Startup turns 19k under-utilised gaming cafes into ML servers during COVID-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-deal-lease-the-unused-processing-power-of-shuttered-gaming-cafes/ <comment><USER2> I didn't know "gaming cafes" were still a thing. I also wonder what the bandwidth is like. Processing power is straightforward to acquire (buy GPUs) but decent bandwidth can be very hard to acquire in certain areas and yet is necessary if you want to rent out those machines as clients need to bring the data to them fast (labelled assets for ML training, etc).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very impressive. I've been following the progress of akash.network: [https://akash.network/](https://akash.network/)

They wrote two white papers which gave me a much better understanding of the challenges involved in creating a "market for compute" although I'll admit that much of the maths went over my head.

Mining economics: [https://akash-web- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/akas...](https://akash-web- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/akash-econ.pdf)

Decentralised cloud infrastructure marketplace: [https://akash-web- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/akas...](https://akash-web- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/03/akash-position.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Akash looks cool! I am working on a self hosting solution ([https://protos.io](https://protos.io)) that is similar to Sandstorm, and I've been dreaming of a way to deploy VMs on various cloud providers, without requiring an account creation beforehand and without having any intermediaries. Akash looks like it could become that. Unfortunately at the moment you can only deploy containers, and I need the ability to deploy full VMs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heya! I'm Jamie, I'm actually one of the co-founders of FluidStack, the company in the post. We've been working with gaming cafes to help them earn money during the lockdown across the US, and offering them out to customers as ultra-cheap servers for machine learning, video rendering, and cloud gaming. We would love feedback from HN on this -- if anybody has thoughts -- I'd love to hear them! You can also reach me at email@example.com if you'd rather email me anything. Thanks!</comment>


The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.libertarianism.org/media/free-thoughts/united-states-paranoia-conspiracy-theory <comment><USER2> (Audio)</comment>


Dropbox needs to be seen like Atlassian, not Box, to avoid a downround IPO - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2018/2/23/17046154/dropbox-atlassian-box-ipo-s1-filing-public <comment><USER2> It'll be a stretch for Dropbox to be valued like Atlassian given how the product offering is 98% the same as box. Also, the fundamentals are startlingly different. Atlassian probably makes a lot more per paying customer, with a large base of enterprise and smbs. They also have a much larger % of paying customers.

Like it or not, Dropbox is a bigger Box, so the P/E will likely resemble Box. I'm guessing $8B to be a realistic valuation, given larger revenues and lower costs. But it's certainty a down round</comment>


Disney acquires nearly 30% stake in Hulu - <AUTHOR> http://www.nma.co.uk/disney-acquires-nearly-30-stake-in-hulu/3000398.article

<comment><USER2> So how long until Disney decides that Hulu should use the Move Media Player and not support any browser other than IE just like abc.com. I like Hulu because it's simple and works well, something that Disney seems to not understand.

<comment><USER3> The worst part about the ABC player is it assumes you are sitting right in front of your computer and requires you to click a link to continue the video.

Retarded.

<comment><USER4> I made it most of the way thru the first season of Lost doing exactly that. Then I found the options menu and unchecked a box. Now I'm back to my preferred state of lethargy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This deal confirms Hulu mission: a hub for professional media videos. I don't think youtube should be worried they remain a hub for catch all videos.

<comment><USER6> The trouble is most of the revenue seems to come from professional media videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder what this portends for the cable networks?

Once every show is offered by the producers directly from their web site, for free, be it Hulu or something else, what is the point in "TV channels?" What is the benefit that studios derive from their relationship with the cable companies? Does this reduce the cable companies role to just supplying bandwidth?

Yes, the cable companies have a lot of lobbyists, which is how they have been sustaining their economic position. But I think Disney has a couple lobbyists, too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cartel! And yet I still think that's an improvement. At least this way they can disintermediate the local telco monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER8> I envy US residents — I really hope Hulu is actually working on getting it opened up to the rest of the world (especially the UK!)

<comment><USER9> We'll give you Hulu if you give us the BBC iPlayer. ;-)

A bit more seriously, even when/if they do bring it to other countries I'm doubtful the entire catalog would be opened up - it would likely be on a show- by-show, country-by-country basis as they clear the rights, and I wouldn't be surprised if they added country-specific shows that the US can't watch as well.

<comment><USER10> The sad thing is you're likely correct. The even sadder thing is that foreign markets don't really have a good bargaining chip. There isn't going to be any "I'll give you this, if you give us that" going on when negotiations start up, because the US imports virtually no show. It doesn't help that any show that is imported has to be 'americanized'.

At least I can get most of my favorite shows here through other means. I thankfully stopped watching broadcast television almost five years ago now, and I have little interest in discussing television in the workplace (when you work with electricity or on roofs, it's generally a bad idea to get distracted with something with as trivial importance as last nights TV). So I'm usually good to wait till a DVD release, and if I'm not I can usually wait a day for it to get online (usually before any syndicated show premieres on Canadian TV).</comment></comment></comment>


Small helicopter drone crash lands on New York city street - <AUTHOR> http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=9270668

<comment><USER2> That seems a little sensationalist... It seems a lot more like "hobbyist crashes RC helo in NYC"

see also [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAkq6Ou3M_I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAkq6Ou3M_I)

</comment><comment><USER3> alternate headline:

"Business" man who clearly has nothing better to do reports manchild to police for playing with RC toy.</comment>


The Truth About What A Startup CEO Does All Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.leighdrogen.com/the-truth-about-what-a-startup-ceo-does-all-day/

<comment><USER2> it's a little biased toward one type of startup CEO, but a good read nonetheless</comment>


'Bitcoin Browser' Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch - <AUTHOR> https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-browser-brave-raises-4-5m/ <comment><USER2> > _On the desktop, Brave provides a 40% to 60% speed increase, and a 2x to 4x > speed increase on mobile devices. Mobile users see a direct reduction in > both battery and data plan consumption. Brave also protects users with > privacy and security features such as HTTPS Everywhere to encrypt data > traffic, fingerprinting shields, phishing protection, malware filtering, and > script blocking._

Maybe this is a good enough argument to get people to install it. But I seriously doubt you will get people to voluntarily pay money, which is slowly paid out as they surf the web, when the alternative is a free browsing experience with a standard ad blocker.

Also, all of their listed benefits to users is accessible on all other major browsers now with existing extensions.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't make much sense to be honest. I've heard about this browser a few times now and I still have no idea how is it supposed to gain traction. The performance/bandwidth benefits of less shitty ads can be had by simply disabling flash and using an ad blocker, and otherwise average people just aren't going to care to switch. As far as I can tell the only reason investors threw $7M at them is because Brendan Eich is involved.

<comment><USER4> I want to support the sites I visit but I really dislike ads. I subscribe to a few but it would be a pain to set up individually for every site. Other people are also worried about being tracked online. This lets you conveniently support sites as you browse, without being tracked.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how can they pay the site you visit without tracking your visits to those sites.

EDIT: apparently they use Anonize, that's interesting.

[https://anonize.org/assets/technology.html](https://anonize.org/assets/technology.html)

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/brave/ledger/blob/master/documentation/Le...](https://github.com/brave/ledger/blob/master/documentation/Ledger- Principles.md)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I want micropayments for web content to happen. I much prefer that future to the advertising-supported present.

Getting there has a massive chicken-and-egg problem, of course, as you need a viable mass of both users and sites for it to get traction, and you can't get one without the other.

Requiring a new browser (vs. an extension to a normal browser) takes your "viable mass of users" problem and makes it about ten times harder.

You are brave, Brave.

</comment><comment><USER7> Last time I looked at Brave, it was replacing some served ads with its own ads. I do not think that's ok.

<comment><USER8> I think that's very much ok. At least someone is paying attention to the ads, and curating them so they're not the same awful ads we've been getting. If the current browsers cared anything about our viewing experience we would never get kicked into the app store, or bombarded by some autoplay video, but we do and it's not stopping. Bring on Brave.

<comment><USER9> In my opinion, replacing ads is worse than simply ad-blocking.

Imagine a scenario where a replaced ad actually degraded the website's performance more so than the website's own ads, which is not all that far- fetched, and users end up blaming the website for having crappy ads.

Additionally, what if Google and Mozilla started doing that with their browsers, would you still be okay with it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What transparency do they provide about how the payments are allocated? Can I see where the money went and which publishers actually collected their payment? Or is that all opaque, where Brave actually keeps "a portion" plus publishers don't actually get paid unless their payment is above some rarely reached threshold?

Personally I'd love to pay for using websites and get a faster experience (versus the alternative ways to do it), because I really want publishers to get paid. But I'm skeptical until I see that it's really happening. No transparency means 0% chance I use it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love Brave. I'm still locked into Chrome out of habit but I'm slowly trying to push myself over to Brave. It does a much, much better job ad blocking natively, and it's getting better with every release. The primary reason, however, is I like the idea of controlling how ad revenue is used. I think the idea of paying people to accept ads is a long overdue.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just downloaded this and went to test it out. I went straight to a torrent site to see how it worked. The was a noticeable difference in how fast the page loaded but the pop under on the site still managed to open a tab with some shady advertising. I imagine they are still working out the kinks but when they are as effective as blocking ads as an ad-blocker and maintains its speed this will be a great browser.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shouldn't a browser working the other way round should be implemented : you can not use any adblocker but in exchange of your eyeballs usage you get a small percentage of the ads costs ?

<comment><USER13> I don't think you (the viewer) could earn anything meaningful in that system. Afaik adsense gives the website owner profits on the order of ~0.01 cent / ad view. So "a small percentage" of that would give the viewer basically nothing.

also "eyeball usage" sounds about as dystopian as "human resources" :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like Brave on Android from when it was just a "bubble browser", but man alive it's flakey. Every day I get random bubbles on the screen that can't be moved or closed, or even worse, invisible full page coverage which means nothing on the screen works unless I pull down the Brave notification in the system tray to manually hide it.

2-3 times a day I have to force-close it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Please fix this "jumpiness" on your bubble browser on Android. Every time I check Brave on Android I get angry because of this bubble hiding/showing the whole time. Especially on websites which hide their top nav bar themself... then I have two hiding mechanism jumping all over my screen. When I visit a website I want to read it without jumping text.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's laughable that Brave is marketed as a new, fast browser when it's just a Node/Electron application. It's barely more than a skin on a Chrome window with no possibility of ever outperforming Chrome.

<comment><USER17> I was laughing out loud, when I saw that it was based on node. They want to build a secure and fast browser and they use JS to accomplish it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone here think this might be one of those historical moments like when the Mosaic browser was released?

I see some potential for what could be. But, I don't see the value proposition for the average consumer. I just don't think there's enough value in what they're offering, to be a major breakthrough that will revolutionize the internet. I see it as more of a niche offering.

</comment><comment><USER19> The only people I know who care about ads and have them enabled do so because they feel they must reward the content creators.

If you are replacing the content creator ads with your own, there is absolutely no reason to have ads enabled at all.

<comment><USER20> Brave shares the revenue from their client-side ads with the content sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So with that Brave, BitGo and Coinbase get to know it all? Or do I have a new pseudonym per site? How does this prevent all my transactions being known to the parties involved or even the whole world?

<comment><USER22> You should read their literature on this, it's some kind of zero knowledge thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I like the idea behind the brave browser but there UI needs some work. There are no extensions yet to make tabs behave more like chromes on the desktop. On android (where I really neeed more ad blocker options) they have this weird bubble thing like facebook chat.

I find it unusable until they do something about this.

</comment><comment><USER24> I installed Brave when it first came out as the ad plan sounded very interesting. There was another attempt using bitcoin in the browser to 'bypass' ads, but unfortunately, it wasn't have been successful (in the network effect sense) I'm still waiting for the LastPass option :)

<comment><USER25> Lastpass is available in the latest version I have (0.11.1). However, it doesn't get a menu icon anywhere in the title bar. You have to use the right- click contextual menu to use it if autofill fails.

<comment><USER24> didn't know they updated it, i'll give it a go later tonight. thanks! any bitcoin related updates? their seed money is all from bitcoin VCs so there must be something going on..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Internet users with browsers full of bitcoin... what could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER27> Miniscule amounts of bitcoin really. Is it the end of the world if I lose 50 cents worth of bitcoin?

oooh scary.

<comment><USER26> > _Miniscule amounts of bitcoin really_

Until it isn't. Good luck displacing ads with average wallet balances of "50 cents"

<comment><USER27> The replaced ads are bought through brave so users don't pay for that. I believe that is the default (would have to check to be sure) Either way most users probably won't really have any balance at all

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how this will play with zeronet: [http://zeronet.io](http://zeronet.io)

</comment><comment><USER29> Won't this run afoul of money transmitter laws?

</comment><comment><USER30> isn't this just Net Neutrality through the backdoor?

<comment><USER31> I fail to see how ad blocking on the client side relates to prioritized network traffic.

ISPs are the only ones with control over the system to really hijack net neutrality anyway. Using a browser that blocks/replaces sources by your choice has nothing to do with that.

<comment><USER30> we'll let's help you with your issue: should content providers (reddit, arstechnica, etc) decide to de-prioritize those that aren't directly making them money, the effect is the same as net neutrality, (a tiered-access internet) is it not? Should Brave gain even a minority marketshare, you'll definitely see Google and Mozilla (and likely Microsoft) jump on board with similar solutions.

We've merely pushed the control from the ISP to the content providers. Does this mean it isn't a Net Neutrality hijack anymore?</comment></comment></comment>


Casio debuts Prizm graphing calculator with 'high-res' color screen -- Engadget - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/09/casio-debuts-prizm-graphing-calculator-with-high-res-color-scr/ <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/G...](http://www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Graphing/PRIZM_fx- CG10/content/Technical_Specs/)</comment>


Ask HN: Average time to find first freelancing clients? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious how long it took successful freelancers to get their first few clients? <comment><USER2> In my experience the first client has often come to me -- this is because I've always made interesting things on the web that attract attention.

The easiest sale to make, particularly if you lack sales skills and experience, is to have the fish jump into the pan for you. The trouble is that this doesn't happen enough to be sustainable.

When you have a mature sales process you have a process that is repeatable; you can write a playbook and hand it to a junior salesperson and they can do a lot of the work for you.

It can be a long way to go to get to that place so then you are doing "business development" which is an entirely different ball of wax.

The first sale is _always_ diffealways come to me

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, we don't have any first clients coming to us yet. :(</comment></comment>


"I was held hostage by Isis. They fear our unity more than our airstrikes" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/16/isis-bombs-hostage-syria-islamic-state-paris-attacks <comment><AUTHOR> This is why I find the news that France will continue to accept Syrian refugees [1] so very heartening. Aside from the "human compassion" angle, this hurts ISIS more than any bomb: it proves that their "the world vs. Islam" narrative is a lie.

[1] [http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/18/3723440/france- ref...](http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/18/3723440/france-refugees/)

</comment><comment><USER2> "The group is wicked, of that there is no doubt. But after all that happened to me, I still don't feel Isis is the priority. To my mind, Bashar al-Assad is the priority."

What a ridiculous piece of propaganda.</comment>


Us online tuition move hits foreign visas - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53315651 <comment><USER2> The title of this post could be improved a lot. "US to withdraw visas for students at completely online colleges"

Aside from that, this is a dumb move, and going to potentially affect up to hundreds of thousands of students. If not in actual effect, then at least in perception and concern about whether the US is the place for them to study and want to contribute to.

And moreover in the short term, basically incentivizes some significant portion to stop wanting to pay full tuition for essentially remote study that could be given by anyone. I await the trickle down effects on the lost spending and economic impacts in college towns of people getting kicked out from this.

<comment><USER3> It's a dumb move if you see the impact on the students as a bad thing.

If you want to make the US an unappealing place to emigrate to, and thus drive down immigration and please your nativists, then it's a smart move.

Based on the way the wind blows in US politics, this is a smart move. They could be even smarter, and once they've got the students out of the country, terminate their courses. There's no way they'd ever want to come back after that, and it would be raucously popular with the natvist support base.

<comment><USER4> I _really_ appreciate your comment.

I was initially reacting in a very knee-jerk and emotional way because I personally see this as a Bad Thing® as it does not align with my values and my wants for my country (US). Your comment made me think about it from a different perspective.

It saddens me to think that you may be right - that this may be deliberate - but you made me at least acknowledge that it might be the unfortunate 'will of the people', or at least some of them, even if not a majority.

<comment><USER5> Your cosmopolitan "values" of celebrating global human labor trafficking are simply a means to exploit the global working class.

For most working Americans, and effectively many foreigners as well, global human labor trafficking is an objectively bad thing.

<comment><USER4> Can you explain how my "values" celebrate global human labor trafficking?

<comment><USER5> That's what comprises the overwhelming amount of immigration to leading western nations. And it's what governs, lobbies, and votes for pro-immigration law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My immediate interpretation was that this is a play by the Executive Branch to pressure universities to maintain in-person classes in the coming semester.

<comment><USER7> Not exactly. Trump and his base do not care about Universities, which are seen as "liberal." Universities becoming fully open does not help his base or the economy as a whole, and thus his re-election chances.

This is a move aimed at destabilizing or collapsing the higher educational system. If safety from the virus continues to be a concern (as seems likely for the foreseeable future), universities cannot just resume fully, no matter what. Caught between the Trump order and the virus, things will start going downhill.

<comment><USER6> I don't think that your analysis is coherent given the demographics of the political divide. The GOP has more support among high-income Americans than the DNC, and that support increases as you go further up the line. Rich people tend to send their children to universities. It doesn't serve them to destabilize or collapse the higher education system.

I think the larger weakness in your line of argument is that whatever happens to students will have externalities that reverberate beyond universities themselves. Students who are not in school will probably live at home, reifying the pandemic in the minds of their parents. They may question their tuition, creating a quagmire for universities that suddenly have to explain the high price of education via glorified webinars. They may choose to take time off and compete for jobs in the labor market.

It would be somewhat demoralizing for a middle-class family to be unable to send a college student back to school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a punch right at China.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international- stu...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-students-in- the-us-by-country-of-origin/)

<comment><USER9> Ah yes. Forced to stay away from a raging corona virus hotspot. Got em

<comment><USER10> Seriously. Right to the gut! Boom!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It will be interesting to see how much of the pull of a US education is the education and how much is a Visa, American contacts and the "American lifestyle"...

</comment><comment><USER12> simple pandering by the current us gvt. student visas are cancelled, rolls into h1b. n no more of those dirty liberal immigrants. n then you can parade how strong you're against china.

</comment><comment><USER13> And you will still have to pay full fees.</comment>


Why I'm not staking my future on MeteorJS - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@calvinfroedge/why-i-m-not-staking-my-future-on-meteorjs-52e55fbf5332#.ec3ukubow <comment><USER2> Meteor is an excellent (or: the best) _prototyping_ framework. Getting some idea implemented into something usable that mostly looks and feels nice is a cakewalk of a few hours (once you know a little bit about popular atmosphere packages). It also can be used to get the UX of an idea right in live-coding sessions and to give a try at the hard problems of your idea quickly (atmosphere + the giant clusterfuck of NPM stuff should contain something that does what you need more or less). If you do some small tools or or internal stuff or the like, there is no need to progress any further after prototyping.

If you know there will be pressure, high growth or stability/performance/predictability/maintainability requirements for years to come, by all means, use the appropriate technology to build your product. You should know where the application problems are after tinkering with a prototype in meteor. For the average "90% of current products" you'll end up building, phoenix[1] is an excellent choice to build the real stuff, and you can have the same soft-realtime-sockets of meteor with just a little more thought (but way more predictable, structured & scalable).

But again, IMO _nothing_ beats meteor for prototyping stuff as fast as possible.

[1] [http://www.phoenixframework.org/](http://www.phoenixframework.org/)

<comment><USER3> I am a Python dev, so I don't know too much JS. Is it faster than RoR of Django for prototyping? I know that with Django's admin, you can have something with a relativley full set of features very quickly (as long as your features fall into Django's way of thinking).

<comment><USER2> way faster actually. (RoR dev for several years here).

You have zero-config user account system and drop-in admin panels (zero config) here too. more precise: you just code up templates and declare that you have data (mongo being schema-free helps in this case) and code up interactions with a few lines. done. with stuff like auto-form and other goodies, a CRUD SPA with batteries included is done in a few minutes, ready to run.

But don't dare to dabble with correct deployment, testing or stuff like that, waste of time.</comment></comment></comment>


6 members of Social Capital, including 4 partners, were let go - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/6-members-of-social-capital-were-let-go-on-thursday-2018-9 <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/PZDTML](https://outline.com/PZDTML) works for me.

<comment><USER3> very interesting that it somehow bypasses the paywall. any idea how?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks like a big part of the story:

>As Business Insider previously reported, Palihapitiya's involvement in the firm has been inconsistent.

It definitely paints this guy as capricious and ADD about his company.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can we stop linking to BI paywall.

<comment><USER6> If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

This is in the FAQ at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)</comment></comment>


The Twitter api: the max_id timelineparam - <AUTHOR> http://opeyemi.posterous.com/the-twitter-api-the-maxid-timeline-param

<comment><USER2> This would be helped with a more descriptive title. I found it an interesting/quick look into working with the API, but found the title a bit too vague.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually, it explains the trouble I've been having with double posts in my twitter client. To whoever wrote this, Thanks!</comment>


Justin.tv VP Of Product Starts Stealth Mobile Sharing Startup, Yobongo - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/08/justin-tv-yobongo/

<comment><USER2> I'm looking forward to what Caleb comes up with here, his Toluu.com site is great, if you haven't tried it and are looking for some interesting blogs / podcasts be sure to check it out

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been playing with the beta and I love it. Cool idea.</comment>


Privacy could be the next big thing: a video talk - <AUTHOR> https://kryogenix.org/code/privacy-could-be-the-next-big-thing-hackference/ <comment><USER2> I was lucky enough to see this live, the video is great but doesn't really do it justice.</comment>


Experience Report on Formally Verifying Parts of OpenJDK's API with KeY - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.10818 <comment><USER2> Huh, interesting that they picked OpenJDK 6 for this work. Any clue why?

<comment><USER3> I suspect that it is because Java 6 is the oldest (and thus smallest/simplest) version of Java that supports their tooling. Java 6 introduced annotations which makes writing third party tooling a lot easier plus Java 7 changed the sort algorithm. This particular update which used Timsort actually had some subtle issues which were only found through formal verification [1]. Not sure if there were other changes to collections internally/externally though.

[1]: [http://www.envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and- pyth...](http://www.envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and-python- sorting-algorithm-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/)</comment></comment>


Own the laptops that built reddit.com ("luck not included") - <AUTHOR> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:11&item=140139991952

<comment><USER2> I was all getting ready to bid until he mentioned it came with a Creed CD. No sale.

<comment><USER3> I'm still trying to figure out how someone would end up with a Creed CD to have to get rid of it. It just doesn't make sense. Did Alexis or Steve pay money for it? Was it thrown through their window by Diggers in retaliation for building a better social news site? Was it left behind in the apartment they rented in SF? Did Scott Stapp seduce Alexis and leave it on the nightstand in the morning? So many unanswered questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It's like a Web 2.0 startup kit!" Yeah, that plus YC funding.

It's awesome that they're giving the proceeds to charity.

</comment><comment><USER5> I predict that the laptops will sell for > $10k. (4 days, 18 hours until the end of the auction)

<comment><USER6> I think that'd be a pretty safe bet.

Edit: I'm leaving my original comment for posterity but I misread the parent post. (Whoops: ">" != "<")

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And a dig at Lisp. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> A 12" laptop? I'm guessing the "business" guy had that one.

<comment><USER9> I know hackers that use those, they usually have multiple workspaces with monitors setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> yeah its not the price but the data that can be retrieved

:D

</comment><comment><USER11> i do need a new laptop.

<comment><USER12> I just got one of the Dell ones with Ubuntu preinstalled, and am pretty happy. Cheap, not fancy, but pretty fast and seems like a nice workhorse.

<comment><USER13> The Dells are alright as long as you stick with the business line, build quality is much better than the consumer line.</comment></comment></comment>


Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://lowendmac.com/thomas/07/0209.html <comment><USER2> After Dark was great (I remember oogling it in Babbage's) but firing up my Dad's high-powered 486 and watching my Star Wars screensaver really made me feel high-tech. Especially when the Jawas started walking onscreen and stealing my folders.

[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Screen_Entertainmen...](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Screen_Entertainment)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1w1SQ3ezh](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1w1SQ3ezh) 8

A huge collection of After Dark screen savers. 2:50 in is the X-Men which I had the pleasure of working on as an artist. Many hours spent in front of Deluxe Paint and Deluxe Animator to get the characters on to the screen.

I should have some of that work on a floppy somewhere.

<comment><USER4> FYI, there's a space in your link which doesn't belong. Might want to edit that out.

<comment><USER3> whoops, to late to edit, here is the link [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1w1SQ3ezh8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1w1SQ3ezh8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "There's nobody doing really creative screen savers these days, that I know > of." xscreensaver, which even runs on iOS and OS X, continues to release new > modules:

[http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/](http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/)

For nostalgia, DarkSide of the Mac had a pretty sweet freeware screensaver collection. ([http://www.poubelle.com/DarkSide.html](http://www.poubelle.com/DarkSide.html))

Erfert Fenton's book "Art of Darkness" came with a bunch of add-on screensavers for AD. I remember the chalkboard module being particularly impressive.

</comment><comment><USER6> After Dark was cool, but my heart will always belong to Underware: [http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware](http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware)

<comment><USER5> Underware was really impressive. I'm amazed that no-one has built anything like this for Android. (I assume it's impossible on iOS.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it'd be possible for them to release this as freeware now ?

</comment><comment><USER8> Neat interview, good job!</comment>


Ask HN: Should I worry about software patents? - <AUTHOR> A patent like this http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0342709.html is a straightforward way of persisting graph data on RDBMS. If I wish to create an open source alternate  implementation of a GraphDB with similar design, should I be bothered? Can I get away with minor tweaks in the design? <comment><USER2> If you live in a country with software patents, just take your business elsewhere. If you live in a democracy make sure next time you vote you vote against software patents.</comment>


The upper middle class is ruining America - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-upper-middle-class-is-ruining-america-2015-1

<comment><USER2> This article made some really good points about the politics of the upper middle class (who I belong to). The author glosses over certain things like the real fear of not being able to afford to live in a low crime area (and yes, crime rates are correlated with demographics, and no, that doesn't make that fear illegitimate), but this is not central to the article.

I think the article has direct relevance to HN, where many people would like to protect the high wages of the tech industry, by opposing H-1B visas, offshoring (not such a big issue now) and campaigns to teach tech more broadly. People often conveniently forget or ignore market logic, which states that for the greater good, people should be given every opportunity to move into higher wage jobs, _even though this will lower the wages of people in those jobs_. These people often seek refuge in the thoroughly refuted logic of the far left, which states that even very well paid workers are still being "exploited" and that competition between workers of any kind is bad, and instead we should somehow seek to re-arrange the economy so everyone has access to the bountiful "surplus" that is somehow out of our reach. In contrast, the author rightly puts people on a spectrum of wealth, and points out that people far enough along this spectrum need to being arguing that they should have _less_ not _more_.

<comment><USER3> I understand that there are a lot of different points of view on the H1B. However, when people talk about "protectionism" around tech jobs, I feel it is important to point out that tech jobs are already far more open to international competition than almost all "upper middle class" professions like law, medicine, or dentistry, and that much of the objection to these visas is around programs specifically designed to use the immigration to increase the size of the tech workforce, not immigration in general. This objection is, in fact, absolutely consistent with support for a more generally pro-immigration outlook and even the "greater good" you have mentioned. In fact, I'd say allowing general immigration where immigrants are not obligated to study tech-specific fields to get into the US, and are free to choose a profession rather than having to work in a set of pre-defined fields, is far _more_ pro-immigrant than restrictive tech visas.

Here's how many people who support immigration but are skeptical about the tech visas see the argument:

Claim: "there is a critical shortage of tech workers, therefore, we must change our immigration system to favor tech immigrants over other kinds of immigrants".

The response: "although immigration is generally beneficial, the evidence does not support claims of a specific tech worker shortage. Therefore, we should pursue a more general policy of immigration, and allow immigrants to respond to market signals when they choose a profession, just as free citizens and residents do".

<comment><USER2> In order to get the most economic benefit (for both the worker and the host nation) per worker, immigration limits, if they exist, should be based on a minimum income.

You are right that there is no reason to single out tech. However my claim is that this is because other professions have been successful in implementing the harmful protectionism I and the article were referring to. There is not a critical shortage of tech workers in particular, but high wages indicate a shortage in general. There are also valid reasons to focus on tech, e.g. tech skills are more transferable internationally than, for example, law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Socialism for me, neoliberalism for everyone else" seems a common human trait. The people described in the article just seem a bit more successful at it, due to their access to wealth and power.

I've long been fascinated by the negative way unions are described in the US, while the unions that protect doctors and lawyers from competition aren't even described as such.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry, there is no such thing as the upper middle class. Just another conservative trying to deflect blame from themselves.

<comment><USER6> You're just arguing semantics, didn't read the article, or both. The author defines who he's talking about, and whether or not "upper middle class" exists isn't the point.

<comment><USER5> 1\. The premise of the article is wrong to begin with, no one "class" is "ruining America". 2\. Upper middle class is nothing but a construct that would better be defined as the "affluent". Those with money, or enough money that they aren't going to be hurt by a tax increase, but are so conservative that they think they shouldn't have to pay taxes. 3\. He never defines what is "best" in this country. 4\. Uses the "National Review" as a source. A known site or racist articles. 5\. No mention of the Republican plan to deny President Obama victory on any legislation: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/biden- mc...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/biden-mcconnell- decided-to-withhold-all-cooperation-even-before-we-took- office/2012/08/10/64e9a138-e302-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html) 6\. No mention of white privilege. 7\. No mention of conservative efforts to restrict voting to for minorities and young people. He just mentions that the affluent vote at " vote at substantially higher rates than those less well-off". This is a big one, because with this could actually change things, but again no mention of what conservatives are doing.

Again, the article is a waste of time.

<comment><USER7> so's your comment. the article makes an interesting point, while not riding the ruts you prescribe</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Software for exploring billion row sized datasets - <AUTHOR> Given billions of rows of data across a few tables, how do you best make sense of it?
My current method involves thinking up interesting questions and writing database queries. I then plug the resulting data into gnuplot to examine it.
Is there generally a better way? I am kinda hoping a Mathematica/Matlab type shell or similar for databases or other data sources exists. Just type a query and view a graph. Even better, type queries, output graphs into a web page.
Or is the method to hire a data scientist to build specialised reports?
The data format is agnostic, interested in how this works across all ecosystems. <comment><USER2> > Given billions of rows of data across a few tables, how do you best make > sense of it?

Your inquiry won't go anywhere until you describe the problem you're trying to solve. Be specific, if only for a single example problem.

I say this because there's no generic solution to accessing a large database -- the solution depends on the goal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using a language that supports an interactive development library might speed up the process for you.

I use Clojure, and like Incanter for this kind of work. I also use Datomic as my data store, when I can, which makes it quite easy to perform ad-hoc queries.

Of course, the fact that your data is too large to effectively fit in memory means that, whatever you're graphing, you're going to have to aggregate it a bit first before you can visualize it. That's really the hardest part of what you asking, and how you do that efficiently depends entirely on what your query is and what kind of data store you're using.

I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf software that does what you're talking about, unless it fits into an OLAP-type schema (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLAP_cube>) for which there are several products available.

</comment><comment><USER4> When you mentions billion row datasets MapReduce and Apache Hadoop comes to mind, but that requires that you are capable to do some computer programming.

There may also be a lot of existing solution to present/summaries/graph you data, depending on what it contains and witch program created it. Can you give us some more insight into what kind of data you have?

</comment><comment><USER5> SQL Server and Excel PivotTables uses Vertipaq. The main idea is data along columns tend to not change very much. Therefore, one is able to compress data in memory in columns, achieving a very high degree of compression.

Perhaps you can roll something like this as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are GUI analysis tools that produce graphs directly from databases, eg Tableau <http://www.tableausoftware.com/solutions/big-data-analysis></comment>


LavaPS - a contribution to "calm computing" - <AUTHOR> http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/index.html

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of Peep [1] which would generate a nature-like soundscape based on network traffic, theoretically leading to problems 'sounding wrong'.

There's a slashdot story [2] on another project that used music instead of nature sounds but alas it's a 404 and I haven't been able to find the original source.

[1] [http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa00/gilfix/gilfix_html/index...](http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa00/gilfix/gilfix_html/index.html)

[2] <http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/09/1325225>

Edit: layout

<comment><USER3> Do you mean Sound of Traffic[1]? I haven't tried it yet, and neither have I tried Netsound[2], but they're both somewhere in the lower middle of my very- long-rainy-day list.

[1] <http://www.smokinggun.com/projects/soundoftraffic/>

[2] <http://netsound.ohnolab.org/english/index.html>

(Edit: layout)

<comment><USER2> The slashdot story doesn't seem to be referring to Sound of Traffic but both links are great, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> great idea, not so great the rendering of '80s X application.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's clearly popular - perhaps you could supply an alternative that looks better, and find a way to monetize it.</comment></comment>


Designing Web Applications for Scalability - <AUTHOR> http://www.osconvo.com/post/view/2010/8/12/designing-web-applications-for-scalability

<comment><USER2> Preamble: I'm not being negative! I always appreciate any effort to elucidate complicating matters--especially those on matters I happen to have a vested interest in--but seeing as this is A Really Challenging Engineering Problem That Lot's Of People Like Myself Spend The Better Part Of Our Careers Trying To Solve and it's being offered up in a pithy, bite-size, 1000-word blog post on "Designing Web Applications for Scalability", well, I'm going to have to get out my red pen.

The entire subsection on "Choosing your data storage setup" is _completely_ inconsistent precisely because it attempts to tackle such a huge problem in the space of a few paragraphs. Couch and Redis don't even partition out of the box, Tokyo Cabinet only does so with the help of Lightcloud, Mongo's auto- sharding is still unready for production, and Cassandra and Voldemort are fully distributed clusters for whom replication and partitioning mean very different things (and, incidentally, using "partitioning" and "sharding" interchangeably is one thing; doing the same for "shard" and "node" is very different).

And of course by muddying the waters with respect to the datastores themselves the entire treatment of designing a schema is similarly inconsistent. How can you have a universal keying strategy when you don't even know the terms of your discussion? Are you hashing to shards or to a ring? On the client side? With Zookeeper? Or with a messaging service?

Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with the author's spirit of building for customer acquisition while also building for scalability, but I guess my advice would be "do plenty of homework and never expect to learn everything you'll need to know after reading a hundred blog posts--much less after reading just one."

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. I got about 1500 words into it and said to myself, this is a book I'm trying to fit into a post. Such is the reality of complex topics like these.

I agree with most of the points you're making, but I also think that its important to remember that most people have no idea about what's even involved in the basics. Your points are advanced and are details that are VERY important, but are beyond the scope of a post. If the criteria for trying to put into words some of the concepts behind scalability were that you need to be writing a dissertation to do so, then we would live in a sadly uninformed world.

My intent wasn't to make it a thorough primer so much as to touch on some of the concepts involved in making scalability a reality in day-to-day development of web applications: scalable datastorage, scalable application layers, etc. I hope the readers see it for what it is and then go do further research of their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nothing stunning, no new thinking, but a good set of broad fundamentals.</comment>


Google joins FIDO's crusade to replace passwords - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57581088-83/google-joins-fidos-crusade-to-replace-passwords/

<comment><USER2> I hope this isn't the future. I don't want to be limited to one universal username that's tied to my real identity.</comment>


Beautiful Failure - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2010/01/beautiful_failure.markdown#readme

<comment><USER2> Erlang has the ability to keep two versions of a compiled module in memory at once (but only two, not three or more), making it possible to do hot code updates and achieve zero downtime upgrades. The message passing architecture makes this possible by swapping the old code out at a message processing boundary (letting the current cycle complete before loading the new code in). This can be seen as a limited implementation of a version-aware runtime.

</comment><comment><USER3> _The irritating problem with this is when two different pieces of code--such as two separate gems--both attempt to add the same method to the same class. Classes are global in Ruby, so we end up with a race condition in our code._

Obviously not the point of the article, but it's still important to get your jargon right. This isn't a race condition. It could be, if you were trying to modify the same class from separate threads. But the mere attempt to share access to a global variable is not a synchronization bug, and you shouldn't be using synchronization terms for it. This is usually just called a "namespace collision".

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent point, thanks! Although it feels like one in that the behaviour sometimes comes across as a Heisenbug: depending on the order the environment loads various gems and files, you can have a code that sometimes does one thing and sometimes another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Protocol Buffers (and systems patterned after them) give you version control for your data structures, which are far more important than code and far harder for refactoring tools to handle.

It can be like ActiveRecord migrations but for live wire protocols -- independent apps built against different versions of the structure definition all see the data in the form they expect, not the form it was sent in. protobuf and thrift only support the simple case of adding new fields in new versions, but binprot supports full translation functions: <http://janestcapital.com/?q=node/41> \-- and none of them involve an iota of on-the-wire self-description bloat.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I suggested that IDE features are language smells."

I _love_ this quote.

<comment><USER6> What you want is a language that is also an IDE. Smalltalk did this 30 years ago.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that's what he's getting at. Much of the developer support built into IDEs are there because it's too much for the programmer to handle. His assertion is that it's because it's a weakness of the programming language that we need to do that.

Have IDEs that generates boiler plate code? Then perhaps the language is too verbose, or not powerful enough to express templates of code. Have IDEs that auto complete variable names for you? Perhaps there are too many and your program is too big to fit into your head.

<comment><USER5> This exactly. I had a programming languages professor whose hypothesis was essentially: "Programming languages were invented to minimize program complexity. So why are there so many tools to manage _their_ complexity?"

Although in fairness, it isn't necessarily a _language_ smell. It can oftentimes be a framework smell or a "your code sucks" smell. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of what he's talking about is done automatically when you're using a classic Smalltalk/Squeak environment.

(E.g., names are in one place. Refactoring can happen automatically, because the IDE can find all uses of a method and fix them.)

<comment><USER9> _There's no idea that a single class might have two versions and that some bits of the program depend on the old version and some on the new. Why not? Why isn't live, running code versioned and transactioned so that we can release a patch of a few classes into a running server without taking it down? It should be possible for the old code to handle all of the existing requests and then get garbage collected when it has no further dependencies._

Isn't this also something that Smalltalk can do?

<comment><USER10> It's also something Ruby can do, when running on MagLev.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not a coïncidence that MagLev came from the Smalltalk community. See all the other comments here :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree. But the name problem is only one small piece of the text problem. Text is a great deal better than punch cards and that is even a greater deal better than writing things on paper and physically setting the switches.

There exists a grotesque obsession with text and the tools to edit text among programmers.

My editor of choice can give me a great deal of help when writing HTML markup. It's actually quite amazing how good an editor can be.

But I can still jump off the track and remove a "<" where there really should be one. No, that's not really useful to me at all. I'd be much better off in a world where the angular brackes, quote marks wrapping strings, and other arbitrary delimiters of the ENCODING didn't really exist at all.

I'd much rather edit a DOM directly than through the looking glass of text.

An film editor would never open up his final cut project files and tweak them by hand. He has far better tools that more appropriately fit his domain. Why not me?

<comment><USER12> You'd probably like Codekana and Ngedit. <http://www.ngedit.com/>

<comment><USER11> I'm solidly anti-text. And as a hobby work on non-text programming tools.

It's entirely unproven. But I hope one day I can say it's a better way to do things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems easy to fix the "too many files touched to fix a bug" problem: just write the whole code in one big file. Lot's of languages allow you to do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> My goal was for as few files as possible in each commit, and as few commits as possible for each file. One big file solves the former problem at the expense of the latter.</comment></comment>


Cannibalism–the Ultimate Taboo–Is Surprisingly Common - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/cannibalism-common-natural-history-bill-schutt/ <comment><USER2> 5 out of 7: does not answer the most pressing question: Is Cannibalism a sin or merely a vice?</comment>


I Am Teaching My First Grader to Code and You Should Too - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/institutional-diversity/i-am-teaching-my-first-grader-to-code-and-you-should-too-eabab251de5#.pabo79jw6 <comment><USER2> There are board games that teach similar concepts.

I've played Robot Turtles ([http://www.robotturtles.com/](http://www.robotturtles.com/)) with my 5 year old at a friends place and they all appeared to enjoy it. I'm not sold on whether it's teaching "programming" any more than any sequence toy/game does...

</comment><comment><USER3> imo at this age, computational thinking is more important learning how to code. computational thinking can be trained in a non-coding context (like math)

<comment><USER4> Exactly. And there are lots of things that are more important than learning how to code at ages 6, and before (and, heck, after). How about exposure to different (human) languages? Appreciating and creating art. The scientific process, and evaluating hypotheses. Reading. Cooking. Fire safety. So many things!

I've used Scratch, through volunteering in the engineering department at my local science museum. It's okay, although I'm not convinced it will turn 6 year olds into brilliant programmers later in life, any more than "creating things" in any other context would.

I don't know. I'm divided. Sentiments like "I'm teaching my <very young child> to code and you should too" leave a bad taste in my mouth, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why should I teach _your_ first grader programming?

<comment><USER6> +1 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a 4 year old son that I have started teaching how to code. He is picking up on it very quick. My wife and I are very proud. :)</comment>


Ask HN: How much do you earn (and save) as a software engineer in bay area? - <AUTHOR> - Please tell your no. of years of experience.<p>- And whether it is a startup or fortune 500 company. <comment><USER3> Answers to this question may give people wrong impression if you do not include a cost of living in the bay area. Salaries are very much connected to the local economy and a cost of living.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats why asked - How much you earn and how much you save.

Cost of Living = Earning - tax - <USER2>

Isnt it obvious?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From my friends who work in Bay area, I will list their details.

\- Google, 3 yrs, 137k + bonus (~10k), saves 50-60k yearly

\- Uber, 2 years, 125k + bonus (~10k), saves 40-50k yearly

<comment><USER4> They also get stock or options, though... and for Google that'll be a lot of liquid money.

<comment><AUTHOR> How much stock do google employees get yearly 9n average which is liquid ?

<comment><USER4> Varies, but short version is "a lot".

<comment><USER5> $200K - $500K vested over 4 years.

So approx. ~$100K average per year.

<comment><AUTHOR> And after 4 years?

<comment><USER5> not sure, maybe someone else ca chime in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber's Self-Driving Car Didn't Know Pedestrians Could Jaywalk - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/ubers-self-driving-car-didnt-know-pedestrians-could-jaywalk/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like Uber has a white list of possible objects that can be detected in various scenarios. I wonder how it would work with a moose or when a child runs across the road after a ball...</comment>


Show HN: Curated database of awesome dinosaur pictures - <AUTHOR> http://dinosaurpictures.org/

<comment><USER2> Heads up: you say, "DinoPictures.org is a search engine that curates...", but your domain is dinosaurpictures.org (not dinopictures.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops. Thanks for catching this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what I'd use this for. But I sure am glad it exists.</comment>


Epigrams in Programming (1982) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html <comment><USER2> > 63\. When we write programs that "learn", it turns out that we do and they > don't.

This was what turned me off of machine learning some 30 years after this was written. Deep learning is amazing, but it still seems to be the people tweaking the experimental setup who are doing the real learning.

</comment><comment><USER3> > 19\. A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is > not worth knowing.

Can someone give an example of this for someone who has programmed primarily in java, python, and javascript? What would be one worth learning?

<comment><USER4> Knowing some C/C++ is very useful if you want to get a better understanding of what the computer is doing. Or Assembly of course, but that gets complicated fast.

Common Lisp / Clojure / Scheme (or any language from that family) will really let you appreciate some fundamental functional programming tricks once you finally "grok" them.

Prolog, it's great. You'll never look at graphs, trees, search or first order logic the same way. And, maybe, some day you'll be the one that says "that's just two lines of prolog".

Haskell, or any other very strongly statically typed language. I'm definitely partial to dynamically typed languages, but you gotta try it before you knock it :-)

Also if you have some money to spend, try Mathematica. It's one of those things that keeps getting reinvented, but poorly. Shamefully it's not open.

<comment><USER5> Mathematica is not open, but the engine is free(as in beer) now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems almost hard to find that copy instead of this one:

[https://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams-programming](https://cpsc.yale.edu/epigrams- programming)

</comment><comment><USER7> Discussed recently: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434630)</comment>


Google once considered issuing currency - Eric Schmidt - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/networking/254124/google-once-considered-issuing-currency

<comment><USER3> Interestingly, the relative weakness of reserve currencies has made this plausible in a real way. As the debt risk of countries becomes closer to the strongest multinationals it creates the possibility for the debt of multinationals to be lower risk than any currency it can be denominated in, which happened briefly a couple years ago for the first time ever. In effect, the debt instruments are currency.

Right now, governments have the ability to inflate their currencies to pay for their excessive spending. If non-governmental instruments become stronger than reserve currencies then it will create a novel situation where they can't inflate away the debt even if every other government is doing it. That is new territory. Companies that generate and preserve value on a global basis will have financial instruments that are de facto currencies, much in the way gold is.

That would be an interesting time.

<comment><USER4> Companies do have "currencies" that can hold value independent of FX - <USER2> bonds. Otherwise, commodities take the role of liquid non-fiat value holders. Substituting a government-backed currency with a corporate-backed one is a terrible idea given that a corporate is subjugated to a sovereign (and pays its debt in sovereign currency [ignoring the marginal role in-kind bond payments play]). Thus, one is accepting an inherently inferior proposition.

It should be noted, though, that many multinationals' bonds trade healthier than many sovereigns' currencies.

<comment><USER5> Er, bonds are denominated in currencies. There is no independent value.

<comment><USER4> One can just as easily say that currencies are denominated in assets. When valuing a currency one inevitably resorts to trade flow and capital production statistics. A better way to think of these flows is as swaps instead of "buying" things with money.

In the modern banking system Treasury bonds function just as much as money as Federal Reserve notes (which are technically a debt). Before the crisis AAA corporate bonds were accepted as collateral nearly on par with Treasury bonds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The idea was to implement a "peer-to-peer money" system.

Wow. I wonder if it literally means they were thinking of duplicating the (world's first) digital peer-to-peer currency: <http://www.bitcoin.org> Or is Schmidt using the term "peer-to-peer" liberally?

Edit: looks like I am right, a CNN article specifically mentions Bitcoin: [http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/28/technology/google_future_of_...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/28/technology/google_future_of_internet/index.htm)

<comment><USER7> I lived on a hippy commune from 1974 to 1979 - we had our own currency then, called 'trash' in which we could buy anything we wanted. It was a peer-to-peer currency which was printed on the packs of cigarettes.

When I was 4 years old, I bought my first vehicle with Trash, a golf cart which I drove around the property.

Bit-coin may be digital, but it is not the first peer-to-peer currency.

We also had our own TV station, which was powered by the very first Apple computers. This is where I encountered Apple first...

<comment><USER8> How is the hippy currency peer-to-peer? Isn't it just like any other fiat currency?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe Satoshi is a Google pseudonym. Nobody really knows where Bitcoin came from...

</comment><comment><USER10> The U.S. government takes extreme interest in all alternative currency schemes. Google "e-gold" for more information. There are two areas of human experience all governments consider their own domain: the use of force and the creation of currency.</comment>


Show HN: NNCP utilities for secure store-and-forward files and mail exchanging - <AUTHOR> http://www.nncpgo.org/ <comment><USER2> Mods should merge: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14185279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14185279)</comment>


Show HN: Relaunching Dresssed.com – Premium Rails Themes - <AUTHOR> https://dresssed.com

<comment><USER2> When you say relaunched, does that mean you previously had other themes too (as I can only find 1 right now)?

Also, consider adding a contact form, not everyone has a mail account setup to their mail app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Relaunched in the sense that the site used to belong to Marc-Andre Cournouyer and he launched it in 2012, and it was all based on Twitter Bootstrap 2.

We're the new owners and have invested a huge amount of time updating that original theme, and starting new themes!

Thanks for the tip, that's a good catch.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, the only theme you have looks about 2 or 3 years behind the trends (as does the site itself).

Best get those new themes out the door asap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> good to hear, i thought this was an abandoned project, i reember following this over 2 years ago on HN</comment>


Hack-a-Job in Switzerland - <AUTHOR> https://ungleich.ch/u/blog/hack-a-job-2019/ <comment><USER2> A pre-tax salary of CHF 2500 looks well below the poverty line....

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not much, but it is pretty well livable. Have done that quite some time in my life

<comment><USER3> it looks like it also comes with paid accommodation so that saves a lot of money too. basically only have to pay for food.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: This is how online (and real) democracy works in India - <AUTHOR>

Check this: http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=13431
Incase they take down the post, this: http://imgur.com/dj4uu
If you didn't know HackerStreet India is HackerNews wannabe for India.
The issue is on HackerStreet India, I have been now and then raising my voice against arbitrary down votes for disagreement, editing of submission titles by editors http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=13218 and communication by some members via backchannels on what I should post or not to post (since I have good Karma)
Today I received a threat email from one of the moderators asking me plainly to keep quiet because they were running it much before I was a member and that they will "hell" ban me if I continue such "violations" and challenging me to start a new community like HackerStreet. This is after I posted an Ask question on How to fight spam which the moderator said was off-topic and I countered him as you will see in the disccusion.
I really wanted to show you guys in America and rest of the World how democracy in India works with this example. When you go to vote, you will be told by Thugs whom to vote. If you raise a voice against the mafia with deep political connections, you will be threatened at your door for your life. And if you don't play along with seniors, powerfuls and others, whatever your business may be, you will be outcast and made to repent! <comment><USER2> This comment really bothered me.

       1) Meta discussion is not allowed... unless started by a *moderator*
       2) Downvoting to voice disagreement is not allowed... unless done so by a *moderator*.
       3) The community gets to decide... except when the community disagrees with the *moderators*.

And the moderators views.

I can say that any community that projects itself like that is not worthy of your time.</comment>


Why philosophers could be the ones to transform your 2020 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20200114-why-philosophers-could-be-the-ones-to-transform-your-2020 <comment><USER2> The 20th century saw the pendulum swing towards an absolute faith in materialism to cure all ills, and today we are seeing the pendulum start to return back toward faith in the immaterial: love, thought, spirit, community, etc.

While material conditions have improved, we are now seeing the consequences of blind faith in materialism. People are waking up to the truth that material comforts do not give their life meaning at all, and I think that's a good thing.

Record suicide rates and opioid addictions are enough to suggest that more and more people find this new way of life devoid of any meaning, and those of us still standing are starting to scratch our heads and search for ways we can do better.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Effective Altruism_ has changed _my_ life: I'm now giving at least 10% of my income to _cost-effective_ charities thanks to the ideas behind the movement.

Good books to start with:

 _The Life You Can Save_ \- Peter Singer

 _The Most Good You Can Do_ \- Peter Singer

 _Doing Good Better_ \- William MacAskill

<comment><USER4> Interestingly I found the 'opposite' philosophy most helpful to my life. Objectivism. Never been happier

<comment><USER3> Could you in a sentence or two state what you take "Objectivism" is / means?</comment></comment></comment>


Stop-sopa.js (plus Wordpress, Blogger & Typepad plugins) - <AUTHOR> http://torbit.com/blog/2012/01/15/stop-sopa-js/

<comment><AUTHOR> A few notes on this...

\- it defaults to show the interstitial on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC) \- we use cookies so the message is only shown once \- it's loaded asynchronously (won't block the rendering of your page or cause another point of failure) \- you can manually trigger the modal before the 18th by adding the hash #stopsopa to the end of any URL

And of course, we welcome people to grab the code and make their own versions of this: <https://github.com/torbit/Stop-SOPA-Widget></comment>


DoS through hash table in web programming languages and platforms - <AUTHOR> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.full-disclosure/83694

<comment><AUTHOR> There's more about the attack here: [http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/12/huge- portions-o...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/12/huge-portions-of- web-vulnerable-to-hashing-denial-of-service-attack.ars)

Many web server programming languages and platforms are vulnerable to the attack.</comment>


France to Raise Pollution Tax on SUVs and Trucks to €22k - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-20/france-sharpens-offensive-against-suvs-by-raising-penalties <comment><USER2> If you want to tax pollution, tax fuel consumption or actual tailpipe emissions, not a broad class of vehicles.

Which emits more -- a small family SUV or a BMW M3?

Governments have taxed vehicles based on weight, width, engine displacement, etc. -- and the automakers adapt. It's very easy to game the system. Just tax vehicles on a model-by-model basis on the fuel they actually use, and on what they actually emit.

<comment><USER3> The headline is imprecise, the proposed law takes this into account.

<comment><USER4> The article only talks about SUV specific penalties which is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And yet, the most popular French SUV won't be a taxed a single € as part of this super malus (Peugeot 3008 and 5008).

Thus tax increase will impact far less than 1% if the sales. It's all PR, nothing concrete.

<comment><USER6> Be a lot better to just put an uniform excise tax on new vehicles based on expected C02 emissions. That would also tend to solve the problem of guys in yellow vests throwing stuff.

<comment><USER7> It's a tax based on number of grams of CO2/km for all vehicles so 3008/5008 are concerned too. The updated tax for 2020 starts at 110 g of CO2/km (previously 117 gCO/km, last year)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, glorious. See also [].

Where I live (the Netherlands) there is absolutely no need to drive a ridiculous Dodge Ram with a 6 liter engine that emits a bazillion kg co2.

However there's a worrying trend of people exploiting some tax loophole to drive them cheaply, with road taxes going down to the level of ordinary passenger vehicles.

I'd really like us to implement similar incentives to get these ridiculous things off the roads.

[] [https://www.iea.org/commentaries/growing-preference-for- suvs...](https://www.iea.org/commentaries/growing-preference-for-suvs- challenges-emissions-reductions-in-passenger-car-market)

<comment><USER9> If your parent doing the school run a suv does make sense, and don't for get that pickups are used a lot by farmers and I suspect the Dutch farming lobby is just as powerfull as it is in the other eu states and the USA.

<comment><USER10> You don't need a vehicle that size unless you have more than two children, a perfectly normal 4-door car will do. And all the usual externalities of SUVs are worse at school: the high ride height makes it harder to see small children, and the large amount of space taken up makes the parking and traffic jam round the school worse.

No, the Dutch solution to the school run is a Bakfiets cargo bicycle until the kids are old enough to ride their own.

Dutch farming is very .. intense? Quite a lot of it is done in greenhouses. Sure, if you're in agriculture you can justify a larger vehicle. That's at most 5% of the population?

<comment><USER11> More than three children.

In the 1990s every 5 person family managed fine with a normal car.

<comment><USER12> Most SUVs on the road that I see in the UK look like they probably have _less_ space than an equivalent car - and that's without abominations like 'sports' SUVs (which seem the most pointless vehicles every invented).

<comment><USER13> It is true that most SUVs have less interior space than station wagons. The high ground clearance wastes vertical space and the trunks are quite short.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pity. I live in a remote part of France, shaped by hills, forests, and very devoid of public services. Most people don't have too much money, yet every third car you see is an SUV or 4WD, because they actually are quite useful in daily life. My neighbour drives a tiny but nimble Suzuki Vitara with which he does just everything, much of which no regular city car could do. Was he to buy that same car in two years, it'd cost almost twice as much because of those taxes. (damn even the baker drives his deliveries with a Vitara). I see all the excesses around the SUVs, I agree there's a nuisance to be dealt with. But again the government rules with a large and blind PR hammer, and we'll quietly sit under the blow once more.

<comment><USER10> Suzuki Vitara is an 8"CV" car: [https://www.neowebcar.com/puissance- fiscale/suzuki/vitara/1-...](https://www.neowebcar.com/puissance- fiscale/suzuki/vitara/1-9-d) which would incur €6250 tax.

(It's amazing how well Bloomberg's propaganda has worked here, hasn't it?)

<comment><USER14> 6000 Euro tax for a 15000 euro car. I'd call it significant enough and ridiculous enough to be more than mere propaganda. But you're right, the figures I had in the mind were for the Jimny, not the Vitara. Over 10000 tax for a car that's less than 20000 euro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Call me cynical but - I'm guessing it's a lot easier to punish market sectors in which your own manufacturers are weak.

<comment><USER16> On the other hand, for the sporty versions of some midrange popular cars (Renault Mégane RS, Peugeot 308 GTi...) the pollution tax will amount to almost 50% of the MSRP. I guess car enthusiasts on a budget will be more inclined to buy lighter cars, a segment where French manufacturers are basically non-existent (even if a Twin'Cup is really fun to drive).

<comment><USER10> Peugeot 308 GTi has a "puissance administrative" of 16, right in the high end of the tax table. Presumably because it's a 250hp car. I'm sure that's fun but it's also a really excessive amount of power (and CO2)

<comment><USER17> "really excessive" is quite going overboard. Of course you don't _need_ 250hp to go forward. Yet those cars are less that 1% of the sales, blaming CO2 pollution on those is downright ridiculous, especially since they're not driven at wide open throttle all the time, which makes them much less than the stated output overall.

For example my 200HP car redlines at 8k rpm, thus the legal pollution (incl. CO2) emission check is evaluated by revving it constantly at ~6k for several minutes, which is absolutely _not_ what daily operation looks like (more like 2.5k~4k, and not even WOT).

Case in point my car usually gulps 6~9 L/100km (open road ~ city) but when I picked up the car last week after the mandatory two year legal check, the ECU was reporting over 20L/100km means consumption, which I never ever managed to reach, even when doing some spirited driving for extended sessions.

On the other end of the spectrum, this pushes towards heavily downsized engines that operate at the limit most of the time in regular use, putting excessive strain on the hardware, resulting in terrible reliability, constant excessive pollution, and premature wear of the engine. No wonder people have to change cars at 150000~200000km. Comparatively, at 12yo, my car is nearing that threshold and still performs as good as new. I expect it to pass 500000km with flying colours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The bullshit is that politicians continue to only take action against consumers when the real polluters, corporations and the military, continue to go unchecked because lobbying pays.

<comment><USER19> I don't know how to feel about the meme that governments should target big corporation rather than small consumers. On the one hand, I like it that it makes an environmental message easier to swallow for the masses, because they feel like they're not the ones who have to make an effort. On the other hand, it's quite disingenuous to pretend the outcome is different from simply reducing the amount of energy available to live a materially comfortable life for everyone.

<comment><USER20> > I don't know how to feel about the meme that governments should target big > corporation rather than small consumers.

That's not what was stated. The objection is that hardly anything is done regarding big corporations.

E.g. only in 2020 shipping will have to use low sulphur fuel (max 0.50%). However, companies are allowed to install scrubbers. These devices allow for the environmental impact to continue. This as they take out the sulphur at the detection point, then dump the sulphur in e.g. the water. This is way cheaper than actually using low sulphur fuel. Interestingly enough, there is no availability of 0.50% sulphur fuel. There's 3.5% and 0.10%. They get to 0.50% by mixing the fuel! They've (International Maritime Organization) should've gone for 0.10% and not allowed any scrubbers.

Airline industry: Heavily subsidized, fuel has almost no tax on it. Taking a plane is often way cheaper than a train, while the environmental impact is quite in favour of the train.

<comment><USER10> > Airline industry: Heavily subsidized, fuel has almost no tax on it.

This _desperately_ needs to be fixed, but because it's enshrined in a treaty that's very hard.

<comment><USER21> Why? Airport, security theater and airspace use taxes eat up most of your ticket costs anyway.

<comment><USER10> Per parent: "Taking a plane is often way cheaper than a train, while the environmental impact is quite in favour of the train."

Until we get synthetic jet fuel, we need to impose some kind of carbon tax on it in order to correctly reflect the environmental impact of different modes of transport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a car enthusiast I'm really hoping that we see governments adopting policies that drive manufacturers to provide low and zero carbon vehicles that cover the vast majority of use cases for conventional ICEs.

Hopefully if that happens then it will be possible to allow for motorsport and vintage cars to remain in use.

</comment><comment><USER23> Related: Measures to reduce air pollution quickly result in big health benefits

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2226280-measures-to- red...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2226280-measures-to-reduce-air- pollution-quickly-result-in-big-health-benefits/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Headline: France raises comparative value of other markets that are not France. Like Russia or China.

<comment><USER25> France is recently the main Putin advocate in the EU, look at Macrons recent comments about NATO

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> France has a population of ~70M. What do you think contributes more to global warming, 70M flatulent humans, or a few thousand French SUV enthusiasts?</comment>


title bar color issue - <AUTHOR>

on the submit post/comment pages, the title bar turns orange. i made mine blue... <comment><USER2> What browser / OS are you using? I haven't noticed that at all. (FF 184.108.40.206, XP)

<comment><AUTHOR> safari, OS X</comment></comment>


Can You Be Nice And Successful? - <AUTHOR> http://statspotting.com/can-you-be-nice-and-successful/

<comment><USER2> Just so we are clear, demanding is not the opposite of being nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is not the opposite, but it definitely stops you from being called or perceived as 'nice'.</comment></comment>