Dwolla Gets Into Government With Iowa Tax-Paying Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3004961/who-needs-starbucks-dwolla-gets-govt-iowa-tax-paying-plan <comment><USER2> Not sure why you would use Dwolla to pay state taxes. Most states allow ACH transfers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any reason for the lack of IBAN style bank-bank transfers in the US, that make this kind of startups possible and needed?

<comment><USER4> We have bank transfers. Generally, either or both sides of the transfer take the opportunity to inject an insultingly generous processing/service fee. These startups/services are only possible because they undercut these fees.

Trust is another big reason to be judicious with bank transfers in the US (and where these services add value--I think they convert what the other party sees from being account-based to transaction-based). I'm not familiar with IBAN, but can someone drain your account if they get your IBAN?

<comment><USER5> Yes - with your account number someone could theoretically drain your account using direct debit. In practice that never happens (and most people don't keep their account number a secret). In addition, even if it would happen you have more than plenty of time to reverse the transaction at your bank (which shouldn't involve any discussion or so with the bank).

As for transactions themselves, unlike in the US where you can conduct ACH transactions in both directions (i.e., debiting another account) IBAN transactions are "sending only" (like email). And you typically also don't need to whitelist/add another account first (as in the case of ACH transactions), but just type the senders account number into the recipient field (again, like email).

In Europe I never used any third party services, as IBAN transactions are usually free and the easiest thing to do. In the US it's usually easier to use something like Dwolla (or even checks!) if you want to send money to someone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news for Dwolla. Really impressed with Iowa too. When many of today's headlines are how dysfunctional and at odds CA state government is with their people here's a state going out if it's way to help advance local tech. The best way to create a competitive hub is to focus in on one vertical first and payments is a super large and smart one.

</comment><comment><USER7> Starbucks? I guess because you won't need the extra caffeine to get your taxes done?

<comment><USER8> I think it was a pun and shot at Square and SBux deal. Not sure though...

<comment><USER6> Yes my sense was "SB is the onramp to payments acceptance by newer methods. But we have Iowa!"</comment></comment></comment>


What are children dying from and what can we do about it? - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-children-dying-from-and-what-can-we-do-about-it <comment><USER2> How many deaths from diarrheal diseases or pneumonia could be prevented with, say $4 Billion dollars?

Well, the people of Palo Alto, after a few tragic suicides-by-train, want the people of California to pay tens of billions of dollars to put Caltrain underground through their town. (The number of deaths of children in Palo Alto from the train pales in comparison to the number of deaths to children from gunshot wounds on the other side of 101 and across the bay....)

[https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/04/25/popular- but-e...](https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/04/25/popular-but- expensive-train-tunnel-proposal-splits-palo-alto-council)

<comment><USER3> \- Palo Alto homeowners mistakenly believed for years that the new HSR would be buried so that the noise wouldn't affect their property values. It's a kind of mass delusion thing, since you're looking at $2 billion/mile or so

\- Mountain View, an adjacent city, just went througn the same calculus wrt tunneling and found it just as breathtakingly unaffordable

\- Atherton was mentioned in the article or comments, which is hilarious. They have a city lawyer who's mandate is to not change a single thing.

\- When I say "city", I mean approx. population 40,000. So they don't have billions to throw around, although the York family did help Santa Clara City (pop. 10,000) spend $1.2 billion for their football stadium. :)

<comment><USER2> The $4 Billion figure was the cost to Palo Alto, that they thought they could make up with increased "property values" and taxes. They expected the People of California to pay another $20 Billion or so to complete the work. All for their precious snowflakes and property values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the chart, it seems obvious that the old strategy of hide HIV and sexual transmission diseases under the rug, to protect the rights of the carriers, is not working at all. At least not for protecting "collateral damage" children.

Practically the Same children infected and killed by sexual transmission diseases in 2007 than in 1997. AIDS mortality has even increased. Same as 'iNTS' (what's this?)

There is a lot of room for improving in this cluster

<comment><USER5> It's quite easy to solve actually.

We can have an app where if you consent to have sex with someone then your sexual health status is automatically shared with whoever you consented to before the act.

You only have sex once you get green light, otherwise you are on your own!

Does it breach their right? IDK, I'll let someone HNer educate me on that.

And if it's a solution then why isn't it being implemented, how can we leave it upto people to be truthful about their status?

<comment><USER6> People can already share their STD test results, and some clinics even make their patients' results available online so that they can be verified.

Technology isn't going to solve this sociological problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a cool infographic.

I wish you could break it down so you could see what the lowest hanging fruit for your own country is. I feel like a lot of times our priorities get distorted by the media and tools like this could help us focus on what will truly help the most people.

<comment><USER8> This. It also showed that mortality rate has been roughly halved since the 90s, but I wonder if that halving has been evenly split around the world, or if it is disproportionate to certain localities. [I'd assume the latter]

<comment> jake-low This visualization from the same source answers your question:

[https://ourworldindata.org/where-are-children- dying](https://ourworldindata.org/where-are-children-dying)

In summary, it's highly disproportionate, with rapidly industrializing nations in Asia representing a huge portion of the decline in child mortality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's an interesting layout but has an annoying feature I've noticed in similar infographics. The division _looks_ like it should be proportional to occurrences, but it is not.

EDIT: appears i was bitten by how I was viewing it originally - downloaded the graphic and it appears to be roughly proportional with areas (i.e. I didn't find more than 10% error)

mea culpa!

<comment><USER10> The chart says "each box area represents the number of deaths..."

What makes you think it's not proportional?

<comment><USER11> Did some quick checks; it does appear that it's area-proportional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Leishmaniasis is a cool case: the drop in death is partially attributable to the orphaned drug process approving a drug that had been abandoned as unprofitable. When capitalism can't save lives, governments can.

<comment><USER13> The orphan drugs are unprofitable precisely because the government regulation require expensive certification before you can produce drugs. Thus, in this case, you're praising government for solving (at least partly) a problem that the government created in the first place.

<comment><USER14> That's like saying "government is solving a problem it created" when government builds a water treatment plant so that a small community who can't afford one, can reach water quality levels mandated by the government. Yes, but...

<comment><USER13> This would be an apt analogy if the small community was legally forbidden from using water the quality of which doesn't meet government standards. Yes, drinking low quality water is probably harmful, but not having anything to drink at all is significantly more harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> nitpick here.

the visual says diarrheal diseases (10%) + pneumonia(15%) = 25% total.

why is that bottom left blue box larger than 1/4 of the full box?

the top left red box totals >29% , and why is that box smaller than the bottom left blue box (25%) ?

</comment><comment><USER16> > Infectious diseases have always been one of the major causes of child > deaths, but the success of vaccination campaigns and antibiotic availability > has done a great deal to reduce mortality from infectious diseases. Measles > vaccination is a perfect example: the number of measles cases has shrunk by > 86% since 1990. The WHO has estimated that _between 2000 and 2017 measles > vaccination has prevented 21.1 million deaths across Africa._

> Today we also have vaccines available for tuberculosis, meningitis, > hepatitis, and whooping cough. The best way to protect children against > malaria today is to provide insecticide treated bednets, but a new malaria > vaccine implementation program is also underway.

Quoted for emphasis. Note the striking lack of deaths on the chart from autism (which vaccines don't cause).

</comment><comment><USER17> Nutritional deficiencies are interesting because to kill a child it takes a lot.

So it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Problem is all the children who survive have retarded IQ's (lack of iodine can be -10 IQ points) they grow up and stay poor and have more children who will die due to their sustained poverty.

I really have no idea why we pump money into schools when we can target 0-2 year olds and educate them for life. You can't fix lost IQ points later on no matter what you do.

<comment><USER18> People are stuck in poverty because capitalism forcibly inflicts poverty on them, not because of "IQ". Poverty is a enforced policy choice, not a personal failing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have a pet theory that saving children from natural deaths is harmful to future generations. Surely by intervening so much, we're giving unhealthy people as much evolutionary advantage as healthy people. If the whole world reaches western standards of infant mortality and stays there long enough, will children eventually become dependent on even more interventions and be even more vulnerable to death without them? It might take a lot of generations, but aren't we supposed to value future humans higher than present ones because there will be more of them?

I would have died in childhood without modern medicine, and have a lifelong illness as a consequence of surviving. I may pass that on to my own children. That's a problem that never happened in all human history before about a 100 years ago when useful medicine started to exist, so maybe its effects will be disastrous for the human race. On the other hand, perhaps it's OK if we evolve more dependency on technology. We already need clothes, cooking, and shelter which helps us have advantages and flexibility that animals don't have.

<comment><USER20> > I may pass that on to my own children

A more palatable approach would be to treat you but not allow you to have children with the same condition. In the past this has been done in fairly barbaric ways but embryo selection offers a far more reasonable solution with minimal limitations on individual rights.

As for whether we should treat children and condemn them to a life of suffering, we already do this calculus with the elderly. Whether or not to perform a procedure depends on the chances of success and the number of quality years they can expect to have afterwards, procedures that will extend life by a year and result in a bedridden patient are routinely skipped, it's only applying the same to children that makes us squeamish.

My friends an ambulance driver and recently had to transport a blind, deaf and mentally retarded baby with a chronic heart condition. The question all the doctors and nurses in the hospital had to ask that night is whether they should treat the child if their heart fails. For me at least the answer is an obvious no in that case.

<comment><USER21> That's a slippery slope. Who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who should we abort or sterilize? We all suffer to some degree, then we all die. It's the human condition.

<comment><USER22> > _Who gets to decide who lives and who dies?_

Doctors do all the time, they even have their own word for it: triage. When resources are insufficient to cover the needs of everybody, difficult decisions need to be made. Or as the case may be, easy decisions...

<comment><USER4> Is a decission reserved to parents, in this case. Triage is a term that aim to save the maximum number of people in disasters with many victims. Not to decide if somebody dies or lives.

People is classified in colors black, red, etc after its state. If you are in an accident and you cry and shout repeatedly you are classified in a lower priority than the quiet person that do not moves.

<comment><USER22> Between population growth not slowing anywhere near fast enough and rapid environment loss due to climate change, there is a good chance we'll see the mother of all triages. Not something to look forward to.

<comment><USER4> Yup, "lets kill the poor and all our problems will be solved" is a trendy old idea, trendy and deeply wrong also.

<comment><USER22> I thought this discussion was about prioritizing care to children that have a chance at a normal life (e.g. are not _" a blind, deaf and mentally retarded baby with a chronic heart condition"_), not killing the poor. My bad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


S.E.C. Gives Small Investors Access to Equity Crowdfunding - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/business/dealbook/sec-gives-small-investors-access-to-equity-crowdfunding.html <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of this idea. After the Startup podcast did an episode endorsing the idea, I wrote a blog post and circulated drafts to friends, but never got around to finishing it. Instead of doing that now, here's a rough list of arguments, all of them about how tech startup equity will work out poorly for retail investors:

* The core issue: professional startup investors rely on (a) relatively large portfolios where (b) _the winners succeed so outlandishly that they pay for the losers_. Savvy investors --- most investors aren't savvy --- intuitively understand (a), but not (b), and you have to fully grok both concepts to make money from startup equity, because it's an equity class that is almost by definition way more risky than normal stock.

In particular: the math on "value investing" probably just doesn't work with startups.

* We have a distorted view of the win/loss ratio of startups, both because so many exits are in fact not net-positive for investors, and because so many startups fail without actually telling anyone (the lights are on, but nobody's home).

* There's probably a market-for-lemons effect bound to apply to equity-crowdfunded startups. Professional investors compete for dealflow. The whole system is designed to route the most lucrative prospects to the pros. There's no countervailing force that routes good deals to mom-and-pop investors who can't offer anything other than incredibly complicated cap tables to startup operators.

* A negotiated event that strikes 25% off the value of a publicly traded company's stock is a major news story (and a likely class action suit). But an event that dilutes startup common stock holders down to 50%, 25%, or 10% of their original valuation? Or that wipes it out entirely? In startup parlance, that's called Tuesday.

* Startups aren't like Kickstarter projects. Crucially: people put money into _projects_ on Kickstarter, not _teams_. Professional startup investors do mostly the opposite. A project page on Kickstarter is a good prospective for a Kickstarter project, but it's not even close to a prospectus for a company.

Retail investors should get exposure to startups through carefully managed funds that own lots of different startups, not by trying to pick individual winners themselves.

<comment><USER3> Assume everything you said is true verbatim. None of it is a good reason to exclude retail investors simply because you don't think people are good at assessing risk correctly. There are a lot of bad investing ideas - hell, ideas of all sorts - that aren't banned/excluded.

<comment><USER4> People are terrible at assessing risk, especially when it's not their day job. Even when it is their job, assessing risk in an adversarial environment is an extremely difficult thing.

Your dad (not really your dad, but for sake of example) is a retail investor. He has no idea what he's doing, but he heard "through the grapevine" that he should invest in this one particular startup. He sends them his IRA balance.

A year later the startup exits, but he hasn't been paying attention and turns out he's been diluted to 10% of what he thought he had. Now he has nothing.

<comment><USER3> ...okay? That is different how than the craps tables in Vegas, state lottery commission, or... picking regular stocks?

<comment><USER5> The craps table is marketed as a gambling game and has a published payout figure. Startups crowdfunding for equity usually have a slick pitch video about how this excellent opportunity to tap into a £1bn market is a great investment. An opportunity which for a retail investor with adverse selection problems and no influence over company decisions is likely a vastly _worse_ "investment" compared with a game of craps (the expected return on craps is probably less negative and the probability of at least breaking even is _certainly_ higher at the craps table)

And people comparing crowdfunding with "regular stocks" \- even on here where it's well known most startups fail - are prime example of which the public in general doesn't know enough about investment to consider it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think there is an important aspect of this that is being overlooked in this discussion. Every seems to assume that it will always be a single investor investing in a single company. What I think will quickly evolve is syndicates of small investors that pool their money and their intelligence, and will invest in multiple companies. Basically they will do what wealthy investors do to manage their risk. We in the tech industry who also have an interest in finance and investing will play a constructive role by sharing our insights about the viability of these companies. The control of information is going to change dramatically - and for the better I hope.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am happy they are doing this, I am disappointed they placed such a low cap on what you can invest.

I would love to hear more reasons for the investment cap other than protecting investors from themselves. It seems like such a low cap that you can invest in maybe one startup.

I would also love to hear why protecting investors from themselves is a good thing. It's an honest question: what is the merit of putting a cap on what you can invest based on your income? Shouldn't that cap be a personal choice?

<comment><USER8> I agree with your reasoning totally. We don't put a cap on how much you can spend in the lottery. Why should we have a cap on something with better odds?

<comment><USER9> Well, really, that is just an argument to put a limit on lottery purchases [which we should].

<comment><USER8> That really depends on your perspective. I personally think that using wealth as a proxy for... well, really for anything other than wealth, but in this context risk assessment capability and fiscal planning ability, is terrible public policy. If you're concerned with people making poor financial decisions, then you should focus on providing better financial education, instead of restricting the fiscal agency of everyone else in the same income bracket. But that's another discussion entirely.

What I am definitely arguing here and now is that there is an inherent hypocrisy in the way we legally treat lotteries and the way we treat investment. Both are seen by their "players" as vehicles for potential financial windfall, and the riskier and less responsible of the two is wholly unregulated and even state-encouraged, while the other is tightly controlled and very difficult to get involved in.

<comment><USER9> > What I am definitely arguing here and now is that there is an inherent > hypocrisy in the way we legally treat lotteries ...

Yes, and I just said we should regulate lotteries tightly and limit how much people can gamble on them. That removes that hypocrisy.

> That really depends on your perspective. I personally think that using > wealth as a proxy for... well, really for anything other than wealth, ...

If you read my other comment, it has more to do with the risk of them surviving [financially] poor decision making.

Someone who makes $100k and puts $10k into risky bets is more likely to survive than someone who makes $30k and does the same thing. Its a question of scale.

> then you should focus on providing better financial education, instead of > restricting the fiscal agency of everyone else in the same income bracket.

Education requires the student to be motivated to learn. There are plenty of resources to learn about financial decisions and community colleges teach relatively cheap personal finance classes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "I think it's going to really make a difference for businesses that are not > especially fashionable for professional investors," said James Dowd, the > chief executive of North Capital Private Securities, a broker-dealer that > focuses on private fund-raising. "They want to invest in companies that have > the potential to be disruptive to an entire industry. You don't see a lot of > capital flow into ordinary consumer and retail businesses."

The statement about professional investors "want[ing] to invest in companies that have the potential to be disruptive to an entire industry" is really not accurate. The vast majority of dollars raised through Regulation D offerings go to financial issuers (investment funds), not "disruptive" startups. Reg D is also commonly used to raise capital for real estate ventures and funds.

Although they certainly don't constitute the majority of Regulation D offerings, "ordinary consumer and retail businesses" _do_ use private placements to raise capital, but the real reason it's more challenging for these businesses to raise capital is not that all professional investors are looking for hundred-baggers. It's that they know there's a strong likelihood they'll never see their capital again at all.

This said, I don't have a real problem with Title III. The SEC can't protect investors from themselves, as evidenced by the fact that investors are still defrauded to the tune of more than a billion dollars a year by penny stock schemes. But it's worth observing that the biggest proponents of equity crowdfunding are usually those who stand to profit from facilitating the sale of securities to investors. You'll notice that very few of them ever talk realistically about how those investors are going to get their capital back.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a really exciting development, and one that is quite overdue!

</comment><comment><USER6> Just reading this about new book by Akerlof and Shiller

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/29/t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/29/this- kardashian-headline-shows-why-two-nobel-winners-say-the-economy-is-broken)

"Their latest book, Phishing for Phools, takes the idea further. Not only are people vulnerable to making mistakes with their money, they argue, but the market is exceedingly good at exploiting them."

"The economic system is filled with trickery, and everyone needs to know that," they write in the book's opening pages.

</comment><comment><USER12> How about a rule... no pitch videos. Text only.

</comment><comment><USER13> If only we'd had this last summer, we could have all participated in that hot Theranos equity round!

<comment><USER10> No, with equity crowdfunding, muppets get the down rounds, not the up rounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is just a distraction.

Our unfortunate reality is that of a socialization of investment; something discussed from Marx to Keynes.

In the next decades, the idea of investing become blur and centralized.

[https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/references/conten...](https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/references/content- management-api/#/reference/locales)</comment>


LaidOffWithMe: The Day The Axe Fell At BuyWithMe - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/28/laidoffwithme-buywithme/ <comment><USER2> I've been in a similar situation during the dot com of the early 2000's. Many people where let go and the company was put on "skeleton staff". Of those who where part of the skeleton staff, although feeling sad, felt somehow special that we where chosen to keep our jobs. We thought we where awesome and therefore chosen to stay.

Those who where let go got a salary package of two or three months, however, after continuing for a few months the company was unable to survive and the rest of the employees where fired. This time however, there was no salary package left to hand out since the business was completely broke.

The lesson I learned from this; The moment large amounts of people are being let go, get the hell out of there while you're still being payed a salary.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Layoffs would be necessary, so the wave of hiring that had brought in new personnel only weeks before was reversed."

I hope after this that nobody was seriously considering continuing with the company. It's this kind of gross stupidity that is fatal.

Sure, some people might keep their job while they look for another, but anyone that didn't start looking immediately was crazy.</comment>


Websites about trending startups - <AUTHOR> Where can I find a website about Start Up's divided by topic?<p>I need to find Start Up's who are using AI or something like this to give new methods about customer satisfaction (e.g., there is a start up called Worthix that elaborates a 8 question survey to measure NPS and each question is updated using AI), I have no idea where can I find companies like Worthix, tried google already but it was in vain. <comment><USER2> You might be lucky searching for 'ai landscape'

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ai+startup+landscape&t=ffab&iar=im...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ai+startup+landscape&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images)

<comment><AUTHOR> tks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> [https://betalist.com/markets](https://betalist.com/markets) has categories (markets) but you'll find many are placeholder pages and some no longer exist. A website can be tagged to be in multiple markets.

<comment><AUTHOR> tks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: 25% Russian, is Kazakhstan next - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Kazakhstan

<comment><USER2> Kazakhstan is pure ally that has no intention of breaking away from the russian sphere of influence.

It is simple history - Russia has always been interested in one thing - territorial control. Direct ownership was optional. That has been since probably 1700s.

</comment><comment><USER3> 25% < 50%</comment>


TCP Over IP Anycast – Pipe Dream or Reality? - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.linkedin.com/network-performance/tcp-over-ip-anycast-pipe-dream-or-reality <comment><USER2> We had the same experience at Quantcast. Better results with anycast within continents, and DNS to distribute a per-continent anycast addresses.

Some know-it-all busybodies like to proclaim that anycast can't work for TCP because the route can change during the session, but the reality is that:

\- route changes are infrequent

\- individual sessions are typically much shorter than route change intervals

\- we never experienced proposed problems with sustained route flapping

\- route changes are readily detected and handled as (rare) dead connections. The nicest bit is that transferred live connections can get rejected and closed immediately by the new server allowing for rapid recovery (unlike DNS changes which leaves things hanging for a long time).

We had extremely fast datacenter failover using anycast (100% of traffic moved as soon as 5 seconds). Contrasted to the minutes-to-hours nightmare delays that characterize DNS failover. (The DNS time-to-live is an advisory at best, and outright ignored by many clients)

It's too bad more hosting providers don't allow route announcements.

<comment><USER3> I can fully agree with your experience using DNS failover vs anycast failover. Made a video of how I implemented anycast [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsXpQHi7Udo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsXpQHi7Udo)

<comment><USER4> Interesting video, thanks for sharing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is LinkedIn sending that generates so much traffic that they need this? They're not Netflix.

(Never mind, I just looked at LinkedIn, which I don't use much. With their new layout, I had to scroll through three screens of ads to get to anything that affected me.)

<comment><USER6> This is to improve latency, not throughput.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having done TCP Anycast for more than 8 years in production now, with extensive testing, and third-party monitoring, there has never been an issue with it.

When a route flap happens that causes an AS path selection change, the user almost universally routes back to the exact same node they would have routed to prior to the flap.

The theoretical "IT person in texas doing per packet load balancing on a Sprint T1 to Atlanta and an ATT T1 to Denver" doesn't actually exist.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes you don't have as much control over a client (many non-HTTP TCP applications). A middle ground is to use anycast for authoritative DNS and return a set of records for unicast IPs local to that POP. You get the benefits of anycast and the stickiness of unicast. It's a short jump to overriding decisions to correct certain clients, or to shed traffic from servers or POPs.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't this leave you with the problem mentioned in the article where some users have DNS hosts rather far away from themselves?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would be interested to read how CloudFlare solve flapping problem with their Anycast network: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-brief-anycast- primer/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-brief-anycast-primer/)

<comment><USER11> I may be wrong but the impression I get is that CloudFlare have many many more POP much closer to the visitor, quite often in the major consumer ISPs own data centres. This should reduce the probability of what LinkedIn saw happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most important - how much has this work improved linkedin's site performance? 30%? 40%? 50%?

<comment><USER13> And perhaps they should also compare that improvement with the improvement garnered by turning off javascript on LinkedIn (assuming it even works).

<comment><USER4> And all so that you can read about people talking about themselves and how amazing they think they are. Oh, what game changers the linkedin users are..

<comment><USER14> It's just another echo chamber. Don't hate the players, hate the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We are working on this as well at [http://datapath.io](http://datapath.io). You can use multiple iaas providers using global elastic IP addresses that you can announce from multiple locations at the same time. If you want to participate in our beta please write to email@example.com

Best, Sebastian

</comment><comment><USER15> " _Anycast has historically not proven to be useful for stateful protocols in the internet because of the inherent instability of the internet._ "

Inherent instability meaning packet-switched networking, a.k.a. the most basic mechanism of how the internet works.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is exactly how EdgeCast CDN (now Verizon) has worked for many years, down to the ip per region approach. So this is known for a long time to be a good way to do global content delivery.

I'm curious why linkedin didn't just use a commercially available CDN service for this? Could save them a lot of time and maintenance, while probably getting a better result because CDNs have this down to the details.

</comment><comment><USER17> it has been a reality for many folks for years. real-world anycast can be tricky, but it is certainly deployable and usable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Plan9 can turn any protocol into TCP via 9p.

Connect to a remote plan9 machine by whatever means using 9p, import /net from the remote machine into your local namespace, et viola you now have all the network connections of that remote machine available, including the tcp stack.

<comment><USER19> What does this have to do with the article?

<comment><USER18> Any protocol over any protocol. Never a pipe dream.

<comment><USER19> Anycast is not a specific protocol, but about how (normally IP-)packets are routed. Transporting protocols in other protocols has nothing to do with it and doesn't help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Twitter rant is a smoke-and-mirrors tactic hides truth about Tesla - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-uses-twitter-to-distract-teslas-growing-problems-2018-5 <comment><AUTHOR> Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been on an extended Twitter rant against critics of the company.

His most recent target is the media, which he says has lost the public's trust and should be tracked for truthfulness.

Musk is doing all this to distract from the alarming reality of Tesla's struggling business.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm living in a liberal media echo chamber, but his rants appear to have the opposite effect; the backlash is drawing more attention to Tesla's problems.

<comment><USER3> Probably Streisand effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really surprised and saddened by these tweets of Musk's. He's a quantitatively-minded and trained person, and lowering the bar to Trumpish trolling reduces his credibility. I've posted nonsense I regret to social media, so perhaps this is just a sign of the tremendous pressure he's under. Hope he doesn't crack and that SpaceX doesn't go down.</comment>


I make mobile application , Am really a Programmer - <AUTHOR>

this is so confusing , that i do make applications but i feel i cant code applications, I just copy and paste codes from sample and make applications.
i just know what to copy and where to paste .
is there any way to improve this <comment><USER2> Rather than just copy/paste, study the code and try to understand how the author is doing what he's doing. I study other people's code all the time in order to learn new concepts. Then, you can use what you learned and expand on it in the future. I would also try to apply the concepts you learned from the samples and rewrite the code yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> coding is a very small part of programming. your next level is to plan before you code. have a blue print of what you are going to do, put it down on paper. learn UML and create your diagrams. this forces you to think through what you are trying to do. then it's just a matter of translating what you're thinking into code. you'll find yourself creating code.

</comment><comment><USER4> All coding is essentially copying and pasting (whether literally or figuratively from memory).</comment>


MongooseIM 2.0.1 more stability for app developers - <AUTHOR> http://www2.erlang-solutions.com/l/23452/2017-02-23/4h91nq <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

MongooseIM, the massively scalable XMPP/Jabber server, written in Erlang, under GPLv2, is available in version 2.0.1.

What's new?

=> For DevOps/SysAdmins

Cassandra DB support for MAM (XEP-0313: Message Archive Management)

Simplified MAM configuration

ODBC/RDBMS backend for MUC light

MUC hibernation, for memory saving

=> For client developers

SSE (Server-Sent Events), as an addition to our client-side REST API, for server to client real-time push

XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload

Improvements to XEP-0016: Privacy Lists and XEP-0191: Blocking Command

=> Raw versions of the changelog

[https://github.com/esl/MongooseIM/releases/tag/2.0.1](https://github.com/esl/MongooseIM/releases/tag/2.0.1)

=> What's coming next?

Mangosta Android and Mangosta iOS: opensource mobile clients, with focus on social microblogging and group chats (just a humble techno demo, only available as source code, no intention to go on AppStore/PlayStore)

An opensource push notification server written in Elixir

An opensource ICE/STUN/TURN server written in Elixir

=> Links

[https://github.com/esl/MongooseIM/](https://github.com/esl/MongooseIM/)

[https://twitter.com/MongooseIM/](https://twitter.com/MongooseIM/)

The documentation: [https://mongooseim.readthedocs.io/](https://mongooseim.readthedocs.io/)

Any comment?

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice :)</comment>


Evans, et al. v. Linden Research, Inc., et al. - <AUTHOR> http://www.secondlifesettlement.com/hc/en-us

<comment><USER2> Really? Settlement for virtual goods? So everybody, take special care that people don't use your website to bid on imaginary goods you control, else you can't take it down without compensating them.</comment>


A London Subway Experiment: Please Don't Walk Up the Escalator - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/world/europe/a-london-subway-experiment-please-dont-walk-up-the-escalator.html <comment><USER2> I commute to this station every day, at rush hour. There is an 'avatar' (a projection of a person) repeatedly asking people to stand on both sides. Recently she has started becoming more sarcastic, I think they are A/B testing her instructions as there are quite often people counting at the top of the flight.

It is very, very difficult standing on the left, it goes against every fibre of my being to do so, but I've managed it at least once now.

<comment><USER3> It's easier to stand on the left if there's someone in front of you blocking your path.

In other words I will will stand on the left if there is other people there too. I will walk up the left until I'm blocked though.

(Usually, to tell the truth I am travelling in non peak times with a wheely bag so have to stand anyhow)

<comment><USER4> Same here. I'll walk on the left whenever I can. And I'll stand on the left whenever I need to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As the article points out, letting people walk up should probably be faster. What causes the block is people misbehaving. Blocking the left line because they want to go on the right line. Stopping for directions at the end of the escalator. Blocking the left line with bags or packages. But the solution should be better education, not slowing everyone down.

It's like letting people out of a car before getting in. In most tube stations, londoners are very courteous and the process is very fluid, even at peak hour. In touristic hot spots in the summer, you pretty much always have a crowd pushing in like a scared cattle. Some poster to remind passengers how things work in the UK would probably do the trick.

<comment><USER6> This has been discussed here before: standing people pack tighter than walking people, therefore all standing ends up with more throughput, at the expense of lower individual latency (for the would-be walkers).

But you only need that optimization when escalators are at full utilization. In many cities, escalator discipline is low enough that the walk/stand lane pattern deteriorates when the escalator approaches maximum capacity. The minority who don't get it and rudely block the walkers accidentally apply the throughput optimization. London seems to lack a reliable distribution of rude blockers who would accidentally optimize for throughput when necessary, so they need to search for an explicit solution.

<comment><USER7> > standing people pack tighter than walking people, therefore all standing > ends up with more throughput, at the expense of lower individual latency > (for the would-be walkers)

If the would-be walkers derive much greater than average utility from a quick journey, isn't it likely that the all-standing regimen achieves higher average throughput at the expense of lower average utility?

<comment><USER6> When there are enough passengers to saturate full all-standing throughout, reducing throughput to allow individual latency improvement will soon cause waiting times before the bottleneck. Once a sufficiently long queue has formed, newly arriving walkers will not have a quicker total journey than they would have had under throughput optimization with shorter (or no) queues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really feel like more effort should be put into tube automation. In Singapore, all the lines are automated. Each platform has those safety double- elevator type doors the trains line up with (The Jubilee line is automated in London and has this same setup at most platforms).

This allows Singapore to run a lot more trains. I don't think I ever waited for more than five minutes. Automation is possible in London. The DLR and Jubilee lines are automated. There's push back from unions; jobs lost and such -- but overall a fully automated tube system would reduce congestion by quite a bit simply due to increasing the volume and frequency in trains safely.

<comment><USER9> There are two problems with this.

(1) Unions. (The tube driver's union is able to stop London and they are not afraid to do so.)

(2) It's not actually very easy to do for several of London's tube stations. Several of the tube stations have curved platforms making it rather harder to install the safety double elevator doors.

<comment><USER10> (1) Blame union for every next suicide.

(2) Skip automation on these stations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Switzerland they were and are trying hard to educate people:

[http://www.tageswoche.ch/images/cache/3264x2448/fit/images%7...](http://www.tageswoche.ch/images/cache/3264x2448/fit/images%7Ccms- image-000334098.jpg)

[http://files.newsnetz.ch/story/1/7/5/17591954/35/topelement....](http://files.newsnetz.ch/story/1/7/5/17591954/35/topelement.jpg)

[http://www.dicconbewes.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/10/img_05...](http://www.dicconbewes.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/10/img_0527.jpg)

[http://www.dicconbewes.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/10/Links-...](http://www.dicconbewes.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/10/Links-gehen-rechts-stehen-1024x729.jpg)

Officially, the results were mixed. It often happens that someone is just unaware of the situation and blocks the whole escalator. But personally I think that it works really well, moreso during rush hour. I only have a couple of minutes to switch trains and always ask people in a friendly manner to let me pass and they always respond well. I think it's good to raise awareness.

</comment><comment><USER12> >Walking anywhere in London or navigating the subway during rush hour means having to make a mad, dodging, aggressive dance against an oncoming tide of people, many of whom seem oblivious to Britain's long tradition of walking on the left.

I feel obliged to point out that this 'long tradition' only exists on escalators in the London Underground. Anywhere else in the country (or London for that matter) we walk on whichever side we feel like.

<comment><USER13> It took a while for me to figure this out, but there's actually an unmentioned rule in the US that you walk to the right when you're passing people, at least when it's congested enough that you have to choose. I see a lot of people from overseas struggling with this where I work, at least early on.

<comment><USER14> Isn't that just a parallel of driving rules?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I was responding to the "we walk on whichever side we feel like" part, which is not the case in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Extensive discussion of this question from around 5 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10916704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10916704)

</comment><comment><USER16> At least part of the problem with Holborn is the station's horrific design. Each platform has only one entrance, and if you want to change from the Central to the Picadilly line (which many do) you have to walk directly through a flow of people who queuing for the escalator to exit the station.

This is compounded by the high number of tourists using the station (usually on their way to Covent Garden, or doing the aforementioned change.) For such an important station in London's infrastructure, the actual station design is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER17> You know, I've lived in London all my life and I've never encountered this "London Subway".

<comment><USER18> You occasionally see signs around for them (though not so much in town, more often a little further out); where the path takes pedestrians under the road ;-)

<comment><USER17> Interesting though, because it subtly demonstrates that some NYP sub-ed is strongly convinced of the provincial nature of New Yorkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if it would make more sense to tell people "please consider walking up the left side of the escalator instead of standing". It would probably improve congestion, but even if it didn't, people might get a little bit more exercise out of their commute.

<comment><USER19> That is the normal recommendation on the London Underground and that is what they are specifically not doing in this case as an experiment.

[http://citytransport.info/Digi/P1240646a.jpg](http://citytransport.info/Digi/P1240646a.jpg)

<comment><USER13> No, that means "if you choose to walk, walk on the left". I mean "Walk, and do it on the left."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another idea to reduce congestion even further: "Please ALL walk up the escalator."

<comment><USER17> No. The point of this experiment is to show that this would make things worse. Much worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe I'm just hypersensitive to this right now, but I really didn't get the point of the Brussels snipe in the last paragraph. Can't we just enjoy exercises in optimising escalator throughput without mentioning Brexit?

<comment><USER21> And more on topic: I would be interested to see how this system, and the normal system, compares to somewhere like covent garden which only has lifts and gets seriously backed up. So much so that the official recommendations are to avoid the station at peak times and walk from other nearby stations. They'll have to do something about this at some point but there's no easy fix here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe someone could explain why it is necessary to reach the top of an escalator before everyone else. Is your work so crucial that 5 seconds is going to make so much difference or is it that you just don't like standing still?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, actually sometimes I'm in a hurry. Sometimes I'm trying to make it to a plane or get to a meeting that starts at a particular time, and making it to one train versus the next one fifteen minutes later can make or break an opportunity. Does that make sense?

<comment><USER22> Yes, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra They do that in Moscow as long as I remember.

During rush hours, it's "please take both sides of an escalator", during calmer hours, it's "please stand to the right, walk to the left".

Mostly works.</comment>


CrateBox – A State Management Library for No Particular UI - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/cratebox <comment><AUTHOR> Announcing #cratebox

A State Management Library for no particular UI

⬩ Typed Models ⬩ Intuitive API ⬩ Time Traveling ⬩ Subscriptions

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/cratebox](https://www.npmjs.com/package/cratebox) … [https://github.com/alexvcasillas/cratebox](https://github.com/alexvcasillas/cratebox) …

Huge thanks to @mweststrate for being such a great inspiration!

#javascript #newinjs #js</comment>


Office 365 pauses email sync to force users to use Outlook - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1107915637077139456 <comment><AUTHOR> I gotta say this is pretty outrageous. Its one thing for free accounts (which is still not okay). But the email also mentions "work account". That is absolutely unacceptable.

I think I've run into this one as well: [https://twitter.com/robchandhok/status/1108011333029490688](https://twitter.com/robchandhok/status/1108011333029490688)</comment>


iPhone 7 Plus Depth Effect Is Legit - <AUTHOR> http://prolost.com/blog/deptheffect <comment><USER2> There are already enough people saying how good phone cameras are getting. They're right. Software tricks like this help overcome _some_ of the physical hard-limitations.

But let's not be too silly. They still don't hold a candle to high-end DLSRs. Not really.

What this really drives home for me is how lazy Nikon and Canon really are in their markets. There's almost no innovation and when there is —assuming we can really call adding wifi connectivity is innovative— it's awfully executed. It's easier to take the SD card out of my camera and stick it in an adaptor in my phone than it is to turn on the wifi, connect via my phone (which disconnects it from its wifi) and then slowly copy files out. The idea that you might want to take a photo and use it immediately is completely foreign to them.

One day somebody's going to notice this, make a pro-lens-compatible system with modern interfaces and connectivity and completely displace Nikon and Canon from their own pro-sumer market.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a feeling that this is going to lead to a reduction of the use of shallow DoF effects in the long term. Shallow DoF is for sure sometimes creatively appropriate, but a big part of its popularity is that it's an effect that you can only get with relatively expensive camera systems. There is a natural tendency amongst photographers to overestimate the creative benefits of effects that can only be achieved with expensive equipment.

In large format photography, a $150 Crown Graphic can give you extremely shallow DoF, whereas it takes a camera with tilt and shift and a wide coverage lens to get an image that's sharp throughout the frame. Inevitably, large format photography forums are full of people obsessing about what expensive equipment they need to achieve deep focus.</comment>


Show HN: Set up a Linux Kernel hacking env quickly - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kerneltlv/kernel-hacking <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

We've created a VM-based environment that you can use to test out your kernel hacking ideas quickly (and without risking your real machine, of course) by using a tool that automates a lot of the setup and development work.

It also serves as a good (but not perfect, yet) entry point for newbies because unlike a written tutorial, it runs commands while explaining them so you can see that it actually works. In the future we hope to have a more comprehensive tutorial for newbies.

Check it out!</comment>


US considers cabin laptop ban on flights from UK airports - k-mcgrady https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/us-considers-banning-laptops-on-flights-from-uk-airports <comment><AUTHOR> Was already posted earlier: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192644)

</comment><comment><USER2> My chief concern with this situation is that when these rules are applied you're essentially moving li-ion batteries into the hold of the aircraft. Laptops that are accidentally left on could overheat in suitcases, tablets could get impact damage during turbulence etc. Surely this is a huge fire risk?

I recently flew and was asked if I had spare batteries or e-cig devices in the bags I wanted to check in since they aren't allowed in checked luggage - presumably for this reason. In fact, I just did some searching and found this article: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-07/laptop- ba...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-07/laptop-ban-spurred- by-terror-concern-raises-warning-of-fire-risk)

Are there fire suppression systems in modern airliners? Would they be able to stop a laptop battery that's combusting?

<comment><USER3> My girlfriend just went through an airline training course and, yes, they can stop electrical fires, like batteries, on-board. On a surprising note, they might be even able to handle bombs if these are detected before an explosion. They have procedures for most dangerous stuff, had no idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So where could one carry a laptop, and have it covered in case of loss? Not in checked baggage:

British Airways conditions of carriage:

8f) Fragile or perishable items must not be packed in baggage checked into the hold

You must not include in your checked baggage fragile or perishable items or items of special value such as:

      money
      jewellery
      precious metals
      computers
      personal electronic devices
      share certificates, bonds and other valuable documents
      business documents or
      passports and other identification documents.

15e7) We are not liable in any way whatever for damage to or loss of items which you include in your checked baggage although you are forbidden from including them under clauses 8c, 8d or 8f, or in the case of permitted firearms you have not complied with the conditions for including them under clause 8d, except as provided for by the Convention. These items include fragile or perishable items, items with a special value, such as money, jewellery, precious metals, computers, personal electronic devices, share certificates, bonds and other valuable documents, business documents, or passports and other identification documents. In the event of any claim for damage, delay or loss, we may avail ourself of all defences of contributory negligence specified in the Convention.

[https://www.britishairways.com/en- us/information/legal/briti...](https://www.britishairways.com/en- us/information/legal/british-airways/general-conditions-of-carriage)

<comment><USER5> > _So where could one carry a laptop, and have it covered in case of loss?_

In a box, to your local Fedex office.

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Is this ban just typical security theater? Surely a device which does have explosives in it is going to be problematic in the hold too. Why not fix the actual problem and upgrade the protocol for checking devices when going through security. They already go through the X-ray machine and are often dusted for chemicals. Is anybody really comfortable putting a $1k laptop in a hold bag which far too often gets lost/stolen/broken? Also seems like a very easy way to have lots of people's data get stolen (most people aren't encrypting their devices).

<comment><USER6> Who the hell puts explosives in electronics? Even more so, who puts explosives in electronics that will have no other option if laptops are forbidden?!

<comment><USER7> I always wondered: what is the point of taking laptops out of your bag and putting them in a _separate tray_?

<comment><USER8> It's so the scanner operators can tell there's nothing hidden underneath your laptop. I'm not sure whether the laptop case (or just the battery?) can actually block the scanners, or it just makes the output image harder to interpret. Either way, I guess they want to be sure...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And so we go down the slippery slope. Next it'll be worldwide.

And what happens to your laptop in your checked baggage? Why essentially security will have console access... some might even forget to shut off instead of sleep their device.

The whole notion that laptops are safer in the hold as opposed to the cabin is backwards.

<comment><USER10> The cabin is has more sensitive cargo than the hold. Whereas an explosion or explosive deflageration in the hold is contained in engineered luggage bins, buffered with clothing padding, and placed in a random location, in the passenger cabin it could be placed at a specific point. Also, the environmental system pumps to the hold sections can be turned off to cut fresh air to any fire.

Comparatively, the notion that some passengers will act meaningfully to put out a fire in the cabin is laughable, it would be a mass panic and everybody and dying.

However, with 200g of high explosive, and an aluminium laptop to form an explosively formed penetrator, there is going to be a big hole in the plane no matter where it goes off. Compared to the stuff being used against coalition forces in Iraq a few years ago, no particular technical challenge. So quite worrying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meanwhile, whatever companies provides in-flight movie rentals are dancing a happy little jig.

<comment> k-mcgrady Isn't this always free to the passenger? I've never had to rent a movie on a flight that has an entertainment system.

<comment><USER11> Depends on the airline and on the flight. This past weekend I took a United flight where DirecTV was available, but you had to pay for it past the first few minutes. Really pissed me off too, since it was a night flight and nobody paid for it but all eleventy-hundred seatback screens stayed illuminated the whole time showing ads.

I've seen other flights with pay-per-view systems for on-demand movies and TV shows. Good airlines make them available for free, but not all airlines are good.

As to the grandparent comment's point, smartphones are still allowed, so I imagine people will watch their movies on that. It's not the best experience, but still better than those craptastic seatback screens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What happens when I arrive and my MacBook is gone?

<comment><USER13> You have to buy a new Macbook and if you don't have your own insurance, you'll be paying for it out of your own pocket.

Here's United's liability clause, showing that their liability is around $500 if they lose your entire 50 lb bag, but if you lose just a laptop, good luck proving that they are liable... and if you do, maybe they'll give you $18 for your 3 lb laptop:

 _For international travel to which the Warsaw Convention applies (including domestic portions of international travel), United 's liability is limited to approximately $9.07 USD/CAD per pound up to $640.00 USD/CAD per bag for checked baggage and $400.00 USD/CAD per customer for unchecked baggage._

[https://www.united.com/web/en- US/content/travel/baggage/liab...](https://www.united.com/web/en- US/content/travel/baggage/liability.aspx)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Shipr is a REST API and AngularJS client for deploying git repos - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/remind101/shipr

<comment><AUTHOR> If you like building stuff like this, we're hiring at Remind101 [https://www.remind101.com/careers](https://www.remind101.com/careers)</comment>


North Korea is sitting on a stockpile of minerals worth trillions - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.in/North-Korea-is-sitting-on-a-stockpile-of-minerals-worth-trillions/articleshow/59374565.cms <comment><USER2> Just like Afghanistans, and like the Afghans, the norks have run the numbers and decided that it'll be worth more if they just sit on it.</comment>


Entrepreneurship Advice from Marc Hedlund, CEO of Wesabe - <AUTHOR> http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/08/10/entrepreneurship-advice-from-marc-hedlund-ceo-of-wesabe/

<comment><USER2> "Don't get hung up over the idea... The only thing that really matters about The Idea is how you (and your partners) feel about it. If you can't stop thinking about it for weeks on end, get up out of bed to write down brainstorms about it, and don't get tired of working on it, that's the right idea. If you have to convince yourself to keep going on The Idea, that's the wrong one."

In other words, "the idea doesn't matter... but the idea matters".

<comment><USER3> > _"If you have to convince yourself to keep going on The Idea, that's the > wrong one."_

That's the part that really spooks me. A lot of the things I've done that I'm most proud of are things that at various times I had to convince myself to work on.

I like what Steve Jobs said: _'...I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.'_

<comment><USER4> I find that very odd. If today were the last day of my life i wouldn't spend it working on anything no matter what it is.

Would rather spend it with family and friends. The answer would be the same no matter what day it is.

<comment><USER5> Maybe that quote is just a window into Steve Jobs's psyche - inferring his business legacy is more important to him than all else.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ex-CIA officer arrested for allegedly selling secrets to China - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/17/ex-cia-officer-arrested-selling-secrets-china <comment><USER2> > According to court documents, the co-conspirator is suffering from a severe > cognitive disease so the FBI was not seeking an arrest warrant "at this > time".

So they're saying an 85 year senile old man committed international espionage. Press F to doubt.</comment>


The Quadshot: combining a quadcopter and a plane in one - <AUTHOR> http://thequadshot.com/

<comment><USER2> If you were confused by the logo's use of a coffee cop in the initial 'Q', that's a reference to espresso (each individual espresso is called "a shot"). A drink with four espressos would be considered very strong indeed, and probably make you go fast.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you very much for featuring a link to our website here. Calculating the time of the post you probably missed the newest video of a prototype gimbal mount for the Quadshot. You can see it here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1js8WIL7E> So Quadshot is not only a mix of a quadrocopter and a plane but also an aerobatic aircraft that can be stable enough to shoot areal footage.</comment>


Are programmers likely to be musicians? - <AUTHOR> http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/1570/4

<comment><USER2> Related: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2389752></comment>


Project Lamdu: A Live Programming Environment and Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.lamdu.org/ <comment><USER2> I think this project is great, but I tend to agree with others - it's going to be somewhat doomed by second-system effects and the fact that coding is a social art form. You have to get other developers to buy in to what you're doing to be successful.

So what I wonder is this: is there a migration path instead? If the goal is to ultimately work on ASTs instead of treating software as a giant string, is there a way we can make incremental transformations to languages to move in that direction.

So far what I've considered is this:

1 - Automated formatting such as gofmt which eliminates any decisions around whitespace to culture people towards treating code as data rather than prose

2 - Language-aware editors that constrain user input to valid states based on 1

3 - Plugins for version control systems to optionally do diffs on ASTs rather than plain files

4 - Compilers that can operate on ASTs instead of strings

5 - Checking in ASTs rather than strings based on 3 and 4

6 - Updating editors 2 to operate on ASTs since 5 makes it reasonable to always work on ASTs rather than text

7 - Creating new styles of code editors that visualize and manipulate ASTs in ways that are independent of their text representations

There's probably steps I'm missing. I'm only just getting in to this space so I'm ignorant of most research that has been done in this area.

<comment><USER3> I think the closest thing to a migration path is the Racket programming language.

When you get right down to it, "working on ASTs" basically means working in lisp. The idea is you have a canonical, external format for the AST; it might as well be s-expressions. The trouble is that lisp culture is highly resistant to any other syntax than raw s-expressions. They say things like "making alternate syntaxes is a rite of passage, but everyone gets used to the parentheses in the end."[1]

Racket alone _encourages_ the creation of alternate syntaxes, and provides the tools to make it easy. You can have any syntax you want, and yet never be hamstrung by syntax decisions because you can always make a new version of your #lang, and it'll all be nicely compatible because it gets turned into s-expressions anyway. This isn't just theoretical - you can for example already write Python in Racket [2], except with full access to all of Racket's libraries as well as Python's. This turns the social aspect to its advantage. Imagine if Python had been written in Racket to begin with - the 2->3 nightmare would have been a non-issue.

I hope that eventually, all languages will have swappable syntaxes with a canonical s-expression form, and be distinguished purely by their fundamentally incompatible semantics. We may find we need far fewer incompatible silos that way.

Incidentally, and I don't think it's a coincidence, Racket's IDE is the furthest along the non-textual route of any "real" language I've seen. It's very next-gen - you can paste an image file directly into source code, for instance (try it, (define my-image <pasted image>) actually works!).

[1] I view all "rites of passage" with suspicion. Like the "rite of passage" of wielding 'rm' incautiously, they usually indicate a human factors failure.

[2] [https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR](https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR)

<comment><USER4> Lisp has various parser for language implementations. There is even a relatively complete Python implementation in Lisp.

Having Python syntax doesn't give you access to all the Python libs. Lot's of things need the Python runtime and also its support for non-Python extensions.

Literally hundreds of languages had been implemented on top of Lisp over the years. My Symbolics Lisp Machine had already in the 80s full C, ISO Pascal, Fortran, Ada and Prolog implementations written in Lisp. I was running on my Lisp Machine the original X11 server written in C and TeX written in Pascal...

Python is also not an alternative syntax on top of Racket or Lisp ... it's a different language.

<comment><USER5> Python On Racket: [https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR](https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lambdu, Unison, etc. are all great in principle but share the same fatal flaw: no layering.

It's just one monolithic component trying to take on type systems, effect systems, syntax, version control, compiling, editing, distributed execution, etc.

All of these problems taken decades just to get to the shitty everything-is- text/worse-is-better state we're in now. I'm skeptical that any single team can solve them all at once, even with the most radical vision and competence.

<comment><USER7> Part of the reason we're in the shitty everything-is-text/worse-is-better state we're in now is because we haven't invested a lot of effort in the top- down design of systems that work really well.

This is in contrast to the current state of development, which was driven by Moore's law and the rapid improvement of single-core processors to consist mostly of imperative programming. As soon as we started hitting a wall in single-threaded CPU improvements and moving to multi-thread and multi-cores, the imperative programming model began to rapidly show its limitations. After all, Von Neumann meant for his architecture to be a prototype, and we went ahead and built an entire industry on top of it.

Leaving everything in the development ecosystem up to market forces has left us in a state that is entirely too complex. There is far too much accidental complexity in developing even the simplest applications today.

If we purposefully design smarter systems, maybe we can cut out layers out of the stack entirely, so worrying about things like distributed execution is a thing of the past for 99% of programmers.

<comment><USER6> > we purposefully design smarter systems, maybe we can cut out layers out of > the stack entirely, so worrying about things like distributed execution is a > thing of the past for 99% of programmers.

Actually I disagree. If your layers represent conceptual abstractions, and not arbitrary divisions of your code stack leaking details from below, then _more_ layers is actually a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It all sounds nice, especially considering that the expansion of the code- literate demographic should eventually necessitate more intuitive tools than the languages & environments we use today, but it also seems intimidatingly different and severely under-supported. Overall, I feel like I can confidently ignore this project because it appears doomed to fail and/or ahead of its time.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this live somewhere?</comment>


3 Years of Kubernetes in Production–Here's What We Learned - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-programming/3-years-of-kubernetes-in-production-heres-what-we-learned-44e77e1749c8 <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the bypass link if you aren't a Medium subscriber. [https://medium.com/better-programming/3-years-of- kubernetes-...](https://medium.com/better-programming/3-years-of-kubernetes- in-production-heres-what-we- learned-44e77e1749c8?source=friends_link&sk=3badef1b06bb1e53a9e044c938d37f44)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Excited to read</comment></comment>


Sublets Just Got Easier - <AUTHOR> http://blog.airbnb.com/sublets-just-got-easier

<comment><USER2> Wow, is anyone else shocked by the prices? A couch for $900 a month? A one bedroom rental (in Sunnyvale that would normally go for $600 to $800 a month on CL) for $1200 and up?

<comment><USER3> That does seem expensive. I guess you'd have to rationalize it by the shorter commitment (no lease). It is probably priced to offset the risk incurred by the Subletor and AirBnB.

<comment><USER4> I think these prices should be compared to what are known (in the UK) as "short lets" -- fully furnished flats let out for 1-6 months.

In the UK these are usually let to business people, the flats are much smarter than long lets, and the prices are 2-4x higher (and I assume the occupancy rates are correspondingly lower).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is another area they should take from craigslist. I have tried many times to sublet my place and its a frustrating experience. Normally it turns into a facebook message/event and I just reach out to friends and hope they pass the word. Navigating through craigslist is frustrating and its hard to sift through all the noise. I think it would be really smart for them to get college campuses on board.

<comment><USER6> It will be interesting to see if this effort is successful or not. I have always considered subletting to be a buyers market, which is probably why you had trouble subletting your place. I know a few people who were easily able to get sublets at below market rates on craigslist, which means airbnb's craigslist premium might not be worth much.

Although the recent dramatic increases in rent prices might put some pressure on sublet demand (at least in the bay area).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been a longtime fan and customer of Airbnb. I'm very excited about the subletting feature.

Although the prices are high right now, I'm sure they will come down as the market balances out.

I'll probably book a room for a month and report back with my experiences.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a fantastic idea to leverage Airbnb's market penetration further. I know a lot of people that could use this.

However, the prices are obviously too high. It might have been a good idea to launch this as a pilot (maybe this is the pilot?) for specific sellers and make sure their monthly rents are somewhere in the market range. It will probably stabilize, but right now it's a turn-off to see a shared rooms going for what should be private studio pricing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Getting an exception error

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't really like the dog video where the guy says "all those birds to chase... oh nothing." Yeah it's playful, but after the issue with the apartment in SF that was ransacked, it's just distasteful.</comment>


Peeple the 'Yelp for people' app - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/1/9431055/peeple-yelp-for-people-app <comment><USER2> lawyers will force this to be opt-in.</comment>


F#: Lists - The Basics - <AUTHOR> http://diditwith.net/CategoryView,category,F%23.aspx

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, lists only exist in the pure F# model (ocaml-compat). They don't implement ICollection, and this is required to use lists in most conceivable .net libraries. To get a list that implements ICollection, you need to use sequences.

Sequences are more of a pain, because type inference is a lot more restrictive on them, and they really don't play nicely with polymorphism. You can convert lists to sequences, and vice-versa, but this gets annoying after a while.

In short, F# lists are cool, but you hardly ever use them in real code.</comment>


Jim Henson's "Paperwork Explosion" (1967) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IZw2CoYztk <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if this is off-topic for HN. I thought more people here would be interested in looking back at this advertisement from 1967 for IBM. Not just for the vision of the automated future it promotes, but also because of the presentation style, and a bit because Jim Henson of _Muppets_ fame made it.

I cannot say for sure if it is my modern interpretation of an old video, but my take is that Henson inserted a lot of ominous undertones that were subtly subversive the "official" stance of the advertisement. Certainly would fit his character. Henson also made a video with similar themes for AT&T in 1963, with an automated robot[0].

In retrospect we can see that instead of freeing us up, automation merely lead to _more_ paperwork - an example of Jevons Paradox in action[1]. To me it's a reminder that with many problems we try to improve things by doing it the same way but more efficiently. Sometimes that is appropriate, but sometimes that will not be enough, or even make things worse without also applying first- principle changes that address the root cause of the problem.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJNNwTGDcw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJNNwTGDcw)

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

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the Jevons Paradox mention, as that was going to be my comment.

If you want to reduce paperwork (or nearly any other activity or consumption), you need to _increase_ its costs (or decrease its benefits), not _reduce_ them through efficiency improvements. Preferably on the party imposing it.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of a discussion I had with a younger sibling (10+ years) about high school homework.

I was shocked to hear from him and our parents how much homework he was assigned compared to myself at his age, and I couldn't help but wonder whether the ease with which this homework was assigned played a role.

In 'my day' homework involved handing in paperwork, which the teacher took home to grade over the weekend, along with that of 30+ fellow students.

In 'his day' homework involved filling in a web form within some shitty e-learning environment, or at worst uploading a document somewhere, which the teacher could either grade automatically in the former cases, or skim through on their laptop in the latter case.

Discussions surrounding this increase in homework often center around higher- level sociological/psychological factors, but I wonder how much of a role _ease_ played in all this: if you can grade 30+ tests with a click of a button, perhaps it leads to more testing?

<comment><USER2> Damned good point there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The explosion reminds me of his hilarious and surprisingly violent ads for Wilkins Coffee. They have precursors of Kermit the Frog and other muppets from as early as the 1950s.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmhIizQQol0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmhIizQQol0)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxLyuw5bdyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxLyuw5bdyk)

[http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jim_hensons_violent_wilki...](http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jim_hensons_violent_wilkins_coffee_commercials_1957-1961.html)

Seems like Wilkins Coffee is remembered mostly for those commercials: [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22wilkins+coffee%22&oq=%22w...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22wilkins+coffee%22&oq=%22wilkins+coffee%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.4839j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

... though they were able to land a PR piece into the Washington Post in 1989: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/02/22/coffee- orkeeping-things-perking-at-wilkins- coffee/9b5b3213-e1f8-47dd-85a1-6d10ae7c154c/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I first heard this 20 or so years ago when a compliation of works by Raymond Scott came out. The music featured in this advertisment is by Ramond Scott a composer and pioneer of the synthesiser for musical purposes.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of this other short done by Jim Henson for IBM I think [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IgF6_jVaj8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IgF6_jVaj8)

</comment><comment><USER7> About half way through I accepted the likelihood that there would be no muppets. Then I was surprised that this was an ad, and not an art film about Orwellian offices.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you listen closely you can hear Frank Oz say a few lines though

</comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 The last shot is a killer— "I don't do much work anymore—I'm too busy thinking."

<comment><USER8> This machine reduces the head count of the typing pool. They're all busy looking for a new job.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Yep— that's that old "two sides to every coin" part. GP made a much better point of that—I just was mentioning one line that struck me. People still are shooting for that end, but not preparing for the fallout so well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it meant for the elderly man to look like Statler? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statler_and_Waldorf.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statler_and_Waldorf.jpg)

<comment><USER10> I think it's the other way around, given the age of the ad. The old man looks like he was the inspiration for that character.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, the style immediately made me think of Organism (1975) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS5X2zpCFzk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS5X2zpCFzk)

I can't seem to find any relation between the two, but the videos seem eerily similar to me.

</comment><comment><USER12> I know this from audio samples used in the Music for Programming podcast. I always want to find out where various bits of dialogue in the podcast come from, but they're generally really hard to Google. It made me laugh to see that this one looks exactly the way I imagined.

</comment><comment><USER13> And now that paperwork is no longer paper, we can do even _more_ paperwork. _Thanks_ , IBM!

(After I just got off the phone to make an appointment with my doctor, not a new doctor, and it took 15 minutes to "freshen up" the paperwork.)

</comment><comment><USER14> I really like 60's documentary styles.</comment>


Ask HN: Alternatives for high end network monitoring - <AUTHOR>

Looking for an alternative to things like Landscape, NewRelic - ideally something self-hosted, free, pretty. Something more user-friendly, less intimidating than Nagios.<p>Ideally, but not necessarily, multi platform client support. <comment><USER2> NetXMS (www.netxms.org) may or may not fit your needs but is an open-source gem that deserves more attention

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks excellent. Definitely worth some more investigation, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Try Zabbix

[http://www.zabbix.com/true_open_source.php](http://www.zabbix.com/true_open_source.php)</comment>


I host ~25 low traffic websites & have some questions about moving to AWS - <AUTHOR>

I've been using shared hosting, dedicated servers & dedicated virtual servers with pretty straight forward pricing for years now, but after just hating the service, UI & reliability most of the services i've come across (godaddy, 1&1, network solutions, dreamhost, etc) and then recently running into an issue with MediaTemple not allowing adult sites (i host 2 adult sites)... AWS seems to be my final frontier of hosting.
So, since I want to put all my sites on 1 server (they're mostly side projects & a few clients sites) to make my life easier... What does HN suggest when using AWS?
~20 of the sites average 10-50 hits a day
~5 of the sites  average 100-300 hits a day
About once a month, when mentioned by a blog or new marketing comes out, 2 or 3 of the sites will hit 1000 hits a day for a day or two and then go back down to their regular traffic sizes.
~5 are Magento stores
~15 are WordPress sites
~5 are static html sites with just a few pages
All but 1 of the Magento stores are actually just Magento sites being worked on, and wont live on the server for more than few months time. However there will always be at least this many on the box as i work on more stores.
My questions:
1. What service is right for me? EC2?
2. Is AWS just total overkill?
3. If AWS is a good idea, what size instance/server/service should i use?
4. What kind of prices am I looking at?
I would love to pay no more than 100/month if at all possible, but obviously if I need to I'm open to paying more. I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for. If better hosting costs more, than so be it. <comment><USER2> Hosting web sites on AWS requires EC2, which is basically a VPS. EC2 is probably one of the worst available options if you are looking for UI and reliability. The lack of reliability is a feature of EC2 as your instances can just disappear with no warning. I don't know what your requirements are for UI, but EC2 started out as a command line only interface and it's not much better today. EC2 now has a console that you can use to start and stop services, but there is nothing to help you create a working hosting environment.Creating a robust environment for your needs is likely more trouble than it's worth with EC2.

Look into similar services such as Rackspace cloud servers which has similar offerings in a more traditional package. Rackspace also offers managed VPS packages. For your purposes you probably won't need anything more than 512MB or 1GB of RAM.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Gexla, since making this post... I've discovered a lot of what you've mentioned here. AWS is definitely overkill for what I'm looking for. The UI is not friendly, the purpose behind it are not even what I'm looking for. I didnt realize AWS was delivering such a raw platform, meaning... 'we provide a machine, you do the rest'. That is not what i am looking for by any means. I will check out rackspace & I am looking into other managed server hosting providers as well. I really appreciate your input and thank you so much for the reply =)</comment></comment>


The Theranos Scandal: What Happens When You Misunderstand Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereklidow/2018/06/18/the-theranos-scandal-what-happens-when-you-misunderstand-steve-jobs/#2094e2df7b42 <comment><USER2> Misunderstanding Steve Jobs seems like the least of their problems.</comment>