Confused by Git? Here's a Git crash course to fix that - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/chrisachard/confused-by-git-here-s-a-git-crash-course-to-fix-that-4cmi <comment><USER2> I don't think this is all that helpful.

> Git gives you a FULLY FEATURED repository on your local computer ... This is > different than other version control systems

I use Mercurial and am confused by git. This statement of course doesn't seem right to me, since Mercurial is "FULLY FEATURED" too.

> Commit tree (local repo or HEAD)

Is "HEAD" or "local repo" an alias for either each other or for "commit tree"?

Because I think HEAD is a special location of the commit tree in the local repository - these are three different things, yes?

> Think of files (and changes) as being in 5 different places, or "states"

So, what's a "stash"? Not explained. Why do I need to know about stash?

> git reset and git checkout to pull from upstream

Someone confused because of experience from one of those "other version control systems" which are not so fully featured might not know what "pull" means. Or "upstream".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment; hopefully I can clear a few things up:

\- Mercurial is similar to git in that way, but "fully featured" is supposed to contrast to other systems like SVN; the point is that there is a full git repo on every developer's machine - you're not just connected to a single central repo. So when you commit locally, you're actually committing into a repo that has all the power that the remote repo has

\- Correct, HEAD is a special place on the tree, but I included it because you'll see and hear all three terms used nearly interchangeably.

\- I could have explained stash a little better probably, but the "crash" course was already getting fairly long ;) Stash is a place to put work in progress, and some developers use it more than others. It's a bit of a "special" place (even though it's technically part of the local repo)

\- I agree with the last point: mostly, this guide is for devs who already use git and know what 'pull' and 'upstream' mean, but are perhaps confused about the exact mechanics of how to "get files down" other than just cloning repos and checking out branches.

Hoped that helped clear a few things up a bit! Thanks for the feedback

<comment><USER2> Git confuses me - a lot. Like, what's the point of staging? You write:

> Why have a dedicated staging area?

> So that you can choose and review which files and changes to commit before > committing.

Mercurial doesn't have a dedicated staging area, and I don't think I'm missing anything important by not having it, so this explanation doesn't seem to add anything.

But, looking now I see there are a number of resources along the lines of "git for Mercurial users", so perhaps think of me as not your target audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm not familiar enough with Mercurial to really say how they are similar or different, so I'm not much help there. Sorry!

I can still try to answer the staging question though:

So - once you create a commit, it's in the repo forever, so with staging, you can gradually build up a commit without doing it all at once (adding one file at a time, over time for example). You can also stage just part of a file (just a few changes), and create only the commit that you really want to go into the repo.

I suppose it's kind of like a "commit preview" that you build over time.

In practice, a lot of people do just add all their changes and then commit immediately though - so yeah, in that case a staging area doesn't make any difference :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks</comment>


Ask HN: Would you replace your numeric pad with a trackpad? - <AUTHOR> Take a look at your keyboard. Now at your numeric pad.
Now imagine there is a trackpad instead of all those useless keys.
Would yo use it? <comment><USER2> If you're trained on 10-key entry those keys are not useless at all -- they're extremely fast accelerators for data entry.

<http://www.ehow.com/how_2106407_type-using-10key.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like a trackpad like the one on the new MacBook. You could even print it with a numeric keypad and make it dual-use. I like using a keypad for entry, but I only need that occasionally. A trackpad would be more useful. Even better: also replace the arrow/delete/home/end cluster with trackpad gestures, or trackpad + special lefthand key. This would make it much more convenient to my right hand and save space.

<comment><USER4> _"You could even print it with a numeric keypad and make it dual-use."_

It already exists:

[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Wireless-Keyboard- Trackpad-...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Wireless-Keyboard-Trackpad- multitouch,8055.html)

<comment><USER5> I'm holding out for a multi-touch surface with a color screen behind it.

<comment><USER3> Why not write an iPhone app?

Geek-porn Rule 34!

[http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/18/iphone-tuned-numeric- ke...](http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/18/iphone-tuned-numeric-keypad-with- numberkey-app/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No, mouse closer better..

<http://tlb.org/keyboardchop.html>

<comment><USER7> Why spend 3 hours sawing a crappy MS keyboard when you can have: <http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeylit1.html>

Notice that the ctrl key is in the _correct_ position to the left of the 'a', and that there are dip switches to swap meta and super, and another to swap del and bs. Additionally there are 2 usb 1.1 ports (perfect for my powermate, which I use to control volume since it doesn't have multimedia keys). Also notice that Delete/Backspace is in the position usually taken by '\', which means you don't have to stretch your pinky (although it takes about 4 hours to get used to. I now go from this keyboard to other keyboards, and suprisingly I don't accidently mess this up). Also, esc is in the '~' place, and '\' and '~' are where backspace would have been.

Another fantastic keyboard is: [http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB167LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA1Mg...](http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB167LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA1Mg&mco=MTYzOTUwNA)

I have the small apple keyboard also, it is a standard layout, but it is bluetooth.

<comment><USER8> You want to buy a keyboard because it has the modifier keys swapped? The OS will do this for you for free, _and_ you don't have to learn where the useful keys moved to... <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2490#l1>

Even if you like where they are on your keyboard, I suggest disabling Caps Lock.

<comment><USER7> And also the other reasons I listed, and also in the context of "I want a small keyboard, should I cut up a crappy one and spend 3 hours to get it together again or just pay 60 bucks."

I mean, I spend maybe 8-12 hours a day on this stupid ass machine, and I spend maybe 20 minutes in my car. I spend enough to completely buy my entire computer setup every 2-3 months just in car payments. How does that make sense? If I was sensible at all I would either have a much much much crappier car, or I would buy a Multron keyboard. <http://www.maltron.com/maltron-kbd- ltype-intro.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wouldn't call them useless keys. When I'm typing in any multiple-digit number, I find it so much easier to use the num-pad than than the single row of numbers at the top. I only use that top row when I'm inputting a single number in the middle of other text.

As for the track-pad, I think they're extremely inefficient. They were a good innovation for laptops, but I would much rather use the keyboard for everything. Since I rarely use the mouse as it is, I'd rather not give up what I consider to be useful keys for another one.

edit: [http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=keyboard+trackpad&#...

</comment><comment><USER10> Nope.

Or rather, I might use it to click to find a site where I could buy a keyboard with a numeric keypad. I use the keypad all the time.

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes, I would use it. I spend very little of my time at the computer entering numbers.

Now, imagine that instead of the number keys or touchpad, there's a bit of extra desk space into which you can move your mouse. That would probably be even better. Unfortunately, decent keyboards without a numeric keypad are scarce.

<comment><USER12> Apple's is pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> (I'm a Mac geek so apologies in advance!).

Yes - I would use one, if Apple made it and it had a big multi-touch Trackpad that also somehow magically doubled up as a numeric pad when I need it. Oh, and it'd have to have the same keyboard layout as the existing Apple keyboards, cos they rock!

</comment><comment><USER14> I am currently using it - the ridiculously pricey Logitech diNovo Edge.

[http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices...](http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices/192&cl=US,EN)

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks like you are talking about on a desktop keyboard. If that is the case, no I wouldn't want to have a trackpad instead of my numberpad (even though I don't use the numberpad much).

However, I had this discussion with a friend a few months ago when he was trying to decide what laptop to buy. He couldn't decide between two models because one had a number pad, and the other didn't.

If laptop makers would merge the two, that could be interesting. Something like hold the function key, and your trackpad becomes your number pad. Sure you don't get keypress feedback, but it's better than having all your numbers across the top row.

</comment><comment><USER16> No, I use those keys and I have a mouse for a reason. The number/arrow keys are actually why I'm using the old style Apple Bluetooth keyboards as the new ones don't have them (but the wired ones do, frustrating).

</comment><comment><USER17> I type large numbers of numbers with the numeric keypad, and I _absolutely hate_ having a numeric keypad stuck on the right of my keyboard. It gets in the way of my mouse, and it makes me move my unnaturally far to the right of my desk in order to center the text keys in front of my monitor.

I find that a keypadless Apple keyboard with a separate (moveable!) USB numeric keypad is perfect.

If the wireless mighty mouse were illegal, then I'd use a trackpad affixed to the keyboard, but only if it were affixed below the spacebar; never to the right.

</comment><comment><USER18> No, absolutely not.

First, I _love_ my keypad. It speeds up typing numbers considerably. In fact, I find myself wishing the non-decimal hexadecimal digits were added to it as well. As well as a comma as thousands separator (or as decimal point when I'm typing Dutch).

Second, I _loathe_ touchpads. They're much harder to control than normal mouses. I only use one when there's no other choice, e.g. in the train. I carry an external mouse with my laptop, so I can use that whenever I encounter a desk.

</comment><comment><USER19> I personally don't mind the full number pad; it comes in handy when entering a set of numbers. However, if you're on Windows, you can also use the number pad as a way to control your cursor: [http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Use- Mousekeys---Move-...](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Use-Mousekeys--- Move-Your-Mouse-Cursor-with/)

It isn't exactly a trackpad, but it works.

</comment><comment><USER20> I probably would take the trade-off if it was a full multi-touch trackpad. These days I work with my macbook pro sitting to the left of a full keyboard and monitor. I frequently reach over to the trackpad to gesture (mostly zooming and two/three finger scrolling) and use the mouse (on the right) to point.

I'd also be interested in seeing a mighty mouse with a multitouch top. (In lieu of buttons / ball.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Possibly. I would probably prefer it in the same place as on my laptop, below the space bar.

At this point why can't we put the trackpad on top of all the keys? The action of pressing keys would not change, and 'stroking' them would move the mouse. The most brilliant design change for the ipod was when they put the buttons underneath the trackpad.

It would either be really annoying or super cool.

</comment><comment><USER22> I want a trackpoint (the red nipple in the middle of IBM laptops) on every keyboard I own.

<comment><USER23> I agree. I've been using a Thinkpad for a while and now trackpads just feel icky. I actually looked to see if they exist. They do, but they're like 100 US$ and have a bulky trackpad attached on the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why would I replace useless keys with another useless device? (No, a trackpad is not a mouse replacement.)

</comment><comment><USER25> This would have been better as a poll.

And no. I use the number keys all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried, but didn't know how and couldn't find info on how to do that.

Pointers welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would rather replace my trackpad with a numeric pad.

</comment><comment><USER27> The numpad is needed to play some games like warcraft 3 or exile.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I ask this question as I try to use my recliner as a workstation and the mouse is the only setback right now.

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

I already placed a huge flat monitor on a stand at 45 degrees from the horizon so my neck rests comfortably in the recliner.

A wireless keyboard fits nicely on my lap, but I would like it to have a trackpad instead, to have my dream workstation complete.

More or less something like this:

<http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/4290/keytrak.jpg>

(No, laptops are not an option)

<comment><USER16> They already exist. I performed extensive research and came up with exactly what you want:

<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wireless+keyboard+trackpad>

<comment><USER3> I like this option as well. My hand doesn't have to move at all to mouse.

[http://www.amazon.com/IBM-USB-Keyboard- UltraNav-31P8950/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/IBM-USB-Keyboard- UltraNav-31P8950/dp/B00009APTK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1245943376&sr=8-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly what I want:

<http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/7545/applekeytrak.jpg></comment>


Taking Flight With The New Twitter Logo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2012/06/taking-flight-twitterbird.html

<comment><USER2> The Web app formerly known as Twitter is nothing new. The artist formerly known as Prince did the same thing in 1993.</comment>


Hacking together a web app in 2.5 hours - <AUTHOR> http://hmn.md/hacking-together-a-web-app-in-2-5-hours/

<comment><USER2> My local council released a cardboard wheel that you could spin around to find out which bin things went in. A bit like a game but not very useful for finding out where to put your rubbish

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read.</comment>


Enhancing SaaS application security with SSO and MFA - <AUTHOR> http://frontegg.com/blog/enhancing-saas-application-security-with-sso-and-mfa <comment><USER2> My only wish was that SAML wasn't such a pain in the ass. From the libraries that support it to the poor tooling that can be used to test it.

It seems like the people tasked with managing identity providers don't understand how to set them up properly, and there is too much flexibility in the specification that lets people set up SSO in very different ways.

Our SaaS app added SAML SSO last year and it was a nightmare when we realized all the little differences between everyone's IDP.</comment>


What Closing Your Startup Feels Like - <AUTHOR> http://andysparks.co/post/41873524658/losing-a-battle-and-focusing-on-winning-the-war-part

<comment><USER2> We rarely hear of the hard times before an entrepreneur/ company hits it big. It's all smiles at that point. Andy's blog series is a real gem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Gut-wrenching honesty. SV needs more of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed it. It felt great to write.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The heavier the shame you carry on your back the longer it takes to get back from exile. And when finally you come back home you chuckle and laugh, wondering what took you so long. One of the bigger lessons I've learned accepted with maturity and age.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of truth in that. Writing about it and getting it out of my head was a huge help in the process of moving on.</comment></comment>


All Azure North Central Databases Down - <AUTHOR> Anyone else experiencing an outage with Azure? We host many many dbs in North Central and they've all been knocked out this afternoon. <comment><USER2> [https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/status/history/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/history/)

Network Infrastructure - North Central US

Summary of impact: Between approximately 19:34 UTC and 21:04 UTC on 06 Nov 2017, customers in North Central US may have experienced degraded performance, network drops, or timeouts when accessing Azure resources hosted in this region. Engineers were aware of additional impact for customers using App Service in South Central US. Engineers determined that this was caused by an underlying Network Infrastructure Event in this region which remains under investigation.

Preliminary root cause: Engineers identified configuration change as the potential root cause.

Mitigation: Engineers performed a change to the service configuration to BGP and mitigate the issue.

Next steps: Engineers will continue to investigate to establish the full root cause in approximately 72 hours.

</comment><comment><USER3> nuget.org has been failing for me. Can't get any packages to download.

All our North Central App Services and Azure SQL instances alike are down.

EDIT: [https://status.nuget.org/](https://status.nuget.org/) is showing that their services are unreachable. Azure portal is unresponsive as well.

EDIT2: Looks like the problem began at 2:41 eastern, and according to [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/status/) it's a problem with North Central.

EDIT3: Issue confirmed by MSFT [https://twitter.com/AzureSupport/status/927629300370571264](https://twitter.com/AzureSupport/status/927629300370571264)

<comment><AUTHOR> yikes D:

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Azure status page says this is "caused by an underlying Network Infrastructure Event in this region". I wonder if that's referring to the issues Comcast is having?

</comment><comment><USER5> What measures are you all taking to get your resources available again? Are you moving resources from one region to another? Implementing traffic manager?

</comment><comment><USER6> Our south east/east services are janky as all get out. Been ongoing all day though getting worse. RDP from ARM interrupted as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Visual Studio Team Services is down for me. :(

</comment><comment><USER8> All our South Central Web Apps are down.

<comment><USER5> ditto</comment></comment>


Britain's Oldest Working Computer Roars to Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/britan-oldest-computer/

<comment><USER2> My father worked at Harwell in the 1950s. I didn't realize till recently that this had made him one of the first programmers.

<comment><USER3> It is interesting to think about both you and RTM are sons of the programmers in first generation! I am wondering what about Trevor Blackwell?

<comment><USER2> Trevor's younger than us, but I believe his father was an early programmer too.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hackrdot – Read Hacker News, R/Programming and Slashdot in One Place - <AUTHOR> https://hackrdot.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello!

I created Hackrdot as my first full-scale web project with Rails and wanted to share it. You can read HN, r/programming, and Slashdot. You can bookmark posts and join a mailing list where I will be sending weekly curated selections from those sites.

Any feedback is welcome. I hope you like it.

<comment><USER2> very good. A few nitpicks:

1\. the logo images at the like "Hacker News" look blurry to me in Firefox

2\. Would be good to have column headers for the numbers on the right and left. Looks like one means points and the other is for comments but they don't seem to match the actual sites -at least not HN and Reddit

<comment><AUTHOR> The number 2 is because it doesn't fetch the posts for each user. You might be seeing posts with a delay of max. 10 min.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks really good for a first project.</comment>


An American City Where the Government Barely Exists - <AUTHOR> http://splinternews.com/welcome-to-an-american-city-where-the-government-barely-1818667220 <comment><USER2> As someone who has lived in and around Detroit for their whole life, I found this article to be very insightful. By far, the best part of Detroit is a trend of extremely creative people being able to do whatever they want with their respective spaces. It goes far beyond painting a mural or erecting a sculpture. There are huge gardens[1], performance art spaces[2], puppet theaters[3], concert venues in industrial buildings[4], and much more. And these spaces are very cheap to maintain, relatively speaking.

[1][http://www.miufi.org/](http://www.miufi.org/) [2][http://thehinterlandsensemble.org/](http://thehinterlandsensemble.org/) [3][http://www.puppetart.org/](http://www.puppetart.org/) [4][http://tangentgallery.com/Tangent_Gallery/Home.html](http://tangentgallery.com/Tangent_Gallery/Home.html)

<comment><USER3> For someone who hasn't lived there, but has spent some time in Detroit, can you shed some light on whether it makes sense to treat Highland Park as separate "city" apart from Detroit? I realize it may technically have it's own boundary, but to an outsider Highland Park looks like a neighborhood of downtown Detroit. I mean, it's even halfway between downtown center and the Detroit Zoo. Since Detroit as a whole is having the same problem, including many other neighborhoods, I felt like the article talking about Highland Park as distinct and separate felt weird. Is there some context there that I might not understand?

<comment><USER2> Most people, myself included, lump Highland Park into Detroit despite technically being a separate city. Hamtrack is similar. You really don't feel like you're out of Detroit until you hit the Southfield, Ferndale, and Royal Oak areas.

<comment><USER4> While I agree many people do this with Highland Park, Hamtramck is very distinct, both physically (types of houses, density) and demographically (huge immigrant populations, Polish and now Middle Eastern and South Asian). Actually, certain parts around Hamtramck (e.g. Banglatown) are often lumped with Hamtramck despite being in Detroit.

<comment><USER2> I can understand that. I guess I mentally lump it with Detroit because of the arson, infrastructure issues that I associate with the city, but it is pretty unique. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a bunch of cities in the US that would be best 'fixed' by paying everyone to leave and letting it return back to forest.

It seems like they'd have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into this city just to make it minimally functional, and they still won't have a viable economy afterwards.

<comment><USER6> The Detroit/Warren/Dearborn MSA has a higher GDP than San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara MSA and is home to ~4 million people. Don't be confused by articles highlighting specific neighborhoods or old factories, there is a ton of economic activity. There are obviously some huge problems trying to provide government services for the same land area with a shrinking population, especially following a large recession, but "Won't have a viable economy" is silly given the number of companies in the area.

<comment><USER7> I think you make a good point. You shouldn't write off the whole Detroit area because of a few articles about specific neighborhoods. But Detroit/Warren/Dearborn essentially have the same GDP as San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara yet twice as many people live in the Detroit area

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP19820](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP19820)

[https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=19820&ar...](https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=19820&areatype=MSA&geotype=4)

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41940](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41940)

[http://www.bestplaces.net/metro/california/san_jose- sunnyval...](http://www.bestplaces.net/metro/california/san_jose-sunnyvale- santa_clara)

<comment><USER6> That only strengthens my point though -- The original commenter said we should just pay everyone to leave since there's no hope of sustaining an economy there.

If you can pay 4 million people to leave, you can pay to fix whatever services they are lacking -- and then you'd have 4 million people in a area with hundreds of large companies and good government services!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's far from "government barely existing". They exist in minimal form solely to extract resources from any remaining piece of value in the city. Eg:

"Then earlier this year, he got a letter saying 333 Midland wasn't up to code and it would have to cease operations immediately. He took care of the minor matters the fire marshall requested, like installing exit signs and extra fire extinguishers. But he still can't get a clear answer from the building inspector about what else needs to be taken care of"

<comment><USER9> "But he still can't get a clear answer from the building inspector about what else needs to be taken care of."

This is local government at its finest. I deal with this on a regular basis. There are regulations with no clear code; when I ask for a specific contract and list of things to do, I get the runaround - but that doesn't stop them from telling me what I am doing with my building structures is not up to code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder why there would not be some kind of alternative economic opportunities in that city.

I sense it would be the ideal place to "start over" and build something new in terms of politics and economics.

But when you think about it, a city is such a complex thing, so unless there is money and investment, a poor american city will just stay poor, that seems to fit the law of gravity. Unless you redefine some new way to live in detroit that shortcuts the problems of money, this city will linger.

It's surprising because I really think all the large pool of cash from the silicon valley and its thousands of new alternative ideas could revive detroit. But instead San Francisco is just the antithesis of detroit. That says lengths about the polarized world of today's capitalism.

To be totally honest, I wonder why somebody like Bernie Sanders is not campaigning for mayor or governor other there. It's the ideal place for the left to accomplish things.

<comment><USER11> > It's the ideal place for the left to accomplish things.

It's actually an example of the aftermath of decades of government by the left.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really like how they're routing around a dysfunctional government that is barely functioning. Compared to Detroit that surrounds it Highland Park is the wild, wild west.

</comment><comment><USER12> East Palo Alto experienced something similar. They voted to incorporate as their own city, then discovered they didn't have a large enough tax base to adequately fund their police department.

At one point in the 1980s they actually achieved the distinction of having the highest murder rate of any city in America.

<comment><USER13> It's different now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly it's good to hear about the things 'Mama' is doing on Avalon ST. That's some perseverance right there.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there any scenario like this in any other developed country? (Im honestly looking for an answer)

<comment><USER16> The problem here is a lack of prudence. When the town was flush with cash from the manufacturing sector, they expanded the budget and became inefficient. When that money left, they still had all of these long-standing inefficient agreements and processes.

Detroit is a well known example of it because they are still trying to uphold these parasitic relationships despite being basically evacuated.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure you even need profligate spending to suffer after 50% of the population leaves.

<comment><USER16> I would generally consider spending to be profligate if you could not sustain it for a proportional reduction in population (even of an important demographic) with an equal proportional reduction in number of people served.

Or I guess the important matter would be making it so that you only have maybe a few quarters of loss before you can legally adjust services to fit within the budget.

<comment><USER18> It's really unusual for cities to shrink, let alone drastically, so rapping people on the knuckles for not planning what happens when half your population leaves is a bit disingenuous.

<comment><USER16> I don't think it's disingenuous to be thinking of how quickly you could terminate non-essential services and staff, and in what order they are cut. You can spend your size, you'd just better be able to downsize quick, whether the economic downturn is global or local, artificial or natural.

City councils seem to think they're in the business of employing people permanently, but they really shouldn't need to be concerned about that, given that the citizens are left to foot the bill, and the majority of them do not work for the local government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surprised a libertarian billionaire hasn't assumed Highland Park's debts and run their utopia here.

<comment><USER20> You would need a billionaire because actually running things like a libertarian doesn't pay the municipal bills - it's been tried without the billionaire. [https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the- frees...](https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-freest- little-city-in-texas/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Dearborn and Detroit both either barely have a government or the government has ceded power to private groups. Corruption and constitutional protections have largely gone out the window.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this libertarian paradise?

<comment><USER23> It's not even close to a comparison with "Galt's Gulch." It could be, but the prime movers aren't there. Historically, it actually shows the opposite of such a place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> With a population of 11,776 it's only a town.

<comment><USER23> It is incorporated, not only working from a charter, which in this case means city not town.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I, for one, am in favor of this experiment in less government.

<comment><USER26> You should move there.

<comment><USER25> I have less government where I live now and like it just fine

<comment><USER27> Where would that be?

<comment><USER25> I wouldn't want it spoiled so I'd rather not say</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How does a blind computer programmer do programming? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/How-does-a-blind-computer-programmer-do-programming/answer/Lucas-Radaelli?share=1

<comment><USER2> what isn't mentioned is the speed at which the editor reads out code. i remember reading a similar story where the blind programmer recorded some code being read out, and it was extremely impressive to say the least. i could not understand a single word. i thought the recording was broken.</comment>


Show HN: A simple concert calendar me and eneve made - <AUTHOR> http://musicbar.fm/

<comment><USER2> Well done! But after viewing the Chicago events it made me realize how old and out-of-touch I am (I have two little kids at home). I think I recognized 4-5 bands out of 100 in Chicago! Maybe I need to take my wife out more! If I were single this would be a great tool for finding out what's happening in Chicago --easier than metromix by far.

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw your post in the Austin, Texas subreddit. Nicely done actually having a respectable list of venues, clearly some homework went into this.

How are you getting event data? Is it being pulled in via outside sources, or are these being entered by hand?

<comment><AUTHOR> This idea is actually spun-off from something I did that was much larger, so a lot of the heavy lifting had already been thought through. Most of the data comes from outside sources (last.fm and local sources). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like this a lot, including the color scheme. The only issue I see is events getting cut off if the text is too long - maybe you could expand the box if your mouse hovers for a few seconds?

</comment><comment><USER5> how do people feel about the electric color scheme?

<comment><USER6> Colour scheme is awesome!

I think its use is somewhat limited until there's search by genre however, when compared to last.fm events at least. With so many bands around it's hard to think of one to search to see if they've got any gigs on.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Flexbox Builder, a tool for visualizing responsive flexbox - <AUTHOR> https://www.flexboxbuilder.com <comment><USER2> I really like this. I hate doing layout in css.

I'm not sure if I missed it, but a few controls for the nodes would be cool (delete, swap with next, etc). I also couldn't focus the main node, after creating two nodes there. This was no problem, with the child nodes, because they shrink around the borders (which is amazing UX!).

Really cool project. Just curious, are you planning in open-sourcing it?

</comment><comment><USER3> I was under the impression that css grid had become the preferred way to layout pages now over flexbox?

</comment><comment><USER4> What's the purpose of the Content field? It doesn't seem to do anything

<comment><AUTHOR> The intention was to change the content within the selected node. Thinking I'll either remove it as the focus is mainly on flex layouts, or add a code editor to modify content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not working on mobile?</comment>


I Don't Much Get GO - <AUTHOR> http://java.dzone.com/news/i-don%E2%80%99t-much-get-go <comment><USER2> While I don't exactly agree with his general assessment of C# as a language, I'm more baffled by the fact that he doesn't seem to get that Go is supposed to be a systems-level programming language, which precludes any virtual machine. It's not meant to replace C++/Java/C# as a language to build large enterprise systems/GUIs, but C/C++ as server/OS-level implementation languages. The sweet spot is a bit different.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, he did say 'I don't get go', that just illustrates that he's right, he doesn't get it.

Go is an improved C, not a modified Java, C++ or C#.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are many fundamental errors about Go in the article: the := operator distinguishes declare and assign from pure assignment, not assignment from equality as the author states. Pointers in Go do not make the language unsafe. Pointers in Go do not relegate automatic memory management to a "supposed" feature. Goroutines are not the same thing as threads. The lack of implicit "this" in methods does not make methods a low value add feature over static functions.

There are several more errors in the article. Read it with caution.

</comment><comment><USER5> Go is not a language to write a massive enterprise level program in. It's meant to be used at the system level, and it excels at that. He was right, he really doesn't "get" Go.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also, he's clearly in the "zero-sum game" camp -- I like the "let a thousand flowers bloom" notion myself. If there's anything to Go, it will eventually become widely used. If not, ... it may at least influence the development of another language. We've pretty much entered the Cambrian Explosion of language design anyway, and what's wrong with that?

<comment><USER2> I think he'd be okay with multiple languages (he even mentions F#), as long as they share a common runtime. And as long as that runtime is the CLR.

I hope other .NET developers have a broader view and don't consider the CLR the _sine qua non_ of programming.</comment></comment>


dynosaur: scale and administer your heroku apps via sms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stevegraham/dynosaur

<comment><USER2> This is freaking awesome. How come no one thought of it before? Really useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, it seems like such an obvious thing to do.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your method for self-studying math textbooks? - untitled- <comment><AUTHOR> Some people say to do all the problems, while others say to do a partial number. I would say just do as many as you can. Don't set a limit to the number of exercises you do, just do enough to the point you feel content. If you feel as if the number of exercises you did is good enough, then move onto the next section. If you ever feel like going back and completing some more exercises, then that's also fine as well. However, I do think that mathematics builds on itself. I think you need to do a certain number of exercises that allows you to be "fluent" in the particular mathematical subject. Skipping many exercises is terrible for building your skills in maths.

</comment><comment><USER2> It can be really hard. I'd suggest: 1) Don't take on something too ambitious, it will demoralise you, 2) do _all_ of the exercises, even (especially) the ones that look easy, 3) Learn the basics of LaTeX so that you can ask coherent questions on stackexchange mathematics, 4) don't ask questions on mathoverflow until you actually reached research level.

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> > 2) do _all_ of the exercises

that is a tall order. Not doing any exercises is the same as not studying at all, I concede, but more bang for buck can be gotten not getting bogged down by exhaustive problem solving.

<comment><USER2> I stand by it, if you're not prepared for exhaustive (and exhausting) problem- solving then don't start down this road, try something easier like Philosophy or bear-wrestling.

<comment><USER3> Have you written a maths textbook? Do you know how arbitrary some of those exercises can be? Most textbook writers cobble together sundry, some of which have only the slightest relevance to the chapter at hand. Maths generally is a leisurely pursuit, particularly when "self-studying", and will not require slavish turning of all stones.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you. Doing everything is not always the best option for many people. If you can do it, great. But sometimes it's better to just do the most important exercises that are the most mentally stimulating and interesting, rather than invest time in the less interesting ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you have a problem and you are reading math textbook to learn methods to do the problem, it would be a lot easier to study textbook. The only problem is to find such a problem, so the most of the textbook would be relevant to it somehow. Or at least it should seem to be relevant long enough while you are studying. Though you could try to find several problems so they cover all the textbook.

It is a funny way human mind works (or at least mine does), it needs goals. When it have goals, it starts to generate guesses how to reach goals. It tries to check these guesses, some of them it fails to check, so I start reading textbook over and over, trying find answers. I begin to see where I lack proper understanding, and I can turn this lack of understanding into questions. Lack of understanding is vague and I do not know what to do with it, I do not know where to begin, while question is something specific and I know how to search for an answer.

</comment><comment><USER5> I read and attempt all sample problems before looking at their solutions. I do most of the problems/exercises, and compare my solutions to those in the back of the book. I might search YouTube for some additional help on some topics. The hard part is when I just don't grasp something. For that, I used to go to my neighbor who was a retired physics professor. Nowadays I'd look for a forum, probably Reddit, to get specific help.

</comment><comment><USER6> Solve problems! Caveat: Many books seem to have bad problems. If the majority of the problems seem to be the same problem with different parameters, that might raise a warning.

</comment><comment><USER7> make friends or start a meetup group</comment>


Ask HN: How does a developer with a prototype find a marketing person? - <AUTHOR>

This came up in a conversation last night -- it's not about me (I'm not a developer with a prototype). These two guys were talking about a prototype they've developed and how they're going to refine it next, then launch it, etc., and how the sky's the limit.
I asked them how people would find out about it and their answer was an obstructive mess, a mix of "if we build it, they will come" and "twitter/facebook/appstore will take care of it."  Some of the people without startup experience bought that; those of us with it kind of snorted. So finally, one of the two guys asked how to find a marketing person.
None of us had a clue. So, HN, what do you do? <comment><USER2> IMHO this is one of the most complicated questions to answer. Probably ranking just like the TechCrunch hyped "Stop Looking For A Technical Co-founder" article from 3 days ago...

Finding the right people is always super-complicated. Not only in regards to startups but overall... where do huge, global companies get their talent from? How do they find the right people? Probably interviewing dozens of people (or many, many more) to find one good to great match. However for them it might be easier because they have way more resources to do so...

For 'just two people' it's way harder. Where to look? Who to ask? How to get the word out that you're looking for somebody?

I think the overall answer is probably also the most obvious one: get out there and tell people i) about what you're working on, and ii) who you're looking for. Go to all the startup events, and meetups, etc., tell your friends about it and ask them to spread the word further, post it across all the social networks out there, ask questions like this here on HN, or Quora, etc. Make noise and hope to get people interested. Let's hope at least one person will be so interested in what you're building that he wants to get involved to help you market it.

But of course - and as mentioned before - this whole finding the right person thing, is one of the most complicated things ever. :) E.g. when using the 'going to events and meetups' as an example - what in my experience most of the time happens is, that people go there, who're looking for somebody to help them with THEIR idea. Usually there are almost no people looking to HELP with somebody else's idea.

That's part of the reason we came up with the idea to create <http://Founder2be.com> \- it's a place for people to find the right person to help, e.g. a marketing co-founder, a tech co-founder, etc.

Full disclosure: I work for Founder2be.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best case scenario is to find someone when the idea is in its nascent stages. That way the product can be developed with the market and consumer in mind, specifically how it's going to get to the consumer. Tweaks can be made along the way so the the product has a more perfect market fit. Then marketing is easier because, with that person on board, ideally lots pf testing has been done to see if the product ideally fits the marketplace's demand. If consumers don't really want it, then no amount of marketing will help them to buy it. And rarely does creating a fully birthed product and only then thinking, "Ok, now who wants to buy this and how do we get it to them?" ever work.

I say, find someone non-technical or someone who focuses on this from the beginning as a co-founder. Having all hackers means sometimes people can get lost in the trees of coding without even remembering what forrest they're in. Tons and tons of exceptions to this rule obviously but certainly what I've seen. Also, it's much tougher to bring a product to a marketing person that hasn't been throughly market tested and tweaked thereof, and simply say, "Ok, now you do the rest." The market and consumers should always, always be in anyone's mind the entire time they're creating a product.

Also. There are tons of non-technical types with wealths of experience in business, marketing, etc etc. on HN. I being one of them :) Hell, I think it's near impossible to find programmers since I don't run in programmer/hacker circles. So we always have the same question of where the hell do you find a great, technical co-founder who's a compliment to yourself. It's all a bit like dating I suppose.....

</comment><comment><USER4> If you build it, 2 people might come.

Why do you need a marketing person? In the beginning, you can do all of that yourself (start a blog, approach websites that are in the same field as your app, adwords or some other advertising network).

You need to build up a list of interested and potential customers and then send out emails. I've used this method many times and it works (although, you don't always see results right away).

There are many free or inexpensive ways to get your name out there. Most developers just don't want to do the work or are just not interested in marketing.

I'm a developer that has branched out into business and marketing. It gives you more power over your own company.

It's also much more difficult for a marketing or business person to become a developer.

Once you have money coming in and you want to spend your time running the business, then you can hire a marketing person.

<comment><USER5> Yep. Marketing is not voodoo. It's not rocket science that you need a MBA to be good in.. especially if it's an internet consumer product.

Learn about SEO and content marketing. Learn about app store optimization. Build relationships with bloggers. Guest post. Ask them for feedback. Build your expertise in forums. Build a mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Look at roughly similar established products or services where you think the company is really getting things right in your opinion on the marketing side, and see if there is someone doing that work who might be open to talking about moving to a startup. Or just advising at this point. By roughly similar, I mean market approach similar (B2B, B2C, ...) and some similar technology/use case so that you can leverage their experience and not a steep ramp to what is different about your technology.

</comment><comment><USER7> The plan on how to market the app should come before building the app, it isn't something that works best bolted on at the end.

If the product is already built, then the time is build out the user acquisition part, which is just as much of a challenge as building the product. One has to decide which UA channels to pursue, and basically A/B test towards success.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's been a similar discution on /r/startups few hours ago, with the big million dollars question : where to find good marketers co-founders for developers that have a prototype?

I tried founder2be, but it seems inadequate (lots of idea guys who believe to know marketing).</comment>


40 Major Music Festivals Have Pledged Not to Use Facial Recognition Technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywakpj/40-major-music-festivals-have-pledged-not-to-use-facial-recognition-technology <comment><USER2> That's a great first step, but we are in an era where everyone's phones serves the same purpose.</comment>


Have RIM, Nokia & Apple provided Indian Military with backdoor access? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/india/have-rim-nokia-apple-provided-indian-military-with-backdoor-access-to-cellular-comm/838

<comment><USER2> Crazy. Maybe BlackBerry BES is only secure way of communication?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage long hours vs. spending time with loved ones? - <AUTHOR> I've been experiencing a problem over the last few years and am asking for help on how to solve. I work a lot of variable hours/travel (startup) and my spouse works as a nurse so her schedule is all over the place as well.
We can't seem to find a way to manage our schedules very well. What ends up happening is we go extended amounts of time without an overlap in free time and then miss out on dates, time with friends, etc.
We both love our work so quitting isn't exactly helpful.
Some things we've tried:
Shared Google Calendar: This works well but we never actually update. Its tedious too. And we don't like sharing exactly what we're doing with our friends to coordinate schedules with. I'd prefer the calendar just said busy 9-9 not 9-11am doctors appointment, 12-3pm taking son to therapy,etc, etc. This is just a simple example
Paper/Pen - This is what we've used most often but things always come up and we always end up losing the paper. Slash leaving it in our cars, it being outdated because of a change.
Text - We text each other schedule updates and text other friends with similar work/life schedules a lot. This works the best in a 1:1 scenario but I always feel annoying texting 3 friends about making plans and having to do it 5 times because those 3 also are at work/out of town/unavailable.
I've heard some use calendly accounts. We haven't tried that but I don't generally see my less tech family/friends using that.
This isn't some existential crisis but we've really struggled to continually find time (and plan things out in advance when we have overlapping time) and others have to deal with this as well.
So any help would be appreciated. I can provide more context if needed. Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I feel for you. My wife and I are sort of in the exact same place. She is in nursing school and has a full-time job. I am taking a few classes, work full- time too. We also have 2 brand new kids since October.

I manage our digital calendar and actually we both still use a paper planner. We take time to sync each Sunday. We sync deep though. We know what each other has, kid obligations, what is for breakfast, lunch, dinner each day, what is the grocery list, etc, etc. This lets each one of us operate with a full understanding of the week. If one of us gets extra bandwidth or a gap opens up we first see if there is the possibility of free/family time before filing it with something else. Even if it is 10 mins meeting for coffee.

This may sound weird but we are both obligated to making this work. If my wife gets done class early then I jet over to grab coffee at Starbucks near here. If I am out and a meeting changes time she jets over to me, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for being helpful. Nursing school with a full time job is our exact situation as well. Well, she's doing an advanced nursing school so instead of 2 years its 15 months (and she's still working about 25-30 hours a week).

We do the same with the gaps. Sometimes we have them and it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. I agree with you on the making it work thing. Some of the comments below about "quitting" are not quite in focus.

We have another 6 months before my schedule will be predictable and hers as well.

What do you use for a digital calendar? I find google calendar so annoying to input lots of info in. We are trying to get better about syncing up on weekends but she usually is doing a 7pm (sat night) - 7am (sun morning) shift and needs to sleep while I am awake.

<comment><USER2> We use Google calendars. But I use Fantastical (on phone or ipad) to interface with it. Lets me type things in plain English instead of checking boxes.

[https://flexibits.com/fantastical](https://flexibits.com/fantastical)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > We both love our work so quitting isn't exactly helpful.

This sticks out to me, as it seems to be a false dilemma. Maybe you can work it out without either quitting, but having one of you quit is a real solution that you shouldn't throw out the window. After all, I'm sure you both love each other more than your work. Big life changes can be hard. (We got rid of our home internet, despite the fact that my whole employment relies on the internet.) But they're doable and shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> This could potentially be solved down the road but at this time we're not thinking about it. Thanks for the comment though. How you go without home internet I have no idea!

<comment><USER3> It seemed scary at first but our whole family is actually much happier and closer than ever before and none of us regrets it at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obviously you need an electronic calendar. And you need to make maintaining it more of a priority than work. We use iCloud calendar and Siri streamlines input of events. Friends either we or they make an appointment via text, voice or email. We enter it into our own calendar then share the event with attendees via whatever medium the conversation started. We share events not entire calendars.

But it seems to me you're looking at the symptoms and not the root problem. I'm not harshing on you. It's just a tough truth. If family time is more important to you, you have to MAKE it more important. I call this feeling- labor inversion. We all want the feeling and some of us avoid the necessary labor that creates the feeling (e.g., maintaining the calendar). Until labor takes priority over the feeling, the problem will continue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a real life schedule. Not to harsh on you but making family time more important is a tad more difficult than you're making it seem

Me: leave home 7:30am. Generally get back around 6:30pm. Make dinner, work out. Do any chores/else needs to get done. Go to sleep.

Her: class during day. leave at 7:30am. Generally back home for lunch and then gone again til 4:30ish. Few hours of homework. work out. chores/else needs to get done.

Weekends - she works night shifts at the hospital so she needs to sleep ASAP friday afternoon. I get up sat morning and read/watch tv.etc. She needs to sleep til about 2-3pm to do her night shift 7pm-7am. Then rinse and repeat. Factor in any tests or family commitments and you can see when this headache starts to get worse.

We certainly have __some __time together, but as I mentioned, if we do not plan it out exactly it is such little time that it can often be wasted entirely.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure how much of that is commute, but I'll echo other comments, try to reduce your hours.

You're going through a slog with your wife in school. Figure out a way to roll back your time away between now and when she is done with the schooling.

I was in your boat a few years ago. Now I work 8:30-4:30 and will stay late two days a week only. It was tough to get there but we'll worth it. End of the day, you'll manage better with a time constraint.

With kids especially, every minute counts. You have a few years and at some point they won't want to be around you. Don't lose that time.

For friends, the best luck we've had has been setting standing times in advance.

Trying to juggle five calendars over text is a recipie for drama. We have standing group happy hours / dinners that we do on a monthly cycle. It's less spontaneous, but turned into an awesome tradition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Standing hours might be the best way to do this. To make matters even more complicated our couple friends are either er surgeons/er nurses and 2 other entrepreneurs. Makes for great splits for conversations over dinner. But incredible scheduling headaches.

The 5 calendars over text is whats driving me insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When you're older or near death, will you miss the time you missed out on with each other because you loved your work?

As others have mentioned, it's just work; it's not going to love you back. Time is finite, and you have to prioritize what is important to you.

<comment><USER7> > As others have mentioned, it's just work; it's not going to love you back.

I love this. I am stealing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're doing a startup, you probably have more flexible hours. What I actually do is start work around 4 or 5 AM and finish at about 3 PM. My family is not awake so I don't miss any time with them. Less time on commuting, finding parking, etc, and plenty of time to work. And I have huge gaps of time to play with my kids.

But if possible, I'd recommend finding a way to work less hours. I find that lots of scheduled time kills a lot of opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER7> Work less hours. You are probably wasting them at work anyway. Most research points to about 3-4 hours of good "deep work" a day.

If you need to work more hours because your start-up is lazy about tracking productivity and "time in seat" == "more productivity" then try and build and document an empirical way to measure your productivity. There are a ton of good books out there on this subject. I recommend "Accelerate."

Go ask your grandfather if he wishes he had worked more or spent more time with family. Relationships NEED nurturing. Not making time to be together can and will kill your relationship.

Check out "Deep Work - Cal Newport" and "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work - by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson". You do read and do research on how to run your company and track your productivity, don't you? Or do you just fart your way through life and are consistently amazed at how the harder you work the further away the goal-post is?

<comment><AUTHOR> Consistently farting 24/7\. Its actually a problem

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure if you are receptive to advice that isn't aligned with your questions narrative - but I'll give it a shot.

Can you delegate, hire, etc to reduce your workload?

<comment><AUTHOR> Goal is to get there in next few months. Laying groundwork to do so now. Definitely receptive

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is possible to share a google calendar and reveal only free/busy on a per- user basis, fwiw. It's somewhere in the sharing settings.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh ok that might be helpful. I will try to find. typical google. Have one of best features buried so deep you can't find it

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There aren't enough hours in the week for all that.

\- one partner has a startup

\- the other has a full time job

\- and goes to school

\- apparently you also have a kid

\- and you want to go on dates

\- and you want to do stuff with a group of friends on the weekend

I seriously doubt that the choice of calendar software is going to make a difference here.

At some point you are going to have to set priorities. I'm not saying you should work less, because you seem to love it. But maybe just accept the fact that you're going to meet your group of friends only once or twice a year, or that date night is going to happen less often.

I meet some of my best friends only once or twice a year now. It's not what I imagined, but when everyone has a job and family and doesn't live in the same place anymore.... I don't think changing to a different calendar app could fix that.

</comment><comment> a-saleh I have a shared calendar with just my wife that has reasonably detailed schedule.

With rest of my friends we just send each other a doodle [1] once every 3 weeks or so, so that we go for a beer or something. Using doodle solved the "texting everybody every update until we agree on time" problem :-)

Going for lunches with my friends turned out fairly well, because most people need to lunch during the day somewhere, so we might as well lunch together :) This of course requires you to work reasonably close together.

[1] [https://doodle.com/](https://doodle.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Do you love your wife or your work?

Why does your son goes to therapy?

I would take a step back before trying to "manage" long hours vs. spending time with loved ones, and look at the root of the problem.

</comment><comment><USER13> Work fewer hours (not possible for a nurse, but definitely for a programmer). It'll make you _more_ productive: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/08/10/always-more-work- to-...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/08/10/always-more-work-to-do/)

</comment><comment><USER14> If your friends are close to you, they shouldn't be annoyed that you're texting them. Wanting to spend time with your friends is a good thing, and if they're legitimately annoyed, make certain you're communicating that you value the time that you get to spend with them (this is especially key if your time is sparse.)

<comment><AUTHOR> They are close. And annoyed isn't the __right __word. More it feels annoying to me to text 5 friends to find out all 5 are traveling until Sunday or are x, y or z with other commitments. Maybe that makes more sense. All of us are busy and finding time is hard so for each try (2-3x a week) we usually can get together twice a month

<comment> em-bee i know that feeling, it's like you are chasing after your friends, and need to put in energy to figure out when they are free because you don't already know their schedule.

i have a gut feeling though that if you don't already know the schedule of your friends, and (as you mentioned) you aren't comfortable to share your detailed schedule with them, then maybe they are not that close and you won't miss them if you don't see them every week.

if you do miss them, then pick one or two that you feel close enough to actually share your detailed schedule and let them help with coordinating with the others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Group sms works great. But you or someone should take charge and summarize the conversation/plan as last a text.

My friends use group texts a lot but sometimes conversation gets out of hand and I have to read through 100 messages to find out if there were any concrete plans.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that is another annoyance with them. Seems to get complicated fast. We do use group texts with friends. But it is a little annoying to have 100 texts go by and then either not be able to make the plans or not be interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I set up Google Calendar invites. It's the same way I handle getting time with a busy manager at work. Wife is super busy in the next few weeks? Set up an event on the calendar so they can plan around it.

</comment><comment><USER17> if you truly love your wife then quit your job and find something better. Seriously. You only live once and your jobs should not be your life.

</comment><comment><USER18> _We both love our work so quitting isn 't exactly helpful._

But your work doesn't love you, apparently.

Otherwise it wouldn't be forcing you to make a draconian choice like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> shes working full time and full time in school. Im ceo of a venture funded startup. so for the next few years this is our life. We did it to ourselves. But just trying to figure out how to manage best with the time we have.

<comment><USER18> My comment was a bit presumptuous then. Sincere apologies.

<comment> em-bee there is some truth to it though, because even as a CEO, actually, especially as a CEO you need to make sure you have time for your family. or more importantly, you need to make sure you don't burn out. OPs question suggests that he is getting exhausted with his current schedule. that is the road that leads to burn out, and if i were an investor or an employee in his company i would tell him to slow down, because the company needs him in the long run.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Live stream of the latest HN items - <AUTHOR> http://live-mode.us-west-2.elasticbeanstalk.com/ <comment><USER2> Like the idea, but would like the option to set which level of items I'm interested in seeing. Personally, I'd like to see when a new thread is posted, but not really interested in every new comment that is posted.</comment>


Eigen library on mainframe – ported to zEC13 SIMD - <AUTHOR> http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page <comment><USER2> Well? When is it coming to MVS? :)</comment>


Ask HN: Books on Personal Project Management? - <AUTHOR> How do you manage your personal projects? Are there any books or software that help? <comment><USER2> I use Todoist to keep track of tasks and projects. Checkout the book "Getting Things Done" or search for GTD on the web, plenty of tools. There's also free Kanban boards on the web. Software projects get a GitHub account.</comment>


Envoy, modern visitor registration - <AUTHOR> https://signwithenvoy.com/

<comment><USER2> I find it suspicious when something is posted by someone at the company and immediately receives a bunch of upvotes, with no commentary.

Maybe there is useful discussion to be had about the product, but let the democracy of the HN voting system determine that, before having a bunch of employees upvote it to the front.

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing the reason this topic gets any attention is because the company just secured funding. But, actually the proximity between this and that post ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8325634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8325634)) is pretty glaring. This type of subtle gaming of the system happens a lot of HN and Reddit. But here there is probably less budget to monitor and moderate.

<comment><USER4> We watch for subtle gaming like hawks, because (a) we know the community hates it, and (b) we're part of the community. Look at my comments from yesterday alone (admittedly a big day for anti-gaming commentary):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320466)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320253)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8320382)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8321378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8321378)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8322608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8322608)

Most of this is caught by software.

That's not to say that we catch all of it, of course. Also, Reddit has orders of magnitude more quantity to deal with. I imagine the challenges are different at that level, and probably a lot harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unsure why this is HN-worthy. It is a startup website that lets you log into companies you are visiting.

<comment><USER6> Startups are not HN-worthy?

<comment><USER5> Every startup is not HN-worthy; when there's a particular aspect, feature, or discussion to be had, great.

When it's the actual website with absolutely no commentary being submitted by employees... not HN-worthy, yeah.

This is a discussion and interest site, not Product Hunt.</comment></comment></comment>


Bill Joy: "The Smartest People in the World Don't All Work for Us." - <AUTHOR> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/28/smartest/ <comment><AUTHOR> Bill Joy's complete quote: _The Smartest People in the World Don't All Work for Us. Most of Them Work for Someone Else_</comment>


Why the cool kids are using Laravel (PHP Framework) - <AUTHOR> http://taylorotwell.tumblr.com/post/21038245018/why-laravel

<comment><USER2> I use the right tool for the job, not what the "cool kids" are using.</comment>


Codebase Search Results with TF-IDF for diversity and conciseness [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lmartie/msr_preprint.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Any experience with higher order search engines for code? Especially for the purpose of refactoring and de-duplicating for DRY cutting?</comment>


SQL 3d engine (interactive preview) - <AUTHOR> https://beta.observablehq.com/@pallada-92/sql-3d-engine <comment><USER2> Hi, Mike!

I also made the same for Excel: [https://beta.observablehq.com/@pallada-92/excel-3d-engine- em...](https://beta.observablehq.com/@pallada-92/excel-3d-engine-emulator).

There are two explanation articles in Russian: [https://habr.com/post/435390/](https://habr.com/post/435390/) (SQL), [https://habr.com/post/353422/](https://habr.com/post/353422/) (Excel)</comment>


Ask HN: Looking For Work: Move First, or Wait For Offer - <AUTHOR>

I would just like to hear, from both an employer's perspective and from people who have been hired who were in this same position, what your opinion is on trying to find work in a new state or country.
Just for some background: I currently live in Vermont, U.S.A., which isn't exactly teeming with tech/programming jobs.  I subscribe to a couple of job board feeds, and it seems like a fair number of jobs which seem exciting to me are based out of (surprise surprise) the bay area or other parts of California.
My question is, what is your opinion about trying to get hired (or hiring) for jobs that are outside of your country or state?  On the one hand, it's a big risk to quit my job and move out west with my wife with no guarantee of a position.  However, I realize that if I were trying to hire for a position, I would probably look at local candidates before considering out-of-staters or people from outside the country, unless they looked like stellar candidates.  Is it your experience that people from out-of-state are considered equally with people in-state, given the same skill sets, or do you think they usually end up on the bottom of the pile, so to speak?
I should also mention that, given an opportunity to take an exciting position, I would not expect to have my move costs covered by the company, and would, for the right position, be willing to travel to visit the company, meet face-to-face, check out the offices, etc.  Basically, I wouldn't be looking for a free ride out to California, as obviously I wouldn't be the only person taking the risk. <comment><USER2> Unless you are very specialized and find a job posting that matches your skill and industry specialization, it is hard to get flown across the country for an interview.

It has happened, and a unaccepted lowball offer is all that came out of it. Then I decided screw it, we're moving. I took 6 months to find a job, she took 2 months (more specialized than I am).

Both happy we made the move, but we could have lived off savings for years so it was a low stress move for us.

YMMV

<comment><AUTHOR> I find that, for a lot of the job postings I read, my skillset is a pretty good match (probably because I'm subscribed to relevant job boards). However, in the past, my experience has been that people won't even bother getting back to me if I'm not in the area (I've applied to jobs in other states before). Now, it could be that I'm just not qualified for the job; I'm not ruling that out. But it would be nice to know if I was completely out of consideration simply for being on the other side of the country.

As I mentioned in the description, I would be willing to fly myself out to visit the right company (I would probably set up multiple interviews at once if possible to maximize the value of the trip), as I would really like for that not to affect my chances vs. someone local.

Maybe that's the kind of thing that I have to make abundantly clear in my cover letter, so it doesn't take me completely out of the running.

Or, maybe people think us Vermonters are a bunch of dumb hicks :p

<comment><USER3> I think you should definitely make it as clear as possible in the cover letter that you are looking to move and what concessions you would be willing to make.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another option: take a 1-2 week "vacation" in California and interview fulltime during that period. Set up the interviews _before_ your vacation. After the interviews each day, in the evenings, go to meetups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd definitely like to visit the Bay Area anyway, so this is probably the option to go with. Do you think that companies are receptive to the "I'm only going to be in town for x number of days, so if we could meet then that would be great" approach?</comment></comment>


Continuous Calculus [pdf] - happy-go-lucky http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~olver/ln_/cc.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This book formulates calculus by starting with the concept of continuity instead of the concept of limits. (It shows that limits can be defined in terms of continuity, rather than the other way away, which other texts usually do.)

The simple idea that substitutes for limits in the definition of the derivative is that the derivative of f(x) at x₀ is the value of d that would make (f(x)-f(x₀))/(x-x₀) continuous at x₀ if (f(x-x₀))/(x-x₀) were to equal d (instead of being undefined) when x=x₀.

That is to say, there are approximations of the tangent slope on both sides. The derivative, if it exists, is the value of the tangent slope that would make these approximations continuous.

The book credits Carathéodory with this concept

> that f:ℝ→ℝ has a derivative at a∈ℝ if there exists a continuous function > q:ℝ→ℝ such that f(x) = f(a) + q(x)(x−a)

and in this case that that derivative is q(a).

I actually like this a lot; it feels very elegant.</comment>


Big-box retailers are slashing their property taxes through a legal loophole - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/property-tax-dark-store-theory-retail-apocalypse-walmart/574123/ <comment><USER2> I wouldn't call this a "loophole"; I'd call it property taxes working exactly the way they're supposed to work.

I mean, they're _property_ taxes, not _business_ taxes -- isn't it obvious that they should be based on the value of the property, not based on the success of the business which uses the property.

<comment><USER3> Why do you feel that that the "value of the property" should be defined by what another party is willing buy it for after it has closed rather than than the amount the current owner is willing to sell it for while it is open? Both strike me as reasonable positions, and thus a compromise value between the two seems like it might be most fair.

<comment><USER4> My parents love their home. They wouldn't sell it at 30% above market value. Should their property taxes be based on what it's worth to them, or what it's worth on the market? What it's worth on the market is a semi-objective measure, while worth to the owner is highly subjective.

Calculating the tax basis value based on what the owner would sell it for has numerous problems even outside that subjectivity. It penalizes businesses for success in a way that promotes looting the company to artificially lower the business value. Aside from the deadweight loss involved, it artificially promotes the type of behavior firms like Bain are already criticized for. Also, it's highly subject to system-gaming. What is the incentive of a firm to actually accurately value it at what they would sell for while it was open? The only way it works is to enforce some draconian policy that _requires_ them to sell if someone ponies the cash (a la Posner and Weyl's proposition in Radical Markets).

<comment><USER5> the fa makes the point that what makes a store successful it's location in the flow of a city's life and so the boarded up ones are going to be least productive junctions. The property is worth more because it's the property that is there and NOT the one that is 5 miles further in the under occupied suburbs.

<comment><USER4> Exactly, but the extent that's the case, it's captured in the market value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now there's plenty of room to argue that the stores are asking for too much now, but fundamentally the towns have been breaking the law, which is why the stores are winning the court cases.

"As of 2017, the city had valued that store at $11 million, a number based on what the property had cost the owner to buy back in 2001, plus the added value of renovations over the years, adjusted at the going rate of depreciation."

However, that's not the way properties are supposed to be valued by state law - it is supposed to be based on the resale value. And there's a terrible market for used big box stores.

<comment><USER7> I have to disagree that the town's have been breaking the law. You can criticize their choice of comparable properties but it doesn't strike me as illegal or necessarily dishonest. However it seems like maybe we need an entirely new way to valuate these properties...

When a home is assessed we look at similar houses (similar in size, number of bathrooms, garage, etc.) These are features that have teal and tangible value for people in the market for a home. People agree these are valuable things.

It sounds like much of the value of these properties isn't really part of the properties themselves. Instead we're seeing the value in the I improvements to the property _around_ the store: what was once empty land now has a four lane road, electric lines and other utilities constructed solely to support these stores. Is it fair to turn around and argue that this value isn't enjoyed by these big box stores?

That seems to be their logic: the Home Depot has value, but not much: it's a shoddy square box full of shelves. Yet the municipality spent a lot of money on infrastructure to support this store that they can't afford without these taxes.

<comment><USER8> Surely the resale value of the property takes into account the level of infrastructure surrounding the property, which would mean that a valuation based on resale value prices in those improvements at their market value.

<comment><USER7> After reading the article, the impression I came away with was that they were choosing "comparable properties" that were recently re-sold big box sites. It seems that the municipality's appraisers take the infrastructure around the site into account whereas the appraisers for the big box stores are not.

<comment><USER9> Each party's appraiser comes up with a value favorable to its customer? You don't say!

<comment><USER7> I think it's weird in this case that the methodology on each side is so drastically different. IMHO, the missing piece is clear rules on how to compare large crappy properties that only warehouse stores are interested in... Everyone used to agree on methodology but now the large chains are changing their minds.

Similar to the Amazon HQ2 saga, providing tax breaks to these companies isn't worth it in the long run; that practice should probably cease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a simple solution here. You tell me what you think your property is worth. And I can force you to move out today for that price. This might still be a loss for the county tax assessors, but it will at least keep these stores honest. Maybe we even include all the inventory and fixtures in that deal to keep the companies even more honest, since a competitor can almost turnkey the operation at that point (though the logistics of resupply can't be understated).

<comment><USER11> I've suggested to the tax assessor that I'd be happy to sell my property to him at significantly less than the value he assessed it at. He was not amused, but I did get the assessed value lowered.

I'd vote for a system where the government was obliged to purchase property at a 25% discount to what they assessed it at, if the owner chooses to sell it.

<comment><USER12> I've suggested that before as well. I think the figure should be more like 10-15%, but otherwise agree that keeps a town assessor honest in a more straightforward manner than the current "appeal to the same board that originally assessed you too high" tends to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It sounds like the big box stores themselves are validating the Strong Towns interpretation that towns have invested far too much public infrastructure compared to the property value of the big box stores ([https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/3/big-box- stores...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/3/big-box-stores-are- costing-our-cities-far-more-than-we-ever-imagined)). Perhaps these towns could zone every big box store for subdivision and redevelopment so that the stores will have to pay taxes based on the upzoned value. As an added benefit, the stores will be encouraged to use the land more productively.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, a possible compromise is that if the property is to be taxed as an empty store with no customers, then it should be supported by the infrastructure needed for an empty store with no customers.

<comment><USER15> > then it should be supported by the infrastructure needed

What specifically? The store pays for water and electric. The only thing I can think of that the city supplies is the road network.

And restricting the road network would be a very foolish thing for the city to do - they would just be harming themself.

<comment><USER16> Maybe toll roads or an extra tax for these types of properties if they're active rather than derelict. Price them so that the companies will choose to pay tax instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This american system of paying for city services via property taxes instead of consumption or equal share is very strange when looking from abroad. If the city needs policemen, firefighters and teachers, as the article describes, then the city should split the bill to the number of citizens and not to how much they can rip off them. The property is not a city investment, so the city does not deserve any revenue from it. If the city did some investment, that is a cost to reimburse, of course, but not milking the property.

<comment><USER12> If 8 people live in a 1500 ft^2 house and 1 person lives in a 10,000 ft^2 mansion, is the city really providing 8x the value to the former for police and fire protection?

<comment><USER9> 8 lives to save in the former, if the house is on fire, vs. one to save in the latter.

<comment><USER18> It's not the cloud that'll save theses 8, there's no on demand scaling for the fire department. On both situation, there'll be enough staff there to save at least 8 peoples, thus incurring the same cost. It's probably much quicker too to secure a 1500 ft house than a 10 000 one. I remember once we got a fire alarm at my job once and it took quite a bit of time for them to make sure everything was alright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Paul-ish This is perhaps another argument in favor of a land value tax. The value assessment can still be disputed, but at least it is on the unimproved value of the land.

</comment><comment><USER19> I live hear in Wisconsin. I tend to side with the big box stores. Lots of empty space around that indicates their store properties are not that valuable on the open market. As for the municipalities, they are in way too many things that they should not be into. Like running the electric and gas utilities, water utilities etc. Civic centers and so called industrial parks that turn them into real estate developers. Scores of government employees trying to attract businesses by handing out freebies to companies that would have come to their town anyway. Stick to doing street repair and snowplowing and quit your bitching.

</comment><comment><USER20> If the stores are hurting and channel that into destroying the communities that support them, something is going to change.

Communities vanish, big stores are destroyed, the old smaller outfits come back, Amazon takes over, whatever???

<comment><USER21> Nothing comes back. You are left with a husk where anyone still living there travels dozens of miles to get groceries. Its becoming a legitimate problem across the country, especially when the population that often chooses to stay are retirees who often shouldn't even be driving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's astounding that you wind-up with stores which seem to intend to give nothing what-so-ever back to their communities. What is the long term plan here?

<comment><USER23> They help distribute low-priced goods. Lower priced goods broaden accessibility and thus help the poor. If you're not poor or don't interact with the poor much that might be easy to miss.

<comment><USER24> This can't be reiterated enough.

These store provide a lifeline for a certain segment of the population. Without these stores, one store in particular, there would be a lot of instability in society as we transition from a mostly middle class society to something a bit more bipolar.

Inequality is real, and these kinds of stores go a long way towards making it tolerable. Now I can't put a dollar value on that, but it has to be worth something.

<comment><USER25> Are they not also one of the causes of that transition?

<comment><USER24> Not really. Walmart did not make the factories go away for instance.

Now what Walmart _did_ do was to take advantage of the economic detritus left in flyover country as productivity gains and outsourcing started to eviscerate the jobs landscape. But Walmart was not the _cause_ so much as they came along after and capitalized on the ruins.

<comment><USER26> I disagree. It's a cliche at this point that when Wal-Mart enters a town, all the mom and pop stores close up. The profit margins from distributing these goods now contributes to $WMT rather than staying in the local economy.

<comment><USER12> The presence of Walmart also helps the low-income members of a community by providing a one-stop shop for low priced, generally acceptable quality goods.

When I graduated from college and had my first job and apartment, a relatively large amount of my income was spent at the local Walmart. It was a godsend for me at the time. What I didn't spend at all those too inefficient to compete mom and pop stores was money that I could use to pay off student loans, rent, utilities, and still have a little money left over to save up an emergency fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Abusing legal loopholes is very much like hacking, and should therefore be just as punishable.

<comment><USER28> I support your policy proposal of repealing the CFAA.</comment></comment>


Ebay Leads in USD 50 mln investment in Snapdeal, forges commercial Partnership - <AUTHOR> http://trak.in/funding/ebay-usd-50-million-snapdeal-investment/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a strategic investment by Ebay to push their international sales, which have been subdued in recent times. At the same time, it is great for Snapdeal, because it offers much needed legroom in the increasingly competitive Indian ecommerce market</comment>


Buy laptop - <AUTHOR>

I want to buy a new laptop, which I should choose Dell,Hp,sony ... <comment><USER2> For Sony : I always regret buying from them pretty soon. Even if the device looks good on paper, you soon discover that obvious functionalities are arbitrarily disabled.

For instance, I quite liked the specs of VAIO TZ31 and bought one. But Sony decided that depite the fact it includes a processor that implements VT I should not use it. [http://blog.steelooper.com/2009/07/enabling- virtualization-o...](http://blog.steelooper.com/2009/07/enabling- virtualization-on-sony-vaio.html) (Resulting in the fact that to this day I can't use VirtualBox with it.)

And this is to say nothing of the cryptic hardware devices that lack a free driver (webcam, flash memory...) that made my life very hard when I installed Debian on it.

FYI, Dell XPS13 Developer edition (natively under Ubuntu) looks good to me... Caveat : it lacks an ethernet port.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends what you want it for?

<comment><AUTHOR> programming (web application and mobile application )and for personal use(browsing, games..)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find someone in the bay area who want to learn chinese online? - <AUTHOR> Hi, i am doing a startup of teaching Chinese online, now i want to recruit someone in the bay area who want to learn Chinese, can you recommend some ways to find them. Thanks. <comment><USER2> I don't live in the bay area, but...

\- You are doing a startup where you teach Chinese online?

\- Do you have a website?</comment>


Combating blog article theft by delaying RSS feeds - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/delaying-feed-updates <comment><USER2> So, people feel some sympathy for the author of this submission because they can see work is being taken without being paid for.

> Defending copyrights as an individual isn't an easy matter.

But the same people seem to fucking hate Article 11, which would forbid these sites from copying the entire article and would give the author of the material real options to take action.

I don't think article 11 or 13 are particulary good, but this submission does a good job of showing why some people think they're needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Existing copyright law already forbids you from copying and redistributing the creative works of other. More laws won't stop anyone from violating the law. The problem with content scrapers is that its so easy to hide your identity, so easy to scrape content, and so damned easy to be approved into advertising programs.

<comment><USER2> Exisiting copyright law is, as the author says, hard to use. Making those laws easier to use for blatant commercial violation is a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This isn't something that I've seriously looked into myself, but I thought that in the past, Google had a way to tell them about your new articles, to avoid this problem. Does that no longer exist/work?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can "ping" them about new articles (which I still do), but if other websites ping them within a few seconds/minutes than you basically have a race-condition trying to see how is indexed first. Notably, this is a bigger problem with Bing and Yandex who don't have the capacity to index the web as quickly as Google does.

<comment><USER3> Is this just not a problem in practice, or is there some technical barrier I'm not thinking of here? I'm imagining a system where you say "hey Google, I'm about to post content X" that you do right before it goes live on your site. No race condition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only Yandex has something where you can inform them of upcoming articles/links before you publish. (As mentioned in the article.) [https://yandex.com/support/webmaster/authored- texts/owners.h...](https://yandex.com/support/webmaster/authored- texts/owners.html)

If you ping Bing or Google before you publish, they'll get a 404 and will take that as a sign that there is no content there. They also will wait longer before trying to reindex a page that previously returned a 404.

<comment><USER4> Make a visible but unlisted URL, ping search engines, wait 5 minutes, list / link the URL from the home page of your site, publish the URL to RSS. Solves the 404 problem, doesn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I experimented with this too. However, I found that just delaying the RSS feed produced the desired results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure even delaying things work unfortunately. At least if someone has strong ranking already, they can hijack your content[0]

[0] at least according to [https://dejanseo.com.au/hijack/](https://dejanseo.com.au/hijack/) (which according to the author is still a problem today, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17827589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17827589))

<comment><USER6> Maybe a more subversive method would be publish the page with gibberish, initially, then republish the real content a day after?

<comment><USER7> Actually, shortly after I learned that Google switched to neural networks for search results, I noticed an old style of spam making a huge comeback: Either markov chain or neural network generated text, taking from related websites (I suspect they look at the top 10 websites for certain valuable terms).

This gibberish actually outranks legit content which refers to my content, sometimes even my own articles, especially when it is turned into a PDF.

Seems like it is easy to block ~250k webpages like:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:?yhjhuyfib](https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:?yhjhuyfib)

but I guess Google keeps them there to keep the spammers in the dark? I hope so, else their new ranking signals allow for easier spam.

<comment><USER8> > _Seems like it is easy to block ~250k webpages like_

I think it's unfair to look at these results and say "but it's so easy to block these". Google's time is best spent on solutions which will reliably and automatically block these, without going through fairly manual steps.

I did notice a decrease in quality in gmail's spam filter though. Increase in false positives and false negatives lately. I guess it's unlikely to be related...

<comment><USER7> To me it seems all the work of the same spammer(s). In such a case, do some manual intelligence and wrap it up. It won't scale to all forms of spam, but if a simple regex can uncover 250k+ results in 10 minutes, a manual spam fighter can still block millions of pages a day (and warn the webhost, remove these flakey ads from their networks, etc.).

No doubt the recent machine learning hype has given spammers more advanced tools to avoid detection.

<comment><USER8> False positives are far more problematic than false negatives...

<comment><USER7> If you remove from index... sure. But for that URL that I posted, do you think there is even a single false positive in there?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem is a matter of audience and missing communications IMO.

In the old usenet we do communicate DIRECTLY each others so anyone have a reputation, so we know "original sources" and we prize accordingly. In today's world being disconnected, on one side only content producer, on the over side only consumers, in the middle at maximum uncomfortable platforms that are limited and limiting user-user communication it's harder.

IMVHO the medicine is coming back to the communication era we lost in the past, no other systems proved to be effective, take a look a audio/video piracy as a good living example.

</comment><comment><USER10> No, copying and distributing articles, even when illegal, is not theft.

</comment><comment><USER11> Never heard of this blog before. I really like the looks of the content. My only method of subscribing to anything is RSS. I'm definitely not adding it to my list after reading this. I wasn't going to make them any money by unblocking trackers but that Amazon tip jar[1] thing looks really interesting, I've never seen it before, I likely would have used it.

[1][https://www.ctrl.blog/tip-jar](https://www.ctrl.blog/tip-jar)

<comment><USER12> So a blog with content you like is verboten because your RSS feed wouldn't update instantly? That seems like an odd hill to die on.

<comment><USER11> It's a horrible band-aid that hurts the functionality and reputation of RSS and shouldn't be encouraged by supporting the site setting a bad example. If they want to play the pointless cat-and-mouse game with the "thieves", fine, but crippling RSS in the process is not cool. They will just scrape the site instead and the RSS feed will be worse off for no gain.

<comment><USER12> Crippling? I'm as information addicted as the next guy, but unless I'm missing something fundamental about RSS, the only effect is that you as a user will notice new posts a few hours late. That seems more than reasonable to me.

If it turns out not to work, they can go back.

<comment><USER11> And if it turns out to work, they will encourage others to follow, hurting an already neglected great technology.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Knitters teamed up with a neural-network creator to generate new shapes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/the-making-of-skyknit-an-ai-yarn/554894/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> More pictures: [https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skyknit-the- collect...](https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skyknit-the-collection)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing that link. There are some really beautiful pieces in there! Natural, but with a strange edge. Regular enough to be pleasing, but unpredictable enough to be interesting.

This one in particular [https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skyknit-the- collect...](https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/skyknit-the- collection/slideshow?fullscreen=1&start=74308574) reminds me of Wolfram's timeplot CA renderings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be interesting to see this combined with simulation [1], which might itself need another neural network (or manually written "fixer") to interpret the ambiguous instructions.

[1] Kaldor et al - "Simulating Knitted Cloth at the Yarn Level" [https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~srm/publications/SG08-knit.html](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~srm/publications/SG08-knit.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems like overly optimistic interpretations of crappy/noisy neural network output. I could be wrong though.

<comment><USER6> Weirdly high rated though. Lots of pictures. Clearly someone likes this. Something is happening here. Any knitters that can explain?

<comment><USER7> Why do we like Conways game of life? Why are we interested in AI-generated art?

I found the outcomes delightful and hilarious (there are lots of photos in one of the other sites linked to from the article).

Perhaps more interesting is the collaboration between humans and AI to turn the AI's "imagination" into something that physically exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am usually not a fan of puns, but skyknit is gold

</comment><comment><USER9> In this piece, Alexis Madrigal gives one of the all time most straightforward descriptions of how neural nets work. Kudos.</comment>