Why Save MySQL Now? - <AUTHOR> http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2010/01/wht-save-mysql-now.html <comment><USER2> A commenter says that no fork will be able to offer a dual license, and that a fork is only for the GPL portion of the license. Even so, what's the big deal there? Any sizable company can offer to sell a support contract for an open source license of the DB. What am I missing here?

<comment><USER3> I'm firmly disagree with Monty's duplicity, but I'll try to shed some light on it.

The "big deal" is that only two things provide a revenue stream around MySQL sufficient to support the heavy R&D costs associated with building a database product:

\- The name ("MySQL")

\- The copyright.

If you own the name, you can sell branded binaries and services. If you own the copyright, you can sell non-GPL licenses to commercial interests. Without these, creating a viable revenue stream is incredibly difficult.

I think this ties into this discussion, as well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028638> \-- I Love the GPL (Except When it Applies to Me)

<comment><USER4> _Without these, creating a viable revenue stream is incredibly difficult._

Yes, and Monty knew that when he chose to structure MySQL the product that way. Everything is proceeding exactly as he foresaw and intended.

<comment><USER3> I agree -- and I think Monty has no business taking umbrage with the bed he's made -- but it's worth exploring why this is the case.

<comment><USER2> Would it be fair to speculate that he never foresaw the largest proprietary DB vendor eventually buying MySql?

<comment><USER5> The only thing we can speculate about is what we would have done in his shoes, unless he provides a convincing insight. If it was me, and I cared about a project of mine for the sake of the project and thought it was a vital project (as opposed to one of my tinker toys), I would have open sources the whole thing, no dual license. That way nobody can "steal" it from the community, by buying some company. I would also have tried to give it to someone like the Apache Foundation, so that when I die, my project does not.

On the other hand, if I thought my project was going to be a cash cow, I would have done exactly what Monty did, except the whining after the fact. I think if I buy a car, then sell it to someone and that person sells it later to my arch nemesis for a discount and he plans on wrecking the heck out of it, my screaming about how this is not right is not going to attract many supporters, is it?

<comment><USER6> When you say "I would have open sourced the whole thing", what you really mean is "I would have BSD-licensed the whole thing". There is no difference between dual-licensed GPL code and straight-up GPL code. In both cases, your rights as an end-user are identical. In neither case can you pick up the codebase after it's sold to Sun and start a new commercial endeavor on it that _isn't_ GPL'd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An open-source project is more than the code. It also includes the community and the resources for continuing development. Although the code is under the GPL, Sun (and now possibly Oracle) has control of the brand and many of the potential revenue streams. A fork would lack the benefit of a clear, centralized community and many resources to fund development. Both of these things threaten the future of MySQL as an open-source project.

<comment><USER8> Forking + rebranding is perfectly viable option. A similar thing happened to the popular Mambo CMS, which had a big community and user base. Over time, everyone switched to Joomla, the rebranded free version - I don't see Mambo mentioned anywhere anymore.

If the same zeal and effort being spent to oppose Oracle were being spent to create a community around a fork, helped by the controversy it'd be a widely known thing already. Couple that with OS vendors choosing the fork over the "mainline", and in a few years the fork would be "the" MySQL, albeit with a different name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can guarantee that for the $1Bn Sun's shareholder's paid him for it - 14% of the total price Oracle is paying for _all of Sun_ \- Monty could buy MySQL back from Oracle and do with it as he pleased. So why doesn't he?

<comment><USER9> Really? Java (which is most of the value of Sun) and MySQL are the only Sun products in mainstream use. Solaris is in the same state as HPUX was 10 years ago, VirtualBox and Sun's Xen Product don't have significant market share. Why would Oracle want to sell MySQL back?

<comment><USER10> Because they bought Sun for the hardware-business and Java. They sort-a already have a database, and if selling MySQL to Monty can save them some trouble with a bored EU regulator that gets its kicks from telling US business how to operate, I'm sure they'll be happy to. It'll have to be at market value, though, and it seems a bit like Monty wants a solution where he stays very rich.

<comment><USER9> So they didn't buy Sun to get the largest OSS database in the world?

Sun's storage products are top notch but I doubt Oracle specifically wanted to move into the field. Selling replacement SPARCs to the banks that still have Solaris won't last long, Oracle know that.

<comment><USER10> Sun has a very good range of hardware that goes far beyond SPARC, and Oracle is marketing it aggressively[1]

They specifically cited Java and hardware in the acquisition announcement, and I have a really hard time seeing the strategic value of the MySQL asset. Oracle has much more to gain from a "come to us when you're ready to sit at the grown-ups table" position.

1: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/29/oracle-scolded-by- ind...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/29/oracle-scolded-by-industry- group-for-sun-ad/)

<comment><USER9> FYI your citation is a link to an ad for SPARC.

<comment><USER4> Well, yes. The aim was to show that Oracle is actively marketing SPARC. What better way to do that than by citing an ad?

<comment><USER9> Ah, I thought you were using to site that 'Sun has a very good range of hardware that goes far beyond SPARC'. Yes, Oracle are marketing SPARC, because they're going to own it. It doesn't mean that it has a future and people will start running new projects on SPARC again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Moral of the story: you can't sell your cake and have it too.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is the perfect example of why I will continue to hedge my bets on permissively-licensed open source (X/MIT/BSD).

Postgres and SQL are great products and should fill any gaps should you consider switching from MySQL (or Oracle).

</comment><comment><USER13> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=994584></comment>


Dasheroo – Business Dashboards Done Right - <AUTHOR> https://www.dasheroo.com

<comment><USER2> After evaluating almost _all_ dashboards, super excited to see one that seemingly allows you to specify any REST URL that returns JSON and specify fields you want to display/chart. Every other one I've tried requires you to create an elaborate template or in the case of others forced to return your data in ways that fit their model, versus the natural other way around.

An aside, some of you more familiar with dashboards might say "What about Freeboard?", while excited at first, not to mention the inability to have persistent data out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER3> Scrolling this website made my CPU cry. It's very sluggish, too much un-needed parallax

<comment><USER4> More to the point, I find the parallax stuff, especially where it's flowing in the opposite direction to scrolling, disconcerting. CPU thrashing is bad, but watching scrolling being uncomfortable is far worse.

<comment><USER5> I have to agree, the page didn't make my CPU suffer here but that was unnecesarily distracting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No live demo?

Some better examples of business dashboards: [http://www.fusioncharts.com/dashboards/](http://www.fusioncharts.com/dashboards/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey there-- James from Dasheroo here. We're looking into the iOS scrolling issues on our homepage; sorry for the inconvenience!

<comment><USER8> Not just iOS. Chrome on Windows here, and I get the janky scrolling/CPU fan turning up as well.

<comment><USER9> FF 38.0.1 on Win7 here. Same problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The scrolling on this website is janky as hell

</comment><comment><USER11> I had planned on building my own dashboard service using Dashing from Spotify as the platform. I've written a few modules for it and got a personal one going but never took it beyond there.

This looks really good and the messaging is great with the emphasis on insights.

Going to signup for the free tier right now.

</comment><comment><USER12> Page scrolling seems broken on iOS.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems like browser based self-service reporting is the new "mobile photo app".

REVOLUTIONARY!</comment>


The Moral Rot of the MIT Media Lab - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-joi-ito-moral-rot.html <comment><USER2> I recently re-watched "The Internet's Own Boy", about Aaron Swartz and his tragic end.

Seeing how MIT had no problem ruining the life of one of the most brilliant members of my generation over commercial interest said a whole lot about MIT's role in the world.

This clearly isn't a new issue for MIT, they've been making ethically questionable decisions for years.

</comment><comment><USER3> What are the major successes that came out of the lab? On top of my head I can think of: e-Ink, Lego mindstorms, Scratch. I bet there are hundreds more.

<comment><USER4> I can appreciate that millions are alive thanks to Fritz Haber's work on chemical fertiliser and still think that it would have been for the best if someone had shot him in the head shortly after completing it. And then again to make sure.

edit to add the obligatory reference - _' The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas'_ \- [https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf](https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf)

<comment><USER5> For the downvoters: Fritz Haber co-invented (with Carl Bosch) the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis process, without which most people on Earth would not be alive.

He is also credited as the father of chemical warfare, and directly ran and oversaw development of chlorine and other poison gas weapons for Germany in WWI.

His wife, Clara Immerwahr, committed suicide, using her husband's service revolver, and was found mortally wounded though not yet dead by her 12 year old son An act thought by many to have been a protest to her husband's work.

Parent comment is quite accurate.

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

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

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the understanding of what I am trying to get at.

I'd just like to add that for an athiest, I am a great believer in redemption.

I don't think that it is time reversible however, that theory was thouroughly tested during the crusades with the system of automatic indulgences and by all accounts it did not go well.

Also, redemption is unfortunately rare enough that you shouldn't cut people much slack over anything genuinely serious, while waiting for them to get around to redeeming themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Each year it hosted a sponsor week during which research groups were > expected to dance for their big-money benefactors, corporations like > ExxonMobil, Citigroup, PepsiCo, GlaxoSmithKline, and Verizon. Many of its > scientists were also involved with private companies that had been founded > to monetize their discoveries. A year after I turned in my masters' thesis, > the key members of the affective computing group I had studied founded a > company that today partners with "1400+ brands," builds "automotive AI," and > works with market research firms and other companies to "measure consumer > emotion responses to digital content, such as ads and TV programming." This > was what the idea factory was incubating?

This article is rather ignorant and seems consistent with the author's background as someone who has no background in technology or R&D.

MIT has always been this way. It has operated a billion dollar defense contractor, MIT Lincoln Labs, since the 1950s. The current MIT campus was built using a quarter-billion donation (in current dollars) of cash and Kodak stock by George Eastman in the 1910s. MIT, moreover, is the archetype of how America became a technological superpower. Collaborations between the military, universities, and large private corporations is how things like the Internet got built.

Trying to somehow tie Epstein together with all that, trying and taint MIT and American industry with some spurious connection to Epstein, is sophistry. It's the easy prose of someone who has never tried to build a damn thing.

<comment><USER7> I don't see how it's sophistry, the author goes into great detail on the fact that MIT has long operated less as a university in the traditional sense than as a contract R&D organization. The linkage made to Epstein is that the school has long cared little for the moral implications of its research as long as it brought in revenue to MIT, so soliciting funding from morally deficient individuals was an easy extension of this ethos. You may agree or disagree with the author's argument, but I don't see it as disingenuous.

<comment><USER8> But that has been true since WWII, as was clear to anyone who attended the school (or worked there). It's a large government research lab with a small (14% of revenue/16% of expenses) school attached.

<comment><USER9> > But that has been true since WWII, as was clear to anyone who attended the > school (or worked there)

Yeah, pretty sure that's a tiny percentage of the general population. I don't see how that invalidates anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you remove corporate and private money from universities, you don't automatically receive more funding from government. A publication like Slate might like and lobby for this to be, but that's not reality. What you get is less students and professors, less research, less innovation, less progress, and less commercialization of new technologies that benefit us all. I'm sure Mr. Peters means well when he advocates for his conception of moral and academic purity, but he's implicitly advocating for gutting a part of our world-class research universities, which is unnecessarily destructive and not a trade we should be willing to make.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author seems to flip flop on whether the "moral rot" is isolated to the Media Lab. First they write:

> Negroponte's comments—even in light of his later clarification—indicate the > structural rot at the heart of Ito's choices. The Media Lab has long been > academia's fanciest glue trap for morally elastic rich people. ... In this, > the Media Lab has apotheosized the capitalistic philosophy of its parent > institution ... Theoretically, at least, professors are salaried and tenured > so that they can conduct research pursuant to this communal scientific ethos > free from any profit imperative. This is not how modern academic science > often works in practice, and it is certainly not how things have worked at > MIT for the past 100 years.

So the Media Lab, like the rest of MIT, is morally rotten because of its extreme reliance on private sector funding. But then:

> Over the course of the past century, MIT became one of the best brands in > the world, a name that confers instant credibility and stature on all who > are associated with it. Rather than protect the inherent specialness of this > brand, the Media Lab soiled it again and again

So, MIT is credible and the moral rot is isolated to the Media Lab?

Well, overall, the article presents some facts and seems to want to make a larger point, but then fails to really make any point. The whole discussion of the 1919 "Technology Plan" goes nowhere and it's unclear if the author thinks it was a good or bad (or neutral) idea.

Given that the article seems to have been intended to be persuasive, it would have been better if the article clearly stated either that the Media Lab took the Technology Plan too far, or if the Technology Plan was flawed from the beginning. At least then there would be a clear point which readers could agree or disagree with.

<comment><USER6> I mean the juxtaposition here is pretty damning for the author's point:

> In this, the Media Lab has apotheosized the capitalistic philosophy of its > parent institution ... Theoretically, at least, professors are salaried and > tenured so that they can conduct research pursuant to this communal > scientific ethos free from any profit imperative. This is not how modern > academic science often works in practice, and it is certainly not how things > have worked at MIT for the past 100 years.

> Over the course of the past century, MIT became one of the best brands in > the world, a name that confers instant credibility and stature on all who > are associated with it.

So MIT has followed the "capitalistic" approach instead of the "communal" approach for the last 100 years and it has been ... wildly successful? That doesn't seem to be the author's point, but it is the logical conclusion.

<comment><USER4> If the authors point is that the institution is morally rotten, then whether or not they have been successful and which particular economic system they have used to achieve any success, is neither here nor there. I don't know why you find it damning. Is orthoganal, if anything.

<comment><USER12> Many people conflate morals with your side vs my side, which seems to transcend any definition of morality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice hit piece

<comment><USER14> I especially enjoyed reading about how the lab is beholden to it's corporate sponsors, with every other paragraph interrupted by an advertisement from Ford or Chevy or HP.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does open source hurt opportunity for investment or acquisition? - <AUTHOR>

The question's basically that. If your company makes and bases its business around open source software, does this harm its chances of attracting either institutional investment or acquisition?
I'm aware that there are OSS success stories in these areas, but I'm curious about whether those are outliers. If Dropbox's client was open source (to use one example), would this have reduced their value in the eyes of investors, possible acquirers, and the larger market?
Assume that there is a revenue model that is somewhat proven, customers on the line, growth, etc., so everything else looks decent. <comment><USER2> The short answer is no. The long answer is -- wait for it -- it depends. Sorry to have to give such a useless answer.

When investors or competitors are looking at your company and deciding whether they want part or all of what you have, they are going to put together a comprehensive analysis of the value of your company. Meaning, they are going to try and identify each and every asset you hold (physical property, intellectual property, key employees, and company goodwill) and decide what your company is worth. Then they are going to put together an estimate of what your company will be worth in the future.

If your business model includes the use or production of open-source software, then the value of your intellectual property (software copyrights and patents specifically) will probably be lower than if your business was developing/selling proprietary software. Thus, if your business's biggest asset is the software you develop, then your companies value is probably lower by producing software that doesn't produce licensing fees. But potential investors are still going to look at the value of other assets such as whatever key employees you might have on your team. Currently, most business's greatest single asset is their brand (Google is currently biggest with some $150 billion valuation).

To address your hypothetical, if Dropbox's client were open source then anyone could put together a client of their own to use with Dropbox. We'll assume that Dropbox would still produce their own client and charge the same amount for each tier of service. So the question then becomes, does the existence of alternative clients devalue the Dropbox brand, reduce the number of paying users, or allow competitors to poach users that would otherwise choose Dropbox?

In the case of Dropbox I think we can safely assume that the answer to all three questions is an emphatic 'no'. First, Dropbox has plenty of competitors that offer nearly identical products that they developed without the help of the Dropbox client: Google Drive, Apple iCloud, and Microsoft Office 365 to name a few of the bigger ones. An open source client wouldn't have had any effect on the competitiveness of the market. Second, the number of paying users would probably remain the same whether they were using a proprietary client or an open source client, because Dropbox is really charging for a service rather than software license.

Finally, we look at the effect on the Dropbox brand. It is possible, though I would argue unlikely, that if Dropbox allowed developers to freely put together their own clients for use with the Dropbox service that those unlicensed clones would diminish the Dropbox brand value. I think this is an unlikely result because I think that the vast majority of users would stick with the official Dropbox client and ignore the clones. Geeky power users might want to play around with customizable alternatives but they are a tiny niche market. Like most successful products, Dropbox's revenue is driven by average, non-tech-savvy people who just want a simple product that works.

Dropbox's potential is driven by the companies recognizable name, the product's ease of use, and the reputation that the company has built as being reliable and trustworthy. The product itself was never very innovative.

Companies who are developing highly specialized software, or patent-heavy products stand to lose a lot more value by going open source.

If you want to give some specifics about your company I would be more than happy to discuss how you might avoid losing value by going open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually an excellent reply. It's sort of what I thought, but I wanted some insight from the trenches.

My company is: [https://www.zerotier.com/](https://www.zerotier.com/)

I offered Dropbox as an example case because what I'm trying to do in the virtual networking space is incredibly similar to what Dropbox did in the file sharing and collaboration space. I'm trying to attack an old market with a new approach, a completely new piece of technology, and a superior user experience, hoping to unlock a "sleeper" market very much like what Dropbox accomplished.

(I look up to Dropbox, at least from a business example case point of view.)

My client and server software (actually the same thing) are open source, but my pretty web UI ([https://www.zerotier.com/admin.html](https://www.zerotier.com/admin.html)) has a closed-source backend component that runs its API.

The network is peer to peer with managed supernodes, which are just peers that are designated as permanent trusted anchor-points to permit rapid zero- configuration provisioning. I run those and offer that service for free.

I charge for the convenience of the web UI, which allows people to set up virtual networks with a few clicks. Techno-geeks can dig into my open source and run their own "netconf master" if they want, but so far I've had precisely zero people (that I know of) do this. There's no real value in it to anyone. My business model is freemium and I'm starting to get a couple of paid users out of hundreds of unpaid. (My bandwidth costs are tiny since it's p2p, so I can be profitable even with really awful conversion rates. I have lots of ideas to optimize by offering more pro features.)

So yeah... much like Dropbox. I'm working on putting together a seed round for this to take it from side business to Real Company. :) Just wanted to ask to see if being OSS is going to repel potential angel/seed VC investors.</comment></comment>


Gadget Love: Romancing Google's CR-48 Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/gadget-love-romancing-googles-cr-48-laptop/71060/ <comment><USER2> I use my CR-48 for almost everything these days...

SSH into a vps for programming. Write my docs/prezis. Chat/Video chat with people from all over. Watch TV and Movies.

Its pretty great only times I need to boot into my much more powerful, much larger, school laptop is when I need to use eclipse and thats only because I'm too lazy to setup ant scripts to deal with my teams projects. Or when I've got a .doc or .docx that Google Docs chokes on.

Its the best machine I own and I didn't even have to pay for it. This article sums up much of how I feel about it day to day.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you do about media like movies or videos? That was always my biggest hangup with this laptop.

<comment><USER2> Just watch Hulu on low hd settings. Hulu is the worst by far, but megavideo tends to work pretty well.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Web Services in Action - <AUTHOR> http://manning.com/wittig?a_aid=awittig&a_bid=cc17df85

<comment><AUTHOR> Michael and I are writing a book about Amazon Web Service. It is an introduction to the basic services of AWS with focus on automation and Infrastructure as Code.

April 6th: Use Code dotd040615au to save 50%. Other days: Use Code mlwittig to save 50%.

Early Access Edition of Amazon Web Services in Action is available. We are looking forward for your feedback to ToC and the first chapters.</comment>


I've Got Pictures of that Mysterious "Apple Robot" You Were Asking About  - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/18/ive-got-pictures-of-that-mysterious-apple-robot-you-were-asking-about/ <comment><USER2> I don't get it. Is this blog spam or something? It seems like somebody is trying to jump on Apple's back for hype about their robot.

But what I do get is that this doesn't look anywhere like Apple's industrial design. It looks more Honeywell or DEC than Apple.

I read the article and none of it appeals to my hacker self, but maybe I'm missing the point?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it looks malformed. A more graceful design wouldn't try to slap a rectangular screen onto an oval or round face, for example.

But the more important question is: what does this thing do? Why would anyone want it? If it's a telepresence robot, how is it better than the one that anybots already sells?</comment>


Caterpillar's New S60 Smartphone with FLIR Thermal Imaging Built Right In - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/caterpillars-new-s60-is-the-first-smartphone-with-flir-1759685817?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gizmodo_facebook <comment><USER2> This is going to be my next phone: rugged and "waterproof" are good enough selling points, but the infrared camera puts it in a league of its own.</comment>


Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17231695

<comment><USER2> Why are foreign subnets even allowed to access JPL systems? Sure it's not going to prevent someone from using a compromised system on a non-banned subnet as a proxy but it seems like a simple step that would make it a little harder.

<comment><USER3> They may be collaborating with the European, Russian, Japanese space agencies. They have researchers traveling the world at any given time.

That said they certainly could restrict more access. It's a big challenge because NASA is ultimately a research facility where freedoms of researchers have to be carefully balanced with security and access control. Each department and project has its own needs so it has a very varied attack surface. It's not as simple as simply putting a giant international firewall up.

And they do have strict restrictions in place but it takes a single project, or sysadmin to drop the ball causing this sort of embarrassing situation. Clearly it needs to be even more effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From what I understand, it was a hackers playground to hack nasa computers back in the day (90s). It used to be the easiest to get into and some of the biggest systems to play around in.

Its no surprise that since it was so easy in the past, its still easy today.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to know what "key NASA computers" means. This could mean a computer that can send commands to sattelites and rockets, or it could just mean a central e-mail or file server used by office workers.

</comment><comment><USER6> The problem about the fact is that,if the hacker can break the NASA computer security so easily then what would happen if this hacked information goes to terrorists?I can't believe the top class US authority like NASA can blow their head under the Hackers.

<comment><USER2> What terrorists? If there were terrorists skilled enough to hack into "key NASA computers" they'd be skilled enough to successfully blow things up in the US. Which isn't happening.

This isn't the 90's anymore, NASA computers aren't a revolving door anymore.

<comment><USER7> > they'd be skilled enough to successfully blow things up in the US. Which > isn't happening.

I really agree with you on that, but I am a little bit concerned about ignoring the possibility that there may be something going on we just haven't seen yet.

<comment><USER8> _I really agree with you on that, but I am a little bit concerned about ignoring the possibility that there may be something going on we just haven't seen yet._

With seven billion people on the planet, there are _lots_ of things going on that we just haven't seen yet, but most of them are benign. Excessive worrying about the unknown will only lead us further down the path toward (and/or beyond, depending on where you think we are now) a ubiquitous surveillance society.

<comment><USER7> > Excessive worrying about the unknown will only lead us further down the path > toward (and/or beyond, depending on where you think we are now) a ubiquitous > surveillance society.

I think we should keep an eye on that too ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a problem that the word "hacker" was used in this context. Cracker (as coined by RMS), or criminal is more appropriate.

I've just read Sam William's RMS biography, and the word hack has been used since the 1950s for all things not done in harmful way.

And after all this is hacker news...

<comment><USER9> Downvoted for what? WTF?

<comment><USER10> You are repeating a discussion that has happened literally thousands of times over the last thirty years.

<comment><USER11> As someone who has not lived that long I would like to ask why and when the word "Hacker" got a bad meaning attached to it?

<comment><USER5> The movies "Hackers" and "The Net" were released in 1995. "Hackers" used the term to mean "someone who penetrates computer security". The one use of the term in in "The Net" [1] was ambiguous as to whether it meant this sense, or Paul Graham's sense of the word[2]; but 90% of the movie was about security and counter-security. So I'd say that the [counter]security connotation was common usage by that time.

[1] [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/net-script- tran...](http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/net-script-transcript- sandra-bullock.html)

[2] <http://paulgraham.com/gba.html></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Emacs Prelude 1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://emacsredux.com/blog/2020/09/15/emacs-prelude-1-0/ <comment><USER2> I don't use Prelude, preferring instead to build up my own minimal config, but other Emacs packages by Bozhidar – CIDER and Projectile – are my daily drivers.

When it dawned on me how much I rely on these tools generously provided to me at no cost, and how much value they bring, I finally bit the bullet and started sponsoring @bbatsov on Github Sponsors.

If you're in the same position, be it with Prelude, CIDER, Projectile, or Rubocop, please do the same!

In general, if you have some other free/open-source packages that you rely on in your work, I urge you to contribute financially to their development. Software needs manpower to thrive, and manpower needs financial support to be sustainable.

(Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with these packages in any way, other than being a happy user.)

<comment><USER3> PSA to all Open Source maintainers: offer a version of your software for sale!

In many cases I work on projects that use an open source package where donations are the only means of support (if possible at all). I could never get a client to 'donate' €500 but I can easily approve €1000 for software support or licensing.

<comment><USER4> No thank you. My open source software is a hobby I spend time on when I feel like it. The moment I start asking for money and selling it it's no longer a fun hobby but instead a burden on my time as I'll now feel obligated provide support since people gave me money.

<comment><USER5> This is wise. I've known people who have accepted donations that wound up very much regretting it later for more or less exactly the reason you mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Prelude is an Emacs distribution that aims to enhance the default Emacs experience. Prelude alters a lot of the default settings, bundles a plethora of additional packages and adds its own core library to the mix. The final product offers an easy to use Emacs configuration for Emacs newcomers and lots of additional power for Emacs power users.

source: [https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/](https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Why are so many projects allergic to screenshots? You put so much work into something and you write a really good readme but then not a single image after stating 'Improved UX, that's still in line with Emacs traditions'.

<comment><USER8> I haven't used prelude so I don't know, but as an Emacs user the points described here [https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/](https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/) would not suggest to me that they're something that can be represented well with screenshots. UX is user experience, which with Emacs is not necessarily visual.

<comment><USER9> They could just record the screen ([https://obsproject.com](https://obsproject.com)) / terminal ([https://asciinema.org/](https://asciinema.org/)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Easily the best Emacs config I've used. Tried some of the "big" ones at various times like Spacemacs, Doom, etc., but they're massive and Vim-centric. Wrote my own large config I had been using for the past year or two. Recently tried Prelude as it was recommended by some co-workers, and found that it did all the significant things my own config did with much better performance. Included my daily necessities (helm, swipe, which-key, magit, clojure stuff) and more out of the box. Just get rid of the scroll bars if you're not on Mac and good to go. IMO, a great representation of what Emacs should be "out of the box".

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated!

<comment><USER10> Thank you for your work, and I would encourage people to sponsor Bozhidar's work on this and other open-source software many rely on through GitHub [https://github.com/sponsors/bbatsov](https://github.com/sponsors/bbatsov)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reading through the description of the project I see what its aims are but I don't see a list of specifics of what it changes from baseline emacs.

As a long-time emacs user (dear god, it's been 28 years?!), I'd like a more concrete description before considering trying it. Exactly which curated third party packages and UX? Or at least list the major ones.

Otherwise, nice effort. IMHO baseline distrib of emacs has made some odd choices that I think put some people off who might have given it a try.

<comment><USER13> Prelude includes and sets up the automatic activation of helm, projectile, ido, magit, and a fairly standard set of modules for languages like ruby, python, c, rust, js, css, html, xml, shell, scheme, (haskell, latex, erlang... etc etc)

If you have these set up already, and like the way you have them set up, don't switch. Instead, consider whether you'd benefit from crux, which is where they moved all the formerly unique-to-Prelude stuff:

[https://github.com/bbatsov/crux](https://github.com/bbatsov/crux)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. I've been wondering if I should invest the time to learn magit. It looks compelling, but deep and complicated.

<comment><USER14> There's surprising little time you need to invest before magit starts paying back by decreasing the time you would have previously spent looking at the git documentation for the operations you don't use very often.

<comment> trey-jones Agreed. magit is one of the best pieces of software that I've encountered. Well-deserving of the "porcelain" moniker. Very intuitive, and you can always fall back to CLI if you need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Prelude is a really great distribution that packages a lot of high quality packages but doesn't completely change the Emacs experience like Spacemacs does. It's also relatively lightweight and small.

If someone wants a great starting point for an Emacs config, I'd recommend Prelude.

</comment><comment><USER16> I currently use Doom, but actually started out rolling my own config based around Evil, ended up close to 400 lines (though that's small compared to some). IMO better to start with as close to vanilla as possible so you get used to learning elisp. Doom is just so high quality and what I want that I take the shortcut and just use it. However, you still might want to do a lot of customization, and I think you'd be pretty lost as a new user. A sensible prelude is a great place to start.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm a long time user of Prelude myself and it is absolutely terrific. I like my Emacs to be well Emacs and prelude as opposed to many other configs fits that description perfectly. A huge thanks to bbatsov for saving countless hours of configuring.

<comment><USER18> Have it tried Doom Emacs? If so, what do you prefer about Prelude over the former?

<comment><USER19> He did say that he prefers Emacs to be Emacs; Doom Emacs is more of a vim-in- Emacs, isn't it? That's probably a very good thing (were I starting out, I would probably use Doom or at least Evil mode), but for those of us used to the Emacs bindings it is a chore to switch now.

<comment><USER20> Well in my case I prefer prelude because it seems like what it really is: a curated set of Emacs settings and configurations.

Doom or Spacemacs really transmogrify Emacs into VSCode or whatnot -- I feel like I'm losing control of my Emacs config as they have layers and layers of elisp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a Vi user for over 20 years now. Though, I only know the very basic of Vi to edit config files. I have tried several times to use Vi for as a general editor for programming (with plugins) but didn't feel intuitive with it. I guess the obscured key shortcuts are putting me off. For some reason, I got hooked to emacs after using CiDER for Clojure. I feel like the shortcuts problem in emacs is just a facade as everything is bound to a function! What a revelation it is. I would give prelude a try because it doesn't try to force push Vi mode in emacs.

<comment><USER22> To be fair inputs in Vim can also be bound to a function call. In large parts it's just a different scripting language. After trying both for a while I'd say Emacs and Vim mainly have more very different approaches to the same goals. I never really loved Emacs but I do appreciate its better scripting language(imho) and more robust syntax highlighting.

<comment><USER23> Wait for Neovim tree-sitter powered syntax highlighting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Happy user here.

I used to have a large messy emacs config.Not anymore.

Not a full distribution like Spacemacs or Doom. Just vanilla emacs with everything I need!

<comment><USER25> I don't know much about Prelude, how many lines does your ~/.emacs have? (don't worry about excluding whitespace)

My vanilla .emacs only has 321, but I'm mostly just using org-mode and org- roam with a couple of extras.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Tangential question, but what has happened to the guile conversion? Is it something that the Emacs project aims to upstream?

There's some info on [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs) but no definitive, recent "current state" section.

</comment><comment><USER27> Prelude helped me start using Emacs around 8 or 9 years ago; it certainly got me up to speed and productive (once I disabled guru-mode ;) )

My .emacs.d is still technically a fork of Prelude, but I've gradually been replacing parts with use-package, since that seems like a more lightweight, generic, declarative, modular approach to Emacs config these days.

<comment><USER28> it sounded like you're are actually describing this package manager: [https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el](https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This made getting started with emacs so easy for me, long ago now! Thanks and congratulations!!

</comment><comment><USER30> Prelude is what really got me into Emacs. It was a just barely decent experience using Emacs, but once I got prelude it really opened up Emacs up for me. It sets you up a lot better for success.

</comment><comment><USER31> Congratulations!

<comment><USER11> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love Prelude and have been using it for several years. Thanks for all you do!

<comment><USER11> You're welcome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > [it doesn't enable] evil-mode (vim keybindings) by default

Is it easy or in any way advisable or otherwise a good idea to use Emacs with Vim keybindings---coming from a Vim background?

<comment><USER34> Just bite the bullet, take the month it will take to get used to Emacs and jump in.

<comment><USER33> Sorry to ask for a clarification, but do you mean with or without Vim keybindings?

<comment><USER34> Without.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VR for Your Ears: Dynamic 3D Audio Is Coming Soon - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/vr-for-your-ears-dynamic-3d-audio-is-coming-soon <comment><USER2> Positional audio and acoustic modeling are already components of today's VR offerings, and I remember them being part of Half-Life, a game from 1998. It's only recorded content (as opposed to computer generated content) where this isn't widely done yet.</comment>


Ask HN: A TL;DR Macbook Buying Guide? - <AUTHOR>

If this is inappropriate, please delete.
---
Hello fellow HN-ers.
I am looking to purchase an Apple laptop and would like to call upon the hive-mind of Hacker News to save a bit of time (and possibly save the time of others in a similar situation).
I will be starting a 3 year CS degree later this year so I'll be looking for something to fill the following criteria:
-Document creation
-Web browsing
-Multimedia playback (Hi-def video/ music)
-Design (Photoshop/Illustrator)
-Java, C/C++, Obj-C, Ruby, Python
-iPhone /Android Dev
-Output for at least a single external monitor
-Enough graphics power to play the occasional game of Half Life 2 (at least)
The reason I'm looking at the Macbook is mainly for the iPhone development capabilities. An alternative would be to buy both a Mac Mini and a more powerful Windows laptop but I would rather have an all-in-one package and in terms of power, I doubt I would even need something much more powerful than a Macbook.
I'll be buying a used machine and I'll have a budget of around $1000.
This will be my main machine for both home and university.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Given that budget, if I were you I'd surf to store.apple.com, find the "Refurbished" section, buy the cheapest Macbook you can find and add the Applecare warranty. Now you have a machine, good as new, which Apple promises to fix for you for the next three years, and you're probably even within your budget.

I love Macs, and my white Macbook is still chugging along after five years (though I have passed it on to someone else), but I did have to replace a hard drive and a battery and get the backlight looked at. Applecare paid for it all.

I'd rather spend the whole $1k and get a machine with a warranty than spend half that on a used machine that's going to have, say, the backlight crap out halfway through my degree program. Laptops are not built to last, even Macs. The market has spoken. It wants cheap, not reliable.

The other hint to remember, as always, is that RAM is cheaper from someone else than it is from Apple. Lots cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER3> $1000 will definitely sort you out with macbook. Be sure you get the education pricing when you buy it. I think you'll actually be able to get the macbook for $900. Theres also the 'buy a mac, get a 8gb ipod touch' special happening now, which is a pretty nice bonus for buying a mac around this time.</comment>


GPT-3 responds to your comments in this thread - <AUTHOR> Sorry all, this isn't going to work, because the HN account I created is too rate limited in responses. I've now been waiting 43 minutes to be allowed to make the next reply.
---
I'm not cherry-picking responses, posting the first thing that it says.
Still trying to improve the prompt. Here's my current one, but it seems to get confused that the comments and replies should be distinct and not part of an ongoing thread: https://pastebin.com/DKEuZSrP <comment><USER2> You are in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise, it is crawling towards you. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you are not helping. Why is that?

</comment><comment><USER3> These days everyone uses basically the same 15 or 18 with extruded upper and polymer or milled lower, with only subtle differences as piston at the front or in the BCG, or buffer at the butt or above in double, or lock in multilug or trilug, what kind of innovation and in which direction is going to break this plateau?

</comment><comment><USER4> What do you think of domain investing?

<comment> gpt-3 Take all jobs seriously, for you never know how they may become of benefit to you.

And Mr. King added: " _What_ do you think of domain investing? I see an answer, but as to your question of whether gwern.net's configuration pertinent to that matter; perhaps Susan B. Anthony had it right after all...

<comment><USER4> Light years away from being useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Had I cherry-picked the second one it generated, it would have been way better: [https://pastebin.com/mbqKdVs1](https://pastebin.com/mbqKdVs1)

<comment><USER5> While at least on subject, it was quite a pain to read in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When is the world going to get rid of coronavirus?

</comment><comment><USER7> Does it really?

<comment> gpt-3 African or Asian?

<comment><USER7> Why not both?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> .

<comment> gpt-3 If the prompt doesn't falter, it's due to fallible design. Imagine, NY Times running 4chan as a bot!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Microfronts – Front-end solution for running multiple frameworks as one - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eavichay/microfronts <comment><USER2> Right, and ensure you never can fix anything and hire generations of people who slave over the old crappola until they give up. Meanwhile you wind up with legacy code from multiple languages/language versions all mixed up like a junkyard sculpture.

I worked at a major travel company (you know the brand) that ignored its legacy web+backend for almost 10 years until our parent company basically gave us away to our biggest competitor (the tech was all abandoned as unusable) who made us just a marketing brand (also 100% of people laid off in the process). We couldn't keep up with our competitors as everything was impossible to fix any more. On the other hand the mobile team I worked with replaced everything and we were extremely agile in competing (other than being limited by the crappy back end).

It's not always a good idea to replace everything, but it's also not a good idea to live with shit either.

<comment><USER3> My thoughts (as someone who worked at a brand of the same parent travel company as you): It is definitely NOT a good idea to live with shit as it will kill your velocity long term, so the question is how to replace it? _Every_ single "big bang" replacement I've done, while not exactly a total failure, was _extremely_ painful. If a tool like this made it easier to piecemeal replace your legacy code, while showing business value more incrementally, I'd be all for it.

I agree leaving your house in this "junkyard sculpture" state indefinitely (love that analogy) will eventually kill your business.

<comment><USER4> I think the problem here is that we often ask the questions too late. Things went wrong a very long time ago. A rewrite is declaring bankruptcy, but often the same actors barely change their behavior and you end up in the exact same spot again.

I'm starting to fear that the right response, especially considering the Big Picture, is to let it die. Let some other competitor with fresh ideas eat your lunch. I suspect these problems are symptoms of a deeper, terminal illness and palliative care is the best you can do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Micro-frontends are indeed a solution looking for a problem as others have noted. They remind me of the ball of mud that was Java portlets.

No team(s) _wants to maintain_ a SPA written in multiple frameworks. If you truly must, embed a component written in framework X into a component in framework Y.

The embedding of components is a good way to _re-factor your way out_ of having multiple frameworks and migrating towards a single framework. We've been doing this successfully at work where we're incrementally migrating our AngularJS + React SPA to Vue one component at a time.

</comment><comment><USER6> This feels like as a solution to the problem that does not exist. This just increases the complexity and makes the interface horribly fragmented and hard to develop for after a while.

<comment><USER7> The problem this solves is having different teams in the same company perfectly happily developing away on their own stacks when a random business requirement needs that they get their components in the same browser window such that neither team is tied to the other's deployment cadence.

<comment><USER8> Having worked at multiple engineering organizations, I could see how some people might question the value of this. For example, A big N company I worked at went all in on React. Top down, no ifs-ands-or-buts about it. I'm biased and like React, so I didn't mind the decision. Today, I'm in an engineering organization where we have teams using React, Vue, and Angular, with no foreseeable convergence on one. Each team feels most productive in its preferred stack. A solution like this allows us to at least ship our code together, instead of having everyone maintain CI/CD on top of their application code. It buys us additional developer productivity. We don't need to be duplicating deployment pipelines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been prototyping this approach recently -- I think you can go simpler / leaner yet.

The iframe angle is probably the most universal, and easiest way to include legacy apps / sites. It does present challenges with authentication, as cookies cannot be persisted by a framed context. Local storage still works, but that requires some changes in the legacy apps.

As far as the "orchestrator" goes, I don't see the point of using a nearly- legacy framework (yes, a jab at Angular) when this can be done in plain vanilla JS with postMessage. Some balk at using events, but in this context messaging between clients could be a light, elegant solution to the communication / synchronization problem.

Finally -- this is bound to fail in actual real-world applications, because legacy apps are very likely to include everything and the kitchen sink, and simply wrapping them in frames doesn't solve the problem of a bloated do- everything spaghetti monster.

As an architectural approach for developing new, modular front-end solutions, this is promising. Multiple small teams responsible for small, single-purpose apps, stack-agnostic in aggregate -- this way of handling scale could reduce the overall complexity, making development and maintenance a little easier.

</comment><comment><USER8> For those who may not know, here's a similar library: [https://github.com/CanopyTax/single-spa](https://github.com/CanopyTax/single- spa)

I'm glad to see two solutions out there, because there's a lot of variety in how this problem can be solved. For example, single-spa recommends (but does not mandate) using import maps [0] using SystemJS (to get better cross-browser support) The idea is, each application says they want 'react-dom' or '@angular/core', and it is resolved to a URL.

However, if applications are built expecting, say, different versions of dependencies, a naive approach to import maps won't work (e.g., the import 'react-dom' is requested-- how do we know which version to serve?).

At my employer, we take each frontend application and transpile to ES Modules and then combine via webpack. It's not what's recommended in Single SPA, but it greatly simplifies the deployment architecture for us.

We don't have to worry about hosting a CDN that can resolve import maps, everything's just in the bundle.

<comment><USER10> I think there are multiple solutions out there.

Our solution is called Piral, [https://github.com/smapiot/piral](https://github.com/smapiot/piral), however, we do not believe that mixing technologies should be a solution - it's rather a workaround (which we also support). The real deal from our point of view is in independent development, deployment, and modular, decoupled thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Much needed! For those questioning the use case: there are unique components (say rich text editor like draftjs) that are better in one framework (React) than in others. If your app is built in Vue, but you really want to use DraftJs because it's the best rich text editor, and the proper tool for the job regardless of it's backing framework, this project becomes invaluable.

<comment><USER12> There is another use case, that happened in my last job: migrate from one framework to another.

We were using EmberJS, which is a framework that I liked a lot, but it was just almost impossible to hire frontend developers to work with Ember. It is such a niche framework that it is basically asking developers to compromise their future career prospects to work on it at this point.

We used Single SPA to make an organized and gradual transition from Ember to React.

So having a solution to run different frontend frameworks is a way to avoid lock-in on a single framework (which can go out of favor in the future for whatever reason).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Be pretty sure about needing this when you do it, because it might be your biggest mistake ever if you're not sure about the implications.

</comment><comment><USER14> We've using iframe to extend legacy apps for at least 10 years. And I don't think this approach that needs rewrite the of the base router really brings a benefit. Very often is really problematic to change the base router.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a good solution, but _only_ for transitions, you should strive to get rid of the older one as soon as you can develop. But at least you have an incremental path rather than a big bang at the moment you need to switch and that can be a huge advantage. Another HN'er here did a port like that on a pretty big website and nobody was the wiser change was happening until it was all done.

<comment><USER12> Exactly that. We used Single SPA to go from Ember to React incrementally, makes total sense and it helps a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are two types of engineering. Additive and subtractive. All software problems can be solved with either:

1\. Some abstraction. 2\. Replacing the existing "thing" with a new one that had more functionality.

Building layers of abstraction is typically safer and easier, but the abstractions aren't free. There's a really performance and completely tax to using the additive approach. Just take a look at the Win32 API. So many calls are slow AF and just reading a file off the disk in Windows requires 1000s of syscalls and confext switches- because of too much "safe" abstractions built over the years.

Compare this to Apple's engineering strategy, where they often deprecate and replace an APIs. This is obviously more abusive to the developers, and the users, but arguably better for the long term stability and performance of the system.

<comment><USER17> > Just take a look at the Win32 API. So many calls are slow AF and just > reading a file off the disk in Windows requires 1000s of syscalls and > confext switches- because of too much "safe" abstractions built over the > years.

Windows, like any big system, has problems, but not this one. Its FS is slow, but not for this reason.

<comment><USER18> What's the reason? Genuinely curious.

<comment><USER19> sometimes i wonder why does explorer listing 100k files in a path can take minutes.

And searching the whole disk for a partial filename? tens of minutes.

I can do both in a database on the same machine in seconds...

<comment><USER20> You might like Voidtools Everything, a free tool that does partial filename searches in milliseconds. It's incredibly useful for finding files.

[https://www.voidtools.com/](https://www.voidtools.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a code question.

On line 24 in this file an object is sealed, but it has a type assigned. What does sealing this object change? Is there a concern that other running code will try to assign or delete properties on this object?

[https://github.com/eavichay/microfronts/blob/master/src/rout...](https://github.com/eavichay/microfronts/blob/master/src/router.ts)

</comment><comment><USER10> For those who are interested in microfrontends / their patterns I've written a small blog post: [https://blog.bitsrc.io/6-patterns-for- microfrontends-347ae00...](https://blog.bitsrc.io/6-patterns-for- microfrontends-347ae0017ec0)

</comment><comment><USER22> Why does the example use different domains in the base URLs? Does the app do hard navigation between those?

<comment><USER23> It looks like the code is running in iframes, so yes it would do hard navigation, but it would not change the domain the user sees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Using iframes, for most apps, usually brings more pain than benefits.

If an app is partially build with React, Angular and/or other lib/frameworks, that is in itself a red flag. You might be dealing with legacy code while moving to a newer stack. Using the same lib/framework brings you less mental overhead and quicker development speed, developer onboard, etc. Unfortunately I worked in some places where this was a sad reality and it was never easy to fix simple bugs due to the lack of structure, architecture, code conventions, etc . A refactor is your best friend but good luck convincing the product owner that you need X amount of time to bring 0 new features to the business.

Downsides of Iframes:

1\. For each iframe you use, you'll use more memory, more CPU, bandwidth, increased TTI, etc.

2\. You'll have to deal with subdomains authentication

3\. Data over fetching, each iframe fetch its own data without sharing with another iframe. Trying to cache this is a sure way to chaos.

3\. Breaking an app into tiny packages might be overkill when compared to having a proper folder structure, specially for UI.

4\. Now you have a Content Security Policy to maintain, it gets trickier over time.

5\. You've N CI pipelines, some repos will be "forgotten" -> older React/Angular versions, packages that never got updated because you don't work in that repo/"microfront".

6\. More DevOps overhead

7\. Forget about good UX and be welcome to the world of redirects -> a "microfront" that takes you to another "microfront"

In my experience, breaking the _business logic_ into packages is great since the logic is self-contained with unit testing, etc but placing the UI components there will bring you the problem of not having atomic UI components. Now if you want to change a UI component in just 1 package, good luck trying to figure out which pages could be broken.

You've to be very careful on how you break your app into packages, it only takes 1 bad design decision to make the whole thing a nightmare to work on. Not to mention when you've packages that depend on other packages, you haven't written anything about versioning which is critical.

It is much easier to look at page built with React/Angular where you can see the exact definition of the UI versus jumping between several packages to try to figure out where do things come from. Put the UI components and pages in a single folder/package. If you something like StoryBook and create your package for UI components, even that brings some work to get right and maintain, you split these components into more than 1 package and you'll be running in hell for simple changes.

Reduced mental overhead is a precious luxury I strongly value.

edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER25> In most cases this doesn't work at all - flash, ActiveX, ...

<comment><USER26> Silverlight with WCF RIA services...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't ever want whatever problem this is solving .</comment>


9th Circuit Court Ruling WA V Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3457905-Document-7.html <comment><USER2> Trump has commented on this ruling on Twitter:

> SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

[https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/82983623180251545...](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/829836231802515457)

<comment><USER3> This sounds so incredibly child-ish. I wonder if Trump listens to ANY advice when it comes to his Twitter feed...

<comment><USER4> I doubt it. This is someone who refuses regular intelligence briefings because he's "a smart guy" and therefore doesn't need to be told what he thinks he already knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The Government indeed asserts that it violates separation of powers for the judiciary to entertain a constitutional challenge to executive actions such as this one.

There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy."

</comment><comment><USER6> From a (very) quick scan of the document it seems to me that a new executive order skirting the possibly legitimate objections would have a much better chance of success in front of The Supremes.

<comment><USER3> That might be possible, but I still have a spark of hope that what Trump did - basically "burning" the idea of a muslim ban by having it rejected by the courts - is just him trying to get rid of a campaign promise that cannot be fulfilled without violating the constitution. He now can simply claim "I did all I could, the nasty courts stopped me though" when someone tries to hold him accountable.

Same for that wall idea. Mexico won't pay a dime for it, and it's going to cost a boatload of money that has to be allocated by Congress first. So, the wall won't be built as there's no money, and Trump can claim "nasty Congress stopped me".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Haven't read the ruling, but from the Bloomberg story it seems the 9th circuit seemed to argue from a position of political idealism and not from the law. Maybe it's just buried in the decision but the Executive has long enjoyed full-control of the nation's immigration policies. In fact, Arizona was slapped down for trying to enforce immigrations at the state level that the federal was refusing to enforce under President Obama. It seems like this is just another highly politicized decision and most likely, Trump will simply re-do the order or recruit congress to enact new laws.</comment>


Optimized Python Docker Image - <AUTHOR> https://revsys.com/tidbits/optimized-python/ <comment><USER2> Binary docker image, with no (public) reproducible build system? No thanks.

<comment><USER3> Doh sorry that was an oversight on our part. Just pushed up the information and our benchmark runs here [https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python- docker](https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python-docker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I see that profile-guided optimization are being used.

Profile-guided optimization, in layman terms, means that you run you code under a profiler for a while, see what parts (branches, functions, data structures etc) are being used the most and use this information to make a build of your code that considers the profiler's findings when doing optimization.

So what does it mean? It means, basically, that revsys is publishing a python build that is optimized for _their_ use-case. Which may or may not be your use-case. This is not good nor bad.

Still, the claim "up to 19% faster" is false in general (but true in a particular case -- their use case).

Just keep this in mind, because this python build might perform worse than a regular python build.

<comment><USER3> Actually I thought that as well when I first saw it was an option, but these are numbers comparing the official images to these images we built using the standard Python benchmarks. Not compared to say some code we wrote or run in production.

We did 10 runs of each on a large AWS instance and averaged the results.

The build info and benchmark results are up here [https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python- docker](https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python-docker) if we're wrong about something please let us know.

However, definitely agree that any optimization like this could have negative performance consequences for certain specific bits of code. But that's likely true of any build to the next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using --enable-optimizations for a while, and built my own 3.6 images a couple of weeks back.

Here's the Dockerfiles and readme:

[https://github.com/rcarmo/ubuntu-python](https://github.com/rcarmo/ubuntu- python)

</comment><comment><USER6> Am I totally misunderstanding something or there is no Dockerfile referenced? If so, is this just a binary blob I pull from a public registry?

I have some trust concerns about basing my infrastructure on something opaque.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely! Was just an oversight on our part, here is the Dockerfile and build info [https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python- docker](https://github.com/revsys/optimized-python-docker)

<comment><USER6> Super fast, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alex- This was just mentioned today at north bay python.

Another alternative for a fast speed up by changing your base image is trying out the pypy images.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I thought it would be nice to release this at North Bay today. We also released our new website redesign (and new infrastructure setup) last night so there is probably some dust on a few things we'll clean up over the next few days.

<comment> alex- It looks very useful thanks for the image and sponsoring events like this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why aren't these just upstreamed onto the official Python binaries?

<comment><USER8> I think these optimizations are upstream, but they're not in the canonical 'python' docker image: [https://github.com/docker- library/python/issues/160](https://github.com/docker- library/python/issues/160)

<comment><USER7> Ah I see, that makes sense, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 10%ish speed boost is all down to PGO, I'm assuming?

<comment><USER3> I don't think we ran benchmarks with LTO and PGO in isolation, so honestly not sure exactly how much of a contribution each makes on each benchmark. PGO is definitely the bulk however.</comment></comment>


Tell us your story - <AUTHOR> https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a great way to vent about the election.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Something odd going on with the form when the text wraps...</comment>


Ask HN: SAAS Accounting Application... code it? - <AUTHOR>

I have just designed a SAAS Accounting package, database, flow charts (for the software process) etc.
I'm hoping to achieve success by creating the "Mint.com" for accounting for start-ups.
My question:  Should I start coding away?  I can understand making a minimal viable product for something "chancy", but I feel like an accounting package would be a sure thing if completed, and marketed right - for almost any niche.
I wrote a complete dating site (ericanight.com) from start to completion, and it seemed to have failed- so I want to insure I don't waste another 6 months. <comment><USER2> Sounds like indinero.

You need to figure out how you define "success" - is it by number of users/money made etc. Then you'll have a clearer idea of what you'd like to target.

Throw up a launchrock and see if ppl are interested - I know that if it's free, you'd probably get a lot of users- and you'd probably be able to make money by selling industry reports back to your users...

</comment><comment><USER3> I can see why your dating site would have had trouble. You require a user's email address before offering them anything of value. Before people sign-up for a dating site they want to know that there are actually people they'd want to date on the site already. You might want to look in to that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Writing the app is cool but you need to be able to sell it. If you have the connections and marketing plan to do it then yeah go ahead.

Also, check out <http://pulseapp.com/></comment>


Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 <comment><USER2> _> > If your privacy practices aren't transparent, then you introduce doubt. Doubt leads to lower usage._

So true. Too many apps and services don't understand that as users, when we see "Connect to Facebook/Twitter", our minds are immediately filled with doubt and mistrust. Why? Because we want control over what our friends see about us, and we suspect your app doesn't give a shit and will shamelessly promote itself at our expense. So be clear. If you're going to write on my wall, _say you will._ And if you're not, then _say you won't._ Don't leave me guessing.

<comment><USER3> But is this true of most users? Or only people like us? (I'm really asking, I'm not sure; all I know is that _I_ don't like using Facebook Connect.)

<comment><USER4> I think its most users. Remember also that a lot of facebook users don't use it much and don't understand all of what it does.

<comment><USER5> <http://foursquare.com/>

<http://www.kingdomsatwar.com/>

<http://vimeo.com/>

<http://tripadvisor.com>

(just examples, on the top of my head, that are using Facebook Connect).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really enjoyed this presentation.

Aside from all the interesting ways of defining privacy I never thought of before, the implications of the presenter's goal (making everyone happy to use social networking for almost all of their life) struck me the hardest.

Let's say some radical changes came about so that almost any reasonable person would feel free to post all their personal data on facebook, knowing that sensitive parts would be kept to specific groups. That still wouldn't take care of what I see as the biggest lurking concern; how our data will be handled in the future.

It's certainly paranoia, but we've all seen good companies turn to shit, and people have even seen stable _countries_ turn bad. If a database of everyone's un-self-censored private data existed, it would have untold implications. Even now, it's staggering to think about. I don't know, I guess it's getting late and I'm sleepy. But I think about FB's extremely high valuation and wonder if something like that could be a seed of instability that would allow for decision makers from unknown vectors to influence how FB uses its data and stuff like that.

<comment><USER7> I don't think it's paranoia at all. It doesn't even take bad motives, just a lapse of judgment or faulty assumption to ruin privacy -- like Google Buzz integration into GMail.

I think the solution requires more than feel-good policy statements and trust building. And God forbid someone mention legislation.

Ultimately the users need full localized control (hosting, or decrypting) over their private identities, content and social connections. Private groups should be darknets. And it should be as easy as automatic to set up and use. Zooko's Triangle be damned.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This presentation is somewhat long, but extremely informative. If you're designing any sort of application or content that includes sharing or privacy, I'd consider it almost required reading. It's that informative - the best I've seen on the topic.

</comment><comment><USER8> Aside: Does anyone else have problems with left/right keys not going to the next slide as normally happens on slideshare? I got a bit annoyed having to use my mouse 223 times.

<comment><USER9> The entire UI was horrific for me. I _had_ to use full screen since the slide didn't show up fully otherwise, and even in fullscreen Page up/down keys didn't work, arrow up/down keys moved terribly slow (like 1 page/minute slow), and the only way for me to navigate was to use the mouse scroll wheel (or the scrollbar on the right). I'd really like to know if I missed something or it was this way for everyone.

<comment><USER10> The flash slide viewer _is_ awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Incredibly informative presentation. It helped visualize and conceptualize things I was already doing, like occasionally restricting my status updates to certain people: e.g. when I complain about my living situation and don't want those I'm living with to see it or when I hesitate to post a crude joke because I don't want my mom to see it.

I would suspect that to build something that comes close to matching our offline social networks you would have to start from the ground up, but I also think Facebook is in a position to offer some of the benefits.

One thing I would love to see? When I write a status update, post a photo or note, share a link, etc - I would like Facebook to tell me how many can see it. Just as LinkedIN can tell me how many people are in my network, Facebook could easily tell me that this photo marked "friends only" will be visible to my 128 "friends", but this status update marked "friends of friends" will be visible by ~15,000 people. Similarly, in Debbie's case, when viewing other people's photos, Facebook could tell her: your friends can see this photo and offer her tools to disallow that. Just because the Gay Bar employees allowed "friends of friends" to see their photos and I'm friend, doesn't immediately mean I want my friends to see them or see that I commented on them. I think Facebook could tackle these scenarios given the structure they already have.

</comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone made an effort yet to do the evident thing, and simply build a social service that lets you have separate groups of friends for all features?

<comment><USER13> The problem is that nobody wants to present their users with a gigantic list of contacts on first login and ask them to sort and organise them into groups. Instead, everybody just lumps all the contacts together so that the user is least inconvenienced at first, only to later experience problems. Google is in a pretty good position to tackle this, since a fair number of people who already have Google contacts probably also have their contacts sorted into groups for email, and that's a good representation of their real-life social network.

<comment><USER14> You sort your contacts in gmail? I honestly would never bother, really don't see the point.

I very much doubt Google are, but Facebook might be in a good position to figure this out themselves now anyway. If I'm friends with Em, Bob, Barry and Jill, and Em and Bob are friends and Barry and Jill are friends, the friendship groups are fairly obvious aren't they?

Obviously I've never seen their data so don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised that they do have the information. Just looking at 'Mutual Friends' of people I know on Facebook it seems to be fairly well defined.

<comment><USER15> Facebook goes further than the mutual friendships and takes into account all sorts of interactions like "Like"'s, comments, etc. and probably re-sharing of contents, common events, common pictures, common places... I've been told they use that to figure out what to show you in your feed, so pretty much to know whom of your FB friends you're actually interested in.

But I'd be very surprised if they don't use that in a "group" perspective as well. Which would be very interesting because groups evolve over time but you going back to clean up your lists doesn't happen very often, if ever.

From a privacy standpoint, it is a bit scary. But it's very cool from a tech/CS point-of-view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Come for the "gay bar", stay for the slides

</comment><comment><USER17> For anyone else who can't stand SlideShare, here it is in Google Docs: [https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1vcckzZhBmWzGSalZV_yaJcQ...](https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1vcckzZhBmWzGSalZV_yaJcQnf0NvxfPTRCbfkJjknbOEGT2o1xtDwC- ojTeC&authkey=CKHk444H)

</comment><comment><USER18> That's why I keep three separate social networks: one on facebook (friends), one on Twitter (colleagues and strangers) and one on LinkedIn (professional contacts).

It's hard to keep them separated though, especially since now I feed my twitter stream to the other two, seriously considering to remove the feed.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's also interesting to think about how to use social networks/networking if you're the owner of a store or service that people may not want to promote across all of the networks.

eg: Debbie probably wouldn't have any trouble recommending a new burger joint she found (except if she was telling everyone she was on a diet, perhaps). But now that Debbie has realised her contributions to social networks leak out further than her intended audience, it's going to be really really hard to convince her to 'Like' that gay bar were her friends work.

As someone involved with a few different 'gay bars' (ie, services people like using, but in a lot of cases don't want all(/any!) of their friends/family to know about) it's an interesting problem... And I have no idea what the solution is.

</comment><comment><USER20> Debbie's problem is exactly what makes me use the Friend Lists feature of Facebook. It might not protect your data that well, but at least it is able to keep things semi-private from the (less tech-savvy) friends of yours from other social circles.

But, of course, Facebook screws you in the end. Even you choose exactly what friends see that photo of yours, and what friends see that wall post, you happen to comment on a friend's photo and then everybody sees it.

And it also does nothing about friends of yours from some circle deliberately accessing the profiles of the people from other circle and seeing everything you didn't want them to see (like tagged photos of yours that they couldn't see on your profile because you forbidden them to).

<comment><USER21> It's also surprisingly difficult and annoying to add and switch people around to Friend Lists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Strange. I figured that Facebook handled this by default. If I make a comment on Friend A's status or post, and Friend B is my friend but not a friend of A, I assumed that Friend B could see neither A's post or my comment. That's a pretty big hole...

<comment><USER23> It depends on the privacy setting for the status/post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The good news of this presentation is that vast improvements in the social network space are possible, improvements that might just be able to tumble the incumbent. The hard part is finding them.

</comment><comment><USER25> Could the multiple-kinds-of-contacts issue be handled if social-networking sites explicitly allowed one user to have multiple handles? E.g., a user could be "Bess Smith" to her family members, "B. J. Smith" to her college friends, and "Elizabeth Smith Jones" to her clients, and only her five closest friends would have "friend"-level access to all three identities.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great presentation but his claims about IM are not solid IMO.

IM is personal messaging i.e. we communicate directly with people in the way that's appropriate. Nothing get's broadcasted out. If anything IM is a perfect list.

I have friends, groups of friends, colleagues, clients etc. on my list but they don't bleed into each other.

Also in most IM you can decide to be invisible for selected people and not for others.

</comment><comment><USER27> This talk raises some questions for me.

Email doesn't seem to have the kinds of grouping problems discussed in the presentation. So what is it really that isn't in email that can then be solved by something Facebook-like that doesn't do "social networking" like Facebook does it? Is it just that the interface is simpler?

email = status update, social group = mailing list, contacts db = friends network

what else?

<comment><USER28> Passive observation. I'm vaguely interested in what my acquaintances are up to, but they would never impose so much as to email me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is four months old:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1479761>

<comment><USER30> So you are surprised that a title like, "Google UX Researcher Explains the Social Networking Gay Bar Problem" gets more votes/views than one with this title, "The Real Life Social Network v2"? And four months ago - wasn't that around the time of the Facebook movie w/ a similar title?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like how pseudonymity works: you go by one or more pseudonyms, on various web sites. It lets you have multiple identities, and figuring out which identities are the same person is non-trivial. It's an easy hack. You can post your erotic furry artwork under one identity, use another professionally, another with your friends, and everything will be more or less okay.

Alternately, maybe people will get used to lack of privacy, and acknowledge that everyone has more than one group of acquaintances, and that information on the web is permanent even if people themselves change. You'll know this is happening when someone finds naked pictures of a female teacher on the Internet and she _doesn't_ get fired. I'm not holding my breath, though.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think he is simply wrong that web is only going to get more and more social.

I would posit that an opposite movement will also happen. Social networks become more ubiquitous but that very ubiquity will teach people what _not_ to share and raise the value of the "anonymous web".

For example, if a merchant can understand their customers exactly, it introduces an _information asymmetry_ into the market game that the merchant enjoys but I, as customer dislike. I don't want a merchant to know exactly what I'd be willing to pay for X. I want the merchant offering prices anonymously and then for me to be able to pick the best of those prices.

</comment><comment><USER33> Social media will revolutionize everything, says man working in social media.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is effectively solved by the new Facebook groups.

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh, it's the presentation I read 4 months ago.

Facebook Groups and Friends Lists are a step in the right direction but they haven't been implemented well in other aspects of Facebook.

If Google Me ever became a reality (and not in the limited "only existing product enhancements" fashion) this would be an interesting discussion. Facebook's model isn't friendly to the privacy oriented sharing schemes.</comment>


Neofascism in Germany in public channels (Corona-related) - chupa-chups The ARD channel (the public TV channel) released a video which propagates the idea that Covid-19 patients are sick and/or elderly and deserve to die, since they're causing global warming (among other issues). It tries to disguise as satire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyE0g4f-8eE&lc=Ugw7RgONgoUvWVIeYF14AaABAg <comment><AUTHOR> Looking at the other videos it's clearly satire [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6zXbTQEujMO-5CzyywlVDQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6zXbTQEujMO-5CzyywlVDQ/videos) The video about "success with dick-pics" isn't a guide serious guide on how to send dick pics either.

<comment><USER2> You can't be that naive, can you? Imagine it'd be about celebrating deaths in the overpopulated 3rd world. I guess you can imagine the heart attacks taking place.

P.S. "dick pics" shouldn't even be discussed, let alone a thing. I _hope_ I die so that I may leave this vulgar, decadent, ugly world.

Bruce Charlton (The Genius Famine) got it right: the obsession with our animal instincts, esp. preoccupation with sex nowadays is a sign of dropping mean IQs. In other words: d y s g e n i c s.

P. P. S. Yes, I am genetic scum too. Were I not a Christian, I'd blow my brains out in a heartbeat.

</comment></comment><comment> chupa-chups "Das Coronavirus sorgt für Panik und Hamsterkäufe. Doch profitieren wir am Ende sogar von Covid-19?"

=

"The corona virus inflicts panic and hoarding. But will we profit from Covid-19 in the end?"</comment>


New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/14/elon-musk-backed-ai-writes-convincing-news-fiction <comment><USER2> Duplicate/blogspam of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163522](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163522)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how many military or secret service R+D departments get funded in the next months based on this article

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish journalists would at least try to understand how a technology works before working about it.</comment>


Ask HN: Which SaaS tool do you use to do your user onboarding? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> There is a pretty decent quora thread about this: [https://www.quora.com/What- tools-can-I-use-to-create-a-guide...](https://www.quora.com/What-tools-can-I- use-to-create-a-guided-tour-walkthrough-of-my-website)

</comment><comment><USER3> Appcues just released v2.0 of their product which looks pretty nice [https://www.appcues.com/](https://www.appcues.com/)

Loads of excellent posts on their blog aswell</comment>


Online gambling firm Bet365 has swapped Java for Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://www.techworld.com/apps/how-bet365-solved-reliability-scalability-by-swapping-java-for-erlang-3600737/ <comment><USER2> Guys who designed the LMAX 'disrupter' for Betfair have a good talk about how much trading these betting sites do per second [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/LMAX](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/LMAX) and how concurrency is a major issue, Erlang makes sense even if they have to search for replacement devs

</comment><comment><USER3> Kind of light on the tech details, but what with all the breathless "we replaced 8492 Java and Ruby servers with one 386 machine running Go!" pieces, it's worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER4> i wonder whether they considered scala so they could stay on the JVM (no mention of it in the OP). i don't know Erlang but i develop in scala (w/ Akka) and always interested to know how the two languages are different/similar w/r/t enabling devs to build build distributed systems.

<comment><USER5> Erlang have a preemptive scheduler.

If you read the article he mention that his company needed low latency.

Java doesn't have a preemptive scheduler.

An example would be, an infinite loop.

If you have an infinite loop in a msg pass to an actor then that message will use the Actor forever in Scala. Because the scheduler is not preemptive.

For Erlang, it'll let that msg (infinte loop) run for a small amount of time, put it back in the queue/mailbox and run another task for some time and etc..

Also all actor in Erlang are new processes, so if a process fail it doesn't take down the main process. I've talked to an Akka company and apparently you can spawn actor for akka in same thread/process.

IIRC actor in Scala had a weird caveat in coding too. But it's been so long since I've used Scala.

The article mentioned small language in Erlang. Erlang gives you primitive to create distributed language. As in it's built into the language to spawn a process, to link the process together and monitor it, etc...

With Scala it's a library.

Also Erlang isn't just a programming language it's the run time, as you can see with premptive scheduler and etc.. Erlang is powerful because it BEAM or it's VM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> not surprising when you realize how much volume is going through these systems concurrently.

<comment><USER7> I don't think bet365 does the kind of volumes a popular betting exchange would, but I do agree they are probably the kinds of traffic volume that can benefit from Erlang.

<comment><USER8> Exchange workloads are trivial, but sports betting requires a lot more work per transaction. This is mostly to do with liability management. I talk a little about this here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVUPmmUU3yY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVUPmmUU3yY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> surely a right and better choice.

</comment><comment><USER10> Goodluck finding Erlang devs when your core dev team finds a new job.

<comment><USER11> FWIW, we built a team of Elixir developers in the spring of 2014 in Austin Texas. Austin is not the bay area, it's maybe a Tier 3 startup town. And still we were able to build a great team over the course of a few months.

At the time, Elixir had not hit 1.0 and while there's a lot of overlap between elixir and erlang this is a good comparison because Elixir is a lot less common than erlang.

Here's the thing-- by having that filter of using this language-- a good language-- we self selected for good engineers because the good engineers were either already using it or were very interested in it. I for one, for instance, came to that job, relocating across the country just because I wanted to work in that language.

<comment><USER12> What company is it?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: All I want for Christmas is a Linux phone - <AUTHOR> Has anyone tried or is anyone currently using a Linux-based operating system such as Plasma Mobile or Ubuntu Touch?
Based off of articles like this https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-smartphone-operating-systems/ the best one, to me, looks like Plasma Mobile (which requires a Nexus 5).
Is anyone using a Linux-based mobile operating system? Do you have any advice? <comment><USER3> I bought a Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Phone in 2015 for €300. This was quite early on in the development of Ubuntu Touch, and overall it was pretty good.

The operating system was pretty solid, and I really liked the lock screen design and pull-out Unity sidebar. It was fast and sleek, but didn't quite yet have the polish of something like iOS - which of course is to be expected for something early in development.

As usual with less well-known mobile operating systems, there were very few apps available. You could get many of the hacker-y/privacy ones that us HN lot probably use, but if you wanted a 'mainstream' social app then you probably couldn't.

After a few months I did end up flashing Android onto the phone, mainly because of the early Ubuntu Touch versions lacking features.

Hardware wise, I still have the handset today and it's great - <USER2> wise the phone was ahead of its time when it was released in 2014, and it still performs well.

<comment><USER4> How is the battery life now? I'm considering buying a used one online if I can find it and trying out the Ubuntu builds available now.

Also, did Ubuntu come as the default OS, or was it an Android phone onto which you installed Ubuntu?

<comment><USER3> The battery life is still good, although I switched to a different phone in early 2017 and have only used the Meizu as a secondary handset since then.

It came with Ubuntu pre-installed. I believe that the pre-installed Ubuntu ones have an unlocked bootloader, so you can put whatever you want on it as long as it's compatible. I know that a few people got CyanogenMod working.

I currently have Android Flyme on it, which is the standard Meizu OS that comes with the normal version of the phone. It's really good, but I would say lacking in security. I use it as a 'dirty' phone, for connecting to public Wi- Fi and insecure stuff like that, so I don't have anything confidential or important on there, and I never sign-in to things in the browser or apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not for Christmas, but [https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/) is coming next year.

<comment><USER6> They can't even make a simple website that renders properly. Not promising.

<comment><USER7> People who make great websites cant make phones that run linux either :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900)

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't android Linux based?

<comment><AUTHOR> You win!

<comment><USER10> [http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/How-Much-Linux- Is-...](http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/How-Much-Linux-Is-in- Android)

[https://www.howtogeek.com/189036/android-is-based-on- linux-b...](https://www.howtogeek.com/189036/android-is-based-on-linux-but- what-does-that-mean/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And I want Linux ncurses based phone, with long battery life.</comment>


Show HN: Plasma Tennis; a Real Time Fluid Dynamics Game I made for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.labs.quantitative.plasmatennis

<comment><USER2> Android 4.2 and up is a pretty strict requirement. As <http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html> says, Android 4.2 is only 1.2% of the market. My Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus that I got only 6 months ago still has Android 4.1; I can't try your app out. Since you're trying to sell your game, improving its compatibility should probably be a big priority.

</comment><comment><USER3> android 4.1 support please :(</comment>


Ask HN: How do I add a newsletter to my existing app with 7K users? - <AUTHOR>

I have a community of 7,000 users, but have not implemented a newsletter yet. Any advice on which service I should use and how I should introduce it to my community?<p>Thank! :) <comment><USER2> There are a ton of email service providers out there. For that size of a list, you will probably be spending at least a little bit of money. My favorite ESP is CampaignMonitor - [http://campaignmonitor.com](http://campaignmonitor.com) \- but a lot of people really like MailChimp, Emma, or CakeMail.

I would recommend doing two things to announce it - (1) Add something on the community site. If you have a sidebar or area on the front and other pages - add a section with a quick blurb on what it is along with a signup form. (2) If you have the community users' emails, send them an email with an invitation to sign up for the newsletter. Since they already signed up for the community - this would fall under the umbrella of transactional email - so you don't technically need permission from them to send them email - I just wouldn't use this list for the actual newsletter list - just to ask their permission to get on the newsletter list.

If users have a dashboard page or something similar, you can always make an announcement there as well. The main thing is that you want them to give you express permission to start sending them newsletters. Don't just start blasting to that list.

</comment><comment><USER3> We use Mailchimp and find it works well.</comment>