What we get wrong about Machiavelli - <AUTHOR> https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/what-we-get-wrong-about-machiavelli-the-prince-ferdinand-mount <comment><USER3> My takeaway on Machiavelli's The Prince is that it is a diverse collection of ruling / governing practices he observed and recorded back in the 16th-century upon which he tries to extract lessons and learnings, similar to what we see nowadays with entrepreneurship success / failure stories analysis.

Machiavelli doesn't seem to actively promote wrongful behavior nor engage in morality evaluations, mostly keeping a neutral, objective perspective throughout his writings.

Nevertheless, his objectivism is commonly, and wrongfully, interpreted as malignity.

<comment><USER4> I've heard it explained by analogy as,

> Imagine that Jerry Seinfeld wrote a book about politics and governance > strategy, and sent it to Hillary Clinton, because he wanted to get hired as > an aide. Everyone is fascinated by this book, and it somehow becomes an > important work in political science. Five hundred years later, Seinfeld is > mostly forgotten, but people still call things "Seinfeldian".

That's Machiavelli.

<comment><USER5> But Machiavelli wasn't a comedian or entertainer in any way. He had various diplomatic and government posts prior to writing any of his books. None of them were very highly-ranked or important, though.

A better modern example might be: imagine a mid-level office worker at the New York Office of Public Records writes a book about politics and sends it to the mayor, hoping to get a job. He uses examples from contemporary NYC and past political history to illustrate his points. Years after his death, his book becomes read across the world and NYC is simply seen as a temporary setting for the broader ideas.

<comment><USER6> _He had various diplomatic and government posts prior to writing any of his books. None of them were very highly-ranked or important, though._

This is just wrong!

He was Florence's ambassador to the Vatican (the major power in Italy), then ambassador to France (the major power in Europe) and Spain.

After this he trained and led a Florentine army to victory against Pisa, and then lost to a Papal and Medici funded army and was banished from Florence.

It was at this point he wrote his book.

It's more like if Henry Kissenger had been a Marine as well.

<comment><USER5> Maybe my example wasn't _quite_ perfect, but I think Florence at the time could be compared to a city-state like New York City today. Florence certainly wasn't a superpower on the world stage, so I'm not sure Kissinger and the United States is really a better comparison. Machiavelli also made a militia and as far as I can tell, had no military service himself.

A better modern example might be a high-level office worker in the police department that was sent to other states. In either case, at some point, the comparison becomes stretched.

But yeah, you're probably right in saying that my statement was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author of this piece lacks an understanding of how Machiavelli uses the term `virtu` (admittedly a common mistake). This failure to understand `virtu` is why countless political factions all the way up to the modern US Democratic party have failed their subjects and failed to protect their states -- they were unwilling to sacrifice the appearance of being good, of keeping their hands clean, for the things that really matter -- for example legislation on climate change, and the preservation of the US ability to respond to global pandemics to name only two. One of Machiavelli's key messages is that there are some things that are more important than playing by the spirit of the law. Those in the modern west who reject Machiavelli and this message doom themselves and their constituents to live in states cursed with bad rulers.

<comment><USER8> Compromise is antithetical to a two-party system. One could make the same arguments against the Republican party, using their hobby horses as examples.

Every gain for party A is a loss for party B, so you must ensure (with varying degrees of subtlety) that the other party's initiatives end in failure to help secure your victory in the next election. And once you're in power, you must destroy anything the other party created that would bring them praise, so that they can't point to it in the following election cycle.

<comment><USER9> > Compromise is antithetical to a two-party system.

> Every gain for party A is a loss for party B, so you must ensure (with > varying degrees of subtlety) that the other party's initiatives end in > failure to help secure your victory in the next election. And once you're in > power, you must destroy anything the other party created that would bring > them praise, so that they can't point to it in the following election cycle.

I don't think that's a general rule, and the observation is only true in certain conditions. For instance, I think compromise would be more common in cases where the parties weren't starkly ideologically polarized. Similarly, if the system allowed for some sugar make bitter medicine of compromise go down easier, compromise would be more likely (specifically, I'm thinking of earmarks).

<comment> blaser-waffle Polarization is almost inevitable with 2 parties, and is arguably one of their best tools.

There is no other genuine 3rd or 4th option, so you drive people to your party or you count them as a loss -- there is no other strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is this ridiculous trend of judging characters of the past by today's standards? According to the author Machiavelli highly original philosophy should be partially dismissed because he frequented prostitutes (male and female).

<comment><USER11> What is this ridiculous trend of making up past standards how it suits us? Why cant we admit past successful people ever did something wrong or immoral by whatever standard.

> he picked up a pretty lad and, after he has had his way in the darkness, > explains that he has no money, but states that he is called Filippo > Casavecchia—and if he calls at his shop tomorrow, the boy will get his > money. A surprised Filippo, a buddy of Machiavelli's, denies it was him,

The falsely accused friend would not think it is ok and nor did prostitute boy.

> and the boy threatens him with prosecution for sodomy.

Apparently, the act was illegal.

> Filippo asks if the boy would recognise the man's voice? The boy says yes, > so he is taken to a spot near the Porta Romana where Machiavelli regularly > holds court. The boy creeps up behind the bench where the great man is > telling an anecdote. He sees the boy and runs off.

If that was ok by past standards, why did he run?

"Past" is not universal excuse. Easy example is that I wont excuse Nazi leadership for just being men of their time. "It was in the past therefore it was ok" is ridiculous standard.

<comment><USER10> I cant believe I need to point this out, but if you are comparing Nazi Germany (oh Goodwin how right you were) with skipping out of paying a prostitute I think no further conversation is needed.

> Apparently, the act was illegal.

Oh no, and he went anyway and fucked a man, despite being illegal.

> If that was ok by past standards, why did he run?

Dont be dense, it is not OK, it was not OK then and it is even less OK now.The point is that for his times this was not more than a prank.Hell, the trope of running away from a check/bill and left your friends to manage is a classic in old and modern fiction. The only thing than could be considered really outrageous is if the boy was underage, but yet again the age of consent in medieval Florence was probably different than ours.

<comment><USER11> > Oh no, and he went anyway and fucked a man, despite being illegal.

Now you are applying todays standard to past actions.

> Dont be dense, it is not OK, it was not OK then and it is even less OK > now.The point is that for his times this was not more than a prank.

No, it was not. Neither for his times nor for current. You are making standards as it pleases you.

> Hell, the trope of running away from a check/bill and left your friends to > manage is a classic in old and modern fiction.

In real life, in country where homosexual acts are illegal, being suddenly accused of one is not fun harmless prank.

Real life is not fiction. In real life, had it been only about money, your friends will distance from you or take you to small claims court. In fiction, it is pretty normal to kill quite a few people with no big deal happening - <USER2> long as the killed people are "bad".

> I cant believe I need to point this out, but if you are comparing Nazi > Germany (oh Goodwin how right you were) with skipping out of paying a > prostitute I think no further conversation is needed.

I am not saying they are the same. I am saying that knee jerk "past standards" argument is nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you really want to understand Machiavelli then Ada Palmer's post's are excellent[1]. She studies "heterodoxy, heresy, freethought, censorship and information control, the recovery of classical thought after the Middle Ages, its impact on science, religion and atheism, and the history of the book and printing."

She puts Machiavelli into context, and points out that "the ends justify the means" was really an ethical argument putting for the first time the idea that the consequences of actions matter more than trying to justify actions by religion.

I discovered this via a HN comment and I can't recommend it enough.

Here's a quote:

1508\. The Italian territories destabilized by the Borgias are ripe for conquest. Everyone in Europe wants to go to war with everyone else and Italy will be the biggest battlefield. Machaivelli's job now is to figure out who to ally with, and who to bribe. If he can't predict the sides there's no way to know where Florence should commit its precious resources. How will it fall out? Will Tudor claims on the French throne drive England to ally with Spain against France? Or will French and Spanish rival claims to Southern Italy lead France to recruit England against the houses of Aragon and Habsburg? Will the Holy Roman Emperor try to seize Milan from the French? Will the Ottomans ally with France to seize and divide the Spanish holdings in the Mediterranean? Will the Swiss finally wake up and notice that they have all the best armies in Europe and could conquer whatever the heck they wanted if they tried? (Seriously, Machiavelli spends a lot of time worrying about this possibility.) All the ambassadors from the great kingdoms and empires meet, and Machiavelli spends frantic months exchanging letters with colleagues evaluating the psychology of every prince, what each has to gain, to lose, to prove. He comes up with several probable scenarios and begins preparations. At last a courier rushes in with the news. The day has come. The alliance has formed. It is: everyone joins forces to attack Venice.

O_O ????????

Conclusion: must invent Modern Political Science.

I am being only slightly facetious. The War of the League of Cambrai is the least comprehensible war I've ever studied. Everyone switches sides at least twice, and what begins with the pope calling on everyone to attack Venice ends with Venice defending the pope against everyone.

[1] [https://www.exurbe.com/machiavelli-s-p- q-f/](https://www.exurbe.com/machiavelli-s-p-q-f/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately for M., the adjectival form of his name ( _Machiavellian_ ) has come to mean something rather different from his actual ideas. His political philosophy would be best described as _realpolitik._

Today, we often view the word _realpolitik_ in a somewhat negative sense, because the underlying assumption is that a ruler should be 'good' first and effective second. This is a modern assumption.

What this article doesn't delve into is the idea of _virtù_ itself, and specifically how (someone like Nietzsche) sees this value and the Renaissance in general as a return to pre-Christian, pre-Platonic ideals of excellence, ones that precede modern ideas of good and evil. It is an idea intimately tied up with aesthetic concerns of self-mastery, clarity, and the dispelling of Platonic (subsequently Christian) idealism. Machiavelli himself was quite interested in the ancients, so this is not surprising.

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/#PoweVirtFort](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/#PoweVirtFort)

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

This excerpt from _Twilight of the Idols_ (Nietzsche) is maybe the best brief description of the idea. Sorry for the length, the part about Machiavelli specifically is in the third paragraph.

\--

 _I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the Romans are. One cannot learn from the Greeks—their style is too strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who would ever have learned it without the Romans!... Do not let anyone suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the artist, which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter, the most refined judges of taste in antiquity are on my side. In my opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together, in this respect he is one[Pg 114] of the first decadents of style: he has something similar on his conscience to that which the Cynics had who invented the satura Menippea. For the Platonic dialogue—this revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics—to exercise any charm over you, you must never have read any good French authors,—Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring._

 _In reality my distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral prejudices, so pre-existently Christian—the concept "good" is already the highest value with him,—that rather than use any other expression I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard word "superior bunkum," or, if you would like it better, "idealism." Humanity has had to pay dearly for this Athenian having gone to school among the Egyptians (—or among the Jews in Egypt?...) In the great fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination called the "ideal," which made it possible for the more noble natures of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to tread the bridge which led to the "cross."_

 _And what an amount of Plato is still to be found in the concept "church," and in the construction, the system and the practice of the church!—My recreation, my predilection, my cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides._ Thucydides and perhaps Machiavelli's principe are most closely related to me owing to the absolute determination which they show of refusing to deceive themselves and of seeing reason in reality,—not in "rationality," and still less in "morality." _There is no more radical cure than Thucydides for the lamentably rose-coloured idealisation of the Greeks which the "classically-cultured" stripling bears with him into life, as a reward for his public school training. His writings must be carefully studied line by line, and his unuttered thoughts must be read as distinctly as what he actually says. There are few thinkers so rich in unuttered thoughts. In him the culture "of the Sophists"—that is to say, the culture of realism, receives its most perfect expression: this inestimable movement in the midst of the moral and idealistic knavery of the Socratic Schools which was then breaking out in all directions._

 _Greek philosophy is the decadence of the Greek instinct: Thucydides is the great summing up, the final manifestation of that strong, severe positivism which lay in the instincts of the ancient Hellene. After all, it is courage in the face of reality that distinguishes such natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward in the face of reality—consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is master of himself,—consequently he is able to master life._

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52263/52263-h/52263-h.htm#THI...](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52263/52263-h/52263-h.htm#THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS)

</comment><comment><USER12> It just occurred to me that Machiavelli could be grouped with Sun Tzu and Saul Alinsky - each one of them wrote an incredibly insightful and influential book on strategy or leadership.

Are there any other authors/books in this category?

<comment><USER13> Chanakya and Nana Fadnavis. Chanakya has written "Arthashastra" and "Chanakya Niti". Not sure about Nana.

<comment><USER14> Comparing Chanakya to the works of Machiavelli is not fair. Chanakya was from priestly class who used the religious belief's of the people to his leverage and overthrow the king who did not accept Brahmin(priest) class is superior to Kings. His writing's is about advocating the class system. In the case of Machiavelli his writings is about the observation's of what qualities both good and bad were required to be a king.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've recently read "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom" [1] and I think it's definitely worth a read for anybody interested in Realpolitik and it's intellectual history. The author's own extrapolations are wonky at times, but the foundations are solid and food for thought.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1270379.The_Machiavellia...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1270379.The_Machiavellians)

</comment><comment><USER16> This sequence on Ex Urbe is one of the more interesting exegeses of Machiavelli I have read.

[https://www.exurbe.com/machiavelli-s-p- q-f/](https://www.exurbe.com/machiavelli-s-p-q-f/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I always thought the Prince reflected that the means should befit the prince (IE be apropriate to the governmening power if visible), and in general the more vicious the prince, the more visibly vicious it's possible to be without it be being effectively self-destructive. And that while the reverse is also true, IE a benevolent prince could reinforce itself with visible benevolence, the vicious is far _easier_ and harder to get wrong.

</comment><comment><USER18> For those of you who read "The Prince" and are looking for a little more context, I recommend Machiavelli's "The discourses".

It's been a while since I read it, but I found it to be an interesting romp through roman history through the lense of Machiavelli's sometimes cold, sometimes compassionate analysis.

</comment><comment><USER19> Everything.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADma_Wormtongue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADma_Wormtongue)</comment>


Qwikster: Netflix's Attempt At Resisting The Borg - <AUTHOR> http://clydn.com/53

<comment><USER2> What Netflix is missing here is that consumers are buying content; not DVD-by- mail; not streaming service. Some customers aren't streaming service candidates because they don't have the home networking infrastructure to make it work. Some customers would prefer to be streaming-only customers, but they can't get the content they want through the streaming service alone. Combining these two services has generated the mass market appeal that Netflix has capitalized on.

We (my household) are about to embark on a study of all the content we've watched through Netflix in the last year. I'm going to compile a list of every movie we've watched to see which titles are available streaming, and which are available only on DVD. I'm even going to give Netflix the benefit of using their streaming catalog as it exists today, rather than trying to back-date it (not sure I could do that if I tried). I have a suspision that the majority of the content we watch is available on DVD-by-mail only.

If that turns out to be the case, I have an important message for Netflix: If you want me to be your customer, it is _your_ responsibility to deliver the content I want. Don't force me to choose between two arbitrary delivery mechanisms for your own reasons. I understand that Netflix has their own internal business agenda, but let's not forget who pays the bill each month.

<comment><AUTHOR> I look forward to hopefully knowing what you've discovered! It'll be an interesting study, I'm sure, and I'm intrigued as to how it goes. Best of luck with it!

<comment><USER2> I'm going to work this up in to a blog post, but here's what I've got so far:

<http://i.imgur.com/o5FU7.png>

Unfortunately, we cancelled our streaming subscription, so I can't actually see my streaming history. The only streaming title I recall watching in the last year was "God Grew Tired of Us". The other films either weren't available as streaming titles when we rented them, or we (my girlfriend manages the queue) weren't aware that they were available instant at the time of scheduling.

As you can see, the vast majority of the content we watch isn't available through a streaming subscription. If Netflix wants me to be a streaming customer, then they should work on getting this content available through their streaming service.</comment></comment></comment>


Emacs as a Complete Computing Environment - <AUTHOR> http://doc.rix.si/cce/cce.html <comment><USER2> Could you share your actual dot files and literate org file examples? It's sounds overwhelming but some examples of org files that are more complicated might be interesting.

Also you have some dead links, like the fsem link on your post, which links to [http://doc.rix.si/cce/fsem.html](http://doc.rix.si/cce/fsem.html).

On [http://doc.rix.si/projects/fsem.html#orgheadline2](http://doc.rix.si/projects/fsem.html#orgheadline2), you point to cce.org and cce.html, both are dead links.

</comment><comment><USER2> Could you share your actual dot files and literate org file examples? Some examples of org files that are more complicated might be interesting.

Also you have some dead links, like the fsem link on your pages, which links to [http://doc.rix.si/cce/fsem.html](http://doc.rix.si/cce/fsem.html). On [http://doc.rix.si/projects/fsem.html#orgheadline2](http://doc.rix.si/projects/fsem.html#orgheadline2), you point to cce.org and cce.html, both are dead links.

<comment><USER3> My repository is down because I'm moving servers, sorry. It'll be up in a week or two</comment></comment>


A Startup wants to replace your hard drive with an infinite, virtual drive - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/23/30-petabytes-later-bitcasa-takes-infinite-storage-to-version-2-0-with-revamped-android-ios-desktop-apps/

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone used the service before? Apparently it's like dropbox but doesn't take up any space and data gets encrypted client side...</comment>


Essentials of Standard ML Modules (1996) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.208.9430&rep=rep1&type=pdf <comment><USER2> I keep thinking there must be great potential for using the ML Module system to create high-performance, customize-at-compile-time libraries, like C++ template libraries but without the messiness and potentially even more expressive.

But I've had a hard time finding SML or OCaml projects that advertise this as a benefit. Does anyone know of a project that's achieved this? Maybe many do, but don't state it that way explicitly?

<comment><USER3> This is what MLton essentially does as a system. It will expand away every module use such that they have no runtime overhead, but only exist in order to organize code. This allows you to build software consisting of many small functors which are composed together to form the final program.

It is perhaps _the_ reason to invest time in OCaml or Standard ML. But it requires a compiler which can reap the benefit as well. Newer versions of OCaml, with flambda as a backend, also help with this and gives you some of the advantages of full-module-expansion.

In practice, any decently sized OCaml or Standard ML program written by someone fluent in the module system would be an example project. Unfortunately, most of these I know about doesn't live in the Open Source world where I can just point to them.

(Disclaimer: I was involved somewhat with MLton)

<comment><USER4> There's the MLton Library project: [https://github.com/MLton/mltonlib](https://github.com/MLton/mltonlib)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An OCaml MOOC started yesterday, for anyone who might be interested:

[https://www.fun- mooc.fr/courses/parisdiderot/56002S02/sessio...](https://www.fun- mooc.fr/courses/parisdiderot/56002S02/session02/About_this_course/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Gateway timeout. Can someone please copy paste the text to a more available service?

<comment><USER7> Google the title. The first few results are all the right thing.

It's a PDF with lots of figures / code listings so copy/paste isn't really possible.</comment></comment>


Why Are the U.S. Broadband Prices So High? - <AUTHOR> http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200229_why_are_the_us_broadband_prices_so_high/ <comment><USER2> A small business I worked at in a town with a population of 40,000 was approached by the local cable provider. We had 4x T1 lines at $1000 per month. They offered to run fiber to our building for only $1000 per month plus $4000 per year for three years installation fee. Given how many other places we could spend $4000 per year for three years, we opted to keep the existing T1 stupidness as the slow bandwidth was not a serious problem for a small manufacturer.

I found it interesting that during the sales pitch of their salespeople (new rep + her manager), they mentioned that they were "in good with the town council" and were proud of this fact.

Our building was approximately 150 feet from a cable box in a residential neighborhood that was immediately on the other side of a tall fence along one side of the parking lot.

I asked why they couldn't just run a cable from that cable box, and they told me that the city had a law that forbid them from running a single line across public property to private property that wasn't receiving service and then to another private property that would receive the service. The private property they were referring to was a 10' strip of unused property with bark ground cover.

I asked why they hadn't run cable throughout the industrial zone that we were located in. They said that they had plans approved by the city, but those plans required they use a PG&E substation on the opposite side of the industrial zone that was already at 100% capacity. They had requested, years ago, for PG&E to upgrade the substation, but this request didn't even have and ETA from PG&E, itself yet another government-mandated monopoly provider.

Now, why they could run a fiber optic cable anywhere they pleased, is beyond me. They certainly were excited at the prospect of offering us this service.

The problem here that I have personally witnessed has nothing to do with with anything other than a corrupted local government.</comment>


Senator wants to bring copyright law to the runway - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/scholar-argues-fashion-is-like-free-software/ <comment><USER2> If you can patent a rectangle with rounded corners today surely then the less trivial manifold with ornamentation that is a dress deserves at least as much protection...</comment>


The Importance of Ron (Conway) - <AUTHOR> http://omis.me/2010/04/08/the-importance-of-ron/

<comment><USER2> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1248503> for yesterday's discussion of Ron Conway that may put this in perspective.</comment>


Vagrant: Development Environment, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ikusalic.com/blog/2013/10/17/vagrant-development-environment-part-1/

<comment><USER2> Hey I've been working on something you might find useful for those pesky dotfiles - (my simple goal was to host a place for people to publicly host config files they're OK with everyone seeing, behind easy-to-remember URLs):

[https://configr.io](https://configr.io)

I'm working on github integration also, but that's not done yet :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool idea. I like that you added demo account to look around. Hopefully it takes off after github integration.</comment></comment>


Do VCs have an age bias? - <AUTHOR> https://modeanalytics.com/benn/reports/211f54949c00 <comment><USER2> Very few do. The difference in age of those receiving capital has to do with pitch ratios. When I was 18 I would have pitched for $100K that seemed like a huge sum of money then. That was a years salary back in 1997.

Now if you want 25% of what ever I think is the next big thing you had better pony up $5M.

Why? Because I could work a 9-5 Make $250k a year and live on $100k paying 2 devs $75k. Find a Partner to do the same, and we could have 4 devs, a CEO and a CTO that both worked 25 hours a week and have a company that did just fine. Until the partner and I were needed 40 hours a week, and we jumped ship knowing we had revenue to support us.

The big thing that youth brings is optimism. The big thing that age brings is experience. When you are 18 you think that if you had $50k you could change the world, so you ask for it. When you are 35 you think if you could have 5 years and $5m you could change the world.

It is harder to get $5m than $50k so fewer do. 35 year olds are also less likely to think that a 6 month old start up is worth $1B so they are less likely to get that kind of offer.

I don't think it is about age it is about Risk vs Reward, and the way people at different stages of their lives will run a company.

<comment><USER3> You earn 250K, pay no taxes whatsoever, keep 100K and divide the other 150K equally to two devs (who I assume might not pay taxes either)? Cool

<comment><USER4> You forgot the part about zero overhead for those 2 devs and the business as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Or it could be that 40year olds are more risk averse which leads to a smaller pool of 40 + entrepreneurs seeking funding. Or could it be that 40+ people have built a network of contacts that enables them to start businesses ,not startups, with little external funding. I see a lot of new businesses in advertizing, marketing and finance sectors which are profitable and pay good salaries and yet have never had the need to raise capital from VCs.

<comment><USER6> The vast majority of businesses being started aren't organized to go public or get acquired for $1 billion in 7 - 10 years. It's much more realistic to go from making $100-200k in salary, to owning your own business and making $200-500k per year, net. If you were 40+ with a family, what option would you rather choose? A pretty realistic shot at making $300-500k or a crapshoot at creating the next Google, compressed into less than 10 years of course because your VC wants his short term result to impress the next round of LPs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be very interesting to see a scatter plot of average founder age vs. success rate for each VC. Throwing money at very young founders with zero track record and throwing it at very silly/strange ideas are both high-risk strategies, likely to produce more losses than average but also some potentially bigger wins. I'd expect to see the two correlated, but even if I'm wrong it would be interesting to see.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very interesting graphic, but without the pitchers age we can't know if VC have an actual age bias.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this data normalized by the size of each group somehow? Without normalization this chart shows nothing about the VC's 'absolute' preference. At best it shows how the VC's are compared between themselves, and even that is by assuming all the VC's see the same amount of startups at each age group - which I presume is also far from true.

<comment><USER10> I also would like to see some kind of normalization about the rounds they invest in.

<comment><USER11> Filtering by round makes the sample pretty small, but here's the same graphic, only including A rounds.

[https://modeanalytics.com/benn/reports/63dde3f90f6c](https://modeanalytics.com/benn/reports/63dde3f90f6c)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> (I made the graphic) - Unfortunately, there's obviously no data on the pitches that VCs see. There could be ways to halfway infer it - for instance, founder age tends to be different by industry ([https://modeanalytics.com/benn/reports/a43fb710b2ef](https://modeanalytics.com/benn/reports/a43fb710b2ef)). If you look at how one VC's investments in one industry differs from overall investments in that industry, you might be able to somewhat control for the different pitches VCs see. But without more complete data, drawing any conclusions beyond things like "YC founders are young" is tough.

On a related note, here's something else I wrote that looks into whether or not older founders perform better: [http://blog.modeanalytics.com/are- experienced-founders-bette...](http://blog.modeanalytics.com/are-experienced- founders-better/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This probably just reflects who pitches for investment.

</comment><comment><USER13> Trying to come to a conclusion with half the data is a waste of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you ever have all the data? Or are you just advocating for more? If advocating for more, agreed. And the author says it's not a complete dataset and also only shows the first touch by the company (ie when they first got funding). So it doesn't take into account repeat rounds as the founders age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." \--Oscar

</comment><comment><USER15> This tells us one of two things (possibly both). Either

        1. VCs have an age bias and don't fund older people, or
        2. VC is a raw deal and 40+ with successful careers avoid it.

We, however, don't know which is true (or both) unless we can see pitch success rates by age.

However, I'd guess that it's a mix of the two. The age bias probably isn't deliberate. The issue is that VCs aren't passive investors but active _managers_ , and aversion to a younger-boss dynamic is nearly universal, with exceptions only made for obvious outliers. However, I also think that capable older people tend to be savvy enough not to enter the California VC-funded "tech" (actually, mostly marketing using tech) game. There are a lot of great 50-year-olds out there, but very few are interested in anything going on in the Valley these days.

</comment><comment><USER16> The reasons the graph is centered around 30s with a halo in 20s, 40s and 50s is the same reason the graph lacks "under 10" and "over 80".

It's just how humans work. We get born, have a period of growing up, gaining experience, then a productive period with big bold dreams, then settling, retirement and death.

I guess without the finger pointing the data would be so boring that it wouldn't warrant an article, so here we go.

<comment><USER17> The average business founder is aprox 40 years old. 2/3rds of surviving startups are by people over 40 years old. And this quote: _The study also found that people over 55 are almost twice as likely to launch high-growth startups than those aged 20 to 34._ [http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2012/09/03/do-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2012/09/03/do- older-or-younger-entrepreneurs-have-the-greater-advantage/)

Of course, that doesn't mean this article is correct.. since it doesn't show how old the pitchers were. It's entirely possible there is no age discrimination, if older people just dont apply (perhaps it's a raw deal.. or perhaps they don't need the money, since they have resources of their own.).

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking that was the more interesting backstory when I submitted it, actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would have expected to see more bias towards under 30's. Perhaps it's just the way the graphic is laid out though.</comment>


Everything Is Always Broken - <AUTHOR> http://getfireplug.com/blog/2013/04/17/everything-always-broken/

<comment><USER2> This is reassuring, if a bit scary. I'm at a successful mid-size post-'startup' company now and things are still pretty broken.

What size do things stop being broken? At 50 employees, are things broken? How about 100? 200?

<comment><USER3> On average things get more broken, not less, because a small company can only break so much before it simply stops working altogether, while a big one can absorb enormous blows of failure and continue on inertia alone, while simultaneously taking many more minds and bodies along for the ride.

Nearly everything in software is based upon a mad scramble to create value without collapsing. When software manages to not collapse for decades, we look upon it with 20/20 hindsight, thinking, "wow they did great engineering," but really, it's the same as thinking the Romans were great architects because of the things they built that by chance stood for a few thousand years.</comment></comment>


The War on Admissions Testing - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-war-on-admissions-testing-1530481487 <comment><USER2> Duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17440931](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17440931) .</comment>


Show HN: Fetchnotes - <AUTHOR>

We just launched our startup tonight! It's called Fetchnotes, and it's a note-taking application for short notes like books to read, shopping lists and ideas. Check out our website at www.fetchnotes.com.
We're on the web, Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows and Ubuntu — and you can even text or email in your notes.
We were just covered in TechCrunch (http://tcrn.ch/IBfr9C), and we'd love for you to check it out and give us your feedback. You can send it to me (Alex Schiff) and my co-founder (Chase Lee) at firstname.lastname@example.com, or use our UserVoice forum at fetchnotes.uservoice.com.
Also, we're all University of Michigan students, so GO BLUE!
Thanks! The Fetchnotes Team <comment><USER2> An idea about emailing in notes: Perhaps generate a random email addresses for each account, so for example my account will add notes sent to: email@example.com And if I were to get spam, I can click a button to immediately generate a new one. This way you don't need to store and manage (or require the user to store and manage) a list of authorised email addresses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, you used to have your iphone app open sourced but it is not available on github anymore, why have you decided against opensourcing it?

</comment><comment><USER4> Your web UI looks very similar to SimpleNote - They have an excellent API. See <http://simplenoteapp.com/downloads/>

I don't think they have email/testing support that you guys have.

Already signed up - and plan to use email/SMS support. (Since simplenote doesn't have this - Else I am a happy simplenote user)

<comment><AUTHOR> We're going to be rolling out a more polished web app UI very soon. Keep an eye out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi,

I am impressed by the number of apps you already have. Don't you think that development will be slowed down by the fact you will have to update all these apps for each change?

How do you plan to handle this challenge? (I run a time management product and I have this dilemma)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks good, I'll start using it today on Galaxy Note; are you thinking about any special developments for this type of "phablet"to take advantage of the stylus?

</comment><comment><USER6> iPhone app looks great! Two things I noticed quickly: the swipe-to-sign up wasn't immediately obvious to me, and since I'm typing on the phone, I probably wouldn't mind entering my password twice to be sure I didn't fat- finger it.

If you're worried about too many fields on that screen, then maybe you can get rid of a username that's separate from my email address...

</comment><comment><USER7> I just tried to install it on my android, but I couldn't find it in the market.

The web version seems pretty slick though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

The Android app can be found here: [https://play.google.com/store/search?q=fetchnotes&c=apps](https://play.google.com/store/search?q=fetchnotes&c=apps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congratulation on the launch! I'm in love with productivity app so I'll definitely test it in the very near futur :)</comment>


The Xinjiang Papers - <AUTHOR> https://nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html <comment><USER2> Talk about getting drunk on power. Only good sign here is that leaks have happened. Someone clearly got sick of the BS.</comment>


Requiring vs. Browserifying Angular - <AUTHOR> http://developer.telerik.com/featured/requiring-vs-browerifying-angular/

<comment><USER2> > That means no lazy loading of code.

And then you lose the main advantage of requirejs over browserify.

People came up with techniques to "lazy load" angular components,but as some point one has to ask,is all that complexity worth the effort?

</comment><comment><USER3> My first attempt at using both Angular and RequireJS in the wild was on the same project.

It was enough to turn me off from RequireJS, permanently.

It was enough to intrigue me about Angular, but be wary about using it due to the amount of time needed to twist your brain into thinking in an Angular way.

In comparison to RequireJS, Browserify just works. No complicated config file with shims. Same module style I'm used to from Node. Hell, I can even concat ascii text files into my packaged codebase with brfs.

</comment><comment><USER4> While attending @ ng-conf, I wrote this [grunt-angular-modularize][1] which would, based on file path, automatically wrap your Angular files with RequireJS/AMD or Browserify/CommonJS code.

The end-result gets ran through RequireJS or Browserify based on your preference, and you don't have to wrap your code.

[1]: [https://github.com/ericclemmons/grunt-angular- modularize](https://github.com/ericclemmons/grunt-angular-modularize)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've started using browserify + gulp for my frontend code and I must say it is a very powerful combination for structuring code. One might even say civilized!

example backbone app: [https://github.com/ivanistheone/backbone-and- browserify-phon...](https://github.com/ivanistheone/backbone-and-browserify- phonecat/blob/commonJS/src/init.js)

<comment><USER6> I'm starting to think that module systems on Angular's modules is a bad idea. Maybe I'm overthinking this. Should we just grunt-concat (or whatever Gulp does) and move on with life?

<comment> anton-107 Does the order of files concatenating matter with angular modules?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe Angular needs to take a more constricted approach and integrate naturally with something like browserify.

You are correct that you should be writing your actual angular code in those separate files. And doesn't it make sense that the export of a controller file is an injectable controller? None of this "dependency injection via a string which gets turned into a reference to real code later"

</comment><comment><USER8> Generally, when browserifying angular, the first thing you want to do is create an `./app.js` that exports your app. That way you can push the actual registering of controllers and such to the controller itself instead of a massive glue file.

The browserify transform `bulkify` can also be handy to allow you to require a bunch of files based on a glob.

</comment><comment><USER9> The primary problem I see with the browerify approach that was outlined is that it makes it much harder to debug your code in the webconsole.

By concatenating everything into a single file and loading that into the browser, you have to do the math in your head to figure out which file the code in question is in. Also, if you have a huge project, the watchify process really starts to slow down development as you are constantly waiting for it to do the concatenation.

I go with the requirejs/r.js approach. During development, requirejs effectively adds script tags to the specific files into your dom and loads your source code directly. No need for a watchify process. When you have a javascript error, the webconsole shows you exactly what file the issue is in. For deployment into production, r.js does the concat and I just load a single file. This unfortunately makes it harder to debug production, but that's the tradeoff. =(

Neither approach is perfect, but it is the best we have right now. I'd love to see someone come up with something that solves all these problems, is well documented and easy to work with.

<comment><USER10> browserify can create source maps, either within the file or externally:

[https://github.com/substack/node-browserify#external- source-...](https://github.com/substack/node-browserify#external-source-maps)

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry, but that's a lot of overhead to just get to the right line in the file. Now you're talking about generating even more files every time you save. For a large project this doesn't scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well written article.

With Rails, though, you don't need to worry about any of this. Just define your modules and add controllers/services/directives/whatever to them as needed using as many files as you want, and it just works. No module loading required.

Sorry for my ignorance, but does Node have something similar to Sprockets/The Rails Asset Pipeline?

<comment><USER12> Yes it does, plenty of options in fact, but as far as I can tell there is nothing in this article tying it to a particular backend

<comment><USER6> Somebody commented about ASP.NET MVC having a bundler that you can just point at a directory. Seems like that would be enough to do it and you wouldn't need CommonJS or AMD.</comment></comment></comment>


Space exploration should be an initiative of nations, not just some rich guy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/09/space-exploration-should-be-an-initiative-of-nations-not-just-some-rich-guy <comment><USER2> Please no, let's not take Earth politics to the space

</comment><comment><USER3> How much law do we take with us?</comment>


Every Generation Learns the Same Lessons - <AUTHOR> https://www.feld.com/archives/2018/08/every-generation-learns-the-same-lessons.html <comment><USER2> You don't need any kind of superior genius, wisdom or maturity to see that cryptocurrency is inherently worthless and is probably a fad.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite IE quirk? - <AUTHOR> The title says it all. What's your favorite Internet Explorer bug/quirk throughout history? <comment><USER2> The one where you had to generate and dynamically size and position an iframe underneath any draggable element that might end up on top of a select. I personally wrote a couple of fixes for that, and there were many more.

</comment><comment><USER3> IE5's interpretation of the CSS box model, where border and padding are included as part of the element width (now available everywhere as box-sizing: border-box). It makes more sense in a lot of cases, but good luck getting your design to look right across browsers without strange incantations like "width: 495px; wi\dth: 500px".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My personal favorite is when console was undefined if devtools wasn't opened, making a simple console.log call crash the script.</comment>


Lyft Investors Sue over Slump, Claiming IPO Was Overhyped - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-18/lyft-investor-sues-over-stock-slump-claiming-ipo-was-overhyped <comment><USER2> I recall this happening with Facebook shares too. It slumped a bit after the IPO and people sued.

Wonder how they feel now with the stock skyrocketing.</comment>


Verizon Reduces Yahoo Deal Price by $250 Million in Revised Deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-15/verizon-reduces-yahoo-deal-price-by-250-million-in-revised-deal <comment><USER2> $1B would have been better, but this is a dream come true for the people who take infrastructure and security seriously.

We've got Amy Pascal's head on a spike, now we have the same for the Yahoo deal.

Please, may this be the year that Wall Street is finally bitten in a serious way by a tech company flaming out due to the technical incompetence of its leadership.

<comment><USER3> what the hell does amy pascal have to do with this? She was a movie producer? Is it just because she's also a woman?

<comment><USER4> The Sony hack had a significant negative impact on her career. The parent post asserts that this "is a dream come true for the people who take infrastructure and security seriously." because people in powerful positions won't care / listen to their security teams unless they fear the consequences of ignoring them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yahoo most likely has contingencies in place that would make a pullout from the deal very painful for VZ.

Otherwise VZ would have much more leverage, since they don't need Yahoo like Yahoo needs them.

<comment><USER6> Laws are being relaxed on subsidizing data plans with ads so Verizon wants ad- tech. Is it really that hard to understand?

<comment><USER7> yahoo has adtech?

<comment><USER8> I was as surprised as you are, [https://advertising.yahoo.com/](https://advertising.yahoo.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meanwhile:

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/yahoo-warning-users-that- hacker...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/yahoo-warning-users-that-hackers- forged-cookies-to-access-accounts/)

You've got to give it to Yahoo. It must be the only company that broke _its own world record_ for a data breach. That's kind of impressive in its own way.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's it? Seems like Verizon's negotiation experts weren't very good. Yahoo board is desperate to sell the company. I think they would've easily given up on a billion dollars to do it.

Also, if this was some other company, it may have actually cared about Yahoo's disastrous data breaches and its cooperation with the NSA. But because is Verizon, the cooperation with the NSA and the spying infrastructure being already in place is probably why Verizon didn't want to cut too much from the price.

<comment><USER10> Yahoo's board may be desperate, but that doesn't mean they necessarily believed they were contractually in the wrong here. Verizon only had an out if it could show that this event was a "material adverse effect" on the business, which is a very high standard to meet. Verizon likely also preferred to close the deal, and neither company wanted to take the risk of litigating this and losing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not that I understand how the deal structure is priced, but that seems like a win for Yahoo at this point?

<comment><USER12> I'd say so, I always assumed $~1 billion would get shaved off the asking price after the PR nightmare caused by the hacking.

</comment></comment><comment> git-pull If anyone from Yahoo is listening, I'm still trying to get into my Flickr account after about a year and 10+ contact attempts now. You guys literally have thousands of users in a holding pattern complaining and you're not doing anything about it [1].

I'm not trying to cause trouble or shake anything up. I'm an honest person who just wants in my account with all my photos. Meanwhile while all this happens you're just leaking and leaking account info every year.

What am I to do? Yahoo Help is just a FAQ that has no route for me to submit my identification information. Flickr's legacy login is gone. My original gmail was deleted. I do not have a route for escalating my issue. I'll show you my driver's license, birth certificate, maybe even the last 4 numbers of the CC I used for flickr pro in 2008.

What do I do? Get a lawyer? This is my stuff! Get it together Yahoo!

[https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en- us/72157668446997150/](https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en- us/72157668446997150/)

<comment><USER13> Me too. For me it is because I moved country, and now my 2FA SMS won't work because my number changed. And there is no way around it, no 2FA no account.

I mean, yes, I understand security blah blah. But if I can send you a scan of my passport, which shows the same me as in most of the photos, surely that is an exception? And if I can reply to the same email@example.com too? But no, there is no way I can get to a human.

<comment><USER14> Best practice is to _never_ use 2FA SMS

<comment><USER13> Agreed, but it was the best option available at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is not even a mild slap on the wrist. It seems like Verizon has been very desperate to get Yahoo and blinked during the negotiations (after the revelations about the security violations/intrusions).

</comment><comment><USER16> Also have a look at the latest yahoo mail breach [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13654696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13654696)

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't forget to reduce final price by 1 billion USD - [http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer- deal-m...](http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-mozilla- yahoo-payment)

</comment><comment><USER18> Huh, I think Yahoo negotiated well.

<comment><USER19> Looks like the market agrees. Yahoo is up 2 points, Verizon is down 0.7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."_

</comment><comment><USER21> So I have 4 shares of Yahoo I bought a few years ago on a whim...what the heck should I do with them? I paid something like $40 per share.

<comment><USER22> If you like Alibaba then just keep holding. After the sale it is basically a tracking stock for BABA.

If you don't like BABA then you should probably sell?

Frankly, if you are asking strangers what to do with some stocks you bought, you might consider simply buying a broad market ETF like the SPY, VTI, or VT with the proceeds.

<comment><USER23> Asking "strangers", i.e. experts in internet forums related to a stock, is a key step in learning enough about a market to trade intelligently in it. Your comment reads a little like "investors asking baby questions should trade baby securities". But just asking people's opinions on a stock doesn't mean you are a low skill investor. Quite the opposite really. People who si questions tend to get smart.

<comment><USER24> this is a tech forum. any response you get should not be assumed to be from an expert.

<comment><USER25> I've come across more doctors and bankers on HN than on any other social bookmarking site I've ever read. It's not limited to a "tech forum".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Yahoo! seems to keep screwing up. Even this last thing is a screwup, last thing they did as Yahoo!, inc.

</comment><comment><USER27> At least now we have a price point for what a breach costs. Very pricey it seems.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yahoo has something you cant buy. Yahoo has what makes facebook unique and google plus suk. A user base, an fing large one. This discussion is not really for hacker news. We are techies, this is a talk for business men. If anyone has ad sales experience please step up and speak to the value of yahoo. Aol would love to have the inventory of yahoo in its graps and looks like they will finally get it.

Security is for techies, I dont think yahoo's user base cares as much as lets say githubs. So while bad, its context that will help here.</comment>


Impact of whole genome sequencing on healthy adults: a randomized trial (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856654/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Eligible patients were 40-65 years old, had no history of cardiovascular > disease or diabetes mellitus, and were deemed generally healthy in the > judgment of the PCP.

…

> Eleven FH+WGS patients (22%, 12%–36%) had new monogenic disease risk > results. Only two (4%, 0.01%–14%) had evidence of the phenotypes predicted > by an MDR result (fundus albipunctatus due to RDH5 and variegate porphyria > due to PPOX).

…

> For the remaining nine patients with a new MDR result, six-month EHR review > found no evidence of the predicted phenotypes from routine clinical > evaluation.

Summary from [https://www.wired.com/story/you-can-get-your-whole-genome- se...](https://www.wired.com/story/you-can-get-your-whole-genome-sequenced- but-should-you/) :

> To find out, primary care doc Jason Vassy recruited a handful of colleagues > from around Boston to sequence the full genomes of 50 patients—the first > randomized trial of whole genome sequencing in primary care. They expected > to find maybe one person with a marker for one of those rare, monogenic > diseases. Instead, they found 11. "That's a shockingly high number," says > Vassy. "If you look at the list of the conditions we found, most primary > care physicians have never heard of them. It would would be crazy to think > that 20 percent of people have a disease like that."</comment>


Show HN: Repository of queries to Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antontarasenko/smq <comment><AUTHOR> This repo includes basic queries like those used by "Top Books on Amazon Based on Links in Hacker News Comments" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924741)).

Previous discussions about HN's dataset on BigQuery:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440502](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440502) * [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10979365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10979365)

Apart from these queries, what do you want to know about NH content?

</comment><comment><USER2> note to author: imdb.com is the 'Internet Movie Database'</comment>


Show HN: Crondom - <AUTHOR> http://crondom.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is my first real node.js product that I'm taking into production, and I'm looking for feedback. Thank You.

Please try to break it since it is really fresh. I should have the /etc/init.d stuff and a while true; do bash script set up, so it should come back if it crashes. I would like to have it not crash, but if it does, then things should come back online. It is using <https://github.com/mathgladiator/win> and <https://github.com/mathgladiator/servy>

</comment><comment><USER2> I haven't bothered to register yet, but after looking at the site I don't understand what it does. You say that it's a cron replacement. So is it a software package that you sell? For which platforms? Or is it some kind of SAAS that does something (like doing HTTP requests, or invoke something on my server using some unspecified protocol)?

I honestly don't have any idea what it does. All I know is that it does something in configurable intervals. I guess some additional info on the site would be helpful :)

<comment><USER3> I think it's a way to schedule a visit from a dominatrix?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is it called Crondom? It sounds a bit like some form of 'protection' for cron.

<comment><USER5> I actually didn't even consider that far; I stopped after "why would you name your product something like condom".

To be fair, it's a solid idea that I imagine would do well regardless of the name. To continue being fair, it's hard to picture the name not being a point of friction in at least _some_ scenarios For instance, picking the name out of a list of possible choices. There are unfortunately likely more limiting scenarios than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll probably launch a better brand-name that's more family safe, but when I thought up this name my gut instinct was a giant "YES, this is so awesome".

<comment> mike-cardwell You're not selling to families. You're selling to sysadmins and developers. Crondom is a perfect name.

<comment><USER6> He's selling to sysadmins and developers many (most?) of whom will have to get management approval to purchase. The name can definitely be a limiting factor to sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would be hilarious if the UI was a text box where it said "type a Crontab line."

Seriously though, sounds easy to use, if perhaps a bit overpriced for something I'd mostly want to use on small or personal projects.

<comment> mike-cardwell It strikes me as the sort of thing that should be one function of a much larger app. Not a standalone app on its own. If the intention is to make it a paid for service, I simply don't think it's worth paying for. Other people might be willing to pay for it, but I'm not sure exactly who.

<comment><USER8> Some of the features sound neat. The question in my mind is, how do the jobs on the Crondom server trigger local scripts? Also the name is both cool and terrible: it reads like condom everytime I glance at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "10 Things you can do with crondom.com that you can't do with crontab: 1\. Run a job every 7 minutes"

I thought you could just do:

      */7 * * * * whatever...

<comment><USER10> I don't know. It feels like with this line, the job will be run at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, thus, between 56 and the next 7, you will have 11 minutes interval. Not that familiar with crontab, I may be wrong here.

<comment><USER11> How else would you divide 60 by 7?

<comment><USER12> I think the idea is that instead of:

        7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56,(11 min gap), 7, 14, etc

Crondom would run:

        7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 3, 10, 17, 24, ..., n+7

OP correct me if I'm wrong with the intention of that bullet point.

<comment> mike-cardwell If it's that important that a job runs at exactly 7 minute intervals, you don't want to be relying on a remote service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey, just a small thing but when trying to sign up it's saying my firstname.lastname@example.com email address is invalid.

</comment><comment><USER14> Side note: Registration rejects email@example.com as an invalid email.

</comment><comment><USER15> Site seems to be down. Would love to check it out, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm learning a lot about production node.js and what happens when things go very wrong... Will blog about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Adding a bit of info about what I'd need to implement on my end would be useful. I'm assuming that this will fetch a HTTP URL once per "hit"?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll make that generally accessible from the landing page, and It's available within the site.

<http://crondom.com/documentation>

(very hastily written)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome name. The site is down though. Edit: back up now.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can it do: Twit Goodbye when I die. ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but that does sound like an interesting service. ObitWatch

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> why not put an openID login. I find a lot of new review my app's but every app I find points me to register as a new user. Why doesn't it use some thing like openID where I can easily login to test it for my needs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan to add that to the standard win user system ( [https://github.com/mathgladiator/win/blob/master/pages/std.w...](https://github.com/mathgladiator/win/blob/master/pages/std.win/index.js) ).</comment></comment>


Show HN: PhotoREPL: Live-preview raw photo editing CLI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/photoshell/photoREPL <comment><USER2> This is certainly a Matryoshka doll of wrappings:

\- At root there is dcraw [1], which is Dave Coffin's sometimes inscrutable but massive and high-functioning CLI utility to read virtually any raw file from virtually any camera.

\- On top of this, we have LibRaw [2] which "librarizes" dcraw so it can play nice with other C programs. LibRaw is big and complicated (like dcraw) but incredibly helpful.

\- On top of that, there is rawkit [3] (with which I wasn't formerly familiar, and looks interesting), which provides a Python cffi interface to LibRaw.

\- And now we have a REPL built on top of rawkit!

Somewhat perversely, I hope someone makes a CLI interface to rawkit, and then we could call it, er, dcraw?

One caveat here is that dcraw and its prodigies, though amazing, do just the initial steps in tuning up a RAW file -- the demosaicing and just a few other niceties such as white balance. If you want to process the image in a sophisticated way (e.g. curves, local contrast adjustment, shadows/highlights, sharpening, masks, etc.) you'll need to switch to a different tool, such as darktable [4] or RawTherapee [5]. Or use ImageMagick, as mentioned by another commenter.

Note that darktable now can be scripted via lua, which could be another source of flexibility. And also that darktable ditched LibRaw for RawSpeed [6], which is more elegant than LibRaw, as it was written from scratch as library to load RAW files (and do nothing else), rather than, like dcraw, accreted over the course of many generations of digital cameras.

1\. [http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/](http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/)

2\. [http://www.libraw.org/about](http://www.libraw.org/about)

3\. [https://rawkit.readthedocs.org/](https://rawkit.readthedocs.org/)

4\. [http://darktable.org/](http://darktable.org/)

5\. [http://rawtherapee.com/](http://rawtherapee.com/)

6\. [https://github.com/klauspost/rawspeed/tree/develop](https://github.com/klauspost/rawspeed/tree/develop)

</comment><comment><USER3> Good idea. It seems like it should be possible also to do something similar with ImageMagick.</comment>


MooTools: The Open Source Magic Behind Cloudera Desktop UI - <AUTHOR> http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2009/10/19/cloudera-desktop-and-mootools/

<comment><USER2> Further to what vicaya said, when you are building a huge system like Cloudera, you should invest extra time/$$$ and write your own library.

Crockford wasn't joking when he called javascript the most misunderstood language. A lot of libraries have really bad code- Its a huge risk to take to build an entire system on top of the library, without properly understanding the kind of code you are dealing with. The number of Javascript experts that haven`t gone through the EcmaScript specs is probably upwards of 99% (I only guess, ofcourse, based on the "advanced" code that I have seen).

Seeing as a lot of people prefer jQuery, and not wanting to get into a debate of its usefulness, the point is simply this: When writing a huge system, crank out your own library. 2k-4k lines wont take that long to write. Take a week out, decide what your specific app needs, and then write a library to handle those needs. If its a small site, or one that will run on a specific set of browsers in a contained environment, a library will do fine.

<comment><USER3> I disagree in full.

There's much more than 2k-4k lines in a good javascript library. You've got years of bug fixing/perfomance improving and months of fixing browser bugs.

For example, try writing your own css selection framework and I guarantee it to be slower ones in prototype/jquery/mootools no matter what. If not in one browser then in another.

You might want to modify your library, but you shouldn't start with bare hands for sure!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any reasons why they picked MooTools instead of JQuery? MooTools is a Prototype derivative. Prototype derivatives are huge pains, as they litter the global namespace like they own it, which makes sane mashup implementations practically impossible.

I hate Prototype and its ilks with a passion.

<comment><USER5> <http://jqueryvsmootools.com>

<comment><USER4> Well, the facts mentioned in the post just confirms my judgment why MooTools/Prototype are bad: monkey-patching existing objects and polluting global namespace like no tomorrow, all in the name of object-orientation in a perfectly capable language that's prototype based and functional.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but we do want to use actual useful objects (including built-in types) no matter what you'd say.

It's viable, it's useful, it's done, it works.

<comment><USER4> That's a fine reason, as long as you don't care about being friendly for integration/customization/embedding with external sources.

<comment><USER3> Should I?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook's new chief lawyer helped write the Patriot Act - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/22/18511633/facebook-general-counsel-patriot-act-jennifer-newstead <comment><USER2> You'd think if nothing else their PR department would've caught this. These headlines just write themselves.</comment>


A PHP Guy's Look At Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/05/09/a-php-guy%E2%80%99s-look-at-python/

<comment><USER2> Hey, look what Og do!</comment>


Show HN: Gamamia: Find, share, and discuss indie games - <AUTHOR> http://gamamia.com

<comment><USER2> Hey guys my names Alberto, I'm a junior studying game development at RIT and I'm one of the co-founders of Gamamia. Already see some great feedback so I'll go ahead and respond to it, I'll be around all day so feel free to ask me anything and keep the feedback coming!

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been subscribed to their mailing list for a while, and its been nicely curated. All the development takes place on Assembly [1], which is really cool!

[1]: [https://assembly.com/gamamia](https://assembly.com/gamamia)

<comment><USER2> Thank you so much for the kind words haha it's actually really nice to hear that people are enjoying what we're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a bad start. A few nitpicks though:

When I middle-click on a game's title to try to open its page in a new tab, the page opens up in both the new tab and the current one, which is annoying.

It's also a little frustrating to click through to a game's page, and instead of seeing a bigger version of the banner image, or more screenshots of the game, the only thing you're presented with is a _blurry version of the exact same image_ , with not much more information than the preview gave you.

In the end, though, a thing like this is as good as its community. I can see this doing well if you manage to make it a hub of activity.

<comment><USER2> Okay middle click, it's on firefox right? We've recently been getting a lot of reports on it. I'll pass this along to philipp (resident back end wizard).

That's a pretty good point on the game page's blurry image we're starting to notice, it's fancy but not really all that function. In the first mock up we did we simply put a darkened overlay on the image to contrast with the white text

We are hoping to add screenshots, related links, blog articles and embedded vids: let's plays, twitch streams above the X amount of upvotes section.

We're working on the design, the game page in particular has been a challenge for us. If you have an idea of what you would love to see it as then jump in on assembly.com/gamamia you can directly affect the design.

And I totally agree about community, in the end that's the most important thing. So we're really trying to get devs involved and discussing their works with players.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the response, sounds like you've got a good plan for where you want this to go.

As for the middle-click issue, I'm getting it on Chrome v40 on Windows actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great idea. Discovery is becoming a much needed tool with the explosion of indie gaming.

</comment><comment><USER6> Loving the progression from a newsletter to a hacker news style site, great stuff, I hope a solid community forms around it.

</comment><comment><USER7> On firefox, middle mouse button click on the title of the game opens a the game page BOTH in a new tab and in the current tab. And middle mouse button click on the game's image opens tha game page in the current tab.

Please don't break the middle mouse button.

<comment><USER2> So Jason (co-founder and lead front end) just told us that the mouseclick issue is a result of us using React.js. We'll try and look into it further, thank you for this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why do I need to be signed in to view some of the games? That's kind of annoying...

[http://gamamia.com/games/89](http://gamamia.com/games/89)

<comment><USER9> When I click that link it redirects me to the HN home page. If I paste it into the address bar and open it with no referer, it redirects to the Gamamia home page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where can you sign up for the mailing list ? or is there an rss feed somewhere ?

<comment><USER2> should be a section on the main page, not at the moment. We're using mailchimp so I think it would be simple on our end to add an RSS option</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What makes a good online community? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested in what makes a good online community. Is it the community software with rules and reputation and gamification? Is it the moderators that help enforce the rules? Is it something else? I'm especially interested in examples, why you think they're good, and how long you've been involved. <comment><USER2> Well, we are on HN: it is a good community because of both quality technical content and a engaged userbase.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you use HN often? It looks as if you've just created this username today.</comment></comment>


Details on today's Facebook outage - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/more-details-on-todays-outage/431441338919 <comment><USER2> This is known generally as the "Thundering Herd" problem:

The thundering herd problem occurs when a large number of processes waiting for an event are awoken when that event occurs, but only one process is able to proceed at a time. After the processes wake up, they all demand the resource and a decision must be made as to which process can continue. After the decision is made the remaining processes are put back to sleep, only to wake up again to request access to the resource.

This occurs repeatedly, until there are no more processes to be woken up. Because all the processes use system resources upon waking, it is more efficient if only one process is woken up at a time.

This may render the computer unusable, but it can also be used as a technique if there is no other way to decide which process should continue (for example when programming with semaphores).

Though the phrase is mostly used in computer science, it could be an abstraction of the observation seen when cattle are released from a shed or when wildebeest are crossing the Mara River. In both instances, the movement is suboptimal.

From: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundering_herd_problem>

<comment><USER3> We actually encounter Thundering Herd problems on a very regular basis. The Starbucks page has nearly 14M fans and posts may get tens of thousands of comments/likes with a high update rate. You have a lot of readers on a frequently changed value which means it is not often current in cache and you can have a pileup on the database.

Since we encounter this on a regular basis we have built a few different systems to gracefully handle them.

Unfortunately, the event today was not just a thundering herd because the value never converged. All clients who fetched the value from a db thought it was invalid and forced a re-fetch.

<comment><USER4> Would monitoring the rate of invalidation and triggering an event handler help ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This certainly won't be the first time that a system designed to increase uptime actually reduces it. I've seen a lot of "redundant" systems that are actually less reliable than simple standalones thanks to all the extra complexity of clustering.

I guess at Facebook's scale you have to build in fallbacks but this is a reminder that you can easily do more harm than good.

<comment><USER6> Sometimes cluster systems are mistaken for high-availability solutions while they are actually load-balancing solutions and can decrease availability due to added complexity and dependencies.

<comment><USER7> Sometimes designers and builders of a system make decisions about tradeoffs between availability and scaling and error recovery that they don't understand until after the system is in the field. Any sufficiently complex system becomes vulnerable to unexpected interactions between subsystems especially when one or more subsystems fails catastrophically. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_accident> has more on the topic, but you do want to read Perrow's book [http://books.google.com/books?id=VC5hYoMw4N0C&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=VC5hYoMw4N0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Charles+Perrow#v=onepage&q&f=false) Normal Accidents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite comments on fb page:

      Stick with Mysql

      * * * * If it aint broke, dont fix it!

      Me too Melissa, and it's out there in the media that a group of hackers caused the problem, is this true, Mr Robert Johnson?

      PLEASE !!!! WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP THIS FROM EVER HAPPENING AGAIN???????????????? PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CANDY

      Kip da updates comin'

      Did anyone get a message like I did about someone trying to access your account from another state?

<comment><USER9> I actually came across a pretty good comment which explains it (to the layman) pretty well:

"Marvin, the server was like a dog chasing its tail...it kept going in circles, but never caught it. They basically had to hold the tail for the dog so he could bite a flea on it. :) LOL"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The text of the article is:

"You are using an incompatible web browser.

Sorry, we're not cool enough to support your browser. Please keep it real with one of the following browsers:"

This is why I don't use Facebook. It's not 1990 anymore. You don't need User- Agent sniffing.

<comment><USER11> Whoa, who did User-Agent sniffing in 1990?

<comment><USER12> Tim Berners-Lee

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That was an excellent description of the problem. Too excellent, it seems, for many of the commenters. :-p

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I don't know how regular users find posts like this... but that was _way_ over everyones head.

<comment><USER15> This is how <http://twitter.com/facebook> (how ironic)

<comment><USER16> Ironic? I don't really think so. They aren't exactly competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They built their own custom DNS server? Most of the failures that people encountered were a failure to contact the nameserver itself. Perhaps in the rush to try to fix it someone screwed up that as well.

<comment><USER18> Or maybe disabling DNS was how they purposely took down the site, then slowly let people back in, as they said.

<comment><USER17> DNS was never mentioned in that post. Further it's a curious way of controlling flow, though I suppose in a moment of panic...if nothing else works...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My own theory what actually happened: [http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/di0v0/s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/di0v0/so_facebook_is_down_huh/)

</comment><comment><USER20> So umm no mention of the 4chan DOS attack? I mean, not that I hang out there or anything, but a friend told me that they organized an attack. You'know. Jus sayin. /b/ye

<comment><USER21> DOSing Facebook? It would require a _huge_ effort to create a measurable increase in Facebook's traffic.

<comment><USER22> Not if they found some expensive requests to use and/or if they have access to large botnets.

<comment><USER23> sure - if you found some really really expensive requests perhaps. As has been stated -- It's pretty hard to put a bump in FB's traffic.

The more likely explanation is that someone on 4chan noticed FB was down -- and then started talking about DOSing it.

<comment><USER20> Completely possible. Except the posts to call for the attack were made prior to the world-known outages. But I can't argue your point. I just found it curious that no one mentioned the planned attack.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Review of "Grinding it Out" by Ray Kroc, co-founder of McDonald's - <AUTHOR> http://www.richardprice.io/post/77007429542/review-of-grinding-it-out-by-ray-kroc-co-founder-of

<comment><USER2> This is a great read. The end of the article is in stark contrast to local experience though. An old group of boring shops was converted into a busy takeout. Rubbish blows everywhere. Mcdonalds don't follow local government regulated opening hours, breaching them often. They pull back when reprimanded, then breach again. The regulated rubbish collection down nearby streets isn't done, and takeout rubbish blows about. The council fines them, then it happens again. The smell of takeaways fills the surrounding area. The noise from cars making formerly quiet streets busy irritates. The locals hate it - this all from a friend in Auckland, New Zealand.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I really don't think that Ray Kroc is someone who should be admired.</comment>


Quit My Job for a Startup - What IBM Had Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://blog.davidmisshula.com/blog/2012/11/16/quit-my-job-for-a-startup-what-ibm-had-wrong/

<comment><USER2> awesome depiction of what really happens in big coporations !</comment>


Show HN: Quantum Game with Photons - <AUTHOR> http://quantumgame.io/ <comment><USER4> Another good web game about advanced physics is VelocityRaptor [1]. In the game the speed of light is set to 3 miles per hour, and you have to use relativity to solve puzzles

[1] [http://www.testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html](http://www.testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is my favourite science-based game, especially how it mixed game, cartoon drawings and humour, with actual Lorentz transformation.

Also, a longer list of such games: [https://github.com/stared/science-based- games-list](https://github.com/stared/science-based-games-list)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This game needs lots more education and explanation. Through the levels, I understood reasonably well how polarization works, but interference is still a complete mystery, and I haven't been able to get past level 25 (interfrenzy).

If someone plays past the first few levels, you can be quite sure he/she is not afraid of some explanation about how stuff _actually_ works, and having that would have made the game a lot more fun for me.

Also, in the Sagnac-Michelson-Morley level, you're supposed to place a "Sagnac-interfRerometer" somewhere (hint: it's the vacuum jar, and that's a different thing). ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am really convinced to explain things _after_ showing them, see my credo in [http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high- sch...](http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-school- students.html):

For experimental stuff, it's crucial to show first, explain later - if at all (otherwise you are killing the sense of suspension and awe):

The researchers' conclusion was that, in the context of strange toys of unknown function, prior explanation does, indeed, inhibit exploration and discovery. - <USER2> [http://www.economist.com/node/18741484](http://www.economist.com/node/18741484) (When should you teach children, and when should you let them explore? - <USER3> Economist )

At the same time, yes, I agree it would benefit for adding some explanations, descriptions or links later. Just... many project, little time. But thanks for bringing it up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a solution for #22 with 2 mirrors left over: [http://i.imgur.com/XB4QwLy.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/XB4QwLy.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx, I will make it more complicated! :)

Typically, I create some puzzle, them freeze some elements, and leave others for tray. However, often there is some sneaky way to go around. In this case, I prefer to avoid it, as it breaks this beautiful infinite loop pattern.

<comment><AUTHOR> In any case - fixed. Just reset this level.

<comment><USER6> Level 34 also

[http://i.imgur.com/BPAw8vO.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/BPAw8vO.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, this one is clever!

Added one more mine, it should do the job.

<comment><USER6> Now I can't solve it :( This is my best so far:

[http://i.imgur.com/eYgcMqs.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/eYgcMqs.jpg)

Please help!

<comment><USER6> Wait I got it never mind :)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are that proficient at solving it, do you want to create some levels? :)

<comment><USER6> I've added you on Google Hangouts, would love a chat :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see that. :/ Could you just drop me an email? (At [http://p.migdal.pl/.](http://p.migdal.pl/.)) Then we can redirect talks to any channel, Hangouts included.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great game. Two note

1) you should add some explanation about why making light to through a number of crystals (they slow it down by 1/4 wavelength) lets the beam go though a beam splitter in one or two directions.

2) Pinch to zoom works but the photon beam moves on a path that's not affected by the zoom. Firefox Android, I didn't check with other browsers. But it works on a 4,7" screen, which is great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ad 1)

My idea was to show who things work, rather than do any kind of textbook explanation. That said, I understand why this slow-down is mysterious (and deserves a better visualisation).

Ad 2)

Thanks for info. Tiles are on CSV and the animation is on Canvas; I will try to see what's the problem (don't own anything with Android, though). In any case: I would be really, really grateful for creating an issue here: [https://github.com/stared/quantum- game/issues](https://github.com/stared/quantum-game/issues).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really like the idea of this game. But while it seems to simplify certain aspects of optical tables (like adjusting mirrors and other optical elements,) it makes other things way more complicated than they should be due to the visual simplicity.

It's mostly the polarization (and phase to a lesser degree) that I am referring to. That stuff is way more intuitive on a real optical table.

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean, that in 2D it is harder to show some inherently 3D things (like polarization)? (If so, then I agree - but wanted to keep visual simplicity... and I am not a graphic designer, and simple 2D things are the most advanced things I can do.)

<comment><USER9> I think you did a fantastic job showing all the variables at once. I did feel the need for some kind of "debugger" to really see what was going on with my setups instead of watching them run since there is simply inherently a lot of simultaneous things to keep track of.

<comment><AUTHOR> Without that it would be impossible to debug it (from wrong signs in operators, through mistakes with simulation to typical programming bugs).

Some day I want to make it visually appealing and actually make it a part of UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I assume there must be some way to rotate the mirror? Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't seem to figure it out.

Edit: Seems it's mobile only, or the mouse drag event handling is masking the click event. That is, it rotates for me on mobile, but not on my desktop browser (chrome 58.0.3029.110).

<comment><AUTHOR> Strange... while I have mobile in mind, I test it on Chrome, on OSX. Checked it right now and it works on my desktop.

Issue is here: [https://github.com/stared/quantum- game/issues/5](https://github.com/stared/quantum-game/issues/5) \- as it seems that more people have the same problem. Any pointers how to solve it (or Pull Requests!) are welcomed! :)

<comment><USER11> I was going crazy ;-) It seem it's not working on firefox

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope it wasn't on purpose that the "bomb" tile crashed my browser when it exploded...

<comment><AUTHOR> Then it worked better than expected! ;)

(Was not intended. Would be grateful for a screenshot / specs though!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is level 16 (three polarizers) broken? There's only one piece you can place, and only 5 places you could place it (that would make sense). Not placing it doesn't work either.

<comment><USER5> You can rotate polarizers as well :)

<comment><USER13> Ha, thanks, didn't realize that. Polarizers that you place anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice game, but there's nothing intrinsically quantum about anything that happens. Everything is perfectly describable with classical E&M.

</comment><comment><USER15> hi again stared, great to see you finished this at last! Will have a play later.

We met on here last year discussing my quantum game. Shameless plug for everyone else:

[http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/](http://tropic.org.uk/~crispin/quantum/)

(Sorry about expired security cert!)

<comment><AUTHOR> I like such plugs! (Maybe as I do them myself a lot... and now I shamelessly confess to that.)

I would need to setup Flash, though. (Do you have/plan any JS version?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any hints for 21? I can get 100% to one detector or 98% to 2.

<comment><AUTHOR> Each beam splitter splits intensities in halves. Make sure you join beams with same intensities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is awesome!</comment>


Uber 'came to our shores, illegally, like pirates', class action plaintiff says - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-03/uber-to-face-class-action-against-taxi-and-private-drivers/11073640 <comment><USER2> I would feel sorry for the taxi drivers, but I can't bring myself to. I lived in Perth (Western Australia, one of the states reported to be involved in this suit) for almost 10 years without a car, and the taxi industry routinely failed to deliver even a basic service. I can't count the number of times I've had a booked cab fail to turn up, or a driver refuse my fare because it was "too far" or "not far enough". Not to mention the eye-watering costs.

I recently (Feb) used Uber in Perth, and had to wait a maximum of 10 minutes to get a lift, even from the suburbs. Drivers have been unfailingly polite and usually interesting to talk with. It's provided a needed source of supplementary income to people struggling with the mining downturn.

I'm not a fan of Uber's old culture (I have no idea if they're changed since the management shakeup). I'm not a fan of startups just ignoring regulation. But I can't argue about these results.

I hope the taxi industry changes and adapts to Uber, rather than using legislation to force Uber to become more like the taxi industry.

<comment><USER3> we had similar problems in ireland with taxi's but this was solved not by uber but by deregulation.

Under this we got thousands more taxi's who are all registered and have public liability insurance.

Under Irish law you have to have a taxi or hackny license in order to transport anyone so it is illegal for uber to operate here, but with the selection of other apps like lync with work quite well in our regulatory enviroment this has been a great result!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Taxi industry in Australia is anachronistic, protectionist, inefficient and expensive.

Taxi Licences were artificially limited and their resale value rocketed over time from 10's of thousands to many 100's of thousands. That trend has well and truly reversed with Uber, GoCatch, Didi etc the preferred choice for consumers, due to cleanliness, timeliness, reliability of service, information empowerment, etc

Taxi Licensees face enormous regulatory inefficiencies where they are only allowed to start a journey in their demarcated district.

If they end a journey outside of their licenced region, they cannot pick up a new passenger (if they flaunt this rule they can be slapped with $1000 penalty)

This results in drivers who have each travelled outside their licensed region, passing each other on the return journey with empty cabs driving back to the area where they are allowed to pick up a new passenger.

Taxi fares from a consumer standpoint are approximately 30% extra (anecdotally) and the service and quality of the cars varies wildly from great to terrible.</comment>


Soon we'll have Siri-like assistants that don't give up our secrets - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/177825/privacy-conscious-siris-that-dont-give-up-your-secrets-are-coming/

<comment><USER2> No. We won't.</comment>


Death to SAML and LDAP – Introducing Passport - <AUTHOR> https://www.inversoft.com/blog/2015/12/08/passport-user-management-platform/ <comment><USER2> I did some work with SAML last year. Worst period of time ever, makes WSS look nice and clean.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a SAML implementation with Ping Identity for a "large kids brand" and it was horrible. Getting permissions and roles out of LDAP, passed through SAML and translating them to our application was so brutal it was laughable.

Guess what happened. 12 months later they dropped everything except the SAML login support and switched back to using our permissions instead.</comment></comment>