Ampyx Power: Wind energy systems using tethered wings above 200 meters - <AUTHOR> https://www.ampyxpower.com/ <comment><USER2> Every couple of years someone will jump out of nowhere and claim the wind energy sector has it all wrong, the list is very long. Windtree, Makani and many many others that replace simple and sturdy as well as well understood mechanisms with highly variable and fragile ones, usually without having studied the corpses of those that came before and died on the hill of unnecessary complexity. The closest that ever came to realization was the Darrieus rotor project in Canada, that consumed a ton of resources and resulted in the Aeolian (Eole?), a huge (100m, I've seen it up close before they tore it down, most impressive) VAT that ended up running for a couple of hours before its lower main bearing gave up the ghost under the vibrations.

[http://www.wind- works.org/cms/typo3temp/pics/EoleCapChat045x...](http://www.wind- works.org/cms/typo3temp/pics/EoleCapChat045x7_02_6bf4ee5a45.jpg)

Wind turbines are hard, and the standard shape that we've settled on was not due to a lack of creative ideas but simply because it is by far the simplest and most robust shape that gets the job done.

Any company pitching some complex alternative should at a minimum mention in their deck the degree to which they have researched the failures in the field of predecessors and what will set them apart.

</comment><comment><USER3> I briefly worked for a competitor of Ampyx.

I love the idea, but given that it took decades to scale traditional wind turbines which are much simpler by design to powers in the range of MW, I can't see this happening.

These systems are insanely complex, you need tethers, winches, a drone that flies 24/7 and can safely and autonomously start and land in many weather conditions. It also looks like google gave up on Makani, which had airborne generators.

<comment><USER4> True, it needs some infrastructure.

But on the other hand, this may be similarly complex/expensive as installing and maintaining a wind turbine on a tower that's 100m high is. These things tend to be pretty complicated and expensive as well. It's all about operational cost vs revenue in the end (and comparing that to other solutions). IMHO wind and solar are still making great leaps currently in cost effectiveness and efficiency. So you'd have to compete with/undercut that. Which is of course a challenge for just about any other form of energy generation currently (particularly anything nuclear of fossil fuel based).

The added advantage of this setup would be that you can land the things during a storm or for maintenance which potentially simplifies e.g. in the field repairs. Also, if they can be small enough that they can be mounted on a truck, deployment might be quicker or you might be able to re-deploy them to other areas. Currently building a new wind mill park is a large investment. Mass production of these things might enable more rapid roll out. So there are some upsides theoretically.

Safety might be a bigger issue. The cables would be a risk for planes and what happens if the cable snaps? Autonomous drones would be able to handle the latter probably (by crashing/landing in some safe spot). Also, lots of moving parts means those parts need more frequent maintenance/replacement. I imagine the stresses on the cable and mounts would be substantial (and proportional to the amount of power generated).

<comment><USER2> It is of an entirely different level of complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cleantechnica had a writer who spent some time taking a closer look at the claims made by companies in this space, a couple of links:

[https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/21/rip-google-makani- perha...](https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/21/rip-google-makani-perhaps-the- entire-airborne-wind-energy-space-will-finally-disappear/)

[https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/19/googles-makani- regulato...](https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/19/googles-makani-regulatory- technical-wildlife-challenges/)

<comment><USER6> > The only press they ever received was from credulous buzztech sites that > just wanted something flashy to grab eyeballs, so they weren't used to > anyone actually being engaged enough intellectually to point out the lack of > clothes that they were wearing. I love the way this is written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have you seen these guys (makani)?

Kiting in an figure-8 with turbines instead of propellers (actually used as propellers for liftoff).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NW0QeKLZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NW0QeKLZA)

That thing is also huuuge: [https://makanipower.com/makani/images/pages/technology/cta.j...](https://makanipower.com/makani/images/pages/technology/cta.jpg)

longer vid with sound: [https://youtu.be/hYxeni2vVOs?t=60](https://youtu.be/hYxeni2vVOs?t=60)

<comment><USER8> There are quite a few companies working on this: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-beginners- gui...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-beginners-guide-to-the- airborne-wind-turbine-market)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think I am missing something here, because I don't quite get how the wind does continual work on the device to generate power. I mean, at the start the device goes downwind unreeling a tether, so it is pulling on the tether and doing work, so far so good. Then it reaches the maximum extent and... starts more or less staying where it is, staying aloft? Okay. But it's not systematically moving, so no longer doing work. What am I missing?

<comment><USER10> I couldn't find a good explanation either, but my guess was different from some others I've seen here:

I think it doesn't generate continuously. I think the plane spends some energy to get up into the fast-moving air, while the tether pays out some of its length easily to let it climb. I think it only does this "once", or as infrequently as possible.

Once the plane is in the fast-moving air, the generators kick up their field current to extract energy from the tether being unreeled further, as the plane turns broadside to the wind to haul the tether out despite this drag. It's generating power as the tether pays out.

Then the tether runs out.

So the plane dives/glides back towards the base, while the generators run in reverse, reeling the slack back in. But it doesn't return so far as to get out of the good wind. So as soon as most of the tether is reeled back in, the plane turns to haul on it, the generators go back to generating, lather, rinse, repeat.

I think it only lands when the wind dies, or if it gets too strong to remain safely in the air.

<comment><USER11> This is one scheme that runs the generator on the ground. Makani and Ampyx both run generators in the air and transmit power down to the ground on the tether.

Here's an (unkind) summary where the players are: [https://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/03/airborne-wind-energy- pl...](https://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/03/airborne-wind-energy-platypuses- instead-cheetahs/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also in the same game, Kite: [http://www.kitenergy.net/](http://www.kitenergy.net/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how closely these can be deployed? Safe operation might require large distances between base stations. If they can't beat conventional wind mills in power per area, that may be a deal breaker in many scenarios.

<comment><USER7> You can put them in the water with just an anchored buoy.

<comment><USER13> Then you have to connect them all with sea cables, those add up if you need another km for every base you install.

<comment><USER7> Yes, preferably not too deep water. Still better than trying to keep a windmill-like turbine upright (those exist, but look complicated [https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/st...](https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/styles/general_full_column/public/uploads- wysiwig/2017-1-OffshoreWind-ph3-WB.jpg?itok=RVnBUJSH) ).

edit: oh you mean for the electricity, yes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I there a good argument it's not profitable, but this should be seen like going to the moon.

I personally don't can about 'alternative' energy, but a lot of people do, and getting tech that permanently runs hundreds of meters of even kilometres in the atmosphere will open up a lot of possibilities.

We need to stop thinking of the Earth in 2D and these projects help.

For once lets use the fact people want to invest in 'alternative' energy on something exciting.

There is are so many theoretical things you can do with platforms kilometres in the air.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why do these companies seem to fixate on fixed wing aircraft? Why not use a big parachute style kite similar to what paragliders use? You could send control signals to collapse the wing when the end of the spool is reached, making it eay to reel in and/or direct it upward out of the powerband. Then let it expand back to full size to repeat. The cost, weight, and complexity would seemingly be much lower. I would argue the surface area of a parachute can be scaled up more easily than the wing area of a plane.

<comment><USER16> Less to go wrong -- foil kites can become tangled in their bridle lines due to fluctuating wind which lead to a stall. Tangled lines can prevent the safety release mechanism from depowering the kite: [https://youtu.be/pU0mEWKf- _Q?t=15](https://youtu.be/pU0mEWKf-_Q?t=15)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> See also Magenn (I believe they're defunct now.) [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=magenn](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=magenn)

Their idea was to use inflatable Magnus effect generators to provide lift as well as power.

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

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a goofy idea: kite power to replace portable solar panels and generators rather than for the grid. Something small scale you can take in your car (backpack would be even cooler) to get a few watts to charge your phone. Would this ever work to, say, to the extent of having better power to weight than solar?

</comment><comment><USER19> It looks like a lot of the cost and complexity is to allow takeoff and landing. Is anyone working on a system where the flying part never lands? You presumably have to supply some energy to keep it aloft on windless days, but that might be cheaper than landing gear.

<comment><USER20> It would need maintenance eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It must be hard to get an MVP. It's been 10 years and they only have renderings?

<comment><USER2> You don't need an MVP to raise money. This is a polite way of saying that most of these are bordeline scams, they could work in theory and if the people behind them have done their homework they know full well they will never see them in large scale deployment but it is a nice way to get a bunch of cash to play around with and tinker. See also: flying cars, especially Moller.</comment></comment>


Unable to email anyone from my primary domain; thanks Google Mail and G Suite - <AUTHOR> https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2019-October/103817.html <comment><USER2> Is there a chance that someone on the same outgoing network as you is spamming heavily and you get also blamed because of it?

I don't doubt Google's classification is buggy but there might be ways to route around these bugs.

It's super annoying that these systems are so inscrutable.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Is there a chance that someone on the same outgoing network as you is > spamming heavily and you get also blamed because of it?

No. If you read beyond the title, you'll notice an interesting point that IP address itself is not actually blacklisted, it's the domain name that's blacklisted, and the likely cause is sending certain nightly log summaries to one's own Gmail address.

> I don't doubt Google's classification is buggy but there might be ways to > route around these bugs.

So far, because it's the domain name that's acquired "the low reputation", the workaround is to use a secondary domain name, from the very same IP address, no less.

> It's super annoying that these systems are so inscrutable.

Exactly. Apparently, they've introduced Google Postmaster Tools, but in order to get any sort of a useful information out of it, you're required to be sending an order of hundreds of emails daily. Who does that from their own personal domain name? (And into Gmail and G Suite, no less.)</comment></comment>


1.1 MW Triga Mark II Pulsing Research Reactor - <AUTHOR> https://ne.oregonstate.edu/11-mw-triga-mark-ii-pulsing-research-reactor <comment><AUTHOR> See also:

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

[https://ansn.iaea.org/Common/documents/Training/TRIGA%20Reac...](https://ansn.iaea.org/Common/documents/Training/TRIGA%20Reactors%20\(Safety%20and%20Technology\)/pdf/chapter1.pdf)

They go prompt critical during the pulse, amazing.</comment>


Tell your customers whats new with your service automatically - <AUTHOR> http://whatsnew.io

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty, but I won't log in with Twitter yet, and I'd like to know what your price is.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback aaronbrethorst. We just rolled out the public beta - <https://twitter.com/prateekdayal/status/338902263802236928> and a friend enthusiastically posted this to HN. We are still working on the pricing but there will be a free tier.

We would love for you to try it out (we ask for read permission from Twitter). If you signup and send me an email saying you signed up from HN, I will put you on a free three month account. Thanks

<comment><USER2> What I mean is that I think you're going to see a significant drop-off in signups by having the Twitter button there in lieu of a standard email/password form. I'd recommend having users link their Twitter account later on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you could go a step further with your analytics, since you are finding blog posts, and those blog posts may be deep linking to particular pages where feature are, or additional documentation. You could tie together feature releases (by blog post title) with user activity on those deeplinked pages.</comment>


Relativistic statistical arbitrage [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexwg.org/publications/PhysRevE_82-056104.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Submitted because I saw that Microsoft was looking at submersible data centers. While they claim the usecase is energy savings, this paper shows that High Frequency Traders might have an interesting application for the technology.</comment>


After Facebook's IPO flub, value of tech startups falls back to earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/19/3096611/facebook-ipo-startups-valuations-bubble-acquisitions-pop

<comment><USER2> There is a big shift underfoot, as people take a hard look at how unsupported the valuations were on SecondMarket and SharePost.

But the bigger picture is simply part of the cycle. Everything built up to the FB IPO, now startups will move into a new mode, until another game changing company emerges to lead the next cycle.</comment>


AWS faces Elasticsearch lawsuit for trademark infringement - <AUTHOR> https://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/252471650/AWS-faces-Elasticsearch-lawsuit-for-trademark-infringement <comment><USER2> Can anyone with legal experience comment on the strength of Elastic's case?</comment>


Were we contacted by aliens - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zqdbgk7

<comment><USER2> So when do we start building the giant gyroscope to send Jody Foster through some wormholes? :) Joking aside, this is the first that I have read about any signals being unidentified in origin and not having an explaination other than ET's. Why isn't this bigger news here in the USA? I am hesitant to trust this information due to their own use of language like, "perhaps the WOW! signal." Is the bbc turning into the UK'S version of our "History" channel?

<comment><USER3> The Wow! signal is pretty well known, and is called that because the astronomer who saw it wrote "Wow!" on the printout.

It's not quite as unexplained as the BBC article suggests, but none of the possible explanations are completely verified.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Speculation_on_the_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal#Speculation_on_the_signal.27s_origin)

<comment><USER2> I remembered hearing of the signal but thought it still had other plausible explainations. You are right the article does make it seem like everything but ET's is off the board, or atleat thats how I read it. Thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No. If it were aliens trying to contact us (well, probably not specifically us...it would be much more likely they'd not have a specific target) there would be more than just one signal.

Note that this doesn't mean that it wasn't from aliens--just that it probably wasn't a contact attempt. It could be something aliens generated for some other purpose, or by accident, and we just happened to be looking at the right time to notice it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Old news. I find it interesting that we think aliens might use a naturally occurring phenomenon to contact us. It seems like they would use something that couldn't possibly be anything natural, so as to draw attention. To that end, it probably wouldn't be a smart thing to draw attention to yourself.

I'm still pissed that I wasn't consulted about putting a map to Earth on the damned Voyager.

Maybe I saw Independence Day too many times.</comment>


Kids build their own world of car routes in Fiete cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekswithjuniors.com/blog/2017/3/27/kids-build-their-own-world-of-cars-in-fiete-cars <comment><AUTHOR> I felt the need to share this app with the HN community because it's a really awesome game for kids (and adults too!). I love the fact that parent/kids can build routes to keep it interesting and fresh which is really necessary when you have a little one who gets bored of games after a couple of days. Its just a pity that user-built routes can't be shared with others.</comment>


Jack Dorsey's move to Africa raises questions for investors - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/02/jack-dorseys-move-to-africa-raises-questions-for-investors.html <comment><USER2> Jack Dorsey is looking years ahead into the future. He wants to bring a better remote work ethos into Twitter and reduce the reliance on a San Francisco- based workforce. He wants to explore emerging opportunities around the globe, specifically in Africa.

Meanwhile, Wall Street bozos and rich Trump-supporting goons want to oust him. I'm seeing all kind of comments on Twitter from white bros mocking Dorsey for wanting to move to Africa.

Frankly, this smacks of racism to me. How dare the CEO of THE TOP TWO "real- time news & discussion" and "democratic payments" tech companies in the world spend time in Africa instead of the USA. The real question people should be asking is, why the hell WOULDN'T he?</comment>


Ask HN: BOA is offering me a Merchant Account, are these good terms? - <AUTHOR>

The rates per transaction will be:  1.99% + .27 (qualified) & 3.45% + .32 (non qualified). No Application Fee No Statement Fee No Monthly Minimum Next business day funding if you have your Small business banking relationship with us No Contract No Early Termination fee<p>They charge $25/month for using a different Payment Gateway, plus $9.95 monthly PCI Compliance fee. <comment><USER2> Not too bad. I'm paying 1.90 for all transactions (qualified and non). $14.95/mo for a statement fee.</comment>


Can Computer Programs Be Racist and Sexist? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/03/15/470422089/can-computer-programs-be-racist-and-sexist <comment><USER2> A computer program can not 'be' anything. It may produce discriminatory output, but a computer program lacks belief in the traditional sense.

Imagine a klansman who writes "Hello World" with racist propaganda instead of the traditional message. The program itself is not racist or sexist, it's basically a math formulae. The klansman himself is racist.

In the case of the misclassification it could be a that a programmer held a belief in the superiority of a race, or it could just be an error that outputs similar to human racism.</comment>


First Privately Developed Liquid Fuel Rocket to Launch Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=46 Web cast here http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php <comment><USER2> Sounds fun, some cool facts here: <http://www.spacex.com/falcon1.php>

It makes me wonder how you deal with something like this. If something like this happened in Russia (or "somewhere"), and somehow the US didn't know about it, they would have jets up in the air and the whole country put on red alert as soon as they find out about a rocket being launched, I expect. Does SpaceX have to send letters out to the major nations of the world, or something? Or have I got all this out of movies and there's no real way to track recently launched missiles?

<comment><USER3> There are definitely ways to track recently launched rockets. See here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-Based_Infrared_System>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh dear. "the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened. "

Video here: <http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1299>

</comment><comment><USER4> They aborted the launch. Apparently they are taking a cautious approach to launching rockets, which is good.

<comment><USER5> Look back quickly, as they restarted and have 4 minutes to launch right now. <http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php>

Update: Rocket has launched :)

Update: Report of an anomaly on the vehicle - screen black

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How depressing. I wait all night (UK time till 5am), watch it climb to 50km, and it goes and blacks out!

I hope this turns out okay.

</comment><comment><USER6> I guess the headline's correct. They did 'launch', it just didn't finish doing so!

</comment><comment><USER7> The launch is currently scheduled for 20:00 PDT.

<comment><USER8> The explosion is scheduled for 20:03.

Bets? Any gamblers in the house?

Edit: Ok, let's say T + 3 since they're having trouble getting it up.

<comment><USER9> Voted up for being right. (However sadly.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks. And it _is_ sad. I was pretty much hoping to just be a smartass. I love the new space race, however slow it seems to be playing out. I went to the first SS1 launch. But traditional private rockets have a terrible history. I think Rutan's way is best.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parallel streaming of progressive images - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/parallel-streaming-of-progressive-images/ <comment><USER2> > There are next-generation image formats that support progressive rendering > better than JPEG, and compress better than WebP, but they're not supported > in web browsers yet.

Is this now standard, do they all do it or just some of them?

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, there's no format yet that's both significantly better, and somewhat standard.

There are PIK, FLIF and FUIF, all of which have very nice progressive loading, but they're totally experimental with no plan in sight to get them standardized.

The closest to becoming standard (or de-facto standard) is AVIF, AV1-based HEIF sibling. The compression there is great: half size of WebP, so regardless whether it's progressive or not, it's going to load fast.

In the meantime there's still room to improve rendering of progressive JPEG. The blockiness of early progressive stages is mostly an artifact of implementation in libjpeg. The smoothing could be much better, so it can look more elegant.

<comment><USER4> > _It 's going to load fast_

Minor nitpick: on kinda-average U.S. home internet, with a medium-low power laptop decoding in software, the actual time to load an image could be a wash because of decode time, even with the dramatically-improved software AV1 decoders.

<comment><USER3> With newer codecs the CPU becomes a factor indeed. This mostly makes JS/WASM polyfills for these formats unattractive.

However, using native decoders with proper SIMD optimizations shouldn't be too bad. dav1d achieves 100fps in full HD on SSE3 CPUs and A11. Only mass-market Android phones are really worrying, so it may be possible to do content negotiation that is aware of trade-off between the device and network speed.

<comment><USER4> > _dav1d achieves 100fps in full HD on SSE3 CPUs and A11_

That's with multiple threads, the actual frame latency is much worse than 1/100s on a typical SSE3 CPU, if you're just decoding a single frame/image on a single thread. Decoding each image with multiple threads, you'll run into issues with throughput.

That's not to say there aren't times it's worth it, and hardware decoders will start to become a reasonable way to do this (especially on Linux/Chrome OS, where it should now take less time to wire things like this up thanks to v4l2 m2m devices), but regardless there will continue to be a crossover between decode-dominant and network-dominant image loading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's needed to be able to do this with our own nginx servers? The article is somewhat light on how it works on Cloudflare's servers.

<comment><USER6> We have a separate blog on how we did it coming.

<comment><USER7> Cloudflare's blog posts' quality is top notch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The main reason _not_ to use progressive jpegs is that they are much more CPU intensive to render.

Each pixel on the screen will be updated many times during the rendering process.

With bandwidth increasing faster than CPU speeds, their use started declining in the early 2000's, and pretty much no software uses progressive jpegs by default now.

<comment><USER3> Images _don 't have to_ be updated many times if the data arrives fast enough. When re-rendering is throttled, you get progressive rendering only when the network is relatively slow, and don't spend extra CPU time when the data arrives quickly.

Even though progressive is more costly than baseline, they're both relatively cheap. JPEG was designed when CPUs were clocked at 25Mhz.

Progressive JPEGs are significantly smaller (thanks to having a Huffman table per scan), and they're the default in all image optimization tools and services (MozJPEG, ImageOptim, Cloudflare's Polish, etc.).

For a long time progressive JPEGs had a slow path in libjpeg-turbo, but this has been improved recently, and there's still room for more optimization. For example, a DC-only preview could be decoded and rendered very cheaply (approx 1/64th cost in CPU and memory).

We're planning to contribute to libjpeg to make progressive rendering more optimized.

<comment><USER8> > When re-rendering is throttled, you get progressive rendering only when the > network is relatively slow,

I suspect this is the issue... In a modern multi-process browser and OS, it's exceptionally hard to know if it's worth making a low-res render, or if there is more data sitting in kernel/application buffers somewhere which hasn't yet made it to the renderer due to CPU pressure. For example, if you have an event queue for un-gzipping and another for jpeg decompressing, you should never do any jpeg work unless the gzip queue is empty.

Every event queue in the system needs to correctly prioritize every step in the rendering process, otherwise work is wasted rendering a progressive jpeg more times than necessary.

<comment><USER3> Buffering actually works in your favor, because when the client reads the buffered data, it's more likely to get the whole file in one go.

Browsers already have delays and throttling for painting and relayout, because incremental rendering of HTML and DOM updates create lots of similar problems.

I don't know if browsers do it, but moving progressive image decoding to a very-low-priority thread would be an easy solution that solves 99% of the problem (nothing gets blocked, you get as much progressive rendering as you can spare CPU time).

It would be hard to be absolutely optimal about this, but my point is that in practice it's one or two extra renders, not O(n^2) you'd expect from synchronous redecoding on every byte received.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lydia Davis: Recommendations for Good Writing Habits - <AUTHOR> https://lithub.com/lydia-davis-ten-of-my-recommendations-for-good-writing-habits/ <comment><USER2> > 2\. Always work (note, write) from your own interest, never from what you > think you should be noting, or writing. Trust your own interest. I have a > strong interest, at the moment, in Roman building techniques, thus my > notation above, taken down in the Cluny Museum in Paris. My interest may > pass. But for the moment I follow it and enjoy it, not knowing where it will > go.

> Let your interest, and particularly what you want to write about, be tested > by time, not by other people—either real other people or imagined other > people.

> This is why writing workshops can be a little dangerous, it should be said; > even the teachers or leaders of such workshops can be a little dangerous; > this is why most of your learning should be on your own. Other people are > often very sure that their opinions and their judgments are correct.

It's great to see someone who's so often referenced within the institutions of creative writing note their inherent limitations. I think one ought to have healthy skepticism about the proposition that someone can teach you an art form. They can help facilitate your growth, I suppose, but not impart the skill.

<comment><USER3> The writing workshop style is so played out now, I don't know how anybody can stand it.</comment></comment>


5 reasons why focus is the toughest thing to do for any startup - <AUTHOR> http://v3.mingyeow.com/?p=94

<comment><AUTHOR> My own personal experience. ;)</comment>


Using AWS Lambda to call and text you when your servers are down - <AUTHOR> https://thisdata.com/blog/using-aws-lambda-to-call-and-text-you-when-your-servers-are-down/ <comment><USER2> From a engineering point of view this is really cool, but as an ex-sysadmin I feel that I need to reiterate and emphasize something that is alluded to in the second paragraph.

Too many things can go wrong and you are all around better off outsourcing this to something like Pingdom. You don't have sufficient levels of reliability, you aren't dual homed across twilio and another phone system. Maybe the cause of your outage is that AWS is having issues. Now your site and your monitoring is down.

Much better to outsource to people who obsess over doing this right and making sure they are properly redundant.

<comment><USER3> > Now your site and your monitoring is down. Much better to outsource to > people who obsess over doing this right and making sure they are properly > redundant.

You make valid points about redundancy and levels of reliability but keep in mind that even Pingdom can go down: [http://royal.pingdom.com/2016/10/24/ddos- attack-affects-ping...](http://royal.pingdom.com/2016/10/24/ddos-attack- affects-pingdom)

<comment><USER4> Chances are that pingdom won't be down at the same time that your site is down.

Diversify to avoid cascading failures ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And I'm sure Lambda will never go down. Right? Right??

(It has. Completely and silently stopped processing against Kinesis queues for a few hours recently. Guess what AWS Step is built on?)

<comment><USER6> Of course it can go down, and you can have CloudWatch alerts to alert you about that. But so can your Nagios server sending pings go down or the fancy SaaS you signed up for.

<comment> robinson-wall Did you just suggest using a third AWS service to let you know if the second AWS service monitoring your first AWS service goes down?

<comment><USER6> Yes, because they're different services running on different architecture and distributed differently. I challenge you to find one time in the past five years where CloudWatch was down at the same time as other services. Even if you can, I'm sure your custom built Nagios server in your datacenter has gone down as many or more times too.

But my bigger point here is that you're essentially asking "well how do you monitor your monitor?" At which point up the chain do you have enough? Also, I think the original post was simply a demo of what is possible. Yet whenever someone posts something, people go in the comments to belittle it. "Yeah, you built a monitoring solution... Well what happens if _that_ goes down?"

Which is a legitimate question. But obviously if your production service is that critical to your business, you won't be monitoring it with a service that costs $0.0000002 per execution.

<comment><USER5> > they're different services running on different architecture and distributed > differently

I think you underestimate the interdependency of services in AWS. Historically, if there were problems with S3 or EBS in us-east-1, you could expect the entire API to be flaky, and things like autoscaling to fail. These have been better distributed, but failures still cascade.

> I think the original post was simply a demo of what is possible

No, it wasn't a demo, it was an actual production issue. No alarms, no error logs, no way to tell it wasn't working other than someone noticing the queues were getting larger and contacting AWS.

> people go in the comments to belittle it

Only because the original project projects AWS Lambda as "the solution" for such problems, not realizing that it is just as fallible a solution as everything else.

> Well what happens if that goes down?

The solution to this is well known - two monitoring systems in physically separate locations that monitor each other as well as mission critical systems. Nagios, Icinga, and a dozen other well-tested solutions work remarkably well for these roles, yet people keep writing "new" solutions over and over and over.

> But obviously if your production service is that critical to your business, > you won't be monitoring it with [this] service

Then what's it's value, other than as an intellectual exercise?

<comment><USER6> Launch two Lambda functions, heck, 8 Lambda functions, one in each AWS region that supports it. They all monitor one another, plus run your checks. Next, are you going to say all 8 regions will go down at once?

The whole setup will still cost $0/month.

> The solution to this is well known - two monitoring systems in physically > separate locations that monitor each other as well as mission critical > systems. Nagios, Icinga, and a dozen other well-tested solutions work > remarkably well for these roles, yet people keep writing "new" solutions > over and over and over.

Because not everyone needs heavy solutions to do something simple. Side projects, small sites, etc. And some people enjoy implementing old use cases using new technology. When Go was rising in popularity, half the posts on the front page were re-implementing fairly common features in Go.

Even if you're not going to implement this yourself, there can still be some value for other readers.

<comment><USER5> > are you going to say all 8 regions will go down at once

I hope not. But then it's not just Lambda triggered by cloudwatch alarms anymore. You'd probably have to set up something to ensure that Lambda, when called via cloudwatch alarms, is being triggered properly. Useful, but suddenly a lot more complicated.

> The whole setup will still cost $0/month.

Unlikely. A small amount, but certainly not 0. Especially when you start adding Lambda heartbeats.

> And some people enjoy implementing old use cases using new technology.

Which is fine; call it an experiment, call it exploration, I have no problem with that. It's frustrating to see such a stripped down article treating it like it's going to be _the one_ , without reasonable discussions about how it could fail. There are a minimum of three failure points in this system alone, with no discussion on how to compensate for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wrote Apex Ping ([https://apex.sh/ping/](https://apex.sh/ping/)) for those who want more features and/or don't want to waste the time to save a few bucks :D.

<comment><USER8> Apex ping is great, but I'm still waiting for SMS / Twilio integration (hint, hint, nudge nudge) :)

<comment><USER7> :D I wish SMS wasn't so awkward, you're pretty much forced to have a credit system since it's so expensive. I'll probably still do it at some point. Makes it awkward for the customer as well if you have to babysit the credits

<comment><USER8> I suggested it before, but I think you can work around it: Let your customers give you their Twilio API key (with a big disclaimer that any charges by Twilio are not your responsibility...).

<comment><USER7> If I can get costs down elsewhere I'll maybe just do "unlimited" on some of the accounts, where "unlimited" is some large arbitrary number haha.

<comment><USER9> That would be the nicest user experience for your users, but it is a bit risky. You probably have a "reasonable number of notifications per user per month" in mind. As you sign up new users, you will sooner or later get some that will exceed that number by a lot--without a malicious intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote something similar in bash and put it into a docker image: [https://hub.docker.com/r/simplepush/alerta](https://hub.docker.com/r/simplepush/alerta)

Just running this docker image on a server you want to monitor is enough.

Instead of Twilio it uses Simplepush ([https://simplepush.io](https://simplepush.io)).

<comment><USER11> Simplepush looks like a cool service - thanks for the heads up. It seems that it accomplishes the author's main need - that for a constant buzzing which needs to be picked up and dealt with.

EDIT: Just seen that it is Android only! :-/

<comment><USER12> If you need something similar that works on iOS (and Android), take a look at [https://pushover.net/](https://pushover.net/)

I use it for some personal automation scripts that might need to get my attention if something goes wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't the better plan to use Lambda _instead_ of your servers?

</comment><comment><USER14> I use [https://aremysitesup.com/](https://aremysitesup.com/) and I've found it really helpful as it one of the few inexpensive services I've found that will CALL me if things are down. SMS is nice, but I use the do-not-disturb feature on my phone in the evenings, and at least on iOS, the only way to punch through that is with a call from a number on my favorites list. This meets that need very well and I've found the service to be quite spot on alerting me (both when I had one instance of things hitting the fan, but also during scheduled maintenance). I'd highly recommend.

</comment><comment><USER15> The advantage of this type of cloud solution over a one-size-fits-all cloud service like Pingdom (which I use) is flexibility. You can configure cloud agents to perform nearly any task you can envision.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't know if everyone knows this but you can make texts using email.

Most providers have SMTP gateways for SMS services. Verizon runs @vtext.com

<comment><USER17> Just keep in mind that these aren't incredibly reliable across the board. Others have very low or arbitrary autoban or blacklist policies. I eventually caved and paid Twilio to hassle with SMS logistics for me, rather than deal with the weirdness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Note: instead of dynamodb for the lookup mentioned at the bottom, maybe consider [https://aws.amazon.com/athena/](https://aws.amazon.com/athena/) for an s3 query

<comment><USER19> You could literally just store a .CSV file in S3 with a table that has the on- call schedule in it and run SQL queries against Athena that would be cheap... you'd be querying a few KB, but DynamoDB is probably better for this use case, honestly. Athena is great for scanning huge datasets very quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Route53 Health Checks & SNS can send sms message without any Lambda involved.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've used montastic.com for years. 2min setup to fire and forget.</comment>


Solid Concepts 3D prints Metal Handgun - <AUTHOR> http://www.solidconcepts.com/news-releases/worlds-first-3d-printed-metal-gun-manufactured-solid-concepts/

<comment><AUTHOR> Additional blog post with video:

[http://blog.solidconcepts.com/industry-highlights/worlds- fir...](http://blog.solidconcepts.com/industry-highlights/worlds- first-3d-printed-metal-gun/)</comment>


Millennials Face 'Great Depression' in Retirement: Blackstone COO - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/21/retirees-face-great-depression-in-retirement-blackstone-coo.html <comment><USER2> "Young people can't save for their retirement on their own, because they don't have enough money. Let's force them to, then the resources will magically appear."

Looks like a sound plan.</comment>


Review: "Test-Driven Development" by Kent Beck [The creator of JUnit] - <AUTHOR> http://theexceptioncatcher.com/blog/2012/05/review-test-driven-development-by-kent-beck-the-creator-of-junit/#.T73VfNPWfSA.hackernews <comment><USER2> I read a few TDD books before this one but this was the book that really got me to understand the difference between simply test-first and test-driven development. The worked example in the first section of the book really illustrates how to using test-driven to evolve the design of the code that you're writing. Previously I'd approached TDD as figuring out how I want the code to work in my head first and then writing a test that would then let me write that code. Having read this book I now write the tests as a description of how I want the code to behave without first giving consideration to how the implementation will work.

</comment><comment><USER3> _The book is designed for people who are new to unit testing and Test-Driven Development. For anyone in the current software development industry, this is very few people._

Sigh. I only wish this were true :-)

I encounter a lot of people who say that they do TDD, or understand TDD, but they're often doing something _very_ different from what Beck describes. For example the number of folk who treat TDD as a synonym for unit testing is scary.

Far to many folk see the "T" and forget about the "DD".

<comment><USER4> > For example the number of folk who treat TDD as a synonym for unit testing > is scary.

I think the problem is in 2 parts: in TDD term (Test-Driven Design/Development, it's just not that obvious), and in lack of unit-testing at most projects (I see) at all. Was there any statistics on that, by the way?

<comment><USER3> _Was there any statistics on that, by the way?_

Nope. Only my personal experiences of talking to folk and teaching/advocating TDD. I encounter a lot of folk who think just using an xUnit framework == doing TDD. It's depressing.

My experiences may be biased since I'm often brought to help out with folk who are having problems. However Googling for things like "TDD is not about testing" shows lots of people having similar experiences :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> copy of my comment:

I am python developer. I also ask myself these questions, and on current project I use TDD heavily (but still far from 100%). One thing it totally gives me is ability to let other devs in team without need of tons of collaboration to implement some functionality, and then for me being able to refactor it as much as I want, but not being blamed for errors. Since it's their job to put as much tests as would cover all functionality, and it's my job to only write tests for my new code, and fix (or remove) old tests. I think this blame-less in dynamic languages like python is real diamond :)

Also, one question I ask myself is "unit-testing vs type theory". And can unit-testing in dynamic language be an instrument that would make dynamic type-checking to be a good thing even in serious production. It's also a big question, and there's a lot to think on it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Question:

I recently got these two books \- Test Driven: TDD and Acceptance TDD for Java Developers \- Agile Java™: Crafting Code with Test-Driven Development

I'm an experienced programmer but new to Java and TDD. Do I need the book that is reviewed here? I considered it back when I was buying the other two books.

<comment><USER3> I'd definitely consider it. It's by the man who invested the concept of TDD and the xUnit framework after all :-)

My experience is that people tend to split into two camps.

One group prefers Kent's book - which is kind of like the K&R of TDD. It's thin and very to the point, but needs a bit of work from the reader to get the best out of it. The examples are deliberately simple to express the concepts clearly.

The other prefers David Astel 's "Test-driven Development: A Practical Guide". It's a bit more grounded in real world examples, which some folk seem to find an easier way to get a grip on the concepts.

Another thing to bear in mind that they both talk about "old" versions of JUnit - before they rebuilt it based on attributes - so you're probably going to want to look at something that covers the latest JUnit or TestNG or something (I'm not a Java hacker by trade - so can't really comment on what the best testing environment is there these days).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everything you need to know about TDD: [http://ravimohan.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/learning-from- sudoku...](http://ravimohan.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku- solvers.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I loved his TDD series on pragprog.</comment>


The Healthiest Old Person on the Planet Explains How to Stay in Shape - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/charles-eugster-fittest-oap-on-planet <comment><USER2> "I avoid sugar and eat lots of meat, especially fat. I've been on a fat trip lately. Fat! Piles of fat. Yet, I was in a supermarket the other day and was perplexed to find yogurt with zero fat. What on earth is that? The idea of the nutrition pyramid where, at the top, is a little fat and meat, and at the bottom a lot of carbohydrates, is, excuse me, bullshit. Humans are so unbelievably stupid that we have begun to tinker with food. Our theories of nutrition have resulted in a pandemic of obesity. Can you imagine a hunter- gatherer enjoying a low-fat yogurt? Let me tell you this, too: I read a report recently which said that a fatty diet also increases your libido."

<comment><USER3> The idea that fat makes one "fatter" is one of the more embarrassing aspects of modern nutritional science.

I'm actually not even sure nutrition science resembles real science, given the 5 year cycle of sodium be bad or good for you.

<comment><USER4> _given the 5 year cycle of sodium be bad or good for you_

Japanese food can be quite salty, and they top world life expectancy at 84. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I normally dismiss advice from outliers like this, but the message of "Get out and exercize. Eat real food. Never retire." I think cannot be repeated enough.

Though I do suspect he's juicing with something, probably testosterone and or HGH.

<comment><USER6> "Never retire." My in-laws are in their mid-70s, but don't act like it at all. They both work numerous "jobs" (they own a farm and do other volunteer and outreach work, and my father-in-law builds ponds and bridges and whatnot for other local farmers).

My father-in-law did have cancer, but is in remission now, and sped right back up to normal pace.

It's obvious to my wife and me, though, that if he ever "retires" he'll likely go down-hill pretty rapidly. The women in my wife's family all live well into their 90s (her grandmother is currently 101) and there's no doubt part of it is their stubborn inability to slow down.

Never retire. Maybe you can afford at 65 to remove the golden handcuffs and take up a different vocation, but don't ever stop working and learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting he started at 87 and it's more accessible than pharma therapy (which doesn't even exist yet)</comment>


Women in Tech and Empathy Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.laurenbacon.com/women-tech-empathy-work/

<comment><USER2> I work at a small startup of five people and the emotional labor role is taken care of by a man and the pay is lower than that of the developers (three of us). The reason the pay is lower has nothing to do with the fact that he is performing emotional labor and has everything to do with supply/demand and scaling of emotional labor.

The truth is that there are very few emotional labor jobs in tech and programmers try hard to keep it that way because 90% of costs are people- related, and the number of people qualified from emotional labor and interested in those jobs is high. This is the exact opposite of the situation with developer jobs where the demand for talent is sky-high and the supply of truly capable developers is low.

The other problem with emotional labor is that it doesn't scale. An employee only has so much time in a day to handle emotional labor tasks. It can't really be automatized. Once the emotional laborers you have are at the limits of the emotional labor they are doing, you need to add more emotional laborers. This means that the money allocated for emotional labor gets distributed among more and more people until developers figure out how to automate any work of the emotional laborers so headcount doesn't balloon.

</comment><comment><USER3> The issues raised here are perhaps invisible to the average male programmer, but they are important. Scaling a site isn't just about keeping the site up, it's about communicating with users, receiving and processing feedback, and being emotionally aware regarding product and workplace dynamics. Often women tech workers do this work at a vastly less rewarded rate than men working at the same startup.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's amazing how often the default is to push women over into the 'caretaker role' when coing should really always be about solving _human_ problems.

</comment><comment><USER5> >I've written here before about the ongoing puzzle of improving the ratio of women to men in the tech sector.

That's nice, but when are we going to address the real barriers faced by women? Women are vastly outnumbered by men in many sectors, including workplace injuries and fatalities, acute and chronic homelessness, suicides, mental illness including schizophrenia, violent crime victimization, recruitment into gangs and child armies at a young age, legal genital mutilation, false imprisonment, unfair estrangement from children, involuntary celibacy, and a host of other exciting fields. When are we going to stop pussyfooting around and demand a better ratio of women to men in the really important sectors? If we work together, I know we can do it.</comment>


Zana 7 Day Customer Discovery Intensive – Find, retain base and monetize product - <AUTHOR> http://zana.io/engage/customer-intensive/

<comment><AUTHOR> Startup friends,

Zana is offering a free 7-day intensive boot camp to kickstart your startup. It's designed for those who are searching for how to synthesize user feedback into actionable changes for their company, at any stage of the startup journey.

Click the link, snoop around.

It features Silicon Valley experts including Steve Blank, Cindy Alvarez, and Julie Hamwood.

I hope you all find this useful!

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great!</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I obtain location based db for all the schools/univs? - <AUTHOR>

I am developing an app where I need to provide a list of all the schools, universities, and training centers based on location. Are there databases available with such information that I can obtain for free or paid? Any help in general for obtaining such information will be appreciated. <comment><USER2> The TIGER data set may have what you're looking for. It's essentially government data collected during the Census. In it's technical documentation, it has special MTFCC codes for Universities as well as Schools/Academys that you could query on (WHERE MTFCC IN ('K2540', 'K2543')). See section 6-155 here:

[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2010/TGRSHP10AF.pd...](http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2010/TGRSHP10AF.pdf)

Take this with a grain of salt, but I believe you'd want to pull the data out of the following shape files:

ftp://ftp2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2010/POINTLM/

These files are brand spanking new, and in fact not all the data has been added yet (5 states are missing). The entire dataset for 2010 will probably be up by the end of the month.

You can see the layout of the shape file here (see Landmark (Point) Shape File Layout in section 6-104):

[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2010/TGRSHP10AA.pd...](http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2010/TGRSHP10AA.pdf)

For what it's worth, it looks like the TIGER dataset also has school district info, which could allow you to lookup a person's school(s) based on their address (reverse geolocate their address and use the coordinates to query districts where the point exists).

If that doesn't work out (or it's missing some data) you could try looking at these websites:

<http://gos2.geodata.gov/wps/portal/gos>

<http://www.data.gov/catalog/geodata>

<http://nationalatlas.gov/>

<http://simplegeo.com/>

<http://market.weogeo.com/>

<http://data.geocomm.com/>

<http://geocommons.com/></comment>


Twitter Has the Right to Suspend Donald Trump. But It Shouldn't - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/technology/twitter-has-the-right-to-suspend-donald-trump-but-it-shouldnt.html <comment><USER2> > _Twitter to enforce a rule that bans Mr. Trump's tweets but does not also > censor speech generally. Given that we are now entering an era dominated by > right-wing nationalism, these rules could well come to backfire on the > progressives urging Twitter to suspend Mr. Trump._

When was it decided that only political agendas and ideas other than "right- wing nationalism" are allowed?

Democracy is about including all kinds of speech, including "right-wing nationalism" and "left-wing cosmopolitanism" or what have you.

If non-right-wing-nationalists legitimize the banning of right-wing- nationalist speech, then if right wing nationalists come to fashion/power they'd be justified to ban left-wing/progressive speech too.

That's not exactly a democratic path.</comment>


IBM confirms layoffs are happening, but won't provide details - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/22/ibm-confirms-layoffs-are-happening-but-wont-provide-details/ <comment><USER2> From yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23268191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23268191)

Since that thread took for granted that the layoffs were happening, I see no SNI here. [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's unclear to me what IBM is even about these days. Feels like they've led themselves off a cliff.

<comment><USER4> Legacy main frame technology, homie.

Banks, hospitals, aerospace industry, retail operations, states and governments mostly run on IBM main frames.

These entities refuse to upgrade because "it just works". IBM charges an arm and a leg to these companies because they know they can't migrate off.

I happened to come across an invoice from IBM to our company and each server/appliance cost $250K or more. I believe the total cost for the order was a few million dollars. This doesn't even include the support contracts.

<comment><USER5> Actual quote from a major insurance company CIO to me: "We've tried to migrate off the mainframe every few years for two decades. Every attempt has failed."

<comment><USER6> Why has it failed? Because of technology?

Even building your own fault tolerant Linux cloud seems cheaper. Granted, an insurance company does not have the expertise to build massive computer operating systems.

Or because of money, and other vendor lock-in's? Then, with all the proprietary stuff, I can see how a migration can easily fail.

<comment><USER7> It's usually because the software accrues warts, procedures, and special cases that get baked into the company's very core. They're all different and all valuable. Replacing them requires someone who fundamentally understands why it's all screwed up before they can find a workable fix (Chesterton's Fence).

But that's boring, awful work. It takes zillions of meetings trying to pry information out of unwilling participants who just want to do their jobs. And Reports! Acres of impenetrable reports trying to document what you found.

Nah, it's more fun for consultancies to roll in and rewrite everything, and then send every department through crazy change management. Suddenly there's a showstopper that nobody noticed until now, the project is already millions of dollars over budget and years late, so it craters.

A few years later another CIO does it all over again.

<comment><USER6> Good to know. This provides job security for the CIO. If this project is canceled, then just jump ship, join another company, and do the same thing all over again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could the last one out of IBM please hit the lights?

<comment><USER9> They own red hat. They have mainframes.

There will be something left of big blue if those two pillars alone hold the decrepit house up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important to remember that IBM isn't really one entity. They're not just mainframes, or Red Hat, or Watson, or any other one thing. To butcher a TV quote: "IBM is just a convenient name for a group of unrelated corporate interests."

So of course they're doing layoffs: at least SOME of the orgs that operate under the brand name have to be struggling. It gets a lot less impactful when the news just bubbles down to: "someone made a bad bet somewhere."

It was always coming at a company like this. Now is just the time when these things happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> Aren't there supposed to be reporting requirements for mass layoffs?

<comment><USER11> Yes, and they will come out, this sounds more like an inside info leak

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every other month, IBM is laying off a lot of people. Is this still news?

</comment><comment><USER13> Many years ago, I worked at Intel. Layoffs/restructuring/reorging were...common. Often affecting thousands of people. It's brutal.

<comment><USER14> Didn't intel also have a "lay off the bottom 2% yearly" culture? I recall reading about that years back.

<comment><USER13> Without risking some random Intel lawyer reprisal, it was often worse than that. At one point, Intel had the 'ranking and rating' that was once used at Microsoft. I think this is called 'forced ranking' today. My god.

<comment><USER15> At least at Microsoft it was called "stack ranking."

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A family member of mine has to deal with their Phoenix payroll disaster regularly and directly because they work for the government. The rest of Canadians still had to deal with the price tag in terms of noticeably affecting the national debt.

</comment><comment><USER17> Prob more senior engineers again.

<comment><USER18> It's a business decision. With the economy tanking they'll be able to hire better grads and a recent grads than they normally could, work them like dogs for twenty five years and then wait for a convenient recession for a big layoff. This has been going on since the '80's at least. Rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER19> How does that make sense? Can the "grad" do good enough job compared to a senior? I've seen my fair share of "senior" developers, who had insanely high salaries for some strange reason yet their output was mediocre at best. Laying off these people I can understand.

That said, management is notoriously bad at spotting these people. Chances are they lay off the only person who knows how some crucial piece of SW works...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Essentially, you lay off some of the people without the skills you need and who can't be re-educated and you bring in people with certain skill sets".

So what's the criteria for who can't be "re-educated"? Too old?

<comment><USER21> Outsourceable. Anyone can be re-educated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Welcome to on demand remote IT Labor. Pretty much anyone one IT can be replaced with a cheaper offshore resource thanks to the acceleration of remote work.</comment>


Notification of Amazon S3 buckets configured for public access - <AUTHOR> https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=914059 <comment><USER2> That's listen to your users movement!

How many incidents does it took to build ?</comment>


Code of Hammurabi - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi <comment><USER2> So it looks like the difference between punishing bankers and less sophisticated criminals is pretty old:

1) Ex. Law #265: "If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been entrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten times the loss."

2) Ex. Law #22: "If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death."</comment>


Teensy++ $24 AVR board, USB, 63/4/2KiB flash/RAM/EEPROM, 46 I/O, 8 analo., 9 PWM - <AUTHOR> http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/?not_a_duplicate

<comment><USER2> A very nice development. I like the AT90USB162 for its native USB interface (no serial unless you build it). I find this makes the code for host communication cleaner as it dispenses with serial parsing and all the error handling that comes with it. The lack of analog inputs hurts on the '162. Even for nominally digital applications, I find it handy to use the analog inputs for things like instrumenting currents and secondary voltages.

For the folks mystified by Arduino popularity this may be your preferred solution (lower cost, more capability). My personal opinion is that Arduino is not popular because of the hardware or software, but because of the culture. It is deliberately kept accessible to people that don't know fancy words like "data direction register". You can look at the examples, do a little copy and paste, make some breadboard connections and build that special little object that you thought should exist.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely right. The culture of helping out, code sharing and support cottage industries are making the Arduino a winner.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's predecessor, the Teensy, has been discussed before; <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=457740> But this is the Teensy++, despite having the same URL, hence me fudging the lameness filter. You get quite a bit more for a small price increase so it's well worth another look.

</comment><comment><USER4> Got the first one. Really fun to play with. (Using it to build robots that drive around and communicate over an accoustic network)

<comment><USER5> I'd love to hear more about your acoustic networking if you've got time to tell.

<comment><USER4> Basically, I didn't want to spend money on wireless network chips and figured I could use the speaker+mic I was using for distance measurements for sending small bits of data too. It currently uses TDMA with 1 second time slots subdivided into 8 bits with sound being 1, and silence 0. The stunning 1 byte/s is good enough for me at this point. Embarassingly, they're still wired together to synchronize time. I'm mostly working on processing the sound to reduce interference (especially the motor noise). They can make a pretty reasonable guess at frequency, but it is getting hard to fit in the Teensy's memory. Maybe I'll get the new one.

<comment><USER6> As cool as it is to be sending data over sound, its only $25 for some of the cheaper wireless modules over at sparkfun: <http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?c=16> That would be impossibly more practical, and you wouldn't really have to have them wired together to sync them. You could have a master transmitter that sends out a sync bit that everyone syncs with (or something...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone give me a sense of some projects you can do with a Teensy? I've never played around with programming chips like this before but sounds pretty cool from the comments.

<comment><USER8> It's difficult to give a scope of the possibilities. An autonomous 'remote control' car has been mentioned above. Other types of robots. Musical instruments. Burglar alarms.

Take a look at the exhibition section of the arduino forum: <http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=projects> Also the projects from the "Designing with Microcontrollers" class at Cornell University: [http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects...](http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just ordered mine, don't have any specific plans for it just yet, just tought it might come in handy during summer-boredom. And at that price, incl shipping (to Norway!), it really was a no-brainer;)

But I do have a question that I couldn't find an answer for on their page, can it run without being connected to a computer? Can i just mount it with a 5V battery and send it on my verry own Mars-mission?o0

Given that I just ordered it I havent googled it that much, but do anyone have any blogs/communities they can recommend for reading/getting help/getting ideas/brainstorming?

<comment><USER10> Answer is yes. I often run it on my phone charger which has a mini-usb plug. All it needs is 5V.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I totally just bought one for the autonomous "RC"-car (it won't be RC when i'm done) that I'm gonna build this summer. Its gonna have gps and every sensor I can think of. Thanks god its summer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone writing their software for these things in a language other than C? I have tried cross-compiling various Schemes to run on these, but am not having much luck. (Scheme implementations seem to do a lot of weird things...)

I have not tried ECL yet, though, which might be easier... and I like CL better than Scheme.

</comment><comment><USER12> Oh man, PJRC is so awesome. My first microcontroller ever was a PJRC 8051 development board.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is the USB stack developed or do you have to write it for your standalone config?

<comment><USER14> They provide a bunch of ready-made apps that make the thing act as a keyboard, mouse and some other devices. I haven't looked at it in detail, but I got the impression that they've taken care of the nitty gritty bits of USB and let you do the fun stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are those 9 PWM outputs or inputs? Probably outputs. I need 8 PWM inputs, with an accuracy of 1/5th of a degree.</comment>


The end of IT as we know it - <AUTHOR> http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.20197 <comment><USER2> This article is written by someone who has very little business experience. There has always been "business technology" and IT has been marginalized in the business decision making for a long time. It's _always_ a cost-benefits analysis and as people understand technology better and more and more frameworks are built they expect changes to take less time. The frameworks that support the most flexibility win over the ones that are built correctly without as much wiggle room. If you find one that does both, well, that's a golden system.

I work in financial services. Perhaps my industry is ahead of a common theme due to it's nature, but this article says nothing new and hypes the idea that technology is impossible when combined with business.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are almost seeing something like this at Tulane, where a few Comp Sci guys in IT services really understand the deep magic and provide development space, remote backup, routing, firewall, spam filtering, another set of folks implement the projects that faculty buy (blackboard, Exchange email, etc) and students in various schools build mashups for their schools, departments, and projects. Unfortunately, the guys who understand the deep magic seem not just cynical but sometimes bitter. They work in grey offices with tiny windows on a quiet (empty?) hallway. How to rectify that?</comment>


If a product is addictive, but embarrassing to share...   - <AUTHOR>

...what sort of viral mechanisms could possibly be embedded to ensure fast organic growth? <comment><USER2> Well you could hire this hooded guy that i know that stands on the street corner and calls himself Dave...

</comment><comment><USER3> lol, From your vauge description it sounds like you made a porn site with "share this" buttons that no one is using.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha not porn, but it is a guilty pleasure. any ideas?</comment></comment>


Embarrassing photo of Edward Snowden leaked on net. - o0-0o http://news.yahoo.com/photos/picture-shows-edward-snowden-2002-pulling-down-pants-photo-195217802.html Who leaked it? <comment><AUTHOR> Jesus, who cares? I've taken 1000x worse pictures then that.

</comment><comment><USER2> This isn't journalism or even interesting. It is a race to the bottom to do a character assassination on someone.

Oh hey look someone in their early 20's did something silly what a terrible person.....oh wait..

Sadly too many of the recently educated eat this kind of stuff up as logic.

</comment><comment><USER3> To all those who say they have nothing to hide: even if someone hasn't done anything illegal, this sort of "embarrassing" thing can be used to sideline and discredit anyone who gets in the way of the people with access to the information.

This is nothing but a distraction from the real story, and if the media has any awareness at all, they know this and seem to be doing it intentionally. If it's just reflexive for them, we need to call upon them to start covering the story more seriously and not stoop to this ridiculous level.</comment>


China to create largest mega city in the world with 42 million people  - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html <comment><USER2> I'm very curious to understand why, can someone please enlighten me? I'm seriously failing to understand here.</comment>


Show HN: I'm releasing my 2D Tile Map Editor for free - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/tileEditor <comment><AUTHOR> Well, soon after the pandemic started I was let go of my job. Unemployed I focused on some games I'be been developing on my free time. I also worked a little bit on a 2D engine and a tile map editor. Also, soon after I was let go of my job, another company hired me, so I had to put my side projects on the drawer one more time. Since I like this tile editor so much, I see no reason why not to release it to everyone. There's a lot of work to be done on it, I know that, but that will happen when I have more free time. Also, other people might wanna contribute to the project as well. Hope you like it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have update the README with some basic instructions on how to use the tile map editor. I'll may upload a short video later today, show each feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtw1AoJN00o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtw1AoJN00o)

Also a video, showing some basics.

<comment><USER2> This is dope bro good shit</comment></comment></comment>


Research: When Airbnb Listings in a City Increase, So Do Rent Prices - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2019/04/research-when-airbnb-listings-in-a-city-increase-so-do-rent-prices <comment><USER2> (1) It seems like Airbnb listings should have increased almost everywhere in recent years since Airbnb is new and growing, and (2) I think rent goes up in most places, but some places more than others.</comment>


PHP Weekly just out for this week - <AUTHOR> http://phpweekly.com/archive/2014-04-03.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't believe that its nearly a year since we started this. The responses that we have had from the people who receive the newsletter are overwhelmingly positive and I'd like to thank the Hacker News readers who helped us to start off, with encouragement and promotion. We have ran it as a completely free side project and only just started to take advertising to attempt to get it to pay for itself. Thank you everyone who has contributed in some way

Ade</comment>


A deadly fall that revealed CIA's darkest secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets <comment><USER2> why would you not put the full url in when you created this?

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind- co...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to- murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, something went wrong when I posted and I can't edit it anymore. My bad. (first time posting from a phone)

<comment><USER3> it looks like it was repaired, dont sweat it though, it was an obvious typo, and trivial to put the dropped character in to have a look at the submission.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Selling Kidneys Should Be Legal - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/opinion/why-selling-kidneys-should-be-legal.html

<comment><USER2> This is an excellent start for a _long_ discussion on economics, ethics, psychology, etc. that probably would be done better in a cafe, slowly sipping Earl Grey tea rather than on HN, but still..

One of the main points of the argument is that

       i)   It is feared that the rich will take advantage if this is legalized
       ii)  But the rich already have many ways of access to organs anyway
       iii) It is predominately the poor who die waiting for a kidney.

This argument is strong, e.g. if Amit Gupta was a poor nobody, would his case get the exposure it did? On the other hand, isn't this argument similar to the one advocating free sale for guns, because criminals have access to these anyway and it's only the person on the street who gets hurt?

I think the main argument against explicit sale of kidneys is on _moral_ grounds, nor operational, i.e. how to best implement this system. You are selling part of your body, which no sane person in a normal situation would do, so there must be something wrong with this. This argument runs foul of the fact that other such activity, that is on similar gray (or really dark gray) area, is legal, e.g. prostitution, getting compensated for being a surrogate mother.

Let's zoom on prostitution. You think it may be irrelevant to selling kidneys, but think about it: you are selling something to a stranger, kidney in one, dignity in the other, that normally you would not do. Many countries have legalized prostitution (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution#Legality>) because of the realization that it is not the actual act that should be banned but all the bad secondary factors it brings, i.e. sexual slavery, veneral disease. If these can be controlled, why not make it legal between consensual parties. Still, this doesn't leave me feeling good, I feel an unease that I cannot put a finger as a human being.

I feel similarly for selling organs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nonsense. Saying that kidneys should be "commoditized" to avoid the black market it's like saying that slaves should be legal to avoid people travelling in a container.

In particular, kidneys can be transplanted from "dead" to living, and donning between living - even inside your family - is very restricted (at least in Uruguay). Although one case may be very altruistic and reasonable, there are thousands of subtle situations which are horrendous, and all the donning process will be heavily affected.

It's a moral statement: you can't put price on life or your body.

Improving the donors rate with policies is a better way to go and it hasn't reached its limits so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Saying that kidneys should be "commoditized" to avoid the black market it's like saying that slaves should be legal to avoid people travelling in a container.

The analogy falls apart when you consider that one can legally _donate_ ones bone marrow, but one cannot legally _donate_ a slave. Thus the distinction between the two is not predicated on whether one _receives payment_ , which is the policy change being discussed.

>It's a moral statement: you can't put price on life or your body.

With organs, the law currently sets the price at $0.

<comment><USER3> No, it doesn't. Bone marrow regenerates, the same is for blood (which is a tissue). One thing is donating organs, other is donating tissues. While you may define an organ as a "set of tissues" (therefore, skin). In "transplantation slang" is commonly referred to "organs" as not regenerating ones, i.e. kidneys, heart, etc.

As long as you can't sell it, there is no price at it.</comment></comment></comment>


Scientists and doctors warn of potential serious health effects of 5G - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20191002000712/https://www.5gappeal.eu/scientists-and-doctors-warn-of-potential-serious-health-effects-of-5g/ <comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand why such an important appeal/topic touching on public health was flagged the previous time I tried to post it here. Gagging views/research does not put this community in a very good light and it is something way beneath the standards I've seen in the few years I've been participating here.

Now - there was another similar topic a few days ago that was focusing though on the views of a single scientist that has been painted by many as a crook. This topic is about an appeal that has a lot more signatories to be dismissed lightly.

Thanks

PS: Flagged again. OK - seems that the admins here are on somebody's payroll.

<comment><USER2> Users flagged it. Moderators never touched it or even saw it. Probably users flagged it because a closely related story was on the front page all day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21310867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21310867). Follow-up or copycat submissions aren't exactly dupes, but people read HN for topics they haven't seen recently, and HN basically never wants two front page submissions about the same thing.

Your comment breaks the site guidelines against insinuating astroturfing without evidence. A story getting flagged is evidence of nothing other than that users flagged the story. Admins conspiring to suppress it? that is pure imagination, and it's pretty nasty to imagine something about someone and then accuse them of being paid to do evil. The guidelines exist to prevent HN from degenerating that way, so please read and follow them when posting here from now on: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

<comment><AUTHOR> So, you're telling me that watchdogs users (on a payroll I'll add) roam this site and flag anything that they don't like and that is OK for you. Super.

The post on front page was focusing on what a single scientist was saying. This particular scientist has been attacked and defamed repeatedly which in effect rendered _that_ post ineffective to base a serious conversation for that issue. TLDR, people (and keen watchdogs alike) were focusing on _him_ rather than the issue at hand. Which is why I posted the appeal, signed by numerous other scientists, so that the discussion won't focus on the strawman scientist and focus on what might be a hugely important public health issue.

Of course the watchdogs on duty flagged it immediately because it was much harder to attack and defame.

I've said it again. You have a problem in HN. Mobs and lone rangers and downvote armies. You might be innocent (as an admin) and try to let everyone speak but it is evident to me that nothing that _really_ matters can be discussed in this community. That is because things that _really_ matter hurt some big pockets or a few cretins stuck in their adolescent rigid worldviews. In any case the gist of it is that the rules of the site allow them to drown any voice they don't like in a form of public opinion manipulation.

So, thanks for the hospitality all these months. I think I've no business here.

<comment><USER2> There are no "watchdogs on duty" or "on a payroll". Users see submissions and flag ones that they think shouldn't be on HN.

In this case your submission was, though not the identical article, exactly the same topic as another submission which was one of the most prominent stories of the day (the third most, in fact: [https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-21](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-21)). The natural place to add additional links and make the argument that discussion shouldn't center around a single researcher, would have been as a comment in that thread. Posting a new submission about amounted to a dupe, which fragments discussion, so there's an easy good-faith interpretation for why users might have flagged it. Note that the site guidelines ask people here to " _Assume good faith._ " ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)). That's because the downsides of assuming bad faith are orders of magnitude worse for the site than the downsides of assuming good faith.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Get EBook Produced for Non Writers? - le-mark I have a friend with a personal story that I believe is very compelling and would be of interest to a lot of people. This person lost a lot of money in a business venture as part of their story. So there's a strong "lessons learned" aspect to the story which is particularly valuable imo. I think an e-book about it would be one way for them get something positive from the experience. Problem is, I'm not a writer, and neither is my friend. What are some options in this situation?<p>From my research, it seems an adequate ghost writer would cost around $10,000 for a 100 page book. My friend has no funds to finance the endeavor. Is it possible to find a ghost writer who would work for a percentage of profits from the book? Does anyone have experience with this, either writing or commissioning such a work? <comment><AUTHOR> Note: I don't know the ebook market at all.

100 pages seems a lot to me, I bet most of "short books" are more like 20-40.

I think you could get articles/blog posts for, exaggerating, 200$/piece.

Maybe you can start with that, including building sn audience, and when you have 5 posts you can start drafting the book yourself.

I guess that with another 1k or so you'll be able to find someone who polishes the book instead of writing it from scratch.

If money is a concern, and if you don't have a clear readership/revenue model, mayans this is a way to build the ebook step-by-step. My 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think there is so little money in writing that it would be a crazy or very inexperienced writer who would agree to work for a percentage. I suggest you rather buy a book on writing, read a few good books that are similar to your friend's story, and try your own hand at it. Once you've written 20 pages, finding a good editor would be a lot easier, and cost much less, and a good editor would help you bring the project to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out [http://thewritingsummit.com/](http://thewritingsummit.com/)

I have a 5% OFF coupon code. I'm not associated with them in any way.</comment>


Michael Mann Refuses to Produce Data, Loses Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/michael-mann-refuses-to-produce-data-loses-case.php <comment><USER2> Is Powerlineblog a reputable source? Their sidebar has such articles as "A one-step approach to dealing with accusations of racism," implying that they have a lot of readers who are accused of racism. Then you get into their sidebar, which is a dumpster fire of right-wing political blogs.

I would suggest deleting this submission and trying again with a reputable source, if one can be found.</comment>


Self-Finance or Raise Money? A Quandary for Start-Ups - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/smallbusiness/self-finance-or-raise-money-a-quandary-for-start-ups.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

<comment><USER2> It _is_ quite a quandry, but here's my take for what it's worth:

At Fogbeam Labs, we've chosen to go the self-financed route for now, and for as long as we can. Here's why (in part):

A. Taking outside money means spending time fund-raising, and not time talking to customers or building our products.

B. When you take outside money, you take on a different set of expectations and goals, which may or may not align with your own.

C. Due to (A) and (B), you can find yourself on a merry-go-round (as a founder) where as soon as you finish raising one round, your focus has to turn to raising the _next_ round. You literally take yourself out of being able to focus on customers and/or product.

D. Dilution cuts into your equity stake

E. Investors will likely have veto rights over any acquisition or liquidity event, and - again - their interests might not align with the founders' interests. You may have a chance to sell that would make you rich on an individual level, but which the investors my veto.

F. The investors are likely to want to exercise at least _some_ control over what you are doing and how you do it. Especially if they think of themselves as "smart money". But they may or may not _actually_ have good advice to give, but you feel pressured to respond to them since, well, you're spending their money.

G. The earlier you take outside money, the more favorable the terms are going to be towards the investors. If you delay until you have traction, or even - FSM forbid - are cash flow positive, you have a lot more leverage and can negotiate terms that are more favorable to you as a founder.

The flip-side, of course, is that - unless you are already wealthy - the self- funded route is probably going to be a lot slower. I mean, we could certainly move faster right now if we had a million dollars in the bank and could go out and hire employees, and advertise, etc. But what I disagree with is the notion that moving slow means giving up any given bit of "land" (to use the analogy from TFA) indefinitely. I'm more of a "slow war" kind of guy - the attitude here is "sure, have the un-seized land for now, we'll come take it when we're ready for it."

We also realize that you don't have to "rule the world" to be very successful. I mean, yeah, I'd LOVE to build the world's largest and most powerful enterprise software company, and that _is_ the ultimate goal to be quite honest. But if I still own, say, 50% at a point in time when a chance to sell our for, say, $50,000,000 comes along, then hey, that would be something to talk about, as that's into "FU money" territory.

OTOH, if I wind up with my ownership share diluted down to 1%, then we have to reach a much larger valuation in order for me (on a personal level) to achieve that same standard.

Probably the one thing that messes with my head on this, though, is that I'm not a real young guy. I'll turn 40 in 2 days, so there's a little nagging thought that going the slow and steady route might mean that - even IF we're successful - I'll be so old when we get there that I won't get much chance to enjoy it. :-(</comment>


What happens when you die? - <AUTHOR>

I've had this discussion with one friend and wanted to throw it out to see what your view or solution is regarding what to do with online property. Hence, what should be done with your FB account, blogs, twitter , etc. when you pass away. Should passwords be left to your loved ones in your will? Should notification of your death be sent to sites that you subcribe to. Is this a new untapped market that we need to supply service to? <comment><USER2> A list of almost 40 services that tackle this problem:

<http://www.thedigitalbeyond.com/online-services-list/>

Some of them are YC-funded companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's great that there are services like this. It's especially interesting that some are YC. Thx for the link. Out of curiosity do you know of any stories of unfortunate circumstances from not handling one's online assets after death? How important do you think it is for people to aquire this service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I read the title, I thought this thread was going to be about what happens on the other side, not this one. Damn.

<comment><AUTHOR> on it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The other day someone wrote a deadman switch app that sent notifications to two emails. You had to click a url to keep it alive every 30 days. I can't find the reference and a few searches didn't come up with anything, but, perhaps someone else might remember the link.

<comment><USER4> <http://www.deadmansswitch.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some way that you would wipe browser history would be something I&bksp; _ahem_ some might pay money for.

<comment><USER6> Encrypting your hard drive is free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was actually thinking this was a discussion on what actually happens? I really want to know.

<comment><AUTHOR> i'll start one about that. that's always an interesting discussion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> it's not a market dude ..

if you really wanna do something about this .. first think of it as a service ..

<comment><USER8> a 'free' service ... which probably each one of us owe to our fellow beings .

<comment><USER9> Sort of like the 'free' coffins, 'free' attorneys to help write wills, and 'free' burial sites or cremations?</comment></comment></comment>


Collaborate with Lunarr on the "Back" of any Web Page - <AUTHOR> http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/02/06/collaborate-with-lunarr-on-the-back-of-any-web-page/

<comment><USER2> There was a company that did something like this in the 90's. You could add little "sticky" notes to web pages that other people could see. The novelty wore off in about 3 months, IIRC.</comment>


Is It Bad Business for Airlines to Stick It to Their Customers So Badly? - <AUTHOR> http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/08/21/bad-business-airlines-stick-customers-badly/ <comment><USER2> It is absolutely bad business. I'd happily (and do) pay ~10% more to fly with a more pleasant airline, and I know many people who are the same.

<comment><USER3> I would give blood for JetBlue based on my experiences with them in the past, but now that I live in a major city that they don't (read: cant) serve, I have to deal with the options our system has afforded me, and often pay a premium to fly on other countries' national airlines that are regulated by their citizens.

This article is pretty shallow, but points to a common problem we see in software, with much larger overhead. As you grow to a point where you're serving something close to a majority of consumers as the lone option, and you have corporate "responsibilities"(i long for a better term, as doing that is not responsible in a general sense) how do you cater to those who are less vital financially? It's just infeasible to do that for airlines trying to turn a profit. I often imagine the Eisenhower plan being deployed under current umbrella, and end with the idea that I'd probably have to change transport seven times if I wanted to drive coast to coast.

I know for Delta, for example, I have at least ten friends that have been stranded for over 12 hours (and up to 36) by problems either logistical or technical. And only those with sizeable Twitter followers are able to shame the company into action... Airlines have to distinguish, because the cost of service to the provider is so wildly high. It's probably the most opposite support model of software, but in the deregulated age, we can't expect anything less. It's nigh time that we let the state ensure equal transportation for everyone. Don't get me started on the cost of passports

<comment><USER2> Passports are about the same cost in New Zealand as the USA. To be honest, if you can't afford a passport, you can't afford to travel overseas. A passport costs as much as a one way trip to Australia.

You don't need a passport to travel domestically in the USA do you?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Askmee.co – OPEN Multilingual AMA Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.askmee.co

<comment><AUTHOR> The shutdown of Reddit iAMA is not helping the AMA world!

[https://techraptor.net/content/developing-popular-reddit- sub...](https://techraptor.net/content/developing-popular-reddit-sub-riama- others-goes-private)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/)

</comment><comment><USER2> why not [http://ask.me/](http://ask.me/)

<comment><AUTHOR> How much? I'm joking..</comment></comment>


NASA admits it needs help figuring out what to do with astronaut poop - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-admits-it-needs-the-public-s-help-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-all-its-astronaut-poo <comment><USER2> Reaction mass. Find a way to aim it and fire it (use a spring or other non- explosive, human driven way to accumulate energy) in a particular direction. You could use it to move an astronaut around in space.</comment>