It's time all clinical trial results are reported - <AUTHOR> http://www.alltrials.net/ <comment><USER2> Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Signed and donated.

This is a great effort, and I suggest others help out as well. The amount of fake trials and hidden experiment data that pharmas participate in is absurd. I can't recall the exact incident ('carbocation probably will) but within the last decade there was a rather large scandal where a particular drug was _known_ to have a fatal side effect -- suicidal ideation, I believe [wrong, valvular heart damage - see below] -- and more than 90% of the trial data that pointed to said effect was hidden and concealed. The drug hit the market and was later pulled off the shelves because, you guessed it, people started dying! While I don't believe the reporting of all trials will fix that level of deceit, it's certainly a great step in the right direction. Pushing for public reporting of data concerning meds that people might eventually _put into their bodies_ only makes sense.

Next up: Abolishing sponsored research clinical trials, or at least increasing the transparency of research sponsorship instead of burying the fact that the research PI is actually an employee of Pfizer somewhere deep in the appendices.

It's amazing how we have organizations like Consumer Reports to give us objective reviews of toasters and cars, yet nothing like that exists for medications or medical devices, isn't it?

Edit: So I'm confusing 2 things:

1) Fen-phen was a diet pill pushed to market despite evidence that it caused valvular heart damage. It was pulled from the market. Read: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/h...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/fenphen.html)

2) SSRIs were the drugs that increase suicidality (something commonly known now) and the data confirming that was reportedly hidden by pharmas. Read: [http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/10/can-caution-be-too- ris...](http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/10/can-caution-be-too-risky)

<comment><USER3> Abolish sponsored clinical trials? How do you plan to fund them then?

A very large part of the multi-billion dollar a year R&D budgets of the pharmaceutical companies go to pay for clinical trials. How would you replace that money?

<comment><USER4> Simple really. Establish an independent entity to conduct them, and fund those activities as part of the approval process.

Having a vested interest control scientific studies is poor regulatory system design.

<comment><USER3> So who controls the budgets or do you just hand the "independent entity" a pile of cash and let them do what they want?

Also, drug companies often hire physicians and researchers (often the best ones) to help with drug development far before any trial is run. Would you like to exclude those experts from input on the trial design?

From your comment I get the sense you have a limited understanding of what is really involved in drug development.

<comment><USER4> If we agree that a conflict-of-interest free system is the goal (and non- negotiable) then an independent entity is essential in a properly-functioning regulatory system.

However you appear to have retired undefeated as devil's advocate, as if the questions you put are unanswerable.

I would admit that there are more questions and answers that need to be given before we fully implement my HN comment, but that is hardly a refutation of the core idea: that a system free of conflict-of-interest requires independent entities and umpires that are more empowered than the conflicted interests in that system.

A recent Forbes opinion piece has its own take on inserting independent entities into the system [0]:

 _What we need is a construct with teeth, an established network of industry- independent researchers (not contractors) equipped to evaluate trial design, statistical power, data analysis, and interpretation, not as regulators but as contributors to final research publications. It would be a sort of Congressional Budget Office for clinical trial results._

Admittedly the position outlined in that article does not go as far as a completely independent entity operating all clinical trials for the purposes of regulatory approval, but it's in the right direction.

[0] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2012/11/26/how-c...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2012/11/26/how- can-big-pharma-restore-a-reputation/)

<comment><USER3> The issue is not independent entities, it is the unwillingness of the gov't to use the powers it has.

For example, Pfizer was found guilty of promoting Bextra off label, a very serious charge from the viewpoint of the FDA and the Justice Department. Punishment includes banning companies from doing business with CMS (who run Medicare and Medicaid).

Pfizer entered into an agreement with the Justice Department/HHS where a shell company was allowed to plead guilty and be banned from doing business with Medicare. That's right, a shell company that doesn't actually sell any drugs.

[http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.htm...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Who said the _issue_ was independent entities? That's the solution. The issue is conflicted interests having too much influence.

I'd agree the unwillingness of the gov't to use the powers it has is a problem. But that's a separate and equally important issue that others in this thread have flagged, filed under the label 'regulatory capture'.

It's not a situation that requires fire and brimstone and outrage. It should just be approached with dispassionate understanding: we have a defective system that is not designed to withstand attacks by self-interested system 'hackers'.

The solution is to design a system that neutralises short-term, narrow self- interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's worth reading Testing Treatments, also funded by the James Lind Initiative. It's available for free at: <http://www.testingtreatments.org/> . It's not the most exciting read, but it gives a good overview of uncertainty in medicine and the problems facing medical research.

At the end, there's a "things you can do" section, including:

> Agree to participate in a clinical trial only on condition (i) that the > study protocol has been registered and made publicly available (ii) that the > protocol refers to systematic reviews of existing evidence showing that the > trial is justified; and (iii) that you receive a written assurance that the > full study results will be published, and sent to all participants who > indicate that they wish to receive them.

[http://www.testingtreatments.org/tt-main-text/research- for-t...](http://www.testingtreatments.org/tt-main-text/research-for-the- right-reasons-blueprint-for-a-better-future/action-plan-things-you-can-do/)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's not obvious what the goal of this organization is, other than showing that there is interest in reporting all results. It would be nice to have a clear plan that they want to implement.

The goal here should be simple -- all clinical tests for a drug must be registered before they being in order to be considered evidence of a drug's effectiveness. This has to be done on the level of the FDA or other drug- approving organization, and is a simple and effective means of achieving this end.

Studies that are registered but never publish results will be noted and can be used to identify organizations that either routinely trash results through negligence or poor planning (the good faith version) or who refuse to publish negative results (the bad faith version). In either case, this can be taken into consideration when considering whether to green light a drug.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's been a backburner project of mine to data-mine the publicly-available clinical study information...while not all results are reported, there are useful meta-analyses that can be done (i.e. which companies are least likely to report, under what circumstances, such as study size and disease, are studies likely to omit info?).

It's not immediately evident, but ClinicalTrials.gov does provide their database in a structured format...probably the most convenient endpoint is this giant sitemap, which they have generated for scraping uses: <http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/about-site/crawling>

<comment><USER8> I've actually written a search crawler for clinicaltrials.gov. Their XML format is fairly convenient for parsing. I never thought for mining those types of data-points though. I suppose you could look at the study completion status and whether results are posted or not <http://www.clinicaltrialweb.com>

<comment><USER9> My experience of the status on clinicaltrials.gov is that it isn't always accurate. I don't think too much effort is put into keeping the data current.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So to make sure I have this straight, they'd like to compel a big pharmaceutical company like Pfizer to report all clinical data they've acquired, whether good or bad. Do I have that right?

What would be the effect on pharmaceutical companies from such a requirement (and how do you even enforce it)? Would they simply do fewer trials, to avoid the risk of a bad trial result hurting sales of a product?

<comment><USER11> "Would they simply do fewer trials, to avoid the risk of a bad trial result hurting sales of a product?"

Right now pharma companies run tens of thousands of fake trials where they have no intention of ever publishing the data because it's a way for them to legally pay doctors for signing up patients. Basically they just ask the doctor to fill out a one page survey at the end asking how they felt about how the medication worked, but it's garbage data that couldn't even be used for anything. Basically most phase IV trials, with the exception of the small number the government mandates as a condition for drug approval, are just a scam so that pharma companies can bribe doctors and also so they can list their marketing expenses as R&D in their SEC statements.

Also, the vast majority of trials are never published as journal articles even if they're registered. This is because there is no government mandate to actually report the results of any clinical trial, even the registered one. Which is why when determining the safety and efficacy of a drug you should never look at the published studies, because that will always give a wildly inaccurate view in a way that's extremely biased in favor of the drug companies. (This is what the FDA does when deciding wether or not to approve drugs.)

<comment><USER12> This sounds very important if true. Citation needed?

(For fake studies, and for the vast majority of trials not being published.)

<comment><USER13> Elsevier published six fake journals, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, designed to look like peer reviewed journals.

([http://www.the- scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/...](http://www.the- scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/title/Elsevier-published-6-fake- journals/))

<comment><USER14> That's interesting, but doesn't seem directly relevant. Publishing non-peer- reviewed articles is not the same as faking trials or conducting studies and hiding the results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a FDA regulation mandating publishing of basic results after 1 year of trial competition.

<http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/about-site/results>

There are currently about 7936 studies with "Results": [http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=&recr=&rs...](http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=&recr=&rslt=With&type=&cond=&intr=&titles=&outc=&spons=&lead=&id=&state1=&cntry1=&state2=&cntry2=&state3=&cntry3=&locn=&gndr=&rcv_s=&rcv_e=&lup_s=&lup_e=)

Also, several major journals require authors to adhere to data reporting guidelines of CONSORT: <http://www.consort-statement.org/home/>

</comment><comment><USER16> On the one hand, more public data the better!

On the other hand, it just sounds like more fodder for uneducated people^ to completely misunderstand what's going on, and all the various failings and pain that comes from that. The last thing we need is pundits and newspapers making wild and broken accusations and 'analysis' based on trying to find the linkbait side to every result.

^Which in the case of clinical trials and papers in general is 99.9% of people, including myself.

<comment><USER13> > _Which in the case of clinical trials and papers in general is 99.9% of > people, including myself._

There are some books and websites that help, but it'd be great if there were more.

Ben Goldacre - Bad Science

Michael Harris - Medical Statistics Made Easy

Richard Smith - The Trouble With Medical Journals

<comment><USER17> Ben Goldacre has a new book out, Bad Pharma. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/17/bad-pharma- ben-g...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/17/bad-pharma-ben-goldacre- review)

"His tales of drug companies buying the opinion of doctors is not the most alarming of his revelations. Goldacre sets out clearly what is wrong with the way drugs get on to the market.

New drugs are tested by the companies that make them, often in trials designed to make the drug look good, which are then written up and published in medical journals. Unless, that is, the company doesn't like the result of the trial (maybe it shows the drug not working or having severe side-effects), in which case this result might be hidden.

Regulators should have all the data on a drug's effects but they often don't share it, so researchers can't study the data. The book gives examples of regulatory bodies handing over page after page containing blacked-out results to academics trying to collect data from unpublished trials, the excuse for non-disclosure being commercial sensitivity.

Companies pay doctors to extol the virtues of their drugs on the conference circuit (spelling out the sources of information they want doctors to use) and fund patient groups to lobby regulators to approve new drugs."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also Ben Goldacre's TED talk: [http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_kno...](http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More info here: [http://www.badscience.net/2013/01/alltrials-campaign- launche...](http://www.badscience.net/2013/01/alltrials-campaign-launches- please-sign-and-spread/)

"Overall, about half of all clinical trials have never been published, and we know that trials with negative results about a treatment are much more likely to be brushed under the carpet."

Bonus: By having all trials public, researchers won't waste time researching something that has already been researched (replication aside).

</comment><comment><USER19> Forcing pharma companies to publish all their research is like asking startups to publish data on every technology stack they used & tested, everything from A/B testing, usage stats etc. Interesting, yes. Funny it was your industry, probably not.

Sometimes in a clinical trial a drug is discovered to not "work" in some patients, for example ones that have a concurrent condition (drug x works fine except if patient also has condition y). The results of that trial may not be published. Trials can be used to fine tune the profile of the patient you ultimately want to prescribe it to. I don't really understand what the problem is with that. Companies in almost all industries conduct research behind close doors.

I worked for big pharma doing clinical trials for 5 years and really disliked it, but I feel there's a serious witchhunt going on. People are being very vocal over something they know little about.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seems like a great idea though I wonder if there must be some trials that are flawed and would mischaracterize a drug either negatively or positively. Otoh, if some studies could be excluded based on major flaws, of course this would be a major loophole.

</comment><comment><USER21> That would be awesome.

I'm hesitant buy some of the supplements at <http://examine.com/> because I don't know how many negative trials go unreported. Some things like creatine have overwhelming evidence in favor of their efficacy, but the evidence of efficacy of other things like beta alanine is less convincing and would be heavily impacted by negative studies withholding their results.

</comment><comment><USER22> All Clinical studies should have all results given to indivuals who take part in a clinical trial. I was asked while on chemotherepy to take part in a clinical trial regarding DPD enzyme deficiency and 5-FU, Robarts did the study in 2007 in London, On. I still wonder if I have the defoiency and what exactly it could mean to me. Snowy

</comment><comment><USER23> I am terrified of the idea that you're trying to encourage governments to compel scientists to do anything against their will. Washington doesn't have this right any more than they have a right to read your encrypted email.

<comment><USER24> At the very least, there should be no issue with requiring this of any trials that use government funds, no?

<comment><USER23> That I will gladly concede, so long as that expectation is communicated as a condition of the funding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I flip a coin a thousand times, but only show you the results where "heads" came up. Do you believe me when I say that "Coin tosses result in heads all the time"? If yes, then you're probably the FDA.

<comment><USER14> Given how easy it is to fool the FDA, why are only ~35 new compounds submitted for approval each year? And why are only ~25 approved?

Note that the fact that trial results aren't released to the public doesn't mean that they aren't disclosed to the FDA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why not place a reddit button on the page with a link to the submission?

</comment><comment><USER27> I really want to know the results of the Phase III clinical trials of Enobosarm (also known as Ostarine, GTx-024 and MK-2866) !!

I loudly apploud the poster for the having the nuts to put up a great site =)

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there a way this could be solved through a wikileaks like organization? I imagine there has to be at least one disgruntled FDA bureaucrat...

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it just me or are the "sign" links broken and just point to the home page?

</comment><comment><USER30> The right to free speech includes the right to be silent.

<comment><USER25> Huh? These are corporations running studies, then selectively submitting only the most positives results to a federal regulation body who's responsible for determining whether or not the product is safe for consumption.

What does free speech have to do with it?

<comment><USER31> This is the U.S.; corporations have a protected right to free speech.

<comment><USER32> Which is just another example of how badly broken the legal system is in the U.S.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aston Martin will make old cars electric so they don't get banned from cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18129618/aston-martin-heritage-ev-electric-cars-city-ban <comment><USER2> As a guy at the start of converting his bmw e39 to electric the biggest hurdles to this is both having to fight with the manufacturers documentation and computer systems and having to manufacture from scratch adaptor plates and splines. Also it is not cheap, if you buy everything new expect to pay $15-$20K. Kudos to AM for doing this, though I expect it will cost you a damn site more than $20K, though if you can afford an AM I guess it is not an issue.

An entrepreneurial manufacturer such as Tesla who make the best donor parts acording to the conversion community could get a lot of extra kudos for relatively little outlay by making battery/inverter/charger/motor kits available IMHO

<comment><USER3> It seems so easy to kill yourself with the voltage and amperage. ICE car kits are dangerous too, but death seems less likely. I don't know that any company would want the potential liability.

<comment><AUTHOR> I bet it's much easier to kill yourself with the flammable, volatile, and toxic stuff that goes into the fuel tank. We just tend to normalize that because we've been using ICEs since we were kids and almost nobody is dumb enough to try to stick a lit match into the tank or take a fuel bath.

And the ones who are don't last long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought vintage cars are usually exempt from these things due to the enthusaist population being too small to environmentally matter. That's why we still let people drive those century-old steam cars fired by coal, any damage just comes out in the wash.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can we expect to see electric cars and conversion kits that simulate combustion engines? Mechanical gearboxes (or pseudo-gearboxes?), simulated noise and vibrations, exhaust pipes with simulated vapor?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe most of the conversion kits connect to the gearbox from the engine side in order to preserve as much of the car as feasible and also for simplicity (there seems to be less variation on the engine end than on the wheel side, but my knowledge is limited mostly to Brazilian cars - 3/4 of my family worked for Volkswagen).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> '60's era Porsches are are joy. Only problem is, the motors are wearing out. There are few people casting new cases. You could build one up for 30K. If the car is clean, I mean super clean it will go for 175K. So you have a great car but the motor us shot. Converting to batteries might just be the answer.</comment>


Gemvara: No Coding Skills, But Lots Of Will Power - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/matt-lauzon-gemvara-interview/

<comment><USER2> I, a web development guy, once worked at a small e-commerce and realized from the start that the main issues that an e-commerce faces are typical of most other businesses. Good inventory management, marketing, competent and effective staff - these were the main problems that we faced.

Our boss had zero coding skills but he was a serial entrepreneur with decades of business experience and was thus able to manage these problems.

Obviously technology will play a very important part in your e-commerce's growth, but that goes for all businesses these days and you still don't know a single line of code to know it's importance and how to leverage various technologies and solutions.

What I find more interesting with this article is that Lauzon lacked both tech AND domain knowledge (jewelry). Maybe this is sometimes needed to bring innovation to a business? To enter a market without preconceived ideas of what is right and wrong, what can be done or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> The headline is wrong. First of all, it's not the title of the post. Secondly, it's misleading. "You must not" implies that having coding skills will hinder you. What you want is: "You don't need to have coding skills..."</comment>


I'm Sorry Lifehacker, but you're wrong - <AUTHOR> http://1n73r.net/2010/06/11/im-sorry-lifehacker-but-youre-wrong

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or do others find contextless titles like this really annoying?

I thought this was going to be a commentary on the state or trend of Lifehacker's editorial direction and/or bias. Instead it's commentary about being annoyed that no one is paying attention to Palm's WebOS mobile platform.

</comment><comment><USER3> >there is a reason that a task killer is the first thing every Android phone needs.

Hard to take seriously after read this.

</comment><comment><USER4> He sounds like a fanboy, just says webOS is better but never gives an explanation why.

<comment><USER5> He also starts by saying it is a rant...

Personally I don't see why nowadays people can't give an opinion without turning it into a scientific like paper. He is very honest about what he was going to write... and maybe he wrote a comment on WebOS in particular at some other point in time.

This article wasn't about WebOS per se, but about the editorial choices of Lifehacker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two things to say here. First: I am sorry for the author, and I sympathise with him. It's that the techy world (and not only that one) likes dichotomies a lot more: good/evil, USA/Russia, Apple/Microsoft, iOS/Android, etc... Sad but true.

And while I think that it'd be hard to defend WebOS now even though not much has changed in the last few years (is this correct?), and consumers have not been very keen so far (in terms of units sold), I agree it's a problem. It would be a pity if once the new WebOS/Pre comes out it will get ignored, or even the new Windows Phone 7. Indeed I am very much looking forward to Meego, but even that seems to have a tenth of the hype surrounding the Android.

Second: I liked Lifehacker in the past. But more and more they seem to be turning into a me-too tech news site, and a pretty biased one at that (towards FOSS). I enjoyed it much more when it stayed closer to the theme... now I hardly read it anymore. (not sure if in the last few months it changed much, to be honest).

<comment><USER6> Human brains are divided. This creates a meta-contrasting effect. Good, bad. Edible, poisonous. Etc etc. It's a survival technique hardwired into us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> definitely an interesting read. I'm a android user and i do agree with many points mentioned here. However, rooting an android isn't hard and the article also assumes default apps rather than ones that can be installed to achieve certain features. eg. non-google backup; there are several apps that backup to the cloud (mybackup pro, wavesecure, etc) that said i clearly didnt know webos strengths and it would be good it webos had more phones to choose from.</comment>


Researcher's labour of love leads to Multiple Sclerosis breakthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/researchers-labour-of-love-leads-to-ms-breakthrough/article1372414/ <comment><USER2> recent update: [http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news- detail/index.aspx...](http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news- detail/index.aspx?nid=2206)

"On February 10, 2010, the University at Buffalo Medical Center released a press release describing preliminary results from an ongoing study led by Dr. Robert Zivadinov combining the use of transcranial and extracranial venous doppler evaluation in people with MS and controls, with the aim of evaluating the prevalence of venous obstruction in people with MS. [...] The results reported are based on the first 500 participants in the Combined Transcranial and Extracranial Venus Doppler Evaluation study.

The preliminary results reported that at least 55 percent of the MS cohort participating in the initial phase of the study showed narrowing of the extracranial veins causing restriction of normal outflow of blood from the brain. This was also true for at least 22 percent of the healthy controls."

So it looks like the MS research community has significant interest in this, and that early reports from a larger study confirm an association between the disease and venous blockage.

\---

edit: and on the other hand...

[http://medicalmyths.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/the-zamboni- myt...](http://medicalmyths.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/the-zamboni-myth-ccsvi- surreal/)

<comment><USER3> That medicalmyths blog also rails against coronary bypass surgery.

I tried to find out who this Colin Rose is (as he lists no credentials whatsoever anywhere on the blog), and the only Colin Rose I found was a statistician with no medical training. (He also says MS symptoms are susceptible to the placebo effect; while this may be true, I doubt they could be cured by said placebo effect)

The entire blog seems even fishier than the trials Zamboni performed.

<comment><USER4> It says in the about page

>Colin Rose MD PhD, Cardiologist, Associate Professor of Medicine, McGill University

And there are questions about whether CABG really reduces mortality or not.

As for Zamboni's procedure, I was psyched about it until I read Rose's debunking, and then some posts in a forum for MS patients by someone who had the surgery and is still having problems with MS. I'm not going to say for sure that it's BS, but I'm skeptical.

<comment><USER5> I read the original article from The Globe and Mail with much interest the first time it appeared on HN. I have now also read Colin Rose's assessment. Obviously it's pretty early days and I am all for being cautious and skeptical. I don't wish to submit a person I care about to an unproven procedure whose possible risks I know very little of. But to brand Zamboni as some kind of backwards witch doctor and call for no further investigation to even take place into this possible avenue of treatment seems beyond the pale to me. Surely this attitude must come from people who have not been personally affected by MS and/or have not had to watch someone they care about suffer from its bizarre, seemingly random and quality of life destroying symptoms.

I would be _very_ interested in any further links you could provide in relation to the Zamboni treatment (e.g. you mention a discussion on a forum) either for or against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The U.S. society goes further, discouraging patients from getting tested or seeking surgical treatment. Rather, it continues to promote drug treatments used to alleviate symptoms, which include corticosteroids, chemotherapy agents and pain medication._

I can see not seeking surgical treatment, but getting tested does no harm, helps investigate this avenue of treatment, and gives the patient more information. And recommending pharmaceuticals... well, I've got a knee-jerk reaction to that.

<comment><USER7> I can't help but think that some of those organizations don't want these people to get this treatment, because if MS is a solved problem there will no longer be any need for these societies.

It may sound paranoid, but the same think happened to Mothers against drunk drivers. They so alienated the founder that she is (or at least was) a lobbyist for a alcohol company.

It is very sad.

<comment><USER8> "The goal of any organization eventually becomes to perpetuate itself."

(Not a direct quote, but the observation does not come from me. It's in that class of observations so cynical that they can't help but be true... and are. Note the "eventually", it's an important word. A few organizations have managed to avoid that fate for a long time, most succumb within a mere fifty or hundred man-years.)

<comment><USER7> Thank you, that was the sentiment I was trying to find.

It is also worth to point out that it almost never happens with the founder or even the original group that starts it. It almost always happens when the group get filled with holy warriors who go far beyond the original mission or when it gets filled with a bunch of rent-seekers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea that iron buildup either causes or aggravates a bunch of other chronic diseases is one of those slightly-outside-the-mainstream theories that seems plausible to me and destined for increased acceptance.

Especially if you are of northern European descent, read up on 'hemochromatosis' -- and avoid 'iron-fortified' foods and vitamins unless medical testing shows a deficiency.

<comment><USER10> A) Hemochromatosis is a genetic defect, it has nothing to do with the health people who don't have the mutated gene.

B) The iron system has evolved with multiple mechanisms for storing excess iron and inhibiting uptake of excess iron.

C) Several forms of iron build-up are well documented, and none of them appear to have symptoms like MS.

Here's a good article on disorders of iron metabolism: <http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/341/26/1986>

<comment><USER9> I increasingly see the term 'hemochromatosis' used to describe damaging iron overload even when caused by factors other than the specific 'HFE' gene, such as other diseases (hereditary or not).

I also see a growing trickle of advice -- often from the kinds of cranks who sometimes turn out to be right -- pointing at iron exposure/accumulation, below levels that would result in a formal diagnosis of overload, as contributing to other chronic diseases and symptoms of aging. (Perhaps, the evolved mechanisms for iron regulation are optimized for 40-year lifespans, and not 80+-year lifespans.)

My layman's hunch is that the consensus view on iron will shift in coming decades. We'll see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is fantastic. I met a client a while ago and we took to each other warmly from the start. I found out she had MS. This is right up her alley, as she was explaining alternative treatments she tried which helped, although not yet endorsed by the U.S. I'm forwarding this to her right now.

</comment><comment><USER12> Multiple Sclerosis, not Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good article from Nov. 20, 2009.

</comment><comment><USER14> If this turns out to be affirmed by the medical establishment I hope that man gets the Nobel. It's exactly the kind of medical efforts we need more of: trying to CURE a disease, not just temporarily reduce symptoms via a pill sold for profit, a pill which in turn causes the patient other problems, which require more pills, and so on.

<comment><USER15> Pills sold for profit discovered by for-profit companies and pills sold otherwise by non-profit companies probably have the same curative rates. People like to demonize drug companies, but really, they are just confronted with terribly complex problems. You see pills that treat symptoms more often than pills that cure because of this complexity. On the road to a cure, there are many things discovered. They can be applied to make the patients life better in the interim -- and they should.

However, I agree whole-heartedly that this is the type of medicine that needs to be done more often. Researchers are victims of the "can`t see the forest for the trees" problem -- especially in medicine. There is a disconnect between bedside and lab bench that is artificial and limiting.

Interestingly, patients are starting to collaborate, swapping notes about things they remembered -- looking at things from an admittedly naive but certainly systemic approach. There are now even websites designed to help patients conduct what are almost emergent trials. (See: [http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_heywood_the_big_idea_my_broth...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_heywood_the_big_idea_my_brother_inspired.html))

However, it should be noted that (thankfully) medicine is moving towards a more systemic approach.</comment></comment>


Google's answer to Wikipedia, Knol, is all but dead - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/01/abandoned-knol.html

<comment><USER2> why did google need to ANSWER Wikipedia in the first place?</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Hired Obama and Bush Campaign Managers - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/882475/facebook-fb-ceo-mark-zuckberg-hires-david-plouffe-and-ken-mehlman-to-the-chan-zuckerberg-initiative/ <comment><USER2> I have a feeling a lot of people here are going to scoff at this news, because they think politics should be left to someone "better".

We live in a country where people like Mitch McConnell, Jason Chaffetz, Jim Inhofe, and Trump are political leaders.

At this point, anything is better. I hope more people in our community will volunteer themselves to the work.

Heck, if I didn't have to worry about paying my mortgage, I would. I can't be any worse than the integrity-less lizards running the show now.

<comment><USER3> > At this point, anything is better. I hope more people in our community will > volunteer themselves to the work.

After watching the sheer amount of personal destruction leveled at Trump (a relative political newcomer), what private citizen in their right mind would want to run for office?

There's a reason professional politicians stick to soundbites and avoid the public as much as possible: any unscripted exposure is a chance for the media to demonize them and tear them down. And the public -- the same public that claims to want ''ordinary folks'' to run for office -- gleefully pulls out the torches and pitchforks every time.

Think about the worst skeletons you have in your closet and pretend that the most savvy oppo-research / viral media minds are sitting in a room figuring out how to spin each one into the most salacious, sort-of-but-not-really-true headline possible. That's what I saw both Clinton and Trump deal with in the last cycle. I am an eternal optimist and hope the system can be improved in the future but for now I think the American people are getting just about the level of politics they deserve.

<comment><USER4> Case-in-point, see the BBC coverage in meltdown over the Labour leaders nuanced view to immigration.

People crave targets and promises, It doesn't matter one bit about what is achievable.

small example, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- politics-38561501](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38561501)

<comment><USER5> There was actually a petition to sack Laura Kuessenberg from the BBC because of her Fox News-y approach to attacking Labour and their response was to cry sexism/misogyny:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura- kuen...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura-kuenssberg- jeremy-corbyn-petition)

Surprisingly it worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if Zuckerberg is planning to capitalize on the fractured party landscape. 2020 would be a prime year for a new ticket.

As far as I can tell, his politics don't fit cleanly into any of the four (broad) ideological groups we see today (those being far and center conservatives and liberals).

<comment> aaron-lebo He doesn't have that clout.

He strikes me as a big money, big government guy, which isn't that different from Bush or Obama. They also essentially all come from that Ivy League background so they have some similar worldviews at least. What do you see which suggests he is different?

What might he be running for? Representative seems too low and too political for a guy of his stature. Senate? I think he's overplaying his hand if he thinks at 35 he could run for any office higher than that and win with no prior experience and not a ton of charisma.

<comment><USER7> > He doesn't have that clout.

Theoretically, couldn't he just have his engineers tweak the Facebook algorithm to make him President? Figure out how many swing state voters you need, set their Facebook feeds to deliver positive news about Zuckerberg and negative news about rivals.

I doubt it would even be ruled illegal in the current landscape. I'm sure the media would raise a stink, but the voters you care about would never see those scathing op-eds.

<comment><USER8> Shouldn't that be illegal. But yeah probably in America if you own the media then you can have it say whatever you want.

I personally think Bill Gates should run, he'd be a much better President, and much more likely to win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The current election showed us that a lot of people just gobble up what they're fed on Facebook. Who better to take advantage of that than the owner?

</comment><comment><USER10> I immediately thought to myself, Mark is not old enough, you have to be 35. Then I looked it up and to my surprise he is 32. I always thought he was in his late twenties.

<comment><USER11> It definitely seems like a Zuckerberg thing to do, to run at the earliest possible age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The big brother candidate.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think he plans to run for office in 2020.

<comment><USER14> I suspect he'll get advice telling him to "put feelers out" in 2020 like Trump did in 2000. It maybe 8-12 years before he can get the blue collar vote.

<comment><USER15> Trump didn't put feelers out in 2000, he began campaigning for the Reform Party nomination (a number of candidates were attracted, because they had secured federal matching funds based on their 1996 performance) before withdrawing (citing, at the time, a desire not to be associated with the other Reform Party candidates, particularly David Duke, who in 2016 he would claim to never have heard of before.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are we sure this is for Zuckerberg himself? The visit 50 states makes me think yes, but still I always thought Sheryl Sandberg would make the better politician.

<comment><USER17> What if it's for everyone instead of just one person. Perhaps Facebook wants to build a better platform for all elected officials as a way to combat the fake news outbreak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> People started predicting this as soon as his comments about atheism became news, now the tour and this. Okay.

</comment><comment><USER19> lets hope he uses stronger passwords than "dadada" by the time he runs for prez

[0][http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark- zucker...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/06/mark-zuckerbergs- password-was-dadada-what-hope-do-the-rest-of-us/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Holy shit. He could do it. He will be 35 by 2020, so he really could be the next president.

I'd vote for him a heartbeat. He's a young Bill Gates. He would do an amazing job if he could rally the young and make internet voting a reality so people actually participated in government.

Yes, yes, he would scare people about controlling the vote but then he would employ cryptography experts that we would all agree have created a verifiable system...He's technical and looks up to technical people, he would listen to all of them and create unprecedented transparency.

As much as I'm not a fan personally I actually think something like Facebook could fix our democracy. If...if..it was executed in a totally public and transparent way and was a genuine revolution of the people ala Bernie.

We could have an American Social Network that included voting...it may be somewhat expensive but everything could be audited 100 different ways in public...public blockchains as auditing mechanism.

Reserve your username today!

[https://american.gov/join](https://american.gov/join)</comment>


Teaching programming languages: we're doing it wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jjmerelo/teaching-computer-languages-we-re-doing-it-wrong-9baf7548904a#.ymn0ee3bi <comment><AUTHOR> While in general i agree with JJ my own small list is

1\. code lives in files, files lives in the directory structure, this relational ship and organization should be introduced early, and new languages should optimize and simplify its build system

2\. top down always trumps bottom up, start describing a large program first, then move to the details of the language, build a module first, a function later

New languages should focus on how to make these points easier</comment>


HP Beats Apple To Touchscreen Punch - <AUTHOR> http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/hp-beats-apple-to-touchscreen-punch/

<comment><USER2> that video of HP describing their design process is PAINFUL. As if every company that designs and builds their own products doesn't go through the same steps.</comment>


Y Combinator Is Now Getting Over One Application Every Minute - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/y-combinator-is-now-getting-over-one-application-every-minute/

<comment><USER2> We just submitted our application and I have to admit that YC's application questions themselves are a great exercise for anyone who is starting a new business. I felt that all the questions really made us think about each and very aspect of our platform and challenged us to articulate it in simple words.

We are excited to see what comes out of it and good luck to the rest of awesome ideas!

<comment><USER3> I couldn't agree more. Filling it out the first time we applied actually led us to the full developement of our business plan, right down to the design of the GUI and the financial metrics we would use. We now know exactly what is required of us to become profitable, how much we can stretch our margins, etc etc. Granted this is not necessary for YC but it let us know exactly where we stand and how hard we have to work before we can all afford to eat again.

The application process also taught our founders a little more about eachother. The things my cofounders put as their "most impressive acheivements" blew me away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find statistics about this really inspiring. Even if YC only funds 3% if the volume keeps growing that is a good sign. Combined with the previous discussion on China which pointed out that growing an economy by infusing cash alone doesn't give you the results of long term growth, only innovation does, makes me optimistic.

Sure there will be a lot of hopelessly naive applications, can't be avoided really, but there could be some real ground breakers as well.

<comment><USER5> i find this statistics misleading, because one cannot get meaningful results from last minute submission rate.

<comment><USER6> Only misleading if you try to read things into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are there going to be any grubwith.us dinners with YC founders this term? (the last one we went to was really great).

<comment><USER8> Yeah we'll make sure it happens =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not really a plus from the applicant side. It's crazy impressive, but how many can they take?

<comment><USER10> I assume they only take a limited amount of start-ups. What they really need is more people sifting through the applications which you can see that they have hired lots of partners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this a huge leap? or similar to previous batches. I know the applications are rising each batch but i'm interested in if this is considerably higher than previous years.

<comment><USER12> I believe someone had a blog post recently where they estimated this years total batch at around 4000 based on previous years numbers and rate of increase. So ~1600 on the last day seems like it could be in the ballpark of what was expected.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, I suppose people want up until the last minute to work on their application, demo, etc. Maybe they just decide to apply last minute.

<comment><USER13> :) We decided to apply early on, but wanted to have a working prototype out. Still a couple of days away from something demoable; applying in the next 2 hours.

(Node.js starts off as simple. And then as you start writing serious code, the flow control and nested callbacks begin to bite. You get back on track once you figure out various patterns of flow control (or libraries like async and Step). )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suppose that means demand for the service is greater than supply. The question might be, do you wish you had more supply, or better quality of demand?

Maybe charge $5 application fee to weed out the worst :-D

</comment><comment><USER15> Really nice to see true unbridled entrepreneurism alive and kicking.... Companies like Y Combinator play their part, the ecosystem is really what it is all about

</comment><comment><USER16> Link to the tweet: <http://twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/123509842412445696>

</comment><comment><USER17> Being someone who submitted an application around 11:59pm in a previous season, I wonder what makes people wait until the last minute. In our case it was the big decision of whether we should apply or not (we didn't have a site, didn't really talk it through among ourselves), which pretty much made the resulting rejection a self satisfying prophecy.

<comment><USER18> Are you ever really done with something like this? There's always something you could improve, given more time. Using all the available time makes sense.

<comment><USER19> I believe that the best time to start is right now.

PG has said, many times, that he's more interested in the team than the idea.

A solid team isn't really going to change that much over a few months, as they've probably known each other for years. Show that in the interview, and you'll have a better chance of getting at-bat with YC than a few months of polish on your startup.

On top of that, showing real progress between submitting your YC app and actually talking to YC speaks worlds about your ability to execute, far more than having a polished last-minute entry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was asking HN some time ago if I should wait for Y Combinator, or...

Well, i did not apply anywhere else, and it seems i waited until the very last day. I'm glad I waited, though as 7 days ago my application would contain a totally different app. :)

Good luck everybody!

</comment><comment><USER21> Good luck with the mass volume of apps pg and friends! We've been doing a lot of updates in the last couple of days, esp today (did the final re-submit), but we initially submitted quite some time ago. I hope you all find the latest version of our app.

</comment><comment><USER22> Submitted mine last minute because I went to the ycombinator website tonight 2 hours prior to the deadline to see when the deadline actually was. I've been busy talking to my customers and creating the product. Glad I had an urge to go on today.

</comment><comment><USER23> For us it was a battle of making the application better versus submitting earlier. We decided to make the application better and then submit yesterday, rather than being one of the crowd working up to the wire.

</comment><comment><USER24> I apologize for this dumb question but why do I still see the "edit your application link" ? Shouldn't this link disappear after the application is submitted ? Or did I screw up my submission ?

<comment><USER25> _6\. Edit and resubmit as much as you want, but be sure to submit at least once before the deadline (October 10 at 8 pm PST), because you haven't applied till you do.

7\. Early submissions have a significant advantage because we have more time to look at them and engage with the founders.

8\. We may have questions about your application. If there is a question waiting from us, you'll see a link to it on this page and at the top of Hacker News (when you're logged in). So check HN regularly after submitting._

They allow you to submit early and resubmit if you want to word things better or if they contact you about something that's unclear to them in your application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Count mine among the ones they received in the _last_ minute. Great excercise -- glad I did it no matter what.

</comment><comment><USER27> With all due respect, who cares?

It could be that much more naive and ignorant people are submitting applications now than before. 99% of these applications could be hogwash and disposable. That may not be the case, but who's to say it isn't?

The quantity of applications doesn't actually indicate anything except greater name recognition and maybe more recent entrepreneurs, but even that is a stretch

</comment><comment><USER28> Good to see the interest is still growing! Hoping to see a lot of useful things coming out of this batch.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is seriously impressive. Speaks to the value startups anticipate getting out of the YC experience.

<comment><USER30> Unfortunately, I think that some companies are in it for the funding as opposed to the experience itself. The real value of YC has little to do with any checks you get, but the knowledge you earn. I would take a YC spot over a $5 million VC check in an instant. $5 million buys a lot of Heroku dynos, but the YC-knowledge/experience is something that can make you potentially 50x anything you could get without YC.

<comment><USER29> Agree. Relationships, advice and experience (probably in that order) are how you get on the path to success, not money.

Having said that, $5M or a YC experience would be a tough choice -- would depend on the nature of my idea. <=$2M or YC I'm going YC all the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> They much be very excited to wade through 100s of buzzword compliant ideas with no business model attached and the plaintive cry of "it's social and location-based. We deserve some money!".

Bubble? What bubble?

</comment><comment><USER32> Hey, Himani.

Y Combinator Universe still has the most comprehensive unofficial collection of information for Y Combinator Applicants/Interviewees:

<http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php>

My best advice: Remember that Y Combinator is a means and not an end. The goal is NOT "to get into Y Combinator". The goal is to make something people want. And there are plenty of resources for start-ups beyond kissing PG's butt for money and introductions.

<comment><USER33> Promoting your own websites is generally seen as ok by the HN community, but you should point out that it is your own website and avoid being self- laudatory about it (i.e. "the most comprehensive")</comment></comment>


List of important publications in computer science - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_computer_science <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR -

This is a list of important publications in computer science, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

1) Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic

2) Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly

3) Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of computer science.</comment>


How SoundCloud built its new single-page main website using Backbone.js - <AUTHOR> http://backstage.soundcloud.com/2012/06/building-the-next-soundcloud/ <comment><USER2> This is a very interesting read with a lot of interesting topics being discussed.

On "Views as components"

> Each view can include other 'sub' views, which can themselves include > subviews and so on.

This is something that is missing from Backbone and it's something that always comes up, even when doing something as simple as a Todo list. In the Backbone Todo list example[1] you there are methods on the "parent view" (eg, the List view or the App view) to addOne and addAll (rendering the Item views).

So the concept of "sub views" is definitely needed but what I'd like to know, from SoundCloud's perspective, what were the arguments for/against implementing this functionality from within the templates and not from some place else, eg. the parent view's or the sub view's constructor (as a parent/child attribute) or initialize method.

> Each view is responsible for its own setup, events, data, and clean up.

Having already implemented the "sub views" concept it seems perfectly logical to allow a parent view to inherit DOM events from its children. Considering the Todo list example, _and without using Backbone_ , how would you implement DOM events on the Todo items? You wouldn't bind events on each item's DOM element - that's just crazy. You would bind the events on the list (just once, for all items) and find a way to know on which item the event was triggered. In other words, you would use $('parent').on('event', 'child' ... ) and not $('child').bind.

It seems that with Backbone people have forgotten this practice, in a way similar to how people started using inefficient DOM selectors when jQuery came along.

So, when implementing the "sub view"/"parent view" concept, what would make perfect sense is to specify if the sub view's DOM events should be bounded on the parent view's DOM element. What I'd like to know is if SoundCloud has considered doing this and if yes why they have decided against it.

[1] [http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/todo...](http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/todos.js)

<comment><USER3> Hi Rudas,

>what were the arguments for/against implementing this functionality from within the templates and not from some place else

It is still quite possible for parent views to construct subviews and insert them into its own DOM at any time, but due to the nature of our views, many of them are UI components, and so it made sense to be able to define both the subview as well as its position at the same time. It makes writing a view with subviews very easy. You simply use the Handlebars helper exactly where you want that view and the rest is taken care of for you.

>You would bind the events on the list (just once, for all items) and find a way to know on which item the event was triggered.

Yes, that's a very common approach to handing DOM events, but it ran against our belief that views should be independent _. If a view can only work in a particular situation (eg: nested inside a list which handles its events), then that creates hard dependencies between those two views and you can quickly get into a mess. Event delegation is definitely used in Next, but only at a per- view level. It is a sacrifice (I would posit that it's a minor sacrifice), but the benefits are highly independent and reusable views. We do take advantage of this, too: for example, if you look at the waveform in the player, and the miniature waveform in the header which shows your currently-playing sound (visible in the screenshot), that is the exact same view. Because they handle everything themselves, there was absolute minimum work needed to add that feature.

Thanks for the feedback and the interest, Nick.

_ Note that I'm just talking about our particular project: YMMV, and using event delegation in higher level views for your own project might provide bigger wins in terms of performance or maintainability.

<comment><USER2> > It makes writing a view with subviews very easy. You simply use the > Handlebars helper exactly where you want that view and the rest is taken > care of for you.

It does indeed look very simple and easy but what I would be concerned about is that you have logic in your views that perhaps shouldn't be there. Your views are now dependent on the template language/parser you are using. Have you tried any other approaches that didn't work so well/easy before coming to this solution?

> If a view can only work in a particular situation (eg: nested inside a list > which handles its events), then that creates hard dependencies between those > two views and you can quickly get into a mess.

Agree. But how about having per view instance dependency instead of per view constructor. For example,

        <div class="listenNetwork__creator">
            {{view "views/user/user-badge" resource_id=user.id parent_view=this }}
        </div>

So your user-badge view can bind its events on the parent_view.el (if available), otherwise on itself. Backbone does this in a way on its delegateEvents method. If there is no selector specified in your event it uses bind on this.$el, otherwise it uses this.$el.delegate.

Thanks

<comment><USER3> That's not a bad idea actually -- I might look into that. With only one subview, it ends up with the same amount of handlers, so the benefit would only be seen in list-like views with repeated subviews, right?

<comment><USER2> Exactly, like when you are rendering a list of (sounds|users|comments|whatever).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm excited about this as I am a heavy SoundCloud user but I can't help but feel this post is a bit premature. The existing state of the 'next' site is really early.. there are many bugs, most features are not implemented, and the sound detail page is almost completely broken.

I'd must rather see these kinds of posts after a big rewrite has proven the new technologies were the right choice!

<comment><USER3> You're quite right -- Next is nowhere near complete, and still very much a beta. We're working on the "release early, iterate often" approach. (See [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/version-1-sucks- but...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/version-1-sucks-but-ship-it- anyway.html) [http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/07/if-you-arent- embarr...](http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/07/if-you-arent-embarrassed- by-v10-you-didnt-release-it-early-enough/))

The main reason is quite obviously for feedback. SoundCloud is a community- driven site, and we want to get really early feedback about features, design, etc. Another part of the feedback is exactly what's happening here with sharing our techniques and seeing the results. Hopefully the outcome of this blog post is that some other people will learn something, but also that some people will point out things so that we ourselves can learn.

> there are many bugs, most features are not implemented,

We're definitely aware of the features not yet implemented, but if you find bugs (or are really missing a particular feature), please do use the feedback form to let us know!

Cheers, Nick

<comment><USER4> I've been using the feedback feature early and often (nice job putting it so front and center also!)

I think the new design and architecture is coming out great and I don't mean to discourage experience sharing. If anything, better way to have said would be:

I hope that you will post a few follow-ups to this as you get closer to release what/if anything has changed in your stack, approach, and gotchas found building this complex of a single page/backbone app.

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Definitely. There already have been some changes since I wrote the post this week, but they'll have to wait until the next exciting instalment. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think when you start reimplementing garbage collection in your application, you are probably going down the wrong path and should think about a better way to do things.

<comment><USER6> What's your evidence of this? Have you built a large Backbone application? As it stands, your comment comes across as snide and indefensible.

<comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_inversion>

It's a little bit like this anti-pattern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You know, we solved persistent background sound with hidden frames and MIDI tracks back in the 1990s. :)

Jokes aside, I wonder how on-going development and maintenance is for a "single file" website...

<comment><USER3> The source is in sanely separated and named modules in individual files which are concatentated into one for production. We actually concatenate into 4 different files according to how often the source changes (to work best with caching), but yeah, the concept is the same.

<comment><USER9> Google Closure and require.js take care of this I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How this goes against the recent Twitter move to return rendering to the server? How to find the right balance of client and server functionality?

<comment><USER3> Hi Carlos,

It was definitely something we thought about, and even discussed with the devs from Twitter. Twitter has a very different use-case to SoundCloud. When you follow a link to Twitter, it's usually to read a single tweet (or maybe a handful), and that's it. SoundCloud is visited by someone who is already willing to invest at least a couple of minutes to listen to a tune, and is much more likely to explore the site. Therefore, the value of making further navigation of the site fast (via client-side rendering, etc) is weighted differently at SoundCloud than at Twitter.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I don't think instant loading is as high a priority for soundcloud as it is for twitter. Twitter shouldn't be a SPA I don't think, or at least not initially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's been a long time coming, the dashboard has been slow as shit both to download and render for a long time now.

I've been using the desktop client exclusively because the website is often so painful on my 2008 macbook, but it only shows new tracks, not all the other interactions that show up on the dashboard, which means I'm missing out on a lot of good tunes.

<comment><USER12> And advertising! Just kidding, but really some companies make the website fully featured while apps and other things don't get the updates because those are peripheries for converted users like yourself, and many models require ad based revenue that doesn't translate well to client apps or mobile platforms.

<comment><USER11> There aren't any ads on SC though. They make their money from premium accounts, of which they apparently sell plenty. Their business model is excellent all round IMO.

(You probably knew that but I thought it should be pointed out.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Duplication of module dependencies is also tedious and error-prone.

You can combine these with RequireJS as well. Instead of:

      define(['a', 'b', 'c'], function () {
        var a = require('a');
        var b = require('b');
        var c = require('c');
        ...
      });

You can instead just do:

      define(['a', 'b', 'c'], function (a, b, c) {
        ...
      });

<comment><USER7> Or:

      define(function(require) {
         var a = require('a');
         var b = require('b');
         var c = require('c');
         ...
      });

<comment><USER3> This approach does actually address a lot of the complaints:

\- Boilerplate is greatly reduced (though still present) \- Way less error- prone since you're not relying on keeping two separate lists of dependencies in same the order

But, it still does require rewriting before use (to add the module name), so I don't see a huge win here either way.

I'll also point out that this "sugared" syntax was added to requirejs after we started developing. If it were there at the start, perhaps we would have used that instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So when does it make sense to make a single page web application? Are there any guidelines you folks like to follow?

<comment><USER15>
        Wikipedia                               Gmail
           <</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>->
        Traditional                              SPA

Those two I'm pretty sure what I would use, but the other applications in between those extremes I'm not that sure...

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't mind at all if Gmail was a traditional multipage app that works without JavaScript.

Google Maps is probably a much better example.

<comment><USER17> Gmail does work without javascript, it has long been the example I give of competent web authoring. As for when it makes sense, I suggest this guideline: if what you're building is to be a worthwhile contribution to the World-Wide Web, it should have a mode with server-rendered semantic markup behind URLs which are stable forever. Client-side rendering is an enhancement to build _after_ that works well. Your content is more important than the custom behavior you're adding to the the browser the user already chose.

<comment><USER10> This is exactly the approach I'm doing. I'm writing the app entirely server based, just a couple of ajax do avoid loading unnecessary data at some time.

The time I finish the app, I will tweak and optimize loading either by AJAX or implement something like backbone views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What support does SoundCloud's new single-page interface have for IE8 and IE9? Does the new interface use the HTML5 History API to enable state/page transitions? If so, what fallback technique was used for non-HTML5 browsers? Do these browsers get a single-page interface enabled via URL fragment identifiers (#'s), or do they fall back to a multi-page interface where page transitions are handled as they traditionally have been on the web?

Is there any data on how much SoundCloud's transition to a single-page interface decreased latency during navigation relative to the traditional page-loading model?

Apologies if these questions have obvious answers. I tried to sign up for the beta but the party was full, and I'm not familiar with SoundCloud's interface.

<comment><USER3> >What support does SoundCloud's new single-page interface have for IE8 and IE9?

For IE9: some. Backbone automatically detects pushState availability and fallsback to a hashbang system allowing the SPA to work.

For IE <= 8: none.

> Is there any data on how much SoundCloud's transition to a single-page > interface decreased latency during navigation relative to the traditional > page-loading model?

Not yet, but that would definitely be a metric we'll be collecting. We're still working very hard on increasing the performance, so it'd be a moving value right now.

> I tried to sign up for the beta but the party was full

No worries -- you're in the queue and we're gradually expanding the rollout, so you'll get an email soon. For everyone else, you can join the beta by signing in at <http://next.soundcloud.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm glad he covers the commonjs / amd issue. We use a commonjs implementation as well, but it feels like more and more libraries are going to amd. Like soundcloud, the amd approach just isn't ideal when you get to a certain number of components. Seeing that they convert to amd on the fly, and use almond for production is really interesting.

</comment><comment><USER20> So they used Ember's templating language and did a crappy, more verbose reimplementation of Ember's subviews? Why did they choose Backbone over Ember, exactly?

Can I propose a corrolary to Greenspun's Tenth Rule?

"Any sufficiently complicated Backbone program contains an ad hoc, informally- specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Ember.js"

<comment><USER21> Nice corollary. Sounds about as accurate as Greenspun's Tenth as well. In good fun, mind if I propose one back 'atcha?

"Inside of every Ember.js application is a leaner, meaner, far faster, built- with-less-headaches Backbone.js app trying to get out."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love the idea of the Handlebars 'view' helper.

I'm not sure if "insertion of subviews" only happens once or on every render()... ideally only the subviews have to be rerendered - not the parent view which is "heavy".

<comment><USER3> yeah, that was something we struggled with when designing this architecture. The problem is that you don't necessarily know which subviews can be held onto and which are no longer needed, so the only way to generically handle the situation is to destroy all subviews when a parent view needs to be rerendered. This sound horrible and inefficient, I know, but our way to deal with it has been to be very careful about what triggers a rerender.

Views state exactly which attributes on their model should trigger the rerender when they change, and no others. If you have a very high level view which has a sizeable tree of subviews underneath it, then its subviews will probably be the ones actually displaying data and that it will essentially just be a 'composite' view and will never rerender.

Views which bind to collections (eg: Lists) have special logic for adding and removing subviews without rerendering all of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> i wonder whether "letting go" describes all of their memory management concerns

i found javascripts lack of weak references extremely problematic when trying to develop a larger backbone app

<comment><USER23> you also have to somehow manage the lifecycle of your views, cleaning up after their event bindings and such. See this stackoverflow question[1] for more about this.

[1]: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7379263/disposing-of- view...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7379263/disposing-of-view-and- model-objects-in-backbone-js)

<comment><USER24> Thoughtbot wrote a lib that they bundled up as a gem that does this for you called Backbone Support. It's an easy way to get started, but you'll likely want to tweak it later :)

<https://github.com/thoughtbot/backbone-support>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would be very concerned about performance with a SPA built like this.

Do you have any benchmarks of Next SoundCloud's performance compared to the existing SoundCloud?

<comment><USER26> I don't have any numbers, but I switched back to the old version because "next" was so slow.

<comment><USER3> Performance is definitely the biggest problem with fat client applications. As Twitter found out, by crowdsourcing your hardware, you lose a lot of control of the user experience. If you have a 'traditional' web application and it's running slow, it's really easy to by a couple of new servers and the problem is fixed. We can't buy everyone a new computer (sorry!) and force them to use a recent version of Chrome, so it's a challenge.

In the places where we can control the performance, we do that very carefully: CDN loading of all assets, intelligent caching techniques, and of course, finding and removing bottlenecks in the code.

@jarcoal, would you mind letting me know some of your details which might affect performance (which country you're in, what browser, what speed is your computer)? Email me directly at fisher at soundcloud if you'd prefer not to share here. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The new home needs a search form. I always go to your home page just to discover new music.

<comment><USER3> Search is in the header. Is that not what you are looking for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> And then you use a popup for the signup box?

</comment><comment><USER29> Another blog that doesn't link to their actual site.

<comment><USER30> The link to the actual site (webengage.com) is in the header nagivation on the right with an arrow pointing at it

<comment><USER29> What? There's one link, the "SoundCloud" logo and it doesn't take you to SoundCloud's website, it takes you to the root of their/this blog.

I don't see webengage.com or a link to it anywhere on this link. Did you post on the wrong link by chance?

edit: There are also no arrows and the text 'webengage' doesn't appear in the blogpost page source...

<comment><USER30> just saw your reply, and it's not been long enough where I completely forgot the context of this, so I'm just going to apologize :) I have no idea what happened here other than a brief lapse in sanity most likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Ember.js FTW !</comment>


Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/24996/Illustrated_Apple_s_Fear_of_Android

<comment><USER2> Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market share dollars) for their investment. That was slightly more ironic than I intended.

Besides, there are plenty of other "hidden" reasons for Apple to sue these Android handset manufacturers. Steve Jobs feels betrayed by Eric Schmidt, Samsung makes eerily close copies of the iPhone, Apple doesn't attack HP and RIM because this isn't about actual patent infringement but taking out the smaller manufacturers who can't defend themselves against Apple Legal.

<comment><USER3> > Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the > iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed > to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the > market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its > shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but > to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market share dollars) for their > investment.

Citation needed. I'm just a dumb programmer but I'm pretty sure that Apple at 30% market share makes more money than Apple at 19% market share. Please edutate me if not correct.

<comment><USER4> Market is not fixed in place, when one factor changes, other numbers vary accordingly.

For example 30% of a total 100M units sold is roughly the same of 19% of a total 150M units sold. IF APU stay the same, it makes no difference financial wise to Apple. But to achieve 30% of 150M units sold, Apple may have to branch out another line of more affordable phones, it may have to give more control to the carriers, it may have to iterate on a faster pace than it is comfortable with, all of these would hit Apple's margin and equal things out.

With Nokia LG SE and Motorola in the red, Apple is now siphoning about 50% of industry profit at a market share of, what, 5% of all phones sold?

Which is not to say market share is not important, but it is not the utimate goal.

For now Apple's more urgent problem remains to be manufacturing capability, its fancy process or unique components always causes shortage upon new iOS devices launch and well into the second quarter, it almost forms a pattern (iPhone 3G/iPhone 4/iPad 2 etc). If the murmurs from Foxconn et al is to be believed the same backlog will happen to iPhone 5/iPad 3 again.

<comment><USER5> Yet reports seem to indicate Apple is planning on rolling out a "budget" price point phone [1], so they probably are worried about market share after all.

Apple is on a long term digital media dominance play. They want to be the one stop locked in shop for many people's music, software, video and books. Sure they'll continue to be interested in making good money on their hardware but their evolving iOS platform strategies clearly point to what they're looking forward to. And in that version of the world where content sales is king, market share means a whole lot.

<http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/10/iphone-nano/>

<comment><USER6> A "budget" price point phone would be better understood in terms of market segmentation rather than market share; i.e. getting money from people who have a lower maximum price, now that they've gotten money from those who are willing to pay more.

If they wanted market share, they would have just led with the "budget" phone.

<comment><USER7> > If they wanted market share, they would have just led with the "budget" > phone.

But Apple has a luxury brand, and a "budget" device would detract from that (even the lowly iPod shuffle fills a niche for well-off folks: it's small and sleek).

Budget in this context means pre-paid (as per the last earnings ). And I bet that iPhone will not be compatible with a post-paid plan (or vice-versa)... it will be interesting to see how Apple navigates this as they've been very deft at positioning new products in terms of their existing product lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see Apple being fearful to be honest. They are still growing like crazy and they are serving a somewhat different market than Android is. You simply don't buy an iPhone because you want 'some phone'.

This is not to say that an iPhone is better than some Android phone, but this is certainly perceived to be something different than 'the rest' by most of my friends and colleagues.

<comment><USER9> I work in software development. Almost everyone in my department has Android- phones bar a few self-confessed iAddicts (and one daring Windows phone 7 beta- tester). Despite its huge commercial success, the iPhone is among my peers considered a rather lulzy thing and a the undisputed weakest and least sophisticated of all the mobile platforms when measured on its own merits.

Not saying this is absolute truth either, but it certainly shows that your comment about what "most" people might think certainly doesn't ring true universally.

<comment><USER10> _the undisputed weakest and least sophisticated of all the mobile platforms when measured on its own merits._

Oh my fucking God, _please_. I wasn't sure before, but you just outed yourself as a huge Google -fanboy.

Yeah what's Apple's platform got going for it? -It just changed the whole industry and showed How It's Done. It's also regarded as technically very solid, and pleasant to develop for.

<comment><USER11> The iPhone did change the industry and it is technically very solid. However, it is NOT pleasant to develop for.

Having developed private apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 I personally find Windows 7 to be the best platform for development, with Android a distant second. iOS is by far the most painful dev platform of the three.

Unless you really like programming like it's 1985 (a not insignificant number of people really do), in which case it's great.

<comment><USER10> _Unless you really like programming like it's 1985_

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER12> It's 2011, and iOS developers are somehow persuaded to accept a crude imitation of Smalltalk and waste time on "do I need to box this int in a NSNumber?" and "did I get a SIGSEGV because I called [super dealloc] before [field release]?", when the first Smalltalk implementation handled this minutiae automatically on less powerful hardware nearly forty years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Flamebait.

Jobs played up the IP that went into the iPhone at its launch and (paraphrasing from memory) vowed to defend it vigorously at the time, well before a single Droid or Galaxy S or _iPhone_ shipped. I'll dig through the WWDC transcript if someone forces me ;). They knew that they'd be copied, presumably by low-cost imitators as their products have always been imitated, and were always prepared to use IP law to defend their advantage.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this strategy, but Apple saw these market pressures coming a long time ago.

<comment><USER14> I recall that as well, but I think this article is still valid, because it speaks to Apple's vigor in enforcing them, as much as anything. I'm not going to say Apple is desperate yet, but I think that Apple foresees that desperation if they don't very actively pursue anything and everything.

<comment><USER15> For once I totally agree. You must also add, that the vast majority of people are price sensitive and do not really care if they use an Apple, Samsung or HTC device. A lot of people around me bought the iPod (not iPad) because they were the cheapest and nice looking at the same time.

Look around you at people having a decent normal job, kids, a house to repay, etc. At the end of the month, not a lot of money left for the high end Apple stuff. These are not even the majority of the people.

In Europe, basically you have 30% of the people paying no taxes because no money, 30% with money but in fact nearly nothing left at the end of the month and 30% with extra (here I am generous).

The iPhone is selling good in Europe only because it is subsidized by the mobile operators.

So, if you continue following this line, this means that at least in Europe, Apple will simply not be able to grow past the 30% mark if not subsidized by the operators.

Then you hit the last problem, the iPad is seen as a "big" iPhone by people. They use it in addition to a normal computer and buy it with a contract.

Now you have Apple, depending for 60% of their income on hardware which most of the time requires the help of the mobile operators to be sold.

This is not an easy position to be in. I do not own any Apple device, but I thank them for what they do, because they drive the general quality of the smart phones up.

<comment><USER13> People have been predicting Apple's death by the commoditization of consumer electronics since before Jobs' return. It hasn't happened because their expertise in both hardware and software is unparalleled and they have a sterling quality reputation, meaning they will always come out with cool products first and sell them in quantity.

People forget that they're not afraid to disrupt themselves either. If they can create a great $500 tablet, don't be surprised if they can make a great $200 unsubsidized phone if they think the competition demands it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think that if apple were concerned about market share, iPhones would be on every carrier, there would be more iOS phones available and the pricing would be more competitive. I think that they are more happy to be a 20-30% market share with a semi premium product than a commoditized less capable product. The reality is that apple will never be able to compete with hardware vendors that crank out good-enough phones with a cheap yet very capable OS on them. I don't think they want commodity products in their line up. I also think that they may feel similarly to what steve jobs said about Microsoft in the 90s. For apple to win, google/android doesn't necessarily have to lose.

As for the litigation, I don't know that it is necessarily tied to the fact that android has taken off so well. Like it or not, most hardware vendors use apple as a hardware benchmark, so copying their products is inevitable. I would not want to sit idly while other people make knockoffs of my products either.

<comment><USER4> As a almost exclusive Apple product user I am happy with Apple having about 20%-30% market share in major category it is competing as well. (Mac may never reach the goal, but then again as long as it is doing well.)

I'm uncomfortable with iPad's share to be honest, it's not healthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There we go again. Market share. Author did not even bother to consider, at whose expense Samsung and HTC are gaining said share. Apple did grow too. Now 47% of their revenue comes from the product which was launched into the market where Apple had zero marked share and was laughed at for even trying. Another 21% comes from product which did not even exist 1.5 years ago.

Author did forget to include these graphs: [http://www.intomobile.com/2011/05/02/apple-has-50-profit- sha...](http://www.intomobile.com/2011/05/02/apple-has-50-profit-share- smartphone-makers-cant-hear-haters-behind-huge-wall-cash/)

Yep, Apple should be afraid very afraid.

<comment><USER18> Um, no. He pointed out that as the smartphone market grows (at the expense of feature phones, probably), HTC and Samsung are riding that wave much better. It's not horribly surprising, since Apple's product is not likely to be immediately affordable to many of those switching from feature phones, but as the smartphone (and eventually tablet) market becomes commoditized it is not a given that Apple will be able to successfully uphold their profit margin by charging relatively high premiums for their value proposition. Of course they might do just that, but that is not something we can take for granted.

<comment><USER19> From the article, HTC's market share growth in the given interval was 4%, compared to Apple's 3%. Considering they achieved that growth on significantly lower margins than Apple (and consequently much less revenue growth), I don't think it's reasonable to claim HTC are riding the smartphone market growth much better than Apple.

Samsungs 10% growth is more impressive, but again was achieved with much lower margins. Apple could afford to cut their margin significantly if competitive pressure forces their hand, and unlike RIM they have a product which is high demand.

<comment><USER18> Percent is not the same as percentage points, you know. Growing from 6% to 10% is actually a growth of 66% percent, which sounds much more impressive. Fair point about the margins, but the fact is that Apple's entire business model is built on ensuring their margin stays high by charging large premiums for products that are clearly better than the competition. This is not guaranteed to last forever. The other companies on the other hand are used to living in commoditized markets with razor thin margins. I'm not saying Apple are doomed, but they clearly cannot just write the whole competition off, and they obviously aren't.

<comment><USER19> Sure, but by a similar logic going from 0.1 to 0.2% represents 100% growth.

But yes, I agree that Apple are very aware of the competition and the pitfalls of potentially losing marketshare. It would be silly for them to be otherwise. I just don't thing they're running scared yet in the way the original article infers they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The author makes the mistake of equating market share with revenue - it is quite possible that Apple's 19% market share is makes more for them than Nokia at 24%, or even Nokia at 40%.

<comment><USER21> "iPhone share of phone market in Q1: 5% volumes, 20% revenues, 55% profit" - [http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/16/iphone-share-of-phone- marke...](http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/16/iphone-share-of-phone-market- in-q1/)

<comment><USER22> Q2: 66% Profit (!) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820784>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Android's need isn't Apple's fear. Android's need is high market share, Apple's need is user engagement/entertainment (not market, as flash and so on 'badly' prove). Apple do perfectly well with low market share, I wish they wouldn't bother trying getting any further but when you make something so good you can only do so much to keep it out of the hands of some people.

</comment><comment><USER3> What I don't get is why they aren't offering choices of different handsets. They offer 4 different versions of the iPod and 1 version of the iPhone. There should be at least 3 iPhones - the standard version, one with a 4.3 or 4.5 inch screen, and one with a slide out keyboard.

<comment><USER24> That is called fragmentation. It's hard for devs to optimize their apps to look good on different resolutions or aspect ratios. Even making your app to look & work "well" on both portrait and landscape modes is hard (by well I mean pretty, slick and sound).

<comment><USER25> It's somehow worked out for the incredibly fragmented Android environment. Their method of creating images that specify which parts of themselves can be safely stretched (NinePatch, [http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/Nine...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/NinePatch.html)) is a pretty neat technical aid for that situation.

<comment><USER26> NinePatch etc. are neat, but break down on complicated design elements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Samsung and HTC aren't eating Apple's lunch, they're eating Nokia's lunch. The author notes that makers of Android phones are gaining market share faster than Apple, and assumes that this will eventually mean _taking_ market share from Apple, but that's far from given.

</comment><comment><USER28> i'm assuming that the app store revenues are counted as part of the iphone and ipad revenues?

</comment><comment><USER29> Apple is not afraid of Android any more than Porsche is afraid of Ford. They are targeting effectively two distinct markets.

Android doesn't do a great job of competing at the high end of the market outside of tech nerds. Seriously, the one year old iPhone 4 is still outselling even the newer Android phones on Verizon and AT&T.

What Android is killing is becoming the default smartphone at every price range with every feature set you can imagine. Android covers all the smartphones that iPhone doesn't. iPhone isn't for everyone, Android tries harder to be. Android is much less focused as a platform than iOS.

Android is going to keep working hard to be upmarket, and iOS is going to keep working to go downmarket with prepaid devices, more iPod Touch type devices with 3G or GPS or both.

As a developer I just care about getting paid and in my experience people on iOS are more willing to buy my apps. Android users tend to be cheapskates. This can and will change at some point, but Apple is doing better now than they ever have. I doubt they are truly afraid of much right now. They are executing better than ever before.

<comment><USER30> You sound a bit biased. There is love for both iOS and Android in and out of the "geek" community. My dad who is far from a geek has owned an iPhone and iPad. Now my mom owns them both and he owns a Droid X and Xoom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Come on, man. Stop riding around on your inflated high horse. There's no platform war here for you to win, you ridiculous anti-Apple crusader wannabe. These actors all in the same boat, knee-deep in shitty lawsuits coming from all angles. And, remember, Apple fervently stressed the breadth of their IP portfolio of the iPhone long before Android showed up, along with promises to defend it.</comment>


Show HN: During the last week, I built a SPDY server. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jonasschneider/momentum

<comment><USER2> IMHO, SPDY should be implemented on the frontend servers like varnish, HAProxy or nginx. If you do SPDY on the backend server, you cause a lot of additional problems:

1) your backend servers should use their hardware for actually running the web application, not for encrypting responses.

2) usually, your backend servers only serve the dynamically generated content. SPDY's biggest advantage is that it would allow to handle multiple requests in one connection, but this really shines for static assets (images, stylesheets) which in turn are rarely served by the backend.

3) Even if you want to do SPDY on the backend, your frontend proxies still have to support it, because that's what the clients are talking to.

So as it stands now, having SPDY on the backend server (or even in your application like this project here) doesn't really give you any of SPDY's advantages unless you begin serving all of your site directly from your application servers, which we learned over the last years, just doesn't scale as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> The author here. I can understand that it's not clear from the README, but I only chose a Rack implementation for the backend in order to make developing those 'Adapters' easier for others, since Rack is pretty standard in the Ruby world. One of the implemented adapters, Proxy, acts a proxy to another HTTP server. In the performance section:

"[The results] show the power that lies in the simple addition of a SPDY server to an existing nginx/Thin configuration (and probably also Unicorn/nginx.)"

I am totally for the separation of front- and backend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great work. I'm not as up-to-date on SPDY servers as I should be, but this seems to be one of the few suited for non-trivial use cases.

</comment><comment><USER4> Disclaimer: I am not a programmer or web guy.

Would this technology be beneficial to Hacker News? Is the site currently hosted on a SPDY-compatible server?

<comment><USER5> Its only for Rack based apps (Ruby) and this website is written in pg's own lisp-like language. So, no :)

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm confused; I thought SPDY was a HTTP replacement written by Google:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY>

<comment><USER6> Yes, SPDY is a cross-platform protocol. This submission is a Ruby implementation of a SPDY server for Rack applications like Ruby on Rails. The news.ycombinator.com server is written in the arc language. SPDY is awesome.

<comment><USER4> Ok. It's my fault for not being clear in my original message. I wasn't talking about the linked SPDY implementation but about SPDY in general. Sorry, I should have marked it as OT.

<comment><USER5> All good - we are all here to share knowledge :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stupid question, but what are the advantages of SPDY? And how should the average hacker use it?

<comment><USER8> speed and security.

Headers are gziped, concurrent request on a single TCP session, everything over ssl and some push capabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great! Nice work!</comment>


12 sci-fi technologies already changing the way we live - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2016/08/09/12-sci-fi-technologies-already-changing-way-live/ <comment><USER2> Mining natural resources on the moon and asteroids could really accelerate Fusion power options for the future.. Great list!</comment>


Keybase moves to stop onslaught of spammers - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/keybase-moves-to-deal-with-crypto-chat-spam-as-users-face-scammer-onslaught/ <comment><AUTHOR> I thought it might just be me, but the amount of messages I've been getting through the Keybase app has reached 'deluge' stage lately; in the past few weeks I would get 3-5 new messages per day like "Hello" or "Hey" or "Did you get my AirDrop?"

Completely random, people I'd never heard of. I thought maybe it was people who found me through one of my OSS projects, but now I'm just thinking it's general spam on their platform.

Definitely turns me off from considering using Keybase (the app/site/platform) for any kind of messaging. At this point all Keybase notifications are disabled.</comment>


Stretching crystals promises flexible colour displays - <AUTHOR> http://technology.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12534&feedId=online-news_rss20

<comment><AUTHOR> Think display technology will get this far in twenty years?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo_QVq2lGMs> (Music video for Justice's D.A.N.C.E., it is stylized images of people wearing animated t-shirts.)

</comment><comment><USER2> I imagine we'll get able to get floating holographic-like displays in the future.</comment>


How NASA Certifies New Spacecraft Safe Enough for Humans - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/how-nasa-certifies-new-spacecraft-safe-enough-for-humans/ <comment><USER2> There has been a lot of controversy regarding the process that NASA has imposed on SpaceX in comparison to previous spacecraft. The Space Shuttle would never be approved under modern rules. Not that that is a bad thing.</comment>