The Geography of U.S. Inequality - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/06/upshot/up-geo-inequality.html <comment> tuna-piano Some other charts to explore this stuff. But man, economic statistics are hard - a lot of the fine print can really affect the results (household vs individual income, labor force participation, etc):

Filter by years to see growth: [http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who- gains/#/?start=1995&end...](http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who- gains/#/?start=1995&end=2008)

Job growth by job type: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how- the...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how-the- recession-reshaped-the-economy-in-255-charts.html)

Income by demographic: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/25/upshot/shrinki...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/25/upshot/shrinking- middle-class.html?ref=business)

Percentile income distribution: [http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/07/01/the-99-got-a- raise...](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/07/01/the-99-got-a-raise-last- year-but-not-enough-to-dent-rising-inequality/)

</comment><comment><USER3> "In addition to wages, the census includes dividends, rental income and cash benefits (like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and unemployment benefits). But it excludes noncash benefits like food stamps (which benefit the poor) and capital gains (which tend to benefit the rich)."

This is really a strange way to look at it. It is comparing the 'rich' middle class to the rest of the middle class and ignoring the extremes.

Whenever a great profit is being made, basic theory says that the market should work to push things back to normal. When that doesn't happen it is an indicator that something is off-kilter.

So, what is off-kilter here? What occupations are at the tip of the elephant's trunk? Why aren't the people riding the elephant's back pushing into that part of the market? Is it an education problem? A capital allocation problem? Regulatory capture? This is the question that needs answering.

<comment><USER4> You're confusing two different things. Theories of markets say that in the _long term_ competition will drive profits in any given industry to a nominal level. They don't say that the people who already have capital won't be able to use that capital to keep riding the wave of large profits in industries before they hit equilibrium.

<comment><USER3> The only think I'm confused about is what 'long term' means.

Seems like this has been trending since at least the 80's.

How long does/should the wave of large profits last until we recognize it as a symptom of a problem?

<comment><USER4> No theory of markets says that in the long term "profits" in general go to zero. Just profits in competitive industries. E.g. steel used to be very profitable. Not so much now. PCs used to be very profitable. Now profits in the PC industry are nominal. But there are always new industries that haven't hit that equilibrium yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the per capita GDP of U.S. grew by 12.4%, how it happened that all classes of society were worse off in 2014 than in 2000? I don't trust that chart at all.

<comment><USER6> The growth of economic indexes is meaningless. The gains are going massively onto the people who already own capital. That's the engine of inequality.

Also... You don't "trust" that chart? You can probably calculate it yourself if you want. That chart is data. If you have any reasonable arguments against the accuracy of that data Id love to hear it.

<comment><USER7> Not trusting a chart because it's numbers seem to contradict other numbers is perfectly valid and reasonable. Your comment about gains going to people who own capital (who, incidentally, are primarily middle class homeowners) is not a refutation of it. In fact, it's completely irrelevant.

A refutation would be explaining why GDP and income don't necessarily correlate, which is more a matter of accounting identities. Specifically, GDP != income, income is merely one component of it.

<comment><USER8> The wage share in the United States has been consistently falling from ~64% to about 57% now. (as a % of GDP)

It's quite easy to see that even if GDP grew 12% as someone else mentioned, the change from 64% to 57% would keep incomes at approximately the same level (and perhaps even slightly lower).

<comment><USER5> Income is not just wage. Total personal income is about 80% of GDP and that figure doesn't change much over time.

<comment><USER8> [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS84006173#0](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS84006173#0)

Wage share is an economically accepted term, with data from BLS behind it.

You literally made up some number and said "it doesn't change much over time".

You're going to need to provide a source for that 80%.

<comment><USER5> Easily. Personal income was 15737.7 billion in 2015

[http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/2016/pdf/pi0716....](http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/2016/pdf/pi0716.pdf)

and GDP in current dollars was 18036.6 billion - [http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls](http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls), so 87.5% of GDP was income, and that figure has been pretty much constant over last 50 years, at never out of 75-90% range for sure. In fact, it is higher than average in the last 10 years or so - while difference is really small.

Disposable income after all taxes and including all social transfers (excluding non-monetary ones like food stamps and assisted housing) was 69.5% of the GDP, also quite typical figure which shows to tendency to fall over time, more likely to rise.

Surely that includes dividends, rents, and realized capital gains. And yet, it must have been reflected in the chart in question, if only in the top decile - while chart somehow shows incomes of all deciles falling from 2000, which is hard to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find these type of posts on HN to be curious things. Clearly, there's lots of interest in the subject and desire to change things. And, most HN readers are highly educated and many are even high-income (i.e. have position to affect real change). But, I never see posts advertising ways to take real action.

I love you guys, but making your cohorts know that you're aware and sympathetic of the cause only feels good. Let's see some posts that help organize and activate. Let's set some achievable, tangible goals and do something.

<comment><USER10> I can appreciate the general sentiment, but at least for this post specifically I'm not sure I agree.

The subtle aspects of these two charts are _really_ interesting. Like, the only non-rich group to see income gains in the US is the ~15th percentile group? That's striking, and deserves some consideration. (At a guess, EITC and Clinton's work-for-benefits programs have helped the employed-near-minimum- wage cohort, but not the very poor.) The 2000-2014 numbers are similarly interesting - we see that the ~90th percentile (e.g. surgeons) was insulated from the crash better than the middle class _or_ the very rich, but that the very rich have rebounded completely.

So yes, signaling is different from actual action, but I'm filing this one under 'education'. For me at least, I'm interested more by the subtleties than by the basic restatement of "this is an issue".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Income inequality will continue to grow as technology lets us produce tremendous amounts of value with comparably small amounts of employees. Said value is often not accounted for in graphs like these so we can't really know if people are better off today than 20 years ago. I mean, would you rather live today with cheap internet, awesome computer and more free content on the internet than you can ever consume or would you want to live without those things with 10% higher inflation adjusted wage 20 years ago? I know what I would choose, hence I would say that the middle class has gained a lot.

The nice things about those things is that they are wealth agnostic as well. Bill Gates doesn't have better internet than me, nor does he have a better personal computer, better youtube, better facebook, better internet search etc. All of those are extremely valuable and are spread evenly between almost everyone in the west.

</comment><comment><USER12> "In North Dakota, in the heart of shale mining country, it made everyone richer."

Well, mostly on the western side of the state, but that was the poorer side to begin with. It did make for some problems with some folks on fixed incomes.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, the glass half full is that California's drought will soon be fixed by the tears of everyone in SV who's upset that, despite all their, intelligence, big data and economic prodding by the government, the middle class in those "backwards, flyover states" did better.

On a more serious note, the pattern I saw here was coastline = bad.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can we talk about what a fucking terrible visualization the elephant chart is? We often note how useless "fastest growing" is, because it is easy to get large changes when you have a small denominator. So income can grow worldwide for the bottom by 100% and only add a few dollars to their wealth. Meanwhile the top 1℅ might add 25% to their income at millions of dollars.

This is a chart designed to make us feel good about poor people getting a pittance. Meanwhile the top 100 people in the world have more wealth than the bottom fifty percent. We need growth of tens of thousands of percent at the bottom for decades to move forward.

<comment><USER15> Someone living on $2/day (the generally accepted figure for extreme poverty) is living on about $730 per year. A single year of 10,000% growth would get that person to an annual income of $73,000 which would be well into the global 1%.

Annual growth of 10,000% for even a single decade would give that person an annual income of:

$73,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's 73 sextillion dollars. For reference Gross World Product is around 100 trillion.

I think you're setting the bar a little high!

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I didn't think that out very carefully, obviously exponential growth at any substantial rate would have that kind of effect. The perils of composing text in the loo. My main point still stands, though...

<comment><USER15> I don't think it does to be honest. Income growth for the world's poorest has been astonishing over the last several decades. The gains are very real and very meaningful.

<comment><USER14> In what terms are they "very meaningful"? There are still hundreds of millions of people living in slums in cities around the world; if these people now survive on $2 instead of $1, why is this "very meaningful"?

<comment><USER11> What are you talking about? The difference between $2 and $1 is extremely meaningful. $1 a day means that you can barely afford enough rice to survive, at $2 you can start diversify your food and maybe save up for better clothes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. This is ultimately the goal of the modern capitalist system.

We can talk all we want but we are all disposable material, unless we own the business we work for.

How many people in this country ( middle class included) are 3-6 months away from being on the street if job suddenly disappeared?

<comment> tuna-piano A - The "capitalist system", much like evolution, does not have goals. Capitalism is just people trading with each other. The USA has had a similar system for hundreds of years, where the rich have gotten richer, but the poor have also gotten richer. So blaming capitalism itself is not a good answer. What has changed within capitalism to make the results from 1776 - <USER2> different from 1990 - 2014? Either this is just a temporary decrease for the bottom percentiles, or there are other factors that have caused this shift (globalization, technology, government policies, personal choices, etc).

B - Do you really want to own the business you work for? If you work at a chocolate factory, and own the chocolate factory - your entire livelyhood is tied to that chocolate factory. If the company goes under, you lose your job and your savings. Wouldn't you rather own bits and pieces of many other companies, to share in their success?

But regardless, I believe your point is that it sucks not having savings / capital. Obviously true - but how do you propose people get savings / capital? Confiscate capital from the rich to give to the poor?

<comment><USER17> Capitalism is not just people trading with each other. We invented lots of legal fictions to get where we are today, and they're pretty effective. For instance, if you contribute your capital to a corporation, you'll be rewarded with an agreed upon portion of the corporations dividends. It looks like the company is rewarding you, but it's really society. We create and enforce rules like these—private property, limited liability, etc.—because they make us more prosperous. But they're artificial. They're not laws of nature. They can have flaws.

<comment><USER18> "limited liability"

I think people forget how big a deal this is - people who don't have it (e.g. old fashioned "joint and several liability" partnerships) can be in for a whole world of misery.

I remember hearing a BBC Radio 4 program a few years back on a financial disaster where a bank was both mutual and didn't have limited liability and collapsed, that was a disaster for anyone who had deposits at the bank (no matter how small).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Loopt: Another Mobile Contender - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/loopt_another_mobile_contender.php

<comment><USER2> I have a iPhone question connected to this: if I'm running Loopt and switch to Safari to surf for a minute, because of iPhones no background apps rule -- do I lose my ability to stay on everyone's radar?</comment>


Schneier: Never use it (MS has added RNG that could have an NSA backdoor into Vista). - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/dual_ec_drbg_ad.html <comment><USER2> This is really a tempest in a teacup. NSA influenced a NIST standard; MSFT implemented the NIST standard. Dual EC is not default behavior for Vista. There's no evidence of a deliberate backdoor, and most of the failure modes for crypto RNGs involve a threat model you don't care about: someone who can read/write memory from arbitrary processes or the kernel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Vista is proprietary. They can stick in a backdoor wherever they want. Wasn't there recently an issue with Windows Update ignoring your settings and updating itself anyway?

[http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62032221,0...](http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62032221,00.htm)

[http://www.betanews.com/article/Experts_Astonished_to_Learn_...](http://www.betanews.com/article/Experts_Astonished_to_Learn_Windows_Update_Updates_Itself/1189782200)

Not to mention all the hidden metadata and undo information in your MS Word files. If you value privacy, using a proprietary OS (including OS X) is not the way to get it.</comment>


GitLab, open source github clone, reaches 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gitlabhq.com/gitlab-3-dot-0-released/ <comment><USER2> Github like any monopoly will come back to bite us. That is why I think we need an open source Github.

That said, the interface seems a bit too "inspired" by Github. I hope they rethink how an application like this _should_ work for themselves rather than allowing Github to influence their designs.

I see this quite frequently among opensource projects, they try to make clones rather than making a better product.

TLDR: Think about how the UI should work in your application. Its different for everyone so don't blindly clone others.

<comment><USER3> _That said, the interface seems a bit too "inspired" by Github. I hope they rethink how an application like this should work for themselves rather than allowing Github to influence their designs._

I don't understand your critique.

My impression of Gitlab is that they've done it exactly right. They copied the good parts from github but not the clutter, and it's looking pretty damn good so far.

Most notably they did not copy the non-hierarchical triple-menubar trainwreck of an UI-disaster (whoever came up with that at github should be fired three times in a row).

Instead Gitlab has a boring, utterly intuitive two-level hierarchical menu, _consistently on every page_. I love this boring menubar.

<comment><USER2> There are a couple reasons app developers should strive for originality. Copying Github's design only reminds me of how your app is second to Github. That Github was the one who thought of the beautiful interface and that by using your app I will be using a copy and not the original. The copy is inferior to the original in my mind and I will never see the app as an equal. This really dampens the excitement I have for it because it might never be able to compete with the experience Github provides.

Another example is Open Office, everyone uses it and it does the job. But no one loves it, because its a copy. Its not the original and it will never be the same as using MS Office. Now compare that with Apple's iWork. Its not a copy; its an original. When I use it, I feel comfortable in knowing that Apple has worked to provide an experience that is second to none.

<comment><USER4> There are some flaws in your analogy.

1\. Most people I know like Github's UI, so it makes sense to copy it. MS Office is not known for it's UI experience. So it doesn't make sense to copy it.

2\. Creating a good UI is hard work. When you're Apple, you have the resources to throw at iWork. An open source project doesn't have the same resources, and they might spend a lot of time to end up with something _worse_ than Github's UI.

To me it's a simple decision: 1\. Spend a lot of time and end up with something that _could_ be better than Github but will probably be worse OR 2\. Spend little time to copy a design everyone is familiar with and likes.

I think a better analogy would be Gimp vs Photoshop. Supposedly Gimp can do almost everything Photoshop can, but what % of designers use Gimp? They have been slowly moving towards Photoshop's UI because they now realize how much of a factor that plays in adoption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also RhodeCode, which is more of a BitBucket clone (supports git & mercurial).

<http://rhodecode.org/>

If you are looking for something a bit different, there's also fossil.

<http://www.fossil-scm.org/>

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, Fossil's web-facing part is somewhat neglected. Up to the point, that the issue tracker for Fossil itself has been practically closed and the docs moved out of the wiki...

I still use it as a nice dvcs though, mainly for the single binary file installation.

<comment><USER7> Where do you see docs outside of the wiki? (Duh, the rest of the internet...)

Also, where do you get the idea that the issue tracker has been closed? It's possible that the maintainer has gone on hiatus, and there's not as much activity as there was once, but I see they have fresh issues this week and a release just yesterday.

I think that Fossil is a terrific way to introduce anyone to command line, database, and scm who you intend to sell or gift with a 'database' of any kind. It's very odd to me how many people can't wrap their head around the concept of a file, or database, let alone ./configure; make; make install

I think that SQL is the most accessible language to those people, since it fits a simple grammar and statements end in semicolons, and the fact that Fossil repositories can come packaged into a sqlite database file means that two weeks after you got them to try using Fossil to keep their copy, there should be no magic left in the box, you can show them a database and they should 'get it'.

I have not tried this with anyone, but it should work... of course unless they just aren't trying...

<comment><USER6> Are you serious? Fossil's docs have been "embedded docs" for quite a long time now. Even the main page is served from a file within trunk (this is the url / redirects to):

<http://fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki>

For the issue tracker: just try to report an issue (without logging in with a dev account). It has been very long time now that Fossil is accepting issue reports only through email. It's quite an ironic thing to do for a project that's providing an issue tracker, isn't it?

<comment><USER7> So, is that the wiki or not the wiki? It says wiki...

I think you're only telling me things that sound like they've been done to prevent spam or addition of spammy content.

I get that a file in the trunk is not the wiki. There is a real wiki, with web browser controls, and it's not what they're using. But it says wiki, and if you're trying to edit it but not a Fossil developer, you're probably doing it wrong... you should have your own Fossil repo/server.

I'll admit I did not try to submit an issue, and I'm not using Fossil right now. I just use Git. My users don't want the timeline on their homepage. _shrug_

<comment><USER6> As I said, this is a file from trunk. It says wiki, because .wiki is the file extension for wiki-formatted files. Which you typeset in almost plain HTML, but that's another story.

And, actually, I am a Fossil developer. Or at least a whiner with a dev account. Believe me, I know what I'm whining about.

Finally, Fossil is not for homepages. I guess your devs like having a timeline on their Github...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Amusing that it's hosted on Github [1].

There's also Gitorious, which has been around a while and is mature, full- featured, and provides both a SaaS [2] and the FOSS software you can host yourself [3]. I keep backups of some of my repo's there.

[1]: <https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq>

[2]: <http://gitorious.org/>

[3]: <http://gitorious.com/>

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that. BTW our new official home page can be found at <http://getgitorious.com> :)

<comment><USER10> Why is there a gitorious.com, a gitorious.org, and a getgitorious.com? :(

<comment><USER9> gitorious.org - the free open source hosting service (came first) gitorious.com - the commercial company behind it (came later) getgitorious.com - official doc, starting point etc (recently added as a common starting point)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not quite a "github clone" in the sense that it's supposed to be self- hosted. It would make it more of a trac/redmine concurrent, depending on how much work has gone into the wiki and project management part. Is anyone actually using it?

And ironically, the source code is hosted on github.

<comment><USER12> There're a lot of people who don't want to use GitHub for whatever privacy policy.

If you consider using Gitlab as a in-house self-hosted "GitHub-feature like" alternative, Gitlab is really good! We use it for our projects and it runs quite well.

<comment><USER13> <https://enterprise.github.com>

Your own private github.

<comment><USER14> We did a 45 day trial. To call it disappointing would be a vast understatement. Performance problems, no root access, no direct repository access, poor tooling (had to wait for support to write us a script). We were actually locked out of our repo with no recovery options for about 4 days before we gave up on Github support. I do love Github, just hate their "have your own" VM product, it is bad.

After that we tried Gitorious (back then it was still an unholy nightmare to install) before finally landing on Gitlab. Gitlab isn't perfect, sometimes the ruby process likes to eat gigs of memory and has to be restarted (we have very large repos)...

But Gitlab has a great trajectory, every release is a great step up and I find the multiple branches working mode more natural than the multiple repos method that github has...

<comment><USER15> Huh..we've had full root access since the beginning. (Github FI) Even across all of their releases. There's a place to drop your public key in.

Github support has been variable, but generally good for us. The switch to a VM was touchy at first, but once we gave it enough horsepower, things were fine.

<comment><USER14> [https://support.enterprise.github.com/entries/21243936-ssh-a...](https://support.enterprise.github.com/entries/21243936-ssh- access)

In order to preserve the integrity of the appliance and ensure that it remains in a consistent state, we have these limitations in place:

\- Root access is not provided. \- The admin user password is not provided. \- Installation and execution of third party software is not permitted. \- Modification of the underlying VM configuration is not permitted.

Bypassing any of these limitations will void all warranties and may put your installation in an unsupportable state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm confused by one thing. I found this awesome jpg checked in on the GitLab Django demo project: [http://demo.gitlabhq.com/uploads/note/attachment/2449/687474...](http://demo.gitlabhq.com/uploads/note/attachment/2449/687474703a2f2f692e716b6d652e6d652f333667347a352e6a7067.jpg) Seems like everything else on the demo repo requires me to log in but I can access this file without authorization... Why is that? Found it in the Django demo project attachments tab: <http://demo.gitlabhq.com/django/files> which requires login.

It's gloriously ironic! A photo mocking Rails security attached to a private repo... that's not secure.

<comment><USER17> You are right that attachments are only hidden and not protected by default. GitLab uses the CarrierWave gem to store attachments and this defaults to a publicly accessible directory. You can configure the behaviour of the attachment in [https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/blob/master/app/models/...](https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/blob/master/app/models/note.rb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not mentioned in the release note, but I find implementing "Mix commit notes with merge request notes on MR show page" (<https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/pull/1630>) the greatest change in 3.0. We are using merge requests as a tool in code review, and this commit finally allow us to go through all comments of an MR in a single page. It would be perfect if the issue "Save few lines of code with Merge Request comment like github does" (<https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/1007>) is implemented, as this would allow us to finally reliably comment directly on the "diff" tab.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if the grammar mistakes are beneficial for adoption or if it drives people away (no, really). The "who is already use" line on the homepage reminds me of "All your base are belong to us." I could see it appealing to a certain audience of programmers, IT support, and the like -- particularly those with a background in gaming.

Has anyone done any A/B testing on something like this?

[Edited: I'm _really_, _really_ not trying to be the grammar police here. I'm in no position to do so, and my grammar is faaar from perfect. I'm just wondering about the actual impacts (or lack thereof).]

<comment><USER20> Judging from the grammatical errors and the core dev's last names, they sound eastern european (ukraine).

<comment><USER19> Judging by the downvotes and this reply I think I made a mistake in making whether or not it's meant to be humorous the focus of my question. It seems like it should be intuitive that grammar mistakes == bad conversion, but I'd love to see numbers on it since I really doubt it's hurting them much, if at all, in this case. C'est la vie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a great! Well done guys you deserve real credit for building and maintaining such a well written and well thought out piece of software.

Congratulations on reaching 3.0!

</comment><comment><USER22> We've been using GitLab for about six months and it has been great. The developers iterate very quickly and they are totally receptive to pull requests (have had a couple accepted and one rejected for good reason).

If you install it on Ubuntu, their wiki has instructions that you can pretty much copy and paste; the most complicated bit probably being the gitolite setup, which is what it uses internally for repo auth.

</comment><comment><USER23> Timely for me. At my workplace, we are migrating to git and the devs would like to use github, but management is expressing reluctance to either rely on an external host or fork out for github enterprise, despite our arguments.

I was already planning on installing gitlab this week to try it out. Anyone here got any advice or suggestions on using it as a Github replacement for a small team?

<comment> X-Istence I haven't used Gitlab, but Gitorious has their source code completely open as well, and it is fairly simple to get set up and running!

<comment><USER19> We're on an old install of gitosis at my shop, and also keeping an eye out for something to switch to. Gitlab certainly looks appealing, especially given its similarities with github. Having used Gitorious, are there any strengths or weaknesses you see in GitLab that would have either prevented you from using it or made you choose it over Gitorious were you to make the decision over again?

<comment> X-Istence At the time when I was looking Gitlab was in its infancy, and Gitorious was pretty much the only thing out there. The search wasn't exhaustive as it was a "we need to get this working, now." kind of project where we didn't really get a lot of time to play with different platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I liked Gitlab when I ran it for myself for a while. It was great; couldn't knock it in anyway except for (at the time) setup instructions that weren't detailed/accurate enough to rely upon, especially regarding the main dependency gitorious. The big sell for this is simple, or even trivial, setup.

I was just a single user so most of the functionality was a loss, so I transferred to bitbucket (free private repos) knowing full well the potential risks. It saved me the effort of keeping my own server up to date and secure (I'm not the pro, I can trust github or bitbucket to know and do better) at the cost of no longer being self sufficient.

That said, I'd recommend this for any organisation that wants its own github, doesn't want to pay enterprise money, and doesn't mind doing all the hard work itself. And that's not faint praise, because it was fucking good when I did use it (while it was mid-Twitter Bootstrap conversion).

</comment><comment><USER25> I think it's great that this kind of project exists. But why copying so much on Github ?

There is always room for something new.

<comment><USER26> Probably because people are used to Github's interface and prefer it to many other things?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am using it for a small project in my company and I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice for enterprise-level projects that are not Open Source. You could pay for GitHub or even get a private BitBucket repo for free, but some companies just prefer having their own thing.

<comment><USER13> Or you can just get your own real github on your own servers for $5k/year: <https://enterprise.github.com>

<comment><USER28> Yeah, uh, there's plenty of room for people like me who have lots of repos that either MUST or should stay private, but neither wants to use BitBucket, nor pay $5k/year, although that is pretty cheap to start with, my projects aren't for revenue generation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've been using gitlab for a while, and so far I like it. It has a few weaknesses here and there for sure, and the UI has some wonky aspects, but overall it works quite well.

</comment><comment><USER30> We've been using Gitblit (<http://gitblit.com/>) in the office for new projects and are quite happy with it. It all comes together when you hook up Groovy push scripts which we use to notify our Jenkins instance to test and build which in turn pushes it to our dev server for deploy.

<comment><USER31> Agreed, Gitblit is probably the best solution if you're forced to self-host git on a Windows server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Awesome. I hope this is fairly straightforward to roll out. I've tried out Gitorious and iirc it was pretty messy.

<comment><USER9> mattdebord and estel: I'm one of the core Gitorious committers. What specifically did you find messy? The initial setup or GUI/UX? Honest question, as we're constantly trying to prioritize based on the painpoints of users. :)

BTW we've recently addressed the complicated manual setup with a new, automated installer that gets you set up within 30 minutes: <http://getgitorious.com/installer>

Also, a new and improved UI is due to arrive in Gitorious soon: [http://blog.gitorious.org/2012/08/21/sexy-looking- repositori...](http://blog.gitorious.org/2012/08/21/sexy-looking- repositories/)

All feedback is very welcome.

<comment><USER32> It's been quite a long while for me, so I couldn't be more specific for you. My recollection is that it was very complex, that's really all I've got.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Actually there is one other interesting project that has some high profile users and can be used as self hosted bitbucket/github:

<http://rhodecode.org/>

It supports both hg and git, adn while the ui could look better - its very functional and can do a lot.

</comment><comment><USER34> This looks great. Currently using Bitbucket, but always a good thing that an Open-source alternartive exists!

</comment><comment><USER35> How does this handle ssh key lookup - does it do something like Github? (key lookup in mysql? )

<comment><USER17> It uses Gitolite to create 'virtual' user accounts <https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> GitHub should GPL their UI and compete on server execution.

<comment><USER37> Why should they do that? For their sake or for yours?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Does the web editor support editing files in a bare repo ?

<comment><USER17> I assume you mean an empty repo (without any files) and not a bare repo? A bare repo has no working copy and is pushable, see [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2199897/how-to- convert-a-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2199897/how-to-convert-a- git-repository-from-normal-to-bare)

I don't think the editor allows you to create new files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Fonts look really horrible in Chrome on Windows. That has been a problem for a long time and they've still not done anything about it. I know that Google doesn't let any employees use Windows so that explains why they overlook stuff like this. But it's a big deal, so I'm uninstalling Chrome from all of my Windows computers now.</comment>


JExcel – JavaScript spreadsheet web component - <AUTHOR> https://bossanova.uk/jexcel/v3/ <comment><USER2> How do they get away with such an obvious trademarked name? Or is Excel considered generic?

<comment><USER3> MS probably haven't noticed them yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested in this, also check out canvas-datagrid.

[https://github.com/TonyGermaneri/canvas- datagrid](https://github.com/TonyGermaneri/canvas-datagrid)

</comment><comment><USER5> What in heck is wrong with the pinch to zoom out on an iPhone on that website?

<comment><USER6> Same here - Unreadable on safari on iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh cool! I didn't even know they were working on a vanilla rewrite. For those who don't know, the previous versions of JExcel were implemented as jQuery plugins. They worked great, but if you weren't used to jQuery plugins, it made hacking on it a little wonky.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is highly interesting to me - is there a comparison somewhere between this and Handsontable?

<comment><USER9> The license is one big difference. JExcel is MIT, while latest versions of Handsontable.... isn't[0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19488642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19488642)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20049900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20049900)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is another project.

<comment><USER10> OK, I've taken the [dupe] marker off. You can repost this if you want, but it would be best to wait a couple weeks to let the hivemind caches clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Website builder market research - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v724O2CtUTSNQQEk_-aARA_iZVwnaDjm56NOK4AAVjg/edit?usp=sharing <comment><AUTHOR> Please help us to complete this research by adding notes on this document :)</comment>


AMD Tackles Coming "Chiplet" Revolution With New Chip Network Scheme - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/amd-tackles-coming-chiplet-revolution-with-new-chip-network-scheme <comment><USER2> The main issue AMD seems to be solving here is the yields at 7nm and lower processes.

Smaller chips means that you get more yield in the presence of errors. Intel builds relatively large 600mm^2 chips (like the XCC aka the 28-core Xeon), but AMD thinks the future is to build networks of ~200mm^2 chips, like what they've done with Zen / Threadripper / EPYC.

The advantage for AMD is that they've built a single design: the Zeppelin die. RyZen is simply one Zeppelin. Threadripper is two Zeppelins. And EPYC is four Zeppelins.

That's it. One singular chip design, mass produced over and over again, to handle AMD's entire consumer and high-end line. Keep this one design small to help yields and maybe AMD can get a process advantage over Intel's larger designs.

AMD's "mobile" or "APU" line is Raven Ridge (a 2nd design at 193mm^2) that doesn't use this.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

The above is the current status quo. This "active interposer" that AMD is developing in the article would go above and beyond in terms of integration.

Note that HBM2 (next-generation high-bandwidth RAM) requires the interposer. PCB is not good enough for HBM's protocol. Ditto with Hybrid-Memory Cube (a competing standard). So it seems like the future of computer parts will be the interposer.

The interposer isn't necessary for AMD's CPU strategy however. So the roadmap for this network won't come till 2020+ or later (CPUs). Unless AMD might be building this network for their GPU line?? (But that roadmap is also past 2020). I bet this is all research-and-development, and may never come out as a commercial product.

<comment><USER3> > The advantage for AMD is that they've built a single design: the Zeppelin > die. RyZen is simply one Zeppelin. Threadripper is two Zeppelins. And EPYC > is four Zeppelins.

While a popular meme, this is not actually true. Epyc is actually a totally different die, stepping B2 vs the B1 die used in Ryzen+TR.

[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_7/1800x](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_7/1800x)

[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/epyc/7601](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/epyc/7601)

The 2700X is actually on a different die as well, and Raven Ridge on another. There will probably be another die for Banded Kestrel, if AMD ever gets around to releasing that. Presumably, their embedded SOC products are their own die as well.

So, about 5 dies per generation, across AMD's lineup (Epyc, Ryzen, APU, Atom, and embedded SOC). They're using about half as many dies as Intel is - still a significant difference, but far from the "one die for the whole lineup!" meme.

The big difference is that they're serving the whole server market with one small die, vs the three that Intel uses.

Of course, a small die isn't all roses either - both mfrs limit you to 8 dies per system, so right now with an 8-core die AMD systems are limited to 64-core systems (dual-socket Epyc) versus the 224-core systems that you can do with octo-socket 28-core Xeons. But, not everybody needs a million-dollar octo- socket system either.

Once AMD takes a node advantage that advantage will be diminished somewhat, but Intel's 10nm woes are a whole different story ;)

<comment><USER4> Are newer Ryzen 1000 series CPUs still made with the B1 die?

I thought steppings were for fixing errata, and once a new revision is qualified, the old one is no longer manufactured.

<comment><USER3> All the Ryzen 1000 processors (including TR) were B1, at least as far as AMD told the USB-IF (and AFAIK nobody ever observed anything else in the wild). Epyc is on B2.

At the time, there was some speculation that B2 might be the "mirror image" die that Epyc uses 2 of.

[http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/catalog_search/results_b...](http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/catalog_search/results_browse/process?step%3Aint=2&keywords=ryzen&submit=Go)

[http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/view_item?item_key=88142...](http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/view_item?item_key=88142d65cbedb30585943f2aa430c9630d7e9da0&referring_url=/kcompliance)

However, they now report Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2000) as being on the B2 stepping.

Ryzen 2000 is on a slightly updated 12nm process but does not incorporate any library changes. I'm not sure if you could just drop the existing die onto the new process (given that 12nm is really a 14+), or if you could un-flip the die to the proper pinout using the substrate, but it seems like that might be where they moved to the B2 stepping.

But yeah, AMD produced the B1 stepping for an uncommonly long time. At least through the end of 2017, and the first B2 steppings showed up like June 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the beginning, a sea of discrete components made up a system. Investment in fab technology caused process nodes to shrink very 18 months so these discrete components gave way to the System-On-Chip where the board of chips was replaced by a single chip.

Now physics is harder to overcome, the cost of development at the bleeding edge of technology is higher than ever, and the continued desire for larger and larger systems caused the SoC to break apart again. It'll be interesting to see if this is what the future looks like for silicon-based chips, or if this is a temporary shortcut.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if SoC is breaking apart actually. I think chipbuilders are figuring out that its more efficient to combine some dies together at the package level.

Consider that EPYC is basically a miniturized multi-socket design. Infinity Fabric is really AMD's new protocol built on top of HyperTransport (multi- socket protocol from the past). Before, AMD used to support 8-sockets. But today, AMD stitches 4-chips together and only supports 2-sockets.

From a software perspective (ie: NUMA), EPYC x2 sockets looks like an 8-socket chip of old. In effect, AMD has miniturized the 4x-socket setup in the form of EPYC. And it has also miniturized the 2x socket setup in the form of Threadripper.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

These Threadripper / EPYC chips have the same downsides as all old 2x, 4x, and 8x NUMA designs of the past. High latency and poor communications between cores.

The thing is: the modern environment is a highly virtualized, highly independent set of systems. Running 8x NUMA efficiently today is as simple as spinning up 8x VMs, one for each NUMA node.

IIRC, people are finding that Intel's 28-core design is far more effective in say... unified Database performance. Intel's design has a true L3 cache which can be used by all 28-cores, while AMD's L3 cache is split between each die. 4x 8MB caches cannot function as a singular cache in a large-scale database application.

But there's enough situations (ie: VMs, multitasking, render farms) where AMD's NUMA + Infinity Fabric is good enough. And with prices anywhere from 1/4th to 1/2 the cost of Intel, AMD's chips these days are certainly worth considering.

</comment><comment><USER6> It reminds me of the GreenArrays chip created by Chuck Moore. There was some hubbub here on HN a few years ago about it -- what ever happened to it?

[http://www.greenarraychips.com/](http://www.greenarraychips.com/)

<comment><USER7> It certainly does seem like chip design is marching grudgingly from Core i7 to Cell BE and eventually to Connection Machine. Physics doesn't really care about ease of programming.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_\(microprocessor\))

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

<comment><USER8> The big difference is that Connection Machine enjoyed being developed in programming languages that were better suited to distributed computing, whereas current chip design we still need to drag system developers away from C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think would be interesting to see someone like Mellanox make a chiplet with their tech which could be fully integrated into an AMD SoC or APU or whatever they're calling them now.

<comment><USER10> Check out Intel Omni-Path, it's a separate chip on-package for Intel's high end cpus. 100 gigabit network.

<comment><USER9> I can't afford Intel's high-end stuff. That's why I'm looking at AMD.

<comment><USER11> Really the network is the least expensive part. To get IO that can saturate a 10G costs around 20k, while the infiniband card sets you back less than 4k. Now you're talking about 100G, which will go faster, you could easily be looking at a 500k box of ssds.

<comment><USER12> Wait, what? 10G is 1.2 GByte/s, you can get that from a single SSD easily. 100G is 12 GByte/s, so 5 consumer-level ssds. Squeezing 12 GByte/s over the buses twice might be tricky, but certainly not a 500k problem.

<comment><USER2> >To get IO that can saturate a 10G costs around 20k

Assuming 10G Ethernet is 8b/10b like a lot of other protocols, that's 1GB/s over 10G Ethernet.

Here's a $130 SSD with 500GB of storage: [https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin- PILOT-500GB-Internal-MKNSSDPL...](https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-PILOT-500GB- Internal-MKNSSDPL500GB-D8/dp/B07CYJ4GS3)

That's 2600 MB/s read speeds. Or more than double your 10G Ethernet.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

RAID0 8 of them together with ASRock's M2. Quad Ultra, and you've got $1040 of SSDs + $200 for the 2x Quad Ultra cards, or just $1200 for 20GB/s read/write speeds. More than enough to saturate any network I'm aware of.

In fact, someone has already done this: [http://www.guru3d.com/news- story/eight-nvme-m2-ssds-in-raid-...](http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/eight- nvme-m2-ssds-in-raid-on-x399-threadripper-reach-28-gbs.html)

They used a higher-end NVM.e SSD and measured 28GB/s (that's capital B, gigaBYTES) on the Threadripper + x399 motherboard.

<comment><USER10> 10 gigabit Ethernet is 10 gigabits of data. It's mainly Infinband that used a horrible marketing tactic of saying the signal rate instead of the data rate.

<comment><USER2> PCIe 2.0, USB 2.0, SATA / AHCI, and more protocols are 8b/10b. So all of these protocols were 10-bits per byte.

Modern protocols tend to be 64b/66b or better. So that's why I listed "assuming 8b/10b", its hard to memorize which protocols are which.

Apparently I'm wrong. 10G Ethernet seems to be a more modern 64b/66b in any case.

<comment><USER10> 10 gigabit ethernet is not 1 GB/s. It's 10 gigabits of data per second, or 1.25 gigabytes per second. The encoding is not an issue with these data rate numbers because Ethernet quotes their data rate as a data rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds like it's just the next step in the chain from discrete components -> ICs on a circuit board -> this. The active interposer is filling the role that the circuit board currently fills, with devices etched into the interposer filling the role of discrete components, making everything more compact.

</comment><comment><USER14> Any hardware gurus out there care to tak about how this helps? I guess having a flat pool of heterogenous resources is nice. As long as there's a decent SDK that abstracts the hard stuff away I'm all for it.

<comment><USER15> >As long as there's a decent SDK that abstracts the hard stuff away

I'd be very skeptical of that. See: Cell Broadband Engine.

<comment><USER16> Pointing to one example of someone failing to do something in the past is not strong evidence it won't happen this time. If anything there was lessons learned from that failure.

<comment><USER14> That's very true, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is the Big Deal about this having what used to be different cards/chips sharing a cpu-style insanely fast bus, instead of trickling stuff over pcie or dram channels? If that is the case, the advantage of this will depend on the amount of bus saturation to be eliminated. Should be interesting. Everything works on Infiniti fabric!

<comment><USER18> That's the advantage over having multiple packaged chip on a traditional PCB. The advantage over an SoC is that you can have different subsystems on decoupled development schedules and different process nodes all come together on the same "chip."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if FPGAs could be a node too. That would allow us to mix programmable, highly parallel analog modeled acceleration onto the same high speed / direct connect bus as all the other fixed, traditional computing components. I really like the approach AMD is suggesting here, treating it like nodes on a network.

<comment><USER10> You've been able to buy FPGAs tightly coupled with AMD CPUs since 2006 or so. The tech back then was to either plug them into an HTX Hypertransport slot, or in a cpu socket. Very few customers actually wanted to buy these things and I think all of the makers lost money.

<comment><USER20> They definitely are missing an application that probably won't be coming until specialized chip designs are a commodity (eg agi+). Right now you can get specialized chips for much less than the cost of the programmable chip + custom design. Once a company identifies a kick-ass fpga design (and it has any decent market) they move to asic to drive down costs. I guess if fpga costs were as low as an asic it would be viable as you could change the application depending on current needs. But currently fpga chips are 10-100x the cost of asics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's the difference between chiplets and SoCs?

<comment><USER13> The chiplets are separate pieces of silicon linked together by a larger chip, whereas SOCs are etched onto one large piece of silicon?

<comment><USER22> Sounds somewhat similar to what Intel started offering recently, in collaboration with AMD. Basically a Intel CPU and an AMD GPU in a single package, for use in laptops that needed something beefier than an Intel GPU but didn't have the volume allowance for a full GPU card.

<comment><USER23> They also have a budget Ryzen that does the same thing but with their own Vega graphics. I am using one now for web development and distributed ledger development.

<comment><USER24> > ... and distributed ledger development.

You are careful not to say "blockchain" :)

<comment><USER25> Just because something is a distributed ledger does not necessarily mean it is a blockchain.

Yes, they are a dev in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space but still, who knows?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I remember Intel being slightly mocked when they put 2 dual core dies on a package and called it a Core 2 Quad.

</comment><comment><USER27> Will this still allow modular builds or it will require buying a single board with everything soldered to it?

<comment><USER28> My guess is modular will still be an option, if not the only option. x86 CPUs have really been PCBs for over 20 years. You are now starting to see a move toward SoMs take off in the embedded world, which combine the CPU and RAM on a module to simplify board layout. In the past, these would have been separate components that customers laid down themselves on their custom PCB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "The AMD team found that deadlocks on active interposers basically disappear if you follow a few simple rules when designing on-chip networks"

I would like to know how they solved that problem. Is there any public paper or patent explaining that?

</comment><comment><USER30> Similar to project ara?

</comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me of this video from the Cisco TechWise Fundamental series: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=l75B6D9xyMQL](https://youtube.com/watch?v=l75B6D9xyMQL) ("Fundamentals of Software-Defined Networking")

That's obviously not a hardware development, but I feel like the motivation may be similar: make components more modular; stabilize, standardize and align their interfaces.

By making these components "plug and play" the distance between a logical flow chart and the actual implementation is somewhat reduced, making the development of custom components more efficient and agile.</comment>


Show HN: Meet your cardboard buddy. - <AUTHOR> http://foldable.me Our new mass-customisation service, inc a legitimate use for 3D CSS. <comment><USER2> Most of the comments here are a bum-out. Firstly, I don't think this is as trivial an idea to execute as a number of folks are saying. If you haven't launched something close to this complicated, you should refrain from suggesting this isn't much of an effort. It's clear that a lot of thought and work went into the concept, site, video, and product.

Second, this is rad! Maybe we're getting cynical or a bit lost in history, but the idea that for about what lunch costs lately a kid (chronological or spiritual) can get a website to send them something totally custom is pretty awesome. Think hard about how long this has even been practical to do at all, much less as a tiny upstart.

Oh, _and_ it appears to be a successful Kickstarter project... so it's nice to see evidence of those.

<comment><USER3> Here is the Kickstarter link: <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kzhu/foldableme>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice. But your preview visualization uses what I assume to be close to final art, including all the flaps and all. With web inspector (and some curl) I was able to extract all the layers, combine them together, and get a printable file: <http://cl.ly/JprN>

I'm sure most of HN visitors would be able to do the same. Not sure if you should patch it, though: your target audience will surely won't do things like that, and visualization is already a complex beast.

Anyway, thanks for the free foldable design (:

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow. We never expected someone to go to those lengths. If you send us an image of your assembled Foldable we'd be happy to send you, free of charge, our version printed on laminated, high stock card, precision cut and pre- creased so there's no gluing or cutting needed. Just want to make sure you have something to compare against ;-)

<comment><USER5> What a refreshing attitude - someone finds a way around the paywall and your response is - "oh yeah!? well our execution is better! And we'll prove it too!" I would love if it all companies took this approach instead of DRM/litigation. Hats off to you.

<comment><USER6> Heh, the first foldable prototypes were made by cutting these things out with an exacto knife. If you ever saw someone do that, you'd know why we're confident that the die-cutting is valuable.

<comment><USER7> There's tremendous satisfaction in cutting this by hand. And with the Cubee template there's far less risk of slicing yourself.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the suggestion! I'll share a link to (what is from what I can tell by a quick search) thee template:

<http://www.cubeecraft.com/template.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Next step: create a Facebook app that lets you export your foldable.me to a facebook profile picture, maybe with something that lets you do a nice integration of profile picture + timeline cover photo.

foldable.me goes viral as friends see their friends use the site. You end up with tons of people using the site who would never consider paying $12 for a piece of coloured cardboard...

but once they get an emotional attachment to their avatar you can follow up with some lifecycle emails to convert them into a purchasing customer.

You could also have a feature where friends could gift their foldable.me to other friends.

<comment><USER10> Recreate people's pics from pics in their gallery.

<comment><USER11> I was hoping to upload my mugshot and convert it to a caricature. next iteration? Creating these of FB friends would be great gift items.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a nice way to create your own Cardboard Programmer[1] (for Rubber ducky debugging[2]) of anyone you like.

Edit: Maybe remote teams can print out all your coworkers so they keep you company.

[1] <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?CardboardProgrammer>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging>

[3] Suggestion from [1]: "Uma Thurman's analytical, diagnostic, and motivational skills were amazing."

<comment><USER13> _Edit: Maybe remote teams can print out all your coworkers so they keep you company._

That was almost my first thought on seeing this :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm jealous of all the people that can come up with ideas so incredibly trivial that they're awesome and everyone buys into them.

<comment><USER15> You will be surprised how much effort goes into executing 'trivial ideas'.

<comment><USER16> Sometimes they're just trivial: see "Pet Rock".

Not to say that _this_ particular project is, although it does look a bit faddish to me.

<comment><USER17> Marketing the pet rock apparently involved custom packaging design and manufacture, and the creation of a 32 page "Care and training" manual. So not _that_ trivial.

<comment><USER16> 32 pages and a little package was probably not even a week worth of work. Considering he made millions, it was pretty trivial, in my book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You know, I personally wouldn't spend $11.99 on this, but I have no doubt that plenty of people will fork that out with ease. I love how you can create genuine value from virtually nothing. This makes people happy and doesn't waste tons of stuff in the process.

</comment><comment><USER19> Clever idea. Would be nice to have a digital delivery method that sends a PDF so one can print them immediately. Americans are all about immediate gratification.

Might also consider a family pack. Don't know if these family stickers are popular in the UK, but they are everywhere here in the states. <http://www.familystickers.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up Steve. That's an interesting idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great work guys. Liked the video(s), the instructions are clear, you also set expectations well for shipping, etc. Plus, building your audience (and funding) through a kickstarter campaign is brilliant. I wouldn't worry about the "photo" style characters yet; scale first, excel at customer service, and then if needed, release a 2.0 foldable.me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Tony. There's loads we want to do with it in the coming months. As always though, better shipped than perfect.

<comment><USER20> Yep. I agree. Folks seem caught up on "face images", but you may want to consider gaining licensing rights to work with professional and collegiate sports. Dropping a New York Yankees pin-striped-uni on a foldable.me would sell pretty well as an add-on price. (And you wouldn't have to give up quality control) Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is freaking awesome well done guys. Would love to get these for our team and stick them on our kanban board instead of 2d south park characters!

EDIT: You should also make some animal shapes for pets!

<comment><USER22> > _stick them on our kanban board_

note~ "kanban" already includes the notion of a board, so "kanban board" is sort of like "PIN number".

<comment><USER23> This may be pedantic, but I learned something.

<comment><USER22> p.s. in the spirit of pedantry:

看板 (kanban) = "signboard"; 板 (ita) = "board"

From a wikipedia glance, "kanban" was used here in the sense of a particular process-control method, and although the term "kanban" here is pretty clearly derived from 看板, I suppose now it could be considered a distinct term.

Still, "kanban board" really sounds redundant...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> XBOX 360 avatars can be extremely customizable and are stored in a 3D format on MS servers (and likely on the console itself). The recognize many friends online because of their avatar.

I'd pay $$ to have a 3d printout of my XBOX 360 avatar...perhaps even with articulating appendages.

</comment><comment><USER25> Would it be possible to make two sizes? I could see some mom buying a whole family. Followup could be pets. Maybe make some car decals that follow the same realm as the stickers you see on soccer mom vans

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a cool suggestion. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just ordered one. I'm literally sitting on an L couch with my friend across from me while going through the options. Trying to look intently at her face without her noticing. Thankfully, she is lost in her own laptop.

For all the people saying you could download the files and do it yourself, I say sure. You could do that. But you could also send something nice to someone in the mail at some point in the future as a surprise. People like getting mail. Real mail. Ya you could put it in the mail yourself, but will you? $12 is cheeper than a movie in NYC. Totally worth it.

For the team at foldable.me: Great product. I would work on:

-expanding the selections and options

-adding high heel shoes

-allowing someone to upload a head shot and "cartoonize" it. There are some sites that do this... partner with them?

-add different sizes to your cutouts... s/m/l

-animals like dogs, cats, horses, sheep, cows, etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you want some awesome downloadable freebies, the artist Patrick Washburn from Tokyo has been doing these types of foldable designs for awhile now:

Spock: [http://blog.patokon.com/2011/08/spock-wobblehead- papercraft....](http://blog.patokon.com/2011/08/spock-wobblehead- papercraft.html)

Spidey 50th Wobblehead and Old 52: [http://blog.patokon.com/2012/06/spidey-50th-wobblehead- and-o...](http://blog.patokon.com/2012/06/spidey-50th-wobblehead-and- old-52.html)

Captain America and Conan: [http://blog.patokon.com/2011/09/marvel-comics- wobbleheads-ca...](http://blog.patokon.com/2011/09/marvel-comics-wobbleheads- captain.html)

Yoda: <http://blog.patokon.com/2011/07/yoda-papercraft.html>

Putter King: <http://www.slideshare.net/putterking/putter-king-wobblehead>

</comment><comment><USER28> Neat! I am having a lot of trouble making a character that resembles me though. I'll suggest the genetic algorithm used by the Nintendo Wii and also by some police departments to create composite sketches.

This mechanism gives you an array of 9 random faces to choose from, and asks you to pick the closest one. Using that information, it generates 9 more random faces, but guided towards the features that you've selected. After 10 or 15 rounds of this, you have converged on a near-perfect likeness.

It relies on the fact that I can often tell that a face doesn't quite look like me, but I'm not sure along what parameters. However, when presented with a variant with slightly larger eyes and a variant with slightly smaller eyes, I can immediately select the correct one.

</comment><comment><USER29> Here's an article on how the avatar creation tool was built using 3D CSS: [http://logicalfriday.com/2012/03/28/finally-a-legitimate- use...](http://logicalfriday.com/2012/03/28/finally-a-legitimate-use- for-3d-css/)

</comment><comment><USER30> I bought two from their Kickstarter for the girlfriend and I. I liked mine, but the girlfriend not so much - something about me telling her this stumpy little box was modelled on her didn't go down so well :)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to make your own you can grab the Cubee template from here: <http://www.cubeecraft.com/template.html>

There's PDF and PSD; load it into Photoshop or Illustrator (or whatever works) and have at it.

I've built lots of papercraft toys, and designed a few. Half the fun is in downloading a file, printing it out, cutting it up, and ending up with something tangible.

BTW there's a copyright on this template, too. It looks identical to the Foldable.me figure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we are working with the creator of CubeeCraft, Chris Beaumont. We're big fans of his work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> These sort of things discriminate against those of us who have no idea how to describe appearance! If only I could upload a photo and it would make a "closest match".

<comment><USER32> On another note, I went to make a pair of them for a friend and her husband's anniversary, but he has very little hair and there is no kind way to not put hair on something like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, does this option work for you? <http://cl.ly/image/160y3e3j2Z0y>

<comment><USER32> Yes, I think that's as kind as it can get!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In line with the people talking about giving these as gifts: what about the new Facebook gift platform?

I'm not totally sure I'd trust myself to give one of these as a gift, though, as I'd end up either creating a likeness of someone that they didn't like, or a completely narcissistic gift of my own likeness. But, hey, best of luck--I bet there are plenty of people who think otherwise!

</comment><comment><USER34> White people only? I only discovered while trying to make one. Still, count me as a fan, just not a customer (yet).

Lovely 3D animation. Really lovely. I'm always happy to see 3D native on the web.

I think siculars's comment for adding animals is brilliant. I think a lot of people would like a desktop version of their favorite cat or dog :-)

<comment><USER35> You can set skin color on the head shape - there's only one head, but lots of colors.

<comment><USER34> Ah, ok thanks. I just ordered one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's great to see a Kickstarter project deliver! This is some really good execution. Best of luck to you guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Kickstarter's been a massive help. I think they'll get through the current backlash in a much stronger place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Great work guys. Easy to use website with a clear design. Love the product and will be ordering at least one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jay! Let us know what you think of the little fella

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> These guys provide free pop culture cutouts

<http://www.cubeecraft.com/>

<comment><USER39> I've done one of those before. The biggest pain was cutting all the little lines out. It's probably worth $12 just for a pre-cut version, plus you can customize it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Being 6'6" tall and built like an NFL lineman, I have never been accused of being cute, light or portable. If I didn't feel buying one for myself would be somewhat narcissistic, I'd totally get one. If anyone wanted to buy me one as a present, I'd display it proudly on my desk though.

</comment><comment><USER41> Novel and entertaining. Reminds me of creating a Mii on the Wii, only they arrive at your door.

It would be cool if you could get super mini versions that you could hand out as business cards. It's the kind of thing that recipients would definitely show around, and hold on to.

</comment><comment><USER42> It would be interesting/challenging to also offer the figure in a 3D illusion version. (<http://www.moillusions.com/2006/03/dragon-illusion.html>)

</comment><comment><USER43> Really cool concept. I'd love to get a couple of these as gifts. Only problem is that I suck at selecting the right features, so facial recognition or Mechanical Turk usage would really help.

(Also, a ponytail hairstyle would be nice.)

</comment><comment><USER44> This is just _out of the box_ thinking. Beautiful product. Ordering three.

Sales tip: this would make great Christmass Tree ornaments. I imagine a Chrsitmass tree with my whole family represneted as little carboard figures. Lovely.

</comment><comment><USER45> Really cute! It'd be nice to be able to share a mockup with friends somehow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, thats on the roadmap. We'll be able to turn the 3D css to pngs soon.

<comment><USER46> I had a lot of fun with it, and the only way I could share myy creation was to screenshot.... Personally I look at it as another revenue model. Make a model of Keene Reeves and sell it to his fans etc.

[https://plus.google.com/116059998563577101552/posts/Up1kKojQ...](https://plus.google.com/116059998563577101552/posts/Up1kKojQ5Q7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Nice, but needs face recognition. I can't be bothered to draw myself!

</comment><comment><USER48> I would like to see a metal version. Paper does not seem like a durable material, and for the price of 3 Subway footlongs, I demand satisfaction.

</comment><comment><USER49> Splendid!

However I prefer <http://facemakr.com/> when it comes to the variations of facial parts.

</comment><comment><USER50> Very nice and cute. I'd definitely use for gifts.

Bug report: the rotation and bottom scrolling buttons for lists didn't work for me in Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER51> No option for mutton chops? Lost a sale :(

</comment><comment><USER52> Love it, would be even better if you could upload a photo and have that as the face

<comment><USER53> When I first saw the site, I was hoping there would be a way to upload a picture, perhaps do some kind of feature-tagging (similar to the way you point out your pupils on photos on those try-on-glasses apps[1]) and have the site spit back a suggested face based on the features they had that most closely resembled yours.

Of course, this is complete spitballing, I have no idea if it's feasible.

[1][http://www.coastal.com/glasses/frames/derek- cardigan-7016-br...](http://www.coastal.com/glasses/frames/derek- cardigan-7016-brown-pink-fade/prod27070.html?rsView=1&ga=F|M|K) (click Try It On View)

<comment><USER54> They can also hire someone to do the matching manually (or do it themselves). It's a Show HN, which means they don't have a million users (yet)!

<comment><USER55> They could use mechanical turk

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Love it. Surprisingly cheap too. I've ordered three and can't wait to see them!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Let us know what you think of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> It's a great idea. Impressed.

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh, and can you make a zombie setup? I would totally pay for a mini-zombie-me

<comment><AUTHOR> Ace. Halloween is around the corner!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> You should consider offering an option to scale these up to life size.

</comment><comment><USER59> ... but what if I _want_ one with a frown?

;-)

just kidding. awesome work, guys!

</comment><comment><USER60> Your execution is brilliant. Very well made site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's kind of you to say

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Can't wait to see Maru cat version

</comment><comment><USER62> Nice execution, great website, but a total waste of time and resources.

</comment><comment><USER63> Should buy the .com

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://FoldableMe.com> :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> This is a best thing I've seen all day.

</comment><comment><USER65> You want to get really rich? Integrate with the Flat Stanley industry.

</comment><comment><USER66> Who needs this junk?

<comment><USER67> Who needs the different colored shirts in your closet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> No.</comment>


Employee #1 Is The Toughest Hire - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eladgil.com/2012/09/employee-1-is-toughest-hire.html

<comment><USER2> I cannot tell you the number of times non-technical teams have asked me (technical) to be employee number 1 and then offered a small amount of equity. I bail every singe time - it becomes clear they have 0 understanding of the time commitment on my part, have 0 understanding of the emotional commitment on my part, and 0 understanding of the opportunity cost of taking their offer. If you want people who know their stuff and are committed, you need to offer enough ownership for them to invest themselves.

<comment><USER3> Exactly! I'm a grad student at a US university, and I get these kind of job offers pretty much every week. They just need me to help code their website.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the most requested algorithms during technical interviews? - <AUTHOR> What are some of the most requested algorithms during technical interviews? <comment><USER2> Pfft... I was once asked to build an R-tree ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-tree)).

When I was young and eager to please I would put up with this sort of thing. In fact, I used to think there must be something wrong with me, that I was a bad programmer for not having every data structure and sorting algorithm perfectly memorized at all times.

Now that I'm starting to get old and realize it's all BS, if you ask me to write quicksort on a whiteboard I'm going to roll my eyes and walk out.

<comment><USER3> I woudln't roll my eyes and walk out, but I would ask them when the last time somebody in their organization implemented an R-Tree from scratch, then if they actaully answered the question, they better have a really good answer for the next question: why not use a mature, well tested, perforamnce enhanced library?

When they are unable to answer "When was the last time someone implemented one from scratch" then I ask them "Why are you asking candidates questions that are not relevant to the job? Wouldn't it be better to evaluate the candidates against the role they will fill?"

Then if they give B.S. answers you can politely say "Thanks, but no thanks" and then go - I try and dig a bit deeper to establish whether there was a really cool and interesting story about why they had to implement one themselves, or whether they're just full of rubbish and literally have no idea what they're doing

<comment><USER4> I asked that once and the reply was "we don't use freeware here". As their reason for coding everything themselves ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is regurgitating an algorithm actually a useful way to interview?

I consider myself a good programmer. I have a PhD and about 10 years professional experience. But right now I can't remember the different sorting algorithms, and in the very unlikely situation that I would need them... well there's Google.

<comment><USER6> I think the point is that they're simple. Like binary search, which a 7 yr old can grasp. Or writing a simple hash table, at least in psuedo code.

Or shuffling an array - anyone can do it, but there's performance and correctness questions.

In practice I'm guessing so many candidates fail out much earlier. The number of people that can't, say, reverse a string, or words in a string (not even getting into Unicode) is staggering.

<comment><USER7> you definitely know some advanced 7 yr olds.

<comment><USER6> Not if you explain it as a trick to guess someone's secret number between 1 and 100 in just 7 guesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not really an algorithm but I like to ask about the difference between inner and outer join. It can start a nice conversation about database design, normalization, performance, consistency,... I did get quite a few blank stares or "Yeah I do have SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle and PostgreSQL on my CV but I don't actually do it that much" answers, unfortunately.

<comment><USER9> One of the issues is you can easily go a year without using SQL just some ORM. In a job setting a few quick searches and it all comes back but interviews jump from topic to topic really fast.

<comment><USER10> Especially when it comes to things like inner and outer joins. I honestly can not remember the last time I needed a full outer join. Our database design doesn't really require it for anything that I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b Fibonacci is very common, just to see if the person knows what complexity is about, and to see if the person understands the tradeoff between readability / conciseness and complexity.

I don't think complex algorithms are that common in interview questions, especially the ones that are well known.

But, I personally like to ask this one, cause it came up in my day to day job, and is quite deep:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/127704/algorithm-to- retur...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/127704/algorithm-to-return-all- combinations-of-k-elements-from-n)

<comment><USER11> Since it's "quite deep" and you might have spent hours looking for a solution on the Web, why would you ask this question to a candidate in a 45 min interview? Do you think it's fair? And how would you define success since everyone would fail on this question? Just curious...

<comment><USER12> You learn a lot more about a candidate by seeing them tackle a reasonably tough problem than you do by pop-quizzing them on language features.

Language features and "how do I"s can be googled, and can reasonably be learned in the first weeks on the job; a good understanding of algorithms generally requires study, and takes much longer to do well at. Further, even if the algorithm is completely new to them, you can still learn a lot from their problem solving methods.

Finally, it shows that they can code. You would be surprised how many people can interview well but cannot actually code. I learned this the hard (and expensive) way several years ago, and since have made coding a central part of the interview. Sure, I probably lose some candidates who think it's "beneath" them, but in all honesty with that kind of attitude they're probably not the ideal hire either.

<comment> d--b Once I was interviewed by a very seasoned developer. The only question he asked me was to write a C function that swaps the content of 2 pointers. He told me 90% of the people he saw screwed it up.

<comment><USER13> This is, of course, the point of FizzBuzz.

[http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest](http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fizzbuzz and despite its popularity many people _still_ get it wrong.

<comment><USER15> That is simply not true.

<comment><USER14> Which of those two statements?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interviewers especially at the startup (where they think they would money by selling product) ask the questions like we developers need to use them daily by hand. These freaky people do not understand there is a difference between a DEVELOPER n a Dijkstra kind of developer. If I am a Dijkstra kind of developer i won't be working at your startup for some peanuts (either I will be at google/mfst or some other big company). Its not like you shouldn't know it there isn't any use of this. Illustrate a simple example through your career (<1% of all developers) where you have to innovate a SORTING/SEARCHING algo. This works happens in PHD where your sole goal/aim is to find/do something.

So interviewers rather then asking this bogus questions ask architectural questions, framework questions, coding things because this is what makes your product. For Sorting/Searching you will always use a library. Believe me, I hate being asked such questions during interview which can be found in a book. So please interviewers do ask relevant questions, we are there to develop your product not algo otherwise, if we are so talented, that definitely we wont' work for you.. :)

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13294318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13294318)

</comment><comment><USER18> I believe it should depend on the domain of the job you're interviewing for. If the job is heavy in large data sets and number crunching, then it makes sense to ask an algorithm question. If the job is integrating disparate APIs, then it makes sense to ask about how to define an easily consumable API. And while there are definitely positions that could require both pieces of knowledge it doesn't mean every position should expect encyclopedic knowledge of algorithms.

Often I read stories/comments and it feels as if questions of these sort are for the interviewer to prove a weird dominance of some sort and not to actually determine the competency of the interviewee.

This day in age I wish people would just say, "This job is mobile app development and simple REST APIs. If you want to ask about that go ahead, I'm not solving a problem which has a 1,000 solutions on Google."

Or alternatively, "Sure, give me a second. (Pulls out phone.) Here, this is the wikipedia entry on Insertion Sort."

<comment><USER19> > If the job is heavy in large data sets and number crunching, then it makes > sense to ask an algorithm question.

For that kind of job, why would you ever roll your own rather than using tools that have libraries of standard algorithms and data structures?

<comment><USER20> Pre-packaged libraries are generally optimized for being composable and generic. When trying to get more performance, it can make sense to e.g. create an index or lookup that can be used in multiple steps, or fold multiple iterative steps into a single iteration, or take advantage of the data's distribution to use a more specific approach, etc.

You don't have to walk far from the beaten path at all before custom data structures start making lots of sense. Most interesting data structures in the literature are only implemented in a resuable, available way in one or two languages, if that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fwiw, for our web/mobile device shop we ask 0 algorithm questions. I find those kinds of things rarely if ever come up in practice for our team and a person who makes it through the rest of our process would likely be up to the task.

We do ask for an offline coding exercise featuring date math which is actually Mong the hardest problems known to man. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Gamedev here and one thing I've noticed amongst peers is an emphasis on good practice over algo knowledge. Mastery of debugging for example is something to look for.

Now when I find a a candidate, usually via Github or their dev diary, I can usually tell from the work itself that they have the talent and skill.

But I can also employ a very simple screen: implement a basic image processing op using the Pixel Manipulation API on an HTML5 Canvas2d. Say Gaussian blur of an input bitmap. Not uncommon to get a "Javascript Expert" who can't even render a bitmap to a canvas. But a solid prospect with good engineering instincts will be able to wax poetic about low and high frequency noise in the image, convolution kernels versus Fourier analysis, and perhaps whether WebGL might not be more performant ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> Algorithm questions are not about the interviewer discovering what algos you know off the top of your head, but rather discovering how you solve a problem.

If the interviewer asks you an algo you know, and you bash it out super-quick, a prepared interviewer will just find another you _don't_ know the answer to. This thread's question is therefore somewhat missing the point.

Interview tests and questions which it's possible to swot up on aren't valuable. They only test your memory not your problem solving.

</comment><comment><USER24> Each interviewer in my experience has their own special algorithm they love to ask. For instance I was asked a question about the Boyer-Moore majority algorithm which is so obscure and rare and hence I messed that interview up. It is usually not the Splay Trees, AVL Trees, Merge Sort it's the logic behind your contextualization of the algo in the problem being asked to be solved

</comment><comment><USER25> Determine if a linked list is a loop or not.

There are a few small tricks. Something that you can get in an interview even if you have never seen it before.

<comment><USER6> To start: "given two liked lists, determine if they share any nodes". Even if you've only read about linked lists it should be something to get in a few minutes by stepping through it. No tricks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> At my one phone-screen with Google a long time ago: decide if all nodes in a binary tree fullfil the condition that elements in the left sub-tree are smaller than or equal to the node value, and all elements in the right sub- tree are greater than or equal. Good question I think, since you need to be able to use recursion + a tree is a simple and useful data structure.

</comment><comment><USER27> We ask a question that is roughly a little bit of database entity design, and a bit of scaling.

Given that we're mostly a large web application with a relational database, I think it's very appropriate for the job, and the question came almost straight out of real world experience.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have been asked a lot of problems whose solution was a variation of Breadth First Search.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not sure if it is "binary search", but it certainly would be an interesting test, see [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1277459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1277459)

<comment><USER20> Binary search is a terrible interview question because there's a handful of gotchas in the implementation.

Questions that depend on either leaps of insight or the interviewee having heard the question before make for dreadful interview questions. The former leads to too much variance to be a good measure; the latter makes the answer meaningless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Nortel once asked me to write "Hello World" in C++ when I was fresh out of school. You can't make this stuff up.

</comment><comment><USER31> Sorting, especially Quicksort or similar sorts. Insertion/Selection might be asked as well

</comment><comment><USER32> FizzBuzz

</comment><comment><USER33> i just ask hello world in language they know.No point for me asking basseyen formula,or what ever formula.We solve problem client only

<comment><USER33> for those whom downvote. Im sad for them. As interviewer,what point i ask specific formula while the basic cannot deliver?Each client have their own way doing thing.If the person can do hello world very quick ,for sure he can do any other thing with proper guidance.Some candidate quite scare first time and unable to solve big formula question. Stick with simple and stress level will reduce and i prefer too see what they do how they talk . Its just not about code formula but on how much easier interaction in the future.</comment></comment>