Yodlee Tracks Bank Cards, Sells Data to Investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/provider-of-personal-finance-tools-tracks-bank-cards-sells-data-to-investors-1438914620

<comment><AUTHOR> From experience, I've seen an explosion in a cottage industry around sourcing and selling data. While it was more common that I'd see startups (esp mobile app companies) supplementing their primary business model by selling their data to investors or data resellers, I've recently noticed startups aimed directly at this market opportunity (Earnest Research, Second Measure, etc.) Interestingly, Priceonomics also pivoted into doing data crawling for hedge funds.</comment>


React vs. Angular 2 - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ah9IJ72DhV4AzoZ1TJUnMzj42PzQrLrwQUkg9koO0dg/edit <comment><USER2> Isn't this like comparing apples to a fruit salad? Quoting from the React website, "Lots of people use React as the V in MVC," whereas Angular is the whole kit `n' kaboodle.

I thought React was supposed to be used in tandem with a Flux-like component that stores the state of the application, thereby allowing the developer to adopt the functional reactive programming style.

Anyways, I think React will be short lived, because anyone who _really_ wants to hop on the FRP bandwagon will pick up something like [http://elm- lang.org](http://elm-lang.org) in order to fully achieve Satori. I mean, if you're going to drink the Kool-aid, you might as well down the whole pitcher.

<comment><USER3> React will be short-lived because of Web Components, not because of Elm. Either that, or React will evolve to be a Web Components framework. The days of proprietary component silos are numbered, IMO.

<comment><USER4> Here a discussion on React github about WebComponents: [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/5052](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/5052)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe React core is in ES5 but most React components are now bejng written in ES6/7 with things like decorators and async functions, not to mention immutable data structures, and you may use Flow to substitute for static typing.

I can't believe in the team behind Angular 2.x they STILL have the same basic flaw in their thinking about UI development: their ideology is in contradiction to the idea of keeping it simple yet flexible.

</comment><comment><USER6> Two corrections:

1\. You can use types with React, either via Flow or in TypeScript with TSX. Unlike with Angular, with React you can also get type checking even in the JSX template (checking for valid component property types included, even with TypeScript)

2\. You can "externalise" your render method if you really want to by simply writing

      import MyComponentTemplate from './external-template.tsx'

      let MyComponent = React.createClass({
        ..
        render: MyComponentTemplate
        ..
      })

then in external-template.tsx

      export default function render() {
        return <template goes here>....
      }

Most React users think its unnecessary, but it doesn't mean its not possible.

<comment><USER7> React v0.14 adds "stateless functional components" syntax, which essentially makes your external-template.tsx a valid component on its own (with the caveat that no state or lifecycle methods are allowed): [https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/10/07/react-v0.14...](https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/10/07/react-v0.14.html)

<comment><USER8> There seems to be progression into breaking apart components that have decision trees with components that are simply rendered... I've had a tendency to favor this myself.

Also, simple components can defer events to prop/parent binding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For someone who hasn't had to do much work on the front end JS technologies like Ember, Angular, React, etc. What is a good resource to start learning Angular 2 (even though its not out yet)? I came across ng-book2 [0] but I've heard mixed reviews about their first book.

[0] [https://www.ng-book.com/2/](https://www.ng-book.com/2/)

<comment><USER10> Honestly? I would start with React. The way Angular 2 has been going, they are adopting a lot of new ideas from React.

<comment><USER11> The team I'm apart of started a project 2 months ago. We chose React and Redux over Ember, Angular, et al. A main decision factor was that we needed the server to render our initial HTML, neither Angular nor Ember can achieve this easily, we'd most likely have to lean on a third-party service. Angular looked particularly unattractive with Angular 1 being as good as dead and we didn't feel confident starting with Angular 2, there we're simply too many unknowns. We loved the hot loading & the redux-devtools features, turns out these have given us a decent productivity boost.

2 months into the project I'm confident we chose the best tools for the job, there's been absolutely no regrets from the team members.

<comment><USER12> The problem is that the surface of Angular is incredibly complex.

With React, you have components, which are just things (classes or functions) that convert a set of properties to a subtree of more components (ideally mostly ones that directly represent DOM elements) and do so deterministically and reproducibly.

With Redux you just have objects ("actions") representing changes to your application state and functions ("reducers") that convert an action and the current state into the future state. There are also functions ("action creators") that help you create the former and functions ("middleware") that affect how Redux processes them.

With Angular1 you have templates and directives and components and models and scopes and controllers and filters and injectors and services. And services can be constructors or factories or providers or values or constants or decorators. And scopes can be isolate or nested and there is the digest cycle and there are watch functions and if you do anything async outside of Angular you need to make sure to trigger the digest cycle (but not if you're already in the digest cycle) and I haven't even talked about interpolation yet.

Angular2 is slightly better but the docs are pretty sparse and many people's brains will still shut off as soon as they hear "dependency injection" and have you fucking seen what they have done to HTML to maintain their false illusion of "it's just HTML and JavaScript, designers can understand this"?

React doesn't need you to think. Initially the API made you define components by using a magical function, then they extended it to allow just using ES2015 classes, now you can even define simple components as plain old functions. The surface has shifted from minimal to nearly non-existent.

Redux has more conceptual overhead than React ("Wait, reducers can't have side-effects? Where does my AJAX go?") but most of the learning time is spent un-learning concepts you take for granted (e.g. you shouldn't mutate state, your components should ideally not have any state at all and it's perfectly fine to normalize your state because you only need to derive it when it actually changes). The number of actual concepts Redux brings to the table is fairly low.

Angular is a battleship. React+Redux is an attack submarine.

<comment><USER13> > Angular is a battleship. React+Redux is an attack submarine.

> The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during the period of > their prominence.... battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much > smaller, cheaper weapons...[11] > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship)

I'm not sure if your metaphor was intentional, that Angular is like a flashy, seemingly powerful but ultimately archaic, dead-on-arrival platform, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

<comment><USER12> > I'm not sure if your metaphor was intentional

I'm not denying it was...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is this FRP thing JS developers talking about? What I should read to learn more about it?

<comment><USER15> If you ignore the whole thing about how frp is not FRP, and how javascript developers really only mean frp, then a good place to start would be learning about RxJS.

FRP is deterministic and referentially transparent, frp is not. Key concepts in FRP are behaviors, events, signals; key concepts in frp is streams, observables, subscriptions. Although I'm not expert with either, there's a lot of overlap and term overloading, and I might be explaining this all badly anyway.

<comment><USER6> AFAICT, the simplest way of explaining the difference between FRP and "popular frp" is that in FRP things are described as functions of time, whereas in popular frp they are streams of events.

The "real" FRP is great for describing non-interactive things. They can be used to describe anumations: e.g. a FRP behavior can describe the position of a ball as a function of time:

      ballPosition :: t -> Position

whereas in "quasi" frp, the ballPosition is a stream of Position values:

      ballPosition :: (Stream Position)

Basically, quasi FRP is what you get when you sample real FRP at certain times :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> \- Dojo

\- Prototype

\- jQuery

\- Ember

\- ExtJS

\- YUI

\- Knockout

\- Angular

\- React

\- place for the next cool framework in the upcoming two years

</comment><comment><USER17> For job postings, it's still an Angular 1.x world out there:

[http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22angularJS%22%2C+%22Reac...](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=%22angularJS%22%2C+%22ReactJS%22%2C+%22EmberJS%22&l=)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am hesitant to spend time learning on react because of this:

" SomeCallMeTim: I have been learning new technologies pretty much continuously. It's not impossible, especially if you follow sites like Hacker News, to keep a finger on the direction of the industry, and then try to stay on top of the next new hot technology of the year. But I hear you on the "worse" technology sometimes winning. You mentioned Java; it was worse than just about all other major contenders, and is only finally losing popularity. On a current technology fad: React seems to be designed to ignore 40 years of accumulated software best practices. [1] Separation of concerns? Who needs that any more? And the rationale for it is that it allows teams of 100 developers work together on an app. Open standards? Nah, how about lock-in to custom language extensions that will prevent you from migrating your code to the next web standard! Much better. And how many app teams have 100 or more active developers? Probably fewer than a dozen, and I submit that none of them probably should. Certainly not the Facebook app: It has a lot of features, but not that many features, and yet it has a 150Mb footprint. When I hear things like that, I can't help but fill in "junior" or "mediocre" in front of "developers." React helps to prevent people from breaking each others' code when you have bloated development teams filled with junior developers. React has some cool ideas, but all told I think it's a step backward for software engineering, and certainly isn't as much of a help for small teams, especially if you want to have a CSS/SCSS/LESS expert styling your product without having to dig through JSX files, for instance. The Java rationale was similar, IMO: You can use the Java abstractions to allow lots of mediocre developers to make contributions to a product without breaking each others' code. At least not as frequently as when they can poke right into random data structures and change things arbitrarily. If it weren't for Google's decision to require Java for Android, I think Java would be relegated to big company web backend development. I do like React's idea of the Virtual DOM for optimization, but you can get that without using React. [2] React Native is great for using native components and driving them from JavaScript, but it's also not the only game in town. [3] Back to the original point, though: You can stay on top of the Hot New Technologies, but when there are good technical reasons to use alternate technologies, stay on top of those as well. And then explain clearly to your clients (or employers) why the current fad is a fad, and how to get the key benefits of that stack without its drawbacks. Oh, and choose clients (or employers) who will listen to strong technical arguments. :) [1] [https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20150311-react-bad- idea](https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20150311-react-bad-idea) [2] [https://github.com/Matt-Esch/virtual-dom](https://github.com/Matt- Esch/virtual-dom) [3] [https://www.nativescript.org/](https://www.nativescript.org/) "</comment>


Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto may never be identified - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018/09/01/satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoins-enigmatic-creator <comment><USER2> This may be true but does it matter. Satoshi wanted to be anonymous and he/she got his/their way. Good for him! To the rest of us, knowing, makes no difference.</comment>


[Ning] Virtually Goods - <AUTHOR> http://web-poet.com/2009/10/25/ning/

<comment><AUTHOR> The latest in poetry about web 2.0. A poetic look at the exchange and creation of virtual goods in a more social world.</comment>


Luxury or Necessity? The Public Makes a U-Turn - <AUTHOR> http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/733/luxury-necessity-recession-era-reevaluations

<comment><USER2> Given how correlated these trends are, I am not sure what is changing is the desire for any particular item, but the actual interpretation of the word "necessity". I suspect what is happening is that when financial security is low, necessity is applied as a term close to its actual definition, whereas in times of financial plenty it starts wandering up the scale towards "want".

That said, I boggle at the clothes dryer rank.

<comment><USER3> > I boggle at the clothes dryer rank

Some American towns actually forbid residents from hanging clotheslines.

<comment><USER4> True, but it's usually a neighborhood association rule, not something that applies to a whole town.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slightly off topic, but related none-the-less: something that has always bothered me about "necessities" is that 99% of US households have a TV [1] but at the same time, ~12% are in poverty. [2] How do "necessities" like this tie into poverty?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States> [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States>

<comment><USER6> In America, you are poor if you only have one TV.

(The statistic you point out has bothered me for a long time, but it's hard to control people's spending priorities, and it's not like these people are buying new flatscreens with welfare checks. You can drive around any college town during May or August and pick up a working TV for free off the curb.)

<comment><USER5> >it's not like these people are buying new flatscreens with welfare checks

this is a very good point. I wonder if there is data around that examines how welfare checks are spent.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean by "welfare". Food stamps are accepted at certain locations for certain items. Unemployment insurance is a general check - but that isn't exactly welfare.

<comment><USER5> I meant welfare to mean cash payments to the poor as provided for in the Welfare Reform act of 1996. [1]

You brought up a good point to differentiate this from food stamps and unemployment.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_Reform_Act_of_1996>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that 50% of people still believe things like a TV, Microwave, and central A/C are "necessities" means we have a very long way to go. I guess I can be happy it dropped from 60%.

<comment><USER9> Have you ever lived in the south? A/C is very much a necessity.

<comment><USER5> Yet people did it. My parents grew up in St. Louis without air conditioning. It gets uncomfortable but is not unlivable.

People live in the tropics without it. It is not a necessity.

<comment><USER10> I'm really confused how people got along before A/C. If the A/C is broken or otherwise off, your windows are down and fans are running everywhere, and you are completely naked, it still feels like you are sitting inside a very hot wet oven.

I can hardly do anything but think of ways to get away from the heat (cold shower, going into the shade outside, going someplace with A/C) and falling asleep usually takes about four more hours than it should as I wallow around like a pig. Every 6-month 100-degree summer reminds me why I need to move out of the South.

<comment><USER5> I asked my dad the same thing and here was his trick to fall asleep at night:

He had a ceiling fan but no AC. So he would wrap himself in a blanket until he was soaked with sweat. Then he took the blanket off and laid on his sheet and let the fan blow on him thereby evaporating the sweat. This would cool him down and allow him to sleep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm rather blown away that 49% of 18-29 year-olds consider a land line phone to be a necessity.

I think the last time I had a land line was a decade ago, when I was 17. And I live in the decidedly non-cutting-edge midwest. Even my parents haven't had a land line in years.

<comment><USER11> When I was laid off a little over a month ago, I was looking for things to get rid of. Even though I have a cellphone, I kept the landline: I knew I was going to be doing a lot of interviews over the phone, and I knew that my cellphone drops a lot of calls and generally sounds crappy inside the house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The average middle class citizen have access to luxuries unheard of even for kings and queen ages ago.

What is luxury very often become the masses' necessity through free maket process.

</comment><comment><USER7> What about the internet? I don't have a TV but I wouldn't give up the internet because my work depends on it - but for others it would be a luxury.

<comment><USER13> In your case internet connection is not household item but office equipment.</comment></comment>


Return of The Gold Currency - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703882304575465623070689934.html

<comment><USER2> I'm in the same boat as LZW.

But let's put aside the battle of opinions of whether inflation or deflation is more damaging for the sake of this article.

A gold currently would create equilibrium in the market for supply and demand of goods and services. There would be a predictable quantity of money in the system at all times and people, businesses, and investors would be able to base their decisions on this. There would be neither rapid deflation nor inflation, but rather the true value of the good or service would be reflected in the price. We would only see deflation if production became more affordable, or if demand decreased. This is healthy!

The argument that people would delay their purchases because they know it will be more affordable in the future is bunk. There are a few goods and services that have become consistently more affordable over time despite inflation, and people continue to buy those things knowing full well they'll be available for cheaper in the future. This is an easy to understand example of equilibrium between supply and demand.

But nonetheless, did a gold standard lead to a deflationary spiral all the way through the 1900s until 1971 when Nixon essentially declared economic bankruptcy and took us off the gold standard? No, it didn't. Those were some of the most prosperous times this world has ever seen. True economic prosperity not fueled through ever greater sums of debt.

Gold is sound currency.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sad to see economic nonsense like "central banks have mitigated the effects of inflation" and "paper currency can fight the tough impact of deflation".

Deflation, actually, is good for the economy because it lowers the cost of expansion for businesses, and makes everyones savings have more purchasing power, making everyone wealthier.

Governments, however, like to spend without regard for responsibility, and so governments put out propaganda to try and scare us about "Deflation" as a threat so that people ignore the fact that most productivity and many technological advancements that we should be reaping the benefits of, are instead, "mitigated" by inflation.

<comment><USER4> _Deflation, actually, is good for the economy because it lowers the cost of expansion_

Wow, talk about economic nonsense. Deflation is far, far worse for the economy than inflation because it lowers the incentive to put existing capital to use.

 _and makes everyones savings have more purchasing power, making everyone wealthier._

Except those who have no savings or even debt, i.e. most people. And no, that's not their fault and debt-slavery their justly deserved punishment decreed by god. Inflation is pretty much the only thing that mitigates the aggregation of all wealth in the hands of a tiny group of people.

<comment><USER3> Yes, please don't say economic nonsense. What you are giving me here is political ideology, not economics. Your claims are easily disproven. The period of Americas greatest economic growth, where we went from backwards colonies to economic leader is a period of deflation! From the late 1780s to around 1910- the dollar appreciated in purchasing power due to deflation and we had the industrial revolution. All that extra productivity from machines manned prices go down and gave people more money to spend, and contrary to the claim that it prevents investment, more purchasing power means more capital to deploy.

I have ot laugh at the absurd claim that inflation is good because people have no savings to benefit from deflation. The reason they have no savings is that your lot have stolen them via inflation!</comment></comment></comment>


Alan Turing's notebook sold for $1M - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32295436 <comment><USER2> Slightly less of a garbage link:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-32294655](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk- england-32294655)

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel deeply outraged that this precious scientific artifact was simply auctioned, instead of given to TNMoC, the British Museum, or really any institution committed to studying it and presenting it to the public.

<comment><USER4> Paraphrasing the article: "It was given to someone else by Turing, who kept it for their lifetime (as it contained a personal note), whilst everything else of his they possessed WAS handed to a museum."

It seems the heirs of the owner were less interested in preserving history for the masses and more concerned with a free 500k. I'm not sure I can blame them terribly much. I can't help but be curious as to the message though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed 'Alan Turing: The Enigma' by Andrew Hodges.

</comment><comment><USER6> Could anyone recommend any books about Turing's life and works?

<comment><USER7> My recommendation when anyone asks this.

1\. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges [http://www.amazon.com/Alan- Turing-Enigma-Inspired-Imitation/...](http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing- Enigma-Inspired-Imitation/dp/069116472X/)

Definitive and detailed biography.

2\. Alan M. Turing by Sara Turing [http://www.amazon.com/Alan-M-Turing- Centenary-Edition/dp/110...](http://www.amazon.com/Alan-M-Turing-Centenary- Edition/dp/1107020581)

Deeply personal biography of her dead son.

3\. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold [http://www.amazon.com/Annotated- Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing- Through-Historic-Computability/dp/0470229055/)

Turing's famous 1936 explained in detail.

<comment><USER8> These recommendations are spot on.

As so much of Alan's posthumous fame is for cracking the naval enigma in WW2, I'd recommend starting out by first reading "The Code Book" by Simon Singh for general background.

Personally I find Alan's work on ACE the most fascinating. Sadly I can't really find much about it beyond Hodge's biography. Anyone got any good leads re ACE?

<comment><USER7> Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine by Jack Copeland [http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turings-Automatic-Computing- Engin...](http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turings-Automatic-Computing-Engine- ebook/dp/B007AQ1FKG)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't find any information as to whether the contents of the book have been scanned anywhere - anybody know?

</comment><comment><USER10> Having watched the imitation game recently, I thought notebooks weren't around in his lifetime. Then I remembered Apple decided to rename their laptops to "notebooks" after people started burning their laps.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does it run Linux? ;)

<comment><USER10> Humor on HN? You should know better.

<comment><USER12> This was considered humor on Slashdot about 10-15 years ago.

Doesn't qualify as such today.</comment></comment></comment>


New MacBook Pros have non-upgradeable SSDs, seemingly under-sized batteries - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/15/2016-macbook-pro-non-removable-ssd-small-batteries/ <comment> maybe-not-in-ux Apples new laptop batteries are designed to come in .5 Milliamps UNDER the FAA/TSA limit. Samsung spooked the feds, and this is one result.

<comment><USER2> What's the FAA/TSA limit on milliamps? Their guide only lists a limit of 100 watt hours:

[https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...](https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ash/ash_programs/hazmat/passenger_info/media/Airline_passengers_and_batteries.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's something that jumped into my mind:

\- Samsung recently recalled their flagship phone because of battery problems ([http://www.samsung.com/us/note7recall/](http://www.samsung.com/us/note7recall/))

\- Intel recently recalled all their Basis Peak smart watches because they might overheat ([https://www.mybasis.com/safety/](https://www.mybasis.com/safety/))

The Samsung thing, especially, must have worried Apple's engineers (their marketing and sales departments probably was ecstatic) I expect they will have bought dozens of these phones, attempting to figure out what went wrong.

Could Apple have made a last-minute change to the batteries because they do not want this to happen to them?

<comment><USER4> I highly doubt it. It's not like there is any leftover space inside these laptops. They made them thinner, and took out some of the screen bezel, making it a smaller width and height as well. The battery life did not get worse, since they also use lower TDP chips (4980HQ -> 6920HQ on the highest end) and made other power improvements.

A change to the battery size is definitely not a last-minute design decision you could make, since it depends on the logic board size and case size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stopped in the other day to check the new MBPs. They are beautiful, but I agree they have gone too far in the weight/beauty direction at the expense of practicality. I liked the touch bar, but typing on the keyboard felt like typing on a brick, despite its precision.

Sure, you can hook up a keyboard for day to day use, but that feels suboptimal from my perspective.

<comment><USER6> What is there beautiful about a poorly proportional hunk of aluminum with disfigured fugly touchpad?

I mean, back ages ago the Macbook was kinda surprising and nice. There wasn't many alubody laptops back then.

But now? They look goofy as hell with oversized keyboard, no keypad, featurelessness...

AND THEY DON'T EVEN COME IN BLACK

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if they're having manufacturing or yield problems on this round. The first "Retina" machines had a serious issue with under-performing displays that took some time to iron out.

</comment><comment><USER8> Johnny Ive has personally invested 10 minutes in beautifying the SSD, and 100 hours beautifying the PR video pitching the SSD beautification process. So fuck your concerns about replacability and other real world issues. Replay the PR campaign video 10 times over and covet the irreplaceable, soldered, genius of an SSD. Rediscover your inner sheep. Be the sheep Apple meant for you to be.

<comment><USER9> Please don't post such rants here. Even when there's a legitimate grievance behind them, they lower the quality of discourse we're hoping for on HN.</comment></comment>


Austrian Provider hosts Raspberry Pi for free (colocation) - <AUTHOR> http://www.edis.at/de/server/colocation/oesterreich/raspberrypi/

<comment><USER2> <http://www.edis.at/en/server/colocation/austria/raspberrypi/>

Version of the link in English.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome idea! But as a remote server, is the RasPi really up to it?

<comment><USER4> Maybe not for large-scale web applications, but as webserver for a small blog or as a proxy server, or even just an Icecast Server for some friends, why not?

The GPU would be mostly idle in these cases, as Servers don't usually run a Graphical Interface, which would mean more RAM for the system.

All in all, this might well be an Application the RPI is more suited for than functioning as a media center.</comment></comment>


Why the education sector lags behind when it comes to tech? - <AUTHOR>

Unlike other industries, education sector worldwide (esp k-12), generally lags behind in implementing smarter technology solutions. Every industry has properly functioning, and highly advanced ERP systems but still that doesn't stop them from implementing next generation mobile solutions and employ the power of data analytics for informed decision making. This is probably because they realize that the massive penetration of mobile and social technologies have changed the way people live, work and communicate and hence they expect the same experience in every walk to life, be it their work life or grocery shopping.
Why education sector fails to understand this? Why not only parents but school admin itself doesn't have real time access to school activities? Why is analytics not employed to convert vast amount of disparate amount of data into actionable insights in schools? Why ain't students and teachers able to communicate through their mobile devices. Why is "anywhere anytime" still an unknown concept for the education sector? <comment><USER2> Decades of attempts to convert this "vast amount of disparate amount of data into actionable insights" have found that it's far more complicated than you think. See for examples [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_data_mining](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_data_mining) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_analytics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_analytics) for some of the well-known names for these sorts of analytics.

For example, "Investing in expensive data analysis systems may not be as important as investing in ways of measuring teacher effectiveness that can identify the specific supports teachers need to improve their practice." \- [http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/may1...](http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/may10/vol67/num08/Using_Value- Added_Measures_to_Evaluate_Teachers.aspx) .

"Value Added Measures" are one of the many attempts at applying analytics to education. The error rate and variability of that method is so high as to make it unusable. See [http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/resources/value-added- measu...](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/resources/value-added-measures) .

I cannot reconcile your statement with the last 15 years of high-stakes testing, which were justified by saying they could do the analytics that you think haven't been considered.

Nor with the many attempts, dating to at least PLATO in the 1960s, to develop computer assisted instruction systems, with data acquisition and analytic components.

Edit: Also, "Google Apps for Education" \- [https://classroom.google.com/](https://classroom.google.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> "Investing in expensive data analysis systems may not be as important as investing in ways of measuring teacher effectiveness that can identify the specific supports teachers need to improve their practice" I didn't really get this statement. You would need a data analysis system for measuring teacher effectiveness as well. They r in no way separate.

<comment><USER2> There are such things as inexpensive data analysis systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In the USA, education is circumscribed by tradition. Everything, from length of school year, to subjects taught, to curriculum, is bounded by tradition. If tech isn't in schools, that's fine, because nobody in 1955 had tech in their schools, and what's good enough for old folks is good enough for kids today.

Sorry to be so grumpy, but I'm pretty sure that's what the real reason is.

<comment><USER2> There are indeed all sorts of traditions.

Football teams and homecoming are traditions that seem to have little to do with education.

But just like there are schools without football teams, there are also schools with year-round teaching. Tradition can't be the only reason.

In the 1980s there was a big debate on if calculators should be allowed in schools. Technology won. So clearly we have technology in schools now which wasn't there in 1955.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Flpbk.io – Video to flipbook converter - <AUTHOR> https://flpbk.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I made this. Here's some short info about it:

I started developing this 2.5 years ago, as a funny side project

People kinda loved it, so I decided to launch it :)

In the next few weeks, I'll explore the possibilities of B2B partnerships and develop additional features.

Stack behind: Nuxt(Vue), Java and Netlify for hosting the frontend.</comment>


India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content - <AUTHOR> http://blog.savetheinternet.in/statement-on-trai-order-on-diff-pricing/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35522899](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35522899) gives the background without an autoplay video like the CNN link has.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great quote on a different article covering the same story: [http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/technology/india-facebook- fr...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/technology/india-facebook-free-basics- internet/index.html)

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

Mahesh Murthy, a prominent Indian venture capitalist, last year described the program as "imperialism and the East India Company all over again," carried out under the guise of "digital equality."

"What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on a commodity market or even search for a job," he said.

<comment><USER4> > "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be > able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a > fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on > a commodity market or even search for a job," he said.<

Indians use connectivity very differently than the rest of the world(or at least different from the developed countries). To Indians, phone/internet is a mode of communication first. It was the thing which has been missing from their lives the most. This is especially true for the demographics Facebook was targeting.

The reason is the language barrier. A lot more Indians can read and write English needed for directions, news headlines, legal documents, store names etc, than those who can truly express themselves in English. My mom is a great example of this, she can read and write English, but will have trouble understanding a conversation going on purely in English.

This is the reason her smartphone usage is almost all reliant upon content created and generated by others. WhatsApp and Facebook are the two most used apps on her phone. It isn't that she wouldn't like to read up facts about politicians and world events from Wikipedia, it's just that Hindi Wikipedia and Google suck. However, if someone were to forward her a news article, a recipe or just make posts on their facebook, she's a lot more comfortable doing that.

It's been less than 5 years since she got WhatsApp and Facebook, but the social network she has created around the two facilitates her family in ways it was not imaginable 10 years ago.

BTW "It's East India Company all over again" is a cliche at this point and should be considered racist in India (because it's almost exclusively used against any non-Indian entrepreneurship in India).

<comment><USER5> >it's just that Hindi Wikipedia and Google suck

And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse?

Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc.

You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation to decide which sites millions of people should and should not be able to visit.

This is to say nothing of the next whatsapp or facebook - this plan is obviously about preventing competition.

You say they use the internet for communication first, is it any wonder Facebook/WhatsApp wants to ensure they control what mediums of communication are accessible throughout India?

What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?

<comment><USER4> > And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources > will make them....worse?

Nope, just saying that non-English Indian language internet sucks. Yes it gets better when more and more people are using it, but that still doesn't change the fact that millions of people currently don't have internet in a form which they can use to make their lives better.

> What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp > competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this > country?

Same thing you're going to say to that 18 year old kid in the year 2030 whose life could have been different had he lived in a more connected India.

<comment><USER6> >>Same thing you're going to say to that 18 year old kid in the year 2030 whose life could have been different had he lived in a more connected India.

There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few days.

You seem to be suggesting that another drug, which can relieve the patient of some of the pains for the next hour, but is sure to kill the patient in the next few months be administered to the patient immediately.

<comment><USER4> > There is a patient suffering from a heart disease, medicine arrives in a few > days.<

We fundamentally disagree upon the nature of net neutrality. I do not believe net neutrality is a good thing, and getting rid of it would be a good thing.

The fundamental fact is that all bits aren't created equal. Facebook wants to pay for some bits by attaching the economic value of future customer, and that is fundamentally a justified thing.

In America T-mobile recently launched Binge On program under which Netflix and Youtube won't count against a monthly data plan. People on HN are hell bent on claiming that somehow this is a bad thing, but the fact is, for most people this makes their lives better.

I'm surprised that TRAI (an organization which should be gotten rid of completely according to me) caved in to Net Neutrality proponents. In future you'll see when in America Net Neutrality will be removed and how much benefit it brings to the people.

<comment><USER6> >>Facebook wants to pay for some bits by attaching the economic value of future customer, and that is fundamentally a justified thing.

Facebook realizes there is very little value they can add to whatever they have done so far. So now the only way to be safe from competition is to create a monopoly and prevent others from even getting a chance from competing with them.

>>People on HN are hell bent on claiming that somehow this is a bad thing

It is.

>>for most people this makes their lives better.

Its the first step these companies take before they start charging for VoIP calls.

>>I'm surprised that TRAI (an organization which should be gotten rid of completely according to me) caved in to Net Neutrality proponents.

I'm only surprised it took them this late, after this much activism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Probably the most progressive regulation among anywhere in the world.

Enforcement of these #NetNeutrality principles is the literal granting of the Liberties and Equalities of opportunities, granted to individuals and as such this is a landmark order that will have far reaching repercussions.

Worth noting how this played out. A bunch of folks on the internet, organised themselves and campaigned to stop a $300B market cap corporation and a bunch of telecoms with strong lobbying capabilities. Who would have thought they would win? The situation is worth a Harvard case study or a Nate Silver book.

The future of influencing policy making is right here; and you ain't seen anything yet! Save The Internet team clearly seems to understand the virality of social networks better than Facebook does!

<comment><USER7> While the David's won this round, it was against an opponent (or group of) which made several tactical errors.

We need to build a more lasting institution to prepare in advance for future papers, have lists of people it can reach out to, and manage the hidden minutiae required to combat these issues.

Because Next time it may not be Facebook, it may be the GoI itself, or reliance.

<comment><USER8> > We need to build a more lasting institution to prepare in advance for future > papers, have lists of people it can reach out to, and manage the hidden > minutiae required to combat these issues.

Which is exactly what we will do.

<comment><USER9> And does #savetheInternet have or want branches outside India. It's not a local problem? Is there somewhere I can go and lend support ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Two key aspects of the Net Neutrality consultation that remain: firstly, the proposed requirement for providers of VoIP services like Whatsapp, Viber and Skype to obtain a government licence, which would mean that telecom operators could be required to treat traffic from unlicensed VoIP providers differently from the rest, and secondly, allowing telecom operators the ability to slow down and speed up websites, giving them the ability to play king-makers and gate-keepers. Citizens should be vigilant, as always, and should consider participating in this process in the future. SaveTheInternet opposes any form of licensing of Internet Services. This includes VoIP.

So even though discriminatory _pricing_ is not allowed, operators can still slow/speed down/up apps and websites. Seems to me a key aspect of net neutrality has not been upheld.

For eg, what if an ISP decides to "slow down" Netflix to 0.1 kbps? I believe this is a wholly unsatisfactory outcome of the entire national debate over the last several months.

<comment><USER11> Its a step in the right direction. TRAI was only deciding on differential pricing not slow/fast lanes and currently no ISPs are implementing slow/fast lanes whereas differential pricing (i.e. free plans for Facebook, Whatsapp, their own shitty apps etc) were all over.

<comment><USER12> Definitely a step in the right direction, but there are plenty of ISPs who provide preferential treatment to Google by peering with their servers. YouTube HD videos stream without buffering on 512kbps connections.

[https://www.quora.com/I-am-from-Mumbai-I-have-an-Internet- co...](https://www.quora.com/I-am-from-Mumbai-I-have-an-Internet-connection- of-a-fairly-low-speed-I-get-the-normal-speed-while-surfing-or-downloading- some-files-But-I-get-high-speed-while-watching-YouTube-videos-or-downloading- from-a-torrent-or-Google-Drive-How-does-this-happen-and-can-I-get-the-high- speed-for-everything)

<comment><USER13> Nothing stops anyone else from peering. There's no differential pricing involved here, just regular infrastructure.

<comment><USER14> While peering enables this, the real problem is that all these ISPs provide YouTube at a much higher speed than the rest of the web, which means that your bandwidth is not enough to stream videos without buffering for any other video site, while YouTube is always smooth.

Peering should just be a step towards enabling ISPs to fulfill their bandwidth promises, not a justification for fast lane/slow lane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Couple of articles I would recommend reading about Free Basics

1\. Here's How Free Basics Is Actually Being Sold Around The World [http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/heres-how-free- basi...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/heres-how-free-basics-is- actually-being-sold-around-the-worl)

2\. How India Pierced Facebook's Free Internet Program [https://medium.com/backchannel/how-india-pierced- facebook-s-...](https://medium.com/backchannel/how-india-pierced-facebook-s- free-internet-program-6ae3f9ffd1b4)

For the second article, reporter asked Facebook to put her in touch with Free Basics users. All the people that Facebook connected her were already internet users. But Mark Zuckerberg in an FB post claimed that "19 million people were connected to the internet for the first time with free basics".

Both these articles present examples of how Free Basics is actually advertised in rest of the world.

<comment><USER16> Indeed.

"Free Basics was ostensibly targeted at Indians who had never experienced the Internet or could not pay for data plans. However, Facebook recently struggled to provide a reporter with the name of a single Free Basics user in India who had never been online before."

Source: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/india-ruling-trai- free-b...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/india-ruling-trai-free- basics#.oxy4QoMy8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm having trouble parsing this article through all the propaganda speak. Clearly whoever wrote it is happy that a victory has been scored and that the Internet is no longer broken (and has possibly even been saved) with the help of some agency that did _something_ important that we should know about.

But it's so thick with its own team's code language that I can't actually parse out what happened.

Anybody know what's going on?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote up a "let's get this straight" message earlier, may be that will appeal to you more: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932166)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mark "tried to solve a non existent problem" and fell over.

India is not a country where everyone rides on bullocarts or tuk tuks. Its a fast developing nation. Its not what you see in Hollywood movies or western medias. India do not need help on the internet side of things.

<comment><USER19> > Its a fast developing nation

The benefits of development are very unevenly distributed. Some areas are the equal of any first world country...and others lag behind even the poorest African countries.

> India do not need help on the internet side of things.

The 800 million Indians [1] without internet might disagree with that.

I think you've forgotten just how freaking _big_ India is. They have 400 million people online, which is the second most of any country (only China has more, with 670 million online)...yet they are so big that this is only 1/3 of their population.

[1] Indian population: 1200 million - 400 million with access [2] = 800 million without.

[2] [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/india-to- have-402-mill...](http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/india-to- have-402-million-internet-users-by-december-end-iamai-766216)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Note in the USA, Verizon does not ding uses of their data cap if they use Verizon's video content Go90, however it does if the users use YouTube. It is interesting that in India the net neutrality has been taken to a much higher degree than in the US itself. But I don't think what India did is a bad thing in the long run(even though the acceleration of people moving to use Internet for first time will get hurt a little bit in the short term)

<comment><USER21> As stated above, even Facebook themselves couldn't point to a single user that for to internet for first time using the free basics campaign. People who want internet and a smartphone required to connect to internet can already get to internet. On other end, people don't have a smartphone to access the free basics program and Facebook doesn't solve that problem. Facebook is jsut trying to get more people to use Facebook by giving access for free and bundling a few low usage apps people rarely use in name of charity

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So - I wonder how Facebook will respond to their market penetration and lock- in effort being declared illegal, as granting access to one set of sites for free and not allowing access to others surely falls under this legislation.

I expect that they'll continue business as usual, and will drag out the battle until they have a captive and indoctrinated audience (after all, they control the content, so you can be sure folks won't be reading about this, but they will be reading about how internet.org gives you freedom and is great and wonderful) who will push the government in favour of banning _non- discriminatory_ pricing.

<comment><USER23> _they control the content, so you can be sure folks won 't be reading about this_

Unless they just go to [https://www.facebook.com/netneutralityin/](https://www.facebook.com/netneutralityin/)

<comment><USER24> You are undermining the popular narrative with your facts and what-not.

<comment><USER25> I've been here over a year, so I'm allowed [0] to complain that this comment is contributing to HN morphing into reddit.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could Facebook not simply have outmanoeuvred the problem here by providing free access to the wider web, perhaps in a rolling fashion? Does Facebook have any real 'native' competition in India?

<comment><AUTHOR> If their motive were genuinely connectivity, as they advertised it, they can still do it. #EqualRating is allowed, so are charitable initiatives such as Free Data to everyone.

But what do they really want? The next billion internet users hooked onto their platform. That's what they paid Whatsapp a whooping $19B for.

I can't presume to know for sure. We'll both see what will they do of their Freebasics program now.

<comment><USER26> But won't they be just as hooked as in markets where Facebook has already penetrated? Seems like the smart play is just getting people on-line, and getting them onto Facebook the same way they always have.

Why wouldn't that work in India?

<comment><USER11> I don't believe they ever had any intention of getting the poor online. They have so far never released ANY data regarding how many of the users of Free Basics are first time Internet users despite it being one of the top demands of critics of the Free Basics program. Some independent third party analysis suggest that the overwhelming majority of users of Free Basics are existing Internet users, many of them who have no idea they are on Free Basics.

Reliance (the telco that Facebook has partnered with) doesn't advertise the Free Basics program as "access for the poor" but as "Free Facebook" and doesn't even mention the additional websites available for free on Free Basics.

My guess is that with Free Basics rolled out in 36 countries without any issues, Facebook never expected any opposition.

<comment><USER27> The "many of whom have no idea they are on free basics" part is a little weird to me. Are these "users" like my father, who technically has internet access but doesn't use it?

Aside from that, I don't think Facebook needs to find "new" internet users to be providing access to the needy. If the users' previous access was the internet equivalent of a polluted river 15 miles away, building a clean well right in the village is still a benefit, even if they're only allowing livestock with an odd number of toes to be watered, which everyone admits is kind of weird.

<comment><USER11> A friend of mine was on Free Basics. She found out only when she tried to navigate to a video outside of Facebook from a link that she clicked on Facebook and was prompted to purchase a data plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 1) I think it's ironic that the people most opposed to Free Basics are the ones who already have internet.

2) I'm curious how the legislation prevents FB from charging for this service. And what the minimum cost is regulated at.

</comment><comment><USER29> Where does the article mention anything about discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content in the linked article?

<comment><USER8> Here's the order this article is referring to: [http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regu...](http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> FB should have donated/bribed appropriate people in India [https://twitter.com/rss_org](https://twitter.com/rss_org) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India)

</comment><comment><USER31> [https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102641883915251](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102641883915251)

Everyone in the world should have access to the internet. That's why we launched Internet.org with so many different initiatives -- including extending networks through solar-powered planes, satellites and lasers, providing free data access through Free Basics, reducing data use through apps, and empowering local entrepreneurs through Express Wi-Fi. Today India's telecom regulator decided to restrict programs that provide free access to data. This restricts one of Internet.org's initiatives, Free Basics, as well as programs by other organizations that provide free access to data. While we're disappointed with today's decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world. Internet.org has many initiatives, and we will keep working until everyone has access to the internet. Our work with Internet.org around the world has already improved many people's lives. More than 19 million people in 38 countries have been connected through our different programs. Connecting India is an important goal we won't give up on, because more than a billion people in India don't have access to the internet. We know that connecting them can help lift people out of poverty, create millions of jobs and spread education opportunities. We care about these people, and that's why we're so committed to connecting them. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. That mission continues, and so does our commitment to India.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't see any quotes from users of the service, in this article or in the CNN article. Seems salient.

</comment><comment><USER33> full regulation paper from TRAI : [http://trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulati...](http://trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER34> As an Indian I feel a bit sad that a few elitist managed to hijack the entire propaganda and denied access to millions of poor people.

US readers: Please note that T-Mobile Binge on and other similar services would be illegal under new TRAI guidelines in India.

</comment><comment><USER35> As I understand it this effectively this stops "richer" people being charged more, which is being universally applauded as a good thing.

But isn't this contrary to the whole inequality issue? Shouldn't richer people be charged more? Richer people are being charged more for state infrastructure via higher taxes - which is also generally applauded as a good thing amongst the young/liberal demographic (in fact it doesn't go far enough many would argue).

So why is it bad for companies to charge more to certain demographics? If people are prepared to pay why's that wrong? Isn't value pricing actually intrinsically "fair" as richer customers are effectively subsiding poorer customers?

<comment><USER36> The internet is not "a product", it is an essential utility. Rich people pay more than poor people for roads, but they get the same access to them as poor people. This is what the internet should be like.

Historically, price differentiation for network infrastructure has been due to costs, not artificial market segmentation; it's important this continues to be the case for the majority of net citizens. As we've seen over and over again, removing cost barriers for utility infrastructure is a tremendous spark for all sorts of economic activity.

<comment><USER23> _This is what the internet should be like._

The thing is: how does banning Free Basics / Internet.org provide that?

That's what bothers me about this movement: it should be about giving poor people free access to the Net (which would just render Facebook's toy platform irrelevant - no need to ban it).

Today a bunch of activists are celebrating victory, but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access. It's hard not to feel like these campaigns are little more than middle-class people patting themselves on the back.

<comment><USER37> > but tomorrow the poor will still have no Internet access

That would still be the case if the verdict was the other way around. There's no evidence that Free Basics actually brought a significant number of new people on the internet (the rate of people cited as joining Free Basics is comparable to the rate of people joining the internet in general, so it didn't change anything)

Note that data plans are pretty cheap in India. The cost of a smartphone that can handle modern websites ( _especially_ Facebook, which breaks on old/slow phones and browsers) is more than the cost of a few year's worth of data.

<comment><USER19> > Note that data plans are pretty cheap in India.

Cheap enough for the 60% of rural Indians who live on less than 35 Rs/day [1]?

> The cost of a smartphone that can handle modern websites (especially > Facebook, which breaks on old/slow phones and browsers) is more than the > cost of a few year's worth of data.

The vast majority of mobile phones in India are feature phones which are considerably cheaper than smartphones [2]. To be included in Free Basics, sites have to work reasonably on feature phones. Free Basics sites are accessed through a proxy which modifies requests so that the sites can tell that they are being viewed by a Free Basics user, and so the site can present a version that works without requiring "modern" features like JavaScript, SVG images and WOFF font types, iframes, video and large images, or Flash and Java applets.

[1] [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-04/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-04/news/31559329_1_rural- areas-mpce-nsso-survey)

[2] [http://www.igadgetsworld.com/india-smartphone-and-feature- ph...](http://www.igadgetsworld.com/india-smartphone-and-feature-phone-market- share-in-q3-2014/)

<comment><USER37> > Cheap enough for the 60% of rural Indians who live on less than 35 Rs/day > [1]?

Perhaps not; but I was including only people who can afford the phone.

> The vast majority of mobile phones in India are feature phones which are > considerably cheaper than smartphones

They're still ~Rs 1k (you can get cheaper ones, but I don't think even proxied sites will work well on these). Monthly data plans are less than a tenth of this.

IIRC Free Basics' Facebook still needed a good phone (higher end feature phone or a smartphone), but I can't verify that right now.

And that really brings us back to the question; how is this bringing people to the Internet? Even if Facebook worked well on a Rs 400 phone, only the Free Basics sites would work well there. This just underlines that Facebook is trying to give people Free Facebook, nothing more. People who cannot afford these phones would not become "Digital Indians" by using Free Basics, they would use Facebook and only Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Congratulations..this is great news for India!

</comment><comment><USER39> This has been like watching one form of misinformation battling another form of misinformation. One set of misguided people battling another set of misguided people.

NetNeutrality is a concept that makes sense in a western context where carriers are basically monopolies. It's unbelievable how good arguments in one context, have been blindly applied to a completely unrelated context.

Activists in the West (who's rep and rent are based on their commitment to netneutrality) without knowing anything about the local context have been cheering on local activists.

Local activists (led by stand up comedians ofcourse similar to Glenn Beck\Jon Stewart) getting carried away by this support (cause Urban India has this strange craving for western validation which I still don't fully understand) have now convinced the regulator to step in and are celebrating victory.

This is similar to how the Egyptians celebrated victory after the army stepped in to depose a democratically elected govt. Just Unbelievable! Free markets are dead. Regulation driven by manufactured outrage or vested interests manufacturing outrage are alive and thriving.

Ofcourse it doesn't help that Facebook and their games are involved which automatically swings every debate into deeply religious territory. As much as I can't stand Facebook and will have nothing to do with them ever, the point of a free market (which produces innovation) has been lost.

If Christian missionaries or Hindu missions go and setup schools and libraries for free in Rural India is someone protesting differential pricing in Urban India. It's ridiculous.

The people who loose out are the farmer\weaver who just need an email address to be linked to the cities. Who is going to provide that now? Rural India is so vast and voiceless that they are the automatic loosers in such a debate.

Congratulations NetNeutrality activists! Well done.

<comment><USER40> Wow! This comment is really far away from reality.

1/ There are no studies that show correlation between free basics and increase in internet penetration. In fact, Reliance Telecom, Facebook's free basics partner in India, marketed it was a way to surf facebook & whatsapp for free.

2/ Google is giving away free internet in Railway stations in India. Unlike free basics, it gives access to the complete internet and not to a set of websites that have done a deal with facebook. No one opposed it, since it does not break net neutrality.

3/ I find it ridiculous that some folks in Western countries can start dictating what's good for the poor in India and think that the arguments of people actually living there are invalid.

I would encourage you to try to understand the issue from a local perspective by speaking to the people who live there rather than have unsubstantiated assumptions.

<comment><USER41> 1\. Facebook has provided studies that do indicate increased internet adoption after free basics (real internet adoption, after having been introduced via Fed basics). You're welcome to read the studies and debate their bias, but the studies exist.

How the telecoms market is irrelevant to this discussion. Of course they're going to market having access to the most popular websites and apps. Hell, they probably use the same advertising when selling real internet service.

2\. Also irrelevant. Internet in train stations is not comparable at any level to cellular data connectivity for 10's of millions of people.

3\. You are right in this point, but I also find it presumptuous that the Indians with enough money to have internet are the ones dictating what is good for the Indian people without enough money for internet.

<comment><USER40> 1/ Telecom marketing is absolutely central to this discussion. It is THE way that free basics in sold on the street. Even the world bank has said free basics breaks net neutrality ([http://www.scoopwhoop.com/The-World-Bank-Has- Said-Free-Basic...](http://www.scoopwhoop.com/The-World-Bank-Has-Said-Free- Basics-Is-The-Expresses-Doubts-Over-The-Venture/))

2/ Clearly you haven't the slightest idea of the number of people that travel by trains in India. In Mumbai alone, close to 8Mn people use the train to get to their place of work EVERYDAY. Many of them travel for over 2 hours at a time (over 4 hours in total). ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Suburban_Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Suburban_Railway))

3/ You have no idea how rich/poor the ones fighting for net neutrality are. You shouldn't be making such statements. It reflects badly on you. The fact is that a bunch of few activists with no financial backing were able to put an end to intense lobbying by multi-billion dollar telecom and media companies.

This is exactly what you expect from a good regulator. I am extremely happy with TRAI. They saved my bootstrapped education startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It is extremely dubious if someone turns up with a "Knight in shining armor" plan for saving the world. It would be safe to say that outsiders who are not a part of the "plan" do not have all the information to figure out the true motive behind these initiatives. It is also safe to say that direct or indirect monetary profit is almost always behind such initiatives.

First it was monsanto exploiting farmers [http://www.globalresearch.ca/independent-india-selling- out-t...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/independent-india-selling-out-to- monsanto-gmos-and-the-bigger-picture/5395187)

Then came Bill Gates with his vaccines and testing them on tribal children just because the regulatory environment makes it easier to test them in India [https://vactruth.com/2014/10/05/bill-gates-vaccine- crimes/](https://vactruth.com/2014/10/05/bill-gates-vaccine-crimes/)

And now comes Mr. Zuckerberg with dubious claims about "one person brought out of poverty for every five people who get access to internet" which seems to be a textbook causation-correlation misinterpretation.

The general public must awaken to the fact that the so called third world is seen as a market with potential for double digit growth and the easiest way to enter them might just be through false pre-texts of heart warming charity.

<comment><USER43> I suspect a website called vactruth may not be the most impartial website around.

<comment><USER42> I agree. CNN may be? [http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1170073](http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1170073)

<comment><USER44> That's not CNN. That's an "iReport", which anyone can post. This one was posted by an anti-vaxxer called "VaccineThis". Zero credibility. [http://ireport.cnn.com/people/VaccineThis](http://ireport.cnn.com/people/VaccineThis)

<comment><USER42> Ah. My bad. It says "Not verified by CNN" clearly on the side pane and within the image. I just jumped straight to the main content. I agree with you that the post does not have much in the way of credibility. Thank you for pointing out and apologies for wasting your time.

<comment><USER44> No problem. The iReport thing is perfect for polemicists and conspiracy theorists, as it means they can post something and say "look, it's on CNN" and many people will miss the disclaimer. If anything is about vaccines I always check sources very carefully, as there is so much misinformation out there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PHP - Some strings are more equal than others - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hackensplat.com/2012/04/php-some-strings-are-more-equal-than.html <comment><USER2> He had me up until =====. Is it wrong that I truly believed PHP compared "☺" equal to ":)"? I even believed that the setting was called "Racist"...</comment>


Tr.im to be Community-Owned - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tr.im/post/165049236/tr-im-to-be-community-owned <comment><USER2> Disclosure: I built, own and operate Cligs, one of the URL shorteners that was part of the 301works founding announcement last Friday.

First off, I don't know what happened between bit.ly/Betworks and tri.m. But I do take offence that 301works is a bit.ly publicity stunt.

See, I care most about the Cligs users. To me, 301works is a backup in case something bad happens to Cligs. The backup is operated by an independent (read not bit.ly) service, namely Gnip. I and others insisted on having an independent entity run it for obvious reasons.

Each URL shortener specifies the terms of transfering the data to Gnip. It can be anything from what I call "the dead man's will" option of simply locking away the data to be released on the termination of service, all the way to having a completely open data policy that the URL shortener basically says to the world "do as you please".

So, at the absolute worst, it's an offsite backup service. In reality, it's much more useful than a mere backup service. For example, if we get the details right, the Gnip API could power a URL-expanding service that takes some load off the URL shorteners' servers; this is just a basic example.

I've been talking about such a service with other owners of URL shorteners for a few months, and so there is nothing new about it. We just worked hard now given the anxiety we were seeing from our users. A lot of people worked hard to make it work in a good way, sometimes working at odd hours, to make sure that no one gets the short end of the stick.

So please, don't call 301works a bit.ly publicity stunt. It's not.

If anyone wants to talk about this more, email me: my first name (first 6 letters of my HN username) at cli.gs.

<comment><USER3> While 301works might not be just a bit.ly stunt, it certainly was disproportionately important to bitly not to have a glaring example of the negative effects of URL shorteners staring people in the face -- they encourage link rot and offer the potential for lots of it. The potential for shorteners to disappear and break lots of links is certainly a massive flaw in their business model.

<comment><USER4> This whole link rot is massively over stated. Most short urls are used on Twitter. Who is reading old Tweets on Twitter? Almost nobody since Twitter is about now, not yesterday.

By the time you switch over to some 301works archive the links will have lost 99% of their relevancy.

<comment><USER3> I used to agree with you, but I think that both people and companies have an interest in preserving the conversation. Not every, or even most, conversations, but certainly some.

<comment><USER4> In which case you should be using your own shortener if you want to preserve your own links. Or if you're a company scanning other links then you should be resolving the short urls as you receive the entries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is just me or do they guys come off as being entirely childish over the "twitter/bit.ly walled garden"?

Everything I've seen them post about tr.im lately has a half-dozen whining comments about twitter/bit.ly.

If their product has no value outside of Twitter, then what exactly did you expect? If tr.im is a valud URL shortener with some value to it, then it should be able to stand on its own outside of any other 3rd party service. TinyURL has been around for more than a decade, long before Twitter was even a programmers wet dream.

<comment><USER6> Finally someone said it, tr.im comes off as a bunch of whiners. Also, it takes balls accusing someone of a publicity stunt when the only reason anyone cares about tr.im right now is because they pulled the best publicitiy stunt of 2009 ("Were shutting down....Nope, just kidding!")

<comment><USER7> And even that was ripped off from tshirthell: <http://www.tshirthell.com/hello.php>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems interesting:

 _tr.im will offer all link-map data associated with tr.im URLs to anyone that wants it in real-time. This will involve a variety of time-based snapshots of aggregated destination URLs, the number of tr.im URLs created for any given destination URL, and aggregate click data._ ... _tr.im will begin publishing all statistics and information related to it usage. Its operating cash flow, redirects, URL creation counts — everything — so that the community can have confidence it is on solid footing._

I wonder what business models might be affected if this becomes popular...

<comment><USER4> Seems that bit.ly has a fair bit to lose given that similar data to what they're claiming is so valuable is now going to be open to anyone.

Wouldn't want to be a bit.ly investor today. Well, I wouldn't want to be a short url investor any day :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What does "community-owned" mean, exactly?

</comment><comment><USER10> hah, what makes you think this guarantees anything?

a noble ambition but one with no vision.</comment>


A recursive descent parser in Forth - <AUTHOR> https://mcturra2000.wordpress.com/2020/01/19/a-recursive-descent-parser-in-forthlang-and-a-nod-to-rakulang/ <comment><USER2> He links to an awesome article: "A BNF PARSER IN FORTH" by Brad Rodriguez that "...first appeared in ACM SigFORTH Newsletter vol. 2 no. 2" [https://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/bnfparse.htm](https://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/bnfparse.htm)

Imagine getting your Forth firmware loaded with this in it, you can already do e.g. OMeta-style grammars because it's still Forth, so you can send your device a language description preamble and then just talk to it in whatever language you like, all in one stream.

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

<comment><USER3> FORTH is pretty awesome and I love stack machines.

After my experiences with postscript (and being a web user like everyone else) allowing for recursion when you don't _really_ need it freaks me out a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> META-II is a paper worth reading. I wrote a self-hosting parser generator in Forth based on that paper[0].

[0] [https://github.com/siraben/meta- yacc/blob/master/meta.fs](https://github.com/siraben/meta- yacc/blob/master/meta.fs)

</comment><comment><USER5> _" we cannot create assembly code output from Meta II, as assemblers don't allow for the inlining of strings."_

This is actually not a major limitation. We've just been blinkered by decades of one kind of notion for "Assembler". It's actually quite easy to create a syntax atop machine code (and implemented in machine code) that provides string literals.

As evidence: I've done it. Here's the pass in my 'assembler' that implements string literals: [http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/dquotes.subx.html](http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/apps/dquotes.subx.html). That page is 1925 lines long, but take out the comments and unit tests and there's only 383 lines of code (336 x86 instructions). Including library functions elsewhere (also built in machine code) the resulting binary is 6.5KB large.

There's an example up top that I'll reproduce here:

        $ cat x
        == code
        ab "cd ef"/imm32

        $ cat x  |  apps/dquotes
        == code
        ab __string1/imm32

        == data
        __string1:
          5/imm32/length
          0x63/c 0x64/d 0x20/  0x65/e 0x66/f

All it's doing is moving string literals to the data segment and replacing their original location with the label they were moved to. Currently there's zero optimization; if you refer to "foo" 3 times you get 3 separate literals in your binary and data segment.

More details on the syntax: [http://akkartik.name/post/mu-2019-1](http://akkartik.name/post/mu-2019-1). HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268252).

<comment><USER6> The forth way of doing that is even simpler:

      - generate a call to a subroutine LITERAL
      - store the characters of the string directly after that call
      - pad to the 'word' size

LITERAL does:

      - pop the return address from the call stack
      - from that address, compute the address of the literal
      - push it to Forth's data stack
      - adjust the return address to point beyond the literal
      - push the adjusted return address
      - return from subroutine

And of course, this being Forth, you can define such words yourself ([https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/11-forth-compiler- defin...](https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/11-forth-compiler-defining- words/) (an excellent site, by the way))

<comment><USER5> For sure. I love Forth and spent a long time thinking about it [1]. I'm exploring some different trade-offs in my project, worse than Forth in some ways and hopefully better than Forth in others.

[1] [https://plforums.org/practice/minimal-features-required- for-...](https://plforums.org/practice/minimal-features-required-for-an- extensible-language#post_65)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> while the article seemed interesting, all the constant repeated ads (looking at work, no blocker) is horrible

<comment><AUTHOR> This is weird. I don't see _any_ ads on that page, and I don't have any ad- blockers. I _am_ looking at it with Safari, so maybe that's the difference?

<comment><USER8> Unlikely. You should see the items google thinks are relvant for you but 10% more expensive as you belong to a user group which spends money on items with little comparable advantage above others except being more expensive for the purpose to differentiate from others.</comment></comment></comment>


Building a supercomputer from 64 Raspberry Pis and Lego - <AUTHOR> http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/features/raspberry_pi_supercomputer.shtml <comment><USER2> A technical description and how they got it running together with more pictures:

[http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_supercomput...](http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_supercomputer_southampton.htm)

As you can see from the pictures each of the devices uses its own power supply, so there should be quite some possibility to improve overall power consumption.

Anybody with more experience of using MPI ?

<comment><USER3> It is almost always the case that programs written for clusters -- including those which use MPI -- are communication bound. Right now the limiting factor is not these little processors, but rather the interconnect speed. If I remember correctly, Raspberry Pi has 10/100 megabit ethernet. [Edit: just checked, this is the case] So while this looks like a lot of fun, it's not very useful for anything meaningful yet.

Of course it's not fair to compare this to an infiniband cluster (that's not the point of this exercise), but I'd really be interested to see a cluster built on $0.50 ARM chips with at least a gigabit ethernet interconnect. A couple of years from now -- given the low entry cost and lower infrastructure costs (cooling/power consumption/etc) -- that could be a game changer.

<comment><USER4> Before the GFC killed them, SiCortex had a design where MIPS cores were grouped together on a single die with MPI-specific fabric logic.

<comment><USER5> This is the reason why Cray is still relevant. Their proprietary interconnects are what you're paying for and not the CPUs.

<comment><USER6> Oddly enough, Cray recently sold their interconnect tech to Intel [0]. Intel seems to be planning to integrate it on-chip down the road [1], which seems to leave Cray serving as a somewhat quirky system integrator longer-term.

[0] [http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012...](http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012/04/24/intel- acquires-industry-leading-high-performance-computing-interconnect-technology- and-expertise)

[1] [http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-09-10/intel_weaves_strat...](http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-09-10/intel_weaves_strategy_to_put_interconnect_fabrics_on_chip.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I ran some numerical simulations on my Raspberry Pi and on my laptop. With the LCD on, my laptop used 20.4 watt seconds to do the calculation and the RPi used 17.1 watt seconds. The RPi drew 3 watts and my laptop drew about 60 watts. I think, even with my screen on, that my laptop would be more efficient if I had used 2 cores instead of 1 in the calculation (or if I had just turned off the LCD).

My conclusion, the RPi doesn't even win in FLOPS/Watt let alone $/FLOPS.

<comment><USER8> Does it have to? It sounds like they're using this as a learning platform rather than a serious $/FLOP/Watt cluster.

In that case you'd want to make it easy to get funding, and be optimising for _initial_ cost. What would be the cost of 64 of your laptops?

<comment><USER7> It certainly doesn't have to! I just wanted to share the results of an experiment I did with numerical computing on the RPi.

Certainly laptops aren't the idea platform to compare against anyways. I'd compare to a 1u node that you would buy for compute cluster. One can by a 64 core 1u node with 64 GB of ram for about $7k. If one wants to play around with cluster computing you can emulate an entire cluster using one of those!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> what a pleasant surprise to see our little OSS project mentioned/used... surprised as this is a Windows/VS Python IDE & they're running Linux on the nodes - <http://pytools.codeplex.com>

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how this compares to a Microwulf cluster [0] in terms of cost / gigaflop. I'm guessing it isn't very efficient.

[0]: <http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/>

<comment><USER6> RasPi is ~ 175 MFLOPS per unit (CPU only, discounting the GPU). So, this cluster works out to 11 GFLOPS, with 16GB of RAM for > $2500 USD.

For comparison, you could buy a motherboard, 32 GB of RAM, and an Intel i5 processor for $500 that will do over 20 GFLOPS.

So, it doesn't really stack up well from a price/performance standpoint. The value of these systems is more teaching students how to work with parallel code.

<comment><USER11> > The value of these systems is more teaching students how to work with > parallel code.

There are no practical applications to this, it's just to show that it can be done.

You can spawn 64 processes in a Core I7 and it would be about the same, just faster. Or 64 VMs.

Maybe the real value of these systems is to teach students to design and calculate before building it.

<comment><USER6> Yes, from a performance standpoint there's no reason to go after this type of system. No one is arguing this is a good system for production work.

The application of this is a teaching model. It's a lot easier to demonstrate parallelism gains on this type of platform. Scaling beyond a single ARM core is going to give you immediate performance benefits. Scaling further out to the entire cluster will continue to show returns.

With a single desktop, once you go beyond ~4 cores the gains will drop off too quickly. You just won't be able to see gains out to 64 threads on a single CPU, where on this you should.

It also doesn't hurt to have a quirky architecture to get students excited by. And yes, you could also spend some time discussing the architectural trade- offs and why this is not a cost-effective system for production use.

<comment><USER11> You are right. I'm still new in this site and don't know how to upvote comments so I wrote this.

<comment><USER12> I couldn't get this joke. What is this supposed to mean?

<comment><USER11> It was no joke. How I upvote something here?

<comment><USER12> Click the arrow that is to the left of the commenter's name. It seems you are one of today's lucky 10,000: <http://xkcd.com/1053/>

I made a bad assumption because your account is almost one year old. I'm sorry. Now I see that information is not given anywhere in this site. I think this vote method was taken from Reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was trying to find a real comparison of MIPS of this thing compared to an I7 and landed on this page for performance data for the RPi. The most interesting thing to me is power consumption data at the bottom - that shows idle with network is around 370mA, which should mean (ignore power supply efficiencies) that 64 of these things should use about 120W at idle.

<http://www.elinux.org/RPi_Performance>

<comment><USER14> How do you get 120W? I get 24W.

<comment><USER15> 0.37amps X 5volts X 64

<comment><USER14> Oh, I'm an idiot. Misread it as 370mW.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would 64 Raspberry Pis actually be faster than a single current Intel CPU? Just asking... it probably was a fun project anyway...

<comment><USER17> No, not even close. This is more of a fun decoration you have in your home for visitors, as a conversation piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty cool.

On the other hand, stop sucking up all the supply for Raspberry Pis! My order keeps getting delayed and it's making me sad.

</comment><comment><USER19> Pictures [http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_pictures.ht...](http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_pictures.htm)

</comment><comment><USER20> Nifty... but did you really write 64 SD cards, one after another? This is 1995-level clustering, you gotta PXE boot.

<comment><USER21> _Can_ RasPi's netboot? I honestly don't know. I still haven't gotten one yet. Still waiting since placing the order.

The amazing thing about this project? Someone managed to get 64 RasPi's all in the same place!

<comment><USER22> They cannot netboot. The bootloader is crap.

<comment><USER23> Well to be explicit, the cannot netboot directly. I've built a u-boot that boots from the network via NFS on other arm based systems. You still need an MMC card to start it all off but once you get the network boot loader loaded and running you can do what ever you want. I started with some code for the Pandaboard that used that trick to boot from a USB attached drive.

<comment><USER22> I will have to look into this, <http://kernelnomicon.org/?p=133> u-boot on the raspberry pi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> more info (and build plans) here: <http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/>

</comment><comment><USER24> I submitted the same story from a different source four hours before . . .

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510931>

<comment><USER25> But you should have submitted this source instead.

From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

"Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. "</comment></comment>


Virus-Like "Jumping" DNA Regulates Human Neurons - <AUTHOR> https://scitechdaily.com/virus-like-jumping-dna-regulates-human-neurons/ <comment><AUTHOR> >Primate-restricted KRAB zinc finger proteins and target retrotransposons control gene expression in human neurons

[https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/35/eaba3200](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/35/eaba3200)</comment>