GIMP developer looking for funding - <AUTHOR> https://www.patreon.com/pippin <comment><USER3> Pippin is a extremely competent programmer and has been commited to GIMP and GEGL for a long time. I just signed up for a monthly contribution and I believe it's a great way to support the development of free software for graphics.

<comment><USER4> I hope this is some sarcastic joke. I really do. If anyone believes this, they have apparently been asleep at the wheel of GIMP development for the past decade.

Hubris. Ego. Not a shred of a clue about image editing. The entire batch of _current_ systemic problems are a byproduct of _this developer 's_ efforts and architecture.

<comment><USER5> Care to elaborate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thinking back of all the times I've used the GIMP; I'm compelled to give it a little boost.

EDIT: I'm willing to give the GIMP a boost. I don't know this developer. Is someone knowledgable about this particular developer. Is it likely they are the right person to do it?

EDIT2: He's contributed a lot already for a long time and still keeps on going strong. It looks good to me.

<comment><USER7> I have heard about Pippin before, and he and Mitch (another well known GIMP developer) confirmed on IRC that the campaign is legit.

The campaign is also listed here [http://pippin.gimp.org/](http://pippin.gimp.org/) \- in the header.

<comment><USER6> Commit logs of GEGL show he's been an active developer for a long time: [https://git.gnome.org/browse/gegl/log/?ofs=1050](https://git.gnome.org/browse/gegl/log/?ofs=1050)

<comment><USER7> Cool. I just went with the $8 tier. Go go GIMP!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone who is interested in funding Professional quality OSS graphics software that meets the requirements of current standards and expectations I strongly suggest to donated to the Krita, Natron or Blender project instead of Gimp.

The Gimp project has been quite abrasive to the graphics research and software development communities for many years. The Gimp team 'knows better' then the highly qualified and experienced graphics programmers who offered to help the project bring there code base into the current standards for graphics.

There has been a lot of goodwill that has been squandered by the Gimp developers to the point that I seriously doubt that anyone with the skills or the time to work on OSS graphics is willing to invest any time in the project.

Any further development of Gimp will more then likely be an upgrade to the latest version of the GTK+ toolkit slapped on top of the same outdated 8bit early 1990's architecture fallowed by praise by people who have little experience or interest in graphics at any serious level.

<comment><USER7> GIMP had some very serious progress lately (v 2.8) . I found myself using the Cage tool a lot, for example, and the new brush size selector is quite nice. As for the 8 bit stuff - you do know that they are transitioning to babl and GEGL, right?

I don't know much about those highly qualified graphics programmers - <USER2> every good project has a pace and a development plan - GIMP definitely has a roadmap in place, that can't and shouldn't be turned 180 degrees everytime someone comes with an idea; and I've seen quite a few people who see the rigors and the standards set in place as "abrasiveness"

Could you point us to some mailing list messages that would support the claim though? I don't follow the mailing list closely, mainly the news announcements.

<comment><USER8> > transitioning to babl and GEGL

The Gimp has been 'transitioning to GEGL' for how many years now? Something like six or seven years. And getting the data structures in place is only part of the challenge. How fast is this going to be for users? If the speed is to slow for users to efficiently get there work done at an intuitive pace then you have still failed.

From the initial GEGL integration attempts I saw the whole thing was hacked together with no clear thought to performance. And the performance was indeed quite abysmal.

<comment><USER7> GEGL supports acceleration via OpenCL, so it's unfair to claim they haven't thought of performance at all. And AFAIK most plugins are already ported to GEGL, and the core seems to be done. I do agree that it took a lot of time, but I find it surprising that the project made any progress at all - whitout a few developers hired full time, aren't we too entitled to ask for such advanced features, and have them shipped quick as well?

There are very few sustainable free/open source projects, which have corporate or some other kind of backing - GNOME (redhat), Linux (linux foundation) and Blender (blender institute) are the only one that come to my mind.

<comment><USER8> > aren't we too entitled to ask for such advanced features, and have them > shipped quick as well?

It would be unreasonable to expect from unpaid volunteers if they has no ambition to do such work. Which is why I suggest that if you want to see advanced features and professional quality graphics software with a predictable cycle of development then you support the projects that actually try to create such programs.

Krita has a regular development cycle, a clear set of priorities and goals and funded development efforts that clearly lays out what features and improvement are going to be achieved with your hard earned money.

That has been an ENORMOUSLY successful improvement for both the programmers who can now get paid to work on there projects and the artists that now get quality continuously updated graphics software.

If Gimp or any other project deserve funding they have to step up and show the discipline and commitment to there project that successful projects like Krita have. I do not see that at this time so my recommendation is to support the projects that I listed in the OP.

> edit

As far as performance is concerned OpenCL or Cuda is not going to save you if your cpu bound memory architecture is not carefully thought for performance. This has always been a major problem for gimp for a long time. The higher bit depth and resolutions that are used now only exacerbate the situation. A general use case now could easily have tens of gigabytes worth of data that the user wants to manipulate delete and expand in real time. I have never seen this addressed in a serious proposal.

<comment><USER9> So because GIMP doesn't solve ALL of its problems it deserves nothing? I find this unreasonable. So it's not perfect - no software is - but it's very, very useful, and still deserves support from those who utilize and appreciate it.

btw: I do love Krita, and I'm not saying they deserve any less support in favor of GIMP, but Krita is a lousy choice for certain image-editing routines where GIMP excels. Krita much more tailored towards artists, and I'd rather it stay that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another GIMP developer has been looking for funding at Patreon/Tipee for their dev work mixed with work on an animated film, sidebar of [https://girinstud.io/news/2016/09/dont-be-a-stranger-to- gimp...](https://girinstud.io/news/2016/09/dont-be-a-stranger-to-gimp-be- gimp/) for links to those campaigns, comments below for discussion of such funding attempts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't understan why some people feel a foolish rush to come and discredit the GIMP devs, and "discreetly" demand that everybody else should invest their money in X or Y project because i like them and they're not GIMP. I dislike the word «shill» but it's a correct description of those people.

<comment><USER8> I care about the open source graphics community as a whole. Not just Gimp, not just Krita, Blender etc. But the whole ecosystem of Programmers, Researchers and Artists and the health of the software that brings those people together.

After more then a decade of failed and failing software development and funding modes that tried to shoehorn artist driven intuitive graphics applications into a development model that tangentially works for lone wolf kernel device driver hackers we have started to overcome the damage and move in a positive direction with Krita, Natron, Blender Foundation etc.

The Gimp project and development model has not produced a productive environment or a compelling product for any of the groups I mentioned. That has been the case for many years. After a lot of hard work other projects have managed to formulate better more productive models to develop OSS graphics programs and find funding to do so. The artists are happier because they get better more competitive software and they are willing to fund its development. The programmers are happier because they have a clear direction and understanding of who there users are and where the software needs to go. And the researchers are happier because they see a community who is interested in and welcoming of new and useful graphics algorithms and research.

None of this has happened because of the Gimp. It has happened in spite of the Gimp project sucking most of the air out of the room for many years and contributing nothing to the OSS graphics community as a whole.

If you care about fostering the growth of OSS Graphics software and a community of talented Artists that feel comfortable and productive using OSS software then you need to promote the people and the projects that are making that happen.

The gimp project needs to take a break and perhaps hand the reigns over to a new group with a different vision. The current project and its structure, soliciting money form the Artist community into developers private patreon accounts with vague promises to make Gimp great again is not helping Gimp or the OSS graphics community.

<comment><USER11> > It has happened in spite of the Gimp project sucking most of the air out of > the room for many years and contributing nothing to the OSS graphics > community as a whole.

Oh I dunno. I see people doing excellent work with GIMP all the time. How about you?

> The gimp project needs to take a break and perhaps hand the reigns over to a > new group with a different vision.

There is no "new group". There's just us.

<comment><USER8> > There is no "new group". There's just us.

Yes, and now would be a good time to admit that the reason why that is the case is because the Gimp project and development model are unproductive and failing when compared to other projects who do not have any problem attracting new people or resources.

The Gimp project needs to dismantle itself and take some time to think about how it can build a more productive and sustainable model that attracts developers based on the successful examples that other projects have.

Begging for coins into your Patreon is not part of building a large, productive and sustainable project. Its more of the same misguided and shortsighted mismanagement that has brought Gimp to its current sorry state.

<comment><USER11> > The Gimp project needs to dismantle itself

Yes, I expect you would want that.

> the same misguided and shortsighted mismanagement

It's amazing we managed so far at all without your expert input.

There are many reasons things are the way they are. That you don't know much about those is a whole different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The post there doesn't seem too convincing. I understand how important Gimp is, in a world where Adobe owns the scene of image editing, but others may not know that well.

I feel the post really should be conveying what they will be providing if they reach their patreon marker. A better competitor to Photoshop, Paint.net. What features will be worked on, etc. Its gotta market itself in some way.

<comment><USER13> [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server- really-s...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve)

GIMP is free software and ethical. Paint.net is the same rental model that Photoshop is now using and is completely against the public interest for us to put our resources into that sort of business.

<comment><USER14> > _GIMP is free software and ethical_

Implying that non-free software is unethical? That's a rather rude thing to say.

<comment><USER15> From [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free- sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html):

> A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these > freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree > distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we > consider them all equally unethical.

For people who think that users deserve the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software they use, nonfree software is indeed unethical. Even more so when the software is used by the developers as an instrument of injust power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Off topic but I found it interesting: the original creator of GIMP is also one of the founders of cockroach labs / cockroachDB. That's a pretty cool resume IMO.

<comment><USER17> The two original creators of The Gimp founded Cockroach Labs, were long time Google employees, and sold their startup Viewfinder to Square.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Finally! With one developer full-time, this project will pick up the pace.

<comment><USER18> Pardon me for not being able to tell, but is this sarcasm or sincerity?

<comment><USER6> I was reading a bit through the mailing list and it seemed that the GIMP development team had bit off a bit more than they could swallow at that time. This is what I've got from it:

* They rewrite the core of the software to allow a lot of new features.

* The developers could not agree on all critical details on how to proceed.

* Some developers got frustrated because things were not going their way or proceeding too slowly.

* The new model of how things work makes much of the old code obsolete.

* There are a lot of modules which need to be rewritten to use the new core.

* Before thinking about releasing the new GIMP >50% of the total work has to be done making transition hard.

* Due to its 'unique' interface a lot of people don't like the GIMP even if it would do everything they need.

* Designing and implementing a new interface is another pain point.

Considering that currently the GIMP is at a critical point in its development, a full-time developer could really be the pivotal element in making it succeed. I don't know much about this particular developer, though.

<comment><USER11> Your summary is more or less correct :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The architecture and architect shouldn't be writing software. Complete hack with no knowledge of image editing. Chase down Elle Stone's posts on how fundamentally broken it is.

Shortlist:

1\. Hideously over-engineered pixel path makes performance, if at all possible, worse.

2\. Broken concept of colour management and pixels. See sRGB debacle and the concept of hard coded spaces.

3\. Anachronism of imaging model.

4\. Ignored fundamental problems that many people pointed out years ago. See the ridiculous "unbounded mode" that even a 100 level image computer student could have demonstrated _would never work_.

5\. As per 4., ignored all evidence and designed a worthless software model around.

Etc.

The project needs to die.

<comment><USER19> This is why we can't have nice things. Open source development that improves the lives of millions of people is still flamed because of choices made far in the past that are very hard to fix means that it "needs to die".

Look - irrespective of the truth of the message, remember that there are humans reading it and framing matters

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hope Gimp will switch to GTK3 at last. It's one of those projects that's still stuck with GTK2. Or even better - Qt ;)

<comment><USER21> GTK3, maybe, but QT? Yeah, you and the dude who barged onto the PostgreSQL hackers mailing list and tried to talk the community into rewriting the project in Rust should hang out.

"You should completely rewrite this project, consisting of hundreds of thousands of lines of code that people have worked on for years, using the tools I like better!"

<comment><USER22> Is this what you're talking about? [https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/CAASwCXdQUiuUnhycdRvrU...](https://www.postgresql.org/message- email@example.com)

Because that's pure gold.

<comment><USER23> Or this one: [http://www.wilfred.me.uk/blog/2017/01/11/announcing- remacs-p...](http://www.wilfred.me.uk/blog/2017/01/11/announcing-remacs- porting-emacs-to-rust/)

For extra enjoyment, look at the way they convert a function definition to Rust. You'd hope that the new version would be at least somewhat nicer than the original, but of course not. As lng as it's Rust it must be better, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The only way I would fund GIMP is if that funding went directly towards a better UI. It's not worth improving the algorithms given how hard it is to use.

<comment><USER9> I happen to like the UI. It's not for everyone, admittedly, esp. people coming from PS, but it can modified and rearranged. ATM, my Gimp UI is a single window will all the tools nicely arranged on the left side and only containing the most-used tabs. There are only 6 or 7 tabs you'll use 99% of the time anyways.

<comment><USER25> Same. I am no graphic wizard, i dont want to relearn. I am happy it still looks more or less than i when i learned it years ago, and pretty much similar to the last PS version i've used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> gimp is ace, but I prefer Paint.NET

<comment><USER27> Yes, I'd like to see a paint.net for Linux or mac

<comment><USER28> Pinta is a clone of Paint.NET for Linux and Mac.

It's mostly quite good and has very high feature parity. Although it can't resize a selected image portion and so i still use paint.net.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Linux needs a great video editor, I would contribute if they add video editing to gimp

<comment><USER25> Lightworks? It even works slightly better on Linux than everywhere else it seems. Its the editor in which Pulp fiction for example was made, and IMO its (in opposite to the others i've tried) easy to learn but also able to do advanced stuff.</comment></comment>


Editor's Picks: 6 top Console Games - <AUTHOR> http://blog.favour.it/post/38218215897/editors-picks-console-games#.UNBFzyG7Pe0.hackernews <comment><USER2> 1/ MIRROR'S EDGE

image

On why it's a favourit:

Wow, very exciting and different game by DICE. Mirror's Edge is best explained as a first person freerunning game. You elegantly weave your way through the cityscape at great hight. The game can be very frustrating when trying to set a perfect time or parcour, but the feeling when this is accomplished is great. Not for casual gamers, but great for anybody that wants a special, challenging yet rewarding experience!

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2812> 2/ OKAMIDEN image

On why it's a favourit:

Beautiful, lovely, artsy and fun adventure game for Nintendo's DS. Great use of touchscreen. Remake (with some changes) from Playstation/Wii originals, so don't expect a world of difference. Game is a lot like Zelda games - discovery, adventure and solving basic puzzles. Very worthwhile for anyone that enjoys the Zelda franchise.

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2804> 3/ KINGDOM OF AMALUR: RECKONING

image

On why it's a favourit:

This is easily the best RPG I've played in years. It feels like a more up to date version of World of Warcraft, but then without the MMO stuff. It appeals to me a lot more than a game like Skyrim. The combat in KoA:R is not unlike God of War, making it one of the strong points of this game. What could be improved is the variety in opponents, which is rather repetitive. But other than that great game that anybody interested in light RPG's should check out.

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2787> 4/ L.A. NOIRE

image

On why it's a favourit:

This is a game unlike any I've played before or after. You're a detective that needs to solve cases to progress. Solving cases involves interrogations (catch lies based on facial expressions and evidence), cases, an occasional fight/shoot out and lots of looking for clues. Truly different and a great experience. Warning not for "casual gamers"

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2793> 5/ LIMBO

image

On why it's a favourit:

Basic platform puzzler, closest to art a game can come, simple but great design & gameplay, deep perfection, not for casual/call of duty gamers. A lot of trial and error (and potentially frustrating at points).

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2794> 6/ MAFIA II

On why it's a favourit:

Great sequel positioned in the mafia world. It's as if you play in your own gangster movie, strong story combined with strong gameplay. A lot of focus on shoot outs and driving (incl. car chases). Will keep you tied to your screen for a good amount of tense hours.

<http://www.favour.it/favourits/view/2788>

</comment><comment><USER2> No assassins creed? These games pale in comparison! Haha

<comment><AUTHOR> Would be a good start for a next selection. Very mainstream though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool selection!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


There's a dark secret at the heart of artificial intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-artificial-intelligence-2017-4?IR=T <comment><USER2> > _There 's a dark secret at the heart of artificial intelligence: no one > really understands how it works_

As opposed, of course, to human intelligence, which obviously we understand completely.

<comment><USER3> We some of the tools we have for working with human intelligence like persuasions based on empathy and negotiations based on aligned interests and convincings based on ordinary facts about the world. A human intelligence can recognize the error of its ways.</comment></comment>


NVIDIA Drops Their Open-Source Driver, Refers Users To VESA Driver - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv

<comment><USER2> To be fair, the open source nv module wasn't used by anyone I know for anything else besides having something rendering the screen while they have downloaded and insalled the proprietary nvidia module. It did provide some basic 2D acceleration but it was largely inferior to the proprietary driver anyway. I think that open source purists never really favoured NVidia cards anyway due to this reason so it's not like they're going to lose an awful amount of customers because of that. I think it's likely that this was a purely economical (cost cutting) decision.

Unrelated but still related reading about the current problems of Linux graphics drivers is this post on Linux Hater (offensive language): [http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/06/nitty-gritty-shit- on...](http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/06/nitty-gritty-shit-on-open- source.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Disappointing but not life changing it was poorly supported and I don't know anyone running the open driver over the propriety one. However it would be nice to know that someone was working on the driver that actually gave a damn about Linux.

<comment><USER4> I think they do care about Linux for the proprietary driver, since Linux workstations are a pretty decent share of the market for their high-margin Quadro cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They lost to Intel for me a long time ago. I don't need a proprietary driver to cause me compatiblity problems or a second rate lip service job of an open source driver. I want one that just works.

I presume they are on such shaky patent ground that they can not expose the workings of their chips to scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not something I will miss. I don't even see why companies make this half baked attempts at open sourcing code. If they are going to open source something they should put real effort in their endeavor. We don't even need hardware companies to open source anything. What we need is good enough documentation so that interested developers can make open source drivers with out having to reverse engineer the hell out of the hardware.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is sort of a big deal, I assume nouveau will keep going, although they are still lacking in support. On the other hand, the ATI / AMD open drivers are relatively recent and are moving pretty fast.

</comment><comment><USER8> I didn't know nVidia even had an open driver. When I read the title, I thought they were completely dropping support for non-Windows Oses, which would have been disappointing.

Maybe Intel will buy nVidia and fix this problem for us. Intel is the only hardware company that gets open source.

<comment><USER9> > Intel is the only hardware company that gets open source

Something that is quite astonishing, I must add.

I can only wonder how horribly constructed a piece of hardware must be for a company to refuse to publish enough specifications for able and willing community to produce open-source drivers.

<comment><USER8> It's usually because they didn't license the linked-list patent, and they don't want anyone to find out. (Etc.)

Alienating the Free Software community is cheaper than getting on the wrong side of a patent troll, I guess.

<comment><USER9> You say that jokingly, but I am sure things equally ridiculous could be to blame for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, just noticed this was a dupe (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1222354>)

<comment><USER10> No worries since there was zero discussion there...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a shame; it pretty much settles it, I'll get an AMD chip next time. The nvidia drivers have been the best graphics drivers on Linux, but still far from perfect, and apparently not getting better. I've had a couple of crashes and corruption issues with them just for window compositing. Meanwhile, the open source AMD drivers have been making massive improvements.

<comment><USER12> Did you run the open source or closed drivers in the first place? Their proprietary drivers have always been better than the open source ones.

<comment><USER11> The proprietary ones. And yes, I'm getting the screen corruption and occasional crashes with them. Sure, it's after a very long time logged in, but still is extremely annoying. I'm guessing it's a video memory management problem, but who knows, they're proprietary after all.

Yeah, the open source ones aren't very good, but useful for getting things up and running, and when I'm hacking around in the kernel, and keeping on rebuilding the closed source drivers is too annoying. VESA drivers really aren't a good replacement at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So what ?

I'm perfectly happy to have a driver that works, I don't really see the community advantage of an opensource driver as compared to an opensource framework or application.

People are happy to use Intel cpus rather than opensparc!</comment>


Is Keil Free MDK for STM32F0 Memory Limited? - <AUTHOR> It was announce here that these tools are free, but do they have the same memory limitations as before, in the trial versions? https://www2.keil.com/stmicroelectronics-stm32/mdk <comment><USER2> ARM/Keil is saying it's the full version [https://www2.keil.com/stmicroelectronics- stm32](https://www2.keil.com/stmicroelectronics-stm32) Some of these STM32F0/L0/G0 devices have more flash memory than the code size limit of the free versions of MDK, but not by much.</comment>


Blurrypeople.com - strangers you might actually like - <AUTHOR> http://www.blurrypeople.com

<comment><USER2> OK I really love this idea. I do have some imo important feedback:

1\. You _have_ to change your tagline. I had no idea going into the site what it was, though it can be summarized as "ChatRoulette, only it works" (or something along those lines). By now, everyone knows chatroulette, and you're missing a huge opportunity to get what your site does across. I'd even consider changing the name, something like blurryroulette or blurrychat or something, since this is a _very_ memorable and easily described idea.

2\. Someone else mentioned, don't ask for access to video/mic right away. Especially now, make the intro video more obvious/accessible.

3\. Have some text explaining what the site does for people who don't want a video. Again, you have a really easy-to-understand concept - take advantage of it!

4\. This is just a guess, but I think this kind of formula would work especially well for dating - this will definitely let people connect without letting looks bother them, at least at first. And by the time you've talked several minutes, you'd already have some kind of connection. This is just crazy enough to work - so start thinking how you can take advantage. For example, connecting people by location is a real easy addition to your site, which facilitates connecting people for dating.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great points, thanks.

We'll think some more about how we can communicate the concept better. Furthermore, we might have to delay the request for mic/camera access as it could scare people away (other have pointed this out as well).

I'm not too fond of changing the tagline to something referencing chatroulette, we're kinda hoping people will not directly associate our site with nude guys ;) But rethinking the tagline might be wise still.

Also, I think you're correct in pointing out a non-video way of getting the site explained is necessary. Perhaps just in words, or otherwise using graphics/drawings etc.

And indeed, we figured this will probably be used for dating-purposes a lot; so we'll try to make sure that is possible on BP.

Once more, thanks for your feedback!

<comment><USER3> >Furthermore, we might have to delay the request for mic/camera access as it could scare people away (other have pointed this out as well).

Please do this. I am quite positive that I denied access the first time, but it still displayed the video feed for some reason. That's not important, but you feel monitored when that happens, and if people are having a "bad hair day", the change in mood is associated with the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've read about chatroulette on HN a few times. Most of you point out it needs some form of filtering to become something useful.

So here is our approach to something that will, hopefully, work better:

\- it has a feedback system that allows you to indicate why you don't like someone (too old, too male, too boring etc)

\- video starts out blurry, and becomes sharper with time (hence the name! ;))

\- you can 'like' people, allowing the other to see when you're online and request to connect with you

Could this work? Comments, suggestions?

<comment><USER4> > _\- video starts out blurry, and becomes sharper with time (hence the name! > ;))_

This is a fantastic idea. However, it'd be better if that fact were known from the start.

<comment><AUTHOR> The introduction-video shows the effect. However, this might not be enough to communicate this concept to visitors. Will think about how we can improve this. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> For what it's worth, I rarely watch introduction videos... if I need to watch one to use and understand the site, there's probably room for improving your site design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's this Dutch dating site Paiq that has the same technique. When chatting with someone, their profile picture gets unblurred after talking a while and hitting their interest words (eg "watching movies"). It lets you focus less on photos and more on personality.

<comment><USER7> Funny that you mention this, BlurryPeople was founded by the same people that are running Paiq.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you blur the video prior to publishing, on a server or on the receiving side?

I like the idea a lot, agree on most previous points about the presentation though!

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know exactly what "too female" and "too male" is meant to describe. At best, this just enforces sexual stereotypes, and at worst, people will use it wrongly with poorer matching results to follow.

I understand that this is based on a Dutch concept, but I don't see the too fe/male evaluation working very well. Obviously, it's just beta, and new tags will show up as others disappear.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love the idea, but I want a version of this that is text only (Blurry Omegle). In general I prefer not having the camera involved.

EDIT: Just to clarify I think BOTH versions should exist, and within the same framework so that filtering applies universally (people could choose if they are interested in text/video/both). Especially since I Omegle at work, webcam only is a no-go for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it's a great idea, but I'm reluctant to try it mainly because my guess is it's filled with other dudes right now..

<comment><AUTHOR> Well yeah, dudes -> early adopters. However, I would love to hear your opinion about the concept. Would something like this have a chance of catching on?

<comment><USER10> I think if you could get a good ratio of guys to girls, the yes. It's a very interesting concept and I think Chatroullette only scratched the surface. I will say one thing though, I have never used Chat roullette or any other service because I find talking to someone live to be somewhat stressful. Can you record videos that are not live and watch videos that are prerecorded? I thought I saw that you could, but it wouldn't let me watch any videos til I created one myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The intro video does not have any playback controls. I'd like to see some standard play/pause and volume control buttons. Also, once I close the intro video, the green "First time here" banner disappears and I have to hunt for the link to re-play the video (which is located at the top right corner).

<comment><USER12> > I'd like to see some standard play/pause and volume control buttons.

I tend to disagree. I liked the design aspect of not having these. The video fits into the same style as I presume I'll get when using the service (I don't have a webcam handy right now).

Do you actually need play/pause and volume controls while watching the intro video? Would you actually use them, or is it just that it doesn't match your expectation of what an intro video should be, rather than a functional deficiency?

<comment><USER11> I see your point that the video fits the actual usage style. But I had two issues while playing the video.

1\. The volume was too high. I wanted to mute the video first before adjusting my system's volume. 2\. I wanted to pause, check out the features mentioned in the video for a while and then resume the video.

So I did need the controls. They can appear only on mouse over so that the feel of a live demo still remains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Am I the only one to think this won't fly? People probably won't wait longer than a few seconds to see whom they're chatting with. The internet and chatroulette have made everyone pretty ADD about waiting.. Prepare for lot's of "Ciao's".

</comment><comment><USER14> No idea why but visiting this site crashes MobileSafari on my iPad.

<comment><USER15> It didn't crash my iPad, but I can tell you that it uses flash, so you won't be able to see it anyway.

<insert obligatory flash on iPad complaining>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait, I'm confused; how do I spell the name? blurry people, blurrypeople, Blurry People, blurrypeople.com?

</comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting idea!

I think that the approach is great given the fact that so many people go to chatroulette and end up looking at pervs. The filtering system can definitely give you the edge.

One thing I did not like was that upon visiting it immediately asked me to share my camera and mic. Perhaps a better front page with a lot more explanation (graphics can help) that would lead you to the 'chat' screen?

I can see the simplicity and I am up for it but a lot of people will think twice to click accept (for camera and mic) if this is the first thing that they are asked to do on a website.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Won't people understand the system doesn't connect you to anyone unless you click 'search'? Because if they do understand, why wouldn't they want to share their camera and mic?

Anyway, thanks a lot for your advice!

<comment><USER17> No, they won't. It's not obvious. Especially since the flash dialog was the very first thing I saw on the page.

I'd start out with two options, a "Tell me more" button and an "I'm ready to get started" button.</comment></comment></comment>


iPad app sales numbers: WIRED vs Writer - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/ipad-app-sales-numbers-wired-vs-writer/

<comment><USER2> > They pay a truck load of money to reach 300-500 paying readers per day?

> But they won't pay as much to reach an avalanche of non paying readers?

It seems to me that advertisers might prefer a small number of people willing to pay money for something, rather than an avalanche of free loaders. Not all eyeballs are created equally. Isn't this a motivation for improving the targeting of advertising?

Most Wired content is available for free on the website, right? So, I wonder how many more people would buy the app if it were free.

 _Edited to clarify a few phrases_

<comment><USER3> > _Isn't this obvious with all of the talk about improving the targeting of > advertising?_

It's not the same thing ... targeted advertising doesn't mean reaching people with more money. It means reaching people when they are in the mood for spending on your product (the right time / the right place).

E.g. even if you are a big spender, are you willing to buy a baby pram right now? How about a woman that has uploaded photos of her newborn to Facebook? You may have millions of dollars that you're willing to spend, but that said woman is more likely to buy baby gear than you.

<comment><USER2> > It means reaching people when they are in the mood for spending on your > product (the right time / the right place).

I know that and agree. I think the fact that someone paid for the app is a relevant positive targeting indicator for an advertiser, and not a negative because of the smaller audience. I have to admit that I don't have any data to back up my thought, and maybe what I'm talking about isn't what other people are talking about when they think about targeted advertising.

> How about a woman that has uploaded photos of her newborn to Facebook?

Isn't she even more likely to be willing to spend money on baby gear if she's just spent money to put them up on a paid photo sharing site (Flickr Pro, or whatever)?

Like I said above, that's my untested hypothesis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I missing something? "... 300-500 ad impressions per day ..." but that's the new app sales per day not the total number of users. If only there was some way to find the area under the sales curve then we could find the total number of users.

<comment><USER5> Counter question: How many times do you read your downloaded app?</comment></comment>


Introduction to Linux, Free Course from the Linux Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://educationware.net/introduction-to-linux-free-course-from-the-linux-foundation/

<comment><USER2> I began the course last time it was offered on edX. And I didn't like this course at all. In my opinion it was pretty inefficient with regards to presentation of information, motivation of students, integration and realization of interactive lessons.

And that struck me as surprising given how often they emphasize how much experience they have with teaching. I took multiple edX and coursera classes from Alpha to Omega and this was one of the worst.

If you want to learn Linux - it's actually really simple:

1\. Install Ubuntu (really easy)

2\. IF you have a problem THEN Google it END

<comment><USER3> I think that's terrible advice for learning Linux since most people learning Linux are hoping to learn to use the shell and the programs accessible only via command line.

I tried learning Linux since the mid-2000s and failed every time up until recently. I even followed your advice to the letter. I would install Ubuntu and just played with the default apps and tried downloading some other stuff but quickly got bored because I wasn't learning anything and I wasn't doing anything productive on it. Everything I learned I learned in the first day of two of usage. It was that simple. I would always end up booting back into Windows regularly and reclaiming the disk space when I needed it. Then I'd repeat the process a year later.

I finally actually started to get Linux around early 2013 when I decided to try learning again but this time I had something useful to use it for: programming. I've been programming on Windows and wanted to try building software on Linux. Now I had a need to learn my way around bash and all the utilities found within it. I've also taken Intro to Linux course when it was offered on edX last year and although I can't say it was the greatest course I've ever taken it definitely would have helped me out a ton when I started using Ubuntu for my programming.

In fact, it is the best resource I've come across for learning Linux a beginner can find simply because it gives you a good idea of what working with Linux is like for a variety of perspectives. It's got a bit talking about working with text editors (both gui and cli based), a bit talking about users and groups, chapters covering the basics super-useful utilities like grep that you really ought to know exists.

My favorite thing I learned from the course was the `apropos` utility which searches the man pages. One of the worst problems I've had with Linux was remembering the name of some program that did something useful. Now I can just type `apropos pdf` to find a brief description of all programs that have the word pdf in their man page description. Super useful when your searching for that pdf file splitter or merger you used a blue moon ago but can't remember its name.

In fact, I don't think I've ever bothered with man pages up until I've taken this course. Now I do a whole lot less Googling and more fending for myself.

Sorry, this went on for too long but I think my point is clear; you're probably not going to learn much if you just install Ubuntu and this course (in my opinion) has incredible value for a beginner.

<comment><USER2> TL;DR:

[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+bash+tutorial](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+bash+tutorial)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Direct Link to the edX course: [https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-linux- linuxfoundatio...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-linux- linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-2)

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is the list of subjects once you enroll (2 images):

[https://imgur.com/mU22za9,LzGtJUa#1](https://imgur.com/mU22za9,LzGtJUa#1)

[https://imgur.com/mU22za9,LzGtJUa#2](https://imgur.com/mU22za9,LzGtJUa#2)

<comment><USER7> Chapter 01: The linux Foundation

Chapter 02: Linux Philosophy and Concepts

Yup, another linux course that starts with a lesson in IP law. "Windows for dummies" doesn't start with an hour on Microsoft's corporate structure. It's software. The students want to learn how to use it properly. So teach that first. Leave the politics of f/oss for after they are already addicted.

I've seen more than a couple of these courses use the first lessons as a "it's free, so expect rough edges" speech. Again, Windows courses never start by explaining why it might have bugs. Linux works. Linux works well. You don't need to open with excuses.

<comment><USER8> I, for one, cannot remember _any_ training, workshop or course that didn't have _at least_ half an hour of obvious, blatant corporate agenda crap and here's-why-you-don't-need-any-technology-other-than-this-one. Some of them subtly painted, but generally that. In time, I simply stopped attending any. Whenever my employer needs me to learn something new, I end up suggesting buying me two books on the subject and letting me take three days off to study them. Cheaper and far more efficient.

I don't know what they're covering in the chapter about the Linux foundation, but the second chapter sounds _extremely_ useful to me. A lot of people who come from a Windows or often an OS X background don't really grok:

* That you can -- and _should_ \-- chain program together, not rely on the feature set of a single one

* That, when in doubt, you can look at the source of the program if you can read it

* That there are other release models at work other than "One major version ever X years and $osnameUpdate in between", and you need to know what you can expect from each

* That the kernel and various bits of userspace are separately developed and packaged, which has repercussions over what practical systems look like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Definitely a good start for users looking to switch over from Windows

</comment><comment><USER10> Here is a link that might be a good companion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3099527](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3099527)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm taking it as a cheap form of certification. Pretty good for new users overall, intermediate users may learn from a chapter or two.

</comment><comment><USER12> Despite being a proficient Linux user, I will still go through the course videos, because I'm sure it will be fun to see how Torvalds would teach such a topic.

<comment><USER13> Linus only endorses the course, but he doesn't teach any of the content.

<comment><USER12> Ya I quickly noticed after the first couple of videos!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there something new about it? The course has been in edx for quite some time.

<comment><USER15> Nothing changed. Even they have the same questions at the end

<comment><USER16> Is it worth doing as a non beginners course, ie I have 'some' Linux knowledge, but would like to improve it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd prefer a course about kernel programming. I mean how much material can you write about device management, memory management, executing a program, writing a driver, etc ?

</comment><comment><USER18> A trusted course from the Linux Foundation

</comment><comment><USER19> Courses like these and SO makes John a happy man!</comment>


Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=amping-up-brain-function

<comment><USER2> This is a very interesting preliminary finding, and I promptly shared the article link, with hat tip to Hacker News, among a Facebook private group populated by many neuroscience researchers. But the finding needs a look more replication and refinement,

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

before I'll stick the electrodes over my head. For one thing, I wonder what author neuroscientists who attended the big conference where this finding was briefly reported have had time to dig into the details of how other neuroanatomical models of learning compare to the implicit model here.

<comment><USER3> It definitely is a very interesting finding, but if it wasn't placebo controlled, then its not really demonstrating anything. Bear in mind that deep brain stimulation is placebo responsive, which suggests that this could be easily too. That being said, the structural changes are quite interesting. I suppose i'll have to wait for the full paper, and there's no mention of sample size in the article either.

<comment><USER4> "The researchers reported that TDCS gave a six-times baseline boost to the amplitude of a brain wave generated in response to stimulating a sensory nerve in the arm. The boost was not seen when mock TDCS was used, which produced a similar sensation on the scalp, but was ineffective in exciting brain tissue."

This seems to indicate that it was placebo controlled, but I am also interested to see the published paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brain altering experiments conducted by the military on military test subjects... There must be a huge pile of science fiction written on the subject.

<comment><USER6> To be entirely fair, there's a huge pile of science fiction written about almost _anything_. That's probably one of the reasons it's my favorite genre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do I build or buy it?

<comment><USER8> <http://transcenmentalism.org/OpenStim/tiki-index.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Remarkably, MRI brain scans revealed clear structural changes in the brain as soon as five days after TDCS."

Interesting... would love to see a study comparing long term results to neurofeedback (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback>).

</comment><comment><USER10> I'll buy the first baseball cap that has similar EEG electrodes!</comment>


Ask HN: How much control of GitHub do its founders still have? - <AUTHOR> Given how long Github was bootstrapped how much control of do its founders still have? <comment><AUTHOR> I know that Github was bootstrapped and profitable before ever receiving VC funding. Given this how much control were the founders able to retain pertaining to voting rights, ownership percentages and board seats?

<comment><USER2> That is all probably confidential information.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk just sent this memo about cheaper Model 3 and store closures - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/elon-musk-memo-about-cheaper-model-3-store-closures.html <comment><USER2> Tesla is switching to an exclusively online sales model in order to get the 35k price point on the model 3. You can order online and try the car out for a week and return it for a full refund if you wish. Traditional sales teams are getting downsized.

On the one hand, it's exciting to see that Tesla feels confident moving to a more efficient online experience, especially since they sell _cars_.

On the other, this feels like they are withdrawing boots on the ground in favor of using only air support. That strategy hasn't won a lot of wars.</comment>


'Star Wars hoverbikes' may be coming to the US military - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33244861

<comment><USER2> We've had something similar since the 60's:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_X- Jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_X-Jet)

From the info I've found it looks like it was never adopted because it didn't fill a niche that helicopters or unmanned vehicles didn't do better. I also read that it required quite a bit of concentration to fly it. Nowadays that would be a non issue if we parked some sensors and software between the pilot input and the control surfaces.</comment>


London fire: Flames engulf tower block - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40269625 <comment><AUTHOR> My thoughts and prayers to the victims and there families.</comment>


Don't judge an email by its length. - <AUTHOR> http://sahillavingia.com/blog/dont-judge-an-email-by-its-length/ <comment><USER2> Is it okay to judge a blog post by its width?

<http://i.imgur.com/wsqPk.png></comment>


Ask HN: Those getting 25,000+ Organic Visits a month – How did you do it? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Quality content is the most important thing.

I also noticed Google sent quite a bit more visitors my way after ditching an old version of Wordpress and migrating to Ghost, likely because pages loaded faster and my site worked on mobile devices. So pick a framework that's fast and mobile friendly.

I checked Google Analytics and saw what topics people were searching for and clicking on the most, which influenced what I wrote about/expanded on in subsequent articles.

<comment><AUTHOR> How often should you add new content?

What is a good level of content to add?

I am currently trying to add around 1-2 pages a day.. Is that going to take me ages to get traffic from?

<comment><USER2> I tried to write a _quality_ article once per month. It took me a few years but traffic steadily grew, albeit slowly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Lots of content. This helps if you are doing SEO or social or anything at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> But surely just adding content is not going to get you to 25k+ visits a month?

There needs to be more than that right?

<comment><USER3> The content is the foundation of everything else.

A classic marketing problem is how do you promote a real estate agent in city X? You need links, you need shares, media attention, etc.

Nobody wants to link the business card page of a real estate agent. However, if that real estate agent has a blog and has interesting things to say that can attract people who are searching for many different things, get real links, shares, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome thank you.... So need to build a content plan and keep adding content to the site over time..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Music Adding Podcasts - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nwquah/status/1292904252193439746 <comment><USER2> I can't get over the Amazon non-disparagement requirement for all podcasts hosted on the platform.</comment>


Gradberry (YC W15) Curates Technical Talent - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/from-pakistan-to-y-combinator-gradberry-vets-technical-talent/

<comment><USER2> Hey guys, founder here, our team (in addition to our shortlisting algorithms) curates candidates through technical interviews by checking and verifying an engineer's github accounts and code repos- article was a tad unclear on the process. The human touch is just an add-on- through technical in-person interviews we are verifying that the automated process has not missed out on talent being shortlisted.

Think of it this way, we are aiming to find engineers that can immediately plug in to a company's code base as soon as they join, by verifying their current contributions on github.

(Full disclosure: we built recruiting software that hired for 1,500 companies prior to the current gradberry product). Happy to take any more of your questions! P.S. And yes we are focusing on the US market

</comment><comment><USER3> What qualifies Gradberry to be the vetters (candidates are "vetted by the Gradberry team"). Because the founder is a "nerd". Another stupid power play.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this for folks in the states?</comment>


Red Tape Blues (chart) - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/07/daily-chart-2

<comment><USER2> Doing business WA, CA and NM my consulting firm is paying about 4% of gross receipts to cover Accountants, Attorney and Advisors fees for handling state and federal "red tape". The process needs to be streamlined.</comment>


How Node.js helped AdClick.it scale - <AUTHOR> http://a.ndri.us/blog/the-power-of-node-js

<comment><AUTHOR> A very good example of I/O scaling that Node (and any proper event loop concurrency implementation) can perform real well.</comment>


Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/24/microsoft-pulling-free-development-tools-for-windows-8-desktop-apps/

<comment><USER2> Just another step towards a closed, locked down world where every app is vetted, approved and ultimately constrained to not compete with the business interests of the two largest tech companies in the world.

I know, people will say, this hardly makes a difference, right? But all the steps hardly make a difference. OSX Mountain Lion defaulting to only allow apps signed with a certificate from Apple? Why, the user can just disable that ... not including Flash or Java? Sure, just install them! It all hardly makes a difference. But all these steps put together - they make a difference!

Slowly and surely we're being led like lambs to the slaughter to a world where everything we say or do with our technology will be under the control of giant tech companies that ultimately care only about their own profit. This is just one more little step to ensure that developers preferentially make apps for Microsoft's walled garden rather than free apps that run anywhere and might compete with their interests.

Edit: correction about Mac App store vs signed apps

<comment><USER3> I think most would agree that this trend is there - the debate is how much it matters, how long it will last, and what, if anything, we should do about it.

One point however: in Mountain Lion, the default is to allow any signed app to be run. One alternative setting is to only allow App Store apps. The other, likely more popular, alternative setting is to allow any app.

<comment><USER4> I do think it matters a lot. If the Windows and Mac platforms are only accessible through App Stores then we, developers, will have to pay whatever royalty or percentage those companies see fit to charge. We may also lose the ability to publish software at all to those platforms if they so decide without much notice and maybe even without recourse.

Although we could pass the expense of the App Store or absorb the cost, I guess most software companies would go bankrupt if Microsoft or Apple cancelled their accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Although I think HTML5 is actually a pretty lousy software stack for application development, I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to the arguments that the evolution of the web is absolutely essential for the survival of free & open computing.

It was bad enough that their mobile platforms are so locked down, but with Apple and Microsoft now turning the screws ever tighter on their previously open desktop platforms and development tools the future is looking grim. Remember, once a freedom is relinquished it can be very difficult to get it back.

As much as I dislike trying to build complex apps on the web stack I'm starting to feel an almost moral obligation as a hacker to throw my weight behind the web, for whatever it's worth.

<comment><USER6> > Remember, once a freedom is relinquished it can be very difficult to get it > back.

No, it's not. I'm a huge, huge MS fanboi. I've used WP7 since it launched, I've been using Windows full time for quite a few years now and love it, I'm a huge .NET fan, etc. But about two weeks ago, I switched back to using Linux full-time. I only plan on using Windows in VMs for running software I'm reversing; everything else will be done natively under Linux.

Windows 8 on ARM being so locked down was the last straw. I'm done playing their game, even if it means a slight drop in productivity in the short term.

<comment><USER7> About your productivity levels, don't worry about it because in the end you'll end up being much more productive.

The one thing you must do is to embrace the Unix way of doing things. Learn the basic command-line tools and use them daily. Learn to use Emacs, because the same shortcuts are available in the shell.

This book is great btw: Unix Power Tools (<http://amzn.to/Klexhf>)

Another thing you have to realize is that Unix was built for polyglots. Many Windows developers usually stay within the walls of .NET, but on Unix that's a mistake. Learn Java, learn a good scripting language (I recommend Ruby because it is great for scripting, has a thriving community and can also run on top of the JVM), learn C along with the POSIX APIs.

Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA are good substitutes for Visual Studio, however I work with Emacs, because in dynamic languages the APIs and workflow are optimized for non-IDE usage and an IDE just stays in my way. I still use an IDE for Java, but that's only because in Java I can't drop to a REPL.

Also, Linux is great for your desktop, but only if you have hardware that's compatible with it. So be careful when picking hardware and do some reading first, otherwise it will ruin your mood. OS X is also an option btw, but I wouldn't make long-term commitments to this platform because Apple is even worse than Microsoft in some regards.

<comment><USER6> I've been using Linux since 1999, ran it full time for many years. However, my productivity is still diminished, primarily due to the lack of decent reversing tools. IDA 6 is _ok_ on Linux, but that's about where it ends. Eventually I'll build my tools up again, but it's a long climb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET.

With BizSpark or similar, you're looking at something like $400 total to get as many copies of VS.NET as you need for your entire team. And all the other dev tools everybody needs. And Windows licenses for all their boxes. And Office. And everything else Microsoft makes.

So even assuming a team size of one, it's still closer to free than it is to a day's worth of your bill rate. Considering how much better the paid version of VS.NET is than the "Express" version, it's not even something worth thinking about.

Given that, the fact that the Free version does this or doesn't do that has pretty much zero bearing on the life of a guy writing software on the Microsoft stack.

<comment><USER9> > This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real > development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET.

For C/C++ hobbyists and Open Source developers, MSVC used to be the compiler of choice on Windows. The Ruby community has embraced mingw more and more, and I think everyone else will (and should) do the same. Breaks my heart because MSVC has good C++11 support.

I don't think any professional will care about this. In fact, it's probably good news for them (us). Any barrier to entry means slightly less competition.

<comment><USER8> Why is your heart breaking? The new version still supports c++, right?

Just because it's a hobby doesn't mean you can't pay a little money for things. I have lots of hobbies that are _way_ more expensive than computer programming.

One surfboard costs more than you'll pay for a full VS.NET license. Over the 4 years this next version will keep you going, I'll go through thousands of dollars worth of rock shoes. A gamer will go through thousands of dollars worth of games. A mountain biker will replace his $1500 bike in that timeframe, and a snowboarder will rack up thousands of dollars in lift tickets and baggy trousers.

All these things have in common that: A. They're enjoyable, and: B. They cost money. Programming computers is no different. If you want to do it, and there's a good new tool out that costs money, why would you not buy it?

<comment><USER9> > Why is your heart breaking?

I used the free MSVC2003 compiler during high school, when $600 was half a year's worth of pocket money, and when mingw didn't even link a basic UNICODE program properly. I eventually saved up enough money to buy the "full" MSVC2003 Standard for ~€130, what later became Express. I never made a single penny off it. I bet many people who got into programming through hobby gamedev lived a similar life.

After making the switch to OS X during university, I often used the (now free) MSVC Express for playing around with Open Source on Windows. Or to compile a copy of my game for Windows friends. Tiny stuff that's not worth three-digit sums. If I can't toy around and be happy on Windows, then I'll forever stay in Apple wonderland.

Both scenarios will be too expensive to imagine now. If anything, people will use mingw instead. And that's what breaks my heart - I really wish people could use the awesome MSVC2011 compiler instead, with all the new C++ features we have been looking forward to for years. MSVC2010 is still good enough, but for how long?

<comment><USER9> Seems mingw's C++11 support is getting there too - though I couldn't find a definitive list. That solves some of my heartache at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4020222>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021690>

<comment><USER10> Why was I downvoted for linking to previous comment threads about this same story?

<comment><USER11> Possibly because you hadn't said what the links were, and the downvoters were lazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do we have to pay the Windows Store registration fee to deploy a Metro app? Or is there still way to send out an .exe to our friends and colleagues?

Even if we get free development tools it would sucks if we can't share our work for free.

</comment><comment><USER13> \+ Freelancer devs will be 'encouraged' to develop for Win 8, an argument can be made this will positively impact Win 8 sells, albeit it will be a difficult argument

\- Open source development on Windows will take a hit

\- Freelancers will either stick with older and less effective tools, or will choose to abandon Desktop

\- Users will tend to get less new software for their Windows 7

+/- Will not affect big corporations, e.g. gamemakers, who use the professional version

\- This will provide no additional motivation to bulk of the users (e.g. corporate, gamers) to switch to Windows 8

\- This will further 'encourage' piracy of VS11

<comment><USER14> Freelancer devs will spend the money on the full version of the tools instead of just using the free version. You have to be a pretty small potatoes freelancer to not be able to afford visual studio in some incarnation. See also: graphic artists and photoshop.

<comment><USER15> It's not always about beeing able to afford something or not. I don't _want_ to support a business model that makes it harder for beginners. So yeah, when I have no choice due to project reasons I'll be forced to buy one obviously, but I don't like it and I will try even harder to get away from working on projects where I'm forced to do this in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The whole direction Microsoft is taking with Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11 seems kinda disturbing.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think they should instead focus on making Metro appealing to develop on, rather than making it the only free option.

At least they still allow other compilers and any programming language.

I wish Ubuntu would step up their development resources game, so that it becomes less painful to do anything there.

<comment><USER18> It's only Visual Studio 11 Express Edition which is limited to Metro. VS 2010 EE will still be available for developing Windows 8 desktop applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> How will this affect applications like Matlab 2012 64bit, which require a compiler (such as in the Win 7 SDK) to be installed to use certain features such as SIMULINK?

<http://www.mathworks.com/support/compilers/R2012a/win64.html>

Will there even be a compiler they could licence from MS and bundle?

<comment><USER18> VS Express 2010 will continue to be available.

Previous discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4020222>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's long past time since Visual Studio was the only game in town. Back when it was between VS6 and Borland C++ Builder, I was initially attracted by Builder's drag-and-drop UI construction - it seemed very odd at the time that "Visual" studio didn't offer that functionality. But Borland's descent into bug-ridden stagnation and my discovery of wxWidgets pushed me into the VC++ world for upwards of a decade.

But now with Eclipse reaching maturity (it's the main IDE at the banking multinational where I recently worked), I'm finding less and less justification to stick with Visual Studio when my MSDN subscription expires. Another very promising tool is Qt Creator: <http://qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools>

This has less of the UI quirkiness of Eclipse, and the built-in documentation is great. Qt is now using Clang for code validation, but can be set to use Gcc or the Microsoft compiler. So given that I'm using Qt anyway for cross- platform UI, this may be the way forward.

</comment><comment><USER21> Alternative article on Ars Technica: [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/05/no-cos...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/05/no-cost-desktop-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8/)

</comment><comment><USER22> AOL spam.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/18/a-lo...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/18/a-look- ahead-at-the-visual-studio-11-product-lineup-and-platform-support.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER23> The more accessible the grass route tools the greater the chance of adoption. Adoption for Win8 / RT maybe acceptable with the new Express options but frankly I don't see C# developers of the future applying for licences for IDEs to compile their software. They'll just adopt a different more (immediately) accessible platform. Companies will struggle to recruit for server hosted line of business applications. The ecosystem will suffocate. Managers and engineers will consider different platforms as part of their due diligence, as a result I predict less Windows licences will be sold.

</comment><comment><USER24> Microsoft is really, really doing well in their push to get users and developers to move to Linux. I can see no other reason for this move.

</comment><comment><USER25> Walled garden platforms are taking over partly because all operating systems are fundamentally broken with regard to privilege isolation, security, and application installability/uninstallability.

The fact is that for the average non-techie user, allowing unsigned/untested apps results in a system full of malware and crappy software that destroys it. That's because the OS is not isolated from apps, and apps are not isolated from each other.

The popularity of virtualization is also due in large part to this. Why can't you just rent accounts on large Linux servers? Why is KVM, OpenVZ/Parallels Virtuozzo, etc. necessary? Because everything requires root and everything pollutes the OS space.

Broken, broken, broken.

The way Macs package .app directories full of all files related to an application is a huge step in the right direction. The next step is to utterly forbid "installers" and make everything work this way, and to add stronger privilege isolation and organized APIs for apps to talk to each other. These should probably be based around peer-to-peer networking so that an app can locate and talk to another app regardless of what box it's on.

That would be significantly less broken.

Then allow apps to have their own addresses. We probably have to wait for IPv6 for this, but not necessarily. Then an app can bind, run services, etc. without requiring root.

Finally, banish the entire concept of root/administrator except for OS developers and OS maintenance. The vast, vast majority of users (even power users) should never need to even know these exist.

The bottom line is that the entire concept of "installing" something "on" the OS needs to be killed. Installers are ugly nasty hacks. Package management (ala rpm, deb, etc.) is _also_ an ugly hack. Signed apps in walled gardens is an even nastier and downright evil hack to get around the brokenness of these ugly hacks.

<comment><USER26> > The next step is to utterly forbid "installers" and make everything work > this way, and to add stronger privilege isolation and organized APIs for > apps to talk to each other.

I agree and disagree with you. I would be awesome if I could restrict apps and forbid installers. I'd also like to be able to run arbitrary apps as forbidden to use the internet and make them think they are reading/writing to /some/path/ but they are really reading/writing to /app/sandbox/some/path. I'd love the option.

But then there are problems with that as well. Want to make an app plugin? Nope. Want to share libraries? Nope. Want to talk to an app? Hope it's got a canonical port number.

So I don't think enforcing boundaries is the way to go. I'd love to see other opinions and whether or not there are any alternatives, though.

<comment><USER25> I think there are creative solutions to this. Like I said: there would need to be a well-designed inter-app API.

Plugins for instance could be handled like firmware updates to a device. Send the image to the app via the API. "Here is your plugin..." Or some apps could have their own plugin stores, ala the Chrome store. There are different ways of handling this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Apart from IDE and related tools (which is a pretty big reason, to be sure), is there a good reason to use Microsoft's C/C++ compiler over MinGW ?

</comment><comment><USER28> Not great news for XNA hobbyists like myself.

Oh well, I guess I'll just move to Java to create some games. It worked for Notch :)

<comment><USER7> Java is great for hobbyists. Checkout: <http://jmonkeyengine.com/>

Also, checkout MonoGame: <http://monogame.codeplex.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's developers, developers, developers. Until it isn't.</comment>


So You're Getting a Ph.D.: Welcome to the Worst Job Market in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.weeklystandard.com/so-youre-getting-a-ph.d./article/1059359#.VxVRECG6Ck0.facebook <comment><USER2> It'll take 20 years, but slowly over time, informed, intelligent people will choose another profession. And then there will be no one qualified to teach. And then the universities charging $90,000 a year tuition will panic.

The problem is that everything is a business, and with the managerial class reaping the benefits of lowering the payroll, intelligent people are getting steered away. Because there are a lot of Ph.D's currently out there, there are some willing to do the work, but I guarantee that more and more will choose other paths.

The internet and articles like this will deter them.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly how market works: when there is an oversupply of X the price of X drops and X suppliers move on to something more profitable.

<comment><USER4> If people were fully rational, sure. But they're not. Record companies have been treating musicians like crap for at least a lifetime now, and there are still people dreaming of record contracts.

Will the academic job market be different? Let's hope so. An early sign of it would be dropping application rates to grad school programs, particularly the less prestigious ones.

<comment><USER3> "Fully rational" in this case means "want to sell high and buy low". It's a very low bar to clear, especially in the job market for PhDs.

>Record companies have been treating musicians like crap for at least a lifetime now, and there are still people dreaming of record contracts.

If I understood you correctly, you are implying that musicians have better options than signing with labels and are acting irrationally by doing so? I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me strongly of an article in the economist published in 2010 - the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Made me glad (in a way) that I didn't finish my own doctorate, although I did find the research very personally fulfilling. article: [http://www.economist.com/node/17723223](http://www.economist.com/node/17723223)</comment>


Automating High-Level Economic Thinking Using Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/intuitionmachine/economic-modeling-and-deep-learning-dcd61b351cad <comment><AUTHOR> Economics and Deep Learning : a unique approach</comment>


Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.transparency.org/cpi2013/results <comment><USER2> If you're a cynic then the key goes from cheap (dark colored countries) to expensive (lighter colored countries) corruption.

<comment><USER3> Italy seems to be an outlier in this respect: faring worse than Portugal, Spain and Turkey.

Chile and Uruguay seem to be perceived as less corrupt as their GDP per capita would lead you to think.

I think we need a scatterplot!

With flags: [http://imgur.com/Ld0bXTO](http://imgur.com/Ld0bXTO)

With names: [http://imgur.com/vX7dsTV](http://imgur.com/vX7dsTV)

<comment><USER4> Very cool, and illuminating. I'm actually a little surprised to see that lower corruption correlates so well with higher income. Admittedly, I could believe that part of that is a self selecting phenomena - IE, people with money immigrate to non-corrupt places. It may also be that alot of the money that's corrupting the cheap places is flowing from the wealthy ones.

<comment><USER3> First of all this is perceived corruption and not corruption.

Secondly I think it's fairly trivial that often corruption is borne out of a need. I think people emigrate a lot less than you'd think.

<comment><USER4> On the first, the implied assumption is that perceived corruption correlates reasonably well to actual. (I haven't proven)

Don't disagree with the general second statement. Sure, corruption can come about because of an unmet need. It's market forces at work when the market won't respond. But the implied point that the higher per capita income results in less met needs doesn't seem intuitively obvious, since purchasing power often rises at near parity with PC Income. Several places perceived as corrupt on this list actually have better purchasing power per (money unit) than the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The only one there that doesn't line up with my perceptions is Chile. I went there this time last year and their police and officials were nothing but transparent and professional. The fact that it isn't the same color as Canada must primarily be due to a general bias against South America as a whole.

<comment><USER6> Or may be things are just uneven..

While officials in touch with foreigners in Santiago are clean, it could be that it's less the case at the local BMV in remote town..

<comment><USER5> I wasn't just in Santiago, I hit Valparaiso, Pichilemu, some small towns I cannot remember near the mountains and the sea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This appears goofy.

 _" The 2012 CPI draws on 13 different surveys and assessments from 12 different institutions. The institutions are the African Development Bank, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Global Insight, International Institute for Management Development, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, Political Risk Services, the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the World Justice Project."_ ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index))

Alex Cobham's Foreign Policy article explains it reflects _" the opinions of an internationally focused elite, typically from a corporate background and perhaps a similar education"_. Preferable are alternatives where _" a group of a country's citizens are considered instead of restricting the view to elite perceptions only"_. ([http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/22/corrupting_...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/22/corrupting_perceptions))

<comment><USER6> I was about to argue that institutions like Freedom House are ideologically biased but then I realized that each of the institutions have very different biases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> May be I should download the brochure to learn more about the methodology but some of the countries at the bottom seem weird.

North Korea is last ? Is there even room for corruption in the North Korean public sector ? I imagine it being arbitrary and all sort of things but I wouldn't dare attempting to bribe a North Korean official.

Does Somalia even have a public sector ?

<comment><USER8> Re north Korea, it has an endemic amount of tolerated black market. There have been numerous articles on it.

<comment><USER6> Ok but is it similar to the Black Market that existed in the 80's in the USSR or closer to the late 90's in Cuba ?

If it's the first case, it's argue that the most corrupt rank isn't deserved. If it's the latter, we're getting close but we're still far from places like Guinea-Bissau.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lawyer is posting an open letter (plea) asking the king of Saudi Arabic to stop the theft of millions by a Saudi billionaire, yet no western media outlet dares to write about one of the most corrupt states here.(Arabic) link to the desperate plea [http://www.alweeam.com.sa/259063/%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%B7-%D...](http://www.alweeam.com.sa/259063/%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%B7-%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%88%D9%82%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%AF-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%81%D9%8A/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Makes me want to move the denmark :)

<comment><USER11> One day, there will be a Danish startup on "Who's hiring".

<comment><USER12> You might have to wait a while. Denmark has a very strong "nobody ever got fired contracting IBM" business culture. There are one or two consultancies in Copenhagen that I'm aware of that my friends work at and could recommend. Most startups there seem to be design outfits. I'm told incorporating there is hard but didn't seem so to me from the requirements I read - you just need a lot of money available at the outset just to employ anyone (that's a positive, imo).

Anyway, there's starting to be some changes there - IBM missed a big contract or two with large clients to smaller outfits. Between that shift and the quality grads coming out of DTU, there may be some tech opportunities there if anyone starts investing money that way.

I would _love_ to go work over there but I doubt I could meet the requirements and I'm not lucky enough to have an EU citizenship.

<comment><USER13> There's lots of cool start-up culture in Denmark. (Podio, Zendesk, Zyb, etc)

While the system isn't always too kind to start-ups (high tax etc) they still do exist.

I've been working as a developer in Denmark for 7 years now (currently Xamarin) and haven't had a problem finding interesting projects.

<comment> workhere-io _While the system isn 't always too kind to start-ups (high tax etc)_

Actually, apart from high personal income tax, Denmark is one of the most business-friendly countries in the world. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7391268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7391268)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As others here have noted, this doesn't seem to be measuring corruption. Instead, and after reading their meager "methodology" (we compile these results from "international elite"), it appears that what this is measuring instead is a country's business friendliness.

And that's a fine thing to measure, but don't call it "corruption". It does a disservice to us in fundamentally corrupt yet business-friendly countries.

<comment><USER15> It's the Corruption _Perception_ Index, not the _Absolute_ Corruption Index.

Debate the semantics of the word "corruption" as much as you want, but the index is found to have a strong correlation with black market activity and an "overabundance of regulation or unnecessary restriction of business activity". [1]

That doesn't sound like the countries are business friendly to me.

[1] [http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1013882225402](http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1013882225402)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a really annoying UX, I can't even tell who the top five countries are because the hover-overs overflow above the visible area of the map.

<comment><USER17> Yes, but it's zoomable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, Mexico sharing ranks along Nigeria, Kosovo and Ethiopia. Not surprised.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am sure a lot of people will not agree with me here. But I feel Sweden is more corrupt than it appears. [http://sloseriombudsmannen.se](http://sloseriombudsmannen.se)

<comment><USER20> I (never living in either) feel like US is way more corrupt than Germany, France, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can not see how Saudi Arabia got that far,corruption is sucking billions there yet it ranks higher than many other countries.

<comment><USER21> That.

I don't get how Paraguay looks worse than us at Brazil, and Saudi Arabia looks better. I also don't get how Brazil and China can be at the same level, and how Russia can be so worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting 3 way tie for last place between Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan.

</comment><comment><USER23> The map of North America looks a little funny without the Great Lakes drawn in.</comment>


102M dead California trees 'unprecedented in our modern history' - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-dead-trees-20161118-story.html <comment><USER2> Was curious how this drought compared to direct human impact on trees, quickly mashed together some facts.

There just over 400B trees live around the world, 7.3B in California. Thats 1.8% of estimated world tree population vs holding 0.5% of people population.

301M of 4.9B (6%) trees died in Texas drought of 2011. Drought in California currently accounts for 102M (1.4%) of trees in the state dying.

Also note California has about 1 tree per person in the world. The worst famine in 150 yrs would kill 30M humans / year if it happened today. This considers the % of human deaths / year by famine of 1876-1879 as a benchmark. The article would imply 72M trees dying / year per drought in California. Not sure how comparable that is given different lifespan / reproduction rates, but kinda interesting.

Worldwide people cut down 15 billion trees each year. Maybe 7B for fuel, 6.5B for paper/etc and 1.5B for lumber. If this was distributed equally (which its probably not in reality), that would be equivalent of 274M trees cut down by humans in California / yr.

The global tree count has fallen by 46% since the beginning of human civilization.

[1] [http://time.com/4019277/trees-humans- deforestation/](http://time.com/4019277/trees-humans-deforestation/) [2] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-trees-are-cut-down-a-day- for-...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-trees-are-cut-down-a-day-for-paper) [3] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-trees-are-in- California](https://www.quora.com/How-many-trees-are-in-California) [4] [http://www.chron.com/news/article/2011-Texas-drought- slaught...](http://www.chron.com/news/article/2011-Texas-drought- slaughtered-301-million-trees-3893965.php) [5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines) [6] [https://ourworldindata.org/famines/](https://ourworldindata.org/famines/)

<comment><USER3> Current (highly uncertain) estimates of the number of trees globally are around 3 trillion. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7568/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7568/full/nature14967.html)

The uncertainties are pretty large, but it's reasonable to assume that 400 billion is very much a lower bound.

<comment><USER4> So here I come along, as a mechanical engineer who's made a living writing software and administrating servers and networks, with a more-than-passing interest in climate science and what it might mean for mankind. In just these 2 comments, I see a perfect example of what puts me off to try to wrap my head around the "debate."

First guy says there are 400B trees, down around 50% from the beginning of time. That puts the original figure at about 800B. Second guy says there are actually 3T trees presently, which would mean an almost 400% increase over the first guy's original figure. Both cite sources, which I'm sure are well researched, exhaustively written, were presented in peer-reviewed journals, and which made their authors famous, and got lots of grant money for their respective universities.

Which am I supposed to believe? That we're killing off all the forests, or we're drowning in them? It's one figure, but it makes all the difference in the argument, and the laws which might be written AROUND that argument.

I'm not asking for clarification. I'm just pointing out that there are reasonable people who are interested in the discussion, and care about the outcome, but get put off by the inconsistencies in the facts by the published reports. (And don't get me started about reading the studies themselves. They are purposely obfuscated with domain-specific language, which would require a degree to decipher.)

<comment><USER5> You assume the estimate is based on numbers of trees instead of acres of forest. Two groups may measure the same coastline using different resolutions and end up with significantly different numbers. Likewise depending on the minimum size you get vastly different tree counts.

PS: Younger forests have more trees and significantly less wood.

<comment><USER6> He's not assuming anything. He's saying garbage in, garbage out. How can there be a reasonable discussion if we don't even know what the thing is we are trying to discuss?

<comment><USER5> Read the papers. He is arguing that they are using the same definition without doing so, thus removing his credibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We ([https://tensorflight.com](https://tensorflight.com)) are working on utilizing deep learning for detecting trees the most affected by drought in aerial images collected by UAVs, among other things. We detected several hundred K trees last week.

Contact me (firstname.lastname@example.com) if you want to get involved in any capacity (either as client, partner or coworker).

Disclaimer: I am a cofounder.

<comment><USER8> After those areas have been detected and a pattern emerges what are the resulting action items? Can building models actually help mitigate the losses?

<comment><USER7> Selective irrigation can deliver water to trees with the most need for water. There is no good automated system for selective irrigation yet without human irrigators or expensive installation. Autonomous irrigation drones will happen at one point.

I must add that so far we have been focusing on orchards rather than forests. We are looking into expanding to forests and we have been in touch with the government.

<comment><USER9> > Autonomous irrigation drones will happen at one point.

Will that be cost effective? Water seems enormously heavy for what it is. Or will they be automated land irrigators?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Welcome to pine bark beetles California. We had them before they were cool. Signed - Colorado, Montana, Idaho et al

<comment><USER11> We need large and widespread forest fires to combat the beetles and rejuvenate these biomes. There's a reason the beetle epidemic coincides with expansive human habitation of the West and poorly considered forestry policies.

<comment><USER12> Montana has had the major fires in and around the park system. The trees that are left are still heavily affected by beetle blight.

<comment><USER11> Of course they are. The fires burn the trees with the beetles, and the fires also clear dense forest leaving meadows that the beetles won't traverse.

<comment><USER12> The fires in question weren't from recent years. These lands and tree regrowth are in the burn areas from the late 1980's and 1990's.

The types of pines that burned in Montana require fire to procreate; fire causes the cones to open spreading seeds. No fire no new trees. There are no meadows after burn. After 10-20 years, you have dense thin tree regrowth. The beetles do great there.

Link to tree type: [http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/lodgepole- pin...](http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/lodgepole-pine-trees- love-forest-fires/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These trees have been too big and too numerous the last 50 years or so. Some sort of cull was to be expected. Lightning has traditionally been nature's way of cutting back undergrowth and surplus trees but that's no longer considered an option.

<comment><USER14> That's an interesting perspective

<comment><USER15> He's not alone with that perspective. [1]

> Due to decades of fire suppression, a changing climate, and a shortage of > forest restoration efforts, there are significant areas of overgrown, > diseased, dry, and threatened forests throughout the 25 million-acre Sierra > Nevada Region. While fire has historically been a natural part of the Sierra > ecosystem, the unnatural conditions in our forests today can lead to fires > that do far more damage than good.

1\. [http://www.sierranevada.ca.gov/press-room/sierra-wildfire- wi...](http://www.sierranevada.ca.gov/press-room/sierra-wildfire-wire/state- of-the-sierra-nevadas-forests-report-says-forests-are-in-decline-immediate- action-is-needed)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> They've been cutting trees in Yosemite for hazard prevention. Driving is like playing frogger.

</comment><comment><USER17> More will grow in its place, like what has happened throughout history.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wanted to read this article but the LA Times is evidently a member of the annoying website design committee.

</comment><comment><USER19> Global warming is not real! (Will the world really just accept this from Trump? Don't mean to turn on a flame war but it's really about this. Think global warming is bad now? How about in 20 more years?)

I hope Zuckerberg & Brin will do something to improve the direction things are going. New billionaires seem much smarter than the old ones.

<comment><USER20> why should conservatives care about California, at state that consistently votes lib?

<comment><USER21> Look, I'm not American, but why would they foresake a state because of the state's predominant Voting habits?

1 in 3 voted Republican, are they going to be thrown to the wolves because of the other 2 ?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_California,_2016)

I know Chris Christie is implicated in blocking traffic in New Jersey, but punishing a state is a whole different league.

<comment><USER22> The way US voting works, each state gets a bunch of electoral college votes, and these determine the presidency. If over 50% of the population of a state votes for a candidate, all their electoral college votes are designated for that candidate.

If one party has no realistic way of reaching that 50% margin, then any concessions they offer would be useless as far as getting their candidate into the presidency.

<comment><USER23> We also have this in the US: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering)

(Drawing voting districts to make them advantageous to one party or the other depending on who gets to draw the lines)

We really need to move to popular vote instead of all these games.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


One Small Martian Step for Man One Giant Leap Toward Annihilation of All Mankind - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/12/28/one-small-martian-step-for-manone-giant-leap-toward-the-annihilation-of-all-mankind/ <comment><USER2> The idea that unintelligent life from another planet would be unstoppable on Earth, devouring everything in its path, seems ridiculous to me. All organisms are really good at repelling foreign invasions, both inorganic and organic. The only pathogens or organisms that have any chance at all have co-evolved over billions of years, just to have a small chance at succeeding against a healthy target.

Any alien microorganisms that find themselves released into the wild on Earth are going to be devoured. They won't stand a chance against the millions of existing species and their varied arsenal of weapons. They weren't here to evolve defenses.

Some more sci-fi ideas like inorganic life or nanobots are a different story, but if we're talking about the equivalent of Martian fungi, I'm not worried.</comment>


Firefox Notes Status - <AUTHOR> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/notes-status <comment><AUTHOR> Firefox Notes will shut down on November 1st, 2020.</comment>


Google Will Sunset The Meebo Bar On June 6 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/28/google-will-sunset-the-meebo-bar-on-june-6-to-focus-on-google-sign-in-and-plug-ins/

<comment><USER2> Original post from the Meebo team <http://www.meebo.com/support/article/176/></comment>


Show HN: Jekyll with Bootstrap running on a terminal.com container - <AUTHOR> https://terminal.com/tiny/ThveTglHFr

<comment><AUTHOR> This terminal.com container has the Jekyll static blogging system used by GitHub ready to go! It also has a simple site example made using Jekyll Bootstrap.</comment>


Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons  - <AUTHOR> http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3156

<comment><USER2> Oh wow - I love it. I love it both for the angle and I thought the writing was great.</comment>


Test our new online data warehouse for free - <AUTHOR> https://repods.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> We have recently launched our new product REPODS ([https://repods.io](https://repods.io)) and would like to hear your feedback! REPODS is an online data warehouse service for managing and analyzing data histories in data pods. Data can be imported via various interfaces, which facilitate the integration of all data (ERP, CRM, etc.). IoT devices can also stream data directly to a data pod for cross-analysis with all other data warehouse data.

Data Pods are compact data warehouses equipped with storage and computing resources and all necessary tools. Each pod runs on its own infrastructure for maximum security and stable performance. The infrastructure can be flexibly scaled within a few seconds. REPODS is the ideal solution for small or medium- sized companies, as well as departments of large companies that are looking for a modern and lightweight industry 4.0 data warehouse solution.

Already starting from 0€ monthly you can create your own Pod. Both flat rates with pre-defined resources and a freely configurable pay-per-use model are offered.</comment>


Show HN: Mobile app to get feedback from job interviews and improve - <AUTHOR> https://afterinterview.com <comment><USER2> I like the idea. It also seems to be a good solution to keep track of jobs I interviewed.</comment>