Classic math puzzles for job interviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~petar/mathjob.pdf <comment><USER2> I don't see how the square could be partitioned, maybe I am reading it wrong? My informal counter proof by contradiction (decrypt with rot13.com):

fvapr gur cnegvgvba vf svavgr, gurer vf n fdhner Z jvgu gur fubegrfg fvqr. Abj pbafvqre gur fdhnerf nybat gur gbc fvqr bs gur havg fdhner. Gur fznyyrfg fdhner nzbat gurz unf n fvqr yratgu < 0.5, yrg'f pnyy vg F1. Abj pbafvqre ebj bs fdhnerf pbirevat gur obggbz fvqr bs F1. Gurer unf gb or n fznyyrfg fdhner nzbat gurz, jvgu yratgu < 0.5* fvqr_yratgu_bs(F1) = 0.25. Yrg gung fznyyrfg fdhner or F2. Abj pbafvqre gur ebj bs fdhnerf ng gur obggbz bs gung fdhner. Gurer unf gb or n fznyyrfg fdhner F3 nzbat gurz jvgu fvqr yratgu < 0.5*0.25 = cbjre(0.5,3). Naq fb ba - gurer vf nyjnlf n arkg ebj bs fdhnerf, nf gur fznyyrf fdhner va gur ebj pna abg gbhpu gur obggbz fvqr bs gur havg fdhner. Urapr V pna tb ba yvxr gung vasvavgryl, orpnhfr yvz cbj(0.5,a) = 0 riraghnyyl V'yy svaq n fdhner gung vf fznyyre guna Z, pbagenqvpgvba.

</comment><comment><USER3> These problems are a lot of fun and in most cases there are interesting general lessons in their solutions, but the way the interview system seems to work is that every year there's a new book or sheet of puzzles that everyone memorizes and then pretends to have never seen before when asked during an interview.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, these puzzles are too unique and are in many cases well known problems/paradoxes that candidates are likely to know. Interviewers might be better served by asking a generic, LSAT-style logic game or a somewhat simple but time consuming math problem (maybe polynomial factorization).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> #5 is impossible. Martin Gardner has a nice proof of this: observe that each domino must cover a black and a white square, no matter how you orient it. When you remove two opposite squares, you remove two squares of the same colour. Imagine you have put 30 of the dominoes on the board, then two squares remain uncovered. These squares must be the same colour (by the above rules), so there is no way the last domino can cover them both.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok, I fail and don't get the job, I get it... but where are the answers!

</comment><comment><USER7> In what kind of job interview would asking any of these help you select an employee?

<comment><USER8> Professional puzzle solver job interview!

In all seriousness, if you start getting these questions during the interview, you should realize that these people don't know how to hire and you should move away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Need answers? Email the PDF creator.

"Due to popular demand: I will write up and give out the solution to any problem in return for an interesting new problem. This will serve as a good growing force for the collection of problems."

<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~petar/misc.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow, I am surprised #13 is listed as a 1-star problem.

I was told a story about this problem by a professor while in class. Supposedly, Edgser Djisktra couldn't sleep one night due to jet lag. He was currently going through a phase in which was exercising the power of thought, practicing thought-exercises such as these without a pencil and paper. While in bed that night, awake due to jet lag, he solved this problem. The professor told us that none of us were smart enough to solve this problem. Hardly seems worthy of one star. :)

<comment><USER2> I haven't solved it yet, but it seems to be solvable by sheer diligence? Is there a faster solution? I think in an interview I would ask to write a computer program that solves it. Wait - I guess now I have to try that :-(

Edit: which programming language has good support for primes? I thought I saw one recently, but can't find it now.

<comment><USER11> Using the Goldbach Conjecture makes it easier.

<comment><USER12> start small and work your way up?

lets say 1>x>y and x+y<=4...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> on the mouse one, could you not mix wines?

100 bottles, divide into 2 groups, feed mouse...

Separate poisoned bottles into 2 groups feed mouse..

basically 100,50,25,12,6,3,1 ... 6 mice needed.

<comment><USER14> There is only 1 day. Wouldn't you just separate the bottles evenly across all the mice?

<comment><USER5> That way you could serve 900 bottles. Can you serve more?

Hint: Look at the number of possible outcomes. In this case, each of the 10 mice can either live or die. That gives us 2^10 = 1024 possible outcomes. We can only encounter 1000 possible initial configurations of bottles. Is there a way to set it up so that each of the 1000 possible outcomes maps to an initial configuration?

<comment><USER15> I figured it out by thinking what would happen if you only had 1 mouse (500 bottles can make it to the party), then looking at the problem again with 2 mice (there's a way to prove that 750 bottles are poison-free using only 2 mice), etc. all the way up to 10 mice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You do the mice as binary and then read them like 0's and 1's if they die or don't die</comment>


Ask Hn: How to create an iPhone App demo video? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to create a demo video of an iPhone app (and mobile optimized web app) like the one at http://www.jqtouch.com/. I've just been taking video of the iPhone simulator, but it doesn't shows a mouse instead of a user's finger.<p>Anyone know if there is a good way to make that sort of demo video? <comment><USER2> Check this out: <http://github.com/atebits/SimFinger>

I have used SimFinger and SnapzPro to record the screencast. I didn't have access to Adobe Premiere, so I used Keynote to add the titles. I created a slideshow the way I wanted it and then recorded it with Keynote's built in recorder.

Unfortunately I can't show you the result yet but it's almost identical to the style Apple uses.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote a freebie app that gives you a simulated finger: <http://www.wonderwarp.com/phonefinger/>

</comment><comment><USER4> ScreenFlow. Awesome.</comment>


Tell HN: "So… What happened to the last guy?"  - An Update - <AUTHOR>

581 days ago I interviewed at a non-profit and made the following HN post, asking the community if was a good idea to call my predecessor before going further.  The advice I received was mixed (as expected), but I strongly recommend taking a look at the thread, as there were great points all around.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050227
In the end I decided not to contact the 'last guy' based on this rationale: 1) LinkedIn showed he had little real work experience 2) the organization seemed straightforward about his departure 3) I didn't want his bias creeping into my new relationships and 4) there wasn't really much he could have said to dissuade me.
I'm writing this update to say that I very much regret this decision! :)  In the end I, too, opted to leave… but it took me some time to discover the underlying problems and this could have been expedited with better knowledge (even biased 'opinions') upfront.  In short, I probably would have still taken the job, but I think I would have spared myself a lot of stress and time had I had more information.
The good news is that whole ordeal did prove to be quite a learning experience, and it did work out well in the end (but at a different employer). <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050227>

</comment><comment><USER3> > In the end I, too, opted to leave… but it took me some time to discover the > underlying problems

Naturally, we want to know about the problems.</comment>


North Korea Hackers Step Up Bitcoin Attacks - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/north-korea-hackers-step-up-bitcoin-attacks-amid-rising-tensions <comment><USER2> I've always been a little curious how North Korea is able to produce hackers that are competitive on a global scale. It's not only that an average North Korean would grow up with access to fewer resources compared to many countries, but you'd also think that the same information embargo used to keep the population in line would also compromise the ability of the best technical people to educate themselves. Extremely limited access to internet, current books, a creative community (either in-person or virtual), software, tooling, etc.

I guess the answer is the same as how the country is able to win gold medal at the Olympics [1] – money (and lots of it) sunk into state-sponsored training programs — but I'm a little surprised that it's effective. Even in the US, a school that would consistently produce A-grade hackers would be pretty hard to build.

\---

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

<comment><USER3> Anecdata time: I'm currently an exchange student in China and one of my Chinese friends told me about his attempt to make friends with two North Koreans in his class. They were apparently always staying together, sleeping in the same dorm room, going to the washroom at the same time, the works. When my friend tried to talk to them, they immediately left as if they were afraid.

I have read that this is a common tactic North Korea employs when sending people abroad for business (or, in this case, study). Their families are kept as hostages, and if any of them were trying to escape, they would all be punished. So they have to constantly check on each other for fear of their own lives and those of their families.

So North Korea doesn't need to build an elite hacker school themselves, they can just send promising candidates out of the country, make sure that they do nothing but study, and ensure their return using the threat of violence.

<comment><USER4> That's also how their border guard works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a load of horseshit. From the referenced report:

"In 2016 we began observing actors we believe to be North Korean" \- key phrase "we believe".

"Now, we may be witnessing a second wave of this campaign" \- "may be".

The whole article is just fishing for connections with zero ties to anything solid. Even if they did connect two dots, we can now claim that a few people doing something is the entire North Korean regime? Pppplease.

<comment><USER6> Well, if it is someone in NK, how likely is it that an ordinary citizen can do it?

<comment><USER7> Because its the same as "Russian hackers"

anyone in the world with a proxy can pretend to be the "state sponsored hacker"

I don't see how people are still falling for this, but hey it still works and you can make millions of dollars without prosecution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How good are these guys, and what happens if... NK gets all internet access cut off from the rest of the world?

<comment><USER8> In the aftermath of the Sony hack the NSA burned a few taps when it became known that they monitored the boxes in China that the NK hackers use as staging servers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: People working remotely, how do you adjust for lack of interactions? - <AUTHOR> Being remote sounds pleasant, but one obvious advantage of an office environment is casual conversations you can have with your colleagues. You have much going for you when it comes to having social interactions.<p>How do you cope with it when the office environment not there? <comment><USER2> I work alone at home and have for years. I'm probably not average but I love it. That's why I'm still doing it.

This, right here is one of the ways I interact with people. FB too of course.

It really is pleasant. Time tends to fly by when I'm working because I get so focused on it.

Aside from that, my wife and I live in a rural area on 5 acres surrounded by Nation Forest and Army Corps land that surrounds a big lake below us. We have dogs, cats, two burros, chickens, a big garden and a big lawn so I'm outside a lot keeping up with that.

I left Los Angeles to come here in the late `80s just around the time "telecommuting" was the latest catchphrase. Haven't missed it a bit.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) We have become pretty good at using Slack casually as well. We have #random where people talk about anything.

2) We do daily-standups on Slack where some of the questions are around how people feel and what they have been doing outside of work recently. This brings people more together digitally.

3) We often do check-ins (1-2 times per week for remote people) to hear how things are going and help them progress.

4) We bring people together physically sometimes. We will pay for flights and accommodation so people can visit the closest office to them 1-4 times a year.</comment>


Analyzing an Android WebView exploit - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.avg.com/mobile/analyzing-android-webview-exploit/

<comment><USER2> Damn I was hoping this bypassed permissions. It can still be dangerous; picture the Facebook app's permission structure, it uses a WebView (or used to anyway, I haven't used Android in a while now). An attacker could send a link that does something useful, or inject JavaScript into a legit page that when viewed in FB's app (coupled with an FB status worm, anyone?) sends messages to premium SMS numbers... the attacker could rack up quite a bit of money.

This is dangerous due to applications habit of requesting a _lot_ of permissions, often for use cases that don't need that huge API in particular. The problem is, designing a more fine grained permissions structure that is tractable in terms of UI is a hard problem. This also points out one of the issues of androids lack of vendor supplied updates for anything less than a flagship phone :(

Does anyone know if WebView has been decoupled from the base OS in later versions? I know it has been hooked into Chrome now, right, so does that API get updated with Chrome itself?

<comment><USER3> The changes to the WebView are purely about the rendering engine (and possibly javascript engine). The API itself hasn't changed, as any old app will use the new WebView as well.

The actual rendering engine change is from a generic WebKit to that of Blink, used in Chromium. Chrome the application is then a rebranded Chromium, which compared to the WebView, has a lot of its own code separate from the WebView.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a bit misleading article. First in order to application to send SMS message or any other privileged action, it must declare that at install time (in manifest file). Second in order to send SMS and expose function to JS runtime, function must be of subclass of JavaScriptInterface class (pre JB), or you can use annotation if you are targeting JB+ devices.

This means function must be exposed and written before you can actuality use exploit. Bottom line you can't just send SMS from WebView just by "accident" :) And properly written applications should not expose that function in first place.

PhoneGap seem likely target for this exploit. Facebook, Instagram ... and many others not.

<comment><USER5> That is wrong.

Pre JB you can run any function by using reflection, as is demonstrated in the example.

anyjavaobject.getClass().forName("android.telephony.SmsManager").. etc.</comment></comment>


The 'Backdoor' Risks to Political Campaigns - <AUTHOR> https://www.databreachtoday.com/backdoor-risks-to-political-campaigns-a-14886 <comment><USER2> Don't use domestic political messaging on platforms with international audience or you might net surprises. Even if the platform is in your jurisdiction. Also "propaganda" from domestic voices will always be under much more scrutiny compared to foreign ones without direct and open conflict. As a citizen I want leaks on my government, not from some random foreign actor.

I believe the behavior of large tech firms that tried to counter false info was counterproductive in almost all cases.

The topic isn't false info or fake news, it still isn't, the topic is large corporations censoring content, promoting voices of their customers while removing those of critics. And those that see this as the larger problem are completely correct on this in my opinion. A term of office in any country is irrelevant in comparison.

Also imagine a smug smile if political actors suddenly understand the importance of having their data protected. Could have run on that issue and it maybe would have brought you much success, but instead mass surveillance was even extended and very likely abused. Hopefully that was just learning the hard way.

Hope the gain of surveillance is worth it for national security. You might want to do an evaluation though.</comment>


In foam-arrow patent fracas, Newegg swoops in to aid LARPer defendant - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/newegg-donates-10k-to-larping-org-in-foam-arrow-patent-fracas/ <comment><USER2> The fun and games in this move by Newegg - imagery and language are hilarious - mask their serious intent.

Newegg seems to be switching to offence and has carefully chosen its moment. The heartfelt video, the relatively small sums, demonstrably trollish behaviour from the counterparty, a clear underdog, building a movement of "geeks" are indicators of eventual success. Not just in this case, but in raising awareness towards political action.

Newegg, won't mind if the troll backs down now. It sends a clear message to other trolls that a white knight is possible, which can generate adverse publicity as well as legal cost. In a sense, they are using the trolls' own playbook against them. Nice strategy.

<comment><USER3> > Newegg seems to be switching to offence and has carefully chosen its moment.

This isn't offense; offense in patents would be asserting Newegg's own patents against others. This is defense, just defense of others.

<comment><USER4> It's a defensive tactic but an offensive strategy.

No, not that kind of offensive. I gave the larping.org guy $10 for legal fees, even though LARPers are strange folk unlike us normal, sane tabletop RPG players.

<comment><USER5> > No, not that kind of offensive. I gave the larping.org guy $10 for legal > fees, even though LARPers are strange folk unlike us normal, sane tabletop > RPG players.

Ok, I laughed. It's kind of true though, I'm always reminded of this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ04mfAY2BU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ04mfAY2BU)

I had a roommate that was into melee, where they'd all get together and make fake weapons and then fight. They had a point system and everything, it was interesting to watch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clicking around [0], one finds that Global's business isn't even really based on selling foam arrows. No, they sell _franchises_ to "Archery Tag® Licensees", to whom they _then_ sell foam arrows. Then we learn:

 _" We do not guarantee regions, cities, or areas for our Licensees. We believe that having more Licensees in one area brings a larger brand awareness for Archery Tag®."_

What a fucking scam. No wonder they're patent trolls. They already make a living screwing over their franchisees, why not try to screw over everyone else too?

[0] [http://archerytag.com/faqs](http://archerytag.com/faqs)

<comment><USER7> I never thought I'd find myself defending a plaintiff in a patent lawsuit, but some of HN has really gone off the deep end with this anti-patent nonsense.

This is a company who are defending their legally granted competitive advantage _in a field in which they actually compete_. I don't know that I consider a foam arrow sufficiently non-obvious to patent, but that's neither here nor there.

Not only is this not troll-like, this is precisely the sort of situation for which patents were designed. Someone comes up with an idea; thinks, "huh, this idea would be easy to steal"; and applies for protection against it being stolen.

A patent does not have to be on a final good or service, and owning a patent does not oblige you to sell a product to anyone who asks. If you have a patent on industrial machinery to protect your own production chain, you're not required to build one for anyone who is willing to put up the cash for it. It is nevertheless reasonable for you to sue someone who copies it - "they won't sell it to me" is not a defence against patent infringement.

To draw a rather apt analogy - there is a laser tag company in my parts (basically you run around in a darkened room shooting each other with guns that fire a little IR laser) - they don't sell their equipment to anyone who asks - it's a competitive advantage for their venues. I don't know whether or not they have patents, but I don't see how you could reasonably argue that they shouldn't have them if they designed the equipment, or that they should be required to provide that equipment to others. If they were required to do that, what would be the point of the patent?

And just to save accusations of cherry-picking, I agree with you about the non-guaranteed region rah rah, but it's rather beside the point.

<comment><USER8> > _It is nevertheless reasonable for you to sue someone who copies it - "they > won't sell it to me" is not a defence against patent infringement._

Personally, I think it's ridiculous that someone could create something "obvious", refuse to sell it to you and _also_ restrict you from making it yourself. The world shouldn't work that way. I hope courts agree.

<comment><USER7> Right, but you're rolling two issues into one.

I agree with you on the creating something obvious part, and the patent perhaps shouldn't have been issued (though scroll down for more discussion on that, it's more complicated than it seems at first, and it looks like prior art is more of a concern that obviousness - the patent is not simply for "foam arrows").

But restrict you from making something they designed and won't sell you?

Well are you making it to sell or for personal use? Making it for personal use, I agree, and I think it's unfortunate that the law does not.

Selling it, which is what the defendant did? No, that's the point of a patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Global is asserting questionable IP rights aggressively and counting on the > high cost of defensive litigation to win, so we consider it a troll

Glad to see this high-profile acknowledgement that "patent troll" doesn't exclusively mean "non-practicing entity".

<comment><USER9> Often NPEs are not considered trolls, such as universities.

<comment><USER3> Depends on who's doing the describing. Some university offices of "technology licensing" do act like patent trolls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something about this whole saga makes me think that both the underlying problem and the game of legal chicken could have been avoided if Global Archery just asked nicely in the first place. Unless of course it was hoping to drive the guy out of business, in which case, it's awesome that Newegg is helping out, because the courts should not be a tool for running fair competitors out of business.

<comment><USER11> All Global Archery had to do was call up and say:

"Hey, we see that you're reselling for one of our competitors. Do you think you and your customers be willing to switch to our product for {X} price?"

<comment><USER7> I mean hold up a minute, do we know that they didn't?

This article, two-line update aside, is extraordinarily one-sided. They don't seem to have reached out to the other party at all.

<comment><USER6> You read about the franchising crap in the other thread, have you forgotten? _Their own FAQ_ states clearly that they would never sell foam arrows to a distributor like the LARPer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Spending $150,000 to stop $2k/month of volume from being sold at any rate of sales cannabilisation is foolish business. Their intention was to send a message. Any lawyer stooping this low should be ashamed of their actions.

<comment><USER13> Do you know many lawyers?

<comment><USER14> "should"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Such is the state of journalism that we know more about some t-shirts than details of the patents in question.

<comment><USER15> Found it [1].

Looks like the patents are somewhat original. '413 has a removable foam tip secured with barbs and '159 is similar with an overmolded tip. Might be tricky to come up with prior art on those.

The trademark violation looks legit too. AdWords were being used with their trademark as a keyword. Don't see how this company is trolling other than the ridiculous gag order.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/GA.Gwyther...](http://arstechnica.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/GA.Gwyther.complaint.pdf)

<comment><USER16> The patents in question are from 2011 and on:

Publication number US8449413 B1 Publication type Grant Application number US 13/311,641 Publication date May 28, 2013 Priority date Dec 6, 2011

Publication number US8932159 B2 Publication type Grant Application number US 13/871,537 Publication date Jan 13, 2015 Filing date Apr 26, 2013 Priority date Apr 26, 2013

It looks like iDV, where this dude buy's his arrows to resell falls under prior art as their stuff is shown in YouTube videos as far back as at least 2010:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVdHnANZ2o0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVdHnANZ2o0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Newegg has definitely earned a customer in me from their work! I'm going to buy from Newegg to support them even if what I'm ordering is a little more than what I could find it for on another site.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why don't other distributors contribute? His gofundme says this could set a precedent for them to be sued. Seems worth their time and money to be sure this goes away now.

[https://www.gofundme.com/savelarparchery](https://www.gofundme.com/savelarparchery)

<comment><USER19> It might be wise for distributors to kick in some cash, but Gwyther uses the term "precedent" overbroadly in his gofundme video.

If he were to settle, there would be no precedent set. And even if he went to trial and lost, other District Courts would not be bound by the determination in the Gwyther case. This would only be considered as "persuasive precedent", which courts ignore all the time (see, e.g., every circuit split ever).

To be clear, I agree completely that they should band together to nip this in the bud. But this is only for practical reasons—not legal ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like NewEgg's crusade against patent trolls, but this particular battle feels particularly off base. It's not just that the patent "troll" is not in an slightly unrelated business. It's that they're an operating company with a patent on a product whose business being undercut by someone else selling the same product. And this is the first patent suit they've asserted, and they've done it against one particular person, who is selling to their customers. I'm not a huge fan of patents, but will they win?

</comment><comment><USER21> It would be nice if Newegg sold these shirts on their Canadian site as well.

<comment><USER22> I'll second that. I keep getting redirected to the Canadian site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you like what Newegg is doing... _Buy from Newegg_! You might save a few dollars with Amazon, but you'll save a lot more than that buying from Newegg.

</comment><comment><USER24> I know we all love Amazon prime, but I buy from Newegg whenever possible. Greatest PR campaign ever.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Cheng says that while Global Archery is an operating company, it still meets > his criteria for being a patent troll.

> "Global is asserting questionable IP rights aggressively and counting on the > high cost of defensive litigation to win, so we consider it a troll," Cheng > said. "Newegg hates trolls—they bully the weak, they hurt consumers, they > hurt America, and they just suck."

Yeah, no. Nobody really considers a company that is actually making the products its IP covers a troll. You're just throwing that word around because of its negative connotations, and trying to redefine it.

<comment><USER26> Your dismissal seems to elide the word _questionable._

Back in the dark ages of computing, AT&T had a patent on the concept of "backing store" for windows, that is, the notion that if you had a GUI with two overlapping windows, you could save the state of the window underneath the other one rather than having to redraw the entire window when the top window moves or is closed. This is an _extremely_ questionable patent; AT&T didn't even invent this -- Lisp machines did that, too, but they didn't try to patent it because it's blindingly obvious.

AT&T should never have been granted this patent, and their engineers had to know it. I would argue that "patent troll," although the term didn't exist back then, absolutely applies here, regardless of whether AT&T happened to be shipping their own system that used a backing store. Maybe _your_ personal definition of "patent troll" requires the troll to be an NPE, but an awful lot of people would consider Wikipedia's definition to be more on point than yours: "a patent troll is a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art."

<comment><USER25> I'm gonna tell you a secret. Every patent claim is _questionable_. That's why in almost every infringement litigation, validity and enforceability are at issue.</comment></comment></comment>


Atlassian HipChat was breached. Time to reset your password. - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hipchat.com/2015/02/01/hipchat-security-notice-and-password-reset/

<comment><USER2> With the number of companies that store company-confidential data in HipChat, the real question is whether or not it was a targeted attack on specific organizations, or if it was a general breach of access on the generic user database.

<comment><USER3> Wondering the same. What if this was Github? What if private repos were somehow exposed? All these team apps could expose sensitive data if targeted/breached.

<comment><USER4> Do companies really store sensitive code IP on public cloud sites like github, which could be acquired at any time by a competitor?

<comment><USER5> I've seen passwords and other sensitive config data committed to public repos in GitHub. I wouldn't even be slightly surprised by people keeping sensitive IP or trade secrets there, on the assumption that if it's a private repo, it must be safe.

<comment><USER6> To clarify for others who might not see this: Where do you think sensitive data - private keys, passwords, etc. - should be kept? For instance, when setting up infrastructure for a company, how would you desire that data be shared across users?

Once might have the same reservations about something like Heroku - or really any cloud provider - given that at some point, you are pushing code to a server that is owned by another company whose security you cannot audit.

<comment><USER7> If you use ansible, there is a great feature called ansible-vault that allows you to store all those sensitive bits right in the repo but encrypted and automatically readable by ansible when needed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


All the rain that's fallen over Houston so far, in one massive water drop - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/28/16217626/harvey-houston-flood-water-visualized <comment><USER2> That's an impressive amount of water to drop anywhere.

An xkcd 'what-if' article explores what would happen if a storm were to release all its water in a single drop like this.

[https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/)</comment>


The path to profitability for Uber and Lyft looks more like a dead end - <AUTHOR> https://beth.technology/profitability-uber-lyft-dead-end/ <comment><USER2> The end result will be a more expensive taxi-like system that will end up being inefficient within a decade or less.

yay progress?</comment>


South Korea's Misogyny - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/opinion/south-koreas-misogyny.html <comment><USER2> It's curious--it seems that while Western or Asian developed countries have an increasing distaste for perceived misogyny, other countries get a pass.

I wonder what the situation is in places like Southeast Asia, if they deal with the same sorts of issues and to what degree.

I also wonder if the NYT would write the same thing decrying treatment of women in fundamentalist Middle Eastern areas--it'd be even more interesting if they could compare the treatment. It may well be, for example, that perceived overt oppression (body covering, travel regulation, curfews, etc.) is actually less severe than the sort of covert discrimination shown about South Korea.

<comment><USER3> The NYT are in favor of 'diversity', as long as it's 'diversity' as practiced by white Western liberals.

Otherwise, it's all 'misogyny', or 'racism', or 'homophobia', or what-have- you.

Kind of sounds like _homogeneity_ to me.

And last I checked, the president of South Korea was female.

<comment><USER2> > _And last I checked, the president of South Korea was female._

To be fair, we have an African-American in the White House, and his people are still having a lot of trouble in the US.

That's not a good metric.</comment></comment></comment>


JQuery UI 1.5 Adds Effects and Themes - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/jquery-ui-15-effects-api-and-themes

<comment><USER2> It's the jQuery UI plug in that has reached the 1.5 milestone. The latest jQuery release is 1.2.6 - the headline had me worried - I though I had dropped way behind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. Fixed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting that they're moving their API more toward message passing.</comment>


No, HP, you're off the mark - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/20/no-hp-youre-off-the-mark/

<comment><USER2> HP, Dell, SAP, Oracle, Motorola, Autonomy... it feels like 1999 all over again. These companies made their own beds – rather arrogantly, too – and now they pay the piper. The whole phenomenon of the "enterprise" is drying up. I see it first hand in my job every day – big companies are moving to smaller web-based operations in every area except where the 90's-era integrators and software vendors have them locked in. The House of Cards those vendors built (with their take-or-leave it anti-user attitude and ever-growing army of aggro sales-bots) is collapsing inward on them. They're all pimping "services" that, when you read the contract are essentially a "pay us and we will do as we please" arrangement. I have never met a salesperson from HP/EDS, SAP, Oracle, etc. who didn't evoke the Pink Floyd song "Dogs":

And after a while, you can work on points for style. Like the club tie, and the firm handshake, A certain look in the eye and an easy smile. You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, So that when they turn their backs on you, You'll get the chance to put the knife in. You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder. You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older. And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south, Hide your head in the sand, Just another sad old man, All alone and dying of cancer.

</comment><comment><USER3> HP should just open-source WebOS and see some real competition. I personally think WebOS could very well be the WebKit to Android's Firefox. It's extremely elegant. So sad to see it go to waste.

Rather than have it die in a proprietary silo, open it up like Netscape did with its codebase. Once it hits the scene I really think it would capture people's imaginations. Plus, it ain't Java (tm)

<comment><USER4> And how does that make HP any money?

<comment><USER5> Sure, but how does mothballing WebOS make them any money?

<comment><USER6> I wonder how many patents HP has related to webos that would complicate any open source initiative, or sale.

<comment><USER5> You may have hit on how they could go about making money even after they open source webOS. "Here is the source. Do what you will; if you make money, expect to pay royalties under the following terms". If none of the 'old guard' licenses work for them, they could tailor a new license to their purpose.

I don't think that such an arrangement is in HP's character; however, letting the investment die seems foolish in any case.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Adventure in OpenAPI V3 Code Generation - <AUTHOR> https://mux.com/blog/an-adventure-in-openapi-v3-api-code-generation/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here!

We've been playing with representing our APIs using tools like Swagger for a while and finally built a toolchain around OpenAPI V3. It wasn't all smooth sailing though, the tools aren't perfect yet.

Let me know if you have any questions or tips for tools or best practises we missed!</comment>


New Neighborhood Will Grow Its Own Food, Power Itself, and Handle Its Own Waste - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3060167/this-new-neighborhood-will-grow-its-own-food-power-itself-and-handle-its-own-waste <comment><USER2> The creation of something this sustainable (especially for lower and middle income communities) needs an equally sustainable tool-shed and parts factory for use at the same time.

These are not things that industry tends to provide on an individual or even communal basis, so they will most likely have to be built into communities themselves through fabrications labs and community-owned 3d printers.

neil gershenfeld's talk on fab labs and their social applications if anyone's interested (warning: tedtalk)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-APFrlXDs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-APFrlXDs)

he has a bunch of good ideas. if anyone's curious, buy his books or watch any of his most recent talks discussing digital reality

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the idea but I have questions, questions, questions.

Will it scale; how do you keep the village to 100 people? 100 seems to be small enough that you can have a social community, but people will move in and move out over time.

Social communities just don't happen, there's a certain amount of trust to be developed.

This seems to be a stepped removed from communal living where a group of people lived in one house. Is this a refinement of that, with groups in separate properties for family privacy.

Who is responsible for making sure everything gets done?

I'll read up on this and track it.

[http://www.regenvillages.com/](http://www.regenvillages.com/)

A class act videos on Vimeo:

[https://vimeo.com/161147258](https://vimeo.com/161147258)

<comment><USER4> I'm with you on the questions.

You are correct, who IS responsible for making sure it gets done? Who will teach folks and set up a schedule for garden care? Is 100 people enough to actually do all the stuff? Will the people have time to work outside the community? What happens when folks have another child or two? When the kids grow up, do they have to leave the village if they get married at 18?

If they implement this in different areas, how do you entice people (especially poor folks) into leaving their homes? Can it be adapted to different cultures? Do folks need to give up variety in foods to live there?

A town of 3000 people can seem pretty intrusive if you are a private person and it really sucks being the weird one in such a group. I'm usually the weird one. Now, luckily this particular village is a suburb of Amsterdam so some things really won't be so much of an issue. But I think if it plays out, not all will be such. How do they plan on combating stuff like this... let alone racism and bigotry in such a small community?

I like the idea of vertical farming as mentioned in the article and have been a proponent for some time now, but would like to see it on a more industrial scale so that it can go into existing large cities. New York, Oslo, Delhi, Hong Kong, Manilla, etc. Because this is where many people currently live. I think this is a decent start, but truly in its infancy.

<comment><USER5> >> would like to see it on a more industrial scale so that it can go into existing large cities

This will not happen in our lifetimes. Large cities with millions of people will never be self-sustainable. "Industrial scale" and "sustainable" are mutually exclusive concepts.

<comment><USER6> What? That's pessimistic. I can't think of any rule governing the universe that mandates "industrial scale" to be "insustainable." Improvements in science and technology have changed the course of human history, making what seemed previously impossible to be now common place, and taken for granted.

<comment><USER7> > making what seemed previously impossible to be now common place, and taken > for granted.

In lockstep with that progress in science and technology came a commensurate decay in sustainability. Nobody imagined that we could eradicate most of its diversity, burn enough of it to actually drive up its temperature permanently, or create the possibility of exploding and irradiating the entire thing with the press of a button. Now those things are commonplace, and taken for granted. Before improvements in science and technology there was no question that human life as it was lived was sustainable indefinitely; after those improvements, there are very few serious scientists who wouldn't register disgust at hearing that claim made now.

<comment><USER4> I disagree - we never have really thought that we could live indefinitely and sustain ourselves. Overpopulation has been a fear since Plato at least ([https://fee.org/articles/overpopulation-the-perennial- myth/](https://fee.org/articles/overpopulation-the-perennial-myth/)). We hunted things to extinction and knew it. Plus there were more diseases to worry about, death rates for child-bearing women were high as well as the child death rate. Really, if you weren't worried one way, you were worried another.

Different times simply frame problems differently. At least we are more aware of some of the stuff now, even if we haven't scientifically figured it all out nor figured out how to work together enough to solve them.

<comment><USER6> Exactly.

Fear of technology, and even industrialization, have also been around, probably as long as technology and industrialization have.

Every generation has had these same sentiments and concerns, just framed in a different era.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Its great to see Michael Reynolds vindicated after originally losing his Architect license while developing these types of techniques in the 70s.

</comment><comment> Null-Set What we learn from some of the challenges here can be applied to eventual Mars colonies.</comment>


Typesetting and paste-up, 1970 style - <AUTHOR> http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/woverbeck/dtr5.htm

<comment><USER2> In the 1980s, I ran a monthly 24 page punk rock music magazine using this technology. By 1984, after I sold the business, desktop publishing was already pushing out "cold type". "Cold type" -- or phototypesetting -- was what we called the Compugraphic and Linotype machines that used photosensitive paper to image columns of type. As opposed to "hot type" -- the Linotype, Ludlow, and Monotype machines that poured molten lead into molds.

There was something seriously fun about the mechanics of publishing with cold type. It was a very satisfying physical process, involving all the senses: the smell of photoprocessing chemicals, the warmth of the wax machine, the glow of the light table, our art director humming while wearing his Walkman cassette player. And all the tools: xacto knives, rulers, sheets of rub-on borders and alignment crosshairs. Good layout required an aesthetic sense alloyed with a keen eye, mental concentration and fine motor skills. Maybe not so different from Photoshop now but there was an embodied, kinesthetic and sensual aspect that's gone missing.

We thought the combination of the $4000 128K Mac and $6000 Apple Laser Printer was an incredible and liberating technology. Now we barely remember that "desktop publishing" was an innovation. And now I realize I miss the physicality of cold type.

Of course, there were those who decried all that was lost in the transition from hot type to cold type. Famously, it was a desire to recreate the aesthetic qualities of hot type that spurred Donald Knuth to create TEX, the digital typesetting program.

</comment><comment><USER3> The local small town county newspaper used a similar process up until about 4 years ago. They had long since tossed the paper tape equipment, and bought a couple of Macs around 1990 with a laser printer. The column strips were set in MS Word, printed on standard paper, then cut and pasted onto large markup boards using the same wax machine shown in those pictures. The boards were then carried 12 miles down to the next town where there was a press (similar to the Goss Community shown in the pics) and the paper was printed every Wednesday morning.

Now, they have Adobe InDesign, and they can produce a full color front and back page. The PDF is transmitted via the internet to a larger press plant a hundred miles away, and the papers are ready for pickup 18 hours later.

A serious improvement. Best looking local county paper in the area.

</comment><comment><USER4> The missing photo COLON a journalist in a phone box COMMA reading to a copy taker.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looking at how much has changed in 30 years in desktop publishing, imagine what laborious aspects of web development will be automated over the next 30 years.

While some people may say that arranging the layouts of paper publications by hand can allow for some more personal styles, the time saved from software yields a generally superior end product, making it a no-brainer. I too look forward to being freed from the shackles of hand coding CSS. WYSIWYG, you have some catching up to do!

<comment><USER6> Testify! Print design tools are light years ahead of web design tools. I'm looking forward to when they catch up too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I did pasteup as a part-time job during high school at a rather behind-the- times paper in the mid 1990s. It was actually a lot of fun -- e.g. flowing a story from one column to another by loosely folding it into thirds then slicing it up.

Less fun was that they also did not have an insert machine, which meant I got rounded up after a printing to manually stuff a bunch of advertising into section C, then put section C into B, then that into A. Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER8> There were better ways to set type even back then, like the Selectric Composer <http://ibmcomposer.org/> (1966). But yeah, things have improved quite dramatically.

My high school had a print shop with some old hand-fed letterpress machines, using real type. Now a media technology where you stood a good chance of getting your fingers crushed...those were the days.

</comment><comment><USER9> This skips the very first step that most designers would do: It was a process called "specing the type" — a graphic designer and/or art director would mark up the copy by hand writing notes on the typeface, leading, column width, etc. It should also be noted that for ad agencies there were special services to just set headlines with exotic faces that most typesetters wouldn't have.

</comment><comment><USER10> I didn't completely get it. After so much of work did they produced just one copy.Does Jan Rodger does the tedious paste-up process for each copy they produce? Doesn't the magazine look like patches? What about pictures?

<comment><USER11> The completed page is photographed and a plate is made from the negative.

<comment><USER10> plate??</comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX Launch Livestream: CRS-10 Dragon (sched. 10:01 EST) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/webcast?mission=crs-10 <comment><AUTHOR> The CRS-10 mission will be SpaceX's first launch from historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. Following stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 will attempt to land at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Also on NASA Live [1]: SpaceX's tenth Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is targeting liftoff on the company's Falcon 9 rocket at 10:01 a.m. from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory in support of the Expedition 50 and 51 crew members.

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive](https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive)</comment>


Art of README - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/noffle/art-of-readme <comment><USER2> Nice to see all the reference to Perl moduel documentation. That ecosystem is hands-down the best I've ever seen!</comment>


Ask HN: Resources to Teach Yourself Medicine? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
Let me first just say that I don't think that studying physiology and biochemistry will put you anywhere near understanding do being remotely qualified to have a medical opinion. I just want to learn a great deal about biology and the current state of medical knowledge.
Are there any good books/resources you recommend that are taught at Med Schools? <comment><USER2> Interestingly, medicine courses at universities don't seem to be as open (liberal in the web, sharing slides, references, etc) as in other subjects. I found out one reason for that is the obligation of secrecy for the patient (cases). Another thing I found out is that book stores in university cities have in average as many books about medicine as about all other topics. These observations come from my gf who started studying medicine in Germany. They surely are not universal.

However, one thing I always tell interested students who wonder what to prepare for/learn for a subject: Go to the website of any favourite university and look up the plan of courses/study regulations for your subject. It's typically public and gives you a good idea what a candidate for a thesis/diploma/degree should have learned. And in fact, in medicine physiology and biochemistry make a good part of the first semesters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea, I did that previously for undergrad applied math, thanks for the tip!</comment></comment>


Erlang the Movie II - <AUTHOR> http://www.gar1t.com/blog/2013/03/21/erlang-the-movie-ii-the-sequel/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is not quite the usual fare for HN, but it's Friday, and I thought it was pretty funny.</comment>


2014 Developer/Engineer Salary Survey Results - <AUTHOR> https://eamann.com/biz/2014-salary-survey-results/

<comment><USER2> With only sixty people from all over the world, it doesn't seem like enough data to be useful. Sorry Friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> 60 people completed the survey. The results aren't globally applicable but it's still a sample size that's sufficient to draw a few conclusions.

In addition to those who completed the survey, no fewer than 50 reached out to me directly via email to apologize for their non-response. Most employment agreements explicitly prohibit sharing salary information with outside parties and they legitimately feared for their job if my survey was ever un- anonymized.

I would love to have more results - but with self-selected respondents confident enough to risk their jobs to respond there is only so much we can do.</comment></comment>


The Cult of Homework - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/homework-research-how-much/585889/ <comment><USER2> I absolutely hated homework and did everything possible to avoid it. It felt like a huge injustice that teachers could control what you did even outside school, when you were supposed to be free. My usual strategy was to do the homework in school. I don't recall any teacher noticing that I wasn't really taking notes, and was instead working on something unrelated. I did some homework at home but always spent as little time on it as possible.

As well as distracting from lessons, this also meant the homework had to be rushed. This probably did teach me useful skills, e.g. I learned about error modeling from faking believable results in science classes (no time to take all the measurements), and my writing improved by writing final drafts first and then going back and adding errors to fake a first draft. My BASIC programming improved writing tools to automate math homework on a TI-86 calculator or on QBASIC at home.

I saw all this as resistance against tyranny, and never considered that there might be some benefit to homework. Most of it was pointless busywork anyway, so the actual benefit if I'd taken it seriously would have been minimal. I support a healthy school/life balance, which means the abolition of homework.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. Homework was something I dreaded all the time. I skipped most of my homework whenever possible and my grades reflected it. For some odd reason I did well on tests, possibly by cramming the night before - a skill that did well by me through college. Doing well on tests got me by enough to get a 3.4 gpa through high school despite skipping most of my homework. When possible I did copy from other kids and sometimes did some assignments in class before the homework was to be turned in. I'd literally sit there writing things down in the 10 minutes before we were to hand in our assignments. My algebra teacher noticed this and just shook her head but seemed to be totally fine with it - I think deep down inside she knew there was too much homework.

<comment><USER4> If you're doing fine in the tests without homework, then the homework is unnecessary.

My biggest issue with it was that you'd be graded on completeness for the 50 assigned examples. If I can learn it in 5-10 examples, why am I going to waste time on another 40 non-interesting problems?

<comment><USER5> The teacher doesn't have or doesn't know about pass/fail module scoring.

A given sub-topic should be setup like this:

      * 90% of the points for the module possible if you get 100% on the test.
      * 60% of the points for the module possible as correctly doing the homework.
      * Allow for re-submission of the homework (with work shown) for up to a week AFTER the test //results//.

The idea is to actually teach the subject, not to pass an arbitrary test on that subject. If you bomb the test, do all of the possible problem questions and recover most or all of the grade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My daughter is finishing 5th grade in a NYC public school. Homework is the bane of her existence: it's given for weekdays and weekends alike, as well as for holidays. We can't ditch it entirely because it affects grades, and perfect grades are a requirement to advance within the school system to middle and high schools that provide something approaching an education.

So we've developed coping strategies. Most subjects are taught using "workbooks" composed according to the state's "common core" standards. These workbooks have class- and homework sections. There's also an answer key, which my daughter discovered using a google search. She prints it out at home, takes it to school, and uses it to fill in homework while no one's looking.

For subjects that impose homework for which no quick fix exists, I've taught her to do the bare minimum needed to get by, or have simply done the work myself. I'd rather see my child read a book or go outside than sit around doing busywork.

All this has led to an interesting relationship between me and my daughter: she has grown to appreciate my cheeky, playful "fuck the system", "stick it to the man" attitude. She's the most cynical 11 year old you'll meet, but she also operates under the assumption that her da is always on her side. It's important to know throughout life who your true allies are.

Ask my kid, and she'll gladly explain to you that the US public school is a preparatory form of the prison system. School practices and policies are largely punitive towards students. Admissions criteria in nicer school take attendance into account: students who are prevented by societal or physical reasons from making it to school are penalized and barred from future achievement by a heartless computer system. Likewise, any action that isn't directly in response to a teacher's instruction is met with disciplinary letters in the file, which further erode a student's chances at gaining entry into schools that are more about education than compulsory warehousing of kids away from streets, where they would certainly be using/selling drugs, snatching purses, urinating all over subway stops, and painting graffiti.

Fuck the government, man. It'll never do anything right. Best we can do is cope and thumb our noses at it.

<comment><USER7> >> _My daughter is finishing 5th grade in a NYC public school. Homework is the bane of her existence: it's given for weekdays and weekends alike, as well as for holidays. We can't ditch it entirely because it affects grades, and perfect grades are a requirement to advance within the school system to middle and high schools that provide something approaching an education._

This doesn't detract from the rest of your post, but if your daughter is in 5th grade then I presume she already took the 4th grade ELA & Math tests which (I thought?) were the [main|only] academic factor used in NYC (good) public middle school rubrics.

If the above is true, then could she slack off a bit in grade 5 especially if it means skipping some homework?

Caveat: I know grade 5 is still critical she's trying to get into Hunter Middle/High School, but I'm really curious to know if good NYC middle schools use grade 5 ELA/Math scores and subject grades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everybody seems to hate homework here, but for me it seemed like a reasonable way to repeat and "deepen" the things I had learned at school -- and to verify that we had properly understood them. Homework also seemed useful as a preparation for tests, getting some routine in solving equations, writing -- whatever. Total homework typically wouldn't exceed 30mins - 1h for me IIRC. Of course when a significant part of the afternoon is spent at school (this was uncommon at my school time in Germany), "homework" should be done there.

<comment><USER9> Having lived in Germany as an 11th grade exchange student, the rather minimal homework and the schooldays that ended in the early afternoon (early enough to eat lunch with guest family) were great.

It's important to consider that 30min to 1hr is a typical homework load _for a single subject_ in many places in America, that American students get out of school at around 3pm, and that American students have extracurricular activities (sports, theater, etc) which run another 1-2hrs after that. Those rather insane circumstances create the hatred of homework.

It's also important to ask, "verify for whom?"

If the answer is _verify for yourself_ , I don't think even the homework I did in Germany was much other than busywork. Trying to apply your own knowledge to some real world situation or problem is a much better self-verification. If the answer is _verify for the central administration_ , that's just a strong statement about your culture/society's values with respect to the individual and the administrators/managers of large groups. Note that I'll freely admit: American homework mostly serves the central administration, and that's a statement about our societal and cultural values at present. (It did seem to be even more oriented toward administrative convenience in Germany, albeit with a lower volume of homework overall, even in a Gymnasium.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really hate the concept that parents push for their kids to experience whatever they felt was normal in their upbringing. What about taking even the tiniest bit of critical thinking and conclude that you should want for your kids whatever turned out to be _valuable_ in your upbringing and _not_ want whatever you reflect on as negative or wasteful‽

I have low tolerance for B.S. myself, and I basically did whatever homework was really meaningful and skipped whatever was busy-work. My own school grades reflected primarily the arbitrariness of which teachers put higher weighting on tedious homework.

Homework is the source of my main memory of academic injustice: valedictorian regularly didn't finish homework whenever she knew she would get away with lying about it (holding up some half-done or even different-subject paper and getting an "okay" from teacher just going around checking everyone). Meanwhile, my honesty that I sometimes did it and other times not brought me careful scrutiny so that I was marked down for every little unfinished item in each assignment.

</comment><comment><USER11> Uh, I grew up with no homework, or very little of it.

Also, why can't we in the US learn from other cultures? One of the Scandinavian countries, with the highest happiness factor, doesn't have homework at all. They have schoolwork, done at school. Home is for fun and socialization and other things. It's too late for my son (a senior in HS), but I longed for that.

<comment><USER12> Which country are you talking about?

<comment><USER13> According to the internet, Finland has little if any homework – something like 30m/day or less for high school students, and less or none for younger students.

Also school doesn't start until age 7, the school day is filled with long breaks to go run around outside, student:teacher ratios are very low and teachers are highly trained and respected in society, and there is no standardized testing.

<comment><USER14> There is homework, but Finland has both less homework and less hours spend in school compared to other countries, but the quality of teaching is better. Teachers are better educated and motivated.

Especially for little kids, more hours in school does not increase learning. Sleeping later in the morning is better.

Having nutritious school lunches (for free) probably plays a role too. Kids' may hate the food, but it's not junk like pizza, juice and jam.

<comment><USER3> It breaks my heart thinking about the little kids walking on the way to school before the break of dawn here in Japan. While my grown ass is still in bed they are up and marching to school like good little troopers. Why can't those kids just sleep! I have a soon to be 2 year old and I'm freaking out just thinking about what he has to to through, waking up super early.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Sedentary, overworked office are jobs making us fat, stressing us out and killing us"_

But hey, we'd better have our children sitting for 8 hours a day at school and 1-3 hours at home, and 30-60 minutes on the bus and 2-3 hours at extracurriculars, and hey, 1-2 hours of physical activity a day, and they also need 8-10 hours of sleep, so use that NeuMath™ to figure out where that fits in.

/Rant

There's a reckoning coming for the US education system.

</comment><comment><USER15> When I was going to school most days I was coming home at 1pm. I guess getting homework was fair and later at university I learned a lot by doing my "homework". Still I have to admit I skipped it a lot while in school. Instead I played with friends, build some projects and learned a lot of other things.

I really get concerned about the "night" mentioned in the article. If school is the whole day saddling anything on top is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's always a fraction of kids for whom homework will never "work"; another group that has no need for it to achieve excellence. But for a huge number of kids the structured individual effort is essential to comprehend and master the subject.

<comment><USER17> But speaking as a parent, that's not generally what is assigned. It'd be a totally different story if my kids (or me, when I was their age) got assigned a handful of individually selected problems or assignments that helped them with the skills that child was specifically struggling on. But that's not what happens. The whole class as a group are assigned a frightening amount of busywork, the same for everyone, and it is a soul-crushing struggle to finish it.

<comment><USER16> I meant individual as working on your own, individually, not in a group or under guidance. Personalized homework would be great but is a bit unrealistic to expect on typical school budgets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's always difficult to remember one's mindset as a child. Likely as not, I'm projecting my adult ideas on memories. That said..

I hated homework. I also rarely did it. I scribbled something between classes, copied and came empty handed. The whole thing put a strain on my relationship with teachers and school and general. I always identified with being a bad student, and I suspect homework may have been the root cause. I really don't think homework worked for me.

What I don't understand today, is why a 9 or 14-year old who spends 35 hours per week in a school _needs_ homework? Is there really a need for an extra 3 or 10 hours per week? Surely, the quality of a kid's attention in the 7th or 9th-hour in a day isn't as good as their first. Is it that "everyone work on these math problems for 30m" isn't something that works in a classroom?

Adults have been complaining about after-hours work, in the age of laptops and smartphones. Why is it good for kids?

OTOH, exams and project work did work for me. With a Douglas Adams Crisis Inducer (a device that creates an artificial crisis situation of selectable severity, in order to sharpen the wits of the user), I could get 20 days of work into 1. I could sprint like a champ (and was proud of it) but I couldn't march. I'm still this way. I reckon schooling would have been a lot more effective for me personally if it was built around monthly exam or project watersheds, but I don't really know.

At the risk of cliche, we probably need more tailored/flexible education systems. Dunno though... "Create a system that educates every person" is a hard task. IDK how you'd do that. Relative to a lot of things at this kind of scale, education is very effective.

<comment><USER4> I think we'll see ML coming in as the tailoring solution in the near future.its relatively cheap to model and track and tweak on a per student basis with a software solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I always had lots of homework and every subject was the most important one, in the opiniin of the teacher. No surprise I was copying homework at school from other children because I forgot or didn't have energy to do it. Hope my kids will have time to play and discover what is really interesting to them in contrary to me

<comment><USER20> > every subject was the most important one, in the opiniin of the teacher.

This is the biggest problem IMO. Teachers give kids an enormous amount of homework not realising (or realising, but not caring) that the kids have the same amount, if not more homework to do in all their other subjects.

I recall HS physical education teachers were the worst offenders of thinking their class was the most important. In my HS we had one day a week practical (playing sport) and one day a week theory. In the practical lesson if you forgot your sports uniform (separate to normal, "formal" uniform) they would give you an instant lunchtime detention, making you to write lines, and _still_ make you play sport. In theory class they acted as if your life depended on knowledge of the food groups for example. I'm not saying that what they taught us wasn't important, in fact the classes on STIs were quite important, but their attitude was unwarranted. And this is every single teacher: every single one had this attitude.

I realise I'm going on a tangent but to top it all off sex education was an absolute joke. They separated us into gender and had a 30 minute presentation/talk. Completely pointless and it barely consisted of "you have a penis, you get erections" \- they told us this at 14 years of age, so of course we knew that much already. No mention of the opposite sex, or actual intercourse. In contrast the girls got to learn about the male and female genitalia, I was told by one of my girl friends (read: friend that is a girl).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some of my teachers had a policy that homework grades could only help you. If you got a higher grade on the final exam, homework couldn't bring it down.

Of course some people like doing homework: like Donald Knuth. Or I guess people who like writing unit tests.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't think the article mentioned this, but one of the big reasons behind all of this homework is the personality of the people dolling out the homework: Conscientious people can't stand not being busy. So they try to do everyone else a favor by loading them up with lots of busy work. The only problem with that is not everyone is conscientious and in constant need of busy work.

<comment><USER4> Good point. The education system is populated by people who love education and probably loved homework when they were young.

So they design and build for what they know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Considering that most people on HN are self-starters who had to learn things on their own whether by necessity or just because they preferred it that way, it may not be so obvious that a good number of people are not able to have that kind of freedom. Whether for good or bad, these types of people must be coerced toward doing things for their own good, like with punishment for not doing the homework, otherwise they would choose to do nothing and fail. Even with homework and all the punishments, there's kids who still can't be made to work. But if the teachers gave them homework...you can't say they didn't try you know. If there was no homework, I'm sure a number of parents would be complaining how the schools didn't do anything for their children. And parents generally pay taxes, that funds these schools.

Perhaps there should be a way for kids to opt-out of homework provided they have the grades and work ethic? And then this would incentivize other kids to try harder as well if they want that privilege.

</comment><comment><USER24> I grew up in Greece, where we go to a second school (private classes), after the main (public) school. And they both assign you homework. We are talking, 7 hours of public school + 3 hours of 'private' school (we call it 'the after school'). So 10 hours of being physically present at some kind of school and then homework from both of them. So expect 2-4 hours of homework added on top of that. 10-14 hours school days. Yay!

You might be wondering why the "after school" exists. See, you need to attend the public school (or an accredited _really expensive_ private one) in order to advance through the education system. But because public school suck you go to the second school in order to _really learn_. As to how much the public schools were I grew up suck, we are talking kids having sex and filming it during school time - and the teachers dealt with this by banning cellphones to the school. No cameras, no recordings!! When I think back, I honestly feel rage with how much wrong the system was.

Anyway, of course this meant you had to be physically present at some kind of school location for 10 hours per day, and then spend 2-4 hours doing homework in order to keep up. I remember people defending that system to death, making fun of america's homeschooled children and finland's relaxed attitude and how we are the "real heroes" of the education system. Ugh.

PS. I just remembered. We even had homework to "religion class". Oh yeah, we learned about the life of jesus mostly, in theory we had to learn about other religions too, but it was mostly all about the J. So, of course we were given homework even to that too. Ugh ugh ugh. Not a religious school btw, a regular public one. Complete with "why didn't you learn the creed of faith, are you not a chistian?" attitude from the teacher towards 8 year olds that didn't study. What a shithole.

<comment><USER25> That terrible routine is repeated many places in the world. Here in Thailand students do a full day at low quality public school and then a few more hours of tutoring. What is particular foul is that many public school teachers are very corrupt. They withold important teaching at school and then tell students they need to go to their paid tutoring center in order to do well on the tests. It is pretty awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Homework is bad because for some kids it can be impossible - like what if you have to care for your younger siblings, or your home has no desk space or quiet place to work?

To be honest extending the school day would probably make the most sense as it would help working parents as well if children left school at 5pm or 6pm.

<comment><USER27> My step-daughter's school library is open until 5pm and she goes there every day after school to do her homework. Do other schools not offer this?

<comment><USER4> How does she get home at 5pm? Does the school offer a bus service at that hour?

<comment><USER28> Lessons finished at ~4:30pm when I was in school, it's the same pretty much everywhere in France and I would assume this isn't the only country like that. I'm not shocked at the idea of getting home at 5pm (we had no school bus service, just the regular public transportation which works well here)

<comment><USER4> American high schools start at ~0730, though that's gradually being moved back, and classes end around 1400-1500. So he library being open that late is meaningful.

And as bizarre as this might sound, outside of New York City, unaccompanied children on public transportation is basically not a thing in America. We assume the children are lost / abandoned and the parents are delinquent / trying to get the kid kidnapped by a pedo.

There was a decently widespread news story a few years ago about someone calling the police on a mother because she let her kids go to the park by themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> My mother did not work while me and my siblings were growing. The time that we spend doing homework was not the funniest one, but it showed how important is school work to us. She will help us with our school work in the same way that she will help to prepare us for tests.

How can parents do that when work just burn them out? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19530479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19530479)

And I am not in favor of forcing parents to stay at home. One of my mother more liberating moments was when she went back to work and got a salary for herself.

So, I do not know how good or bad is homework for children. But, I think that is an extra-burden for their parents that can have a negative effect in the children family.

<comment><USER30> > My mother did not work while me and my siblings were growing.

...my siblings and I...

There's a homework assignment for you.

<comment><USER31> I'd be interested in why this is such a sticking point and the language doesn't just evolve to accept this phrasing. American English seems to have accepted that you can end sentences with a preposition, or is that just my misconception? I believe Canada and the UK still doesn't like it, or is that my misconception too? But my point is why doesn't the language evolve along with informal societal usage?

<comment><USER25> I am no stickler for grammar but when you take out the other people you get "... while me was growing" and to the native Enlish ear that sounds pretty terrible compared to "... while I was growing".

<comment><USER31> Talk with a pirate accent and it'll sound natural. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I knew something was wrong when my son was assigned homework in KINDERGARTEN. He had to do some totally absurd assignment, designed to be "fun" by the teacher. It was something like describing part of a Curious George story on a home-made kite.

I was livid. Our son could not even read at that point, nor did he have the motor skills to assemble a hand made kite at the age of 5. The assignment was clearly aimed at satisfying the parents who thought that homework should start early.

We put up with that public school for another year, then we got him into a private school that did not believe in homework in elementary school. Our lives were much less stressful, and he spent more time playing outside when he changed schools in 2nd grade.

</comment><comment><USER33> 100 years ago and beyond 14 years old married and worked 7 day a weeks.

Now we cry because the might have to learn for a few hours, 5 days a week 40 weeks a year?

As a adult an incredible important skill to live life is to self manage. How do kids learn this skill? How do they learn to work as a team without being babied?

If parents are able to swap in a replacement, sure, if they are rich and have time and the skill set that might be possible, to bad for everyone else. (And for kids already massive responsibilities this is a separate issue that needs solving)

<comment><USER34> > 100 years ago and beyond 14 years old married [...]

That's largely a myth. Most women married in their early 20s, and men in their mid 20s. It was legal go get married much younger, but uncommon.

[https://www.infoplease.com/us/marital-status/median-age- firs...](https://www.infoplease.com/us/marital-status/median-age-first- marriage-1890-2010)

[https://www.theclassroom.com/age-marriage- us-1800s-23174.htm...](https://www.theclassroom.com/age-marriage- us-1800s-23174.html)

</comment></comment><comment> black-alert The paradox is that the school institution is actually very dumb and stupid where it should be the smartest thing out there.

<comment><USER35> Its only a paradox if you think its primary function is education.

Its primary function is the warehousing of children while adults work; and secondarily, filtering children according to ability for future work (ie., grading).

The content of the "lessons" could be anything, so long as it (1) keeps them occupied; and (2) differentiates according to cognitive ability -- ie., grades.

The primary and secondary functions almost totally constrain its auxiliary function of imparting useful skills to children -- which were it sincerely attempted would fundamentally undermine the school's ability to warehouse and grade them effectively.

<comment><USER36> This is incredibly sad, but sounds plausible. Where can I read more about this thesis?

<comment><USER35> For my thoughts on grading as merely filtering: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_\(economics\))

For the content of the "lessons" being largely irrelevant, ask: what can anyone remember from their lessons at 14?

The answer is random with respect to the individual: I cannot predict what you will know. Really only fragments of trivia were acquired. This is the opposite situation of skill acquisition: if you are a practising plumber/doctor/programming, I _can_ predict what you will know.

This test, predicting the knowledge/ability of a person who practices a skill, really defines successful education.

What can you predict a person knows after high school?

You might also look at "Discipline and Punish" or works to that effect to gain a socio-political perspective on the scheduling/routines/rituals of certain institutions.

It is no accident that a school closely resembles a prison. That is its primary function: to limit the behaviour of children, to discipline them into conforming with the scheduling of working life, to occupy their time.

When you are tutored (to play a piano, in mathematics, etc.) you are really acquiring a skill: to play a piano, etc.

Contrast those two environments.

Learning a skill requires an environment almost the opposite of a prison, it requires a patient and highly skilled tutor, and some attentive practice and engagement. (Infant/primary education is closer to tutoring than high school).

Imagine high school not starting until 14 at which point you spent 4 years with tutors: at most classes of 5 with skilled mentors that guided you through skilled practice. Consider the social environment: how you'd interact with peers, your relationship to your mentor, the hours you'd keep, how much practice you'd get.

Contrast this again with prison life within a school: the teacher is not a mentor, they are a master. An enemy largely. You and your peers are at war for attention and time.

<comment><USER36> Thanks. Have you approached any solutions to avoid this fate? My kids are still pre schooling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I had the most homework in Middle School and Graduate School. Not sure why exactly, just something strange that I noticed. Ended up dropping out of Grad School over the excessive busy work. Turned out to be an excellent decision!</comment>


Ask HN: single person startup funding - <AUTHOR>

Hello, Ive been working on a startup for at least a year. I'm a single person startup. It is a technology/Internet focused company. The product I'm creating is pretty ambitious and large. It is not a typical social network or tools for selling things online kind of website. It is something much more complicated and technical. What is the chance of me getting a venture capital by pitching this product. The product is not totally 100 percent done, but is in pretty tangible shape. I'm in a close position where I can talk to venture capitals. Some of my family members are kind of skeptical that I can get it done, but I trully feel like it is getting closer to be done. Iwould need a large server, some graphic design company to design the logo nd images. I also would need a ad company to create a name, because Im not very good with company names and logo designs. My main focus is bring this product to little more maturity nd sell it fora decent amount or continue to develop it. Funding I.m looking for I think is around 100k.
What is my chance of getting a funding. What would the Vc s would ask. Would they be skeptical that a single person can get it done. What is the chance and steps that could be taken.
Apologies for my grammar/ writing mistakes. I'm writing this on iPad <comment><USER2> All starts have very small chances no matter what.

Moreover, I think a cofounder would serve you very well based on some of the things you said. (Granted, with few details of your actual product, I could be completely wrong.)

"I would just need a large server" - Another technical cofounder could probably help you with the real scaling problems you will have if you get traction. And sadly, in most technical products, simply having a large server is not enough.

"I would need ... some graphic design company to design the logo and images. I also would need a ad company to create a name" - A creative / design focused cofounder would be of really great use. This is going to cost you a lot of money you probably don't need to spend.

"I.m looking for I think is around 100k." - A business knowledgable cofounder could really ground you here. A VC would not do a deal this small. That is not interesting to them at all. A seed investor, angel, super angel, whatever they are called might be interested but it would really help decide to invest in you if you have someone that has a real grasp on business projection and how much money you will really need.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer. Your answer is close to what I was thinking. It confirms it.

</comment></comment><comment> rush-tea My suggestion would be that since you are a single founder, the best would be to finish the very minimum viable product that can attract your potential investors. if you think a graphic design is required, then do it. You can outsource logo design cheaply to Asia. Logo design would be something that is more on creative side, imagination doesn't require education, so everyone is a genius if they can pour their imagination into black on white, vs if you are thinking of outsourcing technology development.

as for large server, have you look into AWS? Amazon Web Services is an excellent server solution, Yelp is using AWS. I read somewhere that one of the things that Facebook regrets is that they invest on their own data center vs doing a cloud like in AWS.

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked into AWS, but I think in the end I would have to have my own server that I can manage. Thanks for your insight.

<comment><USER3> Doing the server thing yourself? You will be getting into a whole different ball game with your ISP! And that requires a decent revenue stream.

Please take the advaice, even the biggest players out there are using AWS, it's just a far simpler solution for a startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _Some of my family members are kind of skeptical that I can get it done_

Most people who tell you something can't be done are saying it because they don't want you to do it, people who truly want to see you succeed will tell you how to overcome your weakness or carry on despite it - they will never want to deter you by saying it can't be done. This is a personal observation - so don't let anyone shape your opinion there.

Secondly, VCs don't give just a 100k (thy usually give a million plus), angels do smaller rounds - get on AngelList or something similar.

Why do you not have a cofounder? (your posting screams you need one).

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have a cofounder because I don't think there are a lot of people that are on the same page as me around here. Most of them might not be interested and won't devote a sufficient time to the project. I thought I can get it done faster and without hassle. I know all the code and cofounder might slow it down a little bit.

Thank you for your answer. Your answer helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chance would put close to zero - ideas to improve it.

Finish the project. Get a logo and name, you can change them. Get some traction.

Why do you need funding? What is the money going to be used for?

</comment><comment><USER6> your chances are slim

</comment><comment><USER7> I am curious. What is the product or service?</comment>


MIT OpenCourseWare: Godel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey - <AUTHOR> http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/geb/VideoLectures/

<comment><USER2> Leave it up to MIT to combine Cellular Automata, CFGs and Gödel, but then also:

      Special software is required to use some of the files in this section: .rm.

:(

<comment><USER3> VLC player handles it nicely.

<http://www.videolan.org/vlc/>

<comment><USER4> Sadly, seems not so on my Kubuntu box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe now I can understand this book. It arrived last week, and I cracked it to find to my surprise that its genius level material. I would have to have a lot of uninterrupted time to grok.

<comment><USER6> I've handed my copy to a few people now, some found it intimidating it first but I don't think it's genius level material. Just take it a page at a time and keep in mind that it'll be worth it.

Oh yeah - and if you're struggling with the math/meta-math examples you should do what he says and play around with the ideas with pen and paper. If I remember correctly they're mostly closer to the start of the book so after that you should be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is old news:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436299></comment>


Show HN: Automatic Highlight Reel Maker - <AUTHOR> https://gifs.com/highlight-reel-maker <comment><USER2> Wow, how does the AI work?

<comment><AUTHOR> We trained it on a large dataset of gifs created by our users. The first thing the AI does is break the video into scenes and then scores them based on how similar they are to the gifs int the training set. We then take the top scored scenes and put them in the highlight reel.

The machine learning neural network is loosely based on [https://people.ee.ethz.ch/~gyglim/video2gif_cvp16.pdf](https://people.ee.ethz.ch/~gyglim/video2gif_cvp16.pdf)</comment></comment>


Austrian plane search for leaker Snowden enrages Bolivia - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9610C520130703

<comment><USER2> That is a frakking act of war ... wtf.

Seems like US is writing blank checks to all other countries in the pursuit of Snowden.

How low can this administration go?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a little confused why the Presidents life was put at risk. Is there tensions between Austrian and Bolivia? Or was that bit of the article added for sensationalist reasons?

edit: it looks like the comments about the the Bolivian presidents life being at risk has now been taken off, and in it's place comments about Austrian and Bolivia having good relations. So I guess that answers my question.</comment>


new iOS IAP hack (no jailbreak required) - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5925795/this-method-to-get-iphone-and-ipad-in+app-purchases-for-free-is-surprisingly-easy

<comment><USER2> Isn't this only an issue if your app is submitting receipt validation requests directly from the device to Apple's validation server? E.g.

      device -> itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt

I thought the best practices for receipt validation involved having your app submit the receipt to your own server first, and then performing the receipt validation with Apple on the server side. E.g.

      device -> yourownserver.com -> itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt

In which case, even if someone man-in-the-middle's apple.com on their device, it doesn't affect the receipt validation that you perform server side. Or am I misunderstanding something and the hack is occurring at a lower level than that?</comment>


Herb Gross (1929 – 2020) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gross <comment><AUTHOR> Famous for [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW18-jILJ66t9KZvoPpN6...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW18-jILJ66t9KZvoPpN6bDQaP7Yg42Hh)

<comment><USER2> I dove into that video randomly and hit his explanation of limits at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFRWDuduuSw#t=21m15s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFRWDuduuSw#t=21m15s), which is delightful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any chance you could edit my original comment to use this link instead [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW18-jILJ66t9KZvoPpN6...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW18-jILJ66t9KZvoPpN6bDQaP7Yg42Hh) \-- much more representative.

<comment><USER2> Sure! Changed from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFRWDuduuSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFRWDuduuSw).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The State of Caching in Go - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dgraph.io/post/caching-in-go/ <comment><USER2> Great article on the technical challenges of meeting their tough list of requirements.

But the headline made me think this was going to be about a glaring gap in the Go ecosystem but I can't tell if that's true from what they wrote. Only one library was mentioned as a theoretical solution. Are there others?

<comment><USER3> i too found the headline really confusing.

at some* point, if you're designing something like a database you should just accept that you'll be building some amount of core infrastructure (for example a cache) yourself. it seems strange to assume there is a widget in the exact shape you need with exactly the right interface and semantics floating around somewhere.

to go a step further...efficient memory management is pretty key to cache behavior. you're generally using up a good fraction of available memory and have a really good idea what the lifetimes are (since thats your whole policy). that the GC might be a little slower to release than you might like shouldnt be a surprise at all.

'how we built a cache in go' is more apt than 'why didn't go have a cache that fit our needs already, bad go'

<comment><USER4> While I agree with you I do find it prescient that a "get things done, production" language like go doesn't have more super solid cache libraries. I guess the community hasn't felt the need to take it further than that but I'd figure companies like Google would have open sourced whatever they use at this point</comment></comment></comment>


Responsive CSS grid, reordered with native HTML5 drag and drop - <AUTHOR> https://clippings.github.io/layout-grid/ <comment><USER2> Anyone interested in grid layouts on the web should probably take a look at the native CSS Grid Layout feature[0]. Unlike existing solutions it doesn't require rigid HTML structure or extensive class usage of questionable semanticity.

It might not be too practical if you're building something here and now, given that spec drafts are subject to change. On the other hand, there are polyfills already and full browser support seems to be on its way.

[0] A nice overview I stumbled across recently: [https://medium.com/@patrickbrosset/css-grid- layout-6c9cba6e8...](https://medium.com/@patrickbrosset/css-grid- layout-6c9cba6e8a5a)

<comment><USER3> Video of one the developers at a recent conference who's working on implementing the Grid spec in both WebKit and Blink: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js_5MjiGFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js_5MjiGFo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Each item has 16 CSS classes (!) attached to it: 2 for the position, 2 for the dimensions, times 4 for each breakpoint.

It sounds unusable to keep track of all these classes (even with preprocessors) but the drag'n'drop feature changes everything, and makes this an excellent tool to create a landing page builder.

<comment><AUTHOR> As this was created mainly for a "landing page builder" tool, the assumption was that classes are added dynamically with a scripting language so its not that big of a problem. I did think quite a bit on how to minimize the clutter and I either had to do a colossal CSS file with all the permutations or a smaller css and a bit more text in the html. Sadly I am not aware of a way how make both of them reasonably small (few css rules and few css classes in the html) - if anybody has an Idea I would be very grateful.

<comment><USER4> Yeah that was my thought process: "Wow there's a lot of CSS classes. But the drag'n'drop builder makes this number irrelevant."

I'm actually working on updating a landing page builder today, so the timing is perfect. I don't think you can reduce the number of classes in the HTML but that's fine. Maybe have a Sass mixing to generate the CSS cases.

In the end, the size of both the HTML and CSS are negligible considering everything is auto generated.

Great tool. I love it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <rant>Yet another grid implementation that requires jQuery.</rant>

My last search on responsive grids (June 2015) has not turned up anything without jQuery. That would be a cool new "feature", that none of the existing solutions so far offer.

<comment><USER6> _That would be a cool new "feature"_

Why? jQuery is a popular, useful library. It makes lots of things simpler, and in most cases isn't an additional dependency.

<comment><USER7> jQuery is a bloated library that tries to do too much. It's slow and becoming less and less necessary as browsers become more standards compliant.

<comment><USER8> Can you link to articles on jQuery's performance issues?

Is it's implementation slow, or do you mean it's size makes over the wire transmission slow?

Are all jQuery methods slow, or specific cases like DOM manipulation and/or AJAX calls.

It seems that a few years back jQuery had these issues, but are those claims still relevant?

<comment><USER9> It's because jQuery is a library on top of JavaScript. That makes it slower than native JavaScript.

If you don't need to support very old browsers you can easy go without jQuery.

Have a look at [http://youmightnotneedjquery.com](http://youmightnotneedjquery.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like this one: [https://rawgit.com/ManifestWebDesign/angular- gridster/master...](https://rawgit.com/ManifestWebDesign/angular- gridster/master/index.html#/main)

</comment><comment><USER11> The company behind this project is Clippings Ltd [http://compck.com/#!/company/08356423](http://compck.com/#!/company/08356423)

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice! But I think I found a bug: In the static html demo with a small window (xs), the cells 4+5 and 11+12 have no white space between each other. Chromium 43.

<comment><AUTHOR> 10x! Fixed

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice. Tip: dragging 1 over 3 does switch them, as I would expect. 3 over 1 works though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Under which browsers/engine should it be used? I'm asking because I'm using Firefox 42 and I'm getting a lot of glitchs with the gutters' sizes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can image something like this as part of a web authoring tool based on react / web components (polymer etc..)

</comment><comment><USER16> The download button has a typo in it: 'Downlaod Latest Release.'

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it supposed to work on mobile?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well yes it should, though to be honest I just added the touchmove events and called it a day, it works on the few handhelds I have available for testing, but there certainly could be some issues on devices I didn't test it on. Any feedback and github issues are censiarly welcome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This really looks like Dashing from Shopify [http://dashingdemo.herokuapp.com/sample](http://dashingdemo.herokuapp.com/sample)

Which doesn't need 16 css classes :)

<comment><USER19> Probably worth noting that Dashing uses gridster.js: [http://gridster.net/](http://gridster.net/)

Which also depends on jQuery.</comment></comment>