Ask HN: Who uses Plan 9 or Inferno, and why? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I used a commercial variant of Plan9 called Transit in the 2000s. It ran on nCUBE n4 computers and had a CLI. It was built for high-performance video streaming. There were interfaces for machine interconnection in a hypercube configuration, to balance load and resources.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I could broaden this question a little, I think the 9P file-system is still used more than Plan 9 itself. I'd like to hear from the folks using it, why? What does it offer that you can't get with NFS or AFS?

<comment><USER4> I suppose one big advantage is that the protocol isn't specific to any transport, so you can embed it where you want to. QEMU, for example, uses 9p for virtio pass-thru filesystems from host to guest. [http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/9psetup](http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/9psetup)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used Plan9 in an amateur fashion on a multi-host network in the 2000-2003 timeframe. I've since fiddled with it in virtual machines and most recently on Raspberry Pi.

I'd say that overall it is "reassuringly disorientating" and delightfully bewildering.

</comment><comment><USER6> In my previous company , we used 9p protocol for developing Vertex ; [https://github.com/HPCLinks/Open-Vertex](https://github.com/HPCLinks/Open- Vertex).

<comment><USER6> To give more details, IBM was doing a research project on Blue Gene using 9p. They called it HARE and were using 9p protocol. [http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/CyberDig.nsf/1e4115aea7...](http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/CyberDig.nsf/1e4115aea78b6e7c85256b360066f0d4/87dbc7eedc294f848525797c00513e4e!OpenDocument). W</comment></comment>


Mistake AirFare Alert Service – Beta Access - <AUTHOR> http://theflyerculture.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey friends, I would love to have your feedback on a new idea! So I'm working on creating a free service for travelers and adventurers.

Is this something you all would actually be interested in?

Basically we'll be sending out text and email alerts with very cheap flights to different countries around the world. Most of the deals will be mistake fairs and would like for people to be able to get updates asap.

Let me know if you've got any ideas or helpful feedback.

Thanks so much! James

<comment><USER2> Thanks. This is something I'm really interested in. But few points I noticed 1\. No privacy policy 2\. I don't want notifications for all the deals, but only the ones I'm really interested in.</comment></comment>


Dad, I Need an iPhone to Do my Homework - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/dad-i-need-an-iphone-to-do-my-homework/

<comment><USER2> _Dad, I Need an iPhone to Do my Homework_

Son, use one of our five computers for that. If you are bored on the five minute drive to and from school, read a book.

(I don't have kids, but this is probably what I'd say.)

Anyway, I remember that when I was a kid, I wanted all those gadgets. The objective reality was that I didn't need them for anything. I was never far from a real computer, and I didn't have so much stuff to do that I had trouble keeping track. If I did, I would have used the standard-issue "assignment notebook". (Which I never used, much to the dismay of school administrators. "How will you remember that you have to do problems 1-5 on page 42 tomorrow!!?")

But I digress.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is silly. Presumably all the functionality of Blackboard is still available through the website, which schools have been using at least since I was in high school about 8 years ago (has it been that long!?)

<comment><USER4> Also worth mentioning that, last time I used it, Blackboard was an unusable, bloated, expensive web application. If I'm not mistaken, it included a quaint forum application that used Java Applets. I'd really like to meet the guy who thought that was a good idea.

I would challenge anyone to get good use out of Blackboard on any platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Submarine</comment>


Ask HN: Where should my team stay for our YC interview? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know of or have a hacker house in the Mountain View area for myself and my two other founders to stay at? We are coming from Michigan and would rather stay with hackers than in a hotel. Our trip is Nov. 12-14. <comment><USER2> I can't recommend a Hacker House (we didn't find one), but if you end up considering a hotel, take a look at AirBnB. We ended up paying $100/day for a house for 4 in Mountain View, instead of the $80+ per person you'd have to pay for a hotel in SF.</comment>


London's poor fetish: commodifying working class culture - <AUTHOR> http://roarmag.org/2015/02/london-middle-class-culture-poverty/ <comment><USER2> The worst thing about this article is how hilariously smug and self-assured the tone is.

Seriously, what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of the middle class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit? How does he not realize that he is projecting his own insecurity and outdated ideas about "authenticity" on to these people.

Honestly, I've found that most people don't really give a shit about doing something truly meaningful and soul-fulfilling in their work. I may, you probably do too. But most people are fine with showing up, doing what they have to do, then getting out and spending time with the people that they love. What is so wrong with that?

Sure, we get it, the visual signifiers of the exotic have changed over the last 10 years. Once upon a time in the UK it was Superclubs and being part of something fancy and opulent. Now, the iconography of the working-class has been appropriated - and people want to buy into that, probably based on the tail-end of the skeuomorphic thing - where we were desiring to feel connected to nostalgia based aesthetics.

But what the author doesn't get is that people are deeply social. Sure, the economic and cultural environment will shift things the modes of interactions - but people will continue forming relationships with friends, relaying experiences, dancing to dumb songs with their friends. The artcile had some great observations, but maybe rethink framing this as "a problem" and stick to the description of culture (which was actually interesting).

<comment><USER3> > what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of the middle > class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit?

Well, that's what modern life is under the TINA regime[1]. A whole society of people who've sold out every heroic ideal humans have ever conceived, in order to live as cells inside corporate organs of a hyper-capitalistic organism that would collapse if it stopped expanding. Money is god (it's about equal in power to law, at least), and money is created in a Ponzi between central banks and governments, and between private financial corporations and private enterprises/individuals, all on the promise that there will be even more money next year to pay back the debts of this year, and give "good enough or better" returns on large capital pools invested. We consume natural resources in an unsustainable way in exchange for this money, and for a cellular role in the organs and the organism, and it will last in this way until the last day comes, when we starve to death on our own planetary stripmine.

We could be taking a new course right now, to live in idealistic ways, in sustainable ways, in heroic ways. But we all just quit that notion before we start, because it's just too hard, and we distract ourselves with the greatest media spectacle of entertaining diversions and political issues every conceived.

Welcome to life in hell. You can get defensive and self-righteous when people point out the mass hypocrisy and delusion and error in all our lives, but it doesn't change the truth that we are all living in an awful state, as cowards and lapdogs of the hyper-capitalist system that gives us life today, even as it guarantees death in the future.

I figure that a not-yet born post-human super-predator will take the best of human intelligence and anti-entropic principles and incorporate them, and destroy the rest. Or some already-existing higher powers will swoop in at some point in the future to harvest the best of our anti-entropic principles, and destroy the rest of us.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative)

<comment> semi-extrinsic I, for one, believe that continued economic growth needs continued growth in global energy production, and that we will be unable to maintain this growth over the next century for thermodynamic reasons. This will be the big shit- hits-the-fan moment of the coming years, not climate change or wars. We literally have to throw centuries of economics out the window.

<comment><USER4> Solar energy is essentially untapped today (relative to output from fossil fuels), and we are in no danger of exhausting the supply of nuclear fuel in the near term.[0]

Eventually global energy production will taper off, but I would bet strongly against it being within the next century.

[0] [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel- Cycle/Uranium...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel- Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/)

<comment><USER5> Yea, there is no "thermodynamic reason" for a limited supply of energy. Even if we started expending too much energy in the atmosphere (say if we found an efficient way to fusion), we could pump this excess heat to space, if it would ever come to such an extreme.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I see that none of you have heard of Carnot efficiency, or even the second law of thermodynamics. Even if we were to get electric energy from magical pink unicorns that produced no heat, the usage of that energy would produce waste heat. And no, you can't just pump heat into space; if we could that would easily solve global warming.

<comment><USER5> Yes you can...

Constructive proof: build a large suspended reflector (mirror), put you power source on it and pump heat from earth to a sphere of any material, which radiates heat into space.

No, this of course can't easily solve global warming due to enormous cost it would have and ludicrous efficiency. It's way cheaper to just absorb less heat from the sun (less CO2).

<comment> semi-extrinsic Sometimes it's best to do the math before claiming stuff. Now, using thermal radiation from a metal puts your emission spectrum at blackbody radiation around or below 2000 Kelvin, and in that band around 50% of your emitted energy will be absorbed by the atmosphere (thus will not leave earth). Your heat pump going from 293 K to 2000 K will have a laughably low Carnot efficiency (the highest efficiency allowed by thermodynamics): for every Joule of heat you pump from the earth to the sphere, you have to use more than 20 Joules from our magical unicorns. Of these 20 Joules, 10 will be absorbed by the atmosphere and heat the earth. But you have only removed one Joule of heat from the earth. Thus your apparatus is not able to cool the earth, in fact it will be heating the earth by a lot.

<comment><USER5> Who says the apparatus has to be in the low atmosphere?

What you cite are technical reasons, not thermodynamic. Thermodynamics doesn't disallow the situation, only technical reasons make it difficult.

> Sometimes it's best to do the math before claiming stuff

> I see that none of you have heard of Carnot efficiency

Sometimes it's best to get off your high horse.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Alright, thermodynamics + not requiring magic (except the unicorns) then. Thermodynamics has everything to do with it; if it were not for the Carnot limit on heat pump efficiency, your proposed scheme for heat removal would work fine. If it were not for the Carnot limit, we would have no problem growing global energy consumption at 2-3% per year (i.e. exponentially) for a hundred more years.

So, if you put your apparatus anywhere but in the low atmosphere, how do you expect it to pump heat from the low atmosphere (where the heat is)?

I'm not on any high horse, but I'm surprised at how quickly people dismiss this problem as absurd. It's quite obvious if you know some engineering thermodynamics. I think people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance, since they don't want another unfixable world problem.

<comment><USER5> > I'm not on any high horse

> people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance

Ok then.

You are making a few claims:

1) Thermodynamics imposes a finite limit on the energy consumption on Earth;

Sure, it might be necessary to build a fleet of titanic cooling towers to cool the atmosphere, I don't think we will ever need to do that; but thermodynamics doesn't forbid cooling Earth, hence your claim is false.

That out of the way

2) The direct thermal output of power sources/uses is going to be a problem in the near future

I claim that's also false. In fact, the burden of the proof should be yours when you make such a claim, but let me show why I believe otherwise: (approximate figure from wiki [1])

142 PWh of energy was used worldwide. Solar irradiance is 340000 PWh. It would take almost 200 years of steady 3% growth (or a 240x increase in consumption) to even reach 1% of solar irradiance as internal heat. Even then, the impact of greenhouse gases massively overshadows that.

On top of that, there's no activity requiring exponentially more energy, or evidence that we may continue expanding energy demand for hundreds or years. In fact, if you look at per capita energy consumption vs GDP [2], you can clearly see a saturation of energy needs. Once the developing nations reach this, it seems demand growth is going to slow down. Nothing physical ever maintains an exponential growth for too long.

[1] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/The- NASA-...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/The-NASA- Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared- radiation-fluxes.jpg)

[2] [http://www.withouthotair.com/c30/figure242.png](http://www.withouthotair.com/c30/figure242.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm always reluctant to embrace something that is basically bemoaning "cultural malaise", especially with a rather obvious left-wing bent, BUT, it's very well written and offers several good points.

In particular, this bit:

"That their accent, speech patterns and knowledge of institutions, by their very deployment in the job market, perpetuate norms that exclude those who were born outside of the cultural elite."

It's a very valid point that culture drives so much of hiring and economic reality. That it creates economic barriers everywhere.

There's also a valid complaint against the meaninglessness of the office job. But to say "Hipsters :("... I'm not sure that really means all that much on its own.

I don't think it's a case of seeking meaning in a pointless non-struggle by emulating the struggling classes.

It's the same as it always was - the middle classes trying to differentiate themselves by social signaling - doing things others can't. Classic yuppies just bought expensive toys. The newer generation spends on other things. For instance, by dressing like a hipster, you can signal that you are not chained to the traditional office. You can buy $8 drinks at bars on weeknights. You can spend a year or two abroad.

We aren't quite like Effie, but only because the peacocking evolved in a different direction.

But let's not forget that Hunger Games is some ways an allusion to the Roman Empire - and that the fundamental problem is not a new one.

<comment><USER7> I dunno, personally I thought it was dreadful even by the standards of left- wing articles bemoaning cultural malaise, some of which at least manage consistency. Hipsters are attacked both for being "unable to do anything useful, alienated from physical labor" _and_ because "never will they face the grinding monotony of mindless work", for taking unpaid internships and for having mortgages. They apparently go to food markets out of vicarious faux- working class escapism, and not because freshly-cooked spicy food is worth paying a bit more for than Pret. Middle class people that don't embrace the working class aesthetic are even worse. The author doesn't seem to realise the average hipster has disposable income to buy £6 jerk sandwiches and £8 cocktails because £21k goes further when you have no dependents and rent by the room rather than because they're nascent millionaires tasked with finding new ways to cut working class incomes.

Hipsters are nowhere near as bad as keyboard class warriors whose pretentious prose belies the inauthenticity of their attempts to speak for the working class as surely as the braying accents they whinge about.

<comment><USER6> Complaining that both hipster AND low class work are meaningless is a bit contradictory, definitely. And I have to give you props for pointing out that not every person with a decent office job is a millionaire. Anyway.

What is the author's point, exactly?

For the vast majority of the article, the point is "the life of the middle class is pointless; they try to find some meaning in it through trivialized edgy experiences - which fail to provide much relief to the ennui since they are too sanitized."

Okay, so I buy that. It's less about "poverty tourism" than it is just the classic social signaling game, made more complex by anti-consumerism.

Maybe you take a month off of work to work on your burning man mutant vehicle rather than spending a month's salary on a flashy Mercedes, but you're signaling the same thing.

Be that as it may, it takes until the last few paragraphs to really derail into "oh, but the poor poor people!". In a paragraph it tries to explain how rising rents are tough; how the privilege afforded to some young people magnifies itself later in life, etc, is harsh.

Very little of which is an indictment of faux working-class escapism. That escapism in itself only seems to be indicted by the way that it raises rents, a _very_ tired argument.

But in what way do the "£6 jerk sandwiches and £8 cocktails" hurt the lower classes? The article never makes the point, exactly.

Basically... I read this article as "Chasing faux-working-class hipster stuff is completely pointless, but people feel compelled to do it anyway since they have nothing better to do." I agree with that. Examining the way young urban professionals evolved in an anti-consumerist era is worthwhile.

The little "Oh, btw, die yuppie... er, hipster scum" paragraph I am forgiving. The point is just too weak, and it's better read the other way.

<comment><USER8> _the life of the middle class is pointless; they try to find some meaning in it through trivialized edgy experiences_

It's clear that the author has an _extremely_ limited view of the middle class. It's an incredibly broad demographic; they aren't all twentysomething hipsters downing microbrews in converted warehouses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Culture_ has become commodified full stop. Culture of all classes is consumed, revered, hated, and loved by people of all classes.

I'm a working class boy with the middle class car and I know upper class people with the working class clothes listening to grime, middle class people living in a working class area who like eating out at the upper class joints, and even working class people with upper class money. While it's extremely unlikely for one change their underlying class (in the UK), now more than ever it's possible to enjoy the diversions, entertainments, and even trappings of any class.

As Kanye said to Zane Lowe in his interview today, fusion the future, and that's not just music but culture full stop. And it's a great thing too, IMHWCO.

</comment><comment><USER10> _" Now the warehouse resides in the middle-class consciousness as the go-to space for every art exhibition or party."_

(UK but not London) Warehouses are cheapish, available and more easily licensed. Good old fashioned middle class practicality.

</comment><comment> UVB-76 The middle class are damned if they do, damned if they don't by the author's argument.

They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class culture, and for embracing it.

<comment><USER11> They're not embracing it, they're _consuming_ it. Embracing another culture is altruistic. Narcissism is looking at another culture and considering whether to "inoculate against" or "experience" it as a feature of your own life.

The twenty-somethings are filled with a sense of meaninglessness because their lives are meaningless. They allowed their careers to define who they were, and are now surprised when the market created a large, ticketed carousel for them.

<comment><USER12> This. They're not adopting, or becoming part of a culture, they're indulging in it as spectacle. If you bought your Mason Jar specifically _to_ drink out of, you have missed the entire cultural context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Between white America's appropriation of black American pop culture and the rise of yuppie hipsterdom, this applies just as much to the U.S., doesn't it?

<comment><USER14> Except Americans despise snobbery or snobbish attitudes of any kind, its almost taboo, while the Brits embrace it.

<comment><USER15> >Except Americans despise snobbery or snobbish attitudes of any kind, its almost taboo, while the Brits embrace it.

Ah, making sweeping generalisations of one demographic containing about 80m people and another of 330m people. Bound to be a good tactic.

<comment><USER16> From what I hear of the DAR and the WASP establishment that's not true its still major deal the Jeb Bush is a catholic.

<comment> barry-cotter It's not 1950. The WASPs lost their lock on the establishment around the time my father was born. The Ivy League graduate Liberal intelligentsia have been the establishment for 40 years on the outside.

Jeb's Catholicism is not a big deal for his electability or this would not be the first time I'd heard of it. By this time Mitt Romney's run I'd read multiple discussions on his Mormonism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only constant is change. Working-class culture isn't static either, and it's pretty patronising to imply that it is.

It's also weird that the article states that the middle-class are priced out by rent and head towards working-class areas for the cheaper rent, then blames the middle-class for doing so.

</comment><comment><USER17> This author hasn't spent a single day living with people that work for a living. There is just as much boredom with life and existential malaise amongst the working class as there is amongst the bourgeois. The only difference is, they have less free time and money to pursue things they think will fill the void.

I'm kind of sick of these idiots that raise a particular kind of work up on a pedestal. Seriously, the author is complaining about fetishization and doing a boatload of it himself.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is basically just Pulp's "Common People" in article form: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM)

<comment><USER19> I was about to write the very same comment before searching the page for "Pulp" to see if anyone else had made the same connection...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I connect with and appreciate many of the points he has made, I have to say I'm getting pretty damn tired of the almost constant attack on the white middle class person from left-wing journalists.

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't with these journalists, many of whom are middle class or higher white people themselves who've simply developed somewhat of a hardon for self-loathing.

If rich young techies in San Francisco took their money and went and lived in areas already established as being the dwelling of the rich they would face criticism from these journalists for isolating themselves, not investing in the community, etc.

If rich young techies go and buy up property in previously poor areas, attract businesses to serve their needs, etc. they're damned for gentrifying the area and driving the culture out.

The only way it seems that these people would be satisfied is if the value creators simply went to work every day and created value and the output was distributed across the entirety of society, regardless of contribution...which in a very unfair way places all of society's burdens at the feet of the working current middle class even more than they currently are.

I'm a white, middle class software developer. I tend to go for these kind of things such exhibitions in warehouses, quirky restaurants and bars, etc. I don't do it to appropriate culture, I do it because it's more interesting to me than sterile, obviously very well financed restaurants and bars that charge you huge amounts of money to sit in a room packed with suits desperately trying to impress other people.

I'm not trying to take from below, I'm trying to find things of some substance that I'll enjoy and will likely find other people that I can connect with at.

Again, these hit pieces are pretty damn tiring. Who is it whose paying the bulk of the taxes to sustain the free schools the working and welfare classes send their kids to? Who is it that is making the finance available so that working class, welfare class, etc. can access third level education as those above them can? Who is it that is paying the bulk of the costs associated with those universities? Who is it that is covering the welfare that those in the welfare class are currently surviving on? And those in the working class whose manual jobs are quickly becoming redundant?

Who is it that is paying the vast bulk of the costs associated with providing the welfare and working classes with access to healthcare they absolutely otherwise would not be able to afford?

The middle class.

<comment><USER20> First, the article was about London not SF. London is dominated by finance not computing. Hence the use of quotes around 'creatives'. Most jobs in finance are just juggling other people's money. They aren't creating anything.

Second, the warehouse galleries, bars and restaurants aren't real working class. It's an illusion to give the middle class what they want. If it were real they wouldn't charge £4 beers because working class people can't really afford it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm always surprised to see articles like this upvoted on Hacker News. Not that there is anything wrong with the content, but it surprises me that it is popular on a forum relating to startups and technology.

<comment><USER15> >it surprises me that it is popular on a forum relating to startups and technology

The culture they discuss in the article is highly applicable to the home of the modern startup though - San Francisco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "At the same time our doctors, teachers, university professors, architects, lawyers, solicitors and probation officers are rendered impotent. "

What does it say about a society where lawyers, doctors and professors are considered "middle class"? These are educated professionals. They earn, or should earn, higher-than-average wages. But today such professions are looked down upon.

Why would anyone want to be a doctor? They spend their time dealing with old/sick people. Even a lawyer has to keep appointments, has to show up to work regardless because other people plan their day around meetings with lawyers.

It was not that long ago that people dreamed and struggled to complete the education necessary to enter these professions. Today they are looked down upon as labourers, wage earners whose pay is a function of their skill and the number of hours worked. Instead we praise property owners, capitalists, whose investments and pensions are instead a function of how much property they already own.

It is time to properly tax investment income and start respecting those who actually work for a wage,.

<comment><USER16> A GP (family doctor) in the UK earns 5 or 6 times the median wage with a Final Salary Pension

<comment><USER22> That's my point. Earning a wage 5 or 6 times higher than average is still considered by the OP to be middle class. Something is wrong when the "middle" also includes professionals who earn far higher than average. Western society, particularly London, is too focused on the elites. Everyone who isn't a banker is balled up in the "middle class" catch-all.

For instance, a tax break by government to help "the middle class" shouldn't be helping lawyers and doctors. They aren't middle class. Progressive taxation or benefits should not aid those earning 200k/year.

<comment><USER16> And so would I class is _not_ based on money as one Tory MP said referring to Heseltine, deputy PM at the time – as saying "The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his furniture"

Which was toped by an even grander MP who remarked "that is a bit rich coming from someone whose father had to buy his castle"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good article in many ways but what I always feel like these commentaries miss is that many of us came from working class backgrounds and put ourselves into the middle classes. And we still identify with the working class and that it isn't a fetish but rather our roots.

Say what you will about Western society but it does provide many opportunities for a working class kid to take agency and move themselves into the middle classes while still identifying with their upbringing too. I can afford nice things now, and I treat myself from time to time, but I (and many others I assume) haven't abandoned the things I grew up on either.

</comment><comment><USER24> As a fairly recent immigrant to London, I haven't the faintest idea what the author is talking about. Can anyone please explain to me what this nonsensical rant really means?

</comment><comment><USER13> Let's consider how the author's description of London contrasts with San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

As the poster child of gentrification in action, the city certainly has no shortage of artsy hipsters culturally appropriating both the trappings of the poor, as well as their actual dwelling spaces (adding insult to injury, one could say).

But unlike the article's description of London, the Californian hipsters aren't underpaid, underemployed youth who aren't able to make it to affluence in a finance-dominated economy. They're those working in software, supposedly the most meaningful of professions in the area, for companies that "change the world." They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last vestige of the middle class here ([https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software- engineers-make-so-much...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers- make-so-much/answer/Michael-O-Church))

So where are the similarities?

<comment><USER25> > _" They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last > vestige of the middle class here ([https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software- > engineers-make-so-much...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers- > make-so-much...\)") _

Thank you for that link. I've tried to explain that to several people in the past few years with little success. That page explains it very well though.

In terms of pay, most developer positions are comparable to what union tradesmen can make. It varies city to city, trade to trade, and developers in the states are not unionized so maybe they could make more if they were, but regardless they are still in the same neighborhood. Yet the popular perception is that a typical developer is making brain-surgeon money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _commodifying working class culture_

Can also be applied to Hip Hop and punk.

</comment><comment><USER27> I dont get this. _Bullshit jobs, pointless existence, drinking in bars, gentrifiers, working class._..? It sounds like communist manifest. Most londoners I know are in constant buzz just to keep flowing.

London problems could be fixed in four simple steps:

1) introduce 0.1% property tax

2) build a few decent schools

3) improve subway

4) deregulate high raise buildings

<comment><USER28> _Most londoners I know are in constant buzz just to keep flowing._

You don't get what the article is talking about, but you can turn around and say something as hard to interpret as that? Is this some kind of drugs reference, or are you saying people work hard, or they're always excited? What the hell is "flowing"?

<comment><USER25> I think he means that people in London are chronic drinkers, as a way of coping with their environment/existence.

<comment><USER16> Well compared to a Lot of Americans we are</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brogrammers Wanted - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/08/brogrammers_wanted_kixeye_s_hiring_strategy_caters_to_male_fantasies_.html

<comment><USER2> They seem to have some really generic games and a truly horrific site. Maybe the brogrammer thing helps them get much needed attention, but it doesn't interest me at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great way to get some buzz... I went to look at their jobs site, took the test (got an 87%) and tried to look at job listings. Clicking on the job titles did nothing.

</comment><comment><USER4> whoa I think their site is pretty cool</comment>


Official Go support - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/blog/official-go-support <comment><USER2> Can someone explain?

I'm a big fan of C and python and I've never used Go. My initial impressions from readings were that Go is a better C. But then I came across a Go person who was lamenting that misunderstanding and that Go is python but with better performance. What's it all about?

Also even if we compare it to C I don't like the garbage-collection thing at system level. Also what does Go let you do in terms of garbage collection that cannot be done with a C gc library (which anyone can use if they want but then also have the choice to do raw/manual memory management if they want too).

<comment><USER3> Go's syntax and semantics seem ad-hoc, hard to remember, and inconsistent, but that's because Go was designed from uses cases and experience by prominent thought leaders such as Rob Pike and Ken Thompson, and Google. For example, sometimes you'll get Unicode code points, but sometimes you'll get bytes of UTF-8. The language was designed to give you the right one in the right case. UTF-8 is coupled with the language because it's the most useful choice. Another example is that pointers are automatically dereferenced, but not when you have pointers to pointers, because that's less useful. If any thread runs in an infinite loop that doesn't call built in functions, the entire runtime will freeze. But this is by design. You're meant to do actual useful stuff in your loop such as calling IO functions (which will yield to the scheduler) or calling GOSCHED.

It was designed to compile fast, and compiles faster than most languages and still has near C-speed. It doesn't have a GIL so it has better concurrency (Java style memory model). It has no complicated features like generics, instead you just use type assertions when you need. It also has impeccable tooling.

<comment><USER4> > _It doesn 't have a GIL_

On platforms like Go and the JVM, the garbage collector acts like a GIL, which is why they'll never replace C/C++.

<comment><USER5> Most concurrent C programs of a reasonable size eventually have some kind of big global lock. The linux kernel had one for a long time and it took a lot of effort to add more fine grained locking. Similarly most large C programs have a garbage collector of some kind.

<comment><USER6> _most large C programs have a garbage collector of some kind_

[citation needed] - the vast majority of Linux software is C or C++ and I can't immediately think of any with GC. It's not normally assumed, everyone does explicit deallocation, possibly ending up writing their own slab or pool allocators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Guys slightly off topic, but please do keep the colorblind people in mind. The colors used for the graphs are so similar that I can not differentiate them.

<comment><USER8> Interesting - I thought it'd be red/green, but it's blue/purple (which I thought were colors chosen for the color blind).

Is blue/purple color blind less common? Can you differentiate between red/green?

<comment><USER9> If you're red-deficient, then purple/blue is also a bad choice for colors because you can't see the red components of purple.

<comment><USER10> Blue and purple are the same color as far as I can tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's both interesting and suprising that how steady this exponential growth curve is. The increasing speed of Go usage on stripe doesn't slow down as time goes by.

Of course without knowing the base we don't know how big usage it actually is, also we don't know if it's counting one-per-client or one-per-request. Still nice to see that nonetheless.

<comment><USER12> Right, just look at August! Although I wish there were numbers on that graph. Was there a conference talk? Glad to know there'll be lots of fellow devs using it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interestingly, it looks like the Go library uses structs rather than `map[string]interface{}`, even though the Java library was recently criticised for its usage of `Map<String, Object>`[0], a decision defended by the developer[1] on grounds that "[they] add new parameters to the API frequently, so it's a tradeoff to avoid devs needing to update stripe-java every time."

[0] [http://movingfulcrum.tumblr.com/post/97624791473/critique- of...](http://movingfulcrum.tumblr.com/post/97624791473/critique-of-stripes- java-apis)

[1] [https://twitter.com/JimDanz/status/511730705387110400](https://twitter.com/JimDanz/status/511730705387110400)

<comment><USER14> Go's JSON parser ignores fields that aren't present in the destination type, so the addition of new parameters shouldn't be a problem.

<comment><USER15> I believe the issue is that new parameters wouldn't be accessible without a library update.

<comment><USER16> My sense is that the Go developer culture is a lot more open to frequently updating their dependencies than the Java developer culture. Fetching dependencies from git is built into Go, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What language/platform were you using that had "2-4x" lower throughput than the port to Go?

<comment><AUTHOR> That was porting from Ruby. Go is particularly good for any application where you want to get better utilization out of your CPU, or want to cut down on memory usage.

Most of the code we've been porting has been infrastructure: parsers, reverse proxies, and the like. We're still getting a feel for what it's like writing complex application logic in Go, but what we've seen so far has been promising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Official lua support would be peachy.

<comment><USER19> Out of curiosity: Where would this be used? The only places I ever hear the word "lua" being used are with "embedded in a game as a scripting language".

Is this the case here? Does lua have a lot of use elsewhere?

<comment><USER18> Lua is compiled into OpenResty (NGINX). There is also a nice webframework called Lapis thats built on top of openresty and lua.

<comment><USER19> Thank you for the information!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm a bit baffled by Go.

The majority of developers I know (across several camps) strongly oppose Go, often to the point of ridiculing it.

But then I see Go support being added to everything, usually by a few key people who strongly prefer it. In fact I hear Heroku is internally adopting Go pretty rapidly.

So every time I see an announcement like this, I look up whether Go has added some kind of generics yet. And as usual, they haven't.

But to me, the worst part of this is that the whole community has Stockholm syndrome, being perfectly content to instantly defend every position the Go team makes, no matter what.

<comment><USER21> I'm not the greatest fan of Go; the pain points of api weirdness and generics are too irritating for me.

...but you've got to admit: look at the graph. That's an exponential increase in people using go to access the service.

If you're a service based company you can't just ignore the people who use your service.

If people are using go? Provide a go library.

If you see an exponential curve of people accessing it using lua, write a lua library.

It's pretty obviously the right thing for them to do.

<comment><USER22> The graph has no numbers.

<comment><USER23> Developers & managers at Stripe decided that Go was being used often enough to spend precious dev time writing an official library which will have to be supported from here on. They wouldn't do that if the numbers didn't justify it.

<comment><USER22> That does not justify a graph with no numbers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Free Netbooks are Coming - <AUTHOR> http://www.tech-no-media.com/2009/07/free-netbooks-are-coming.html

<comment><USER2> The word free sure gets abused. Read Virgin's ad: [http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/specialoffers/netbook.h...](http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/specialoffers/netbook.html). To get a netbook you have to spend at least $1600 on a service contract.

</comment><comment><USER3> I must speak about the dangers of bundling. Sure, the netbook may look free, but, in the end, you will pay more than its price in fees. And fees will be higher for everyone, including those who don't take the "free" gift because their money will subsidize the gifts for the other subscribers.

Is this what we want? Will we let telcos prey on our selfish shortsightedness?

</comment><comment><USER4> I picked one up a week or two ago, 'free' is a bit of a stretch, of course you pay for it but you pay for your subsidized cell phone in much the same way, in installments through your 'plan' rather than in one lump sum when you buy it.

The interesting thing is that the plan that came with the netbook (rather than the other way around) was actually cheaper than the one without... go figure!

</comment><comment><USER5> Mobile phone operators in the UK have done this for a while.

<comment><USER6> The US is typically 2-3 years behind when it comes to this sort of thing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So when you say "Free netbooks," what you really mean is "'free' netbooks?"

</comment><comment><USER8> My guess is that the first really free netbook will be available from Google. Chip in Chrome OS, and they could be able to buy themselves into the OS market easily.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think I've seen a bunch of plans with free netbooks in Ireland. The lack of proper broadband infrastructure has give HSDPA dongles a boost here.

</comment><comment><USER10> Verizon is doing this too now with DSL and telephone contracts.

<comment> brown9-2 Giving one away for signing up for FIOS too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're thinking about this, and located in the US, check out Cricket's Wireless "broadband". It's only $40/month and there is no contract!

</comment><comment> onreact-com They are not free. In most cases you even pay more during the time you pay the fees from the contract that gets you the "free" netbook.

It's just a new name for credit.

You repay the netbook during your contract. German telecoms offer netbooks for 1 Euro all the time but in the end you pay more compared to paying right away for a netbook and then choosing the cheapest telecom.</comment>


Free Software Foundation recommendations for Secure Boot - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/whitepaper-web

<comment><USER2> I always wondered why malware doesn't simply replace the windows loader with a secure boot signed grub (kindly paid by redhat) and then load an arbitrary payload.

If microsoft accepts signing a grub bootloader which in turn can load an user built linux image and initrd, then malware could do the same.

Furthermore, if the concern is to avoid unauthorized modification of the boot record, why don't create an hardware filter that prevents writes to the boot sector unless a special hardware key (for example on the laptop case) is activated.

Or, nstead of preventing the write, this hardware key could sign the boot record using a key which is recognized by the firmware. Actually vendors could implement this and get the microsoft windows 8 logo + have a competitive advantage because they show they care for the freedom of their users. (The cost is negligible I guess ... with respect the plethora of multimedia keys, wifi/bluetooth disable toggles etc)

Sorry if it's a stupid question, but the amount of fud around this topic makes it difficult to quickly find relevant info.

<comment><AUTHOR> A perfectly legitimate question! This certainly would fix MOST of the malware problems. It is only when the user can't be trusted to decide this by them self i.e they are tricked into install something bad.

Or it might be that the security reason, isn't the only reason for Microsoft to push this?</comment></comment>


Should You Attend University for Web Development? - <AUTHOR> http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/interviews/should-you-go-to-university-for-web-development/

<comment><USER2> University has never really been about real world application. The professors and lecturers that i've encountered are really smart people on the cutting edge of thier fields, if they wanted to lecture about these technologies tey would have no issues.

University is really about teaching you the principles which rarely change much, then depending on your course building up to more real world situations.

Theres no point focusing a whole course around the newest technologies then having someone not have the flexability to adapt to new changes or work in an older area.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like common sense to me, but believe it or not, some people disagree. Check out some dissenting opinions from the article:

"A class I took in 2007 taught how to create a website with tables. I found out this year that they are finally teaching table free websites. Being a few years behind is definitely not smart, especially when you're paying so much to learn this information." (If you think the point of paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for college is to acquire knowledge whose shelf life is shorter than the time you spend there, then it's no wonder you think it's a bad idea.)

"[Students] don't know, yet, that they need to be constantly monitoring blogs and twitter for the latest information on the industry." (Methinks this person is confused about what "web development" is, thinking it means self-promotion and getting blog traffic rather than developing good web sites.)

"I think I learned more on my co-op at the time on web development then I learned in the class room. Only the concepts were relevant in the classroom - the languages and the techniques weren't." (Silly colleges teaching concepts instead of specific technologies!)

It's funny how so many web developers think that having the latest technology is absolutely required, instead of thinking about the costs and benefits of staying up to date. The only aspect of web development where fashion is a driver is UI design. Cutting-edge UI design sometimes (not always) requires cutting-edge UI implementation technologies. For the rest, hell, every site has its own needs, and your site's needs might have been technologically solved years ago. I think these kids could benefit from taking a calculus class and realizing that the concepts and the notation are older than their parents (hah, didn't know there _was_ anything that old, did ya?)

<comment><USER4> Using universities for "vocational training" is a bad route. Its what many employers want and some students want. A solid general university education is valuable even if you cannot measure its value in terms of your first few jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're asking the question, then you're too young to decide against college. Keep your options open. It won't hurt your web development career, and if you change your mind about your career (like most people do between the ages of 18 and 25) you won't be stuck playing college catch-up.

You really don't want to go to college when you're years older than the other students. All the kids will think you're a loser, and they'll think you're creepy if you try to hang out with them. You'll think they're shallow and irresponsible, and you'll resent it when they do as well in class as you. No, thanks. Now is the time. Just go. If the obligatory college pastimes of drinking, socializing, and watching foreign films sound silly to you, I've got good news: you'll have LOTS of free time at college to work on your web development skills.

P.S. He got a variety of responses and a lively discussion among people who are still interested in web development. The answers would be much more predictable if you could ask the people who entered college as programming freaks and developed an interest in economics or anthropology. I think that consideration settles the issue pretty well.

<comment><USER4> Well said. There is no good reason to grow up so fast. You have the rest of your life to work. Spend as much time in university as you like. Take a year or two and travel after your done, it doesn't have to be expensive. Work is always waiting for you.

<comment><USER5> Great idea in theory, but not everyone can afford the costs of spending as much time as they want without income (much less follow it up by traveling for two years).

In the real world, people are often forced to 'grow up' faster than they would want due to external factors.

<comment><USER4> This is mostly a problem in people's minds. You are not forced to grow up faster, you do it to yourself. I went to college without a penny from others. I worked every other quarter and did just fine. It took longer, but I also got a lot out of it and ended up without debt.

Leaving school to start some "get-rich-quick" web X.0 idea is very foolish. If you luck into having a huge success on the line by doing a side project with a friend during college, that's different and very rare.</comment></comment></comment></comment>