There have been three times more wildfires in the EU so far this year - <AUTHOR> https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/15/there-have-been-three-times-more-wildfires-in-the-eu-so-far-this-year <comment><USER2> General reminder that fires are a part of the natural order of things, and if anything we've put too much effort into suppressing them.

Fire allows new growth, cuts down on disease, and gives the soil access to nutrients.

It also consumes fuel, meaning subsequent burns won't be as large. When you tamp down all naturally occurring fires, you set yourself up for an out of control blaze later on.

<comment><USER3> That sounds sensible, but what would a natural fire be caused by?

A droplet of water focusing the sunlight onto a point below it is the only thing I can think of, but then there is cooling water right on top of it, and as soon as that begins to evaporate the focus also disappears.

Edit: ah yes of course, lightning. Thanks everyone.

<comment><USER4> Lightning is a major natural cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's disingenuous to compare a single year vs an average like this, without going into what the distribution looks like.

Maybe years are either very calm or have lots of fires? That would result in some years being much worse than the average.

<comment><USER6> Also, statistically, it's likely that in any given year, there will be some place in the world that is anomalous. You can't just pick and choose certain areas, going to a different spot each year, as evidence of a problem, you need to look at things globally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a glitch in both charts on mobile (FF and chrome). For example, the first chart shows >2100 cumulative forest fires (contrary to ~1650 in the text). The value in the chart that appears if you click the data point is correct.

</comment><comment><USER8> To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

<comment><USER3> I agree that this headline (data from a single year presented as a new trend) is useless at best or maybe even misleading (I haven't upvoted it), but from your comment, it sounds a bit like you are not convinced we are causing the climate to be changed. Not sure if that is the message you mean to convey.

<comment><USER8> I am not an idiot. Of course we are causing climate to change for the worse. I don't trust everyone out there though. Most scientist and media people have a self serving attitude. They just want clicks

<comment><USER3> > I am not an idiot.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say you were. It just sounded like a denialist might have written it (or might not, depending on the real intention), so I figured it might be helpful for you to know that, at least to me, it can be read both ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meanwhile, this has been one of the coldest and rainiest Augusts in Central Europe for a number of years.

<comment><USER3> I think the point is "extreme weather" rather than just "it's hotter now". The 1° average warming that we're currently at (or whatever the latest estimate is) won't suddenly set forests ablaze.

<comment><USER10> I would to start seeing data analysis which charts how increases in temperature center (or don't) on certain extreme periods each year. 3-10 day stretches of extreme heat, cold, flooding, etc are devastating to many living organisms, and, as global warming kicks into gear, we should be tracking and publicly discussing biologically significant weather events and their trends and directly - rather than just hottest day, month, year. It's a good cross discipline area for biologists, geologists, and meteorologists to cooperate. When there is a major heat wave, the biological impact to the ecosystem, beyond the immediate impacts on humans in the moment, should be front page news.

<comment><USER11> Agree. I commented on a similar topic about flooding in this vein.

"It's 2c hotter" really sounds very benign to most people, I couldn't tell you what that would even feel like (do I know the difference between 25c and 27c?).

Extreme variance (and feedback loops) are far more problematic.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can Microsoft improve/evolve electron, now that they own GitHub? - <AUTHOR> Electron is a product that seems to have a love/hate relationship with developers and users.
That being said, one of the most loved Electron applications, VSCode, is made by Microsoft and now Electron is essentially one of their assets.
It seems to me like this could mean good things for Electron.
Are there any ways you can think of that MS can improve that ecosystem? <comment><USER2> There are a few Microsoft employees already working on improving Electron. Notably helping keep it up-to-date with Chromium [1] (current release at v61—6 versions behind stable).

Security is an area that could use a lot of improvements. Along with keeping Chromium up-to-date, sandboxing still needs more work [2].

Personally, I'd like to see greater support for Chrome Extensions instead of Electron's preload scripts. They're much more powerful in terms of controlling when scripts are run.

[1] [https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/12477](https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/12477)

[2] [https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/6712](https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/6712)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's very clear there's several ways they could 'improve' it:

* Replacing Chromium with Edge to improve integration with Windows 10.

* Introducing .NET runtime integration

* SharePoint and O365 integration which with the above would make it almost as powerful as SilverLight

* Cortana support baked-in

* Windows Telemetry

<comment><USER4> >* Introducing .NET runtime integration

>* Windows Telemetry

Doesn't telemetry come by default with .NET ?

<comment><USER5> With .NET Core, yes. It's the one thing I hate about .NET Core.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/dotnet/core/tools/telemetry](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/dotnet/core/tools/telemetry)

Simply put, any data gathering or telemetry that is _default opt-in_ deserves scorn.

I say this as someone who's used Microsoft development tools since QBasic and VB 3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Electron is open-source under an MIT license.

If Microsoft can do things now with Electron that it couldn't before, there's arguably something wrong with the project.

<comment><USER7> > Electron is open-source under an MIT license.

It's not the license at issue, it's the copyright which allows MS to change the license.

Yes, developers could fork the project, but that seems premature at this point.

What will probably is that MS will make optimizations for VS Code to run even better and then make those optimizations open for everyone.

<comment><USER8> >What will probably is that MS will make optimizations for VS Code to run even better and then make those optimizations open for everyone.

They already could of with the MIT licensed Electron... Literally nothing stopped them from doing this prior, unless the project as said has a bad structure but I find it hard to believe.

<comment><USER7> Having control of the copyright gives you control of the development process as well. So getting 1000 patches into a project just becomes a whole lot easier if you own the copyright.

<comment><USER9> If it is MIT, you can relicense, so effectively you have control of the copyright.

<comment><USER8> It's as if everyone hates Microsoft enough to believe they have different rights under the MIT license. MIT is as permissive as it gets, if Microsoft wanted to they could of released VS Code as a close sourced but free (as in money) product, and _NOBODY_ not even GitHub would of been able to stop them either!

<comment><USER7> Yes, but then there would be two versions of Electron, the public version and the private version MS would keep internally.

This would mean that you'd have to spend work re-merging your changes back with the main branch when a new version of Electron came out.

Now there's just one version, and it looks like MS controls the copyright to it. And that means their patches could come first before others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Microsoft developers have already contributed directly to Electron.

That said, if there is a direction to hope for, it might be pushing more of Electron's "value add" into the web platform itself (ie, open more standards for PWAs to adopt). Though arguably many of the things that developers particularly want from Electron like macOS menu integration are pretty strongly platform-specific and tough to standardize in way that might make sense to the web platform as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think MS is already involved with Electron at some level. They are probably contributing to it since VSCode uses it. I think that they might be able to improve VSCode even more if they were to somehow integrate the Atom ecosystem into it and combine those editors.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't think something very dramatic can be done to fix electron - it was already OSS, and as sibling comments are saying, MS was already involved at some level.

But if the project is given the same governance model and love which VSCode gets, I would have much higher hopes.

</comment><comment><USER13> Progressive Web Apps are upcoming alternative to Electron. Microsoft already added support for PWAs in Edge, now they should work with other browsers vendors to add missing functionality, like file system access.

</comment><comment><USER14> Kill it with fire?

</comment><comment><USER15> >Are there any ways you can think of that MS can improve that ecosystem?

Yes, by killing it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Same thing any motivated, funded, competent organization could have done at any time. Replace it with something functionally equivalent, but optimized.

</comment><comment><USER17> They could start with making Skype not lag horrendously while TYPING. Or better yet, put out a native client again.

Dreams...

<comment><USER17> Downvoters, I give you exhibit A:

[https://imgur.com/a/VRS3wkd](https://imgur.com/a/VRS3wkd)

What do those 3 apps have in common? They are brilliant Electron creations. They manage to beat even Java IDEs in memory consumption for no good reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> By never using Electron again.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Embrace, extend, extinguish</comment>


How YouTube could make $1.2B a Year - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tippingpointlabs.com/2009/09/most-widely-ignored-monetization-concept-access-to-analytics/ If you're building anything on which marketers will participate by creating, consuming, or sharing content, this article is for you. Its central message: you can easily and effectively monetize your platform by allowing marketers to pay for deep analysis of their audience and yours. <comment><USER2> _Let's assume that YouTube has 100MM registered users. Let's say that only 1% of those users (1MM) would pay $10/month_

Why in the fuck do you think 1% of registered youtube users have even uploaded a video, much less original content?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. How many users have actually uploaded video?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this gentleman has a radically different understanding of the proportion of businesses versus content leeches on Youtube than I do. Youtube has something on the order of 500 content consumers per 1 content uploader, and that probably overstates how many content creators are involved, because most users are just reposting things that they have copied.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN17436388200...](http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1743638820070418?sp=true)

<comment><USER4> Combining that number with the 1% estimate (10% seems very optimistic) leaves only $ 20K per month or $240K per year. On googles scale that's probably not worth the effort and risc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a classic example of the phenomenon that people have trouble understanding very large or very small numbers. Why would one percent of registered youtube users pay $10 per month for analytics?

The average registered youtube user is a random person that just watches the occasional video and had to get registered because on of the videos he wanted to see was adults only. The average registered youtuber does not give a flying f#$% about analytics of the random video he watches.

So would one percent pay for a monthly fee? Doubtful. I think the author thought they would simply because one percent is a very small number.

But it might be a good idea nevertheless. It is good idea from the business perspective as it is not likely to prevent people from using youtube in general. A person will usually first upload a video and then worry about who is watching it. So the fact that youtube charges for analytics is unlikely to prevent anyone from uploading videos.

So good idea, but it is very unlikely to bring in the enormous amount of money the author imagines.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're right. It might not bring in 120B, but it's revenue. Recurring revenue, that's more valuable and stable than ad revenue. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think he is a little too ambitious in terms of who would be willing to pay for data. For those people who admire their stats out of curiosity, I doubt many would cough up money for it, especially for more than a month or two. Only companies who use Youtube for marketing and distribution would actually NEED their statistics, in any respect. Although I suppose, nevertheless, there will be a small, small group of super-users who want their demographics for whatever strange reason.

<comment><USER7> I agree also. Guy Kawasaki calls this the "Chinese Soda Myth" - If we can get 0.X% of the population to buy our soda then we'll make $XX million.

As a VC, he blames hearing this too often from startups as one of the reasons he has developed tinnitus :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this quote! I'm really just trying to make a point. Access to analytic data is valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author is missing some key knowledge about the industry. Selling analytics data could be a good fit for Twitter, but not for YouTube. Here's why:

1) YouTube's value is their user generated content. If the content goes, the site's value does too.

2) The highest-margin videos for YouTube are the most popular ones. These are often professionally produced and have distribution companies behind them. With UGC, the short tail subsidizes the long tail.

3) Professional video producers/distributors who consistently have popular videos already have sophisticated analytics software, often in house. They get their analytics data periodically and directly from Google, in a fairly raw format. Its way too much data to practically transfer through an API or web interface.

4) These users' financial incentive to produce the content is the revshare agreement they have with Google on the ads which run alongside their content. YouTube's volume currently makes them the best source of revenue for video makers.

So when you talk about selling* analytics data to the users, you're talking about selling a far inferior product for a paltry sum to a partner you already do orders of magnitude more commerce with each month.

Sure, you can argue that there might be regular folks who would be willing to pay for analytics data (that they're already getting free now), but I find that a bit naive. Either way, you don't want to waste your time trying to sell cheap software to small fish, and its definitely not worth $120B/yr.

*I'd be tempted to say extorting

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insight. Here's the deal though -> 1) Agreed! 2) Agreed! 3) Don't Agree. If there's value to the data there's a way to share it. Saying that it's too much data is just an easy way to say no. 4) You're right. Google Ads support YouTube. This won't last forever. Advertising online is falling apart - slowly - but it's getting cheaper and cheaper and less and less effective. So, looking at additional revenue streams seems like a good idea to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Did anybody else read this as "How You could make $120B a Year". (I should probably check my spam folder less frequently.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really funny!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Title typo

<comment><USER11> 1.2 billion (100m / month)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> typo -- should be $1.2 B</comment>


Why a Psychologist Might Be at Your Next Interview - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/careers/2009/06/17/why-a-psychologist-might-be-at-your-next-interview.html

<comment><USER2> How much good the psychologist actually does in the hiring process is very iffy. Many theories of personality testing have no validation at all.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/books/review/10SATELL.html>

<http://www.skepdic.com/myersb.html>

<http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-42351.html>

The risk for someone who desires to be hired is that a bogus test may screen out an eager job-seeker. And the risk for the employer is that an unvalidated test may select less competent and less motivated employees than other hiring processes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Listen, just completely off topic, but something has been bothering me for a long time.

What the hell is going on with the light-gray-on-white formats everywhere? When did this start? And why? Who is responsible for this? Every single book, repeat, EVERY SINGLE BOOK, going back 100s of years, uses black [1] text on white or cream paper. There's no light gray in the world of books. This is a consensus formed by centuries of production and consumption.

Now, it's easy for me to go CSS -> Disable Styles -> All Styles, and so get readable text, but the average person is just left to suffer. It's not an isolated problem. It's like _every_ website is doing this lately. What's going on?

[1] Really, dark purple.

</comment><comment><USER4> Psychologists know nothing about code, so they'd be of limited use when interviewing coders. But, I'd be curious as to what they actually can ascertain about coders.</comment>


OwnCloud 6 has been released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.karlitschek.de/2013/12/owncloud-6-is-here.html

<comment><USER2> Previous discussions of Owncloud here have mentioned that Owncloud suffers from scaling issues and a few other big problems. Could anyone familiar with such previous issues comment on whether those seem to have been addressed?</comment>


Bob Iger Takes the Gloves Off for Disney's Streaming Debut - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-07/inside-disney-bob-iger-on-star-wars-pixar-and-more <comment><USER3> I've heard more excitement about Disney+ from family/friends than any other tech launch I can remember. Short of maybe the original iPhone, and maybe the Nintendo Switch. Techies and non-techies alike are counting down the days until it launches.

I'm generally someone who speaks with my wallet, I pay for FastMail and use DDG rather than use Google, I go out of my way and spend more to not support shitty companies, and I personally think Disney is among the most evil companies out there (for their Copyright lobbying etc).. but I'm finding it very bloody hard to resist the idea of unlimited streaming Star Wars, Simpsons, and Disney classics for my kids.

Barring some major tech fuckups from Disney, I'm pretty sure this will be absolutely huge.

<comment><USER4> Opinion: Disney content these days is absolutely awful. I'm not enjoying the films, the shows, or anything really. They spend more time doing remakes for a global audience (read. China), and compromise the quality of the end result.

<comment><USER5> Well, whether it's "awful" as far as your taste is an opinion you have every right to have, but looking at their successes in the box office, it's clearly valuable. That's all that matters.

<comment><USER6> Is it really? There are only five major studios which command 80-85% of the US box office [1], and by extension a major share of all global box office returns.

Five corporate boards exercise creative control over nearly all of Hollywood.

That's not much competition, and they seem to have arrived at a consensus about what kind of content we should experience at the theater.

Who says the content is valuable? Can you prove that the cash generation value is in the content and not the strictly regulated, consolidation-friendly oligopoly structure which Clinton put in place for these guys in the 90s?

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

<comment><USER7> Going to the theater is neither a necessity nor is it the only form of entertainment available. As such, nothing forces people to go there so even if there was only a single film studio the quality of films would still matter.

<comment><USER8> My wife and I just returned home from two years working in a large university town (Urbana/Champaign) and one of the things we really enjoyed was having an IMAX theater nearby. We went very frequently. When we returned to our home in the mountains of Central Arizona, we stopped going out to the movies - <USER2> local theater is OK, but not the IMAX experience.

The amount of at home entertainment with HBO, Amazon Prime, CBS Streaming (for Star Trek), and Netflix is phenonimal. I am fine with paying for services and just experiencing a wide sampling. It does take some self control to be willing to stop watching series after sampling some episodes.

<comment><USER9> As a fellow former U-C resident, I do miss the art theater in town. A bit rundown but definitely has its charm

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've mostly gone back to using torrents. Too many different services, most of the new content sucks, and the software isn't always good. VLC always works, and I can rewatch old shows I've downloaded as many times as I want without having to worry about the platform revoking access.

<comment><USER11> The reasons to pirate shows used to be that "cable is all or nothing and cost so much, let me pay only for what i want to watch". So now you can signup to services for only 10$/piece instead of a $100 bundle, takes less than 5 minutes to unsubscribe and switch. And now the new reason to pirate is "there are too many services"

This was never about availability, it was always about not paying.

<comment><USER12> Piracy is not about availability; it is about convenience.

Signing up to different services that are based around monthly fees and then having to deal with those services when you might only want to binge one show is inconvenient.

Having to deal with personal data loss / fraud when those services get hacked is onconvenoent

Having to use multiple different apps (or even devices) for different shows is inconvenient.

Having to be online to watch the show is inconvenient.

Pirating _can_ be more convenient than the above (see other posters fully automated setup) and when it is, the path of least resistance wins.

<comment><USER13> > then having to deal with those services when you might only want to binge > one show is inconvenient

It's really less convenient than setting up a plex server buying multiple TBs of storage and presumably dealing with all of the hassle involved in joining a private tracker?

<comment><USER14> Absolutely, like no question. Once the show's been automatically downloaded you can do whatever you want with it, and setting up Plex is a one-time-only thing. What happens when the content you're after gets sold to someone else or subsumed into another provider and you've got to jump to a new streaming service with different terms and conditions and content restrictions?

Piracy is simple.

<comment><USER13> I've dealt with a private tracker before and I know you are lying. Spending money on netflix and amazon is simple and costs less and requires less effort than buying everything involved in setting up a plex server.

Piracy is only simple if you are content with watching cheap rips that you download from the pirate bay on your laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> "I've probably seen each episode of The Mandalorian three times," Iger says. "First, to give some notes. Second, to see the rough cut and the impact of the notes. And now, just recently, I watched all the final cuts so that I could be blown away by how it looks."

You see this sometimes in large B2B projects. As soon as v senior management are involved in "tweaking" products you know you are likely screwed given their disconnect and lack of ability for people further down to say "no". And thats for software, cant imagine the impact it would have on something as creative as movies/TV.

<comment><USER16> I think it depends on the culture. If you look at what Iger has done with Disney then it could be that he can genuinely add something in a similar way that I believe Steve Jobs added to Apple products. In some corporate culture then yes, it could be detrimental, but from what I have read about Iger and what he has achieved I'd say that it would be positive him being involved

<comment><USER17> I'd consider Apple an example of exactly why this sort of input is bad for entertainment, Tim Cook personally cancelled their first scripted show after supposedly wasting two years making it [1].

With companies like Apple and Disney at the helm you're only going to get milquetoast film and TV.

Not saying TV needs sex and violence to be good, but once creators are limited through the lens of a wider production company brand, they're always going to be limited.

Typical case of the person writing the cheque thinking they're way more important to the creation of the work than they actually are, Disney and Apple execs live in a world where they have convinced themselves we'd watch their movies and at the end think "Wow, Disney/Apple did a great job on this" rather than the director or actors.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-sex-please-were-apple- iphone...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-sex-please-were-apple-iphone-giant- seeks-tv-success-on-its-own-terms-1537588880)

<comment><USER16> Good points. I was referring to Steve Jobs at Apple rather than Apple itself. Prior to him coming back and post his death the company has been ran by people without the same vision and capability. I suspect the culture has changed at Apple dramatically with Cook in charge and that shows in the products I feel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting. I also read an interesting article[1] by Matt Stoller where he makes a good argument for breaking up companies like Disney for their anti- competitive behavior.

[1]: [https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up- disn...](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disney-part)

<comment><USER19> I've always been apprehensive towards corporate acquisitions. I mean, why try to compete when you can just buy them?

<comment><USER20> Well then another competitor will pop up. You have to still compete in some form if you don't have a monopoly or some form of regulatory capture.

If McDonald's started acquiring lemonade stands the moment they opened up, you'd start to see a lot of lemonade stands.

<comment><USER21> Sure but that's not really good for the consumer, that's just good for lemonade stand owners, who aren't really opening their stands to provide a competitive service, they're just looking to cash out when McDonalds buys them..

<comment><USER20> Of course it's good. Consumers get lower prices from the opening stands. Eventually McDonald's will need to start selling lemonade or won't be able to afford buying all of the stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > MoffettNathanson LLC, a media and technology investment firm, expects its > three services to lose a combined $11 billion over the next four years, then > finally turn a profit in 2024. And that's if all goes according to plan.

Companies will bleed insane amount of money in the streaming war.

<comment><USER23> I suppose it's a great time to be a creative professional in TV/film (not sure whether that distinction even matters anymore).

<comment><USER24> There's a story this week in the Los Angeles Times detailing the struggles of assistants in the entertainment industry where a lot of professionals got their start, mirroring the strike in the fictional Hollywoo of Bojack Horseman's latest half season, somehow the streaming wars are pointed at for causing worse working conditions/prolonging time as assistant. "Shorter seasons, longer hiatuses and the increase in limited series have greatly impacted residuals and opportunities while introducing more financial insecurity." [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment- arts/business/story/20...](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment- arts/business/story/2019-11-02/la-et-ct-hollywood-assistants-revolt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I remember being unbelievably hyped for Hulu when it launched in 2007. I got into the beta and watched shows for 6 hours straight (wooo Burn Notice). As a consumer, I was voluntarily watching commercials in exchange for being able to see the shows I missed during the week on the internet. It seemed like a fair 1:1 trade for me because I was just watching the commercials that I would have seen on TV anyway.

The 1:1 trade doesn't seem so balanced anymore.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm still waiting for the content. I had the free subscription, and it was dismal, certainly for someone who doesn't like Marvel. Producing a few chapters of a Star Wars spinoff or another "Beyond Infinity Avengers War Universe" isn't going to bind many people.

Their streaming isn't great either. The two times we watched a movie, playback was regularly interrupted, one of which proved impossible to continue that same evening. And no, that never happens when watching Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER27> I find it a bit funny how many people in here think Disney sucks now. The tech/developer crowd clearly is not their audience (which is fine). I personally think Disney has done a good job with the Marvel acquisition by taking some pretty unknown characters and turning them into heroes on par with Spiderman which 10-15 years ago would be unbelievable. The Last Jedi on the other hand I thought was meh. Leia floating through space? That's pushing it.

Anecdotally, I was just at Disneyland on a weekday recently and it was as packed as can be, and among my friends who aren't at in tech many of them are diehard Disney fans and are super excited for Disney+ (especially their new show Mandalorian). Considering Disney's track record at the box office the last 5 years I expect Disney+ to do well.

<comment><USER28> Disney did one thing well with Marvel: they kept out of it and let Marvelstudios do their thing.

Well they almost fucked up Guardians of the Galaxy 3 with the firing of Gunn.

<comment><USER29> I am not sure this is true. The latest Spiderman is basically Hanna Montana with superpowers.

Compare with the previous two versions or even Spiderman: into the spiderverse.

<comment><USER30> FYI: Into the Spiderverse is a Sony movie - Disney/Marvel wasn't involved. Sony has owned Spiderman movie rights since the Tobey Maguire trilogy

<comment><USER29> I know, I meant it's not the only way the character and movies could have been done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This reminds me of the Blockbuster video/Netflix gloves off battle, similar commentary. Hopefully Disney has more sucess than the current TGI Friday's CEO who was on the wrong side of the fight. It's good reading if you aren't familiar.

</comment><comment><USER32> Streaming is becoming too fragmented, too many studios are "taking their ball home" by pulling popular shows from Netflix / others just to support their specific platform.

Meanwhile, my NAS and Plex server don't seem to mind serving up DRM free files of mine.

<comment><USER33> How difficult it is to set up a NAS? Any decent and up to date guide out there?

<comment><USER34> A NAS, something like a Synology DS218+, is fairly easy to setup. I'm not a sysadmin or anything like that, though I do have some experience with Linux (2000-2005). My main OS these days is MacOS. I wouldn't want to have my 70 year old father try to set it up, but if you're on Hacker News you probably will cope with it ok.

It's my opinion that it's more time-consuming and tricky to rip/re-encode everything. I use MakeMKV and a few extra apps to rip/convert subtitles. Handbrake is, seemingly, what everyone uses to convert to MP4/MKV or whatever... and it takes a fair bit of patience to find the sweet spot of quality, size, and compatibility.

I started ripping/converting DVDs and BluRays last year around this time and I'm still on it. Some of that is due to the fact that I've had to go back and re-rip stuff and some of that is due to the fact that the machine I'm using for conversion is about 10 years old. A BR film takes about a day to a day and a half to encode.

<comment><USER35> Have you heard about Automatic Ripping Machine [1] ? It basically automates what you're doing with MakeMKV and Handbrake, plus it will copy the entire disc contents onto your hard drive and eject the disc, allowing you to queue up multiple.

[1] [https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic- rippi...](https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/automatic-ripping- machine/tree/v2.1_dev)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> [http://archive.is/cp7s3](http://archive.is/cp7s3)

</comment><comment><USER37> Disney is an awful company, and I strongly disagree with their attempt to monopolize streaming. I know lots of people will gladly fork over their money, but this move is just making sure I'll be pirating all the the exclusive content I can't find elsewhere

<comment><USER38> I find it amusing that some people are fine with stealing, until it happens to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> All CEO bios like to begin by noting how early they wake up, and how the work out every morning at 6am _at the very latest_. I used to think this was a form of self-aggrandizement. "I'm a powerful CEO because I have superhuman discipline and stamina that you can't even imagine!"

Now I just wonder: am I lazy?

<comment><USER40> How old are you?

I was a late riser until well into my thirties. Then suddenly something weird happened (well, not so weird sadly -- hormones shifting, I'm sure) and I started waking up early. Now, being up at 6am doesn't sound like some great accomplishment to me. Staying up past midnight on the other hand, now there's a challenge!

<comment><USER41> Yeah, I'm not to that age, but know plenty of people who stopped being able to sleep past 4 AM as they aged. Honestly, it's rough to actually live; I see nothing wrong with people trying to spin it as a positive.

<comment><USER42> Yeh it's basically a choice between hating myself and thrashing around in bed at 5:30AM, or getting up and feeling like I'm accomplishing things. Was not something I had to force really...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Too many stores with too many exclusives offered for rent only. Too bad for them, it will only increase piracy, since those stores don't sell individual titles, but all require paying a constant renting fee. No one is interested in paying too many of such fees at once.

The idea of many similar stores that push exclusives could scale for purchasing, but not for rent.</comment>


The DNA of a London Underground Station - <AUTHOR> http://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/the-dna-of-a-london-underground-station/ <comment><USER3> Those pictures really looked a lot like the newer stations such as Canada Water to me. All concrete, glass and cold lighting. Undoubtedly they work and are functional but we end up with these cold, cavernous halls which serve just to get you out of them as quickly as possible. The Underground I love is the one that feels a bit lived in and isn't clinically perfect. I like that different stations can bring different eras and have a completely different feel to them. Such as Tottenham Court Road [1] with its lovely mosaics. Now it's just a bit more bland. All over the Underground is a lot of history and design that was probably never meant to last over 100 years [2] but it did. I don't think these new designs are going to be pretty in 100 years.

Maybe I'm harking for a design philosophy that never really existed. And I like the old District line trains so what do I know!

[1] [http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/01/...](http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/01/Julie-Gibson-Paolozzi.jpg)

[2] [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dILlxEDvx20/UkwfeIhKOyI/AAAAAAAAAu...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dILlxEDvx20/UkwfeIhKOyI/AAAAAAAAAuA/ob1IE6VUnGk/s1600/EdgewareRdStation.jpg)

<comment> david-given I particularly like the new Westminster station --- you get off the train, leave the platform, and you're at the bottom of this huge vertical space, full of support girders and zigzagging diagonal escalators. You ascend through this, with new views becoming visible at every turn, and eventually the ceiling comes into view overhead, looming over you before the escalator passes through it...

It reminded me intensely of some of the Portal 2 levels.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure this will reach an audience here, but both Canada Water and Westminster were commissioned by Roland Paoletti as part of the Jubilee Line Extension. Overall, I think it's a success (a different architect was chosen for each station).

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10460471/Roland-P...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10460471/Roland- Paoletti-Obituary.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The design document can be found at [http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design- idiom-2.pdf](http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf) (link lifted from first comment in the article).

I find it disturbing that the first major item is "capacity", but then the design parts do not even care to note how the given idiom will work towards that end. Discoverability helps, by making it less likely for individuals to get lost and thus take up valuable commuter real estate, but without sufficient peak _throughput_ it makes very little difference.

Not to mention that if station design does not accommodate for need to widen the tunnels in the future, they are not really aiming for future-proof. The only good measure for capacity is how many commuters can be moved through, and there is an upper bound to how many trains per platform you can fit in an hour. Once that limit is reached, the only way to further increase capacity is to get more people in per train. Hence: make trains longer (and extend platforms), or make them wider (which requires to expand the tunnels).

As for personal taste... I like Canada Water station. It's utilitarian, can sustain a lot of commuter traffic going both ways and doesn't even look that ugly. Sure, it has a weird bottleneck on the street level because all commuters need to take a long circular route to reach the escalators but all parts _within_ the station are spacious and wide.

Not to say that the station couldn't look nicer, of course...

<comment><USER6> > Hence: make trains longer (and extend platforms), or make them wider (which > requires to expand the tunnels).

Neither of these are possible with any realistic budget, and the year-long line closures for the latter would be intolerable.

It's much cheaper to build a new line — for example, Crossrail and Crossrail 2.

<comment><USER5> I think the first actually does happen already, if only at a smaller scale.

I know overground has some stations where the last car can't fit on the platform. (Circle line might have couple of these too, if I remember correctly.) And I've noticed that a couple of fairly central stations have been closed for more than a year due to construction works.

So extending platforms a couple of stations at a time should be possible - <USER2> fully closed and another with just one end blocked off. It would take ages and insane amounts of money to do that for the entire line, you're right about that. But maybe just for the stations where it would provide the biggest benefit?

<comment><USER6> It massively shows down alighting time, the "dwell time" is already a big factor in how many tube trains can be run. It's also very confusing to passengers. For both reasons, TfL would be extremely reluctant to introduce it at a central London station.

And, there are building foundations and other tunnels in the way in many cases, so it wouldn't be a temporary inconvenience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not a relevant comment for the article, but when I saw the title I was expecting a DNA sequencing experiment.

<comment><USER8> Likewise. I was expecting an analysis of all the DNA floating around in the tunnels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The map of lines and station architectural styles [http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/stationdesigntypes.j...](http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/stationdesigntypes.jpg) really does pin down some of the very stark differences the different lines have. It doesn't provide examples, but an image search for each of the station names for each style really can illustrate the different if you're not familiar with the tube. The trains themselves also play a big role in this.

I love this diversity. And dislike the suggestion of standardisation the article suggests. There appears to be inconsistency between what the article states as solutions and the 'problem' of modern design and construction.

Near the start of the article it states: >It's a statement that an observer of TfL's recent station builds and rebuilds would find difficult to dispute. Indeed in recent years it has become almost impossible to picture a new Underground station as being anything other than glass, brushed steel and concrete. A clean and efficient style, certainly, but hardly an inspiring one.

By this inconsistent with the answers offered:

The photo 'A station passage at Idiom Park.' has a very generic cylindrical passage... with stairs leading off at an odd angle. No character or indication of history or line, or individualisation (unless an oppressive blue is unique to Idiom Park). And disability incompatible.

The photo 'Escalators at Idiom Park' includes iconic steel and plate escalators I can imagine speeding at a pace leading to a... generic steel and concrete chasm mentioned in the lead above as undesirable.

The image 'Platform level at Idiom Park' flat out reminds me of the old Charring Cross Jubilee line. It could well be Charring Cross Jubille Line, with blue lighting. I'm surprised I have this reaction, as it is simply cut- away girding, blue lighting, which the lead again suggests isn't the way forward (and a lack of safety doors).

> The tube means so much more to Londoners than getting from A to B. We are a > part of the city and what we want to make sure is that we are doing our best > to make sure that life in London is getting better as well. A result of that > is a real focus on design. I guess what we recognise is that great design > doesn't happen by accident.

The tube is a testament to, and a record of, design through the past century- and-a-half. More often than not, this was not by committee, as these designs seem to be.

What would be worth improving would be disabled access and cleanliness (which the article does mention), and affordability.

Is the article a parody of itself?

<comment><USER10> > And disability incompatible.

Presumably there is another passage with a lift/elevator for people in wheelchairs, or for parents with prams.

What attracted my attention was the handrail. Trains arrive and empty of passengers in "bursts". The handrail would confine them to a smaller portion of the passage, leaving the rest unused. I can see problems similar to the confined entrances of football stadiums, with dangerous overcrowding.

<comment><USER9> This is a real feature of the underground I strangely miss. A crowd of people walking along a small tunnel around 12 meters side and meeting a crowd of people walking in the opposing direction. There is no pause, no slowing down, no acknowledgement, it just happens, like ghosts passing through each other, no one makes contact.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you listen to focus when you're working - <AUTHOR> What do you listen to when you're working that keeps you super-focused?
For me, I have a few different goto sources - white noise tracks (noisli), video game soundtracks, and movie scores (esp Hans Zimmer) that I listen to on repeat. Sometimes I listen to a single deep house track over and over, and I can't stop writing.
I'd love your perspective.
I'm researching for an article I'm writing on flow state and productivity. <comment><USER2> Been on this search lately. I found Thievery Corporation, Sounds From The Ground, Nightmares on Wax and Tycho fits the bill nicely.

Brian Eno's Music for Airports to get me into the mood for code. If this doesn't then [http://rainymood.com](http://rainymood.com). :)

For physical prep, loosening my body helps a lot before a long session and in between sessions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote a couple line bash script wrapper around a brown noise generator using sox + coreaudio. It works well for me, especially with overhear headphones.

[https://github.com/tedmiston/zero-noise](https://github.com/tedmiston/zero- noise)

Before that I used SimplyNoise ([https://simplynoise.com](https://simplynoise.com)) which is good, but still uses Flash and so is resource hungry if you're running on battery.

I also work from my home office as much as possible which has a very consistent AC fan that blocks most outside noise.

<comment><USER4> Wow, that is awesome! Using it now. Thanks a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me, as was already mentioned, silence is the best one. This is why i prefer home-office. All other "solutions" induce headache to me.

In noisy environment can be helpful brown noise. I also tried focus@will (sample is here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OGJRx76zLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OGJRx76zLY)). From my experience 45-60 minutes is maximum.

If I need high focus and think about solution music is just another source of distraction for me. As background for tedious tasks it depends on my mood.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've found that music distracts me. When I need to be super-focused, I can't have any music on in the background.

I can listen to some songs when I need focus, but not super-focus. For those, I tend to listen to the same thing on repeat for several days or a week in a row, similar to you.

Some examples are: Koyaanisqatsi, Ian Anderson's "The Secret Language Of Birds" album, and Tool's Ænima.

</comment><comment><USER7> For this purpose, I too listen to music mostly without vocals, or if vocals are present, they are the simplistic, melodic sort found in the likes of vocal trance.

Genres like trance help me focus because of a typical track's long duration, repetitive structure, and grandiose buildups.

When I need a little bit more stimulation, I switch to a less regular, more punchy EDM genres like electro house, or something with dubstep-inspired drops.

</comment><comment><USER8> For me, absolute silence is always my most productive environment. You might find throwing in some earplugs or noise cancelling earbuds (Bose makes some great ones) to be a productivity boost.

Edit: More to the actual question, my favorite album to work to is "Immunity" by Jon Hopkins.

</comment><comment><USER9> Depends on the nature of the work. In my data entry job, high BPM genres like schranz and hardstyle were a lifesaver - kept me working at a good pace and not falling asleep on the keyboard, but are very distracting for thoughtful work like programming. Got recommended some great ambient recently and it works best for that kind of work.

</comment><comment><USER3> On another note, I've found I have much better focus and mental clarity when my physical desk is empty. I find piles of papers, mail to process etc, to be discomforting.

The only things on my desk every day are a minimal coffee mug and a wind-up timer for timeboxing.

</comment><comment><USER10> White Noise.

I've found that it lulls me into being present in the moment. With any intake of caffeine, there is a tendency to start thinking about new projects, past mistakes, daydreaming, etc. White Noise has been a really good solution to that tendency for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I strongly prefer silence but when the office environment gets too noisy I just put on some familiar black metal classics from my teens that I know well enough to not get distracted by.

</comment><comment><USER12> I mostly listen to music while I work if I need to drown out someone else's noise, otherwise it seems like silence is the most effective way for me to stay focused!

</comment><comment><USER13> I had nice results with Tekken 3 soundtrack.

Tomba/Tombi sountrack is nice too.</comment>


Multi-tenancy and co-location, a perfect pair with Postgresql - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2016/08/10/sharding-for-a-multi-tenant-app-with-postgres/ <comment><USER2> Edit: could we get the title changed here? The blog post is called "Sharding a multi-tenant app with Postgres".

\---

I'm dense. Took me a minute to realize this was a product offering blog post.

From the title I was quite surprised to not see mention of the fact that Postgres databases support multiple schemas which allow a nicer way to segment data in some situations (such as multi-tenant).

If you've not heard of this check out [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Database_Schema_Recommendat...](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Database_Schema_Recommendations_for_an_Application)</comment>


What is LaTeX and Why You Should Care - s-phi-nl http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/latex.html <comment><AUTHOR> I procrastinated quite a bit when writing my master thesis by trying to make it as beautiful as possible. Take a look to see what's possible with LaTeX: [http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=81971&lang=en](http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=81971&lang=en). The source is available here: <http://bitbucket.org/uggedal/thesis>

<comment><USER2> Very nice layout. Not very "academic looking", but really nice to look at :)

<comment><USER3> Did you print this in color? Did you actually have graphics and screen shots in the paper? Academy changed (improved?) since I last read academic papers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How appropriate, I just finished a paper today and submitted it for review. LaTeX is awesome and sucky at the same time. On the awesome side, you have structure separate from formatting. This comes with lots of benefits as mentioned in the article. It also allows you to use the concept of imports (or includes if you will), so you can have _a well factored paper_. It also allows you to do sane things like footnote, cite and reference diagrams and sources without a need for explicit number tracking -- just give everything a unique identifier that works for you. Finally if you do well enough with your structuring you can output not just different file formats like pdf or ps or whatnot, you can also output completely different styles. It is pretty simple to wrap your core with the trappings of IEEE style for one version and a book- like style for another.

On the sucky side, the toolchain is notoriously difficult and cryptic. For some reason you have to make multiple passes of various tools by hand (or with a makefile -- i reccommend <http://code.google.com/p/latex-makefile/> it just works). The syntax can be a bit inconsistent. The worst is the errors tho, sometimes it is impossible to figure out why all your figures are showing up at the end of the document instead of in-place, or why all your references are failing to point at anything.

Overall tho, it is a fantastic system :)

<comment><USER5> I've started using org-mode to write my papers, then convert to LaTeX. Not perfect, but I find it's more natural to write in org-mode and helps me focus on the content instead of drifting off onto the internet to research macros. (Now I can drift off to read HN instead, a vast improvement in non- productivity.)

I've started thinking of TeX as the assembly language of document formatting, LaTeX as C, and org-mode as... pick your favorite higher-level language here, I'll go with Python.

Not a perfect metaphor, but in terms of paper productivity it feels that way.

<comment><USER6>
      > Not perfect, but I find it's more natural to write in org-mode

Do you have any specifics on the problems you faced? I produced my master thesis entirely using orgmode without any problem. (defined custom latex class, with different kind of ToC etc, not that difficult)

<comment><USER5> I suppose it depends on what you mean by "problems". I don't think org-mode is coming up short in some fashion.

Org-mode is great for structural editing and tables, and simplifies some aspects of LaTeX (images, for sure). I still find myself "dropping down" into LaTeX. I don't think it's an inherent weakness in org-mode, it's just that now I keep track of org-mode and LaTeX commands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It always blows my mind that someone (a philanthropist or the government) hasn't just thrown down a few million bucks to make a truly user friendly version of LaTeX. The amount of grad student and professor time wasted dealing with the flaws in LaTeX is _mind-boggling_.

Or am I naive in this cost estimate? Does anyone know roughly how much money and developer time went into the currently best editors, like TeXShop and TeXnicCenter?

<comment><USER8> LyX. <http://www.lyx.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Speaking as a grad student who has been reading a lot of papers/theses lately, we can tell if you used LaTeX or Word, and if you used Word we mock you for your ugly fonts and amateurish layout.

<comment><USER10> I only wrote one thesis and I did it in Word. Most of my publishing since then has been in WordPress.

Is learning LaTeX anywhere near as useful to a professional developer as say learning vim or emacs?

<comment><USER11> > Is learning LaTeX anywhere near as useful to a professional developer as say > learning vim or emacs?

I would say no (even though I use latex nearly every single day).

On the other hand, it is indispensable if you're doing maths or anything that involves lots of formulas, citations, footnotes and what not, because it decouples the structure of the document from the formatting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Related: The (La)TeX Stack Exchange site just opened up to public beta:

<http://tex.stackexchange.com/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Sadly, some publishers actually expect Word documents. The same publishers then have all kinds of problems where they need considerable help from the authors to get the layout right.

<comment><USER14> Including, embarassingly, the magazine of SIGCSE (the ACM SIG for CS education). I was going to submit something a year or two ago, couldn't find the LaTeX stylesheet, and sent an email to the editor---who breezily responded that Word was required, and that their authors didn't really complain about this. Self-fulfilling: I decided it was more trouble than it was worth and published it elsewhere, so although I have complained, I'm not one of their authors!

It does explain why the typesetting is _so bad_ , though. Figures are especially atrocious, and there are pixellation issues and routine font problems throughout.

<comment><USER15> I was shocked when IEEE Computer wanted a Word document. In their defense, I don't think they actually lay everything out in Word. I think they just decided that's the easiest way for their layout people to get text and figures for an article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For a gentle start, it's worth looking at LyX -- <http://www.lyx.org/> \-- a structured document processor that generates LaTeX output. Available for *IX/Mac/Windows, with more features than you can shake a stick at -- and it's open source, so you can try it for free.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a good place to put the best explanation I've yet found for how Latex's figure placement algorithm works: <http://people.cs.uu.nl/piet/floats/node1.html>

<comment><USER17> FWIW, Word's text layout engine is as sophisticated as LaTeX. IMO, there's just a large layer of other "stuff" that ends up on top of it that usually results in your typical looking Word document.

It's better in Word 2007/2010, but still doesn't seem to be all the way there.

<comment><USER18> The claim that the Word layout engine is as good as TeX's is not correct.

Even for math-free text, TeX does a better job of hyphenating and line- breaking. The TeX algorithm specifically tries have low variability in line- to-line fill density. Word does not care, which can result in a loose line between two tight lines, causing horizontal stripes in a block of text.

For much more, including ligatures, kerning, and transparency, see:

<http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex>

My point above is his point #7.

<comment><USER19> Ligatures, kerning, hyphenation, etc. can be enabled in Word: <http://jeffhuang.com/better_word_papers.html>

It's just not on by default which is a shame.

<comment><USER20> Has anyone done a comparison on how well the kerning/hyphenation/etc. compare to TeX's? As I understand it, even some commercial packages that are designed for this sort of thing still fail to match TeX's. I could be wrong there, however.

<comment><USER17> Also, the component that powers Word's text layout also does it for IE7/IE8/IE9, WPF and Silverlight (and maybe more, I don't know).

I've heard that Word doesn't play as well with the text layout component as the component authors would prefer. It's possible that this will improve in the future.

As for TeX vs Word, that's a great question. I know that the authors of Word's text layout engine are familiar with Knuth's dead-tree works on typography, but beyond that, I don't know.

<comment><USER19> It would be great if someone out there did a blind test of Word vs LaTeX layout. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult -- just get a few pages of text from Gutenberg and render it in both Word and LaTeX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _Once I create a LaTeX document I can easily convert it to any format I am > interested in, including XHTML and Microsoft Word Document._

Am I the only one who finds it impossible to convert a LaTeX document into a Word document without it looking like total crap? What am I missing? I build my resume with LaTeX, and have tried multiple times to get a proper Word document for all those idiots that don't like PDFs, and every time it looks like such crap that I break down and send them a plain text version instead...

<comment><USER22> Depending on your definition of "total crap", you might find LaTeX2rtf gives you acceptable output with minimal manual tweaking. It works for me, though I'm far from a type snob.

<comment><USER21> Maybe it's just my specific case, or that my layout is too complicated, but when I try using that, I get errors on the command line, and the output RTF is "total crap" by just about anybody's standards. It has excessive vertical whitespace, including bullets that aren't even on the same line as the text, doesn't have any correct fonts, and doesn't get horizontal spacing right either...

        jreese@mach ~/.../resume » latex2rtf -o JohnReese.rtf JohnReese.tex
        JohnReese.tex:4   Package/option 'oneside' unknown.
        JohnReese.tex:89  Unknown command '\fontfamily'
        JohnReese.tex:90  Unknown command '\selectfont'
        ...

Source: <http://files.leetcode.net/resume/JohnReese.tex>

PDF: <http://files.leetcode.net/resume/JohnReese.pdf>

RTF: <http://files.leetcode.net/resume/JohnReese.rtf>

If you can tell me how to fix that (I know squat about LaTeX and it's associated toolchain), I'll buy you a beer/coffee/cupcake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> On a Mac, the MacTex suite simplifies things pretty well [1]. I typically write my documents in Vim, and then render them to PDFs with TeXShop. It installs all of the standard TeXLive stuff, so if command-line LaTeX is where you're comfortable, that works too.

[1] <http://www.tug.org/mactex/2009/>

</comment><comment><USER24> Technology changes all the time but there are a few arguments that never seem to die... WYSIWIG vs. doc prep languages like TeX (or Scribe, remember that?) was a hot topic even back in the 80's, with similar arguments being made. Everything old is new again.

It's amazing to see people getting enthused (again!) about LaTeX.

</comment><comment><USER25> LaTex for Literate programming: <http://yav.purely- functional.net/haskell_latex.html>

</comment><comment><USER26> This article had remarkably little content or analysis. Essentially the only point made was that LaTeX markup can separate content from presentation.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you use vim then look at the vim-latex suite <http://vim- latex.sourceforge.net/>

<comment><USER28> Or don't. It's buggy, overly complicated, and barely maintained.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. I was really surprised with how odd vim-latex felt. In my experience, most of these language-specific vim plugins stay pretty light, enhancing built-in vim behavior to perform in the expected way given a particular language's peculiarities. Instead, it tries to build up this complex system of macros and shortcuts that added a really thick layer on top of actually writing LaTeX (a process that I actually quite enjoy). Maybe it's another one of those things that I have to see in use to appreciate, and I'm sure there's some really useful stuff in there, but it just didn't seem worth it.

<comment><USER30> Once upon a time I used some vim plugin--and that one sounds familiar--to allow me to compile from within vim and then jump to that paragraph in the dvi viewer. I think I could also click a paragraph in the dvi viewer and jump to that text in vim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Did he just make fun of a PNAS paper?</comment>


Why Diversification Results In Mediocrity - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/07/12/diversification-mediocrity/

<comment><USER2> There's an implicit assumption in his argument that the mean is stable and finite. This need not be the case, and is often not the case with tail events under power-law distributions: <http://navanitarakeri.com/Diversification.pdf>

Also see the following: Didier Sornette and Daniel Zajdenweber, The economic return of research: the Pareto law and its implications, European Physical Journal B, 8 (4), 653-664 (1999)

here: <http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/9809366>

There's also an excellent (and old) study on whether restaurants with specialized menus did better than restaurants with diverified menus. Turns out the specialized ones did well in the short term, but were vulnerable to sharp changes in taste by patrons. The more diversified ones had much higher longevity but did relatively poorly in the short term. I can't find the reference right now.

Finally, this "Fox vs. Hedgehog" problem is widely studied, and the research shows that the decision is very dependent on the market and domain - i.e it is difficult to generalize.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the large he's pretty much wrong. In the small, like a startup, of course you have to focus, otherwise you are pretty much dead. However, if you invest in publicly traded mutual funds, the returns from an indexed fund beats nearly all managed funds due in part to the differences in commissions. In agriculture, monoculture is riskier than diversified agriculture, e.g. the Irish potato famine, or the imminent failure of the Cavendish banana. The financial crash was due to everyone following just a few strategies. Even VCs try to diversify their holdings.

His point about understanding each individual investment is good, but if you cant, diversification is a good strategy.

</comment><comment><USER4> > I believe an investor can leverage knowledge he has about a particular > industry or company to beat the average on a risk-adjusted basis.

If that were true, wouldn't mutual funds be able to find full-time pro managers who can consistently outperform index funds?</comment>


Connection refused - Flickr.com is down - <AUTHOR> http://flickr.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Going on about 30 minutes for me now. <http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/flickr.com>

I'm getting a DNS error when connecting to <http://flickr.com> and "connection refused" response for <http://www.flickr.com>

<comment><USER2> It's back.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you wanted to decriminalize all drugs, how would you do it? - <AUTHOR> Thanks <comment><USER2> I'd run gov't stores that were committed to undercut the prices all other sellers. They would ensure purity, advise on safe dosage, and advertise medical and social services. Not very different from the path taken by several states after US prohibition of alcohol ended.</comment>


Radical Islam Website Readers May Be Prosecuted - <AUTHOR> http://news.sky.com/story/1230743/radical-islam-website-readers-may-be-prosecuted <comment><USER2> IANAL, but it seems like the wording in the article ("viewing downloading or disseminating... may constitute an offence") is being very deliberately broad and careful to cover its behind.

The laws in question cover:

\- Material that encourages directly or reasonably (or recklessly) the commission of terrorism

\- Dissemination and publishing, or possession of such information with intent to do so (this includes transmitting electronically)

\- Causing someone else to do so

However, it is a defence to show that the material is not consistent with your own personal views, so while _viewing_ something could in theory be a form of electronic transmission, they'd need to prove you intended to disseminate it.

The defence part is useful too (if you can show that you don't agree with their politics), but I don't like that it's on the accused to prove they have differing politics.

Here are the relevant sections of UK law:

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/1](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/1)

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/2](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/2)

<comment><USER3> Is differing personal politics a defense against just viewing it, or is it also a valid defense for dissemination?

For example, suppose I write a rationalwiki.org article on some specific brand of radical Islam which includes a large amount of citations and links to the relevant source material. I think that linking could reasonably be called "disseminating" _(at least in the modern legal climate..)_ , but I would be doing that with the intent of _dissuading_ people.

<comment><USER2> _viewing_ isn't an explicit offence under those laws. I expect the reason the website suggests is _may_ be is because the act of viewing on the Internet is itself transmitting (or causing another to so transmit) the document electronically, which _is_ an offence under the legislation (with additional considerations, such as whether it was done with intent to carry out or encourage someone else to carry out terrorism; it's quite hard to prove—or disprove for that matter—intent without supporting evidence, which may or may not include an overwhelming quantity of similar documents).

The legislation provides that the accused can offer their politics as a defence against any charges under those sections, by proving that the document "neither expressed his views nor had his endorsement". What bothers me is that it's not the other way around: I'd prefer if it was up to the court to _prove_ that the documents expressed one's views or had one's endorsement rather than placing the burden of such proof on the accused.

Of course these are my interpretations and IANAL ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Censorship is the worst way to fight an idea

\- It lays credence to that point of view ("why would the government censor it if didn't have some truth to it?") \- It undermines the importance of having discussions about challenging issues \- It makes those who hold the aforementioned views even more sure that they are correct, and that someone is unjustly out to get them

let people freely discuss these issues and we will all come out on top

<comment><USER5> How do you feel about hate speech (anti-Islam, anti-semetic ) being banned and punishable by jail and fines in European countries?

<comment><USER3> <strike>Because they disagree with zorse. That does not mean that they are wrong, nor does it mean that zorse is wrong. It just means that they disagree.</strike> _(Sorry, misread your comment.)_

Personally, I agree with zorse. One of the best ways to combat extremism is to give extremist groups enough rope to hang themselves. Nail them when they actually solicit or request specific illegal actions (calling for hits on people, calling for somebodies home or business to be vandalized, etc) but otherwise allow them to make fools of themselves in public. See how the WBC or the KKK marginalize themselves in the US by being permitted to publicly say what they think.

Radical Islam does not seem to be a sizable threat in the US (because of, or despite of, the US's loose hate speech laws... you decide) and domestic "homegrown" terrorism is a wildly overblown threat. People like "sovereign citizen" are widely mocked using material that _they_ upload to social media. Would sovereign citizens still be widely recognized as nutters if they were not allowed to upload youtube videos of them making fools of themselves? Despite (or because of) the US's lax speech laws, we don't have a Golden Dawn equivalent political party that is actually winning elections.

<comment><USER4> Those are great examples of 'hate' groups that have marginalized themselves just by saying what's on their mind. In the United States where speech is heavily protected by the constitution, those who hate have much less power.

Moreover, lets say that there is a person with a particularly sophisticated hatred of Jews, Muslims, gays or whoever. In fact, so sophisticated that its hard for you or I to counter his argument. This would be a fantastic situation! Why? Because we would either concede that his unfortunate views are correct, or seek a better understanding of the issue, perhaps by seeking someone who is an expert in philosophy, law or whatever and having a discussion/debate

In that circumstance we all win. You and I win because we have a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the issue, and everyone else wins because they can weigh the arguments themselves and make up their own minds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since Greenwald, Miranda, Poitras, and Snowden are officially terrorists that can be detained under terrorist legislation in the UK, is there any legal reason to think (if this is successfully sustained) that reading The Intercept wouldn't fall under the same rubric?

</comment><comment><USER7> Crimestop! Only you can prevent tripleplusungood thoughtcrime, citizen!

How can I recognize and avoid having potentially incriminating ideas?

Your viewscreens are there to help. All content broadcast through the viewscreen is pre-approved and certified to produce no dangerous thoughts in most citizens. If you still find yourself having doubts about your own mind, proceed immediately to the nearest MiniTrue psychological health assessment station for evaluation. Time is critical! Do your best to not think or speak to other citizens while en route!

Big Brother loves you, and wants you to be happy.

<comment><USER8> Censorship is nothing new at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The public is reminded that viewing downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Section 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006."

Wow. They really are saying that it can be illegal to read something! Is there any similar law in the US? I'm guessing classified information can get you in trouble somehow.

<comment><USER10> It really is troubling.

 _Is there any similar law in the US?_

I think a conclusion you'd have to draw from the Pentagon Papers controversy is that if the gov't want to keep something secret, it's their own responsibility to do so. Once the information leaked, it was then legal to print the documents. And if that's true, then it must also be legal to read them.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I'm relatively certain that within current legal frameworks, public, published documents can be retroactively classified making you a criminal if you refuse to hand back your copy.

<comment><USER12> Something like that can be true for nuclear weapons related stuff: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Someone asked me recently on Hacker News, what is wrong with free speech in Europe. Well...

<comment><USER2> It's important to recognise that Europe (as a political entity) has only generally positive things to say about freedom of speech. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Ri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union) are the main legal structures that deal with freedom of speech at the European level.

The vast majority of "federal" laws (i.e. laws passed centrally) are to do with the mechanisms of the central government; there are very few social or fiscal laws passed centrally. The European Parliament simply does not claim competence or authority over such matters.

Pretty much all laws dealing with freedoms (or removal thereof) are handled at the state level. This is very different to the U.S. where there are many Federal _and_ state laws that limit a person's freedoms. In this case, the law is entirely that of the UK, and has little to do with whatever you might call "Europe".

<comment><USER14> Yes, we get it. 'Europe' and countries within Europe are not the same thing. You are missing the point. Yes, this article only talks about the UK, but Europe _generally_ has a problem with free speech.

The following countries have laws against hate speech:

Belgium@: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Anti- Racism_Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Anti-Racism_Law)

Denmark: [http://www.inach.net/content/denmark.html](http://www.inach.net/content/denmark.html)

Finland: (sorry, could only find PDF) [http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ICCPR/State...](http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ICCPR/States2011/Finland.pdf)

France@: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France)

Germany@: [http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/StGB.htm#130](http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/StGB.htm#130)

Iceland: (Art 233) [http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=190914#LinkT...](http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=190914#LinkTarget_700)

Netherlands: [http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Arti...](http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Artikel137c/geldigheidsdatum_25-03-2014)

Norway: (135 a) [http://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1902-05-22-10/KAPITTEL_2-6...](http://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1902-05-22-10/KAPITTEL_2-6#KAPITTEL_2-6)

Sweden: (PDF Ch. 16 sec. 8) [http://www.government.se/content/1/c4/15/36/d74ceabc.pdf](http://www.government.se/content/1/c4/15/36/d74ceabc.pdf) In case you don't want to read that far "sentenced for agitation against a national or ethnic group to imprisonment for at most two years"

UK: See article.

The countries with an '@' are ones that also ban certain kinds of denial (usually Holocaust denial).

Note it is very likely that more countries in Europe have bans on free speech, these are just the ones I know of and could get sources for quickly.

On top of that, your point "Europe (as a political entity) has only generally positive things to say about freedom of speech" is only accurate if you don't take freedom of speech seriously. The European Convention on Human Rights AND the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union says it is up to the countries whether hate speech _counts_ as free speech! Which misses the entire point of free speech, that no one is able to say what is and is not okay speech!

I live in the UK and the things that upsets me most is the lack of free speech here. There seem to be far too few countries that take it seriously.

So yes, I think it is fair to say Europe has a problem with free speech.

<comment><USER15> (Warning: Post contains expletives as part of an anecdote.)

About 15 years ago I turned on the TV one day, zapped to the music channel and was faced, all of a sudden, with the face of Kid Rock.

He was talking to some sort of host on the German channel when the following interchange happened:

Kid Rock: You mean I can say anything?!?

Host: Yes!

Kid Rock: Anything at all?

Host: Yes!

Kid Rock: Ok, here it goes. Pussy-licking finger-fucking ho-ass cunt.

And then he smiles as if it's his fifth birthday. Indeed, in the US, you can't say these things on TV if it is a live transmission and they will be beeped in a recording. Even today, it's always funny to see American celebrities on British panel-comedy shows being startled by the nonchalant usage of coarse language.

That's also a regulation of speech on the airwaves. Granted, it's organized by private entities (or is there a law?) but the effect is the same.

Now contrast that with the limitations of free speech here in Germany: While I'm no friend of hate-speech laws in general, I must say that the one we have in Germany served us very well. The only thing that is banned are the Nazi party symbols and the general patterns connected with it (Holocaust-denialism, preaching against a minority, that sort of thing) and it has been an effective tool to counter any resurgence of "The Nazis 2".

Because, as most non-Germans are most likely unaware, Neo-Nazi groups have been actively trying to gain a foothold in youth culture here for a very long time. I can distinctly remember the knuckleheads that tried to distribute "those" tapes/CDs back in school.

Of course having the "illegal" tapes was enough to radicalize some, but they never could organize on any scale, since any organization or music group that attracted too big a following was rapidly banned.

Weighing the good and the bad consequences of our German law comes IMO very much out on the positive side. And no, there has been no feature creep, even though the law is decades old.

Beeping the potty-mouth on the other hand is just off-balance.

<comment><USER14> I think you have good points, I do think you're introducing a false dichotomy though.

I'd prefer if there were no censorship on TV _and_ there was guaranteed freedom of speech.

I can definitely understand where you're coming from (in as much as any non- German can understand), but I do wonder if it's possible to allow hate speech and to fight it in other ways.

Maybe not, but I do think it's an ideal to strive for.

Also, when it comes to US TV, it depends on the channel and whether it's using public bandwidth. Channels like HBO and Showtime don't have to censor anything. But overall I think you're right, the US does have this strange Puritan culture that seems to be in conflict with its idea of personal freedoms.

You say that you aren't a fan of hate-speech laws in general. May I ask where _you_ think the line is? I feel like it's incredibly difficult to define what's appropriate without leeway for abuse.

I am often envious of how good Germany (as a country/government) is about keeping things within the spirit of the law and being reasonable about how things are implemented. The efficiency of the German bureaucracy is a good example: You tend to see less waste and corruption than in other western countries.

So with that in mind, it's sometimes hard to use Germany as the standard since they set the bar too high for the rest of us!

<comment><USER15> I must assure you that there are wasteful and overly bureaucratic processes here too, but thanks for the compliment.

The key, I think, is that one has to picture "the state" as non-static and plan accordingly. For instance, we have a court system, with the energetic and powerful Federal Court at the top, which is set up in such a way that it inherently favors human rights and freedoms above other concerns. So while the hard core of the Volksverhetzungs-laws remains un-touched, eventual feature creep is rapidly cut back by the court system.

This was designed into the German state, since there was acute awareness at the time that the laws of the Weimar Republic which could be used to curtail freedoms were instrumental in the rapid rise of the Nazi party.

It might well be that, without this process in place, free speech would slowly erode throught this law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The comments on the article are much more interesting than the article itself.

</comment><comment><USER17> Orwell wept.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well as long as they start to focus on sites promoting extreme chav behavior

</comment><comment><USER19> And for watching FoxNews?</comment>


Best way to move WordPress from one server to another - <AUTHOR> http://tech.pro/tutorial/1787/best-way-to-move-wordpress-from-one-server-to-another <comment><USER2> This would have been helpful for me a few months ago... haha great article.</comment>


The rise of the hypervisor: virtualization - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10534566

<comment><USER2> Meta observation: By the time a technology story is in the Economist it's probably old news on Hacker News.</comment>


Hillarious Interview - <AUTHOR> http://tech-queries.blogspot.com/2010/11/interview-tales.html

<comment><USER2> I can't believe that the interviewer is asking the interviewee to implement a sorting algorithm _and_ is making fun of candidates online. That certainly is not a place that I'd want to work.</comment>


Out-Tridging Tridge - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2013/08/out-tridging-tridge/

<comment><USER2> Just in case: tridge refers to Andrew Tridgell, one of the creators of Samba and rsync (which this article is about)</comment>


Why Software Projects Are Terrible And How Not To Fix Them - <AUTHOR> http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-software-projects-are-terrible-and-how-not-to-fix-them/

<comment><USER2> A couple years ago, when I was at a previous employer, I was lamenting the typical corporate frustrations to a friend. The executives seemed to have a new "strategy" every quarter. All our projects had unrealistically given deadlines. Even when we successfully released a new product, it was basically DOA, because they were never things we would use ourselves. It was basically impossible to pivot our aging flagship product, because it has grown so complex that it was impossible to get any more incremental gains without a huge commitment in resources. At least once a month I'd be asked, "Well can we make this change to the product quickly?" and I would always say, "No. There are no quick changes anymore. You can either commit the staff to getting the product back into a state where we can do quick changes again (ie. refactoring some of it), or you can just put the product in maintenance mode and have the staff do something else." And yet no matter how many times I explained why, using as many MBA-friendly concepts and analogies as possible, they never understood.

My friend asked if any of the executives and managers had an engineering background, and I literally laughed out loud. Of course they didn't. If they did, they would have understood concepts in this article. Instead they were exactly like that political douchebag in The Wire video.

One of my greatest hopes for the current proliferation of startups is that some of the technical talent there actually does end up as leaders corporate America. I see the fundamental problem of corporations led by execs with the classic MBA-educated, McKinsey/Bain-trained background is they've never created or produced a damn thing in their lives, and just fundamentally don't understand why their decisions are so dysfunctional.

<comment><USER3> If not understanding you is the worst that happens I'd say you're lucky, but watch out...

My buddy and I have been resisting "quick changes" on projects that have a lot of technical debt for a number of years, and what has happened is that managers have just gone to some other less experienced developers who have no scruples to get their changes done without the "fuss". Our reputations have taken a bit of a hit as well - we're "too careful" or don't see that the "perfect is the enemy of the good" etc. That's what they say in front of us, I'm sure they're more colorful when we aren't listening. I've learned to mitigate this by working with a couple of managers that aren't clueless but it's a danger when that isn't an option...

<comment><USER4> Technical debt is a major red flag especially in a savvy organization that realizes it's accumulating it. Especially if much of the early success relied on it.

I was talking with a prospective client that had spent the past three years rushing a SaaS solution to market. They even referenced the technical debt as an area they need help with overcoming as they move forward.

Second order change is difficult for any organization or established project, but remaining consistent with your message can drive the process in that direction. Sounds like a challenge for the two of you, but try to bring solutions / recommendations instead of minor resistance that might get misinterpreted. Not easy I know.

<comment><USER5> How do you spend 3 years rushing a product to market? What type of system were they building?

<comment><USER4> This company operates in the e-medical records space and works with hospitals, physicians, and other providers. It is more than just records management and deals with referrals for service along with analytical capabilities etc.

Hard space to penetrated but with a lot of federally funded initiatives the past few years. New regulations around EHR is driving the space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Turning around a software project is like turning around a tugboat: it takes a lot of time and energy, and tremendous momentum.

Off-topic sailors nitpick: tugboats are highly maneuverable, what takes a lof of time and energy is turning around a very large container ship _with_ a tugboat

See for example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkCqDLR2s78>

<comment><USER7> Indeed few boats that size are as maneuverable as a tug. It's a good metaphor for a skilled developer: even with that kind of agility, it can take a while to change the direction of something with a huge momentum. And a software project has momentum vectors shooting off in high dimensional space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can't really fix things like software publicly. That'd never fly in a typical company, startups excluded of course. The only thing you _can_ do is do it secretly and there are practically two ways to accomplish that.

The first way is hard to do if there's a large group of programmers working on the project but it's very suitable for older projects that is still under development but with lower staffing.

If possible, do things efficiently locally (use source control, use python/jython, generate code, do automated builds, do automated testing, reuse, and only deliver what you must) but leave your advantageous practices unadvertised. Then, slowly abuse your edge to steal maintenance and refactoring time from actual to-be-done tasks and features. Eventually you can ease your own future work and you'll get more time to work on the system instead of the features which become easier to add.

The second way is to employ a targeted attack against a whole malfunctional group or team at once: skunkworks projects. Do the damn thing from the scratch and do it right, then replace the old steaming pile of junk with it before anyone gets to say no, and weasel your way back to the surface by toting things were just changed a bit, and never replaced.

Of course, this comes with the assumption that the evil is in the system and your colleagues aren't actively demolishing everything you build.

<comment><USER9>
         Do the damn thing from the scratch and do it right,
         then replace the old steaming pile of junk with it

This reminds me of the many attempts to rewrite nethack in a higher level language, like ruby or python.

They all fail miserably, leaving nothing but a smoking crater and piles of code that is never to be used.

Turns out all those millions of lines of c code written over a period of 25 years actually do quite a lot.

<comment><USER10> Yes, this point of view is well known and well documented.

But the opposite may have some weight too. I think I read somewhere that Google codebase had been rewritten from scratch. Maybe it was early enough, because I suppose rewriting it today would be painful. Are there any other successful rewrite from scratch stories? Maybe vim?

<comment><USER11> Google doesn't "rewrite" things in the traditional sense.. they develop new versions of old systems when the old system has reached the limit (or is just grossly inefficient). The new systems generally are not at all architecturally similar. I don't think I've ever heard of a rewrite "because the code was messy" or anything other "it can't do X and we need X".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Original source of the dilbert comic in the article:

<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-11-05/>

dilbert can be painfully accurate, to the point where you have to stop reading it to avoid depression.

</comment><comment><USER13> People who have too many problems dump them onto someone else. Such people in management make life miserable for anyone below them. Problems tend to move around in circles and pointing out an issue is a good way to have it boomerang back to where it becomes yours to solve.

It's much better if you have coworkers and especially management with whom you can cooperate. If there's at least enough flexibility to improve things, it's possible to have things snowball in reverse, as it were, where each person tackles a piece of the problem and it gets taken care of.

But it's hard if you work with people who don't care. For example, it can be frustrating to get blamed for causing problems that have always existed, with no one noticing them, simply because people were too far away from the consequences and those who suffered the consequences had no idea about their cause.

And yes, even simple things like "source control" can be a tough sell when the devs insist that keeping the .c file in the folder with the .exe counts as source control. For a nearly 30-year-old DOS program, written with ASCII menus (think printf, not ncurses), uses only statically assigned globals (malloc? what's that do?), deeeeply nested ifs, that directly writes outputs to hardware I'm not sure anyone at the company still understands, and there's a custom build for each install? I'm just grateful I have nothing to do with "maintaining" that source and that DOS makes it easy to do backups via xcopy and a network drive. In retrospect, I might have been happier not knowing what was in those .c files.

</comment><comment><USER14> UX comment on this website: I like to click and highlight words as I read. I know I'm not the only one who does this. On this site when I do this, the article keeps drawing focus to the top of the page and its...annoying. Why would someone do this? I've never experienced this issue on any other site before.

<comment><USER15> I thought I was alone in that preference! A designer was watching me read through an article and he was like ".... why are you clicking everywhere?" It helps me keep track of my place, and I'm ready to control-copy even faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a strong correlation between terrible projects and the value that the project will deliver.

The lower the future value and the uncertainty that it will bring the value, the more problems the project will experience.

So, if you as a developer ask "how is this going to deliver value (make money)?" and you don't get a convincing and logical answer the more problems you will experience.

The easy part is, the bad projects are really easy to identify because no one on the project can tell something argumentative.

\- "You have to build a video website in 1 week!"

* How is this going to make money?

\- We will charge every user for every video they upload

* So, it is like Youtube but paid. Why will people use this instead?

\- BSOD...

</comment><comment><USER17> Has this guy ever even read Joel's stuff?

The acronym TDD keeps popping up time and again.

Joel's not a TDD fan last I heard him talking about it (admittedly stackoverflow podcasts a couple of years back). He certainly wasn't a fan of it when the Joel test came out because that pre-dated TDD.

Fact is, while I agree with some of the points in the article, there are things that aren't accepted practice and TDD is one of them.

Personally I think it's a colossal waste of time apart from some complicated methods.

And don't even get me started on the esoteric 'scrum' or 'agile' where everyone has their own pet definition of what it _really_ means.

<comment><USER18> He never said or implied that Joel is a TDD fan in the article. He also concedes that TDD might be a controversial practice in the first paragraph. In any case, the merits of any particular practice have little to do with the main thesis of this blog post.</comment></comment>