Future Will Be Documented - <AUTHOR> https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-future-will-be-documented <comment><USER2> Hey mods, can we change this title to something clearer like "MongoDB Atlas vs AWS DocumentDB"?</comment>


How to improve your programming skills - <AUTHOR> http://www.antoarts.com/10-ways-to-improve-your-programming-skills/ <comment><USER2> 11\. Rewrite something that desperately needs to be rewritten.

So many times I've encountered something and thought, "I can't believe that people are actually expected to use this software."

It was bad from a user perspective: difficult to use, slow, tedious to do what you actually needed to do, unable to "get there from here".

Then once I looked under the hood, it was often worse: built upon a horribly designed data structure, inflexible with constants where there should have been parameters, no apparent thought put into its use, too many violations of acceptable practice to mention, looking as if it evolved haphazardly (which it probably did).

It's easy to bitch about stuff like this, but you often have to go to the next level to _do something about it_. It's amazing how much rethinking you have to do and how many tools you have to build to turn horrible software into what should have "obviously" been done in the first place.

Easier said than done. And often, some of my best learning experiences.

<comment><USER3> Rewriting something is most definitely a good way to learn that a) rewrites are easy to underestimate, and often not such a good idea as they seem, and b) the previous programmer may not be such an idiot as you first thought.

Understanding the thinking behind other peoples code (yes, even crap code) is one of the hardest programming skills to acquire.

<comment> steve-howard This is something that took a lot of mistakes to learn for me. Replace only the code that's definitely wrong, and resist the urge to start over. Whenever I see a project announce that they're going to rewrite the next version, I know I'll never see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Learn a new programming language"

I would rephrase this to learn a new programming _paradigm_. There are fundamental differences between static typing and dynamic typing, object orientation and functional, manual memory management and garbage collection. There are also "pure" single-paradigm languages and multi-paradigm languages. If you learn the same type of language multiple times, you're really just learning new syntax and probably a couple of extra idiosyncrasies, so it's important that you pick languages with fundamental differences.

Compare going through this learning path:

Perl -> PHP -> JavaScript -> Python -> Ruby -> Node.js

To going through this:

Java -> C -> Scheme -> JavaScript -> Erlang

For example.

<comment><USER5> Counting _proper_ languages I actually wrote something _useful_ in, my path looks like:

C64 BASIC -> C64 raw machine code -> QBasic -> x86 raw machine code -> Turbo Pascal -> C -> Visual Basic -> Java -> O'Caml -> Delphi7 -> Python -> C++ -> Erlang -> C# -> Haskell -> F# -> JavaScript

To keep learning very different languages is also what guarantees you will be able to get a good job when your bread-and-butter language falls out of fashion. Try to imagine being a 60-year old Cobol-only programmer in the job market today. In addition to getting some experience with the actual languages, you will also get a good grip of the underlying patterns and ideas, which will make it a breeze to pick up any new language.

Another mostly overlooked skill that you gain from working in radically different languages, is to be able to work with different _priorities_. Java and C++ are designed for serious work. In these, you take types, error checking and exceptions seriously, you keep the code clean and robust, and you _R_ the _FM_ thoroughly for every single external function you call. Visual Basic, on the other hand, is designed for slapping together something that gets a small job done. Errors can be ignored, text encoding can be fucked up, functions can run into 500 lines, and that's simply something you should be comfortable with when in VB - it's copy/paste/hack/throw away all the way. C# is again very much like Java, but without the documentation attitude. Critical bits of the standard library are woefully undocumented, and you are expected to just try some code and see if it works. When in C#, just accept that and be comfortable with it.

But, most importantly when learning a new language: _Adopt the mindset_. Don't try for type-safe Python. Don't write slapdash C++ code. Don't try for time- critical optimized VB. Don't box/unbox everything in F# to get dynamic typing.

<comment><USER6> _Java and C++ are designed for serious work. In these, you take types, error checking and exceptions seriously, you keep the code clean and robust, and you R the FM thoroughly for every single external function you call._

What type is "null" in Java? What type is the stack in C++?

Java and C++ have very little typing. You have to type a lot of types into your source code, but they don't get you anything. For every Java or C++ program, there is some set of input that results in a NullPointerException or a segmentation fault. Guess what: if you had a type system, that wouldn't happen.

Java and C++ are designed for certifications, long-lasting career, and compiling [1].

[1] <http://xkcd.com/303/>

<comment><USER5> Completely agree with the types part. I did not try to say that Java or C++ are strictly typed, but that the types (ie. classes) that _are_ used in programs are taken seriously. By this I mean that if you are looked down by serious C++ developers upon if you send your references via void pointers or typecast by guessing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Learning Javascript changed my Perl for the ... more fun to write. Possibly better, too. I've started passing around coderefs as arguments to functions a lot more recently, and allowing people who use my APIs to do just that...

I've been writing code that allows you to describe a website in data and at a high level recently, and builds you up all the methods you need to interact with it. In general, when people need to provide parameters, I also let them pass in coderefs that can be executed to provide those eg:

                my $name = ref($args{'form_name'}) eq 'CODE' ?
                    $args{'form_name'}->( $self, @user_options ) :
                    $args{'form_name'};
                my $form = $self->mech->form_name( $name );

<comment><USER8> Not to golf your code or anything, but that's around the point where I switched to Ruby. It's almost a drop-in replacement, you can be coding in minutes with all the handy shortcuts non-PERL coders don't know they're missing.

 _name = args[:form_name].respond_to?(:call) ? args[:form_name].call(user_options) : args[:form_name]_

Fewer sigils, no array/scalar access nonsense, real and convenient objects, etc.

<comment><USER9> _Fewer sigils_

As with PHP, reusing the same sigil for everything misses the point of sigils rather badly. I count _five_ instances of _two_ sigils in your example and each sigil character has another syntactic meaning within the same line.

<comment><USER8> If sigil means non-ascii character, there are six. If you use it to mean name- modifier (changes what the following string means) there is one, the colon. What did you mean?

And yes, colon is also the _or_ in the ternary operator.

But there are still less than Perl, for the same length of code, and the code is simpler - _.call()_ the thing if _it.respond_to?(:call)_

<comment><USER9> _What did you mean?_

A punctuation character considered as part of an identifier by way of a parser rule. The _?_ in _respond_to?_ , in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also, randomly: I started putting bug bounties on my code on CPAN:

[http://search.cpan.org/~sargie/Data-Google-Visualization- Dat...](http://search.cpan.org/~sargie/Data-Google-Visualization- DataTable-0.08/lib/Data/Google/Visualization/DataTable.pm#BUG_BOUNTY)

This made me more conscientious about what I release ;-)

<comment><USER10> I found a doc bug :-) "This module is attempts to hide the gory details". The "is" isn't English grammar.

(No, doesn't count as a bug, really)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > 10\. Don't rush to StackOverflow. Think!

Disagree with this one. My rule is, "If you get stuck for more than 10 minutes, post to StackOverflow." I'll post my question then continue trying to solve it myself. Sometimes someone will post a good answer right away, saving me lots of time. Other times I'll end up solving my problem on my own, but I'll still learn something valuable from a comment or answer somebody posts to my question. Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6327396/set-time-part- of-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6327396/set-time-part-of-datetime- in-ruby)

<comment><USER12> It sounds like you value "getting things done" over "improving your skills." That's not a bad thing, but its not what the article was about.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about that. My point was that by posting to StackOverflow you can do both more efficiently. I don't see much of a point in trying to trial-and- error a problem, hunt through documentation, etc, when somebody more experienced can just tell you what to do in a few seconds. The same lesson is learned either way.

<comment><USER12> "The same lesson is learned either way."

Not at all. Learning how to find the solutions to a problem is very different from learning the solution to your specific issue. I'm not saying its always worth your time, but there is a different lesson learned when you find the solution yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 11\. Learn how the entire stack works. I see way too many people coding around problems that could be solved at the server level, the network layer, etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really good article, I agree with every point.

If I were to add to it I stress the importance of reading books by different authors and publishers, even if they're about the same subject. This helps you get a much wider, well-rounded view and it often improves the learning experience.

<comment><USER15> I agree, reading books of different perspectives is great.

I would also like to bring up the importance of reading "good practices" books and articles. Learning not only how to write good code for yourself, but good code for your colleagues to work with is an important skill to have. Writing maintainable code is often not trivial. I recommend reading Effective Java by Joshua Bloch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> -Build something that is bigger/more complex than your current skill level.

This will not only improve your skills in general, but learning from the mistakes you make is probably the best way to grow as a programmer.

<comment><USER16> By the way, I can't recommend going out and reading massive textbooks. That might be useful in a vacuum, but in reality you only have so much time. Programming should always be number one on this list; followed by: -building something completely different than your used to (either in scope, by features, or by language) -looking at code from open source projects

The main thing: always challenge yourself. When your at the inflection point of your learning curve, do something different. Expanding your boundaries will not only help you learn different technologies, but it will give you a better perspective on your actual specialties.

<comment><USER17> Some things are better found in books though. I've been reading Lisp in Small Pieces for a while now, and there's some great stuff buried in there. I don't think I would have stumbled upon it just hacking away on toy Lisps on my own.

There might be other places to find some of these things, like other compiler texts or the actual source of some Lisp compilers and runtimes, but books are often laid out in a nice pedagogical way. Reading the SBCL or Racket source would be a steep way to get to some of these ideas.

I would amend your recommendation to say, pick the massive textbooks you read carefully. Don't suffer through big, poorly written books.

<comment><USER16> thats a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> +1 for don't rush to StackOverflow!

You don't get better if you don't tax your brain a little, much like how you don't get stronger if you use a winch or wheelbarrow to carry a load instead of carrying it yourself.

<comment><USER19> I've been trying to get better at this myself. Although, you do feel foolish when you bang your head against something for six hours, and then you get your first (correct) answer on stack overflow five minutes after you post.

Still, if you're not feeling foolish often, you're not learning. Competence is deadly that way.

<comment><USER20> Learning to find the answer yourself is -way- more helpful than having it provided to you. Don't regret those 6 hours. It's a process.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. Plus next time you won't have to go looking for it on Stack again because it'll be ingrained, painfully, in your brain. And you'll probably learn a whole lot of other things along the way too.

StackOverflow isn't a total no-no, just don't make it priority 1.

<comment><USER21> Or, if it's important, go to stack but make a record of what it was... Then try to do the same thing without looking a weekend down the line .. sometimes things can't wait!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While people recommend reading code, like the Linux sources, I also find more code focused sites like Code Project (www.codeproject.com) very useful. These aren't blogs like Coding Horror, which are more "philosophy". These articles on Code Project typically are explaining code in detail.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find that trying to ask my question at StackOverflow is the best way to improve. Because I have to think about how best to word my problem, and really make it clear and concise. And usually when I do that, I end up just solving the problem on my own.

Of course, I see a lot of give me teh codez there, so I can see where the author is coming from. Nevertheless, I find it to be a useful tool in helping me become a better programmer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch. This is similar to "rubber-duck debugging" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I got a "Database Connection Error" (I am sure your server got hit hard with being top 5 on HN). :) The irony makes me giddy.

<comment><USER25> Obligatory Google Cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?rls=en&q=ca...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?rls=en&q=cache:http://www.antoarts.com/10-ways- to-improve-your-programming-skills/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Really good article. Another way to improve your programming skills would be to teach someone else. I find this to be one of the best ways to solidify your understanding of something.

</comment><comment><USER27> The article suggest reading code, which I agree is a good way to improve programming skills. But I'm a bit unsure what to do with the advice to read the linux source code. Where would you start? I find the only way to actually get to reading code, is if you have a need to understand some part of it (e.g. to fix a bug or add a feature).

So perhaps a more actionable proposal is to try to fix a bug, preferably one you care about, in some open source project.

<comment><USER28> I often go read code to figure out how somebody else does something I want to do. Usually, somebody has solved your problem better than you have.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those of you who get a database error, I think it is the huge amount of traffic I'm getting at the moment which causes this (>1000 visits last hour). I'm using shared hosting, which might have problems with this, so in one way, you are DDOSing my site ;-). I don't know if it is safe to tell you to just wait and reload the page, but do that, BUT NOT TOO FAST!

<comment><USER29> Are you using any caching module, e.g. Hyper Cache for WP? If not, you should give it a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> I started using one just recently. I'm not a web developer and I just installed WordPress less than a month ago. Apparently, PHP scripts are heavy to execute :S

It seems to work better now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What I observe so far is people who learn all kind of programming languages will become very good programmers. And one who see language as a tool to solve problem and applies it smartly will become millionaire providing food for remaining good programmers.

</comment><comment><USER31> But how does one get ideas for a project? I started learning programming using C++ about 5 months ago. I've been making good progress on learning the concepts but I just can't think of anything useful to create.

<comment><USER32> Do you do anything? Like, anything at all besides learn C++? Do you know anyone else who does things? Think about what parts of those things are suboptimal and create something to make it better.

For example, where I work, we get a lot of user-submitted content, but we can't use all of it. So we need to filter. The lady who is primarily responsible for this simply doesn't have the time to vet the massive number of images she runs across to make sure they meet some basic criteria for size and quality, so I wrote a program that mostly automates it.

<comment><USER31> Well, I'm a college student, so no I don't do much else aside from learning how to do stuff.

<comment><USER32> I'm sure you study, research, write, socialize, etc. in addition to learning C++. If not, I recommend starting. Those are all way more important than C++.

And like I said, it doesn't need to be _your_ pain that you're relieving. Look at the people around you — even if you yourself are chained into your bed with no hope of escape, I bet you know people who do things. You can help them do those things.

For example, take a look at patio11 on this site. He's built a whole business out of a simple tool he wrote in a few hours to help a teacher make bingo cards for her students, because making bingo cards is such a soul-sucking waste of time when humans do it. (To be clear, he's put a lot more time than that into building the program and the business over the years. But it only took a few hours of coding to solve the problem.)

<comment><USER31> Ah, alright, I see what mean. So the general idea is to create something that will help make other people's lives easier?

<comment><USER32> Yeah. It's a good way to come up with a concrete idea, and it has the benefit of, y'know, actually helping people. (And helping people sometimes has the benefit of turning into paying work in the future.)

<comment><USER31> Awesome. Thanks for all the insight! I appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I like how "Program" is all the way down at number 5

</comment><comment><USER34> 1\. Learn paradigms, kinds of problems and computer science fundamentals.

2\. Work on poorly-run large projects with (a) performance problems or (b) code organisation problems.

3\. Work on other projects with developers that use (1) to solve the problems of (2). You'll be surprised how quickly you learn when you've seen the benefits to be had by doing things better... ;)

</comment><comment><USER35> Reading and trying to work with the Linux kernel source is hardly a good way to get better programming skills. It's really large and hard to understand. Something like Minix, MenuetOS, or LoseThos is a much better alternative to hack on. LoseThos particularly reminds me of old school hackable boxes like the Commodore64.

</comment><comment><USER36> All of the advice given here is good and none of the tips here are going to hurt you.

It's just another less abstract reiteration of a few truths that encompass much more than programming.

Work with different tools. Think. Talk about what you do with other people. Do all of it a lot.

<comment><USER37> i.e communicate, keep an open mind and challenge yourself

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I hope that I fixed the problem now by installing a plugin (QuickCache) which caches pages and serves a normal, static HTML page when possible instead of generating a new dynamically from the PHP scripts each time. I _hope_.

</comment><comment><USER38> 8\. is very important. Once you decide to write article, you got to have solid knowledge about the topic. You just can't write the code and see if it works :) you got to know why and how!

</comment><comment><USER39> This is severely biased toward things that require no in-person interaction.

So I'll add two:

0\. talk to other programmers 11\. attend a Coding Dojo

</comment><comment><USER6> One way to improve your programming skills: stop reading programming blogs and start programming.

<comment><USER37> Worst part of this is that you can end up sounding and feeling like you are/could be a far better programmer than you actually are; you know all of the ideals, philosophy and lingo about how to create clean, amazing code but actually turning this into real programs that solve real problems in real budget & time constraints is a very, very different thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Also, spend time doing focused practices. Attend a coderetreat (www.coderetreat.com)

</comment><comment><USER41> 1\. Find something that you can't do. 2\. Do it. 3\. Repeat.

</comment><comment><USER42> Debug other people's code.</comment>


Hierarchy of Isolation - <AUTHOR> http://adam.younglogic.com/2016/09/hierarchy-of-isoltation/ <comment><USER2> Their idea of maximum isolation is "virtual machine".

Beyond that are, at least, "dedicated machine in cloud cluster", "dedicated machine in shared data center", and "dedicated machine in private data center".</comment>


Ask HN: Can single licenses of Windows 10 Enterprise be purchased? - <AUTHOR> Win10 Enterprise is the only version that allows telemetry to be disabled, or full control of updates (Long Term Support Branch = LTSB).  But only the Home and Pro editions are available on the Microsoft Store online.  A web search of retailers was not successful in finding Win10 Enterprise.
http://www.mirazon.com/windows-8-1-enterprise-get/ says that it was possible to buy Win8 Pro on a new machine, then obtain Software Assurance without Volume Licensing.  The SA entitlement could then be used to upgrade Win8 Pro to Win8 Enterprise.
http://www.microsoftlicensereview.com/?tag=windows-10-enterprise says, "In March 2014, Microsoft updated their channel policies with the implication that SA is only available when purchased with Windows Enterprise. After July 2014, organisations were unable to purchase Software Assurance (SA) and retrospectively assign to Windows OEM or retail purchases within 90 days, In addition, organisations are unable to purchase Windows Enterprise stand alone without SA under the Enterprise Agreement or MPSA volume licensing programmes.".
If it is not possible to purchase single copies of Win10 Enterprise, what is the minimum number of copies that must be purchased? <comment><USER2> You can get Windows 10 Enterprise via MSDN ([https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/subscriptions/downloads/hh4...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/subscriptions/downloads/hh442898.aspx)). You can get MSDN for free if you have a startup with less than $1M of revenue via BizSpark.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the pointer. MSDN would cost $1200 for 2 years ([https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy- vs](https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy-vs)) which would provide perpetual licenses for development purposes.

[http://lemingtonit.com/services/FAQMVLS.aspx](http://lemingtonit.com/services/FAQMVLS.aspx) says that a volume license agreement starts with a minimum of 5 licenses, but they can be different SKUs, including low-cost ones.</comment></comment>


Free Beginners Guitar Course Online - <AUTHOR> http://justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

<comment><USER2> I've been using this online training for long time already. I would say it's not only for beginners but also for intermediate levels too. It covers many different guitar styles. During this long time I've seen how the page positively evolved and I'm happy to see how one person (justin) which is doing a superb job in giving those lessons for free is getting more and more attention. This is in my opinion a good example of how perseverance, free content and love for what you do can at then end pay back with a very good reputation from users and I guess good money with the selling of same free online content but as DVDs,books, etc</comment>


Multiple Boeing 787s in China experienced GPS 20 years rollover issue - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ChinaAvReview/status/1114802018919411712 <comment><USER2> Someone on reddit said yesterday a KLM flight (apparently B777) was grounded because of incorrect date (in some Honeywell equipment?): [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/babyvv/anyone_hit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/babyvv/anyone_hit_by_the_gps_rollover_event_today/ekb3ev3/)

<comment><USER3> We had some Honeywell engineers at my workplace for a system integration meeting. Over lunch I got the opportunity to talk with them. This came up in conversation. Apparently it's very much all-hands-on-deck at the moment - almost every system they've currently got on-board Boeing aircraft is being assessed, and they're in all hours of the day to get new revisions through. I do not envy them right now.

<comment><USER4> Is it because they didn't see the GPS rollover coming up (it was in the news though)? Or did they not think their products would be affected?

<comment><USER3> Partly that (I think there were some legacy systems that were missed), partly that every minor clerical and drawing error that got passed through because of how insignificant it was (nothing that would affect the integrity of the aircraft I should add) has been flagged by Boeing. They want to look proactive to their customers and shareholders I suppose. That means lots of tiny, insignificant changes to hundreds of drawings. It's nothing technically challenging for the most part - just lots and lots of paperwork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't get how some planes were affected, but not all; Every 787 in China should be running the same software version, let alone the world, no?

Are there any reasons a fleet plane might be using a different version? I'm coming up short on reasons, other than language, or maybe special hardware modifications?

<comment><USER6> They have regular software updates. Just like Windows update, nobody do that regularly

<comment><USER5> Haha, that's surprising though, since these are important systems, if there is an update, doesn't it mean something really needs to fixed, i.e, gps rollover? Any bug left unpatched seems unacceptable

Maybe I have more faith in the 'system' than I should...

<comment><USER7> We're talking about the same manufacturer that's responsible for the 737 MAX fiasco. I'm not sure how much trust I would want to place in their software.

<comment><USER8> You're putting trust in their software whether you upgrade it or not.

<comment><USER9> You forget that Boeing doesn't own these planes. These aren't Tesla's. We are currently in an era were it seems to be expected that the manufacturer automatically update their software without the end user intervention, ie Tesla, Windows, Apple, etc... Thats not how it was done in the past, particularly when the bandwidth didn't exist.

<comment><USER8> I don't see how this changes what I wrote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Funny I got an old Tom Tom for $10 a few weeks ago, too old to get software updates, and I was pleased to see that it worked just fine after the rollover.

<comment><USER11> At the [dead] commenter: Timekeeping is an integral part of how the Global Positioning System works, to the extent that relativistic time dilation is a factor. You simply cannot use a GPS receiver with a broken time implementation, at least not without significant accuracy issues.

<comment><USER12> But internal time is not the same as display time.

Internally, the week counter just rolled over. That's fine; all the almanac data is handled in that same format internally. Some receivers may need a reset when this counter rolls, and may need to relearn the almanac/ephemeris from the sky, but once that's done, Sunday of week 0 is just the same as any other Sunday of any other week 0.

Navigation works just fine because it's all internally consistent.

But display time, ahh, now that's where things get interesting. Sunday of week 0 could be displayed as 2019 April 7, or it could be displayed as 1999 August 22, or it could be displayed as 1980 January 6.

Knowing which epoch you're in is actually considerably trickier than working consistently internally, since there's no information in the satellite signal to tell you this, by design. It comes from applying an external offset. Receivers have lots of ways to do this, and quite a few simply have it baked in and cannot handle a rollover, so as far as they're concerned, week 0 is in 1999, period. They'll navigate just fine but they'll display the date wrong, because they're applying the wrong offset.

<comment><USER13> The easiest way of doing this is to assume time will never travel and store the latest computed date right? If you've seen 2001, it's never going to be 1999 again, so it must be 2019.

I understand that will require either flash or battery backed RAM, etc to keep this stored, but seems relatively trivial in most applications... (side effect would be that if the backup battery is dead or all batteries are disconnected, you would revert to 1999)

<comment><USER14> Unless someone manually sets the date incorrectly or gets the timezone wrong (assuming the date isn't stored as UTC).

<comment><USER13> Yeah, you can only use the GPS source for that flag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the reasoning for the current GPS time format and it's resulting issues? Can't we just use a 64bit integer timestamp? That would give us roughly 580 years in nanosecond resolution?

<comment><USER16> GPS was designed a long time ago, and the data rate for ephemeris and almanac data is.... 50 bits per second.

That's not an exaggeration for comic effect. There's _literally_ 50 bits per second from each satellite. 6.25 bytes.

So the navigation messages are packed extremely densely. To the point that plenty of numbers don't even start on byte boundaries.

<comment><USER17> The age isn't the only explanation for the low data rate- it's not simply low tech.

GPS relies on receiving extremely weak signals, often with a very limited receive antenna. This means there's a real trade off- you can send a limited amount of data over a given communication channel. Increasing the data rate might require increasing the transmit power / antenna gain of the GPS satellites, or requiring bigger / better receive antennas on GPS receivers.

Here are the parameters involved: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem)

<comment><USER18> When you consider that you're listening to a ~500W EIRP transmitter that's >20,000km away, with a handheld receiver that usually has a pretty omnidirectional antenna... 50 bps starts to sound quite impressive!

<comment><USER19> More so when you realize the signal level is under the noisefloor!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Related discussion which explains the rollover issue:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19593227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19593227)

</comment><comment><USER21> Dumb question: What is the rollover issue?

<comment><USER22> Not a dumb question at all.

GPS used ten bits for datetime. With a week counter and seconds into that week since 6th of January, 1980. After 1024 weeks it resets back to 0. This has happened once already on 21st of August, 1999. This is the second rollover/reset of the week counter on 6th of April, 2019.

Newer versions of GPS messages use thirteen digits instead of ten digits allowing for a larger week counter (granting 8,192 weeks), causing the first rollover not to occur until the year 2137.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Time...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Timekeeping)

<comment><USER23> Instead of adding 3 bits, maybe they should have dropped 3 bits. A rollover every ~20 years is just asking for latent buts to blow up. A rollover every ~2.5 years is just business as usual. Go big or go small. Don't design things to break just after you retire but before your coworkers do.

<comment><USER24> OTOH, with the current setup a receiver will know the correct date as long as it is turned on at least once every 1024 weeks, since it can detect the rollover. More frequent rollovers might cause issues with timing on devices that are infrequently turned on. It's sort of a moot point for most of us once there's greater adoption of the L2 and L5 CNAV signals— those use a week counter that won't roll over until most if not all of us are dead. Then it can be someone else's problem :)

<comment><USER25> > OTOH, with the current setup a receiver will know the correct date as long > as it is turned on at least once every 1024 weeks, since it can detect the > rollover

Actually, probably every 512 weeks, as it needs to know (or assume) with side of the +/\- it is on:

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

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

* [https://docs.ntpsec.org/latest/rollover.html#ntp_pivots](https://docs.ntpsec.org/latest/rollover.html#ntp_pivots)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The 787 didn't even exist when the GPS time last rolled over, so it's quite unusual to see it have this problem --- unless Boeing reused the software from a previous version, which is not surprising given the regulations of the industry, but that would imply other older models also have the problem.

<comment><USER27> > The 787 didn't even exist when the GPS time last rolled over, so it's quite > unusual to see it have this problem

It's not as unusual as you'd think:

[https://blog.fosketts.net/2019/04/06/gps-time-rollover- failu...](https://blog.fosketts.net/2019/04/06/gps-time-rollover-failures- keep-happening-but-theyre-almost-done/)

There you see a nice summary of the problem and an example a Mercedes car from, if I understood, 2008 experiencing the same type of problems. Also discussed on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19593227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19593227)

It's like having a Y2K bug software and saying "but that software didn't exist before 1900." It doesn't matter when the "epochs" are, it's just about what the design covered or didn't.

I've personally fixed the trading software which failed to correctly implement the correct rollover of the _decades_ (i.e. the transition from year 9 to year 0 in the names), not to mention Y2K. It was simply tested before only "in the same decade."

It's definitely a failure in the development process, for the software that is supposed to work in some bigger time frame, and not only shortly.

<comment><USER28> I'm rather interested in what kind of software developed after Y2K still exhibiting Y2K bug, and how it affects the usage. Is it made with the assumption that it's going to record only post-Y2K dates, and somehow user manages to input pre-Y2K date?

<comment><USER29> A lot of software was never fixed for the Y2K problem. People just went from e.g. entering a date of 99 to 00 as the new millennium rolled around, and dealt with the pain of any time offset calculations being incorrect and needing to be manually fixed for a few months.

Some of it's doubtless still in use and people are entering "19" as the year today, and if it's still in use in 2099 we'll have the exact same problem all over again with the exact same software.

That may seem crazy today, but people in the 1950s would have thought you were crazy if you said B-52s were still going to be flying in 2020.

There's doubtless going to be people still running Windows 95 on some emulator in 2100 to use some legacy application that keeps chugging along. Some software we use today might be in use for thousands of years or more, unlike airframes it isn't subject to any natural decay or wear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone give me a source of it?</comment>


Home of the Babbage Analytical Engine Project - <AUTHOR> http://plan28.org/

<comment><USER2> Beautiful site, John. Well done.</comment>


Our Journey To Empower A Thousand New Kickpreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickpreneur.com/our-journey-to-empower-a-thousand-new-kickpreneurs

<comment><USER2> I took a look at the kickstarter stat page and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have a 44% success rate at funding projects. I expected that to be much lower. Tech projects have a 34% success rate which still seems high to me, but it is interesting to note that this is the second worst success rate.

I would be interested in what makes a kickstarter campaign click. The other side of the coin which is equally important is to find out what makes a campaign fail and the lessons that come out of that. Could you please also interview some folks that were unable to reach their pledge and how they felt they could have amended their approach ?

[http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats](http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats)

<comment><USER3> Awesome, thanks. Yes, we actually have some interviews scheduled with failed Kickstarters. The most common reason for failed campaigns is simply that people haven't prepared enough or prepared ineffectively.

Do you have a network of interested prospects? Can you get their attention?

Most successful Kickstarters created lists of people who to reach out to, by which means, on which date, with notes on what to say and what their desired outcome was.

Timing is critical. You want to have things in place before launching.

Many failed Kickstarters didn't do that. They just created their project, and then plastered their Twitter and Facebook audience with "Here's our Kickstarter, please back us". And they overestimated the amount of backers that would come via Kickstarter itself.

<comment><USER2> That sounds scarily similar to 'build it and they will come' :) Thanks for sharing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey, Ramin here one of the founders at Kickpreneur.com. We actually wanted to make this a Show HN post to hear your feedback :) Excited to hear what you guys think...

<comment><USER4> What's the most surprising thing you've learned so far from interviewing people?

<comment><USER3> There were many surprises, but one repeating theme was: how to promote a Kickstarter project long before your Kickstarter project actually goes life, and that there are really lots of ways to do that.

<comment><USER3> For example, Amanda Palmer drummed up support on Twitter by drawing little sketches of people who tweeted their pics to her. It was a very personal way of relating to them, and it established a really strong bond with people who were then later willing to back her Kickstarter</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visa.com Now Also Down Under DDoS - <AUTHOR> http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/08/visa-website-down-after-threat-from-wikileaks-supporters/ <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of the country song whose chorus goes:

"I've got friends in low places."

\--

[1] I agree, as noted by Nathan below, that this isn't helping Wikileaks' reputation any (despite, of course, WL having nothing to do with this). That's the problem with (and sometimes, benefit of) friends in low places -- no one ever accused them of being sophisticated.

[2] A related thought.... The system consisting of [ Person who leaks info + Wikileaks ] seems to be a modern instance of the Robin Hood archetype. Instead of "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," this system takes information from the powerful and gives it to the (relatively) powerless. Just as with Robin Hood, there's room for debate about the moral characteristics of this approach (particularly on the taking side). And just as with every Robin Hood reincarnation, this system is despised by modern aristocrats.

As I believe pg noted in an essay, during the time-setting of Robin Hood, wealth was nearly a zero-sum game. Today, wealth is not zero-sum, but _power_ still is -- making this archetype all the more fitting.

<comment><USER3> Sadly those friends aren't helping the reputation of Wikileaks. I definitely support freedom and information and the press, but organizing a DDOS doesn't help Wikileaks, it just associates Wikileaks even more with illegal activity.

<comment><USER4> I think you make the mistake of thinking that all protest activity should be about making friends or increasing your reputation and good standing.

Often it's just as much about hitting back as hard as you can. Now you can argue the merits of that, but we have crossed a major threshold here: The internet has taken down the websites of two of the largest credit providers in the world, two weeks before Christmas.

If that isn't an exertion of grassroots power in the internet age, I don't know what is. The implications are boundless. Visa, and Mastercard probably didn't think twice about canceling Wikileak's payments. I doubt their risk assessment would have been the same if they had known this would result.

<comment><USER5> Internet? Grassroots?

The Internet hasn't taken down anything. A small group of geeks have taken upon themselves to take down a few targeted websites. No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force.

If I'm following correctly, I'm supposed to believe that a staff member of an elected official asking about the activities of a private company is an abuse of power but a small group of unelected geeks representing no one but themselves are to be commended for actively disrupting the activities of a private business.

<comment><USER6> I'm hesitant to liken Anonymous to revolutionaries but to be honest, almost all revolutions were started in a "small group" that was relatively insignificant (that was unelected), and then grew in size and gathered acceptance.

Again with the due process and rules: do you think when the French people stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution, there was any semblance of rules or accountability? Hell no. It was the "naked use of force". Did it have bad consequences? Some. Did it have good consequences? I think you know the answer.

<comment><USER5> You've stripped away all the particulars in order to equate the overthrow of a multi-century monarchy with disruption of a few websites.

Yes, we've got two examples of 'disputes'. But that doesn't get us very far. Can you finish the analogy for me?

You are suggesting that the DDOS activities are indicative of an attempt to overthrow what in favor of what?

<comment><USER6> My point was that the properties of this small scale protest (or tantrum depending on however you look at it) that you deride are actually pretty similar to most other protests.

<comment><USER5> You suggested that it was similar to the French Revolution. In what way is it similar other than they both involved 'protest'? And if that is the similarity you were trying to make, then why confuse the issue by bringing in the concept of revolutionary war?

Is there a French Revolution version of Godwin's Law?

<comment><USER7> This is the third time in a short period I've seen Godwin's Law used as a way to discount serious discussion online. Are we really so uncomfortable with the concept of metaphor or the importance of remembering and analyzing serious events? We're discussing censorship, freedom, etc and 20th-century history is off limits?

<comment><USER5> I'm not trying to 'discount' serious discussion, I'm suggesting that comparing DDOS attacks on commercial websites to the French Revolution is _not_ serious discussion.

Reaching for a Nazi analogy or a French Revolution analogy should be done sparingly and with careful consideration.

Now you are suggesting that I'm arguing that 20th-century history is off limits. This sort of wild over-generalization is the antithesis of 'serious discussion'.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps you think comparisons to something like the French Revolution are unjustified merely because the scope of the current turmoil is nowhere near as wide (yet), but all revolutions have to start somewhere. If the US goes for another two or three presidential elections without significantly affecting the patterns of increasing corporate control over politics and the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties, we may find it easier to draw such comparisons.

One thing I think we can all agree on: if the next revolution comes any time soon (ie. next few decades), it will start online.

<comment><USER5> There seems to be a lot of confusion between the Wilkileaks disclosure and the DDOS attacks.

The disclosures can be debated within the terms of government transparency and public policy, but the DDOS attacks were all about a small group of private individuals attacking private companies because they disagreed with how they ran their business.

The two issues are related by a common party, Wikileaks, but other than that they aren't even in the same ballpark. My comments were about the DDOS attacks and not the Wikileaks disclosures. You seem to be talking about the disclosures.

<comment><USER8> What Wikileaks is doing is called journalism. I wouldn't compare that to revolution, even if they are both rare these days.

What Anonymous is doing _is_ an attack, and its only justification so far is the attempted suppression of Wikileaks' journalism. Suppression of rights like the freedom of the press are among the best justifications for revolution. So, while the current DDOS probably isn't the start of a revolution, it is the kind of thing you would expect to see in the opening stages of a modern revolt in an industrialized society, before things get to the physical violence.

<comment><USER5> Freedom of the press is about protecting the press from the government. It is _not_ about forcing private companies to run their businesses according to the diktats of small group of anonymous geeks.

<comment><USER8> Visa and MasterCard cannot act in isolation from the government: They form a duopoly that requires regulation, and they are subject to quite a bit of it. As felixmar pointed out elsewhere in the thread [1], they have gotten favors from the government that have been exposed by the very leaks at issue. It doesn't take actual evidence of a specific request from the government to establish that the government influenced their decision to change their minds about doing business with Wikileaks.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985128>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it wrong to think of this at a very high level, where basically the internet as an system that relies on information to function properly has turned on its immune system?

I know this is a very meta idea, and its extremely easy to break this down to the component entities (Visa corporation, thousands of individuals, etc). But under the meta concept, wouldn't that be like individual t-cells talking to each other?

<comment><USER10> Interesting. And, like skynet, you can't switch it off.

<comment><USER11> Until we're hit with a coronal mass ejection; that would do a pretty good job of killing pretty much all advanced technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I'm some average merchant, anywhere in the world.

Because of this action, Now I can't make money and support my family.

Aside from your personal feelings, what are the odds I blame Visa, and what are the odds I blame Wikileaks? All of a sudden Visa doesn't work, MasterCard doesn't work, some sites can't be accessed, sometimes the net is slower than it should, etc.

Maybe I'm smoking crack, but from where I sit, the more hackers thrash out over WL, the more ticked millions of people are going to become at both Wikileaks and the hackers involved.

This is a very sad development. People of all opinions need to take an active hand in trying to settle this down as quickly as possible. This is no good for anybody. No good can come from this.

EDIT: If you want to support the idea of leaking to fix governments (and not the massive attack of government nodes through information overload), which I do, then WL needs a standard of conduct: what it will and will not publish. It needs a standard of acceptable behavior: what cyber protests are in line with it's mission and what protests are not.

Without these things, I can't support WL, they're going to lose track of their message and the larger media narrative, and they are going spectacularly shoot themselves and the rest of us in the foot. This is becoming dangerously nihilistic.

<comment><USER13> As an average merchant you wouldn't have any reason to care about the ethical actions of large companies like VISA unless you were affected. These types of actions (right or wrong) force you to care.

In fact, this is one of the core principles that America was founded on through the symbolic Boston Tea Party and beyond.

I think the real point of these things, though its likely that the intentions of many participants differ, is to simply bring these issues to light to the common person.

<comment><USER14> > force you to care

I prefer to live in a world where people don't _force_ me to care about things but persuade me through reasoned discourse.

<comment><USER15> Won't happen. Even if you don't like it when groups such as Anonymous force it on you, the State has mechanisms for you to care as well, many of them highly undemocratic.

I'm thankful that there's a balancing agent on the other end of the spectrum. Even if I disagree with it, it helps to distribute power.

<comment><USER14> > Won't happen.

I don't assume a paradigm of force. Sure it exists, but I don't assume it _has_ to be that way. I'm not naive but I also know that people and organizations often do have the capacity to interact on a higher level; but it takes a lot of insight to see how. I don't assume the low road is the only one available.

<comment><USER15> I don't assume it _has_ to be, but that's the way it's been through all of human history, and I'm guessing we're several thousands of years away from that changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What this whole wikileaks payment processing issue has made me aware of is how bottle-necked this whole area is.

A client of mine a couple of years ago selling personal protection equipment (smoke & hazmat masks, mostly). They were based out of Australia and selling globally. Apparently they breached some US advertising restriction with one of their products (disposable hygienic suit) by having the words bird flu in the description.

Simultaneously to contacting (apparently they tried to contact earlier during US work hours), they contacted paypal and had the account shut down entirely. The US was never a major market so they put a big red sign on the product page: "Not for Sale in the USA." Getting paypal back online took weeks. Whatever department shut them down was not concerned with reversing the damage and paypal seemed like they knew which side to stay on.

Basically, paypal (and apparently visa & mastercard) is the on/off switch that various players within the US government can use. It does not take a high level one off phone call. This is an issue.

</comment><comment><USER17> Considering that the Jesus was the original revolutionary and one of his major acts was throwing the money changers out of the Temple, I am stunned about the internalized commercialization of Christmas and the comments that put into question the current protest.

And I am saying this even though I hate DDos viscerally, my business was a victim of such an attack. But I have to say, as long as no one gets killed or injured this is a legitimate form of protest.

<comment><USER18> DDOS attempts that utillize illegal botnets are, well, illegal. As such, they are by definition not a legitimate form of protest.

<comment><USER19> That may be true, but is THIS an illegal botnet? What makes LOIC illegal? What makes a determined, coordinated request from thousands of volunteer computers illegal? I liken this to a civil disobedience sit in.

<comment><USER20> Without commenting on the morality of LOIC, what makes its current use illegal are laws, passed by legislatures.

Pick a jurisdiction and you'll find some law forbidding DDOS attacks. Here for example:

[http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s...](http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s308e.html)

That section would cover anyone from NSW participating in this botnet and could be used to prosecute this guy if they find him:

[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/the-aussie-who- bli...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/the-aussie-who-blitzed-visa- mastercard-and-paypal-with-the-low-orbit-ion-cannon-20101209-18qr1.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how much money Visa and Mastercard have to lose before they regret their decision.

For the attackers, instead of positioning the DDOS attack as revenge, you should give them as an easy-out. Stop blocking wikileaks and we'll stop the DDOS. Since Visa/Mastercard are loosing millions of dollars for each hour they are down, it would turn the issue into a simple business decision and they could change their position without losing face.

<comment><USER22> There's another point of view on this story, which is, shortly put, "we don't negotiate with terrorists".

<comment><USER9> Who's the terrorist in this situation? Its wrong to immediately put Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other related parties into the "right" side and to put the people behind the DDoS attacks into the "wrong" side. They are not victims, but instead are attacking Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to get funds. Who's right in this situation?

<comment><USER23> Visa is a private company. If they are wrong, it's wrong in the same way as Apple's app store policies -- you can object to them, compete with them, complain about them, even jailbreak your phone, but you'd definitely be wrong to DDoS the app store website b/c your app was rejected.

Visa isn't attacking anyone when they reject customers for any reason, just like Apple isn't attacking anyone when they reject apps. Attacking is the wrong word. It's refusing to cooperate with, even "discriminating against" (but not the various illegal types like racism or sexism), being unfriendly to, maybe "being a jerk", whatever, but there is no _attacking_ when a business makes legal business decisions, especially one that they think lots of their customers would prefer (Why else would they do it? I'm guessing Visa is run by soulless bureaucrats just trying to make money and keep their jobs and they don't care about having a political agenda).

<comment><USER24> You said : Why else would they do it ? And someone above posted this link : [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us- rus...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa- mastercard)

Visa and Mastercard are different from Apple because they did what they did when the government stepped in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find outrageous that compagnies like VISA or MASTERCARD take the right to forbid people to do what _THEY_ want with _THEIR OWN_ money.

Please continue the DDOS until they bankrupt.

<comment><USER26> But you're missing a huge point here. Visa and MasterCard don't have a responsibility to allow you access to their networks.

This is akin to arguing that your free speech rights are infringed upon when a moderator removes your comment on their board.

<comment><USER27> I think your analogy is flawed in this case. Government-enforced monopolies have an implicit social responsibility to abide by social norms when conducting business. This is more akin to a subway refusing to carry a newspaper publisher because of something they published.

To the extent that a refusal of service violates social norms this creates a legitimate grievance in the absence of reasonable alternatives because of public policy.

<comment><USER26> To me, the fact that Visa / MasterCard are in a heavily regulated (and to some extent, subsidized) industry is a separate issue. Perhaps the government should have less influence on these card associations, but the fact remains that they are still private entities.

Perhaps my analogy was not quite accurate, but I think your analogy goes too far on the other side. A subway is wholly owned by, and operated under, the budget of a government.

I understand, and sympathize with 12341sa's outrage, but his comment implies I have a _right_ to purchase goods using a Visa or MasterCard.

<comment><USER27> I'm not arguing that you have the right to a credit card. But you should not be discriminated against on grounds that violate the social compact. Otherwise, your argument suggests it would be legitimate for Visa and Mastercard to refuse to process donations for specific political parties or politicians. Or for Paypal to close the accounts of people who vote.

I think most people would accept that there is a fundamental right to engage in peaceful trade. And just thinking of the issue practically, there are far more ways for someone denied access to the subway to get to their destination than there are ways for people to collect money remotely without access to the banking infrastructure and credit transfer services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this really an attempt to support free speech with a DDOS? Or is there some sort of meta/irony motivation here?

<comment><USER29> I think MasterCard/Visa is just a nail to 4chan's hammer, is all. DDoSing is all they know how to do (except exposure of personal details for public harrassment).

That said, I'm sitting back with my popcorn here. I just imagine guys in some boardroom saying, "4 _what_ now?" Heh.

<comment><USER30> Damn, it's usually safe to read HN with something in your mouth... [gets napkin]

<comment><USER31> Okay, you know what you do? You buy yourself a tape recorder, you just record yourself for a whole day. I think you're going to be surprised at some of your phrasing.

<comment><USER32> He means the grandparent made him laugh so hard, he spit out the food he was eating. It's a compliment, not a criticism.

<comment><USER33> It's a quote from Arrested Development. You should check it out if you haven't seen it, it's on netflix and hulu.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the reminder! I was just saying the other day how I still missed it so long after its TV run, I had quite forgotten that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The attack on MC supposedly took down SecureCode affecting those payments... Seems like Visa's equivalent, Verified by Visa is still up:

[https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partn...](https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default&resize=yes)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just tried that link and it timed out. Perhaps its intermittent?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does anybody have any details on the the technical side of these attacks and what happens when anon decides to fire all phasers at a target? My impression is of a loose group of individuals herding a diverse range of botnets and attacks which they bring to force on command from an agreed upon leadership (or a target consensus is reached)?

Are they using the latest bunch of 'best-practices' to take down a site? (e.g. slowloris, UDP flooding, DNS or TCP amplification, TCP SYN attacks, whatever is flavour of the month)

With all the fluff and the bluster being written about them I haven't seen a good technical analysis so I'd love to hear any info you might have.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's not surprising to me why the shutdown of Wikileaks donation channels, as opposed to TSA or any of the other civil liberties breaches, triggered such rage.

The answer is simple: People get fucking pissed when they can't spend their money where they want to.

And it holds throughout history.

<comment><USER8> Retaliation over the internet is easier and safer, and the credit card companies were one of the few targets that is vulnerable to attack over the web.

(Here's to hoping somebody develops a virus to brick backscatter x-ray machines.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Rumor has it the next target is Authorize.net (I assume not because anything they did but because that's how you actually take down the ability for Visa and MC to function). That would be quite dramatic to say the least.

<comment><USER38> Can you substantiate that rumor? Taking down Visa.com isn't really a huge deal, but taking down Authorize.net would actually affect a lot of merchants.

<comment><USER39> I wonder why they don't get payment gateway IP's from shops, surely some of them work in them, and DDOS those. Maybe too much heat because Visa and MasterCard would lose millions per day and people would lose the ability to pay with their cards?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I should point out that Visa itself hasn't actually decided to stop payments to WikiLeak- only Visa Europe, its subsidiary. The people that run Visa.com are only responsible for selling Visa Europe the rights to use the name.

</comment><comment><USER41> There are so many active topics on the DDoS's happening today. I now wonder. What happens if Anonymous wins? If, under the pressure, Visa gives and succumbs to their wishes? What happens then?

<comment><USER42> Then we can use visa.com to donate to wikileaks, and it establishes a precedent that it is okay for private companies to never censor their customers, even if the government thinks the customer is dubious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Both Visa and MasterCard are down. This just shows how fragile the internet is and how 'easy' is to shut down the entire economy and system.

The point is that coordinated attack by terrorists or plain old criminals can cripple the entire world's economy and there is no easy and effective way to prevent it.

We do need to think about how internet can be re-organized to be 100% distributed system to prevent this of happening again.

<comment><USER44> You almost identified the problem correctly.

Internet is already distributed. The attacks against Visa and MC are also distributed. But Visa and MC are not. They are single points of trust for our financial transactions.

A more distributed system, where a web of trust and transaction system exists, could be used. But such a thing hasn't been invented yet.

I thought about it some last year, but such a system is hard to design. I did design several prototypes, but they had lots of problems. It also involved changing the structures of presumed governmental financial structures ("central" bank for example, is also a single point of trust).

So I think, the rephrasing of the problem should be: We do need to think about how our financial systems can be reorganized to be 100% distributed systems to prevent future abuses by anyone, including governments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Looks like they're redirecting it to USA.visa.com

</comment><comment><USER46> Looks like Paypal is down too. Well only the server that redirects you to the secure page.

Just use the full path "<http://www.paypal.com> or "<https://www.paypal.com>

We took down Chevron by spray painting over one of the signs at a gas Station. CHEVRON IS DOWN!!!!!

<comment><USER47> About the same time you posted, I was using PayPal. It was working, but I did notice signs of slow response. I was able to do everything I needed. My impression is that the PayPal engineers are dealing with the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> DDoS strikes me as a violent form of protest.

Has anyone started a non-violent protest (offline or digitally) for WikiLeaks?

EDIT: Rethinking my statement on DDoS as violent. I am still interested in knowing if there are other non-DDoS protests surrounding WikiLeaks.

<comment><USER49> I don't think DDoS is violent at all. It doesn't physically hurt anyone, and it doesn't damage the property of people who aren't involved in censoring Wikileaks.

Nonviolent protest doesn't need to just be complaining. Everyone does that, and it doesn't get anything done unless you're a millionaire. Passive resistance is generally economically disruptive to whoever it's targeted at.

DDoS attacks are not all that different, conceptually, from sit-ins. You're not destroying their server or deleting their code. You are simply putting yourself in the way so that no one else can use their website. It's not a nice thing to do, it interferes with their ability to do business, and it's illegal, but it's not violent.

<comment><USER48> The comparison to sit-ins is an interesting case I hadn't considered until reading further comments.

On a technical level DDoS certainly seems equivalent to a sit-in. I will have to think on this a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I pity the poor sys-admins whose pagers are interrupting their late-night hacking. Visa & MC probably don't care at all (they're swimming in plastic money!), its the front-line guys that are feeling this the most!

</comment><comment><USER51> Does this actually hurt visa? Wouldn't visa.com just Be a showcase type website eg "hey here's what visa is, here are some ringtones you candownload"

I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere.

<comment><USER52> > I'd imagine all their transaction processing happens elsewhere.

Yes, a good portion happens through <https://verified.visa.com>

Which, you'll note, is also down. This is real.

<comment><USER53> Really though? Wouldn't that be the Verified by Visa program, which not all online commerce sites use? Or do they process _all_ transactions through that site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> CapitalOne account center is down for me; I was trying to log in to access a Visa card. Coincidence? I have no idea why they'd be synchronously connected, but odd timing.

</comment><comment><USER55> You have to think that paypal is also being attacked, in that case I am pretty impressed that they are managing to stay up while mastercard and visa get sunk.

</comment><comment><USER56> And I haven't even seen any comments on the possibility of this being a smear campaign to tarnish Wikileaks further in the media?

I'm just saying, if you wanted to completely discredit an organization what's the fastest way to go about doing so?

Step 1: Manufacture accusations against it's founder for which there is no defence, where the individual is guilty before a trial even begins. Oh, I don't know, how about accusing a man of a sex crime? (Especially a funny looking foreign one!)

Step 2: Manufacture scary "hackers" who do scary "hacker" things. Hide your children!

Step 3: Let CNN and Fox do what they're paid to do. Spin and spin and spin.

<comment><USER57> A smear campaign seeding 4chan with fake posts, and orchestrating a LOIC attack?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> They had _all day_ to prepare for this and they failed?

edit: up for me, at least.

</comment><comment><USER59> Unless someone reputable stands out and make a statement, no one could be sure if this act is associated with WikiLeaks. Period.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm sure it's the US government! Or... not.

Turns out that DDoS is a dime a dozen today, they don't necessarily mean anything.

</comment><comment><USER61> Better attack: reduce the credit card usage, and try to pay more with cash. Spread the word.

</comment><comment><USER62> Finally something has pissed off enough geeks. I thought the government's lack of respect towards due-process, the systematic breakdown of basic freedom or the massive wealth transfer to the rich via dollar printing/bailout would've done it.

V for Vendetta.

<comment><USER20> V for Vendetta starred Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Steven Fry. It was a mainstream Hollywood movie which took over $132 million at the box office. It was a Warner Bros film, a subsidiary of Times Warner which is "the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue (behind Disney and ahead of News Corporation and Viacom), as well as the world's largest media conglomerate".

Your dreams of anarchism were manufactured in a bottle and sold to you on a silver screen.

Grow up.

(Edit: as acknowledged below, the final 'grow up' is a bit snarky. Sorry, that's withdrawn)

<comment><USER63> Down-voted, not because I disagree with you (though I do), but rather down- voted for being both snarky and cliched. Your comment would have sat better without the "grow up" there at the end.

<comment><USER20> Fair enough. It was a bit snarky. I withdraw it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

</comment><comment><USER64> A co-worker Engineer just went down to get frozen yogurt. They couldn't process his card. Apparently they route transactions through their domain DNS?

Suddenly corporate powers don't seem as strong. It's amazing how vulnerable something man made is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm assuming thats a coincidence. I cannot imagine Visa's payment processing infrastructure is coupled to its web infrastructure in any way. That would be monumentally bone headed.

<comment><USER64> Indeed, as I remember setting some payment stuff up at my parents business a while back-- you can get a gateway setup that uses their web interface to process transactions.

That was a while back, but maybe they have legacy systems.

Either way, they are loosing money one way or another =/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This is a weird subject because it is totally dual sided.

1) It promotes freedom of speech and taking action as a community to promote change.

2) It is completely illegal which goes against the laws and freedoms they are trying to promote.

 __Right Idea - Wrong Method __

<comment><USER65> It's the same as with any uprising really. You can't expect people to follow laws when they are made by the "enemy".

That so many people are willing to break the law when taking action shows how important the issue is to them. It also suggests that there is no other effective way to take action.

<comment><USER66> I have a problem there with "so many people" and "no other effective way". Blocking my payments is very effective way to piss me off indeed, not sure what good it brings otherwise.

I am still amused how quickly critical thinking switches off in many people. After initial categorization "wikileaks is good, government is bad" not much effort goes into actual considerations, how is it good, what good did it bring, etc.

Governments suck, uh oh, what a news. Maybe it will be a news to some, but _we_ do _elect_ governments. I guess it is easier to enjoy some braindead DDoS than go to elections, put some more thought whom to elect and make sure those elected are responsible for their work as officials.

Now it looks like governments were brought by some aliens and just forced on us. Demanding responsibility from the government is very good, how about taking some responsibility of the governments we have?

And that's where I have a problem with wikileaks: at least I can imagine that I had some say in what people do rule my country, so I can claim a bit responsibility for the power they have.

Wikileaks on the other hand is self-proclaimed savior, responsible to whom?

<comment><USER67> > we do elect governments

This is just not accurate in any meaningful way. I don't elect my government, and neither does anyone else here. I vote, but my vote's effect on what actually happens is so small it's not even measurable. Elections are not decided by thoughtful voters; they're decided by propagandists who control the majority of thoughtless voters.

<comment><USER68> Laying aside the propagandist argument for a bit I'd argue that the really hard part is finding someone to actually vote for. The last three elections I haven't seen any candidate I felt was worthy of my vote. What does one do then? I could run for office I suppose but that doesn't really solve the problem either since I wouldn't consider myself vote worthy either. (wrong skill sets)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Akamai's stock should be going up.

</comment><comment><USER70> its up now

<comment><USER64> no it's not.

<comment><USER70> oh its down again hah</comment></comment></comment>


Android No Longer Has The Competitive Advantage, GPS App On iPhone As Well - <AUTHOR> http://pagesaresocial.com/2009/10/28/android-no-longer-has-the-competitive-advantage-gps-app-on-iphone-as-well/

<comment><USER2> Google isn't doing it because of "anti-trust concerns."

Android isn't a competitor to the iPhone, because Google does not sell Android operating systems. Google sells services and ads, and the way to ensure that as many people as possible have access to them is by developing Android _and_ putting them on every non-Android device with significant enough marketshare.

They make money if you use their services on an Android device; they make money if you use them on an iPhone.

It would be a nice bonus if Android ran all other smartphones out of the market, because having control of the market leader makes it easier to guarantee that everyone has access to their services, but that is not their aim.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, but it is a competitor.

Many of these phones that are being sold are the official, "Google branded" version.

That means Google has certain deals in place with the carriers.

Also, they are making Google search and there other properties default on Android, no matter which way you put. They make more money if you are using an Android device (Google is embedded everywhere in it) unlike other platforms.

This DOES make them an anti-trust concern.

Google Voice is also provided for free as well, and guess what. Google Voice is getting investigated by the FTC.

<comment><USER2> > Many of these phones that are being sold are the official, "Google branded" > version.

This is support for my post--they are pushing the experience that provides the best access to their _services_.

> They make more money if you are using an Android device

Provide a source for what you are claiming as fact.

> Google Voice is getting investigated by the FTC.

Again, source needed. The FTC investigated the interlocking boards of Apple and Google, but that had nothing to do with Google Voice--it had to do with people serving on both boards.

The FCC is questioning Google about Voice blocking certain numbers, but that has nothing to do with Android or anti-trust issues. The FCC also sent letters asking about the Google Voice rejection on the iPhone, but, again, it had nothing to do with Android or anti-trust concerns on Google's behalf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's not what Google said. They said they'd like to port it to the iPhone pending apple's desire to have it. That means at some point in the future they'll port it to the iPhone.

So, for the foreseeable future it's Droid or bust for this functionality. That's an advantage that gives Droid a real opportunity to see some serious penetration.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, 100%. Google is basically saying: "We'd love to get this software on as many devices as we can but Apple has their stuff locked down and won't let us develop how we want to so go talk to them about it."</comment></comment>


Game engines are basically eating the world - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889682788253696 <comment><USER2> It makes a lot of sense. Why would you code something that complex to simulate stuff that game engines are already capable of?

<comment><USER3> > Why would you code something that complex to simulate stuff that game > engines are already capable of?

Because game engines are for games. They fake a lot of stuff in their models.

The brilliance of humans is their ability to turn airports into Excel spreadsheets.

This bit of the thread is interesting - "The increasingly blurry boundary between games and life".

I'd say elections are going a bit this way, along with a lot of other stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yup, we built a game engine in order to visualize your hikes, rides, flights, etc etc . [https://ayvri.com](https://ayvri.com)

We've been surprised to see how many uses people have found for the tech, wildlife research, commercial drone operations, and more.

The default is currently cesium, but if you click the "view beta player", button, you'll see our hand-rolled game engine.

</comment><comment><USER5> This does ring true. Esp if you consider the recent MS flight sim & how that's hooked into sat pictures.

It is very much constrained to geo type applications so the "eating the world" is a little dramatic. I like the hong kong airport example that...shows how broadly applicable geo type stuff can be and how much applicability it has if you take it to a granular level

</comment><comment><USER6> At least in terms of movies, this seems like the obvious route:

It used to be that game engines had real-time processing requirements (60/30/15 frames per second) and were constrained by the hardware on which they ran, but movies looked more photo-realistic and could take hours or days to produce a single frame.

As silicon and algorithms get faster and closer at approximating reality, the difference between the output of the two softwares approach one another. Given the amount of effort required to build these softwares it makes sense to save the years of effort, cost involved and risk involved with what essentially amounts to building a bespoke, internal graphics / physics / particle simulation engine.

</comment><comment><USER7> I really have A LOT of fun making [https://nopaint.art](https://nopaint.art) in this browser based game engine called Construct 3 ([https://construct.net](https://construct.net)) - there are times as a developer that I really hate the restrictions of the architecture / design but honestly, it's extremely productive for me to stay in the visual design mindset while making software.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd generalize to say that 'progressively higher level abstractions are eating the world'.. and always have been.

</comment><comment><USER9> All of these firms use Game Engines? Or maybe everyone on Twitter used too much hyperbole.

<comment><USER10> I dunno, I recently started working with a car audio DSP platform that has companion apps for windows, iOS etc. These apps are basically glorified equalizers with a couple more advanced functions, so the interface is done with sliders, knobs, text boxes, etc. Basic GUI stuff. But the apps were built in Unity, presumably to minimize cross-platform GUI bugs and ease of portability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For many developers its better to work in these auxiliary jobs, instead of game development, because Game Development is made fundamentally uneconomic due to the ~30% commissions charged just on platforms. Additionally B2C sales attract huge sales taxes around the world, whereas eg. a B2B contract with a Government airport is just pure revenue.</comment>


Firefox 4.0 Beta 7 - Super fluid, beats everyone on sunspider - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/features/

<comment><USER2> Browser vendors talk about benchmarks all the time but what really matters to me is startup and closing times; here Chrome really shines and FF3.6 is slow as hell.

It's probably about perception; maybe the browser should show a window even if it's not really ready (and maybe there is a problem with plugins and add-ons that need to initialize themselves, etc.)

Anyway, how is FF4b7 doing in this regard...?

<comment><USER3> Strange, how often do you open/close your browser?

<comment><USER4> Whenever Firefox memory use has ballooned to over 1GB.

<comment><USER5> Which is pretty much daily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Changes noticed on Mac since Beta 6:

* The stop/reload button has moved to the right end of the URL bar.

* The status bar is gone; URLs appear in ghosted text on the right side of the URL bar when you hover over a link.

* You can enable an "add-on bar", which appears to be a replacement status bar that add-ons can add icons to. None of the add-ons I have installed (about 20) are making use of it, so the transition from overlaying the status bar to overlaying the add-on bar must not be automatic.

* In the Add-ons Manager, an explicit "Remove" button has replaced the small "X" icon that used to be used for uninstalling an add-on.

* A more colorful throbber.

<comment><USER7> The performance _is_ much better. I'm getting sub-one second app launch times, page load is much faster than safari, page render is comparable.

The app is still a bit of a bad citizen in that it doesn't have any of the native text views allowing for system spell-check or any of the system services, and the app's cpu usage still runs at 4% with no windows open (expected behavior is that windowless apps use 0)

And to be pedantic, there's something still Java-y about the interface. Fonts are just a _little_ bit bigger in places, and the main bar, despite being 7px smaller than safari's (amazing feat, firefox dev's) still feels chunkier.

Weird things in the interface vein: The feedback button's dropdown hangs left _automatically._ Proper system behavior is to drop it down to the right, and then push it left based on the monitor's viewport. The textfield resize grab changes the mouse cursor.

Weird stuff like that. Since it's a beta I can understand the rough edges strapped to the oversized V12 engine. I still have nightmares about trying to run Firefox 2 on Tiger in 2005 or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Asa Dotzler says we should 'move on' to other, more relevant benchmarks, since everyone is basically fast enough on this one: [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2010/10/some_sun...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2010/10/some_sunspider_numbe.html)

I definitely agree here - newer benchmarks are much more interesting, as sunspider doesn't really tax any VMs these days.

</comment><comment><USER8> Browsers are going mainsteam and it spells bad news for the browser vendors and good news for the users. All browers nowadays pretty much look the same, have the same performance and try desperately to distinguish themselves with surrounding features.

The basic problem is that the browser is still "trapped in a sandbox", ie they're trying to become the OS but they're still just an application running in a limited context. If all browsers looks the same and perform the same it's going to be real difficult to differentiate yourself from the competion.

It makes sense from big guys point of view. Apple, Microsoft and Google must be present in the browser space to be competitive, especially google whose strategive agenda involves moving application from the OS to the web. For Firefox and Opera things look a bit more bleak IMO.

I think browsers will be commoditized to the degree it will be very difficult to compete, it will all come down to brand awareness and surrounding features.

My hunch is that Firefox and Opera is dying a slow death and will be irrelevant within 3 years.

<comment><USER9> I don't know about your predictions, but I think that Google's Native Client for Chrome will be a significant differentiator in bridging the desktop/web app gap once it matures and gains traction, with the help of Chrome OS too. Mozilla has some ideas for this sort of thing -- Prism is a barely-alive project that makes desktop apps out of sites and gives extra privileges and desktop APIs to the JavaScript client. I wonder if they would or can just take NaCl from Google too though, or make their own compatible platform based on LLVM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would use 4.0 Beta full-time if Firebug and Yahoo's Delicious extensions were updated. The memory utilization is great just like Firefox 3.6. Compare sometime the memory utilized while running many tabs in Chrome vs. Firefox over a prolonged period of time.

Update: I found Firebug has an alpha release supporting Firefox 4. <http://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/1.7X/>

<comment><USER11> I'm using 4.0 "full-time" and it's the nightly build :). The only thing you need is Compatibility Reporter extension. It's here: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/15003>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems very buggy. This is what mine looks like:

<http://imgur.com/64D7h>

Also, here are a few other issues:

* Navigating to www.google.com gives me a 302 page before redirecting me to the localized version (seems like it does this on other sites as well)

* The AdBlock icon is missing

* No status bar means I can't access my NoScript, MultiProxy Switch, or FireBug addons easily

* Sometimes tabs just refuse to close

* It didn't seem to want to upload the above image to imgur.com. Might have been some other problem but it worked in IE8.

* The back button doesn't work (backspace does though)

* ctrl-shift-t doesn't work ("Restore recently closed tabs" is greyed out)

* When I submitted this comment I wasn't redirected to the comment page - a blank page was all I got (same thing that happened on imgur, so I'm assuming it's a related issue)

* Sometimes I get stuck in the Tab Groups window and I can't return to the main view

This is all within 10 minutes of installation, so I'm expecting to find more bugs.

<comment><USER13> The status bar has been replaced with the addon bar. If it's not showing up for you then look under View / Toolbars / Add-on Bar. Regarding your other problems, something's definitely wrong because I can't reproduce any of them. Maybe try with a new profile? Check the troubleshooting section on <http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0b7/releasenotes/>

<comment><USER14> > The status bar has been replaced with the addon bar.

Is there some alternate way to check where a link is pointing with a mouseover?

<comment><USER13> Yep, look in the location bar. Link targets are shown on the right hand side.

<comment><USER14> Aha sure enough! That's actually quite elegant, thanks very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can anyone elaborate on the XPCOM improvements? I thought the plan was to get rid of XPCOM all together in firefox 4.

Very nice set of improvements though. Not sure about firefox 4, but firefox 3 was a memory hog.

<comment><USER10> >... but firefox 3 was a memory hog.

I really do not find Firefox 3 to be a memory hog at all. I find it to consume much less memory than Chrome running multiple tabs over a prolonged period of time. I have caught Chrome running way out of control with memory usage and nearly maxing out my page file. My usage generally has Firefox using between 300MB and 500MB or RAM depending on what I have open. The same usage on Chrome is tricky to track total memory usage, but I can get a rough idea of how much memory it was using when I quit Chrome and compare the available memory to how much memory was being used while Chrome was running.

What browser do you consider not to be a memory hog?

<comment><USER16> What platform do you run? I am on Linux x86_64 and Fx4b7 takes almost 10% of my RAM and ~20-30% CPU with two tabs open. With the same tabs open in Chromium, I get 2.7% RAM usage and 0-5% CPU usage. Maybe Fx has been really optimizing for Windows lately, but the performance on Linux x86_64 is not very satisfactory.

<comment><USER10> I am on OS X (10.6.5). I did not see FF4 CPU usage anything near what you are seeing. My CPU is ~2-3% with 6 tabs open (2 being Gmail). RAM usage is steady after a day of using the same browser process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The changing of the Panorama hotkey from ctrl+space to ctrl+e ist slightly annoying. I know that ctrl+k does the same trick and has been there for far more versions, but I've always used ctr+e for the search bar, mainly because that's the one that also works in other browsers. Of course I'm sure it will only take two seconds to find out how to change this back...

</comment><comment><USER18> Browsers keep improving JS speed, but is there an upper limit to how fast it can be? How far off is it from something like C ?

<comment><USER19> JS speed has improved so much recently due to optimisations like JIT (Just In Time compiling). There will be an upper limit eventually but we haven't hit it yet.

It's damn fast but still a high-level interpreted language - time is taken for a program in the browser to compile it on the fly and run.

It wont hit the speed of well written C code, but most things don't need that speed anyway.

<comment><USER20> I was browsing the language shootout the other day and came across the page for the regex test. I'm not sure how it's doing it or if something is wrong with the test but V8 is outperforming everything else, including C. That's the only test it leads though.

Here are the results: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/performance.php?test=r...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/performance.php?test=regexdna)

Also worth noting that TraceMonkey isn't too far behind. Does anyone know why the JS engines, especially V8, are performing so well on this test?

P.S. Here's how V8/TraceMonkey stack up for all the tests: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming- lang...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/which-programming-languages- are- fastest.php?calc=chart&gpp=on&java=on&ghc=on&csharp=on&sbcl=on&go=on&v8=on&hipe=on&tracemonkey=on&python=on&yarv=on&perl=on&php=on)

<comment><USER21> Look at the source code of the C program. It uses glib and the TCL libraries and it even includes locking for the multicore benchmark.

<comment><USER22> Look at the source code of the other C regex-dna programs which don't use glib or Tcl libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Re-introduces the PDF focus bug they made in FF 3.6. Beta 6 did not have this problem.

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice work Mozilla.

Sometimes I wonder why we give so much importance for 1-2 second page load / javascript improvements. Does average user _really_ care about 1-2 second difference?

<comment><USER25> Yes. Two seconds is usually regarded as the rection time threshold where an ineractive system starts to turn into a batch system. It is long enough for the user to start to forget what he expects from the system or to think about swiching to another activity while the current one loads. That is also the reason why database transaction benchmarks are always defined by number of transactions per second at a response time of slightly under two seconds, that is the threshold where they can still claim that the benchmark measures something about a system that is actually usable in practice.

So cutting response times by a second from say two seconds to one second changes the percieved delays from barely tolereble to barely noticable, which is unually beneficial for interactive apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The "Web Console" is pretty awesome, but I don't see a way to close the detailed view things. Also I don't see POST contents in the detailed view things.

<comment><USER27> Thanks! Glad you like it. We've got some really nice improvements landing in beta 8/9.

You should be able to close the detail panel by using the OS-standard close control on the window. If you don't see that control, that's a bug! (The control certainly shows up on my Mac.)

Request/response bodies are not logged by default because they can be _large_. If you right-click on the output area, the context menu there has an option to log request/response bodies. I believe beta 7 is the one in which we put in a change so that only the first 1MB of the body is logged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> But does the user interface still respond like molasses in January? Last time I tried Firefox 4, I could have sworn my entire PC was locking up any time I clicked my mouse on any piece of the browser besides the web pages it was rendering.

No offense or anything, it was just an insurmountable obstacle, and without reasonable UI performance, render times and tab changes mean nothing.

<comment><USER28> I have begun testing, and I can report it is drastically improved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Definitely feels snappier. I wonder if that's because it's missing some of my plug ins.

</comment><comment><USER30> Nice, although I need Netflix & Firebug to work before I upgrade.

<comment><USER13> Firebug 1.7 alphas are compatible: <http://getfirebug.com/releases/firebug/1.7X/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Congrats Mozilla on the release!

Odd title though for this post, for where is the "everyone"? The link shows comparisons to previous versions of Firefox, not other browsers.

One thing I hope they fix before final release though is the constant CPU usage when you have many tabs open. I thought the Panorama feature was supposed to address this. It's currently idling at around 25% CPU for me, and no, unfortunately I can't blame it on Flash. :-\

<comment><USER32> > _Odd title though for this post, for where is the "everyone"? The link shows > comparisons to previous versions of Firefox, not other browsers._

<http://arewefastyet.com/>

Sunspider's not a very good benchmark; more interesting to me is that they're nearly even with V8 in V8's own benchmark.

Though I wonder why they can't backport TM, or at least a subset, to 3.6; is Firefox so monolithic that improvements to the scripthost can't be separated from the rest of the browser?

<comment><USER33> I ran the tests on my Ubuntu 10.10 laptop running Firefox-4.0 Beta8pre and Chrome 9.0.570.0 (64571) and Firefox actually beat Chrome 2943 to 3645 (or a 23% improvement) averaged over two runs.

Gotta love browser competition!

<comment><USER34> don't ever average software benchmarks, it doesn't make sense. always take the best run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> All I want is a light weight FireFox .

<comment><USER36> Funnily enough, that's why we got Firefox in the first place---they wanted a lightweight (browser part of) Mozilla.

Of course, SeaMonkey is pretty fast nowadays too.

<comment><USER35> more robust they are trying to make it , more heavy it is becoming ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Since they are ripping off the chrome UI part and parcel, I wonder why they still haven't switched to a unified search and location bar.

<comment><USER38> I still prefer the Firefox's Awesome bar over Chrome's unified bar. I like having the drop down list of my most visited sites.</comment></comment>