Pythex: a Python regular expression editor - <AUTHOR> http://pythex.org/ <comment><USER2> I sometimes use <http://regexio.com/> to debug in the reverse direction: given a regex, generate a bunch of strings it matches, which sometimes quickly lets me see "wtf, why would it match strings like _that_ one?"

That's something it'd be cool to see explored more; when I'm writing a regex, I usually have in mind a space of strings it's supposed to match, so a very useful debugging tool would be some way of showing me what that space is, so I can see if it's the same as the one in my head. I can't think of any cool infoviz tricks offhand that would be more useful than just a list of matching strings, but there must be something.

<comment><USER3> You'll probably like [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/downloads/7f1d87be-f6d9-...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/downloads/7f1d87be-f6d9-495d-a699-f12599cea030/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The interface is very clean, simple, and to the point. One suggestion though: It very quickly gives an "Invalid regular expression" error while I'm still typing. From the perspective of the regex parser that is certainly a correct assessment. However from a user's perspective, what's entered is simply incomplete. Although I like the instant evaluation/validation of the expression, it might be a good idea to increase the interval between when the last key is pressed and when the evaluation begins. The need to read the error message along with the textbox turning red while the regex is only incomplete causes an unneeded break in user interaction.

That aside, nice work! I'm sure I'll be using it. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> My entry into this category of tools uses a (hidden) Java applet to avoid the need to send any data to a server (and the limits of the native JS regexp functionality). See:

<http://regex.powertoy.org>

It also has an animate mode, which is most interesting on regexes with heavy backtracking. For example, animations of the famous 'prime-digits-count' regex, succeeding (composite) or failing (prime):

49: [http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\1+%24...](http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\\1+%24/&syn=perlSyntax&anim=1&rep=&in=1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111)

47: [http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\1+%24...](http://regex.powertoy.org/?pat=/^1%3F%24|^%2811+%3F%29\\1+%24/&syn=perlSyntax&anim=1&rep=&in=11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111)

</comment><comment><USER6> Great! It's very simple and useful.

One little thing, the regular expression input is in an html form, so if you hit enter (in most browsers) it POSTs to a blank page and you can lose your work. You can make the form onsubmit="return false;" if you never want it to submit.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's <http://weitz.de/regex-coach/> , which you don't need an Internet connection to use.

<comment><USER8> It's also Windows only and not specifically for Python, whose regex library has unique features and quirks..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually saw this as well today:

<http://txt2re.com>

Although I like yours better for what I'm doing.

Edit: was originally posted here (with a bad title and subsequently ignored):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2449640>

</comment><comment><USER10> Must be getting killed, times out for me.

Too bad, because I had wanted to see a python specific version of <http://rubular.com>

<comment><USER11> I'm glad there's a non-flash version of this, but if you use a mac, RegExhibit is awesome.

<comment><USER10> Great tip, I will check it out.I just saw there is a tool in the mac app store for 4.99 called patterns that looks pretty good too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Superb... but I have two major issues (aka _please_ add these features:

1\. Can you add an option to return the code for the actual Python function? Then we can just copy&paste right into our source

2\. A cheat sheet like on rubular. Make it a pull-up menu from the bottom or something, so it doesn't clutter your nice layout too much

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it needs an option to match all results, not just the first. This would let me test a regex against many strings at once. You could allow this by adding, below the bubbles, two radio buttons labeled "search" and "findall" - I those are the corresponding Python methods, as far as I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER14> Awesome! Wish I had this a while ago during school. This is a good learning tool too since you can see how each addition affects the matching. I like Tycho's idea about have a little cheat sheet. That would add to the "learning tool" idea substantially.

</comment><comment><USER15> <http://kodos.sourceforge.net/>

<comment><USER16> Kodos hasn't seen a release since 2006

<comment><USER17> Have Python regular expressions changed much since then, though? It may be good enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I prefer <http://rubular.com/>, not because the language, but for '504 Gateway Time-out' when I connect to pythex.org right now. And I always connect to rubular.com successfully.

</comment><comment><USER19> It would be nice if named groups were supported. Something like: (?P<protocol>https) Being captured like: protocol: https instead of 1: https

Nice work!! :)

<comment><USER20> Great tip! I don't know why I didn't think of that before. I'll sure be adding it as soon as I can :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is also good: <http://www.cuneytyilmaz.com/prog/jrx/>

</comment><comment><USER22> Rubular is still nicer, part of the charm was the small cheat sheet at the bottom of the page.</comment>


Shellcode detection using CPU emulation and syscall blacklisting - <AUTHOR> https://rainbow.cs.unipi.gr/projects/seduce <comment><USER2> I had an idea a while back for a HIDS or at least post-infection analysis. You record incoming data and files onto storage. Have a separate machine running it which is instrumented to check all jumps, etc against a whitelist generated when compiling same system. It would eventually spot the compromise plus be able to show the exact sequence of data & instructions that caused it. Which would aid patching it.

Stayed on prevention instead. Thought it would be fun building & optimizing it, though.

<comment><USER3> this is control flow integrity, it's in windows 10 now as a technology called "control flow guard".

<comment><USER4> "Bypass control flow guard" :)

[https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-15/materials/us-15-Zhang- By...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-15/materials/us-15-Zhang-Bypass- Control-Flow-Guard-Comprehensively-wp.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Doesn't surprise me. There's been few breaks in prior SFI/CFI's. That's why I'm not relying on CPI until strong peer review happens. There's added risk since CFI concept is really a cheat to try to avoid full data or memory safety. They think they'll get security and great performance with the cheat. They usually get the performance. ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Configurable Types in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://www.swiftbysundell.com/posts/configurable-types-in-swift <comment><USER2> It's a good article, but it reminds me that sometimes I feel like with protocol-oriented programming we're just reinventing class hierarchies with a new kind of polymorphism and finding a way to do things with composition instead of inheritance, just because that's the new right way to do everything. Other than value types vs reference types, what would be the downside of FileImporter being a base class with a few subclasses for each file type? The base class could have a factory method that returns one of the subclasses.

And could we achieve much of what we want with protocol-oriented programming crossed with value types if structs could have inheritance? I know that sounds strange.

In short, I totally get the elegance of protocol-oriented programming, but I wonder if for most of its applications a traditional class hierarchy would be more than good enough. I'm not sure inheritance is as bad a word as people make it out to be.

<comment><USER3> The controversy over inheritance has to do with _implementation_ inheritance, where any method that's defined on a base class can depend on methods that may have been overridden in some derived class, or rely on some non-codified invariants that a derived class might break: this is known as the "fragile base class" problem. By using composition over inheritance, this is not something that can happen by default, because there is no provision for a method call on some "base" method to dispatch on the object's "actual" type, or more broadly to rely on anything but what's defined in the base object itself. You _can_ recover that dispatch-like behavior ("open recursion"), but it's something you have to code yourself and opt into explicitly. This is good for rigor and auditability, as well as just being all-around simpler and easier to understand. Implementation inheritance is too general of a feature, and just not a good abstraction.

<comment><USER2> I'm very aware of the fragile base class problem. But it's a non-problem for many of the small class hierarchies that protocol-oriented programming examples are often used as examples of replacing. Surely, there would be no fragile base class problem here with a total of 1 base class and 3 subclasses.

If you're doing something like the Swift standard library, protocol-oriented programming is a huge win. If you're doing a small class hierarchy as you would be to do this example, I don't see the big win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand the issue with the switch statement at the beginning. It's said that it "isn't great from a flexibility point of view" and "is more or less guaranteed to grow out of control".

In the hypothetical example of a note taking app, what bad thing would happen by keeping the switch statement? Adding two lines to a switch statement seems like a trivial step compared to all the other work required to write an importer for something like markdown.

The switch statement is trivially easy to read and understand, more so IMO than replacing it with a FileImportResult enum, a generic FileImporter class, creating static factory methods for each import category, etc. I'd like to understand the benefits of programming in that style over something more simple.</comment>


Please petition GitHub to support HTTPS on GitHub pages - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/coolaj86/e07d42f5961c68fc1fc8 <comment><USER3> This is a little weird to me, because it's so easy to host your site a multitude of different ways. The notable thing about GH is its free, which makes complaining about it not having the one feature you want so odd. If you want that feature, pay the buck or two it will cost to host your site on CloudFront with something like Stout [1].

1: [http://stout.is](http://stout.is)

<comment><USER4> Github provides an all in-one hosting solution for Open Source projects. You can host code, bug tracker, binaries, and the project website all on Github. I use it to host [http://postgresapp.com](http://postgresapp.com), for example. It's extremely convenient.

But there is one big gaping security hole: If your project page is served over plain HTTP, and people click on the download link, they are vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. An attacker could change the link to point to a malicious binary instead.

The only way to prevent this is to make sure that your customers don't access your website over HTTP. And this is why HTTPS support for Github pages is important.

<comment><USER5> Can't a MITM change the DNS for "postgresapp.com" to one of their servers, regardless of HTTPS?

<comment><USER4> No. If the client connects via HTTPS, it will only connect to a server that presents a valid cert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can use CloudFlare with a custom domain in front of Github Pages. It works. I do this for [https://github.com/leighmcculloch/5tweets.com](https://github.com/leighmcculloch/5tweets.com) which you can see SSL'd at [https://5tweets.com](https://5tweets.com).

<comment><USER7> Yeah but someone can still get between cloudflare and github pages since the traffic between the two end points would still be unencrypted and thus open to MITM..

<comment><USER8> Actually GitHub have ssl on their username.github.io domain so you can have full ssl from cloudflair back to GitHub.

<comment><USER9> Which unfortunately doesn't work with CloudFlare on a different domain because it sends the custom domain Host header.

<comment><USER10> You can use a Page Rule to override this host header with whatever you like: [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/206652947-U...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/206652947-Using-Page-Rules-to-Re-Write-Host-Headers).

<comment><USER9> Enterprise plans only. I thought "do all of this for free" was implicit in the request to GitHub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> FYI, when Let's Encrypt goes public in a week, you'll be able to get free certs without having to install anything by using [https://gethttpsforfree.com](https://gethttpsforfree.com)

Fun fact, the website is just a reverse proxied github static page: [https://diafygi.github.io/gethttpsforfree](https://diafygi.github.io/gethttpsforfree)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd love to see SSL support on custom domains as well, but I know there are a couple of reasons why it hasn't happened already:

1\. GitHub Pages likely isn't a core focus for GitHub, however useful it may be

2\. GitHub Pages is currently completely interface-less, relying only on an automated build system running each site through Jekyll and deploying it. In order to support custom certificates, they would need to build an interface for certificate uploading/maintenance (and of course putting the certs & keys into the repo, like the current CNAME system, won't work).

<comment><USER13> > In order to support custom certificates, they would need to build an > interface for certificate uploading/maintenance

With Let's Encrypt (mentioned in the issue) it could be 100% automated with free certs.

<comment><USER14> If there are hundreds of thousands of these certificates, you will need a custom ACME client anyway. It is not trivial even with a presence of SNI.

<comment><USER11> Eh, ACME isn't that complex. I wrote a fully automated client in less than 200 lines of python.

[https://github.com/diafygi/acme-tiny](https://github.com/diafygi/acme-tiny)

<comment><USER14> An HTTP client that gives a simple automated response is easy to write. An HTTP client that gives simple automated responses _to 10,000 connections every second_ is not easy to write.

(Disclaimer: That said, I haven't seriously assessed the scalability of typical ACME clients. I would appreciate any hard number for them.)

<comment><USER15> The ACME client only has to run once every 90 days, to validate domain ownership and retrieve an updated certificate. After that, the certificate can be stored on and loaded from disk - the same way most of the files being served are probably stored.

It's true there might be some added complexity, as the private keys will need to be stored securely. And session resumption data, if you need to support that. Doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> +1

But are you guys seriously going to spam github/contact or email@example.com ?

Because if that was my inbox. I'd be pissed looking at thousands of emails that contain the same body.

<comment><USER17> Makes it super easy to filter out and delete though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree with imbriaco's sentiment from the linked discussion - using a CDN or some other host that supports SSL to host your static site is a good solution. I recently migrated my GitHub pages site to Amazon S3 and Cloudfront. I had to buy a cheap Comodo SSL certificate and upload it to AWS to get it working with my custom domain, but the documentation[1] was good enough that it didn't take me very long at all.

[1] [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/Developer...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/SecureConnections.html#CNAMEsAndHTTPS)

</comment><comment><USER19> What's missing in all that is that they are talking about HTTPS for custom domains, _username_.github.io supports HTTPS already.

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe let people star a dedicated repo instead of sending an email to github.

</comment><comment><USER21> While GitHub has a free account, it gets quite expensive when you start paying. And GitHub Pages is a complementary add-on and many of us stayed on GitHub because of nice things like this. I do agree that it isn't their core focus and that people could host their stuff somewhere else for cheap.

However there is something to be said about making encrypted connections the standard. Chrome and Firefox will only support encrypted HTTP 2.0 connections. So if GitHub Pages does not provide HTTPS for custom domains, then it won't support HTTP 2.0. Adding HTTPS support is also the right thing to do given the recent attacks on privacy.

Yes, GitHub Pages is a free add-on that isn't their competency, but in my opinion they should either drop it completely, or support HTTPS. Because otherwise they are keeping the web back due to their popularity.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, and please send me a free flying car while you are at it.

Obviously everybody would like that, but it's not as easy as it seams. As github pages, technically are virtual domains, they share the same ip with many other pages, if you want to support https, you need to serve either each page on a different ip (not free), or they need a to configure multidomain ssls (which everytime they need to add a new domain, that means they have to reset the certificate for the other domains on the same ip), and I think there is a limit on the number of domains that can share the same ip - <USER2> needed - . And all of this for free.

Want SSL on gh pages, setup a proxy infront of gh pages.

<comment><USER23> Or you can use a web server that supports SNI. You'd lose android 2.x and ie@winxp clients though, but those will be lost anyways soon due to outdated cipher suites and certificate hash algorithms

<comment><USER22> > configure multidomain ssls (which everytime they need to add a new domain, > that means they have to reset the certificate for the other domains on the > same ip),

Sorry should've called it SNI.

<comment><USER23> Multidomain certs are not the same thing as SNI.

<comment><USER22> Thank you, learned something new today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Its quite a co-incidence that I scouted for an answer for this today while I was setting up SSL for my gh-pages. As already pointed out by some comments, its not quite as simple as we think it is to have GitHub extend SSL for its pages. Its for the same reason that Tumblr doesn't allow SSL support for custom domain either. IMHO, CloudFlare is probably the simplest workaround to get SSL enabled for your gh-pages. Link on how to [https://me.net.nz/blog/github-pages-secure-with- cloudflare/](https://me.net.nz/blog/github-pages-secure-with-cloudflare/)

</comment><comment><USER25> What's missing is, why? It's a static site, so you won't get any real privacy about what you're reading. If you have binaries to distribute, you have other features for releasing them that let you use TLS.

<comment><USER26> Script injection (see Comcast a few weeks ago), page manipulation (eg. pointing at download links with malicious side-load), keyword-based filtering (HTTP inspection). If you're using non-default DNS servers, you also get privacy on _which site_ you're reading: all HTTP request headers also get TLS protection, which includes hostname, path, etc. And while outside of Tor, there's no protection for the IP address (so third parties can know you're reading a page on github), "a site hosted on github" encompasses a wide variety of content.

<comment><USER25> > "a site hosted on github" encompasses a wide variety of content.

That doesn't help, you can easily fingerprint a page from secondary requests or incoming/outgoing links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I also have my personal website on GH pages + Cloudflare. If it is for a static web site I think it is ok, and thanks to both companies that gives us this service for free.

If you pretend more you can pay and use AWS or some other service.

</comment><comment><USER28> Of note guys there's a little ! icon button in the top of the page to report this gist. It's basically encouraging spam and as everyone has pointed out, is likely not technically sound.

</comment><comment><USER29> Worth noting: https works on yourname.neocities.org.

<comment><USER19> just likes it does on _yourname_.github.io. (Since that just requires a wildcard cert)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I add SSL through a proxy to GitHub pages.

</comment><comment><USER31> Been wanting built in ssl forever.

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't Github Pages hosted on S3? That would explain the lack of TLS on custom domains.

Anyway, this is a very major security flaw. Lots of software uses Github pages for the project website. If you put a download link on an unsecure page, you are putting all your customers st risk.

<comment><USER32> Githug Pages is their own infrastructure for hosting files and static sites: [http://githubengineering.com/rearchitecting-github- pages/](http://githubengineering.com/rearchitecting-github-pages/)

Also the download files themselves can be hosted on Github repos as releases which supports TLS.

<comment><USER4> Hosting the downloads themselves via HTTPS is completely useless if the link to that file is transferred over HTTP.

<comment><USER32> Link to the repo/releases page...

<comment><USER4> Jesus Christ, you really don't understand, do you?

If the original website is insecure, everything could be faked, including the link to the releases page.

If HN readers don't understand this, who does?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How would you make your own Power Balance bracelet? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Why you posting on HN?</comment>


[pdf] Dumas-Dutil Interstellar Message - <AUTHOR> http://www.plover.com/misc/Dumas-Dutil/messages.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> An attempt to convey a message to extraterrestrials based on mathematics and physics. Regardless of one's opinions on the probability of intelligent extraterrestrial life, it's interesting to consider the challenge of transmitting meaning with almost 0 context.</comment>


Reasons to attend (or skip) MicroConf 2013 from an attendee - <AUTHOR> http://whitetailsoftware.com/2013/01/10-reasons-you-should-or-should-not-attend-microconf/

<comment><USER2> Read it.</comment>


Aria Templates - JavaScript Framework For Rich & Large-Scale Enterprise Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://ariatemplates.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> via [http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/12/aria-templates- javascr...](http://functionn.blogspot.com/2012/12/aria-templates-javascript- framework-for.html)

This is another MVC JavaScript Framework, along the lines of ExtJS, YUI 2. The developers claim better browser support and performance.

Looks like a neat package, released under Apache License v2.0</comment>


Show HN: ElasticSearch Comrade – ES admin panel built for large clusters and Ops - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/moshe/elasticsearch-comrade/blob/master/README.md <comment><AUTHOR> OP is here. I've built Comrade after years of managing clusters with Kopf, Cerebro, and ElasticHQ. I've always felt like those tools built for smaller clusters with low latency to the host. Comrade takes a lot of inspiration from Cerebro</comment>


Can Moving Averages be used to Generate Profit for Traders? - <AUTHOR> http://www.poweryourinvestment.com/featured/how-to-trade-using-moving-averages/

<comment><USER2> I think the stock market belongs to the big fishes. We small investors have no say. Nice tut!</comment>


Show HN: Nicer Wikipedia Reader - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/wikiflow/id1252582592?mt=8 <comment><USER2> Since I use both an iPad and an iPhone I am really looking for something that has user interfaces for both and synchronises across all my devices (such as Wikipanion+, which is admittedly becoming quite dated).

This looks very pretty though.</comment>


Scammer Plants a Fake ATM At Defcon - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136179/Fake_ATM_doesn_t_last_long_at_hacker_meet

<comment><USER2> There's a heap of fail in the hotel's security not noticing an unaccounted for ATM right next to their entrance. In Vegas, of all places?</comment>


Sprint sued by Feds for fraudulent cellphone tapping overcharge - <AUTHOR> http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/03/03/sprint.alleged.to.have.overcharged.for.illegal.equipment.install/

<comment><USER2> Let me get this straight:

Step 1: Start by completely ignoring civil liberties and forcing telecommunication companies to hand over data on their users. Bonus points for giving an NSL so users aren't aware of their breach of privacy.

Step 2: Allow said companies to bill for providing the data. This makes sure they keep quite and don't speak up to the things the government is doing because lets be honest, what sort of businessman is going to complain about thick margins?

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 until there is a leak and the world finds out about everything that's been going on.

Step 4: Wait for the repercussions of step 3 to blow over. Now that everyone knows what's going on, no use in quieting down the companies by paying them off so let's sue them for _charging too much_.

How do they have the balls to do this kind of shit? Makes me want to vomit.

<comment><USER3> Yeah you got it right.

The fact that one end of the government overstepped grants a retrospective (by several years) right for a company to deliberately over-charge a completely different end of the government for legitimate services. Certainly, there can be no topic involving the government and telecommunications where ranting about NSA isn't on topic. It is really that simple.

<comment><USER4> I mean, the NSA killed contracts from other parts of the government because Qwest wouldn't play ball, why not pay them through other parts of the government for deniability?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first I laughed at the government getting scammed by Sprint, but then I realized I'm paying for the scam (and now lawyer fees) with my taxes. /sigh

No matter who wins this one, everyone (in the US) loses.

</comment><comment><USER6> Terrible spammy website for mobile reading. Better link, in my opinion: [http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/04/_the_u_s_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/04/_the_u_s_government_is_suing_sprint_in_a_lawsuit_over_21_million_in_fees.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> So this is like a nested subroutine illegality (Fraudulent overcharging by illegal spy company) of a main illegality (Govt. Spying).

Got It!

</comment><comment><USER8> It's sort of like Saturn eating his sons.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's the "standard fee" for violating the constitution?

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesomely funny. Get some popcorn, I'll bet the filings will be really interesting on this one. I guess the Feds don't care that the lawsuit documents are public, thanks to Edward Snowden. Sprint is going to hire some Russian mobsters to take him out after this.</comment>


Brewing our first IPA patent, and new adopters - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitter.com/2013/brewing-our-first-innovator%E2%80%99s-patent-agreement-patent-0

<comment><USER2> find this hard to read without thinking about beer the whole time. Could have a bit more serious tone to the identity.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree! I'm a homebrewer, so the phrasing really made me do a double- take.</comment></comment>


Why U.S. is being humiliated by the hunt for Snowden - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/25/opinion/snowden-us-humilation/index.html

<comment><USER2> The language in this is awfully disturbing.</comment>


Ask HN: Best VPN / Replacement for Private Internet Access? - <AUTHOR> I've heard good things about Mullvad and currently have bought a month of service from them, but I've also heard good things about VyprVPN and they are running good sales for the BF / CM weekend. Any other no-log VPN service recommendations are welcome.
Doing this on desktops and mobiles, primarily to prevent ISP / WAP snooping and a bit of geo-blocking  bypasses.
Your thoughts? <comment><USER2> I'm looking too after their sale to Israeli spooks. It has to have a killswitch. It's too bad. I've used ProtonVPN the free version has always been fine to get a quick vpn up on my Android.</comment>


Show HN: Simple YouTube Downloader - <AUTHOR> test $# -gt 0||exec echo usage: echo youtube-url\|$0 fmt \[saveas\];b=$(exec sed 's/http:/https:/; s/m.youtube/www.youtube/;s/youtu.be./www.youtube.com\/watch?v=/;s/hooktube.com/youtube.com/;s/embed./watch?v=/;#etc.;s/?version.//;s/;.//;');echo source url: $b;c=${b##=};a=$(ftp -4o/dev/stdout $b|exec grep -o "https%3A%2F%2Fr[0-9][a-zA-Z0-9.%_-]*"|exec sed 's/%26/\&/g;s/%3D/=/g;s/%3A/:/g;s/%2F/\//g;s/%3F/?/g;s/%25/%/g;/itag='"$1"'/!d');echo video url: $a;exec ftp -4o ${2-$c} $a; <comment><USER2> 1) Couldn't get it to work

2) An explination would be much appreciated

3) You probably want to format this as code ([https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc](https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc))

4) Difference between this and youtube-dl? other than doing it without any dependencies.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) What did you try?

2) It is a shell script

3) Sorry about that

4)

(a) It is smaller, simpler and faster.

(b) When YouTube occasionally makes a change I can fix it immediately rather than waiting for someone else to fix youtube-dl

<comment><USER2> It is probably my incompetence and arrogance. I am not that proficient in the unix shell yet. I was trying to run the entire thing from the command line, but also tried a couple of putting it in a function names `youtube-url` without success. I was stubborn and trying to use it like that `youtube-url fmt "[https://you..."`](https://you..."`) and never got what you wrote in the usage section because I had `youtube-url` twice in the output (so I was never actually piping the url to that command)

But now after you said "script", I tried putting it in its own fine giving it an honest read/try. Figured out you are using netbsd, as Ubuntu's (and by definition Debian) `ftp` doesn't have an `-o` option. After deleting the o now I get

      source url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CneL0GoZ3tk
      video url:
      ftp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CneL0GoZ3tk: Name or service not known

> When YouTube occasionally makes a change I can fix it immediately rather > than waiting for someone else to fix youtube-dl

I hear you. Had to download manually the latest ytdl development versions before they were packaged before.

EDIT: know what, you don't have to waste much time on me as it looks like there 'might' be more differences with grep/sed (who am I to know) I should not be here nor on my command line wasting time anyway. Have a ton of work to do to graduate on time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tested on Linux. ftp package is called tnftp. You can substitute curl -4o, wget -4O, fetch -4o or whatever client you prefer for downloading files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That blob of bash output is not what _i 'd_ consider simple...

<comment><AUTHOR> I would not consider it simple either. However, the word "simple" was not used. The word was used was "simpler".

The source for youtube-dl is not what I'd consider "simple". While _neither solution is "simple"_, one may be "simpler" than the other.

Also, it is ash, not bash.</comment></comment>


GSA's list of officially approved software is now publicly available as a CSV - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GSA/data/blob/gh-pages/enterprise-architecture/it-standards.csv <comment><AUTHOR> 18f tweeted the link and I thought it was interesting to see the list (original tweet at [https://twitter.com/18F/status/768152916410638336](https://twitter.com/18F/status/768152916410638336))</comment>


People in richer societies cry more - <AUTHOR> https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-luxury-of-tears <comment><USER2> It's quite an interesting topic. Unfortunately the article meanders slowly through some interesting examples in a long-winded style.

The conclusion of the article and the title is a bit puzzling as it briefly mentions only one dutch study that concluded that people in the north and the west (richer countries) tend to cry more. Even though the research was about _reporting_ to cry more.

Emotional people might not feel like reporting that they cry maybe?

It's just not explored.

<comment><USER3> Two other potential influences I thought of:

1\. Self report of crying might be reduced by those in more hostile environments as they are conditioned not to show weakness.

2\. The behaviour of crying is learned as a way to get support from others(this is not fact, just speculating). If that support never comes, crying would not be reinforced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently this study was done somewhere in some dystopia wherein war does not exist. How quaint.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://i.imgur.com/8vvobek.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/8vvobek.jpg)

<comment><USER6> I was waiting for someone to use that meme. Thanks freind.

<comment><USER7> This is not Reddit.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A FREE app for consuming YouTube in moderation - <AUTHOR> https://nassimslab.itch.io/quick-playlist-for-youtube <comment><AUTHOR> Hi I made a free desktop app to consume YouTube in moderation as I see that YouTube is a big problem for many.

This is the description of the app :

It allows you to basically search YouTube videos without you having to be exposed to recommendations and comments. It also offers the ability to put the videos you want to watch in a playlist that you can visit later. Because you can save the videos for later in a playlist you avoid experiencing FOMO (Fear of missing out) .

Also :

Quick Playlist VS other competitors: Unlike many other apps that gives you the option to hide/show recommendations and comments Quick Playlist don't. It forces you to experience YouTube without those things because sometimes less is more.

Link to the download page (so you can look at screenshots and other details.) : [https://nassimslab.itch.io/quick-playlist-for- youtube](https://nassimslab.itch.io/quick-playlist-for-youtube)

Would greatly appreciate leaving a review once you've downloaded it and used it for a while.</comment>


Rubik's Harmony: Cracking a Rubik's Cube with Music - <AUTHOR> Rubik's Harmony is a part of Project Joy, which is a collection of technologies for mental wellbeing. See Rubik's Harmony here: https://youtu.be/IRN3aIBrP3U and get one here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/138156351/project-joy-enjoy-every-moment-proposed-masters-re <comment><USER2> I won't even begin to discuss how horrible of a scam this stuff is. I will speak to the Rubik's cube for a moment though. First off, we know that a Rubik's cube has 43.25 Quintillion possible starting combinations. Any one of these combinations can be solved in 20 moves or less (we know this from a team of researchers who used a super computer to calculate all of the possible moves). So while you could memorize a set of musical cords for each possibility, it would be an insane number of things to memorize. Interesting scam premise though.

At any rate, learning to solve the cube is actually a very enjoyable and relaxing activity that I believe helps my brain, at the very least. There are a number of systems for solving the cube. I use CFOP. With it I can solve any cube in under 30 seconds. Much of it is intuitive with the memorization about 100 algorithms (technically there are 119 total: 41 for the f2l, 57 oll's, and 21 pll's. I use all of the oll's and pll's and only a few of the f2l's. I mostly finish the f2l by intuition). Don't get tricked into buying some neat system for the cube. Ask the experts. You can get all of the algorithms for free online for numerous systems. Grab a cube and just have fun!

</comment><comment><USER3> SCAM!!!</comment>


Vivaldi 1.12 released - <AUTHOR> https://vivaldi.com/blog/the-browser-you-want/ <comment><USER2> Is anyone using a non-big-3 (Chrome/Firefox/Safari) browser enough to call it their default? I haven't tried Vivaldi yet but see this non-update hitting the front page as a heads-up that it might be worth checking out; how does this company pay the bills?

I'm interested in hearing about both the options available on different operating systems and/or mobile devices and the primary benefit each provides.

On Android, Firefox Focus has become my normal browser. I really don't use the phone to browse all that much, and prefer to use a clean session each time.

On Windows, I use multiple off-label browsers[0] mostly just to compartmentalize different sessions simultaneously. Now that Firefox is headed towards supporting this as a first-class feature, I may be able to cut down to one again. I just can't bring myself to give Google/Chrome all of my browsing metadata, but I do use it for work-related access since GMail is tied in.

[0] - Qupzilla, with separate-per-window sessions in private browsing mode - no extra work from me; also K-Meleon

\--

Edit: Thanks for all the testimonials; I will definitely be checking these out!

<comment><USER3> I've used Konqueror (Chrome's grandfather) for about 6-7 years. After Firefox 3 was released I switched to FF and even though I've used Chrome for a year or two at some point, I won't replace Firefox again unless I have an equivalent Awesome bar (Chrome doesn't cut it) and Tree Style Tabs.

<comment><USER4> We lose tree style tabs by the end of the year

<comment><USER5> We have Tree Tabs [1] for Firefox 57+

1\. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree- tabs/?sr...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree- tabs/?src=search)

<comment><USER4> This was very buggy and missed some key features (bookmarking and restoring a tree of tabs) last time I used it (February).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Certainly lots of features I'd enjoy but I couldn't find the source and builds logs so I was a bit dubious - after doing some research it appears to be closed-source and proprietary software.

While I'm not saying it's bad because it's closed source, a web browser has access to a _lot_ of personal (meta)data and is certainly not something I'm about to trust to some black-box software that's not under review by the many.

<comment><USER7> Not saying your point is invalid but in the same context Google has access to all your stuff, including correlations to your mobile and location information and is not afraid to share it, as do others ie ISPs, possibly Microsoft.

So for browsers controlling meta data on user end has limited value without rules and laws around user data.

<comment><USER2> Also: the most invasive parts of the analytics / tracking / privacy-invading aspects of Google Chrome are closed source.

<comment><USER8> You can use Chromium.

<comment><USER2> Sort of.

Browse Against the Machine | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439098) (May 2017)

> brynedwards: _There are also patches for Chromium that remove Google > integration and improve its privacy features_ (with links) | > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439668](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14439668)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Vivaldi is looking better and better with each release. The only thing that seems to be missing is some kind of Profiles or Containers for partitioning identities.

<comment><USER10> Given that Firefox is shipping this, are we looking at a reversal of the "Opera had it first" meme? :-)

<comment><USER11> It's unlikely Firefox will ever have the built-in features that old-Opera fans want in their browser, so it makes sense to support Vivaldi; it's the only realistic hope of having a decent browsing experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If there's anyone from Vivaldi watching this thread my one and only request: when I type www.youtube.com show me [https://youtube.com](https://youtube.com) as the first choice and not some inner page that I bookmarked. I constantly enter youtube and hackernews via some page that I bookmarked ages ago.

<comment><USER12> Just saw the video and... "browser for rebels?" The hipster image histogram rebel, are you planning in integrating Tor or did the marketing guy just had to much coffee that day?

I'm joking (mostly)... love the browser, thank you for your hard work.

<comment><USER13> Why did you reply to yourself?

EDIT: actually it appears you just posted at the wrong place

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Brave on Android Firefox on Desktop (switched from Chrome), new FF is as fast as chrome, plus I love the compact view of FF.

<comment><USER15> While I love FF, it's so much slower than Chrome on JS-intensive sites. The Chrome feature I miss the most is the Task Manager, so I can find out which tab or extension is hogging my CPU/RAM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unless they fixed it recently, the location new tabs open in sometimes gets out of sync, so new tabs open in some unrelated position in the tab bar instead of next to the current tab.

The performance of Vivaldi is abysmal if you use many tabs. If you get past 50+, the UI becomes really sluggish (really slow to open new tabs, for example).

</comment><comment><USER2> Related (still just getting started?): [https://otter- browser.org/](https://otter-browser.org/)

 _Otter Browser aims to recreate the best aspects of the classic Opera (12.x) UI using Qt5_

source: NetRunner: a web browser catering to powerusers | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15000253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15000253) (Aug 2017)

> urlwolf: _Otter browser is pretty fantastic. Use the weekly for the best > results._

</comment><comment><USER5> No tree style tabs :(

They have tabs down the side, but I want them to also be nested. That for me is a killer feature on Firefox (with a plugin).

</comment><comment><USER17> Had been using it for a few years and recently gave up for firefox. A lot of small bugs and annoying glitches like url dropdown list that contains absolutely not relevant items or cursor jumping randomly while typing address. Since recent versions firefox introduced some standard features I missed a lot like flat compact tabs.

</comment><comment><USER18> Still not open source? Still not interested.

<comment><USER19> [https://vivaldi.com/source/](https://vivaldi.com/source/)

<comment><USER18> This gets linked every time, and every time it's still not the Vivaldi source code. This is their patched version of Chromium and is not sufficient for building the actual Vivaldi browser with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I tried Vivaldi a few weeks ago. My main problem with it was that it was missing some media add on (details escape me) needed to run Netflix on Linux. Firefox had it by default. I liked the UI and side tabs, but it's easier for me to stick to Firefox now.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me that i should pester them about touch screen support on Windows tablets. And perhaps also a option for making the tab close button persistent.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does Vivaldi have sync yet? It's been years and every time I check - no sync.

<comment><USER19> In progress, there was a video shown of this feature</comment></comment>


Magic Leap: A New Morning [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmdXJy_IdNw <comment><USER2> I'm not skeptical that this is real footage "shot from Magic Leap technology", however I am skeptical that the final product will be anywhere near this good. Microsoft announced HoloLens around a year ago now (I think?) and they were able to show videos like this at that time. My expectation of what the disclaimer in this video is saying is that you can use Magic Leap "technology" without using the consumer hardware. Microsoft has shown us how amazing this technology can be when you hook it up to very expensive gear that's tethered, etc.

HoloLens probably represents the best technology we've ever seen in this field, and even still you have a very limited FOV and 3D capability in the consumer product.

Sorry, but I don't think Magic Leap developers have the ability to solve this problem better than Microsoft Research.

<comment><USER3> > "shot from Magic Leap technology"

That's my main concern. Microsoft could have reasonably made the same claim about the HoloLens-on-a-Camera setup that they were using during their announcement videos that ultimately didn't show the actual view. The graphics and fidelity were really similar from what I've heard but the experience as a whole wasn't close.

My biggest concern with the video's we've seen is a) how closely this FOV matches the real thing b) what kind of processing power this will require (AR gets much less interesting if it requires a highend PC attached to do the rendering and tracking) and c) what that room actually looks like, ie every Magic Leap video that's been shown as shot through the actual technology looks like it's REALLY DIM.

<comment><USER4> Regarding FOV, I wouldn't be surprised if this did match the real thing and I wouldn't be surprised if the Hololens demo also matched the real thing. The problem is that we're looking at a video and have a hard time judging the FOV of a video. If it fills the video, it must fill our field of view, right? Well, a typical cellphone camera has a horizontal FOV of like 60 degrees, versus 180 or so for human vision. But videos don't look low FOV to us when we view them.

<comment><USER3> True, I thought of that and saw a couple people mention that when the original hullabaloo about the FOV differences started. Even if it's accurate to the actual FOV the end result is that the video doesn't give a good feel for the actual device so ideally to me it'd be done differently to give a more accurate feel to what the final FOV would look like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HoloLens user here, based on this video alone, the experience appears to be equivalent, although holograms appear to be a bit more stable on HoloLens, which also has no trouble tracking fast head movements

<comment><USER5> Here is a video I recorded with HoloLens, but not through it, the actual holograms are transparent on the headset:

[https://goo.gl/photos/S2B9A8xkvyLkPK7U8](https://goo.gl/photos/S2B9A8xkvyLkPK7U8)

<comment><USER6> Great video. Was really hoping the baby would get up and do something when you clicked on it.

Only partially joking. There was a mental pause where I stopped to think whether something was going to occur. Testament to the overall quality of the AR.

<comment><USER5> lol that was the idea, glad you enjoyed it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The cynic in me wants to dismiss this as just another marketing video from a company yet to show us anything tangible, but the child in me desperately wants this to be a reality. Please, please let this be real.

<comment><USER8> Am I the only person who doesn't want this tech? I love what's going on with VR and tried out a Vive this weekend, but this kind of AR just seems like it would be somewhat annoying. It would be tons of pop-ups, notifications, etc that would detract from one's quality of life. I suspect keyboard/mouse and monitor will hard to unseat in the workplace, the same way we didn't give up on laptops and desktops for ipads.

I'm already fighting this battle with my android watch. Every so often some app decides that I want notifications and then my watch vibrates what's essentially a marketing message and I, of course, check thinking its a text message or email. Thankfully this is easy to disable on a per app basis, but I can imagine it'll be much worse on AR when developers have our entire field of view to post marketing messages on. AR gaming seems like it would be pleasant, but do I really want my living room the background of all my games? Seems to me VR is the better solution in gaming, especially with cameras mounted on VR headsets like the Vive has.

AR is starting to feel like the Kinect or Google Glasses all over again. We're getting these amazing demos and everyone is excited, but no one is really thinking usability, interfaces, social exceptions, and realistic applications. Or considering how much more mature VR is right now and how it might just eat AR's lunch. With VR you are at least socially signaling "I am in a different space and not here with you", but with AR you are socially signaling "I'm here but I'm projecting a mustache on you for my own amusement and partially ignoring you while I watch funny youtube clips" which will make people uncomfortable the same way Google Glasses did.

<comment><USER9> You're not the only one. I personally am not a fan of VR either.

BUT... There is one use case where I would totally adopt AR/VR for, that I don't see a lot of people talking about.

If someone could make an VR/AR app that simply gives me a floor to ceiling monitor and used eye tracking, I'd be thrilled.

I currently use a pair of 4K monitors (@ 1:1) for work, and I _still_ feel like I could use more real estate. I would guess that a pair of goggles would cost less than having more monitors, and take up less space.

<comment><USER3> The biggest issue preventing that is that to do better than your dual 4k monitors the VR goggles will have to have many more pixels on the much smaller screens, which is hard to do reliably from a manufacturing standpoint and would require an enormous amount of processing power to render at the 90FPS that VR requires to be comfortable.

<comment><USER9> Would it need more pixels if all it is doing is scrolling up and down a virtual monitor though?

<comment><USER3> If you want to see more on the screen at any one time than your current 4k screen it's going to require more pixels no matter how you arrange everything else. If you want to put it 'deeper' into the VR world than just placing the exact same screen data onto the VR screens will require multiple real pixels per fake VR screen pixels.

Also don't forget you have to have 2x panels with the increased resolution at smaller sizes than the existing monitors.

Finally if you are just scrolling through a virtual screen there's no reason that can't be done on today's monitors and we already have eye tracking tech available without having to jam that tracking into already crowded glasses.

<comment><USER9> I am willing to accept tradeoffs in resolution for more working area.

I basically have the equivalent of 8 1080p monitors, but if I can get the equivalent of more 1080p monitors over a larger area but at a lower pixel density (downscaling is ok provided I can zoom in and out), I'd be totally good with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It looks very cool, but they definitely moved & rotated slowly in the video. Hopefully they can keep the motion tracking processing latency low enough to not cause nausea.

<comment><USER11> Actually that's an interesting point - Oculus has shown that you can do tracking and display updates on a traditional display fast enough to appear more or less fixed to the world.

But Magic Leap's display has a physically spinning component. I wonder if you move quickly there is a gyroscopic precesion effect that distorts the display...

<comment><USER12> Spinning component?

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's a fibre optic light that spins in a spiral pattern to scan out an image, kind of like a circular CRT.

At least that's what some of their patents describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So this is the future! Someone trying to get work done while being totally distracted by bleeping notifications and virtual jellyfish. Grrkidsoffmylawn...

<comment><USER14> You could just as easily go the other way and overlay distracting people in the room with a peaceful zen garden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm sure that is representative (it doesn't seem that they've solved 'registration' yet) but I'm curious what's behind the camera lens. For all we know it looks like this: [http://arcadeheroes.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/swordvr.p...](http://arcadeheroes.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/swordvr.png)

Or it could be a Tango. Or a HoloLens devkit.

Have they still not hit investor saturation so they don't want to show what they have because the speculation will bring in more funds than the real thing? Or are they just building up their patents so they can own the technology while companies like MS do the heavy lifting? Do they assume whoever has the smallest AR rig wins so don't want to show their cards yet (assuming this thing is the size of a normal pair of glasses)?

Their level of secrecy is actually getting kind of annoying.

</comment><comment> awinter-py I love that this is based on a vibrating fiber optic designed for colonoscopies.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sometimes you eat the jellyfish. Sometimes the jellyfish eat you. I guess.

</comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of both the NeXT Steve Jobs demo and the Knowledge Navigator video they shot during Sculley's time.

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the deal with giving girls these masculine names? Murph? Max?

Also, this may be the hardware basis for interfaces of the future.(yes, it's neat, something similar to what many of us have been imagining for a long time I suspect. What does the actual hardware look like though?)

But is this the type of software we want? The notification, reactive model? Our time and attention is limited, the beauty of computers is we can access the info we want at any given time, and control its flow.

And yet we've set up this paradigm of being bombarded with pointless trivium, there's a business case sure, all the better to squeeze in some sponsored messages, but is there a case for human flourishing here?

How many times a day does a device of yours feed you info that only serves to distract from what you're doing at the given moment? These notifications can be turned off of course. I encourage you to do so.

<comment><USER19> "Murph" (and the space helmet too) are likely an "Interstellar" reference; Cooper's daughter was named "Murph": [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/reference](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/reference)

Young Murph: Why did you and mom name me after something that's bad?

Cooper: Well, we didn't.

Young Murph: Murphy's law?

Cooper: Murphy's law doesn't mean that something bad will happen. It means that whatever _can_ happen, will happen. And that sounded just fine to us.

<comment><USER18> Cool, I like those kind of subtle references. I've not seen that movie, what little I've seen about it seems interesting. Would you recommend it?

That dialogue is reminiscent of " _A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be._ " -Abraham Maslow

Edit: Well, glancing at the IMDB page, I'm guessing you would recommend, I didn't know the movie had been so well received.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The video looks very cool and the opacity of the AR images was darn good.

That said Magic Leap are still awfully light on some key details like :-

\- Will it be tethered or untethered. \- If it's untethered what's the FOV like (looked good in that video) \- If it's untethered what's the battery life like..

They already have competition in the untethered space (hololens) and the tethered space (Meta 2), who look to be ahead of them in terms of getting a product to market (both have actual kits in the hands of 3rd party developers)

I really hope Magic leap will be good, but I must admit a level of cynicism about the lack of solid detail on the product and technology

<comment><USER11> It was hard to tell if there was any 'opacity' at all. Looks like a bright light over a dim background which seems like the only way you could physically do it, given what we know about their technology.

<comment><USER21> Magic Leap has a patent which includes: "occlusion mask device comprises a display configured to either occlude or pass light at each of a plurality of portions of the display, depending upon a pertinent command to occlude or pass light at each portion."

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20130128230](https://www.google.com/patents/US20130128230)

<comment><USER11> Hmm well I guess we'll have to wait and see (patents can describe anything they want).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The more I think about how exciting this could be for education uses, the more reality kicks in with a dose of cynicism that no matter how whiz-bang fancy the presentation method might be, it takes actual personal work and investment to 'learn' things. I mean, sure, watching videos and clicking on stuff is great, but from my studies, I saw very little evidence that such engagements result in much of any valuable retention. Or, in other words, now instead of begging to quit piano lessons, kids can beg to stop having to work through their AR/VR Serato Club DJ Training Modules.

<comment><USER23> How to learn to code.

10 PRINT "Type a few characters"

20 PRINT "Bang head on wall"

30 GOTO 10

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Need batteries? What's the battery life? Is it heavy? Only eye wear or a helmet? What's the resolution? Can I go outside wearing it? What's the price? Any SDK? What's the timeline?

After HoloLens, can this video considered revolutionary to justify 4.5B valuation based on their last round [1]?

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2016/02/magic-leap-raises-the- biggest-c...](http://www.wired.com/2016/02/magic-leap-raises-the-biggest-c- round-in-venture-history/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The MR effects are awesome, but for the use cases the demo targets, it needs to be more...seamless? Probably it is just the way the demo was shot. Also, I would love for them to dismiss the windows, declutter the space and pull other things back in. I understand this just showcases all possibilities, but I feel a story could be told better.

For instance, the email around Mt. Everest project was cool. Showing an interaction with the project would have been cooler. But, fun stuff nevertheless.

</comment><comment><USER25> Curious what the head gear looked like. Also, the vibrations of the models were very jarring to me, I could barely look at it anymore by the time the video ended. Obviously this is amazing technology, but I can't adopt it until 1) It doesn't make me sick, and 2) I don't look like a total doofus while using it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hope this will be open hardware. That is, without a gatekeeping entity that will control sales of software on the platform. Otherwise, meh, I'll wait for a similar piece of hardware from a different manufacturer.

Demo looks cool though.

<comment><USER27> Let's be honest though: Google et al have set the standard and now it's every hardware developer's dream to create a platform that they can then use to extract 30% of all app sales on. As a heavy crowdfunder of hardware projects, it is a rare gem that isn't one of those awful closed platforms hoping to become a walled garden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Also a long article about them here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11526056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11526056).

</comment><comment><USER29> If google glass had this, adoption would have taken off.

<comment><USER30> If I was being cynical, I'd say that's exactly why they're funding it.

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/21/7026889/magic-leap- google...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/21/7026889/magic-leap-google- leads-542-million-investment-in-augmented-reality-startup)

<comment><USER29> Glass 2.0 is going to rocketship.

Especially if they make the hardware far more subtle somehow.

Though popup spam might give you a heart-attack.

Could become an ancient ancestor to "ghost in the shell" type of living with external memory.

Also solves the "problem" of 3D hologram TV, who would need it anymore.

<comment><USER30> > "Could become an ancient ancestor to "ghost in the shell" type of living > with external memory."

If you like anime and AR, you may be interested in Dennō Coil:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does the user need to wear some kind of glasses to experience this? If so, how big are they? If not, how is it achieved?

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this Heaven? or is this Hell?

I can't tell...

</comment><comment><USER33> Looked fun... right up until the side-effects kicked in and he started hallucinating jellyfish.

</comment><comment><USER34> What's the field of view?

</comment><comment><USER35> Has a timeline for Magic Leap ever been made public?</comment>


Uber closes pay gap by paying everyone equally - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/uber-reportedly-closes-gender-pay-gap/ <comment><USER2> > bases pay on factors such as job level, function and location

So, not really "equally" at all because race/gender are not uniform across those slices.</comment>


NSA@Home: Fast SHA1 Generator Using FPGA  (RE: Engine Yard Hashing Contest) - <AUTHOR> http://nsa.unaligned.org/

<comment><USER2> That is one amazing hack, really.

There is also the copabana <http://www.copacobana.org/> for DES breaking.

But the one you're linking here is that much more impressive for working with recycled boards.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is pretty incredible! I'm particularly impressed with the use of JTAG on all the chips to map their connectivity to each other.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's cool, but not of much use assuming you're trying to crack a properly salted hash.

<comment><USER5> How so? Since this is a brute force cracker my (admittedly limited) understanding is that the salt wouldn't do much for you.

      sha1(secret + salt) = hash

Assuming you don't know the salt you're left with (secret + salt). In the likely case (since you've already gotten the hashed value somehow) that you do know the salt it is trivial to determine the secret.

Would any of the resident YC crypto folks care to weigh in on this?

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the hashes are being cracked, but I was under the impression that this is cycling through all possible inputs, hashing them, and comparing to the given user input. However, I believe the original value is restricted to being 8 characters long (assuming that's what this means: "capable of searching the full 8-character keyspace (from a 64-character set)"). By salting your hash, you make the input to the hash function much larger. Then it's quite a bit over 8 characters and no longer feasible to crack.

<comment><USER6> The salt value is public. You don't have to brute force it. This isn't a "rainbow table"; it's exhausting the secret input to the hash function itself. Your analysis is broken.

<comment><USER4> Salts are never public. You're assuming that the salt is obtained along with the hash, which may sometimes but not always be true. However, I did understate the usefulness of this method since I was assuming the attacker doesn't have the salt, which often may not be the case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fourth Circuit: employees can copy data the employer allows them to see (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2012/07/articles/corporate-whistleblowers/fourth-circuit-says-employees-can-copy-data-the-employer-allows-them-to-see <comment><USER2> Being a Fourth Circuit decision, it is not applicable outside of their district. Of course it does improve the chances that employees elsewhere can copy data and prevail if prosecuted, but it might require going all the way to the top (SCOTUS), and even then, they might reverse this decision.</comment>


MIT Creates material that can remember its original shape - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/mits-shape-shifting-3d-printed-objects-could-improve-medicine-and-solar-power/ <comment><USER2> Would have been a better title if it named the material instead of making it sound like a new concept.

Memory metal's been around since 1949: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape- memory_alloy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape-memory_alloy)

<comment><USER3> Same thing. I don't understand what exactly is the difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nitinol motors seem pretty cool, such as [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sscoMtJV0uY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sscoMtJV0uY) as an example of shape memory metal

</comment><comment><USER5> > This could be hugely beneficial in applications like creating drugs that can > lie dormant until it detects a change in body temperature indicative of a > fever, for instance

Could this drug be activated by e.g. a hot laptop sitting on your lap?

<comment><USER6> To mess with fever's system designed to protect the body looks like a very bad plan to me. A machine or a crocodile can afford to change its temperature by many degrees and go unscathed. We, humans, need to be able to finely termoregulate in a very narrow interval of temperature. Would make a 'cool' sci-fi crime if you go for a beach day and a hidden drug puts your body to 30ºC while you are tanning. Or like a chemical chastity belt.

Moreover, animals aren't machines, they have a complex metabolism that would inactivate, eliminate in the urine, modify, store, isolate or even create noxious substances whereas trying to get rid of those drugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm tired of hearing about every little thing MIT does. Good for you! Great!</comment>


Ask HN: How do the doctors know if a person died of Covid or some other disease? - <AUTHOR> I've read from multiple sources that in many countries if a dead person has covid in his or her organism it is registered as a covid victim.
In the country were I live the health minister even said that we will 'treat all deaths as covid suspect'.
I do not find a satisfactory official explanation on how they know if the virus has killed them or they died with the virus inside (e.g.: terminal ilness).
Do you have some useful links on this? <comment><USER2> So let me run you through an interesting question: Let us assume a person falls ill from some issue requiring a hospital. They go to a hospital but because of all the Covid patients, they cannot get in and die on the street. Does that count?

Because of the variable standards and testing methods, I have heard it said (probably on HN), the best standard is to compare last years death rate with this year. And that would be the number attributable to Covid.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that may be biased as well (comparing number of deaths to last year). Again, not sure if this applies globally, but where I live at the moment they only treat emergency cases and covid. So if you have some heart affection (or whatever) then you may not get appointments, get regular checks and so on. So basically you can't do prevention. This may cause an increase in deaths because people simply don't go to doctors to keep their health in check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It depends.

Some places list patients who died as a coronavirus death if they have the symptoms. Some of this was prior to the increase in available tests. Some of this is to conserve the limited numer of gears for use by the living. It doesn't hurt them to list it a coronavirus death since they can get additional funding for coronavirus patients.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know of one specific case where the person was a diabetic, went to work (outside, in the sun) and was really exhausted, got home, felt sick, called the ambulance, he died. Then they tested him for covid, he was positive and they recorded that as covid death.

I know it would help them for funding, but that is skewing the data on death rate, I guess.</comment></comment>


MIT Students create a standing desk you can afford - <AUTHOR> http://bostinno.streetwise.co/all-series/press-fit-standing-desk-kickstarter-affordable-standing-desk/

<comment><USER2> For most people I don't think a full-time standing desk is necessarily optimal either; I'm using a Geekdesk, which has a motor that allows a sit-stand option ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk- writin...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writing- space-post/)).

There are some efforts to build cheaper sit-stand desks—I gave a couple bucks to this one: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2036834894/the-most- aff...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2036834894/the-most-affordable- automatic-sit-to-stand-desk) .

<comment><AUTHOR> We use our fixed height standing desks with adjustable stools, so we get the best of both worlds while keeping the price down.</comment></comment>


Evading premature optimization: Graphite Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://aosabook.org/en/graphite.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "My experience in working on Graphite has reaffirmed a belief of mine that scalability has very little to do with low-level performance but instead is a product of overall design. I have run into many bottlenecks along the way but each time I look for improvements in design rather than speed-ups in performance. I have been asked many times why I wrote Graphite in Python rather than Java or C++, and my response is always that I have yet to come across a true need for the performance that another language could offer. In [Knu74], Donald Knuth famously said that premature optimization is the root of all evil. As long as we assume that our code will continue to evolve in non- trivial ways then all optimization6 is in some sense premature."</comment>


Show HN: Instant object recognition - <AUTHOR>

About three months ago, ipplex, a technology startup I work with released a real-time Money Reader app for Blind users that has been recognized by major publications and blogs, and has a 5 star rating in the app store. You can see a quick in office demo of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvfDnGMPrkI
I wasn't active on HN then, but I thought the community may enjoy seeing some very early real world applications of real time object recognition.
We are working on bringing this to all kinds of objects as well as landmarks, and incorporating some really interesting things to make this useful for consumers. Think of it as live search.
I'll keep the community updated with interesting milestones as this progresses.
By the way, we need a few hackers in Los Angles to help us with this! http://www.ipplex.com/careers <comment><USER2> With Moodstocks API/SDK, you can integrate this technology in any app in a matter of hours!

We are now performing robust, scalable and real-time image recognition.

Check our website <http://www.moodstocks.com> and keep an eye on our YouTube Channel (real-time demo to come soon): <http://www.youtube.com/user/Moodstocks>

Tell me if you need more infos.

Cheers,

</comment><comment><USER3> Very useful. Of course for money the easiest thing to do is have slightly differently sized notes for each denomination.</comment>


Ask HN: (looking advice) building websites for local businesses (Side hustle)? - <AUTHOR> I work with Java and at the moment looking for new job. In the meantime I'd like to work on some side hustle and have read some people here telling about creating websites for local businesses and maintaining them.
My idea is to cold call/email local businesses in London (where I live) that have very old website and offer them a new one page website, easy to build and maintain.
What kind of hosting would you recommend for one page websites and suggestions on how to monetise other than one-off? <comment><USER2> In my experience that space is dominated by Wordpress-based websites. Hosting is easiest on wpengine, [https://getflywheel.com/](https://getflywheel.com/) and similar. Ideally you charge a one-off fee for creating the website, then ongoing maintenance fee. The big hosters have bulk-plans for 10+ websites and take care of software updates, backups, caching, CDN etc.

Expect local businesses to be clueless about their wants and needs, especially design, and in general being cheap.

Usual on-top services are SEO consulting, managing social media presence, email hosting.

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> To expand on maintenance, you can offer security audits and scans, plugin audits before updating, site audits before updating (make sure updates won't break anything), and a small number of tweaks or discussion every month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not Wix or Weebly etc.

Otherwise, smarterasp etc would readily handle low volume sites if you want to roll heavily customised sites... But almost by definition, I'd recommend against that. High work, low margin.</comment>


Recently realized how much i love front-end, check out my new website - <AUTHOR> http://citra-design.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks cool. Playfair didn't load for me so the headings looked a bit plain, and the +2px spacing on Rubik looked weird to me. There was also a full-screen yellow pause while something loaded the first time. I like it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I haven't fully tested the site so if you guys notice any bugs please let me know :)</comment>


Ask PG/HN: Is it bad form to mail YC with new info about application? - <AUTHOR>

We applied to YC for this cycle and yesterday, we discovered a competitor who is so close to us in name and form that we wish we had know about them earlier. We do not think their presence greatly affects our strategy, but we sure miss the chance of being able to explain that in the application. Moreover, we are worried that the non-mention of this competitor might put us in a bad light. Should we send an email explaining our position, given this context? <comment><USER2> You should stop caring, YC is so oversubscribed that your chances of being accepted are small anyway, and I doubt that an email update from you would swing it noticeably either way.

Stop caring and continue working on your product, YC is not the be all and end all of a successful outcome for you.

</comment><comment> no-go-mojo Wouldn't you be annoyed if you were in their shoes and people did that? If you want to mail them about a new competitor, then what would you do if you raised $$?

</comment><comment><USER3> Things change daily in a start up. People come and go in the market all the time. That's expected and YC is not going to accept or deny you based on a new competitor. In fact, it will look good that competitors are coming into your market. Besides, YC is more concerned about the team over the actual product.

</comment><comment><USER4> You're worried they will read your application and reject you for not mentioning a particular competitor?</comment>


An umbrella designed using aerodynamic theory to withstand 100km/h winds - <AUTHOR> http://www.senzumbrellas.com/en/the-idea/

<comment><USER3> I have one of these. It certainly is much better at resisting the strong winds England can blow than a classic umbrella (which lasts about 15 minutes around here).

Unfortunately, it has two other problems that hamper any recommendation. The first is, as another commenter mentioned, it won't stay closed when collapsed without a fiddly velcro tie. You have to wrap it around the entire umbrella body, which is keen to spring open whilst you struggle with it. With cold, wet fingers this can be tricky.

The second problem is the build quality. Whilst generally OK, within 6 months mine had developed two flaws. It won't stay fully extended, as one of the little clips that pops out on the telescopic handle failed. It thus loves to collapse down to a size suitable for a toddler at any opportunity. The second is one of the canopy support structs popped out and bent, so it doesn't quite hold rigid.

It's a pity that what is otherwise an excellent design is hampered by one poor choice, and some shoddy construction. I don't know if the flaws on mine are isolated, but if that were the case, I'd have expected one flaw at most - <USER2> two orthogonal failures. Moreover, given the price, I scoured their website to find support and customer services when it broke. I had no luck whatsoever in finding after sales service, and couldn't return it to the store (it was a gift).

<comment><USER4> I had the exact same problem. It is now permanently in my closet. This is what I wrote in my Amazon review:

In everyday use, there's a pretty major issue: it won't stay closed. When you fold it and hold it upright like you would any umbrella when you get indoors, it just falls open, getting your pants went and making you (and others) trip on it.

You can try to hold it shut, but the sticks are all different lengths, you need to individually grab each one, and you won't have any spare hands to open the door or get your keys. You can try to wrap it up, using not one, but TWO straps, which will get your hands all wet. And it's annoying as hell to have to do all the time.

It also won't stay closed when you prop it up against a wall, it will just fall all over the floor and make everything wet.

As if that weren't enough, the shape is odd: it makes it hard to cover yourself completely. I've tried. It is always too narrow in one direction. It also makes you look like a dork.

To be fair, it is solidly built and can hold its own in strong wind. The handle smells slightly but is comfortable to hold. Watch out though, because it's made of two parts that join as you open the umbrella, and it's quite easy to pinch yourself.

To sum up: bad design. Looks good on paper, terrible in actual use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The senz° umbrella has been awarded all major design awards in the world."

We have all your awards. If you want them back, you will have to pay us one MILLION dollars!

But seriously, what a strange thing to put in your marketing. Surely you haven't won every design award there is.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, it could be a language issue. The story of the company references newspaper ads that are in some Scandanavian language I don't recongize...(maybe, that's a guess). Writing in a non-native language, even when your fluent, can leave the odd syllogism here and there.

<comment><USER7> The newspapers are Dutch (as is the company). The copy-writing is just not very well done...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _The senz° storm umbrella will withstand 100 km/h winds, or 70 mph if you like_

I hope that's a typo. It's one thing to round up 69mph to 70, but quite another to round up 62 to 70. For starters, that gives you over 110kph!

<comment><USER9> I guess the umbrellas are overengineered anyway, and will stand up to 150 km/h or so anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> EuroSchirm's 'birdiepal outdoor' is a great extreme-weather umbrella. It's of traditional design, but constructed very strongly with glassfiber etc. Their website sucks, but they have a video somewhere of someone driving over it, taking it under a waterfall and generally abusing it. You can still flip it upside down, but it doesn't harm it, it seems.

<http://www.euroschirm.com/intro/index2.html>

EDIT: Here it is on Youtube:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3oyTyWq9_I> (don't bother unless you are _really_ passionate about umbrella's. I can't believe I've actually put this much effort into this comment...)

</comment><comment><USER10> The video doesn't answer the crucial question -- will it still offer some protection from the rain? If not, what's the point, you can just fold it down :-)

<comment><USER11> The sole purpose of this design is to avoid "the inverted" umbrella problem. But how much a problem is this? I have never seen this happen in real life.

<comment><USER12> All the time. You must have amazing weather where you live :)

<comment><USER13> Fucking bay area man. It never even thunders here. I've been here two years and already I'm a wuss like everybody else. I'm sick of complaining how hot it is when it hits 80 and how cold it is when it hits 65, and how it's raining when there's just a thick mist in the air.

<comment><USER12> Actually, the last time this happened to me was _when I visited SF a few weeks ago_. There was pretty shocking rain and awful winds. I had a cheap umbrella.

<comment><USER13> Yeah SF is probably the anomaly in the bay area due to lack of mountain cover.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've used one of these in New York for a year or so, and while they stand up well to the wind, there are other design considerations where they're oddly lacking. For instance, on the compact version, the handle is much to small, making it uncomfortable to hold. On the larger versions, the umbrella doesn't stay collapsed, so every time you arrive inside you have to awkwardly fumble to tie the velcro straps around it while it flops open.

</comment><comment><USER15> What happens when you're not walking directly into the wind? Do you have to continually re-orient the umbrella to point upwind?

<comment><USER16> Its design automatically re-orients the umbrella.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was considering purchasing one for Chicago loop weather, but reviews on amazon indicate that if your wind is non-uniform (and in Chicago, it is), the umbrella fails as it constantly tries to turn into the wind (and they tend to be shoddily made). Oh well.

<comment><USER18> I gave up on umbrellas in Chicago and just got a nice raincoat from Patagonia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A new wave of umbrella-induced eye poking is coming our way, when these things turn around to follow the wind.

</comment><comment><USER20> I always hated the fact that normal umbrellas have their handles in the middle, especially when I'm sharing an umbrella with someone else.

This umbrella solved two problems for me! I'm seriously thinking about ordering one. My only concern is that would one side of the umbrella be significantly heavier than the other side? That'd be a pain to hold it up all the time.

<comment><USER21> No, you hardly notice that. I have one of these from an early production batch, back when this was just a nifty research project at Delft University and they were handing them out as University swag with the DU logo on it.

<comment><USER20> Thanks! I hope they handed them out at my uni too, lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have one of these and I love it. I wonder why this shows up on HN now though, as it is at least a couple of years old now (the company started in 2005).

The story behind it all makes for much more HN-worthy fare: it was started by students as a spin-off from a University project and is now a successful, profitable company: <http://www.senzumbrellas.com/en/how-it-all-started/>

</comment><comment><USER21> I like mine even though the wind here hardly ever blows so hard that it breaks umbrellas. I like the asymmetry of it, you can hold it off-center (relative to your body) and still be completely covered (when there is no wind and rain is falling down straight from above as happens often here in the Netherlands). Also you don't (usually) poke out the eyes of people you pass in the street.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have one of these (they're actually pretty good) it reorients so it always faces the wind and the shape gives you more coverage over your back when it's not too windy. Also, it looks awesome.

The handle is small though, so it's a bit uncomfortable when used for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Woot had these on sale and I picked one up. I've used it several times, including some of the more spectacular storms that we get here in Texas and it works as advertised. I also appreciate that the long tail design covers my backpack which usually contains my laptop.

</comment><comment><USER25> And you can use it to walk at twice the speed of the wind _into_ the wind. Believe it or not.

</comment><comment><USER26> I used the Senz Mini for over a year. Once I ran two city blocks back to a movie theater because I had left it under the seat. It's an umbrella that stands out from the crowd. I stopped using it because, in practice, anything over a 20 mph wind will guarantee wetness no matter what umbrella you use. Also, I made the mistake of using the 35-mph rated Mini in a storm with 45+ mile gusts - and it literally ripped the support from one of the umbrella links.

In a strong enough storm, you'll just be like Mary Poppins.

If I have enough warning, I will actually wear a lightweight version of the same waterproof pants used by highway workers over my jeans.

</comment><comment><USER27> It may stand up to wind but it doesn't look like it keeps the rain off of you. If you have 100mph winds coming in from an angle you better expect the rain to come in at the same angle too

<comment><USER28> Obviously. But the wind doesn't blow at 100 all the time, it gusts. You use the umbrella to keep the rain off most of the time, but you want it to survive the gusts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Woot sells these for around $20 sometimes. The comments are usually a mixed bag, with some people saying it's really good, and other citing problems such as size, durability, etc.

There are a lot of comments here: <http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4074424>

</comment><comment><USER30> I am reminded of an "umbrellas haven't changed in 150 years" conversation in an anime somewhere.

<comment><USER31> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPsGa0tpUc>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Read this in the New Yorker a while back, sounds like a similar design:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_orlean?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER33> I have one of these. The problem is it breaks when the wind changes directions.

</comment><comment><USER34> [edit] I wonder why was this invented in the Netherlands...

</comment><comment><USER35> And you'd probably lose it first day you took it out.

<comment><USER36> I'd worry about it acting as sail and flying out of your hands, but in general I love it. If I was richer I'd buy one.

<comment><USER37> Have you watched the video? It seems that traditional umbrellas act as sails. This one moves by itself so that the surface that faces the wind is small.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow! Love that web page - I didn't have to ready anything at all to totally get the idea.

Now to make my big idea webpage do that...

</comment><comment><USER39> If I had to face 100 km/h winds often enough that I'd be looking at buying a special umbrella, I'd start wearing a raincoat instead.</comment>


Google bans developer with half a billion app downloads from Play Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/26/google-bans-app-developer-do-global-play-store-ad-fraud/ <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion of original source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19686622)</comment>