Where have all the graduate students gone? (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0725/p25s01-cogn.html

<comment><USER2> I dropped out of a top-ten math PhD program because I looked around and thought, "Most of these guys aren't going to get jobs, and I don't feel like one of the exceptions. I'm not going to spend five years in graduate school to end up a failure."

Of course, by "job" I meant a tenure-track research position in a livable city, and by "failure" I meant... well, basically, by "failure" I meant my father, who taught at a small, bad public university in a rural wasteland. I'm pretty sure my mom hated him for every hour and minute she had to live in that town. If I picked up a wife or girlfriend in the hip, thriving city where I lived, would she follow me to Bumfuck, USA? Would I let her if she wanted to? I constantly obsessed over the fear of ending up teaching hopeless kids at a double-directional school in a little town at the end of the universe, watching my kids grow up alienated from their provincial peers and underserved by the school system, burdened with the knowledge that it was _my_ failure that forced my family to live there.

So I quit and got a job as a programmer to keep myself afloat while I figured out what to do with my life. It turns out there are lots of challenges in computing, and I've worked alongside a couple of math PhDs on interesting problems. I think grad school would have been a lot more fun if I had realized that failing to get a hot tenure-track position wouldn't ruin my entire life.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...there are far more post-docs working at universities than there are permanent jobs for them to move into, so a lot of people get stuck in limbo."

The author answers her own question. Since the era of expansion in higher education and private research labs driven by the baby boom and cold war came to an end in the 1980's, the scientific job market hasn't been matched to the number of qualified applicants. If anything, there should be fewer grad students.

For all the rhetoric about higher education as a bastion of left-wing politics, academics put up with an employment system that would make Ayn Rand smile. Aside from an ever-shrinking pool of tenured professors, most academics have low salaries, high workloads, little-to-no job security, and few employment prospects outside academia.

<comment><USER4> Yup. I came up with some back of the envelope numbers around this here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181>

<comment><USER3> Interesting analysis. I suspect it's only going to get worse in coming years, with the economic crisis taking a big chunk out of endowments and professors' retirement savings alike.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The obvious answer is that a good science student can make 6 figures today as a programmer or in finance, or they can go to grad school and work harder for much less money.

My own reasons are actually different. I'm not particularly interested in money, and I love to teach and to do research. The academic environment just seemed stifling to me. As someone who values creative freedom enormously, the phrase "publish or perish" is very frightening.

<comment><USER6> Where, if at all, did you finally find creative freedom?

<comment><USER5> I haven't really found a good way to support myself while doing what I want, yet. Right now I live frugally and work part-time as a programmer. One reason that I hang out at news.yc is that I'm hoping to turn some of my ideas into some sort of startup, even though I don't really fit the profile of a startup founder (I'm not very driven or passionate, at least not when it comes to business.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One reason not mentioned in this article (but mentioned in others like at The Chronicle of Higher Education) is that changes in immigration and visas post-911 have strongly discouraged students from coming to the US. Many of the students who would have come, are prevented by ICE. Consequently, many don't even try for student visas in the US and seek higher education in other countries (for example, UK and Australia).

Another reason not mentioned is the soaring cost of education in the US. Rising far faster than inflation, higher education has become unaffordable for many. Post-baccalauriate degrees are even further out of reach.

And as for domestic students, the salary difference between a bachelors and masters (at least in electrical engineering, which was my first bachelors) would never pay for the time and money needed to get the degree. When I got my BS back in the 80s, the difference between BSEE and MSEE was $5k/year salary differential. Between the money and time lost getting the degree, presuming zero cost of money, going for the masters would have paid off after about 30 years in the workforce.

People in engineering are likewise worried about where the next generation of engineers are going to come from. Students have been voting with their feet and wallets to get away from short-term professions like engineering (the half-life of an engineering career is 7 years, which isn't long enough to pay off your student loans before you have to find a different career).

<comment><USER8> The cost of education isn't much of an issue. PhD programs in the sciences almost always cover tuition and provide a stipend in exchange for teaching or research work.

<comment><USER9> But there is the opportunity cost of missing real income when you stay out of the work force.

<comment><USER10> Generally people who want to pursue a PhD do not do it for the money. A PhD is about loving the field you're in and loving research.

<comment><USER11> True, but there comes a point where the sacrifices become too great.

My father is a professor (albeit of Medicine, where salaries are actually pretty good). He easily bought a house in a great neighborhood in San Francisco. On our street, there was a retired cop and a firefighter, and a Communications Professor at SF State. A good friend of mine's father was a physics professor at SF State, and they owned a nice, spacious house in the Sunset. Another buddies parents were both public high school teachers, owned a house in the Sunset no problem(one was full time, the other part time).

My brother is now a professor (tenure track) at SF State. He decided against renting his own 1br (too expensive), so he rooms with a buddy from high school (who teaches high school math).

So these two guys in their early 30s, one of whom is a success story out of his PhD program, rent with a roommate -where their parents easily bought and supported families.

You can say "well, that's the market at work", but then you lose your right to fret about the shortage of Americans in PhD programs in the sciences.

Back when it meant you'll never be rich, but you'll be able to afford a modest house in the western half of San Francisco", I could accept the argument that it's not about the money. But nobody will sign up for 6 years of post-grad + another couple of post-doc for near financial hopelessness or banishment to tiny towns far from the coasts...

Unless, of course, it's the only way to get legal residency in the US. Evidently, the US has decided to use this reality to staff PhD level positions in science and engineering - in spite of all this talk about getting Americans interested in math and science. Everything else is just pissing in the wind, as far as I'm concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title should include the note that the article is from 2002.

I'm sure that given the current economy it's not so much of a problem now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Fixed it! By the way, even though it is outdated, I still see some of the problems prevalent today. Does anyone know where to find current statistics?

I tried browsing through the U.S Census data but that was almost hopeless.

<comment><USER13> You can find US physics data here:

<http://www.aip.org/statistics/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not sure how relevant the problem is today, but most analysis of this situation is all wrong. It's K-12 math and science education that's the real cause.

Developer A: "Our compiled code is slow!"

Developer B: "It must be a problem in our implementation, we should fix that."

Developer A: "But our C compiler is absolutely horrible. In fact, all it does is compile the C code to Python and then pass that to a Python compiler."

Developer B: "Well why does it do that?"

Developer A: "We don't have funding for an actual C compiler. State law requires us to use the Python compiler for everything. [1]"

Developer B: "It's too late to fix the compiler. We're already in the project development phase. We can't fix the fundamentals, just optimize the code!"

Developer A: "Ok fine, how about we change compilers for the next project?"

Developer B: "Nah, that'd take too much work."

[1] Note: accurate reflection of the logic used in curriculum planning for most K-12 city schools.

<comment><USER9> As far as your statement on K-12 being a problem, this topic has been discussed widely (read is a key concern) in the ACM. Here's a resource: <http://csta.acm.org/> (Computer Science Teachers Association)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I've been pretty happy with the ACM's response in regards to Computer Science. Math on the other hand, is a completely different beast. At least with CS there is an easy profession like game programming that students can relate and aspire to. No similar profession exists in the mind of a kid for Math that has the same appeal.

<comment><USER15> Math could conceivably be better preparation for game programming than Computer Science.

<comment><USER14> It actually is. But not in the mind of a kid. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Being a scientist is still a comparatively low-stress, high-pay career"

Compared to jobs done by those without college educations, sure.

Compared to the many career options open to anyone who is in the position to become a scientist, not at all.

The author, like Obama and all the others demanding that (other) young people become scientists and engineers, are living in a fantasy world where a) science is an amazing career path an b) there is a shortage of scientists and engineers.

</comment><comment><USER17> Many U.S. citizen know that it's not worthwhile to get a Ph.D. and in some instances, a Master's degree. See Philip Greenspun's "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists" at <http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/>

</comment><comment><USER18> "Learning physics is actually not so different a process as learning a foreign language."

Uh, no.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States." (<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science>)

Despite agreeing with everything in the article, I am still devoting my life to somehow getting into graduate school - simply because my life goal is to eventually spend all of my prime waking hours working on beautiful, elegant, entirely non-commercial concepts, and there is still a non-zero number of academic positions which allow this, in contrast with industry.

Like choosing gladiatorial combat in place of meekly kneeling for beheading, it is an issue of having a sporting chance vs. no chance at all.</comment>


Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.counterpointresearch.com/nokia-becomes-the-fourth-largest-smartphone-brand-in-usa-in-q3-2013

<comment><USER2> I am very glad to see how the company which I love and follow for so many years is getting more and more share in the US market. The best thing I like about Nokia is how they are obsessed with quality of their products, I think in terms of build quality and design, Nokia is the only smartphone/tablet maker at this time to be a real competitor to Apple.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Nokia is the only company that gives me hardware envy. I've been wanting to run Android on one of those gorgeous Lumias for a long time. I've never felt like running Android on an iPhone.

Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.

<comment><USER3> It's already been done. Get yourself an N9 (same hardware as the lumia 800) or an N950 (most beautiful phone hardware I've ever had the chance to use but hard to come by as only a few thousand units were produced) and install nitdroid.

The problem is that the OS and hardware really go hand in hand. Installing a completely different OS than the one the hardware was designed for often results in a disappointing device. The N950 running Meego for example is still to this day what I would consider the pinnacle of hardware and software engineering when it comes to smartphones. It looks gorgeous, it feels amazing - no other smartphone I've ever used (and I've used many) comes close.

But install Android on it and it suddenly looks and feels like an unsightly brick. The way android looks like, the UI gestures, the way Android is meant to be used in general is different than Meego and it doesn't fit the hardware at all. It's loads of subtle and seemingly small details but the end result is a very unpleasant device.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into it, although I was thinking more of a Lumia 92x or 1020, mostly for the camera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nokia is going to make the turn, against all the odds. This is really promising news for having a 3 platform horserace to keep things honest.

<comment><USER5> What are you smoking, dude? There's no more Nokia to make the turn. Their entire phone section now belongs to Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Competition is good but for app development it's becoming too much. Android and iOS and WP and maybe Firefox OS? Who can handle developing four versions of an app? There's been a lot of debate on native vs web based on performance. But web may become the only reasonable way to release an app on all platforms.

<comment><USER7> Thus why cross-platform solutions are having tremendous growth. If web won't win out, it'll certainly be a cross-platform solution in the long run. My money's on web, if performance of those webviews catches up to native.

<comment><USER8> The performance of the web views doesn't have to catch up, it just needs to be adequate. Just like on the desktop browsers still deliver a much weaker experience than native apps, but almost nobody is releasing new desktop apps anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just recently got a Nokia 1020 and I love the camera so much. People keep asking "so does it REALLY have that good of a camera?" My favorite thing to do is to take a random picture while they watch, and then zoom way in on some text that's unreadable to their eyes, or zoom in on someone's skin pores.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds impressive until you realize they're #4 with 4% market share.

<comment><USER4> in the US. In Italy, the Nokia line is outselling the iPhone.

<comment><USER11> Also in Brazil, everything Apple is VERY-VERY expensive, because of the taxation system.. so the market share for Androids and Nokia are bigger

<comment><USER12> why would the taxation system penalize apple more than nokia or samsung?

It's not like the latters are made in brazil. Does brazil have special punitive tax rates towards US based companies?

Or is it just that the local equivalent of VAT goes up fast with the phone price?

<comment><USER13> In Brazil taxes do not "penalize" countries, products or companies.

Right in the middle of the Amazon region there is a development zone where the majority of the electronics are made, in the country, by multinationals. It is called a Zona Franca.

When built in the country the import taxes, which represent the majority of the cost for imports such as electronics, these taxes are removed and make the good much cheaper.

It is the same with Xbox and PS4 in Brazil. An Xbox is 4 times cheaper than a PS4. If Brazil would be against USA or it's companies then it would be the reverse.

Hope I helped.

ps. Many people in country complain about the taxes but forget that when companies move their industries to Brazil, jobs, money and know-how stay there too improving the competitiveness. Sadly the vast majority of the population will look the price tag and complain without knowing the implications behind.

<comment><USER14> For your ps: on the other hand, just think what would happen if every country did the same thing.

<comment><USER11> Not everybody could do it.. only countries with big markets could have this privilege..

Small contries would get simply ignored by the industries, since its too much trouble..

So it would get reduced to: China, Russia, Brazil, US, Japan.. and if managed in block: Europa..

This policy from Brazil is not a bad one if you think that the only other possibility left for industrial growth(technology transfer) would be one of the cheap labor.. like what happened in China, South Korea and the Asian Tigers..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I finally gave up my Wifi+Skype plan for a cell phone with data a while ago, I went with a Nokia phone. It's stylish and affordable and Nokia is known for building things that last. The phone is great. But my feelings for Microsoft haven't improved. Shortly after I purchased the phone, Microsoft announced they wouldn't provide an upgrade path for Windows Phone 7 to 8. Then they announced they would release a mini-update to Windows Phone 7.8 for us that would bring some of the features. I waited six months or so for a tiny update and then they took it away and never released it on my phone. As long as Nokia is running Windows Phone, I will never buy another. And I certainly won't ever buy another Windows Phone anything again after the way they treated their users. I feel like my phone is running a beta version of Windows Phone and will never get updated to the real thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just got Nokia 520 last week as a throwaway phone (while I wait for 5s). I must say its great phone with windows phone 8 looking very polished and useful - only problem MS-Nokia has is quality and number of apps - hopefully they will be able to reach tipping point soon.

For 80$, no contract this is great deal going on now.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is all because of the Lumia 520, which is really driving Nokia's sales. There is a good space at the low end of the smartphone market and with people moving towards prepaid or no-contract in the US, a cheap off contract smartphone like the 520 is a really winner.

This is also good because Nokia is like 80+% of Windows Phone sales, so that means Windows Phone is creeping upward against Android (for better or worse)

<comment><USER18> The 520 really is a fantastic phone for its price point. Less than $100 no contract, and for 99% of daily activities I find it to be as good as or better than my friends' iPhones and Galaxies.

<comment><USER19> then you should check out Lumia 1020. The Camera is just awesome on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

Windows Phone owes the vast majority of its success to Nokia anyway, because most of the early adopters bought Nokia phones because of the hardware and _despite_ Windows Phone, which is why Nokia has like 90 percent market share of the WP market.

If this wasn't the case, the market would've been more decentralized. You could also test the theory another way - if Nokia would've quit WP for Android this year (if Microsoft wouldn't have bought them), Windows Phone would be dead almost immediately.

Plus, Nokia's phones actually looked nicer with Meego:

[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-n9-family.jpg)

[http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/Android...](http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/Android-ICS-Nokia-N9.jpg)

<comment><USER21> That looks almost exactly like Windows Phone with an iPhone or Android style apple launcher.

<comment><USER22> Well the UI is much more than a launcher. The N9 / MeeGo had the most redefined and brilliantly designed user interface on smartphones, both visually and functionally. Miles ahead of current-gen Android, for example. IMO It's the only interface that had the same 'magic' of iOS through simplicity, yet it was way more powerful. Here's couple of nice animated examples to get a glimpse of it:

[http://harmattan- dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Opening_and_...](http://harmattan- dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Opening_and_Closing_Applications.html) [http://harmattan- dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Backstack_an...](http://harmattan- dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Backstack_and_Multitaksing.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is more about the fall of once strong companies like HTC than Nokia's rise...and the eternal dominance of Apple and Samsung.

</comment><comment><USER24> But it took that share from Motorola, not the leaders. A better headline would be "Nokia ships more smartphones than Motorola, this quarter."

</comment><comment><USER25> Nokia: The U.S. or the rest of the world; pick one.</comment>


Laser Razor - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving <comment><USER2> I have no words.

> Does it produce a smell?

> No. Because we're not actually burning the hair, it doesn't produce a burnt > hair smell.

What? Does the laser emit magic?

<comment><USER3> They're claiming some form of light causes hair to break apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If they've got a prototype, why don't they show it in action? Surely this is a prime example that the proof of the pudding is in the eating!</comment>


Fox News Used Digitally Altered Photos in Coverage of Seattle Protests - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/fox-news-used-digitally-altered-170759654.html <comment><USER2> If only the world was rational enough that this would end Fox News's claims of credibility.</comment>


(2015) Protecting your hands as a programmer - <AUTHOR> http://madhadron.com/posts/2015-09-03-ergonomics.html <comment><AUTHOR> I found this technique interesting:

 _To press an individual key with one finger, drop the hand with the other fingers curled just enough to not strike additional keys._

Anyone uses this technique? I move my fingers down when typing, not my hands, but I'd love to put less stress on them.</comment>


Three Wise Monkeys: a plain speaking, easy to read, open source NDA - <AUTHOR> http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/three-wise-monkeys/

<comment><AUTHOR> you might also enjoy Contract Killer, an open-source contract for web designers and developers: <http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/contract- killer/></comment>


Ask HN: Any great talks you would like to share? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I found this talk [1] on the origin of silicon valley in the defense industry, linked in a comment here [2], and couldn't help but sit through the entire thing in one go. So I wonder, what other great, freely available talks or lectures does HN know about?<p>Rules: Can be on any topic. Can be of any length. Ideally, should be a standalone talk.<p>[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo<p>[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12281207 <comment><USER2> Simple Made Easy by Rich Hickey

[https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made- Easy](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy)

<comment><USER3> I would say all of "Rich Hickey's Greatest Hits":

[https://changelog.com/rich-hickeys-greatest- hits/](https://changelog.com/rich-hickeys-greatest-hits/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Edward Kmett's talk on Monad Transformer Lenses is wonderful. He manages to pack an overwhelming amount of information into a relatively short period of time, and as a Haskell newbie it points out a lot of facets within the language I didn't know as well as I thought I did.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxcz23GOJqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxcz23GOJqc)

</comment><comment> a-saleh Lets be mainstream by Evan Czaplicky

Designer of Elm language talks about principles he used to create language as approachable as JavaScript but as type-safe as haskell.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYk8CKH7OhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYk8CKH7OhE)

</comment><comment><USER5> Some of my favourite TED talks

Trial, error and the God Complex - Tim Harford [http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford](http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford)

Smart failure for a fast-changing world - Eddie Obeng [https://www.ted.com/talks/eddie_obeng_smart_failure_for_a_fa...](https://www.ted.com/talks/eddie_obeng_smart_failure_for_a_fast_changing_world)

How to make stress your friend - Kelly McGonigal [https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress...](https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend)

</comment><comment><USER6> "So you want to be a CTO?" [1] by Simon Raik-Allen, CTO of MYOB [2].

[1] [https://youtu.be/CVLwFYBvX5I](https://youtu.be/CVLwFYBvX5I)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYOB_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MYOB_\(company\)) . Basically a provider of accounting software. A household name in Australia.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jiro dreams of Game Design - by Brenda Romero - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esKW2ozlRRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esKW2ozlRRQ)

How to let your passion motivate you in developing great products (not just games).

</comment><comment><USER8> Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture [2007] its quite old now, but I still recommend it as a definite worthwhile listen!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo)

</comment><comment><USER9> Incredibly moving and informative talk about depression and its neurobiological symptoms: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc)

</comment><comment><USER10> For pythonistas:

Raymond Hettinger - Beyond PEP 8 -- Best practices for beautiful intelligible code - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf- BqAjZb8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M)

</comment><comment><USER11> @DHH Start Up School Talk 2008

The Secret to Making Money Online/A Secret to Making Money Online

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

Still my favorite talk.

</comment><comment><USER12> The most important talk for anybody getting into business for themselves: "Fuck You, Pay Me"[1] by Mike Monterio.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/22053820](https://vimeo.com/22053820)</comment>


Bing Developer Assistant for Visual Studio - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/12/16/bing-developer-assistant-for-visual-studio.aspx

<comment><USER2> You can now resize the intellisense window, allowing you to view more information in the intellisense window.

Thank you...thank you ever so much. It's less of a need and more of an annoyance.</comment>


How the National Enquirer Got Bezos' Texts: It Paid $200K to His Lover's Brother - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-national-enquirer-got-bezos-texts-it-paid-200-000-to-his-lovers-brother-11552953981 <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like WSJ's paywall now effectively blocks archive.org/archive.is

tl;dr: the leaked photos/texts came from old-fashioned theft, not from government-assisted intrusion or fanciful hacking. Though the story never states how Michael Sanchez exfiltrated the data from his sister's phone.

The lede:

> _Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and his allies have publicly speculated > about how the National Enquirer acquired racy texts he sent his girlfriend, > including at one point hinting Saudi Arabia or the White House may have been > involved._

> _The reality is simpler: Michael Sanchez, the brother of Mr. Bezos' lover, > sold the billionaire's secrets for $200,000 to the Enquirer's publisher, > said people familiar with the matter._

Interestingly, The Enquirer apparently doesn't pay its sources until actual publication. But Mr. Sanchez had negotiated to be paid upfront "regardless of whether any story was published." And the Enquirer's general counsel (Cameron Stracher) agreed to it without the publisher (David Pecker) knowing about it, and Pecker ended up firing Stracher:

> _The Wall Street Journal couldn't determine whether anyone at American Media > briefed Mr. Pecker on the contract's specifics before it completed the deal > with Mr. Sanchez. People close to Mr. Pecker said he wasn't aware the > payment was made upfront and felt as if was being forced to run the story._

<comment><USER2> This whole thing makes me wonder if we need to update the laws on criminal invasion of privacy to the 21st century.</comment></comment>


Real-Time Messaging Over Live Chat. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pubble.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Would love your thoughts / feedback on this. We've been building out Pubble to deliver a website messaging experience that's closer to WhatsApp than regular Live Chat solutions. Look forward to your feedback.</comment>


Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application - <AUTHOR> http://www.sweethome3d.com/ <comment><USER3> I just visited the website and have 3 suggestions:

\- Update the website visuals/design, they seem a bit dated

\- Put the download buttons on the front page to increase conversions

\- Make a mobile version, especially for tablets. Most tablets nowadays seem powerful enough for your software, particularly the iPad. I'm sure you've thought of this before, and I have no idea what the competition is like. However, as a home owner, I can tell you interior design apps have 0% of my mind space. They should probably have more, especially considering that, combined with sites like Wayfair, IKEA, and Overstock.com, you can have a design --> purchase pipeline which is both convenient for consumers and beneficial for you via referral revenue.

Also, this isn't really a suggestion, but something I'd personally love: Machine learning interior design. AutoCAD already has ML structural design tools, and this would be simpler than that. Make it so that a consumer can enter their parameters (room layout, cost, visual style preferences) and your "artificial interior designer intelligence" generates 10 designs that the user can mix and match from. The designs would link to the cheapest seller of each piece of furniture. Alternatively, the user can manually select the main pieces of furniture, like the couch and TV console, enter their parameters, and the virtual assistant will suggest matching "in fill," things like couch pillows that people usually neglect or just purchase randomly whatever is on sale. Augmented reality viewing of the machine-generated designs would be the cherry on top and prepare you for mass market introduction of AR glasses.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure you come at this with good intentions, but god do I hate low effort 'advice' like this. Basically you're saying 'just make everything better, that'll be great!'. No shit Sherlock, I'm sure nobody ever thought of that. If you're going to offer unsolicited advice, at least give specific, actionable advice of things that are not multi-year projects by themselves. It's like telling a car designer 'yeah cool car, but maybe you should add some drag racing stripes, oh and it'd be cool if the car could drive over water, too!' Uh, thanks, I guess?

<comment><USER5> It's hard to be specific.

The site at a first glance looks dated and very early 00's. The colour scheme, the stripy background, the layout, the fact it isn't responsive (well it tries to be with a burger menu but fails), the GIF clipart (esp. the 'new' graphic and the flags).

As a prospective customer you might be a bit put off at first glance and think the software is dated too and go off looking for something newer.

<comment><USER6> > As a prospective customer

The site is selling anything; complaining that the free gift comes in insufficiently fancy wrapping is tacky.

<comment><USER3> Non-profit operations have customers too. I think they'd better achieve their mission with a nice website, referral revenue to help with upkeep, and an iOS app for wider reach. People live off of their mobile devices, especially the people that most need free software. I'd totally understand if they don't have the capacity to do any of that though.

<comment><USER7> Unless the project itself is about the web, a polished fancy website is to me a yellow flag that the project is not open source first but trying to sell me something.

A lot of open source projects that are serious about the actual software have ugly websites or even nothing beyond a README.md on Github.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An interesting fact about Sweet Home 3D is it employs the Java 3D API which was originally developed at Sun Microsystems. Sun/Oracle abandoned it a while back but the API is still maintained by a small but dedicated group of volunteer developers [1].

[1] [http://forum.jogamp.org/java3d-f3728156.html](http://forum.jogamp.org/java3d-f3728156.html)

<comment><USER9> This touches on an underrated problem: whatever stack you choose today for your new product is what you'll be locked into for years if your product is successful.

It is almost inevitable that after a few years you'll be dependent on deprecated or abandoned libraries and frameworks.

<comment><USER6> > whatever stack you choose today for your new product is what you'll be > locked into for years if your product is successful.

For for-profit projects, that's less of a problem than it might seem when stated that way. If your project is successful, the means of getting off the platform (or getting the owner to adapt it to your evolving needs, or doing so yourself, including acquiring any necessary permissions, or solving it some other way) are provided by that success.

(Heck, that's true if people understand the business case and reserve resources from the savings for projects that aren't for-profit but are internal cost saving measures, as well.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks really similar to what you can get out of floorplanner.com which I've used for several personal home renovation projects (full basement finishing and master bathroom renovation). Very happy with it. I finally got the paid plan in order to get the high res prints that my city's permit office needed. But ~$25 is a lot cheaper than an architect!

<comment><USER11> Hey that looks fantastic. I wish we had that when we built our place. I mostly used Illustrator for the initial plan which was ok but that looks like a way better option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've used this in the past when looking for a new place to live. I would get the measurements of the best candidates and recreate them in Sweet Home 3D with my current furniture. It did wonders to help me optimize the costs of moving to a new place, especially regarding what I would need to buy because my current furniture would not fit. I highly recommend it.

<comment><USER13> Finding furniture that will fit, even for the simple case of a sofa going around a hallway corner, is an open problem in mathematics.

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

You should buy a Gerver sofa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This app is great. It's widely adopted within the Home Assistant community to create interactive floorplans to control your home. Example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMQwVjVewU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMQwVjVewU)

<comment><USER15> Are these static renders or full embedded 3D views? Looks great either way.

<comment><USER16> They're static. And in case you're wondering: The way it's done is you render an all-lights-off and an all-lights-on version. You use one version as the background and slice the other version up into separate rooms. Then show or hide those room images depending on the state of the lights in the room.

<comment><USER17> That would explain why the photons don't pass through open doorways! But in other cases, they do. I'm confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This program is awesome!

You have to make sure your data is accurate, for example wall thickness actually matters if you want an accurate drawing.

Split level designs require careful planning on how to separate the various levels.

It takes a little time to get used to how it "thinks".

Also be sure and install this plugin: [http://www.sweethome3d.com/support/forum/viewthread_thread,1...](http://www.sweethome3d.com/support/forum/viewthread_thread,1757) it can be rather hard to make accurate drawings otherwise.

<comment> m-p-3 Thanks for sharing this plugin!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Aside from its designated purpose of producing pretty 3D furniture visualizations, the 2D monochrome exports are pretty neat if you need to mock up architect-style floorplans without a proper CAD tool. Can assure you a few UK Building Regs drawings have been produced using it...

<comment><USER20> Right, just last month I was looking for a very simple tool to make a floor plan with measurements of my house. I'm not sure if there's a better one than this, but this looks like a perfect fit!

I was kinda thinking of something that maybe uses AR to measure/scan your house and turn it into a floor plan, was disappointed that it didn't really exist as far I looked.

<comment><USER21> Do you mean like Magicplan? [0] There's a few others but that's one I've used and it works fine.

[0] [https://apps.apple.com/au/app/magicplan-2d-3d-floor- plans/id...](https://apps.apple.com/au/app/magicplan-2d-3d-floor- plans/id427424432)

<comment><USER22> I've used that before. It worked well, but I found it frustrating that it required you to identify corners on the floor, where they were frequently obscured by furniture, instead of on the ceiling, where they were not.

<comment><USER21> Yeah I was just thinking the other day, apps like those would work so much better if they let you aim them at the ceiling. Your ceiling edges/corners are usually a lot more visible than your floor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You know what I always thought had inadvertently had this market cornered? The Sims. The build tools in those games get more and more sophisticated every time to the point where people can make some very crazy-detailed, beautiful homes in The Sims 4. Check out "Sims 4 home building" on Youtube. If I was going to design a home that'd be my first stop. I wonder if anyone else has done this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha. Funnily enough that's exactly what led me to find and post OP. I played the Sims 4 trial recently for a laugh/to reminisce about playing the original, and wondered if The Sims is what led to my several years' desire to be an architect, or whether that was why I enjoyed playing it. (It was 85% about building the house for me - I'd use the 'motherlode' cheat several times so I could build whatever I wanted.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Neat neat neat!! Seriously would have killed for this back when my husband and I were designing & building our house. Why couldn't the tech disruption have come sooner? :)

<comment><USER25> Isn't this pretty (relatively) old software?

I agree, it is great for homeowners to easily spitball reno ideas with a small learning curve, allowing you to share your vision with your spouse or architect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Love SH3D and its small team of developers!

I have used it in the past to model some property in 3D and use them on AirBnB and Facebook listings. The tenants and guests have always said that the mode was a major reason they decided to visit the property as it gave a clear idea of the size and proportion of the various rooms and amenities. Thanks SH3D.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great tool and also quite easy to use.

I've actually used it to simulate/chose my furniture and furniture placement quite recently.

Here the result using the ray tracing renderer:

[https://mirror.kakwalab.ovh/misc/Sejour_5.png](https://mirror.kakwalab.ovh/misc/Sejour_5.png)

[https://mirror.kakwalab.ovh/misc/Chambre_3.png](https://mirror.kakwalab.ovh/misc/Chambre_3.png)

Yes, that's mostly Ikea furniture. And consequently the 3D models are likely to exists and can be grabbed from 3dwarehouse/sketchup.

</comment><comment><USER28> I designed my floor plan of my home from scratch using Sweet Home 3D without any experience with either designing homes or using software like this.

Such a wonderful piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER29> I used this to demo an internal positioning system. It can export models in obj format, which you can load and animate in three.js

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting how this is just making it to the front page; it's been publicly released for over a decade.

I used this successfully 7 years ago when moving into a small apartment to sort out furniture placement. Great product then at least!

</comment><comment><USER31> For those who didn't get a blueprint to start (ie, we have a 50yo home - <USER2> that stuff wasn't available when we bought) - how do you recommend doing proper measurements? Or would you outsource that?

<comment><USER32> I measured my flat in three steps:

1) I took a lot of photos - every space from multiple directions;

2) For each photo, I manually drew the "wireframe" of the space in Inkscape on a separate layer on top of the photo - wall/floor lines, doorways, windows, furniture;

3) I printed out the wireframe layers, grabbed a pencil and a measuring tape, and started to measure.

Step 2) could probably be semi-automated with some edge detection. Step 3) could probably be done if I had any recent experience doing photogrammetry. But fully manual solution wasn't that bad; I did my measurements over the course of a month, and finally made up a full floorplan in SweetHome3D with accurately sized furniture in one evening. This let my wife and me design a new furniture arrangement and buy appropriately sized movables in a single hour.

For people who, like me, lack the "mind's eye" and spatial imagination, having the flat digitized like this has immense value.

<comment><USER18> > Step 2) could probably be semi-automated with some edge detection.

All 3 steps can be done automatically with magicplan.

However once you get the results you'll probably need to manually measure and adjust because it's not quite accurate enough. But it's a really good start.

<comment><USER32> Wow, that's the exact app I wish I had then. But it'll come in handy, I have a new place to measure up pretty soon, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is there a free / open alternative for exterior / architectural work? I know there is AutoCAD, and Chief Architect, but they are all quite expensive.

<comment><USER34> FreeCad has an Arch workbench. It's impressive but takes some time to get comfortable with it.

[https://freecadweb.org/wiki/Arch_tutorial](https://freecadweb.org/wiki/Arch_tutorial)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just fyi, and I've run into this across multiple distros, if you are running on gnu/linux, you might have to use the "SweetHome3D-Java3D-1_5_2" launch script instead of the standard launch script if you get an error about your 3d renderer.

I used to use it but since I have moved on to gltf 2.0 and it hasn't implemented that yet (only export to obj) I have focused on blender instead.

<comment><USER36> Yes, I couldn't get the latest version to run on Arch at all, had to use an earlier java version and it wasn't suitable for my needs.

<comment><USER37> It works great under Slackware 14.2, with the LTS java Slackbuild :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Used this for my recent home remodel. Definitely in the oldie but goodie category. Makes me wish for more software like it.

</comment><comment><USER39> What this really needs is a way to import your existing home from photos. Such a thing would have been ridiculous to imagine a few years ago, but today I could imagine approaching the problem with machine learning.

<comment><USER40> I recently downloaded the app "dream.land" after seeing this [1] Reddit post that uses photogrammetry to give realistic 3D models of whatever you scan (I did my living room). If you could augment furniture models in real-time on top of that I think you would be on to something!

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/dzoyav/fo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/dzoyav/found_this_bomber_skate_park_in_san_francisco/)

<comment><USER39> Yeah, something like this, but going a step further to extract a schematic floorplan with furniture. It's a hard problem to be sure, but the pieces are coming together in research now. I expect it will be possible in the next five years or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There's a lot of those. Ikea has one. Here's a list of 25 of them.[1] The first may have been Autodesk Kitchen Designer, a tool for planning semi-custom kitchen cabinets. Newer ones use augmented reality on a cellphone so you can see the item in your room.

The big problem with these is getting a big collection of 3D models of real furniture and keeping them current.

[1] [https://designingidea.com/interior-design- software/](https://designingidea.com/interior-design-software/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Can this support multiple floors and angled roofs?

I am using floorplanner at the moment and I can't seem to figure out how to put a "half-storey" attic floor.

Plus floorplanner's community forum seems to be dead.

<comment><USER17> It's in the FAQ: "How can I create a roof on top of a house? Sweet Home 3D supports the creation of ceilings seen from below, but doesn't manage the creation of roofs yet. Nevertheless, you can use various tricks to cover a house ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This reminds me of 3D Home Architect, by Broderbund, the publishers of Prince back in the 90s! The Print Shop!

<comment><USER44> Wow, I had no idea the same company published Prince of Persia and The Print Shop. The first time I heard of that name was from NES Spelunker in the 80s, since it was the first logo that showed up in the title screen of the game, and it was quite memorable for anyone who loved the game.

<comment><USER45> Ha! I used The Print Show in an Apple IIc back in the day. My parents must have loved them for all the paper and ink ribbons I chewed through. I still see the Brøderbund logo as blazing green on black in my mind. (google, google ..) And Captain Goodnight! Nostalgia overload!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> How does this compare to Homestyler ([https://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/](https://www.homestyler.com/floorplan/))? This doesn't work on my Chromebook because it says the java is incompatible, but homestyler works fine.

</comment><comment><USER47> I like the website. Keep it simple

</comment><comment><USER48> Previously I've used SketchUp for these kind of things - the free version does a good enough job and the library of objects is really great. Does anyone know how these 2 compare? (If not, and someone is interested I might be tempted)

<comment><USER38> I found this easier to work with than sketch up

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I designed my home before remodelling in Sweet Home 3D and it worked very well

</comment><comment><USER50> I used it several times for making a detailed plan of my home before going shopping for furniture.

One time it even helped me correct "the expert from the shop" and avoid a costly mistake on my soon-to-be kitchen.

Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER51> So I used this last time we moved, quick and easy way to check all the furniture would fit in the new home. I found it easy to use, the 3d rendering was a hit with my 5 year old son

</comment><comment><USER52> It's awesome and it is written in Java. Surprise, heh?

</comment><comment><USER53> My wife and I used this somewhere around 10 years ago when reorganizing our apartment. It was great!

</comment><comment><USER37> My SO and me rearraged our future home with that, it's really useful.

</comment><comment><USER54> Read this as "a free inferior design application" I must be tired :p

</comment><comment><USER46> how is this different than homestyler?

</comment><comment><USER55> On a different note - are there spec to 3d design apps? I'd love to just write what I want and see a 3d render.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean a high level description of doors, walls, etc. or something that, with a lot of work, you could build up to that, like OpenSCAD?

<comment><USER55> I just checked openscad. Thank you! Very good ! What other script to render programs do you know of?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't I'm afraid. Good search terms might be 'parametric CAD' or 'constraint', which are inherent features of script-based programs (but not exclusive to them, e.g. Fusion360).

<comment><USER55> Thanks for the pointer! I've recently discovered another trick- typing "openscad vs" in search bar

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> There is a myriad of these softwares. I wish there was some standardization and a text format

</comment><comment><USER55> So this says the app lets you design in 2d and renders in 3d. Has anyone used this that could answer a question- can I design walls too? I want to make kitchen cabinets.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm so disappointed that this isn't a 3d remake of that classic survival horror RPG,

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_\(video_game\))

</comment><comment> d--b I'm sorry but this looks like crap.

I've designed my apartment with openjscad (which I find way easier than any UI tool when you have actual measures) and rendered it in blender.

Perhaps the rendering part is a bit more work, but in the home redesign space a few hours doesn't really count...

<comment> m-p-3 Doesn't seem as user-friendly, and doesn't naturally takes into account wall- thickness, etc.</comment></comment>


Automating partitioning, sharding and failover with MongoDB - <AUTHOR> http://blog.boxedice.com/2010/08/03/automating-partitioning-sharding-and-failover-with-mongodb/

<comment><USER2> Boxed Ice is probably one of the larger MongoDB production deployments, and no doubt letting the DB handle the data growth will be a good thing for them. If anyone is going to run into issues deploying this, they will.

I have great hopes for Mongo 1.6: the automatic partioning and failover make it a very useful addition to startups' toolkits who need this kind of data storage. It's like having your very own Amazon SimpleDB that's cheaper to build and you control it 100%.

BTW, David gave a good talk about how Boxed Ice uses Mongo recently in London: <http://skillsmatter.com/event/cloud-grid/mongouk>

<comment><USER3> If sharding and repliaction is a major concern, I'd also take a look at riak or cassandra. Especially as a simple key-value store, they offer more interesting balancing and error recovery features than MongoDB. MongoDB does however have a rich data-schema and allows queries (although the necessary indexes bring up ram consumption a fair bit and might become a problem)

<comment><USER2> Yeah I looked at them a little bit. The reason I went with Mongo for my purposes was because it works the way I thought of the data and also it has a very helpful community. It's also very easy to set up and get going with PHP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something that surprises me about MongoDB is that they always talk about how this is for humungous data sets.

But then MongoDB does not seem to support online/hot backups without setting the whole system to read only. Incremental backups are not supported at all, AFAICS. If a server crashes, you're up to some really lengthy fsck action before your server is back up.

I don't understand how people actually make this work. If you have a huge databases, a complete backup is going to take too long to make setting your system to read-only feasible. And if a server crashes, even if you have a hot standby replica, if you have to do several hours of fsck before you can restore regular operations, that doesn't sound good either.

It's nice to see movement in the database market, and MongoDB looks really good from a front-end side (JS, indexes, queries, ...); but I think it really is lacking some crucial features.

<comment><USER5> You don't have to set your whole system to read only for the entirety of the backup. There are three ways to avoid it:

1) Use mongodump which queries for every object in the database. It will produce a compacted file, but does not do a point-in-time snapshot.

2) Take a backup from a slave. You can either set it to read-only mode, or just shut it down and copy the files.

3) Run MongoDB on top of LVM. LVM supports almost instant snapshotting because it uses copy on write. Once the snapshot has been made (usually less than a few seconds) you can resume the server for read-write operations.

Note that all three options can be combined. You could make an LVM snapshot of a read slave then use mongodump's --dbpath option to produce compacted backup files.

Please see <http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Backups> for more details.

<comment><USER6> I second the snapshotting using the disk system. It would be nice to be able to do this without locking the database, but LVM or ZFS snapshots take fractions of a second to create. In the mean time, pending transactions will just wait.</comment></comment></comment>


Googling 'web'.. First result is WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> http://google.com/?q=web <comment><USER2> Kind of makes me wonder if they paid to be there since

1\. Whatsapp is competition for google

2\. Doesn't seem what people would be wanting to find when they search for web.

<comment><USER3> They're the #1 result for "web" on DuckDuckGo too.

But why would someone expect people to search for "web" at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same thing when you search 'face' or 'you'</comment>


Free or cheap mobile app in 2019 - <AUTHOR> Dear All,<p>what is your opinion about topic of the title? We are developing a small game to Android and iOS, but we cannot decide that we sell it for 1$ or make a free version with ads and a pro vers. without ads. I think, in the second scenario can make significant income loss, because of free vers. (but unfortunately I don't have information about the possible income by ads). Could you link a calculator or method to make this decision easier? :) Thank you for your help!! <comment><USER2> Is your game marketed? If you do not have people to download it, it won't download itself. You'll have like 5 downloads even if it's free. If you think there's enough people that want to download it for it to be much more profitable if you make it p2p go for it</comment>


Hy: Lisp embedded in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hylang/hy <comment><USER2> See the discussion from last month: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20605660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20605660)</comment>


Pair.io: on demand cloud pair programming environments - <AUTHOR> https://pair.io/

<comment><USER2> It wasn't that clear to me from the video what was being offered by your service and what was being done with tmux or other CLI tools.

Is the benefit that you will spin up an EC2 instance from a config file in a repo and then me and my friend can work on it? Or is there more benefits to pairing with your service, like the collaborative editor?

<comment><USER3> A server is spun up and credentials given to all the invited users. Once a user logs in they can connect to a common tmux server and share a text- editor/cli/etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll save judgement for when I could try it, but why on earth do you need full access to my git hub account? I don't want to give you access to my private repo's unless I'm coding on them.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I remember correctly, tmux has this feature where multiple people can connect to the same window (shared sessions?). Is this the feature of tmux being used? If so, what does the pair.io server do? Where is the tmux window hosted?

</comment><comment><USER6> I can see this being useful if you do want to pair-code though I still see pair coding as clunky, especially since only one person will be editing the file at a time anyway.

<comment><USER6> that I don't understand either. You can do the same thing on your own machine, just add a user and tmux there, where you have the current code base up and running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is used for the instance configuration? What assets/scripts come from pair.io as opposed to what comes from my repo?

<comment><USER3> Project-specific configs can be committed to a repo to override the default configuration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The GitHub integration is a nice touch!

<comment><USER9> So is the message you get if you try authenticating with GitHub without being in the private alpha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like there's some cool technology here, but I'm not sure why it has to spin up a new server.

<comment><USER11> Some projects are self-contained, and for those you don't need any supporting infrastructure outside the runtime of your language. But once you start dealing with _systems_ where it's very particular about the specific version/configuration of the database or message queueing system, it's much less error-prone to have that automated. For that you need control of a whole machine, virtual or not.

I wrote a blog post about a similar approach applied to local VMs: <http://technomancy.us/150>

<comment><USER12> So you can't resume an instance? I only ask because some of my projects take a long time to import the initial seed data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The intro video could be improved, it dragged on for a little too long, but it seems cool!

</comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty awesome. Especially since we use a digital team methodology.

</comment><comment><USER15> Am I missing something here ? We do this using screen/screen -x

</comment><comment><USER16> His hello world function is missing []</comment>


What Your Open Source Culture Really Says, Part One by Shanley Kane - <AUTHOR> http://genius.it/5397536/modelviewculture.com/pieces/what-your-open-source-culture-really-says-part-one <comment><USER2> The same people who seem to hate open source culture are the ones saying we should be accepting of all cultures. It's hard to take them seriously, especially since "open source" is made up of all demographics by its very nature.

I'm not sure of any race, sex, religion, or ideology that is banned from participating in open source, perhaps the diversity of open source is the root cause of conflict. Perhaps creating a mono-culture environment where conflict is prevented by forcing contributors to assimilate into one dominant group- think ideology is a better format. Hitler seemed to think so.

It makes you wonder, if the tech sector is so "un-diverse" how do so many start-ups seem to be multicultural? According to the critics, stuff like this just can't happen naturally, so somewhere down the line someone took race/sex/religion into account during the hiring process and intentionally discriminated against someone else.

<comment><USER3> this kinda thing is mostly UNINTENTIONAL discrimination.. not INTENTIONAL.</comment></comment>


If font rendering on Linux sucks then why fonts on Android look good? - <AUTHOR> You can quickly google "font rendering on linux". But the fonts on Android seem to have no issue. What's the difference in font rendering between these two OS? <comment><USER2> Font rendering has kind of stopped sucking on Linux lately. There was this guy making a package called Infinality which majorly improved the appearance of most fonts on Linux. His patches has fiiiinally been pushed upstream to fontconfig and freetype2 themselves.

But that's not the major difference between Android and Linux -- it's the DPI. Mobile phone screens have about four times as many pixels/unit of area compared to regular 1920x1080 screens. Run Linux on a HiDPI screen and fonts will look just as good.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this depends on the app. I've only had problems with fonts on Linux on a few apps, most notably text editors ... of course ... and most notably of those JetBrains products (though I am a fan of their products otherwise).

There are things you can do in these situations to make things better. Right now I'm on Windows, though.

Had to do some Windows dev and it's easier to run a VM and connect my IDE to that from Windows rather than the other way around, at least in my experience :)

</comment><comment><USER4> You know, as a long time Linux user, I've never thought about that. That's a good question.

</comment><comment><USER5> Font rendering on Linux doesn't suck.

</comment><comment><USER6> You are confusing Linux distros and The GNU kernel.

Android is built on the GNU kernel like Linux, but does not share the same libraries and packages as Linux.

Android does not use the same graphics interface as Linux uses.

<comment><USER7> > You are confusing Linux distros and The GNU kernel.

> Android is built on the GNU kernel like Linux, but does not share the same > libraries and packages as Linux.

That'd be Stallman's dream. But no, Linux is the kernel. Evil corporation has no plans to switch to GNU Hurd as far as I know (at least that's the case in the dimension I live in). And the packages that are used together with the Linux kernel are from GNU project (that's why those are called GNU/Linux distros).</comment></comment>


My Last Lecture: How to Be a Bad Professor (Dave Patterson, UC Berkeley) - <AUTHOR> https://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/40-year-goodbye-a-last-lecture-and-symposium/ <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract: The premise of a last lecture, which is a tradition at some universities, is that if this were the last public lecture you would give, what would you say? In the hope of starting that tradition here—in my actual final Berkeley lecture before I retire in June—I will give the fourth and final edition of my bad advice talks. (The prior three were "How to Give a Bad Talk," "How to Have a Bad Research Career," and "How to Build a Bad Research Center.")

The first part of the talk will be a tongue-in-cheek advice at how to be awful at all the responsibilities of professorship: research, classroom teaching, graduate student advising, service to the field, and service to the campus and community. Guidelines include: (Research) Papers are the Coin of the Academic Realm (Classroom) PowerPoint Replaces Preparation (Grad Students) It's Quantity, Not Quality (Service to the Field) Serve only if a big Fame Ratio: Name Recognition Increase / Hours Invested (Service to the Campus and Community) Don't Do It! The second part of the talk will offer advice on alternatives to being a terrible professor. As I've got nothing left to hide, I'll use tell-all examples from my four decades at Berkeley.

After a question and answer session, I'll tell my story of how I accidentally became a CS grad student and a Berkeley professor, and life lessons that I wish someone had told me 40 years ago that I'll pass along now.

</comment><comment><USER2> In case you don't know who David Patterson is:

* He pioneered RISC, and coined the term. About all smartphones are ARM-based

* He came up with RAID, coined the term.

* He cofounded Berkeley's AMPLab, which is the birthplace of Spark.

* Among other AMPLab activities he has are SNAP; It is about DNA analysis with the goal of helping solve cancer (which is an acquired genetic disease). In 2014 this project helped save a live [1]

[1] [https://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/snap-helps-save-a- life/](https://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/snap-helps-save-a-life/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some good and interesting talks listed on the symposium page: [http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/XRG/patterson2016/symposium.htm...](http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/XRG/patterson2016/symposium.html)</comment>