Rethinking The Postal System - <AUTHOR> http://willsmidlein.com/blog/rethinking-the-postal-system/

<comment><USER2> The post office already offers a lot of the services you described:

"You could specify the to and return adress, you could pay with a credit card, and you could add whatever options you want."

What would the point of obfuscating your address with a 16 digit ID number be? You'd be adding another layer of complexity to an already simple system of names and addresses on a designed letter carrier's route. If you want obscurity you can always register a PO box.

Your solution also relies on other businesses easily and quickly adopting your idea, which in reality is never quick and easy unfortunately.

Truth be told, the mail system isn't perfect, but USPS has done a lot in the last 3-4 years to innovate their own business. I don't have to wait in line anymore because I can print out postage and tape it to my package and leave that at the post office.

Unfortunately a lot of post office customers don't seem to realize the online system exists.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally see where you're coming from, but since the system is mostly automated (as far as I can tell), it'd be just as easy for them to grab from a DB than to try and parse out an adress and postage.

I didn't really start mailing things until the last 3-4 years, so I must admit that I don't know how the system worked previously.

While I agree that it wouldn't be immediately adopted, I don't think it would require too much work on their end to make it work. It's probably naive, and I don't fully understand the system now, so I may be totally wrong, but this was just my idea.

<comment><USER3> Have you ever gotten things in the mail? Even junk mail?

If so, you may have noticed that your mail is ultimately delivered by a human. Someone who has to be able to grab a handful of mail out of their bag and perform a quick visual check that yes, everything in this bundle actually goes to this address. Someone who might have a hundred bundles destined for an apartment building, and would like to be able to quickly parse the addresses to put them into the proper mailbox instead of having to type a long, cryptic ID into a smartphone, and hope they continue to have connectivity.

Any proposed new addressing system also needs to deal with the fact that the postal service serves EVERYONE. Even people way out in the middle of nowhere who have no cellular service. The ONLY processing power available to those mail carriers is their own brain, so it pretty much HAS to be human-readable.

All of the things you complain about in the address are USEFUL redundancy. Including all of that stuff makes it more likely that mail will get to its destination in the event of the ink being smeared (or running due to being rained on). It's more data that's useful in error correction.

Also, if you are mailing out many things and hate copying the info manually, let me introduce you to a concept called "printable address labels" and "mail merge". I recently had to mail out about a hundred books after a successful Kickstarter; I manually addressed maybe three of them. I put books in mailing envelopes, put the labels on the envelopes, sealed them shut, and brought them to the post office. They figured out how much it would cost me to mail them. I paid with a credit card. It really wasn't a major hassle at all.

<comment><USER4> This is true. Presently, I don't know my mail carrier, because I moved, but where I grew up, we knew them. If someone mis-addressed a letter, the carrier would deliver it to the right person. They could deliver using the family's name, rather than the address. Back when people hand-addressed personal letters, errors were common.

back in the day, back in the day...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMO it would be pretty easy to change the USPS to be profitable or sustainable, but politically difficult. Preserving universal service (expensive rural routes and facilities) should be done via direct government subsidy, vs. commercial cross subsidization.

Reducing or contractorizing staff (to cut medical and retirement costs) would have been done already by a really private company, but would have political and economic consequences given the size of USPS and government affiliation. It is probably easier to cut facilities and routes, lower delivery frequency, vs change employment terms.

The USPS is increasingly b2c and spam delivery service; used a lot less for b2b and c2c, so reducing frequency to even twice a week would be fine.

<comment><USER4> The first thing they need to do is reduce the pension funding requirement, which was forced by a 2006 law. They have to fully fund the pension for 75 years, and do that in 10 years. That would reduce their operating budget deficit.

Second, they need to push their parcel service, and open the counter all week long. The internet has caused a reduction in regular first class postal mail, but is also increasing the number of packages people send. Rising fuel costs make sending packages locally a good option.

I like Saturday home delivery, but from a business perspective, it's not critical. Parcels, however, I think are critical.

<comment><USER6> _The first thing they need to do is reduce the pension funding requirement, which was forced by a 2006 law._

Yes, rather than fully funding their pensions like any private company, they should be allowed to push massive problems into the future like the public sector does.

<comment><USER5> Private companies don't really fully fund their pensions, but during the period where pensions were common in private companies, those companies were expanding in revenue and headcount, so it was ok. Was.

High-risk private enterprises don't do pensions now (can you imagine a Zynga Pension Plan?). Approximately everyone has shifted to defined-contribution from defined-benefit. The problem is USPS and the fully-private companies with legacy pension plans are both in long-term decline and have underfunded pensions, but USPS is particularly large in workforce and obvious in long-term decline (and political).

<comment><USER6> Private companies are legally obligated to fund defined-benefit pensions. There are some waivers given out, but it is generally required.

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00004:@@@L...](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00004:@@@L&summ2=m&);

Though strangely, defined benefit non-pension plans (e.g., retiree health care) are not required to funded. That's a loophole which should definitely be closed.

You are correct that the private sector has abandoned pensions for defined- contribution retirement plans, and with good reason. The public sector should do the same.

<comment><USER7> "The PPA increases the funding target for single-employer defined benefit pension plans from 90 percent to 100 percent of the plan's present value of all accrued benefit liabilities"

Cool, now just make them fund the next 75 years of expected liability, instead of just the current liability.

<comment><USER8> They already do, that is what "present value of all accrued benefit liabilities" means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think there's already a system where you pre-pay postage online, print a barcoded label, and then drop it off. The label contains routing information.

There's no anonymity. Rather, there's redundancy because they print the destination address. If you need to hide you address, you can buy a PO Box at the post office or a private box seller.

I wish they'd innovate by having the post office retail windows open on Sundays, rather than these current cutbacks. (The cutbacks are due to overfunding their pensions, and that a 2006 law is forcing that.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Once again someone is trying to engineer a fix to a political problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> They've raised the postal rates for first-class mail (that normal humans all use) many, many times. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Why not raise the rates for junk-mail?

Sure, megacorps will scream and cry that it'll put them out of business, but it won't. They'll continue sending out junk-mail as it draws in far more in customers than they spend on it. If some don't, that much better for the environment, since I'd guess >99% of junk-mail goes straight into the garbage (with a small percentage of that being recycled).

Seeing as the vast majority of mail I've received over the decades has been junk-mail, it should be an easy way to increase revenue.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why do they need giant, expensive buildings in the center of every town, rather than partnering with convenience stores like in Europe?

<comment><USER4> They already do this. There are postal counters that are contracted out. I went to one in LA's Koreatown. It was croweded but OK, and was a little faster than the perpetually understaffed USPS windows in Pico Union. (It's often 5+ people in line, and one clerk.)

They took their large sorting facility property, Terminal Annex, and leased it to a server colocation company. It's at 900 Alameda, Los Angeles. Look it up.

They stil have PO Boxes and a counter there. I recently tried to drop off a letter there on the weekend, but THERE WAS NO FREAKING MAILBOX. USPS needs to stop eliminating mailboxes. There are even post offices without mailboxes outside. Do they not want to make money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You can already do most of this. The bigger issue with the post office is even if you do everything right (delivery confirmation , insurance) they still lose your packages and have customer service a bit south of what's depicted in the movie Brazil. The perception of the USPS as incompetent and surly is not unwarranted.

</comment><comment><USER13> I suspect the poster is neglecting the cost to switch over from the current system of scanning packages to the new one.

Either you need to add the ability for reading a 16 digit code to the existing system, or build a second, new, system to handle 'the new codes'. Either solution ain't gonna be cheap.

<comment><USER14> I think you can do that now. Pay by credit card and it prints out a label. The current system converts the address into some sort of coded tracking information, so I dont think the article is proposing anything that doesnt exist in some form.

However, the website needs vast improvement. I once tried to find out how much it would cost to send a package from my house in CA to Richmond, VA. It should need only the package type, weight, and the two zip codes, but it took 10 or 15 minutes of filling out forms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You can get a bar code that pretty much handles the automation when you order postage online.

What the author is missing is that somebody has to physically deliver the package or letter, and that's why you need the destination printed on the package.

Doing that with IDs alone is needlessly complex.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's smart! But if you get the number wrong, there might just be no way to link the package to whoever was sending or tracking it. Well, then at least the problem will be on the end of users other than what we currently have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Yeah, I'm not quite sure how to prevent human error without everyone having barcode sticker printers, which seems extremely unlikely.

<comment><USER17> Automated barcode sticker vending machines attached to parking meters?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not fair to think that everyone has an internet connection though, should be posed as an alternate solution, then I think it makes a lot of sense.

</comment><comment><USER19> USPS is an institution that provides a low margin business to the masses. The majority of mail is not the glamorous packages that can demand shipping rates in the $20-$50 range. It's the letter-sized envelopes and mailers that ensure that a postman stops at every residential & business address on a daily basis. That basic service the federal government guarantees ensures the USPS can't bring itself out of this rut until this changes. One solution would be to spin off the profitable portion to compete head-on and finance the low-margin side.

</comment><comment><USER20> SilkRoad customers and merchants would _love_ this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, maybe... If the police were to work with the postal service, they could find the originating post office.

Then again, they could more or less do this now, and they don't.

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure the postal police take a dim view of people using USPS to ship illegal goods.

Or at least I've always assumed they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "But the truth is, the USPS needs to innovate."

Tell your congressional representative, not USPS. FedEx and UPS have spent large amounts of lobbying money ensuring that USPS does not innovate. Congressional legislation is what prevents USPS from innovating.

<comment><USER22> > FedEx and UPS have spent large amounts of lobbying money ensuring that USPS > does not innovate.

It's hardly surprising, but do you have any sources for this claim?

<comment><USER23> From the recent Esquire article[1]:

Over the past five years, FedEx and UPS have spent a combined $100 million lobbying Congress. Because neither company has a delivery network nearly as sprawling as Donahoe's, they contract with the postal service to deliver the "final mile" of much of their cargo. For instance, more than 21 percent of all FedEx deliveries are dropped off by a postal carrier. Meanwhile, millions of postal-service letters hitch rides on FedEx flights every day, for which the company gets paid $1 billion a year. FedEx and UPS don't want the postal service to go out of business but to remain contained, out of the way — one reason many of the addresses on packages that pass through Medford are handwritten by mothers and grandfathers and eBay minimoguls, rather than printed by manufacturers and retailers.

[1] [http://www.esquire.com/print-this/post-office-business- troub...](http://www.esquire.com/print-this/post-office-business- trouble-0213?page=all)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Rime.co - AI-based website building platform - <AUTHOR> https://rime.co/ <comment><USER2> Here is brief information about Rime. Our mission is to connect the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Our first step is to build a weblog which not only collates posts from multiple social networks and blogging platforms but also enhance individual posts by the deep connectivity of hyperlinks, embeds, author's information, location information, image caching, image recognition, cross-posting, SEO, translation, and much more. Unlike traditional blogging platforms which are manually edited and maintained.

Rime is an AI-based personal website building platform, helps you to collect posts from multiple social networking services, such as Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Youtube, facebook etc into one simple, intelligent and beautiful page. It's an online diary for your internet life, The Weblog.

Startups and companies can use this Weblog on their website to inform their visitor about their activities on the web. It helps them to build better SEO for their company without spending time and money on technology.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like to see an example, instead of clicking on corporative-like "Request a demo" buttons.

After I clicked it looked like it wasn't a corporative thing, but rather that Rime would create a blog for me. To do that it requested a ton of my Google permissions, so I gave up.

<comment><USER4> There is a dead [as a duplicate] comment by the person who posted explaining what it is on this page (turning on 'show dead' in your profile will display it. It is dead because it was copy pasted from/into another thread at about the same time.

 _Our mission is to connect the world 's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Our first step is to build a weblog which not only collates posts from multiple social networks and blogging platforms but also enhance individual posts by the deep connectivity of hyperlinks, embeds, author's information, location information, image caching, image recognition, cross-posting, SEO, translation, and much more. Unlike traditional blogging platforms which are manually edited and maintained._

 _Rime is an AI-based personal website building platform, helps you to collect posts from multiple social networking services, such as Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Youtube, facebook etc into one simple, intelligent and beautiful page. It 's an online diary for your internet life, The Weblog._

<comment><USER3> That seems useful, but it is not the description I would expect for an "AI- based website building platform".

Just curious: what does it have that is AI-based? Isn't just fetching the posts, letting the user choose what they want and building the page? It seems it is using the same template over and over again.

<comment><USER4> I browse HN with |showdead| on so I added the information that was available. I'm not vouching for the claims or implying that I use the product. I saw "request demo" and decided not to waste anyone's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the idea, I tested with all my accounts but now I'm unable to delete my account. The email firstname.lastname@example.com is not reachable, how can I dissociate my accounts?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, sorry for the support email not being redirected correctly, its working now. Currently you can't deactivate or delete your account but you can dissociate your service accounts from [https://rime.co/service](https://rime.co/service)</comment></comment>


Apple Hates Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.shotton.com/wp/2012/07/29/apple-hates-web-developers/

<comment><USER2> Seriously, web devs don't use the built in sharing because it doesn't include database support. If you're going to configure the crap out of your server setup, why even have a crippled one?

As another poster suggests, use MAMP or OS X Server.

I don't know anyone who uses the basic web sharing.

<comment><USER2> Further to this, ML server is now $20.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been using OS X as my dev system for years - never used the built in Apache/MySQL stack after I discovered MAMP. Always felt cleaner to keep the stack isolated from my main system.

</comment><comment><USER4> I see this as an opportunity to develop your skills as a web developer, not knowing how to work commonly used tools from the command line is a weakness that needs to be resolved.

</comment><comment><USER5> sudo apachectl start/stop

It doesn't seem much of an issue to me. If you can program web pages, surely you can do this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that they have removed the standard way for OS X Client users to administer Web server operation that has been there since at least 2002. What's more, they REMOVED the functionality for users who are upgrading to Mountain Lion, yet left those users with operating Web servers. So a client user that needs to disable Web Sharing now has no way to do it. Apple had their heads up their asses on this one, if for no other reason than they left users' computers in a state that the average user now has no way to control.

</comment><comment><USER6> They could be assuming that most web developers are using a framework which comes with its own development server.</comment>


Short film pays gorgeous tribute to Blade Runner - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5857780/short-film-pays-tribute-to-blade-runner-using-only-handheld-digital-cameras <comment><USER2> great short. btw, direct link is <http://vimeo.com/31617919></comment>


Containers Will Not Fix a Broken Culture - <AUTHOR> https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3185224 <comment><USER2> So many companies I've interviewed for are rushing toward microservices and containerization as the cure to all problems. The problem is that the champions often have no clue what any of this means.

I recently spoke with a company that had no testing whatsoever for a large production app. When I asked about it, they proudly said "Oh, we do CI. We have Jenkins!" Any tests? "We're going to add them after we move to microservices. Moving away from our monolith is top priority because monoliths are difficult to debug."

I see a ton of companies shitting all over best practices and then chanting buzzwords to pretend that they're all about it. That, or gross misunderstanding of any concept behind buzzwords.

X company uses Docker. We should use Docker. "Um. This code runs on an FPGA." "Does it run Docker?"

<comment><USER3> If it weren't containers it would be a new programming language, framework, or another agile methodology. Your argument has very little to do with containers.

Containers are just a better tool for writing OS configuration scripts. (If your team is full of Chef experts then it's not "better" for your team, but for a lot of teams it is).

What you're saying applies a lot more to microservices, which are a fundamental architecture choice. Containers aren't, they're just better than a tangle of bash scripts which create stateful VMs. And the problems you're describing apply no matter which tools a team uses.

Remember that you can use containers without complicated orchestration or microservices. I think a better argument would be to untangle these three things and describe how each one can solve certain problems or make the problem worse, and under which conditions.

<comment><USER4> >> Containers are just a better tool for writing OS configuration scripts. (If your team is full of Chef experts then it's not "better" for your team, but for a lot of teams it is).

No, not really. You could argue that dockerfiles are part image provisioning script and part process environment specification, but I think you'd still be missing the main advantage. Dependency isolation is the thing that usually gets touted, but that's only part of the picture. After all you can isolate dependencies now by baking images. That works great, it's well proven and reliable. But the vm that runs a single boot image can potentially run dozens of different containers, and using an orchestration platform you can easily and quickly shift those loads around, scale up and down, reconfigure and redeploy, all with far less overhead then deploying an image to a vm requires. Containers didn't become a popular tool because they don't add value. The use case for them has been clear for over four years now.

<comment><USER5> > Containers didn't become a popular tool because they don't add value. The > use case for them has been clear for over four years now

Well, yes, they did become popular despite not providing anything substantially new. The main value of containers is that programmer who works with network now doesn't need (initially) to understand how to configure the network, which is a dumb idea by itself. All the other things added by containers boil down to distributing a tarball with whole operating system, so you can run that in a chroot.

From where I stand it seems that programmers didn't want to learn how to build, distribute, and configure software with OS packages, so they invented their own binary packages system.

<comment><USER6> The irony here being I had to port our production RPM (rhel-based) build system to Docker just so it could have a reasonable API and be anything close to maintainable.

Edit: the extreme portability and "free" concurrency were just a bonus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a systems engineer, I struggle with this virtually every day. We're called 'DevOps' by most and anytime we encounter a new problem, everyone invariably screams for containers. Containers aren't a magic bullet.

My favourite example is when our AWS TAMs offer a solution, knowing we have ZERO pipeline/infrastructure setup for supporting containers. They always push containers. We don't use containers, stop forcing them down our throat. We've tried, we've been burned, VMs work for us. Stop!

When did containers become perceived as the end-all solution? I see their value and uses but they don't meet ours so why have we started ignoring the right solution for the job? I see this everywhere I go.

<comment><USER8> You need containers to run on Kubernetes my dude. And running on Kubernetes is _critical_.

<comment><USER9> Yes I know you were being sarcastic.

But you don't need k8s or containers for orchestration.

I chose Hashicorp's Nomad (I'm the dev lead for our company) precisely because I didn't want to commit to Docker from day one but I did want to leave that option open. Nomad works with everything - Docker containers, jar files, shell scripts, raw executables, etc and is dead simple to set up - one < 20Mb self contained executable that works as a client, server and as a member of a cluster. Configuration is dead simple if you use Consul.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really off-base, misses the point, and is another form of the "you don't need containers" criticism which has become very tired at this point.

This is mostly a critique of microservice architectures, not containers. If that were the main point I'd have little disagreement.

> Someone in security is weeping for the unpatched CVEs...

> ...the heavyweight app containers shipping a full operating system aren't > being maintained at all...

This is just wrong, it's the opposite of that. Never have I had more up-to- date operating systems, programming languages, and frameworks than when I started using containers. It's just so damn easy, especially if you use `FROM python:3` instead of `FROM python:3.6.2`. It auto-updates every time you deploy.

> There is no substitute for experimentation in your real production > environment; containers are orthogonal to that...

They're not orthogonal to it, they're a really useful way to get _very, very close_ to production. The maxim isn't untrue, but again, I sleep better than I ever have in my life because I know that these problems are now rare for me. The difference between my local, staging, and production is tiny. I haven't encountered such an issue in over a year.

All of the problems in the article are true no matter what tools you use to build and deploy. The author focuses a lot on developers' desire to go off in a corner and build their own little world. That's still a risk if you're using Ansible or Chef.

Bottom line: writing a Dockerfile is the most powerful way I've ever found to define your OS's configuration in code. Stop discouraging people from trying it just so you can make grand arguments about the types of problems every engineering team faces.

<comment><USER10> How does _" It auto-updates every time you deploy"_ fit with _" The difference between my local, staging, and production is tiny"_? It sounds like you have little control over your dependencies, and the differences between your local, staging, and production environments are the newer versions of your dependencies which you haven't tested against.

I like the idea of being able to precisely control both my code and all of my dependencies, so that I know for certain that I'm deploying exactly the same overall system that I tested. Containers are much better for that than the old way, because you could never be certain that your OS and system software were exactly the same in production as they were local and staging. But to achieve that precision, you need to use precise version numbers, and you need to install your dependencies from a local repository to be really sure.

<comment><USER3> You're right, I didn't make that clear.

What you're missing is that the beginning of the "deploy" process is building the image on your local (or on CI). That's when the update happens. Then you test it on staging, and if all is well you deploy to production.

If there's a problem it's easy to change your Dockerfile from "python:3" to "python:3.6.2" in order to go back to what you had. Or stick with "python:3.6" if you only want security patches. Or, if you _want_ to miss out on those security patches in order to guarantee more stability, go with "python:3.6.2" and decide when to test and deploy an upgrade.

<comment><USER9> Are you referring to Canary Builds?

[https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/canary- builds](https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/canary-builds)

<comment><USER3> No, I am more talking about a standard process of applying security patches (and/or bugfix patches). I'm countering the claim in the article that using containers somehow makes software orgs more prone to "unmaintained" OS's.

I'm saying that has little to do with containers, and if anything containers make it a lot easier to get security updates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm the lead dev for our company and I chose as phase 1 for our implementation Nomad for orchestration, a bunch of "micro-apps" (single purpose executables), and Consul for configuration and service discovery. I chose that combination for ease of use and flexibility - Nomad works with everything raw executables and containers.

Of course later on the consultants came along later and scoffed at the simplicity of our process - our deployment process is basically one step in our continuous delivery pipeline - copy the bin/release directory to the destination folder.

I tried to get them to articulate a business case for us to use containers. They couldn't come up with one.

Then my manager, someone I really respect for his technical acumen finally gave me one. If we go to containers, we don't have to provision servers on AWS. We can use AWS Fargate. Lambda isn't an option we have long running processes that make more sense as apps.

I wanted to do Docker anyway eventually just to add a bullet point on my resume and I could have as the dev lead but it felt unethical to make a choice that wasn't best for the business. Now I think it's the right way to go.

<comment><USER11> Sounds like your consultants were not sold on docker/containers as you already supported them. They wanted to lock you into a managed service so that you keep using them.

If they really cared about containers they would have helped you continue using nomad/consul as thats a fine combination

<comment><USER9> I'm not opposed to a managed service and yes Consul+Nomad is great. But I like the idea of not having to manage VMs. We will probably move to a hybrid approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Containers are not there to solve a problem. They are there to produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills, all packaged in a way that overloaded (and sometimes quite unskilled) manager can show something to their bosses.

And in that regard Containers are successful as hell. That's why we have a religion around them now. You can hate it but you can't really ignore it if you need to pay rent and work in the industry.

<comment><USER13> You're getting downvoted because of the impression of a sort of caustic nature of the comment, I suspect, but I agree with your real point.

I put containers and "orchestration" like kubernetes right up there with "Big Data", Kafka and a bunch of other technology that is the current fad. All of these have a legitimate use case. Odds are the use case of anyone reading this comment isn't one. But because of the terribly broken interview process and bandwagon effects, engineers feel compelled to force them into the development process in order to bypass filters (human and automated) on their resumes and keep a sort of social cache among their peers.

<comment><USER14> I downvoted it, because it's an opinion about things some people do and has nothing to do with the technology. You can use it well, you can use it badly. If you claim "They are there to produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills", then you haven't seen a problem they solve. That's fine. Just don't try to tell people there is no such problem.

<comment><USER13> I think it has everything to do with the technology. Specifically the technology solves problems most (almost all) organizations don't have, yet their adoption is practically ubiquitous as is their requirement to appear on a resume to get past gatekeepers. If in the end the technology is used more as a means to "produce buzz, then busy engineers, then bills" than to solve problems for their legitimate use cases it hardly is an error to point it out.

<comment><USER14> Are you saying almost all organisation don't need to solve the problem of consistent deployment artifacts and easily reproducible testing/dev environment? Because these are some of the problems containers can solve. (not the only problems, and they're not the only solution - but they can be a solution to those specific cases)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given developer x and developer y, each with adequate technical skills but poor teamwork abilities, there's some business value in being able to employ both given that the cost of dealing with their poor teamwork doesn't exceed the business value they can each deliver.

In the past we might have to decide to forego employing one or both. Now we kind of have the option of giving each dev their own "playground" via containers, and not actually expect either to improve their teamwork skills. Again, as long as the cost of supporting the container infrastructure is lower that the business value each dev can deliver, it's a net win.

In practice I'm not sure if containers can really deliver on this promise, but it's a very seductive idea.

<comment><USER16> Same is true for VM's, BSD jails, or even chroot()

think the issues being pointed out here are more about the whole 'linux container ecosystem' which has a notion of statically built containers, automated system orchestration, etc, and primarily in an operations context..

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If an enterprise adopts a technology that allows them to go faster, but doesn't change any of their processes to make them go faster, they have effectively thrown money down the drain. I'm sick of seeing tech companies eagerly switch out one tech for another without at least _trying_ to address the people and process problems.

Stop trying to reduce costs. Work out your cost of delay, and focus on getting things done more quickly and more effectively, not more cheaply and more efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure what the point of this piece is. It could have stopped at "Complex socio-technical systems are hard; film at 11" and been just as informative.

</comment><comment><USER19> Technology can't fix socio-economic problems, but it can shift the landscape of what is possible.

Old-school software engineering is very much about reports, forms, documents. Each tries to gather to itself every instance of some kind of information. Here is the Customer Requirements Document. Here is the Software Requirements Document. Here is the Software Design Document. Here are the Software Test Plans.

These days most places work out of an issue management system. JIRA tickets, Github issues, stories in Pivotal Tracker, whatever. The work is broken into small chunks with their own lifetime. We don't wait while all the requirements pile up before opening the dam and letting them flow downstream in a batch. Each goes when it's ready to go.

This is not possible without the right tools.

That's a lie. It's totally possible. With 1980s word processing and spreadsheets you could absolutely do everything Tracker or JIRA do. You could use stacks of 3x5 cards to track thousands of items across dozens of teams.

But you probably don't.

The tooling lowers the threshold of the _possible_ , in a social and economic sense.

No, containers aren't miraculous. Of themselves, they do nothing to fix other problems. But they make it _possible_ to achieve improvements that are more expensive and difficult in other ways. They lower the barrier of possibility. The landscape of alternatives shifts, mountains become hills.

I've been on both sides of that divide now. As a consulting engineer I saw projects rapidly iterating but not being able to deploy ("ops are too busy right now"), leading to dozens of handsomely-billed hours being squandered in meetings and workarounds and emails and chats and phonecalls trying to get the code into any kind of production. I've also seen projects where deployment took an hour or two to set up and that was that. People got on with the job. And a major difference was the platform.

One more thing.

> _Development teams love the idea of shipping their dependencies bundled with > their apps, imagining limitless portability. Someone in security is weeping > for the unpatched CVEs, but feature velocity is so desirable that security > 's pleas go unheard. Platform operators are happy (well, less surly) knowing > they can upgrade the underlying infrastructure without affecting the > dependencies for any applications, until they realize the heavyweight app > containers shipping a full operating system aren't being maintained at all._

This is a problem buildpacks have solved for well over a decade on multiple independent PaaSes.

Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we do some stuff with containers, but we sorta focus on the parts on top of and before them.

</comment><comment><USER20> well as somebody already pointed out. docker/containers are useless. combine them with a useful system like kubernetes, they can be really useful.

<comment><USER21> i don't know about "useless".

scientific computing, for instance -- you may have a weird set of dependencies for some code that you want to deploy a copy of on 200 slightly heterogeneous nodes, once, and hopefully never again; but, it's vitally important that people in the future have the possibility of replicating your computation.

containers are the perfect solution for this. in fact, in my experience they essentially do fix a broken culture around reproducibility of computational experiments.</comment></comment>


Magnetometers based on diamonds will make navigation easier - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/07/18/magnetometers-based-on-diamonds-will-make-navigation-easier <comment><USER2> > And, crucially for military applications (and unlike GPS-based systems), it > is unjammable by the enemy.

So while there is not such thing as a magnetic laser, there is a laser that can create a strong magnetic field.

[https://physicsworld.com/a/radiation-friction-could-make- hug...](https://physicsworld.com/a/radiation-friction-could-make-huge- magnetic-fields-with- lasers/#:~:text=Huge%20magnetic%20fields%20can%20be,role%20in%20generating%20the%20field).

<comment><USER3> > Our calculations suggest that at least a power of several petawatts is > needed

Good to know

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How stable is the earth's magnetic field at that level of detail? There's enough movement of the magnetic poles right now that new compass correction charts have to be issued every year or so. Will you need to constantly update your magnetic maps?

</comment><comment><USER5> Magnetic navigation is totally real and seems to work great.

Diamond magnetometers might not be a great fit for this application. They require a powerful laser, RF, and are presently huge and impractical. Also, they are just terrible at accuracy and drift like crazy. Finally - and this is the thing I really can't get - they require a giant magnetic field to operate. If your magnetometer has a giant magnet bolted to it, you would expect it to basically measure drift in that magnet. Diamond magnetometer people will jump out of the woodwork now, but I haven't seen published high quality data that says otherwise. Would love to be proved wrong.

Diamond magnetometers are great at being a magnetic microscope since they have really high density of measurement sites and you can stick it right up next to an object of interest.

<comment><USER6> Drifting like crazy might not be such an issue if one is looking for an AC signal, such as could be produced by 130m x 13m metal objects moving against the stationary background.

Huge and impractical sounds like SQuIDs might still be preferable. LN2 is a byproduct, so it's cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://archive.is/5zdJw](https://archive.is/5zdJw)

</comment><comment><USER8> > And, crucially for military applications (and unlike GPS-based systems), it > is unjammable by the enemy.

Is it entirely infeasible for an adversary to disrupt the local magnetic field enough to interfere with the readings?

<comment><USER9> Based purely in my layman understanding of magnetism, you'd need quite a disturbance and that same energy would likely not make the rest of any electronics happy.

<comment><USER10> Also give away your position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of overlap, but some other details in this Air Force press release from May: [https://afresearchlab.com/news/air-force-investigates- using-...](https://afresearchlab.com/news/air-force-investigates-using- quantum-materials-in-new-navigation-tool/)

</comment><comment><USER12> > so accurate that it might supersede GPS for aerial navigation

Very cool! I wonder if:

1\. the device can be made small enough for consumer use (i.e., phones, smart watches, etc)

2\. how much data it needs to pinpoint its location. i.e., it might be suitable in aviation because it can collect a larger amount of data by virtue of... you know... goin' fast.

<comment><USER5> 1\. No, anyway, your phone would have to be engineered to be non-magnetic to the same level that you wish to make measurements. 2\. Yes, faster is better. Flying lower is also more specific if you have a sufficiently good magnetic map.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do compasses work on aircraft? Don't the (varying across space/time?) magnetic fields from everything on the aircraft overwhelm whatever tiny variation there is from Earth's surface?

<comment><USER14> In aircrafts it's common to use navigation instruments based on gyroscopes. See:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope) * [https://www.experimentalaircraft.info/articles/aircraft-gyro...](https://www.experimentalaircraft.info/articles/aircraft-gyroscopic-principles.php)

<comment><USER13> Thanks but I'm confused, how is that relevant to the article?

<comment><USER15> You asked > How do compasses work on aircraft?

So the parent responded with gyroscope based navigation. Perhaps you'd meant to ask

> How would these compasses work on an aircraft?

*Edited

<comment><USER16> A compass and a gyroscope are two very different devices.

The former measures the Earth magnetic field, which is an external magnitude independent of your craft or movement.

The later measures your rate of rotation, which is an internal magnitude. Even the best gyro will have an small amount of noise and drift, so you need some external reference to periodically correct it. Also, because they measure an speed, to get your orientation you need to integrate the measures over time, which amplifies the noise.

In reality you usually combine both with an accelerometer and a GPS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If this is basically comparing readings to a map of the Earth's magnetic field, couldn't they use lidar and a lidar topo map? (I think cruise missiles used some type of map for navigation too).

<comment><USER18> Lidar's range is measured in hundreds of meters. That might be a bit limiting for flight. Radar could be used, but you might not want to have a "hey all, I'm here!"-beacon for military purposes.

You could of course use cameras, pointing either up (stellar navigation) or down, but that's not going to work all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I cannot help but remember the time when I got lost during scuba diving because my new torch was metallic enough that my compass gave bad direction..

</comment><comment><USER20> So there may be a use for diamonds beyond industrial cutting.</comment>


Interactive Unicode Table - <AUTHOR> http://www.ftrain.com/unicode/#9241

<comment><USER2> The page displays Unicode characters, which are organised in blocks of 256 character, in pages of 100 characters each, thereby completly hiding the logical structure of Unicode. This is an, let's say, interesting choice...

[edit: typo]

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! I had something similar on a website some years back. Suggest use code 2001 for default fonts and now you can serve it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Some suggestions:

* reduce the height of the character grid by 2 rows - it is too much to fit the whole table on a 1280x1024 which means you have to scroll to see all the characters

* change the list of somewhat arbitrary shortcut links on the upper right to an autocomplete field for Unicode block names (<http://unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Blocks.txt>)

</comment><comment><USER5> I really hope it can add some UniHan reference

[http://www.unicode.org/cgi- bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=%E...](http://www.unicode.org/cgi- bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=%E4%B9%85)

btw, I really the code point navigation slide bar, it's very intuitive and easy to use.

</comment><comment><USER6> A different approach:

<http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/unicode_samples.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> Your operating system distribution doesn't come with one of these? One you can search?</comment>


Personal Per Diem - <AUTHOR> http://taylor.fausak.me/2011/10/24/personal-per-diem/

<comment><USER2> This is the same idea as Personal Banks. The idea is that if you want something, you save up the money, then lend yourself the cash.</comment>


CoinJar relocates to UK to avoid Australian Bitcoin sales tax - <AUTHOR> https://support.coinjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/202504025-UK-Relocation <comment><USER2> Charging GST is ridiculous. They've made the right decision.</comment>


Does India have a fun community website like Reddit and 9gag? - <AUTHOR> Does India have a community website like reddit and 9gag where I can see funny Indian pics? <comment><USER2> Yes India does, Check www.dozoff.com - go fun!

dozoff is an Indian community that bestows a platform to all those who look forward to sharing their comic and amusing content with the world. Dozoff is a unique stage to showcase the world funny images, gif, meme or other content and make the people taste the best medicine, Laughter.

The community is opened to everyone who thinks that their images or memes could roll tears from eyes due to laughter. At dozoff, one could share the funny content in Hindi, English, Kannada, Tamil or Telugu language.

Also you can create your own memes on dozoff : www.memebaba.com :The best Indian meme generator (part of dozoff.com)

Have fun :)</comment>


Online Payment Wars Continue: PayPal Officially Announces Flexible API  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/23/the-online-payment-wars-continue-paypal-officially-announces-flexible-api/ <comment><USER3> You know, the $2000/sec figure didn't sound that impressive until I did the math. Paypal seriously processes $63 billion a year in payments? That kind of surprises me.

Also, the chained payments feature sounds like exactly what I have been looking for on one project. Last I checked, you couldn't do this with FPS. The closest you could get was authorizing multiple receivers at the same time, but they would show up as individual charges on the bill. (If that has changed, feel free to point it out to me.)

</comment><comment><USER4> PayPal should work on improving their documentation for their developer API before they push out new features. We went with Google Checkout just because the documentation was so much better.

<comment><USER5> I just so have to agree with you!

It took me a week to figure out what in the world was going on in Paypal API land - they have a number of products, but they are all so poorly explained and described.

So, a week to figure what was going on, only a few hours to mould it all together once I realised what I really wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know if this will require PayPal logos and/or PayPal accounts for end users or is a completely transparent API like Authorize.net? The Amazon account requirement for FPS makes it a non-starter for me.

<comment><USER7> Holy shit -was just doing some research on it,

was lead to www.x.com - how much did they pay for that domain name? wow - <USER2> read the first 4 posts (and only posts so far) it doesn't answer your question..

<comment><USER8> Wasn't x.com one of the two companies that merged to create PayPal?

<comment><USER9> Yes.

"The current incarnation of PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Beginnings>

(Here's a link to the contract: [http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/paypal/con...](http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/paypal/confinity.mer.2000.03.01.html))

<comment><USER7> i feel dumb now - still looks like they are under using that domain name,</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: You favorite (not so popular) quote? - <AUTHOR> Mine is "Work Like Hell and Advertise" from Arnold Schwarzenegger.<p>It took me more than a year to realize its power. <comment><USER2> One of these days I have to memorize this by heart:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

<comment><USER3> I don't know why, but I was quite moved by this quote. Now off to write a sonnet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Experience is what you get, when you don't get what you want"

The only place I heard it is Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture"

</comment><comment><USER5> "The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they're not researchers. They're typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They're not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt." – Rob Pike

</comment><comment><USER6> We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. Advancing science has now discovered that all the known cases of biological extinction have been caused by overspecialization, whose concentration of only selected genes sacrifices general adaptability. Thus the specialist's brief for pinpointing brevity is dubious. In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which in turn leads to war.

-Buckminster Fuller

</comment><comment><USER7> I like this quote because it helps me to cope with difficult problems. "Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom." from Jim Rohn

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a few. Most are arabic, denoted with an asterisk.

Capture knowledge with writing.*

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

"The excuse was worse than the crime"*

He went (unnecessarily) far for pasture.*

He has been drinking from a sick goat.*

She accused me of her own sickness, and then went fast away.*

Eat him for breakfast, before he eats you for lunch.*

Eating lentils outside your home tastes better than eating chicken at home. (Pakistan)

"The eye of a parrot", meaning cannot be trusted. (Pakistan)

"Between the hammer and anvil", ie in a tough spot*

There are so many more but these are the ones that come to mind rn.

</comment><comment><USER9> "There is 10 men. Then there is 11 common sense." don't remember who said :)

It is translated from my language. So it may sound weird to native speaker.

</comment><comment><USER10> "People buy expensive things to feel valuable. Lead a life where ordinary things gain value when you use it." Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Recalling from memory. May have errors. He said giving examples of Rev. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi etc. We now have museums of them containing mundane things of their daily life.

</comment><comment><USER11> _" Well stolen is half done"_.

Purportedly an ancient Spanish proverb.

In the context of where I heard it (the book _Working Knowledge_ ) it was described as corresponding to the idea that, when it comes to knowledge, usefulness is more important than originality. Or, in other words, something like the opposite of "Not invented here."

[https://books.google.com/books?id=-4-7vmCVG5cC&pg=PA53&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=-4-7vmCVG5cC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=Well+stolen+is+half+done+working+knowledge&source=bl&ots=mzoaV_5rG4&sig=ACfU3U3wL209ZvN0XrrZmnf8ObTKYKYDMQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX2O6pp8fqAhXFgnIEHaTxDcAQ6AEwAHoECB8QAQ#v=onepage&q=Well%20stolen%20is%20half%20done%20working%20knowledge&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER12> "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

I don't remember where I read or heard this one.

</comment><comment><USER13> The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

You have to regard yourself as a cloud, you see, because clouds never make mistakes...have you ever seen a misshapen cloud? Or a badly designed wave? Whatever you do it'll all come out in the wash some way or another. ~ Alan Watts

</comment><comment><USER14> The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Marcus Aurelius

</comment><comment><USER16> If you can't do something about it, then don't worry about it. If you can do something, then do, and don't worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER17> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." \- George Bernard Shaw

</comment><comment><USER18> My favourite spanish proverb: Si tu mujer quiere tirarte de un tejado, procura que sea uno bajo. _If your wife wants to throw you off a roof, make sure it 's a low roof._

</comment><comment><USER19> _I am so clever that sometimes I don 't understand a single word of what I am saying._

Oscar Wilde

</comment><comment><USER20> Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.- Sun Tzu

</comment><comment><USER21> Everything will be okay In the end. If it not, it isn't the end.

</comment><comment><USER16> The harder I work, the more luck I have

Luck is where opportunity meets preparedness

</comment><comment><USER22> You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.

Robert M. Pirsig

</comment><comment><USER23> "Can't is the won't of the people who don't"

remember getting told this as a kid by my mum or grandma. Didn't seem to stick though...

</comment><comment><USER24> "You shouldn't tolerate too well any injustice that does not target yourself" (freely translated from Norwegian) - Arnulf Øverland

</comment><comment><USER25> When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.

<comment><USER26> "by people that were no smarter than you"

You say that, but I don't think you know me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do." \- Jack London

</comment><comment><USER28> "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." \- Stephen Covey

</comment><comment><USER16> Make the best choice given the information you have you never have to regret a decision.

</comment><comment><USER29> I should count my blessings, but I like complaining better. - Beth Daranciang

</comment><comment><USER30> "A man's got to know his limitations"

</comment><comment><USER31> Happiness is doing more and expecting less.

</comment><comment><USER32> What one man can do, another man can do.

</comment><comment><USER16> Happiness is a choice

</comment><comment><USER33> Pursue whats meaningful, not what is expedient. -Jordan Peterson

Helps me to keep asking, what and how should i do and approach.

</comment><comment><USER34> >When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

By John Ruskin

Apparently not popular in modern capitalism.</comment>


What I Do for a Living - <AUTHOR> http://ticci.org/what-i-do-for-a-living

<comment><USER2> I don't really understand this article... anyone care to explain? Maybe I need some background information.

<comment><USER3> The author is an under-25 tech writer who founded MacStories.net. He was recently diagnosed with cancer, a cancer which he believes he did not act quickly enough to get treated. As a doctor makes small talk with him about what he does for a living, he reflects on his life choices to be come a tech writer and about the importance of doing what you love and making a difference.

<comment><USER2> Ah I see, I couldn't understand the relation between his situation and his job.

<comment><USER4> I was also puzzled. It seems like an attempt to describe an epic moment when in reality is just an awkward one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I fricken hate that stupid "kudos" button that auto upvotes. Talk about bad design.

<comment><USER6> I missed it the first time, so I went back to see what you were referring to.

Now I want my Kudos back.

When you hover over the Kudos button it says "Don't move" for 1 second, and then up-votes the article. There is no way to get the vote back (that I can see) and it takes about a second to read what on earth the thing you just mouseover'd is saying, which means your vote is cast before you know it.

For reference, the following code is the implementation I see :)

        function s(t) {
            t.addClass("active"),
            t.children(".counter").children("span.txt").html("Don’t move"),
            t.children(".counter").children("span.num").hide(),
            e = setTimeout(function() {
              clearTimeout(e), u(t)
            }, 1e3)
        }

[edit] added some linebreaks to the code

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome article and props to him for sharing that, must be hard to pour out something that is really hard for him and for all of us to admit, which is that even though we know not to put our work ahead of our health, we do.

If this can serve as a wake up call for people to stop putting off the burning necessities of health and family then it probably has more value than 99.9% of the stuff circulating on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER8> This left me thinking "what are the signs of cancer"? Here are a couple of links after a quick search:

* [http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/signs-and-symptoms...](http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/signs-and-symptoms-of-cancer) * [http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Aboutcancer/Si...](http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Aboutcancer/Signssymptoms.aspx)</comment>


TechOps pre-launch checklist for web apps - <AUTHOR> http://leknarf.net/blog/2013/03/06/techops-pre-launch-checklist-for-web-apps/#.UTfnO9OR6Q8.hackernews <comment><USER2> >If your application doesn't require a high level of user privacy, then you should be able to log into your site as a given user. Odd problems will pop up that only affect one user.

when the hell is this ever ok? even for a to-do list app. The closest we will come to this is a screen-sharing session with the customer

<comment><AUTHOR> Logging in as a given user doesn't provide admins with any data that isn't already available in database backups and log files. If a startup only has one developer, then that developer already has access to every user's data, regardless of whether you allow frontend access.

There are many types of applications where that level of privacy would not be okay. But actually protecting the users' privacy is non-trivial. Short of encrypting all user-provided data, I don't see how you could prevent every startup employee from seeing any data.

Larger companies usually separate their operations and development teams, partially for this reason. Developers aren't allowed to access production data or servers. That at least limits the number of people with access to a trusted few, at the cost of a substantially more complicated development/release process.

<comment><USER2> I guess I am biased because I work at an organization with separate development, operations, and support groups. I work for the operations side of things and I can't image just letting support logging in as users. it just seems wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Scale all the things: 'Setup a caching layer (Memcached, Redis, Varish)'...if only it was just that easy.

Prep for scaling should be something like;

1\. testing to see when you'll need to 2\. monitoring so you know when 3\. planning before you reach date / time from #2 how you'll do it 4\. implement 5\. test you've done #4 properly 6\. release 7\. repeat the whole process

Work out a methodical way that makes sense. "Setup a caching layer" is not that.</comment>


Microsoft Gave Customer $250,000 To Choose Office 365 Over Google Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-gave-customer-250000-to-choose-office-365-over-google-apps-2011-7 <comment><USER2> I just finished up at UNL (the school mentioned in article) and was really disappointed in the choice to use Office 365 over Google Apps. It was supposed to be a transparent process, but they made the decision behind closed doors and now I see why. Money talks.

</comment><comment><USER3> as much as i hate Microsoft .. it is smart thinking. Get them while they are young.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a student here, and I'm not surprised. Their University network went from being very fast and restriction-free, to be a SafeConnect riddled disaster. In personally troubleshooting issues with game consoles, I discovered how it worked and various methods of avoiding identifying myself on the network and avoiding bandwidth limits.

I passed this information on to deaf ears. (Hell, I even chatted with a SafeConnect employee on reddit that assured me it was resolved. Everyone gets random disconnects every 5-10 minutes and tiny outages once an hour. Game consoles will stop working for days at a time without my work around).

Anyway, they also went with Microsoft for the email over Google. I'm biased, but whatever. But, I am not surprised at this decision. The business people made the decisions instead of the tech department. And to be honest, is it that bad. UNL could use the money and Office 365 really isn't bad. I hate running Windows 7 just for Office. And let's face it, Google Docs sucks.

</comment><comment><USER5> I worked on a project recently where they gave $10 million USD to convince a major consumer electronics manufacturer to use a Microsoft software component in an upcoming product. This is apparently standard practice for them.

Microsoft is essentially a marketing business with a huge amount of capital: not a software company.</comment>


Ask HN: FBI showed up at my house this morning. What to do? - <AUTHOR> Some background: I'm a citizen of a Muslim-majority country who migrated to the US to seek political asylum after being jailed by my government and hounded with death threats for insulting Islam. I've been living in the US for a year now, and in that time I've continued speaking up against Islam, the Qur'an, and the Hadiths.
Today 2 FBI special agents with badges showed up 7 a.m. in the morning, interviewed by neighbors and landlord, and finally spoke to me. This is roughly what they said:
"You're not in trouble. Based on uncorroborated sources, we have information that your life might be in danger from kidnapping by individuals with links to ISIL, and consequently your life is in danger. Try to reveal as little as possible about yourself to anyone or online, and move if possible. Here's my number: XXX-XXX XXXX."
What I'm worried about is that they're investigating me for other things and simply using a terrorist threat as a smokescreen.
How likely is it that they're telling the truth? I've informed no one about this except my lawyer. Also, should I be worried about my safety? I have a pretty big following online that follows me largely for my Islam-bashing posts (80k likes on FB, and it's even a verified account).
Should I also do anything now? I've never encountered this before, and I'm at a loss on how to react. <comment><USER3> Stop posting online and go underground and vanish for a while. Although you have a large following online, your safety is more important. If something happens to you, you won't be able to post anyway and those large following won't matter. Just disappear.

And when the FBI is investigating you, they don't need a smokescreen. I'd take them seriously if I were in your shoes.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. If you've been posting content similar to the Danish cartoons or Charlie Hebdo's, your main worry is not the FBI.

2\. "Uncorroborated sources" means little. If there was an imminent threat they would tell you.

3\. If you were in trouble, you would already be under arrest.

4\. This was a preliminary meeting to see if you have any interest in becoming an informant for them. Expect that request to come soon.

5.If you've purchased grow house bulbs in the past six months or dozens of packages of ephedrine, then rest assured that your online postings have nothing to do with their visit.

If you are really concerned, here's a tip: lawyers are plentiful in the United States. You are not eligible for a free lawyer, but call your local federal court and ask for the names of attorneys who handle CJA appointments. Or call the local chapter of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, or contact their Washington office for a referral. Your new lawyer will quickly discover the level of the Bureau's interest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response.

1\. I post worse. I quote the Qur'an directly (verses on violence, sexism, slavery) and receive death threats in return!

2\. If it means little, why even make the trip to my home?

3\. Good to know that too.

4\. I don't know anything about anyone, so how can I even be an informant?

5\. Not even sure what "house bulbs" or "ephedrine" are... so I guess I'm safe?

<comment><USER5> 2\. They want you to start thinking about your safety, to start paying attention to what's happening around you, and to start thinking about making yourself harder to find. It's not an emergency, it's not a panic, but it's time to start thinking and seeing what you can do (without totally messing up your life). Do what you can now. Think about how you can be in a position to do more.

5\. Drug growing or manufacturing supplies. It's fine if you don't get it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Based on what you've said above, I would believe them. I have heard, second- hand, of another person getting a very similar warning. That person is taking it extremely seriously, and the FBI wouldn't have any credible ulterior motives in investigating them. (Sorry I have to be so vague.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I generally trust the FBI about as far as I can throw them, but given the history of what ISIS has done, and given that you seem to have legitimately made yourself a potential target, I'd say this sounds somewhat legitimate. In either case, always talk to a lawyer before talking to the police, and definitely take your personal safety seriously.

I don't know how you feel about guns, or even if you're eligible to own a gun in the US (not sure how citizenship status affects that). But if possible, you might considering purchasing a pistol and look into getting a concealed carry permit (if required in your state). If you do, _get some training_ and take training seriously.

Short of a gun, spending some time studying a martial art could be beneficial. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and/or Krav Maga might be good choices. Escrima could also be good... they put a lot of emphasis on "stick fighting" and you can certainly legally own a stick... and that may be more acceptable if you oppose guns on some kind of philosophical basis.

<comment><USER8> There are mace guns available online for about $40 which have a pretty long range. That might be a good option for protection if you can't or don't want to get a gun. You'll have to check the laws in your town/state, but I think you can concealed carry them anywhere.

<comment><USER7> Good point. A taser could also be a viable non-lethal alternative. Although personally, if I thought I was a target for ISIS, being "non lethal" would be the last concern on my mind. But mace or a taser may be more practical than a gun for other reasons anyway, depending on the circumstances.

Another thought, as obvious as it may seem, is to suggest simply trying to _not_ be alone as much as possible. "There's safety in numbers" as they say. Maybe try to arrange to be in a (known friendly) crowd as much as possible.

<comment><USER8> I don't know if this is justified, but if I'd gotten death threats I'd be more worried about snipers than someone coming at me at close range. Your safety in numbers advice would be very good in that case too. The issue I have with Tasers is that they're as expensive as a gun and you only get one shot. I was thinking of non-lethal options because I don't know if the person can carry a gun if they aren't a citizen or if there are strict laws where he lives. If the person can afford it, I'd suggest looking into a lightweight bullet-proof vest as well.

<comment><USER9> It isn't justified. Excluding nation-state assassinations and a couple of serial killers/mass murderers, people in this country generally aren't killed via sniper rifle. The majority of gun-related murders involve small caliber handguns like .22s, .38s, and 9mms.

>I'd suggest looking into a lightweight bullet-proof vest as well.

If you are worried about a sniper attack, lightweight bullet proof vests aren't going to help you. They don't stop high-powered rifle rounds. The only thing that stops high-powered rifle rounds would be the kind of body-armor the military uses, with ceramic plates. I don't think OP wants to spend the rest of his life wearing a 35lb vest. Fortunately, lightweight vests will stop small caliber handguns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First thought: run like hell! Even if this is some kind of lie or trick, what risk do you take by going on a vacation for a few weeks?

<comment><USER11> >what risk do you take by going on a vacation for a few weeks?

But what about afterwards? Assuming this to be true, you just return to normal life after a few weeks?

<comment><USER5> See, I don't think the warning is at that level. If he needed to go on vacation for a few weeks, the FBI would say so. They (the FBI) don't think the treat is at that level at this time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Uhhhh ... My gut reaction is usually anti feds but since in the case you actually have a track record of receiving these death threats before ... to the extent that it made you flee your home country ... it seems pretty legit. What other activities are you involved with that you think are a more likely reason for the FBI to show up at your door?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not going to incriminate myself publicly, but let's just say .torrent files exist on my PC.

<comment><USER13> It's very unlikely that this has anything to do with your troubles. Unless you distribute content to the extent that other nations have requested assistance in stopping your operation, I can't imagine dispatching the FBI to deal with that.

<comment><USER12> Yes ... if it wasn't clear from context my question to the OP should have been read with snark. This is a good time to apply Bayes's theorem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not totally convinced that this post was your best move in any way whatsoever. I would be calling that number if I were you, I don't think this is a decoy unless you have more evidence that suggests it might be outside of general paranoia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, one thing I know is that the less you talk to law enforcement, the less you incriminate yourself. So calling is out. And we all have secrets, e.g. downloading illegal IP for sure...

<comment><USER15> So take them seriously and don't tell them any more than you need to.

If you're worried that these agents are actually investigating you for illegal downloads, see if you can find out what division of the FBI they work for. If they work for the IP division, then your paranoia might be justified.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been trying real hard to find for info on the FBI.gov website, but I can't find any information on the officers.

<comment><USER15> The kind of sting you're describing sounds incredibly improbable. You should take what those agents told you seriously.

If you're actually concerned that the whole situation is an elaborate hoax to catch you torrenting episodes of Game of Thrones, then you should talk to a lawyer but still act as if the threat against your life is real because it very well might be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just FYI, as someone who was arrested by the FBI for computer hacking and at the time had ~20 GB of illegally downloaded MP3s and SNES ROMs: They didn't even bother investigating it. They even returned my laptop to me mostly unmolested. (I assume they left an implant and quickly ditched it after recovering the stuff I wanted and backing it up online.)

It's probably in the government's best interest to keep you alive, even if you've torrented.

(Of course, I don't pirate stuff anymore. I doubt I'll ever feel like I'm off their radar ever again. Not worth the risk.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I know a lot of people always think poorly about the police and FBI. I've only had positive run-ins with the police, perhaps because I'm female. I've heard of people the FBI really wanted to get but didn't have info on, and they were not nice to them or warning them of potential danger like they did with you, so it sounds like it's worth taking to be legit. I'm curious what your neighbors and landlord have to do with this? Have they heard something about threats against you? You have already received death threats online - <USER2> care of your personal safety in person. I like what another person said about not posting for a while, perhaps going to stay in a different city. Turn in any threats to the FBI and see if you have anything that could be leads for them.

</comment><comment><USER17> If they are interested in you, how do you know they're not in this forum already?</comment>


Why Shasta is leading a $6M Series A investment in  Bloc's online bootcamp - <AUTHOR> http://seanmflynn.com/2014/11/18/bloc/

<comment><USER2> Bootcamps sometimes get a bad rap and there's a general feeling that everyone's jumping onto the bandwagon but as a recent full stack graduate of Bloc, I am not surprised at all that they've been able to raise this kind of money. It's a great platform!

The mentoring angle certainly adds a lot of value when you are learning something new and it can also be motivating since there's accountability (I had sessions with my mentor twice a week!)

Hopefully they expand a little more internationally but that said, I am based in Birmingham, UK and I had no issues scheduling sessions with my mentor in another country.

A massive congratulations to the team!

</comment><comment><USER3> Currently they seem heavy on social proof, and light on meaningful numbers around graduation rates, user satisfaction, and, most importantly, employment post-graduation.

The thing that will distinguish bloc, skillcrush, and the rest from wastes of time and money are the hard numbers they are able and willing to produce.</comment>


Blekko Confirmation Email lands in Gmail Spam - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering if this happened to anyone else, don't have any spam filters, and am running on default gmail settings. Could this be google trying to snuff out a competitor, if so its pretty creepy. <comment><USER3> About 80% of the confirmation e-mails I get land in Gmail Spam - maybe because there's also a lot of actual spam (which looks like confirmation e-mails: short text+complicated link+footer). And IIRC, Google Mail still has a default spam filter for everyone, without you actually creating one.

If you look hard enough, it is _always_ possible to find a conspiracy - <USER2> matter whether one actually exists. As for me, I do not attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity. GMail has comparatively great spam filters - for a bunch of computers; it still sucks when compared to human ability to detect spam.

</comment><comment><USER4> A majority of blekko's verify emails get clicked on, and the ones that don't include a fair number of people who give us bogus email addresses instead of not giving one at all. So I don't think there's a big problem overall, and I'm glad you happened to notice!

</comment><comment><USER5> Gmail's is less bad than others when it comes to eating confirmation messages.

I launched a site recently that had deliverability of about 50% for confirmation messages. I pointed my "smart host" to Critsend and things seem to be way better.</comment>


Gmail gets remote log-off feature - <AUTHOR> http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3216930.cms

<comment><USER2> Youtube has now Geo-IP discrimination of videos...</comment>