NASA has three smartphones orbiting the earth as mini-satellites - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2013/04/26/178846158/can-you-hear-me-now-cellphone-satellites-phone-home <comment><USER2> I helped design these (and I think I handbuilt a couple of parts on one of them). If you have questions ask away!

These were supposed to launch about a year ago, but the rocket kept being delayed.

The phones are Nexus Ones (and a Nexus S, which I didn't work on so I cannot comment) with a custom kernel to enable their serial port.

<comment><USER3> What sort of analysis was used to figure out the power and protection requirements you needed to make these viable?

Are these within reach of an individual to build, if not to launch?

If I build one, how do I launch it?

Why do the signals need to be crowdsourced over Ham?

What are your personal favorite/most cool applications for lots of cheap satellites?

<comment><USER2> * Mostly trial and error, surprisingly -- the idea was to keep everything in low power mode as much as possible, and see if solar panels would let us keep charge. Turns out that they can; one of the sats has panels. Another just has batteries and will die down.

* Yes, definitely. One of the sats was even hand soldered.

* You talk to NASA, the cost to launch one commercially would be around $20K. We mostly piggybacked on a rocket that was being tested.

* Because there was no budget for following these things on the ground, honestly :) Plus it gets people involved.

* We were talking about having these things detect circular cloud formations to indicate a possibly forming hurricane, and having a "real" weather sat take a better look on its next pass.

<comment><USER4> If I paid the $20k commercial price, would I be guaranteed a slot on a rocket? And do paying CubeSat customers bump off those that were given free tickets? Is anyone else offering reliable, commercial CubeSat launches for that price (or less)?

<comment><USER2> Sadly no.

The phonesats waited in a box for more than a year in order to find room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting how the press just calls these things "smartphones" but if they were iPhones, we'd see endless articles about Steve Jobs' vision, iPhone in the headline, etc.

There's something shameful about how little attention the excellent Android project gets. Those are Nexus One phones, a phone from Jan 2010. I feel Android being open and mallable for NASA is pretty noteworthy, but the press just sells this as a "smartphone" instead of really discussing the technical platform that makes stuff like this possible so quickly and so cheaply.

<comment><USER6> The problem is unlike iPhone using Android by it's self in a headline is often ambiguous. Saying Android Smartphone is accurate but while iPhone is shorter than Smartphone it takes far more space to say Android Smartphone thus the useage discrepancy. Which is one of the main issues with choosing that trademark.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of the old "IBM/Compatible" vs "PC."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The launch was kinda neat too:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3L7crGudVU>

Finless rocket? How does it steer/stabilize? Do the engines have fine control over which side their fire perhaps?

I guess fins are useless outside of atmosphere anyway.

<comment><USER8> Probably steered through thrust vectoring. Liquid fuel rocket engines are often built to gimbal, typically 1...2 degrees to each side. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine#Thrust_vectoring>

Another possible method of steering is to build four or more reaction jets around the rocket; could be fed with a monopropellant or exhaust from the main engine or its turbopump.

<comment><USER9> If you can deal with slight decreases in thrust, you can also do thrust vectoring with injecting water or other suitable liquid into the nozzle in proper places. Could be mechanically simpler than gimbals in some cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a lame twist of ageism NPR added to that story. Stay tuned for part two, where the kids teach Crockrell how to tweet and check his email.

</comment><comment><USER11> One of the largest CubeSat (the form factor of these satellites) conferences is actually happening right now. It can be live streamed or replayed here: [http://mediasite01.ceng.calpoly.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/pages/...](http://mediasite01.ceng.calpoly.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=36b100d1-069a-4bac-b7e3-8a9512655e78)

You can find out more about who else is building this type of hardware here: <http://cubesat.org/index.php/collaborate/suppliers>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Imagine someday where many people own their own personal satellite.

Not sure what it would be useful for on a personal level, but I bet they will come up with something.

I also wonder if they could send 1000 to orbit the moon or another planet in a network to do surveys.

<comment><USER12> > Imagine someday where many people own their own personal satellite.

Nice thought, but (unless the satellite is in geostationary orbit, very expensive) it won't work. Imagine having your own personal satellite that is only accessible for perhaps two short periods in 24 hours (for a mid-northern latitude location).

Better to have a subscription to a system with dozens of shared satellites in random orbits, available 24-7.

<comment><USER13> Having your own mapping/sensor satellite would be interesting. You'd need a polar orbit to get really complete coverage, but more likely most of what you'd be interested in is in the lower latitudes and some orbit that is inclined from the equator some amount is all you'd need.

[edit] Here's a catalog of satellite orbits courtesy of NASA: <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OrbitsCatalog/>

<comment><USER12> Thanks! I was actually (and perhaps naively) thinking only of a radio relay satellite, not one with optical sensors. Your description is much more interesting.

Once this happens -- once cheap optical survey satellites come into existence (and they will) -- governments are going to go completely nuts. Right now, governments can put pressure on the few survey satellite operators to blur out certain sensitive locations (as in a recent story posted here). But once cheap satellites come into existence, that option will evaporate.

<comment><USER14> Probably before that happens with satellites, it will happen with solar powered high altitude remote control planes, and mounted cameras. Consumer level not military spy drone level.

There's already a driver for this technology - flying the plane while wearing a head mounted display - a currently expensive niche hobby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The picture on that article is really misleading--it looks like you're seeing the curvature of the earth, and are therefore high up in space, but it's probably just the effect of a fish-eye lens, as evidenced by the curved upper surface and the distorted box.

</comment><comment><USER16> couple thoughts.

1\. isnt this small enough to look like space debris, and maybe dangerous?

2\. "The mobile phones are designed to be thrown around the room and for people to drop them in water. They're really robust bits of technology," -- i'm not sure how this physical durability has any bearing on its performance in near absolute-zero temps and in the radiation of space without being using radiation hardened silicon...not to mention that it would never be subjected to any of the things described.

<comment><USER17> "isnt this small enough to look like space debris, and maybe dangerous?"

The fact that they said this burns up when it runs out of "juice" implies that it is in very low Earth orbit, where the atmosphere still exists and imparts drag. These will reenter the atmosphere on a moderately predictable time scale and burn up. Space junk is only a problem at higher orbits which can be stable for very long periods of time without propellant.

As for 2... they put on up and it worked. What's the point of theorizing about how it might not work, when they've already done it? It might stand up to a good solar blast, but that's hardly a surprise, and if it's disposably cheap, who cares?

<comment><USER16> "It might stand up to a good solar blast, but that's hardly a surprise, and if it's disposably cheap, who cares?"

the phone itself might be cheap, but putting it up there is most certainly not (yet)...which is why most things that are designed to go into orbit are expensive :(

would you care to spend 150k+ to put a $300 cell phone into space for 2 weeks?

<comment><USER18> Cubesats are always secondary payloads, usually jettisoned after the first main stage burn. Their mass is insignificant compared to the main payload, so they usually ride for free.

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

<comment><USER19> So I can't speak for all conditions, but cubesats do not usually ride for free. The prices I've seen are usually in the 50k / unit range. So if you've got a 1U cubesat, expect to spend at least 50k on launch. Part of the reason for this is that there are integration costs for attaching a cubesat deployer to an existing launch vehicle, as well as liability risks, control and thrust timing modifications etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not sure if this is off topic, but shouldn't it be simple to make a high altitude balloon out of a material that doesn't explode so easily when it gets to the lower pressures in low earth orbit?

Or even some kind of contraption that slowly releases gas from the balloon as it detects lower pressure in the atmosphere to help it maintain altitude and prevent the balloon from rupturing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you actually get something into ORBIT via balloon?

That doesn't sound plausible but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER21> With just a balloon, no.

To get something into a stable orbit you have to get it high enough to avoid significant atmospheric drag. In practice this requires an altitude of at least 200km [1] - although even at this altitude an orbit will decay fairly rapidly. The IIS orbits at 400km and most remote-sensing satellites are at 500km+.

Contrast this with Helium balloons, which usually top-out at an altitude of 35-50km with the record being 53km [2].

To stay in low-earth orbit you also need an orbital velocity of 7.8km/s. A balloon launched at the equator has about 0.5km/s horizontal component of velocity due to the earth's rotation and will not gain any as it lifts.

What you could do is use a balloon to carry a rocket up to its height ceiling before igniting [3]. This saves on fuel, but there are safety issues caused by the non-steerability of the balloon.

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

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record#Unmanned...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record#Unmanned_gas_balloon)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch#Balloon>

<comment><USER22> One advantage of launching a rocket from high altitude is that the optimal rocket nozzle shape and size changes substantially depending on the ambient air pressure. For example, the Space Shuttle Main Engine is about 25% more efficient in vacuum than at sea level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just a note for Amateur Radio operators, they are seeking help in hearing the packets!

</comment><comment><USER24> The U.S. government apparently places commercial restrictions on the kind technology that makes this kind of wonderful technology (and possibly scientific) innovation possible for the everyman. For example, a rocket enthusiast once told me that any GPS chip sold on the commercial market can't function past Mach 1. Sad to think that even with basically quotidian materials now putting space in reach of the common man, during my lifetime it will still be an alien thing and the business of billionaires.

<comment><USER25> It's 1000 knots and 60,000 ft, and this is only to meet U.S. ITAR export requirements. There's nothing inherent about the civilian GPS signal itself that prevents you from computing a fix beyond those limits.

For example, you could buy one of these: <https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10981>

and then design a baseband yourself. I'm currently aware of at least three people that are working on this or have already done it. You'll need to actually take the time to learn how GPS works, and it'll probably take you about a year, but it's definitely possible.

<comment><USER2> It's called COCOM limit (historical reasons), and you can have it turned off at the factory if you can talk them into it / have a valid reason to. Oddly enough "we want to send up a small satellite, and we are calling from a NASA facility" was not a good enough reason. Surprisingly GPS will work decentish in LEO, if you can get past that. The GPS satellites are in semisynchronous orbit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Noisebridge has been doing this since 2010: <https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Spacebridge>.

<comment><USER27> These are satellites in orbit, not suborbital balloon payloads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How long until the paparazzi get their own satellite?

<comment><USER29> I was thinking piratebay.

<comment><USER30> Balloons/UAVs are more reliable when it comes to communications. Getting a suitable satellite into orbit that allows for reliable communication is _way_ too expensive.

There was talk of doing a Pirate Bay dirigible at one point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31>

</comment><comment><USER32> Sooo, a lot more dangerous space trash in the future?

<comment><USER19> Cubesats are in general some of the safest / least junky spacecraft in orbit.

There are several factors that influence how much space debris a spacecraft will generate:

1\. Surface area vs. density - If a spacecraft is large and has lots of floppy solar panels and things hanging off of it, it's much more likely to be involved in a collision, and if it is involved in a collision, it's more likely that it will generate secondary debris dangerous to other spacecraft.

2\. Orbital lifetime - If a spacecraft is in orbit for longer, it's more likely to be involved in a collision.

Cubesats are usually very dense, with few or no deployable components. Cubesats are also typically deployed in a low orbit that has a short lifespan - less than 2 years or so.

There are of course exceptions to both of these rules, but the phonesats are not.

<comment><USER11> Very dense = high ballistic coefficient = longer orbital lifetime

Though I generally agree that CubeSats are relatively safe / low junkyness.

In fact, most (US only maybe?) CubeSats have to demonstrate an orbital lifetime of less than 25 years to get a frequency allocated. (The FCC regulating space debris via frequency allocation is an interesting debate for another thread.)</comment></comment></comment>


Ember's "Glimmer" vs. A Simple Underscore Template - <AUTHOR> http://jashkenas.github.io/dbmonster/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is just ten minutes worth of good clean fun. Glimmer looks like a very cool piece of work — and it's a concept that I know @wycats & co have been working towards for a long time.

But it's worth remembering that sometimes the simple approach can also be effective ... and you don't necessarily need to load over half a megabyte of JavaScript just to make a little view run like the wind.

<comment><USER2> What about once that little view needs to grow up into a real application? How far down the Backbone road do you go before you give in to that whisper in your ear urging you to stop reinventing the framework wheel (by writing your own, or by gluing together Backbone plugins) and just rewrite your app on top of a more fully-featured framework?

<comment><USER3> You don't have to go that far down the Backbone road to get performance that rivals other frameworks is the point.

All this comes down to is how do you update the DOM when data changes. React nicely packages up that functionality for you, but in a huge dependency and in a fairly opinionated framework.

For a lot of developers, the flexibility of Backbone is worth the incurred cost of having to manually create listeners / render actions for data updates.

<comment><USER2> The goal of writing software isn't performance, though. It's a feature.

"For a lot of developers, the flexibility of Backbone is worth the incurred cost..."

Ugh. I could not disagree more. The "flexibility" that Backbone provides in allowing you to write manual DOM updates after an initial render is easily it's biggest down-side. This Backbone pattern to rendering data treats every data and state change as a 1-off situation after the initial render. Painful. "Flexibility"

<comment><USER4> > The goal of writing software isn't performance, though. It's a feature.

Agreed. No customer/user will ever come to you and say "I want you to build something, and I don't care what it does at all. I just want it to be fast." Performance isn't the _raison d 'etre_ for a product/app, functionality is. Now, they might say "I want it to do X, but it has to be fast," and in those cases having something fast that sucks is still worse than having something 20% slower that doesn't suck.

>The "flexibility" that Backbone provides in allowing you to write manual DOM updates after an initial render is easily it's biggest down-side. This Backbone pattern to rendering data treats every data and state change as a 1-off situation after the initial render. Painful. "Flexibility"

Exactly. Speaking from my employer's experience (we went Backbone -> Angular), Backbone is flexible in the same way that having four tires instead of a car is flexible: you can do anything you want with those four tires! It just takes a _lot_ of really arduous work duplicating the same things that other people have _already_ built _and refined_ before you have something useful. But hey, four tires weigh less than a car does!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I looking at a benchmark? It doesn't seem to ever finish.

<comment><USER6> It's a simple implementation of an Ember/Glimmer demo[0], which is a reimplementation of this React demo[1] from this React Conf talk[2].

[0] [https://dbmonster.firebaseapp.com/](https://dbmonster.firebaseapp.com/)

[1] [http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Wwgjjpl9NHMO5Nd1TUyN/](http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Wwgjjpl9NHMO5Nd1TUyN/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5e7kWSHWTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5e7kWSHWTg)

<comment><USER7> Here are a few more examples collected from the Ember Glimmer thread.

Original demo of Ember, Angular and React: Source: [https://github.com/ryanflorence/reactconf-2015-HYPE/tree/mas...](https://github.com/ryanflorence/reactconf-2015-HYPE/tree/master/demos/01-dbmon)

Video comparison: [http://youtu.be/z5e7kWSHWTg?t=2m38s](http://youtu.be/z5e7kWSHWTg?t=2m38s)

Original Ember: [http://jsbin.com/cusuyipodu/1/](http://jsbin.com/cusuyipodu/1/)

React: [http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Wwgjjpl9NHMO5Nd1TUyN/](http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Wwgjjpl9NHMO5Nd1TUyN/)

Angular: [http://jsbin.com/valulujusa/1/](http://jsbin.com/valulujusa/1/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here are the images of timelines Backbone [http://imgur.com/yeffaUc](http://imgur.com/yeffaUc) Ember [http://imgur.com/RmObUuO](http://imgur.com/RmObUuO)

Some observations.. lot of scripting in Ember implementation

Lot of recalculate in Backbone implementation

Backbone reaches complete heap size memory very fast than Ember(Interesting when you think Ember actually has lot of objects created) There is some kind of destroy happening(Even when this is just a snapshot of millisecs) in Ember which you observe by dips.

Althgh Backbone looks good, Memory usage wise think Ember is better

</comment><comment><USER9> Ran both through the Timeline in Chrome. It seems like there is a lot of time spent on scripting for Ember's version. In the underscore version you're consistently hitting render, but at least it's much closer to 30fps than Ember is in this scenario.

</comment><comment><USER10> this should've trended higher! very cool.

</comment><comment><USER11> This page the green wall of symbols from the matrix. Nothing useful here, move on.</comment>


RIP Redux: Dan Abramovich Announces Future-Fetcher - <AUTHOR> https://react-etc.net/entry/rip-redux-dan-abramovich-announces-future-fetcher <comment><USER2> Future fetcher is not a replacement for Redux. It's a feature they will be adding to React later on in 2018 to allow devs to adaptively render elements based on network performance. You can signal to React to delay rendering specific components until an async operation is complete.

Redux is a state management layer. Future fetching does nothing to solve app- level state management.

Gross misrepresentation of Dan's talk by this article and he made zero mention of the React context API in the talk.

<comment><USER3> [https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/the-future-of-state-manageme...](https://dev- blog.apollodata.com/the-future-of-state-management-dd410864cae2)

What about apollo-link-state? Not a replacement either per se, but seems like its one step closer to isomorphic (client & server side) state.

On one hand it normalizes your data & avoids thousands of lines of boilerplate, on the other hand you lose [some] control of the underlying data structures which is where you'd still need something like redux.

<comment><USER2> I love Apollo. I think it's great! It really does reduce like 2/3 of the state you need to manage in your app. Only caveat is that it's somewhat arduous to use unless you have a GraphQL backend, so you really do have to buy in to that whole stack. That's sometimes a luxury not all products/teams are blessed with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The concepts are clear to those with a Computer Science (CS) educational > background, but since the large mass web developers come mostly outside of > this arena it is a hindrance.

Seriously?

A CS degree is not necessary in order to understand functional programming, and it's not like reducer functions are all that complicated.

<comment><USER5> The vast majority of developers absolutely cannot handle reducers. Give them a pattern to follow and they'll follow, though.

<comment><USER6> I think the difficulty is in making sure the state is not mutated. This is unusual for most developers, especially those coming from an OOP background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The async rendering rendering stuff Dan is showing in his talk ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c7ajDXb4qw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c7ajDXb4qw)) looks great, but I disagree that this is a redux killer.

redux is useful for a lot more than just async fetching & loading. I think these new features will just reduce the scope of what redux is used heavily for.

<comment><USER8> The video has been blocked. Anyone know of a mirror?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iR3Zk4oDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iR3Zk4oDY)

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This might be one of the most poorly written articles I've ever seen on HN.

</comment><comment><USER11> I use redux a lot and love the way you can reason about the state of the app from a single object - which opens up all sorts of useful things like time- travel etc.

However - after having plugged in a __lot __of reducers - the boilerplate code required to do simple stuff becomes a real bore. I 've since compromised by using a simple `key-value store` reducer that I can write new values to without needing a new reducer with accompanying actions.

I'm sure this is not how it's supposed to be used but nobody ain't got no time for making all that boilerplate just for a button :-)

Like I say - it's worth it though - it's amazing how large frontend apps "just work" once you have the state in a single place and the UI rendering from it and it alone.

<comment><USER5> I created a class compatible with Redux time travel and debugging tools that works like this (in typescript):

        interface FooState {
          myNumber: number;
          myArray: number[]
        }

        class Foo extends DataModelImpl<FooState> implements
        IDataModel<FooState> {...}

Then you use it like so:

        const foo:IDataModel<FooState> = new Foo()
        foo.updateState(state => state.myNumber = 10)

Anything that wants to be notified when myNumber changes:

        const callback = (num:number) => {...}
        const unsubscribe = foo.watch(state => state.myNumber,callback);

        ...

        unsubscribe()

I've bound this to React, Vue and other view libraries. It even works properly with nested objects.

Drawback is that it uses Observers. I believe the next "killer state library" will use a pattern like what I've described above.

<comment><USER12> .watch? Reminds me of angularjs :)

<comment><USER5> Hah, that's right :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of my favourite parts of ReasonReact is that reducers are built in, out of the box. The Future-Fetcher feature coming in React reminds me of that; I recently built a React Native app that has 99.8% Flow type coverage, that's meaningful and has caught dozens of bugs as the team worked on it. Having nice state management built into React will be lovely, and subsume a lot of the type imports or duplication that using Redux, React and Flow together currently requires.

</comment><comment><USER14> "However, fast forward to 2018 and React.js is the popular choice for React.js development."

Huh?

<comment><USER15> Brought to you by Erowid Blog Post v4.5!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In the future, JS libs will be popular for 15 minutes.

<comment><USER17> I will keep using VanilaJS, nothing else is worthwhile unless to pump up CVs.

<comment><USER18> So for every project you implement solutions to common problems differently?

<comment><USER17> We use server side rendering with minimal JavaScript for dynamic behaviors.

ASP.NET, Spring and JEE work just fine.

<comment><USER18> The answer to the complexity of JS and associated frameworks/libraries cannot simply be "stop making JS apps".

Don't get me wrong, I agree server side rendering is a lot simpler and solves many problems, but there are plenty of reasons to go with a full client-side app and in those cases libraries and frameworks, while not essential, are logical and sensible conclusions.

<comment><USER17> I rather prefer to eventually be able to use Web Components across all major browsers.

<comment><USER3> The spec constantly evolves. At some point, there will be web components "v2" and coding "regular" web components will be outdated. As the spec evolves, browsers will evolve at different paces & implement things differently. Such is the reality of cross platform development. The only constant is change itself. To deal with it we use tools like polyfills, libs, and frameworks.

<comment><USER17> That matters very little because our components are wrapped in ASP.NET, Spring, JEE components.

For the user of use components the difference will be quite thin, if at all.

<comment><USER3> Right, those things fall into the category of tools libs & frameworks. Like Carl Sagan says if you want to make an apple pie from scratch you have to first invent the universe. There's always going to be change and need to support backwards compatibility, so polyfills libraries & frameworks likely aren't going away anytime soon, even after web components are widely supported.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Dan's surname is Abramov, not Abramovich.

<comment><USER20> Also

      However, fast forward to 2018 and React.js is the popular choice for React.js development.

<comment><USER21> This whole article is full of misunderstandings and blatant mistakes. Hurried writing on between conf sessions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think it'll also be interesting to see how Apollo continues to evolve in this space as more people adopt GraphQL in their React apps. Apollo is getting more and more state management features that can handle lots of what Redux is doing:

[https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/the-future-of-state-manageme...](https://dev- blog.apollodata.com/the-future-of-state-management-dd410864cae2)

<comment><USER2> Apollo uses Redux under the hood.

<comment><USER23> Not true for Apollo v2, it's providing local state management via apollo-link- state plugin which works pretty well, and once they got the rest support working, it will be a very competitive alternative to redux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This article is awful but Dan was tweeting about a big announcement in Iceland last week so there probably is something awesome here!

</comment><comment><USER25> Good. Redux was never necessary for the vast majority of web apps, but too many people promoted it as such.

</comment><comment><USER26> This video contains content from [Merlin] Beggars, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.

</comment><comment><USER27> Watching the video on Future Fetcher it feels like we're just inventing the the web all over again.

Half the time is spent on novel new ways of adding in a loading spinner. Perhaps it's just his demo, but I can sense Roy Fielding shedding a tear.

<comment><USER9> I felt the same way. Felt like the ending of 2012 to me. Life begins again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How does this compare to mobX?</comment>


Null Island - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island <comment><USER2> > The name 'Null Island' serves as both a joke based around the suppositional > existence of an island there, and also as a name to which coordinates > erroneously set to 0,0 are assigned in placenames databases in order to more > easily find and fix them.

Didn't knew geographers were such funny guys, but it's a nice one!</comment>


Thinkpad 701 overclocking and AMD-X5 133 MHz mod (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.noq2.net/butterfly-on-speed-thinkpad-701-overclocking-and-amd-x5-133-mhz-mod.html <comment><USER2> Hehe, I have a 701 sitting around here. Still works, to a degree.

On the other hand, the battery is long gone, there is no floppy, no CD ROM, no builtin ethernet, so I cannot get any data on or off that device or install a different operating system. Hence, I am stuck with Windows 95 and Office 95. I am keeping it because I kind of like having a 20 year old laptop, but it is not actually useful.

But the keyboard is awesome. And it had 24 MB of RAM, while my first PC in 1996 came with 8. Must have been pretty expensive back in the day.

<comment><USER3> > On the other hand, the battery is long gone

There are businesses who will take your old battery, crack it open and put in fresh cells. Or you can do it yourself.

> there is no floppy, no CD ROM, no builtin ethernet, so I cannot get any data > on or off that device or install a different operating system.

You have a 16 bit PCMCIA slot, and you can still find cards for that if you look hard enough. (I picked up an original Orinoco wifi card for under $10.) Remember, the gold stripe on the card means 32 bit. Avoid those.

And the standard way for working with these old computers is to get an external HDD case and swap out the drive. Or anything that you can use as a USB-IDE adapter. Then you can install whatever you want. Though you really shouldn't use spinning rust that old. I typically use a 16GB CF card in a CF- IDE adapter. (I do this in my 600E, for example.) It works very well since the protocols are the same.

Edit: So maybe CF cards don't work in the 701, see [http://www.os2museum.com/wp/butterfly- conservation/](http://www.os2museum.com/wp/butterfly-conservation/)

<comment><USER4> > Or you can do it yourself.

Isn't this dangerous?

I am genuinely curious since I've always considered batteries to be something to be handled with care. I mean, it's not like you are carrying around a pack of TNT, but I would've never thought of opening it to replace the cells.

For example, do the batteries have internal circuitry that could cause problems if you put in the wrong kind of cell?

<comment><USER3> The 701 uses NiMH cells so it is very easy to work with compared to a li-ion pack. Here's an example:

[http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/701/battery/](http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/701/battery/)

<comment><USER4> Aha! very interesting.

I had seen pictures of opened battery packs before, and I definitely thought they looked like regular AA batteries.

But I also never thought that it wasn't only the looks.

It would be nice to have this same analysis done for different models. Like having a database for battery pack models where you could find the ordering of the batts, the chips that they have etc.

Also, what would've happened if the corrosion actually had killed the chip? then what? can you find parts to replace those?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why have we not seen the butterfly keyboard used since that Thinkpad, or have I not been looking carefully enough? The design seems to have been positively received and fondly remembered. Have the problems it solved been solved in other ways (like proliferation of widescreens)?

<comment><USER6> Another example is "Big Berta" (IBM T220/T221), a 21" screen with full 4K resolution available back in 2001! It offered PPI resolution better than modern Retina displays.

It was insanely expensive, though.

<comment><USER7> Pics just in case [http://sishardware.com/unt/4293-ibm_t220t221_22___2__display...](http://sishardware.com/unt/4293-ibm_t220t221_22___2__display_monitor_4k_3__840_x_2__400.html)

<comment><USER8> More info:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm wondering what the best software for this would be given a 133 mhz cpu and 72 mb of RAM. Do you try to trim down a modern linux distro, or do you use an OS of a similar vintage? No possibility of getting a modern browsing experience on those specs, so probably the vintage OS offers the best experience.

<comment><USER10> There's no way youre using a modern linux distro here. Even something like puppylinux which is designed for "old" computers expects around 256mb of ram.

72mb of ram doesn't get you much nowadays. Maybe you can install Damn Small Linux and get some basic functionality. Someone on /r/sysadmin tried reviving an old 486 laptop recently and I believe he could only get DSL to work, but had significant driver problems. I think he had much less ram, like 16mb or so.

72mb of ram probably get away with NT 4.0 easily and maybe even Windows 2000 or even XP, though I'm not sure how usable XP would be even if it did boot.

edit: I found someone running puppy on 64meg of ram.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RmiXoSZaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RmiXoSZaI)

<comment><USER11> _> 72mb of ram probably get away with NT 4.0 easily_

Very easily - we used to have lots of 32MB NT4 machines. I think the system requirements were only 12 or 16MB (as usual wishful thinking really). Although I think the eventual resource usage of SP6 was a lot higher than the RTM version.

 _> and maybe even Windows 2000_

I tried Win2K Pro on a 486DX2 66 with 64MB once - it worked but was very very slow. I suspect the cpu and disk were a bigger factor than the amount of ram.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an old mod. I think there was several companies doing this mod back in the late 1990s.</comment>


Apple Maps flaw results in drivers crossing airport runway - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24246646 <comment><USER2> Why would the airport allow vehicles access to the runway? Why is this Apple's fault?

<comment><USER3> > Why is this Apple's fault?

What? The airport deserves some of the blame for sure[1], but how is directing users onto an airport runway not put Apple at fault? If a maps app sends you driving up someone's driveway and through their property, would they not be at fault because it's physically accessible? In case you're a time traveler from the 90s, navigation apps generally are assumed to take you on legitimately navigable roadways, not physically accessible areas.

[1]It's worth noting that the article mentions that the road to the runway was replete with warning signs: "They had to enter the airport property via a motion-activated gate, and afterwards there are many signs, lights and painted markings, first warning that aircraft may share the road and then that drivers should not be there at all. "They needed to drive over a mile with all this before reaching the runway. But the drivers disregarded all that because they were following the directions given on their iPhones."

Presumably there was access to the runway for maintenance, etc. I agree that they should have had barricades et al up in the first place.

<comment><USER2> If you drive off road and on to a runway, or drive up someone's driveway and through the property because a navigation app said so, then you shouldn't be driving at all. A driver is responsible for their driving actions regardless of what a map app tells them.

<comment><USER4> It is the driver's fault for driving across a runway and not using an ounce of common sense. That said, there's clearly a bug in Apple's Maps app here, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some reason, I'm thinking that this would have never made the news if it was just from a TomTom or Google Maps. The good news: Apple is fixing it.

The other news: An airport in Fairbanks seems to have a physical security issue.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a problem for paper maps too. From Tufte forums, "Airport maps and runway incursions":

[http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0002NW)

<comment><USER7> From what I see there, that is about runway incursions by _planes_ that shouldn't be there.

For example, with parallel runways, a pilot might take a turn onto the wrong one.

<comment><USER6> "Vehicle Driver Error - These are errors that involve a vehicle (repair truck for example) on the runway surface which are the fault of the vehicle driver."</comment></comment></comment>


Scrapheap Transhumanism - <AUTHOR> http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/enhanced/scrapheap-transhumanism

<comment><USER2> I never understood why is it such an outrage to healthcare practicioners to ask fo any sort of "non-essential" electronic device to be implanted. Why is it that plastic surgery is widely accepted, but when a guy want's a magnet put into his fingertip he looked at like he was some kind of freak.</comment>


Peter Madsen sentenced to life for murdering journalist Kim Wall - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/peter-madsen-sentenced-life-murdering-kim-wall-submarine <comment><USER2> "They called for a life sentence, which in Denmark averages around 16 years and is very rarely handed down for the murder of a single person."

What does this mean exactly? That people usually get paroled after 16 years? Or does it mean that the average sentence is 16 years when life is requested?

<comment><USER3> The number seems to come from Wikipedia[1]:

 _Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment serve an average of 16 years, more for cases considered to be particularly grave. The only example in modern times of an individual serving significantly more than 16 years in prison is Palle Sørensen, who served 33 years for a quadruple police murder._

So I guess it's a parole, then (which cannot happen until 12 years into the sentence).

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

<comment><USER4> >served 33 years for a quadruple police murder.

>Despite being a peaceful prisoner, he was considered the most dangerous convict in Denmark for many years, and police unions pressured the authorities to grant him neither parole nor pardon.

In Scandinavia cops get their own separate justice system too.

<comment><USER5> If you know someone murdered 4 people, does them being on good behavior in front of you really make you consider them peaceful?

<comment><USER4> Compared to the other murderers? I don't see why not.

The averages _very strongly_ suggest that he spent an unusually long time in prison because he killed _cops_ , of course I may be missing out on some key details here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd been following Madsen before the Kim Wall murder. He founded the Copenhagen Suborbitals, a (now estranged) group of very successful rocket amateurs, and he built several working submarines. I have always been impressed by his zeal and his skill to use people to help build the stuff he envisioned.

On one occasion, they used one of the submarines to drag a rocket launch platform into the ocean. How cool is that! Using your self-built submarine to launch your self-built rocket into the stratosphere.

That said, the case seems pretty clear from the outside. I have no idea why he thougt he could get away with this.

<comment><USER7> Rather than asking how he thought he'd get away, I would ask: why the fuck would anyone think it's okay to kill someone? (excluding self-defense scenarios)

<comment><USER8> From reading the coverage, I never got the impression that it was pre- meditated in so much as he lured her to his submarine to kill her.

I got the impression that it was a poorly covered up accident, or possibly the covering up of a failed sexual advance on her in the heat of the moment. I think he panicked after it had happened, or more likely after she was injured, and decided to cover it up by finishing her off and disposing of her body. I'm not sure he would have thought he could get away with it.

I agree with the sentencing, but I don't think this is as simple as him being a psycopath who wanted to kill someone. I don't think we have the full story.

<comment><USER9> The judge thought it was pre-meditated. He had extra tools on board of the sub, that usually stayed in his workshop. He had also contacted multiple women in the time up to the killing, asking them to go on a trip with him in the sub. The day before he killed, maimed, and dismembered Kim, he watched a genuine snuff film, on his computer, showing a woman getting killed.

He is up to something like three or four different explanations for an accident, and they have all been refuted by experts. Also his psyc evaluation concluded that he is a danger for others.

I'm sorry but I find your apologetic tone uncomfortable.

<comment><USER8> Ah, I seem to be very behind on the news coverage then! I didn't know about all that.

I remember it being unclear in the first week or two whether it had been an accident or not, followed by some sketchy details that implied it might have been a cover up. I have not heard much since.

Thanks for the heads up, I of course don't mean to be apologetic at all for the crime, I was surprised at what seemed to be a significant change from the direction the case had been progressing, but this sounds like I was misinformed.

<comment><USER10> The "accidental" explanations all sounded pretty implausible in the first place. She hit her head and he claims he thought the best thing to do was cut her up and try to hide the body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> BBC has a little more detail: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-43894495](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43894495)

</comment><comment><USER11> > _They called for a life sentence, which in Denmark averages around 16 years > and is very rarely handed down for the murder of a single person._

So he will not be imprisoned for life, as is rare (unheard of?) in Scandinavian countries.

<comment><USER12> In Denmark, a life sentence is officially for life, without parole. However, convicts are eligible for a pardoning hearing after twelve years. Sixteen years is just the average served. But yes, it is rare to be imprisoned for longer.

<comment><USER13> In the U.S, there are people who serve decades for much less crimes than murder :(

<comment><USER12> Indeed. I find it particularly horrifying when it's people from other countries (e.g. Lauri Love), threatened with extradition and 99 years in a US jail, effective a genuine life sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Its difficult for me to see how this is hacker related.

<comment><USER15> He built his own submarines, you could argue he has a bit of the hacker ethos in him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is news, but is it "news that good hackers would find interesting"? Does it belong on this site?

<comment><USER17> It's about a well-known and formerly respected hacker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When you are an engineer, you can oftentimes get deluded about how "normal" people think and worse yet, treat all situations in life to be problems to be solved and systems to optimize. This might even include murder and thinking one could get away with it.

<comment><USER19> How would he be optimizing by slitting a woman's throat and dismembering her body? She seems.... less optimized.

<comment><USER20> Depends for what. Transportation is more efficient.

<comment><USER19> He messed that up to, she was far more mobile when being able to walk herself somewhere.

<comment><USER20> I meant more in a suitcase but sure :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stockholm to reach herd immunity in May? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nrk.no/urix/tegnell_-_-det-kan-bli-flokkimmunitet-i-stockholm-i-mai-1.14984679 <comment><USER2> Swede here. There is lots of disinformation about the Swedish approach to the epidemic. Sweden is following the same basic strategy as other countries, which is to slow down the spread by mitigating actions so the health care system can cope and to protect people in risk groups. The primary difference in Sweden compared to outher countries are:

* Sweden decided early on that an evidence-based approach should be followed. Many policies that are implemented in other countries do not have a lot of evidence showing their effectiveness

* Policy is still primarily dictated by the experts at Folkhälsomyndigheten (where Anders Tegnell is from), and not by politicians. Most actions taken by the Swedish government has been pretexted by "as requested by FHM we have...". State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is generally seen as "being in charge" of the actions taken, even though technically he has very little legal authority.

* Sweden has a very strong history of indepenent government bodies. In Sweden, there is specific legislation preventing government officials from intervening in specific cases if there is a government authority in charge of the issue. The legal term for this is "ministerstyre", "ministerial rule", and even if an action is not technically in violation of this legislation, it is often used if politicians try to intervene in cases without creating general legislation.

* Being a high-trust society some measures that have been implemented as strict laws in countries other than Sweden are instead communicated as recommendations with a very high compliance rate.

<comment><USER3> Can you expand upon the policies that have little evidence of effectivness that are being done by other countries. are Swedes also aware why the other countries are doing this?

Is it fear / politics / bad science etc?

<comment><USER2> I think the most obvious examples are:

* Closing borders when we already have a pandemic in all countries. Swedish borders are still open.

* Closing schools when most evidence shows that it is not effective. Swedish schools are still open.

There is of course lots of debate about this in Sweden, some are worried that Sweden is not taking enough decisive action. There is however a wide-spread general support that the more measured approach in Sweden is a good one. Anders Tegnell has become a very popular public figure for his low-key bureaucratic but yet humoristic way of explaining the uncertainties involved and why Sweden is doing things this way.

I believe that the reasons these measures are taken in other countries is because it is a way to show strong political leadership in a time of crisis. I think this approach works less well in Sweden because people have very high trust in experts and (well-managed) authorities.

<comment><USER4> Aren't high schools and universities still closed in Sweden?

Edit: Run remotely, to be clear.

<comment><USER5> There is a strong recommendation that high schools and universities handle their education remotely.

This recommendation is followed. The Swedish government cannot order schools to be closed (a law was quickly put in place in the case that this be necessary. I'm not sure that it pertains to universities, though).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> German here who moved to Sweden in 2006. Since January, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has constantly made claims which turned out to be inaccurate, misleading or at least overly optimistic. Among the more devastating ones is that he in an interview on February 8 stated that "there is absolutely no risk for coronavirus when traveling to skiing vacations in the Alps/Southern Europe". To me, such a lack of foresight as an epidemiologist alone disqualifies him from the heavy role he has. Therefore, I don't take any claim he makes seriously. Sadly, he loves media appearance and seems to be giving interviews all day long, every day. So it's totally impossible to escape those claims. They are everywhere.

Shockingly, his display of (partial?) incompetence has hardly impacted the credibility he enjoys among large parts of the Swedish society. In fact, many people totally love him. That's something I just cannot comprehend. To me, it looks like mass hypnosis.

My personal stance by now is that I'm not following the Swedish Health Agency's recommendations, but the German authorities', which I consider more trustworthy and competent (based on the absence of a track record of false predictions, a respect of cautionary principles, and an absence of exaggerated self-assurance). However, I don't like feeling that way. Usually I'm "emotionally" only reverting back to my native country when it comes to the Football World Cup :)

<comment><USER2> I'm very sorry to hear you are not following the recommendations of Swedish authorities, I would strongly recommend you do, because they are contrary to what you claim here, not actually based on Tegnells personal whims or vanity, but based on the many experts employed at the agency, and more importantly adapted to local circumstances in Sweden, such as the current stage of the epidemic, which areas are most affected and so on. As long as the German recommendations are stricter this is of course not that problematic, but it could mean you pay less attention to things that are more urgent to adress in Sweden.

<comment><USER7> > based on the many experts employed at the agency

How can you make an appeal to authority while denying any non-Swedish authority? Are Swedish authorities just better then those anywhere else? Hm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Roughly million people live in Stockholm and 2.4 million people liven in Stockholm metropolitan area.

Assuming R0 = 2.5, you need (1-1/R0) = 60% of the population to be immune for herd immunity. That would be 600,000 in Stockholm, 1.4 million people in the metropolitan area, 6 million for Sweden.

Assuming the same infection fatality rate 0.002 as Finnish national health organization estimates: 1,200 deaths in Stockholm, 2,800 in the metropolitan area, 12,000 in Sweden. Currently there are just 1,400 total covid-19 deaths in Sweden.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't place too much trust in the Finnish IFR estimate. Their IFR estimate a month ago was 0.05% - 0.1%. At the time there was no data to support that, and it turns out that they had simply taken their estimates from a ten year old pandemic preparedness plan, which was designed for an influenza pandemic.

It was basically the same mistake UK did. Now they have very slowly begun to adjust away from the misleading path they originally set on.

The Finnish national health organization has been subject to severe budget cuts for the past ten years. They are still saying that masks do more harm than good, and that it's absolutely impossible to stop the virus, despite South-Korea having done so for almost 50 days already.

<comment><USER8> Their updated estimate is similar to ones from Iceland (mass testing) and others. More people than expected go trough the disease without symptoms. At least 50%.

The math goes as follows:

\- 60% need to be infected for herd immunity.

\- At least 50% of infected show no symptoms.

\- CFR is 0.7%.

0.6×0.5×0.007 = 0.002

(This math assumes that everyone without symptoms is a diagnosed case, so overestimte)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They haven't even been hit that hard. Skipping the whole infection and death stage of this process doesn't seem particularly realistic. People forget a key element of herd immunity: the immune ones are what's left stand after the carnage

I'd expected the UK Spain and France to hit herd immunity first

<comment><USER11> > People forget a key element of herd immunity: the immune ones are what's > left stand after the carnage

Has it been concluded that people do actually retain longterm immunity? I was reading[1][2] previously that there isn't proof yet that immunity afterwards is retained for long. Seems still too early to tell.

ref:

[1]: [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/questions-remain- covid-19-reco...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/questions-remain- covid-19-recovery-guarantee-immunity-reinfection/story?id=70085581)

[2]: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus- fi...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-five-months- on-what-scientists-now-know-about-covid-19)

<comment><USER12> one more: [https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health- environment/article/30...](https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health- environment/article/3080251/poor-immunity-or-mutations-south-korea- investigates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The plan might face problems from time and economic perspective. Reaching herd immunity level might take way too long, even years, during which time most other countries are opening back up using mitigation strategies. Sweden meanwhile might be under travel restrictions imposed by other countries to ward off second wave, hindering their economy far longer than other countries.

It really does seem like a gamble, and I don't appreciate governments taking gambles.

<comment><USER8> Sweden is also using mitigation strategies, just slightly less than other countries.

<comment><USER14> Compared to some of the southern countries (where three generations of a family regularly live together in one house), the Swedish population was already fairly distanced. See also [https://www.politico.eu/article/social- distance-swedish-styl...](https://www.politico.eu/article/social-distance- swedish-style/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Herd immunity isn't going to work if reinfection is possible [https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/south-korea- corona...](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/south-korea-coronavirus- retesting-positive-intl-hnk/index.html). Even if there's some protection (e.g. 6 months) it will be extremely difficult to maintain herd immunity.

<comment><USER3> Given that we don't know if either is possible as it's too early, what should we prepare for now?

It's a bit of precautionary principle, but the answer is not "plan nothing"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> He is not exactly saying or promising heard immunity in May but that they do have some mathematical models that point to that. He also states the caveat that these models are only as good as their input values and he doesn't sound confident about the correctness of those.

</comment><comment><USER17> As much criticism as has been leveled at the approach in Sweden, you would think Sweden would be doing far worse than other countries. It appears actually to be doing better than average.

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-deaths-per- mill...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-deaths-per- million?tab=chart&time=2020-03-08..&country=BEL+FRA+ITA+ESP+SWE+GBR+USA)

So, the approach appears no worse than what others are doing, and likely has fewer side effects.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok, so the interview is in Swedish (and Norwegian), but it is with Sweden's state epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency. He indicates that they have been taking antibody tests the last week as the basis for his prediction of flock immunity some time in May in the Stockholm region.

<comment><USER18> As far as I'm aware the antibody tests are really unreliable? At least the millions of tests the UK bought are not being used for that reason.

<comment><USER19> In principle even if the tests are unreliable in individual cases, if the false positive and negative rates are known sufficiently well it ought to be possible to use mass results to get an accurate estimate of the prevalence of what they're supposed to be measuring.

<comment><AUTHOR> He said they tested people for immunity (my interpretation was antibody tests, maybe i was not correct in the actual type of test - but they are testing for "immunity" (antibodies?), somehow).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Herd immunity implies herd infection. I am sure you are already aware of the mortality rates for infected citizens. All the best to this test. You are taking one for the global team. #forscience

</comment><comment><USER21> Here are the issues with the herd immunity strategy:

\- The R0 of this virus is higher than we once thought. The median R0 reported here is 5.7. [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article) \- This means that some 80% of the population would need to be infected before reaching herd immunity \- This also means the peak of infections would be far more concentrated. \- Even with R=2.5, the number of hospitalisation necessary in an unmitigated peak would utterly overwhelm any health system \- This overwhelming situation would mean a lot of people who otherwise would survive with medical treatment (oxygen etc) would end up dying

</comment><comment><USER22> Preparing for the previous war is a classic mistake. This is irresponsible by Sweden without more data on the virus. New reports indicate that we don't develop enough antibodies for herd immunity to be an option and it is even worrisome w/r to developing a vaccine. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us- health-coronavirus-immuni...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health- coronavirus-immunity/who-unsure-antibodies-protect-against-covid-little-sign- of-herd-immunity-idUSKBN21Z2XM)</comment>


Letter on Penn State player's hair disgusting is an conversation we need - <AUTHOR> https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/heidi-stevens/ct-heidi-stevens-wednesday-penn-state-football-letter-dreadlocks-1008-20191009-j2bzd3ia2jbkjn4avnoihvket4-story.html <comment><USER2> OK, so firstly:

        Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in
        most European countries.  We are engaged on the issue
        and committed to looking at options that support our
        full range of digital offerings to the EU market.

        We continue to identify technical compliance solutions
        that will provide all readers with our award-winning
        journalism.

Secondly, I can't parse the title as presented.

So, can anyone provide some insight?

<comment><AUTHOR> Original title had to be shortened to fit length restrictions. Original is

 _Column: Letter calling Penn State football player's hair 'disgusting' is an ugly conversation we need to have_

Did a google search and tried for the cache, but it is apparently not populated yet: [https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNSC1MWgrwKaK3BWoBkM...](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNSC1MWgrwKaK3BWoBkMYl7Teg5lDw:1570655622558&q=Column:+Letter+calling+Penn+State+football+players+hair+'disgusting'+is+an+ugly+conversation+we+need+to+have&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7tcmTjJDlAhVC- qwKHRx5Bn4QBQguKAA&biw=1433&bih=717&dpr=2)

Does nytimes work for you? [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/sports/penn- state-racist-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/sports/penn-state-racist- letter-dreadlocks.html)

Or this one: [https://sports.yahoo.com/penn-state-football-player- tweets-r...](https://sports.yahoo.com/penn-state-football-player-tweets- racist-letter-from-alum-about-disgusting-dreadlocks-011741179.html)

<comment><USER2> Thanks - I'll check it out later. All these links require the jumping through a significant number of inconvenient hoops, and I don't have time just now.</comment></comment></comment>


Teaching is Selling - <AUTHOR> http://lizthedeveloper.com/teaching-is-selling <comment><USER2> This seems like a good way to teach about a product or tool (as you promote its use, or in other words, sell it). I can see such advice being useful on today's HN, which is full of people who need to sell tech.

But really, teaching is not selling. The objectives are different. There may be some overlaps of technique, but it's easy to overstate that. It is correspondingly easy to take this advice much too far.

For example, teaching which bundles exhortations and moral value judgements might help to improve recall, but it might also be misleading or intensely annoying, and might encourage teachers to suppress facts that don't match the intended emotion or message.

When you're teaching, it's just unethical not to strive for some degree of objectivity and encouragement of critical thinking. I won't remark on what the ethics are for salesmen because that battle is unwinnable, but surely we can agree that teachers have certain professional obligations.

<comment><USER3> I have to agree. The distinction between "teaching" and "imparting information to achieve x goal" seems to be getting lost here. Teaching to me involves a give and take of some kind, some form of productive conversation or line of questioning rather than just inserting data into brains in a linear fashion.

I did find the unapologetically mechanistic perspective here interesting though, since I just got done teaching St. Augustine ("City of God") to a class of very bright students at an Ivy League university. They hated it and I couldn't figure out why at first. To me its a treasure trove of fun minutiae about weird Roman deities, a deep meditation on why empires rise and fall, and an example of one of the greatest rhetoricians in history at the height of his powers. To them it was boring - even more boring than Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics which I personally find dry as dust.

The reason, it became apparent, was that St. Augustine was doing something similar to what this blog post outlines - following a didactic line of argument intended to dissuade potential disagreements rather than provoke them. (I personally don't see Augustine that way, but they did - in the words of a student, "it felt like a lecture and not a conversation.") Or, perhaps, they thought Augustine was selling his ideology rather than teaching it?

<comment><USER4> Slick write-up, and I especially appreciate your personal story and context to mull over. I studied Curriculum Design as my advanced degree program, have worked 5+ retail/sales/customer service jobs, and also done formal classroom instruction. I like that distinction you put forward, because it captures what I, well, disliked about sales as a profession.

I love imparting knowledge, telling stories, and holding a person's interest - that is a transaction in and of itself. It's the end goal. What I had to do in sales was get to the very end of the discussion and then "ask for the sale" which always felt like a disservice to the relationship / exchange. As in, if I did well educating somebody that they needed to buy the movie _Heat_ to test out their audio system, I shouldn't have to say, "So, are you going to purchase this today?" because they'll have already made the decision themselves. Sales is hard like that, and I can appreciate good sales techniques in both the soft and hard approaches.

...as to your story, it really reminded me of a write-up over at the AV Club on the second installment of the _Atlas Shrugged_ independent movies. The film beats the audience over the head with dialog that only serves to advance the philosophy (or what have you) of the story, meaning it's really preachy and not very entertaining. I think there's a difference in audience expectations depending on subject matter, e.g. it's more acceptable to learn STEM material from a heavy handed teacher, but with personal belief systems/notions, lecturing creates push-back in many cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> She could probably improve her method by adding some stuff from Gagne's Nine Steps of Instruction[0]

Most of what she's doing I would say is not so much sales stuff, but hitting on important educational theory. For example: She starts with the idea of getting them interested in the topic, by choosing something they've encountered, and then telling an amusing anecdote. (That would be Gagne's step 1 and 2) She then goes on to presenting the new info, but it would be stronger if she did Gagne's step 3 - Ask for prior knowledge. That really cements the audience's trust in you and the topic when some co-participants share their similar amusing anecdotes. I have done this even in large conference settings, and I have always found at least one person brave enough to share their experiences...

Add in a few more of the steps and you really do get effective learning.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Gagn%C3%A9#Nine_step...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Gagn%C3%A9#Nine_steps_of_instruction)

<comment><USER6> It boggles my mind that I don't see more material about Instructional Design and the work done by Gagne in education discussions. These are extremely powerful theories with deep practical application, well-known in some disciplines. But CS Education heavily underutilizes them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > this year in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics points out that > recreational math can be used to awaken mathematics-related "joy," > "satisfaction," "excitement" and "curiosity" in students, ... In contrast, > the Common Core in the United States does not explicitly mention this > emotional side of the subject, regarding mathematics only as a tool. [0]

[0]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/opinion/the-importance- of-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/opinion/the-importance-of- recreational-math.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it makes more sense to say that selling includes an element of teaching.

</comment><comment><USER9> This "teacher" notes this method works at conferences, but this is where all the attendees want your product. What happens in the classroom where there are those that couldn't care less about your product, you, or the subject you are trying to keep them engaged on? As another poster mentioned - she is hitting on some of Gagne's points but if she were to include the others she would be at instruction which is...teaching. Thus I could use any other profession and say something like "Engineering is teaching" and the fact that I gather materials is somehow going to translate into why every teacher should also be an engineer.

The good/best teachers are not just salespeople, but also engineers, chemists, historians, philosophers, lawyers, and all sorts of other professions wrapped into one person teaching about a subject that not any one of those single professions covers.

</comment><comment><USER10> This article is really useful. When i'm writing my web dev related articles, I'm always thinking what's the best way to allow my readers to digest my points better

</comment><comment><USER11> I prefer to think that really great selling is teaching, not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is the almost the same idea as "Sell the why, not the what".

</comment><comment> anti-shill as a former teacher, I can tell you that good teachers are all about people skills...in fact, a deep knowledge of the curriculum might actually make one a worse teacher and not a better one...The more time you spend acquiring any sort of knowledge other than people skills knowledge is going to hurt you.</comment>


80% of people with Covid-19 are asymptomatic, China figures indicate - <AUTHOR> https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375.abstract <comment><USER2> There's a confusion that I'm seeing repeatedly, which is important to get right:

Asymptomatic != Presymptomatic. If someone is asymptomatic at the moment you test them, that could be either because they will never develop symptoms, _or_ it could mean that you tested them during the disease's incubation period. When talking about a patient at a particular moment in time when you tested them, both of these are referred to as being asymptomatic. When talking about the overall disease course, the former case is called asymptomatic and the latter is called presymptomatic.

As tests get better and less scarce, and contact tracing gets better, a larger fraction of cases will be tested when they are presymptomatic. When researchers do studies that screen a bunch of people, especially in populations where the obviously-symptomatic people have mostly already been moved elsewhere, they will find that most of their positives are asymptomatic (at the time of test), and unless they're doing follow-ups, they don't know whether they'll develop symptoms later.

<comment><USER3> The first sentence spells it out pretty explicitly:

> New evidence has emerged from China indicating that the large majority of > coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms.

This is not far off from the figures I had preciously been seeing of 50-70% of people never developing symptoms.

If this is antibody testing, then the people who test positive are already immune to the virus (there's the question of whether different mutations can result in repeated infections, but that's a bit of a tangent).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ... which is why instead of focusing only on a test for antibodies, science should be trying to identify and detect the attributes that make someone more/most susceptible to the worse symptoms of the virus (e.g. lung infection).

If we were able to detect who is most susceptible - which it appears that >80% of us are not - it would be another helpful tool in dealing with this pandemic.

</comment><comment><USER5> We still don't know anything certain about the latent period of this virus. We also don't know if it remains dormant after an immune response, though it is not retroviral like HIV.

Still, this 80% asymptomatic condition could lull us into a false sense of security, meanwhile there may be other peaks in the average latent period distribution. In other words it may be that some people are asymptomatic for weeks, months, years...Before flaring up and spreading.

<comment><USER5> Too late to edit but this would explain the huge uncertainty in the dormancy period, early reports were anywhere from 3 to 20 days, this was the range that inspired the 14 day quarantine procedure.

But if 80% of cases are asymptomatic that could mean that all of the underlying numbers are wrong given the continued lack of tests in many countries including the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does this include elevated temperature?

<comment><USER6> To answer my own question I looked around and while it seems that a fever is the most common symptom, it is not present in all cases where testing indicates the presence of the virus.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Web server development platform, Red Hat or Ubuntu - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN folks,
   I want suggestion/advice on which OS should I install for my web development. I bought a HP desktop with Intel quad core, 6 GB ram. I did some digging on ubuntu vs. redhat, it's a mixed message iam getting. I want to install either redhat or ubuntu. Some background of the development platform. I need a server that can be used for my web server and prototyping of web 2.0 application
Appreciate any help. <comment><USER2> Why not Debian??

I mean if you're considering Ubuntu, why not try the original? I use Debian as my main development box for exactly the kind of work that you're thinking of doing and I love it.

With Debian you will learn more about Linux than you will running either RH or Ubuntu. And if anyone thinks the Ubuntu repositories are great... They should also try Debian.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info. I thought ubuntu is built on debian. Also, redhat and ubuntu are the two linux versions that are being most widely used. So far, i have never tried debian, Let me try this time.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, Debian if anything has always had a reputation of being a little more of a purists distro, which is well deserved. It has a large commitment to the ideals of free software, which is personified in the Debian Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines (<http://www.debian.org/social_contract>).

It has also had a reputation for being a harder distro to use... But I think this is nowhere near as true anymore as it used to be.

It's also worthy to note that along with the various BSDs, Debian is one of the most widely used operating systems for web servers. It's very stable and very good, due mainly to the excellent policy that Debian maintains in relation to how packages move through their experimental, unstable, testing and stable branches.

I will never use anything else as my main distro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I personally prefer Ubuntu because the support is great in terms of community as well as repositories.

When you are doing a startup, your time is very limited and I believe you should go for anything that saves time & hassle without trading off much.

Btw if you are on Windows right now, you can still install and use Apache on it. There are differences but it'll be good enough for prototyping.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This is something my friend also suggested. We want to get started quickly and the amount of time we have is minimal. The only concern I had was if ubuntu can be used as a server platform. Most of the review talks about ubuntu being a desktop OS. Can I use ubuntu for a server grade system?

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can get Ubuntu Server Edition from <http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition>

We have been using it on our servers and haven't had any problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not both? Install one of them as the base, grab something like VirtualBox[1], and install both of them in virtual machines. Take a week or so, then pick your favorite. As a bonus, once you've picked, you can mimic having a production server on that machine with a Linux VM with just the basics (Apache/lighttpd + interpreter).

I'm actually in a similar boat. I'll be building a dual-core box (intel barebones + cheap processor + 4 GB for <$300) to use as a dev machine in addition to my Mac.

[1] = VirtualBox doesn't support multiprocessors for hosts. You may want another solution, but I haven't investigated the free Linux virtualization market at all (I think VMWare has a free Linux server, but I have no idea of its features). Paravirtualization is another option for a Linux-on-Linux solution, but I think it's too complex for this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually i bought a desktop with quad core and 6GB RAM. This should be a good candidate for server. Let me ask a simple question, is virtual box a free ware or i need to buy the software?. Also, iam planning to install CVS and mail server on the same box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> try OpenBSD, it's simpler

fast install: ~5 mins default + ~5 mins untar my-essentials.tgz + ~5 mins mercurial sync ... my box is _production_ ready (sans user database)

easy upgrade: untar the tgzs, kernel, sync /etc from newer OpenBSD

no automatic update: it makes default install uniform, when $hit happens, just order another colo server with default install, ftp my-essential and resync

package & port & source: complete freedom ... for contrast, try to build (then patch) vim from source in ubuntu (you can't)

now the 'bad' thing: few forums: but most questions are answerable from OpenBSD's FAQ, afterboot and man pages

less new driver: good luck installing bluetooth (can't)

older software: only firefox 2, no ff 3 in packages and snapshot port (ff3 site lists binaries for xp, osx, and .mar? source ... no idea how to compile .mar)

i use OpenBSD as server (colo) and desktop ... then vnc my mac mini for ff3+firebug (i don't bother with linux emulation, dual boot, vmware etc)

old simple vnc works across OS/arch ... i avoid fancy newer tech. Can you run i386-ubuntu and powerpc-tiger in one desktop?

i had enough of ubuntu, can't install from source, auto-update always break things (i finally quit after my ubuntu retarded to 800x640 and failed attempts at xorg.conf)

oh wait, did i mention about the quality of the OS by OpenSSH maker? Last time my colo lasted 4xx+ days without reboot

</comment><comment><USER6> Redhat is a commercial product that you have to pay money to use. CentOS is supposed to be a pretty good server OS.

However, I'd choose Ubuntu (and have) for this reason, amongst others: you can run the same OS on your server as on your desktop. You might be able to do that with Fedora, too, but Fedora is not Redhat's main focus, like Ubuntu is with, well, Ubuntu.

<comment><USER7> Fedora is still free, as are non-supported, white label builds of Red Hat Linux Enterprise.

<comment><USER6> Fedora is very good about free software, no doubt about that - they deserve a lot of credit for sticking to their guns on that issue. My point was merely that Fedora is sort of where Redhat tests things out, the "real product" is still Redhat Linux. Ubuntu is Ubuntu for everyone though.

Also... I'm biased: I've been using Debian since 1996, so it's what I know best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As far as productivity and development goes, you won't experience much of a difference. In terms of enterprise history and endorsement, RedHat wins, but that is largely immaterial.

</comment><comment><USER9> RH = the windows of linux, stay away.

<comment><AUTHOR> I installed redhat 5.2 enterprise version on my laptop. Looks really good. I have not started any serious work yet. I had lot of issues with sound card drivers and my USB with earlier versions of redhat( rhel 3). This one was piece of cake. It recognized my plantronics and the sound worked without a glitch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you don't know the answer, it doesn't matter to you. Flip a coin.</comment>


Unicore: A new Unikernel project - <AUTHOR> https://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2017-09/msg00670.html <comment><USER2> Let me try to offer a slightly more substantial comment than the others here so far.

This proposal is motivated by trying to get more applications running off the shelf or with minimal changes, which is a worthy goal. But to achieve that, it seems like the concept of a unikernel is growing more and more complexity. At some point, isn't it just Linux (or any other traditional kernel/OS) with a (slightly?) more modular design, statically linked applications, and no memory protection or scheduler (but it might even have that)?

Wasn't the point of a unikernel to be small _and simple_? Aren't we losing something by bringing the kitchen sink back (even if there's a compile time option to turn it off)?

And even once you have all that complexity, you still can't SSH in and diagnose problems, poke around, etc.

I like the idea of unikernels, but I feel like they still haven't found their calling.

<comment><USER3> There are two things.

1\. A Unikernel: It is supposed to be small and simple. Only containing the components it needs. And the security model is custom for the application itself.

2\. A frame work to build Unikernels. This might include multiple implementations of file systems, schedulers, network stack, etc.

The framework does need to be extensive (large) in order to give Unikernel developers the most ergonomics/reuse while developing. However, each Unikernel would be "small" as you describe. Hope that helps.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Yes, I understand.

But if you started with (e.g.) Linux, and turned off all of the compile-time features that you could, isn't the end result very similar? Say you run your application as PID 1, etc., etc.

My point is that a fully "generalized" unikernel is actually almost the same as a standard monolithic kernel. The technical differences are 1. memory protection, 2. scheduler (maybe), 3. single binary? 4. different and less flexible tooling around runtime debugging/admin.

I mean, we all want a fully featured unikernel that boots instantly, consumes no memory, etc. But there's no reason to believe that a unikernel with all of the features necessary to run, say, a database, won't have overhead similar to Linux tuned for that same role.

(Not trying to worship Linux here, I'm just holding it up as an example that has had a lot of eyeballs over the years.)

<comment><USER4> It is hard to understand the benefit of a unikernel versus a very stripped down Linux kernel.

If any people from the mentioned project are here, I'd love to hear your answer to this.

<comment><USER5> There's a lot of literature that point towards more application-specific optimization in the lowest levels of the operating system, for example the Exokernel papers are an early example of this. More recently, you may want to have a look at the the MirageOS paper(s).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unikernels remind me a lot of old applications distributed on floppy disks. The OS/application division is mostly absent and there's potential for real innovation by moving OS-like behaviour into the application - e.g. integrating the garbage collector with the code for swapping.

<comment><USER7> In the days before hard drives were common in home computers (between the early 80s and early 90s), the OS/application division still existed. The OS was built into computers of this era (stored in ROM chips). You wouldn't necessarily interact with this OS directly when using an application, but the OS was still there.

To give an example, the Amiga operating system was split into two parts, the Kickstart ROMs and the Workbench GUI. Not all apps would use Workbench, but it's harder to find apps that would work without Kickstart. You'd see evidence of this when running games when the infamous Guru Meditation error came up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why gratuitous name collision? Unicore is an instruction set architecture. Linux kernel port is upstream. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicore)

<comment><USER2> You know, if HN was going to design a nuclear power plant, we'd all get into a dispute over what to name the bikeshed.

<comment><USER9> I'm not so sure about that. I think most people would probably support a name like "Powwy McPowerface."

<comment><USER10> Surely 'Nukey McNukeface' is the obvious choice.

<comment><USER11> True bikeshed enthusiasts would name it "Shedy McShedface"

Its the clear choice

<comment><USER12> Bikey McBikeface. And it would be painted blue.

<comment><USER13> The ISO standard governing bikesheds specifically prohibits blue.

<comment><USER12> I prefer to follow the IETF standards on bikesheds, which impose no such restriction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why not RedoxOS (promising project in Rust)? Besides that RedoxOS is not strictly a unikernel (be may well be used as one), I see a lot of the same focus points in those two projects.

And can I assume the kernel will be written in C?</comment>


One year ago I asked 50 Bitcoin experts what Bitcoin would be worth today - <AUTHOR> http://foundersgrid.com/bitcoin-price

<comment><USER2> Without that kind of optimism, I guess they would've never gotten into bitcoin business in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> "As someone with skin in the game, I'm practically obliged to be optimistic."

</comment><comment><USER4> One thing they all were was not true experts.</comment>


French president pushing homework ban as part of ed reforms - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/10/15/french-president-pushing-homework-ban-as-part-of-ed-reforms/

<comment><USER2> See <http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/hm.htm> for support for this idea.

According to current research, the result of more homework is increased conflict in the home over doing homework, and increasing correlation between the education level of the parents and performance of children.

To first order, the gains in learning among those whose parents are sufficiently educated to help their children are offset by the negative effects of incorrect practice on those whose parents are unable to help competently.

According to the statistics, if we got rid of homework for elementary school kids the result would be to have happier households and a more equitable society. I'd be for that, even though my children are probably helped more than hurt by homework.

I'll check in on this discussion after I help my grade 2 son with his nightly homework routine...

</comment><comment><USER3> This would _never_ fly in the USA - homework is part of the educational ideology here, facts or no facts supporting homework.

I'm fascinated that a head of state would be able to propose this. It really would be tantamount to insurrection to propose this in the USA.

<comment><USER4> I am not, did you see his reason?

Fairness. Really, his claim is that since not all children have parents at home to help with homework that it is not fair.

As if education was being dragged into the ground over fairness as it is, he wants to double down. I understand in France their school week is four days and he wants to bump it a half day, but fairness?

Why not just artificially raise the scores of the disadvantaged instead and be upfront about it. If he thinks homework is the problem then he truly is a politician.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm french and i learned about this reform here, so don't believe that this reform is widely discussed in France yet. It's probably still just a project. I'm pretty sure it will be very opposed in France too.</comment>


Ask HN: How's your quarantine side project going? - <AUTHOR> ( An update to this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170881 )<p>What have you been working on? How's it going? <comment><USER2> I've been working on a single player word game for web and mobile. :)

[https://seanwilson.itch.io/wordoid](https://seanwilson.itch.io/wordoid)

Top score I know of is around 2,000 points if anyone wants to try and beat that!

I'm also working on an ebook version of my web best practices guide:

[http://www.checkbot.io/guide/](http://www.checkbot.io/guide/)

<comment><USER3> loved it. played until about level 11 or 12 and it froze on my Asus Rog 2, but it was a blast

reminds me of Wordament or even Highrise Heroes (Android/switch)

if you added a few more modes or challenges in there, and made it a stand alone app. I could see myself playing this alot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For about 2.5 months I found myself unemployed during this mess so I picked up Starting Forth and taught myself how to program the Arduino Uno with FlashForth. My achievements are reading a thermometer and controlling a distance sensor. Forth was worth learning and I think it is the perfect platform for this type of work so long as you are willing to figure things out on your own because there isn't much google can do to help when you get stuck. I have a job again but I am looking forward to more embedded programming with Forth.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been slowly and steadily making progress for [https://www.ncovindia.in/](https://www.ncovindia.in/)

Its an Covid Dashboard for India. Recently I added district wise 3-weeks trends for all districts in India. This feature was a result of personal necessity of checking daily cases in my district.

I plan on adding more features like 5-day moving averages and trends on testing stats.

Would be happy to hear some feedback from HN community.

<comment><USER6> Consider adding a logarithmic y-axis to each graph, but otherwise, nice presentation!

Edit: also, perhaps y-axes of the form "Thousands of X", then increments can show "200, 400, 600..." and so on. Simpler to digest when lots of zeroes come into play, at least for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am writing a file sharing and text messaging application that works with full file system explorer GUI in the browser. HTTP has proven insufficient to work within the applications security model so now I will need to investigate using WebRTC.

But before that I will be figuring out how to interact with a Windows like GUI in the browser via remote control to different machines without dependencies for test automation.

</comment><comment><USER8> My side project is usually making high end wordclocks[1]. But I've been using those wood working tools to make wooden stands to make sneeze shields out of plexiglass sheets[2].

This started by my neighbor (a dentist) asking if I could help him make some stands for his office. I've since sold over $1200 worth of the stands. I wouldn't say this effort is sustainable in the long run, but it feels nice to be helping small business reopen.

I had plans to try and start some marketing efforts for my clocks but I haven't had the time (no pun intended)

[1] www.finewordclocks.com

[2] etsy.me/2D7lrMW

</comment><comment> non-entity I had a few project ideas that either got scrapped or put on hold for various reasons. I'm flipping between constantly gaining and losing interest on the one I actually got any real work started on.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the project? Maybe some feedback can kickstart your interest.

<comment> non-entity I don't have anything publicly on the web yet, mainly because I haven't gotten very far to share, but I started working on an X.25 stack for fun and for toying with some old modems I have sitting around. I've "re-architected" the projects a few times and looks like I might again and working in unfamiliar stacks, so I've been reading more docs than I have been writing code so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been steadily writing my book about ADHD: [https://adhdpro.xyz/](https://adhdpro.xyz/)

I posted on my blog a few times about my struggles with ADHD, and the response was enormous. I had over a dozen DMs on LinkedIn asking me for advice. It turns out very few people talk about building ADHD specific productivity strategies. The market gap was there so I started writing.

I wrote an average of 1,000 words every day in June. It's the first project I've ever created totally solo and I'm almost done.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing your project, I've signed up for the sample chapters and I'm eager to see the finished book. Are

Are you finding your own strategies helpful in getting this book finished?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes they are, surprisingly so. The most surprising fact was interviewing many different people who all had similar ways of handling it.

I haven't had a single stressful or anxious day since I started, yet I've almost finished writing the entire book and it only took me 30 days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been working on building an affiliate marketing business. I always wanted to start it but I kept putting it off. With all the extra time I have, I finally got around to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this based on Amazon's affiliate scheme, or someone else? Got a link?</comment></comment>