point and the system has to be manually calibrated for each augmentation with the support of an X-ray image with two X-ray sources."_

<comment><USER11> > by the Austrian mathematician Steinhaus

Steinhaus was Polish, the confusion probably comes from the fact that he was born in then occupied by Austro-Hungary part of Poland (city of Jaslo, now within borders of Poland).

<comment><USER7> I've noticed more than a few Poles saddled with non-Polish roots in various history books. Banach himself was at one point incorrectly identified as a Russian mathematician in an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sometimes the cause of error may be the historian's ignorance, sometimes nationalistic appropriation by others. Many Poles also often worked abroad during the 19th and 20th centuries because of foreign oppression by the Germans, Russians, and the Austrians (the last to a lesser degree than the first two).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 'Adventures of a Mathematician' is an autobiography of Ulam. I've not read it, but it was recommended by one of my math professors.

<comment><USER13> I have read it, and remains one of my favorite biographies -- Highly recommended. Never thought it would get a mention on HN!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ulam's memoirs are still in print, I think, and very readable.

</comment><comment><USER15> > .. mathematicians who dreamt big, wrote poems, constructed the atomic bomb > and helped organise the first flights to the moon.

Wow! I want to purchase the movie rights -- where do I sign?</comment>


Teach yourself to kern, the fun way - <AUTHOR> http://type.method.ac/#

<comment><USER2> Nice! What surprised me is that I gut relatively good scores despite not knowing very much about the subject.</comment>


NYC Mesh – community-owned network to replace your current internet connection - <AUTHOR> https://nycmesh.net/ <comment><USER3> I run a website about starting and running small wireless ISPs here: [https://startyourownisp.com](https://startyourownisp.com)

We also have a matrix chat room here: [https://riot.im/app/#/room/#startyourownisp:matrix.org](https://riot.im/app/#/room/#startyourownisp:matrix.org)

Don't want to detract from NYC Mesh or the conversation at all just thought this could be interesting for some of the folks on the thread.

<comment><USER4> I have contemplated doing this for many years. I probably won't, but I am really excited about learning. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a similar effort gaining traction in the Los Angeles area: [https://www.communitybroadband.la/](https://www.communitybroadband.la/)

I've also noticed that local municipalities are getting into the ISP business. Beverly Hills, for example, is currently deploying a city-owned/operated fiber-backed ISP: [http://www.beverlyhills.org/fiber](http://www.beverlyhills.org/fiber)

<comment><USER6> Josh from the Community Broadband Project here. Would be happy to answer any questions about our mission and progress in LA. I'm no regular, but we just got a bunch of traffic from Hacker News and I'm here to spread the gospel.

NYC Mesh is doing very cool stuff--we wish them the best. We're in touch with a few other community ISPs who are growing organically in competition against big incumbent ISPs. It's inspiring.

Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Culver City are all constructing municipal fiber right now. In the case of at least WeHo and Culver, it's aimed primarily at businesses. Some residents may see fiber offered by the incumbents, but we did some math of those offerings and it was $133/mo for 1Gbps. It'd be more helpful for the community if reasonable speeds were more affordable and available, than only some wealthy neighborhoods getting fiber.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if laying cable is one of your biggest challenges, but I assume it would be along with right-of-way.

What do you think about the idea of using the sewer system to lay either fiber or 10+gb copper? Before you think about how gross that is, consider the advancements in drone robotics. You would need to devise a cable-laying robot that could traverse the sewer via remote control. Mount fixtures to the top of the pipes and string the cables through, connecting neighborhoods.

This would require convincing the city to lease you the right-of-way and put up a bond to cover any repairs to damage caused by the cables. But it would solve both the bandwidth problem and the "those are _our_ telephone poles!" Problem. What do you think?

<comment><USER8> Water utilities are (justifiably) very protective of their infrastructure. Justifiable because of the extreme expense in closing a street, excavating, and repairing anything that happens to their buried infrastructure. I've seen the one in my city reject a stormwater pipe because of a couple small pieces of crusher dust. I can't see them being positive towards the deliberate installation of another biofilm-forming-surface inside their pipes. But YMMV I'm only speaking from experience in my small neck of the woods!

<comment><USER7> I don't disagree. I think that a full mitigation plan could help. For example showing that fiber can be easily chopped up if a pipe clogged. Maybe biofilm could be mitigated with an electric charge on a conductive outer sheath? I can't see how a single cable or 2 would ever require digging into the street.

<comment><USER9> Even a single cable in the sewer can require digging up the street if the cable causes an obstruction in the pipe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> CBC has a very good piece on NYC Mesh: [http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wifi-nyc-mesh-new-york- cit...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wifi-nyc-mesh-new-york- city-1.4617106)

Also André Staltz's TEDx Talk that mentions it: [https://youtu.be/UjfWAbGfPh0](https://youtu.be/UjfWAbGfPh0)

I really do hope this succeeds and takes off amid the likely scenario that SCOTUS will eventually kill Net Neutrality for good in the next two years. Things like this are the way to go if we want a bit more freedom in terms of surfing the web.

<comment><USER11> You may enjoy: [https://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the- interne...](https://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the- internet.html)

Also, if you're curious about what that looks like today: [https://scuttlebutt.nz](https://scuttlebutt.nz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Come by Sudo Mesh meetings at Omni Commons in Oakland on Tuesdays at 730 for [https://peoplesopen.net/](https://peoplesopen.net/)

Or keep an eye on major repos like the firmware: [https://github.com/sudomesh/sudowrt- firmware](https://github.com/sudomesh/sudowrt-firmware)

There are _many_ places to help. Yes, writing code, but also hands-on stuff like mounting radios on peoples' roofs, grant writing, documentation, etc. Even things like establishing consistency across projects: [https://github.com/sudomesh/bugs/issues/34](https://github.com/sudomesh/bugs/issues/34)

I've really enjoyed it so far this year as a way of practicing software production skills with other community members and non just inside the context of a for-profit startup.

A lot of pieces are far enough it would also make sense to set up meetups and meshes in SF and Peninsula as well.

Tuesdays. 730pm. Omni Common near Macarthur BART stop in Oakland. Come help!

</comment><comment><USER13> What about a mesh that is not connected to the internet?

These days, people use the internet like TV or radio: many consume, few produce.

What about a " _community_ " mesh, where e.g. a small town has websites, email, webservices, gaming hosts etc for shops, businesses, sporting, clubs, council, local news and social media for that town?

<comment><USER14> That place still exists on the internet. The 90s are alive on Tor.

<comment><USER15> can you elaborate on this? would love to explore, but where exactly to start?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So I have been toying with spooling one of these up for the past 6 months. I live too far uptown to get line of sight for their supernode, but I do have not 1, but three LinkNYC kiosks on my corner that offer gigabit for free. Wanted to test out using their LinkNYC option. Was going to use wireguard as a vpn backend on a router.

The only downside for me is that I need to "re-log in" to google once a month. The wife would not be amused. Plus, we are currently paying for 200/20 for about $45 from spectrum.

<comment><USER17> The re-logging in problem can be solved via script. Check for the captive portal login page. If present, simulate clicking the log in button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stuff like this make me long to live in NYC. Only city in the US with the density, technical expertise, and money for this kind of thing to happen.

<comment><USER19> I thought the same was true for the Bay Area, hence why I moved here. I was genuinely surprised to find Google Fiber isn't even available, let alone any mesh networks.

In all other aspects of technical expertise though it's blowing my previous city, Houston, away. Companies open to candidates based on technical expertise alone (rather than throwing non-B.S. degrees straight into the garbage), lots of great meetups, lots of fellow geeks doing exciting work.

Actually, another thing that surprised me was lack of hacker spaces - <USER2> seemed to have the same amount of them... one. The only major one I'm aware of here is Noisebridge, same for Houston which has TX/RX.

edit: oh, apparently SF has quite a few more than I realized. So does Houston, but not as many.

[https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco](https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/San_Francisco) [https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston](https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Houston)

<comment><USER20> Monkeybrains ([https://www.monkeybrains.net/](https://www.monkeybrains.net/)) operates a mesh network in SF. They're not community owned but they are very much a local business.

<comment><USER21> I wanted to like Monkeybrains but they were just too subpar for the competition in terms of speed, reliability and flexibility. I switched to sonic and get 1GBps fiber for barely $12/mo more than what I paid MB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been wanting to get involved in this kind of thing for a while now. Shame they use Slack, and not an open platform like Matrix or IRC, though!

<comment><USER15> I do not like slack either.

that being said, get involved and get them in Matrix or IRC, not too difficult to enact change I think people could get in on it with appropriate leadership!

zulip looks interesting to me as well.

<comment><USER22> I have repeatedly offered to pay for hosting a standalone Matrix server for the Julia community, and so far been ignored. Seems like people just don't care.

I think the best I can do at this point is set up my own server running Matrix (or Zulip, which I haven't really explored) and host my own bridge to ease the transition. It's the classic problem where, now that I actually have money to spend, I don't have free time or infinite energy for side-projects anymore.

<comment><USER23> As much as you're trying to help, the truth is, small projects don't have the resources to do stuff like this. Now they have to devote time (probably someone's limited after work time) to bringing you onboard, getting you setup, etc. Then, you set everything up and let's say you disappear. Now they have this custom setup that only one person knows how to operate. At the end of the day, Slack works. They're already using it. No one has to get trained on new software. You don't need new accounts and passwords and admins and teams. The list goes on. This is a big issue with small projects - everyone wants to join and change some thing that's not part of the core mission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was participating in NYC Mesh for awhile, but eventually I had to unplug because I got notices from my ISP about copyright infringement and I didn't want my internet access to get shut off. So sad. I really want this effort to succeed.

<comment><USER25> Freifunk, a somewhat similar German project solves this by using a mesh VPN to tunnel traffic out.

<comment><USER26> why would i go through all this effort just to let some stranger torrent iron man on my internet account

<comment><USER27> Collective action can give all of us, including ourselves, more freedom. This isn't about torrents, it's about the freedom to use the internet without surveillance and monitoring of our every move.

<comment><USER28> Obligatory tragedy of commons reference

<comment><USER29> The tragedy of the commons is not a natural law.

<comment><USER30> It might be kinda something like a natural law:

\- [Great Oxygenation Event - Wikiwand]([https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Great_Oxygenation_Event](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Great_Oxygenation_Event))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Have you seen [https://altheamesh.com/](https://altheamesh.com/)?

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone know who NYCMesh peers with? From their FAQ:

"Are you an Internet Service Provider (ISP)? No, we are not an ISP, we are a community that shares ownership of a network. Collectively we have our own internet connection at our "supernode". Also some of our members share their own internet connections.

Our network peers with other networks at an internet exchange point and provides access to the internet without traditional ISPs. We are a non-profit project of the New York chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-NY)."

<comment><USER33> They publish their peering details and AS here:

[https://nycmesh.net/peering/](https://nycmesh.net/peering/)

<comment><USER32> Thanks. It's still not clear to me how MYCMesh users would be able to reach the internet.

They state in their FAQ they are not an ISP which leaves me to believe they don't buy transit from anyone.

But looking at that peering link there are only 122K prefixes being advertised at DE-CIX NY and NYCMesh only peering with 14 other ASes there.

That would leave large parts of the internet unreachable. Perhaps Hurricane Electric or one their other 14 peers at DE-CIX NY have agreed to be act as transit AS for NYCMesh?

<comment><USER34> packet.net is main transit provider, and think there are a couple alternatives now as well

<comment><USER32> Ah thats the bare metal cloud provider. They seem like a cool and interesting company too. I'm glad to hear they're involved. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have a few naïve questions maybe someone can answer:

1 - Why aren't they recommending any of the newer routers like the Asus RT-N66U/RT-AC68U? They're well supported by OpenWRT and more available.

2 - To start a similar service in another city, do you need fiber already to be laid? For example, I'm in Pittsburgh and we don't have any fiber anywhere, does that mean it'd be impossible to have a community mesh like this here?

3 - Is there a way to find the "internet backbone" building in your city?

<comment><USER36> Pittsburgh has a wireless community network, [http://www.pittmesh.net](http://www.pittmesh.net), which is run by Meta Mesh Wireless Communities, [https://www.metamesh.org](https://www.metamesh.org). I'm involved!

MMWC doesn't have its own fiber but does have access to KINBER's PennREN fiber network, a little-known gem in the commonwealth that happens to run down Fifth Ave and a few other main roads in the city. We're working on rolling out access to it. As we're a donations- and grant-funded non-profit, our rollout will be slower than a commercial operation.

Pittsburgh has a lot of fiber running through it, but most of it is commercial backbone fiber. One data center that I know of had 12 ISPs peering with it, and that was in 2009. Only Verizon FiOS has executed a residential rollout in the city, and you can read more about folks opinions on that in /r/pittsburgh.

I've passed this thread to the MMWC executive team for them to add more detail!

<comment><USER35> Thank you so much! I'd love to get involved with PittMesh in any way I could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think we had this before a few months ago. It is no different than any other regional transit provider (in the case of their fiber loop) or wireless ISP. You still have to pay for decent peering and you still have to deal with the laws of physics and claude shannon when deploying wireless networks.

<comment><USER9> I recall the NYCmesh people having free bandwidth from an employer or sponsor. That obviously helps. Not exactly scalable or replicable tho.

<comment><USER34> There was a donation of bandwidth for supernode 1, but the cost of that bandwidth is insignificant relative to other costs. The current model is scalable. Supernode 3 is launching in the next week or so and Supernode 4 will be following it soon.

<comment><USER9> How are you covering costs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Cool initiative based on positive ideals. From a practical perspective, NYC citizens have a number of good options for internet access; however, perhaps learnings from this community project can be brought to more needy areas outside the US.

<comment><USER39> Do you live in NYC? I do, and I don't have at all what I'd call "a number of good options" for internet access. In my area, there's two companies who operate similar to a monopoly (Verizon and Optimum), and regularly raise prices arbitrarily and often for no reason.

<comment><USER40> Having _two_ choices actually might put you well above average for the US. Back when I was in Mountain View, CA (a few miles from Google HQ) it was either Comcast or nothing and the irony was not lost on me.

<comment><USER19> AT&T had an offering when I lived in Mountain View that was so comically terrible as to not realistically be an option at all.

<comment><USER41> This is still true as of last year. Comcast was the only viable option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I love the idea but how do you connect to the greater internet? What will happen when you get a request to say what user was running on a certain day talking to whatever, or handle NSLs?

<comment><USER43> From the article:

"The network connects directly to the internet backbone, so we do not rely on an ISP."

Their peering policy: [https://nycmesh.net/peering/](https://nycmesh.net/peering/)

<comment><USER19> I don't understand what that means, "internet backbone?"

Is that a physical location somewhere? I've read on the peering link, are they saying there's an "internet ethernet port" at 375 Pearl St, New York, NY that they plugged their whole mesh network into? Where's the ethernet cable go from there?

I'm probably asking a bit too much here (how does internet work lol) but I don't understand how they've bypassed all ISPs... I just figured Comcast, being an ISP, also has a controlling stake in whatever means by which it gets data across the pacific ocean or whatever.

<comment><USER44> I work for a CDN, but am not a networking expert. I will try to answer as best I can:

Yes, it is a physical location. Often called 'an exchange', there is usually a building in major cities that most networks connect together at. You rent from the building owner, and they provide a 'drop' which is basically a cable you can connect to your core router in your part of the datacenter you are renting (your 'rack' or 'cage')

From that point, you set up BGP sessions with your 'peers', other networks you have agreements with. Sometimes those agreements are for 'transit' (which means you pay per bit sent across the wire, but you can send all your traffic that way) or they are peers you don't pay (you might have other agreements, like we only send this much traffic or that hte inbound and outbound traffic has to match)

According to that peering link from the above poster, these guys will peer with anyone. They basically want as many peers as possible, and are hoping those peers agree to route as much of the internet as possible.

The way BGP works is that each side of the BGP session tells the other 'i will accept and route traffic for these subnets', for example "i will accept packets destined to any IP address in the 188.8.131.52/24 space" The /24 is what is known as a CIDR, and is a way of writing "all the ips between 18.104.22.168 and 18.104.22.168", 256 IP addresses.

So if the core router on my side gets a packet from my network destined to 22.214.171.124, I could send that packet on to the peer who is advertising that they will accept packets destined to 126.96.36.199/24\. You need to have a peer for every IP address to be fully connected to the internet. If you don't, you would normally pay for transit, which will route for all IPs.

<comment><USER45> I just wanted to say thank you for explaining this. I've read about this before, but I feel like something finally clicked when reading your comment.

<comment><USER46> Don't worry, most people don't understand the physical infrastructure of the internet. However, from my understanding, a direct connection to the internet backbone is what gives tier q ISP's their God-like monopolizing power in a given region (like Comcast in most parts of Baltimore city).

However, the backbone nodes require maintenance, so the fee to connect directly is expensive. You can't simply move next to a backbone node and plug in. I presume that backbone fee is the primary reason for the individual's fee for hosting an NYCmesh node.

<comment><USER9> > However, from my understanding, a direct connection to the internet backbone > is what gives tier q ISP's their God-like monopolizing power in a given > region (like Comcast in most parts of Baltimore city).

No, the reason Comcast and other incumbents dominate is that they built out the last mile infrastructure. The backbone costs are a minor expense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Are there any similar initiatives in London?

Failing that, any Londoners who are interested in starting something like this?

<comment><USER48> Not that I know of, and I don't see a major business-case for it. The UK ISP market is much better than its US counterpart (we have no Comcast, for starters) so I'm not sure there would be enough demand for a wireless ISP.

But if you have any ideas on how to make this profitable, I'm up for it. Email in my profile.

<comment><USER49> Correct me if I'm wrong, but ain't Relish ([https://www1.relish.net/](https://www1.relish.net/)) a WISP?

If you guys gather around to chat let me know, I might be interested in participating as well.

<comment><USER48> They use LTE which doesn't really scale well and their reviews have been less than stellar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Are the organizers in this thread? I wonder if you folks were aware of cjdns, and if so why the decision not to use it? I've been thinking about setting up a cjdns-based mesh network in Philly but I don't think I have line-of-sight to any geeks.

<comment><USER51> Early (~3 years ago) NYCMesh used cjdns. I am not 100% sure of the reasons, but I think at the time cjdns had bad performance and was much harder to setup. I personally tried out cjdns recently and was pleasantly surprised with the ease of setup, though I still think hyperborea is having scaling issues and Guifi (the largest mesh) doesn't use it.

There is nothing stopping anyone on NYC Mesh to use cjdns, and some of us do run it for certain services.

<comment><USER52> Cjdns' crypto is a known cpu bottleneck, meaning it isn't well suited for soho routers. Some of us mesh folks are squeezing power out of SBCs with great results, but cjdns' roadmap might have us seeing more performant operation coming up :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The bay area seems to have one such Mesh network, in Oakland: [https://peoplesopen.net/](https://peoplesopen.net/)

It would be great to see something like this on the Peninsula

</comment><comment><USER54> "The network connects directly to the internet backbone, so we do not rely on an ISP."

How does it work? Can anyone connect directly to the Internet backbone?

<comment><USER34> I think that is just meant to be an approachable way of saying that NYC Mesh peers on public internet exchanges

[https://nycmesh.net/peering/](https://nycmesh.net/peering/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Here's another project:

[https://www.rightmesh.io/how-it-works](https://www.rightmesh.io/how-it-works)

<comment><USER56> With all due respect to this project, I'm sure it has a lot of great potential, however:

> Our patent pending switching technology ensures data integrity.

I personally have little interest in trading one network which is controlled by a few people for another which will just be controlled by different set of a few people. Even if it is powered by trendy blockchain or whatever.

I am incredibly excited by some of the meshnet work we are seeing, but any of these which are just seeking to position themselves as power brokers on our future communication systems really need to be left on the wayside.

We've already seen firsthand what happened when our first iteration was turned into a glorified shopping mall. I'd prefer that we avoid this fate with the second iteration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This doesn't seem to actually be a mesh network.

<comment><USER58> Yes, it is, though the homepage doesn't seem to explain it well.

You can connect to their "supernodes" which are the backbone, that connect to the Internet proper. You can also connect via other member nodes. So by my understanding of the colloquial term "mesh" for wifi, it is.

I do take issue with their FAQ stating they're not an ISP. They are providing Internet access to the public. They are an ISP, even if their structure and methods are unconventional. Maybe they're avoiding the term due to legalese?

It's an interesting project. I wonder if something like that would work in urban San Antonio... Hm!

<comment><USER59> Shout out to a fellow San Antonio local!

<comment><USER58> Kai from Ultimate?

internet at cyberfoxfire com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Meh. I put more faith in our corporate overlords developing decent wireless internet service via 5G over NYC Mesh really taking off.

</comment><comment><USER61> city-mesh movement started about 10 years ago, meraki etc are "hot" then, it never went away and stayed relevant, but not as trendy as it used to be.

libremesh is based off openwrt, it needs a web-based dashboard, the firmware seems solid, very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER62> Is there any way to connect to this from the other side of the Hudson?

<comment><USER63> Pringles can.

<comment><USER15> not sure why this was downvoted, a Cantenna [0] was originally created with a pringles can.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978544) (230 comments)

</comment><comment><USER65> Does it comply with Net Neutrality?

</comment><comment><USER66> this seems freaking rad.

</comment><comment><USER67> A big problem with meshnet sofar is that it goes against the status quo, and it cut out the moneymakers and regulators, thus mesh nets have segment distances limited to ethernet and repeaters as well as where does physical infrastructure live? utility poles are owned by someone other than common people, and a trench transect for fibre is limited by property concerns...we need to develop a method of long hauling signals that wont be interfered with and will not interfere physically with anyone else...optical linkage _works_ and has no palpable medium to be destroyed by hostile action. The bandwidth of a line of sight laser is very high, so high that it doesnt need to operate 24-7-364.25 of the year...if two or more LOS linked supernodes cache each other you win...if something gets in the way, point your LOS to a different LOS caching peer...

<comment><USER22> How robust is something like a laser in the face of weather interference, like rain or urban smog/haze?

<comment><USER25> Not very. In the (admittedly old) setup I've seen, the total speed would drop to 100s of kb/s when there was any fog.

<comment><USER67> its better to have it 50% of the time than 0% of the time... radio waves dont do well in fog either... how would you run ethernet at a distance greater than 500 feet?

<comment><USER25> Radio is much less susceptible to fog than light because of the lower frequency.

Usually, at any large distances, you'd try to use fibre optic cables if at all possible.

<comment><USER67> Unfortutnately i post too fast, and dont care about karma... I cant say ive ever downvoted someone over meaningfuly criticical review... ...lower frequency means lower bandwith...wifi frequencies have trouble bouncing around in fog penetrating leaves or even a couple thickness of drywall this is why submarines use ELF... where will you run your fibre optic? on the utility poles, or buried in the ground? how do you connect to someone more than 500 feet from you using ethernet cable how do you mitigate vandalism or theft of your fibre? if you have no connection at all that is inferior to a high bandwith long haul between supernodes that cache each other and are uni directional communicating thus minimizing evesdropping concerns...

<comment><USER68> The best way to do it is probably laser+radio with additional fiber on high- traffic routes. That way you normally have the bandwidth of laser and radio combined, with slower "just radio" as a backup when there's bad weather, and the fiber bandwidth for backbone connections.

<comment><USER67> sorry about the delay, im still posting too fast... ...we dont exactly have permission to run our own hauls on corporate/municipal utility poles or trench glass across private property or public R.OW.s radio spectrum is regulated and off the shelf limited so as to minimize the common users ability to step on licensed spectrum...so we have to go geurilla on the long haul...LOS links can be pointed to a multitude of Tx/Rx stations not just one...this is advantageous when the current environment is legislatively hostile...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stripe ends support for Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin-support?__s=wgpu9brdntzprcbm8c1e&utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Support+for+Bitcoin+and+PHP+5.3+ending+soon <comment><USER2> Well this is another hit for the BTC, and possibly other decentralized cryptocurrencies. Perhaps there are some secure, centralized ones?

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's a serious hit at all. Once Lightning Network is in full force, Stripe support for Bitcoin would be almost pointless anyways.</comment></comment>


Show HN: XZA.FR – a modern URL shortener - xza-fr https://xza.fr <comment><AUTHOR> Got the following error: # ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken in ShortnController#create > The browser returned a 'null' origin for a request with origin-based forgery protection turned on. This usually means you have the 'no-referrer' Referrer-Policy header enabled, or that you the request came from a site that refused to give its origin. This makes it impossible for Rails to verify the source of the requests. Likely the best solution is to change your referrer policy to something less strict like same-origin or strict-same-origin. If you cannot change the referrer policy, you can disable origin checking with the Rails.application.config.action_controller.forgery_protection_origin_check setting

<comment> xza-fr OK yes actually i see how you hit that error. fixed and thanks for telling me

</comment></comment><comment> xza-fr note that i haven't actually uploaded xza.fr/public/tar/source-code.tar yet, but will do soon!</comment>


Shrinking the kernel with a hammer - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/748198/6fa400001570fb39/ <comment><USER2> I think that battle has been lost a while back. Given the 1) dislike of 'conditional code' in the kernel and 2) the use of device tree, there is no longer any possibility for the compiler/linker to remove stuff that isn't actually needed.

I think the big vendors are to blame, they've been dreaming about a single kernel binary that can run on ANY board, with a magic device tree, it suits their own way of 'distributing' SDKs, and it has transformed the kernel from something that you COULD tune to a platform/board to one that is /actively/ discouraged to be tuned to a platform.

A while back a couple of friends and I reverse engineered a 4MB picture frame [0], and had linux and doom running on it, for the lulz. That was kernel 2.6; these days imagining running linux in 4MB makes me sniggers.

[0]: [https://sites.google.com/site/repurposelinux/df3120](https://sites.google.com/site/repurposelinux/df3120)

<comment><USER3> You're being too dismissive IMO. Do you really want the linux kernel to focus mainly on 4MB picture frames at the expense of everybody else? As an embedded dev I very much welcomed the device tree, having to create a billion variations of the same BSP to support various configurations was not fun. "Conditional code" is more prone to bitrot than anything else since you have to test a bunch of different configurations if you want to make sure that it even still compiles correctly.

Besides you're still free to make your own single purpose micro-optimized kernel with only the drivers you want if you feel like it.

I can believe that today's kernel is harder to get to work decently on a 4MB picture frame than in the past. On the other hand it's a lot easier to work with modern embedded SoCs. I think it's a worthy trade-off and a very good pragmatical decision.

<comment><USER2> I actually disagree.

I will take 100% of the time a kernel that /doesn't compile/ because an option has been set that had 'bitrotted' than a kernel that compiles with the same code in a "if (my device tree flag)" block that in fact is _equally borken_ but you'll never know, until days/weeks of debugging to figure out that bit _was_ rotten, and nobody had tested it for years until you.

And in the meantime, that code was rotten, and rolled in in every phone and servers on the planet for absolutely no reason.

At least, when you decide that CONFIG_ARCH_TOASTER is no longer supported, you CAN trim the code out easily. You can't do that with code that is living in shadows.

<comment><USER3> Code that's dynamically disabled is at least checked by the compiler, you can detect a whole bunch of errors that way (function prototypes changing, using deprecated APIs, naming clashes etc...). Of course bitrot will always happen if code is never tested but code that's never actually _built_ will rot much, much faster in my experience.

Then some day one poor sod actually wants to use the option, he gets 4 pages of compilations error and decides maybe he didn't need that after all. Code that compiles doesn't necessarily work but it's a start...

>At least, when you decide that CONFIG_ARCH_TOASTER is no longer supported, you CAN trim the code out easily. You can't do that with code that is living in shadows.

I suppose you're right but again, I feel like you're optimizing for the wrong thing. For one thing the linux kernel is not too keen on removing stuff in my experience, in general older APIs coexist with newer ones and board support is not dropped willy-nilly.

Beyond that I don't know if I should trust my judgement over yours but I'm sure I'll trust the kernel maintainer's judgement over both of ours.

<comment><USER4> > _Code that 's dynamically disabled is at least checked by the compiler_

You can still trivially ensure that kernel with CONFIG_ARCH_TOASTER compiles fine by setting up a build server which automatically checks each and every option.

<comment><USER3> You don't just need to check any single option, you also need to check every combination of options that might reasonably get used together to make sure that it's handled properly. Given the size of the kernel and its thousands of configuration options testing all viable combinations is not reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still have 6x USR2450, one of the first router where you could flash Linux (2.4.20). It had 4MB RAM and 1MB flash, 10mbps, rs232, and it was quite some sport to add a feature there.

You could run LinuxAP on there:

[https://github.com/zoobab/linuxAP-eh](https://github.com/zoobab/linuxAP-eh)

</comment><comment><USER6> This has a Nieztschean tint. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a Linux 4.2.0 kernel, erm, nail.

</comment><comment><USER7> How small did it get? But hard to find.....

<comment><USER8> Previous installments in the series were about shrinking the file size. [https://lwn.net/Articles/741494/](https://lwn.net/Articles/741494/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/744507/](https://lwn.net/Articles/744507/) [https://lwn.net/Articles/746780/](https://lwn.net/Articles/746780/) This one is about shrinking RAM usage.</comment></comment>


First version of TheFacebook [html] - <AUTHOR> http://met0do.org/bunker/fb/

<comment><USER2> What's up with this in the footer? "Financing: Government of the United States · Control: CIA and NSA"

<comment><AUTHOR> No clue i was randomly surfing found out this site

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's down for me

<comment><USER4> You're not missing much. The only thing that I can see on the page is the old facebook header image, like this one [1]. There are some weird invisible elements in the source, but they aren't shown to me for some reason.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thefacebook.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thefacebook.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Suspended by the free host.</comment>


Algorithmatic.com: a repository and dev. env. for algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.algorithmatic.com

<comment><USER2> "To view this page you need Microsoft Silverlight 3 plug-in."

I don't think that was a good idea.

<comment><USER3> If you design stuff for programmers it should be as platform independent as you could possibly make it.

I'm having a hard time with sites that use flash (scribd) or the one mentioned above for stuff that should be done with server side code or dhtml.

I realize that in the case of scribd that might be a bit much to ask, but it looks as though they gave up on page '1'.

<comment><USER4> Weird thing is that I already have Moonlight (Mono-powered Silverlight) installed, but it still isn't working :S

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Algorithmatic, by itself, is a small and simple dynamically typed Object Oriented programming language that serves as a common denominator among popular programming languages. This means that Algorithmatic doesn't rely on any exclusive/new feature – this guarantees the ability to port descent implementations to any other language."

I don't get it. How is a bunch of common algorithms implemented in a custom site-specific language particularly helpful?

Pseudo code for algorithms is widespread, as are working algorithms in almost every language you can think of. How is porting from this "algorithmatic" langauge any better than porting from (say) a Java implementation?

from the FAQ, "Implementations of all type of algorithms do exist wildly on the internet. However, these implementations differ in quality as much as they differ in syntax (or programming language.) "

So how does adding a _new_ syntax (and behind the syntax, an untested interpreter/compiler, runtime etc) and inviting random people to submit algorithms in this _new_ language solve this problem?

I must be missing something.

<comment><USER6> From the perspective of implementing an _individual_ algorithm, it's easier to just google an implementation. But pretend you're writing the standard library internals for a _new_ language['s reference implementation]—where do you start? How do you compare algorithmic approaches, each written a slightly different way, to know which one you want to use? For that matter, how do you know which algorithms you "need" to put into your language (given that if you don't include it, your users will probably just write it themselves instead of complaining to you)?

I think the final goal, actually, would be to have an easy grammar spec that allows automated transformation of this particular code into a given language. That way, all languages, no matter the platform, can have the same core set of algorithm code. This would become the "language-neutral" encoding of the algorithms, open to inspection, and the other libraries produced from it would just be considered object code, not to be modified themselves. Whenever a flaw was found in any language's version of the library, the algorithm or the translating parser could be updated, and the flaw thus fixed in _every_ version of the library. Whenever you came to a new language, you could rightfully expect the same core to be available. Whenever you started writing a new language, you'd get the core "for free" (in est, the price of writing a translator parser spec.)

<comment><USER5> "But pretend you're writing the standard library internals for a new language['s reference implementation]—where do you start?"

(Books by) Knuth? Cormen ?

Seriously though, if someone implementing "standard libraries" for a new programming language has to lookup implementations in some site-specific untested language, it doesn't bode well for the new language's future.

People who write such high impact libraries should be well versed in algorithmics, be able to (1) analyse and port pseudocode, (2)read and comprehend published papers (with mathematical proofs etc), (3) read comprehend and port existing implementations etc.

"I think the final goal, actually, would be to have an easy grammar spec that allows automated transformation of this particular code into a given language. That way, all languages, no matter the platform, can have the same core set of algorithm code."

Why not write an automated translator for(say) Java or C then? vs throwing yet another language into the mix.

Besides, this sounds too idealistic to me. But I guess seeing is believing. I'll believe it when I see a new language's implementor takes this path for a standard library.

I can't think of anyone good enough to write a robust, performant language interpreter/compiler and runtime balking at implementing algorithms and needing automated translation from a website.

<comment><USER6> > I can't think of anyone good enough to write a robust, performant language > interpreter/compiler and runtime balking at implementing algorithms and > needing automated translation from a website.

You're assuming we're talking about big, robust, powerful languages here. This wouldn't be for those, because those can survive without any help. We're talking about a _long tail_ for language design: if you have an idea (say, Erlang's actor-model-as-core) and want to try it out, writing a standard library is a big barrier to putting out something satisfactory enough for "normal" programming that others will want to tinker on your language and help it grow. Imagine if Linus had to invent C when he was starting off with his tiny little prototype of Linux. We have rapid _app_ development; why can't we have rapid _language_ development?

<comment><USER5> "You're assuming we're talking about big, robust, powerful languages here."

No I wasn't. I said " anyone good enough to write robust, performant language _interpreter/compiler_ ".

I said nothing about the _language_ size. Small langauges can be very powerful. _You_ added the "big" adjective.

"If you have an idea (say, Erlang's actor-model-as-core) and want to try it out, writing a standard library is a big barrier to putting out something satisfactory enough for "normal" programming that others will want to tinker on your language and help it grow. "

And do you really think that a collection of random algorithms in an untested language on a website would solve this problem for them?

The way to test out that idea would be to use an existing language (like Scheme,or C) to build the interpreter or compiler for the language you have in mind instantiating the specific programming model you have in mind, write an _application_ or two in your new language, and write the minimum amount of libraries you need, not build a "standard" library by _automatic_ translation from another language.

In the meanwhile you use some kind of FFI to access the underlying language/OS libraries. (e.g arc using PLT Scheme's networking libs).

Besides, the kind of algorithms a "standard library" has are not the ones built on the site (fibonacci and ceasar's cypher in a standard library)?

A "standard library" has collections, os interfaces, guis, regexes, networking libraries and so on. I don't see those kind of algorithms being portable across languages not to mention paradigms. Or were you thinking that the new language would be a "small and simple" sequential object oriented language which is what the site's language seems to be?

I quote from the site

"Algorithmatic, by itself, is a small and simple dynamically typed Object Oriented programming language that serves as a common denominator among popular programming languages".

Says who?

How do you define "common denominator" among "popular programming languages" (like C, C++,Python, Java , C#, javascript, PHP, and Objective C)? I'd like to see a "common denominator" for such a language defined better. And assume you did design such a "common denominator", how would you go about automatically rewriting those algorithms to use an "erlang actor model"?

As I understand automatically converting a sequential non referentially transparent program to a concurrent one is _still_ a research topic. So your "erlang actor model" language won't necessaarily get any benefit from algorithms written in this site's language anyway.

If I understand you right you are saying that someone designing languages (like PG is doing with arc) will now go and write some kind of automatic translator from this site-specific language to their own to get a "standard library"?

I've _never_ heard of _any_ language designer anywhere ever doing that. It maybe that such things have happened and I haven't heard of it. Any real world _examples_ (vs suppositions of what _could_ happen in the future) you have of such an effort would contribute greatly to the discussion.

I _think_ (please correct me if I am wrong) that you are _hypothesizing_ that such a thing _might_ work vs having any successful real world examples of such an approach. I don't think there is a real problem language designers have that this site can solve.

If you have _any_ examples of a language designer creating a _standard library_ for his language by writing a translator for algorithms written in another language and running that translator, please give citations.

And if someone were (crazy enough to) to do something like this, I strongly suspect they would prefer to get some well tested algorithms written in the same language/paradigm "family" to "port" than some random collection of algorithms in a vaguely defined language on a random website.

IOW even if a langauge designer were to create _another_ dynamic object oriented language, he'd do better to attempt porting well tested and robust smalltalk libraries than from (a future version of) this site.

As a thought experiment please imagine automatically converting smalltalk code to say Haskell, or Erlang. If that is too hard today why even bother with the silly algorithms on this site?

And I am not sure an automatic translation would work even in that case. Unless the new language were an exact clone of smalltalk, this "automatic" translation would have so many places the designer would jump in and hand code stuff anyway, that it just wouldn't work out in practice.

I would really appreciate any counter examples of a language designer actually building a standard library like you claim can be done.

<comment><USER6> No, no such thing exists. No one has ever tried to do such a thing before. I'm actually quite confused as to your saying "before any such claims are made"—I have made no claim that such a thing _does_ exist, only that this site _could_ be used to _achieve_ the existence of such a thing. Specifically, I don't support the claims the site makes that it already achieves these things.

As far as I know, though, this non-existence is because no one has ever _thought of_ doing such a thing before, not that it's been tried and didn't work out. No one knows if it can or cannot be done, because it has never been attempted. That's sort of why I had to explain the finer points of the idea, rather than just calling it "an algorithm warehouse" or whatever it would be dubbed if there had already been a prototypical example to classify.

Also, I meant "big" as in the phrase "big in Japan"—well-known or, at the very least, actively in development. A big commit log, in other words.

To be frank, I haven't actually looked at the site we're both talking about here (and Silverlight isn't quite executable on my machine, anyway.) From first glance, it looked to be _trying_ to be a sort of encyclopedia of good, tested implementations of well-known algorithms for hashing, scheduling, compression, garbage collection, error detection, sorting, pathfinding, and so on—the sorts of things you think about when you think "algorithm"—but failing, because it wasn't reaching the right content-creating audience.

These implementations could certainly be written in C, but C isn't a very machine-transformable language—Scheme or Forth would probably be a better choice. The point, though, wouldn't be to transform the _syntax_ (because that's the easy part) but to transform the _paradigm_ —to munge typecasts into real types, or switch loops between iterative and recursive form, or, at its simplest, transform between OOP and functional styles. "Hand-writing" the examples would negate the point, which is to let a computer understand how to write in your language, given pseudocode (or a given Well-Known Language.) Basically, it would apply the goals of RDF to code instead of data.

If it _was_ this thing, then my argument would hold, and you would also be agreeing with me. I'm beginning to suspect our disagreement lies in the fact that the site itself doesn't live up to the potential that I've layed out here, although doing so would be no more effort. Perhaps I should make my own site?

(And just so you know, yes, I'm talking about a completely hypothetical future thingy—this is what I think language design will be like in the future, thus my comment of "why can't we have _rapid language development_?" It would be completely different than what we're doing now, which is reading reference algorithm books (or not-too-well-known-and-quite-recent papers, where this would be much more of a help) and turning the pseudocode into a "pure idea" in your head, and then re-encoding the "pure idea" as code in your language. Instead, you'd teach the computer to do what you're doing, and then just give it the site's URL as training data—in other words, making your compiler an AI. I think this site is a good first step toward that—getting all the world's algorithms in one place, so we can build the training dataset. That's all it is, though, and all I claim it to be.)

<comment><USER5> "I'm actually quite confused as to your saying "before any such claims are made"—I have made no claim that such a thing does exist, only that this site could be used to achieve the existence of such a thing"

I _am_ challenging the claim that "this site could be used to achieve the existence of such a thing". The claims on the site itself are (imo) not worth challenging.

I _am_ saying that languages are different across multiple dimensions sequential vs concurrent (different types say threads, vs message passing ), paradigms - objects, vs functions vs imperative, many kinds of type systems, memory management strategies and so on) that the "automatic translation to get a standard library" is a doomed effort with today's technology in spite of the advances made to date in operational and denotational semantics.

At _best_ , a lot of research needs to eb doneto make such a thing possible.

Is it possible? I guess, eventually. Is it probable in say the next five years? Imnsho, no.

And with that I have said everything I wanted to and this thread is getting too large, which is always a sign that it is time to stop.

Good luck with any effort you make to write such an automatically translatable collection of algorithms. If you can pull it off, I'll be the first to admit my error.

Over and out.

EDIT: I see you added "I'm talking about a completely hypothetical future thingy"

and

"in other words, making your compiler an AI".

OK then, I withdraw my arguments. Sufficiently advanced technology is, after all, indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C Clarke said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The implementaions here don't look that great.

Just take a look at the Naive Prime Generator. I know they call it Naive, but its _very_ naive. To the point where if its checking if i is prime, it tries to see if number _greater than i_ evenly divide it!

There are other optimizations they could toss in there (e.g. since they keep an array of prime numbers they need only divide by those) but you could try to argue that these make the code harder to understand... so for those I'm willing to give a pass.

</comment><comment><USER8> I left the site as soon as I typed in quicksort and nothing came up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Usually I just close the window when asked to upgrade Silverlight, this seems like a good enough reason to upgrade (as much as I dislike it). Really though, why is it needed here? Not trying to hate, just curious...

</comment><comment><USER10> I see a lot of naysayers here, but I think this is a good idea. I was actually considering doing this myself a while ago. One of the best things about Matlab is the community of plugins and algorithms, and having a somewhat central repository that makes them easy to find.

That being said, requiring Silverlight is a deal breaker for me. I'd also like to see something more like github, where it's easy to fork and make improvements to other people's code.

</comment><comment><USER11> When I first opened the page, and saw the front page, I went "Man, this is gonna be great. An in-browser IDE (probably using some site specific syntax) to try out the algorithms. Given a common run-time and an assortment of different types of datasets, you can try out different methods of optimizations right there in the browser without having to do the tedious parts." Then I actually clicked on some links. Then I saw what it was really doing. Then I was sad because I made assumptions.

Seriously though, I'd completely redesign the site. Needing Silverlight to view the algorithm is just insanity. Add in a large amount of varied datasets, and make the goal of it an easy way to experiment with and share algorithms/optimizations (ie, you have 20 different variants of quick sort algorithms. A search for quick sort returns all 20 with graphs indicating the performance of each on each dataset).

As it stands, Wikipedia is a better reference for algorithms, using well- defined and concise pseudo-code to demonstrate the algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER12> 'Type algorithm name here...' "Simplex" → 'your search term didn't match anything'

They forgot the "beta"-badge?

<comment><USER13> right, because everyone needs a quick simplex algorithm under their pillow

<comment><USER12> I think it would be fitting to have in a repository of algorithms; you don't?

Maybe I didn't understand the purpose of the website from its frontpage. (Which is a failure, either mine or the frontpages.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone want to compare this to <http://rosettacode.org/> ?

</comment><comment><USER15> Heh, the search returned nothing for "quick sort" and "hoare".

</comment><comment><USER16> Doh! I thought it was the web page for a former U.S. Vice-President's new band. :(

</comment><comment><USER17> This is a great project, looking forward to it bustling with code.</comment>


Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120525879656021.html <comment><USER2> From what I remember of econ 101, if people are saving more, that should mean more deposits in banks which should then provoke banks to lend more out - easing the credit crunch, which should then lead to more spending, etc so in the long run the extra saving should actually help the economy, no?.

<comment><USER3> Ordinarily this is true. What is happening now is that financial institutions are trying to deleverage, so that will soak up a huge amount of deposits without any extra lending at all.

<comment><USER4> It's not true ordinarily either. Whether people save or spend makes no difference to bank deposits, because all money spent or saved gets deposited in a bank anyway. Spending is just the transfer of your deposits to someone else, not a net change in the number of deposits.

However, if people moved their money from current accounts to savings accounts (which you would expect if people actually wanted to save for the future) then potential lending would increase because banks lend savings cash more readily that current account cash. But people are probably not saving for the future. They are saving because they have less access to credit and/or are worried about losing their job. If anything, that encourages people to liquidate savings accounts rather than increase them, so the potential money banks can lend could be decreasing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just me, or is this headline a couple of words away from belonging on The Onion?

<comment><USER6> I honestly had to check the URL twice, because I was shocked to see articles from The Onion here.

It's scary to think that our economy was so strongly based on financial irresponsibility.

<comment><USER7> There's nothing strange about the headline, as an increase in savings relates to the spending multiplier,

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

...the reason people like Krugman want the government to increase the deficit (the opposite of savings) is to plug the gap. Japan's extra-high savings rate is one reason why it's had 20 years of near-recession.

By saving money, people are (in an indirect way) buying government debt.

<comment><USER8> The Japan problem was not the savings rate. The problem was the government propping up failing institutions for years, instead of just letting them go down. We need to start saving. Let the retail and services based economy decline. Let the creative and manufacturing based economy grow. Export. Krugman and company are going to kill the dollar.

<comment><USER9> Even in the face of a highly devalued dollar, the US is simply no longer equipped to shift to a manufacturing base. The cost structure for any manufacturing company that relies on labor is too high for any margin of competition due to current laws.

If the dollar dies, especially if doing so removes its status as a reserve currency for much of the world's economies, the US economy/nation-state will be in for a long time of restructuring.

The only part of the economy I see any potential real growth is the creative sector. That too is in some serious trouble with the number of science/engineering grads decreasing and the test scores for science and math being as dismal as they are for high schoolers.

That's why I like gold ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The Capps started cutting back. In late spring, they began to trim their spending and paid down about half of their $11,000 credit-card debt. This summer, they used more than half of their government stimulus check, about $1,000, to open a savings account with an attractive interest rate of 5%."

They'd probably be better off paying off their credit card than opening a savings account.

Edit: Just got to the part that says they had already paid off their CC balance. My mistake.

<comment><USER11> As a person with some savings and some credit card debt and an uncomfortably large amount of mortgage debt, I'll say that in an economic downturn there's definitely value in having liquid cash to spend -- you can cover important debts such as taxes or mortgage during a job loss.

It's technically cheapest to run your savings as low as possible in favor of paying down debts as aggressively as possible. I was doing that a couple years ago when times were better, but for the moment the cost (a couple years of financing your savings at reasonable credit card interest rates) sure beats having your own personal liquidity crisis.

<comment><USER12> I don't see the advantage if you still have significant credit available. Let's say you pay off your credit card debt instead of saving. You then lose your job and need money to pay the bills. Wouldn't you just put the bills on your credit card?

It all depends on the interest rate of your current debt compared with the interest rate of your new debt. Presumably, any new credit card debt will be at the same interest rate as your current debt since, as far as I know, new debt doesn't change your interest rate. (If it can, then having a reasonable buffer of savings does seem like the better choice.) Mortgage debt has a lower interest rate than your new debt would in this scenario, so saving is clearly preferable over non-credit card debt.

Anyway, in times like these when the financial system is broken and available credit could suddenly become unavailable, saving is probably a good idea.

<comment><USER13> You can't pay your mortgage with a credit card. If you want cash they charge you a higher rate. So keeping cash on hand just in case can be a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How good could that deal on eggs be to justify the time and PITA to freeze and bag 10 dozen eggs individually? Were they paying her $5 a dozen to take 'em?

</comment><comment><USER15> If United States consumers spend less, what other countries are most influenced by that?

</comment><comment><USER16> Great!

What was most evil about the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush era was the sociological contraction (reduction in good, stable, career-building jobs; mounting health and education costs; solidifying class barriers) that persisted in spite of impressive economic expansion. This was exemplified most poignantly by the 2000s "expansion", wherein job growth at its best was barely keeping up with the country's population increase, and salaries were stagnant except in a few industries. The average American has been in the damn recession for a long time, but now it's something deeper and it's being noticed because of its effect on "important people".

Consumer credit allowed this arrangement of economic-expansion-despite-social- contraction to continue, to the benefit of those riding (note my word choice) large corporations. People were getting poorer, less likely to find good jobs and less able to buy healthcare and higher education, but they could use a slab of plastic to buy trinkets, and this kept the consumer economy afloat, and the people in charge rich (and increasingly so).

The consumer credit rewind's bringing this arrangement to an end. This is beautiful. To those hard-working, saving Americans, keep it up!

<comment><USER17> Comparing job growth to population is a really poor measure.

What you are measuring is ( _on the books_ jobs) / (estimated population). An illegal immigrant contributes to the denominator (perhaps fractionally, depending on how accurate the census is), but not the numerator if his job is off the books.

Jobs/people fails to account for demographic change. We are getting older, and old people work less. Our bubbleicious prosperity also allowed women to stay home if they wanted.

Unemployment is a much better measure; unemployment is (# of job seekers) / (# of workers + # of job seekers). It excludes people who no longer want to work from the denominator, which counting the population does not. I don't know if/how it addresses illegal immigration, however.

<comment><USER8> Unemployment can be a misleading measure. The number of job seekers is not a particularly meaningful measure, nor is it accurately measured. It's much better to look at how many workers are supporting the population of the country. The proportion paying taxes is getting to be less than half. Anyone not paying taxes doesn't count.</comment></comment></comment>


Nautilus 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/open-source-labs/nautilus <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, we've made an update to the docker compose charting tool, Nautilus. Now you can locally run your docker-compose file as a container or a single-node Swarm, monitor its resource usage, and keep multiple files open at once. We've also made some minor UI tweaks.</comment>