Ask HN: How long should it take to build this web app? - <AUTHOR>

Hey all,
I am a new developer, a first year CS student, and an aspiring entrepreneur. I am building my first "real" web app this summer, and I am just looking for some general guidelines. I really don't know how long it is going to take, and I know a lot of this depends on the experience of the developer. So let me give you a little background on me:
I have been programming for about 2 years. I feel like my knowledge of Python is pretty good, although I never stop learning! I have been reading up on Django and have done the tutorial on models/views/etc. I also have done front end stuff, mainly playing around with HTML/CSS/Javascript, although I could definitely spend more time on learning Javascript/jQuery. I could go on, but I don't want to bore you to death, and I just am looking for an estimate anyways.
My app will handle many users at one time. It will basically be a CRUD app. The two things I really have to add in are Geolocation, and payments, both of which can be achieved through integrating third party services/API's. Everything except for logo design has to be done by myself.
So if I threw this at an experienced full stack developer, how long would it (approximately) take? How do I break something like this into smaller chunks to estimate the time it will take? And most importantly, how do I know which technologies I should brush up on prior to doing this - or do I just hack it and learn as I go?
Thanks in advance! Any tips - relevant to my question or not would be helpful as well!
EDIT: I am focusing solely on the tech side of things. While I know our product better than him, and very much contribute to our vision, he is responsible for handling business/legal/marketing etc. <comment><USER4> Hi, I'd suggest that you read The Lean Startup if you haven't, it should put you on the right track to determine priorities.

Web development is a beast and very different from traditional thick clients as you often have to cater for multiple types of users (roles & permissions) as well as multiple portals (different user interfaces and interaction based on users). Most projects would typically require at least two distinct portals: traditional user portal and administration portal. For franchises there are usually two levels of administration (top level/standard level) that requires different views of the data (ex. across the franchise for administrators and impersonation of standard franchisees).

In my experience there isn't really a simple crud application - <USER2> information you collect depends on the functionality you provide. Many users is also very abstract as it will impact your infrastructure requirements - <USER3> many unnecessary abstraction layers will really slow down development but is typically required for SOA/N-Tier/CQRS stacks.

My advice is simple: Pick one thing and go through the process of validated learning. It's possible to run a successful business on an adhoc stack - it's not required to run perfect software from the beginning, but flexibility and adaptability sure helps. I'd almost say build something quick and dirty that you can change/scrap easily depending on your business requirements till you reach the point of the business being profitable, then you can invest more into it.

</comment><comment><USER5> From 2 days to a year. Depends on the person. I can knock it out in about 10 days if using a good framework like Django or Rails. But I'm no rockstar.

I would approach this by explaining the system on paper. Then break out the functionality into paragraphs. Each paragraph is its own library. Do those functions first, then move on to the actual program itself (what implements the libraries). Then its just a matter of making sure everything leads to the right place.

Say:

Puppybook is a facebook for puppies.

paragraph #1 Each user logs in. Using two factor authentication.

#2

        the user arrives to his profile,
        where he can see the latest puppy posts

..and so on.

For paragraph #1 I need to write the authentication code. For #2 I need to write the code to pull the latest puppy posts from the database into the system.

Then you would import those libraries and do a regular MVC type app. I suggest your read up on one of those. If you are lost, then check out protocademy.com. You can learn to do just that there.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like it would be pretty useful. What would you suggest as far as the database? I plan on using Postgres on Heroku and will be either be using SQLAlchemy or Django's ORM. What would be a good way to approach this problem? I was planning on doing something similar, making a diagram of all of the models/tables I will need, and additionally writing out all of the details of each relationship and possible entities I will need to add in the future.

<comment><USER5> That sounds like a good setup. Just dont waste time thinking and get to coding.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, what about my level of knowledge of Javascript? Should I spend a few days hitting it really hard just to learn it or is it something I can pick up on the go if I have a background with Python/C++/Java?

<comment><USER5> Just learn as you build. Its the best way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hillary Clinton is already using Pokémon Go to register voters - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12192666/pokemon-go-hillary-clinton-campaign <comment><USER2> She's even hosting a private server to help alleviate traffic :)</comment>


Prism: Scaling Bitcoin by 10,000× (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11261 <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, the design doesn't allow for new full nodes:

"Now the new user asks an existing user for the UTXO set for the ledger up to level `−e. The user can verify the correctness of this set by comparing it with the UTXO set commitment stored in the leader block at level `"

That's not verifying that there's a valid history leading to this UTXO set, that's just trusting other nodes when they testify to that.</comment>


The Lean Startup Movement is Exploding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.leanstartupmachine.com/2012/12/the-lean-startup-movement-is-exploding-data

<comment><USER2> Good article

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree. Good article.

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh good, you're religion's expanding. Isn't that nice.</comment>


4 Reasons Lyft Is Smart to Pay AWS $300M - <AUTHOR> https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/4-reasons-lyft-is-smart-to-pay-aws-300m/ <comment><USER2> Unsure about the Lyft deal, but the Pinterest situation was similar. What I found troubling about that was that they only got the pricing deal if they stuck with AWS as their primary service for the duration of the contract, so there is no way for them to every migrate effectively without a massive cost. I do agree with you, when you are in a growth phase and trying to focus on the product or service that is the USP, taking eyes off the ball to manage power generators in data centres is a distraction.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers? - <AUTHOR> Seriously, is there a hippie commune for hackers?  There's gotta be one somewhere in the Bay Area.<p>If I could just plow the fields during the day and work/sleep in a little cottage and be left alone, that'd be alright with me. <comment><USER2> I spent some time on a farm that could liberally be called a "commune" and there's actually a ton of innovation to be had all over the place. Somewhere, I probably still have a moleskine with notes on the matter. A couple things I remember:

-Crop Rotations: The texts I read about this subject were the result of some very painstaking note-taking, and keeping all this information straight can confound even the very studious. We had at least 3 copies of Elliot Coleman's "The New Organic Grower" around and they were all falling apart from constant reference. Having instant access to your planting history would be invaluable, especially if coupled with pH effects of relevant crops and other useful info.

Certifications: The process for getting that nifty "certified organic" label is quite difficult. You have to submit all sorts of things. It was even worse for us because we had commercial kitchen equipment (we sold jarred jams, salsas, etc)

Marketing: We sold shares of our output through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. ~100% of people who partook found out about us from meeting us at a farmer's market. I think there's a decent market for CSA shares, but not really any way of comparison shopping, or even knowing what's available.

It would be neat to work on a project to solve these problems while simultaneously encountering them on the day-to-day. But fair warning: "plowing the fields all day" does not really leave one in the mood for hacking. Contemplation? Surely. Conversation? Absolutely. But I wouldn't expect to get a whole lot of hacking done, at least not in your first season.

<comment><USER3> >I probably still have a moleskine with notes on the matter.

Why do people insist on telling us the brand of their notebook? It's just a book with some blank paper dude...

<comment><USER4> It's called "descriptive detail", and can add atmosphere to your writing.

Why do people insist on telling us their pet peeves? It's just your pet peeve dude...

<comment><USER5> Agreed- even defining the notebook as a moleskine suggests a certain type of content. More so, it's a seemingly generalized trademark (like Kleenex or Xerox).

Why _not_ call it a moleskine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I made my own just outside of Austin, TX once.

Bought a 10 AC farm just outside Blanco. Was already certified for growing organic "elephant" garlic.

Had a little cottage, a well, with rainwater collection (I flushed the toilets with this, it was nearly trivial to change-over the plumbing.)

Dropped Cable into it (for IP).

Added 2KW of solar panels, and a 250 gallon propane tank.

Was into it for maybe $130K, fully paid-off.

Grew my own food, hacked some.

Got tired of living without other technology folk around, sold it.

<comment><USER7> Can you provide more details on this? By "little cottage", I assume this was meant for one (you), and $130K might be a bit steep for a single-person, experimental venture. 10 AC is hardly a small area, though, and suggests potential to expand it to, say, a 3-10 person number. If the marginal costs required to increase water, electricity, etc, to support such levels don't add to the final price tag dramatically, it could be quite interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> SuperHappyDevHouse or Hacker Dojo?

<http://superhappydevhouse.org/> <http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/>

Also...

List of Hacker Spaces - <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces>

<comment><USER9> Noisebridge is an active hacker space I go to once or twice a week: <http://noisebridge.net>

<comment><AUTHOR> Noisebridge has the right idea. If you've never been there, just show up and hang out awhile. Seriously.

Only thing about hacker spaces in general is "no sleeping". My vision involves a place to sleep and take a time-out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> commune... be left alone...

Bay Area... little cottage...

hackers... plow the fields...

I don't think you've decided what you really want here.

If you want to live in a small, communal, hacker workplace in the Bay area, then you should join or create a technology startup.

If you want to plow fields, live in a small cottage, and be left alone, you should buy a small house in the countryside.

<comment><USER11> Not having decided what he wants may be part of the question.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some clarification:

Commune does not mean being without internet, nor does it necessarily imply growing food.

Think about it: if we had bunk beds, we could stack hackers on top of each other to save space. Compress at least twice as many in the same space. And if we bought food in bulk, we could eat better on the same amount we ordinarily need to live on ramen budgets.

All this being said, I am broke, broke, broke! I burned through all my school financial aid until next semester starts in January. My email is firstname.lastname@example.com . If anybody's got an extra bedroom for a month...

<comment><USER12> Let me know if you figure something out.

I've got $4000 in the bank. Rent is by far my largest expense. Solve that problem and your runway length approaches infinity.

<comment><USER13> but tightly-packed communal living _is_ a solution to high rent. Share a bedroom between 8 people. Add office space, kitchen, bathroom, and you've got your entire startup packed into one 2-room apartment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just watched The Secret of Kells on Netflix and was wondering the same thing. The protagonist has a complete devotion to the creation of illuminated texts which seemed like a perfect stand in for [insert open source project that would illuminate the world here]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Kells>

<comment><USER15> Just watched that this afternoon. Fantastic film. I can't recommend it highly enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not a commune, exactly, but you can go live on a tropical beach with other American hackers with CocoVivo -- <http://www.cocovivo.com/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seriously... I'm going to register a domain and try and set this up on kickstarter. If anyone wants to help out with design or whatever, send me an email to email@example.com .

In theory, if we just had a big rental place with couches, bunkbeds, a kitchen, and a place to shower. That'd be enough to start.

<comment><USER17> Anyone thinking of working with him on a housing project should consider his attitude toward contracts and paying rent:

"Here's how you deal with big apartment complex property management companies: just lie. Seriously. And give a friend's phone number as your "employer". Make up some fake paystubs in quickbooks. Big property management companies usually hire stupid people that sit in the office all day, do nothing, and collect a paycheck. They don't verify income, or any of the other things they request. Since they don't care, neither should you. Fuck 'em.

Another final comment about big apartment complexes: at a certain point, if you know you're going to move, just quit paying rent. Apartment complexes take a hands-off approach to evictions and actually file real eviction proceedings. As such, you can sit there and live rent free for an entire month or more while they file the legal paperwork against you. Save that rent money you're not paying and save it for when you do find another place." -citizenkeys

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1892706>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So I wasn't acting alone when I bought capitalistcommune.org a few months back?

I have a 'giant' mansion...in Iowa...with open rooms for hackers. Hit me up, libertarian-capitalist-economical living can be a real ideal. See pic here: <http://organicgrant.posterous.com/winter-home-0>

<comment><USER19> That's a great idea. Can't see the photo though. Is that a gmail link?

<comment><USER20> <http://organicgrant.posterous.com/winter-home>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> wouldn't a hacker hippie commune be more about building a robotic plow and spending your, now spare, time OCRing and analyzing old farmers almanacs to determine the optimal time to plant/rotate/water crops?

<comment><USER22> In today's culture, it might be dreamed up on facebook, funded on kickstarter, promoted on twitter, picked up by 10,000 blogs that all poach from each other and then abandoned by the next semester because the earth-water-sun interface is ancient and suffers from significant design issues whose tickets never get responded to by the upstream provider.

<comment><USER23> I'm tempted to start blogging up the project proposal for a hippie arcology to be built on a south facing slope in southern Oregon with geothermal backup heat and a fiber optic connection to the internet for the remote workers whose economic contributions exempt them from the maintenance duties that the less skilled have to do (hey, someone needs to turn the compost heaps and feed the tilapia you know). The basic design concept is to have one largish thermal envelope that encloses multiple garden and dwelling spaces that are kept at a relatively constant temperature year round.

I would really like to bring the Whole Earth Catalog hacking tradition full circle.

<comment><USER24> > I would really like to bring the Whole Earth Catalog hacking tradition full > circle.

Sort of a tangent, but the Whole Earth Catalog scene and the tech scene were surprisingly inter-related in the 60s-80s, which is something I didn't know until recently. Ted Nelson, who had coined the word "hypertext" about three years before the first WEC was published, was greatly influenced by it for his 1974 book _Computer Lib / Dream Machines_ , and Steve Jobs was an avid reader as well. There was even briefly a software version in the 80s: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Software_Catalog_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Software_Catalog_and_Review)

I think I was surprised to find a connection mainly because in 2010 I associate the Whole Earth Catalog more with anti-technology primitivists, which doesn't seem to have originally been the case--- seems plenty of technologists were also interested in it, since DIY doesn't _have_ to mean primitivism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A commune where you're left alone? A charming oxymoron.

<comment><USER26> Like a monastery?

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically a drop-in center / hostel: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostel>

<comment><USER27> Residential shared office space, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Reminds me of the setting in Stephenson's Anathem.

A high-tech monastery would be great, except that the need for a good connection to the web pretty much kills the whole isolation idea.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've been thinking about it for years. The only problem is that most programmers seem to be status quo capitalists bordering on libertarian. It might be easier to teach hippies to program than programmers not to be aspirational yuppie SWPLs.

A couple of cults have gotten by on programming and/or web design, Aum Shinrikyo and Heaven's Gate come to mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah... I looked up heaven's gate earlier.

I'm talking about a "do your own thing" place to eat, sleep, and code. not any sort of weird cult.

<comment><USER29> In communes, you don't really do your own thing. I think you're talking about an apartment building where a lot of hackers live that has a hacking room instead of a gym. Or possibly efficiency apartments. Maybe you meant "common kitchen" rather than commune? Like a dorm?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking along the lines of a 24-hour drop-in center / hostel for developers instead of crazy bums.

The wikipedia entry for hostels kinda sums it up, including the picture of the taiwanese hostel: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostel>

<comment><USER29> A hostel is just like a hotel, except you usually don't get a room (unless you're willing to pony up an extra $20.) You're just looking for a cheap place to stay, but you don't want it to be scary. Hostels generally are not scary at all, and are filled with mostly pleasant foreigners. They used to have rules that require that you have ID proving that you don't live in the town that you're hostelling in, though; don't know if that's changed at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think the bay area hacker version of a hippie commune is a co-op loft that hosts parties on the weekends to cover some expenses. Or some version there of. The ones I knew of still charged rent but it was easy enough to work out a way to do work for rent or a sliding scale.

Not nearly as communal as what you're imagining, but way more communal than 99% of living situations.

<comment><USER30> I lived in co-ops for two years of college. It was very inexpensive, about $550/month including "rent" (not actually rent since we were technically owners), all utilities, furnished, and all meals, in an excellent downtown location near campus. A comparable apartment in the area might go for $700/month per person, assuming it's a two- or three-bedroom place, and that doesn't include utilities or food. Of course the rooms were tiny, the house was very used-up (the two I lived in were 50+ years old), lots of carpet stains, scuffed floors, and you have to deal with living with 20+ young people (noisy, drama etc.). It was a good way to meet people though. At my school at least, co-ops were basically frats for hippies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was joking about this with a friend a while back. I prize my solitude a bit much, but I think it might be fun. Outdoor work might be better for hackers' brains than most realize. Get your body in shape in the morning and your mind in shape in the afternoon. Hrmm.

You could always start up one of your own. Kickstarter could help. :P

</comment><comment><USER32> Maker spaces are evolving towards this ....

fabrication labs out in the woods. earthships and repraps.

Factor E farm in Missouri: <http://www.youtube.com/user/marcinose>

<http://www.openecology.org> is pretty cool idea too

</comment><comment><USER33> Have you considered moving to Israel and joining a kibbutz?

<comment><USER34> Isn't there a three years mandatory military service if you move there permanently before 4X years of age...?

<comment><USER35> I don't know details, but I'm pretty sure that only applies if you're seeking citizenship. Also, at older ages, the amount of service you have to do goes down considerably.

<comment><USER34> OK, thanks for information to you and maxaf.

I only know one guy that went there a bit (academic) and he loved the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of the Cory Doctorow short story: "The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away"

Available here: <http://www.tor.com/stories/2008/08/weak-and-strange>

<comment><USER37> In case you don't like short stories and didn't click the link, the title is a line from a Jonathon Coulton (of Portal fame) song, "The Future Soon" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEEDa9Mej8>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> sitting at noisebridge right now: <https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge>

this is almost what i had in mind, only my version has bedrooms, showers, and allows pets.

noisebridge kicks ass. it's a giant hacker studio. i've never been here before. if you're a hacker and live in san francisco, you owe it to yourself to just show up here at least once.

i will be here for awhile tonight if anybody wants to chill out.

<comment><USER38> Noisebridge has had some issues (actually ongoing issues) with people that treat it as a living space, or just "forget to take the last BART" with suspicious regularity. Maybe your idea would solve that problem. Or maybe it would exacerbate it, not sure.

Unrelated: there's also another movement called "cohousing" which tries to strike a middle ground between the post-WWII standard of one-family-per-house, and communes that tend to have a complete lack of privacy.

<http://www.cohousing.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I share a large close to luxury house with atleast three hackers located in Bali, Indonesia. Recently we finished the transfer by getting a good internet connection (not that easy in mountains, but totally worth it). My advice - move to the friendly environment that lets you live off really small money (100$ is a good salary for locals here) and then things are easy and pleasing.

<comment><USER40> That sounds brillant. Do you have pictures of it that you could share?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I met a couple of people about two years ago in Tennessee who lived in the middle of nowhere in a house in the mountains. They had a couple of solar panels that basically produced enough power to run an iMac so they could do some freelance design work to make money. They had a Verizon data card for net access.

Otherwise they lived like it was 1900.

<comment><USER42> I can't imagine that they _only_ used the iMac for design work, did they?

<comment><USER41> They were doing some sort of web design I think, so.... I don't see why not?

<comment><USER42> I was just thinking that if they didn't keep up with their skills, they might have a hard time getting work. (Not necessarily that they were using it for video games or youtube or anything.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I got the concept down:

What I'm imagining is a drop-in center / hostel for hackers. The wikipedia article on hostels kinda sums up what i have in mind:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostel>

The pictures do a good job of showing what I had in mind.

<comment><USER43> Yes! I'm involved with a hacker space in Vienna, Austria (we're proud that Noisebridge cites us as inspiration) and I've long believed that on the floor above every hackerspace there should be a hostel. A "hackers in residence" program, if you will – complete with international exchanges and a "worldwide pass" subscription. I haven't figured out how to cover the starting costs, but using Kickstarter is a really good idea. You should start a mailing list/Facebook group/wiki.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't know if any are hacker-specific, but you might check the list of communities here:

<http://directory.ic.org/iclist/geo.php>

</comment><comment><USER45> This is something I'd be very interested in, I'm currently looking for a new place to live. If anyone knows of anyone doing something like this in the UK, let me know!

</comment><comment><USER46> You can also check out the Palo Alto Hacker House, <http://www.facebook.com/hackerhouse>

<comment><USER37> or <http://hackerhouse.bluwiki.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> that page says its hasn't been updated since april. i am curious about the current tenants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> A hacker, hippie commune? Why not just a hacker commune? Or just a hippie commune?

</comment><comment><USER48> reminds me of this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1403301>

i still really like the idea

</comment><comment><USER49> if you build it...

<comment><USER50> i will come! :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> GNU?

</comment><comment><USER52> Have you considered arcosanti? It's where most of the ravers I know went when they realized their lives were empty without drugs.</comment>


Ask HN: Blockbain-based, global distribution system for space (big) data - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I'm starting a large, multi-disciplinary project (as part of ISU SSP16 [1]) to develop an architecture for a global distribution system for big data from space. Currently, most remote-sensing data, astronomical data, etc. is stored in data silos around the world. A lot of the data remains unprocessed unfortunately.
With the wealth of data being downlinked from space every day, there's a pressing need for a new, global system for acquisition, storage, processing and distribution. We're aiming to develop a system that is replicated, resilient (i.e., no single points of failure) and verified.
One of the ideas we want to explore is using the blockchain to distribute data globally; an idea that others seem to be looking into [2]. It's quite an attractive prospect to have a fully decentralized system that is independent of any centralized clearinghouse for data distribution. The main objections for space data seem to be related to privacy and national security. The data is also highly varied/unstructured.
Since my knowledge of blockchain technology is limited to a cursory overview, I was wondering if the HN community could help me get insight into the following questions:
1. What are potential technology limitations that would restrict use of the blockchain for management and distribution of big data?
2. Since I assume that the data can't be stored directly in the blockchain, is there a way to store the data reliably elsewhere and utilize the blockchain for decentralized registration/lookup?
And finally, as part of our survey:
3. What would you use space data for?
Thanks in advance!
[1] https://ssp16.isunet.edu
[2] https://blogs.informatica.com/2016/05/11/linking-up-blockchain-and-data-integration/ <comment><USER2> My take is that a small proof of concept would provide the best class of answers. As a "first system" it would also be a good step toward the possibility of a global system because it would give an indication as to the feasibility of blockchain technologies for big data distribution.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea a proof of concept would definitely help. We're trying to architect the system at a high level though for the purposes of this project, which is why I thought I'd ask around here for any insights.

Thanks!</comment></comment>


American Dream Still Exists…if you can inherit it - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@robertyusert/the-american-dream-still-exists-if-you-can-inherit-it-f2ba57903994 <comment><USER2> I'm sad this person has so little to do they feel the need to lament about it online. Makes me ill, given how much I've had to fight for what I have.

Sorry you can't make more money yourself. Get over it, go do something meaningful, really don't have an excuse if you have the means.

</comment><comment><USER3> The American dream is living off an allowance at your parents house while in your 30s?

This really reads as a cautionary tale and why you shouldn't leave inheritances to young family memebers

</comment><comment><USER4> The author sounds like an entitled whinger. I'd be curious about what age he got his first job.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think anyone ever referred to "Drop out of school because you're bored and then try any crazy investment or business idea that comes into your head and have it all work out fine in the end" as The American Dream.

</comment><comment><USER6> Holy cow this article is a trainwreck. I have no sympathy for people like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> The underlying learned failing here is giving up too easily, because you can.

</comment><comment><USER8> _ad hominem_ is a powerful argumentative technique which preys upon a person's sense of shame.

</comment><comment><USER9> Surely this is satire?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, seems so. The question is, why didn't most of the commenters on this page realize?! Maybe because it's not funny, and too close to reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Calculated Risk != Gambling on crypto currency.</comment>


Researchers Are Making Memes Accessible to the Blind - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/researchers-are-making-memes-accessible-to-the-blind-46b9ef0550da?source=rss----444d13b52878---4&gi=9e4c6a5e69d8 <comment><USER2> From the article:

> "The stereotypical image we might have of a meme is the image with captions > at the top and bottom," says Wark. "But memes have gotten a lot weirder over > the last few years. Many don't really have a punchline like a joke does > [...] "A program that can classify these [memes] with a 92% accuracy rate > could be extremely useful for meme consumers with visual impairment," she > says.

A large part of the memes I see day to day have no text whatsoever, and their humor comes from the context of the conversation they are being applied to. Many are simple edits whose meaning I think would be near impossible to convey through language.

And why memes? They might provide a good set of data for building algorithms that can truly grasp the context of content while parsing it's meaning, but most memes require you to be part of an in-group, have knowledge of their history and their values, and even then, a single meme could be a humorous homage for one group of people, and a mocking joke for another.

<comment><USER3> _Why memes?_

They're talking about the memes from a few years ago when you had the same image always re-used with different text at the top and bottom (Socially awkward penguin, Business Cat etc). They are exploiting the fact that that the image is always the same to help OCR the text.

<comment><USER4> Specifically, these are image macros[0]

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of TranscribersOfReddit[0] which is a great attempt at trying to make the web more accessible for all. Reddit posts get cross posted and those without visual impairments can transcribe the photo. Their bot is also starting to get pretty good!

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit)

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's for the best that they can't see them?

</comment><comment><USER7> Blind person here. Images are the reason why I don't use social networks much (and I think I'm better off for it). I mostly use small, private groups on Facebook, the programming side of Twitter which is somewhat bearable, and HN which is as accessible as a site can be.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would rather see Twitter adding accessibility to its GIFs. In disabled circles, it's common for people to add a descriptor for the GIF, which is awkward and cuts into a limited character count.

I end up not wanting to participate, then feeling a bit guilty because I'm handicapped, though I'm not blind.

There should be native support. This shouldn't be an issue. They offer native support for embedding the GIFs. They should offer native support for the visually impaired. It shouldn't require a workaround.

<comment><USER9> I think you can already natively add alt text to images including GIFs, but need to enable the UI on your account firist: [https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture- descriptio...](https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture-descriptions)

<comment><USER10> From the help page:

Note: Image descriptions cannot be added to GIFs or videos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doing God's work.

<comment><USER12> Except in Europe.

</comment></comment><comment> Funes- >If you're visually impaired, most internet memes are inaccessible. _That needs to change_.

Yeah, memes are _exactly_ what researchers should spend time and resources on, especially with regards to blind people.</comment>


Why Y Combinator Made All the Difference - <AUTHOR> https://bold.co/public/why-y-combinator-made-all-the-zvgxjl?t=tihkgug <comment><USER2> There aren't many positive toplevel comments, and I don't think that's a reasonable situation for such a fine piece of writing. So:

Your story is wonderfully illustrative, in-depth, and inspirational. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

For what it's worth, I really like your writing style. I hope to see much more of it!

<comment><USER3> I second this.

This article just steered me more towards SF instead of Seattle because it answered a lot of my questions.

<comment><USER4> If you're curious about why I left Seattle. I wrote about it here: [https://bold.co/public/why-i-left-seattle- egcdih?t=j9i3e37](https://bold.co/public/why-i-left-seattle-egcdih?t=j9i3e37)

<comment><USER3> You had me at Pixar. I think Bay Area is where the best of hippie and techie cultures mesh together. I know it's changed a lot in the last decade but there is always life left in that little group of rebels that keeps humanity moving forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a life-changing read for me. I was debating if I should move to Seattle or Bay area to pursue my 'science project' or not. My current job is going to give me 7 weeks of severance starting in late April and I think it will be enough to at least make the leap and cross my fingers. What I am working on will change the course of history if I even get close to succeeding.

I was wondering if YC or TechStars would be more ideal for me to start, I do not want to go to a major investment firm that will see $$$ instead of the value my invention has for science and human progress. I know it is possible to build a company and advance science but I have to be VERY careful about who is involved at the early stages. I think the only place for something as 'crazy' as my project and as 'crazy' as myself to be taken seriously is SF.

<comment> aaron-lebo I don't doubt that you might change the world, but you should temper your expectations.

My question to you is do you really need YC or another incubator to do it? If what you've got is so world-changing, what they can offer you does not matter. Do you have no other alternatives than moving to one of the most expensive work locales in the world and joining in the rat race? Can you bootstrap? Do you have close friends you can trust? Etc.

YC seems like good people but the VC model is predicated on convincing people they need it. There are just as many failures as successes and there are other ways to succeed and other ways you can control your own destiny. You may even have a better shot if you don't do what everyone else is.

<comment><USER3> I can't do something this ambitious alone. That's the main thing, I need more engineers, scientists, and designers involved in order for this project to scale and make a significant impact.

I understand your train of thought though. I left Tattooine aka Atlanta because there were not very many people who were fit to co-found this project with me. Moved to Utah instead of Denver to improve as a developer and deepen my discipline in other areas of my life. I feel ready to take the leap now.

Google offered me the foobar challenge a year ago while flying to Seattle (didn't complete in time). I'm confident that should I 'fail', I can end up working at a very nice company that aligns with my moral compass.

I can't live with cognitive dissonance, I have to be around people and ideas that are trying to solve our collect existential crisis.

<comment><USER5> Good luck. And remember to read! Read read read like your life depended on it

<comment><USER3> Thanks. :)

Currently reading a textbook about Math for CS from MIT, written by a Googler.

Also, have a stack of books helpful to entrepreneurs/scientists that I will bring with me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few things she doesn't mention which also helped:

Cindy and Denny are probably the hardest-working and most persistent people I know. Experiment's early history is the epitome of pg's advice in "How Not to Die."

They're also just genuinely nice and fun people. I don't think I've ever heard them gossip about other founders, and think I've maybe heard them say a total of one or two bad things about others (which were justified). One time they turned their office into an after-hours coffee shop so people could hang out while working. ([https://www.yelp.com/biz/microryza-coffee-roasters-san- franc...](https://www.yelp.com/biz/microryza-coffee-roasters-san-francisco))

As you might have noticed in the post, Cindy is also very strategic in solving problems.

</comment><comment><USER7> I first read only to find out what experiment is (still don't really know) but instead quickly got trapped wanting to read more. Like I was reading something that was not supposed to be public.

Especially the funding process. The description was chilling for me. I am greatful to have chosen to read this.

<comment><USER4> This might help: [https://experiment.com/birthday](https://experiment.com/birthday)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How can one get connected to this network outside of applying to YC?

I'm a noob engineer and I'm trying to learn more about startups. I live in SF and I'm looking on meetup.com and the startup events listed there mostly just seem like a lot of "founders" wasting time "networking" instead of building their products. It seems there is this network of people who want to look like they're building a startup, which is quite separate from the network mentioned in the article of people actually building a startup (or involved otherwise).

I don't know a lot of people here, and I'm not sure how to get started either. Does HN have any insight here? Or I guess if anyone here is interested, I'd love to get a quick coffee with anyone who is building a startup.

<comment><USER2> You might have some luck if you put an email in your profile. (You have to put it in the profile section since the email section is private.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks! Done :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great read. I'm dissappointing that this thread has devolved to HN cliches (arguing about Kool Aid and pg's essays) and isn't focussing on the very well written and inter sting content of this piece. Also, I wish there was a way to subscribe to a writer on Bold - it seems that I can't, unlike Medium.

<comment><USER4> for this very reason i am cross posting everything i write on medium [https://medium.com/@cindywu/why-y-combinator-made-all-the- di...](https://medium.com/@cindywu/why-y-combinator-made-all-the- difference-c75ca38920b3#.3c5g04v2r)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Desperately hopeful young founders, willing to work crazy hard and live in pitiful squalor to make their ideas happen.

Is there a similar story on the VC side? Young venture fund operators who have secured an itty bitty bit of LP money, working crazy hard to find worthy investments, couch-surfing and living on KD to stretch the money as far as it will go. That would be a story worth reading.

<comment><USER11> I was making $30k a year doing university research before starting a company. what you call pitiful, most fields outside of tech call normal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It was a wonderful read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing!

This bold.co site is a bit confusing though - I can't find a place where I can subscribe to the author's posts. Does it even have such a feature?

<comment><USER4> the feature doesn't exist, but i cross post everything i write on medium

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well met! Reading all the rigor applied to new ideas in this article brought a tear to my eye. If only such rigor, even just a smidgen, were applied to internal projects within corporations...

Best of success!

</comment><comment><USER14> "Being surrounded by dreamers inspired me to dream bigger and set an example that hard work can make your dreams come true."

</comment><comment><USER15> Thank you, Cindy, for the good read. Tangential, but may I ask who were the big names/VCs/Investors you met in Seattle (even if they said no)? I'm also a Seattleite I'm interested to know who the 'players' (and magnitude) are around these parts?

<comment><USER4> I met with everyone. You name the investor, I met with them. If you have specific questions send me some electronic mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." \--George Bernard Shaw

</comment><comment><USER17> > We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in > a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent > $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite.

I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas.

I'm not saying it's never right to put it all on the line and bet on your idea. I'm saying the _vast_ majority of the time it's a terrible idea and doing something like this serially would make for a terrible existence.

> As we walked out we remembered the National Geographic magazines. We handed > each of the partners their National Geographic Magazine from their birth > month and year. I remember Denny handing PG his.

>> "PG, This is what science looked like when you were born."

> Jessica ran after us and asked, "How did you find my birthday?" It turns out > we got her birthday month wrong and gave her the January issue. Luckily we > came with the backup. She is a February baby.

If I were in their shoes (YC interviewers) I'd be seriously weirded out by this. Knowing the approximate age of someone and getting an issue from that year wouldn't be that bad. But this is just creepy.

<comment><USER2> _> We convinced our friends in the current Y Combinator batch to let us stay in a closet at their East Palo Alto home office for $600 per month. If we spent $1,000 a month we would have 25 months of runway, which seems infinite.

I'm all for frugality and cost controls, but this is ridiculous. It's things like this that brainwash a generation of fools into throwing their lives away at nonsensical ideas.

I'm not saying it's never right to put it all on the line and bet on your idea. I'm saying the vast majority of the time it's a terrible idea and doing something like this serially would make for a terrible existence._

Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in East Palo Alto for a couple years? Why not? What an incredible, amazing experience.

Ok, I can think of a bunch of people who wouldn't want to work like that. But for a certain type of person, that experience is more amazing than the cushiest "normal" job could ever be.

It was my dream since 17. It never came, because I never found anyone else in the midwest who was interested in starting anything. Everybody wants to work for someone else, or hates the VC ecosystem instead of playing the game. And what can you do alone? I should've moved to SF, even if it was into someone's closet.

<comment><USER17> > Are you kidding? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not joking. Who wouldn't > want to work on something awesome with all their heart with their friends in > East Palo Alto for a couple years?

Working on something awesome with friends should not, and in most cases does not, require living in a closet. In most cases it doesn't require being in the same room, city, state, or even country.

> Why not? What an incredible, amazing experience.

Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool- aid!

> It was my dream since 17. It never came, because I never found anyone else > in the midwest who was interested in starting anything. Everybody wants to > work for someone else, or hates the VC ecosystem instead of playing the > game. And what can you do alone? I should've moved to SF.

You can do plenty alone. Only way you'll know how much is if you start.

You'll also see how much easier it is for others to join you if you're already doing something. Sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself won't find you a co-founder, building something will.

<comment><USER2> _Haha. Looks like the punch bowl is empty. Somebody make another round of kool-aid!_

You know, I've heard this type of irritating comment so many times over the years. I've been on HN since day two of its public launch, back when it was called Startup News. It was a magical time, mostly because everyone was universally supportive. This isn't a rose-tinted view of the past, or selective memory. It was the reason I was blown away by this internet community.

The cynical comments would pop up on Reddit, mostly from pg's essay posts. I couldn't understand their point of view. Were they jealous? Did they care so much about what other people were doing with their lives that they would choose to mock them publicly? I didn't know, but I felt lucky that HN wasn't one of those places.

Then as HN grew, it started here. Mostly people remained supportive, but there was this undercurrent of negativity that kept creeping in, proportional to HN's size.

Now I wake up nearly a decade later to see many people who share your ideas, that only fools would dare gamble their youth, that taking anything but the safe and rational route is "drinking kool-aid," that pg's essays are manipulative, and so on.

And so I realize that YC founders now have their own community, separate from HN, and the electrifying experience of the early days of Startup News is no longer present.

But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the type of people they are.

I'm not saying that it's all wonderful, or that they're giants, or that there are "normal" people and "special" people interested in startups. I'm saying that startups are started by regular people, like you and me, and that without a supportive community, it's incredibly difficult to start anything.

I didn't even care about getting rich. I just wanted to help somehow. But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the internet. It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get things done.

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying that pursuing a startup is always a bad idea. I'm saying that romanticizing living in somebody else's closet as part of the startup journey is wrong.

Building something that people what is what counts. Getting customers to pay you for it is what counts. Having profits is what counts.

Software (and startups in general) doesn't get created because you're eating beans and rice, heated off a hot-plate, in the closet of your friends apartment. It gets created when you sit down to do real work.

> But I was there. I saw it, I flew to SF and met a bunch of YC co's, I saw > their optimism and courage, and you could not be more mistaken about the > type of people they are.

There's nothing courageous about taking unnecessary risks. That's called being foolish.

Again, I'm not saying don't take risks. To win big you have to bet big. But it's not the risks or bets that matter, it's the pay off. That's what has to make sense.

> But I'm just happy that their community grows and grows and becomes stronger > in spite of your negative voice, and all the negative voices across the > internet.

Reality always has a negative tone to it. If it didn't, we wouldn't need idealists.

> It seems like proof that you have to not care what people think to get > things done.

Well this I can agree on.

<comment><USER18> This is exactly correct. Whats good about a startup is not living in a closet or getting to talk about how cool you are for living in a closet. That is exactly what is bad about the experience. Pretending it is good is roughly denial or some other similarly named vice.

<comment><USER19> Would you say the same thing about doing an Ironman, or climbing Mt Everest when you can just get helicoptered to the top?

Part of the attraction of doing things like these lies in proving to yourself that you can do it, and by doing this you fortify yourself mentally for the challenges that lie ahead.

Another result is that you become a "team" precisely because you have this shared experience. It's sort of like going through basic training in the military.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A very interesting read.

But why do I need to turn javascript on to read a load of text?

</comment><comment><USER21> Did you just doxx Jessica Livingston?

</comment><comment><USER22> > What I am working on will change the course of history if I even get close > to succeeding.

Don't tell me...an app that lets you pay for people to stand in line at Whole Foods for you?

<comment><USER3> Nope. It's rooted in computational biology.

<comment><USER23> Do you have a website or anything that discusses your general idea? I'm a medical student, and my background is in math/cs and my research is in comp bio. Just curious about what you're thinking of.

<comment><USER3> I bought the domain and have been creating a site locally. I'll upload it prior to applying. I don't want to show anyone what I have yet, as it's half- baked. I know first impressions mean a lot in this community and with science/tech in general. Trust me, I've made that mistake before and got laughed/ridiculed to the point of almost never trying again. I'll be smarter this time and remember this is not reddit, this is where supergeeks hang out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I didn't read the post, but if the poster is going to live in a closet I wonder where is going to live the next guy with a very big changing world idea</comment>


Is the Solar System Stable? (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2011-summer/solar-system-tremaine <comment><USER2> "There would be few fossil traces of these lost siblings of the Earth."

Our moon is a pretty obvious reminder of Earth's lost sibling Theia.

[http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/06/new-isotopic- evidence-...](http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/06/new-isotopic-evidence- supporting-moon-formation-from-earth-collision-with-planet-sized-body)

<comment> bjelkeman-again That could be the kernel of a scifi story. What if Theia had life on it and it spread to earth.

<comment><USER3> Or it's unique properties + earth's in combination are the only reason why life exists.

<comment><USER4> There are theories putting Mars in that position: that early on, Mars was more hospitable due to less water, and microbes eventually caught a ride on something ejected from Mars via volcano or meteor impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > After Newton discovered his famous laws of motion and gravity, he used these > to determine the motion of a single planet around the Sun and showed that > the planet followed an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.

It was more the other way around. Kepler found out that planets follow an ellipse with the Sun at one focus. He formulated his 3 Kepler laws. Newton, quite a while later generalised these laws into the so called Newton axioms.

<comment><USER6> Newton was the biggest jerk in science. We barely know what Hooke looks like because Isaac destroyed every image of him after his death.

<comment><USER7> Ugh ... besides the fact that your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, it is also stating (incorrectly) a possibility as fact.

There was one (not many) portrait of Hooke at the Royal Academy of Science which at some point was destroyed while Issac Newton was President. It is unknown whether the destruction of the portrait was directed by Newton or if Newton just did not bother protecting it (Hooke had gotten into conflicts with other scientists as well).

Thus, your comment in its entirety is a waste of space. I will be flagging it as it is non-constructive to the discussion of the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _However, the presence of chaos implies that we can only study the long-term fate of the solar system in a statistical sense, by launching in our computers an armada of solar systems with slightly different parameters at the present time—typically, each planet is shifted by a random amount of about a millimeter—and following their evolution. When this is done, it turns out that in about 1 percent of these systems, Mercury's orbit becomes sufficiently eccentric so that it collides with Venus before the death of the Sun. Thus, the answer to the question of the stability of the solar system—more precisely, will all the planets survive until the death of the Sun—is neither "yes" nor "no" but "yes, with 99 percent probability."_

I wonder: How ergodic (this is likely a misuse of this word) is the system? If there's a 1% probability of mercury crashing into venus over this time period does that scale? If I run all 100 simulations for 10 times longer do 10 of those hypothetical mercuries crash into hypothetical venuses(.99^10 ~.9)?

<comment><USER9> I'd guess not. I think they ran the simulations out completely, until the Sun died.

<comment><USER8> they didn't do that. Tidal forces get weird as the sun starts getting larger and really weird when the sun's radius exceeds the orbit of earth. Their simulations did not take into account solar death (it's in the article).

<comment><USER9> I stand corrected, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thank you! I assume this was posted in response to this comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089259)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, not quite as a response since it is the same article, maybe more of a re-post. I was really surprised by the conclusion, and thought it was interesting enough to deserve wider distribution. Not many people will read the comments section of a day-old post. Of course antognini's comment sold it a lot better than the article's title, but that's the price of not editorializing in HN submission titles :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes the answer is "no, but it doesn't matter", as shown by two professors at my University: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v357/n6379/abs/357569a0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v357/n6379/abs/357569a0.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> I read a little more about this and was surprised to find out that the gravitational pull of Venus on Earth is enough to produce a measurable ocean tide up to 0.03 mm (very approximately).

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra For some reason I think that stability is the least energetic state of the solar system.

So it's unlikely to change statistically speaking.

As for violent changes like ejection of a planet, I'm not sure solar system may generate that kind of energy out of planet movements. Unlikely if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER13> anyone know of a mirror? it appears down or removed.

</comment><comment><USER14> On what time scale?

</comment><comment><USER15> tl;dr: for the most part, yes.

<comment><USER16> If you are a planet, you are going to be ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> TLDR: it isn't.

For a real explanation : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- body_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem)

It's a typical chaotic system. Over the short term everything looks and behaves VERY stable, but every 10 million years or so things align juuuuust right and some major shift suddenly happens.

<comment><USER18> > _but every 10 million years or so things align juuuuust right and some major > shift suddenly happens._

I haven't thought deeply, but a quick check of the Sun-Moon-Earth system seems to disagree with this.</comment></comment>


A Guide to Fully Homomorphic Encryption - <AUTHOR> http://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1192 <comment><USER3> The last time I tried to play with encrypted circuit code it was extremely, extremely, extremely slow. To put this into context: just adding and subtracting 64 bit numbers on a garbled circuit was considered quite a complex operation - taking several seconds to several minutes to evaluate.

Needless to say - I was very disappointed. I had originally started looking into FHE, functional encryption, and hommomorphic encryption as a novel solution to several trust problems in the Bitcoin world (as you could potentially write fully self-contained, encrypted, ECDSA signing and verification programs that could operate as fully decentralized autonomous entities.) So when researcher say that FHE is holy grail type stuff - <USER2> really aren't joking.

My question is: how long until any of this stuff will work for large algorithms?

<comment><USER4> The efficiency of application to long algorithms and large datasets is a function of available computing power. Certain problems in coding theory can be reduced to homomorphic calculation, but it takes petabytes of data to represent the solution space.

I would recommend Moore's Law as an approximate formula which is useful for guessing what year you will be able to run programs at home on your personal computer. These days, conservative estimates for the number of transistors on a chip should double every 2 years.

<comment><USER5> That was true in an age where single threaded performance also saw similiar improvements. But those days a gone. The power wall and transister scaling also ate factors here.

Today, increases in compute capabilities enabling new technology requires new architectures that match the problems. Similarly to how GPUs enabled deep learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This may be a silly question, but whats the current point of creating more efficient methods of encryption when 20-30 years down the road we'll have things like quantum computing with 10^N processing?

Wouldn't that then essentially make modern encryption methods obsolete?

I'd like to hear a more educated viewpoint on this, because most of the sources I've read gloss over everything and make it seem like magic and this seems like a good thread to ask.

Edit: Thanks for the responses, I think I get it a bit better now :D

<comment><USER7> To address just one of your points, quantum computation is not a silver bullet. It does not work the way one might think it works. Not many researchers are saying that they will replace classical computers, and for good reason. For many, or even most, computational tasks there is no way to get a large quantum speedup. (And classical computers have had a lot more R&D put into them.) Although easy integer factoring will break quite a few popular crypto schemes, like RSA, the risks of quantum computers are heavily overplayed. For example, I don't believe there is any known quantum attack against AES, which is a good start in a post-quantum world. (I can't think of an asymmetric encryption scheme that I'm sure is resistant to quantum attacks off the top of my head, since I'm no expert, but I'm positive some do exist.)

<comment><USER8> The (provably) best "general purpose" quantum algorithm is Grover's algorithm. The problem it solves is as follows:

Given an arbitrary function f(x), and a desired output k, find the unique input z such that f(z)=k.

We can see that using classical computers, this problem is O(n), where n is the size of the domain of f. However, Grover's algorithm can solve this problem in O(sqrt(n)). It has been shown that O(sqrt(n)) is the best possible solution to this problem on a quantum computer.

This means that quantum computers effectively halve the key-size for a brute force attack (and probably most other types), but doing any better than this would require exploiting some structure of the cryptosystem you are trying to break. To my knowledge, no such structure has been demonstrated for any major symmetric encryption algorithms.

<comment><USER7> That's really interesting! I have only a passing education in quantum computers, which is why my comment is so devoid of detail... I really should learn more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> homeopathic encryption!

oh.. :(

</comment><comment><USER10> I thought it said homophobic encryption...

My devious mind!</comment>


Ask HN: Good examples of interactive command-line user experience? - <AUTHOR> What are good examples of interactive TUI/CLI user experience? I'm looking for nice layouts, use of ASCII color, interaction patterns, nicely written help text, etc. <comment> git-pull Yes, tmux.

\- tmux counts as a TUI UX. it is backed by ncurses ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses))

\- colors: it supports 256 colors, 24bit colors landed in 2.2 (but haven't used it)

\- layouts: 1) supports splitting multiple command lines into "panes" which are resizable 2) supports custom layouts and arrangements for panes 3) you can "zoom" in on panes via `C-b z` 4) you can actually run other TUI applications within it

\- interaction: 1) tmux also forks itself into a server in the background so you can de/re-attach your workspace 2) you can create and move between collections of panes, what tmux calls "windows" 3) command-based, so configuration via ~/.tmux.conf uses the same language as scripting 4) tmux can be scripted / remote controlled, you can even send-keys and copy the contents of panes

\- help: the tmux manual is superb ([https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tmux](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tmux))

Downsides are, I still get glitchy issues when using vim / unicode / colors in tmux panes which are difficult to diagnose. `reset` normally fixes it. It's been this way for years, and I don't want to even begin figuring out what the hell is happening because I'm using too many plugins. Considering starting from scratch. So if you get into tmux/vim/other CLI stuff, the simpler you keep your config, the better off you'll be.

(P.S. I am the author of _The Tao of tmux_ , a book you can read free online)

</comment><comment><USER2> I would recommend that you check out the Heroku CLI Style Guide: [https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/cli-style- guide](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/cli-style-guide)

There are many different teams within Heroku that need to provide interactions for developers via CLI whether its for dynos or data services. The guide was a way to codify building a consistent interaction that all product managers and engineers could follow. Disclaimer: I work for heroku.

<comment><USER3> One thing not mentioned there is exit statuses. I think they're just as important a thing to think about, up there with what arguments to accept.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the feedback! I'll see if we can get that in the guide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The symbolics accept/present system (part of Dynamic Windows). Unfortunately if you haven't used it, all I couldn't find was Gene Ciccarellis' PhD thesis: [https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6946/AITR-794...](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6946/AITR-794.pdf)

Basically: Lisp supports idempotent type-based printing (print something in a form that can be read back to identify the same object -- basically unremarkable these days; consider python's __repr__ and __string__) as well as human-friendly printing.

The presentation system was remarkable in that when you printed an object it printed in the user-friendly form, but when the text was read back the IO system knew what the object was and so acted as if a machine-readable representation had been printed. It also used the type hierarchy to support mouse action in "ordinary" text, thus if you needed a SHAPE object, the mouse would highlight "Square at 4,4" and "Circle centred at 5,5, radius 7" as if it were #<CIRCLE 5,5, r=7>. In fact the "printed" representation need not be textual.

Also BSD4.1 sh is quite good one !:... and ^...^ etc were added.

As a side note, IIRC Emacs started out as Ciccarelli's TECO init file around '75/76 or so.

<comment><USER5> For the modern version of this, see CLIM or McCLIM

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a terrible idea, but an excellent example of experience:

[https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck](https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck)

[TL;DR -- typo a command, type 'fuck', will run the command you should have run]

<comment><USER7> by "terrible idea" you must mean "greatest operator experience of all time and surely no evil could come of this"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was a talk at Pycon 2017 about this [0] that's pretty good. He(amjith) goes through several examples with his favorite being bpython [1] and even covers writing such a thing in python live on stage.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk) [1] [https://bpython-interpreter.org/](https://bpython-interpreter.org/)

<comment><USER9> Python prompt toolkit is worth a look [https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt- toolkit/bl...](https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt- toolkit/blob/master/README.rst)

<comment> git-pull Yes good on you for mentioning that, as well as the other projects in the umbrella:

\- pymux (tmux clone): [https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pymux/](https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pymux/)

\- pyvim (vim clone): [https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/](https://github.com/jonathanslenders/pyvim/)

Lots of community-driven CLI tools with superb autocompletion:

\- ptpython: [http://github.com/jonathanslenders/ptpython/](http://github.com/jonathanslenders/ptpython/)

\- pgcli: [http://pgcli.com/](http://pgcli.com/) \+ mycli: [http://mycli.net/](http://mycli.net/)

\- complete shells: xonsh ([http://xon.sh/](http://xon.sh/)) + ergonomica ([https://ergonomica.github.io/](https://ergonomica.github.io/))

<comment><USER8> The talk covers Prompt Toolkit. The presenter wrote pgcli and mycli, and covers most of your list as well. But it's probably good to list it all out here, for the lazy, or the ones unable/unwilling to play youtube.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm constantly impressed by fzf ([https://github.com/junegunn/fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf)). I use it both from the shell (for files and command history) as well as a fuzzy finder in vim. I greatly enjoy the speed and intuitiveness.

</comment><comment><USER11> There's mapscii[0], which was on HN a little while ago. Easily the coolest console experience I've ever had.

You can check it out by running "telnet mapscii.me"

[0] [https://github.com/rastapasta/mapscii](https://github.com/rastapasta/mapscii)

</comment><comment><USER12> Shameless plug: Elvish ([https://github.com/elves/elvish](https://github.com/elves/elvish)) is a shell with a rich UI.

The idea of enriching shell's UI is not new though, zsh and fish are both prior arts.

</comment><comment><USER13> Telemate BBS client was a great example of a windowed TUI in the style of DESQView. You could have a chat window, a DOS terminal and an ANSI terminal all open at the same time. Overlayed dialog boxes were framed, resizable and movable within the window. Scripting was supported in chat and terminal windows to navigate through menus or to type "^H^H^H^Hsexy beast" any time your name comes through the chat. Another favorite of mine, Vern Buerg's List.com, was far better than Norton Commander or the MC clone, in my opinion. As a multi-column file viewer/manager, it maximized the number of files displayed onscreen and allowed simple file operations from a keystroke. By using a hex editor you could change the viewer and external editors. It was also written in 8086 assembly and was very fast.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think that gnus & magit are pretty good.

Gnus is a full-featured news, email & RSS reader (and others too maybe?). I've used it for most of my life.

Magit is a full-featured git UI, good enough that I don't bother using git from the command line anymore.

</comment><comment><USER15> for the TUI - aptitude, midnight commander, back in the days the Turbo Vision was awesome, which I think has some ports for Linux.

I'm constant midnight commander (linux/osx), FAR commander (windows) user. I'm so glad that it works flawlessly almost anywhere there is terminal support...

</comment><comment><USER16> I like npm-check [https://github.com/dylang/npm- check](https://github.com/dylang/npm-check) it has a really useful and easy to use UI, on of the nicest terminal UI driven applications I have used.

Edited: to use TUI instead of CLI

<comment><USER17> TUI is not CLI. htop and these curses interfaces was TUI

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out. I'm interested in both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Midnight Commander and its spiritual predecessors going all the way back to Norton Commander and Volkov Commander are marvellous examples of TUI.

They're intuitive, interactive, come with embedded help, and use text mode to present a sophisticated, productive interface.

<comment><USER19> The Norton Editor (NE) was very good too. Really fast. Probably written in assembly, maybe by Peter Norton himself. I had bought and read a book of his on programming in assembly language (x86) for the IBM PC. Also very good. He developed a TUI hex editor in the book as a running case study, IIRC.

Also the Norton Guides were fantastic. TSRs [1], but with a TUI. You could get guides for C, dBASE, Clipper, Assembly, etc. I loved the TSR popup experience on DOS.

[1] Terminate and Stay Resident programs. They hooked into a keyboard interrupt to allow them to pop on a press of a hotkey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tangentially-related: check out Vermont Views [1], a complete TUI development solution. I wish they open sourced it before they exited the market, or re- entered the market for IOT/embedded developers. I've never found a comparable open source effort, though here's to hoping the Blessed project for node.js takes inspiration from Vermont Views for future directions.

[1] [http://web.archive.org/web/20091011010412/http://www.vtsoft....](http://web.archive.org/web/20091011010412/http://www.vtsoft.com/vcsproducts/vviews.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> Serverless ([https://serverless.com](https://serverless.com)) has a nice experience. I believe it is built using inquirer.js ([https://github.com/SBoudrias/Inquirer.js](https://github.com/SBoudrias/Inquirer.js))

I've recently built an internal tool with inquirer and it was a really nice development and user experience. I haven't figured out the best way to test the interactions though.

termUI in go is also nice if you need graphing and viz for a dashboard like command line.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think many/most Node TUI's use Inquirer. I have mixed feelings about it. Python has several library's that provide lower-level constructs for building CLI and TUI's. Then they provide examples for using the library to implement a common pattern or prompt. Inquirer gives you some ready-made prompts but doesn't provide any help/convenience for creating your own prompt. It seems like the wrong level of abstraction.

<comment><USER21> Which python libraries do you prefer?

Inquirer is def the HTML inputs of the terminal but I got pretty far with it. My use case was Fairly Simple™ though. What other UI components do you think it's lacking?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like python_prompt_toolkit, though I think the learning curve can be a bit steep. It gives you a ton of flexibility, which I really appreciate, but I have a hard time remembering how all the pieces interact. I hope I don't sound overly critical of people's open source work, because I've used and really appreciate both Inquirer and PPT. Just seems like there's yet to be a canonical library for this problem set.

<comment><USER21> It'd be really nice to see one in go or something else I could ship around easily w/o needing NPM and node, etc.

I'll give PPT a swing. I haven't used it before. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> \- Emacs' Magit

\- moc (Music on Console)

</comment><comment><USER23> I highly recommend ranger[0]. It's a very useful console based file manager with great vi key bindings.

The configuration is also very flexible and includes a python API to write your own commands[1].

[0] [http://ranger.nongnu.org](http://ranger.nongnu.org)

[1] [https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Commands](https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Commands)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd look at old DOS applications - the last mass market (i.e. not just technical users) for non-GUI apps. Although towards they end, they were often just aping Windows GUIs as well as they could (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access) )

</comment><comment><USER25> ncdu | [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncdu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncdu)

</comment><comment><USER26> `parted` is pretty good, in an old-school way.

The only thing I'd personally ask for is if you offer an interactive interface, make sure you can execute the exact same commands on the plain CLI. Also (yeah, two things) support --help and --version (as well as -h and -v) out of the box.

Color, layouts (other than those required for readability), and other things just don't really matter as much, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJhZhLg3obk) "Amjith Ramanujam Awesome Command Line Tools PyCon 2017" goes through some nice examples: mycli, pgcli, fish shell and few others

</comment><comment><USER28> The `micro` test editor is fantastic. GUI-standard keyboard shortcuts. Mouse support. Ability to execute commands while editing test.

[https://micro-editor.github.io/](https://micro-editor.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER29> The dbcli suite (pgcli, mycli) provide a great user experience on the command line that even some gui database tools don't match up to.

[https://github.com/dbcli](https://github.com/dbcli)

</comment><comment><USER30> While it mostly piggy backs on ag, I think tag ([https://github.com/aykamko/tag](https://github.com/aykamko/tag)) has one of the best UX workflows I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER21> Oh and don't forget figlet when you need that dope ASCII logo banner.

</comment><comment><USER19> The FreePascal TUI is good, IMO. So was Turbo Pascal, back in the day. Both are very fast, get out of your way (IMO) and also look(ed) good. Okay, TP not so much :), but not bad either.

</comment><comment><USER31> Jest is pretty neat: [https://facebook.github.io/jest/](https://facebook.github.io/jest/)

</comment><comment><USER32> yeoman is pretty good. It gives the option of interactive or command line. Reasonable use of colour, with some layout formatting. Dynamic options.

</comment><comment><USER33> The first tool that came to mind for me was htop [0] with ncurses. It's a friendly alternative to top.

I've previously used ncmpcpp [1] without any major complaints, although it's been a few years since then. It's an mpd [2] client written with ncurses.

On my personal servers I use goaccess [3] to analyze access logs. I remember being able to pick it up pretty quickly on my first try.

Only tangentially related, but you may find it useful to read the "Utility Conventions" [4] entry of The Open Group Base Specifications. I'd also suggest reading through the relevant entries under the "Program Behavior for All Programs" [5] section of GNU Coding Standards [6]. By following existing conventions (or even being aware they exist) you can sometimes make it easier for others to learn how to use your tool.

If you know JavaScript, you may consider writing your program with node. The blessed [7] library is a JavaScript reimplementation of ncurses, and there's even a react renderer [8]. This makes building the UI much easier than many of the alternatives I know. When you're ready to release, you can generate an executable [9] for easy deployment or publication. The biggest benefits of taking this approach are that it makes it very easy to achieve cross-platform support, and the barrier of entry is lower than many alternatives. The biggest caveats are that it'll be slower and much larger than if it had been written with C.

[0] [http://hisham.hm/htop/](http://hisham.hm/htop/)

[1] [http://rybczak.net/ncmpcpp/screenshots/](http://rybczak.net/ncmpcpp/screenshots/)

[2] [https://www.musicpd.org](https://www.musicpd.org)

[3] [https://goaccess.io](https://goaccess.io)

[4] [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/xrat/V4_xbd_...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/xrat/V4_xbd_chap12.html#tag_21_12)

[5] [https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Program- Behavio...](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Program- Behavior.html)

[6] [https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/index.html](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/index.html)

[7] [https://github.com/chjj/blessed](https://github.com/chjj/blessed)

[8] [https://github.com/Yomguithereal/react- blessed](https://github.com/Yomguithereal/react-blessed)

[9] [https://github.com/zeit/pkg](https://github.com/zeit/pkg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great list! Thanks a bunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> slap[0] (the terminal-based text editor) was designed to emulate Sublime's UX within the terminal. It has a shallower learning curve than other command line editors.

[0] [https://github.com/slap-editor/slap](https://github.com/slap-editor/slap)

</comment><comment><USER35> Far Manager is my favorite TUI and is the primary reason I haven't switched over to Linux yet.

</comment><comment><USER36> tig is pretty solid

<comment><USER37> I'll second that. I use tig daily.

Another tui I like is for networkmanager. For whatever reason, nmtui always seems to work better than the gui frontends.

I think PyPy deserves a special mention -- it's been a few years since I built it, but the last time I did it drew the Mandelbrot set as a progress indicator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Turbo Pascal 7.0

</comment><comment><USER39> terminal_velocity

</comment><comment><USER40> darcs

</comment><comment><USER39> dockly

</comment><comment><USER17> git

<comment><USER41> Sad to see this in the grey. Git is unintuitive to those who don't understand it. If you read about its internals and learn how it works, the command line gets much better. It's well documented and it gives you a whole lot of power and insight into the inner workings of the VCS. Things like launching your editor to do more complex commands, plugging a script into git bisect, these are all great design choices.

<comment><USER42> All of what you say is correct. git is great in many ways and not too difficult to use once you grok the internals.

But git's user interface is inconsistent, has got weird error messages and confusing terminology with too many ways to do some things.

Good thing that it has quite decent manpages which explain these things thoroughly. The UI gets the job done but it sure isn't a great example of a well designed command line.

<comment><USER41> It's rough in some ways, and elegant in others. A bad error message does not a bad UX make. Good error messages are great, but remember UX is also about hitting the important points well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SiC (Silicon Carbide) Transistor Basics: FAQs - <AUTHOR> https://www.powerelectronics.com/discrete-power-semis/sic-transistor-basics-faqs <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt:

"As an alternative to traditional silicon MOSFETs, silicon carbide MOSFETs offer the advantages of higher blocking voltage, lower on-state resistance, and higher thermal conductivity. The devices can replace silicon MOSFETs and IGBTs in many applications."

Useful Application: Power Inverter (Transformer) for Battery/Ultracapacitor Banks To Electric Motors (which may require higher voltage and/or AC) e.g., motors for Electric Planes, Cars, etc...</comment>


BitlyBot – Minimal Telepresense Robot - <AUTHOR> http://josh.com/notes/bitlybot/ <comment><USER2> > Shunned by Radio Shack x-mas shoppers, I was able to pick up a few of these > RC trucks for $40 each.

Too bad Radio Shack isn't going to exist shortly.

</comment><comment><USER3> link doesn't work for me. hug of death?</comment>


Big Data Analysis Adds to Guest Worker Debate - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/big-data-analysis-adds-to-guest-worker-debate/

<comment><USER2> It says they found a shortage of "Computer Systems Analysts". Is that another name for sysadmins and in-house support engineers? Is that the experience for people here? And do companies hire H1-B's for these positions?

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, they're referring to the BLS definition of Computer Systems Analyst[1]. It's basically someone that ensures the system fits the business process it's designed to address, rather than the business process having to work around the system. Depending on the particular company's structure, you may see these listed as product analyst, business analyst, business systems analyst, process analyst, etc.

As a student that wants to go into the business side of tech rather than programming, these are the jobs I've been trying to find. Unfortunately, most companies radically lowball these positions because they either (a) don't see the use for them, (b) underpower them, or (c) the term is being misused as a glorified tech writer.

[1] [http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information- Technology/C...](http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information- Technology/Computer-systems-analysts.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am constantly surprised by how inefficient the jobs market is, especially outside of tech jobs, and especially for large employers who have to constantly recruit for many open positions.</comment>


Show HN: Tinkersynth, a whimsical generative art machine - <AUTHOR> https://tinkersynth.com/slopes <comment><USER2> This is super cute. Loving how the little diagrams change as the sliders are moved.

One thing that might really get people to purchase a drawing is the ability to change line colours. Imagine all the colourful patterns! Have you plans to add this?

<comment><USER3> Absolutely the thing keeping me from thinking about a purchase is the missing possibilites to color the lines in different colors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback!

I don't really have many plans to keep working on this machine, but I do hope to add new machines (with different controls, and different possible outputs), so I'll definitely keep that in mind :)

<comment><USER3> I just like really colorful design, so another machine with cool geometric patterns or something with a lot of color control, would be awesome imo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like it and would've liked to buy a vector download but $19 is insane. I would've paid 3$, $5 at the max.

<comment><AUTHOR> Through the lens of "cost of a vector download", it is very expensive.

I've been thinking of it a different way, though. The option exists for people who want to manage the printing themselves, and it's a much more economical version.

The fine-art prints on my project start at $99, and while the profit on that varies by where it's shipping to, it's always more than 20 bucks. It doesn't cost $80 to produce and ship a 12" x 18" print.

Put another way, you're not paying for an image download, you're paying for the creative energy (not to mention time) that went into producing this tool.

That said, you're not the first person to bring this up, so clearly the messaging could use some work. I've lowered the price to $5 while I figure that out.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate the reply. I also understand the reasoning behind it, it's just that it honestly wasn't worth that much to me.

I just bought a download for $5. I don't know if 5 people would pay $19 vs 20 would pay $5, but you just got five dollars more from me that you would've otherwise :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The randomize button in the lower right corner is the best way to see the possibilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah! I had wanted to find a way to make this more prominent, since it's great fun.

Fun fact: While any combination is possible from the "randomize" button, it uses weighting to try and come up with pleasant/interesting combos more often than not. I'm quite pleased with the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a way of 'seeding' this with line drawings?

<comment><USER7> I agree, this would be a cool idea and make it feel more personalized

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be super cool! It would be non-trivial to implement, but that may be something I consider in the future :) thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER6> If you do get around to doing it, would you mind sending me an email (in bio)? I have an idea I've been mulling over for a long time, and would pay for something like this.

Edit: I contacted you via the contact form at Tinkersynth

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Love that easter egg!

<comment><AUTHOR> hah, thanks! I was wondering if people would discover it =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great interface. I'm just loving it!

</comment><comment><USER10> I have been working on something similar for plotter drawings [http://xn-- 5ca.cc/jack-of-diamonds/#Faces](http://xn--5ca.cc/jack-of-diamonds/#Faces)

<comment><AUTHOR> Neat! Seems fun.

This project was actually meant to be for plotter drawings originally, and the SVGs it produces are plotter-friendly (all the occlusion is done mathematically, not using fills or masks).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pleasantly reminiscent the cover artwork of "Unknown Pleasures" (Pulsar!)

Perhaps someone in the near future will make a similar art cover using graphs of exoplanet transits.

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool, but why would I pay that much to download the image?

</comment><comment><USER13> This business model seems like a fascinating idea. Do you know if it will work? Is anyone else using it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah, I hope some people will think the things it produces are worth purchasing! Although I suspect almost everyone will treat it as a fun web toy (and that's totally alright as well - the goal isn't really to make a ton of money with this)

<comment><USER14> It is really fun. Thanks for putting thought into the design and UX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Loving the interface, great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Desktop mode only?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a limited mobile experience, essentially it just gives you the ability to shuffle (which, many people say is the single most fun control).

The reason is that the experience really only works when you can see the art while you're tweaking a parameter, and there was no way to fit both the art and the controls on a phone screen at once. I had them stacked, and scrolling up to see what a control did was a miserable experience.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some intereting / innovative use cases for IoT? - <AUTHOR> From what I've heard, IoT is just a general term for smart devices. I'm sure smart devices are great, but it's being hailed as the fourth industrial revolution.
I can't understand how IoT is more than just a consumer convenience. I've tried researching online, but everything is very vague.
What are some interesting, and innovative use-cases for IoT? Things cooler than my toaster remembering my preferences, or my lights turning on automatically. <comment><USER3> It is more useful to turn the lights off automatically when leave the room to save electricity.

In 2018 there are many Z-Wave and Zigbee devices out there that can be put together to make an ad hoc alarm system quickly (less than 30 minutes.)

Many business and homeowners have areas they'd like to keep an eye and that kind of stuff is useful not because it fits a generic need but because somebody can use them as tools to satisfy specific needs.

Wider than that, using computers to control hardware has been a big thing since the SAGE anti-aircraft control system in the 1950s. Even if the "internet of things" in 90% bunk there are big opportunities ahead.

In the case of the car, computer integration reduced some forms of automobile pollution by 99% and has improved safety. I rolled a 7 year old economy car and found the onboard computer activated a pyrotechnic device that pulled my seatbelt tight so I found myself upside down but entirely unhurt. The airbag computer told the dealer that it wanted to be replaced but it went on to perform flawlessly when the car was involved in another crash 7 months later.

There are all manner of places where electronics can go and work wonders even if people aren't aware of it.

</comment><comment><USER4> My opinion is that in commercial space there is a dramatic cost savings to be able to control power, HAVC, and other OPEX which is easy to understand.

However for the consumer I also feel we haven't seen a killer IoT device yet, and who knows when we will..

I do think the power of IoT is the ability to improve your quality of life or remove repetitive tasks. Right now it's in it's infancy...someday soon that iwatch or alexa will be very human like and instead of # of steps etc...it will soon see your blood pressure and heart rate not that healthy...and it will begin to suggest things to do that correct the issue..maybe never telling you it's exercise...more simple...why do I have to set the sprinkler schedule, the sensors know the weather..

I think there are amazing opportunities in answering your question...making ioT more humanistic...making it almost disappear..do you think much about the LTE version used in your mobile anymore?

Great Question..

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I didn't even consider the commercial space! That's a good point - <USER2> enterprise scale, there are definitely huge cost savings. Smart factories or offices, for example.

I'm really curious about the killer app for consumer IoT. Maybe we're just not advanced enough yet?</comment></comment>