Equinix is acquiring Packet - <AUTHOR> https://www.packet.com/blog/ping-power-processors/ <comment><USER3> A fun story! Packet support contacted me one day last fall to ask about my business. I said I had none, I used Packet years before then for personal projects and only for a few days. Then they asked what my plans were for the 13 VMs I had running. I knew of no such VMs.

I guess my account got pwned.

They asked how I'd pay for these - $900 worth I think - since I didn't have a valid card in their system (the previous one expired since I last used Packet). I told them to stop the VMs and allow me to reset my credentials. I also asked them to investigate their logs and geolocate all the users that logged into my account. I was also curious they actually let someone log into the account from a new IP (without notifying me) and also allowed them to run instances without a valid card.

They blocked my account, which also blocked this support thread. So I started a new thread from an alternative e-mail address to resolve the issues.

I never heard from them again.

<comment><USER4> My company moved to packet about two years ago, for about half of our cloud- based server needs. We loved the pricing and figured it was worth a shot.

Over the last 2 years, we've had ~4 major outages on their platform. The last of these was so severe we're moving everything back off and over to aws.

<comment><USER5> 4 outages in 2 years isn't horrible.... AWS would have the same story, as would basically any other hosting provider.

<comment><USER6> It really depends on what you consider a major outage. If we set the bar at at events that would break customers using a single hosted location, 4 over two years isn't horrible. Things in this category are fiber cuts, automatic transfer switch failures and other power issues, PoP router mishaps, HVAC failures, etc. Steps can be taken by the provider to reduce the occurrence of these, but some will happen, and customers that care should build around it.

If we set the bar at events that break customers who have taken reasonable steps to be geographically distributed, 4 over two years is horrible. Things here are cascading router failure, BGP misconfiguration or external hijack, major peering dispute, bad push to critical systems. If these aren't rare, it's likely to be avoidable failures caused by the provider. Sometimes the earlier types of problems hit here too --- fiber cuts between regional data centers can be major problems if more things run on that fiber than expected; it's always fun to learn redundant fiber is in the same bundle, and usually that's learned when the bundle is cut.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Likely bad news and writing on the wall for the open-but-competitive culture at Packet. Equinix has been historically turning every single acquisition into a closed-off enterprise-only product/service, especially in the IXP space.

<comment><USER8> I didn't know how fast to turn around when I tried to register an account and they insisted I needed to provide a copy of my passport or drivers license. I don't know why I need to provide such information for a hosting provider as I've never had to do so before at any of their competitors.

or perhaps you mean something else with open?

<comment><USER9> They obviously wanted to verify who you were which is why they requested a government issued photo ID.

Good on them for being proactive about it instead of waiting until you had created a server. Could you imagine a production server being frozen while they wait for you to verify your identity?

Fraud is incredibly prevalent in the hosting space. Spammers, CC fraud, hackers, etc.. all stand to benefit from servers not obtained in their own name.

<comment><USER10> > Fraud is incredibly prevalent in the hosting space. Spammers, CC fraud, > hackers, etc.. all stand to benefit from servers not obtained in their own > name.

All of those can get fake id scans for a couple of dollars each.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Packet's offering are so good and so much above competition that it's not even funny.

I mean, why almost no one else is offering BGP ECMP, byoip, anycast routing, a sane setup system among others. It boggles my mind.

It's a hard sell going back to geoip and shitty layer2 switching that you get everywhere else after using their services.

<comment><USER12> hi I'm a mere frontend developer who doesnt do much at the network layer - <USER2> you mind ELIFEDing to me what exactly Packet got right? What's the big deal about automated bare metal? is it somehow a lot faster? cheaper? than virtualization? Is Packet 100% for edge computing or is Equinix kinda repurposing it in this acquisition for its edge computing strategy?

I feel like something that is so obvious to you is not obvious to me and it'd probably help other readers here to follow along. Thanks in advance

<comment><USER13> Here's the way I see it: there are a lot of customers who don't need all of the AWS services. They also would prefer to be running on bare metal for performance reasons, and to have slightly more control over their application. I know AWS with the nitro instances are closing that gap, but packet was around before they had those.

Also, their provisioning software is excellent. From the time you choose to deploy, it takes only about 30 to 45 seconds for your instance to start. I know AWS is faster, but AWS isn't installing a new operating system each time. as the other posters pointed out, they have a lot of features that AWS will also not let you do, like bgp with ecmp.

lastly, they tend to have newer types of instances that other providers don't that you can play around on. The cavium arm processor comes to mind, which I haven't seen on any of the major cloud providers.

<comment><USER12> ok awesome. minor follow up - why do customers care about the newer instances like cavium arm processors? again is it a pure performance thing? or they are extremely optimized for some kind of workload?

maybe i'm so used to OSes abstracting things that I completely lack knowledge about what baremetal choices can do for me. this is a little scary.

<comment><USER13> I can't speak for everyone, but ARM processors may be cheaper for some types of workloads. In terms of cores/$, they're cheaper, but some applications would perform far worse on those than on x86. Others just want to use them as a playground to test ideas without buying an ARM server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Packet's blog post: [https://www.packet.com/blog/ping-power- processors/](https://www.packet.com/blog/ping-power-processors/)

This is probably a good play for Equinix as it provides a lower barrier to entry to a segment of the market that they typically haven't engaged (Packet being largely profitable probably helps).

In addition, I believe Packet already had presence in a number of Equinix datacenters so "landlord buys tenant" comes to mind...

<comment><USER13> How do you know they're profitable?

<comment><USER14> Assumption based on 1) their pricing model and 2) them being acquired by Equinix (who I consider quite conservative).

<comment><USER13> I believe their pricing model was cheaper than any of the major cloud providers for an equivalent compute and networking resources. Given that their margins are also lower due to the volumes, I wouldn't think that it's obvious that they were profitable just by their pricing model.

<comment><USER15> Their control plane is more simple

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was hoping for Packet to be the next big bare metal provider so this is kinda sad at first glance. I've heard great things about them but haven't used them; I was considering them for a side project of spinning up my own k8s cluster just because.

GCP and AWS probably fit the needs of most established businesses. I know quite a few startups that use bare metals though since they cost a lot less. Plus, you have complete visibility and control over your entire stack.

I hope others spring up to address the market of users needing extremely highly customized systems at the lowest costs.

<comment><USER17> Packet's pricing doesn't seem worth it to me compared to GCP - looking at their list prices they seem to be priced just 20% less for compute (actually same if you get e2s) so unless I'm missing something seems like very niche offering...

<comment><USER18> GCP will literally shut off your servers, with email support only, and f*ck you. Happened to me right after I'd done a multi-million job for Nike the weekend before. No recourse, nothing. Just "we think this is fraud so we're shutting you down, here's a noreply email to contact us".

I wouldn't consider using GCP for anything I cared about. AWFUL customer service.

<comment><USER17> Don't put production account on cc

Edit: also gcp is just one example. DO has virtually same price tag

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder what the purchase price was. According to TechCrunch, Packet was valued at $100M and had raised $36M. [https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/14/equinix-is-acquiring- bare-...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/14/equinix-is-acquiring-bare-metal- cloud-provider-packet/)

<comment><USER20> With liquidation preferences, it would have to be at least $36M before the investors are fully repaid and the founders start seeing a single cent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems they are in the process of open sourcing their deployment software. Does anyone know how this affects that? The github repos are still empty.

</comment><comment><USER21> Packet has to be the most impossible to google company name ever. Unless you google "packet + bare metal" or something.

</comment><comment><USER22> _" When the transaction closes later this quarter, Packet will continue operating as before: same team, same platform, same vision. Our commitment to our customers ..."_ \-- The question is _how long_ before Equinix decides to change the _status quo_.

I'm seeing it as yet another (after recent news on Visa's Plaid acquisition) blow to diversification and competition in the cloud and technology ecosystems. Generally, industry consolidation is IMO a scary thing ...

</comment><comment><USER23> This is sad news. I used Packet for a benchmarking project ([https://github.com/senderista/hashtable- benchmarks](https://github.com/senderista/hashtable-benchmarks)) and was super impressed by the ease of use. Put EC2 absolutely to shame (and was much cheaper than EC2's bare metal offering).

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure that very many people understood what sort of spot pricing Packet had. I have rented _so many_ hours of EPYC server time for $.25/hr in SJC1. Or a 96 core ARM machine for $.30/hr in Amsterdam.

I had good luck with them and they were always responsive in their Slack. I was sad to see the news, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER25> So Equinx is stepping into Cloud Hosting?

What makes Packet any difference to, Linode, DO, Upcloud, Vultr, Hivelocity, and many others? Where the first few are bringing Bare Metal to its offering along with Database aaS.

<comment><USER26> Equinix has long been in the cloud game. Most public clouds have at least some presence in their data centers or using their global network backbone. I do believe this is their first venture into direct to consumer cloud sales assuming they retain Packet's business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> When IBM bought SoftLayer, it destroyed the value proposition of SoftLayer, and we had to move.

Looks like we'll be shopping for a new provider, again.

</comment><comment><USER28> Running Bullshit.js over the press release...

[https://i.imgur.com/hNvmjvV.png](https://i.imgur.com/hNvmjvV.png)

<comment><USER29> Bare Metal Bullshit Packet is going to be my EDM group's name

<comment><USER30> Freaking awesome name for a red team too haha.</comment></comment></comment>


Linux performance monitoring just got a lot easier - <AUTHOR> http://london.my-netdata.io/?nowelcome <comment><AUTHOR> Project home: [https://github.com/firehol/netdata/](https://github.com/firehol/netdata/)

v1.2.0 released today, supporting also Linux Containers monitoring.</comment>


Life is Strange is now on Linux (Square Enix game) - <AUTHOR> http://boilingsteam.com/life-is-strange-a-groundhog-day-simulator/ <comment><USER2> Another hit indie game just recently released on Linux is Undertale, which you should have bought _months_ ago: [http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/)

If you have any familiarity with video game/RPG tropes, Undertale will be your favorite game. It's made by one developer, and the game is better than Life is Strange IMO, although both are very good.

<comment><USER3> You have just made my day!

(Was planning on picking it up eventually, but hadn't figured out how to negotiate stealing my wife's Windows laptop for a week straight. Now I don't have to! ^_^)

<comment><USER4> Irrelevant now, but it's worked great in Wine since it was released. Undertale is one of my favorite games of all time, I'm sure you'll love it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Life is Strange: a Groundhog Day Simulator

I'd actually buy an actual Groundhog Day game. Like a sequel to the film set in the early nineties, wandering around rural Punxsutawney, waking up with Cher on the radio each day until you fulfil the main objective after completing all the daily side-quests.

<comment><USER6> Arguably, almost any Idle game is a Groundhog Day simulator. You end up doing almost exactly the same thing again and again, but improve over time as you gain in experience and understanding...

<comment><USER7> But Majora's Mask, is the most obvious one. You have three days to stop the moon from crushing you, and you restart whenever that happens.

<comment><USER8> This is the game that taught me time management skills as a wee lad. I think it has held up remarkably well after all these years too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This game was interesting in that you become really powerful, like the traditional video game protagonist, but you are bested not by literal monsters but by an increased awareness of the suffering of people around you. You solve problems by being there for people and guiding them with your insights. Really perspective changing for me; realizing there are constant opportunities to help other people that are mostly ignored.

<comment><USER9> Well said. I don't remember where I heard this, but it's been said that time travel is really a secondary super power to the player's empathy in this game, and I whole heartedly agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic game. If you haven't already, you should give it a try.

I think the first episode is for free since a few days ago, so there is no reason to not checking it out

<comment><AUTHOR> The first episode is free indeed - but it's not the best one. It gets MUCH better in second and third episodes.

<comment><USER11> [http://www.lifeisstrange.com/free](http://www.lifeisstrange.com/free)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Way to go, Dontnod! This is an amazing indie-movie-flavored game that you should definitely try out if you want some Heathers-meets-Donnie-Darko awesomeness.

<comment><USER13> It's hella good!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one of my favorite games of the last few years. It's similar to Telltale's walking dead in that it's an interactive, story based game, with an interesting mechanic thrown in that helps make this more unique than other games in the genre.

If you like games with a strong narrative, I can't recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER15> Support for game on linux is improving, but there is still few people playing on linux. Sales on linux are so sparse, I wonder if porting games on this plaform is profitable.

<comment><USER16> It would help if Linux games actually worked on Linux, instead of only on single version of Ubuntu that's usually a few years out of date, and you have to have libraries X, Y and Z installed, only it won't tell you this, so have to trawl through various support forums. And god help you if you're running something truly bizarre, like Debian.

I usually have more success running the Windows version through Wine than I do running the Linux version. I wish I was joking.

<comment><USER4> That's interesting, I run one of the more esoteric mainstream distros, Arch, and I almost never have problems with Linux games on Steam. I ran into one issue with Hyper Light Drifter and libxcb incompatibility. Otherwise, everything has just worked to my memory. I remember things were a little rougher years ago, have you tried it again recently?

> I usually have more success running the Windows version through Wine than I > do running the Linux version. I wish I was joking.

Glad you find it useful! If you are able and want to support the project financially, buying a copy of CrossOver from my employer is the best way to continue funding Wine's development. Our salaries don't come out of thin air ;)

<comment><USER17> > esoteric mainstream

Is this slang for hipster?

<comment><USER4> Heh, fair enough, esoteric doesn't mean what I thought it meant. I was going for something like "unusual" or "non-standard".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This was one of my favourite games of last year

I got really invested in the story and characters!

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice game, but a bit too predictable. I liked Firewatch more, but still had a nice evening with it :)

<comment><USER20> > _" Nice game, but a bit too predictable"_

Same feeling here :) . Grab a friends PS3/PS4 and give a try to Beyond: Two Souls, it's a hell of a game. Similarly story-driven, but IMHO deeper and more adult.

<comment><USER21> While we're recommending indie story games, if anybody wants to try out _Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons_ , I have a couple of gift copies left that have been sitting around for too long. It's something of an interactive fairy tale.

Requires a controller (for good reason, it's designed around two sticks). If anybody wants to try it, PM your email address to wlesieutre on reddit and I'll shoot you a copy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For those clicking comments to get thoughts on this game...

If you like Twin Peaks, Donnie Darko and more recently Stranger Things (on NFLX) - you should really play this. It's excellent.

</comment><comment><USER23> How is the video card driver support on Linux these days? I tried to completely switch my home PC over to Arch Linux about a year ago but I found that it was quite difficult to get decent performance on my AMD card due to the lack of quality drivers.

Has this changed since then? Is there a better distro for gaming/driver support? There is something to be said for all of my peripherals "just working" on win10.

<comment><USER24> AMD did release new open source drivers recently, and they are much better than the old proprietary fglrx, or at least squeeze much more out of my low end GPU and have better stability and fewer glitches.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and mesa support is now at OpenGL 4.3, and soon 4.5.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Strange that they've launched the linux port on Steam, but not the Mac port, which is only available on the Mac App Store.

<comment><USER26> Check again. There's a mac icon on the Steampowered page.

<comment><USER27> Oh cool, that's definitely new in the last couple days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFlMoAasW4A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFlMoAasW4A)</comment>


Duck Duck Go, More Like Duck Duck No - oscar-the-horse http://www.horsesaysinternet.com/search-market/duck-duck-go-no/

<comment><AUTHOR> _But Duck Duck Go doesn't do anything significantly different, or significantly better — as in 10x better._

I disagree. Here are three things that make DDG 10x better for my use case:

1\. Providing a common interface for searching API docs. For example, "!jquery live", or "!rails validate".

2\. The 0-click box, which frequently gives me the answer I need without having to go any further.

3\. Privileging of official sites. This is especially helpful for sites whose domain one couldn't easily guess.

<comment><USER2> >Duck Duck Go doesn't do anything significantly different

Further to this, Duck Duck Go is targeting people who don't want to be bubbled and tracked, which is completely different to the other search engines.

Having said that, I tried Duck Duck Go for a few weeks and found it wasn't giving me the results I wanted (there's a !bang for Google but that seems a little silly).

<comment> oscar-the-horse Blekko.com has granular and optional tracking preferences.

Duck Duck Go doesn't have as much data as Google, and probably don't crawl as deeply. This is another factor that hinders their competitiveness.

If they want to compete they should look to more nascent data sources; rather than going down the path of destructive competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > The market for search is mature. Everyone has their search engine of choice.

In 1997, _everybody_ knew that search engine market was mature and centered around AltaVista.

<comment> oscar-the-horse AltaVista didn't become a verb...

Duck Duck Go can compete, they just need to innovate harder in _one_ direction to get enough space between them and google. And of course that direction needs to have a solid value proposition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author is forgetting the massive size of the search engine market. If Duck Duck Go can get even 0.5% of the market, that's _millions_ of users.

Essentially the same story as why Opera is still very much in business.

<comment> oscar-the-horse They are a viable lifestyle business. But it depends on what sort of business they want to be. They've taken VC funding which signals they're after more than sub 1% market share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "But Duck Duck Go doesn't do anything significantly different, or significantly better — as in 10x better."

Their respect for my privacy is 10000000000x better than Google's.

<comment> oscar-the-horse That's speaking from the view of most of the market...

For a small minority it's a really big deal; which is fair enough.</comment></comment>


Software Link Suspected in Airbus Engine Blowouts - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-a220-exclusive/exclusive-software-link-suspected-in-airbus-a220-engine-blowouts-sources-idUSKBN1X31ST <comment><USER2> I work at a company that is currently suffering through very public issues caused by bugs in our code and I feel pretty bad about it. Then I read this article and the one this morning about Twitter's entire quarter essentially being torpedoed due to a buggy platform and it makes me relax a little and realize that bugs in very public facing code are just part of life.

<comment><USER3> I used to feel bad. I don't anymore. I make my own share of mistakes. I firmly admit that, but it's really easy for others in the business to blame the developers for defects in software. "Well, you made them." Yes, I did, but I am not the one who didn't allow time for us to properly check things, or created the work culture where people are on edge about getting things done. I'm not perfect, but I'm done with other people blaming me and making me feel totally responsible for being in a position where I can't effectively do my job.

<comment><USER2> My department is velocity driven (agile) meaning we have to complete a certain number of points each week. Quality loses its importance when quantity is the main driver for being employed.

<comment><USER3> That's a tough one. Most people either don't understand or refuse to acknowledge that velocity is not a measure of how much you can accomplish. It's not a goal of work. It's a speed limit. The team's velocity signifies that its the maximum amount of work they can reasonably accomplish while adhering to certain quality standards. Organizations like to ignore this, because it makes them feel like they are making people more productive.

The question I ask when confronted with situations like this is, "Do you want to lessen the quality of the code base for increased productivity?" This honestly makes people a little upset, because they know the answer they want to say vs. the answer they should say. Once someone says no to this question, they open themselves up to negotiating over the amount of work to accomplish within a given period of time.

<comment><USER4> > It's a speed limit.

Spot on. Sounds like in the OP's case, people are putting a weight on the current velocity numbers and not looking at when features will be ready. Usually means the stories are too big.

Velocity over time is what you use to predict when future features will arrive. Yoyo velocity likely means the stories are too big or too small. If velocity drops and those features just move down the road. It should be clear as to why velocity drops (someone goes on vacation) or the story isn't broken down enough and takes too long.

Usually, in a velocity driven workflow, you don't need to lessen quality of code because developers point their stories and they should factor in testing into those points. If the stories are too big, break them into smaller stories so there is more accepted work each week. Like what we learned in math class... break a bigger problem into smaller problems...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought the A220 is a rebranded Bombardier model ?

<comment><USER6> From the article: "Formerly known as the CSeries, the 110-130-seat A220 was designed by Canada's Bombardier (BBDb.TO) and was one of the first to adopt the new Pratt & Whitney technology. Bombardier sold the program to Airbus last year due to heavy losses."

<comment><USER7> If I recall they sold a very good product for a dollar because of extremely anticompetitive and monopolistic abuse by Airbus and Boeing that would have made Rockefeller blush. If bombardier was an American company I think the DOJ would have come down hard on Airbus and Boeing. But they can't be expected to protect foreign competition.

<comment><USER8> I don't recall any of the abuse coming from Airbus. Because of all that hubbub with Boeing resulting in US tariffs, the A220 is now manufactured in Alabama by Airbus.

<comment><USER9> Almost none came from Airbus. Really you could almost say they came to Bombardier's aid.

<comment><USER7> Buying a billion dollar product for $1 is a funny kind of aid. But yes, Boeing was the aggressor here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visual to Sound: Generating Natural Sound for Videos in the Wild - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01393 <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: neural network trained to generate realistic sound for videos.

Paper (arXiv): [https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01393](https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01393)

PDF: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01393](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01393)

<comment><USER2> Personally, because the video autoplays disruptive sounds, I'd rather have the link to the paper with a link to the video as a comment.

<comment><USER3> OK, we've changed the URL to that. The video is here: [http://bvision11.cs.unc.edu/bigpen/yipin/visual2sound_webpag...](http://bvision11.cs.unc.edu/bigpen/yipin/visual2sound_webpage/supp_video.mp4).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What book are you reading at the moment and what do you recommend? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Currently reading: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. A fun, quick read about something I knew nothing about.

I'm sure you'll get all the classic HN recommendations so I'll pick two that are a little different:

* Nobody's Perfect: Writings From the New Yorker, by Anthony Lane. Lane was responsible for writing reviews of many prominent movies from the 90s. We now know which of those movies hold up (Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction) and faded away into cultural oblivion despite insane amounts of hype (Godzilla from 2000, Pearl Harbor), and I enjoyed reading contemporary treatments of both. Why spend the time to read such reviews? Because Lane is a master of his craft. The blend of dry British humor, insightful critiques, and his surprising accessibility makes for really enjoyable prose. Also, the pieces are quite short, so I can read two or three before bed and have natural points.

* Meet Me in the Bathroom -- an oral history of the NYC music scene from 2001 to 2011. You can make the argument that the Strokes are directly responsible for the money-soaked Manhattan we have today. The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, and TV On The Radio were hugely inspirational to me growing up so it was really neat to watch them look back on this crazy time in their own words. But really, it's a story about transitions. New York transitioning after 9/11 to what it is today; the transition of the music industry (the author makes a compelling point that although the Strokes and Vampire Weekend were both NYC-based bands that blew up 5 years apart, their trajectories couldn't have been more different); the influence of blogs and the kids who ran them had on this global industry. It's a fascinating to reflect on what is really just the not-so-distant past and see how much has changed.

<comment><USER3> Second what you said about Anthony Lane's book. He still produces reviews almost weekly for the New Yorker, and they're a masterclass in writing.

<comment><USER2> I didn't know that! I don't subscribe to the physical edition anymore so I've been missing them. Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      Fiction, English

Listening: _Swords in the Mist_ , Fritz Leiber. Third in the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser collections.

Reading: _The Dispossessed_ , Ursula Le Guin.

      Fiction, Spanish

I'm trying to learn Spanish. I've picked up a few Spanish language fiction books, presently starting on _Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal_. I've tried reading other books, like Jorge Luis Borges' _Ficciones_ , but I've found it to be above my present level. I've restarted four or five times and made it further each time, but always stalled out.

      Non-fiction

_The Design of Everyday Things_ , Don Norman.

I have other books started lying around the house, but these are the ones I've been actively engaged with in the last couple weeks. When I can type properly again (two to three weeks) I'll resume _Lisp in Small Pieces_ , Christian Queinnec. And at the office I have _The Pragmatic Programmer_ , I'll be back there next week and bring it home so I can continue with it.

<comment><USER5> Good luck with reading Spanish! Please be easy on yourself, it took me 4 years of reading off and on to get to the point of reading books like "1491: Una nueva historia de las Américas antes de Colón". Also, factual based books are much, much easier to understand than novels. The problem with reading Gabriel García Márquez is that reality and un-reality are blended together using sophisticated grammatical constructs that you have no idea what is going on. Remember, language can express things that are abstract. Abstraction in a second language is hard!

If I have one piece of advice for you, please try to completely avoid reaching for the dictionary (app or physical) while reading your books. Not only will avoiding the dictionary make the reading faster, your pattern matching will improve because your mind will be forced to "fill in the blanks" where there is insufficient understanding. I know there are polyglots out there that advise the opposite of "don't go to the next page until you know everything". Bah humbug, reading should not be a homework assignment.

Finally, buying the audiobook and reading along with the book will help train your ear for faster pattern recognition and signal/noise differentiation. Be advised though that audio books may not be one to one exact with the printed text.

I also recommend "Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate".

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the encouragement.

I selected Harry Potter because I know the stories decently (read the books whenever book 7 came out, saw all the movies at least once each, maybe twice for a couple). But I'm not familiar enough to be able to read the Spanish version and really just be recalling the English version (why I'm avoiding translations of my favorite authors, I know the books too well).

And yeah, I'm skipping the dictionary while reading. I tried that, it was awful. I'm identifying words (sometimes asking my wife) and looking them up after finishing a chapter. I plan to reread the book (possibly restart before completing) to see how much of what's new has stuck. I already have homework since I'm working through a college Spanish textbook and have signed up for online courses (weekly, but it's practice and I'm getting to hear the Argentine accent which is the one I need to understand most, my wife is from there).

After this book, I'll probably continue picking up the rest of the series (we want a bilingual library anyways for when we have kids), and then some non- fiction. Ideally I want to find some non-fiction histories or technical content in Spanish by native Spanish writers. I'm also trying to read Spanish- language news, but I haven't made it a regular habit yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I very recently listening to the audiobook of the Carls series[0] by Hank Green. Some top notch fiction, some sci-fi, very 2020-like society, young adult, accidental parallels to 2020 events, discusses social media, money, and empathy, in a very tasteful way. Yes the book was released in 2020, but the script was set in stone way before things went south.

(Tease: the audio of the second book is done with different actors and have a interview with Cory Doctorow )

Buy while supporting local bookshops:

\- [https://Bookshop.org](https://Bookshop.org)

\- Audiobook: [http://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm208662](http://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm208662) (referral link)

[0] with the great full names being "An absolutely remarkable thing" and "A beautifully foolish endeavour"

</comment><comment><USER7> The 42nd parallel by John Dos Passos - really good novel about America at the turn of the century until the depression. Considered a classic

The Peregrine by J.A. Baker Englishman follows a few peregrines around the English countryside documenting everything he can. Past the first quarter or so it's just a log of his days which has no real narrative and is hard to get through. I'm not going to finish it

I just finished Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler. Really good book about ancient China and it's relationship to the near present day (it was written in the late 90s and early 2000s)

</comment><comment><USER8> Just books in general? Professional development? Science Fiction? Politics?

Can't go wrong with the classics like "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" along with "How to Win Friends and Influence People." For motivation: "Can't Hurt Me" by David Goggins... it's impossible to read that book and come up with a _good_ excuse why you cannot achieve your goals.

</comment><comment> ibn-python The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro is a fascinating take on how power and corruption can manifest in modern era.

Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World by Rene Girard explores through dialogues his theory of mimesis. Barely have made a dent into it and so am not sure if I'd recommend it yet but it's had polarizing reviews.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt -

Fantastic walk through his six factor model of human morality. It's as revolutionary to me as learning about the five factor model (& HEXACO) of human personality.

</comment><comment><USER10> A Swedish thriller by Camilla Läckberg called Änglamakerskan (The Angel Maker's Wife), I'm mainly reading it to improve my Swedish though it is fun and catching to read

</comment><comment><USER11> Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" inb4: except for one chapter, NOTHING like the movie. One of the best books that I've read in my entire life.

</comment><comment><USER12> NATO's secret armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe.

If you want to see the other face of Cold War and have some fun, here you go.

</comment><comment><USER13> The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

Seems moderately depressing so far.

</comment><comment><USER14> Street Survival by Remsburg

<comment><USER15> FWIW Street Survival by Remsburg is for police officers. A citizen might do better with a book with a citizen's perspective, one not burdened with the constraints of being a PO.

<comment><USER14> The information can still be useful to citizens to know how police are trained to react and why they may ask you to do specific things.

Do you have one that's targeted to citizens and covers the same concepts minus the LEO-specific aspects? Most of the ones I've seen only cover specific subsets of the topics.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps Mark Macyoung's books:

"What You Don't Know Can Kill You: How Most Self-Defense Training Will Put You into Prison or the Ground"

or the longer more detailed

"In the Name of Self-Defense: What it costs. When it's worth it"

<comment><USER14> Those seem like good books. The longer one might be a civilian replacement for Street Survival. I'll have to read it. I didn't see any mention of mental rehearsal, visualization, and managing stress in the excepts/overviews, but those don't always list everything. If they cover those as well as tactical thought processes, then these sound like great resources.

The only caveat, which I should have mentioned in my book suggestion too, is that any book dealing with potential legal matters on self-defense is only written generally and one should also read their state's statutes/code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The naked statistics from charles wheelan.</comment>


Looks like a wiki, smells like a wiki, but it a web based IDE that runs on GAE - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/mdipierro/cube2py-4709237 <comment><USER2> I've been wondering when someone would come out with a cloud-based IDE, although this isn't quite the same. I've always thought, wouldn't it be cool if Google came out with an online IDE, hosted on a GAE instance, with code saved in Google Code, allows you to build your code on their servers, and deploy to a dev GAE instance with seamless push to a production instance. For kicks (and probably an extra fee) you could have Google engineers do a code- review.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is based on a web2py which has a full web based IDE although the web2py web based IDE does not run on GAE because of GAE file system limitation. cube2py has a partial workaround by storing everything in the database. Still before you run it GAE you have to run the code locally to create the indexes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If the intention is to get non-technical folks to use it, I'd suggest a WYSIWYG editor would help enormously.

Knowing that a blank line is required before space-asterisk-space to make a bullet in a markup language is more than most people know or can be bothered to learn.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://code.google.com/p/cube2py/>

<http://vimeo.com/13154869>

</comment><comment><USER5> or "looks like the return of 4GL or even the Fifth-generation programming language".

</comment><comment><USER6> Web MS Access?</comment>


Amazon Wind Farm Texas - <AUTHOR> https://smile.amazon.com/p/feature/ps9c2vfu7fcm4t6/ <comment><USER2> Thats an odd place. Lots of natural fossil energy, low population, nearby wind capacity already exists. I guess they did the math though.</comment>


A guide to Linux signals - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxvoice.com/core-technology-signals/ <comment><USER2> A note: SIGHUP is far from obsolete in its original purpose. We may have stopped using modems but people still log in to Unix machines in ways that can get disconnected. If you SSH in to a machine and your SSH session is cut off by a network issue, your shell (and any command you have running) will get a SIGHUP.

<comment><USER3> There's more than that in SIGHUP. It's sent to the process group owning the terminal[1] (/dev/tty[1-X], /dev/pts/*) when said terminal is closed. Your shell, Midnight Commander, Vim, Emacs, and what not terminates when you close your terminal emulator window.

[1] I don't quite remember what happens to other process groups, since you could have some background jobs stopped.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and using the 'nohup' utility you can effectively block the delivery of SIGHUP to a particular process, to ensure it does not terminate when you close your SSH connection.

<comment> jon-wood Awesome, I knew nohup could be used for that, but hadn't worked out why it was called that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Catching signals is a great way of catching nasty bugs in production code. I use them to be able to log information on the cause of an error before the code exits due to some sort of catastrophic bug (e.g. null pointer deference, etc). This also allows you to clean up to clean up temp files, etc. They are much nicer to use than the Windows equivalent.

<comment><USER6> > They are much nicer to use than the Windows equivalent

Seriously? You find a system with global events where you must perform your own resource book-keeping to clean up the correct resources nicer than structured exception handling?

<comment><USER5> Yes as soon as you have to support both 32 and 64 builds in a multi-threaded program that is using the C run time library. This of course is just my opinion :)

<comment><USER7> Why is SEH a problem in that case? SEH is occasionally flaky but much nicer than trying to handle SEGV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing that might have been nice to note is the rules regarding what you can and can't do in signal handler code.

<comment><USER9> One of my pet peeves: documentation that doesn't say anything. Methods (and callbacks) are listed by name with some thrifty description of argument. But none of the important stuff is ever there: is it reentrant? stateless? Who owns each non-scalar argument? Can it be invoked from user space? installable driver? kernel driver? Signal handler? Does it have latency constraints? Can I use it from a different thread than it was constructed under? Is it protected during thread death? Is it atomic vs what other methods? What other apis are allowed/forbidden when writing a callback?

As an embedded programmer, I end up reading library source most of the time trying to find these answers. And if it isn't open, then I have to black-box test or lard calls up with semaphores which might not be necessary. The state of API documentation is in the stone age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a more in-depth look at Signals, there's Michael Kerrisk's Linux Man Pages on Signals [1]. AFAIK, the best reference on Signals is in the book by Stevens and Rago [2].

[1] [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man7/signal.7.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/signal.7.html) [2] Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, Second Edition

</comment><comment><USER11>
        ps -ef | grep foobar

is more easily done with

        pgrep foobar

or perhaps

        pgrep -a foobar

<comment><USER12> or ps -ef | grep fo[o]bar

So you don't have to | grep -v grep :)

I ask people to explain what that does and how it works as a sysadmin interview question.

<comment><USER13> That's nice. Apparently, we can place the brackets around any of the characters too! Can you explain how it works?

<comment><USER12> Sure, the square brackets in posix regex (used by grep) are for character ranges. You can wrap any single character in the brackets and it works the same.

So foob[a]r matches the literal string foobar. If you grepped foob[ab]r it would match both literal strings foobar and foobbr. However, it doesn't match the literal string foob[a]r because [] is a character range. To match that, you'd need to escape it something like foob\\[a\\]r, which would _not_ match the literal string foobar. This is why you don't need grep -v grep

Understanding how and why this works will dramatically help you slice and dice text strings in a shell, so it makes a great SysAdmin interview question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What about SIGSTOP and SIGCONT? They're quite useful to pause and resume processes (Ctrl-Z).

<comment><USER15> And indeed also very useful for testing. "what happens if we simulate this process being a bit slow" \- send it a SIGSTOP. Doing so can simulate a number of other weird cases too as observed from the outside , such as a process trashing on swap, NFS hanging.

I've found that doing that to etcd causes other etcd in the cluster to randomly hang - while it handles a lot of other failures fine (instant poweroff, network partitioning, randomly crash etcd, sending SIGSTOP to on member of a cluster breaks everything - I don't know if that's improved since I did those tests though)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Aren't these Unix (or, more accurately, POSIX) signals, rather than Linux signals?

</comment><comment><USER17> WINCH comes from the terminal driver, not from the "window manager".

</comment><comment><USER18> Thank you for this excellent article. Much appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER19> The trouble with signals is that there are so few of them and we can't add more without breaking the ABI.

<comment><USER20> If you need to send more types of messages, there are other IPC mechanisms.</comment></comment>


ARM Powered Android LEGO Rubik's Speedcuber - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v8pJSGi4CA

<comment><USER2> Are there any details available on the build? How did they interface the Droid to the lego controller for example?

<comment><USER3> At a guess, using bluetooth, the input is the camera.

<http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=9847></comment></comment>


Upscrn.com (Beta), new developer oriented media file hosting site - <AUTHOR> http://upscrn.com Upscrn.com (Beta) just launched. We aim to make sharing files with your collegues and coordinating projects much easier and productive. Sign up for the beta now and receive a full account for free for 99 years. Many more features to come! <comment><USER2> 99 years? I've signed up for an email to see just how true that turns out to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's how we reward the early adopters.</comment></comment>


Purchasing a sea fort in the UK - <AUTHOR> https://seafort.us/ <comment><USER2> I really don't get the point of articles like this, at all. I see brilliant things all the time that I'd love to own but could never afford. I live with that disappointment.

Generation Snowflake seems to think that, in such circumstances you just stick a crowd-funding campaign on the web, and let 'rest of world' buy your dream for you —with <what exactly?> in it for them?</comment>


1 + 2 + 3 + .. = -1/12 - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_summation

<comment><USER2> The title is fairly misleading. The summation is not equal to -1/12, it is -1/12(ℛ), where the (ℛ) indicates that the answer is actually infinite, but it has a defined relationship to other series denoted in the same way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is the math here sloppy, or is it just me? Third equation they're bringing out B(i) and K(whatever).

I made it through multivariable calculus and grads and so forth, but the computer scientist in me gets upset when I run into undefined or poorly specified notation.

"Oh," someone will reply, "You didn't know that B(i) is the Frogglegoop function for ..." and I'll say, "Nope."

I rage quit denotational semantics after failing to find definitions of the hieroglyphs in two different textbooks. If you're going to bring greek and single letter function names to the game, you could at least provide a symbol table, eh?

<comment><USER4> You can't rearrange a divergent series. It's a sin :-P. [http://www.math.ucla.edu/~ralston/pub/Rearrange.pdf](http://www.math.ucla.edu/~ralston/pub/Rearrange.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I might have missed this but what use does this have? (Honest question.)

<comment><USER6> Ah, mathematics. Most of it is absolutely useless, and yet, Physics and engineering won't stop finding new applications for the most abstract mathematical concepts. Modern physics would have been impossible to develop without the useless math concepts invented throughout the 19th century.

<comment><USER7> > Modern physics would have been impossible to develop without the useless > math concepts invented throughout the 19th century.

Case in point: imaginary numbers were "discovered" in the 16th century and were widely considered to be "useless" by contemporary mathematicians and scientists. However, in the 19th century it was realized that complex arithmetic is perfect for analyzing steady state alternating current circuits.

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


WeWork – It's Not About Office Space - <AUTHOR> http://svsg.co/wework-its-not-about-office-space/

<comment><USER2> This post fits WeWork into two commonly discussed trends—greater urbanization and a shift towards freelancing. One problem is that evidence for these trends being real is weak, even though many thinkpieces take them as starting points. That doesn't necessarily spell trouble for WeWork, but I think if it succeeds it will be for reasons other than riding nationwide, macroeconomic trends.

On urbanization: the proportion of Americans living in urban vs. suburban vs. rural areas is not really significantly changing. NYC is growing, and so is suburban Dallas. Even among millennials the trend is weak to nonexistent. [1]

On freelancing: Despite much discussion of the "1099 economy", the data doesn't show, at least for now, any shift towards freelancing. The proportion of Americans working full-time jobs for a single employer is actually on an upwards trend at the moment, as hiring has picked up following the economic recovery [2].

[1] [http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/think-millennials- prefer-...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/think-millennials-prefer-the- city-think-again/)

[2] [https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We...](https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We- Are-Not-a-Nation-of-Freelancers/)

<comment><USER3> My sense is that, by definition, evidence of ways the future will be different than the present is always weak, particularly if the evidence you're looking at is data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked in a WeWork for about a year. Their biggest gap, which they are nowhere near overcoming, is culture.

The culture at WeWork is incredibly artificial and made everyone there feel disconnected and unhappy. A huge focus on sports and drinking events. Art everywhere, but not that reflected the values of the people there; but rather art that was speaking _at_ the people there.

Management was constantly changing out, and it was impossible to have a relationship with the people in charge and they often seemed not listen to the concerns and needs of the people renting space there. I felt _zero_ connection to people at other companies there.

There was always this weird vibe from them trying to do a political song-and- dance too, like having the mayor come by for press events, and way too many suits running around acting like they were important.

This is in stark contrast to coworking at small, truly community driven places like betahouse (Central Square in Cambridge, now defunct due to difficulty to find new real-estate), which fostered deep and long lasting connections between its members. Even 5 years after we disbanded, we still all keep in frequent touch and rely on the connections we made there.

I'd make the comparison/analogy of culture-rich dormitories at places like MIT, and mega-corporate hotel-like dorms at Boston University (or just a hotel). WeWork is the soulless corporate hotel where you'll never get to know anyone.

Maybe I'm just too punk for WeWork. There's no way to have a soul/culture in a place like that. I shudder to think about living in a place run by them.

<comment><USER5> Betahouse sounds familiar but I don't think I ever visited. Cambridge is home to a number of culture driven coworking spaces, which are excellent. Pirate ship is a good example of a tight nit group. Perhaps the biggest is Industry Lab, which I would best describe as a 20k sqft hybrid between the media lab and the east campus dorm.

<comment><USER4> Right, and things like the media lab and EC have culture. WeWork doesn't even know the meaning of that word.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some US corporations already supply housing, food, and of course jobs for their workers. It will be interesting to see how much WeWork abstracts these concepts into life-as-a-service, as publicly available resources in urban living are further squeezed.

Day care, schools, primary care clinics, semi-private green spaces. We_____

</comment><comment><USER7> Google Cached link:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://svsg.co/wework- its-not-about-office-space/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks! View with "text-only".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fascinating take on this valuation. Love when people look past the knee jerk headlines and offer a different approach. I wonder how he came up with that insight?</comment>


Uber Will Not Achieve a Monopoly [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://johnloeber.com/w/uber.pdf

<comment><USER2> "The ridesharing space does not offer advantages to economies of scale" \- efficiencies of scale in ridesharing are massive; more consumers means a more liquid marketplace and less downtime for drivers (idle time or time-in-transit to a passenger)and more drivers means shorter wait times and increased reliability in car availability. Beyond the improved consumer experience, there's real $ value creation resulting from these efficiencies that can lead to increased revenue/unit of time for drivers, decreased fares for passengers or increased commission for the ridesharing platform.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are very valid points, and they certainly apply at the moment. However, I think that this ceases to be an issue when meta-rideshare services begin to emerge, which I think is (technologically) inevitable.

What I think we will see is that a driver will use a meta-rideshare to be available on _all_ ridesharing services (Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, etc.) just in order to maximize his/her rides per hour.

The same for users, who will use a meta-rideshare to query all ridesharing services in order to get a ride as quickly/cheaply as possible.

A great analogy for this is in airlines: yes, some airlines are bigger than others and consequently have certain advantages. But most customers use flight search engines (Google Flights, Kayak, etc.) in order to find the cheapest/best flights.

The only counter-argument to this would be that users would have some sort of brand preference for choosing Uber every time rather than using a meta- rideshare to find the chapest/fastest ride. But such brand loyalty is unlikely too emerge: (1) Uber's public image is far too tainted, and (2) it's very hard to differentiate Uber's core product (seat in a car) from that of the competitors.</comment></comment>


Half of young Americans say college is too expensive and no longer necessary - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-young-americans-say-college-isnt-necessary-2019-08-06 <comment><USER2> I lament that everything is measured by cost, even a college education. A liberal arts education is very important because it stimulates the mind to explore ideas. Add it the tools of mathematics and the sciences and you get a thinking human being.</comment>


Notcurses: Cleanroom TUI library for modern terminal emulators - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses <comment><AUTHOR> Not my work, by any stretch. Here's a demo the author put together: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEv2YRyiEVM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEv2YRyiEVM)</comment>


Tesla fires female engineer who made claims of 'pervasive harassment' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-female-engineer-claims-pervasive-harassment <comment><USER2> _Tesla confirmed Vandermeyden's firing in a statement to The Verge, saying it had conducted an independent, third-party review of her claims and determined that they were false. "Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms. Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press," a spokesperson said. "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms. Vandermeyden 's claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla."_

Surely they'd want to be pretty confident to take this action and make this statement.

<comment><USER3> That was my first thought. That's staking out some _bold_ ground.

<comment><USER4> What is so bold?

<comment><USER3> "Special treatment", "miscarriage of justice"...these are not neutral words. Those are the words of people looking for a fight, not the usual corporate platitudes that don't commit them to a path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This probably shouldn't link to the google amp page...

Correct link is [https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires- femal...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-female- engineer-claims-pervasive-harassment)

</comment><comment><USER6> yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460160](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460160)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm assuming Tesla can prove this, because if not...

<comment><USER8> Is the onus of proof not on the accuser? I'm not being rhetorical, I have no idea how this works.

<comment><USER9> In a court of justice, sure. In the court of public opinion however ... If it appears as if Tesla is punishing a victim of harassment for speaking up, the hit to their reputation will hurt. Since the kind of person who drives an electric car also tends to care about gender equality issues (I think), this could make them lose a significant part of their customer base.</comment></comment></comment>


Retirement of certain Google search APIs - <AUTHOR> http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2016/01/retirement-of-certain-google-search-apis.html <comment><USER2> Google has retired all of their useful Search APIs. They used to allow for free full text search through their APIs.

Back in the mid-2000s we used to use those for a previous iteration of our [http://friskr.com](http://friskr.com) visual search engine.

We are now forced to use Bing API.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see the obvious alternative in the Custom Search API, even if it was deprecated for 3 years now, so I asked at the recommended forum, StackOverflow: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34864997/custom- search-a...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34864997/custom-search-api- for-deprecated-patent-search-api)</comment>


Ask HN: Getting acquired by a competitor. Advice on protecting the code? - <AUTHOR> Greetings HN,
A competitor contacted me, and after discussions I agreed to sell a software business for $3m. We signed a non-binding LOI, with them holding 10% of the price for the next 3 months, to make sure I help with transition.
Buyer insists on getting the full source code to review as part of Due Diligence, instead of doing screensharing sessions (as many as they want), having me walk them through. What is best practice?
Buyer proposed to use their local law firm to handle the transfer, to save on Escrow & transfer fees, which they would cover. They are ok with Escrow too, if we split fees. My concern is: even using Escrow.com, after Due Diligence, Buyer will get access to full source code. Quote from Escrow: The seller is not paid until the buyer accepts the merchandise and has the chance to fully inspect it. After the buyer inspects and accepts the merchandise, the funds will be moved from our escrow account to the seller's account.
So they can end up with a full code copy and decline the acceptance, as it's not a physical product which could be returned. So, using Escrow.com would be useless? I would have expected Escrow to get ownership of all code, domains etc, inspect it (have a checklist from Buyer), and then transfers both funds & assets at the same time, or return both without Buyer getting code access. How should I proceed?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> escrow.com quotes 26k USD on a $3m transaction, about 1%. I can understand the buyer wants to save 13k cost, but overall it's a small part. Escrow shows the seriousness, you will know $3m has been transferred. If the buyer rejects the product (source code) they don't automatically get their money back. In case of escrow.com they want to see third-party arbitration first (buyer and seller have to come to an agreement). After a month though they'd get their money back.

I'd use escrow. And go further and across the world, sit next to them with a laptop, print out every file or rent an office next to theirs to avoid sending them the full source code. And I'd expect them to pay all the expenses if the deal doesn't happen. If they chicken out of 10k cost (again 1% of the total transaction) I'd say they're not serious.

Third option is to demand due diligence by a third-party.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Why Most People's Charts and Graphs Look Like Crap - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/data-visualization-mistakes

<comment><USER2> This is a very nice article. I've learned to be leery of articles full of cutesy graphics. But I guess that's largely due to the problem this article is trying to combat: most graphics are worthless.

So: he has a number of worthwhile points, each is clearly explained and concisely illustrated. There is plenty of white space, and no dancing ads or you-didn't-really-want-to- _read_ -this-did-you nonsense. And when he gets his points across, he ends; my time is not wasted.

The title isn't right, though. He is talking about reasons that many charts & graphs are _ineffective_. Although I suppose "look like crap" will probably get him more readers.

What really needs to happen is that common graphing/charting tools need to incorporate ideas like these into their default settings.</comment>


I'm Challenging a DoD OIG Subpoena Over "Insulting and Prejudicial Comments" - <AUTHOR> https://vc.gg/blog/dodoij-wtfbbq.html <comment><USER2> Wow. Best of luck!</comment>


French court rules Steam's ban on reselling used games breaks European law - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/19/20874384/french-court-steam-valve-used-games-eu-law <comment><USER3> Strangely I find myself not-liking this ruling. I mean I can absolutely see from an intellectual level, why it's happened - but there will be repercussions.

Firstly the minor one. Restrictions on transfer is what allows us to pick up ridiculously cheap old/good games. Cheap (humble bundle or a steam sale) or even free (you happened to be on epic and pressed a button this month). There are already 'some problems' \- but these services will be killed off.

Major concern I have is that every game will "become a subscription service". I love my stack of steam games sat there to be played whenever I want. This is available as I currently have a perpetual license for them, and this is possible as the current market sells many many many more of these licenses than there are people concurrently playing these games.

i.e. If licenses were made completely transferable, then gaming would become a 'market' like some weird global Uber.

EA creates 100k licenses for a game (and the back-end support for it), if > 100k people want to play it the price to play per hour goes up (or they release more licenses), and if less it goes down they cut the price... ...again I'm OK with the model.. but not how it impacts how I see 'my games'

My real objection being that this won't magically become an open market, it'll become subscription hell. EU can say something has to be resellable on Steam, but the industry response will be to "not sell on Steam" \- and create endless separate markets.

<comment><USER4> > Major concern I have is that every game will "become a subscription > service". I love my stack of steam games sat there to be played whenever I > want. This is available as I currently have a perpetual license for them, > and this is possible as the current market sells many many many more of > these licenses than there are people concurrently playing these games.

Valve tried to argue that Steam is already a subscription service, and failed. I don't see how this ruling will cause any change here other than allow transfer of ownership.

<comment><USER5> I believe GP means because if transfer is allowed, it'll happen at the expense of 'new' sales, which hurts developers/studios/publishers as much as it hurts Valve, so they adapt model to mitigate and sell subscriptions instead of perpetual licences.

<comment><USER4> Which doesn't make economic sense for Valve.

They have two clear options:

a) Switch to a true subscription model, but have to build a way to transfer items sold before the switch in payment model, as those have been ruled to be purchases. The gaming community would likely get annoyed with them.

b) Build a way to transfer items. They get to take a cut of this, and can also pass a cut on to the studios, whilst pointing to this ruling as a reason why it has to happen. The gaming community would celebrate it, even if the transfer is ridiculously complex or difficult.

The second option is the cheapest, and can only increase Valve's revenue, whilst they can also placate their partners.

<comment><USER6> Can Valve take a cut of the transfer? It sounds like the point is French/European citizens must be allowed to resell the game any way they like without any involvement with Valve at all. If the sales/transfers have to go through Valve, it seems that still infringes on "the free movement of goods within the Union."

<comment><USER7> Of course they can take a cut, just like any physical copy second hand reseller takes a cut. The trick will be demonstrating ownership of digital goods, which is the industry is beginning to invest in things like blockchain tech.

<comment><USER6> I think I worded my question badly (or I misunderstood the person I was replying to). I thought they were suggesting Valve / Steam would be the _only_ place the sale / transfer could happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a ton of FUD going around about this in games journalism - <USER2> that this could be the end of the game industry as we know it.

Problem with this reporting is - console games have been re-sellable since the beginning, and console gaming (from a fiscal and number perspective) vastly outpaces PC gaming. That doesn't even include how much more prevalent pirating is with the PC gaming market.

If the console market can survive this, so can the PC market. Yes, even indies.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but console games never get anywhere near the steep discounts or the sheer number of them that PC digital games get.

I'm sure PC gaming can _survive_ this but surviving is not the same as "nothing will change" nor is it "it's going to be better overall". That remains to be seen.

<comment><USER8> Remember - when you can re-sell the game, you don't need the same deep discounts, when you can sell the game to someone else for 80+% of the original sale price.

Even with that in mind, console games (specifically the ones that can be resold) frequently go on sale for half their retail price, and after a year or two can get down to a third. Just like their digital counterparts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A major issue with this is that digital goods do not degrade or deteriorate, unless built-in.

For indie games, a free "used" digital goods market would mean the end of sales for that indie game. How many gamers would not sell off their Subnautica or Super Meat Boy in a heartbeat just to spend that money on Cyberpunk 2077? Many I guess, in the thousands even.

So very shortly the supply of "used" copies of a game would VASTLY outnumber the demand for that game. Thus effectively ending the sales period for that game, probably forever. No reason whatsoever to buy a "new" copy of a digital good unless it uses some additional DRM locks and microtransactions.

Now why this problem isn't as prevalent with physical copies is that:

A) It's actually not legal (in many jurisdictions, at least the ones with copyright lobbies, of which there is no shortage of in the EU) to make copies of the discs for any other purpose but personal backups. B) All discs deteriorate and degrade with time and they can't be circulated forever due to point A.

If an open market of "used" digital goods becomes the norm then that could spell the end for many smaller studios as we know it. Or it just makes a Streaming future even more inevitable, or Steam will invent some clever thing to circumvent this whole thing. Maybe instead of buying games you simply buy "tickets", I leave this up to the lawyers to figure out.

</comment><comment><USER11> "The court rejected Valve's defense that argued Steam is a subscription service."

Good! A subscription service infers new content without having to pay a repeated entry cost for said content.

<comment><USER12> What is a subscription if not a repeated entry cost for new content?

<comment><USER13> And often repeated entry cost without new content. With a subscription service, you never own the content in any meaningful way, you just get temporary access, and if you stop paying, you typically lose access to the content.

Steam isn't a subscription service because you purchase a la carte and only get access to the specific content you choose. I would love a subscription service where I could play other games with a flat monthly cost, but that's not how Steam operates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Given this ruling won't be overturned, I find this a very positive outcome for consumers and the market. Also, I hope that there will be an investigation on the tiered pricing model for steam games, i.e. the same game can almost be twice as expensive in different countries in the EU. This coupled without the possibility of the consumer to buy the product in an EU country outside his/her own country goes clearly against the idea/rules of common market. As a European I should be free to order my product from any EU country of my choosing.

<comment><USER15> > As a European I should be free to order my product from any EU country of my > choosing

As a person, we should be able to order anything we want from any country we want, free of protectionist plots to artificially distort markets to favor politically connected groups such as farmers or auto makers or textile producers.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps, but the parent is referring to existing European law, not just espousing an opinion.

[https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in- eu/selling-...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/selling- goods-services/selling-products-eu/index_en.htm)

<comment><USER14> Yes, thank you for the link.

Relevant quote:

If you offer a special price, promotion or sales conditions, these should be accessible to all your customers irrespective of which EU country they are located in, their nationality, place of residence or business location.

The rules apply to online and offline transactions as long as the sales are to the end user (an individual or business that doesn't have the intention to re- sell, transform, process, rent or subcontract their purchases).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Valve in general has had an interesting, "hands off" approach that has gotten them in legal trouble in the past; they sold software/games in Australia and for some strange reason didn't think to ensure they were in complience with local Consumer laws [1].

[1] [https://www.pcgamesn.com/valve-accc- lawsuit](https://www.pcgamesn.com/valve-accc-lawsuit)

<comment><USER18> "Move fast and break laws..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This ruling sounds like it should apply to mobile apps too. I wonder what Apple and Google think about that.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps this ruling should apply to airplane tickets as well? I wonder what Air France thinks about that?

And Eurail passes -- those are issued to a specific traveler, it seems like the inability to sell your Eurail pass is violating this decision as well. I wonder what the French railroads think about that?

Under the logic of this court decision, I should be able to buy a Eurail pass, ride on a train, mail it to a friend, the friend pays me for the pass, then that friend can take the train, then re-sells it to me, then I can use it, and so on. Right? Isn't that what this decision is saying?

> According to EU law, all goods, including software, can be sold used without > the permission of the maker or the original seller

If we want to argue that a train ride is a service and not a "good," that logic would apply to software as well -- software isn't a physical "thing" but a collection of information that permits some action (i.e. playing a game.) Just like a Eurail pass is a collection of information that permits some action (i.e. riding a train.)

I think the courts in Europe, especially in old-economy countries that have a strong-anti-tech sentiment might ought to be a bit mindful of the unintended consequences of their decisions.

<comment><USER20> > Under the logic of this court decision, I should be able to buy a Eurail > pass, ride on a train, mail it to a friend, the friend pays me for the pass, > then that friend can take the train, then re-sells it to me, then I can use > it, and so on. Right? Isn't that what this decision is saying?

Since when was a train ride considered "goods"? Pretty sure a train ride is a "service" and not "goods".

<comment><USER21> Maybe a single ticket is a service, but what about a "season pass" type ticket? That's the right to ride as many trains as you want. A right to a service isn't a service.

<comment> bjelkeman-again My season pass for the commuter train can be used by anyone I give it to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In theory it sounds right, but the downside could be developers getting less sales, and in the already crowded market it could sink a number of them. Or may be it won't. Hard to say.

However, there will be probably a reaction from some publishers to push more DRM and to run to use something like Stadia exclusively. That's not a good thing at all. And if this will undermine DRM-free gaming, I'd say it's not worth it.

<comment><USER23> Stadia is no different than a PS4 or an Xbox. It's just that you're renting a Stadia, but still buying game licenses (just like Steam). Stadia isn't Netflix for games, it's streaming console for hire.

<comment><USER22> Neither PS nor Xbox are good examples to begin with. They are already DRMed to the brink.

Stadia however is DRM on steroids. So even worse in this sense than other options, especially when you compare it with proper DRM-free stores. I.e. if it comes as a convenience and you can still download the game - then it's fine. But if it comes as "streaming only" option, it's not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm curious as to how this gets handled in practice - does Valve get forced into adding a feature to transfer game rights from one account to another? Does it merely make selling your account legal? At the extreme, does this cause Valve to just pull out of the EU market entirely - this is doubtful, but stranger things have happened!

<comment><USER25> It's annoying that Steam doesn't have transferable licenses. All of my games are spread-out over 3 different Steam accounts and I can't consolidate them.

(I made my first account when Steam launched and added all my physical Valve games by CD-key - then years later I forgot the password (And a dead Hotmail address) and also bought the Orange Box and put it on a new account. I created a new third account for myself years ago to make a clean-break with all the dumb Steam friends I collected in high-school.)

<comment><USER9> Out of DRM paranoia (before I discovered GOG) I used to have a separate Steam account for each game franchise and a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of them. About 15 accounts (yes yes, I don't own that many Steam games, luckily I discovered GOG before I ended up buying too many Steam games). Would be neat if I could finally collapse them now that most of my games are on GOG (including having rebought games I had on Steam that I actually care to really own).

<comment><USER26> I suppose you don't maintain a friends list on those 15 accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If this ruling is upheld and people are able to sell their digital games to other people - there won't be any more steam sales. Let's pray this doesn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER28> > The court rejected Valve's defense that argued Steam is a subscription > service. According to Numerama, the court found that Steam sells games in > perpetuity, and not as part of a subscription package.

So Steam is in the clear as long as they stop selling perpetual licenses and start selling 99-year long subscriptions for their games?

</comment><comment><USER29> I suspect that if this ruling stands valve will probably pull out of the French market unless it can take this to the European Union court and win there.

<comment><USER23> They cannot "pull" out of the French market. The lawsuit from doing that would be insane. What are they gonna do? Take everyone's Steam games away from them? Refund them hundreds of millions of dollars? Billions?

If they lose the appeal, I doubt they'll win at the EU court. They have to either fight and win the appeal or change.</comment></comment>


Scientists Discover the Secret to Keeping Cells Young - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3841620/scientists-discover-the-secret-to-keeping-cells-young/

<comment><USER2> I feel like articles similar to this come out on a yearly basis. As mentioned in the article, modifying the gene may be difficult or impossible. A petri dish isn't a human being.

Also....

>Tbursday

New name for Thursday.</comment>


Sprite and Fanta may be 'poisonous', rules Nigeria Court - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coca-cola-poisonous-spirit-fanta-court-nigeria-nigerian-bottling-company-vitamin-c-health-warnings-a7655766.html <comment><USER2> The Same type of case found in India too. Sales of Sprite, Fanta, Coca-Cola & Pepsi have been banned in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Two of the biggest trade associations in the region called for the boycott in favor of Indian products. The American soft drinks giants have been accused of taking too much water from rivers with local farmers left battling for proper irrigation of the land at the time of a severe drought.</comment>


L.A. Places Ban on New Digital Billboards and Supergraphics - <AUTHOR> http://laist.com/2009/08/07/los_angeles_bans_new_billboards_and.php

<comment><USER2> This will be an interesting fight...I interned at an outdoor advertising company while in college, and they made regular appearances at city council meetings, building commission hearings, and court championing the cause of corporate free speech. These companies (especially ClearChannel) have deep pockets, even during the recession.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suppose it hasn't occurred to them to just paint them white. You don't have to remove them to remove them.</comment>


Linode turns 12, here's some KVM - <AUTHOR> https://blog.linode.com/2015/06/16/linode-turns-12-heres-some-kvm/

<comment><USER2> Aw, but I just reached 100 days uptime! [http://i.imgur.com/1Aoytkt.png](http://i.imgur.com/1Aoytkt.png)

Alright, let's do this...

EDIT: migration is completed, my webapp did not recover nicely after the reboot for some reason, but now works after I restarted it manually. Everything seems fine so far. System boot took 3 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER3> I migrated my Linode from Xen to KVM yesterday; I had a ticket open and needed to migrate my VM to a different host anyway, so I decided to simply migrate to KVM.

After shutting down my VM and clicking "migrate", the migration actually failed, which was a bit terrifying for a few minutes. I was definitely worried that my disk image went _poof_ and that I'd have to restore from a recent backup. Thankfully, Linode's support was there to kick whatever failed and the migration worked after all.

My VM feels a bit more responsive on interactive session, though I haven't benchmarked anything. (I don't really need to, I only serve a few low-traffic static web sites.)</comment>


Ask YC: Bayesian filter for NSFW content ? - <AUTHOR>

I've just launched No-NSFW (NSFW content warning system) which relies on user feedback to determine site ratings.
I'm now thinking of introducing a Bayesian filter to determine site content.  Does this make sense ?
Also, where do I hunt for seed data - I'm using nsfw.reddit for NSFW data (thanks kirubakaran), what do i use for SFW data ? <comment><USER2> Also have a look at DansGuardian <http://dansguardian.org/>. Blacklist files are available here: <http://urlblacklist.com/>

I'm not sure what you are looking for in terms of safe for work data; maybe technorati tags?

</comment><comment><USER3> Google safesearch might help... [http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguide...](http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=preferences&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER4> NSFW? I'm not familiar with the term (yes I could google it but perhaps you could enlighten those of us who aren't, so we don't all have to.)

<comment><USER5> Not Safe For Work, i.e., not suitable for looking at while at work.

<comment><USER4> ah thank you. once again I'm familliar with the long version but not the acronym (I find this happening a lot lately).

personally I'd just like a bayesian filter on my rss.</comment></comment></comment>


Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult - <AUTHOR> http://cleantechnica.com/2011/09/06/goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult/

<comment><USER2> Seriously? This should not be on HN. Flagged.

<comment><USER3> It gratifies ones intellectual curiosity, which is sufficient for HN according to the guidelines. It's true the guidelines say most politics is off topic, but the key is "most", not "all".

What's curious and interesting about the current Republicans is that if you took Obama, and sent him back in a time 40 years (and if as a side effect of time travel he came out white...), he'd have a good shot at winning the _Republican_ nomination.

A good chunk of Obama's initiatives in health care and economics are things that have long been proposed by Republicans. Hence, we have the curious phenomenon of Republicans doing everything in their power, up to the point of endangering the country, to fight against _their_ _own_ traditional agenda.

<comment><USER4> Is there any criticism of Obama that I could make that wouldn't be dismissed as racism?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best hosting solution for app that aims at customers in Europe - <AUTHOR>

My app is almost ready, and I'm planing to launch it in 3 weeks. I'm little worried about scaling. I'm on Rimuhosting VPS (London data center) with max ~580Mb RAM. Cannot upgrade. So I'm looking for a better solution. I need data center in Europe or East Cost (USA). I really like Mediatemple (ve) but ping from here is around 190ms on average. Should I go for EC2? (i don't have much time for sys-admin) <comment><USER2> Linode has a London datacenter.</comment>


Inside the Am2901: AMD's 1970s bit-slice processor - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2020/04/inside-am2901-amds-1970s-bit-slice.html?m=1 <comment><USER3> Here are some old books on bit-slice processors. Very interesting reading.

Bit-Slice Design: Controllers and ALUs by Donnamaie E. White

Bit-Slice Microprocessor Design by John Mick and James Brick

<comment><USER4> The first book is online at the author's website: [http://www.donnamaie.com/BITSLICE/bitslcP.html](http://www.donnamaie.com/BITSLICE/bitslcP.html)

The second book is on Bitsavers: [http://bitsavers.org/components/amd/Am2900/Mick_Bit- Slice_Mi...](http://bitsavers.org/components/amd/Am2900/Mick_Bit- Slice_Microprocessor_Design_1980.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Both of these books are remarkably interesting for anyone who wants to understand microcoded architectures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, Atari used these on: Battle Zone, Red Barron, Tempest, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and I, Robot. That last one has a custom rasterizer chip and AFAICT was the only system to pair what was effectively a GPU with an 8-bit processor (MC 6809). The thing is, by the time the last 3 were produced it probably would have been technically better/simpler to use a 68K for the 3D transforms.

<comment><USER7> I, Robot was seriously impressive for its time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkwdvfXHJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkwdvfXHJc)

It clearly inspired SNES's Star Fox.

<comment><USER8> I used to work with the guy who designed the hardware, Dave Sherman. Man, he had a lot of insider stories about the glory days of Atari!

Anyway, there was no depth buffer. As I recall, the geometry was all pre-split in a way such that occlusion could be handled by sorting at the polygon level instead of the pixel level.

I also seem to recall the native screen resolution was 256x240, but they used one extra bit per pixel that could be used to stretch a given pixel by 1/2 a pixel resolution, effectively giving 512x240. There were situations where the trick didn't work, but 98% of the time it worked well.

<comment><USER6> >> they used one extra bit per pixel that could be used to stretch a given pixel by 1/2 a pixel resolution, effectively giving 512x240

While reading about the reverse engineering by emulator authors. There was an extra bit in the frame buffer that no one seemed to find the use for. That should be reasonably easy to verify from schematics given a heads up.

That may also explain why some of the YouTube videos look so bad around the edges compared to the real thing. They are probably recorded from MAME and dont account for that bit if that's really what it does.

It also seems like that could only effect the right edges of polygons.

There are 2 frame buffers and I believe one is used for scan out and the other is only written to, then they swap roles. So no z-buffer and no reading back pixels.

<comment><USER7> Huh. Seems MAME is using just 265 pixel: [https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers...](https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/irobot.cpp#L301)

<comment><USER7> Made an issue on the MAME tracker: [https://github.com/mamedev/mame/issues/6571](https://github.com/mamedev/mame/issues/6571)

<comment><USER8> I just noticed there were replies to my comment. I did a quick search and found this:

[http://atarihq.com/danb/IRobot/Video%20hardware%20info.txt](http://atarihq.com/danb/IRobot/Video%20hardware%20info.txt)

It has a bit more detail about the pixel format. Unlike what I said, it was 6b color index and one bit for video timing (what I was calling 1/2 pixel stretch). In essence it conveys whether the right edge of a given scanline is best represented by a transition in the middle of a pixel. That works great for most cases, but would not work well when edges from two different triangles intersection (if they weren't actually sharing the exact same edge, if you know what I mean).

This site has schemtics: [http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/irobot/manuals.html](http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/irobot/manuals.html) Page 17 shows the 7th bit, called "RAWHALF", which gets buffered to become "PXSPLIT", and that signal is used to fiddle the clock which is sampling the raw pixel index. I didn't dig enough to know exactly what this means, but that is the place to look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People interested in bitslices should also look at the 74181, sort of the original generic, used in PDP11s, VAX 11/780, Alto, Perq, Nova etc etc

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/74181](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/74181)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the 74181 was a bit earlier, but what's interesting is that bit-slice is a generic building block technology. For example, the VAX 11/780 used '181s, but the compatible 11/730 used 2901s. It's all about how the control microcode is written.

The '181 evolved into the 74281 and 74481 with more functions. Then TI jumped to the 74as888 line, which is an 8-bit slice. There are also things like the IDT 49c402, which is basically 4 x 2901 + a 2902 on a single chip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have the official AMD design handbooks still with me. It's been in the basement for over 30 years. I remember calling AMD and requesting the handbooks when doing my master's in CS as my major was microprogramming. The ALU (the 2901 described here) came with a whole family of chips - <USER2> everything you need to make a CPU.

<comment><USER11> I found a link in the author's references that might be the digital version: [http://bitsavers.informatik.uni- stuttgart.de/components/amd/...](http://bitsavers.informatik.uni- stuttgart.de/components/amd/Am2900/1979_AMD_2900family.pdf)

Now I'm going to go read about the High-Speed Look-Ahead Carry Generator.

<comment><USER5> When you get done with that and want your mind blown, check out the micro- sequence controllers and compliments like the am29803 branch control unit (hardware 'case' statements) and am29811 next address unit (hardware state machine support).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always wanted to play with one of these, ever since I heard about them as a kid back in the 80s. Always found the idea fascinating that one could put together one's own processor out of pieces.</comment>


Atlantis Theory – Sunda Plate - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlan.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Dear HN,

What do you think about this theory?</comment>


Hacker Chat #2 at 7 PST - <AUTHOR> http://www.vokle.com/lineups/7861-hacker-chat2

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a live community discussion, so we can put your webcam up on screen!

We'll be discussing recent HN topics live, and facilitating audience discussion.

Since this is broadcast on Vokle, audience members can be edited into the broadcast, so long as they have flash and a webcam.

Additionally, we take text questions.

Also, we have a much better connection than last time, so there should be fewer stream issues.

<comment><USER2> In your local timezone: [http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/?t=7:00pm&tz=PST%20(...](http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/?t=7:00pm&tz=PST%20\(Pacific%20Standard%20Time\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Stumbled across Vokle, and your Hacker Chat. Highly enjoyed it. I hope you continue to do this! Looking forward to more.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is great. Joining from San Jose. Is the first one recorded?

<comment><AUTHOR> The first one was, but it was really crappy, my home net connection ruined the recording (basically the stream kept resetting so the whole show sucked). We should have a recording of this one. I'll post any updates regarding this to:

@andrewvc on twitter

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> how can i get help with finding who owns an email address?

</comment><comment><USER5> is there anyone here? I thought this was live chat</comment>


Unix for poets - <AUTHOR> http://people.sslmit.unibo.it/~baroni/compling04/UnixforPoets.pdf

<comment><USER2> I've been using *nix for a while, but there are things in here I haven't used (tr, for example, and I haven't used much awk). A nice little diversion, and it's something I'd feel comfortable showing to a newbie if I were nearby to help out.

Definitely worth going through, yourself, if you've got some spare time and want to use a little more of your shell.

NB: Don't pull up man pages right away (like I did for tr); the author explains things after using them. Which works out pretty well.

EDIT1: Additionally, it's fun to rewrite some of these using tools I use more regularly. E.g. replace the first uses of tr with grep. I prefer tr, now, though; it makes more sense to "translate" non letter chars to newlines than to just print all occurrences of a n-letter match.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some updates to the text:

* tail +2 XXXX needs to be tail -n +2 XXXX.

* The $$'s in the shell script are problematic. ([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78493/what-does-mean-in-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78493/what-does-mean-in-the-bash-shell))

* Do yourself a favour and alias a 'del' command instead of 'rm'. At least del should alias to rm -i. I use 'alias del gvfs-trash' which is like Windows' Recycle Bin.

It's interesting, this link has been posted to HN three other times and received only 1 point each time.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's a fun article, but I think it would be better titled "Finally, a use for poetry, told from a Unix geek's perspective".

<comment><USER5> I find it sad that people feel the need to establish arbitrary demarcation lines between the arts and sciences. Poetry may not be "useful" in the sense of creating utilities and infrastructure, but it is definitely used by many people, myself included, as a creative medium to get emotions and thoughts ordered in a way impossible with programming. Nothing soothes me more than to read a poem to my friend or lover, and then have them reciprocate. Art is a powerful thing.

I, for one, dread the day when poetry is considered "useless."</comment></comment>


Expert dismantles Tesla, says poor design and manufacturing hurting profits - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-model-3-design-profits-20181017-story.html <comment><USER2> It's pretty easy for an 'Expert' to claim poor design and manufacturing on literally version 1.0 of model 3. Does this expert also conclude that filming a movie in multiple takes also hurt profits?</comment>


Ring and Nest helped normalize American surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/18/ring-nest-surveillance-doorbell-camera/ <comment><USER2> The drama on this is just getting out of hand.

Let he who has not posted a picture on social media cast the first stone.

<comment><USER3> _throws stone_</comment></comment>


Show HN: Self-hosted, multi-tenant newsletter software Mailcast - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nodemailer/mailcast <comment><AUTHOR> Mailcast is supposed to be simpler than usual newsletter software (there are no advanced marketing features) and it is self contained (no need to integrate with a MTA server or service). It can be used with large lists but it is not supposed be used like this if you do not want to spend a lot of time solving deliverability issues (sending to smaller lists is much easier to manage than large lists)

Screenshots: [https://cloudup.com/cpNpzlf3V5j](https://cloudup.com/cpNpzlf3V5j)</comment>


Show HN: HFT-Like Trading Algo in 300 Lines of Python - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/automation-generation/hft-like-trading-algorithm-in-300-lines-of-code-you-can-run-now-983bede4f13a <comment><AUTHOR> As we build our API trading brokerage, we wanted to show something like HFT algo can be built quickly. Chatting with an ex-HFT guy, I quickly built this and put it in GitHub, so anyone can run it. 261 lines of python. Check out [https://github.com/alpacahq/example- hftish](https://github.com/alpacahq/example-hftish) for the code and a bit of explanation on medium [https://medium.com/automation-generation/hft-like- trading-al...](https://medium.com/automation-generation/hft-like-trading- algorithm-in-300-lines-of-code-you-can-run-now-983bede4f13a)

</comment><comment><USER2> Even if it worked before publication (which I doubt), it is now basically guaranteed not to - as HN and Reddit readers all fight over the scraps (that might not have even been there in the first place)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a general critique for published trading algorithms I've ever seen millions of times, but if you kindly take a close look at it, it accepts which stock to trade as parameter, and I'm running it with some other stock than the default parameter.</comment></comment>