We don't have enough nukes (Data visualization) - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/how-i-learnt-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/ <comment><USER2> I think he doesn't have a full understanding of nuclear fallout. Yes, a nuke will vaporize 14.9 km^2, but it will render a much larger area unlivable. Also, many people will die in the following months from radiation poisoning. There is also the possibility of nuclear winter.

<comment><USER3> That is an unfounded claim. According to Nuclear War Survival Skills (a downloadable book on the construction of improvised fallout shelters), nuclear fallout remains _directly_ lethal only for two weeks. This is the kind of fallout produced from a detonation where the fireball touches the earth. After this period, radiation from the fallout is weak enough that it is safe to move about for a limited time each day. A nuclear detonation in the air produces much less fallout, and it will be diluted over a much larger area unless there is precipation.

Any discussion beyond this is guesswork..as far as I know we have never really studied this stuff. It would be interesting if someone could point out that I'm wrong. The following article claims that the number of birth defects and cancer-related deaths from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings are too small to be seen in the (admittedly sparse) data collected.

I think it's a good idea to study the traditional notion that nuclear war is so extremely destructive. The subject seems to be a voluntary intellectual wasteland - no one ever wants to find out how things _really_ would work, only quote the canonical belief that any nuclear war would cause huge amounts of deaths from cancer, birth abnormalities, barren fields, genetic mutations and nuclear winter.

What such a war would do to _society_ is an entirely different matter, but this is almost never discussed.

<comment><USER4> _I think it's a good idea to study the traditional notion that nuclear war is so extremely destructive._

I love the word "traditional". As I was saying to my wife the other day, on the occasion of the passing of Les Paul, "it's amazing how many of the inventors of our ancient and venerable traditions were still walking around as of last week."

In this case, the "traditional notion" that nuclear war could destroy all of life of earth dates back only to the 1960s, was by no means universally accepted, and still _is_ not universally accepted. Nuclear survivability has, for obvious reasons, always been of intense interest to our political leaders, and I assure you that the subject is _not_ an "intellectual wasteland": There are reams and reams of research on it. Much of it is classified, of course.

And talk of "what will happen after the nuclear war" used to be popular -- witness all those movies and bomb shelters and plans made during the 1950s and early 1960s, when people held the then-quite-reasonable belief that nuclear war was _inevitable_. But then the popular notion of global nuclear annhilation took hold -- probably because, like quite a few "traditional notions", it contains a big grain of truth. Perhaps it is hard to kill the whole world in a nuclear war. But it's not so hard to kill _my_ whole world. I can give you a target list of eight cities, all of which contain major US research universities, which (if bombed) would destroy, say, 95% of all the people I've ever known. In a full-scale nuclear exchange involving the United States, odds are that _my_ world would be destroyed. (I, personally, am _incredibly_ likely to die in the initial blast wave, as I live down the street from the Route 128 tech corridor, home to companies like Raytheon.)

So maybe a person who lives in the New Guinea highlands really can afford to laugh at the prospect of the post-apocalypse. (May we never know.) But those of us who live in Boston, San Franci, New York, or Washington can't. Because, for us, bombing all four of those cities _would_ be an apocalypse.

<comment><USER5> In a full-on nuclear exchange, it would be much more than major cities getting attacked. I live about 5 miles from Lincoln Labs and about 6 miles from Raytheon, so I'm screwed anyway. But, every ICBM installation, every port, and every military base would also be attacked in such a situation. I'd love to see some specific data on it, but I'd bet when you add those targets to the major cities, the vast, vast majority of the US population wouldn't fare too well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One Trident submarine can stay at sea for up to two years without refueling. It can produce it's own recycled water, and produces little to no waste. It is only limited by food, since it is powered by a nuclear reactor.

Each submarine is armed with 24 (nuclear) Trident II long-range ballistic missiles, each one able to hit almost anywhere in the world. Each one of these missiles can be launched from underwater at a moments notice. In mid-flight, each missile can split up into 12 individual bomblets, each of which is capable of wiping out a city.

One submarine, which is manned by less than 200 men, could destroy 288 major cities in half an hour from anywhere in the world. That's a frightening thought.

<comment><USER7> It is a frightening thought.

We have technology that can keep 200 men alive for over two years, including all of their needs for food, air, water, electricity and such, and yet we're still getting around by burning old plants from millions of years ago.

<comment><USER8> That would be because nuclear power generation is still a bogeyman in some people's minds.

Just imagine the true "green revolution" that could be brought about with a few hundred more nuclear plants in the US alone.

<comment><USER9> To make it cost effective, the U.S. has to stop making enemies. Do you know how much it will cost to secure a few hundred nuclear power plants from people willing to blow themselves up?

<comment><USER10> As much as 200 more low security prisons? 20'000 federal employees (to be generous) is peanuts to a project of that scale. How many attacks have there been on power plants anyway? You cant make modern designs go boom, just melt.

<comment><USER9> I certainly hope your right that modern nuke plants are safer. But the general public responds more to security theater than real security.

As to "how many attacks have there been"? Well, it only takes one successful one. How many successful (reached their ultimate goal) airline highjackings have their been?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Yup. Thanks for all the feedback. I'm going to redraft the image with radiation, fallout, nuclear winter, failure rates, poisoned water supplies, crop deaths, deformed babies, and cancer all factored in. After I've had this stiff drink…"

<comment><USER12> How about looking it also from another angle. How many missiles do you need to wipe out all the big Cities and capitals of the world. Probably only one missile per City. Given +- 200 countries and that is the end of civilization as we know it. From there onwards whoever survive will have to compete like cockroaches to continue living.

<comment><USER13> If you read the whole thing, you'll see he calculates that too: "99293 heavy duty nukes required to wipe out world's city dwellers, we have 10227".

<comment><USER12> I have read the article and my point was different. I said .. and civilization as we know it will end. I used my elementary school maths. The current number of countries in the world are 192, since some of them have two capitals I rounded the number to 200. His statistics for London showed that 1 warhead was enough to wipe it out and London is spread out unlike Singapore or Hong Kong. As per my calculation 200 missiles are more than enough to destroy our current civilization.

<comment><USER13> I'd imagine nuking Washington wouldn't change the US as a whole (perhaps you'd get another post-9/11 terror obsession, but I'd think the economic infrastructure would still remain rather intact).

I think number of capitals isn't a very good measure of economic infrastructure: Monaco has some 30k people, but a non-capital city like Sao Paulo has 11 million.

One could say "ok, let's drop Monaco and nuke Sao Paulo then", and then maybe nuke Boston and Sydney too while we're at it. But you're going to run out of bombs way before you run out of large cities.

<comment><USER14> Morbid, but true.

If a nuke truly hit the ground in D.C., I can't help but shudder at the thought of the hysteria that would ensue though. Post-9/11 hysteria would look like rational behavior in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mh, just wondering: What about 'creative' nuke usage? Basically, I am thinking about not dropping a nuclear bomb on, say, Berlin, but rather using bombs to create major disasters, like tsunamis (either by setting off the bomb in an ocean, or by destroying almost collapsed landmasses, which would then drop into the water and cause monster-waves), or by abusing tectonic knowledge and nukes to create major earth-quakes? Is such thing efficient enough to be reasoned about when trying to calculate the overall killing power of all nuclear weapons?

<comment><USER16> You sir, should study to become a super-villian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The doctrine of the cold war was MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. But the point wasn't that we had enough weapons to totally eliminate each other's populations, it was that we could totally destroy each other's economic and governmental infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just one correction: Non Nuclear Proliferation Pact has nothing to do with reduced stockpiles.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love how this post incidentally highlights the differences between science/statistics and information-centric graphic design and then shows how easily they become unified when you just touch the "scientific method" even tangentially.

We can all argue about his model now and think critically about the threat of nuclear suicide due to a simple hypothesis, curious data, and some nice visualization to communicate it quickly.

</comment><comment><USER20> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter>

Also, I think three well placed nukes in the US could guarantee the collapse of American civilization. Always remember - if the trucks stop driving, it ain't long 'till everybody starves.

</comment><comment><USER21> How does this article get so in-depth without mentioning a nuclear winter?

The real fear of nuclear war is societal collapse, radiation being everywhere, and the ensuing nuclear winter, which (according to some) could wipe out humanity. Not the direct blasts.

</comment><comment><USER22> Everything is even better. There is no way that the numbers will be as high as the (excellent) analysis suggests:

\---

* This presumes all parties collaborate to destroy mutually exclusive regions (unlikely)

* Multiple nukes will be launched at particular sites to avoid countermeasures

* Some of those countermeasures will be effective

* The main targets of nukes will be nuke launching sites, which will cut down the retaliatory nuking

* Nuke launching sites are not in populated cities (generally)

<comment><USER23> _"The main targets of nukes will be nuke launching sites [...]"_

Probably not. If USA takes one in the eye (Washington DC) from Russia then they want to hit Moscow immediately after to show that a) we're fighting back, stop now if you don't want to end the world, b) everyone will notice and possibly you might cut off the head before further damage is done.

Yes silos will be a priority target, but not necessarily above major cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Clearly this guy has never played CivIII.

<comment><USER25> Civ III taught me that cruise missles are worth more than nukes, are cheaper to build, and don't set the world against you for using them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> OK, are we supposed to feel happy that we can _only_ kill less than 1% of the world's population with the available nukes or feel sad that we have spent so much time, energy and money developing weapons, just one of which can completely wipe out everything in a full 15 sq km area?

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, ok. I don't think nukes were developed to wipe out humanity. They were developed to cause the utmost amount of destruction to a single point of interest. I don't think Iran wants 1000 nukes. I think they want one, so they can aim it at the Saudia Arabia oilfields.

<comment><USER28> They want one so they can assure israel won't fire theirs first.

<comment><USER29> Believe it or not, Israel already has sufficient reason not to fire theirs first. Try a thought experiment - what would happen to Israel if they did?

The only way I can imagine Israel getting away with dropping one on Iran is if Iran continues developing nuclear technology.

<comment><USER30> When I try that thought experiment, this is what happens:

1\. The mother of all PR/lobbying campaigns successfully preserves US support. Especially since it would already be underway before the attack.

2\. Nothing changes, except there's now a big radioactive hole somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The thing is that even though we have like 10k warheads we have a much more limited amount of missiles, so we wouldn't be able to deliver them. On the other hand if we wanted to wipe out only cities bigger than 2 000 000 it would be ok: theres only 200 of them

</comment><comment><USER32> The data visualization is pretty well done and convincing. That said, I think the concern about nukes that most people have is less about the possibility that it will wipe out civilization but instead, a bit more selfish - themselves/ourselves.

<comment><USER33> It's convincing, until you realize that the author is treating nukes as just really big bombs. If he's only looking at the area of total destruction, then he should be counting all explosives, since that's ignoring where the real deadliness of nuclear weapons lies.

First off, the heat wave let off will be lethal at a much larger radius than where it will cause total destruction. Total destruction means that everything is gone: buildings, cars, people, anything that was there will be unrecognizable/gone. For a nuke, this is a very small part of the destruction caused. The fallout and radiation will carry much much farther than that. If you tried, you could probably cover the entire earth with fallout with fewer than 100 strategically placed nukes.

It's not beyond belief that ten thousand would both cover the earth with concentrated radiation, and cause enough fallout to create nuclear winter. Volcanic explosions are often enough to affect sunsets on the other side of the world. If we exploded nuclear weapons all over the world, there'd be enough debris in the air to block out the sun, causing a significant temperature drop, and killing plants around the world. Scratch the global food supply, and we're all toast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Radation, disruption of food production, nuclear weather effects (nuclear winter or whatever), disruption of medicine production, disruption of police protection. These will kill far more than the actual explosions.

</comment><comment><USER35> First two comments here and first one there are right: fallout.

I don't have a source, but I've been told that we at one point had enough nukes to kill everybody a few thousand times over.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how much _time_ is needed to launch all these missiles. They aren't all in ready state in a silo, are they?

<comment><USER37> I'd think that those which are not in immediate ready-state are probably stored very near a silo or hangar. Simply because it doesn't make much sense to store a nuke very far from a location where it could be used (except when that nuke is heading for disassembly). Consequently I wouldn't be surprised if it was merely a matter of hours (minus the odd dud)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Obviously the author wasn't born yet when the cold war was still going on.</comment>


Oklahoma man kills 3 home burglars; woman who aided robbers arrested - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-man-kills-home-burglars-20170328-story.html <comment><USER2> It's interesting that the Tribune is trying to make it into a Stand Your Ground case. Local reports[0] just call it simple self-defense.

[0] [http://newsok.com/arrest-made-in-oklahoma-home-invasion- shoo...](http://newsok.com/arrest-made-in-oklahoma-home-invasion-shooting- that-killed-3/article/5543334)</comment>


Why Smug Atheists Should Read More Science Fiction - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5963475/why-smug-atheists-should-read-more-science-fiction

<comment><USER2> Smug theists should read more science.</comment>


SONY Neural Network Console - <AUTHOR> https://dl.sony.com <comment><USER2> "The software is available only in the United States and Japan" How is this a thing ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, has ML become as easy as throwing a huge CSV at a gui and filding with some settings until the graphs look right?

<comment><USER4> even easier. Just throw a CSV that's it. check Mateverse.com</comment></comment>


Jason Calacanis' Warning To Y Combinator Startups [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cdrCYrZIvI&feature=channelhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cdrCYrZIvI&feature=channel <comment><USER2> For those who prefer reading, or can't reach Youtube, etc.

"This is a message to YCombinator companies and hopefuls: if you tell Facebook about your startup before you reach critical mass and you get found by Facebook in any way you're an idiot. They will steal your company's ideas and try to get you to take a small price for your company and vision and take a job at Facebook. Which by the way is going to be a job that sucks. Don't do it. It's a scam. It's a trap. It's a trap. It's a trap. Insert Star Wars quip here. It's a trap. IT'S. A. TRAP. End of message."

<comment><USER3> This sounds completely bizarre. If your ideas are such that they can be stolen and executed upon by others trivially, than a job at Facebook (with a signing bonus) is pretty damn impressive exit.

<comment><USER4> Say what? Posterous isn't rocket science, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't consider a signing bonus at Facebook impressive.

<comment><USER3> Posterous is out in the open for everybody to see. Why hasn't Facebook "killed it", then? Understanding user behaviour and preferences is part of what makes something defensible. Not having to build a product to operate at Facebook's scale (and expectation of reliability) at day one is a way to help discover people's preferences, especially for a "new idea".

<comment><USER5> Can you elaborate on "understanding behavior and preferences" with some example behavior and preferences, please?

There are many bases of competitive advantage, but I don't have a clear picture of this one. The main customer-side advantage I see is that your product becomes identified with the idea/technology in the customer mind (perhaps of a tiny niche) - not that it's _better_ than something else, just that it _exists_. But there's still a problem of getting to this state.

<comment><USER3> Greenspun has an even better explanation of this than I do:

 _The most reliable source of supranormal profits is superior knowledge of one kind of customer (Way #3). Ideally this will be the kind of customer that larger companies are overlooking. The founders of SAP, for example, were employees of IBM Germany for many years and got exposed to the accounting challenges of large manufacturers. When they quit IBM, they were among the best situated programmers in the world to build an accounting system for manufacturing companies. It is not because these guys were the world's best programmers that SAP is today bringing in $10 billion per year in revenue and has a market capitalization of $60 billion. It is because these guys were the best programmers who understood the problems of their customers._

<http://philip.greenspun.com/business/startup-tips/>

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Domain knowledge - but applying this to a mass market feel a bit mind- bending to me.

Of course, it's still problems and knowledge, and so not qualitatively different from those in a specific niche. I guess the misleading thing is that by the time a mass market is mass, they are well-known (or appear to be). As an example, Youtube was once small. And while the consumers were perhaps (?) easy to understand, the producers (who created the value), were a much smaller group, a more specific kind of person, using specific new tech (mobile phones) with specific problems. And it only later grew into a mass market (though I guess arguably the producers are still "one kind of customer".)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _As viscerally unappealing as it is to find myself agreeing with Calacanis_ , I'll note that Facebook doesn't even need to intend to trap YC companies for the net effect to be negative. The problem is the same as with "strategic investors": an early, quasi-structural relationship with a potential acquirer may be perceived as a de facto right of first refusal to the rest of the industry. It can be a trap even if it wasn't designed to be!

I sort of watched this happen with a friend's company.

Obvious caveats apply: (a) I'm not a social networking entrepreneur and don't know the space that well, (b) you have to balance the risk --- and the opportunity cost of another business in a different market --- against the benefit of collaborating with Facebook, (c) to whatever extent Facebook benefits unreasonably from this program, YC probably suffers.

<comment><USER6> jason is making it sound as if he personally knows someone who made this mistake. i think you're claiming the same, and based on how many (few) acquisitions facebook makes, it's possible that you both know the same person who feels they were "trapped." can you say who it is, or did you intentionally leave out the name of the person you know?

edit: sorry if i misread this part to imply it had to do with facebook: _I sort of watched this happen with a friend's company._

<comment><USER4> I don't know anyone who's been scammed by Facebook. I like Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If a bunch of startups that might have grown big were nipped in the bud by Facebook, it would be as bad for YC as for them. So Jason is essentially claiming that by agreeing to let YC-funded startups get early access to Instant Personalization (which is all this deal amounts to), we were acting against our own interest.

That should at least make one skeptical about his claims. It is possible that we've done something that wasn't in our interest, but surely by default one should assume we understand and care about our interests more than Jason does.

Or to put it more briefly: this is mere linkbait.

<comment><USER8> Paul,

Respectfully, it is _not_ linkbait.

This is my honest opinion based on Facebook's track record. I would give the same advice to any startup: don't trust Facebook and don't give them any access to your startup or plans.

Period. End of story.

If an entrepreneur needs any evidence of the trustworthiness of Facebook, simply talk to folks inside of Quora, FourSquare, Twitter and Zynga (among others). I'm sure you've spoken to folks inside these companies, like I have, who are infuriated with Zuckerberg's blatant stealing (without innovation).

At every chance they can get, Facebook has simply stolen. Given their scale, bringing them inside the incubators is, well, mind boggling.

If you're a startup company you should be _avoiding_ Facebook and their staffers.

I'm sure you have great intentions PG, and you know I respect all that you've accomplished, but don't dismiss me. I really don't need press because, to a certain extent, I _am_ press.

Add to that the fact that I'm massively overexposed (especially here on HN), and you're claim that I'm link-baiting feels disingenuous.

Like you, I love startups and entrepreneurship. I only want to see folks do well and not get ripped off by Facebook, which I consider the most unethical company in technology.

One only need to look at the mountain of lawsuits they've generated for proof of this. Facebook's long list of lawsuits are not from ambulance-chasing law firms mind you, they are by _PARTNERS_ and _FRIENDS_ of Zuckerberg's! Oh yeah, a lot of the lawsuits and complaints are also by privacy groups and government agencies trying to protect citizens.

If Zuckerberg has no problem screwing his friends, partners and customers, what do you think he will do to a three-person startup that might innovate its way into being competition for him?

I fear you've made a big mistake letting the fox into the henhouse.

Startups: listen to PG on everything since he's brilliant--but take my advice on this one. :-)

best jason

<comment><USER9> _but take my advice on this one. :-)_

Why, on earth, should anyone listen to you?

Did you provide data? No. Did you provide facts? No. Do you have any kind of credibility whatsoever? No.

All you have is a pink blouse and a pathological case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder that you unfortunately feel obliged to broadcast in HD at the slightest opportunity.

And by the way, do you know what will happen when facebook/YC screws people over? The word will spread like wildfire. Because people have their own little voices around here. We don't need you and your pink blouse to save us.

<comment><USER10> Please, let's keep the discussion on HN civil, rational and lacking in ad hominem attacks.

<comment><USER11> Frankly, pg should not be dismissing his detractors' arguments as 'mere linkbait' if he wants to maintain a civil atmosphere on this forum. Not to say your direct parent was justified in his flaming, but our curator should have known better than to throw in that spark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Didn't this exact thing happen with divvyshot? Facebook bought them, shutdown the company and had them working on image functions within the site.

From what it seemed they didn't get paid much since they were mostly after what the guys learned from the site. Meaning it sounded like they were just after talent and not technology or user base. Can't imagine that would be a multimillion dollar deal.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/facebook-buys-up- divvyshot-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/02/facebook-buys-up-divvyshot-to- make-facebook-photos-even-better/)

<comment><USER13> So it was an HR acquisition? Point me towards a big tech company that _hasn't_ done an acquisition like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's sad that this troll gets more upvotes here than the original announcement did.

Obviously every startup needs to be mindful of the potential for competition from larger, more established companies, but avoiding all the opportunities they create is even riskier.

If you want to be really sure that nobody ever "steals" your great idea, target an obscure platform (Linux desktop?), stay in stealth mode, blackout your windows, and keep all of your computers in a faraday cage. However, if you want to to build something that matters, you're going to have to take some risks and get a little closer to the fire.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think that Jason says a lot of stuff to be sensational. He's building an audience of subscribers for his ThisWeekIn network of video podcasts. He's really good at thinking of sensational stuff to say in order to get people to look at what he's doing. "SEO Is Dead" comes to mind.

Jason could honestly feel that a company or two has received a lower valuation then they deserved, but isn't that the early stage VC game in a nutshell? Investors trade time for value - they invest early in something they think will succeed. In the end, early stage investing isn't a bad route for people to take. Sometimes, it's the best (or the only) way for a product to get off of the ground.

<comment><USER13> I strongly disagree with what he's saying, but I don't think that's a fair way of characterizing Calcanis. To me, it seems as though he trusts his gut instinct. Nothing wrong with that until you trust gut instinct at the _expense_ of sound logic.

<comment><USER15> I'm not saying this haphazardly or even negatively. I'm not one to ever jump on the "bash Jason" train because I think that he is a smart guy working hard to figure out how to be successful.

However, one of his core strengths is talking. He knows what to say and when to say it and how in order to attract people. He is using this issue as a platform to reach his existing audience while attracting new people.

I'm not saying that he's right OR wrong about the issue itself. What I'm saying is that he uses topics like this as a platform to further his own influence. The proof is in the pudding... this is a hot story on HN and hundreds of new potential viewers have checked out the clip and likely the entire show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Paul, Jason: I think Silicon Valley has a _huge_ problem, and this whole Facebook / YCombinator thing is a symptom. Silicon Valley's problem is that it values only dollars and code. Silicon Valley has become a world where the hacker culture, lifestyle, behavior and attitudes are the norm - a world where gladiatorial combat in code has replaced the discipline of software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER17> I understand what Jason is saying here...but to be honest, it's hard to tell someone that is used to living on $40k/year, that they shouldn't take an offer of $20M - that instantly makes them a millionaire.

Ofcourse, once you make that first sale and have the FU money to fall back on, it makes gambling (i.e. growing to IPO) much easier.

I am a little skeptical of Zuck too though.

<comment><USER12> $20mil from a company that isn't public yet isn't as good as it sounds. Who knows what the vesting terms are as well.

Yes, it's still a lot and there are ways to sell the stock but that's assuming they even get $20 million.

<comment><USER17> You say it's not 'as good as it sounds', it all depends on your perspective.

If you are earning $40k - $60k/year - which many young founders were likely earning before joining YC - even if after multiple dilutive rounds of financing you end up with 10% of the company, in a $20M exit....that's still $2M.

Sure, you can't buy Fiji....but you are literally going from a bank account with a few hundred/thousand/tens of thousands, to literally hundreds of thousands/millions.

That is VERY major the first time it happens.

I guess the point I am making is, the jump from having $10K in the bank to $1M in the bank, is SOOOO much bigger than from $1M to $100M - because it impacts your life much more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would say like _any_ other commentary on the web, consider the source!

Jason makes some good (if generic) points about any industry where large incumbents will try to absorb or nullify innovative competitors or startups.

Microsoft did it in the 90s and 2000s as well..

But we all know how much Jason hates Facebook, so he's using them as the bogeyman in this example, because, well, he hates Facebook!

Mapquest learned this the hard way when they got stomped by Google Maps.. If your product doesn't have built-in "hard to replicate" or proprietary features (or data), then a better-funded competitor can just buy their way past you by using more resources to replicate what you have.

<comment><USER19> Maps are an interesting example because map data is actually hard to replicate. Google went ahead and built their own database anyway, after several years of licensing from NavTeq and then Tele Atlas. [http://blog.daveburrows.com/2009/10/08/google-drops- teleatla...](http://blog.daveburrows.com/2009/10/08/google-drops-teleatlas- for-us-map-data/)

This allows Google to do whatever they like with the data, including offering turn by turn directions on Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I loosely know of Jason Calacanis and don't know what credibilty he has to base these statements on, but it he does raise any interesting point.

What precedent does Facebook have to support the 3rd party developer ecosystem on apps.facebook? _/me points at<http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api*>.

I'd be really interested to see what other HNers have to say about what I think is the main issue: given you don't think becoming a facebook fte is your desired exit strategy, what would you do to protect your IP from Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER21> It also depends on how a business uses the access to instant personalization. I would use it as a way to generate fast growth but also focus on segregating this growth from facebook reliance, as Zynga has done to an extent.

This way if the relationship remains good you can continue to reap the benefits, if it goes sour you have your own userbase with some separation from facebook.

It depends though, plenty of developers are happy to put all their eggs in the Apple app store basket because the benefit now outweighs to potential downside later. This would be the same here.

</comment><comment><USER22> My reply: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goc4COUe1Z4>

(I for one would much rather be stolen by Facebook than Mahalo.)

</comment><comment><USER23> Social media start ups or otherwise, it is rarely about the idea, it is about the execution. If you cannot execute better than facebook you should probably consider selling to them, if you can no amount of idea stealing should prevent you from growing your start up.

And as part of the execution you guard against being locked in to a specific platform.

</comment><comment><USER24> link to a more verbose opinion before and after the cut: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWJAkjF9qnY#t=1h14m44s>

</comment><comment><USER25> Who cares who really said it, I saw the Techcrunch post on this and I had the same concern before seeing this. I think i posted - I hope Facebook doesn't ruin YC.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's amazing what high production quality on audio and video does for credibility.

<comment><USER9> Not sure if we watched the same video, but what I just saw was a yuppie in a pink shirt, struggling so hard to project an image of self-importance that it's bordering on slapstick.

<comment><USER27> I think you missed the sarcasm tags on the GP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> product -> platform -> library -> standard library -> language -> OS -> FPGA -> ASIC -> SoC

"Reaching critical mass" [so customers _identify_ you with the technology/idea] is one way to avoid this.

</comment><comment><USER28> I didn't watch the video, did he mention his Tesla?

</comment><comment><USER29> i think he did this to get some traffic for show.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is mostly Jason Calacanis doing linkbaiting.

</comment><comment><USER31> I listened to a podcast where Jason was a guest not that many months ago (2-3 perhaps). He wasn't aware of the concept MVP ("minimum viable product") which kind of surprised me.

Sorry, don't remember the name of the podcast.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm sorry, but even on HN I feel it is appropriate to reply to this jackass with only two characters: FU [Edit: the downvotes be damned]

<comment><USER33> Try placing a higher value on your time and energy. If something isn't worth an upmod, how is it worth a comment?

<comment><USER32> Maybe it's just hat I believe those two characters represent an appropriate response to that king of linkbait? Two more characters come to mind: PC.</comment></comment></comment>


User Tries to Suggest Tor Added Censor Functions for Relays - <AUTHOR> https://archive.fo/Tvzyo <comment><AUTHOR> In other words, they completely fail to understand why Tor works the way it does. It's meant to be a neutral service that can be used to access content some authorities might not like if necessary.

Any ability to censor nodes on a gateway level provides an opportunity for unsavoury figures (like governments and businesses) to demand Tor censorship in regards to everything from copyright to political speech they don't agree with.

<comment><USER2> This proposal was made about hidden services rather than exit nodes. Exit nodes can already refuse to exit to particular sites (by IP address).

[https://stem.torproject.org/api/exit_policy.html](https://stem.torproject.org/api/exit_policy.html)

However, when doing so, they have to declare this so that nobody will try to exit to those sites through them. They aren't allowed to claim to be able to exit to a site but then refuse to actually do it (if a scanner catches an exit relay doing so, it will be marked as a BadExit).

Again, for exit relays, they can openly say "Don't use this relay if you want to access site X", but not "It's fine to use this relay to access site X [but we will secretly then block it]". However, if multiple sites share a single IP address, or if sites use domain fronting to bypass blocking, exit nodes won't succeed in selectively refusing to help people connect to individual sites via exit policy.

Hidden services don't have this feature but it would probably be technically possible to add a feature for current-generation hidden services where relays attempt to disrupt connections to particular hidden services (although not all relays will be in a position to do so). In my understand of next-generation hidden services, which are being rolled out now, it's no longer technically possible for relays to do this because the identity of the hidden service being connected to is hidden from everyone. But I'd like to double-check this to better understand exactly what is hidden from whom.

The kind of proposal this person made is definitely a non-starter for Tor at the community level; the Tor community overall is committed to the idea that nobody should have the power to monitor or block communications (at least at the network layer). There may be disagreement about how that power should be used when it happens to exist, but I think the community's ideal of trying to get rid of that power is clear.</comment></comment>


Testing REST services with javascript - <AUTHOR> http://www.beletsky.net/2010/12/testing-rest-services-with-javascript.html Why should I start from tests? Pretty simple, by implementing tests before you are looking on your service as client<, not as a developer. When I was working to version 1 of my REST API I didn't do any tests, basically because I didn't know how to do them. When I was ready and started implementation of the client code and documentation, I found out major API issues that I had no time to solve. Those issues were related to: design, security, formats and convenience of usage. TDD principles works the same here: clear and simple design through series of tests. <comment><USER2> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WiicATO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WiicATO9mWMJ:www.beletsky.net/2010/12/testing- rest-services-with-javascript.html+http://www.beletsky.net/2010/12/testing- rest-services-with-javascript.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Google cache. I was getting a DNS error.</comment>


CDN Comparison: CloudFront vs. Fastly vs. CloudFlare - <AUTHOR> https://blog.latency.at/2017-09-06-cdn-comparison <comment><USER2> If you're going to compare these three you should be having a fair test to Cloudflare as well.

The conclusion basically tells us you just half-assed this benchmark. It wouldn't be hard to do this comparison and have the host header at the origin respond to the correct content. Really this is just a lazy blog post.

Disclaimer: used to work at Cloudflare, but have no horse in this race any longer.

Working there, we saw pretty consistent speeds across all CDNs, except in regions outside of developed countries and China.

China, Africa, SE Asia, India, etc. Cloudflare was always the fastest.</comment>


USA Today gets its first redesign in 30 years - <AUTHOR> http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/13/gannett-usatoday-anniversary-idINDEE88C0FA20120913

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.usatoday.com/money/business/story/2012/09/13/usa-...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/business/story/2012/09/13/usa- today-unveils-redesigned-newspaper-website-mobile-apps/57776732/1) for the paper's own coverage.</comment>


A Short Talk about Richard Feynman by Stephen Wolfram (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/feynman/

<comment><USER2> Amazing... Even when talking about Feynman this guy talks more about himself.

<comment><USER3> Amazing that you had the exact same reaction I did! He manages to make a talk on Feynman about Rule 30 and Mathematica. He even closes with a thought about how Feynman said such nice things about him. I mean, really? Wolfram's a smart guy, but he seems to have security issues or something.</comment></comment>


The Age of AngelList - <AUTHOR> http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/opinion/1279/the-age-of-angellist/

<comment><USER2> >as it now has a high-quality, curated job board.

Unfortunately, this just doesn't appear to be the case unless you're in one of the "top locations" on the left. As a job-seeker, there doesn't appear to be any way for me to search for jobs in, say, Vancouver. I'd love to be able to see who's hiring in Vancouver, but AngelList just doesn't seem to cut it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have a lot of listings in Vancouver because our jobs section is so new... and we need to improve our search UI. In the meantime you can see the jobs we do have here: <http://angel.co/jobs/in/vancouver>

<comment><USER2> Exactly what I was looking for, thanks. I look forward to seeing the revamped job search UI. This really could be a great resource for founders looking for top-notch talent, and employees who are excited about working for startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have recently signed up to AgelList and I find myself on it most evenings now, seeing what new companies and products are about. From a entrepreneurs point of view it's great to see what kind of products are being actively mentored and invested in too.</comment>


Why Iceland Should Be in the News But Is Not - <AUTHOR> http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/

<comment><USER2> The article that this article is based on was full of factual errors, according to an actual Icelandic publication:

[http://grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/A-Deconstruction- of...](http://grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/A-Deconstruction-of-Icelands- Ongoing-Revolution)</comment>


In Hong Kong, Grandma Has to Find a Job - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-23/grandmas-vie-for-jobs-as-asia-s-worst-aging-crisis-looms-in-h-k- <comment><USER2> Most asian cultures, there is no social security cause the children are supposed to take care of the parents. Generally speaking they usually live in same house. Here in Thailand we get tax credits if our parents are old and don't have a pension. Its called the "good child" exemption

<comment><USER3> Without a welfare state, sounds like good incentive to have lots of kids!

<comment><USER4> It's worse than that. You are forced to save a lot for retirement and medical expenses, which leads to repressed consumer spending, which hurts the economy...in a vicious cycle. Insurance (public or private) to make these expenses predictable can help the economy substantially as consu ers have more confidence to spend (what they have left after paying premiums, of course).

You can see this playing out in China right now.

<comment><USER5> Why? Those savings are lent out to companies who produce the goods that will be consumed by these retirees when they start spending their savings. A lot of savings simply means an economy oriented towards the production of future goods.

<comment><USER6> Social Security and Medicare are also essentially longevity insurance, which is extremely valuable.

Since one can't predict with any confidence how long one will live beyond 'probably 50-110 years if I don't get hit by a car', retirement savings is much easier when there is a government-provided income floor in case of mistakes in retirement planning. Otherwise, how do you choose between saving enough that you're 80% or 90% or 95% or 99% or 99.9% sure that you'll have enough income for the rest of your life? And if you wish to buy such insurance (an annuity) in the private market, how do you spread risk so that you don't face risk that the company will fail? And how do you make sure that any financial adviser you have doesn't exploit you as you decline mentally?

Or do you just save single penny possible and never consume anything? Buy an apartment building and hope like hell your neighborhood doesn't decline? Buy a portfolio of widespread rental houses and try to manage them when you're 85 and have cancer? Hope your children are loyal? Or spread risk by having 6 or more children?

Historical experience suggests the outcome of attempts to leave such complexities to individuals is widespread poverty amongst the elderly.

And that's not even getting into the question of whether we have a global savings glut. Safe investments are getting awfully expensive, with negative interest rates on some government and corporate bonds being sighted lately.

<comment><USER5> You probably didn't mean to reply to my post which is about the effect of savings and consumption on economic activity, but I'll address the points nonetheless.

Insurance companies who sell annuities are have credit ratings, and some have been around for quite a while. Metlife was founded in 1868, Prudential 1875, or of course Lloyd's of London 1688.

Mental health decline is of course a concern. If you trust your children, or a younger relative, it's a good idea to give them durable financial power of attorney ahead of time.

There's no disputing that a social security scheme, or a paternalistic compulsory saving scheme can decrease poverty in the elderly, especially if people are hyperbolic discounters, but it also has downsides.

1) There's a risk that a compulsory saving scheme can be nationalized by the government, as it happened in Argentina for instance.

2) In social security schemes, the money is typically invested but rather spent directly by the government. The hope being that the future tax base can pay for the liabilities. The model has proven unsustainable and eventually requires that government resort to inflation, fiddle with the retirement age, or cut benefits.

3) The money paid into and out of social security is controlled by the government, which gives it a lot of political power. Governments often use their money for nefarious purposes such as wars, cronyism, corruption, etc. Giving them more control can be a bad thing.

4) There are moral concerns with forcing people to participate in a financial scheme against their will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Older people tend to live longer and healthier lives if they continue working past the customary retirement age. Both of my grandfathers (who became adults before Social Security existed in the United States, and who aged into old age when the standard retirement age was 65) worked until about age 75. They both lived well into their eighties, with my paternal grandfather dying from being hit by an errantly driven car rather than from disease. My parents both retired right on the dot at age 65, and I think that has been worse for their health than continuing to work longer (my dad has now died, at a younger age than his dad died at).

The article kindly submitted here mentions an issue of age imbalance in the population. "The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and World Health Organization forecast Hong Kong will have the highest share of population aged 65 years and over in Asia by 2050 with 42 percent, outpacing Japan's 39 percent." That's an exceptionally skewed age ratio for any place in the world. If people cease working at age 65 in such a place, a large proportion of the population (both children and the elderly) have to be supported by a not very large proportion of the population at working age. That's difficult to do whether support for the elderly comes from their own children or from taxpayers in general.

What's happening in many countries, of course, is that people are living far longer into old age than they imagined they possibly could decades ago.[1] Life expectancies at adult ages (say, 40, or 65) are increasing steadily all over the developed world. If people retire at the same age as decades ago, in much better health and with many more years of remaining life ahead, it's not surprising that their personal savings may run out. The response is to keep the proportion of working years over a whole lifespan a more or less constant proportion of healthy life years.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

<comment><USER8> Not so sure about the general health of old people. Modern medicine keeps people alive, but working today's stressful jobs? I'm glad for your grandfathers, what kind of work did they do?

<comment><USER7> One grandfather was a farmer (dry-land farming and animal husbandry on the Great Plains), the other a manager of a small town department store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Saw this in Singapore as well. I expect most countries will end up like this (except maybe Norway). Including "welfare" (HAH!) states like Sweden.

I see old people begging because lack of jobs - that's native Swedes, not just EU-migrants these days. Didn't see that 10 years ago.

<comment><USER10> I'm living in Hong Kong now and I see old people collecting cardboard and looking through bins more than once a day. It's not a good situation! There are more news stories of older people commiting suicide compared to the UK.

Five-ish years ago I was living in Singapore too but I don't recall ever seeing it there, especially nothing compared to Hong Kong.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's nothing compared to Hong Kong from what I've heard. Singapore actually have _some_ level of help, but I'm not an expert on that so don't quote me.

However, I meant the actual labouring. I saw a lot of elderly people working McDonalds and cleaning tables. By elderly, I mean 70+.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the way I see it:

Robots and automation may actually be the way we can get off the addictive economic treadmill of having the you g pay for the old by an ever expanding population. It is unsustainable.

They have already done so through increased worker productivity, but may ultimately replace young people as the "breadwinners" for those who can't or won't work.

This is to be welcomed, as we can economically support a shrinking population that grows wealthier over time. The traditional refrain of wealth redistribution being from "productive" members of society to the non productive will be upended. Many people will be consumers, producing things most people won't pay large amounts of money for.

</comment><comment><USER12> I lived for a couple years in HK and then other Asian countries, and this does stands out. But if the alternative is a debt-based welfare state....

I don't think there's any doubt the Hong Kong government needs to do a better job with affordable housing, but I also don't like the fact that my nephew was born with a $20K debt while 50% of my mother's pension is being payed by taxpayers.

<comment><USER13> That debt isn't new, but is instead just a formalization of an arrangement that goes back to antiquity--each child is born with the obligation to take care of his or her parents when they get old.

<comment><USER14> Syphilis is also not new, but that doesn't mean that it's not a problem.

Inter-generational debt can and does destroy both societies and governmental systems. I'd argue that over the next 40 years, it's probably the biggest problem the western democracies are facing.

I didn't want to dive too much into the political side of this, but I found your comment to be a little too flip given the nature of the topic. One of the major advancements in civilization was the idea that parents _cannot_ pass their debts down to their children. That worked great for many decades, but we seem to have found away around that by collectivizing it. Not good.

<comment><USER13> > Syphilis is also not new, but that doesn't mean that it's not a problem.

This is more like the wheel rather than syphilis. Something created by humans to serve a purpose, that endures because it continues to be useful.

> One of the major advancements in civilization was the idea that parents > _cannot_ pass their debts down to their children.

With welfare, it's not parents' debts being passed on to their children. Its the childrens' obligation to begin with.

<comment><USER15> > _This is more like the wheel rather than syphilis. Something created by > humans to serve a purpose, that endures because it continues to be useful._

I see it more like a implementation of a way to allocate resources throughout a society, that increasingly becomes suboptimal over time as the incentives to participate in such an arrangement (not to be read/interpreted as agreement) will become less distributed among individuals.

One would think that with the technology we have at our disposal, societies wouldn't have to rely on co-opting parties that didn't ask to be born where they are told, "it's your obligation", when distributing resources for sustenance and quality of life.

<comment><USER16> If the young are unwilling to support the old then there will be no such thing as retirement. Is that really what you want?

<comment><USER17> As someone still young (32), I am hesitant to accept an obligation I was unwilling to negotiate or choose myself.

If we can provide food, shelter, and energy to the elderly in an automated fashion, how can there be no retirement?

<comment><USER18> All humans are born into situations from which they benefit, without having previously earned or merited it, and for which they have obligations, also without having previously agreed to it.

Since that aspect of human nature seems to me impossible to change, my attitude is to try to live with both benefits and obligations I have "inherited".

<comment><USER17> > All humans are born into situations from which they benefit, without having > previously earned or merited it, and for which they have obligations, also > without having previously agreed to it.

But that is _by choice_ of those who choose to give birth to those people, not those who are born. You bequeath those benefits onto the recipient (both as a society and as parents) by creating/sustaining the environment into which they're born.

> Since that aspect of human nature seems to me impossible to change, my > attitude is to try to live with both benefits and obligations I have > "inherited".

I as well, even though I might have disagreements with it. I don't have any qualms about the amount I contribute into social security yearly (My income surpasses the max contribution limit), nor that I have to support both of my parents because of their poor life and financial choices.

The only recourse I have is to ensure that any children I have are as burden- free as possible. I'm not just giving them the gift of life, but the gift of freedom, which is equally priceless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Aside from the government being a fiscal conservative, the word "tax" is a dirty word for many ordinary Hong Kongers.

Their lack of tax diversity is also one of the main reasons why housing is so damn expensive, because the government make money there.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found the paradox of this phenomenon and supposedly elder-friendly Confucianism interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: Scala technology stack? - <AUTHOR>

I'm doing some research to define the technology stack I'll be using in my next project.
I have a Java background, but I'm interested in expanding my horizons and use the best tools available.
I've played with Groovy and Python, and they are nice, but I've also read about performance of these languages and there is ample margin for improvement.
Now I'm learning Scala, which I read is very fast regarding performance (comparable to Java), is very powerful due to its syntax and functional programming/object hybrid nature, and is much more expressive than Java (scala code tends to be 1/3 than Java code).
But I need to decide other important tools.
For templating I'm fascinated by Haml and Sass used in the Ruby world, so I'd like to try Scalate with Scaml templates.
For ORM, I've found SQueryl which looks very promising, but I've also found others such as Scala-query, Querulous or Circumflex-ORM.
For build engine I'm looking at Gradle. I've read about SBT (Simple build tool for Scala) but Gradle looks more powerful.
For web framework I'm looking at the Java framework Play, which is Scala friendly, and brzy (which seems promising but according to the autor "As of right now, brzy is not ready for production use.").
Also Circumflex Web Framework and Scalatra, inspired by Ruby-esque Sinatra, and many others listed in this thread http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1488412/what-scala-web-frameworks-are-available.
I'm looking for a lightweight web framework easy to configure and setup, without XML configurations, fast and scalable. When I was playing with Groovy I was interested in Grails, for example.
So, a possible choice would be Play (or Scalatra) framework, with Scalate Scaml templates, Squeryl and Gradle. Any suggestions or comments on frameworks/tools for scala? <comment><USER2> I use Lift. There could be better frameworks, Lift looks terribly complicated and verbose, but it's fast and works.

I'm not into ORMs, but use the Lift ORM to get started before writing JSON to NoSQL storages.

IDE: Intellij with the Scala plugin.

I will possibly use Mustache templating via Scalate in Lift instead of the Lift version, as Mustache templates can be reused in the web frontend in Javascript.

SBT with ~test-quick and Specs is fantastic for TDD.

I've played with Play alot, it's nice but the default Groovy templating is slow as hell and I'm not sure their usage of exceptions for work flow does scale - from my operations experience I think it won't (perhaps this changed in the last 5 months).

<comment><USER3> We used lift, we're in the process of ripping it out and replacing it with something else, anything else really. When I last checked a few month's ago, Lift's documentation is terrible given it's complexity. A project that is as large as Lift cannot be learned by scanning the source code and the number of examples out there to do something really custom is lacking. Tons of it's source files have only the slightest smidgen of Scaladoc if any at all.

Also anything that actually is documented is probably deprecated or about to be usurped by another feature. No classes should be added to lift without proper documentation added first. Yes it's open source, yes no one wants to write documentation at the end of the day it hurts the project however. I don't want one on one support or having to write to mailing lists I want a good explanation of what is going on top to bottom.

However I hear over and over it has worked wonders for other people, so YMMV. It's certainly not the only way to make a Webserver in Scala it just has the benefit of being one of the first big Scala projects, and it has used that time to bloat out and grab as many features as it can without documenting them properly.

<comment><USER4> books on Lift 2

<http://manning.com/perrett>

(Manning's always running some promo codes, so ~$20 for MEAP and final PDF book)

<http://simply.liftweb.net/Simply_Lift.pdf>

<comment><USER3> While I really hope these develop into good resources, The first one isn't out. The second one is not remotely usable by itself at the moment. Most of the chapters are empty. There is a smattering of code that revolve around some very basic things can be found in other Lift books (which are now outdated). The 4th longest chapter (ch 15) is a wall of text & self promotion that goes on about how Scalable/Better Lift is than other frameworks.[1]

BTW Here is another book, that is, to my knowledge, the most complete free reference available for Lift: <http://groups.google.com/group/the-lift- book?pli=1>

Here is a [link]([http://main.scala- tools.org/mvnsites/liftweb-2.1/framework/s...](http://main.scala- tools.org/mvnsites/liftweb-2.1/framework/scaladocs/index.html)) to the Lift Scaladocs. Most methods do not have any descriptions, several classes don't either. This forces digging through source code / searching and asking question on the mailing list to figure out how Lift wants you to do something.

Ultimately, with how fast Lift moves it's really hard to have any faith in any book keeping up.

1: Even when using Lift's session-affinity dependent features, Lift applications have higher performance, identical availability, identical scalability, better security, and better user experience than applications written with web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Struts, and GWT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > but I've also read about performance of these languages and there is ample > margin for improvement.

Do you really need "number crunching" performance?

Most of the time, it's I/O waits anyway

<comment><USER2> "Most of the time, it's I/O waits anyway"

I believed this for years too. But after some years in production I do no longer believe this. If you cache a lot HTML or data, then I/O is no longer an issue and the load of your app servers is CPU bound (mostly rendering, I was suprised about this).

Faster language => less app servers => less money spent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> groovy++ might be worth a look if performance is a consideration. <http://code.google.com/p/groovypptest/> might be more recent at <https://github.com/alextkachman/groovypp> \- not sure.

Each version of core groovy gets a bit faster at certain things, but the dynamicness of it will probably mean it'll always be _somewhat_ slower than pure java. You need to weigh the benefits - for me, those benefits are faster app dev time (via Grails) vs the language speed. _Most_ of the stuff I'm doing is db reads and writes, so the db itself is often a speed bottleneck, regardless of what language I'm using.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know about Groovy++. I'll read more about it!! Is it that faster than regular Groovy??

<comment><USER6> For some tasks, yes.

Benchmarks: [http://www.google.com/buzz/alex.tkachman/2qog71JrDvU/Latest-...](http://www.google.com/buzz/alex.tkachman/2qog71JrDvU/Latest- Groovy-Benchmarks-against-Java-It-seems)

Graph: [http://www.google.com/buzz/106045618354056753098/YPrgoMfGL8z...](http://www.google.com/buzz/106045618354056753098/YPrgoMfGL8z/Java- vs-Groovy-benchmarks)

Well, this is Groovy++ vs regular Java, not against Groovy.

[http://www.indicthreads.com/7355/what-is-groovy-how-does- it-...](http://www.indicthreads.com/7355/what-is-groovy-how-does-it-compare- with-java-and-groovy/) has a bit more comparison which might be useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The only reason I would do web-dev in Scala wold be LiftWeb aka speedy comet- style apps, that is it's strongest point, otherwise I'd choose rails/django/whatever.

As each language seems to have a Sinatra clone, Scala's is Scalatra - for when you want to do something easy and elegantly-ish or something small as in "do this logic in a elegant fashion but don't hurt my brain". If you're stuck in Scala and LiftWeb is too much, choose the Scalatra's easy route.

<comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, I just checked out Scalatra: looks like a good framework for simple RESTful web apps and to implement web services. Thanks for the reference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised no one mentioned akka - <http://akkasource.org>

</comment><comment><USER10> I had a good time with Play, but I can't say that I "battle tested" it. (I work with Django in my professional life.)

Tbqh, I'm wrangling with my preference for Play/Django-esque frameworks against the design ethic behind Compojure and my love for Clojure. I haven't grokked the Clojure approach to web development.

For Scala, I'd say you've already suggested a pretty good template towards the end of your post.

I'm less certain for my own part for how to approach Clojure.

I'd strongly consider what rb2k_ is saying about performance as well. Your data processing should be decoupled from your frontend servers regardless of what you're doing.</comment>


Trexa EV: Modular Car - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/20/trexa-ev-development-platform-is-modular-extremely-customizable/ <comment><USER2> One of the big three (I think it was GM, not sure) was planning this exact thing back in the late 90s. They'd pack an entire drive-by-wire electric car in to a giant skateboard, and then they'd simply be able to sell different interior/exteriors that would be mounted on top. Then they could focus all their development in to three or four actual drive platforms.

It was a great idea, and had they stuck with it I'm sure we'd be close to using it by now. I expect that batteries ended up being the torpedo though.</comment>


Two-Year Old Startup Brex Now Has a $2.6B Valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/donnafuscaldo/2019/06/11/two-year-old-startup-brex-now-has-a-2-6-billion-valuation/ <comment><USER2> yeah, well, the profit could be $0 or negative and still have this valuation.

I'm not that impressed by these numbers anymore, because it's mostly bullshit hype in an attempt to pump up a future IPO and make the investors rich.</comment>


Xbox One is becoming a great ad for the PS4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/xbox-one-is-becoming-a-great-ad-for-the-ps4-1164413?src=rss&attr=all <comment><USER2> And for that matter the Wii U is a great ad for a PS 3 or an Xbox 360</comment>


Space Stasis (Neal Stephenson) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2283469/pagenum/all/

<comment><USER3> This is a pretty thought provoking article. I've always really enjoyed Neal Stephenson's odd perspective on things -- in fact, I always want to smack people who complain about his stories' content and ending situations, and tell them "That's not the point, read the descriptions of things dammit.". The thing I really enjoyed was the bit about "the catch is it has to be the size and shape of a hydrogen bomb".

Anyway that aside, it really brings up the old infrastructure problem -- Large investment in infrastructure is a two-edged sword, bringing both benefit and lock in, and when it comes time to change there is lots of debate. I think Neal either misses or avoids a big part of the argument here -- infrastructure is turned into the bad-guy and the good guy. People don't see the benefits it has brought for a myriad of reasons - they have internalized it, they are not in the class of society that directly gets money for it (and the general improved life isn't apparent because their neighbors are in the same boat), they are afraid of tax increases (or lack of tax cuts), they don't understand the current tech, and figure that "it has problems so anything else we do won't fix it either", it has broken society in the following ways...

Really all of this though is just setup. The way I see it, large scale tech and infrastructure projects are hard to get at and harder to revamp because they are just too easy to target with populist attacks from all sides. The issue is usually complex, but easy to attack with a simple disingenuous quip. Doubly so when the alternative is something that sort-of works, because then the quip doesn't even need the effort of disingenuety, just a mean spirited "they are trying to change the perfectly good stuff we have just to take it away from us, and ignoring everything else to fix"

I have no idea of the solutions we could offer to these types of scenarios, but I do think that somehow we need to find a way to look at these piles of infrastructure we have an find ways to make them better. To do that we need to get around the "infrastructure problem".

<comment><USER4> People tend to be most skeptical of infrastructure projects funded with tax dollars coercively taken from them. It takes a lot of bad publicity to begin a populist movement against private transactions.

I tend to oppose many government infrastructure efforts because the government has no incentive to do a realistic cost/benefit analysis of new projects. It is always in the legislator's and lobbyist's interest to start a new project, whether it be massive high speed rail lines, expensive green power installations, or large subsidies for classes of fuel and transportation that are uneconomical in the free market (hydrogen cars, corn ethanol). The only people paying a cost for new projects don't have a direct voice in the planning meetings.

The interstate highway system of the United States has long been the shining example of a "good" infrastructure project. But it has certainly subsidized the development of sprawling suburbs and a car-centric culture. Nowadays many expensive government infrastructure proposals (such as passenger rail) are aimed at mitigating the externalities from the earlier infrastructure projects. I wish we took a little more care at spending money wisely.

<comment><USER5> Remember the interstate was justified as a military program

<comment><USER6> Plus spreading us into suburbs made us less susceptible to nuclear annihilation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am sure many people are wondering about the alternative to giant explosive tin cans:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch>

<comment><USER8> The light-gas gun launch + rocket hybrid is a very interesting concept. It consists of a large, but conventional light-gas gun propelling a g-hardened payload 2/3 of the way to orbital velocity, then the payload uses its own engines to accelerate the rest of the way. The scheme is advertised to cost around $400M, but we should consider that within an order of magnitude. Even at that, the opportinity to significantly lower launch costs should be embraced.

<comment><USER9> _Even at that, the opportinity to significantly lower launch costs should be embraced._

But didn't you read the article? It explains clearly why even _halving_ launch costs would not make much of a difference.

<comment><USER8> Halving launch costs would be significant, it would save the satellite industry many billions. Note that half orbital speed discount is much more than 50% in launch energy savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article reflects a constant theme in American innovation. Capitalism by itself does not demand innovation, but its militant thirst for resources does. What Stephenson calls lock-in is a product of a system that demands maximal efficiency of resources within an organization, but huge waste across the culture. Think of the empty flatbeds driven across Iraq to inflate cost plus contracts, drug companies competing to produce chemical analog drugs, or three drug stores selling identical products on a single corner.

The modern Capitalist attitude among modern business schools is that research and development is a cost center which must be minimized. This was a major element of Carly Fiorina's plan to cut HP to profitability. However, tremendous resources are thrown into marginal technologies in order to redundantly market and protect them.

Most great innovations in American culture seemed to occur due to a great existential need by our military. The Internet was designed as a communications network to survive nuclear attack. Rockets, as Stephenson pointed out, were improved for ICBMs. Most alternative fuel research is funded by the DoD to provide alternatives for tanks and jets in case our nation gets cut-off from its oil supply.

As someone who has run for office twice, I deeply understand that lobbyists exist largely to make money flow regardless of the suitability of a given contractor or product. I doubt our current military-industrial-congressional complex is independent enough to provide groundbreaking developments when incremental improvements suffice. Military lobbyists have become too powerful and too monetarily influential to the candidate that wins.

<comment><USER11> "The Internet was designed as a communications network to survive nuclear attack."

Isn't that a bit of a myth? See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET#Misconceptions_of_desig...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET#Misconceptions_of_design_goals)

<comment><USER10> Your Wikipedia-based contention does not appear to be relevant. Paul Baran's original research does not match what the Internet actually became. On that point, we agree. I based my contention strictly on the primary source-- Paul Baran's RAND research note. The DARPA research and the RAND note were an investigation into the idea of having a network which would meet military objectives, possibly including communications after a nuclear strike. Much of the note focused on that. Example after example exists of commissioned military research which gets applied to a purpose other than the original subject of the research-- that's exactly the point I was intending to get across with my example. The structure of the Internet was designed to be decentralized in part because Baran envisioned this military need. Whether the RAND team and the DARPA team agreed on the direction of the research seems besides the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised Stephenson didn't touch on SpaceX's potential as a game changer. The biggest "next" step to increased space access, is a vastly cheaper, more efficient, and potentially more reliable orbital rocket. And, SpaceX is doing exactly that!

As Musk is so fond of saying, the existing options are the Lamborghini's of launch vehicles, whereas he's trying to build the Honda. Safe, reliable, and cheap!

I have a lot of hope that we will have a new Space Renaissance in our lifetimes and I think the work that SpaceX, and other companies is doing will be instrumental in getting us to Mars and beyond.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you and disagree with Stephenson. From TFA: "Sixty years and a couple of trillion dollars later, we have reached a place that is infinitesimally close to the top of that hill. Rockets are as close to perfect as they're ever going to get."

From what I understand of the rocket business, this is completely wrong.

Current rockets designed by the established players (LockMart, etc.) are optimised for performance, not overall cost. This comes from a variety of factors, starting with the basic philosophy of the designers, to the rocket fuels chosen, all the way up the design hierarchy.

I estimate that it is possible to reduce launch costs by at least 10x, and that is using 1960's rocket technology with modern computers and sensors. The key is looking at what is going to reduce overall operational cost. I don't have room to explain everything, but suffice it to say I'm a fan of big dumb boosters.

There are many, many political factors at work that have slowed down the cost reductions which we would see if this was some other industry. One of the biggest factors is that the major governments don't really want launchers to become cheaper. Again, it gets back to the space race, and the governments don't want just anyone to have ICBM capability. The big companies also don't want competition for their cash cows, so they lobby hard to make sure space access remains as expensive as possible.

<comment><USER12> > I estimate that it is possible to reduce launch costs by at least 10x, and > that is using 1960's rocket technology with modern computers and sensors.

I couldn't agree more. They are already at least 3x cheaper based on my very rough calculations and wikipedia:

\- Falcon 9: $56million

\- Delta IV: $150million

\- Atlas V: $187million

And they are just at the very beginning of recovering their research costs and systematizing the process of rocket building. I am amazed at what they have been able to accomplish thus far.

<comment><USER4> Did you correct for inflation?

<http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/>

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what you mean. Those are all active launch vehicles and current prices.

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

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

They're 1960's technology, not 1960's prices... ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not mentioned in the article, but in addition to his work as a writer, Neal Stephenson once worked as an advisor to Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos.

Blue Origin is focused on suborbital space flight using rockets. But I remember Stephenson making some vague statements about his work there (at a reading of _Quicksilver_ at the University of Washington) that included research into space elevators and other less-proven technologies.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you enjoyed this piece, be sure to read "Mother Earth Mother Board", written by Stephenson and published in Wired in December 1996. It's a long and fascinating look at the world of undersea cabling, and it's chock-full of super-interesting facts.

Full giant extremely-long and interesting article here: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html>

<comment><USER16> Excellent, I was hoping that this article serves as a kind of precursor or preview of material that Neal is working on. Given that undersea cabling is discussed in some detail in Cryptonomicon (published three years later in 1999) then that means we can probably look forward to interesting space travel discussed in Neal's next tale. Anathem touched on a Project Orion type spacecraft, but this article is definitely covering a different slant.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure what his next book is, but he's currently working on <http://mongoliad.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ha: "[After all,] _the modern petroleum industry is a direct outgrowth of the practice of going out in wooden, wind-driven ships to hunt sperm whales with hand-hurled spears and then boiling their heads to make lamp fuel._ "

God, that guy has a way with words.

</comment><comment><USER19> > _The above circumstances provide a remarkable example of path dependency. > Had these contingencies not obtained, rockets with orbital capability would > not have been developed so soon, and when modern societies became interested > in launching things into space they might have looked for completely > different ways of doing so._

> _Before dismissing the above story as an aberration, consider that the > modern petroleum industry is a direct outgrowth of the practice of going out > in wooden, wind-driven ships to hunt sperm whales with hand-hurled spears > and then boiling their heads to make lamp fuel._

Is he seriously citing the adoption of petroleum fuels as an example of path dependency?

<comment><USER5> It is, we had whale oil which needs handling in barrels and could be burnt in lamps, so we switched to crude oil which was then refined to the same grade as whale oil and could be handled in the same barrels and burnt in the same lamps. Then we switched to tankers but the oil could still be burnt in the same lamps so no consumer change, then the consumer changed to using it in their cars but we shipped it in the same tankers.

Now we have a system where we can only use a fuel that is delivered in a certain quantity to a local gas station as a liquid that can be burned.

Compare this with the electricity grid where we can switch from coal to nuclear to wind to gas without anyone noticing.

<comment><USER19> Maybe I'm just ignorant, or blinded by cognitive biases, but I always imagine the combination of gas/diesel and internal combustion engines as an engineering optimum, reached iteratively after decades of wandering through parameter space. At least wikipedia's version [1] of the history of cars seems consistent with this, showing a history of dozens of engine designs and fuel choices (solids, liquids, gases, and electric batteries) long before the ICE came to dominate. (Maybe I'm unreasonably optimistic, but I'm unsurprised we've succeed in breaking free of our original "path", steam engines). Perhaps it's my lack of imagination, but I'm not aware of any practical fuel (chemical or otherwise) superior, in energy density and convenience, to liquid hydrocarbons. Nor am I aware that there was a historically superior way of obtaining liquid hydrocarbons to letting them gush out of the ground, which I understood was the least expensive source for them throughout modern history.

Am I simply rationalizing the history of modern transportation, and if so can you enlighten me as to the "paths not taken" that I'm blind to?

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

<comment><USER5> If oil hadn't been available do you think Karl Benz would have sat down and invented the entire drilling, refining and transport system before he started on the car?

The ICE was possible because oil infrastructure was there - the first gas stations were the pharmacists who already sold the oil

<comment><USER20> Nobody is claiming anything about the internal combustion engine. Uvdiv is claiming that oil is not an example of path dependence because it is actually optimal. That there exists a path to get to the ICE does not refute the argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR version (though you should just read it): The space industry is a great example of path dependency and lock-in in innovation. The reasons why we use rockets to launch satellites are historical dating back to the days of Hitler and the H-Bomb. After trillions spent on developing ICBMs capable of crossing the world, our governments are 'locked-in' to using rockets to get things into space. Using rockets for this purpose is not nearly as efficient as other methods, but we have perfected that practice to the point of perfection. In order to increase space accessibility we need to "cross-the-valley" to another technology, but since it has taken so much money (path-dependent) we are locked-in, and it will be very hard to innovate in this space.

<comment><USER22> TL;DR version of this TL;DR version:

We use rockets to get to space because getting as good at other methods is too expensive.

<comment><USER5> Not quite - we use very large expensive rockets to launch very large expensive payloads. The rockets are large and expensive because the payloads are large and expensive - which they need to be because launches are large and expensive.

Imagine if Nasa had been in charge of developing aviation in the US - <USER2> certainly wouldn't have Cessnas and 737s.

There is a brilliant parody about Nasa being in charge of the old wagon trains going into the weat and their plans to make one giant wagon that would be able to make the journey and return safely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reading this article raises a question that I ask as devil's advocate (mostly): why do we need to get into space?

I can think of three reasons: 1) We need to put up comsats. 2) Military superiority 3) Because we can and it's cool.

To the first, as the article stated the sky's already getting a bit full as there are only so many comsat "slots"

To the second, SDI never really worked and that threat doesn't exist anymore.

To the third, well...is it worth the brajillions? I personally think it is because we don't know what's out there, but that's a really poor sales pitch. :)

Perhaps it's my limited imagination and understanding, but I'm unable to conjure the reward that offsets the risks/costs.

<comment><USER23> "For example, there are millions of asteroids of different sizes and composition flying throughout space. One category, known as S-type, is composed of iron, magnesium silicates and a variety of other metals, including cobalt and platinum. An average half-kilometer S-type asteroid is worth more than $20 trillion."

[http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/featured- article/spac...](http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/featured- article/space-the-final-frontier-of-profit)

<comment><USER24> No it is not - because if that much were available it would drive down the price...

<comment><USER11> In one asteroid is worth $20 trillion, how much are 5000 asteroids worth?

<comment><USER24> I expect if you had 5000 asteroids worth of iron, you'd have to pay people to take it off your hands.

<comment><USER11> An 800m iron asteroid would make a rather nasty weapon.... (about 75000Mt, probably considerably more than all of the nuclear weapons that have ever existed).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> >But we are not making any serious effort as a society to cross those valleys. It is not clear why.

Because what we have works well enough for the task at hand. The problem, which Stephenson alludes do earlier in the article, is space just isn't proving to be as useful as we had anticipated. We're already doing pretty much everything that you can justify from an economic perspective. Activities like asteroid mining and space solar power aren't going to make sense for centuries even if we dramatically cut the cost of $/kg to orbit.

So sure, we could do the same things more cheaply after a huge investment in, say, tethers. But so what? How does it make sense to spend trillions on a new launch technology when you could use that money to buy all the conventional rockets you'll need for the next 50 years.

</comment><comment><USER26> His points translate more or less directly to nuclear fission - Uranium-fueled light water reactors are the result of another "hill-climbing process" and other reactor designs (HTGR, LFTR, etc.) receive almost no commercial attention, in large part due to the regulatory, accounting, and insurance burden of proof that any new design has to meet.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's worth noting that the article that always gets cited every time the Dvorak keyboard gets mentioned, ("Fable of the Keys", claiming that it's a myth that it is more efficient than Qwerty) is based on the near religious belief amongst certain groups of economists that path-dependency of this sort doesn't exist.

They believe we use rockets/Qwerty/Windows because they are the best and the all seeing market has chosen wisely, not because of a series of effectively random decisions and coincidences that occured in the past.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great article but the modern oil industry did not grow out of whale hunting. In fact it bankrupted whale hunters because it provided cheaper oil.

Also we would only end up as "the Ottoman empire of the 21st century" if someone else creates a radically superior technology which we spectacularly fail to copy, reproduce, or simply license form them.

I think the sad truth is, there just isn't much to do in space if all you have is a cheap and easy way to escape earth's gravity.

Sure space tourism would be fun for a while. But at some point we need to either terraform something or decide to live in city sized spaceships, THEN you'd have a real incentive to innovate launch vehicles.</comment>


Running amok - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok <comment><AUTHOR> _An early Western description of the practice appears in the journals of Captain James Cook, a British explorer, who encountered amok firsthand in 1770 during a voyage around the world. Cook writes of individuals behaving in a reckless, violent manner, without cause and "indiscriminately killing and maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack."_

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting parallel between "running amok" and female hysteria -- both were believed to be caused by evil spirits:

 _" They believed that amok was caused by the hantu belian, which was an evil tiger spirit that entered one's body and caused the heinous act"_ [ibid]

Of course, the very word "hysteria" has its origin in the Greek for "uterus", and in ancient times the belief was that the womb was responsible for a number of female behaviors. It progressed to include demonic forces:

 _" Through the Middle Ages another cause of dramatic symptoms could be found: demonic possession. It was thought that demoniacal forces were attracted to those who were prone to melancholy, particularly single women and the elderly"_ [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you organize your personal code library? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I use Gogs[0] to host a private git server on a subdomain of my website. It's designed to be more or less a clone of github, so there's minimal learning curve, and since it's written in Go (single binary) it's much more light- weight than GitLab and very easy to get up and running.

[0] [https://github.com/gogits/gogs](https://github.com/gogits/gogs)

</comment><comment><USER3> My method is DIY and dirty: Git project folders generally sorted by language, in Dropbox for availability across computers. It's not perfect when I have projects that span more than one language, so I'm open to new ideas! Do symbolic links work in Dropbox? Backups live across a couple different pieces of external media for resilience.

<comment><USER4> Seems like this would be a nightmare with a lot of languages' build cycles. Dropbox is already quite a CPU hog, and I'd imagine it'd be a nightmare to run something like a typical Maven build that was producing all sorts of target output that'd I not want synced. Most cloud storage apps don't make it easy to ignore subfolders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Github.

Github is a great place to store your reusable code. You can even choose to include it as a submodule in future git-based projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have recently started using code bank[1]. So far I'm really happy with it. Before that I used Dash[2], which in my opinion was less optimal for snippets and better suited for documentation.

[1] [http://programs.edchipman.ca/applications/code- bank/](http://programs.edchipman.ca/applications/code-bank/)

[2] [https://kapeli.com/dash](https://kapeli.com/dash)

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi there, I am the developer of canSnippet ([https://github.com/ademcan/canSnippet](https://github.com/ademcan/canSnippet)). canSnippet is a web application that needs to be installed on a server and can be used to save/share code snippets. I will be back to it soon and add some more features, and also a better theme :) Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any question.

</comment><comment><USER8> Most of what I've written has been for work, so I can't keep copies of that. In my own hobby projects, there's usually so little overlap that I can't meaningfully share much code between them. I've got a couple of classes that have found use in more than one project, but I usually just copy those from one project to the next, as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER9> For learning, I have a directory in my Dropbox called "Programming" with a subdir for each programming language. Then I make my test projects/tutorials in single dirs, for instance: /Dropbox/Programming/Lua/helloworld

For other projects which may or may not develop into something bigger I put it on Github now that my subscription offers unlimited private repos. Previously I hosted them on Gitlab.

I like to organize the projects with Git because it'll often go months between when working on different private projects and by looking at the Git log I quickly see what was the last thing I worked on to get back on track.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm having a GitLab instance on DigitalOcean, more than enough for all my code. Probably 30+ repos in there, most of them inactive for quite a long time.

No special organisation. Just git repos.

</comment><comment><USER11> What do you mean by "code library"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Code you write that may be re-used by yourself.

<comment><USER12> I would also include code used by the library (say in another program/project) or downloaded for compilation/use/reference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use gist and github for my personal drawer of code snippets. For example, At a time I was writing a lot of C code. I would typically look at my previous projects to see how I've done things in order to not have to re implement my own functions.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://github.com/dickeyxxx/gh](https://github.com/dickeyxxx/gh)

It's not great for everything but the username/projectname is pretty ubiquitous and this just brings that to your folder layouts

</comment><comment><USER15> I write mainly Mac apps. I have an Xcode project which contains all my "common" code. It builds to both a framework and a static library.

I include this project as a subproject in all my apps that use it.

I'n each git repository, it's a submodule.

</comment><comment><USER16> For things I'd like to have out in the open I use github.

For things I'd rather keep private I use bitbucket, who have free private repos.

</comment><comment><USER17> Self-hosted Gitlab.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bitbucket private repos</comment>


The Taxonomy of Terrible Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronstannard.com/post/2013/12/19/The-Taxonomy-of-Terrible-Programmers.aspx#!

<comment><USER2> Extensive discussion yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6938645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6938645)</comment>


Snakebite.org - the open source dev network - <AUTHOR> http://jessenoller.com/2009/01/27/snakebiteorg-the-open-source-dev-network/

<comment><USER2> _"A network of around 37-ish servers of all different shapes and sizes, spread over three sites, specifically geared towards the needs of open source projects like Python."_

Really cool and will help Python be even more cross-platform friendly.

NSF funded projects are spoiled like this: <http://nmi.cs.wisc.edu/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sadly they don't have OS X on any of the machines. It seems that maybe this has to do with HP and Microsoft being sponsors and OS X not being allowed to run on non-Mac hardware. Maybe someone can contact Apple and see if they can give an X-Serve or two.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's already in progress. Also, many of the core devs that I know about run OS/X so it does get a lot of flexing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452490></comment>


Questions to Ask Before Starting a Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/ss/6-questions-ask-starting-business <comment><USER2> Save yourself a bunch of clicks: <http://www.inc.com/print/91>

<comment><USER3> And save some times to read it?

1\. Do you believe you have what it takes?

2\. Are you able to let other people down?

3\. How do you handle setbacks?

4\. Are you really an inventor, rather than an entrepreneur?

5\. Can you accept that your company may outgrow you?

6\. When you look in the mirror, does an entrepreneur look back?

Most of those questions are not answerable before you make the jump. Just do it then you'll find out most of the answers.

<comment><USER4> I have particular trouble with that last one. I'm not sure why.

<comment><USER5> "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazing story of how to fool the military - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Maskelyne

<comment><USER2> Interesting article; bad title. Employed by one military to fool another. Sounds like a hacker of the first order.</comment>


Huawei, 5G and the 4th Industrial Revolution – US Shooting 2 Feet with 1 Bullet - <AUTHOR> https://xenagoguevicene.com/2019/01/31/china-huawei-5g-and-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-us-shooting-two-feet-with-one-bullet-by-godfree-roberts-%E2%80%A2-29-jan-2019/ <comment><USER2> The last countries to modernize are always at the advantage. So US skips 5G, maybe goes to 6G or whatever the next thing is. There are a lot of companies working to get LEO constellations of internet satellites up. I'd take that over 5G in a heartbeat. Especially since it is largely a marketing gimmic at this point. 4G LTE is good enough for most things. How many people aren't actually tied to a location for a large part of the day and are using wifi anyway. 5G doesn't do anything if you are wifi connected.</comment>