Video Found in Belgium of Nuclear Official May Point to Bigger Plot - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/world/europe/belgium-nuclear-official-video-paris-attacks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> > authorities had "concrete indications that showed that the terrorists > involved in the Paris attacks had the intention to do something involving > one of our four nuclear sites."

Just like the various authorities that jumped at the chance to claim the attackers relied on encryption? This entire article is using the usual fear- mongering over anything "nuclear" as another propaganda tool. Jacob Appelbaum's interpretation[1] of this kind of claim is much more believable: incidents like the Paris attacks were a failure in _intelligence_ and a failure in traditional law-enforcement work. When the public conversation is framed with complex topics like encryption or nuclear power/medicine, the failures in more mundane topics are easily swept under the rug.

As for the article itself:

        "officials have asserted privately"
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

        "may have been involved in planning several attacks"
         ^^^

        "But experts and officials speculated that it could have been part
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^         ^^^^^
         of a plot to abduct the nuclear official, who was not identified."
                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

        "...if acquired, the material ... could also be used to make a dirty bomb..."
            ^^                            ^^^^^

        "'If they find a way to spread such material among the population,
          ^^
          they could do a lot of damage'"
               ^^^^^

I'm going to assume that this extreme concentration density of weasel words is a sign that someone is making this up either as filler or to push an agenda.

> he acknowledged that no additional guards had been hired or other measures > taken to secure the perimeters of Belgium's nuclear sites.

> 'There is no specific threat to the nuclear facilities.'

That sounds a lot like confirmation that there is no actual story here beyond fear-mongering.

> radioactive material is expensive to clean up

So are many chemicals, which are much easier and cheaper to obtain. We've contaminated so many sites with dioxins, pesticides, heavy metals, and other dangerous industrial pollutants, we had to invent the "Superfund".

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIP2RN0NlI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIP2RN0NlI8)

</comment><comment><USER3> Perfectly illustrates why more nuclear states are not needed until the challenges of command and control, and waste are addressed. For example Iran's "right" to a peaceful nuclear program ought not to be absolute when a single failure to keep its materials and people secure can mean disaster for many other nations.

<comment><USER4> > Perfectly illustrates why more nuclear states are not needed until the > challenges of command and control, and waste are addressed. For example > Iran's "right" to a peaceful nuclear program ought not to be absolute when a > single failure to keep its materials and people secure can mean disaster for > many other nations.

"U.S. Air Force relieves nine officers following nuclear test cheating probe"

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us- ai...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-air-force- fires-nine-officers-following-nuclear-test-cheating- probe/2014/03/27/9e5eaffa-b5e0-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html)

"In Error, B-52 Flew Over U.S. With Nuclear-Armed Missiles"

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/09...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090500762.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident)

"Bill Clinton 'lost vital White House nuclear codes"

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8077326/Bill- Clinton-lost-vital-White-House-nuclear-codes.html)

"Wikipedia: US Military Nuclear Weapons Incidents"

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

So when do we (I'm a US citizen) hand in our nuclear card? No nation state has any business having weaponized nuclear materials (or infrastructure to weaponize non-weapons grade material) in their possession.

<comment><USER5> > No nation state has any business having nuclear materials in their > possession.

Not even for medical imaging, radiotherapy, and so on?

<comment><USER4> Clarified my post you quoted.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The VB Model Versus The Delphi Model - <AUTHOR> http://mikemainguy.blogspot.com/2012/03/vb-model-versus-delphi-model.html <comment><USER2> VB lets you call native Win32 APIs, so I am not sure where the impossible part comes in. It's difficult and cumbersome, but not impossible.

</comment><comment><USER3> I prefer the Realbasic model, where 90% of everything is easy, 10% is hard, and you can compile cross-platform.

The thing that floored me with VB was it is was easy to write apps but surprisingly painful to deploy them (DLL hell initially, and then increasingly horrible installation).</comment>


Textinator – automate those every day texts - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone, This is a little app I made for android which allows you to set up text message templates for those texts that you send often.<p>Let me know what you think. It's my first app created with Cordova so I would love any feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.cordova.ric...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.cordova.richrout.sendsmstosomeone)

</comment><comment><USER2> This would most likely fit better under "Show HN"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also it's free. And has no ads.</comment>


A New Batch of Deep Learning Startups to Watch for in 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://www.scrolib.com/2017/01/batch-deep-learning-startups-watch-2017/ <comment><USER2> Sorry to be negative, but can we stop touting companies solely on the mathematical concepts they rely on?

Deep learning techniques are indeed very efficient at solving a very large spectrum of problems, but it does not mean that every company using DL is remarkable. That's remarkable is the goal they achieve or aim to achieve.

If they use decades old technologies in a meaningful way for their target industry, does it make their company less likely to suceed? No it does not, for all that matters is solving the customers' issues...

My company use DL in several fields, but what we sell is simply a solution to customers needs...

<comment><USER3> Agreed, silly deepmind! /s

The fact of the matter is, if you are smart enough, you can get acquihired for a lot of money. DeepMind, Geometric Intelligence, Deep Blue Labs, Vision Factory, TupleJump, Turi, etc. are all examples.

<comment><USER2> DeepMind delivered value on several fields.

They happen to rely (partly) on DL to deliver this value, but they got acqui- hired not because "we are doing deep learning" but because "we have technology that can lower your costs/increase your profits"...

<comment><USER4> They did? My impression was that until the server farm optimization they were a cost center for Google.

<comment><USER2> The server farm optimization is massive indeed.

They also provided value before but nothing has been made public about it yet, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd just like to interject for moment. What you're refering to as Deep Learning, is in fact, non-convex optimization, or as I've recently taken to calling it, generalized function approximation. Deep Learning is not a technology unto itself, but rather a specific type of mathematical optimization that has been known about for decades, is based on stochastic gradient descent, and only now is being featured more prominently due to enhaced processing power.

Many computer users run some form of mathematical optimization everyday, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the optimizations which are widely used today are often called Machine Learning, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically non-convex optimization, or high dimensional function approximation.

There really is Deep Learning, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the optimization mathematics they use. Deep Learning is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete rigorous mathematical framework. Deep Learning is normally used in combination with other ideas in classical mathematical optimization: the whole system is basically stochastic gradient descent with GPUs added, or large-scale numerical optimization. All the so-called Deep Learning algorithms are really algorithms of generalized function approximation!

<comment><USER6> This seems like a sincere comment, so in case it's helpful, here's my interpretation of why others may be downvoting it.

Deep learning practitioners are aware that they're using non-convex optimization, stochastic gradient descent, and so on. In fact, those topics are core to modern deep learning research and explicitly acknowledged in most published research: LSTMs were invented to solve the vanishing gradient problem, Restricted Boltzmann Machines were used as a pre-training step to avoid local minima, and optimizers like ADAM have explicit guarantees about things like convergence.

You may know all this stuff already--not sure, based on your comment above.

If not, here are a few example papers from mainstream AI researchers explicitly talking about deep learning as an optimization problem or function approximator: [1] Why Does Unsupervised Pre-training Help Deep Learning?[http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume11/erhan10a/erhan10a.pdf](http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume11/erhan10a/erhan10a.pdf) [2] Multilayer feedforward networks are universal approximators: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/08936080899...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0893608089900208) [3] Deep Learning, Nature. [http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/NatureDeepReview.pdf](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/NatureDeepReview.pdf) [4] Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization. [https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6980](https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6980)

<comment><USER7> I believe it's a version of an old copypasta [0].

[0] [https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Interjection](https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Interjection)

<comment><USER6> Well, I guess my sincerity detector is officially broken, huh?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Challenge CLI, a command line interface for programming challenges - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/architv/chcli <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! Challenge CLI is a simple command line utility which I created. It shows you all the active contests, upcoming contests, short contests and hiring contests directly on your terminal. It's programming challenges for hackers. Built using Python.

<comment><USER2> That sounds awesome... looking forward to checking it out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @mindcrime! I hope you would like it.</comment></comment></comment>


OpenOffice now a part of Apache Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://firstname.lastname@example.com%3E

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have any thoughts on how this might affect the future of LibreOffice?

I have to say that I'm very happy with LibreOffice at the moment and probably won't be moving any time soon, but I think the OpenOffice name still has more recognition, at least among the less technical crowd.</comment>


The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - <AUTHOR> http://publicdomainreview.org/2015/11/25/the-science-of-life-and-death-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/ <comment><USER2> This article provides a great context for why Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is typically sighted as the first Science Fiction novel. There are other SF-style stories that can be cited prior to Frankenstein, but I am not sure any of them truly qualify has Hard Science Fiction.

(While I do love Hard SF, I don't hold it above other forms of the genre. I do think that Hard SF is the easiest to define and to separate from other forms of story telling.)

<comment><USER3> Interesting, I always thought of Frankenstein as very soft Sci-Fi, but at the time it probably seemed far more reasonable. As you can get dead flesh to twitch with electric currents.</comment></comment>


Whole Foods CEO on plant-based meat: Good for the environment, but not for yo - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/21/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-plant-based-meat-not-good-for-your-health.html <comment><USER3> The meat of his criticism (rimshot) is that the foods are too processed:

> "I don't think eating highly processed foods is healthy. I think people > thrive on eating whole foods," Mackey says. "As for health, I will not > endorse that, and that is about as big of criticism that I will do in > public."

The article then brings in valid concerns from dietitians that the meat substitutes aren't necessarily any healthier than the meat they replace - <USER2> it feels like a disservice all around to put that beside an argument that "they just aren't natural."

<comment><USER4> >meat substitutes aren't necessarily any healthier than the meat they replace

uh...duh? That's the point of them. If you want a healthy meat substitute, have a veggie burger. These are not veggie burgers in any traditional sense. Maybe a healthy version will be made, but this is about replacing the absolute terror that is the meat industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My impression is that these companies are not even branding their products as health foods, exactly. They're succeeding because so many consumers now expressly care about the environment and want to reduce their carbon footprint along with their consumption of factory-farmed animal products.

<comment><USER6> I think you're correct. The younger generations are especially feeling pressure to try to take action to reverse climate change and become carbon neutral!

I hope to see more people change their lifestyles to become carbon neutral! At the very least, I hope people will vote with their money and subscribe to something like [https://projectwren.com/](https://projectwren.com/)!

<comment><USER7> Become carbon neutral at the risk of our own health consuming these foods?

Didn't impossible burger just recently have something pretty damning?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The reason it's bad for you is the same reason all other junk food is bad for you: half of it is oils and there's too much sodium. To much Oils are terrible for the body because they're inflammatory.

<comment><USER9> Huh? That entirely depends on the oil. Olive oil isn't inflammatory at all, and is extremely healthy. Hydrogenated oils, on the other hand, are pretty horrible for you.

Here's a quick link I just found: [https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/best- worst-oils-health/](https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/best-worst-oils- health/)</comment></comment>


Productivity Variations Among Software Developers and Teams: The Origin of "10x" - <AUTHOR> http://forums.construx.com/blogs/stevemcc/archive/2008/03/27/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-quot-10x-quot.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> I was a little confused by the "program size" metric. I'm schooled in the "less is more" when it comes to code you have to write, so when he said the Excel team was better because they wrote more code, it took me a second to figure that that was supposed to be better.

Am I reading this right?</comment>


Flang: The Fortran frontend of LLVM [video] - <AUTHOR> https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/llvm_flang/ <comment><USER2> On one hand this is a great news and as Fortran user pretty happy about it.

On the other I'm a bit worried that once LLVM backend will take off for real, so much focus will concentrate on it, that other compilers (PGI, gfortran, Intel Fortran) development will finally stall or even get dropped and we will wake up in future where LLVM behemoth swallowed all the competition.

This concern is not only limited to Fortran, but also other languages to be clear. Of course I'm very grateful for LLVM project, it's absolutely great. I think that the idea to focus talent pool from many languages is brilliant and beneficial for everyone. The only problem is when it becomes so focused that it becomes only option. I am very happy for variety and options for compilers and backends we have now.

<comment><USER3> I am not a compiler expert but I wonder if FORTRAN will lose its speed advantages it still supposedly has if it goes through LLVM.

<comment><USER4> As far as I know, the main speed advantage is that Fortran supports arrays, which are known to not alias.

C/C++ does not have alias-annotations built-in. Although with template constructs like done in e.g. the Eigen library, alias-optimal code can be generated.

<comment><USER5> There are bugs in llvm mostly found by rust that are related to this. This will be another source of pressure to fix these bugs, which is good.

<comment><USER6> My main hope for flang is that it motivates LLVM to fix the Rust-relevant non- aliasing bugs. However, is it actually known that flang/f18 emits IR with the same patterns that exposed the Rust-relevant LLVM bugs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminded me of the Fortress language after a long time.

It was a MODERN Fortran like language that Guy Steele and all were developing at Sun [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(programming_language...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_\(programming_language\))

It did not stand much of a chance once Oracle took over.

<comment><USER8> Fortress never got any real traction and was effectively dead well before Oracle purchased Sun.

<comment><USER9> IIRC the point of fortress was to win DARPA's high productivity computing challenge, having failed at that it just remained a random research language.

Which is a pity, because it had some very interesting ideas, imvho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mods, please add a [video] warning to the title.

<comment><USER10> Why should this be downvoted; it's a standard thing to do on HN.

(Complaining about downvoting is not typically an acceptable thing on HN but I think this case is meta-respectable, though I appreciate the irony).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had to laugh a little at F18, given my first job in the early 80's was in F78 I think, doing text processing no less.

</comment><comment><USER12> Aside: this is one thing I found interesting about go. They maintain one compiler and two front ends:

llvm: [https://go.googlesource.com/gollvm/](https://go.googlesource.com/gollvm/)

gcc: [https://github.com/golang/gofrontend](https://github.com/golang/gofrontend)

Go: [https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/cmd/compile](https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/cmd/compile)

And I believe all three are maintained by the go team. It should be noted that the LLVM implementation is used by tinygo: [https://tinygo.org/](https://tinygo.org/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks like there is a Fortran compiler which is already emitting MLIR IR with few OpenMP constructs support and 2 SPEC CPU 2017 benchmarks running: [https://github.com/compiler-tree- technologies/fc](https://github.com/compiler-tree-technologies/fc)

Phoronix article: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FC- LLVM-...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FC-LLVM-MLIR- Opened-Up)

</comment><comment><USER14> So when coarrays land in Flang in late 2021, will it be missing anything in gfortran? What will the X-vs-Y look like at that point, I wonder?

I'm new to the Fortran scene, btw. I probably can't do more than fix typos, but the Good First Issues on the github are:

[https://github.com/flang- compiler/f18/labels/good%20first%20...](https://github.com/flang- compiler/f18/labels/good%20first%20issue)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm excited to see more front ends embracing MLIR.

A lot of new interesting languages (Julia, Rust, etc) were empowered by being able to take advantage of LLVM as a backend, so I can't imagine what new languages might spring up around the heterogenous capabilities of MLIR, not to mention existing languages targeting it as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm thrilled about a Fortran front-end so I can run Fortran on the JVM via Sulong.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've never seen a fortram codebase in my life. Is it still alive? What advantages does it offer over C/C++?

<comment><USER18> Fortran has language-level support for things important for numerical scientific computing (complex numbers, multidimensional arrays, etc.), and it has had them since the beginning in the 1950-60s.

The convenience is not really matched by C or C++, where similar features have been added much later by language extensions or 3rd party libraries, resulting to more complicated usage, fragmentation, and interoperability problems. Newer languages also have similar issues, so for the user base that uses Fortran, there's a lack of viable competitors.

<comment><USER19> Also numerical codes can be trickier to write than you think. Rounding errors and other treacheries of the floating point approximation to the 'real' numbers can eat you alive.

If you want to do common numeric operations they might be a FORTRAN code that is battle tested and performance tuned and it usually not hard to call from C, Java, Python or some other language.

<comment><USER8> Fortran's numerics model is actually somewhat weaker than C's; if precise rounding behavior is your main concern C (while still not ideal) is a better option.

<comment><USER20> For those of us not expert on the standards, could you explain in what way Fortran is weaker, and its rounding control deficient?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I would call it "Jortran". It's much less generic and with a little luck even convey what kind of language it is.</comment>


Ask HN: Any interest in a Brisbane, Australia HN meetup? - <AUTHOR>

I'm from Brisbane and I'd really like to organise a meetup of some kind - are there any other Brisbane HN users interested in this? <comment><USER2> Definitely! Just got back from London, and #HNLondon was one of the highlights of my month. Have been wanting to replicate that out here at some point, though I'm only slowly getting back into the community to see what the alternatives are.

My email is in my profile - feel free to drop me a line.

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely, count me in!. Email in profile.

<comment><USER2> As a heads up (this is a common trap!), your email isn't actually in your profile at the moment.

The email field in your profile isn't public - so you need to put it into the about field as well for others to see it.

I learnt that one the hard way too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yep sounds good</comment>


Show HN: Self-Hosted Maps - <AUTHOR> https://selfhostedmaps.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just published this service to see how the idea works. Any feedback is more than welcome!</comment>


Google Maps is down - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps <comment><AUTHOR> This is what I am getting when I open it [http://i.imgur.com/ewrMsY9.png](http://i.imgur.com/ewrMsY9.png)</comment>


Freelance: Junior Data analyst - <AUTHOR> Hi, I am currently living in Boston, MA for around 4 months and can remotely help out with data analysis and a bit of model building. I am fresh out of the Udacity Data analyst nano-degree and Stanford Machine Learning Edx (Andrew Nq's course). My background is in Chemical/process engineering. Comment below if you need someone to look at some of your data to help your business! <comment><USER2> Add yourself to the monthly [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16967544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16967544)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>


How Soon Will Covid-19 Peak? (and How to Tell) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54XLXg4fYsc <comment><AUTHOR> Interactive charts from the video: [https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/](https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/)</comment>


John Hennessy and David Patterson Turing Award Lectures (2018) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVeEjsn8Ts&t=122 <comment><USER2> John and David will be giving a talk next week Wednesday (October 10) in Stanford's Computer Systems Colloquium (EE380). The topic is Computer Architecture; the title has not yet been announced. Expect it to be up on YouTube at [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoROMvodv4rMWw6rRoeSp...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoROMvodv4rMWw6rRoeSpkiseTHzWj6vu) on Thursday or Friday next week.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great talk! My main takeaway is that they advocate hardware-software co-design to improve performance. Performance issues push software in the direction of domain-specific languages, and hardware in the direction of domain-specific architectures (e.g. TPUs for machine learning).

I think DSLs have a lot of advantages for software engineering reasons, but not everyone agrees. But it doesn't appear to be debatable that they have advantages for performance!

Previous thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18009581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18009581)

(FWIW, the research projects mentioned there count as DSLs ...)

<comment><USER4> Well hand TPU for ML is a great example (about x1000 speed improvement for tensor computation over a CPU).

BUT ....

TPU is just a specialized GPU which has been around for 20 years? So very slow evolution of a pre-existing HW component

Deep learning has been around for 5 years and we already have 2 or 3 generation of frameworks. So very rapid revolution of DSL implemented on abstracted HW

Which is the complete opposite HW-SW advocacy ?

<comment><USER4> (cont.)

What maybe i am trying to say that a "sufficiently-clever-compiler" can probably make more progress in cache performance that waiting for a great new memory-cpu architecture to appear ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting off-the-cuff comments[1] about quantum computing in the question period:

Patterson: You may get a question "Won't quantum computing ..." — No! Quantum computing is a really exciting; it's not going to happen tomorrow.

Hennessy: It's about on the same time-scale as fusion design.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVeEjsn8Ts&t=1h12m58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVeEjsn8Ts&t=1h12m58s)</comment>


Am I wasting my time organizing email? - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LSi-ZIAvWGjLxx0sxCMp1bwPtAfVw-nd/view <comment><USER2> The main problem we all suffer is the tendency not to delete.

95% of emails should be deleted right after having been read (same for instant messaging) but instead we keep them 'in case' although we will never look at them again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you add [pdf] and [2011] to the title?</comment>


Short URLs you probably cannot type | séó.com - <AUTHOR> http://séó.com/

<comment><USER2> Make sure you're escaping user input. I got a revealing MySQL error before and found that I _could_ have injected some nasty strings.

Teehee.

</comment><comment><USER2> "Error: MYSQL related..."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I didn't think it'd get so many URls, it's getting hammered.

Great for testing, might even make it to the kanji: <http://séó.com/何>

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) How is an untypeable URL useful, except as a cute hack?

2) It's not really untypeable anyway, as it gets translated to Punycode which you could remember and then type.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's as useful as you make it, for example if you have a URL, say your Facebook profile, and don't want your parents to know but still want to share it, you could write it out and share it. It requires the other person being able to understand how to use the tools required to type it.

It get's untypeable when it gets into the Kanji, so something like ㋖ュ isn't really untypeable but it will take you a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, and a short, unsearchable domain name that I can't type either.

Allows invalid characters: <http://séó.com/!>]

</comment><comment><USER5> Am I doing something wrong? <http://debian.org>, theregister.co.uk, and slashdot.org were all "malware".

</comment><comment><USER6> MySQL Error? <http://imgur.com/wFpNW>

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I have fixed it, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> But, if you use iPhone, it's easy for type "séó.com".

</comment><comment><USER8> please pardon my ignorance but how exactly this is different from tinyurl.com or bit.ly?

<comment><USER9> Harder to type.

<comment><USER10> Also shorter.

<comment><USER11> tinyarro.ws already uses unicode symbols for shortening URLs: <http://➞.ws/첌>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> No you weren't doing anything wrong, I was updating the malware database and how it checks for malware.

</comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.google.com> is also malware.

</comment><comment><USER13> seiken densetsu 3.. the sequel to secret of mana for the SNES.. god that was a great game !</comment>


Ask HN: Should I create a COVID-19 impact survey? - <AUTHOR> I thought it would be good to survey the HN community each week as COVID-19 plays out to track sentiment as we all face new challenges from COVID-19.  To that end, I was hoping to recruit the community to develop a list of questions.  Please respond with questions (must be multiple choice) that you would like included and upvote the best ones.  I'll provide a few examples shortly, though anything is fair game.
If people think this is a good idea, please upvote the thread and add questions.  If this gets traction, I will post a survey with the highest ranked questions each Monday for several weeks to collect feedback.
If anybody has a good tech for hosting the survey, please send me a note on Twitter (@matthodan).  Otherwise, I'll likely just use Google Forms. <comment><AUTHOR> How much do you expect new sales bookings to change at your company in the next quarter?

(A) Up >20%, (B) Up/Down 20% (C) Down 20-30%, (D) Down 30-50%, (E) Down >50%

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How much do you expect average early stage (Series A and B) venture valuations to decrease in 2020 vs 2019?

(A) 0-10% (B) 10-20% (C) 20-30% (D) 30-40% (E) >40%

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What percent of your company's workforce do you expect to be laid off next week?

(A) Zero, we are hiring. (B) 0-10% (C) 10-20% (D) 20-30% (E) Over 30%</comment>


This Is What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1,000 Times (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5555359/the-weirdness-of-a-youtube-video-re-uploaded-1000-times <comment><AUTHOR> This is a cool homage to Alvin Lucier's _I 'm Sitting in a Room_[1][2].

I was lucky to get a chance to hear Lucier give a colloquium at Brandeis when I was an undergrad---earlier in his career Lucier had been faculty at Brandeis.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room) [2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> FAQ Linked in the YouTube video is unavailable, here it is from the Wayback Machine: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101018003811/http://www.ontolo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20101018003811/http://www.ontologist.us/post/?blogID=96)</comment>


Getting to €20k in MRR in 90 days - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rubyandduke.com/2015/05/13/how-we-built-e20000-in-monthly-recurring-revenue-for-our-start-up-within-90-days-of-launch/

<comment><USER2> I thought no-one would bother filling out contact details / CC number without getting to a desktop first. After looking at your data and then checking my own analytics, I'm wrong.

Even for Candy Japan, I see 13% of conversions from mobile, 12% from tablet. And this despite the site not being designed for mobile at all. Sounds like fixing my mobile side might actually be a great opportunity for getting some more conversions.

<comment><USER3> It's quite possible this changed with iOS7 with the introduction of iCloud Keychain, which enabled storage of credit card information. I've found myself buying a lot more stuff on the mobile web since then, things that previously I only would have bought on a desktop.

<comment><USER4> A company I do work for has been doing a million+ or more in monthly credit card sales from iOS and android devices since '08\. The iCloud Keychain didnt really increase numbers measurably at all.

When I started work for them I didn't believe so many people were willing to buy via mobile devices. Luckily, so was the competition, whom were not on their game and didnt want to accept such truths... so we ate their lunch. ;)

<comment><USER3> Are you talking about mobile web or mobile apps? I'm only referring to transactions that take place through the web browser.

If you're talking about the mobile web though, fair enough - I find that surprising. It has certainly altered my habits.

<comment><USER4> im specifically talking about the mobile web. this also happened to be adult related material... so maybe there was more incentive to get the card out?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that these boxes keep turning into successful small businesses is amazing to me. Especially when this box already has a competitor that I thought of as soon as I figured out what it is.

The article wasn't as insightful as I hoped. Though I'm pretty impressed by that growth in 3 months. You often see things like SaaS growing much slower. I see people talk about taking years to scale to 20k in monthly recurring revenue and they did it in 3 months. I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the lesson?

They did drop some info about AdWords not working which sounds like the targeting might have been weak or just not good for their target audience. The 100 conversions from a 10,000 person email list is very low for email. Most lists outperform any other media in conversion rates from my experience but those lists are filtered before people even join. It sounds like they have a bunch of people that simply like dogs and decided to join the mailing list. I could see why the conversion could be so low in that case. I still think focusing on a better mailing sequence is an easily hanging fruit to attack but it looks like social is working for you. It would be interesting to see churn numbers in a few months.

<comment><USER6> > I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they > built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the > lesson?

I think the lesson is figure out your marketing channel before you build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the acquisition success story, people bash on Facebook ads but they're probably the best online channel when you have a very specific audience you want to target with high reach (dog owners, UK&I)

Just doesn't work as well for retail products / subscriptions when your audience is not necessarily ready to buy, and you just end up with worthless likes and no conversions.

For instance, FB targeting women 25-35 for online clothes shopping probably results in lower conversion rates than Google, even though the audience demographics could be the same, because search translates to buying intent.

<comment><USER8> We wouldn't have had the growth we have had without Facebook. Its the most targeted and cost effective ad platform the world has ever seen. Not suited to every business of course but I do think a lot of people underestimate just how effective it can be.

<comment><USER9> Don't you get tons of fake likes? Because my experience is that the majority of the likes I got were fake.

<comment><USER10> I suspect the number, and the very presence, of likes on your company's page is inconsequential. What matters is the percent of conversions (that is, purchases) for ad impressions. FB can target ads very narrowly.

<comment><USER5> I've ran campaigns that targeted likes and I feel like many of them are phony but I've also ran target campaigns to lead pages as an affiliate and had success in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great job! May I ask how much money you set off to do marketing before you launched?

</comment><comment><USER4> 20k is nice, but how profitable is it?

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it recurring revenue if it hasn't recurred yet?

<comment><USER13> Of course it is... they just don't know the churn rate (or CAC) yet -- both of which are crucial to the recurring revenue value equation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks like such a good place to work. I love dogs and all doggie related things make me happy. No wonder you guys aren't having trouble getting customers.

<comment><USER8> Its the one thing I didn't write about is that we all bring our dogs to work and are trying to build a world class culture as much as anything. When you do what you love its just doesn't even feel remotely like work!

<comment><USER14> Wow! Is it like a dog-creche or do you let them kind of roam the office?

Please be sure to post to the HN who's hiring when you're looking!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great post Niall. Just wondering what groundwork you had laid down before the 90 days. Also, staggering numbers on the Bow Wow Times site. Do you think it's mainly down to the fact that people just love dogs (and articles about dogs) or is there anything you guys did that would be replicable for other B2C markets?

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what the gross profits are.

<comment><USER8> Niall the CEO of company here. We are pretty close to 50 depending on where they ship to, what package people go on etc. It starts to get way more interesting with volume though at 5000+ boxes providing we get that far!

<comment><USER4> 50 what? %, $, etc?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do you have some sort of deal/sponsorship with any of the product suppliers?

</comment><comment><USER18> Commenting for a later read. This is great stuff for getting the ball rolling.</comment>


High Speed Rail Stalls - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703305004575504180006530598.html

<comment><USER2> That makes sense. Rail freight carriers built their own infrastructure with success (50% of US freight transport is done by rail vs 10% in Europe). High Speed Trains are nice, but they shouldn't be built by dismantling what's already working, and working well.

</comment><comment><USER3> omg, I thought this was a Ruby on Rails performance blog post...</comment>


George Michael has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38432862 <comment><USER2> Last Christmas reference is, of course, cheesy, but I can't think of better way to remember a great musician than with his music.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a nice article about an appearance of his and Morrissey's on an 80s tv show.

[http://www.post-punk.com/morrissey-george-michael-talk- about...](http://www.post-punk.com/morrissey-george-michael-talk-about- breakdancing-and-joy-division/)

He's spot on about Morely.

</comment><comment><USER4> They ended his obit with the Beverly Hills bathroom incident. Way to stay classy BBC!

His music has been continuously played everywhere from shops to bars to events throughout the western world -- almost as a form of crowd control -- for almost two generations now. It will probably continue to be a staple of western audio-soma for at least another generation, and there is no denying his genius for it.

Not a good year for pop stars. Rest in peace.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sadness! Careless Whisper is among my favorite songs!

</comment><comment><USER6> I was going to make a snarky comment along the lines of "yeah, but when Leonard Cohen died earlier this year, a much more talented songwriter and musician, his obit didn't make the HN front page." Then I went and searched Leonard Cohen, and it did make the front page. Oops!

</comment><comment><USER7> A lot of people will find out today that this icon of modern Britishness was, in fact, the son of an immigrant from an EU country. It's very apt, and extremely sad, that he died on the year of Brexit.

</comment><comment><USER8> All the papers seem to have lost the bet on this one, there have been no prepared obits like with older musicians.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't really make much sense to prepare obits for people who aren't near the age of death, or otherwise aren't near death. The NYT prematurely prepared with Castro in 2006 -- who was thought to be near death -- and had to throw entire sections of their reporting out. [0] Most other newspapers, the Castro obit writers were no longer employed by 2016. It's basically journalism's version of cache invalidation, which is also one of journalism's hardest problems.

OTOH, I'm sure many news orgs have a Carrie Fischer obit prepared by now.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/29/insider/fidel-...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/29/insider/fidel- castros-obituary.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We flag killed two stories about Carrie Fisher's heart attack yesterday. And today George Michael is an important story.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13247567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13247567)

<comment><USER11> Maybe people think George Michael is more significant than Carrie Fisher. He's certainly way, way, way more talented that's for sure.</comment></comment>


Engaging Steve Jobs story/interview from 2005 [long] - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/113758147814858568109/posts/WPr2t6kWuTE

<comment><USER2> This is a really interesting account of an interview. At the same time, I am skeptical of the author's armchair psychology and his speculation about the 'real' Jobs. He pushes his own interpretation so hard that I can only assume it colored his reporting on the interview itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always had the impression (from afar) that while Jobs may enjoy and want the adoration, he doesn't want to deal directly with those that have this feeling. The rare exception that I've seen are children.

>"We're just who we are. Apple has values we care about; Apple cares about tolerance. We are not a political company, but a company with a set of values."

Some may consider it marketing but I think Jobs truly believes in this.

At the end of the day, I think Jobs just wants to simply be known as someone who made the world a better place than it was before or, more accurately, to make technology accessible to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER4> In a good interview, the interviewer cleans it up by dropping the awkward bits: take a one hour conversation, remove the "Ahhs," "Ummms," the "Unfortunately I can't discuss that"s, and the stuff parroted from press releases. You're left with a whole lot less material, but it's usually pretty good.

You can do the opposite, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> To reinterpret this reporter's vignette of Jobs, to me the encounter with him shows a man with an enormous level of intention and focus, and a brief view of the techniques he might use to deal with the hugely complex decisions and situations that must come with being Apple's CEO.

It seems certain that Jobs was meditating just prior to the interview, drawing deep within himself to clear his consciousness, re-center, and get back on track with his plans.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like "human interest" pieces and I like Steve Jobs. Ergo ...I liked this article. I don't have a problem with someone who is so famous and big that he doesn't have to pander and sell himself or his company, and that's the realm Jobs is in. He's not political -- end of story, next question. Apple's products are no less green than the competitors' -- what part of that answer didn't you understand, reporter? How does it feel to beat cancer and be back in control? Are you kidding me, impudent m'fer? You didn't get the memo about me and my personal life. Next question. One of the comments (at the posting site) said the reporter imposed his own psychobabble slant on the article. I don't have a problem with that. It was a good portrait photograph of Jobs done by a professional.

<comment><USER7> Speaking of being an armchair psychologist, has anyone actually speculated what conditions he has? I've seen people suggested he has ADHD but there's no way to tell. There's simply too little information about him to even make an educated guess. I guess we'll just have to wait til the biography comes out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Referring to the author's apology at the top, since when, was 2000 words such a trial for the reader? While the text seems to be biased towards the interviewer's expectations it was readable and far from lengthy..

</comment><comment><USER9> It's really poor journalistic work. It works better as a demonstration of pseudo-psychology than anything else. Every comment from the author about Jobs is riddled with a-priori, specious extrapolations and non-sequiturs.

It's interesting nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like he failed to think different.</comment>


Joi extension for validating mobile numbers ONLY - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jhnferraris/joi-mobile-number <comment><USER2> Would be nice if someone could write this into a $2 app and push it onto the Google Play store.</comment>


Things I wish we had known about scaling - <AUTHOR> http://martin.kleppmann.com/2014/03/26/six-things-about-scaling.html

<comment><USER2> > In a database like PostgreSQL or MySQL, each client connection to the > database is handled by a separate unix process

This isn't correct. They're often handled by threads, but not necessarily 1:1.

> Every connection adds overhead, so the entire database slows down, even if > those connections aren't actively processing queries.

I've never known this to be true, even in large production systems. Can anyone cite?

> Partitioning (sharding) and read replicas probably won't help you with your > connection limit, unless you can somehow load-balance requests so that all > the requests for a particular partition are handled by a particular server > instance

Sharding and read replicas are two very different ways of handling data; the issues cited as problems only affect sharing and not read slaves.

> That's all doable, but it doesn't seem a particularly valuable use of your > time when you're also trying to iterate on product features.

If you can't scale you database, then adding more functionality is a bad thing. Software engineering doesn't stop once you make an API call to someone else's software.

> in order to set up a new replica, you have to first lock the leader to stop > all writes and take a consistent snapshot (which may take hours on a large > database)

        mysqldump --single-transaction --master-data

You can even gzip this on-the-fly and stream it via SSH to the new server to avoid disk I/O on the local machine competing, or even connect remotely from another server via mysqldump to avoid the SSH overhead.

</comment><comment><USER3> To add to this: Cache and cache invalidation.

Without proper caching and a good invalidation strategy your databases will get pounded. Use redis and memcache to cache everything possible. Don't even connect to the database unless you have to. Ensure that you can invalidate any cache entry easily and keep things atomic so you do not run in to race conditions. Use locking to ensure that when the cache expires the database does not get a dog-pile with multiple copies of the same query. You'd think the query-cache in your database of choice may be just as efficient but trust me, it is not even close. You can also cache higher-level objects than just simple queries.

Depending on your reliability requirements you may even consider treating your cache as writeback and doing batched database writes in the background. These are generally more efficient than individual writes due to a variety of factors.

I've worked on several top-2oo ranking sites and this has always been one of the main go-to strategies for scaling. Databases suck - Avoid querying them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Since MySQL 5.6, most schema changes (add/drop field) are possible online as well:

[http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-create- index-o...](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-create-index- overview.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> "Database connections are a real limitation"

I repeat

"Database connections are a real limitation"

this should be one point, and the others should be one point. No?</comment>


The Phantom Sales Forecast - Failing at Customer Validation - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2010/07/22/what-if-the-price-were-zero-failing-at-customer-validation/

<comment><USER2> It's a great story about how CEO encouraged VP of sales to exaggerate sales success.</comment>


Pentagon-funded research aims to predict when crimes are gang-related - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/26/17285058/predictive-policing-predpol-pentagon-ai-racial-bias <comment><USER2> Can someone versed in ML explain how generating an "algorithmically written crime report" from other features that the network will already be incorporating adds to the predictive performance of the network?

</comment><comment><USER3> > came under fire from activists and civil libertarians who argued the firm > provided a sort of "tech-washing" for racially biased, ineffective policing > methods.

Well, yes. The function of labelling crime as "gang related" is primarily to impose higher sentences on nonwhite criminals.

The most effective approach is pre-emptive intervention in the style of the Violence Reduction Unit: [http://www.actiononviolence.org.uk/about- us](http://www.actiononviolence.org.uk/about-us) (invented in Boston, extremely effective in Glasgow)</comment>


Effect of Calorie Restriction on Mood/Quality of Life/Sleep/Sexual Function - <AUTHOR> https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=2517920 <comment><USER2> How do i access this article? Can you please post a link to the pdf, if the publisher allows redistribution.

Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Odd. It definitely was fulltext when I originally read it. But you can get it off Libgen like usual: [http://gen.lib.rus.ec/scimag/index.php?s=+Effect+of+Calorie+...](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/scimag/index.php?s=+Effect+of+Calorie+Restriction+on+Mood%2C+Quality+of+Life%2C+Sleep%2C+and+Sexual+Function+in+Healthy+Nonobese+Adults&journalid=&v=&i=&p=&redirect=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A self-serve questionnaire once every twelve months is not really scientific.</comment>


Steve Jobs Worst Mistake - Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonehalo.com/2010/05/steve-jobs-worst-mistake/

<comment><USER2> I would hardly call this a mistake. He choose taking smaller option package that would be more likely to be in the money than sticking with his larger option package that would only become valuable if Apple's stock skyrocketed.

<comment><AUTHOR> He chose the safe play rather than risking it on the company he decided to devote his life to. The numbers show that he made the wrong choice, hence a mistake.

<comment><USER2> Thats like saying I chose to play it safe and not play the lottery rather than buy a lottery ticket every week. One week my numbers win and that shows I made the wrong choice?

There are so many variables that he doesn't have control over that if he took the bigger options he just would have been gambling. It is flawed logic to look at the outcome of an event that has so much variability and hidden factors and say that someone made the wrong choice. I would bet that if he was faced with the same situation now, knowing the outcome of this past event, he would still make the same choice because the smart choice is to not make wild gambles.</comment></comment></comment>


Elvish: friendly and expressive shell for Linux, macOS and BSDs - <AUTHOR> https://elvish.io/ <comment><USER2> This looks really neat. There's way too little experimentation happening in shells. Most shells are a few decades old, and they provide incredibly poor defaults and tooling.

For example, since I'm prone to making stupid mistakes, I always use a linter. But as far as I know, there weren't any well known options for linting until ShellCheck [0].

Personally, I've been using fish for a while now and I'm generally happy with it. It has great defaults, so I rarely have to tweak anything. Hacking together small scripts is easy, leaving very little room for error.

If I have to do anything event remotely tricky, I use node with shelljs [1]. Now that async functions are available, it results in some pretty clean scripts. And although I haven't tried it yet, the pkg [2] tool allows you to bundle things up into a single binary. That should make certain deployments incredibly easy.

Circling back to Elvish, one minor detail that immediately stood out to me was that they create another folder in your home folder. Since I dislike the ever- growing clutter in my home, I created a GitHub issue asking them to consider following the XDG base directory spec [3].

[0] [https://www.shellcheck.net](https://www.shellcheck.net)

[1] [http://documentup.com/shelljs/shelljs](http://documentup.com/shelljs/shelljs)

[2] [https://github.com/zeit/pkg](https://github.com/zeit/pkg)

[3] [https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/383](https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/383)

</comment><comment><USER3> Their web site is beautiful. Static served over h2 with regional POPs from cloudflare provides seamless experience between pages, and that's with no javascript. After first load it caches and literally takes less than a frame to switch between pages. It feels like an SPA.

<comment><USER4> > It feels like an SPA.

It doesn't feel like any SPA I know.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's missing the traditional loading/empty page state just after opening it.

<comment><USER4> It's also missing the .8 s delay & locking of all inputs after every click as well as random breakage, broken browser navigation and broken deep linking.

<comment><USER3> It's extra annoying when that .8s lock happens right in the middle of css animation.

<comment><USER6> How else can you enjoy the animation uninterrupted?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the structured pipes, but as mentioned in another discussion, replacing the shell is a big leap for a lot of people. And you can get quite far without it with tools like "jq". And when I saw this, I just had to tinker a bit to see what I could do with Ruby, based on the example on the homepage:

        $ curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/elves/elvish/issues |
          jr 'each{|issue| puts "#{issue["number"]}: #{issue["title"]}"} ' | head -n 11

Or (I expect pitchforks when you see the implementation for this):

        $ curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/elves/elvish/issues |
          jr 'puts{"#{$I["number"]}: #{$I["title"]}"}' | head -n 11

With "jr" looking like this[1]. Expect this to fall apart in all kinds of ways - it was just something I threw together. Not convinced the monkey-patched "puts" is worth it, but it's just an experiment..

[1] [https://gist.github.com/vidarh/d088d6e342e665f0b6554ec4fbaa5...](https://gist.github.com/vidarh/d088d6e342e665f0b6554ec4fbaa5e53)

<comment><USER8> I use JSON, because it's simple yet powerful. Command line JSON tools seem to have a very convoluted syntax and that kinda defeats the whole purpose.

<comment><USER7> I don't think there's a whole lot more we can achieve beyond what you see there... I mean, I guess you could dynamically assign global variables based on the keys, and enforce treating them as strings, so you could reduce it to

        jr 'puts{$number+": "+$title}'

E.g by changing the "each" in my example with:

        def each █
          $J.each do |i|
            $I = i;
            i.keys.each {|k| eval("$#{k} = $I[k].to_s")}
            block.call(i)
          end
        end

Though this is error prone - e.g. if the key collides with any pre-defined Ruby globals like $stdin... Would probably be worth using a prefix etc.. This is the downside to using a general purpose language for stuff like this instead of a specialised tool like jq which can ignore other syntax concerns..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Pipelines in Elvish can carry structured data, not just text. You can stream > lists, maps and even functions through the pipeline.

Sounds like Powershell.

<comment><USER10> Looks a bit like it, too, if only in that regard.

No criticism, though. Powershell is brilliant, and I'm glad to see the Unix world starting to take cues from it.

<comment><USER11> "Powershell is brilliant"

Wot?

Ugly syntax, cryptic error messages and random idiosyncrasies like misplaced semicolons turning variables into lists... The language is a nightmare.

<comment><USER12> > _Ugly syntax, cryptic error messages and random idiosyncrasies_

Yeah, nothing like the elegance, straightforward messages, and "no surprises" of POSIX shells...

<comment><USER13> It might be me succumbing to stereotypes, but POSIX shell syntax feels something that grew organically, out of use and necessity, with basic guiding principles but no set guidelines or rules.

Powershell feels like something designed by committee, it has an internal consistency and logic, but feels bloated and overcomplicated.

<comment><USER14> Consistency and logic comes with a price. But i guess both approches have cons and pros.

<comment><USER12> The best way I think is: start with either, and prune what has been shown not to work in a version n+1 every few years iteratively.

Provide a good migration path (e.g. for a language that could be a n to n+1 transpiler), and you're set.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My super-quick checklist for new shells consist of only one point: does it decently support background tasks?

It seems that none of recently emerged shells had that point in their design:

\- elvish: no ([https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/193](https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/193)).

\- xonsh: no ([https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh/issues/1959](https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh/issues/1959)).

\- fish: no ([https://github.com/fish-shell/fish- shell/issues/238](https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/238)).

</comment><comment><USER16> The shell _I 've_ really been looking for is basically fish-but-bash. All the feedback and usability of fish, with bash compatible syntax. Bash's syntax may be a lecherous growth upon a lecherous growth, but at least it's a familiar leech.

<comment><USER17> Have you tried zsh with oh-my-zsh?

<comment><USER18> Does that have anything like syntax highlighting or dim text typeahead suggestions and completions?

[https://fishshell.com/assets/img/screenshots/autosuggestion....](https://fishshell.com/assets/img/screenshots/autosuggestion.png)

<comment><USER19> Sure

<comment><USER18> I see. Apparently those are in zsh-users, not oh-my-zsh.

[https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions](https://github.com/zsh- users/zsh-autosuggestions)

[https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting](https://github.com/zsh- users/zsh-syntax-highlighting)

<comment><USER20> And history search [https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring- search](https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search)

oh-my-zsh is an unnecessary "config framework" that includes all the things already.

<comment><USER19> Amen. The only thing oh-my-zsh adds is convenience, which is bought with awful performance. Even without any plugins activated, startup time of the oh-my-zsh --zsh takes forever. Better use a homegrown .zshrc, with a simple plugin manager like antibody[1].

[1]: [http://getantibody.github.io/](http://getantibody.github.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there anything that implements the file browsing for bash or zsh?

Edit: [https://github.com/chadj2/bash-ui](https://github.com/chadj2/bash-ui)

<comment><USER22> You might like [ranger]. Also similar to the history feature are [autojump] and [fzf]

[ranger]: [http://ranger.nongnu.org/](http://ranger.nongnu.org/) [autojump]: [https://github.com/wting/autojump](https://github.com/wting/autojump) [fzf]: [https://github.com/junegunn/fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Elvish has no concept of exit status. Instead, it has exceptions that, when thrown, interrupt the flow of execution." ... "Non-zero exit status from external commands are turned into exceptions"

You had me up until this point.

<comment><USER24> But think of how useful this would be in a complex-hierarchy shell system. Some commands might fail when processing in the tree, and you might want to just remove that one leaf instead of halt further processing of data in another part of the tree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Author here, happy to answer questions. :)

<comment><USER26> Plans for Windows port?

<comment><USER25> There is no plan yet. However, there is a plan to eliminate cgo dependency, which can facilitate the possible Windows port. Any contribution is welcome! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Pipeline is the main tool for function composition. To make pipelines > suitable for complex data manipulation, Elvish extends them to be able to > carry structured data (as opposed to just bytes).

Well that is definitely interesting.... Are there any examples? I was writing a compiler that worked by pipelining different stages to different parts of the compiler (tokenizer -> parser -> AST) all using unix pipes. I had to stop and do something productive once I realized I couldn't pipe complex datatypes easily without a lot of effort to parse the inputs.

I'd love to see an example of this.

<comment><USER28> Sounds a lot like Powershell

<comment><USER29> in a way lisp OSes too, they didn't serialize data at all, it was single space pointer passing (with all the issues it creates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks interesting, but it's got some rough edges: [https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/364](https://github.com/elves/elvish/issues/364)

</comment><comment><USER30> Not to be a nay-sayer, but I would use IPython for almost all of the tasks I saw mentioned in the Elvish docs.

Python was originally developed as a shell language for the Amoeba distributed operating system. ( [https://docs.python.org/3/faq/general.html#why-was- python-cr...](https://docs.python.org/3/faq/general.html#why-was-python- created-in-the-first-place) )

I find with the addition of the IPython "shell magic" I can easily do anything that doesn't fit e.g. Bash (for my skill level of course.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice! That file manager looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER32> [https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/) is good for filtering json in a similar manner.

<comment><USER33> A way to get the same output as the first example, would be:

       curl -s  https://api.github.com/repos/elves/elvish/issues  | jq -r  '.[] | [(.number|tostring), .title] | join(": ")'

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Was kind of hoping to see "Why the need for yet another shell" at the very top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER35> Do its arithmetic operations use some sort of polish notation or am I missing something clever here?

<comment><USER25> It is lisp-like, and I am going to make the old arguments that it is actually _superior_ because it supports multiple arguments :)

~> \+ 1 7 6 324 234 ▶ 572

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Was kind of hoping to see "Why the need for another shell" at the top of the page.

</comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone tried this and Fish? How do they compare?

</comment><comment><USER37> The way to search history seems cool.</comment>


In Japan, the Kit Kat Isn't Just a Chocolate - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/24/magazine/candy-kit-kat-japan.html <comment><USER2> This is just my personal observation with no data but AFAICT Kit Kat is *mostly" for tourists here in Japan. If there's an obsession it seems to me it's tourists buying them. I could be wrong but I've never personally seen Japanese people buying them (of course they must, just saying that I haven't noticed).

I just walked over to 3 convenience stores that have a large candy selections. The 7/11 had no Kit Kats out of 80 chocolate based candies on display. There were also non-chocolate based candies as well as other snacks. The 2 Family Marts, one had a single "maple" flavor. The other had a chestnut flavor but similar to the 7/11 those were 1 of 50-90 other chocolate candies.

That said since you're more likely to be a vistor if you're reading this, if you want to go crazy for Kit Kats there's a few of "high end" Kit Kat stands you can bring back more rare $4-$5 per stick Kit Kats (probably mentioned in the article)

[https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/inbound/en/chocolatory/store.htm...](https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/inbound/en/chocolatory/store.html)

You can see examples here

[https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/inbound/en/chocolatory/product.h...](https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/inbound/en/chocolatory/product.html)

or better pictures here

[https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/chocolatory/product/](https://nestle.jp/brand/kit/chocolatory/product/)

<comment><USER3> I saw a very popular seasonal KitKat stand within Seibu department store when I was visiting Japan, and I didn't notice any other tourist-looking people around. Is it possible that it's just not popular in the convenience store market, but is more popular in competition with all of the higher-end sweets people were constantly giving me, talking about, and eating while I was there?

<comment><USER4> Maybe magic of department store. You put the same thing in Tokyu Store and the same in depaato, make sure to overprice it. People will buy from depaato. Probably for a gift. It just works like that in Japan.

Plenty of KitKats is in my local Tokyu Store - no one is buying them. I never saw anyone in my office eating KitKat even once. They eat plenty of other sweets, often local. Also no one ever brought it as a travel gift (omiyage.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I was in Japan I think I came back with 7 different flavours of KitKat. And they all (but one or so) tasted really good. It's too bad they aren't available elsewhere. Another type of Candy where the Japanese get creative with flavours are Pocky sticks. There's always a flavour you didn't try yet.

<comment><USER6> I have been pleasantly surprised with Japanese takes on American desserts and pastries. They tone down the sugar and elevate the texture and flavor imho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you enjoy reading about this kind of phenomenon, TV Tropes has a whole article on things that have developed huge cult followings in export markets but are considered rather pedestrian in the home market. It's titled "Germans Love David Hasselhoff".

[https://tvtropes.org/Main/GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff](https://tvtropes.org/Main/GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff)

</comment><comment><USER8> I always wondered what the back story is on that show about Kit Kats in Japan that is on Amazon Prime and now I know.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0779HX39G](https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0779HX39G)

It was a pretty good show, I liked it a lot. Seeing how they grow Wasabi, make 7-spice, etc. was really fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER9> For example, Kit Kat Japan won a Cannes Media Grand Prix award in 2009 for creating a candy-box-post-card sold in Japanese post-offices. I believe the idea was to enable a convenient way to send a gift during Japan's gift-giving seasons.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how Kit Kat is made in Germany. To me they taste better than the Japanese (plain) Kit Kat. Different chocolate? Sweeter? Not sure.

</comment><comment><USER11> It _is_ just chocolate. Personally, Strawberry Pocky > KitKat.

<comment><USER12> Matcha Tea Pocky >> Whatever.</comment></comment>


Electronics That Last: How I Built an Heirloom Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://makezine.com/2016/01/15/electronics-that-last-how-i-built-an-heirloom-laptop/ <comment><USER2> Most comments here focus on the name and its perceived conflict with the fact that electronics inside will get outdated at a much faster pace than the "heirlooms" of the past.

However what I truly enjoyed when reading this article was the detailed story of the design process for a project like this. Each detail found in the final design went through numerous experiments and iterations, while balancing the requirements for aesthetics, functionality, manufacturing process and sourcing the materials and components. A fascinating read.

<comment><USER3> I'd go the opposite way. I reads to me like yet another article about the joys of building a wooden boat. Far to much effort is put into style than design. The choice of wood isn't anything to do with design. This was always going to be wood no matter what. That decision had been made long before anything else, probably even before the idea of a laptop. Whatever this project was to be, it was to be out of wood. Just like the boats in the sheds.

Imho anything that wants to stand the tests of time should start with an examination of which material is best suited to the task. Is that wood? Is that composites? I don't know. I'd like to read about the same effort and creativity focused on building the best case possible.

<comment><USER4> Wood is a joy to work. Metal is brutal and composites are toxic and require building molds. Plus wood rewards careful craftsmanship and a bright finish with unparalleled beauty. I don't think it's an affectation to choose wood for a hobbyist project: it's the best material for the job.

PS: Since this guy encapsulated his wood in fiberglass it technically is a composite.

<comment><USER3> I agree. It is much more fun for the builder. But this is to be an "Heirloom" object. Focus should therefore be on those who will actually have to live/work with the finished product. The desires of the craftsman are irrelevant. If they matter, then this is an article about a hobby more than product design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Beautiful construction and all but heirloom's last generations. Not sure you can do that with modern, process nodes given how inherently unstable and broken they are. Computers on the old nodes lasted forever because the physics were more sane and the chips simpler. I could see a heirloom Apple II or something because they're still functional.

Seems only the shell of this one is heirloom. Should be the key portion if true to the concept.

<comment><USER6> Even with an Apple ][ I doubt they could become true heirlooms. Most of them already broke down, and there's no way the survivors will survive 50 years or longer without having all internals refurbished.

Although that's not nearly as bad as this one. SSD, fan, LCD, RAM, battery are all wear parts that won't survive a decade on average, and the rest is only marginally better.

<comment><USER7> I thought the heirloom part is that a lot of that stuff is user-replaceable on this design, unlike most (all?) other laptops. I assume this is a standard Mini-ITX motherboard?

So you could keep it working with some maintenance over the years.

<comment><USER8> Its actually an open source hardware design built around a Freescale quad core arm CPU. It is definitely designed to be user replaceable; you can print your own boards if you want.

Info here: [https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio- kosagi/novena](https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena)

<comment><USER9> I'm surprised it turns out to have an ARM processor - I wouldn't have guessed that it would need active cooling. When you consider that many phones would use this same CPU, in a smaller package with less airflow and smaller heatsinks, it seems even more surprising that a fan is required here.

<comment><USER10> The reason phones can do that is because they throttle heavily after a couple minutes of heavy CPU usage. That wouldn't be very good for a laptop.

<comment><USER11> The success of the Macbook seems to be arguing the opposite. Most tasks we perform don't require sustained CPU usage.

<comment><USER12> macbooks are giant passive heat sinks though; a wooden laptop doesn't conduct all that well

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately, it looks like I've been corrupted by current design trends. I can only look at this and think of the fake wood paneling on station wagons[0], or other faux-antiques. It just screams "kitschy" to me, because I don't have any nostalgia for that era.

Also, attempting to replicate past eras through skeuomorphism is /so/ out right now, come back with flat minimalism.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodie_%28car_body_style%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodie_%28car_body_style%29)

<comment><USER14> The point is that this is timeless. What's 'in' or 'out' right now doesn't matter. Jeez.

<comment><USER13> Does being made of wood make it inherently more timeless than if it was made of aluminium? How about if it was chiseled out of stone? You associate a certain style with timelessness, whether you like it or not, while someone else might not.

The "/so/ out right now" bit was intended as a joke, btw.

<comment><USER15> I look at it and think "That must be really heavy."

I don't care about heirloom technology. But I would _love_ to see very much better recyclability.

I suppose at some point we'll have waste-free nano-replication, and the idea that things are built and stay built will seem as quaint as comparing a wattle and daub hut to modern architecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's an absolutely beautiful piece of work. So many different materials used in a very well thought out way. I'm sure this will inspire a lot of people to make imitation laptop enclosures for 'ordinary' guts.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is beautiful. Beside the fact of being thick and heavy (maybe), I think the classical feel of this laptop makes it look antique.

I was expecting a steam-punk design before I clicked the link but, I wasn't disappointing at all.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you want to read more, the author has a blog off of Makezine: [http://mottweilerstudio.com/novena-heirloom-achieving- proper...](http://mottweilerstudio.com/novena-heirloom-achieving-proper-fit/)

</comment><comment><USER19> What's the age of the oldest physical artifact that is simultaneously personal, inheritable, and usable?

Most are things that have a larger scale, gross appeal, aren't personal. A water wheel, a stone bridge, a building. Perhaps a gun, or a watch, comes closest.

Start with that and what would an heirloom computer look like?

Somewhere on the continuum of abacus, slide rule. What's the computational era's equivalent? An HP-11, HP-12 series calculator?

Sometimes I think: we're all making expendable shit.

<comment><USER20> Brooches and rings. In UK in some families these will be passed down to couples marrying as a gesture of continuity. In Birmingham, we have a 'quarter' that has many small workshops that make and repair/alter jewellery. Some of the older companies have design patterns/dies going back to the Victorian era.

I agree with your basic point: we all buy so much that is basically landfill.

<comment><USER21> I think we can go a fair bit older than that.

The Imperial Regalia of Japan, if it still exists, is... really old. I can't find a date.

The anointing spoon of the British crown jewels dates from the 12th century, and is still used [2].

If we don't need something to be in continual use, then bronze age jewellery, or stone age flint knives.

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

[2] [https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/31733/the- coro...](https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/31733/the-coronation- spoon)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Unfortunately the part of modern laptops that breaks first is rarely a case, be it wooden or metal, even plastic, but usually the battery, keyboard, screen, or just some random small part of the mainboard.

<comment><USER23> And all of those are replaceable on this system. George Washington's Axe is still an heirloom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Off-topic, but from the article:

> Huang has a cool thermal imaging device for his phone that he used to make > this photo of the Heirloom showing the heat distribution

I'd be really interested if this is an affordable solution. A FLIR camera would be nice to have, but they're really expensive. Does anyone know what model he's talking about?

EDIT: Thanks everyone, looks like they've come down in price significantly. Almost cheap enough to buy one just for kicks.

<comment><USER25> FLIR do an entry level smartphone attachment, "Flir One". It's not particularly precise or high-resolution, but it's a lot cheaper. (Still not cheap-cheap.)

<comment><USER26> Very cool. File this under the list of "things I don't need but want anyway".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> i'm not sure if this is it, but i'm enthusiastic about the dawn of sandbenders [1].

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

<comment><USER28> I think you meant to link to _Idoru_.

<comment><USER27> You're right!

<comment><USER28> They're both great books, though, and I encourage everyone to read all of Gibson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Really, how naive can one be? Who is still using phones with dial disc? Who uses VHS recorders? CRT monitors? Would anyone like to stick to them because of a wooden case? In 50 years we surely won't be using laptop style devices but rather something with much more intuitive input...

</comment><comment><USER30> Is the bottom being wavy just an aesthetic design or is there a reason? Seems like needless bulk on an already very bulky laptop.

</comment><comment><USER31> The laptop form factor is an odd choice, but the equivalent for a media centre (or similar) would be popular in some niches.

</comment><comment><USER32> I dunno about the whole wood thing, but if i could get it either as a kit or fully assembled i would be all over it.

</comment><comment><USER33> My Amiga is an Heirloom.

</comment><comment><USER34> So does "heirloom" mean "made of wood"?

<comment><USER35> "Gee thanks grandpa... does this run VR? whats a Gigahert, oh its a fraction of a terrahert... hmm thanks.."

<comment><USER36> "Hertz, son, it's hertz. Named after the old guy, Heinrich Hertz. Used to hang out at my hackerspace when I was a kid. Well, it was just a garage, but you know what I mean."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> That is (a) a _beautiful_ laptop, and (b) a shame that it can't be made as thin as a MacBook (or even as thin as 2 MacBooks).

</comment><comment><USER38> It's a waste of beautiful wood.

Looks like something the Apple I could have gone into. Nothing beautiful about it.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you help loved ones with tech issues? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Patience and time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reluctantly

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you ever looked into anything to outsource the tech support?</comment></comment>


Neil Gaiman's Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts 2012 [video] - happy-go-lucky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI <comment> happy-go-lucky If you prefer reading, here's a transcript of the speech:

[http://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-keynote- address-2012](http://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-keynote-address-2012)</comment>


Listen to Music With Your Friends - <AUTHOR> https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150457932027131

<comment><USER2> This is probably the most social feature I've seen on Facebook in a while. Sharing music is one thing, but listening together is actually syncing with your friends, which is what Facebook is all about.</comment>


Bootstrap 4 will be in SCSS - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/mdo/status/591364406816079873

<comment><USER2> So there you go, LESS lost, SCSS won.

I think this was obvious to most people pretty early on, but interesting to see this happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's still no proper less to sass converter - regex hacks abound, but nothing structural. There might be some pain in inverting older less projects.</comment>


Iran Will Begin Enriching Uranium at Higher Level in Days - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/world/middleeast/iran-uranium-enrichment-rouhani.html <comment><USER2> The US did a really great job teaching Iran about the consequences of developing nuclear weapons with how it's handling of North Korea. Libya is also relevant.

No nukes: bullying and aggression, potential overthrow of your state.

Nukes: friendly letters, personal visits to your territory, standing down on military posture.

Iran would be fools not to develop nuclear capabilities just based on their observations of the consequences for failing to.

<comment><USER3> There isn't really any evidence that demonstrates that Iran are attempting to develop nuclear weapons, despite decades of intense scrutiny. Their public reasoning for their nuclear program is and has always been to provide internal energy security. In fact, it was the USA started their civilian nuclear program, but later reneged on agreements after the Iranian revolution.

<comment><USER4> The original purpose of the nuclear energy program in the US was so they could have any number of facilities able to create nukes at a moment's notice. It was just a happy coincidence that we could also draw power from these reactors.

Nowadays, we have reactor designs that can't be leveraged for weapons manufacturing. But that doesn't mean that other countries won't try the old US strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anything good come of this?

<comment><USER6> Large scale military conflict would boost US GDP by a lot. Other than that, not really.

<comment><USER7> Wait, what? Do you have any evidence of that? I would have thought any increase in global instability would hurt most markets.

<comment><USER8> <joke_explainer> Gross Domestic Product is a measure of economic mass, not market health. The GP is implying that a large conflict would stimulate the production of wartime equipment such as weapons, which are very expensive and would (potentially) represent a large boost to our gross domestic product. The mobilization of the economy for wartime production during World War 2 is often attributed as ending the Great Depression because it put everyone to work in a command economy that superseded the depressed markets of the time. </joke_explainer></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Programming with a love of the implicit - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/programming-with-a-love-of-the-implicit-66629bb81ee7 <comment><USER2> I think the argument of the article is flawed at the core. "Optimizing for fresh eyes is the wrong optimization". You're always having to optimize for fresh eye, whether that be for a new coming developer, or for yourself, when you haven't worked at some piece of code for a couple of months, after you have forgotten about the details of the implementation of something you wrote yourself.

Implicit code, by definition, increases your cognitive load. Because, now, not only you have to read code, and imagine about how it would run. You have to read it, remember all the context of what the code is supposed to do for you, and only then you're able to picture what exactly it is you wanna change.

This leads to harder to maintain code. The "amortized over a lifetime" part never really happens. Worse is if you leave the company, leaving all the context behind! "How does this code work? I don't know... The person who knew left"

One more thing against implicit code. It makes it _extremely_ difficult to make things work once you're out of the realm of the assumptions made by whoever wrote that piece of code...

And that is what i think is the killer part of writing implicit code... Besides everything else, if the assumptions don't fit your use case 100%, you're going to have a bad time making things work, because the implicitness hides that part of code (again, by definition)...</comment>


Mozilla Proposes "Obsidian" Low-Level Graphics API for the Web, Based on Vulkan - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Mozilla-Obsidian-Graphics-API <comment><AUTHOR> Link to proposal text in browser friendly form: [https://github.com/kvark/WebGLNext- Proposals/blob/obsidian/O...](https://github.com/kvark/WebGLNext- Proposals/blob/obsidian/Obsidian-Mozilla/README.md)</comment>