Ask HN: How do you manage your web passwords? - <AUTHOR> Looking for a better way to generate and manage secure passwords for general purpose web accounts, applications, etc. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I use a password manager (1Password). It both stores and generates secure passwords. I've tried KeePass and LastPass, but I didn't like them as much (although LastPass's form filling was very accurate).</comment>


Vala Deserves a Closer Look - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/goober99/vala-deserves-a-closer-look-m56 <comment><USER2> The author is my kind of dude. Despite all the hype he is trying to see what is out there through experience, self -study, and personal interest. The web is the best thing since the light bulb but it also encourages group think as surely as the bulb encouraged light pollution and energy waste. Bravo to the author for checking things out that aren't all the buzz.</comment>


Facebook says no sex apps on Oculus - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-oculus-no-sex-violence-limits-unclear-2015-6

<comment><USER2> And that is why the purchase of Oculus was bad idea. Unless we have root on the device and can sideload. Locking tech inside walled gardens is harmful to everyone.</comment>


Israeli scientists print world's first 3D heart with human tissue - <AUTHOR> http://nocamels.com/2019/04/israeli-scientists-3d-print-a-tiny-live-heart-made-with-human-tissue/ <comment><USER2> Misleading. This is another example of "looks like, but doesn't work like". You often see people print noses, ears, whatever that have cells in them. That doesn't make it functional tissue.

Source: I lead a tissue engineering project to print human organs for transplantation.

<comment><USER3> There's a discussion on another thread that I think could benefit from your input : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19664948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19664948)</comment></comment>


Acorns – Rounds up daily purchases and automatically invests them - <AUTHOR> https://www.acorns.com <comment><AUTHOR> Great idea but a few things concern me.

1.] If you put $20,000 into Acorns, their fee starts to become more than trivial -- $50 a year.

2.] There are management fees (.05% to .20%) charged by the ETF's in addition to Acorns fees.

3.] You lose the points by not using an airline or hotel credit card.</comment>


B.C. to add computer coding to school curriculum - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bc-government-adds-computer-coding-to-school-curriculum/article28234097/ <comment><AUTHOR> The focus on job skills is a bit unfortunate IMO, but I guess that's what you need to get people behind a change. Also I don't know if "coding" is what we want to emphasize, since the actual coding is really a minor component of programming. It's possible that's just the journalist, but I could also see them taking the easy root of actually putting all the focus on the coding side. I'm hopeful though since it also talks about starting with "computational thinking" and such in kindergarten and only getting to actual coding later.

Regardless, it's going to be difficult to pull off well, since presumably not many current teachers have great coding skills. Even logical reasoning might be difficult, since it really hasn't been emphasized in the past. If they're just trying to teach the concepts out of a curriculum book without understanding them, it could actually turn kinds _off_ of CS. Still, it's good to see the BC government recognizing the importance of computer science and logical (presumably what they mean by "computational") thinking.</comment>


Google sent users' personal information to a Bay Area counter-terrorist center - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/17/google-giving-user-data-authorities-documents-reveal <comment><USER2> Are they NOT supposed to report credible threats of violence or terrorism? I believe we all agree that Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS should not be allowed to use the platforms to propagate violence. Why are violent members of the Far Right any different?

From the article:

> On a now-deleted video on the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton by > Canadian white nationalist, Stefan Molyneux (whose channel YouTube has now > banned), the user wrote: "Hi guys, i need your help, i cant help but look at > those shooters and think, that could be me. I watch Stefan, and black pilled > and many others on the right. I think i should do the same thing they are > doing."

> The user then went on to discuss methods of making explosive devices.

> But the same user also discussed making explosives in other comments which > were still visible on YouTube at the time of reporting, along with the > user's account.

> On a video alleging acts of brutality by local police, the user appended > comments urging others to "kill them, when you go to trial i wouldn't find > you guilty for shooting these criminals. Kill them all".

> According to Google's reports, the same user appended racial slurs to videos > reporting crimes which Google has since removed.

These are public comments -- any user could report them to law enforcement. This seems like EXACTLY the sort of thing that SHOULD be reported to law enforcement for investigation. Law enforcement takes the tip and decides where to go from there.

<comment><USER3> > Are they NOT supposed to report credible threats of violence or terrorism?

Absolutely and the title should make it clear that is what is happening here. If this is the case then data was not shared because user was far-right, it was shared because the user's comments appear to be incitement and not protected by the first amendment[1].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions#Incitement)

<comment><USER4> The first amendment doesn't apply to user comments on any Google property, unless that property is exclusively operated for and/or moderated by the US government or a direct representative thereof.

<comment><USER5> First amendment protections from law enforcement (who these comments were reported to) absolutely apply to comments made on Google property, and anywhere else. It's disheartening to see such a stupid take on HN.

<comment><USER4> The first amendment does not provide blanket protection from law enforcement, however much some US citizens wish otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can bet that if someone used one of my rando apps for something like threatening violence I too would report them.

I don't know how likely I would actually know it, but I've no issue with a service doing so.

>"Hi guys, i need your help, i cant help but look at those shooters and think, that could be me. I watch Stefan, and black pilled and many others on the right. I think i should do the same thing they are doing."

>The user then went on to discuss methods of making explosive devices.

>But the same user also discussed making explosives in other comments which were still visible on YouTube at the time of reporting, along with the user's account.

Yeah I think that's ok to report.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Google also reported three videos by a third user

Google handles mind-boggling amounts of traffic. Without statistics for how often these things happen, these specific cases mean very little to me.

Regarding the article as a whole, what is Google supposed to do?

Tech giants are pressured to increase regulation (e.g. Facebook and the 2016 US election stuff). They're also pressured to be places for free speech.

<comment><USER8> Threatening and conspiring to commit violence had never been part of protected free speech

<comment><USER9> The US government threatens and conspires to commit violence all the time. Clearly this is allowed if all men are equal. Otherwise agents of the state would have rights that others do not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this differ from "Google giving extremist users' data to law enforcement"?

The article says:

> The users were often threatening violence or otherwise expressing extremist > views, often associated with the far right.

Ok, so so since "extrem[ism]" is "often associated" with "the far right", therefore it makes it into the headline?

I'd like to see how they objectively decided that, or what they mean by "often associated" \- associated by who? and why? Also; is this a causal association? i.e. extremists are often far right does not imply the far right are often extremist.

</comment><comment><USER8> Misleading headline.

Google gave law enforcement user data of users repeatedly publicly violating Google TOS and possibly the law.

<comment><USER11> Where does it say that in the article? I see concern from privacy advocates, but no allegation that it's against their TOC or the law.

To me, the headline is misleading because it sounds as if users were reported merely for their political views — when in fact they were _threatening violence_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Misleading title posted by a throwaway? Hmm.</comment>


How a Bug in My Ruby Code Cost Code School $13,000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.codeschool.com/blog/2015/06/04/how-a-bug-in-my-ruby-code-cost-code-school-13000/

<comment><USER2> I'd add an additional safeguard. When retrying failed jobs, make sure to have exponential backoff. Numerous queueing systems have this feature built in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! Delayed Job actually has an exponential backoff build in. It'll run 25 times, with an increasingly large time between attempts before it gives up.

The issue comes in when it doesn't know a job actually failed, as was the issue in this case. Since the process was `kill -9`'d delayed job wasn't aware the job failed and attempted to run it again as though it was the first attempt.</comment></comment>


Technical debt and microservices presentation by chief architect of Warby Parker [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://cdn.oreillystatic.com/en/assets/1/event/281/Technical%20debt_%20A%20master%20class%20Presentation.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Chief Architect of Warby Parker Robert Lefkowitz's presentation on technical debt and his proposition for a microservice architecture called the von Neumann.

Some interesting ideas include:

1\. Remove dependencies. 2\. Store data in the code (inside AWS lambdas). 3\. Technical debt is "borrowed" code.</comment>


Ask HN: What's a good beginner's tiling WM for Linux - <AUTHOR>

I've never really used anything but stock Ubuntu and want to try to dip into the tiling WM world. What's a good one to get started with, that is preferably easyish to set up and get started with. <comment><USER2> I have used and recommend either awesome (<http://awesome.naquadah.org>) or xMonad (<http://xmonad.org>)

They are both cool and do the job.

xMonad is a bit more hardcore because it is written in Haskell (and its configuration files are Haskell programs as well)

Awesome uses Lua which is easier to grasp.

<comment><USER3> Very true, but a few more differences.

By default, awesome has a bar at the top to tell you what mode you're in, list windows, list workspaces, etc. Also, it provides a system tray. You can get one of these set up in xMonad without that much effort, but its an extra hurdle.

On the other hand, if you just want to swap out the window manager on GNOME you don't want to have to remove this, so xMonad has the advantage there.

Awesome has this really nifty thing where windows can be tagged, and views are compositions of tags. So there are easy ways to have a window on more than one workspace at a time.

On the other hand, xMonad seems to have better multi-monitor defaults.

xMonad also has dmenu by default, and that's seriously awesome (no pun intended).

Personally, I use awesome as my window manager on GNOME, but I've redone some keybindings to be more xMonadish and I used documentation from xMonad as part of getting things set up.

EDIT: Here's the uber-helpful xMonad GNOME integration page. You'll want to read it even if you use awesome. [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gn...](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gnome)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently started using xmonad on a netbook and found it quite easy to get started. I use xmobar for status. I haven't done much customization yet, but just getting the basic setup running was very straightforward. I'm a convert, and planning on switching my desktop to xmonad when I get a chance.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are familiar with (and like) Lisp, I recommend checking out StumpWM: <http://stumpwm.antidesktop.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl>

I started with Awesome, moved to XMonad, and have settled on StumpWM. It was very easy to install (many steps, but they were all very straightforward and easy for me to follow with my arrangement) and the defaults were reasonable. I haven't gotten it super-customized for my every desire, but it was pretty straightforward to add some keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to move between groups and to bring up programs (shift-win-c to bring up Conkeror, for example).

I think they're all three good choices and wish you luck with whichever you choose.

</comment><comment><USER6> XMONAD... finally get the WM you have always been dreaming of. Really easy to get started. You can also "drop" it in as a replacement for metacity and use it directly on ubuntu. Also you can install it separately and log in when you want it. For me no setup was required.</comment>


Steve Yegge about life at Google - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/UgCL6YRwgbR

<comment><USER2> What's the "real" reason Google does all that stuff for its employees? _You're doing it right now, Steve._

</comment><comment><USER3> The question that is left for me is What about the work?</comment>


Akorn / wheezy.web / overview — Bitbucket - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/akorn/wheezy.web/overview <comment><AUTHOR> Just listening about it on a local geeks meeting so maybe someone find it also useful for some project.</comment>


Startups review by you http://web2nation.posterous.com/ - <AUTHOR>

Simple as that, I noticed that Techcrunch's hasn't been writing about startup launches for who knows when, so I created a posterous for anyone who had just launched a webapp, mobile app or anything interesting to send over your own review of what it's all about.<p>The posterous site is set to anyone can post but is miderated, so to submit your startups, web apps, mobile apps launches just send your review to email@example.com. <comment><USER2> Get your own domain name please!</comment>


Ask HN: What books are you reading? - <AUTHOR> I thought it was time for a usual book check-up. I am currently reading The Insect Farm. What about you? <comment><USER2> Seul sur Mars (The Martian, in French)

It is really boosting my understanding of the French language, and giving me more confidence to speak it.

It's a simple story that's easy to follow, especially having read the book in English and seen the film a couple times. And really, how lost can you get? If you can't follow a paragraph or to, chances are he'll still be stuck on Mars for a while and you won't have missed much.

It's written in an informal, conversational style, using language that real people might use. I find myself reading a phrase that translates back to a saying I've used in English. Ah, looks like they use that in French too. I'll add it to the repertoire.

I can pick it up after a while off and quickly get back in to it without explanation. Hmm... this looks like the part where the guy is stuck on mars...

And as a bonus, it's kinda hard work to read in a foreign language, so if I pick it up in bed it's guaranteed to put me to sleep inside of half an hour.

Highly recommended.

<comment><USER3> Congrats on the effort. I started learning English when I became interested in Neuro-Linguistic Programming a decade ago: there were no resources in French and the discipline was started by two Americans. I read a ton of books out loud just to hit the muscles used in English (not quite the same as French. My mouth hurt).

Here's a great resource from the University of Québec: [http://classiques.uqac.ca/](http://classiques.uqac.ca/)

It has a _lot_ of books categorized (see thumbnails) in many areas (classics, natural sciences, etc). From Freud, Adler, Smith, to Descartes. Enjoy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Specifying Systems_ , [http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/book.html](http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/book.html)

 _Engineering a Safer World_ , [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/engineering- safer-world](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/engineering-safer-world)

 _Software Specification Methods_ , [https://www.amazon.com/Software- Specification-Methods-Henri-...](https://www.amazon.com/Software- Specification-Methods-Henri-Habrias/dp/1905209347) (also available through Safari Books Online, at least at my office)

Read most of the third one this week, a useful comparison of the various approaches. My objective is to understand how to better produce formal (or more formal) specifications. Either for whole systems or just for significant or critical portions of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us ([https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About- Motivate...](https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About- Motivates/dp/1594484805))

Throws out a new perspective on what motivates people.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm looking for _good_ books (fact or fiction) about vikings for young children - under 8.

 _Pirate Diary - The Journal of Jake Carpenter_ by Richard Platt, illustrated by Chris Riddel. (I think this is good. The illustration is very good (and it won a Greenaway medal for the illustration).

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pirate-Diary-Journal-Jake- Carpenter...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pirate-Diary-Journal-Jake- Carpenter/dp/0744583322/)

A _Flat Stanley_ collection. (I don't think it's much good. My son enjoys it though.)

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Stanley-Collection-Jeff- Brown/...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Stanley-Collection-Jeff- Brown/dp/1405266589/)

And I'm about to start re-reading everything by Fred Vargas.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fred- Vargas/e/B001I9OXT6/ref=sr_ntt...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fred- Vargas/e/B001I9OXT6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1498329157&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment> comsci-bro The PhD Grind: [http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD- grind.pdf](http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-grind.pdf)

It is a wonderfully written memoir that perfectly details the grad school experience and also includes some helpful notes from the author. I'll be graduating next year (bachelor's in CS), and my dad asked me if I wanted to enter grad school. The book sure did add some fuel to the fire.

</comment><comment><USER7> Currently I'm listening to "Personal MBA" audiobook and loving it so far. I'm not the biggest fan of business books but decided to give this one a try to learn a bit more about marketing and sales.

Here are the books I've read and want to read: [https://booknshelf.com/@tigran/shelves](https://booknshelf.com/@tigran/shelves)

</comment><comment><USER8> I am reading "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", from the Stanford's Professor Carol Dweck. I really wish I had read that 10 years ago... By that time the book wasn't published but some part of the science behind it was already available. I am almost finishing it and it is probably the best of the 12 books I have read so far this year.

</comment><comment><USER9> Mind And Nature - A Necessary Unity, by Gregory Bateson, and I Am A Strange Loop, by Douglas Hofstadter. They're a great combination, as they're both attempts to define the concept of "mind" through patterns. Bateson is one of the early thinkers in the field of Cybernetics, which I've been meaning to learn more about.

Here's my (unfinished) reviews of the books I've read so far this year: [https://github.com/bcbrown/bookreviews/tree/master/2017](https://github.com/bcbrown/bookreviews/tree/master/2017). At the end of the year I'll flesh them out a little more.

<comment><USER10> A previous post on the HN front page on human behaviour lead me to recommend this book, and I think you'd be interested in it as well. (I swear I'm not a shill.)

It's called "Human Nature: The Categorical Framework" by P.M.S. Hacker. The chapter of direct interest to you is called "The Mind". [https://www.amazon.com/Human-Nature-Categorial-Framework- Hac...](https://www.amazon.com/Human-Nature-Categorial-Framework- Hacker/dp/1444332481/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1444332481&pd_rd_r=TKX5RASJ63XYHS9H1K7D&pd_rd_w=lz7UT&pd_rd_wg=vLoFR&psc=1&refRID=TKX5RASJ63XYHS9H1K7D)

Hacker is a philosopher of language and of mind, and he is a very clear writer. He works in a similar method to Wittgenstein and is a scathing critic of the tendency for many (particularly in cognitive neuroscience) to remain in a Cartesian dualist mindset that is, really, 17th-century metaphysics and nonsense. His point on 'the mind' is that it is not an entity. That doesn't mean it is nothing, but that means it is not something. It is a faculty, a conceptual shorthand for our rational powers, or, as Aristotle describes the "psuchē", "the actuality of a body that has life". We alone as persons can do the things that can be attributed to a rational mind.

Reading him is like spring cleaning your mind of nonsense.

(He also has some hilarious criticisms of Chomsky and his treatment of language in the book, and its sequel.)

<comment><USER9> That looks right up my alley, I've added it to my reading list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Technical:

Domain Modeling Made Functional by Scott Wlaschin

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer by Sandi Metz

Fiction:

Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer - I saw this mentioned in a HN comment[0].

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14530693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14530693)

Edited to fix formatting and add a missing book.

</comment><comment><USER12> _Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business: The Story of Clif Bar & Co._

Just started this book last night. The story begins as the Founder of Clif Bar walks away from selling his company and a $40M personal pay-out. Big idea so far, your business is an ultimate form of self-expression. > [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29691.Raising_the_Bar](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29691.Raising_the_Bar)

</comment><comment><USER13> Black Swan, was way better than my expectation! I especially love silent evidence, if you are following HN and are not billionaire read it!

<comment><USER14> Check out his next book, Anti-fragile as well. Builds on a lot of ideas of Black Swan.

<comment><USER13> will do, thanks a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads - world history from an Asiacentric perspective.

Harold Coyle, Team Yankee - WW3 in Europe in the 1980s from the perspective of a tank company commander. Poorly written, in my opinion, but the accurate (or so I hope) descriptions of the military tactics and equipment almost make up for it.

James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood - excellent book about the history of information.

</comment><comment><USER16> Some brain junk food, I am very much enjoying thus far.

[https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Index-Robert- Harris/dp/030794811...](https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Index-Robert- Harris/dp/0307948110)

</comment><comment><USER17> I am about to start to re read again Master and Margarita, but will try to read the original, even tough my high school Russian is a bit rusty it is always better if you can try to read the original imho

</comment><comment><USER18> The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

It's a history of where all this - startup culture, silicon valley, computers, internet, hackers - came from. Should be essential reading for anyone working in IT.

</comment><comment><USER19> Listening to The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb and wondering how I missed this when it was new.

Reading The Evermen Saga by James Maxwell.

No self help or technical books for me, just pure fantasy.

</comment><comment> wu-ikkyu Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in an "outside the box" perspective on mental health and society at large.

</comment><comment><USER20> Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

It goes into detail about the Mount Everest disaster in the 90s.

</comment><comment><USER21> When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.

Difficult topic but great writing so far. Especially if you like books by Atul Gawande

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm reading the "Deep Learning" book written by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville. Also "Intercom on staring up"

</comment><comment><USER23> "Getting Things Done" by David Allen

<comment><USER24> Ironically, I never finished that book hehe

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Essential Scrum

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

Growing Object Oriented Software, Guided By Tests

</comment><comment> house9-2 Stephen King

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Wanted to read the first one before the movie came out, now I am hooked...

</comment><comment><USER26> WiX Cookbook and WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML

</comment><comment><USER27> Windows Internals 7th Ed.

Seveneves, Neal Stephenson

Astrophysics for people in a hurry, Neil De Grasse Tyson

</comment><comment><USER17> Right now I am reading again "More Money Than God"

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Money_Than_God](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Money_Than_God)

</comment><comment><USER28> Just finished The cartel today, next Algorithms to live by

</comment><comment><USER29> Tragedy and Hope by Quigley.

</comment><comment><USER30> The Chronicles of Amber, again.

</comment><comment><USER31> Essential AngularJS</comment>


The National Ignition Facility - Laser Fusion Generator - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/10/the_national_ignition_facility.html

<comment><USER2> What the article doesn't mention is that "fusion power" is the story for public consumption. The real purpose of this facility is the design of nuclear weapons through simulating nuclear explosions.</comment>


ASK HN: What is the most lucrative front end framework to learn at the moment? - <AUTHOR> So I've been an angularjs dev for a little while. I've dabbled a bit in Angular but it's so foreign to me that it's practically 90% new.
I'm looking to expand my knowledge by picking up a new front end framework since angularjs is way outdated by now. I'm also looking for a job so I'm hoping to learn something that will have a large appeal.
Currently React seems like the most popular framework but I hear a lot about Vue growing quite fast.
What are your thoughts here? In terms of job opportunities, what is the best framework to pick up these days? <comment><USER2> My last job involved a little bit of react, my current job is mostly react.

For my side projects I am using Vue and Vuex. One of these days, I am going to find a reason to start using MobX at work.

I think lessons learned are transferable between these frameworks so that picking one and doing something with it is more important than which one you'd pick, but I would stick to something in the React-Vue-Svelte family.

</comment><comment><USER3> Vue.js is my personal favorite, especially for personal projects because of its clarity and lightweight feel. However, during my recent job search, it seemed like React was the most in demand.

Angular seems the "safe" choice of big corporate shops while React is used by the cool kids at design-focused shops, IMO.</comment>


Are MacBooks Just Trendy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/03/17/are-macbooks-just-trendy/ <comment><USER2> The author is insane. Why on earth would you want to settle on a old and rusty Windows-based tool? Just because you're an "average" user you should not be settling on junk, otherwise an argument can be made for buying a 5 year old used PCs for $100 on ebay.

For starters, Windows is barely usable on high-DPI screens. Their UIs don't scale, the graphics does not scale, the font rendering is still tuned for 72dpi.

Second, Windows users automatically get sacks of junkware pre-installed from "friends from Dell". My Lenovo T60p came with a crippled wireless because of trial versions of some "protective" software that I had to remove (online forums were full of cries).

My friend has cut a finger once by touching an edge of a Dell laptop. It happened 3 years ago and new Inspirons are better. Now he is getting "A Message from Logitech!" bubble in the corner of his screen every couple of weeks.

And finally, Windows with is antiquated window management is simply no match for Mac as far as productivity is concerned.

<comment><USER3> if you need a macbook, or it makes you work better or more efficient, by all means, buy one. but buying one just because it has more bells and whistles and looks pretty while you surf the net and you write your school papers is ridiculous.

the argument that you should always buy top quality of whatever your purchasing, also, is a pretty insane argument to make.

<comment><USER2> Noodle, no pun intended, but _did you read what I wrote_? What bells and whistles are you referring to? Besides, MacBook is the opposite of "top of the line" - it's a bare minimum of a computer one needs to care for these days.

Disclaimer: I work on ThinkPads with Linux on them. They're _more_ costly than MacBooks, this is why I recommend Macbooks: they're well-built, inexpensive, modern machines that will make you more productive.

Top of the line are MBPs and ThinkPads "P"-series, $1,700+.

<comment><USER3> macbooks might be a standard for web design/development, but its overkill for grandma down the street who still uses the AOL dialup.

for a niche profession, they can be considered bare minimum, but for population-at-large, they're pretty fancy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ARGH. this is SUCH a tiring thing to read, over and over again. as if all us mac users were all buying computers with the same criteria that a clotheshorse uses when buying a pair of jeans.

<comment><USER5> But a lot of mac users ARE buying computers with the same criteria that a clotheshorse uses when buying a pair of jeans.

I think that there are two groups of mac users, the above mentioned and the crowd that use it because it is a nice gui on top of a unix based opereating system, allowing for a lot of control.

The latter, of which you are probably a member, is a minority though. This is why you have to read about it time and again. For the larger part of the mac base it is true.

<comment><USER6> You're being downvoted, but it's true. Going to the Apple Store here in Columbia MD makes me kind of ashamed to be a Mac user right now. There are literally crowds of teenage girls flocking in to dote over how "cute" the hardware is... and not a whole lot else; both in terms of clients or the merits they see in Apple products.

It seems like 90% of the Mac user base right now is as clueless as trolls say they are. This was not the case 5 years ago.

<comment><USER7> I agree that most non-tech people are much more concerned about form factor. I recently tried to explain to a colleague why a MacBook Pro is faster than a MacBook with the same topline specs - his eyes glazed over after about four seconds, and he said he just 'liked the look' of the black MacBook better. You have to hand it to their marketing guys - the greatest illustration of their success is that they've persuaded teenage girls to care at all.

<comment><USER5> Very accurate comment - and for Apple this is not a bad thing. They have managed to create brilliant products, and even more brilliant marketing. Their greatest insight is that for a lot of users a computer is just another gadget, and they realise that consmuer electronics are sold on looks and lifestyle - not on technical spec. The real genius, of course, is to tie everything together so that the teenage girls will have to own both the iphone, the ipod, the macbook, and whatever else they come up with.

The market is huge - there are a lot more teenage girls out there than there are hackers...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are they trendy? Yes.

Are they _just_ trendy? No.

Next question please :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Attacking anything from Apple is a great way to generate traffic. The site seems to have done that, since I can't get there to read the story.

I think there are a lot of people who bought macs because they are trendy, but for me (and probably a lot of other people here) the appeal is that they run unix with a nice gui.

</comment><comment><USER10> Allow me to give my opinion as somebody who always buys the minimum hardware necessary to barely get by (that is: web browsing, MS Office, maybe running Cygwin and/or compiling a Java program now and then).

I bought my Macbook last year when Vista was just coming out. Had it been 3 months before, I would have bought an XP machine, no doubt about it. You can run XP fine on 1/2 GB RAM, which is what I have on my home desktop PC. And, for me, it was a known quantity. What the heck, I ran Windows ME on my desktop PC for like 6 years before I upgraded to an XP machine. And that was because I got the idea of playing with MIDI and audio sequencing.

However, at the time of the Vista release, the consensus seemed to be that 1/2 GB RAM wasn't going to cut it. And at that time, the price difference between a Mac and a PC with 1 GB RAM was more like $200-$300. And with a Vista machine you would then have to buy an antivirus, firewall, etc, maybe even a program for playing DVD's. And who knows if Vista wasn't going to need 2GB anyway. So I went with the Mac.

Today's situation looks quite different. The $500 Dell has 1GB RAM, which seems to be enough to run Vista tolerably. So, today I would probably have a hard time justifying buying the Mac. I could try (Unix underneath, no viruses, dev tools included) but I don't know if the wife would buy it :-)

Yes, I am ignoring details such as CPU and front bus speeds, web cam, etc. But as I said, my position is to buy the minimum HW to get by.

(BTW I haven't used Vista yet, and to be honest I'm not looking forward to it.)

</comment><comment><USER11> After several years of using ThinkPads running Linux and BSD for mobile work, both my X24 and T30 died within a few weeks of each other. I thought about it for a couple of weeks, then bought a mid-spec MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo, LED backlight, okay RAM/HD specs).

It cost about five times as much as I'd ever paid for a laptop, but I haven't regretted the decision for moment, even though functionally, I don't use it for much more than I did my old Linux systems. (The only exception for me is Adobe Lightroom, which by itself had previously been reason enough for me to keep one Windows desktop machine sitting around.)

Why, after gaining all my hard-earned knowledge and credibility shoving Linux and BSD onto poorly-supported machines, would I shell out the extra money for a "trendy" machine? Simple: I got sick and tired of wasting my time trying to make my f'ing machines _work_.

Instead of fiddling with xorg.conf lines, or downloading proprietary wireless card firmware, or manually twiddling the list of modules to be loaded and unloaded on suspend, I have spent the time in which I've owned the MBP actually _doing work_. That alone is more than worth the difference in price, especially since that difference actually wasn't very substantial.

</comment><comment><USER12> In the middle of an adoption curve it is hard to tell "trendy" from "gaining in popularity", but for the reasons that others have already mentioned: unix roots, stability, ease of use, there are ample "non trendy" reasons for buying a Mac.

But the MacBook Air is f'ing trendy.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ladies and gentlemen: you're arguing about buying a computer.

100 monks just died in protest of military crackdown in Tibet. The Feds just okayed 30 billion dollars of printed money to ensure a big bank stays alive. Women in Darfur are raped and killed.

Put all this in perspective. You're arguing about computers.

Buy what you need to use, pay the price if you think it's worth that price, and shop around to get the best value for your dollar. But at the end of the day: they're computers. Stop indulging in your mindless masturbation.

<comment><USER14> I don't like this argument. For one you're on "Hacker News," a forum for hackers who hack with (mostly) computers.

Keep in mind also that a lot of what we regard as essential today, say, the foundations of computer science (bits, formal language theory, algorithms) were once the trivial ejaculations of bearded professors in some ivory tower.

We need people dicking around in masturbatory enclaves solving puzzles, just as we need agitators and activists. I think it's unfair to say one group works at the expense of the other.

<comment><USER13> Real hackers can use tools at their disposal, they have preferences for a particular computer but really... does it really take all this effort, blog posts and commentary for a $1000 dollar computer?

How is this not in any way but masturbatory? Is there any arguments about the perceptions that exist in either market segment? Any explanation of user interaction differences? Is there anything relevant for a computer software developer to chew on and discuss? No. This is a blog post about whether or not a Macbook it too trendy for web browsing.

I'm not quite sure where you're venturing off to in your last paragraph so I'll just ignore it.

<comment><USER14> I just think it's unfair to say something is "masturbatory" when you're using human life as your measuring stick.

You can't expect everyone to devote themselves to your idea of worthwhile work, and you shouldn't begrudge their momentary diversions.

I don't begrudge you for closely following an internet comment thread when there are people suffering.

<comment><USER13> There aren't that many synonyms to masturbatory. And I find it adequate in using it.

And these posts aren't explaining my expectations, I've already expected people to focus on dorky and trivial things, but rather pushing my political agenda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like Macs and Thinkpads about equally. Both are expensive compared to the average Dell, but the difference in quality is obvious the moment you touch one. If you're replacing your computer yearly, it's probably not worth the extra cost, but if you carry your laptop around regularly and want it to last a few years, it's worth it.

<comment><USER16> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132056>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Apple is just an example of a company agile enough reinvent or refresh a product line before it gets to the point that it is no longer "trendy". Apple's next answer to the laptop may not be called a Macbook, but I think it will definitely still be a hot item.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes. Being virus and spyware free is de rigeur.

</comment><comment><USER19> well apple products are most of the time trendy .. for example ipods are just trendy - there are mp3 players out there in the market which has lot more features (such as radio, voice recording etc.) than ipod does... so there are users who look for value (by getting maximum features) and there are others who just go with the trend (i would call marketing trap). This is the reason why apple is having hard time in increasing ipod business in value driven markets like India.

<comment><USER4> this is another oft-repeated misguided statement. yes, you can buy a music player with more features than an ipod for less money. that's irrelevant. the reason ipods are popular is because they're fun and easy to use. they give their owners a warm fuzzy feeling you don't get from the junky pieces of plastic sold by creative, et al.

the same is true for apple's computers. it's not nearly as easy to switch computing platforms as it is to switch music players, or else macs would be even more popular than they are.

<comment><USER20> > they give their owners a warm fuzzy feeling you don't get from the junky > pieces of plastic sold by creative, et al.

Warm fuzzy feelings turn into rage and hatred relatively quickly.

My girlfriend: "OMG, a cute engraved ipod! It's so pretty!"

Later: "I can't copy music from your macbook onto my ipod without nuking my music? But they are both apple! How come your cheap chinese knockoff ipod works better than the real thing?"

<comment><USER4> yet it's apple that owns something like 80 percent of the portable music player market, rather than chinese knock-offs. go figure!

<comment><USER19> macbook does have bells and whistles and stability worth buying ... but not the ipods but it is so funny that macbooks doesn't have 80% market and ipod does ....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> YHBT. YHL. HAND.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well I only bought one to be in the "in" crowd. It's actually the worst computer I've ever used and takes me hours to get anything done. But I suffer just so that I can be trendy :/

<comment><USER22> Am I being downmodded because my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough?... Or just that it wasn't funny? :/

<comment><USER23> I disagree with what you said. If it was sarcasm, it was far too dry for me to pick up on it.

And, quite frankly, I usually downmod reddit and slashdot style jokes and puns because I want to help maintain the quality of comments here. I believe that if we "punish" people for behaving like that, they'll either leave or start submitting relevant and useful comments; either of which I fully support.

<comment><USER22> Point taken, although I think the original article with its title of "Are macbooks just trendy", was already so idiotic as to not really merit any serious response.

Shame there is no downmod for articles IMHO.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the worst part about working at Google? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Working-at-Google-1/Whats-the-worst-part-about-working-at-Google?share=1

<comment><USER2> Google is a lot like a federal agency. They get a pile of resources first, then each sub-group figures out how to squander it in ways that make themselves, their work, and their budgets seem necessary and important. The result is they review each other, design processes for process review, monitor compliance, create regulations for other teams, try to find excuses to add more people and budget to their groups, have more and longer meetings, "develop software" by filling in blanks in some proprietary, automated process admin screen spread across three expensive monitors, go to an important Google Tech Talk related to cool technology they won't be allowed to use unless they leave Google, dish political dirt afterwards while noshing on free culinary resources, hurry back to the desk to continue an intense email debate about whether Go really needs exceptions, ride a Segway to the neighboring building for some important dry-cleaning-pick-upping, and, off to face the rush hour traffic on 101 after another brutal day of _inventing the future_.

Unlike government, they don't take their money by force, so it's fine with me. They just won a corporate mega-lottery, that's all, and now they're finding fun ways to spend it, so they hire all the talent they can afford and try to get them to think of things to do (like government) instead of the usual non- lottery-winner approach of hiring only what they already desperately need.

<comment><USER3> Except from my understanding the government is generally hugely understaffed with a large backlog of tasks that are mandated at the congressional or higher executive levels.

<comment><USER2> Government is "generally hugely understaffed"? Sure, in the sense that Google is hugely understaffed as long as they still aren't as big and powerful as they want to be. Googlers consistently claim that there isn't enough important work to justify all the talent they already have, yet Google keeps adding headcount. Apparently, they just want to be bigger and more powerful, and the reason they need such power is...well, the reason is they want to be bigger and more powerful. They have the resources to do it, so they will, and finding ways to use that power is secondary. Fine. It's their own money.

The percentage of the population whose job is to "govern" us grows relentlessly every decade, yet some people think we are in a permanent, desperate state of not being governed enough. Just because government claims that they need to be much bigger and more powerful in order to be as big and powerful as they want to be doesn't mean that they are "hugely understaffed."

<comment><USER3> Seems ideological rather than factual. It's well known that the level of employment at the IRS prevents the government from collecting billions of dollars of revenue they are legally owed. In other words, the government is understaffed relative to what is necessary to enforce the law. The way you put makes government growth seem like some nebulous cancer. Make tax law simple enough to be enforced by the current staff, or properly staff this branch of the government. This is categorically different than Google needing to invent new tasks to hire people for. Your ideological position, that the government is not understaffed because the government does too much, is by definition unrelated to objective statements of fact, such as the government is understaffed relative to their task of enforcing law.

<comment><USER2> You speak of "the law" as if you were discussing laws of nature that government had to "properly staff" to deal with. But these are not objective laws of nature. These laws are demands made by government itself, so "objective statements of fact, such as the government is understaffed relative to the task of enforcing law" is just saying that it's an objective fact that government doesn't have all the staff they need for the task of fully enforcing their growing list of demands. If that's all you meant, I agree with you.

But if your statement that government was "hugely understaffed" meant to imply to any extent that government ought to be expanded, that would be ideology, not fact, and I disagree.

 _The way you put makes government growth seem like some nebulous cancer._

Putting it some other way doesn't change the facts. They add new laws, regulations, policies, and edicts each year to what you position as some sort of objective "task of enforcing law". That would be fine if they also revoked a similar number of laws, regulations, and demands, letting people go back to managing those affairs for themselves. But that's not their way. They don't give power back. When government decides to give itself more power, the only way the people ever get it back is when government lowers its enforcement priority and shifts staff to exercising other powers.

The government has grown far faster than the economy for over a century. It has grown far faster than the population it governs. Though good government is valuable (I'm no anarchist), bad government is destructive, and you always have some of both. A government that removed defective policies at the rate healthy tissue removes defective cells could evolve into something wonderful. But ours doesn't work that way, and until it does, any implication that the government is hugely understaffed and desperately needs to grow larger is an ideological claim I'll dispute. If you weren't implying a need for more government, I don't dispute your statement.

<comment><USER3> If you reread my statements, you will realize there is no implication that we need more government. As an ideologue, you have projected onto my statements a position that you want to argue with. To say that the government never relinquishes power is a statement of ideology, not fact. The Supreme Court, a branch of the government, has taken away government power to regulate political donations to PACs, and decided that certain state governments are not beholden to the federal government while modifying voting policies. There are two examples. Repeal of Glass-Steagall is a congressional example. Federalist political movements only make sense in the context of reform to shrink the power of the federal government.

"any implication that the government is hugely understaffed and desperately needs to grow larger is an ideological claim I'll dispute."

This is only an ideological position if you view the rule of law as a ideology. I guess it is, but it's the foundation of civilization, so it shouldn't be controversial. If the government passes laws, it should enforce them. Currently it doesn't have the staff to enforce passed laws. That is a statement of fact. YOUR position, by comparison, IS ideological, because you are holding that the government has more employees than you would prefer based on your political beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting, to me at least, that the first answer appears to be from the perspective of someone who hasn't worked at Google and then the second answer confirms the first from personal experience working at Google.

I wonder if there are really just a ton of very bright, very bored people there and what that could mean for their future.

<comment><USER5> My anecdotal experience of friends there is that they are universally talented. I can't point to anyone who squeeked in. Of them, half are working their tails off optimized completely working at a place that can scale their abilities. The other half could immediately leave for a promotion or two somewhere else. It amazes me that the talent level has scaled to 30,000 employees.

<comment><USER6> Actually, it's approaching 50,000 employees. Wikipedia cites 46,421.

Speaking as a Googler, I do think that people here are generally smart. However I've come to some conclusions after working here for a few years...

As an established company, I think it appeals more to specialists, compared to the newer internet companies.

About the saying "Do cool things that matter" ... I don't find much of the work to be that cool, but giving Google the benefit of the doubt, I suspect it's because I don't have a strong or specialized CS background (I have a EE/CE background but I work as a SWE). The company is so big now that you really need specialized knowledge to understand and appreciate why a certain project is important.

I think that a lot of Googlers are are specialists in some field. To them, Google is like one big sandbox funded by the ad revenue, and they get paid to work on stuff in their field. Contrary to lagging popular belief, not every Google engineer is a hotshot creative/entrepreneurial type. Most don't seem to be -- they're content just to do work that is technically advanced and challenging, but not particularly important or innovative to someone outside of their field.

e.g. one of the things people say is great about Google is that you get access to all these data centers and map reduces, and you can run algorithms over huge terabyte-sized data sets. But that "selling point" is only a true benefit to those who actually have terabytes of data to crunch. I think people with a background in machine learning or similar research might. I certainly don't.

I know a lot of Googlers who have joined Google X to work on the self driving car, Glass, etc. I think that's one outlet for the people who want to do something that's new and cutting edge. Now if only we could put more people on Google X, where they're actually doing cool things that matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This needs to be traced: [http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3891677&cid=44076497](http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3891677&cid=44076497) An important information from the "confidential" studies here for example would be what kind of monitors were tested.</comment>


Ask HN: Should we be concerned about benzene exposure from the BP Oil Spill? - <AUTHOR>

I recently met someone claiming to have expertise in Organic Chemistry and Meteorology tell me that benzene levels in the region surrounding the BP oil spill are astoundingly high and will cause life threatening illnesses in the coming months ahead. In particular, if a hurricane were to disperse the toxic gases arising from the oil spill to more remote regions, we would see unprecedented exposure-related deaths. I immediately dismissed him when he started ranting about FEMA prison camps, methane deposit "c4", Haliburton, NWO, and other crackpot theories, but the basics of what he said makes sense to me.
Although I run the risk of contaminating the content here, I respect the HN community for its critical thinking skills and general depth of knowledge in the sciences. I also believe this topic is important enough to warrant a discussion.
Are benzene levels as dangerous as this guy says it is both right now and in the event of a hurricane ("kill millions" so to speak)? What about dangers related to methane, which is combustible and also a very potent greenhouse gas? <comment><USER2> My understanding (as a chemist's son, but not a chemist) is that yes, there is benzene being released; and yes, in the _immediate_ area above the spill, there might be high enough concentrations to cause toxicity... but that a hurricane spreading the gas over millions of cubic miles of atmosphere would dilute it to harmless levels.

</comment><comment><USER3> New Scientist had an article on this. They seemed to think the release of the oil at the depth it is at would make the concern over chemical like benzene a non issue.</comment>


Show HN: Landr – My First Indie Startup - <AUTHOR> https://landr.page <comment><AUTHOR> I released Landr few days back on Product Hunt and it got really good response and reached top 5th product of the day - [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/landr-3](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/landr-3)

Landr is a landing page creator which helps you create websites for your products in minutes.

With growing internet popularity everyone wants to have a digital presence and having a website for their product is a must before they launch. Through Landr, i'm trying to make it easy for everyone to create landing page websites for their products with ease. Landr is very different from the traditional website builders you see on the market today. All these website builders are mostly drag and drop solutions. Even though they provide you with all the tools needed to build websites, unfortunately not everyone is creative enough to build good websites using these tools. Landr solves this problem by providing users beautiful list of templates to choose from and not having to worry about customising them at all. Users just have to select a template, fill all the inputs needed for that template, check the live preview of their website with the current details and then just create it by the click of a button. It's that simple.

In the first version of the product I'm providing SaaS templates. In the next version the plan is to provide templates for other category of users like freelancers who want to showcase their skills,students who want to showcase their portfolio to everyone on the internet.

I hope Landr removes one more problem from this world.I'm happy to answer any question you guys have.

Connect with me on twitter to join the journey of Landr: [https://twitter.com/sunilc_](https://twitter.com/sunilc_)</comment>


Piketty's Data Is Full of Errors (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/05/23/financial_times_on_piketty_his_data_is_wrong.html <comment><USER2> That article is from 2014. There were contemporaneous responses.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/23/is- pi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/23/is-pikettys- capital-full-of-mistakes/)

<comment><USER3> TLDR: "But this doesn't seem to be a Reinhart and Rogoff situation. Their Excel errors really did change their conclusions. Piketty's don't. "

On another note I feel bad for Reinhart and Rogoff who are constantly used as the bad examples for making one mistake. Reinhart is a great person, mentor and professor.

<comment><USER2> chessgames.com is a chess community with discussions of individual games and also players. Generally speaking, discussing politics in a particular game is frowned upon. However, for some reason that I don't know, the Ken Rogoff page, he is a chess GM, is the page dedicated to cut and thrust politics.

[http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=44815](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=44815)</comment></comment></comment>


Showbox – Create amazing videos right in your browser - <AUTHOR> https://showbox.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Few souls on HN will remember as far back as the (ahead of its time) Amiga / NewTek VideoToaster, but Showbox reminds me of how I felt when I first saw the 'Toaster.

One view of Showbox is that it's basically a browser-based version of something that 20 years ago was a industry-changing hybrid hardware/software workstation, and I think that says a lot for how far we've come.</comment>


Fast And Furious Death In Fiery Car Crash - <AUTHOR> http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/general-discussion/965422-paul-walker-might-dead.html

<comment><USER2> Brace yourselves, the Fast and Furious puns are coming.</comment>


Software Should Be Easier to Build, Not Harder - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/blogs/software-should-be-easier-to-build-not-harder-my-dream-for-the-future-of-development <comment><USER2> TFA and all the comments their essentially conflate complexity with more typing. Webforms might be easy to drag and drop, but it is much more complex than MVC. That's when things are going right, when things are going wrong Webforms becomes exponentially more complex.

MS developers also rarely know about tools like Gtk and Qt, which is much friendlier for building desktop front ends than drag and drop tools ever were.</comment>


Euler history of graph theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.physicslog.com/seven-bridges-of-konigsberg/ <comment><USER2> Blogspam of

[http://vixra.org/pdf/1609.0113v1.pdf](http://vixra.org/pdf/1609.0113v1.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I think they have the same author, so it's technically not blogspam. Anyway, it's usually better to adapt the content for each audience and not make a direct copy from your dissertation to your blog.

@Physicslogg : It's ok to post your stuff here and to make a few repost, but continuing to repost and repost and repost the same articles will get you banned.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What podcasts do you subscribe to? - <AUTHOR>

I used to follow quite a few podcasts, but I haven't in a year or two. I want to load some up again, but would like some recommendations. <comment><USER2> Most of the Long New Foundation's seminars are excellent: <http://longnow.org/projects/seminars/>

The New Yorker Out Loud has its moments: <http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/outloud>

The Moth' stories are great for passing that subway ride home: <http://www.themoth.org/podcast>

BBC's From Our Own Correspondent is pretty good too: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/fooc/>

"Open Source Radio" (nothing to do with open source, except hijacking the term to sound "hip") used to be pretty good, but lately it's been like listening to a podcast by Reddit. Still, they might get some sense back (or you might like Reddit): <http://www.radioopensource.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Our own! <http://popupchinese.com>

There are podcasts that teach other languages of differing quality. In any case, the online+podcast approach is a much more effective way to learn than using a traditional book & tape, or even going to a classroom once or twice a week.

One point -- don't be shy about repeating words and phrases out loud while you listen though. If you're just listening it takes much longer to internalize the content, especially for adults.

</comment><comment><USER4> Java Posse, Drunk and Retired, and StackOverflow for IT-stuff.

1-UP (games), Dan Carlin's hardcore history (history podcast) and Common sense with Dan Carlin (politics) for fun;)

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/>

And spokenword.org (more than 80K podcasts)

</comment><comment><USER6> The 404 and the Onion.</comment>


French study finds anti-malarial/antibiotic combo could reduce Covid-19 duration - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/french-study-finds-anti-malarial-and-antibiotic-combo-could-reduce-covid-19-duration/ <comment><USER2> The control group is not randomized, and most of it is in another(s) hospital(s).

They are not counting the 6 patients that they lost in the treatment group (2 leave, 3 where transfer to ICU, 1 die). It is more strange that they didn't lost any patient in the control group.

It's strange that they use an antibiotic against a viral infection.

More discussion in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624955)

<comment><USER3> There definitely needs to be more randomized trials regarding hydroxychloroquine. It can have adverse side-effects on the eyes and/or kidneys. It is not a benign compound.</comment></comment>


50 Shades of System Calls - <AUTHOR> https://sysdig.com/blog/50-shades-of-system-calls/ <comment><USER2> Summoning the spirit (and more importantly the expertise) of brendangregg here.

From the home page sysdig "capture[s] system state and activity", but by leveraging specifically what?

From [https://sysdig.com/blog/sysdig-vs-dtrace-vs-strace-a- technic...](https://sysdig.com/blog/sysdig-vs-dtrace-vs-strace-a-technical- discussion/):

"First, events are captured in the kernel by a small driver, called sysdig- probe, which leverages a kernel facility called tracepoints."

That makes it sound like it's quite similar to the ftrace kernel tracer by instrumenting the various event tracepoints (/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/available_events) conveniently strewn throughout the kernel source--is this indeed the case?

Alternatively, is sysdig doing something differently? {k,u}probes? Sampling similar to, perhaps say, perf's capabilities?

The Linux tracing/profiling landscape is murky enough (littered with tools like SystemTap, LTTng, and so forth) and I'd like to know where this tool fits into an analysis work-flow--and more importantly, what's it's using (at a low- level) to gather data.

I'd appreciate any and all clarification.

Cheers.

<comment><USER3> sysdig uses "tracepoints", a feature of the Linux Kernel documented here: [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/trace/tracepoints.t...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/trace/tracepoints.txt)

The tracing capabilities are then tuned for monitoring and troubleshooting. So keeping the overhead as low as possible and making it usable on production environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really cool, though it seems a bit silly to present such high- resolution data using a command-line interface. I guess it's easier to use over SSH?

<comment><USER5> I find it brilliant, personally. Users of sysdig tend to be sysadmin or devops with a strong *nix background, so the CLI sounds like 'from the comfort of your command line" to them.

<comment><USER6> I second the "From the comfort of your command line" feeling. I feel like many tools today are unnecessarily tied to a web browser, which makes for harsh context switching; and often worse usability. Sysdig is a killer product, and (crucial to me) is open source. I'm sure the cloud service is excellent as well.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's a good point. It would be neat to have a way to draw full GUIs in the terminal without having to context-switch.

<comment><USER7> I think the world missed an opportunity around about the '90s. Instead of evolving, command lines stagnated and got sidelined by terrible GUIs that are only now evolving to get out of people's way.

We should have developed command lines with graphics and hypertext. Thus you could do `ls` and double-click on one of the resulting files to open it. Browse the web with wget.

Of course users don't want to learn lots of commands. But notice how Windows 7 onwards and most linux desktops have a "fuzzy search" that really is a kind of command line.

<comment><USER8> There has been many attempts, but they've universally not gotten things "right enough" to gain much traction. E.g. Mozilla's XMLTerm [1] was one such experiment.

[1] [http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/06/07/xmlterm/index.html](http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/06/07/xmlterm/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else actually tried this? I was impressed with the video and thought I'd give it a stab, but the mouse drag to drill-down isn't working for me in 0.11.0.

Found a possibly-relevant issue but it's closed and the single clicking option doesn't work on my box either: [https://github.com/draios/sysdig/issues/526](https://github.com/draios/sysdig/issues/526)

<comment><USER10> author here. Please take a look at the solution proposed in this issue [https://github.com/draios/sysdig/issues/599](https://github.com/draios/sysdig/issues/599). If it doesn't work for you, feel free to comment in the issue.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good sources for learning Python idioms? - <AUTHOR> I just moved from a company where I was doing exclusively JavaScript to a company where I'm writing quite a bit of Python (3) for the first time. I expected the transition to be fairly trivial since the languages have similar capabilities and limitations, but I'm learning that the idioms are quite different and I've gotten multiple points of constructive criticism on my coding style not being idiomatic Python.<p>What's a good (online) authority for "idiomatic Python" that I can study, instead of learning the conventions one-by-one as I get them wrong? <comment><USER2> Peter Norvig has provided some good examples here: [https://github.com/norvig/pytudes](https://github.com/norvig/pytudes)

In general, he has some examples of good idiomatic python on his site as well: [https://norvig.com/](https://norvig.com/)</comment>


Your Brain Limits You to Just Five BFFs - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601369/your-brain-limits-you-to-just-five-bffs/ <comment><USER2> How can this possibly be justified:

"To screen out business calls and casual calls, Dunbar and co include only individuals who make reciprocated calls and focus on individuals who call at least 100 other people."

I recall a recent joke about people who carry big book bags onto crowded New York City subways: your book bag is not a gateway to a hyper dimensional space outside of 3 dimensional reality, so please mind what you do with that damn bag, because it takes up a lot of space.

Likewise, your business contacts take up a lot of space. They take time and energy and brainpower, the very thing that would limit the number of people that you can possibly keep track of. Therefore any attempt to exclude business calls invalidates the results.

<comment><USER3> Many business calls are close to interpersonal content free. What are the names of your coworkers children?

<comment><USER4> I've actually _met_ my immediate non-remote coworkers' kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This article reminded me of a scene from "Flight of the Conchords" where they are discussion how many "the ones" you can have[1]---turns out it is 5.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZGc2sIajMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZGc2sIajMM)

</comment><comment><USER5> The article doesn't distinguish "friends" from "family".

In my experience they're totally different. Also, the more emotional energy you expend with your family (e.g. dealing with teenagers), the less energy you have left to interact with friends.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was not thrilled by the reasoning presented here:

> The team also point out that 2007 is a good year to look for Dunbar layers > because it predates the widespread use of smartphones and social networks > like Facebook. These provide other avenues for social contact that would > have made the study much harder.

That's not... a good thing to be bragging about if you're trying to make a point.

First of all, this doesn't acknowledge that lots of people don't like talking on the phone. Further, lots of the closeness that creates intimacy between people can only happen in person. The more I like you, the less I want to spend my time with you on the phone.

The huge problem is that by controlling for Facebook and smartphones, you're ignoring the fact that those technologies have completely re-written the communications story for our species in under a decade. Not to mention that there's an entire generation that have come up at a time where texting and Facebook have always been there, so to exclude these mediums renders all of these conclusions not as analysis of how people communicate today but a record of how some people used to communicate in a previous era. It's not useful, it's cultural history.

The questions that are far more interesting now are around whether things like social media have started to affect our capacity for meaningful relationships. Surely while some of this stuff is biology, some of it was also a function of it simply being harder to keep in contact with 1000 people before 2007 for most people.

</comment><comment><USER7> i don't think I have any friends anymore just a bunch of acquaintances.

<comment><USER2> How many? 100? 200? 300? Perhaps 1,000? According to the theory, you could have more acquaintances if you have less friends.

<comment><USER6> I can suggest that my own anecdotal experience confirms this. I've grown older and "successful", currently feel like I have no close friends and 1000 friendly acquaintances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > The team also finds some evidence of an extra layer among some people. "This > could, for example, mean introverts and extroverts have a different number > of layers of friends," they suggest. But interestingly, extroverts, while > having more friends, still have a similar number of layers.

> In total, the study shows good evidence for the existence of the innermost > and outermost layers but with some variability for the size of the > intermediate layers. "The clustering yields results that match well with > previous studies for the innermost and outermost layers, but for layers in > between we observe large variability," they say.

I was curious about those comments in the BBC article, so I took a look at the paper and found this from the conclusions useful:

> While the data is noisy, all methods support two different groupings well. > This could, for example, mean introverts and extroverts have a different > number of layers of friends. Further work could investigate this > possibility.

> Another suggestion is that over a year, friendships are more transient. > Alters could move up or down from one layer to the next on a regular basis. > This would reflect the temporal nature of emotional closeness, especially > among one's non-closest friends

</comment><comment><USER8> How fascinating considering Facebook sends emails to those who have resigned from Facebook, playing and preying on people's emotions with marketing messages the likes of, "you may have more friends than you realize awaiting you on Facebook", implying more is merrier and inducing the emotion of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Hmm, this is Zuckerberg's way of profiting off of people's emotions eh?

</comment><comment><USER9> Five sounds about right to me. I remember something about a limit to the number of telephone numbers we could recall from memory. It was in the the same range. Not sure if there is any correlation. Although that actually might be the number of consecutive digits we could recall easily from memory.

</comment><comment><USER10> Robin Dunbar's related book:

[http://amzn.com/0571253423](http://amzn.com/0571253423)

</comment><comment><USER11> Your brain limits you to just five real friends... and we together can stop acronym abuse.</comment>


Defending your home from hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/technology/personaltech/stop-hijacking-home-devices.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=2&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F02%2F01%2Ftechnology%2Fpersonaltech%2Fstop-hijacking-home-devices.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0 <comment><USER2> TLDR: see @internetofshit</comment>


Ask HN: Professional Android development - <AUTHOR> I'm a hobbyist Android developer and I'm capable of building mildly complex Android applications. Recently I made an app as a freelancer for a client and they want me to work with them remotely (me being the only developer). Now since this is a part-time job I want to be serious about it, and maybe turn it (freelancing) into a primary source of income after I graduate from college.
Although I'm quite comfortable with Android development (including working with 3rd party libraries, client-server model, etc) I want to know how to turn Android development as a hobby into a professional skill.
How did you go about doing it, what challenges did you face and what should I be careful about?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> It might be tough trying to be a full-time Android freelancer right out of college, unless you are working on your own revenue-generating project. But don't let me dissuade you -- sounds like you have a good start. Like other commenter says, you have a desirable skill-set which makes you easily employable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Assuming hourly? fixed bid can be tricky if the client doesn't know what they want exactly. Also, even if you choose to pursue a job after college, this kind of experience is exactly the kind of thing employers like.

<comment><USER3> A lot of companies hire through recruiters most of the small ones will work with you corp to corp. which means you get a hire rate and no benefits. you need an llc or corporation setup.</comment></comment>


An Intro to Integer Programming for Engineers: Simplified Bus Scheduling - <AUTHOR> https://blog.remix.com/an-intro-to-integer-programming-for-engineers-simplified-bus-scheduling-bd3d64895e92#.llj20js9f <comment><USER2> Integer programming often seems magical. I remember early grad school and seeing "Optimal and Near-optimal Global Register Allocation Using 0–1 Integer Programming" by Goodwin et al, where the very crunchy problem of register allocation was solved largely by punting it to a ILP solver. Gotchas abounded but it was eye opening to see how many hard problems could be solved (or at least adequately approximated) in this fashion.

I think this is one of those techniques that every serious computer scientist should have in their toolbox. Someone who knew some statistics, a smattering of something like SMT (enough to drive Z3) and some linear programming could routinely resemble Gandalf at any shop that has people struggling with difficult problems.

The main thing is not to turn into a cookbook guy. I've known a few people whose ability to just build an actual algorithm to solve some interesting problem has atrophied since they reach for a ILP solver the minute anything gets difficult.

<comment><USER3> Agreed that it seems magical. This is one of the areas where the open-source tools are way behind commercial solvers. Cplex and Gurobi are really impressive pieces of software.

<comment><USER4> Doubly magical now that computers (and solvers) are so fast. A few times I've thought, "Oh, I could reduce this to a max-flow problem, and write/dig up an algorithm to solve it" before realising it'd just be easier to write it as a linear program (or an integer program "just in case".)

And then if weird constraints come along that broke the max-flow reduction, I could usually shoehorn that into the formulation.

Can't remember how to write Dijkstra's algorithm? Meh, integer programming it is. Want to write a sudoku solver and you can't be arsed with dancing links or backtracking or prolog or... Whatever, CBC will do it. It'll be nasty and a hell of a lot slower than doing it "the right way" in a fast language, but it might not be slower than doing it in Python or Javascript.

<comment><USER2> The latter is what scares me. I solved a 'bit twiddling' problem using Z3 and felt a little ashamed. It is reminiscent of Brewster's letter to Martin Gardner "Feeding a recreational puzzle into a computer is no more than a step above dynamiting a trout stream". It's very easy to let skills atrophy and resort to using black boxes we don't really understand (well, I speak for myself, anyhow). When Z3 or cplex or whatever tool du jour gets wedged on a problem, I am not sure I have the background in these tools to get unstuck.

<comment><USER5> With Z3, unfortunately, the issue is that we are really bad at gauging what makes for a hard SMT problem. Often, knowing that a particular problem is hard is the same as solving it! That said, you can do some really interesting things with SMT solvers if you can formulate the problem the right way.

Gurobi, CPLEX, and friends are less magical if you have enough mathematical maturity. Typically, if you are comfortable with linear algebra (a subject woefully ignored in most undergraduate curricula), you can work with them. In my experience, working with optimization engines is a two step process. First, you need to figure out how to formulate the problem in a smart way (typically this means that it's convex with constraints in a certain format), which is normally the hard part. Then you scroll through the list of available algorithms that the engine has at your disposal and pick one with properties that you like (they often have suggestions if you have no strong preference). Normally, if you can formulate the problem so it's convex, you will at least have a good shot of doing well with your optimization.

<comment><USER3> I have a Phd in optimization and I still think Cplex and Gurobi seem magical. The devil is in the details. Open source solvers are comparatively not very good.

<comment><USER5> Oh for sure. You could go down a real rabbit hole if you had to implement that stuff yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I strongly encourage using Julia for anyone applying mathematical optimization. It is (through JuMP[1], for example) one of the areas in which it really stands out.

[1] [https://jump.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html](https://jump.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> What the OP is describing is, except for the coding, some now classic applied math, i.e., _operations research_. That applied math got used much less often than one might have expected because the (A) data gathering was too much pain, expense, and botheration, (B) there was too much software to write, and writing it was too clumsy and expensive, (C) the computing was too slow and too expensive, and (D) even when got a good solution ready for production, the production situation commonly changed so fast that the work of (A)-(C) could not change and revise fast enough to keep up. And, of course, the custom, one- shot software was vulnerable to bugs. Net, in practice, a lot of projects failed. Mostly successful projects needed big bucks and lots of unusually insightful sponsorship high in a big organization.

But, now (A)-(D) are no longer so difficult. This should be the beginning of a new _Golden Age_ for such work.

Sure, since the results of such optimization can look darned _smart_ , smarter than the average human, might call the work _artificial intelligence_. Really, though, the work is mostly just some classic applied math now enabled in practice by the progress in computer hard/software.

The OP is a nice introduction to vehicle routing via integer linear programming (ILP) set partitioning. For the _linear programming_ and the case of ILP, I'll give a quick view below. But, now, let's just dig in:

Here is an explanation of the _secret_ approach, technique, trick that can work for vehicle routing and many other problems: The real problems can have some just awful non-linear cost functions, just absurdly tricky constraints, e.g., from labor contract work rules, equipment maintenance schedules, something can't do near point A near lunch, even handle some random things, even responding to them in real-time ( _dynamically_ ), etc. yet can still have a good shot at getting a least cost solution or nearly so. The "nearly so" part can mean save a lot of money not available otherwise. When there is randomness, then try to get least expected cost.

So, first, the trick is to do the work in two steps.

The first step call _evaluation_ and the second, _optimization_.

From 50,000 feet up, all the tricky, non-linear, goofy stuff gets handled by essentially enumeration in the first part leaving some relatively simple data for the optimization in the second part.

In practice, this first step typically needs a lot of data on, say, the streets of a city and requires writing some software unique to the specific problem. The second step, the optimization, may require deriving some math and/or writing some unique software, but the hope is that the step can be done just by routine application of some existing optimization software.

The OP mentions the now famous optimization software Gurobi from R. Bixby and maybe some people from Georgia Tech, e.g., from George Nemhauser and Ellis Johnson (long at IBM Research and behind IBM's Optimization Subroutine Library (OSL) and its application to crew scheduling at American Airlines).

First Step.

Suppose you are in Chicago and have 20,000 packages to deliver and 300 trucks. Okay, what trucks deliver what packages to make all the deliveries on time, not overload any trucks, and minimize the cost of driving the trucks? You do have for each package the GPS coordinates and street address. And you have a lot of data on the streets, where and when traffic is heavy during the day, etc.

Okay, let's make some obvious, likely doable progress: Of those 20,000 packages, maybe have only 15,000 unique addresses. So, for each address, _bundle_ all the packages that go to that address. Then regard the problem as visiting 15,000 addresses instead of delivering 20,000 packages.

So, you write some software to _enumerate_. The enumeration results in a collection of candidate routes, stops, and packages to be delivered for a single truck. For each of those candidates, you adjust the order in which the stops are made to minimize cost -- so here get some _early_ , first-cut, simple _optimization_. You keep only those candidates that get the packages delivered on time, meet other criteria, etc. You may have 1 million candidate single truck routes. For each of the the candidates, you find the (expected) operating cost.

So, suppose you have n = 1 million candidate single truck routes.

Also you have m = 15,000 addresses to visit.

So, you have a table with m = 15,000 rows and n = 1 million columns. Each column is for some one candidate route. Each row is for some one address. In each column there is a 1 in the row of each address that candidate route visits and a 0 otherwise. One more row at the top of the table is, for each column, the operating cost of that candidate route.

So, you have a table of 0's and 1's with m = 15,000 rows and n = 1 million columns. You have a row with 1 million costs, one cost for each column.

Again, you have 300 trucks. So, you want to pick, from the n columns, some <= 300 columns so that all the m addresses get served and the total costs of the columns selected is minimized. That is, if add the columns as column _vectors_ , then get all 1's.

Second Step.

Well, consider variables x_i for i = 1 to n = 1 million. Then we want x_i = 1 if we use the route in column i and 0 otherwise. Let the cost of the route in column i be c_i. We want the total cost (TeX notation):

z(x) = sum_{i = 1}^n x_i c_i

to be minimized. So, right, we take the big table of m = 15,000 rows and n = 1 million columns and call it m x n matrix A = [a_{ij}]. We let m x 1 column vector b have all 1's. We regard x as n x 1 where in row j = 1 to n is x_j. Then, we get linear program

minimize z(x)

subject to

Ax = b

x >= 0

So, this is a case of _linear programming_.

Except in our problem we have one more _constraint_ \-- each x_i is 0 or 1, and in this case our problem is 0-1 integer linear programming.

Linear Programming.

In linear programming with n variables, with the real numbers R, we go into the n-dimensional vector space R^n. The

Ax = b

x >= 0

are the _constraints_ , and the set of all x that satisfies those is the _feasible region_ F, a subset of R _n.

In R^n, a _closed half space* is a plane and everything on some one side of it.

Then F can be regarded as an intersection of m closed half spaces. So, F has flat sides, straight edges, and some sharp points ( _extreme points_ ).

Well, if there is an optimal solution, then there is an optimal solution at at least one of those extreme points. So, the famous Dantzig simplex algorithm looks for optimal solutions in iterations were each iteration starts at an extreme point, moves along an edge, and stops at the next extreme point. That's for the geometric view; the algebraic view is a tweak of the standard Gauss elimination algorithm.

Linear programming and the simplex and other algorithms have a huge collection of nice properties, including some surprisingly good performance both in practice and in theory.

But, asking for each x_i to be an integer is in principle and usually in practice a huge difference and gives us a problem in NP-complete -- at one time, this was a huge, bitter surprise.

Warning: At one time, the field of the applied math of optimization in operations research sometimes had an attitude, that is, placed a quasi- religious importance on _optimal_ solutions and was contemptuous of any solutions even 10 cents short of optimal. Well, that attitude was costly for all concerned. Instead of all the concentration on saving the last 10 cents, consider saving the first $1 million. Commonly in practice, we can get close to optimality, may be able to show that we are within 1% of optimality, so close the rest wouldn't even buy a nice dinner, and see no way in less than two weeks more of computer time to try to get an optimal solution.

So, concentrate on the big, fat doughnut, not the hole.

How to solve ILP problems is a huge subject -- e.g., can start with George Nemhauser -- but a major fraction of the techniques exploit some surprisingly nice properties of the simplex algorithm. Right, likely the best known approach is the tree search technique of _branch and bound_.

</comment><comment><USER8> I took a number of Operations Research courses in undergrad, and one course was almost entirely on Linear Programming and Integer Programming. I strongly recommend engineers to get familiar with them because they are powerful tools for solving a whole class of really tricky problems.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice post but sorry guys, never been a fan of integer programming. Too involved with genetic algorithms</comment>


Ask HN: How do I avoid the Second System Effect? - <AUTHOR>

I've been a developer for 4 years, I've personally seen myself suffer form the second system effect at least twice. (2 different systems) I'm on a project now, doing a specific large task... for my second time.  I have several ideas on how to avoid the mistakes of my first try, but i'm worried its too much.  Any tips on how I can avoid going overboard, but still avoid the mistakes from my first attempt? <comment><USER2> The method I use is to look at the old functionality, figure out the structure, and rebuild it. Don't build a second system, build the first system better.

In my scripts and projects, I generally start out with a simple, procedural batch of code, hacking on bits as I go. Eventually, I get to the point where code flow is nearly impossible to understand - too convoluted, too many global variables, function calls nested too deep, etc.

Once I'm at that point, I usually know what the program is going to do and how it should do it, so I rewrite it in a more object-oriented manner. I don't add functionality, I just move it around to make more sense. I implement only the features that were in the code already, usually using as much of the old code as I can, but restructuring it in a way that makes more logical sense. When possible, I take out code I wasn't using.

After that, I can build on the code further, extending it as needs warrant, until the code flow gets more complicated. Then I go back and refactor again.

I find that if done properly, each iteration happens sooner (it's easier for larger and more complicated code bases to become inscrutable), but that each refactor becomes simpler (as you work towards an optimized design).

</comment><comment><USER3> The best way to avoid the second system effect is not to build the second system.

Stupidly obtuse, but nevertheless a simple truth.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> One way is to adopt iterative development practices that focus on customers actual needs and not just desires. The first system should evolve to meet any unmet needs of the customer. Rather than trying to build a bigger and better second system.

In summary: small, iterative releases with direct customer feedback on needs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Build a third system. UNIX is the result of the "third system effect."</comment>


Boothole Vunerability Impacts Billions - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/new-boothole-vulernability-revealed-impacts-billions-of-devices <comment><USER2> Debian has a detailed note on the secureboot vulnerability

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> malicious bootloaders that could give hackers control over the victim device</comment>


Torchnet – Lighting the way to deep machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/580706092103929 <comment><USER2> Is there any universe where the future doesn't hold facebook/google/apple etc having a monopoly on information and/or the ability to see complex future- predicting patterns? Will this ability not lead to complete control of the global population?

<comment><USER3> You misunderstand how capitalism works. If you don't want these companies to succeed, don't give them money and don't give them data they can make money from.

I don't use Facebook products because I don't want to give Zuckerberg my money. I don't use Apple because I don't want to give money to a company whose original figurehead thought that wearing Mom-jeans to press conferences was in any way professional.

The point is that these companies, however monopolistic they might seem to you (and me), are driving innovation several orders of magnitude faster and more efficiently than organizations like Mozilla or GNU. A company exists to make money. That's an ethos that I personally find more consistent and more comfortable to think about than "we should make software that EVERYONE can use" and it's a safer bet as well, since these companies will go out of business if they don't make money whereas GNU/Mozilla/et al will vomit out software that sorta works for a million years.

Also, machine learning is not about predicting the future anyways, it's almost exactly the opposite. Understanding what people have done is much more actionable than trying to figure out what people are GOING to do, because we are very fickle, complex, imaginative creatures. Could you have predicted that I'd write this comment? No. Could a program that has read every previous comment that I've ever made predict this comment? No. Could it predict that I might write a comment of a similar nature? Sure. If we were playing poker and I thought that you were going to fold, that's much different from some algorithm that was CERTAIN you were going to fold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> does anyone have opinions on how this stacks up against h2o?

<comment><USER5> Based on just a brief reading of the article, I see it more like an equivalent of Keras/Lasagne for Torch, but I might be wrong.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Secure XGBoost training and inference on encrypted data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mc2-project/secure-xgboost <comment><USER2> Blog post on the library: [https://towardsdatascience.com/secure- collaborative-xgboost-...](https://towardsdatascience.com/secure- collaborative-xgboost-on-encrypted-data- ac7bc0ec7741?source=friends_link&sk=8abdb992c42b9189b4ca5ad039a0f22f)</comment>


Google could care less about Reader - <AUTHOR> http://krogsgard.com/2011/google-could-care-less-about-reader/

<comment><USER2> I think they mean "couldn't" and the fact that one of their less popular apps doesn't support one of their newly-launched beta apps isn't a big surprise.

I'm one of the people who desperately want this added, but I'm not freaking out over it and claiming Google doesn't care.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Couldn't" as in the contraction of "Could not", carrying the implication that google is incapable of caring less about Reader than it currently does.

</comment><comment><USER4> Integration is one of the biggest bugbears I have with Google plus. All of the tools I use to consume media support Facebook and Twitter, but none support Google plus. Last week I quit Facebook for G+, and while I put up with having to sign in and post manually, it would be an awful lot better if I could share from flipboard, zite, instapaper or even a bookmarklet.

<comment><USER5> This is because Google Plus is so slick, it makes you forget that it's been online for less than two months. You're comparing the ecosystem of sites launched more than FIVE YEARS AGO with a brand new project.

The minute they release the damn API (we're all clamouring for it, but how long did it take for FB to have an API?), every developer and his dog will scramble to support it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> But they did add the new top navigation bar. And I'm sure adding Google+ to that list of send to items is not as simple as it sounds. Because Circles is the best new feature of G+, so there's at least one more step to sending something to G+ than there is to any of those other services.

I'm hoping there's a deeper integration in store than just being able to add it from that list, though. The native "share item" link/button with keyboard shortcuts, hopefully.

And also some sort of unification of Buzz and Reader with G+, so comments on all three are available on all three. (They should probably just kill Buzz altogether?)

I like the G+ interface and all, but honestly Reader is a lot faster and denser and I'm able to get through a lot of information a lot faster. I'm sort of hoping eventually I won't actually have to go to G+ at all.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another interesting thing with Google Reader is that the mobile web app is ten times better than the native Android app. Wonder why they bother keeping both.

<comment><USER8> Really? I love the native app, especially the new update they just released. I'm looking at the mobile web version and it's just a list of links to new posts.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My apologies on the poor phrasing. Yes, "couldn't" is what I should have said. But, I think you get the point.

</comment><comment><USER9> >could care less

wat</comment>