The Afsluitdijk - <AUTHOR> https://theafsluitdijk.com/ <comment><USER2> Less commonly known facts about the Afsluitdijk:

The plans for the dyke originally included a railway line. This never happened, but the idea has resurfaced frequently in the past century.

The Afsluitdijk was also a defensive structure, part of the defence of Holland (the collective name of the two provinces that are home to the government and a large part of the population). When the Germans invaded, the Afsluitdijk fortress with its concrete fortifications (called _kazematten_ ) and strategically advantageous position actually held, i.e., it never fell under combat, despite attempts to overtake it. The Germans went round the other side of the IJsselmeer and the Netherlands capitulated before the Wehrmacht could take the position.

The Kazematten museum on the dyke can be visited, and should appeal to all military aficionados.

<comment><USER2> The defensive position at Kornwerderzand can still be seen clearly on satellite imagery and maps:

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.0706/5.3351](https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.0706/5.3351)

The bunkers covered the approaches by sea and dyke quite well from the piers extending into the sea and lake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For those interested in what it protects: [https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu...](https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/NL- Zuiderzeeworks.svg/507px-NL-Zuiderzeeworks.svg.png?ssl=1)

Also, this enclosure lead to former islands being enclosed by new land: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schokland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schokland)

</comment><comment><USER4> For those wondering: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Afsluitdijk,+Netherlands/@...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Afsluitdijk,+email@example.com,3.0521375,7z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xde55492a1d1fe71!8m2!3d53.0313172!4d5.226658)

Only after looking at the map did I realize how big it actually is.

<comment><USER2> Or if you want a more detailed and up-to-date map:

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/52.9846/5.1904](https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/52.9846/5.1904)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Currently the afsluitdijk is undergoing a major upgrade. The hydraulic tests (scale 1:2) have just about been concluded. Unfortunately not too many videos are public, but found this short one [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=58W6870d1PM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=58W6870d1PM)

<comment><USER6> The video says scale 1:3, but still impressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The afsluitdijk allows for saline sea water right next to clean fresh water due to the rivers ending in the ijselmeer displacing the seawater form the inland sea. I wish the Dutch government would fund projects like redstack which try to generate energy from the saline difference on the afsluitdijk while they renew things. It seems so much easier to do both infrastructures at once (redstack and blue energy as a whole is still expirimental though).

<comment><USER8> From the featured page: "At the Afsluitdijk we are using water currents and the confluence of fresh and salt water to produce energy."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of my favorite Youtube channels, The Tim Traveller, did a video on this dam/highway: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r6zcMl2Xmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r6zcMl2Xmw)

<comment><USER10> That video was somewhat inaccurate :-/

<comment><USER11> It helps if you explain in what way

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The geometry, hence tiling, of the concrete blocks used is quite interesting

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvUG6VNcNR0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvUG6VNcNR0)

</comment><comment><USER13> The craziest fact about it is that mats of willow branches are a major part of its internal structure. Sustainable rebar

<comment><USER14> There's lots of wood under Manhattan and Philadelphia, too.

<comment><USER15> Underground, by David Macauley, is a great book about what it's like underground in Manhattan. [https://www.amazon.com/Underground-David- Macaulay/dp/0395340...](https://www.amazon.com/Underground-David- Macaulay/dp/0395340659)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From wikipedia:

> The Afsluitdijk (Dutch: [ˈɑfslœydɛik] English: "Enclosure Dam") is a major > dam and causeway in the Netherlands. It was constructed between 1927 and > 1932 and runs from Den Oever in North Holland province to the village of > Zurich in Friesland province, over a length of 32 kilometres (20 mi) and a > width of 90 metres (300 ft), at an initial height of 7.25 metres (23.8 ft) > above sea level.

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

<comment><USER16> Also interesting are the art projects that were created as part of the dam's modernization project. Icoon Afsluitdijk: Lighting at zero consumption

[https://urbannext.net/afsluitdijk/](https://urbannext.net/afsluitdijk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If people are interested in this sort of stuff: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee_Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee_Works)

</comment><comment><USER18> Would engineering be able to keep up with something like Meltwater Pulse 1A [1], when sea level rose at 50mm/year? Could climate change cause another pulse like that?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltwater_pulse_1A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltwater_pulse_1A)

</comment><comment><USER19> Truly impressive design and engineering work here! Not to mention the commitment to the project.

<comment><USER20> > ...commitment...

When 26% of your country lies below sea level you tend to be motivated ;-)

<comment><USER21> Really? It hasn't motivated Bangladesh.

<comment><USER22> Not _successfully_ , but it has motivated e.g. Japan to combat earthquakes (with building design). On top of that, Bangladesh is a poor country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is also new to me as a Dutchman: a bus for bicycles!

[https://theafsluitdijk.com/fietsbus- dienstregeling/](https://theafsluitdijk.com/fietsbus-dienstregeling/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've done the Friesland->Noord Holland direction once against a force 5 wind and I distinctly remember wishing for that bus to come into existence so there you have it :)

(This was 30 years ago or so).

I cycled around the lake inside 24 hours, it was quite the trip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is also a smaller version called the Houtribdijk: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houtribdijk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houtribdijk)

This dijk runs from the city of Enkhuizen to Lelystad and is about 30 KM in length.

Instead of four lanes for traffic, it has only two lanes as it is not as wide as the Afsluitdijk.

</comment><comment><USER25> How does that fish migration route work?

Is it simply that the winding path means a slower flow from higher to lower level? i.e. water at a gentle slope and thus slower flow?

</comment><comment><USER26> Any idea what this will cost? Also, unrelated, did anyone else notice that this only uses letters from the home and top rows of the keyboard?

<comment><USER27> > Any idea what this will cost?

The budget for design, construction and 25 years of maintenance is ~€550 million.[1][2][3]

[1]: [https://www.cobouw.nl/infra/nieuws/2018/02/bam-van-oord- en-r...](https://www.cobouw.nl/infra/nieuws/2018/02/bam-van-oord-en-rebel- slepen-project-afsluitdijk-binnen-101258387) [2]: [https://www.rebelgroup.com/en/projects/a-winning-plan-to- rei...](https://www.rebelgroup.com/en/projects/a-winning-plan-to-reinforce- the-afsluitdijk/) [3]: [https://deafsluitdijk.nl/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/presenta...](https://deafsluitdijk.nl/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/presentatie-stakeholdersbijeenkomst-RWS-en- Levvel-18-05-2018-Compatibiliteitsmodus.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The Dutch I've met pronounce it something like "UFF-sly-dike". Worth visiting if you're in the area.

</comment><comment><USER29> I like how the concept image of the new A7 highway prominently also shows bike lanes with a couple of bikers :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I thought this was going to be an ad for a keyboard layout.

<comment><USER31> I'm overly happy that I'm not the only one who thought that.

<comment><USER23> What about it makes it sound like a keyboard model? As a Dutchman I'm having a hard time ignoring the real meaning and seeing what keyboard related thing it resembles in English.

<comment><USER32> The middle row of a Qwerty keyboard starts asdfghjkl, and I think that to people who aren't used to it that looks similar.

<comment><USER33> It even uses 7/9 QWERTY home row letters (asdfjkl) and only three non-home-row letters (tui, all from the top row). That feels very credible as keyboard- mashing output!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Speaking of Dutch engineering feats, I realise now that we kind of dodged a bullet there in terms of pronunciation. The mutex could easily have been called the afsluitdijkstra ;-)

<comment> 52-6F-62 It's the first part that's hard! Dijkstra is easy and a pretty common name—at least in Ontario, spelled Dykstra.

<comment><USER35> When a Dutchman writes "ij", it looks like "ÿ".

<comment><USER36> Yeah especially when writing cursive. It's because it's technically one character or something. It's even got its own unicode: ij

Not sure if it really counts as a ligature, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> At first glance, I thought this was some humor post about an object with a name made by randomly mashing keys...

<comment><USER38> This post is in the front page of HN because of this initial confusion. Otherwise that was no larger deal compared to other projects that are going on around the world.

<comment><USER39> What's the confusion here? The site makes pretty clear it's about an engineering project, doesn't it?

And there's plenty of cool about this project, from the reusable kingsize lego-like blocks used to strengthen the dike, to the meandering river for fish passing throuh the dike. There's also a VR video.

<comment><USER40> The passage for fish is highly needed. Eels are almost extinct in the Netherlands. The adults are inside the country in sweet water, but they cannot get out due to sluices and pump stations. They get slaughtered there.

They need to get out to sea to make a journey to make offspring. That offspring sometimes gets caught in France on the way back, where it is grown and sold in the Netherlands. Fishing results from IJsselmeer can also be found in shops but they are not easy to catch anymore. I would think, for statistic reasons, the caught eels in France might be more sustainable than catching grown eels in the IJsselmeer. The real solution is to work out better sluices and pump stations, so fish can pass again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is this designed by the same people as [https://ableton.com](https://ableton.com) I wonder... Definitely a similar aesthetic.</comment>


101 Ways to Save Apple [1997] - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.06/apple.html

<comment><USER2> "Chrysler nearly went under in the late 1970s and came back to lead its industry." \- Great comment. I thought the article was going to be spot on till I read:

"Admit it. You're out of the hardware game." \- Missed the boat _slightly_</comment>


A self-reference object in Python for recursive calls in lambda expressions - <AUTHOR> http://baruchel.github.io/blog/python/2015/07/16/self-reference-in-python/

<comment><USER2> A fixed-point combinator would work just as well here (with the added bonus of not reaching around and digging in Python internals) :)

      def fix(g):
          return (lambda f: g(lambda *args, **kwargs: f(f)(*args, **kwargs)))(
              lambda f: g(lambda *args, **kwargs: f(f)(*args, **kwargs)))

Then:

      fac = fix(lambda self: lambda n: 1 if n <= 1 else n*self(n-1))

For the second example:

      fac2 = fix(lambda self: lambda n: 1 if n <= 1 else n*((lambda k: self(k-1))(n)))

<comment><USER3> Given that Python has no tail-recursion optimisation, you really shouldn't be writing functions in this style to begin with. If you really want to though, I think there is a way to make the fixed-point combinator also mess with the function internals and make the tail-call into a loop.

<comment><USER4> I'd say that this depends very much on the problem. There are problems that are more elegantly and intuitively solved recursively without necessarily ascending very far on the, e.g. parsers for nested-but-not-terribly-so data, say some applications of S-expressions or a protocol like DHCPv6, or traversal of tree structures known not to be tall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool tricks. This lead me to read about the subject of frames in python ([http://farmdev.com/src/secrets/framehack/index.html](http://farmdev.com/src/secrets/framehack/index.html)).

Can anybody suggest advanced Python books to dig out more in such matters?

<comment><USER6> _Not trying to be snarky._

Reading the official python documentation as though it were a book can lead to a lot of insights:

[https://docs.python.org/3/](https://docs.python.org/3/)</comment></comment>


EU Parliament Speech by Guy Verhofstadt to Alexis Tsipras - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P84tN0z4jqM&feature=youtu.be&t=1m17s

<comment><USER2> Please do not use the titles of HN submissions to editorialize.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, perhaps a mod could remove the Fantastic part please?

<comment><USER2> Sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> ...and listen to Tsipras reply, too...

<comment><USER4> do you have the link to it?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih- OGXesJqg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih-OGXesJqg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fantastic?</comment>


Ask HN: How would you market an online shoe store? - <AUTHOR>

Hello Hackers,
I have an opportunity to market a brand new online shoe site. A few avenues that I am investigating: 1. Blog about fashion/shoes. 2. Stores on shopify, amazon and ebay.
With Google Adwords, facebook ads out of the question for the category, do you have any suggestions for marketing the ecommerce site?
What kind of budget should I be looking at? Would 1000$ a month get enough visitors to the site? Are there any effective channels that work well for ecommerce sites?
thanks <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I am not an active entrepreneur nor am I engaged in e-commerce. Just a reader, chiming in.

I'm assuming you have a good and working product so I won't talk about "making the best product that fits your clientele." I'd suggest finding forums on which the products you sell are discussed. Don't put up spam posts on the forums. Instead, involve yourself in the discussion of a particular and show that you have knowledge because you sell that item in your (online) store. In other words, don't cram your store into peoples' eyeballs. Show them what you know, how you know, and where to go if they're interested in more.

Blogging is also a good idea. Seems like blogs are almost required for startups these days.

Goodluck.

</comment><comment><USER3> are you manufacturing shoes or just selling them like zappos?

<comment><AUTHOR> The backend of the operation is a hookup with a manufacturer who will supply them to us.

They are not major brand names like Nike or Steve Madden but quite nice.

I have the responsibility of driving traffic to the website and get sales.</comment></comment>


3D Bezier Curves on Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://cssdeck.com/labs/bjiau4dy

<comment><USER2> very cool 3D feel. A little tweak in line widths as they come and go would made them look better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Impressively smooth on my iPwn</comment>


Hack Rifle - <AUTHOR> http://www.hscott.net/projects-2/hack-rifle/ <comment><USER2> We could spend all day talking about the morality, possible government uses, and legality of all this, but I would personally just like to take a moment to appreciate how fucking cool this thing is.

<comment> rkuykendall-com It looks like something out of Buckaroo Banzai or Hackers.

<comment><USER3> The military-industrial-complex aesthetic doesn't really fit either of those two movies, but I agree there is a hacker's charm going on there.

<comment> rkuykendall-com I think I was mostly thinking of the exposed colored wires and screws. It not a clean-faced product. Plus, the science / action combination of hacking and guns made me think of those movies.

[http://johnkennethmuir.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/banzai4.j...](http://johnkennethmuir.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/banzai4.jpg)

[http://www.hscott.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/IMG_6491.jp...](http://www.hscott.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/IMG_6491.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When you actually use it, WiFi cracking will be the last thing you're suspected of. Clever!

</comment><comment><USER5> You could replace the scope with a viewfinder from an older video camera. These are essentially smallish monitors with eyepieces, giving you all the freedom you want wrt. spectrum displays overlaid over video imagery of the targeted area. Driving the thing might be an exercise in itself but it should be doable from the HDMI port on the Pi using a VGA converter or through a USB display adapter.

Personally I'd tone down the gun aspect of the whole thing though... lying on a roof somewhere in the US of A, pointing this thing at a window in an office building nearby is an open invitation for unwanted attention from trigger- happy defenders of the realm.

</comment><comment><USER6> What is the use of any wifi cracking equipment these days?

Here in Munich (and also other German cities I've visited), no one carries a WEP WiFi anymore, and even the WPA1-only WiFis have nearly vanished...

<comment><USER7> You'd be surprised how many routers have shipped with WPS on by default, and without rate limiting. Your 25 character, randomly generated password isn't much help when you can simply try about 11000 WPS PINs and have it spit out the plaintext key to you :)

<comment><USER8> Even if it is turned off the router can still be vulnerable. Reaver use to be the go to script for this but now bully has taken over.[1]

[1][https://github.com/bdpurcell/bully](https://github.com/bdpurcell/bully)

<comment> vezzy-fnord Not to mention OpenCL-accelerated WPA handshake cracking can still pay off reasonably.

<comment><USER9> Definitely agree. I've audited my fair share of WPA captured handshakes and had a lot of success. People choose shitty passwords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe I'm dumb. What does this thing do exactly? It doesn't seem like the post actually says.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's basically a portable extremely long range WiFi adapter with an embedded computer on it that can be used for nefarious purposes. The form factor is based on an earlier project, which used a rifle stock as an easier way to aim a big Yagi antenna.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of the "BlueSniper" rifle from a few years ago: [http://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-bluesniper- pt1,review-408...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-bluesniper- pt1,review-408.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> That might actually be the same original project I was referring to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Remind anyone else of the smart rifle in Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction?

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

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it reminded me of that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another pretty awesome device modified for WiFi hacking is Denis' motorcycle.

Article: [http://www.itnews.com.au/News/323897,pen-tester-builds- wifi-...](http://www.itnews.com.au/News/323897,pen-tester-builds-wifi-war- bike.aspx)

Kiwicon presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr7YAhf4IG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr7YAhf4IG0)

</comment><comment><USER15> Semi-related: has anyone read this paper which claims to have a WPA2 rekeying vulnerability and evaluated it? They published in a journal I don't have access to, and don't have a preprint online, so it's probably not very important, but I'm still curious.

Achilleas Tsitroulis, Dimitris Lampoudis, Emmanuel Tsekleves. Exposing WPA2 security protocol vulnerabilities. International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2014; 6 (1): 93 DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2014.059797

(Fucking journals are extortion; the system must be destroyed.)

<comment><USER16> All of the tor exit nodes on campuses with good journal subscriptions have disappeared or they have been marked as open proxies by the journal cabal. I used to be able to get any journal pub via an exit node at BostonU or GaTech.

dx.doi.org needs to disappear too. Two of the three ipv6 endpoints are always down and unbound never seems to shuffle the addresses in such a way I get the working address first:

      dfc@ronin:~$ wget http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJICS.2014.059797
      --2014-04-21 00:32:13--  http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJICS.2014.059797
      Resolving dx.doi.org (dx.doi.org)... 2001:550:100:6::203, 2001:550:100:6::202, 2a00:1a48:7805:112:2c13:65be:ff08:2e89, ...
      Connecting to dx.doi.org (dx.doi.org)|2001:550:100:6::203|:80... failed: Connection timed out.
      Connecting to dx.doi.org (dx.doi.org)|2001:550:100:6::202|:80... failed: Connection timed out.
      Connecting to dx.doi.org (dx.doi.org)|2a00:1a48:7805:112:2c13:65be:ff08:2e89|:80... connected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious about the total weight before and after modification? I can only imagine that in the near future someone is going to want to 3d print this and mount it on some type of consumer UAV and open source the software/hardware setup. I'm also pretty curious what, if any, measurements can be taken with this setup?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't weigh it, but before it was probably 2 or 3 pounds and adding everything to it was like an extra two pounds. As it is, you can do anything you could with a regular laptop and wifi card, but if you added an SDR, you could measure I and Q and do whatever you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hmm, I wonder how long before someone fits one of these (airsoft or not) onto a drone and starts causing havoc?

<comment><USER15> I've seen this as a payload for military UAVs (Hunter); it's a 700kg aircraft, though.

I don't think you could put the right electronics on a small quadcopter, but the gas powered quadcopters are perfectly capable -- anything which can carry a DSLR.

The nice thing about antennas is they're super directional (if desired), so really all you need is altitude, not necessarily maneuverability -- a tethered balloon or just being on top of a building would work fine. For SIGINT, you probably want longer loiter times than a small UAV will give you; a small UAV with wifi/cell would mainly be for tracking a moving target, or killing a target which happens to be radiating on a specific frequency (i.e. find/kill a certain cellphone).

In general the military cares more about cellular signals than wifi, at least so far.

<comment><USER19> I don't think a tethered balloon would be an ideal platform for such a directional antenna in any vaguely windy location, you need a lot of stability for it to be useful. I'm having difficult imagining any way to make that work which isn't essentially a stayed vertical support with the balloon ... probably not at net helping.

<comment><USER15> JLENS works with a variety of sensors (optical and RF) today, although I'm more familiar with the smaller systems (just a big tower with a payload on top)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Needs to pull out all that extra cable wrapped around the barrel. It's not helping the noise figure any.

</comment><comment><USER21> For the love of everything that is holy, please do not get MITM'ed.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't find this interesting or cool; it's pretty disgusting and immoral for someone to spend their time 'hacking' weapons and then publishing an article detailing their work.

<comment><USER23> > it's pretty disgusting and immoral for someone to spend their time 'hacking' > weapons and then publishing an article detailing their work.

Unstated major premises:

1\. Weapons are inherently bad.

2\. Modifying something bad is bad.

3\. Publishing how to do bad things is bad.

Call me crazy, but I don't agree with any of those.

<comment><USER24> Well, it's probably at least lame. All this kinda crap is just some guy who had a free weekend and happens to have a decent podium to speak about it on. Clearly the device itself is useless because it's the opposite of what you want - something inconspicuous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do you need any permission from government for hacking around with a rifle ?

<comment><USER15> This isn't a rifle, it is airsoft.

I actually think the rifle form factor is a horrible idea in use, due to people flipping out when a rifle is pointed at their building. But for shock value, it wins.

The ideal is probably to use a panel antenna on the back of a laptop, or some non threatening way to conceal a higher gain antenna. It would be cute if someone put all this in an SLR camera form factor, I think...a 70-200 f2.8 is big enough for a high gain yagi.

<comment><USER19> " _I actually think the rifle form factor is a horrible idea in use, due to_ police _flipping out when_ " they see them and shooting innocent children.

Fixed it for you: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/andy- lopez_n_415281...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/andy- lopez_n_4152819.html), see also e.g. [http://www.storyleak.com/airsoft/](http://www.storyleak.com/airsoft/)

This is a beyond horrible idea, it could easily get you killed. Use it in an apparently offensive manner, i.e. point it at someone, and the shooting would even be justified, unlike at least one of the two above incidents.

<comment><USER26> +1, it's not a good idea to use a rifle form factor. A good hack, but a bad idea considering others' reactions. I'm pretty comfortable with guns (raised in more rural Idaho), and I'm not particularly keen on the idea of seeing someone point a "rifle" out their window.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Future of Core, Intel GPUs, 10nm, and Hybrid x86 - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/13699/intel-architecture-day-2018-core-future-hybrid-x86 <comment><USER2> >Q: In the demo of FOVEROS, the chip combined both big x86 cores built on the Core microarchitecture and the small x86 cores built on the Atom microarchitecture. Can we look forward to a future where the big and little cores have the same ISA?

>R: We are working on that. Do they have to have the same ISA? Ronak and the team are looking at that. However I think our goal here is to keep the software as simple as possible for developers and customers. It's a challenge that our architects have taken up to ensure products like this enter the market smoothly. We'll also have a packaging discussion next year on products like this. The chip you see today, while it was designed primarily for a particular customer to begin with, it's not a custom product, and in that sense will be available to other OEMs.

This seems like a big issue to me going foward. The Intel fuses off various ISA features on various architectures for market segmentation reasons or just doesn't put them in in the case of Atom means that they'll have a harder time of it if they want to pursue big.LITTLE.

<comment><USER3> Ironcially, Atom also gets ISA extensions that don't make their way into the bigger cores too, like the Intel SHA extensions. I think the idea was that the bigger cores were already smart enough to not really get a benefit from dedicated SHA instructions, but the did help the simpler Atom cores.

Of course that now means that the big cores arent a super set of the small cores, feature wise.

<comment><USER4> Ryzen shipped those extensions and they improve SHA performance quite a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Security s/fixes/features/g coming in 2020. Does this mean HW fixes for spectre/meltdown?

<comment><USER6> Whiskey Lake already has some fixes for meltdown/foreshadow.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/13301/spectre-and-meltdown- in...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/13301/spectre-and-meltdown-in-hardware- intel-clarifies-whiskey-lake-and-amber-lake)

<comment><USER7> Those "some fixes" are not enough. It needs a cache redesign, which will be too late. I also don't see a second C3, extra for the kernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this settles the debate whether Apple will be moving to its own ARM Mac.

AMD will need to move and execute its plan to perfection. Hopefully they gain enough market share to make a difference and making enough profits for long term survival. Finger crossed.

<comment><USER9> My read is Apple is most definitely on for ARM Mac and this is too little, too late (I assume that's your reaction as well). Doesn't seem like much IPC increase and mostly just catch up on both features and process.

I'm sure these Intel chips will make their way to Macs whenever they ship (2019 or beyond), but its likely * Cove is the last new Intel arch Apple uses if they can release some A-series Macs by around ~2020. It seems like the _only_ interesting IP Intel may have to Apple is Optane (theoretically), and the only value Intel offers Apple for more than the next 12mos is Xeons slated for Pro machines.

When you consider that the trend is integrating everything into SoCs, and their features are more tightly designed according to actual usage up the stack in OS and apps and use cases, and they're shipped on a strict yearly cadence, and their R&D benefits from a massive market of iDevice sales, and their value is inherently better captured via device sales and direct customer relationship... it's kind of nuts that Apple is still with Intel.

That's not even accounting for the 10nm delay, nor Intel's weird market segmentation of features, nor Intel's margins, nor Intel's clear organizational issue (per article) of decoupling IP & process that add risk to the roadmap.

Even if Intel gets to EUV before TSMC (they won't), it's just not structured right. This can't last much longer.

<comment><USER8> Apple will still need to SoC from 5W ( MacBook ), 7W- 15W (MacBook Air), 25-45W ( MacBook Pro ), 65-95W ( iMac ), 95-200W ( iMac Pro and Mac Pro ) all these combined of _only_ 20M unit per year.

I hope I am wrong, not sure if it make any financial sense.

<comment><USER9> I might simplify that further into three segments with different silicon strategies:

Low (~15m units) - MacBooks except 15" MBP

Med (~2-4m units) - 15" MBP, iMac, and Mac mini

High (<1m units) - iMac Pro and Mac Pro

In LOW, silicon-wise its essentially free since they already have a SoC powerful enough w/A13X+. They can always bump up the wattage/frequency and/or decrease the chassis size to define a slightly new market segment where compute expectations are lower (e.g. the Air approach).

Between LOW & MED is the mobile workstation use case of the higher spec 15" (or larger) MBP. Cheapest solution: add a discrete GPU.

In MED, they could still use A13X+ and add discrete GPU at higher SKUs. Alternately, they could create a beefier chip ("A13XL"?) that would just bolt more cores onto the CPU/GPU.

Between MED & HIGH would be the semi-pro use case of the higher spec 27" iMac (or even certain use cases of Mac Mini). Hard to say what cheap solution is here beyond better GPU.

In HIGH, it feels like Intel is here to stay for a while. These use cases still really need the beefy Xeons and are dealing with lots of pro-level edge cases which favors staying with x86, ECC, etc, and cost-wise it's very low volume.

On these Pro machines where price is less of an object, and to keep up with the rapid feature development roadmap they get from A-series, it feels like they'd do the 'why not both' strategy and throw in an A13X+ as the primary processor and a Xeon as a co-processor with it's own RAM. Just like GPUs are co-processors today. The OS, everyday apps, and specific tasks that favor the A-series would run on the A13X+, while certain instructions and legacy x86 programs/VMs/etc would be routed to the Xeon.

\---

The more I think about it the more this co-processor approach really makes sense for the next 5 years of Pro-level Macs, since it avoids the cost of creating new low-volume, high complexity silicon.

It's fun to speculate because it represents quite an interesting business + technical + market segmentation challenge. They don't want to siphon off or detract Mac users any further than they already have, but also need to start reaping the benefit of their highly competitive and high volume chips.

<comment><USER8> 1\. You ignore the Tape Out cost on leading Edge node, with yield unforeseeable due to higher voltage and frequency usage.

2\. Adding a Discreet GPU still requires a new set of drivers that is previously not written on ARM Mac.

The 5M Mac will require addtional hundred million of investment, time, and testing.

The Co-Processor approach also requires additional OS and software support. Testing cost also.

The only way I see is Apple employ a similar strategy to AMD, chiplet design, where a small CPU Core Die could be used for lots of different configuration.

We will have to see how EYPC 2 perform to judge whether it is a good solution.

<comment><USER9> I considered chiplets but I probably dismissed them prematurely based on my understanding that they introduce some efficiency loss, and it would be un- Applelike to make their iDevice cash cow less efficient in order to serve the Mac niche. They do open up a ton of flexibility in using different nodes, configs, improved yields, etc. Seems they're actively researching various methods [1], and the whole semi field is moving that way, so I agree with you if they work well that's probably the way they'd build chips for MED and HIGH use cases. I revise my assessment after further thought :)

There's definitely software work that would need to make Intel chips co- processors, but I'm not sure it's a monumental task. There's already some of this happening today with T2 chips handling video encoding/decoding in certain apps, and of course discrete GPUs already act as co-processors with their own resources for many tasks, so this approach isn't unprecedented. In this co-pro idea I'm proposing, the OS is run by arm64, and depending on the binary they route to either x86 or arm64. Developers would have some control over that, and legacy x86 binaries would automatically run x86 on machines that had Intel chips.

Discrete GPU wouldn't require significant driver work if discrete GPUs were only available on machines that had Intel chips. That might be a good practical point to differentiate if the chiplet approach lets them design even higher powered GPUs for LOW and MED products.

Again I don't see this much as a cost-issue, but as a strategic issue. They can spread costs over 5 million Macs in multi-year transition, and this would be partially or fully offset by cheaper hardware & ability to ship differentiated hardware that better suits markets Apple wants to pursue. Unless costs are massive, it seems like not a hard thing to justify. Personally I just can't see x86 instruction set becoming _more_ important in the next decade+ when already it's been eroded from mobile & server fronts and less important because of improved software tooling, and Intel is perpetually floundering. Feels like a bad bet.

The simplest path / null hypothesis to disprove is LOW/MED get A-series chips, HIGH get Intel + dGPU + T-series, and multiple versions of macOS & multiple binaries of apps are shipped. That's only acceptable for a few years I think due to higher maintenance cost. If the Intel co-processor approach is not difficult software-wise, that seems beneficial because it might simplify OS/kernel/system maintenance as that would now just run on A-series chips. Putting Intel in an easily-removable VM-like corner would give Apple more flexibility to ship future products that serve different market segments (e.g. the oddball Mac Mini), and potentially extend decision if/when to drop them.

The point about frequency/voltage is an interesting one. I figured there'd be at least 10-30% possible difference, accepting efficiency loss at higher frequencies (less an issue on larger chassis). At least in the past, A9 ran at 1.85ghz and A9X at 2.26ghz, but A10 v A10X and A12 v A12X [2] are equivalent, so perhaps you're right that on leading edge nodes they're just going to optimize for max efficient freq. Anyway, that's all single-thread CPU, and as A-series chips get closer to desktop in IPC, differentiator for larger machines is primarily more threads/ram/gpu.

Good chatting, thank you for insights.

[1] [https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/12/apple-3d-chip- packaging...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/12/apple-3d-chip-packaging- patents/) [2] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/13661/the-2018-apple-ipad- pro...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/13661/the-2018-apple-ipad-pro-11-inch- review/4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So we'll have to wait until 2020(?) until we'll get a usable secure CPU, with a redesigned cache? Sorry, too late. By that time AMD already took over.

        Willow Cove 2020 ?	10 nm ?
        Cache Redesign, New Transistor Optimization, Security Features</comment>


The Educational Tyranny of the Neurotypicals - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/tyranny-neurotypicals-unschooling-education/ <comment><USER2> I never fit into "normal" learning styles at all levels of school. I either grasped the subject intuitively and didn't need to be taught, or I didn't get it at all, and had to teach myself. I never quite understood this, but in my 40s a friend who had just read LOOK ME IN THE EYE, by Jon Elder Robison, suggested that I read the book, because I reminded her of him. I read the book and my head exploded. Not long after that I was officially diagnosed. It explained so many things and social failures over the entirety of my life. Knowing has been helpful but navigating social things, works things, and relationships of any and all types is still exceedingly difficult. Thankfully I can always escape into science fiction. :-)</comment>


A Private Bus Company Debuts in Detroit - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/a-private-bus-company-debuts-in-detroit-8657656 <comment><USER2> This is a party bus service to allow bar hopping in a car-dependent city when passengers are too intoxicated to drive. It only runs on Friday & Saturday nights between a couple of suburban bars & the downtown & university district of Detroit. It might well be a good business (and certainly better than drunk driving), but it's not a meaningful substitute for functional mass transit.

Public transit systems require subsidy to permit service at unprofitable times of day & to unprofitable regions of the city, interconnecting parts of a region to permit greater economic activity. Roadway systems are likewise unprofitable on their own. Most transit systems have at least a couple lines that are profitable.

In the New York City area, there is significant "dollar van" jitney service & a large number of private bus companies, especially in New Jersey that provide commuter service, rather than serving as a substitute for drunk driving. Dollar vans of varying legalities are also common between Chinatowns & Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, as well as down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Flatbush Avenue also an easy place to observe the downside to privatized transit run by independent contractors-- the vans usually speed & make dangerous maneuvers to move more fares more quickly, with the safety of other motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists often disregarded. This could be improved by the NYPD enforcing traffic laws, which would be my preference to replacing a useful service.

Unfortunately, nearly all American cities have onerous regulation on selling automobile rides to other people, while it's incredibly easy to get a driver's license and private automobile. This raises taxi prices & means there often isn't timely bus/jitney service between popular destinations, which motivates a lot more people to purchase cars & drive them.

The cost in car ownership is also mostly in the depreciation of the car & insurance (which is monthly, rather than per-mile), so once a person purchases an automobile because they can't make a few trips by walking/biking/transit, they'll make a lot more trips by car.

<comment><USER3> Onerous ride regulations are usually the flip side of requiring cab companies to service everyone.

<comment><USER4> In reality we usually get the worse of both worlds. There has been some progress in eliminating discrimination (Uber's system in particular resists driver discrimination), but it is still rampant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a European, I don't understand the significance of this. Why is the establishment of a private bus company such a big deal?

Is this not America, bastion of free market capitalism? Surely many cities must have private services.

Here in Ireland we have many private bus services running alongside public companies.

<comment><USER6> Everything you have come to know about living in the first world becomes negotiable in Detroit.

There are huge chunks of the city where there is no postal mail delivery. The streets are not plowed or salted. Calling 911 because an ambulance is required can mean hour-plus waits.

America is an insane place, and Detroit is a special microcosm within that insanity.

Another thing to consider is that most major urban centers have huge amounts of regulation prohibiting new business operations like this (or rendering them practically impossible). Detroit is fairly unique in that almost anything you can think up, you're free to just go ahead and do it. (The cops are too busy even to deal with all of the big, real crimes.) It also means you're basically on your own if someone decides to torch your whole bus fleet - the city that would regulate transit stuff is too busy to do that - but also too busy to properly patrol everything and deter crime. It's a mixed bag.

It really is the closest thing to a functioning anarchy that one can find in the first world. I think it's wonderful, but I wouldn't want to live there (again).

(I am a born-and-raised Detroiter living in Berlin by way of Manhattan.)

<comment><USER5> How far down the libertarian utopia rabbithole does this go? Could Mr Didorosi hire armed guards to protect his fleet? Where is the line drawn? I knew Detroit was bad, but I did not know it was this semi-anarchy you describe.

<comment><USER7> It's funny you should rail against libertarians when discussing a city that's where it is at least in part because the productive people were driven away through extra taxes and regulation.

<comment><USER3> The "productive people" were driven away because they didn't want to live next to black people. The Detroit metro area isn't any smaller than it used to be-- people just moved to the suburbs. There aren't appreciably fewer regulations in the Detroit suburbs, and taxes aren't any lower either (what you save in sales tax you more than lose in property taxes).

It's also a little funny considering that 27% of US GDP comes from just seven heavily regulated, heavily taxed metros: NY, LA, Chicago, DC, Philly, SF, and Boston. And it's not just population, these cities only account for 20% of the US population.

<comment><USER8> Isn't that just the headquarters trick? Someone like Wells Fargo is SF-based and someone like Chase is NY-based, yet economic activity of those two is happening all around the world, and just gets reported in SF and NY.

<comment><USER9> Yep. Cities act to attract and redistribute capital, this has been true probably for the last 6 or 7000 years (Babylon, Athens).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's an interesting experiment. If it succeeds, it would be ironic that the solution to America's public transportation is coming from Detroit: after all, GM & co are the guys who bought America's trolleys in the 1950's and disassembled them to boost sales of cars.

EDIT: related story on SF's private lines <http://stamen.com/zero1/>

<comment><USER11> I've heard that NYC had an incredible trolley system where you could get anywhere in manhattan in about 10 minutes. Such a shame that cars displaced true public transit solutions.

<comment><USER2> That isn't right. NYC's trolleys/buses were more efficient in the pre- automobile era when there was much less other traffic to block them, but Manhattan is about two miles wide and about 15 miles long; covering even 10 miles in 10 minutes would mean travelling at 60mph on city streets without stopping, and mass transit obviously needs to stop at least every couple miles. The express subway lines still take you up & down the island as quickly as ever (about 25 minutes from 125th St. to the Battery, apparently).

Manhattan's mass transit system is largely intact from its peak (except for the incomplete Second Avenue Subway, to replace the demolished Second Avenue Elevated the East Side), and has become better integrated from the private era when there were three competing systems. The trolley lines were more significant in the outer boroughs, and could reach speeds & frequencies similar to their best years with proper implementation of modern light rail or bus rapid transit. That would require the political will to take away surface right-of-way from the (boisterous, wealthier) car-driving minority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I don't understand is how the Jitney hasn't been allowed by regulation in the US -- they're incredibly convenient, and a fleet of minivans from the key districts to various park n' ride locations would make a ton of sense.

<comment><USER3> Taxi companies are required to service the whole city. If you allowed jitney service without that requirement in popular areas, the taxi services couldn't compete.

<comment><USER13> This seems easy fixable by subsidizing fares to unpopular areas, financed by a tax in fares in popular areas.

<comment><USER14> Governments tend to think in terms of Bans and Mandates, rather than taxes and subsidies.

The result is poorer, more expensive services, limited to ancient business models.

<comment><USER15> More specifically: Lobbyists tend to pursue an agenda of bans and mandates, and so long as your political system is dependent on the interests of lobbyists and their associated campaign financing, these goals will often be achieved.

<comment><USER3> More specifically, you're just making up theories.

<comment><USER15> I guess having followed US politics for the last two decades has taught me nothing.

I'm sure it's all attributable to "The Government" being sinister and evil.

<comment><USER3> My point is that you have no basis for your claim re: lobbyists and campaign funding. Use of government-granted monopolies to achieve particular ends predates modern media, and campaign funding was a much less pivotal issue back in the day when all the money in the world wouldn't buy you anything more than a newspaper ad.

<comment><USER15> Lobbyists have been around since there've been people to lobby, but the more money is involved in getting elected, the more acute the problem becomes.

You can't honestly think the billion dollars required to become president doesn't come with strings attached.

Money buys you influence. Don't think advertising is entirely in terms of media. Campaigns need a lot of people involved, and many of those people have to get paid. Modern media just means you need to spend even _more_ money than you did before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This guy seems a bit mislead. There are definitely not 15 million people in metro Detroit. There are only 5 million people in the census area that includes Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Flint, and has an area over 15000 square kilometers.

<comment><USER17> Nonsense!

As long as I can remember the Detroit metro area has always included the entire state of Michigan. And Toledo, Ohio. And Indiana. All of indiana.

(Some joking aside, Indiana as the destination of the next round of white- flight from the Detroit suburbs is amusing to me.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Related: <http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Mungerbus.html>

</comment><comment><USER19> If they need to be five times more efficient, why is the plan to spend a lot of money on things that do not directly impact customer service, like giving away rides to poor people, and using self-produced Biodiesel?

<comment><USER20> Giving away rides: makes paying riders feel good about paying, good advertisement.

Self-produced biodiesel: beyond the "feel good" advertisement, they may actually be saving money if they get the used cooking oil for free. "Right now we're starting with a downtown loop, which serves primarily entertainment venues, bars, and restaurants." -- Restaurant owners likely are donating their used cooking oil to the bus that stops at their establishment and drops off patrons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know $5 for an all day pass is not bad, cta in chicago is 5.75 for an all day pass but that is all the buses and the l train, but it also is bigger and subsidized. I only hope that they quickly add a 30 day pass.

</comment><comment><USER22> Warning: This crappy site auto-played a video with LOUD sound (sounded like gunshots).

If you happen to be awake at four am while your pregnant wife isn't, avoid this site and remember the domain name..</comment>


Wirth's law - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law <comment><USER2> A relative of mine asked some very similar question a while ago, asking: "But this computer i bought in 1999 was super fast at the time, how comes it is so slow now?"

While the computer is the same (actually it was upgraded by adding more ram and a way bigger hard disk) the real difference is the amount of data we process: in 1999 we did take dozens of 5MB 12-Megapixel photos, we did not have rich internet applications in our browsers (Facebook?) and we did not have full-hd movies.

I feel that many times the software gets slower, but more importantly we use the same computer to perform computation on bigger-sized data (sometimes even an order of magnitude bigger).

<comment><USER3> > ... we use the same computer to perform computation on bigger-sized data > (sometimes even an order of magnitude bigger).

Yes for the size of the data (in video for example) but the look and feel of the UIs we have today is not one million better than a mac from 1984:

[https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/](https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/)

Maybe as the Moore's Law is finishing, we could see improvements in software (with superoptimization, why not) but it's not sure if we look at how cars have evolved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Optimise only if needed; then only where needed.

The JVM and also javascript engines have increased in performance markedly (clawing back a little of the performance they squandered in the first place...).

Perhaps iOS is very performant - because it had to be, especially on the original iPhone.</comment>


Google-funded startup builds search engine + API for predicting the future - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/26452/

<comment><USER2> i wonder what happens when journalists start paying for access to recorded future and put those predictions on the internet. i suppose it will create prediction bubbles that are disjoint from reality. wikipedia cyclic- reinforcement all over again.

<comment><USER3> They already do it - just look at all the Apple blogs. The only question is whether they'll pay for predictions vs. pull it out of their ass for pure profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it really could predict the future, why don't they trade stocks using it?

<comment><USER5> Could be a sign that stocks are not part of the future =)

<comment><USER6> OT: but I really think someone perverted should create a derivative market for people's Farmville "wealth" and other video game scores/assets.

I haven't played video games since Street Fighter II, and can't make a better informed argument, but if the scores are public for some huge games, I think it would be fun to bet on them (even if for "virtual currency".) Say, offer the games in "baskets", ranging from Farmville to MindCraft to WW. Bet on today's top score, biggest losers, etc. I say basket because individual score picks might be gamed.

Something like this might encourage more economic and financial research into video games, helping make the dismal science more attractive to "kids".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In theory, this shouldn't be able to predict future financial information or stock prices, because the stock prices should already reflect any information that would be used in the prediction model (efficient market hypothesis). Of course, that's just a theory. Thousands of traders think they can beat the market with tools, models, and prediction engines of their own (though few actually do) So, in the end, this site may attract that type of crowd, people who think they are gleaning information to help them "win" - in actuality, I'd be skeptical about its ability to do that though.

<comment><USER4> Jane Street is an example of a company that builds models and predicts stock prices (short term only) successfully.

<http://vimeo.com/14317442>

They made $2 billion last year, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Take a look at Urban Survival (<http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm>) and the peoplenomics and halfpasthuman sites referred to there.

George Ure says some weird things, but I find the discussions and predictions there fascinating.

All I can say is, I don't know what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER9> In times like these I think Knuth's earth shaking announcement is a good rebuttal: <http://river-valley.tv/tug-2010/an-earthshaking-announcement>

</comment><comment><USER10> This is to figure out what Apple plans to do before they do it, right?

</comment><comment><USER11> YAHS (Yet another Hari Seldon).</comment>


Ask HN: How do you meet new people? - <AUTHOR> Outside of school/work/neighborhood, how do you meet new people? <comment><USER3> One of the things I've learned from my own experience is that meeting new people or meeting like minded people is the easy part. To make new friends you have to meet them over and over for no reason (think about it it's true for all your best friends).

Many people I've met who had so much in common with me and totally clicked never became friends because we didn't have the time to meet over and over.

<comment><USER4> To piggy back off of this. I have a lot of friends that I have nothing in common with but have met over and over again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Three conditions have been found to be necessary to make close friends. After learning about this, I found it to be true in my own life.

I spent a good amount of time researching how to make friends before I moved to a new city in 2010.

Would be happy to share what I've learned if anyone is interested.

"As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro."

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the- challenge-...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of- making-friends-as-an-adult.html)

<comment><USER6> Of course, please share your experiences.

<comment><USER7> +1

<comment><USER5> Sure, here's a short version of my own story. In 2010, I moved to a new city knowing one person previously from college. We weren't close though.

I didn't want to be sitting in an apartment by myself all the time so I did a lot of research on how to make friends before moving.

I found the study from my previous post was a good start. I decided I needed to be in area of the city where a lot of people my age with similar backgrounds lived based on the proximity factor.

I also decided I needed roommates based on all three factors. I ended up moving into an apartment with two roommates who seemed nice when I met them.

After living together three months, my roommates and I were consistently hanging out inside the apartment and doing activities outside the apartment.

After six months, I would say we were friends.

I became friends with another person my age down the hall from our apartment. I happened to see him go into his apartment a couple of times previously. I knocked on his door and introduced myself. Fortunately, we had similar interests, hung out again and again, and became friends over time.

I repeated that with another person across the hall who one of my roommates had already become friends with. I also ended up meeting my fiancée on the elevator in my apartment after I mentioned the weather to her.

From my two roommates, the two people living in apartments nearby, my new girlfriend at the time, along with a person I met at my work orientation who lived nearby, I was introduced to probably over a hundred other people. Some of whom I became friends with. And I'm excluding other friends I made at work, through activities, and social gatherings etc.

By 2017, when I left the city, I had a close circle of maybe ten good friends, and an extended circle of thirty friends. It ended up working out well.

From the research I did and my own personal experience, I don't completely agree with the rest of the advice from the comments. I've seen similar comments on other forums before.

If there is more interest in what I've learned, I can continue. Any specific or personal questions, please email me (in profile).

<comment> rc-1140 Seems like your secret was age-proximal roommates. I've been trying meetups to no avail, but I've heard that roommates are a huge gamble in and of themselves. What are your opinions on both?

<comment><USER5> My quick thoughts. In my case, I agree, roommates were a benefit. They're not necessary though.

I could've gotten my own apartment and met people who lived in my apartment building on my own. I decided to get roommates as a way of meeting people and because the city I moved to was expensive.

I agree that roommates can be a huge gamble. I met these people and thought they were nice from a first impression. It turned out to be right. I could've easily been wrong also. It's a gamble that might be necessary for some people to take if you're young, single, don't know anyone, and moving to a new area.

Meetups sound good on the surface. You can meet new people. That I agree. My question is how easily can you see them again. People you meet there can live quite a distance from your home. This makes it hard to see them again.

If you happen to run into someone who lives within walking distance from you and you happen to get along, then I think it's great. Later you can meet up with them without much planning. But if the person lives further away, then it doesn't make it easy to become good friends.

If there was a meetup based on proximity, then I think it would be great. For example, a meetup for all the new people who moved to X neighborhood of Y city. Then you could be assured that the people you meet are nearby and you can easily see them again.

Meetups where you do activities (card games, video games, etc.) can be good because people will repeatedly come back for those activities. Again, how easy will it be for you to hang out with them outside of the meetup?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> CouchSurfing (weekly meetup & hosting travellers). Church. Concerts. Visiting kids in the hospital. Language exchange. When you do meet people, offer to cook for them.

"I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me." \- to me, that doesn't sound like religious rules, but a recipe for solving loneliness, treating depression, and making the world a better place.

<comment><USER9> More specifically _(or less specifically lol)_ , do anything with people and leave a positive impression.

Seeking friendship is hard, it's something forged with time - like any relationship. You have to be willing to put in the effort of being a positive impression on peoples lives, without the expectation of friendship out of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Volunteer work! I just spent my morning playing guitar for a local church. In the past, I've helped design and solder some LED strip displays for them, produced Ableton live sets, and assisted with sound production. I also spend a time at local charities playing music, serving meals, office work, fixing computers, setting up networking equipment, and even running people to get groceries.

</comment><comment><USER11> Meetups, dance classes, bars, etc. The best way to make new friends is through repetition. Pick a hobby that has a weekly/monthly meeting in your area and go to that group and be consistent about showing up.

</comment><comment><USER12> The main fallacy like you see in this thread is that it everyone thinks it needs to seem unintentional, so that you're not "needy".

This is a big fallacy.

Don't try to make it seem coincidental, instead make a real effort. Here 3 steps on how it works

1\. Go to meetups, try out lots of new hobbies, connect with everyone on facebook immediately if you click. Do it with guys and girls. Some will be awkward, but most don't care and just say sure and connect.

2\. Then keep the conversation alive a bit and meet up with them around the activity or meet up you met, ask who is going to the next meet up, be it hiking, exchanging info about cryptocurrencies, ruby on rails or whatever. You can also make chat groups on messenger with 10 people or so

3\. Be a value giver, be an organizer, be the one who knows what's going on, people gravitate to people like that.

4\. Doing this is not needy as long as you are a value giver. However, don't ask people all them time for value, don't be a value drawer too often.

5\. Keep it lighthearted, don't become pissed if people don't join your meet up or son't reply. This is needy behaviour. After a few months, you should have 100 people in your new social circle, so what do you care if one doesn't come

As you can see this takes effort, but this is a recipe of how you can build a vibrant social circle for you within a few months time every time you come to a new city.

Most people don't do that, because they are so scared of rejection. But what do you care if 20 people don't want to connect with you when a 100 do. There are always people who want to stay for themselves, are weird or asocial.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not the most confident person, but i reluctantly became a volunteer at a sporting association and have met a ton of people through it.

In my experience, people are nicer to you than you think, especially if your interests are aligned.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've met a bunch of new people since I got a dog, in public and in the co- working office. Some have come to be good friends.

I should point out that meeting people was not my motivation for getting a dog though.

</comment><comment><USER15> One of the classic locations: Church.

<comment><USER16> For the people suggesting bars and churches:

Who do you find in gatherings where people have gotten together to escape reality in one form or the other?

I'd rather meet people that have similar (and what I consider positive and realistic) goals and outlooks or not meet at all.

I'm not bashing religion (or alcohol) either. I'm entirely ok with both in moderation but I won't be a regular at places either is the central focus because it attracts people who are not what I'm looking for.

<comment><USER17> It is bashing religion to imply the people who believe in it are primarily trying to escape reality. They believe they've discovered reality. And they'd like to be with other people who have also discovered reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since I came to Korea, I've advertised for language exchange partner on the bulletin board in the local university, and it has provided a stream of sort- of friends, and a couple of pretty good ones.

I think you need to do activities that require closeness for longish periods of time and some level of intimacy. Language exchange fits this bill very well.

</comment><comment><USER19> As a 31 year old, I have no idea. I run several meetups & it helps with some things, but you get to a point where your group becomes insulated. You only meet new, fresh people when you do different things. There's also a difference between making friends for the sake of making friends & solid, meaningful relationships like stated here.

</comment><comment><USER20> I recently started skateboarding again after many years. I've been going to the local skatepark at least twice a week at a time when most people don't go (early mornings). There, I've met a bunch of other dads reconnecting with skating (and probably their youth).

Before, I used to live in DC and was obsessed with golf. I'd go down to a nearby public golf course at first light. Often I'd join a foursome of total strangers, I've met all sorts, lawyers, a local news presenter and even someone relatively high up at NASA.

I realized that the theme for me was to simply pursue what you love, commit some time to it. This leads naturally to meeting people with a common interest.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like people and I like listening and asking questions about their stories, if you give them enough time people will tell you the most amazing and surreal stories you can imagine, I always end up laughing and so do they.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's strange there's no service to aid in this process, or maybe there is and I haven't seen it? Meetup has become to much work to sort our sellers.

Tinder for plain ol' friends you are not trying to date or sell something to, but might have things in common with?

The one thing that messes it up for me is a few people I have known a long time who turned out to be lifelong best friends yet I have almost nothing in common with them. It'd be tough to have matching criteria for that, then again it also sounds like something tailor-made for machine learning if you could get the right data into the system.

<comment><USER23> > _a few people I have known a long time who turned out to be lifelong best > friends_

I help moderate a local subreddit dedicated to local meetups, and I see this a lot - people are looking for _best friends_ , and I think this is a mistake for two reasons:

1\. You don't need all the people you regularly socialize with to be best friends. It's okay to have people you see often with whom you're not super- intimately connected. Not everyone has to be a platonic spouse. You ought to have a range of good friends, acquaintances, buddies, regulars-you-only-see- at-this-one-bar, etc. Seeking deep relations exclusively is a mistake, partially because...

2\. ... you can't really farm out "find me a best friend" to an algorithm. As you mention, your best friends might be people who you appear to have nothing in common with, so you already know this.

People say that dating is a numbers game, but it's easier to filter out potential dates than it is potential best friends. (For one, most people can easily eliminate ~50% of the populate from the pool.) There are obvious dealbreakers, but really it's just a matter of meeting people and seeing how your personalities mesh, how your conversations go, and how you both feel after awhile.

<comment><USER24> > Seeking deep relations exclusively is a mistake

Could you elaborate on this, please?

<comment><USER23> Well, as I said above - why does every friend have to be a _best_ friend? Why does every human connection you make need to be a life-long friendship?

If you approach every potential friendship with your sights set on making a best friend for life, you'll inevitably be disappointed, repeatedly - <USER2> not every pair of people can strike up a relationship like that.

Those relationships also take a fair amount of work and energy - they have to be maintained, and sometimes you don't actually need to put in that much work to get what you want out of a friendship. Sometimes you just need someone to shoot the shit with, and it's perfectly fine to do that with someone who's just a casual acquataince.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, I'm really tired todya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ha, wish I knew. I've not made a new IRL friend since high school.

</comment><comment><USER26> Being in a new city I tried various things. First I went to lots of meetups via meetup.com - but in most groups you seldom meet the same people twice. Much better was to join a club - like Toastmasters ([https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club](https://www.toastmasters.org/find- a-club)), or a local chess club. Made a couple of good friends that way.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think finding an activity or hobby you enjoy which has pockets of active communities is a good start. Maybe they have a meetup in a city near you, or maybe they have a forum online that discusses meetups.

When I was first on IH, I proposed having a meetup in NYC, and a bunch of us made it happen. Perl programmers have had perlmonger groups that would get together for years as would computer hobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER28> Gym. It is a very good place to meet some new people, it is almost impossible not to, at least here in my country (not us). On top of it, there is something called CrossFit (I'm sure you all heard of it) and their community is pretty large. Although I would not recommend it as a physical fitness program, it is a very good place to socialize :)

</comment><comment><USER29> The mobile app Whisper can be useful to some for finding friends although there are tons of creepy people who primarily use it to try to hook up with women so if you can tolerate occasionally dealing with that sort of behavior then you can anonymously chat with total strangers and potentially make friends from those conversations.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd like to be better at this. My wife and I are moving from North Carolina to Sweden soon and we're both very introverted.

<comment><USER24> Do you speak Swedish?

<comment><USER31> Education is actually a good way.

Get 20 people in a room doing a 10 week Wednesday night Swedish class and discover over a beer afterwards that one or more of your classmates has a common interest.

<comment><USER24> That's a good idea, too. I was actually just interested if he was taking part in the destruction of Sweden's homogeneous society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's easy as we are always surrounded by tons of people. It's useless at the same time because people sharing the same interests as we are very rare. That's why internet is the best for that IMO. If you think of human and warmful relationships, I think family is made for that.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why do you need to meet new people in the first place? They are not better than existing creatures around you.

<comment><USER24> How in the world can you judge what vile creatures surround me?

<comment><USER33> Hell is other people

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Meetups did the job for me. Both running and attending them. Here in Auckland, New Zealand, the community is small so attending just a few meetups and making a few acquaintances can lead to a larger network with ease.

</comment><comment><USER35> \- Join Community related with your interest (tech/dev , etc).

\- Attend it's meetup or any activity.

\- Become a volunteer for any community related with your interest also helps meeting new people that has a same interest just like you.

</comment><comment><USER36> Conferences, seminars, workshops. Best when it's some event that spans multiple days, that seems to engender a bit more openness and camaraderie.

</comment><comment><USER37> I have become part of the management team in our apartment, organizing monthly owners meetings & as such, thats helps to know lots of people.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have success forming friendships and relationships online? If so, how did you do it?

<comment><USER38> It's possible but harder IMO -- on the web the force drawing you together must be pretty strong, since there are a billion others there too, so why make the effort?

But it is a good starting point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> >Join a club related to your interests(e.g Cycling, Board Games)

> Bars

> Online gaming

> Through existing friends

</comment><comment><USER40> There is app called Tinder. Another one is Meetup.com

<comment><USER41> Where I come from, Tinder is primarily used for casual sex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> shared interests</comment>


Maker of Steve Jobs action figure introduces Obama/Osama playset - <AUTHOR> http://store.micgadget.com/action-figures/305-obama-and-bin-laden-figurine.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Got my pre-order in. I want to keep it for myself, but I sold Steve Jobs action figures on eBay for around $700 each, and I think this one will go for more :)</comment>


Colorion – Curated Color Palettes with Search and Tags Support - <AUTHOR> http://www.colorion.co/ <comment><USER2> Great collection of color palettes. More features will come, hopefully :)</comment>


Ask YC: webapp's frontend spruce up - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
We are a self-funded  startup working on a webapp. We would really appreciate any comments/suggestions/feedback/pointers regarding the following.
Some of the people that we have showed our app to have suggested that we spruce up the frontend before actively marketing our app. What is the best way to do that if we are not web designers?
If we were to get web designer on contract, how much  would it cost approximately?
What would be the best place to look for one?
 What should be the expected deliverables from a designer(jpegs/sample html/flash files)?
What are the legal issues that we need to be aware of?
Thanks a lot for reading this,
Manu. <comment><USER2> I'm wary of attempts to "spruce up" web apps after the fact. Like skinning desktop apps, often the best you can do is put a pretty picture on a lousy user experience, and generally you don't even get that far. (I was going to go for some metaphor about women and makeup, but I just couldn't make it work: I like my wife best without makeup, but I prefer web pages/apps with tasteful styling.)

Except... I just did this very thing. Or rather, I was the designer. I made a beautiful, humane interface for a web app built by someone who (by his own admission) couldn't design his way out of a paper bag. A rush job, too. Somewhere in the middle when my design looked like blue-gray iphone-rejected ass I kicked myself for taking the job on in the first place, but the next day I pulled out of the blue-gray ass phase and ended up building something I'm really proud of and that the client and everyone who sees it loves. And it was on time and on budget, too (within $50 of the dead middle of my estimate range, in fact).

I'm not sure what the keys to success were in this case. I expect it helped that I was very familiar with the app and its goals, and I think it helped that I'm not (just) a "Designer". I've worked on web apps in almost every technical or creative role, and often I build the whole thing myself from HTTP to pixels.

I don't read news.yc looking for gigs, and frankly I didn't see myself doing jobs like the one I just did--something about not wanting to be labeled a Designer. But if you want to contact me you can use my screen name @ gmail.com.

To answer some of your specific questions:

Legal - Contractor vs. employee & ownership of IP. The first is not hard. Call them a contractor and not an employee (important but not sufficient by itself) and tell them what you need, but don't try to control when or where they do the work (you can have a deadline, but not scheduled hours). The second is not hard either, just make sure you nail it down. The contract I use assigns copyright of completed (and paid-for) Works to the Company but reserves to the Service Provider "(i) know-how, techniques or general expertise used and/or developed by Service Provider in the course of providing Services hereunder; (ii) pre-existing materials or intellectual property; (iii) all generally known or published information; or (iv) other software and related ideas, designs and materials which Service Provider has developed or is developing for itself and for third parties" while granting to Company a limited license for any of the above insofar as it's incorporated into the Works.

Deliverables - You should receive working HTML files with all the accompanying CSS, JavaScript and images, but also the PSDs or whatever that went into making them. @brianr, "slices" are for tables and CSS designs that wish they were tables. No one can provide you with the images pre cut correctly without knowing exactly how the page will be built, which no one can know until it's built, because if there's anything technically interesting at all about the CSS, the first implementation is likely to have some issue in some browser.

A PSD is not enough because a webpage is not (unlike a magazine page) a static image. It's especially ludicrous to consider a PSD much more than a concept when you're talking about a web app (i.e., a collection of web pages where many pieces are not only dynamic but functional).

Price - second NoBSWebDesign that this is really impossible to even ballpark without knowing a lot more about your app and what you need. Personally I don't take jobs for a few hundred for people I don't already have a relationship with--too much overhead. OTOH, I recently had a subcontractor do a really nice design concept for me for a simple professional site for less than $200. But that was only to the PSD stage (a concept that still needed to be brought to life in code and web graphics) and with a lot of guidance from me. And it was just a small professional website, not an app.

<comment><USER3> Well put. To summarize:

1.Make sure they are Contracted (and look up the IRS's definition of a Contractor).

2\. Get the PSD, CSS, images, and javascript if applicable. Also, get at least a couple HTML's all styled up so you can put it into your dynamic template more easily.

3\. They'll need a lot of access to the app to figure out how it's assembled and constructed and they'll need to study every element that's present in the whole app so they know how to style it. I'm a designer/developer, so I'm not extremely familiar with the whole process of getting someone who is ONLY a designer. Also, the estimate is just that, an estimate. Don't trust anyone who says otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most competent web designers should be able to provide any level of deliverables. If all you need is Photoshop because you can handle the HTML/CSS in house, ask for that. Should save you some money.

On the other hand my experience is that if they can't provide you with the HTML/CSS, skip them. It takes some understanding of markup in order to design a good web site. I've worked with too many designers that do mainly print work who decide to try out their skills on the web. Usually leads to a poor result.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you need a web designer, I would start with any designer you might have a personal connection with (even if it's a friend of a friend). Those are usually the situations that work out best in my experience. Otherwise, try putting up a Craigslist post for a designer in your area or Google for a designer in your area.

As for cost, it really depends on what the state of your current app is (i.e. what does it look like now, how complex is it, how unique do you want the design, and how compliant do you want the site (flash/no flash,png's with transparency or just jpegs...)). Personally, I'd try to steer clear of anyone who quotes you a price without really examining the site first.

However, so as not to just brush off the price question, I'd charge anywhere from a couple hundred for a crazy easy redesign to a thousand for a more conceptual and custom design.

Deliverables: You'd want to get the CSS file obviously, any additional IE style hacks that may be contained outside the main CSS file, and all associated images. And the flash stuff if there are any embedded flash files (I'm assuming that for a webapp, you're not referring to a full flash site, because that would be ludicrous and highly unusable).

Legal: Make sure that you have a fully "Contractor" arrangement in place and that there are no ambiguities that could cause the person to be confused for an employee, because the IRS doesn't like that much. Also, try to get full ownership of the artwork if possible, so that you can reuse images on print stuff later if you want to. I always give my designs to the client to do with as they please, but it's not unheard of for them to retain ownership. Either way, it should be outlined in the design contract.

Wow, that was long, but hopefully it answered your questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. Are there any sample "Contractor" legal documents that one can download from scribd , docstoc or anywhere else?

<comment><USER3> I have no idea why my font is a lighter color on your computer. It looks fine on mine.

I'm not sure if there are any up on Docstoc, that site wasn't around when I wrote mine. I did a lot of research in making mine, typically the designer is the one who writes it, and then you look over it and tell them what parts you'd like to add, remove, or change. I can put mine up online for you to see/use once I get back to my main computer. I'll let you guys know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On the topic of deliverables--if you're adept at HTML and CSS, you can probably save money by asking the designer to just send you the Photoshop (.psd) or Illustrator (.ai) file, and maybe image slices if they can do it quickly. I've done it this way quite a bit and it's worked well.

</comment><comment><USER6> i asked 'Where to find designers" this was the response, hope it helps

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=91204></comment>


How remain failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/how-remain-failed-inside-story-doomed-campaign <comment><USER2> Somehow I expect a lot of this is not acquired by the voters in any way. It's just internal gambles with little meaning outside, and the arguing people forming narratives for random events after they have happened.

It also reminds me of lots of tiny associations and clubs. A huge amount of time is spent on infighting about some public release that nobody then reads. Politics probably attracts people who love meetings and arguing about pointless things.</comment>


Help Us Help Molly Holzschlag - <AUTHOR> http://www.gofundme.com/HelpUsHelpMolly <comment><USER2> (As a brit) I don't understand this:

"Molly was employed at the small NPO Knowbility as the Open Web Evangelist. Knowbility was able to put her on Family and Medical Leave which allowed Molly to retain her health insurance coverage. The FMLA time period has ended and the only coverage available now is through COBRA."

So she had health insurance, but now that she's ill and has to stop work, it is stopping? If health insurance doesn't help you when you are sick, when does it help you?

Thank god (and the Labour party) for the NHS.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/...](http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm)

> Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. > in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that > surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at > the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not > Medicare or Medicaid.

EDIT: Insurance is a scam and insurers are evil.

<comment><USER4> How is insurance a scam? You are lowering the impact an extreme event has on you in return for the payment of monthly amount.

<comment><USER5> _How is insurance a scam?_

Insurance is a bet and for an insurer to make money you have to bet that your luck is going to be considerably worse than the average.

People should just get together in large groups and pool their money, it would be much cheaper.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that why most insurance companies used to be mutual co-ops and only recently have become corporations? Essentially there are insurance companies that are exactly what you describe, people in a large group pooling their money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Best wishes to Molly for a speedy recovery and to feel better soon.

Thank goodness she is famous, even if lesser known by the mainstream and friends can appeal to help her.

For those that think the ACA (obamacare) will solve this after January, nope.

A full half of the states [1] have denied medicaid expansion (because the supreme court ruled they could turn it down) which means if you fall into the gap where you "make too much money" ($12k - $16k) you cannot get health insurance.

So if you got ill but were trying to work part time to stay in your home/pay rent, you will probably make too much to get health insurance!

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/02/us/uninsured-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/02/us/uninsured- americans-map.html?ref=health&_r=0)

This is probably going to cause "healthcare migration" where people who get ill have to move to get assistance if they have some income but not enough.

<comment><USER4> If you make less than (I believe its) 4x federal level of poverty in your area you are eligible for subsidies on your health insurance via the marketplace. The issue you are pointing out is where you make too much to qualify for your state's medicare plan but not enough to be able to pay for private insurance even with subsidies.

So its not that you make "too much" to get health insurance, but you make too much to get free health insurance but too little to live off of and pay for private health insurance.

<comment><USER7> "subsidies" is the new fancy term for "welfare" or "handouts". That's what it is, and there's no such thing as "free health insurance" only taxpayer- provided health insurance.

<comment><USER8> Pure pedantry. Nobody is under the illusion that doctors and nurses work for free. When people say "free" they mean "free for the user at the point of service", which is a bit of a mouthful.

Exactly zero people believe that the health care doesn't have to be paid for by someone at some point. This is a straw man.

Also, "tax breaks" is the fancy term for "welfare" or "handouts". See, I can do meaningless feel-good rhetoric! Let's debate these issues at their core, not resort to meaningless weasel words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Molly's books were what really got me started with web development. She was kind enough to send me a signed copy of one of her books when I was probably ~13 years old after emailing her. About ten years later, I was able to meet up with her here in the UK for a coffee, which was lovely.

If you can, please support Molly's treatment with a donation. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER10> I want to help, but all I have is time and skills. So if anyone here needs some English language proof reading done (I do have some tech skills but they are very rusty) contact me, I will do the work, and you can donate something to this cause.

Email is in my profile, and I'm the head teacher for a language school so my skills are good. My problem is I have two small babies and I live in a low income country so even $10 is tough for me to give right now, but I'm a worker, and I will pull an all nighter to do this.

Honor code, I trust you to donate, send proof if you can, but either way I hope I can do something to help. I don't care how much (I know people who need English proof reading are probably coming from low income countries too) but anything would be good.

Lee

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those wondering if this is legit, Molly herself has confirmed it on Twitter [https://twitter.com/mollydotcom/status/398090908496691200](https://twitter.com/mollydotcom/status/398090908496691200)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you live in the US, this should serve as a warning that you need Long Term Disability insurance. If your employer doesn't offer it, get it yourself. Healthcare is still broken and ObamaCare doesn't fix this situation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Having met Molly at a CSS WG meeting last year, she's an amazingly enthusiastic (maybe too enthusiastic) contributor to the W3C.

The fairy godmother comment is pretty spot on - she's plays the part of the consensus builder and conscience to various disparate technical parties.

</comment><comment><USER13> My one story about Molly - I met her as a speaker at an XML Conference around 1999 or 2000. She was extremely welcoming and kind to me, a wet behind the ears nobody at the time. We went for a speakers' pre-conference dinner that night, and it was decided we would have Sushi.

As a Northern Brit I had never seen nor eaten sushi before, never mind looked at the menu. I asked if she minded ordering for me, and she graciously did so.

As my first time eating sushi I assumed the small amount of guacamole provided would be topped up once I finished it, so I happily spread the top of a piece of sushi with half of my "guacamole". Never have I wanted to scream so much in my life. Molly just kindly passed me some extra water and made sure I was OK.

I never really kept up with her, but she'll always be there sat next to me when I had my first ever wasabi experience.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just out of curiosity, is this the kind of thing the Affordable Care Act would be expected to help?

<comment><USER15> Not in any huge way that I see.

She was on employer provided insurance, which won't undergo any huge changes that would change her situation. After the FMLA time period (where her employer could keep her on their insurance without her paying extra), she's now on COBRA which is basically an additional period where you can pay the full cost of your employer's plan to the insurance company directly, and extend your coverage by 18-36 months.

The only difference under the ACA is that if she became unemployed during the annual open enrollment window, then she would be able to immediately jump to individual insurance rather than using COBRA. Depending on her income level, she might be eligible for a subsidy if she made the change. So depending on income, her state's insurance market, and when she gets sick she might be able to get insurance for less than $1000/mo she's paying in COBRA premiums.

<comment><USER16> My understanding is that Cobra becomes available after termination. Therefore, she's already unemployed.

<comment><USER17> Kinda. My GF can get a cobra during an unpaid leave.

So my GF is expecting a baby in December, so for the 6 months she has discounted healthcare and then if she doesn't come back. She gets unpaid leave and Cobra.

Technically she wont be terminated, but she will have Cobra.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What happens to people in USA with similar situation (employer-provided insurance ends, life sustaining healthcare is needed, no income to pay for that) who don't get a successful fundraiser?

Bankruptcy due to unpaid medical bills? Withheld treatment because of non- payment, possibly causing death? Both of these?

No offense, I'm simply curious on how the system works.

<comment><USER19> Life sustaining you'll get for free by the hospital which merely raises everyone elses rates. We already have socialized medicine, its just the "wrong" middlemen are profiteering.

From personal experience via a friend with a broken arm, the hospital will eventually present you with the most amazing collection of bills you've ever seen with the most unimaginable rates, so a simple non-compound arm fracture and cast will end up billed as $50K. The goal of the hospital is to book as large of a paper loss as possible, so the paper loss will probably exceed actual service cost by a couple orders of magnitude. Somehow the ER doc who spent about 15 minutes verifying yes it is indeed broken will charge 6 hours of dedicated time, you'll be billed for entire jars of painkillers if they give you a single pill, etc. It'll take about six months for all the bills to arrive from all the doctors and the hospital, but bill collectors will start calling before the first bill arrives. Once you're sure you have all the bills, its bankruptcy time, which costs some time and money. So the real cost of any lifesaving medical procedure never exceeds maybe $2K to a lawyer, maybe less. She needed the car insurance money from the accident to get the car to continue to attend school and work, don't recall how she paid for the bankrupcty. Bankruptcy is actually pretty expensive and not surprisingly the sharks in the biz only take cash. The bankruptcy doesn't really matter, because part time no benefits minimum wage retail cashiers are not going to get mortgages and new car loans anyway. Legally officially it could be an issue for 7 years or whatever, in practice its not an issue after a couple years at most. I suppose if you had the misfortune to break your arm the week before graduation and you get a real job, you'd be out a substantial amount of money. It would be highly unwise to get married if you're poor, because if she was my wife at the time, I'd have had my financial life destroyed by her mere car accident and broken arm. At least that's how it was in the early 90s. Other than prices probably going up an order of magnitude or so, I suspect nothing has really changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you'd like to find out more about Molly, she has a blog. I enjoyed her Desktop Browser song: [http://www.molly.com/](http://www.molly.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, very generous donations coming in. It's really nice to see.</comment>


What Does PewDiePie Believe? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/09/magazine/PewDiePie-interview.html <comment><USER2> answer: not much, he's too busy laughing at memes</comment>


Any ideas on taking justin.tv further by allowing viewers to more actively participate in Justin's life? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Or maybe find out that what they're watching is totally a waste of their time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For example, when Justin meets someone for the first time, viewers might get the opportunity to show flashbacks from Justin's life to give a first impression.

<comment><AUTHOR> Another idea would be to have a prediction market about all sorts of short- term events (e.g., in the next day/week) in Justin's life.

<comment><USER3> "How often will Justin go to the bathroom today?"

"How many hours will Emmett go without sleep?"

I can see it working, up untill the point the digg users arrive: "When will Justin totally bang a chick?!?"

<comment><USER4> that would be what is called self-fulfiling profecy...and it wouldn't work</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Firefox disabled hardware acceleration on Linux [12-2016] - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594876 <comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't figure out why the internet was so freaking slow for the last few months, then I stumbled on this.

As much as I prefer Firefox over Chromium, lack of OpenGL support essentially forced me to switch. To see if it hit you:

about:support will say "GPU Accelerated Windows 0/1 Basic (OMTC)"

1/1 means accelerated.

To override (this leads to terrible artifacts on my machine, but is actually more usable than the default, for me):

Go to about:config and set this to true, then restart:

layers.acceleration.force-enabled

Alternatively, you can kind of work around it by using noscript (javascript often leads to tons of screen redraws per second).

It sounds like they disabled this across the board, due to lack of development resources. Maybe it's time to send some cash to the Mozilla foundation.</comment>


The New Standard Model - <AUTHOR> http://third-bit.com/2017/12/06/new-standard-model.html <comment><USER2> TL;DR: this is about the author's preferred tools, _not_ the Standard Model of physics.</comment>


Stop talking about SOPA or killing Hollywood - <AUTHOR> http://nambrot.com/blog/2012/01/20/stop-talking-about-sopa

<comment><USER2> I feel like this was a rant, just for the sake of a rant. It was pretty hard to come across an anti-sopa site that didn't also include tools to contact a local representative, along with links pointing to education about what SOPA is and why it was bad.

And if they didn't, it's not like virtually every tech blog out there worth their spit wasn't filling in the gaps.

The internet at least partially got what they wanted out of the SOPA blackout, the bill has been delayed, people switched sides, _it got a dialogue going_. Sometimes that in and of itself is an accomplishment people should be proud of.</comment>


N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-chinese-servers-seen-as-spy-peril.html?hp&_r=0

<comment><USER2> NYTimes seems to justify the action of NSA by saying quoting that "China does more in terms of cyberespionage than all other countries put together".</comment>