My loss - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/loss <comment><USER3> Wow. That reminds me of last year.

My ex made up phony charges to the police so she could keep more of my money (which the crown had to drop).

After work found out they threatened to fire me to negotiate themselves a better position.

Lost most of what I had to lawyers fees, lost the rest of it to the market.

What I did in response:

Lost 60 pounds

Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman

Told them I quit and ended up negotiating a better position

Blew what little I had left on a trip to Burning Man, met some great friends and gained a lot of perspective.

Grew my side biz into the point where it might survive the next 6 month, and lined up financing.

The future:

Quit my job last month

Taking the side biz full time

Life is indeed better on the other side. The funny thing about life is that to have the freedom to do anything you need to first lose everything. Courts, jails, and lawyers may be able to take your money, but they can't take your friends. Likewise they can confine your body, but they can't confine your mind. Going through all that gave me incredible perspective. I've always been a very caring and charitable person and it paid off in spades going through that whole ordeal. I never realized what an incredible social network I had developed through my character until I had to call on it. I left the ex with literally the shirt on my back and within a week had a fully furnished, albiet modestly, apartment and more importantly friends to fill it with cheer and laughter (to be honest a few tears as well, but mostly laughter and cheer).

<comment><USER4> _Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman_

Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

<comment><USER5> _Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners._

The Western notion of romantic love papers over a lot of the primate realities. His ex probably thought she'd be trading him in for somebody more alpha so I don't begrudge him his success in an ironic turnabout.

What people think _should_ be true about relationships tends to get in the way of what _is_ true about relationships.

<comment><USER6> The Western notion of "thinner and younger" also papers over a lot of the primate realities. I know quite a few women who when I first met were completely unremarkable if not downright unattractive, who over time became as attractive as any other.

And being more conventionally attractive would not increase my eventual attraction to them, just as the vast majority of conventionally attractive women are not so at all after a very short time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's awesome on the other side, with a caveat. You will get rejected. Again, and again, and again. Things will go wrong. Your dreams will get shattered. The moment you demonstrate signs of success, suddenly people will start knocking on your door. And when things change, you'll get rejected again. People will leave, mutiny, and flip out. The worst and the best of human nature will come out in plain sight.

If you're unprepared for this, a sliver of ice will form in your heart and will grow larger and larger, until there is nothing left. At the end, you will end up where you were before, with all your dreams shattered and endless cynicism about life and your fellow man in your heart. If you choose to say yes where you said no, and no where you said yes, you _must_ learn to love people for their best _and_ worst qualities, always and unconditionally, lest your adventure ends in a disaster.

</comment><comment><USER5> Side note - anybody thinking about getting married should look into the financial implications of getting divorced. It shouldn't stop you, but you should at least understand you're putting at least half of everything you own on the table and potentially more. I think you don't completely understand marriage unless you've been divorced.

It may just be confirmation bias but I've been thinking about heading off in a much less conventional direction myself so articles like this are welcome.

<comment><USER8> Why do people get married? It's a poorly defined contract with ill-defined consequences into which they enter apparently because it's what everyone else does to signal their feelings. Similar to giving a diamond engagement ring or using off-the-shelf business forms.

<comment><USER9> I actually wonder whether marriage should have a time limit specified. Its a better fit to reality : people living longer, large proportion divorcing after 5 years, sequential marriages to different people.

"I love you darling, will you spend the next 12 years with me to raise a child together?".

This is not purely cynical... I think its so cool when two people who have been married for 15 years decide to celebrate with second marriage ceremony to launch them into the next 15.

The time commitment should set the financial arrangements when you divorce - Ending a life long marriage might split 50/50 whereas ending a 10yr marriage might confer a 15% mix of wealth shared.

<comment><USER10> > I actually wonder whether marriage should have a time limit specified.

Some places do, down to a matter of hours. It's a slick way around prostitution laws and moral qualms.

<comment><USER11> A lot of people take that kind of 'marriage' as one big stinking ball of hypocrisy and generally don't like it.

<comment><USER10> A lot of people don't like a lot of things, so what? It still happens. When the laws of a country are based on religion and pre-marital sex is not allowed, solutions like this are bound to happen; it is inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The HN take-away:

Behind what looks like a success could actually be a failure. (And probably vice-versa.)

<comment><USER13> Absolutely true, especially the vice-versa part. Everyone's definition of success is different. Others may think you are a failure based on this post, while thinking you were a success based on almost every other post. Their perception of your success or failure should not change whether you feel successful or not. The only thing that matters is whether you yourself feel successful or not. If not (having read your blog for a while), I'm certain you're on the way to change things around.

And yes, big changes are awesome. Took me almost a year to change my work/school situation but now I'm finally happy about how things are going to be.

<comment><USER14> The "vice-versa" part is an important life lesson. Walk to a freeway onramp w/ a rucksack on your back and stick out your thumb, you'll probably meet some fascinating people. Quit what seems like a safe job, travel a bit, land in a different city, and see what you can do there - at the worst, you'll find something differently stimulating. The fear of change is never based on certainty, just on an inverse relationship with one's own flexibility. And I'd wager that, generally speaking, the more flexible, the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am at rock bottom right now, and as I struggle to get up. I've searched for resources to help me figure out the best way out. I have made plans. Created structures for myself. Kicked myself. A lot.

However, I've fallen flat on my face again and again due to a simple reason. I _don't_ have the resources to execute any kind of measures to get myself out of this mess. I can't concentrate without getting suicidal imagery in my head and spiraling into a very disturbing cycle. I really don't have any pre- requisite life experience to rely on. The worst thing is that time is running out for me to apply to college.

On the other hand, this is might be more of a blessing. I have literally started my life with a blank slate, and now I can choose the foundation for my future in a way that few can. If only I knew how.

<comment><USER16> * Theres no time frame to "go to college". Or for that matter to "be successful", "get married" or any such thing. Each to his own.

* Dont be so hard on yourself. This kicks into motion a negative spiral. You need to stop this now. Immediately. Catch your negative thoughts. They are your real problem. Imagine how great a day would be without these thoughts? Meditation will really help in controlling negative thoughts.

* Be thankful. You live in a great country. Your not walking 10 miles a day for getting drinking water. Your not hiding in the desert trying to avoid enslavement by warlords and your not in prison. Yay! Seriously, by being thankful, you'll feel happier and more grounded and thats a good way to start each day.

* Usually the things that trip you up will seem so stupid. And thats just the nature of the game. You might not get a job because you forgot to spell check your resume. Shit happens. Different people have different problems. Realize that the only thing that matters is to fix that one problem and not: * What others would think if they knew you had a problem. (really is of no consequence) * The idea that you have problems and others dont (everyone does) * The idea that maybe at your age you shouldnt be having this problem (this is pure society induced crap)

Come up with a way to fix that particular problem and move on. If it happens again, then you know you need a better method. But ALWAYS move on. Dont get stagnated by the past.

<comment><USER15> Thanks a lot for the comment.

The problem is that I live in India, and down here there _is_ a time frame to go to college. I can only give the entrance exam in order to prove to those lofty institutions that I am "worthy enough" to walk through those doors.

I hate this system, because everything falls down to a 6 hour exam which supposedly determines my entire "career". If possible I will apply to MIT et al, but I don't have any hopes for them. I know that college doesn't matter. At the same time I also know that it is a stamp that guarantees some basic standard of living, especially when people are free to discriminate against you. So, in all probability I won't go to college right now, but I will secure admission to some big name college so that I have something to fall back to.

I actually don't want to go to college in India as it won't exactly be a happy experience for me. Lets just say that I am unacceptable to their "Indian sensibilities".

At the same time you're right I have a lot to be thankful for. At least I am not on the street right now.

You're absolutely right about everything else, but I have a question. How do you control those thoughts when you are not meditating? They overwhelm me and I just sink into them. What makes it worse is that it reminds me how little control I have over myself. So how do you do it?

One of the biggest problems is that I live in an extremely negative environment, and I realize the need to break free. At the same time I exist within that paradigm and I seek security within it, which just increases the problems.

On the other end you have given me the gem I need to survive. Moving on. That is perhaps the only way it can ever work out.

Once again thank you.

<comment><USER16> Again there is no time frame. Its something that is society induces but yes its very hard to see from where you are right now.

Sridhar Vembu who runs Zoho.com (chennai I think) doesnt hire graduate students. He hires people who havent got a degree. Try contacting him if you dont get into an engineering school.

College IS important but its not sooo important that if you dont get into a good one that your life will be ruined. I'm now working with people who went much worse colleges than me. Even one guy who spent 3 years finishing 9 credits :). Ie he never finished college.

Even if you go to a bad college, still go. It will give you a lot of free time and the oppurtunity to study. It does help. But if you dont get into a college at all, then there are many other avenues open to you from Zoho to starting something on your own to logging onto oDesk.com and start working on small projects.

Yes I'm from India :) but now live in New York city.

How to control negative thoughts: 1\. Do something about your situation instead of thinking about your situation. This will take time to learn. In India we learn to analyze, read and think about stuff. But in reality that takes a back seat to actually "doing". Doing is much more important than reading.

When you find yourself thinking about your problems instead of doing something to make it better then you need to mentally force yourself out of it and start doing something. Anything that takes you even an inch towards your goal.

Learn C, C++. Contribute to open source software (really good way to get a great job later on). Get your body into shape (www.stronglifts.com - <USER2> the forums for other indians). Sign up to teach someone english in your city.

2\. You need to help someone else at least once a day. Something unselfish. It can be leading a blind person across a street or calling up a relative you havent talked to in a while and saying hi. Something that will take 10 minutes but will really help someone else's condition. This will also force you to focus on others which will get rid of a lot of negativity.

If you do both of the above then you'll start changing. Change takes 2 years so dont think it will happen overnight. However if you dont start changing today, you'll never change.

Best of luck man. Drop me an email at railsnoob at yahoo dot com, if you have more questions.

Keep fighting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm really hoping this happens for me. Not the bad part, of course; I'm hoping I've seen the worst of that. My startup is about to launch its flagship product on Tuesday after a year and a half of work, but we (myself and one of my cofounders that I live with) are currently packing up to go live with our respective parents, as the money's simply gone. It's been the most stressful 6 months of my life, as we've seen the slide into foreclosure and haven't been able to do anything about it, and it's all happening at the most important point of our company's life. I'm looking for the uptick from this, and I'll do what it takes to make it happen.

<comment><USER18> Best of luck with it! Many here will be rooting for you.

Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.

<comment><USER17> Thanks very much -- honestly, if it wasn't for the support of the startup community (even though I'm not one of the cool kids doing web apps ;) ), there's no way in hell I could've made it through thus far. This has been one of the most incredible and incredibly stressful and trying experiences of my life, but it's all worth it, even if it doesn't pan out. If nothing else, I won't look back and wonder "what if".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey Derek,

That was pretty brave of you to write that and publish it for all the world to see.

I don't doubt that this will only lead you to greater success, you're more free now to achieve that than you have been in more than a decade.

Maybe the grass on the other side really is greener :)

best of luck!

      Jacques

</comment><comment><USER20> you are one hell of a man to post this. Take care. edit: directed at sivers

</comment><comment><USER21> Here is bad: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald. Some survived. Never underestimate your ability to bounce back. When you can't summon strength, summon spite.

</comment><comment><USER22> I like the linked "horses" story a lot.

"We'll see."

</comment><comment><USER23> Makes me feel a hell of a lot better about the few thousand I've lost over the last few years from cockups. Good man.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yikes.

I've had some absolutely insane things happen to me in the past 12 months, too. Just one horrid thing after another.

Derek, good for you for getting through all this, and thanks for that encouraging last line--that things will be better on the other side.

When you're going through hell, keep going!

</comment><comment><USER25> Shit happens, and good stuff, too; you just have to deal with whatever comes. One disagreement though - never, ever say, or even think, "Things can't get worse". There is always something worse that can happen.

</comment><comment><USER26> I also lost a wife, a job and the house in one year. You kinda define yourself as where you work, who you're married with and where you're living. Beeing forced to change everything in one year is... interesting.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think such a "general" posts should be considered an off topic here. Two reasons. Well-reading people, which I assume a majority here, might find that kind of postings on the top page a little bit annoying. Second - there are a lot of such stories in each other's life. It is not a reason to expose them on the HN.

</comment><comment><USER28> what a fucking whiner

</comment><comment><USER29> Nobody cares for your stupidity. Please stop making reddit out of HN.

<comment><USER30> Well I found it interesting. One of the scary things about trying to do something great is the fear that you'll fail and everything will go to hell. So it's quite nice to read someone who's had a terrible year say that they got through it okay.

Also, describing it as "stupidity" seems a bit harsh. Everyone will make mistakes from time to time. I'd say Derek is a lot less stupid than the kind of person who didn't do anything and hence didn't have a company, savings or wife to lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> why does google chrome barf on his site? (windows vista)

<comment><USER12> Sorry - please email me specifics? email@example.com Thanks!

<comment><USER32> Must be pretty specific - I run chrome on windows and it seemed fine (though I have no idea what it is supposed to look like, but there isn't anything wrong with it that I could see).</comment></comment></comment>


A Former Yankees Prospect on the Athletics Is Suing the White Sox - <AUTHOR> https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-former-yankees-prospect-on-the-athletics-is-suing-the-white-sox/ <comment><USER2> Former NFL player Reggie Bush is suing the city of St. Louis (which no longer even has an NFL team) over something similar. He was injured after slipping on concrete near the sidelines in their stadium.

[https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/reggie-bush-to-sue- city-o...](https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/reggie-bush-to-sue-city-of-st- louis-over-injury-suffered-vs-rams/)</comment>


Facebook just announced a YouTube competitor called Watch - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/09/facebook-announces-watch-youtube-competitor.html <comment><USER2> mmm, if they got a decent advertising model on videos people upload to Watch and have a better policy that the new one Youtube made to stop right-wingers from earning money, it might work out better. Even libertarians and some liberals lost their Youtube adsense revenue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Milking the cow as long as it is alive...

</comment><comment><USER4> Requires Facebook account.</comment>


The first Microsoft Seinfeld spot: The ad about nothing - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/04/the-first-microsoft-seinfeld-ad/ <comment><USER2> I think the message is: windows will make you want to adjust your shorts</comment>


20 Famous Software Disasters - <AUTHOR> http://www.devtopics.com/20-famous-software-disasters/ <comment><USER2> 19 famous software disasters and 1 movie plot.</comment>


Six questions to ask a startup lawyer before you hire them - <AUTHOR> https://launch.gust.com/blog/find-and-hire-startup-lawyer?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch <comment><USER2> I could not agree with this article more. On the point about reaching out to angel networks for lawyer referrals, being on the lookout for conflicts of interest is an important point.

For many lawyers/firms (including many of the most well-known names out there), professional investors are a source of regular, repeat business. Some of those lawyers/firms may be (even unintentionally) guarded in their legal counsel to startups, so as not to take positions that will anger professional investors.</comment>


Ask HN: Digital Business Cards - <AUTHOR> Has anyone seen a good implementation of a digital business card? Something that allows you to quickly let someone know how best to reach you. <comment><USER2> Do you mean something like this - [https://UserCV.com](https://UserCV.com)

It offers exactly what you are looking for.

Some example:-

\- usercv.usercv.com

\- codecanyon.usercv.com

you can explore other user's business card here - [https://usercv.com/users](https://usercv.com/users)

Do you need something like above?

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks.</comment></comment>


Is Java Exploitable? - <AUTHOR> http://isjavaexploitable.com/ <comment><USER2> Anything is exploitable, unless it's not running, the respective computer powered off, closed in a safebox, encased in carbonite and dropped into the Mariana Trench. Even then, I wouldn't be so sure - what with Cameron mucking about in there ;o)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's one for you:

_Does this page deserve to be on Hacker News?_

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ NO</comment>


Distributed Systems and the End of the API - <AUTHOR> http://writings.quilt.org/2014/05/12/distributed-systems-and-the-end-of-the-api/ <comment><USER2> Fun stuff, amusing that the definition of a distributed system used; "Where a computer that you never heard of can bring your system down." is actually one of Leslie Lamport's more famous quotes.

When I joined Sun in '86 I thought it was the pinnacle of technological excellence to be a kernel programmer, and I joined the Systems Group, the notional center of the Sun universe, in 1987. However I discovered that the primary _reason_ you had to be picky about kernel programmers what that their bogus pointer references crashed the machine (as they occurred in kernel mode with full privileges) but discovered that _network_ programmers could crash the whole world with their bugs. So clearly they must be in a pantheon above kernel programmers. :-)

The author has come to discover that in the network world things can die anywhere, and this makes reasoning about such systems very complicated. Having been a part of the RPC and CORBA evolution I keenly felt the challenges of making APIs that "looked" like function calls to a programmer but took place across a network fabric and thus introduced error conditions that couldn't exist in locally called routines. (like the inability to return from the function due to a network partition for a simple example).

Lamport's work in this space is brilliant and inspired. Network systems can be analysed and reasoned about as physical systems when they exhibit discontinuities when considered as simple algorithms. The value here is to realize that a large number of physical systems tolerate a tremendous amount of randomness and continue to work as intended (windmills for example) while many algorithms only work consistently given a set of key invariants.

I gave a talk that was inspired by Dr. Lamports work titled 'Java as Newtonian Physics' which was a call to action to create a set of invariants, in the spirit of physical laws, that would govern the behavior and _capabilities_ of distributed systems. It was way early for its time (AOL dialup connections were still a thing) but much of the same inspiration (presumably from Lamport) made it into the Google Spanner project.

As with many things, at a surface level many people learn an API which does something under the covers across the network but having come up through their education thinking of everything as an API they don't fundamentally grasp the notion of distributed computation. Then at some point in their experience there will be that 'ah ha' moment when suddenly everything they know is wrong, which really means they suddenly see a bigger picture of things. It makes distributed systems questions in interviews an excellent litmus test for understanding where people are in their journey.

<comment><USER3> I've never seen an RPC system that I really liked. The closest to a model of distributed computing that gets me from 'a' to 'b' without going terminally insane is anything based on message passing. Even though there is significant overhead I figure that by the time you go distributed and your target of the RPC call or message lives on the other side of a barrier with unknown latency that overhead is probably low compared to the penalties that you'll be hit with anyway.

So then the trick becomes to make sure that a message contains a payload that is 'worth it'.

Making the assumption that any message may not make it to its destination and that confirmations may be lost (akin to your return example) is still challenging but I find it easier to reason about than in the RPC analogy.

I love that Lamport quote :)

A nasty side effect of all this network business is that what looks like a function call can activate an immense cascade of work behind the scenes, gethostbyname (ok, getaddrinfo) is a nice example of such a function. On the surface it's a pretty easily understood affair but by the time you're done and you get your results back you've likely triggered millions of cycles on 'machines that you've never heard of'.

<comment><USER4> "I've never seen an RPC system that I really liked."

I must admit I've never seen a message passing system that I really liked either :-) Mind you that's possibly because of times making stuff work in environments where someone made the decision "you shall use message passing for all inter-system communication" even when it wasn't always the best option.

These days my practical test for a remote API is whether I can stand using it through cURL - if I can happily do stuff from the command line then the chances are that code to do stuff won't be too insane.

<comment><USER3> I liked QnX, currently playing around with Erlang. (Erlang has tons of warts but it gets enough of the moving parts just right that I find it interesting).

<comment><USER5> One does not often hear about the warts of Erlang. What do you name those?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least the author is wise enough to see that REST/RPC are not so different from each other.

I actually find it interesting that as I was learning about earlier networked "objects" type systems, programmers ran into problems where they were treating the networked objects as if they were local and that the network always works. Now, when we build REST api's they always ship with client libraries that feel like local objects and completely abstract away most notions of network failure, etc.

I'm not saying we've made an unreasonable tradeoff, it's just interesting that we seem to be making more refined versions of the same solutions with the same fundamental problems.

I guess the author was making a similar point.

<comment><USER7> "Layman's REST" is very much RPC, yes.

Fielding's REST is very much not.

<comment><USER8> Fielding's REST is pretty much CRUD in HTTP disguise.

Don't get me wrong, this can be great for "hypermedia applications" as Fielding's paper argues. But "hypermedia applications" just doesn't fit what many distributed services do these days.

Services are naturally centered arounds verbs (commands and queries) and not nouns (resources), so like with any other CRUD system, at some point a REST API that shoehorns everything into the four standard verbs HTTP commonly gives us, no longer adequately describes the business requirements of your app. You can definitely force things to be RESTful, but it's typically not the natural way to build an API. Feels akin to the ORM kind of impedance mismatch in some ways.

<comment><USER7> I agree that many services are simply CRUD wrappers. That doesn't have much to do with the nature of the architecture Fielding proposes.

I would be interested in some citations from Fielding which demonstrate that RPC is its organizational principle. I don't think they're there, though.

<comment><USER9> I'm surprised someone hasn't embraced the idea and built the ultimate generic CRUD wrapper

<comment><USER7> They often fail. See ActiveResource, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> CALM and CRDTs are interesting stuff.

That being said, I feel like the author is confusing a bit the specific implementations of modern APIs vs the concept of an API which I see as simply some (somewhat standardized) interface to a system which you don't own. Those seem like two different problem domains to me, but perhaps I'm arguing over a different definition of APIs than from what the author is talking about....

<comment><USER11> Hi, author here.

(Somewhat standardized) interfaces are _fine_. My contention is that you can have an interface shared by disparate actors without the problematical bits of "APIs" (both in spirit and in their particular current best materializations), which provide no useful data model constraints, do not acknowledge the realities of the network, and inherently couple client and server.

The point is that you can have a shared "interface" over _data_, in exactly the same way as producers and consumers share shapes/types of messages routed via queues — except that there are ways (CRDTs being one) to extend that dynamic so that data can be replicated along any topology, and shared and reacted to by N actors, not just a consumer downstream of your producer.

I hope that clarifies. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I also covered a variety of similar issues when discussing that offline rich- web applications are perfect for CRDTs, because you are effectively building a distributed system, in my EmberConf 2014 talk [1][2] called Convergent/Divergent.

[1] [http://confreaks.com/videos/3311-emberconf2014-convergent- di...](http://confreaks.com/videos/3311-emberconf2014-convergent-divergent)

[2] [https://speakerdeck.com/cmeiklejohn/divergent](https://speakerdeck.com/cmeiklejohn/divergent)

* edited to reformat list.

<comment><USER12> Also, very relevant:

"A Note on Distributed Computing" 1994, Sun Microsystems Technical Report

* [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1450](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1450)

* [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=974938](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=974938)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Of course APIs that serve as synchronous endpoints to distributed systems are a leaky abstraction. But its not the only one of its kind, there's also Guaranteed Message Delivery [1].

I find the philosophy behind Akka in this context a better fit - embrace that networks are unreliable and build your app around this limitation accordingly [2]. The cost is that it results in more work for the developer just like with the usage of CRDTs.

[1] [http://www.infoq.com/articles/no-reliable- messaging](http://www.infoq.com/articles/no-reliable-messaging)

[2] [http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.1.0/general/message- delivery-...](http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.1.0/general/message-delivery- guarantees.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> TL;DR: APIs have issues with concurrency and latency, amongst others. Use Consistency As Logical Monotonicity (CALM) or Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) instead. Here is a little about how CRDTs work. btw: speech in NY on the 15th of May.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the summary. Via Google, ended up at [http://www.slideshare.net/jboner/the-road-to-akka-cluster- an...](http://www.slideshare.net/jboner/the-road-to-akka-cluster-and-beyond) which I've bookmarked to watch at a future date, since I'm new to these concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As the author of EtherPad I'm familiar with CRDT, which is a cousin of OT. They don't really replace APIs, unless you are using an API to synchronize data, which is only one of many things you might be trying to do.

In other words, if you're building EtherPad or Wave, use a fancy data structure for the collaborative document. Otherwise, don't. Meteor's DDP provides a nice model, where the results of RPCs stream in asynchronously.

<comment><USER11> Hi, author here. I'm not sure you read the whole piece. :-) (Modern) APIs are a very limited mechanism of state transfer that happens to be paired with often side-effecting operations. Thus, a "synchronization" (I don't think that word is particularly useful because reasons) mechanism paired with reactive computational services _does_ replace APIs, and offers the ability to do much, much more.

OTs (operational transforms) _are_ a related precursor to CRDTs only in that they are both ways to reconcile concurrent changes, but that's really the limit of the connection. Unfortunately, the substrate for OTs (text, integer- indexed sequences of characters) is fundamentally not amenable to commutative operations. This makes implementing OTs _very_ difficult and error-prone, and certain combinations of concurrent operations are completely unreconcilable (a result that came out of a Korean group's study, can't find the cite for it right now).

<comment><USER17> I think the paper you are referencing might be [1]?

It's one of my favorite papers on CRDTs and provides practical pseudocode for learning how to implement CRDTs yourself.

The structures they present are simple to understand and have good performance characteristics compared to similar CRDTs [2].

A key insight from the second paper is to write CRDTs that optimize for applying remote operations over applying local operations, as the ratio of remote operations to local operations will be greater. i.e. 100 clients making 1 change to a CRDT will require all 100 clients to each apply 99 remote operations and 1 local operation.

[1] Replicated abstract data types: Building blocks for collaborative applications - [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1931272](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1931272)

[2] Evaluating CRDTs for Real-time Document Editing - [http://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/docs/00/62/95/03/PDF/doce63-...](http://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/docs/00/62/95/03/PDF/doce63-ahmednacer.pdf)

<comment><USER11> The cite I'm missing at the moment is a multi-year study that catalogued all known operational transforms over text (there were many more than I imagined prior), along with proofs showing that certain combinations of concurrent operations simply could not be reconciled consistently.

Thanks for the other pointers, though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I believe it was Leslie Lamport who said, "A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."

<comment><USER12> The reference is here:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/d...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/lamport/pubs/distributed-system.txt)

<comment><USER11> Dammit, thank you. I've even read that exact message before. :-/ Post updated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Many API users are not knowledgeable to the intricacies of network programming. This could definitely use an executive summary at the top with the following info: "What will these new libraries that replace APIs offer to single point API users?"

<comment><USER11> (Author here.) As a start, hopefully removing the blinders that makes statements like "many API users are not knowledgeable to the intricacies of network programming" oh so true. That that statement can be made without popular incredulity only reinforces the point that modern network API technologies have largely been built to sustain the illusion that there is no network, and you're just making a method call somewhere. Insert this-plt-life GIF here. :-P

Building systems with things like CRDTs and tools and languages that support CALM will allow people using point-to-point APIs to continue to do the things they do now, but remove much of the incidental complexity from the equation. An example would be that, when you are relying upon N replication mechanisms to move CRDT state or operations from _here_ to _there_, you don't need complex timeout, retry, and backoff mechanisms to compensate for the realities of what's connecting the two parties. The message will arrive when it arrives...exactly the only guarantee that you can make in the general case of someone talking to external services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a network programmers view. System, Network programmers concern themselves about systems and topologies. For an application programmer, both needs to be abstracted and only the business logic is important. Money is in the top of the pyramid now - hence the proliferation of APIs.

<comment><USER11> The point of the piece, in large part, was to emphasize that _we 're all network programmers_. If you're whacking away with APIs and couldn't care less about the broader system its topology, please stay away from me. ;-)

APIs are proliferating because their coupling around client/server process and data representation makes for high switching costs and thus sweet vendor lock- in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Rest is less platform dependent than SOAP/RPC. I see that as the main benefit. JSON is easier to work with than XML. The whole idea of service oriented architectures is that users don't need to care about the tech stack details of your service. Rest and JSON do a better job of realizing that vision than SOAP/XML. I don't think anyone's claimed that Rest is a design pattern to end all woes. Maybe we haven't given due thought to what new design patterns (or data structures, architectures, etc) are emerging these days, and in that light, the article presents a lot of interesting pointers.

<comment><USER22> Actually JSON makes it damn near impossible to uniformally implement REST. You need HATEOS. This means that there has to be a semantic of following links in resources. JSON lacks this ability. ATOM or RSS, both XML, have linking. Heck, XML at a language level supports document linking. HTTP + JSON != REST.

<comment><USER23> Whilst I agree with you, there is nothing stopping someone defining link structures in JSON documents, coining a new media type e.g. JSON+Link and boom, problem solved.

<comment><USER22> Well, I'm responding to you and to your siblings. You're right. You can create a new MIME type and the problem is solved. Fortunately, as the sibling comments pointed out, there is an extension. What I want to see happen is that the JSON + Links becomes a standard. Ideally a W3C. Otherwise we're into the old XKCD comic [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Distributed API's are a big part of Ethereum. I think the Merkle tree of the bitcoin blockchain (and the Patricia tree of the Ethereum blockchain) might even qualify as a semilattice.

In fact, its by the physics of information theory that a cryptographic blockchain solves the consensus problem. Specifically, information theory emerges from the laws of thermodynamics: Maxwell's demon is essentially what secures one's private keys from brute-force cracking attempts.

I'd like to see a comparison of how the blockchain solves the CAP problem, alongside CRDT's. Are they not both solutions to the same problem?

<comment><USER25> FYI information theory entropy and physics entropy really aren't the same thing:

[http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/05/elusive- entropy/](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/05/elusive-entropy/)

<comment><USER24> Well that seemed excessively pedantic IMHO. It actually didn't touch much on information theory, and where it did, many of the comments disagree. I'll cite the Landauer limit[1] as what (yes, arguably) connects the entropy of information theory to the entropy of physics.[2]

Also, I only mentioned physics because the article did, quoting Lamport " _Most people view concurrency as a programming problem or a language problem. I regard it as a physics problem_."

Unfortunately the article didn't elaborate any more on the precise type of physics problem in question (Maybe Lamport does elsewhere), whether the physics of computational complexity or the physics of information theory, or something else. But even those two sub-fields have many connections and similarities (as does pretty much everything in physics and math. such connections are the bread-and-butter of theoreticians).

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann- Landauer_limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann-Landauer_limit)

2\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_information_theory)

<comment><USER24> Here's an article which discusses Lamport's view: "The physics of distributed information systems"[1]. The first sentence: "This paper aims to present distributed systems as a new (interesting) area of applications of statistical physics, and to make the the case that statistical physics can be quite useful in understanding such systems."

It has several mentions of statistical physics, but (curiously) no mentions of entropy. It does however discuss the Byzantine Generals problem, which of course is the problem the bitcoin blockchain solves.

1\. [http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/473/1/012017/pdf/1742-65...](http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/473/1/012017/pdf/1742-6596_473_1_012017.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Joel Spolsky had written along similar lines and argued that it's important to know what is happening beneath abstractions.

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> I think a distributed system is better defined as a system where timing becomes an issue to the coordination of components in the system.

</comment><comment><USER28> I stopped at the point where he claimed that APIs were always synchronous, this wasn't even true in the 80s. For example XLib is a rather well used API and is asynchronous (there are many others).

<comment><USER29> two paragraphs later he addresses that point, calling that support limited in current api designs

<comment><USER28> Not really, he talks about HTTP which wasn't really designed for that purpose. There are plenty of protocols that were. Does this actually have anything to add that isn't covered in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Comput...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Computing) , if so then I'll read further.

<comment><USER30> It has some very interesting stuff about CRDTs, which is definitely worth a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So he favors exposing a standard set of distributed data models instead of having APIs.

What a horrible idea.

Exposing implementations is bad because implementations change.

Exposing implementations is bad because as you expose the intricacies of your data model to your client (which he claims is a benefit) you in turn obscure and hide the intricacies of your business domain, which will surely not allow you to patch a service's distributed data tree in an arbitrary fashion.

It's in essence like having SQL as your underlying data model, and replacing your API with an open read/write/delete access to your SQL server to the entire world, and hoping everyone will run the right queries and all will be all right.

It won't be all right.

APIs will become more asynchronous and eventually all APIs will be seen as protocols, that don't _necessarily_ follow a simple request/response pattern.

But they'll remain in the form of abstract commands and queries modeled after the _business domain_ of the application, and not the _underlying data model_ of it.

<comment><USER31> > It's in essence like having SQL as your underlying data model, and replacing > your API with an open read/write/delete access to your SQL server to the > entire world, and hoping everyone will run the right queries and all will be > all right.

I find it kind of amusing that this was the original purpose of having an "SQL server": letting people (e.g. auditors) submit arbitrary queries, so you won't have to anticipate what exactly they'll want to do with your data. (Write- access was intended to be segregated to particular database users writing to particular tables, though--basically parallel to using WebDAV with HTTP Basic Auth.)

<comment><USER8> It was, yes, and to this day read-only SQL access to certain tables is not that bad of a practice to allow for report-generating apps _within_ a company.

However the idea of exposing SQL databases publicly as an approach never took hold for many reasons we're today aware of. And the idea of public write access is ridiculous right from its premise.

The anti-API rant of this author shows us that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hmm the article seems based on some false assumptions. I'd argue that the whole point of REST as an architectural style is to be stateless and async. Of course you would use an ESB of some kind rather than point-to-point if you want to protect yourself from failure of a solution component - REST lends itself well to that or to building error-handling in the client. And isn't 'turning operations into data' what we are doing by switching from a verb- based model to a noun-based one?

<comment><USER11> Hi, author here. REST has its set of semantics, but (a) I don't think they're particularly useful for building computational services with, and (b) it's for all practical purposes predicated on HTTP, which carries a lot of baggage. Each _request_ is stateless (barring things like sessions^H^H^H^H^H hack workarounds), but clients and servers certainly are not; and, how one maintains that state and orchestrates further REST interactions based on an intermediate response is entirely on the implementer, _every single time_ a service or client is built/used.

I'd personally much prefer communication and computational primitives that can just as easily be used for a point-to-point interaction as they can be used to _build_ an ESB (enterprise service bus, I believe you mean?) if that's what I want.

I don't think nouns vs. verbs are a useful distinction. Turning operations into data is a first step, but all data is not equivalent. Some representations lend themselves to composition such that you can represent essentially arbitrary structures (sets, graphs, trees, multimaps, etc), but most (including the common ones of JSON and XML) do not. Likewise, some data representations allow for commutative operations so as to reconcile concurrent actors' activity, but most (again including JSON and XML) do not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> CRDTs are absolutely fascinating, but sometimes I really wonder. It seems like you throw words like 'semi-lattice' around ...

Also there is one particular element to the eventual consistency that bothers me, it's that all these eventually consistent algorithms aren't how high powered neural nets will work. Our brain is highly eventually consistent, but it computes without ever needing these algorithms.

<comment><USER34> I think you're taking the neural net _model_ of the brain too strictly.</comment></comment>


Awesome Space: a repository of space related code and data - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/tectonic/status/1210303811706687488 <comment><USER2> Shared 4 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20815558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20815558)</comment>


Goldman's Libya Salesman Was a Little Too Good - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-29/goldman-s-libya-salesman-was-a-little-too-good <comment><USER2> One good point this article makes is that despite popular opinion, just because someone is suing a bank doesn't mean that the bank actually did anything wrong.

Any party that's suing a bank will act the part of the unsophisticated victim, even if they knew exactly what they were getting into.

 _If a salesman offers you a bet that Citi shares will go up, and you take the bet, and Citi shares go up, and you don 't get any money, and you ask him what happened, and he shrugs and says "derivatives are complicated, man" \-- you should probably sue him. But if a salesman offers you a bet that Citi shares will go up, and you take the bet, and Citi shares lose 96 percent of their value, it looks a little funny to go to court and say "well we didn't understand the structural nuances of the bet." The nuances are not your problem._

<comment><USER3> I take issue with that, the article alluded to the reason but never mentioned it: why did the put option fail to hedge the forward?

That really does sound like a big freaking problem!

What the hell happened!? Volatility went through the roof that option should have been a gold mine! What was the underlying asset for the put option, the shares or another forward that would pay out the difference??

If shares, did the short selling restrictions the SEC put in place adversely affect the viability of that option? Was the SEC colluding with Goldman to wipe out Libya's bet? Even unwittingly?

If not shares, did something happen to OTC options in the forward market that is not common news??

This lawsuit could have many legs. Not in compensation but information, and if the bank doesnt want that information out there then compensation.

<comment><USER2> > why did the put option fail to hedge the forward?

They essentially bought a call option. Remember, (bought forward + put option) = call option [1]

They weren't 'hedging' anything, they just wanted to gamble that the stocks would go up. Obviously, that didn't happen. Because all they bought were options, they lost a lot _less_ money than if they had simply bought the same notional amount in actual bank stock.

> Volatility went through the roof that option should have been a gold mine!

Options increase in value when volatility increases _only if the stock price doesn 't change_. If you hold a call and the underlier tanks, it generally doesn't matter than the volatility shot up (unless the option is super long- dated). Try it yourself: [http://www.option-price.com/](http://www.option- price.com/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put%E2%80%93call_parity#Implic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put%E2%80%93call_parity#Implications)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Matt Levine's column/newsletter is one of the things I look forward to each day. His vignettes into finance are consistently interesting, discussed both in depth and understandably to neophytes, and with a dry humor not matched by any other financial journalist. Him talking about DTC settlement is more interesting than anyone else I've seen talking about...pretty much anything in the news.

It's a bit hard to find from the website, so here's the RSS link for everything he writes: [http://www.bloomberg.com/view/rss/contributors/matt- levine.r...](http://www.bloomberg.com/view/rss/contributors/matt-levine.rss)

<comment><AUTHOR> His calling is definitely writing. It would have been a shame if he stayed in banking and didn't end up at Bloomberg. I'm not sure how he ended up doing that because there's probably almost no chance he's making more money blogging than working at Goldman, but I'm glad he did.

<comment><USER5> A family with money. No need. We're all better off for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" They don't seem to have ... asked?"_

I think this is my favorite bit.

Which actually brings up a good proactive defense for the salesman: Make sure you let you client know what they should be asking, not just what they ARE asking. Not that this an easy question to answer - you're asking someone else to point out your unknown unknowns, but in turn, they're blinded by familiarity (example: I actually do experience slight surprise when people haven't heard of Hacker News).

</comment><comment><USER7> > He treated them to dinners, musicals and prostitutes, with the "Lord of the > Rings" musical being a particular favorite

Can anyone explain why the words _corruption_ and _bribery_ are missing from the article? Is it normal to treat government workers to prostitutes?

<comment><USER8> What makes you think it _isn 't_ normal in the developing world?

<comment><USER7> I'd expect firms that are based in the US or UK would be subject to laws against bribing foreign officials, e.g. the FCPA:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "To help plan the training sessions, one of Kabbaj's colleagues e-mailed to > ask about the level of the Libyans' knowledge of derivatives. He responded: > 'Baaaaaaaasic.'"

bizarre. you don't really expect to have to walk through finance 101 with a 67-billion-dollar SWF... you just have to believe the guys hired to manage that fund are qualified right? these are not your grandma's retirement savings.

and then they turn around and say they don't understand what they bought?

<comment><USER10> >you just have to believe the guys hired to manage that fund are qualified right?

being a second cousin of a wife of the "beloved leader"'s chief of security is the best qualification, easily beats your Princeton's MBA in Finance.

<comment> barry-cotter Princeton doesn't have any professional schools, neither law, medicine nor business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For what he (Kabbaj) did in Libya, he never got his 'guaranteed' $9M by Goldman.

> the bank was willing to guarantee him $9 million in pay. It was an > astonishing sum, even at Goldman.

> Kabbaj never got his $9 million.

via [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-goldman-sachs- libya/](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-goldman-sachs-libya/)

<comment><USER12> I was left wondering what happened to the Libyan officials in question? In those days it wasn't unusual for those who displeased Kaddafi to face a show trial and quick execution.

<comment><USER13> Later developments didn't bother with much show in trials.

It appears the mainly involved persons, Layas and Zarti, emigrated to live in Egypt and Vienna, respectively. I'd say that if Zarti applied for asylum in Austria, he'd be one of the applicants with best reasons to get one, by the terms of refugee treaties.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfina...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11052281/How- Libya-bet-billions-on-prosperity-and-lost.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > But "duped" is not exactly the right word. Libya knew it was betting on bank > stocks to go up, and those stocks went down. It's not claiming fraud. It's > claiming "undue influence." The problem is not that Kabbaj was lying. It's > that he was too charming. Libya isn't saying it was duped. It's saying it > was seduced.

Interesting twist here. I guess it must be hard to discern for someone who has lived in this trade for so long, and used this mindset as the core of his trade for most of his career but there are simple things that technical people (or even just lawyers) will easily discern: omissions and hiding of a client's best interest.

If you _know_ something is wrong in a company and you don't tell it to your employer, in many fields, that makes you at least negligent. If you know something is wrong and you don't tell it because it causes personal gain to you, it is actually illegal in most jobs and likely criminal.

If you are paid for giving advices in the interest of your consumer and you hid an honest assessment of risks because you profit in your client's risky behavior, yeah, that's fraud. A doctor prescribing an addictive medicine, an IT guy selling a faulty software because he got share in the selling company, etc...

</comment><comment><USER15> I struggle with this. If you are buying billions of dollars of anything, it is incumbent on you to make sure you get a good deal. You can clearly afford good advisors, and you should not be treated like a consumer walking in off the street.

The fact that a while oil rich country had given the nephew of someone the right to buy billions of dollars is the fault of the fucked up dictatorship ruling the country

I can see why the new government wants to sue - but I suspect a new moral hazard should be introduced - when a dictatorship is buying, it should be automatically assumed that subsequent democratic governments can come and ask for the cash back no questions asked

That alone should stop most dictatorships doing anything. Interesting idea?

<comment><USER16> Interesting idea, although not new. It's called odious debt.

<comment><USER15> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt)

"""In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion."""

(Thanks - V interesting)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So a bank has an extraction team. Looks like a cyberpunk novel. I suppose extraction team come from a "security/mercenary" company. I'm curious of the legal implication.

<comment><USER18> If you're large enough it makes sense to be vertically-integrated with services you need frequently. They have a lot of wealthy people who need to operate in insecure regions, it makes sense that they'd deal with kidnappings etc. relatively frequently (indeed I'd look askance at an employer that expected me to work in a dangerous region and _didn 't_ have a policy/plan for such occasions).

There are any number of private security organizations; like any industry most (but not all) are professionals who know and operate within the relevant laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not all cultures are the same. The article assumes a universal culture and values of "buyer beware" in which personal assurances, friendship, and honor, all mean nothing at all whatsoever.

This is not how most of the world sees things.

In the eyes of those who were assured of sure things, the brutal dismemberment and evisceration of the scammers, their families, and their pets, is justified, reasonable, and pretty certain to happen at some point, to protect one's honor.

If one wishes to do business in other cultures one should understand those cultures.

<comment><USER8>
        > Not all cultures are the same

No. The one in question armed the IRA and friends, blew up an American civilian airliner over Scotland, and shot a British police officer who was protecting their embassy. Babes in the wood.

<comment> saiya-jin so west disposed of him only to create proper civil war in that country, with ISIS cells and in the end, kill at least tens of thousands indirectly, still counting.

way to go west! something about lesser evil and whatnot

<comment><USER8> When people begin by describing Westerners as too noble and too high-minded that they're taken advantage of by other cultures, your comment will be _on fleek_. Until then, the originating comment smacks of Enlightenment-era anti- Semtisim with the roles reversed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was checking out Matt Levine's articles here [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matt...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew- s-levine) and it's interesting how the title of 99% of his articles is "Something and Something Else", "Something, something else, and some other thing". Wonder if he's aware of it himself :-)

<comment><USER21> He has two series: one is Money Stuff, the daily (?) newsletter of finance news, that has such titles, and it is on purpuse for sure. The other is Wall Street (where this article is, the articles that have header images) that seem to have a pattern too, but less clear cut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think the author is hiding (intentionally or not) an important part: The PUT option. This is supposed to hedge against the risk of the stock going down.

It's very possible that the Libyans were informed that they are hedged against a crash, only to discover later that the PUT counterparty got liquidated.

Any one willing to investigate this particular point deeper?

<comment><USER23> They had a forward contract, which is not the right, but the obligation to buy citi shares at some price (though it was cash settled). If citi tanks, you can lose more than just the initial investment. The put was so that they only lost all their money, not more than all their money.

The forward is identical to (long call, short put). You can see that would be bad if the stock goes down. So they bought puts to close out their short put position, leaving them with a long call which expired worthless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Forget about the salesman, that's the best bit:

"Did you know Goldman had an extraction team? In my time selling equity derivatives, it never came up."

</comment><comment><USER24> Umm.... is this this how business is done in all 3rd world countries?</comment>


OS X and case-sensitive file system - <AUTHOR> http://blog.balazspocze.me/2017/12/27/osx-and-case-sensitive-file-system/ <comment><USER2> This is actually a well-known issue with macOS.

In short, you failed to do your homework when choosing a non-standard filesystem for your platform.

I am finding it difficult to give you a lot of sympathy on this issue.</comment>


The more facebook changes, the more I want to start my own - <AUTHOR>

The more facebook changes, the more I want to start my own. Facebook is not evolving. It is turning away from college social networking and becoming just a platform for tid bids. No longer a website to surf but rather just a window to check on.<p>Am I the only one that is ready to move on? <comment><USER2> As far as social networking sites go, I think Facebook has done well: They maintain the largest database of former/current contacts available, while encouraging a "real name" policy so that I always know who I'm talking to (as opposed to a site filled with pseudonyms). While the Applications fad muddled the waters, I think Facebook has been shifting to a much more consistent model with their latest News Feed. It doesn't seem as hodgepodged together as it used to.

If there was something better, I'd move. But if my friends don't move, that question is largely irrelevant. So many students today have joined Facebook that it would take something extraordinary to move enough of them to another site to make it worth my while.

That's the biggest problem I see here: When a social networking site like Facebook captures so much attention and growth, it will take a major blunder or a revolutionary competitor to move enough people away. We may be stuck with Facebook for a long while, because they _aren't bad enough_ to warrant change for _most_ users.

The battle for this generation of social networks has been won. The next site that wants to capture users will either have to aim for the next generation (read: younger) of students, or will have to incorporate something very new. I don't know what that is -- features I'd like to see would include photo face- recognition, GPS location info, etc. More _presence_ , to enable users to interact with others in real life. Yet that may only arrive as devices like the iPhone become the rule, rather than the exception.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure it would take something extraordinary ... just something else. I've seen these cycle through universal usage a lot: LiveJournal, Xanga, Friendster, MySpace and Facebook have all come in and out of vogue among the hordes I'm acquainted with. Perhaps it's generational, or perhaps it's something else, but it seems that every three or four years something supplants the old gathering place. It'll be interesting to see if Facebook stays at the top of the wave longer; I think there's a case that it's different and/or better and therefore less likely to lose audience, but I dunno. I do know that many girls I know can spend hours upon hours upon hours looking at Facebook every single night, whereas I don't really notice the same effect in males.

<comment><AUTHOR> About niche based social networking?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Social networking isn't search. It's much harder to change social networks than OSes or browsers or what have you. If you plan on switching, you have to get all your friends to sign up and use the service.. and then they have to get all their friends to make it worthwhile.. ad nauseam. This is why Facebook doesn't have much serious competition and social networks enjoy regional dominance.

</comment><comment><USER5> nope :)

I think Facebook was leading the field for a long time. Twitter and Friendfeed (though I am not a fan of the latter) carved out a specific niche. But now FB is just stagnant - there hasnt been much in the way of killer new features for over 6 months (probably longer). It's just facelift after facelift (and this new one is not all that good in my opinion).

FB taught us some good lessons: I think the market is ripe for a generation 3 social network.</comment>


An Archive of a Different Type - <AUTHOR> http://blog.archive.org/2020/08/26/an-archive-of-a-different-type/ <comment><USER2> Nice wordplay.

What an incredible collection. Once again, the IA is one of the most important bits to come out of the internet. Long after Facebook and Twitter are forgotten (does anybody remember the name of the town crier in Alexandria?) the Archive will hopefully continue to exist and will continue to amaze.

I learned how to type when I was 15 on one of those clunky old Scheidegger machines with anonymized key caps. 40 years later I still use that skill every day, so this article probably resonated with me for that reason alone.

But to see the physical part of the Archive really warms my heart, at least one group has their eye firmly on the ball and is able to say 'we'll take all of it' in cases like these.

<comment><USER3> I sure hope the IA gets funded enough some day to get the kind of metrology gear [1] it would take to scan in the physical artifacts like these typewriters.

We don't have nanoscale metrology yet, but it would be nice to start at least with this level of scanned-in measurements when the original manufacturing descriptions and specs are long gone. Maybe then, one day our descendants will thank us for the foresight to capture these relics in sufficient detail to make their VR games' retro artifacts authentic.

[1] [https://www.zeiss.com/metrology/home.html](https://www.zeiss.com/metrology/home.html)

<comment><USER4> Funded enough? They probably won't even survive their recent library lending fiasco.

<comment><USER5> It's incredibly frustrating that a resource that holds so much unique content and history decided that the hill it was going to die on was content that is readily available elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> The content wasn't "readily available".

People were either locked at home, the libraries were closed, or else disease- ridden.

Archive.org was providing knowledge in a time of emergency when people had no other means of access to knowledge, and people who may have been out of work due to a pandemic, and thus unable to afford to buy the stuff if it even was available via mail.

It wasn't some trivial lark.

<comment><USER5> I'm just not convinced that what they provided couldn'tve been provided just as well by proper pirate sites, or that they are more discoverable than pirate sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you like this, you may also like [https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift- happens/issues/the-las...](https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift- happens/issues/the-last-interview-262191) in which the author interviews Mr. Tytell shortly before his death.

<comment><USER2> That's great writing, thank you very much for posting this link, it deserves a thread of its own, if you submit I will definitely upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bless the Internet Archive, despite being fairly well known in tech circles it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Imagine you mount a letter wrong while crafting a typewriter, and it causes > a country (Burma) to change that letter to accommodate your mistake.

Does anyone know the details behind this?

<comment><USER10> A few references I could find:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/11/typewri...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/11/typewriter- man/376988/)

[http://languagehat.com/polyglot- typewriting/](http://languagehat.com/polyglot-typewriting/)

<comment><USER11> Linked from a comment in the languagehat article is the Wikipedia talk page for the "Burmese alphabet" article, which puts that claim into doubt: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Burmese_alphabet#Glyph_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Burmese_alphabet#Glyph_inverted_due_to_typewriter_error%3F)

<comment><USER10> A friend is reaching out to Ian Frazer, who authored a piece called "typewriter man" that references this claim, to obtain the provenance of it. I will return to provide an update (and update Wikipedia), if something of substance results.

If I don't return before the reply window closes for this thread, check Wikipedia for those who encounter this thread in the future.

<comment><USER12> I'm going to trust the family over Wikipedia.

<comment><USER10> I didn't say they were lying. I thought it'd be enjoyable to keep pulling the historical thread to see where it leads and codify it in a knowledge repository of some permanence (stick the docs into an IA item, cite it in Wikipedia). Scratching my digital historian itch, doing the future a favor, that's all.

Regardless, thanks for the post, I really enjoyed a peak into Pearl and Martin's work, and yours.

<comment><USER12> I have a reaction when we've got years (and years and years) of this and someone says "well, they're fighting about it on Wikipedia" like that means a single darn thing.

Glad you like the stuff; always up for people having the specific link.

<comment><USER10> I don't blame you at all. I just wanted to make my intent clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Some of these books are very old; an 1892 treatise on the ins and outs of bookkeeping was particularly beautiful._

One of the things I really like about books is the ease with which you can immediately start reading one, despite it possibly being over a century old; some things just have not changed much over time. It's a very refreshing feeling for someone working in an industry obsessed with change and breaking things every few months.

...and "prototype design drawings for the first HP laser printer" \--- definitely looking forward to seeing that one!

<comment><USER14>
         It's a very refreshing feeling for someone working
         in an industry obsessed with change and breaking
         things every few months.

I agree. The last few hobbies I've acquired are pretty mature and they appeal to me for exactly that reason.

There are still exciting innovations occurring in each of these hobbies, but for the most part, they were perfected to a large extent in previous decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's excellent that they could, institutionally, release their set margins, allowing carriage of such otherwise unjustified material.

<comment><USER16> I feel like you really had to hammer some of those puns in, but they really made an impression on me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love this and posts like it, it makes me want to quit my job and become an archivist, just spend my time going through all of this material, digitizing it and publishing about it and becoming a typewriter nerd even though I've never used one outside of playing with old busted ones.

If I were a rich internet company, I'd gladly fund them gratuitously. For now, a monthly contribution will have to do.

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for enjoying the article, everyone.

</comment><comment><USER18> i think they mean a normal archive of physical materials. archivist have been working with collections like these long before the internet archive existed.

<comment><USER19> It's a pun! :)

<comment><USER18> and archive.org doesn't listen to archivists

<comment><USER20> Are Archive.org not themselves archivists?

<comment><USER18> according to the archivists i know, they are cowboys who don't listen to the advice or follow the historic practices of archivists. For example, you should ask permission before you archive something. You have the right to be forgotten, and archive.org scoffs at that premise by ingesting and serving the whole historic web without permission from the owners.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TextIt Goes Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://blog.textit.in/textit-open-sources-technology-platform-as-rapidpro

<comment><USER2> I'm going to write up something that is a bit more geared towards the HN crowd and the pros/cons and other thoughts that go into Open Sourcing a SaaS play, but this is our coming out party announcement. :)

<comment><USER3> looking forward to it, especially the pro/cons of open sourcing a saas because I largely see only cons (opening up code to competitors, bypassing the need for purchasing through your saas).

This textit project is quite interesting I might actually give this a go and build something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this interface seems really nice. as someone not familiar with how these logical bits would normally be arranged, this kind of node flow process fascinates me. Mostly because I actually understand it. I'd like to see how it could apply to other things.</comment>


Startups- Launch Early but Launch Small? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tonywright.com/2008/startups-launch-early-but-launch-small/

<comment><USER2> Kraus also gave the following story about the beta in a public forum: JotSpot signed up over 3,000 people for the beta and let it run for more than nine months.

Every Beta user had free access to the application and the developers were happy because they were getting a lot of testing. When it came time to convert to paid they had an extremely low yield (either less than 2% or less than 0.5% I can't remember) and they had to re-tool completely to figure out how to find paying customers. They ultimately revamped their signup process so that you had to give a credit card to start your 15 day free trial: this cut way down on their trails but boosted their conversion rate significantly and allowed them to focus on what kind of trial users converted at the high frequency.

Steve Blank makes a related point in "Four Steps to the Epiphany" when he cautions startup teams to distinguish between beta for product development and customer development. You need to test your product, but you also need to test your product conceptXwill people pay for it, how many people and how much will they pay. He observes that many startups fail because they can't find a market, few fail because they can't get their product to function.

Beta for test and beta for market exploration have two different goals. The number of early product testers you need may be two or three orders of magnitude less than the number you need to refine your product concept to the point you find market acceptance.</comment>


Show HN: Free ebook to learn swift by building Tetris - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloc.io/swiftris

<comment><USER2> This is pretty cool, thanks for putting it out there.</comment>


Mining The Data Behind Toy Safety - <AUTHOR> http://chartio.com/blog/2014/01/mining-the-data-behind-toy-safety

<comment><USER2> Strikes me as pretty meaningless because while they compare, for example, the number of recalls of toy animals vs. musical instruments, there's no scale showing how many different types of each product are sold. It's entirely possible that musical instruments were recalled at 10x the rate of animals, which seems to be the useful question.

It seems that as the tools have gotten strong, the focus has been on creating prettier graphs, not making sure the units are chosen to be most meaningful.

<comment> shawn-furyan This was my reaction as well. The article calls out high selling manufacturers directly, implying that they are the worst offenders, but without sales data you can't determine recall rate (something like recalled toys per 1000 sold), which is what consumers need to act upon this data.

It strikes me that the largest manufacturers with the most mature design and fabrication processes at least have all the tools to outperform smaller manufacturers in this regard, and so the article may well be nudging readers to manufacturers with higher recall rates.

I mean, one of the principal challenges of empirical data analysis is putting together data from disparate sources in order to come to actionable analysis. One doesn't just publish the data that's easy to come by and then call it a day. And the poor analysis presented in this article is a good illustration of why.

<comment><USER3> > I mean, one of the principal challenges of empirical data analysis is > putting together data from disparate sources in order to come to actionable > analysis. One doesn't just publish the data that's easy to come by and then > call it a day.

I thought it was curious how the most dangerous "toy" is the bicycle. I suppose that's not surprising, but other charts indicate that the greatest hazard to children is choking. I'd wager it's difficult to choke on a bicycle save for disassembling it and ravenously ingesting the smaller parts.

Given the CPSC's recent history (think Buckyballs), I also wonder if the relative number of product recalls has increased due to changes in regulation, changes specific to the CPSC itself (organizational, leadership, mission, etc), or increased pressure from consumer/physician groups.

Products containing lead appear to be responsible for a sizable portion of the recalls, but I'm not completely sure I agree with the implicit suggestion that modern toys are somehow more dangerous based on recalls alone. The US is a litigocracy (and increasingly so) after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This data is completely meaningless without it being as a percent of total sales.

Otherwise it's essentially the same as a popularity chart.

I cannot fathom how this simple understanding was missed.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Fisher Price is the most high-risk manufacturer in terms of recalls"

High-risk implies that for every toy released, there is a high probability that it will be recalled. The post fails to provide any data indicating this is true for Fisher Price. It is most likely that Fisher Price and Mattel simply sell a significantly wider array of toys.

For all we know, based on this data, Fisher Price could just as possibly be the lowest-risk manufacturer.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link directly to data dashboard: [https://chartio.com/project/14404/dash/18166/public/](https://chartio.com/project/14404/dash/18166/public/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps a better title would be "Everything Wrong With Our Insatiable Big Data Fetish In 4 Easy Charts".

</comment><comment><USER7> You should probably work on the embeddable charts, instead of taking a screenshot, saving-optimizing, uploading, CDN'ing, linking to the image.</comment>