Paper Centrifuge - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/this-human-powered-paper-centrifuge-is-pure-genius-1790996940 <comment><USER3> As usual, what you really want to do is read the paper: [http://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-016-0009](http://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-016-0009)

This is a well-written and very clear paper. It covers several aspects that went unmentioned in the Gizmodo article, and highlights that although building such a device may be trivial, evaluating and studying it is not.

Some highlights: the paper covers how the device was built in detail, including information on the three safety mechanisms used to ensure the operator doesn't get exposed to infected blood (shatterproof plastic capillaries, epoxied sample holders made from drinking straws, and sealing of the capillaries inside two paper discs). It is exclusively made from low-cost materials, but it's more than just a piece of paper, handles and some string (fishing wire).

The paper also covers the physical dynamics of the "paperfuge" in great detail, analyzing its rotational dynamics and building a theoretical model of motion that agrees well with the physical observations (captured with a 6000fps high-speed camera). It also shows that the max RPM varies with disc size, with 125000 RPM for a small disc (5mm diameter). The paper even mentions that this was submitted as a Guiness World Record.

Finally it shows that the paperfuge produces sample separation results on par with electromechanical centrifuges using similar spinning time (1.5min for paperfuge, 2min for centrifuge for plasma separation), and does an analysis of the resulting blood samples.

<comment><USER4> Holy crap. 125,000RPM for a 5mm disc means the edge is spinning at nearly 9,000mph.

On top of that, the g-force would be

        a = v^2 / r
        v = 2 * pi * 5mm * 125000/60 s^-1`
        r = 5mm

...giving 87,000 gees?!

I start to wonder if general relativity effects (frame-dragging?) start to become noticeable at that acceleration.

<comment><USER5> Quick math and google says no:

9,000 MPH = 0.00001342 C

Threshold for relativistic effects is .01 C according to this paper:

[http://hyperphysics.phy- astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/rellim.ht...](http://hyperphysics.phy- astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/rellim.html)

EDIT: Rereading that paper, they're focused at the particle level, which may or may not make this irrelevant. I know anecdotally that GPS satellites have to take relativity into account. Geostationary satellites move at 1.9 miles per seconds, which is 6840 mph - quite a bit lower than our centrifuge. That being said, the precision required for GPS means that very small changes due to relative effects have a rather large impact. In short, where there is motion, there is relativity. Is it enough to measure here? Possibly - <USER2> a small microcontroller and having it report the time would be interesting. Is it enough to matter? The answer is relative.

<comment><USER6> I believe in GPS satellites relativistic effects are due in greater part to the difference in gravity between the surface of the earth and the satellite, more so than the special relativity effects.

<comment><USER7> According to a reference[1] from Wikipedia[2] the effect would be 45 μs for general relativity 7 μs for special relativity, combining into a 38 μs drift.

So although you are technically correct (45 > 7) they are both significant.

[1] [http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps....](http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Hist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#History)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The lab behind this invention is led by Manu Prakash, a MacArthur Fellow [1] with a knack for unconventional solutions. He's the same guy who developed Foldscope, an ultra low cost microscope [2][3].

[1]: [https://www.macfound.org/fellows/965/](https://www.macfound.org/fellows/965/)

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

[3]: [https://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_that_folds_like_origami)

<comment><USER9> Heh, not surprising. I must follow this Man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looking at this makes me want to find a way to crowdsource basic research problems like this to try and take advantage of the ingenuity of people who would otherwise never even know that this kind of problem existed.

There are probably a lot of problems like this that involve making something incredibly cheap to be used in the developing world.

I think people would do that for free if they could know the bare minimum big picture of how their contribution would be used (ie, malaria treatment, even if you have no idea how your gadget could fit in). It could be something like "Need a device that can reach X rpms and can only be made of Y and Z and must cost less than N" and then just see what people can come up with.

I'm not sure how it would work on more complex problems but for clever solutions that rely on limited resources and simplicity I would love to see what people could come up with.

<comment><USER11> I think that if you could get the problem statement as concise as "Need a device that can reach X rpms and can only be made of Y and Z and must cost less than N" then the battle is won.

Another example of this kind of innovation that comes to mind is using freezing wax as a heat source to keep neonatal babies warm.

[http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace](http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace)

The problem statement for that would be something like, "neonates need to be kept at a stable temp."

For this one it might be, "We need some way to separate blood solids from liquids." But maybe even that is too close to a "solution stated as a problem after the fact."

I think that challenges like this are commonly used as exercises for undergrad design students. But I love the idea of expanding it. A version of the x-prizes that require basically no capital, just imagination.

<comment><USER10> I agree that identifying the 'leaf' problems is the majority of the work but it would be nice to see if you could improve the quality of some of the solutions to these problems by opening them up to the entire world. It would be interesting to see if people in the 3rd world (who are used to making do with less and clever use of materials) could even improve on some lab solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is slightly off-topic -- but for any kitchen nerds out there, Dave Arnold of Cooking Issues (amazing podcast[0]) and Searzall fame is doing a crowdfunding campaign[1] to build an "affordable" centrifuge for the kitchen/bar. His goal is to make it the next piece of high-end modernist cooking gear within reach of the home cook...

Not anywhere close to the $0.20 cost of this paper centrifuge, but still a pretty huge savings compared to the $6k-$10k units generally available currently.

[0] [http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking- issues/](http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking-issues/)

[1] [https://blog.modernistpantry.com/spinzall/](https://blog.modernistpantry.com/spinzall/)

<comment><USER13> Not sure the $6k centrifuge isn't a _lot_ better though.

See "DO I REALLY NEED TO BUY A CENTRIFUGE?" section here-> [http://www.ginandluck.com/clarified-citrus-centrifuge- proces...](http://www.ginandluck.com/clarified-citrus-centrifuge-process/)

Also, do you have to clean this one each time (as opposed to using different bottles placed inside?

<comment><USER12> Of course the home cook doesn't _need_ a centrifuge -- but I sure do _want_ one!

Kind of like how I started cooking sous vide 5 years ago with nothing but a pot, a probe thermometer, some ziplock bags, and a ton of patience. 3 meals later an I was wiring together my first home-made circulator...

<comment><USER13> My point is, that section discusses pricing.

BTW, did you document the home made circulator? I bought a bunch of Anovas during cyber Monday, and wondering if that works out economically...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Part of me wonders, A.) if it's possible to enrich uranium using something like this, and B.) how many man-years of hand-spinning it would take to get enough weapons-grade material that way.

Back of the envelope calculation: U-235 is a little less than 1% of naturally occurring Uranium, so supposing that you could load up 1 gram of Uranium per spin session, you'd get a maximum of 10 milligrams per session, so you'd need about 2.2 million sessions to get the requisite 22kg of U-235. Of course, you'd get nowhere near 100% efficiency out of a hand centrifuge in the first spin session, so it would probably require a cascade of several stages. If each stage gets rid of half of the U-238, then the number of spins you would need to get to 100% would asymptotically approach 2x, so we are looking at 4.4 million spin sessions. If each were to take 1 minute, we'd need about 8 years.

To be honest that seems overly optimistic, and there are probably technical details like dealing with UF6 gas that are way harder than I thought.

(happy to be corrected by a Nuclear engineer if there is one around).

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd be suspect about the quality of the centrifuging since it is changing directions on every spin. But I haven't read the paper so maybe they have checked that.

I know that when I centrifuge something delicate, even having even a very light magnetic force brake on the centrifuge on can screw up the pellet at the bottom. Rapidly changing the g-force direction like this seems like the worst case scenario.

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't the g-force direction always be the same (away from the center) regardless of direction of spin and zero at the inflection between spin directions (normal gravity excepted)?

<comment><USER15> If you have something slung on one side of the tube, it will rapidly want to go to the other side of the tube as the centrifuge switches direction on the reverse spin.

<comment><USER17> 1\. The g-force always acts in one direction: towards the outside of the disc.

2\. The diameter of the tube is small. It's nearly 1-D dynamics in there.

3\. Very large g-forces only happen at top rotational speeds. When not rotating, the material gets slowly mixed back up, but at the regular (i.e. very slow) diffusion speed.

So: separation works always towards the outside + re-mixing is a much slower process = it works as expected.

<comment><USER15> Yes I understand what you are saying, that the force is going to the outside of the disc, but using even light braking (over minutes or even hours for ultracentrifuging) can disturb a pellet or separation. This is rapidly coming to a complete stop and reversing direction over and over.

<comment><USER18> _Ultra_ centrifuges are a whole different animal than blood centrifuges. The former are used for separating tiny things like viruses, organelles, and macromolecules while the latter are used just to separate blood into white blood cell/platelet, red blood cell, and plasma layers. These cells are orders of magnitude larger than anything you'd use an ultracentrifuge for and short of deliberatly shaking the sample, it won't mix quickly after the centrifuge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sometimes the most advanced technology in the world is the simplest most childish thing around.

<comment><USER20> "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Seems _a propos_! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember doing this with big coat buttons and string when I was a kid.

<comment><USER22> yup. Amazing application..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beautiful, beautiful, just beautiful. Reminds me of primitivetechnology on YouTube.

I'd love to see how far one can go with 'simple' physics.

</comment><comment><USER23> 15 mins of human labor per test doesn't sound cheap but I guess you can get the patient to do it themselves.

A bit curious, why is a cheap centrifuge hard to build? It seems like a pretty simple device and motors are pretty cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not: [https://diybio.org/2012/06/11/dremelfuge- classic/](https://diybio.org/2012/06/11/dremelfuge-classic/)

But presumably this could be for regions in which even those materials are difficult to obtain.

<comment><USER24> I use the dremelfuge. It's not particularly safe, but it does get the job done for very basic spin-downs. You don't have really precise RPM control, as well as many other things.

<comment><USER25> I wonder if you could use a laser tachometer to help dial in the RPM? e.g.

[https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photo-Laser-Tachometer- Contac...](https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photo-Laser-Tachometer- Contact/dp/B001N4QY66)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is this on the front page?

<comment><USER27> This is Hacker News, and this seems like an excellent hack.

From [http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hack.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hack.html)

> Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.

See also [http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of- hack.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html) and [https://stallman.org/articles/on- hacking.html](https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> whats next? a fake life size cut out image of a doctor with a smartphone attached to it for a speaker?

its sad that people have to die because they don't have access to the technology that's not that expensive and readily available in the "developed countries".

And now we have to come up with some pathetic paper gizmos to justify our actions? Are we really that developed? Seems to me that we are going backwards...

<comment><USER29> I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here. If you have a better solution to centrifuge availability than a 20c one made out of paper, please enlighten us.

<comment><USER28> yes i have a better solution - kill one of those multibillion military projects and redirect the money to buy lifesaving medical equipment to the places that need it. equip research facilities with equipment and provide local training.

paper centrifuge? its like a slap on the face.

<comment><USER30> Those expensive medical machines require a lot of infrastructure to operate properly. You could get a machine there, but you likely couldn't provide it clean and reliable power without additional equipment and technicians to maintain it. Bootstrapping infrastructure is stupendously hard and expensive (and is a huge measure of a country's wealth - a lot of the US wealth is tied up in structural infrastructure like power lines, roads, plants, etc). It's a generational process taking decades to bootstrap.

All the while that is getting built people need help now, and this clever adaptation of a toy fills that niche. Eventually they'll have access to the more advanced modern wonders, but for now this can help people almost immediately.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. One of the things the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project initially ignored was the infrastructure needed, such as electricity and internet access.

<comment><USER32> > initially ignored

Initially? Has that changed now?

The founder, Nicholas Negroponte went on tear around the world claiming to have saved millions of children and being the father of tablet computing. He even talked about throwing OLPCs out of helicopters on to those brown and black masses. Even claimed that mothers would be better off getting a laptop than subsidized food. I recall he shat on some reporter who had the audacity to quote UNDP analysis that showed spending on lunch-at-school programs had far more impact than spending on teacher technology.

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395763,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395763,00.asp)

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure, but I think pg314 is making reference to the hand crank that could be used to power the laptop. I don't think it was initially included in the design (I may be wrong on that). I also heard rumor it wasn't a smashing success as a power supply, but it was so long ago that I don't remember the details terribly well.

I'm actually far more optimistic these days about tech in difficult areas. The computing power (and screens!) we can get out of just a small battery is phenomenal compared to OLPC's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Walk into any modern hospital central lab today, look at the life saving technology thats available to us and ask yourself why we still have not figured out how to give other people access to this?

paper centrifuge? come on...

<comment><USER33> You mean why haven't we achieved world peace and provided the entire world with stable electricity and sufficient capital to build labs and expensive medical equipment to fill them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Really? Didnt anyone used to do this when you were a kid? [http://www.makeandtakes.com/diy-paper- spinner](http://www.makeandtakes.com/diy-paper-spinner)

<comment><USER35> I can't remember using it to centrifuge blood samples, but maybe your childhood was different from mine.

<comment><USER36> We used it to demonstrate centrifugal forces in elementary school by spinning one and putting drops of food coloring in the center. They were made of lightly-waxed parchment paper so you could see a trail it left behind as it got flung off.

I'm just surprised it took this long. That particular lesson was... 26 years ago for me.

<comment><USER37> Well why didn't you tell the world about this 26 years ago. Heck, why didn't you tell the world 2 days ago?

<comment><USER36> Then, much like now, I'm too busy with minerals and the inordinate amounts of money people will pay for them.

<comment><USER37> It must be tough having no free time over 26 years. Hope retirement goes well for you!

<comment><USER36> Retirement? That doesn't happen to workaholics like myself.

<comment><USER38> Is posting to Hacker News part of your work?

<comment><USER36> It's what I do while I'm waiting for 4-ton boulders to get moved out of the way with heavy explosives.

<comment><USER37> You should have used that time to invent the technology that you knew about for 20+ years.

<comment><USER36> Why me instead of someone else? Someone else needs to have success in life. I'm too busy getting you guys the lithium you need for your portable devices because you can't be bothered to do proper recycling.

<comment><USER37> That's quite noble of you. I just hope you aren't also sitting on the cure for cancer, so you don't hog all the glory for humanity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Re-inventing a 5000-year-old toy is genius? H'okay......

<comment><USER40> Putting an ancient toy to a new and brilliant use is genius.

If you can find a way to make pick-up-sticks into a seawater desalinator, I'll bet you could get a nice article written up about you too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> And still a better product than whatever Thanos was working on.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is awesome! Hopefully no one decides "epi-pen" this idea

</comment><comment><USER43> Cool idea but it can't possibly be safe to spin infected blood on a device such as this.

<comment><USER44> I don't know why it would be any more dangerous than a typical centrifuge. Samples are in a vial, and that vial is what is responsible for containing the sample while you spin the samples. Having been around conventional centrifuges that have been destroyed due to improper balance, I assure you that any way you can imagine infected blood being distributed by the paper model would be 10x worse with a normal centrifuge. At least with this method, the motor has a brain and will stop as soon as things start going south.

A lot of centrifuges are just controlled by a potentiometer. You couldn't pay me enough to to get close enough to turn one of those off while it is self- destructing. The amount of energy involved is enormous. Someone blew up a (rather inexpensive) medical centrifuge at my school when they balanced some non-water liquid with water. It was a huge mess. Centrifuges are basically designed to contain the most dangerous bits when they explode. They don't keep your error from spraying all over the room.

<comment><USER45> True story: The company I work for make some pretty hefty winches for offshore use. Think ROVs, subsea oil installation, salvage &c.

Years ago, one of our customers had ignored a number of increasingly strongly worded safety bulletins, the end result being that just as they were going to hoist their megabuck ROV back aboard, the winch motors stopped and - for an encore - it turned out they hadn't tested the brake in ages, either - so it was incapable of halting the winch.

Now, the ROV itself would very gently drift towards the bottom. Too bad the umbilical cord between it and the winch weighs several kilos per meter.

The initial yank as the ROV freefell to the sea surface and the inertia of the drum ensured enough cable was paid out for the weight of it to keep the winch going faster and faster. Basically you had a very large loop with the ROV at one end, the winch at another.

This drum was designed for some 30rpm or so at the maximum design speed. Based on a video from a surveillance camera, we found the drum did close to 200 rpm as a few tons of cable pulled at it.

At this point, thinking the brakes must have been stuck disengaged, some brave soul with poor judgment and an axe appears, chopping off the hydraulic hoses to the brake. Lucky for him, the brakes weren't able to stop the thing anyway - otherwise, he would have found out if the designers had made the frame sturdy enough to remain intact during the retardation which would have followed.

This brave soul then realises that the game will be up in a few moments' time anyway - when the drum runs out of cable, at which point being anywhere near the winch will be very bad for you.

He runs like mad, disappear from the frame and then, seconds later - kerrrr- whaaang as the umbilical is ripped from the drum, the drum is torn from the frame and it all disappears into the large, blue waste disposal.

That led to a quite interesting post mortem. They found assorted bits and pieces of the winch all over the deck.

Somewhat off topic, but disintegrating centrifuges got me started...

<comment><USER46> I work at a company that makes ROVs, and your story sounds very similar to a story I heard a few years back. I wonder if it was one of ours that got dropped.

<comment><USER45> Depends. If your employer happens to be named Schilling, we may need to get together for a beer. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> its a nice toy, for kids to learn science.

but really, what are we - stuck in the stone age? Its year 2017, there is no reason why those people should not have access to the advanced technology we enjoy today in the west.

make a pathetic paper centrifuge and give ourselves a pat on the back, really?

What have we become?

<comment><USER47> That's because borders stop them from accessing much greater wages.

Even if you find the situation bad, these researchers helped improve the situation.

<comment><USER28> i understand that they do what they have to do.

but lets not kid ourselves that this is some kind of solution that those people deserve. its an interesting student project, sure, if all equipment fails - there is a way to get your hematocrit count manually.

How would most of us feel if we came into an office for a blood draw and saw this toy? At the same time when there are machines widely available that will do complete CBC and other panels of blood tests on a single vacutainer tube in under 3 minutes?

<comment><USER48> If you lived somewhere in which neither were available, you'd want the one that could actually be delivered in time to make an impact.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


John McCarthy: Elephant a programming language for 2015, mp3, 25m, 11.9mb - <AUTHOR> http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3770.html

<comment><USER2> For the very confused this is an audio file, in mp3 format, 25 minutes and 11.9MB.

I think you could have done a better job with the title - you don't need to say mp3, or 11.9mb - no one really cares (not in a title anyway).

"John McCarthy: Elephant, a programming language for 2015; 25 minute audio file" would have been much clearer.

And Elephant sounds like a verb in your title, which made things even more confusing. Note the comma and semi colon in my version.</comment>


Amazon to Launch 10 Inch Kindle Fire in Coming Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.freshtechweb.com/amazon-to-launch-10-inch-kindle-fire-in-coming-months.html

<comment><USER2> Personally, I just want a cheaper Kindle DX. I've been waiting for years for those suckers to get down to a reasonable price. I want to be able to read conference papers, the Linux Journal, and my O'Reilly ebook collection on something of a decent size.

<comment><USER3> I have a Kindle DX and it's absolutely awesome. It's not much larger area-wise than a large hardcover book, but obviously quite a bit thinner.

I can understand why Amazon keeps pushing the regular-size Kindles (price- point), but the DX should have had a price cut by now.

<comment><USER4> My guess is the DX is a forgotten child they won't be revisiting (any time soon). They have back-stock of the device, but will not make any more (any time soon), so based on the stock they do have they are comfortable with the supply/demand ratio at the current price point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It will be interesting to see how they price it. I think $279 would be the sweet spot because if they bring it up to $299 then it would be close to a theoretical $399 iPad 2 (if Apple continues to sell them alongside the iPad 3 as has been rumored) Amazon needs to say firmly in the "low price" segment for now as their software/hardware is nowhere near as polished as iOS.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would buy a Fire if it were a real Android device, but it's even more heavily modified than your average heavily-modified-Android device, and we all know how up-to-date those things stay. For example, why should I be satisfied with Amazon's browser when I could be using Chrome instead?

I understand why they might not want the "Google Experience" on their device, but I don't understand why they can't maintain a patchset on top of AOSP. Give me an up-to-date OS, and I'll add the software I want. I'll even promise not to ask for support!

</comment><comment><USER7> I really hope they come to some kind of agreement with Google. The Fire is decent enough for the price, but no Google apps is frustrating. My Android phone is a more capable device for less money in part due to the Google apps.

Also, some more data input would help a lot - a microphone and camera for skype type usage, for instance.

<comment><USER8> Hear!! Hear!!

I would only buy one if I can install a stock version of Android and get access to the Android Market.

<comment><USER9> You can. Many people do. At least with the 7" Kindle.</comment></comment></comment>


Economic charts that may indicate what is wrong with the U.S. economy - <AUTHOR> http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/what-is-wrong-with-the-u-s-economy-here-are-10-economic-charts-that-will-blow-your-mind

<comment><USER2> There is only one chart that shows relative numbers, such as percentages. The rest just show absolute numbers. These would be much more interesting if they provided a year to year comparison. As they stand now, they just show the population has been increasing and not much else.

<comment><USER3> Some of the charts need correcting for inflation as well as population growth.

That's not to say the US government doesn't have a real problem --- the third chart (labelled "Chart 9") and the seventh seem to be presented correctly. But it doesn't help to present misleading graphics.</comment></comment>


Anatomy of a Next Generation Text Editor - <AUTHOR> http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/anatomy-of-a-next-generation-text-editor <comment><USER2> This looks an awful lot like Vim to me. Only it's not clear whether the zillions of plugins and syntax rules from Vim will work with this thing, or whether I can run it in a screen session for 6 months unmolested, or... well, you get the idea.

(Sure, people thought search was a solved problem and then Google came along and upended the world. But that's kind of the exception to the rule, don't you think?)

</comment><comment><USER3> Aren't you the same person who posted <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=93204> ? :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with some of what was posted but has the poster thought that the reason text editors havn't had much love is because there isn't much space to innovate.</comment>


Show HN: Flatsies – concept sharing for designers - <AUTHOR> http://flatsi.es/

<comment><USER2> This looks really slick. Probably worth thinking about building some kind of tour, or explanation of how it works. The screenshot is beautiful, but may be insufficient to get people to sign up just to learn more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes you're definitely right. I'm going to do a short video tour at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Was using Dropmark for sharing designs, but after seeing Flatsies I'm tempted to switch.</comment>


NY's Metropolitan Museum of Art releases 375K digital works online via CC0 - <AUTHOR> https://creativecommons.org/2017/02/07/met-announcement/ <comment><USER2> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13593334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13593334)

<comment><USER3> And I should add: if any of you work at The Met or the Rijksmuseum and want to be in touch about us hosting a CC0 copy of the images, please get in touch! (We've tried to reach out via the emails we could find, but I don't think we've received a response yet).

<comment><USER4> While I think its very cool Google would reach out to host a copy, the canonical copy belongs in the Internet Archive.

EDIT: No snark intended.

<comment><USER3> _A_ canonical copy certainly does, but just as folks don't want to keep scraping the Met, I'd prefer that folks who want to do style analysis or color transfer or whatever else, do so with a public dataset in GCS (and S3!).

<comment><USER4> I appreciate your efforts to provide such a copy :) Apologies if my parent comment sounded negative, it was not mean to be!

A rising tide lifts all boats.

<comment><USER3> Not at all!

I'd argue it's extremely clear that if there could be only one allowed copy, it'd be with the Internet archive (and failing that Wikipedia? It's not even the same ballpark, but I think that's second).

I've just come around to the "more copies are better" standpoint, especially for different needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found a series of really nice sketches but the images are only 600x406px [0]. Wish they'd release higher-res images suitable as desktop backgrounds...

[0] [https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/image/detail/_UraJxSFDX...](https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/image/detail/_UraJxSFDXbrvGcQmMyRsA==)

<comment><USER6> If you head over to the Met itself's site for this piece[1], it's available to download in full size, 3693x2501. Also, if you take the URL of the picture on the CC page, you can exchange the "web-large" in the URL for "original" to get the main image.

Also, that piece in particular is actually an etching, not a sketch! You can read about the process at [2]. :)

[1] [http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/373059](http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/373059)

[2] [http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/about_rembrandt's_etchings....](http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/about_rembrandt's_etchings.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where does one go for a dump of all the images? I'm assuming that they'd rather one not scrape the site.

<comment><USER4> A dump is not available yet.

> The Met collection of CC0 images can be browsed on the new CC Search beta, > also announced this morning.</comment></comment>


Dung beetles prefer human feces to those of wild animals - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/01/09/dung-beetles-prefer-human-faeces-to-those-of-wild-animals <comment><AUTHOR> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZN1iW1...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZN1iW1PIOacJ:https://www.economist.com/science- and-technology/2020/01/09/dung-beetles-prefer-human-faeces-to-those-of-wild- animals+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337543657_Linking_d...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337543657_Linking_dung_beetle- mediated_functions_to_interactions_in_the_Atlantic_Forest_Sampling_design_matters)</comment>


What PostgreSQL has over other open source SQL databases: Part II - <AUTHOR> https://www.compose.io/articles/what-postgresql-has-over-other-open-source-sql-databases-part-ii/ <comment><USER2> I wish postgreSQL focuses more on clustering, sharding and replication and bundle these features in the product rather than asking us to use other thirdparty tools like slony and pgpoolII. Other than that, postgreSQL is one of the cleanest SQL implementations. It's source code is incredibly clean, consistent and easy to follow.

<comment><USER3> yeah. So I haven't set up a postgres or mysql server in more than five years, but I was seriously into both before that. In the early to mid-aughts, I was heavily into PostgreSQL when I had a choice, but spent a lot of time on MySQL when other people did the deciding.

So last week I was setting up a sql server for a side project I was doing with a friend, and went with MySQL just because I knew it would take me ten minutes to setup async replication, whereas with PostgreSQL, I'd have to spend a bunch of time figuring out what third party thing to use now.

Even just having simple master/slave asynchronous replication functionality built in would help a lot.

<comment><USER4> > Even just having simple master/slave asynchronous replication functionality > built in would help a lot.

Check out [0], or the docs on the same topic for the latest version at [1]. It _looks_ like built-in async master/slave replication has been available since at least 2010-09-20, in Postgres 9.0.

[0] [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/high- availability....](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/high- availability.html)

[1] [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/high- availability....](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/high- availability.html)

<comment><USER3> Sweet! thank you. that's just what I wanted.

<comment><USER4> No problem! Good luck with your projects! :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having worked with MySQL for years, my mind was blown using Postgres for the first time this year (mainly due to HStore, CTEs, and transactional DDL statements). However, one constant pain point for me was the lack of an upsert. Glad to read Postgres will be getting it in 9.5!

<comment><USER6> I wrote an upsert generator a long time ago. It was one of the easier things to work around.

<comment><USER5> Alot of the difficulty was explaining to others that there wasn't an easy way to upsert, and trying to ensure everyone did it the proper way.

<comment><USER6> In OSS communities it's a serious problem. At work, it was routine: this is yet another thing that can be more easily screwed up if you don't use a library solution we've provided you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Part I of the series: [https://www.compose.io/articles/what-postgresql-has- over-oth...](https://www.compose.io/articles/what-postgresql-has-over-other- open-source-sql-databases/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I needed to implement tagging a while ago, particularly looking up a row with multiple tags. As far as I know, the main way to do this is usually to put the tags in another table and join multiple times (once per tag) to find a row that has them all. This performed rather badly (100s of ms for 5 tags from memory).

But with Postgres, you can put a GIN index on an Array column. So I moved my tags into an array column and suddenly querying for every one of several million rows that had matched a set of 7 tags took ~10ms.

Postgres is awesome.

<comment><USER9> I don't know much about SQL, but are you sure you need multiple joins for that?

I'd do something like this (psuedocode) on the table with the tags:

      SELECT foreign-id, COUNT(*)
      FROM Tags
      WHERE tag IN ('foo', 'bar', 'baz')
      GROUP BY foreign-id
      HAVING COUNT(*) = 3

It does seem rather hacky though.

<comment><USER8> Hmm, I don't know much about it either and it looks like you're right. I don't believe that querying it is nearly as fast as querying a GIN index (or as easy) still.

With Postgres I just do this and it gives me a result in a couple ms:

        SELECT * FROM things WHERE ARRAY['tag1', 'tag2'] <@ tags;

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Re GUI clients - I've tried most purchased several - I agree pgAdmin is quite clunky and bit ugly also crashes regularly on Mac but not windows in my experience, it's main problem is the query editor is so weak. I don't understand why Postico has so many positive comments, I bought it and was very disappointed, yes it looks pretty but its capability is pathetic, much weaker than pgAdmin, I was hoping its query editor would be better but this is weak also, does not even give line numbers when reporting errors so useless for large queries I often run. I've found I great solution though - Sublime Text an amazing this awesome query editor lighting fast - rock solid loads of great plugins for sql and postgres, auto complete, snippits, the search and replace ability alone makes it worth using compared to pgAdmin. The build system makes it easy to execute queries inside ST, I used to copy paste queries from Notepad++ into PgAdmin years ago before I discovered the joys of direct execution and immediate feedback possible in Sublime Text. See this link for details on how to set up - only takes a few minutes [http://blog.code4hire.com/2014/04/sublime-text-psql-build- sy...](http://blog.code4hire.com/2014/04/sublime-text-psql-build-system/)

<comment><USER11> Have you tried DBeaver ([http://dbeaver.jkiss.org/](http://dbeaver.jkiss.org/))?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Postgres has come a long way. Some of these features are very cool, like the WITH RECURSIVE. I wonder what's the performance implication is. Often you can gauge the performance by looking at the query, like a table scan or using index. Assuming the parent topic column is indexed, would the recursive walk take INDEX + SCAN? Where the INDEX is the parent topic look up and the SCAN is the aggregate look up of the subtopic.

<comment><USER4> Is the information provided by

      explain select ...

insufficient?

<comment><USER13> There's also EXPLAIN ANALYZE which may yield different output than just an EXPLAIN.

<comment><USER14> Or EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS), which is very useful when you suspect disk IO may be a choke point.

<comment><USER13> Didn't know about BUFFERS. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I absolutely love Postgres, for these and other reasons, but the one weak point is the official GUI client. It's garbage, and unfortunately it's one of the first things people ask me about when I encourage them to use Postgres.

<comment><USER16> [http://dbeaver.jkiss.org](http://dbeaver.jkiss.org) works pretty well for me

<comment><USER17> This looks awesome! Are you able to use the jsonb data types through this?

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure as I'm not started playing with Jsonb yet! but give it a try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article and the previous one are interesting but it's just highlighting features Postgres has that MySQL/MariaDB don't have. I was expecting a "fair" comparison and that's not what these are.

<comment><USER4> > [The article is] just highlighting features Postgres has that MySQL/MariaDB > don't have. [That's not a fair comparison.]

I disagree. If one project has a significant, useful feature that another project does not, it behooves someone who is comparing the projects to mention this fact.

<comment><USER19> Isn't that the GP's point? The article elides the reverse case, features that postgres lacks but MySQL/MariaDB have. "It behooves someone who is comparing the projects to mention this fact."

<comment><USER4> A few things:

* The article's title is "What PostgreSQL has over other open source SQL databases: Part II". It's PostgreSQL focused, _and_ part 2 in an N-part series.

* When a similar feature appears in MySQL, MariaDB, or Firebird, the author makes mention of it, its limitations, and provides a brief comparison of the implementation differences and/or limitations of that feature across databases.

Given that the usual form of these sorts of article series is to have a one- half or one article feature comparison in the reverse direction, and given that the author takes the time to briefly call out details of other DB's implementations of a given feature -rather than just proclaiming that "POSTGRES IS THE BESTEST!!1!"\- I look askance at ebbv's claim that the article is making unfair comparisons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good article, but according to the post Title, I'd like to read how each features make postgres better than mysql or other, in terms of performance for example. Nice to have a list of unique features of postgres but having many indexing feature doesn't mean to be better than other dbs.

P.s. Postgres is my favourite db

<comment><USER6> Many features supported by PostgreSQL but not by MySQL are the features that make PostgreSQL better for many purposes. I think you should compare the suitability of the database to the task, not databases to databases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> 1) Its not MySQL

</comment><comment><USER22> Cool still going to use the best tool for the job.</comment>


Introducing Brackets, an open source code editor built from HTML, CSS & JS - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/codebrackets

<comment><USER2> Looks like an awesome project, but I think if it had plugins for more types of code that would be much more valuable. When building websites, I don't just use HTML, JS, and CSS, there are many other languages to consider...

A lot of cool ideas here though.</comment>


Show HN: Dollar Lean Club Mobile App - <AUTHOR> Just launched the 'Dollar Lean Club' app on Google Play Store. Sorry no iOS version yet.
Looking for as much critique as possible.
New features that weren't part of initial web app idea includes workout programs that you can apply to your week per availability.
I also added my personal plan in there. I am a competitive bodybuilder.
I promise to respond to all comments. Especially about features you think should be included.
Ie. Logging workout
Thanks guys <comment><USER2> You forget to add a link to the Play Store page.</comment>


The Ugly History of Tool Development at the FAA (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.baselinemag.com/networking/The-Ugly-History-of-Tool-Development-at-the-FAA/

<comment><USER2> A few points - I used Ada in the late 80's and early 90's, and also had plenty of interactions with the FAA.

The paragraphs about OO and Ada did not ring 100% true to me. OO was not added to Ada until 1995; The project was cancelled in 1994. I just pulled Grady Booch's "Software Engineering with Ada" C 1987, and it does have 8 pages on OO, but all it is talking about is packaging and encapsulation - the word "object" is not really defined. I.e, if your plane has a throttle, you'll write a 'throttle' package (e.g. module).

On the other hand, he does talk about IBM's use of Ada. They used a subset of Ada as a design language. These were the days of full on waterfall. And, the book's conclusion is quite giddy, prophesying that Ada will become the langue of choice, and extolled for enabling safe, maintainable code. Well, naturally, you can create horrible code in any language, and bork up any project with bad planning and execution. I recall working for a boss (until he was fired) that fully drank the koolaid - I'll spare you the number of steps you were supposed to, and the number of different CASE tools we were planning to use - years of work before the first line of code would be written, and then of course you would do "bottom up" development, coding each function, on and on, until you had a 'big bang' integration. Fortunately upper management saw how flawed that was, and we were able to do a much more sane process described as "design a little, code a little, test a little. Design a little, code a little, test a little".

It is easy to point fingers at companies, and to be sure they are culpable, but the government forces much of this on the companies. I recall government reviews where we were held to the exact language of the contract despite us pointing out why X was a bad idea, wouldn't work, and so on, and you would just be treated like a criminal.

On a different (quite small) project, I was forced to emulate all kinds of buggy UI behavior in an upgrade - I wrote a bunch of code to simulate bugs, because otherwise, well, you aren't meeting the contract, and dialog A used to do X, why is it now doing Y? Trying to explain why you might want to fix bugs (and yes, we tested and proved it was correct) just got you nowhere. So we spent a bunch of money writing deliberate bugs in a very acrimonious atmosphere where any attempt to reason or change things when you found a flaw in the spec was just treated as trying to rip off the government. There's a reason defense contractors charge a lot - there is no end to the amount of illogical things you will be expected to do on your own dime.

To be fair, it is not always like that. I was able to run quite a few projects, and at the kickoff meeting I would say "we can do this in one of 2 ways, and you get to choose. One, we can follow every 'shall' ('shall' expresses a deliverable requirement in contracts) to the 'T', and any deviation will get charged to you. Or, we can meet regularly, more than called for in the contract, you can observe progress and see the project at any time (typically contracts only gave the government a few opportunity to see progress during a project), and we will discuss and solve problems as they come up. You'll have to trust me, but you'll have a lot more insight, and equally I'll have to trust you not to skewer me with non-performance over some 'shall' we agreed to not address". Almost always they went with the second option, and we did some type of XP/iterative development. But these were small, couple people efforts; that would probably never fly with 100+ people teams.

<comment><USER3> At that time, the main idea of OO was binding data and operations. Ada 83 does not provide polymorphism, nor inheritance, but provides many levels of encapsulation: package, generic package, generic types. Since Ada 95, child packages and tagged types (object with polymorphism and inheritance) have been added.

Even in Ada 2005, the general advice given to Ada developers is to use objects only when they need polymorphism. Ada is a marvellous language that is far richer than just objects and classes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, those heady days of the 80s and 90s, where CASE tools and object-oriented programming were going to save the world. Hell, with CASE tools we wouldn't even need programmers anymore, folks will just enter the requirements and compilable code will come out the other end!

The world of computing machinery was rife with that bullshit around that time, more so than before because most folks had never used a computer to do something useful and up to that time computers were mostly ginormous calculators or data sorters. I think the industry today has finally found a bit of skepticism (and cynicism) thanks to such fiascos as the FAA's project and because $100,000 CASE tools proved to be largely a waste of money. Object- oriented programming eventually found its place in the world, but I think it, too, was largely oversold in the late 80s and early 90s.

So then we were left in an in-between time where we were beginning to discover the magic that computers can work, but had not yet developed the necessary level of skepticism needed to sniff out the snake oil.

The article in one sense lays the blame at the feet of old-school Big Bang development. We, the readers, of course are wondering "did you not read _The Mythical Man Month_?" But it's my recollection that the snake oil, umm, I mean "tools" of the time were said to save us from such pitfalls. But many forgot to read the chapter on "There is No Silver Bullet" (or maybe that was a later paper, not in the book).

Though the dollar amount is huge, it's still the same old story that plays out to this day: magical tools (replace CASE with MongoDB, node, or whatever) that may have a use but don't pack the punch the vendor says it does, vendors that don't want to say "no, that's not practical" and ever-changing requirements from customers. Some 20, 30 years later we don't seem to have collectively learned a whole lot.

<comment><USER5> OO is still oversold in my opinion. Functional programming may be an up and coming star, but OO dominates industry still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This gives me major flashbacks to reading through the case study of London Ambulance Service's tech upgrade failure in 1991: [http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.finkelstein/papers/lascase....](http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.finkelstein/papers/lascase.pdf)

A lot of major points are shared:

\- A vendor with no previous experience in the field

\- Massive underestimation of project difficulty by the vendor

\- No real oversight from the contracting organization

\- A system meant to replace every preexisting process in one fell swoop

\- Opposition from unions uncomfortable with replacing every preexisting process in one fell swoop

</comment><comment><USER7> So long as there are no consequences for the people and businesses involved in these kinds of failures this stuff will continue to happen and nothing will ever change.

From the perceptive of the companies involved in this it sounds like it was a resounding success to the tune of several billion in revenue.

</comment><comment><USER8> >One participant says, "It may have been the greatest failure in the history of organized work."

Which may have been true in 2002. We in the UK managed to do rather well with the NHS IT project which started in that year and has gone through about £11.4bn (~$19bn) vs the FAA's $2.6bn. ([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8780566/Disastr...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8780566/Disastrous-11.4bn- NHS-IT-programme-to-be-abandoned.html))

</comment><comment><USER9> Just FYI, this article is from 2002.

<comment><USER10> Oh cool, I'm sure the article is not really relevant anymore today since our profession must have collectively learned how to do large projects. Oh wait[1].

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/25/obama- appoints-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/25/obama-appoints- jeffrey-zients-healthcare)

<comment><USER11> Given that the FAA just had problems in the last week with what seems to be a software upgrade, the temporal context is particularly relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious to see what kind of technology the FAA would establish to manage flights if it was founded today.

<comment><USER13> Most likely it would have been called "ObamaAir" by critics and would have forced a government shutdown before a flawed compromise would be implemented. :)

More seriously, a next generation system that they are looking to implement in the future will involve aircraft automatically "negotiating" routes and deviations between themselves and digitizing ATC communications, which would reduce the need for air traffic controllers. However, getting there is a long term project because there are so many things that can go wrong and need to be accounted for.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Universal – 600 UI cards based on simple design system - <AUTHOR> https://universal.forpeople.studio/ <comment><USER2> Hey. I purchased this some time ago on another website. Absolutely LOVE it.

You're offering this package for $69.99, but you also offer a similarly named package for $48 on ui8.net (where I purchased). Are these the same package, or would I have received more UI cards on the main site? Obviously, would love to have the entire kit.

Keep up the good work!

Edit: I took a closer look. Same name, different sets. One offers 523 cards; the other 600.

<comment><USER3> Hey.Thanks for purchase!

We recently updated this kit and added new blocks, as well as recent features for Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD.

Soon we will make an update for UI8, and you can download this update there.

<comment><USER4> So, I can buy this feom UI8 and I will get same kit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but later. The price on UI8 will also change.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Demoing Marrily at TechCocktail Austin. Tips on getting attention? - <AUTHOR> http://marrily.com/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=askhn2

<comment><AUTHOR> I got invited to present my startup, Marrily, at TechCocktail Austin (<http://techcocktailaustin2010.eventbrite.com/>) this coming Thursday. Marrily is an online wedding planning service that I've been bootstrapped in the past 6 months. TechCocktail Austin is the first major event that I have the opportunity to demo/pitch to spread the words out.

I'm a single founder so I've been pretty much staying on the technical side. But I'd appreciate any tips or recommendations on how to grab people's attention and to spread the words out. The event is an expo-style, which I will have a table to setup whatever I want. My plan is to set up a couple laptops (3 at the moment, 2 Macbooks and a Dell laptop) and a 24" monitor. Then I'll just answer people's questions as they come visit my table.

I don't have any budget for other promotions besides handling out business cards. Any tips on how to grab attentions for free at a crowded tech event will greatly be appreciated.

I also setup a new facebook fanpage here: <http://facebook.com/marrilyhappily/> so feel free to "like" it.

Also, during sign up, please use the coupon code "tca2010" (valid till 11/01), which will upgrade the subscription to the Free plan permanently. Just a way for me to say thank you :)

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Wow, thanks. Currently using Highrise to plan ours but will give this a shot. If we have feedback for you what's the best way to contact you?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can email me at alexle at marrily.com or give me a call (my number is on the top of the app page). I'm also on IRC #startups with the same nick as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've presented at TechCocktail before. It's a great experience. Here are a few tips:

1) It's in a bar environment, so you have to stand out. I had a big retractable banner (8 ft high) which stood out, so when you walked into the room people saw it 2) 20" monitor hooked up to a computer playing a slideshow is also great 3) They have to walk away with something. Stickers? Something fun? 4) Talk to anyone and everyone who walks up, regardless of their background + interest. It may not be for them, but they may know someone who is.

</comment><comment><USER4> Will the tech expo have a defined floorplan? If they do and you can get it in advance and they are not printing their own maps, consider printing a map of the venue in the style of / like a wedding seating chart (with your logo somewhere near the legend).</comment>


Reinventing Explanation (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://michaelnielsen.org/reinventing_explanation/index.html <comment><USER2> The kidney stone experiment is kinda obvious if you look at it just slightly longer. Treatment B fares worse in the overall score because it has a larger proportion of large kidney stones treated. The average outcome is worse with large stones. So treatment A picked the "easy cases".</comment>


Special Forces + Android = Killer Combo - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidguys.com/2010/11/09/special-forces-android-killer-combo/

<comment><USER2> You think it's hard to drive while texting? Try fighting a war.</comment>


Facebook's responses to the recent Senate privacy hearing [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/9d8e069d-2670-4530-bcdc-d3a63a8831c4/7C8DE61421D13E86FC6855CC2EA7AEA7.senate-commerce-committee-combined-qfrs-06.11.2018.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> In the meantime, I am thinking of changing my Google DoubleClick "essay" from "essay" to "overview".</comment>


The World's First Everything-Proof Underground Luxury Community - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-09/can-you-save-house-end-world

<comment><USER2> Don't forget your Mama Cass record :)</comment>


On Prototyping - the-swa https://medium.com/@jessefulton/on-prototyping-83a9881570f3 <comment> the-swa Thoughts on how to implement prototyping as part of the design process in an organization. Interested to hear comments...</comment>


Online comments are broken. What alternatives exist? - <AUTHOR> Back in the 90s, I was at the forefront of the push for media outlets to add the ability to comment to news articles, in the belief that this would enhance public dialog - a belief which turns out to have been wildly mistaken.
The primary problem I see now is that news articles are collapsing under the weight of their own commentariat. A few minutes ago, for example, I was reading an article at The Hill, a popular political reporting website. I was about to comment but decided it would be a waste of time given the already high volume of comments. Having the day off, I went to take a shower instead. 15 minutes later there were an additional 750 comments.
Please note that I'm not addressing the content or sentiment of newspaper comments (poor as the former or disagreeable as the latter may be to any given reader). The sheer volume makes meaningful discussion impossible, and without meaningful discussion social spaces become little more than vessels of mob containment. Does anyone have ideas for how to address this?
* Please avoid falling into standard 'liberal vs conservative' mudslinging, I've avoided discussing specific content because this strikes me as a general problem rather than one limited to people of a particular political orientation. <comment><USER2> I am wondering if comments should be broken into two categories: 1. only show comments from people who live in my area/region. 2. only show comments from the higher rated commentators.

The reason for the geographic region is to promote communication and ideas in a more localized meaning.

As to higher rated commentators, why not a rating system for commentators? Amazon does this, to some success.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always thought that last was a good idea. It'd be easy enough to implement on fb I think.</comment></comment>


Apple refused to Fix our iMac Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NU7yOSElE <comment><USER2> Good god... This guy is so annoying and the obviously staged shots acting like it was happening in realtime were cringy. This would be an interesting story if it wasn't so staged and the main "actor" wasn't yelling at the camera the whole time.

I'd like to take this guy's side but he is so unlikable and with the level of "production" going into this video I'm honestly not sure what to believe here or how much he skewed the facts (not saying he did but he does seem like someone who would do that).

<comment><USER3> Linus' whole schtick is cringiness, but I do enjoy his channel in general. I've never known if them to intentionally lie, and when they've been mistaken they make corrections.

<comment><USER4> it is like watching a train wreck, or video on /r/roadcam....

You want to stop watching, but you cant...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whoa I also bought an iMac Pro but not being able to get it repaired makes me quite nervous.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _" And you know what else is interesting?! Mack Wel-_

Nope. Goodbye.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get it - they broke the computer didn't they? So why is this Apple's problem to fix it?

He asks 'how the fuck does that even work?' well they just don't offer that service. If they don't want to provide a service when there is no contract, then they don't want to end of story. You can't just demand someone does a job for you that they don't want to.

<comment><USER8> I think you're legally required to provide service in certain parts of the world. What if your car manufacturer refuses to provide you new radio (if the older one goes bad). That would be unacceptable. So is this.

<comment><USER9> I'm positive that a replacement radio is not available from the manufacturer for my car. Of course, it's 30 years old...but there has to be a limit somewhere.

<comment><USER10> Car companies are required to provide OEM replacement parts for a certain time scale (possibly 5 years?). I imagine that law was put in place for exactly the same reason as this situation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Systemd absorbs "su" command functionality - <AUTHOR> http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/08/29/1526217/systemd-absorbs-su-command-functionality

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141715) used to hyperlink to that same Slashdot discussion. Now it points to the original.</comment>


New search engine for people who give a damn - <AUTHOR> https://www.givero.com <comment><USER2> Who cares! Obviously Givero...

</comment><comment><USER3> I give a damn ;-)</comment>


Is no QA the way to go? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/jpswade/is-no-qa-the-way-to-go-4g4 <comment><USER2> _Instead, developers will need to take ownership of their work, end to end. If it goes wrong, it should be on them to fix it, nobody else._

It might not be the intention, but this article reads as if the author thinks of developers as isolated units who should work on their own. Points like the one I've quoted are OK on a team, or even company, level, but they're horrible to do on an individual level. The important things in software are the product and the user; delaying something because an individual developer is taking a long time is plain wrong. Everyone on the team should be willing to step up and support when the product needs it.

In a team it should be the case that everyone can help out testing and fixing everyone else's code. That limits the silo'ing of knowledge about the codebase, it means code gets 'many eyes' to spot problems, and juniors learn from the seniors more quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Developers is ploral, it means they need to fix it, rather than leave it for someone else to fix further down the line.

I'm sure when Werner Vogels said "you build it, you run it", he wasn't talking about just individuals but teams.

The whole essence is that you are taking responsibility rather than handing it off.</comment></comment>


P2P encrypted chat with Whatsapp like seamless web experience - <AUTHOR> I love seamlessly moving from mobile to web on WhatsApp.<p>Is there any opensource solution which offers this? I am particularly concerned about WhatsApp's proprietary code. <comment><USER2> Wire app. Not sure if Riot has a web app right now, but they plan to have one when they overhaul the UI at least:

[https://medium.com/@RiotChat/a-sneak-peek-at-a-whole-new- rio...](https://medium.com/@RiotChat/a-sneak-peek-at-a-whole-new-riot- im-1114df653782)

Neither is P2P, but Riot is federated.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please make this an Ask HN, with a question mark at the end,so as to not confuse other readers. Right now, it seems you're talking about an app that does this.</comment>


Ask HN: Questions about Wordpress  - <AUTHOR>

My friends have asked me to help them build a website for our small school alumni (about 500 people) and I was wondering the best way to go about doing this. They need to have an index of people, a way to make donations, a hosted newsletter, and a couple more simple things.
I'm a developer but obviously I don't want (or have the time) to build it from scratch, so I thought I would use Wordpress and some plugins. But I have a couple questions regarding this:

  - Can you do enough frontend design to make a Wordpress site not look like a Wordpress site at all?
  - What's the flexibility of adding new features if I the frontend is redesigned?
  - Is it a better idea to hire out and let someone else pick all the plugins and put it together?
  - Can you give me a recommendation on would could build such a thing for me, or would it be cheaper to do myself?
  - What would these things cost?
 Thanks! <comment><USER2> >Can you do enough frontend design to make a Wordpress site not look like a Wordpress site at all?

Yes. One of wordpress' strengths is its theme system. You can find a number of existing themes which are ready to make 'child themes' out of (I suggest looking at Responsive or even 2012.)

Bear in mind there's nothing you can do to keep someone from viewing the source and seeing it's a wordpress site.

>What's the flexibility of adding new features if I the frontend is redesigned?

You have a functions.php to build whatever hooks you need into the API for that particular theme, and plugins are basically global applications which can do anything. The API can be a bit arcane but there's a very good chance whatever problem you have has already been covered in an existing theme or plugin. I would be willing to bet that for what you describe, 100% could be handled with existing plugins, and 90% of the rest by creating a child theme and tweaking. This is honestly what Wordpress was meant for.

>Is it a better idea to hire out and let someone else pick all the plugins and put it together?

I would say it depends on the amount of work you want done, in regards to customization of the theme and custom plugins.

>Can you give me a recommendation on would could build such a thing for me, or would it be cheaper to do myself?

You could do it yourself for free, but looking up documentation and solutions is on you. How comfortable are you with horrible looking mixin PHP? Do yourself a favor though, whatever you do: look up "hardening wordpress", apply what you learn and turn off theme editing through the UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Yeah not sure why I said cheaper. What I am actually short on is time. The budget for the project is pretty reasonable, but I really would like to find someone reliable that I can work and communicate with towards getting it done on time.

I am also just trying to find out how maintainable the site would be if I did hire someone to create it. I would want to be able to have functionality added, but from what you're saying about plugins it sounds like that's not much a problem.

Horrible looking mixin PHP is not my idea of a fun time, but I will have a look at "hardening wordpress".

Do you have any recommendations on where go look for a reliable developer for this kind of thing? Or even know someone perhaps?

Thanks again!

<comment><USER2> Well, it's not difficult to administrate at all.

If you have a local dev server (I test wordpress installs on Xampp[1]) you can have wordpress running on it in literally minutes from download. After that, you can upload it anywhere - although the default is still by PHP, Heroku and Pagodabox will host Wordpress and you can deploy by Git if you like.

[1][http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html](http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html)

You can go on to elance or odesk and throw a dart and hit a wordpress developer, though anyone will tell you to caveat emptor when it comes to those sites. I could do it provided you don't need it done _too_ quick (I have school and a couple of other projects.) Finding someone willing to work on wordpress for a paycheck is really not going to be difficult at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would a Facebook group not work?

</comment><comment><USER4> You use Wordpress because you like the off the shelf parts.

You can make WordPress look like anything. It is PHP, so if you want you can have a page that is mostly a web App and just use WordPress for the content blocks on the page, but that wouldn't be the most efficient way to do things.

If you have to ask if it would be easier, then it would probably be easier.

Paying for custom design varies wildly. You could spend $50 on a kid in college who may or may not make something awesome. You could spend $50k on a major design studio.

As an SEO I saw both happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Would you recommend getting the whole thing setup by someone else, or having one person do plugin setup and then another do design?

How flexible would it be to change with a custom design? Like if I add a new plugin, won't the theme from that plugin have to be rewritten to match the new one?

Know anyone good that would be interested in this kind of thing? Or have you had good experience with a particular freelance finding site?

<comment><USER5> Depends. It can be done by one first. Typically plugins don't modify theme/design, so nothing will need to be done when you add new plugins.

If you need help, let me know.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Article Extractor API – Quickly Extract Articles from URLs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lateral.io/2015/07/article-extractor-api/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! We created this for internal use and had a bunch of people ask us to release it. So now we have! Would love to hear your feedback.</comment>


Tide-Predicting Machine No. 2 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-Predicting_Machine_No._2 <comment><USER2> If you want to know about Tide-Predicting Machine No. 0 - read the following from Charles Pezold:

 _In the late 1860s and early 1870s, British scientist William Thomson—later known as Lord Kelvin—developed a technique based on Fourier analysis to mathematically predict the pattern of tides for particular seaports. Never just a theoretical physicist, Thomson then designed a machine to carry out these calculations. One of these tide-predicting machines is on view in the Science Museum in London. Today we categorize this machine as a special- purpose analog computer. While it's certainly interesting from a technical perspective, it also has a surprising role in the history of 19th century science: William Thomson began his research into the tides in the midst of the Darwin Wars following the 1859 publication of The Origin of Species, and part of the impetus behind this astonishing machine was nothing less than to prove Darwin wrong. From the clash of thermodynamics, geology, and evolution, the era of analog computing was born._

You can read more here: [http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2016/12/Computer- of-the-T...](http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2016/12/Computer-of-the-Tides- Chapter-1.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love mechanical computers like these. The engineering is amazing, and bugs are not considered a fact of life in these systems. One thing I often wonder about is how many mechanical computers/state machines are still in operation and why.

<comment><USER4> You might like this video about the US Navy fire control computer. Mechanical yet also programmable. Eg with cam-based calculation modules like 1/x or differential gearings to perform addition : [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the link! I had meant to look these up after watching videos of some Hamming lectures ([https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30)) where he mentions using "gun directors" for various problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mentioned in a previous HN thread where I contributed this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830348](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15830348)

</comment><comment><USER7> I love mechanical computers. Does anyone know of any basic mechanical computers still used in everyday life?

<comment><USER8> One probably still relevant usecase for mechanical state machines are elevators. Original design of push button controled elevators is surprisingly simple and involves mechanically implemented state machine where the carriage itself is part of the controller mechanism (the overall idea is that on each floor there is switch that gets flipped by the passing carriage that signals whether the carriage is above or below that floor), such systems are certainly still used (second generation of automatic elevator controllers implement the same logic "electronicaly" by means of johnson counters built from mechanical relays instead of the distributed electromechanical logic).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Old Brass Brains," a better personification for an analog computer I have not seen.</comment>