PlentyOfFish - 6 Billion Pageviews And 32 Billion Images A Month  - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/12/27/plentyoffish-update-6-billion-pageviews-and-32-billion-image.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I believe this and here is why:

At one point Highscalability covered the reddit architecture, but he didn't actually talk to anyone at reddit about it, and got a lot of it wrong.

I tried to contact him and get it fixed, but he never responded to me.

So I have to wonder where these numbers are coming from.

<comment><USER3> Jedberg, I'm sorry I didn't respond, but I don't have a record of getting an email. Corrections are always welcome. A lot of articles are summaries from multiple sources, so they aren't made up (I'm not sure how I would even do that), and the sources are always referenced somewhere. But of course I could screw up. And I don't make an effort to contact people anymore because seldom is there a contact point and they rarely respond or follow up. Which is why I rely so heavily on existing materials like blog posts, presentations, slide decks, forum threads, and whatever else I can find.

<comment><USER2> I tried to contact you through the form on your site. Regardless, I wasn't accusing you of making things up, I was just stating that sometimes you don't use very reliable sources (like blog posts that may also be unreliable).

I don't work at reddit anymore, so I can't speak to their setup, but if you ever need help with an article on Netflix, let me know!

<comment><USER4> Do an article on Netflix!

NAO!

<comment><USER5> What does "NAO" mean?

<comment><USER6> It means "now" as in... please write the article NAO, I CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER!!!

<comment><USER5> Oh, sorry, I suppose I'm used to people writing like adults here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I interviewed with them in their Vancouver offices. They are near the top of the Harbour Centre downtown, and have a crazy beautiful view of North Vancouver and the mountains.

I would say there were about 15 people in the office at the time (1.5 years ago)

Markus is a slightly weird Rain Man kinda guy, but is obviously very smart. A bit smug, though likely deservedly.

He has a hot girlfriend, that is the head of marketing or something.

It was a three on one interview, which isn't very welcoming. No whiteboard, no code writing. Kinda glad I didn't get it, actually.

</comment><comment><USER8> "POF has one single employee: the founder and CEO Markus Frind. Makes up to $10 million a year on Google ads working only two hours a day. 30+ Million Hits a Day (500 - 600 pages per second)."

I find this more interesting than the parent article; although it seems clear hiring more people helped them expand (and handle that expansion) a lot, a single employee/founder doing that much is crazy impressive.

From: <http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-architecture>

<comment><USER9> Does POF still have one employee?

<comment><USER10> Nope we've got a handful now and we're hiring! <http://www.pof.com/careers>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So around 2.3k HPS monthly average. Assuming an average peak is 10 times that, 23k HPS seems a little little high but doable for a handful of servers (after load balancing and caching come into play).

One note says "everything is dynamic, nothing is static" which sounds weird if they're using Akamai for anything but images. Images are claimed to be served at 100K HPS, which would be difficult for a handful of servers, especially with the dynamic content on top of it. It comes down to caching and hardware as usual.

<comment><USER12> You can do a lot more than asset caching with Akamai; they have stuff from "edge-side includes" all the way up to your own J2EE at the edge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> He used to post on webmasterworld as he was developing the site.

Some interesting stuff. And it's on IIS which blew my mind.

       webmasterworld.com/profilev4.cgi?action=view&member=markus007

<comment><USER14> > And it's on IIS which blew my mind.

I think that says a lot more about you than about IIS. It's mature software, why wouldn't it perform on par with other mature webservers?

<comment><USER15> It isn't to say a lot of people thought it was impossible, but it is just very unheard of. Anecdotally, most of the people I know hadn't heard of it either.

Slashdot, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc were the very large sites talking about what they used over the years and it was all about the open source stuff like Apache, PHP, etc.

Then I found out, on HN, that POF used IIS and it was mind blowing. You would think even Microsoft would promote its successful uses more like that. Until POF, I too had assumed IIS was only for 1,000 to 50,000 enterprisey setups. I didn't think it _couldn't_ be used per se, but I just hadn't ever heard of it being used that way until POF either.

<comment><USER13> Here's another mind-blower: enom runs the largest IIS server farm in the world (at least they did up to a few years ago)

Can't find a direct link but I remember that little factoid because it surprised me.

I don't mean customer servers sold as services, this was before then, it's their own server network.

<comment><USER16> I don't know what enom is like anymore, but when I used enom back in 2006 to 2009 I wouldn't have used them as a poster boy for anything technology related. Sporadic API failures, unexpected "lost" registrations etc. etc. If I had to choose again, I'd be choosing OpenSRS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I will be more impressed when they stop storing plain text passwords.

<comment><USER18> It's almost as impressive as the UI.

<comment><USER19> Another point in function over design, just like Craigslist.

<comment><USER20> Not really. Contrast the cluttered mess that is PoF to OkCupid, which has decent usability and reasonable information architecture. OkC's design is also better at extracting the right information from more users more consistently, meaning the resulting corpus of data is more complete. Which makes for a better product, since it's easier to find the sort of people you'd be into.

PoF is successful in spite of its questionable design, not because of it.

<comment><USER21> Sounds like a _worse is better_ case study.

<comment><USER22> Or an example of the network effect overriding other condsiderations. PoF got big before OKC did, so that's where the people are.

Even with that factor though, I found PoF borderline unusable after a little experimentation and stopped using them in favour of OKC. I can't believe I'm the only one like that, or that there aren't some who simply dropped off PoF into nothing.

If that crappy site can extract value at such a high level, I'm sure a few reasonably small tweaks could extract significantly more.

<comment><USER23> Yes and no.

At the scale pof operates at you have to A/B test everything because some things are very counter-intuitive.

My favorite anecdote of his (tried to find it on his blog but google is failing me) was when he briefly fixed the problem I hated most about the site: the aspect ratio of the profile pic thumbnails being off.

What happened is that it cost him lots of money. And the explanation as to why makes sense too: when the aspect ratio is messed up people can't tell at a glance what the person looks like so they click through to people's profiles a lot more instead of just scanning the top bar/search page. When your business model is based on page impressions getting people to load more pages means you get more money.

So in that case at least it's better for his pocket to have something that's obviously broken (and easy to fix) on the site.

<comment><USER22> If your business model is dependent on being just awkward enough to use that you generate extra page impressions but not awkward enough that you drive away traffic, to borrow an aviation term you're flying awfully close to coffin corner. Particularly when you're dependent on network effects; if enough people start discovering something that's less awkward for them (such as OKC), the network effect will start working against you and you're suddenly _so_ 2004 with a database of inactive users and a reputation for being awkward to use. Plus, if you're dependenet on awkward usability inherently generating more pageviews, surely by definition those pageviews are also more rapid so the time each ad is being displayed to each user is lower, so the savvy ad buyer would also be paying less.

Now, I could make the case that PoF has ridden the wave for long enough to build Markus enough money that if it all fails tomorrow he's still made for life and only really lost pride, but....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Frind was making $10 million USD per year when he had 1.2 billion page views. If his revenue scales directly to pageviews (which I think it does), he should be bringing in about $50M per year.

Not bad.

</comment><comment><USER25> ...and yet the site is one of the most unusable, unfriendly, and unattractive dating sites out there.

<comment><USER26> Add to that a total bitch-fest, cliques, heavy-handed mods.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A more detailed post on PlentyOfFish architecture - <http://highscalability.com/plentyoffish-architecture>

</comment><comment><USER27> I know Markus from good 'ol webmasterworld days when he was a active affiliate marketer. He is really a bright guy and POF's initial growth was mainly from SEO (until the network effects kicked in).

If i remember correctly until a few years ago the site ran on a single webserver and db server!.

</comment><comment><USER28> Love his post on how he got it all started: "How I Started a Dating Empire" - [http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i- started-a...](http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i-started-an- empire/)

</comment><comment><USER29> So he makes about a tenth of a penny per pageview?

</comment><comment><USER30> i dont know how he did it with a name like plentyoffish and to do it all by himself, let alone from canada. that man has skills.

</comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone know the technology stack used for front and backend by POF?

<comment><USER32> It used to be based on IIS and ASP.NET (one of the biggest Microsoft success stories on those technologies).

Edit: from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlentyofFish> they used ASP.NET 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 in 2007.

<comment><USER31> Thanks. I just checked their pages are .aspx which is Microsoft ASP.Net.</comment></comment></comment>


What do you hate about project management software? - <AUTHOR>

Im looking at what makes a good project managment software and what do most softwares lack. <comment><USER2> That's easy ... the worst thing about most project management software is the project manager (PM) that uses it. :-)

Now that I have gotten 23 years of corporate IT cynicism out of my system I'll try to be more sensible. I have only rarely used PM software, so I really cannot speak to it, but I have been inflicted with bad PMs for the vast majority of my time.

My observation is that it is the way that PMs approach the process of PM, not the software that makes the difference. As long as projects start out with a due date and a cool name, it doesn't matter what the software is or does or doesn't do, because the project is doomed already. Who needs estimates when the completion date has already been carved into stone?

The in-house methodology states that requirements will be gathered and estimates will be collected and they'll be put into the approved software and then they will begin to suffer from bit rot because they were bad to start with and will never be revisited. The requirements are always incomplete because there are whole aspects of software development that are never considered, especially testing and creating administration capabilities. The estimates are always wrong because projects are rarely enough like previous ones to make prior experience useful, programmers are by nature optimistic and project managers are people pleasers. (I've seen my careful estimates cut in half right in front of me.) And don't even get me started on the "green shift" that PMs apply as they report up the food chain!

My favorite way of describing most IT projects is "measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe!"</comment>


Astronaut John Young Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2018/01/06/517138761/astronaut-john-young-who-flew-in-space-6-times-dies-at-87 <comment><USER2> During the launch of the Apollo 16 mission, Charles Duke had a heartbeat of 144. It's an absolutely natural response to the sensation of 7.5 million pounds of thrust lifting 95 tons into orbit. John Young was commander of the mission. His heart rate was 70. When asked about this he simply replied in an even voice:

        "Yeah, well mine was too
         old to go any faster."

The above is a quotation from [https://medium.com/@room_n/john-young-the- astronaut-fe2c1076...](https://medium.com/@room_n/john-young-the-astronaut- fe2c1076a986) which was submitted to HN some 9 months ago and got no attention. There have been a couple of other submissions[0] about Capt Young's passing, but I remember the way T.K.Mattingly, Tom Stafford, and Charlie Duke all spoke of him. They all considered him one of the best they'd ever worked or flown with.

As Scott Kelly said: Fair winds and following seas, Captain.

<comment><USER3> Another good quote by him from "In the Shadow of the Moon" (a quite amazing film/documentary of Apollo featuring interviews with the actual astronauts):

[about driving the Lunar Rover] "What really saves you up there is there's nobody coming down the road from the other way."

<comment><USER4> Check the Corn Beef Sandwich scandal.

<comment><USER5> When I first heard about it, thought the person was making stuff up. Then I got directed here - [http://gemini3.spacelog.org/00:01:52:26/#log- line-6746](http://gemini3.spacelog.org/00:01:52:26/#log-line-6746). Also learnt that there was questioning about the incident by appropriations committee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And then there were five.

Moon walkers still living are Harrison Schmitt, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, David Scott, and Charlie Duke.

Is there any chance we'll have another person on the moon before these guys are gone. They're all in their 80's now.

<comment><USER7> There are feats of engineering in orbit that make the Apollo program look like a bunch of rocks in slingshots. One of them has had humans on board for close to 20 years.

I like to think people who've set foot on the moon are able to see all we've done in space, all we're doing, all we're about to do, and see the moon landings as just one small but significant thing in context of the beadth of human achievement.

<comment><USER2> The ones I've spoken to lament the fact that no one has gone beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. They yearn to go out, and to learn on longer missions the things that are currently being learned on the #ISS, and more.

The ones I've spoken to think it's wrong that so much is being done within 400 km of the Earth's surface, when they went so much further.

The ones I've spoken to acknowledge that the #ISS is a wonderful thing, and that excellent work is being done. But it's clear that they think there's more to do, and we're not doing it.

<comment><USER4> Who are the ones you've spoken to?

<comment><USER2> Moon-walkers: Alan Bean and Charlie Duke.

Other Moon orbiters: Jim Lovell, Tom Stafford, Fred Haise, Al Worden, and Ken (TK) Mattingly.

Of those, I've had an extensive conversation with TK, moderate conversation with Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, some conversation with Alan Bean, and listened to talks and Q'n'A sessions with all of them.

Most were pretty moderate in the words they used, but in most cases you could hear between the spoken lines the frustration, and the yearning to see flights beyond LEO. In the longer, more personal conversations their feelings were obvious when the topic came up, supporting the impression obtained from the more moderate, public statements.

<comment><USER4> Wow, that's some esteemed company you're keeping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember watching the STS-1 landing on TV. Young was supposed to stay inside for something like 45 minutes for overly-conservative safety reasons. He broke that rule, hard. He was out after after a few minutes, dancing around on the tarmac, fist-pumping the air (at the shuttle) out of sheer joy at having landed what he clearly thought was a wonderful flying machine. It was like watching a 5-year-old on Christmas morning.

He loved his job.

<comment><USER9> I just watched a Youtube video of the STS-1 landing. He definitely was a happy guy, but it was nearly after landing until he finally exited the shuttle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Once I had the fortune to meet and be interviewed by John Young for a position. He was a pioneer in space travel and led humanity forward, yet he was most humble and self effacing in person. It has been many years, but that short period still stands out for his grace and kindness. May he rise in peace. And hope that humanity builds on his legacy to explore farther and faster.

</comment><comment><USER11> A good book that includes a lot about John is "Into the Black" about the shuttle program. He was commander of STS-1 and was heavily involved in the program.

</comment><comment><USER12> Obligatory xkcd:

 _65 years_

 _Number of living humans who have walked on another world_

[https://xkcd.com/893/](https://xkcd.com/893/)

<comment><USER13> Alt-text: The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision</comment></comment>


Show HN: A theme for publishing beautiful stories with Gatsby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/narative/gatsby-theme-novela-example <comment><USER2> The shadows feel a little _too much_ personally, but other than that it looks good.

</comment><comment><USER3> looks great!</comment>


The Tesla of Scooters Is Driving Asia's Two Wheel Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2015/04/15/the-tesla-for-the-rest/?utm_campaign=ForbesTech&utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_channel=Technology&linkId=13570682 <comment><USER2> Within urban environments, electric bicycles need serious consideration. A scooter does not provide you the flexibility that an ebike does. Yes they are speed limited, however they are significantly cheaper.

My wife suffers from knee problems, so we're in the process of buying a pedal assist+throttle ebike to enable her to get around the city of Bath. A moped would not enable her to take advantage of the cycle paths in the area. She would still need to mix with HGVs on the road.

It naturally needed a basket and the right colour :) [http://www.juicybike.co.uk/electric-bikes/classic-click- dutc...](http://www.juicybike.co.uk/electric-bikes/classic-click-dutch-style- electric-bicycle)

Electric bikes have benefited massively from technology advancements in the last couple of years and anyone looking at an electric scooter should seriously consider an electric bicycle. It offers a lot more flexibility in where you can go with it.

<comment><USER3> The biggest issue with electric bicycles for me is the fear of getting it stolen. My current, mid-expensive bike is stressing me like hell whenever I leave it out in the city for more than an hour, despite a big padlock. An electric bike would be a more visible target and I don't think I could ever actually leave it alone in good conscience.

Am I just paranoid or is this a real issue?

<comment><USER2> There are specific techniques for locking a bike up properly, but it does need a d-lock and possibly also a cable. The idea being that your bike is the least attractive to steal. [http://lifehacker.com/5942301/the-proper-way-to-lock- your-bi...](http://lifehacker.com/5942301/the-proper-way-to-lock-your-bicycle)

<comment><USER3> Well that's my point. An e-bike would be a lot more attractive to steal.

<comment><USER4> Yep; the nicer ones I've looked at are in the $2000-$4000 range, or roughly double what normal "nice" road bikes cost. I'd probably feel safer with it in a bike locker or in a coffee shop / work / train station by my side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Electric scooters are becoming very popular here in Amsterdam, and I really hope this gets more of the gas-powered scooters off the market.

Scooters here are mostly either used by delivery boys or as a luxury item (since the bike lanes are so good). There is a decent amount of hostility towards scooters from bikers since (right now) they often share the same lanes; scooter riders are impatient, honk-y, often drive too fast and cause accidents, and blast those they are passing with smog. There's a movement to get them off the bike lanes and into traffic.

Scooters emit less CO2 per distance traveled than cars (and obviously much less than bike riders!) but often much more smog causing pollutants that affect air quality. Given that there is a really big push to improve air quality in European city centers, electric scooters can make a big difference. Plus gas-powered scooters are noisy as all hell, especially during peak food delivery hours (since all delivery boys love zooming around on their toys making as much noise as possible). I'm starting to see a lot of delivery companies switching to electric scooters, and I'm hoping that this trend either continues or that the government simply mandates these for commercial operations within the city.

<comment><USER6> The scooters should be on the (car) road unless otherwise indicated in nl. The noise can of course also be a nice indicator for a fast scooter approaching. A Prius sneaking up on you from behind can be quite a shock sometimes.

<comment><USER7> Nah, scooter is a wide ranging term. More specifically we have snorscooters, bromscooters, and motorscooters. The motorscooter (actual term that exists, though not popular) is just a regular motorcycle.

The snorscooter is limited to 25 km/h, but is manufactured generally at 30, up to 45 km/h with artificial limitations on the engine which can be turned off. (guess what happens). And these are allowed on bicycle paths.

Only the bromscooter and motorscooter, must go on the road.

So yeah cyclists do end up sharing their lanes with vehicles going up to 45, while a bike in the city usually goes around 15. Particularly annoying is cycling with a friend, and having to cycle in front of each other instead of side by side every 30 seconds because something twice as fast wants to pass you by.

I quite like the electric scooters in general as a consumer, a friend of mine has one and I've tried it a few times and it's great. But generally I'm not a fan of the concept. We've come a very long way here with cycling, spending 20 minutes going to your work, 20 minutes back, 10 to the grocery store and 10 to a cafe in the evening, that's pretty much the daily required exercise you want every human being to have. It's plays a huge, mostly unintentional, part in our health. It's very safe, as we have lightweight, nimble, 15 km/h vehicles on dedicated lanes. And it gives rise to a different form of city planning, one where life is designed around a 30 minute cycling distance radius, as opposed to what I experienced in the US (living & work & entertainment are hugely separated. You have to do groceries by car, and go to work by car.) And lastly, of course, the environmental factors of not just running motorised vehicles (whether electric or fossil fuels), but also the manufacturing of them.

So while I'd love to see motors go electric, particularly cars, I'm at the same time concerned that the scooter versus the bicycle will become more popular! :)

<comment><USER8> > More specifically we have snorscooters, bromscooters ...

Not particularly on-topic but I couldn't help read this in the excited voice of Gene Wilder.

"The snorscooters drive like snorscooters!"

"Who ever heard of a snorscooter?"

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

To be a little more helpful, if like me you don't know what these are, it seems the bromscooter is the same as a snorscooter but without the 25km/h speed limit (and are required to be on the roads with the driver wearing a helmet). You may recognise these as just "scooters" in your own country or "mopeds".

[http://www.scooterprijs.nl/Snorscooter.jpg](http://www.scooterprijs.nl/Snorscooter.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since the article didn't provide any pics of the bike : [http://www.gogoro.com/](http://www.gogoro.com/)

This article reads like a sales pitch, Everything about it sounds so right. By the end I was looking for the "invest now" button :D

<comment><USER10> I can imagine my sister riding one of those, I guess. Not a design I'd ever consider seriously riding.

<comment><USER11> Hooray for sexism! "But _daaaaaad_ , that's a _girl 's_ bike!"

<comment><USER10> So, you wear dresses and carry a purse? Really?

<comment><USER4> Vehicles are definitely part of fashion for those who care and can afford it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had a really interesting conversation with a couple of guys a few months ago about cost of living. Cost of living is a really interesting entry point into thinking about economics, policies, wealth and such. I really think our decisions would be better if this was a bigger part of the economic debate rather then the very abstract macroeconomics, political theory and abstract ideological debates we have been carrying for so long. The role of technology, policy and taste/choices is a lot easier to decipher. I think it's a lot more productive way of structuring public debate/demands/protests.

Cost of living at the fat centre of the distribution for many/most households in advanced economies looks something like like this:

      - Housing + utilities (25-50% of income)
      - Transport (10-20%)
      - Groceries (7.5-15%)

Housing is the big hairy item. It's dishearteningly competitive, so high income places often have correspondingly high housing costs and the percentage remains constant.

Anyway.. Transport.

Transport is a major cost item and it's quality is important. A fundamental ingredient in most people and place's fundamental economic wellbeing equation. It's also one of the most fixable with technology.

A 90 minutes commute on crowded public transport is way worse than a 10 minute walk or drive. Transport infrastructure takes up a lot of space, affects air quality, makes noise, affects walkability and lots of other key quality of life issues. Energy. Time. Health. Money. Transport is a very big deal.

If you've seen cities that had major increases in cycling and/or electric bikes/scooters, you were probably surprised by the success. There is a lot of potential here.

10-20 mph electric bikes, given the right customs, rules and infrastructure can be awesome in dense urban areas. Potentially game-changing over time.

</comment><comment><USER13> For the people not used to the imperial unit system:

125 cc is 125 cm³. 30 mph is around 50 km/h (the speed it reaches in 4.2 seconds). 60 mph is around 95 km/h (the max speed). 266 800 square-foot is 24 786 m². 20 miles are around 32 kilometers. 8900 square-foot is 826 m².

<comment><USER14> Is "cc" actually an imperial unit? I thought it stood for "cubic centimetres" (also equiv to ml).

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I've seen "cc" used everywhere for "cubic centimeters" back in Italy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gogoro has been making a lot of waves in Taiwan lately. A few Gogoro stores have been showing up in Taipei and they feel very much like Apple stores!

The prospect of seeing an iconic company born out of Taiwan is exciting!

</comment><comment><USER17> A german competitor could be UNU Motors: [https://unumotors.com/product](https://unumotors.com/product)

They solve the battery swap problem by letting you bring your battery inside and charge it from normal wall outlets.

</comment><comment><USER18> their battery system logo looks amazingly close to arduino: [http://www.gogoro.com/smartscooter/Easier](http://www.gogoro.com/smartscooter/Easier)

</comment><comment><USER19> Electric scooters (not fancy design ones like this but rather pedestrian- looking ones) are already completely ubiquitous in China, both for deliveries (including for 20kg water jugs, it's a bit disconcerting seeing a moped with 4 or more of those on the back) and for a very unsafe short-distance unlicensed taxi service for the last mile from the metro stop.

<comment><USER20> I know for deliveries, they are used, but the short jaunt scooter taxis I see in Beijing still seem to be mostly gas based (and of course, most all the personal scooters are electric).

<comment><USER19> That's quite interesting as I have basically never seen a non-electric scooter here in Shenzhen. Almost seems like there might be some local regulation around that, but I have no idea.

Even Amazon use electric scooters for delivery here ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Riders won't own the batteries. Instead, they'll pay a low monthly fee to > swap portable batteries as needed from a network of charging stations.

This is the key thing that electric cars need too - we need standardised batteries which can be swapped out, then the charging time is irrelevant.

<comment><USER4> Do EV/hybrid drivers thinking they're saving the planet consider the impact from manufacturing / disposing of batteries? NiMh and lithium-based batteries might not pollute locally, but mining / refining / manufacturing / shipping / disposal happens somewhere (probably in Asia), as does power generation (mostly from coal in the US).

I think a lot of the appeal of EVs / hybrids comes from the clean image, even though these vehicles still _cause_ lots of pollution. It's the opposite problem of diesel vehicles, which, though more fuel-efficient than their equivalent gasoline-powered counterparts, emit a more opaque smoke, leading to people thinking they're worse for the environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The electric unicycle is the electric vehicle for the masses.

</comment><comment><USER23> The only reason anyone buys scooters, either electric or gas, in America is they can usually be operated without a license and insurance. Otherwise they make zero financial sense. They are _more_ expensive than 250cc gasoline motorcycles that require very little maintenance, sip gasoline, and can go 65+ mph.

You can get a perfectly good small motorcycle for $2k. Dropping some multiple of that for an electric scooter toy makes no sense.

<comment><USER4> It does make sense when you can take them on bike paths, which are off-limits to motorcycles and mostly to gas-powered scooters (like GoPeds, which can get >100mpg). Lane-splitting is also amazing in California, where having your motorcycle license lets you use the HOV lane and filter through traffic if the lanes are wide enough to do it ~safely.</comment></comment>


New Radiohead Video done with Live Data - Google Code - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html <comment><USER2> Really freakin cool. They give you the raw data to visualize on your own, and some sample code written in Processing.

I couldn't get the Processing code to work correctly, so I ported it an OpenGL app on the iPhone...

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZx-h4SbfdQ>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome. Leave it to a band like radiohead to continue to push the envelope into ground breaking music video ventures like this.

</comment><comment><USER4> This has to be among the cooler things I have seen. Really like what Radiohead, Trent Reznor, etc are doing. In the synth community, there are quite a few programmers developing synths, scripting various sampling engines etc. Hopefully more of them (the lesser known ones) will get some props for their coding skills</comment>


Twitter open sources its MySQL secret sauce - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/cloud/twitter-open-sources-its-mysql-secret-sauce/ <comment><USER2> Better link: <http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/04/mysql-at-twitter.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Did I read 'fork'? If you want the open-source cred, make an attempt to get your patches upstream. Google has done it for MySQL (pre-Oracle).

<comment><USER4> I don't know if it applies in this situation, but certain cases make sense to fork instead of patch. If they are including features that are orthogonal to general MySQL feature set, it shouldn't be patched.

Considering their size and unique requirements induced by that size, I imagine a lot of these changes do not apply to small MySQL installations running WordPress (and in fact may be highly detrimental).

<comment><USER5> I think all of the changes pretty much do apply generally, but for us it's easier to go ahead and publish publically to be able to pass these changes upstream, rather than pass them off privately and wait potentially a year or more to get them back in a public release.

We want to be able to collaborate with Percona, Facebook, Google, MariaDB, etc., on some of the actual changes, to make things better for everyone. This is the first step towards that goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Link to github repo: <https://github.com/twitter/mysql>

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there any overlap between the work done in Gizzard and the other popular MySQL forks (Percona, MariaDB, Drizzle) or are each of these solving different (incompatible) problems?

<comment><USER8> Gizzard is sharding framework that sits on top of, as a separate layer from, MySQL (or any other storage backend, like Redis). It's open sourced right now at <https://github.com/twitter/gizzard>. Twitter's MySQL fork for now is just a way to get in bug fixes and extra features that are needed but not available upstream.

<comment><USER5> Yup! And our changes are quite complementary to Gizzard, since it's one of the larger use cases at Twitter for MySQL. More to come in the future to better support big Gizzard systems!

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the clarifications. And the work :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this something that lives in the same space as <http://code.google.com/p/vitess/> ?

<comment><USER10> Not quite - vitess is a proxy that sits in front of MySQL and adds additional features, whereas Twitter are releasing their own fork of MySQL which contains optimisations they have developed for their environment.</comment></comment>


OpenStreetMap Isn't All That Open, Let's Change That and Drop Share-Alike - <AUTHOR> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/21221 <comment><USER2> I stopped reading after the first example. If there are no restrictions on the usage, Google can just use all of OSM's data without having to share anything in return. The real selling point for OSM, in my opinion, is that by crowdsourcing its data it has the potential to far surpass the quality of any other dataset. If there are no restrictions on its usage, this hope becomes futile -- the gatekeepers of privately owned datasets will reap the benefits of contributions to OSM without offering anything in return.

<comment><USER3> This is the GPL argument applied to data; and while for GPL there's a certain tinfoil-hat logic that has been unfortunately proven right by the NSA, I don't know that it holds for OSM since one data set plus another dataset just makes a superset. That benefits everyone.

There are companies out there that go to great expense to create their own maps: Google is one of them, but others exist as well. I don't think OSM is trying to be the One True Map (tm). In that sense, I see no problem with Google using OSM's data and not sharing back: it still fulfills OSMs mission of making mapping better for everyone. Yeah, OSM alone isn't as high quality as OSM+Google, but who cares? Eventually, many companies will likely decide that the cost of maintaining their own mapping databases is just too high and start committing to OSM instead. Probably never Google, but there are other, smaller companies out there without the resources and self-driving cars that Google has.

Tl;dr: OSM is not hurt by allowing other parties to maintain their own datasets at their own expense. Inevitably some will choose to just contribute to OSM, which is good for everyone.

<comment><USER4> A... What? So _because_ Google builds their maps at their expense they are _entitled_ to use OSM and you see no problem with them not sharing back?

<comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent)

<comment><USER6> No, this was just a pointed paraphrasing of exelius' argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh, the good old BSD vs GPL religious debate.

I just want to add: If i wanted my map data available "to the industry" (that BSD supporters claim can't use the GPL model) I would have used google map maker and not OSM. And i did not make this decision by accident, but because i believe in free software and free data. Please respect that. I think with dropping the copyleft osm makes itself superfluous and it will get replaced by the commercial products it once wanted to replace. There won't be a reason to choose osm over google anymore.

<comment><USER7> It would still be _very_ different. If you contribute to google mapmaker, only google could use it. If you contribute to a non-share-alike OSM, anyone can use it...

<comment><USER8> > If you contribute to a non-share-alike OSM, anyone can use it..

I want those who agree with the project's principals to use the dataset, not just anyone. OSM isn't just a collection of data, its open collaboration. Removing share-alike breaks the model of that collaboration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> (Throwaway because I work in the field)

It's no surprise this is coming from an employee of MapBox. Despite their incredible support of the OSM community through technical improvements, they are now a venture-backed company and are clearly looking for a massive exit of some sort. The author mentions Google, but it's actually MapBox that is best- positioned to basically co-opt OSM and create the dominant interface by which all users interact with OSM. Without ShareAlike, they are likely to begin walling off their data, or (just as well) making the underlying OSM infrastructure pointless in a variety of ways. Imagine if nobody visited or used Wikipedia directly because some other organization basically robbed of it relevancy. At first, it could be fine (Yay! Everything is better!), but in time it could be used to control the data, limit its access, and make the underlying project pointless. This is a possibility if OSM wasn't SA.

MapBox wasn't in quite such a strategic position when the ODbL debate was going on, but they were in the community so they could have spoken up then, but I have no idea if they did.

If you don't believe me, look at the licensing for their formerly-public- domain satellite imagery: [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/mapbox-sells- custom-sat...](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/mapbox-sells-custom- satellite-imagery-from-nasa-naip) "The 'Satellite' layer may be used to produce derivative data for the OpenStreetMap project. All other use for derivative data is prohibited."

</comment><comment><USER10>
      the assumption that share-alike encourages contribution is a myth

OpenWRT is the biggest counterexample I know of. Linksys would not have released this if they had been using a BSD licensed operating system.

If you want to work on an open source project, but your employer has a restrictive intellectual property agreement, then a share-alike clause can be the only thing allowing your work to get out at all. You can show your employer there's no way they can subvert the license agreement, and if they distribute it at all, they must use the same copyleft license.

I don't want to see my hard work sold large-scale in consumer electronics, just to enrich others, without contributing back at all.

<comment><USER3> I think there's a distinction to be made between a data set and executable code.

<comment><USER11> What would you say is the precise nature of that distinction?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great article! In my opinion these thoughts also apply to software in general. This is the reason why I prefer BSD licenses over the GPL.

With my code under a BSD license, I just want to improve the world. If anybody can to use my software, very good! If anybody can mash it up with other code to create something new, even better!

If they share the resulting code, its awesome! If they don't share it, there's still something new out there that is helpful for someone and that is still great!

<comment><USER6> I'd say a lame article. Nth rehash of the BSD vs GPL debate, without adding anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I couldn't find any mention of any benefit to OSM in being used as the baseline for a bunch of proprietary mapping services. Can someone tease it out for me?

<comment><USER14> It really wasn't discussed in the article, but it has a bunch of benefits we've seen with software like ArcGIS.

When you have _paid_ engineers using tools like OSM, they'll develop more tools for using it, build extensions. They offer valuable feedback on making it _more_ attractive to other potential commercial users.

Having a tool like this used commercially, full-time by various teams is a catalyst, even though it's possible some of the same work would eventually be done by the open source community in time.

<comment><USER13> You mean the paid engineers at the proprietary mapping services, or those who use data from those proprietary mapping services? I don't understand the incentive that the former would have to release their tools, and since the latter wouldn't be working with OSM directly, wouldn't they be building tools to work with those other services?

A lot of paid engineers work with OSM now, don't we? Ever since google raised rates, OSM seems to be a big player.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The problem is not OSM, it is the greedy institutions that are scared away by the idea of having to give anything back.

<comment><USER16> And the greedy consultants who mislead ordinary institutions into thinking that greedy is the way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> regarding OSM can't use content from Wikipedia... that has nothing to do with share-alike.

the reason is that stuff like coordinates in wikipedia are widely derived from Google Maps or Google Earth. OSM community is concerned that is a violation of database rights or license. Is Google Maps open data? from Wikipedia perspective, coordinates are just facts and not-copyrightable and the US does not have database rights, so it's ok; OSM is based in europe where there are database rights and the community is concerned for other reasons, also and reluctant to accept such Wikipedia-derived contents into OSM.

<comment><USER18> Also Google has said that their maps are copyrighted, and has a terms of service/use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> No! Please keep a copyleft license!

</comment><comment><USER20> Apple already uses OSM data in their maps app: [http://gspa21.ls.apple.com/html/attribution.html](http://gspa21.ls.apple.com/html/attribution.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> I would _not_ contribute if companies (e.g. Google) could just take the data and not give back to OSM.

ODBL isn't perfect but share-alike is important for OSM.

<comment><USER21> > I would not contribute if companies (e.g. Google) could just take the data > and not give back to OSM.

Why not? OSM still remains useful and authorative.

I see this in photography circles with Creative Commons. People choosing 'No Commmercial' clauses so that companies 'can't make money with my work'; but there is no negative impact on the photographer if a company does so, so why care?

If Google makes $100 million with my photograph, or with my OSM contributions, then that's dandy. It doesn't affect me and it doesn't undermine OSM.

<comment><USER22> It's not about google making money with it they can already do that today.

> It doesn't affect me and it doesn't undermine OSM.

Just that that's exactly what it does. Google takes OSM data, combines it with their great services and gives nothing back and now there is less initiative for people to use OSM.

> People choosing 'No Commmercial' clauses so that companies 'can't make money > with my work'; but there is no negative impact on the photographer if a > company does so, so why care?

Yes there is. If you give it out for free when google would otherwise had payed it means that some photographer didn't get payed because you have it away for fee. So overall photographers befit if they all don''t give it out for free, because that means the company has to pay one of the if they need a picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> From what I remember, the US doesn't allow "sweat of the brow" arguments to protect databases.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#US_copyright_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#US_copyright_law)

So, while the data would be protected in other places, such as the UK, it wouldn't necessarily be protected in the US.

<comment><USER24> That's why ODbL has a contract layer as well as a copyright layer - so that it applies in the US as well as the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> OSM collects factual data, so the license really doesn't matter much... the copyright on it won't stand up in court.

<comment><USER6> As for every legal argument on the internet: Surprise, there are different countries with different laws.

But I guess you are mostly right, for many countries this is the case. OTOH there is a reason OSM prohibits scanning and tracing other commercial maps.

<comment><USER25> That's a completely reasonable policy for OSM to avoid getting sued by commercial map data providers -- plus I'm sure OSM would hate to make an argument in court that could be used to invalidate OSM's copyright.

Switching to an open-but-not-share-alike license makes all of this easier.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I can't follow. On the one hand you say it's not in OSMs interest to argue in court there is no copyright on maps, on the other you say it's in their interest to give their copyright up?

<comment><USER25> If OSM cares about the share-alike part of their license, they have to successfully defend their copyright on the data. If OSM moves to open-but-not- share-alike, they no longer care if their copyright on the facts in their database is valid.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I understand that better. I still think it's not a good argument; you seem to say that if they stopped caring about something there would be less trouble. That seems pure spinelessness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The OSM licence is quite confusing in it current state. It is hard to differentiate between "data" and a derived product which are treated differently.

Maps usually turn into pixels at some point and could be classified as a produced work regardless of modification. But it is difficult to be sure of this without talking to a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER27> As someone pointed out in the mailing list thread about this, OSM's ODbL is closer to LGPL than GPL in terms of the strictness of it's share-alike requirements and its virality.</comment>


Fast Links for Python & Humans - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotpot/FastLinks

<comment><AUTHOR> Please feel free to comment, participate and improve :) ( if you like )

<comment><AUTHOR> anyone ?</comment></comment>


Is Neuromarketing Ethical? - <AUTHOR> https://neurofied.com/the-ethics-of-neuromarketing/ <comment><USER2> It's clever to put the leading question "is neuromarketing ethical?" up front. It implies that the the technique definitely _works_ , and it works _so well_ that we need to have a long conversation about the ethical implications.

What does Neurofied do? "Grow your business with behavioural psychology and neuroscience."

<comment><USER3> Yeah, my first thought was "isn't it unethical to peddle pseudoscience?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The main goal of marketing is to match a product with a person that shows > interest in this product.

This is how they open their section on the ethics, so off to a really bad start. That being the main goal of marketing is patently false. Coca-Cola billions a year marketing a product that hasn't changed and that everyone already knows about.

The rest of the article is then just constantly making the same mistake of, I think intentionally, mischaracterising what marketing actually is.

I mean, come on, they have a heading that it isn't "necessarily wrong". Wow! Strong case you're making here.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. The main goal of marketing is to create interest out of thin air and then maintain it. You don't find out what people want and try to give it to them; you program people to want what you have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would disagree there's anything special about neuromarketing. I think there's an ethical question about the entire field of marketing itself, but using models of human behavior derived from neurology is not different from using models of human behavior derived from statistics or focus groups or any other way people try to manipulate other people into buying things they don't need.

<comment><USER7> That's their basic message: It's no less ethical than regular marketing.

<comment><USER8> The question we should be asking is if regular marketing is ethical.

<comment><USER7> I'd say that it's unethical to the extent that it involves dishonesty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fascinating about the memory areas activated when folks knew a soda brand, while if they didn't know the brand it was more the senses and taste, which clearly determined the preferences.

Is it ethical? "For Charity" was basically their answer.

Will it be used for purely profit-driven adventures and end up marketing bad things to people that do not need them? Absolutely.

Does it really work as effectively as they indicate? I dunno - they really only had numbers from a really old subliminal priming study.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is written by a neural net and this is why it's trending?

Subliminal messages of coke in the cinema was faked, can't be bothered to see if this blog spam Markov chain mentions this.

Check out Scent marketing if this sort of thing interests you.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is this ad on HN?

</comment><comment><USER8> All marketing is "neuromarketing". It's fundamentally a practice of exploiting human psychology to drive their behavior.

Also yes, all marketing is fundamentally unethical if it is done by a profit- driven company.

</comment><comment><USER12> At the risk of sounding pedantic, is the term "ethical" sufficiently well- defined in this context to have a fruitful discussion?

<comment><USER13> Ethical means one ought to do it, and unethical means one ought not do it.</comment></comment>


The average age of NASA engineers on Apollo 11 was 28 - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a4288/4318625/ <comment><USER2> Even if that's true, it doesn't tell the entire story.

For example, in 1960, the USA was at the end of a 15-year period of building new jets, missiles and rockets. Every guy coming out of college with an engineering degree (and the GI BIll meant there were a lot) had a place in a growing industry. Everybody who wanted to got a lot of hands-on experience. The defence industry was taking shape, it was not a mature (some say 'ossified') industry and market.

There were many companies involved. We hear some of the names today, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup. But the aerospace/defence industry in 1960 had probably 3 or 4 times as many companies in it. There were a ton of what we would call "senior engineers" today who had a number of projects behind them.

There might have been a distribution where the average engineer was 28, but that means little in comparison to today. We have far fewer companies, which means far fewer senior engineers, and those engineers don't have the range of experience, or the hands-on experience that a senior engineer had in 1960.</comment>


Treadmill desks: How practical are they? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21076461 <comment><USER3> I tracked my learning performance over two years under a range of conditions, including trying a treadmill desk. I found at 1.2mph my error rate (compared to sitting) was 50% less, and I could comfortably study for 2x as long. The trick is to keep the speed quite low, and have your PC at a comfortable position. I now do all my work this way, with an adjustable desk, which I put in sitting position only an hour a day.

More details on my experiment are in this talk I gave last year: [http://quantifiedself.com/2012/05/jeremy-howard-on- language-...](http://quantifiedself.com/2012/05/jeremy-howard-on-language- acquisition-performance/)

<comment><USER4> Are you referring to studying/reading only? I wonder If I m the only one who likes to read on a tablet while wandering around the house at similar speeds.

<comment><USER3> I only have quantified outcomes for studying flash cards, since that's a fixed measured thing that I do for 70 minutes per day. However I now do nearly all my work at the tread desk, and I've bought a few for some of my staff who also wanted to try them out (everyone who has tried them has liked them and stuck with them full time, so far).

Sometimes however for reading I'll go and relax on a recliner - it's nice to have a break from time to time. But if I want to really focus on what I'm reading, I'll look at it on the tread desk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have a community treadmill desk at Blekko, it's not at all uncomfortable to use. I ended up buying the same treadmill we got for home and find that walking at home while catching up on mail and what not is pretty easy.

Some things I've found;

* Walking in socks results in less foot pain than walking in shoes did.

* If you spend an hour watching TV while you walk you can at least write it off as exercise.

* iPads are great for reading (moves with you when you are holding it) but I've got a bluetooth keyboard on the desk if I want to type.

* If Caprica had chosen some other boogie man other than God it might have made it further as a show.

<comment><USER6> What treadmill model did you end up using?

<comment><USER5> Horizon T101, combined benefits of being more reasonably priced and necessary weight capacity.

<comment><USER6> What are you using for the desk surface? Looks like a good treadmill.

<comment><USER5> Trekdesk (amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/Trek-TD-01-TrekDesk-Treadmill- Desk/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Trek-TD-01-TrekDesk-Treadmill- Desk/dp/B002IYRBI0/)) at home I just rest stuff on the control panel of the treadmill (the trek desk gives the treadmill a pretty large foot print)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have been using a treadmill desk at home for a year or so.

I find my feet get sore if I stand still for long, but not when I walk. A speed around 2 km/h works well for me.

It is necessary to have the monitor and keyboard at proper heights, but that is also true of sitting desks. Bad and badly placed monitors and keyboards, and laptops in particular, are an ergonomic disaster either way.

<comment><USER8> Same here except I've been doing it at work.

I suffer from chronic lower back pain due to a herniated disc, and never has my back felt better since my injury in high school. Sitting is absolutely terrible for it, and standing, while an improvement, leads to poor posture because I found I would lean on a particular leg for too long, and muscles in my back would get unevenly strained.

I walk between 1 and 2 MPH all day long. I find it very easy to do all computer tasks while moving. The only time I stop is when I need to write something down on paper, which I can't even do well at the lowest setting of 0.4 MPH.

It is a bit tiring, but in a very good way. My two "breaks" are sitting down with my team for lunch and then sitting on the couch for a little while after I get home. I did not work my way up slowly as some people recommend; I had been using a standing desk for about a year and I just dove right into the walking because I prefer it to standing even when I'm a little tired.

<comment><USER9> Out of curiosity, did you try walking in place as an alternative to treadmill? I suppose it's hard to keep going

<comment><USER8> I made an effort to try to bend my legs with some frequency, but I wouldn't call it "walking in place," nor can I say I was very consistent about it. I'd usually do it for a few minutes, then get deep into a problem, and realize I'd been leaning on a leg for 10 minutes. Rinse and repeat.

A big part of the value of the treadmill for me is that it forces me to always move and bend my legs, which means I never have the opportunity to default to a bad posture. That's the reason why I walk all day every day.

A cheaper alternative I considered was getting a Bongo Board: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bongo+board&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Abongo+board)

I went with a treadmill desk because I thought with the bongo board I could still default into a balanced inanimate position, and because I'm fortunate enough where I could afford a treadmill desk without it being a huge sacrifice for me. But, if that weren't the case, I think the bongo board could be an improvement over standing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just switched to a sit/stand desk. I'm not ready to go full-treadmill, but it has helped my back. Getting a pad for your feet is crucial, though. I also wrote up my research / materials here: <http://goo.gl/JxhMq>

<comment><USER11> >I just switched to a sit/stand desk.

I did this too: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk- writin...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writing- space-post/) and went with a Geekdesk, which seemed to have the best combination of price / features. I haven't tracked the numbers, but I estimate that I work standing about 60% of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My workstation setup isnt practical for a standup desk but I was wondering about a compromise solution that would at least keep my legs moving.

I'm thinking of some kind of footrest that can be placed under a desk. The footrest is weighted and has bike pedals attached. You pedal whilst in your seat. So its sort of like an exercise bike but without the bike.

Anyone seen such a device or have other compromise solutions when a standup desk/treadmill is not practical?

<comment><USER13> Such devices exist, and are usually made / marketed as gaming accessories - <USER2> as a bonus you could very easily wire something up to ensure you keep pedaling!

<comment><USER12> Yes a desktop odometer would be nice!

Do you know any of these particular gaming accessories? Mike's like in the child comment has the type of 'mini exercise bike' I'm after but a gaming accessory sounds cheaper and more fun.

<comment><USER13> I'm afraid I can't give you any specific recommendations, I just remember reading about one in PC Gamer magazine (UK) in 2006 or 2007.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I built my own at my office, and I liked it so much that I made another one for my home office.

Here's the setup of my home office one: [http://peterarmstrong.com/post/37021212588/sit-stand- treadmi...](http://peterarmstrong.com/post/37021212588/sit-stand-treadmill- desk)

I have made some tweaks to that setup, but the basic idea is the same. (The tweak was to create a way to use my SteelSeries 7G along with my laptop + monitors setup.)

Here's the adjustments: [http://peterarmstrong.com/post/41881767291/my-sit- stand-trea...](http://peterarmstrong.com/post/41881767291/my-sit-stand- treadmill-desk-has-gotten-one-update)

I find I walk between 4 to 10 miles a day, and that I'm more productive walking than not walking. I don't check HN as much while walking, for example.

I started walking slowly (1.6 mph). Now I walk either 1.8 or 1.9 mph comfortably while working. As my fitness improves even more, I'm sure the base speed will improve more too.

I can walk between 2 and 2.5 mph with lowered productivity, but the point is to be productive, not to walk fast, so I walk as slowly as I need to in order to forget about the fact I'm walking and get into coding zones. That's about 1.8 mph right now.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was thinking about making one with a magnetic (manual) treadmill, so I can amble instead of being paced by machine... has anyone tried this? Amazon has a decent selection: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search- alias...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search- alias%3Dsporting&field-keywords=magnetic+treadmill)

<comment><USER8> One thing to keep in mind is that an inclined treadmill is going to make your head bop up and down a little bit. I'm not sure whether or not it'd be distracting, but you might want to try just walking up a mild hill some time and pay close attention to the movement of your head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am experimenting with a standup desk these days. It seems like i move more, leave my desk have a couple of steps every now and then. And this helps me think. Like think out of the box, the context or the distractions attached to it.

That's the biggest advantage of not sitting. I highly doubt that a threadmill can provide me this huge productivity boost...

<comment><USER17> I am looking into getting one of these. Do you have any recommendations?

<comment><USER18> I made my own ( <http://imgur.com/a/BczGu#26> ) and it's great to work at. If you're buying one, I'd recommend picking a good desk without the motorized bits. Instead of getting something that goes up and down (so you can sit at a normal chair when you don't want to stand), get a tall stool for when you want to sit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is practical to use a mechanical Treadmill? or is key to have a electric one so it push you?

I'm close to build a standing-desk and wonder if something like [http://www.amazon.com/Stamina-55-1610-InMotion-Elliptical- Tr...](http://www.amazon.com/Stamina-55-1610-InMotion-Elliptical- Trainer/dp/B000VICRO8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1359574310&sr=8-3&keywords=step+machine) could work too...

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's the treadmill desk I made last summer [http://codhisattva.tumblr.com/post/37133702658/the- walking-d...](http://codhisattva.tumblr.com/post/37133702658/the-walking- desk). Really practical for me and productive. I find I can work at 2mph and type and read just fine. Although I do have to slow down or stop to type on an iPad or iPhone.

<comment><USER21> Non-swipe [http://codhisattva.tumblr.com/post/37133702658/the- walking-d...](http://codhisattva.tumblr.com/post/37133702658/the-walking- desk?onswipe_redirect=never)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone using a standing desk: are you using comfort matting designed for people who stand for long times? Or just regular flooring?

<comment><USER23> I used a standing desk for about 6 months, one with comfort matting. I didn't notice a difference. I also think standing desks don't offer any health benefits over sitting. I can state my reasons why if there is any interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would love love LOVE for someone to come out with an inclined treadmill desk that generates electricity from all that walking.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately we're not going to generate very much juice. Assuming perfect conversion and assuming that the average person burns 100 calories per hour, we're only talking about .12 watts.

<comment><USER8> It's actually about 120 watts (a food calorie is actually a kCal), but those 100 calories are being spent through a lot more than your legs. Humans burn over 1000 calories per day just by living, so the additional amount that you're burning from walking is only a fraction of that 100 calories that get burned in the hour (assuming 2 MPH). Some of that fraction of effort is directed downward while some other fraction pushes back against the belt and moves it backwards, and then of course to your point the efficiency of capture is never 100%. The law of conservation of energy also tells us that adding a motor to capture output will add resistance to the belt, requiring you to expend more effort to walk the same distance. This is because you don't exert force against a motor in place of the ground/belt, but rather in addition to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Why is it so hard to avoid premature optimizations? - <AUTHOR> http://justinappears.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-avoid-premature-optimiza

<comment><USER2> I think whenever the topic of premature optimization comes up most people forget the whole Knuth/Hoare quote:

> We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: > premature optimization is the root of all evil.

Everyone seems to latch on the second part, but the first part, and the context, are very important. At the time the quote was first coined they were considering "premature optimization" to be the use of "inc eax" instead of "add eax, 1". The key, I think, is the bit about small efficiencies -- we shouldn't worry that "inc eax" uses two bytes less than "add eax, 1" from the outset, but cache thrashing should definitely be a concern.

Optimization is something that should always be in a programmers mind, especially when programming embedded machines. If you're not at a point where you are optimizing the code you are working with then you should be writing it in a way that it can be optimized down the road.

I would think that anyone who uses "premature optimization is the root of all evil" as a retort is fair game for being challenged on how they would actually optimize their code when they have the chance :)

(disclaimer: I write code for video games, my world view may not be the same as yours, though I still believe this applies globally.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Avoiding premature optimization involves looking at the whole situation, instead of the optimization.

* Working at a strategic level is often nebulous and requires some definition.

* Little changes are simple, concrete, and instantly rewarding (if only I could do X, this would work better).

</comment><comment><USER4> Premature optimization can be a form of procrastination.

If you're looking for a way to avoid something, PO is an easy out. It even looks like you're doing something.

<comment><USER5> Sadly, I've done this even knowingly. It's like mentally pacing from one side of the room to the next. Aware you're doing something, but it's not necessarily getting you anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In workplaces, it tends to happen because it is something the developers control rather than other peoples control (i.e. marketing, sales, support, ...). Control makes some people happy.

In my personal projects, it happens because I delude myself into thinking that the optimization is the "next big thing" and thus I am blinded to see it as a premature optimization. Of course, over the years, I have tempered myself when I think I've discovered the "next big thing", I try to be objective and think of it terms of an investment and cost; sometimes, it works.

</comment><comment><USER7> Various forces drive programmer to do various things. One things come to the top is motivation. When you code alot of things, you want to get a reward, make something run. So that you won't feel like programming is an endless treadmill. When you mix it with do it right the first time, and fact that coder often playing with a moving target - his understanding what is best for the project is different from when it was planned first. This makes early optimizations incredibly difficult.

If you have self-contained bit of software like TeX, that Donald wrote where you know what you will get in the end, then you can be quite methodical. But when you try to put an end user product that is composed of various systems, that can be described as moving targets, somewhat incomplete and sometimes missing certain things. Then this dance become a shuffle to keep things on even keel while keeping general plan of action in sight.

If you ever poured coarse matter, like grains of salt or sand - shook the jar so that vibration to compress grains in - just to get more space for extra stuff. Well development is like that our there in the wild. We coders always keep Knuth's axiom on early optimization. But we are human too and we'd like to get some love from object of our undivided attention too.

</comment><comment><USER8> Because it takes hard work and discipline to objectively determine where to optimize or whether an optimization is necessary - let alone to determine which situations need to be optimized for in the first place.[1]

And, frankly, quite a bit of premature optimization takes less time than doing that work.

[1] Optimizing for readability has definite pay-off over the life of a project, but good luck quantifying it ahead of time.

</comment><comment><USER9> When you have written lots of code, you remember some of the things you had to optimize in the past, and when you find yourself in a similar situation you're tempted to just do it now so that you don't have to do it later.

The fact that sometimes you're right just reinforces this behavior, but when you get it wrong it tends to blow up in your face.

</comment><comment><USER10> I do believe you should make sure the algorithms aren't crud. Also, any project where there is a separate DB Team kinda requires you to get your tables right very early because of the "cost of change" in most organizations.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've always thought there were 2 types of things that could be optimized:

1\. Things that need to be "cleaned up".

2\. Things that never should have been written in the first place.

Simple example of Type 1: You rush to get something up and running, and in your first code review, you find the exact same code multiple times. So you write a function, parameterize a few variables, tighten it up, and reference it all over the place. Cool.

Simple example of Type 2: You have an SQL SELECT inside an iteration. At 500 iterations it runs smoothly. At 50,000 iterations, it becomes non-functional. Your only hope to scale this thing is to rethink the whole process to run with one SQL SELECT (and maybe a database redesign) outside the iteration. You basically have to start over. What were you thinking?

You need to trust your "process" that Type 1 things will rise to the surface in due time, thus avoiding premature optimization.

For Type 2 things, there is no such thing as "premature optimization". They need to be designed and written properly in the first place.

<comment><USER12> Your example 2 is actually not as ridiculous as you state. For example, the following lines are from Market Watch Frame 1 in the TPC-E benchmark.

      open stock_list
      do until(stock_list.end_of_cursor) {
         fetch from
           stock_list cursor
         into
           symbol

         select
           new_price = LT_PRICE
         from
           LAST_TRADE
         where
           LT_S_SYMB = symbol

We spend a lot of time trying to optimize these types of OLTP transactions and in certain cases you may be better off using this structure than a more esoteric, less optimized construct.

Edit: I guess I should mention that the cursor in there is going to hurt. Just an example -- don't always actually do that and rely on us to speed up your transaction.</comment></comment>


Joi Ito: What World of Warcraft taught me about being a better leader - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-director-of-mit-media-lab-talks-of-encouraging-openness/31112

<comment><USER2> Some caution on this...

WoW guild leadership was a good exercise in how to lead _volunteers_. There is a gulf of difference between leading volunteers and leading paid people. Yes, there is overlap, too, but it is much harder to motivate volunteers to do tasks they do not _feel_ like doing at the moment. It is a different kind of beast to lead, and Joi Ito certainly deserves respect for learning how to do that effectively.

Note I said "was". With Cataclysm's release, Blizzard introduced built-in incentives to do things for the guild. A guild member gets rewarded by the game for working for the guild. This reduces the leadership burden quite a lot and focuses it more on the "getting X number of people together at Y time to raid/PvP" task. Additionally, guild leadership can now check the WoW Armory to see what raids potential guild candidates have completed and how many times; thus, players have incentives to work with guilds to establish their experience/pwning ability. That makes it easier for guild leaders to gather people for raids because people have more incentive to be there. Effectively, members are now paid to work for their guild or to increase their own standing if they want to work for another guild.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good interview.

For anyone who's interested, I captured part of his first meeting with Media Lab researchers, staff, and faculty:

[http://lamont.scripts.mit.edu/newsio/2011/04/26/joi-ito- addr...](http://lamont.scripts.mit.edu/newsio/2011/04/26/joi-ito-addresses- the-media-lab-for-the-first-time/)

I also heard Nicholas Negroponte (former Media Lab director, OLPC co-founder) speak about Ito's appointment during class yesterday. He thought it was a great appointment (I believe his words were, "Japanese? College dropout? 44? Godson of Timothy Leary? Perfect!") and was also happy to hear that Ito wouldn't be heading his own research group, as it would be too much of a distraction.

</comment><comment><USER4> Excellent topic. I wish him well.

As a former guild leader in World of Warcraft I can state that yes indeed it takes a certain level of finesse to get a group of 40 volunteers (out of 100+ members) motivated to accomplish an already pre established goal defined by Blizzard. The game has incentives already built into it and the formation of a guild is relatively easy process. WoW is truly gamification at its finest which is used as the primary motivator.

It was a lot of fun. But it was a huge time sink. So much so that to say it was distracting would not accurately describe it.

Word of warning: if you don't play it, don't start. Time is a valuable commodity which you can't earn back once it is spent. There are other ways to learn leadership/soft skills that are more productive.

<comment><USER5> All I can say is, playing that game is a decision I regret at least once a week. My business stagnated for two years as my life got sucked into that game.

I could talk about all the leadership skills and blah blah blah that I learned from GM'ing an enormous guild, but that would be deceitful, because if I had been doing anything else I would be a lot further ahead than I am now with an extra two years - or 269 real days of time spent on that game. Sure there were some benefits, but I think they are dwarfed by the opportunities I lost (great way to spend the first two years of college - you make a TON of friends playing WoW all day in your room).

So if you really want to improve yourself, stay away from this game.

<comment><USER6> Learning a bit of self control, be it for WoW, irc/chat, general surfing, playing music, hanging out, partying, or ANY endeavor is a good habit to acquire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious how much WoW he actually played. It seems like he mostly disappeared for a five year period, though maybe he was doing other stuff.

<comment><USER8> I was in that guild. Joi was on quite a bit when the guild was running Molten Core regularly. Good times.

Can't speak to anything more recent, since I quit playing years ago. According to the Armory, the character he used years ago has reached the level cap and has ran some five-man dungeons, but doesn't raid:

[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/eitrigg/jonkichi/simpl...](http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/eitrigg/jonkichi/simple)

That doesn't mean anything, of course - for all I know, he could be raiding every night with another character.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can say that my time as a trader in a MUD I used to play gave me valuable negotiation skills, and I don't doubt that it takes significant leadership skills to run a WoW guild...

</comment><comment><USER10> i've said this for years to my friends and family and it is comforting to see this come up again and again on the internet. running a guild in warcraft is a great stepping stone for aspiring leaders and Joi does a good job in the article pointing out some specific reasons why warcraft gave him good experience in this area. i think of it as a spark that started the fire. beyond that, i wouldn't give it _too_ much credit.

<comment><USER11> Exactly.

I see it more like WoW has given him an arena in which he can try out his leader skills and perhaps improve on them.</comment></comment>


GitOps for Data and ML - <AUTHOR> Hey, there! I'm one of the maintainers of the DVC project that we just released 1.0 version of - https://dvc.org/blog/dvc-1-0-release. I have a software engineering background, and I joined the DVC team when I started doing some ML and realized that there is no process - no version control, no reproducibility, no CI, no CD, hard to deploy. Here I'd like to share some thoughts on how we see it can be solved with Git.
Across ML, we see teams solving the same problems over and over again (similar DevOps folks were writing bash scripts before Terraform over again). Where do we put our files and ML models? How do we name them? How do we get them in prod? How do we roll back? How do we know how it was built? How is the model performing? How about CI/CD for ML - how do we test a model's performance before releasing it? How do we test datasets? Etc, etc.
Ironically, DVC (Data Version Control) is not a Version Control System :) It applies GitOps philosophy to ML and Data and "codifies" data files, data pipelines (think makefiles for data), ML experiments "telemetry" in a simple declarative YAML. It provides commands to capture the state, move and sync files efficiently across local env, training machines, and cloud storages, compare "diff" experiments, etc.
GitOps is not a new idea, but the term is catching on thanks to projects that use a Git framework for managing infrastructure. One of the most famous examples is Hashicorp's tool, Terraform. The essence is to capture infrastructure state with declarative notation and treat it as code - which means you can version, share, deliver with Git whenever you need, use CI to detect changes, etc ... Just a whole bunch of benefits!
So, DVC is more of a Terraform for Data. Add Git to this and we have a powerful mechanism with all the benefits of the GitOps ecosystem applied to Data and ML. <comment><USER2> That's funny but DVC was not started as Terraform for Data. We were just focused on data versioning and ML workflow (pipelines, metrics etc...). But it kind of becomes Terraform for Data. It is a very good analogy.

PS: I'm one fo the DVC creators.</comment>


The Conscience of a Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.phrack.org/archives/issues/7/3.txt <comment><USER2> (1986)

</comment><comment><USER3> classic</comment>


Zen and the Art of iOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.adir1.com/2012/02/zen-and-the-art-of-ios/

<comment><USER2> Sorry but the bait and switch is disappointing. If you want to rag on the Genius Bar, then perhaps that should be a second blog post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I edited out too much while proofreading - rag on Genius Bar was clearly secondary. I was hoping to hear confirmation whether what "Trained Apple Employees" were saying, or whether my own understanding is correct.</comment></comment>


"Notice-And-Stay-Down" Is Really "Filter-Everything" - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything <comment><USER2> _That said, safe harbors are essential to the way the Internet works._

Reasonable people could debate what form a safe harbor should take, though.

Big content sharing sites are only possible, in their current form, because they use technology to enable scaling in terms of both content distribution and advertising revenue generation.

Big content sharing sites often do facilitate illegal activity on a huge scale. Plenty of them got start doing so more-or-less overtly.

Big content sharing sites often do make a huge amount of money.

It is not obvious that big content sharing sites should be magically exempted from the rules about redistributing copyrighted content that everyone else has to follow, just because their business models don't work otherwise. Yes, it's difficult to determine reliably whether some untrusted third party's content might be infringing or not. Yes, it's expensive to screen content you're going to share before you share it. These things are difficult and expensive for everyone else, too, but we don't all get to excuse ourselves from following the law.

Even if we accept that having big content sharing sites is generally a positive thing, and we therefore decide to provide a safe harbor mechanism to limit their exposure if users abuse their system, that doesn't mean we should absolve them of all responsibility for illegal acts committed using their systems and from which they may profit handsomely through indirect means like advertising. Nor does it mean we should absolve users of responsibility for sharing copyrighted work using sites that can attract audiences in the millions within a matter of days or even hours, just because it's done at arm's length and "everyone is doing it".

So personally, I'm not sure I have a problem with the general principle of a notice-and-stay-down rule here. Certainly takedown procedures on big content sharing sites have been abused, but just as certainly there are _vastly_ more infringing copies being shared that way without penalty to the lawbreaker than there are non-infringing copies being taken down even though they were fair use or the equivalent, and the ability for anyone to sign up for another account and re-upload the same infringing content moments after it is taken down is a gaping hole in the credibility of the existing takedown framework.

If someone wants to share content and exercise their freedom of expression, they can still publish that material directly on their own system, without relying on the support of any third party content sharing service. But they'll also then have to take direct responsibility for the consequences if that what they do is illegal.

<comment><USER3> > If someone wants to share content and exercise their freedom of expression, > they can still publish that material directly on their own system,

That is not a practical solution and an unfair burden. Most people do not have that option at all. They don't know how to do it themselves and they can't afford to pay others. Aggregating many users makes publishing affordable to many and the filter-always rule goes a long way towards making that impossible.

<comment><USER2> _That is not a practical solution and an unfair burden._

As opposed to the law turning a blind eye to tools that facilitate illegal activity on a massive scale, while requiring everyone actually holding the relevant legal rights to take individual action against every infringement themselves, even in the face of blatant and repeated infringement by the same people using the same mass distribution service?

If you want to talk about impractical solutions and unfair burdens, talk to any small-scale, independent content producer who's seen something they worked on for months shared on-line and watched their profits evaporate. Not everyone in the content ecosystem is making big hits like _Game of Thrones_ or the latest Taylor Swift single and at least benefitting from some extra exposure leading to more people buying the content with real money later as well as losing out to pirates who won't. Not everyone in the content ecosystem has full-time in-house legal staff to chase down infringers, nor the resources to actively monitor every major content sharing service 24/7 to intercept large- scale illegal redistribution in near real time.

 _Most people do not have that option at all._

Anyone who is on the Internet in the first place has that option. You can have control of your own web site for a fraction of the cost of a monthly ISP subscription, and you can learn to do it with a few minutes on Google, the help provided by your chosen hosting service, or asking your neighbour's 15 year old kid.

 _Aggregating many users makes publishing affordable to many and the filter- always rule goes a long way towards making that impossible._

Aggregating many users makes publishing affordable to those who want to benefit from publishing but spend literally nothing on it. Even if you have freedom of expression protected by law to some extent, that doesn't mean you're entitled to have someone provide you with a mechanism for expressing yourself to a huge audience, free of charge.

For example, YouTube is free to take down any video they like for any reason they like on their own service, regardless of whether or not any law actually requires them to do so. It's their service. If you really believe in promoting free expression, surely you should be in favour of more people publishing independently and under their own control?

In any case, you're dramatically overstating the effect of the filter-always rule as I understand it. From the description given in the article, it appears that the rule just says if someone _has_ formally complained about a copyright infringement under the safe harbor system, and that complaint has not been disputed and therefore presumably the original copy has been taken down, then the same rightsholder does not have to _keep_ formally complaining about the exact same material if it's uploaded again after being taken down the first time.

I don't see how this stops anyone from publishing anything, unless it's already been published, and that has been challenged, and the person who published it has not exercised their right to dispute the allegation of infringement. And the extra burden here is primarily on the hosting service, which is usually the huge beneficiary of safe harbor agreements already and still bearing far less burden than they otherwise would under the law.

How is any of this unreasonable, assuming a fundamental desire to reconcile freedom of expression with the legitimate interests of copyright holders that are recognised and protected by law in as fair a way as possible?</comment></comment></comment>


So You Want to Work for a Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.trueventures.com/blog/2010/09/07/so-you-want-to-work-for-a-startup/

<comment><USER2> Profitability should be in the first set of items, imo.

Don't leave potential or existing employees worried about your exit strategy. Enthusiasm wanes when they think you will jump-ship and leave them hanging to dry.

In this day and age, don't just talk about when you'll be profitable, but show them your existing numbers and related trends (with backing data) in your own business vs. competitors or industry along with the data used to estimate revenue breakeven and profitability dates and numbers. If you can't convince your future and current employees, how can you convince anyone else?

Work-life balance - everyone likes a 40 hour week, but if you can't provide that, then at least focus on your ability to let them take time out for their family when needed. If you can't do that, expect morale to drop or life issues to come into play later.

Culture - The fun/work balance and the things you aren't allowed to talk about legally: politics, age, etc. Do you really focus on getting the work done? Do people have patience for your attempts at team-building at that remote mountain location with the mosquitoes or are they into the annual paintball game? Will they hate their Republican or Democrat team members? Are they allergic to cats, dogs? Does the smell of curry make them barf? How do you approach this?

Moving up the ladder: Where do you want to be in 5 years? What about raises, bonuses, etc.? On the other hand, how accountable are people for their actions? How many sales guys have you let go this year because they didn't hit your numbers?

Many more things to think about...</comment>


Uruguay's president at Rio+20 saying what needs to be said - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cQgONgTupo

<comment><USER2> It's a pity the translation is so, so bad.. The speech is just brilliant, the thoughts are deep, and the guy is just amazing. He is a south american Mandela, he has been prisioner for 15 years in solitaire confinement under the militar government, and now he is president. He lives in his farm, in a very simple little house, and gave the presidential palace to be used for housing people without houses.</comment>


My open source home office productivity tool of choice - <AUTHOR> https://super-productivity.com <comment><AUTHOR> My favorite to do/ time tracker app. There have been some major updates recently. Now there is support for jira, github & gitlab and much more. Curious to hear your thoughts about it!</comment>


Vedis - An Embedded Implementation of Redis Supporting Terabyte Sized Databases - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/1/15/vedis-an-embedded-implementation-of-redis-supporting-terabyt.html <comment><USER2> This look cool. What are the main use cases for this - mobile, embedded? would love to hear.</comment>


Automatic Compilation of Julia Programs and Generic ML Models to Cloud TPUs - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.09868 <comment><USER2> As seen in Jeff Dean's twitter feed [1] ;). But seriously, this was a lot of fun. We'll have the code up very soon - just need to clean up a few things.

[1] [https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1054951415339192321](https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1054951415339192321)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is already quite cool but have you guys considered

1) FPGAs, and

2) applying to YC W?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is this C code not working as intended? - <AUTHOR> These two functions

    unsigned int M1ByteMirror(unsigned int iNumber) {
        unsigned int lVal = M1GetN3(iNumber);
        lVal |= M1GetN2(iNumber) << 8;
        lVal |= M1GetN1(iNumber) << 16;
        lVal |= M1GetN0(iNumber) << 24;
        return lVal;
    }

    unsigned int M1ByteMirrorSingle(unsigned int iNumber) {
        unsigned int lVal = (M1GetN3(iNumber) | (M1GetN2(iNumber) << 8) | (M1GetN1(iNumber) << 16) | (M1GetN0(iNumber << 24)));
        return lVal;
    }
 are logically the same, yet the output is:

  random data: baa206c, mirror: 6c20aa0b, single: 20aa0b
 Why is the compiler/C ignoring the last function call in the single line declaration? Is there a typo/mistake I missed or is there something deeper going on?
EDIT: Or is this just my setup? MinGW32, Win7 x64 Ult SP1, i5 6600K.
EDIT2: I had -O2 on, turned it off, same results, but holy crap, is optimization effective. <comment><AUTHOR> The source code[1] of what I was working on.

It's a simple benchmark, to see what the quicker way to access data byte-wise from a uint32_t in C is, between bit-shifting and masking or indirect access via pointer declaration/de-referencing, and also between a single-line declaration or a multi-lined declaration as per original topic question.

The results behave as expected when turning on and off optimizations, but their relative comparison is highly dependent on it. It means that bit- shifting is faster, but only with optimizations. A multi-lined declaration may be as fast as a single-lined declaration, but also only with optimizations.

[1] : [https://morgen.ist/misc/Simple-Byte-Access- Benchmark.c](https://morgen.ist/misc/Simple-Byte-Access-Benchmark.c)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sidenote: Is there a _possibility_ , however, that the single-line declaration may fail at runtime, if RAM is low? Most likely not on an x86-PC, but an Arduino with 2K RAM?

I had a similar issue with some Arduino code four years ago, and it could've also just been a typo, but I could've sworn the less than ~500 byte SRAM left available wouldn't allow me to call too many functions per ..."instruction"(?).

</comment><comment><USER2> (M1GetN0(iNumber << 24))

You have a typo in the second function.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....

EDIT: Thank you, and case closed.</comment></comment>


Why this Facebook Post Could Destroy a Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/08/06/why-this-facebook-post-could-destroy-a-business/

<comment><USER2> So basically someone posts on Facebook that they got lousy service, 90k people comment, and the company responds how?</comment>