Amazon Go Grocery – Full store open now - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon-goes-bigger-first-amazon-go-grocery-new-seattle-store-using-cashierless-technology/ <comment><USER2> Something I've wondered for awhile (unfortunately not before my first trip to an Amazon Go) is what Amazon's internal limitations are on the use of biometric information collected in the course of an Amazon Go session.

Attempting to comb through Amazon's master privacy policy doesn't yield anything on biometrics, but as they are a second-order piece of PII, they could simply be derived from "images and videos collected or stored in connection with Amazon Services." And they wouldn't have to be sold to an external company to be used within Rekognition.

Amazon really needs to draw a bright line around what they will and won't do with biometrics. Even this, however, should only be a stopgap to meaningful privacy legislation.

<comment><USER3> There's more personal/private stuff than biometrics going on here.

Biometrics are WHO you are, including gait, but AI and cameras are able to determine your mental state and responses to stimuli while shopping. It can watch your gaze, which products you look at, which ones you touch and put back.

Eg, what does it tell you if someone picks up a pregnancy test and puts it back?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was a Go customer for a long time and it just boggled me how they couldn't keep the shelves stocked with some items. I'm not talking about something being sold out for half a day, I mean things not restocked in spans of weeks. I've heard grumblings that Whole Foods is suffering the same fate.

I really don't see how this store has improved any of that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't tell from any of the articles today if they're going to accept cash or not. Given the push back they received on the first round of convenience stores, it's interesting that it's not mentioned at all.

<comment><USER6> Forgive me if this is an obvious question as I've only been to the Seattle convenience store twice and haven't heard about any pushback (but I could see it resulting from basically making the store inaccessible to people who can't afford a smartphone?), but how would they logistically accept cash without any cashiers?

<comment><USER7> Every self-checkout I've ever used accepts cash. It's just a normal bill acceptor.

Taking money out/providing change to the machines could be done on a scheduled basis by employees that just do that.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure the traditional self-checkout kiosks logistically fit into this model, though. In a "normal" store, everyone needs to pay somehow, and security (in person or in LP) can monitor/flag/stop people who try to leave without paying.

In Go stores, you authenticate as you enter the store through a turnstile, which ensures that even if you were to bolt for the door you'd still pay for what you have and there's no reason for anyone to stop you (besides potentially for suspicious activity).

However, once you start letting unauthenticated people into the store, that entire system flies out the window and you now need to once again monitor who needs to manually pay and whether they actually have or not as they're leaving. You need to worry about when they pick up a can of soup and put it in their pocket, but not worry about it for most other customers.

On top of that, accepting cash (even to a machine) requires additional hardware installed (which comes with its own challenges like how easy it is to integrate into whatever Amazon's using on their backend for inventory tracking, etc) as well as manpower (to track/refill drawers, handle issues if the machine has problems, etc). I imagine there could also be a potential need for more security in a store that contains registers full of cash and goods versus a store full of just goods. Lots of stores around here (in KC) are cashless specifically for the safety argument.

Just seems like a lot of extra work that Amazon wouldn't intentionally commit to for a store built on automating employees away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Theres just so many edge cases.

I think they are banking on 95% of purchases being just normal people trying to get food, and that will offset the margin of loss here, since they pay a lot less employees. Because they will definitely lose more product than a normal grocery store.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any data/sources to suggest that is true? Amazon has credit card info (and who knows what else) for everyone who is allowed into the store.

<comment><USER8> What about kids? Are kids with their parents just not going to be let into the store since they don't have credit cards? Or will they be associated with their parents somehow.

What if the credit card info is fake or stolen? Are new accounts with temp emails and stolen cards just not going to be let into the store? I've bought digital goods off amazon with prepaid credit cards that had a few dollars on them, and the purchase only got rescinded hours later.

<comment><USER9> In the Amazon Go stores, I can scan other guests in and anything they take goes onto my account. I assume this is the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's always been possible to do this in any store. Just grab what you want, and run out the door. You do have to be fast, though.

<comment><USER11> You have to be fast because there are a number of employees of the store stationed at cash registers very near the exits. The point here is that those employees don't exist here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Typically grocery stores only have a 1-2% margin, and also have significant shrink and inventory spoilage losses.

Curious to see what the actual operating costs/losses of the system will be -- will people fake AMZN credentials, fill a cart with steak, and walk out?

<comment><USER13> How will they fake AMZN credentials? It's probably much harder to do that than use something like a stolen credit card to pay with at normal grocery stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> To be honest, Amazon Go stores are ridiculously overkill.

They have cameras everywhere, and use face recognition, and all kinds of pattern detection algorithms just to determine what yogurt or salad you bought.

All they really need is just an app. Take a picture of your product or barcode, done. They can use the AI to recognize the picture of the product, like your fruits and vegetables. Or just scan the barcode.

Then, just walk out. Once you exit the gate, your Amazon account gets charged. No receipts. No cashiers. No more minimum wage jobs for a high school teenager. Done.

(Unless their goal is to do human pattern recognition, face recognition, movement detection, and gait detection? Which means they're just using the Go stores as an experimental test bed, to freely capture all that valuable data. You consent to the data capture, just by walking into the store.)

<comment><USER15> I guess that is an easier system to implement, but that's obviously less ambitious and much less magical.

Why does Amazon do one day shipping? That's also huge overkill for 99% of the stuff they sell. They do it because consumers want it, and will instantly forget about all their disdain for Bezos, who btw seems to be growing in unpopularity by the hour, for a more streamlined and hassle free product. I'm not a huge introvert but my instinct is already to do self checkout. I can keep listening to my music, don't have to do the "alright please insert your card" dance, etc.</comment></comment>


Can you become a software developer? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/kamil-lelonek-personal-blog/not-everyone-can-be-a-programmer-eef095f99baa <comment><USER2> Im currently studying Computer Science (1st year) and I see so many people that have no idea what they're doing or why they're there. Some of them just got in because their friends got in, and most of those friends got in because "they'll have a garuanteed job with a good paycheck after completing the course!" It saddens me</comment>


Where Are the Tech Startups? - <AUTHOR> http://www.darrenherman.com/2007/04/04/where-are-the-tech-startups/ <comment><USER2> This is a poor way of representing the data. It distorts the data based on the overall population of the area. A better approach would be to look at all the job postings in a given area and measure the percentage that sound like startups.

<comment><USER3> Remember, that this data representation was only a 'smell test' as they defined it - and for most purposes here that's all that's needed ;)

Here's the original article with much more info:

<http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/06/startup_centers.html></comment></comment>


Show HN: Build cross-platform CLI applications with TypeScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/khalidx/typescript-cli-starter <comment><AUTHOR> Hello again Hacker News!

I got a lot of love last time I shared an open source project on HN (and by a "lot" I mean 20 stars on GitHub, HA HA).

The point is, I always get so much value out of HN, and want to keep giving back. Here's a starter project template to get you going building cross- platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) CLI applications using plain-old TypeScript or node!

I write lots of little CLI applications and this gets me going pretty fast with a running CLI, a place to write tests, and a single-command to build everything.

Free forever + open source. Comments/concerns/suggestions are welcomed!

Enjoy and thanks for reading.</comment>


Kottke on the Talk Show - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2018/03/24/ep-217 <comment><USER2> I still remember Kottke before he blogged.

His site was hie web design portfolio and called 0sil8 or some such. It was pretty cool, instead of the usual gallery it was a sort of a demo.

One version featured horizontal scrolling. First time I saw that on the web.</comment>


Drag elements outside (and back inside) the browser window - <AUTHOR> http://suprb.com/apps/windom/

<comment><USER2> That is a nice action you've created.

Are there any use cases anyone can think of for this?

It would be nice if it were possible to drag between windows, but that might be asking a little much.</comment>


The high speed of society has jammed our internal clock - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/71/flow/why-your-brain-hates-slowpokes-rp <comment><USER2> I have sidewalk rage. But it's not really about having people walk slower. What gets me is when people have no situational awareness (on their phones, mostly), and are walking very slowly because of that. Then they tend to clump in groups and take the whole sidewalk and won't move over to let you pass, even if you're walking in the opposite direction. I think it's inconsiderate. Same for deciding to gather your whole family right in front of the airport bathroom, just to make it harder for everyone else entering and exiting. I'm always amazed how people tend to aggregate and stop in the worst places (intersections, tight spaces, in the middle rather than out of the way). Traffic patterns are really quite amazing and I think a great source of understanding human nature.

<comment><USER3> Or a group of 3-4 people occupying the whole sidewalk coming towards(infront) of you, they see you coming, and still won't give space to let you pass. Most times, I just stand and stare at them. This even happens at work, when I am walking up the stairs.

<comment><USER4> I love visiting Japan, where everyone is super aware and would never do this. It's amazing the difference in cultures.

<comment><USER5> No no no no, people are absolutely _not_ super aware here. Sure they might mostly stay on one side on the escalator, but that's where it ends.

<comment><USER6> You're not really supposed to stand on one side on an escalator. In certain places it became the social norm, but when long escalators are loaded up it leads to a majority of the weight being on one side which in turn leads to more critical breakdowns where all the passengers are dumped to the bottom.

Ideally everyone should just stand in the middle.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately you just can't do that in Japan, it is pretty universal (though Kansai stands on the right, and Kanto stands on the left).

In extremely congested areas people will stand on both sides, but the convention is to stand on one side and have a "fast lane" on the other side. I realize it has less throughput, and puts more strain on the escalators, but that's not changing any time soon.

The point is, escalators and perhaps train boarding are the only two times where people will be mostly self aware of their position. Walking on the sidewalks is not one of those times, everyone is staring at their phones, or walking in groups of 2-3 across.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this explanation can be simplified greatly.

It's an obstacle, literally in my way to fulfill my goal. Why wouldn't I be upset at least slightly about that?

To elaborate a bit more: I was minding my own business, in thoughts and happily walking at my own pace. Now I'm ripped out of this rather meditative state. My thoughts are interrupted, there as something challenging my goal of getting somewhere and I need to handle a sudden social or at least spacial situation.

Only now what one might want to call "zen" comes in to play. Now the question is if I can resort to ratio and figure a few seconds won't change a thing and I can quickly get back to my thoughts while they are still fresh.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't mind someone walking slow that much, most people walk slower than me even when I'm not energized about something, what I hate is if they take up so much space that I can't get past them and generally they don't take up that much space because they're big but because they are normal size but need to take the middle of a narrow path.

</comment><comment><USER9> _" We now insist that Web pages load in a quarter of a second, when we had no problem with two seconds in 2009 and four seconds in 2006."_

Not true at all. The "scientific" benchmark of "instant" page loads is 250ms. This is the goal. Pages should load instantly because they _can_ load instantly, poor connection or large content notwithstanding. Four second page loads were absolutely not "okay" in 2006. They weren't even the norm.

Always aim for those 250ms, _everywhere_. For example, if your programming workflow takes more than a second to do a build iteration cycle, it's bad. Slow tools are bad. The status quo may be _bad_ , but that's no excuse not to aim higher.

<comment><USER10> The parent comment is downvoted (pretty heavily, since an upvote still didn't un-grey it) as I reply, but it's absolutely correct.

I was doing latency optimization for Google in 2009. There was a strong negative correlation between latency and click-through rate - enough that the additional latency of adding JQuery (~140ms IIRC) would've cost us about $150M, and just moving the ads above the results in document order was estimated at $50M (the latter figure turned out to be wrong when I ran the experiments in 2010 - broadband penetration had made the latency difference in document order negligible - but that was the figure Marissa Mayer got in 2002 when most users were on dialup, extrapolated out to Google's 2010 revenues). 2 seconds was absolutely too long; our target was 250ms for the whole search to come back, including all backend calls.

If anything webpages have gotten slower today, with the rise of SPAs with lots of Javascript. Some of that is compensated for by faster Internet (though not a lot; in most of the U.S, speeds haven't budged much since 2009), but a lot is just that people have given up on the sort of marginal use-cases like amusing themselves that they used the web for in the 00s, and now tend to use it only for important things where they're willing to put up with slowness.

<comment><USER11> It's technically correct but irrelevant to the point the article is trying to make, which is more about tolerance of users for sub-par performance than about where the goal should be set. Granted, you don't have to be relevant. There's plenty of room for making side points as long as you don't try to present them as a takedown of the OP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool story time. I actually was the target of a bit of 'sidewalk rage' not all that long ago.

Not really a sidewalk, but effectively one. Walking down the main hallway in our office (not terribly long, maybe a hundred feet), one of the guys who works not too far from me was behind me, and I wasn't walking too fast (funny, I'd say I wasn't exactly slow either, probably ambling a bit at perhaps 2.0 mph, I've never really felt like speedwalking to my desk to sit for a couple hours). There's a point near the area we both work in where it jogs to the right and you can go around either side of a table, and the guy behind me actually sped up a bunch and cut me off on the other side of the table. Close enough in front of me to be rude about it, but he really needed to be in front of me. At that point we were maybe 25 feet from the area where we work. I almost laughed aloud.

It did make me wonder what it's like to be him. He always seems outwardly angry, never says 'hi' to anyone he doesn't know well, hardly ever smiles, etc. Now I wonder if he lives out his days getting pissed at everyone that walks too slow for his liking, kinda like how I sometimes feel when I'm driving and can't find a clear lane that wants to go the same speed as me. The anger I feel in that situation has had a profound impact on my approach to driving as I've grown older; I try much harder now to remember that I'm not actually in a big hurry and it rarely matters one bit how long it takes to drive somewhere. I changed my definition of 'winning' the driving game as getting to my destination without my blood pressure rising.

<comment><USER13> Added bonus: Driving slower means less fuel usage. Important in countries like Sweden where fuel is expensive. Try driving 70 km/h instead of 90 km/h, the difference is significant with a modern car.

<comment><USER14> Uhh, idk but when I can get my car into overdrive it is about twice as fuel efficient. At 70km I would have to be in fourth or fifth, which isn't nearly as close.

Actually I think this is true about most ICE cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For me it's not so much slow walkers that's the problem - everyone walks at a different speed, and I tend to walk quite quickly anyway (pretty close to a slow jog, I'm told).

The more annoying thing are the "street zombies" who - upon their phone beeping - stop dead in the middle of the street. Usually at a crowded bus stop on a narrow street where it's impossible to pass. By that point they're so oblivious to what's happening around them (or wearing noise-cancelling headphones and listening to music so loudly I can hear it too!) that it takes two "excuse me please"-s or a tap on the shoulder to snap them back into reality.

I don't know why I find it so annoying, but I do. It does, however, make me appreciate the people who are considerate. The phone goes beep, they move to the side and make a decent effort to leave room for people to get by.

I turned the beeper and vib motor off on my phone (well actually, the vib motor is broken and spares are NLA). I'll deal with it when it's convenient and safe to do so, thanks. And people are generally okay with this - so long as they know that if they need me, they're in for a bit of a wait.

</comment><comment><USER16> My pet peeve isn't slow walkers but people looking at their phones, bumping into you and telling you to "watch where you are going". Similarly in driving, I don't mind slow drivers (after all they could just be beginners), but drivers who feel they own the road and double park right across another double parked car in the opposite road.

<comment><USER17> People who drive a little slow don't bother me, but the ones that drive 45mph on the freeway when there's no good reason for it (traffic, etc.)? Those people piss me off. If you can't go approximately the speed limit on the freeway when traffic conditions are good, you don't belong on the freeway.

<comment><USER18> "Left lane fast, right lane slow" is actually _not_ the law in California.

It really should be though — traffic in CA flows ridiculously poorly compared to everywhere else I've driven.

(Left lane fast, right lane slow is the law in many parts of the US, even though passing on the right is generally legal too.)

<comment><USER17> Wrong. Skip to page 5 here:[https://www.mwl-law.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/KEEP-RIGH...](https://www.mwl-law.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/KEEP-RIGHT-TRAFFIC-LAWS-IN-ALL-50-STATES- CHART-00214409x9EBBF.pdf)

Not only do vehicles traveling "at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction" have to keep right (CVC § 21654), there are often signs indicating this on the freeway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> And yet the people most glued to their device-dopamine loops are the ones most likely to be ambling along...

The problem isn't really slow walkers (etc), but rather the ones who are in the way due to not paying attention and seem to justify it by thinking everybody should just walk as slow as themselves. One can be slow and considerate, just like one can be fast and inconsiderate. The latter mainly just comes to a head with people walking opposite directions though, for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER20> I have to agree with you. Same issue with slow drivers, its really a matter of consideration not speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In Tokyo, people drive their bicycles on the sidewalk (ment only for pedestrians) while completely ignoring the bicycle lane with painted instructions for them. They can't drive fast and usually end up causing a mess by almost running into someone every 30-60 seconds.

What's even worse is they don't even ring their bells but try to sneak past you. Most of these cyclists are not alone, they have their kids in a basket.

This causes me to rage. These days I just walk on the bicycles path since all the bicycles are in the pedestrian walkway.

<comment><USER22> Do you have any guess on why people are doing that?

<comment><USER21> They fear driving on the road and prefer personal safety or value personal safety (self preservation reasons)

I had a friend who did that and I proceeded to interview/profile her. I didn't ask her why she did that, I simple talked to her about the subject and noticed the primary reason was fear of driving on the road, secondary was laziness i.e. they'd have to cross the road and drive on the other side to reach their target or cross the road to drive on the correct side and cross the road again for the target which could be a little far off from the crossing.

I've been looking for opportunities to talk to more people who do this to get more insight into the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really wish people would at least try to see if economic pressure is an explanatory variable here. Intuitively, it seems to me that when I get angry at slow people it's usually because, eg, I'm trying to get to work. Or I worked late and am late for the next thing. As the pressures from the main thing that structures our time go up, wouldn't you think that our anger at lack of control over the other constraints on our time go up?

</comment><comment><USER24> > Research has shown meditation and mindfulness—a practice of focusing on the > present—helps with impatience, although it's not entirely clear why.

Er...

Ever try to be impatient without tensing your muscles?

Ever try to mediate without relaxing your muscles?

</comment><comment><USER25> I walk fast because I am trying to squeeze a liitle exercise in. Someone who saunters (in the middle of the sidewalk) can be frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER17> Here are some scenarios that get me: multiple slow walkers taking up more than half the sidewalk, and people running into me when I'm walking so far to the right, I'm practically rubbing up against a building on my right side. Both of these happen to me on a regular basis in SF.

</comment><comment><USER26> I somewhat agree but slowpoke on the sidewalk are also somewhat of a modern problem. Because of the priority cars are given over humans, walking in cities is essentially a 1 dimentional affair, so it's somewhat understandably infuriating when someone is holding up everything and has no awareness

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm usually the one who rages at slow walkers, but going to Amsterdam was a humbling experience because I seemed to inadvertently walk into angry bikers on a bike path everywhere I went

</comment><comment><USER28> The article posits that this is something new. Hardly. My whole life I've agitated behind slow drivers. Just yesterday I got stuck behind someone going 25 in a 35 for several miles. Behind me was a looooong tail of cars, probably all wondering wtf was going on.

This sort of thing has always been maddening to me, since long before the internet. Though in my younger days I'd take risks getting around them.

<comment><USER29> I hear ya man. To make things even worse, around where I live many of these drivers will turn onto the road I'm on (now in front of me) when they didn't have time. So I have to hit my brakes to avoid running in to them, and then have to drive 10 to 15 mph slower than I was going before. I'm getting a little irritated just writing about it lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I laugh at all these responses. Im the one who purposely goes slow. AMA

<comment><USER31> Why purposely go slow? Sometimes I take my time because I don't want to start sweating, but I don't think I've ever actually walked slowly anywhere.

<comment><USER30> why go fast? I enjoy walking slowly.

<comment><USER32> I am not sure where you live but when I was living in London walking slow vs walking fast meant less time spent on a stressful commute and less time wasted just getting to places.

A slow stroll can be very pleasant if you're in the countryside but in a large city you rather get from A to B as quickly as possible when in crowded areas; especially if it is your daily routine. A large group walking in front of you and blocking your path are literally wasting your time. That wasted time adds up a lot on a daily basis. (5 minutes 'wasted' each way a day on your commute would equate to over 40 hours a year of time spent walking slowly behind a large group of people).

<comment><USER33> I live in a big city, and I still often enjoy walking slowly. Walking (and cycling, some days) is the best part of my commute, I want to savour it. It's being stuck in the metro or bus that I'd rather speed up.

People blocking your path is an orthogonal issue; I always take care not to do that, regardless of the speed I'm going at.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would anyone like to join me on congratulating the BBC? - <AUTHOR>

Despite serving up plenty of dynamic content and video, and despite huge traffic (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/05/current_traffic_to_bbc_news_we.html), the BBC's election news website has been fantastic. It's been responsive, up to date and highly usable all night.<p>This is a real technical achievement and I for one would like to say well done. <comment><USER2> The £3.5bn they're given by the UK populace every year probably helps with that, eh.

<comment><USER3> The biggest beneficiary of that gift is the world at large, at least we have one somewhat independent news service.

<comment><USER4> I haven't lived in the UK for decades, but I love the BBC news service. It's a national treasure - well, an international treasure, as you point out.

Australia's ABC to a lesser extent is the same.

If a free-enterprise fourth estate fails, I wonder if more countries will create similar publicly funded versions.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, even as an American I tend to use <http://news.bbc.co.uk/> as my main online news source. Sure beats CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, ABC, and the rest of that variety of nonsense.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript memory leak patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-memleak/

<comment><USER2> This article is a good description of circular references and memory leaks in JS, a pattern which is especially common in IE6 and one which my coworkers have spent a surprising amount of time combatting. Memory leaks border on a special kind of hypochondria, but once you can prove they exist, they're a bear to track down.

The biggest surprise in this article, however, was in the bio:

_"He has worked as a part of the OS/2 IBM Web Browser Support Team for the past three years."_

The OS/2 Web Browser was Mozilla-based, with open development happening in the free WarpZilla project. Apparently WarpZilla, a port of Firefox to OS/2, is still going strong as of version 3.5.4 (with prereleases of Fx3.6 and Fx3.7 still available): <http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Please correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't developers only worry about the issues mentioned in the article on older browsers? (I'm thinking IE6 and earlier).

Introducing a leak via circular references would be considered a bug in most modern JS engines, right?

A related question: Can someone recommend a good plugin/extension for monitoring the size of a page's javascript memory usage over time?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think developers should always try to avoid poor programming practices instead of relying on implementation details of the browser.

<comment><USER4> Poor programming practices? The code that creates circular references is clearer than the example workarounds. Sacrificing clarity to avoid a problem that doesn't occur in supported browsers doesn't make much sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Failing to call "delete" on a pointer you "new"'ed in C++ is also clearer, and just as incorrect. The ECMAScript spec makes no mention of how memory will be managed for the user. Right or wrong in terms of clarity, it's still a poor practice to assume the browser will behave in a particular way that's not covered by the specification (regardless of how sensible that behavior might be!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One more way of avoiding memory leaks is event delegation - here's quite good article about it: [http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/23/javascript- event-d...](http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/23/javascript-event- delegation-is-easier-than-you-think/)</comment>


Show HN: Itempass – Aggregate your social and contact details into one page - <AUTHOR> http://itempass.com <comment><USER2> It sounds like an interesting idea, but I'm really apprehensive about entering an email immediately. Perhaps you could have a message saying you won't sell that info (or even better, a privacy policy). Also, it'd be cool if you explained what the user is getting before signing up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Thanks for reaching out. Answering your question there's no way we would ever consider that.Your email is used in order to create a profile for yourself. Nothing is being sold or given to 3rd parties etc.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys. Any feedback would be really appreciated, thanks!</comment>


The Pocket Watch Was the World's First Wearable Tech Game Changer  - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/pocket-watch-was-worlds-first-wearable-tech-game-changer-180951435/?no-ist <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure clothes came first.</comment>


Selling clothes online - <AUTHOR>

Hey,
a few friends and I want to found a european startup that sells unique clothing online. But as you know there are already lots of websites that sell clothing. To create something new we decided to restrict our inventory to items that you normally cannot buy online like bags from a small Italian bag manufacturer, young labels that sell most of their clothing at promotion events or just unique looking clothes in general like a dress consisting of feathers.
Do you think that our concept has potential to work? Is there something you would improve / change? Would you buy clothes at our store? If no why not? If yes, what part of our value proposition is most important for you? What do you think our target demographic looks like?
Do you buy clothes online? If yes, do you buy only certain kinds of clothing (only t shirts and trousers, no shoes etc.)? If no, why?
How important is it for you that your clothes look like they definitely did not get bought at H&M, Peek & Cloppenburg, Zalando etc. ? What do you look for in clothes except for the obvious things like that you like the look and that they fit? Do you think big clothing sellers have any serious shortcomings (especially those who sell online)?
Edit: btw we want to mostly focus on local businesses and want make sure that all sellers are verified! <comment><USER2> Hey, all. Would actually love to talk to you about this.. I'm a Y Combinator founder, and we're building a startup called Crowdery. It is a marketplace and, to some extent, there is overlap here.. Our approach is admittedly much more nuanced. Ping me on twitter @marannelson if you're interested in talking!

</comment><comment><USER3> For sure, it has potential to work, it is similar to Fab.com's business model. They find local designers (in our case they sold our t-shirts), and they give exposure to the brand, in exchange for discounting merch. Nastygal.com is another great example, although they go for the 1 off/thrift store finds.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's hard to answer these question without seeing the actual stuff. Clothes can be unique in many ways.

I buy a lot of clothes online. I mostly go to polyvore.com and find stuff. But I do visit some websites of actual brands because I know they deliver a certain aesthetic that I like. I like unique stuff, who doesn't? But I prefer a simpler, elegant aesthetic.

The kind of stuff they have on nastygal is mostly just vulgar to me. As someone here mentioned they go for a thrift store look. But they do actually source it from vendors like anyone else. It's different from many brands, sure. But it's still internally consistent. I did order 2 things from them though.

Your target demographic will be determined by the kind of aesthetic you have.</comment>


Lines of bare C++: raytracing made simple - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ssloy/tinyraytracer/wiki <comment><USER2> This is pretty similar to Peter Shirley's "Ray Tracing in a Weekend" series, which gives some more detail and discusses the ideas more, and which recently was put online as "pay what you want": [https://twitter.com/peter_shirley/status/984947257035243520?...](https://twitter.com/peter_shirley/status/984947257035243520?lang=en)

The bible for raytracing techniques is PBRT, which, funny enough, is _also_ now available online: [http://www.pbr-book.org/](http://www.pbr-book.org/)

It is a pretty fantastic time for easily available, high quality resources on rendering in general and ray tracing in particular.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a great pragmatic programmers book on building a ray tracer that just came out: [https://pragprog.com/book/jbtracer/the-ray-tracer- challenge](https://pragprog.com/book/jbtracer/the-ray-tracer-challenge)

Its langauge neutral, which is interesting.

<comment><USER4> This is by Jamis Buck! He wrote _Mazes for Programmers_ , one of the best programming books I've ever read. It is clear and well-explained; you could write the code from the text description without seeing the code samples, which is incredibly rare.

I had no idea he'd written more. Going by author alone, this book is a must- buy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Smallpt is another project which has been written and rewritten to demonstrate raytracing.

It really shows how simple the core concept is. All of these programs are well under 300 lines.

Faster ray tracers have better data structures and more bsdf functions. But regardless, the real benefit of raytracing is the simplicity of the concept.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is pretty amazing. I'm looking forward to studying this.

The author has also written an _impressive_ OpenGL-like renderer in just 500 lines: [https://github.com/ssloy/tinyrenderer/wiki](https://github.com/ssloy/tinyrenderer/wiki)

</comment><comment><USER7> > _Note: It makes no sense just to look at my code, nor just to read this > article with a cup of tea in hand._

It's a good thing I have coffee then. As someone who is not very familiar with computer graphics programming, I did enjoy reading through this.

</comment><comment><USER8> see also: [http://www.kevinbeason.com/smallpt/](http://www.kevinbeason.com/smallpt/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Basically the same as another post on the HN front page: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18956283)

</comment><comment><USER10> beautiful c++!</comment>


The Myth Of Our Free Market Past - <AUTHOR> http://www.theartofthepossible.net/2008/09/18/those-who-control-the-past-control-the-future/ Everyone is bitching and moaning, this week, that American free markets are being destroyed. This article points out just how far you have to go back to find a government who didn't have their fingers in the market. <comment><USER2> I think this notion comes from the general feeling that things were more libertarian in the past, which is true. but you have to go back to before the civil war to really see it.

the united states has gone through 3 phases in terms of government. first was the constitutionalist republic from 1787 til the civil war, which was fairly libertarian in most of its policies compared to today. then civil war until the depression, and finally the depression until present day. each government has been legally distinct in its dealings, and each has been less libertarian than the one before it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems like he invented this myth in order to debunk it. Surely everyone knows the 19th century was dominated by cartels. If people only know two things about Teddy Roosevelt, the second is "trust busting."</comment>


Babelverse - people powered real-time interpretation of the spoken word - <AUTHOR> http://babelverse.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm co-founder of Babelverse, and would like to take the opportunity to invite rockstar rails and/or VoIP specialized guys who like what we're doing to get in touch!

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like seeing this 'mechanical turk' style of work take off. I hope it can help solve the unemployment problems we're seeing, especially in places like Spain where it's near 25%.

<comment><USER4> I agree. It's always great to see a for-profit company that also provides a real, tangible benefit to society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Arabic in the header image is backwards, and the letters aren't connected (they should be).

I'm guessing Photoshop was used to make the image - PS doesn't have Arabic support unless you buy the Middle Eastern edition, which I consider a massive oversight.

It should look like this: [http://www.muhammadspeaks.com/essalamoualeikoum- peacebeuntoy...](http://www.muhammadspeaks.com/essalamoualeikoum- peacebeuntoyou.gif)

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks super awesome. I can't wait to see it in action and see if my startup can't partner with you. I work at Panjiva and our mission is to help people find people they can trust and do business with across borders. Get in touch. andrew (at) panjiva (dot) com, or afarrell (at) mit (dot) edu.</comment>


Why I don't use javascript frameworks - <AUTHOR> http://gregwolejko.com/why-i-dont-use-javascript-frameworks/

<comment><USER2> Let me summarize:

 _I don't like learning to use other people's code. I prefer to force my coworkers to learn mine._

But never fear - I'm sure this guy's undocumented, buggy, slow, half- implemented version of half of jQuery core is every bit as fun to use as the real thing. And so _flexible_!

[Note: That last paragraph may be harsher than this poor guy deserves, but I can't resist paraphrasing Greenspun. Who does not tend to mince words.]

</comment><comment><USER3> Not using existing JS frameworks is a terribly stupid idea. Unless of course you're building your own framework and are willing to test it across all browsers, etc to make sure it all actually works.

I have used jQuery, Dojo and Prototype/Scriptaculous in several projects and there is just no way in hell I am going to duplicate all the programming effort that went into getting all the API functions working in every browser.

Never mind the documentation efforts, module system (hello Dojo!), the built- in compression tools, etc.

For a page that just needs one or two JS routines I'll code it up myself, but for more complex requirements I'll take a framework any day of the week.

Do you really want to figure out why your "setOpacity" function isn't working on Safari Mobile?

</comment><comment><USER4> Flexibility

Prototype and JQuery are flexible enough to stay out your way.

Developer background

"produce hand made code"

Unnecessary coding instead of using the code that was already developed, designed and tested by community

Insight

"I know exactly what is behind methods I use"

These frameworks are 100% open, go ahead and look inside, you'll see how JS gurus are doing it.

Accessibility

"keeping relatively low size of a page"

Frameworks mentioned are small and lightweight enough. Prototype.js weight is 124 kb (unpacked), consider browser caching (use google access), and this argument won't be serious anymore.

<comment><USER5> I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and focus on his last point:

"Using right tool for the job"

Sometimes, it doesn't make sense to include 124kb of Prototype (yes, before gzip and cache) just to be able to do $("myFavoriteDiv").hide()</comment></comment>


We quit our jobs to build a cabin - <AUTHOR> https://www.outsideonline.com/2415766/friends-diy-cabin-build-washington <comment><USER2> I purchased land in the North Cascades area (Methow Valley, about 3 hours Northeast of Index where these guys built) in 2007 with the intention of building a weekend home myself. I prepped the property myself and ran the main power. It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made. My wife and I moved into the home full time in 2011 and have lived in the valley ever since.

<comment><USER3> > It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to > continue writing software and pay pros to do the job.

I feel personally attacked. Really though, I wonder how many things are on my 'Someday Maybe' list, that really I should just make more money to accomplish and/or find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic.

<comment><USER4> > find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a > particular topic.

I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this".

Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness :). )

<comment><USER5> _I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this"._

So true! Works for a lot of things. It's why I stopped playing dota.

<comment><USER6> Stopping dota was the single most important decision of my life. It is an incredible game, that consumes an incredible amount of mind-space even when you're not playing it.

Dota - the worst 'awesome thing' that can happen to your life.

<comment><USER7> Maybe the reason I was able to get to 775 MMR was because it occupied 0 of my mind-space when I wasn't playing it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It does not surprise me that these guys are writers. This reads very much like a project intended to produce a content product as much as a cabin. It's romantic and they have plenty of meticulously framed videos and photos. Maybe they did some youtube videos with dramatic moments -- maybe even the moment they open the piece with -- anger, violence, frustration boiling over. But now they are taking woodworking courses. I'm sure we'll see plenty of content about their experience.

YouTube has upped its recommendations for this kind of stuff in the last few months. Everything is van life, off-grid, travel, tiny home building, etc. It's really curious and I'm not sure what to think about it. Everything is about being a creator and getting an audience for your YouTube, Substack, Patreon, etc. I'm pretty conflicted over this.

<comment><USER9> YouTube's recommendations may be more a reflection of your watch history than a shift in content or a change in the algorithm. I have not seen any van life, off-grid, or tiny home videos on YouTube.

<comment><USER8> This is probably true.

<comment><USER10> See "Mozilla project exposes YouTube's recommendation 'bubbles'" [https://www.engadget.com/mozilla-youtube- bubble-200045382.ht...](https://www.engadget.com/mozilla-youtube- bubble-200045382.html) (and many others, I'm sure)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My family owns multiple cabins, mostly built by family members with the occasional framing and finishing work by friends of the family and/or a local contractor. The one my father owns was framed and roofed by contractors, but the closing, finishing, deck and float construction, and 30 years of repairs and renovations were done by himself and us kids. It sits on a steep hill, so putting a 60x20ft deck on 15ft stilts was no little effort for him with only the help of a bunch of actual children.

The major caveat: prior to my generation, the entire family was involved at some level in construction; from owning and operating to general labour.

It's _not_ a simple task, and the level of skill and intelligence required is something I think is often misunderstood or wholly overlooked by my peers in the tech industry. There's a kind of snobbish belief expressed by _some_ that because they can grok a complex software system they should be able to build a house; but that's a bit like believing that because you are able to write you should be able to easily be a sculptor. There may be shared core concepts, like the story being told and the ideas being conveyed, but the skills and knowledge involved and shared are few.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. My father is a carpenter and I helped him build our family cabin when I was a pre-teen. We did mostly all of the building except putting up the trusses and finishing the roof. My dad was smart enough to farm out that work.

Now I write software and I work with a lot of people who dream of going off in the woods and building a cabin, as though it's the same as building software. I have to remind them that "there is no undo". "Measure twice, cut once" is a phrase for a reason. You can't refactor your cabin half way through building. Surprisingly many of them never even considered these things, let alone the tricks or techniques needed to do a good job.

I think a lot of white collar workers see what blue collar workers do as perhaps difficult physically, but not mentally. But that couldn't be further from the truth. And this is especially true when you're trying to piece together an entire cabin by yourself.

<comment><USER11> > My dad was smart enough to farm out that work.

What I find curious is that this viewpoint, while widely shared in trades, is not a universally shared value in tech. Many in our industry will prefer to write something themselves, or rewrite an existing project, rather than farm that work out to an expert or adapt to what they already have.

Particularly in my segment, video games: it's all well and good to write a game engine for fun, but _so many_ indie studios spend enormous amounts of their time, effort and cash on developing new engines afresh.

I can only imagine what the housing industry would be like if sub-contracting weren't as popular as it is.

> I think a lot of white collar workers see what blue collar workers do as > perhaps difficult physically, but not mentally.

Aye, this is what I was alluding to as snobbish.

<comment><USER13> It is hard to look at something and realize that even though you can you shouldn't. I'm a programmer, I can write the engine. Several years later I have an engine. We have many new languages all the time for similar reasons, someone thinks they can write one (generally better) and forgets about all the effort it really takes and maybe they should do something else.

<comment><USER14> On the flipside, a lot of software rework can be closer to the decision of whether to brush your own teeth, flush your own toilet, or make your own fried egg. It takes wisdom, experience, and a presumption about many other unspecified factors to determine whether these are really better to outsource or solve in-house...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The first thing he did was host a long-weekend work party to fix it up. I > flew up from my home in Oakland, California. With a group of friends, we > tore out exposed nails, cladded interior walls, built a deck and an > outhouse, and hung shingles. At night, covered in sawdust and grime, we > drank too much and huddled around a propane stove to keep warm, eventually > falling asleep and breathing in noxious fumes all night until we staggered > awake in the morning. >>>It was awful—and one of the best weekends I'd had > in recent memory.<<<

There's a word for this: Type II Fun. Type I Fun is when you're having fun and you know you're having fun while you're doing it. Type II Fun is when you're absolutely fucking miserable the whole time, but afterwards you and any of your friends that were with you say it was the best time ever.

Lots of outdoor activities that are supposed to be Type I Fun end up being Type II Fun. Lots of activities that aren't supposed to be fun at all end up being Type II Fun. (basic training is a common example) I've heard Dwarf Fortress is Type II Fun, but I could never get into it.

This whole process of building the cabin sounds like a class example of Type II Fun to me.

<comment><USER16> Ultra running is definitely Type II fun. It's not that enjoyable at the time but somehow in that suffering you find pleasure afterwards

<comment><USER17> The worse it feels, the better if feels when you stop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I knew a real estate agent who specialized in cabins and mountain properties.

He had a constant inventory of what he called "Divorce Cabins". They were half-finished DIY cabin builds or renovations that turned out to be way more stress and work than the couples expected. This tended to lead to divorce, which lead to a forced sale of the property.

Experienced contractors would pick them up at a discount, finish the work with their crews, and sell them off.

These things are doable if you have infinite time and money to spend on renting the right equipment and hiring help for jobs that _require_ experience and/or multiple people. However, it's virtually impossible for someone to do on weekends alone.

<comment><USER19> And yet there are people who have built cabins in Alaska with nothing but some metal and a lot of ingenuity and muscle.

I think that if you have to build a cabin that conforms to certain building guidelines, bank standards, codes, mainstream retail expectations.... then for sure you are going to encounter expenses and risk.

But I really hate this notion of "just pay someone to do it correctly", because this proposition also has a ton of risk and expense associated with it as well. Not every contractor who takes a job is Bob the Builder.

For me, if I was serious about building a home for myself so that it's customized to my taste and an extremely good value, I would throw all of the rules out of the window and build it exactly like the real cabins out there in Alaska and Siberia whose style has been perfected over hundreds of years.

<comment><USER20> > And yet there are people who have built cabins in Alaska with nothing but > some metal and a lot of ingenuity and muscle.

You're forgetting time. Not sure if you've seen "Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness" ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG3fUIoXQ5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG3fUIoXQ5A)).

It's a great watch, and a good example of what I think you're referring to overall...that said it looked like an extremely hard way to build and from personal experience helping my sister build their holiday home, also not an approach I would recommend to anyone that doesn't have a very strong conviction and/or passion to see a self build through.

<comment><USER21> It's extremely hard. Proenneke was a talented craftsman who had spent his whole life working as a mechanic and carpenter. He wasn't an office-bound DIY enthusiast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reading this, I am reminded of an observation made by the Unabomber in his infamous manifesto. He pointed out that the industrialized, corporate life was making us miserable and depressed. What people really want and need to be happy is to struggle with real problems they care about, and then overcome them through hard work. That is the only way to satisfaction and happiness. He was a smart guy, it's too bad he went apeshit and killed a bunch of people.

<comment><USER23> >He was a smart guy, it's too bad he went apeshit and killed a bunch of people.

He killed three people, one of which was arguably unintentional. Further, he has continued writing[1] and appears perfectly lucid, even into his 70's. You may disagrees with his ends and means (I do), but I find it curious that out of the hundreds of political revolutionaries who used terror and murder over the centuries, Kaczynski is viewed especially through the framing of insanity.

[1] [https://fitchmadison.com/product/anti-tech- revolution-2020/](https://fitchmadison.com/product/anti-tech-revolution-2020/)

<comment><USER24> He achieved nothing and also hasn't killed enough people. That's pretty much the difference. He's not a revolutionary, just a murderer.

<comment><USER25> So as long as you achieved something, your trail of blood can be as long as you like?

<comment><USER26> In the eyes of history, that does tend to be the case, unfortunately.

Think of all the former or current colonial and imperial powers, and their leaders. They have _lots_ of blood on their hands, but most of them are viewed far less critically than they should be.

It would be good to change that, but it's an uphill slope, not least because you need to tackle current and recent world leaders as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I used to have dreams like this. I attempted to chase these ideas every few years. I quit a very good job once and moved halfway around the world in an attempt to fulfill one of these dreams.

At some point I got married and eventually had kids after which these kinds of romanticized ad-hoc adventures became impractical. Sometimes I wish I'd been more focused when I was young. I feel like I probably wasted a lot of time pursuing ideas that had a high risk of not being sustainable for the long- term.

I find myself giving younger people advice that I would have balked at at their age. They don't listen to me of course, just like I didn't listen to more experienced adults when I was in their place. No one wants to be told, "Don't follow your dreams. Weigh the risks and the potential return on investment first". I guess part of being young is taking those risks and learning from your failures. And sometimes, chasing an impractical dream pays off. Sometimes they pay off big.

But now days when I get the wanderlust or some feeling of discontentment and find myself wondering, "there must be more to life than this?", I just try changing something small in my routine, like, "you know what? I think I'm going to start taking walks during lunch every day.", or, "I think I'll study this new language for an hour every night after the kids go to bed.", or, "I think I'll build a garden enclosure in the backyard". I often find that by changing something small in my routine, I can break out of the monotony and feel some sense of accomplishment I hadn't noticed was missing.

But even then, there is still some voice in the back of my mind that says, "someday, when the kids are old enough and out of the house, I think I'll take one last big risk and embark on some kind of unlikely adventure."

<comment><USER28> I found this poetically beautiful, for some reason : )

<comment><USER29> The you will like Italo Calvino:

[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499400-when-a-man-rides- a-l...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499400-when-a-man-rides-a-long-time- through-wild-regions)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This reminds me of a similar article I once read: "I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life."

[https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/12/my-coffeehouse- nigh...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/12/my-coffeehouse- nightmare.html)

<comment><USER31> Those stories always get me.

Anyone who has worked in food service in any way knows that it's brutal. Liking a thing, coffee, coffee shops, or anything ... very much does not mean you'd like making it / running something making that thing.

Personally I like video games ... I code web boring apps... for reasons.

<comment><USER32> Those stories seem to be about half of the restaurants on Gordon Ramsey's show. I know there's a lot of embellishment and added drama on the American version, but the crux of half the restaurants are "we thought it would be a good investment" or "we always dreamed of owning a restaurant" and almost none of them have experience.

<comment><USER33> Also worth noting that most of the restaurants on the show closed [0]:

> More than 60% of restaurants featured on the show "Kitchen Nightmares" are > now closed, according to Grub Street New York, which did the math. > Approximately 30% of those kitchens closed within one year of their > episode's air date.

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/many-restaurants-on- kitchen-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/many-restaurants-on-kitchen- nightmares-have-closed-2014-6)

<comment><USER31> Yeah if the fundamentals as far as experience and such are bad to start .... you've got little chance to survive in the world of food service where the difference between success / fail is already razor thin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I usually just roll my eyes at stuff like this, despite being dangerously close to the stereotype (however, most of my family is working class, so I actually worked with my hands before becoming a developer), but this line made me angry:

> Sometimes, during those months of toil, our anger burned so intensely that > we thought the _boards we threw into the woods_ might never land.

To paraphrase Gandalf, next time throw yourself into the woods and save us all a deal of trouble.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but Wherever you go, there you are. Few people get the Eat, Pray, Love ending. Usually you come back finding that you shouldn't have had to leave in the first place. If you feel like chucking it in, live an austere life and save up first. That lowers your cost of living, and focuses you. If you can't take that, then you won't handle the next phase. If you can handle that, you may find you don't even need to go. Evaluate before following through on the rest of your plan out of some sense of completionism.

<comment><USER35> I took two long journeys in my life, one for 11 months and another for 5:

[https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/minimalism/](https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/minimalism/)

[https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/a-tale- of-t...](https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/a-tale-of-two- journeys/)

I lived out of two bags the first time and a car the second. I learned a lot about myself and the world. I had a good amount saved up, but I've met people who've done similar trips and haven't. I got the idea from a guy I met in a hostel who saved up $10k in a year from his job waiting tables, and traveled for a year off of it. My best friend lived in Germany for years off of <500 euro a month teaching English.

It's not an easy life for sure. Eventually that server went back to work at his restaurant, my friend teaching English returned to Ohio and I got a job in software engineering. I still wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

<comment><USER36> Did that for a while in my early 20s. Spent a few months in Asia with just a 35L backpack of clothes on my back and the odd book. This was before wifi and smartphones. Happiest time of my life.

<comment><USER37> I did something similar after wifi and smartphones, and I don't think either made it any worse.

<comment><USER38> I hope that true, but how would you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think they misjudged the timescale and the complexity added by slope. Good outcome though so clearly wasn't too badly misjudged.

Youtube channel Wild Wonderful Offgrid [1] built a much bigger absolutely gorgous house...but on flat terrain and over two years.

The other thing I've noticed is that many successful projects have pretty permanent "temporary" accomodation on site that take the pressure off needing to complete it asap.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/c/WildWonderfulOffGrid/videos?view=0...](https://www.youtube.com/c/WildWonderfulOffGrid/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid)

<comment><USER40> That's a good point. Buy an old RV for a year, place in it onsite, and live in it as necessary until the structure is inhabitable, and then sell the RV, hopefully at not too big a loss. It can be a towed RV even, whatever those are called.

<comment><USER41> A tried and true pattern I've seen is "build the barn, live in the barn, build the house".

And then sometimes the house is _also_ sheet-metal-clad and looks pretty barn- like—it's just better sealed and insulated and has a few more windows :-)

<comment><USER40> Even building the barn takes awhile! I built a 8x12' shed working mostly on weekends 7 years ago and that alone took a couple months. Good thing it was in my backyard and I thus already had a house to live in.

Also, I suspect that if you're building a smaller cabin-type house in the woods, you don't also want a barn. Maaaybe a shed.

My dream house would have some interior unfinished space that opens to the outside for use as a shed/workshop. Basically think of a large unfinished mudroom with storage for tools, a lawnmower, shelving, a workbench, and maybe some larger stationary power tools like a band saw and drill press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It ended up costing ~$50k (not counting labor) and took a year to build, and they sold it for $115k. The cabin looks phenomenal. I wonder how a tinyhome would compare in cost and features?

<comment><USER43> I don't really get the tiny home fixation some people have. If it's a move towards minimalism, fine, but I don't think it's a practical cost cutting measure if we're talking about rural properties.

The reason I say this most of the costs in rural homes have little to do with house size. My septic, well, electricity, tractor + attachments, mower, etc. and the piles of tools I need are all fixed costs that have little to nothing to do with my house size. Likewise my municipal taxes are based on assessment value which in large part is lot size and location.

And many municipalities and townships have rather tight restrictions on what can be built and where, and many of the ad-hoc tiny homes may not meet them.

Living in the country looks simpler to people in the city than it is. It is often very very expensive no matter how low the actual land value cost is.

<comment><USER41> Best I can tell, tiny homes are mostly just very expensive, more- instragrammable Mobile homes, kit-prefabs (A-frames, say), or RVs (depending on how they're built) for people whose class-self-image would be threatened by living in a Mobile home, RV, or prefab. It's not about cost-cutting.

<comment><USER44> There's a lot of sanity saving aspects of living in a tiny house versus a travel trailer. However a lot of people would in fact be better served living in a fifth wheel trailer, both in terms of space, cost, time investment, and ability to transport/park it places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I enjoyed a lot the reading, but the title is misleading. Not everything went wrong, they even list things they feared could go wrong and didn't. By the end of, it went mostly right (except for spending more time and money than expected).

Not a bad story, on the contrary, but I was interested in reading about the learnings of pursuing a dream and things going actually wrong. What you do next? Try again? Try another thing? Go back to your old life with renewed insight? Gain in wisdom?

<comment><USER46> My wife and I did this. We quit our jobs to travel for a year, got 6 weeks in before it was clear COVID wasn't going anywhere and we needed to return.

We came back and decided that since we had a nice travel fund and no jobs we should use that buffer to explore career choices and places to live that we hadn't previously.

She is now attempting to become a full-time food photographer, I'm still in software but working as a freelance contractor with a lot more free time and better commute.

So far we've broken roughly even on the experience, with a significant boost in quality of life.

[http://tomandmary.travel/](http://tomandmary.travel/)

<comment><USER45> Oh shit.. Covid is making a lot of dreams go wrong indeed. Adapting to the circumstances while keep the core of changing your life seems a smart way to deal with it.

There is nothing in the link you posted, btw. Not sure if a typo or you just didn't publish the site yet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Always do a job on paper before you jump into it like this. Draw out each step. Make bills of materials. Watch videos of people doing each of the steps. Determine costs and estimate times for each step. Make a list of tools required. Build a small scale model of your project. In this time you will make thousands of decisions that will grind you away if you try to rush it.

This all should take you from 6 months to a year plus for a big project. Especially if you have little to no experience with it. This is why kits are so popular. Someone else has already run into all the problems and done all the suffering and troubleshooting for you. At the same time, there are other people building the kits that you can ask for help.

</comment><comment><USER48> My parents put together a little half a-frame cabin in the 1970s down on the slopes of ranier near greenwater. I was just a baby and don't know what the initial imputes was. I still assume it was because my dad and my aunt on my mother's side both loved to ski and it is within about 30m of the crystal mountain resort.

I think the initial foundation, framing, roofing and siding was done by contractors. The cabin community it's in has water and power and septic was installed. But every year until I was about 13 we'd spend weeks up there doing finishing work. All the plumbing and electrical was done by the family or friends. All the interior finishing as well. About 15 years back we ripped out the original wood burning stove for a pellet stove when my dad and I both got sick of harvesting trees left behind by the logging crews. And then about 5 years ago we ripped that out and replaced it with propane.

It's getting to the point where I'm considering buying it from them and moving up there full time. There are some issues with getting fast enough internet without paying a small fortune, but every year it's a little cheaper, a little easier.

I was just up there last week, and while I love Seattle I think I moved a step closer to the move while working out on the front porch and looking up to find a small herd of elk chewing on some of the underbrush just a few feet away.

</comment><comment><USER49> It sounds like the purpose is the process. Of course you can pay people, but that is less satisfying. It's cool he is becoming a woodworker now.

</comment><comment><USER50> Those guys don't have a building problem. They have a drinking problem.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, building a cabin isn't a fundamentally complicated project. Think. Measure. Measure. Cut. Nail. Repeat.

<comment><USER36> Kinda like building a web app. Think, estimate, write, compile, deploy, repeat.

On a serious note, there's so many similarities between building a house and a web app.

Without a proper plan and a blueprint, preferably by an architect and not the contractor - forget about it. Client never knows what they want. Small changes (KILL ME NOW) can take huge amount of time and impact things that don't seem connected, which the client never understands. The last 10% is rarely completed or done badly. It always takes much longer than expected. Everyone's excited in the beginning and considers euthanasia toward the end.

It's hilarious really.

<comment><USER25> The similarities to web applications are not many. If you fuck up, you can erase the lines of code and replace it with the new ones. If you fuck up the foundation of your house, you've now potentially wasted many man-hours and whatever resources you used on it, and will probably need to spend just as many to fix it.

<comment><USER36> If the "core" of your software needs to be rewritten half way through the project then that's a disaster and you've also wasted many man-hours on it.

Maybe my crap's not loosely coupled enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> A common theme among stories like this: they pledge to take breaks and keep from burnout. Then they launch into it and immediately forget to take breaks. Then they get frustrated, overtired and make more mistakes.

The breaks have to be scheduled like anything else, or they won't happen.

</comment><comment><USER53> Interesting, as I am currently doing a similar thing, but kept my day job.

However, I didn't want to go all in, so I bought a small/cheap 0.33 acre parcel 25 minutes from work/home. Had Tuff shed build a 14x16 "workshop" on it. Put in solar, and now spending ~1/2 days a few times a week there. Currently finishing up building a 4x8 storage shed. Planning to build a 400 sf off-grid home/shelter next.

I initially started clearing the land myself, but quickly learned that digging/levelling is not something I want to do and paid ~1200 to have it cleared and graded. I also do not want to do cement work so will have a pad poured.

<comment><USER54> This seems like the ideal approach. Build the parts you want to build, and pay for the Work that's tedious, complex, dangerous, or otherwise outside your skill set/goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> _When we had nothing but the floor, we were still sketching and debating ridiculous design ideas over our morning coffee—curved, pagoda-style rooflines; walls that folded down into decks; a spiral staircase wrapping around a tree trunk to the loft—as if we were made of money and time._

I wonder if they told the buyer that the cabin was built by 2 underfunded inexperienced guys with no plans?

They aren't out of the woods financially yet... if that cabin collapses or burns up in an electrical fire, they may find themselves on the wrong end of a liability lawsuit.

<comment><USER56> Yeah, seriously. I'm a bit shocked that it's even legal for them to sell this cabin. Surely permits should have been required somewhere along the way?

<comment><USER57> I think the permitting process is a bit different for places like this. Depends on what kind of power you're using: solar or utility? You have a sewer, or a well, or do you collect your own water and compost waste? People build and modify structures all the time with and without permits. If the bureaucrats had their way you'd need a permit to change a lightbulb.

Also, is it a residence? This could easily be considered a "storage shed" as much as it could be considered a "house", much like RVs are insured differently than jobsite pickup trucks.

Furthermore, it's more or less on the buyer to make the call about a structure's safety and value. Even buying a regular house, in a regular neighborhood, you can go ahead and buy it even if the inspector says it's going to burn down within a year. The bank might not loan you the money, but you can buy it as long as you can afford it. Houses get bought and sold every day that don't meet electrical, plumbing or general safety codes.

<comment><USER55> As long as it's all disclosed, then it's probably fine. It's not only on the buyer to figure it out -- the buyer doesn't need to tear off the drywall to see if the house was taped together with duct tape instead of using nails. (but he might end up doing that if he has reason to doubt the construction quality). If the seller built the house himself without any professional guidance or inspection, he needs to disclose it.

I don't know about unincorporated areas, but around here if you put power and water in a shed, it's no longer just a shed and you need permits. And I think that if it's meant for human habitation even without power or water, you need the permits (though you may not get the permit without lighting and water/sewer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> site-packages1 Outside Online is a consistent source of high quality, long form articles. I always enjoy reading them when someone posts.

</comment><comment><USER58> This rings _so_ true.

While I was in grad school I got bored sitting behind a computer all day, and my wife and I decided to build a tiny house on a trailer as a way of venting our pent-up DIY urges. We'd just build it in our spare time. LOL.

We started in the late summer of 2013, with a trailer and no plans and a stack of construction books from the library.

Cut to spring 2016, having spent every single weekend and most evenings since (in zero degree winters and brutal Pittsburgh summers) sweating and swearing, really pushing the "divorce cabin" line, and having legitimate discussions late at night about the benefits of burning it all to the ground, where my wife, eight month pregnant, is trying to finish the trim work before I submit my dissertation and we tow it across the country.

The way the article captures the "not knowing what we were getting into" / tiny things that delay you to death / stressed out / losing friends / doing absolutely nothing else with your life / so over budget it hurts / final elation at success is absolutely perfect.

We only made it across the finish line because living in Pittsburgh on a grad student stipend is actually, well, livable, and I could do that while my wife worked pretty much full time on our housing boondoggle.

The main learning experience coming out of it was that you should absolutely pay how ever many thousands of dollars it costs for a good set of plans from someone who's done this before. Learning smaller tasks like framing and roofing etc is easy. Stitching it all together into a plan that you're arguing about because neither of you have any idea what you're doing, all while you're wasting precious daylight is _hard_. We would have finished at least a year sooner if we just had plans to follow.

All that said, building a place to live in was super rewarding (as others have said) type II fun.

We still have it, it's beautiful, and I have not yet burned it down.

</comment><comment><USER59> They got the property for 3,000 and sold for 115,000 (with cabin)

Where can you buy so low for so much land?

<comment><USER60> You can easily get cheap empty land in the American West so long as it's farther from the nearest city than your average Javascript crapping baboon is willing to drive with his family in the car for a weekend getaway and the parcel is too small for any commercial use.

The east coast is similar but all the numbers are smaller and the baboons shit under-performing pharmaceuticals and financial products instead of Javascript and SaaS.

Once you make that land livable you will be stampeded by a horde of Californians (assuming west coast) or New Yorkers (assuming east coast) looking to throw their monopoly money at you so that they may acquire your property and exit the rat race.

I'm only slightly exaggerating here.

<comment><USER61> Rofl. Yeah it actually makes complete sense.

If you're willing to dig in and make stuff happen, so that your skills/chutzpah combo is like 2-3 standard devs outside the norm... you can get a crazy good deal.

<comment><USER60> >so that your skills/chutzpah combo is like 2-3 standard devs outside the norm... you can get a crazy good deal.

This is true in so many different applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> As someone who earns good money working at a big corp, this article resonates deeply. From a financial perspective, these guys slaved away for almost a year, earning what was probably minimum wage. From a quality perspective, what they produced doesn't even look impressive, when compared to any other dime-a- dozen cabin.

And yet, there's something deeply fulfilling about building something _real_. With your own two hands.

So much of modern corporate life feels so anonymous. Like you're playing a tiny tiny part in a project so huge, that your part seems almost inconsequential. And even worse, the things you have to do, like sitting through meetings and preparing reports, feels like a total waste of time and talent.

In reality, those "bullshit" tasks that you have to wade through, are essential to keeping the project on track. And the "tiny tiny part" you've built, even as a small fraction, is still highly impactful when multiplied by the massive value-add of the project as a whole. Our corporate jobs at FANG- type companies are just as real and impressive as the cabin these guys built. But it just doesn't feel that way. And that makes it soul-draining, even though I know it shouldn't. I've been trying for years to keep my spirits up, and have yet to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER63> Many of the first projects I developed was crap.

I went to university learned a lot kept making code.

Got a lot better.

If I knew two guys with 0 training or experience had built a house the wanted to sell. I would stay far away.

It is sort of like a pre alpha house and selling it. Who knows that sort of problems will come out over time.

They made no mention of permits. Inspectors etc. if you build a cabin in the woods are you freed from all those things?

If the story was I quit my job constructing houses that I had done for 20 year and went to school or apprenticed for a coupe of years to learn how to do it To build a small ERP system in C. So I could sell it for good money.

If you have never written any code and have no experience with it. Chances are that your system is really gong to suck.

So is your next one.

If you screw up a house. People can die.

There are thousands Of bugs and even real proper bugs to deal with.

I plan to take 6 months off work to do some heart surgery. Never taken any advan ced biology or medical classe but everyone has a heart and usually But not always in the same place.

If I write out all details of the surgery . Or let's say I get a proper heart surgeon to write down in detail every step.

I memorize it in a week. Off to buy some tools.

What could go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER64> Jazz or jugaad as the Indians call it :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad)

Also [http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a- surprising-...](http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising- amount-of-detail)

</comment><comment><USER65> I have been enjoying replacing the exterior trim boards of the patio door to our 2nd floor patio, during my spare time while WFH. And get a very strong sense of concrete accomplishment in a decade almost.

The biggest learning is that the process is vastly more complicated then whatever I could imagine.

Different materials of materials Priming & painting (on lumber boards, and repair some surrounding areas) Tools Measurements and design Woodworking to hide small blemishes

The amount of labor is staggering as well. To name just one idea, carrying lumber and a bag of tools between the 2nd floor and the garage workshop has been a constant tiring experience.

And a lot of learning, each time when I progressed a bit, new study is required on dozens of youtube videos, and search on HomeDepot/Lowes/Amazon to get an idea on the materils/tools needed.

</comment><comment><USER66> I have a friend who did something similar to this but in his case he did it in his spare time (he works remote/flexible so spare can be during the day), mostly taking inspiration from guys like this that document the process and mistakes that they make or happen along the way. He was fortunate to have a plot of land in the middle of the woods large enough to allow him to build what the law here defines as "support house" that can be maximum 26 m2 (most people abuse it). Another benefit he had is that his uncle owns a lumber mill just 2 km away and he could get wood beams and planks very cheaply and conveniently. For insulation he used mud and straw he got for nothing from nearby farms. After painting the facade you really couldn't tell.

</comment><comment><USER67> This has all the analogies of some rando trying to write a professional piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER68> Why didn't they just add a well so they didn't have to do seller financing?

I also feel like this story isn't complete until they do the follow-up about whether the seller financing worked out. That's a big risk.

<comment><USER56> The word "permit" is suspiciously absent from this story, and adding a well would most certainly have required permits. Probably a lot of things they did required permits, but if the narrative is accurate it doesn't seem like the permits were actually acquired.

<comment><USER13> Rural areas tend to require less permits in general. I did a significant remodel and the only permit was electrical.

<comment><USER56> Are you speaking specifically about Washington state? I don't know the details up there, but I _can_ tell you from experience that this isn't at all true in Oregon (both personally for my own property and from occasionally helping my dad, who is a GC).

First, remodels aren't nearly the same as new construction. Second, in either case it is true in Oregon is that rural counties are less likely to notice or care if you don't pull required permits, particularly for remodels or "repairs" (even if the repair is the Theseus-like replacement of a completely unsalvagable structure). That doesn't mean the permits are any less required though and I would be very leary of pulling those kinds of tricks on a property that I turned around and sold.

This is all doubly true since they sold it owner financed, which means the buyer missed out on the bank doing some due diligence for them. Hopefully the buyer did their own due diligence and knows exactly what they bought.

<comment><USER13> Iowa each area is different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> It's definitely challenging if you don't have any prior experience.

My dream was always to have an office shed in my backyward until I decided to build one earlier this year before the pandemic. It turned out pretty good and it took me around three months to build it. Its hard work for sure but I couldn't be happier.

I wrote a blog post about it. [https://eduardosasso.co/blog/how-i-built-a-wfh- shed/](https://eduardosasso.co/blog/how-i-built-a-wfh-shed/)

</comment><comment><USER70> There is an air of elitism in SV generally and sometimes on HN (I attribute this to lack of education rather than purely bad intentions). Coming from a background of unskilled blue collar work (commercial roofing, assembling buses, carpentry apprentice) this was slightly satisfying read in a sadistic way. Much like playing piano or other instrument, manual labor is a skill; watching a senior craftsman perform at a level 10x-25x of what you could do is awe inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm very curious to hear from the HN crowd: how many of you are seriously contemplating something like this (not the "quitting the job" part; just the "we need a cabin in the woods" part).

With Covid-19 and everything, I feel that many folks in cities (I live in San Francisco), especially if financially able to, have been increasingly interested in buying land and/or homes or cabins in the vicinity, either as a permanent move, or as a backup.

</comment><comment><USER72> This article answered a lot of questions I didn't realize I had.

Yeah, I probably had a romanticized view of doing this as well, but it doesn't seem insurmountable -- perhaps doing it closer to a primary residence and working part time during the process.

For anyone who wants to read more, I recommend checking out Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Interesting read!

</comment><comment><USER73> There should be a consulting service for people who want to Do Something Different. Like a guy who listens to your plan, and tells you how realistic it is, and all the pain and frustration you're going to encounter. Maybe he also puts you in touch with other people who've done similar things.

<comment><USER44> My plan is to live until I'm 80.

It's going to involve a lot of pain and frustration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> My wife and I were just joking the other day, actually we were probably not joking, but we both wished we had gone into construction. Someone with a general contractors license is super valuable these days. I feel like the entire world is about to embark on a transition that we can't define yet.

<comment><USER53> You can start anytime. However, manual labor isn't a joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Seems like they should have documented the process much earlier.

It could have gone viral, with people following the developments, plus pictures, week by week.

I could easily see that cabin, in a bidding war, going for $150,000.

Then sell an ebook documenting How to Build Your Own Cabin for $100, to bring in an extra $50,000.

<comment><USER56> I think for that kind of thing to work, they would have had to actually know what they're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I'm currently building a dining table. I am building up experience building a workbench. I just discovered the legs do not stand vertical, after I just spent the whole day planing and milling the top to be flat.

But I made it myself, and that counts for a lot.

</comment><comment><USER77> Definitely appeals to my sense of adventure and independence, but these days I can't help it: my fantasies run more toward writing the companion piece: "We Saved Our Money And Bought This Totally Sweet Cabin From These Dudes"

</comment><comment><USER78> You can tell these folk work as writers, truly excellent read!

</comment><comment><USER79> PSA: There are uneven feet ladders for sale.

</comment><comment><USER80> The resulting cabin actually looks pretty great. I think if they didn't sell it, their appreciation of it would grow over time. It's great to build something "real" and permanent, and not just write transient bullshit for a newspaper all day.</comment>


'When will I use Pythagoras (or Ratios) in real life?' - <AUTHOR> Every so often I will have a student ask me this, but rather than respond sarcastically, or even not at all, I say...
I don't have much space on my desk at home, so when my monitor went kaput a few years back I had to be very careful about the size of it's replacement. Monitors are always advertised according to the length of their hypotenuse,
https://i.imgur.com/YY8YHIn.jpg
so if a monitor says it is a 22-inch monitor, it is saying it's hypotenuse is 22 inches long. This isn't very useful for me though, I need to know how wide it is to know whether it'll fit onto my desk, and to convert the hypotenuse to a width, I have to use Pythagoras.
The sides of monitors aren't often the same length though, they are usually wider than they are tall. A normal monitor (and any monitor I want to buy) will have dimensions in the ratio 16:9, i.e. for every 16 centimeters they are long horizontally, they are 9 centimeters tall vertically. In simpler terms, we can label the width of our monitor 16x and the height of it 9x, like so:
https://i.imgur.com/JxdFyLR.jpg
Image not to scale.
We know (thanks to Pythagoras) that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 , but how does this translate to our beautiful real life problem? Well it translates as (16x)^2 + (9x)^2 = (our hypotenuse)^2. (16x)^2 is 256x^2 and (9x)^2 is 81x^2 so together, c2=(81+256)x^2 or 337x^2. To get c alone we then need to square root 337x^2 , we receive 18.36x.
https://i.imgur.com/92LN2UR.jpg
Final step now. My desk only has space for a monitor 17.5 inches wide, what is the hypotenuse of said monitor (assuming it is in the ratio 16:9)? Well, if 17.5 inches = 16x, then x = (17.5/16) inches. If our hypotenuse is 18.36x, then in inches it is 18.36 times (17.5/16), (or put simply) 20.08 inches. So what size monitor am I going to buy? I'm going to buy a 20 inch monitor.
Extension Question: How tall is my monitor going to be? <comment><USER2> I'll offer this life experience:

I got into a debate with some fellow backpackers a couple years ago about how to measure total distance traveled when hiking in mountainous areas. They all said they could measure the total distance using the Pythagoras theorem but they were only measuring the distances of the angled sides of a triangle, not both the forward and up/down, which you have to traverse in the real world.

When I explained that they were only measuring the distance in a 2D world but since we live in a 3D world we need to measure both forward and up and down to get total distance traveled they were all in agreement that I couldn't be more wrong.

When I tried pointing out that this is an exercise in the physics of spatial dimensions (3D), and not a 2D flat plane, they couldn't (or more aptly put, refused) to grasp the difference.

I think this approach might be another good way to illustrate using it because while they all understood how it worked they didn't have a clue about when to apply it, which your example perfectly illustrates.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure they understood exactly what you meant and could apply it. Nobody measures distance the way you described it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ask your student(s) to look at a map, or better yet, open up Google Maps and flip to 'Earth' view.

All that satellite imagery? Every single pixel, from every single satellite fly-over / observation, __all __interpreted / post-processed / calculated into actual meaningful data via Pythagorean theorem.

E.g. every data point processed for "incident angle" of the observation platform above parcel/pixel observed. Basics @

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence_(optics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence_\(optics\))

[http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/~research/tutorial/freqpol.htm](http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/~research/tutorial/freqpol.htm)

Math FTW.

<< edit to format >>

</comment><comment><USER5> They are also used quite a lot in building trades or wood working or machining. Pitch of roofs are often given as a ratio, tapers on machinery shafts, making sure your pipes have sufficient slope to drain properly. Another construction example would be how long of a board do you need for the stringers (the long boards that are notched for the stairs if it has to go up 10ft over a fifteen foot distance, etc. whether they might end up the designer or the constructor of things it's probably one of the more practical math concepts.

<comment><USER6> And add to that that the 3-4-5 triangle is still a useful way to establish a right angle without any tools (apart from a piece of string).</comment></comment>


Over 1M Microsoft eBooks Given Away in 2 Days - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2014/07/10/over-1-million-free-microsoft-ebooks-given-away-in-2-days-and-soon-to-be-2-million.aspx

<comment><USER2> This may be weird... but this downloads all the books (just find and extract out all the links to a file) import urllib2 import urllib

f = open('file.txt') CHUNK = 16 * 1024 for line in f: req = urllib2.urlopen(line) file = req.geturl().split('/')[-1] file = urllib.unquote(file) if '.pdf' in file[len(file)-4:]: with open(file, 'wb') as fp: while True: chunk = req.read(CHUNK) if not chunk: break fp.write(chunk)</comment>


What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/what-happens-when-baseball-stats-nerds-run-a-pro-team.html?referer= <comment><USER2> The 2016 Chicago Cubs!</comment>


HDMI – Hacking Displays Made Interesting - <AUTHOR> http://media.blackhat.com/bh-eu-12/Davis/bh-eu-12-Davis-HDMI-WP.pdf <comment><USER2> I was involved in the creation of the Arduino CEC library, so I instantly recognized the schematic included in the PDF on page 17. My hardware implementation of interface is here: <http://www.andrewncarr.com/hdmi/> (I included additional wiring for hotplug detection and an EDID interface)

It has been great to see the progress in the 2.5 years since, with LibCEC and availability of commercial adapters. As far as I know, no discrete video card yet offers access to the CEC bus.

I'm not sure what security vulnerabilities are possible via CEC, no vectors that I can see, but I am no Moxie Marlinspike. I suppose newer sets may store things like Netflix credentials, but CEC is often implemented in a discrete chip, or embedded port controller. That was the state of things in 2008 models anyway, and it is a fast moving area, so I am likely way out of date. The OSD "internet features" of my 2008 Samsung are laughably quaint compared to what budget models can do today.

</comment><comment><USER3> It never ceases to amaze me how even the most innocuous things (like the video port on your netbook) could be an attack vector for security exploits.</comment>


Wow Computer – A Computer Designed for Senior Citizens - <AUTHOR> https://www.mywowcomputer.com/ <comment><USER2> My great aunt loves to play Crisis, what GPU does this have?</comment>


Seed investment as a recruiting strategy. - <AUTHOR> http://sylvainsf.tumblr.com/post/19301566638/investment-as-a-recruiting-strategy

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a pretty good idea.</comment>