Adobe Edge Web Fonts - <AUTHOR> http://html.adobe.com/edge/webfonts/ <comment><USER2> Careful, you can't legally serve these fonts with your app, you can only link to them. Am I the only one who finds this a big deal? It means you can't control the uptime of your fonts, and it seems like it would complicate development when you're offline, too.

From a business standpoint, it makes perfect sense to turn fonts into a "service" by hyping the hosting aspect. It would be like if jQuery said you can't serve jquery.js from your web server, you can only link to it, and then they start offering paid versions of jQuery.

I realize fonts are a commercial product, but my understanding is that Google Web Fonts really _are_ free to use in your apps, whereas this is a free _service_. According to the terms, it is illegal to "retransmit" the "Service Materials".

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I understand where the fonts on that page are coming from. They don't seem to be the serious Adobe professional fonts, many of which are available from font-as-a-service providers at a cost. Rather, they seem to be a lot of familiar things people are already using via Google Web Fonts and other free sources: Arvo, PT Sans, League Gothic, etc. Some (all?) of these _are_ available under quite open licences, so I'm not sure what right Adobe would have to restrict those anyway.

<comment><USER4> Chunk is a serious font, we just bought 30 licenses for a variant of it (chunk five) a few months ago.

<comment><USER5> It's free here: <http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ChunkFive>

<comment><USER4> Shit.

Thanks.

<comment><USER6> A bit curious: 30 variants of Chnuk 5 are not Chunk 5. Where did you buy it from?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Adobe really needs to drop the corporate marketer talk.

"Adobe Edge Tools & Services: New tools and services for a beautiful, modern web."

"Edge Web Fonts is conveniently built into Edge Code today and will be available in Edge Reflow and other Edge Tools & Services soon."

I'm reading all this and I still have no idea what Edge is or why I should care.

A much more informative link for the HN audience is this: <http://www.edgefonts.com/>

<comment><USER8> They want to appeal to bosses who will tell the developers to use it..

<comment><USER9> Yes. Managers, not developers, are Adobe's customers.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a boss but I showed my developer could workers and he couldn't figure it out.

<comment><USER10> What?

<comment><USER4> should have read "co-worker" thanks auto correct.

<comment><USER10> No problem, I would have suggested a helpful correction but I was completely lost. On that note, I just though how funny it would be if autocorrect just had a WTF? when it was completely lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Neat, but I don't understand why Adobe would do this. I already use Adobe Typekit, and $50/year gives me access to a huge library of fonts at an unlimited number of websites. For my purposes, I'm tempted to stop paying even that totally reasonable, meager amount and just use this free offering instead.

After following most of the links on the page, I can't find any mention of limits on pageviews or traffic. On the surface of it, that makes their free offering a little bit better than their paid offering.

<comment><USER12> I feel that this is effectively:

Adobe® Edge Web Fonts: Paid for graciously by the users of Typekit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13>
        <script src="http://use.edgefonts.net/league-gothic.js"></script>

I wonder why they pushed negotiation to the client side instead of doing like google. you need to send this <http://use.edgefonts.net/league-gothic.js> to your user instead of this <http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Code+Pro> in order to serve your font, and it won't work with js disabled.

<comment><USER14> This is similar to how TypeKit serve their fonts. They wrote a blog post explaining their reasoning: [http://blog.typekit.com/2011/08/11/better-web- font-loading-w...](http://blog.typekit.com/2011/08/11/better-web-font-loading- with-javascript/)

<comment><USER15> That post claims that fonts don't have a fallback mechanism for when a font fails to load, but fonts have had fallbacks for as long as we've had CSS:

        font-family: "Obscure Font", "Common Font", sans-serif;

<comment><USER16> I don't know the current state of things, but a failed font download used to result in blank/transparent text in some browsers, ignoring the fallback font.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sad that they don't support international characters (or at least not the full character set of the language we use here).

Fonts provided by Google are better in character range coverage. Anyway, thanks Adobe.

<comment><USER18> I thought so as well first time, but it seems they do, see 'subset' section here: <http://www.edgefonts.com/#url-specification>

Also: <http://jsfiddle.net/6zUQu/1/>

It seems that only the example on their site includes 'default' character set. Note that, though, sadly not all fonts have different than latin-1, or partial latin-1-ext.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _"In addition, Adobe will be applying its considerable font expertise to improving and optimizing a number of the open source fonts that are available in both Google Web Fonts and Edge Web Fonts. The teams from Typekit, Adobe Type, and Google Web Fonts are working to identify which fonts will benefit the most from our attention, and how we can best approach improving their rendering and performance."_

Helping to improve fonts that are not just freely available, but freely available on services other than your own? It's almost like I'm starting to feel goodwill towards Adobe. It's rather strange.

<comment><USER20> Back in the day they did fight Fontshop in court to make it possible to embed fonts (in PDF-files). Today there are still fontdesigners that charge an extra fee if you use theirfonts in things like Flash. Or just forbid it. Yeah, I'm looking atyou HouseIndustries...

<comment><USER3> I find Adobe remarkably inconsistent. The people behind their most famous product line, Creative Suite, seem to consistently produce poor quality software full of awkward limitations and oversights backed by terrible customer support, whose only redeeming feature is that since they basically killed off or bought all of the serious competition years ago everyone else's software is actually worse.

On the other hand, Adobe's typography people seem to be consistently good at producing high quality work, selling it at reasonable prices, and offering it on reasonable terms. Consequently, probably 90% of the money I've spent on serious fonts over the years has gone to Adobe, because they blow away the the-90s-called-they-want-their-printers-back silliness of certain other well known foundries, who either haven't noticed that we use fonts more on-screen than in print these days or who shamelessly advertise one price when the actual price to buy a useful product is presumably higher (presumably, because they never seem to tell you how much those extra permissions will actually cost).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Browse the fonts listed in the select box: <http://2012.s3.amazonaws.com/edgefonts.html>

<comment><USER22> That page crashes my Chrome tab. Wonder what's the practical limit for number of custom fonts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've never heard of this "Adobe Edge". What's the deal here? I can't tell if it's a free thing or what.

<comment><USER24> Adobe's closed source fork of <http://brackets.io>

<comment><USER25> Actually, Brackets itself started inside Adobe by a group of employees, so Edge Code is their distribution package as much as Chrome is to Chromium. I can't see it in a negative light, I think they're getting this right.

<comment><USER26> Adobe is following this "open core" approach on several of its newer offerings. For Instance adobe

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I see a few overlapping fonts (or, at least, overlapping names) from Google Web Fonts. But most seem new.

Is there going to be a new competition over who has the 'cutting-edge' fonts?

<comment><USER28> Their linked blog mentions a partnership with Google regarding some of the fonts offered.

[http://blog.typekit.com/2012/09/24/introducing-adobe-edge- we...](http://blog.typekit.com/2012/09/24/introducing-adobe-edge-web-fonts/)

With that said and paranoia of external asset serving/hosting, does anyone know if these fonts can be self-hosted?

<comment><USER29> Also, there is an extra DNS round trip by using an external web service. And I hate seeing JavaScript crawl into my <head> tag - certainly not for a web font.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Damn........ they got a font called Lobster Two

This changes everything

<comment><USER31> Wait till you see Helvetica Neue S...

~jk

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Am I right in thinking that they don't support Web Font Loader? [1]

Considering this is built on top of Typekit — which does support Web Font Loader — this is surprising.

[1] - <https://developers.google.com/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader>

</comment><comment><USER33> If Adobe were really interested improving the web typography either Myriad Pro would be in the free set (it isn't) or they would change the default font in their creative suites to one of the free fonts (they haven't)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is frustrating. I've spent 10 minutes on their site, checked out the links, and still can't figure out how to browse their font collection. Am I supposed to sign up with this Edge tool to do that? By contrast, see <http://www.google.com/webfonts>. You land there and start working.

<comment><USER35> I found that equally baffling. I threw together a page that displays the best (according to Adobe[1]) webfonts of the bunch: <http://jsbin.com/itayep>

[1] <http://html.adobe.com/edge/webfonts/#edgeWebFonts>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Am I right in thinking Adobe bought TypeKit?

<comment><USER37> You're right, but you're about a year late.

<http://blog.typekit.com/2011/10/03/adobe-acquires-typekit/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Still no VAG Rundschrift. I have seen people request it on Typekit for years. Adobe is the licensor for this font, I have no idea why they haven't listened and either start offering it as a web font or explain why they won't/can't.

<comment><USER39> If you don't mind hosting it yourself it looks like you can buy VAG Rundschrift as a downloadable web font from MyFonts.com.

<http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/vag-rundschrift/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Priceless! "Our mission: move the web forward and give web designers and developers the best tools and services in the world." And then: "Download a PDF version of this document (PDF, 47 KB)"

<comment><USER40> You do know that PDF is an open format, right?

<comment><USER41> Aye, but it's not exactly moving the _web_ forward, is it?

<comment><USER20> My point exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I have a question on how web-fonts actually work.

I thought fonts basically just vector graphics. Since these are just java- script files, how are they being distributed? How do these work?

<comment><USER13> <http://webfonts.info/browser-support-overview>

google: embed css link, the negotiation which one to download is made server- side

adobe: embed js link, the negotiation which one to download is made client- side

<comment><USER42> Ah, I see now. Thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is there a web page to browse all these fonts? That dropdown is tedious to use.

<comment><USER44> I created one for that: <http://www.yvoschaap.com/edgefonts/>

Prepare for some resource hogging :)

<comment><USER45> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> And I can't see any of these in IE 8 (using IE8 due to corporate lockdown).

<comment><USER46> My mistake - low system resources on the P.O.S. laptop I'm issued with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Does this still put an ugly badge on the corner of your page?

</comment><comment><USER48> This is trash. A repackaging of a lot of free OFL type that's already out there, but new and improved with restricted licensing, JS dependency, and relying on Adobe.

</comment><comment><USER49> Too bad this is what hit the top slot. They also announced the release of the open source code and its monospace variant. I'm using it in elementary OS and it looks fantastic in Sublime Text and terminal.

<comment><USER50> Googling did not help, so can anyone please provide a link to the other announcement?

<comment><USER50> Got it : [http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code- pro....](http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html)

<comment><USER51> This is a good font, but to me it's nowhere near as good as Inconsolata-g, the best fixed-width font I've found.

<http://leonardo-m.livejournal.com/77079.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> It's fonts and a pageful of bitter people who cannot figure them out.

</comment><comment><USER53> I no longer trust, nor like Adobe. And I don't think I ever will again. I genuinely want to see them fail in everything they do and I care not one jot for the men and women who work there or their families. I root for Pixelmator, I salute Apple's stance on flash and even wanted Silverlight to give Adobe a run for it's money.

There is a point to this rant. I have used Adobe products my entire working life. I loved Adobe and the products they made. But now...? I am what happens when you treat your users like shit, and everyone else like idiots.

Fortunatly for me, my inflated opinion and militant outlook is made more tenable when they keep releasing turds like this.

<comment><USER54> Sorry, but no, there was no point to that rant. I'm no Adobe fan either, but your comment adds no value; it isn't a specific criticism, just being angry. If you dislike them, just don't use their products and move on.</comment></comment>


Server on Kickstarter is a scam - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/0xabad1dea/633a7ff7f561263bba34

<comment><USER2> As a network/security guy, this was a great read. I mean, $199 retail for a product that basically breaks the speed of light?

I threw some money at them. Ya never know!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like the guy who owns roguefoundry.com has some lawsuits in his past: [https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/3925103/McDermott_v...](https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/3925103/McDermott_v_Wilson)

</comment><comment><USER4> MODS: First word in title should be "Sever", not "Server".

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally did not realize this until hours after reading the post. It would be nice if it were changed :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I docked them points for mistaking you're/your.

>This means you can now do some pretty amazing things with your data knowing that your the only one in the world who can access it.

I wonder how long until the plug gets pulled.</comment>


Ask HN: How to solve US immigration for a foreign cofounder? - <AUTHOR>

I have several offers to join a US-based startup as a cofounder/CTO. Hence, I'm trying to figure out a way how I can stay in US to work on my startup.
I did some research and talked to the lawyers, and their seems to be no straightforward way to do this.
To summarise, options are:
- find a job, wait for H1B until Oct next year and then work on my startup part time
- apply for a degree and study for 1-2 years, then have a year to look for a job without restrictions. Work part-time on the statup in the meantime
- O-1, I'm not sure if I'm eligible myself, but I know some entrepreneurs who pulled it.
I don't see a direct way to solve the immigration issue though. I think this should be a quite common case, so I'm curious how other hackers solved it. I'd really appreciate any legal hacks available, as the situation seems rather hopeless at this point. <comment><USER2> O is definitely a great way to go if you can get it. What is your hesitation to apply?

You also didn't mention how you're here now - are you just on a tourist visa?

<comment><AUTHOR> No hesitation, I'll talk to the laywers who specialise in O-1 to see if I'm eligible and if not, what are the missing requirements.

And yes, I'm on a tourist B1/B2 visa.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to extract user feedback? - <AUTHOR>

Wondering what widget/service folks find useful in extracting direct user feedback. Not as interested in polls / ratings of pre-described elements, but rather a free text comment / suggestion box.  Would love to know whats work or hasn't for everyone. <comment><USER2> It depends on what you're trying to get out of it IMO.

If you're looking for early-stage active feedback on your site I would have to suggest my own app, <http://www.launchly.com>.

If you're looking for more passive/general/long-term feedback, idea, or problem reporting, then I would say the top contenders in that arena are getsatisfaction (which I use on launchly), uservoice, and kampyle.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://featurelist.org/> has a feedback widget to pop on your site which emails you feedback (and saves it on their site too so you can check it all in one go).

Recommended.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all. To clarify, am looking for a feedback widget I can include in specific content like survey's etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> just have a send us feedback link displayed prominently on the website.</comment>


Ask HN: Help redesign a Comp Sci major - <AUTHOR>

I have the task of refocusing the Comp Sci program at a small liberal arts college, with an even smaller Comp Sci department. The trad MIT/CM/CalTech theoretical program just doesn't work for these students. Emphasis should be on employable computing skills that can be delivered almost entirely by 1 prof. What should I teach? What can be cut out? What would you call the major? <comment><USER2> I'm absolutely shocked that people are okay with this.

One of the biggest problems I've found with recent graduates is that the programs they've come from have been nothing more than trade schools for Java and PHP developers, and most of them lack even the basic underlying knowledge of things like algorithms, paradigms and how to make efficient code. This is not Computer Science, this is basic programming and is no better than what you'd get from the numerous video lectures on the web.

In short, employable skills are best left to employers, and academic subjects are best left to academia.

If it were my choice I'd make Computer Science a purely theoretical course from the outset. If these kids don't have a background in Math give it to them so that they can read through the likes of Introduction to Algorithms and TAOCP with no issue. Don't even let them touch code unless it's to illustrate a theoretical aspect of CS.

Once they've got a solid year of CS behind them and they're all of a sufficient standard in the theoretical aspects of CS then they can be introduced to programming. However, I'd steer clear of the employable languages and force them into Python, Lisp, Haskell, Prolog, R and co to reenforce the theoretical background.

Of course, you need these graduates to be employable, so why not offer a course titled "Internship" during the second year? Let them spend a few days each week working in a real company with real developers that can teach them real skills? I graduated from a modest CS programme and thanks to my numerous internships I was offered interviews left right and centre. I learned more about programming in an eight week internship then I did in an entire year at university, despite most of my second year being about learning to program, and because I had real world experience in employable languages the university didn't cover like C# I walked into a job while others in my class with better grades struggled.

You get the idea. Please stop turning academia into a trade school and teach these kids real CS. If you want them to be employable offer a mandatory course where students have to work in a real business and are forced to pick up programming from people that actually know what they are doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do like the idea of an internship!

Real-world experience can not be overvalued. That being said, I'm still working with the parameters in my original post. Small. Liberal Arts. College. This isn't a huge program, I've consistently had between 12 and 20 students in the major, of all grade levels and wide differences in skill levels, experience, exposure, and mathematical prowess.

I know it may be hard for others to understand what my student landscape looks like, but after more than a decade, I feel I understand them. But a year of strictly theoretical CS, and I'm looking at 2 to 7 students in the major, and filling out my teaching schedule with writing classes.

Looking at a newly built house, you see that all levels of craftsmanship have been employed. If every contractor is a framer, because it's the fundamentals of building, your interiors look pretty basic, and let's not even mention plumbing made out of lumber!

What I'm trying to say is that I've tried my own version of CS snobbery and highmindedness, and it isn't working. I'm looking to design a computing major that isn't producing only framers.

I appreciate your input, please reread this post and my original post, and try to put yourself in my position, then send me some more suggestions!!

<comment><USER2> Like many students, I studied at a modest university with what I was told was a good CS programme.

It turns out that the reason it's good is because it teaches students how to become the next batch of Java and PHP developers for local businesses. The actual CS content was minimal and bizarrely a lot of classes from the "CS school" were out of bounds to my CS degree, because learning XML was more important than Discrete Math.

I spent half a year studying at a top 5 university and the difference was overwhelming. The facilities weren't much better, but the lecturers were far more helpful and the content was not watered down. Perhaps it was because it was a Masters programme, but the lecturers were happy to help, even when you were hopelessly stuck. Sadly due to money reasons I couldn't stay, but I'll definitely return to get my Masters when I finish at my current job.

It still amazes me that a lot of students don't opt to take internships during the summer. I worked for eight weeks after each academic year and everything I picked up was invaluable. The best part about it was learning what you were good at and what you sucked at. It taught me languages I'd never learn at university and it taught me exactly what is expected of a developer in the real world. Most importantly, I was employable right off the bat. My degree almost didn't matter because the skills I had gained through these groups of eight weeks were what got me my job.

I appreciate that you are constrained in what you can do, but I do feel that a practical approach to CS and general trade Computing is less than perfect in an academic setting. If possible, would you be able to highlight the exact problems you faced when trying the typical theoretical route?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "employable computing skills "

I think this is a very broad statement even though not trying to undermine your question. The problem however with this statement is that it varies. Some people have mentioned HTML/JS etc. which are surely good but not all tech. related jobs need that.

Some things that I strongly feel should be part of every CS curriculum especially in the context of your question i.e. employability are following:

\- Understanding real world projects and the lifecycle. This should include practical experience delivering software and manging the entire phase. Some universities already have a "software engineering" class for this.

\- Related to #1, teach them the value of teamwork. No real world project can be done alone and the bigger the employer, more likely you will deal with cross matrixed teams (yea teach them what cross matrixed means :)

\- Teach them about distributed computing and how software is deployed/managed in a large scale environment.

\- Teach them that no one cares if you build cool stuff. People care about what problem it solves. It could mean anything from keeping your company/manager happy to solving real world client problems.

\- lastly, tell them that whatever you learn now, you will learn a heck of a lot more when you are actually out in the real world and that will make you realize that you did not know anything. This does not however mean that the learning is useless but it is just the tip of an iceberg.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Good points, CG.

I know the "Give a man a fish" adage, but trying to teach my students to be Global Anglers hasn't worked well for a decade (given our students, numbers, faculty, and facilities). I'm not shooting for trade school either, just something that's very mindful of your iceberg analogy.

Tip: \- Come, learn some skills, peek at the landscape.

Iceberg: \- Go get a job(s), learn the rest of what you need to build the solutions that keep your company/manager happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think unless you're a computer scientist or engineer at google, fb, etc. most of the theory you run into at the university level you're never gonna use. Having said that some "theory" is important for me as a developer, but really it just boils down to 2 subjects Discreet Maths and algorithms, so I would try to emphasize those two areas in the program.

As far as employability goes, I think having a strong understanding of networking (TCP/HTTP) and Data/Databases, is really the core ( ie Data & Application layers) of most development these days.

Also I know its kind of experimental but if possible I would actually teach go as a programming language instead of the usual c/c++/java (for the systems level / networking stuff). Go in tandem with javascript (both server and browser) for web applications, allows you to deal with just about every programming concept there is at an abstracter level and both languages are not overly difficult to grasp.

So to put these thoughts together. Maybe you could center the program around networked software development? This lets you teach things like webkit, browsers, js, networking, servers, and databases while all staying in one (though very broad) medium. I think this could be possible for 1 prof. So for instance, in "interface design" you're in the browser and delve into webkit and user interaction, or for "computer graphics" you can go into "webgl". For "databases" you're still dealing with server / client architectures for which you can examine db structures different types of web applications.

I'd love to have had an option to do a pure web engineering compsci program. Maybe some of my ideas will help, good luck!

<comment><USER5> You may never use most of the things you learned. But they almost certainly had an impact on how you thought and developed. I'm surprised how many times silly theory of computation things come up and maybe don't force me to change my solution, but get me to think of it at least a little differently.

<comment><USER4> Yes, maybe I should have mentioned proofs/theory of computation seperately I kind of just included them under the general algorithms umbrealla term :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with several of the posts below, but I have to take it a step further. I'm not sure you can or should call it a major in the traditional sense. It cheapens the idea of a degree if we teach people trade school curriculum and give them degrees. I've encountered a lot of these people, and it's the reason a lot of people from private institutions (Baker, Davenport, Phoenix, etc) get passed over for jobs.

If people really want a degree in MIS or CS, then the curriculum should reflect that. If they can't handle the material, then I think the college should look at the possibility of offering certificate programs in specific areas.

A student who understands theory can generally go out into the world and adapt. A student who understands how to make a web page using specific languages and specific steps and can't go much beyond that hasn't learned the things necessary to be given an associates or bachelors label.

Question: Are the students capable and don't have the prerequisite knowledge? Maybe the college needs to consider an entry exam and remedial classes on basic computer use, theory, and logic? If they aren't actually capable, then I stand by what I said above. I think the college should consider certificate programs like, "Web Programming with .Net and Javascript".

</comment><comment><USER6> I run a 13 person IT shop at a Big-10 university. If I were a single person shop, what would be different? I wouldn't write code. I would be all about integrating off the shelf software into my systems. I would very likely be stitching University databases and third party apps together. I would be a call center and a support shop. I would be doing a lot of reading logs, Googling errors, and generally trouble shooting. I would be more than functionally literate on MACs, PCs, Unix, and MF machines. I'd know a reasonable amount about networking, and even more about SQL.

If you were going to roll this into a minor, I'd call it something like Applied Information Technology Management (or some mix of such buzz words). (Note: James K. badgered me into posting)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some sort of class on embedded programming. Lots of software development jobs are for embedded programming, which is in many ways a world apart from web applications. Things like avionics software, automotive software, medical device software...

Recently the JPL C coding standards were posted around the web, as people showed a bit of interest in the software running the recent Mars robot. Discussing that sort of thing could be interesting course material.

I don't know of any curriculum off hand, but maybe make it some sort of project-based course where students design and build real-time applications on some sort of real-time Linux system?

</comment><comment><USER8> If these are the type of students I'm thinking of, they really don't want to become computer scientists, or software engineers, even. They want to learn how to code so they can build stuff, namely web apps. I'm assuming that since they don't want/can't handle a theoretical program, yet still _think_ they want to learn Comp Sci, they fit this description.

So I'd teach towards that:

1) an understanding of the technology stack for a web app 2) Javascript 3) Ruby or Python w/ Rails or Django

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think web apps is a significant part of it. Looking at projections of software sales, web apps and web app support are on the horizon for almost everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds like you want to seperate software engeneering and computer science. Computer science is a different course material.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed!

But I'm looking for a hybrid. I don't want to abandon my theoretical roots, but I'm missing more than I'm hitting, with my students as of late.

Plus, you can have Computer Science without Software Engineering, but the reverse isn't true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good idea! Some things to teach...

HTML JavaScript programming, Practical SQL/SQLite usage, Project Management, Visual Studio .NET

<comment><AUTHOR> I think .NET seems a bit heavy for what I've got in mind. I also probably don't understand .NET as well as I should either.

Can I get some more clarification why .NET should (or shouldn't) be included in a modern, practical curriculum?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Teach this class: <http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is definitely a course type on the radar!

It echoes some other responses, and also some of my thoughts.

MIT Press makes it that much cooler!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some things not to teach:

Don't do: Numerical analysis, Compiler design, OS programming, Real time coding

<comment><AUTHOR> As much fun as Org/Arch is, I'm thinking we can leave most of that and ASM behind, as well.

Not totally behind, but committing a semester to them as a course is what hasn't been working.</comment></comment>


World chess champ Magnus Carlsen faces tough title challenge in Sochi - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/203239-anand-carlsen-chess-sochi/

<comment><USER2> _Carlsen was in no hurry to sign the contract for the match due to concerns over the unrest in Ukraine, which has been blamed by the West on Moscow._

Heavens. How could they possibly think that?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is RT , the mouthpiece of russia</comment></comment>


Sex, Drugs and Muddy Waters - <AUTHOR> http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/sex-drugs-and-muddy-waters.html <comment><USER2> _Most date rape or college campus rapes involve alcohol. But if you try to suggest that sobriety is a good preventive measure, people get pretty wrapped around the axle. People act like advocating sobriety is some sort of evil impingement on a college girl 's right to have fun._

Alcohol is the elephant in the room. Read "Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard". This is a detailed study of college drinking, with many interviews. "Drunkworld" didn't happen by accident. It took heavy promotion by the alcohol industry and cooperation by college administrations. The sex issues are mostly a spillover from the booze problems.

Now we're seeing that spill over into the business world. There are combination bars and workspaces now. Ten years ago that would have been a laughable concept.

<comment><USER3> > There are combination bars and workspaces now. Ten years ago that would have > been a laughable concept.

And 50 years ago, this would have been considered standard equipment for an executive office, as "Mad Men" demonstrated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was in college there was a flier circulated by the university concerning getting drunk at parties which could lead to situations ranging from regrettable but consentual sexual encounters to rape.

One interesting thing that surprised me was that the state had pretty tough DUI laws (Driving Under the Influence). Which had some legal wording to the effect that being drunk cannot be used as an excuse for having bad judgement and deciding to drive and then getting any liniency because of it. The dark side of that was that in case when a someone gets drunk at a party and then consents to a sexual encounter, it is harder for the defense to make the case for rape. So they basically advised people not to drink because if something happened they might have a tough time in court proving it was rape.

On the same note, I always wondered why the governmental Surgeon General warning on alcohol containers includes birth defects, driving and operating heavy machinery but doesn't include consenting to sexual encounters which next day might be regrettable. At least compared to "heavy machinery" it would be just as high or higher risk for the average citizen.

</comment><comment><USER5> A very humane and insightful blog-post. If the internet had structures to amplify this level-headed opinions, instead of cresting into a wall of death between misogyny and moral-justice-warriors, it would be the better place - the better world adjoint deserves.

</comment><comment><USER6> One night I had to have a "birds and the bees talk" with one of my taxi passengers. Previously she did not appreciate the power that women have to choose who they want to have relationships with.

[http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between- boys-...](http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys- girls.html)

I've given this diary as a speech several times (brother's mother-in-law, Toastmasters's, etc). People usually chuckle - the tension between the genders makes a lot more sense with these considerations in mind.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting to me that someone whose tagline is "bon vivant" on their blog is so bold about making sure business always remains strictly business, even when it's consuming the outer ends of your hours. The mere possibility of a man and woman having personal issues is enough to say that we can never allow intimacy with co-workers, that alcohol is too dangerous for work environments. Maybe that is "good" but if you are going to be spending so much life at such a big task it doesn't sound like a good life, imo.

I want to be good at what I do & enjoy the world with fellows and fellas also into being good. Neither work not the world are enough unto themselves.

I like the end about signalling. Merely being in some situations corresponds heavily to a willingness and interest to go further. Sure ok. Trying to contra-indicate though- I feel like that's what's not great. Trying to get through to an intoxicated person isn't always as direct as it should be, and we're all often so hampered by our want to be nice, to not displease anyone. Making more ambient contra-indicators available- how sexually interested we are in the world at large perhaps- could perhaps provide adequately de- personalized broadcasting. While it's reciprocal how much we are interested could also help those single folk wondering whether it's ok to approach.

</comment><comment><USER8> Flirting is always an exercise in plausible deniability. You do something legitimately (or plausibly) platonic, while working out what the other person wants. If you forbid anything that might look flirty, by definition you forbid a bunch of legit platonic behaviour. This is not a reasonable demand. This is why people push back so hard against such demands, using terms like "victim- blaming".

The problem with both of these points is the same:

 _> Most date rape or college campus rapes involve alcohol. But ... People act like advocating sobriety is some sort of evil impingement on a college girl's right to have fun._

If your college's social life is based heavily around alcohol, then yes, this drastically impacts your life. You are asking people (let's be clear: _women_ ) to self-ostracise if they want to be safe. (Is this a healthy culture? No. You should be able to socialise without drinking. But if you come from a healthier culture, it's easy to miss how much you're asking. "Just say sober" might be low-cost advice for you; not so much for the typical college kid who wants to fit in.)

And:

 _> Regardless of your gender, if you want to keep it clear that this is a business relationship, drinks alone in a private setting with a member of the opposite sex is a bad policy._

Again, you're asking someone to _voluntarily abandon a form of networking_ , in an industry that is critically dependent on networks.

(Is this a healthy culture? Ehh...maybe? I'd be very sad if you told me I couldn't have a drink with my workmates/friends-from-work - but that's part of how we build our networks.)

\---

And all of this ignores that this victim didn't even do the things you're advising against! This incident happened after a party where several others were present. The "private setting" happened to her.</comment>


Who Has The Most Photos Of Them All? Hint: It Is Not Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/07/who-has-the-most-photos-of-them-all-hint-it-is-not-facebook/ <comment><USER2> Makes sense, except for the fact that close to half of imageshack's images are of porn, while virtually none of facebook's images are 'adults only'.

<comment><USER3> More images thank flickr? But then, most of the images on flicker are of cats, well, according to Cal Henderson.

<comment><USER4> Flickr should have higher quality "artsy" images than all of them, imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised the answer isn't something Chinese. If it isn't, it will be.

</comment><comment><USER6> The article by Niall Kennedy (a couple of links in) on facebook's new storage system, Haystack, and its implementation was pretty interesting.

[http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2009/04/facebook- haystack.h...](http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2009/04/facebook- haystack.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> well facebook is more or less limited to user pictures, imageshack is pretty much everything from photos to lolcats to beastiality

</comment><comment><USER8> What happened at Facebook December 2008?

</comment><comment><USER9> why the lack of transparency?

</comment><comment><USER10> _Who Has The Most Photos Of Them All?_

NA?SA.</comment>


Malaysian government plans to promote startups by becoming a venture capitalist - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3031630/malaysias-cunning-plan-start-dominance-if-you-cant-beat-them <comment><USER2> My start-up (now dead) attended the first batch of the MaGIC's Global Accelerator program (GAP) by the Malaysian government in 2017. The talks were bad, the "mentors" were useless and everything was extremely inefficient. Most of the founders who came only stayed for the first few days, realised the situation and dropped their interns for the free co-working space, and left. The whole program smelled like money laundering or nepotism at best. I thought it was satire when I read this headline.

Also, at least >70% of the start-ups in my cohort have died by now. Maybe one or two good ones exited (who were already doing really well before joining).

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry to hear that. However, Malaysia isn't alone in doing this. A lot of governments are pumping money into developing their own startup scenes, and the article's mentioned the other ASEAN countries that have been doing that, Singapore being the most successful one so far.

And Malaysia will have to do this eventually: they're just fashionably late and playing catch up. You can see with Grab how they lost what was supposed to be a home-grown business to Singapore. Governments everywhere are also seeing how a startup scene can create jobs and absorb the surplus of highly-educated people that universities everywhere are churning out.

<comment><USER4> Are you a Malaysian perchance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The startup scene is just a side-effect of all the correct economic, political and social conditions being in the same place. A healthy startup scene is good evidence that your country is strong enough to take risks, but imo not something you can likely just launch into having.

<comment><USER6> This is such a true statement, and that's why i'm mad everytime i hear about governments financing start up scene more or less directly. it makes them feel good, because they're spending huge amount of money, and the poor results are only seen five years later.

They clearly have no clue what an ecosystem is.

<comment><USER7> What about the US government funding of Fairchild Semiconductor by purchasing chips from it?

What about the US government funding of Palantir via In-Q-Tel?

<comment><USER6> At least in those cases they're eating their own dog food. They'll have customer expectation on the startup they're financing, and they know there's a market, and the company will be able to deliver ( not to mention the fact that those are fields on the border of national security, which means you can't just rely on private companies on the market)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Exits are the number one ingredient for a startup ecosystem. If there's no market for exits, there's no investment.

Silicon Valley has the best environment in the world-outside-of-China for exits. Large tech companies are frequent acquirers. Large companies in Malaysia, or Japan, or almost anywhere else, acquire rarely.

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a nice embezzlement scheme to me. It's just going to be a way for bankers and con artists to steal money from the government.

<comment><USER10> The government isn't stupid, they are perfectly able to divert the money into their own pockets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ah yes, governements like to think they can create a startup eco system by throwing money at it.

The EU thinks the same way: [https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-plans- digital-startup-in...](https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-plans-digital- startup-investment-fund/)

But in the end many other factors are also (maybe even more) important. In the case of the EU having different languages, different cultures, different tax systems, different and strong regulations in many areas really does not help.

<comment><USER12> I feel you are making this up without ever having visited a startup in EU.

All EU startup hubs are local (eg the Paris startup scene). The main difference to SF is scale and crazy money.

<comment><USER11> I am from the EU and lived in several countries. Had my own company and did a good exit. Now working on another one, operating (tiny scale) in several EU cities.

Edit: never been to SF, so no idea how that is like.

<comment><USER12> Then you have seen the common market and harmonization of regulations with your own eyes. It's not perfect, but it's getting better by the day.

I have seen many people directly benefiting from EU criticizing it to no end. Very common in East and often due to some other issues (nationalism, immigration etc) and I don't think they will ever be satisfied with anything EU does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Malaysia was scammed out of $4.5B, via a prior "1MDB" state-funded investment initiative targeted at "real estate, Middle East oil and other sectors":

[https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-malaysia-1mdb- hollywood-...](https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-malaysia-1mdb- hollywood-20190710-story.html)

Venture investing is probably even harder to properly police against self- dealing that happens under cover of "a big contrarian vision".

</comment><comment><USER14> Chile tried something similar, with StartupChile which I participated in circa 2011. My impression was that there were some very productive and interesting startups formed, while a _lot_ of money was wasted.

</comment><comment><USER15> "If Malaysia-based capital becomes more involved in the scene, there could be dividends at home, giving the country more leverage to persuade these companies to set up operations within its shores and employ and train locals – a multiplier effect for both capital and jobs, say industry players."

If Malaysian ops is a poor decision if your VC isn't Malaysia, it wouldn't magically become a good decision if your VC is Malaysia. Which suggests that this strings-attached money might not be in the fiduciary interests of the company.

</comment><comment><USER16> My impression is these people aren't hypothesis driven. The smart money seems to look at things and say, "I think the world is going to need disintermediation, curation and retribalization, and leapfrog technologies for emerging markets. You either sustain an existing customers business model or you disrupt it, and our business is providing air cover to the latter, and using the former as a hedging instrument." It's a technology macro view. Dumb money says, "we provide growth capital for key technologies that support national sector x, y, z." Straight micro mandate.

From my armchair, I'd assert the difference is smart and dumb money can practically be defined by those with a hypothesis vs. those with a mandate.

A state fund could be smart money, but they would need a lot of freedom to do it - or find funds/funds-of-funds that had the freedom for them, which is what pensions do today. I wonder whether most governments could handle the political risk of the losses from a real VC fund, because the losses just look like slush funds for connected managers.

Not to dump on them, I think some sovereign wealth funds and even treasuries could benefit from being run more like aggressive pension funds, but the trouble with government is there is no way to clear off the project barnacles that attach to anything with momentum. Maybe they will do it differently.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bursa Malaysia (the local stock exchange) classifies public listed companies into the following sectors: 1\. Basic materials; 2\. Consumer cyclicals; 3\. Consumer non-cyclicals; 4\. Energy; 5\. Financials; 6\. Healthcare; 7\. Industrials; 8\. Technology; 9\. Telecommunications Services; and 10\. Utilities

So, Bursa is largely composed of commodity businesses. It works but shouldn't there be some progress? Is it okay to stick with the status quo?

It's true that there's a potential in these VC schemes for leakage due to self-dealing. But let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. The article mentions several government funds that have been disbursing funding to tech startups for decades, so this is not a totally new thing run by idealists rather than realists.

I understand the skepticism when I read the responses attached. But I've always been confident about Malaysia. Maybe it's just that I'm a patriot.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm an old, cynical bastard who hasn't had his morning coffee.

My second thought on reading this headline was "regulatory capture". Who put it in their head to invest in R&D this way?

I mean, I'll take this _any_ day over pandering to real estate developers, and especially in a country with such an amazing natural heritage.

</comment><comment><USER19> How can I short this?

Matt Levine suggested WeWork was a kind of short on the VC bubble. I guess that if there was a way to short it directly, I wouldn't be the only contra- investor.

Disclaimer: I've been on the sidelines of a government funded VC failure in Christchurch, NZ. Lots of puff, little output.

</comment><comment><USER20> Considering the hit and miss (lots of miss) nature of startups this seems like it is ripe for corruption. I'd be really worried about direct government involvement in such things.

</comment><comment><USER21> This sounds less like a cunning plan for economic growth and more like a cunning plan to funnel money into the pockets of the 20-something children of well connected people.

<comment><USER22> I'm surprised at the timing of the announcement, given that Mahathir's corruption/embezzlement scandal is still fresh in many people's memory: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/malaysia- najib...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/malaysia-najib-razak- arrest-corruption-1mdb-scandal-rosmah-mansor-a8428981.html)

<comment><USER23> ...that's Najib's scandal, not Mahathir's, for him, it's the opposite (in fact, it won him the election).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Statesmen should not concern themselves with the "startup scene"</comment>


Secrecy or Transparency? One Startup's Experience  - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/secrecy_or_transparency_one_st.php <comment><USER2> Good rational. Not so much a vote for secrecy in a strict form, but rather a vote for less formal transparency in order make progress with less distraction.</comment>


Visualising Eventlet - <AUTHOR> http://www.colinhowe.co.uk/2011/aug/17/visualising-eventlet/

<comment><USER2> Interesting - we run a pretty large entirely eventlet-based system, so I'm excited to try this out on that. That said, our threads often number in the thousands, so I'm unsure how this would cope with that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had it running for about five hundred concurrent. I purposefully made it something you have to checkout yourself so that it's trivial to add filters in if you want to limit what you're seeing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We use eventlet heavily and this is great. I have always wanted something like this.</comment>


Trello available in the Chrome Web Store - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oflhioojkbelepjlnafgmgkkjhojphcg <comment><USER2> What advantage does this chrome extension have over just going to the trello webpage?

<comment><USER3> I think the aim is to expose the users of chrome webstore to trello.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't hn have a notification mechanism? - <AUTHOR>

//Half rant, half ask hn...please forgive.
Why doesn't hn have a notification mechanism equivalent to reddit's orange-red?
When someone posts something sensible in response to one of my comments on (any) social platform then I'd like to know about it so that I can thank them/respond/decide to ignore.
hn does not do this - worse...recently responding to old comments was disabled.
Now I appreciate hn's minimalistic design and that they don't bug me with adverts and random ad notifications...but this just seems broken when viewed in terms of the forum's broader purpose of facilitating dialog... <comment><USER2> You mistake news sharing platform for social media. Please don't.</comment>


Improving app security and performance on Google Play for years to come - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html <comment><USER2> The important part of context here:

If you targeted APIs before Android 6.0 (e.g. you targeted API Level 21 - Lollipop), you didn't have to ask users for permissions to access contacts, sms, SD card and other data. Which made all the new security improvements in Android rather moot - scummy apps (like Snapchat :P) just didn't update their API levels, kept collecting personal data without asking for permission... AND didn't implement improvements of new OSes because they wanted to keep collecting data without restriction.

This is finally great news for Android security.

<comment><USER3> > you didn't have to ask users for permissions to access contacts, sms, SD > card and other data

This isn't true. Android 6.0 introduced runtime permissions, where permissions could be granted in the context of the application. Previously, the permissions still had to be granted, but they were granted before the application was installed.

<comment><USER4> You get asked when you install the app but nobody looks at that huge list of permissions, especially if not accepting means you don't get to use the app

<comment><USER5> There's a huge difference between apps being able to do stuff without ever asking permission and apps asking permission but users choosing to ignore it and just say yes to everything.

<comment><USER6> While I agree with permission overload at install time, users pay more attention when permission prompts come up one at a time at first-use. It also gives the app a reason to stagger in permissions only when the feature is used, lest the user loses interest and drops off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google shouldn't wait till Nov to fix the loophole of apps bypassing some permissions by declaring an older target SDK version. Give developers a quarter's notice, and update Android and Google Play services to enforce these permissions starting March 2018.

Developers who don't prioritise their users' privacy even after being given a quarter's notice can have their apps break.

</comment><comment><USER8> But what if my phone manufacturer refuses to provide Android Oreo? My phone (LG v20) was released in late 2016 and was the first to support Nougat (7.0).

What about others in this situation where stupid manufacturers refuse to upgrade their Android software?

<comment><USER9> Pick a phone next time that is from a manufacturer who has a reputation for staying up to date with Android.

But, the sad reality is that no manufacturers anywhere will provide OS updates for more than 2 years, and many are MUCH less than that. They expect you to throw them away and buy new ones. Or, they expect you to not notice since they don't want to 'burn cash' on porting new updates.

Nevermind that the 'android device support model' is a dumpster fire. Android (specifically AOSP, but google's spin too) _needs_ to be a rolling distro to make it easier for manufacturers to support older devices (but no guarrantee they will care..). Shitting a monolithic update on them once a year doesn't work.

The 'smartphone industry' is an incredibly wasteful industry.

<comment><USER10> Project Treble[0] is a good 80% solution which makes it much easier to run mainline AOSP on new devices [1]. Ports still need to fix device-specific bugs, and camera image processing optimizations won't work unless they're implemented beneath the HAL (or hacked into a custom ROM). You'll also need a modern (8.0) unlocked device. Besides those caveats, it's a big improvement.

[0]: [https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble](https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble) [1]: [https://forum.xda-developers.com/project- treble/trebleenable...](https://forum.xda-developers.com/project- treble/trebleenabled-device-development/experimental-phh-treble-t3709659)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome news !

I have been hoping to see this happen for a while.

No point in adding new optimizations and security requirements in the new Android releases if devs can opt out of them by targeting a very old Android version.

As a dev, I feel vindicated for having pushed the organizations I worked at to closely follow the new releases.

As a user, I am happy I soon won't have to check the manifest of the apps I install

</comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h Anyone know what the "security metadata" is? Just Google signing the APK in addition to the developer signing it? Not sure how that helps, but not sure what else it would be.

<comment><USER12> More info further down the article:

> ... adding a small amount of security metadata on top of each APK to verify > that it was officially distributed by Google Play. ... The metadata we're > adding to APKs is like a Play badge of authenticity for your Android app. > > > ... the small metadata addition, which is inserted into the APK Signing > Block ...

Yes it looks like an additional signature.

> ... this metadata will enable new distribution opportunities for developers > in the future and help more people keep their apps up to date.

This suggests that you may be able to distribute signed APKs outside the Play store (e.g. host the APK yourself and email a link to beta testers?).

<comment><USER13> Torrent-style P2P updates? Installation over Bluetooth for users without connectivity or with expensive plans? I might be in the same room and already have this app I just recommended to you...

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h It could also just be HTTP/S from the developer's site, which already happens.

<comment><USER13> And that could be a way to circumvent the GFW.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious why the first required version is Android 8.0 (API version 26), instead of Android 8.1 (API version 27)...

<comment><USER11> From what I remember, 27 does not change the security model in any way, it just adds a couple of small features.

Their point is that you should target the latest major release. Ideally you should target the latest release, period.

I don't really care if an app targets 26 instead of 27 though. if an app targets 20 though, I definitely resent that a lot.

<comment><USER15> Android Studio tells me API 20 targets about 70 percent of android devices. API 26 targets less than one percent of android devices. What apps are you using that target API 26? I had to develop an app for a customer in Mexico two years ago and the customer made us target API 15 because they wanted to maximize app compatibility.

<comment><USER2> Do look up the difference between TARGETING (compiling against) an API and supportning MINIMUM API.

Different settings in your build.gradle ;) You can target 27 while still supporting 15.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for your patience!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From a users perspective: This is great.</comment>