Ask HN: Best open source home wifi router in 2018 (buy or build) - <AUTHOR> I have an aged Apple Airport Extreme base station that I'm looking to replace. A combination of recent news about router infections and changes to net neutrality has me interested in options for open source capable routers.
The main features I'm looking for are longevity / timeliness of firmware updates, and a relatively easy way of tunneling all my home network traffic through some cloud-hosted machine or VPN service (mostly shielding from Comcast).
1) What's the state of dedicated open source firmware / off-the-shelf router combos? Between Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT and seemingly countless others, I have no idea which software path is best. Between the Linksys "Open Source" WRT devices, and the Netgear Nighthawk, and others, I also have no idea which hardware is best.
2) I'm at least nominally interested in building up my own router with OpenBSD. It seems like the winner in terms of hardware would be something low-powered, and with Intel (iwm driver) or Atheros (athn) wifi hardware. Has anyone gone this route / have good recommendations for hardware? Is PCEngines the right hardware for that? Is this a reasonable approach to a wifi router in 2018? <comment><USER2> Ubiquity is based on the Vyatta platform, which means it's pretty decent as a network device. Unless you've got gigabit WAN speeds, it will probably be sufficient for your SOHO needs. But I would split the wireless functions from the Routing/firewall functions. You might even do a three-way split with dedicated devices for each function.

But most Ubiquiti devices are going to need some sort of a management machine, running their proprietary software. That could be an old repurposed desktop, a small format computer, or something else. But it will need to be a more mainstream OS — I don't think a Raspberry Pi will do the job.

I've heard good things about Mikrotik, but then they are also vulnerable to the recent VPNFilter malware. And they might do okay on the Routing side, but I don't know how well they will perform on the firewall or VPN server side.

<comment><USER2> I have been looking for a good gigabit speed multi-WAN firewall/router solution.

The Ubiquity Edge routers give you multiple interfaces, and can do multi-WAN, but not at gigabit speeds. And not with also handling VPN functions.

I've been looking for good NUC or SBC type solutions with enough CPU horsepower and multiple independent NICs, but I haven't found anything yet. Please let me know if you find anything in this space.

</comment></comment><comment> lol-lol [https://mikrotik.com/products/](https://mikrotik.com/products/)

or if you want, just board: [https://mikrotik.com/products/group/routerboard](https://mikrotik.com/products/group/routerboard)

Anyway their routers are cheap and very capable, but the administration is NOT (!WARNING!) for normal users. You will need to know a lot about networking.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a Google Wifi router right now. I have zero complaints other than it being Google.

If I were to do it over, I'd go with pfSense and a Ubiquiti WiFi AP.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use a combination of pfSense on a Dell mini and a Unifi access point by Ubiquiti. This set up splits the work so that wifi just does wireless stuff and the router just does routing and firewall. Works very well and is very stable.

<comment><USER2> In my case, I installed a number of Unifi Access Points at the house of my in- laws. They were fortunate that when their house was being built, each room got a home run of cat5 cable, which made the Unifi Access Points a no brainer.

Now they have way better WiFi access through the house than we do, or anyone else I know of. Of course none of the rest of us are fortunate enough to have those cat5 home runs, either.

The Unifi APs can be configured with the proprietary Ubiquity application on a laptop, and then when you are done configuring them, you can take your laptop with you. But then you have to bring it back if you ever want/need to make any configuration changes. Better would be to find a local device where you can install the Ubiquity app and then you don't have to worry about bringing the laptop with you, and it's a lot easier to do remote support.

Been there, done that.

But the Unifi APs are pure access points and have no router functionality, so you have to pair them with something else for that part. And from what I've heard, pfSense on suitable hardware really is the best available solution for SOHO use cases.</comment></comment>


Papers with Code - <AUTHOR> https://paperswithcode.com/ <comment><USER2> This serves pretty much as an extensive Deep Learning State of the Art reference. See e.g. [https://paperswithcode.com/sota/image-classification-on- imag...](https://paperswithcode.com/sota/image-classification-on-imagenet).

I am impressed by its content. I use both for research (to track progress) and teaching. Previous references:

\- Measuring the Progress of AI Research by Electronic Frontier Foundation, [https://www.eff.org/ai/metrics](https://www.eff.org/ai/metrics)

\- Natural Language Processing Progress [https://nlpprogress.com/](https://nlpprogress.com/)

are great, but nowhere near Papers with Code, when it comes to the completeness, and UI.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, outside of most popular tasks it is much less populated. But it's community driven, so I encourage researchers from areas for which leaderboards are not populated to fill them and try to keep it up to date. It's not hard to choose a single task and update the tables and can be very profitable for the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great!

I greatly enjoy publications that provide their implementation (or a simplified) version. Playing around with the problems yourself, can give a much greater insight and understanding in addition to the fundamental, written work.

However, I did encounter situations where providing the direct implementation was seen as a bad thing. It was thought of as `giving away your advantage' and squeezing out multiple papers before even thinking about publishing the code had their preference.

It is great to see more and more research publications go together with their implementations.

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazing! Saves so much time not having to read a paper only to find there is really no code or very limited code to run. Not having delved too deep into this a suggestion would be to add the level of completeness of code to each paper. There are times a paper has great code included and 80% is there but is missing a crucial piece, sometimes the secret sauce, which would render it if not impossible to use. This is the case with a lot of OpenAI papers.

<comment><USER6> Excluding some (e.g. OpenAI) papers that have limited their released results for ethical purposes, why would the authors generally not include their code?

I remember going through a digital image processing course in uni where the final project was to implement a paper and check the results, and I remember that our results, when coded were different from the paper's authors (although I can't remember if it was because we didn't code it like they did or if their results were not to be trusted).

It's just so frustrating and borderline disingenuous to publish results, mention bits of code, but not include the whole code.

<comment><USER7> > why would the authors generally not include their code?

Decades of "printing out the code listings would cost too much paper" made many researchers get comfortable with the idea that nobody would ever see the code behind their work. That means:

\- your code can be shit and potentially buggy and nobody will point and laugh at you

\- replication is harder, so you can bluff some of the details

\- if key findings are actually bugs, nobody will find out

These are all terrible reasons, but they're comfortable reasons as well. Open access was the first barrier, code included is simply the next.

If code included would've been commonplace, fiascos such as Imperial College of London's possibly-totally-bogus covid simulation [0][1] would've never made it to the cabinet.

[0] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding- led...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-led-lockdown- totally-unreliable-buggy-mess-say-experts/) [1] [https://github.com/mrc- ide/covid-sim](https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dynamite-ready Is this a site that attaches code examples to state of the art research papers? This is excellent, if it's extensive.

<comment><USER8> It is very extensive. It has a lot of fairly domain-specific work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great! It always bugs me when I can't find an implementation of a paper to reference. I'm much more likely to read a paper if there is code associated with it.

<comment><USER10> Well,

One thing that stands out on it is that the top article is OpenAI's gpt-3 paper. While I've only read popular summaries here, one point that's highlighted is that the model involves 175 billion parameters. Which seems like an indication that while you can download the code and the paper, you're going to be able to run it - at not until/unless GPUs get much bigger (or you have Open AI, Google or similar level resources).

I wonder if you could have a site which not allows the uploading of code but actually involves the code executing on the site.

<comment><USER11> Check out [https://mybinder.org](https://mybinder.org) \-- if your code is in Jupyter notebooks in a GitHub repo, it'll build a Docker container with whatever dependencies you specify, spin up an instance on some cloud somewhere, and run the notebooks in your browser.

Edit: they do have heavy limits for the version they host, but the platform is open-source, so institutions can set up mybinder instances for their own users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it for AI related papers only?

<comment><USER13> The About page says it's just for Machine Learning papers.

<comment><USER14> Does anyone know of something similar for non-ML papers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Simple idea, great idea. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great website but too bad it's owned by Facebook. Personally I don't feel comfortable that FB will own/manage/control a repo of mostly academic research papers.

<comment><USER17> In the end it's just an index linking papers usually hosted in arxiv with code usually in GitHub. It's more of a nice starting point for literature research rather than some content owning platform.</comment></comment>


Made a sketch to React tool (need devs advice) - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/Bv-CQxpswBs <comment><AUTHOR> Hi developers, Our team makes a tool that can make Sketch to a responsive page 10x faster. Here is a video showing how to make a responsive page in 30 secs with our tool. [https://youtu.be/Bv-CQxpswBs](https://youtu.be/Bv-CQxpswBs)

you can make a sketch to a responsive page in 30 secs, and with 2more clicks, you can have HTML/ React code.

We are inviting developers to join our beta version. If you are interested in our project, please sign up on our page or private message me. We really need your advice and feedback to make a better tool for frontend developers.

Sign Up beta launch here: [https://bit.ly/2Q80Dbc](https://bit.ly/2Q80Dbc)

More info on our official page: [https://pxcode.io/](https://pxcode.io/)

</comment><comment><USER2> There're several products already in the market. I have tried some of them and the problem is the generated code is messy and hard to maintain.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does it supports other types of file and code? Like XD?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for asking!

We also consider other types of files and codes. But, now it supports sketch to HTML/React/ReactNative(Experimental).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How can I try this tool?

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you are interested in our project. You can sign up on our page. We will send you a link ASAP! [https://bit.ly/2Q80Dbc](https://bit.ly/2Q80Dbc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dont get it.</comment>


Mark Anderson's 2010 predictions - <AUTHOR> http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/sns-predictions-for-2010-released-from-new-york/

<comment><USER2> Perhaps some would find this more interesting:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/linda-tischler/design- times/...](http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/linda-tischler/design-times/mark- ansersons-10-predictions-2009) (Mark Anderson's 10 Predictions For 2009)

<comment><USER3> "After 8 years of nothing but messages of bad news and fear, the psychological lift of Obama's inauguration will lead to a short term rebound effect on the market".

Ahh, I miss the naivety of the ancient days of late 2008. In fact the market dropped from ~9000 at inauguration day to ~6500 by March. Obama's approval rating dropped from around 80 at inauguration to less than 50 now. And bad news and fear, as it turns out, still exist.

"It will be a big year for applications that can play on big screens... video games, movies, etc." -- as a prediction, shrugworthy.

"Similarly, the big news in the mobile world won't be a slicker, newer cellphone -- it will be smart phone applications" -- this prediction wasn't too bad.

"China's GDP is likely to plummet in 2009" -- nope, it grew by something like 8%

"This year we'll see the first computer with no moving parts" -- trueish, though I thought that netbooks sans moving parts were already on the market in 2008.

Wall computing: somebody has already mentioned this. "Carry-along computers will be hot" -- reasonably true. "Led by Europe, LTE (Long Term Evolution) will be the preferred technology for 4G." -- I don't even know what this means.

"Not to be left behind, the less developed world will finally see widespread availability of broadband" -- y'see, as a prediction this one is hard to fault in that it's a long term trend and I'm sure there's some places in the third world that have acquired broadband over the last year. Still, I wouldn't say the last year has seen enormous progress on that front.

"The Internet Assistant will be born" -- hmm, not really. And if a product which _could_ book me a flight, a car, a hotel, and make dinner reservations automatically did exist, I wouldn't use it, since I wouldn't trust it to get me the best prices.

"he was optimistic that having a new, competent, team in Washington, that valued science, technology, and innovation, would improve the country's overall mood" -- a giggle seems like the appropriate response here.

In conclusion, there's a few accurate predictions here, but they're just identifications of trends which should have been reasonably obvious in 2008. And then there's the impossibly naive political predictions which, the less said about the better.

<comment><USER4> > I wouldn't use it, since I wouldn't trust it to get me the best prices.

This is the fundamental problem with AI: if it's not as smart as a human, people won't like or trust it; but if it _is_ as smart as a human, people especially won't like or trust it.

<comment><USER5> Sort of the uncanny valley for intelligence. It astounds me how many people don't trust programs/automations when it is almost provably better at performing a given task. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley>

<comment><USER3> In this case I think it's more a case of incentive structures, and not trusting the agent's motivations.

In this particular case the problem is that the virtual valet would, unlike a real valet, be funded primarily by kickbacks from whatever services he winds up booking for me, so I've got no reason to believe he's making decisions in my best interests instead of his own.

Basically if I'm going to trust someone else to make my decisions for me, I want a real flesh-and-blood person that I can shout at if things go wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Metro Tiles Design... Patent Question. - <AUTHOR>

So, I believe that they patented this design. Yes? If I were to design a new website that uses this tile design, would I be subject to a lawsuit? Do I need a license from Microsoft? Or do they specifically look to shut down direct competitors (i.e. Apple, Google, etc.) rather than websites that don't compete whatsoever?
I thought I read they were encouraging app creator to use the metro design?
Would this then just be for apps/programs that would be used on Windows 8? And not extend to just website design?
If anyone knows and can help, that'd be great. I have a very app-like website (a lot of functionality) and rather than use icons I wanted to use a page that had a set of tiles to display the icons and information. It'd be sad if I couldn't use this design style.  :(
But in regards to a patent on the tiling design... it seems like it'd be similar to patenting icons or even widgets, so I don't see how they could get that? I'm not familiar with exactly what the patent they have explicitly protects.
edit* It seems like the patent is more so for their "panorama" that they have for on all their interfaces (horizontal scrolling with the tiles/text/etc sharply cutoff... rather than the whole "live tile" thing. However, if someone can confirm this and more-or-less assure me I'm fine designing parts of my website with "live tiles" that would be great. <comment><USER2> The notion of portals and portlets has been around for at least 10 years. What you are describing sounds like that (unless you visually steal all of their design).

Be careful in the exact look and the terminology you use and you should be fine.

(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah.)</comment>


ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/business/dealbook/zenpayroll-start-up-raises-60-million-from-group-led-by-google-investment-arm.html

<comment><USER2> It's been amazing to see ZenPayroll grow over the last few years. We switched to ZenPayroll from Wellsfargo. It was night and day. Wellsfargo made every step of the process difficult, from on-boarding new employees, to sending me paperwork, to updating salaries. When I use ZenPayroll, it feels like they went through every customer interaction point and thought through how to make it a delightful experience. I heard that ZenPayroll have a net promoter score of >80, which is incredible. For context, I just google Apple's NPS and it's 66 ([http://customergauge.com/news/2014-net-promoter- benchmarks/](http://customergauge.com/news/2014-net-promoter-benchmarks/)).

<comment><USER3> How well does ZenPayoll handle employee portal stuff? Like 401k contribution self service?

<comment><USER4> We have a dedicated employee dashboard where employees can login do things like change bank account information, federal and state withholding , and even donate a part of their paystub to any registered 501(c).

We consider the employe experience to be just as important as the payroll administrators experience.

<comment><USER3> > and even donate a part of their paystub to any registered 501(c).

Wow. Impressive!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Switched to ZenPayroll from Intuit Payroll and couldn't be happier. ZenPayroll is a great product starting from the onboarding experience, to running weekly payroll, to their customer support, even the automated transactional emails they send out. Intuit on the other hand was so terrible, it actually cost us money because it buried some critical action items (local tax filing forms) under some obscure setting

</comment><comment><USER6> My understanding is that a big source of ADP's profits is their ability to make money on the float. [0] Does ZenPayroll do this too? I suspect it doesn't make sense at the current scale, but could be part of their valuation. Payroll is a great recurring revenue stream. Even with these new entrants, most firms keep the same provider for many years. (I don't pay great attention, but I don't recall ever having a paycheck come from someplace new within a given company)

[0] [http://ww2.cfo.com/people/2013/04/how-adp-turns-payroll- into...](http://ww2.cfo.com/people/2013/04/how-adp-turns-payroll-into-cash/)

<comment><USER4> We don't do this, as we're currently just 100% focused on building the best product possible for our customers.

<comment><USER7> Do you have integrated timecards? ADP does that, as well as payroll for us. (I looked at your site and didn't see anything.)

<comment><USER6> What is an integrated timecard?

<comment><USER7> People are paid from what's on their timecard (aka timesheet) and job cost and billing is generated from the single source.

<comment><USER6> Ahh - got it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats guys! We've been with Intuit for the last 5 years and recently made the transitioned to ZenPayroll - we haven't looked back. Huge fan of the automated emails along with their outstanding on-boarding/support.

</comment><comment><USER9> We use ZenPayroll at Clearbit and couldn't be happier! Such a well thought out experience all round.

Here's hoping they'll start selling health and office insurance too so we can drop our other providers.

</comment><comment><USER10> I read that Google Capital rather than Google Ventures lead the round. Could someone explain to me how these two bodies differ and what the significance would be?

<comment><USER4> Google Capital and Google Ventures are two different investments arms of Google. Google Ventures focuses a lot more on early stage companies (and makes many investments throughout the year), while Google Capital focus on later, growth stage companies. Google Capital tends to only do a few large investments each year. In ZenPayroll's case, we were honored to have strong interest from both GCap and GV, so they both invested, with GCap leading.

<comment><USER10> Ah thanks for the insight. I know that GV is a separate entity from Google proper with a chinese wall in place between the corporate mothership and itself. Is this the case with GC as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder what percentage of ADP/Paychecks business ZenPayoll has been able to siphon off?

<comment><USER4> We don't know the exact number ourselves, but I can say that we do get a lot of businesses who are switching from ADP/Paychex.

Here's a quick Twitter search that might be useful for anecdotal data-points: [https://twitter.com/search?q=zenpayroll%20paychex&src=typd](https://twitter.com/search?q=zenpayroll%20paychex&src=typd)

The majority of small businesses still do payroll manually, so we get even more switching from doing it themselves.

<comment><USER12> any reason i was denied access to your platform? during the underwriting i expressed interest in operating as a PEO. what is your companies policy for said situation? would like more transparency lest you all be accused of being religious freedomists. happy to provide more information offline. thanks.

<comment><USER4> ZenPayroll is not a PEO, so we unfortunately cannot accept any company that want to operate under the PEO model.

As I'm sure you know, a PEO technically hires a client company's employees, thus becoming their employer of record for tax purposes. Our model (like most payroll companies) requires companies to hire their employees under their own EIN for maximum flexibility and cost efficiency.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for your response Ed. I appreciate that you're willing to respond here.

It is my company that wanted to operate as a PEO i.e. we would be the employer of record for the employees of our client companies. We then hoped to use ZenPayroll to process our payroll. I was told that you all like to work with companies that have 10 employees or fewer, which is fine, but it doesn't sound like if companies grow past 10 employees you kick them off your platform.

I think you all are a great company, and your colleagues have been both friendly and responsive in our dealings so my questioning isn't meant to detract from that.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am curious to understand what it takes to move from SMBs to move upmarket. Any examples of companies that have made the successful transition without alienating its core SMB customers?

</comment><comment><USER14> zenpayroll is awesome. no more pain

</comment><comment><USER15> Love getting paid using ZenPayroll!

</comment><comment><USER16> Next week: Google launches its own payroll service</comment>


Invisible computer graphics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/02/Invisible-computer-graphics <comment><USER2> That's awesome. It reminds me of -- you know how they put reporters in front of sets that are mockups of cities like San Francisco? They put Patton Oswalt on one such set for an interview, and he stomped through Fake San Francisco, gnawing on wires, crushing buildings, making RAWWWRRRR sounds, etc. like a movie monster.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it acceptable not to pay interns? - <AUTHOR>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/your-money/28interns.html?em
Many people who were interview seem to suggest that they would hire paid workers but instead chose to use unpaid workers. Their reasons vary, but many seem to highlight the inherent value in unpaid labor.
Without a structured internship (weekly or biweekly meetings, goals, referrals, valuable introductions, ect) it seems these interns are getting very little in return.
How would you handle an unpaid intern? Would you accept unpaid labor? <comment><USER2> Something to think about: sometimes free labor means you're populating your future industry with kids who can afford to not get paid, and this may lead to aristocracy trumping meritocracy.

It was long the practice in medicine that not only did you serve your internship for free, indeed you paid for the privilege. At some point there was a collective realization that this was contributing to, or percieved to contribute to, a good-ole-boy network instead of the meritocracy one wants of doctors. So interns, and other resident physicians, are paid.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's unacceptable to lie to potential interns about what they can expect, but if someone thinks they're getting some acceptable non-monetary value for their time and effort and wants to so the work, I don't see a moral problem.

Whether having unpaid people help with your work is good or bad is something else. They're going to cost you your own time and effort, so you need to know if you're shooting yourself in the foot by skimping on payroll.

</comment><comment><USER4> One thing is for sure: unpaid internships are probably illegal nine times out of ten. Employers are legally required to pay interns at least minimum wage if they fit the definition of an employee. Given the way most startups use interns, they would be considered employees.

According to the Department of Labor, if an intern's work benefits the company, then the intern should be treated as an employee. There is a six factor test, more on this here: [http://www.clark.edu/student_services/employment/documents/L...](http://www.clark.edu/student_services/employment/documents/Legalreunpaidinterns.pdf)

A related point, I think paying employees only with stock options is also illegal for a startup. The stock options likely don't have much value in a startup, and also the employee may lose the stock options if they quit (or are fired) prior to their vesting date.

So, both interns and employees should at least be paid minimum wage unless the company literally cannot even afford paying minimum wage. That said, the company will probably only have a legal problem if the underpaid intern/employee files a complaint.

</comment><comment><USER5> It certainly wouldn't be considered socially acceptable here in New Zealand, even ignoring the fact that you'd almost certainly be prosecuted if you tried it.

For some reason it appears to be tolerated in the U.S. despite it apparently being illegal in many cases. Mark Cuban was whining about this recently: [http://blogmaverick.com/2009/09/05/want-an-unpaid- internship...](http://blogmaverick.com/2009/09/05/want-an-unpaid-internship- so-you-can-get-valuable-experience-screw-you/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would not accept unpaid labour but I have had unpaid interns, they simply were only allowed to learn. As soon as someone did something remotely productive we would compensate them for it.

<comment><USER7> That about sums it up.

Following that rule is also how you can stay in compliance with labor laws (at least in the U.S.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Besides the legal issues, _you get what you pay for_. Really, if I was doing work (especially if I can see it making someone else a pile of money) and I wasn't being paid for it, I wouldn't be motivated to put any effort into it and you'd probably find it cheaper to just pay someone instead.

</comment><comment><USER9> FWIW: I read somewhere that for some industries, unpaid internships are becoming The Norm for getting your foot in the door for certain types of things and it is becoming difficult to make it into some of the more powerful jobs (in certain industries) without having this on your resume. The piece I read criticized this practice as being a new fangled way to keep the upper class in power because the people who can afford to take a full-time job which pays nothing at all are generally going to come from a rather privileged family background. It was cited as a sneakily exclusionary practice, a la Jim Crow laws.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have had that experience with many companies. Often times in financial companies it will be up to the discretion of a partner to decide if they would like to pay interns.

I interviewed with two different offices of a large brokerage (shall remained unnamed but they were purchased by BoA). One office told me I would get school credit for filling orders. The other office offered to pay me for doing market analysis. It seems the difference lies in how much they value an interns service.

<comment><USER9> Often, people don't see the long-term consequences of such choices. That lack of broader perspective always reminds me of the Aswan Dam. It accomplished all of its stated goals and was, therefore, a "success" as measured by the stated goals. But it had a few minor little unexpected side effects, like causing a schistosomiasis epidemic, increasing the amount spent on fertilizer for farms by like 600%, etc. ad nauseum.

I get labeled a bleeding heart idealist by a lot of people. I remain frustrated at my inability to adequately explain that my views are typically rooted in something deeply practical. A short explanation: I basically believe in "karma" -- but I don't think there is necessarily anything mystical to it. Just because people frequently can't trace the effect back to its root cause doesn't mean there is no such relationship in reality.

<crossing my fingers and hoping that doesn't sound like some unrelated meandering rant></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Helping non-technical founders manage their development team - <AUTHOR> https://getdevinsight.com <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted a way for dev team leaders to see at a glance, in plain english, how their team was doing so I created DevInsight. Feedback and thoughts very much appreciated!</comment>


Open source Tiny Wings clone - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/haqu/tiny-wings

<comment><USER2> Looks quite faithful.

Copying a game mechanic in such a way is probably not prohibited by law but could be judged ethically wrong, if it was not an educational endeavor. Still, I would have scrapped mentions of the 'Tiny Wings' name especially in the repo name and in source files (yet probably making mention of it inside the README as a credit).

The question of IP ownership of procedurally generated art could be quite touchy too, as the result in the WIP videos is incredibly close to the original, yet procedurally generated. Does the author of the algorithm gets IP on the resulting style in some way?</comment>


TypeScript creator: How the programming language beat Microsoft open-source fear - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/typescript-creator-how-the-programming-language-beat-microsofts-open-source-fears/ <comment><USER2> Anders Hejlsberg and Microsoft crushed my passion for programming as a day job because TypeScript is now everywhere and unavoidable. I didn't think that Ballmer could be right, but it seems that open source can be cancer after all!

These days I just do open source in JavaScript. Thankfully, I have enough passive side income to support myself without a day job (I thank my efficiency with plain JavaScript for getting myself into this position). I feel terrible for all the senior developers who know better and who are coerced into using TypeScript against their own will and cannot find an escape.

JavaScript is better than TypeScript because it doesn't have a bundling step. With JS, my development iteration speed is 3 seconds per code change... With TS, it's at least 15 seconds per code change (5 times more). This means that with JS, for the same amount of time spent on development, my code would have been tested 5 times more often (especially with TDD approach).

My approach is this; write the test case, write the code, run the test, adjust the code, run the test, adjust the code, run the test and repeat... Because I work on very complex projects, the 'adjust the code then run the tests' part is the most significant one which takes up the most time (especially with TypeScript because that part is slowed down by the build step).

With JavaScript, for the same logic, I can write many more test cases within the same amount of time (thanks to the fast dev/test iteration speed). I've verified this over and over again (I programmed in TS for many years at my last day job and also at other companies before that).

My JS code is simply better quality per unit of time spent.

 _EDIT_ But it's not so much the language of TypeScript that I hate (to be frank, it's a good language if you just consider the language itself). I hate the environment. I hate the reality of TypeScript and the economics of it which don't add up.

<comment><USER3> _This means that with JS, for the same amount of time spent on development, my code would have been tested 5 times more often (especially with TDD approach)._

This is only true if you code fast enough to keep your test suite and bundler at 100% utilisation.

<comment><USER2> You're right, 5x is probably an exaggeration. Maybe in practice it's more like 2x... Still that would be a lot. Often an iteration does literally take me 3 seconds; like if I just want to quickly log a variable to the console. I can find out in 2 seconds. Other times, if I made a small mistake it will take me less than 30 seconds to fix and test with JS.

Most of my time coding is spent on very short iterations which are 30 seconds or less. I rarely encounter problems with type mismatches or wrongly named variables or that sort of thing (and when I do, my test case catches that even faster than a TS compiler would have)... Also, waiting for the compiler tends to break my train of thought. It's a distraction and it increases my anxiety levels because I end up spending most of my programming time anxiously waiting for a result - That's why it's not enjoyable.

I hate this waiting time between when I implement the change and when I get to see the result. I think that even people who say that they like TypeScript will subconsciously feel more anxious while they're using TS. Waiting for results naturally creates anxiety; you want to minimize that time.

I'm even thinking that maybe making employees feel anxious is part of the corporate agenda to keep them under control. Maybe they did some studies and found that TypeScript caused fewer employees to leave the company? Maybe it wasn't for the reasons they believed. Anxiety tends to make people more withdrawn, less confident and stay in jobs they hate.

<comment><USER3> The thing is that TS is effectively a compiler (I know it isn't _really_ but it is in all but name). Literally millions of developers write code for languages that use a compiler very happily[1]. Having a compile step isn't a bad thing, and the fact it takes a few seconds is fine. Having a development cycle where you're concerned about how productive you are down to the number of _seconds_ things take is just silly. The problem is with the way you work. You need to chill out a bit, take more time over your code, and think things through more. By the sounds of it you can make yourself about twice as productive just by saving your code half as often.

[1] A lot of them look at JS and TS like it's actually worse because there _isn 't_ a compiler step.

<comment><USER2> The way I work, I spend several days or weeks thinking, drawing diagrams about the main concepts and architecture, but when it's time to implement, I like to get the project done as quickly as possible. I don't usually encounter unexpected problems on projects; that's what the planning is for.

If you've figured out the right architecture ahead of time and you've solved all the obvious technical hurdles in your mind ahead of time, then implementation is very straight forward and yes iteration time makes a huge difference.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Watchman – A File Watching Service - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/watchman/ <comment><USER2> Does this try to work around any of the limitations of inotify? Can my scripts be sure the file still exists when they start executing or will it act instantly on any inotify event?

I know my use case might be uncommon, but I am tired of actually having to handle the occasional creation and instantaneous deletion of files at the top of all my scripts i use for file monitoring.

Edit: and I'm not alone, it seems: [https://wingolog.org/archives/2018/05/21/correct-or- inotify-...](https://wingolog.org/archives/2018/05/21/correct-or-inotify-pick- one)

<comment> m-p-3 I use incron to monitor some directory and take action when the file is done copying into the drop folder, mostly for some drag-and-drop transcoding with ffmpeg with a specific set of codecs, etc.

My use case is probably not what you're doing, as the file isn't going to show up and vanish quickly, but maybe it would be better than scripting inotify?

I'll have to take a look at watchman though, seems solid from the looks of it.</comment></comment>


Seastar: C++ framework for high-performance servers - <AUTHOR> http://www.seastar-project.org <comment><USER2> Yup, this is what you can do when you code directly against kernel bypass APIs like DDPK.

Important to note they also use effectively a shared nothing architecture between cores. This makes it very NUMA friendly and further favours network performance because you are able to lock processes/threads to the cores that are directly attached to said network adapter.

The architecture is pretty well known but it's nice to see someone build a framework out of it.

<comment><USER3> This. There are plenty of opportunities to try out userland/"kernel bypass" network stacks, but I've always wanted to see a framework that integrates it for me. Even if you still need to get elbow deep to do anything advanced, it's great to see a template, a skeleton, on how to put everything together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They mention that this is using a polling architecture so each core is using 100% cpu even when idle. I've worked on high performance systems architected around polling before, but assumed that would be prohibitively costly these days now that cpu's have really advanced power management capabilities. Is polling architecture still viable for large scale cloud computing given costs of energy consumption? Years ago cpu's used a flat amount of power regardless of cpu utilization but now those extra cycles cost watts and of course money.

<comment><USER5> We plan to reduce power usage on low load eventually.

<comment><USER6> Sounds awesome but I wouldn't look at something like this (which is awesome btw) unless I was expecting it be under massive sustained load.

For everything else I'd just use Python or PHP as they are mostly fast enough.

I am planning to write a framework in Rust when I have the time though as I find it an interesting language and as a web dev it's my area, I'll definitely be looking at how you approached stuff ;).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmmm... wonder if this could go even faster using Cluster-on-Die mode in the new E5-2600v3 CPUs (It splits each CPU into 2 NUMA nodes).

Its also worth noting that the fastest memory configuration is 4x16GB DDR4-2133 DIMMs. Gets you the lowest latency and highest bandwidth according to Intel.

Another note, I see the CPU in the writeup reports as "cpu MHz: 1199.953" \- have you turned off C-States?

<comment><USER5> Do you have a link to this cluster-on-die mode?

<comment><USER7> This document from Intel covers CoD mode (Pg. 28) and optimal DIMM sizes (Pg. 37), etc. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B21tKtZ3UOQNdWtJZW9XekFCZ3M...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B21tKtZ3UOQNdWtJZW9XekFCZ3M/view?usp=sharing)

You should also disable C-States (e.g. lock to C0) - [https://rhsummit.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/shak-jeder- summ...](https://rhsummit.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/shak-jeder-summit-perf- analysis-and-tuning-part-2-2013.pdf) covers the performance impact of CPU states.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. We "disable" C-states by polling -- the cpu never goes idle. This is partly because dpdk doesn't support interrupts, and partly because using interrupts is a major performance hit. We have plans to improve this, but nothing committed yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like a good one to add to techempower's benchmarks.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems like, http problem needs to reframed as C1B(illion) now!

</comment><comment><USER10> "Applications using Seastar can run on Linux or OSv." Will Seastar support OS X? If No, developer using Mac has to install Linux VM to development.

<comment><USER11> A lot of their speed comes from special tricks like bypassing the kernel and going direct to hardware (DPDK).

Intel's DPDK doesn't support Mac OS X.

You should probably develop in a VM anyways, or at least with a platform + hardware that supports these features so you can better match what production deployments will be like.

I always cringe a little, for backend systems software, when people develop in an environment completely divorced from their production environment. It just creates headaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Errr..... 6.5 million requests per second?

<comment><USER13> More like 7 million at 26-ish cores. so ~270000 req/s per core, which is still a lot.

EDIT: here's the writeup [https://github.com/cloudius- systems/seastar/wiki/HTTPD-bench...](https://github.com/cloudius- systems/seastar/wiki/HTTPD-benchmark)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Oops, I wanted to do something similar but in C: [https://github.com/ademakov/MainMemory](https://github.com/ademakov/MainMemory)

</comment><comment><USER15> DPDK supports FreeBSD, I wonder if Seastar runs on that?

<comment><USER5> It ought to. There may be a minor porting effort involved. Note you need very recent gcc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm curious to test it against an equivalent Warp application. Good job!</comment>


Steve Jobs Would Never Invest in a Y Combinator Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.domain.me/blog/steve-jobs-would-never-invest-in-a-y-combinator-startup-2295

<comment><USER2> Steve is quoted as saying _"The problem with the Internet startup craze isn't that too many people are starting companies; it's that too many people aren't sticking with it."_

In Steve's mind, he probably hasn't finished with his own yet (Apple).

</comment><comment><USER3> I realize this article is a bit of link bait, and it's certainly not the clearest article in the world, but I do agree with part of your point; Startups need to think bigger. There are so many smart people and so much money being invested in ideas that are simply devoid of any ambition whatsoever.

But you also have to realize that big ideas can incrementally grow out of small ones. These are early stage concepts, and they are still iterating to what their business will grow into. So to knock them for that kind of misses the point of YC.

</comment><comment><USER4> Steve would never invest in a startup.Period :)

</comment><comment><USER5> WWSJD seems to be an emerging meme.

</comment><comment><USER6> LOL, yes, WWSJD, but let's not forget, there are thousands of very sucessfuly companies that somehow manage to muddle through with out SJ. In fact, I would argue that SJ approach may not be ideal for certain types of businesses.</comment>


Omega-3 fatty acid DHA has a role in diabetic retinopathy in mice - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07678-8?WT.mc_id=TWT_NA_1711_BHNVDARKFATTYACIDS_PORTFOLIO <comment><USER2> * "Dietary intake of DHA (omega 3 fatty acid) is associated with several health benefits, including normal brain and eye function2. .. _mice that lack the protein Mfsd2a_ , which transports DHA across the blood–brain barrier into the brain, develop severe retinal and brain dysfunction3"

* A quick search shows that a) DHAs are vital for brain function and b) the role of Mfsd2a is known: "Mfsd2a-deficient (Mfsd2a-knockout) mice show markedly reduced levels of DHA in brain accompanied by neuronal cell loss in hippocampus and cerebellum, as well as cognitive deficits and severe anxiety, and microcephaly. " [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13241?WT.feed_name=sub...](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13241?WT.feed_name=subjects_phospholipids)

* OP paper says: DHA and DHA oxidation produced epoxide metabolites "are associated with beneficial retinal effects" and an enzyme called sEH degrade them to form 19,20-DHDP, "suggesting that sEH has a causal role in diabetic retinopathy." (which is "a major cause of blindness in middle age").

* Then .. plot twist: And then "Hu and colleagues showed that it is the production of 19,20-DHDP, rather than the reduction in DHA or epoxide molecules, that is the key trigger of vascular degeneration.

* "19,20-DHDP acts through a different mechanism from that of another player in retinopathy — vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). This protein is induced under low-oxygen conditions.."

* So the real villain here is increased sEH and the question for future research is "what triggers increases in sEH production in diabetic retinopathy"

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had type 1 diabetes for 12 years, in the recent couple of years I occasionally take Omega3 and DHA supplements every day. My daily intake is 300 mg of Omega 3, 180 mg of EPA, 120 mg of DHA.

I couldn't really understand the full article. Does this mean I should switch to pure Vitamin D supplements instead of DHA?

As far as I could find, current understanding is that Omega3 (EPA and DHA) help prevent vascular damage and retinopathy.

"Mice receiving the omega-3 rich diet were observed to have 40-50% less initial retinal vessel loss compared to omega-6 fed mice. As a result, the omega-3 group had a similar 40-50% reduction in pathological vessel growth. The results were virtually identical in the Fat-1 mice, confirming that increased retinal omega-3 levels inhibited neo-vascularization." (Source: [http://www.sciencebasedhealth.com/-DHA-and-EPA-May- Protect-A...](http://www.sciencebasedhealth.com/-DHA-and-EPA-May-Protect- Against-Retinopathy-W71.aspx))

<comment><USER4> Please do not take advice about your health from hacker news. Type 1 diabetes is a serious condition. Consult a medical professional about your diet and medication.

<comment><USER5> That being said, you may find it worthwhile to work with an endocrinologist who stays abreast of this kind of research.

<comment><USER6> Most doctors are totally clueless regarding nutrition or supplements.

How do you even go about finding a doctor who "stays abreast of this kind of research" .

<comment><USER5> Depends on where you live. If it were me, I'd start with doctors who are actively involved with Joslin, or with a research-oriented teaching hospital like Mass. General.

If you don't live close to a city with one of those, I'm not sure what your best options would be.

If it's a huge deal, you might consider establishing a relationship with a specialist who you have to travel a long distance to visit, or even consider relocating.

EDIT: It's also been my experience that the occasional clinical endocrinologist NOT affiliated with a research / teaching hospital stays on top of current research. If your GP has been in working locally for a while, he/she may know which local endocrinologists are the sharpest, and may trust you well enough to make a few recommendations.

Also, I'm not sure if this is just an anomaly, but I've found that the local endocrinologists who immigrated from Poland are really on top of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The molecule 19,20-dihydroxydocosapentaenoic acid, formed by the metabolism of a fatty acid involved in normal brain function, promotes the development of a diabetes-associated form of blindness in a mouse model."

tl;dr Mice should be really careful when consuming too much omega-3 fatty acids.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow! So dark...

<comment><USER5> Ah crap! You may have retinopathy! ;)</comment></comment>


A new Internet communication protocol for Mars - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13725833

<comment><USER2> <http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tq/> has _all_ the Technology Quarterly stories on one page. TQ (and indeed the Economist's weekly science coverage at <http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/> ) is so consistently good that I urge HNers to just post one link rather than multiple individual stories.

No harm, no foul, but the multiple threads are a bit redundant.

<comment><AUTHOR> good idea, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Vint Cerf was talking about this back in 1998: <http://www.webreference.com/outlook/column26/index.html>

More here: <http://www.ipnsig.org/press.htm>

</comment><comment><USER4> Delay-tolerant networking is a pretty old idea. (As in, well over a decade)</comment>


Why learn haskell? - <AUTHOR> http://harrisonclarke.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/benefits-of-learning-haskell/

<comment><USER2> Very light on details and the same thing can be said about a thousand research programming languages.</comment>


Australian 'Bitcoin founder' quietly bidding for patent empire - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bitcoin-wright-patents-idUSKCN0Z61GM <comment><USER2> Seems like the measured steps of a business man, but not the principled action of the SATOSHI NAKAMOTO.

<comment><USER3> 'career fraudster' more like it

<comment><USER2> fraud, hustle, business...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of a thousand articles rewarding fraudsters with attention in order to discredit bitcoin.</comment>


Amazon reportedly surveilling its Flex drivers in private Facebook groups - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/2/21418057/amazon-surveilling-flex-delivery-drivers-facebook-groups-subreddits-strikes-protests <comment><USER2> Earlier discussion about original Vice article that this article draws from:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24343361)

</comment><comment><USER3> Now that is a real toxic company culture.

How was Bezos framing it? Adapt or die?</comment>


Show HN: A news-feed of the newest web development tutorials - <AUTHOR> https://www.ranktutorials.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi there,

I am currently learning web development and made this website to list all the tutorials I might use in the future. I thought if it's useful for me, maybe you guys might enjoy it as well :)</comment>


GitLab's radical vision for the future of [remote] work - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90548691/extremely-transparent-and-incredibly-remote-gitlabs-radical-vision-for-the-future-of-work <comment><USER2> just really love this part,

But while most organizations have backed into this setup, GitLab's all-remote, asynchronous work style is a highly intentional undertaking that Sid Sijbrandij, the company's San Francisco-based cofounder and CEO, is promoting well beyond its virtual halls. The pandemic ushered in "the first wave" of remote work, he says, "where people just take their existing processes and transplant them online." But he's focused on the beast-mode model, where you're not just moving processes that worked in a traditional office to a digital framework; you're rethinking the framework entirely. "The next wave," he says, "will be taking advantage of what remote can offer."</comment>


How did you learn RoR? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> First things: You need to know MVC, and you need to know Ruby. MVC takes a little while to wrap your brain around if you've only ever done things like PHP. There isn't really a great overview document for MVC, but if you do some google searching and wikipediaing, you can find some stuff. Understand what goes in the controller, and in the model, and in the view, and why we bother to separate them.

Then learn Ruby. There are a bunch of resources for this. Why's Poignant Guide is hilarious, but rather opaque. I recommend a book by David Black called Ruby for Rails, but I'm sure O'Reilly has some fine books too.

Now you're ready to start learning Rails. The online documentation is usually poorly organized -- at best. If you can afford it, pick up Agile Web Development with Rails. It's in its second edition now, and is much much better at introducing you to rails than any online resource I've seen. Maybe someone else here can recommend an online tutorial I haven't seen, but they seem to generally be more out of date than the books, rather than the other way around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does Agile Web Development with Rails have a section on learning Ruby? I'm wondering if I can kill two birds with one stone with this behemoth of a book

<comment><USER3> Most of the things in Ruby are objects, so you can try using plain english (ie. my_array.length, my_array.each {|element| puts element, ...).

If you get stuck, here's two links I use the most: <http://www.rubycentral.com/ref/> <http://api.rubyonrails.org/>

<comment><USER4> That reference link refers to Ruby 1.6.

You'll find more current info at <http://www.ruby-doc.org>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I followed through with a couple of online tutorials, then tried making my own app. I found it to be pretty difficult once I got past scaffolding and doing non-cookie-cutter things, seeing as how I didn't know much about the concept of MVC or where the line between Ruby ended and RoR began.

So, I picked up a copy of Agile Web Development with Rails and had at that for maybe a month, then I grabbed a copy of Programming Ruby (the pickaxe book).

I was also constantly asking questions and reading what was going on in IRC in the #rubyonrails room on freenode. Now I lurk around in there and answer the occasional question. Another great help was all of the RoR info being posted on reddit, but that site isn't even a shadow of its former glory now.

If you're more disciplined than I am, learn Ruby first, then learn RoR. Personally, I have a hard time doing that because my mind is always crawling with ideas, so I just dive right in to new things and figure out what I'm doing piece by piece.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just went and built something with it - <http://alltimetop5.com> I'm shocking at busy work for no good reason so I had to wait until a good enough idea came along to motivate me. The first version I just threw out, there were too many artefacts left from me stumbling wildly around.

I think that might be the point where you can call yourself proficient at ror, when you finally get how ugly the first code you wrote was :)

<comment><USER7> Mod +1. I wrote an app in rails over a few long weekends (having never touched RoR or ruby before).

Idling on the rails irc channel helped me get through some tough spots. These days there are a ton more resources than there were 2 years ago.

Having a goal seems to help get through the tough or slow-going parts of app development. (i.e. the goal of just finishing & launching it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Learn by doing. One way that I do is try to implement existing sites. This lets you concentrate on building the product instead of designing how it will look and feel. For example. Building this site in RoR would be a great exercise as the scope is large enough to include many features but not so large as to be impossible.

That said I wrote this blog entry a while ago that explains the main resources that i used to learn RoR. <http://www.productcriticblog.com/2007/03/top-6-resources-to-learn-ruby-on- rails.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> For me, the first step was to want to build something. That gave me the drive to want to find out how.

AWDR & Pickaxe are pretty indispensable (although I picked up Pickaxe much later). There are also loads of really great blogs (jamis buck, err the blog ..) and forums (railsweenie, ruby-forum ..) out there worth checking out regularly.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've learned things like PHP and Flash entirely through poking around online tutorials, but I can't seem to catch on by doing the same with RoR. I guess the philosophy of RoR is drastically different from what I'm used to.

How did you guys learn rails? I really want to learn it, but the tutorials aren't really working for me.

<comment><USER10> It's hard to learn Ruby on Rails from online tutorials - a downfall I discuss in a pretty popular post on my personal blog.

<http://www.michaelwales.com/2006/12/ror-education-takes-wrong-approach/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used three books in this order

Agile web development with Rails (for learning rails initially)

Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper (for learning ruby)

Rails Recipes (for doing useful stuff)

While reading these I also worked on converting an existing web app into rails.

</comment><comment><USER12> Same as awt - I built something with it (<http://www.charitycheckout.com).> It's amazing how building something really helps you focus on the parts of the framework and core language you need to learn.

</comment><comment><USER13> Got a book. Read it. Installed it. Followed the demo app. Wrote a small sample app. Wrote a larger sample app. Applied for related jobs. Got a related job. Worked hard. The End?

<comment><USER14> mind mentioning what book it was?

<comment><USER13> Agile development with Ruby on Rails.

But I got it before the current edition came out, so I don't know how it's changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I got a consulting project, told the client I was using RoR, and now I'm learning it. I think I've learned just about everything like this, with RoR being the most recent.

<comment><USER16> They didn't bother to ask you whether you already knew RoR? Or they're willing to pay you to learn it?

I want to know how you pulled this off.

<comment><USER15> Consulting is mostly a relationship business, and I have an excellent relationship with these guys. I did however have to guarantee my work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Buy pick axe book. Buy agile web development on rails book. Ruby cookbook is good as well. Build something. Subscribe to rails/ruby blogs.

<comment><USER18> Books(In this order, if you know no Ruby): 1\. Agile Web Development w Rails 2nd ed. It's available as a pdf direct from the Pragmatic Programmers

-. Skip the Pickaxe book for now, the 1st edition is online at <http://www.rubycentral.com/book/>

2\. Black's Ruby for Rails (Manning). Read this not long after AWDwR. It provides much insight into the Ruby behind the Rails.

3 (tie). Either Orsini's Rails Cookbook (O'Reilly) (the testing chapter is particularly useful if it's new to you)

3 (tie). Fowler's Rails Recipes (Pragmatic Programmers). Both books are very good. If anything, 'Recipes' gets you movign faster, but you'll probably learn more from the Cookbook.

opt. Ajax on Rails by Raymond (O'Reilly). An in Depth Reference to Prototype, Scriptaculus and rjs. Useful since there is no really good reference on these for the noob.

opt. The Ruby Way by Fulton (Addison Wesley) An 'inside out' Ruby reference. Instead of going through classes and methods on by one, this book is organized by things one can do, with the classes and methods introduced in context. Not so much every day useful- but if you don't have access to a real liver rubyist, it's a good way to see how one might approach a problem.

opt. The Pickaxe 2nd ed (dead tree format). Some folks just like to step away from the computer, and still think about computers.

Other than books: The google groups for rails: rubyonrails-talk (general discussion. A great list btw good questions get answered very well usually. No attitude at all.)

rubyonrails-core (the core contributors and rails internals)

rubyonrails-spinoffs (mostly the ajaxy stuff)

rubyonrails-security (created after an incident last year to spread urgent messages about rails vunerabilities, announcements only)

The api docs:

either at api.rubyonrails.org (rails)

or caboo.se (another rails doc project)

www.ruby-doc.org/core (Ruby core)

www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib (Ruby standard library)

Hope this helps,

J.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I should add I also got the Agile Web development book by Dave Thomas to support my learning.

</comment><comment><USER19> I built something with it.</comment>


Tell HN: Adblocks are killing niche blogs - <AUTHOR> Just checked analytics from my blogs: during this quarter vs the one before, despite having 40% more pageviews, adsense visualizations decreased 45%.<p>If I didn't get some funds from a banner that escapes ad-blocks my blogs would be abandonware already. <comment><USER2> How is your banner avoid ad-blocks? Over the past year Ive doubled my traffic but adsense views were flat. My site gets a ton of ad-blocked traffic now.

[http://roadcamvideos.com](http://roadcamvideos.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Would you consider running a "paid zone"? I have seen many blogs with no adds at all but with a group of subscribers who had access to deep insights - information otherwise not available to wide audience.

<comment><USER4> Or perhaps do what LWN do. Paid subscribers can read the latest posts as soon as you publish them, but others can only read them a few weeks later(or whatever time period you prefer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately, the only practical options are using tracking/analytics heavy ad based niche blogs, or no niche blogs.

I think most people are A-OK with "no niche blogs" until a better privacy- respecting third alternative is found. (Paid can be a viable third option for some)

</comment><comment><USER6> The people using adblockers are not the people who were clicking ads.</comment>


Ask HN: How to do proper valuation of a web appliation? - <AUTHOR>

How a web application's worth is determined? What is the process behind it? Is there any reliable tool for website valuation? How can I make sure that I'm not underselling my web application? <comment><USER2> A web application's worth is the price at which a buyer and seller mutually agree to sell it. That isn't the answer you want, but it is correct. There are a variety of factors which can increase or decrease that number:

1) Is the person selling it unsavvy about business? Just like engineers suck at salary negotiations and end up working for $45k, if you suck at negotiating sales price, that has an outsized impact on value relative to any objective factor.

2) Does it solve a strategic need for the acquiring company? For example, if you're Google, it isn't maximally relevant to you that an acquisition target "only" has 10k users, because you're going to put Google Muscle behind it and distribution is trivial to you. If it solves a problem for, e.g., AdWords adoption in a particular vertical, like say local, valuation is utterly unconnected to current revenue/users/etc. (A foreign telecommunications firm put in a fairly generous offer for Appointment Reminder when it had no customers and no revenue, with the intention of slotting it straight into their product lineups.)

3) Failing the strategic acquisition factor, some web apps (typically ones you won't read about in the newspaper) are sold as turnkey businesses. Valuations are generally based on a multiple of the last year's profits, with the multiple sensitive to the amount of risk, etc. If I sold BCC on Flippa, for example, I could reasonably expect to get ~$25k for it: a wee bit less than 1X last year's profits. $50k would be pushing it. Nobody in their right mind would pay $100k for it if they were just intended on keeping it running as it is.

4) Are there multiple prospects to play against each other? Bidding wars raise prices, sometimes very significantly.

5) Is the app in a "rich" vertical? There are occasionally examples of heavily undermonetized web sites bought for anomalously high sums of money. Some SEO friends of mine love taking people's hobby projects and bolting on effective monetization. If there is an obvious route to this, then the fact that current revenues are terribly might not necessarily predict a 1 * $TERRIBLE sales price.

6) How risky is the web app's current position? Is it highly dependent on a single source of traffic ( _cough_ Google)? Is it highly dependent on a single source of traffic _and_ has it gotten that traffic through grey hat tactics which could be discovered at any time via manual or automated review? Is it in a declining field? Is it in a rapidly evolving field where competition could reasonably be expected to eat its lunch?

7) What are the upkeep expenses, including _fair market salaries_ for employees for any skills needed? Just because my time is free to me doesn't mean the Rails programmers and SEOs that the company grabbing any of my sites will need are also free.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have never sold (or bought) a web app before, but I have had to value various different types of assets due to my job. The most common valuation technique would be to use the Discounted Cash Flow model. In short, you project your pre-tax cash flow for say the next 10 years, and discount them at the required return which the investors are looking for. This rate is determined by a multitude of factors, such as the stability of your business model, target market, etc.

Then at the end of your projection, you simulate a sale of your business by 'capping' it at a certain rate. Then you add this terminal value to the sum of all the discounted cash flows calculated above, you have the total value for your business.

Of course in hi-tech sector things fluctuate too much too quickly. But the model should be the same, you just have to adjust your discount rate and terminal capitalization rate to account for those fluctuations.

</comment><comment><USER4> Web-apps are worth nothing. The business around the app is what valuation is about. You can build an app for guessing color of user's underpants, but if it ain't paying or doesn't have potential business lurking around - it's just worth nothing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me clarify my question through an example site everyone here knows - threewords.me. The site became popular and got sold even though it had zero revenue. While selling such sites, how to determine a proper selling price? What affects the valuation of such sites - page views, number of active users, niche concept, it's usefulness for the target buyer etc?

<comment><USER5> >What affects the valuation of such sites - page views, number of active users, niche concept,

In many cases, factors listed below may also be taken into account:

* Sources of organic (free) traffic, and how diversified/stable they are (e.g. if 90% of your organic traffic comes via Google, not much good)

* Quantity and quality of (natural) inbound links pointing to your site

* Average conversion rate (even if you're not selling anything, there would probably be a 'most preferred action' that you want from the users - how many take this?)

* Even bookmarking rate can be used a valuation factor

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth what others are willing to pay for it. A good (and time-tested) way of determining this price is to start low and then hike the price up steadily until your revenue starts to level off. When you reach this level, this is a decent indicator of how much to charge for your application.

<comment><USER7> This isn't what the OP is asking about (Correct me if I'm wrong, OP). He's referring to valuation of the project in the sense that Google is worth $200b, not how much to charge customers of the application.

As for your strategy for deciding how much to charge (which is a different problem, again), there are two problems I see:

1\. Users don't like when prices are gradually being hiked. There are subconscious effects like number-fixation (where people are attached to the first numbers they see), which causes them to perceive future prices as excessive, and there are conscious effects like the disdain of price hikes.

2\. This strategy maximizes short-term revenue. There are other considerations which are more important, like profit (revenues minus costs)--with costs that are not purely fixed, maximizing revenue will not maximize how much money you make ultimately. Another consideration is the long term--charging less may cause faster adoption, which may be better for the long term.

You never want to be completely myopic in pricing unless you don't think there's a future to your app and you want to extract as much money as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, right. I'm not asking about pricing strategy for a web based product but how to determine how much my web application is worth if I want to sell it. For example, sites like threewords.me isn't generating any revenue but still it has been sold at some price. How to determine the selling price of such web app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How can I make sure that I'm not underselling my web application? -> one easy way that I know of: say no to an offer. If they come back with an higher offer, you were underselling.

<comment><USER9> What if they reject it, and you realize you should have taken it and go back to them, but then they quote lower than the original offer sensing that you are desperate to get it off your hands. It works both ways.

<comment><USER8> The question wasn't "how can I get the highest amount of money for my web app."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Easy. Using the Standard Q2 2011 Bubble Valuation Form:

Start with $500k.

Application Factors: If it has anything to do with "social", multiply by 5. If it's written in a functional language, multiply by 2. If it ends with -ify or has a .ly TLD, multiply by 3.

Personal Factors: If you live in silicon valley and hang out at hipster bars, multiply by 2. If you're far better at name-dropping than you are at producing actual value, multiply by 4.

If none of the above are applicable and you have an actual product or service that people actually use, figure 12x annual earnings, plus a premium for growth expectations.</comment>


Inside the Twitch data team - <AUTHOR> https://mixpanel.com/blog/2015/09/29/scaling-without-losing-focus-on-meaningful-metrics-how-twitch-gets-it-right <comment><USER2> In case someone tried to click the link to the paper "4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community", here is an actual clickable link to save you some time trying to reconstruct it

[http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFi...](http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2873/4398)

<comment><USER3> thanks, fixed!</comment></comment>


Space X lands Falcon 9 stage 1 on drone ship (picture) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718542763545899008 <comment><USER2> I grabbed this from another tweet: [https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex- successful-barge-landing....](https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex-successful- barge-landing.html)

I'm so damn excited I can hardly contain myself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the video starting at the landing

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pUAydjne5M&feature=youtu.be&t=35m52s)

<comment><USER4> Gif from the other thread...

[http://i.imgur.com/lH4qRaK.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/lH4qRaK.gifv)

<comment><USER5> Here it is in reverse!

[http://i.imgur.com/kpXtp9g.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/kpXtp9g.gifv)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not even american but still so proud of what humans can achieve.

<comment><USER7> Neither is Elon Musk. And the SpaceX team is multinational as well, talent knows no borders.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Yet, for some reason, the SpaceX team was chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A" after witnessing the landing. I thought that it would have been far more appropriate to chant "SpaceX"

<comment><USER9> Chanting USA is pretty common in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This landing is epic!

</comment><comment><USER11> Elon Musk, within the same week, sold 300,000+ preorders for the Model 3 (the largest dollar-figure launch of ANY product in history), AND landed a friggin rocket on a drone ship for the first time in history.

He is hands down the greatest entrepreneur within our lifetime, and possibly the greatest in modern history.

PS - yes, I'm a fanboy - jesus christ how can you not be? and yes, it goes without saying he couldn't have done it without all the hard-working employees at both companies.

<comment><USER12> Elon might be able to take personal credit for booking 300k pre-orders (which is of debatable merit), but it was an army of incredibly dedicated SpaceX employees who landed that rocket. Credit where credit is due.

<comment><USER13> If Elon can't take credit for the landing, he can't take credit for the pre- orders either.

Both companies' achievements are the result of thousands of people doing incredibly high-quality work, all overseen and directed and urged on by Elon.

The credit goes to him and to them, for both.</comment></comment></comment>


Tech808 – The Only Hip Hop Inspired Tech Entrepreneurship Conference - <AUTHOR> http://www.tech808.co/dc

<comment><AUTHOR> Tech808 is a conference focused on entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds. They are the type of people that are ruthlessly determined, insanely ambitious, and passionate dream chasers who are not afraid to challenge themselves or the status quo. This is the type of person that will build a company even if they do not have all the skills or answers when they start.

In partnership with George Washington University, Tech808: DC is all about learning what it takes to build and succeed in today's startup world. It will provide aspiring entrepreneurs with the framework on how to navigate the startup world without all the buzzwords.

</comment><comment><USER2> Tech808 is this Saturday June 6th at George Washington University and it's shaping up to be one of the rarest types of tech conferences to hit the DC area. Tech808's mission is to bring awareness of the possibilities of tech entrepreneurship within the urban culture.

Who Should Attend Tech808? Wantrepreneurs: You are the new guy/girl on the block. You want to start a company but have no idea how. You might have a 9 to 5 gig, been laid off, or decided it was time for a change. All of our speakers have been there, #Tech808 will not only educate you on tactics needed, but it will also leave YOU INSPIRED TO CHASE YOUR DREAMS!

Entrepreneurs: So you already started to chase your dreams? Salutes on that! Now join us at #Tech808 to learn how to take your company and yourself to the next level. We've brought together some incredible speakers to teach YOU their tactics that have led them to success.

Speakers/sessions include: Paul Brunson - "Business Lessons I Learned From 3 Billionaires"

Sheena Allen / Benjamin Young - "How To Build Your First App" These two combined have over 10 millions downloads on the app store.

Dwight Peters - "Hustlers Ambition" How he came from sleeping on a couch to a $100,000 in profits building a tech business in 1 year.

And many many more!

Tickets are on sale now for $75, but using the promo code "family" will bring the cost down to just $55.

RSVP now to learn actionable tips you can apply to your business the same day.

RSVP: [http://Bossup.us/tech808dc](http://Bossup.us/tech808dc)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tech808 is, unlike many meetings and conferences in the entrepreneurial and tech worlds, all about inclusion, where coders and UX people talk and learn from one another. This is an experience that crosses industries, generations, and personality styles. Boss UP.</comment>


2600: Spring Issue and Important Update - <AUTHOR> https://2600.com/content/spring-issue-2600-released-important-news <comment><USER2> Wow, this is heartbreaking to read. It's been 2 decades since I last bought a copy of 2600 but I always enjoyed reading it and would digest each of the articles as best I could, often struggling to figure out wtf they were talking about. But I knew it was something special and almost forbidden, which made for a really unique experience.

I'll probably buy a digital copy just to chip in, would be sad to see 2600 disappear after so long.

</comment><comment><USER3> 2600 is by far the only physical magazine I will purchase when I see it on a shelf.

I even requested that a local bookstore begin carrying it and they thankfully did.

I currently subscribe to the digital issue, but I'll be subscribing to the physical issue now.

I know they say there are worthy causes - but I would happily outright donate money to keep 2600.

I think it may be beneficial if they published what their expected loses were, and perhaps had a donation counter. These are both effective ways to motivate people to give.

</comment><comment><USER4> It would be a crying shame to see 2600 go the way of LinuxJournal.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll never forget the sound of a CPU popping smoke at a local 2600 meeting, back in the day. That was one unhappy camper.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am confused by this - how do I know what I'm buying if there's not a single article available? Or is it one of those things where if you have to ask what it is, it's not for you?

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600:_The_Hacker_Quarterly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600:_The_Hacker_Quarterly)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was a subscriber for a few years in the 2000s but let it lapse. Just got a lifetime subscription. I hope they survive.</comment>


Bots Get Smart - <AUTHOR> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/7011 <comment><USER2> It is a trade-off of computing resources. For FPS game, it is easier to employ good AI as there are fewer NPC. But for RTS type, it is harder. In the ideal situation, each unit in RTS game should have its own AI. But actually that is nearly impossible. So now, for RTS game, each unit was operated by FSM and there are some AI strategies to control the overall flow. A good AI always means more computing. And unlike graphics, AI algorithms cannot easily be paralleled. These are the challenges I saw so far.

<comment><USER3> There are a lot of ways AI algorithms can be parallel. Chess being an easy example, but there are parallel approaches to most AI problems. I could go on but feel free to suggest a specific example that can't be run in parallel.

PS: It's normal to consider several options, weight them, and pick the best one. All of these processes can be run in parallel.

<comment><USER2> In my text, I said "cannot easily". When you consider the general search problem, it seems so easy to parallel. But to adapt the search process to thousands of threads, the cost to avoid repeat search is high because you have to maintain a list of taboo area. By carefully design, you may avoid that problem. But here, I am talking about extra-time cost and not intend to say that it is impossible.

<comment><USER3> Modern game programmers still only need to split the AI over 8 or so cores to take advantage of "Multi processor" systems. Unless you are running the AI off the GPU. Getting that to work well can be as simple as separating a complex evaluation of each node across a different CPU. It's not going to be 4x as fast on 4 CPU's but there would still be a significant boost. Or with multiple AI's just give each of them a core and move on.

Now if your talking about 10,000 node clusters it becomes a much harder problem but efficiently doing most things on a huge cluster is hard.

<comment><USER2> Yes, you get my point. The graphics can take advantage of GPU, but the AI merely can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised he didn't mention ninja gaiden. I'm not sure what that game does AI wise, but it certainly seems to know what it's doing.

</comment><comment><USER5> i misread it as 'boss get smart'

luckily i was wrong</comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendations for finding a mobile app development company? - <AUTHOR> Thanks in Advance. My non-profit is looking to develop native mobile apps for our organization. I'm a little overwhelmed as most of the organizations that have come up have done apps for huge multinationals and it feels we already cant afford it. Any recommendations on finding a firm to help us with this? <comment><USER2> I don't do freelance app development anymore, but I've developed a few dozen new products (web, mobile web, and native mobile). I'm also the co-founder of a non-profit, so I understand the situation you're in well.

I see quite a few non-profits get taken for a ride by development shops, so I'd be happy to help you avoid that. I can also generally give you advice on your mobile strategy.

Shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER3> my firm can help: www.mathandpencil.com! - email me at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Show HN: An Arduino in the browser (prototype) - <AUTHOR> http://ardui.divshot.io/

<comment><USER2> Hey how do you do it? You created an emulator/port from asm.js?

I tried to do this in the past in ActionScript, but we could not make it happen properly.

<comment><AUTHOR> this is more of a spike towards [https://www.npmjs.com/package/chrome- serialport](https://www.npmjs.com/package/chrome-serialport) \- connecting the http module with long polling is not too difficult for reading. otherwise sockets are probably cleaner. for the asm.js approach, what blocking points did you experience?

<comment><USER2> We did another aproach, because it was like 8 years ago, we decided to try to implement a emolator for the microcontroller in ActionScript, but that resulted really too hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is the code on github?

<comment><AUTHOR> will be coming - the main thing is using svgify to transform svg into inline javascript. the interaction is done with the Backbone MV* approach: [http://thinkingonthinking.com/fast-start-with- backbonejs/](http://thinkingonthinking.com/fast-start-with-backbonejs/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sell domains using a TXT record - <AUTHOR> https://www.dnsperch.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I initially built this as an experiment in making a useful service with as little user interface as possible, and then thought that I'd try turning it into a service. It turns out, though, that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to marketing. So, I guess this is kind of an Ask HN as well: how do I find users for a service like this (outside of HN)? I did dabble briefly with AdWords but didn't know enough about how it worked to use it effectively, and I'm at a bit of a loss for other ideas.

</comment><comment><USER2> No, just no.

<comment><USER3> Please do not post shallow dismissals, and especially not in Show HN threads.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


German EID Authentication Flaw Lets You Change Identity - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/german-eid-authentication-flaw-lets-you-change-identity/ <comment><USER2> Really cool. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lives again!

Worth noting is that the card system seems to have been approved by BSI, the NSA of Germany.

<comment><USER3> BSI is much more like the IT parts of NIST</comment></comment>


Pediatricians say farm use of antibiotics harms children - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/pediatricians-say-farm-use-of-antibiotics-harms-children/ <comment><USER2> 80% of antibiotics are being given to livestock animals:

>The proportion of antibiotics sold in the United States each year that go to animals turns out to be not 70 percent, but rather 80 percent. Here's CLF's Ralph Loglisci, who got the confirmatory numbers from the FDA.

[http://www.wired.com/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals- get-80...](http://www.wired.com/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals-get-80-of- antibiotics-sold-in-us/)

And they also do it because it makes the animals gain weight:

>especially troubling is their use not to cure sick animals but to promote "feed efficiency," that is, to increase the animal's weight gain per unit of feed. These drugs are also regularly added to the feed and water of animals that are not sick in order to prevent diseases caused by overcrowded and unsanitary CAFO conditions. These nontherapeutic uses translate into relatively cheap meat prices at the grocery store.

[http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing- food-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food- system/industrial-agriculture/prescription-for-trouble.html)

I wish they'd save the antibiotics for humans so they'd be more effective. I also wonder if all the antibiotics are making humans gain weight.

<comment><USER3> > I also wonder if all the antibiotics are making humans gain weight.

I'm wondering this too. Hopefully with the new research that's been happening with regards to gut flora we'll start to quantify how the amounts and type of bacteria affect digestive efficiency.

<comment><USER4> Cooking meat means our immune system has fewer bacteria to kill off once the meat has entered our bloodstream, thus it's less work for the same calories. Would antibiotics have a similar impact?

There was a recent study where one group of mice were fed raw meat, and another were fed cooked meat. The cooked meat group gained weight while the raw meat group lost weight.

<comment><USER5> Cooking meat has much more to do with breaking down some of the less digestible parts of the food.

For example, [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17827047](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17827047) says "For meat, cooking compromises the structural integrity of the tissue by gelatinizing the collagen. Hence, cooked meat should take less effort to digest compared to raw meat. Likewise, less energy would be expended digesting ground meat compared to intact meat. We tested these hypotheses by assessing how the cooking and/or grinding of meat influences the energy expended on its digestion, absorption, and assimilation (i.e., specific dynamic action, SDA) using the Burmese python, Python molurus."

That abstract concludes "We found cooking to decrease SDA by 12.7%, grinding to decrease SDA by 12.4%, and the combination of the two (cooking and grinding) to have an additive effect, decreasing SDA by 23.4%. These results support the hypothesis that the consumption of cooked meat provides an energetic benefit over the consumption of raw meat."

For another example, see [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/08/why- calori...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/08/why-calorie- counts-are-wrong-cooked-food-provides-a-lot-more-energy/) :

> Half the time the sweet potato or meat was presented raw, and half the time > cooked; half the time it was also pounded and half the time unpounded. ... > For both meat and sweet potato, Rachel found that when the food was cooked > the mice gained more weight (or lost less weight) than when it was raw. > Pounding had very little effect.

> We suspect that there are two major reasons for cooked beef providing more > calories than raw beef. In cooked beef, the muscle proteins, like the sugars > in cooked starch, have opened up and allowed digestive enzymes to attack > their amino acid chains. Cooking also does this for collagen, a protein that > makes meat difficult to chew because it forms the connective tissue wrapped > around muscle fibers. However, we do not know the exact mechanisms.

Neither mention killing off bacteria, which makes sense as 1) meat doesn't enter the bloodstream but only its digestive products, and 2) stomach acids kill most of the bacteria.

That second paper is [http://www.pnas.org/content/108/48/19199.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/108/48/19199.abstract) .

> The positive energetic effects of cooking were found to be superior to the > effects of pounding in both meat and starch-rich tubers, a conclusion > further supported by food preferences in fasted animals. Our results > indicate significant contributions from cooking to both modern and ancestral > human energy budgets. They also illuminate a weakness in current food > labeling practices, which systematically overestimate the caloric potential > of poorly processed foods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They touch on it in the article, but it is worth calling special attention to the use of antibiotics to add weight to the animals. It's not being used to treat disease, it's being used to "hack" the biology of the animal to increase yield.

Debate on the use of antibiotics for the agricultural industry seems to conflate this indiscriminate usage with targeted therapeutic use.

<comment><USER7> The other half of that sentence is important too:

> ... or prevent future illness

The future illness that they're often protecting the animal from is the natural result of feeding the animal an unnatural diet (corn, soy, etc...stuff that's cheaper than what the animal is historically fed). The illness that's being prevented isn't just possible, it's what would be expected without the antibiotic. Any controls on using antibiotics would need to include provisions for banning them in situations where the health of the animal was knowingly compromised. Otherwise, you create a loophole that allows the industry to make the animals sick and then use antibiotics to treat the sickness they caused.

<comment><USER8> Do you have any evidence that the diets fed to farm animals increase the risk of illnesses?

<comment><USER7> Googling produces a ton of results, but here's one that looks pretty reputable (USDA, based off many other studies): [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010511074623.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010511074623.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It never ceases to amaze me how irrational most people are. On September 11, 2001 about 3000 people died in a very dramatic way, and the US launches the whole war on terrorism boondoggle, pretty much throws out the Constitution etc. But here 23000 people die every year, in a rather undramatic way, and not a whole lot is being done.

<comment> saiya-jin there are whole businesses based on human irrationality/outright stupidity (just few random examples - short term loans, gambling, smoking tobacco). We tend to think we are better than in reality, and tend to sidetrack evidence of contrary (maybe to be more happy with ourselves, who knows)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The increase of antibiotic resistance is a matter of legitimate public concern. But this article abuses the same "think of the children" meme that worldly people everywhere despise in politics and journalism of every sort.

Children are more susceptible to infection than healthy adults, but so are the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. We don't need to pull at the heartstrings to justify a conservative approach to the use of antibiotics.

<comment><USER11> Children are also going to live longer than the rest of us, and so will be getting old after most antibiotics become useless.

<comment><USER10> The same could be said about every problem facing the species.

<comment><USER12> Only ones with a presumed irreversible tipping point.

<comment><USER10> To be clear, the issue of antibiotic resistance is not such a problem. Generally, resistant bacteria are less fit than their nonresistant counterparts in the absence of the antibiotic, so we should expect that after a period of disuse antibiotics would once again become useful.

<comment><USER13> "Period of disuse" may mean hundreds of years when people die of simple cuts and there's no point of even having a hospital. Biology has a lot of intertia.

<comment><USER14> We may not need to wait nearly so long.

This is a quote from a book by Nick Lane that I think would be relevant here.

"studies show that bacteria can lose superfluous genes in a matter of hours or days. Such fast gene loss means that bacterial species tend to retain the smallest number of genes compatible with viability at any one moment."

The main reason he claims is that for bacteria, the speed of DNA replication is generally the limiting factor in speed of cell division and proliferation of said bacteria, so selection pressures lead to more favorable outcomes for the bacteria that maintain the smallest functional genome.

The book is _Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life_ if you or anyone else is interested. Fascinating read I would recommend it.

<comment><USER13> Interesting, haven't heard of that observation or the book. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Don't mess with complex systems we don't understand. Whether it is GMOS, global climate or administering antibiotics to animals.

It should be incumbent upon those tinkering with complex systems to provide proof of non-harm. Right now, its the other way around, where those who are harmed have to provide proof of harm.

<comment><USER16> Please don't conflate issues with scientific backing (antibiotic abuse) with unscientific fearmongering (GMOs).

It drags the legitimate concerns down and makes them look like crackpot conspiracies.

<comment><USER17> There are reasons to be concerned with GMOs that are not at odds with science. Let me quote something from a comment from a few weeks ago:

\---- begin quote ----

GMOs aren't inherently dangerous to human health or inherently environmentally destructive. But they do let producers do things faster and more extreme than they could do via conventional breeding techniques.

They've used those conventional techniques to reduce crop diversity, and select for things like uniform time to grow and uniform size/shape to make mechanical processing easy, over selecting for things like nutrition and flavor.

Is there any good reason to believe that the increased power GMO techniques give them won't be used to go even farther in those directions?

With great power comes great responsibility. I'm skeptical that the big food companies are responsible enough for GMO, and with government food regulation more determined by industry lobbying than by actual science I have little faith that the government will do anything to make sure GMO techniques are only used for good.

\---- end quote ----

<comment><USER13> Those, I agree, are legitimate concerns worth discussing. But 'bpodgursky is right that it's harder to discuss those when people are mostly vocal about some invented fear-inducing non-issues. This also holds for discussions about nuclear power.

About your concerns - it's worth noting that they're political/economical in nature and have nothing to do with genetic modifications itself. I agree with most of them, but personally believe that it's not enough to shut down the entire branch of science, as some of the opponents seem to want. But those issues definitely need to be addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> With antiobiotics so prevalent in livestock feed, why aren't they leading to the rise of a drug-resistant strain of something in livestock? Have they?</comment>