A hack I'm rather proud of - <AUTHOR>

A few months ago, my partner and I purchased Chron X, the original online collectible card game. It was first written in 1995-1997, and brought a lot of ideas to the table which were later implemented by Magic the Gathering Online, and other collectible card games.
We're working to make a new version of the game, that's web-based, free to play, and easier for anyone.. But until it's done, we had the question of "How to we keep the old game going long enough to transition?"
One of the key problems with the old game is that games are peer to peer. While the game server authenticates users, the actual card battles have one client connect directly to the other, and play directly.
This worked out well in 1997, in the age of dialup and open ports, but today almost everyone has a firewall, either in software or as a Linksys router.. They just can't get through to play, and the popularity has taken a corresponding hit. We're excited to work toward the new web version, but until we do, we want to help the player base grow, which means we needed to slay the firewall demon.
I had started looking into Hamachi, which creates a direct machine to machine VPN, and lets users connect to one another. Sounds pretty decent... The problem is, it's free for up to 16 users, but after that, users would need to pay $5/month, just to be able to connect... Given that they'd be paying a monthly fee, and we wouldn't even see it, that's a pretty big negative. The second problem is that since it puts everyone on a VPN, BOTH players would need to have it installed to play, not just the player behind a firewall.
Instead, I put together a hack that I'm rather proud of.. I hacked together OpenVPN to put together a quick click-and-run installer, which creates a VPN into our servers.. Unlike the Hamachi VPN, however, our VPN assigns each user a public, routable, IP address, on the outside world, such as 72.10.x.y.z.
Then, we set their default gateway to go through the VPN, and block all ports except for our game.
What this does is give them a public, routable, real IP address, which can only be used for contacting other Chron X clients.
What I really like about this solution is that it's expandable to any other game system.. If you wanted to run a Diablo 2 tunnel, it'd be just a few configuration changes to open up those ports, and bam, it'd just work.
Players each have a public ip and can play against each other, and we get keep the old client workable for a while longer, while we get more done on Chron X 2.
I'm just excited, and wanted to share the hack ;)
-Colin <comment><USER2> Maybe I misinterpreted what you are saying, but if you change their default gateway and block all ports except the one for your game, then you effectively shut off their internet while playing. For me, and I think most people, this would be a huge negative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your assessment of the tech is correct, but I don't think your assessment of the user-behavior is..

Keep in mind, this is for a full-screen game, and you can't really play the game and do other things. (This is one of many reasons why we're re-writing it to be web-based)

I think that when it comes to behavior on this subject, there are really two types of users..

The users who are bittorrent downloading, streaming media and other things where cutting out the internet connection would matter.. And the others, who just want to do some homework, then play a game for a while.

For the people who just want to play for a while, having the rest of their internet cut out won't be a major issue.. If they're playing the game, they can't browse the web, or use AIM, but since it's full-screen, they wouldn't be able to do those things anyway.

For the other folk, who use their connection heavily downloading torrents (legally), and listening to streaming radio- They're far more likely to be technically savvy enough to forward the ports necessary to make the game work, and wouldn't require any sort of VPN at all.

<comment><USER3> that's all fine and dandy, except for the implication that a background download equates to being technically savvy

however, the hack itself is neat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I agree it's not an ideal situation..

Truth be told, we probably _could_ fix the background download problem.. If we recorded every IP that tried to contact your public IP, and then set your gateway to be through the VPN when trying to reach THAT IP, it just might work..

The thing is, that would be fragile, and might take a week or two of work to get right.. Since this is a legacy application, and we're actively working to replace it, for now I'm happy with the 90% solution. I'd rather spend the two weeks making version 2.0 closer to launch.

-Colin

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now if you don't mind me asking, how did you get your hands on such a large pool of public IP addresses?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most dedicated server companies will let you buy additional ips for $.25/month, or similar. I took them up on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dont understand how what you propose successfully traverses NAT. Just curious: How do you punch through, and then keep your NAT pipe open?

There is no guarantee that this part: _"our VPN assigns each user a public, routable, IP address, on the outside world, such as 72.10.x.y.z"_ will always lead back to a client behind layer(s) of NAT, unless the listening port is manually forwarded in the router itself.

Protocols such as STUN have developed methods to attempt to solve this, but its not easy because of issues such as there being no standard for the amount of time that NAT must keep pipes open after they are finished being used.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what openvpn is for.

Basically, it deals with the NAT-traversal elements for me, once I've twisted it's arm into doing so.. It works, if I recall correctly, using the UDP trick to keep a port open by sending traffic to a host repeatedly.

The nice part about the hack that I'm using is that I don't need to deal with the specifics of the UDP punching, or how often to poll, etc.. I can use industry tested and standard software for that.

Think of it this way-

Have you ever worked at a large corporation, that has a VPN? Once connected to that VPN, you could access all the servers internally, and they could access you, right?

We're basically creating a VPN, and giving everyone an internal IP address.. And then using linux, iptables, and NATing to map all those internal ip addresses to external ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the top of my head, look at:

1\. Fog Creek's Co-pilot: Joel wrote about something similar

2\. Skype: How skype connects calls even in the presence of firewalls

<comment><USER7> Skype uses tcp-ip hole punching, basically trying to initiate a connection on both ends. guessing exit ports and trying to convince the firewall that this it received a response from the other side so it should start routing traffic to that port back.

The solution is not full proof and takes a few attempts to predict the outgoing ports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm still not clear why a public IP address is necessary. If the traffic is going over the VPN, it shouldn't matter what IP addresses are being used.

<comment><USER9> So that the other users don't have to be on the VPN, only the firewalled ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's really good elven.... and you get treble points for your openness and willingness to share.

You'll go a long way my friend, I'm sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. If you are interested in implementing anything similar, shoot me an email and I can help you out.

The code is all pretty simple, once you get it working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love it when a hack comes together! Kudos, Colin

</comment><comment><USER12> sounds cool but I play plenty of games and have hardware and software firewalls and never have problems with ports? By the sounds of it the users of your game would know how do operate a firewall. Just out of interest what percentage of your users asked for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, a very, very large number. While Cx users are technically inclined, there's a surprising number of casual players who may not have the technical acumen to forward ports, even with an illustrated guide.

We've had several users quit because they can't/won't configure their firewalls, so we needed an automatic solution.

upnp just isn't reliable- It fails in > 60% cases, according to some case study I can't find at the moment.

Hamachi won't work for the reasons above. Too Expensive, and requires both parties to have the VPN installed.

Our only solution was to roll our own.

<comment><USER12> shame but at least you solved it. I hope you have the contact details of the players you lost so you can pimp out the new version to them when its ready :P

good luck with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's good when things actually work ;)</comment></comment>


Tech capitalists won't fix the world's problems, their unionised workforce might - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/technology-capitalists-unionised-workforce-tech-sector <comment><USER2> "After the election of Donald Trump, thousands of technology workers signed a pledge against building government databases for targeting individuals based on race, religion, or national origin. The effect was immediate, with numerous companies publicly declaring they would not cooperate with such a policy."

A) What policy are they talking about? B) Why isn't political affiliation on that list?</comment>


Company in Oz replaces lightbulbs with CFLs for free - makes money selling carbon credit - <AUTHOR> http://www.lowenergy.com.au/eshd_index.html

<comment><USER2> These guys must be making a mint. They caught me on my way out, scheduled a time to come back, then when I cancelled at the last minute, came again. All they got where 3 bulbs, but they still seemed pretty pleased. More persistent then door to door mobile phone guys.

I guess this is like a super simple case study in carbon trading, pitfalls & all. How many credits should these guys be getting?

In my case, I probably would have replaced those bulbs anyway. In other cases, the incentive can be weirder. For one thing, There's a double jeopardy going on here. 1. Individual feel-goodness of the guy who traded in his bulbs 2. Individual feel-goodness via the carbon market.

Both are getting credit here. I feel like I'm lowering my emissions. But since those credits have been sold, someone else is emitting them in my place. They do the equivalent of taking my 100W bulb & plugging it into their wall with the fuzzy feeling that even thought they are emitting carbon, it is being offset. We are both claiming credit.

That's before the perverse incentives kick in. Why should I pay $8 X 10 to bulb my house with low watt bulbs when I can pay $0.50 X 10 to do so with cheap bulbs & call in these guys?

<comment><AUTHOR> _But since those credits have been sold, someone else is emitting them in my place._

I know what you mean - but they will be paying to emit them, which will set up an economic basis in the long term.

<comment><USER2> Sure, it may eventually. If they _need_ to buy them to do whatever it is they want to do & I sell because I want the money. But at the moment this is just a way of cashing in public sentiment towards climate change: at a bad rate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why at a bad rate?

Companies are compelled to do this in Australia (amongst others) due to our Kyoto targets, etc.

<comment><USER2> _Why at a bad rate?_

I feel like I am saving X watt hours & the purchaser does too. So they (the company) are trading in 2X watt hours "emotional credits" (the utility of this market) for 1x watt hour savings.

Of course, that's an exaggeration. I lost my drive & ability to save those emissions by replacing my bulbs, but it's not 100% certain that I would have done so anyway.

 _Companies are compelled to do this in Australia (amongst others) due to our Kyoto targets, etc._

Are they? I don't think they are directly. The Government is probably subsidising this & other efforts but there is no compulsion to purchase carbon credits. They Get bought by bus companies, airlines, etc. They are basically also riding on public sentiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea, but given the Commonwealth Government will pass legislation to ban incandescent light bulbs in 2009/10, this product has probably has a fairly limited life. My local supermarket has already stopped stocking them for the most part.

<comment><USER4> With LED bulbs making steady gains, CFLs also definitely have a limited life. Maybe these guys will be back in a few years picking up your CFLs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is brilliant. One of the best ecologic business ideas I've seen in a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I was really impressed when I heard about it.

Makes you wonder if there are carbon credits in other areas (e.g. Computers, Data centres? Who knows).

Water is also a big issue in Australia. With the right legislation in place around water you might be able to do the same with water-saving measures.

<comment><USER2> Water is _way_ easier. Could turn water into a working market in 6 months, given the political support. Water is something that is much easier to control. In fact, it's already controlled. All you need to do is limit supply (via mostly government "owned" resources) to whatever you deem to be a reasonable level, & charge for consumption. The smaller players (people with dams on their land) will follow.

You could even have the government manipulate prices by literally 'flooding' the market when necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill Carbon credits are a scam.

<comment><USER6> Unquestionably. What they ultimately do is reward the unproductive for their great virtue of being unproductive.

If the purpose was simply to reduce the amount of CO2 produced, then governments would agree to a common tax: x number of dollars per metric ton of CO2, period. Instead of that, the money transfer occurs between different entities. This rewards countries that aren't capable of significant CO2 creation, CO2 creation being a signal of a first-world, productive country.

<comment><USER7> If they agreed to a single common tax for carbon creation it would still end up as a transfer from high carbon producing countries to lesser ones. They wouldn't just burn the money collected or something, it would be redistributed. So the developed world would end up shouldering most of the cost. In my view that is only fair and natural. If the US had agreed to Koyoto we would probably be close to negotiating that very situation about now.

<comment><USER6> _it would be redistributed_

I certainly don't suggest that it would be a _global_ tax. Rather, a globally consistent tax. All money would stay within the given countries.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


For the media biz, iPad 2010 = CDROM 1994 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wordyard.com/2010/03/26/for-the-media-biz-ipad-2010-cdrom-1994/ <comment><AUTHOR> Scott Rosenberg is absolutely right - the failure of the CD ROM was that it forced the user to consume the content in the way that the publisher was prepared to present it - most CD ROMS failed to allow the user to freely search and re-purpose the content. They ended up being more restricted than the print media they were supposed to replace wile (generally) failing to add enough value in enhanced media (video etc) to make up for this.

Existing attempts by magazine publishers to persuade consumers to accept electronic substitutes for print media have also failed - I for one don't want to turn pages on my computer - and I am not happy to accept the segmentation of content - the dreaded "turn to page n to continue reading" makes no sense to the user in this context.

I suppose the traditional (failing?) media will make exactly those mistakes with any new platform that offers them the illusion of control.

Are we really going to put up with paying for content at rates close to print media when we know that distribution costs are near zero? OK - if we are prepared to pay, are we also prepared to put up with advertising? I think it is one or the other but perhaps others have different views.</comment>


Code Monster from Crunchzilla - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchzilla.com/code-monster <comment><USER2> I assume this is still in beta? It's an interesting approach for sure, teach by doing.</comment>


Ask HN: How to prove that my app does not upload personal data to servers? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to build a mobile app that's gonna handle a lot of private information. I am trying to address my superior protection of user's privacy on landing page. What's the best way to prove/show it? <comment><USER2> Make it not online. Make it completely usable offline without ANY form of data being sent to you or any registration.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell them to try using in airplane mode</comment>


Ask HN: PhantomJS or Protractor? - <AUTHOR> I'm building a framework that can be used to automate financial tasks like transferring money, paying bills, recurring donation, and alerting of irregularities. Think Mint or Check except it runs on your own machine and where a community of devs can add integrations with sites that don't provide API's.
Anyways, for debugging convenience I'm using Protractor but ultimately I don't know how feasible Protractor will be when it comes time to dockerize the server stack on a minimal linux distro.
The PhontomJS binary is going to be easier to manage in the long run, but while I'm working out the kinks I want the comfort of a headed browser.
What  should I do? <comment><USER2> I _just_ discovered that PhantomJS has a built-in web server that serves generic WebKit-based dev tools (basically identical to Chrome's)[0].

It's obviously not helpful in terms of seeing the layout of the site, but it's a helluva lot better than writing Phantom scripts, running it, seeing it's failed for some non-obvious reason, modifying it, running it again, having it fail, etc. If anyone has any other suggestions for avoiding pure trial/error workflows with Phantom, I'd love to hear it.

[0] [http://phantomjs.org/troubleshooting.html#remote- debugging](http://phantomjs.org/troubleshooting.html#remote-debugging)</comment>


Ask HN: Would an SAT style score for LeetCode proficiency help with hiring? - <AUTHOR> Just a hypothetical here:
What if there were a company that ran standardized in-person tests where candidates answer a whole bunch of LeetCode style questions then receive a score, similar to SATs.
Then when hiring engineers you can save a lot of time by just looking at their score rather than running them through a LeetCode style technical interview.
The tests would be run every couple months and use fresh questions so no one can just memorize them.
Thoughts? Would this help hiring developers and make the process more efficient? <comment><USER2> While I love the idea I think it'll be very hard to pull off for these reasons:

\- psuedo code or you'd need to implement a lot of languages

\- There are so many bloody patterns

\- The time it would take to fully take an SAT like test without narrowing scope to an particular issue set (for example for an specific role) would be immense, or there would be a lot of hurdle deciding what is in which scope.</comment>


Internet Currencies for Virtual Communities - <AUTHOR> http://transaction.net/money/internet/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was written back in 1997 and is a timely read even today.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, in a complete tangent to the article, currencies are whatever you make them to be. Most online communities have "currencies" in that there is a specific numeric marker of value attached to each user - HN has "karma".

Of course, the currency has no spendable value (since everyone has the right of issue in HN - although not to themselves). Instead, it is used only for the indicator of the wealth-creators (since they accrue high karma). This of course relies on altruistic awarding - and the lack of quid-pro-quos that break that system.

The old Java forums used to have "Duke Dollars" which you could offer along with your question on the forum, and award the dollars to the answerers. While a good system, it broke down due to a) Inflation - each new user was given 10 dollars. b) Lack of value to the accruers - most of the "value" was created by a core group who would answer everyone's questions, so they would get all these Duke Dollars - so it ended up for them as a marker of wealth, and they seldom spent it. Of course, this mirrors real life currency where a few people have most of the money (with or without reason, depending on your point of view) and have no realistic method of spending it all except as an indicator of their bling.

It is hard to introduce methods of spending karma points - as they are so cheap to accumulate anyway - the spending thus can't be a system of real value. The Duke Dollars could have been (as giving a point lost you a point, so it wasn't created but merely transferred), but then you'd have to stop giving them out for free to new users. (User creation is extremely high, and users vs activity is a power law distribution.)

Paul Graham's idea of spending karma to downmod is brilliant because it allows the wealthy to spend their currency performing what on the surface appears as a complete waste of their money - punishing "bad" members of the community. But this actually makes perfect sense ([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6868/abs/415137a....](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6868/abs/415137a.html)) as altruistic punishment is fantastic to preserve a community setting. What the wealthy get in return is some sort of preservation of their position - since they get to control the discourse - but not completely, and so they cannot be tyrants.

Finally, you don't need the currency to be convertible to real currency - <USER2> fact, if you don't allow it, you force its spending to remain within the community - and can control the channels of dispersion into externally recognizable value. If you do want the value to be externally recognizable, you need to introduce deflationary tendencies as well, and can't give new users free money... So it becomes a lot harder to manage (you're then trying to mimic a central bank, which is hard - ask Trichet or Geithner.)</comment>


Bottling the Magic Behind Google and Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/bottling-the-magic-behind-google-and-facebook/ <comment><USER2> So, as a business model, I get this feeling that it won't fly. Hadoop is a great tool _if_ you need to deal with data at the level that a top 50 site would need to. But at that point, wouldn't you be able to hire someone full- time with a six-figure salary? Consulting tends to work better for firms that can't afford to hire someone as staff - and those firms tend not to be of he size that would need such a scalable data architecture.

Heck, even sites like Flickr (39th most trafficked), Wikipedia (7th), Wordpress.com (36th), and Craigslist (47th) are still able to run off MySQL. It just seems like businesses of that size would want staff and smaller businesses wouldn't have the data to justify it.

<comment><USER3> I can only guess how they're going to do, business model-wise, but big data doesn't necessarily mean big companies or web properties as you suggest. Small startups can do compelling things if they make sense out of big data. It's a tedious and often impossible job now for just about everyone. Companies displaying competence will do quite well for at least the beginning phase of this movement, and have customers both big and small.

My gut says that it will become commonplace to need to handle tera or petabyte-sized data. 640K turned out to be a wee bit shy of our memory needs. Traditional RDBMS's will turn out to be a wee bit shy of our analysis needs.</comment></comment>


Microservices – Not A Free Lunch - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/4/8/microservices-not-a-free-lunch.html

<comment><USER2> "Where a monolithic application might have been deployed to a small application server cluster, you now have tens of separate services to build, test, deploy and run, potentially in polyglot languages and environments."

My experience is that it is vastly harder to keep a single application server running that involved only _two_ teams compared to two teams each with three or four microservices that they own.

"Keeping an application server running can be a full time job, but we now have to ensure that tens or even hundreds of processes stay up, don't run out of disk space, don't deadlock, stay performant. It's a daunting task."

No, see, keeping up a giant monolithic application server running is a full time job.

Author seems to entirely miss the point of microservices. The problems of giant application servers don't multiply when you break it into microservices. They go away.

"Developers with a strong DevOps profile like this are hard to find, so your hiring challenge just became an order of magnitude more difficult if you go down this path."

High Performance Teams are High Performance Teams. If you don't have one, your giant monolithic application is also doomed to failure. You just get to pretend that all the bugs will come out in QA.

</comment><comment><USER3> Aminator + Asgaard + Simian Army (along with other open source offerings from Netflix) can get you a lot of the Lunch for Free.

That said, you need to know how to use them and invest significant time and effort in getting it up and running.

[http://netflix.github.io/#repo](http://netflix.github.io/#repo)</comment>


Using WebThings Gateway notifications as a warning system for your home - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/08/using-webthings-gateway-notifications-as-a-warning-system-for-your-home/ <comment><USER2> This is quite interesting - I haven't looked at this in any detail until now, but I have done a bunch of home automation related stuff using Home Assistant and Node-RED.

Looking at the user guide[0], it looks to be a simiplified Home Assistant type UI with a simplified Node-RED like rules engine. I'm quite impressed and need to dig into this some more.

[0] [https://iot.mozilla.org/docs/gateway-user- guide.html](https://iot.mozilla.org/docs/gateway-user-guide.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's about time I install WebThings on my Pi and give this a try. Really cool demo!</comment>


Scroll makes hundreds of websites ad-free for $5 per month - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21111865/scroll-ad-free-website-subscription-launches <comment><USER2> This looks fantastic. I've wanted something like this for a long time. Even better, it sounds like they're doing it without any "blockchain" flim-flam.

We need to come up with some way to pay for media on the internet that isn't just surveillance ad-tech, and at least on the face of it, this looks like a step in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like it will have a nice way to show you which sites your money is actually going to. Too bad it won't work on platforms like YouTube where I often watch content from said news providers.

</comment><comment><USER4> So, like, people are trying to make bundling websites a thing?</comment>


The Fixable Problem with Serverless - <AUTHOR> https://www.iopipe.com/2016/06/the-fixable-problem-with-serverless/ <comment><USER2> Great article, and good introduction to IOpipe. I think ultimately it will be nice to be able to run all of these FaaS (function as a service) platforms on Docker, to avoid cloud lock-in. I just can't imagine the industry supporting multiple proprietary platforms in the long term.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote effe with I believe is pretty close to what Iopipe want to do.

You basically write your function in golang and it get compiled to a single binary that you can run everywhere.

Everything is ready but the deploying, so you will need to deploy your own, but it already can create a docker container so...

Everything is on github: [https://github.com/siscia/effe](https://github.com/siscia/effe)

<comment><USER4> It's open source. I'm open to seeing how we might be able to integrate or work with Effe in our Go SDK, or if necessary, learn from your effort. Take a look at [https://github.com/iopipe/iopipe-golang](https://github.com/iopipe/iopipe- golang), I'd love a pull-request.

We're not an alternative to AWS Lambda or, "Lambda on your own infrastructure". Instead, we desire to make it easier to build apps that run anywhere, which includes both AWS Lambda and Docker. I suppose there's some overlap, but the goals and technical challenges are a bit different. IOpipe is also a library that simplifies integration with services that provide state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It's not just deployment, but provides facilities for sharing code and > extracting telemetry from your running apps. We believe that operations > should be coupled with development, that developer tools should also be > operational tools. For this reason, we're keen to ensure that telemetry — > metrics, logging, analytics, distributed tracing — is built-in from the > beginning.

I think this is the most important problem IOPipe is trying to solve. Portability between platforms is a good goal but achievable with some discipline about avoiding the proprietary bits of the platform. Making "serverless" software operable to the same (or better) degree than traditional software deployment is the key.

</comment><comment><USER6> IaaS, SaaS, FaaS, Paas, CaaS, geeeeez. We need "Acronym as a Service" already.

<comment><USER7> AaaS

<comment><USER8> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> After tinkering around with Lambda myself building MMOG with it, while it does exactly what it says, the pieces seem too disparate and everything felt to "cobbleware" for me to do anything user-facing with it. Indeed, it seems an ideal system to do offline and backoffice. The stack I ended up with was _API- gateway <-> Lmabda <-> Dynamo <-> Dynamo Streams <-> SQS <-> Browser <-> S3_ Good luck troubleshooting that. I found the concept of "serverless" more appropriate using Google App Engine.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting! How is this different than OpenWhisk?

<comment><USER4> OpenWhisk runs as a long-lived service which runs your code in Docker containers. In a way, it's a hammer.

IOpipe can deploy code anywhere, which includes both Docker and OpenWhisk. It's the nail. You could deploy an app with IOpipe to OpenWhisk then run a map-reduce job on the same OpenWhisk cluster, on Docker Swarm, AWS Lambda, or... anywhere

It would be easy to stand up a service based on IOpipe that works like OpenWhisk, but that's just one use-case.</comment></comment>


Proposal for Authenticating Web Callbacks - <AUTHOR> http://lethain.com/entry/2009/sep/20/proposal-for-authenticating-web-callbacks/ <comment><USER2> Anything Web Foo Authentication needs to be read widely and would benefit from the community feedback. Please up vote the story.</comment>


FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD <comment><USER2> I started using FreeCAD recently after getting a 3D printer, because I wanted something open source and runs on Linux which I could learn, and would become my CAD tool.

I have no CAD experience outside of what I learned in university over a decade ago, so it has been a challenge.

I have generally found it quite hard to achieve some simple designs, it's not always easy to understand what a tool does from its name, and it's not always easy to find a video online to help. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but can't find the tool for it because you have no idea what it's called in CAD land.

The bugs which cause parts to just disappear when you run certain operations are an issue, and there is little help to explain the cause, I've gotten a few designs into the broken state others have mentioned where you need to undo a bunch of work to recover, which is unfortunate.

On the other hand, I found creating drill holes, countersunk or counterbored incredibly easy and powerful.

I hope to find an up to date video series I can follow to learn more as I'm sure it'll become a lot easier to use once I understand the tools better.

<comment><USER3> As I'm working with CAD for a long time, I would recommend to install next three FLOSS apps (keep them all side-by-side on your PC):

1\. _FreeCAD_ — main 3D CAD (CAx);

2\. _QCAD_ — main 2D CAD (CADD);

3\. _SolveSpace_ — helper 2D/3D parametric CAD & CAE for daily engineering, sketching & relax.[0,1,2,3]

[0] [https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace](https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace)

[1] [https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily- Engineering](https://github.com/Symbian9/SolveSpace-Daily-Engineering)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL53gPqUkbj3JndwS2T410KTbBymaimbiD)

[3] [https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232](https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1181705677984735232)

<comment><USER4> > As I'm working with CAD for a long time, I would recommend to install next > three FLOSS apps (keep them all side-by-side on your PC):

Do any of these easily let you build a map from only the distances between two landmarks? I've been wanting to make an accurate map of the trees in my yard. That should be pretty easy to turn into a map using basic trig, but I don't want to do it by hand.

<comment><USER3> > _Do any of these easily let you build a map from only the distances between > two landmarks? I 've been wanting to make an accurate map of the trees in my > yard._

Use _QGIS_ [0] or _OpenOrienteering Mapper_ [1] (simpler than QGIS) app for any GIS/cartography/mapping tasks.

JFTR, GIS apps are "CAD for cartography"; FreeCAD/QCAD/SolveSpace are "CAD for civil engineering", but could be used for some GIS tasks.

Anyway, _OpenOrienteering Mapper_ & _QGIS_ are CAD apps You are looking for!

[0] [https://qgis.org](https://qgis.org)

[1] [https://www.openorienteering.org/apps/mapper/](https://www.openorienteering.org/apps/mapper/)

<comment><USER5> They're not really the same thing. I haven't found GIS apps to have the _parametric_ abilities that would allow the GP to perform the sort of constraint-based modelling they desire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like FreeCAD but it has one major issue (compared to something like OnShape which I use now), it doesn't have a smart naming topology.

For example, you create a cube, you make a hole in it (not fully through), and then you chamfer one side of the original cube. If you go back in the parametric history and change the depth of the hole for it to go through the whole cube it will change the name of the faces/edges in the history and the chamfer will then be applied to another face.

This is a very hard problem to solve, and that's where some commercial packages shines.

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

I wish onshape was open source, but I guess it will never happen because it uses siemens parasolid under the hood (at least I think it does). I don't know if FreeCAD can come close to something like onshape with the current gerometry kernel opencascade.

<comment><USER7> Huh. Let me try with a programming analogue: so you have that statement earlier in the program where a bunch of named variables are introduced (with values assigned to them). You change this statement, so it now computes differently named variables. Of course, all the later statements keep using the names they're using, and things become weird. Is this roughly correct?

If so, then, uh, that's the problem of renaming the bound variables, it's an annoying one, but it has been around since the inception of λ-calculus and has several well-known solutions.

<comment><USER8> You need to know which autogenerated names from the last generation correspond to which autogenerated names in the current generation.

The problem with CAD is - you don't know.

Previously you had:

        [OK] create sketch_1 (a rectangle)
          [OK] pad the sketch_1 into a cuboid_1 (face_1, face_2, ..., face_6)
            [OK] create sketch_2 (a round circle) in the middle of face_2 (which is on the right side of the cuboid)
              [OK] pocket the sketch_2 creating a round hole in the cuboid_1

Then you change the sketch_1 making it a pentagon instead of a rectangle. The tree becomes:

        [OK] create sketch_1b (a pentagon)
          [OK] pad the sketch_1b into a cuboid_1b (face_1b, face_2b, ..., face_7b)
            [X] create sketch_2b (a round circle) in the middle of face_?
               [X] pocket the sketch_2b creating a round hole in the cuboid_1b but where exactly ?

There's no face_2 anymore - new side faces of the cuboid_1b are each in different places and at different angles than side faces of the old cuboid_1. You can decide basing on some heuristics, but that heuristics sucks in FreeCad and is almost never right.

I only every used Free Cad so I don't know how other CAD solves this problem, I can see using a better heuristic (like the least change of the plane and distance of the sketch ? ) or forcing the user to specify which edge corresponds to which when editing a sketch that isn't the final one in the dependency chain.

You could also force the user to mark and name objects in the sketch on which other sketches can depend - and when you edit the sketch you'd have to set them up correctly after the edit.

<comment><USER9> So, could you potentially store more metadata than just the face name, like it's normal for example, or the location and approximate surface area, and try to use that to reduce the problem space for an educated guess?

<comment><USER10> Or use a dependency graph where the operation are, umm, dependent on the specific geometric component parent.

When something gets changed just go and find the place where the graph is bonkers and rebind the sub-tree to the correct parent object.

Could even have a fancy auto-generated UI à la Blender's node editor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really want to like FreeCAD but it's very very easy to screw up things irreparably in the parts designer. For example if you want to cut several faces and then realise you have made a mistake on one of the earlier sketches or need to adjust something, the whole model can fall apart. It just disappears. You have to unpick everything you did back to the point you did the original sketch and do it again.

This is a shame because the constraint modelling is actually better than F360.

<comment><USER12> "disappears": there's a kind of weird bug that may be a feature (not sure) where when you undo something, objects don't display anymore.

But they're still there. Just select them in the model window and press spacebar and voilà, they're back.

In fact the whole tree of your operations is preserved at all times, and you can do modifications at the very beginning of the chain without redoing everything.

<comment><USER13> As a total amateur I've run into states where I've been "spacebaring" everything I can but it still wont work. I believe you when you say it's possible to fix it, but for people like me that use FreeCAD to do some 3D models to print once a while it's near impossible to change anything and end up in a working state.

If I print a simple electronics case and realize I have to move a hole 1mm in some direction I usually have to rebuild the entire box from the start. When talking to friends they all have the same problem. I want to love FreeCAD, but I usually end up hating it.

<comment><USER14> In the part design workbench you can create a sketch, you draw a rectangle and you can extrude your box to its precise dimensions with a precise wall thickness.

Then you can create a sketch with your features on the surfaces of the part, the sketch features such as holes(circles) connector cut outs can be placed based on a dimensional constraint. Extrude and cut your features.

Now you have a 3D box with your holes where you placed them; now need to move a hole change the size of the hole, its as simple as editing the dimension the hole is defined in the sketch, all the other features will update as needed, and you can layer the dependencies forming a feature tree dependency graph.

Should take about 10 min to create a pretty complex case enclosure.

<comment><USER13> I agree, it only takes 10 min to make a pretty complex box. But to make it nice you usually need fillets, and then you're better off making the design again then to try to move the hole.

Since it goes fast to make a new box it's not a huge issue. Just incredibly annoying.

<comment><USER15> Fillets should always be the last operations. That means when one wants to add more features like holes/pads etc, one should add those to the object _before_ the fillets. Sometimes the fillet operation fails in odd ways though, usually when the number of edges changes. Then one should re-do that last operation, either by removing the Fillets and adding again. Or in 0.18 edit the Edges that the Fillet operation is using in the Property window.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> CAD software is so expensive.

Rhino is $995. Fusion 360 is $297/year. Solid Works is $3995 with an annual maintenance fee of $1295.

Let's compare them to photo editing software and the likes.

Adobe cloud subscription is US$52.99/mo (all apps -> Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc). If you only need Photoshop, the price is US$20.99/mo. Affinity Photo is $49.99.

Nah, we have good opensource photo editing softwares like Gimp and Krita, a good opensource vector editing software like Inkscape.

References:

[https://www.rhino3d.com/sales](https://www.rhino3d.com/sales)

[https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing](https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing)

[https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price- guide/](https://www.engineeringclicks.com/solidworks-price-guide/)

[https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html#](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html#)

[https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/#buy](https://affinity.serif.com/en- gb/photo/#buy)

<comment><USER17> Sure, because CAD software is _dramatically_ more difficult to make than photo editing software or even video editing software, _and_ it is a more niche product _and_ it is mainly bought by large companies that can afford it.

Of course it's going to be more expensive. It does suck though. I wish Solidworks would do an affordable hobby license.

<comment><USER18> They do. For members of experimental Aircraft Association, www.eaa.org. And now that I know such a thing simply exists I'm completely fascinated with it!

<comment><USER17> Yeah I just found that. Unfortunately you cannot export to any non-native formats with the student edition you can get from there, so not particularly useful if you want to 3D print or laser cut anything.

<comment><USER18> Thank you. I've wanted to start using Solidworks for a long time. Just could never justify the cost. If you can't export other formats that's a big negative.

I guess I'll be learning Blender!

<comment><USER17> Blender is a completely different thing. You can't do mechanical CAD in Blender. Don't try.

Honestly given Autodesk's recent crippling of the free version of Fusion 360 I think the best option is really just to pirate Solidworks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I tried to use FreeCAD, I'm new to CAD, and I found it very frustrating, I was able do to some complex parts but it took me time, it crashed multiples times and the drawing was not as parametric as I expected it to be (again I'm not an export).

Now I'm using Solvespace, and I'm very pleased, almost never crashed, sleek interface, there is a keyboard shortcut for every function, I can easily go back to a previous sketch to update quotes, it has a short and helpful documentation, the more you use it the faster you can do things (specially when you know keyboard shortcuts). It has some drawbacks, it lacks some nice functionalities you can have with FreeCAD plugins like threads, easy chamfer and fillet. Also sometimes while drawing a sketch it goes in 3D constrains mode and I can't extrude, very frustrating.

<comment><USER20> This mirrors my experience, FreeCAD is practically new user hostile and horrifically buggy. I'm very inexperienced and had really only used Autodesk Inventor and Fusion360 previously, but FreeCAD was like moving from modern Photoshop to an early version of Gimp

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Freecad is, imho, a terrific project filling a huge void: there are very few free/open source solutions that are a substitute for the extremely expensive commercial CAD solutions.

Freecad lags compared to commercial, but gets you a long way if you're prepared to invest a little effort, and tolerate a few bugs.

I'm not affiliated with freecad in any way, but just want to remark if there are any students around (or anyone with a little time availabe) reading this with interest in both engineering and software development, contributing to freecad could be a very rewarding experience, and probably good basis for a project or thesis.

<comment><USER22> Even more important than FreeCAD itself is the geometric modeling kernel. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_modeling_kernel))

FreeCAD like some other CAD software uses Open CASCADE. As far as I can see, this kernel is the best available but still a bit rough and unstable in many areas. (Operations like chamfering often lead to a segfault when it doesn't like your geometry.) The main problem seems to be a lack of manpower since development of such a software is a massive effort and takes decades of work of highly skilled mathematicians/engineers/programmers. So far, FreeCAD has made a lot of functionality easily accessible but often it is also held back by bugs in the modeling kernel that can't be fixed any time soon.

If we could boost the development of high quality geometric modeling kernels, we could provide an essential building block to many software projects that currently are just not happening because there is no feasible way to get them started.

<comment><USER23> > The main problem seems to be a lack of manpower since development of such a > software is a massive effort and takes decades of work of highly skilled > mathematicians/engineers/programmers

Point of reference. I interviewed with a large CAD software company some time ago. As I was being shown around, the interviewer pointed to an area with maybe 8 developers, and said that was the team that works only on fillets and blends.

One of the key differentiators of high end CAD is how the packages handle edge cases (pun intended) when you have massively complex topologies. It's relatively easy to handle most cases, but there is a long tail of really tricky situations, and that tends to be where the high end tools shine. It's going to be really tough to compete with that given the investment required.

<comment><USER22> I think this is why we need an actively developed open source implementation that is backed up by multiple universities in multiple countries. It needs to be so useful and functional that it gains traction in commercial applications a like Blender does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Coming from Sketchup and being a Software Engineer, parametric design in FreeCAD is a game changer for me.

For example being able to define a cabinet side length as the outdoor dimension minus twice the side panel thickness allows you to decide wood thicknesses after finishing the design without redoing everything.

However, FreeCAD seems to be highly unstable on macOS and Retina screens are not supported very well.

<comment><USER25> You're correct that parametric is cool & FreeCAD adds that flexibility.

One note about Sketchup is it encourages choosing standard sized items from the parts library. Choosing from the library (for example, choosing a standard 2x4 board or a standard door) means you'll find real-world equivalents at Home Depot & avoid a lot of cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My favorite part of FreeCAD is that it is scriptable. It's very satisfying to define shapes via some math (or I/O) in python, then turn them into a solid in FreeCAD, then export for 3D printing.

As an engineering tool, though, it still feels rudimentary (and sometimes buggy) compared to e.g. Solidworks. Keep going, guys!

<comment><USER27> I need a simple, low brain space but open source solution for 3D printing. Would you recommend FreeCAD?

I am a software dev for a living so what I mean by low brain space is I don't really want to be messing about with config files, setup and complicated UIs. I already have far too much brain space dedicated to Blender, but I just can't seem to get it to work well for precise measurements and CAD style work.

<comment><USER28> How about SketchUp?

<comment><USER29> They're slowly crippling it. Make 2017 was (I believe) the last semi full featured gratis desktop version. They've been pushing the web version pretty hard for a while now.

Also (opinion) it kind of sucks. At least the gratis version doesn't support any sort of parametric modeling. I've been using it because it's gratis, but I've been looking to switch for a while. Now that F360 is off the table, I suppose the decision space has gotten smaller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FreeCAD is awesome, and here is why:

1) Open CASCDE geometry kernel, this is the heart of the cad system, for example Solidworks uses the Parasolid geometry kernel; which is owned by Siemens.

2\. A powerful data structure; the feature tree that FreeCAD has is object oriented, and capable of adapting to complex tasks.

3\. GUI written in QT, with a Python interface to instantiate the GUI. This allows you to load FreeCAD while in Blender and vice versa load Blender from within FreeCAD; this facilitate the sharing of geometry data, meshes, the OpenGL geometry pipeline, etc.

4\. Support for Jupyter notebooks, this is important when you are doing analysis or something complicated and you wish to share and publish that data. Using SciPy , NumPy, and Octave its like running Matlab + CAD, its so powerful that you can drive simulations this way directly effecting the FreeCAD GUI.

5\. BREP Internal data structure, in fact when you save a .fcad file extension, that is essentially a BREP file format, which is essentially a STEP file(a type of BREP). This is essentially what the professional CAD packages do, they are BREP with custom data structures.

6\. BREP + STEP allows for extremely precise importing of model geometry. This allows you to download parts from McMaster, Berg, Pic Design, SDP, etc and use them in your design and generate a BOM from the precise part bing inserted.

7\. Support for different mesh tessellation methods, this is important since working with manifold topology that is held internally by Open CASCADE or STEP can be non trivial mathematically to interpret.

8\. Runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows natively.

9\. Open source, so you are in control of your own destiny.

While FreeCAD has some rough spots around its edges currently, where it will he in the future if we invest our collective brainpower and knowhow into will far surpass any offering from Autodesk, Solidworks, as the rate of evolution of OpenSource compared to closed for profit systems is much more limited. We can as a community experiment with edgy things and push into new frontiers with our creativity and imagination and disrupt an entire paradigm the CAD industry uses today.

Blender already has advanced support of GPU real time ray tracing supported on the most recent GPU offerings, and is able to harness massively parallel compute for rendering and ray tracing. We can harness those same capabilities for an open source CAD platform, and use the GPU compute for the FEA capabilities.

<comment><USER30> I 100% agree with this. However, FreeCAD is also NOT awesome because it lacks the 'timeline' approach that Fusion 360 uses and so you end up with a million random intermediate objects cluttering up your project.

FreeCAD has all the parts to be awesome, it just needs to also work on the user interface, and especially the novice experience.

This is a universal feature of open source, where unless an individual contributor has an individual bee in their bonnet about beginner UI, any given user interface is just slightly less bad than is unusable and would force someone to fix it. Any 'rough edges for beginners' are ignored because by the time anyone cares enough to fix the rough edge, they're already an expert and have found the workaround.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> FreeCAD is truly impressive and wonderful software, but yeh compared to commercial solutions it's lacking the same degree of polish (and that's not a criticsm, considering the price-points!).

Both Dad and I use it at home for our 3D printing modelling, however at work I get to use SolidWorks and previously have used NX. Compared to them, I think the most common pinch point for me is how segmented sketches vs extrusions are. In Solidworks, you literally click a surface (plane, surface face of parametric solid, etc.) and just draw. Then you grab it and pull it out. It automagically does all the line constraints, etc. and there's not quite the same degree of separation as FreeCAD requires, where I have to make a dedicated sketch in one area, then switch to the other area to do the extrusion of it. Indeed, this sort of UI polish seems to be where most of my issues lie, rather than specific features missing.

I get the suspicion that the people working on FreeCAD are probably the ones who really enjoy writing an elegant parametric modelling program, so they're all about the engine and the UX becomes a little bit of an afterthought. That's not to criticise them, but rather highlight that a commerical entity is able to pay money to get all of those 'less sexy' jobs completed to a high quality. It's a timely reminder to me that there's a requirement for all types in a community project, including people who aren't the flashy wunderkind producing the sexy engineered solutions - you just as much need the person who puts in the hard and thankless work making all the documentation neat, logical and consistent.

Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be paying for a SolidWorks licence at home anytime soon, so I'm really appreciative of everything that the FreeCAD team has done.

edit: To be clear, if you're wanting to learn CAD then FreeCAD is an admirable choice and will teach you well. Indeed, some of the extra steps it requires is probably good from a learning perspective, because it makes you think through the process more completely and logically. In that sense, the handholding and coddling of some of the more sophisticated commercial packages can be detrimental, because you don't really learn how every part goes together specifically as you're developing your model.

I definitely don't mean any of my post to come across as criticism meant to deter anyone from trying FreeCAD. I was more trying to draw out the broader point that all too often, volunteer projects suffer from someone not doing 'the boring job', because using FreeCAD vs. commerical packages reminded me of that insight.

<comment><USER32> Are you using the PartDesign workbench? In my experience for simple things (not 3D sketches) that almost follows the same workflow as Solidworks sketch -> extrude.

<comment><USER31> I should have made it more clear: this may be my inexperience with the software showing. I guess in SW it flows a bit more smoothly, probably due to making some (apparently relatively safe) assumptions. For exmaple, when I click on the surface of an extruded cube to sketch on it, SW will just assume I'm extruding normally to that surface. I haven't (yet) been able to reproduce that.

It occurs to me that I might be really wanting some sort of hybrid Part and Part Design workflow, and that might be my issue.

For example, in PD I go sketch > select plane > sketch a shape > pad it to 3D. Then I want to extrude a 2nd section out of one of those faces, so I'd in SW click sketch, and click the face. However, I seem to only be able to click planes.

I'm sure there's a way to achieve it, however in SW it is trivial - if I click a surface with any of the sketching tools chosen, it (correctly) guesses that I want to sketch on that surface, using that surface as the X-Y plane (and thus extrude using a normal from that surface) and will automagically fill all that in. I guess that's the main thing I'm getting at, which is why I said it wasn't a criticism of FreeCAD per se.

<comment><USER33> I'm new to FreeCAD (and have never used other CAD software), but I think in your case, you can click the face on Part Design view, then click New Sketch. It will auto-select that plane with placement automatically set to the selected plane. The UI/UX wasn't very intuitive, though, as it won't work if you click New Sketch first, then select a plane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I love the idea of FreeCAD and how much value it provides if you don't need 'advanced' stuff. That being said, it often leaves me with impression that UI, UX could and should be so much better in order to become a go to solution for hobbyist and licensing cost mindful people. p.s-Anyone here into StepNC format?

<comment><USER35> What is your interest in StepNC ?

<comment><USER34> I kind of stumbled on it since I work with CAM (recently more so). I was surprised that I haven't heard of it before since from what I've seen the framework is mature and the API's seem quite complete (?). The official channels of ISO standard and especially company steptools.com provide a lot of info on the framework, but what I'm missing is some more success stories on implementation in companies (besides the ones that were part of development). Do you work with it?

<comment><USER35> The founders of steptools.com are the project leader and editor of StepNC. Another source of information is the AP238 website [1].

I work on the underlying libraries and tools.

[1] [https://www.ap238.org/](https://www.ap238.org/)

<comment><USER34> Yes, forgot about that one (!) ups Thanks for reply, great to get an answer from someone so close to it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If anyone is interested in a few tutorials to get started using FreeCAD, we have a few on the Raspberry Pi Projects site [https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=...](https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?software%5B%5D=freecad)

<comment><USER37> Thanks for posting this, it looks interesting. However, I don't seem to be able to get FreeCAD to even do things like pan in the sketch view on a Mac using the trackpad (googling doesn't find any answers either).

<comment><USER36> Could you raise an issue on github.com/raspberrypilearning The repo name will be the project's URL slug. The weekend has started now, and I know I'll forget this by Monday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Frecad has come a LONG way since I started using it in 2016, and I encourage those who had a hard time with it a few years back to give it another try. Also - make sure you are getting a recent version, some distros have a tendency to ship a horendously outdated version. The current stable version is 18.4, there should be 19.0 release soon with a ton of improvements, but it is not quite there yet.

<comment><USER39> Is it still a nightmare to compile? It's not in the Gentoo tree, because aparently, getting FreeCAD to compile cleanly, ~~requires human sacrifice to The Ancient Ones~~ is quite difficult.

I was forced to use Solidworks last year, as part of a training course, and I didn't like it at all. I have some Autocad and 3dsmax experience from admittedly long ago, but the way things are done in Solid felt weird and alien to me. Not to mention I had to use a Windows machine for it, and after removing it, it had still left its DRM tentacles deep in the system. Had to pave the machine to make sure it was all gone.

<comment><USER38> I have never tried to build it, but I imagine it is still a nightmare to compile. Where I am in life these days I leave that to the package maintainers.

Solidworks is terrible and chock full of antipatterns. I haven't used autodesk in a good long while--my last memory with it was pretty bad. I was on a team that won a design contest from Autodesk--the prize for which was a laptop pre- loaded with the autodesk suite. The kicker was their software crashed regularly on that machine even under light use...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I hate what Autodesk did with Fusion, but the problems i've ran into while searching for an alternative are:

1) Most packages don't have any included standards libraries; this makes modeling a standardized drilled borehole a much more involved affair. It makes hardware provisioning a more involved affair. Much nicer to have included libraries for things like, for example, a #6-32 UNC bolt. No need to go find a bolt and bust out the calipers to verify things like shoulder width and so-on, it's just there. The F360 and Solidworks parts libraries are both great. Nearly non-existent on the free/cheaper alternatives.

2) Most CAD/CAM software I have ran into deals with high poly models terribly. Sure, the solution is to simplify the models, but it's just not a feasible goal when dealing with very complex assemblies. Fusion/Solidworks deal with high polygon stuff as gracefully as possible. Onshape becomes nearly unusable. Freecad gets unstable. I can't comment on complexity with openscad, but it dealt with modeled parametric bolts and nuts just fine in my case; a case which lags most clients due to the high poly count on bolt threads.

3) THREADED HOLES. F360 and Solidworks can deal with standardized threads with ease. Onshape requires a buggy community-written add-on where most standards must be defined rather than found in a look-up table. OpenSCAD has lots of do- able thread solutions. Freecad sucks at threads, as far as i've learned thus far.

So, still, the search continues.

If I had all the resources in the world i'd buy a Solidworks license. I just like it the best, the simulation packages are nice, the libraries are nice, the UX is nice -- it just feels like quality. Too bad I can't afford it.

They were nice enough to let me have a trial license for awhile, but after expiration I was driven to F360 -- which due to recent decisions they've made I totally regret.

I wish SW had a free/low cost option, but I recognize that if they did it'd probably compromise the product to the point where i'd no longer be interested, as much as I hope otherwise.

<comment><USER41> What did Autodesk do with Fusion ?

<comment><USER42> >> What did Autodesk do with Fusion ?

They are reducing the features available in the free version. This is actually a good thing, as it is forcing users to either go commercial or get behind the actual Free Software alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I want to likes FreeCAD, but it's just not there for reasons mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

I've logged probably thousands of hours in each Solidworks, Pro|engineer (now creo) and onshape (current favorite), so I'm familiar with the productivity costs of switching to a new program.

The inefficiencies of FreeCAD is way beyond any switching cost, probably 5x less efficient to design and iterate.

</comment><comment><USER44> FreeCAD saved me a lot of headaches when I bought a flat last year. My wife wasn't happy with me spending a lot of time drawing stuff by the entresol ended up exactly as we expected and since I modeled and positioned every piece of furniture in FreeCAD, only a single power outlet is in a wrong position (and that's because we got a different locker than we origianly intended).

The bugs are there but you learn to work around them easily. And it's not like commercial software is bug free as probably anyone dealing with video editing can attest. ;)

</comment><comment><USER45> Also: [https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases](https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3/releases)

</comment><comment><USER46> If interested in free parametric 3D CAD, checkout SolveSpace: [http://solvespace.com/index.pl](http://solvespace.com/index.pl)

It's very functional (as in functional programming) in its approach. Weighs in at only a few megs. It's my go to tool for sketching things out when woodworking.

</comment><comment><USER47> I do a lot of woodworking, from timber framing to small furniture and I have yet to find a convenient software to design projects.

Woodworking may not require the same set of features, the same level of precision ... For me, doing one shot projects, it is all about "test fitting" the design, the joints, the cut list, etc.

I find 3D modeling and CAD tools usually complex, time consuming, expensive with stupid plans and they also take the life breath out of creative projects. Were I a professional, I may rationalize the time spent and their value if I had to repeat the same jobs.

I get most of what I need from paper / iPad sketching app (I recommend concepts app). I had to learn to draw and sketch, but it feels more related to building than modeling.

Freecad is definitely complex to use (I spend hours learning by designing dovetailed drawers). Openscad was a better fit for me. I could even integrate it in org mode :)

<comment><USER48> I'm also interested in the "quick sketch" approach. Is there a tool for rough things like a shed, a cabinet, welding something out of angle iron or woodworking? It would take me more time to design shelves in Freecad than to weld them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I tried both this and Sketchup for a home modelling project. I ended up paying for Sketchup because it was so much easier to use. I did not need the degree of control you can get with FreeCAD, so it was just wasted time and energy.

</comment><comment><USER50> Does anyone know good learning resources when it comes to FreeCAD? (especially regarding 3d printing)

<comment><USER26> There are a few decent youtube videos, but I agree - it's a very steep learning curve.

<comment><USER12> Is it? My workflow:

1\. design in FreeCAD (I only ever use the "Part" menu -- NOT "Part Design")

2\. export to "STL" format

3\. import to Ultimaker Cura

4\. export to gcode

5\. load into printer and print

If your computer is directly connected to the 3D printer you can skip steps 4 and 5 and print directly from within Cura.

FreeCAD can export to gcode but Cura does a much better job of setting printer options such as infill, etc.

I'm really no expert, I only print small items for prototyping, on a sub-$100 printer, but I don't find it hard. It may be way more difficult if you're trying to print "perfect" pieces for end use though.

<comment><USER51> What's hard is #1 compared to other tools, the rest of the steps you mentioned are the same everywhere. FreeCAD makes #1 hard, but it's a very very important tool to exist. I'm looking forward to the day where I switch to it.

<comment><USER12> FreeCAD can import OpenSCAD.

But you can design in FreeCAD with the same approach / workflow as in OpenSCAD: make elementary shapes, extrude them then join or cut them.

This can be done in the "Part" menu. Just click on the yellow shapes on the left of the toolbar to create them, then go to their properties to rotate/extrude them, and select two or more to join or cut.

This is the same brain process as in OpenSCAD.

<comment><USER51> I'm not talking about OpenSCAD though. Try OnShape/Fusion360/Solidworks, FreeCAD is much less usable and featureful than those.

<comment><USER12> Do you actually use any of those?

Solidworks is the standard, but the price is crazy (from $5k to $10k per user per year).

The online tools I tried I found to be much less usable than FreeCAD. But I only design simple pieces, so my needs are easy to meet. It's possible that for complex parts FreeCAD is too limited.

<comment><USER52> For simple parts for someone willing to use online tools TinkerCad has a much easier learning curve and is far less buggy.

Unless you need parametric design, want a GUI, and won't use closed source, FreeCAD is not a good choice.

<comment><USER12> I don't trust online tools to still be there in the future. They can be taken offline at any time. FreeCAD will still work then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Anyone here ever try ironCAD? I've thought about buying a personal license of a professional CAD package. Solidworks (my most familiar) is too expensive for personal use. OnShape I'd consider if I could sign up month-by-month and go dormant. But I'd like an old-school software package that I could keep indefinitely but knew it could do all my entry-level work.

</comment><comment><USER54> I tried it a while ago, i had 2 problems:

-how do you make assemblies out of parts (sugar on top explosion function) \- derive a technical drawing from the 3D model I could sent to the milling shop

Point 2 is a dealbraker.

I couldnt do it. Maybe it is me. Maybe I didnt find the right documentation, maybe I didnt understand what I am looking for.

Using TurboCad now, not saying I am happy (docs are lacking, but it seems you can buy training)

<comment><USER32> Regarding point 1, there's a bunch of 3rd party assembly plugins (A2+, A3, A4...), but no standardised assembly workbench yet. Hopefully one of the 3rd party ones will be accepted as good enough to make the standard one soon. It's not a great situation for the casual user who just wants to glue parts together.

There is a project to build one true assembly workbench - but these things take time. [https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly_project](https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Assembly_project)

Regarding point 2, there's a workbench called the TechDraw workbench which allows you to make technical drawings. In my experience it mostly works, with a few quirks and annoying bugs but nothing deal breaking.

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

<comment><USER54> Just to point this out: A3, A4 are plugins and not papr sizes?

<comment><USER55> They're short for "Assembly3", "Assembly4".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I use FreeCAD and Solvespace mainly for personal use, but I use Fusion, Inventor, Solidworks, and Rhino at work with Inventor and Rhino being my two main CAD programs. We also have Revit and I had been using IDEAS back in 1997.

I love FreeCAD for the Python API, and the now-integrated FEM workbench. I've done some fun CFD work with this.

I like Fusion, but I do fear a web-based-only CAD. For this reason, I am looking at Alibre Atom for $199 for personal use. It seems really polished, easy to use, and it has been around for a while in different incantations.

Solvespace is great for four-bar linkages and other geometrical work, but there is no way I could spend the time doing a three-hundred part assembly when I could do it in Fusion or Inventor in much less time, and it could be shared or worked on by others more readily. Solvespace is amazing for what it is, and I will continue to use and follow it.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think that it is good overall to support this project. CAD software that runs on most Operating Systems unlike AutoCAD.

But, Training Users to use FreeCAD also matters. Also,it would be nice if FreeCAD can read/write AutoCAD files.

</comment><comment><USER58> No Windows binary for 0.19_pre provided despite the description says so?

[https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre)

Bug trakcer [1] says you can only report bugs for 0.19 version, so using an older version isn't an option.

[1] [https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php](https://tracker.freecadweb.org/my_view_page.php)

<comment><USER59> The download is here: [https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre) look for FreeCAD_0.19.22411-Win-Conda_vc14.x-x86_64.7z

<comment><USER58> Thanks, they added it after I asked in the forum. It wasn't there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> How does this compare to OpenSCAD?

<comment><USER22> OpenSCAD:

* You write a script that calls the functions to build the geometry. (Similar to LaTeX vs. Wordprocessor)

* The geometry is defined as a mesh. (Similar to Blender 3D for modeling.)

FreeCAD:

* While it can also handle meshes, the geometry it actually uses a geometric modeling kernel that knows spheres, cylinders, bent surfaces. For 3D printing you would convert it to a mesh when exporting to an STL. (This is a bit like vector vs. pixel graphics.)

* While you can do everything with a script (and sometimes that's more easy) it provides a classical CAD interface where you point and click with your mouse.

* There's a ton of additional functionality via plugins available such as FEM simulation, Architecture, CAM, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I am trying to create a CAD driven design tool for a farming project. An equivalent from a different sector would be Helioscope ([https://www.helioscope.com/](https://www.helioscope.com/)) for Solar Plant planning.

All I know is javascript based web development so am quite lost on where to start. Tring to google only brings up general purpose CAD tools. Any ideas on how to go about it?

</comment><comment><USER62> How does it compare to OpenSCAD, which now also has an a story on the front page:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514978)

There was a presentation at SCALE 18x earlier this year (pre-shutdown):

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G39tJdmLuAI)

</comment><comment><USER63> I work with AutoCAD, ACAD Architecture and VectorWorks. I think and hope in the not-so-long-run FreeCAD will be serious competition for traditio9nal mainstream/enterprise CAD. That being said, I do agree with some on the fact that the UI needs a little work, and improved tutorials.

<comment><USER64> Do you know if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to an architect who is using AutoCAD..

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> What would be a reasonable FOSS alternative to Sketchup?

I know a number of architects who are dead set on using Sketchup versions circa 2014 - 2017 for most of the preliminary work.

It seems to fit their workflow the best.

They only go to AutoCAD when absolutely necessary.

We are talking architects with 20 years of AutoCAD experience.

</comment><comment><USER64> Anyone knows if it's possible to export a house plan in FreeCAD to use on AutoCAD? I need to draw the 2D floors of my house and send to a professional architect who is using AutoCAD..

<comment><USER25> [https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF](https://wiki.freecadweb.org/DXF#Saving_DXF)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Looking forward to those promoting FreeCAD given the recent Autodesk Fusion 360 news to actually sponsor FreeCAD developers.

Or is yet another set of free beer posts?

</comment><comment><USER67> This is awesome! I should've looked into this kind of thing sooner, I've been meaning to start playing around with CAD for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER68> Is there any free and open source tool for chip design? I mean the alternative for Cadence Virtuoso, Synopsys.

<comment><USER25> [http://www.geda-project.org/](http://www.geda-project.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Haven't tried FreeCAD, but it kind of sounds like OpenSCAD (openscad.org). There you only use scripts to generate models which is nice, but a bit too clunky and slow to iterate. The lack of direct visual feedback makes for a less intuitive interface. FreeCAD seems a lot better in that aspect, and in difference to say Fusion360 you can use your models for commercial purposes!

<comment><USER55> Why do you say it sounds like OpenSCAD? It's not very much like OpenSCAD.

<comment><USER69> Ah, right, I was under the impression that scripting was an integral part of the workflow, but with more graphical options for manipulating shapes after basic generation. But I might very much be mistaken, I haven't had the chance to try it yet :)

I will definitely soon though, I am working on making a parametric trumpet mouthpiece model for 3D printing, which what I have gathered so far FreeCAD seems great for. The most difficult part is really finding accurate measurements for sizes and curves, most tables and info only uses relative sizes like "large" or "thin". But I can just trace some splines from cross- sectional sketches.

I have made a model in Fusion which is pretty nice once you get the concept of constraints. But then there is the massive price tag, the free tier does as mentioned not allow commercial use. Nobody has to know though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Joko Engineeringhelp (channel with a lot of FreeCAD tutorials) just posted a video answering questions like: should I learn FreeCAD, can it be used commercially, how does it compare to industry standard tools?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udIBhVIy5MI)</comment>


Putting Bitcoin in the Swaps Box - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-08/putting-bitcoin-in-the-swaps-box <comment><USER2> "Perhaps delayed settlement will be one of those features that gets reintroduced to cryptocurrency because it is so useful. But that's not what this looks like."

I think lightning network kinda works like this.</comment>


TwitterAuth: Plugin for Near-Instant Twitter Rails Apps - <AUTHOR> http://intridea.com/2009/3/23/twitter-auth-for-near-instant-twitter-apps

<comment><USER2> Twitter OAuth definitely needs to be renamed Twitter Connect. If you don't have a Tipjoy account, check out how easy the signup is by going to <http://tipjoy.com/> and clicking the Twitter banner.

That's just so ridiculously easy, it should be highlighted by twitter. They're a bit distracted I guess with their meteoric growth to market this properly.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the problem is that OAuth isn't usually touted as a sign-on standard, only an "access API info" standard. With a couple tiny tweaks OAuth could be a standard that allows for this kind of "Connect" protocol for any web application.

Specifically, all that would need to happen to make this perfect is for OAuth requests for a user that already have an access token automatically push through to the callback phase instead of requiring a "re-allow" of the client's services. This wouldn't conflict with the OAuth spec in any way that I'm aware of.

<comment><USER3> Looks great! One suggestion though: it'd be nicer if the plugin used module mixins rather than class inheritance to decorate the User model with your TwitterAuth functionality.</comment></comment></comment>


South Korea bans virtual item trading & bots - <AUTHOR> http://www.incgamers.com/2012/06/south-korea-bans-virtual-item-trading-diablo-3-auction-house-dead/ <comment><USER2> Ouch. Now every student has to worry about criminal activity as virtual item trading otherwise continues its course unfazed.

"the government took the decision in a bid to prevent students from wasting their time."

"The punishment for breaking the law will be a 50 million won fine (£27,612) and a maximum jail sentence of five years."

Wow. Classic mistake, South Korea.

<comment><USER3> That's the punishment for a separate law. From TFA:

"A separate, but related, law has also been passed that bans the use of gold/item farming bots in online-enabled games. Players found using programs that "allow in-game characters to hunt and collect items without the need of a player controlling them" will be made illegal and blocked from internet access.

The punishment for breaking the law will be a 50 million won fine (£27,612) and a maximum jail sentence of five years."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know the politicians in South Korea _say_ they made this decision to prevent people from causing harm to themselves from all the consequences of dealing with virtual goods.

South Koreans, though, are really serious gamers. I wonder how much their purist gaming ideals influenced this ban.

Perhaps South Koreans are _so fucking hardcore_ about their games that they don't want anyone to be able to "cheat" with real money. Almost everyone in South Korea - the anti-gamers AND the gamers - could be perfectly happy with this ban. Except the game developers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Look at it from this angle:

Offer your body to make money (prostitution): ~ 1 year (US, couldn't find South Korea numbers)

Offer virtual items to make money: max 5 years

Offer your body to make money BUT TAPE IT: Legal (to my knowledge)

Note, i'm not commenting on the morality or rightfulness of either policies, just pointing out this (to me) interesting fact

<comment> guard-of-terra Laws are often inconsistent. For example, there exist laws which, if read literally, would state that having consentual sex with 13-year old would be punished more severely than raping said 13-year old.

There is another angle: old laws are more balanced - for worse crime there's more punishment. People could compare crimes back then.

Newer laws are hysterical: the crime severity does not readily correlates with punishment severity. This is because of lobbying by various forces and because people DEMAND BLOOD on some issues which were brought [by same or other groups] in order to distract them from other issues.

<comment><USER6> Do we have any good sources on the claim that newer laws are less balanced? This subject should be taken very seriously. If a well founded study were to indicate this true, it would be a call to arms for heavy reforms on our democratic systems.

<comment> guard-of-terra I do not. Would make an interesting read if somebody does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recently read [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began- with-a...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a- strange-email/) where Yanis Varoufakis, an economist, is studying in-game economies. And now this where South Korea bans trading virtual goods since "The main purpose of the games is for entertainment... item farming for commercial gain is a "serious hindrance" to a "healthy gaming culture"".

Isn't it same as banning sale of alcohols/drugs since they can be harmful? It will push the activity to go underground.

<comment><USER8> > _Isn't it same as banning sale of alcohols/drugs since they can be harmful?_

No. Alcohol and drugs are with us from the beginning of history, are very much ingrained in human society and culture, and support trillion dollar worldwide industries.

In-game trading virtual goods is a niche novelty activity, and trading them for real money even more so. You can get the same satisfaction out of the game trading them with token money.

> _It will push the activity to go underground._

Games cannot really go "underground" though. They are sold in stores or accessed online and depend on massive communities of millions of players. It's not like Sims of Farville can go underground suddenly.

Nor are they as essential and addicting as alcohol/drugs.

<comment><USER9> >In-game trading virtual goods is a niche novelty activity, and trading them for real money even more so.

There are some very successful entrepreneurs who made their fortunes off of in-game trading that would disagree.

<comment><USER10> Do they have multi-billion dollar globe-spanning industries and vast amounts of lobbying power? A handful of people making lots of money does not make it any less a niche or novelty.

<comment><USER9> A handful of people making money does make it not a novelty activity. It's still a niche, but it's not a novelty. You aren't going to see an organized crime ecosystem on the level of the consequences of alcohol and drug prohibition, but I think it's reasonable to think that making it illegal will drive it underground rather than getting rid of it, especially when the market will continue to thrive outside of South Korea.

<comment><USER8> > _A handful of people making money does make it not a novelty activity. It's > still a niche, but it's not a novelty._

How so? A handful of people make money out of ANY novelty. A handful of people making money of it, is actually, the very characteristic of a novelty.

A handful of people made money off of hula-hups, the rubik cube, and yo-yos...

<comment><USER9> I would say that what makes it a novelty is that people are making significant money off of the act itself. Take your example of hula hoops. People make money off of _selling_ hula hoops, and there are a very few people who make money off of the _exhibition_ of their hula-hooping prowess. But nobody is really making a business model out of hula-hooping itself. You could swap rubik's cubes and yo-yos in to the previous sentence, and it would still hold true. Hula hoops are a novelty, but selling hula hoops is not.

But there are people out there making gobs of money off of the trade of virtual items and then manipulation of virtual economies, and not by enabling it (although that is also profitable) or by doing it as a parlor trick for others' amusement, but by the same means as any other economy is exploited.

In particular, what makes this not a novelty is that the attraction that these people have to it is not that it is a video game, or that the idea is new and interesting, but that it is simply an unexploited opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> #1

> South Korea

I like to point out we have no idea of what it is to mix government law with video games. Because we're ages behind in term of video game culture. If you go to korea you'll see show about videogames on TV, you'll see huge events everywhere, even cellphones advertise with videogames in the street. They've reach a point where law has to deal with it.

#2

> a "serious hindrance" to a "healthy gaming culture".

Keeping in mind that S-K do have a problem with videogames and its youth. We can ask ourselves "is the trading of items a good healthy gaming culture?" What does it mean? A healthy gaming culture should not just get gamers addicted.

If you think about it, there is no fun behind the item trading system of diablo3, it's just to get people addicted to it. A bit like the "hat" system of TeamFortress 2. It adds a dimension that we don't need and that is harming the players more than anything.

#3

I'm not saying we should ban them, like S-K did, but I think we're far from them with our addicted people.

<comment><USER12> I don't play D3 or TF2 , but I do enjoy the trading systems in other games. Maybe it's not for everyone, but it adds fun for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is the law actually worded? Is "The Settlers of Catan" going to get someone thrown in jail?

</comment><comment><USER14> reminds me of a similar "ban" that happened in my country several years ago with the aim of discouraging students from wasting their time. the object of the banning, however, was trading cards rather than trading virtual items.

it _did_ work; the vast seas of children playing cards in shopping malls and sidewalks seized to exist, but it didn't happen because children were studying. it happened because these kids switched to something else, which isn't necessarily better than the cards they banned.

</comment><comment><USER15> I know Diablo is not as popular in SK as the RTS's Blizzard releases, but is not Diablo III heavily based on virtual item market? [Disclosure:I have not played it yet.]

<comment><USER16> The "Real Money Auction House" is entirely new, and I'm not aware of any other game enabling such transactions at a player-player level. You can sell/buy stuff for gold, but with RMAH, you can do it with real money. In all reality, the market settles at a gold/money conversion rate. In North America three days ago, that was at about $1/100,000 gold.

It's not heavily based on RMAH, but if you want to progress quickly, you spend money. I don't think it's a pivotal part of the economy at all. I think it's more to make sure Blizzard gets a cut of gold sellers/buyers.

<comment><USER17> I believe <http://www.entropiauniverse.com/> was one of the first games to support real money in-game.

<comment><USER15> Interesting! I checked out the website and the recent interview in their news. Seems a lot of people are actually put off by the dollar investment required for maximum fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anybody know if this prevents companies selling virtual items to players, or just players selling virtual items to each other?

</comment><comment><USER19> I find it amazing that the government was able to think and legislate a specific feature of online gameplay (though one may not agree with it, I find it surprising that they even understood gaming sufficiently to try and control just one aspect of it -- most countries would have simply made online gameplay illegal!)

</comment><comment><USER20> This sounds like some butt-hurt gamers, passing a law because they don't like Diablo III.

</comment><comment><USER21> Will this just push more Koreans away from WOW/D3 and back towards Starcraft 2?

I cant win as it is =/

</comment><comment><USER22> Games: the new drugs?</comment>


Ask HN: When interviewing someone, what will definitely make you reject them? - <AUTHOR> Interviewers of HN, what are the signs/qualities/actions of candidates that will definitely make you reject them no matter how good they are in other aspects. <comment><USER2> Trying to BS me. I don't mind a bit of creative resume padding here and there, we all do it. However, don't lie to me and say you are an expert in something when you've done little more than view an introduction YouTube video on it. I will call you out and it will make us both uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Standing up on a table, pulling their pants down, and taking a shit. The question you ask is so broad it has an infinite amount of answers.</comment>


The RoboRoach: Control A Living Insect From Your Smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-roboroach-control-a-living-insect-from-your-smartphone

<comment><USER2> Not that I like roaches, but this seems cruel in a way I can't quite describe. Watching the video made me sad.</comment>