The scientist who determined the age of the Earth – and then saved it - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it <comment><USER2> Actual article title: "The Most Important Scientist You've Never Heard Of".

"In August 1945, the United States dropped some of that enriched uranium on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing upwards of 105,000 people. Six days after a mushroom cloud swallowed Nagasaki, Japan surrendered. "

The Nagasaki bomb was a _plutonium_ bomb, not U-235.[0]

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


Show HN: Tesla Model S Certified Pre-Owned Search Engine - <AUTHOR> https://tesla-cpo.appspot.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks nice. Being super-specific about model is really more useful to sellers than buyers, now I have a good idea of what my early Model S might be worth as a trade-in. As a buyer, I'm more likely to be a bit open-minded about the various battery sizes and options, but not necessarily as open-minded as "everything" or "just 1 thing". For example, I might be open to any kind of 19" wheel, but I'd have to do 3 separate searches in the current interface.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi there --

This is my first project, while trying to teach my self about web development. I should have been more clear that this site only searches the data posted to Tesla's US pre-owned website. My goal was to allow people looking for a used Model S greater searching capability than is available from Tesla. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback -- I see your point about finding a balance between "anything" or just one thing -- I will look to incorporate this in the next update.</comment>


Eric Schmidt says AI will be key to U.S. national security - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/ex-google-boss-says-artificial-intelligence-will-be-key-to-u-s-national-security-11596139058 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/dv7Vb](https://archive.vn/dv7Vb)

</comment><comment><USER2> > ""I can think of no higher priority for the nation _once the pandemic is > behind us_ ," Mr. Schmidt said."

Nice to see Eric Schmidt knows how to set priorities. (emphasis mine)</comment>


The best Android smartphones of 2015, priced from high to low - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/3017078/mobile-wireless/best-android-smartphone-reviews-2015.html#slide11 <comment><AUTHOR> Deciding on which Android phone to buy can be difficult. On top of a record 1.1 billion Android phones shipped in 2015, there were 24,000 unique Android devices in the wild this year, according to Open Signal. Android smartphones vary widely, and range in price from less than $100 to over $700.

Buying a bad Android phone has become uncommon, as Android has reached parity with Apple's iOS and is optimized to run fast even on low-cost hardware. Competition between component makers has simultaneously improved quality and reduced prices.

Ordered high to low based on list price, these 10 best-in-class phones demonstrate the diversity of consumer choice.

</comment><comment><USER2> the given link goes to the _cheapest_ \-- the last page. First page here:

[http://www.networkworld.com/article/3017078/mobile- wireless/...](http://www.networkworld.com/article/3017078/mobile- wireless/best-android-smartphone-reviews-2015.html)</comment>


Seven reasons why I'm not buying a Chromebook. - <AUTHOR> http://dmurray.org/7-reasons-why-im-not-buying-a-chromebook

<comment><USER3> They should really call it a "mombook" because it's ideal for parents or grandparents who just want to get on the internet and have a computer that just works and is simple. Imagine setting your family up with these and never getting tech support callsanymore.

</comment><comment><USER4> Regarding #5, ChromeOS is open source unlike OSX which is running on your macbook air. Both companies are motivated to collect information about you. The difference is that with ChromeOS you or someone else can identify when and how information is collected by reviewing the sourced code. With OSX, only Apple knows when and how. What they do with this information is a different answer.

</comment><comment><USER5> _1\. I need way more than just a browser. Y'know, little things like a mail client, terminal, vim, ssh, Skype, Spotify, etc._

This doesnt need to replace your more robust system.

 _2\. I have a Macbook Air._

See Above, but I dont have a macbook air. Many people dont. Many people can afford 20/month rather than the inflated price of the Air. (Dont argue with that, all Apple products are inflated in price - how else you think they are making so much damn money)

 _3\. It doesn't cost me anything._

This doesnt work for everyone.

 _4\. If I wanted a netbook, I'd buy a netbook. Why not just run Chrome inside Ubuntu? Chromebook's expensive in comparison._

I have (5) desktops, (4) laptops, (1) netbook, (2) smartphones and I still want one of these.

 _5\. So Google can't spy on me. Perhaps I'm paranoid. but the Chromebook could hoard huge amounts of usage data. I'd rather not give them the opportunity._

I agree with this, yet they spy on you already -- I assume you use google? I assume you have a GMail account?

We need a solution to that problem, avoiding the chromebook won't mitigate their spying.

 _6\. WiFi is everywhere I'd want to work. I don't care for the built-in 3G data. If I'm on the move - that's why my smartphone's [sic] for._

3G actually sucks - esp. compared to 4G. But wifi is not everywhere I go - <USER2> basically never available in transit.

 _7\. It's solving a problem that doesn't exist. I've never heard anyone wish they only had a browser. Not even my Mum._

I have wanted a browser only device for years. The iPad did exactly what you say there is no problem/market for.

Hell - I would buy one of these for my grandma _only_ for IM being always open on the countertop.

I think the writer of this article is too techie for his own good.

There are lots of reasons why _HE_ shouldn't buy a chromebook - but there are far more reasons why others should, and will.</comment>


Haiti imagery layer now available for Google Earth - <AUTHOR> http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-imagery-layer-now-available.html <comment><USER2> As an aside: why isn't the GE plugin available for Chrome on Mac?

Sigh.</comment>


Technology: Print me a Stradivarius - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18114327?story_id=18114327&fsrc=nwl <comment><USER2> Here are some "open source" 3d printers that you can build at home for under $1500:

* RepRap - A project with the lofty goal of printing circuit boards and becoming self-replicable (<http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>)

* Fab@Home - a 3d printer that tries to optimize print quality, but not necessarily print itself (<http://www.fabathome.org/>)

* MakerBot - A company that makes several variants of the RepRap (<http://makerbot.com/>)

There is a community site of 3d models to print at <http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:reprap>

<comment><USER2> HNers and engineering majors: There is a $20,000 prize from HumanityPlus for anyone to develop a RepRap that can print conductive material.

<http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/>

<http://reprap.org/wiki/Gada_Prize>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One of my favorite sci fi books on this subject is Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. The awesome part is that the book is about the manufacturing revolution that _follows_ the 3d printer. Always two++ steps ahead, that guy.

<comment><USER4> In Diamond Age it was interesting how the control of the printing material ("the source"), and designs was used for a new form of colonialism.

The former can easily be controlled in reality as well, but I wonder whether the open source ethos will be able to keep designs free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the command & control aspect of the Industrial age happened because of the need for and the benefits of economies of scale. There was a need to marshal together huge pools of capital, equipment, management structures, assembly lines, etc. With 3D printing and additive manufacturing, there is the hope of bringing peer-to-peer production that has successfully been implemented in software, information, culture & other intangibles, to the tangible physical realm. This is the direction we should be heading to, not the other way around of trying to apply Industrial age property laws and scarcity paradigms to the abundant fractal scalability of peer-to-peer production.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect this will NOT undermine economies of scale (at least in _some_ areas), due to 'toner' costs, operational costs, and power consumption. It will doubtless be less efficient to print a true-to-life oak 2x4 than it is to harvest and mill one with proper economies of scale set up.</comment>


This American Life tries to turn its radio audience onto podcasting - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/10/this-american-life-tries-to-turn-its-radio-audience-onto-podcasting-with-its-new-show-serial/

<comment><USER2> i'll bite</comment>


What killed Blackberry? Employees started buying their own devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/20/what-killed-blackberry-employees-started-buying-their-own-devices/

<comment><USER3> Not saying this is typical, but here is my experience of Blackberry.

I was in IT support at the time they came out. One of the things I hated about IT support, and I found it common with most colleagues, was the idea that if you are in IT, every thing with a plug or batteries is some how part of an IT person's skill set. Because we are the clever mysterious people who can fix the server, we must also be able to explain the MD's new HiFi to him, fix the microwave or mobile phone, or some such.

So, out comes Blackberry and it suddenly becomes the executive's toy of choice, and we were expected to support them. No one asked, there was no meeting or consideration, they just bought Blackberrys themselves, bought them in and expected us to be configuring and supporting them. Its was like a suddenly change in infrastructure that just arrived because individuals insisted on it. And because usually these were senior people, management expected us to play ball. It was kinda like the whole system being windows and one day some one installs Linux and expects it to be instantly supported and integrated, regardless of whether or not the company software actually ran on it. And early on, that wasn't trivial.

So, what happened in my IT circles was that Blackberry got a bad name because its was a toy executives lumped on us with out any consideration, let alone some sort of discussion, and heaven forbid, planning. So, the sort of back ground vibe was negative, and for many I know, remains so.

So, even though all these years on it is likely to be very unfair, I still see Blackberry as representing arrogant unthinking executives and the resulting headaches, and there for negative.

Edit: And I missed the obvious. Im so brain dead at times....

It is suggested that employees buying their own phones killed the Blackberry. Yet, ironically, in my experience at least, it was employees buying Blackberrys that got them their traction in the first place.

<comment><USER4> A little aside... Developers really should read your post twice and understand exactly how admins think. These types of departments are usually slow moving, and really hinder progress. When you read about the people who are stuck on old browsers and need legacy IE support, it's probably because of all the "planning and work" that would be required to upgrade.

Anyway, I've always advocated dumping legacy browser support because once the right people have problems viewing the web, fires get lit and the job gets escalated.

The only people who can't upgrade their own browsers are the ones with an IT team standing in their way.

<comment><USER5> It's normally not an admin's _choice_ to stay slow and out of date. This is _especially_ the case in a non-IT-centric business, which nonetheless uses technology to function.

Typically, the issue is like this:

1) Management demands that a specific solution is installed, and ignores IT's complaints

2) The solution requires an environment IE 7 (or Windows XP, or... take your pick)

The admins now have two problems: they need to convince management to move away from the old solution to a new one (another capital expense), in _addition_ to maintaining a hateful, old environment so that the business doesn't break. Senior management doesn't realize they dug their own grave, and refuses to pay for the capex "just" to have the latest version of the solution, when the business is seemingly working just fine on the current environment.

Eventually, after much praying and finger crossing, only one of the two things saves the admins:

1) The solution is upgraded to support modern software

2) The environment becomes unsupported, and management is forced to reconsider the upgrade.

Have some sympathy, mate! :(

<comment><USER4> So my advice to not support older browsers holds. If the web essentially stops working, the powers that be will insist on upgrading. Developers will be doing you a favor. If you've got software that still only runs on IE7, for example, you'll have to install Chrome or Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 1998-2002, Blackberries really were the peak of ease of use and efficient communication/calendar management. Every executive/financial trader/beltway insider had one. The early 800/900 series Blackberry were like the iPhone of 2007.

In 2007 the iPhone was seen as an oddity by those who used their blackberries for business - without a keyboard, and really rudimentary communication tools, it wasn't ready for real-time business communication. But wow - that browser, and maps app was something else; and then Apple let third parties develop applications for the iPhone...

By 2009, after a couple iterations of the iPhone, I was running a network engineering team, and provided everyone on the team a blackberry so they could communicate real time with each other (We had a corporate BES server). Every single one of them was left in a desk drawer, as people ignored them and just connected their iPhone to their iMap account and used SMS for the real time stuff.

I just got back from a 4 week engagement in Singapore, and I was working daily with fifteen people in five organizations across four companies, distributed across three sites and field visits. We had to perform real-time communication during some particularly tricky diagnostic event on hardware, at the same time we were tracking some configuration remediation in a meter-lab. Every single person present (except for one poor Field Engineering manager from California who showed up with a non-GSM android) kept in touch with WhatsApp. We didn't even have to supply the four college students we hired to do some field- evaluations with phones - they showed up with their own devices (all Androids), and we simply added their accounts to our group chat system. Latency was on the order of a second even with Singapore's surprisingly iffy data environment (at least from the perspective of my California AT&T iPhone)

I think a major contributor to the death of blackberry was a combination of iMap ports open to the internet + Exchange Support in iPhone + awesome replacements for BBMS (inexpensive SMS, Viber, Whatsapp, etc...) - every key advantage of the Black Berry, with the exception of that keyboard, has an equivalent or better replacement today on the Android/IOS platform, with the addition of a world class app suite that's available on the Android/iPhone, but will never, ever, come to the Blackberry (except in the form of Android sideloading - but that further kills the need to develop blackberry specific apps)

That's what killed the Blackberry.

<comment><USER7> Yours is the first time I've ever seen IMAP "spelled" iMap. In fact, I couldn't even connect the dots between the two until the second time you used it.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I didn't even realize that until you said it. Whenever I see an iThing, I assume it's something Apple. The power of branding.

<comment><USER7> For others: IMAP long predates the iPhone.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protoco...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Message_Access_Protocol)

<comment><USER9> I don't think anyone was suggesting it wasn't. The problem was spelling it wrong in an ambiguous context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What killed the Blackberry?

Blackberry made a tremendously successful high featured _phone._ Then Steve Jobs and Apple released a full-fledged minicomputer that fit in the palm, with a usable interface, that happened to also function as a phone.

The iPhone killed off more than the Blackberry. It killed all off _all phones_ in favor of small computers that happen to function as phones.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it makes sense to claim apple did anything that major to the market when you look at the data [http://i.imgur.com/0WS4mQx.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/0WS4mQx.jpg)

<comment><USER10> Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive. What they hide is vital.

iOS is responsible for more than the raw numbers suggest. iOS begat Android, WP7, and countless lesser imitations. Whether this was through inspiration, as I believe, or outright theft, as Apple maintains, is immaterial.

The fact is that the modern smartphone market was born with the introduction of the iPhone. All else before was prelude.

<comment><USER12> Google acquired Android before 2 years before iOS came about. I think it was more a case of "adjacent possible" developments [1] happening in parallel and learning from each other (as great artists are prone to do).

1\. [http://www.practicallyefficient.com/home/2010/09/28/the- adja...](http://www.practicallyefficient.com/home/2010/09/28/the-adjacent- possible)

<comment><USER13> Actually Android (in development) looked very similar to Blackberry before iPhone's release.

[http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Li...](http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Like_BlackBerry_Before_the_iPhone_)

[http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/12/googles-android-os- early-...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/12/googles-android-os-early-look- sdk-now-available/)

[http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/27/android-handsets- bef...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/27/android-handsets-before/)

<comment><USER14> Your first link is actually debunking that. They had prototypes that looked like Blackberry devices, yes, but _in the same video_ they show a prototype with a touchscreen-driven UI as well.

<comment><USER13> Now have a look at the touchscreen UI itself, it borrows heavily from blackberry style bottom bar. The video was uploaded on Nov 11, 2007....iPhone released in June 2007. (Let's keep aside the fact that Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board) Six months is not much of a developmental time, but not exactly less time to polish such stuff for a company the size of Google. See the progress here (May 2008): [http://news.cnet.com/2300-1046_3-6240422.html](http://news.cnet.com/2300-1046_3-6240422.html) Only Touchscreen UI shown and much more polished. HTC Dream was released in Oct 2008.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's my 2 cents, I worked as an intern (coop) and have subsequently worked in other tech companies in Waterloo that have ex-RIM employees. I think the problem was mainly managers, a lot of the managers didn't program, some held cs degrees but they hadn't programmed in a while to the point where they really couldn't really access the code, so basically never really looked at code (the code itself was ok because other programmers did). However, what did happen was a lot of managers started accessing their team based on how much they looked like they were doing, in short how busy they looked. Some of the smartest developers are terrible and office politics, emails and at meetings . Without emails or engaging in meetings it gave an impression that the developers didn't care, I've seen some incredible developers get fired because they didn't fit the "company culture." This was acceptable because "company culture" was in at the time, but it was just a way to support manager bias. For example, I knew this guy who would usually come to work late and only answer emails at lunch and keep a fairly chill attitude, but would usually stay late 6-7 until he did his 8+ hours, however in the eyes of the manager who was there from 9-5, the picture looked completely different, he was fired a few months later. Now I was there for a short time and only part of one team, so I can't speak for the whole organization, but I've worked for other tech firms in the area whose managers were ex-RIM and they basically did the exact same thing. In short, 1) having mangers that are heading an engineering team should be programming 2) employees should be peer-reviewed and not at the mercy of the managers (a lot of sucking up happens when the manager has that much power)

This probably isn't the main thing that killed RIM, there were probably hundreds of reasons, but over time this put in a culture of complacency, and there probably isn't much upper management could have done, because it was all done for the sake of improving "company culture"

<comment><USER16> One guy from my university comp-sci class became a project manager in RIM. He was absolutely clueless, couldn't do any homework and just copied stuff from other people or ask for help ALL the time.

<comment><USER17> I take issue with you criticizing a student for asking for help. It seems to be an issue in comp sci; some proportion of students are always watching for others to ask for help so they can smugly lord their infinite self-learned (lol) knowledge over them.

<comment><USER18> It depends on the understanding people come away with. In some cases people will just get their hand held right through anything practical and come away not actually understanding the material.

That is different to people who don't understand something but ask the right questions so that they understand and can apply in future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So...once users were able to exert a choice, they opted for products which benefitted themselves more? This argument seems to admit that Blackberry products were inferior at the time. It's like saying that what killed IE6 was _allowing_ people to install Firefox.

<comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure that what killed IE6 was IE7. I'm also pretty sure that is keeping IE8 & 9 from finally shuffling off too is people being prevented from installing a browser of their choosing in their workplace.

<comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure that MS & corporate IT depts were more than willing to stay on IE6 forever if they could. The gap between IE6 & IE7 was larger than almost any other IE release.

<comment><USER21> Legacy IE is maintained by the corporate IT Kata I used in another comment on this thread.

"Sure Boss, I'll sort that out for you, I'll get a business case for the migration together over the weekend, can we meet on Monday to go through it and sign off?"

Moving off IE6/7 costs £x k, because there are 1->1000 applications (I know my company has about 30 major ones) that are known to need changes to function on later versions properly (even with compatibility mode) and 100+ that will need some testing.

Now, when I say these applications need work, often the problems are incredibly trivial, but in a corporate these things (a button has moved, a menu item doesn't work but the button does, you need to hit the ok button not hit <enter> etc. GENERATE HELPDESK CALLS!

And the calls don't go away after 2 days as the users get used to it - <USER2> are ongoing, there will be escalations, your manager's manager will be teased at the SMT event, worse your manager's managers peers in other corporates will get war stories featuring your manager in A BAD LIGHT (think about the implications of that) all of which is unfair and silly.

But this is what will happen.

Ok - you get the case done, you see your boss. The number is £30k; is it in the budget? No.

The consequence of not doing it? Your manager shows the case to her manager.

The consequence of doing it without the migration: see above.

End off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The author says, "BlackBerrys have never been particularly attractive, cutting-edge, or user-friendly." I've never actually owned a BlackBerry, but I was under the impression that they were some of the best devices around, especially for doing business, before the iPhone came along. I've heard people say that they still believe the BlackBerry had the most superior email functionality of any device to date. The iPhone changed all that, of course, but before, I think they were very good devices.

<comment><USER23> That speaks to how _bad_ everybody else was. The first BlackBerry was technologically similar to contemporary PalmOS devices with a GSM module bolted on. Boring. Predictable. But they actually worked.

RIM won by showing up and not being totally incompetent. They lost by being complacent.

<comment><USER22> Everything kind of looks bad to me now pre-iPhone – the things was seriously years ahead of its time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The title is referring to 'Corporate Employees' as opposed to employees of Blackberry.

The Thesis goes: employees bought iPhones and brought them to work, enough (or senior enough) employees were able to force IT departments to support them. Afterwards no-one wanted to use their crappy old phones.

If only this could happen for Browsers, too!

I think it's time to start a campaign for 'Bring Your Own Browser To Work Day".

<comment><USER24>
       > I think it's time to start a campaign for 'Bring Your Own Browser To Work Day".

It is entirely possible that that is what tablets are. I suspect that some of the crufty old "we see every packet" IT groups the notion that you can have your own tablet at work getting 4G network access outside the company control structures is exceptionally challenging.

<comment><USER20> I support this theory. It makes sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Blackberry was the best smartphone with a keyboard. It was not only the choice of enterprises, but also the choice of users who do not like touchscreen as a keyboard. The smaller screen (because of the presence of the keyboard)) means also better battery duration. They have killed all these advantages to become a pale copy of iphone with a bad UX, half assed between full touchscreen and keyboard. I think that copying iphone ergonomy was a bad marketing move that place them as a follower. I think blackberry could succeed as the leader of smartphones with keyboard. Now, they have lost their soul. Of course, this is only a single aspect, the other points described in many other posts are also important.

<comment><USER6> I agree that Blackberry could own almost all (90%+) of the market for world class, enterprise friendly, secure-email devices w/keyboard.

The problem is that market is about 1% of the market for the touch-screen, independent-app rich, no-keyboard market.

It's not an uncommon situation - do you sell your soul to chase the $$$ or stick with your core mission, money be damned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unless I am missing something, the title of this article is very misleading. Also, very low on content IMHO.

<comment><USER19> Yea it's a Sunday editorial, written for the ad impression count.

<comment><USER27> For the record, I wrote it on Friday. And almost all articles on the web are "written for ad impression count."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Consumers care about attractive designs, user-friendly interfaces, and > innovative features.

Tangentially- when I went to check out the Z10 it was locked in a demo mode. I couldn't figure out how to look at anything on the phone that they didn't want me to see with "helper" sales pitch notes. I finally found a real phone one of the employees was carrying and was able to try it out (and buy something different).

I couldn't believe they (or AT&T) would think so little about their customers and providing a real experience on the device. It insulted me. Maybe it changed later...

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd love it if Blackberry switched to Android. The top-end Bolds look great, and you just can't beat their keyboards for smashing out a length of text longer than a sentence.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article suggests that BB lost because it did not focus on the consumer soon enough. I'm going to completely disagree and argue that even if they had done this, they would still be dying now. Their fate would have been the same had they made consumer friendly phones in 2008.

In 2008 I believed android would dominate the smartphone market. This was even before the first android phone was brought to market. Most consumers had not even heard of android back then and the iPhone was quickly gaining market share. Why did I think this back then?

What killed BB is, at core, the result of Geography. It is not only the fate of societies, a la Jared Diamond, but the fates of tech companies that geography can influence. In 2008, I was living in northern California and you could sense the amount of developer interest in android. What android did and BB couldn't do (or really try) was to win over developers. Many were upset at Apple's process for publishing apps. Google did everything to address those concerns. Instead of winning over consumers first, android won over the developers who then made the apps to bring those consumers. BB was just too far away and too out of touch to see any of this.

The world is not flat. Place matters. If it were as simple as focusing on consumers, why did Nokia lose despite doing this all along? -Geography! And why did android win despite not initially focusing on consumers? (the G1 was a crappy phone). The winners (android and IOS) won because they're located in Silicon valley where most of the best developers are. The losers (Nok, RIMM) lost because they weren't.

<comment><USER31> It's kind of amusing how parochial a lot of the SV types are.

No, "the best developers" are not all in California.

<comment><USER32> I wonder how the theory is supposed to explain RIM and Nokia's great success in the past. Are we supposed to ignore that because they're failing now? No success lasts forever, and Apple and Google too shall pass.

<comment><USER30> Apple and Google weren't even in the field during Rim and Nok's best years. If they had never entered, it's possible Rimm and Nok would still be the top dogs now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> They tried to force a Blackberry on me at my last job, I just turned it down as I had no desire to carry around multiple phones with me.

</comment><comment><USER34> The enabler for the death of Blackberry was Microsoft Exchange / ActiveSync. When executives realized that the much cooler, fun, life-integrated iPhone could also hook into their email, that forced IT's hand in allowing alternative platforms.

If the iPhone didn't appeal to the top tier, the Blackberry would have reigned supreme in corporations.

<comment> qu4z-2 What does life-integrated mean?

<comment><USER34> A part of their entire lives instead of just being for their work life.

<comment> qu4z-2 Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What really killed BBRY was not providing any added value. And actually destroying any added value that they had over competitors (I made another comment about that in another thread — I don't want to get too annoying).

The "BYOD" culture is some crucial damage for BlackBerry. But what will wipe them off the map isn't really that, but rather, not being even an option for a second device, enterprise-only. Because they've got nothing to add.</comment>


Ask HN: Small EU SaaS providers, how do you deal with VAT compliance? - <AUTHOR> It would be nice to hear some stories about how it's not that bad, because at the moment it's one of the things that make me a bit anxious about doing small scale SaaS business in the EU.<p>(I have a limited liability company in Sweden.) <comment><USER2> Hi Mikael! I built Quaderno ([https://quaderno.io](https://quaderno.io)) to deal with this issue. Most of your customers are EU SaaS. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help :)

</comment><comment><USER3> We are currently looking into this question as well, it does not seem that complex as we first expected. But would be great to compare notes, our current understanding below.

My current understanding for selling services if company located within EU (we are in Sweden)

\- If customer is outside EU: No VAT charged ("reverse charge")

\- If customer is inside EU and has VATID: Verify VATID, no VAT charged ("reverse charge")

\- If customer is inside EU and do NOT have VATID: Apply VAT % for country where customer is located, charge VAT, pay VAT through MOSS system in country where your company is located

<comment><USER4> Aren't you supposed to get a second confirmation of location, such as the customers IP address?

<comment><USER3> Good point, I had missed this previously.

It seems that there exist a number of categories of services and each has its own rules for determining where the customer is located. If the service do not fall within on of predefined the categories the below rule apply, meaning that billing address is not enough and secondary verification is needed. It seems that most Saas service fall under the below rule. [0]

 _Where the digital services are supplied other than in the circumstances listed above, the business making the supply must obtain and keep 2 pieces of non-contradictory information to support and evidence the member state where the customer is normally located._

[0] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying- dig...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-digital- services-to-private-consumers/vat-businesses-supplying-digital-services-to- private-consumers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't have to handle VATMOSS (yet), but here is a list of providers/libraries that I found most interesting for my use cases:

[https://pinboard.in/u:rsto/t:vatmoss](https://pinboard.in/u:rsto/t:vatmoss)

I don't expect to make enough money with my side business that a 3rd party provider would be affordable, at least not one with a fixed rate. The more I research, it seems OK to build your own solution at least for the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've built my own system to handle it in Austria - its actually not that bad, once you automate it well enough.

Feel free to shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com - happy to share notes and code.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am from Denmark and currently I use cleverbridge to handle my downloadable software ([http://www.watermark-image.com](http://www.watermark-image.com)) and my SaaS app ([http://timeblock.com](http://timeblock.com))

The reason is that a) they handle VAT and b) I get a single invoice a month not 200+

Previously i used ShareIT and Avangate - they all have different pros and cons.

email me if you want to know more about experiences using those.

</comment><comment><USER8> Both Gumroad ([http://blog.gumroad.com/post/110080508463/vat](http://blog.gumroad.com/post/110080508463/vat)) and Paddle ([https://www.paddle.com/support/how-does-paddle-handle-vat- on...](https://www.paddle.com/support/how-does-paddle-handle-vat-on-my- behalf)) are payment providers who will handle EU VAT for you. Paddle is probably more suited for a SAAS.

<comment><USER2> They are not payment providers but resellers. You are their provider and your customers are, in fact, their customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/](https://blog.ghost.org/moving- to-singapore/) one of ways how to solve it

i'm invoicing EU customers / clients using my US or new zealand company, while i use my UK company for UK only

<comment><USER10> Why not invoice your UK customers from the US or New Zealand and save them from having to pay VAT too?

<comment><USER9> that's what i also do more often than not

<comment><USER10> Oh okay I was wondering if there were any commercial or regulatory reasons for not.

<comment><USER9> nahhh... not really</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Top 10 Programming Skills That Will Get You Hired - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/97819

<comment><USER2> Articles like this always bother me. They're link bait and serve no place on HN. If you want to be a career programmer, than sure. Learn SQL and be done. Learn Java and be done.

Being a career programmer is _boring_. Sure, it pays the rent, but it's a horrible way to live. There's more to software than learning one language and being done with it.

Good developers use the right tool for the job, whether that be C++ or Ruby. Good developers also tend to make the highest salaries (hint hint).</comment>


Atlanta Can Compete (or, Atlanta is not hosed) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2007/10/atlanta-can-com.html

<comment><USER3> I'm from Atlanta, and I'm now living in the SF Bay Area...

Here's why I don't think Atlanta can duplicate or really compete with Silicon Valley:

Atlanta just doesn't have as many "crazy" people who are willing to take a risk on "stupid" ideas. I think this article sums things up well (just substitute Georgia for Michigan):

<http://www.metromodemedia.com/blogs/posts/TMeloche3037a.aspx>

Atlanta will never have enough "crazy" people... while Atlanta is one of the most progressive cities in the South, it's still pretty conservative which doesn't really allow for thinking differently and taking risks on a more massive scale.

It's also good to note that a lot people from either GT or Emory move to either New York or California after graduation or shortly after...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hard to argue this, though I really do want it to work here. We're doing a startup in Atlanta and I'm pretty well hooked into what's going on, but some of Paul's points about the necessary infrastructure (investors mostly) are true enough. I'm just about at the stage where I'm speaking to investors so I'll report back what I find.

<comment><USER4> I think the issue is concentration. The ingredients are there, they're just scattered in various ways.

1\. Geography: Atlanta is sprawled out, so even if you live near Tech or Emory, odds are you can't skip down to the local coffee shop to get a feel what other startups are doing.

2\. The Business Mix: Silicon Valley is tilted heavily toward technology in general and therefore also to startups (at least the kind we're talking about here). In Atlanta your friends and neighbors are likely to be bankers, accountants, healthcare professionals, or any number of corporate types than startup founders or even early-to-medium stage technology employees.

3\. The Business Culture: There's little "porosity" among companies -- the knowledge/social network isn't there, and that's probably the most important ingredient of a startup hub, more important than money, IMO.

Interestingly, I think this might be an scenario where a YC clone could do the most good -- because as we are always hearing here, its real value is as an aggregator of like-minded people, enabling some of the knowledge interchange and social connections that don't happen naturally.

<comment><USER5> 1\. I spent a good deal of time tooling up and down 101. SV and Ess Eff are kinda like Atlanta and Alpharetta. If you walk into the Starbuck's at 5th & Spring on any work day and toss a quarter into the crowd it will land within 5 feet of an entrepreneur, an investor, or both.

2\. Great point. Real estate is king in ATL. Read "The Man in Full" for more.

3\. I think the social network is here. I literally sit and look at over it every day from my office window.

<comment><USER3> the quantity part maybe true and I could be wrong but I just feel there's not really many of them that are nuts enough... people there are too conventional and practical, which isn't all bad but it's just not as conducive for innovation

Atlanta doesn't get many Christopher Klaus's - and they typically leave, while the list goes on and on in valley... the culture in Atlanta is just too different.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's interesting is that Chris was one of my roomates at Tech in 1993. No, I didn't join him at the time. Ouch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's hard to know in just what way we're supposed to take some of these comments.

"Crazy people"? There's a difference between taking a calculated (but passionate) risk and a redneck, "watch this" kind of risk.I've spent time in SF - I think the quality of life is better in Atlanta because there aren't so many nutjobs (no offense to the left-coast nutjobs).

Geography: You're right - there is no sprawl in California. Everyone hangs out at Buck's and the 880 or 280 (take your pick - I prefer scenic Newark) to San Jose ia a short, leasurely jaunt.

BTW, I drink a lot of coffee. Re-phrase: A LOT OF COFFEE. When I'm in a coffee shop, I tend to be head down, working away - I'm not broadcasting that I'm working on a startup or looking to get a "feel" for what other startups in Atlanta are doing. There's plenty of more efficient ways to do that (ATDC/TAG, AWE, YnR, etc.).

Business Mix: God forbid that you'd ever want to associate with anyone that might be your customer/end-user or just a regular human. I love my startup(s). I love hanging out with the other "Crazy People" (I assume you mean "entrepreneurs") here in Atlanta. But 99.99999% (don't hold me to that - <USER2> made it up) of the world is NOT made up of startup entrepreneurs. Be wary of hillbillies with "real world" perspectives - we shall rule the world y'all.

Business Culture: By "porosity" I'm guessing you mean Yahoo Lunch 2.0, Google seminars, etc. If so, you'd be right. I'll admit that UPS, Home Depot, et. al. don't exactly fling their doors open, but they're not that type of company. Google has offices here. They certainly have enough servers a few feet down from my colo rack. I'm not seeing much "porosity" from them, but then again, I'm guessing at what you mean.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Atlanta is perfect. I will probably NOT be able to raise the capital I'm looking for locally. The local investors don't really get the space I'm in (and candidly, that's just because there aren't that many local investors). And I'm aware that investors want to be able to drive to your office and flash the pimp hand, etc., etc. (No offense to any investor types either). But the water in SV does NOT make you smarter or better able to execute. Yes, there are enablers there, and most will never leave. But I've got cheap rent, some pretty smart people working with me and AirTran has cheap tickets to SFO.

Full Disclaimer: I've changed my position many times before (as recently as this morning) and reserve the right to do so in the future.</comment>


Automated Crowdturfing Attacks and Defenses in Online Review Systems - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.08151 <comment><USER2> This one is close to my heart. Having the internet become a place where the 'best positioned' can influence and direct opinion collapses the freedom of discussion we've had on the internet back down to the old days of big news corps and/or states controlling public opinion.

Recent history shows that this is occurring frequently on major social sites, and I see this infiltration happening more and more on smaller sites and communities.

It's an incredibly difficult problem to tackle. How do you create a hammer of justice without it crushing the freedom of discussion itself?

<comment><USER3> Better public education.

Virtually every societal problem in America can be traced back to our sub-par and falling public education.

It's a hard problem to fix - deep reforms take decades to reflect in society, and the vast majority of voters will always be ones that went through older (broken?) versions of the education system... but fixing it is the only path forward. We can't regulate or police away bad ideas. This is a problem where we need to manage _demand_ \- the answer to flat-earth theorists, Nazis, and anti-democratic propaganda is to make sure the general public is equipped to dismiss those concepts.

<comment><USER4> This is by design. The Republican party knows that attacks on education invariably end up creating more Republicans.

<comment><USER5> This is the type comment they're talking about trying to detect. It adds little/nothing of substance to the discussion and even if you were to provide sources it pulls discussion toward a poo flinging match about whether the political bias of any particular source is relevant.

<comment><USER4> Comments about substance and quality of discussion are always the same in the same ways.

One would need to have automatic classifiers and lines of discussion that can travel across hyperplanes.

<comment><USER5> Yes. Logic and reasoning don't work well for evaluating statements about complex subjects that eventually boil down to subjective assessments of things and opinions about things.

Most societal problems are NP or contain NP sub-problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People in this thread are worried about using this for generic commenting/discussion systems. But how would that work? The RNN would need to understand the contents of the original comment to reply. It's not as simple as paraphrasing the marketing spiel of the product to confirm or deny that it works well (which is what I mostly use reviews for).

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not so much about influencing as it is about disrupting. Putin's goal is to make democracy stop working. First in the countries of the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, and Georgia, then outward.

<comment><USER3> What's the difference between influencing and anarchic disruption? Disruption increases noise, influencing manipulates the signals that gets through.

Putin is not the only actor here. The Clinton campaign publicly employed crowdturfing, and I would be extremely surprised if conservative forces aren't doing the same. Not to mention corporate policy astroturfing (eg climate change).

America's foundation has been crumbling for decades... and I predict we're going to keep sliding downwards for a couple decades at minimum.

Effective democracy requires an educated electorate that can publicly manage law, economics, and culture. We're failing because the public is literally no longer equipped with the skills to govern themselves anymore. Our public education system is stuck in the 1900's, the world has gotten more complicated while our standards fell to the lowest common denominator - turning K-12 into a degree-mill crossed with a day-care for minors.

<comment><USER8> The electorate is much better educated today than it was 50 or 100 years ago.

It was common to drop out in 8th grade when my grandparents were kids. In their parents time dropping out at 5th grade was common. Do you think farming better prepares you to elect competent candidates than public education?

Average performance on IQ tests has steadily increased since we've measured it.

There is no objective measurement that would lead to the conclusion that we are less educated today.

<comment><USER9> > Do you think farming better prepares you to elect competent candidates than > public education?

In some ways, yes. Running a farming business or working in a coal mine or steel mill teaches you a lot about hard work, no-BS, and the farm business teaches you math and economics. I believe that leaves the electorate less susceptible to magical thinking, less lazy, and less inclined to expect the government to fix their lives and less willing to have the government run their lives.

(Most of the modern ag-business giveaways came about after the time period in question.)

<comment><USER10> My mother's from France. Growing up her family's business was agriculture. They didn't have smartphones, TVs. This meant they'd spend a lot of their time talking with others, especially people older than you - and that's how you learn critical thinking. I recently saw a video interview - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOUNZrbBg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOUNZrbBg) \- with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Clinton commented he doesn't know how people do it these days with all the distractions for consuming and not engagement - and that he learned his thinking skills heavily through family dinner every night.

<comment><USER8> People have said the exact thing about novels, comic books, television, and telephones.

Socrates even complained about _writing_.

Scientific American published a screed against the negative effects of chess in the 1850s.

The devices and distractions of every new generation are the harbingers of the apocalypse for the previous one.

<comment><USER10> Well, that's interesting. All of those do present different levels of engagement though. The phone - only voice and no facial or body queues. Novels - obviously no audio and no opportunity to engage, and comic books - less use of imagination required than a novel. Television being the most like real- life, most stimulating as actually watching something in the real-world ... designed to be more engaging visually and with sound than stimulating with interesting thought (most of time - entertainment vs educational/learning). Writing too, perhaps if people you learned the most from and listened to the most from were very well-spoken - and perhaps Socrates understood the value of the listeners/readers being present for engagement, whereby if someone doesn't understand a point or wants to challenge it, they can instantly. It does seem like all of these evolutions and innovations of humanity and language, communication, are making the natural world a less healthy place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite IDE? - <AUTHOR>

OK, I might get flamed for this. I would like to get an idea of how many people are using what IDE.
Please, write the name of the IDE first, and on a separate line. Then you can add your comments.
If you see your IDE in the list already, just upvote it. That way we can get some stats going.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Eclipse when writing Java \- you can kill an ox in 6 seconds with the refactoring tools ... unfortunately coding anything in Java is like killing an ox - there's a huge carcass and a funny smell when you're done

notepad++ for everything else (HTML css JavaScript erlang) \- fast \- light weight \- tabs \- syntax highlighting

<comment><USER3> +1 for Eclipse. Then again, I use Eclipse for nearly everything, just because it's what I'm familiar and comfortable with. So even if I'm coding Groovy or Scala or Python or Javascript or Perl, more of than not I'm using Eclipse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hate them all.

And I cringe every time people mention Visual Studio as "the best". I intend to make my own at some point, because I have yet to find a single one that meets even 1/2 of my primary desirables. Eclipse comes close, if you count plugins and can _find_ them, but it's the epitome of bloat.

All except an old, free version of TacoEdit, which has since gone paid. The free one is bad, has inaccurate highlighting, no autocomplete, really _squat_ for JS code, but it's fast and lightweight, and runs code _as you type it_. Utterly fantastic for rapid prototyping. I boggle when I realize I have yet to see any other web-oriented IDE do this, and don't bother pointing out Komodo; its live updating is cool, but buggy, and you can't break the preview window out.

To step away from IDEs a bit, TextMate is a _phenomenal_ editor, and I end up using it more than any IDE when I'm not doing .NET coding / in Windows.

<comment><USER5> Good shout on TacoEdit, glad I discovered this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use Komodo Edit as an IDE, and Notepad++ for miscellaneous edits. It's nice to have Notepad++ as a second editor on a second monitor for comps and the like. Netbeans and Eclipse are nice, but a bit kludgey for my taste. I do use Qt Creator for the random C++ project.

No IDE is perfect -- if it were feasible, I would love to take bits from each of the above programs and mash them up into one master IDE.

</comment><comment><USER7> Netbeans has grown quite nicely in the last few years.

</comment><comment><USER8> Visual Studio with Resharper. A bit slow but really makes C# coding a breeze. NetBeans when coding Java, a great IDE.

</comment><comment><USER9> Intellij IDEA.

More powerful and reliable than Eclipse, but not free (and also a bit uglier).

</comment><comment><USER10> the only IDE i use is when I'm working in a smalltalk environment. That is an IDE. Everything else I've used that gets called an IDE has been a pale comparison. When not using smalltalk I bounce around between vim, emacs and textmate depending on the task.

</comment><comment><USER11> Visual Studio + R#

With one caveat: You better have a beefy computer!!

</comment><comment><USER12> none

I am way more productive from the command line.

</comment><comment><USER13> Emacs

</comment><comment><USER14> Textmate

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> vim

<comment><USER15> Vim. Please see recently posted link: Coming Home to Vim. <http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/09/coming-home-to-vim/>

And also: <http://www.swaroopch.com/blog/bash-vim-setup/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yes, I have read Steve's post about a hundred times.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my (2) weekend project - <AUTHOR> http://brainsy.net

<comment><AUTHOR> Two weeks ago one of my co-workers (HN name: coreyloose) participated in build madison (<http://http://www.buildmadison.org/>) a hackathon in Madison, WI. For our project we built Brainsy (<http://brainsy.net>), a visual suggestion engine for etsy.com products. We won the cash prize and a years free hosting. This past weekend we pushed out version 2.

We wanted to share our work with HN. The algorithm is pretty simple now. It looks at the list of tags for the products that you like, and searches for products with similar tags. It's not perfect but works pretty well givent its simplicity.

We would love to get HN's feedback on the design, possible improvements for the algorithm (or any good reading I could do on the subject), and thoughts for monitization. We never really intended for the project to make any money, so we're pretty happy just making something that's useful. Corey is trying to get a job at etsy, so he figured this would be a good project to help out with that. But if you have any good ideas for how to monitize that would be an added bonus!</comment>


Apple Watch – WKInterfaceSwitch Bug - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30514783/wkinterfaceswitch-switchactionvalue-bool-value-is-always-false-apple-watch

<comment><AUTHOR> This bug seems to happen on a few devices only, so it might be good to know for some of you.</comment>


Actor Chadwick Boseman, star of "Black Panther," dies at 43 - <AUTHOR> https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/actor-chadwick-boseman-star-black-panther-dies-43/story?id=72695412&ocid=uxbndlbing <comment><USER2> Undisclosed colon cancer, stage 3 at the time it was found, and the man played through Black Panther, Infinity War, and Endgame through all of that.

That's insane dedication to the craft and to prioritizing the joy of others over one's own. We lost an absolute talent today, even more of a talent than we knew given his dedication to the craft over cancer.

<comment> purple-again Stage 3 colon cancer at age 39. Incredibly bad luck. For those that don't know, in the US at least, they don't recommend you even start screening for it until 50. It's traditionally an old man disease, but can strike anytime.

RIP

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was hoping this news would make Hacker News front page.

</comment><comment><USER4> Such a tragic loss of an talented icon.

</comment><comment><USER5> Damn, didn't even know he had cancer</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep up with the scientific literature? - <AUTHOR>

What strategies (and tools) do you use for keeping up with the literature in your field and managing the papers that you read? <comment><USER2> I print research papers and other interesting writing fairly regularly at work, and read when I'm in the john or when I'm compiling. An awesome side benefit is that I've started handing papers to the folks I work with who like to socialize more than actually work. When I want to get something done and they don't, I mention something like "Hey, didn't you once say you studied distributed systems in school? Here's a paper for a peer-to-peer name service - would you mind giving it a read and telling me if it's really as awesome as I think it is?"

It seems to work, because now when these same folks come by they are talking about papers I handed them instead of how their cat needs its claws filed or some other trivia.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've (sort of) given up trying. I let all of my IEEE and ACM journal subscriptions lapse, and I've gone to a "pull model" where I just search for things I'm interested in, and hope I can find a preprint on Arxiv or find it in CiteseerX. There's just too much stuff coming down the pipe to digest all of it, especially while working on a startup.

That said, I still visit machinelearning.reddit.com and semanticweb.reddit.com, etc., and expect that anything _terribly_ important will show up there (or even here at HN).

</comment><comment><USER4> RSS feeds. Most journals now have one. Examples:

JMLR: <http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/jmlr.xml>

IEEE TPAMI: <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/rss/TOC34.XML>

IEEE TASLP: <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/rss/TOC10376.XML></comment>


Julian Assange: conviction of Bradley Manning a dangerous precedent - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/julian-assange-bradley-manning <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who doesn't view Bradley Manning as both a Hero and being guilty of commiting a crime? Are the two mutually exclusive?

I for one hope he is pardoned and recognised for his actions, or at least as he goes through sentencing appeals he is given time served, but he did steal classified documents. That we now believe that theft is of benefit to the world, does not mean that he didn't commit the crime.</comment>


The Math of Social Distancing Is a Lesson in Geometry - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-of-social-distancing-is-a-lesson-in-geometry-20200713/ <comment><USER2> This is a pretty bad premise. If you're packing people in cubicles in a building/floor that most likely uses central air and air conditioning, you already lost the game -- sphere packing or not.

<comment><USER3> +1 came here to say this.

Indoor HVAC air flows seem way more important than distance. I can probably sit right next to you as long as the airflow has each of our exhalations taken away from the other.

My employer has mentioned potential plans to bring people back to the office in small numbers for short times. Until these discussions include analysis of building HVAC, I want no part of it.

<comment><USER4> We all need downdraft hoods. Eating out with friends will be like going to hibachi, but instead of a grill between your friends, it will be a downdraft vent pulling all of your exhalations away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the most efficient solution would be to have a series of snorkel lines come down from the ceiling that terminate outside of the building, 6 feet apart.

This would allow the occupants inside to pack as closely as possible without worrying about breathing any hazardous air.

<comment><USER6> Or for an actually efficient solution, just oversize the shit out of the HVAC. Can it still spread via droplet in a wind-tunnel? Sure, but not very well.

<comment><USER5> Pasteurization occurs at roughly 145 degrees Fahrenheit, so another solution could be to increase the ambient temperature of the office to 145F or higher, and to simply have all of your workers wear personal temperature controlled suits to keep them at their preferred comfort level.

<comment><USER7> Jokes aside, couldn high intensity UV lamps be placed inside the HVAC tubes and have that sterilize the shirt out of the air?

<comment><USER6> That's not really the issue although it does matter for some aerosols sizes. It's the flow rate in the room. You need more air exchanges. When someone coughs, how long are those infectious particles floating around the room.

<comment><USER7> Good point. As for coughing/talking/anything that makes droplets I was thinking masks first and then other measures on top of it, like proper ventilation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sphere packing is a genuinely interesting math problem. But it really should not be thought of as any kind of solution to a serious public health threat. Six feet apart is only a recommendation. The virus can transfer based on many other factors such as airflow, shared surface contamination, and spending time in proximity to asymptomatic carriers.

Leave such math topics for home school study questions.

</comment><comment><USER9> The rule is supposed to encourage being apart from each other, not how many can you pack into an arbitrary measurement from Some Agency.

In the UK it's 2m which is MORE than 6ft.

<comment><USER10> For this purpose, 6 feet and 2 meters are the same measure.

It's "about this far apart" and the UK isn't going to advise their population to "stay at least 185cm apart" anymore than the US is going to advise "stay at least 6'6" apart".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The next release of our PerfectTablePlan seating software ([https://www.perfecttableplan.com](https://www.perfecttableplan.com)) will have a social distancing feature. This will allow you to check social distancing at seated events (such as wedding receiptions and galas). It wasn't too difficult to add as we know the x,y position of each seat and the group each occupant belongs to.

<comment><USER12> I worry that a feature like that could give people a false sense of security. In an indoor area, transmission is possible regardless of distance.

The 6' rule was intended for the outdoors and situations where contact is unavoidable, not parties.

<comment><USER11> Spacing guidelines are always going to be imperfect. But, assuming they are based on some science, they are better than nothing. You can also record all the guest details in PerfectTablePlan for later track and trace!

<comment><USER13> So it's more on the lines of imperfect table plans. My worry is circulating air flow.

<comment><USER11> I don't think we'll be adding a CFD model. ;0)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do Bangaloreans really make $6k-18k/year? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in Bangalore right now, having been out of the country (an NRI) for the longest time. I'm going to be looking for jobs here soon.
The wages here sound absolutely horrible - or even ridiculous, to say the least.
I heard from one source the range for recent graduates is Rs. 30k-50k/month, which is $7k-$11k.
That's quite horrible, considering the work you do (as a software developer) isn't in any way substantially different from what you'd do elsewhere.
Does anyone have more data on this?
I would consider myself quite a computer geek -- been tinkering with computers since age 8, started off with BASIC, learned C when I was 15, and so on... <comment><USER2> _That's quite horrible, considering the work you do (as a software developer) isn't in any way substantially different from what you'd do elsewhere._

The cost of living is also substantially lower there:

[http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country=India&city=Bangalore&displayCurrency=USD)

Compared to Los Angeles, where I live, it looks like most things are about 1/6 the cost, including meals, rent, and groceries. I could rent an apartment in Bangalore's city center for less than I pay on Cable TV here. So it makes sense that salaries would be much lower in Bangalore than they are here.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but there are also things that don't get cheaper.

One good example is hosting. Linode/Rackspace monthly charges can eat your lunch.

Another is electronic equipment. Computers, smartphones and all other gadgets are not a tad bit cheaper -- they cost the same, and sometimes even more than they do in other countries.

Same applies to cars. A Camry will cost you nearly double its sticker price due to 104% tax on foreign-made cars. Indian-made cars cost $10'000 and up -- for nothing that even comes close to comfort and cruising of a Toyota/Nissan engine.

I know, I know; these are not big points -- what really upsets me though is -- being paid peanuts when people doing the exact same thing as you are making 10 or even 15 times more in other countries. I know people in Google, Zynga and other places all making $140k or more (in the U.S.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One of the primary reasons not to work there! But then you do have to realize that the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in US. I think 30-50K is pretty much on the low-average end even for a new grad. When I graduated from college in bangalore (2004) I was offered a salary that would translate to about 21K USD (but in INR of course). So, you should probably look into it. Colleges such as RVCE (my alma mater) do publish median salaries and std. deviation every year on their website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from a fairly highly ranked AAU[1] research university. I had to leave the US right after graduation for some reasons, so here I am in Bangalore.

Most of my fellow graduates (and those that graduated the year before) are making from $60k on the low end to $150k on the high end. That's $150k with less than 1 year's experience (but these are really smart hackers). $85k seems to be the sweet point for fresh graduates though.

Not sure where I'll be next though -- I'm looking for an interesting startup- like work atmosphere, and Bangalore seems to be mostly populated with dull outsourcing companies.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Univers...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Universities)</comment></comment>


Git concepts simplified - <AUTHOR> http://gitolite.com/gcs/index.html <comment><USER2> A suggestion for anyone hoping to write accessible tutorials:

> Hg folks should read this section carefully. Among various crazy notions Hg > has is one that encodes the branch name within the commit object in some > way. Unfortunately, Hg's vaunted "ease of use" (a.k.a "we support Windows > better than git", which in an ideal world would be a negative, but in this > world sadly it is not) has caused enormous takeup, and dozens of otherwise > excellent developers have been brain-washed into thinking that is the > only/right way.

If this is one of the most important concepts, starting it off with a slew of negativity about things the reader may be currently using (windows, hg) is probably not the best way to get them to keep reading.

<comment><USER3> There's also a bit of "people in glass houses..." to this comment. I don't think git really wants to start a fight when it comes to poor design decisions.

<comment><USER4> out of curiosity could you enumerate some of the poor design choices in git?

<comment><USER2> I'm a huge fan of git (but became one the hard way) and I think that most of the poor design decisions are in the command layer. Largely the tendency for the same command to do several things that, to the user, are wildly different (often because they map to the same fundamental operation on the DAG).

As the most simple example, git add both adds a new file to the index and adds changes to an existing file to the index. They are both fundamentally the same operation, but your intentions are different.

Checkout, likewise, both changes HEAD's symbolic reference and changes the working copy to match the index or a commit. This makes it both a means of full tree changes and local reversion.

And then there's rebase...

I don't think these are huge issues, but I do think they're barriers and a source of common early issues with git for new users.

<comment><USER5> Even just simple commands kind of bother me for poor consistency.

      git remote -v
      git branch -a
      git tag -l
      git stash list

1 concept, 4 commands. I don't even use git much but this stuff makes it really slow to pick up.

<comment><USER6> If you're curious, "git remote", "git branch", and "git tag" all present a list without supplying those options. You only need "git branch -a" if you want to see remote branches.

"git stash" is certainly the outlier; the reason is that when "git stash" was first added it was meant to be a short-and-sweet command. Otherwise, you'd be forced to type "git stash save <name>", which is not so short and sweet. "git stash list" was added later.

<comment><USER7> remote branches can also be achieved with one flag by using `-r` ( git branch -r ). Neat note about the reasoning behind stash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is an inverse relationship the number articles title "x explained simply" and the actual simplicity of x. I honestly don't understand why the developer community refuses to admit the obvious that git is unholy clusterfuck of a product. It has a nice data structure inside it? Name another end-user product for which you are even vaguely aware of what data structures were used.

<comment><USER9> > _Name another end-user product for which you are even vaguely aware of what > data structures were used._

Unix.

You are operating primarily on a tree of files and streams of text. To operate on these you have a wide array of utilities that perform simple tasks (and a handful that perform complex tasks as well) that, when composed, allow you to perform any transformation you want. You can get a freshman CS student off the ground with Unix like systems in what, one lecture?

Because the (bleedingly simple) data model is the focus when learning Unix, you don't need to memorize every single little edgecase of the system. Knowledge of the data model alone is enough to tell you what sort of things can or cannot be done, and _general_ knowledge of the sort of thing that a few utilities do is enough bootstrap yourself. If you want to list out some files in some _particular_ way, you may not know immediately what exactly to type, but you probably do know that ls or find is a decent place to start looking.

<comment><USER10> Except there isn't a single version of UNIX, each flavour has its own deviations.

<comment><USER9> Technically there isn't a single version of Git either, though _(thankfully)_ they can all operate on the same repositories (whereas in UNIX land, you'll find different file systems that the others do not support). They do however have some different capabilities. jGit for instance can push to S3, which is pretty neat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Gitolite (where this is hosted) is actually pretty cool too. For those who don't know what gitolite is, it is software to works in tandem with git- daemon, that basically allows you to run a centralized git sever with access rules.

I created a screencast about it @ [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/11-internal-git-server- wit...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/11-internal-git-server-with- gitolite)

<comment><USER12> There's also gitlab, which is a github style app you can run locally. It used to use gitolite internally for access control, but it is now using its own access control system.

<comment><USER13> I've used both. Gitolite does everything on the command-line, including access management.

Gitlab is essentially an open-source clone of Github's web UI. Of the two projects, I think Gitlab is harder to deploy and far more resource-intensive on the server, but easier for users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was expecting this: [http://tartley.com/?p=1267](http://tartley.com/?p=1267)

<comment><USER15> I really did not expect that. That's one of the best unexpected funny things I've experienced this week. I don't think I would have found it as funny if I had stumbled on it randomly; the discussions here provided the perfect context for this link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great article. Just one rather glaring omission: only a single mention of the index, and that only in passing. I have used git for years, and I still don't understand what the fleeping index is supposed to be for. What can you do with the index that you can't do with a branch? And why is it called the index? (And why is it git add -a but git commit -A? Or maybe it's the other way around?)

<comment><USER17> Not to be cruel, but I don't understand how you've used Git for years without understanding what the index is. There's more than a few learning resources for Git online to satisfy your curiosity. Anyway, to give an abbreviated explanation:

The index is a staging area for your commits. When you use `git add`, changes in the working directory are staged (prepared) for the next commit. If you pass the `-a` flag to `git commit`, Git will stage all changes to files that it is already aware of. (Recall that new files are untracked and must be manually added to the index the first time they're committed; `-a` won't add those files because Git doesn't already know about them.)

Why have a staging area instead of just creating a commit directly from all the changes in the working directory? It's basically a sanity measure for organizing commits if you're ever anything less than a perfect developer. If you make a bunch of changes and later realize that there's more than one "unit of work" represented in those changes (however you choose to define those units), you can selectively add files to the index to create commits that make sense. You can even use the interactive mode of `git add` to selectively stage changed sections within a single file. If you care about the benefits of sensible commits -- bug hunting with bisection, ability to run `git revert` to undo a logical unit of work -- then the index is your friend.

A few random pages on the index that I pulled up:

[0] [http://www.gitguys.com/topics/whats-the-deal-with-the-git- in...](http://www.gitguys.com/topics/whats-the-deal-with-the-git-index/)

[1] [http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Tools-Interactive-Staging](http://git- scm.com/book/en/Git-Tools-Interactive-Staging)

<comment><USER16> Well, I'm being a little facetious. I do understand what the index is and what it's used for (but not why it's called the "index" instead of, say, the "stage"). What I don't understand is why the index exists as a separate abstraction. You could have the exact same effect by, for example, doing a git stash, and then popping changes out of the stash into your (now clean) working directory. The WD in effect plays the role of the index, and you get the same result, but with fewer abstractions, fewer commands, and less confusion.

But I hold Linus in high enough regard to take very seriously the possibility that the index is a reflection of some deep wisdom that I have missed. That's the real reason I raise this every now and again.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure I see how you could use `git stash` to accomplish the same thing. Running `git stash && git stash pop` is almost a no-op, so you don't get the benefits described above. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER16> I thought you could pull individual files out a stash, but it seems I was wrong about that. But it's not hard to imagine a variation of git stash that allowed you to select individual files from a stash to pull back into your working directory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There seems to be ALOT of 'Git Explained' stuff. The best way to learn Git in my opinion is start using it! Google stuff as you go.

<comment><USER19> True, but even after travelling along the RCS->VSS->CVS->SVN graph for the past 20 years I still find git baffling sometimes. I like it but the question is whether I want to invest my brain resources, which are a scarce resource at age 47, in learning a revision control system that can drive you into a cul- de-sac when using even the most basic workflow.

I think git!=simple but I applaud the effort.

<comment><USER20> The model behind Git, the way the repository works/conceptual model, is incredibly simple. The only trick is learning which commands are used to make the changes you want, and that can take a little time (and Googling).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love Git, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to explain it simply.

<comment><USER9> I don't get this attitude. The DAG is exceedingly simple and I think can be taught reasonably in only a few minutes. From there you really only need to teach a _very_ minor amount of the UI, and teach the user how to perform _" I want to do this to the DAG"_=> _" This is what I type"_ translations on their own. I've seen all of this done well in sub-hour presentations.

Mercurial on the other hand has a pain in the ass datamodel (so much so that most introductions to it that I have seen do not even approach the topic), so you actually do have to learn all of the UI commands to get an idea of what can be done and what cannot be done. It is far more complex than git.

I really cannot think of a simpler VCS than git. I've used plenty, but never got off the ground faster with anything else.

<comment><USER22> I agree with the model being great. The git command itself is abominably baroque in its user interface (inconsistencies and strange defaults abound), but I've gotten over that with more effort than I'd like to admit.

I love Git's plumbing; I just hate its porcelain.

<comment><USER8> People who refuse to see the ugliness in git are the same people who think it's manly to live on the command line. Using git through Eclipse looks a lot like using SVN through Eclipse. If I right-click on a file and go Team > Replace With > Remote and select 'origin master' is saves me from trying to remember the obscure list of flags I need to pass to the command line to do the same thing.

<comment><USER9> _Refuse_ to see the ugliness? No, I really don't see it. Sure, a few flags could be cleaned up, but the beauty of the rest of git more than offsets a few weirdly named flags.

Meanwhile git through eclipse causes nothing but trouble as far as I have seen. Making it seem like SVN is exactly the problem, git _isn 't_ like SVN so if it seems that way, something is going wrong. Pretending git is something that it isn't will bite you in the ass sooner rather than later. The disappointing part is that there isn't any technical reason why git integration in eclipse _couldn 't_ be good, it just isn't currently.

<comment><USER8> The fact that I can select files to add/commit with checkboxes and permanently check a box that will push every commit is exactly what I want 99% of the time. I know that isn't the "git way", but the "git way" has no value for the kind of projects I work on.

<comment><USER9> The "git way" is just whatever way you want. If you want a central server that you always push to, that is fine; there is no problem with that.

The problem is with that particular _tooling_. That tooling presents a workflow that is perfectly fine (though it is problematic that it does not facilitate alternative workflows, which becomes particularly problematic when working on a team with other users), but it obscures what is actually going on and executes that workflow imperfectly, generally falling over in rather novel ways. When it fucks something up, and it eventually will, you will need an understanding of the basic concepts underlying git to figure out what went wrong. I'm not saying you need to know how to use the default git porcelain, I'm saying you need to be aware of the _concepts_ underlying git.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been danced-around in the comments, so I'm just going to say it: I don't need the concepts of git simplified, I need a better explanation of how git's bizarre command set maps onto the obvious DAG/filesystem operations.

<comment><USER24> Seconded. And, at 30 printed pages, I'd hate to see the non-simplified explanation (no, I didn't actually print it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> ... that is not simple. But I'm figuring it out anyways.

I commit my changes to my own repo and keep building changes under HEAD, committing as I go. If I get a branch from a buddy and I want to add it to my code, I either merge or rebase depending how I want his commits to be intertwingled.

Because GIT is decentralized, there's no difference between merging in a buddy's branch, and import the latest changes from Origin into my branch. So I fetch the changes from origin/master and then rebase or merge my repo on top of that. That's my "Get Latest" command, basically, right? Assuming I'm working on "master", I fetch then rebase or merge origin/master.

To check in, I tell the origin server to take _my_ stuff and then rebase or merge its master with that.

I still feel like this is a rather baroque approach to the problem... managing oodles of local commits separate from rebase/merges seems bizarre, above and beyond the decentralized approach that makes my own repo, my peer, and the "origin's" stuff all equivalent.

The decision of when to merge vs. rebase is still confusing to me.

<comment><USER21> One small point: on check-in, I don't think it's exactly that origin is _also_ rebasing/merging just like you did. It's more like origin is just taking whatever you have and copying it exactly. The merging/rebasing process itself only happens locally.

Regarding merge vs. rebase, here's my approach: rebase to keep history a straight line when it's just your changes and it's just a few commits. If it's too many commits you tend to have more conflicts and it's usually easier to merge.

<comment><USER25> > One small point: on check-in, I don't think it's exactly that origin is also > rebasing/merging just like you did. It's more like origin is just taking > whatever you have and copying it exactly. The merging/rebasing process > itself only happens locally.

But then what happens when I merge/rebase locally and publish at the same time as somebody else? I assume the origin doesn't keep a lock on the whole mess while I'm doing my local merge/rebase. That sounds like it would lead to a "last-one-wins" conflict-resolution or a complete reversion of the origin if I publish without rebasing on the origin's version first.

<comment><USER26> Are you using gitflow? [https://github.com/nvie/gitflow](https://github.com/nvie/gitflow)

So yes, if you try to push without pulling down changes, then you will get an error about the histories having diverged. Sometimes you don't care about wiping out history, and can just push with the -f parameter, but most of the time that's your cue to rebase.

Branches are cheap in git, and there's no real advantage to doing dev work in the master branch. You should create a branch at least as often as you develop a new feature. In git, history isn't necessarily a static thing. Sometimes you need to mangle it to achieve your goals, and sometimes you fat-finger the merge and do time in History Hell. In either case it's only a huge flaming deal if you're working on master. Ditto with the problem you describe.

I recommend the O'Reilly book on Git. The simple explanations are nice in theory, but this is a complicated subject and deserves a full explanation. There are very sound reasons for the how and why of git, and they should be within the grasp of any aspiring programmer.

<comment><USER25> I'm not using git _at all_ , I'm trying to understand how it works before I start. Every guide to git I read before was a completely opaque mess of terminology, so this is the first time it's starting to make a lick of sense.

<comment><USER20> I think Git is much easier to understand if you understand the underlying data model. The core object in Git (as far as you need to care) is a commit. Each commit holds a link to the commit(s) it was based on. If two commits have the same parent, you have two branches. If one commit has two parents, it's a merge. Individual commits don't know what branch(es) they are a part of.

Branches are just pointers to commits. When you make a new commit on a branch, the new commit is saved and the branch pointer is moved forward to point to the new commit.

Tags point to branches, but they don't get updated. They're supposed to be permanent (but can be modified if you try). If a tag points at a commit and you make a new commit, the tag still points to the original commit.

The only other odd term would be HEAD, which is like a branch that _ALWAYS_ points at what you have checked out at the moment. You'll see this if you make commits without being on a branch (say you checked out an old commit and just started working).

Since branches are just pointers at commits, you can move them around easily. If you make 6 new branches, they all just point at the same commit to start, which is why it's so amazingly fast to do. If you want to undo a commit (that you haven't pushed), you can move the branch pointer to a previous commit. After that when you make new commits it will be like the mistake never existed. (Note: If you accidentally do this, it can be fixed if you catch it soon enough).

When it comes to using branches, "A Successful Git Branching Model" [1] is _very_ commonly used, and works fantastically. I had almost no trouble getting the other developers in my company on the model, and it makes it very easy to keep things straight.

If you'd like help understanding Git, I'd be glad to try to help you. My email address should be in my profile. You may find this kind of thing much simpler if you look at the graph of repository. My company uses SourceTree[2], which is a pretty great GUI and makes it easy for me to see how the various branches I've got relate.

[1] [http://nvie.com/git-model/](http://nvie.com/git-model/) [2] [http://www.sourcetreeapp.com](http://www.sourcetreeapp.com) (Mac & Windows, Git has a basic gui command built in if you want)

<comment><USER7> > Tags point to branches, but they don't get updated.

Did you mean to say tags point to a commit?

<comment><USER20> Yep, good catch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's possible, at least after I see the concepts this way, that git has the simple design Hoare was talking about when he said:

"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." ― C.A.R. Hoare

</comment><comment><USER28> Very nice, and to see it in action, this is also really cool: [http://pcottle.github.io/learnGitBranching/?demo](http://pcottle.github.io/learnGitBranching/?demo)

</comment><comment><USER29> If your "simple" explanation of how to use something is 27 pages then it is many things and simple isn't one of them.

My favorite thing about Git is how it's forced Perforce to add features and lower price. Thanks Git!

</comment><comment><USER30> I found the git book to be more than adequate enough for explaining the structures and practice patterns of git.

[http://git-scm.com/book](http://git-scm.com/book)

</comment><comment><USER31> This did it for me: [http://www.sbf5.com/~cduan/technical/git/](http://www.sbf5.com/~cduan/technical/git/)

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't use Git and would like to know how the following problem is solved in Git.

Say you have a project which is a hundred megabytes big. And you have to develop almost in parallel three or four "generations" of the project -- let's say. v1, v2 and v3. In parallel means you'd like to be able to build any of the three versions without having to take the version out of the repository first. You can't say that v1 is obsolete, as soon as some bugs are reported in v1 you have to fix them in v1, v2 and v3. And every bigger version is "newer" but some features can be added in v2 and v3 some just in v3 etc.

How can you work on such a big project and have a single repository where all three versions are present, and work on these three versions in parallel (having sources which are compiled in different base directories)?

<comment><USER33> > (having sources which are compiled in different base directories)

With my nascent Git understanding, I think you would just have multiple branches for v1, v2... and then clone the repository multiple times so you have multiple working copies.

Check out v1 in the first one, v2 in the second one.

Although changing between related branches is usually quite quick in Git. Also, a fresh checkout of ~100mb is not a lot. At least for an SSD.

This also relies on having a centralised Git repository for you to push/pull changes to. But I believe Git allows you to synchronise multiple repositories on disk.

You're rarely developing two things at once in any given instant of time... why not just quickly check out the branch you want?

<comment><USER20> > and then clone the repository multiple times so you have multiple working > copies.

This is probably not what you want. First, you should know that switching between branches in Git is _insanely_ fast. In general, it won't get in your way.

If you clone the repository, each one is a _full_ git repository. That means you'll triple the storage on the disk. Worse, you'll have to do 3x as many pulls to keep all 3 repositories up to date.

> You're rarely developing two things at once in any given instant of time... > why not just quickly check out the branch you want?

It often comes up, but that's what we do. We may have a dozen branches on our machines (the thing(s) we're working on, recent things we worked on, the one that's been sitting for a while we're waiting on an answer to pick up again) and we can switch our project within a second or two on a simple rotating hard drive.

<comment><USER33> I know this, but GP was asking about how to do it with "different base directories" which I'm assuming is asking for an analogy to Subversion's multiple working copies (i.e. check out this location from the repository to this location on disk).

<comment><USER32> Yes you're right, the thing is, the project produces different binaries which should be accessible for all different versions, which was solved by having only different base directories, all the configuration files build to same subdirectories no matter which version. If I'd switch to "always having only one version in a single base directory" then I'd have to maintain different temporary output and binary output names in all the configuration files in every version which is quite ugly. Then I can't use any "known fixed subdirectory names" in the projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is very nice as a review of Git, but probably best in that context rather than an initial presentation of the concepts. I really enjoyed the Source Control Made Easy series by Jim Weirich. It presents the same information in an easily digestible, step-by-step approach. Highly recommended for those trying to understand how Git works and how to best make use of it.

[http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-jwsceasy/source-control- ma...](http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-jwsceasy/source-control-made-easy)

</comment><comment><USER35> Git's learning curve feels similar to the learning curve of a programming language like Python.

Once you understand you're not going to pick it all up in an afternoon (just like a language) and that there will be lots more to learn down the road (like a language), git feels great.

<comment> guard-of-terra Programming language is 80% of my work effort but version control is more like 5%. It should be an _utility_ , I don't want it to be a world of its own right, I don't have needs for insanely powerful version control system because my needs are sane and limited - and that's where git is not so cool.

<comment><USER36> You can use the same argument about debuggers, dependency managers, editors, etc.

If you are happy with whatever tool you are using, why change?

<comment> guard-of-terra Version control is social and there you can see a few maniacs ruining it for the rest of the team.

Debuggers aren't much harder than pour and drink. Dependency managers are pain in the ass (unsolved problem in CS) but you don't wrestle with them every day. I don't use very many features of my Eclipse and I don't use terribly many commands in vim. I also use arrows, I kid you not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's the stuff behind the curtain that makes me love git. It doesn't just seem like version control software - it seems like the software is an interface to a much more powerful version control _engine_. Git just makes _sense_ under the covers.

</comment><comment><USER38> See also Git for Computer Scientists at [http://eagain.net/articles/git-for- computer-scientists/](http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Nice. I'd love to see more details about the index, the way to see differences between branches with log and diff, and I think stash should be mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER40>
       git init
       git add .
       git commit ":-)"
       git push origin master

6 months later I still look it up... this tutorial is for me!

</comment><comment><USER41> a lot of this is generally (d)vcs and applies equally to mercurial or even svn...

also if you think x pages of anything is a simple explanation then you missed a trick or two.

e.g if you have to explain why your arrows are pointing backwards you are doing it wrong, instead of using the standard notation for graphs and lists and stuff which are not generally well known, use what most people will understand on inspection.

</comment><comment><USER42> Can someone please convert this into a nice pdf? Chances are I will do this type of reading when I am offline...

</comment><comment><USER43> Yeah right.

</comment><comment><USER44> I prefer the Fox News tutorial on the subject.

'Repo' means 'reciprocity' or 'reposotory' if you didn't know.

<comment><USER45> [http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52330e4deab8eaef7ac...](http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52330e4deab8eaef7ac8a35b-960/fox- news-interview-github.jpg)

I also wanted to post this screenshot and then saw your comments...

<comment><USER20> I'm... slightly afraid. I can't wait to send this to my coworkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The 90's called, they want their bitmaps back..</comment>


IBM Invests In MySQL/Oracle Competitor  - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3736336

<comment><USER2> It's good to see Postgres get some financial loving. It's my preferred open- source DB. I like the features, performance, and cleanliness when compared to MySQL.

I think the name change from "EnterpriseDB Postgres" to "Postgres Plus" and "Postgres Plus Advanced Server" is a great idea. It gets the name "Postgres" in a more prominent position and conveys the idea of their commercial product as a step up from the freely available one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Go PostgreSQL!

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109120>

</comment><comment><USER4> A RDBMS that tries to take being relational seriously, instead of trying to be a fast filesystem with an SQL-like command syntax? Really? Gosh.

</comment><comment><USER5> Let's not forget about IBM's strategic hire of Damien Katz, the creator of CouchDB.</comment>