My bag of tricks – loose notes, design patterns, rules-of-thumb - <AUTHOR> http://gordonbrander.com/pattern/ <comment><USER2> I'm regretting I didn't collect my thoughts like this earlier in my career. I personally learned and internalized many principles but by the time I was tech leading and mentoring, they had all fallen to the level of intuition and I couldn't clearly explain the "why"s of things.

<comment><USER3> That's a personal wiki. I think it's invaluable, and since I started building mine with org-mode I feel much more accomplished. That's because some tasks' natural outcome is a knowledge bit, which you can't store otherwise.

In the old times, many Germanic scholars would build a similar thing using flashcards. It was called a zettelkasten.

<comment><USER4> How are you using org-mode for this?

I have recently switched all my note-taking and task/todo management to org- mode, but I'm still figuring out how to use it properly. At the moment, I just have a personal.org, refile.org and project specific .org files, all kinda taking the shape of headings with sub-sub-sub-sub-headings inside until there is either none or some content inside, but a personal wiki, it doesn't feel like. It feels more like ordered mess, kinda. It's definitely better than anything I've ever used before.

Any good tips you want to share?

<comment><USER3> That's not an easy question. I think you need to enforce some style guide, like Wikipedia does.

org-mode is a bit like C++ or LaTeX. I say this as a good thing. It has tons of features, but you need to choose what to use and what to keep out.

For me, something that works great is to keep all org files in the same folder, with a flat structure. That includes my task list and my calendar. I version control everything, except organizational things that change often instead of growing like articles. I also keep out of version control first quick drafts of any article.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the reply!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ma [0] was also referenced by Alan Kay when talking about smalltalk messages [1]:

> The big idea is "messaging" \- that is what the kernal of Smalltalk/Squeak > is all about (and it's something that was never quite completed in our Xerox > PARC phase). The Japanese have a small word - ma - for "that which is in > between" \- perhaps the nearest English equivalent is "interstitial".

[0]: [http://gordonbrander.com/pattern/ma/](http://gordonbrander.com/pattern/ma/)

[1]: [http://wiki.c2.com/?AlanKayOnMessaging](http://wiki.c2.com/?AlanKayOnMessaging)

</comment><comment><USER6> _Every game with more than one player becomes a game about the interactions between those players._

Bill Kerr once said that point of view is worth 80 IQ points. I think the above statement is a good example.

It's simple enough to seem too trivial to write down. Yet years of work and failure could stand behind it. All too easy for beginners to ignore and trace the same frustrating path.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Not Rocket Science Rule

I've been trying to introduce this into my current company for as long as I've been working there, with no success so far, with varying reasons:

\- Unit tests for existing projects often fail \- Unit tests for existing projects take several minutes to run \- Our current build process cannot be automated.

Quite frustrating, especially since I've seen a lot of cases where it could've saved us from near-disasters.

EDIT: I think on the subject of Emergence, the writer has missed one key point: emergence requires interplay between different levels of the system.

<comment><USER8> > Unit tests for existing projects often fail - Unit tests for existing > projects take several minutes to run - Our current build process cannot be > automated.

Same here. Except we have no almost no unit tests because

1) Most of the devs don't know how to write unit tests 2) Most of the devs don't know hot to write code that is testable, even if they could write the actual unit tests.

About a year or so ago we had a project that got a few unit tests added to it, within days they were broken nad failing. The dev just added a [TestCategory("Blah")] and excluded them from being run...

<comment><USER7> > Except we have no almost no unit tests because

> 1) Most of the devs don't know how to write unit tests

> 2) Most of the devs don't know hot to write code that is testable, even if > they could write the actual unit tests.

Sounds really familiar... I'd like to add the following one:

> 3) Cannot make the distinction between code that needs unit testsand code > that does not need unit tests

<comment><USER9> I'm new to development, would you recommend any resource out there that covers points 1) 2) and 3)? Thanks

<comment><USER10> I'm _old_ to development, and would like to ask for the same thing. But something beyond "Pragmatic Unit Testing".

You see, I've read that. I've read one other book on unit tests too, and been on 2-day long training in TDD, and spent many hours _trying_ to write unit tests, and yet the skill still eludes me. It's like I have a blind spot there, because I can't for the best of me figure out how to test most of the code I write.

In the projects I'm working on, I find roughly 10% of the code to be unit- testable even in principle. That's the core logic, the tricky parts - like the clever pathfinding algorithm I wrote for routing arrows in diagrams, or the clever code that diffs configurations to output an executable changeset (add this, delete that, move this there...). This I usually write functional-style (regardless of language), I expect specific inputs and outputs, so I can test such code effectively. Beyond that, I can also test some trivial utilities (usually also written in functional style). But the remaining 80-90% of any program I work on turns out to be a combination of:

\- code already tested by someone else - external dependencies

\- code bureaucracy, which forms vast majority of the program - that is, including/injecting/managing dependencies, moving data around, jumping through and around abstraction layer; this I believe is untestable in principle, unless I'm willing to test _code structure_ itself (technically doable for my Lisp projects...)

\- the user interface, the other big part, which is also hilariously untestable, and rarely worth testing automatically, as any regression there will be immediately noticed and reported by real people

I'm having trouble even imagining how to unit-test the three things above, and it's not something covered in unit testing books, tutorials or courses I've seen - they all focus on the basics, like assertions and red-green-refactor, which are the _dumb part_ of writing test. I'm looking for something for the difficult part - how to test the three categories of code I mentioned above.

<comment><USER11> Have you heard of the ideas in [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/funct...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/functional- core-imperative-shell)? Essentially, his position is that it's only worth unit-testing those tricky bits, and the rest is inherently not worth unit- testing, because you'll almost-certainly embed the same assumptions you're attempting to test into the tests themselves.

In other words, I agree with you, but would question why you're even _trying_ to unit-test those other areas that aren't conducive to unit testing.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I've heard of the idea of functional core, imperative shell. In fact, that's how I write most code these days. But I don't think I've watched this talk before, so it just went straight into my todo list.

> _In other words, I agree with you, but would question why you 're even > _trying_ to unit-test those other areas that aren't conducive to unit > testing._

Well, other people make funny looks at me when they see how little tests I write...

No, but honestly, I see so much advocacy towards writing lots of tests, or even starting with tests, and so I'm trying (and failing) to see the merit of this approach in the stuff I work on.

> _you 'll almost-certainly embed the same assumptions you're attempting to > test into the tests themselves._

That was my main objection when I was on a TDD course - I quickly noticed that my tests tend to structurally encode the very implementation I'm about to write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any single page version? As discussed here recently, "Skim reading is the new normal"[0], and this version with lots of tiny pages is impossible to skim.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17841431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17841431)

<comment><USER13> We usually moderate pages that are just lists of things, because they're rarely as interesting as the best single item on the list. But I made an exception because this one seemed unusual.

<comment><USER14> Good judgment. I'm really glad I read this today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And this is mine: [https://morethemes.baby/archives/](https://morethemes.baby/archives/)

<comment><USER16> Lovely design. The first time in a very long time I was just clicking around just to see what would happen. Captures the playfulness of the old web, but still modern enough. Works especially great on my rotated monitor whereas the sidebar background becomes increasingly straining on wider displays.

<comment><USER15> Thanks :)

That's the idea ... bring back the joy of blogging and meantime capture and grow knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is an awesome archive. Definitely bookmarking and sharing. Thank you.

<comment><USER18> ...you missed "and never getting back to it again" :-p

I suspect the main value of this particular list was actually _producing_ the list, and mainly for the author's sake.

The presentation is actually pretty, and I'm glad people share their favorite learning/knowledge resources. But I guess I'm coming mainly from my frustration of finding so many things interesting but so hard to choose what to focus my attention on.

<comment><USER17> Maybe, actually. But I'll definitely share with others I'm mentoring or training while doing such. And I think I will also finally put the time in collating my version. Thanks (for indirectly inspiring me, heh).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> +1 for an awesome personal site. Thanks for sharing! Keep it up! :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm reading through Douglas Engelbart's 'Augmenting Human Intellect' at the moment. He talks about getting his thoughts down to a similar level, so that each one is a small note or thought which can be linked together. This seems similar to what has been implemented on this site.

He talks a lot about 'trails' the people create, so I think the idea is that you'd be able to take this set of notes and links and integrate it with your own set.

</comment><comment><USER20> >[http://gordonbrander.com/pattern/start-with-a- toy/](http://gordonbrander.com/pattern/start-with-a-toy/)

This post reminds me of some PG essay I once read (too lazy to look it up). Did you use the PG essay as reference material? Because if yes it might be nice to put some links that served as inspiration for the article?

<comment><USER21> I remember reading a book about game design (can't remember the title) that viewed game design through the concept of 'lenses'. One of the lenses was "first make a toy, then make a game around it". For example, a ball is a toy, and football, basketball and volleyball are games.

<comment><USER22> Yeah the book is The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell. It seems likely this principle was inspired by the book, the author recommends it on a different page.

It's a good book which would also be great as a set of prompt cards IDEO style.

Edit: On a whim I googled and it does exist as a card deck as well!

<comment><USER23> As long as we are here: that book by Jesse Schell is wonderful, I highly recommend it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thank you for sharing this wonderful personal notes. I have been thinking to make one for my notes, now I got extra motivation ..

</comment><comment><USER25> I've spent the last year extracting all these kind of learnings (with a UX bias) out of my brain for a book I've written. I wish I'd kept notes as I went along like this person. Great stuff.

</comment><comment> pure-awesome Thanks for this. I've thought of making my own blog (or at least part of it) in a similar style.

(I've got the blog and the domain set up, I just need to start adding content).

<comment><USER26> Just add one single item now.

<comment><USER27> Excellent general life advice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> here's a general rule of thumb: a man whose backlog of books isn't as least 2x as long as the books read is either (logical or here) a) consistently reading intellectually shallow or uninteresting things b) not really learning anything from what is being read.

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is very cool.</comment>


RFC 6520 and the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug share the same author - <AUTHOR>

I find it scary the git commit bd6941cfaa31ee8a3f8661cb98227a5cbcc0f9f3 which added support for TLS/DTLS heartbeats, was written by Robin Seggelmann <email@example.com> who is also one of the three authors of the RFC 6520 specification.
The "payload" in RFC 6520 is extremely bad design from a security perspective, it fulfils no purpose, a bit suspicious someone with brains would deliberatly add unnecessary complexity to the SSL procol, which is already a monster.
Even more scary, the spec clearly points out "If the payload_length of a received HeartbeatMessage is too large, the received HeartbeatMessage MUST be discarded silently.", but someone the author of the spec failed to remmeber this when writing the OpenSSL implementation of the very same spec. Highly unlikely. <comment><USER3> The payload in RFC 6520 serves a clear purpose, one discussed in the open on the TLS WG mailing list, which you should probably read before casting stones.

To wit: TLS Heartbeats were originally intended for DTLS (in fact, the first draft was apparently DTLS-specific). Datagram protocols have a problem: if datagrams are too large, the IP protocol will need to fragment them. Fragmentation is calamitous for performance and reliability. So sizing datagrams is tricky. One technique for solving that is "path MTU discovery". The original use case for TLS Heartbeats was, as the RFC spells out clearly, PMTU discovery.

The payload/padding split exists so that one side of the protocol can send large messages, and the counterparty can reply with smaller ones, relying on the fact that the message includes discardable padding.

It's not a good protocol. The functionality is implemented at the wrong layer. And the inclusion of the extension into TCP TLS was a mistake, one (also) discussed on the mailing list. Unfortunately, the way standards work, it's easier to say "yes" to new features than "no", and it was easier to add the extension to both TCP TLS and DTLS than it was to hash out the argument of whether TCP TLS needed the feature.

<comment><USER4> Can you explain why it is neccesary or functional that "one side of the protocol can send large messages, and the counterparty can reply with smaller ones, relying on the fact that the message includes discardable padding." ??

If the payload has variable size to facilitate MTU discovery, then there is some logic to sending messages of varying sizes. An MTU can never exceed the 1500 of ethernet though, so this is weird stuff. What good can a payload of 64k really do? And MTU discovery doesn't involve any echoing by the receiving party. Either packets get blocked (at the IP layer) and error messages get returned (by the router blocking them) OR the packages arrive fully (or get reassembled) so this Heartbeat code won't know about any issues anyway. And the "echo" proves nothing. I really don't get this, what is the point...?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> RFC 6520 is the Heartbeat specification, right? Design notwithstanding, is it really an unbelievable scenario that the person who wrote the RFC also implemented it?

The bug was a typical C slip-up. You see it everywhere. It happens. Yes, the stakes are much higher here, but I don't think the fact that Robin also authored RFC 6520 makes it more suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Heartbleed bug was a C buffer overflow. Entirely unrelated to the heartbeat feature, its spec, or the functionality of SSL as a whole. It had serious impact because was in a popular network-accessible library - <USER2> similar could also happen in the Linux TCP stack, in a popular web or database server, or any other network-accessible C program.

But something that seems just wrong is the expectation that "someone else" (the small all-volunteer OpenSSL team) should have taken more time away from their day jobs and family to: have different people writing specs and implementation, writing more tests, running static analysis tools, have code more reviews, and refactored code to be more readable. But if OpenSSL is so critical to your privacy, security and business, where were your contributions to writing those tests and code reviews?

I don't mean that every developer must contribute code to be allowed to have an opinion - but most of the lamentation at "what the OpenSSL team should have done" never considers who exactly should be spending time or money on this extra effort.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is wholly inappropriate to start blaming these authors, or to even suggest they are malicious (which is even worse).

They are the ones the technical computer community that operates at this level of network implementation have "chosen" to do this work (or they've chosen themselves, which is practically the same thing) which is an honour to them.

If anything goes wrong here, it is that culture at large, the way the RFCs get debated and approved, etcetera. There is no one to blame here in isolation.

Although I will agree with you that it is remarkable that this person forgot to write the check on payload_length after stating that so explicitly in the document.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's better to yourself get involved in drafting the rfc:s, if that is your thing, rather than throwing out insane accusations.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft taught us all to "Never attribute to malice...".

However, after reading the related RFC I've rarely seen such over-designed garbage. I'll be amazed if OpenSSL is the only implementation with a heartbeat exploit.

As to the implementation. It just makes me queasy to see a callback __before __any validation code (bounds checking). It 's still that way in the latest fix. I physically can't get past that to even ponder the rest.

At least the new comment has the right idea:

/* Read type and payload length first _/

Unfortunately... It's definitely not first.

> If the payload_length of a received HeartbeatMessage > is too large, the > received HeartbeatMessage MUST be > discarded silently.

Wow, on so many levels just wow. Terminate the connection forcibly anyone? return ALL_HELL_BROKE_LOOSE & YOURE_UNDER_ATTACK? No, guess that's not helpful here...

/_ Read type and payload length first (now w/accuracy _/ if (1 + 2 + 16 > s->s3->rrec.length) for( int borken = 0;;) return 1 / borken;

if (s->msg_callback) ...

There, fixed that for ya.

Yet, there's ANOTHER line that stops me cold:

unsigned char _p = &s->s3->rrec.data[0], *pl;

I don't suppose s or s3 could EVER be NULL? Of course, USUALLY that would just cause some kind of app crash...

<comment><USER8> Ugh, formatting.

Note: It's very obvious the validation code is in the wrong spot. However, after looking at it? It's so unclear what is going on in the validation code that I'd have to spend some time to detangle it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You should demand your money back.</comment>


Introducing Club MacStories - <AUTHOR> https://www.macstories.net/news/introducing-club-macstories/ <comment><USER2> do you think this is because ad blocking is eating their lunch? i don't know enough about "MacStories" to come to a conclusion.</comment>


Supreme Court to rule on violent video games - <AUTHOR> http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/04/court-to-rule-on-violent-videos/#more-19152

<comment><USER2> Do these kinds of bans even achieve their stated goal of reducing kids' access violent games? What 12-year-old walks into Best Buy by himself to get a copy of Modern Warfare 2? Seems like if you're young enough to be covered by the ban, your parents are going to be the ones buying the game anyway.

(And if your parents refuse to buy you the game, then the ban isn't what stopped you from playing.)</comment>


WebRTC forecasts: 2bn users, mobile apps and "dis-unified communication" - <AUTHOR> http://webrtcstats.com/webrtc-forecasts-2bn-users-mobile-dis-unified-communication/

<comment><AUTHOR> Disruptive Analysis has now published the WebRTC Industry Status & Forecasts Report, 2014 Edition. It is the most detailed study on WebRTC, based on primary research and detailed quantitative market modelling. It extends the analysis the original report issued in February 2013 and several interim updates.

The report contains the most detailed & comprehensive forecasts on WebRTC adoption available from any analyst firm:

* WebRTC-capable device numbers, by PC/phone/tablet/M2M & geographic region * Consumer WebRTC users for standalone & embedded voice/video * Business WebRTC users for contact centres, UC and app-embedded communications * Telco WebRTC users for VoIP/VoLTE extension, Telco-OTT services & cable/IPTV * M2M/IoT estimates for WebRTC integration

The research has presented a range of new findings:

By 2019, there will be more than 6bn WebRTC-supporting devices & 2bn+ individual users (around 60% of the total Internet population). Some will be regular users, for example where it is embedded into a primary communication app or service, while others will just use it occasionally – perhaps in a B2C customer service & support context. [http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstat...](http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstats-devices.jpg)

Enterprise use of WebRTC is the most widely-commercialised today. But there is more action in new cloud-based offers for collaboration and conferencing, rather than upgrades of the existing installed base of UC/PBX "seats". There are also new platforms emerging to integrate voice/video into apps and workflows. This means that WebRTC will "dis-unify" aspects of business communications, even while it helps other moves towards UC continue. [http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstat...](http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstats-business-users1.jpg)

By the end of 2015, there will be more mobile devices supporting WebRTC than PCs. This is part-driven by Chrome and Android Webview, but also WebRTC integration into apps using 3rd party frameworks or SDKs.

More than 10 telecom operators have commercial offers involving WebRTC in some way, with many more in development or nearing launch. Although IMS-integration of WebRTC gets most airtime, the majority of deployments are standalone Internet/app/OTT-style or even integrated with TV/cable platforms. Overall, telcos could have up to 500M WebRTC users by end-2019 [http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstat...](http://webrtcstats.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/WebRTCstats-users.jpg)</comment>


Opera releases new JavaScript engine named Carakan - <AUTHOR> http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/02/04/carakan

<comment><USER2> Opera does it for the love of the game. They've got low market, an excellent product, and I don't know how they make money but they do.

Its great the opera mini gave my old cell phone a feel of a smart phone. And opera mobile supports flash.

<comment><USER3> How does mobile opera handle hovering in flash?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why don't they just use v8, tracemonkey, or squirrelfish? It's nice they continue to develop their own technologies (opera is awfully nice on cell phones), but, in this case, writing a js engine is a problem with lot's of pre-existing high-quality solutions with very active developer communities.

Opera writing their own next-generation js engine smells a little bit too much like not-invented here syndrome. Considering how small their market share is, it seems like this money could be much better spent elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> Maybe for garbage collection or some efficiency reason. Walter Bright had a short write up about shared gc and dlls somewhere in the D site. I'm not sure how much of that would apply to Opera, though.

I personally like that they are creating a new implementation. I suppose that understanding the code and having full control over its direction is a big thing for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > we are implementing compilation of whole or parts of ECMAScript programs and > functions into native code.

This seems to be a new, popular approach to JS optimalization. For an open- source implementation it's a reasonable approach, but for a proprietary system it usually just delays builds for new architectures.

<comment> tsetse-fly I don't get it. Could you explain why it delays builds?

<comment><USER7> I think what he is inferring is that it will tend to be delayed on alternate architectures because the company puts manpower on things that will deliver the most bang for the buck(i386, ppc maybe). When it is opensource the people that are affected by the delay have the opportunity to help out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So Opera catches up with Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, while IE lags even further behind.</comment>


Peripheral vision in Quake - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shaunlebron/blinky#blinky <comment><USER2> I remember when you could run Doom over a lan. You'd set one monitor to be your forward view, and then set two more monitors to be your left and right views.

[http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_networking_component](http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_networking_component)

> The higher level d_net.c file contains the system-independent portion of the > networking code. The code has separate concepts of node and player: a node > is simply a computer connected to the game. Each player has a corresponding > node, but a node does not necessarily have a player. This was used to > implement the "three monitor" system which existed in early versions of > Doom: the "left" and "right" screens were nodes but not players.

I only played that way a couple of times but it was fun.

<comment><USER3> It was taken out of the game in later patches because of a netcode rewrite; as mentioned in the wiki article, the original netcode implementation brought IPX networks to their knees. Chocolate Doom re-implements this feature:

[http://www.chocolate- doom.org/wiki/index.php/Three_screen_mo...](http://www.chocolate- doom.org/wiki/index.php/Three_screen_mode)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow this Pannini projection is awesome and I had never heard of it before!

One of the first links of the article: [http://tksharpless.net/vedutismo/Pannini/](http://tksharpless.net/vedutismo/Pannini/)

<comment><USER5> Damn, I hadn't been paying attention to the panorama computation world in the last few years, and hadn't heard of this. This is indeed totally awesome. Makes me want to buy a fisheye lens and go play around.

I wonder how well such projections would work in a VR headset context.

In any event, they should make for really great demos of e.g. 3d architectural models, or video walkthroughs of wide spaces, if shown in high resolution on a large enough screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is really clever. I've been thinking a lot about panoramic rendering -- that is, rendering panorama shots directly in a raytracer/raymarcher -- and I may take this technique more or less directly. When rendering with a ray- based approach (rather than raster-based), there should be no need to postprocess; simply map the globe onto the lens, and use that to determine your ray direction, making this lossless and effectively free.

Can't wait to play around with this -- great work!

<comment><USER7> The interesting thing about rendering a full (spherically-complete) panorama is that you can render the static aspects of the scene once, and you don't have to update until the view strafes in the XYZ direction (i.e. mouselook is free). I think this would be particularly useful for situations where you are locked in a seat (i.e. you could render the full cockpit once).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> See a video demo at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOJ3yCK8pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOJ3yCK8pI) that shows these various different kinds of projections (from this code).

The video dates to 2011, but the repository has taken a lot of additional commits since then.

<comment><USER9> Feels like a very bad fever. Funny how linear projections don't scale above 200, while ~non euclidian~ ones have no troubles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> it's hard to believe we have 170 degree vision (seeing as we look straight ahead). so I tried it. I stood up, with my arms stretched out and back slightly (i.e. open 200 degrees) looking at a point straight ahead. I wiggled my fingers but couldn't see them. Keeping my arms outstretched, I then continued looking ahead at the point and wiggling my right hand and moving my right arm forward slowly (without bending my elbow) until I noticed the wiggling. Then still looking at the same point ahead I repeated with my left arm, again without bending my left elbow. After both were in my peripheral vision I checked to see where my arms were.

Sure enough, my arms were nearly stretched out 180 degrees! They were only forward ever so slightly off of straight horizontal.

It's insane that we have that kind of peripheral vision. Try it!

</comment><comment><USER11> Also related, I learned a lot about peoples perception of FOV in fps games from this reddit thread: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2yi4yx/blizzards_stan...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2yi4yx/blizzards_stance_on_fov_in_their_upcoming_fps/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm waiting for AR googles that give me 360 vision: balancing a highly detailed point of focus with wrap around peripheral awareness. Never accidentally cut someone off on the sidewalk again.

<comment><USER13> Here's a sunglasses concept that extends your peripheral vision with just a lens, no electronics needed. [http://objects.designapplause.com/2010/nike- hindsight-glasse...](http://objects.designapplause.com/2010/nike-hindsight- glasses/1002/)

And if you're going electronic, you might as well get the full 360-degree vertical too - just see everything all the time! Use this projection: [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=27000](http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=27000)

<comment><USER14> Oh man I wish those were available for purchase. Actually I may just try to make something like this myself. One of the main times I regret having only one eye is when I'm changing lanes on my bike in traffic. (I've made my peace with not being able to play ping-pong.) My sore neck would definitely appreciate this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been thinking about this from a long time now, but never researched it.

Does that mean you can't do it with some particular view matrix ?

I always wondered if it's possible to have a very low fov near the center, but still account for a large enough part of the screen, so that the fov progressively increase as the image is far from the center of the camera. That way you would have high details near the center of the camera, but more view angle near the edges.

<comment><USER16> All the translations your graphics card can perform are affine [1]. One effect of this is, that lines always stay lines. If you have a look at the pictures, you will see, that the Pannini projection does not preserve lines. So no – this can not be done with a view matrix.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_transformation#Propertie...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_transformation#Properties)

<comment><USER15> Can't it be done just with a shader ? Why did he use quake to implement it ?

<comment><USER17> >Can't it be done just with a shader ?

Yep. If you look at the "How?" and "Performance vs Quality" sections, you can see that you need to render the scene six times to get the surrounding environment, so all you would just need to do is make a shader for the projection[0]. (Rendering the scene six times is pretty common in graphics in order to generate light probes for dynamic lighting and global illumination.)

I suspect with a modern GPU implementation (Vulkan) and some other minor optimizations, this could run pretty easily in real-time.

[0] - [http://tksharpless.net/vedutismo/Pannini/panini.pdf](http://tksharpless.net/vedutismo/Pannini/panini.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh wow. If you follow the link to tksharpless, they have a YouTube video. I got dizzy when I stuck my nose right up to the screen. Next best thing after GearVR if you don't count the nausea from involuntary camera movement.. From further away it just looks distorted (like it should) because of FoV mismatch.

</comment><comment><USER15> What is the difference between setting a high FOV and using a Pannini or fisheye projection ?

Does that mean there is less distortion towards the center ?

I did not watch the video yet...

How difficult would it be to integrate a 170 pannini camera using shaders instead of using quake ? I don't understand why he used quake for this...

</comment><comment><USER19> This is fantastic. I found myself wanting to scream Byakugan! while watching the demo... :p

</comment><comment><USER20> :o

Now I want Pannini Projection converter for my gopro :)</comment>


What is your company's policy regarding contributing to open source? - <AUTHOR> I used to work for a company where it was a strict no no. They used to themselves use a lot of open source (who doesn't). Want to know if other companies are like that and reasons behind it. <comment><USER2> I don't think they have a policy about whether we can contribute to open source software. They certainly don't care what we work on outside of work hours, and they probably wouldn't care very much if we contributed code to those projects inside work hours either, assuming it wasn't taking up time they'd prefer get used on company/client work.

So I think people's answers to your question will generally fall into three categories based on how tech orientated the company is and how big they are in general.

1\. Companies that outright encourage open source work, perhaps even during work hours. I think quite a few FAANG companies are like this, and obviously the likes of Mozilla or Automattic would be as well.

2\. Companies that disallow it/try to put limitations on what their employees can work on. Usually tech companies, though sometimes just large organisations in general.

3\. And those that flat out don't care/don't control what employees do outside of work or don't know what open source is. My experience is that many agencies and mom and pop companies tend to be like this, as do those that are completely unrelated to the tech industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> My company uses open source but the company will not contribute to it or allow you to contribute if it was anything related to work.

You can work on outside code projects, but they can't be related to the industry, help our competitors in any way, and we must get prior approval from the company.

I think most companies have restrictions like this. Your previous company seems a bit strict.

<comment><USER4> Same here. My company uses open source a lot but will not be asigning any resources on contributing

<comment><USER3> Yep. To give you an idea of how naive I was right out of college... I asked my company durning the interview if they contributed to open source after they told me some of the tools they use. They told me that they were putting together ideas to start contributing. It's been 8 years and they never have.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Memo Author James Damore Sues Google for Discrimination - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/google-memo-author-james-damore-sues-company-for <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100505](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100505)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676) <\- Discussion

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099111)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16099523)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100026)</comment>


The American Gustation Crisis of 1985 - <AUTHOR> http://www.damninteresting.com/the-american-gustation-crisis-of-1985/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article.

Fun-but-little-known fact. Shortly after the New Coke episode, the formula for Heinz 57 steak sauce was changed. The label was also redesigned. This was all done very quietly. I imagine they had a marketing blitz planned, but, seeing what happened with Coke, they decided not to say a word.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please consider making your site static if possible. It makes it much more tolerant to the traffic which is taking it down now, faster and often more accessible.

There's a write up here, but you can also just google 'static website': [https://eager.io/blog/build-static-websites](https://eager.io/blog/build- static-websites)

</comment><comment><USER4> Note: This article was originally entitled "Bite the New Wax Tadpole," but a number of readers pointed out that this was excessively obscure and/or lame.

<comment><USER5> For context, there is an "urban legend"[1] that when Coca Cola was first introduced into China, a "marketing blunder" was made such that the name translated as "Bite the Wax Tadpole". The parallel name for New Coke (under the worst possible marketing plan possible) would thus be "Bite the New Wax Tadpole". Amusing, but definitely obscure.

[1] [http://www.bitethewaxtadpole.com/bitethewaxtadpole.htm](http://www.bitethewaxtadpole.com/bitethewaxtadpole.htm)

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Thanks for the reference. The website, and the company behind it, are almost as interesting as the Coca-Cola story! I guess they're still active and offering hosting and web design, but definitely stuck in the year 2000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will > say we planned the whole thing. The truth is we are not that dumb and we are > not that smart.

I'm never sure how to interpret this statement. What is the middle ground between making a marketing mistake and planning the whole thing? If they were not dumb enough to bring a product to market that everyone would soon hate, _and_ not smart enough to predict that this would wind up making everyone love them for bringing the original back, then...wouldn't they have not introduced New Coke in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER7> This crashes chrome on my iPad.

<comment><USER8> I'm starting to hate sites that don't render anything unless you enable Javascript. HN should ban them or have a setting where you can filter them out.

<comment><USER9> You can read the text of this page without enabling Javascript by disabling CSS (View, Page Style, No Style on Firefox).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Despite outspending Pepsi by almost $100 million annually, Coke's market > share fell from 60% to 22%.

Every source I can find contradicts this claim, e.g.: [https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d968...](https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/35016/area14mp/3fhzg6zz-1384235525.jpg)

Can anyone find a citation for it?

<comment><USER11> Maybe it was a US blip? Worldwide Pepsi really isn't in the same conversation with Coke more than doubling Pepsi in marketshare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So are these funny green bottles of "coke life" I see everywhere a kind of NewCoke3?

<comment><USER13> No, they're Coke Classic with Stevia in place of some of the sugar.

<comment><USER12> Well I'd give it a try, but I'm pretty much addicted to Coke Zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This guy in my neighborhood was so freaked out by new coke, that he had his parents buy years worth of cases of coke classic.

I can't remember how long new coke stayed around and I vaguely recall it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't Coke.

<comment><USER15> Stockpiling Coke because of taste is ironic as Coke starts to turn around 6 months, and is downright terrible by the end of the year.</comment></comment>


5" phone + 7" tablet =? - <AUTHOR> http://i57.tumblr.com/ http://i57.tumblr.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Unlike Galaxy Note, this is a true combination of phone and tablet; Unlike Padfone, this is one single device without detachable parts. Post +1 if you like the idea.

</comment><comment><USER2> +1</comment>


Serenity Tent: a safe space for those in altered states - <AUTHOR> http://www.maps.org/ritesofpassage/model_working_with_psychedelic_crises_concerts_events.html

<comment><USER2> Needs a (2001) tag, but this is a great thing to read about.

Western society is at odds with itself in the way it handles drugs, and aside from incremental progress on marijuana, it doesn't seem to be getting any better. People need to accept that these substances exist and that kids and adults alike will want to experiment with them or even use them on a regular basis.

<comment><USER3> <http://vimeo.com/10883376>

Here is a talk from two years ago about basically the same thing. Much better than the article though.</comment></comment>


Better incentives can improve online advertising - <AUTHOR> http://laserlike.com/2009/05/27/better-incentives-can-improve-online-advertising/

<comment><USER2> The key here is including the depreciation of the audience. Bad advertisements (to the viewer) turn people away from a particular channel, so those advertisers should pay the cost of the lost audience in addition to the standard rates, while 'good' advertisements should get a discount for being relevant/interesting to the audience, and therefor retaining them. (Of course the actual quality of an ad might be subjective, though I'm sure clever media companies will learn how many viewers leave at each ad.)</comment>


Ask HN: Bay Area Hack Nights? - <AUTHOR> Hey all, I've been spending my evenings working on a project but lately I've found it difficult to concentrate!
It would be great to get together with others working on their projects so we can motivate each other and even have someone to bounce ideas off of.
I looked on Meetup.com but was unable to find any upcoming Hack Nights! Do you know of any? <comment><USER2> If the Hacker Dojo didn't have all the recent drama and upcoming move going on, I'd recommend swinging by there. They have a tech event or two every night. You typically see people hanging around and coding on their project.

Top floor of the red rock cafe in MV is another good spot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I guess I've been a bit oblivious to the drama at Hacker Dojo.</comment></comment>


Should I rootkit my own machine? - <AUTHOR>

Two weeks ago a scary thing happened to me, I left my laptop in a coffee shop, and attempts to locate it have not been successful.  Basically I know someone out there is cruising my keyboard.  The only thing I can think is, I should have installed a rootkit on my own machine.  What do other people do to protect your data, or have a little fun, in the event your laptop is stolen / lost? <comment><USER2> Check out something like Prey, it's like the "Find My Mac" for Android/PC/Mac/iOS. I had it on all my devices, but I don't really take them out enough to make it worthwhile.

[https://preyproject.com/](https://preyproject.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo)</comment>


Minio Go Library for Amazon S3 Compatible Cloud Storage - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/3s8pv6/minio_go_library_for_amazon_s3_compatible_cloud/ <comment><USER2> Minio Go library is a simple client library for S3 compatible cloud storage servers. Supports AWS Signature Version 4 and 2. AWS Signature Version 4 is chosen as default.

List of supported cloud storage providers.

* AWS Signature Version 4 - Amazon S3, Minio

* AWS Signature Version 2 - Google Cloud Storage (Compatibility Mode), Openstack Swift + Swift3 middleware, Ceph Object Gateway, Riak CS</comment>


Local Caching in Distributed Systems Can Be Effective - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sigma-ml-platform/effectiveness-of-local-caching-in-a-distributed-environment-e4aef5354097 <comment><USER2> Thanks for publishing!</comment>


Surviving Hosting On Airbnb When On Vacation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.booksuperhost.com/surviving-hosting-airbnb-vacation/

<comment><USER3> Make sure any respondents/agents have the same passion for your listing's reputation and reviews otherwise it can make for a poor situation.

My best Airbnb experiences have been when an owner/family has been the contact. The worst have generally been where there was an intermediary - <USER2> have been exceptionally rude. Had one in Milan where a woman just waved her hand mid-sentence, couldn't be bothered answering my second question (do you have the keys so we can lock up when we go out), gave me a set of 8 keys without explanation and walked out. The apartment had no info sheet or anything. Would've taken her 30 seconds to point out what needed to be locked and which key matched which lock. It was lucky that I held her up to clarify because she'd given us a set of keys for a different apartment.

<comment><USER4> I can definitely relate. Had been using Airbnb around the world a lot. This is why we put a strong emphasis towards quality of service. As a paid service we know that if we do badly you won't hire us again. We do our best as if it was our own listing. We give fast an accurate response, and we are always there for more clarifications. And our guests love us, so we must be doing it right. You can read in our website some of our testimonials.

Koby, co-founder of SuperHost

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congratulations on your recent entrepreneurship! I owned an ISP in the 90s and PAID an answering service to answer calls after office hours. Two of us would carry the dreaded pager (one of the first SMS devices out) and we'd coordinate who would get the call. I'd take the 2AM calls usually - being the owner and all. A strange thing occurred over time.

A few of the ladies at the answering service started doing simple tech support for the customers. Reboot your modem/computer/check your password. Said they were bored and it was interesting and didn't mind. Ended up giving them accounts for free. The call volume was noticeably lower after that. A few hours without doing dialup tech support is like a slice of heaven.

I feel like this is sorta like that. You can answer a few of the more common questions, maybe get your users to fill out details (maybe a standard form that prints to a handout for the guests even) and use those to populate your agents screens when a call comes in. Stuff outside the scope of the info you gathered gets kicked to the user. They don't get a completely free vacation time, but it's better than it was. Don't promise it'll be 100% interruption free. That means you need to change your marketing a bit, but it's still kinda cool what your offering

Best of luck! Pools of knowledge are going to be big.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am Amiad, the co-founder of SuperHost. I'm here to answer any questions!

Thanks

<comment><USER6> Your website starts with two questions asked by customers, then claims it will take care of them for you by answering professionally. However it does not explain for those two examples, how they would be answered. Let's assume the answers are not as simple as "instructions on top of washer" and "look on google maps". How would you answer them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great Question. Thank you.

When we answer our guests we either do it by phone and resolve their problem or question, or by message on email/airbnb platform. We find that our guests are very satisfied by the level of detail that we put on our answers. For example our directions from the airport are a full page with both public transport options and prices and other more private options like shuttles and taxis.

I hope that answer your question. Feel free to ask me any other question you may have.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that really answers the question. There will evidently be questions that require the owner's actual interaction. (Eg. Q: which light switch controls the outdoor lights; how much water do I give your plant?). The only thing I can think of is getting some information beforehand from the owner (which at that point may as well be given to the renter).

This solution is great for general area questions, but guests will likely still have specific questions about the actual building they are in (how do I turn on the hot water, etc). How will you deal with that?

Edit: Koby's response just popped up as I was composing this; I like the idea of learning from previous responses!

<comment><USER4> Thanks! I appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been hosting on Airbnb for the last 8 months, and I've had plenty of guests while I was away/on vacation.

You really just need to screen your guests better.

<comment><USER4> First, screening your guest is a task that takes time and effort as well. We are offering to reduce the work needed for the really low price of 1%. Moreover, it's not just guest support, but you can also accept new guests while on vacation, allowing even back to back guests. It's almost turn-key service.

<comment><USER8> With a Lockitron and HomeJoy, I can accomplish most of this myself.

I'm not dismissing the idea, I think it's great for people that need to have their Airbnb monitored. However, you're the equivalent of a property manager. If I'm renting out the room or apartment I live in, I don't see the value. If you're talking about helping out people who have multiple properties on Airbnb, then I could see the potential market. I doubt it's going to have a major upside though.

But hey, prove me wrong. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hate it when blogs don't have links to the main site. Am visiting your site in an in-app browser. There is no url bar where I can change the url nor is there any link on your blog. Please add!

<comment><USER4> You are right. Mobile version did have a bug, hiding the navigation bar! Thank you for noticing! We will fix it asap!</comment></comment>


Tim Berners-Lee: we don't need arbitrary new TLDs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-04/18/tim-berners-lee-tlds <comment><USER2> Making the root domain a free-for-all effectively promotes what .com was to the global root. We can only do this once, and then the root namespace is gone forever.

We will never again be able to create new top level domains that have special restricted meanings, such as .arpa, .gov and the concept of country TLDs[1]. Any sensible name that we want to use will probably already be taken. Even it is not taken, a new special purpose name would never be able to differentiate from squatters using the same level of the namespace.

Not only that, but the special casing of existing TLDs such as .gov could get diluted to the point that the majority will not recognise them as official any more.

There is a place for free-for-all on domain name registrations, and it is .com.

[1] I presume that they will reserve two letter registrations for the specific case of new countries coming into existence, but my point is about the concept of new uses, rather than this specific case.

</comment><comment><USER3> If only we had gone with the other order for domain names, that is com.disney.www instead of www.disney.com.

Then browser TLD defaulting would have handled most cases and we could have had additional conventions (such as *.store). (The "www." subdomain is basically useless.)

<comment><USER4> In that case there is still a TLD. It's probably worse because the differentiating part of the domain is buried halfway into the domain name. Imagine having domains like com.disney and com.donald. They look the same.

The web has no hierarchy so it doesn't make sense for domain names to have one. It would have been nicer to ditch the TLDs, use a sane protocol name and have implicit slashes. Like web:disney/some-path.

<comment><USER3> > The web has no hierarchy so it doesn't make sense for domain names to have > one.

Actually, the "web" does have lots of hierarchy.

For example, Disney has hierarchy that the current scheme makes it inconveient to express. That's why we have disneystore.com, disneycruise.com, etc. instead of com.disney.store, com,disney.cruise, etc.

<comment><USER5> See Berners Lee's regrets:

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BCP5023/Sandbox#History>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The US are claiming legal dominion* over all domains under a large number of TLD's (.com, .org, etc.). New TLD's may help mitigate that.

*[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-sites/)

"If you just add one character to the length of the domain name you have 26 times as many names you can choose from. There's no shortage."

True, but TLD's like .pepsi and .HTC are a lot easier to remember than random combinations of letter.

<comment><USER7> firstname.lastname@example.com seems better than firstname.lastname@example.com in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> there's no need for pepsi.pepsi as the domain, it could be pepsi@pepsi

<comment><USER9> There's a ton of legacy code and email software that will make that not work.

At best, it would be pepsi@pepsi. (note trailing dot).

My buddy used to be root@ws. but only a few MUAs and MTAs could handle delivering mail there, and always with the trailing dot.

<comment><USER10> You have to put the dot at the end to make it a fully-qualified name otherwise the resolver will think it is a hostname and add the local domain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not a fan too, but there's one huge advantage of extending the TLD space - we'll get out of the mindset of mainstream audience that only .com/net/org is a 'serious' domain and maybe there will be no more ridiculous bids like color.com in the future.

<comment><USER9> Why do you think that will be the case?

When ICANN introduced .cat, .aero, .museum, .coop, and others many years ago, adoption has since approached zero.

<comment><USER12> There's something to be said about ".com" addresses...

When you place "pepsi.com" in a can , people know it's a web address. Now, if pepsi has its own TLD, how should they refer to their web site? Just "pepsi"? "www.pepsi"? "web: pepsi"?

I suspect they will reserve their TLD, and then continue to use "pepsi.com" as before, thus rendering these new TLDs useless at best, and noise at worst.

<comment><USER11> they didn't have problems with "go to our facebook page" so it shouldn't be a problem to promote "win a ticket to justin timberlake concert - go to our website - justin dot pepsi"

<comment><USER13> I agree. I can't believe how companies promotes facebook.com/brand instead of brand.com. It's perfectly fine to have a facebook brand page, but you should promote yours first!

<comment><USER14> Why? If you are sure you need a facebook presence, and not sure about your own site helping the brand, then you just push the facebook one. It's simpler. No confusion. One place to go to find out about the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> do we need TLD at _all_?

It is not my idea, but really, should't we abolish the TLD in general? Instead of <http://google.com>, <http://google.de>, <http://google.tv> .... we would get just <http://google> .

The reason why we have geographical TLD is just political anyway.

<comment><USER16> Good question.

I don't think we do. I think 1 global namespace would be enough.

Say we ditched TLD's and limited domain names to 10 alphanumeric characters. That would still be enough domains to give 450,000 to every person on the planet.

That's with just alphanumeric characters capped at a length of 10. Allow unicode and remove the cap and we would have plenty of domains to go around.

All in 1 namespace.

Edit: yes I understand that the vast majority of those domains would be nonsensical, however even eliminating 99.99999% of them would still leave enough meaningful domains to go around the world many times over.

<comment><USER17> Yes you coudl just use somthing like a phone number to access websites.

I dont think you have thought this through who would rember that the local doctors surgery is XDFE123456!

<comment><USER18> that particular string is very memorable ;-)

<comment><USER19> Every particular string may be made memorable, but you'd have to memorize it. Instead of it being natural, as in: a natural extension of how people think about things.

<comment><USER17> Back in the day I worked for BT and had memorable mail addresses such as 018222211 (Prestel) and 80:BTG174 (Dialcom/Telecom Gold) at least the Telecom Gold ones where slightly memorable as the prefix BTG stood for British Telecom Gold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What a load of rot. You're better to advertise something generic such as 'visit the <brand> website.' or 'find us online', rather than a barrage of non memorable domain names and various social media urls. This is such an elaborate con.

<comment><USER21> Indeed. Why not just ditch user-facing TLDs in the next DNS overhaul altogether?

People don't recognize the difference between pepsi.com and pepsi.org and pepsi.com.hackers-taking-your-credit-card.tt

.org _is_ interesting meta-data, but why not transport that data as part of a meta-data record and let browsers display it to users in a consistent way they recognize and understand?

The point of DNS is to map a human-knowable name to a network or provider. We not only don't need new TLDs, we frankly don't much need the ones we have. dot-com/net/country codes/etc and even 'www' and 'mail' are of dubious benefit to the average user these days.

Sure, it's useful for engineers. And we can keep that in a diagnostic window. But for user-facing concerns, _simplifying_ DNS is the only conversation worth having.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What we don't need is a bunch of stupid TLDs that do nothing but make existing domain owners feel like they need to buy more.

What we really need is a single new TLD that is _distributed_ so that it cannot be controlled by any particular government or corporation. Something like dot-bit.org, but with more momentum behind it.

<comment> excuse-me So for example a simple .pepsi controlled by Pepsi rather than a whole bunch of .drink / .food / .crappy_sugar_stuff that pepsi have to buy 'their' name in?

And all controlled by a company whose income mostly comes from making up new ones of these?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that adding new TLD's is inevitable as the internet continues to grow. I really believe the crux of the issue here is actually a two part external one, not the inevitable adding of TLD's. First, there is the problem of how the law on TLD's which is ambiguous at best, will deal with cybersquatting and other legal issues related to TLD's. Additionally, the larger and second part of my argument is how the search engines will add this to their already confused algorithms.

<comment><USER24> How are search engine algorithms confused in your opinion, and why would new TLD's complicate it further?

<comment><USER23> Sorry for the delay, I am a newbie and just noticed the response. The answer to both parts of your question is that search engines factor in TLD's in ranking, for instance .com's are often the most relevant when it comes to search, especially EMD's with an exact match, especially with Google. And day by day the search algorithms are changing, and search rankings lately are all over the place with algorithm updates. Many SEO leaders will support the argument that spammers dominate and the algorithms are struggling to get it right. Something I agree with. Now if you add another element to search algorithms it seems very likely that search ranking will only become more confused as data is added.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I usually agree with TimBL on everything, but not this time.

New or newly popularized TLDs represent new business and cultural territory. Without this new territory, the consumer "domain name memoryscape" inhibits the adoption of new business and artistic ideas.

It might even be a good idea to make it as arbitrary as possible: every year, choose one random two letter and several three-letter domains. Then let creativity decide how to make use of .kfi and .iz.

<comment><USER26> Randomly generated TLDs are a brilliant idea. You unexpectedly make some set of people very happy. The problems come in (a) determining where to host the root zone and (b) if that name is later needed for something else (a new country)

At the very least, you get 26 new url shortening companies, and a stack of people with cool email addresses...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will there be .news, .games, .tech, etc. and if so, who will own them? And will they will be available for registration by normal people? Will normal people trust the owners enough to actually reguster subdonanes?

Those would be logical TLDs to have, but somehow I don't see ICANN encouraging their creation.

</comment><comment><USER28> >He said that dot org was interesting because it captures the fact that you know that any website with that suffix is a non-profit.

This is simply false. There is no requirement whatsoever for .org domains and there are countless examples of .org domains owned by for-profit companies.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm sorry to play this card, but this is the (Tower of Babel)[[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Genesis#11:...](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_\(King_James\)/Genesis#11:5)] all over again.

Perhaps the analogy is unnecessary, or even harmful, to make. But typically I have been taught, or rather I have learned by direct method, that some Christians believe BIBLE is an abbreviation, albeit a cheeky one, for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth".

Often I wonder what the "imperative mood" of this document is supposed to be. Obviously it is not descriptive qua scientific authorship. We shouldn't assume this, surely, since a sophisticated method of science had not been yielded to the Hebrews of that time, etc. But yet it struggles, and seemingly succeeds, at preserving its descriptive weight, as vacuous as it is, in a time of reason and science. So we claim that it is allegory and tale. And so what if is? What is it describing? Like Aristotle, I believe, it describes a cycle of civilization: humanity's response to itself.

Obviously "God" in the story of the Tower of Babel is nothing more than the height of political force of Shinar. It responds to what they have built. So here we see the "confounding" of their language; like in our time, a confounding of the DNS system. What motivates this story? To what end does it serve?

Surely the U.S. government seeks to bolster the economy through its will, by "securing" our economic creativity. For "now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."

As we can clearly see this is a response to Otto Neurath, the Logical Positivists, the adoption of ideal, scientific and pragmatic languages, etc. Neurath sought to liberate the proletariat of his time through a technological mode of thought applied to language: complex symbols efficiently characterized such that they might contain chains of propositions. The illiterate worker thus might be informed through a proximity of symbol to nature. Today, we see this with technology: big-face-hypermodern-informational-UIs-with-geriatric- buttons, usability research, cognitive-neuroscience centered on atypical neuropathologies, the mobile web, Helvetica, etc.

The U.S. will respond as it should, and I play this card because, in the end, the only argument we face from politicians is an uncritical one: _what we've been doing works, so it must work_. How much influence these governments have on ICANN is unclear to me, but given the list of possible TLDs; e.g., pepsi, etc., it isn't tough to reach for the assumption.

<comment><USER29> Okay, so the points about Neurath are good stock.</comment></comment>


Introducing The New Bing: Spend Less Time Searching, More Time Doing  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2012/05/10/spend-less-time-searching-more-time-doing-introducing-the-new-bing.aspx <comment><USER2> It's interesting how we individuals on HN seem to use search in a totally different way then other, non-technical, groups and we think we're the norm. In the past I had the same type of comments (e.g. Google returns better results, I don't care about social when searching, etc) but then I've taken a closer look at how my wife and my kids use search. Totally different then me. For me, search is my closest friend on the internet, it is my lifeline to solving all my (technical) problems. I use Google to be productive on a daily basis. It's not necessarily about research for me, it's about problem solving.

For the rest of my family, they use search in a different way. They search for their favorite tv shows, for research (e.g. for trips, homework, the next big toy for xmas), for recipes, shopping, etc. They don't search to be more productive, they search for their hobbies and interests. As such, many of what they search for are social by nature. My wife likes to talk with her friends about the latest pair of shoes she's thinking of buying and my kids love to spend hours on facebook discussing the latest episode of CSI, etc.

I'm with most of you, I don't get why we need this social "thing" on "our' search engines. It clutters everything and I don't want others to know what I'm searching for. But for my family, they talk about the stuff they search for and having these features on Bing might make them switch.. maybe...

</comment><comment><USER3> Most interesting part to me:

"To track our progress, we conducted tests that removed any trace of Google and Bing branding. When we did this study in January of last year 34% people preferred Bing, while 38% preferred Google. The same unbranded study now shows that Bing Search results now have a much wider lead over Google's. When shown unbranded search results 43% prefer Bing results while only 28% prefer Google results."

<comment><USER4> I switched over to Duck Duck Go, which uses the Bing API, with every intention of using them full time and not going back to google. But the results were much, much worse and I had to go back to google.

That wasn't just a blind taste test, I was actively rooting for pepsi but I just couldn't stomach the taste and had to go back to Coca-Cola.

<comment><USER5> Switched to DDG as well, noticed that it was a little too slow for my liking at times, and often did produce less desirable results than Google,

but after a couple of months those dried up. It seemed to speed up a little (don't know if it actually did) and the results seemed to get better (don't know if they actually did or I just kicked the subconscious habit)

<comment><USER6> I still find the ddg results are lacking about half the time. Fortunately, its only two characters more to redirect the search if ddg came up empty handed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I personally feel like search has been broken for a long time. I rarely use Google outside of "site:" searches b/c the results are so bad. For example, last night I flooded my lawn mower engine. I did a search on Google and Bing for "how to fix a flooded lawn mower engine". The first page on both sites were stuffed with results from ehow, ask, answers, etc. I could not find a single good result. I finally gave up a few pages in. I am sure there are good answers out there, but I am convinced that Google and Bing can no longer find them. Both companies should be embarrassed that they have let these cheap content companies game them to the point where search is no longer relevant. Maybe Bing will fix this and my faith will be renewed, but I am not too optimistic.

<comment><USER8> I completely agree with you. Outside of doing software/programming relating searches, Google's results are all overridden with, and you phrased it perfectly, cheap content sites. Most of the time, if I'm doing a search like "best turkey call", I tend to do a search such as "jesse hunting forums best turkey call". I would not call eHow, Yahoo Answers and other cheap content sites SPAM, but they are far from reliable than places where you can get extremely relevant information such as hunting forums regarding hunting, or health and workout information from forum.bodybuilding.com.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that is about how I operate. But, when I am out of my comfort zone (like lawn mower repair), I am completely lost. It seems like search engines should know where people get the best results and serve those up first. And, in my opinion, it is rare that the best results come from these content sites. Heck, when I search that same query today, out of the first five results, only 1 has a picture of a lawnmower that is not in an ad. And, it is a stock photo.

<comment><USER9> Have you tried using the Google option to block results from these sites? [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)

Assume you have adblock running as well? Maybe I'm the anomaly but Google still seems very good to me for these types of queries.

Top results for me on "how to fix a lawn mower": Youtube Wiki Number of other forums that seem relavant

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been using Bing primarily (Chrome search box and iPhone search) for 6 months, after about 12 years with Google.

It's completely adequate/same for web searches of all types where the answer is a web page. \- Perhaps a bit less cluttered. \- The social thumbs-up is kind of nice.

Once long ago only Google got the basic search types right while all others were noise machines, then Google was still better at having more pages, more PDFs, more types of data, and now it's basically parity. All search engines seem bad at: \- fighting "how to" seo spam \- travel/product seo spam

Not sure it's a crisis though.

Other search types: \- Images is better \- Maps is worse, and \- Local is worse. For those I go over to Google a few times per day.

</comment><comment><USER11> Months ago, I submitted my sitemap.xml to Bing. I check the webmaster tools all the time. No errors, it sees all the links in the file and reports the correct number, but it refuses to index my pages. I do a search for my site in Bing and it shows me next to a bogus social network site of a similar name. All the while, Google is continually slurping up my content and showing my site correctly in search results. I appreciate the promise of Bing, but I think the implementation still has a lot of work to do.

<comment><USER12> I did the same and feel the same. Even DuckDuckGo does better than Bing when it comes to indexing my site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't hate all social integration like some on HN, but with both Google and Bing it really just seems superfluous, and it's really cluttering the UI.

Instead of asking, "how can we add social to our product" they should be asking, "how can we make our product more useful." They're clearly trying to solve a business object and not a user need.

<comment><USER14> They are asking "how can we make our product more useful."

I think it's disingenuous to presume anything else.

Just because you personally don't think you need this, doesn't mean the companies involved aren't trying to solve what they perceive to be some users' needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been mad at Google every since they took away easy access to cached pages.

<comment><USER16> Is it that hard to hover the mouse over a result and then click cached?

<comment><USER17> yes, especially if you view the cached version 50% of the time.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious, why do you view the cached version 50% of the time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No, Microsoft, I will not give you my email address to try out your new search service. You still refuse to respect my email preferences for several other services. Your new design seems like a neat idea. If it was halfway decent, I'd have sent other people to go try it, but instead, I'll ignore you like usual.

</comment><comment><USER20> All the best to microsoft. Its better to die trying than giving up and complaining. It will be interesting to see how social data will affect the search results. Having been trained to use google for every search i make, going back to an unimpressive UI which may or may not have the best search results is in itself a very annoying thing about bing. However the problem they are trying to solve, if achieved then i would be one of the several millions who will be benefitted. Hence i wish them good luck.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Unbranded" is not the correct term to describe stripping out ads and search suggestions.

Visually it is still uncomfortable to use Bing; specifically for anyone that respects typography and design. [http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/the_best...](http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/the_best_and_worst_identities_of_2009.php)

</comment><comment><USER22> There are big risks involved in this UI that may well outweigh the benefits. What if you accidentally "ask a friend" on searches you didn't mean to? (It's very easy to mis-click, especially on a trackpad or touchscreen.) And what about the person Bing/FB suggest to all their friends as an expert on, say, "toilet paper"?

<comment><USER23> I haven't seen the UI, but I don't think that it would be wise if you could "accidentally" share something. There must be at least two or three buttons before you share something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It looks nice, but I would like to know where does Bing gets the data from Twitter and Facebook. Either Google is lying when they launched SPYW and the data can be obtained publicly and easily, or Bing made deals with these two companies that Google didn't for some reason.

<comment><USER24> According to:

[http://searchengineland.com/the-new-bing-microsoft-tries- aga...](http://searchengineland.com/the-new-bing-microsoft-tries-again-with- search-meets-social-120728)

Bing has a deal with facebook and twitter to access the data.

> However, Google still has an argument that it cannot get all the same data > on the open web as Bing. Twitter actually closed itself off to Google last > year, blocking Google from even getting open web data. Even if Google renews > a deal with Twitter, it's now gunshy about building features around > something that might disappear. Meanwhile, Facebook doesn't seem to allow > public posts out to the open web.

> Bing doesn't have these issues, with a deal in place with Twitter and > Facebook and no apparent blocking by Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Let me know when you figure out how to do an advanced search?

edit: goodness would you imbeciles stop downvoting. This got downvoted the last time I asked it because people thought I was being sarcastic. It's IMPOSSIBLE to do a refined or advanced search. Calm down with the hate for Google's "horribly cluttered search interface" and tell me why this is OK or why I apparently can't see what you all see.

<comment><USER26> First search for something, then click on advanced. Bing's designers have obviously spent too much time playing Braid.

<comment><USER25> I'm really not trying to be an ass, but if I go to "bing.com", type "test", press "enter". I don't see "advanced" anywhere. The closest I see is a 'gear' that takes me to a completely different page that is not an advanced search.

Like, I ctrl+f'd to make sure I'm not just blind.

<comment><USER26> Maybe the Canadian version is different, because I get:

      All Results 1-10 of 38,600,000 results·Advanced

right under the web/images/more line.

<comment><USER27> You have the international version (like I do in Australia). The new design doesn't seem to have an advanced link anywhere (you can try it by going to preferences, and choosing 'Change country/region'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not sure if this will make it better or not but I think Bing is willing to try lots of things to say to people, "We're here too." If the test results were done fairly (I have no reason to doubt them) it must be frustrating for Bing engineers, their work is not being recognized.

Personally I do not like Google's "Ads are just more answers" attitude, it opens the way for perverse incentives. Ads are ads, so I hope Bing, DDG, Blekko and others take a bite

<comment><USER29> "Ads are just more answers"

I think ads and social should compete equally with other content in Results. In that, most ads should rank just above the spam at the bottom. And Social results should rank as any opinions, like forums and such.

Where's the money in that? Dont know, but users would flock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> umm..the bing.com/new page doesn't exist..</comment>


Can We Ditch The Headphone Jack? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcolabs.com/3020874/can-we-ditch-the-headphone-jack-already

<comment><USER2> I was at Palm/HP back when we did this on the Veer 4G smartphone... it only had a POGO-style magnetic connector on the side to support headphones, USB, and charging, but we shipped the phones with an adapter to allow using a 3.5mm-jack headset. We did it to make the phone as small as possible, but I don't think it was ever a well-loved decision.

<comment><USER3> Any idea why not? Looking at that pogo demo video, it seems like building the jack into the phone and supplying the adapter would be a perfect solution. I guess the main down-side is that it's another thing to keep track of.

Hmm... one thing that might help with that is to include a slot in the charger for the adapter, just to have somewhere to put it that isn't likely to get lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh man please no. Imagine having this in your pocket and playing music! The little amount of stress your pocket puts on it will make your music jump.

Imagine having a magsafe connector on a laptop without a battery. So every time your connector gets a bump your laptop shuts down. The reason magsafe works is because you don't need _constant_ power, so a short interruption is okay.

</comment><comment><USER5> The reason those TRS/TRRS connectors have been around for so long is that they flippin' _work_.

While I agree that a MagSafe-style equivalent would be nice, it will be a giant step backward if we end up with a gazillion new "standards." Or a de facto standard with a poor mechanical connector (e.g., micro USB). Or a great mechanical connector that's completely proprietary (Lightning).

Bluetooth headsets are not really a solution for the reasons mentioned in the article. Even with voice codecs there's lossy recompression going on, and music is worse. Add the delightful user experience of batteries, and you've managed to replace a light, decent-sounding, completely-reliable $15 set of earbuds with something heavier, lower-fidelity, always in need of charging, and more expensive. All for the sake of removing a wire.

<comment><USER3> That's the great thing about something like the pogo shown in the op though (except built into the device). It's entirely backward compatible, so they could include a set of headphones that connect directly, as well as the adapter that lets you use a standard 3.5mm jack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> According to Betteridge's law of headlines... no.

"devices right now won't allow them to become much thinner" I'm sorry, but who cares? My LG Optimus F3 is _way_ to thin for me to hold in my normal human- sized hands. I had to get a case just to be able to hold it! Let's stop making things thinner and start making them "usable"!

Plus, I'd rather not have to buy new headphones/audio equipment. I've never had problems with my headphones, and I don't want to have to buy adapters just to use the things I already have.

I mean, I guess in the future we could remove this jack, but if I were shopping, I'd buy the device with the jack on it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool I guess, as long as sound quality is not degraded.

On the plus side, something like this would probably take a lot of stress off the headphone cables when you accidentally jerk them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm in favor. Most 3.5" jacks are horribly made. Only the 1/4" jack ever worked well.

I desperately want us to ditch RJ45 for something as compact as Apple's lightning connector but is an open standard and easy to make (i.e. uses a crimping tool)

</comment><comment><USER9> I believe apple will fight this like crasy.

</comment><comment><USER10> More proprietary connectors please. /s

</comment><comment><USER11> Please, no.

<comment><USER12> no indeed. this is but a infomercial for a very lousy product. the so called reporter does not even acknoledge that millions of cellphones in the past used 2mm plugs and they were hated by everyone. also nokia tried the popport for the same reason, and was equally hated.</comment></comment>


An Unnervingly Life-Like Japanese Doll from the 1800s - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-mysterious-origins-of-this-unnervingly-lifelike-japanese-doll-from-the-1800s <comment><USER2> Interesting, But why don't they have any pictures of it that are more recent?

<comment><USER3> They wanted to show older ones I'd imagine?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Hananuma+Masakichi](https://www.google.com/search?q=Hananuma+Masakichi)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't know why they keep calling it a doll. I regard it as one of the most stunning sculptures in the world. It is magnificent and I can never understand how it was made. Each piece had to be perfect.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone else seeing a bunch of drive-by Android app install attempts at that URL?

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do I always land at the very end of the page when clicking atlas obscura links?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is atlas obscura a HN company?

<comment> et-al It used to be a oddities and curiosities blog much in the realm of the Mütter Museum in Philly, or the Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA, but apparently David Plotz from Slate joined as CEO two years ago [0]. And according to Crunchbase, they raised $2 million last year [1] for the reboot we see now.

I am surprised to see how often it's linked here, but I guess they're doing a good job of broadening their focus and turning "Atlas Obscura into a National Geographic of the 21st century."

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2014/10/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2014/10/09/former-slate-editor-david-plotz-takes-job-atop-atlas- obscura/?utm_term=.ea149d515326)

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/f16958850037f69cbb1...](https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/f16958850037f69cbb15bb95c0223953)</comment></comment>


Python and the need for speed - <AUTHOR> http://www.mos6581.org/python_need_for_speed <comment><AUTHOR> > It should be possible to define a subset of the Python language, > uninspiredly dubbed "TurboPython", that excludes those features that stand > in the way of high-performance JIT execution ...

IIRC this was part of the inspiration for rpython [1].

[1] [https://rpython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://rpython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Immutability is not necessarily a performance win. If you are writing busy distributed systems for instance, you cannot afford to allocate any more memory elements than you have to. Fast in-place fft and sorting algorithms require mutability. The fastest way to do many things is still what Fortran would do.</comment>


How "killing it" is killing Startups - <AUTHOR> https://sanctus.io/how-killing-it-is-killing-startups-dfabd7803039#.7mehgrxva <comment><USER2> Isn't this just testimony against brogramming and startup culture in general?</comment>


Same day ACH: moving payments faster in the USA - <AUTHOR> https://www.nacha.org/rules/same-day-ach-moving-payments-faster-phase-2 <comment><USER2> From the article, when I searched for "holiday":

"NACHA projects that ACH Originators would generate approximately 1.4 billion same-day ACH payments annually as of ten years after full implementation and rollout, primarily for transactions that can be initiated before 2:45 PM ET on business days (not on weekends or holidays), and that do not require real-time functionality."

So you'll still have to deal with the absurd notion of holidays and weekends when working with bank transfers.

What we need is instant clearing, 24/7/365\. Nobody cares that it's Sunday. Nobody cares that it's Presidents Day.

<comment><USER3> The fact that HNers are so adamant that payments should happen faster displays a complete lack of understanding of user needs. In fact inter-bank transfers in the US via ACH have worked just fine for many decades.

Further, the US is one of the only countries where you can pull funds from a bank account.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, amazing how the public routing number and secret can be used to empty an account without any further auth.

We need to end this madness. I was hopeful for chip&PIN but we just got chip&recurring transaction fraud. Places don't even try to check your ID, but now the card verification takes at least 4x as long without any additional meaningful security factors. As someone who has had cards stolen from their mailbox and activated + used, this is frustrating to say the least.

<comment><USER5> The majority of fraud is via counterfeit cards (which chip is effective against), not stolen cards. Most of the US credit card industry decided that they'd lose more by being the "difficult card" in your wallet than those transactions cost them. They're not just lazy or incompetent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As described at [http://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer- persp...](http://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-perspective- part-3/) , ACH has called itself a 'next-day' settlement system yet funds transferred on a Thursday may not be available until the next Wednesday (6 days later) since they leave several days of buffer in case of returns and do not count weekends or holidays. And that's only if the transfer is done early in the day. If it's the evening, it could take 7 days.

Unless they changed something else, changing from so-called 'next-day' to 'same-day' would only reduce that by 1 day from 6 or 7 days to 5 or 6 days, which isn't really that significant and certainly isn't what people think of when they see 'same-day'.

It says "for transactions that can be initiated before 2:45 PM ET on business days (not on weekends or holidays)" so it's still broken with several days of delay, but there is a line that says "RDFIs will be mandated to make funds available from same day ACH credits (such as payroll Direct Deposits) to their depositors by 5:00 PM at the RDFI's local time." Does that require them to drop the return buffer? That could at least cut it down to only 2 or 3 days delay.

If it does cut the delay in half, that's a mixed blessing since it reduces the pressure to develop a better protocol or even change ACH implementations to reduce the delay to a few minutes. It's just a series of 3 requests and 3 responses - even with processing, that shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

And if they added an extension for the receiving institution to confirm success in the return file (or another file), everyone involved would be better off (except the bankers making interest while the money sits in limbo, I guess).

<comment><USER7> > bankers making interest while the money sits in limbo, I guess

This is a common refrain. Has anyone ever actually done a calculation to show that it's a significant amount, at least enough to disincentivise building a quicker payments system?

<comment><USER8> [https://www.nacha.org/news/ach-volume-grows- more-25-billion-...](https://www.nacha.org/news/ach-volume-grows- more-25-billion-payments-and-43-trillion-value-2016) says 43 trillion usd was transferred using ach. With 365 days a year, that's 100 million a day, and 5% would be an extra 5 million a year... seems pretty worthwhile to me!

<comment><USER9> Divided across an industry the size of the US banking system it's not that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Living in India, this has always stuck me as very odd with the U.S. that there are no quick ways to transfer money between bank accounts. In India, payments have long been done in hourly batches six days a week (with time limits) in a system called NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) and for higher amounts, an almost real time system called RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement).

A few years ago, a consortium of private and public entities setup IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) that allowed instant payments (just a few seconds) 24x7 with a cell phone number and a bank provided ID (called MMID). Then came UPI (Unified Payments Interface), which improved on this and provided for user chosen IDs (like name@bank) as an easier way to exchange information and transact. In both cases, there's no need to reveal the underlying bank account number, branch and other details. The latter two systems have been criticized for how they work (mainly that they don't maintain audit trails and that they could be used to launder money).

It's good to see the U.S. system improving, but this needs to get a lot better to be comparative to other places.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't believe how behind the US still is compared to the rest of the world..

<comment><USER12> You can come up with all sorts of proximal causes for the current situation, but once all the bs excuses are stripped away it really comes down to plain old corruption.

Banks collude with their regulators to both minimize required changes to the system and make it effectively illegal to create a competing system. Without pressure from regulators or markets, banks can rest on their laurels while doing just enough to avoid public outrage over their level of dysfunction.

<comment><USER13> There's a _lot_ of money to be made with overdraft fees and offering pseudo- banking services (cheque cashing places, refillable debit cards that can be ACH-deposited into) to the unbanked, so US banks have a very strong incentive to keep their consumer-facing offerings slow and sucky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most major US banks currently support instant transactions up to a certain amount.

Check if your bank has an equivalent Zelle client; it's usually built into your banking frontend as a transfer or send money feature.

Other banks are also supported, but you'd have to register through the clearXchange network until your bank builds support directly.

<comment><USER15> I used this recently to send my little brother a wedding present. The UX was pretty poor from his side for enrollment, but after that was done the transfer was instant as advertised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Only international transactions (IATs) and high-value transactions above $25,000 are not eligible.

The $25,000 limit makes this useless for business.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't be so sure about that. Businesses have call to send _many_ payments (and many types of payments); the overwhelming majority by count are below $25k. Since nothing about existing ACH or wires is going away as a result of this system, it's a pure win.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, the international stuff and >$25k will tend to go by SWIFT wire transfer anyway

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is revolutionary. What's next, US human operated telephone switchboards to be replaced by electronic switches? /s

</comment><comment><USER19> India has Immediate Payment Service ( IMPS ) which allows instant transfer. It's great for most of the transfers and works 365/24/7

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

</comment><comment><USER20> The bitcoin threat is a motivator for these legacy systems to get up to speed. Even if bitcoin ends up not being universally used, I'd still consider it a success for causing this.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's a sadistic joke that it's so hard to transfer money from one person to another (at least here in the US). The fact that it even takes more than an hour is absurd.

<comment><USER22> It's incredibly easy to transfer money. I and all my friends use Venmo. Settling the tab, paying rent, utilities, in a few seconds. It works extremely well for me.

<comment><USER23> Venmo isn't any more instant. If you want to actually have money back in your bank account rather than a balance in Venmo, it takes 2-3 business days.

<comment><USER24> In China with Alipay, I receive transfers instantly and deposits to my bank account "can take up to 2 hours", but typically land within 5 minutes. I get instant WeChat notifications whenever my card is used. Although, to be honest I haven't used a physical card in months. I pay for everything with QR codes. There's a code you can present to the attendant and they scan you (typically faster) and then I authenticate the transfer with a fingerprint or pin. It's honestly astounding to see how advanced the financial system is here, ESPECIALLY when compared to the bullshit that currently exists in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Singapore has this thing called FAST transfers (Fast and Secure Transfer) that's instant transfer between the banks here. It's been around since 2014.

</comment><comment><USER26> So what exactly makes this same day? Is it because there will be "two additional clearing windows"?

<comment><USER27> They now Uber the check from one bank to the other, instead of the previous mechanism of sending it via pony express.

<comment><USER28> Thanks to truncation, the pony express was replaced with faxes a few years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If only we had some sort of electronic system that can make instant data checks and updates...

</comment><comment><USER30> Same day??? Check out Ripple... 2 seconds, from anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER31> Or, you know, Paypal.

<comment><USER30> Paypal has nothing to do with ACH or cash settlement. Totally different.

<comment><USER32> When you withdrawal from PayPal (or at least Venmo), doesn't it go through an ACH?

<comment><USER28> Which is why PayPal can't be faster than ACH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why can't we have continuous... I don't understand!

</comment><comment><USER34> Bitcoin is putting pressure on banks to wise up.

<comment><USER35> Too little too late

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's called Bitcoin.</comment>