A British village that built one of the UK's fastest internet networks - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/the-remote-british-village-that-built-one-of-the-uks-fastest-internet-networks/ <comment><USER2> A few years ago _Ars_ also had a good article on Ammon, Idaho, which build an open-access municipal fibre infrastructure that ISPs offer services on:

* [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/)

The embedded video is a good intro on muni-fibre:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQVvFY4lPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSQVvFY4lPI)

Personally I think that's how all Internet connectivity should be done: the OIS Level 1/2 stuff is run either by the government, or at least a non-profit, and the IP connectivity is handle by the private sector.

<comment><USER3> A number of the county owned public utility districts in Washington state have done exactly that, osi layer 1 and 2 run by the county. Individual ISPs establish NNIs with the county at a core network locations and offer layer 3 (and billing, customer end user support, other value added services).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is also funny to look at a map of network speeds in the UK. Everywhere is slow apart from Hull (a relatively gritty fishing town in the North East). This is the only place where the local telephone company wasn't taken over by BT, and was the first city to have full fibre.

I understand that it is hard to provide fast internet to some parts of the UK...but most of England, where most people live, is fairly densely populated...this shouldn't be hard. The solution isn't for people to do this themselves, that reverses common sense (how can it be cheaper for some guy to just dig a cable themselves? it makes no sense). It is for the people who should be doing this to just do their job properly (BT have done pretty much everything to make themselves look bad, it is unreal...for some reason people still think Gavin Patterson is a legend rather than a gaffe-prone moron).

<comment><USER5> 96% of households in the UK can get 30 Mbps.

Now, some people do lots of hand waving at this point. Surely, they argue, if everybody had gigabit networking instead of just 30 Mbps we'd find some exciting new application to justify it? Nope. Some communities do have this and they don't invent new applications it mostly sits idle.

The other fun thing that people say here is "Well but they don't". That's true, they _can_ get 30 Mbps but they choose slightly cheaper offerings that are much lower speed. So why are you desperate to deploy higher bandwidth offerings? If your company finds that take-up of new 30 litre per second water supplies isn't what you hoped for, do you conclude people must need 30 cubic metres per second of water instead and deploy bigger high pressure pipes? Or do you say "Wait a minute, maybe people actually have enough water?"

<comment><USER6> > 96% of households in the UK can get 30 Mbps.

96% may have 30Mbps advertised to them, but I would venture the question: do they actually get that?

When I lived in London, I lived in Lewisham, Bromley-by-Bow and Whitechapel; I had shockingly bad internet in each of these places.

I very commonly got less than 0.5Mbps ( for example: [https://www.speedtest.net/my- result/i/757179610](https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/757179610) )

That didn't stop BT from selling me 16Mb/s.

<comment><USER5> They don't get it because they aren't buying it. But yes, 30Mbps is what you'd expect to get at those 96% of households if you bought whichever of the mainstream services offers >30Mbps

That might be a VDSL product from any of the popular ISPs (if you live with a few hundred metres of a "green box"), a cable product if you live in one of the cities or larger towns that have cable, or dedicated fibre link.

Some people see significantly worse performance because of their own suboptimal choices (e.g. maybe the blinking lights on the supplied VDSL modem annoy you so you run a telephone extension to a different room and lose 4Mbps of bandwidth because crappy telephone extensions don't do high bandwidth networking very well) and over a population of millions some will see physical network problems, that may need repair before they see the intended performance. But on the whole this 30Mbps coverage figure is based on extrapolating measurements from real users over data about available service.

I'm not aware of any 16MB/s products (16MB/s = 128Mbps or maybe you just meant 16Mbps) but Lewisham, which you gave as an example, has VDSL available at all the consumer nodes, so unless you lived in the £5M penthouse of some mixed use building in Docklands you _could_ have bought faster networking you just didn't.

It can seem like surely if they could offer 30Mbps VDSL, why is my ADSL only 1Mbps? But that's misunderstanding the technology. ADSL was deployed in the UK to exchanges, so the signal needs to get from your home to an actual telephone exchange, there's probably one in your borough but it might be well over a mile away. However VDSL is in street cabinets, so your signal only travels to the cabinet which might be only a few hundred metres away. This makes it somewhat more expensive but also a lot faster. Unless (in both cases) you don't buy it.

<comment><USER6> >I'm not aware of any 16MB/s products (16MB/s = 128Mbps or maybe you just meant 16Mbps) but Lewisham, which you gave as an example, has VDSL available at all the consumer nodes, so unless you lived in the £5M penthouse of some mixed use building in Docklands you could have bought faster networking you just didn't.

Incorrect, BT could charge me more but by their own admission they would not be able to deliver the speed.

\- FWIW this was eventually resolved in Bromley-by-Bow because the fibre laid by telecity for the olympics was sold to Hyperoptic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My Partners family were one of the originals on this (and live just outside the village). It has to be said that it is by far the best broadband I have experienced - even when compared to corporate internet that I work with

<comment><USER8> i'm curios about the speed. i live in London and use Hyperoptic with the 1000mbps up and down subscription (and according to my ubiquiti, the speeds are real).

<comment><USER7> In the tests I've done they're achieving in the range of 700 up/down, for them though the big selling point has been the reliability - I can speak from experience (living on a farm myself) that sure the speed isn't great, maybe in the high teens to low twenties, but the annoying thing is the constant dropouts

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great to see this story on HN, I have been at a home which was connected to B4RN and got 105mb down/154mb up.

And yes, I kept a note of it for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER10> For clarity, this is not the same Clapham as the area of central London.

<comment><USER11> 'Village' should be a clue there

<comment><USER12> Wimbledon Village is in London, not that it's really a village any longer. Even when lowercased, a denomination such as village isn't going to be a clue in a city like London with tiny pockets of communities that may have been there since Boudicca was whispered in the local pubs as a code to drink up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Clapham is not remote at all, however, B4rn does serve more remote areas and farms. Also the network started in a village called Arkholme and the HQ based in Melling.

<comment><USER5> It's certainly not remote by American standards, but if not for the fact it has a railway station [that's why Clapham (Yorkshire) is on the drop down list of things you might have meant when you ask the railway ticketing system for tickets to Clapham even if you actually meant Clapham Junction the busy interchange in London] it'd be pretty far from anywhere by English standards. And that railway station is a good long walk from the actual village of Clapham anyway.

I went there because they have a very large hole in the ground nearby. A stream flowing over the hills reached a crack formed presumably by repeating freezing and thawing, and worked its way down from the brow of one hill to a river below, over a tremendously long period of time the flowing water has worn a cathedral-sized hole inside the hill. Twice a year tourists can get lowered down to see for themselves, cavers set up a proper winch and safety gear and let idiots like me with no experience wander about and gawp at it for a fee.

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


People couldn't believe two dogs killed their owner - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/12/19/people-couldnt-believe-two-dogs-killed-their-owner-so-the-sheriff-described-the-horror/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.fdba6946e426 <comment><USER2> I find this fascinating: "Stephens' friends have said the dogs were not capable of such a violent attack." This casual epistemology has worked out in my favor.

A couple of years ago my dog was accused of biting another and a police complaint was lodged. The complaint was quite horrific -- my violent, unleashed dog ran into the street to attack his leashed dog, dogs fighting, blood in the other dog's coat and on the owner... quite exciting. And an expensive vet bill was sent to me (though not included in the police complaint).

I got a call from the animal control officer. He had only one question: "was this <my dog's name>?" I said "yes" and he said "Then I'm closing the investigation." That was it -- he send me the report which said simply, "no violation, issue closed."

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I was relieved to be spared a complicated process of word against word. On the other hand, the police know my dog (he is kind of a fixture around town) which seems unfair.

BTW I was of course there too (as my dog is always with me :-) and observed 1> other dog was aggressive and _it and its owner_ were on my property and 2> my dog made a very loud noise noise but was never within a meter of the other dog or owner (never more than a meter from me in fact), and 3> my dog returned to my side as soon as I called him. As in: all that happened is the dog did his job properly.

FWIW I don't have a PB but all the ones I've met have been super sweet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just few days ago, I had conversation with my GF about Pit bulls. She told me that they are adorable dogs. Well... Pit bulls - the only breed of dogs that ends up on front pages of news. They are not dogs, they are weapons.

Entire story reminds me /r/relationships story about a woman with the child, who's boyfriend had Vietnamese centipede(venomous and extremely aggressive arthropod) in their apartments. Centipede escaped and they could not find it.

Why would someone keep venomous centipede or Pit Bull is beyond my understanding.

<comment><USER4> > _The dogs, which were previously indoor animals, were left in a kennel > outside with little human contact_

Specific dog breeds do tend to exhibit behaviours naturally associated with that breed but if you're going to own a dog, look after it. That's all. Making generalisations about breeds needn't override that.

<comment><USER5> "Making generalisations about breeds needn't override that."

Training goes a long way. Yet my experience with dogs is that there are individuals with a bad temperament. And breed does strongly correlate with size. So in situations where a bad mannered individual dog of a large breed does act out the potential for harm is higher than if it were a smaller breed.

Owning large and powerful dogs of any breed is a risk.

<comment><USER4> > _... does strongly correlate with size_

> _Owning large and powerful dogs of any breed is a risk._

Pitbulls aside, anecdotally, if we're talking breed size I've found Pomeranians and Jack Russells to pose more danger than, say, collies, labs, Great Danes, Newfies, etc. but I guess now I'm the one generalising.

I think training and care are really the main factors. There are certainly cultural tendencies to apply certain training approaches to certain breeds, but I really do think this is mostly correlatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is kind of unbelievable! Advice from the article on how not to get killed by your dogs:

* Don't have ~100lb pitbulls

* Don't breed them to fight

* Don't abandon them in outdoor cages

<comment><USER7> 1) don't abuse your dogs

2) don't abuse your dogs

3) don't abuse your dogs

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A dog raised properly with love and compassion, that isn't starved and doesn't have some sort of a brain tumor will never, ever attack its owner. It doesn't matter what breed of dog. This unfortunate story is very easily explained:

>Stephens had been living elsewhere and had left the dogs with her father. The dogs, which were previously indoor animals, were left in a kennel outside with little human contact, aside from a visit from Stephens about five times a week, Blackwood told reporters.

This woman abandoned her dogs and left them in an outdoor cage. Unfortunately this attitude is common. Many people view their pets (and, in some cases, their children) as accessories or possessions, and treat them as such. A dog is a member of your family, like a child. You don't simply decide to "live somewhere else" and leave your dogs behind (let alone leaving them in outdoor cages without human contact) any more then you would decide to "live somewhere else" and leave your children behind in an outdoor cage. If you have dogs, or children, you make sure that the place you plan on moving can house your whole family. This is a very sad story, but not surprising given her behavior and treatment of her dogs which no doubt (rightfully) felt that she had abandoned them.

</comment><comment><USER9> This brings to mind other stories I've read referencing studies showing people appear to emphasize more with dogs than other humans. Is this a recent phenomenon? Or has it always been this way?</comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension to replace Stanford with Stanfurd - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stanfurd/ojcgdgiceeaoegeknmfihojmimdhohkh <comment><AUTHOR> I made something goofy for fun.

Here is the github link.

[https://github.com/kelukelugames/stanfurd](https://github.com/kelukelugames/stanfurd)

I couldn't figure out how to replace the word on dynamically loaded content without overwriting input fields. Guess that's a feature now. ;)</comment>


Summary of Attacks Against BiOS and Secure Boot - <AUTHOR> https://forums.malwarebytes.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=235524 <comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's a PDF file. But I'll save you the read. According to this paper, "Secure Boot... isn't...". That's the executive-level summary.

</comment><comment><USER2> fyi this is a link to an attachement on some forum. possibly not content of the domain owner. (didn't download it to check)</comment>


Grisly find suggests humans inhabited Arctic 45,000 years ago - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/grisly-find-suggests-humans-inhabited-arctic-45000-years-ago <comment><USER2> > _"Surviving at those latitudes requires highly specialized technology and > extreme cooperation," Marean agrees. That implies that these were modern > humans, rather than Neandertals [sic; UK spelling] or other early members of > the human family. "_

Hasn't the idea been debunked that neanderthals were ape-like idiots incapable of cooperation or sophisticated tools?

<comment><USER3> They weren't ape-like idiots, but nonetheless newly arrived Homo Sapiens used noticeably more sophisticated tool-making techniques. This is one of the ways archaeologists are able to distinguish Neanderthal sites from, say, Cro-magnon sites. It is also thought that modern Homo Sapiens lived in groups much larger than Neanderthals did.

<comment><USER2> But the _homo sapiens_ of 2016 uses more sophisticated tool-making techniques than the _homo sapiens_ of 10,000 years ago!

Flint arrowheads versus microchip fabs; same species.

<comment><USER4> Same genes though?

Perhaps there has been selection for sophisticated tool making abilities.

<comment><USER5> 10,000 years is extremely short from an evolutionary perspective.

<comment><USER6> The selection still happened: It's probably the main reason we're still here and the other homo species aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It amazes me that ancient people put up with such harsh conditions. Why not just move south, where it's warmer. I suppose part of the issue is lack of knowledge of other places, but still. Why stay in such a harsh, difficult place?

<comment><USER8> Food.

Colder climates often produce an abundance of food, relative to warmer climes, and less competition. Mammoths, specifically, are terrific targets. Bringing down just one could feed a tribe for weeks, and they had almost no other predators. And besides food, the carcass had an abundance of skin and fur, powerful tendons for "rope", ivory that could be carved into more subtle shapes than stone - all sorts of uses, relative to small game. A rabbit might feed a family one day, and you're competing with all sorts of dogs, cats, and predatory rodents for them.

The human survival advantage is primarily intelligence. Intelligence is what made it possible for a coordinated, armed group of human hunters to bring down mammoths, when even sabertooth tigers and wolf packs couldn't do it. No competition for the biggest food source on legs? That's a huge win from a survival perspective.

<comment><USER9> Speaking as a hunter, your assertion that northern climates (I live in the north) produce more game is false. Deer populations, to use one example, thrive in warm temps. Also, compare the African savannah and its abundance of game animals to, say, northern Canada.

The real reasons are probably topography and game habits. The north is generally pretty flat and the ground is often frozen, making travel easy. And in cold temperatures, game often clusters together for warmth and follows predictable movement patterns because there are only so many places to find food. And finally, snow makes it easy to track game of any size.

These are all important in modern hunting too. Not much has really changed in that regard.

<comment><USER10> Northern climates, offer(ed) predictability for a very long time. In ancient times, you will probably not get human population explosions, but they will thrive in the North.

It was easier for populations to blow up in southern climates but then there were resets(generational disasters) -- specifically famine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The real tragedy is, how little of the animal appears to have been used. The tongue; some of a tusk. That's it. No wonder they went extinct so quickly.

<comment><USER12> That is far from a tragedy. Aside from the fact that 'how little of the animal appears to have been used' is the exact reason we all have the benefit of this discovery, one should realize this extremely rare find is in no way indicative of how early hominids utilized the mammoth population they preyed upon. I'm not sure if you've experienced current Arctic weather, but feel free to compare it to any refrigeration techniques of say, the 19th century, and then consider that at the time of the kill the world was a colder place. It is not unrealistic to assume that roaming hunter-gatherers would find it more efficient to simply store the meat of a literally gigantic kill at the exact site of the kill; harvesting what they needed, when they needed it. If you can assume that, it's not a far leap to assume that those who made this particular kill were unfortunately deprived the opportunity to fully harvest it.

I'm sure if you were around back then, there would be a zero probability such a 'tragedy' could ever occur. By the way, super interested in all of your current acts of altruism that might directly or indirectly combat the innumerable current 'tragedies' levied by humanity on any other species. I'll donate $1 USD in your username to a charity of your choice for every one you feel compelled to list. To deprive a cause you care so deeply about an influx of capital, I dare say, would be a real tragedy.

<comment><USER11> Dang, this simple observation about ancient hunting practices sure has stirred up some vitriol. How does a 40,000 year dead hunter create an emotional bond like this? That's a more interesting question.

<comment><USER12> If you believe your observation about one discovery of the remains of one ancient hunt is an observation of ancient hunting practices in general, you really need to look into the importance of sample size. If you believe any response here to your observation was anything close to cruel, how fair do you really believe your observation of those dead hunters is?

Regardless of how long someone has been dead, or how remote they may be to you, slandering them is not something you should do, especially on such a misinformed basis. To label their acts of survival a tragedy is incorrect, it's not an opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VoiceCentral iPhone developer frustrated with Apple - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10299755-37.html <comment><USER2> "As if that wasn't enough, The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that the developer is now being flooded with refund requests from customers. The problem is Apple keeps its 30 percent commission, but the developer has to refund the entire amount to the customer."

How on earth is this type of behavior legal?? It sounds like a class-action lawsuit just itching to happen.

A refund is a refund.</comment>


Ask HN:Computer coding/Everyday Monitor - <AUTHOR>

I know there are post out there about what are good computer monitors, so if someone can link them that would be great, or mention what is a good computer monitor for coding, but still be an everyday monitor <comment><USER2> The quality of monitors nowadays is really quite good, and if you get one with a good NewEgg / Amazon rating it's almost impossible to go wrong. More good news is that it's an extremely competitive market, so you'll be getting pretty good bang for your buck. Best value seems to be in the 22-24" 1080p range.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't beat the Apple Cinema Display 27 inch (or if you're a PC guy, the Dell UltraSharp 27 inch). Got two of them, love them, would never go back.</comment>


Ask HN: Leaving the video game industry. - <AUTHOR> Do any of you have experience leaving the video game industry? Can you say what kind of software you now work on, or how you explained your career shift to subsequent employers?
I've worked as a software engineer on video games for 2.5 years (after undergrad in cs). This was a mistake. I absolutely never feel a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment with anything i produced. 9 hours a day i stare at the products we make and wonder why anyone anywhere pays for them (clueless customers or idiotic publishers).
After work i tool around a lot with web-oriented technologies. I enjoy the ethos of languages like python and javascript, and i think work could be more interesting if those were the technologies i used professionally. My industry experience has been entirely C++ based though. Can i somehow spin this as a good thing?
I've also been thinking, my skill set may be transferable to  mobile platforms since they are bound by hardware in a way similar to games on consoles. <comment><USER2> Most of the people I know from the industry got out after five or so years, and started up their own small outfits, or went indie. Game development sounds sexy and fun, but unless you're at the top of the food chain calling the shots, you're usually an overworked drone. Worse yet, you may end up working yourself to death on a slew of titles you have no particular interest in.

I adopted the opposite approach because I'm a control freak and can't stand working on other peoples' projects. I kept my day job as a programmer outside the game sector, and indie it up in my spare time.

Don't feel bad if you want to bail. You're most definitely not alone in that respect. The way to spin your experience to potential employers is to emphasize how demanding game development is: tight scheduling, zero percent bug tolerance, rapidly changing standards, performance is always an issue, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> actually, another reason i want to leave the video game industry is so i can work in my free time on my own projects without violating these bullshit non- compete contracts.

so your day job was also programming games? can you point me to some of the indie stuff you've made. and out of curiosity - which country are you in?

edit: "day job was also programming _games_ " - i got that you were programming.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, I got sidetracked. Holidays and whatnot :)

My day job has always been outside the gaming industry. I do programming for the industrial automation sector in America. Robotics, PLCs, manufacturing... that sort of stuff. It's interesting at times, but not particularly challenging. The pay is good, but we're somewhat of a dying breed. Most new programmers move into the web apps or networking side of things. Some days I'm not even sure how I got into this stuff!

As for my games, I've piddled around for the last decade or so making old SNES-style games. You can find some examples of my past work at (callofcodethulhu.com) and (<http://www.allegro.cc/members/sirocco/projects>). I'm about a month or less away from finishing my latest project, so it's a total grind-o-rama around my house when I get home from work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you sure that you really want to leave the games industry? Based on what you've said, it seems quite possible that you'd be just as happy if you moved to a new company where you could be able to enjoy your work and take pride in the games you help make.

I just ask because if there is a way for you to really enjoy your work without having to move into a completely new industry, you might find the move a lot easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> i think it's quite possible that i will never be happy working as a software engineer in any industry.

but i can virtually guarantee i'll never be happy in the video game industry. the vast majority of video games are utter crap. it's astounding what pretty marketing can fool people into paying for.

the entire process suffers from a tremendous lack of formality because it's a "creative" product. the code quality is atrocious because everyone is chasing a moving target, and apparently there just isn't time to document anything.

i also have the sense that i'm not developing any particular skill set beyond dealing with excruciatingly undocumented apis & debugging excruciatingly unstable code (because the industry refuses to adopt developments in abstracting memory management - the vast majority of most games DO NOT need to be written in C++, despite what everyone would have you believe).

there's also this expectation that i'm in it for the love of video-games, because why else would i put up with these shitty hours and pay? fool me once.

i've actually worked at two video game companies (due to immigration issues), at two different extremes in terms of number of employees, etc. AND IT'S THE SAME BULLSHIT EVERYWHERE.

so again, getting out of the video game industry is just a last ditch attempt at staying in the larger software industry. it mystifies me that i spend the majority of my free time enthralled by the latest developments in software/technology (i definitely look forward to google i/o more than christmas), and yet i hate every moment of my professional life - but there you have it.

<comment><USER4> Disclaimer: I have no professional game development experience.

It sounds like you were working on shovelware for EA or someone like that. From having spoken to people who work in the games industry (though not just games per se, but middleware too: demonware and havok are two who are active in my area), I don't think this applies accross the board. Havok, for example, doesn't fall into the "code quality is atrocious" category (don't believe me? while you can't grab the source code, you can however use the library free of charge on PC's). From reading online forums and such, it seems to me that there are some really great game development houses who do have a lot of fun with what they do, do learn interesting and new things and so on. Definitely not all, but they do exist.

Sadly, I agree that a lot of games don't put as much effort into code quality as they should (which is why we have to put up with crashes and bugs and post- release patches...), but I really do believe that its not as bad as you make it out to be.

So, my advice would be to ditch the shitty money-crazed shovelware companies and find a small development shop which does it for fun and enjoyment just as much as for money.

Of course, even then the games industry might not appeal to you. At the end of the day, only you know for sure, so if you're unhappy, then by all means move on. As for where to - what have you worked on? (eg, 3d graphics? game ai? physics?) What do you enjoy doing/what areas would you like to work in instead? Its tough to give advice without knowing what your relevant skills and interests are. (Or, what in particular interests you about mobile platforms?)

As for C++, being good at programming in C and C++ is always a bonus. You make it sound like its dirty to have C++ experience! (I certainly hope not, I've written a lot of C++ code myself.. still do when it makes sense to). Everything you've been doing in C++ can _probably_ be applied elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _It sounds like you were working on shovelware for EA or someone like that._

direct hit.

> _find a small development shop which does it for fun and enjoyment just as > much as for money._

i thought i'd found that at my present company but it's the same crap. i was really naive about this place.

> _As for where to - what have you worked on_

this is the most worrying part. i used to focus on graphics, but what these operations need is someone competent to deal with a broad range of issues. and that's what i've been shafted into doing.

> _You make it sound like its dirty to have C++ experience!_

i didn't mean for it to sound like that. i worry that people who make hiring decisions won't see beyond their keyword filters though.

<comment><USER4> Well, assuming you don't want to try again with another game development company, I'd say look around for something that interests you and just apply. Don't worry if your current skills aren't a perfect match - you're experience (C++, graphics/performance-sensitive code, teamwork, tight deadlines, etc - the stuff other people mentioned) means you can probably pick up whatever you need on the way without much trouble and a good developer (assuming you're not applying to a big company with a clueless HR team...) should be able to spot that.

I found that having a background in C++, before moving to other languages (Python at first, now clojure wherever I can get away with using it) actually helped me program better. C++ makes you careful about managing resources almost to the point of paranoia - at least manual memory management does that to me :) and the C++ performance myth makes me pay a lot more attention at making sure my code is fast, regardless of language (though thankfully I've managed to kick the premature optimization habit in favour of choosing appropriate algorithms). I don't think I'd have picked up Python and Clojure (and Java and...) as easily if I hadn't went through the C++ pains, so you're epxeirence should serve you well. With a bit of luck, whoever you end up interviewing with will recognize that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jumping behavior in Super Mario Bros 3 changes if there's a slope - <AUTHOR> http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty awesome break down of NES 2D platformer physics. It's a shame that the title focuses on such a minor part of the entire article.</comment>


Software Delivery via Amazon Docker Workflow - <AUTHOR> http://r.32k.io/adf

<comment><USER2> I'm curious why you're running a docker file instead of committing a pre existing development docker container, and shipping that as the deployment artifact? This approach seems to treat docker more as provisioning tool (ansible, chef, puppet etc) and less as a continuous delivery "shipping container" tool.

Your adf-config tool makes me think of etcd: [https://github.com/coreos/etcd](https://github.com/coreos/etcd)</comment>


Show HN: my first product - a simple cost sharing tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.splitacost.com/

<comment><USER3> This is great. I've been using essentially this same thing in spreadsheet form for years in multiple different room-mate situations. Based on our usage patterns in the spreadsheet version, I would recommend a few changes:

* checking to see who is ahead and who is behind is the operation we used most often. We would check this before we went to buy groceries to see who should pay this week. Same for bills. I know there is the balance tab, but it isn't immediately clear to go there, and I was afraid that when I clicked settle debts that my transactions would/had been cleaned out too.

* shift-tab doesn't go to the previous field when adding transaction

* adding a date field is very helpful for remembering what a transaction was

* in our spreadsheet, my girlfriend and I split most things evenly, but split food 60%/40%. It would be nice, as another poster said if we could at least have some kind of uneven split and so we could set up two pages, one for food and one for everything else. Even better would be to allow choosing that for each transaction, or for a set of transactions, but I understand that may complicate things more than you want to.

* auto-complete on who paid and for what from existing transactions.

* reverse chronological order - if you use this for any amount of time, you want to see the most recent transaction more often than the old ones. May I recommend the new transaction fields go at the top of the page and push older transaction down the page as they are created?

All that said, We probably won't switch since I have a working custom version, but it has been a system that my room-mates and I swear by, so I hope you can make it work for other people too.

Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is very useful!

* maybe coloring the names red/green (behind/ahead) would solve this? (hovering the names shows a popup with info on hovered person's balance)

* shift-tab went straight the todo-list

* date fields.. * and uneven splits: yep, in certain situations both could be very useful. Maybe a "more" button that shows extra options like these when recording a Payment/Transfer would be nice.

* auto-complete should actually work already with names. I'll add it to the "for what" field also.

* this splits opinions I think. for me it's more natural to add new stuff to the bottom than to the top. The page scrolls to the bottom when new transaction is recorded, so it shouldn't make a big difference anyhow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like a useful tool, but it's not a _product_.

(I haven't tried it, but) it looks simple and elegant. However, I can't see you monetizing it.

Maybe you don't care about monetizing it. If you don't care about monetizing it, don't call it a product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I'm (probably) going to make a non-free iPhone version of this also. Therefore this web-version is either a part of a product, or an ad of product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if an add-on meant that I missed elements of the front page, but it was very bland. You could jump people straight to a demonstration with some presets so they quickly get an idea of what's going on?

As @headsclouds said, shared office expenses are probably a good target for this and you could look to pursue that opportunity specifically with a domain alias and tailored copy pretty easily.

I am in a shared office situation and have expenses that would be perfect to track using this, but it would all have to be crystal clear for me to bother switching from just writing notes on paper (and losing them).

Can't think of a strong way you could monetise this so it might be best to keep it clean and ad free, then have it "Presented by (some company/service relevant to small business types)", whether that's a single sponsor or another business/service of yours.

Edit: Added another participant and noticed the colour-coded data when you mouse over their names. Make it a bit clearer that you can mouseover for that info - maybe a magnifying glass icon.

Maybe you could have 3-5 read-only demo sheets - friends on a trip, shared office situation, someone needing to be paid back for buying the game tickets (I could use it for this right now too), people chipping in for a joint wedding gift, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not missing anything, the front page is text only (+button) currently. And yes, there's definitely room to improve it..

I actually never even thought of the shared office targeting before. It seems I should, it does sound like an opportunity for the concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great job, it's a simple no BS calculator that does exactly what it sais it does. And good call not asking for registration, and going the way of a sharable url instead. I'll be using this. Thanks!

update: I can imagine wanting an account that organizes my urls. It would be cool that have that button on the side, but not push for people to register.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yep, that could be nice feature. I've found myself bookmarking those events in a dedicated folder, but that's not very handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it too. Neat idea for free service... Any ideas on monetizing it?

Small suggestion : Expenses/Balance links are not immediately visible. I was looking for them at the bottom of the page. edit: better description

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for feedback, I'll have think about the navigation.

Yeap, the monetizing plan is to make a non-free IPhone version that works seamlessly with the web-version. Hopefully the web-version will help to boost the marketing of the IPhone-version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This would be super useful to us if we could set percentages of the total amount everyone is due.

We share an office with a couple other companies, but the lease is at our company's name, and we always pay for everything and people pay us back.

Since some companies are three people, and some folks here are freelancers they aren't all due the same amount; i.e. there is 10 of us, but my company pays for 2/10 because there's two of us using the office.

Maybe adding this feature would open up your service to more users with our problem users. (We are using a shared Google spreadsheet.)

<comment><USER9> Jup, but not only percentages but also absolute values.

Was just with my room mate at IKEA. I used my card to pay. Some stuff is for the whole appartment, some stuff only for me, some stuff only for him.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't the app already do that (not the percentages, but the "some for me, some for only him" thing)? The last option of each expense is to pick who should pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice site. A little bit of feedback:

\- Once you click on "Settle Debts", it's not clear how to get back to the list of expenses.

\- I like that you auto-create debts and participants from entries. The downside is that if I make a typo in someone's name, there doesn't seem to be a way to delete that person, even if I delete the transaction w/the typo.

\- I mindlessly entered $10000 into the expense field, and it was automatically changed to $9999.99. What's the reason for the $10k cap?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for feedback!

\- Yep, the navigation is a bit asymmetric now. I think I'll add more focus to the navigation bar, and maybe even remove the "Settle Debts"-button.

\- Actually there is a way. After you have deleted the last transaction of a person, a small "x" button appears next to that person's name in the participants-list. A bit unintuitive maybe.

\- Actually, there are no good reasons for the cap. The best is probably to avoid long rows, but 10k is a bit low for that. I'll raise the cap or remove it completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of people are looking to solve the expense-sharing problem...nothing seems to have caught on, though. Off the top of my head:

<http://www.venmo.com> (has payments)

<http://www.billmonk.com> (the very first)

<http://www.splitterbug.com> (now defunct)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope that not requiring registration lifts SplitaCost above these.

<comment><USER13> It's fun to hope but have you gathered any data that suggests that people are frustrated with having to create accounts for bill-sharing apps?

If you built this to further your own education/skills, great job. If you built this to turn into a product, do your research first or else a lot of your talent/effort/time will be wasted.

<comment><AUTHOR> No thorough analysis done, just some hours with Google and observations of the way people I know deal with expense sharing (excel/paper).

The problem is real tough: calculating this stuff by hand is painful. And because people still do that, it could be solved better than it already is. Choice between free, easy to use tool and paper is a no brainer (if you know that the tool exists, that is)

\--> No signup, because it makes it more likely that you know about the tool. (easier to start using, and a lot more likely to spread)

How many people can I spread this to then? I have no idea, but I think this is the fastest way to find out. If it spreads, awesome, and if it doesn't, I'll just swap to some other project. Not much lost here.

(And yes, education is also a big motivator. This is my first tool after all. I still see some value in just shipping tools _some_ people will actually use, profitable or not. A simple, fast project is good for this.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Recurring expenses would be useful. For example, my roommate and I pay rent every month and the amount never changes. I should be able to enter this just once.

Also, some sort of payment integration (PayPal, etc.) would be nice so he can come to this page, see he owes money, pay it and have that payment recorded.

Excellent product though, I could see myself using this.

</comment><comment><USER15> I got lost once I clicked settle debts. There was no visual cue that Expenses were accessed through the menubar at the top of the page. Once I hit "Record Transfer" I was left looking at the debt page with no where to go.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll change the menubar to be a bit more flashy (there is a subtle color difference between the selected page and the rest of the menubar. A bit too subtle, it seems)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, it's really similar to a tool I've been working on: <http://grouppay.backin.de>

Glad to see you share the vision (no signup, just go straight to a unique link).

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, you've managed to simplify the concept even more! I guess the lack of money transfers limits this to non-continuous cases tough. (Which might be just fine)

I like the fact that the "landing page" is the tool, hopefully this stays with the finished version also.

This could be just due to the unfinished status, but currently at least it does require awful lot of clicking around with mouse. At least entering the cost of an item right after the name should be possible without touching the mouse. (and it actually took a moment for the first time to notice that you can edit the cost afterwards)

Maybe it would be also good to make a more drastic graphical difference between the names and the items?

Are you planning on adding possibility to mark certain items to be paid by certain people only?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I think in the finished version, you would always start automatically at a unique URL, and the app would auto-save.

I agree that full keyboard control would be nice. At the very least, you should be able to tab through fields.

Also, not every user understood the distinction between users and expense items, so you're right about that.

Marking items only for certain people: Hadn't planned to do it in the first version because I didn't know what the interaction would look like, but I like your solution. Also, without this feature, everything works as one page (no need to have a separate page for settling debts).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like that I don't need to "register" or login/password.......I don't know how this will work with the mobile app you're working on, maybe register the "pages" in the app....anyway

Good work....+1 - <USER2>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Yes, current (early) plan of the mobile version is to store the addresses (+names) of the used Events on the phone. (actually, the Payments/Transfers will probably be also saved in the mobile device, to allow offline use)

Accessing Events created with the web-version for the first time with the mobile app is bit of open question tough. Copypasting the URL is maybe not the user friendliest way to handle this. Creating a user account of some sort for the mobile users might be a better idea..

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can you add a feature? I'd like to take a picture of a restaurant bill, have it automatically OCRed, and share the bill with other people's phones. Each person decides which part of the bill they pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds cool alright, but the actual value added is maybe not that big. Everyone should still manually enter data, so just entering the data manually while looking at the bill could actually be faster..

This probably is not the easiest thing to implement either..

<comment><USER18> Perhaps, but it's something tons of people would use, and it's the difference between people using your tool or not imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did this come out of startup weekend London? There were a couple of teams with similar ideas there and would be great if this was another team who stayed in touch and carried on after the event.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, not from London.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The app doesn't seem to be loading!

<comment><AUTHOR> the blue spinner never vanishes? Did reload help?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> seems very useful. I can't enter numbers in the "how much" field though. (Safari, Mac OS X)

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm.. strange, works well on my Mac+Safari combination. Wich version of Safari/OS X are you running it with?

<comment><USER22> The number pad doesn't work for me but the keyboard numbers do. I started to debug but was scared off by seeing all the gwt-* class names. ;-)

WinXP Chrome 16.something (dev channel)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, this is enough info to fix it, I think. Thanks. Numpad probably sends different keyCodes than keyboard numbers, and the (hacky) number field doesn't consider them numbers at all. I'll look into this soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is this better than Billmonk?

<comment><AUTHOR> You need to register to Billmonk, not to SplitaCost

<comment><USER23> Okay, not convinced that's really a benefit (registration lets Billmonk be more useful), but even if it is, what if I'm already registered with Billmonk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Then you should probably stick with Billmonk. You're correct, "no signup" is mainly a benefit for those who are not already registered to some competing service, but then again, most people don't use Billmonk.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dating App Lets You Flirt with Coworkers on Slack - <AUTHOR> http://www.vocativ.com/425236/dating-app-slack-feeld/ <comment><USER2> So someone in authority has to authorise this, which means that the company is inevitably on the hook for any resulting sexual harassment claim. Cant see it going anywhere really.</comment>


Show HN: Aura – Your intelligent morning mindfulness app - <AUTHOR> http://www.aurahealth.io <comment><USER2> I get that you want to have people sign up and commit before they start evaluating things, but come on. No information at all?

This to me is

1\. [http://www.zombo.com/](http://www.zombo.com/)

2\. Sign up.

I guess people that do that are very likely to become paying customers though.

<comment><USER3> To me it just looks like it is one of those apps that shows the weather and shows some random "quote of the day".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that you seem to think that having a company facebook + twitter + medium + instagram pages is more important than describing your product and making me want to try it is a bit worrying.

</comment><comment><USER5> iPhone? Android? smoke signals?</comment>


H1B Visa Salary Database - <AUTHOR> http://h1bdata.info <comment><USER2> Two things seem worth mentioning:

1\. The usual suspects that petition Congress for more H1-B visas seem to be paying their employees at or above market.

2\. Several Indian IT body shops are spamming the process, vastly reducing the effective slots available for the group above. Infosys, for example filed several applications for "Systems Engineers", whatever that means, in San Francisco, paying 74k$[1]

Searching by title, Infosys seems to be the only company hiring people for the role, I wonder prevailing wage determination works in these cases :-) [2]

[1] [http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=INFOSYS+LIMITED&job=SYSTEMS...](http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=INFOSYS+LIMITED&job=SYSTEMS+ENGINEER+-+US&city=SAN+FRANCISCO&year=2015)

[2] [http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=SYSTEMS+ENGINEER+-+US&...](http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=SYSTEMS+ENGINEER+-+US&city=&year=2015)

<comment><USER3> FWIW, Systems Engineer is the designation for entry level engineers at Infosys. Since it's a service company with engineers working on all sorts of techs it doesn't really make sense calling those positions Java Dev or Web Dev or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting after looking at prior employers.

Two comments:

1 - It's only base salaries. No equity and bonus are included.

2 - People work the job titles to justify comp. (Moving up, or down) And the title for the government doesn't always match the one used by the employee or company. So it's tough to infer too much for one or two data points.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is an amazing source of salary information. This must be a great when job hunting (especially as H1B) to see what ranges companies you apply to hire at.

<comment><USER6> Or to compare salaries with those one works with. I just found out how much my colleague makes.

<comment><USER7> Is it significantly less than you? In other words does it really justify shipping someone from across the world and going through the admin cost? I wonder if H1B worker is indeed cheaper, when is the break even point to justify the extra admin? Is it 12 months, 18 months? Is he still there after that period? If not, then obviously there's no point.

<comment><USER6> I was under the initial impression he made more than me, based on the amount of money he spent on house/cars/furnishings when arriving in this country. In my opinion, he should be making quite a bit less. I have significantly more skill and reputation in the field where we work. I'm also the project lead. In reality, he's only slightly lower paid than I am (<5% difference).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is amazing, from the businesses I've worked with, it's about what I expected. What I'm wondering is if these salaries are what those of us who don't need a visa should be expecting? I'm paid in line with these salaries and seems pretty bog standard. As a result, they certainly aren't getting much of a discount.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. If me being paid the same as H1B visa employees is not right, I'll probably get in gear to find another place to work soon. If I am right and these are accurate for native and H1B's, then there's probably at least a 5-10K premium increase for citizens. Maybe more.

<comment> tushar-r One thing you should remember, is that if Infosys and the like are paying $74K to a person, they are charging about 1.5-2x that from the client.

<comment><USER9> 50-100% markup in corporate consulting is a steal. 200-250% of salary is routinely charged, sometimes much more.

But, of course, salaries are only part of the expenses. Sales and marketing, operations, IT, management, HR — all of it costs money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's also Green Card PERM Salary data available on sites like [http://visadoor.com](http://visadoor.com).

H1B's typically have less years of experience compared to Green Card applications, even through both their titles might say Senior Software Engineer for example. If you are researching salaries, I would definitely look into PERM Salaries as well.

Glassdoor groups all the salaries reported for a title over the years in one bucket. Hence, I find the PERM and Labor data very helpful because you can see how salaries have changed over years.

Eg. [http://visadoor.com/companies/facebook- inc](http://visadoor.com/companies/facebook-inc)

[http://visadoor.com/h1b/index?company=Facebook%2C+Inc.&year=...](http://visadoor.com/h1b/index?company=Facebook%2C+Inc.&year=2016&submit=Search)

[http://visadoor.com/greencards/index?company=Facebook%2C+Inc...](http://visadoor.com/greencards/index?company=Facebook%2C+Inc.&year=2016&submit=Search)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice, but the data needs cleanup / clustering (all the variants on "NEW YORK CITY", "NEW YORK, NY" etc).

<comment><USER6> I wonder if a bulk data download is available. Some NLP and data analysis could produce some incredible results here.

<comment><USER12> Where is it coming from?

<comment><USER13> [https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm](https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm) on the Disclosure Data tab.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are no rules or regulations to issuing a labor clearance for a h1. I know many cases where the companies used the lowest possible salary and it job description that has nothing to do with the actual job itself. But the labor office has no way to know that and enforce. I don't know how that can be fixed.

<comment><USER15> Here's how: Auction the visas with a high reserve. That way the R&D slots that pay above market get nicked for a bit extra, that the employers will find a little inconvenient but nothing compared to the product not getting done. But for an outsourcing shop that wants a seatwarmer at the lowest price possible, a competitive aution is 90% unsupportable. They won't be able to tolerate negative margins for a year or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is actually somewhat misleading, because it's listing labor certification data; not actually granted visas. Given the H1B lottery that means it contains a lot of certifications for jobs that could never be filled.

<comment><USER17> At least it means an employer had tried to apply a visa for its employee. Those salary numbers still useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> An analysis of game industry H-1B data: [https://orcahq.com/blog/game- industry-salary-explorer](https://orcahq.com/blog/game-industry-salary- explorer)

And a tool to instantly search and view salary distributions: [https://orcahq.com/salaries](https://orcahq.com/salaries)

</comment><comment><USER19> These are the lower bounds. The actual salaries can actually be higher.

</comment><comment><USER20> How I wish I had this information during my job hunt! Knowing what the employer (who picked you for interview) _plans_ to pay you up front is an important bargaining advantage.

</comment><comment><USER8> I keep coming back to this site. I'm seriously going to use this in a salary negotiation if someone ever tries to lowball me again.

</comment><comment><USER21> IBM: [http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=IBM*&job=&city=&year=All](http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=IBM*&job=&city=&year=All)

</comment><comment><USER17> Facebook [http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook](http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook)</comment>


It's time for a rational perspective on Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/04/27/its-time-for-a-rational-perspective-on-wi-fi/

<comment><USER2> We would all benefit from more frequency bands for wifi. Interferences can be solved with channel hopping:

[http://boingboing.net/2003/01/19/open-spectrum- faq.html](http://boingboing.net/2003/01/19/open-spectrum-faq.html)</comment>


Are Older Entrepreneurs Threatened By the Younger? - <AUTHOR> http://mindpetals.com/blog/2007/04/are-older-entrepreneurs-threatened-by-the-younger/ <comment><USER2> That's a very, very difficult question to philosophisize about. When one believes they've been criticized unfairly, they could think the other person is older, shorter, or less confident than they are. But I think the biggest predictor is the other person's mood.

And, anyway, the only external opinion that matters is your customers' (and even then, not always). Spoken word has sometimes been enforced by many a judge as a "verbal contract", which shows the power words sometimes have. Therefore, why focus on the words of those who offer you nothing in return? It's worth nothing. But words backed up by something are worth listening to. If a banker says they will invest X if you twist your idea to do Y as well, there could be something there. If a banker just says, I don't get it, just walk away. Don't worry about their opinion. If a customer says "I really need this feature so I can use your software," do it. If a customer tells you that it would be cool if your program plays a sound when you click on a button, don't do it. There's got to be something you can do with the same amount of time where another person is willing to either put up or shut up. In this case, you don't even consider whether button-push sounds are a good idea are not--you just know that you can be doing something else.

So, by now, if I say "could you quit your idea for me?" you should say "no, I won't unless you pay me X."

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally really admire the folks who are pursuing their 3rd or 4th or 10th hit. There are so many such guys who consistently keep churning out great companies that don't necessarily make the press covers yet have great exits or sales numbers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not threatened by the abilities of younger entrepreneurs. However, I am very much annoyed by the fact that VCs are more likely to fund younger entrepreneurs.</comment>


The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991) - <AUTHOR> https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html <comment><USER2> This article was originally written with a critical tone of C & Unix, it said they have a lot of problems, but with a 50% functionality, a lot of people had accepted it as good enough, then spreaded it like "the ultimate computer viruses". After it's publication, many Unix people reinterpreted it as a celebration of Unix's successful apporach since then.

I always strongly dislike JavaScript for its inconsistencies and ugly syntax, I found the tendency that everything now comes with a JavaScript engine and force developing in JavaScript regardless of their native programming language is unfortunately, and I always dreamed that the alternative timeline which Scheme became the language of the web.

But I've changed my position in recent years, because of this article. Now I think the same principle applies to JavaScript. It was something with a 50% functionality, and so it became the ultimate virus on the Web, and since then, a huge amount of manpower was spent on improving JavaScript. As a result, it still has the same inconsistencies from its original design, but overall, due to all the efforts, the overall usability is actually higher than alternative systems with a "cleaner" / "better" design. Just like a Unix-like OS like FreeBSD or Linux is still one of the most usable systems in existence. So I think I'd just accept JavaScript...

<comment><USER3> > After it's publication, many Unix people reinterpreted it as a celebration > of Unix's successful apporach since then.

The other comment below links this: [https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf](https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf)

Look on book page 219 (224 in my pdf viewer), and read around the section that starts with "It is far better to have an underfeatured product that is rock solid ..."

It's probably not a "reinterpretation of the Unix people". More like, the author did too good of a job by not taking sides explicitly, so everyone just interpreted it the way they liked. If anything, the author argued why "worse is better" is really better. To take the "Worse" approach just means to "not take all the unnecesssary effort" which will result in a product that exists.

In other words, it's an essay about how big bang approaches don't work out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently discovered my favorite summary of "Worse is Better". It's by the author, but it isn't anywhere in articles by that name.

 _"It is far better to have an under-featured product that is rock solid, fast, and small than one that covers what an expert would consider the complete requirements."_

[https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf](https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf) (pg 219)

<comment><USER5> Hm... when I think "worse is better" I'm not thinking of software that is "rock solid, fast, and small". Have I been misunderstanding the essay?

I thought most of these applications start out small but they're nowhere near rock solid and haven't been optimised for speed. It just gets the essential features in the hands of the people who need it and works just well enough to be useful.

<comment><USER4> I was surprised as well! But this is from the author so one can't argue with it.

As I think about it more, it makes a lot of sense. The only people willing to put up with something flaky are programmers. For most people, it can do little but it _has_ to be reliable.

<comment><USER5> Also by the author (under a pseudonym), Worse is Better is Worse: [http://dreamsongs.com/Files/worse-is- worse.pdf](http://dreamsongs.com/Files/worse-is-worse.pdf)

> I've always told him that his penchant for trying to argue any side of a > point would get him in trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the central point here is "completeness must be sacrificed whenever implementation simplicity is jeopardized".

Indeed, sometimes omitting a feature which really ought to be there makes life easier for the end user, not just the implementor, even though the user has a good reason to want the feature.

For example, Subversion allows versioning empty directories while Git (like CVS) doesn't.

On the face of it this is just a deficiency in git, but the fallout from Subversion doing the Right Thing is quite extensive: because Subversion treats directories as first-class objects rather than just part of a file's name, you can get a Subversion repo into all kinds of strange and confusing states.

With git the user is never going to be confused by the result of something like "I deleted the directory then tried to merge a branch which added a file inside it".

</comment><comment><USER7> Main main criticism of the 'worse' development approach, rush out a simple MVP then iterate, is that it only works for simple problems.

Not all problems can be solved by incremental refinement.

<comment><USER8> that's interesting. what example problems incremental refinement isn't able to solve?

<comment><USER9> The flaws of incremental refinement should be obvious to anybody who's worked in a codebase more than 5 years old built on that approach. Maybe it could work in theory, but in practice, the iterations on crap produce more crap.

As far as a specific example, I remember a discussion with Uncle Bob where he specifically mentions banking and accounting as systems that shouldn't use that approach because you'll build the wrong thing.

<comment><USER10> And yet the conventional wisdom is that "a complicated system that works is almost always found to have been derived from a simple system that works".

But you're right, evolving code often turns it into a mess. The only way that doesn't is if, at each stage, the people working on it keep the architecture and code clean. That takes discipline, not just by the programmers, but also by management - they have to give the programmers time to do the cleanup that is needed, not just time to shoehorn something in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title itself lets you know the desire of the author to occupy some philosophical high ground, while admitting some hard truths.

They could have asked more honestly, "why is C/Unix winning hearts and minds while Lisp-based systems are not" but first they wanted to provide the given that C/Unix was clearly inferior to Lisp based systems. That was not up for debate.

So that sets the bounds for the discussion that follows, and frames the discussion as "why are people choosing the clearly inferior over the clearly superior?"

You could write a similar essay from the point of view of what you might call the "original intent" of C/Unix, which is that simplicity is chronically undervalued and everybody, everywhere, all the time, try to add "just one more feature" to make it better.

<comment><USER12> That essay has already been written, Rob Pike's UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful [1]. It inspired a web site and project devoted to simplifying Unix [2].

[1] [http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/](http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/)

[2] [http://cat-v.org/](http://cat-v.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > C is therefore a language for which it is easy to write a decent compiler, > and it requires the programmer to write text that is easy for the compiler > to interpret.

Ironically this is no longer true. Not so much because C has changed but because the hardware underneath it has.

<comment><USER13> I would instead state that the standard for what constitutes a "decent compiler" has risen. For any given performance target, I'd still bet that it takes less work to hit it with a C compiler than with a compiler for most newer languages. (Partly because the success of C has resulted in C-related hardware design constraints...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Worse isn't better, _simple_ is better. Simple is much easier to adapt to complex use cases because it can be easily understood at a high level. Simple avoids bikeshedding, which Lisp developers (the intended audience of this article) are notorious for.

</comment><comment><USER15> A thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16716275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16716275)

2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7202728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7202728)

2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2725100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2725100)

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember reading this, when it was first published, I think maybe in AI Magazine.

Being a huge Common Lisp fan at the time, I immediately adopted the idea that Correctness is the most important single thing above all else. I don't care what's in the box. The external interfaces on the box should be correct.

This seems like a basic thing we take for granted in tools, libraries, languages and other things we use. Dishwashers. Thermostats.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's also the hiding-in-plain sight explanation that C was just easier than Lisp for English-speaking people to learn and use because, like English, it's SVO instead of VSO. Then object-oriented languages overtook C for the same reason.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's like literary fiction vs popular fiction. One might think literary fiction is the right way to do fiction, but popular fiction is where the money is.

<comment><USER10> But define "better". Literary fiction is "better" in the sense of "communicating profound ideas better". Popular fiction is "better" in the sense of "being something that people want to read".</comment></comment>


L-systems - <AUTHOR> https://jsantell.com/l-systems <comment><USER2> I wrote an L-systems implementation in Common Lisp as part of a thesis around 2002. The software, thesis and some raytraced images are still available at my old university home page: [http://www.ii.uib.no/~knute/lsystems/llisp.html](http://www.ii.uib.no/~knute/lsystems/llisp.html)

If anyone plans to test the software: I haven't run it in ages, and I suspect that the OpenGL bindings will be tricky to get working today. The rest of the code hopefully still works.

<comment><USER3> Very nice renders!

Since you are an expert, could you share whether L-systems have any practical applications?

<comment><USER2> Aristid Lindenmayer used it originally as a model to study the growth of algae, so it has some scientific applications. While computer graphics is the most common use case, L-systems have also been used for generating music.

[http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/](http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/) has a list of papers and other related texts, including the classic book The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also see [https://github.com/krljg/lsystem](https://github.com/krljg/lsystem), a neat way to play with L-systems in Blender in 3D.

People interested in this might also be interested in the release notes for The Grove (a Blender tree gen plugin), as they describe a number of modelled behaviours of trees in nature: phototropism, gravitropism, forking, behaviour of sapwood and heartwood, etc.: [https://www.thegrove3d.com/releases/the- grove-release-8/](https://www.thegrove3d.com/releases/the-grove-release-8/)

<comment><USER5> I love that Blender is so programmable. As far as I'm aware, every action in Blender can be expressed in Python. The Grove in an absolutely beautiful representation of the power that comes with that.

A recall a undergrad project where I was helping write a C wrapper around an old FORTRAN library or potential energy calculations to make them accessible in Mathematica (and yes, I am aware of how wild that sentence is). We used Mathematica to generate some potential energy surfaces (they looked like the first picture here [https://sav.blogs.unr.edu/3d/](https://sav.blogs.unr.edu/3d/) ) and for an interesting visuals I exported the models to Blender. An interesting property of these graphs is that modeling a reaction is taking a point on that graph with some amount of energy and combining it with the gradient at that point. This is essentially the same as simulating a ball rolling around within the surface. So I simulated a ball in Blender, tracked it's motion, and compared it to real life data and "actual" simulations, and found them impressively similar.

I ended up winning some aware for presenting it, it was quite a lot of fun, and now I have a publication and conversation starter of an entry on my CV.

<comment><USER6> HN added the bracket to your link. Should be [https://sav.blogs.unr.edu/3d/](https://sav.blogs.unr.edu/3d/)

<comment><USER5> Whoops. Fixed, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It'd be interesting to see more information about L-systems that aren't strictly branching structures! I played around with them for procedural level generation on a dead prototype.

[https://imgur.com/a/dtmQcHt](https://imgur.com/a/dtmQcHt)

That image shows 9 generations of the following system:

Symbols:

* Rect(Corner, Dimensions) [black]

* Room(Corner, Dimensions) [green]

* Hall(Corner, Dimensions) [blue]

Rules:

* Rect(Corner, Dimensions) => Room(Corner, Dimensions) if Dimensions matches the size of a predefined room (so I could easily place preconstructed rooms)

* Rect(Corner, Dimensions) => Hall(Corner, Dimensions) if either X or Y dimensions are 100 (1 meter width)

* Rect(Corner, Dimensions) => split at a random distance along either X or Y axis to replace with two Rects()

I'd love to see any examples that are more elegant :) One of the few posts I found was about dungeon generation[0] although I've been assured they're used all over game dev for things other than plants!

[0]: [https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/OsamaAlsalman/20180827/32531...](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/OsamaAlsalman/20180827/325319/Kastle_Dungeon_Generation_Using_LSystems.php)

</comment><comment><USER8> I first played with L-systems using Fractint [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractint) & also learned to code by writing Mandlebrots, Julias, a Sierpinski Gasket, and lots of other things in Pascal. Fun times, and a great fun way to learn.

<comment><USER9> Ah I have good memories of this, but I don't think it was exactly Fractint who did L-systems but a companion system

(Maybe they unified later?)

And even later when reimplementing the Mandelbrot algo I figured out that Fractint had a lot of tricks up its sleeve to be that fast (especially in "the lake")

<comment><USER10> I played with Fractint around 1997 on my 286, and it already had L-systems. Is your memory of it older than that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So NOW, finally, I get why Discworld multiverse's L-space is like it is... Yes, it's also Library-space, but it's also this, complex organically growing and readjusting system where it's hard to not get lost...

<comment><USER12> Ook -> Ook ook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interestingly, some of the early sources¹ on such recursive string rewriting methods are from Baal haRokeach².

1\. [https://www.academia.edu/38490274/Symbolic_computation_and_d...](https://www.academia.edu/38490274/Symbolic_computation_and_digital_philosophy_in_early_Ashkenazic_Kabbalah)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_of_Worms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_of_Worms)

<comment><USER14> Some people trace the first exposition of recursive production rules for grammars back to Pāṇini (around 5th century BCE) [1]

[1] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23497283?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/23497283?seq=1)

<comment><USER13> Yep, it was also known to eastern mystics. And there is also a parallel in Sefer Yetzira about "stones" (letters) building "houses" (permutations), which also refers to such generative grammars.

<comment><USER15> Huh, I'm surprised some allusion to this didn't come up in [http://unsongbook.com/](http://unsongbook.com/). Or maybe I just missed it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> See also "The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8723728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8723728)

And "Evolving Lindenmayer Systems" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20588039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20588039)

<comment><USER17> The first section of Godel Escher Bach has a very intuitive description of L-systems with exercises. Can't remember if that's what he called them in the book though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a nice language

#lang lindenmayer, a language for L-Systems

[https://docs.racket-lang.org/lindenmayer/index.html](https://docs.racket- lang.org/lindenmayer/index.html)

<comment><USER19> Was not aware of #lang lindenmayer, very cool.

Some of the other, older language environments I've found are the C-based CPFG, C++-based LPFG, L-Py for python

[http://algorithmicbotany.org/lstudio/CPFGman.pdf](http://algorithmicbotany.org/lstudio/CPFGman.pdf) [http://algorithmicbotany.org/lstudio/LPFGman.pdf](http://algorithmicbotany.org/lstudio/LPFGman.pdf) [http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/lpy.fps2012.pdf](http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/lpy.fps2012.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When playing with a workshop for this [0], I found it hard to make real- looking trees. Especially when trying to color them, as the recursiveness doesn't really care if you want it to be a branch or a trunk. I have experimented with checking the depth of the stack for the turtle, and using that to draw with a different color/strokweight. But still not sure how to make it look more like a real tree. [1] It's fun to experiment with, though!

The image is produced by

        F: "FF",
        X: "F+[[X]-FX]-F[F-FX]+X"

[0]: [https://github.com/FredrikMeyer/lsystems- workshop](https://github.com/FredrikMeyer/lsystems-workshop) edit index.js#L102

[1]: [https://imgur.com/a/1flZ2b8](https://imgur.com/a/1flZ2b8)

<comment><USER21> That's where the context-sensitive part comes in, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> You can also do these in 3D. See pics at the bottom of this post: [http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural- content-g...](http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content- generation-l-systems/)

<comment><USER23> There's a 3D Hilbert curve in this one too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The mouse-over effects on the "Projects Notes Speaking About" links at the top right of the page (on desktop) are nice.

<comment><USER25> They're visually nice, but misleading from an interaction design perspective. A hover state should mean that clicking the mouse will perform an action. Here, the hover region is larger than the active region. The mouse cursor is the only way to tell whether you're really in the active region or not.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> university-of-calgary's site: [http://algorithmicbotany.org/](http://algorithmicbotany.org/), also is a treasure trove of articles based on L-Systems...

</comment><comment><USER26> That's interesting. I was aware of formal grammars and was toying with using stochastic parametric grammars to make generative programs, unknowingly a form of L-system.

I did one thing that goes beyond the grammars mentioned in the article and in wikipedia. You can assign an address to each leaf symbols. If you have binary rules of the form Ax->AxAx, this is easy as you are generating a binary tree and a path to that tree is just a binary number. If you are generating a programming language and each leaf node is a program statement, the return value of that statement can be assigned to that address. Then it is not difficult for each parameters in a parametric grammar to have a reference or reference offset back to these address. These address offsets can be stocastic parameters in the grammar.

To me it's more like generating a full programming language since each statement has a return value and later statements can reference these value by address, a bit like putting the value in a variable and accessing it later.

I then have a scheme to try to learn the stochastic parameters from output examples to try to produce programs that learn to generate specific output (I have had very limited success). The learning scheme includes trying to cluster together rules that generate similar subprograms.

I have a longer description here: [https://www.quora.com/What-deep-learning- ideas-have-you-trie...](https://www.quora.com/What-deep-learning-ideas-have- you-tried-that-didnt-work/answer/Benoit-Essiambre)

<comment><USER15> I've seen it suggested before, when I was looking into the bijectivity of parsing, that generating lexical-program L-systems (i.e. ASTs where the leaf symbols are a compiler's lexemes) is a good way of turning a compiler's BNF- grammar spec into a fuzzer for said compiler's parser, and possibly, through it, the rest of the compiler.

I expect you could get pretty far by teaching AFL ([http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/)) to generate inputs "through" a BNF-grammar L-system—since AFL already has the ability to explore the execution-path-space of the program-under-test.

Personally, I'm intrigued about whether L-systems can be generalized into generators for Directed Acyclic Graphs, rather than just trees. Then you could directly generate (branch-and-label-containing) machine-code, and—hooked up to a tool like AFL—fuzz processors/emulators with it.

<comment><USER27> I've had this same idea before and used this process successfully for fuzzing interpreters, though it was partly manual, partly a hodge podge of shell scripts.

There are already fuzzers based on this idea, for instance tavor ([https://github.com/zimmski/tavor](https://github.com/zimmski/tavor)). On the purely generative side (no execution), there's blab ([https://github.com/aoh/blab](https://github.com/aoh/blab)).

What these lack is probability parameters for each rule so that the probability distribution isn't necessarily uniform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > _Space-filling curves can be formalized via L-systems, resulting in a > recursive, fractal-like pattern. More specifically, FASS curves, defined as > space-filling, self-avoiding, simple, and self-similar. That is, a single, > non-overlapping, recursive, continuous curve._

I guess this can't be combined with space-filling curves that form closed cycles, right? (example of such a curve: the H-curve[0])

[0] [http://www.akt.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg34/publications- akt/...](http://www.akt.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg34/publications- akt/fct97.pdf)

<comment><USER29> If you need a closed cycle, start with a closed cycle and use substitution rules that preserve this property. There is a variant of the Hilbert curve that works this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It is fun to play with these systems using a software called context free art: [https://www.contextfreeart.org](https://www.contextfreeart.org)

</comment><comment><USER31> Why aren't there more recent books on L-systems? I was very surprised at the scarcity of them considering the popularity of the topic.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wrote an LSystem app as part of a larger math suite hobby project. Select 'examples' in the menu and click draw to get going. The lsystems are expressed in my own little math-like scripting language. [https://mathblocks.net/workspace/#lsystem_0;](https://mathblocks.net/workspace/#lsystem_0;)

</comment><comment><USER33> I always thought L-systems were cool. I even made an animated one: [http://jsfiddle.net/victorqribeiro/L3vy97py/](http://jsfiddle.net/victorqribeiro/L3vy97py/)

I've been slowing learning webgl, as soon as I have a more robust grasp of it, I'll do one 3D.

</comment><comment><USER34> LParser: [http://laurenslapre.nl/lapre_004.htm](http://laurenslapre.nl/lapre_004.htm)

Along with Cthugha, Fractint and Form3D - this was my early PC graphics happy place.

</comment><comment><USER35> I already implemented it in SDL (C++): [https://github.com/MarceloMPJ/LSystemTreeSDL](https://github.com/MarceloMPJ/LSystemTreeSDL)

</comment><comment><USER36> The page seems to crash Firefox on Android

<comment><USER19> I use Firefox on Android as my main driver (former Mozilla eng) and I haven't had a crash, but have noticed sometimes videos don't load. On Chrome too sometimes, but usually the issue is with the lazy loading of images (Firefox lazy loading TBD [https://bugzil.la/1542784](https://bugzil.la/1542784)).

I've been avoiding adding any JS, but interaction observers may be necessary since I haven't been happy with how any browsers handle 5 or so muted webm videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is an excellent write-up.</comment>


People-powered customer service - <AUTHOR> http://getsatisfaction.com/ We are beta testing with them and way cool.  Startups needing a forum/q&a/faq/support need to try this. <comment><USER2> Just saw Daniel Burka mentioning Pownce had a page on the site. I think this is a great idea. So many startups have little to no customer service, it's great to see a resource for this getting setup.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is way cool...you can checkout our page by adding a /xackup

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> great product/service but as of now - not great for stealth mode</comment>


Recommendation based searchengine = linkanu.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkanu.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Made in Germany. Hence linkanu.de will be available also.</comment>


Nvidia to Acquire SwiftStack - <AUTHOR> https://www.swiftstack.com/blog/2020/03/05/nvidia-to-acquire-swiftstack/ <comment><USER2> Founder here. Big announcement for us and we are all excited to join NVIDIA.</comment>


South Korea Brings Blockchain to Healthcare, but That's Just the Start - <AUTHOR> https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-korea-brings-blockchain-to-healthcare-but-thats-just-the-start <comment><USER2> Internet in 90s and all that... I thought the SK gov were only interested in Icon, great to see FLETA being utilized even more in this industry.</comment>


Malleable Media - <AUTHOR> http://www.shiftspace.org/2009/10/31/announcing-%C2%A71-0-developer-alpha-one/

<comment><AUTHOR> ShiftSpace is free software, it's not a startup. It's 90% JavaScript, 10% Python, and we use CouchDB as the backend. ShiftSpace can be run as a plugin (FireFox), or you can install ShiftSpace on your domain so that you expose annotation features to site visitors.

In fact, that's exactly what we did when MoMA (<http://moma.org>) hired us as client. The social bar at the bottom of the MoMA website is the same code that we use in the plugin.

If you're interested in contributing come join the fray here: <http://github.com/ShiftSpace/shiftspace></comment>


Microsoft is Dead (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html <comment><USER2> The term Dead with Microsoft and Apple was probably to strong. If you are sitting on that much money/talent, there is always a chance to turn around under the right management.</comment>


This Is Why iPhone Developers Put Up With All the Bullshit From Apple - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/09/18/trism <comment><USER2> Trism is currently the 63rd top selling iPhone game. Granted the "top apps" seem to be heavily weighted towards recently popular applications, but let's do a little "fuzzy" math:

Assuming the price has remained constant and $250k is the figure before Apple takes their cut, $250,000 divided by the $5 unit price is approximately 50,000 units sold. Trism has about 400 reviews, which means about 1 in 120 users actually reviewed it.

Assuming apps with similar price and rating get approximately the same number of reviews per units sold (a big assumption, but this is fuzzy math...) we can extrapolate sales for other apps.

       App                 Cost   Rating   Reviews    Revenue

       </comment><comment></comment><comment>-----   ----   </comment><comment>   </comment><comment>-    </comment><comment>-

       Asphalt 4           $10      4       ~1000    ~$1.2 million

       Crash Bandicoot     $10      4       ~1200    ~$1.4 million

       Super Monkey Ball   $10      3.5     ~2900    ~$3.5 million

I would guess that apps with lower ratings have a higher ratio of reviews to sales (dissatisfied customers are more likely to voice their opinion), so these estimates are probably on the high side.

Still, I think it's pretty clear that there are iPhone apps that have made millions of dollars.

<comment><USER3> I'm a happy customer of A4 and CB, and I'd love to spend $10-20 on more games of that caliber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might be like facebook apps at the begginning, they were new and cool so alot of people browsed the app directory and since there were few apps, new apps could be noticed and grew

As the app store grows, it might be much harder if your app is buried in the app store somewhere to draw these kinds of sales.

But maybe the app store will accomodate this somehow.

<comment><USER5> While there is a lot of clutter on the app store with Tip calculators and so forth, there is a sharp difference between fB and iPhone platforms.

to develop for Facebook, you can use anything. to develop for the iPhone, you need a Mac.

That said, let's compare PC vs. Mac market share. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That right there almost makes me wanna buy a new iPhone just for it.

Almost. While the iPhone certainly gives game developers entirely new game control dimensions to work with, it's still too expensive in my books. As for the iPod touch, I'm just waiting for them to pack in enough storage for my whole library, and then I'm there.

<comment><USER7> My wife and my son has one, and I have the same AT&T service on a Razr. I get far better reception. Their calls drop ALOT--way more than I could tolerate. The other features work pretty well, but it seems the iphone is good at everything except being a phone.

<comment><USER8> I have to say, I'm an iPhone user living in Houston, Texas, and AT&T was just a little worse than my former carrier during normal times, but now that we're on a disaster recovery footing, their service stinks! Even two days before the storm, EGDE was unavailable for me to get traffic info like I always get before my return commute. There were also lots of dropped calls, calls whose service degraded until I couldn't understand what the other party was saying, and missed calls that never rang even though I had my phone. The only thing that kept reasonable service consistently throughout was SMS text. I guess that's to be expected during times like this.

<comment><USER9> It's all those Texas mountains blocking the signal.

What I really want is the ipod touch with GPS and force feedback for the keyboard. That's the killer device I'm waiting for Apple to bring to market. I don't want to pay "upkeep" for a portable usually-connected-online device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That is some crazy shit

</comment><comment><USER11> How much did it cost to make?

I think with Android the 'pond' will be much larger and will make $250K look quaint.

<comment><USER12> So Android phones are going to outsell iPhones?

<comment><USER13> It's a tough call, but note that the iPhone is not the smartphone market leader -- Blackberry is. Android could outsell iPhones solely by cannibalizing Blackberry sales, although it obviously has other opportunities: Windows mobile users, Palm users, people who want something like the iPhone but don't want to switch to AT&T, etc.

<comment><USER3> _people who want something like the iPhone but don't want to switch to AT &T_

That's gotta be the first big target. I'm on USCellular + iPod Touch for that very reason.

<comment><USER14> I'm confused, why would you pick US Cellular over AT&T?

<comment><USER3> Cheaper plans, better coverage (in Chicago suburbs), friendlier salespeople, better contract terms, lower cancellation fee, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know Steve. He's a great guy. Has known my roommate for about 4 years.</comment>


The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2019/summary/ <comment><USER2> John Goodenough is 97 years old and still moving the state of the art forward...

[https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium- ion-b...](https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion- battery/97/i35) (article also mentions he studied with Zener after whom Zener diodes are named)

Middle-aged startup founders are kids!

<comment><USER3> > article also mentions he studied with Zener after whom Zener diodes are > named

I have noticed this phenomenon myself a lot. If you're in science, look at the Wikipedia pages of people who are today big names in your field and I can almost guarantee you'll find somebody even more famous as their PhD supervisor.

I think it's things like "rock stars" get to pick the best students, those students having good role models, having it easier to land a position when your thesis advisor is some bigwig, but also that science has been expanding exponentially so a much larger fraction of the oldies were bigwigs who did big discoveries in their fields.

(my own thesis advisor shared an office with Josephson back in the day (Josephson junctions, which led to SQUIDS, NMR/MRI). That was before Josephson got the Nobel, as IIRC the youngest physics laureate ever, and before he went mad and started peddling Uri Geller style mind-over-matter claptrap.)

<comment><USER4> Smart people clump together, and there are network effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title is very uninformative, so:

This year it was won by John B Goodenough, M Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their work on the chemistry which enables the Lithium-Ion battery.

</comment><comment><USER6> IMO Lithium-Ion batteries enabled a whole lot of computer devices: smartphones, watches, laptops. The world would not be the same without those batteries.

<comment><USER7> They're also instrumental for electric cars, which, provided cleaner electricity generation, might have a massive positive impact on the environment

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting that they also awarded a person (Yoshino) doing a very practical aspect of the work (making it commercially viable), which is typically out of the scope of fundamental discoveries these awards target. As I understand it, anyway.</comment>


FireFox 49.01a will integrate OSVR to enable a wide range of hardware in WebVR - <AUTHOR> http://www.osvr.org/blog/?p=188 <comment><AUTHOR> OSVR's headset gets all the attention. But, IMHO their SDK is far more interesting. It's not tied to their headset. It's about enabling any app to work with any hardware --not just the big players. It levels the playing field for smaller app teams who otherwise wouldn't have the budget to support smaller hardware teams.

> The goals of WebVR in remaining device agnostic align perfectly with OSVR > philosophy and with OSVR integrated, it brings support to dozens of devices > that can be used expanding the use of WebVR.

> With the current integration, OSVR-WebVR allows users to experience WebVR > with any device supported by OSVR. This includes HMDs such as OSVR HDK, > Sensics, Vuzix, Oculus and HTC, numerous position and orientation trackers, > controllers such as the Razer Hydra, HTC Vive Controller, the Nod Backspin > and others.</comment>


Free Cloud Based Email Editor - <AUTHOR> http://www.freeemaileditor.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We've just launched this, let us know what you think!</comment>


Who invented hummus? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171211-who-invented-hummus <comment><USER2> When I first saw this I thought it said "Who invented humans".

Too much simulation theory on the brain..

</comment><comment><USER3> "Everyone from the Greeks to the Turks to the Syrians have tried to claim it."

No one in Greece has ever claimed hummus and there is no further mention of anything related in the article. BBC editors trying to juice this up?

<comment><USER4> Turks don't claim hummus as their own too. Yoghurt is ours though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Othniel Ebenezer Hummus, Manchester, England, in 1873.

There was a shortage of cheap protein, needed to fuel the British Empire's expansion. Hummus (later Lord Hummus) developed a nurishing paste made of cooked dried chick peas, water, and salt. It was not widely liked by soldiers in the British Army, but ample supplies of hummus are created with letting the British survive the Siege of Makeking during the Boer War.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why would we really care who invented the ancient dish? That is essentially either nationalist fuel or an archaeological footnote.

<comment><USER7> History is interesting and historical material has always been welcome here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whoever invented hummus died centuries ago. Tribalism makes no sense to me.</comment>