How Many Machines Do You Need To Run Your Site? - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/how-many-machines-do-you-need-run-your-site

<comment><USER2> Servers are so damn powerful these days that it's a bit misleading to use the number of servers as a measurement. The standard a few years ago was dual processor PIII ~1Ghz machines with 1-4GB memory. These days it's a 4+ core monster with 8GB+ memory.

Steve Huffman of Reddit posted on their latest server stats, which is interesting: <http://reddit.com/info/2gdcv/comments/c2geky>

Most of the sites these days with a ton of servers just have Google envy or investors who want money to be "put to work". Server and network gear is a really easy way to go through money.

</comment><comment><USER3> HighScalability is an insane site. Their stuff on how Google's datacentre works is crazy! <http://highscalability.com/google-architecture>

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll let you know after we launch if this works, but we just have a single dedicated box for 99/mo.

<comment><AUTHOR> We launched our site with only one machine (dedicated host I think we paid about $100/mo for it as well) and had stories about us on the big blogs (TechCrunch, Gigaom, etc) - it performed like a champ. I guess it depends on what your app is like though.

<comment><USER4> Awesome, good to know.. I was a little nervous that I didn't have a massive cluster ready to go ;) I'm just going to make sure my database indices are in the correct places and see how launch does.</comment></comment></comment>


Android Studio 3.2 Beta - <AUTHOR> https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/06/android-studio-3-2-beta.html <comment><USER3> The whole package this year looks pretty good. A great step towards modernizing the clusterf*ck that has been Android Development.

JetPack is thoughtful collection of APIs along documentation, essentially providing solid guidelines on "how to write a modern android app". Good to see Google embarrassing Single Activity as well as reactive binding/view model patterns, and providing a standard way to implement it.

Then you have Auto.. I mean ConstraintLayout replacing all the other layouts, which is a good step forward too.

Android KTX looks good too, although it does seem to be a bit a odds with Anko? Or maybe not at odds, but looks like it has the same goal as Anko, to provide syntax sugar for Android Development in Kotlin. Could be interpreted as a "no" from Google in regards to Anko. As I really like Anko I wish there was more clear stance of what the future of Anko is.

<comment><USER4> ConstraintLayout is excellent in connection with TransitionManager APIs - <USER2> easy to animate layout changes and data updates now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish they would focus on backward compatibility of their IDE instead, every time I upgrade I need to spend several days on SO to figure out how to work around the newest breakage. This is from a part-time developer who doesn't have the time to keep up with the CATD[0] development model of Android's APIs and UIs.

[0] [https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)

<comment><USER6> Reminder, links to JWZ.org from HN will have NSFW results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Funny how android studio helps you develop in 1 way : developing non-native java apps.

The two ways people develop apps seem to be going fully native, or using web "masks" like react native, outright web directly, or something like apache cordova. Neither of which seem to be the focus of android studio.

Curious.

<comment><USER8> May be that is a good thing.

The worst possible IDE in any world + the worst possible build system in any world = Android Studio.

<comment><USER9> I've been a fan of PyCharm - AS that much worse?

<comment><USER10> I dont think AS is the problem. Android SDK + Build System + Emulators are just not good enough.

If it works the first time you are lucky, if it breaks you are on your own.

<comment><USER4> Anectodally, but most of the breakage around Android build system I see online and with people I mentor is because they don't actually bother to read the first thing about how their build system works.

It's like people would use npm without ever reading how the package.json file is structured... and then complaining how everything is broken because their copy-pasted internet text broke the build.

<comment><USER11> This is my experience also. People not fluent with Gradle or just don't want to invest the necessary time in learning how it works just cut and paste stuff into it and wonder why it doesn't work anymore.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps a build system shouldn't need people to invest so much time into learning it. There must be a better way than all those Gradle API's and all that Groovy syntax.

<comment><USER4> That's a nice sentiment, but you really can't be an engineer in any kind of software development without having an understanding how your software is put together. Especially if you want to do things like builds for different flavors, customize branding or do any kind of changes in the build process.

Some minimal standard of competence and knowledge is required for you to basically function.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I was talking about the needless complexity of Gradle and Groovy in handling a build, not the inherent complexity of a build itself. Builds can easily be described declaratively, as shown by Make and Ant, and this was a major step forward for the science of build descriptions. Gradle and Groovy, however, provide a procedural description of builds, with the apparent intention of generating technical debt in user IT land, and then selling them consultancy services and courses.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


UXTesting, solution for user experience testing problems on apps - <AUTHOR> https://uxtesting.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone!

I am a developer in UXTesting.

UXTesting is a collaborative platform takes the pain out of user experience testing on mobile devices, allowing you to understand your users better, and optimize their interactions with your app.

We value the idea of sharing and want to make teams easy to share users' experience with our platform.

Today we are super pumped to be featured on product hunt. If you like this idea, go ahead to product hunt and search "UXTesting" to upvote to us. We would really appreciate your loves!

Also, if you have any suggestion, we are more than happy to hear from you and we would really love to answer all your questions. thank you!</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find an editor for my Medium article? - <AUTHOR> Looking for an editor that oozes concise and pithy.  Where do I find such a person or service? <comment><USER2> I was going to recommend Open Live Writer but apparently it's not that kind of editor you're looking for ;-)

[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpen...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingOpenLiveWriterAnOpenSourceForkOfWindowsLiveWriter.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> I´m an editor at various magazines, not sure if you are looking for a service in particular or just an individual who can check your work for you alone?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll go ahead and email you. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Flag PR "April fools pranks" - <AUTHOR>

Fellow lusers,
I would like to appeal that you flag all uninspired april fools pranks until april second.
The truth of the matter is that april fools (Which I think some have called the "hackers holiday") has been ruined by oversaturation and PR departments. Instead of being a funny unexpected string of pranks and absurdism, the experience has become a droning hum
 of buzzing marketers and disrupted services.
By keeping the front page pure, it may be possible for a few good pranks to actually surprise and entertain.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Hear. Hear. I promised myself today that I would upvote the general thread this year that reminds the community not to let the front page of HN get filled with April Fools jokes. (There has been a thread for the same purpose each of the last three years.) I like a good joke as much as anyone, but we can keep links to the good stuff in this thread, and let the front page go on being mostly about the year-round core topics of HN.

Just in case someone here hasn't seen it, there is a link to a listing of the top 100 April Fools hoaxes of all time

<http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/>

from the Museum of Hoaxes, of which my favorite is the 1957 BBC story about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/new...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm)

</comment><comment><USER3> In my opinion, the HN community is always best served when posts and comments rise and fall on their merit, not because of flagging rings and ideology.

<comment><USER4> Exactly -- I happen to enjoy a lot of these April Fools pranks, and can especially appreciate that the HN crowd filters the best on their own. Who cares if it's a PR effort if the community likes it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Or, you know, lighten up. If it bothers you so much, I'm not sure what to say. Other sites will have plenty of these too.

"Keeping the front page pure", really? It's only ever as "pure" as we as a community want it to be. It's not your own personal RSS.

</comment><comment><USER6> Agreed. The worry here is that eventually in the coming centuries as more and more days are assigned various meanings that the HN frontpage will decline dramatically in quality. We must nip this in the bud.

<comment><USER7> Rather! Just think of it- we've already lost Christmas, April Fools, New Years, and probably a few others to the unstoppable force of PR departments. The nerve of these people! Just find any decent day of the year and pollute it by pretending to be real people with a sense of humour and personalities. I can imagine a future where they've turned every day into a holiday and spoiled the whole year acting like humans, when they should be doing the same day to day job they have to do for the rest of the time. It sickens me.

<comment><USER7> Erm, I seem to be getting a negative response. This is, I hope you are aware, a joke that carries on the joke of the post above it. I do not actually agree with the sentiments I have given, they were to be imagined with sarcasm.

<comment><USER8> I downvoted your apology because you gotta own it, no apologies!

<comment><USER7> You know, I completely accept that. \grin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How about what people likes gets voted up? And what people don't like doesn't? If people are voting on things, why shouldn't they hit the front page?

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok, there is no more April fools pranks on front page, but now we have this 'Tell HN: Flag PR "April fools pranks"' ...

How did you contribute to the pureness of front page?

<comment><AUTHOR> While I wouldn't claim this to necessarily be the case, if my post were working you wouldn't see the pranks on the front page at first glance because the silly obvious ones would be downvoted.[0]

Ideally the front page would look normal, until you took a look at some of the stories and realize you've been had.

[0]: In other words, theres no distinguishable difference between my post helping or being unnecessary unless it doesn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm _somewhat_ with you here; April Fools has turned into a big advertising campaign, but I don't think we ought to go as far as flagging every April 1st link, as I have seen some rather neat side projects come from April Fools pranks on the web.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, please, flag any b.s. "april fools day" garbage right into the freaking abyss. There's a great site that you can visit on AFD that will helpfully collect any and all such links for you and display them prominently for your enjoyment: It's called Slashdot.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are tired of the same recycled, derivative, boring, inspid gags and so-called "pranks" and would really rather not be bothered with that crap.

</comment><comment><USER13> I kinda look forward to them. It's not a big deal. I basically assume that all posts are April Fools' jokes for this 48 hour period. It's a nice change of pace. It'll be over soon.

</comment><comment><USER14> What would be considered a non-PR April Fool's prank?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you may be thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of identifying stuff that we all agree is good, lets start with stuff we can almost universally agree is bad (Sieve of Eratosthenes style.):

 __* Articles on sites like techcrunch _about_ the prank.

 __* Really obvious stuff like "youtube shutting down".

EDIT: __* Duplicates.

 __* Anything that announces it's a "prank" in the title.

<comment><USER15> Can we generally agree that forbes.com and techcrunch should not be upvoted? Both seem toxic.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I'm starting to feel like I'm not part of techcrunch's target audience.

<comment><USER17> Their constant rss spamming is a drag. I realized that tc is just one level above engadget and lifehacker I would opt in for weekly summaries or another aggregator, ya know any?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> April fools was really a pre internet event.

36 hours of the world doing mostly lame pranks wears a bit thin every year for me anyway.

Pre internet it was lame jokes from friends or really complicated pranks that filtered through the noise. It seemed more community based and thought out.

<comment><USER19> Maybe those of us that think this way should have an annual IRC chat so we can continue to learn things while others act like monkeys. Actually I have got a lot of papers I can get caught up on reading today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> April 1st is national "do not surf the internet" day.

</comment><comment><USER15> What do you consider a "good" prank?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is decent.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470812>

I think it could be a bit more subtle, but it's better than "Google changed a few lines on their expensive web properties to obvious bullshit."

<comment><USER21> It's a shame that one got flagged, it's a well done hoax with some amusing yet highly plausible examples:

<http://www.intercaloninterstates.org/examples.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How about creating a thread just for April Fool's pranks? link: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5471242>

</comment><comment><USER23> How about we just let people vote up and down on stuff they like? Why do you think it is important to control this democratic process? If you haven't noticed there is some commercial aspect to pretty much every post on HN. Let the people decide.

</comment><comment><USER24> I, for one, am going to flag everyone who complains about April fools posts. It's tradition at this point so lighten up.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just let them be downvoted

<comment><USER26> Stories can't be downvoted, only flagged, as the OP suggests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, is this a prank?

<comment><USER28> I think so. Let the downvoting commence!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I got it! This post is a prank itself! LOL</comment>


Ask HN: Do you donate to open source projects? - <AUTHOR> I just donated to Mozilla (choice of the org may be controversial). But this is the first time that I donated to any open source kind of an organization. The process of donating was easy which is really important to me.<p>Do you donate to open source projects or some other technology related cause? <comment><USER2> Yes, I'm an associate member [0] of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) [1], which besides supporting the GNU project in various ways, runs many Free Software-related campaigns [2] and supports a variety of other Free Software projects.

[0]: [https://www.fsf.org/associate/](https://www.fsf.org/associate/)

[1]: [https://www.fsf.org](https://www.fsf.org)

[2]: [https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/](https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, regular donator to FSF, FSFE and KDE

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, either by direct donation, or by buying books written by their communities.

Supermarkets don't take Git pull requests.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am a Free Software Foundation member.</comment>


Idiomatic-css - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/necolas/idiomatic-css <comment><USER2> For §4 Format, i'm more a fan of aligning any vendor-prefixed properties by the colon, i.e.

        .selector-3 {
            -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
               -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
                    box-sizing: border-box;
        }

Much easier to spot any discrepancies between them.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _Take time to describe components, how they work, their limitations, and the > way they are constructed. Don't leave others in the team guessing as to the > purpose of uncommon or non-obvious code._

One rule I really try to enforce: for any CSS declaration with a non-obvious reason ("position: relative", "z-index: 9999", "zoom: 1", "!important", "display: block" together with "float: left", etc.), it MUST have a comment explaining why.

Which absolutely-positioned child led to this "position: relative"? What is this z-index trying to move this object above/below?

Some people say well-written computer code doesn't need commenting. But with CSS this is NEVER the case.

</comment><comment><USER4> The commentors complaining that their pet style is not included seem to be missing the point of an idiomatic CSS guide. I have seen the one rule per line in the wild, but it is rare. The CSS the author has shown is fairly representative of what I see in production code.

However, the author should have stuck to plain CSS instead of including the syntax favored by SCSS. Some of the syntax is specific to the later. Single line comments are a particularly egregious example; they can appear to work in vanilla CSS, but that's only because they force a syntax error that makes the parser skips the line. Including such syntax defeats the entire purpose of the guide.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hate one declaration per line. I wrap at 80ish columns. I can then see all of the CSS for a single page at once on my screen, without paging up and down through some ridiculously long file. It bothers me that idiomatic CSS is so wasteful of vertical space.

<comment><USER6> I have the exact opposite reaction. It's much easier to scan for and read CSS rules on their own - especially when utilizing "wordy" statements like CSS animations, font and background declarations. And for the various vendor- specific prefixes. And for comments.

Here's a real-world example formatted nicely:

      #nav .group LI A {
        color: #fff;
        text-decoration: none;
        display: block;
        padding: 4px 0px 4px 4px;
        border-top: 1px dashed hsla(0, 0%, 100.0000%, 1.0000);
        -webkit-background-clip: padding-box; /* for Safari */
        background-clip: padding-box; /* for IE9+, Firefox 4+, Opera, Chrome */
        -webkit-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
        -moz-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
        -ms-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
        -o-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
        transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
      }

And as one line:

      #nav .group LI A {
        color: #fff; text-decoration: none; display: block; padding: 4px 0px 4px 4px; border-top: 1px dashed hsla(0, 0%, 100.0000%, 1.0000); -webkit-background-clip: padding-box; /* for Safari */ background-clip: padding-box; /* for IE9+, Firefox 4+, Opera, Chrome */ -webkit-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; -moz-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; -ms-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; -o-transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.25s ease-in-out;
      }

Let's say you need to change the border from dashed to solid. Which of these formats is easier to scan for border rules and to edit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where I disagree:

End of line comments are very useful when grepping.

No space inside curlies: {a:b; c:d;}

80 chars is not a sensible width, too short.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is what gists are for: <https://gist.github.com></comment>


Genuine and authentic Engineering Management Talks - <AUTHOR> https://www.eventbrite.com/e/engineering-management-talks-with-plato-tickets-33989841531 <comment><AUTHOR> At the occasion of the launch of our startup _Plato_ , we organize an event with great engineering leaders sharing their experience.

We are honored to have great leaders among our speakers: \- _Tido Carriero_ \- VPE @Segment \- _Luc Vincent_ \- VPE @Lyft \- _Christian McCarrick_ \- VPE @Telmate \- _Shivani Sharma_ \- SEM @ Slack \- _Yi Huang_ -EM @ Facebook \- _Brett Huff_ \- EM @Trello/Atlassian \- _Nikhil Pandit_ \- EM @Clever \- _Tasneem Minakadis_ \- EL @Uber \- _Richard Sun_ \- SDE @Kabam \- _Benjamin de Point_ \- SDE @Datto

These talks will be followed by a networking event with mainly CTOs and engineering managers.

Where? _San Francisco, 350 Rhode Island Street_ When? _on the 15th of May, between 5:30pm and 9pm_</comment>


New Promissing ecard website - <AUTHOR> http://greetmore.com Hi, I have started this flash animated ecard website and have bigger plans to integrated it Social Networks. I am looking out for a VC to take my plans up. Please comment. <comment><AUTHOR> Why self promotion is considered as spam when you have good stuff.

Do all the story links submitted here have no adverts? Thanks for your opinion. and Please wait I am going to contribute few good stories here.

<comment><USER2> > when you have good stuff

This is a point of contention. This forum is for people who are advancing the art not imitating it. Your contribution so far is at least six years out of date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Spam!

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you really visited the link? How can you say that spam?

<comment><USER2> You haven't used your account for anything other than self-promotion of a website which collects email addresses and displays banner adverts. You've made similar posts in other forums too. On four counts, you're unlikely to become an insightful contributor to this forum.</comment></comment></comment>


California Looks to Outlaw Sexual Harassment by VCs - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/california-looks-to-outlaw-sexual-harassment-by-vcs <comment><USER2> As a reformed government executive, I really hate to see matters thrown to the government to correct. Having said that, there is a huge disparity in power between a VC and a founder(s) seeking funding. No founder should be subjected to unwanted advances in order to have a chance at receiving the funding they seek.

I wish we would see a group with influence come forward with a means for holding VCs accountable rather than resorting to seeking government protection. Personally I do think that if a founder is sexually harassed they should be able to sue the offending VC/company, but I fear this will only widen the cavern between women seeking funding and those actually receiving funding. And by with a means, I mean something like what YC did with VCs who were taking advantage of founders with very Unfriendly term sheets not being invited to Demo Days. Maybe something like that could help to keep the VCs in line if their actions kept them from access to deals. Please do not misunderstand, I am not saying that YC should become the gatekeeper/investigator of these issues but maybe tech businesses could come together to form an alliance that would hold VCs accountable for their actions. Although that is not likely to happen I just wish we could find a way that does not involve handing more power/oversight to the government.</comment>


Polymer.js: The Future of Web Application Development? - <AUTHOR> http://www.toptal.com/front-end/polymer-js-the-future-of-web-application-development?utm_source=Engineering+Blog+Subscribers&utm_campaign=6357e87a3b-Blog_Post_Email_Polymer_Review&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_af8c2cde60-6357e87a3b-109835873 <comment><USER2> Pleasant client-side web development is always a thing of future, unfortunately.</comment>


The Joy of Slow Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121832/pleasure-do-it-yourself-slow-computing <comment><USER2> It was an interesting and different kind of article. I particularly loved his attack on companies' claims to democratize some function. I know there's two meanings to the word but we're better off using (verbally and as consumers) the more important one. They're just cheapening the concept for profit.

The other thing I liked was how the author took ownership of the situation while expecting less at the same time. I had this experience using little- known and semi-custom OS's for high security setups. The secure system lacked access to so much stuff. Yet, it had enough stuff on it to be useful and content-proxies were easy enough to build. I occasionally wanted a certain program, Youtube video, or whatever. Yet, my system did exactly what I designed it to do, nothing more and nothing less. And, like the author, I was happy with it rather than disappointed. It's a strange, good feeling which I'm not sure most people experience while using their computers.

Of course, with KVM switch, I could always go right back to a full Windows/Linux system if I couldn't resist the urge or needed to do something modern. We can have the best of both worlds.

<comment> yoz-y For me "democracy" in this context is used as social equality and commonness (both are dictionary definitions).

As such, I think that "democratising" and "making cheaper for profit" are far from being mutually exclusive. Companies use the word democratising because of a lack of a better word I assume. Nevertheless, and this is apparent from the article, the biggest price to pay for Slow Computing is to consecrate it a bunch of your time.

Of course you can deploy your own cloud rather than use, say Dropbox, but you will need to invest a lot of time to learn how stuff works, even more so if you are not a computer engineer. Most people don't have time for that.

In my opinion, most profit is made when the goals of both parties are aligned. A company will make more money if the product they offer remains useful for their clients. The offer of these companies is "you will be able to use this stuff with ease" -> democratisation.

<comment><USER2> You're right about the equality aspect of things getting cheaper. We discussed this on Schneier's blog. It's compatible with "make accessible to everyone" definition. I think, playing devil's advocate, my counter was that we often don't get the same thing because we lack the quality, support, or privacy of prior, paid solutions. My Gmail, Dropbox, and so on are selling me out. My MyKolab and secure hosting solution cost a bit more with totally different effect.

I think the "features" are getting democratized by most of these companies but other critical aspects don't. They don't either because they cost too much to implement or too much profit will be lost by opportunities to sell users out. So, as part of it gets democratized, a serious loss happens as either a tradeoff or straight subversion. The original _it_ isn't democratized: only a watered-down, less trustworthy version which may or may not be a good deal. More good ones all the time, at least. :)

Thoughts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This article puts into words how I have always felt but never could explain. Slow computing, a nice term. It is indeed about awareness, and very much about taking ownership. When I got Nginx running HTTPS with a valid cert, or sent my first mail with postfix/dovecot/roundcube it felt like I did it and that I owned the server and the software. Getting it all working taught me a lot about the fundamentals of the internet. It was a long, slow process though. But very enjoyable and rewarding. Recently I moved away from Gmail/Google calendar for my own mail server and ownCloud, sadly nobody I know understands my euphoric feelings... this writer does.

<comment><USER4> Spent 10+ years trying to grok music on my own, I understand the bliss of finally seeing the big picture. I wish it was mentioned more often, but things are mostly what they should be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I like the idea of calling the use of open source tools "slow computing", and connecting it up in people's minds the way we think about a middle-class fashion.

Or maybe I'm just concerned about the middle class hipsters choosing open source tools ironically or without thought. It might give it an air of exclusion it does not - can not - deserve. I don't want open source tools to become equivalent to a mini penny farthing.

But if it makes people sit up and think the way Whole Foods and the organic food movement has, well, maybe it could work.

<comment><USER6> Hipster: someone who enjoys something I like in a way I don't like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The May First team has a record of resistance to snooping law enforcement > agencies; over the phone, McClelland told me about the security system > they'd built around the servers, which relays its data outside U.S. borders.

Hmm... If I remember correctly, sending data outside the US will cause the US security agencies to treat it as "foreign", and hence a legitimate target for surveillance.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but this is only one of the excuses US Security Agencies use to target traffic, and there are enough other excuses that almost all traffic is eligible for surveillance.

Legal approaches such as those taken by the EFF and ACLU have a lot of value, but I don't think a legal approach of trying to keep your traffic legally un- tappable is going to work. It's clear that the NSA et al are above the law and unconcerned with your rights, so until that is fixed, it's too easy to fall into a "grey" area where they have an excuse to monitor your traffic. Fundamentally this is an approach that tries to make it so the NSA _won 't_ surveil your traffic, which places an unearned amount of trust in the NSA. I think a better approach makes it so that they _can 't_ surveil your traffic-- and for this there are only technical solutions.

Part of this is making sure that the NSA can't spy on _who_ you are talking to, and every solution I know of to that bouncing traffic across multiple servers. I would be very skeptical of such a system that didn't bounce traffic overseas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As much as I enjoy _playing_ with my Linux, OS X, and Windows 8.1 laptops, I have thought of going the free and privacy enhanced mode of Linux, running my OwnCloud, etc.

The thing that holds me back is that I really rely on my Android smartphone for being able to SSH to a server anytime, write, and generally work on most stuff, only slower. The problem is that smart phones track us, even with custimization and are not free software. Why go the privacy route on my laptop, then have a smartphone? Suggestions?

<comment><USER10> My 2c.

I host my own mail server, owncloud, RSS reader, bookmarker, blog and a bunch of other stuff.

I don't particularly like sysadmin tasks or having to update stuff and then hope that nothing breaks, but I love the fact that I'm in control of my data and my computing experience.

On my phone I've been using Android without a Google account and I use the F-droid app store.

There are definitely still ways I'm being surveilled. That's just life in the 21st century I guess.

However, what I love about FOSS is that the software is not exploitative or antagonistic. So much closed-sourced software or Saas apps use sleazy, user- hostile tactics.

This is just not a problem with Free software. Yes, the UIs are sometimes bad or lacking and there might be bugs, but the whole spirit behind the software is, for me, so much more positive. I don't feel like I'm constantly fighting against software designed to exploit me.

<comment><USER11> Can you please elaborate a bit on what you're using for your RSS reader and bookmarker? (and the bunch of other stuff :-)

Thanks!

<comment><USER10> I've been wanting to write a blog post about this transition for ages. Perhaps I should.

Here's a quick list:

* Cloud (files, contacts, photos, calendar): [https://owncloud.org](https://owncloud.org)

* RSS Reader: [http://selfoss.aditu.de/](http://selfoss.aditu.de/)

* Bookmarks (ala pocket): [https://www.wallabag.org/](https://www.wallabag.org/)

* Email: [http://www.iredmail.org/](http://www.iredmail.org/)

* Chat/XMPP: [http://prosody.im](http://prosody.im)

* Git: [http://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html](http://gitolite.com/gitolite/index.html)

* Blog: Blogophile static site generator (but wouldn't recommend anymore, Jekyll is better).

I keep my contacts and calendar on owncloud and sync to my Android with DavDroid [https://davdroid.bitfire.at/what-is- davdroid](https://davdroid.bitfire.at/what-is-davdroid)

On my phone I installed CyanogenMod without Google apps but I recently got a one+ phone with CM installed by default (with Google apps). [https://oneplus.net/](https://oneplus.net/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Interesting to see open source called "slow computing" (not quite what I expected when I clicked on the link). I've never been a big fan of the use of the word "slow" in the various slow movements though. I know the slow movements started with "slow food" and that was chosen to contrast with "fast food", but it does have connotations relating to physical speed, and I think that could be particularly misleading applied to computing. I prefer "thoughtful computing", "thoughtful food", "thoughtful parenting" etc. Too late to change now though.

</comment><comment><USER12> \tangent _There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself._ \- Turing

Worse than built-in obsolescense, we are the agents of our redundancy... and the end of all our coding shall be to return to the place where we began, unneeded.

</comment><comment><USER13> Article however good, and making valid points (I'm so to speak "slow computerist" myself) is a bit chaotic.

"with Ubuntu, a free-and-open operating system managed by a U.K.-based company and a large network of volunteers. It's one of the more user-friendly variants of Linux, which first appeared in 1991 when a student at the University of Helsinki wrote his own version of a then-popular operating system invented at AT&T in the 1970s."

what appeared first? Linux or Ubuntu? Linus "wrote" Ubuntu? Can't really tell from this mess. And it's GNU/Linux or Linux distribution not version btw.

"Emacs, a program first developed in the mid-'70s that runs on a text-only terminal screen."

Well back in the days sure, for past I guess 20 years it has GUI version.

"There are no fonts or wizards. But it displays multiple files side-by-side and plays Tetris."

No fonts?

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the author glorifies the archaic interface of Emacs too much, particularly since he doesn't need it for its original purpose as a programmer's editor. I wonder why he doesn't just use LibreOffice; it's equally free.

</comment><comment><USER15> Huh interesting- never heard of May First/People Link. Anyone have any comments on it? Concept seems appealing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Neat article. It's good to see non-programmers get some of the value that FOSS brings.

I have a fancy aluminium unibody laptop and the latest shiny phone and all that, but I also keep a couple of netbooks at home on which I run archlinux + xmonad. I do almost everything in the terminal; I wrote a lot of my own tools to e.g. read twitter, my email, manage my todo lists, etc. In a high level language with a wide variety of libraries like Python, it requires very little effort to get stuff running if you're a programmer, and you quickly get a nice foundation to customize your own software and workflows. You can get things to integrate in ways that would be nigh impossible to do with other software. For instance, on one of my netbooks, my terminal's color palette changes with the time of the day (i.e. dark on white at night, white on dark during the day) and time of the year (green + red colorscheme on Christmas day!), which in turn propagates to all of my terminal apps to achieve a consistent look. It's absolutely useless, but tons of fun!

The only non terminal program I use is surf, a minimalistic tabless web browser which helps you focus and not get too distracted. All in all, I really like my setup - it'd be impractical to use it at my job, but I could see myself using it exclusively at a different stage of my life. At the end of the day, most of what I do is write {code|prose}.

I have a side project to clean up my setup and release it as an open source project for other people to use, but time is lacking. Although really, most of the fun comes from building your own environment. A good source of inspiration (despite the silly name) is the /r/unixporn subreddit - the screenshots there tend to encapsulate nicely the kind of basic yet pleasant aesthetic that such a setup can offer. For many years, everyone wanted their Linux desktop to be as flashy as what the professional OSs were promising (remember Compiz, Beryl, Project Looking Glass, etc.?) - but I think a Linux environment is best when it plays to its own strengths.

A couple nitpicks regarding the article because I'm a nerd :)

 _> Instead of relying on rich kids in a Googleplex somewhere, Slow Computing works best when we're employing people nearby, like Jamie McClelland, to adapt open tools to local needs. He's my farmer; May First is my CSA._

Does the author realize that there is a non-negligible overlap between contributors to the software he praises and the rich kids from the Googleplex?

 _> Despite its scale, the original amateurism of Linux is alive and well; once, when a student was helping me set up my computer for a lecture at his college, he told me that he'd helped design Ubuntu's icons._

What a gauche formulation that needlessly diminishes the work of the student.

Not a nitpick: Sudo room in Oakland is great. If you're in the Bay Area, check it out. I started going there when I lived in Oakland a couple years ago because noisebridge was too far away and becoming too... unfriendly, and I was not disappointed. One of the main things I miss about living in Oakland for sure.

<comment><USER17> >Does the author realize that there is a non-negligible overlap between contributors to the software he praises and the rich kids from the Googleplex?

Probably not, but it shows how fashionable tech worker hate has become. You don't usually see digs like that at "rich doctors" in articles on our heath care system, despite American doctors being the highest paid in the world: [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/02/amer...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/02/american_doctors_are_overpaid_medicare_is_cheaper_than_private_insurance.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Eric Schmidt doesn't care if I'm using Emacs

Actually, yes he does especially if you use GNU/Linux because that runs the world. The importance of free/open source is so great that if the popular libraries switched to a proprietary license a lot of companies would go bankrupt paying the license fees.

<comment><USER19> Licensing is the reason all the Apple GNU tools are forever stuck on old versions now. Once the tools moved to GPLv3, Apple stopped updating them. Check out how old your version of /bin/bash is on a completely up-to-date OS X machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I appreciate author's effort in explaining the useful fashion, and I wonder whether he enlightens us about his mobile phone.</comment>


How to Build Your Own Quantum Entanglement Experiment - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/how-to-build-your-own-quantum-entanglement-experiment-part-1-of-2/ <comment><USER2> This is a very nice experiment that demonstrates very fundamental physics. However, the measurements conducted by the author do not show entanglement but merely that photons are emitted simultaneously in opposite directions with perpendicular polarization. To get closer to showing entanglement, you would really have to show a violation of the Bell inequalities, which are mentioned briefly at the end of part two.

<comment><USER3> I think he is aiming to detect entangled pairs, things that others have proven entangled, rather than prove them entangled himself. For instance: a could chamber can detect a cosmic ray, but proving that it was a cosmic ray requires much more. That you can detect such things so simply, that you can manifest them in your home, is worth the effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Part 2: [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical- opalescence/ho...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical- opalescence/how-to-build-your-own-quantum-entanglement-experiment- part-2-of-2/)

</comment><comment><USER5> it's just detecting the emission of .5 MeV from the positron hitting an electron (annihilation). not much in terms of testing actual entanglement related to spin.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any observable can be entangled. There is nothing special about spin. In fact in "real" entanglement experiments the entangled observable is polarization, not spin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Needs way more images. Read both parts but I don't want to think of the setup in my mind, as I might be wrong.</comment>


Ask HN: If You Could Make Anything, What Would You Make? - <AUTHOR> I'm directing this one at the hackers and makers.<p>Others are welcome too. <comment><USER2> > anything

Perpetual motion machine to provide infinite electricity. Perhaps it could use some loophole to harvest background energy or tap into another dimension where energy is abudant. Effects: With infinite electricity machines, fossil fuels and distribution system become obsolete, all technological processes are now thousands of times cheaper and tranportation becomes free. All products/foods/tools now can be autonomously created(think space colonies), limited only by raw resources. Agriculture is replaced by decentralized vertical farms and robots. Factories switch to automated production, fueled by free electricity. Robots can run forever, all device will have permanent electricity supply. All problems with pollution/warming/etc start to disappear as energy usage switched to free electricity.

<comment><USER3> I fear that your perpetual motion machine would be promptly weaponized. I'm not sure what that would look like, but this seems to be human nature...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would invent a time machine and go back to the night of 31 March 1837 in the home of Countess Cristina Belgiojoso to hear the two greatest pianists in history - Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg - duel each other in concert.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a bad idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Transporter, as in the Star Trek series. We're talking of particles these days, but let's get it done for people and objects.

Imagine the changes to society... Instantly visiting someone on the other side of the planet, or for that matter, shipping anything to and from a colony in another planet.

</comment><comment><USER6> An artificial womb. Would save a lot of stress for a lot of people.

</comment><comment><USER7> An accurate history book.</comment>


How Whereoscope (YC S10) located a market for its family-finder app - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/09/20/do-you-know-where-your-child-or-husband-or-girlfriend-is-whereoscope-can-tell-you/

<comment><USER2> _we think we can get 10 million families on it, no problem._

Seriously? No problem? I'd love to know the strategy that makes getting 10 million people to pay $10/month, "no problem". I try not to post negative comments, but I just don't see how anyone can say that with a straight face.

<comment><USER3> I agree, that's a pretty naive statement to make unless you can:

a) Make a believable case for there being 10 million people who would be willing to pay for your product.

b) Make a believable plan for how you're going to reach those 10 million people.

Who have you guys talked to other than one of the founders' girlfriends? Do you have real data, qualitative and quantitative, that backs up the claim that you've located a market for Whereoscope? Is anyone paying for the product yet?

Most of statements in the article seem rather speculative.

<comment><USER4> You raise valid criticisms, and ones we considered for some time before building the product as we did.

a) Multiple proxies for demand exist, from the existing carrier-based services to portable GPS units to the use of cards swiped at the school gate in Japan and China.

b) Agreed. And the people we share our go-to-market plan with agree.

I make it a point to speak on the phone to several families a week. We have heard from hundreds of users directly via e-mail.

There is a long road from thousands to tens of millions - we don't pretend otherwise, but we do have that road mapped out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, misread that title at first, thought it said Whoreoscope, for finding women of the night. Similar to SCVNGR, I keep thinking it's some sort of Subversion too.

<comment><USER6> Why was he downvotted? I too mis-read it as such, and this might be a valid concern to bring up to the developers, imo.

I thought it was a play on words: Horoscope/Whereoscope, some sort of horoscope website that guesses your sex life?

<comment><USER7> It's a common enough mix-up that someone actually registered the domain.

<comment><USER8> That domain's been around a long time, no doubt because someone imagined the Venn diagram of people interested in astrological predictions intersected with people who don't always spell things properly.

Asking people to spell Whereoscope even in the App Store search may also be posing a challenge.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but the nomenclature of YC companies is one of the things that still makes them seem a little too easily dismissable.

P.S. Private to H</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>: PickFly.com is still available...

</comment><comment><USER9> With an admitted android bias, I'm having a hard time seeing why someone would pay $5-10/mo for this, working only on IOS4, instead of using Google Latitude for free, on any number of supported devices.

Latitude doesn't support the manual geofence alerts, but it does have its own automated alerts, the pros and cons of which are up for debate. For many people, though, not having to set up and curate alert settings may actually be a welcome convenience.

<comment><USER4> Hi,

Latitude (and other friend finders) are solving a different problem.

Our users (families, couples, etc.) tell us their main concerns are:

1) Privacy model: people don't want to broadcast location to everyone, or (particularly for women) have their use of such a service be known. Having adjustable privacy settings don't solve this problem.

2) Battery: As soon as you notice battery drain, users turn the service off.

We believe we've solved the first (with small, closed, private groups) and the second (with sampling only when necessary).

Our Android version is under development right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Extension: pets, vehicles, city bus, subway train

<comment><USER4> Definitely :) I'm one of the developers and we actually have hockey teams, couples, real estate agents, small legal teams and tour bus drivers using the app as it is.

There are also quite a few people who just track their own iPhone in case it's lost, stolen, or for curiosity about their own movements.</comment></comment>


The Creator of 'Doom' Is Now A Facebook Employee - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/the-creator-of-doom-is-now-a-facebook-employee/ <comment><USER2> There's been a flurry of threads, and I've not seen this discussed. As a huge fan of Carmack and a believer in VR, the acquisition is interesting, in that:

\- John Carmack's OR work was not just on the mechanism of VR in terms of the screens, latency, but also on an embedded operating system to best drive the experience. The fact that Zuckerberg in the investment call mentioned this as a 'new device platform' (not desktop, not mobile) could be taken somewhat literally. This could be an interesting way for FB to become part of a new embedded platform, written to drive these displays. This Facebook Display OS could be next years press froth that was the Facebook Phone OS. While AR / Glass is not much like OR, the platform might be Mark's play here, just as much as a 'seems like a good long bet'.

\- John fairly recently discussed how Armadillo was really not something he could put much more money in. Fairly quickly he has got into a situation that (post golden handcuffs) he could seriously restart this. While it's funny to imagine Zuckerberg/Carmack in code review meetings :) the reality if the situation might be that this OR adventure is big-picture just John's way back home to Armadillo in a few years. Needs must and all that.

I'm still internalizing the news (as a dev/purchaser of both DK1 and preorder DK2) but some things do seem apparent today:

\- This is probably a good time for one of the VR also-rans to do a 'Oculus Rift kickerstarter V2' on this news. Rightly or wrongly there's now a huge need for a new white knight in VR that could be tapped.

\- What JC does/says now is a barometer for a lot of people in the OR community.

\- OR's biggest pitfall will now be loss of focus. There are now so many distractions, from metaverses to HR noise.

Personally I think FB will be hands-off, and this is not a disaster but then my main excitement is really just on getting to CV1 as soon as possible, regardless of who owns the most stock, and today's news helps that.

<comment><USER3> Carmack has started tweeting a bit about the deal, including:

"I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale."

"For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week.I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR."

<comment><USER4> Right, I see. Carmack sold out so he can fulfill his adolescent fantasies of being the programmer behind _Snow Crash_ 's metaverse.

Unfortunately, all it's going to be is a lame Facebook-branded knockoff of _Second Life_.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't aware working for a different company implies "selling out".

Get some perspective, please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of when Jamie Zawinski (of Netscape fame) became an AOL employee: [http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/aol.html](http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/aol.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> If Carmack obtained any sort of options or shares in Oculus stock prior to this deal, this is likely to be quite a hefty payday for him, no?

Just goes to show that his business sense was dead on, and he aligned his position with an organization he instinctively perceived as valuable _before_ it's value exploded. It's probably safe to say, though, that his participation in the company also augmented the perception of its value, by his association acting as a defacto endorsement.

<comment><USER8> He joined less than a year ago. Assuming he received a standard options package, I doubt his options vested.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty much inconceivable that he'd have a "standard options package"

He would have been courted, offered a substantial slice of equity, and his contribution and membership of the leadership team (he's the CTO!) would have significantly contributed to the valuation.

He'd have made out huge-time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If we see a virtual facebook before a virtual fps I'm going to pull my hair out.

<comment><USER11> There are already plenty of fps you can try on the Oculus SDK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> April 1st is still many days away... "Teh Carmack" is up there with the least likely people I'd imaging being employed by Facebook.

<comment><USER13> With the recent agism article, I get the impression that most of the Facebook employees would think Carmack is to old for their "culture".

<comment><USER14> Not enough of a brogrammer for their standards.

<comment><USER15> As an engineer at Facebook, I will say that couldn't be further from the truth. Every reaction I've seen has been overwhelmingly positive, full of amazement and excitement at the chance to meet or work with one of our greatest idols.

<comment><USER16> Come now, your facts clearly have no place in this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What a legend. Amazing that the previous company would not listen to him. I guess it's the old case of the tech lead not being compatible with the MBA playbook so he left. Maybe Harvard should update their list of 'When these people speak listen' as it's obviously way way out of date.

</comment><comment><USER18> While a surprising turn to me that he ends up at Facebook... I think a lot of people forget that id Software sold to Bethesda in 2009. He's known as one of the most independent game developers, but he's been "an employee" for some time now.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm in awe of the clickbaity title here. I seriously doubt Carmack is going to start hacking in PHP or something.

<comment><USER20> Facebook doesn't _just_ do web development and analytics.

Their datacenters alone are big enough to warrant hardware engineers for their custom servers and switches, facilities designers, ex-HVAC employees, et cetera. ([http://www.opencompute.org/](http://www.opencompute.org/))

This is obviously a serious acquisition, and Carmack's talent no doubt played a small part in it.

Explain again why "employee" in the title makes this clickbait?

<comment><USER19> Because it makes it seem like he's just another peon, rather than the CTO of a subsidiary. I know that Facebook requires a very diverse set of skils/positions in order to run, it just seems kind of hilarious to say John Carmack is now a Facebook employee :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Never imagined I'd be writing the words "facebook" and "John Carmack" in the same sentence.

</comment><comment><USER21> Assimilation is death, and another one of our legends has been taken.

Carmack, if there is still hope, please Do The Right Thing!

<comment><USER22> You reckon Facebook is like the Borg?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was really interested in what Oculus does. I'm a little sad about this; I have to be honest. I worry Facebook will really cheapen what they are doing. We'll see.

</comment><comment><USER24> The creator of Facemash is now a Facebook founder.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am looking forward to Carmack writing php.

Oh wait, did I say php? I meant hack. On the hhvm.

CAN'T WAIT.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder what happens when John Carmack hangs out with Mike Matas.</comment>


Would you work on one of these projects for quick Equity? - <AUTHOR> http://latelabs.com/projects

<comment><USER2> Not at all. I have virtually no guarantee that my equity share won't be diluted to nothing, which is even less than the slight sense of obligation an owner might feel towards their full-time employees who are working for equity.</comment>


The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make - <AUTHOR> http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2010/04/16/the-biggest-mistake-startups-make/

<comment><USER2> Not sure if the headline "biggest mistake" fits here. But the product complexity and selling the business into bigger organization is a valid point.</comment>


Why the NYC Startup Scene is Hot (Hint: Not Fred Wilson)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/03/why-the-nyc-startup-scene-is-hot-hint-not-fred-wilson.html

<comment><USER2> Do we really need to see these 'This is why NYC is awesome for startups' posts every week?

I mean I'm getting sick of these and I live here. I can only imagine how non- New Yorkers feel about them.

<comment><USER3> Living in Seattle was the same thing. Tons of people who had a chip on their shoulders about the Bay Areas's startup scene. It was a constant onslaught of locals trying to prove that Seattle's was just as vibrant.

<comment><USER4> NYC here, and I am _really_ sick of hearing about this.

I just don't care anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a big factor of "why now in NYC?" was the recession: with firms collapsing, job security at an all time low, and dismal salary and bonu$ prospects, all the talented individuals that had flocked to Wall Street and hedge funds were now leaving or forced out. This yielded two things: smart, networked, tech savvy individuals that had monetary padding (via a few years of pulling down salaries and bonuses back in the gilded era) to bootstrap an idea and the network to tap into AND investment oriented folks looking for opportunities that offered a better ROI than the dismal public capital markets'.

<comment><USER6> There's some truth to this, but it's probably overstated. Almost all of the smart people on Wall Street are quants and, except in large-scale layoffs, they aren't likely to be let go.

Also, the deciding factor regarding whether New York can become an innovation/startup hub will be if the rents come down fast enough. So far, signals are mixed but more negative.

<comment><USER7> There are a _ton_ of smart people on Wall St who aren't quants. And I personally know startups being started because of exactly what the parent said.

Incidentally based on my experience of NY, a seldom noticed major drag on startups is that by default if you create a startup while working for someone else, your employer can declare it a work for hire and just take all of the associated intellectual property. (Said default is reinforced by the standard employment contracts.) In California your right to own what you do in your own time with your own property is protected by state law. This is huge.

How many startups never happen because people have been burned by this, or know people who have been burned by this?

<comment><USER6> _There are a ton of smart people on Wall St who aren't quants._

I'm including the smart traders who aren't considered quants now but would have been classified as quants 5 years ago.

 _How many startups never happen because people have been burned by this, or know people who have been burned by this?_

I haven't heard of it, but it may happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to be clear, I'm not hating on investors. I just think that often they get a disproportionate amount of credit and glory as compared to the founders who slave away in anonymity for long periods in an effort to create something of value. VC's have their place, but it is not at the center.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but when you're talking about what makes a place better than another for startups, what matters is not who's more important, but what the limiting factor is.

And to me it seems clear that in NYC it's investors, not entrepreneurs. Sure there might be tons of smart & innovative hackers here. But if most of them aren't going to get funded, then they're gonna move to the Valley.

(I realize more investors could move here/get started here, and it does seem to be happening, but they have much more inertia and are rich, so they don't _have_ to move, unlike most cash-strapped entrepreneurs looking for the next bit of funding that will allow them to really expand.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Name ten startups that are awesome from NYC off the top of your head. Ten with products you use at least once a week? I live in NYC, and am happy to see things growing, but NYC is not 'on fire.'</comment>


FaceApp raises concern about how photos are being used to create aging effect - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/16/faceapp-ios-privacy/ <comment><USER2> According to Wikipedia [0], the app was launched 2 and a half years ago. So back in early 2017, machine learning on mobile was just beginning to gain traction. In fact, Core ML was only launched later at WWDC 2017 [1].

Yes it does look fishy. Today we have TensorFlow lite and Core ML, but to me it makes sense they did it this way back then.

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

[1]: [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/ios-11-brings-new- fea...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/ios-11-brings-new-features-to- iphone-and-ipad-this-fall/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be nice if Android permissions allowed a three way choice: 1\. Allow access to photos 2\. No access to photos 3\. Isolated Photo Storage

Where option (3) and option (1) appear transparent to the application requesting the permission

<comment><USER4> I just used it on iOS. It asked for permissions to photos. I said no. But I did give it access to the camera. I can use the share sheet to manually save it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone with legal sense should look into what is mentioned in the app's EULA.</comment>


Bit Twiddling Hacks - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBitsSetKernighan

<comment><USER2> Previous submissions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2019306>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1519869>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=513935> <\- A few comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=86419> <\- A few comments

</comment><comment><USER3> Hank Warren's book, Hacker's Delight, ought to be on everyone's bookshelf. Also the venerable MIT TR, Hakmem.</comment>


Scaling PHP Apps - <AUTHOR> https://gum.co/scalingphp <comment><USER2> Note to the author: Please, please get a better designed book image. First impressions go a long way and making a good looking book image is a lot easier than it looks.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it paranoid to avoid submitting applications to hire.withgoogle.com? - <AUTHOR> More and more I am hesitant to share information with companies like google. Sure, it seems quixotic since they capture your information in so many different ways. But just because they have so much information on me does not mean I should willingly give all information to them. Well, that is my belief.
I should say that I don't see google as the only or worst culprit of this -- it is just that I was looking at a company this morning who use hire.withgoogle.com as part of the G-suite.
I guess I am curious how other people here view this and what you do, if anything, to avoid it? <comment><USER2> With every product google offers you always have to wonder what their angle is and to what extent they will datamine it. Google offering a service that vacuums up CV's is one of those cases where you can almost bet that they are not doing this from an altruistic point of view but that they would very much like to have your CV, and getting companies to request those CVs gets others to carry water for them.</comment>


Bitcoin Is Being Monitored by an Increasingly Wary U.S. Government - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/virtual-currencies-bitcoin-being-monitored-us-government-532063.html <comment><USER2> In 2013, HSBC was fined for failing to appropriately monitor nearly $700B(B as in BILLION) in transactions between Mexico and the US alone. [1] Yet we're supposed to be more worried about digital currency because of $600 (dollars, not millions or billions, just dollars) worth of bitcoin found its way to the Gaza strip? [2]

The only interesting part of this article is that post publication, the bitcoin numbers were updated by a source from the Dept. of Treasury.

This article is just FUD and nonsense during a slow news cycle. Banks and wire transfers will continue to be the primary vehicle for money laundering and terrorism financing for the foreseeable future.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-02/hsbc- judg...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge- approves-1-9b-drug-money)

[2] [https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column/private-sector/new- fro...](https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column/private-sector/new-frontier- terror-fundraising-bitcoin-1089)

<comment><USER3> The article specifically says Bitcoin is thought to be too transparent for terrorists to use seriously, and that the gov't is more worried about the possibility of new, les traceable cryptocurrencies being developed.

<comment><USER4> Or are they worried about the idea of a future where their spending is transparent?

<comment><USER5> Excellent point. Here in the US, we have payoffs to government officials on the local, state, and national levels.

I like the idea of a Bitcoin like currency with 100% transparency in universal use. Privacy is important to me, but if everyone on earth had access to all financial transactions that would help stop corruption. Use case: turning my personal software agent to free to evaluate candidates in upcoming elections, not invest in companies if I dislike who they do business with, etc.

<comment><USER6> There are many ways to evade such a system already. For example, one of our ex-PMs didn't get any money from a certain company; they just paid €25M to another guy, who was such a friend that he paid for the ex-PM's home, hired his wife and driver, bought thousands of copies of his book, etc.

<comment><USER7> Wow, he sounds like a really great guy! Everyone needs a friend like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is some serious FUD, pretty standard for Newsweeks bitcoin reporting, which included harassment of Dorian Nakomoto.

This is probably an unpopular opinion on HN, but let's face it, P2P protocols like bitcoin are relatively easy to disrupt for nation state actors, especially the US!

For a relatively small cost, the blockchain could be flooded with bogus junk to DoS. The bootstrap mechanism could easily be MITMd to netsplit new nodes. Those are just technological mechanisms off the top of my head, which assume a perfect hypothetical cryptocurrency with none of the teething problems that all of the actual cryptocurrencies have.

ISIS could come up with "Terrorcoin" (which is the underlying vague threat of the article) but without any mechanism to transfer those coins to a fungible real world currency, it's useless anyway.

Go home Newsweek, you're drunk.

<comment><USER9> > For a relatively small cost, the blockchain could be flooded with bogus junk > to DoS.

It's certainly possible for a government to pay to consume the available space in a blockchain with a very small capacity limit such as Bitcoin has, but I think you miss the very important dynamics that undermine this attack vector - namely that such an attack is a wealth transfer from the attacker to the defender. This is antifragility at its finest.

Let's say that some acronym-agency decided to "spam" the blockchain as you suggest.

The result would not be a "DoS-like" disruption to the mining or node network itself, but just an increase in the cost to make a transaction (we've seen this in the so-called "spam attacks" on the Bitcoin blockchain in the last year). Beyond a certain transaction cost, the demand for space in the blockchain will just diffuse to a competing crypto with cheaper transactions and be harder to trace. Oops.

Moreover, in the meantime, the attacker is simply transferring his wealth to the miners in the form of artificially high fees. The miners will happily accept the attackers money and use it to build more mining capacity. If blocks stay full, eventually miners will decide to mine larger blocks, raising the cost of the attack. How polite of the attacker to pay the mining network to build out capacity to handle his attack!

The result is that all the activity you hoped to suppress just diffuses to other cryptos and becomes harder to track. Meanwhile the attacker is subsidizing a better mining network. That's a bad attack.

Relaxing (or removing) the block size constraint doesn't help the attacker. With a higher constraint, the attacker must spend more to fill up the blockchain, raising the cost of the attack and increasing the wealth transfer from the attacker to the miner.

Bitcoin clients like Bitcoin Unlimited that would make the limit a dynamic variable create a whole new wrinkle for the attacker: because such a limit is an emergent network property, the attack cannot even really be accurately planned or budgeted - the attacker literally has to hit a moving target.

But let's say our attacker doesn't care about plan or budget. As the attacker fills space on our "Unlimited" blockchain, blocks could bloat to the maximum size tolerated by a supermajority of the node network - the "emergent" blocksize limit. This is exactly the same size the "preplanned" blocksize limit would eventually ratchet up to in a sustained block-filling attack, the only difference is the mechanism used to raise the limit.

IOW, if you think this "spam attack" through - regardless of the block size limit - the network will automatically adjust to make the cost of the attack as expensive as possible, minimizing the disruption to normal users and maximizing the wealth transfer from the attacker to the miner.

The fact that blockchain "spam attacks" are actually wealth transfers from the attacker to the mining network is the primary reason why these events cannot even be correctly viewed as "attacks" \- _these are paying customers!_

A blockchain spam attack is exactly like trying to shut down Starbucks by planting a million stooges at every store to purchase lattes so that regular customers can't shop there. Starbucks gets rich from all the money the attacker is feeding it, and organic demand for coffee just shifts to other stores.

TL;DR I think there's no such thing as a blockchain spam attack - the worst that an attacker could do might be to raise transaction prices on the Bitcoin blockchain and keep them artificially high for long enough that demand for _Bitcoin_ transactions eventually collapses and (counterproductively for our attacker) goes to other cryptos.

<comment><USER10> The US, China, et al would likely be able to blackhole most of the Bitcoin network packets on the backbone and _definitely_ could simply take down the network with a traditional DoS. Ever won a fight for bandwidth with your upstream router?

The real question is whether they could use protocol or cryptography weaknesses to break it with less effort. Something like a weakness in the hash or signing methods could allow them to disrupt the network state in a basically unrecoverable way with many fewer packets and not requiring a persistent attack.

<comment><USER11> The problem with that attack is that Bitcoin is not very high bandwidth which makes it easy to put behind an anonymizer.

You could DoS the anonymizer but now you're into large collateral damage and the anonymizer may not be in a country where your agents control the backbone.

<comment><USER10> I agree you could harden a cryptocurrency, I was merely pointing out that Bitcoin is not. (And would require reaching consesus or having a fork to become one.)

Further, Im not sure that there's an anonymization network that could sustain being the consensus network backbone without also leaking the information to a pervasive, persistent adversary.

Things like TOR likely can already be penetrated by the US or China or Russia, and things like FreeNet are likely too slow to reach global consesus fast enough to prevent diverging chains.

Also, DoSing the network doesn't require you deanonymize them, merely that you can fill most of their anonymous routes with traffic (or that you can drop packets along them). This is problematic, because the network fundamentally must publish routes. The underlying architecture isn't meant to operate in truly adverse conditions.

<comment><USER9> > DoSing the network doesn't require you deanonymize them, merely that you can > fill most of their anonymous routes with traffic

At best if you're "successful" then you merely take all the current Bitcoin users and scatter them into a hundred different competing and more anonymous cryptos. Oops.

In the south we have fire ants. The thing about fire ants is that if you disrupt the nest you had better kill them all, because if you mess with a nest today, in a few days you'll have 5 nests to deal with. And so on.

Crypto is like fire ants in this regard.

<comment><USER10> 1\. The strength of a currency is its ability to be exchanged, so forcing them onto several (possibly themselves compromised) networks increases transaction costs and changes the economics significantly. Similarly, hardened networks likely impose additional overhead. Finally, smaller networks are easier to perform 51% attacks on. If you can break it in to 10 networks, you only need 1/10th the power to 51% them each in turn.

2\. My point was about the strength of the bitcoin network as it stands. And I think you agree that it's both vulnerable and non-trivial to fix, so Im not actually sure what your point is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Leah McGrath Goodman, I could almost swear I've seen that name before somewhere. Google... oh yeah, she was the one who did that story about that Japanese-American guy being the inventor of Bitcoin, the one that turned out to be a rather irresponsible fabrication.

Looking at this story, the first couple of paragraphs talk about a nonvirtual currency created by a bunch of racists. Why? Does that have anything to do with Bitcoin? As far as I can tell, no, it's just an attempt to smear by insinuation.

Then it starts into "but terrorists". Stopped reading at that point.

I'm not saying Bitcoin doesn't have flaws. By all means let them be discussed fairly and with intellectual honesty. I don't think this article is the place to look for that discussion.

<comment><USER13> clearly, this is fluff. the trouble for me is evaluating whether this fluff is a float: 'we will outlaw zcash', or a flop: 'the authorities should outlaw zcash'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if it's just me, but this article seems to give a creepy "the USA is the only that matters" vibe. For instance, the sentence "[...] while this may be handy for privacy-savvy Americans, it can make it much harder for the government and law enforcement to fight terrorists and criminals [...]" sounds as if only privacy-savvy USA citizens matter, while privacy-savvy people from the rest of the world can get lost.

Also, the idea of a foreign country being able to disrupt transactions all over the world, with the people having no recourse other than appealing to said foreign country, is creepy. If someone in Austria wants to send money to Brazil, that should be a matter only between Austria and Brazil (or perhaps the rest of the Eurozone, since their currency is shared), and a third-party country shouldn't be able to arbitrarily interfere on a whim.

<comment><USER7> That's because this is a propaganda piece from a propaganda rag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > [V]irtual currencies could undermine America's long-standing ability to > disrupt the financial networks of its foes and even permanently upend parts > of the global financial system.

This is one of the most compelling reasons we should adopt Bitcoin. The nationalism that tells us that we should be concerned about this is appalling.

</comment><comment><USER16> This was written by the same journalist who claimed Dorian Nakamoto was Satoshi.

You can make Bitcoin literally unusable with about $1000 worth of transaction spam. The same applies to any non-hypothetical blockchain-based currency I can think of, including the fancy new ones. _If only_ the International Bankers had $1000 spare on hand!

I mean, I think Bitcoin is garbage, but this is a relentlessly terrible and incompetent article.

<comment><USER17> You spend too much time in the r/buttcoin echo chamber. You're getting sloppy with the facts. :) $1000 worth of transaction "spam" would have basically no effect today-- that is only about two blocks worth of transaction fees. Meaning your costly 'disruption' would be unnoticeable against normal block finding variance.

[Come on-- do you really want to be part of the Wikipedia Review of Bitcoin skepticism? I think Bitcoin deserves better critics than that.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The U.S. needs an explicit constitutional right to privacy.

</comment><comment><USER19> The main point of the article seems to be that anonymous cryptocurrencies pose a threat to US national security since the US Governmeent can't just cut off access to funding for terrorists which supposedly was very effective so far.

Ignoring all the BS in the article, is this argument valid?

<comment><USER20> Wasn't middle-East terrorism _funded_ by US and Europe in the first place? Isn't Newsweek posing a threat to the CIA (and NSA) by arguing for the ban of cryptocurrencies for illegal operations? If they want to continue their illegal things, they do need smuggling currencies, and it's the role of the American citizen to enable them to do it.

<comment><USER21> The Saudis are the principal funders and ideological exporters of terrorism and our closest friends in the region so it doesn't take genius to figure out what is happening.

Its nearly impossible for terrorists organizations and certainly not anything like ISIS to exist without state support. Its now well know they are being funded by Turkey, Saudis and the US intelligence forces.

So we are funding terrorism on one hand and then spending billions of dollars on to build a surveillance state to protect ourselves from our own actions, both of which benefit the state, intelligence agencies and defence contractors.

I think things are now are farce level and democracy is near meaningless if these state actors are allowed to do whatever they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22>
      Rand's research into the dangers of virtual currencies is not meant
      as an attack on bitcoin, Baron said. He believes the currency's
      publicly visible ledger of transactions is too transparent
      to attract terrorists, criminals or enemies of the state. "I do not
      see bitcoin as the go-to currency for terrorists," he says.
      "As it stands, it does not offer enough anonymity."

</comment><comment><USER23> Perhaps they should worry about "goods" the "terrorists" are allegedly exchanging it for.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not sure what is going on at Newsweek, but if they are publishing this, it can't be good.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's worth mentioning, that in many areas wherein there are not many Tor users, the mere use of Tor can flag authorities as to who might be 'up to something'.

The guy who bombed the boston marathon I believe was caught in this manner: they knew someone in the building was doing something nefarious, and they looked to see who downloaded Tor. Bingo. Or something like that.

I'm not against Bitcoin and understand it's principles - that said - it's the most obvious use case is perhaps for situations in which people want to get around the law.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if anyone using bitcoin is flagged somewhere in an NSA database.

<comment><USER26> You're thinking of the fake Harvard bomb threat. He was the only tor user during the time the email was sent.

<comment><USER25> Yes, correct, sorry, I felt I was off on something when I wrote that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Remember, this is the same website that named Dorian Nakamoto as Satoshi, a man who hadn't even heard of Bitcoin before.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if donation through anonymous currencies could be protected under the first amendment through religious freedom (e.g. Bible: Matthew 6:3 )

</comment><comment><USER29> first they ignore you

then they make fun of you

then they fight you

and then you win

</comment><comment><USER30> "white supremacists town in south africa, terrorism, human trafficking, money- laundering and many other types of criminal activity. Putin's cronies and Iran's money launderers."

he forgot child pornography.

journos like this one are a disgrace to humanity. utter contempt for reader's intelligence.</comment>


The U.S Government Is Keeping a U.S Citizen Secretly Locked Up Without Charges - <AUTHOR> https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/detention/trump-administration-keeping-us-citizen-secretly-locked-without?redirect=blog/trump-administration-keeping-us-citizen-secretly-locked-without-charges <comment><USER2> An enemy combatant from the US fighting for ISIS in Iraq? Give him to the Iraqis or Kurds.</comment>


Introducing HippyVM, PHP interpreter using PyPy technology - <AUTHOR> http://hippyvm.com/blog#introducing-hippyvm

<comment><USER2> I am really excited about this, but why are alternate PHP runtimes only popping up now?

<comment><USER3> PH7, Phalenger, HHVM, PHPQB, Zephir, KittenPHP, JPHP, and now Hippyvm... A lot of them were unknown before the Facebook HHVM popularity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> during the same period alternative runtimes started apppearing PHP added a lot of useful features. even though the core api remains messy PHP now feels modern

(about the API mess: I've been programming in PHP for over 10 years and still i have to look up parameter order for some of the string functions)</comment>


Ask HN: Do Parse's secret URLs provide reasonable security? - <AUTHOR>

I am considering using Parse for a web/mobile app, and it appears that they use "secret urls" as the primary security measure for accessing parse files. Obviously this isn't SUPER secure, but it does seem to be a fairly common way to limit access to, say "private photos" (e.g. flickr does it). Would you consider this "commercially reasonable" attempt to protect private data? <comment><USER2> This method seems fine for protecting data as far as I can tell.

I would definitely recommend using https though because only the hostname is sent in plain text, the URL should be fully encrypted in an https request.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how reasonable this method is from a liability perspective. If a client accidentally forwards a secure url to someone who causes them to lose money, then there might be a chance that you could be liable for not securing your product effectively.

</comment><comment><USER3> There might be more attack vectors with this, but generating a long random string is the basis of a lot of security mechanisms.</comment>


The optimal way of folding a bond notebook page into a bookmark - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.02622 <comment><USER2> I love how:

1\. The author treats this topic so seriously and thoroughly.

2\. HN comments do the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone explain what the author means by "bond" in this context? Is it a specific mathematical term, or did they mean to write "bound"?

<comment><USER4> Bond is fine writing paper.

<comment><USER4> Ah, silly me, I should have read the article and not just the comments. Bond does indeed describe the paper but as someone else pointed out it isn't what the article is talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think there's an error here in the case of a very tall notebook. The paper claims that there is a finite limit to how far to the right the bookmark can go. But it seems to me that for a sufficiently tall sheet of paper, the optimal fold is at a 45 degree angle with the left edge of the paper folded right up to the top edge. This gives you a length of D - 1 hanging to the right, where the width of the paper is 1 and the height is D.

<comment><USER6> I believe "tall" here refers to the length of the spine of the notebook, in which nomenclature what you're referring to is a "wide" paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Huzita-Hatori axioms are at the core of thin-sheet origami. In turn, mathematical origami is hot stuff, not only because of its applications (folding automotive airbags, designing mirror & solar panel assemblies for spacecraft) but also because it's opening up novel areas of mathematical research.

</comment><comment><USER8> quoting from the paper: Although innocent at the first glance, origami surpasses the power of "compass and straight-edge"and can solve third-order mathematical problems including the "angle trisection" and "doubling the cube"

quoting from the paper: From the technological side, origami is a generic methodology to transform between 2d and 3dgeometries.

Does anyone know if you had a mechanical "liquid paper notebook" where the marks on the notebook are rotating micro-balls (from 0% to 100% black) if you could use origami as a way of expanding out an originally folded sheet of a large size (say 11 x 14 - legal size paper) where the folded version might be the size of a paperback book?

On a different note, I think I know what angle trisection is, but I'm not sure what "doubling the cube" might mean.

Does anyone know what geometric problem the author is referencing ?

<comment><USER9> _> I'm not sure what "doubling the cube" might mean._

This:

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

It's basically being able to construct the cube root of two; you can't construct roots that aren't powers of two with a compass and straightedge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> An engineers approach: grab one corner and gently pull it to where it seems like a maximum, then smoosh the book closed. You immediately find that two folds get much farther than one.

</comment><comment><USER11> very very carefully</comment>


You may not actually own your Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/you-may-not-actually-own-your-bitcoin-legal-expert-107307 <comment><USER2> _"lack of legal protection could further diminish the tokens' value, particularly if it stops financial concepts such as trusts or securities being applied"_

I also see advantages. If you don't own bitcoin, money converted into bitcoin is free from taxation, so if you do work in return for bitcoin, you don't have to pay income tax over it, if you sell stuff in exchange for bitcoin, there's no sales tax, if you give the keys to your bitcoin to your heirs, there's no inheritance tax, etc.

That could make bitcoin very, very popular.

Because of these, I doubt the idea will hold in court.</comment>