Microsoft Edge preview builds are ready to try - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/?form=MO12FY&OCID=MO12FY <comment><USER2> Edge's "IE Mode" is depressing. We fit exactly into the problem space it aims to solve (enterprise with a mix of both Java Applets and modern "internal" web sites that could target current web-standards if not for the Java Applets backlog).

The problem with "IE Mode" as implemented is that it only works for devices connected to AD/fully managed. Our "internal" sites (both Java Applet and modern) are externally accessible and via BYOD like a lot of enterprises today. Employees work from home. Employees work remotely.

I can see why "website list" would be their preferred solution to routing, but unfortunately it won't work for a lot of enterprises in 2019. We aren't using internal sites like 2005 anymore, they're "internal" only in name and function, they're very much externally accessible (even via VPN in some cases, but you aren't managing the actual device).

<comment><USER3> In the enterprises I've worked in, BYOD devices are still fully managed. Usually, you must enrol your device in enterprise MDM in order to connect to the corporate VPN.

Presumably, this type of enterprise is the type Microsoft is targeting with IE compatibility mode.

<comment><USER2> That seems pretty inflexible, and a potential invasion of employee's privacy.

I'm talking about employees being able to input their leave/overtime into an externally facing "internal" web-portal, or looking up tickets/jobs.

Requiring that they allow full enterprise control of every device that would access an internet facing website seems dragonian.

<comment><USER4> BYOD gives you the freedom to pick whatever device you want and do the actual work with it, not just enter working time and book vacation. But you're connecting that device to the network and using it to access the most sensitive parts of that network, the most delicate data.

Most users have little to no "tech hygiene" so allowing random devices maintained by these users to connect will open your company to a world of hurt.

For basic standard activities most companies offer locked down environments like Citrix or externally facing portals that can be safely accessed form any home computer. The alternative is to use a company issued device for work.

<comment><USER2> > But you're connecting that device to the network and using it to access the > most sensitive parts of that network and the most delicate data.

That's not the usage I set out above at all. Not even ballpark.

I am talking about an externally accessible "internal" enterprise website, and that IE Mode cannot be used well with it. I'm not sure how you got from website to "access sensitive parts of the enterprise network." Employees are BYOD to access the company's "internal" website from an external endpoint. That's the topic. That's where IE Mode applies.

It reads like you and the sibling comment forgot what is even being discussed. This is IE Mode for websites. Specifically for "internal" enterprise websites. I am discussing the highly common practice of allowing access to "internal" websites externally (inc. via privately owned employee's devices over the internet).

<comment><USER5> At this point any such site that you want universally accessible should be refactored into a true standards compatible website.

Trying to fix the problem on the browser side is the wrong answer, which is what Microsoft is trying to nudge enterprises to by progressively making it harder to use legacy dependent apps like that.

<comment><USER2> > At this point any such site that you want universally accessible should be > refactored into a true standards compatible website.

That logic could be used to magic anyway any need for IE Mode for anyone. Why even take part in this discussion if you dismiss the need for the very thing we're discussing? Seems fruitless.

I honestly have no interest in discussing the merits of IE Mode conceptually. I am talking about the implementation from the point of it existing on-wards. You're welcome to find someone else to argue this with however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For what its worth, I have been running Edge Chromium for the last few months, and when I first installed it I thought it would have a bunch of bugs that forced me back to Chrome.

Nope. Its totally solid, and has completely supplanted Chrome on my Mac, including for web development (it has the same Chrome development tools).

Highly recommended - sort of like the VSCode of browsers in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> What makes it better than chrome or other browsers? Does it have some key features that make it good appart from not being owned by google?

<comment><USER6> No Google spyware is the key feature from my perspective, but I also feel like the interface is cleaner as well.

<comment><USER8> Yes, Microsoft seems to be better at UI for sure but spyware its just replaced with Microsoft's i guess.

<comment><USER9> Ah stop it.

MS not even close to the decadent stuff that G is doing, insensitive, business models, product users are also completely different.

<comment><USER10> But MS clearly _wants_ to be funded by advertising: obviously signalled by not charging for Windows 10 upgrades, and the "telemetry" and tendency towards an intrusive advertising model (e.g. "join Teams" popup on login in recent update).

<comment><USER11> I don't think Microsoft wants to be funded by advertising. They and Apple are trying to run the exact same playbook of not charging for OS upgrades, and instead focus on value added services on top (App Stores, Cloud Services, etc).

Apple telemetry and intrusive advertising for their services is _so_ similar on iOS on volume/scale/purpose to everything people are complaining about on Windows 10, but I guess Apple gets a free pass because they are the "scrappy underdog" that also had a larger market cap for a few recent years?

<comment><USER12> To be fair, Apple doesn't have as much of a reason to misuse your data as Microsoft, and their main way to benefit off you is by selling you more devices. Microsoft failed in the mobile department, so they mostly have desktops, laptops, and high end tablets, but their money comes largely from software running on those devices, and a lot of those services use personal data.

So, Apple wants to make sure you have a good experience on their devices so you'll buy more, Microsoft wants to know which of their products will fit your usage.

To me, Microsoft's telemetry is more creepy than Apple's, but both pale in comparison to Google's tracking. I choose to avoid all three companies' products as much as possible because I don't like being tracked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is different from the Dev channel that they had opened up awhile back, in case anyone else gets confused as I did for a few moments.

I really like it. In my opinion, its the best version of Chrom(ium) you can get on Windows and Mac. Very snappy.

And they already have some neat developer tooling around it. There is a vscode extension to do live reloads with with it, and see/manipulate the DOM and do other debugging/measuring of your application.

Good work here!

</comment><comment><USER14> Just noticed this is not hosted a microsoft.com URL as I was about to download. Is this thing above board? Any way to confirm that it's from Microsoft even though it's not their origin?

<comment><USER15> SSL Cert is valid and from "Issued by: Microsoft IT TLS CA 1"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What I want to know is whether I will be able to run Ublock Origin on it after Ublock Origin stops working on Google Chrome.

<comment><USER17> Presumably when Chromium adds the change that destroys UBlock Origin, it will be broken on all Chromium forks.

I don't see how it wouldn't, unless they added code back in on top of Chromium to support the API they're removing.

<comment><USER18> That's what other forks have committed to doing already (and have done with API changes in the past) so I don't see why you are skeptical Microsoft would be able to.

<comment><USER19> Indeed, of all the forks they're the most likely to have the resources to maintain a fork which diverges that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Preinstall and postinstall scripts for the Edge browser (macOS). Sudo-ing telemetry data.

[https://github.com/sizeofcat/microsoft-edge-macos- scripts/tr...](https://github.com/sizeofcat/microsoft-edge-macos- scripts/tree/master/MicrosoftEdgeBeta-22.214.171.124)

<comment><USER21> yeah why the heck do they need sudo for their send event command?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "The attributes that you say matter most in your browsing experience are performance, privacy, and reliability. So that is where we are starting."

Sounds good.

<comment> java-man Does not inspire confidence, if we were to look at what Microsoft did to Skype and all the mandatory telemetry they added in Windows 10.

<comment><USER19> The difference is that they're a nobody in the browser space. Like Chrome did at first, they have no choice but to legitimately be better until they win market share. Then we'll see.

<comment> java-man Not sure if I agree with this. They used to be a major player in the browser area, remember IE?

The _somehow_ lost the market share, possibly because they focused on something else instead of innovation and solving the problems of the users.

I think it is naive to expect them to suddenly change, especially given the recent history of clearly going against user's interests in introducing mandatory telemetry. Case in point: win10 _still_ overwrites user's default application preferences and fonts pretty much on every update.

<comment><USER23> I believe the point the person you replied to was trying to make was that while they add telemetry and have issues with the products where they dominate the market, they try much harder to produce the best product when they are underdogs.

With IE, they started being user-hostile and taking their users for granted because they owned the market. The same thing they are currently doing with Windows 10. They do this because they feel like they can.

However, in markets they are trying to win, they are much more user-friendly and provide great products. You can see this in VS Code and the new Edge (personal opinions). Though, I do agree that just because they are being friendly now doesn't mean they won't do the same shit they did with IE once they gain the market back.

This isn't about Microsoft or Google's culture or history, this is the fact that any company that has little to no actual competition for a market will abuse that fact and take their users for granted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am impressed with the options page and the site permissions page in particular. I ws able to set most preferences as I wanted fairly quickly. I was dissapointed that continue running background apps was enabled by default however. It feels like it would be reasonable to wait until I tried to use something that required it and only then bother asking me.

Edit: Whatever goodwill on settings was eaten up when change default search provider was hidden two levels deep, first under "Privacy and Services" and then under "Address Bar".

Edge team, you know full well most people will want to change this at first. It should have its own settings top level page, more or less in line with firefox.

</comment><comment><USER25> So, no more "Add Notes" feature? That's what made me use Edge as my main browser on my personal machine. Being able to quickly save a page, add notes by hand using a stylus, is just great.

<comment><USER11> Hopefully it will come back. (It may be a ghost of its former self if it does, because they announced the EPUB and PDF readers are definitely dead. Chrome Edge will have Chromium's [arguably inferior] PDF support instead.)

It probably won't; Chrome Edge can't directly share so much OneNote code in the same way, and so presumably the focus will move to "Share with OneNote"/"Print to OneNote" instead.

In maybe better news, at least the "Collections" tools currently in "Experimental Options" sound like they may, when fully baked, be improved experiences over the venerable "Set Tabs Aside", maybe.

<comment><USER26> > EPUB and PDF readers are definitely dead.

Wut? That's exactly what I use Edge for.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, the Edge codebase change and its resultant loss of that UWP EPUB reader was listed as one of the key factors in that much publicized case of Microsoft entirely shutting down their Ebook store.

In early Windows 8 history the UWP PDF Reader (that went on to also be the EPUB Reader) was available as a separate app in the Windows 8 Store just called "Reader", before it merged into Edge. I wish they would spin it back out into a new Reader app again, just to keep a useful extra option around for PDF and EPUB files, but it sounds like the code shares too much with the EdgeHTML Renderer they are entirely spinning down for them to do that, which is a shame.

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't mind a reader app to keep using the old Edge engine. It hardly needs new web standards support anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The download page says "Investing in open source", but it also says "Not supported for Linux". I'm going to take a guess that no other open source operating systems are supported either, unless you count Android.

Maybe they have a Linux or FreeBSD version in the works. From what I'm seeing right now, the new Microsoft supports open source, so long as you're on a proprietary platform. Should I be surprised?

<comment><USER28> Lots of people invest in open source without supporting or investing in Linux. There's a whole universe of open source.

<comment><USER29> That's true, but Microsoft is supposedly making a push into Linux and by leaving it out you're cutting off a huge chunk of OSS enthusiasts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Excited for this, although I'm really hoping we get a linux release soon as well.

<comment><USER31> Isn't it now based on webkit like Chrome, Safari, and Opera are? I don't understand the hubub if their performance and features will be so identical.

<comment><USER32> It's based on Chromium which uses Blink as its rendering engine, which was forked off WebKit (which was derived from KDE's KHTML and now powers Apple's Safari).

Opera is also based on Blink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Finally! a stable Chrome alternative that allows an average Chrome user to switch away from Google without any loss of comfort! This is genius!

<comment><USER33> I've been using whatever the current Edge browser is in Windows10 for several years. (I don't know if that is current the "Chorme" Edge or not.)

But I am tired of 2 problems that never seem to get fixed and am contemplating switching to Firefox because of this:

1) Bookmark (favorite) maintenance still sucks. As one example, try moving a folder in the favorites bar from the bar to the ordered favorites list.

2) Edge advertises syncing (bookmarks, open tabs, etc.) across machines with the same user signed-in, but I have never gotten this to work.

<comment><USER9> > I don't know if that is current the "Chorme" Edge or not.

It's not. But hey! Good news! When this Beta will become stable Edge release, all you issues will be solved!

<comment><USER11> Not necessarily, in some ways the Chromium-based Favorites tools feel like a regression from current Edge's, even accounting for how buggy it [production Edge's favorites side panel] still sometimes feels.

Also, the synchronization engine is entirely different from both past Edge _and_ Google's proprietary Chrome stuff, so all new places for all sorts of new bugs.

Switching to Chromium won't be a magic fix for Edge's issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting that the download button says "Not supported for Linux" when you're using Linux. But what if I want to try this out on Windows, but use Linux to acquire the software? Sniffing the useragent and providing the relevant message is annoying for users, because if they want the software, they are going to find ways of acquiring it, regardless of the useragent sniff in place.

Note: I downloaded the beta version, and within 10 minutes of using it, it crashed. I reported the crash however so hopefully they can fix this

<comment><USER35> If you click on "More platforms and channels" and then scroll down to "Other Platforms", there are download links for Windows and macOS that work regardless of your useragent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yeah, I don't like it. I opened both old edge and this side by side with only this HN thread open. Scrolling on old feels way quicker... no white, un- rendered areas as in the chrome version when quickly jumping through the document. Memory usage went up 50ish percent (initially had committed a lot more, but it seems to by now have freed that half gig it used earlier). "Read aloud" TTS seems to read significantly slower on 2x speed than old edge (same voice). All of this before adding adblock to beta, but I'd expect this only makes it worse with nothing but HN open.

At least they kept some of the most garbage parts the same... like the addon store not even having a search function. Apparently not even sort beyond alphabetically. But that fits MS apparent mantra of dumbing down stuff so much as to make more advanced use-cases near impossible. And doesn't seems to have uBlock anyway, so who cares... I just hope I don't have to search a new trustworthy one once current edge is gone :(

Yeah, still a long way off from what I'd wish for...

<comment><USER37> >And doesn't seems to have uBlock anyway, so who cares...

You can install add-ons from the Chrome Web Store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Only way to make people switch is to make it privacy oriented like Safari now is... That would probably let Microsoft steal significant share away from Google. Privacy oriented Chrome, standards compliant, developer oriented. Do a 180 from the IE days which Google is now mimicking.

<comment><USER39> The two biggest privacy-oriented browsers, Firefox and Safari, have ~10% and ~5% desktop market share[1]. It seems like the overwhelming majority of people do not care very much.

[1] [https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market- share/desktop/worl...](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market- share/desktop/worldwide)

<comment><USER38> They prefer the speed of Chrome. So give them that, with huge corporate backing, and privacy features and you have a good chance at taking some stuff away from Chrome.

<comment><USER40> > They prefer the speed of Chrome.

Judging by my experiences as a PC technician, 99% of those people wouldn't know if it's the browser that's slow or their PC or whatever crap adware they've managed to install or whatever. Most people don't know and don't care. Google has just leveraged their position as the dominant search engine to ensure their browser is the default. I've installed Firefox on enough devices to see that users just don't care - they'll use whatever is most convenient at the time and then they'll stick to it because they know it and because of habit. Hell, many people don't know what a browser even is, much less what the differences are between them. It's just that "internet thing".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does this meant that Chrome will be able to stream 1080p on the desktop in the future, or will only Microsoft's build of chromium be able to do that?

*Stream 1080p with Netflix, Amazon, etc.

<comment><USER6> Yes - all of those work in the canary I have been running for the last few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The macOS download link at the bottom directs me to [https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/{macos- link}](https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/{macos-link})

Is there somewhere else to find this?

EDIT - Use the "More platforms and channels" link under the big Windows download button, then the dropdown menus on that page to get the Mac version.

<comment><USER43> [https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en- us/download/?platfor...](https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en- us/download/?platform=macos)

Seem to be working here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Who is the target market for this? Is this going to be the default browser in the next feature update version of Windows 10?

<comment><USER11> Current signs indicate that it is not for the _next_ feature update version (19H2), but some later one. It's not even default in current Insider builds (currently in the fast ring) for the following feature update 20H1 yet.

When it will become the Windows 10 default is an interesting open question right now, and the exact roadmap doesn't seem entirely transparent yet. This move to the Beta release channel seems to indicate possible confidence in it.

Windows 10 isn't the only target market though. Microsoft has made it clear they want Windows 7 users, the odd minority of users still on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, and even macOS users for this new Edge. This "cross-platform vision" was supposedly a key reason to rebuild on top of Chromium in the first place.

(Interesting rumors even state that Microsoft is hoping to push it as the "final" default browser for Windows 7 in a final security/feature update/mini- service-pack roll up sometime before the April 2020 end of security date for Windows 7 in a hope of leaving Windows 7 at the end of its ordinary security support life and the start of its extended support phase in a better place than Windows XP was left.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> How do you change the new tab page?

You can set which page to open on startup, but you can't seem to override the page that shows when a new tab is created.

<comment><USER45> Do extensions from the chrome web store work? If so, there are many extensions for swapping out the new tab page there.

<comment><USER46> Yes, they do. Just hit a toggle to "allow extensions from other stores" in the Extensions settings and then you can install directly from the Chrome store pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Can we start waving goodbye to IE11?

<comment><USER48> Use of IE11 is largely tied in to Enterprise applications. Whatever happens to Edge it won't make IE11 die any sooner.

<comment><USER49> False - [https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/05/06/edge- chromium...](https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/05/06/edge-chromium- build-2019-pwa-ie-mode-devtools/) they're bringing IE mode to Edge Chromium

<comment><USER48> Yes, that's still an IE11 window in an Edge skin. And that blog post specifically calls out "seamless enterprise compatibility" as being the reason for it.

<comment><USER49> Yes but it'll be left to sysadmins on which sites to enable this mode - "Microsoft Edge uses your existing Enterprise Mode Site List to identify sites which require IE rendering and simply switches to Internet Explorer mode behind the scenes." So user can't just turn it on himself

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> >Investing in open source

>No support for the biggest open source OS.

The irony is stunning.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does this have a level of telemetry comparable to that of Google Chrome? I've been looking for a Chromium-based alternative to Chrome and I'm still waiting. Vivaldi looks like it, but it's still a bit too rough around the edges to be used as a daily browser.

<comment><USER52> What about Brave?

<comment><USER51> I support Eich, but I don't like the idea of Brave. I want a neutral browser. Brave is not neutral, since it comes bundled with software that blocks ads and some crypto crap. I want to block ads, but I want to do it my way and to be in control.

<comment><USER53> You can lower shields with a global setting, not just per site.

Brave Rewards are off by default and you can hide the icon.

HTH

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I don't like that the start page is so "Microsofty"\--it contains MSN News and you can't disable Bing.

<comment><USER54> I was able to change the search engine to Google or DuckDuckGo in a few clicks in the settings page.

<comment><USER51> Me too but it only seems to affect the address bar. The "new tab page" search bar still defaults to Bing.

<comment><USER55> @agdpf, I work in the Edge team and have passed this feedback to the relevant team.

In case you have any other feedback, I would encourage you to also use the smiley icon on the top right of the browser to directly them to us.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Compilify.net - compile .net code from your browser - <AUTHOR> http://compilify.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> Source code here: <https://github.com/Compilify/Compilify></comment>


Q&A on P≠NP Paper for Non-Mathematicians - <AUTHOR> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~stansife/pnp.html

<comment><USER2> Great introduction for anyone (such as myself) who found themselves quickly lost in most of the other posted discussions. Not only do you get a general idea of the proof, you feel better equipped to look back over those higher- level discussions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This was originally posted on an undergrad mailing list at Tech. It helped me understand the the P≠NP paper better, so I asked the author to make a page for it.

<comment><USER3> It's a rather small world. Without glancing at the URL, I forwarded the link to a friend who turns out to be the author's brother!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > For example, the problem of determining whether a graph has a Hamiltonian > cycle is in NP; given a path in the graph, it is fast to verify whether or > not it is a Hamiltonian cycle.

Submitter is a bit out of touch with reality if he thinks "Non-Mathematicians" will get that example. Nice read overall though.

<comment><USER5> People who are good at math, but not mathematicians, will get it. There is very little hope of explaining P and NP to people who feel nervous in the presence of math and don't want to hear what a "polynomial" is.

<comment><USER4> Or a Hamiltonian cycle...

<comment><USER6> If you read the entire section from the beginning, you'll notice that you don't really need to know what a Hamiltonian cycle is to understand the explanation. A made-up property would have worked equally well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did you watch the Crunchies? What did you think of it? - <AUTHOR>

So last night I decided to stay in, order some Chinese food and watched the Crunchies... My friends won't understand but it's fine haha. What did you guys think of the Crunchies this year? I thought it was certainly better than last year, but something still seemed to be missing ~~ what are your thoughts? <comment><AUTHOR> [http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/21/the-crunchies-awards- livest...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/21/the-crunchies-awards-livestream- video/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Any idea where I can watch the archives?</comment>


Mirror of _why's projects - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/whymirror

<comment><USER2> Don't use the Camping over there, it's an old version. If you want the newest version clone judofyr/camping, or grab the gem from my gem server (gems.judofyr.net). Camping is very much alive, we,ll just have to clean up the documentation a bit and then we'll release 2.0 (I have access to the RubyForge project).

If anyone wants to help out, just join the mailing list at RubyForge.

<comment><USER3> I've merged yours to be the head of whymirror/camping, and made you admin. Thanks for carrying the torch!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad we have the code; fortunately most of it was in git. (Wasn't it Torvalds who claimed his method of backup was to release his code and let other people mirror it for free?)

But... do we have the writing?

If this is an elaborate practical joke designed to make me really glad that I own a dead-trees version of _Nobody Knows Shoes_ and that I _physically printed out_ a copy of the _Poignant Guide_... it's working really well.

Also, this isn't the kind of press I'd _like_ to see for github... but, man, is this a clear demonstration of why DVCS rocks.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have a copy of the code for Try Ruby? It was at <http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/svn/tryruby/trunk>

<comment><USER6> I'd really love to find this too.

<comment><USER7> Thirded. I was going to show my brother this at the end of the summer, and I'd hate to find it gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I _love_ all this _why stuff on the front page (no sarcasm)! Thank you HN!

_why was a truly prolific member of the Ruby community. Assuming he's actually 'gone', he'll be missed and his work appreciated for a long time to come.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have a copy of the Shoes dependencies tarball for OS X?

deps-osx-intel-1.6.4-1.20.2.tar.gz

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting; even though all repositories have been wiped from _why's Github accounts, the hpricot wiki is still alive: <http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot> I hope it stays that way, I wouldn't be able to figure out how to use it just by looking at the method definitions.

<comment><USER10> As is the wiki for Shoes (<http://wiki.github.com/why/shoes>)... I don't know if they were forgotten, or this was on purpose to help people who were going to keep the projects alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A testament to the #ruby community: <http://bit.ly/whymir>

In 2 days _why's projects all recovered and 15/23 have new maintainers. Ongoing progress will be posted at <http://whymirror.github.com/></comment>


Show HN: Deep Learning in TensorFlow – The Roadmap for Study and Learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/astorfi/TensorFlow-Roadmap <comment><USER2> Some well considered advice: drop TensorFlow and go with PyTorch. Spend your effort where it will make a difference: on deep learning, rather than on fighting with the framework.

People just keep using TF because it was the first full-fledged Python framework for this, not because it has any technical merit anymore. In PyTorch you will make twice as much progress in half the time.

<comment><USER3> Is there any way to use a pytorch model in Mobile and in a website without a server API? For me 5hose are two good reasons to keep using TensorFlow.

<comment><USER2> [https://caffe2.ai/docs/AI-Camera-demo- android.html](https://caffe2.ai/docs/AI-Camera-demo-android.html)?

Not something I've used myself, but supposedly yes.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I always forgot about caffe2 when talking about pytorch. I couldn't anything for JavaScript and mobile seems not as good supported as TF but for sure they will improve.

<comment><USER2> Have you actually used TFLite? It's slow as molasses. Deploying on mobile is a bit of a shitshow across the board right now, from what I undertand. Not all models are supported out of the box (especially with ONNX), and the ones that are supported aren't guaranteed to have acceptable performance with off-the- shelf frameworks. Documentation is very sparse as well, especially for the quantized stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not disparaging the author, good on you for working on building this! I'm sure you learned a lot from just compiling everything together.

My question is, isn't everything in this guide pretty much just a straight up copy of the actual TensorFlow docs/guides? What's the difference?

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be great to have some sort of roadmap depending on "what" the user is trying to do.

i.e. if I was a total noob and I wanted to make an application using AI to detect if people in the crowd were bored, I would have no idea where to start without reading/researching for hours online on different fields and models that work and how they work. It would be neat if there was a tool that just asked you a few questions, then took that info and gave you a roadmap, i.e. "Feed Forward Neural Networks, Digit Classification, Image Classification w/ Inception, Object Detection with ResNet + Inception, Optimizing TensorFlow code for Servers, Deploying TensorFlow with Docker, Protecting Against Adversarial Input"

This way someone with a time sensitive project doesn't have to learn TF for 6 months before being able to accomplish what they wanted! Just something I think would be neat and also possible to add to TF World.

<comment><USER3> There are not so many type of problems for such a complex tool. Your problem usually fits in one category among classification, prediction, clustering, generation or control. Then you have different domains as images, video, audio, text, etc. With a combination or type of problem and domain you sure can have a roadmap, but you probably will need to read papers to solve your problem if it is not something some has done before.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by "control"? Like control engineering? How is it used in control domain, can you explain a bit?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for the list.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guide will be useful.</comment>


Ask HN: rate my startup idea - the anti-ebay - half-full

Hello all
I was hoping to get some feedback from people about my startup idea. I've thought about putting up a landing page and using adwords to guage interest but it's not the sort of thing people search for.
The idea is a marketplace for enthusiasts to buy and sell their (mostly used) items.  It works on a negotiation model rather than auctions, with all negotiations taking place in public.  The idea is to establish lots of these marketplaces, each targeting a specific niche and operating under their own subdomain. So for example, hackernews.marketplaces.com would only show items of interest to HN readers, but www.marketplaces.com would show items from all the marketplaces combined.
Each marketplace is moderated to ensure the items are of interest to its visitors, and related to the niche the marketplace serves.  Marketplaces can be started and moderated by anyone subject to a small application - I'd want to know that they have some meaningful association with the niche they're interested in - e.g. they have a blog or forum about the topic, or they're considered an expert in that particular area.
Sellers would be charged a flat fee if and when a sale is made, between 5% and 10% of the selling price.  This commission would be shared between myself and the moderator of the marketplace the item was posted on.
So what problem does this address?  Namely, ebay is no longer what it used to be.  It was a great place for enthusiasts to find items at good prices and that still happens but it's much rarer.  Ebay is now full of drop-shippers, cheap, mass produced items, counterfeits, scammers and fraudsters.
Here is how I would address specific problems with ebay:
- bid-sniping: wouldn't happen.  The seller has to choose a winning offer, not necessarily the highest one.
- low price, high shipping cost: all items on my site would have to be available for local collection is that's what the buyer chooses.  Low price + high shipping would be risky for the seller if the buyer chose to collect.
- drop shippers, box-shifters: all items would be required to have at least one actual photo of the item to be sold.  This, along with the requirement that all items must be available for pickup would discourage most bulk sellers.  Also, there would be no option for any kind of integrated payment or invoicing.  This would pose no problem to a casual buyer or seller, but would be a nightmare for anyone trying to earn a living by selling online.  There are much better venues available for high volume retailers.
- fraud: items can only be listed via a marketplace and moderators have final say over the items listed in their marketplace.  If you choose the right moderators to start with, chances are they'd care enough about the community to scrutinize and weed out anything inappropriate.
- feedback blackmail: my site would allow both parties to leave feedback after a transaction and it would be double blind.  The feedback isn't shown until both parties have left it or 30 days from the date of sale - whichever comes first.
This would lead to many high quality marketplaces with high quality items for sale by casual sellers.  Enthusiasts and hobbyists mostly, not people looking for the highest or lowest priced item to be found.  There are several online shop builders available for people to sell goods as a retailer, but as far as I know there's no existing place where people can set up their own, branded classifieds marketplace.  I think there's plenty of demand based solely on the number of discussion forums that have buy/sell/trade sub-forums, some of which are very active.  If ebay was everything people needed, those forums wouldn't exist.
So that's the gist of it.  I've worked on this on and off for the past 3 years but never really put my heart into it.  All feedback welcome. <comment><AUTHOR> >I've worked on this on and off for the past 3 years but never really put my heart into it. All feedback welcome.

Things are cliche because they're often true. Ideas aren't worth anything. Execution makes all the difference. If you've spent three years on it, but aren't enthusiastic and it hasn't gone anywhere, give up on it. Pretend we all said it was a bad idea to make yourself feel better.

Or, you could suit up and actually do something with this. Start small. Choose a single (small) marketplace and moderate it yourself. Put off as much as you can, just code up the basics and launch. You can backfill features if you get any traction.

</comment><comment><USER2> I have worked on this in the past and work on a side project in this field. Would be willing to discuss more via email if you wish. (Email's in my profile)

</comment><comment><USER3> website, demo, screenshots?</comment>


What U.S. Really Did to Us Iranians. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/iran-iranians/ac1b0ee5b621

<comment><USER2> What did the US _really_ do to Iranians?

Well. The CIA overthrew their democratically elected leader in 1953 (Mosaddegh), because he dared think that the Iranian people had a right to Iranian oil revenues, and then backed a nice chap called Pahlavī (or "the Shah") to be dictator, so long as he toed the line. This wasn't just about the US getting the oil revenues, but also about preventing Iran from becoming a stabilising hegemonistic influence in the area, as a strong middle east with sound governance is against the US's interests. Juntas and corruption = cheap resources.

His bloody regime lead to the '79 coup, which lead to the ongoing political mess we see today, which is kept destabilised by trade sanctions and constant belligerence by the west, for the same old reasons. Iran could be great. Iran could be another "pole" of the world.

But as long as we perpetuate their current setup, through sanctions and close- mindedness through propaganda, the Iranian people will continue to suffer and their government will continue to benefit.

<comment><USER3> You aren't blaming the British enough. It was (what is now) BP's oil fields that got nationalized, and the Brits managed to convince the US to get involved to orchestrate the coup. British corporate executives are amongst the slimiest imperialists in the world but nobody ever seems to care.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, I realised that as I posted it - the brits were absolutely complicit in it, as per Suez, Egypt, Arab-Israeli, etc. We held the geopolitical crown jewels for a good few hundred years - basically since the East India Company - and the pendulum swayed elsewhere. It always has, it always will, until we learn to follow our better instincts, and get over primitive tribalism... "nations" indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My question is why all of the world's largest companies fall in line with this so easily, especially when some have official support for persian/Iran. How does that dynamic between Corporation and US Government really work?

<comment><USER5> The government has guns, so the companies do what they say.

And the Iranians don't have enough money to make it worthwhile for US companies to take up their cause politically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is some serious issue. Many people have their bank accounts/paypal frozen and closed only due to having access the site through an IP from Iran.

Personally, I don't live in Iran and during christmas I was traveling there to visit my family. I basically didn't have the guts to even go near my bank website or use my credit card without making sure I'm using a VPN.

</comment><comment><USER6> Even when living outside Iran the issue is still with Iranians. Last year I worked as a freelancer for an american startup and they were not able to pay me my 6K because treasury department bans any kind of trade with Iranians due to the sanctions. I'm even not sure if I can ever settle that.

<comment><USER7> That sucks. Shouldn't there be a way to work around it though? Something like 'I sell them this pretty logo/picture for 6k and then you sell me a pretty picture for 6k as well.', with me being neither an American nor an Iranian and the picture/logo being very hard to judge in value but easy to make ("art"). You might lose some money to taxation etc here, but hey. Or is there a problem I don't see?

Edit: Hm, anti-money laundering laws maybe?

<comment><USER5> That _is_ money laundering. Assuming you could find a trusted third party, they'd probably have the same legal restriction, and it's anyway an offence for the Americans to enter into this transaction knowing that the money would go to Iran.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I fully support sanctions on Iran as an alternative to all out war. Maybe the author doesn't understand how many conservative leaders in U.S., Europe and Israel want to pull the trigger. I oppose this with all my being, so if sanctions are the alternative, so be it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Iranians in Tehran step up to CNN's Open Mic and tell Americans what they really feel about them:

[http://youtu.be/y0i0aNf-YUs](http://youtu.be/y0i0aNf-YUs)

Make sure you stay watching past 50 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER10> The article was very good. This situation is disturbing to Iranians.

</comment><comment><USER11> It was great.hope they care about us.

</comment><comment><USER12> good</comment>


Ask HN: Does HN Have a TechCrunch Bias? - <AUTHOR> Any story from TechCrunch quickly makes it to the front page, even if similar stories from other outlets have been posted before. On any given day, TechCrunch stories dominate headlines on HN. What's up with the bias? <comment><USER2> I don't think a lot of people go and read all the stories about a topic, then decide that although the TechCrunch story isn't the best one, they'll submit that because bias.

Rather, a lot of people subscribe to TechCrunch and when they see something interesting they submit it without researching into other possible sources.

HN prefers primary sources. TC publishes both primary reporting and rewrites. If you see a HN story that's a rewrite (TC or not), please add a comment with a link to a better source and a sentence about why it's better. The mods can change the main link if the new source is significantly better.</comment>


Authenticity, Robert Brunner and Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/globespotting/archives/2008/09/authenticity_ro.html?campaign_id=rss_tech <comment><USER2> authentic: "Do not try to be someone who you are not. Be who you are, _and be a good one._ "

"If the [new management] doesn't "get" what makes product _matter_ to its customers, they're likely to destroy it."</comment>


The tux3 filesystem returns - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/Articles/531126/rss

<comment><USER2> _"Tux3 does not normally update the media view of its filesystem tree even at unmount. Instead, it replays the log on each mount. One excellent reason for doing this is to exercise our replay code. (You surely would not want to discover replay flaws only on the rare occasions you crash.) Another reason is that we view sudden interruption as the normal way a filesystem should shut down."_

For those who are intrigued, this general philosophy is called "crash-only software" (though I don't know if the Tux3 guys take it to the extremes) and is pretty nifty when you can get away with it:

<http://lwn.net/Articles/191059/>

</comment><comment><USER3> That letter is a a beautiful example of how to introduce a technical project. Interesting project too.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love the emphasis on low CPU usage and not waiting for IO put into the design of the file system. The front/back split of the implementation makes a whole lot of sense. I wonder if any of these ideas are possible to implement in btrfs.</comment>


Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/17-02/mf_seasteading?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> No, not utopia. Just government with the incentive to govern well because its citizens' exit costs are dramatically reduced. See Patri's original post on the theory of Dynamic Geography here:

[http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/new_pages/dynamic_geogra...](http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/new_pages/dynamic_geography.html)

Patri also blogs and puts in frequent appearances on the Distributed Republic blog, where I also write.

It should be noted that Dynamic Geography is not explicitly libertarian. Rather, it is meant to align the interest of government more closely with those of its people. Since libertarians started the Dynamic Geography movement, they believe that most seasteads will be libertarian since those policies are believed to be best for the welfare of its residents. But if there were a large demand for non-libertarian societies, the market would meet this demand.

If you think Dynamic Geography is interesting, you also might be interested in Moldbug's Neocameralism, which seeks to replace land governments with for- profit corporations:

[http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2008/11/patchwo...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2008/11/patchwork-2-profit-strategies-for-our.html)

A few weeks ago, I explored several of these ideas on the Distributed Republic, which I dubbed as "structural libertarian" ideas:

[http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/12/24/down- with...](http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/12/24/down-with-policy- libertarianism)

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone needs to do a parody of Wired Magazine. Here's my attempt at an article that would be contained therein:

A solar powered sea colony, built entirely out of carbon nanotubes, whose building plans are open source, Creative Commons share-alike licensed. The construction was crowd-sourced, and the colony profits from the issuance of virtual currency used in transactions involving a Long Tail of virtual goods. It is scheduled to go IPO next year in China.

<comment><USER4> Congrats for squeezing all that hype Wired has published recently in one single paragraph. Am I the only one who thinks that the average quality of Wired's content has decreased abruptly in recent years?

<comment><USER5> I think it's always been that way and people are just now noticing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "The interesting issues are social and legal," says Mikolaj Habryn, a site > reliability engineer at Google. "You'll get slavery. You'll get drug > dealing. Maybe there'll be polygamous Mormons. The first people involved > will inevitably be those who want to do things they can't do on land, and we > have to deal with that."

Is total laissez-faire at all desirable?

<comment><USER7> I don't see how there would be slavery. The only people living on a seastead would be those who wanted to. I don't know how they would get slaves to come with them.

And yeah, if you don't like laissez-faire, you don't have to join a seastead that practices it. That's the whole point -- choosing your system of government.

<comment><USER8> _I don't see how there would be slavery. The only people living on a seastead would be those who wanted to. I don't know how they would get slaves to come with them._

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Given that it's difficult to ship oil without pirates appearing on the horizon I think it will be difficult to create a floating state without weapons, standing armies, police, judges... and before you know it your in the mess we are in. am I being too pessimistic?

<comment><USER10> "Minerva was soon invaded by the nearby kingdom of Tonga..."

No, you're not.

<comment><USER11> I think conflating pirates and governmental invasion misses the point. If pirates attack, you can shoot them (and modern-day pirates, at least, seem easily deterred by bigger guns). If a state attacks, such as what happened with Tonga, you're likely to be attacked by _other_ states if you successfully defend yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why would a regular person want to go to a floating utopia? There are no jobs, no agriculture, no manufacturing. Whats the point for a common citizen?

As far as the 10 billion "freedomship"? Whats the point? Why not use that money to hire some mercenaries and go take over some 3rd world country that actually has natural resources you can exploit?

Or better yet buy an election. Lets say it costs you 10 million in funding to win a senate seat. And 2 million to win a seat in the house of representatives. Thats 2 billion for the congress. Which leaves you 8 billion to win the presidency. Even Obama spent less than a billion and his ads were everywhere, surely you could win with 8.

Then for 4-8 years you'll have a carte blanche to change policy to whatever it is you wish.

The problem is that all these "freedom" type ventures, are usually a hobby of the fringe, and they don't have the money to actually do anything they dream about. If the Liberterian party had a 10 billion dollar pocket book, we'd have more than the handful of Liberterians in congress. And these fringers wouldn't have to go looking offshore to try their pipe dreams.

And thats coming from someone who donated money to Ron Paul. Sure I knew he couldn't win...but it doesn't hurt to have an extra point of view in the limelight

<comment><USER13> Why would there be any fewer jobs than in any urban area?

<comment><USER12> urban areas aren't all white collar, there are plenty of other jobs around.

But thats just part of the problem. Why would a company want to build an office building in the middle of an ocean at the huge premium....when they can just build one on land? I mean if a company wants to put its offices in the middle of nowhere there are plenty of cheaper alternatives.

You have to remember, that the cost of living on something like this would be huge, since they'll need to import all their food, and living space would be at a premium.

<comment><USER8> _the cost of living on something like this would be huge, since they'll need to import all their food_

Don't terrestrial cities import their food?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've pointed out one of the brainstorming boards in reply to rw talking about whether, "laissez-faire [is] at all desirable?"

There are some other interesting nuggets.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/9742300@N06/2946731651/> For prisons and mental health you're going to want all but the very worst individuals to be eventually re-integrated into the community. For me that means they really need to be close to the communities they serve. A spaceport is a potentially interesting idea with a proven track record. That track record works both ways. What advantage would a seasteading community have?

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/9742300@N06/2946734321/> A patent-free zone may work well for the community but presumably if they want to sell the goods they produce to countries that respect patents they're going to have problems. Data/document storage sounds a little unlikely. I would expect the risks with a seastead to be higher than a building on dry land. They can't compete on security and I doubt they could compete on price either. We may have trouble making new land but in terms of acreage it is still significantly cheaper than seasteads are expected to cost.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/9742300@N06/2947590204/> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/9742300@N06/2946733673/> Nothing too crazy here though I see no real advantage for seasteading.

</comment><comment><USER15> its only briefly mentioned in the graphic to the article, but Sealand has a fascinating history.

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

<comment><USER4> The Principality of Sealand even has its own website! <http://www.sealandgov.org>

In 2000, Wired wrote a cool article on Sealand: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/haven.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone want to take a bet that at the first sign of trouble they'll come running to nearby countries asking for (wait for it...) a government bailout?

<comment><USER17> So what if they ask a neighboring govt for help?

Of course, if you think that one must respond positively to such requests, I could use $100.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this anything more than a _really_ fancy gated community for rich people to hide in?

It just seems so brutally selfish.

<comment><USER2> You should read Patri's post on Dynamic Geography, which I linked to in a post above.

The point is not to be "selfish", but to create higher quality government. Currently the government industry suffers from a high barrier to entry and high consumer lock in. The result has been burgeoning costs and deteriorating quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Instead of talking about building these things, they should be talking about a _factory_ to build these things. The factory, with associated reduction in cost as production scales, is the trick.

I'm sure that's what they are doing, but it wasn't clear from the article.

I think it's a great idea. I'd like to see it at about 10% of the current cost, but the idea of competitive voluntary governmental structures is supposed to be what we have now (and we don't). It is in desperate need of re- factoring.

<comment><USER10> "Instead of talking about building these things, they should be talking about a factory to build these things."

You sound like a Java programmer. :)

(Actually, it sounds like a good idea, but I couldn't resist a bit of Reddit level humor.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good resources for finding trends in software development methods? - <AUTHOR> I'm an attorney researching best practices for negotiating software development contracts.  Specifically, I'd like to talk about how traditional contract milestones and checkpoints are often ill-suited to the way software developers work in 2018.
In support of my point, I'd like to discuss how software development methods have changed (e.g., decreased use of waterfall model, increased use of open source software).  Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding information on this topic.  Quick Google searches commonly return information on sectors that are trending in software development (e.g., big data, ML), whereas I'm more interested in how software developers work.  Can anyone point me to industry surveys or other sources that might be helpful?
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Hi there! If you're looking for data profiling software developers I'd suggesting checking out SlashData's "The Global Developer Population 2017" report [https://www.slashdata.co/reports/global-developer- population...](https://www.slashdata.co/reports/global-developer- population-2017) and also "Developer Economics: state of the Developer Nation Q3 2017" report [https://www.slashdata.co/reports/state-of-the-developer- nati...](https://www.slashdata.co/reports/state-of-the-developer- nation-q3-2017) Both reports are free for download. Hope this helps you find the insights you're looking for!</comment>


Computer science now counts as math credit in most states – is this a good idea? - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/computer-science-now-counts-as-math-credit-in-most-states-is-this-a-good-idea-123424 <comment><USER2> Computer science is certainly based on math and includes A LOT of math, but I worry that people too often conflate the two. I was working through problems on HackerRank the other day and most were actually math problems in disguise... Certainly understanding how to do complex calculations with a formula vs a loop or series of loops is important, but I don't believe that is necessarily the best way to rank programmers...

</comment><comment><USER3> As long as they do not add a bunch of math requirements to the CS classes, it will get butts in the seats.

Computer science at a k-12 level should be fun and interesting. Problems like making animations/video games are just so much more fun/relevant to solve than the straight up numerical answers(Or string manipulation).

Plus, these problems lead to conversations about math anyway. Students go from why do we want to learn math to I want to learn the math to make this part of my game work.

When we need to learn something to solve a problem we want to solve, there is a reason to learn it. This is the essential part of school that is mostly left out.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _" I worry that students may take computer science just to avoid the more difficult math and science courses they need for college. Computer science could be a way for students to circumvent graduation requirements while adults look the other way."_

<comment><USER4> This has been a problem in STEM curricula for a long time.

At my US university, astronomy (a lecture with 300 seats) counted as a "lab science" credit. Geology was similar -- memorize lecture notes and regurgitate on tests. Never set foot in a lab.

It's unfortunate that we're now expanding that flawed model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's probably fine as long as the courses have a solid math foundation. Our CS department arose out of the Math department at my university</comment>


Kernel network namespaces explained - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.igalia.com/dpino/2016/04/10/network-namespaces/ <comment><USER2> Network namespaces are excellent for containing promiscuous services such as NFS that bind to all interfaces by default.

Stick them in a netns with only a site-local address and that attack surface reduces massively. Much easier and more performant than trying to close the open doors with iptables.

<comment><USER3> do you have an ansible playbook for doing that at hand?

<comment><USER4> I know I'm going to get backlash for this, but whatever

<rant>

The article and the docs make it pretty clear that this can be accomplished with a couple shell commands. I don't understand why everyone begs for handouts these days. We now have an entire generation of "sysadmins" who refuse the read documentation and can't produce original work. This is not complicated. You do not need a Master's to figure this out.

</rant>

That said, I'm quite certain that Ansible does not support IP namespaces natively, so you'll have to manage this with custom "command:" statements. This means these will fire every time you run the Ansible playbook and they will be listed as an item that changed because Ansible does not internally know how to validate whether or not it needs to take action.

tl;dr read the docs, write a shell script, and/or figure out the most sane way to do this with ansible/salt/puppet/chef/cfengine/whatever because it's 2016 and I'm tired of people begging for someone else to do their work for them.

<comment><USER5> Aka get off my lawn or: [http://i.imgur.com/91sn32Q.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/91sn32Q.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is an excellent tutorial from LWN about network namespaces also: [https://lwn.net/Articles/580893/](https://lwn.net/Articles/580893/) -

SubgraphOS uses network namespaces to isolate individual processes (and route all connections over Tor). As a proof-of-concept, I wrote a small binary that wraps arbitrary binaries in customized namespaces and forwards all traffic over tor instead of masquerading: [https://github.com/squeed/torbox](https://github.com/squeed/torbox)

Right now, the torsocks command captures all network syscalls via a LD_PRELOAD shim. My goal was to avoid that sort of hackery.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice explanation - I just wish that people started to include IPv6 setup by default in their examples.

<comment><USER3> IPv6 is a new thing, isn't it?

<comment><USER8> RFC1883 IPv6 was written in 1995.

I have services where >30% of my users access the service over IPv6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting topic very well explained</comment>


Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998 - <AUTHOR> http://pinktentacle.com/2010/08/animated-map-of-nuclear-explosions-1945-1998/

<comment><USER2> I didn't think so many nukes had been set off. Before knowing that fact, I'd have thought 2,000 nukes would give radiation poisoning to a decent portion of the the world.

<comment><USER3> Most of these are underground; that's the least fallout-producing way of setting off a nuke, since there's no irradiated debris going up into the sky. The second least fallout-producing nuking method is an air burst. The ground bursts are the worst, and also the rarest in the doomsday plans.

<comment><USER4> Enemy missile silos and other hardened sites would all receive ground bursts - in the case of the Soviets they had (and Russia may still have) multiple extremely large warheads (25Mt) targeted at places like Cheyenne Mountain and Raven Rock Mountain - these would have been ground bursts and _incredibly_ messy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Original Source (acknowledged in the article, though its embed links a YouTube flamewar): <http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/>

</comment><comment><USER6> In the 50's and 60's it looked like the US was just trying to maintain a 2:1 lead over the Soviets. I wonder if it was driven mainly by bragging rights.

<comment><USER3> It was driven by the desire to be able to guarantee that, even if the Soviets attacked first and took out as many military and infrastructural targets as possible, the US would still be able to launch a crippling nuclear counterattack. The Soviets wanted the exact same thing, but in reverse. It wasn't driven by bragging rights; it was driven by the dangerous fact that the advantage in a nuclear war goes with whoever strikes first.

The development of ICBMs, missile submarines, and so on, actually made us a lot safer by making the "strike first and strike hard" approach much less effective. The situation was more volatile back when it took a month or so to put together the bombs for a nuclear attack. When you look at it from such a ruthless perspective, the Cold War made a weird kind of sense.

<comment><USER7> And as pointed out in Wargames, whoever strikes first still loses.

MAD (mutually assured destruction) is not a pretty thing.

<comment><USER3> The point is to make it so that whoever strikes first still loses. If the first-striker advantage is big enough, then the country that strikes first could survive with their population, government, and military capabilities largely intact, while pretty much destroying the other side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know that nuclear fuel must be a precious resource, and to see that we wasted so much of it during those years is unsettling. We could have set that fuel aside to power civilization for centuries. Might we be able to recover any valuable radioactive material from the test sites? Since most of the warheads were detonated at just a few sites, there might be high concentrations.

<comment><USER9> The amount of fuel used by a warhead is tiny compared with a power station reactor. A typical nuclear warhead contains less than 50kg of fissible material. A typical reactor contains 50 tons or more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Makes me really wonder if those explosions had any scientific need, or were they just displays of power. I would think that those test sites would be so polluted that any fallout analysis would be very hard if not impossible.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just think it's interesting how mch territory has been used as a test facility for nukes. Russia seems like a nuclear wasteland, and it even appears we detonated nukes (underground I presume) in the SE US - wild!

<comment><USER12> Most of the testing was done at the Nevada Test Range. Today this is probably the most polluted place in the US. Check it out on google maps, the place looks like the surface of the moon. Area 51, incidentally is very close to that area as well.

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

<comment><USER13> Google maps link: [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=las+vegas,+nv&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=64.664844,74.267578&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Las+Vegas,+Clark,+Nevada&ll=37.084488,-116.032619&spn=0.129958,0.145054&t=h&z=13)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for that link, it's amazing to me that they detonated that many nukes underground in that grid like pattern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's a thought to ponder: The intense x-ray/gamma radiation given off by the above-ground nuclear tests may very well be the most powerful indicator of intelligent life on this planet that has ever been broadcast into outer space, purely in terms of signal power. It's kind of sad to think that the first message received by E.T. (if they're out there) could potentially be, "Yes, there are sentient beings on Earth but, unfortunately, they're a bunch of war- mongering a-holes."

</comment><comment><USER16> Does it feel like we're at war with the pacific islands here?

<comment><USER17> Or the sand in the desert!</comment></comment>


How I Make $2,000 Every Year Without Doing Very Much  - <AUTHOR> http://freelanceswitch.com/money/how-i-make-2000-every-year-without-doing-very-much/

<comment><USER2> Or you can live in Alaska.

In 2008, the oil dividend was a record $3269 per person.

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

<comment><USER3> And they still take the biggest Federal handout per capita... Such a scam.

<comment><USER4> In Alaska, milk is $7.00/gallon. We need people up there to run the industries but the living is tough.

There are scams operated by the government far worse than Alaska.

<comment><USER5> Should not the companies that are in the industries then pay higher wages?

<comment><USER6> Well from their point of view, there is no reason to do so since the government is taking care of it.

I'm sure they'd gladly pay what is needed (and still profitable) if it came to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is nothing more than an advertisement. The company that makes freelanceswitch also owns the sites listed: FlashDen, AudioJungle, ThemeForest, iStockPhoto

<comment><USER8> The author clearly mentions this in his post, so I don't see why that is an issue.

<comment><USER9> I think the issue is that AFAIK it is _not_ that easy to make $2000/y with selling stock photography. Actually, it is a hard, persistent work. So he was propably just lucky, so they picked him up to advertise them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm probably not enough of a graphic designer or artist in general to do exactly that, but this post made me realize how I should really think of ways to make some money on the side.

And also that, just trying can sometimes be enough!

What would you see as the closest thing to stock photos for a programmer? You can sell your software of course, but it feels like it needs a lot more investment and that a few hours at night on one small bit of software won't make it.

<comment><USER11> I set up djangohosting.org, which was just a static site w/o any server side programming. Affiliates are making me about 90/mo.

It did take about 8 months for traffic to slowly build up to this point though.

<comment><USER12> You should set up DNS for www.djangohosting.org also...

<comment><USER11> Thanks! I never even noticed, I'll set it up with a wildcard subdomain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for the article. Its good to see people making a "good living". Not everything needs to be get a rich quick deal.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like a description of every government employee in a third world country.

</comment><comment><USER15> Many investment bankers made 1M every year without doing much

<comment><USER16> Other than massive amounts of TPS reports and ridiculously optimistic financial models.</comment></comment>


Twitter Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@WhiteMotivation/twitter-censorship-b2f2e396025e#.2ed1kf8l5 <comment><USER2> That dude ran an account called 'WhiteMotivation' which is just about exactly what you think it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the white equivalent of the 'black is beautiful' campaigns we see ad companies run all the time. It wasn't even in the least bit controversial, yet it's gone.

<comment><USER2> The very first image macro in that article leads off with "Sweden is now the rape capital of the west".

<comment><AUTHOR> If you kept reading, most of the content he tweeted were pictures of white girls with captions like "White: It's a beautiful thing."

The post you refer to cites statistical fact of which even the BBC admits[0]. It's also the most extreme tweet that account had to offer. As stated above, most of his account content looked like a 'black is beautiful' ad campaign aimed at whites.

Do you really think what he posted is worthy of a twitter suspension? Why?

[0]: [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19592372](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19592372)

<comment><USER2> Oh I did keep reading.

I notice he uses "I dindu nuffin!!!" as a subheading, which is interesting considering the use of that term, especially further down:

""" That's right, I never called anyone n....r, w....r, k..e, racist, h...y, c.....r, m..o, dindu, r.t, f....t, m.d, or any other pet name. """ (aside one: "pet name"?) (aside two: it's not only dogs who can hear dog whistles)

The whole thing is basically one level above "A. Wyatt Mann" cartoons in terms of subtlety and "that's a trilby not a fedora" in terms of not fooling anybody.

<comment><AUTHOR> He mentioned all of those things because there are active twitter accounts who use all of those words and more and yet avoid suspensions themselves.

You didn't answer my question.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Big Alien Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebigalientheory.com/ <comment><USER2> > It's a complete myth that a single data point is inadequate for making > predictions. For example, let's take Usain Bolt's 100m World Record of 9.58 > seconds. Imagine that was the only data point we had regarding human running > speed. Wth that one data point we could confidently make a powerful > prediction, that anyone we pick from the world population will take more > than 9.58 seconds to run 100 meters.

We have measured countless people running the 100 meter and that's why we know who is the fastest. Isn't the world record the opposite of one data point by the accumulated knowledge is contains?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just an extreme example to help illustrate the point. By itself it isn't enough to make the argument, but that's why the author also makes the rest of the argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is actually a really fun read. I agree that the standard assumptions about aliens are vastly negatively biased to the point of absurdity. Though reading this does highlight how an alternative approach may come across way too speculative for academia.

<comment><USER4> > I agree that the standard assumptions about aliens are vastly negatively > biased to the point of absurdity.

could you elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The main point is unassailable, most individuals (in any category) will be from larger pools vs. small pools.

One implication I have seen mentioned before is that we are far likelier to be living in a time of high population than low. That within 95% accuracy, we are living in a time segment with 95% of humanity.

To make any sense of that, given the long future humanity _could_ have on Earth, the chance of human extinction is great.

Given the serious challenges of any meaningful colonization of the moon, Mars or anyone else, and the number of existential threats to humanity, many of them self created (weapons, brittle dependency on tech, environmental damage, etc.) it is another reason to take collective human action toward risk mitigation much more seriously than our leaders and citizenry have done till now.

One way our civilization could continue, but numbers come down, is if artificial intelligence inherently needs less individuals. Maybe there will be no good practical reason for more than one post-human AI and economics will simply result in one, inevitably more complex and modular, intelligent individual chewing through the resources of our solar system and beyond.

That would fit with the articles conclusion that our civilization must already be on the larger population side, so any future we have must contain much fewer individuals or none? Not very reassuring - but worth considering.

</comment><comment><USER6> The fallacy here is simple:

All of the assumptions mapping from our experiences to "alien" experiences are built on that those experiences share fundemental premises. That the demographics of alien civilizations match our own. That we are a median point and not an extreme outlier. There are even solid arguments for considering us an outlier (Fermi paradox)

Even if we take the sketchy assumptions that the sizes of alien civilizations are zipfy, we could equally reasonably assume most civilizations are smaller than us even if we are the smallest civilizations to ever exist.

<comment><USER5> The article is making the (almost explicit) assumption that the "power law" holds for civilization populations.

That seems reasonable to me.

But I think we can also find good arguments that we have more information than simply where each of us as individuals appeared.

For instance, the resources of the universe can easily support quadrillions of us (or individual entities), so if even one civilization is able to extend itself to other solar systems reliably, there must be civilizations with quadrillions or more individuals somewhere.

That would strongly imply that while most individuals are in large civilizations, we have counter evidence that we might still be not in one.

Or the argument could be that the power law doesn't hold due to a strong threshold effect, or some other effect.

For instance of some civilizations become galactic, but most individuals still appear in a great many more civilizations that die out before becoming immune to collective disasters.

In which case, I really hope we are not typical!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this is a difficult article to get through.

> Aside from a disproportionately large brain, we're fairly ordinary mammals.

we're rather inadequate mammals. it is our brain in conjunction with our propensity for violence and ability to use tools that separates us, not necessarily in a good way, from other mammals.

> However we should also consider ourselves to be a member of a very different > group - those species, scattered throughout the universe, which ponder the > existence of life beyond their own planet.

this is wholly narcissistic. we have no evidence that other animals don't have philosophy.

> Given the vast scale of the universe, this group is likely to be even more > numerous and diverse than our own animal kingdom.

no evidence for that either.

> Which begs the question: how should we expect to stack up against these > other intelligent species?

that's not what "begs the question" means.

so an article going off about interpreting data and logical conclusions is a little hard to give credence to when the opening paragraph is basically sentence after sentence of non-evidentiary or incorrect statements.

<comment><AUTHOR> > our propensity for violence

I think you're underestimating how brutally violent many animals can be, even herbivores. Just look at what the males of many species will do in competition over females. Yes our organisational skills and automation take it to another level, but the propensity to brutalise and kill is everywhere in the natural world.

<comment><USER4> i am not underestimating it all. just because other animals are violent doesn't matter or contradict what i said. additionally, a lot of what we see in the animal world in terms of violence is fighting for food and survival. yes, nature has a lot of violence, but is often reasonable violence. other cases of it not being reasonable pale to that seen in humans, where humans showcase violence against non-competitive species and against other humans.

there is lot of evidence that homo sapiens' early dominance over other hominids was due in no small part to violence.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Geek Wallpapers.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwallpapers.com

<comment><USER2> If you are targeting geeks maybe consider a special focus on multi-monitor wallpapers? I'm sure there are other ways of honing your focus on geeks beyond just the subject matter of your imagery.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. The resolutions I support are based on the popular resolutions according to my analytics stats. I'm not sure if multi monitor shows up there. But yeah, that would be a good niche to target, thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I built this site last year and have let it sit for ages. I just relaunched it with a new design and I have a load of wallpapers stacked up ready to go.

I know it's nothing particularly interesting but I thought some of you might like it. Enjoy!</comment>


Java haters, gtfo - <AUTHOR> http://www.bileblog.org/2008/05/java-haters-gtfo/ <comment><USER2> It's been a long time since I got offended twice in two paragraphs.</comment>


Simple idea for a non-profit or maybe a startup - <AUTHOR> http://reinventingsquares.com/2014/01/06/simple-idea-for-a-non-profit-or-maybe-a-startup/

<comment><USER2> I actually started something strikingly similar to this idea, techwurk.org. I plan on adding a job board as a feature. I'm a high school student, so I'm also wondering if anyone on HN knows any qualified people (preferably students) that would want to do basic tech work for charities. Thanks!</comment>