How I Taught Myself Python/Django in 8 Weekends - <AUTHOR> http://tech.yipit.com/2012/08/21/how-i-taught-myself-to-code-in-8-weeks/

<comment><USER2> I'm seeing a lot of these posts lately, it reminds me of a Woody Allen joke:

Roughly "I'm taking a class on speed reading. I was able to read War and Peace in one night. It's about Russia."

</comment><comment><USER3> Now the OP just need to teach himself programming in ten years [1] ;)

[1] <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>

<comment><USER4> I disagree.

The essay you link to is absolutely fabulous and I couldn't agree with it's conclusions more, but I know that I want to be a programmer. I 'always' (since 10) knew it and now, nearly twenty years later, which were filled with programming and little other than programming I'm still the same. I want to be a programmer, I struggle for mastery in nearly every aspect of my art/craft/... and I don't mind spending another twenty years in ever more obscure corners of it.

Now, this doesn't have to be the case for OP. Maybe he want's to create something which he can sell, or maybe he just wants to be literate in computers. There could be lots of reasons one wants to learn programming in 21 days (or 8 weekend, or whatever).

What I want to say is that although programming could eat your whole life in one bite not everyone wants this to happen and such people are perfectly right to try and learn a bit and then stop.

...sorry, I had a hard day at job today, I just needed to write something. Don't mind me :)

<comment><USER5> No apology needed.

It was very well said and not at all inflammatory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the meme I'm seeing lately in some of the articles like this, that "it's only been recently that it's been possible to teach yourself to program". Having flashbacks to 1981, personally. I'm sure some of you other oldsters are having flashbacks to the 70's. Yes, Virginia, it has been possible for a few decades now to teach yourself how to code, how computers work, and to write real software that people will pay you for. This is not a new phenomenon or new capability.

<comment><USER7> I think that should be qualified. Computers weren't as ubiquitous back in the 70's as they are now, nor was learning material. The TRS-80 with monitor was released in 1977 for ~$600 - about $2200 in today's dollars. I only knew of several kids with home systems.

When I took Computer Math (my high school's programming class), we had to learn programming on a piece of cardboard! It was the CARDIAC, Cardboard Illustrative Aid To Computation - <http://www.simnia.com/it/cardiac/cardiac.htm>.

After we became adept as manually running programs on the cardboard, we transitioned to dialing into a mainframe. Nothing says fun like dialing a rotary phone over and over until you finally made a connection. And of course, mainframe time was limited, so our BASIC and FORTRAN programs had to be written out by hand before hand. The CLI was an unforgiving beast and disconnections were frequent.

Could people teach themselves to program in the 70's? Sure, but there's really no comparison to the learning opportunities available today, and I don't think it's right to disparage anyone who blogs about their learning experiences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good for you, keep it up! Produce some cool things, then learn some new tools, rinse and repeat :)

</comment><comment><USER9> If it works to get people started then it works. I honestly don't remember how I got started programming - some people rhapsodize about that first moments coding, but for me it was mostly rage at a capricious Java compiler that I felt was always either finding a creative way to do something other than when it should or throwing an error completely unrelated to what was wrong.

After I got past that point everything was gravy. I've always been kind of confused by the learning curve metaphor (If the learning curve is steep, doesn't that mean you learn faster? What's the x and what's the y in this?) but tech now is getting closer to the ideal linear curve, where additional learning and productivity are at a relatively constant proportion no matter what stage you're at rather than being a floor function until you hit a certain level.

Which is awesome.

<comment><USER10> The phrase "steep learning curve" is probably a misnomer, since the graph most people are talking about has "learning" or "experience" on the dependent axis, and time on the independent axis. So a steep slope on a graph like this would represent something that's very easy to learn.

What most people seem to refer to with this phrase, however, is some kind of exponential function, where the slope is really small (difficult to learn) at the start, and hopefully increases as you get past the initial hurdle.

I guess it stems from confusion with other real-world metaphors, like climbing steep hills, which also happens to be difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would have titled this "How I taught Myself Enough Python/Django to do what I wanted in 8 weekends" ...there is so much to both of them, you can always learn more. But, you are indeed cruising, keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER12> This post may not be perfect, but it's just what I've been looking for.

</comment><comment><USER13> The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

</comment><comment><USER14> Intermeresting.</comment>


Rebuilding Your Userbase After a 60% Traffic Loss (80% Sales Loss) Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/When+your+userbase+gets+away+from+you,+make+something+people+want,+indeed <comment><USER2> That graph is unusual considering the title. I expected to see a graph of the traffic loss or the sales loss, but actually that graph just shows the cams available (in a diffcultto parse format).

What your story seems to show is this: you're a porn site that does not know it's a porn site. People are paying because they want the dirty stuff, same as they pay for the other real porn cam sites. Perhaps yours is more palatable to them because there are no weird pop ups and other in-your-face stuff. But it's the same stuff they look for on other sites that they look for on yours.

If it's about the money, should you not be aggressively exploring more in this area? Are you offering too little? Too much?

Now that you are turning the titanic, what do you want out of it? You want more money? You want more geek credibility? You want to sell it off someday?

<comment><USER3> > That graph is unusual considering the title. I expected to see a graph of > the traffic loss or the sales loss, but actually that graph just shows the > cams available (in a diffcultto parse format).

More data was to be added, specifically about the traffic.

The title was changed.

> Now that you are turning the titanic, what do you want out of it?

Good question. No answer yet, I'm still coming to terms with all this. I've given Charles and Jan 3 months carte-blanche to do as they please, after that I'll make up my mind about what it is that I will do.

> If it's about the money, should you not be aggressively exploring more in > this area?

I won't be doing anything on the visible side of things.

> You want to sell it off someday?

It may come to that, time will tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One major lesson to take from this: Make sure you _fully_ understand the impact of changes you're considering for your site.

It's easy to check one metric (in this case, percent of cams) and declare that that metric proves that your change won't be a problem. But you should make sure to check every metric you can get (percent of sales and percent of traffic, in this case).

There's no reason you couldn't have tracked traffic to each cam and discovered that 60% of your traffic was to adult cams, right? And you may not want to track what cams each user views for privacy reasons, but you probably could have taken some anonymous data to see that adult cams make up a significant percentage of paid users' views, right?

<comment><USER3> Hindsight is always 20/20, the reason I write out this stuff is to make sure that others can learn the lessons without having to pay the price.

Of course I _could_ have done all those things, but what happened here is that after running the site for 12+ years I thought I had a good grip on this data and could bypass the measurement step. We've had a clean site policy before (until the .com crash made it impossible to afford people to oversee the site 24/7) and it worked reasonably well, I though I could simply turn back the clock on that but had missed out on a shift of the core demographics of the paying users.

<comment><USER4> Not trying to blame you, just confirming that it was an avoidable mistake to support my point that you should gather as much information about changes as possible to avoid similar mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I don't know if I agree with the decision, this is an excellent cautionary tale for what happens if you try to guess what your current customer behavior is instead of measuring it. I doubt there is anybody here who runs a public service who has not been bitten by that before.

This particular issue has caused trouble for a few other startups, too. IMVU, if I remember correctly, also had a huge fracture with a vocal section of their user base when they decided to ban pedophilia.

<comment><USER3> > While I don't know if I agree with the decision

Which decision in particular ? (there are several)

And more importantly, why ?

> this is an excellent cautionary tale for what happens if you try to guess > what your current customer behavior is instead of measuring it.

Yep. I'm to blame 100% here, I think my naivety really shows.

> also had a huge fracture with a vocal section of their user base when they > decided to ban pedophilia.

Pedophilia and anything else that is illegal has always been banned on ww.com, in fact we have a liaison with the dutch police to help catch the really bad apples.

And the users that left were not vocal about it, they just left.

<comment><USER5> _Which decision in particular ? (there are several) And more importantly, why ?_

Since you ask, and only since you ask: given the choice between "porn" and "huge revenue hit" (and laying off employees, service closure, or whatever else that entails), I would not hesitate to pick door #2. I could talk about why at length but it would be off-topic for this forum.

<comment><USER3> Ok, I agree with you in fact. The thing is that Charles and Jan have ideas about how to structure the site in such a way that I can live with it and I'm willing to believe them, so I've given them 90 days to prove that this can be done.

If that's not possible I will probably have to step out of it completely. I'm not going to make a moralistic judgment on what end users of a service can or can not do if the service is to survive or not, after all that will affect everybody, the good guys and girls included but I will not want to be associated with the service if the center of gravity shifts further in a direction that I'm not comfortable with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You're getting some criticism here, but deserve kudos for being willing to let product decisions come from someone you recognize as better suited to make them for the customer base you've reached.

<comment><USER3> > You're getting some criticism here

That's a pretty normal state of affairs :) I'll try to mine the criticism for useful bits that give me more insight than I currently have. The collective wisdom of HN far outweighs my own and I'm very much open to suggestions at this point.

> but deserve kudos for being willing to let product decisions come from > someone you recognize as better suited to make them for the customer base > you've reached.

I think that's a very logical step, after all if you could not possibly be a user of your own product you are likely not the right person to determine the direction because a lack of affinity will cause you to make the wrong decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Browsing through the webcam list (child safe mode off), every other one appears to be a bloke wanking.

So what's the site's business model?

<comment><USER8> Sex sells! Depraved sex maybe even sells better. Remember Philips' V2000 video tape format? It went titsup because Philips wanted to project a 'decent image' of itself and didn't allow porn on V2000. The rest is history...

<comment><USER7> Who would want to pay to look at blokes wanking? It comes free with chatroulette.

Maybe the blokes themselves are paying to have their privates shown?

<comment><USER9> No one is paying to see blokes wanking, or at least very few are. The "wankers" represent the most paying customers, they consume the most content, but they also produce the least desirable content...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "It turns out that that 5% of the cams coincides with 60% of the traffic and > close to 80% of the sales!"

The traffic that each camera gets should be pretty easy to track. The site also has a top 100 cam list so it apparently does track hits to cameras. Seems to me that they should have known that 5% of their cams coincided with 60% of their traffic before hand (and whether those were adult only cameras or not).

<comment><USER9> We've only very recently been able to track things like that, but the main part of the problem has been not wanting to acknowledge the truth until now. WW.com was never intended as an adult site, but a communications platform, far pre-dating justin.tv. However, it's clear our revenues come almost entirely from the adult market, so without taking funding, that's the direction we have to take the site.

<comment><USER11> Regarding the "unless we take funding..." Thats not true. Its just the easier and less risky way for you. It also limits you and the site- You will eventually be known as a porn site.

Easy profits now will limit big profits later.

<comment><USER3> > You will eventually be known as a porn site.

Charles has some interesting ideas on how to avoid that fate.

I think he may be able to deliver, time will tell. 90 days carte blanche, that's a bit of a risk to take but I've gotten to know Charles and Jan very well over the last couple of months and I fully trust they will not do anything that would embarrass me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why don't you sell it off and do something that you & people/users like.

<comment><USER3> It may come to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The real question is if this extra traffic is valuable, then how to monetize the blokes wanking.

I would suggest a tie-up with an adult website and limit daily viewing time. The blokes wank off for free, crowdsourced, those who have a cam get to watch others for free, but those without have to pay a small fee after so many minutes (say 45 minutes a day free)

<comment><USER14> _"The real question is... how to monetize the blokes wanking."_

Only on HN... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, you did not do calculations of the probable effect of your decision _before_ taking that decision?

<comment><USER3> Given the data available at the time, yes. But now we have more data, and much as I hate the conclusion I can't seem to escape it.

edit: Hacker News, the site where when an article you wrote is posted, where you are asked questions you can get downmodded for answering them.

Really guys, what's wrong with you? Can't you find it in you to even tell me why you think that answer deserves your drive-by-scorn?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was going to collect a lot more data and provide more details about the future direction but this got posted before I got around to that so I'll leave it as it stands.

The title here is not mine, but a replacement that I can't subscribe to 100% yet.

</comment><comment><USER16> You don't explain in detail why you decided to go back on your decision...

It seems like the decision to go back to 'non-clean' was purely short term profit driven.

Seems like given more time and effort, keeping it clean may well have paid off in the longer run.

<comment><USER3> This was posted before I was ready to get it out there, so that's why there is lots of detail and more data missing.

The decision to go back to 'non-clean' was basically to buy us some time to think this through given our newfound insight. Charles and Jan have some ideas that may chart a path out of this mess and I trust them enough to have my interests at heart in it too. The next couple of months will be quite interesting.

> Seems like given more time and effort, keeping it clean may well have paid > off in the longer run.

That is a possibility, but we would not have gotten to the longer run, now we at least have a chance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> tl;dr: undo what you did that persipitated the "disaster"

<comment><USER3> The whole idea of summarizing something is to actually read it yourself first, I think you missed out on a bunch of stuff that probably should have made it in to your summary.

<comment><USER17> All I got from that post was that you reversed the decision to keep the site clean. How is that not the case?

<comment><USER3> I also decided to hand over the day to day management, which I think is by far the larger decision.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


T-Mobile CEO Announces Payment Options for Federal Workers - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/1081734169510604800 <comment><AUTHOR> Alternatively, dug around and found their official newsroom posting: [https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier-offers-support- for-...](https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier-offers-support-for-gov- employees)</comment>


Canadians name top appliance brands that break down - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-appliances-right-to-repair-1.5475649 <comment><USER2> Major appliances used to last 20 years, but not today. This article tracks with my experience and with what several repair people have told me. Many of the "name brands" of yesteryear have consolidated and moved their factories offshore to save money. They've also started designing compressors specifically to last 5 years or less, and repairing or replacing a compressor costs more than a new fridge.

The other trick (more common on washing machines) is to build electronic control boards that last 5 years or less, so when the washer breaks you have to pay $500 for a new control board. Washing machines used to have mechanical controls that lasted 30 years. Now we have electronic controls with no moving parts that theoretically could last forever but they die in a couple of years, usually because of poor power supply design or overheating.

This is deliberate. The companies have figured out that customers will tolerate it and go buy a new appliance every 5 years. Every company wants that recurring revenue stream.

Why doesn't competition solve this problem? Many of the big name brands (Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Kitchenaid, Jennair, etc.) are all the same company now [0]. Kenmore and LG are still separate but on the whole there's very little competition. The government should never have allowed this degree of consolidation.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Corporation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Corporation)

<comment><USER3> The junky rusted refrigerator in my garage (that I got for $200 in 1995) has never failed me like this beautiful expensive one has.

Sometimes it just stops cooling. It reports inside temperatures 20+ degrees below what they are. They replaced the motherboard. They replaced the entire fridge. At least once a year I lose all of my food.

<comment><USER4> Check out local used appliance stores. You can probably get something ~10 years old that will look new enough but still be somewhat reparable and non- smart. Shops that sell used appliances generally also repair them, so they'll know what's most reparable and you'll be able to go back to them for parts.

Support the repair and used-goods economy, otherwise we'll just have disposable options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _When asked to recall the manufacturer of the appliance that broke down, > Kenmore was named more than any other brand, accounting for 21 per cent — or > about one in five — of all appliance breakdowns in Canada._

The above makes me wonder if they understand probabality and statistics. Kenmore is an extremely popular and long-standing brand in Canada. Of course a popular brand is going to have more breakdowns on an absolute basis than unpopular brands.

If they had said something like, "Kenmore owners named Kenmore appliances as breaking down more often than owners of other brands", then I'd have more confidence that they corrected for the popularity, but they didn't say it that way.

<comment><USER6> Kenmore also doesn't manufacture most (any?) of their appliances, making this "study" even more nonsensical.

<comment><USER7> They _never_ manufactured any of their appliances. There never was a Kenmore factory.

Kenmore has been a brand label of Sears since the mail-order catalog days. Almost any and every manufacturer out there has been relabeled as a Kenmore at one time or another, from kitchen appliances (GE, Whirlpool, Amana, LG, Frigidaire, etc) to lawn mowers (Black & Decker, Briggs & Stratton) to air conditioners (GE, Fedders, Carrier, Amana).

Similarly, the Die-Hard brand was used for automotive parts and the Craftsman brand was used for tools. Again, all made by other companies (Johnson Controls, Exide, Skil, Black & Decker, Stanley, Chamberlain, etc).

What the OP article really points to is the breakdown of Sears in Canada, which for a long time was way stronger and more stable than the American side.

<comment><USER8> _Briggs & Stratton_

They never made lawnmowers, but they made a lot of engines for them and other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hypothesis 1: things break down because they're cheap (and therefore must be made cheaply to be profitable), not because they're from bad brands. There aren't really any truly-awful brands; only some brands that are _willing_ to cater to lower price-points than others, by producing cheaper (⇒ less-long- lasting) products. _Holding price constant_ , an appliance is going to break down at pretty much the same rate no matter who you buy it from. There are no real fly-by-night manufacturers capturing more profit by making things cheaply and selling them with high margins. The market is too competitive for that.

Hypothesis 2: landlords and condo developers will buy the cheapest appliances they can when furnishing units. Thus, they'll end up buying them from the brands that offer the lowest price-points.

Take 1 and 2 together, and you might see an outsized number of complaints about appliances from certain brands breaking down, _specifically_ from tenants of furnished homes/units; while other owners of appliances from those same brands might be confused by the claims, given that _their_ appliances that they bought themselves (at more reasonable, non-bottom-of-the-barrel price points) have served them fine.

<comment><USER10> >The market is too competitive for that.

You're missing someone wanting to extract maximum money from a previously well viewed brand by cutting corners. Kenmore is, for example, owned by Sears which had reasons to maximize short term money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the US, websites like repairclinic and partselect have helped me save thousands of dollars in expenses on busted refrigerator and dishwasher. The first time I opened up that dishwasher was an eye opener. Cheap doesn't even begin to describe that piece of garbage. This was a 1000+ dollar whirlpool crap. Similar story with the Frigidaire refrigerator. What is confusing to me is the sheer number of oddly shaped parts that seem to work interchangeably with LG, Whirlpool, Frigidaire and Kenmore appliances. The only logical explanation is that they are all the same parent company and/or all of these are made in the same factory with different labels slapped on in the end. Just a speculation since I never really researched this.

<comment><USER8> _The only logical explanation is that they are all the same parent company and /or all of these are made in the same factory with different labels slapped on in the end._

You are absolutely correct. No single company actually makes all the parts in one appliance, and even if all the brands are owned by the same company, it will tend to use the same designs from that companies that make the individual components. The same reason you see (the same!) Bosch parts in a lot of different European cars, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm I the only one who is tired of replacing my appliances and each time something broke I now just replace it with commercial equipment.

I had my vacuum sealing machine break on me (which is now a commercial one). Was nice to just call the company who instructed me to pop the hood open and we figured out what was wrong. It was just an off the shelf part at 2$ from Home Depot.

I'm replacing everything with commercial. I don't mind if my next toaster will need me to call an electrician, I just hate the idea of replacing my things and i love to fix them. I find that commercial equipment is much easier to fix. They build them expecting it will fail and they make parts available.

The only one I have problem figuring out is dishwasher. The commercial one are very different, they are basically build to do multiple washes in a short amount of time. They also tends to leak water on the floor. So for residential use it's not so convenient. If anyone know something I don't, let me know. Might have to replace my 12 years old asko dishwasher soon.

</comment><comment><USER13> My new Samsung washing machine started leaking water onto my floor within a couple years of purchase. At least the Wi-Fi still worked.

<comment><USER14> > _At least the Wi-Fi still worked._

Did it at least send you a message that it was leaking? Heh.

I'm a big proponent of 'dumb appliances'. The less they do, the better. All this IoT-ification of everything is madness. It just introduces points of failure, attack surfaces and privacy intrusions for no benefit for the consumer whatsoever. Oh, and they're nearly impossible to repair because everything's DRMed and microcontrollers actively prevent you from fixing things with 'unauthorized parts'.

My household still has 15 year old Maytag appliances that still work perfectly and have no DRM in them. I plan on fixing them until the day I die because I really don't want to deal with this new mess.

<comment><USER15> I remember reading an article about point and shoot cameras becoming popular because most users don't adjust any settings away from defaults. I feel like appliances are the same. Ours have a ton of options on them, but only a few are used. I could literally use a washer with cold/warm/hot and that's it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My family has lived in the same house for about 15 years. It was empty of appliances when we moved in. I have repaired or replaced every appliance, some multiple times, including the water heater and furnace.

Something I've learned is: There's a huge proliferation of repair info online. Folks love fixing things and blogging about it, or posting videos. And the parts aren't ridiculously hard to find.

We had one recently, where our washer was leaking water onto the floor. A handful of video's later, I figured out that we were just using too much soap, and the suds were somehow getting into some vent tube. Less soap, leaking gone.

<comment><USER4> I love to hear other people doing this.

In the last year I've repaired the dishwasher, washer, and dryer at my rental unit, and the dishwasher at our home. These are all old and cheap units but were surprisingly fixable. Lots of videos and service manuals online.

I found all the parts I need at reliableparts.com (no affiliation) who have a location here in Vancouver, BC and who are always knowledgeable and helpful.

I spend maybe $75 in parts (total for all 4 appliances) and a cumulative 6 hours of my time. Most importantly to me, I kept these things out of the landfill.

<comment><USER17> I have fixed and replaced control boards in both my Kenmore washing machine and oven. I've had to replace the duck valve in my Kitchenaid fridge (it got plugged and froze up, leaking water onto the floor).

Without online videos, I don't think I could have done a few of the repairs I did. I had to do some soldering to fix my washing machine so I can see how some people wouldn't be able to do these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Among other poor statistical methodology, it's not as though the average respondent to this poll is likely to have a reasonable sample size of appliances to compare. They're not saying "Out of the six refrigerators I own, the Kenmore breaks down most often." It's actually "I own a Kenmore refrigerator and it broke down at some point.", which is more or less entirely meaningless. If they sampled the population to find the proportion of owners of each brand that reported their appliance breaking and compared those results it would be slightly more meaningful.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've fixed the odd few bits and pieces over the years, and it's very satisfying. The problematic bit is normally tracking down the bit you need at a reasonable price.

Occasionally you strike lucky - I think £15 for a new door-rack for my fridge, or find a place like elementman.co.uk (they just sell replacement elements for ovens) - but quite often you find yourself squinting at a poorly photographed bit of a dishwasher from a similar model number and wondering if it's the same.

What would massively help is if all the bits were simply stamped with a unique part ID - and all these parts were listed in the manual.

You could then search for the ID and get new/refurbished/pattern replacement parts and lookup the fitting reference.

Or, when your fridge breaks, could just easily ebay all the parts that do work. Search for the model, see a list of the parts, check the ones you still have working and list.

<comment><USER20> Kenmore is good about that. I found replacement parts for my fridge, stove and dishwasher quite easily (repairing damage done to them). The sticker with the model number is in a standard location. Then you just look up the manual to get the part number[1]. Then buy the part[2].

For me the main problem was the expense. It was still cheap compared to a new appliance, but it's annoying to pay $50-$100 for a few bits of plastic. I didn't have much luck finding cheap parts on ebay, either.

[1]: [https://www.searspartsdirect.com/](https://www.searspartsdirect.com/) [2]: (Canadian) [https://www.reliableparts.ca/](https://www.reliableparts.ca/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> An increasing number of brands are just that, brands. They buy product from china, slap their logo onto the product and go to market. If consumers complain of poor quality, brands look for a new OEM, but cannot do much more. Service is often outsourced to other companies making the brand incentivised even less.

</comment><comment><USER22> This pretty much comports with my experience and impression over the last few years, which is that products in general just suck and are getting worse. It baffles me why people just spend money like crazy on stupid stuff, when just being able to work less would be of better value. I would never order a computer online not from Apple, because I'd have have little recourse if the thing was crap or DOA, and even then, Apple's products have decreased in reliability and consumer friendliness.

</comment><comment><USER23> Imagine being a landlord, owning a few properties, and experiencing this failure rate. I wouldn't be surprised that this might affect rental prices on a huge scale.

I own just a few rental properties, but I'm constantly fixing things. Just in the last month. Delta faucet that had a plastic mixing valve, broke off. 5 hours to fix. Water damage to the vanity. While fixing the vale, noticed a year old baseboard heater in the same bathroom, that cover fell off. Exposing wiring. Possibly a deadly situation.

Electric Water Heater, died at 6 years. 7 Hours to replace. Within the last year, I also replaced a washing machine and dryer. A closet door, so poorly made, the hinge broke out. A dish washer that works, but the plastic hinge for the detergent broke. A toilet flapper replaced twice. That also has a plastic handle for flushing that also broke. And this is just one property, in the last 6 months. Most of these things originally bought at a big name orange department store.

While these appliance manufacturers might profit from selling new appliances. The losses they cause to the economy, are far greater than their profits.

The reliable options are not really available anymore, at the orange store, or the blue store.

</comment><comment><USER24> Consumer Reports used to rate individual products and sometimes manufacturers with rankings and try to estimate TCO/repairs, but when I subscribed to the digital subscription to lookup gas water-heaters and gas tankless water- heaters, there were zero reviews. Maybe they've cut-back to just rating cars and TVs? I don't know.

Are Bosch and/or Miele any good still?

Also, Kirby vacuums eat Dyson's for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snacks.

<comment><USER25> Bosch quality is still very good.

<comment><USER26> +1 for Bosch. Their service/repair documentation (eg. [0]) is especially fantastic.

[0] [https://www.frontloadbearings.com/bosch-800-plus-series- dish...](https://www.frontloadbearings.com/bosch-800-plus-series-dishwasher- service-manual/)

<comment><USER25> "For engineers, by engineers" if you will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Odd list of appliance makers, Kenmore has their items built by GE, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, and Roper[0].

That is one of the difficulty facing consumers in that you might think you are buying from a better brand but in many cases you are not.

[0][https://dengarden.com/appliances/How-to-Identify-your- Kenmor...](https://dengarden.com/appliances/How-to-Identify-your-Kenmore- Appliance)

</comment><comment><USER28> Meanwhile, the ancient Maytag fridge in our lab has been going for probably 20 years without fault (fingers crossed). I know there's probably some survivorship bias, but it really does feel like appliances aren't built to last anymore.

<comment><USER29> Isn't there still a light bulb burning from the 1900s?

<comment><USER30> Only because it's being run so dim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Now we need a system to report which doctors lose the most patients. The amount of information asymmetry in healthcare, bolstered by regulations and justified by endless litigation, is difficult to navigate as a consumer.

<comment><USER32> I have a feeling that if that statistic existed today, Asian doctors would be shown in an unfair light since the start of the year in many cities. Context and nuance is easy to lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> A lot of these brands have nothing to do with the manufacturing anymore. They just rent out their name.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is why I'm grateful for the Consumer Guarantees Act, which puts retailers and manufacturers on the hook for fit-for-purpose repairs. Saying "one year and a day, so buy a new one" doesn't cut it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Looks like stats are basically a reflection of most frequently bought brands. No one reported a broken Souz fridge because no one ever bought one

</comment><comment><USER36> As usual, you get what you pay for. Junk appliances are all over our stores here in Canada.

<comment><USER37> I think the biggest complainers are those that paid $2k for a fridge and still had it fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> where is the list of companies?

<comment><USER39> In the graphic near the bottom of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is Samsung not in Canada? Hard to believe the are not in the top 5.

<comment><USER37> They are.</comment></comment>


Mayor of Munich: "EU laptops should have LibreOffice or OpenOffice" - <AUTHOR> http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/mayor-munich-eu-laptops-should-have-libreoffice-or-openoffice <comment><USER2> You know, I don't get that.

I can see how the feature set of OpenOffice or LibreOffice would be sufficient for just about anyone. However, I strongly feel that both Microsoft Office and Apple iWork do offer some real benefits in terms of usability over (Libre|Open)Office.

Seriously, I tried this for real: My mom got a new computer. It was a Mac. We installed OpenOffice, then NeoOffice, then LibreOffice for her. Over the course of several months she never got the hang of it. She was always asking how to do stuff and could never figure out how to do simple things.

Then we installed iWork and she got along fine. There is this inspector thing, and if you want to do something, you will probably find it in there. She was happy with that and even discovered some features on her own.

Later we installed Microsoft Office for Mac for her (for *.doc compatibility reasons). Again, she got along fine. There is that ribbon/palette thing, and if you want to do something, you will probably find it in there. She was happy with that and even discovered some features on her own.

I mean, I very much hope that a wider adoption of (Open|Libre)Office with European Officials would make the European Union invest some money in porting (Open|Libre)Office into the 21 century. But until they do, I can not recommend it to anyone with a straight face.

<comment><USER3> The Mayor of Munich didn't talk about the feature set available to public employees.

He did talk about making "public knowledge accessible in the future". Public institutions have a moral and legal obligation to preserve certain items for posterity.

The problem with a proprietary application like iWork is that it uses a closed file format that may or may not stand the test of time. I've worked with archivists in government institutions, and they are already struggling to preserve digital documents produced as late as the 1980s.

As a citizen, I have the ability to learn from the primary sources that are hundreds of years old. One of my college friends spent a semester examining the papers of colonial New York State governors and looking at maps and treaties produced with Indian nations.

Unfortunately, the chances are very high that our children will not be able to read many of the important papers produced from the 1980's through today. How accessible will WordStar documents be in 2060? Or Excel XP spreadsheets in 2100?

There are different approaches to improving the current situation. The State of Washington chose to convert everything from native format to TIFF or PDF images. South Africa and cities like Munich are choosing to mandate the use of free and open native formats. There are ups and downs to each approach.

<comment><USER4> _He did talk about making "public knowledge accessible in the future"._

Yes, but the conclusion does not follow from this goal.

There's no reason that an open format will be readable in the future. If I define some document format, build an application that reads/writes it, and publish it to github with GPL licensing, then in all likelihood it will be forgotten completely in a decade. My inability to gain users will ensure that it withers.

On the other hand, even if the .DOC and .XLS files made by Microsoft are proprietary, they've been reverse-engineered and are well-understood; the .DOCX and .XLSX file formats are even documented. Because they're so universally used, out of necessity, someone in the future will be thinking about how to read those old files.

So being open might make it more likely that something obscure will be readable in the future. But I don't think it's nearly so strong a likelihood as what demand from an army of users of proprietary software will lead to.

<comment><USER3> Open is just part of the equation. ODF is also an international standard: ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0

The point is, in the distant future, someone will be able to use the specification for ODF and read a document that complies with the standard. All aspects of the file will be reproducible, including metadata, tables, etc.

And as I said, open formats are just one approach. The approach that the US Courts and the State of Washington takes (conversion to PDF/A or TIFF) is a valid approach too.

<comment><USER5> If all they have is the document and the ODF specification, they are out of luck. They'll need the OpenOffice or LibreOffice source code, as that is the _real_ specification.

<comment><USER3> Both Google and Microsoft were able to independently produce ODF implementations from the spec.

<comment><USER5> No, they looked at things outside the spec. That's the only way to do it with ODF 1.0, since the spec is massively incomplete.

For instance, it does not specify how formulas work in spreadsheets.

<comment><USER6> but its in 1.2, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More important than the software suite they use, I wish they would impose the use of open formats. After that, they (and generations of people to come) can use which ever reader software they like.

<comment><USER8> This seems the cheapest way to ensure the use of open formats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a bit sceptic if LibreOffice or OpenOffice would be well received. There has been companies who have tried it but in the end returned back to MS Office. I think tools like Google Docs have brighter further.

However, As a tax payer. I would love to hear € savings on licenses over next 10 years if they would do it.

<comment><USER10> Beware that you actually see the savings and someone else isn't getting the money for "consulting" or "premium training". I have seen a few budgets that saved money on the software only to get hammered on the back-end.

// this is really, really common with Point-of-Sale solutions

<comment><USER11> With open source software money usually spent on adaptation. And this adaptation often done by local companies. So in this particular case instead of paying microsoft and usa goverment, munich government will pay local german company of trainers who will explain how to use particular open source software. Another local company will develop custom integration with whatever CRM government have and hopefuly part of this code either as patches or modules will be contributed back to community.

I totally sure their decision is right in long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I gave up on the project after the split. Why can't there be a concerted effort behind OpenOffice or LibreOffice? Two half-baked open source projects don't equal one good commercial project. I'd rather give my money to Apple and hope that they eventually build a better product.

Free is great, but I'll take reasonably priced quality commercial software. That reminds me, it's time to upgrade to IntelliJ 11.

<comment><USER8> There is no split. LibreOffice is clearly the successor and OpenOffice is clearly the legacy project. Oracle abandoned it long before donating it to the Apache Foundation.

<comment><USER12> So there is no redundant effort being donee at Apache? No wasted effort?

<comment><USER8> I really hope not. By now, one would have to be seriously delusional to believe OOo will catch up with LibreOffice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Surely he/she should have said "German laptops should have LibreOffice or OpenOffice". It seems built into the German mindset that policy should be enforced at a federal level.

Whilst I agree with a more integrated monetary policy in the Eurozone the continual assimilation of power in Brussels is the wrong way for Europe to go.

<comment><USER14> If you've taken the time to actually read the article you would've noticed that he talks about laptops used by EU officials not all laptops in Europe. This aside: Yes, laptops of german officials should use LibreOffice/OpenOffice too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> He's right. All computers should come with a fully functional word processor and spreadsheet and these should be free.

This is simply common-sense. Let Microsoft compete for a change.

<comment><USER10> If Microsoft gave Office away with Windows there would be a bit of litigation showing up at their door.

<comment><USER15> Simply suggesting if Microsoft want to sell Office they should make it an attractive proposition to part with cash.

<comment><USER10> I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but Office - as bought by companies and governments - in quantity is a pretty attractive proposition. It costs a reasonable amount of money, has well defined deployment, and has training and certifications aplenty. None of the open source alternatives come close to the total package. I wish they did, but it just isn't so.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Median and Mad Revisited with an Online Estimator - <AUTHOR> http://anthonylloyd.github.io/blog/2020/04/07/Median-Revisited <comment><USER2> MAD being mean absolute deviation [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_absolute_deviation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_absolute_deviation)

<comment><USER3> The link says Median Absolute Deviation.

Here's a SE discussion with people using the term inconsistently without even noticing. [https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/42760/mad- vs...](https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/42760/mad-vs-rmse-vs- mae-vs-msle-vs-r%C2%B2-when-to-use-which)

It's absurd to use ambiguous acronyms like this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Happy to answer questions if anything is not clear or discuss.

<comment><USER4> Would you happen the memory complexity of this algorithm? I maintain an online machine learning library written in Python, called creme, where we implement online statistics. We have a generic onine algorithm for estimating quantiles, and so a specific algorithm for estimating medians would be welcome. I'm always on the lookout for such online algorithms.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a fixed memory size but gets released when you move into the recursive part. Increasing the fixed part will give you a better starting estimate.

See here for quantiles: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1058813/on-line- iterator...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1058813/on-line-iterator- algorithms-for-estimating-statistical-median-mode-skewnes)

The P^2 algorithm used in creme is interesting. For the median it would give a 2 sided median deviation. Maybe this could be changed slightly to be symmetric and give Median and MAD. I'll look into.</comment></comment></comment>


10 things I hate about Git - <AUTHOR> https://stevebennett.me/2012/02/24/10-things-i-hate-about-git/ <comment><USER2> Article is from 2012.</comment>


15 Years of SparkFun - <AUTHOR> https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2571 <comment><USER2> I applied to Sparkfun about 8 or 9 years ago - they had some kind of Github easter egg in their application process or something. It was an IT role. I applied and recall being pretty glib; my application was about "me" and how I would benefit, how good I was, etc.

The receiver of the resume was beyond unimpressed, and took the time to write a 2-3 paragraph response to how unappealing my tone and application was.

I remember it being a sobering and humbling moment, and truly appreciated the time someone took to set a conceited young applicant straight.

Sure would have been nice to move to Boulder, though.

<comment><USER3> I spent high school in boulder. Don't get me wrong, the place is "great" and all. But I'm not even a little sad to be gone.

A job at Sparkfun might make me reconsider tho, that company is the bees knees.

Also, I really wish your experience was the norm. It's far to common to spend hour working on a solution to a technical assignment for a job application, and hear nothing in response.

<comment><USER4> But high school sucks everywhere... (looking at my, and my own 2 kid's experiences when they were in)

<comment><USER3> I actually really liked my high school(s)... I just don't like the cities vibe. Not to over generalize, but the whole place felt really ironic to me. A hippy town from the 70s turned rich kid playground. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty well off myself, it's just not my scene.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've used them for tons of projects. I've read people that throw shade their way for their prices for components compared to some of the offshore websites like digikey or alibaba. However, I don't like their websites, and anything they might be "overcharging" for is easily made up with what I receive from the rest of their website. I'm constantly in a state of 2-3 projects that are in various stages of incomplete. If the parts&pieces for these projects didn't come from SparkFun, they probably came from Adafruit. Love both of these sites.

<comment><USER6> >offshore websites like digikey

Digi-key has been based in Minnesota since they were founded 40+ years ago. Sure a lot of their parts are manufactured in other countries (just like Sparkfun), but their main distribution center is in the US, and they have thousands of employees working there.

<comment><USER7> Their only distribution center, at that! They ship everything out of the Thief River Falls warehouse. They also run a great tour, if you're ever in the area.

Fun fact, they can take just about any combination of the 1million+ SKUs they stock from order reception to in a box waiting for a truck in under 15 minutes.

<comment><USER8> They have (had?) a local warehouse I think off 101 in the Bay Area, don't remember exactly where. You could walk in with a list of parts and they would grab them for you right there.

<comment><USER9> You're thinking of Jameco?

<comment><USER8> Yep thanks I just remembered that's what it was ("it had a J in it"). Woops. Not sure why I've had them confused for Digi-Key the last few years. Maybe the Digi-Key branding is just more memorable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Few things are as exciting for a programmer as dabbling with electronics is. Especially if you have no experience with it. I knew some maths and physics and I knew basics of electronics, but never dabbled with a soldering iron, let alone other stuff.

AND THEN, I had a need for a simple motor-driven CNC-like machine that would drive my film camera around the set, like a small-ish, motion repeatable, crane. Motion Control system, basically, but DIY-I-have-no-idea-if- electricity-will-kill-me stuff. My dudes, let me tell you, the whole process was extremely laborious and extremely fun. Reminiscent of ye olde days of poking around Commodore 64 memory addresses to see what will happen. With microcontroler abundance today and a whole gallery of crap for them, like sensors and drivers and whatnots, you owe yourself to try it out.

Just a friendly reminder, it's a bug that once you catch will fill your house with random electronics junk, oscilloscopes, PSUs and other stuff. Like photography, buying equipment never stops.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, it's tons of fun. Like lots of people, I got started with Arduino's, but eventually ventured off into other areas.

In my case, reading datasheets of various ic's was the biggest hurdle. But, after a while, you realize most of them are laid out in a similar way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bravo Sparkfun! They are the group that I hold most responsible for reigniting my interest in programming, which eventually led me into a happy career in software development. Their projects, products, and educational materials helped me see the real world effects of code, and I am really grateful that I found them and learned from them.

<comment><USER5> I give them credit for the other side of the coin. After programming for a while, I credit SparkFun for getting me interested and back into hardware. With all of the very affordable micro-controllers and various shields/kits, it's so much fun designing the circuits, building it, and then writing the code to make it function. However, I'm still at the stage of when it's all assembled and code being written and it doesn't work, I have to decide if it's just bad programming, bad hardware/circuit assembly, or just flat out bad circuitry design. Way more debugging than just figuring out what line I forgot to use a semi-colon or where I reassigned a variable's value etc.

With all of that experience, I have even more respect for people like Woz. I have online forums to ask questions. The "grey beards" just had to figure it out ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using their stuff since right after they started, any my career was just starting. I've used their products to prototype new products and ideas for many projects. Blood pumps, artificial hearts, LVADS, medical devices and indoor agriculture products. Their mix of education, support, accessability, real technical chops and providing the latest stuff is only matched closely by Adafruit. I'm thankful for both. They are an invaluable resource for both engineers and hobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER14> I used a sparkfun kit to create a sales demo for some sensors and I learned so much more about circuitry than I did in a couple years of theory based coursework.

The author's early point is right, getting hands on is the best way to learn EE and I have no idea why even good schools don't have you build stuff early and often.

</comment><comment><USER15> It took me years to break my "Dings and Dents" module addiction. Some weeks I'd even send in multiple orders while telling myself this will be the last time. It was too entertaining trying to figure out why each board didn't pass QA and how they could be fixed using parts from pervious orders.

I learned a lot.

<comment><USER16> > It was too entertaining trying to figure out why each board didn't pass QA

Do they have a reputation for poor quality? I bought a RedBoard Arduino clone from them last year and it was DOA, as was the replacement (different batches).

<comment><USER17> No, the Dings & Dents is specifically stuff that didn't pass their QA, but they sell really cheap.

I haven't bought a ton from SF, but everything I have worked right out of the box.

<comment><USER16> Ah ok. I'd bought sensors and breakout boards etc from them and never had problems. Good to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Company that produces instruction manuals like the Heaterizer XL3000 can't be bad!

[https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Tools/SFE-Heaterizer- Ins...](https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/Tools/SFE-Heaterizer- Instructions-01.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> > How do you get a reflow oven to the second floor of a building with no cargo > elevator? You get a bunch of people together and get creative.

This was a very unsatisfying answer.

<comment><USER20> I think it goes with the photo of 10-15 guys standing around a reflow oven at the foot of some narrow stairs.

<comment><USER21> Pretty much. Source: I'm one of the guys in the picture.

The stairs are actually wider than the picture makes it look (wide enough to have people on both side of the oven while carrying it). The tricky part was the corner: the oven was long enough that it had to hang out in the air over the corner as we brought it around. I recall that meant lifting it to shoulder height to clear the railing.

<comment><USER22> That's how you get a reflow oven stuck impossibly in the corner, when the door frame you used to rotate it mysteriously disappears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> An awesome success story.

As Ray Kroc is supposed to have said: "The two most important things for success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it."

</comment><comment><USER24> I sold my business (Geek Ammo) to Nate/SparkFun and spent a few months working with the team. Flying back and forth between Sydney, Australia and Boulder/Niwot every few weeks.

SparkFun is a great company with a really distinct culture that sits at the intersection of hacking and education.

Congratulations to Nate and the team for going 15 years strong!

</comment><comment><USER25> I was offered a dev job at SparkFun. I really liked the work they offered but the pay was a little low and I got a much better offer from a well-funded project. That well-funded project went bankrupt and SparkFun continued to grow. Sometimes I think maybe I made the wrong decision. There may have been more money to be earned in the short term, but SparkFun is one of those really snazzy companies and I feel like I may have missed out on a great experience.

</comment><comment><USER26> I grew up in Colorado and having them as a local resource for components was truly a gift. My dad was an EE and in his eyes Sparkfun was a great alternative to the Radioshack of his early days.

When I was in college in Fort Collins I made a quite a few trips for last minute parts to finish my projects and I had a ton of fun when I got one of the 5.00 dumpster dive boxes.

Keep up the good work!

<comment><USER27> When I was in college at CU Boulder I remember frequently taking the bus to their old location to pick up parts. We all felt lucky when assembling our final projects that we had such a great resource so close for local pickup, and many of us owe no small part of our degrees to being able to pick up replacement parts the day before we needed to demo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Part of my life involves building $100k+ interactive/experiential advertising installations.

Sparkfun has been pretty vital for a lot of our builds. The ability to know what we're getting, and to have it shipped overnight is a Big Deal.

For a while it was looking like Amazon might replace them on shipping, but shipping has become hit and miss enough that it isn't worth the risk anymore.

<comment><USER29> Out of curiosity, what do " _interactive /experiential advertising installations_" consist of?

Vague and generic is fine.

All I've got is eg bus stop ads with webcams, but that's probably not $100k (...or maybe it is).

<comment><USER28> We built, for instance, a 10' tall animatronic set piece to promote a major comic book property at comic con. Attendees stood at a control console and moved essentially a giant robot around.

Any time you see a brand doing some sort of non standard advertising installation; stuff attendees would walk up to and interact with, that's the type of stuff I'm talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Congrats to Nate and Sparkfun! I studied ECE at CU a few years behind Nate, and fondly remember the departmental pride in the local and growing (despite the GFC!) electronics company he started.

</comment><comment><USER31> Cheers to a great company. I wish I had the space to order more stuff.

</comment><comment><USER32> Kudos!

If you have a chance to visit their building [edit: in Colorado, near Boulder], and even to take a class with them, it's impressive and great fun.</comment>


Why we created Bitmaker Labs - <AUTHOR> http://bitmakerlabs.com/why

<comment><USER2> Hey tjarmain. I was actually looking into Dev Bootcamp but I decided not to follow through because it isn't where I am: Toronto. So to see Bitmaker Labs is exciting; it looks very good!

I have a question though. I'm looking at the Application form here and there aren't any cohorts starting after mid-August. Do you know if Bitmaker Labs will? I'll be graduating college around that time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to hear that you're interested! We'll definitely have cohorts starting after mid-August, it's just not listed on the site right now.

We actually went out to visit Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco and are huge fans of Shereef, Dave, and the rest of their team; hopefully we can create a similar experience here at home.

<comment><USER2> That's good to hear.

It definitely looks like you guys have modeled yourself after them. I have a couple more questions:

\- Are your curriculums the same?

\- Do you also give a percentage back if the student is hired?

\- And do you have long-term plans to increase the class sizes?

Thanks. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> \- They'll be pretty similar, ours might be more project-focused. We're also planning to include classes on analytics for our students. If we aren't successful in placing a graduate, at the very least we want them to have the skills to be able to bootstrap their own SaaS businesses and know enough about analytics so that they can continuously make improvements.

\- We're still talking to our hiring partners about this but we're aiming to give some tuition back if a student gets hired.

\- Nope. We'll likely launch rolling cohorts but we want to keep the actual class size capped at 20 because our goal is to place 100% of our grads.

<comment><USER2> Awesome. I couldn't be happier with your response. I'll definitely keep Bitmaker Labs in mind for when I graduate next year, and in the meantime I'll spread the word!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's what we love to hear!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback?</comment>


Ever wonder what fonts Web 2.0 companies use in their logo? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fontshop.com/fontfeed/archives/web-20-logos.cfm

<comment><AUTHOR> what font does twitter use? its not listed

<comment><USER2> I bet its custom. The font (typeface) detection util at <http://www.whatthefont.com> might be useful, or their forums.

<comment><USER3> I tried that earlier today. Their t's in particular are pretty crazy, and not from any common font, I don't think. Could easily be a custom job based on something like VAG rounded for the vowels, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always wondered about this. I think many automatically assume (falsely) that most "popular" companies buy or make custom fonts for their logos. I'm happy to realize that this isn't the case.

</comment><comment><USER5> Any idea what the font of the Django logo is? (<http://www.djangoproject.com/>)

<comment><USER6> This just came up on Django-users... it's DTL Prokyon (<http://www.dutchtypelibrary.nl/Prokyon_rdrct.html>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> no</comment>


20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Commits Suicide After $730k Negative Balance - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-dies-by-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/#64cd11941638 <comment><USER2> Previously discussed

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553794)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523379)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Confetti popping everywhere," says Brewster referring to the shower of colorful confetti Robinhood routinely deploys after customers make trades. "They try to gamify trading and couch it as investment."_

They are borrowing the freemium game strategies used to develop player addiction and normalise the spending habit.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think we're changing to calling it "dies by suicide" to acknowledge the mental health aspect of suicide. "Commits suicidal" makes it sound more like a crime that needs to be policed instead of disorder to be treated.</comment>


What is a number that man may know it, and man that he may know a number? (1960) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://nsl.com/k/parry/mcculloch_what-is-a-number.pdf <comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this, it was delightful.

I wonder if some folks here might not know that this is by the coauthor of McCulloch and Pitts (1943) _A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity_ , which started the study of Neural Nets and was also Kleene's inspiration for starting the study of Finite State machines.

(And, forgive me, I can't resist linking to a wonderful article about Pitts, [http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-man-who-tried- to-r...](http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-man-who-tried-to-redeem- the-world-with-logic.))

<comment><USER3> Thank you for that link! The Markdown parser included the following period, so that it doesn't go to the correct place: [http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-man-who-tried- to-r...](http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-man-who-tried-to-redeem- the-world-with-logic) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the WASP-iest thing I've ever read. A delight.</comment>


Oil prices fall again after the price maneuvers Saudi Arabia - <AUTHOR> http://www.uaddy.com/2014/12/oil-prices-fall-again-after-the-price-maneuvers-saudi-arabia/

<comment><USER2> I think this is a temporary drop, but of course defining the duration of "temporary" is where it gets difficult. I would imagine Warren Buffet is watching this and may buy oil soon.

I also find this amazing. If 10 years ago you went public and said the US would once again be a net energy exporter and that oil prices would tank, you would have been laughed at and scorned out of the public domain...</comment>


Common definitions in chip design and production - <AUTHOR> https://www.parallella.org/2016/02/18/200-chip-definitions-everyone-should-know/ <comment><USER2> "Given how important chips are to modern society EVERYONE should understand and appreciate how they are made"

Everyone ? Maybe everyone in the field of chip making ? How does the knowledge of these definitions impacts the life of those not in this field (not being sarcastic, this is an actual question) ?

<comment><USER3> How can you fix your home electronics if you do not know all 200 chip designs??

<comment><USER4> I'm using violence. Works when video starts flickering on our Samsung's TV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ICs are one of the most important and impressive achievements of humankind imo. Taking a handful of Si atoms to form a transistor then carefully arranging a billion of them to make an x64 processor, just so Randall can watch a cat jumping into a box and make a webcomic of it.

Making useful things at those scales amazes me everytime.

<comment><USER6> I'm impressed too but also dismayed by how little the average person (or even the average CS person) understands about the low level stuff. I had a top notch CS undergrad degree, but I'm only truly able to grok some of the finer points 15 years out. And that's because I'm learning to use FPGAs as a hobby.

The Internet is truly marvelous in this regard. I'm using free tutorials, documentaries and videos to satisfy my curiosity and pretty much getting an EE education. Ignoring the car pictures, the Internet gives me much hope.

<comment><USER7> But why should the average person know how about "low level stuff"? A CS major should know the the level of gates and boolean logic but deeper than that why? Intel's cofounders weren't CS majors, one was physics and the other chemistry.

<comment><USER8> I agree. Unless the CS major is planning on specializing in embedded software, things like complexity classes and database normalization would be of more use. Even that is overkill, as in my experience leveraging and utilizing software libraries in the correct way often has already solved the issue at hand. Nowadays even more high level skills as that such as networking, caching, and distrusted computing are of more use when it comes to optimization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If it was going to be real satire, they would have stuck at least one reference to a unique chip, say the Lays Wavy with Old Bay Spice. I'm going with it was a chip glossary that the author thought important.

Not the best title. I was also thinking it was the top 200 chips like the basic 7400 family, 6502, 8051, 555, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not surprised they think everybody should understand how chips are made.

Using their documentation last year was a nightmare with errata in archived forum posts. I also found the community response quite hostile to simple outsider questions.

Then again, when we finally completed our testing of their chips we found the memory transfer overhead killed any benefit for us.

<comment><USER11> Out of interest: what was your intended purpose and what alternative did you decide on?

<comment><USER10> Some real time image convolutions with histeresis. We ended up switching to a Xeon Phi and abandoning the portable version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a bit sloppy - the most egregious are:

Audio codec - compression is now common but only coding/decoding is required (hence the name).

GPIO - General Purpose Input Output.

Schmidt trigger - I have no idea what they wer trying to type but my cats do the same thing. A device with a Schmidt trigger input provides hysterysis for noise rejection?

<comment><USER13> I don't understand your sentiment, how are those egregious?

The referenced wiki article on audio codecs also talks about compression, in audio the two on very similar. GPIO is GPIO, but an engineer should know what they are and do. Schmitt triggers are really spelled like that, not with ..dt. Schmitt triggers are used for generating a stable block signal out of an analog signal, in order to decrease ripples and glitches

<comment><USER14> The copy is egregiously sloppy in places. The title is surely the most problematic, but the entry for Schmitt Trigger might be the worst:

        Schmitt Trigger: Comparitor circuit wityh

The list is decent, and intentionally superficial -- it's a list, not a textbook. The guy seems to know his material, but English might not be his first language, and I don't think proofreading happened.

I would guess that the list grew out of years of conversations and exposed gaps of shared knowledge. It's a good list of things that establish a common vocabulary in a specific industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Replace "everyone should know" with "someone may be curious to know", and the title will start to make sense.

</comment><comment><USER16> And yet, somehow my grandmother managed to pull through without knowing about Amdahl's law and wafer thinning

</comment><comment><USER17> Original title is: "200 chip definitions everyone should know" OP had the good sense to change and strip it off the of self-importance and self-righteousness (although the writer probably meant to say 'everyone in IT business). Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be stupidly pedantic but no I do not think that social worker next door needs to know what ADC means.

IT-wise, yes younger generations seem to be in total loss with ICs and I believe the simple reason is that there are no jobs there anymore so there isn't a motivation to learn more about it. Virtual everything (as started off with JVM) has contributed too there. Not sure though that they are missing out that much.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hm. What is the point? If you are in the field, you'll know most of these terms naturally. If you aren't, then you'll just forget them after passing the exam, or whatever.

Sounds like extra-thick satire to me.

<comment><USER19> If you want to get into the field then the Parallella board is good value, the Verilog and build scripts for the default configuration are on Github.

<comment><USER20> I kind of don't like them since they failed to deliver on their 64 core board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Quite the contrast to the little piece of paper I have sitting on my shelve that reads

one and one zero

everything else is one

make a computer

;)

<comment><USER22> Nand?

<comment><USER21> Yes, the only haiku I ever wrote :P

I suppose "The Elements of Computing Systems" is an inspiring book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anyone ever consider creating an IC bootcamp?

<comment><USER24> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM)

<comment><USER23> Niiiiiice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cool list(s), but I think the title is misleading. It should be something like "200-word chip design glossary", or "Chip design terminology: list of 200 definitions".

Now it sounds as if there are 200 actual _chip definitions_ , whatever that would mean, since it doesn't say its (just) about words and jargon used in the field of chip design.

I confuse easily.

<comment><USER26> You're right - I though there where going to be circuit diagrams, or possibly pin-outs...

<comment><USER27> Common chip-design paradigms? Architecture patterns? I was expecting things like "TTL", "Discrete Logic", "Von Neumann", "Microcontroller" etc. etc. Interesting nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Lista are not that pedagogical. "Heres a French-English dictionary. start speaking French."</comment>


V8 release v6.9 - <AUTHOR> https://v8project.blogspot.com/2018/08/v8-release-69.html <comment><USER2> This is the bit I'm most interested in:

> WebAssembly got a new baseline compiler for much faster startup of complex > websites with big WebAssembly modules (such as Google Earth and AutoCAD). > Depending on the hardware we are seeing speedups of more than 10×. Stay > tuned for more details in a separate blog post.

<comment><USER3> I'll be excited about WebAssembly when it can manipulate DOM. Until then, it feels mostly like a thought experiment in that the number of people that it makes sense to use right now is miniscule.

<comment><USER4> The possibility of WebAssembly becoming tangled with complicated web browsers worries me.

Whatever DOM manipulation there may be in the future, I hope there'll be no tight coupling with DOM, GC or anything else.

If tight coupling can be avoided, WebAssembly could become lingua franca of binary formats also outside web.

For things like architecture agnostic plugins, extensions and high performance light weight "scripting" support.

<comment><USER5> It's called the "host bindings" proposal because the proposal is to create bindings to the host environemnt; for a browser that's the DOM, for for any other host, it could be other things. It's not tightly coupled to them.

<comment><USER4> > It's not tightly coupled to them.

Hopefully it'll stay that way.

Dependencies on DOM or Javascript would be devastating for WebAssembly use outside web browsers.

<comment><USER5> Everyone[1] who works on wasm cares about the non-browser use-case, so I think you can sleep easy here.

1: Okay so, what I really mean is, "I spend a lot of time talking to people working on WebAssembly and they've all expressed that to me but of course I hvaen't talked to literally every single last person".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interested in those WebAssembly updates, hopefully someday Electron will see more WebAssembly usage (maybe mostly for games?) which should be interesting. I wonder if Kotlin will ever focus on running on WebAssembly.

<comment><USER7> I'm interested in seeing a whole new world of wasm exploits. I have a strong suspicion we're going to see the same types of bugs we're seeing with C and C++ in browsers which sounds a bit scary to be honest.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure there will be exploits, as the attack surface will become bigger.

But isn't wasm designed from the ground up to be sandboxed in a certain memory space? And won't that prevent buffer overruns from gaining access to other parts of the browser?

<comment><USER9> Yes it is sanboxed, but the memory inside of a WebAssembly module can still be corrupted, specially if it was compiled from any language without bounds checking enabled.

<comment><USER10> > _the memory inside of a WebAssembly module can still be corrupted, specially > if it was compiled from any language without bounds checking enabled._

it can be, but there are large classes of security issues that aren't possible like they usually are with those languages. eg it's not possible to jump to arbitrary locations, you can't write to executable memory, etc.

[https://webassembly.org/docs/security/](https://webassembly.org/docs/security/)

<comment><USER9> Still not having bounds protection is a very big one, and 40 years of CVE history doesn't help.

<comment><USER4> WebAssembly does have bounds checking, you can't write outside the designated memory block.

On 64-bit systems with virtual address space to spare, you can offload bounds checking to MMU by memory mapping 2 GB+ protection zone both below and above the exposed memory region.

If you then limit all pointers/offsets to 32-bit, there should be no direct way to corrupt anything else. You can't reach anything interesting within 32-bit offsets. Of course one can corrupt WebAssembly instance memory all they want, but it won't matter.

Performance and security win.

Left CPU bugs outside consideration, hopefully those can be addressed in WASM codegen. Not like it's that different from current Javascript JIT cases.

<comment><USER9> The memory block contains all data together in well, a block, thus you can happily overwrite two neighbouring arrays, unless I am missing something here WebAssembly does not have fat pointers.

<comment><USER4> Sure, you can corrupt all the data in your instance.

You can't overwrite code or the true call stack, so what's the (security) risk?

<comment><USER9> Funny question, basically with corrupted data anything goes.

For a very extreme convoluted example, maybe that value given back to the JavaScript layer will trigger a patient death by sending the wrong value to their insulin device monitor.

But yeah, code and true call stack will be perfectly safe.

<comment><USER4> One day a random bit flip in a web app on a non ECC-protected iPad * controlling a life-critical system will kill a person.

It's just a matter of time.

* Or any other device with data corrupting hardware or software issues.

<comment><USER9> Yep it is just a matter of time.

Successful lawsuits against insecure software need to become a common event until most companies actually start paying attention to their technology stack and development processes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Built-in functions currently consume 700 KB in each Isolate (an Isolate roughly corresponds to a browser tab in Chrome). This is quite wasteful, and last year we began working on reducing this overhead. In V8 v6.4, we shipped lazy deserialization, ensuring that each Isolate only pays for the built-ins that it actually needs (but each Isolate still had its own copy)._

Also known as Autoload. What's old is new again... [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Aut...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Autoload.html)

 _Embedded built-ins go one step further. An embedded built-in is shared by all Isolates, and embedded into the binary itself instead of copied onto the JavaScript heap. This means that built-ins exist in memory only once regardless of how many Isolates are running, an especially useful property now that Site Isolation has been enabled by default._

Inb4 security vuln in a builtin is used to pivot across tabs or reveal state in other tabs. Like, say, a timing attack on regex exec to reveal whether the word "Facebook" appears in some other tab. </baseless>

<comment><USER12> > Inb4 security vuln in a builtin is used to pivot across tabs or reveal state > in other tabs.

Although I don't know all the internals of how chrome isolates tabs, I'm not sure how that's supposed to happen. If I understand the original approach correctly, it just means that the code is in the original binary, paged in once and using copy-on-write semantics while forking individual sandbox processes only exists as a single copy instead of multiple copies that would happen if the code somehow has to be prepared by "copying to the JS heap" of each individual sandbox process.

<comment><USER13> Yes, this is my understanding of the implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Love V8's focus on performance, security and memory usage. They really keep on pushing the bar.

</comment><comment><USER15> nice</comment>